by Bodie Thoene
“You will deliver it to the dock.”
“Within the hour, Mr. Murphy.”
“The negotiations are continuing, of course,” Murphy said grimly. “We thought that perhaps if the arrangements were already made the State Department could not refuse to let the child be buried here by her grandmother.”
“Heartless, these government regulations.” The mortician shook his head as he looked at the check. “They are quite strict even about American citizens who die abroad. The casket is airtight, of course. That is their main requirement. Rumors are the little girl died of typhus.”
“Pneumonia.” Murphy wanted out of this pale blue office. Away from this place that smelled of carnations. He was bone-tired. All of this somehow felt like his responsibility. If only he hadn’t publicized the arrival of the ship.
“A pity.” The man smiled a saccharine smile. “Quite brutal the way the demonstrators smashed everything.”
“The State Department has given us twenty-four hours. We can salvage most of it. Load it before the Darien has to leave New York Harbor.”
“And where is the ship going to next, Mr. Murphy?”
Murphy did not answer the question. He did not have an answer. “Just make sure the casket is there within an hour. Nobody in the government can refuse to let Mrs. Rosenfelt give the child a proper burial. There can’t be laws on the books that would be so heartless.”
“We will be happy to help in any way,” said the mortician.
Murphy wanted to say, I’ll bet. As long as you get paid. Instead, he shook the man’s too-soft hand and hurried back to the tin office at the docks where the end of the matter was being negotiated.
29
What Can We Tell Them?
The tiny bistro was tucked into one of the many alleys that crisscrossed the Left Bank neighborhoods of Paris. Elisa chose this meeting place well, Thomas thought as he studied the faded sign above the entrance.
He had to duck his head as he entered the door. As he descended a flight of narrow stone steps, he held his head at a slight angle to keep from brushing his hair against the low ceiling. A place for ferrets and moles, he mused. Like the ancient Christians in the catacombs, this seemed an appropriate setting for them to meet again.
The aromas of garlic and wine drifted up with the noisy hum of French voices and the clatter of dishes. Thomas was hungry. It was lunchtime, and he had skipped last night’s dinner and breakfast this morning in nervous anticipation of this meeting. He had closed his eyes to sleep and had still seen Elisa’s distinct handwriting on the white paper. The name of the bistro. The date. The time. Nothing else.
A heavyset woman in a red-checked apron and wild wisps of gray hair met him at the foot of the stairs.
“This way.” She greeted him pleasantly and led him across the sawdust-covered floor past several empty tables to a scarred wooden table in the far corner. “Here is a good place for you, monsieur.” She winked as if she knew him, then rattled off a list of the day’s fare. “You think about it, no? I will come back when the lady comes.”
“Thank you.” Thomas smiled and nodded as if he knew what the gnarled old woman was talking about. Had he ever been here before? He tried to remember. Paris was thick with little bistros like this one. He had visited dozens. They looked so much alike. Sausages dangling from the ceiling, sawdust, bad lighting. Lady? Had Thomas brought a lady here? Or been brought here by a lady? Perhaps this meeting was not what he had imagined it to be.
He rested his arms on the table and listened in on a conversation between two French peasants over the need for a change in government. “Remember what the revolution was all about, eh? Well, we are still poor and the rich are still rich! I tell you the spirit of Marie Antoinette still lives in France!”
“And you think the Socialists will change that? I say we are doomed to poverty! So it makes no differ . . .”
Such conversations were common on the menu during French mealtimes. There is hardly a more unsettled country in Europe than France, Thomas thought with amusement. This sort of open hostility toward government—any government—would make it impossible for a dictator like Hitler or Mussolini to succeed here. Sooner or later someone would throw a glass of wine in the face of the opposition and then the slinging of salami would begin. Politics were entertainment to the French. The freedom to argue was what mattered most to them. Unlike the Germans, they were not easily led.
