Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 92 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
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A stained piece of paper on the floor of the car, written in shaky, uneven letters:
We had a backup plan to leave Austria.
We didn’t believe it would ever happen.
Their fear was supposed to be much stronger.
Bernard’s newspaper did a big part of the work. And he did all these experiments to figure out how best to influence and control the Jews: We invited them to our parties, allowed them to make weddings in our manor house…all with that goal in mind.
Leo also helped us a lot with controlling the Jews, without him even knowing it.
And I thought that Sol would be a good replacement.
But now it’s all over.
They discovered the tru—
“Looks like this is where his strength ran out.” The police commissioner pointed to the last line and handed the paper over to Hans. “So, does it still look staged to you?”
“No,” his deputy said, glancing out the window of the stately room at the car standing outside. “Not at all. So I understand that he’s dead. Where are the others?”
Dick Zuerstach, the mayor of Salzburg, shook his head. “Another male, about age thirty, was killed. Based on our impressions, he is Bernard Wangel, Josef’s son. We also found two women locked into one of the huts here.”
Locked? Crazy people! Why hadn’t they left when they realized that everything was unraveling? They had too much self-confidence, those Wangels. But he wasn’t going to fall with them, as Katarina had warned him in that final fax. No. He was smarter than them.
“Were they interrogated?” Hans asked. He looked at the array of bottles that the police commissioner and the mayor of Salzburg had pulled out of Josef’s bar. If Josef would have come back to life right now, he would have gone mad to see how they were celebrating with his drinks. They’d set up a temporary headquarters here, and yes, they were celebrating. Without Hans thinking about the generous percentages that he’d received from this place, and which would now no longer be forthcoming.
“For now, they are refusing to speak. And according to the Jews, another one of the women disappeared; apparently, she ran away.”
That was all he needed. But first, he had to deal with what was here. “Let me take a look around a bit,” he said, standing up.
“What will you see in the dark anyway? You want to meet the people? They won’t be very pleased; they’re terribly afraid of us. Do you realize that they were sure the Reich still controls the world? And you have to see their factory. Wangel sure made lots of money off them.”
“The international media is going to have a field day with this, no?”
“Which media? The prime minister is on his way over here, and he’s put a temporary gag order on the whole story. Max Hanter agreed with him.”
“Hanter? Who’s that?”
“A very wealthy Jew. He has a spices factory in Vienna. He’s the one who discovered this place. Don’t ask me how.”
I won’t ask, because I already know, more or less. He must be the one that young man called, and it was that call that Wangel’s daughter intercepted. Why didn’t they just kill them all and escape?
“But why should he agree to be quiet? And the others? Don’t the Jews like to trumpet to the whole world how they are always downtrodden and disadvantaged?”
The police commissioner glanced at his deputy. “That doesn’t sound like a remark that will go over well in the media.”
“You said that nothing will get to the media, so let me express myself privately as I wish. Tell me, why would he agree?”
“Because Hanter is afraid that such a story will bring the radical right wingers in Austria over here in droves.”
“I see.” Hans walked out of the manor house, gazing into the darkness. On his previous visits, the darkness was always absolute, with no way to even guess—if he wouldn’t have known—that one hundred and fifty people, perhaps even more, lived in the area just across from where he was standing. Now, that darkness was gone, as windows and doors were open, and light poured out of the huts, onto the paths of the camp.
Very soon, morning would dawn, and he’d see the place in daylight for the first time. He was the only one of the people in on the secret who had been careful enough never to be seen by the denizens of the camp; he came for visits only at night. The others mocked him. They said he was a coward, and that he was missing out by not seeing this camp functioning so perfectly, like the labor camps from fifty years earlier.
But he didn’t want to; he’d always harbored the fear that this day would come, and when that happened, it would be calamitous if any one of the Jews here was able to identify him.
And he had been right.
He didn’t have to fear the Jews right now, but he certainly had to worry about Katarina, Teresa, and Helena. True, the agreement between them was that if any one of the Wangels would get caught and put on trial, they would not inform on anyone else, and in exchange, those others would work to help him. And for now, it seemed that Katarina was keeping to that part of the deal. But he wasn’t sure how long that would hold up, if the interrogators promised her all kinds of benefits in exchange for turning in all those who had helped them maintain this site.
Someone came out from behind him.
“Hey, Olendorf!” Hans exclaimed. “You’re here?”
“I’m here. In my role as the director of the office of the mayor of Salzburg, of course.”
“How has your boss reacted to what happened in his district for more than fifty years, under his nose?”
“Taking into account that for the past fifty years, this happened under the noses of seven other mayors, he doesn’t feel particularly confounded as the eighth one who didn’t realize anything,” Olendorf whispered quietly. “And obviously, I will be out of here at first light. The residents here recognize me from my previous visits as an officer in the Wehrmacht; Bernard had even planned to confer on me the title of Cosmos-Fuhrer….”
