“It’s going to take a while, Grace. We haven’t moved much. Maybe you can come back later,” Lola said. She looked different. The desperation and flame of anger had left her green eyes, replaced by a different expression, expectant and determined.
“I’ll wait.”
It was pouring; many were shivering without umbrellas, craning their necks at the grand limestone entrance. Most exiting the building looked jubilant, waving their documents. But there were also some people who looked as though they had walked out of a boxing ring, their faces swollen, bruises on their foreheads, their steps unsteady.
A man with a thick accent I couldn’t identify asked for shelter from the rain. He looked to be in his twenties, with blue eyes and thick eyebrows. A good-looking man. Lola spoke to him in German for a while; then the man nodded and left.
“Who’s that, Lola?”
“A Polish Jew. His passport was declared invalid at the emigration office.”
I had met several Polish diplomats before. They were friendly, demonstrated great culinary knowledge, but their facial features and even their dress code appeared very Austrian to me. “That’s unfortunate.”
It was pouring now. My dress stuck to my back, and my shoes were soaked. Waves of water rushed up to my ankles.
“You’re shivering. Go back to the consulate, Grace. Don’t wait in the rain,” Lola insisted.
Finally, I obliged.
When I returned a few hours later, the queue had moved. Among the many people holding umbrellas, there was no Lola or her family. They must have entered the building.
CHAPTER 28
LOLA
Sitting at a wide desk in the center of the grand hall that had once been the Rothschilds’ ballroom, Eichmann, that cold man with icy eyes, was lashing out at a couple for a misspelling on a form. He threw the paperwork on the floor, and the couple scrambled to gather it up, their sobs echoing in the grand hall. It was not as though they were responsible for the misspelling—the forms were filled out by the officials in the Office—but all the same, the couple must wait in line, reapply, and repeat the process they had gone through months ago. Was there anything else that could possibly be more defeating, more hopeless than this?
It was no wonder people in the line whispered of gloom, of depression, of suicides. Since Josef’s death, I had often wondered why he took his life. I had thought because the torture was unbearable, because he wanted to protect his employer, but now I knew he took his life because he saw the city that had been our home had become a city of crimes and was no longer worth living for. This was what the Nazis were doing to us—to make us drown in our despair, to lose the will to live, and to perish.
“Schnitzler!” a voice barked, echoing in the enormous hall.
I went first, holding Mutter’s arm; behind me followed Sara and Eva. On the long table where Eichmann sat, I spread out the documents, the visas, the passports, the certificates, and the boat tickets I had purchased in Italy.
The man scanned the documents; his eyes turned colder, and he mumbled something.
“Pardon?” I said, but a punch smacked my jaw. It came from a guard nearby.
“The head of the household presents the documents. Are you the head of the household?” Eichmann said without looking up.
Mutter held me; her voice was weak. “I’m the head of the household.” She pushed the documents closer to that stony man.
“Shanghai again.” This time those steel-gray eyes were fixated on me, then on the scar on my face, and then on Mutter, Sara, and Eva.
“Schnitzler,” he said slowly.
I bit my tongue. He had defiled Vater’s name.
“How’s that yellow man? Of course I won’t forget him.”
To my shame, I couldn’t defend the righteous consul who’d issued my family visas. Eichmann held the fate of my family; a hint of anger from me would jeopardize our passage out of Vienna.
“It’s just as well, mongrels and Jews coupling together.”
Finally, the man waved us aside to the desk next to him, where we were to sign a stack of papers for three purposes: to surrender our movable and immovable property to the government, to denounce our Austrian citizenship, and to vow that we’d never set foot in Vienna for as long as we lived.
When I walked out of the building, it seemed a part of me had been peeled off. I had been born here, grown up here, and with one signature, I was a woman without a country. I put my arms around Mutter, pulling Sara and Eva close. They were all I had now.
“Lola, come over here!” Grace was holding an umbrella, waiting in the rain across the street. “Did you receive the exit permits?”
“Grace! Yes! I told you not to wait here. It’s cold.”
“Thank God! Now you can leave Vienna.”
It was as if her words held enormous power, and I suddenly felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders. It was true. Now we would leave, leave the hateful Eichmann, leave all the misery, hatred, and death behind. Shanghai would be a new beginning, and I could play the violin again.
“Come here, you’re all wet.” Grace pulled me under her umbrella, but a gust of wind swept over us. Her umbrella bent and the handle slipped from her grip. A torrent of rain poured down, drenching me. I shivered, but I laughed.
“I love the storm, the torrential rain. Do you like it, Grace?” Thunder and rain. A heavenly symphony, my favorite orchestra. I had played that before, the rage of Die Walküre, the fiery squall of the string music. It was a chilling tempest, a prelude to another life.
“Well—”
“Shall we dance in the rain?” I grabbed her hand as she reached for the umbrella. “A waltz? Come on. Come on. A waltz!” And I danced with her, twirling, splashing water between us.
“Oh, I didn’t know you could dance.”
“Every Viennese can dance.”
“Lola.” Mutter was calling me.
I gave Grace another twirl and picked up the umbrella. The rush of euphoria vanished, as suddenly as it had come, and I could feel the chill of the rain on my face, plunging down my neckline.
“That was nice, cold but nice. But Lola, now that you’ve received the exit permits, when will you leave for Shanghai?” A trickle of rain ran down Grace’s face.
“November ninth.”
How fast time went by. It was already October. Soon it would be November, the month that would start the opera season that heralded many performances and recitals that the Viennese enjoyed, that I had lived for. But I hadn’t played the violin in public for months; all my friends had scattered since May. Who would perform at the operas and concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony this year? They would not be the same as before, with so many Jewish musicians and actors dismissed and detained, so many enthusiastic Jewish patrons confined in prison, departing, or struggling on the brink of survival.
A lightning bolt, stark, severed the dark sky; all the buildings seemed to be melting; a flood of water surged toward me, splashing my shoes.
“I’ll come to see you off, Lola. November ninth. I won’t forget.”
Grace was soaked, her hair sticking to her lovely face; her eyes glimmered with the indulgence and admiration that always made me feel special. And I wanted to ask if she liked Shanghai, ask her stories about her time in China and Istanbul. I swore I’d never look back on Vienna again, but I would remember her, her face, her stories, and how she’d danced with me in the treacherous storm.