Warsaw Requiem Page 9

  Elisa had managed to sneak a wink at Murphy, flanked by Charles and Louis. The six-year-old boys were also dressed in matching white dinner jackets. A very impressive sight. Elisa thought. Being here with the boys was a loving gesture on the part of Murphy, who in his heart would have much preferred a jazz performance in Soho by D’Fat Lady Trio, who were soon to leave for America.

  Murphy responded to her wink with the sort of look that let her know he would like to be paid back in kisses from his favorite fat lady as soon as she was once again a performing musician. How far she had come since she had last played this concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on tour across Europe!

  Elisa didn’t need to turn the pages of the music—this was one score she knew backward and forward! It was this very symphony the old gang from Vienna had performed in Prague on the night she carried Rudy Dorbransky’s Guarnerius violin home to Berlin. Rudy’s fiddle. She raised it to her chin and silently dedicated her last concert to Rudy, who had tried so hard to stop all that had now come upon Europe!

  Today was his birthday, she suddenly remembered. How could she forget such a date? He had gotten drunk and gambled all night, losing everything, including his violin. And then he had come to her in tears to beg for a loan with which he might redeem his fiddle. She had counted out the bills and sent him on his way, never knowing what Rudy was really up to on the back streets of Vienna!

  Now she knew. She knew everything. She knew too much. She was going to bring a child into this world, and tonight she longed for the carefree ignorance of those days. Shimon. Leah. Rudy. All the much-loved members of the orchestra—everyone scattered, or dead, or playing the tune of the Nazis in Vienna. Ah, well, Hitler had chased her out of the arms of Thomas von Kleistmann and into the heart of the lanky American jazz-lover who now sweltered in a dinner jacket in this summer heat because he adored her! Be thankful for such lovely things!

  The concert master raised his violin. The orchestra tuned up as the seconds ticked by, and the red light blinked a warning that air time was approaching. Time to get serious here. Elisa raised her bow in salute to Murphy, in salute of all the others who were not performing with her tonight. The introduction made, Sir Thomas Beecham strode out to a smattering of applause. He raised his arms above his big head, and once again Elisa played. Mozart’s Prague Symphony. With Leah. Shimon. Rudy. Happy Birthday, Rudy. Did you know the Nazis have taken Prague? Hitler slept in Hradcany Castle. But I’m playing the Prague Symphony all the same. Because I remember what used to be. I remember it’s your birthday, Rudy, and I still have your fiddle.

  ***

  The radio was one thing the Danzig Gang had decided immediately they must have! How else could they know the current events? Or keep up with the latest music from America?

  Their apartment may have been sparsely furnished, but the big radio against the wall gave it a touch of refinement. They had traded a small gold pendant from Alfie’s treasures in order to purchase it. Lori often said it was worth an entire gold mine to know what was going on.

  They had heard the regular broadcasts of D’Fat Lady Trio throughout the group’s European tour. Now that the American jazz trio was bound for home, Jacob spent the evenings slowly twirling the dials in search of a replacement.

  Tonight the low whine of the tuner howled and then suddenly dropped London into the sitting room of the flat.

  “Sir Thomas Beecham of the London Philharmonic Orchestra . . . ”

  Jamie and Mark groaned as Lori gasped and shouted for Jacob not to move the dial.

  He turned and scowled at her. “Somewhere there is jazz playing. Or maybe Charlie McCarthy! Please, not this—”

  “This is London!” She grabbed Alfie by the sleeve. “Alfie, listen!” He raised his head as distant applause sounded very near.

  “What?”

  Werner-kitten pounced on Alfie’s big feet, batting at the toe that protruded from his sock. Alfie was too absorbed in this battle to take Lori’s side in the radio argument.

  “Come on, Lori! Enough culture, already,” Jamie sneered.

  “You have been out of school long,” Lori snapped. Then, as Jacob’s fingers twitched, eager to tune out Mozart’s Prague Symphony, Lori whirled to face off with him. “You touch that, and I will never speak to you again! That is London, you idiots! London! Where our very own Cousin Elisa is now a musician! Maybe playing right now with that very orchestra.”

