Butterfly and the Violin (9781401690601) Read online

  “Pull the drapes closed tight. And get her a glass of wine, please,” he continued, his deep voice floating out from beneath a weighted gray mustache. “Then bring a basin of hot water, bandages, and some blankets. We must warm her up.”

  “But the wine is nearly gone,” the young woman whispered.

  “Then we should have enough for one lady who has need of it.”

  Adele listened to them whispering back and forth. Wine was hard to come by. They’d have been cautioned to use it most sparingly. Who knew if the war would ever end and supplies would be available again?

  “I can think of no greater reason to use it up. It is for Miss Adele,” he offered. “Please, Daughter, do go and get it.”

  The man patted her cheek and turned his attention back to the older woman who had taken to pacing about the room. She wrung her hands as she marched back and forth. She glanced over at Adele from time to time, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. She finally stopped to peek out the heavy woolen drapes, examining the darkness of the street.

  “Dieter, what has happened to her?” The older woman approached and whispered low, her thick Austrian accent pronounced even though the words were hushed.

  “I do not know. You heard the knock upon the door same as I did. When I opened it, I found Miss Adele shivering on our front stoop.”

  “Was she alone?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he gave Adele a respectful smile before turning back to the fidgeting woman. He whispered several indiscriminate words while the woman continued eyeing her.

  Adele had met her before. She was the doctor’s wife. Ava was her name, and though it had been several years since they’d crossed paths, her expression had not changed. The circles painted beneath her eyes matched the graying color of the hair tucked up in her faded paisley kerchief. She looked unkempt and severe, like everyone in Vienna, for years of war had taken their toll on those left in the city. But it was her haughty disapproval that Adele remembered most. Those pinched lips and that cemented scowl were as uninviting back then as they were now.

  “You know who she is.” She spat out the words like an accusation. “All of Vienna knows the orchestra’s sweetheart. How can you think to hide her here? She will be spotted on sight. They will question why a woman such as she would be taken into our home in the state that she is.”

  He shook his head.

  “Dieter—”

  He cut into his wife’s pleas with a hushed but firm reprimand.

  “I cannot turn her out! This is Miss Adele. I would not send a stranger from this house, let alone the daughter of Fredrich Von Bron himself. I owe my life to the man. Have you forgotten that? He saved me in the Great War. This is his daughter and that makes her as good as family. If she needs our help, then she shall receive it without question.”

  “But they will come and take us away too. Your own daughter could face deportation! Do you not understand what this could mean?” The woman twisted her hands in knots as her gaze darted from her husband’s face over to Adele. “She must go. Give her wine and bread and then send her away.”

  “No one will be deported. Go now. Please do as I’ve said.” Dieter returned his attention to Adele’s hands. The woman’s heavy steps pounded the hardwood floor as she walked away.

  “Adele. You are hurt.” He swept a wooden stool up under him and began picking at her wool coat and woven scarf as both garments dripped stray drops of blood upon the floor. “Let us get this coat off so that I may have a look, hmm?”

  Ava came back and laid a stack of bandages nearby. She didn’t leave—the woman lurked back in the shadows, staying put like a ghost haunting the doorway.

  “Good,” he said, smiling and nodding when the coat was discarded. “Your sweater—arms and torso—there is no blood.” His hands squeezed up and down her arms. “No broken bones. You’re not injured anywhere else. This is good.”

  “My hands.” Adele could say nothing else. She held out her hands to show him the cuts that continued bleeding red droplets over the light camel dress she wore.

  “Yes, yes. I can see that must hurt a great deal,” Dieter replied, and cradled her hands in his to dab at the wounds. “Let’s see to that right now.”

  “The wine, Father.” His daughter tapped his shoulder, then handed over a chipped tumbler that was not quite half full. She set a black medical bag at his feet.

  “Here, drink.” Dieter brought the glass up to Adele’s lips, but she couldn’t force herself to drink. It was the last thing she wanted to do. Anything she swallowed would come right back up again.

  “I cannot.” Adele pushed the glass away. “Please.”

  Dieter glanced over his shoulder as his daughter retreated to the doorway with her mother. The two looked on like nervous vultures.

  “The basin? I need water,” Dieter remarked, his words sounding tinged with frustration. “I cannot clean her wounds without it. Then blankets and a charger of bread, Astrid. She needs nourishment and warmth. We cannot let this chill go unchecked or she’ll catch her death by morning.”

  Again Ava looked as though she wanted to argue, but he cut her off before a word could be uttered.

  “And blow out the candles in the entry before you wash the blood from the door.” He pulled a small table up closer to his side and set the tumbler of wine upon it. “Go, please. Both of you.”

  The older woman sighed and tugged her daughter back through the archway from the parlor, the sounds of her huffing echoing down the hall.

  Adele watched the women go, then turned back to the doctor. “Have I caused you difficulty by coming here?”

  “No, child. No,” he answered, and shook his head. “Now, let me see to your hands, Adele. What has happened to you?” He once again went about gently wiping the blood from her hands.

  After all that had happened, she needed someone to confide in. Her life now depended on it.

