Blame it on Rio

Chapter 14: The Last Day

Just as Mama, Papa and I were about to leave to see Aunt Pepi there was knock at the door. It was Tad. Before Mama could get a word of greeting out he said “Mrs. Flossel, I look forward to visiting you in your new Polish home after the war. My heartfelt wishes will be with you at all times. And I hope you Mr. Flossel,” he turned to my father with a rakish smile, “will see to it that Hugi behaves himself and becomes a good citizen. He needs to stop wasting his time in fantasy land and apply himself to becoming a good locksmith.”

His tone was so transparently false that under other circumstances it would have been infuriating. But in that moment, I was shocked. Not because of what he had said but what I knew Mama was about to say.

“Tad, thank you so much for those beautiful words. But you must not have heard the news. We are not going to Poland anymore.” For a moment there was a flicker of happiness on Tad’s face and then Mama added “We leave tomorrow for the United States.”

I could see the different emotions pass over Tad’s face. First, confusion followed by shock and astonishment and then with full understanding, hurt and anger. Trying to recover, he replied “Mrs. Flossel, that is wonderful news. I am so happy for you and your family. But, I see you are just going out so I will let you go.” With that he turned on his his heel and headed down the stairs.

I said “Mama and Papa give me a second with Tad.” And raced out the door after Tad with Papa yelling after me “Be back in five minutes or you will regret it every time you sit down for a month.” I caught up with Tad at the bottom of the stairs, and pulled on his shoulder to make him turn around. I could tell that he was on the verge of tears both from hurt and frustration “What the hell, Hugi, you could have said something about this.”

“Tad, I am sorry. I only found out day before yesterday. And yesterday we were so busy with getting our visa and our tickets. I didn’t have time to find you to tell you. To talk to you about it.”

“You didn’t know about applying for the Visa. Come on Hugi I am not dumb enough to believe that.”

“You knew we had applied. I told you when my Uncle Max visited. Don’t you remember.” Tad got a look of bafflement on his face trying to recall a thread of a long ago conversation. Seizing the  opportunity I said “Exactly. I didn’t remember either. The chances of us getting a visa to the United States seemed so impossible. So unlikely that it was better to forget it than be tormented by the possibility.”

And then I said “Listen. We cannot talk now. I have to visit my grandmother to say goodbye. We should be done by early afternoon. I will meet you at the Tomahawk then. This is not decided yet. Are old plan could still work. I    I don’t want to leave you in the lurch…”

Just then Papa yelled down “Hugi, we are leaving. Saying good bye to Tad.”

I said “ at the Tomahawk…”

Tad said, regaining some of his natural bounce “Yes…Winnetou, great chief of the Sioux nation and ran out the door.

Our walk to my grandmother’s old age home in the 13^th district was long almost 7 km. Back in the good old days of a year and half ago we could have taken the tram but today, with the restrictions in place, and with our future on the line, we walked. And mostly, in silence. We were all wrapped up in our private thoughts about leaving Vienna. I know Mama was thinking about her family. She was leaving behind 4 brothers, 5 sisters, aunts, uncles and countless cousins. They had been at the core of our life in Vienna. Between birthdays, holidays, and family events they made up the core of our social life. She was leaving them all behind. Knowing that she would likely never see them again. Knowing that they were as desperate as she to leave the city, Austria and the war far behind them and knowing that most of them would not make it. She, knew of the unspeakable hardships they would have to endure. The beatings, the humiliations, the emotional torture. Had not Cousin Robert committed suicide just a few weeks ago when the suffering became too much to bear. In Vienna, the suicides had become so frequent that the German authorities had ordered that they not be reported any longer. I am sure she was worried about them and wondering why luck had fallen on her shoulders.

I could never tell what Papa was thinking. Siberia had closed him off.  But I also know he was a proud man. How many times had he told me that he had managed to keep food on the table by working hard doing whatever it might be when so many others with book learning and soft hands could not? I am sure that he was feeling pride at being able to get his family out of Vienna and extra satisfaction in that they were going to America. I didn’t think he would miss much here. While he had friends I am not sure that he would miss any of them much. Except Fraulein Elka, his special friend from the “beach club” we used to go to in the Summer on the Danube inundation plain but Mama had told me never to speak of her. 

My thoughts were split in two. Part of the time I was having rich storybook fantasy’s about our journey and what it would be like living in America. I had never been on  a long train ride before let alone a ship. They always look so glamorous in the news reels I had seen. Lots of smiling people waving at the camera waving from decks and port holes. Dining rooms where you sat at a table and people brought you scrumptious food. Food, like we had not seen in a very long. Food that would fill by almost always empty and demanding stomach. Would our ship be like that. Did they feed you in third class or did you have to pay for it? I thought to ask Papa but  he looked so lost in his thoughts I didn’t think he would appreciate my questions.

But as much time as I spent thinking about the future the reality of the present always brought me back to right now. What was I going to say to Tad.? How could justify abandoning him at the Tomahawk. We were so close to completing her. We were so close to setting sail. How could I explain that for him, The Tomahawk, had been a fantasy. An adventure. He was an Aryan. He was safe. He had nothing to hide from. But for me, it was not adventure or fantasy, the Tomahawk was about safety. It was about saving my precious Jewish ass before Herr Hitler decided to whip it a little more. Tad, knew the danger I was in. How many times had intervened when some group of Hitler youth had thought I was easy prey for their brutality and punishment details?

I could remind of the time shortly after the Anschluss where we had seen the rabbi from my shul forced to clean the sidewalk on his hands and knees with a tooth brush. I am sure he would not forget the crowd surrounding him kicking and spitting on him and taking scissors to his beard. How could he forget the woman with tight blonde curls offering him a hand up only to pull his face to her groin so she could urinate on his face. And afterwards, covered with urine and spit, beard reduced to stubble, and no doubt peppered with bruises, the rabbi muttering “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad: and then adding  even Hashem’s sidewalks need to be clean.”

Or the time we were playing Shatterhand and Winnetou at the Prater when we came across of SA brownshirts who were forcing every Jew they came across to participate in a form of sadistic calisthenics. The forced participants were of all ages and sexes and if they could not keep up or fell, they were beaten. Or they would demand that they assume awkward positions and then at random shove them so hard that they could not recover their balance and fall hard. One man fell so hard that we could hear his head hit the cobblestones 200 meters away. After that he did not move, even with the SA thugs kicked him.

But with each justification for my leaving it came back to the same thing. I was leaving and Tad was staying. This was more than just leaving a friend behind. You see Tad and were both only children and since we had become friends in 1^st grade we had treated each other’s like brothers. Time, age, and even becoming blood brothers like Winnetou and Shatterhand, had strengthened that into an inseparable bond. He was my brother. I was leaving him behind and I felt ashamed.

The “Philantrhopia”, the old age home run by the Jewish Community was at Lainzerstrass 172 and used to be a private home for one of the lesser Rothchilds. When he died, he willed to the community and they had turned it into a place where care could be provided to the elderly who had no children. On the outside, resembled many of the others in the neighborhood with yellow stucco walls, Dutch gabled roofs. Inside, to me, was a bit of a nightmare. The first thing that hits you as you entered is the smell. It was a combination of decay, sick, and shit and it was overwhelming. The second thing you noticed were the old people dressed in cotton pajamas and the occasional dressing gown sitting on chairs, couches or at tables staring off into space. It was as if they were in the waiting room of death awaiting their name to be called. I hated the place. It made me think too much about what happens when you get older. My grandmother had lived an independent life in her own home in the country surrounded by meadows, forests, mountains and streams. Now all she had was a little room, decorated only with a large framed photographs of her husband and several smaller frames that featured Mama and me.

She stood up from the chair in which she was seating to greet us and I ran to her and gave her a hug. Like always, I was instantly surrounded by arms and her scent that reminded me of kindness, humor, love and every good summer memory I have and provided an overwhelming sense of safety. As long as I was in Pepi’s arms nothing bad could ever happen to me. Then it hit me. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts about Tad that I had not spent anytime thinking about what would happen to grandmother. Surely, her sisters would come and visit with her and they would bring their children but it wouldn’t be Mama. It wouldn’t be me. And then the bigger truth hit me. After I left here today, I would never see Pepi again. This would be my last hug. So I held her tight as much from never wanting to let go as not to let her see the tears that were suddenly pouring down my cheeks.

But she knew. When I finally let her go and I had managed to wipe away my tears she said “Hugi, I think America is just the place for you. All that time you played cowboys and Indians in the fields above Farafheld will make you feel right at home there. And you will be able to go back to school. You love books so much it will be so nice to be in  place that will allow you to study and maybe become a Dr. some day. You would like that, yes.”

I nodded my ascent and then added “Don’t you worry about your Grandmother. I will be fine. My sister will come and visit with me and you will write me won’t you. Tell me the stories of what you are doing? Letting me know if you meet any cowboys or Indians and what you are studying in school. You promise to write me?”

I nodded again.

“Good, then don’t you see. We will never be apart.” And then she gave an especially strong hug and I tried to ignore her tears as much as she had tried to ignore mine.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the conversation. I was too wrapped up in my own miseries to pay attention to the conversation between Mama and Pepi. I know it was tough on both of them and both of them were doing their best not to show it. How do you say goodbye to a mother? Especially, when you know a pack of wolves is circling. How do you say goodbye to a daughter when all you want her to stay but know her leaving will make her safe from the wolves. Their pain must have been immeasurable and only exceeded by the love they had for each other.

What I do remember is our good bye. The unabashed tears and the long long hug that I wished could last forever. Walking out that door was by far the hardest thing I have ever done and a memory that I am sure will last with me until I have none left.

When we reached the outside and before we began our long trek home, I said “Mama and Papa I need to go say good by to Tad. We agreed to meet down by the Prater and it would be easier if I went from here than to go all the way home. I know you want us to stay together but Tad is my best friend. I need to say good bye.”

Papa grimaced. He didn’t want anything to go wrong. And me going down to the Prater all but invited things to go wrong. But, before he could say anything Mama said “ Benno, let  the boy go. We all need to say good bye to our friends. What harm could it do?”

Papa considered this. I knew he wanted to say no but occasionally Mama was able to soften him and he said “Hugi, I don’t like this. But you can go but you have to promise me that you will be home before dark.”

“I promise Papa. I will be home and you don’t have to worry.” And with that I took off down Lainszerstrasse making a bee line of the inundation zone.

It took me the better part of an hour at a run/walk to get to the bridge by the inundation plain. I could have run the whole way, but I knew I had to be careful. There were too many people who would make a fuss over a Jewish boy running past them. I needed no trouble. As a precaution I tried to keep to back streets where I could run without fear of attracting attention. When I had no choice to take main streets like Tabor Strasse I walked, keeping my eyes down, but alert as not to inadvertently running into anyone.

But I came to a full stop when I reached the Trolley Stop by the Bridge where Tad and I had waited freezing all those months ago. Instead of being deserted like it normally was there was a line of Gestapo trucks and command vehicles. A squad of Black Uniform soldiers were lined up on the street at attention with their rifles slung over their shoulders, chins pointing towards the sky. Seeing them, stopped me in my tracks. Whatever reason the SS were here I didn’t want them to see me. If they saw me. They could detain me or worse. I needed to hide. But the street offered little cover and sneaking besides building or hiding behind cars was sure to draw the attention that I wanted to avoid.  I was just about to turn heal and go back the way I came in the hopes of finding another way down to Tomahawk when I saw a small crowd gathered on a corner adjacent to the trolley stop. I slowly made my way over to them walking as nonchalantly as my rapidly beating heart would allow.

It was only when I was hidden at the back of the crowd that I allowed myself to shake. Why were the Gestapo here? I wanted to believe that it had nothing to do with Tad and me and the Tomahawk. I wanted to think that they were here to run exercise that were designed to keep their troops alert. Maybe some criminal had escaped and was using the dunes and the grass around the Danube to hide. . But I knew that I was just fooling myself.

That was confirmed a few moments later was when an officer emerged from one of the command vehicles and addressed his troops. When he had spoken for a few moments there was collective clicking of the heels and the troops began trotting across the bridge. The crowd in front of me muffled what he said so I asked the man in front of me what the officer had said. The man was very tall, with an angular face and a toothbrush mustache looked me at with curiosity. He replied “ He told his troops that a fisherman had reported that he had observed two young men over the last few months going to a hut by the Danube. He had wondered what they were up to so he had investigated and discovered they were making a vessel of some kind. He had reported it to the police who had informed the Gestapo. The troops job were ordered to go down to the plain, find the hut, destroy the vessel and if they could capture the young men.”

He must have seen the fear in my eyes. He placed his had on my shoulder and leaned down and whispered in my ear “I would get going if I were you.” And I did. First, casually at a normal walking pace and then when I was out of view of the troops and the crowd at a near trot. When I got far enough a way to feel safe, at least for the moment, I stopped. What about Tad? If he was at the hut working on Tomahawk there was nothing I could do for him. But if he weren’t there how could I warn him on time?  I got an idea and made my way to the tram stop just before where we normally got off where we normally exited. There using a stone, and being careful that no one was around,  I found along the road I scratched out a Wolf Paw with a line through the first digit on a metal station he could see as the trolley went by. Underneath it I put a large X our sign for danger.

I didn’t know if he would see it. He could be sitting on the wrong side of the tram. He could be daydreaming but I had to do something and it was the best I could do for now. When I finished I looked up at the afternoon sky. The Sioux had a trick about determining sunset. If you positioned you fingers on the horizon, each finger represents about 15 minutes. 4 fingers. I hour before I promised Papa, I would be home. But I had to find out what happened to Tad. What if the Gestapo caught him…and then it hit me hard.  This was my fault. If Tad had been caught by the Gestapo it was my fault. I am the one who told him to meet there. We would not have had to meet there if it were not for me leaving for America.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another Gestapo troop truck barreling down the road heading for the inundation zone. I couldn’t stay here. The Gestapo didn’t need any excuses to pull in teenage boys and considering I was one of the ones they were looking for and how mad would Papa be if I got arrested now. If I didn’t come home would they leave without me My mind was a jumble of thoughts and  I knew I was panicking, I couldn’t do that right now. I needed to get home.

I took a deep breath to calm myself …I began the long trek home taking the side streets and less used avenues as I had learned to do since the Anschluss. Moving, helped settle my nerves a little. I thought of all the precaution we had put in place around Tomahawk to let us know if someone was getting too close. Surely Tad would have heard people coming if was in the hut and used one of the emergency escape routes we had so carefully planned. Perhaps he had not even been in the hut. Maybe he got there just before or just after I did. Saw the commotion and left just like I did. He could be at home right now wondering where I was. Or even waiting for me outside my apartment. That must be it. I have been an idiot for worrying. Tad is far to clever to be caught.

Just before sunset, I found myself on Yppenplatz outside Tad’s mother’s grocery store. It was on my way home and I had convinced myself that this is where he would have come after leaving Tomahawk. The problem was I could not go into the store while people were shopping. Jews were not allowed to shop in Aryan stores. We had our own. And any “good” citizen could turn us in should they find us in the store.  Instead, I hid in the shadows by the park which was mostly deserted because of the time of day and the late autumn cold. It was maddening., . It was that time of day when people shopped for the evening meal. Every time I thought the last customer walked out the door another two would walk in. I kept hoping when I heard the bell attached Frau  Saegerer’s Grocery door ring that Tad would pop out and do something foolish and Tad like. But that did not happen. Just a steady stream of customers in and out as the dusk grew.