  Jacob melted back with respect at such a thought that Lori and Jamie had a cousin on the radio. Even if it was only classical stuff. “Well, then . . .”

  So Lori won. Jamie and Mark still looked disgusted. Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were more entertaining than this. But . . . well, it was London, after all. And soon a letter from them in Danzig would arrive there—maybe opened by one of the musicians in the very orchestra that was playing now.

  That much, at least, was something to think about while the music played.

  ***

  There was only one radio in the entire apartment building where Lucy and Peter shared a tiny one-room studio tucked beneath the eaves of a once-magnificent house.

  Bent and crippled from arthritis, the aged concierge of the building had but one pleasure in his life. Last year at Christmas his daughter had sent him a Philco radio from faraway America. The radio would have cost half a year’s wages for the old man, and yet he would not have sold the radio for twice that amount. On nights like this, when the reception was especially good, he would turn up the volume and let all the tenants enjoy his great luxury.

  Tonight the clear strains of the London Philharmonic Orchestra wound up the steep stairs to the garret where Lucy and Peter lived. The concise British accent of the announcer left no doubt that the broadcast did indeed come all the way from London. In this way the old concierge wordlessly declared the value of the gift his daughter had sent. Somehow his own worth was enhanced by this treasure.

  “Tomorrow he will ask me if I heard it,” Lucy said softly as she and Peter sat together beside the open window. The view was only the tiles of the adjoining rooftop and beyond that the stars. These stars are also shining in London, she thought wistfully.

  “How could we not hear it?” Peter was amused. “A very good radio. Four flights of very steep stairs. Not to mention walls and floors, and here it is right in our own flat, as though the radio was ours.”

  “He is proud of it.”

  “He has nothing else to be proud of,” Peter said with an edge of bitterness.

  “Don’t be unkind, Peter,” Lucy chided as the music soared. Such gentle music. “Just listen. He is giving us a gift.”

  “Not a gift. He is only being proud.”

  “Stop.” Lucy leaned against the windowsill and closed her eyes to inhale the sweet summer air. “Don’t ruin it for me. I am dreaming of faraway places.”

  “This is the Prague Symphony.” Peter’s voice was still tinged with disdain. “I hope you are not dreaming of Prague. Hitler is there.”

  “Not Prague.” Lucy still did not open her eyes. “Of London. Where this music is coming from.” She opened her eyes. “And it is a gift, Peter. It makes me feel . . . hopeful.”

  He laughed and turned his back on the stars. “Hopeful? You know what this is? It is a requiem for poor Prague, that is all. It is the melody of what used to be and what has now gone away forever. A requiem for the dead.”

  “Go to bed if you don’t care to listen.”

  He was goading her again, pushing her to talk about things she did not wish to talk about. Every night since the last Hitler broadcast it had been like this.

  “You are the one who is not listening,” Peter said, taking her arm. “And the next sound you hear may be the tramp of jackboots on the pavement.”

  “Stop,” she answered in quiet despair. “Please.”

  “And after that, Wolf will be on the stair and at the door.”

  “Don’t!”

  “You must come with me, Lucy! Soon the requiem will be for Danzig.�
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  “I will not . . . cannot go with you to Warsaw.” Why did he push her so? Why could she not have one night without this, one moment of pleasure listening to music? Just a symphony from London, and now Peter was at her again to go with him to Warsaw.

  “If you do not leave this place, then the requiem may be for you, Lucy. And for the baby. There is no more time. No hope for us here. Do you understand?”

  Lucy did not answer. She brushed past him and opened the door of the flat so that the radio of the concierge was even louder. With a backward glance over her shoulder, she stepped out onto the landing and sat down alone on the top step. She hoped he would not follow her. She wished only that he would leave her alone and go to Warsaw if he was so terrified of the future. But she would not go with him into Poland.

