Butterfly and the Violin (9781401690601) Read online

  “Uh-uh. Not until you acknowledge the fact that you didn’t think I’d call with anything more than questions.”

  “Okay. I didn’t,” she admitted, almost laughing. “That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

  “Good.” He seemed satisfied with her answer, because she could hear that he began typing on a computer keyboard while he talked. “I’m e-mailing you right”—he paused and she heard a click—“now. Check your inbox.”

  Sera sailed into action and pulled up her e-mail program.

  The urge to stop breathing toyed with her, the excitement was so great. After months of dead ends, after the hours Penny had spent poring over art auction sites and the many late-night hours they’d both spent at the gallery elbows-deep in research, they were finally on a hot trail again, one that might lead her to the real painting of Adele.

  She entered her password, fingers trembling slightly.

  And suddenly there it was. His name. Staring back at her from the computer screen.

  “Vladimir Nicolai.”

  “Yes.” She could almost hear William smile again through the phone.

  “And you know this is him because . . . ?”

  William’s voice turned all business. “I contacted the Austrian national archives in Vienna and spoke with the curator of the museum. She put me in contact with a colleague at the Vienna Philharmonic, and after a couple of conversations, we were able to do a little cross-research over e-mail. I sent pictures and he sent the name.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” she mumbled, still scanning the paragraph of information that accompanied the name in the e-mail. “Penny and I have been looking for a link like this for a while.”

  “But you didn’t know the connection between Adele and Vladimir. Now we do.”

  “You’re right. Now we do.”

  William cleared his throat. “Maybe we can talk about it in person,” he said, pausing slightly. “I’ll be in New York next week.”

  “Really?” She kept reading, hardly noticing what he’d said.

  “Yes. A week from Friday,” he said.

  “William, it says here that there is no record of Vladimir after January 1945. That’s when the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz, isn’t it? So if he was a concert cellist before the war, I wonder why he didn’t go back to it after? It says here that there was no record of any performance with his name in the program after the war ended. Dear God.” She stopped, wondering if the same fate that had taken Adele had snuffed out Vladimir’s life as well. “Maybe he didn’t survive Auschwitz either.”

  She began scrolling down through the rest of the information in the e-mail, looking for something, anything that stuck out.

  “I thought maybe we could have dinner.”

  Sera supposed that William’s asking shouldn’t have surprised her, given that he’d held her so close on the dance floor. The wedding had made its own magic around them . . . Despite their differences, he’d kissed her and, heaven help her, she hadn’t been able to think of much since.

  “Dinner?” She swallowed hard. “You mean to talk about the painting?”

  Was he wondering the same thing she was—whether what they’d felt on that dance floor was something real? A picture of Michael flashed before her eyes. The memory of a discarded wedding gown and returned gifts . . .

  “It’s just dinner.”

  “No, I know. It’s . . .” How could she tell him what really bothered her? “I didn’t expect you’d be in New York quite this soon.”

  She dropped her free arm down on the desktop and rested her forehead against it.

  “Sera.” He said her name so softly, without the reproach she’d expected. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to trust again?”

  No, no, no, her heart rebelled. I can’t trust anyone. Please don’t ask me to.

  She bit her bottom lip so she wouldn’t say the thoughts aloud.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, just said, “Keep digging. I’ll call next week for an update.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  June 30, 1943

  Adele and the rest of the members of the fledgling orchestra had been moved from their one-room barracks to block twelve—which they called the music block—in the general camp population.

  When she’d first arrived, the quick decisions of the Nazis might have surprised her. But now? Adele had seen the truth of what was happening in this place. And she didn’t question. To stay alive, they went where they were told, stood at attention or knelt for hours, lined up in the sweltering heat, or played their instruments at the SS guards’ whims. The prisoners in the orchestra, whether Jew or not, had a distinction amongst the general population. It became clear that the orchestra was her means of survival.

  The ragtag group of musicians had grown almost organically. Adele couldn’t remember how exactly they’d formed, but when they’d come together as the camp orchestra, she was surprised at the instruments that ended up in the block. Violins. A cello or two, one of which Omara could play. Even a mandolin and an accordion had been brought in from the train platform and now rested with the pile of instruments they looked after.

  Though they’d been relocated to live and rehearse in the music block, Adele had spent the last few months working in Canada during the day and playing at the whim of the SS. Their group expected that the rehearsal schedule would increase, but whether that meant the work in the warehouses would decrease with it, none of them could know.

  None of them questioned. They just did. They worked. Walked where they were told. Never stepped out of line or had an original thought—especially not with the daily roll calls in the yard. The orchestra was a part of it, but they were sheltered from some of the horrors that other prisoners were subjected to . . . standing for hours in the rain. Kneeling, unclothed and without dignity, as the camp doctors walked through the lines of souls and determined who would be pulled out and sent to the gas chambers.

  Adele tried not to think how naive she’d been when she’d first come to the camp. She knew nothing of the truth. She’d thought the brick wall was the worst of it.

  It was painful that Adele and the rest of the girls in the orchestra were forced to catalog the useful items in the block, teeming with provisions while thousands of prisoners wore scraps and walked barefoot, then ship them back to Germany.

