The Lost Prince (53 page)

Throughout her entire descent into the chaos of the war-torn areas following the path of the retreating Italian army away from the Isonzo River, looking for Arnauld preoccupied her, and at night finding a soft place to lie down was on her mind and then being bone tired caused her to fall off to sleep as soon as she could.
I must get rest,
she thought every night upon lying down.
We must be sharp and attentive for the job ahead.

That night in the small room of the ruined hotel she had removed her clothes and fallen off to sleep in her undergarments, as always, with the thoughts of her daughters back on Acorn Street with Rose and their father, and young Standish, safe back in Vienna with Fräulein Tatlock.

She did not hear a door open, and the first impression she had was of a rough hand tearing at her and being yanked out of sleep; another rough hand covered her mouth so she had to fight for breath. Terror seized her immediately, rendering her unable to move or to think. She could see almost nothing but could smell the acrid breath and feel the hand brutally at her breasts, grabbing and grasping. She froze at first, then kicked with her legs, but the attacker’s full weight was on her, and the sounds were not formal language but guttural animal outbursts. She did what she could to protect herself, but she knew immediately with a kind of horrible clarity what was going to happen. Thoughts of her children leapt into her mind.
You must survive,
a voice within her said,
you must do what is necessary and survive
. With all her strength, she hit at the hand on her mouth, and it slid away so that she could gasp for breath. She kicked and punched, but the weight of the body and the strength of the grip were too much for her. Always, the acrid smell of breath in her nostrils.

In her panic, she thought to lie still, perfectly still, but a stronger impulse told her to keep struggling. The hand now tore at her waistband and grabbed between her legs, and she waited, frozen, self-preservation telling her to struggle with all her might. The other hand was tearing at her clothing, and she was powerless to stop it.
Stay alive!
she screamed to herself.
Stay alive!

Then as abruptly as the attack began everything stopped. The weight on her shifted, then froze; the guttural gasping changed to something like choking. The weight was off her suddenly and there was a terrible explosion and the sickening thud of the body hitting the floor. Then for a moment nothing.

Everything whirled about her. “It is over,” an unearthly voice rasped in the confusion. “You are safe now.” And then the dragging of boots across the floor and out the door into the hall, from which a dim light now illuminated the room, and dead silence.

She sat up for a moment, gasping for breath, straining to see in the darkened room, her heart racing, and then she lay back, quieted and still, her undergarments torn and in disarray.
No blood,
she thought.
Nothing broken, no harm
. She pulled the covers up over herself and didn’t move. She could hear her heart racing, and for a moment she thought she might explode from it. Then the door pushed fully open again and then clicked
closed and she heard the reassuring voice again. “You are safe now, Frau Burden,” the disembodied voice repeated. It was Jodl.

“Thank you,” she said weakly.

“I should never have left you,” she heard, and the sound of a chair being dragged close to her bed. “Sleep, and we will need to leave at dawn. I will be here.” She heard him settle into the chair beside her bed. And try as she would, tired beyond description, aware now of her protector beside her, she was unable to fall back into sleep. She lay awake until the first light of dawn.

“We must be gone,” she heard beside her, and he left her alone to dress. She rose quickly and dressed to leave. She could see the chair where Jodl had settled and got what sleep he could.

With perfect timing, he reentered the room. “Let me know how I can help,” he said.

Leaving the room, she released an involuntary shudder as she saw the splattering of blood on the wall and a dark streak where the body had been dragged out the door.

“I shall not leave you alone again, Frau Burden,” Jodl said. “That was my error.” And for the next few nights, Jodl slept beside her bed, upright in a chair, she always too tired and too grateful to object.

“It is all right, Herr Jodl,” she said on the eve of the third night. “I feel quite able to sleep alone.” Her protector said nothing, only nodded. “I feel quite safe,” she added, and then paused and looked into his face until his eyes met hers. “And extremely grateful.”

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

T
hat day they had moved further along the path to the Piave. They would be traveling from Caporetto in the mountains down past Udine to the plains and on to the Piave River, where the retreating Italian army had made its stand for almost a year until the armistice.

They had known that they would lose their driver in Udine, and they had spent much of the afternoon after the hospital visit looking for another car and driver. They found another automobile left from the pool of abandoned Austrian equipment. This time the driver was a young man named Paolo who looked barely over eighteen. He walked with a pronounced limp that explained at least in part how he had escaped being swept up in the war. Eventually, in the middle of their first day together, he explained that he was from Udine and had, like so many young men from the former empire, been conscripted. “I wanted to be a writer,” he said. “I read a lot.” He was sent to the eastern front in 1914, a year before the Italians invaded, where in the first days against the Russians a shell fragment had nearly torn off his leg. “I was the lucky one,” he said. “The corporal beside me received his share of that shell in the neck. I nearly bled to death, then nearly died of the infection, but that was on the train ride back from that awful front. I had to limp home,” he added, remarkably free from bitterness. “On my own. No one seemed to notice when I took possession of this automobile when the Austrians left.” He pointed to the dangling wires beneath the dashboard he now used in place of a key to activate the ignition.

“You certainly deserve it,” Eleanor said, “after what you went through.”

“I fought for the Austrians,” he said. “Somehow the Italians think that disloyal. They suspect me of being Slovene.”

