Danzig Passage (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  “Not that kind of debt.” Karl gazed at the man with pity. Here was a creature who could be purchased by the Führer’s laws.

  “Debt. You did say you owed him a debt.”

  “The debt that love requires of all men; the debt that demands that we do good to others, not harm; that we not look the other way when the innocent are persecuted. I owe them much more than money. I owe my life.”

  The eyes of the scabby little man hardened. He understood, and the words of Pastor Karl Ibsen convicted him. He did not like it. “What about your family?”

  Again and again this terrible question had played in his mind. What about Helen? What about Lori and Jamie? Should he go against everything he knew was right for their sake? Would they hate him for staying here to minister as one dying man to other dying men?

  “I love my family,” he said.

  “Then sign.”

  To sign was a denial of the Christ he served. Karl trembled as he considered it; he longed to take the pen and sign his name and walk out of hell. Instead he said, “Jesus died for my family. Should I not be willing to die for His children?”

  “You are a fool.” The pinched face grew more pinched. High moral issues disgusted him. Life and death were enough to deal with every day. “You can return to your home in time for church next Sunday, your wife and children at your side.”

  “I will spend my Sunday here,” Karl said softly, “where Christ dwells among the suffering.”

  After a moment of hesitation, a rubber stamp slammed across the unsigned paper. “You are dismissed, prisoner Ibsen.”

  ***

  Sunday morning. Each week on this day, the emptiness of New Church haunted Lori. The colored glass of the high windows made patterns on the empty pews. Iron pegs in the wall where the Nazis had torn down the wooden cross seemed marked with bloodred reflections from the rose window.

  The pews where row on row of families had stood together in praise and worship were empty. Papa was not in the pulpit, Mama not at the organ. No song. No Bible readings. No request for prayers of healing. Healing people. Or healing this broken land.

  Jamie knew what Lori was feeling. He came to sit beside her in the choir loft. Together they smiled down at the memories that crowded the vacant sanctuary. He took her hand and they hummed softly, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

  First Mark came and sat behind them, then Jacob. Jacob sang the words of the song, although his voice was off-key. Lori smiled. She had always loved listening to Jacob’s voice. She had pretended not to notice two years ago when it had croaked and cracked and eventually slidden into manhood. It was wonderful to hear him sing; she would not tease him as she used to.

  “Where do you suppose Papa is?” Jamie asked when the song was finished.

  “Your father?” Jacob said, voice echoing into the rafters. “Maybe we don’t know where he is, but I can tell you what he is doing.”

  Jacob was right. Pastor Karl Ibsen would be preaching or praying on this day, no matter where he was, not matter what they did to him.

  “And your father will be helping the sick,” Lori said, turning to face Jacob with a tender look. She caught him off guard.

  Jacob nodded. Frowning against the emotion, he stuck out his lower lip. “I hope . . . they are together,” he managed to whisper. “We should pray for them, especially today, I think.”

  The congregation of four joined hands, and for a moment the empty pews of New Church seemed full again.

  ***

  Snow fell throughout the day, covering all of Vienna with the illusion of peace.

  The charred remains of synagogues and shops lay concealed beneath a cold, white shroud. Jagged heaps of dynamited walls took on soft, smooth contours, easing the memories and consciences of those who passed by. It seemed as though no great synagogues had ever stood in the city. After the fires of Kristal Nacht died away, nature completed the eradication begun by the Nazis. Already the Reich and the world beyond had begun to forget.

  Only the trapped, the imprisoned, the hopeless seemed to remember clearly the terrible vision of what the future held for the Jews of Germany.

  Peter pulled the collar of his coat close around his chin. The north wind spit freezing flakes against his cheeks and obscured the end of the street in a white, swirling veil. It seemed the safest time to check on their home.

