The Trespassers Read online

  It was almost four o‘clock when she spoke again.

  “Oh, you are right, my darling,” she said, and such hopeless weariness lay upon the words that his heart tightened for her. “We must go. I shall try—not to let you down this way any more.”

  For the last time, they slept in the house they loved in the country they loved.

  As Franz and Christa slept, the last winds of March blew down over Germany to Vienna, blew over a confused and inert France down through the winter-whistling Pyrenees to Spain.

  There, advancing just then through Catalonia and to the coast were General Franco’s troops; the towns and villages and cities in their path watched their fearful coming, knowing what it would mean.

  Toward government-held territory, three million Spaniards fled for safety from the spread of the Fascist power, from the firing squads for Loyalist civilians, from the political inquisitions of the Fascist police. Three million fleeing within the borders of Spain itself, as now across half a world, sixteen million Chinese were fleeing within the borders of China itself.

  And those who could not reach government-held territory in Spain turned toward the great wave of refugees beginning again to flow northward through the snowy mountain passes and on the uneasy seas into French cities and ports.

  Months before, after the fall of Bilbao, the first such wave had come rolling over the borders, fleeing from Santander, from the Asturian ports, from all parts of northern Spain, by road, by rail, by sea. By October, 1937, France’s troubled Minister of the Interior announced that there were some 55,000 such Spaniards already within the land, and that their maintenance by local charities or by France itself in its government-erected camps was costing the country one million francs a day.

  A million francs a day? It is too much. Let us have a formal decree and halt this expensive hospitality to the driven, the desperate. The decree ordered Spanish refugees to leave France by the sixteenth of October, and some 25,000 had been forced backward into Spain. They went, corrosive envy in their hearts for those fortunate ones who stayed behind.

  The fortunate ones. Forget about them, they are the blessed, they have found harbor. Forget, for instance, the twelve hundred in the refugee camp at Maneuille just over the border. The camp once was a factory, but now, strewn about on the floors under the rusting machinery are straw mattresses where the tired may rest. The walls are soft with cobwebs, there is no fire or warmth, but there are rats and spiders to run over sleeping faces in the dark of the night. There are children here, among these fortunates, they are feverish with grippe, mottled with measles, racked with whooping cough. There is a committee organized in the small département of France where this camp is located, and a good simple Frenchman named Henri Grilloux is the elected chairman. He has tried for days upon days to visit the camp, but the authorities refuse permission. When he finally does go, he is horrified, he is a good simple Frenchman, he is gentle because he is gentle, he calls upon all the people of the département to come to a meeting, to find the ways to stop this fine torture. The meeting is held. From the whole region only fifty people come, fifty others who are good and gentle in their hearts. All fifty are workers; they have little money to donate.

  The fortunate ones stayed behind. The less fortunate returned to Spain, spread reports of how it could be.

  Yet now again, in another spring, in the last weeks of March and the first weeks of April, 1938, in the face of their knowledge that France did not want them, new thousands and tens of thousands were struggling north, searching out the chances of safety in France.

  And that newest of man’s creatures, the refugee child, fled too.

  While Franz and Christa slept fitfully in their restless, partly dismantled house, little Paul and Ilse slept for the last time in their sweet, familiar beds.

  But in many thousands of strange beds in French, English, Danish, Russian houses or camps other children were sleeping, sleeping the lonely sleep of small children parted from their mothers and fathers and all the friendly safety of home.

  Over 10,000 child refugees had said their wide-eyed farewells in Spain and gone forth alone to France; 6000 more had traveled thousands of strange miles to Soviet Russia; 3600 had sailed from Bilbao’s warm wharfs to the cool docks of Southampton and were now distributed to the new child-refugee camps or colonies, and some few to compassionate private houses throughout England.

