In the Claws of the Eagle (13 page)

Now Professor Boden tried to change the subject. ‘As you can see, gentlemen, student Hoffman has undoubted talent in drawing and in oils. Perhaps you know of his mother, Herr Frimmel, Frau Sabine Hoffman? She created quite a stir at your Munich exposition on modern art.’

Erich was startled to hear his mother brought into the conversation.

‘Not under my directorship, Herr Professor,’ came the clipped reply. ‘That exhibition should never have been allowed. Degenerate art, the lot of it! You just have to compare
those daubs with what you have in your galleries here in Vienna to see how art is being degraded. You foster your Jews, you let in Negro jazz, and now you encourage paintings that could have been done by monkeys. No wonder your country is in a mess.’

Erich had been watching their faces like a spectator at a tennis match as Professor Boden tried to calm Herr Frimmel, and prevent Herr Komanski from exploding. The professor shot an apologetic look at Erich for the slight against his mother.

Fortunately Herr Frimmel looked at his watch. ‘I must be going.’ He turned to Erich. ‘Stand up and be counted, lad, we need you. Stick to your classical style, a master race requires master painters. He turned to Professor Boden. ‘Thank you, Professor, most revealing meeting.’ He glanced significantly at Komanski. ‘Heil … pardon’ he said scornfully, ‘…
auf
Wiedersehen
,’ and he left the room.

‘Did you see him!’ said Komanski, shooting up his arm in mock salute. ‘Heil … I’ll Heil him.’

‘Komanski … order!’ Professor Boden turned to Erich. ‘Now, Mr Hoffman, so you wish to specialise in, let me see … “History of Art with an emphasis on Dutch art in the seventeenth
century
?” That’s going to be demanding. You see, we require that students develop the skills of their subjects…’

As the professor elaborated on the schedule Eich would have to undertake, he soon wondered if he shouldn’t have chosen mediaeval flower painting.

There had been no trouble during Izaac’s concert in Berlin; Berliners love music almost as much as the Viennese, but he was delayed in leaving by people wanting autographs. The stage door, like most stage doors, opened into a dark alley. No
sooner had it clicked shut behind Izaac than a disorganised mob of young men and women wearing red shirts and scarves tumbled into one end of the alley: Communists? They turned briefly to face some unseen enemy behind them.

Then he heard their attackers, singing, if singing it could be called: ‘
Blut muss fließen, Blut muss
…’

Nazi storm troopers!

‘
Blood must flow, blood must flow! Blood must flow, cudgels thick as hail! Let’s smash it up, let’s smash it up! That
goddamned
Jewish republic!
’

It didn’t seem to matter that these were not Jews but young Communists, running, terrified, towards Izaac. After them came the brown-shirted storm troopers, bats and bludgeons raised, smashing them down on the heads and shoulders of the young protesters. One of these, a lad holding a hammer and sickle, turned in defiance. In a second he was felled by a single blow. Izaac heard the boy’s skull crack.

Terrified, he tucked himself back into the stage door and huddled over his violin. The tide had swept past before he dared to look up to find a middle-aged man in a brown shirt staring at him.

‘Hey lads,’ the man roared, ‘a bloody Jew!’

Just then a girl’s terrified scream came from further down the lane. ‘Damn, I’m missing the fun!’ and he was gone.

Izaac lost no time in getting back to his lodgings. When he recounted the incident to his host, he said, ‘Izaac, you were very lucky. The Nazis are taking anyone who opposes them, beating them, torturing them, and leaving them for dead in the street. As soon as they have killed all the Communists they will start to kill the Jews. That concert tour you have lined up in America is your opportunity. Take my advice, when you get off the ship in America, stay there.’

Izaac looked in amazement at the telegraph form the radio officer had just handed him. It was barely twenty-four hours since he had embarked from Hamburg for his first transatlantic crossing. Now he would have to go down and pack again, ready to disembark. His passenger liner was already nosing its way into Cork harbour. Wooded hills and pastures rose out of still waters. Gulls whirled and screeched above his head. He had never seen the sea until they had steamed out of Hamburg, and he didn’t want to leave it. He hated Europe at this moment.

Now he stood on the quay in Cobh, in the turmoil of embarking and disembarking passengers. There were women in floods of tears and young men with cardboard suitcases tied with rope. There were beauties in hats and pearls, and gentlemen in suits. For the third time came the appeal:
Would Mr McCormack Moustache come to the gangplank where Mr
Abrahams
is waiting for him
. All at once Izaac was confronted by a man with a red face who was pumping his hand, flooding him with explanations and apologies in what might have been Gaelic but turned out to be English.

