The Trespassers (54 page)

Her breath caught at his words, the mysterious and eternal stoppage that happened when, after months on foreign soil, she suddenly saw the flag.

“Franz, you can’t guess what it did to me, hearing you say that. No; we won’t stand by forever while every bit of freedom—”

“No.”

“Oh, Franz,” she said illogically. “You’ll love it there. Christa and the children, and you—there’s something there, I don’t know, it’s so hard to talk about.”

“I know,” he said. “I really know that. When I was angry and humiliated all that time, it was the officials and the rules I was angry at. Never, at the country; never at what it
is.
”

And now it was she who said, “I know. I know that.”

Later he walked her back to her hotel. Past the shuttered windows of the shops, under the arcade of the Rue de Rivoli, they walked, talking now of the future in their own lives. Franz had some assurance that he could practice in New York and meant to try for that. But he was keeping his plans fluid and would shift them if the need arose.

“It would be so important for us,” he said, rather shy as he spoke the words, “if we could be near you and see you.”

“And for me. Don’t think I haven’t thought of it, too; I have.”

They were standing now at the doorway to the Hôtel du Rhin.

Behind them lay the shadowed octagonal of the Place Vendôme, pierced by its slender monument. She could see his face clearly in the light from the doorway. It was alive now with some intent feeling.

“It seems still strange,” he said, “how from half the world away we should become neighbors.”

She said nothing. His voice reminded her of their first greetings at the railroad station in Ascona. Then he reached for her hand, and raised it and kissed it. She was embarrassed, and laughed a little, awkward laugh.

“That’s the most European thing you’ve ever done,” she said, and knew it was gauche to say and could not help it.

“It’s not as European as all that,” he said quietly. “We have all of us a—a feeling about you, Vee, you must know.”

“Oh, Franz, and I about you.” Suddenly her embarrassment and surprise evaporated. “I think I’m in love with the Vederles; I really do.”

And upstairs in her room, she suddenly said half aloud, “I really do.”

***

It was the Vederles’ last day in Europe. At noon next day, they would sail. For the children the waiting was exasperating. Every few minutes, Ilse would ask, “Are we going soon, Daddy?” until his patience fretted through and he sharply ordered her not to ask it again. Paul looked up at him with owl-wise speculation. His father rarely spoke in that tone to anybody.

Only Christa seemed indifferent to the tempo of the hours. She had stood the short trip from Paris without too much fatigue, and her temperature remained steady, though the cold seemed unshakable. She had gone to bed at once on their arrival at Le Havre.

Now in the afternoon of their last day, he found himself obsessed with impatience to be aboard and at sea. On Monday the news from Berlin had burst the eardrums of the world—a ten-year nonaggression pact with Soviet Russia. Yesterday the news that there was no “escape clause” had added to the still shattering repercussions. The pact was disaster personified, cynicism personified. Whatever and however it would be explained, as Munich had once been explained, it was, the final signal Hitler waited for. Now he was safe on his eastern front. Now he could begin.

It took superhuman effort, but he did not discuss this news with Christa. He spoke of it only with Paul, whose twelve-year intelligence on these great affairs constantly astounded him now. But he asked Paul also not to speak of it with his mother, since it would upset her and might make her cold worse again.

He lunched with the children and sent them out to play in the hotel garden. All over the hotel dining room the voices had been excited, hot with feeling. He was glad when he was alone again. He went for a short walk and then went up to Christa. At the door he stopped short. She was looking at him with wide eyes, from a face that was white. He could see she was shivering, and when he reached for her hand, it was damp and cold. He bent over her, and he heard her teeth chatter as she told him she was suddenly chilled through and through.

He covered her, sent for hot drinks, tried to stop the gnawing thing in his heart. He took her temperature; it was just over normal. She said soon that she was warmer.

An hour later, her face was flushed, her eyes were brilliant. Once again he slipped the thermometer between her lips. His hand against her cheek felt the heat, and for a moment he was gripped by the worst panic he had ever known. When he read the thermometer again, he knew.