Thomas searched the room for a familiar face. He recognized no one, and yet he recognized the crowd as exclusively French. Dark eyes and skin. Berets and full glasses of wine. Thomas looked at his watch. Thirty minutes had passed, and still no lady had come to join him. His stomach rumbled a protest. He would wait a few more minutes and then he would order.
Could he have made a mistake about the handwriting? For a time he had made love to any woman who was beautiful and willing in an effort to forget Elisa. The therapy had failed miserably, and he was now haunted by the angry and curious looks of those he had convinced of his love. This mysterious meeting might be somehow related to one of those unhappy affairs. And yet the note had looked so much like Elisa’s handwriting.
The old woman who had seated him passed by the table. He touched her arm. “Pardon, madame.”
“Your lady friend has not come? You wish to order anyway?”
So that was it. He ran through a list of the women he had disappointed. Broken dinner engagements. Calls that were not returned. Someone was playing a game with him. “Do you know the woman I am supposed to meet?” he asked.
“Do you not know her?”Tthe old woman laughed.
“Yes . . . I mean, no. I got a note, you see, to meet her here—”
“Well, she comes to me and says, ‘I am meeting my lover here this afternoon; please give us this table, and if I am not here you will know him because he is very tall with black hair and blue eyes, very handsome.’” The old woman chuckled at the last, revealing a nearly toothless smile of appreciation. “You see anybody else in here in my bistro who looks like that? Only you! I know who you are the moment I see you try not to bump your head!”
“Well, yes.” Now the crowd of Frenchmen turned their eyes to see what the old proprietress was cackling about. Thomas lowered his voice. “I am just not certain who I am meeting. She did not sign, and I am not sure—”
The old woman slapped his back and laughed even louder now. “Ah yes, monsieur. You look like the type who will have more than one! Two or three in every neighborhood, yes? You be careful you don’t get yourself shot!”
Thomas put his hand to his throat nervously. “Exactly. Did she give her name?”
“No name. She just tells me about you. Handsome. Black hair. Big and strong.” She squeezed the muscle of Thomas’s arm playfully. “Oh, that I was young again, monsieur—I would steal you right away from her!”
The smile on Thomas’s face wavered. “Thank you, madame. Perhaps I may let you spirit me away out the back all the same. Can you describe her to me?”
The old woman doubled over in laughter as she pointed toward the stairs. “Oh, but you see, monsieur, she is here. Too late! Too late!”
Thomas followed her gaze to where the woman stood with her back to him as she removed her coat. He resisted the urge to groan in disappointment. The woman had light auburn hair cut short at the neckline. She wore a brown tweed suit like an English tourist. A nice figure, very nice. But even from the back he could tell that it was not Elisa.
And then the woman turned around. Thomas blinked in amazement. It was not Elisa, and yet it was indeed Elisa! From the top of her head to her low-heeled walking shoes, she had been made over. Her smile was the same. Her clear blue eyes radiated relief and happiness to see him, but even her eyebrows had been darkened.
He held up his hand and stood as she moved through the close tables toward him. Her eyes were bright with emotion, silently begging him for understanding without explanation. She reached her hands out to him and embraced him lightly as if it had not bee
n months since she had last seen him.
“Sorry I’m late, darling,” she said casually, brushing her lips against his.
He helped her with her chair. He could not take his eyes from the familiar, yet unfamiliar face. “You have changed your hair, love.”
Her eyes warned him that all must seem natural, easy and routine. “You like it? Colette asked me if I might not need a change. Like the American film star Myrna Loy. Are you starving? I am so sorry I’m late. Traffic was dreadful coming in. Have you waited long?”
He wanted to reply that he had waited years. But he looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes. I came early . . . so anxious to see you.” His voice was strained with emotion. Strained from this charade. For whom were they performing? Had she been followed? Had he been followed?
“You should have ordered, darling.” She studied the menu. “Or have you ordered without me?” She smiled brightly.
“No.” He feigned irritation. “I should have. Why didn’t you sign your note?” This he said for the benefit of the old woman who shuffled toward them, pencil and pad in hand, to take their orders.