My time was running out. I had promised Mama and Papa I would be home by dark. I had to act. Putting on my best Aryan airs, I walked across the street and entered the Saegerer’s grocery. The store, luckily, was mostly empty. Just a single customer at the cash register paying for her groceries so I made myself inconspicuous by carefully examining the label on a can of corn. Tad’s mother seemed to know the customer, an elderly woman, who was more intent on gossiping than on paying for the few items she had selected. If this woman did not leave soon I would either have to leave the store without finding out about Tad or risk being harassed by some “good” Austrian citizen. Luckily, Frau Saegerer saw me lurking and brought her conversation with her customer to a close quickly.

When the door had rung and the customer left, Tad’s mama rushed over to me scolding “Hugi, why are you here?  You know I love you, but you cannot be in here. They could close my store down for selling to Jews. I could be arrested.”

I stammered “I am so sorry Frau Saegerer. I would not have done this normally, but I am leaving for America tomorrow and I wanted to say good bye to Tad. Do you know where he is.” With those words, the emotions of the day burst through and as much as I wanted to be a man the boy emerged, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Glancing at the door, making sure she would be seen she put her around me and said “That is wonderful news Hugi. Vienna is not Vienna anymore and America…well is the best place to go. Perhaps we can come and visit when this all over. Yes?”

Unable to speak due to an unwanted lump in my throat I just nodded. She added “I have not seen Tad since I left to open the store early this morning and I don’t know where he is. But when I see him at home tonight, I will tell him you were looking for him . Okay“

“Okay.” I responded and then added “When you see him will you tell him that it is okay to come to the apartment to say good-bye.” I wanted to add, no matter how late it is but I didn’t want to alarm her.

“Now run along Hugi.” She said giving me a final hug.”before I get arrested.” And as I reached the door she added “Don’t forget to write.”

It was after dark when I reach Ottakringerstrass 48 and I was lost in my thoughts Tad and leaving Vienna as I entered. Which is why I didn’t notice Mrs. Bauer, the superintendent’s wife, who was sweeping the entryway. I bumped into her scattering the small pile of trash she had collected. She swore at me “You dirty kike son of a whore. You are alike. I should make you clean that up with your tongue. Or better yet get the SA men in here and really make you pay.”

Just then Mama’s face appeared over the bannister. “Frau Bauer, I am sure whatever Hugi did it was a mistake and he is very sorry. Aren’t you Hugi.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Apologize to Mrs. Bauer, Hugi and come up stairs.”

“Frau Bauer, I am so sorry for bumping into you. It was my fault for not paying attention.” I was being sincere. I was embarrassed that I had been so careless.

Mrs. Bauer glowered at me for a second and then slapped me across the face so hard that it echoed through the tiled lobby. Then, while I was still shock from being struck, she spit into my face and while the garlic and tobacco scented spittle dripped down my face she said “Go on up to your cunt mother, before I call the police…if you weren’t leaving tomorrow I would…”

Mama waited for me at the door to the apartment. She was incredibly angry, her cheekbones flushed, and daggers hidden in her grey eyes. I think if it had been any other day, she would have become a battling Mama bear. But instead, she put her arms around my shoulders and guided me inside the apartment and taking a wash rag washed the spit from my face. I guess I should have told her that I was too old for her to fuss over me like this. I was not a child. But I was numb. My last day in Vienna and I had managed to get my best friend, my blood brother arrested by the Gestapo and have my face slapped and spat on inside my own apartment building. I was just about to feel sorry for myself when Papa yelled from across the room “Your late.”

Normally, I would have done battle with him. I wasn’t that late. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw the three small suitcases by the door, all we were allowed to leave Austria with, and decided today was not the day I wanted to fight with Papa. It was not worth it. Not today. Besides, you never know what might leak out in an argument and I certainly did not want him to know about Tad let alone Tomahawk. Instead,  I hung my head and said “I am sorry Papa” and went and sat on the edge of my bed. Mama brought me some cold sausage and a couple of slices of slightly stale brown bread which I greedily.

When I had finished, and brushed the few errant crumbs off my sweater, I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. While Mama and Papa unpacked and repacked our small valises, I listened to the sounds coming from the streets and the stairway. Hoping against hope to hear Tad calling my name from the streets, asking me to come to the window. Or the sound of foots ascending the stairs and a familiar rap at the door. But only the sounds of cars, trams and the murmurs of passing strangers came through the window. The clop clop of feet against the stairs was never followed by a knock at the door. Eventually, Papa turned off the light and the sounds of the street lessened and no footsteps were heard climbing the stairs. The silence and the dark made the questions circling my brain grow louder Where was Tad? What had become of my friend? Was he being interrogated by the Gestapo? Was he hurt or hiding? What could I have done differently…Eventually, the exertions of the day got the better of me and I fell into a listless sleep full of nightmares of wolves being chased by wolves.

The next morning, we left Vienna for good.

End Part 1

The next day we began sawing the autoclave into two pieces. The diameter of the autoclave drum was about 10 centimetres smaller than the conning tower. I figured we could set it inside the tower, upside down, with the door towards the bottom. By flaring the top of the autoclave cylinder, it could be brought to fit tightly against the inside of the wall of the oil drum and sealed with rope and tar to make it watertight.

“The door of the autoclave will open inward into the boat,” I said. “We can operate it by turning the locking right from the inside.”

“Wont we get a snootful of water every time we open the door after a dive?” asked Tad. He was shaking his arms because they were smarting from pulling the hacksaw through the tough metal. “No problem,” mimicking Tad. “Word of honour. We will drill big holes in the tower above the autoclave door. The water will run out of the holes when we surface.”

It took all day to saw the autoclave cylinder down to size. When we finished, my palms were covered with ugly looking blood blisters. I spent the entirety of the Tram ride home figuring out what lie to tell Mama and Papa about my hands. I could tell them that I had a run in with some boys in the street who thought a Jewish boy like me was an easy target but Papa would have yell at me for getting into a fight so close to our departure. Maybe I could tell him that I had been forced to clean the sidewalk with a toothbrush by a squad of soldiers looking to have some fun but I rejected that idea because my knees were not scraped enough. Finally, I decided that I would tell them that I was playing football and I had fallen which is why my hands were so bloody. And, if they yelled at me for being late, I would try to guilt them into calm by saying it was my last game with my friends before we left of Poland.

Regardless of what I thought was an excellent story and plan to mitigate Mama and Papa’s anger I paused and took a deep breath before entering our apartment. I knew there was a storm coming and needed a moment to steady myself for its fury.

But when I opened the door to the apartment, there was no fury.  Instead, I was surprised to see a dozen or so people gathered around Mama and Papa who sat like monarchs on their couch throne.  They had a dazed expression on their faces as if something had happened to them that was beyond their ability to fully comprehend. In my experience, this could only be something extremely bad as we had never been blessed with good fortune. I was sure a disaster had occurred, and these people had gathered around them to comfort and console them.

I closed the door to the apartment with an unintentional thud and everyone turned to look at me. I ignored them. Walking to my parents I asked “What has happened Mama. Why are all these people in our apartment. My mother could see the look of fear on my face and hear the concern in my voice. She pulled me in for one of her soft but totally enveloping hugs that are normally reserved for terrible news like on the night of broken glass when the brown shirts came and took Papa away. She held me for a long time, no doubt composing herself to tell me the news then held me out at arm’s length and looking into my eyes said “Hugi, we have had wonderful news. We are going to America.”

The world seemed to hold stop for a minute. Nothing moved. There was no sound. Just a million questions banging through my head like popcorn popping. What? I do not understand. How did this happen? What happened to the quota. When do we leave? Do I want to go with them? What about the Tomahawk.? What about Tad? If go will he understand? Uncle Max makes sound so wonderful why wouldn’t I go? But you made a promise to Tad…you gave your word.” But I could find no voice for any of these questions. Instead, I asked the only one they could answer. “How did this happen?”

Papa began “After you left this morning, a messenger arrived from the United State Embassy asking me to report to the counsel in charge of immigration. I almost did not go. We were going to Poland but your Mama said “it couldn’t hurt” to go and see what they want. So, I put on my best suit and walked down there. and because of the rain and the cold regretting each step. When I get there they direct me to the immigration section and after showing my ID to one of the clerks she checks through some files and says to me like it is not big news “Ah-so Mr. Flossel here you are. You have a wife Rachel and one son, Hugi.” I nodded and she went on “Well congratulations you have all been granted entry visas into the United States.” I must have had a shocked look on my face because she says “Yes, I know it is all of sudden but that is how it happens. You wait for months even years and you hear nothing and then out of the blue it happens. But we must not spend any time on that. You have a lot to do in the next 3 days.

“3 days?”

“Yes, Mr. Flossel. The current government requirement is that you leave the country immediately upon receiving your visa. Here is a list of documents that you will need to bring with you to the United States and here is another list of documents you will need to be able to leave the country. Tomorrow you must return with photographs and then we will issue you the official visa. “And then I left. I don’t even remember walking home. “

Everyone, I could tell was immensely entertained by Papa’s story. Mama had huge grin on her face and was holding her chin up high. But I could also tell that everyone was also very jealous. Most of them, had no where to go. They had no money to go to one of the places accepting Jews like Shang Hai or Palestine and no hope of getting a Visa to any place else. Many, like the Steins, with no hope of escape for themselves had sent their children on one of the Kindertrnsports to England so they would be safe but being raised by strangers. The Steins son, Eduard, was a friend of mine. Mama, Papa and I went to the Banhof to see him off to his new home. I will never forget the tears of Mrs Stein on the way home wailing that she would ever see her only son again.

Eventually, everyone left and we were left alone. I had a thousand questions that I wanted to ask Papa. But with my first “Papa” He said “Hugi, we have many things to do tomorrow and now is the time for sleep.” Pausing, he looked me over as he had not seen before then and said “What happened to your hands.”

So much had happened since I had made up my story about the hands that I almost forgot and told him the truth. Luckily, I remembered in time and told him that I had fallen while playing soccer. Mama tsk tsks and proceeded to take me to the kitchen table where she washed my hands with her special tea, insisting on bandaging my mauled hands. As she wrapped the gauze around my hands Papa scowled and told us what we must do tomorrow. “Tomorrow we will have a busy day. We must go to the offices of the Italia Line and pick up our tickets for our ship to New York. No, Hugi I do not know the name of the ship. Once we have booked our ship we must go to the Rail office and get our tickets to travel by rail. Then we must go and present ourselves at the Jewish Commission offices and pay our exit tax and present our inventory of what we are taking with us. And, when we get home we must try to sell all that we cannot take with us.”

When father had finally paused, I asked “Papa do I really need to come with you. I would like some time to say goodbye to my friends” while thinking, do I go with Mama and Papa or stick with Tad and the Tomahawk. And if I go with Mama and Papa what do I tell Tad. How can I possibly let him down like this?

Papa’s reply was instantaneous. “No, we stick together from now on. We can’t allow ourselves to be separate with such s short period of time left.” And then added
““Be sure to wear your gloves when you go out of the house tomorrow,” it will not be a good idea to have everyone gape at your bandages and wonder what kind of terrible skin disease you have caught roaming in the filthy places in which you go all the time .And you better not forget about it or you won’t be able to said down for a week.”

That night, I lay in bed, exhausted from the work on the Tomahawk, but unable to sleep because my brain refused to shut off. America! The fairyland that Uncle Max had described. So far away from the war. Where we could live in an apartment with a real kitchen and its own bathroom. I could go back to school. Where I would not have to worry about brown shirts and bullies beating up on me all the time. Even getting there would be an adventure. A real train that sped between countries as opposed to the local ones we took to Farafheld or Sopron. Then an ocean liner. The Mediterranean. The Atlantic Ocean. Now that Britain and France were in the war anything could happen on a ship. Perhaps even a Uboat… Which made me think of Tomahawk and Tad. What was the right thing to do? Even Tad would have to see that going to America was far different than going to work at a work camp in Poland. Even he would have to see that this was better for me. But he was my friend. I had made a promise to him. What would he do now? How would he get out? What about Tomahawk. We had worked so hard on her and she would be done in a few months. On Tomahawk both of our dreams of escaping the war could be had but it would mean leaving Mama and I could picture her crying like Edouard Steins mother. And, the statue of Liberty. How grand it would be to see the statue of Liberty.

It was many hours before my mind slowed down enough for me to fall asleep and even then, my rest was interrupted by a nightmare. I was on the mud flats of the Danube outside the hut where we were constructing Tomahawk. But when I looked in the hut our submarine was no where to be found. I ran back down to the river and there I saw her floating with the current with Tad standing on deck. I called out his name, but he did not turn around. I ran down the flats calling and calling but Tad just climbed into the conning tower, slammed the hatch shut and as the Tomahawk moved to a bend in the river, it slowly sank below the waves.

The next day proved difficult. Not only was I exhausted from a sleepless night but moving around Vienna without getting on the tram, Papa did not want to tempt fate just as it seemed to be smiling at us for the first time. Our first stop was a photographic studio in the 1^st district that had been recommended by the woman at the American consulate as we needed photo for our visas. This meant I had to wear a tie and jacket with long pants that were made of wool and itched. In some way, this was good because the photographer wanted us to look serious for our photos and I had no trouble letting my discomfort show.

Our next step was the consulate at Boltzmanngasse 16. It was an impressive building in the Imperial style, and I had a mix of emotions as I passed through its front gate and our papers examined by the gaudily dressed, ramrod straight Marine guards. This is my new country. This will save Mama, Papa and me. We are leaving. We will finally be safe and if only half of what Uncle Max told us is true, we can be so happy. Perhaps Papa will not be so grumpy all the time and Mama won’t have to work so hard. But then the stomachache that had bothered me all night re-asserted itself. How can I leave and abandon my Sioux warrior blood brother? Tomahawk was almost done. We had worked so hard on her. How could I abandon my ship. I know we can make it to the delta and then to Palestine. But…

“Hugi, come along” we have much to do today. We cannot have you have you daydreaming.” Papa said in harsh whispered tones as he pushed me up the steps of the consulate. Two hours later we emerged from the consulate. We were treated very nicely but there we were in a group of about 50 who were receiving Visas and there was a lot of forms and paperwork to be completed. Then an official came to us and said “Herr Floessel here are your visa’s  and was handed three green paper cards with our photographs on them. We examined them like you might a piece of jewelry or a fine painting. Visas. # 2,887, 2,888, 2,889. Mama cried. Papa stood at attention like the soldier he once said and bowed his head a little when he said “Danke schon.”

  I could not read the English on the card but just looking at them made me feel glorious. Old Shatterhand and Wineatou would have a new countryman. Hugi Flossel I had decided.  I was going to America. But how was I going to break the news to Tad? Would he hate me for abandoning him and the Tomahawk or would he be happy for me?

I had a lot of time to think about it as we had many other chores to accomplish that day. Our next stop was in the  2^nd District at the Italia Line offices. Uncle Max had paid our fares at the office in New York and now we needed to book passage on the ship that was leaving the soonest. The office was crowded with fellow refugees. Waiting for our turn was tedious especially as the office was overheated, noisy without chairs and made my pants itch. Then when we finally got to the front of the line the clerk was rude to Papa. It took him forever to find the confirmation that our tickets had been paid for in New York. He then seemed disappointed that he could not send us away. Finally when he handed us our ticket, 3^rd Class on the MS Vulcania departing Genoa on November 29, he practically spat at us saying “the country would be better off without dirty Jewish scum like you.”

I thought about the clerk as we walked across town to the SudBahnhof to pick up our railway tickets. Tad did not understand what it was like to be a Jew in Vienna. He was pure Aryan. I know he hated all of this Nazi racial purity nonsense, but he could not possibly understand what it was like to live it with each day. The knowledge that at any moment anyone could spit on you, kick you, or even beat you to death and there would be no consequences. What it felt like to be an outcast in the only place you have every known. To never feel safe. Even when you are sleeping. How can I make him understand that I have to go.

