Warsaw Requiem

by Bodie Thoene

  He stood over her. The rough corduroy of his trousers brushed her face. “It will not hurt,” he said gently, as though talking to a child. “You will not feel anything at all.”

  Stepping back, he waited a moment more, then descended the steps, closing a massive trapdoor after him.

  Lori could not hear the door at the base of the pinnacle as he slipped out. She could not hear anything at all except her own breathing.

  ***

  “She might have gotten lost,” offered the burly Scotland Yard detective, replacing the receiver of the telephone. “No one answering her description has been taken to the area hospitals.”

  The blackout curtains were drawn tightly in the hotel room. Elisa sat on the edge of a striped chair and stared at the telephone. Something had happened. She was certain of it now. Something had happened to Lori!

  The second agent had called only moments before from the TENS office. Harvey Terrill said that he had not seen Lori at the office tonight. He had been out for a few minutes when he found that the telephones were out of order, but other than that short time, he had been right there all evening long.

  “I gave her my key to my office,” Elisa managed to whisper. “She could have let herself in. Waited for Harvey.”

  The agent’s tone implied a reprimand “It was nonsense for her to sneak out alone. That is why we are here. Either Tom or I could have accompanied her.” He frowned at the bowl of fruit on the table. “Absurd for a young woman to be out alone with the blackout in full effect.” He looked at Elisa resentfully. This incident would no doubt reflect on his performance, and it was Elisa Murphy’s fault. “What was the nature of her business at such an hour?”

  “My husband telephoned. He wanted a message delivered to the news office. The telephones—” She waved a hand helplessly in the air. Tears stung her eyes. Lori!

  “Probably took a wrong turn,” said an agent again doubtfully. “Probably got on the tube and ended up in Kent or someplace.”

  It was the most hopeful scenario. But why had she not called?

  “She is a thoughtful person,” Elisa said softly. She bit her lip at the certainty of what she was about to say. “If she could, Lori would call me. No. Something . . . something has happened to her.”

  35

  Judas Kiss

  Tedrick arrived at the Savoy half an hour later with a cadre of agents in tow. Two were sent immediately to the London TENS office, where Harvey Terrill was found hard at work. He had not seen Lori. Except for a small break for a quick meal, Harvey claimed that he had been in the office all night. “The telephone exchange was apparently out of commission,” he explained when asked why he had not answered repeated calls.

  Elisa’s head was throbbing. She ached with exhaustion and worry. Tedrick placed one more call to the little cottage near Evesham where Helen Ibsen and Anna had taken the boys.

  If Tedrick had known Lori, he would not have bothered to place the call. Lori had slipped out of the hotel this evening, he explained in an unconcerned-sounding voice. Probably just missing her mother. Probably sick of all the fuss in London. No doubt she would show up on their doorstep soon enough. The train service was drastically curtailed because of all this, and no doubt the impetuous young lady would be arriving later today.

  It was nonsense. They all knew it. Still. Tedrick maintained this charade of mild concern until he put down the receiver.

  His angry voice penetrated the door to Elisa’s room as he took apart the agents for negligence. Tedrick’s harsh reprimand pierced her with shame. How had she been so foolish to let Lori go out alone? She had never made it to the office. The message had still not been sent to Orde in Warsaw, and Lori had vanished! Lori had gone out for nothing!

  Within hours, Murphy would arrive at the Warsaw aerodrome, and Orde would not be there to meet him! The realization of that doubled the sense of futility in Elisa.

  Alone in her room with the babies, she paced like a caged lion as Tedrick’s rage reached a crescendo in the next room. Elisa looked at the telephone and decided that probably Tedrick had it tapped. But what else was there to do?

  For the last time, Elisa telephoned the London TENS office. In an uncharacteristically friendly voice, Harvey Terrill answered on the second ring. “Ah, Elisa! Did the lost sheep come home yet?”

