Midnight Train to Prague

by Carol Windley

  Franz said the parachutists, Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gačbík, would be honored and remembered long after Heydrich was forgotten.

  The reprisals for Heydrich’s killing continued. The village of Lidice, twenty kilometers west of Prague, was wrongly believed to have sheltered the assassins. As a consequence, all the men over the age of sixteen were shot, and the women and children were transported to concentration camps in Germany and Poland. Many of Franz’s friends—students at the university, some of his professors—were arrested and executed. Workers at a Skoda automobile factory were shot to death in front of the other workers. In less than four months, two thousand people in the protectorate were executed. Anyone suspected of approving of the assassination—of even thinking of approving—was arrested and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

  Anna’s father was questioned by the Gestapo at Petschek Palace, but he was released. Uncle Tomaš was arrested and detained. As an accountant who was employed in the Reich’s administration offices at the Hradčany he was suspected of having supplied details of the Reich protector’s itinerary on May 27, specifically the time he was to have been driven to the airport to fly to Berlin. Anna’s aunt Vivian went to Gestapo headquarters every day, but she was told, pardon her, the same bullshit over and over: there was no information. Go away, Frau, she was told. She continued to work at her millinery shop, making hats for people who were, she said, without compunction or shame.

  Why does God allow these things? Anna asked her mother.

  I think God is not here now, her mother said. He had to turn away, out of sorrow, I think. It’s up to us to help each other. She cupped Anna’s chin in her hand and kissed her forehead.

  If a stranger is harmed, her mother said, we are all harmed. If a man is persecuted, so are we all. You can pray for us, Anna, and for the victims of this brutality. But for the murderers, you don’t have to pray. They don’t deserve forgiveness. Forgiveness is not possible. We can’t pretend life will ever be the same. The scars might fade but will never go away. For this, you must prepare yourself.

  For Anna’s mother there were two truths in the world. There was prayer, and there was science. Anna thought sometimes one took precedence for her mother and sometimes the other. Or rather, faith and science were two sides of one greater truth. One day not long after the reprisals had begun, Magdalena came home with three vials of typhus vaccine from the hospital and vaccinated Anna and Franz and Reina. Not because she believed they were in danger of being sent to a concentration camp, but as a precaution. Just in case. The vaccinations gave Anna and Franz sore arms for a few days, and Reina developed a fever. A slight fever was normal, Magdalena said. A little soreness in the arm was to be expected.

  It wasn’t often that Franz and Reina had a break from work at the same time, but two days after Magdalena had administered the typhus vaccines, they were both at home. Reina was still complaining of feeling unwell; she said she thought she had typhus. Franz said her forehead was cool, she didn’t have a fever. He made her a cup of tea. Anna poured one for herself and sat at the table with them. Franz and Reina didn’t seem even to know she was there. She saw Franz take Reina’s hand and kiss her fingertips, slowly, one at a time. Better? he said. Reina smiled.

  Anna got up from the table and took her tea to her room and drank it while she read Madame Bovary. She wished she could tell Dr. Bovary to worry less about Madame Bovary and more about his profession. Madame Bovary she couldn’t comprehend at all. She put the book down and thought of Franz kissing Reina’s fingers. It hadn’t seemed very cousinly. It had seemed like something Madame Bovary’s lover would do. A few days ago, she had seen Reina standing behind Franz’s chair in the living room, and Reina had bent over him to say something, and he had reached up and put his hand on her neck and he had gently pulled her closer. Anna had stared at them for a moment and then had gone away. She told herself it meant nothing. Franz and Reina had always been good friends as well as cousins. But she was the only one unsurprised a few weeks later when Franz announced that he and Reina intended to get married. He was standing near the balcony door in the living room and Reina was on the other side of the room. Anna was at the piano, practicing Czerny studies. Franz asked her to stop. Why should she, she said. He gently lifted her hands off the keys and held them, both of her hands in his. His hands were cold. He said it again: he and Reina planned on marrying as soon as possible.

