Munich Signature (24 page)

***

Anna found herself alone in the little house off Mala Strana Square in Prague. Theo, Wilhelm, and young Dieter remained on duty in the Sudetenland. Elisa and Murphy were gone.

In the morning Anna lay in bed too long—much longer than she had except when she was sick. There was no one to make tea for. She did not want breakfast. After a while the old house echoed with memories . . . happy memories, but they were echoes, all the same. She turned her face toward Theo’s pillow. She had managed to live without him so long when he was in prison; would she now have to learn the language of loneliness again?

She was angry with him for running off to this duty. Had they not sacrificed enough time from their lives because of Germany and Hitler and his Nazis? Could they not just live now and forget about it?

She sighed and sat up. She was arguing with a shadow. Theo had given her his answer clearly enough. “
Shall I, who have suffered once, let myself forget the suffering that will come upon millions if the Sudetenland is lost? Anna, dear wife, I must serve my heavenly King by doing what I know is right. I made a covenant with dying men, a covenant with the Lord, that while I live I will follow the command of Psalm 37: ‘Trust in the Lord, and do good!’ I alone survived to fulfill that covenant. And so
. . .”

“And so he has gone,” Anna whispered in quiet despair. She spoke to the empty pillow. “Again and again, Theo, you have taken up your cross, sometimes without telling me why or how or what you were up to. What about me? What am I supposed to do here in this empty house?”

***

Trains from London emptied their passengers directly onto the docks of Southampton. Throngs of spectators had come just to see the enormous superliner, the pride of the Cunard Line. The sleek hull of the giant
Queen Mary
dwarfed every other ship in the harbor.

Elisa held tightly to her violin case and Charles shoved his hand in Murphy’s pocket. Murphy pushed ahead through the crowds, using the cello case as a sort of shield before him. It was something Elisa had seen Leah do a hundred times over the years, and the gesture made her ache for her friend once again.

“Get your
Queen Mary
ash trays right ’ere! Hey, gov’!” A vendor made the mistake of stepping into Murphy’s path. “Buy the lad an ash tray, won’t y’?”

The cello case smacked the wooden tray the man had slung around his neck, sending dozens of glass ash trays crashing to the ground.

“Hey! What’sa idea? Hey you!” The red-faced vendor shouted at Murphy. “Look at me merchandise ’ere! Y’ve smashed everything!”

Murphy hesitated only a moment. “Sorry, fella,” he called over the shrieking whistles of boats in the harbor and the clamor of a small brass band on the quay. “An accident—we’ve got a boat to catch!”

The furious vendor removed the wooden tray and blocked Murphy’s path with it. “An’ I got me a livin’ t’ make! Here, who y’ think y’ are? Twenty-four pounds of me merchandise in pieces an’ y’ gonna catch a boat an’ not pay a brass farthing, I s’pose!”

The cello case pushed hard against the wooden tray. Murphy was nose to nose with the red-faced vendor. From the head of the gangplank the ship’s officer called out over a bullhorn, “All ashore that’s going ashore.”

They had another hundred feet of crowd to push through to make it to the ship. A moment of panic seized Elisa. The glass of the ash trays crunched beneath her feet. Of course this had not been even remotely Murphy’s fault, but now the vendor was screaming for a constable.

The band began to play, “I’m an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande,” the song that Murphy had sung for Charles. The boy was delighted. Elisa was amazed. She had not believed that Murphy’s rendition had been of a real song. It made her hope that the stories he had told her about Wild West shoot-outs were not about to be reenacted here on the docks of Southampton.

“Look! That American chap has smashed the poor fellow’s things. And now he won’t pay for the damage!” In a moment the rowdy crowd had turned its attention on the broken
Queen Mary
memorabilia underfoot.

“Murphy!” Elisa called in desperation as she was separated from him by a line of angry spectators. “Murphy! We will miss the sailing!”

Her words were drowned by the loud blast of the ship’s horn, the final sign for boarding.

Their departure was turning into a nightmare. Charles’s eyes filled with fear. Elisa saw him wrap his arms around Murphy’s waist.

“Call a constable!”