“It does not seem to get in your way,” the former policeman said curtly, and their new driver only flashed him a devilish grin.

The young would-be driver agreed to accompany them as far as they needed, all the way to the Piave, to whatever they found there. “Gasoline will be a problem,” he said, and then thought. “But I suppose you heard that from the other driver.”

Jodl nodded. “We were able to help with that,” he said, patting the briefcase that remained firmly in his grip.

There had been no fighting in the area west of the Isonzo and north of Venice, but two huge armies, one in retreat and the other in pursuit, had passed through, consuming with the passage everything in their path and wake. There were no crops, no livestock, no poultry, nothing to sustain life. Most of the civilians had evacuated when the Italians swept through in 1915 and now, slowly, the common folk worked their way back. But everywhere was poverty and deprivation. There was no food and no medical attention except for that procured by the armies, and even the armies had been unable to feed and care for their retreating soldiers.

Now, with the armies of both sides disbanded and civilians staggering back to their barren homes, the whole area was sad and depressed. Eleanor and Jodl passed through, finding what they needed, depending on the ingenuity of young Paolo and the supply of dollars to procure the necessities.

The night before their move westward, they inquired about hospitals and followed two unproductive leads, to an abandoned school and an abandoned church, both of which had once served the dying and wounded. Finally, they were told by an old priest that they should move away toward Venice. “We shall press on,” Eleanor had said with conviction, never pausing to ask herself just how long she was willing to stay with the depressing task. “We shall press on until we have looked into every face. But tonight we will rest.”

They found a run-down café and a grocer on the same block. “Let me try,” Paolo said. “We will need that,” he said, pointing to Jodl’s briefcase and encouraging him to follow.

They entered the store with its meager supply of canned goods. Jodl had extracted some bills and held them in his hand. “Can you find meat?” Paolo asked the portly grocer behind the counter, who eyed the bills.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“And vegetables?”

“There are some,” the grocer replied. “Everything is used up. But I know a source.”

“And paprika?” Jodl said, offering one of the bills.

The grocer, reaching out to take the offering, turned and opened a large cupboard and from deep inside he pulled out a small jar of red powder and beamed at his customer.

Both Jodl and Paolo beamed back. “And you and your wife will join us for dinner next door?” Paolo said. The grocer smiled and nodded.

“You can bring others,” Jodl said.

The café owner cooked up a goulash, enough to share with a scattered collection of townspeople, and found some bread and wine.

“Have you noticed?” Jodl said. “They are too tired to see that I am one of the hated Austrians.”

“And I a suspected Slovene,” the young man added.

Never had simple food tasted so good, both of them agreed. And neither seemed to mind the extreme starkness of the setting. The room was a makeshift barroom, reconstructed with scraps of paneling and molding from what had once been a quaint and inviting café. Four kerosene lanterns provided the only light, giving the space a distinct odor that reminded Eleanor of evenings at Putnam Camp in the Adirondacks. “You will have to pardon our surroundings,” the innkeeper said. He was a humble man of Slavic descent. He introduced himself as Herr Schmidt, deferring to the Austrian that had been the language of government his whole lifetime. “We have not had a chance, or the means, to rebuild. You are welcome to what food we have.” He seemed to have no interest in money.

“This is perfect for us,” Eleanor said with a contented smile.

After the meal, Jodl disappeared and came back with a satisfied grin on his face. “I have a surprise,” he said, pulling out from behind his back two well-worn musical instruments: a beat-up violin and a small concertina-size
accordion, scarred but in playing condition. “I have found something for you,” he said. Then he moved over behind the bar and pulled out an equally well-worn cello and a bow. “It is missing a string, but you can make do.”

“Where on earth did you find those?” Eleanor said.

“Frau Schmidt has quite a collection,” he said. “I wish to hear you play.”

“Oh my,” she said, surprised and deeply touched. “You have been talking with Fräulein Tatlock. She remembers me from many years ago. I am very rusty.”

“And you?” Jodl turned to the youthful Paolo, who had watched Frau Schmidt lay a number of assorted musical instruments on a nearby table. He looked at the motley collection and picked up a stringed instrument that looked like a Russian balalaika and plucked at a pair of strings, frowned, then immediately set to tuning.

“From many years ago,” Jodl said, drawing the concertina out to its full expansion and pushing it closed with a deep groaning sound. “I too am rusty.”

Eleanor ran the bow across the strings and began the simple strains of a melody Jodl followed with rough notes. “You know this?” she said.

“‘Plaisir d’Amour,’” he said with a satisfied smile. “It is a universal language.”

Herr Schmidt came to attention and walked to a back room. He reappeared with two old violin cases and laid them on the bar. “There was much music here before the war,” he said.

Two patrons stepped forward and opened the cases and suddenly their simple melody was joined by the two violins, and they played through one whole rendition of the song and began it over again. Another patron joined them, this time with a clarinet, another with one of the violins. Before long there were ten instruments, all playing the familiar “Plaisir d’Amour,” gently and beautifully. They came to an ending, and the group fell silent, each player smiling softly, remembering other times, peaceful times. Jodl and Paolo, both with instruments in hand, smiled at each other, then at Eleanor, who had been the one to signal the final bars. She had lowered her bow and looked around at the ragtag group and the rugged, beat-up collection of instruments. She nodded silently and smiled back at her two companions.