  Anna heard her mother’s quick intake of breath. “May I remind you, Franz, that you and Reina are cousins. As you both well know, the church forbids marriage between first-degree cousins, for good reason. From any perspective, legal, medical, ethical, that is a preposterous idea.”

  Reina went to stand beside Franz. “We are not actually first cousins, Aunt Magdalena,” she said. “My grandmother Eva was not related to you by blood.”

  “You are first cousins, Reina. You can’t pretend otherwise. And in any case, you’re too young to marry.”

  “How much time do any of us have? No one can answer that, can they?” Franz said impatiently. “Listen. I applied weeks ago for permission to marry from the Reich office. An application is usually rubber-stamped if at least one applicant is German.” Magdalena said Franz was never to speak of this again. Anna stared at the black notes of the Czerny study, a cascade of black sixteenth notes that were to race down the keyboard, a phrase played diminuendo and then crescendo, and a final chord, an act of completion. No one, she thought, could keep Franz from doing as he pleased in this matter.

  * * *

  Franz and Reina were married on a June morning, at the church of Saint Lawrence of Rome on Petrín Hill. The air at that hour was unsullied, infused with light as the sun rose behind a thin veil of mist. Reina wore a blue dress, a hat with a narrow, upturned brim and a little dotted veil, and a double strand of pearls. She carried a bouquet of roses from Magdalena’s rose garden. Before entering the church, Uncle Maximilian had asked Anna’s aunt Vivian if she’d had any news of Tomaš. She said no and gripped Uncle Maximilian’s hand tightly. She was very brave, Anna thought. When people told her how strong she was, she said she was hanging on by the skin of her teeth.

  Reina’s family had been unable to travel to Prague for the wedding, due to restrictions on travel imposed following the assassination. But Ivan and Marta were there, as were the owner of the bookshop where Franz and Reina had worked and some of Franz and Reina’s friends from university, the same group that used to meet at coffeehouses to discuss poetry and philosophy.

  Anna noticed her father glancing at the painting to the right of the altar, of Saint Lawrence of Rome being tortured to death on a hot gridiron. Being tortured for using the church’s treasure to feed the poor. It was more difficult in this world, she thought, to be kind than to be cruel.

  The priest presented Franz and Reina to the congregation, transformed by the sacrament into one flesh.

  The sacristan opened the church doors and sunlight poured in, and the organist began playing the recessional, the glorious, irresistibly frenetic music of Bach’s Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret. Heaven laughs! The Earth rejoices.

  * * *

  When Anna was younger, she had believed her grandfather’s spirit lived in the sweet chestnut tree in the garden in front of their house, and Eva Svetlová’s spirit in another tree, and in the tallest tree of all dwelled God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In a dream she climbed the tree, and Reina stood looking up at her; she shook one of the branches. Come down, she called, or Franz and I will leave without you. We’re taking a steamboat ride on the Vltava, and then we’re going to Kampa Island for a picnic. It will be good, a good time, and you will miss out on it. Anna, listen, don’t make me cross with you.

  Reina said, “Anna, Anna, you have to get up now.”

  “Go away,” Anna said, brushing a hand across her eyes.

  “You were having a dream,” Reina said.

  “No,” Anna said. “I was awake.”

  Chapter
Sixteen

  Mr. Aslan came to the house in Zlatá Ulička with some food and a newspaper for Natalia. He wanted to let her know of a new law requiring everyone who was not a Reich German to apply for a new identity card. The law gave her an opportunity to legitimize her presence in Prague, he said. It would allow her to obtain a ration card, and then she could buy food without placing herself, and him, in danger of arrest. She thanked him and said she’d think about applying, but she admitted to herself that the Nazis were never going to give her an identity card. If she went anywhere near them, they’d throw her in prison. She looked at the newspaper Mr. Aslan had left. Der Neue Tag, the official Nazi newspaper in Prague. The New Day was fit only for burning. Its main function was to publish lists of names, the same lists that were posted on street corners and in shop windows. The names of people accused of a crime against the protectorate. She always looked away from those signs, and now she commanded herself not to read the names printed in the paper. Do not read the names, she repeated, but she did read the names and she saw this: Franz Schaeffer, age twenty-two, occupation, factory worker; executed. His address was given; there was no possibility of doubt. She stood, she walked haltingly around the table, bent over, arms folded, thinking she was going to be sick. She told herself she had no right to feel such pain. He did not belong to her, that boy.