“Why’d y’ go an’ smash the bloke’s things, Yank?”

“Teach that Yank a lesson!”

“All the same . . . ”

“Twenty-four pounds all in pieces!”

“The poor fella’s entire living . . . ”

All the while Elisa could hear Murphy angrily protesting that he was not responsible for the broken goods and that he would not pay twenty-four pounds for a lot of broken glass.

Again the ship’s horn bellowed its warning. Passengers crowded the rails of the many decks. They waved and called to friends and relatives below as the indignation of the crowd on the dock continued to grow against the murderous, arrogant Yank who had mucked about, smashing a good bloke’s wares!

Elisa could see only the top of Murphy’s fedora. It was shoved back on his head. The cello case was still held high as a sort of protection. “Murphy!” Elisa called. “Murphy!”

“Get out of here!” he shouted back to her. “I’ll meet you onboard!”

Then the cries of the spectators drowned out his words as more insistent cries for justice rose up.

Myriad bodies separated Elisa from Murphy and Charles. They were going to miss the boat, of that Elisa was certain. All their luggage was already onboard the great liner.
Would the Cunard Lines refund Mr. Trump’s money?
she wondered
. Would the Englishmen arrest Murphy and take him off to some terrible dark prison like in Germany?

Clutching the case of the Guarnerius to her, Elisa stood on tiptoe in an effort to catch a glimpse of Murphy and Charles. Murphy was still arguing angrily. The ship’s horn bellowed again, and Elisa fought against the crowds to move toward the gangplank. If she could make it to the ship’s officer, perhaps he could send someone to help. At least she could warn him that her husband and child were coming!

“Excuse me!” she cried. “Please, I am trying to get aboard ship!” The throngs parted at her words. She was making definite progress toward the enormous iron wall of the ship. Just ahead were the steps that led to the canopied ramp of the
Queen Mary
. “Please!” she shouted over the racket of the band. “Let me through!” With that, she pushed her way through the front lines of spectators who craned their necks upward and waved through the cloudburst of confetti that rained down on the docks. Sprinting toward the crew that manned the release of the ramp, she called. “Wait! There are more coming! Please wait!”

She climbed the steps and turned to scan the sea of heads. Finally she spotted Murphy and Charles. The child still clung ferociously to Murphy’s back pocket. Elisa could see that Murphy had his wallet out. He was paying the vendor! She hurried up the ramp. The ship’s officer, dressed in white uniform and gold braid, stood at the head of the ramp studying a clipboard of names. He looked up and smiled hesitantly at the beautiful and disheveled woman who approached.

“Please!” Elisa cried. “You must delay just a moment longer! My husband and . . . our little boy! They are detained in the crowd! Please do not sail without them!” She could scarcely breathe, and her words tumbled out in a series of breathless, choppy phrases.

“Your name, madame?” the ship’s officer asked coolly.

“Elisa Murphy. My husband is John and the child Charles.” She searched his list for their names.

She was so intent that she did not notice the two men who stepped up on either side of her until they touched her elbows. Their dark blue pin-striped suits and round derby hats seemed almost identical, like some sort of uniform.

“Mrs. Murphy,” the man on her right said in a low voice, “you will come this way, please.”

“But . . . my husband.”

“Please, I assure you the ship will not sail without them.” He pulled her away from the head of the gangplank.

“I would like to wait here for them—” Elisa attempted to pull free from their hands, but could not.

“They will not miss the sailing.” The grim fellow was looking straight ahead as he spoke. He did not meet her questioning gaze.

Elisa found herself propelled into a narrow corridor within a few steps of where she had boarded. Crates of food were stacked everywhere. This could not be the way to her cabin, and these men were not members of the ship’s company. The open hatch was closed behind them before Elisa could cry out her alarm.

“Where are you taking me?” She struggled and the grip on her arms tightened painfully. “Why are you—”

“This will do no good at all, Elisa.” A third man stooped to emerge from a hatch a few feet in front of her captors. He was very tall, dressed in similar fashion to the others except that he wore no hat and had a very thin mustache that followed the line of his upper lip. He was smiling. Pleased about something. He reached out to take the Guarnerius from Elisa’s aching arms. She opened her mouth to cry out, and a leather-gloved hand clamped over her face to muffle the scream.

