Prague Counterpoint

by Bodie Thoene

  Here among the hills the giant Rebezahl was said to dwell. With flowing beard and tangled hair, brandishing his burning staff, he howled with the wind and frightened lonely travelers with his discordant voice. Always Elisa had thought this mystical giant was a mere invention of a local storyteller, but tonight she felt the nearness of evil, the heaviness of the darkness that had settled over the land. A force stronger than Rebezahl now prowled the land. Voices more terrible shrieked for blood. Within the flame of his burning staff, the swastika glowed. Peace was only a momentary illusion. Like the gleam of the moon, it would disappear again behind the clouds of a newly approaching storm.

  Elisa downshifted as she rounded a sharp curve on the mountain. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a figure in the darkness—a face radiating the flame of hatred. Hair and beard matted with blood, arms thick and shining with the gore of thousands, the creature raised an axe to strike and turned its eyes on her!

  “God!” she cried as fear clutched at her throat. “God, help us all!” She slammed her foot hard on the accelerator, careening around the next curve and the next.

  The road narrowed into a mountain pass with a steep precipice falling a thousand feet to the valley floor. The beam of the headlights swept the rocky slopes; the car swayed like a tiny boat on stormy waters. The face of Sporer became fresh in her mind as he had leered over her that night in the Judenplatz. The nightmare train filled with the bones of a million children hissed again through her memory as if it were not a dream at all but a vision of some apocalypse! Where could they go? Where in the world could they be safe? It was coming here! Even here, where Theo had imagined his family would be safe.

  Beyond the mountain, the tiny lights of Austrian villages sparkled below her. From here the world seemed peaceful and unchanged, but Elisa knew better. With a sigh of weariness, she lifted her foot from the accelerator and slowed the car. She was running from evil back into the very heart of evil. If the creature in the woods had been more than her imagination, it still could not be any worse than the darkness that engulfed the hearts of men. And now the darkness of terror threatened to overtake Elisa.

  “Oh, God!” she cried, praying now. “You have to help me, God! I’m frightened. So very afraid.”

  No hand reached out to comfort her, but Elisa remembered the melody and words of the music of Bach. Softly, as she neared the barricades that marked the end of the Czech frontier, she began to sing:

  “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,

  Holy wisdom, love most bright;

  Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring

  Soar to uncreated light.”

  The darkness of fear fled before the melody, and Elisa knew that this joy must be her light; this one wisdom must guide her steps. Suddenly she was no longer afraid of the dark.

  ***

  Throughout the long night little Charles whimpered softly as Leah rocked him.

  “It is his ears,” Louis explained. “It always used to happen. Mama said it was because of this.” Louis pointed to his mouth in childish explanation that the cleft palate caused the excruciating pain Charles endured.

  Leah placed her hand against the cheek of the little boy. He was burning with fever. His eyes stared dully at the lamp. Twice he raised his hand as though he held the bow of a cello.

  “He wants you to play Vitorio for him,” Louis said as he lay down on the sofa and tugged a blanket around his neck.

  Leah smoothed back Charles’ damp hair and kissed his forehead lightly. “I told you, darling; Vitorio has flown away, far beyond the trees of the Wienerwald.”

  Charles moaned softly in reply. He missed the music. He missed it almost as much as Leah did.

  “Mama used to sing us lullabies,” Louis volunteered in a sleepy voice. “Even when Charles was not sick, she would sing to us.”

  It seemed strange, but Leah could not remember any children’s songs. Her own life had been involved in the greatness of the symphony for so long that simple things like lullabies had fled from her memory. “Teach me one,” she asked Louis.

  It was Charles who tried to sing. A few broken notes croaked from his throat before he dissolved into a racking cough.

  Leah imagined the lurking figure of Herr Hugel standing in the hall and listening to everything. She laid her cheek against Charles’ head and tried to comfort him. “Shhhh. Hush now, Charles. Don’t try. Don’t even try.”

  Louis began to sing softly, his sweet soprano voice reflecting the nearness of his mother. “I am small, my heart is pure. . . . No one shall live in it but Jesus alone. Ich bin klein, mein Herz ist rein. Soll niemand drin wohnen als Jesus allein.”

  Leah began to hum with him as he repeated the song again and again. Was that all there was to it? Or was that all he could remember? Leah smiled as Louis slowly drifted off to sleep and Charles’ labored breathing grew more even until at last he slumped against her in sleep.

  Then Leah took up the words and sang them quietly as though they were a shield of protection for the boys . . . her boys. And in her solitude and worry, she almost felt she knew the woman who, like her, had waited lonely hours with her sons as her husband languished in a Nazi prison.

  For a brief time Leah closed her eyes. “I am small, my heart is pure.” She felt another presence in this little room. “No one shall live in it but Jesus alone.” She whispered, “I will watch them for you, Frau Kronenberger. Ja. I will take care of these, your little ones. But if you don’t mind, will you speak to your God about us? I need a little help, you see. And I have lost Vitorio and forgotten how to pray.”

  Charles stirred a bit, and Leah resumed the song, singing the words earnestly as she imagined Frau Kronenberger might have done.