‘I’m Paddy McCormack. God help me, I never recognised my own name as they were calling it. You see, I told your
agent that you would know me by my moustache!’ He roared with laughter, pointed to the luxurious growth that covered half his face, called a porter, and seized a couple of bags
himself
. Izaac followed in a daze. ‘This is how it is, Mr Abrahams,’ he said as they walked. ‘We have the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin booked for you in a week’s time. It’s just between runs, so we’re lucky. In the meantime I’ve been told to look after you. I have an allowance of a guinea a day for the two of us, which will be grand in the country. If it’s the city you want, we’ll have to go easy on the Guinness. What will it be then, the city or the country?’ At last two words that Izaac understood.

‘Herr McCormack, danke. Ja, I would like the country best, best of all the sea. We have no sea in my country, you
understand
?’

‘God bless you, Mr Izaac, we’ll give you a drop to take home with you. Now, we can fix your cabin case to the back of the car. The rest can go by train to Dublin for you. Will you keep the little fella there?’

‘The little … Oh, my violin. Yes, please. Perhaps first the telegraph office? I must tell my family and friends where I am and what I am doing.’

Izaac dispatched short telegrams to his parents and to Madame Helena, and a slightly longer one to Gretchen. Then Paddy McCormack and he set forth, neither of them fully understanding what the other was saying. When they came to a crossroads, Izaac would say, ‘West, Paddy bitte,’ or ‘The Sea, Paddy bitte,’ while Paddy would say, ‘The pub, Mr Izaac, bitte.’ It took them the best part of the week to travel up through the west of Ireland: Cork and Kerry, into Clare, and then out west to Connemara in County Galway.

On their last day Paddy drove him as far west as he could, beyond the mountains, until only the sea remained. Couldn’t he stay here, Izaac wondered, safe beyond the mountains that
now glowed behind him in the evening light?
They
would never get him here – the Nazi louts on the streets of Berlin; the poisonous children in the Vienna woods – they’d never find him here between the mountains and the sea. He would bring Gretchen and they would make music and Louise would be with them, and they would all laugh again. If only he could persuade his parents to leave Vienna, it would all be perfect.

He laid his violin case on the sand and began to play.
Without
thinking, he played Helena’s
Humoresque
. The sun sank in a riot of colour and he heard Louise say quite distinctly, ‘Your fingers are stiff as pokers, what have you been up to?’ So he played the sun into the sea and then he told her all that had happened to him.

Erich sat back in a corner of the wide wooden shelf that served for a communal bed in the mountain refuge. He looked down on a group of five climbers who were cooking their evening meal on a primus stove. Erich had arrived earlier, in time to stretch out in the evening sun and ease his feet. His new
climbing
boots had been stiff and uncomfortable. The crisp rim of toothed nails designed to dig in and hold tight to the rock made them heavy. He had been woken from a doze by the arrival of the new group as they had dropped their coiled ropes and equipment beside his boots at the refuge door. Now the smell of their cooking was tantalising; he had already eaten the little he had brought, and was starving again.

He listened to their easy chat. Two were about his own age, eighteen or so, the others were in their twenties. Erich wished he could join them, but felt shy. He imagined them connected by some subtle bond – their ropes perhaps – a bond that didn’t include him. He had never been one for games and group activities; after experiencing Klaus’s scouts he had decided that he was a loner, but this was different.

‘Hey, I didn’t see you. Come and join us,’ the oldest of the group called out. Erich nearly said no, but they were all
looking
up at him.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and slid down.

‘I’m Stephan.’ He introduced the others. ‘I saw your boots at the door – not tourist boots – climbing on your own? Sausage?’ Erich’s eyes widened. Stephan was holding out a whole
sausage
on his fork. He accepted it gratefully and bit into it; the juice burst into his mouth.

‘I’m just breaking them in,’ he mumbled. Then he realised that this sounded like bragging, and came clean. ‘They’re my first proper boots. I might try the tourist route tomorrow.’ To his relief, the conversation veered on to boots in general, soft nails versus hard nails, their plans for tomorrow, and then reminiscences of past climbs. Stephan had even been to the Himalayas. Erich sat like a mouse in a theatre, enthralled, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed. He could go on listening to stories of snow and ice, and of vertical pitches on the
sun-warmed
rocks of the Dolomites forever.

