Prague Counterpoint

  “Yes, but before that I helped with children, getting them across the border––”

  “An amateur effort compared with what you have fallen into, I assure you.” He cleared his throat and opened the cover of the book. “And now, let me guess what page it is the Nazi beast tore away.” He smiled, showing the gaps in his teeth. “Is the scene called Trüber Tag? Dismal Day?”

  “Why yes, but how?”

  “A dismal thing it is to be thrown into a prison, as you yourself know.” He opened the book to the ragged tear and then, although the page was missing, he began to recite the words that had been written there. “In misery! Despairing! Long lost wretchedly on the earth, and now imprisoned! As a felon locked up in a dungeon with horrible torments, the fair, ill-fated creature!”

  “You know the script well,” Elisa said, feeling that in his recitation he was telling her something. Trying to tell her . . . what?

  “And how did you like prison?” he asked.

  “I told you. A ghastly hell!”

  “And if you had been there for months or years,” he probed, “would you still be so brave as to carry this volume to Le Morthomme?”

  “What are you asking me?” Elisa felt cornered.

  “I am telling you,” Le Morthomme said, “that many will be arrested, tortured for their part in this. Did they beat you?”

  “No.”

  ”I wonder why?” He seemed amused now.

  “I . . . also wondered.” Elisa’s voice sounded very small.

  “If they had tortured you, would you have told them?”

  “Told them what? I don’t know anything more than the fact that I was sent here. First to Fiori’s––”

  “Would you have said the name of Fiori if they had tortured you?” He pressed his hand hard against the open book.

  “I don’t . . . think so. How can I know?”

  “Surely you must have imagined the threat. Did it not cross your mind that you would betray Fiori if they beat you?”

  “Why do you ask me this?”

  “You must answer in your own heart, Elisa,” the old woman said softly.

  Le Morthomme sat back and resumed his recitation of the grief of Faust. “’Handed over to evil spirits and judging, unfeeling mankind . . . Hide her growing grief and let her perish helplessly . . .’”

  Elisa drew back, looking from one to the other in confusion. “I don’t understand!” she cried. “Please tell me what you are trying to find in me!”

  “It is what you must find in yourself,” Le Morthomme said quietly. “You have experienced prison now. You have seen it, and you know for yourself what could happen if you join us.”

  “If?” She blinked at the volume she had carried so far and with so much fear that first night as she had recrossed the border back into Austria. “But I have joined you!”

  “Let us say,” Le Morthomme replied, “that you have passed a test. You have passed it as other couriers have passed. Although many have failed at their first smell of the stench of a Gestapo jail. Many have cracked before a whip was even mentioned. Others have decided that they do not want to risk their safety and comfort again. Not ever. Not for any reason. There is great terror within those walls; and if you help us, the memory of that terror will never leave you until you are dead, or until you live again in prison without hope of release . . . or until this is finished.”

  It all became clear to her now. None of it had been real. Otto had challenged her, arrested her, interrogated and bullied her, but for a reason she had never dreamed of. “It was a test? All a game? And if I had failed?”

  He did not answer her question. “You are in France now. You do not have to go back to Vienna. Back to the Reich. If you choose to go—and to help us—then your life may be lost forever in the stink and misery of the hell that has come to earth.”

  “This means that Otto . . . ” She struggled to believe what Le Morthomme told her. “Otto told me that it wasn’t as it seemed. He warned me. I thought it was a threat.”

  “If you take the next step, there will be no changing your mind. To turn back will mean that they will kill you. If you fail us, then we will kill you.”

  Elisa stared down at her hands. Before her journey into the bowels of the Nazi prison, she had only imagined the danger. Now she was certain of it. Tonight she was being given the choice simply to walk away from it forever. “You will not need to kill me.” She nervously worked the wedding band around on her finger. It was no longer a brave game. She, like Otto, would now balance on a ledge over the brink of hell. “Tell me,” she said in a choked voice. “Tell me what is required of me?”

  “You must join the Nazi Party first. Deny all former associations.”

  The words were like a slap in the face. “But I . . . ”

  Le Morthomme raised his hand to silence her. “You must turn your back on old friends for the time being. If you survive, one day they may learn the truth. But for now you should expect their hatred.”

  These words seemed harder to bear than the terrible prison ordeal. The faces of Leah and the two boys rose in her mind. The photos in the violin case almost shouted for her attention. “I have something I must do first,” she said. “Please! I need your help. We didn’t know who could help us in Vienna. We need papers—identification papers.”

  Le Morthomme sat back and tugged his ear. “What are you involved in? You are a courier for documents; that is all. What are you talking about?”

  Elisa placed the photographs before him on the table. Le Morthomme pressed his lips together in disapproval as he stared at them.

