The Far Side of the Sky (7 page)

“And we appreciate your loyal business.” Julius held the grip for an extra moment as he glanced at his son again. “Not all Austrians have changed as much as you might be led to believe, Dr. Adler.”

His thoughts weighing heavily, Franz hurried home. He stepped inside the apartment to find Ernst Muhler and Esther seated on the sofa. The artist must have dropped off fresh supplies for Esther, because she now wore the traditional black dress of shiva, Judaism’s prescribed seven-day period of mourning.

As usual, Ernst was puffing away on a cigarette. Franz was surprised to also see one in Esther’s hand; he could not remember the last time he had seen her smoking. The bruises around Ernst’s eyes had begun to yellow but they were no less prominent, especially with the dried tears crusted to them. Franz saw that Esther had been crying too.

Ernst rose to his feet. He walked over and shook Franz’s hand. “No chance the Nazis up and decamped while Essie and I were busy chatting?” he joked in a thick voice. Franz patted his friend’s back. “How are you managing, Ernst?”

“It’s not exactly the golden age for queer vanguard artists in Hitler’s new Germany, but I have no new complaints.” He sighed. “Listen, Franz, I heard from my friend at the Dutch consulate. They are so overwhelmed with applicants …”

Franz had expected nothing more, but he still could not suppress his disappointment. “Thank you for trying.”

“He didn’t say no, either,” Ernst stressed. “It will just take more time.”

“Of course.” Franz turned to his sister-in-law. “How does the arm feel, Essie?”

“Fine. Good.” She waved away the inquiry. “Where have you been, Franz?”

“The Rolf Travel Agency.” Franz withdrew the receipt from his coat pocket. “I have secured four berths on a Japanese liner.”

“Got tzu danken!”
Esther cried with relief as she hopped to her feet.

“The ship isn’t sailing for almost five weeks,” Franz said quietly.

“We’ve lasted six months.” Esther’s voice cracked, and Franz suspected she was thinking of Karl. “We can make it five more weeks.”

Ernst pulled the cigarette from his lips. “Sailing where?”

“Shanghai.”

“Shanghai!” Ernst whistled. “You really do intend to put some distance between you and the Nazis. You know, I hear Shanghai is marvellous. Full of life and culture. And it’s reputed to be a city of debauchery and excess.” He raised an eyebrow. “Come to think of it, it sounds like just the place for me.”

Esther touched his face. “Why don’t you come with us?”

“Perhaps if circumstances were different …” Ernst shook his head. “My heart won’t let me leave Vienna.”

Esther stroked his cheek. “Of course,” she said softly.

“Esther, you and I have to wait, but Hannah does not,” Franz said solemnly.

“It’s only five weeks,” Esther said.

Franz shook his head. “I will not expose Hannah to this nightmare for another month,” he said, without adding that he expected to be imprisoned in Dachau by the time the
Bingo Maru
cast off. “I am enrolling her in Kindertransport. That is final.”

Hannah’s bedroom door opened and she limped out, holding a book in her good hand. “Papa, what is Kindertransport?” she asked.

Franz swept her up in his arms. “It’s a program run by the English. You’re going to go to London,
liebchen.
One of the greatest cities in the world.”

Hannah’s eyes clouded with concern. “Without you, Papa?”

Franz kissed her cheek. “Only for a short while. I will come and find you soon.” He mustered a grin. “Think of it, Hannah. Once I arrive, you can be my tour guide. Show me Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and all the other wonderful sights! Do you even remember them from our last visit? You were only three.”

Hannah stared at him for a long moment. “Why won’t you come with me?”

“It’s complicated,
liebchen.
I have to stay here for a few more weeks to sort out our papers. I will be there before you know it.”

“I can wait,” she said, her tone verging on pleading.

“This is for the best,” Franz said. “You will be with lots of other children.”

“Jewish children,” Esther added.

“I don’t even know how to be Jewish,” Hannah said.

“Not to worry, darling,” Franz reassured. “The others will be travelling without their parents too. You will make lots of new friends. They will be just like you, you’ll see.”

Hannah raised her stiff left arm. “I am not like other children.”

A lump formed in Franz’s throat.

“I don’t mind, Papa,” Hannah continued. “Let me stay with you.”

Franz felt his resolve slipping. Hannah and he had not been separated for more than three days in her entire life. And the prospect suddenly seemed torturously final.