In the morning, before anyone else got up, he took his breakfast – a heel of bread – outside. Having just bought his boots, he was literally penniless and didn’t want the others offering him food again. He would let them go, and then take the tourist path to the top. It was cool and fresh, the rearing cliffs of the mountain rose almost vertically behind him. Would he ever have the courage to climb them … certainly not on his own. He discovered a tiny white flower, an edelweiss, in a crack at his feet; its petals were like velvet. He heard a voice above him.

‘One of our group couldn’t make it. If we had an extra man we could make up two ropes of three, would you like to join us?’ Stephan was standing looking down at him.

Like
! Of course he’d like … ‘But I’ve never been on a rope before!’ It was out now; his boots were all just a show.

‘No time like the present. If you decide you don’t like it, we will see you down.’

Erich nearly objected that his grandfather said that he must always be able to climb down what he had climbed up, but he held his tongue.

To begin with, Erich could have kicked himself for having agreed to come, but Stephan, the leader of his rope, was patient in showing him how to tie it onto his waist, and how to pay it out while Stephan climbed. Erich soon realised that the rope, far from being a quick way of pulling all three climbers to their doom, protected them and secured them to the rock. Just as he had imagined, the rope really was a living link between them all. His boots clicked neatly into the firm rock and he could feel the air under his heels. Gradually life took on a vertical dimension, a world where red-legged choughs did acrobatics and eagles soared.

His last lesson that day was how to coil up the rope so it didn’t twist; the climb was over. They arrived back at the refuge in good time for Erich to start the trek back down into the valley. The others were staying on for another night. He wanted to linger, but he must be back in Vienna for classes on Monday. He said his thanks and was shouldering his rucksack when Stephan came up.

‘We’re not a club, just a group of friends, but any time you’d like to climb with us, this is my address; drop me a card. Some time I’ll tell you how difficult that climb you did today was, not bad for a pair of new boots!’

Erich practically floated with pride all the way down into the valley.

Of all the bizarre expeditions! Izaac and Uncle Rudi were driving the breadth of Austria with a dismantled piano in the back seat of Rudi’s car! When they arrived at the border with Switzerland his uncle joked so much with the customs officials
that Izaac began to be suspicious that Rudi was up to
something
. Then when they pulled into a junkyard and sold the old piano for a few Swiss francs, he was sure. But what Rudi’s game was he had no idea. It was only when they drove through the massive gates of one of the principal banks in Zurich that Izaac twigged. Sure enough, when Uncle Rudi lifted the floorboards of the car, there were the bags of gold coins that he had purchased for the family at the time of the Wall Street Crash.

‘Sorry I didn’t let you in on it, Izaac.’ Rudi whispered as the bank managers wound themselves about them, like cats being served cream. ‘I thought it better that you knew nothing about it. You might have given us away at the border!’ he chuckled.

The money was counted, the bags carried off to the vaults, and the paperwork undertaken with Swiss precision. Then, amid assurances of confidentiality, an account was opened in the family name of Abrahams. A password was entered into a leather-bound ledger, and immediately locked away in a gigantic safe.

Izaac drove most of the way home. The bank had given them a hearty lunch with plenty of wine, and Uncle Rudi, unfit to drive, was prone to sudden fits of giggles. Izaac was
justifiably
worried that he might tell the customs men on the way back how he had fooled them.

It was, however, a cold sober Uncle Rudi who called the whole family together a day or two later and explained the situation and how they must handle it. Having learned that Jewish businesses were being targeted in Germany, he had thought it best that the family fortunes should be safe in a Swiss bank. He then gave them each a copy of the details of the bank, the account number, and, most importantly, the password. They were to memorise these before leaving the room. These were their passwords for a future. When half an
hour was up he took their slips of paper, including his own, and burned them in the tiled stove that stood in a corner of the room.

Two years after Izaac’s aborted attempt to get to America, he set sail again. This time the trip was uneventful and the tour had been a resounding success. His name was now almost as well known internationally as it was back home in Austria. Last night, after an eventful day, he had given his final performance in all the glamour of a Hollywood celebrity concert.

‘Hey! Mr Abrahams sir, you have certainly hit the headlines today, sir.’ The man at reception was holding out
The
Hollywood
Herald
.