  The mellow sound of cellos and violins wound up the stairs like green ivy covering a shabby facade with a living cloak. The facade of peace and security for Danzig was ready to crack and fall to pieces, but just for tonight, for this one hour, Lucy did not want to think about it.

  She felt the presence of Peter at her back, yet pretended not to know he was there. She prayed he would go back inside and leave her to her dreams.

  After a moment he left, leaving the door open just a crack. Lucy closed her eyes again and thanked God for the thoughtful daughter of the concierge. The symphony of Prague soared above her and around her, finally covering her with its beauty.

  For just that hour, Lucy did not think at all. She simply rested in the music and dreamed she was somewhere very far from this place.

  ***

  Orde lay back on his cot as the dulcet tones of the symphony echoed in the stone chamber of his permanent Old City quarters. The BBC Home Service broadcast was delayed by several hours from the original performance. Still Orde listened to the music and imagined the musicians at their stands as though they were on the stage at Covent Gardens.

  Katie had loved the concerts of London. He had merely endured them for her sake. Wearing a stiff collar and cuffs, being stuffed into a dinner jacket, had never been his idea of a pleasant evening. While Katie had shimmered in the glory of such music as this, he had nodded off or put his mind to work on some problem or other.

  Now those delayed broadcasts of London concerts had become his one tenuous link with her. In those brief hours Orde allowed himself to think of her as she had been on those evenings. So beautiful, lost in an enjoyment that he had not shared with her while she was alive. Yet now he relived those precious moments at her side as though he too had cherished this music. It seemed odd to him now that he had not heard the beauty when she was beside him. And tonight, when he was so very alone, he longed to tell her just exactly what it was about the melody that moved him.

  The second movement of the symphony began. Orde stared up into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling of the ancient barracks. Surely other soldiers had lain awake in this very room throughout the centuries. Officers of a dozen armies had stared up at these same stones and dreamed of lost loved ones as some musician played a sad song in the courtyard. The tunes, like those men, had vanished in the dusty air of Jerusalem. And I, too, am dust. Orde covered his face with his hands. “Oh, Katie, what is left for me? I did not see you when you were with me. I did not hear the melody of your heart! A selfish, preoccupied man! And now what is left?”

  He sat up slowly and unlaced his boots, the boots of an officer. “What I would give if I could trade these in for that starched shirt and one evening at a concert in London with you, Katie. But I have nothing to replace this uniform, do I? Nothing at all to come home to.” His own voice mingled with the sweet strains of the strings like a prayer. “But now I hear what you heard, Katie. It is beautiful. Yes, love. If only I had heard it before . . .”

  6

  The Hunter and the Hunted

  It was a hot night. “Suffocating,” Elisa said, as she tossed uncomfortably on the bed. “Humid as only a London summer night can be.”

  Murphy moved the mattress through the French doors and out onto the roof garden while Elisa sifted through his jazz recordings, finally settling on the mellow tunes of Glenn Miller.

  As the soft tones of a muted trombone drifted out from the house, they lay together beneath the stars and silently gazed over the London rooftops toward the lighted dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Crickets in the planter boxes chirped in counterpoint to the music. The scent of gardenias and sweet peas filled the air. Far away a siren howled into the night as Murphy sat up to rub Elisa’s feet.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “Better?”

  “We should move the bed out here. Sleep under the stars.”

  “The air is not so clean as Pennsylvania.” Murphy stroked her ankles. “But the crickets remind me of home.”

  Elisa did not answer. He thought perhaps she had drifted off to sleep—or maybe she was thinking of the chirping of crickets in some distant memory. “This reminds me,” she murmured, her voice soft and loving, “of the night we made love beneath the oak tree in New Forest.” Reaching for his hand, she pulled him down beside her. She placed his hand against the steady thumping of the baby within her. “And look what you did that night.” She laughed. “Ruined my figure.”

  Murphy’s voice filled with wonder. “He has the hiccups. Huh! The little guy is in there, tapping away! What do you know!”

