Prague Counterpoint

by Bodie Thoene

  “Thirty-five, eh? Well, then, you shouldn’t take too much of a loss on the thing.”

  “Loss?” the man squeaked. “But she told me––”

  “You know how easy it is for people to cheat.” Elisa clucked her tongue and plucked the out-of-tune instrument again.

  “Cheated!” He wrung his hands and looked hatefully at the cello. “I have been cheated!”

  “This is one you may as well leave in the window. It doesn’t matter if it warps anymore!”

  “I have been cheated! She told me it was of such value! She said I had not paid her a fraction of its worth!”

  Elisa spun the instrument around. “Of course, if you do leave it in your window, the musicians of Vienna will see it and recognize it for what it is––”

  “A piece of worthless junk!”

  “And then they will laugh, and word will get around that you are trying to sell––”

  “Worthless trash!”

  “You would not want anyone to get the idea that you might be trying to cheat a young student!” Elisa frowned. “No doubt it would make them doubt the quality of your other instruments!”

  “Certainly! Yes! Thank you for the advice! Of course you are right!” For a moment he looked as if he might kick the Pedronelli. Elisa pulled it back as if to replace it in the window. “No! No! Don’t put it in there, Fraülein!”

  “Well what should I do with it?”

  “How much will you give me for it?”

  She shook her head as if he must be joking. “Give you? For this?”

  “For your nephew. A clumsy boy, you said! A child’s toy! Just a little memento of Vienna, you said! Wouldn’t you like to take it off my hands, Fraülein?”

  “Certainly not for what you paid for it. Thirty-five shillings? A ridiculous price!”

  “Then I will give it to you for half that,” he said eagerly.

  She still looked doubtful.

  “Will you give me ten for it?” he begged.

  Elisa stared hard at the cello. She was softening. The shopkeeper could see that he might have a sale. “It is so big. Very hard to carry.”

  “It has a case!”

  “And bows? I wouldn’t want to bring it home without bows!”

  “Yes!” He clapped his hands together. “Two bows in the case! What do you say?”

  She sniffed reluctantly and strummed it again louder. Now the shopkeeper winced. “Ten shillings? For a souvenir?” She hesitated.

  “With case and bows. You can throw it into the luggage car and not have to carry it yourself.” He bit his lip. “All right, then. Eight shillings and not a penny less.”

  “I’ll give you five.”

  “Done!” The little man ran back to fetch the case. He returned with the old, familiar, beat-up case that had protected the instrument of the finest cellist in Vienna

  Elisa counted out the five shillings, placed them on the counter, and prepared to leave.

  “You bargain like a Jew!” The shopkeeper laughed.

  Elisa smiled and hefted Vitorio carefully. “And you deal like a Nazi.”

  He took her remark as a compliment, opened the door for her, then mopped his brow with relief that the entire incident had cost him a loss of only thirty shillings.

  42

  Message to Nineveh

  Violin in one hand, cello in the other, Elisa maneuvered her way through the front door of the apartment building. She did not remember Herr Hugel until it was too late.

  The door to his downstairs flat opened and he emerged, eyeing her with a curious disdain as if to tell her he was on guard against all intruders in the building.

  His mouth twitched slightly, and his eyes shifted from the instrument to Elisa’s flushed face and then back again. “Heil Hitler,” he said with a challenge.

  “Heil . . . ” Elisa replied. “You can see my hands are too full to give the proper salute.” She tried to sound lighthearted. Still, he did not smile. Where was that ubiquitous chuckle Leah had told her about? Perhaps he had a hangover. He certainly looked as if that were the case. He did not offer to help her with her burden; she was grateful for that.

  “What do you want?” He continued to stare at the instruments.

  Elisa did not answer for a moment. “Apartment 2-B.”

  He nodded. “Ah yes. Elisa Linder. She is ill, I think. I hear her coughing sometimes.” He was becoming more animated. He wanted to demonstrate his knowledge of the tenants in the building. “Is that her cello?”

  “Why, yes.” Elisa started to walk toward the steps. “Since she has not been able to come to rehearsal, I thought I should bring it to her.”

  “You are a musician, too?” he called after her.

  “Yes.” Elisa climbed the stairs as she spoke. He was acting as if he might want to chat after all. She wanted only to get away, to hide with Leah behind the door.

  “You play for the Führer too?”

  “As often as I can.” She reached the landing. Now his eyes opened with awe; he was Apartment Führer of a building that contained musicians for the real Führer himself! Hugel chuckled with pleasure—not at Elisa or her occupation, but at himself and the pinnacle of society that he had reached.

  “That’s good!” he shouted up after her. “I saw Himmler, you know! Just yesterday at the rail station, Himmler shook my hand!” He gurgled his pride and waved the Himmler-blessed hand as Elisa knocked softly on the door.

  A moment of silence was broken by Leah’s trembling voice. “Who?”