‘A review so soon?’ Izaac was surprised. He began to read.
Austrian Violinist Quells Kids’ Riot in Beverly Hills
ran the headline. So that was what it was about!
Yesterday afternoon, when Austrian violinist, Izaac Abrahams, came to prepare for his evening concert at the Beverly Hills Palladium, he didn’t know that he would end up playing for five hundred excited kids. When puppeteer ‘Peter the Piper’ failed to show for his matinee performance, stage manager Shawn O’Dwyer thought he had a riot on his hands. Here is what the kids had to say:

‘Cool! Great!’ says Mark J. Sands Junior. ‘This guy walked on stage just like he was a puppet. Jerky steps, he has this violin, see, but whenever he gets it to his chin his right arm drops, or flies up in the air, so he looks up and gives out in German like to the man operating him, so like fools, we all look up too. When he gets his puppet strings straight he begins to play tunes, from musicals I guess. That violin, it’s only a little piece of wood, but the sound he can get out of it is something else.’

Next I asked Amy Kit, whose dad works in the Disney studios:

‘I liked the time he looked like a duck – not Donald Duck – a
sort of wild duck,’ she says, ‘and I liked when his violin turned into a python. Wow… it nearly got him.’

So, today being the last day of Izaac Abraham’s West Coast tour, I asked him if he was anxious about going back home with all the trouble facing Jewish people in Germany. He said that Austria was different and that they would hold out against Hitler. He laughed and said that, anyway, he had someone to go home to.

When the ship docked in Hamburg, Izaac took the train south through France and Switzerland; he didn’t want to travel through Germany again. He got up as the train wound down through the mountains, shaving carefully in the tiny
wash-hand
basin in his sleeper compartment. Then at last came the familiar suburbs of Vienna. He felt his pulse racing. Why did the train have to crawl? At last, the Westbahnhof. Would Gretchen be there? He lowered the window, searching the platform, and there she was, by a pillar, stretching up to see him over the crowd. He hurried to the door, overnight case in one hand and violin in the other, and here she came, flying down the platform towards him.

Sabine Hoffman strained to hear the voice of the newsreader, her face anxious. 

Erich’s mother switched off the wireless. She would paint her way through this, as through every other crisis. The rest of Altaussee stayed glued to their sets.

It had been the worst night that Erich had experienced on a mountain since he had begun serious climbing with Stephan three years ago. The storm had raged with demonic fury,
lashing
at the thin sheet of tenting that covered them. The ledge they were sitting on, a mere fifty centimetres wide, sloped out. Only short lengths of rope, attached to a single steel piton driven deep into a crack in the rock, prevented them from
hurtling
into the abyss below. During the height of the storm, lightning had struck at the face. Each strike had commenced with a terrible tingle, a blue light would hover about the steel piton, and then would come a jolt, and a flash that lit their
terrified
faces as the electrical discharge hit them. Then came the snow, hissing stealthily over their covering sheet.

The storm passed and the first light of day filtered through. Long before the reporters and watchers below began to stir, they had had their breakfast. They forced down the last of their cold sausage. Apart from some chocolate, and some loose
raisins
, that was the end of their provisions. It was time to review
their position. Up or down, they must escape from this terrible face today, before their strength failed.

Their shelf represented a cul-de-sac. It was perched at the top of a vast, near vertical slab of smooth rock that offered no holds for hands or feet. Either they must go back, losing
precious
hours in the process, or they must find some way to cross this slab. Stephan was adamant.

‘We can’t go back, lads. If we do, we could lose half a day and won’t have time to go up or down. We
have
to cross it! Let’s give it a go; it might, just might, lead into a crack to the summit!’

It took them some time to arrange the rope to Stephan’s
satisfaction
. Erich remembered doing something similar as a boy, using a rope that was tied to a lamp post as a swing. Having moved back along the shelf to get as wide a swing as possible, Stephan was nerving himself. A two-thousand-foot fall down nearly vertical rock waited him if anything went wrong.

Then he was off, hurtling in a wide downward arc, swinging across the slab, his feet half running, half scrabbling at the
surface
. He stretched out; a centimetre more and he would be able to grab the far edge of the slab with his fingers, but he was just that little too short, and swung back like a pendulum,
spinning
and bouncing off the rock, cursing and swearing. Then, without hesitating, and taking advantage of the momentum of his backward swing, he lunged forward to try again. The rope – stretched to its limit – crackled with the strain, then his hands were on the edge, and with a heave he pulled himself forward to straddle the edge like a rider on a rearing horse. He looked over the far side.