The Far Side of the Sky Read online

  “I have done legal work for the consulate,” Jakob said. “I know the vice-consul, a Mr. Howard Edgewood. A reasonable man. I would like you to speak to him.”

  “Of course.”

  “I will telephone Mr. Edgewood in the morning to arrange an appointment.”

  “Thank you.” Franz paused, groping for the right words, but all he could muster was, “Papa, I am so sorry.”

  Jakob was quiet for another long moment. “I only wish I had not been so horribly short-sighted.” He exhaled so heavily that the receiver whistled. “Do not make the same foolish mistake, Franz. Never underestimate the Nazis again. Their hatred is beyond rational, beyond human. They will never stop.”

  Sleep was out of the question. Franz sat at the table agonizing over possible escape options. He berated himself again for having turned down a French colleague’s offer to fill the position of visiting surgical professor at the University of Paris. Franz had reasoned that Jakob was too frail to be uprooted or left behind. Now, with Karl dead and his father facing the same fate, Franz found the irony of his own flawed rationale painful to remember.

  Franz was still awake as the dawn broke, but the daylight brought no renewed sense of security. On the contrary, it left him feeling even more exposed.

  A gentle rap at the door froze Franz in mid-breath. Ever since the rioting began, he had half-expected the authorities to come for him too. After a moment, he relaxed, realizing that if it were the dreaded Sicherheitspolizei or the SS, the door would be shaking from the heavy fists and the orders shrieked through it.

  Still, Franz approached warily. He undid the deadbolt and opened the door a crack. As soon as he recognized Ernst Muhler, he opened it wider.

  Ernst held a full grocery bag in either arm, a fragrant loaf of fresh bread poking out from one. Tall and gaunt with a blond widow’s peak, the flamboyant artist dressed unconventionally, favouring all-black ensembles, but fashion had nothing to do with his current appearance. Ernst’s nose was swollen and bloodied. His lips were scabbed and crusted, and he had raccoon-pattern bruising around both eyes. But his smile remained as undaunted as ever. “I thought you could use a little sustenance,” Ernst said in his distinctive lilt as he raised the bags in his arms.

  Franz glanced down the hallway to ensure that they were alone. “You shouldn’t have come, Ernst,” he whispered. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Rumour has it that Vienna has become somewhat volatile of late,” Ernst said as he strode past Franz and into the apartment.

  Franz slid the deadbolt back into place and followed his Gentile friend into the sitting room. He had known Ernst for over ten years, ever since his wife had dragged him to one of the painter’s exhibitions. The eccentric marriage of eroticism and frailty in Ernst’s avant-garde work had unexpectedly moved Franz. He wound up buying three paintings and, despite—or perhaps because of—their diametrically opposed lifestyles, the two men had formed a tight friendship. Ernst had since become a rising star on the Vienna art scene, until the Nazis came to power and banned his artwork as “pornographic.”

  Ernst placed the grocery bags on the kitchen table. “Where’s my little puffin?” he asked.

  “Hannah is still asleep.”

  “She must have been scared witless last night.” He sauntered over and flopped down on the couch, throwing an arm over the backrest. “You know, Franz, I found these Nazis a bit tiresome even before last night’s tempest, but they’ve truly outdone themselves. Such brave, virile men, aren’t they just? Assaulting the helpless, vandalizing property and burning down temples.” He snorted and then clutched his chest. “Ah, but the artist in me cannot help but admire their sense of aesthetics. They truly excel at making ugly things look and sound pretty, don’t they? Have you heard what they’re calling last night’s rampage?” Franz said nothing, but Ernst, who was accustomed to carrying on one-sided conversations, continued. “Kristallnacht. Isn’t that lovely?—’the night of crystal.’” He grunted again. “Only the Nazis could make a night of national disgrace and hateful violence sound like an opera that Mozart might have penned!”

  Franz pointed to his friend’s face. “What happened to you?”

  “This?” Ernst ran a finger delicately over his swollen cheeks. “I’m afraid my little Gestapo captain got a touch frisky.” He dug a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket as he spoke and effortlessly slid one out. “It won’t leave a scar, will it, Herr Doktor? Now that they no longer allow me to paint, my face is my life, you know.”

