“Shush!”
“I promise. But there is cheese in the cold barrel. Take it.” He pointed to a barrel.
She walked over. There was a hunk of cheese wrapped in cloth. She looked at him again.
“Take it!” he urged. “And tell the Führer that Jurgen gave it to you. Jurgen Goetz, son of First Sergeant Othmar Goetz, in the thirty-second panzer division.”
She took it and left.
Lilo found the emptiness of the countryside was both comforting and eerie. She had not kept track of time and had no idea how many days or nights she had been running. It was shortly after her encounter with Jurgen Goetz that she looked down at her shoes and saw that a seam had opened up. Could she really have been running so long and so hard as to wear out this perfectly good pair of sturdy shoes? She looked up and saw something. A sign. The first sign she had seen since she had fled Krün. Salzburg, eight kilometers! This cannot be! It just can’t! She had been running east. Running in the wrong direction! Running toward the eastern front. She had meant to run west, toward the Allies. The birds overhead appeared to stop in flight, suspended in the sky, and the sky — the sky seemed to be collapsing around her.
With the long summer nights, she had ceased to notice where and when the sun rose and set, as it hardly seemed to move. She had run through a timeless space devoid of planets, stars. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. And as if to somehow confirm her stupidity, her worthlessness, through the scrim of tears, she saw her left shoe fall apart as she stood stock-still.
She picked up the pieces of her shoe and limped off the road. There was a meadow sprinkled with flowers and a grove of trees grew at the far edge. She had to get off the road. If she met any soldiers, any convoys, they were definitely going to be Germans. Not French, not British.
“What Heisenberg means when he speaks of the uncertainty principle is simply —”
“Don’t say ‘simply,’ Dieter. There is nothing simple about it.”
“All right, then. What he means is this: the more specific a particle’s position is, the more vague its speed and direction will be and vice versa.”
“Bohr himself said, I believe, that these jumps were nothing like the smooth leaps of a cat.”
“Yes, exactly — he spoke of the all-or-nothing, the baffling disappearance of matter from one orbit and an emergence into another — as if Earth, he said, suddenly materialized in Mars’s orbit — a sort of Russian roulette — pardon the pun!”
The two men laughed. Lilo, hidden in a thicket, had been listening to the men as they sat in their bathing costumes by the lake at the far edge of the meadow. She had no idea what they were talking about. They were some kind of scientists, that much she had gathered, but the more she listened to them speak, the more resonance their words seemed to have. Was she like some particle oddly and unpredictably jumping about? If only she could have materialized in the orbit of Mars rather than deep in Austria. Was she playing Russian roulette?
But did any of that really matter? Her eyes were fastened on the two men’s shoes. If only they would take another swim. The man who had made the pun about Russian roulette had small feet. His shoes would almost fit her, Lilo was sure. Now, go swimming! she prayed. And it was as if her words went straight to God’s ears, for instantly the two men rose up and stretched.
“Let’s go. One more dip.”
Lilo held her breath. She waited until they were perhaps six meters from the shore and then crept from her hiding place toward the shoes, which seemed to gleam in the sunlight. Just as her hands touched the leather, another hand clamped down on her shoulder and wrenched her around.
“Stop! You little thief!”
She had been flipped on her back in one swift movement. Then the man yanked her to her feet. He held her arm tightly. She did not even try to wriggle loose, for in that instant she knew she could not run another step. She collapsed. It was as if all the running had suddenly caught up with her. Every muscle felt shredded with all the miles she had run. It was over.
She must have passed out for a few seconds, but as she lay on the ground she suddenly felt drops of water sprinkling down on her.
“Mein Gott. She’s just a child.”
Lilo opened her eyes.
“Who are you?” said the one named Dieter.
“No one,” she mumbled. Her first thought was that the spy ruse was not going to work. She was caught. The hands on her shoulder had let up the pressure, but there was no escaping three grown men.
“B-b-but . . . but where are you from?”
“Nowhere.”