“Hannah,” Esther said in a loving but firm tone. “You must listen to your father.”

“Please, Papa,” Hannah whimpered.

Eichmann’s words—
It is imperative we rid the fatherland of this dangerous parasite
—flashed into his mind. Franz shook off the doubt. “It is decided, Hannah. You will go.”

Hannah buried her face in his shoulder and began to weep quietly. Franz cradled her in his arms and kissed her on the top of the head. No one spoke a word.

The telephone rang harshly. Esther hurried over to answer it. “Adler residence.” She listened a moment and then called over her shoulder.

“Franz. It’s Herr Rolf.”

“Dr. Adler, I have news,” Julius Rolf said once Franz had picked up the phone.

Franz held his breath, anticipating the worst, but Julius went on excitedly. “I have made further enquiries with other booking agents. I was having no luck at all with the other shipping lines. However, one of the agents telephoned me back only moments ago. They have an opening at short notice. A couple who had booked a family cabin on the Italian liner
Conte Biancamano …”
He lowered his voice. “They … er … cancelled at the very last moment.” Franz picked up on Rolf’s inference, aware that the suicide rate among distraught Austrian Jews had skyrocketed in recent days. “It would be snug, but the cabin could house all four travellers in your family.”

“How soon does it depart, Mr. Rolf?” Franz demanded.

“It is terribly last minute. I would understand completely if you were unable to—”

“When does it leave, Mr. Rolf?
How soon?
”

“Sunday.”

The walls of Karl and Esther’s home were plastered with framed photos of the family from happier times. The nostalgia almost overwhelmed Franz. Fighting back tears, he located Karl’s hiding place behind the bedroom radiator and found the envelope containing eight thousand Reichsmarks.

He took the money directly to the Rolf Travel Agency. While his son glared at Franz, Julius issued the new tickets. From there, Franz headed straight to Palais Rothschild.

Reaching for the handle, Franz could hear, through the thick wooden front doors, Horst Schmidt yelling. Steeling his nerves, he paused to feel for the boarding passes in his pocket.

Inside the cavernous atrium, Schmidt’s shouting was intensified. Franz dutifully took his spot at the end of the line. He counted nineteen people in front of him. The silent line inched forward as Schmidt took his time berating and degrading each person who reached his desk. He struck several. One woman fainted. Everyone approached Schmidt tentatively, their eyes to the floor and heads hung low. Franz sensed trouble when the elegantly dressed, middle-aged woman, four people ahead of him, stepped forward with head straight and shoulders high.

Schmidt leapt up from his chair and leaned over his desk. “Who the hell do you think you are, Jew? Parading up here like you’re the Queen of bloody Sheba!”

“I am Stella Kaufman, sir,” she said coolly. “I have come to see Lieutenant Eichmann regarding my exit visa. Just as I was requested to do.”

“You are nothing, Jew!
And no one sees the lieutenant without my say-so.”

Franz silently prayed that Frau Kaufman would submit to Schmidt’s authority, but she continued to hold his stare defiantly.

“Kaufman, is it?” Schmidt said menacingly. “Any relation to the Jew thieves from that department store?”

She sighed. “My grandfather established Kaufman’s, yes.”

“To cheat and chisel good Austrians out of their hard-earned money with their overpriced rubbish and non-German goods.
Correct?
“

Frau Kaufman didn’t answer immediately. The entire lobby went dead silent. Everyone, including the SS guards, had stopped to listen to the exchange. “No, sir,” she said. “My grandfather established Kaufman’s to provide quality goods to Viennese citizens at reasonable prices. And we have maintained that tradition ever since.”

The terrible silence was broken only by a soft snicker from one of the guards near the door. Schmidt’s face reddened. He circled the desk in three long paces and lunged at the woman. She leaned back and raised her hands to protect herself, but Schmidt punched her full force in the belly. The woman groaned as she clasped her abdomen. He punched her in the face. She gasped and buckled over. Struck again, she crumpled to the ground. Blood pooled around her head and her howls of protest died away, but Schmidt continued to kick her.

Franz could not stomach another second of the brutality. Unable to stop himself, he stepped out of the line. “Hauptscharführer Schmidt!”

Schmidt’s head snapped up. His blazing eyes scanned the room before locking onto Franz.

Another taut silence seized the atrium. No one else in the line dared so much as to breathe.

