Butterfly and the Violin (9781401690601) Page 13

  “But one of us might not be here to see it,” Faye whispered, shoving her with an elbow. “Look.”

  A handsome officer was walking in their direction. He stopped before the table, inclined his head to the group, and then turned . . . to her.

  “Excuse me, miss. Might I have the honor of a dance?”

  Margie kicked her leg under the table, the heel of her shoe knocking her shin. Adele glanced across the table to see her brunette friend smiling wildly and bobbing her head in a hopeful nod. “Are you crazy? Say yes,” she mouthed. Faye and Greta stared back at her too, their eyes wide while the officer waited for his answer.

  On instinct, she moved her eyes to glance at Vladimir, hoping he’d see the exchange and swoop in to ask her to dance instead.

  The wall was empty.

  Her eyes scanned that side of the room but found no evidence of him. When had he moved?

  The sound of someone clearing their throat brought her back to the table. She turned her attention back to the officer who was waiting patiently and the friends who seemed breathless while the agonizing seconds passed for her to render a response.

  There was nothing else to be done. Vladimir hadn’t asked her to dance. Surely he didn’t want to or he’d have intervened.

  Adele nodded slightly and rose up out of the chair. The officer beamed a smile back and offered a gloved hand, which she took, and they moved to the dance floor.

  Though seeming a bit nervous, the young man was an expert dancer, likely as schooled as she’d been in her youth. Her mother had always planned that she’d have a moment like this, a chance encounter on a dance floor with a young man as privileged as she, and they’d drive off into the sunset together in a Rolls Royce with Nazi red flags flying. But though her mother’s wishes for grandeur would no doubt have been found in the polite and handsome young man, he’d never hold the slightest candle to the penniless cellist Adele wished had asked her to dance instead.

  She nodded politely to the officer’s conversation, listening as intently as she could. She danced almost robotically, feeling not the slightest spark as he continued talking. And while she hoped to feel something, it was no use. Her eyes wandered the room every second while the young man held her so stiffly in his arms.

  Adele could scarcely wait for the song to be over so she could escape. But each time she tried to excuse herself, another eager young man would fill the place of the one before. It was three more dances before she had a moment to catch her breath. And still, with each twirl around the floor, Vladimir had never come back into view.

  She needed some air.

  The moment the notes of the present song stopped and the applause began, she gave the last young man a polite thank-you and turned on her heels toward the door.

  Thank goodness it wasn’t too cold out. She didn’t have the will to go back to the table for her coat. Her friends would have noticed the tears building in her eyes and questioned her.

  Adele burst through the front doors without a look back.

  She nearly bumped into a couple of young officers standing near the entrance, smoking and laughing about something. One of them whistled when she walked by, causing her to quicken her pace.

  Maybe she’d just walk all the way home.

  It wasn’t that far. And it would give her time to compose herself before she had to walk through the door. No doubt her mother would be up, waiting to hear every detail of the night out. Who did she dance with? Had there been any eligible young men there that night? It always occurred in the same manner.

  There was no way she could hide tear-streaked cheeks.

  “Adele?”

  She heard footsteps clamoring behind her. She stopped, her heart quickening to the sound of Vladimir’s voice. After hastily wiping at her eyes, she turned to face him.

  “Where are you going?” Panting, he came to a stop in front of her.

  “I’m going home.” She gave him a forced smile. “I’m tired.”

  “But you left your things,” he said, holding her peacock blue coat and leather purse out to her. Confused, she took them from him and mumbled, “Thank you,” as she shrugged the coat up over her shoulders.

  She didn’t understand him at all.

  He stood in the dance hall, looking at her for the longest time, yet never asked her to dance. One after another, other young men had asked her. She’d been good enough for them to waltz around the floor.

  Vladimir was older. And probably more experienced with matters of the heart. Adele knew she must be a child to him. Having realized it, she now wanted nothing more than to tear the pearl comb from her hair and march off into the night away from him.

  Hers was a schoolgirl crush, plain and simple.

  “I was looking for you.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. “Are you upset?”

  “No,” she lied, but accepted the handkerchief and used it to dab at the corners of her eyes.

  “It’s okay. Everyone else was. I saw several of the other girls crying too.”

  What was he talking about? They’d stopped in the middle of the street without even realizing it.

  He must have read her thoughts, because he looked around and then tugged her over to the sidewalk next to a park. They stood under a lamppost, the light illuminating his face. And suddenly, she wasn’t mad anymore. Vladimir had a look of genuine concern on his face. She could see it now.

  “Vladimir, what’s wrong?”

  “Didn’t you just hear?”

  She shook her head. “Hear what?”

  He tilted his head and stood back a step with his arms folded across his chest. “You mean you don’t know what’s happened?”

  “No—” she said, but stopped short.

  She looked around then and felt an eerie pit begin to form in her stomach. After a glance down the street, she could see a crowd pouring out of the front doors of the dance hall. Some people were cheering and skipping about the sidewalks as they tugged on coats and hats. Others were comforting young ladies with an arm around their shoulders. And for it being late evening, it seemed that an inordinate amount of traffic was now passing them by on the street.