“I wanted to surprise you.” Elisa laid her hand on his. The hand was still beautiful. Delicate but strong. Thomas lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them.
The old woman leaned forward with a conspiratorial whisper. “Now you know her, eh, monsieur?”
They were old friends. Old lovers come to meet for lunch. Elisa played the part with an ease that astonished Thomas. He wanted nothing so much as to take her by the arm and whisk her out of the crowded bistro so they could find some place to be alone. But then, perhaps it was better to be alone this way. In the middle of a crowd.
Elisa rattled off her order to the still-chuckling old woman; then, looking at Thomas for approval, she asked, “And what wine, darling? You like burgundy, yes?”
He nodded, unable now to take his eyes off her. She looked quite different, but even a change in hair color and a British tailored suit could not conceal her beauty. He recited his order, mimicking hers. The old woman placed a long loaf of bread and fresh butter before them. Then wine glasses and wine. Thomas noticed none of that until Elisa lifted her glass to him. His thoughts had run the course of a planned escape from Paris to Marseilles. From Marseilles to . . . somewhere. They would leave together, build a life together away from the darkness of Europe. Surely that must be why she had come. She had left that American husband and had come to find him, Thomas reasoned. Just as he had looked for her in the face of every woman he had been with.
“What shall we toast?” he asked hopefully.
A soft, loving smile curved her lips. Anyone looking on could see she loved him. “Keep looking at me that way, Thomas. No matter what I say.”
He reached out to touch her hand. “No matter what happens, I want to spend the rest of my life looking at you.”
Her smile did not waver. “I hope you live longer than that.”
A cloud passed between them. Why had she come? He held himself in tight control. He did not allow the look of a man in love to pass from his face, although suddenly he realized she had come with other matters in mind. “Tell me.”
She touched her glass lightly to his. “To the Abwehr and British intelligence, Thomas.” She took a sip. Words became quiet whispers.
Fleeting surprise crossed his face. He mastered it with a sip of wine and then he held her fingers to his lips again. “This is not what I hoped.”
“It is not what I wanted, either. But it seems there is no other alternative.” How did she maintain such an expression of adoration on her face? “There has been utter silence from the German High Command. The only voice heard is that of Hitler. I have come to ask . . . are there other voices that must be considered?”
“So they have sent you.” He took another drink of wine.
“Who else? They tell me you will not speak to anyone else.”
“I trust no one.”
“Can you trust me?”
“Of course.” Disappointment weighed in his voice and colored his performance now. Were they being watched? If so, then the watcher might catch a glimpse of the deprived lover in the countenance of Thomas. The emotion was real. The ache was authentic. Thomas von Kleistmann in love with a married woman. His childhood friend. The first love of his young manhood.
“They must know what is happening.”
“You need not explain the reason for your visit to me. I understand clearly now.”
She brushed her fingers against his cheek. The performance again. The gesture caused him pain. “Then you will help?”
“The question is, will the British listen when we talk? Chamberlain comes to the throne of the beast and serves him Europe course by course like dinner. And the beast roars now that he is hungry for the Czech line of defense. The line cannot be taken by force by Germany. The Czechs are too strong if Britain and France stand with them.”
“The English will listen. Churchill—”
“The only intelligent statesman in Parliament. One man.”
“There are others.”
“Did they listen to Churchill when he recited the vast sums Hitler is spending on rearmament? Did they listen when Churchill urged them to stop the German march into the Rhineland? And of course you saw what happened to Austria—what still happens there. A vile plague of evil and death. Mass suicides by Jews refused visas in Vienna. Worse than Germany. What will happen if the Sudetenland is also served up to the beast?”
Through all of this Thomas had buttered his bread and spoken with a fixed smile on his face. What would the watchers surmise from such a look? Were the lovers discussing the husband? Her divorce?
“If we spend the present condemning the past, then we will lose the future, Thomas. There is much that can be done. It is not too late. Not even for Germany.”
“And what about for ourselves?” He had not meant to ask the question. It had simply fallen from his heart; there it lay on the table between them, like the bread.