  “You were warned not to involve yourself in the smuggling of such items as these.”

  Elisa was determined. “They are unfinished business. I had to leave them in Vienna the night the Germans marched in.”

  “Your work as a courier is much more important than individual lives. You were told this in the beginning.”

  “I cannot leave them there.” Elisa closed the violin case and sat down across from the strange little man. “Please. Is there not some way to get them papers? visas? French identification?”

  Le Morthomme picked up Leah’s photo and then that of Louis. Charles’ photo, with his broken face and sad eyes, was left on the table. “Maybe these two. Maybe. But not this one. You cannot do anything for a child such as this.”

  “Why not?” She leaned forward urgently. “How could they even care about the escape of this little boy?”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do,” Le Morthomme challenged her. “Their story was only recently splashed all over the cover of the American magazine Liberty. I have a copy down in my shop. You would be amazed how many Americans come in and ask for the new issue each week.” Now he smiled and eyed Elisa with interest. “Madame Murphy, it was your husband who wrote the story. It must have been he who smuggled Walter Kronenberger’s own words out of Austria. Now you wish to smuggle the children out. Do you think the Nazis will not make the connection sooner or later?”

  Elisa blinked at him in astonishment. “Murphy?” she asked in wonder. ‘How could he? Where did he . . . ?”

  Le Morthomme’s mouth twitched in surprise that she did not seem to know this small detail. “John Murphy. Yes. Of the INS, where Kronenberger died. John Murphy is your husband, is he not?”

  “My husband.” Elisa said the word cautiously. “But he does not know about the children.”

  “Indeed, he does, madame. And he has reminded the world of them as well. The Nazis will not stand the embarrassment of the survival of these children. I warn you, you cannot help them or we will not be able to use you any further.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you are doomed. As they are. As your friend is. There are other matters now that require everything . . . sacrifice. For the sake of many, some will be lost.”

  “You are saying you will not help me with the papers?”

  “I am saying I cannot. And you must get far away from any situation that migh
t jeopardize what we are doing.”

  Elisa did not reply. Instead, she took the photos from him and quietly returned them to their hiding place in the violin case. “Then I am afraid that I cannot be a part of this any longer.” She looked him squarely in the eyes. “To help many, I must begin with one. One at a time, they must be saved; and in the end, perhaps I will have had a part in the rescue of multitudes. If carrying messages back and forth becomes more important than these children, then I must not be a part of it. A long time ago I had a dream. Children packed onto a train heading to the east, away from freedom. As I watched, it became a train filled with little skeletons.”

  She looked away at the vividness of the memory before continuing. “I cannot bear the thought that the bones of Charles and Louis and even my dear friend Leah would be among them.” She gathered her things. “I will leave you now. Tell whoever you must that I am not strong enough for that. I cannot work for you. Tell whoever is in charge that I failed in this matter.”

  “You are being very shortsighted, madame.” Le Morthomme clucked his tongue in disapproval. “But if you feel so strongly, you are a danger to us. It seems that already you have forgotten the lesson of Otto Wattenbarger. He has denied even his own mother and father. He has pretended since the first to take the side of evil. At times he has even acted the part fully. There is courage in that as well.”

  Elisa drew her breath in slowly. “I do not have that sort of courage. I cannot pretend to be what I am not.”

  “If you cannot pretend, then you are among the dead as well. I am sorry. That is the way of life now, Elisa. You must learn to pretend. You must learn to turn your back on small things like love and friendship for the sake of the greater good.”

  “Without the goodness of small things, there is no greater good, Le Morthomme. That is where we part company.”

  The Dead Man had told her what duty was required of her, and she could not fulfill it. She had endured arrest and interrogation and terror, but she had failed the test in the end because she could not fail her friend. Love had made her a fool. Love had made her dangerous to the narrow world of espionage.

  “You would have been ideal,” Le Morthomme said after he sent his wife to fetch the issue of Liberty magazine containing Murphy’s story. “It is a shame we must part company here.”

  “I wish you . . . I pray for your success, Le Morthomme, but I cannot forsake my little ones for the sake of your political intrigue. I . . . I am sorry that I so totally misjudged Otto.”

  Le Morthomme chuckled. “Don’t be sorry! It is meant that he be misjudged. This means he is quite good in his role, yes?” The smile faded as quickly as it had come. “And now I wish you well with what you are called to do. If we fail and Hitler succeeds, there will be no hope or light left at all except that which remembers the goodness of small acts of kindness. Already those acts may cost you your life. If you are caught with this”—he took the magazine from his breathless wife as she emerged at the top of the stairs—“then I assure you, you will not survive either. I regret the thought of such beauty being destroyed. I hear the Nazis enjoy their work thoroughly.”

