Vienna Prelude (42 page)

And so the city simmered on an open flame. Rudy Dorbransky had gotten what he deserved, and now the Jews of Vienna would get a warning. They must remember Biedermeier! They must remember where they belonged in society! All of this was discussed and agreed upon as correct even in the most genteel of the Viennese cafés over strong cups of Turkish coffee.

It took the members of the secret Nazi Party to turn the issue into action, however. As polite society raised their eyebrows and whispered the latest gossip about the sordid affair, Captain Leopold’s men drained their steins of beer and grabbed their clubs and rubber truncheons on the way out the door.

A five-minute walk from St. Stephan’s great cathedral lay the Judengasse district, a part of Vienna since the sixteenth century. There Leah and Shimon lived near the synagogues; here the civilian gangs of Captain Leopold chose to make their point.

The newspaper accounts were very matter-of-fact in their stories:

Other than this one paragraph, there was no other mention of the incident. After

all, hadn’t the Jew Dorbransky gotten what he deserved? And shouldn’t other Jews be made aware that they would also get what they deserved unless they remembered their place?

Overnight, posters appeared on the streetlamps along the Ring:
Avenge the blood of Irmgard Schüler! Jews out of Vienna now!
Such signs, decorated with swastikas, were torn down by the Shupos, the Austrian police, by noon. But Vienna had gotten the message. So had the Jews of Vienna.

Elisa tucked her head against the bitter wind and hurried across Karlsplatz toward the Musikverein. Wisely she had waited a day before going to the building, as Rudy had instructed her. She had waited alone in her apartment, expecting a knock and an interrogation from the Shupos. Somehow she had been overlooked; no police had come to her door.

Today, as Rudy’s body was cremated for shipment back to Poland, the curious citizens of the city crammed into St. Stephan’s Cathedral for a final tribute to Irmgard Schüler. The bells tolled out the years of her short and tragic life. Elisa counted the haunting, ominous clang as she quickened her pace—now, almost jogging toward the portals of the Musikverein. The bell tolled for the last time as she reached the steps.
Twenty-seven! Irmgard was only twenty-seven!
Elisa shuddered, but not from the cold. The words of Rudy echoed in her mind.
They
had killed the beautiful young woman, not Rudy. And then
they
had made certain that Rudy would be blamed, and all the Jews of Judengasse with him.
They
had done it all, just as
they
in Germany now held her father!

The back door of the building, the student’s entrance, was open. Elisa slipped inside and listened to the echo of a piano from the practice rooms downstairs. The usual hooting, thrumming clamor of practicing students was silenced; they had probably all gone to the spectacle of the funeral. They would go out afterward for lunch and beer and make the occasion a sort of holiday, no doubt.

Panicked, Elisa stood rooted. She looked down at her own violin case. It was empty.
It will not do
, she had reasoned
, if I am being watched, to enter the Musikverein without a violin case and leave with one in hand.
If she was being watched, certainly
they
would notice such a thing and stop her to discover that she carried the violin of the murderer Dorbransky. The thought made her heart drum a warning in her ears. She wavered, considering going home and forgetting it all. Rudy’s words—frightening words—could not free her father. She could call Thomas and tell him that she had heard that “someone” had seen her father in
Dachau.

Dachau!
How could one terrible word from the lips of a dying man change her life so entirely? Before that word, when there had been no hope, she had drifted in an aimless, unfocused yearning that someday there might be word from her father. The thought had become an unread dream that she had linked somehow with Thomas von Kleistmann.
Maybe he will rescue him. If Papa is alive, maybe Thomas
. . . This unreal dream had ebbed and flowed with the passing of every holiday and anniversary of the last year.

Now, just when she had let go of hope and yearning, there came a word of such hopelessness, murmured in such despair, that Elisa wondered why it had awakened hope in her again.
Dachau! Papa is there. Alive! Yes, that is hope!

From the first days of Hitler’s reign, that name had become a symbol of all that embodied hell. It
was
hell, torment encased in charged barbed wire and block houses and machine guns. And it was here on earth. In the terror of his last moments on earth, perhaps Faust had glimpsed
Dachau
! Perhaps in his vision of the
Inferno
, Dante had glimpsed the demons in the guard towers and those who walked with whips among the prisoners. And yet this inescapable inferno of Nazi brutality and terror had suddenly given Elisa hope! Theo Lindheim was alive; he was there, in Dachau! In the deepest abyss in Germany, her father breathed and hoped and prayed for his family. Elisa could tell his thoughts, even now, as she walked down the narrow hallway. The practice rooms she passed were deserted and silent. The sound of her heels followed her toward the glass case where the skull of the composer Haydn grinned out at students and musicians. Elisa could see the skull in the dim light at the far end of the corridor. Hollow cavities stared at her as she approached the case. Long yellowed teeth were clenched tightly as Haydn stood guard over the secret of Rudy Dorbransky.
Dachau!
There was life and hope in this apparition of death.

She halted a few feet in front of the skull of the great composer. For a hundred years the head of Haydn had watched as the young musicians of the Musikverein had grown old in these halls until they became like him, like Rudy. Elisa was perspiring. She stared back at the blackness of the eye sockets, the hollow, unseeing darkness that seemed to see everything . . .
everyone!
And in the eyes of death, everyone looked the same. Somehow Elisa saw herself grinning out of the glass box. Had Rudy hidden the violin here as a warning? Had he known? Had he stood here and looked at death and seen himself too?

She looked back over her shoulder, feeling eyes peering at her from behind. But there was no one, only the faint melody of a piano playing somewhere in the maze. Perhaps it was Haydn playing. A chill swept through her, and she drew her breath in, stepping forward as though asking permission to take the precious violin of Rudy Dorbransky. Dear Rudy, now in ashes in a baggage car on the way back to his mother in Warsaw.