  “Me,” Elisa answered.

  “Well,” Hugel shouted, “nice to meet you! Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler,” Elisa replied as she slipped through the door.

  ***

  Thomas turned the pages of the book one by one in front of the lamp. He did not dare keep the message the Dead Man had deciphered from within the volume, but the meaning of each tiny pinprick of light bored into his consciousness.

  The life of the senior officer Abwehr German Embassy Paris is in extreme danger. Murder set to coincide with the uprising in Czech Sudeten. High Command to Brit government date for invasion end of May. Stand firm with Covenant. Hitler will not survive military resist by many world powers.

  The fact that his own life was in immediate jeopardy did not surprise Thomas. He had felt the nearness of harm a thousand times over the last weeks. He had accepted the possibility when he had agreed to stand beside those in the High Command who opposed Hitler. If his treason was discovered, he was marked for a slow death. The idea of a quick assassination was almost a relief to his troubled thoughts.

  This brief message from Vienna was more important than a mere warning of peril, however. The British must know! They must be told in person of the impending invasion of the Czech frontiers! And if Thomas was to be murdered by Nazi sympathizers, then the foreign secretary must be told!

  Thomas had two days of leave coming. He would take them. It was only a short train ride to the coast of France. Once there he could find a thousand fishermen who would be willing to take him fishing.

  ***

  “I have failed,” Herschel said miserably to his companions. “I was right there. In the foyer of the embassy. Le Morthomme had sent me there, and I took my gun, but I could not . . . I was afraid! It was as if fear held my hand from the gun. I simply handed him his package and let him walk away.” Herschel cradled his head in his hands as the little group looked on.

  “No matter, Herschel,” Hans soothed. “It is not yet time. I will give you the signal, remember?” He thumped him on the back. “May. That is when it must be accomplished! When the Nazis are all drunk in their beer halls, ja? I will tell you when you must shoot, and then, believe me, you will find your courage!”

  Johann and Raphael nodded in good-natured agreement. Herschel looked somewhat relieved that he had not been branded a coward by his only friends.

  Johann patted his arm and spoke comfortingly. “It was not fear, Herschel, which kept you from shooting him. Not fear, bu
t the hand of Providence. There is a proper day planned. There will be many demonstrations by us Jews against the world powers! Wait until the signal is sent; until then, do not attempt to find courage when it is not yet required.”

  Their consolation gave Herschel a new determination. “Yes! I will wait and pray for the moment when the deed will be done,” he said in a shaking voice. Even as he spoke, he knew the chance would come again. Thomas would stand before him, and Herschel would pull the trigger without remorse.

  “For Zion!” Hans proclaimed as he downed a glass of bitter red wine.

  “For Zion!” the others repeated, drinking their toast to the death of another Nazi.

  ***

  Laughter and joy rang in the little apartment. While Leah played the cheerful Bach suites, Charles sat up in bed and clapped his hands as Louis danced around her in delight.

  Elisa had kept her promise; Vitorio was out of jail at last. The beautiful singer had been redeemed from the terrible prison of the dishonest shopkeeper.

  Leah could soar again with the music. She could close her eyes and make even the angels dance as she played.

  When Elisa told them the story of how the shopkeeper had practically begged her to take the precious instrument off his hands, Leah doubled over with laughter and hooted until tears streamed down her cheeks and her stomach ached.

  Little Charles smiled with his eyes as he gazed on the rich glowing wood of his old friend. Everything was going to be all right now; the violoncello was back. Some stories still had happy endings.

  Louis tugged on Elisa’s skirt as she took out her violin to play with Leah. “And did you get a passport for Vitorio too?” he asked.

  The question made Elisa freeze where she stood. Leah’s laughter died away as she saw that perhaps not everything had gone well. Elisa had not been able to keep every promise.

  Elisa looked at Leah. “I couldn’t get them,” she said quietly. “I tried. I even tried contacting Thomas, but . . . ”

  Leah raised a hand to silence her. There was no need to say more. “There never was a friend so faithful,” she told her. And then she began to play as though it did not matter anymore what happened. She could believe in small miracles now, and for the moment, at least, she could forget her fears and let her soul soar to freedom on the music.

  ***

  The cold winds of the English Channel seemed to penetrate Thomas’ heavy overcoat. He pulled his collar up against the chill. The bow of the little fishing boat struck the white-capped waves, dividing the waters as it pushed onward toward England.

  Thomas wondered why the British prime minister could not see that Hitler’s dream of the future did not stop at the conquest of Austria and Czech-Sudetenland. The eye of the dragon looked much farther than that! From his nest in faraway Berchtesgaden, the Führer could plainly see the cliffs of Dover and the crumbling Houses of Parliament.

