Munich Signature (54 page)

Tonight Elisa only wanted some comfort. Tonight the BBC was scheduled to broadcast a violin concerto by a certain young violinist named Elisa Linder-Murphy! Elisa smiled as her name was announced. All the way from London to Paris, and she could hear herself. It seemed almost humorous now. She looked toward the corner of the room at the brand new case housing her Guarnerius, and she wondered how Shelby was making out hefting around the old case and the ten-dollar violin it contained.

There was the rousing sound of applause—canned, certainly. There had been no audience when Elisa had recorded the concerto. Then the music began, sweet and poignant. Within the notes all her longings were carried.

She wondered if Leah were listening right now, a few miles from her in Paris. How she wanted to see her again! And Thomas—was he able to listen to a BBC broadcast in the German Embassy? Or was that forbidden? Perhaps she would ask him tomorrow when they met at the bistro. How would they feel listening to a Jewess play Mozart’s happy bright music?

She did not feel happy or bright tonight. She wanted only to be finished with all this before something inside her broke forever. And she wanted to be with Murphy on a farm in Pennsylvania where someday their sons could camp in the woods and dream of faraway places.

***

Thomas resented the appearance of this rather greasy-looking little Gestapo agent at the embassy. Playing on the rivalry between Himmler and Admiral Canaris, this newcomer seemed to have found a thousand ways to needle Thomas.

Thomas guessed that Georg Wand had come to Paris to gauge the effect of the Czech crisis on the French. Not until this moment did he finally understand the reason for the man’s encampment at the embassy.

It was after dinner and as was the custom, the staff members adjourned to the lounge where most of the Führer’s tirades were listened to and discussed. But tonight, Wand did something remarkable according to the standards of the German Embassy. He turned on the large upright radio and played with the dials and the volume until at last the distinct music of a violin and orchestra filled the room.

He smiled. His tooth glinted gold, “Ah yes!” he cried with delight, rubbing his hands together. “Mozart!
Violinkonzert, D-Dur!
”

“Is that not the BBC?” asked Herr Trodt, third assistant secretary.

“Indeed it is,” Wand answered. “But the violinist is one of our own. At least she
was
. . . an Austrian, I think. Or perhaps Czech. Or maybe she was German-born! It is all confusing. Her name is . . . it escapes me.” He looked directly at Thomas. “
Elisa
, is it?”

Thomas stared at the toe of his spit-polished boot as he lounged back in an easy chair. He did not answer the gaze of Georg Wand, but the hair on the back of his neck prickled. What did this creature know? Probably nothing—nothing more than what had been in the Gestapo files.
Silence, Thomas
!

“Elisa!” Georg continued. “
Ja
. I think that is the first name. Married to an American journalist, John Murphy. Very much anti-Nazi, I’m afraid. Very dangerous to us.” He slapped his hand on his skinny thigh and sat down. “But all the same, the music is quite remarkable, don’t you think?”

***

The skies above Lake Geneva were as deep blue and transparent as the lake itself today. Murphy looked out the window of the Pan American passenger plane, past the spinning props to where steamers plied the waters like tiny toy boats.

To the north, rolling hills were crisscrossed with the geometric patterns of vineyards and orchards sloping to the shoreline. South and east, the mountains of Valais and Savoy reared up, only to be dwarfed by the peak of Mont Blanc shimmering in the distance.

Tucked between the mountains and the lake was the resort of Evian, a village that existed for the sake of wealthy Frenchmen who came to drink its famous waters and bathe away the aches and pains of age. The hotels were opulent and expensive, and this week they would be crowded. He was confident that there would be more reporters and observers than participants in the refugee conference. Those who were not included had much more at stake than those who took up their suites in the Hotel Royale and studied the alarming reports of homeless thousands clamoring for a safe heaven.

Were they discussing the
Darien
? Murphy wondered. Or were those few hundred onboard the freighter too few in the scope of the millions to consider right now? Less than eight hundred people. The refugees of the
Darien
represented no more than a ten-thousandth part of the millions now clearly within Hitler’s gunsights.
Merely a drop in the proverbial bucket,
Murphy mused, and that realization made him shudder. How many could be saved? Each hour that passed was already too late for some. Each day, how many more were being pushed closer to the brink of . . .
of what?