  She walked to the river and thought how simple an act, to go into the water and drown. The water dazzled her; her eyes burned; her foot inched closer to the stone edge of the embankment. Then she thought of Miklós. She could hear him telling her not to do it. That’s not the answer, he said firmly.

  Franz was a partisan, a member of the home-front resistance, Reina told her. He had set up portable radio transmitters used by the parachutists to maintain contact with headquarters in London. He learned the codes, knew how to unscramble messages. He kept the machine operational. The partisans had no real training in counterintelligence or espionage; not one of them knew how robust the Reich’s surveillance system was. How could they know the Gestapo drove around in vans equipped with radio-signal detectors? Even if they did know, they would have carried on with the resistance. And then, in a sudden Gestapo sweep, most of the partisans were arrested. “Franz was at work at the munitions factory when they came for him,” Reina said. “They took him to the Petschek Palace prison. He was given a mock trial at a summary court and taken from there to the Kobylisy rifle range and shot. I wish they would get on with it and arrest me too. We thought fighting fascism in here,” she said, tapping her head, “would constitute a form of resistance, a noble form, because then you don’t get covered in their filth, you don’t have blood on your hands, but we were wrong. We should have fought back with everything we had.”

  Reina pulled her scarf roughly off her hair, shook out the hairpins, combed her hand through her hair. She lit a cigarette. At the time of his arrest, she and Franz had been married for two weeks. Now she was a widow. And Dr. Schaefferová and her husband had been taken to Petschek Palace for questioning. She kept reminding herself that her uncle Julius had been questioned once before and released. He and her aunt would be released this time, too, she said. She was all right as long as no one asked her how she was holding up, but it was very hard on Anna.

  “Frau Faber,” she said, “you look exhausted. I’ll show you where you are to sleep.”

  She stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray and took Natalia to a room at the end of the hall. She gave her a nightgown and a robe, and when she’d said good night and had gone, Natalia undressed and got into bed. Her head was full of images: Reina coming into the house in Zlatá Ulička and telling her she had to pack up and come with her. Her own hands shaking as she threw things into the suitcase she’d brought from home. Reina taking the suitcase and leading her through lightless streets to the tall house with its plaque that said MAGDALENA SCHAEFFEROVÁ. And then, as she remembered Reina unlocking the front door, she must have fallen into a deep sleep.

  In the morning Natalia had the incomprehensible luxury of getting into a bathtub and using a bar of scented soap. She washed her hair and dried it with a towel and got dressed. How wonderful to feel clean again. But when she looked in the bathroom mirror, she saw a woman with a gaunt face, dark shadows under her eyes, thin colorless lips. On the outside, she looked just the way she felt inside. She went back to the bedroom where she’d slept. There was a bird singing in a tree outside the window. On the walls, which were white, there were watercolor paintings of Prague scenes. A white translucent vase was on the dressing table. She sat on the bed and closed her eyes, thinking of Dr. Schaefferová and remembering the first time she saw her, on the train to Prague. For that brief moment, her life and Dr. Schaefferová’s life had intersected. And now she was in the doctor’s home, and the doctor was in prison. She opened her eyes. Franz had arranged for Max Nagy to travel on a transport truck headed for Budapest to pick up a shipment of food to feed the German Wehrmacht. Perhaps it was Reina who had asked Franz to do this. In any case, Max Nagy had to travel incognito, hidden under burlap sacks in the back of the truck. By now, he would be in Budapest. He would be safe. Had this act of mercy condemned Franz? Had the Gestapo found out, and was that why they’d arrested Franz?