  It was where she stood now, thinking on the naïveté of her first months in Auschwitz, wondering how she’d become so hardened in so little time. Her feet registered sharp pains up the length of her shins after weeks of standing on the concrete floors. She picked up an old woolen suit coat with cracked leather elbow pads and a small hole in the lapel where a hungry moth had left a telltale mark and ran her hand along the seams. Despite the rather sad condition of the suit, it was known that the Jews hid money, family jewels, heirlooms, and modest pieces that would bring even a small sum of much-needed money in the hems of clothing to keep them from the Germans.

  Adele ran her fingers over every seam, paying special attention to the bottom of the coat and inside the pocket holes. The wool was scratchy, but smooth underneath the surface. Finding no evidence of hidden items, she tossed the coat onto a nearby pile so it could be cataloged. Those wares deemed unfit for shipping back to Germany would be destroyed.

  Always cataloging. And filing. And re-cataloging.

  The Germans certainly liked to use up paper. Adele doubted there would be many trees left in Europe based on the way they recorded such trivial matters. It seemed important to them, to a dizzying degree. Adele could not figure out why keeping track of every last item that had come into the camps was of such importance—yet the people, the living and breathing souls who worked their fingers to the bone, were treated with such wretched abhorrence.

  “Have you finished with this bin?”

  Omara approached her, clipboard in hand.

  Adele nodded.

  “Good. You may go,” she said, and scribbled something on the clipboard paper. “We have an early morning ahead of us
. Go get rest, Adele.”

  “I will.”

  “And, Adele,” Omara added, giving one of her strictest mothering glances. “Be sure you wash. I can’t have you falling ill. Understand?”

  With another nod, she was dismissed.

  Adele trudged back to the musicians’ block with a few of the others and entered the bunk room. They must have been as tired as she was, for no one much favored talking. They shared a wash bucket, each cleaning up in silence as they prepared for bed. No one quipped about her hair now. Some of the others had been shaved, the Jews of course, but others had not. And they had a small collection of wares, dresses and such that had been pooled between them.

  For whatever hatred had emanated from the girls in her first weeks, there was none of it now. They may have resented her still, but none of it was spoken aloud. Barring illness or selections, the musicians had no choice but to stick together for their survival. If one played, they all did.

  She’d barely closed her eyes in sleep when she heard Omara’s voice, the urgent words pulling her awake. “You must wake, Adele. Wake up.”

  Her lids blinked until Omara’s face came into focus, and on instinct she shot up from the straw mattress with the cloud of sleep still lingering upon her.

  “What is it?”

  “Get up,” Omara ordered, tugging at the sheet to uncover her legs. “Put these on.”

  In the dim light of the barrack, Adele could see that Omara was clad in a fine dress of dark velvet with a white lace collar, and her short hair had been combed.

  Before Adele could comment on it, Omara dropped a pair of heels and a pile of cloth on the bed. The fabric glimmered in the moonlight. She ran her hand over it to find the softness unmistakable.

  Chiffon? Where on earth had she found chiffon?

  Adele picked up the garment and the length of it fell out to reveal a long dress of a pale color. “What’s this?”

  “Hush,” Omara scolded lightly. “Don’t wake the other girls.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one is to know about this.”

  Adele had no idea what was happening. Omara had done everything she could to ensure the safety of all the girls in the fledgling orchestra, and though it was quite strange to be awakened in the middle of the night with a party dress tossed in her lap, she had no choice but to trust the woman.

  Adele leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve asked for us to play.”

  She looked up at the window and saw that the moon was high outside. “But it’s the middle of the night.”

  “We don’t ask questions, Adele. Remember?” Omara began laying items out on the bed: a comb, what looked to be a handful of hairpins, and a tube of lipstick. “Here,” she said, and tugged her elbow to get her to stand. “Take off your dress and put that on.” Omara’s eyes then rounded in her face, and she noted, “We must do something with your hair.”

  “My hair?”

  Omara nudged her on, tugging Adele’s hands up to the top buttons on her dress. “Hurry.” She then moved over to a box they kept in the corner with the paltry hygiene items shared by the girls. Adele could hear her rummaging through it as she shrugged out of the ruddy-brown dress. It reeked of sweat and mold. She crinkled her nose at the smell when the garment fell to her ankles, leaving her dingy slip underneath. Washing up with water had done little to help with it the night before.

  “I have soap.” Omara wasn’t one for mincing words. But who would hold pretenses in their circumstances? They all smelled like they lived in a musty warehouse.

  Adele hadn’t seen actual soap in nearly five months. “Soap? But where on earth—”

  “No questions. Just wash.” Omara approached and dropped the small lump in her palm, then continued puttering about with the wares she’d placed on the plank bed.

  “Thank you.” Adele took the soap and washed, feeling, for the first time in months, like a woman. The faint scent of roses perfumed the air around her.

  Omara tried fussing with her hair while Adele dried and pulled the dress over her slip. It zipped up the side, which she noticed as she inspected the fit of the garment.

  “How does it fit?” the older woman asked, still tugging the comb through her hair. She stuck a few pins in the back of Adele’s waves.

