Vienna Prelude (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  ***

  President Roosevelt’s message was passed on to Sir Ronald Lindsay with the warning that it must be treated as top secret until the British communicated their opinion on the possibility of such a conference. After all, a president with a Congress so rooted in neutrality dared not openly involve himself in an attempt to stop Europe’s quarrels.

  Within hours the letter was placed inside a diplomatic pouch bound for England. But this thin thread of hope could not have reached London at a worse time. Anthony Eden, who would have understood the significance of Roosevelt’s offer, was still in France. The envelope, marked Top Secret, was instead placed on the desk of British Prime Minister Chamberlain.

  It was discussed politely over tea with the PM’s chief advisor, Sir Horace Wilson, and undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, Sir Alexander Cadogan.

  “Eden, of course”—Wilson was disdainful—“would accept the President’s invitation joyfully, I have no doubt.”

  “Well, he’s off on the Riviera with Winston now, isn’t he?” added Chamberlain. “I think it’s best if we say nothing to Eden about the matter, don’t you agree?” He leveled his gaze on Cadogan, who had already, in fact, attempted to reach Eden by phone and then had dispatched the message by special courier, who had missed Eden’s train in Marseilles by five minutes.

  Cadogan did not attempt to conceal his disapproval. “I think it most unwise to make the decision without at least consulting the foreign secretary! The message is addressed to Eden.”

  “Such a conference is impossible,” Chamberlain explained like a schoolmaster instructing a stupid pupil. “It will only interfere with our own plans. You see, we plan to work for a reestablishment of friendship with Fascist Italy. Their conflict in Spain is . . . well, it really has nothing to do with England, has it? And Anthony Eden has been so disapproving . . . the Italians don’t like Anthony, I’m afraid.”

  Cadogan sat in stunned disbelief. Chamberlain was personally making his own foreign policy without consulting either the vabinet or the foreign minister! “But what about the president of the United States? This is the first indication that the United States might even put a toe in the water. Are we going to turn him down?”

  Chamberlain shrugged. “We don’t need them.” He was smiling benignly. “The Germans are people. The Italians are people. Why, my brother Austen and Mussolini’s brother were great chums in the twenties! Practically family. We can reason this out. We are practical men.”

  Cadogan sat glumly silent for a moment. At last he spoke. “Yes. And in the last war, the German kaiser and the king of England were cousins as well. Didn’t stop ten million deaths in the trenches though, did it?”

  Chamberlain’s patience fled. He sniffed and raised his chin in indignation at Cadogan’s remark. “Quite enough. Cable the president!” he snapped. “Tell Roosevelt that we cannot accept his offer because we have much more fruitful prospects of our own.” He sipped his tea again. “And really, Cadogan, Eden need not hear of this. No need at all. It will simply upset him; don’t you agree, Horace?”

  Sir Horace, who had been enjoying a biscuit, nodded. “One can’t expect to take such a message seriously. What good would it do for us to sit around and chat about Germany and Italy? Wooly nonsense, you know, just wooly nonsense!”

  “You have your orders, Cadogan. Send the wire, will you?” Chamberlain looked down his nose at Cadogan—a defense against the anger and disapproval that must have been evident on the undersecretary’s face as he stalked out of the room.

  President Roosevelt,

  the wire began,

  in the absence of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, I regret to inform you that Prime Minister Chamberlain . . .

  ***

  New inmates crowded into Dachau faster than the bodies of the dead could be carried away. Every day brought frightened, bewildered men into the roll call. Neat lines of living dead were taught, by the sting of a lash, to stand for hours on end in the freezing cold; to eat thin watery soup made from a few rotten vegetables; to suffer without argument at the hands of the master Aryans chosen as their keepers.

  Theo envied the priest and the cantor now. Daily rations grew shorter, and the cruelty of the guards toward men too sick to work became more intense. At night the moans of the dying created a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Each morning, those who were dead and those who were dying were taken out of the barracks.