The walk to the SudBahnhof took almost an hour even at the hectic pace Papa set for us. I had to scramble to keep up and Mama, who was not used to walking like Papa, who used to walk 3 miles to and from work every day, and was wearing heels, struggled to keep up. At one point of our journey, seeing the strain on Mama’s face I asked if we could please pause to get a small bite to eat or perhaps something to drink. But he said no with a dismissive “We can eat when we get to America.” It seemed to me that he thought that unless we acted quickly that this great blessing that we have been giving would drift away like dandelion dander in the wind.

The SudBahnhof looks like a palace as befitting a train station in Imperial capital.  It even has statues adorning its top. But the nostalgia of the Hapsburg is quickly erased by the Nazi Flag flying over the station and the cordon of Wehrmacht troops and vehicle surrounding the building.  It made it very intimidating to enter the building.  We had learned over time that with no provocation at all would strike us or force us to perform menial acts like cleaning the sidewalk or demeaning acts such as licking their boots. We needed know trouble today. Without being told we huddled together as a group and kept our heads down as we passed through the line of soldiers. Inside, there was a line for Jews only. It must have stretched 300 meters and moved along at a cm per hour. While we waited in line, we were patrolled by soldiers who from time to time would demand intimidatingly for peoples papers. No one was taken away and I can only remember one man being kicked when he was too slow responding. It made for a quiet line with no complaints about how long it took and only a few whispers about destinations. Many of our que-mates were making their way to Trieste where they were going to pick up ships to Palestine or Shanghai. We heard whispers from a few that they were headed to Brazil and Argentina and as much as I wanted to mention that we had relatives there I said nothing. I did not want us to be noticed. I just wanted to get our tickets and leave this place.

After three long hours we finally made our way to the front of the line. Papa showed the clerk our steamer tickets who examined them closely. He said in bored and officious tones that the only train available for us to arrive in Genoa in time for our ship left the day after tomorrow at 7:00 AM.  It would take us south through Trieste then to Milan and finally Genoa. When he told us the price of the ticket Mama gasped. It was more than a month’s rent. Turning slightly, to block the view of those in line, Papa pulled a large roll of bills from inside his shirt and paid the fare whispering to me that my bar mitzvah suit had just helped pay for our trip. .

When we left the Bahnhof the central clock read 2:50 and after we gained enough distance from the station so not to be noticed by the Wehrmacht troops, Mama and Papa had an argument.  “Benno we have been at this all day long. We have not had a meal or even something to drink. The boy needs food. We need to take a little rest so we can carry on.”

Papa replied “It is nearly 3 O’clock. We need to get to the Jewish Community Headquarters  before it closes. We do not have time to stop, let alone rest. We must go.” This argument did not last long. Mama saw a nearby Wurstelstand and walked without hesitation to it and ordered three sausages on rolls. Out maneuverered, but not outflanked Papa insisted that we eat while we walked. I was always eating on the run so I was used to it but Mama complained that this was bad for the digestion but kept walking none the less.

We needed to go to the Jewish Community Center to have our identity cards stamped proving that we had met all the governments requirements for leaving the country. Most important of these was paying a departure “tax..” Most of the paperwork required Papa had completed when our destination was Poland. Consequently, our only object here was to show that we had a valid Visa for America and had booked and paid for passage and of course pay the Tax. This was easily accomplished despite further diminished our supply of cash.

When we arrived home that evening, we were exhausted. We wanted nothing more than to eat dinner and fall into our beds. But we could not. We needed to sell our furniture. Not only because we needed every Deutschemark we could lay our hands on but because our landlord could make trouble for us if we did not leave the apartment empty and clean. We were so close, and we didn’t need trouble so Mama went down the hall and asked Mrs Hacker if she would put the word out that we were selling all of our furniture. She knew that the informal “telegraph” system that existed in the building would spread the word quickly and soon one piece of furniture after the other disappeared from the apartment. Papa was pleased. We were doing better than what the second-hand dealer had led Papa to expect.

By 9pm , all that was left in the main room was the stove, Mama and Papa’s big bed , my bed and the table with there chairs. A small suitcase and two rucksacks stood in the corner by the door. Even the cheap glass lampshade had been sold . Only a bare bulb dangled from the ceiling to the room.

Papa looked over at Mama , who sat in the middle  of the nearly empty room , lost as shoe one a frozen lake. Her eyes were red from crying. Leaving Vienna was very difficult for her and she knew how difficult it was for me although she only knew some of the reasons. She turned to me “Sweet you, we will have to go see Pepi before we leave. Will you please come with me tomorrow?” Pepi, was Mama’s aunt who had raised her as own child. She was, in all but biology, my grandmother. In the summers, I would go and stay with her in Fahrafeld, a small town in the foothills of the alps, where she would pay the local animal herder to take me up into the mountains so I cold play Shatterhand and Winnetou while the animals grazed. And when I would return, she would always listen patiently to my stories and say “Yoy, Hugi you have such an imagination” and then give me the most wonderful hugs that made me feel safe and special. After the Anschluss she had been evicted from her home as the landlord thought a Jewess living in one of his property would cause him trouble with the Nazi’s. For a while she shuttled between her sisters but eventually, we found room for her at an old age home that was run by the Jewish Community.

I had to go. I needed to say goodbye to her. But all day long, I had been plotting in my head to go to the inundation to talk to Tad. Let him know how the world had changed. That I was leaving.  “Alright !”,I said ,”Of course I’ll go tomorrow then almost under my breath “but I have to have some time to say good bye to my friends.”

I retreated into the corner, away from them, my back against the stack of suitcases. Cupped my face in my bandaged hands. Closed my eyes ever so slightly. I tried to shut out everything. It was so confusing and painful. There was no easy way out. I had been racking my brain all day. How do I tell Tad.? It was my last thought as I fell asleep without even noticing it.

Papa is a man who does not talk a lot. I do not know if he has always been this way or is just the way he is now. I know how hard he works. He does anything he can to earn us money from working in an abattoir processing corpse of dead animals to helping Jewish families move their belongings when they have been evicted from their homes. It means that he is so tired when he gets home the words that come out of his mouth are mostly no more than grunts and single syllables. Often, he goes right to sleep after dinner.

I also know that he has a hard life. He talks about the seven years he spent in a Siberian prisoner of war camp a lot. It is often an object lesson for me. “If I could spend 7 years in that hell hole there is no reason you cannot (fill in the task.) It is also the reason that Mama is not allowed to cook with onions. He has told us that for months on end it was the only food that they had to eat in the camp, and he swore when he left that he would never eat another.

But he never talks about his childhood. I have tried to ask him about it, but he is just grunts and changes the subject From the very few conversations I have had with him about his boyhood I have been told the very basic facts. He grew up a little town in Galicia. That he had a troubled relationship with his father, a livestock broker, because his father wanted him to be a scholar and Benno did not like school. When he turned 18, and started his mandatory military service he left,  leaving behind a younger brother, and three sisters As far as I knew never went home again.

Truthfully, I did not think about his side of the family much. Mama had twelve brothers and sisters. Many of them lived nearby and I would see some of them almost every day. The others like my grandmother, who was really Mama’s oldest sister, we would visit from time or when the relatives who lived in Sopron came to Vienna they would visit with us.  In fact, the only relative of my mother’s that I did not see very often was her younger sister Rachel, who had moved to Brazil the year before I was born. But we got wonderful letters from her about her new life in a town called Santos where apparently it was ridiculously hot, which didn’t agree with her, but where they played football all year. It sounded so wonderful there that I once asked Mama why we could not move there. It was before I knew that things cost money, and her response had been that she didn’t think she could learn Portuguese.

In other words, my hands were so full with Mama’s family that I did not have time to think of Papa’s family. Then the telegram arrived.

We were awakened at 2am on a warm June morning by a heavy knock at the door. This was before the Anschluss, 1936, so we were not frightened. . Back then the only reason people knocked on our door was an emergency like when Frau Zucker went into labor and Herr Zucker came to get Mama or when Papa’s friend was very drunk and started pounding on the door for him to come drink with him. But that morning it was not an emergency. My father opened the door and to his great surprise it was a messenger from Radio Austria with a Radiogram for him. It was shocking. We are not the type of family who gets a Radiogram.

Papa opened the message and he was so surprised with the message that he had to sit down on one of the chairs from the table where we ate. He looked as if he had seen a ghost.  Mama called from the bed. “What is it Benno?” He did not respond instead he just kept muttering “Mein Gott, Mein Gott.” My mother was alarmed and clamoured out of bed and went to his side and putting her hand on his shoulder said, “What is it?” Instead of responding he simply handed her the telegram. After reading it, she said “Gott in Himmel” and promptly sat down next to him.

I was curious. I crawled out of bed and went to Papa’s side. “What does it say Papa?” I was handed the telegram. It read “June 16, 1936 2300 Oswiecim: Benno Floessel Otto Kringer Strasse 48 Wien. Will arrive 7:30 AM Friday At Train Station. Max Floessel.” I did not know what to make of the telegram. Friday morning was now. I had never heard of Max Floessel and where was Oswiecim? I had so many questions that I did not know where to begin but manage to blurt out “Who is Max Floessel?”

Papa, still in a state of shock replied “He is my younger brother. I have not seen him since I left Grodzisko in 1906.”

“But why haven’t you seen him.” I am an only child I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to see their brother as it is something that I had always wished I had. Papa replied “When I turned 18 I was conscripted into the Army and when I was released two years later I was too busy trying to make enough money to survive on to go home. Then in 1913, just before he turned 18 he decided he didn’t want to join the Army so he left and went to America. Then the war came. And I got captured. By the time I got back from Siberia we had lost track of each other. The only reason I knew he was still alive is from my sisters.”

“Sisters. I didn’t know you had sisters.”

He looked at me as if I were the crazy one. How could I not know that he had sisters? He was about to yell at me for being so stupid when Mama interjected “Benno, you never speak of your family. Never.  How is the boy to know?”

Papa sighed and said “I have three sisters. Two live in Oswiecim and the other in a small village near Lodz. I was the oldest. And Max was the baby. Enough! Now if we are to be the Bahnhof by 7:30 to greet your Uncle we must try to get a few hours sleep.”

Uncle Max looked like an American gangster. He wore a three-piece dark blue pin stripe, a light grey fedora with a dark band that was perched on his hand at a rakish angle. Papa and him embraced with a lot of backslapping and a few tears. I had never Papa cry before and I was a little embarrassed by it but I guess when you have not seen your brother in over 30 years it is okay to have a tear or two.

Papa introduced Mama to him. After they had kissed each other on both cheeks  he asked Mama what a pretty woman like her was doing with a man like his brother. I think Mama blushed. She was clearly charmed. Then it was my turn. He bent down to look me straight in the eye and then turned to my father and asked “Who is this little soldier.” Papa replied “This is Hugi. My son. Your nephew.” Max didn’t do the thing most adults do. Automatically assume that can give you a hug. Instead, he put out his hand and said “ Hugi, nice to meet you. I am your Uncle Max. I cannot wait to get to know you.” I didn’t say anything, I was shy when I was 11, but I shook his hand, but I knew instantly I liked this man who spoken German with an American accent.

The next two days were a whirlwind of activity. Max had never been to Vienna so we had to show the capital of the empire he was born into. I loved this part. Max would take me by the hand and say come on Hugi lets look at this together.  Then, as we would walk around the Maria Theresa monument or whatever it was that we were looking at, he would whisper conspiratorially to me “Lets go and get some Palatschinken after this? As I have an unlimited capacity for pastries and sweets I would always agree. 

On one of these expeditions into Vienna we happen to pass Winter’s department store. He said to Papa “Lets buy Hugi some clothes.” So off we went into the store and for the first time in my life I was purchased a suit and it had long pants. Up until that time I had never owned a pair.” While I was getting fitted, what an experience, I saw Max take a large roll of American dollars out of his pocket and peel off a few bills which he gave his brother and said “Here, when the time for Hugi to become a Bar Mitzvah, buy him suit so that he will be an honour to the family. Papa at first tried to push the money away but eventually accepted.

I never got that suit. Not because Papa did not save the money to buy it for me. I am sure he would have. But six weeks before my big day, on the Night of The Broken Glass, they burned our synagogue down. We could see it burn from our apartment. That is until they came and arrested my father but that is another story.

Mama and Papa also hosted a small party for Max in our apartment. All of Mama’s family was invited along with some of the ladies from Mama’s sewing group and a few neighbours. They all brough homemade cake and some of Mama’s friends helped us out by bringing plates and cups as we only had enough for ourselves. Some of the men brought along some schnapps which they used to keep keeping their coffee interesting. All of them wanted to know what life was like in America and peppered Max with questions about his life there. He was very patient with them. He told them his own story. He had arrived in America with the world on the brink of war. That he had worked hard to learn English and eventually got a job working in a grocery store. When prohibition had come along, he had opened up his own dry goods store that may have helped some powerful people skirt the law and he had been rewarded with a liquor license when prohibition had been repealed. Now, he was a US citizen owned two businesses, a home and a car and had an American wife. He told everyone that this was not him being lucky. That if you came to American and you worked hard,  that life could be anyone’s.

I am not sure everyone believed him. It sounded too much like a fairy tale for most. It certainly did to me. A house, when all I had ever lived in was a one room apartment. It sounded impossible. I know it did for Papa too. Late that night, after everyone had gone and I had been put to bed, I overheard Mama and Papa having a conversation with Max. He was trying to convince them to immigrate to America. He told them he would do everything. He would find them both good jobs. An apartment or a house to live in. He told them that the schools were good where he lived. That I could get a good education. Perhaps even go to college. No matter what it would be better than breaking your back in an abattoir all day and not even be able to afford a bedroom of your own.

I got the sense that this hurt Papa’s pride. He was the older brother and clearly Max was living a better life that he was. He told Max that he was too old to leave this country and way too old to have to learn another language. “Besides” he added “They take so few people. How would we ever get a visa?”

Max was silent for a moment and said “Listen, there is a war coming. We see as far away as America  And if what we read about Herr Hitler is true,  it will be another pogrom. It will not be good for Jews here. As far as the quotas are concerned, I know people…people who owe me favors, people who can speed things along. .besides what harm could it be to apply. I will pay the fees and you can always say no.

By the time we saw Uncle Max off we had completed all the paperwork at the US Embassy required to apply for the Visa. They had told us there that the quota for Poles (applicants were classified by where you were born not lived) was 12,000 per year  and the current wait time for a visa was 4 years. This seemed so distant in the future that it hardly worth thinking about. And it seemed we had forgotten all about our chance to go to America the minute we waved good bye to Max at the Bahnhof.  Instead, we made other plans. More realistic plans. Papa and Mama to Poland and Tad and I would take Tomahawk down the Danube.

1

“Well, we are sitting pretty,” said Tad to me, rubbing his neck, “Just two small things and we are ready to go.” He must have noticed from my frown and quickly tried to butter over it.

“Don’t worry,” he said without looking at me, “You can rely on me. We’ll manage to get them. Word of honour! Give me a little time.”

“Sure Tad,” I said, “my parents are leaving for Poland by the end of this month. And I’ll be stranded in Vienna with a submarine that has no propeller and a conning tower that has no door. If we don’t have waterproof door we cant dive.”

You see, we did manage to build a conning tower for Tomahawk. Naturally it is the first thing you do if you are going to build a submarine. We followed a large steel oil drum that was simply perfect. And, after a lot for trouble, we fitted this drum with three small glass windows. We planned to enter and to leave the boat through the opening in the top for the tower. Unfortunately, that required a cover that could easily be opened and closed that was absolutely waterproof.

