Munich Signature (11 page)

Beneš nodded as Murphy continued. “They have been through enough already. Getting Elisa into the country is no problem since we’re married. And we have already made contact with the State Department about the Kronenberger child. A temporary visa for medical aid will be issued. But they have not been encouraging about Theo and Anna and their boys. The quotas, you know. Filled. And not just the U.S. quotas.”

Beneš
sadly shook his head. “We have not turned the refugees from our doors here in Prague. They come here even knowing the fact that we are Hitler’s next target. Have you seen the thousands that crowd outside the embassies to beg for visas? The press of desperate human beings has closed Embassy Avenue to traffic. And they continue to come again and again.”

Beneš
extended his hand. Murphy bowed slightly in the custom of Europe. He was saying farewell to far more than one man. “Perhaps one day I will be able to tell my wife and her family of your help this evening. Until then, I alone must offer you my thanks, and my prayers, that it will go well for you and your country.”

A smile played on the lips of Beneš. “Then farewell, John Murphy. A safe journey for you.”

6

Flight from Terror

“You are awfully quiet.” Elisa leaned her head against Murphy’s arm as they walked slowly onto the Charles Bridge.

Murphy did not answer, but turned to gaze back toward Hradcany Castle, where he knew the light in President Beneš’ office still burned. Murphy sighed, then looked past the row of saints that lined the bridge to where St. Nepomuk stood before an audience of flickering votive candles.

“Are you cold?” he asked Elisa as the damp mists of the river enfolded them. A chill much colder than the river mists penetrated Murphy’s heart. He had been subdued and preoccupied since he had emerged from the office of the president.

“I’m fine.” Elisa hugged his arm tighter, aware that something deeply troubled Murphy.

They walked on in silence for a few more steps until Murphy paused beside the statue of St. Nepomuk. He and Elisa had walked all over the city of Prague. He had stopped to kiss her a thousand times—in front of the library, on the steps of Tyn Church, outside the butcher shop, on the curb where the trolley car made its stop. For weeks her kisses and her smile had nourished him. He had given no thought that any other soul on earth might be watching them.

Tonight she tilted her face up toward his. Her lips were parted in an expectant smile. Was there ever a more romantic place than here on the Charles Bridge? In the flickering candle light with the rush of the river against the ancient pilings below them, the air was sweet, mingling with the scent of her skin.

And yet . . . suddenly the night had become full of unseen watchers. In the dark shadows enemies nudged one another and whispered, “
He will kiss her again here. Now is our chance. One little shove and they are drowned in the Moldau
.” The windows of crooked houses now seemed like dark eyes concealing the evil that pursued them.

“Murphy?” Elisa whispered. “What . . . ?”

He stood very still, looking past her to the gatehouse where their taxi had dropped them several minutes before. There was movement in the shadows. The substance of his fears took the shape of reality. Human forms watched them from beneath the arches.

Murphy took Elisa by the arm and pulled her back from the railing. They were sitting ducks out here on the bridge! Any crank with a rifle could pick them off easily. “Come on,” he said roughly.

“Murphy?” She peered back toward the gatehouse where Murphy’s gaze returned again and again. He quickened his pace until she was almost running to keep up with him. The chill of old fears swept over her and she did not need to ask any more questions. The sickening feeling she had known in Vienna and Germany overtook her with a violence that shattered the delight she had carried with her from the party.

Home was just across the square, around a corner on the narrow lane. Breathlessly she clung to Murphy as their shoes echoed against the cobblestones. Steep gables appeared to lean toward them. In every shadow now lurked some unknown danger that Murphy felt, yet could not speak of.

Elisa’s eyes brimmed with tears as they rounded the corner and came within sight of the brightly lit windows of the little Prague house. Warmth and safety were there. She broke free of Murphy’s grasp and ran up the steps. Almost desperately she clanged the heavy iron door knocker as Murphy rushed up behind her and stood between her and the street with his eyes scanning every rooftop above them.

Anna opened the door with a smile, but the smile quickly faded as the two pushed in past her and Murphy slammed the door and bolted it.

