Warsaw Requiem Read online

  “Not . . . not stars,” Alfie stammered. The lights made him want to run away. Just like he had run from the ward of the hospital that night when everyone else had been taken. “It is like . . . fire.” He tried to swallow, but there was no spit in his mouth.

  Jacob came to his side, peering over his shoulder. “Ah.” Jacob patted him. “Not a fire; just the northern lights.” He was relieved. “Pretty, huh? I thought maybe Marienkirche was burning down or something.” Another thump on the back. “Nothing to be afraid of. You and Werner go back to bed.” The springs of the cot squeaked and squeaked again as Jacob tried to find his favorite position again. He sighed, and soon his breathing was deep and even.

  But Alfie did not go back to his cot. He leaned his forehead against the glass pane and watched the lights dancing across the sky. Deep inside a little voice whispered to him. They are coming here. Coming again. They will bring their fire with them. Run and hide. Alf! Run! They will come here too.

  Alfie had seen the fire of the Hitler-men in Berlin, and now it played before his imagination like a movie on a screen. “Where should we go now?” he said loudly. Too loudly. The other boys moaned a protest to his voice. He heard Lori’s bed creak in the other room and then her soft footsteps.

  He knew she was in the doorway, but he did not turn around until she spoke.

  “Alf?” She always talked gently to him, like her mama used to. Lori’s voice was a lot like her mother Helen’s voice. Frau Helen Ibsen had said his name soft like that when Alfie’s own mama had died. “Alf?”

  He turned around and wiped away the tears that had tumbled out of his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

  “Bad dream?”

  “No.”

  “Are you feeling bad about something?”

  Silence. “I heard on the radio. The Hitler-men want this place too.”

  “But England will not let them—”

  “They are coming here.” He gestured toward the sky, as though it held the answer. “We should go away soon.”

  Again there was silence. Alfie knew that Lori was really listening to what he said. Lori did not ever think he was a Dummkopf. He heard her draw a deep breath the way she always did when she had something important to say. “Maybe you are right,” she said. “I . . . I will try again to contact my cousin in England. The one who married the American newspaperman.”

  “Now?”

  “Tomorrow. I will write her.”

  “Now!”

  Another deep sigh. “All right then. Now. But you must go back to bed, Alf. I will write the letter, and tomorrow we will send it together. How is that?”

  Alfie looked at the fire in the sky and then at the shadow of Lori in the doorway. “That is good. It is smart.”

  The light from Lori’s room seeped through the crack under the door of the room where the boys slept. Alfie lay on his cot for a long time until the light went off. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep because he knew the letter to England was written.

  ***

  “Danzig is a jewel imbedded in the backside of the Polish troll.” The Führer said so frequently. He always added his intention to slay the troll and cut out the jewel.

  Wolfgang von Fritschauer thought of this as he gazed out the window of the antiquated Danzig local train rattling over the moonlit lowlands of the pygmy state. Only 754 square miles in area, Danzig was a tiny fragment of all the territory that the Reich had claimed as treasure over the last few months. But the leader of Germany planned to use this scrap of land as steel and flint to ignite his final conflagration.

  “The decision to attack Poland was arrived at in early spring. Our strength lies in our quickness and our brutality . . . Poland will be depopulated and settled with the German people. The fate of Russia will be exactly the same. Then will begin the dawn of the German rule of the earth.”

  Wolf had been privileged to be in attendance when Hitler had spoken those words. Following that, Wolf had requested transfer to duty in East Prussia, which bordered Danzig and Poland. He had mentioned that he wished to be where the ultimate actions were destined to take place. It would be convenient as well, he suggested, if he could work closer to his Prussian home. His wife and three children were there on the family estate, after all, and neither Vienna nor Prague were places where he felt comfortable.

  And so it was Prussia for Wolfgang von Fritschauer. Since March, he had traveled back and forth between the German territory of East Prussia into Danzig with regularity. Through connections with Hitler’s foreign minister, Herr von Ribbentrop, Wolf now assumed the role of a businessman—a wine merchant who had constant commerce in the port of Danzig.