  Nearly 700 child refugees, mostly orphans, were sent across the ocean from Spain to Mexico, but the distance and the cost soon cut that life line. Private groups of citizens in Holland and Sweden and Czechoslovakia, unable to receive any Spanish children in their own countries, undertook absentee support of another 575 small wanderers in three French colonies. But Denmark established a colony for 102 Spanish children at Ordrup.

  These were the children of Madrid, of Toledo and Alicante, of Barcelona. Some few went off to foreign lands eagerly, some others went unknowing or indifferent. But, for the most part, when the moment came to say good-by to mother or father or grandparents, the impersonal air of railway station or dock heard high-pitched young voices crying out, “But I don’t want to go away; it’s better at home than anywhere.”

  The implacable winds of late March blew down over Germany into Austria, blew down over England and France into Spain. Paul and Ilse Vederle still slept their comforting sleep, and somewhere in Czechoslovakia, in the Sudeten regions, a young mother left her bed to go and stare down into the crib where her child stretched and smiled through his guileless dreaming.

  Christa stood on the porch, waiting for the taxi. The big luggage had already gone; Franz had arranged all that before he had left for the airport in the early afternoon. Paul and Ilse were guardedly playing in the garden, watchful of their traveling clothes. Paul was sturdy and big in his topcoat, and Ilse prim and beautiful in her little girl’s sailor hat with streamers, her tailored English suit, so diminutive, so grown up.

  It was late afternoon, but the sunshine of that first day of April was benign to Christa’s nerves. This had to be, there was no use fighting against it, no use in the lump in her throat. The next three hours would be hard; these family farewells were only ordeals for everyone. Still, a silent departure would have wounded Franz’ relatives and her own so deeply—

  It all had to be. The lump in the throat would go away in time.

  Ilse gave a shout of excitement, and Christa turned toward her. The child was kneeling in the grass, absorbed in something. Paul was talking to her quickly, giving directions, clamping his hands ‘tightly together, yet with the knuckles raised, as though he were making room for something inside.

  “But tight, now, or it will run away—like this, oh, like this, or you’ll squash it, you silly.”

  Now Ilse was getting to her feet, slowly, carefully, as though she were carrying some precious liquid in a brimming glass. She turned and Christa saw that her arms were held taut, straight out before her, and that her hands too were cupped tightly together.’

  “Oh, Mommy, come, look, it is so beautiful.”

  “No, don’t,” cried Paul. “Don’t open your hands, it’ll fly right off forever.”

  “Maybe I could peek through a crack in your fingers,” Christa said.

  “No, oh, not out here,” Ilse said. “In the house—then if she flies away I can catch her again.”

  Just inside the door, Ilse stopped. Paul crowded in beside her, and Christa closed the door with elaborate care behind them all.

  “Now, darling, hurry and show me,” she said. “The taxi will be here any moment. What can it be—a tiny bird?”

  The small cupped hands parted in a series of minute little jerks. There, finally exposed on the pink palm of the lower hand lay a red-brown ladybug, its speckled beetle wings held tight together to make an unbroken curve of shell.

  “It’s a ladybug, a lovely little ladybug,” Ilse whispered.

  “She named her ‘Elizabetha,’ ” Paul said.

  “She’s lovely, she really is, darling,
” Christa said, “and it’s a nice name.”

  “Oh, please, Mommy, can I take her with me?” Ilse asked. Her blue eyes looked up searchingly, they were alive with begging.

  “Take her along?”

  “Please, oh, please let me. Darling Hansi can’t come—I know—but Elizabetha—she’s so little. I could pretend she knew us as long as Hansi—oh, please.”

  “Yes, darling, yes, Elizabetha shall come along.” The lump in the throat, the sudden faltering knowledge in her heart that she could not bear this going away. “I’ll get a box for her. Paul, you run out and get some leaves and grass.”

  “Just a little box, Mommy.”

  Christa went into the living room, took up a matchbox and emptied it. Ilse watched rapturously; her cupped hands made gestures of approval. Paul came running in, with a handful of grass and lilac leaves. Christa slid the box open; Paul laid blades of grass and bits of leaf inside.

