Prague Counterpoint (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  Did any small children pass from one adult to another? If they did, Elisa did not witness the exchange. Had the entire operation been destroyed with the fall of Austria?

  Now, as the voice on the public address system blared out destinations and departure times, Elisa sat disconsolately on a bench and searched for some face she might recognize, as a lost puppy searches for its master in a crowd.

  “Cities of Eger! Bratslavia! Budapest! Belgrade!”

  The train used to pass through Vienna, then follow the Danube south, Elisa knew. But even after a week, there were no trains into Austria from Czechoslovakia. The thought of what must be happening on the other side of the closed border made her shudder. She had not heard even a word from Murphy since he had gone to London. He had promised that he would return to Vienna and search for Leah and Shimon. Now Elisa wondered if he would be able to get back into the country.

  A man in a navy pin-striped suit was staring openly at Elisa from a bench opposite hers. He smiled over the top of his newspaper. She smiled hesitantly back at him as she stared at his face for some recognizable feature. She was certain she had not met him before. He was middle-aged, with thick glasses and gray hair beneath a fedora. Most of her contacts had been young, and––

  “Excuse me?” he asked, lowering his paper. “Don’t I know you?”

  Elisa looked past him, feeling suddenly apprehensive. She did not like the way he was smiling at her. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” He inclined his head. “You have been here a long time. I know, because I have been here a long time.”

  Elisa nodded a reply. She was waiting for someone, she just did not know whom she was waiting for. She twisted Murphy’s wedding ring on her finger. “My husband.”

  “Ah.” The man looked disappointed. “I see.” He glanced toward the ring. “Which train is he coming in on?” He smiled again, and his gold-capped teeth glinted.

  “I’m not sure.” Elisa answered in a way that made it clear this was none of his business.

  He shrugged. He had gotten the message. “If you are going to wait so long, you should bring a good book to read, at least.” He raised the newspaper to cover his face again.

  Elisa sighed and watched as the last of the passengers boarded the train that would come so near Vienna and yet would not dare cross into Reich territory. The margin of safety for many of these travelers was only as wide as the line that marked the border of one nation from another. The end of human rights and the beginning of human suffering could be reached in a single step. She had seen the glistening white walls of the buildings in Austria across the border. It had seemed so tranquil and unchanged. But today Elisa knew that she could never go back to what had been. Someone had broken the fence between heaven and hell, and hell had flooded in.

  As the train chugged slowly away, Elisa stood and looked one last time around the terminal. Was there no one here who might recognize her as the courier? Was she the only one left of the enormous unseen change she had imagined herself to be part of?

  Frustrated in her helplessness, she returned to the little house just off Mala Strana Square.

  ***

  Far below the gondola of the giant transatlantic airship, freighters and passenger liners bobbed like tiny toy ships on the waters.

  Murphy stood silently at the window of his compartment. The space was smaller than the berth of a train and much less comfortable than the suites on an oceanliner, but none of that mattered to Murphy. The football-shaped shadow of the dirigible passed over the waves of the ocean twice as fast as the fastest ship in any fleet. Speed was all that mattered to Murphy now. Travel to the States, do what he had to do, and then come back. Back to Europe. Back to Elisa.

  Since the airship had left Paris the day before, Murphy had barely acknowledged any of the other passengers. At the evening meal, a string quartet played the Dvořák piece that Elisa had once explained to him was written in America. Even with the monotonous drone of the engines in the background, Murphy could almost see her sitting across from him as she had done that night in Sacher Café. He closed his eyes and tried not to hear the engines. Tried not to feel the gentle rocking of the airship. How desperately he wished that he were back in Vienna to relive that moment when they had first talked about her coming to America! Her skin had been smooth and creamy, and her blue eyes had dreamed with him for a moment of the faraway place, where Dvořák had written his song about America. Iowa. Yes, Murphy remembered the childlike look on her face and the funny way she had pronounced Iowa.

  “A place called Spillville, I-Owa.”

  Murphy smiled now at the memory of her voice.

  “Spillville, huh?”

  “You have been there?”

  “Lots of farms in Iowa.”

  “Yes. I can hear that in his music. Do you hear it, Herr Murphy?”

  “Just Murphy.”

  Yes. Murphy had heard summer in the music, but only after Elisa had pointed it out. Buggy wheels on dusty roads. Horses’ hooves clopping in time to the chirp of crickets! He had heard it. And Elisa had not only heard it but somehow envisioned it all through the music.

  “America must be a beautiful place if it sounds like this.”

  Then he had taken her hand in his. He could almost feel her fingers resting quietly in his hand now, and the nearness of her made him ache for her. The thump of the airship engines was nearly lost to him as he remembered.