  The too-cheerful words were like a knife. “No. Now listen,” she said in an urgent whisper. “She was coming to tell you to contact Orde in Warsaw. Tell him to have Jacob and Alfie and Rachel Lubetkin ready to go at the Warsaw airport at eleven o’clock tonight.”

  “That’s it? You could have called.”

  She almost choked. “I tried . . . please, Harvey! It’s urgent! Just send the wired.”

  “Murphy got the passports for them, does he? You think the immigration officers aren’t wise to phony passports?”

  Tedrick’s fury slowed to a dull roar. The muffled answers of the recalcitrant agents were punctuated by Tedrick’s mocking replies.

  “Send the message, Harvey. That is all she was coming to tell you.”

  “You know kids. She got distracted by something . . . or someone, maybe. Some bloke in a uniform.”

  Elisa closed her eyes in frustration. Harvey Terrill did not seem to comprehend what was happening here. “Harvey, Jacob Kalner is Lori’s husband. She did not wander off like a stray on a side street. Tell me you’ll wire the message to Warsaw!”

  Harvey sounded slightly wounded. “Sure. Right away.”

  Elisa placed the telephone easily back into the cradle as Tedrick’s voice rose one last time. “You’re through! Finished! Done! Back to pounding a beat in Soho!”

  Moments later he emerged, beads of sweat lining his brow. Behind him the two chastised agents stood staring dully at the floor.

  “Listen,” he said to Elisa, “if there’s something you’re not telling me about this, the girl’s life could depend on it.”

  Elisa sat silently in the chair and looked out over the city toward the blacked-out dome of St. Paul’s. What could she tell him? Lori was delivering a simple message to Harvey Terrill at TENS. She never arrived. The content of the message did not matter. It had nothing to do with anything. How could it? She had told the truth about everything but the passports. “Murphy wanted the Warsaw correspondent to meet him at the airport. It is that simple.”

  Tedrick crossed his massive arms. “The girl was with Grogan the day he was killed. She saw something . . . someone . . . who did not want to be seen.”

  “She would have told us.”

  “Not if she didn’t know what it was.”

  ***

  Harvey Terrill hummed to himself as he flipped through his file in search of the emergency telephone number for the Polish Embassy in London.

  He dialed and let it ring as he edited the front-page story Orde had wired in from Warsaw.

  The Polish government has given up all hopes for a peaceful solution to the annexation of Danzig by the Germans. In Warsaw, small children and old men are filling sandbags. Even in the Jewish district of the city, rabbis and Yeshiva students are digging slit trenches in city squares. The basements of synagogues are being fortified for use as air-raid shelters. Meanwhile, citizens of Warsaw carry on. The café s are still filled. Theatres are crowded. In the English movie house, the motion picture Stagecoach is playing with Polish subtitles to a packed house.

  It was an interesting study in contracts, Harvey mused. Slit trenches and bomb shelters on one hand; café s and American movies on the other.

  Life went on. Like ants moving in an orderly line beneath the shadow of a raised boot, Poland marched along.

  Tonight the embassy took a little longer to answer the telephone, but Harvey’s call was eventually put through.

  “I have information you may wish to relay to your authorities in Warsaw.”

  “Your name, please?”

  “There is a gentleman arriving tonight at 11:30 in Warsaw on the KLM flight from Vilnyus. He is an American newsman named John
Murphy.”

  “Murphy?”

  “John M-U-R-P-H-Y. Yes. I have learned from a reliable source that Mr. Murphy is carrying forged passports into Poland. I am not certain if they are American or British passports, but they are intended for two members of the staff of Trump European News Service. Something you will want to follow up.”

  ***

  The KLM flight touched down in Warsaw a few minutes after midnight. The atmosphere of the place was thick and humid.

  “Mr. Murphy? Mr. John Murphy?” The thin man in the dark blue uniform of a Polish customs officer was polite but firm. Murphy was asked to accompany him to an office for questioning that was clearly not routine.

  Murphy felt as if the violin case tucked under his arm had suddenly turned bright orange and sprouted a sign that read Look here for contraband! He decided that his best approach was wounded innocence.