  He tucked his hands deep into his pockets as he trudged past the boarded-up shop of old Frau Singer. Other pedestrians darted into buildings for shelter. Automobiles pulled to the curbs, leaving the streets nearly empty except for an electric streetcar that rumbled by. The car was nearly full of bundled-up passengers, and another half-dozen people waited at the corner ahead of him. Stamping cold feet, they glared impatiently toward the approaching car. A placard above each door proclaimed clearly, Juden Verboten! Even if he had the fare, Peter could not ride it. He looked away as it stopped for passengers. Pretending not to notice or care, he hurried past, envying the closeness and warmth of the Aryans inside it.

  He traced the steps he had taken to the Fishers’ apartment during Kristal Nacht. Nearly every shop window on this street was boarded over. Heaps of rubble still blocked parts of the sidewalk.

  Peter looked up to the window from which the old man and his wife had been thrown. He shuddered, more from the memory than from the bitter cold. Then, with that image fresh in his mind, he hesitated at the corner, afraid of what he would find on the street where he had grown up.

  Where once organ grinders, peddlers, and beggars had strolled beneath the facades of the stores and houses and long blocks of flats, there was only silence, emptiness. He shook his head, reprimanding himself for expecting to see friends and neighbors instead of planks and cardboard nailed across shop fronts. He told himself that no sensible person would be out on a day like this, that people still lived behind the boards which shut out the light from their homes and businesses. And yet the old neighborhood, once so alive in the shadow of the Turnergasse Synagogue, seemed haunted and strangely eerie.

  He could not make out his own apartment building through the billows of snow. He hoped the windows of their apartment had been boarded over. He wondered about his collection of books. Boxes of novels and volumes of history had been donated to him by fleeing friends. Had they survived intact? He longed for a good book. The world could fall apart, and Peter would not notice as long as he had his books to read.

  Quickening his pace, he strained to see. Thoughts of his little library drove away fear. Suddenly nothing seemed as important as knowing the fate of those books. For half a block he did not think about the friends he had watched being herded onto the Gestapo prisoner lorries. For two hundred paces he was warmed by the memory of summer evenings with a novel open on his lap as he had glimpsed this teeming street from the window of his bedroom. Children playing, women gossiping below as they leaned on their brooms. . . .Life had gone on even after the Nazis had come. But now . . .

  Automatically he looked up at the telephone wire where the ragged tail of Marlene’s kite still dangled. He had laughed at her when the warm winds had stolen the kite from her. She had stood in the street and wailed as Herr Temko rushed from his confectionery shop to console her with a piece of hard candy. Had that been only six months ago?

  The remains of the kite flapped, tangled up on the wire, smashed and broken and torn to pieces—a grim reflection of the broken lives below.

  Peter stopped mid-stride and gasped as his own building came into view. Only two charred walls remained of what had been a three-story apartment building. The window that had been his room gaped open with the harsh white sky behind it.

  There was nothing to go home to. Almost the entire block was destroyed. Perhaps no one was left alive behind the boarded windows, after all. Perhaps those who had not fled or been captured were now ashes, like the books. Peter shook his head. Ashes!

  Why had he not filled his pockets with the books, saved something at least? But he had not known, had not believed that it could
come to this. No one was left from Turnergasse. Maybe no Jews were left at all in Vienna.

  ***

  Shivering in the cold, Lucy walked slowly past the Hofgarten greenhouses near the Imperial Palace. She dug her hands deep into her pockets and tucked her chin down inside the collar of her coat.

  Through the glass she could see the gardeners busy at work on plants that would be placed in flower gardens throughout the city. Sometime in March, the people of Vienna would go to bed on a winter’s night and wake up to an instant spring. The world would bloom without anyone being aware of how it happened. Lucy had watched them planting the bulbs in the Rathaus Park—red tulip bulbs, a bent little man had explained to her. When they bloomed they would match the flags of the Reich. Hitler himself had imagined it and had given the command for a million bulbs to be brought in from Holland. It was likely to be a very pretty sight indeed, Lucy thought, and one she hoped to miss. By then, she would be somewhere else—far away from the gardens of the Imperial city. Soon afterward, she would have a baby to hold in her arms.

