Night Angels(55)

I laughed until tears spilled out of me. April, then. It would come eventually. Anywhere was better than Vienna.



Eva refused to leave her suitcase.

“Mein Schatz, you’re going to have cramps. You’ve been there for days.” I sat across from her and leaned against the wall. The room was dark, but I was too tired to turn on the light. If Eva asked when we’d leave Vienna, I would tell her next week. She needed that—hope—and she needed me.

“I’m fine.”

I picked up a piece of bread Grace had left for us. It was hard and smelled, but that was all we had. It had been a few days since Grace visited. “Are you hungry? Come out for a minute and eat.”

Eva pushed up the suitcase flap, hesitated, climbed out, and grabbed the bread.

She was ravenous; she hadn’t had food for days. I was hungry, too, but couldn’t eat. I wrapped a blanket around me and closed my eyes. Somehow I began to dream: the Gestapo snapping in harsh German, Mutter crying out for Sara, cars roaring, and banging on the door. Heavy, loud. Bang. Bang. Bang. Louder and louder.

I awoke with a start. It was not a dream—someone was banging on the door. Onkel Goethe, and there were strident voices pummeling the entire apartment. By order of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, all Jews in this building must evacuate and relocate to the second district.

Second district? Second district! The slums in Leopoldstadt.

I lunged toward Eva, thrust her back inside the suitcase, and pulled the curtain over to cover her.

The pounding continued, each a thunderclap; the walls threatened to crack; the floor trembled; the air, porous, a hive of stolen breath and pulses. I held my knees and played in my head my music, my fugues, my sonatas, my lark of serenity and freedom. They couldn’t force Eva and me to go to the slum. I would take Eva to Shanghai, not the slum. They would go away; they would go away.

The door burst open.





CHAPTER 35


GRACE


The billows of smoke from the burning buildings cleared a few days later, and finally Fengshan agreed it was safe for me to visit Lola. I took the consulate’s car, my mind preoccupied with Lola’s departure details. She must leave Vienna with Eva as soon as possible, and perhaps I could assist her with purchasing train tickets and boat tickets. There was so much to discuss.

When I reached her neighborhood, some men in brown trench coats were riding up and down on motorcycles. It made me nervous, and I saw there was a gathering, with many groups of people heading in one direction. Rudolf, unable to go through the throngs and vehicles, had to park his car a block away from Lola’s apartment, and I went out. It was a chilly day. I had put on my heavy astrakhan coat—it was still several sizes too large, but my wool coat had been stained with blood.

The street where Mrs. Schnitzler had died looked chaotic. So many people. Men in overcoats and hats, women in long plaid dresses and black shawls, all squeezed between the police cars and the SS men’s sedans. At the far end, near a black SS car, a woman in a green dirndl was turning her head from left to right frantically—Lola. The scar on her face twisted; the plumpness of her face, the youthfulness that had been part of her, the charm that would have disarmed Fengshan, were gone, replaced by something I had never expected to see—fear. Our gazes met. She froze, was knocked over by a force behind her, lost her balance, and turned to me again.

My heart dropped. Where were they taking Lola? She had her visa and exit permit. She should be allowed to leave!

For a moment, I lost sight of her among the coats and hats. I grew frantic but couldn’t call out—there were the Brownshirts and the SS men.

Lola’s green dirndl appeared again, and once she saw me, she thrust her head toward the apartment. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. But I couldn’t hear her. Then I realized she was shouting like a character in a silent movie, pleading dramatically but without sound. Eva, Eva, she said.

They hadn’t found Eva!

I lowered my head and scurried past a crowd of people with suitcases, a family of four, and then two brothers with identical faces, one with blood on his nose. When I reached Lola’s apartment, the door was wide open. I dashed inside the bedroom, toward the suitcase.

It was left ajar, unzipped, and inside, curled up, her knees pressing to her chin, was Eva, just as I had seen her last time.

“Eva, you have to get out of the suitcase and come with me. Would you come with me?”

She shook her head. “Ich will nicht nach drau?en, Tante Grace. Ich will nicht nach drau?en.”

“Quiet, quiet, Eva. You must be quiet. They’ll hear you.”

She pulled the flap of the suitcase down.

I was not good with children; I didn’t know what to do with children. Lola, Lola. Help me. Tell me what to do. How can I talk Eva into coming with me? She can’t understand English very well. She won’t come out.

I rushed to the window, lifted a corner of the curtain, and peered out. Facing me, just on the right, a group of boys wearing swastika armbands were throwing rocks at a family who had been driven out of their apartments. Some distance away, near an art deco building, two tall blond boys with ruddy faces were tormenting a girl in a yellow dress, pulling her hair, tripping her. Two Gestapo in black uniforms, holding batons in their hands, were searching door by door across the street.

“Eva, Eva! They’re coming! We must go!”