  “Would you like to go to America, Elisa? I’ll take you to Iowa.”

  “But I do not really know you, Murphy. I cannot go with you.”

  “Then I’ll send you.”

  “I must work.”

  “You can work there.”

  “My home . . . family . . . Papa . . . what is left of our heart . . . “

  “My parents have a farm in Pennsylvania. Until this blows over. . . .”

  “There is no storm in Vienna.”

  “I wrote my parents. You would be most welcome, and . . .”

  “Why would they take in total strangers?”

  “Not strangers, Elisa. I want you to . . .”

  Somehow the memory of his own surprise at the proposal of marriage brought him back to reality. “Marry me,” he said aloud to the empty place across the table. Then, with a start, he noticed the waiter standing over him with his pencil poised on the paper. The rocking of the airship had nearly emptied out the small dining area. Murphy was grateful that only the waiter had heard his recitation of what had been a very foolish proposal.

  The waiter smiled and bowed slightly. “Traveling alone, sir?” He gestured toward the empty chair where Murphy’s imaginary Elisa had been sitting only an instant before. “Or are you expecting someone?”

  Murphy shook his head and looked back to the menu card. “Alone,” he said brusquely. And even as he said it, the longing welled up in him again! How he wished she were here! What a lunatic he was to be leaving her again! If ever he sat across the table from her again, he would not take no, or maybe, or good-bye for an answer!

  “Your order, sir?” The waiter was all dignity. He pretended he had not heard Murphy’s conversation to the air.

  Murphy was pretending now, too. Pretending that he was all right. Pretending he was really thinking about anything but his stomach. “Veal.”

  The maitre d’ approached behind the waiter. He bent low over the white starched tablecloth and gleaming silver. He whispered to Murphy and motioned toward the door of the dining compartment, where a tall, shapely brunette in a green silk evening dress stood smiling coyly in Murphy’s direction. Green eyes glistened and held a hint of promise. An evening of good conversation. A little wine and laughter. Light against the silk accentuated her curves. There was perhaps more than a hint of promise there, too.

  “Mr. Murphy,” the headwaiter said, “the young woman is also traveling alone. She would like to join you for dinner tonight?” This was not really a question. Only a lunatic would turn down such a reque
st.

  Murphy cleared his throat. “No,” he said softly. “Thanks, anyway. Tell her . . . thanks . . . anyway. But this is a business trip . . . uh . . . no thanks.”

  The brunette’s nose rose slightly in indignation. She must have been able to read lips. She had certainly misread the lonely expression on the handsome young journalist’s face. Murphy was not in need of just any female companion. He was in need of Elisa.

  “I beg your pardon,” said the maitre d’.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Murphy replied lightly. “I’ll take the veal.”

  The rest of the transatlantic journey Murphy did indeed work. Locked away in his compartment, he pored over the tragic testament of Walter Kronenberger. Duprey was right about one thing: Craine’s publications would never touch this story. Craine had already made clear to Murphy that he had heard enough prophecies of doom about the European situation. The subject—like Craine’s mind—was closed. But Murphy wasn’t licked yet. If the Craine papers wouldn’t publish Kronenberger’s document, somebody stateside would. He’d see to that.

  By the time the airship glided past the Statue of Liberty, the Kronenberger papers had been translated into English, and Murphy had written his own version of events in Austria to go along with it. It was only a matter of finding a publisher before the Craine plane took off with Murphy for the West Coast.

  The statue in the harbor seemed almost to shout the answer to Murphy. “Liberty Magazine, you dope! This is just the kind of stuff they’ll eat up!”

  24

  The Search for Noon

  Days of waiting still had not brought the precious work permit to Herschel. By seven o’clock in the morning, the lines of desperate refugees wound from the doors of the Paris Ministry Building to the door of Madame Dupon’s Fine Millinery Shop a block away. There it stopped. Beyond that point there was no use waiting. Experience had told them that it took an entire day from there to reach the counter of the clerks in charge of processing the thousands of requested permits.

  Lately, the majority of permits were being rejected.

  Inspired by this reality and curses of his uncle, Herschel Grynspan had risen each morning before daybreak to make his way to the line. He reasoned that his persistence might move the heart of some French official, since he had no money with which to bribe those who held the power to decide his future.

  From the first day that he made his application, Herschel had known one terrible fact: If his permit was denied, he would not be allowed to remain in France. He was certain that his uncle had known this rule when he had insisted that Herschel appear at the Ministry Building. He must have also known how difficult it would be for a relatively unskilled boy of seventeen to acquire a work permit. The failure would give his uncle the excuse he needed to send the boy back to Berlin and not feel guilty. All of this instilled in Herschel an even stronger desire to prove the man wrong.