It took Tad’s pain in the neck to solve that problem. Tad often suffered from boils. They were painful and they made him irritable. The boils made him feverish and they had to be lanced. His mother would nag at him and say,” You are just like your father, eating all that junk. Id you ate less spicy food, you wouldn’t have so much trouble with your skin. Dr. Schimmel gets fatter every year with the money I pay him for your boils.”

It was in Dr. Schimmel’s surgery that Tad found the solution to the conning tower problem, although it turned out to be a little more complicated than that. He explained to me that just after the doctor had lanced his boil, he was sitting for the dressing to be put on, he noticed a shiny machine in a corner of the room. The door of this machine had a large locking wheel in its centre and that instantly reminded him of a submarine because had seen wheels just like in pictures of submarine hatches.

He asked the nurse what that machine was and this is how Tad found out about the autoclave that Dr. Schimmel used to sterilize his instruments and that’s how he got the idea.

He came to me the next day, smiling mysteriously, and then told me about the autoclave with very considerable flourish.

“There you are!” he said very smugly. “All we have to do is to cut this autoclave machine in half  and bolt it inside the conning tower.”

When I asked, Tad tilted his head, wrinkled his forehead, and then guessed that the autoclave weighed 100 kilograms.

Dr. Schimmel’s  office was on the third floor of a house located on a busy street corner. It was clear to me that Dr. Schimmel’s machine was beyond the reach of the Kiowa and of Raffles and, unfortunately, beyond the reach of Tad Saegerer and Hugi Flossel. I felt moved to let Tad know.

“All we have to do now,” said I, pulling his cap over his eyes, “is to put on our Siegfried invisibility helmets, attach helium balloons to the autoclave, and carry it downstairs and to the hut. Agreed?”

“Ouch,” said Tad, “you just banged my lanced boil. You got a wicked mouth, you know!”

“Perhaps,” said I, to console him a little, “perhaps , we could run Tomahawk with the tip of the conning tower out of  the water. Who would pay much attention to an oil drum floating in the middle of a wide river?”

Tad’s face brightened a little and this encouraged me to continue.

“We could travel at dawn and at dusk and tie up in a hidden place on the bank during the  day. The river in Hungary, after the big bend to the south, becomes very wide.” And here I mad the mistake of slipping into a sort of Indian monotone and spreading  my arms wide, palms to the ceiling , like a brave with many scalps on his belt who was haranguing the palaver circle.

“The dim light of dawn and dusk is the friend of the warrior. Our enemies’ eyes are too weak to spot us on the wide waters In the papoose light of the morning and in the toothless evening light . It will be easy!”

That was too much even for Tad. I’m sure it wasn’t what I said but rather that I had usurped his role. He now made his voice hard and military.

“Out of the question!”, he snapped at me, “There will be military check points all along the way. We must always be prepared to deal with fast patrol boats . They will have orders to investigate any mysterious floating object . They will fire a burst with their machine gun on anything suspicious and sink us. We’ll never ever reach Brastislava without the capability to dive. Our exploits will have made us famous and they will have orders to hunt us.”

The thought of becoming famous alarmed me.

“I can see” , I said, “we will be stealing an autoclave before the week is up. And before that we will be heisting a small van. You can learn to drive really quickly and I will operate the small crane we will be borrowing.”

“Why are you so sarcastic?” sighed Tad. The question sounded like the beginning of a long conversation but it was never pursued.

Deus ex machina! A favourite joke of Realgymnasium XVII miserable Latin scholars! In each public comfort station in Vienna stood a coin machina that sold rubber contraceptives. Deus was supposed to be the brand name of a condom.

Our Deus ex machine was one of Mama’s cousin, Felix Nussbaum. Felix was by trade an upholster but the Nazi’s had taken over his shop in the summer of 1938. He now eked out a living by moving household belongings of Jews who had been thrown out of their apartments. Occasionally Felix supplemented his income by buying a few pieces of old furniture and selling them at a small profit. Nussbaum’s main tool of trade, had been the upholsterer’s need and waxed thread. Now it was a small four-wheeled card that he pulled through the streets with a cloth sling made of upholsterer’s tape. When Felix had an unusually big job, he sometimes hired me to help him. Deus/Nussbaum with his four-wheeled machine, found Dr.Fuchs who was leaving a thirty years of eye, ear and nose proactive to go to Shanghai via the Trans-Siberian railway. Felix had brought a few pieces of the office furniture that Fuchs had to leave behind. He asked me to help him move it.

I should have known something good was going to happen that day because I saw a chimneysweep walking by just as I was coming out of the house in the morning. And there it was! Amidst the untidy assortment trays and glassed cabinets in Dr.Fuch’s nearly empty apartment , stood an autoclave, the size of beer barrel . Crumpled on a chair in what used to be the waiting room, we found Mrs. Fuchs. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Through the deep sobs she told us that the trip to Shanghai was off for the time being because her husband had been arrested by the Gestapo during the night.

From the tear punctuated conversation between Nussbaum and Mrs. Fuchs, I gathered that Felix was now the owner of all of the remaining medical equipment. It turned out that the autoclave’s gas heater was hopelessly broken. That was lucky because, otherwise , it would have been confiscated by the Nazi functionary who had taken charge of Fuchs’s property, and who had already taken all obviously valuable pieces of equipment.

Nussabaum listened to doctor’s wife with sympathy as long as decorum required. Then he told me that we would take the autoclave and the other equipment to the back room of Muller’s upholstery shop. The owner, an old friend of Felix’ allowed him to use the shop as a temporary storeroom.

We loaded everything on the small hand cart and tied the pieces down and began to drag the squeaking cart through the streets. It took me several blocks before I screwed up enough courage to ask.

“Uncle Felix”, I started. Promoting someone to uncle has a very soothing effect on people. “I have been looking for an autoclave for two months now. Our trade school needs one so that the plumber’s apprentices can practice installing technical equipment.” That worked wonders with Nussbaum who was an old time socialist and sympathetic with the aims of the Jewish Agency School. He fervently believed more Jews should learn crafts. The machine was obviously broken, and without hesitation, he told me that I could have the autoclave if I would cart it away.

And so it was that two days later, Tad and I were pulling a hand cart loaded with canvas covered autoclave, through the early morning streets of Vienna to the inundation area on the banks of the Danube.

I worried ! Suppose the theft of the water heaters or the sails had been reported to the authorities. What would we say if the police stopped us on the way to the hut with the autoclave or on the way back with an empty car? I had a stomach ache the whole way.

We reached the dirt road without incident but now it became clear that we had new problem. The temperature had been above freezing for several days. The wheels of the cart were leaving deep tracks in the muddy surface of the narrow trail.

“Don’t be concerned” said Tad before I got one word out of my mouth. “I know a trick to take care of this.” He took his jack knife from his pants pocket and cut a thick bundle of branches. With these he tried to obscure the tracks by sweeping over them. Winnetou often hid his horse’s hoof prints in this way but id did not work well for our small, heavily loaded cart.

I think I looked back over the trail and mumbled, ”It’s a good thing the Sioux didn’t use small hand carts on their war raids. This challenged Tad to further effort. As soon as we had dragged the autoclave into the hut , he cut more branches and started to back track along the trail, more furiously attacking the wheel marks with his crude besom. Meanwhile I was contemplating the autoclave and trying to decide how to fit it in the conning tower. If the autoclave could be cut to about one third its length, it could be set upside down in the steel drum. Perhaps its walls could be flared to make me some kind of waterproof fit.

A distant noise startled me from my thoughts. I knelt by the reed curtain at the base of the hut to listen. Definitely human voices! I scrabbled up the small overgrown rise on the land side of hut in order to getr a better view. Slowly, I raised my head. Tad was swatting in the roadway, about 200 meters away. He was holding a string that was tied to a large bundle of sticks . Towering over him was an elderly man holding a fishing pole. I could not see exactly what they were doing because of the tangle of willow branches that were in my way. Tad seems to be doing most of the talking. Finally, the old man turned and started to walk briskly from away from the hut and towards the bridge. Still dragging the bundle of sticks, Tad followed him but at a much slower pace.

 I watched them until they disappeared behind the bend, all the while trying to collect my thoughts. What happened? What should I do? It seemed wisest to leave the place and wait hidden some place where I could watch the hut to see whether  anyone came.

I crawled unto the stone covered embankment and then quickly ran upstream towards the bridge where Tad had been talking to the old man, I cut through the underbrush to a low hummock overgrown with high reeds. From here, I could watch both the road and the clump of willows according the hut.

For a while all was silent. The wind moaned and the water splashed hard against the bank. Then thumping feet approaching rapidly along the road. Tad was running extremely fast towards the hut. I let him pass and waited to see whether anyone was following. No one came. After a few minutes, I started back towards the riverbank and then retraced my steps to the hut. I approached very quietly, using the pigeon – toed walk that Tad had assured me was the way Indians walked when they moved silently.

Tad was standing by the side of the hut, carefully studying the dry underbrush. He was startled when I touched his shoulder and I noticed, for the first time that he squinted when frightened, as if he were expecting a slap in the face.

He recovered his composure immediately. “Hugi, I heard you coming all the way. You should have crouched when you approached me . The way you stood; I could easily have given you the Siamese killer chop in the solar plexus.”

I was too concerned about the encounter with the old man to argue. “For heaven’s sake, what happened to you on  the road with that man?”

Tad laughed . “Cream puff filling!”, he said proudly. No problems at all. The old guy was fishing and he saw me with a bundle of sticks weeping the tracks away. But that dodo thought I was collecting firewood. I agreed with him right way. Before we were finished, I had the old man feeling sorry for me because my mother was working me too hard. He even gave me two marks.”

Tad flipped the coin triumphantly up in the air. “It was lucky”, said Hugi,” he did not notice the car tracks.”

“Cart tracks, hell! That old man didn’t even notice he still had goulash stain in his moustache from breakfast!”

And so it appeared to us that a threat to Tomahawk had been averted. “What’s more,” added Tad, “ I no have a brilliant idea for getting the empty cart out of where. We will load it with dry bush and sticks. Its winter. Coal is just rationed. If we meet someone on the way back, they’ll just assume that we have been collecting firewood.”

Delicious is the joy in danger just passed. We whistled and joked all the way across town.

I had a shock in store for me when I reached home. Its stopped me speechless at the kitchen door. There were two large empty spaces in the main room. The worn couch and the washstand with the cracked marble top were gone. They had been sold that morning to a neighbour, a widow, and she had insisted on them moving out right away. What was left were too yellowish rectangles of bare floorboard , which stood in sharp contrast to the remainder of the dull brown floor.

I was born in the big bed in the center of the room and I lived all of my thirteen years in this place. It had always been the same without a single change, except for the time when my infant bed had been sold and a used folding chair had been bought in its place. It upset me to look at the empty places where the familiar furniture had stood.

“Its not me who is abandoning them,” I said to myself as if in consolation, as I lay in bed. “Nothing will remain the same. Even if I did not go down the river, all will be gone. Don’t torture yourself. The change is not of your making, it will take place regardless of what Tad and I do.” Then I heard Papa coughing the dark, and my eyes flooded with stinging tears.  

It heavily rained the next day. I awoke in the morning with a headache and I was sure I was running a temperature. Mama heard me sniffle and came right over to inspect her patient. She took nursing very seriously and , in her way, she was very good at it, although she was a little to energetic about it for my taste. I was confined to bed and fed bitter Lindenblossom tea and honey. I hated the musty taste of that tea. But she sat by the side of my bed and did not take her eyes off me until I swallowed every last drop of that repulsive green liquid . Then she applied lukewarm compresses to my neck. I think Mama’s theory was that unaffected parts must be treated in order to make sure they remained neutral because so far I had not complained of sore throat.

I endured het treatment methods stoically like a good Spartan boy. I might even have enjoyed them a little and, by and large, the cold was not an unpleasant interlude for me . Papa’s revelation about an earlier departure date had stunned me. We needed to get back to Tomahawk and finish our work. There was precious little time. Outside, great sheets of rain shattered themselves against the red tile of the low apartment building across the street. From time to time the wind moaned angrily in the stove pipe. I snuggled deeper under my feather-stuffed cover and listened to the fierce rain breaking against the window panes. Tomorrow we can start to work on Tomahawk again We could walk along the stone revetments so we would not leave tracks. Tad would bring the pumps and the bicycle gears down. Two or three trips should do it, if he uses his father’s big rucksack. Then I closed my eyes and clenched my jaws and tried to send Tad telepathic messages. Its all in the way that you squeeze your jaw muscles. I felt sure I got through to Tad.

Next to my bed was Hangenbauer’s Practical Physics of Diving. I had tried very hard to read it, but it was too difficult for me. I did not have the science or the math to fully understand the principals discussed. There were long words whose meanings I could only guess at. But somehow I had to find out more about diving before we got Tomahawk underway. In our friendship, I am the worrier. The one who sweats the details. Tad, on the other hand, is the imaginative one. At times, his indestructible , boundless confidence was very hard to take. He once explained to me in all seriousness that God has bestowed special abilities on him and that success was always his if he willed it hard enough. Everything has gone alright for Tad in the past , therefore everything would go alright in the future. He said he was a vessel chartered by fate. Honestly, he did! in addition he had a strong aversion to textbooks or any other printed works that smacked of school and that had kept Tad from thinking seriously about how to make Tomahawk work as a submarine.

I lay in bed and leafed idly through the crowded algebra – riddled pages of Hangenbauer. It was miraculous that my plans, and the plumbing of Tomahawk that we had already built, made as much sense to me as they did. We had been guided only by several cross-sectional drawings of a submarine that had been built during the American War of Independence by Bunshell. But I thought I knew pretty clearly what would happen when we let water through these pieces of copper tubing into the dive tanks and I knew what we had to do to pump the water out again. What really worried me was numbers. Weight , volume, displacement! I knew these were important but I did not know how to deal with them., The formulas I found were completely beyond my reach. This could be very serious and I wished that Tad would worry with me about it . may be the boat had too much volume and was too light . the two hot water tanks were probably too small and Tomahawk might not go down far enough when the tanks were flooded. Because of this I had designed two ballast boxes that we could fill with stones and attach to the outside of Tomahawk. But then these boxes might be too heavy and we would never come up again. So I though of a way to release them from the inside of the boat by twisting some threaded steel rods that were seated in the ballast boxes. Gustl, under the influence of the last of the Kuemmel had cut and threaded eight of these rods last week.

At 7:30 AM on November 13th, Tad arrived at our apartment. I could have crawled under the bed when I heard Tad ask Mama whether I was up yet and ready for our midwinter outing to the Kahlenberg.

Mama came into the room with Tad , shaking her head as she looked out od the window. A light drizzle was still falling on the city. The cobblestoned streets, still not well lighted , despite the lifting of the blackout , looked dark and cold. Mama’s doubts were clearly apparent in her voice.

“Today , you are planning to go on an outing?” she asked. “Even if Hugi were well, I wouldn’t let him go into the woods on a nasty day like this .” I am sure that Mama would have  said something stronger but the fact that Tad was a gentle inhibited her. She liked Tad. She thought of him to be a warm boy , although she had complained about his alarmingly extravagant language. But she had told me several times that it was not a good idea for him and Tad to be so close. I couldn’t decide whether that was because she saw our continued friendship to be dangerous , our whether she sensed that Tad was the instigator of some secret undertaking ,some boyish foolishness that could get us into trouble. Tad came to my bedside . I grinned when I saw the rucksack on his back.

“You must have gotten the thought waves I sent you yesterday,” I said as soon as Mama had left the room.

“Naturally” replied Tad, “Let’s have a little palaver.”