Murphy shook his head, unable to believe that the threats in Hitler’s speeches could be taken literally.
Annihilate? Exterminate? Eliminate?
These were words used for bugs, not people! And yet, it was happening. Even now. Even as this council of wise and humane representatives of the nations gathered to enjoy the spas and thermal springs of Evian, people were dying. People were waiting, hoping, praying that there would be an answer for them and their families.

The plane banked to the southwest, giving Murphy a clear view of Geneva, glistening on the shoreline where the swift blue waters of the Rhone River exited the lake.

Murphy had loved Geneva when, as a young reporter for Craine and the INS, he had been sent to cover the fall sessions of the League of Nations. He had been a naive kid then. He had believed somehow that the assignment was his big break. While other reporters abandoned the sessions for visits to the Casino Municipal, or strolls in the steep lanes of the Left Bank’s Old City, Murphy had stuck it out.

By the end of the session he had learned one important fact: The Palais des Nations was nothing more than a whitewashed tomb filled with the bones of dead men! What had been created as a covenant between nations to keep the peace of the world had become a platform for banal platitudes that accomplished nothing at all. When Hitler as new chancellor of Germany had pulled out of the League, Murphy broke the story. This event was the only thing that woke anyone up during the session. The journalists who had dropped their wages at the roulette wheel during that momentous day shrugged and said, “We don’t want to be here either.”

For his effort, Murphy had gotten a raise of five bucks a week and a transfer to Berlin. The League of Nations pretended not to notice that the Germans had gone. When Mussolini left, when the Japanese attacked Manchuria, they looked the other way. They shrugged when the Italians invaded Abyssinia. They yawned when Hitler marched into the Rhineland, when Hitler stirred up the civil war in Spain, when Hitler invaded Austria. There were a thousand other little offenses that had also been ignored by the rattling bones of Geneva’s great tomb. There was finally nothing left for a journalist to cover. Any insult, any breach of common decency, could easily be written up by a reporter who spent his day at the casino while the League discussed the crises.

In response to the Japanese execution of a thousand civilians, in response to the imprisonment of Baron von Rothchilds by the Germans, the League of Nations said, “My goodness, how dreadful! What a pity! Oh, dear me! Well, what can we do? It’s finished and best forgotten!”

The bump of wheels on the airstrip pulled Murphy from his unpleasant reverie. Those same old codgers were over at the Palais des Nations right now. No doubt they were all very much insulted that this Evian Conference had been called and no one had invited them! After all, they enjoyed the spa as much as anyone!

It was a short ride on the tram from Cointrin Aerodrome to le quai du Mont Blanc, where Murphy would catch the express steamer up the lake to Evian. He was edgy, anxious to get there. This time, he was certain, the nations would not fall into the pit of apathy as they dealt with the present issue. This time, surely, the thumb-twiddlers and sleep-talkers would be hooted out of the assembly. Something would be done. Something
must
be done, Murphy thought as he boarded the lake steamer among a bevy of other reporters. As they greeted him and slapped him on the back, he wondered if they could see the intensity of hope he carried with him to Evian.

***

Thomas stepped from the Metro into the Left Bank neighborhood. He had already walked two blocks toward the bistro before he realized that he was being followed.

Georg Wand. Across the narrow lane. Hat pulled low over his forehead. Eyes downcast. Yes, it was the Gestapo agent.

Thomas glanced at his watch. He swallowed hard and hurried toward a confectioner’s shop around the corner. Purchasing a small box of chocolates, he left the shop and hurried back toward the River Seine and rue de la Huchette. Wand stayed with him, moving discreetly through the crowds of students on the sidewalks.

At the corner, Thomas looked first toward the Bureau de Police and then toward le Panier Fleuri, “The Basket of Blossoms.” He walked briskly toward the bordello and entered.

The madame, a woman of education and culture, recognized Thomas and smiled through her dark red lips. “You have come back, monsieur!” she exclaimed. “And you have brought a box of bonbons? Not every man brings candy to a place like le Panier Fleuri.”

Thomas could feel the presence of Georg Wand at his back. Threatening. Breathing death. He half expected the bell above the door to ring, but it did not. Wand would take his station outside. Possibly in the very café where Thomas spent his time.

“Is Suzanne occupied?” he asked.

