Prague Counterpoint

  “You were never a friend. Not even to your own family. You have no friends. I don’t have anything to tell you! I have done nothing more than try to walk around you on the street. It is no crime against the state for me to hold you in utter contempt! That is no reflection on anyone but you!”

  Otto stared down at his stack of files; then he reached over and pushed the button on his intercom. “Yes. You can take her away now.” The interrogation was over. Within seconds a guard entered the room.

  “Otto?” Elisa questioned as the guard pushed her.

  As Elisa was led out of the small office, Otto picked up the telephone. Somehow she felt that what he said was entirely for her benefit.

  “If she is involved with any anti-government activities, we have ways of making her talk.”

  The guard nudged her forward toward the stairs just as a terrifying shriek pierced the long corridor. A rapid succession of screams followed as they descended the steps; then the voice wailed and died away until only the sound of Elisa’s feet against the stone was heard. Until that moment, she had not truly known fear of Otto and the Gestapo headquarters.

  She turned to her guard. “Where are we going?” she asked, feeling the sudden urge to grasp the iron stair railing and hold tightly to it. Otto’s words returned forcefully to her: “We have ways of making her talk.” The ways of the Gestapo had made some man scream with such pain and terror that Elisa was certain he had been facing his death!

  The guard smirked at the frightened expression on her pale face. “Don’t worry; I am taking you to Vienna’s finest hotel!” He laughed and hustled her faster down the steps.

  Outside in the courtyard, he shoved her into a waiting car. Ten minutes later, Elisa stepped beneath the arches of the most terrible of all the prisons in the city. She blinked up at the thick stone walls that had once housed a monastery. Windows were mere slits, set so high above the dark, airless cells that the prisoners knew they would never see the sun once they entered the building.

  Elisa walked reluctantly beneath the arches of the building’s entrance.

  “Your hotel, Frau Murphy.” The guard laughed again.

  Then he left her with two dour-appearing women guards. They shoved her into a cold little room, slammed the door, and then crossed their arms as they appraised Elisa.

  “Strip!” the first guard shouted.

  Elisa drew back, clutching the collar of her blue dress. “I won’t!” she argued fiercely. “I demand that the American Embassy be called at once!”

  “They make no difference here! We have been ordered to strip-search you before we take you to your cell!” the guard screamed with earsplitting force. “You will strip, or we will strip you!”

  Both women moved a step nearer to Elisa. They were heavy-boned, thick-jawed peasants. Their hands were rough and calloused and strong from some labor Elisa did not try to guess at.

  “My husband will lodge a formal protest with the American––”

  Elisa’s threat was drowned out by a fierce roar from the second woman. “Do you think we care? You take off your clothes or I will tear them off, and that is the end of discussion!”

  Elisa was literally backed to the wall. With the stone blocks behind her and the two women guards blocking any attempt to get away, Elisa timidly began to unbutton her dress.

  The two tormenters mocked her, ridiculing her slender body and remarking on the fact that there were men among the guards whom they should perhaps call to witness the search of such an example of femininity.

  Shivering in her bra and panties, Elisa stopped, hoping that this indignity would be enough to satisfy these coarse and almost masculine female guards. But it was not enough.

  “Strip to the skin!” the first guard shouted again. “We have orders to search you! Everywhere,” she sneered, enjoying the torture of stealing the last shreds of Elisa’s clothing and composure at the same moment.

  Elisa silently vowed that she would not cry in front of these brutes! She would not show them how deeply the abuse and derision cut her.

  “All right!” shouted the second guard, giving Elisa a shove away from the wall. “Now we show you how thoroughly we search those criminals who come here, ja?” She laughed, relishing the sport. “If you ever get out, you can tell your friends what they have to look forward to!”

  A hard slap sent Elisa to her knees. “Put your hands on the floor!” shrieked the first guard.

  Mutely, Elisa obeyed. She was powerless now. Her humiliation was nearly complete except for one small detail. She would not weep! She would not show them any weakness, no matter what followed.

  ***

  Haggard and exhausted, Elisa had been given a thin prison dress to put on before she was photographed holding up a number for the camera.

  “Number 377,” barked the male guard. “You are number 377, and you will answer to that number or you will be beaten.”

  Wearily, Elisa nodded. “I am 377,” she repeated, wishing only that she could find a place to lie down. How had this happened? What wrong move had she made to end up like this?

  “Number 377, you will follow me. Third floor. Women’s quarters.”

  Her feet lost in the loose prison slippers, Elisa followed after the guard. At every cross-corridor armed men stood with bayonets ready. The stink of the place grew more horrible with every step, and Elisa’s head began to throb.

  The guard stopped in front of a heavy iron door at the farthest end of the corridor. He pulled open a peephole and looked in; then with a huge key, he unlocked the door and shoved Elisa into the cell. The door clanged shut behind her, and she was left standing before the curious but sullen eyes of three other women prisoners. The foul smell inside the cell was a hundred times worse than it had been outside. Elisa noticed a tin bucket full of human waste in the corner of the tiny room. Four iron cots were shoved together so tightly that there was hardly any room to move.