  This morning a pale dawn broke over the distant mountains. Perhaps a Bavarian farmer watched it out the window as he ate his breakfast, Theo thought. Such shimmering pastels would be beautiful if a man could simply sit and watch the colors change. But in the lines, brutal guards with jackboots and whips were beating those who had trouble standing. Kicks and screams drowned out the sound of the birds. Blood was brighter than the sky. Theo stared straight ahead and thought how lucky were the men who had died.

  Two guards shoved an old man into line next to Theo. The shining new prisoner identification band read J. Stern. The guard shoved the butt of his whip under Theo’s chin. “A new prisoner,” he growled to Theo. “Another Stern. Two Sterns we have in this line now. Are you dogs born of the same litter?”

  Theo did not reply.

  The guard continued. “You will teach this old man the rules, Stern,” he warned Theo. “If he breaks them, you will be punished!” With a hard blow to the side of Theo’s face, the guard walked on.

  Theo did not raise his hand to touch the trickle of blood that flowed down his cheek. He did not acknowledge his pain.

  “Your name is Stern, also?” asked the old man. “I am Julius Stern.”

  “Shut up!” Theo hissed. The first rule must be silence on the line! The old man understood and obeyed instantly. Out of the corner of his eye, Theo could see that the hands of Julius Stern were soft and plump. His chin was pink where the SS had shaved off his goatee. Weak eyes squinted into the harsh morning light. He was short, at least a head shorter than Theo—and he filled out the striped prisoner’s uniform. It is good that he has extra weight, Theo thought. Soon enough he will burn away every extra ounce on his body. Theo pitied his new charge. The soft hands trembled with confusion and fear at what had befallen him.

  Throughout the long, cold hours of that first day, the old man worked in front of Theo. The rocks cut his hands as he labored with the other men to build an embankment for a road. He tried to sit, gasping for air.

  “Don’t sit,” Theo whispered through clenched teeth. “I will pass the stones around you. Only don’t sit. They will shoot us.”

  The old man put a hand to his heart and wheezed words that Theo could not understand. Theo knew that his new companion would not survive long if the guards drove him as ruthlessly as they did the younger men. But then, that was the idea, after all. It was the policy. Those who could work for the sake of the Reich deserved to live.

  That night the old man lay on the hard wooden pallet of the Herrgottseck where the priest had died. He clutched his chest and breathed with difficulty as he tried to talk to Theo. “They have broken my eyeglasses,” he moaned. “I cannot see my own hand.”

  “Stay by me.” Theo’s voice was urgent. “You must do what I do or they will beat us both, Herr Stern.”

  “Why have they done this?” The old man began to weep softly. “I am not even a German. I am Austrian, from Vienna!” His voice was pleading, but there was no one there who could help him.

  “An Austrian!” a voice called from another pallet. “There are this week a hundred Austrians here. New men. Since Schuschnigg arrested those Nazis in Vienna.”

  “But I have committed no crime!” the old man protested. “I am a professor of literature at the university! Not a German! My colleagues tried to convince me to fly back from Brussels, but I was afraid! I was terrified of the airplane, you see, and so I took the train and—” He shook his head in confusion. “I had a copy of the book by Kafka—The Trial. How was I to know that the Germans arrested men for having such a book? I could have sent t
hat back on the plane, but I brought it to read—just to read on the trip across Germany, and they arrested me! I have been days in a prison in Munich! They cut off my beard and took my glasses, and now I am here without knowing how. Or why! Like the man in The Trial! Imprisoned and condemned and executed without ever knowing why.”

  Theo let him run down; then he leaned over him. “You must not say more about your arrest, Professor Stern,” he whispered. “There are informers even here. In this place we are like the man in Kafka’s book. That is why the book is forbidden.” He put his hand gently on the old man’s arm. “You must stay with me, Professor. Are you hungry?”

  The old man turned his head away miserably. “Too tired to eat.”

  “If you don’t eat you will die.” Theo helped him up. “There is a rule that you must come to get your own ration. Five ounces of bread a day. Eat half tonight. Save the rest for morning.” He spoke to Stern as if he were a small child. “Come, Professor, I will help you.”