  Of course he no longer wore his uniform, but he was just as active as he had ever been, supervising the infiltration of agents into the Baltic seaport. When the order came to strike, Danzig would be thick with German soldiers ready to take over the harbor, the Polish Navy, the ship-building facilities, and the gun emplacements facing out to sea. It would be a simple matter of German battleships steaming into port and the Army striking up the Vistula River to Warsaw. A swift blow to the heart and Poland, with its vast resources, would belong to the Reich.

  Not once did Wolfgang von Fritschauer mention that there was one additional reason he had requested transfer from Vienna. The matter of Lucy Strasburg and the child she carried would be difficult to explain. Wolf knew that his wife, a possessive and jealous woman at best, would not accept his affair with a woman like Lucy until he was able to put a baby in her arms and say, “You see, a child for the Fatherland and the Führer! And you must raise him with that in mind. It is your duty. My duty.”

  Wolf fully intended that the day would come when he would say those words to his wife. And then he would add, “The woman who bore this child for you is of no consequence. She is dead, and the child is your own.”

  Wolf would make certain that those words were true. Lucy had betrayed him, betrayed her country as well. Death seemed a small punishment, considering the depth of rage Wolfe carried for her. He thought often of the pleasure he would reap in returning her to German territory and presiding over her execution personally. It would be an easy matter to arrange once he located her. And he would find her!

  Even before Major Hess had mentioned seeing Lucy on the train to Danzig, Wolf had known she had fled to this place. He had found her travel brochures in the apartment. Poor, stupid Lucy. So provincial. She had chosen the closest thing to Germany without actually choosing Germany. Wolf did not need the raised eyebrow of Agent Hess and the questioning glare.

  “I am certain it was your mistress on the train to Danzig. She was with two suspicious looking boys. Jews, perhaps? I would have spoken with her, but I was attacked by four Jews and thrown from the train a few moments after that.”

  Wolf did not attempt to explain. He did not tell Hess how she had no doubt warned the family in Otto Wattenbarger’s apartment of their imminent arrest, or that she had plotted all along this betrayal of his attentions. He simply shrugged and sipped his glass of wine as though it did not matter. “The whore. I grew tired of her and threw her out. She’ll show up at the side of a general before long, no doubt.”

  If Agent Hess knew differently, if he suspected the truth, he at least remained quiet about it. His recovery from the injuries he had experienced that night on the Corridor Express no doubt had occupied his mind more than questions about Wolf’s former mistress and her traveling companions. But Wolf knew that his record was no longer untarnished; he could suffer no additional failure.

  All of it had simply strengthened Wolf’s resolve to find her and finish her once and for all. Danzig was a small place. He had checked the hotels. She had spent four days at the Danziger Hof with two boys she claimed were her nephews. Then she had checked out and vanished. There was no record of her departure on the steamship lines. She could have easily crossed into Poland, but Wolf knew her better than that. Lucy must stay where her own language was spoken fluently, where she could chat with bellboys and waiters and
tell them the story of her life. No, she would not go to Poland. She would not go to Prague or Warsaw or France. And she could not go home to Bavaria where her family lived. Wolf had friends in Munich who double-checked that possibility. If she became desperate and contacted her family, he would know within hours.

  Wolf was certain that Lucy, with her limited intellect, would see Danzig as some sort of promised land. It was German in character, but not Germany. The laws of the Reich could not touch her here, yet the familiar culture surrounded her.

  On this journey, Wolf would stop by the local hospitals. She was near the time when the child would be born. There was no running from that fact. Wolf would simply show the doctors a photograph of his sister. He would explain that she was unmarried and ashamed and would no doubt use a false name, and he would offer a reward for a simple phone call. . . .