  One of the prisoners, a woman with matted gray hair and a gold-capped tooth, perused the newcomer with some amusement. “Welcome to the Savoy, dearie. Our previous roommate was beheaded this morning.”

  A young woman burst into sobs at the words, and Elisa did not doubt for a moment the truth of the execution story.

  The gray-haired woman continued her welcoming speech. “Since she is dead and you are not, you may have her bed. All the beds have fleas, but you will get used to it if you are here long.” The gold tooth glinted in the dim light of the single lightbulb. “My name is Marian. This is Suzanne. Here is Karin.” She pointed to the young woman who lay so still and silent on her bed that Elisa wondered if the prisoner was dead. “Karin doesn’t say much. They killed her husband the first night, you see. We have all been here since the first night. Where have you been? Not here. You are too clean. So what is it like where the sun shines? What is your name? Why are you here?”

  Suddenly all of Elisa’s determination not to show emotion was shattered. With one wrenching sob, she covered her face with her hands and wept until she could hardly stand up.

  Young Suzanne, a sweet-faced girl of eighteen, patted her timidly on the back. “Did they beat you?” she asked sympathetically. “They beat everybody.”

  Elisa shook her head from side to side. No, they had not beaten her.

  “Then why are you crying so?” Suzanne asked.

  “It seems so l-long already,” Elisa stammered. “So long since I saw the sun.”

  Suzanne guided her to the edge of the dead woman’s bed. Elisa sat down slowly, feeling the nearness of death. She was utterly ashamed. She did not weep because of a beating or the death of a friend. She wept only for herself tonight.

  ***

  Newspaper publisher Bob Trump looked nothing like his wealthy competitor. His office was spacious but cluttered with dozens of other daily newspapers. It was unadorned except for a number of framed editions of the Union Post on a wall with a sign above declaring, We Were There First!

  Trump himself was a rumpled little man with a face like
a welterweight fighter and a swagger like Brutus in the Popeye comic strip. Gray hair stuck up on one side, and Murphy suspected that the aging publisher not only took his meals in his office but probably slept on the cracking red-leather sofa behind his desk.

  “Well, boy!” Trump extended his hand and snapped a suspender in his pleasure at meeting Murphy. All in all, Murphy thought that he probably could not look much more disheveled than Trump himself. Both of them were in need of a shave. Trump’s eyes sparkled. “So you told that old blankity-blank where to stuff it, eh?”

  Blankity-blank was a word Trump often used, Murphy discovered. “Let’s just say I resigned from the Craine newspaper syndicate,” he replied modestly.

  “The old blankity-blank Craine won’t face facts!” Trump rose on his toes like a revival preacher exhorting his audience to turn from wickedness. “I heard you, boy! Heard you on the CBS broadcast. And I read that piece you wrote about the kids. Far as I’m concerned, if you haven’t found another job between here and there, you’re hired. What was he paying you?”

  “Seventy-five a week. Meals and expenses in Europe.”

  “I’ll pay you one hundred, son.”

  “I have a wife now. In Prague. I need to get back, Mr. Trump.”

  “Well, shoot ya, boy! Better shave first, though.” The old man ran a hand over his own stubble. “Me too, I guess.” He frowned. “Want you back over there as soon as you can get going. Quite a crisis developing, you know. German troops too close to the border of Czechoslovakia. We’ve got to watch London. The Brits will be upside down over this one.”

  He popped a mint into his mouth and handed one to Murphy. “The truth is good enough for this paper. Write it as you see it, Mr. Murphy. Gable recommended you highly, and—” another series of blankity-blanks erupted—“if we close this London radio deal with CBS, you’re the man I want on hand.” He frowned and stuck out his lower lip. “You need an advance.” It was a statement, not a question. He picked up a telephone and ordered someone named Mattie to make Murphy plane reservations to the East Coast and then to book passage back to London on the next dirigible. It was as simple as that.

  Murphy had two hours to shower and shave while Bob Trump ordered two off-the-rack suits sent up immediately for his prize. “Stole this young fella right out from under the nose of that old blankity-blank Craine,” he said gleefully to the team of tailors who hemmed the cuffs of Murphy’s new trousers.

  36

  In the Hall of the Troll King

  There was a hunger among Elisa’s cell mates to hear news from the outside world. With an unmerciful determination, they leveled their questions at her one after another without regard to her own unhappiness.

  “Are the flowers blooming at the Schönbrunn?”

  “What has happened to Chancellor Schuschnigg?”

  “We hear that the plebiscite was won by the Nazis. But how many Austrians were allowed to vote?”

  “Are they still able to sell pastry at Demel’s, or has the Führer had it all shipped back to Germany?”