  It was nearly four o’clock by the time Herschel reached the desk. All day people had left the counter with disappointment on their faces. To the left and the right, he could hear the denial of permits being pronounced.

  “You must be patient,” urged a clerk to the dark, brooding man who had stood just in front of Herschel all day. “You only applied last week. These things take time.”

  “How much time?” the man asked in a low voice. “How many francs?” he whispered.

  Herschel strained to hear the reply. “A few well placed, perhaps . . . no guarantee. . . .”

  “If I had that kind of money, you think I would need a permit to work?” The man stared angrily at the clerk, who shrugged.

  “Everyone has to have a permit. It is the law.” The clerk was finished with the conversation and peered over the shoulder of the man to where Herschel stood. “Next?” At the sight of Herschel, he scratched his head in wonder. “You again!” He smiled. “I could almost set my watch by you! Have you nothing better to do than to stand in this line?”

  Herschel stepped forward and leaned against the counter. He looked like a small, pleading schoolboy. “Please, how much? How much for a permit? I have nothing now, that is sure; but if I could acquire a permit, I would share my wages with you.”

  The clerk stepped back, appalled at the suggestion. Herschel had spoken too loudly . . . and at a time when the department supervisor was walking slowly by.

  “What? What did you say? What was that he said, Andre?” the supervisor asked.

  “Honestly”—the clerk appeared puzzled at the supervisor’s questions—“I know nothing of what this boy speaks!”

  The supervisor leveled his gaze at Herschel, who now appeared even smaller. “How old are you, boy?” he demanded.

  “Seventeen.”

  “Name?”

  “Herschel Grynspan.”

  “You cannot have a wife, I presume.”

  Herschel looked confused. “No. No wife.”

  “German also, are you?”

  The clerk intervened. “They are all Germans. Some Poles. Nearly all Jews, except for the politicals.”

  The supervisor waved his hand impatiently. “Yes, of course. I know all that.” He returned his attention to Herschel. “Look, young man—” he pushed his glasses up on his nose—“there are fellows here much more worthy of a work permit than you. Men with families. Wives and children to feed, you see? And we are forced to deny even them.”

  “But I was a tailor. In Berlin. At the store of Theo Lindheim. You have heard of Lindheim’s?”

  “No I have not,” the supervisor said dryly. “Berlin does not interest me. Berlin has only complicated my life and work, you see.” He waved a hand broadly at the line that still stretched across the marble foyer and out to the sidewalk. “But the fact remains that you are only seventeen. Much less worthy of a permit.”

  Herschel heard all his hopes crash down in the logic of the tall, stern man before him. “But I can pay . . . as soon as I have a job.”

  The clerk, looking embarrassed, put a finger briefly to his lips. The supervisor snorted at the suggestion; then he turned to the flushed clerk. “Application denied, Andre. Stamp his papers Denied.” Hardly looking at Herschel, he added, “He will have one week to leave France. Add that to his papers.” Then he turned on his heel and strode off toward his office, slamming the door forcefully behind him.

  “Please!” Herschel fought back tears as the clerk pulled his application from the file.

  “Quiet!” hissed the clerk, who also seemed saddened by the finality of the decision. “Shut up, will you?”

  “But if only I could––”

  “There is no if only,” the clerk whispered, “unless I am to find myself also in some terrible line.” He shook his head and inked the rubber stamp, then slammed it loudly across Herschel’s papers. Scribbling in the deadline for Herschel to leave France, he shoved the application toward the boy. “Denied.”

  “Please . . . ”

  The clerk was finished. He looked beyond Herschel to the next man in line. “Next, please.”

  Herschel plunged the papers deep into the pocket of his tattered overcoat. The day was bright and warm as he walked through the maze of bookstalls set up along the bank of the Seine, but he felt cold—lost in the darkness of his own thoughts.

  Men and women browsed in the stalls, bargaining for used and rare books that were stacked in long rows among the tables. Herschel passed them all, unaware of their words or even the place where he now walked. His hand, still clutching the documents, was wet with sweat, no doubt smearing the ink of the signature. Denied! The word pursued him, shouting to the passers-by that all his hopes were now at an end. Leave France in one week . . . back to Berlin!

  He stopped beside a bookstall and stood for a long time staring sightlessly down at a stack of old pamphlets. Denied! The papers burned in his hand, erasing all reality of the moment. Once again he heard the muffled moan of his father, the cries of mercy from his mother as the Gestapo agents shouted their accusations.