  The shrill whistle of the train announced that the passage to Danzig was at an end. Wolfgang von Fritschauer, wine merchant from Prussia, pulled on his gloves and stared out across the platform of the quaint train station of the free city. His quick eyes skimmed every face, every form. Passengers hurried toward the train; men and women kissed in greeting and farewell. Wolf could feel that Lucy Strasburg was somewhere among the crowds of Danzig. He sensed her presence as a hunter might sense the nearness of a stag.

  ***

  Lucy Strasburg turned her head to the sound of Peter Wallich’s weary tread on the steep steps. The stairs to the fourth-floor, one-bedroom flat were steep, but there was something more labored than usual in the sound of his ascent. He has heard the news from Berlin, she thought. He has heard the reply of Poland that they will not give in.

  For some in Danzig, the ominous radio broadcast tonight made their footsteps light with anticipation. If there is war, it will begin here! For others, like Peter and those thousands who waited in camps to leave Europe forever, the news put a raging fire at their backs even as they faced the sea.

  Lucy rose from her chair and turned up the flame in the sputtering gas lamp on the wall. She had prepared Peter’s supper hours ago, expecting him to come home at his usual time. But she knew from the heavy cadence of his step that he had joined with hundreds of others in the streets and listened to the radio broadcast on the loudspeakers. Lucy had opened the window and caught echoed words and phrases from the announcement. She had heard enough to know.

  Peter’s food had grown cold, and so she covered it and put it on the warming shelf until he came home. She tried very hard to cheer Peter up since baby Willie had been sent away—good meals, pleasant conversation. But tonight . . .

  It took him longer to reach the landing. Longer to pull out his key. Longer to fight with the stubborn door latch. When the door swung wide, he simply stood in the hall and looked into the room as though he were seeing it for the first time. Or the last time?

  There was no smile on his face. His curly red hair stood up as though he had been standing in a great wind for a long time. His eyes met hers, and only then did he enter the flat. Was that fear in his face? What had he seen? Could only words cause him to look so pale? He closed the door quietly and locked it.

  “I kept your supper warm,” Lucy said, as though everything was fine.

  “Did you hear about it?”

  She gestured toward the window. The open window and a good breeze carried the news far. “Bits of it.”

  “Polish Foreign Minister Beck has told the Führer no.”

  “Good. Someone should have done that years ago.”

  “Either way, it means we cannot stay here.”

  Lucy shrugged and turned to get his plate. “If there is a war over Danzig, then France and England will beat the Nazis, and all our troubles will be over.” She smiled and put the plate on the table, pulling out his chair.

  He did not move from the center of the shadowy room. “Your baby is due anytime. You cannot stay here in such a place.”

  “I’m fine. Now sit down and eat. The Nazis are not coming to Danzig without a fight.”

  Peter’s eyes grew dull. He stared at the food. “They are here already, Lucy. Waiting for the word.”

  “They got the word. From Foreign Minister Beck. I think the word is NO.” She tried to go on as if his mood did not put a chill in her heart. “Sit down, Peter. Eat before you hurt my feelings, will you? Never hurt the feelings of a woman who is expecting. She is liable to cry, and then you will be . . .” Her voice trailed away. It was no use trying to pretend. Peter was the one who was crying. A single tear tracked down his cheek. He brushed it away angrily.

  “How did it come to this?” His voice sounded much too old for a boy of sixteen. “How?”

  4

  The Specter of Death Guards the Door

  The half-moon cast an eerie glow through the clouds as swirling vapors thinned to a glowing film. Dark shadows outlined the muted details of the ancient thatched-roof cottages and rough stone fences of Ireland that traced the road from Dublin to this place.

  Inside a cottage half obscured from the road by a stand of trees, three men waited beside a fire. There was no furniture in this one room—only the three men, reaching their hands toward the flames. An orange glow reflected on their skin as if they too were part of the flames. Two of the faces were of middle age, faces weathered by the harsh Irish winds. Their expressions seemed frozen in an unchanging intensity as they bathed their leather hands in warmth. Their heavy wool trousers, coats, and thick-soled boots were caked with mud from the ride across the soggy fields.

