Danzig Passage

by Bodie Thoene

  Lucy had often contemplated that image as a child. It had hung above the dining table in the Herrgottseck of Grandmother’s little house. Grandmother had often raised her eyes and spoken to the suffering Christ, as if He were an old familiar friend.

  The sunlight inched across the cushions, finally resting on the gleaming silver crucifix and glinting back into Lucy’s eyes. She looked away, unwilling to admit that there was nothing else of value that might provide funds enough for her to escape Wolf.

  She shook her head. How could she sell the cross her grandmother had cherished? With an audible sigh, she stood and studied the delicate petit point embroidery on the chairs that flanked the sofa. Her eyes swept around the walls at the paintings that hung there. The paintings were ordinary, of the type sold by itinerant artists in the alleyways along the Danube. She looked back at the chairs. They were far from ordinary. Although Lucy had no knowledge of their style or maker, Wolf often touched their hand-carved gilded frames with an odd sort of reverence, just as her grandmother had touched the crucifix.

  These chairs were of great value, as were the Persian rugs she stood on. But how could she sell such things? They did not belong to her, and Wolf would certainly notice their absence the instant he came through the door.

  The bronze clock on the mantel struck four. The sunbeam that had raised her spirits for a moment slipped away as Lucy heard the clank of the elevator arriving on her floor.

  Quickly she scooped up her treasures and carried them into the bedroom to dump them in the bureau drawer. In a moment, the sound of Wolf’s latch key scratched in the lock, announcing his arrival.

  He did not speak, but with a heavy sigh, pitched his hat at the bronze cherubs on the clock and then sat down on the sofa. He propped his feet on the coffee table, never noticing that she had entered the room. She hurried toward the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Removing a bottle of brandy, she splashed a bit into his cup as he always liked. Only then he did he speak.

  “No brandy.” His words were clipped like commands. “The Führer is here, and it would not do for him to smell a whiff of it on my breath. He disapproves of strong drink.”

  With a broad smile, Lucy looked out from the doorway. “Well, Göring drinks, as does every other German general, I hear.”

  “I am only a major,” Wolf replied. “When I am a general, then I will not fear the Führer smelling brandy on my breath.”

  She was disappointed. Wolf was always less harsh when he had a little to drink. She carefully poured it back into the bottle. She did not ask him how the meetings were going. “You will be a general soon enough,” she said brightly.

  “You are right,” Wolf called to her. “If this matter deciding the boundaries of Czechoslovakia is settled correctly, I will move up quicker than I ever imagined.” He paused, as he often did when he talked aloud to himself. “The Hungarians want a piece of the Czech territory, and that will give the Führer reason enough to march the rest of the way into Prague. Privately, that is all the talk. We will let the Hungarians make their demands, and then we will proclaim that what remains of Czechoslovakia needs the protection of the Reich. By spring we will march into Prague, and I will be a colonel, at least.”

  “Will you also go to Prague?” Lucy asked with a slight pout in her voice. She had been considering escaping to Prague, but if what Wolf said proved true, she would have to find another place. “You know the baby is due to be born then.”

  “You will manage without me, I am certain,” Wolf replied irritably. “Now fix me a sandwich. I only have half an hour, and then I must be back. We have not even taken time for lunch until now.”

  Lucy obeyed obligingly, grateful for the warning he had given her about Prague. Did everyone know what the Führer planned for the Czechs? Wolf had told her so casually. She frowned and asked a question in spite of herself. “What will the English say about it when we take Prague also?”

  “They will say plenty, as always, but they will not do anything. As always.”

  17

  Preparations

  Chin-ups. Sit-ups. Jogging for miles around the pews! It was more than tiring; it was insane!

  Jacob tied the spare bell rope to the banister of the choir loft and stripped off his shirt. Then he pulled himself up hand over hand and hung there, grinning down at Lori. “See? Nothing to it. Like the angels up Jacob’s ladder, eh?”