The pumps looked entirely too potent and military for me to have anything to do with them in the streets of Vienna. We agreed it would be a lot safer if Tad carried them down to the inundation area by himself. If a Jew were found in possession of all that strange hardware there could be serious trouble.

“If I am stopped and questioned said Tad ,”I will say that I am trying to build a submarine.” That, he thought, would go over well even with the SS. What could be more patriotic for an Aryan boy than to build a submarine for himself so that he could emulate the exploits of Ritterkreuzwinner Commander Prien , the hero of Scapa Flow.

Despite my joy in seeing my telephatic mesaage promptly answered , I was pretty miserable. I felt weak and hot. I had the shivers and my nose was running, as Tad said, like a waterfall. It clearly was not a good idea for me to make the long trek to the fisherman’s hut. And so , to Mama’s relief , Tad left by himself for the great midwinter Kahlenberg outing at ten o’ clock.  By seven o’clock that evening, he stopped by the apartment again to report that the pumps and the other gear were safely at the hut. The news had immense therapeutic value. I whistled aloud and asked for plain tea with sugar , and , privately , I resolved to go down to the river the next morning. I am sure Mama wondered what Tad whispered into my ear that brought on such remarkable improvements in my health.

Even strong resolutions go astray. I did not get to the inundation are the next day. . The delay was not due to my cold but rather all three of us Flossels being summoned to the Jewish Community Center for processing . A Jewish doctor gave all the people who were salted for the transport a thorough physical examination with an SS officer present even for the women. Each family was interviewed by two dignified Jewish functionaries assisted by a scribe who wrote detailed protocols. What I liked best was that I was given an intelligence test. My only regret was that the psychologist , a tall, blue-eyed woman,  would not even give me  a hint of my score. She became very mysterious when I asked her the purpose of the test. Papa was very about all this because he saw this carrying-on as a sign hat the plans for the transport to Poland were going forward as scheduled. He was clearly ready to go. Now he began to worry that something about us Flossels may have been unsatisfactory on the physical examination or the interview and that might cause us to be taken off the transport.  Tad , on the other hand, tried to convince me that the intelligence test meant that they were planning to send me back to school as soon as I arrived in Poland.

It had turned very cold when we finally got down to the hut again and the ground was covered by a frozen crust. I was very pleased. At least there would be no footprints to draw attention to the willow grove that now, without its leave s, barely concealed our hut from the dirt path that paralleled the river.

The pumps worked well. Tad broke trough the thin clear ice that had formed at the edge of the river and dropped the end of the garden hose into the water. We set the pumps in reverse and began pedalling to suck water into the dive tanks. Fist with surprise and then with alarm, we watched as the boat groaned deeper into its roller cradle.

“Not a shrews on our part,” said I , ever the engineer. “First, the weight of the water might rip the tanks off the sides of the boat. Second, if these pumps don’t work in blowing out the tanks , the water inside will freeze by evening and crack the seams of the tanks wide open. Don’t you remember Professor Rosenkranz’s demonstration when we froze the filled milk bottle and it broke?

Dark prophecy! When we began to pedal again, the pumps offered no resistance. No water came out of the tanks. Tad frantically checked for leaks, rapped the valves and the pumps with the handle of his screwdriver, and then held his thumbs in his fists in the ancient Viennese appeal for good luck. I kept repeating the blow out procedure over and over again. Nothing! I was ready to bawl but then I suddenly remembered something.

Like an ass I had forgotten to close the front valves. The pumps were pushing out air there instead of forcing out the water. With a sigh of relief I got up and closed the valve on the right pump cylinder and Tad promptly followed my example on the other side. Instantly the pumps resisted. We stood on the bicycle pedals. With an obscene squish, water spurted out of the exit ports.

“Stand by for surfacing” ordered Commander Sagerer, “prepare to man the 7.5-centimetre cannon.”

It took heavy pedalling. The pumps strained and squeaked. Soon both the tanks were empty. I tapped the sides of the tanks and opened the drain valves . Empty for sure!

“Fabulous” panted Tad, leaning exhausted against the side of the boat, “It’s doing just what you said .We built ourselves a genuine submarine.”

“Yea,” said I, ”it dives and surfaces like a yo-yo inside a dry fisherman’s hut. Submarines unfortunately have to work in real wet water without drowning their crew.” Tad looked at me , shook his head , and did a very curious thing.

“Hugi, my friend,” he said , grabbing my shoulders, “what am I going to do with you? You are much too young to be such a sour ball.” And then leaned over and kissed me on my sweaty cheek.

When I got out of bed the next morning it was as if I had not slept at all. Perhaps I had not.

My sleep had been punctuated by nightmares populated by wolves hunting me. In most of them, I was in a strange ancient forest with tall trees with wide branches that kept the sunlight from penetrating to the ground with only intermittent beams breaking through the canopy. I would be running, sweat running down my face, clothes in tatters and I could hear the baying of the pack in the distance. When I could run no longer I’d hide behind trees until I caught my breath and then run some more with the howling growing ever nearer. Finally, I would make it to my destination. A wide dark river, that miraculously had a small punt on its shore. I would run to the boat and push into the black water and only notice after jumping in the boat the large wolf, teeth bared and growling, standing in the stern of the little boat.

Mama knew when I did not sleep well and was always gentle with on those mornings. Today was not difference, she told me to go down the hall to the communal bathrooms to clean up and when I came back, she would have a special breakfast for me this morning. When I returned, she had set up our little table several pieces of rough brown bread, a cup of black tea and the miracle, a small container of honey. How she managed to get this precious thing I did not think to ask as just looking at it made my mouth drool. I must have looked like a baby shark with its first kill attacking that food because Mama chuckled with joy and kissed me on my head.

When I had finished and was licking the last of the golden syrupy off my finger tips Mama said. “Hugi, today you must do an errand for me. You must take the ties to Winters.”

Perhaps I should explain. Mama was trained to be a seamstress at the Orphans Home in Vienna. No, she was not an orphan. Exactly. It is complicated.  She was born in Sopron, Hungary and her father had died when she was three. Her mother, Lilly,  was  my grandfather Mordecai’s third wife and in addition to the three children she had with him there were ten other children. It was decided, I don’t know how, to send Mama to live with Lilly’s sister, Pepi and her husband Sigmund.in Fahrafeld in Lower Austria. It is was a wonderful place for a little girl to grow up.  I know because during the summer Mama would send me to live with Pepi and it was there amongst the streams, meadows and hills that I learned the skills of a Kiowa warrior. (Or at least I imagined I did especially after reading one of Karl May’s books.). Sigmund, was a master tailor. All the local gentry, including Duke Leopold, came to him to have their clothing made. Mama used to help him and showed an aptitude for needlework. When he died when Mama was 13, it was decided that it would be best if she were placed in a Jewish Orphanage that specialized in teaching children tailoring.

When I small child I could sit and watch Mama sew for hours. Whether it was on the small pedal driven sewing machine that occupied a small corner of our apartment or doing hand stitching. It all seemed so effortless for her. The most amazing part of it all is that she could do all these things with a needle and thread while having complete conversations with other people and never missed a stitch. Perhaps that is how she and her friends got into the business of making ties. A friend would come to our apartment to kibbitz and Mama would be sewing away and they would join in. Or perhaps it happened some other way. No matter how it began, every morning, after their husbands left for work these ladies would gather in our apartment and make ties. One of them, I do not know who, arranged to have these ties sold to Winter’s Department store. Once a week or so, one of the ladies would take the ties to the stores, and collect the money owed to them.

Then, shortly after Kristallnacht, one of the ladies was beaten and robbed by a group of  brown shirts on hew way home from Winter’s. Since then one of the husbands was given the job of delivering the ties to Winters. And when that was not possible I became the chosen one. It was not a difficult job and usually Mama would give me a few Krone for my troubles. But it was not safe either. There had been more than once when some local tuffs had decided that my young jewish body was not tender enough and it needed a beating and I had been forced to run for it.

 I must have groaned a little because she said “Hugi, we need the money for our journey. It won’t be so bad. Why don’t you ask Tad to come with you. Maybe he would enjoy visiting with his Uncle.” Tad’s Uncle Anton was an impressive man. A decorated officer in the Great War, he had commanded the Crown Guard of Hungary before retiring in Vienna. A former colleague had offered him the General Manager’s job at Winters. Bored with a life leisure he had accepted. Tad adored his Uncle, and the stories he would tell of the War and the intrigue that went on within the Hungarian court.( I have to admit that his stories were fantastic but sometimes I thought them so fantastic that I thought there was a chance that he was just making up stories for our ears.) Regardless, whenever Mama tasked me with going to Winter’s to deliver her ties Tad was happy to tag along in the hopes that we get a chance to see his Uncle.

That afternoon, I was waiting for Tad in the Park by his school. I had drawn the wolfs paw mark symbol in chalk on sidewalk outside the school knowing he would see it and come to our meeting place on the playground. But not before I was spotted by Fritz Bauer, the son of the superintendent of our building. The Bauers, father, mother and son had been amongst the cheering crowd at Anschluss. They taunted, insulted and spat at the Jewish families in the building at every opportunity. On Krystallnacht, as the storm troopers wrestled Papa out of the building Mr. Bauer brutally punched my father in the face, spat on him and called him a Jewish cur.

Fritz, who was a year younger than me, had picked up his parents habits. Whenever he saw me on the street, and I was alone, he would do what I could do to ignore him. What could I do? If I punched him or roughed him about like he deserve, he would no doubt go running to his parents and they to the police and my parents would be arrested. So, I took it. Or did most of the time. And today I was in no mood for him. I had too many things on my mind between Mama and Papa’s plan to move to Poland, the Tomahawk,  and my planned escape down the Danube and the  conflict between the two of them. Consequently, when he said to me “Hey there Jew boy. What you have hidden in that bag…your horns.” I lost it. I walked up to him and as I was a few centimetres taller than him, bent over and said in my most menacing voice “Don’t leave your apartment after dark. We are everywhere. If we see you, we will take you to our secret temple and perform the ancient ritual of circumcision, implant horns onto your heads, and make you a Jew just like us.” His face turned white and a look of sheer terror overtook him and he ran away. How stupid of me. I should not be making trouble but sometimes you can’t help it.

Just then Tad showed up. Pointing at the fleeing Fritz he said “What is that all about?”

“Nothing. Just a Kiowa warrior letting pale face know what happens when you venture to far from your tribe.”

Tad laughed “ So good. It is good to know that you still have something dangling between your legs…” Then noticing the bag said “Winters?”

“Yes. We need to deliver ties for Mama. She thought you would like to come along and see your Uncle.”

“Why not. I don’t have anything else to do if we are not working on Tomahawk. Do you want to try the Tram.”

Normally, I would have said “yes” even though we were not allowed but the Fritz confrontation has shaken me. I did not want to risk another.” No lets walk. We can spend the time making a list of the things we need to complete on Tomahawk.

We arrived at Winter’s just before 16:00 and made our way around to the merchants entrance in the back of the store. Milling around the entrance were a half dozen stubble face, roughly dressed young men hoping that Winter’s might need an extra hand or two unloading trucks and failing that finding a little trouble that would allow them to feel a little better about themselves. They gave Tad and me a hard time as we walked by shoving us along and warning us what they would do to us if we took their opportunity away. One of them, I guess the leader, kept flicking open and then closing a gravity knife to intimidate us. It worked.

We hurried into the store and made our way past the loading docks and the racks of suits and dresses on trolley’s waited to be moved to storerooms to a small booth just inside the service entrance. There, a stern looking man with a toothbrush moustache, just like Herr Hitlers, demanded to know why we were here despite the fact he asked me the same question many times before. I told him that I had a delivery for Herr Gruber, the tie buyer at Winters. He scowled at us but reluctantly called upstairs and within fairly short order Herr Gruber arrived and escorted us into a small room directly adjacent to the guard’s booth.

Herr Gruber was a tall, very slim, and elegantly dressed man. I had never seen him with anything about his person out of place, not even a hair. He was also very formal with a ramrod posture and a pair of Pince Nez glasses that seemed perfectly at home on his nose. He never engaged in niceties such as asking after our health or for that matter even speculating about weather and always got right down to business. Today, though, something was different. He would not meet my eye and seemed furtive as if he was about to give me an unpleasant surprise.

He said “How many ties have you brought me today, Hugi.”

I put the paper satchel I had been carrying and placed on the table and replied “I have a 100 ties.”

He turned the bag on it side and began to pull each tie of the bag individually and inspecting carefully to make sure the stitching was immaculate and up to his standards. This took some time and Tad and impatiently squirmed in our chairs.”

He gave us his version of a smile, a minor upturn of the corner of the mouth, as if anything beyond that would be painful and said “As usual, the workmanship is beautiful. How much have we agreed to pay for the ties?”

This was an odd question and immediately put me on alert as the price had been the same for as long as I had been delivering ties for Mama.  “Herr Gruber, respectfully sir but you know the price has always been the same two deutschmarks per tie.”

He bowed his slightly and removing his glasses from his nose looked at me as what he was about to say to me was personally painful to him. “I am sorry Hugi but we can no longer pay you that amount. We have been told that we need to reduce what we are paying our Jewish merchants. I am only authorized to pay one point five deutschmarks per tie.”

I protested “But that is unfair. Mama and her friends made these ties under the promise that you pay two.” And making it up added “ 1.5 is barely enough to cover the cost of the cost of the fabric.”

“Hugi, I wish I could pay you more, but I cannot. You can either accept our offer or you are free to go and sell the ties to someone else. What do you want to do? “

What do I do? It was so unfair. Mama and her friends were counting on the money that the ties made them. They needed this money for food, for rent. They were barely getting by as it is. We needed the money too. Mama and Pappa were going off to Poland to start a new life. They needed every deutschmark they could find. Everyone would yell at me for not getting more money and call me a lazy ignorant boy who should have been able to negotiate more.

Just as I was about to throw in the towel Tad, who had been sitting silently next to me, said “Herr Gruber, would you mind if we spoke to my Uncle, Herr Steyr. Perhaps he can help explain better why the price you are paying for ties has changed.”

I could of kissed Tad. It got me out of my predicament. No matter what happened I could tell Papa and the others that we had called the store manager. Herr Gruber was less pleased with Tad’s utterance. His normally pinched face got more so, like he just sucked a whole lemon. He replied primly “Your Uncle is Herr Steyr? Very good. I will call him, but I doubt that he can change things. Our order are coming directly from the government.”  

Herr Gruber excused himself and went in search of Tad’s Uncle. I leaned over to him and whispered “That was a smart move Shatterhand. Call in Calvary.” Tad looked smug, as he often did when I praised him and replied “It was nothing, Winnetou. You will see. My Uncle will make sure you are treated well.”

Fifteen minutes later, and just as I was beginning to squirm, Herr Gruber returned looking, chastened, and if possible, even more pinched than before. Behind him strode Tad’s Uncle. Tall, with a long narrow face accented with a Ronald Colman moustache he had an erect bearing and command presence that befit his military background. His gaze fell on me and then switched over to Tad and said “Well, nephew what do you have to say for yourself. Herr Gruber, tells me that you are making all sorts of trouble….as usual.”

“Uncle, I was not trying to be troublesome. But didn’t you always tell me that we are supposed to try to do the right thing. That is what I was trying to do. The store promised Hugi’s Mom two deutschemarks per tie and Herr Gruber told us that he can only pay them one and half because of some new regulation. That is not fair. Isn’t Winter’s promises good anymore.”

Tad surprised me. A lawyer could not have argued our case any better. As silly and fanciful as he could be when it was needed he knew how to rise to the occasion.