“Children!” Anna cried. “What is it?”

Elisa exhaled loudly with relief, then turned in confusion toward Murphy. “What
was
it Murphy?”

How could he explain? Their circumstance had not changed at all except that now he
knew
. “Nothing.” he shook his head. “I . . . I guess we just got a little spooked. I did, I mean. Like a couple of kids in the dark.” He feigned an embarrassed laugh, and Elisa eyed him irritably.

“I was simply following Murphy, Mother,” she said haughtily. “I was not spooked.”

“Right. That’s why you ran up the steps ahead of me.”

“Well . . . ” Anna looked from one to the other. “Theo has gone on to bed. He bids you good night. I will make you tea if you like, and then there is something important in the parlor.”

***

Two telegrams waited on the glistening walnut piano. Anna had propped them up against a candlestick, and Murphy guessed that she had probably stared at them anxiously all night.

“Perhaps it is word from Leah.” Anna smoothed her hair back from where it had fallen across her forehead. “Both of the wires came by the same courier not ten minutes after you had gone.”

“Leah,” Elisa said hopefully as she held the envelopes and closed her eyes in a hope that was almost unbearable. “Murphy, quick—” She shoved them into his hands.

He held the same hope. If Leah had escaped from Austria, she would certainly let them know where she was and what her plans were. Every day had been marred with the absence of that news. “You open them.” He thought it would be best if Elisa read the words herself.

She shook her head and stamped her foot impatiently. The telegrams were addressed to him, the gesture said. Why was he wasting time?

Anna discreetly remained a few steps away as Murphy tore open the envelopes and began to read. Elisa pressed herself against his arm and had read through the first message before he finished.

“America!” she exclaimed. “So soon?”

Anna stepped nearer and stood tiptoe as she tried to see the message over Murphy’s shoulder. “From Trump, my publisher in the States,” he explained, then read aloud:

Anna sat down slowly on the piano bench. “The fifteenth? But that is only a few days. Oh dear! Leaving Prague so suddenly?”

Elisa seemed not to hear. She shook Murphy’s arm impatiently. “The other one, Murphy,” she urged. “Maybe it’s from Leah.” The thought of a trip to America had not yet penetrated her excitement.

Murphy grimaced as he read aloud the second wire. It was from Timmons and Johnson in Paris. Elisa groaned audibly in disappointment at the signature.

The kids referred to in the wire meant Charles and Louis. Timmons and Johnson had obviously come across some important news about the Kronenberger family.

Elisa could not muster any enthusiasm for that possibility. She turned away from Murphy and stood with her hand on her forehead. She was swaying slightly. Murphy laid the yellow telegrams back on the piano and put his hands on her shoulders. Tomorrow was time enough to consider a trip to the States and a phone call to Paris. For now, however, the weight of worry and uncertainty about Leah and Louis was almost crushing.

“No word.” She sighed. “Still no word.”

“They are all right,” Anna answered softly. “Karl and Marta Wattenbarger are capable people. Good people. If Otto reached the farmhouse with them—”

“Oh, Mama!” Elisa cried as she turned to embrace Murphy. “We don’t even know that much! Don’t even know if Otto got them out of Vienna. And if he didn’t, we won’t know . . . not ever . . . what has become of them! There is no way to get through to the Wattenbargers.”

Murphy stroked her hair. The white dress shimmered in the soft lamplight. This was not the way he had hoped to end the evening. “You can’t let yourself worry about it anymore,” he said gently.

“Not worry?” She drew back from him as though the words had burned her. “How can I not worry? Haven’t we been through enough agony when Papa was arrested? When will they leave us alone?” She pulled loose and sank down next to Anna on the piano bench. She began to cry softly as Anna put an arm around her.

Anna looked at her new son-in-law apologetically. For twenty-three years she had been comforting Elisa. It was a hard habit to break. “Your husband is right, Elisa,” Anna chided, but not unkindly. “There is a hope that heals and also a hope that can destroy you if you hold too tightly to it. Hope first in the same hand that delivered your father. God knows where Leah is, Elisa. Have you forgotten that?”