  Reina said Natalia couldn’t go back to Zlatá Ulička, But, Natalia protested, she was another mouth to feed, and Reina said, So what? Natalia tried to help in the kitchen, but soon realized that she and Sora were like two crows with one nest between them. She would start filling the kettle and Sora would take it from her and put it on the stove. When she tried to slice bread, Sora would remove the bread knife from her hand, saying Anna liked it cut thinner. “Show me how thin,” she said. Sora’s eyes were brown, her lashes thick and black, and her chin sharp. In her dark hair, there was a dramatic strand of white. Natalia saw how good she was with Anna. She chatted away to her about ordinary things without looking at Anna and without expecting her to respond. She promised Anna she was going to get honey for her, from a man who kept bees. “You know who I mean, Anna? He has that little Pekingese dog you can hear snuffling all the way down the street. His beehives are out in the country, where there are lots of wildflowers.”

  The days passed, and Dr. Schaefferová and her husband were still being held in detention. But at least there was hope. Anna kept watch, sitting on the stairs where she could see the front door. Then one morning, when Natalia and Sora were in the kitchen, trying to keep out of each other’s way, they heard a commotion from the hall downstairs. Sora went to the kitchen door and listened. Then they heard Anna cry out, and Natalia followed Sora down to the entrance hall. Elli was there; she had her arm around Anna’s shoulders. Anna was crying and trembling. Two Gestapo agents had delivered envelopes to Anna. Before Elli could take them from her, she’d ripped one open. It had contained her parents’ weddings rings and wristwatches and her mother’s gold crucifix on a chain.

  “Anna, let me put them somewhere safe,” Elli said.

  “My mother would never remove her wedding band,” Anna said. She ran upstairs. Elli, Natalia, and Sora followed her. Anna was crying and calling for her parents. Natalia went to the kitchen. She put her hands over her ears and kept saying, in her head, not this, please, not this.

  Elli brought Anna in and got her to sit down, and then she went down to the doctor’s surgery and returned with a vial of powdered medicine; she measured a few grains into a glass of water and held the glass to Anna’s lips. Anna drank but fought the drug’s effects, until at last she had to lie down on the sofa in the living room. Sora sat beside her. Elli opened the second envelope and took out the documents, death certificates for Julius Schaeffer and Magdalena Schaeffer, who were executed on the fifteenth day of August, 1942, at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

  * * *

  A colleague of Dr. Schaefferová’s came to see Anna. He sat with her in the living room. He took her pulse and said she must rest and most importantly she must eat, even if it was only a piece of toast. He looked at the b
ottle of Veronal and said to Elli she could give Anna five grains, no more than twice in twenty-four hours, for no longer than necessary.

  Not long after the doctor left, Anna’s uncles, Emil Svetla and Maximilian Svetla, arrived. Maximilian said he wanted Anna to go home with him or Emil. Emil said he believed Anna would be happier with him and his wife, because she was fond of her young cousins, and then, too, there was the matter of his brother’s atheism. What did religion matter? Maximilian interrupted. His wife, Teresa, loved Anna. Moreover, his house had the advantage of being secluded, set back from the street behind a hedge. Did Maximilian believe a hedge would deter the Gestapo? Emil asked. No, Maximilian said; he merely thought that Anna would benefit from a sense of privacy, and she could walk in the garden and feel safe.

  “Listen to us. Are we quarreling? We must not quarrel,” Emil said. He wiped his eyes. “Should we let Anna decide for herself, perhaps?”

  Anna said she wanted to stay with Reina and Sora. And with Natalia. For one thing, how would her parents find her, if she left? Emil and Maximilian exchanged a glance. Emil said the decision could be made another day.

  That night Natalia was in Anna’s room—she and Sora took turns sitting with the girl while she slept—when Anna sat up in bed, and asked, “When someone dies violently, does the violence remain in their souls and keep them from going to Heaven? Does God forgive them? Are they innocent in His eyes?”

  “Yes, they are completely innocent,” Natalia said. “They are the ones God loves the most.”

  Anna said it was her fault. At the inn in the mountains, in winter, a man told her how he killed people. Even children. “He said if I told anyone, he would harm my family. If I had been braver, I would have told my parents, and they would have listened to me. We would have emigrated to England or somewhere, and my parents and my brother would be alive.”