  33

  Miracles

  It was before dawn when Leah heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs leading to the apartment. Scarcely breathing, she lay wide-eyed in the darkness, hoping that the soft tread would pass the door. It did not.

  Charles and Louis lay sleeping together on the sofa. Quickly, silently, Leah leaped from bed and shook the groggy children awake.

  “Quickly!” she whispered. “It is Herr Hugel!”

  As sleepy as they were, the children needed no further explanation. They ran for the bedroom and dived beneath the bed as Leah hefted a candlestick and stepped behind the door.

  In that instant they clearly heard the rattle of keys and the scratching of the metal as the latch caught and the door popped open with a groan on its hinges. Then there was no sound at all. Leah could hear her own heart and nothing else. Her mouth was dry with fear, and her hands clenched and unclenched around the brass candlestick.

  The footsteps entered the front room. There was a faint thud as something heavy was placed on the floor. Leah could just see the side rails of the bed where the boys hid. With the sheets and blankets pulled back, a tiny foot and leg were plainly visible. The sight caused her to draw her breath in sharply. Herr Hugel would see the child also the minute he walked into the room!

  The front door closed softly, and Leah heard the lock turn. The intruder did not move for what seemed like long minutes. The slow footsteps moved toward the light switch. A click flooded the front room with glaring light. Then there was a gasp, and the voice of a woman called softly, “Who’s there?”

  It was Elisa!

  “Leah? Shimon?”

  With a cry of joy, Leah tumbled out from her hiding place. The candlestick crashed to the floor as she rushed into the light.

  “Elisa!” Leah wept openly, her arms stretched out as she fell into Elisa’s embrace.

  ***

  Throughout the long, dark hours of early morning, Elisa held Leah’s hands and listened to the story of her friend’s ordeal.

  “After I saw that they had taken Shimon, I wanted only to die. If it had not been for the boys, I think I might have.” She wept quietly as she spoke. “Every moment has been a nightmare, Elisa. Herr Hugel—” she shook her head at the thought of the man—“you will smell him co
ming before you hear him. He wheezes up the steps. He came in here looking for something. For the boys, I think. Little Charles is so bright, Elisa! He hid the papers . . . everything under the bed. Hugel could not bend to look under it. If he fell on his back, he would have to lie there like a beached whale. He seems jolly, like Falstaff in the opera, and yet, so . . . evil! He frightens me, Elisa!”

  As the story unfolded, Elisa became more convinced that there was no time to lose. Somehow she must help Leah and the children get out of Vienna. No doubt the Gestapo would be searching for the children who had caused such a stir in Germany. Perhaps they could make it to the Tyrol. Then the Wattenbarger family could hide them until they could be smuggled across the border. But how to get them past the fleshy Nazi watchdog, Herr Hugel?

  “I’m here now, Leah.” Elisa tried to sound confident and comforting, although she was neither.

  “Thank God!” Leah said, reaching out to embrace her again as she cried with relief. “Oh, Elisa! Thank God you are here!”

  Elisa felt her blouse dampen with Leah’s tears. “We’ll have to have a plan. Something. We need to be very careful.” She frowned and gazed at the violin case that she had brought with her. How many times had she smuggled false papers into the Reich in that case? She could do it again! She would take the photos of the boys with her to Paris when she left for the rendezvous with the bookseller! “Soon I have to go to Paris––”

  “You are leaving?” Leah made no attempt to hide her fear and disappointment. “Must you go?”

  “Yes.” Elisa could clearly remember the stern warning of the men in Prague. She must not get sidetracked, they had said. What she carried in the book was much more important than even the life of one child. That was what they had told her. But now there were two children at stake as well as Leah! How could she ignore them and go on with the assignment as if nothing were wrong?

  “When will you come back?” Lead was pleading.

  “I’ll go there and then come back again. But perhaps I can take the passport photos. Have papers made. There must be a thriving black market in Paris now for false identity papers.”

  Leah sat back, exhilarated at the thought of getting away. Then she thought about Charles and his terrible deformity. If the Gestapo were looking for him, they would certainly not accept a passport with his picture and another name. “But poor Charles . . . what can we do? His face is . . . ” She lowered her voice and glanced furtively toward the bedroom.

  It was too late. Charles stood gazing sadly at the two women. His face was flushed with fever. Raising his hand to his mouth, he shook his head in apology. He was the reason they were in danger! He knew it. He had always known it.

  Leah groaned as she saw how her thoughtlessness had torn the child. “Oh, Charles!” she began, forgetting her own heartache.

  He lowered his eyes and turned away, back to the bedroom.

  Elisa swallowed hard at the sight of him. He was so small to carry such a burden. She grasped Leah’s hand. “We will find a way,” she promised. “There must be a way. I will try to get the right documents in Paris when I am there.”

  “Paris,” Leah said absently. “Yes.” Then she looked again toward the dark bedroom. “He wanted to play the cello, and I gave him lessons. Hours every day. I don’t know if he meant it for me or for himself. He is . . . he sees everything, Elisa. His heart feels the music, and if we ever get out of here . . . someday he will play like an angel.”