  Ernst heaved an exaggerated sigh. He lit his cigarette and took two long drags, leaning forward to bring his lips to the butt in his raised hand. “There’s no pleasing the Nazis, is there? First, they deem my artwork degenerate. Now, the little devils have decided my lifestyle is too.” Ernst took another puff. “These days I see a lot of my Gestapo friend, Captain Erhard Langenbrunner.” He sat up straighter, mock saluted and clicked his heels together. “Erhard is a blue-eyed, broad-shouldered Norseman—the embodiment of Hitler’s homoerotic Aryan fantasy, really. Erhard keeps telling me that the Third Reich will not tolerate homosexuals among their ranks. Yesterday, he threatened to send me to Dachau concentration camp with ‘the rest of the faggots.’” He sighed again. “Honestly, Franz, only the Nazis could believe they could cure my proclivity by locking me up in a camp full of men just like me.”

  Even Franz chuckled at the absurdity of it.

  “Erhard and his friends knocked me around a bit,” Ernst went on. “Truly, the attention he pays me makes me suspect Erhard could use a stint in Dachau too. It’s always the ones who protest the loudest who secretly harbour the same desire, isn’t it?” He touched his bruised cheeks again. “Anyway, I promised the captain I would dedicate myself to exclusively depraving women in the future. And that was that. Besides, it’s really nothing compared with what you Jews have been through. So appalling.”

  A new worry struck Franz. “How do you know the Gestapo didn’t follow you here?”

  Ernst flicked away Franz’s concern along with the ash from the tip of his cigarette. “I’ve been followed by my attentive little fascists for months, on and off. They are about as subtle as a herd of stampeding elephants. Trust me, Franz, no one followed.”

  Franz nodded. “Thank you for bringing us the food, Ernst. I will, of course, pay you back.”

  “Nonsense. You have overpaid for my paintings these last ten years.” Ernst winked. “So tell me, how are Karl and Esther coping?”

  Franz looked down at his feet. “Of course, you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what, Franz?”

  “Karl is dead. They killed him last night.” Franz’s voice was deadpan but he could barely believe his own words.

  “No! The bastards!” Ernst leapt to his feet. “Oh, Franz. I am so sorry!”

  Franz brought a finger to his lips and nodded toward Hannah’s bedroom, where his sister-in-law was staying. “Esther,” he mouthed.

  “How?” Ernst asked in a low, plaintive tone. “Why?”

  Franz shook his head. “They knew Karl had been helping other Jews with their documents. They went to his office to find him.”

  “Those savages!” Ernst muttered.

  “Karl managed to save Esther,” Franz said. “She was at the office with him when the troopers arrived. He broke a small window in the back and pushed her out into the lane behind the building. That was where I found her.”

  Ernst squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Franz, I know a man at the Dutch consulate. A dear friend. I will speak to him about urgent visas. We have to get your family the hell out of Austria.”

  Franz stared at him appreciatively. “You are a good person, Ernst. And a better friend.”

  Ernst grunted a humourless chuckle and reached for his cigarettes again. “What I am is ashamed. Ashamed to call myself Austrian—or German—or whatever the hell it is we are supposed to be these days.”

  Franz studied his friend’s battered face again. Angst, and even a glint
of fear, had replaced the usual flippancy. “Why do you choose to stay, Ernst?”

  “Oh, the same stupid sentimental reasons. Vienna is home. After all, how can I leave the city where Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele helped to define twentieth-century art?” Ernst sighed. “And, of course, I’m in love.” He blew out his lips. “But we have to keep that a secret, since my beloved works for city hall. He is not ready to leave his wife and join me in Paris. And lovesick fool that I am, I can’t bear to live without him.”

  With promises to contact each other the moment either heard a shred of news, Franz bade Ernst goodbye. Minutes after his friend left, Jakob telephoned to say that he had arranged an interview for Franz at eleven o’clock that morning at the British consulate. His father’s voice was ragged with exhaustion and grief, but Jakob never once mentioned Karl.