Elisa did not answer as the old woman arrived with her arms laden with food. Thomas continued to gaze imploringly at Elisa throughout small talk about the veal and the vegetables. Steam floated up between them until at last Elisa answered him quietly.
“For myself . . . I would not choose to be here.” She smiled sadly now. “I did not choose this.” She waved a hand over the issue as if it were steam from the veal. “But here it is. And here I am. What can I tell them in London, Thomas, that might change things?”
***
“Burial here? Well it’s . . . it’s simply out of the question!” The State Department representative tugged on his bow tie and stretched his neck out as if the whole discussion was too dreadful for him to think about.
Rabbi Stephen Wise hesitated. He would be cautious now as he broached the next subject. “And what about the women among the refugees who are pregnant? Certainly the United States could grant them at least temporary asylum?”
The official coughed loudly in disbelief at such a suggestion. “My good man, this is none of our affair. Quite out of the question. Then we would have to face an issue of the citizenship of the child. Absolutely not—out of the question!”
“No room at the inn,” remarked Dr. Henry Lieper of the Federal Council of Churches. “Can it be?”
“What? What’s that you say?” Now the indignant official leaned forward. His face reddened. “This has nothing to do with sentimental hogwash! This is the law! No room at the inn, indeed!”
Wise and Lieper exchanged looks.
Murphy swallowed hard, imagining how Bubbe Rosenfelt would react to the news. He glanced at Mr. Trump, whose face showed that the headline of this story would be: “NO ROOM AT THE INN”—a 36-point banner headline on the front page of the evening edition.
The government official checked his watch against the clock above the door of the dusty shipping office. “We have already extended their time limit by six hours. Time enough for Burton to have the radio fixed. Time enough t
o load additional supplies. That is time enough, if you ask me. I will notify the captain that his ship will be escorted out of the harbor within the hour.” He shoved his papers into a well-worn briefcase and without another word he left the delegation in stunned silence.
“Well,” began Lieper in a choked voice.
“The law of Germany makes them homeless.” Trump spoke up. “The law of the United States keeps them that way. Strange edicts, these things that feed on the lives of the innocent and the helpless, the dead—even the unborn.”
Lieper attempted to speak again. “‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ saith the Lord ”
Rabbi Wise ran a hand over his face in frustration. “Then we should consider how we can best show mercy to these people until we can find a way to get around the immigration statutes.”
“Evian is a start.” Trump nodded toward Murphy. “Murphy will be there. And I know the Jewish agency will have representatives there as well. Until we can find a permanent solution, I suggest that we continue to publish the plight of the Darien as well as set up a supply line for food and medical needs as they come up.”
“Mr. Trump.” Murphy tugged his ear thoughtfully. “I would like to suggest that perhaps an observer join the refugees. A reporter. I would like to volunteer to go along.”
Without a pause, Trump refused his offer. “You have other things to cover. The fate of this ship will be decided at Evian. We already know what sort of misery these people are living through. No, Murphy. I had the feeling it might come to this the other night. This is my story, son. And it’s not gonna be the Darien that gets blown out of the water by the time I’m finished!”
And so it was settled, irrevocably. Murphy might as well pack. Trump was on the phone within minutes of the final decision by the State Department. Points of contact would be established. Committees would need to be formed from the Jewish and Christian groups who had been so vocal about this issue. That evening the New York Times editorial spoke eloquently:
It is hard to imagine the bitterness of exile when it takes place over a faraway frontier. Helpless families driven from their homes to a barren island in the Danube, thrust over the Polish border, escaping in terror of their lives to Switzerland or France. These things are hard for us in a free country to visualize. But the exiles of the Darien have floated by our own shores. We have seen their faces, shared their grief at the loss of one little girl. Perhaps some of them may be added to the American quota list and return here. What is to happen to them in the meantime remains uncertain from hour to hour. We can only hope and pray that some hearts will soften somewhere, and that some refuge will be found. The rejection of the Darien by our government cries to high heaven of man’s inhumanity to man!