  Adele ran her hands down the length of the gown to shake out the wrinkles.

  “It’s a little big.” She ran her hand over the liquid softness of the fabric, trying to ignore the feel of airy chiffon against her bony hips. “But it’s . . . beautiful.”

  So many weeks ago, she stood in a gown as elegant as the one she wore now. It had hugged her curves, dancing at the hem with each graceful movement and accentuating an hourglass figure. It was difficult to fathom that before Auschwitz, her life had been full of parties, concerts, scores of elegant gowns, and red lipstick. There had been food and drink in spades.

  She tried not to think about the ever-present ache in her belly.

  Oh God, please don’t let me have to see them eat . . .

  “It fits? Good,” Omara said, and turned her around to face her. She unstoppered the tube of lipstick and twisted it to reveal a bright poppy red. “Here, put this on.”

  Adele was handed the lipstick so quickly that she hadn’t time to process her own reaction. The last time someone had helped her dress for a concert had been the night the Germans took her into custody, the very night her mother had presented her with a specially tailored satin gown from Berlin.

  The open tube from Omara hadn’t been in her possession more than a second before her trembling hands fumbled, and it clanged down to the floor and rolled under Marta’s bed.

  “Adele!” Omara whispered, but it still held the severity of a reproach. “What is the matter with you, child? They are waiting for us!” She knelt down on the ground and ever so quietly reached her arm out under the sleeping girl’s mattress. Adele knelt too, hoping to help retrieve the lipstick.

  “I’m sorry . . . I think I’m nervous.”

  Omara waved her back. “The shoes,” she whispered. “Put the shoes on. I’ll find the lipstick.”

  Adele gave an embattled nod, which her friend wouldn’t see with her back turned, and carefully lowered herself down on her cot. She sat on the side of the bed, her heart beating and tears painfully stinging at her eyes. She should have felt lovely in a gown such as the one she wore, with glittering gold heels to put on and lips that would soon be rouge red. But it was the stark contrast of the moment that made her soul burn from inside her chest. It cried out, manifested in tears, finding that she’d been barely coping for months only for her defenses to be broken down by something as simple as a tube of lipstick.

  Her heart was breaking, hinged on the memory of that last night of the concert. It had been the last night she’d seen her parents. It had also been the last night she’d seen Vladimir, and her heart felt the weight of it at that moment.

  She’d come to Auschwitz alone. She’d been ripped from her family, from her former life, as everyone else had.

  Omara returned to her side with the lipstick in hand.

  “Here, child,” she said, holding the lipstick to Adele’s pout. “Pucker.”

  Adele swallowed the growing lump in her throat.

  Through the silver-lined moonlight, she wrapped her hand around Omara’s and together, with her hand shaking and Omara’s working to steady it, they brushed the waxy color over her lips. She pressed them together, softly blending the color without making a sound.

  Omara knelt before her, and with a depth of feeling Adele hadn’t expected in this hell on earth, she brushed a hand over Adele’s cheek.

  “You can do this, Adele.”

  She nodded. Then sniffled as quietly as she could. “Can I?”

  “You must.”

  Omara handed her a swatch of fabric and motioned for her to dab at her nose with it. She did as she was told, noticing the softness as the handkerchief brushed her
skin. Everything about the moment—the dress, the softness of the fabric at her face, even the scent of roses hanging on the air . . . she couldn’t comprehend that lovely things, or even a tiny glimpse of kindness, could still exist.

  “I know you don’t wish to hear this, but you look beautiful.”

  Adele couldn’t say thank you. Not when she was terrified to have to play—for them. She closed her eyes, fear threatening to take over and shatter the softness of the moment. The hands in her lap clenched into tight fists.

  God? Abba . . . go with me. I am so scared . . .

  She fought the instinct to burst into tears, willing her emotions to retreat back into the deadened state in which they’d been for so long. If she couldn’t feel anything, then she thought she was safe. She could make it. She could focus on survival and nothing else. But the fear was so great now, the memories once again alive.

  The warmth of Omara’s hand shielding her own knotted fists caused her to open her eyes. Her friend nodded, eyes warm through the moonlight, and nudged the violin case up against her side. Adele hadn’t even known it was there.

  “Here.” Omara lifted Adele’s hand and placed it on the top of the case. “Take him with you.”

  Vladimir’s picture.

  Like a heartbeat, she breathed in unison with the intensity of the moment. All the time she’d been holding on, talking to his picture, willing him to stay alive . . . and never had she understood that the memory of their last night onstage might be all that she had left of him. The one stolen kiss in the garden, that one flash of their future, might be all they’d ever have together.

  Adele curled her fingertips against the top of the case until her nails were digging into the leather.

  “Then you understand,” Omara whispered, “that they take everything from us. But what they can’t take, it is alive in here.” She pointed a gentle finger to Adele’s heart and began shaking her head. “He is here. Whatever you do, don’t let them get at him.”

  Adele nodded.

  She couldn’t, didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel anything. It was too risky to her survival. She rose to her feet and, with a numbed resolve to stay alive, straightened the lovely gown on her hips. She took a long, deep breath and declared, “I’m ready.”