The Last Train to London Page 4

  The passageway ended abruptly, the water flowing on through a smaller archway like the one by the Burgtheater, where you would have to swim through mucky water to carry on. Here, though, there were stairs to a metal walkway over the water, with a coil of rope and a life preserver hanging from the rail just in case. They crossed, descended, and backtracked on the other side to duck into another narrower, drier tunnel. Stephan clicked on the flashlight again, illuminating a rubble pile.

  “That’s just another place where some of the tunnel caved in, maybe during the war, like by the little tunnel to our cocoa cellar,” he said, and he guided her through a narrow gap between the collapsed stone and the tunnel wall. Just past it, he shone the light on a locked gate. Beyond it, in a jumble: coffins, and human bones that seemed to be organized by body part, and one carefully stacked pile that was nothing but skulls.

  The Most Massive Typewriter Ever

  Stephan had been leading Žofie-Helene through the underground for perhaps a quarter of an hour when they reached a circular stairway to another octagonal manhole cover near her mother’s office. There was a closer exit, right on the street outside her apartment, but it was only metal rungs up to an open-grid drain grate too heavy for him to lift. He climbed onto the street and gave her a hand up, letting go only reluctantly. He kicked the triangles closed and followed her around the corner into her mother’s newspaper office, where a man operated the most massive typewriter ever.

  “It’s a Linotype,” Žofie explained. “It’s automatic, sort of like a Rube Goldberg contraption. It sets the type for a newspaper run.”

  “Is it hard to learn?” Stephan asked the typesetter, imagining setting a play on it. To make copies now, he used carbon paper and banged hard on the keys, but as you couldn’t make more than a few copies that way, he had to write for small casts or type a script out multiple times. “I already know how to type.”

  “It’s impressive that you know so much, Stephan,” Žofie-Helene said.

  “That I know so much?”

  “About the underground. Making chocolate. The theater and typing. You just say it too. When I talk, people look at me like I’m some weird creature. But you’re sort of like Professor Gödel. He sometimes says I’m wrong about things too.”

  “Did I say you were wrong about something?”

  “About eating cocoa beans. And the cavern,” she said. “Sometimes I say things wrong just to see who will notice. Mostly nobody does.”

  IN THE EDITOR IN CHIEF’S office, a girl even younger than Walter colored at a table while a woman who had to be Žofie’s mother spoke on the telephone.

  “Jojojojojojo, have you colored me something splendid?” Žofie asked, lifting her sister and twirling her around in a burst of giggles that left Stephan wanting to be twirling too, although he didn’t much like to dance.

  Her mother indicated with a finger that her call was almost finished, while saying into the receiver, “Yes, obviously Hitler won’t be thrilled, but then I’m not thrilled about his efforts to force Schuschnigg to lift the ban on the Austrian Nazi Party. And as my opinion doesn’t stop him from his efforts, I’m quite sure I oughtn’t let his stop us from running the piece.” She finished the call and set the receiver in its cradle, already saying, “Oh, Žofie, your dress! Not again.”

  “Mama, this is my friend, Stephan Neuman,” Žofie said. “We found our way here all the way from his father’s chocolate factory through—”

  Stephan shot her a look.

  “His father makes the best chocolates,” Žofie said.

  “Ah, you’re that Neuman?” Käthe Perger said. “I do hope you’ve brought us some of those chocolates!”

  Stephan wiped his hands on his shirttail, then pulled the last two truffles from his pocket and held them out. Oh crud, there was pocket lint stuck to them.

  “Heavens, I was only joking!” Käthe Perger said, taking one before he could pull them back, and popping it in her mouth.

  Stephan picked the lint off the other and offered it to Žofie’s sister.

  “Žofie-Helene,” Käthe Perger said, “I believe you’ve outdone yourself in cleverness, choosing a friend who not only travels with chocolates in his pockets, but apparently enjoys doing laundry as much as you do.”

  Stephan looked down at his filthy clothes. His father was going to kill him.

  AFTER STEPHAN LEFT, Žofie said to her mother, “He’s only one friend, but one is always greater than zero, even if zero is more mathematically interesting.”