  The old man squinted at Theo. “Have I stepped into Kafka’s book, Jacob? Have I lost my mind and lost my way and now am condemned to live out the fate of a character in a book?”

  Theo could see the cataracts on the old scholar’s eyes. He was almost blind, yet they had taken his glasses, his books, and his life from him. Theo tried to think what would bring the old man to some reality other than this present horror. “So you are a professor of literature?” he asked. “I met my wife in Vienna.” He would not mention Elisa, but the thought of her music and the symphony made him eager to ask a thousand questions of the old man. “Do you go to the symphony? to the Musikverein?”

  “Yes. I always have season tickets.” His voice sounded choked. That world seemed so far away now.

  “You will be back in no time,” Theo tried to comfort him. “A small infraction. You will be released.” He chose to ignore the mocking laughter of those who overheard his comment. “Tell me, please. What did the orchestra play this year at the Musikverein? Can you remember the programs? the music? and the musicians? Do you . . . can you describe it all to me? It has been so very long since I have heard music. Violins. Please, Professor Stern, tell me about Vienna? How was it when you saw it last?” Somehow Theo’s simple, eager questions returned dignity and composure to the old man. He sighed, and as thin green water was poured into filth-encrusted bowls, he began to speak about Vienna as it had been. Theo was suddenly relieved that the professor was nearly blind. The old man could not see what he was eating. Perhaps his sense of taste was not so keen anymore either. He only grimaced slightly as he sipped the stinking brew and talked about the music and the city to Theo and the others who joined them in the Herrgottseck. For a time, the professor was lecturing again to a captive audience. For an hour his role was a comfort to inmates and to himself.

  They had almost forgotten the world outside these walls, and tonight it came back to them.

  “The first program at the Musikverein last year was Elijah! Oh the power of it! The chorus was superb!”

  “And the strings?” Theo asked, picturing Elisa by the light of her music stand. “The violins, Herr Professor?”

  “The violins? Ah, what can one say about the violins of the Vienna Philharmonic, Jacob? They are the finest, ja? The finest in the world.”

  37

  A Hell More Fierce Than Dachau

  Murphy sat in the highest balcony of the Vienna State Opera House, where the night’s performance was about to be played. He was sure that Elisa would not see him from this distance—if indeed she was still with the orchestra and hadn’t disappeared with her long-lost love.

  He was angry at himself for coming tonight. It seemed to be a particularly cruel form of self-torture to sit in the farthest gallery and stare at the empty chair in the first violin section and wonder if she would appear. Hope she would appear; then hope again that she was somewhere else, far away from Vienna. The guys in the press room had talked about men who had gone nuts over some dame—like King Edward, giving up his crown. Now here he was sitting in an auditorium, like a Peeping Tom climbing a tree to look in a window at a girl. He couldn’t remember ever before having the feeling that he was looking into someone’s heart. But that was the way Elisa had made him feel.

  “Why am I doing this to myself?” he said aloud. Then he slammed the rolled-up program against the empty seat beside him and stood up to leave.

  Just then the musicians began to filter out onto the stage. Shimon at the tympani. Leah, wrestling her cello, checking the score. Members of the first and second violins and violas. He stood rooted in front of his seat. And then Elisa came from the wings. Her long golden hair fell over her shoulders, and she brushed it back and tossed her head. Her skin was smooth ivory in contrast to the long black gown. Someone spoke to her and she leaned down to whisper a word in reply. She nodded and smiled at Leah as she passed and then, as she reached her chair, Murphy sat down in perfect unison with her.

  He ran his hand over his face. He was perspiring. Why is she still here? He squinted, trying to catch some glimpse of a ring on her hand. He was too far away. If there was a wedding band, an engagement ring or something, he couldn’t see it. Why didn’t I bring opera glasses?

  The balcony had begun to fill with concertgoers. A fat man who looked like a bank clerk sat down in front of Murphy. The man had opera glasses, and Murphy tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Bitte . . . may I borrow . . . ?”