  She had done all the rest, but she would not do this. Heights terrified her. She would not climb, no matter what he said. “I won’t.”

  He lowered himself down and dropped the last eight feet, landing upright beside her. “You will learn to do this, Lori, or you will not eat.”

  “Fine!” she said defiantly. “Then I won’t eat! But I would rather die of starvation than by falling thirty feet on my head!”

  “It isn’t thirty feet.” Mark tried to act as mediator. He had been doing that a lot lately.

  “It’s fourteen feet. Nothing,” Jacob said. “I did not even use my feet or legs. You can use your legs if you—”

  “I won’t! This is the kind of stuff they make the Hitler Maidens do! Calisthenics! Burn books and spend your time developing muscles! You’re as bad as any Hitler Youth leader! My arms and legs ache.”

  Jacob motioned with his head that Mark should leave. He could handle this himself.

  Mark shrugged and left the auditorium, relieved that he did not have to climb the rope.

  “Now, Lori,” Jacob said in a patronizing tone, “sit down, will you? Let me tell you . . . sit down.” He directed her to a pew. “Relax a minute. We are adults. We can talk this thing through. There are reasons why—”

  Lori did not want to hear his reasons. She was tired of his endless bullying. She had done everything he said because he acted as if it was important, but she would not climb the rope! “I won’t.”

  “But you must learn.” He stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “When we leave here—”

  “You said we could stay forever,” she protested. “I am not leaving until my parents return.”

  “Let’s skip over that part.” He did not sound as gruff with her as he had ever since they had been left here. “What I mean is, if we have to leave . . . suddenly . . . we need to know how to climb and how to run and . . . we won’t be able to think about being tired, you see?”

  He was telling her they could be pursued. They were certainly wanted by the men who held their parents! But she did not want to think about that, not today. There were things Jacob could not understand because he was not a woman. There were things about her body and her emotions that only Mama and her friend Susan knew about. She did not feel well. Jacob’s hands on her shoulders helped her headache, but she would not climb the rope!

  “I want to lie down,” she said softly. “I don’t feel like doing this today.”

  He pinched her hard. “You’re too soft!” He sounded angry. “You will hold us back and get us all killed if we have to make a run for it!”

  “Then run!” she cried. “And I will stay here!” She stood up and whirled to face him. “And don’t touch me! I won’t climb your stupid rope! I . . . I wish my mother was here! I want a hot bath and a cup of tea! I want to be left alone!”

  She stormed from the sanctuary and took refuse in the ladies’ room, the only place she could be alone. There she wept until she thought she had no tears. An hour passed, then two. Finally a timid knock sounded on the door.

  “Lori?” It was Jacob.

  She did not answer. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She looked as though she had been hit in the face.

  “Lori? Are you in there? It’s Jacob.”

  “I thought it was the Gestapo!” She could not help saying it.

  “Yes.” A long pause. “Well, I was hard on you today.”

  “Every day you are hard on me!”

  “I thought maybe . . . I was thinking that . . . perhaps,” he stammered. She could almost hear him blush through the door. This was not at all like Jacob Kalner. �
�At home . . . there were times when Mother would want a cup of tea and an aspirin.” He cleared his throat loudly. “And Father ordered us to be gentlemen. I have not been a gentleman. And I am, well . . . open the door. I made you tea.”

  “I won’t climb your rope!”

  “All right . . . I mean, not now. But here is your tea.”

  She raised her head and replied regally, “Leave it at the door. I don’t want to talk to you no matter how sorry you are!”

  It was a miserable, rotten thing to say to him on one of the few occasions he had been sensitive. She regretted sending him away, especially when he was just beginning to figure out that she was not an eleven-year-old rowdy anymore.

  It would have been nice to talk to someone. To Jacob. To tell him how very much she missed her mother, especially at a time like this.

  Opening the door a crack, she pulled in the tepid cup of tea. Two aspirin lay in the saucer, along with a stack of crackers. It was not Mother. It was not a long soak in a hot bath, but it was something, at least. This small kindness made her cry again. Maybe later she would try to climb Jacob’s rope.