  Her little sister handed Žofie a book, and Žofie sat and pulled her into her lap. She turned to the first page and read, “‘To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman.’”

  Mama said, “I’m not sure Johanna is quite ready for ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’”

  Žofie loved the story, especially the bit where the king says it’s a pity that Irene Adler is not on his level and Holmes agrees that she’s on a very different level than the king, except the king means Miss Adler is beneath him, and Sherlock Holmes means she’s far superior. Žofie liked the ending too, where Irene bests them all, and Sherlock Holmes won’t take the emerald snake ring the king offers him, but does want the photo of Miss Adler, for the reminder of how he was beaten by a woman’s wit.

  “He’s left-handed,” Žofie said. “Stephan is. Do you suppose that feels queer? I asked him once, but he didn’t say.”

  Mama laughed, a bubble of sound like the beautiful zero at the center of a line that went to infinity in both directions, positive and negative. “I don’t know, Žofie-Helene,” she said. “Does it feel queer to you to be so good at maths?”

  Žofie-Helene considered this. “Not exactly.”

  Mama said, “It might seem different to others, but it’s just who you are, who you always have been. I expect it’s the same for your friend.”

  Žofie kissed the top of Jojo’s head. “Shall we sing, Jojo?” she asked. And she began to sing, with Jojo joining her, and Mama too, “The moon has risen; the golden stars shine in the sky bright and clear.”

  * * *

  THE VIENNA INDEPENDENT

  * * *

  NAZI LAWS AGAINST JEWS “NOT FROM HATRED”

  * * *

  Commissioner for Justice: Laws arise from love for German people

  BY KÄTHE PERGER

  WÜRZBURG, GERMANY, June 26, 1937 — German Commissioner for Justice Hans Frank, speaking at a gathering of National Socialists here today, insisted that the Nuremberg laws were created “for the protection of our race, not because we hate the Jews but because we love the German people.”

  “The world criticizes our attitude toward the Jews and declares it too harsh,” Frank said. “But the world has never worried how many honest Germans have been chased from home and hearth by Jews in the past.”

  The laws, instituted on September 15, 1935, revoke German citizenship for Jews and prohibit them from marrying persons of “German or related blood.” A “Jew” is defined as anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Thousands of German converts to other religions, including Roman Catholic priests and nuns, are considered Jews.

  With the passage of the Nuremberg laws, German Jews were denied treatment at municipal hospitals, Jewish officers were expelled from the army, and university students were prohibited from sitting for doctoral exams. The restrictions were loosened in preparation for the Olympic Games last year, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the winter and in the summer in Berlin. But the Reich has since stepped up its “Aryanization” efforts, dismissing Jewish workers and transferring Jewish-owned businesses into non-Jewish hands at bargain prices or with no compensation at all . . .

  Seeking

  The yellow pot was there, upright on the Webers’ frost-covered porch. Still, Truus approached the gate slowly in Mrs. Kramarsky’s Mercedes, making sure as she always did that the pot hadn’t been tipped over in warning only to be righted by a helpful Nazi. They were old, the Webers had told her when she’d first met them; their own futures were short, bu
t with their help the children’s futures might be long. Truus opened the gate, drove through, and closed it behind her, glad for her winter coat and long skirt. She shifted into low gear and drove across the field, to the path into the woods.

  It was well past noon before she saw the first telling flicker of movement, a rustle that might have been a deer but became, when she stopped the car, a fleeing child zigzagging through the trees. Truus couldn’t fathom it even still, how children survived in these woods and on the moors for days and nights with nothing more in their pockets than spent railway tickets, a few reichsmarks if they were lucky, and bits of bread packed by mothers so desperate that they would put their children on trains to the edge of Germany without a breath of real hope—children who survived often only to be arrested by the Germans or sent back by Dutch border patrol.

  “It’s okay. I’m here to help,” Truus called gently, watching to see where the child hid. She moved slowly, offering, “I’m Tante Truus and I’m here to help you get to the Netherlands, like your mother told you to do.”

  Truus wasn’t exactly sure why the children ever trusted her, or even if they did. She sometimes thought they allowed her to approach only out of sheer exhaustion.