“And in the end he didn’t, huh?” Hans glanced at the man who mentioned this fact with a certain frustration, as if he had truly been a candidate to rule over the whole world.
“Yes, because Josef told him that it doesn’t work out well with the story. If I’m ostensibly one of the Wehrmacht officers who is in on the secret of hiding Jews here, when I am appointed Cosmos-Fuhrer, I am supposed to enact laws that protect them, which would make it possible for them to go free. So in the next newspaper edition he wrote that I wasn’t chosen. Whatever. Tell me, what do you think is going to be with Katarina and her daughter?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“You’ll smuggle them out of prison, right? Before someone has time to ask them one question too many.”
“Yes, we’ll get them out.” Hans managed a crooked smile. “One way or another.”
***
“B’chipazon,” Bentzy told Dena on the mobile Motorola he’d borrowed from Shmulik, from the embassy. “Believe me, it’s like Yetzias Mitzrayim, 5754. The prime minister of Austria is already here—don’t ask. And a few others from the Israeli embassy. They want us to leave as fast as we can, quietly, because as soon as the news gets around that Wangel is dead, journalists are sure to show up here.
“So my father spoke to Rabbi Spitz, and with the rav here, and they decided to pack up and go right away. The Jews themselves also want to leave as quickly as possible. My father has booked the rooms in Aharon Domb’s guesthouse, and that’s where we are going to go tomorrow. So, do you hear, Dena? We’re not allowed to talk about this to anyone.”
“I hear,” Dena said. She felt like saying, Who’s here for me to talk to about it, anyway? But she didn’t say a word. Sometimes, her job was to talk, and other times, it was to be quiet. And if in the past she’d thought that she was someone who didn’t do anything here in Vienna, she’d discovered how much her small choices, of being quiet or speaking, of going or staying home, of smiling or crying, really were significant.
Did anyone ever think how significant that one phone conversation could be? At the time, certainly not; it just sounded like a confusing conversation with a strange journalist.
And the results? That Bentzy and his father were now with that Jewish community, helping the Jews leave hastily from there, before the media descended.
“How does the place look?” she asked instead.
“The scenery? Breathtaking. Imagine mountain peaks and trees as far as the eye can see, and far away in the distance, there are even higher peaks with snow on them. The camp itself is just…no words. It looks like it froze in time…”
“Fifty years ago,” she filled in for him.
“Well, it looks like the Nazis still brought in some modern conveniences from the city, but they live in these tiny huts,” he whispered as he walked along the path, pressing the large black device to his ear. He hadn’t spoken to her since that quick call when he’d told her that they had succeeded, baruch Hashem. It had just been so hectic, with he, his father, and the others busy explaining, introducing, clarifying, and organizing. Finally now, a few hours later, he’d found a few minutes to call Dena again. He knew that she was waiting up.
“On each hut’s roof, there’s a barrel that collects rainwater, and after it is filtered, it runs into the houses through a pipe, to the only faucet in the house. They cook on primus stoves and wash laundry in basins, and they have a dairy and a bakery and a carpentry shop and a sewing shop, and a cemetery…a whole life.”
“And the people themselves?”
“All kinds. They speak a mixture of Yiddish, German, Hungarian, and Polish. Their clothes are really old-fashioned, and are obviously sewn by them.”
“How are they in terms of Yiddishkeit?”
“There are some really frum ones, and they even have a rav. Binyamin is a real lamdan, I would say, and besides him, there are a few other serious people. Then there are some whose families were assimilated even before the war…and they look pretty far.”
“How in the world did they manage to keep halachos?! Like shechitah, for example. And you know, everything else.”
“They have everything here, from what I understand. They shecht themselves, they have a sefer Torah and a few pairs of tefillin, and some old sefarim… Those Nazis must have taken these tashmishei kedushah right after the war, from communities that had been wiped out.” He was passing by Binyamin now. The youth motioned for him to come to one of the larger structures, and when he came closer, he saw Binyamin’s grandfather standing next to two medium-sized barrels.
“It seems they make wine from raisins…” he continued. “Anyway, I have to hang up now, Dena. People here need my help.”
“Can we take this with us?” Zeide Nachum asked him worriedly.
“I hope we’ll have room in the luggage hold of the bus,” Bentzy answered kindly. “What’s in here?”
“Beer and wine that we made.” Nachum sighed. “We’ll never be able to stop thanking you all for everything. But when you’ll be my age, you’ll understand how hard it is to cut off from everything you’ve gotten used to…even if it wasn’t always good. So if I would be able to take along these barrels, it would make me very happy.”
“Then for sure you’ll be able to, Reb Nachum.” Bentzy smiled at the older man. Then he looked at his watch. “In about two hours, the buses that my father ordered will arrive. We just need to make sure to get the barrels onto the buses in a safe way, so that they don’t break.” He grasped Mr. Einhorn’s hand as the light of the sun began to rise above them. “And it will be good, b’ezras Hashem. It will be very good.”
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