  “What’s the reason for this delay? I’m here on business for Trump European News, and I have only a short time before I need to catch a return flight to London.” Waving his passport, he added, “I’m an American, as you can plainly see.”

  “Yes, Mr. Murphy, we know all about who you are, and there is no problem with your passport.”

  Murphy’s blood began to pound in his ears at the significantly emphasized word. “Well, then,” he said with all the brass he could manage, “I’ll just be on my way,” and he started to stand.

  The customs officer gave a brief shake of his head and waved Murphy back to his seat. “A moment more, if you please. Regulations permit us to search for suspected smuggled items. Would you be so kind as to tell me what is in the case you are carrying?”

  Murphy did his best to act unconcerned. “This is a violin that belongs to my wife, who is a professional musician. Since I was making this trip to Warsaw, she asked if I would deliver it to a friend here who has asked to borrow it.”

  “And the name of this friend in Warsaw?”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! Murphy had no ready answer, and anything he might make up would sound suspicious. At the obvious delay in replying the officer continued,” Perhaps I should examine the case then?”

  Murphy held on to the case. “Say,” he said calmly. “I’m sure we can work this out. Isn’t it customary to offer a little gratuity for good service? After all, I am in a terrible hurry, and my internationally known firm would be grateful for any assistance you can provide.”

  “Bribery, Mr. Murphy?” the man said grimly. “At this point, I really must insist on seeing the instrument.” A thin, bony arm snaked out of the uniform sleeve and a hand extended expectantly toward the violin. Reluctantly Murphy handed it over.

  The American was surprised when the officer raised the lid of the case and removed the violin. Setting the case aside, the Polish official studied the violin with great care, even holding it at an angle so that the light from his desk lamp would shine inside.

  There was a long, uncomfortable delay. Murphy tried not to look at the case, tried not to rub his sweaty hands together, tried not to think about what he knew of Polish prisons. When the officer at last gave a long sigh, Murphy almost jumped out of his chair. He fought down an insane urge to yell at the man to stop playing and get it over with.

  “It is a genuine Guarnerius,” the customs officer commented.

  “What? Oh, right. Absolutely genuine. So?”

  “Mr. Murphy,” said the man, folding his hands in an attitude of sincerity and gazing at Murphy with the demeanor of a doctor about to inform a patient of a terminal illness, “smuggling is an extremely serious offense, particularly in these tense times.”

  Murphy nodded his understanding but made no comment.

  “What would you say,” the man continued, “if I told you that this violin is very suspect and must be confiscated?”

  For a moment Murphy acted as if he did not understand, and then for another instant, he thought of protesting. How could he give up Elisa’s violin? Then he thought of Lori Ibsen, Kalner, he corrected himself. He thought of the terror that was certainly coming to Warsaw, and that the next KLM flight was the last one out. All this went through his mind in the space of one deep breath. “All right,” he said. “You keep the violin, and I’ll keep the case.”

  ***

  Cradling the empty violin case, Murphy emerged from the Polish customs office into the airport waiting area.

  The room was stifling and crammed with desperate people. The noise of competing voices gave the area the frantic atmosphere of the stock exchange on a hectic day of trading. While some people waited anxiously for a flight to be announced, others argued loudly with clerks of customs officials, or with one another. Some waved wads of money and offered to buy tickets to anywhere, as long as it was away from Poland and nowhere near Germany. Polish money was scorned. French francs and British pounds were considered by the more cool-headed of the ticket holders. American cash was looked on with some interest, and here and there a few precious passages from Warsaw were purchased.

  Murphy stood on a bench and scanned the crowd in search of Sam Orde and his little group of travelers. Were they here? Had they already checked in at the KLM counter and picked up their tickets?

  He worked his way through the jostling crowd for the long line for KLM Air Service. Precious minutes slid away as Murphy moved forward too slowly.