  It all seemed like a distant dream, and yet, as she touched her stomach through the lining of her coat, it seemed frighteningly real as well. A little someone to feed and clothe and care for. Lucy shuddered with cold and fear. She needed money. She needed a miracle.

  It was a short walk from her office in the Rathaus to the six-story baroque building at Number 17 Dorotheergasse. Taking up an entire city block, the structure housed one of the world’s largest last-resort banks for the financially desperate of Austria. First established by a Hapsburg emperor to benefit impoverished subjects, the place had stood since 1707 as the only government pawnbroker and auction house in Europe. Clients could present almost anything as collateral for a loan and walk out with at least enough cash to purchase bread for a day. Hitler, rumor said, might have starved to death without this service. Mozart had been a frequent visitor between symphonies.

  The name clearly set in stone above the broad double doors read DOROTHEUM. The Viennese called the place “Tante Dorothee”—Aunt Dorothy—as if it were a benevolent relative they could occasionally tap for financial assistance. This sense of kindness and familiarity had been driven from the place, however, by the new Nazi overseers.

  Desperate Jews arrived at the door with the wealth of their worldly goods. They left with only a small fraction of the actual worth. Diamonds, furs, precious paintings, and antique furniture all disappeared, swallowed down the maw of the Reich’s financial need.

  In her handbag Lucy carried her grandmother’s silver crucifix, the only thing she owned of any real value. It seemed a small matter to part with it when she considered the value of what she carried within her.

  Lucy looked to her right and saw a beautiful grand piano, upended and wheeled through a freight door. How many times had she heard Wolf speak of the bargains he had bought here at the auctions? Everything had been shipped back to his home in Prussia, she assumed, just as he would try to ship her baby back to Prussia. Precious things vanished easily in the Reich nowadays.

  She squared her shoulders and walked in, careful not to look anyone else straight in the eye. Austrian police stood guard in the foyer, their uniforms unchanged from the pre-Hitler days—with the exception of a swastika armband that branded them as loyal servants of the Führer. To her right, a guard sat at a large desk munching a bratwurst sandwich. INFORMATION read the placard beside his thermos bottle.

  She felt suddenly nervous as she approached him. Fingering her handbag, she did not speak until he swallowed a big mouthful and looked up at her. His expression communicated impatience for her to get on with it so he could finish his lunch.

  “Bitte?” she asked hesitantly as she gestured toward the long corridor with dozens of doors opening to each side. “I have something . . . to sell.” She fingered her handbag and smiled nervously.

  “Everyone who comes here has something to sell, Fräulein.” He wiped his mouth on a clean linen napkin. “And everyone has something to buy, we say here. So. Where may I direct you? You have a piano in your handbag? Or maybe a radio?”

  “No. A . . . this . . . ” She pulled out the velvet-wrapped crucifix and showed him one end of the gleaming silver.

  He seemed unimpressed. “I don’t know. Fine arts, maybe. Or religious artifacts?” He shrugged. “Up the stairs to the appraisers. They will know best. Two flights up.” He returned to his sandwich, and Lucy climbed the marble stairs to the offices of the appraisers.

  The office of the Appraiser of Religious Artifacts was the first door to the left of the stairs. Lucy entered, surprised that no one was there except the appraiser himself, who busily scrutinized the gold work on an eight-branched menorah. Behind him on a desk lay dozens of such items—Jewish treasures, Lucy assumed. Were they sold for their weight in gold and silver, she wondered? If so, her crucifix seemed small in comparison.

  She bit her lip and closed her eyes, asking forgiveness for what she was about to do. There was no other way. To sell the watch Wolf had given her would invite his wrath.

  Lucy held the handbag against her heart and waited for the little man to finish his investigation. He glanced up at her, startled to see that someone had come into the room.

  “Bitte.” He laid down his magnifying glass and smiled, revealing a row of gold-capped teeth that would no doubt be worth a fortune at the Dorotheum. “I did not know anyone had joined me.” He cleared his throat. “Lovely, is it not?” There was, Lucy thought, a hint of sadness in his voice as he gestured toward the menorah. “From a fine Austrian family.” He shrugged, as if to dare her to disagree. “The authorities wanted to melt it down. But it is worth much more than the metal.” Rubbing a hand over his bald head, he shrugged again. “I have been here a long time. So? How can I help you, Fräulein?”

