Munich Signature (63 page)

With that sentiment, nods of understanding began to tip the heads of the congregation. They had not realized that the
Fifth Symphony
of the Jewish composer Mendelssohn actually had words! The song gained volume and momentum by the time the second verse began. Heads lifted up, voices boomed the song! Here and there, the words were translated for those who did not speak English.

When the last chord of the pipe organ faded away into the rafters, the message was fresh and living in the hearts of the congregation. Tears streamed down many faces as the meek English priest preached a sermon on the Lord of the Sabbath, and the Jewish rabbi from Galilee. “‘I am the Way and the Truth and the Life,’ saith the Lord. “‘No man comes to the Father except through me . . . ’”

And when all was said, the English priest closed the Bible and looked out at the Chosen Ones who packed his pews. He cleared his throat and in a voice that seemed louder than the organ, he spoke again.

It was time to speak the truth. Perhaps there would not be another time. “I know why most of you have come here. You have come to request baptism.”

The congregation sat in a stunned silence as he continued. “Yes, I know that possessing an Anglican baptism certificate may help you gain entry into another country. We are all aware it will mean nothing if the Germans invade this country, since their determination is not against religion, but blood.”

Anna grasped Theo’s strong hand and prayed. He had been a Christian for years, but his faith had not helped him escape the terrors of the Nazi Reich. It would not save their sons. No. All that mattered to the Nazis was pure race. Pure blood, pure Aryan. What would become of them if the Czech government collapsed under their pressure?

The voice of the rector cracked with emotion. “Last week a girl of sixteen came to me to request baptism. I simply handed her a catechism and told her to come back when she knew it. Two days later she returned, after memorizing the entire catechism in a language with which she was only vaguely familiar!”

He paused. “I had not . . . expected . . .” He removed his glasses and then began again. “I baptized that girl. She has her certificate now. And I wish to tell all of you that have come here for that reason, I will make no requirement that you memorize a book of doctrine! It matters not what your reasons are. I will baptize you, every one of you who asks.”

A low, astonished murmur rippled through the crowd. Once again the rector drew a deep breath. “And I ask only that you think on this: God will not turn you from the door of His kingdom if you call upon the name of His Son Jesus! Here, too, it is a matter of blood—the blood of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, the Lamb of God, will cleanse you from all sin. The water of baptism is a symbol of His death for us and His resurrection. This is what you identify with when you partake of this sacrament.” He raised his arms toward heaven. “And if the Nazis come, if the certificate of baptism is of no help to you at all, I pray that you will remember what the baptism itself meant, and that your heart will reach out to that Eternal Truth.”

There was a solemn silence among those who had come for this sermon. Heads began to bow in thought, in prayer, questioning their own hearts and motives. The rector left the podium, and stepped to the center of the platform. “No one will be refused. What happens in your hearts is God’s business.”

That day and far into the night, seven hundred twenty-nine of the Chosen went forward to be baptized. And each cast a glance at Anna, who remained standing through it all.

42

The Munich Signature

Armed Czech soldiers were waiting on the steps of the church when Anna and Theo and their sons emerged near midnight. They held their weapons up and stepped forward to call the name of Theo Lindheim.

“You are on the list of criminals presented to President Beneš for extradition,” explained a tall, serious colonel. “You will come with us. All of you.”

Wilhelm looked as if he might fight. Anna placed a hand on his arm.
The rifles—would these men use them?

“You will please get in the car.” The officer bowed slightly and clicked his heels, waving his hand toward the open door of the black sedan.

“What has happened?” Theo asked, filled with foreboding.

There were tears in the eyes of the colonel. “Chamberlain and Daladier have signed us over to the Nazis. We must comply with their wishes, or France and Britain will step back and let Hitler have even Prague.”

“The Sudetenland has fallen?”

“Given away, without a shot.” The colonel’s shoulders sagged for a moment. “Now, please, Officer Lindheim. It is finished for us here. President Beneš has resigned. You are a part of the bargain. Please come with me.”

***

In the German Embassy in Paris, Georg Wand raised a glass with his delicate hand in a toast to the end of Czechoslovakia. Hitler had been right. He had been right from the beginning. Cowards and fools had come at his bidding to Munich, and there they had put their signatures to the death warrant of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain called the document
Peace in our time
. Such was the peace of a corpse.

For both Thomas and Ernst vom Rath the news was devastating. The military plot against Hitler had now been effectively demolished. Not only had Prime Minister Chamberlain taken the madman away from the Chancellery in Berlin, out of the grip of the military, he had also destroyed the very reason for the coup!

Accuse Hitler now of rushing Germany into a conflagration? Not a drop of Wehrmacht blood had been shed! The victory over the Czechs was complete, just as the Führer had told the people it would be! And now who in Germany could stand against him? The hordes of people cheered him as he rode proudly through the streets. The Wagnerian opera was being played out as he directed it. Anyone who opposed him now, any who dared to claim that he was mad and would destroy Germany would himself be declared a traitor and shot.

Georg Wand stood at the center of the gathering, a self-satisfied smile on his ordinary face. “The tactics of terror, you see,” he said to the attentive Nazi diplomats. “These are the elements of a modern war. Decent men cannot stand against such things because they have rules, ideas of what is honorable. The Führer shows us all a lesson, does he not? To have honor is to win or die.” At this he paused and smiled strangely at Thomas. “What do you think of this, von Kleistmann?—you, with your ancient Prussian codes?”

“I suppose it all depends on your definition of winning, doesn’t it, Wand?”