  Franz waited fifteen more minutes, but neither Esther nor Hannah emerged from their rooms. Deciding he could not wait any longer, he jotted a quick note to his sister-in-law and left it on the table. As Franz lifted his hat and coat off the peg, he was overcome by the intense memory of the night before. He winced at the recollection of his brother’s panicky voice over the telephone. “Franz, they’re here!”

  “Where are you?” Franz demanded.

  “My office,” Karl whispered. “God help me, Franz! Essie is here too!” “I’m coming, Karl.”

  “It’s so dangerous. I would never have called if Essie weren’t—” The line went dead.

  Franz dropped Hannah off at Frau Lieberman’s with a hasty explanation. The old widow begged him not to leave the building but Franz ignored her. Heart in his throat, he raced the ten blocks over to his brother’s office building, though twice he had to suddenly divert to avoid one of the roaming mobs.

  Franz ducked into the lane behind Karl’s office and found Esther sitting amid shards of glass, propped up against the rear wall of the building. She stared into her lap while the blood dripped freely from her lacerated forearm. “Essie, your arm!” Franz cried, but she didn’t even look up at him.

  He threw off his jacket and struggled to tear his shirt sleeve. Buttons flew in the air as the cloth ripped. Franz wrapped the makeshift tourniquet tightly above her elbow, and the hemorrhage slowed.

  “Is Karl still inside?” Franz asked.

  Esther slowly raised her gaze to meet his. In one glance, she confirmed his worst fears. His knees buckled, and he shot a hand out to support himself against the wall. “Oh, Essie, no! Please, no.”

  “I didn’t want to leave him,” she said in a monotone voice. “He pushed me out through the back window. I could hear the shouting and then …”

  They waited in terrible silence for ten or fifteen minutes until their breathing settled and Franz convinced himself that the street in front of the building had emptied. Esther said nothing as they inched down the lane toward the side street. At the corner, Franz poked his head around the edge of the building. Across the street, under the beam of a street lamp, a swaying shadow caught his eye. He was filled with dread as he looked up to see the body dangling from the lamppost. Along the front of the dead man’s shirt one of the Nazis had splashed a Star of David in red paint. The victim’s face was swollen and bloodied, but there was no doubt. Karl! He groaned.

  Esther followed his gaze across the street. Before Franz could stop her, she leapt out from behind him and dashed toward the lamppost. She flung her arms around her husband’s legs and pulled his whole body toward her.

  Just as Franz reached her, he heard the nearby sound of shouts and shattering glass. He grabbed Esther by the arm, inadvertently digging his fingers through the warm gash. She gasped in pain but said nothing.

  Franz pried Esther’s hands free of Karl’s legs and dragged her away. After a few strides, she stopped resisting and let him lead her.

  Once on the other side of the street, Franz slowed for a final glance at his brother. Karl’s waxy face held a neutral expression, but his brown eyes—which in life had brimmed with such compassion and amusement—seemed to find Franz’s.

  I will take care of Essie. I swear it, Karl.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sweat dampened his armpits as Franz stepped out of his building and into the bright but chilly November morning. He yanked his hat even lower on his head and stared down at his feet, reassuring himself that he could easily pass for a Gentile. With his straight nose, hazel eyes and strong jaw, he didn’t possess a particularly Jewish look—at least, not in terms of the hook-nosed, beady-eyed caricatures that filled the newspapers and schoolbooks. His real risk lay in being spotted by a Gentile acquaintance, neighbour or even patient. From those awful final days at the Vienna General Hospital, before being stripped of his title as chief of surgery and professor, Franz had learned how willing, even eager, some people were to point Jews out to the nearest Nazi official.

  Franz would never forget the day his protege, Dr. Johan Grasser, turned on him. He had once seen so much of his younger self in the promising twenty-seven-year-old surgeon. Up until that spring morning, March 12, the day after the Anschluss, Grasser had shown Franz only deference and loyalty. However, as Franz stepped onto the surgical ward, Grasser’s folded-arms stance suggested a monumental shift in attitude. “Have you not heard, Herr Doktor?” The junior surgeon smirked. “We are part of the Reich now. And Jews have no place in German hospitals.”

  The ambush had left Franz speechless and humiliated in front of a cluster of gawking nurses and orderlies. Despite all the affronts he had faced in the months since, the memory of Grasser’s betrayal still stung the most.