  Lucy stared hard at the candelabra and then at the rows of tagged artifacts behind the appraiser. “I want . . . to sell . . . ” She faltered. She did not want to sell the crucifix. “I must sell . . . ” She started to open the handbag and then stopped and pulled up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal the Swiss watch. A few seconds ticked off. “This watch. Where do I find the appraiser for watches, please?”

  The old man looked relieved. Certainly he had the saddest of all appraisal positions in the Dorotheum these days.

  “Ah. Good. You have walked up one flight of stairs too many, I’m afraid. Next floor down. End of the corridor.”

  ***

  Lucy did not need to lie to the watch appraiser, but she lied anyway. “Money to send home to my parents in Bavaria.”

  It made no difference to him why she needed money. He simply considered the collateral and determined how much it might bring at auction. “Three hundred marks is the retail value,” he informed her. “A very fine timepiece, but we have many fine watches coming in every day.” He himself was from Bavaria, his accent like that of everyone Lucy knew from Munich. She commented on the fine clocks made there, and he smiled appreciatively. “For a citizen of the Reich, I am authorized to lend one-third of the value.”

  Lucy frowned and sat back in real disappointment. Was it worth facing Wolf for a mere twenty-five dollars? “That is not very good.” She looked searchingly into his eyes. “My parents . . . you see . . . they are in desperate need of funds.”

  “Well then, if you sell it, I can offer you two-thirds of the price. If it brings more than that at auction, we deduct our fees and you get the rest.”

  “Yes,” she agreed instantly. “Two hundred marks is good.” It was not as good as Lucy had hoped, but she placed the sum in her handbag with the crucifix and hurried happily back to work. It was a start, anyway. And if the situation became truly desperate, she still had the cross that she could take back to the sad-eyed man at the Dorotheum.

  In the meantime, however, she would have to think of a way to explain the missing watch to Wolf.

  21

  One Righteous Man

  The envelope arrived through the mail slot of Red Lion House rig
ht along with the regular mail. From the outside it seemed harmless. Elisa, Charles, and Louis paid no attention to the large brown envelope sandwiched in with two letters from Leah Feldstein in Jerusalem. Nothing seemed quite as important as Leah’s letters that arrived on the regular mail ships from Palestine twice a week.

  Elisa opened them right away and read out loud. She skipped over some parts, but shared the most exciting stories with Charles and Louis.

  It is not as bad in Jerusalem as you might be hearing. Be sure to take the news about Muslim riots with a grain of salt, because living with a newspaper man you should know how things are exaggerated to sell papers!

  This kind of jibe, directed at Murphy, made Elisa laugh. Things really were bad in Palestine, but at least Leah could still joke about it. Letters from Leah were the best part of the week.

  God never promised us that life would be without difficulties, but He did promise that we will overcome them as He has.

  Such words of encouragement like these made all of them nod and say again that no matter what happened, the best news yet was that they would all be in heaven together for sure!

  Such words made Charles think about Mother and Father. It made him wish he could hurry and be with them, too. Sometimes he felt as if he were trying to straddle a creek—one foot in heaven and the other foot here with all the new people he loved. He missed Leah very much, and thought of her in the Promised Land the way he thought of Mama and Father in heaven—except that Leah was able to write letters from Jerusalem. He wished his parents could also write letters from heaven. He asked Jesus to give them little messages since there was no post office in heaven.

  When Elisa finished, Charles and Louis asked her to read the part again about Shimon cracking walnuts in Tipat Chalev with his plaster cast. They liked hearing about the way Jewish boys could go to their own schools and there were no Nazis to beat them up or make them get out. It was good to know that the same English uniforms Charles and Louis saw on the soldiers around London were also right in Jerusalem, protecting boys and girls from the Arabs who liked Hitler.