Vienna Prelude (6 page)

“Mama, I’m sorry. I forgot. The priest—”

She took the letter and tore it open. Gasping, she groped for a chair as she read the words. “Ariving December 8, it says! Franz! That is
today
!”

“Mama, I forgot!”

“You
forgot
? I will beat you with a good stout stick!” She jumped up and shook her flour-covered fist beneath his nose.

“I’m too big to beat! I’m . . . I . . . it was the calf! I just forgot!”

“You mean you had this since
then
?
Himmel!”
Her face was red, eyes blazing. “You are not too big! Six-foot-three you may be, and as brawny as an ox, but I’ll always be bigger than you! Big enough to beat a boy who needs it!”

Franz peered down at his little mother. He knew she was serious, so he backed up almost to the counter where loaves of fresh bread were piled high. “
When
are they coming today?” he asked, attempting to turn her attention from himself.

She glanced down at the letter again and gasped louder. “Get the sleigh! Hitch the team!
Mein Gott!
You . . .
you
! Franz, get to the Bahnhof! The mother and her two sons are arriving
now
!”

Franz gazed meekly around the kitchen, a disaster of dirty dishes and flour-covered counters. “Maybe we should make them wait, Mama?” he asked timidly.

Frau Wattenbarger roared loudly, chasing him back out into the stable. With her hands waving in the air and her apron billowing, she shouted, “Just
go
and get them! At least only the three are coming tonight. Two others coming in a few days! They can take your room.” She raised her nose slightly. “And you will sleep in the barn tonight!”

***

Franz could hear the shrill whistle of the train rounding the Kitzbüheler Horn as he urged the little mare into a lope. Mercifully the train was late. The holiday guests would not suspect that they had not even been expected until a mere hour before their arrival.

It was dark when Franz passed through the village. Lights shone down from frost-covered windows, making yellow pools on the snow. Heavy timbered houses looked as they had for over three hundred years. He drove past the Golden Griffin Hostel and smelled the rich aroma of chops and sauerkraut. His stomach rumbled. Mama had said he would have to give up his portion of the evening meal until after the guests were fed. He wished the train were an hour later so he could gulp down a stein of beer and six or so chops before picking up the arrivals.

He tied the little Haflinger mare to the hitching post in front of the station just as the train clanked and squealed to a stop. The Kitzbühel stop lasted only long enough for passengers to disembark, and only a handful stepped off the train tonight. His passengers were easy to spot. A tall blond woman of about forty and her two sons wrestled their luggage and skis onto the platform as the train chugged away. One of the boys was about seventeen—tall and thin but still without the muscle of manhood. The other boy appeared to be about fourteen. His black hair and serious dark eyes were a sharp contrast to his fair skin. As a matter of fact, all three of them looked as though they had not been in the sun for a very long time. Their faces seemed tense and worried. Franz bounded up the steps and smiled broadly as he called, “Frau Linder?”

The woman hesitated, then smiled tentatively. “We are to meet a driver?” She studied Franz with a gaze that seemed adept at sizing up people.

He was suddenly conscious of the cow manure on his boots and the work clothes he wore. He brushed a lock of his curly brown hair back beneath his cap and bowed politely. “Allow me to introduce myself. Franz Wattenbarger.” He did not offer to shake hands. He had not washed since his chores in the barn. “My family works to make your stay at the chalet most comfortable.” He stepped back as the boys appraised his disheveled appearance. “My work was only just finished when my mother sent me to fetch you.”

As though sensing his discomfort, Anna Linder smiled slightly. “I am Frau Anna Linder. And these are my sons Wilhelm”—she touched the oldest boy on the arm—“and Dieter.”

The two teenagers nodded curtly, and Franz noticed the way their eyes glanced nervously around the station. They seemed almost fearful, certainly too serious for boys who had just come to the Tyrol for a vacation.

Wilhelm held the skis and Dieter managed the ski poles. Forgetting his soiled hands, Franz clapped Wilhelm on the back. “Ready for a good time, I see?” His deep brown eyes gazed steadily until he caught Wilhelm’s glance and held it. Only then did the serious young man dare to smile. “You fellows have been too long in school, I think.” He hefted the luggage and led the way to the sleigh.