  “I’m Tante Truus,” she repeated. “What’s your name?”

  The girl, perhaps fifteen, studied her.

  “Would you like me to help you get over the border?” Truus offered gently.

  A slightly younger boy poked a head out from the brush, then another. The three didn’t look like siblings, but one couldn’t always tell.

  The girl turned from the others back to Truus. “Can you take us all?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  When the other two returned the girl’s gaze without objection, the girl whistled loudly. Another child peeked out from hiding. And another. Good heavens, there were eleven children, one of them no more than a baby, for heaven’s sake. Well, it would be a full car. Truus had no idea how the ladies would find beds tonight for eleven children, but she would leave that for God to provide.

  TRUUS BUMPED THROUGH the forest, headed back toward the Weber farm with the children all sitting on each other or on the floorboards. They were so silent, so unnaturally quiet for children of any age, much less the young teens most of these children were. Silent and unsmiling, like the children Truus’s family had taken in during the war.

  Truus had been just eighteen, the war arriving on their doorstep in Duivendrecht just as she ought to have been greeting suitors there. The Netherlands had remained neutral, but still a state of siege had been declared and the army mobilized, the boys all sent to protect areas essential to the national defense, which did not include Truus’s front porch. Truus was left at home to read to the little refugees, who’d arrived so weak and hungry that she had wanted to hand them her own plate, and yet wanted as well to eat every bite herself lest she ever be so thin. They had infuriated Truus and saddened her in equal measure, those children whose reticence left Mummy so sad. Those children who thrust Truus herself into mothering too, if she were to be honest, and left her wondering how she might pull her own mother out from under the stifling blanket of the children’s silent sorrow. Then the morning of the first snow that winter, heavy and early, Truus had woken to the snow-laden trees, the snow-softened rails on the snow-softened bridges, the pristine white paths such a contrast to the still, dark waters of the canal. She quietly woke the children and showed them the view, and dressed them, thankful on that morning for the hush of their voices even when they did speak. They slipped outside, and in the light of the winter moon reflecting on the snow, they built a snowman. That was all. Just a snowman, three dirty-white snow boulders stacked one atop the other, with stones for eyes and twigs for arms and no mouth at all, as if the children meant to make the creature in their own silent image. Mummy, with her morning tea in hand, had looked out the window just as they finished. It was what she did each morning—her way to see what the Lord had in store for her, she liked to say. That morning, though, she was surprised and delighted to see the children outside, even if they weren’t smiling, even if they weren’t making any noise. Truus pointed up to her, urging the children to wave. Just as she was doing so, one of the boys threw a snowball at the window, splattering the glass and somehow cracking the silence. The children laughed and laughed as Mummy’s startled face gave way to laughter too. It was, to this day, the most beautiful sound Truus had ever heard, even as it had left her so ashamed. How could she ever have wanted anything but the laughter of these children? How could she ever have wanted anything for herself?

  Truus pulled Mrs. Kramarsky’s sedan to a sudden stop. On the ground below the Webers’ porch, the yellow pot lay tipped on its side, spilling dirt onto the path. She backed the car slowly and began to search for an exit over the border through the woods, saying again the prayer she always did, thanking God for the Webers and all they’d done for the children of Germany, and asking Him to keep the courageous old couple safe.

  Klara Van Lange

  At the Groenveld house on Jan Luijkenstraat, Truus—exhausted from the hours spent searching the woods for an exit, only to cross the Weber farm in the middle of the night with the car lights off and the gas tank near empty—turned the eleven children over to the volunteers. Klara van Lange, sitting at the telephone table in one of those ghastly new calf-baring skirts, covered the receiver with her hand and whispered to Truus, “The Jewish hospital on the Nieuwe Keizersgracht.” She said into the receiver, “Yes, we know eleven children is a lot, but it’s just for a night or two until we can find families to— Have they bathed?” She glanced nervously at Truus. “Lice? No, of course they don’t have lice!”

  Truus quickly checked the children’s hair and set the oldest boy aside. “You have a lice comb, Mrs. Groenveld?” she whispered. “But of course you do. Your husband is a doctor.”