  “It’s a beautiful little castle, just big enough,” Ilse cried, and slowly she transferred the tiny beetle to the green bed and slid the cover shut. “Oh, Paul, now we have a pet to go with us, a real, live pet.”

  Outside, a taxi ground to a stop. The children raced out to it, still intent on the two-inch box and its shy inhabitant. Christa locked the door behind her, and left, with no backward glance of farewell.

  For her the next hours were numb with unreality. The farewell dinner, the Auf Wiedersehen’s at the station, with Aunt Maria weeping and Uncle Karl full of false cheer, with Anna and Johann and Dorothea prattling hearty practical advice—all of it hurt her in some new oppressive way she had never before experienced. It was actually good when the train pulled slowly away from their waving and smiling and weeping.

  “Good-by, Austria. Good-by, Austria. Good-by.” Her mind would not give up the phrase.

  Only as they approached the Italian border at Arnoldstein did she shake free of the numbing drug. The customs officials were waiting, they would examine luggage, ask questions, loose their indifferent officialdom at her. She must be relaxed, looking for all the world like a happy mother taking her children off for a brief holiday. She must, she must. If they grew suspicious over any detail? Ah, then she and the children would be sent back to Vienna, the Gestapo would arrive, she would be taken off for special examination. She must, she must.

  But as the train slowed and halted at the border, something within her began to tremble, and fear marched across her heart.

  “Your passports? Anything to declare for duty? How much money do you carry?”

  The questions came at her automatically and she answered and moved automatically. She opened her purse wide, showed the twenty schillings that was all one could take out. Ilse was asleep, and did not stir, but Paul wakened, stood near his mother, watching, listening.

  Her own voice seemed to her fluty and unreal as she spoke, but the customs men miraculously did not notice. Just as they were finishing, a dark uniform came up. Christa turned toward it, saw the flash of important gold braid on shoulder and collar. The Secret Police.

  Without a word, he reached for tickets, passports, customs declaration, and the Italian customs officer as wordlessly handed them over. There was a moment of reading, the rustling of pages turning.

  “So, Frau Vederle,” the uniformed one said, his voice smooth and cold. “You are abandoning our beloved country?”

  “Abandoning? No, why, of course not.” Christa straightened a little; in her ears her voice echoed. Empty, hollow; she must control it, she must. “My children are just over the whooping cough—here is a written statement from their doctor—I am just taking, them—”

  Paul, darling, do not forget you are not supposed to say anything.

  “Yes, yes,” the officer said, spacing his words, edging each with iron. “I, of course, know that you would not leave Austria just when our beloved Führer has come—”

  He turned to glance at Paul, standing a step apart from his mother’s side. Christa saw his eyes on the boy. Dear God, do not let him trap this child, so unused to deceit. Paul, darling, do not forget—

  Paul’s eyes were on the man’s. Their glances met. Then, the small body tensed into a soldier’s straight line, the right arm shot up.

  “Heil Hitler,” Paul shouted importantly. “Sieg Heil.”

  The scene on the stairs, back home in Döbling. Christa felt she must scream with laughter, with relief.

  The officer’s arm shot up.

  “Heil Hitler,” he replied. He turned back to Christa, handed her documents back. “Now I am sure,” he said warmly. “Auf Wiedersehen.”

  She watched him go off to another passenger. Then she put her hand on Paul’s shoulder.

  “You are a good boy,” she only said. He looked at her questioningly.

  The rest of the trip was somehow easier. At Milan, they stayed in the hotel, waiting for the telegram from Franz that would bring them enough money to continue to Basel. Hour followed slow hour, the time for departure drew closer. At last the cable arrived, Christa rushed the children to the telegraph office, showed her passports and identification papers, and finally had the small sum, the innocent-looking small sum in her hand.

  They sped back to the hotel, picked up their stacked and waiting luggage in the lobby, and once again were going toward a railroad platform, settling themselves in a train, watching through the windows as strange scenes swept up and then receded.