“School?” began Dieter. “Oh no, we—” A hard nudge from his brother silenced him.

Franz pretended not to notice. He did, however, detect that while Mrs. Linder’s accent was unmistakably Viennese, both boys had the bold, hard accent of Berliners. “The weather in Vienna has been rainy, I hear,” he said to Wilhelm, who looked uneasy.

“It always rains this time of year in Vienna,” Anna Linder replied confidently as she stepped between Franz and the boys. “But not so bad as in Salzburg.” Her words were cheerful, but her eyes seemed to look past Franz as though she carried some dark secret.

He nodded and loaded the baggage and tied up the skis. Tyrol was full of people with haunted, frightened expressions these days. Their letter may have come from Vienna, but the cut of their clothes, the pallor of their skin, the weariness of their eyes all spoke of Germany. Franz decided he would not pry. He would not make them have to lie. It was quite obvious that they were people of affluence. If they had not wanted to remain secluded, they would have chosen to stay somewhere other than the chalet of a poor Austrian farm family. He glanced at Frau Linder’s long, delicate fingers—strong hands, but unaccustomed to physical labor. He could not help but think about the calloused hands of his own mother—how she scrambled around the house, shouting orders and changing bedding while everyone tried to stay out of her path.

Franz caught Wilhelm’s eye again. “You like to ski?”

The young man nodded but did not smile again. Life was serious. Too serious for such conversation.

Franz decided that if there was to be conversation on the trip up the mountain, he would be the only one talking. “I have two younger brothers. About your age, I would guess. They will show you where the best slopes are for skiing.” He tried to maintain the feeling of holiday, although their behavior told another story. “There is the best skiing in the world here.”

“Last season we went to Bavaria—,” began Dieter, but he was again nudged to silence.

Bavaria. In Germany. Franz saw Wilhelm’s eyes glance around again to see who might be listening. “Bavaria!” exclaimed Franz, as though he did not notice. “Well, you are from Vienna. Austrians. You know there is no skiing in Germany like there is in the Tyrol.”

“Actually we are from Prague,” corrected Frau Linder. “Our passports are Czechoslovakian.”

Franz had no doubt that the passports were indeed Czechoslovakian, but he also knew the difference in accent. “Your letter came from Vienna.”

“Yes.” Frau Linder was quick to reply as they climbed into the sleigh. “Our daughter is a musician there. She made the arrangements for us.”

“And she is coming?”

“Yes. In a few days. With her father. He has some . . . business, and they are coming in a few days.”

As Franz clucked the horse into motion, he sensed that even the simplest of questions seemed almost too much for his passengers to handle. He lapsed into silence as they glided into the night. The guests talked quietly in guarded tones to one another, commenting on the moonlight on the snow, the lights of the village—matters that usually went totally unnoticed by most boys their ages. Yes, the Tyrol was full of cautious conversation these days—German accents explaining Czech passports or visas to France. It did not take a genius detective or a Gestapo agent to figure out that the Linders, if that was their real name, had not come for a holiday. They had rented the chalet as a way station until they found someplace to go. Franz could only guess that this woman’s husband and daughter must still be in Germany. And so she had brought her visions of the Gestapo and arrest along with her.

“My mother is quite a good cook,” Franz remarked, startled at his ability to be mundane. “Are you hungry?”

***

John Murphy sipped his Coke and stared down at the traffic inching along Berlin’s Unter den Linden. From his corner room on the third floor of the Adlon Hotel, he had a perfect view of the somber British Embassy on Wilhelmstrasse and the expansive German Interior Ministry on the other corner. A block away he could just make out the glaring spotlights that illuminated the bronze horses atop Brandenburg Gate.

Murphy was the envy of every foreign correspondent in Berlin. Americans always got the best rooms, it seemed. Most assumed it was Hitler’s attempt to placate the Yankee journalists who were the quickest to report unpleasant incidents among the German population in the young Nazi regime. Whatever the reason, Murphy was treated well by Goebbels, the propaganda minister in Hitler’s cabinet. Often Murphy was given first crack at some new turn in the maze of Nazi policies. Last month, for instance, Goebbels had arranged for a private interview with Herr Ribbentrop after the Germans had signed a pact with the Japanese to protect the Western world against the Russian Communists.