  Seagulls cried out as they trailed after the fishing boat. These birds had come from the coast of France. Tonight they would rest in England. Thomas looked up at them and shuddered. Did the English prime minister not realize how very short the distance was by air? Had he not heard the devastating verdict by the American hero Charles Lindbergh, who declared that the Nazi air force was now the most powerful in the world? In Paris, the French government trembled at the verdict Lindbergh had brought away with him from Germany. Why, then, did Chamberlain think that Hitler would stop with the Sudetenland? It was indeed only a short flight for German bombers from the Reich to London. If this handful of scruffy seagulls could cross the choppy waters at will, so would Hitler unless he was stopped soon.

  This was the message that Canaris and the others were sending through von Kleistmann to the leaders of the British government. There was no time to waste for codes to be translated and messages to be sent to this or that secretary. The message of such urgency was fixed in Thomas’ memory. Any day a climax was coming in Czechoslovakia. An assassination of someone in a high post of the government, then chaos and rioting, followed by the march of German divisions across the Czech border to restore order as the nation was absorbed into the Greater Reich!

  There were no more specific details than these. It was not known which of the Czech leaders was to be killed or how. Thomas hoped that the English would not need such minute facts in order to rally behind the government in Prague. It was enough to know that the massive plan was about to be achieved by one small bullet in the head of . . . someone in Prague. No doubt Himmler and his Gestapo were well informed about the intended victim and his assassin. But because Himmler hated Canaris and the Abwehr, he would never share such information. Like the prophet Jonah, Thomas was being sent to warn this modern-day Nineveh. If they did not believe him, then before the week was out there would be the certain end of one more little nation; and one more irrevocable step would have been taken toward an apocalypse that would sweep across these waters onto the shores of Britain!

  Thomas was no longer cold. The prickly sweat of fear crept down his spine. And if they do not listen?

  Myriad gulls shrieked and banked off in clean formation as the vessel neared the shores of England. Effortlessly they flew with the wind at their tails. They would reach land long before the boat slipped into its mooring. Perhaps Hitler had watched the gulls too. Perhaps he had seen from the first how easy it would be to cross the Channel!

  43

  Otto’s Role

  The idea was hopeless, Elisa knew, and yet there was no other hope. Waiting until Hugel stumbled off to church, she slipped out of the building and hurried to the terrible place Otto had taken her.

  She smiled as she entered the Gestapo headquarters, even though she was trembling inside. She entered the building as a free woman, knowing full well that she might not leave again at all. The lobby was filled with young and old women at their typewriters. Desks were cluttered with stacks of report folders; every folder represented a human life locked away in the hideous prison system. The folders were handled with more care than their human counterparts.

  Elisa leaned against the counter and gazed upward along the marble façades of the vast open lobby. This had been some sort of government building in the days before the Anschluss, she remembered. Social welfare or housing, maybe. A far more grim purpose now used the space.

  On a long wooden pew against the far wall, ten women sat waiting. Some held babies. Others had brought packages bound for the prison cell of a husband or brother or father. They all awaited word about their loved ones. The word was never happy. Leah would have been sitting on the long bench if she hadn’t been very certain that she was also wanted by the Gestapo.

  Elisa tried not to look like another one of the hopeful women who had come to ask, “Where have they taken him? Has he been sentenced? Will he ever come home again?”

  A husky, blond young clerk looked up at Elisa, surprised at the smile on her lips. “I’m here to see someone,” Elisa said. She felt the hostile stares of the women at her back. “Heil Hitler,” she added.

  “So is everyone else.” The clerk jerked her head toward the bench. The woman’s accent was clearly German, not Austrian.

  “This is a social call,” Elisa managed to say lightly. “The man I wish to visit is in an office, not a cell.”

  “That’s a switch.” The clerk laughed. It was clear she felt no pity for the anxious little band in the lobby. They were a nuisance. They were always there even if their faces and the names they sought were different.

  “Otto Wattenbarger. Is he in?” Elisa’s voice cracked with the strain of this charade she was playing. Just as she had told Le Morthomme she could never do. She had raised her hand in the Heil! She was paying a social call to the office of the Vienna Gestapo.

  “Otto? Sure. Does he know you’re coming?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let me warn him. Third-floor interrogations and investigations, you know. We must not interrupt.” She winked. The implication of the wink was almost obscene. What must they not i
nterrupt? A strip search? A beating? How could Otto exist in the center of this evil?

  “Of course. Tell him Elisa is here, will you?”

  The clerk dialed and waited. “Busy? Somebody named Elisa. Yes.” She glanced toward Elisa and grinned. “He says come on up. You know your way?”

  Elisa nodded, remembering the shrieks she had heard in the corridor the day Otto had arrested her. She had walked these halls over and over again in her nightmares. Yes. She would never forget the way.

  She waved cheerfully and marched past the long bench, pretending not to see the women who were as much prisoners in their hearts as the men they longed for. Leah’s heart was there among them all. Elisa knew that and felt it; still, she pretended.