  “Vladimir,” she said, looking around at all of the activity. “What in the world is going on?”

  He didn’t seem inclined to answer her question. He seemed fixed on her instead. “If you didn’t hear what was going on, then why did you run out of there?”

  “You saw me run out?”

  He shook his head. “No. I stepped away from the dance floor for a few moments and when I returned, you’d gone. Your friends saw you go outside.”

  “Were you watching me?”

  He ignored her question to ask one of his own. “Why are you crying?”

  She sighed. “I’m not.”

  “Did that last creep in there try something with you, because if he did, I’m going to—”

  “No. He didn’t try anything with me,” she said, tugging at the sleeve of his trench coat even as his hands formed into tight fists. He looked like he was ready to turn around and end the young man’s life if she didn’t stop him. “I’m just tired.”

  He looked like he didn’t believe her, but he did relax considerably.

  “You cry when you’re tired?”

  Adele knew she looked embarrassed. She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks until she had a telltale blush. It was something she hated about herself—her emotions were always so easily splayed across her face.

  He raised his eyebrows as he looked down at her, waiting for an answer that made sense.

  “Unless you want me to go back there and deck that jerk on principle, I suggest you tell me what made you cry.”

  She could have laughed in that moment. The jerk was standing right in front of her.

  The only thing left to do was attempt to change the subject. People were moving so fast around them, shouting from car windows and running down the sidewalks with excitement clicking at their heels.

  “Vladim
ir, tell me what’s happened.” People continued bustling by them. A uniformed man bumped her as a couple rushed past, and apologized in his haste to comfort a weeping woman in his arms.

  Vladimir pulled her farther away from the busy sidewalk and turned to face her.

  “It all happened so fast. One second the dance hall was alive, then the band stopped playing in the middle of a song,” he said on a sigh, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’d heard about it only moments before. A friend had his car radio on and he’d come in to tell me the news.”

  “What news?”

  “Hitler has invaded Poland.”

  Adele’s hand flew up to her mouth on a gasp.

  Then that’s what all of the people were so stirred up about. But it didn’t make sense. If the German army had invaded Poland . . . why in heaven’s name would anyone be happy?

  “Invaded Poland . . . That’s terrible! Why do they celebrate?”

  “Because it’s war. That’s inevitable now. It’s only a matter of time before France and Britain declare it.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “We’re at war? Or you mean to say that we’ve started a war?”

  He too must have noticed the irony of the youths from the dance hall showing such jubilance around them, for he glanced back over his shoulder and shook his head.

  “It looks that way.”

  “But why are they happy?”

  “I don’t think they’re happy.” He turned back to her, concern heavy in his eyes. “They’re young and brash. And stupid. They don’t know what it means.”

  “It means a lot of these boys will be going off to fight, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’d say so.”

  “And you?” She was breathless with the prospect. “You’ll go with them?”

  Vladimir paused a moment before he responded. “If they call the boys into service, I’m sure I’ll be called too. But I don’t think I can go and fight, not for this Austria at least.”

  “What do you mean? You won’t desert, will you? They’ll throw you in prison!” She shook her head, trying to understand what he was telling her.

  “I’ll do what I have to do. Adele, you don’t have any idea what’s going on here.”

  “Then tell me so I can understand.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve been sheltered. I’ll not ruin that.”

  “Ruin what? Don’t presume to treat me like a child.”

  She wanted to stomp her foot at him but that would seem childish. Instead, she folded her hands in front of her waist and waited, chin up.

  “I never said you were a child. You’re just . . . innocent.”

  Innocent. That was as bad as saying she belonged in pigtails on a hopscotch square chalked out on the playground. She stood with as determined a constitution as ever, staring up into his eyes without the slightest flinch. She had to show him she wasn’t as young as she seemed.

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

  He hesitated only a moment.

  “Remember the Anschluss last year? When Hitler marched into Vienna and took control?” He shook his head, seemingly in disgust. “I saw what happened to the Jews after that spring. Good people. Shopkeeper friends of my father. Boys I’d grown up with, their families expelled from this city and their businesses burned or confiscated. After the Kristallnacht programs, they had nothing left. The lucky ones got out then. I worry for any who remain. It might be too late for them to escape now.”

  Kristallnacht.

  It meant “night of broken glass.”

  She’d heard of it in the newspapers, only not explained the way Vladimir had. It amounted to dirty accusations made by those who refused to support Austria—at least that was what her mother had said. The degenerates and criminals of Vienna. They supported the Jews and propagated this Kristallnacht idea as an excuse to wreak havoc on the city. The lawless Jewish communities claimed it explained the broken glass from Jewish shop windows that had been shattered across Germany and Austria the previous November. But those shops had been harboring criminals. Criminals who didn’t support the government during the Great War and who didn’t support it now.

  But as for men being killed just for being Jews?

  Adele had never heard of such a thing.

  “But Hitler’s government has helped the people. He’s built up our nations again. Made them great after the depression of our childhood. My father told me stories about the Great War. How terrible it all was. We’ve been saved from that.”