He telephoned the main hospital in the city, asked them to send the best man in pneumonia cases. When at last Dr. Marreux arrived, Franz met him in the hall. “My wife has pneumonia; she has had a heavy cold for four days, lassitude, fatigue. Today she changed for the worse, a chill, followed by fever. I feel certain that it is pneumonia.”

The Frenchman looked astonished, and Franz explained that he was a doctor himself, though he did not practice internal medicine. Then the other nodded and his manner became that of a colleague in collaboration on a case.

They went up. Twisting and straining through Franz the fear went, while the stocky figure of the doctor examined her, listening, sounding, asking questions. He watched him open his bag, take out a small bottle, and take a specimen of sputum. And then the moment came when Marreux nodded his head solemnly.

“Madame is very ill,” he said at last. “She should be hospitalized at once.”

Christa stirred impatiently. “What did he say, Franz?”

“That you should go to the hospital, Christl.”

“But it’s impossible. Did you tell him I cannot?”

“No.” He turned to the doctor. “We are to sail at noon tomorrow for America. I will have to cancel our passage.”

For several seconds, the doctor stared at him. Consternation was in his friendly eyes, under contracted brows. “That is a complication, a serious one.” He gave two large white tablets to Christa, and she washed them down. Franz motioned to the door, and they went out into the hall together. There the Frenchman put a hand on his arm, as if they were friends.

“I did not know you were sailing, when I said she must be hospitalized at once. Perhaps—”

“Can you know soon what type it is?”

“A few hours at the most. I will have the typing started at once; if it is a pneumococcus pneumonia, it should respond to drugs.”

“That was sulfapyridine?”

“Yes, it should be tried with any such fever. If it’s not a virus pneumonia, this new drug is a miracle.” He hesitated, frowning. “The clinical picture looks more like the atypical.”

“Then she should go at once to the hospital?”

“Forgive me, you are—your slight accent tells me—you are German? Ah, Austrian, that is good. I—Dr. Vederle, let us not rush her to the hospital, not yet. You should stop and consider. The news—it will be war this time, surely. In war, enemy aliens—”

“I know, my God, I do know.”

“Do not cancel yet.” He glanced at his watch. “I will go direct to the laboratory; then I will return. When we know more, we can decide better what is best for her in such a crisis of events as this.” He wrote out a prescription. “Give her two more at five-thirty precisely, “and every four hours through the night. Wake her to give them.”

Upstairs, Franz sat by the bed, watching her as she slept. As she lay there, unaware of him, breathing through opened lips, she seemed more precious to him than every other thing he cherished in the world. He thought of the children—he must save her from this sickness and save them all from the crashing horror of being caught in France if war was indeed upon them. He must keep cool; there was no time for mistakes now.

Time. Time. How often had the merciless breath of time blown away his courage. But never before had he been so ridden by it as now.

She opened her eyes, and found him leaning over her. His hand went to her forehead. In his palm he felt an arc of heat.

“You must go ahead, without me, if I am in the hospital.” They were her first words. As though while she slept.

“Hush, Christl. Never. I will never leave you.”

“But the boat, tomorrow. The children must get away. I heard the news—some people in the hall this noon, while you were down at lunch, said it will be war any hour. If I must go to the hospital—”

“Never. We all go together, or we all stay together.” He gripped her hand. “Darling one, don’t disturb yourself now. You must sleep, rest. The doctor is coming back. He will advise us.”

She quieted down obediently. Again the fever closed her eyes. Half asleep, she murmured, “You leave me behind, it is better.”

God, dear God, for months she had silently clung to that one idea. Ever since that night when the cable had come from Vee’s secretary, ever since that night when she had collapsed into her hysterical plea that he leave her and go on with the fearful journey alone.

Deep in the unconscious, the idea had persisted, the private motive had intensified.

The minutes passed. When the children came up, he took them into their room and explained only that the cold was much worse, and that they must be as quiet as possible. He tried to filter every tone of anxiety out of his vice, but the deep disquiet of the child who knows his mother is sick stole into their eyes.