  “Yes, we can send someone to help care for the baby,” Klara said into the receiver. She mouthed to Truus, “I can go.”

  Well, as much as Truus might like to go with the children herself, she oughtn’t leave Joop alone for the night; she should be grateful for the offer.

  “All right, who would like a nice warm bath?” Truus asked the children. Then to the ladies, “Mrs. Groenveld, can you and Miss Hackman take the younger girls?” To the oldest girl, she said, “If we draw you a bath, can you manage yourself?”

  The girl answered, “I can help with Benjamin’s lice, Tante Truus.”

  Truus, with a gentle hand to the girl’s cheek, said, “If I could choose a daughter, dear, she would be a girl just as sweet as you are. Now, you are going to have a nice warm bath all to yourself, and I’m going to find you some bath salts too.” To Klara, who had just hung up the telephone, she said, “Mrs. Van Lange, can you put together some cheese sandwiches?”

  “Yes, I did persuade the Jewish hospital to take them even though the children have no papers; you’re welcome, Mrs. Wijsmuller,” Klara responded wryly, reminding Truus of herself as a young woman, although far more beautiful. Klara van Lange did not need to bare her calves in this inexplicable new fashion in order to have men’s attentions. Heavens, if she didn’t seat herself carefully, her knees would show.

  “Of course you persuaded them, Klara,” Truus said. “How could even the prime minister say no to you?” Thinking perhaps they ought to try Klara’s fashionable skirts and her powers of persuasion on Prime Minister Colijn before, as the rumor mill expected, the Dutch government made it impossible for foreigners to establish themselves here, not literally closing the border but alerting Germans fleeing the Reich without independent means that the Netherlands might be a land of passage, but not a final destination.

  Through a Window Glass, Darkly

  Eichmann set aside the report he was drafting, for which Hagen, his newest boss, would take the credit if there was any to take—yet another pretender skating on the solid pond of Eichmann’s expertise. He opened the train window and breathed deeply of the autumn air as they roc
ked through the pass from Italy into Austria, his stomach emptied so completely while crossing the Mediterranean from the Middle East to Brindisi on the Palestina that the sick-bay doctor had tried to put him off at Rhodes. The whole trip was an absolute bust: an entire month of travel only to have the British allow them a mere twenty-four hours in Haifa, and the Cairo authorities deny them visas for Palestine. Twelve long days in Egypt, that was all they’d gotten for their trouble.

  Hagen said, “The Jews swindle each other, that’s the root of Palestine’s financial chaos.”

  “It might be more effective if we lay out specifics, sir,” Eichmann responded. “Forty Jewish bankers in Jerusalem.”

  “Forty swindling Jew bankers,” Hagen agreed. “Sure, another fifty thousand Jews would emigrate annually with the haul Polkes thinks we ought to allow them.”

  The Jew Polkes, the only real connection they’d made on the trip, had suggested that if Germany really wanted to get rid of its Jews, it ought to allow them to take a thousand British pounds with them to emigrate to Palestine. That’s how he’d phrased it, “a thousand British pounds,” as if Germany’s own reichsmarks were unspeakable.

  Eichmann scribbled into the report: It is not our aim to have Jewish capital transferred from the Reich, but rather to induce Jews without means to emigrate.

  His pencil snapped, unable to stand the pressure of his quick thoughts. He pulled out his pocketknife, thinking of his cold, frugal stepmother, whose family in Vienna had married wealthy Jews of the sort that would be unwilling to leave anyplace without their ill-gotten riches.

  “I grew up here, in Linz,” Eichmann said to Hagen as the train topped a long climb and the view opened from the woods to all of Austria. This cold on his face now was the cold of running with his friend Mischa Sebba through woods much like these, this emptiness that of his own hands as his parents linked fingers with his younger siblings crossing the platform at the Linz station, when the family had reunited here after that year apart. He had been eight, then, and ten when his mother’s gentle voice gave way to his stepmother reading from the Bible in the crowded apartment at No. 3 Bischof Strasse. It had been four years since he’d been home, four years since he’d visited his mother’s grave.