  “They . . . shot . . . them,” Adele said with a pause after each word, struggling against the bottom lip that quivered with her admission.

  “Shot? Who’s been shot?”

  Adele shook her head. It all seemed so different now. She’d been innocent. A fool. What did she think, that men with guns wouldn’t use them?

  “The Haurbech family.” Adele mumbled the words. Shuddering, she added, “Elsa, my friend. Her husband used to play with the orchestra sometimes, that is, until . . . they shot them! Even little Eitan . . .”

  He tilted his chin down and peered back at her over the top rim of his bifocals. “Who are the Haurbechs? And how did you come by them out on a night like this?”

  Adele squeezed her eyes shut on the questions and shook her head. Visions of the night’s horror flashed through her mind—the running, dark alleys all around, the violent odor of fish down by the docks, icy wind burning the insides of her nostrils. And silence. There was an eerie silence that had been undisturbed around them, except for her ragged breathing and shoes pounding the wet pavement. Then suddenly, noise. Ripping through the night. And falling bodies . . . shock. Her heart stopping and then, all at once, thumping again until she thought it would burst out of her chest. The anguished screams and pops of gunfire piercing her ears . . . young Sophie’s hand being torn away from hers . . . glass shattering . . . her feet, slipping on blood that had pooled on the ground as she tried to run away . . .

  A tremor predicated her next words.

  “They were being loaded into a bread truck.”

  “Where?” If he was stunned by her short admission, he didn’t show it. He held her hands, still dabbed at them with the strips of cloth, and waited for her to respond.

  Adele dropped her tone to a whisper. “Not far from here, down by the fish market. They’d waited so long to come out of hiding.” Her voice hitched on a muffled sob. “And I promised them that everything would be okay if we tried it tonight.”

  “Adele? What on earth are you saying?” Dieter looked her straight in the eyes, the shock she’d expected now evident a
s he searched her face.

  She knew what she was admitting to.

  It was a death sentence if the Germans found out. No, her fate would be sealed if anyone learned the truth. Austrian Adele Von Bron, the daughter of a high-ranking member of the Third Reich, society’s darling and the gifted violinist with such a bright future ahead of her, was involved in the secret transport of Jews out of the city? It was a shocking revelation that was unbelievable even to her. If they knew . . . if anyone knew . . . she was as good as dead.

  “I have been working with Vladimir. You know of him?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Vladimir Nicolai. And he plays in the orchestra as well?”

  “He’s a cellist in the Philharmonic,” she admitted, though Dieter couldn’t know how much more he was to her. “He has contacts in the south that were prepared to accept the family, to smuggle them to Switzerland.”

  “And how long has this been going on, young Adele?”

  “For nearly two years,” she breathed out. “I learned of Vladimir’s activities by accident, though he tried to shield me from them.”

  “And he convinced you to go along with this scheme?” Dieter sounded not only shocked but somewhat defensive on her behalf, as if he was angered that the rebellious young cellist had lured her into the activities by deception—or force.

  “No. I chose it.” Adele felt renewed strength as she shook her head. “And I know what you must be thinking. By God as my witness I was not coerced. Vladimir did not seek me out. I knew of the Haurbech family’s whereabouts and I wanted to help them escape.”

  “How did you learn of them?”

  “That doesn’t matter now.” And it didn’t. What good would it do to endanger more lives when the family they’d hoped to save was now dead? “We were helping them for many months.”

  Dieter looked back over his shoulder before whispering a reply.

  “But I thought there were no Jews left in the city. I’d have thought they’d all fled or been taken away long before now. Most all that I knew left Vienna more than three years ago. The ones that didn’t leave, well . . . How could any still be in Vienna? Is it possible?”

  “Yes. There are some left.” Adele looked up at him, hoping her eyes would entreat him to help in some way, maybe even to tell her that she was living out a dream instead of being in the world’s broken reality. “Vladimir was there with me. He told me to run when the Gestapo arrived. They came out of nowhere. I had been under the cover of the buildings by the fish market, leading the children from the alley to load them on the truck, but then—it all happened so fast.”

  “And what did happen tonight?” he asked, and pressed her hand to her lap in order to begin stitching one of the cuts. She winced against the pain.

  “It was the older child, Sophie. She screamed when they shot her parents, and though I tried, I couldn’t cover her mouth in time. They—” Adele choked on the words and shook her head.

  “You got away.” Dieter took his hand and tilted her chin up to look at him. “How did you escape without them seeing you?”

  “Vladimir pulled us down the alley and he went the opposite direction with Sophie. He picked her up and told me to run. To run and not look back. He’d instructed me beforehand that if anything went wrong, to go to a place that I knew would be safe. So I came here.”

  Dieter nodded.

  “Vladimir is a good man. He will look after little Sophie,” Dieter assured her.

  “But I don’t even know if he got away. They ran the other direction. And when the bullets started to fly around us, I heard him scream.” Adele reached up with her bloodied hand and touched fingertips to her trembling lips. Heavenly Father, is he even alive? Or is my Vladimir shot dead in an alley somewhere? The fear was too real. “He yelled for me to keep running, so I did. I ran all the way here through the snow.”

  “Did he say your name?”