“Look, she’s skin and bones.”
She watched the three men whose faces hung over her. Two of them were crouching down near her. One remained standing. They were confused. Shock and dismay filled their eyes.
“Do you think she escaped from one of the internment camps,” said the fellow who was standing. The three of them were in their mid- to late twenties. They were nice-looking, and Lilo wondered why they were not soldiers. Perhaps they were. Two, after all, were in their bathing costumes, but the third, who was not, wore summer linen pants and a pale-yellow shirt, not a uniform. No Nazi insignias were visible.
“Not a camp. A movie.”
Now the one who had been standing crouched down closer. “What are you talking about?”
She was not sure why, since there was nothing funny, but she suddenly felt the urge to giggle. “I’m a movie star!” She paused, then added, “Well, not exactly.”
The three men exchanged nervous glances. “Is she out of her head?” one asked. That must be why she was giggling, but the next thing she knew, she was crying, making the mewling sounds of a trapped animal.
“No, Bruno. I read about this. Leni Riefenstahl’s making a movie — a drama, not a documentary.” The man who spoke began to pat Lilo’s shoulder. “No need to cry,” he said soothingly. Every need to cry! she wanted to shout.
“That movie she’s been making for years?” Bruno asked.
“Yes, that one. I read that she had been using Gypsies as extras.”
“Unbelievable!” the third fellow gasped.
“I just read in the paper that they had been filming in Krün.”
Then all three of the men’s jaws dropped open. “You came here from Krün!”
It was all very odd, but now she had stopped crying. Emotions batted through her like clouds on a windy day. For some inexplicable reason, she was almost enjoying their attention and admiration. “Krün. You didn’t come all the way from Krün, did you?”
She nodded slowly, and a faint smile passed over her face, a dim twinkle began to light her eyes.
“Child, you are not a movie star. You are an Olympian.” The man who spoke was the one she thought she had heard them call Frank. He had white-blond hair and very deep-set gray eyes. “Look at her feet. They are bleeding. Look at her shoes.”
“Good Christ, no wonder she wanted to steal your shoes, Dieter.”
“She’s welcome to them. But we have to get her to safety.”
Lilo could not quite believe her ears. These men wanted to help her? Could that be right? She tried to raise herself up.
“Take me to the Allies,” she gasped.
“The Allies?” All three men looked at her in astonishment.
“Now, just rest here for a minute or so,” said Bruno. Then he turned. “Dieter, get her some food. There’s still a sandwich in the rucksack.”
“But I have to get to safety . . . to the Allies,” Lilo repeated.
Dieter was back in a minute. “A sandwich, and two biscuits, and, here, an apple.”
She stared at the sandwich for a good half minute.
“Go ahead,” they cajoled. “It won’t bite you.”
“If I eat, will you take me to the Allies?” she asked. The three men looked at one another, baffled.
“Now, not too much at one time. You know if you haven’t eaten for a while, well . . .” Bruno turned to the other two. “Her stomach might not be used to it.”
Why are they not answering my question? she thought.
They fussed over her like three mothers over a baby. She took a small nibble. “That a girl.” She swallowed the first bite, wiped a crumb from her mouth, and held it in the palm of her hand, staring at it, then looked at the three men. Holding out her hand with the crumb, she spoke so softly that they had to lean in close to hear her. “Am I one of those particles in the universe? Have I jumped, not like a cat, smoothly, but suddenly and into a new orbit — materializing in a new orbit? Am I on Mars? I want to go to the Allies. Please. Safety. Make me jump like the particles.”
The three men were stunned. “What is she talking about?” Dieter said softly. They looked at her, their faces swimming with confusion.
“You should know. You were the ones talking about all this. Not me. You must be scientists,” Lilo answered simply.
“But not magicians,” Dieter said, and touched her hair lightly.
“You have to understand. Salzburg is crawling with Gestapo. It’s not safe.”
“Well, what are we going to do, drive her to the Allied forces?”