  On the pavement, Franz’s feet crunched with every step. Shards of glass covered the ground like confetti after a parade. Through the shattered window of his ground-floor surgery, he saw upturned furniture and papers strewn across the waiting room. His sense of loss was minimal. Six months earlier, after his summary discharge from the hospital, he had been forced into the basic private practice, performing only minor excisions under local anaesthetic; the work of a surgical intern.

  Glancing streetward for the first time, Franz was stunned to see the ground writhing. Moving in complete silence, men and women of all ages, and even children, were kneeling down, using small brushes or their own hands to gather up the broken glass. Armed guards, spaced in regular intervals, hovered over them. Dressed in gleaming black SS uniforms, the guards barked insults and orders while holding horsewhips menacingly at the ready.

  A younger man rose up from his knees to stretch his back. Immediately, one of the guards cracked a whip across his neck, hurling the man back to the ground with a groan.

  “Schweinhund!” the trooper bellowed. He turned to another SS man with a laugh and snapped his whip triumphantly in the air.

  Franz scanned the terrified faces near the pavement. He made eye contact with a middle-aged woman on her knees, recognizing her as Dalia Gruben, a Jewish patient whose gallbladder he had removed a year or two before. Wide-eyed, Gruben mouthed “Go!” to him.

  Franz could barely move. Aside from the taunts of a few schoolyard bullies, he had hardly known anti-Semitism before the Nazis descended. Like most of the city’s Jews, he was assimilated; as proud an Austrian as any other. After the Anschluss, seemingly overnight Franz had lost scores of friends and colleagues, though few as confrontationally as Grasser; most simply avoided him. Franz had still not recovered from the precipitous plunge from respected citizen to pariah.

  One of the nearest SS troopers, young enough to still be in his teens, swivelled his head in Franz’s direction. His hand reached for the pistol clipped to his belt, while his pale eyes ran up and down Franz as though assessing a dung heap. “Juden?” he growled.

  Stunned, Franz shook his head. “Nein.”

  The young man’s hand fell away from his weapon and his face lit with an apologetic smile. At that moment, he could have passed for any polite Austrian youth performing a civic duty. “I am terribly sorry for any inconvenience, sir,” he said. “We will make sure these filthy Jews clea
n up their mess. Won’t take any time at all, but it is best not to loiter.”

  Franz nodded and trudged away, guiltily imagining the eyes of his former patient burning into his back.

  Aside from the Jews, the rest of Vienna seemed to have awoken to a typical autumn day. Non-Jewish businesses, their windows pristine, welcomed customers as usual. The scent of baking bread and brewing coffee filled the air. Gentiles bustled along the sidewalks past the broken windows, vandalized storefronts and Jews scrubbing the roads under armed guard as though it were a morning like any other.

  Has the whole city gone mad?

  Franz kept his head low as he walked along Reisnerstrasse toward the British consulate. Like the other consulates in Vienna, it had been an embassy up until the day of the Anschluss, when Vienna lost its designation as a capital city.

  As he rounded the corner onto Jauresgasse, Franz spotted a Union Jack flying from the quaint baroque building on the corner. For months, he had witnessed lineups outside the consulates as Jews scoured the city searching indiscriminately and, for the most part, in futility for any foreign power willing to offer haven. Franz had expected to see another line in front of the British consulate, but the size of it stunned him. It snaked on for as far as he could see. The previous evening’s riots had panicked Jews into flocking en masse to the consulate.

  Approaching the line, he saw nothing but pale and petrified faces. Even though a British visa would represent a new lease on life for entire families, Franz saw no one jostle or shove anyone else. Their orderliness and compliance were ingrained Germanic and Jewish traits.

  Franz tucked his gloved hands into his coat pockets, crossed the street and walked alongside the queue toward the entrance. Halfway down the block, he heard the howl of approaching sirens. Suddenly, a black canvas-covered transport truck turned the corner and roared down the street. It hopped the curb, screeching to a halt in the middle of the crowd. A mother swung her young son out of its path in the nick of time, but she was still bowled forward by the truck’s bumper. She managed to scramble away, as did the others near her.