  “Not really, Adele. Not when people are being killed for being Jewish.”

  “You’re sure of this? There is proof?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t need proof beyond what I’ve seen with my own eyes.”

  Adele wasn’t sure what to believe.

  Surely the Jews couldn’t have been so ill-treated as that? Their entire livelihood taken away? Senseless acts of violence that led to their being killed without just cause? She couldn’t believe her father would have been so blindly supportive of such a government. Why, she and her mother had accompanied her father to the very parade Vladimir spoke of now.

  She even remembered seeing the Führer. He looked quite severe, that was true, but she thought him only a misjudged military strategist. He was a powerful speaker, she remembered. And masses of people had come out of their homes for it. They’d lined the streets to celebrate with flags flying. They loved him. The sea of red had actually pulsed with excitement that day in March, the crowds alive with the energy and prosperity of a oncemore prosperous empire.

  Germany had the right to be a world power once more, didn’t they? Why shouldn’t Austria go along with them?

  Adele remembered playing at a party that night in March 1938. It wasn’t anything like playing for the Führer, of course, but her mother and father had both been proud that their sixteen-year-old daughter was such a symbol of patriotism and triumph—she wore the German swastika band proudly on her arm. The Führer the symbol represented couldn’t have been so evil as to have supported the killing of innocent people.

  “You’ve seen Jews killed?” She couldn’t believe Vladimir had harbored such a horrible secret. He’d never spoken of it before.

  He nodded. Slowly. Just once.

  “I can’t believe God means this path for Austria—or for us.” Adele mumbled the words, somehow knowing that it was okay to be herself around him. “I suppose I have to question the things I’ve been told. It’s a new life that’s dawning for us. War is going to change things, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It will,” he agreed quietly.

  Adele didn’t even wait a breath before she added, “Then I hope it changes me.”

  And in that moment, Vladimir surprised her.

  He smiled.

  It wasn’t one of those heart-stopping grins of his. But this time he actually looked . . . proud? Was that it? Did that easy smile and those inviting eyes mean that he was somehow proud of her?

  He took a finger and tapped the pearl comb in her hair.

  “When did you get this?”

  She shrugged. New combs. Birthdays. How could such things matter now that they faced war? “Last week. My mother took me shopping again.”

  Vladimir shoved his hands in his pockets in an almost boyish fashion.

  “It looks nice.”

  So he had noticed her, but simply chose not to act? What a miserable prospect.

  “But then if you wear it, what will I do with this one?” When her eyes shot up to meet his, he shocked her by pulling a small box from his pocket. “Happy birthday,” he said, presenting her with a little silver trinket box wrapped in a lovely, cherry red satin bow. “Butterfly.”

  She took it from him with genuine surprise in her heart. “I thought you . . .”

  “I know. You thought I forgot.” He shrugged, almost sheepishly. “Someday we’re going to have to change your assumptions about me. I can remember the important things.”

  Though her hands shook as she took the delic
ate box, Adele tugged the ribbon loose and opened the hinged lid to find a soft white satin lining with a tiny golden clip resting inside. He took it out and with careful fingers exchanged the pearl comb for the small golden wings of the butterfly in her hair.

  “There. Now you look like the woman I’ve come to know.”

  After all of the rehearsals they’d played together, and all of the nights meeting in the garden to talk about the weather or other little things that probably seemed unimportant to him, she knew her heart was gone. It wouldn’t matter how many officers asked her to dance; she’d only ever be able to think of him.

  “Come on, Butterfly,” he said, and slid his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll walk you home.”

  How easy it was for him to offer to walk her home.

  Despite how Vladimir tried to keep the conversation light, a darkness had crept in around them. It was time to grow up, not just with a birthday. War was coming. It was coming quickly, and she felt something tug at the innermost recesses of her heart.

  They’d never even danced.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  April 2, 1943

  The golden butterfly clip and the small picture of Vladimir had been hidden in the crushed velvet lining of her violin case for the last couple of years. Her mother had never thought to pull back the plush red fabric of the case, just like the Germans hadn’t when she’d been registered in the camp. And now, after almost a month in Birkenau, the small photo and clip were her prized possessions. In fact, they were her only possessions to speak of, except for the brown dress she wore and the shoes on her feet that were two sizes too big, since she’d lost her own shoes on the first night.

  No one had told her to sleep with them under her or they would be stolen right off her feet. Lucky for her, she’d slept with the violin case tight in her arms or it might have gone missing too. Adele remembered waking that first morning, her body aching from sleeping on a hard wooden plank bed, her back raw from the repeated poking of dried stalks of straw, feet bare and cold as ice.

  Even in the room of women who had joined them, no one would own up to the theft in the morning. Omara was the one to tell her she should have slept on her shoes. It sure didn’t help much after the fact. And though they’d been laboring in a warehouse full of shoes in all shapes and sizes, stealing a pair of replacements could mean death for any of them. They couldn’t risk it. The replacement shoes she’d been given would have to do until Omara could procure something better.