“Oh, Mama!” Elisa wept even harder now. Murphy looked helpless and unhappy. He picked up the telegrams and put them down again. Maybe it was better to let the women sort these things out.

“Anna,” he began, “Elisa—I’m going on to bed now.” He tugged at his tie as if to make that point. “You two talk it over. I . . . wish the wires had been what we were waiting for.” Elisa simply nodded. Anna gave him a reassuring wink. It would be all right. Elisa would pull herself together. Maybe tomorrow they could talk about something else. About a trip to America. About news of the Kronenberger family in Paris
. But for tonight
, Anna seemed to say in a look,
Elisa needs time to cry
. There had not been one tear shed since the night they had returned to Prague together. Perhaps loving Murphy had left no time for sadness and doubt about the fate of Leah.

“A good cry,” Murphy muttered uncomfortably in English. “My mother used to say every woman needs one sometimes.” He half smiled as Anna nodded. Then he gazed miserably at Elisa. He wished there were something he could say or do to cheer her up. When he made no move to leave she looked up at him. Her eyes were bright with tears.
How can a woman look beautiful even when she cries?
he wondered. It made his heart squeeze.

“I’ll be along later,” she croaked.

He was being dismissed. There were things he just could not take care of for her. “Yes. Then . . .
Grüss Gott,
Elisa.”

***

Elisa closed her eyes and listened as Murphy’s footsteps retreated down the hall. All the simmering worries about Leah and little Louis had surfaced with paralyzing intensity. She did not try to speak of it, nor did she need to. It was enough that Anna understood the silent grief of
not knowing
! Was there anything worse than this gnawing uncertainty? Why had she not heard from Leah? Obviously Leah had not yet been able to make her way to freedom. But was she safe? Had she been captured? Would there come a time when Elisa would be forced to tell Charles that his brother was dead as well?

Terrible images filled Elisa’s mind like the plot of a tragic play. She imagined Nazi SS and Gestapo agents pursuing Leah through the mountain passes. The victims in the Vienna Gestapo headquarters suddenly had Leah’s voice and Leah’s face! Louis whimpered in a dark corner; then he shouted as he had that last horrible night in the apartment in Vienna, “I cannot go anywhere without him. I want Father! I want my mother!”

Tonight the reasons they had not left Vienna together were forgotten. Guilt hovered above Elisa. She was safe, and Leah was not! Why had she consented to their separation? It had made sense that night. Now it made no sense at all.

“You will be together again,” Leah had promised Louis. She had not offered that comfort to Elisa. Leah had not said, “
We
will be together again.” No. The two friends had said their farewells. Both, perhaps, had sensed that it was forever. At least for this lifetime. Still, Elisa could not accept the finality of that parting—not tonight, when reality crowded out the carefree joy she had felt with Murphy.

“Oh, Mama,” she whispered to Anna, “tonight Murphy was afraid. I felt it in his hand. Saw it in his eyes, and suddenly I was terrified again.”

Anna chose her words carefully. There was so much to fear. So many things that played upon the mind and called out from nightmares. “I feel it, too. A hundred times a day it all comes to me—what we may be facing, what many are facing now.”

“How do we keep going?” Elisa shook her head in helpless frustration. “All around it is so dark.”

Anna nodded. There was no sense in making such feeling sound trivial. To deny such fear was to lie. It was real. The darkness was real and the fears were justified. “When I am most afraid I remember what my mother used to say: ‘Put on your hundred-year glasses, Anna, so you can see yourself a hundred years from now.’ Where will you be in a hundred years? Where will I be? And Papa? And Wilhelm and Dieter? And your Murphy? And Leah?” Anna had listed the most important people in Elisa’s life. In a hundred years they would all be together—somewhere besides Prague.

“A hundred years is a very long time to wait.” Elisa managed a smile.

“It will pass much more quickly than you can imagine. And be certain, Elisa, it will pass.”

“But in the meantime?”