  ***

  Shaved heads and filthy black-and-white striped uniforms; a bowl of watery soup and a place on the straw of a crowded bunk—within the walls of Nameless camp, all men were created equal. Entitled equally to suffer. Entitled equally to endure. Entitled equally to perish at the whim of beasts in military uniform who considered themselves more equal than other men.

  Grief was the great leveler of men—rich or poor, wise or foolish, or just ordinary. None of that mattered anymore. Even goodness at times seemed to be lost in a mottled shade of gray, blended into the mist of human misery. But for the most part, the difference between light and dark seemed distinct. Some men, like Pastor Karl Ibsen, were candles; other men were the wind that would snuff out their light.

  From the high view of the watchtower these rows of striped uniforms did not seem human or distinct in any way from one another. But each faceless form was an individual of untold value and unmeasured worth. In this way the pastor saw his fellow prisoners. A face. A name. A man. A soul. He counted them all as worthy of love. He loved them all in the name of his Lord, no matter how light or dark the shadows that fell across their hearts.

  In this terrible purgatory, Karl Ibsen found a flock that needed him more than all the filled pews in Berlin. For his own suffering he thanked God, because many men found the truth while Karl suffered among them.

  This morning the north wind penetrated his thin cotton uniform. His hands were broken and bloody from cold and from the work he did without gloves. He looked like any other man in the assembly yard.

  Kapos with sticks in hand prowled the rows as the roll call was read. Sometimes for no reason at all they stopped to level a blow across the back of a prisoner. Cries and thuds punctuated the calling of the roll. It lasted for hours.

  During this time, Karl prayed. The guards and their dogs could not see that he prayed, and so they could not stop him. Karl prayed for his wife, Helen. He thought of her in every pleasant way, and inwardly he smiled because her goodness was real and her love was eternal. He prayed for his children, for Lori and Jamie, that they would remember all he had taught them and not be afraid.

  Beside him a man fell coughing to the ground. Karl stooped to help him and was kicked hard in the stomach. The man who had fallen thanked him, blessed him with a look, and then the SS officer kicked him as well. When the man could not rise, he was shot. His blood splattered on Karl’s uniform.

  Karl stood slowly. He wept silently, but he did not stop praying.

  ***

  The members of Orde’s Special Night Squad listened quietly to his report of his meeting with General Wavell. He concluded by restating the general’s order that they confine their actions to defending their perimeter.

  Larry Havas stood behind Orde in the little knot of men. He shrugged and remarked to Zach, “Just what we expected all along. Jews who strike back rock the British boat, if you know what I mean.”

  Captain Orde rounded on him savagely. “And just what do you propose to do about it?”

  “Do about it?” queried Havas. “Me?”

  “Is that your only response, Havas? ‘Oh well, it was good while it lasted?’”

  “But, Captain Orde, what other response can there be?” inquired Zach. “To continue means that we will soon be asked to make the short trip to Acre prison and then the even shorter trip to the end of a British rope!”

  “That is the trouble with you Jews!” Orde stated heatedly. “Always so patient, worrying about trouble that might find you. You might as well go lie down on your bunks and wait for the Arab knife that cuts your throats, because it will come far more certainly than the British rope!”

  Moshe watched the exchange in silence. With a dramatic change of volume, Orde suddenly lowered his voice to a bare whisper, so that all the men had to lean in to hear what was said. “My own neck is more squarely in the noose than any of yours.” His words were barely audible, but his eyes flashed fire. Startled, Moshe realized how much Orde looked like the image of an Old Testament prophet.

  “We cannot afford to think about what we are not allowed to do,” Orde continued. “Instead, we must take full advantage of what we are permitted.”

  Quizzical glances flew around the group. No one dared to respond to the challenge in the flaming eyes to ask what he meant.