The three men chatted for a moment as though there were nothing at all unusual happening.

“Frank managed to stop him all right?”

“Like a charm. He and the boy are still down there. Stuck in the middle of everything. It will be another five minutes before they reach the foot of the ramp.”

“Then we should hurry,” said the man holding Elisa’s violin. “Mr. Tedrick is waiting at the Port Authority.”

Elisa struggled to free herself. She fought, but the strong arms of her captors held her fast. The gloved hand simply moved slightly to cut off her air until she forgot about escape and struggled only to breathe. They lifted her bodily between them now and carried her through a maze of steep stairs that twisted down through a center corridor of the ship. They moved quickly, almost a jog. There was no one else in the corridor, no one to question why they carried her down, why they held her.

Within moments they reached the galley deck of the great liner. Elisa could hear the clink of dishes and the carefree mingling of voices and laughter of the crew. Again the hand clamped tightly over her mouth. No chance to scream as the leadman twisted a lever on a watertight door and swung it back. A burst of daylight blinded Elisa for an instant. Then, blinking at the light, she saw a tugboat moored just outside. The faint sounds of the band and cheering voices drifted in. They were on the opposite side of the ship from where she had boarded. On this side of the liner there was no one to see what they did with her.

“Took you long enough!” called a fourth man in a suit from the deck of the tug. He was reaching up to grasp Elisa as they swung her out from the hull of the
Queen Mary
and dropped her down onto the deck. This maneuver took only a second; Elisa had a chance to gasp for breath and then attempt a scream before the fourth man covered her mouth with his hand. He jerked her arms back in a cruel hammerlock. Her eyes rolled back in pain as he shoved her into a cabin that reeked of fish and diesel fuel.

The two strong men jumped from the
Queen Mary
onto the tug, and then the third man tossed down the Guarnerius and closed the door to the hold of the ocean liner with a clang. No one noticed as the tug pushed off from the hull of the giant liner and chugged easily across the harbor toward a deserted dock.

***

The ship’s whistles were howling impatiently as Mrs. Rosenfelt showed her ticket to the officer at the top of the boarding ramp.

“Mrs. Rosenfelt.” He topped his hat. “First-class passage, right through those double doors to the purser’s desk.”

She nodded and, caught up in the press of the excited passengers, she was swept across the promenade deck and through the double doors marked Picadilly Circus. Stacks of steamer trunks were piled here and there in this main shipping square of the ship. Ladies in furs and the latest Paris fashions gawked in windows as stewards and porters scurried back and forth to make sure every passenger was in place in the proper room.

The walls and pillars of this main square were covered with a veneer of bird’s-eye maple. Corridors branched off to dining rooms and smoking rooms and lounges in all directions. Broad stairs led down to the first-class rooms that stretched over one thousand feet from the bow to the stern of the great liner.

In the midst of such opulence, a dark shadow fell on Bubbe Rosenfelt. She turned a slow circle to fill her eyes with laughing, excited people. How different this was than the dreadful little ship where Maria and Klaus and the children now huddled! If only they could have come with her! Fare for passage on the
Queen
included all her meals and afternoon teas. Since the Reich had forbidden that she take any assets out of Germany, she had bought herself this first-class ticket. She would stay in a cabin that might easily have held her entire family. Instead, their fare to sail on the
Darien
had cost three times more for each than one ticket onboard the
Queen Mary
. What sort of food would they have on such a decrepit vessel? she wondered. Were they warm? Did they have good beds to sleep in? Such questions made her grief come fresh and sharp to her.

“May I help you, madame?” asked a steward in a crisp white uniform. He stepped from beside the purser’s desk.

It took her a moment before she could answer. She struggled to pull the ticket from her reticule. “Room B-47.” She made the words come, although her throat resisted. “My baggage was loaded last night.”

“Down the main stairway and then follow the port-side corridor.”

His explanation was interrupted by a tall young man with a small blond boy in tow. “I . . . I’ve lost my wife somewhere in all this.” The man seemed flustered and unhappy.