Herr Steyr nodded and turned his gaze on Herr Gruber who responded without being asked “Herren, you know the new regulations about dealing with Jewish businesses. I was only trying to follow my instructions.”

“ Ah so. I understand.  You were trying to accomplish but isn’t Winter’s Department store’s reputation important too. Aren’t we supposed to live up to our word. What if became known that we tried to cheat our vendors?  We would not have a business anymore. Yes. What is the difference between what we promised and what you know want to pay them.”

“Fifty Deutschemarks.”

“Well don’t you think that is a small price to pay for our reputation?” Obsequiously, Herr Gruber nodded. “So go and get Herr Floessel his money. I will sign the chit so you if there are any problems, I will be responsible.”

When Gruber had left the room, Tad’s Uncle demeanour completely changed. His erect bearing became a little less stiff and the stern look on his face morphed into the happy smile of a benevolent and loving Uncle. He waggled his finger at Tad and said “One day young man, you are going to get us both into a pickle that I won’t be able to get us out of.” For years afterward, I wondered whether this was mere conversation or prophecy.

He added “If you boys can wait here for another 30 minutes. I will be happy to drive you home. Probably, safer for you Hugi with all those Deutschemarks in your pocket.”

45 minutes were driving down Kartner Strasse in Uncle Anton’s pale yellow 1938 Skoda Rapid Saloon. I knew the car instantly because even though I had rarely driven in a private car I was totally besotted with them. How wonderful it would be to own a car and not have to wait for a tram or go wherever you wanted to go whenever you want to go there. I particularly like the Rapid. It had such a modern look with with a large chrome front grill that swept back into a long hood. Its large black fenders were streamlined and gave the car a sense of speed even when it was standing at the curve. And this car could go fast. I read somewhere it could reach 100 km/hr. How must that feel? The interior was just as modern as the exterior with large dials, impressive looking toggle switches. It even had a radio.

Both Tad and I were sitting in the front seat. I was closer to the door and Tad sitting next to his Uncle. Tad seemed as interested in the Skoda as I was but for different reasons for me it was the novelty of driving in a car but for Tad it was because the car was new to him. He asked “Uncle is this a new car? Didn’t you used to have  and have a BMW?”

Anton paused for a second before answering as if he was weighing how to answer this simple question. He looked at me before he answered and said “A friend of mine was immigrating to Shanghai and he needed to sell his car and gave me a very good price.” I, of course, knew what he meant although I am not sure Tad did. A lot of Jews were leaving in Vienna and going to Shanghai. Not only did it seem far away from the war but the only real restriction to going was the money for the steamer. And, of course, how to get your money out of Austria. It meant that those leaving had to sell everything they owned almost always for much less than their value. Then they would take the money and convert to items that could be hidden in their luggage on their person. This was dangerous. If you were caught trying to smuggle items out of Austria your exit visa would be revoked and you would be arrested and sent to a concentration camp. But what choice did they have. Getting to Shanghai with no money meant starvation or worse.

Uncle Anton changed the subject quickly. He asked Tad “Did you see that the car has a radio? Now I can drive and listen to music as I drive. Why don’t you turn it on and see if you can find us some nice music. Radio Salzburg usually has a concert at this hour.” Tad did not have to be asked twice. He turned on the radio and then after the glow of the tubes had steadied he adjusted the dial producing a lot of annoying static before finding the right frequency.” The car filled with dramatic music and the rich sounds of a choir in full exalted voice.

“Do you know this boys.” And as if sensing the shaking of our heads he answered his own question “It is the “Gloria” from Liszt’s Hungarian Coronation Mass.” The music seemed to take him to a different place and time and for a short  while there was only sounds in the car were that of the music and that of the tires against the pavement.

The silence made me uncomfortable. Remembering that Herr Skoda had once been the commander of the Crown Guard, (how could I forget. Tad was immensely proud of his Uncle.and whenever he was given a chance would start a sentence with “My uncle was the commander of the Crown Guard and he says” Or, “My Uncle was the commander of the Crown Guard he thinks.” It was annoying. I decided that I would get my revenge. “Herr Skoda, Tad tells me you once the Commander of Crown Guard. I never quite understood what they did? Why does a crown need its own guard?”

Tad shot me a look but Uncle Anton took the bait and asked “What do you know about the crown of St. Stephen? “

“It is the crown for the Hungarian King?’” I replied tentatively.

“It is far more than that. For 1000 years, since the Pope bestowed it on King Stephen, it has crowned every Hungarian King. No King is legitimate without it. But it is even more than that. It is said, that Hungary must have a King who is worthy of the crown that is worthy of the crown. Not the other way around. It is the symbol of all tha is special about Hungary. Then looking at me he said “One of my predecessors said “the Holy Crown is to Hungary what the Holy Ark is for the Jewish people.”

“The Crown Guard is different than other units in the army. Most swear to uphold the orders of the superiors and of the government. We, of the Crown Guard, swear with our lives to protect the Crown from anyone who seeks to usurp it’s power. For example, should the Nazi’s decide to replace the regent, Admiral Horthy, like they did with Schuschnigg, then it is certain that the Crown Guard would act and spirit The Crown and the Holy retinue out of Hungary and somewhere for safekeeping. This has happened many times in the past. King Bela IV escaping from Ghengis Khan, King Wenceslaus escaped with her to prague and it lay under thousands of corpses after the battle of Mohacs.”

He pauses and says “Can I trust you boys with a secret.” Tad and I both nod and tell him “of course.” And he adds. “No I am serious. No matter what happens to you or what the circumstance you must swear never to reveal what I am about to tell you. Raise your hands swear.” We, of course, said we would. We felt grown up being taken into Uncle Anton’s confidence.

For the next ten minutes Uncle Anton explained, in some detail, the plan that was in place to protect the Crown should it be threatened. There was a group of three Wardens who were appointed by Crown Regent Horthy whose sole charge was to ensure the safety of St. Stephen’s Crown. Should they determine it in danger, they would order the Holy Crown to be taken from its crypt by the Crown Guard, placed in specially created trunks that were secured with three unique keys and taken west, most likely a destination in Austria where it was to be hidden.

Tad and I were spell bound. It was as if we were pot of one of the cheap spy novels we would find discarded on trams or buy from a news agent when he had few extra coins in our pockets.

I asked “But what happens if your plot is discovered. Or the men are captured and forced to talk.” I said, shivering a little, thinking of the stories I had heard of Gestapo interrogation techniques.

“Hubi, we Hungarians are very clever. The Crown is too precious to the fate of our homeland and to those who want to use it to wield power to damage it. No one would dare damage the trunks that are carrying it. And there is no way into them without the keys. So, the keys will be distributed to three trustworthy men. The plan is that none of the other men who has the other keys. And of course that is what they will be told but it won’t be true. It would be too dangerous. One man will know the location of all three keys. Someone trusted. Someone whose loyalty cannot be questioned but is no longer actively in charge of protecting The Holy Crown. Someone who would not be suspected. Hmmm. Who could that be….” And then he looked over at both of us and winked.

That night I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come I thought about that conversation. The story of the Crown was so fantastic. But it confused me. Why would Tad’s uncle tell both of us this story. It was pretty hot stuff for two thirteen year old boys to be trusted especially if one was Jewish and had no connection to the crown. It could be ego. Letting us know how important he was but I did not get the sense that he was the time of man who needed to brag to feel important. No, there was a reason he told us. I just couldn’t figure it out.

And,  while over time it was a mystery that I would wonder about often right then it didn’t seem worth my while. I had much bigger problems that needed to be solved.

 

Mama and Papa began to prepare themselves for the journey east. We owned a little of value. Our entire furniture consisted of a large bed in which they slept and a small bed for me, a couch with broken springs, a marble washstand with a cracked pitcher, two wardrobes filled with very old clothing, and Mama’s sewing machine. That is what they had seem able to gather during the many hard years for their life. All of it fitted into one small room and one small kitchen. The secondhand furniture dealer that came to the apartment, smiled apologetically and offered them a few marks for the lot. It would cost more than its worth to move it away. Mama, despite the tears it cost her , sold a few gold trinkets she owned. Papa was concerned about the harsh polish winter, and he said that he wanted to make sure we had sound shoes and some warm clothing. With money from Mama’s earrings and a pearl pin she inherited from her mother many years ago, he was able to buy a used pair of jack boots for himself and to have good soles put on them. Mama traded a few meters of wool cloth , she had been saving, with a neighbor for an old but warm overcoat. Uncle Sigi gave me a short cloth coat with a moth-eaten sheepskin collar. It smelled bad and I didn’t like it at all but I didn’t tell anyone, not even Mama.

Besides trying to get some decent clothing together, there were all kinds of bureaucratic formalities that had to be taken care of, Certificates had to be obtained from the tax office , the police station, the housing office, and the rationing board. Mama and Papa spent waiting in the corridors of city offices.
The tug of war between the preparations for the trip that were taking place all around me and my planned last minute desertion were hard to bear. I usually loved getting ready for trips or excursions of any kind but now I didn’t know which way to turn. Could I get really involved with what my parents were doing when I carried the secret of Tomahawk in my heart. It was difficult for me to keep my course amidst the eddies of conflicting feelings – enthusiasm , sentiment , and anxiety ; hot , cold , excited and depressed. I became moody and tried to withdraw from Mama and Papa’s efforts to get ready for Poland. As a consequence we began to snap at each other frequently and argued over petty, inconsequential detail.

“Forgive me for saying it,” I heard Mama complain to Rosa Querbaum, “it is as if the trip to Poland is putting bitter pill in everything we taste.”

Meanwhile , Tad was searching , without much success, for the equipment that we needed to complete Tomahawk. A pump was required so that we could force water out of the dive tanks when we wanted to surface. My plans also called for a second set of bicycle pedals and sprocket wheels to operate the pump and to turn the propeller. Tad owned an old bicycle and its mechanism and frame was ready to be fitted into Tomahawk. But we planned to work the pumps and the propeller with two sets of pedals so that we could tread , simultaneously , while sitting side by side on the diving bench of the boat. Tad looked everywhere , junk shops, scrap yards ,and the attics and cellars of relatives but nothing suitable turned up.

On all Saint’s Day , Tad arrived in a wild state of excitement at our apartment. He had been scavenging in a backroom of his uncle’s automobile repair shop in Doebling. Amidst piles of car parts and metal junk , Tad had found a treasure hoard : two hydraulic cylinders that might serve as pumps , several bearings, and a long steel shaft that we might use to mount a propeller. He had dragged the pieces one by one , back to his apartment house and hid them in the coal cellar.

It was raining heavily when Tad arrived to make his triumphant announcement but I instantly put on my jacket. We raced each other to Tad’s house through streets that were now slick with rain.

“Perfect” I said , still panting ,”You are a genius. These cylinders are just right for the blowing process.” I stroked the greasy metal lovingly with my fingers.

“They are in very good condition. Perfect.”

“Agreed! Excellent! Let’s get them down to the hut right away.”

“I am not going near that hut,” I replied quickly. “With all this rain, the mud would  ground leave a trail that even a blind Indian could read. The police will see the trail and begin to patrol the road.”

“You made that stupid remark before!” Tad was peeved. The problem had not occurred to Tad and that stung his pride. He sat down heavily on the stairs and stared into the gloom. Outside the low cellar window, the rain intensified. It looked as if it would storm deep into the night. Tomorrow the ground would be a quagmire.

“I guess we will have to wait until have to wait until things dry out. .” The thought made me sick. It might rain for days. And then the snows would come. We might have to stay away from Tomahawk for the rest for months. What would happen then? In my heart I knew that if Tomahawk was not close to finished when my parents were ready to leave for Poland with them like a good little boy. We did not months. We may not even have weeks. Suddenly, I felt terribly blue and alone. My body seemed paper-thin and I sighed deeply as if my soul had sprung a leak.

“Wait,” said Tad. “I have an idea.” He need not have said anything. The glow in his face was clearly visible even in the deep gloom. “Since my uncle went back to his army unit from his leave , there is no one at the garage his part-time helper, Gusti. He’d let us work there. He isn’t dumb but he doesn’t have much imagination.”

That was a very interesting thought. “Hey,” I said, “do you really think we could get in there ? That garage would be perfect with all those tools.” Fitting that shaft to the driving mechanism and modifying the hydraulic cylinders was no easy job and I had worried about weather I would really be able to handle it Gusti might be a lot of help.

On the other hand , Gusti, whose full name was August Aloysius Huber , might ask a lot of questions about what we are trying to do. My nose itched. It was hard to know when to be bold and when to be careful.

A new thought about Gusti , suddenly occurred to me. “what do you think Tad?” I asked, showing my nose in profile to Tad . “Do I look very Jewish?”

Tad was obviously becoming more excited about the garage in Doebling becoming our winter substitute for the fisherman’s hut.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I can tell Gusti almost anything and he’d believe me . Word of honour, I can do it, I’ll tell him you are one of my schoolmates. You were until a while ago, you know. And I’ll spin a story about wanting to build a diver’s outfit, He’d laugh and kid us a little but , he’d let us do what we want. Just as long as we don’t get in his way. He might even help if we could find a little bottle of Schnapps for him.”

This was the way tad had contrived to have us more into the snug and warm automobile repair shop in Doebling. The weather turned cold and snow fell nearly everyday. Inside the garage ,a generously stoked coal stove kept us comfortable. The shop had been classified as important to the war economy and so they got more of the rationed coal than was really needed. It smelled of motor oil and coal smokes and the potatoes that Gusti roasted on top of the round bellied stove.

We began rebuilding the hydraulic cylinders so that they could be used as pumps. Tad had been right about Gustl. A bottle of Kuemmel , (Gustl claimed eased digestion due to its caraway and fennel flavoring)  stolen by Tad from his mother’s store , turned the mechanic into a jolly, benevolent elf. He patiently listened to Tad’s diving suit story and laughed and kidded us about it a little. After watching my clumsy efforts to build the pump, he became interested, and started to help. I’m not sure whether it was the Kuemmel or just love of tinkering. The grease – blackened fingers of the old mechanic performed wonders. The more he succeeded, the more involved he became. Gusti salvaged a drive mechanism from a rusted old bicycle , cleaned it and adjusted it until it purred when turned. He machined a gear for us to move the hydraulic cylinders and fitted it with a take-off gear to which the propeller drive shaft could be attached.

“You wont find a gear like this just any place, “ Gusti aid proudly and took another swig of Kuemmel , “you see here it has a regular gear wheel for the shaft , and then you push this lever out the sprocket wheel drives a Geneva mechanism. I got the idea fro a movie projector I repaired once. The Geneva gadget converts circular motion of the bicycle sprocket wheel into the back and forth movements of the pump’s piston. You have to have tippled on a Viennese mother’s milk to think of something like this.”

Due to the rain the  blackout had been suspended for over  a week. I sat by the apartment window and stared through the rain splashed panes at the black glistening patches of sidewalk were emerging from the frozen snow. With luck, we would be able to get back to the hut soon and could start installing the driver gear and the pumps.

A gust of wind threw a cascade of water across the panes. This is the way it looks through the port hole , I thought. Green water will be everywhere. We will be floating through green water aglow with sunlight filtering down from the surface. Tomahawk will glide through a forest of water plants bending in the current. Blow the tanks! I could hear the sharp click of the lever engaging the pumps, and the whir of the drive gear. Slowly our submarine tilts upwards and rises to the surface shedding silvery streams of water. Just ahead is an island , its shores seamed with high grass and black bamboo. A crane bends to catch a  fish , and a beaver races away Tomahawk , trailing a quivering tongue of water. My command is “Half-speed,” “I see movement in the reeds. A deer! We will have to roast venison for lunch.”