  If Orde had received the message from London TENS, he would be here by now, Murphy knew. He continued to scan the mob expectantly.

  Holding tightly to the case that had contained Elisa’s violin, he thought how much more valuable the passports were. But where was Orde? Where were the faces that matched the photos on these priceless documents? Jacob. Alfie. Rachel. They would not be able to pick up their tickets without the passports.

  At the head of the line, a florid-faced man was shouting that there must be more tickets available. The man looked as though he might have a stroke as his color grew redder and redder and his voice shriller and shriller. At last the man seemed to believe the clerk that there were no more tickets to be had, and he deflated like a punctured balloon. From loud and demanding, the man shrank in on himself till he meekly moved aside and went to sit forlornly on a bench next to a woman and two small children.

  “Next!” the harried clerk shouted and pointed at Murphy impatiently.

  Murphy produced his return ticket. “I expect to be joined by some business associates. Has anyone been here asking for John Murphy? Trump European News. Four reservations out of Warsaw were confirmed for them in London.” He gave the names slowly. She scanned the list with an air of indifference. Could Mr. Murphy not see that there was near panic here? Could she keep track of all the people looking for someone?

  “No,” the girl replied,” not yet. What’s more, your friends should already be here and checked in. Don’t you know that this is the last flight out of Warsaw? There are lot of others waiting to use those tickets.”

  “Can you give me a little more time?” Murphy asked. “I’m sure they are on the way.”

  The clerk consulted a clock on the wall behind her, “Five more minutes! The plane leaves in fifteen.”

  The head of TENS walked rapidly out the front doors of the airport and looked frantically for Orde and the boys. On the street corner he waved off some taxis; there was not enough time for him to reach the news service office and return to catch the plane.

  Murphy went back inside the airport to a bank of pay phones. Every telephone was dead!

  When the American turned away from the phone, he found the ticket clerk waving at him. “Has the rest of your party arrived yet? Your time is up.”

  “No,” he said, “but they are on the way. Any chance of holding the flight?’

  The woman looked shocked. “Absolutely not. Do you see this case?” she asked, pulling a small bag out from under the counter. “This is my bag, and this is my flight. If your friends aren’t here, it’s just too bad.” She waved to the florid-faced man, who jumped up eagerly. “There are now three seats avail
able.”

  Murphy ran back outside. Up the sidewalk a block in one direction, then back past the terminal building and a block down the other way. No Orde! Murphy heard the engines of the KLM plane turn over with a roar.

  He came to a sudden decision and hurried over to the first cab in the taxi stand. “Do you know the office of Trump European News?” He gave the address of TENS, Warsaw. “I want you to take this case to the man in charge there. His name is Samuel Orde. Have you got that? Samuel Orde.” He thrust the violin case into the man’s hands, along with twice the requested fare. “Take it right now,” he directed.

  One glance over his shoulder at the departing taxi, then he ran straight out to the tarmac. “Hurry!” called the KLM clerk from the bottom of the boarding stairs.

  As the last KLM flight out of Warsaw taxied away from the gate, Murphy’s final view was of a large man waving bravely over the fence. He could not hear the man’s sobs, but Murphy had no doubt that they echoed the ones coming from the seats beside him and across the aisle.

  ***

  Pastor Karl was unable to move his legs or his arms, but he was perfectly awake. He watched the burly SS guards come into the room where the prisoners had been drugged and sling the men over their shoulders like sacks of potatoes.

  When it came his turn, Karl had the odd sensation of being swept up high in the air. It brought back long-forgotten memories of Karl’s own childhood, occasions when a toddler named Karl Ibsen had been lifted high by his father and swung through space.

  He had no ability to feel the hands that roughly reached around his thin frame, or of the brawny shoulders over which he was tossed. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that a completely invisible force was carrying him.

  Karl opened his eyes in time to see the truck into which they were being loaded. The prisoners were stacked carefully, face up, so they would not suffocate, but otherwise they rested all over each other like sacks of grain in the back of a wagon.