The woman laughed, tossing her head. “You look desperate, monsieur. And
oui
, she is occupied. But only for another twenty minutes. But if you do not care to wait, there are others who will be happy to have the bonbons.”

He shook his head, trying to appear nonchalant. “No. Suzanne, I think.”

“Then sit down. Have some wine.”

“I want her all night,” he blurted out.

She looked at him sideways. “Monsieur Thomas! You should have bought a bigger box of chocolates!”

He ran a hand over his face. “She is not busy for the rest of the night, is she?” he tried again, feeling foolish and frightened at the same moment.

“No. You will fill her hours nicely.”

“Good,” he said. Then again, “Good.”

***

Twenty minutes passed slowly. Georg Wand did not venture into the bordello. Thomas considered all the different angles of this building that might be observed from across the street. Wand was only one man, but might he have called in other watchers to follow Thomas?

“Mon chéri!” cried Suzanne as the madame whispered to her, “I am to have you all to myself for an entire night!” She took his hands and led him up the stairway. “And
chocolates.
” She said the word seductively. An astonishing girl, this Suzanne.

Thomas closed the door of the bedroom. The air was heavy of perfume. The bed was made. Lace lingerie was draped across a chair. Suzanne put her arms around his neck and kissed his ear.

“I want you to stay here,” Thomas said. “All night.”

“But of course, Thomas.”

He looked at the window. He could make out the iron grid of a fire escape. “You will have to stay alone, though, my darling.”

“What?” She pulled back slightly and looked quizzically up into his eyes.

“I am being followed, you see.”

Her mouth turned down in a pout. “But, Thomas—”

“You will be well paid.” He pulled a sheaf of bills from his pocket. “Double for your time?”

She smiled and opened the chocolate box. She sat down on the bed. “A detective?”

“Yes. He is out there now. He has followed me all afternoon, hired by the husband of my mistress. The fellow says he will kill me if we are caught together, and I do not fancy being killed.”

Suzanne shrugged. Her mouth full of candy, she put a finger to her lips. Yes. She would stay alone in the room. She had been given stranger assignments. “And you will come back?”

“About eleven.” He opened the window and peered out. There was no one in the alley below the fire escape. He could see the Seine. “I’ll tap on the window. You’ll let me in?”

“Of course, mon chéri.” She blew him a kiss. “Don’t worry about me. I will be faithful to you.”

***

Four times Elisa had met with Thomas at the bistro to gather bits of information to take back to London. But this meeting was different. There was something desperate, yet hopeful in his voice. She knew there was more behind what he was saying.

“General Halder is one of us!” Thomas whispered urgently to Elisa from across the table in the dim Paris café. “You must tell them that! Hitler’s ultimatum is nothing to fear! Halder is one of us!” Thomas sat back as if to consider that he might have gone too far in mentioning Halder’s name as an anti-Nazi. Beck’s replacement was as ardently opposed to Hitler as General Beck had been. The question was how to make a man like Chamberlain understand that at this moment Hitler was only the howling of the wind!

“But you told me that if Beck resigned, that meant Hitler was intent on war.” Elisa’s hands were trembling. Had she somehow mistaken the meaning of Thomas’s first message?

“Hitler is only one man! And now this Prime Minister Chamberlain has gone to Berchtesgaden to meet with him! It is folly, Elisa! It is too much like Schuschnigg and Austria. Hitler will bully and flatter and see that Chamberlain is a man so blinded by hope of peace that he will set the table and serve up Czechoslovakia like a roasted lamb. Hitler will have only to carve.”

Elisa sighed. The news of that meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler was not at all encouraging. “What do I tell them? What word from the High Command?”

“You might tell them that Adolf Hitler spent an hour and a half ridiculing Chamberlain after he left. Then others of his lackeys took up where the Führer left off. There is no respect, no fear.” Thomas took her hand in his. “Now you must listen very carefully. Tell them this in England. There are things being done. I cannot say all. The generals have written a document that they will present to Hitler. In this document they show that the Czechs have between thirty and forty divisions which they are deploying right now on Germany’s eastern frontier along their fortified line in the mountains of Sudetenland. The weight of the French Army in sheer numbers is eight to one against us along the western wall. Daily, Churchill speaks of forming an alliance between France and England and Russia. Russia might use Czech airfields against Germany. The British Royal Navy is unsurpassed—”