“I’ll read to you, Ilse,” Paul offered gruffly, “so you won’t be such a pest.”

Shortly before six, Dr. Marreux returned. His face was calm, but his eyes were troubled. So far, the technician had been unable to find which type of the thirty-odd pneumococcus types this was. The work was still going on. But it looked more certain that it was an atypical case, a virus pneumonia.

“And that is a long fight, as you know, Dr. Vederle. Under any other circumstance, I would insist on the hospital. But—have you heard the radio? Hitler has fifty divisions massed on the Polish border. Poland says she will fight. France and England say they will fight with her. It is war, I tell you. This is no more a Munich—you
must
escape. You have two children.”

Franz nodded but did not speak.

“By nine or ten, her fever will have dropped, I hope. I will see her in the morning. There is a ship’s doctor on board, you are a doctor, I will give you drugs, sera, full instructions. In a crisis, you can radio me—or some other doctor perhaps you know more.” He waited, but Franz made no reply. “I feel obliged to urge you to go on. After a virus pneumonia, she could not stand—you know, the chance of arrest as enemy alien—all the things that might happen in war.”

“No. My God, no. This dilemma is driving me mad. I cannot think yet.”

“I am your doctor, no?” He patted Franz’ arm. “I
order
you to take her away. Now you have no dilemma to tear your mind to pieces.”

Suddenly Franz put his hand out, gripped Marreux’ hard. He wanted to say many things, but they halted behind his lips.

“Yes, you are right. We must go on.”

For the last time, the Vederles slept on Europe’s soil. Sixteen months had passed since they had begun their slow struggle from their captive Austria toward an earth where freedom was rooted three hundred years deep.

In those sixteen months, almost no corner of the globe’s great surface remained untouched by the stirring and movement of people seeking safety again, seeking freedom again. In each land during those months the new laws sprang up or the old laws tightened; but in each land too were the people who fought the laws, who knew what it must be to leave forever the room one knew, the friend one knew, and begin to live instead on the bare and shallow soil of strangeness.

In each land there were the ones who could remain deaf to the massive sounds of flight, but there were the others who heard them and understood their vast, prophetic harmonies. These others had followed this fugue since the first melodic part had made its grave solo entrance six years before in Germany. They had heard the second voice issue forth from Spain, and had listened while it swelled through its long crescendo. They had heard the third voice come in clear and strong from Austria. And when the fourth arose over the once-free acres of Czechoslovakia, they had known well that at last the mighty fugue was squared in a harrowing counterpoint that sang the song of wars and death.

These were the ones who spoke and voted and fought against appeasement, who fought the shipments of oil and steel and scrap, who introduced angry bills into the Parliament and the Chambre and the Congress. These were the ones, too, in America and England and France, in every land and on every continent, who formed the committees, who signed the affidavits, who worked on colonizing and resettlement schemes. And who battered from the inside against the already closed gates of the world’s nations.

Even in the year 1939, they did succeed in making a crack here, a rift there, in the stony surfaces of the tight doors. The haggard passengers on the S.S.
St. Louis
were finally divided into four batches and received by England, France, Holland, and Belgium—though the American Joint Distribution Committee had to guarantee the four governments $500,000 for their support. And here and there in the countries of the world a few other exceptions were made, a few other lives were saved.

Even in this year, the committees and the universities and the churches of the United States did arrange 2326 nonquota visitors visas for fleeing students and professors and ministers. In the White House a special order was signed, granting indefinite extension to these and to previous visitors’ visas, so that American law would not drive their holders back to the cataclysm they had once escaped.

In the Congress, certain bills were introduced by men and women who still spoke out in the old American language of asylum for the persecuted and the protesting. One bill wanted to grant prompt entry to all religious, racial, or political refugees. Another wished to offer it at least to the aged. Still another would speed up the process of becoming a citizen for those foreigners who did set foot on American soil.