“Please!” Lilo said from beneath the blanket they had put her under in the back of the car — although by this time she realized that driving her to the Allies was impossible.
Frank was at the wheel of the car. Dieter was in the passenger seat and Bruno in the backseat. Every now and then, Bruno would bend over and lift the edge of the blanket. “Can you breathe under there?”
“Yes, fine,” Lilo would reply.
“Well, she seems to know physics. Maybe we could pass her off as a visiting scholar,” Frank joked.
“Is that what they call it?” Lilo’s voice piped up. She was now eating the apple.
“Call what? And don’t eat too much too fast. Not good for you. Don’t want to upset your tummy.”
Lilo shook her head under the blanket in disbelief. This truly was the queerest experience she had ever had. But it was real! It was not like the movie set, where everything was fake, contrived. And these three men — Dieter, Frank, Bruno — were so funny. How could they be funny and at the same time so genuinely worried about her? Astonishing!
“Do you call all your talk about orbits and Mars and particles physics?”
“Yes,” Bruno answered. “We are physicists, here in Salzburg for a conference.”
“So you don’t have to be soldiers?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Dieter finally spoke: “We serve but in a different way.”
“What do you mean?”
“As scientists, we work on things to help the Reich.”
“You mean Hitler and the war?” Lilo said.
“I suppose so,” Dieter answered. “We don’t really have much choice.”
“Don’t talk to me about choice,” Lilo replied.
“You’re wrong there,” Bruno answered almost fiercely. “We do have a choice right now, in this instant. And we have chosen to protect you. And what is most important now is that we get you to safety. Unfortunately Salzburg is not the safest place. But I have been thinking. I have a cousin, Marta, who might be able to help.”
Twenty minutes later, they came to a stop. “The marionette theater?” Dieter said.
“Yes, this is where she works.”
“She’s a puppeteer?” Frank asked.
“Among other things,” Bruno replied.
“Let’s hope she can pull some strings!” Dieter said without the slightest trace of merriment. Indeed, the three men had become very somber.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” Bruno said. He picked up the corner of the blanket. “What is your name?”
“My name?” she searched his eyes.
“Your name, dear.”
“Lilian Friwald, but I am called Lilo.”
“Lilo, you stay still under this blanket.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Can you believe it?” Dieter said. “Here it is, the middle of the music festival, and you see more swastikas than you can shake a stick at, and the best artists banished — Reinhardt, Toscanini. The whole festival is being sucked into the propaganda machine.”
“I heard they are going to ban the word festival and call it Salzburger Theater- und Musiksommer, Salzburg Summer of Theater and Music.”
“What’s in a name? as Shakespeare said — crap by any other name would still stink,” Frank muttered.
“I thought it was a rose,” Lilo whispered.
“You studied Shakespeare, Lilo?” Dieter asked, turning around.
“Once — so long ago, in school in Vienna.” The two men grew very still. She heard one of them sigh. She thought it was Dieter.
The car door opened. The edge of the blanket lifted. Luminous gray eyes peered into the darkness. “Don’t worry,” the woman whispered, and gave Lilo’s hand a squeeze. Her skin was quite fair in contrast to her dark, almost-black hair, cut in a short bob that framed her heart-shaped face. “Bruno will take you to my flat, but he will keep you in the car until I get there. It won’t be long. He’s going to take you in this blanket. Curl up so no one will see your feet. Try and look like a sack of potatoes.” She laughed softly.
“All right!” Lilo whispered. She was now for the first time since she had left Krün scared, really scared. These people seemed to care for her. But for so long she had lived in a world of fictions, it was impossible to know what was real and what was not. How did one learn to trust again? Trust was a casualty as much as she was, certainly. Did these three men and the heart-faced lady named Marta really care whether she lived or died? Were they really willing to risk their lives for her — a Gypsy girl? They could all be killed. All sent to the camps to die. It had all seemed so simple when she had been running mindlessly through that void of time and space. But now she had acquired a new encumbrance. The precious burden of good people who might die if they were discovered harboring her. “Don’t worry,” Marta said again, and ran her fingers through her hair.