  Orde answered the unspoken question. “You are permitted to go freely on the roads of the Mandate, are you not?”

  “Yes, but what—” questioned Zach, then he stopped abruptly as Orde continued.

  “And to defend yourself if attacked?”

  “Yeah,” grunted Havas. “So what?”

  “So,” concluded Captain Orde, “let’s get busy defending ourselves.”

  ***

  Piano lessons! The steady tick-tock of the metronome matched the patter of raindrops but clashed with the unsuccessful attempts of nine-year-old Deborah Harding-Smith to attack the musical scales one octave at a time.

  “Once again, from middle C.” Anna positioned the child’s rigid fingers on the piano keys for the eighth time. “Try again, Deborah. One and two and . . . .”

  Deborah began again, banging down on the keys as if she were at war with the keyboard. The constant rhythm of the metronome had no more meaning to this exercise than the howling of an alley cat on a back fence. In fact, Anna often thought that it would be easier to teach a cat to dance the rumba than to guide this one child into the wonderful world of tempo. Tone-eaf and totally without rhythm, Deborah hated these hour-long lessons. The time here was wasted. She knew it. Anna knew it, although she did not say it. And everyone who heard this horrid banging also knew it. Everyone, that is, except for the child’s mother.

  Mrs. Harding-Smith believed her pigtailed daughter had the potential for great talent. She was, as yet, uncertain of what that forte was. Maybe ballet? Deborah got stuck with one leg on the bar and tore her tights—not once, but twice. Perhaps tap dancing? Ah well, the poor thing could not remember heel from toe or hop from shuffle. The tap teacher developed a nervous twitch in her right cheek and declared to Mrs. Harding-Smith that Deborah could not even march in step, let alone learn to shuffle-hop!

  Deborah’s untapped talent was not to be found in the art of dance. The search for Deborah’s undiscovered genius continued through cello, flute, and clarinet lessons, as well as several other instruments that wheezed, whistled and bawled like dying animals. The piano was a last resort, Mrs. Harding-Smith confessed. It was difficult to make a piano sound like anything other than a piano, no matter how badly played it might be.

  Anna supposed that this was meant to comfort her on the long journey through the land of fractured whole notes and stuttering scales.

  This afternoon, Charles and Louis peered out from the hallway to investigate what had happened to the poor piano. Anna waved them away and sat down on the bench beside Deborah, who suddenly burst into te
ars of frustration.

  The lesson became a time of consolation. The child sobbed in Anna’s arms and confessed that she hated all musical instruments and that she would rather be playing cricket with her six brothers, or hiding out in the club house, or anything at all besides this.

  Anna knew how she felt.

  “Well, then, perhaps we should tell your mother together.”

  “Oh, no! Mother will be most unhappy! She will think I am an utter failure. I have not even learned to play the scales properly. I try, really, Mrs. Lindheim! I do try! I am not so absolutely stupid as all that!”

  “So you want to keep trying, do you?” Anna asked as Charles and Louis peeked around the doorjamb again. She narrowed her eyes, a clear sign that they were intruding on an emotional moment.

  Deborah wiped her nose on her sleeve and nodded miserably. Anything was better than facing her mother with another failure. “Yes, I want to try. I will try.”

  Anna felt sorry for the little girl, but after so many weeks, she was also sorry that the torment must go on to avoid the scowling disappointment of Mrs. Harding-Smith.

  “All right then. Trying is the same was winning.” Anna took a deep breath and stared at the big black notes on the instruction booklet. Pretty boring stuff.

  Anna closed the book. “If we are going to go on, we must find something about the piano that you can enjoy, ja?”

  “I like it when you play.” Another big sniff.

  “But what do you like about the instrument?” Anna danced her fingers over the keys. Beautiful, clear and alive, the notes covered the serious conversation of the boys as they discussed the unhappy female on the bench.

  “Well . . . ” Deborarh screwed up her face. “I can send my brother Harry signals on it when he is upstairs and I have to practice.”