  Most of the questions had no real importance except that they were small things that had been dreamed of or imagined in the stench and filth of this place. It took only a few moments for Elisa to realize that the cleanliness of her own skin and the sweetness of her perfume was like a bouquet of fresh flowers to the women around her. She could smell only the horrible odor of the tin bucket, while all their senses seemed to focus on the fragrance of the outside world that Elisa carried with her. Even poor, dull-eyed Karin brightened and inhaled deeply when the perfumeries of Paris were mentioned.

  Paris! The word settled on Elisa like a blow. What if she could not get out of this place? Whom would Fiori send to Paris? Was there some urgent message in the book that now lay on Otto’s desk? How would she get word of her predicament to Leah and the others?

  In Prague, she had been told to deny everything! She had done that. She had been told to threaten her captor with the American Embassy, with the maestro at the Musikverein. None of that had made the slightest difference to Otto. She was still here, humiliated and deprived of freedom.

  “Why didn’t they beat you?” asked Suzanne timidly. “They usually beat everyone.”

  Marian sat down on the cot beside Karin. “They will probably let you go. They don’t beat you if they are going to let you go.”

  There was only momentary comfort in her words. “They let you go for a day or two at first, didn’t they, Marian?” said Suzanne with a frown.

  “Yes. Here for two days, then out for a day. It is a way of making you crack. You see, once you are here and know this place, you never want to come back. To smell the sweet air of freedom and then to be brought back here—people will tell them anything to get out again. Anything at all.” She leaned close to Elisa’s neck and breathed in the fragrance once again. For a fleeting moment Elisa felt as if she had been locked into a kennel where humans, left like animals, had acquired the instincts of dogs, sniffing at one another. But she did not pull away. She could not begrudge these poor souls a whiff of perfume.

  “But you are still here,” Elisa said to Marian.

  “I did not tell them anything.” She laughed. “Of course, I have nothing at all to tell them. So now they have brought me here and left me. I am forgotten, I think. But they beat me when they arrested me the second time. They beat me, and I knew they would not let me go again.”

  The world, it seemed, had turned upside down. Elisa had not been harmed, but that was not necessarily a hopeful sign. Even if she was released, these women believed that she would be returned to the cell in due time. That was the way of it. They knew all about the justice that now ruled in Austria.

  Marian lifted the back of Suzanne’s loose prison blouse. The young woman’s bony back was crisscrossed with scars and scabs where the whip had torn away her flesh. Suzanne knew firsthand what it was like to be beaten.

  Her eyes were riveted to the ring that still remained on Elisa’s finger. It was the only bit of color in the cell of gray-and-black shadows. “They let you keep your ring?” Suzanne pointed to Elisa’s hand.

  “I would not let them have it,” Elisa explained.

  “Wouldn’t let them?” Marian frowned and drew back. Suddenly each of the women, even Karin, eyed her with hostile suspicion.

  “What is it?” Elisa asked, genuinely confused.

  “Yes, you’ll be leaving us,” Marian stated. “Look at you. A Nazi to the core. No doubt they put you here to spy on us. To see if poor Helga said anything to us before they executed her. Is that it?”

  “Oh no!” Elisa tried to protest, but the women turned from her, determined they would not say even one more word to her. “I didn’t let them take it.”

  “No one keeps a ring,” Suzanne told her, confident in her conclusion. “And everyone gets beaten.”

  ***

  Below the apartment, a Nazi watchman strolled from one pool of light to the next as he made his midnight rounds. Leah had not dared to switch on the lamps in the apartment. She watched from the dark window as she had for hours. Something had gone terribly wrong. Elisa had not returned, and now as the bells of St. Stephan’s tolled the blackest hour of the night, Leah knew that Elisa would not be back tonight. Perhaps not ever. Still she could not tear her eyes away from the shadows just beyond the streetlights. She could not help but hope that Elisa would emerge and hurry toward the building. Please, Elisa! Please, God! Do not leave me alone here again! Protect her! I cannot help Louis and Charles alone! Oh, God, if You cannot hear me, then hear the prayers of the children.

  Just then, Herr Hugel lumbered around the corner. He was drunk. Even in the dim light Leah could see the gleeful stupor of his expression as he hailed the night watchman with a cheerful “Heil Hitler!”

  “It is nearly past curfew, Herr Hugel!” the watchman retorted, jabbing a finger toward the spires of the cathedral.

  At the warning, Hugel leaned forward and attempted to quicken his pace toward the building. The w
atchman shook his head and rolled his eyes at the sight, then turned to resume his rounds.

  Below in the foyer Leah heard the glass panel in the door rattle as Hugel slammed it hard. His laughter drifted up through the stairwell, and he began to sing his own slurred version of the “Horst Wessel” song. Leah covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes tight. Was this the answer to her prayer? Was God mocking her? Was there no light or hope left in the world for her and Charles and Louis?

  She felt a slight tugging on her sleeve and whirled around to face little Louis.

  He blinked sleepily up at her. “Is she coming back?” he asked.

  She knelt and embraced him. She needed his comfort now almost more than he needed hers. “I don’t know, Louis. I just don’t know!”