  Elisa nodded, wishing that the child had heard Leah’s praise. Leah had told her how she had sold the violoncello for a mere fraction of its value. The instrument had given the child a sense of worth. “One day I will ask him to play for me,” Elisa said quietly.

  Leah bowed her head and wept again. She had lost everything—Shimon, Vitorio, her papers, and any money that might have helped them. “Thank God you are here, Elisa,” she murmured as tears dropped onto Elisa’s hand. “This time do not stay away! I beg you!”

  At last the sun streamed through the window, and two hungry boys staggered out to the kitchen to gape at Elisa.

  “There is nothing left in the apartment to feed them,” Leah said in tearful relief. “Nothing at all. It is a miracle that you came when you did.”

  Elisa was exhausted, but she glanced up at the clock and stood to leave. The farmers’ market had already been open for hours. She could purchase everything they needed and still have time to make it to Fiori’s Bookstore.

  Charles doubled over coughing. He seemed dangerously ill. “I’ll go now. I can get everything at the farmers market and then stop at the pharmacy. There must be something we can get to ease that––”

  Leah pulled her back. “No!” she cried fearfully. “Oh no, Elisa! You can’t go yet! Not while Herr Hugel is still here! He watches every waking minute. It is a miracle that you got in here this morning without him seeing you.”

  “Another miracle,” Elisa commented, glancing at the door, “will be getting out of here if he is that vigilant.”

  “Already he has had three tenants arrested. All Jewish.”

  “Besides Herr Haupt?”

  Leah nodded. “The Gestapo has given Hugel the title of Apartment Führer now, and he receives a bonus every time he betrays someone.”

  “But, Leah!” Elisa could scarcely believe what had happened in this once-friendly building. “How have you managed to survive?”

  “He thinks that I am you, Fraülein Linder. I have managed to intimidate him. When he prowls by or knocks on the door, I give him the Heil and ask him why he dares to disturb me when I am practicing for a recital for the Nazi Gauleiter of Vienna! He goes away and he avoids the stairs at all costs.”

  “Because he is so fat,” Louis finished. “But he came in here looking for us. Creeping like a bear. We hid under the bed, didn’t we, Charles?”

  Charles nodded grimly.

  “Then how will I get out?” Elisa asked, staring at the door.

  “He will leave soon.” Leah lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He goes to church every Wednesday morning at eight o’clock.”

  “He goes to church?” Elisa was astonished at this unexpected information.

  “To give thanks that he has been made Apartment Führer.” Leah sounded angry all over again. “I heard him talking to a Nazi officer in the lobby last week. He says that God has given him this great honor! God!”

  Elisa smiled quizzically at Leah’s rage; then she stood to peek out the window as a garbage wagon rumbled to a stop in front of the building and Hugel emerged lugging a can. Herr Hugel was dressed in soiled leather breeches and a yellowed shirt. His enormous belly threatened to burst the buttons of the shirt, and his eyes bulged with the effort of his exertion. Elisa laughed at the sight of the exalted Apartment Führer in spite of the fact that he was indeed a danger to them all. “Hugel is involving God in his folly, is he?” She glanced back over her shoulder. “I am sure God’s partnership in Hugel’s success is news to the Almighty, Leah!”

  Leah could not bring herself to smile at Elisa’s sarcasm. After all, she had been forced to live beneath the threat of this mindless tyrant for weeks. “Then why doesn’t the Almighty do something if He is so almighty?”

  Her disrespect startled both Charles and Louis. They had never heard a grown-up angry at God before. They stood blinking at her, trying to comprehend why she was furious not only at Hugel but also at the heavens!

  Elisa put an arm around Leah’s shoulders. “But God has done something about the Hugels of the world, Leah!” She embraced her friend quickly, feeling the rage dissipate at her touch. “He put people like you here to protect little boys, didn’t He?”

  Leah wept again in misery at her feeling of impotence. “But I haven’t done anything! And I can’t do anything!”

  “What are you saying, Leah?” Elisa held her firmly by the shoulders. “Do you think it was an accident that you were at the Musikverein when the children came? Do you think it was an accident that you brought them here and st
ood between them and . . . all this?” She gestured toward the window and beyond, to where all of Vienna had become an armed camp of evil. “Think back, dear Leah. Think, and you will see that a gentle, loving hand has guided you this far for the sake of these little ones.”

  Leah could not find an answer. She rested her head against Elisa’s shoulder and let the tears come. Maybe it was true . . . maybe! “But why have so many others been taken? Shimon––”

  “Because there are not enough who are willing to serve as God’s hands here in this world. Men like Hugel follow their own evil ambition and then link their deeds to God. Such hypocrisy is slander of the God who created man in His image.” She stroked Leah’s hair, soothing away the pain of weeks of loneliness and fear. “Don’t be angry at God because of what evil men do, Leah. Just do what you know is truly right. And know that love is the only true image of the Christ whom you have feared. Herr Hugel goes to church, but Jesus is not there! No. He is here, with you, who have put your own life in danger for the sake of love. He has been here with you all along, and He will be wherever there are people like you. The problem is not with God, you see, Leah? There are too many Hugels sitting in church and not enough willing hearts ready to serve and live the truth!”