  “Mein Herr, there is nothing to see yet!” He laughed and passed the glasses to Murphy, who sighed with relief.

  He focused the tiny glasses on Elisa and instantly felt his heart constrict. Her eyes were intense as she studied the music. Slender fingers held the violin. He thought of those fingers intertwined with his that day in the open-air market. And suddenly he rejoiced. There was no wedding band on her hand!

  As quickly as his heart rose, it fell again. “So what?” he muttered as he handed the glasses back to the fat man. Then he stood to go again, saying, “Bitte, bitte, bitte,” as he inched past patrons and tried not to tramp on their toes. At the end of the aisle, he turned for one last look at her. She raised the violin and tucked it beneath her chin. He wished he could be her violin. She drew the bow across the string, and Murphy turned around to go back to his seat once again. “Bitte, bitte schön! Bitte!”

  He sat down with a sigh and tapped the fat man on the shoulder again. “Would you sell me your opera glasses?” he asked the startled man.

  The man shook his head and stuck out his lower lip. “Nein! My wife bought them for me before she passed away last Christmas.”

  “How much do you want for them?”

  “I will not sell them, mein Herr!”

  “What are they worth?”

  “But they are not for sale!” The fat man was angry and indignant.

  “Fifty dollars American.” Murphy opened up his wallet.

  “Why did you not simply buy a ticket in the orchestra seats? Or rent a box?”

  Murphy counted out the bills. “This is all I could get.”

  “The only seat? On a Wednesday night?” The fat man eyed the bills.

  “Yeah. Lucky for you.” He held out the bills.

  “Nein . . .” The fat man hesitated. “But I might rent them to you.”

  “How much?”

  The fat man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Fifty? Ja?”

  Murphy was about to agree when a soft, urgent tapping interrupted the transaction. He turned to face a smiling old woman who held out her opera glasses. “For fifty dollars, you may buy mine. And my umbrella as well.”

  “Done!” Murphy gave her the bills, and she passed the opera glasses and the umbrella forward as the fat man grumbled unhappily and scowled at her.

  Murphy focused on Elisa again and imagined himself opening the umbrella and jumping off the balcony to float down to her. At that moment, as though she sensed his gaze on her, she turned her eyes upward to the gallery.

  Murphy wanted nothing more than to have he
r see him. He wanted to stand up and shout her name, to tell her that he was in love with her and to beg her from his lofty perch to marry him.

  But he did none of that. He lowered the glasses when she looked away, then sat in silent misery as the concert began. When it was all over and the applause had died away, he blended into the rest of the crowd and wandered disconsolately back to his hotel room at the Sacher.

  ***

  Elisa slowly climbed the stairs to her apartment. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the keys, then stopped and drew her breath in sharply.

  In the darkness at the top of the stairs, the form of a man sat in the shadows.

  “Who are you?” Elisa asked, feeling the same sense of the foreboding that had followed her through tonight’s concert.

  The man stood. She clutched the banister and stared up at the familiar figure. “Thomas?”

  “I have been waiting,” The words of Thomas were a frightened whisper. “Quickly, please.”

  She wavered, then hurried past him, unlocking the door and throwing it open. Thomas slipped in, but neither of them reached for the light. The window shades were up. She set the violin on the table as Thomas locked the door behind them, and she drew every shade before switching on the lights.

  They faced one another across the room. Her face contained a thousand questions, and he replied with a furrowed brow and a hard-set jaw.

  “My father?” she said at last, holding tightly to the back of a chair.

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Elisa.” As if the pain of her own heart had struck him too, he grimaced. “I saw Canaris. He knew already. They all knew. It is over—there is no more to be done . . .” He did not have to speak the lie. She interpreted his words as he wanted her to believe.

  Elisa pressed her lips together tightly and tried to hold back tears of disbelief and disappointment. “Thomas?” she asked bleakly. She wanted his answer to be different, somehow miraculously changed.