  Adele hadn’t even thought of that. Had Vladimir screamed it out when he’d ordered her to run away? She couldn’t think straight to know whether he had or not.

  “I don’t . . .” Adele closed her eyes. Somehow it helped to remember. “I don’t think so.”

  “You are certain?”

  Was she?

  With eyes closed and mind reeling, Adele relived the shuddering few moments over and over again, listening for her name to be called out in her memory. The screams were real, as were the gunshots, but she didn’t hear him call for her.

  “No. He didn’t say my name.”

  “Good.” He patted her wrist. “And your hands?”

  That’s right. She still hadn’t managed to tell him what had caused the cuts that now covered her palms.

  “I looked back. He told me to run and I did, but I turned around when I heard gunshots.” Adele allowed Dieter to pull her hand back to him. He inspected it, then bent to retrieve something from a medical bag on the floor at his feet. “I tripped over a crate and fell. There had been glass from a broken window on the street and my hands caught my fall. I felt the glass cutting into them but I got up and kept running.”

  “There now.” Dieter turned back, shushing her as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “We’ll see to this. I know you are worried, but you must have trust in him. Hmm? Vladimir Nicolai sounds as if he is a capable man. As for the hands of a concert violinist—they will be good as new, I promise.”

  “But until then . . . how can a violinist play with hands she cannot use? They’ll know something happened and they’ll question me. The guards saw that someone was there helping them escape. And they chased after us. It won’t take long for them to figure it out. They could be searching for us even now.” Adele entreated him, the tears now having been replaced by a breathless plea. “What do I do?”

  “You’re quite sure no one saw you?”

  She nodded.

  “Adele, you are known in this country. I can appreciate your heart for wishing to help those poor people, but how could you take such a risk with your own life? You know who your father is as well as I do. It would only take one person to recognize you and report it.”

  He was right.

  Adele’s musical talent was just one of the reasons she was well known in Austria. As the granddaughter of a renowned violinist and daughter to a famous concert pianist and a high-ranking Austrian general, it was assured that she was known. It was also her wheat blond hair and the family’s trademark blue eyes that had made her known beyond the stage. Had a streetlight cast a glow upon her features, there was a great possibility she’d been recognized.

  “My father knows nothing of my actions,” Adele admitted. “If he did, I suspect he’d turn me in himself.”

  “I expected your father would have been ignorant of these activities.”

  “But will anyone believe I have been home all night? My mother and father are likely to learn of this from the staff. What excuse can I give if they enter my room and find the bed empty?”

  “How did you take leave of your house, then?”

  “I feigned a headache and retired to my room after the evening meal. I asked not to be disturbed.”

  “Good. That may buy us some time.” He seemed satisfied with her excuse and continued. “You will stay here until we’ve figured out what to do. We have a woodstove and a nice cot in the kitchen that will be yours,” Dieter directed, his attention focused on the strips of gauze he was winding around her hands. “Don’t worry. You are safe here. We’ll determine what’s to be done by morning.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say but “Thank you.”

  Adele said it, as softly as she could, but he didn’t acknowledge her words. When he continued dressing the wounds, she whispered it again, this time with all of the raw emotion pent up inside her.

  “Thank you.”

  He looked up. Adele met his gaze and was shocked to see that gentle tears had glossed his eyes. The passion grew more alive as he spoke. “This is not Austria, you know. What we’ve become? This is not God’s path.”

 
; Searching the face of the sweet gentleman doctor she’d known all her life, she leaned forward and gave him a grateful kiss on the cheek. How could such a humble man exist, one with great honor and compassion for the injustices of the world, when her father lived as such an antithesis to those same virtues?

  “If this is not God’s path, then we must find it again.”

  He smiled and patted her cheek just as he had done to his own daughter’s only moments before. “Be heartened that you are alive. That is God looking out for you, I think.”

  Adele would have smiled had she not remembered something. She tried to submit to the man’s attempts at calming her frayed nerves, but all at once, the fear came flooding back. He didn’t understand, did he?

  She had a concert for the Third Reich the next day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  December 4, 1942

  Sleep became a welcome escape.

  The doctor had convinced her to swallow some of the wine, and as soon as Adele had lain down and closed her eyes, it had taken effect. She’d been lulled into the deep blackness of sleep, to a place where she was forced to remember nothing. There were no gunshots or fallen bodies, no fear of faceless officers who chased her down dark alleys with guns drawn. It wasn’t until she cracked her eyelids open that she could recall anything of the night before and where she lay now, which was on a cot hidden in the back of the doctor’s kitchen.

  She blinked, remembering where she was, and glanced through the opening in the brocade curtains that shielded the small alcove in which she’d slept.

  As dawn broke through the kitchen window, she could see a black-and-white checked flooring ran the length of the large but sparsely decorated room. White farmhouse cabinets, a butcher’s block, and a small shelf with canning items were the only things she could see lining the walls. An extended oak dining table was positioned in the center of the room, curiously sporting only three chairs. She wondered if at some point the others had been used to feed the oversized woodstove in the corner. A large pot boiled upon it, with liquid that splashed over the sides and sizzled when the drops reached its hot surface.