Georg Wand took a step forward. His smile was still in place but his eyes hardened. “And is your definition the same as that of the Führer, von Kleistmann? Or do you think yourself too far above our ways, as it is rumored some of the army officers believe?”

So here it was. The confrontation had come after the fact of the betrayal of the Czechs. It had come after it was too late for the Berlin plot to be carried out. Georg Wand and his kind had won an ultimate victory, and yet they still required something from those they had vanquished. Georg Wand would not be satisfied until Thomas had given him his soul in the form of frightened approval of his evil brutality.

Thomas raised his chin slightly in thought. The answer was firm in his mind. He towered over this dark and twisted creature in a thousand ways. He would not stoop to give him even a moment of victory over his soul.

“I cannot speak for the rest of the army officers, Georg,” he said with a smile. Arrogant. Thomas could afford arrogance tonight.

“Then speak for yourself.”

“Then I will tell you what I see in your way of winning.”

“
Your
way, you say? Not
our
way?”

Now Thomas laughed. “Some months ago I saw the Franz von Stuck painting of our Führer. Demonic. The God of Creation and of Destruction. Now he creates, but he will also destroy those who follow him. He will destroy Germany.” Someone gasped and dropped a champagne glass with a crash on the floor.

Thomas did not stop. It felt so good to say it. So good to come into the light after so many years of darkness. “He is the incarnation of all that is evil, and little beasts like you are his demons, crooked little gargoyles who have tumbled from the naves of the German church. You are the guardian of the gates of hell. And Adolf Hitler is the mouth of hell.”

Thomas felt light and alive, although he knew this lone act of defiance condemned him. “But in the end you will not win. The end is far distant now. I cannot see it, except I know it will come; it must come. Rules and honor? The stuff that makes decent men stupid in your eyes. Someday you will see that against these things the gates of your hell will not prevail. And so that is my answer, Georg Wand. I do
not
agree with the Führer.”

An absolute silence filled the room. Thomas had not touched a chord of conscience in the others of the embassy staff; he had simply aroused fury in most, fear in perhaps one other. Ernst vom Rath sat staring dully at the broken glass on the floor. He knew that Thomas had just committed suicide. Ernst could not look at him, could not watch as the snake-eyes of Georg Wand opened with pleasure and he anticipated what must be done to finish off the handsome young Wehrmacht officer, this traitor to the Reich.

“Well—” Wand rose up on his toes. “There you have all heard it. He condemns himself from his own poisoned mouth! He is infected by the Jewish bitch he lies with. You see? The Führer is right even about such matters of race. A Jew can contaminate even the most worthy German blood. This woman—Elisa Lindheim is her name, her
Jewish
name—has contaminated you.”

“And what sort of untermensch must have crawled into the bed of your mother to beget Georg Wand?” Thomas smiled even as the fist of Wand struck his face.

The voice of the Gestapo agent became shrill. “He is under arrest! You are all witnesses to the way he has insulted our Reich and our Führer. We will determine just how deep his treason goes. Both he and the woman must stand trial in Berlin. We will have it all . . .
all
!” He spun on his heel, his face red with anger. “I will settle the entire matter within an hour. I know where to find this woman. Oh yes, there are rules and codes that such people follow and these things make them easy for me to defeat. I know where she will be tonight, von Kleistmann. Do you hear me?”

Thomas smiled. “Who are you looking for exactly?” he asked, certain that by now Elisa was well on her way out of Paris. By now Suzanne had delivered the message to her at the bistro. Elisa would know what the events in Munich meant. She would know they had lost, and she would have left long ago.

He had no regrets except that he wished she had heard him speak tonight. And then he wished he had said such things years before in Berlin, when they might have made some difference.

***

No one had counted the times lightning had struck the masts last night, but Tucker first raised his head to discover the reason the
Darien
was not receiving or transmitting radio signals. At the top of the first mast, the antenna had been blasted loose from the cable.

The antenna was still attached at a cockeyed angle, but the cable to the radio dangled loosely below it.

The waves were still mountains, and the ship rolled violently on a quartering sea, but all the same Tucker donned one of six life jackets and pointed upward to the metal ladder that led to the top of the mast.

He had once told Shimon that he had taken his apprenticeship on a real sailing ship. He could climb the shrouds in a gale he had boasted of. Now he would prove it.

He crept from the wheelhouse and leaned into the wind. Feeling his way to the ladder, he grasped the lifelines and lowered himself down. Shimon held the wheel as Captain Burton moved forward to watch him. Shimon braced himself in the effort to hold the ship steady.

“WE MUST GET WORD! IF WE RUN HER AGROUND, WE’LL NEED HELP ABANDONING SHIP! IF WE CAN SEND WORD—” he yelled against the still-shrieking gale.

Shimon could see Tucker now, as bent and leathery as a hide in the sun. The first mate grasped the bottom rung of the ladder and pulled himself up until his arms hugged the mast. The force of the wind pushed his oilskin cap back off his head until it billowed like a kite behind him from its chin strap.

“COME ON, TUCK!” Burton cheered, stepping back to share the strain of the wheel. “COME ON, TUCK! WE’LL HOLD HER STEADY FOR YOU!”

Indeed, for a few moments the
Darien
seemed to right herself and plow on a level sea. Then another wave crashed against her, engulfing the deck and flooding just below Tucker’s boots. He crept upward, seeming not to notice the winds that sought to blow him away like the last leaf from a winter branch. Halfway up he stopped and took a better grip on the slick metal rungs, then began his climb again.