What is to become of me?
She asked the question although she saw the answer in the glass box before her.
Sooner or later, Elisa
. . .
a
nd so, you see, if you take the violin and find the secret papers, you are in no more danger than if you simply grow old. This is your future, Elisa. Sooner or later.

The sound of the piano stopped. She shuddered and reached behind the wooden base of the skull’s little glass casket. She almost hoped that the violin would not be there, but the familiar leather beneath her fingers caused her to gasp as she pulled it free. There, as though leaving a counterfeit offering to the silent composer, she slid her empty case back where Rudy’s had been.

Haydn watched as she retreated hurriedly down the hall. His sightless eyes had watched for a hundred years. By now it was certain that even the very young and beautiful walked the same dark corridor,
sooner or later.

***

Herr Haupt peered around the corner of his door as Elisa entered the building. He looked grim, almost frightened as he called to her, “Eleeeza! P-s-s-s-st!”

The violin case felt hot and dangerously alive in her hand. She tried to look nonchalant on her way home from the Musikverein, but she felt as though the case would jump out of her hands and fall open on the sidewalk, spilling Rudy’s precious papers out for everyone to see. The walk had been a nightmare, and now Elisa dreaded having to talk to the old concierge of the building. “Good morning, Herr Haupt.” She attempted to sound cheerful, but somehow the words fell flat.

“Not such a good morning, I think, Eleeeza! Have you heard the news this morning?”

She shook her head. She waited with one foot on the step and her free hand on the banister as he told her. She did not want to hear the news, but Herr Haupt would follow her up to her doorstep if she didn’t listen now, so she stood ready to make her break when he was finished.

“
Oy Vay!”
he exclaimed. “She has not heard the news!”

“No. Please, Herr Haupt, I am tired!”

“The authorities are expecting more trouble in the Judengasse. Everyone is warned. The Nazis are planning something after the funeral today. This Dorbransky fellow has brought trouble on his own people.”

Elisa did not reply.

Herr Haupt continued, “The authorities have just got the wires back into the Judengasse—”

“Good. Then I can call my friend and check—”

He held up a hand for silence. “Wait! They have just got the wires up when along come more fellows to cut them down again. They have also cut off the electric. I lived there for my first twenty years, you know. Before they had electric, we managed. Life is not so terrible without electric. Your friends will be fine unless they maybe go out into the street. The Shupos expect more trouble.”

So that was the news. She nodded, feeling cut off herself. There was no one but Leah that she could talk to about all this. And Rudy had instructed her to take the case to Leah alone. “
Danke,
Herr Haupt.” She did not give him a chance to say more. Instead she ran up the steps and into her own apartment.

“Fraülein!” the little man called desperately after her. She pretended not to hear him. “Eleeeza! Wait . . . !”

She had already inserted her key in the lock, but to her horror, the door was unlocked. Suddenly it opened, and a tall policeman in uniform stared down at her. “What . . . ?” She was at once frightened and indignant. How dare this man come into the privacy of her apartment! Then she saw that he was not alone. Two others were with him. Both of them were dressed in civilian clothes—dark blue suits and scuffed black shoes run down at the heels.

“Fraülein Linder,” the tall policeman began apologetically, “I am afraid we shock you by our presence.” He smiled and seemed embarrassed. The two men in civilian dress simply stared back at her as though
she
were the intruder.

“Who let you in?” she demanded, angry at their impudence.

“Herr Haupt.”

“Then Herr Haupt should be discharged. It is his duty to oversee our apartments, not let strangers in.”

“I’m afraid he had no choice.” The smile was cold now. “You see, we have interviewed everyone in the orchestra but you.” He stepped aside to let her into her own apartment.

“Yes. I was ill the night this all happened.”

“Ill?” asked one of the civilians.

She had said it now and must not change her story. The violin inside the case seemed to shout at her.
Be calm! Stay calm! If not calm, then angry
. . . “Yes. I got a letter from my mother in Prague. My brother is in the hospital there, and they will not be coming to Vienna for the holidays. I am committed to stay here through the season. The news made me ill.”

“But”—the second civilian checked his notebook—“we have been told that you left here for a period of hours.”

“To make a phone call.” Elisa wondered if they could hear her heart beat.

All three men looked at the telephone sitting on the kitchen table. “A phone call?” asked the man in uniform.

“International. You can check if you like. I was at the telephone office. My call was placed shortly after seven in the evening and put through after eight.” Her matter-of-fact tone seemed to convince them. They looked at one another.

“Did you see Rudy Dorbransky at any time that evening?”

Elisa stared at the three of them, suddenly reminded of three crows perched on a wire. “No, but I wish I had seen him. I would have told him to give up his silly infatuation. He was the most talented and sensitive of all the musicians I have known—”

“You knew him well, then?”

Careful, Elisa.
She set the violin case down beside the small floral sofa. “Nobody knew Rudy Dorbransky well, Officer,” she said, letting her sorrow overflow in her voice.

“And did you know Frau Schüler?”

“Only by sight. Ridiculous woman!” The scorn sounded authentic. If she didn’t know the truth about Irmgard Schüler, Elisa might have continued to feel the scorn. “Now she’s ruined a lot of lives, hasn’t she? Yes. If I had seen Rudy that night, I would have told him—”

The first civilian-dressed policeman studied his notes. “You came to the concert hall that night. But you were not well?”

“My friend Leah had a solo. I wanted to hear—”

“But you were ill? And still you were out traipsing about?”

“I am a violinist,” she said arrogantly, acting the part of a prima donna. “I had bad news from home, as I told you. My hands were shaking. I was shaking all over. I couldn’t have played. I couldn’t have held my violin, but I didn’t want to stay home alone either. The manager insisted I go back home, so I did.”