  Elisa looked at the magazine. The cover had a painting of two small boys in ragged overalls fishing beside a creek. It looked so American. So carefree. So much like she imagined Murphy might have been as a child. The cover art did not seem to match the line at the bottom announcing the horror of Nazi threats against one man and his children.

  For an instant she wanted to beg Le Morthomme again to help her with the identity papers. What other hope did she have? But she stopped herself and moved toward the door. Her courage faltered for an instant; she wished Murphy were with her, as he had been with her the night her father had been pulled off the train from Berlin. Murphy would tell her what he thought. He would know what to do.

  She held the magazine close to her. “Thank you.”

  “Get rid of that before you reach the border of the Reich,” Le Morthomme warned. “You will be thrown into a concentration camp the minute they see that; I assure you!”

  Elisa nodded, then descended the steps into the stench of the alley. She was alone again. She must think what to do. How to get the travel papers. Where to take Leah and the boys.

  Her mind was spinning with confusion. Above her, the opera singer continued to practice her off-key aria. The cat screeched and clattered over a heap of garbage as Elisa passed. She clung to the magazine as if it were a letter from Murphy—as if it were Murphy himself. If only he were here; he would know what to do!

  40

  Rendezvous

  The taxi driver was as surly from the long wait as Elisa was depressed from disappointment. She had carried the passport photos all the way to Paris for no reason, it seemed.

  The Eiffel Tower, awash with light, pointed like a finger toward the sky. What am I to do now, God? she silently prayed. Whom can I turn to?

  Clearly the thought seemed to come to her. She remembered the voice of Thomas! Paris! “The café! Call me there. Ask for Thomas. Do not use my last name. The owner is a friend of mine.”

  Ahead of the taxi was the ornate façade of the Gare de Lyon station. Elisa glimpsed the huge face of the clock. There was still nearly an hour and a half before her train was to leave for Vienna. Surely that was time enough!

  She paid the driver and hurried into the packed building. Clutching the copy of Liberty Magazine in one hand and the violin case containing the photos in the other, she made her way toward the glass telephone booths near the Train Bleu Restaurant. There were half a dozen callers in front of her. The wait seemed interminable as one by one, men and women entered the booth and placed their calls through the slow and inept Paris exchange.

  Elisa closed her eyes and prayed. Prayed that Thomas would be there. Prayed that he would be willing to help her!

  Loudspeakers echoed departures and arrivals. Couples hurried out of the elegant Train Bleu. The line moved forward too slowly. But after twenty minutes Elisa finally stepped into the booth and looked up the number of the café. Let him be there! Oh, God please let him be there, she prayed as the phone on the other end rang harshly.

  “Café de Triumph.” The man’s voice sounded gruff and impatient.

  Elisa could hear the noisy buzz of customers behind him. “I am calling for Thomas!” Elisa was shouting over the din that threatened to drown out her words.

  There was a long pause. “Thomas, you say?”

  “Yes. Thomas—” She almost said his last name but then remembered the warning he had given her. “You are a friend of his?”

  “Yes, madame.” The words grew more gentle. “But he is not here tonight.”

  “But I must talk with him! I must see him.”

  “See him, madame . . . ” He paused and turned to shush the laughter of a woman behind him. “Who is this?”

  “Tell him Elisa.”

  An angry man tapped impatiently on the glass of the booth.

  “Elisa!” The café owner knew her name.

  “Yes! Tell him I am leaving on the express for Vienna, that I will meet him in the Train Bleu Restaurant. Tell him please that I must see him!”

  “Oui, mademoiselle, I will send Henri for him this instant! Do not leave! Train Bleu at Gare de Lyon!”

  As she hung up, the angry man behind Elisa banged his fist against the glass once again. She did not move for a moment but stood holding the receiver even as the line clicked dead. Thomas was coming; he could help her! He would not let her down this time as he had when her father had been arrested. Didn’t he say he loved her still? Hadn’t he promised to give up everything for her?

  “Get out of the booth! I have an urgent call to make and my train is leaving in moments! You think you are the only one who needs to use the telephone? Get out of there!”

  Elisa opened the door, barely feeling the shove as the man pushed past her.

  She stood blinking at the huge hall, half expecting Thomas to enter through the main doors at that very instant.
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  Elisa adjusted the grip of the violin case and then walked slowly toward the women’s lavatory. In an empty stall, she opened the case and carefully extracted the envelope containing the photos from beneath the hiding place in the lining. Thomas will come! I will give him the photographs, and somehow he will buy the forged documents!

  Leaving the lavatory, she walked against the flow of hurried passengers and made her way toward the crowded restaurant. The maitre d’ smiled with appreciation and bowed slightly as the beautiful young woman entered.

  “I am waiting for someone,”Elisa said distractedly. “Could you seat me near the front?”