The noise of the opening apartment door startled me out of my revery. Papa must be coming home from visiting Uncle Sigi. I heard Mama giving him the usual fluttering welcome in the kitchen. Somehow she managed to be able to be at the hall door when ever he came home to take his coat and hat and look him over as if to make sure that everything had been returned in good order. Nearly always , she found some small speck of foreign matter, a raindrop or a stray snow flake on his forehead or shoulder and brush it off. Mama does this even if Papa had only gone out to buy a few cigarettes. She acts as if he had been on some trying mission . The city streets were a hostile , foreign place to her. Her husband was returning to her sheltering cove. I will miss them.

They came into the room arm in arm and I rose from my window seat to kiss Papa who had sat down on the couch to take off his shoes. He looked up at me and smiled. “Well,” he said, “at least I have some definite news about our departure. The Cohens were at the Jewish Community agency this morning. The transport schedule has been posted. We will leave , with god’s will on December 1.

“The 1^st ?” asked Mama, “Its definite then?”

“Yes ,” said Papa, “this is somewhat later than I thought it would be. But, I suppose there are always problems in a project of this kind, Sigi says that he has heard that people in our group will be given the job of building house accommodations for the following transports. I guess this means we have to prepare ourselves to make do with temporary accommodations when we get to Poland.. We might,” he said turning to me with a small smile,” we might have to sleep in tents at first.

This maybe a little rough if the Polish winter is still as I remember it . But you always like the idea of living in a tent , didn’t you?”

I tried very hard to imagine what this Polish tent encampment would be like but my recent green and silver vision of the delta kept getting in the way. Nevertheless there was something about the definiteness of the departure date and about the trip that touched my imagination and disturbed me.

I drew a chair to my father . “You said that 1^st is earlier than you expected, didn’t you?”

Papa frowned. “Yes , but I told you that I am not surprised. The winters in Poland are very tough. The functionaries who are in charge of the project probably want us there as soon as possible. Apparently, we need to build accommodations for those to follow and they want to get on it right away.. It requires a lot of preparation to accommodate so many people. There are probably few good buildings that are fit for families. That’s why they need us now .To get started.? I am sure that people in charge will give us all we need when we get there. .”

“Oh , I can understand that , Papa. I am not complaining, I am just surprised at home quickly this is devleoping ?” I touched my father’s arm.

“Tell me Papa, are there many deer in Poland? Do they still have wild wolves.”

“Well I am sure that there are a few left in the forests.”

“Do you imagine that we will be allowed to hunt them”

“For heaven’s sake ,” growled Papa , “your head is always full of wild ideas. I can’t bother myself with your nonsense questions. I have had a long day and I’m going to bed. Who in their right mind want to go wolf hunting ?”

I was already opening my mouth to ask him about deer, but then I saw the scowl in his face and I changed mind.

My face was resting on my hand as I awoke and the sharp metallic smell of solder flux on my fingers stung my nose. My bed, tucked into the corner of our flat that was our “kitchen”,  felt lumpy. I stretched and squinted at the gray wall next to my head. Perhaps I ought to skip school today. What a pleasant thought! Go down to the hut again. Out into the open beside the river. Away from this gloomy apartment house, away from the smell of old clothes and worry and where hope still resided.  There was a loot to do on tomahawk’s diving pipes. The thought of our boat waiting for us done at the river sent a rush of prickly warmth to my legs. Then I remembered last night. Papa’s shy, proud smile. Poland ! We ere going to Poland. Everything crumpled within. What was I to do?

My body felt weak all over and I sank back in the bed, rolled over onto my side, and pulled the blanket over my head . For years I had a scary dream. It was nearly the same. It was autumn and my parents and I would be walking through a deep forest. The leaves were falling and covering the ground with somber browns and pale yellows. We would reach fork in the path, and Mama and Papa, hand in hand, would turn down one side while I had to walk the other. As I continued down my path, my parents would walked down theirs. The woods were dense and after a few steps I could no longer see them but could hear their feet shuffling through the dry dead leaves that lined the path. And then nothing as they faded from my hearing.  I would awaken in a start, sweaty and tingling with terror.

Now it seemed my dream was becoming real. I felt my forehead now. It was cold and wet.

If I could only talk to Tad. But he was in school. Aryans still went to school regularly, Tad had been complaining. I feel humiliated because they are not letting me attend the Realgymnasium but he complains because he has to go. Uncle Leo once told me, “You can lie naked in a snowdrift and someone will envy you.” That was the day after Uncle Leo’s unemployment pay ran out and his family was being fed by relatives.

I tried to visualize Tad sitting in one of the worn oaken chairs at the old Realgymnasium. Right now, he was probably listening to that pot-bellied Nazi prig, Professor Braunshcweig, lecturing about the ablative absolute. I thought I have to talk to Tad. We need to move far more quickly than we had planned.

Mama surprised me by how readily she agreed to having me stay home from school. I was just beginning to describe my stomachache, when she said yes. Without looking back at me, she left the room. Not like her at all.

I moped about the house all morning, waiting for school to close, sitting at the window, shutting out the apartment behind me, and trying to keep out of my parents’ way, bending over strips of scrap metal that I was filing into brackets from Tomahawk which I had told Papa was a project for school. When the Mt. Cavalry church bull chimed two, I was waiting in the small park that face the Realgymnasium. From my place on a bench, partially hidden by a large, barren brush, I had a clear view of the main gate of the school across the road. It seemed at first that flakes of mica in the cobblestones were glistening in the weak afternoon sun but then I realized, with sinking heart, that my eyes were filling with tears. Damn it ! It was all so confusing, and I didn’t wasn’t to cry. Going with my parents was the simplest thing to do. Maybe I should just pack up and go quietly with them. It would give me away from this dreary, vexing town. Away from a disaster. It was so appealingly neat and orderly. Mama and Papa and me going together to a new beginning somewhere else. All was arranged.

But there was Tad and Tomahawk! The dream of the green waters and to be free of this bloody war. The Danube carrying us to the delta and to the sea. We would seek new freedom – alone, exciting and unrestrained. Leaving Mama and Papa was hard but Poland was, in my mind, the land of nighmares with wolves always biting your heals. Mama and Papa want to be safe. To be free.  All that could be mended later when the war was over, and the Allies had won.

The problem was so big and so obvious. I understood it so clearly it hurt. Shelter! Tomahawk was not ready yet. What would become of me alone in Vienna to launch Tomahawk?

Should I tell my parents about our plan? Perhaps I could stay with a relative. No, this could never, never work. I could see Papa’s face flushing with anger .Papa would not see the reason. We would have a disastrous row and I would end up going to Poland.

From the interior of the school came the muffled buzz of the final class bell. Two fifteen ! I hope Tad is alone when he comes through the gate and not with that shaven-headed Hitler youth oaf Walter Heider. I could always step back behind the bush and then follow at a distance until he was alone. I felt edgy and did not want complications.

The school gates burst open and a swarm of shouting boys spilled into the street. I hoped he would see the stick figure wolfs paw with a line through the first claw I had scrawled on the lamppost outside the gate of the school. It was a symbol we had created to leave messages for each other. It meant I (paw one) was looking for him. Tad was taller than most of his group and I picked out of his bobbing dark shock of hair quickly. He separated form the crowd and strode purposefully to the park. He had seen it! He was alone. When I gave him our special owl whistle, his face lit up and quickly move towards me.

“Well” said Tad, as we walked out of the park together, “what news have you in the matter of Tomahawk? I tried to come down yesterday but Uncle Franz came home on leave from the army and I  had to go to his apartment right after school. It was fantastic. He brought me a Polish cavalry hat. Took it right off a man he killed. The pole was trying to attack his tank. Uncle Franz is a tanker , you know. Saw lots of action. He was awarded the Iron Cross, second class. I held it right in my hand.”

Here I was ready to tell Tad about my problems, but this shut me up. It was as if Tad’s story had tightened a rope around my neck. I pressed my lips together and walked silently beside him. That same puzzling, two-sided feeling was throttling me. I hated anything that bore the loathsome swastika, including the German Army. Yet here I walk at Tad’s side and listen to his stupid stories about Uncle Franz, the tanker in the death-black uniform. With all my troubles, I want to hear about their better adventures. What are they to mw? They think I am a rotten Jew.

It upset me that I was such an ass but after a while I regained my composure. I touched Tad’s arm to stop him from talking. “Listen Tad, I’m in real trouble. My old man got a job cleaning war rubble in Poland. We are all supposed to go with him. What in the world am I going to do ? They are not going to let me stay here while we get Tomahawk ready.”

“Thunderation”, Tad’s face became very serious, “this calls for an immediate palaver. Our opponents shall know our cunning to their regret.”

But I knew it was no use telling Tad to be serious. He was in a playful mood and wanted to pretend as if we had been attacked by Kiowa while planning in the sandbox in the park. Let him talk! He will soon grow tired of being Old Shatterhand, and we will have a proper conversation. I was in no mood for frivolity. This game had suddenly become very serious.

For two blocks, Tad recapitulated several of Old Shatterhand’s major speeches. He irritated me intensely, but despite of this I began to listen with increasing admiration. Tad Saegerer was actually better than Karl May.

Suddenly Tad stopped and turned to look at me fully. A triumphant grin spread over his face.

“I have it ! The perfect solution, Hugi! I will put you up in my uncle’s cottage in the Lobau. Nobody goes there in the winter and Aunt Hertha usually doesn’t open the house until the first of May. This is perfect. Its near Tomahawk , no more than a couple of kilometers and its safe. Of course, its up to you. But if I were you I would stay behind Vienna. Your parents might get angry but they will get over it after a while. You got to stay. I’ll hide you at the cottage.”

I remembered the garden house Tad was talking about. It was in a group of similar toy houses, each with a tiny garden. People like trolley conductors and storekeepers cultivated stamp-sized plots of cucumbers there and espaliered miniature pear trees along the walks. Small Viennese people worked very hard all summer to keep these Lilliputian villas in beautiful shape. They would certainly be more comfortable tan the fisherman’s hut. It was true. No one would look for him there. Neither police nor hobbos were likely to barge into one of these frilly garden houses.

“And by  May,” added Tad triumphantly, “we will be in Rumania.”

“Yes,” I said , “eating strawberries.”

“You have a nasty tongue.”

“Sure a nasty tongue! How will I get anything to eat in your Aunt Hertha’s dwarf cottage?”

We walked for a whole block through the narrow street without saying one word. Our footsteps rang loud on the cobblestones and the gray silent houses stared at us malevolently.

“I wouldn’t have any food ration stamps if my parents went to Poland without me. Even if I had ration stamps, where could I buy food in the deserted Lobau in the winter? And what would I buy food with? Sell your aunt’s and uncle’s cottage furniture? I will starve to death in that place.”

Tad waved me to a stop and smiled slyly.

“No problem, no problem,” he said. “You can rely on me. I will keep you supplied. You won’t be hungry, leave it to me. The great hunter of the plains had spoken.

“There will be smoked venison and buffalo steak. And roasted bear paw with dried blueberries. When spring comes and the ice in the river breaks, you be as fat as the bull elk in the oak forest.”

“Yeah,” said I “and my head, antler and all, will be mounted on the Gauleiter Burekel’s office wall.”

The smell of winter was in the air. As we wandered through the twilight streets, mysteriously, with each step, it all fell into place. Tad found words to reassure me and I gathered them close to my heart.

When we stopped in front of Tad’s grocery shop , it was almost dark. People were beginning to pull down their black-out shades and the lamps in a thousand apartments were being lit. we shook hands. My mind was made up. Tad was right. I will try to make it alone. The garden cottage was safe and Tad would probably be able to take care of me. By spring everything would be ready and we would start our journey down the river.

A sharp wind from the Northwind swept fiercely down the long street. I shivered. If it was this cold in October the winter was going to be bitter.  I pulled my jacket tight around my neck and started home.

 

 

Mama noticed my muddy shoes right away when I came home but she didn’t say anything. She probably thought that I had been in a park somewhere with Dita Roseman. After all I would be fourteen before long. It probably amused Mama a little to think I was growing into a man.

Maybe she just wanted to avoid stirring up trouble by asking, because Papa had just come home with some news. Whatever he said must have worried her or perhaps she was both confused and worried. Mama was preparing our supper in such an uncertain, nervous way,- rattling the pot, burning her finger, dropping a spoon on the floor . Usually she was so calm. The routine with which Mama brought the evening meal to the table was usually she same each day. She must be really worried. Mama worried was easily because she had led a hard life. Worry constantly gnawed at her bones but sometime were worse than others.

We sat down quietly at the table. Mama had been able to get a little chopped meat that morning at Mr. Wimmer’s butcher shop at the corner. Mixed with some stale rolls , it was enough to make three small patties. Mama and Papa ate their meal slowly while I wolfed mine down in a few bites. Now I wished I had more. It must have shown on my face because Mama, claimed she could not eat, and gave me what remained of her portion.

I could barely stay awake after we finished eating, crouching over Tomahawk’s plumbing all day had cramped my joints because I had been staring into the flame of the blow torch for so long I saw a pale halo of flickering blue flame around everything. But I forced myself to stay awake since I was curious about the news that Papa had brought home .

“So Papa,” I said through a broad yawn, “what did Dr. Lowestein have to say?” Papa was obviously pleased that I had asked because he lit a cigarette. The brief silence irritated me.

“What else did Lowenstein say?”

“Well,” said Papa “the Germans are setting up Jewish communities in Poland. We are supposed to be left in peace there and will be given work so we can live decently. The work cleaning up the rubble that has been left by the fighting. It’s all out in the country and some of these former city gentlemen are going to find the going rough. But it won’t bother me . Didn’t I spend seven years of my life in a Siberian prisoner of war camp. Every day of my life I have bent my back and used my hands to make money.”

He sucked one final wisp of smoke out of the last of the cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “Listen, I know Poland. I was born in Galicia…I couldn’t wait to leave but maybe it is a good place for us now…what with the war.” I knew what he meant. He didn’t really mean the war. He meant the Nazi’s and the daily indignities he had been forced to endure. He never talked about them. But Cousin Walter had told me of the time he had turned the corner on his street and saw Papa cleaning the sidewalk with a toothbrush with a couple of brown shirts standing over him while passerby’s spit on him. Walter had turned around and walked in the other direction because, as he told me, he didn’t want to embarrass his Uncle Benno but I think he walked away because he did not want to suffer the same fate.

Papa did not say any more about the war there although I know he could have. His regiment advanced and retreated in the battle of Galicia. He was finally wounded in a bayonet charge, captured and sent to Siberia. He never said much about the camp except that it was cold and often all he had to eat was onions. It must have been very difficult for him, he claimed his rheumatism came from him time there and he would leave a room where onions were being prepared. But he was mostly silent on those long seven years spent in the gulag except in odd moments, often when he had a little to drink, where he would tell me about the typhus epidemics and the lice crawling up the seams of his clothes.

Once, when he was particularly soused he told me, about the cattle cars he and the other prisoners of war had to endure for the three week trip to Siberia. No toilets except for a single pot in the corner for 100 men. No food except for what you could buy with what ever you could trade or pay for through the slats of the car. I still have nightmares about cattle cars.

Somehow he had survived. What I don’t think I could ever understand is what it felt like to be free again after so long in prison. Of that he never spoke. But one day, when Mama and Papa were out and I was exploring their drawers for secrets I came across some postcards he had bought of the Suez Canal when returning home by ship from Siberia. I always thought those color washed cards represented his freedom to  him which is why he kept buried deep in his things because he knew no matter how hard he explained things we would never fully understand.

“They are putting the final list for the first transport together now,” papa continued “Lowenstein told me we should settle our affairs quickly and be ready to leave in about four weeks.”