  The third face was younger by a generation. A boyish twenty-five, the eyes of the third man did not stare into the fire as if some message were written there. His eyes flitted from the flames to the faces of his companions and then back to the window, which was covered by a flap of dirty canvas. His clothing was American—pleated trousers and city boots too thin for the beating they had just sustained. The hem of his dark blue overcoat was wet, and flecks of mud covered his face and cap.

  Outside, their horses stamped impatiently as the wind howled around the corner of the house. The young man looked up sharply as he listened.

  “Not yet, Allan,” said the stouter of his two companions.

  “He’ll be here soon enough,” said the other, inclining his head slightly with an amused smile as he studied the nervous young American. “He looks like your sister, Colin. Aye. I can see the resemblance.” He looked back into the flames and saw a thousand phantoms from his past. “But Maureen was a horsewoman. Indeed. She could sit a horse better’n any lad.”

  Colin chuckled at the memory and nodded his large head. He ended his chuckle with a sigh. That had been long ago. “What d’ya expect of the lad? Raised in New York City. No horses t’ride. Even the trams are electric.”

  Allan sniffed, embarrassed by the frantic spectacle he must have made of himself holding on to saddle and mane and lurching about like a drunk man as they rode. He considered telling his uncle that he had ridden a pony once in Central Park, and that there was a mounted police force in New York . . . Then he thought better of it. The New York mounted police were also Irish, thick of brogue and quick of temper as his mother had been. Allan did not reply. He was fool enough already in the eyes of his uncle Colin and the IRA captain who had come with them to the meeting.

  “You think he’ll be able to handle the job?” asked Captain John Dougherty.

  Uncle Colin nudged Allan. The boy must respond to the challenge himself.

  “I will not be riding horses in London,” Allan said. “And there is not a man among all the IRA who can handle this but me.”

  Colin raised an eyebrow in approval. Allan had spoken exactly true. American-born and bred, the boy was nonetheless his mother’s child. And she had been as much a fighter as any man in Ireland in those days of the troubles. A toss of her curls and a flash of a smile and she had managed to get more from the British soldiers than twenty IRA strongmen with clubs could do.

  “His mother raised him right. He knows what we’re about.”
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br />   Allan grew bolder. He touched the scar beneath his right eye. “Raised in Hell’s Kitchen in New York. I learned to fight.”

  “You’re here to watch,” said John Dougherty. ‘Not fight. Not unless we ask you to.”

  Outside, the horses stamped and whinnied. The sound of hoofbeats rose and fell on the wind. Colin raised his head to listen. “They’re here. He’s brought them.”

  The three did not move from their spot but turned to face the door in case the visitors might be Englishmen instead of their expected guests. They had come here tonight to talk treason against the new King George. It would not do to be surprised.

  Allan glanced from the face of his uncle, to the door, and back again. Colin showed no sign of nervousness at this strange rendezvous. A slight smile played on his lips as the tramp of boots and the jangle of bridles and D-rings announced the arrival.

  “The boy speaks German?” John Dougherty asked, reconfirming what had been repeated three times.

  Colin nodded and drew himself up as the door burst open, and three men came in with a wind that swirled ash from the open hearth around their legs.

  The ritual slapping of hands against sleeves and trousers in an effort to knock away the cold was enacted before the three men advanced to crowd around the fire. No one spoke for a moment as the warmth returned to numbed fingers and lips.

  Allan stepped back into a shadow at the far right of the fireplace. He looked over the newcomers. He could easily distinguish the one Irishman from the two long-faced Germans who scrutinized the room with a sort of amused arrogance. Allan recognized the face of Kevin Fahey.

  “So, Colin, this is the boy, eh?” Fahey cast a long look at Allan. “Maureen’s son?”

  Allan nodded, although the question was not addressed to him. Allan had been raised on tales of Fahey, and now the eyes of the IRA here were turned on him!

  “He knows what we’re about,” Colin replied gruffly. “Maureen raised him right. A fighter.”