Murphy grinned now at the memory. Ribbentrop had paced back and forth as he explained the alliance against Bolshevism. The “master race” of Aryans was now allied with the Japanese “master race,” and together they would save Western civilization. That was the way Hitler wanted the story reported in the American press.

Murphy had asked incredulously, “The
Japanese
are going to protect the Western world?”

Ribbentrop had nodded seriously. “Exactly.”

“Would you repeat that?” Murphy had asked.

Ribbentrop had no sense of humor. Of course, neither did Goebbels or Hitler, for that matter. Maybe Murphy was the only one struck by the ridiculousness of the pact. He had written it just as they told him: “Japanese and Nazis Sworn to Protect Free Western Nations.” The story made it through the Nazi censors, and then the staff in New York had rewritten it from a little different point of view. No one had thrown Murphy out of the Adlon Hotel yet, and Herr Hitler was still hoping to persuade the Americans and British to remain uninvolved with Germany’s “private affairs.”

Tonight a dozen morose reporters gathered in Murphy’s room. They drank gin and tonic and smoked in silence as they waited for the BBC to begin its broadcast of Edward’s final speech as king.

The British Embassy seemed even more quiet and melancholy than usual. The lights in the upper floors were out, and Murphy guessed that the diplomatic staff was gathered in the large parlor to hear the news. Two British reporters seemed a bit more “in their cups” tonight than usual. Murphy half expected a funeral dirge to erupt from the embassy.

Amanda Taylor from the
London
Times
came up quietly behind him and stared down at her government’s Berlin outpost.

“Pretty quiet down there, huh?” said Murphy, glancing at the tall, slim brunette with appreciation.

Amanda pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, a sure sign that she was about to make a pronouncement. “They’re all daft, if you ask me. Why all the gloooom?” She pronounced the last word aloud and long, her red lips properly enunciating every vowel. “One would think he had died instead of fallen in love!”

Someone on the sofa called a little drunkenly, “Yeah. A fella falls in love, he might as well die, Amanda. Same thing.”

She rolled her wide brown eyes and clicked her tongue in response. “Well, I think all of England should throw them a party. Instead they are—”

“Kicking them out?” Murphy said with a wry smile.

“Mrs. Simpson doesn’t need any more wedding parties,” added Johnson. “She’s already been married a couple of times, ain’t she?”

“Well, so what?” Amanda flipped the curtain. “I think it is positively the most romantic thing . . . the most . . . ” She gestured broadly as she searched for the appropriate word. “For a man to give up his
crown
and his
kingdom
—”

“For a broad?” squeaked Timmons’ tipsy voice. “The guy is nuts.”

Amanda whirled around and faced the all-male group with the fury of a woman defending chivalry and knights of old. “Romance!” she hissed. “Haven’t you baboons ever heard of the word?”

“Yeah!” quipped Murphy. “You can buy it right down on Mittelstrasse at the cabaret. It’s real cheap too. About
half a crown
, Amanda!” A delighted roar of approval rose up from the male ranks. Murphy took a little bow, and Amanda thumped him across the head. She was always a bit too much of an educated Amazon for his taste. But, deciding not to argue further about the matter, he turned back to his watch post.

“Come on, Amanda,” the guys razzed. “You got no sense of humor?”

Her lips turned down in an unbecoming pout. “You louts! You simply have no sense of what is noble and—”

“Yeah. What do we know?”

“Reporters.” Each man mimicked a line she had said.

“In Berlin, no less.”

“Dreary Berlin at Christmastime.”

“Stuck here while the love story of the century is happening in England. Blast! A king gives up his throne to marry a divorced commoner!”

“And here we are in old Herr Hitler’s city with nuthin’ to write home about!”

Murphy laughed but did not join in. He continued to look down at the sidewalk and the jammed streets. Horns blared, and a drizzle caused people to struggle with umbrellas or turn up their collars and run for cover. The guys were right. Berlin at Christmas
was
a dismal place—at least since Hitler had come to power. People had still been smiling and unafraid when Murphy had first come in 1933. Now, three and a half years later, there was just the constant drizzle of the Reich’s propaganda.