  Elisa fixed her eyes on the great bright dome of St. Paul’s. “Murph?”

  “Uh-huh?” He was still preoccupied with the steady tapping inside her belly.

  “I know you want us to leave London when it comes—the war, I mean.”

  He did not take his hand from her, and yet the sense of carefree wonder left him instantly. For a long time he did not respond. “There’s more than the two of us at stake here. Charles and Louis. And this little one.”

  “I won’t leave without you.”

  Were the crickets still singing?

  “Maybe we won’t have a choice.”

  “There is always a choice, Murphy. I . . . I don’t want to live even a day without you.”

  “I wish I could go home, Elisa; you know how I feel. But there is something here I have to do.” He touched her face and lay close to her. “England may well end up fighting alone. The American isolationists need to hear what’s going on over here.”

  “They won’t listen to you.”

  “Somebody will. There is a story that will have to be told. And what kind of man would I be if I leave when it gets too hot for comfort?”

  “But I can’t . . . don’t want to raise this baby without you. Murphy, haven’t we given enough? Done enough?”

  “Your parents are still working with the refugee kids in spite of threats from the government that they are far too involved in politics. Can I do less?”

  Elisa rolled over on her side to face him. Her eyes were bright in the dim light. Her look said all the things she had no words to say aloud. “I won’t leave you, then. No matter what happens.” She looked up at the sky. “If the stars fall right through this roof, I’ll be here with you.”

  The image of falling bombs was too vivid for Murphy. Madrid. Barcelona. Rows of children with blank eyes staring up into the sky. Incendiary bombs falling on the cities like stars . . .

  “Don’t.” Murphy put a finger on her lips. Warm and soft, those lips smiled at his touch. “We’ll talk about it another time.”

  She was eager to think of other things. Crickets beneath the oak trees of New Forest. “Did you like the way I played my fiddle tonight?” she whispered.

  “Kiss me,” he murmured, pressing his mouth against hers. Here she was in his arms, two weeks away from having a baby, and yet he wanted her.

  She chuckled, amused by his desire. “Your tastes have changed,” she teased. “I never knew you were attracted to omnibuses.”

  “Depends on where they take me.”

  “It’s a short ride to New Forest.” She smiled. “And you’ve already ruined my figure. What have I got to lose
?”

  ***

  Major Alexander Hess looked out at the thick pine forests of Poland as the Corridor Express train sped toward Danzig. Providence was smiling on him after his ordeal. He had been given the order to pursue the children of Karl Ibsen as far as he must in order to bring that case to a successful conclusion, but it seemed that his pursuit might have unexpected dividends.

  The Führer had taken Hess’s mutilated hand in his own hand and had given him this mandate: “If you cannot bring Karl Ibsen’s children back alive to face him, then bring back their heads in a sack.” He had smiled, but Hess knew well that the Führer was not joking. “In the diplomatic pouch if all else fails, ja? To which you may add the heads of resistance leaders and traitors,” he concluded significantly.

  Of course the Gestapo had agents in place in London to report if any word came to Elisa Murphy about the Ibsen children. Those agents, in turn, would report to Hess, and when the capture of Lori and Jamie Ibsen was accomplished, Helen Ibsen would also be eliminated. All of this would be done in a way that left no doubt as to the accidental death of the woman, of course. Although she had made no public statements about the imprisonment of her husband, the very fact that she was alive and capable of speech was still a matter of concern to the Ministry of Propaganda. Heads had rolled when it was reported she had escaped. That aspect of the case, of course, was of little concern to Hess. He demanded only that the woman be left alive as a possible source of information regarding her children. If Hess did not find them in Danzig, then he would follow them to France, or England, or Poland. He had promised the Führer that unlike Wallich and Wattenbarger, Pastor Karl Ibsen would not be allowed the luxury of death until he had made a full confession of conspiracy against the Fatherland. And if he would not bend, then he would witness the breaking of his children as a penalty for his obstinacy.