  It was then that Ilse suddenly cried out in alarm.

  “Mummy, Elizabetha—where is the box—where is she?”

  “Oh, Ilse, haven’t you—look in your purse.”

  “No, no, I took the box out so Elizabetha could breathe. I—”

  “Wait, darling, hush, where did you put the box?”

  “I don’t remember, oh, Mommy—”

  “She put it on the top suitcase,” Paul offered. “Right on the very top one of the pile in the lobby.”

  “Didn’t you see it, Mommy? Didn’t you take it?” Ilse’s eyes turned their stricken look upon Christa.

  “I didn’t see the little box,” she said. “The last minute was so rushed—oh, my poor baby, come here.”

  For Ilse was sobbing, torn with this misery. For long minutes, Christa just held her, saying nothing, stroking her fair hair in the helpless silence of understanding. Paul looked on, awkward, unhappy himself.

  “Somebody will find the box,” Christa said at last, “and take Elizabetha to board, just like Hansi. She will be all right—”

  “No, oh, no,” Ilse sobbed. “No, she will die, Elizabetha will die there—”

  “No, she won’t,” Paul comforted. “Ladybugs don’t die like that.”

  “But she’s an Austrian ladybug,” Ilse said to him. “How could an Austrian ladybug live in Italy?”

  How indeed? Christa only held the small shaking body closer. The lump in the throat, the awful, steady lump in the throat.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE BUZZER HUMMED SOFTLY, and Vee picked up the phone. “Mr. Crown calling, Miss Marriner,” Miss Benson’s voice said. “Shall I put him through or wait till your meeting’s over?”

  “I’ll take it now.”

  “So I thought you could stop by for a cocktail,” Jasper began. Vee laughed at the abruptness, laughed because there was some thing gay in his deep, large voice. The others in the meeting went on politely talking.

  “Hello,” she said. “Stop by at your place?”

  “Yes. I’m up here now—about to start a meeting with some stockholders, but it will be over by five or so.”

  “Well, I have a sort of date—” .

  “Break it, why don’t you? I’ve got something for you and no April-fool gag either. I’ve got to stick around here on account of a long-distance call at six.”

  For a moment she hesitated.

  “All right then, I’ll stop by on the way home.”

  “How about dinner? Why not with me?”

  There was some elation in his voice that was special; something had happen
ed or was happening that pleased him deeply. Probably some new triumph about the company; nothing else could make his spirits soar so high.

  “We’ve a date, for the theater tomorrow night,” she said. “I—”

  “What’s that got to do with tonight?” He laughed. “See you around five, then.”

  She hung up and turned back to the meeting. Her own spirits were light; he was so appealing in a mood like this. She forced her mind back to the problem of employee schedules under the Wages and Hours Act.

  At five-thirty she rang the flat brass bell of Jasper’s apartment, high up in the Sherry-Netherland. She heard his big voice inside say, “Never mind, Harvey, I’ll get it,” and a moment later he opened the door himself.

  “Hello, you,” he said, and drew her inside.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I’ll give you a drink first.”

  They went into the beautiful drawing room. Far below them lay the spring-freshening Park. He disliked modern rooms; his apartment was furnished with carefully sought-out treasures from antique dealers.

  It was a calm room, with tall windows and quiet colors, with the unclouded eyes of an ancestor looking down from each of three walls. “Not my ancestors,” he was always quick to explain, “just any old ancestors—I bought them because they’re fine pictures, that’s all.”

  Vee sat in the deep sofa, put her hat beside her, and looked at Jasper, waiting.

  He smiled, watching the Negro, Harvey, bring in their drinks.

  “Another million or so?” she asked, letting her voice mock him.

  “No, this isn’t the company I feel good about. Oh, sure, that too. This meeting here this afternoon, they’ve just left; it’s a little ticklish, this deal—fat little Tim’s been trying to bitch me with everybody, and this was to straighten things out.”