Schmidt jumped over Frau Kaufman’s prone body and stormed over to
Franz. He stopped a foot away and stood nose to nose as sweat dripped off his brow.
“How dare you interrupt me, Jew?”
he panted.

Franz stared at the floor, desperate for the right words. “My deepest apologies, Hauptscharführer. It is only that Obersturmführer Eichmann asked me to return with papers. It is already late. I’m worried that I might miss my opportunity to see him today.”

“That is what you’re worried about right now?
Missing ‘Lieutenant’ Eichmann?
” Schmidt scoffed, and a few of the other SS men laughed. He raised his bloody hand and cuffed Franz backhanded across the cheek. The stinging blow was hard enough to swivel Franz’s head, but he suspected that Schmidt had restrained himself. “Get back in line, you stupid Jew!”

Schmidt turned and marched back to his desk. He deliberately stepped on the fallen woman, eliciting a heavy groan from her, but he did not strike her again. Instead, he flopped back into his seat and snapped his fingers impatiently to the two nearest guards.

They hurried over and grabbed Frau Kaufman—one by her feet, the other by her hands—and slung her toward the door. On their way past, Franz saw from her pained expression that she had regained consciousness. The guards opened the door and threw her out as though tossing a sack of flour. Another guard dropped a stained towel at Schmidt’s feet and quickly swept up the pool of blood. Franz recognized the cleanup for a well-practised procedure.

Schmidt called out “Next!” as though he were only a passport office clerk processing routine applications. The petrified man at the head of the line had to be nudged forward by the person behind him.

After a cursory interrogation, Schmidt allowed the trembling man in to see Eichmann. He turned away the next two in line—a full-figured young woman and her scrawny husband—with a tirade of profanities and insults but, possibly exhausted from the effort of pummelling Frau Kaufman, he did not rise from his seat to strike either of them.

As Franz stepped forward with his head bowed low, he saw the man scurry out of Eichmann’s office. “What is it, kike?” Schmidt barked at Franz.

“Sir, I have brought proof of my departure as Obersturmführer Eichmann requested.”

Schmidt eyed him for a long moment. Finally, he stood up and turned to knock at Eichmann’s door. “Obersturmführer, the Jew Adler is back.”

Franz couldn’t make out the reply from inside, but Schmidt opened the door and grunted for him to enter the office.

Adolf Eichmann sat at his desk, looking as immaculate as before in his pressed black uniform. His short hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place. Again, the lieutenant made Franz stand and wait while he filled in form after form. Franz didn’t dare glance at his watch, but he guessed that almost ten minutes passed before Eichmann put down his pen and looked up at him. “Back so soon, Adler?” he said softly. “You must have enjoyed our conversation yesterday more than I did.”

“Obersturmführer, I believe I have secured the correct paperwork to prove departure for my family.”

“Is that so?” Eichmann leaned back in his chair. “And where does the good doctor and his family intend to go?”

“Shanghai, Obersturmführer.”

“Shanghai?” Eichmann let out a small laugh. “I should have guessed. The only place accepting Jews without visas. Which, I’m afraid, is about as welcoming as the world gets for your kind.” He sighed. “Still, so many Jews scuttling like rats off to that poor city. It’s doomed to become a Chinese Jerusalem. Or worse, another New York.”

Franz knew better than to reply. Eichmann flicked his fingers impatiently. “I do not have all day. Show me your passport and proof of passage.”

Hand steady but heart racing, Franz withdrew the handwritten boarding passes along with the passports. He passed them to the lieutenant, who scrutinized each ticket.

Eichmann finally lowered the tickets to his desk. “Hannah is the Jew child, yes?”

Franz nodded.

Eichmann looked around the room theatrically. “And where are Jakob and Esther Adler?”

“At home, Obersturmführer. I didn’t realize they also needed to attend.”

“You clearly didn’t get legal advice from your brother, did you?” Eichmann’s malicious grin told Franz that he knew exactly what had happened to Karl. “Then again, I suppose I have no shortage of your kind to face in person.”

Franz looked away, afraid his expression would betray his feelings. “Thank you, sir,” he mumbled.

Eichmann grabbed another sheet of paper off his desk and slowly filled in the blanks. He picked it up and waved it in front of Franz. “You will sign this declaration on behalf of yourself and the others in your family. In it, you renounce claim to all property, assets and citizenship in the Reich, and you swear that you will never again return.”