Lilo looked at her closely. Maybe I should worry. Maybe I am being taken into the gingerbread house.
Lilo was lifted out of the car and slung over Bruno’s broad shoulders. Her heart raced. She felt the panic rising like an immense tide within her. What if she jumped from his shoulders and ran? But Frank and Dieter were close behind and on either side. What chance would she have? They said the streets were crawling with Gestapo. She felt Bruno tense. She froze.
“Heil Hitler!” Three voices rang out. She slipped a bit as he raised his arm.
“Ah, Herr Doktor Molken. I plan to attend your session tomorrow at the conference.”
“I am pleased. I hope you enjoy it, General Graff.”
“You should hope I understand it.” The general laughed. “Looks like you’ve got a load there. I shan’t detain you.”
Lilo could see the jackboots as they passed within inches of her.
Suddenly a glockenspiel rang out. My God, Lilo thought, they’re playing Mozart’s “Mailied.” Her father had often played this tune at the restaurant in Vienna. It was a favorite accompaniment to bringing in a cake for an anniversary celebration. But Papa isn’t here. This is no celebration. I am a human sack of potatoes, and the streets are filled with Gestapo. Some more shiny boots walked by. A Gestapo agent? Or another Nazi officer? And all while the din of those crazy chimes rang out the hour from the clock tower. How could two such worlds exist in the same moment — Mozart and the shine of jackboots?
“Two tickets to tonight’s performance for Der Rosenkavalier. Good seats. Cheap! Come on! Come on! Step right up. Don’t let war stop opera. Hans Knappertsbusch conducting — the Führer’s favorite conductor!”
Swirling through the air with the glockenspiel music was the sweet scent of Nockerln, the puffy pastries heaped with billowing meringues said to celebrate the hills of Salzburg. These had been served in the Café Budapest. Lilo felt as if she were the dark, dirty secret being whisked through some manic celebration. In the car she had thought
she had finally encountered reality, but now she wondered if she had merely escaped from one bit of artifice to another. Django’s words came back to her: “Nothing’s real here — the village is fake. The Spanish dancer is a Nazi. The shepherd is an Austrian ski instructor. It’s all fiction. What’s a little bit more?”
But she wondered, if one were to peel away all the layers of deception, like the skins of an onion, like the shells of the nesting matroyshka dolls, what was left? Was she, Lilian Friwald, the last matroyshka doll?
She heard a door open, then a soft voice. “Yes, right into the parlor. Shut the door quickly.” Lilo felt herself being set down. The blanket dropped away. Standing in front of her was Marta. She was so tiny, she might have been one of the marionettes from the theater where she worked. But her mouth, which had been half open in shock, suddenly closed. Her lips compressed as she tried to stifle a cry. She walked stiffly forward and then lurched toward Lilo and embraced her.
“Poor child. Poor, poor child. That it has come to this!” she whispered into her ear. She squeezed Lilo’s thin arms tightly. “You are like a stick. I shall feed you, bathe you. You are safe here.”
Marta backed away from her but still held on to her arms as if she were fearful that Lilo might blow away. She tilted her head, looking as if she were on the brink of tears. “B-b-b-but,” she stammered, “it might be difficult for you because you really are not going to be able to go outside. You can’t be seen. No one must know you are here. It’s like jail, I’m afraid.”
Lilo looked around at the cozy flat. No, not just cozy, but pretty. How long had it been since she had been in a place that was pretty? There were curtains with ruffles and an oriental carpet on the floor. There was the scent of furniture polish. In the living room there was a small chandelier. The prisms cast a shifting embroidery of light on the walls. Oh, it was all so pretty! She turned to Marta and the three men. She smiled slightly. “I’ve been in worse prisons.” She paused. “But why would you do this? This is a huge risk for you.”
Marta grew very still. “Doing nothing is a greater risk,” she said softly.