I looked up, startled.

“We are we all going?”

Papa looked at me a little puzzled, and then smiled.

“Oh yes, yes,” he said,” I should have  told you the most important news first. We will all be going together.” There was a glow of satisfaction in his eyes.

“A tremendous load has been taken off my mind. It looks like we can go as a family. What a relief this is! We will know the when and the where and all other details soon. The Jewish agency is going to announce everything next week.”

You can imagine that this just shook me up. I was not prepared for this at all. Just two hours ago I was working on Tomahawk. Everything seemed settled. Tad and I were going to finish Tomahawk and then we were running away from home. The only uncertainty was where we could get all the equipment we needed. Then we would start down the Danube and go until we reached the delta and the Black Sea. From there I would send my parents a letter. Dear Mama and Papa, I would write. Don’t worry ! I am safe.

Perhaps I did not think about our situation carefully enough. Building our submarine ready, safely and secretly, had diverted my attention and had sheltered me. It had kept me from really thinking about what I was doing. Running away from home, running away from Vienna was easy to understand, I knew all about it. Everybody knows about running away from home. You read about and you joke about stuff like that. But running away when your parents were leaving home at the same time was new and it frightened me.

For the first time in my life, something that I had dreamt and thought about had come real. We built Tomahawk with our own hands. It was sitting down there tonight in the dark. We could actually touch the boat and it smelled of tat. Only the other day I told Tad that I felt cheerier now than at any other time since the Germans had marched to Austria. Perhaps cheerier even before. Now, my father’s words were buzzing in my head like a swarm of angry wasps.

Dr. Lowenstein had given only a short interview and Papa had not asked any questions because he felt very uncomfortable in that presence of the smoothly talking official. Lowenstein told Papa that he and his family were on the accepted list for the first transport. We would leave in about a month but we were allowed to bring only hand baggage. At the end of the interview , Lowenstein shook papa’s hand and congratulated him of having the opportunity to be a pioneer.

“Flossel, you are among those who have been given the honorable duty,” Dr. Lowenstein had said,” of creating a fresh opportunity for the Jewish people in a new order.” Papa got most of the other information from the other Jewish men who were milling out in the foyer of the Jewish community office. They spoke about the clean-up work that they believed were waiting for them .

Hectares of rubble-strewn fields – – the remnants of bombed cities. There was even a rumor  that the Germans would create a Jewish state in Poland.

“The Germans believe that the Jews can learn to be good farmers in Poland,” one of the man had said. “There is always need for good farmers, particularly in wartime.” Papa seemed to be very encouraged by what he had heard but he was upset y one dark incident. The SS guard who always stood in the foyer had amused himself by making the older orthodox men take off their hats and then acting surprised when he found a yarmulke under the street hat.

“Another animal lover who is keeping his lice warm with a little cap,” the SS man had mocked. The SS man’s malicious playfulness cast an ice cold shadow over the hopeful, buzzing crowd in the foyer and it had worried Papa.

“Luckily” he said, ”the SS man was called away by one of his officers. He was getting very nasty and it could have gotten worse. Those devils are using this kind of shenanigan to drive us away from here.”

It was hard for me to fall asleep afterward. Part of that was the hushed argument Mama and Papa were having in bed. It was not rare for them to fight, Papa had a temper, but it was very odd for them to argue in bed. What was stranger still is that it was Mama that was angry. I wished I could hear what they were saying.

Beyond Mama and Papa’s argument I was confused as what I was going to do.  If my parents remained in Vienna , the trip done the Danube would fall neatly into place, just as we had planned it. Tad and I taking fate into our own hands. I would be a boy running away from home with my best friend. Thatt was the right thing to do under the circumstances. But now it seemed all different and wrong. Am I deserting them? I felt terribly confused and uncertain. How I wished Tad was here so I could talk to him. Tad would know what to say. Lying in my bed in the dark bedroom, I heard my parents’ quite breathing. The argument silent for now.  I felt alone and helpless, For the first time in a month, I pressed my cupped palm on the crown of my head as it were a yarmulke , and I said the Shema Ysrael, the prayer I had been taught in religion class. As always I ended it by saying , “Dear God, protect my parents and me , and bring us that which will make us happy and safe. Amen!”

I hear the river whispering about the delta in the hiss of my blow torch.Tad loved to talk about the endless, mysterious plain of reed and water. He sounded more believable about this than about any of his other raves. He called it the great empire of the wild.

“ We will go, ” he said,”to the domain of the sea eagle. The deer and the bear stride through the green canyons of the delta  Our friend, the otter, gambols  I swear!   in the clear swift waters while white clouds of egrets and storks swarm over our heads. In the wilderness of the delta, the whisper of freedom in our ears will be louder than the wind and the Danube waves.”

How did Tad find out so much about that far-off place where the Danube flows into the Black Sea? He spoke so beautifully about the delta as if he were reading from an invisible book. We would sit by the window in the Saegerer apartment during the late afternoon when the light was dying and look out into the gray cobbled street. Tad would tell delta stories and I listened happily. In our imagination, we would glide in slender skiffs through hidden green channels, hunting, fishing, and camping on secret islands. We smoked young eels over elderwood and cut juicy hunks of venison from the flanks of a young buck roasting on a spit. Tad would speak about how the silver morning haze, drifting over the river, brought with it the scent of water roses.

I really thought I could smell them even though I never even seen one. “In one of the books, it said that we will be reading the half-remembered ciphers of our own origins in the untamed landscape of the delta.   Weird, but unforgettable!” said Tad. “Agreed” said I, “weird, but unforgettable!”

The marvelous images of the delta that Tad described drew much of their power from contrast with the mean stone wasteland that surrounded us. Vienna may seem like culture, music, and Sachertorte to you, but to us it was a bitter place. Our horizons were hemmed with hard cobblestones littered with dog shit. The narrow streets were scraped by dirty winds. Smoke­ blackened factory chimneys and gas plants overshadowed walls patched with peeling posters. In workers’ districts such as mine, crowded apartment buildings coughed out hordes of workers every workday morning and every evening the caverns sucked them in again. Even the pathetic patches of green in the parks were fenced and marked with “Keep Off” signs. And the air of the city, the air that I needed to sustain my life and growth was poisoned by the brown Nazi hatred for those of my faith. My fellow inmates hate their prison, I thought, but in their rage they beat us up. I don’t really know who the jailers are whom everybody ought to hate but I would feel much better if they laid off the weakest fellow prisoners, including me!

In the delta, I would be free from all this! The  only boundaries in our life would be the sky and the sea.  When Tad spoke of the delta, he made it sound as if it were the original garden of Eden. Not the sating lushness of the biblical paradise, but instead he described a wonderful place, a raw, pulsing cradle of natural life, where muscles, sinews, and wild glands had the meaning of their creation.

After Tad had the inspiration about the submarine we began to talk about how to build one. At first it was sort of empty talk. Al1 the things you could do with a submarine. Tricks, surprises, that sort of thing. We worried about waterproofing but that about as technical as we got. Then it slowly came to me that I did not know how a submarine worked. When I told this to Tad, he really was impatient with me. He disliked being bothered with such small detail. For him our slick boat was all but done, all that was left was moving down the river.

But, to Tad’s annoyance, I decided that I needed to read books about submarines. That posed a little problem because I, as a Jew, was forbidden to use public libraries. When they made the library rule about the time of the Krystalnachtpogrom, the newspapers Der Stuermer had said that it was unsanitary and un­ German to read books that Jews had stained with their filthy fingers. The consequence of the filty finger law was kind of funny because now I made Tad go. Tad grumbled a lot about my determination to find out how submarines worked, but I finally turned him into a regular library mule and he brought bundles of thick engineering books back to me. Reading these books was an amazing experience because I had never read anything like this in my life. I mean we read a lot but we concentrated on high adventure. The factual books we read were mainly personal recollections of travelers and explorers and perhaps books on natural history. Like I was the First European to Traverse the Valley of the Moon Maidens or Two Years at the Court of the Imam of the Golden Sword or maybe Zorka, King of the Yukon Wolf Packs. Books about physics, mechanics, and naval architecture? School was taking its revenge on me. How I suffered at first! But I slowly got to like them, even though there was a lot of stuff I could not fully figure out. The books were thick and heavy. I would build little book castles around me, stacks that would be six, seven books high, and read with fascination about Fulton’s submarine, Brun’s plongeur, and Holland’s submersible vessel. I particularly liked Bushnell’s submarine of the American War of Independence. It was described in one of my books as resembling two tortoise shells of equal size joined together. What really appealed to me, because I’m no fool, was that the cutaway picture of Bushnell’s boat looked kind of primitive. It looked like we might be able to handle building something like that by ourselves.

The ship that finally provided the model for Tomahawk was Goubet ‘s two-man torpedo boat. It was about the right size. Five and a half meters long, about two meters high, and about one and a half meters wide. But the size, and the wood, and the nails was the easy part. The main problem, the problem that now kept me going through these stacks of very hard books like a hungry (and dusty) ferret, was how to make Tomahawk, dive and rise again, how to propel it, steer it, and how to keep the water out, in other words how to make it behave like a submarine.

“Isn’t that neat? ” I asked, holding a sketch under Tad’s nose. “I drew it all in perspective. Here are the dive tanks fastened to the side of the boat.  We have a valve inside and when we open it, water goes into the tank and we dive.  Then if we want to surface, we release the air line, and let it float up- – we can make that out of a garden hose with cork floats tied  to the intake. I didn’t get the perspective quite right on the air line but you can imagine how that would go. And this part  here is a pump. We sit on a bench and work these bicycle pedals. The air gets sucked in on the surface, comes down this air hose, and forces the water out of this tank. This is how we make the boat come back up again after a dive.”

Tad wrinkled his nose and pushed the sketch aside. In Joern Farrow’s submarine, they blew the water out with compressed air.”

“Well, that’s what we’ll be doing.·”

“No, you don’t understand. They used real compressed  air  out of a tank.  You know?”  I couldn’t do anything except sigh.  I knew. There was sometimes a sliver of truth hidden in Tad’s wrongheadedness, but it usually was hard to find.

Eventually, Tad conceded that we needed to find dive tanks and air lines and tubes and valves. He actually began to be quite pleased with the thought.

 “I know where we can get a lot of plumbing ! ” he cooed, and he winked at me as if he owned the town.

Scattered throughout the vast inundation area and around the nearby Danube backwaters were hundreds of clubhouses built on stilts. They were the social centers for the colonies of tents that sprouted around them during the summer season. The houses were full of plumbing. Now, in late October, the inundation area was deserted. Once or twice a day, a pair of policemen, usually on bicycles, patrolled the silent footpaths and from time to time a hardy fishermen wandered through. Otherwise the empty silence was broken only by the wind rustling in the dry brown grass. burglars.

It was an ideal setting for apprentice burglars.

Our approaches were flawless from the start. Tad organized everything. Years of practice in stalking the campfires of the Kiowa and Shoshone paid off. We slipped through the high grass with very few sounds and without much revealing ourselves to the eyes of watchers, if there had been any. The locks of the clubhouses would have been easy to force with a crowbar. But, Tad insisted, that was entirely too crude. Raffles or Tom Shark, the great penny paperback detective, would never lower     themselves to do anything so simple. I wasn’t too sure about that, but it did make pretty good sense not to leave obvious signs of a break-in. It was dangerous to have our ventures noticed before we had gotten all the supplies we needed. We tried three times without luck to jimmy windows open. That was useful. I developed courage and it convinced me that Tad was right. I was going to be Raffles and so I made several picks in school out of strips flat spring stall.

Our first successful entry was during a driving rainstorm on a Saturday afternoon. The stilted house contained nothing we wanted except for six flashlight batteries that had been left behind in a drawer. Tad was quick to point out what cunning braves we were. Flashlight batteries were tightly rationed.

We broke into four more house that afternoon. In the last of these, our luck finally changed. This house, unlike the others had running eater , drawn from a holding tank on the roof. The men’s and women’s dressing rooms was each equipped with a shower stall. Two enameled heating tanks supplied hot water. The two cylinders , which were identical and just the right size to turn Tomahawk into a drive boat, were just what we had been looking for.

Tad immediately knelt down and tapped at the brackets that held the tanks to the wall. I walked to the window. A steady rain was soaking the brown ground. “Forget it,” I said. “If we took those things now and dragged them through the mud we’ leave a trail that even a blind Flatfoot Indian could follow.” “We’ll wait until tomorrow,” he said and shrugged his shoulders.

It rained for five days. just like Noah’s big water in the Bible, that the Germans like to call the Sin Flood. The inundation area turned to mud. Impatiently, we decided to explore further despite the drizzle that was falling steadily from the fray skies. We walked single file, like an Indian raiding party, leaving only one set of water filled footprints behind. About two hundred meters from the fisherman’s hut, our cunning approach pays off . A lone A-frame shack stood above the reeds. It looked in far better shape than some of the other huts we had seen with double doors with a white sign above proclaiming für Mitglieder”, members only. We ignored the sign and my pick worked like magic. I think inside the shack were two mangy- looking sofas and several chairs with scarred , peeling skins. Nothing worthwhile until we saw a long wooden locker. On seeing this Tad’s face lights up again. Grinning, he pulled out a small crowbar, from under his shirt. He now pried with great flourish and a few grunts the padlock from the locker door.

“Look at that”, he crackled , “this little piece of iron works even faster than your pick. We really struck pay dirt.”

Wiping away some cobwebs he peered into the box and exclaimed “Shit. The only thing in here are three shabby Kapok life vests a couple of old canvas sails.”

I was about to tell Tad that he was a diddle-headed. What kind of break in with this when all we walked away from it was a giant bowl of nothing when inspiration struck. There was something about the way the canvas lay there. I kneeled own on top of it and tugged at the spilled pile of sails and stroked the rough cloth with my hands. My face suddenly felt as hot as if I had a fever. It all came together for me at once. Even now, I keep thinking that I heard a pop in my ear when I saw the answer.

“Holy Shit , Tad!”, I said , “We got it! We made it ! I knew this would be a lucky day because I stepped on dog shit this morning ! Don’t you see what this means ? The canvas ! The canvas ! We found a waterproof skin from Tomahawk!”And so at the last light of that day, we dragged the heavy sails along the stone river apron to our hat. We had found a skin for Tomahawk.

Originally I thought that we could water proof the boat with pitch . I had read that Irish sailors in olden times caulked their boats with that stuff. The woods in Austria ooze pitch . The foresters cut gutters into the bark of pine trees and then nail little pails at the bottom to catch the drippings. The stuff smells real good but it’s a mess when you get it in you your hair, We figured it would be easy to waltz off with these pails but then we gave up the idea. We needed a lot of pitch. How would we collect all these pails? Then I thought of road tar.

“All we have to do now , is to wrap layers of canvas around the boat and cover each layer with tar . We could give it three or four layers. That ought to keep the river out!”

“Agreed!” said Tad. “Excellent ! Good idea!” He got that look in his eye. They one where you know that before too long there would be a bit of mischief afoot. “You know he added “There are a couple of drums of tar at the road construction site near the tram stop at the Reichsbruecke. That is so close, we could just roll them down hill.”

I remembered coming down to the hut two days later and finding five drums of tar neatly staked in one corner. Tad , the cunning brave had scored again. I built a small fire under the porch of the hut , grateful for the continuing rains because it hid the smoke. A stone tripod supported a drum of tar over the fire. When Tad arrived we painted the tar on the outside of the joined boats and on the decked forward section. Then we fitted wide strips of the sail canvas on the wood and patted them down with our hands. The strips lapped over each other. It worked perfectly . The pliant canvas fitted itself beautifully to the shape of the boat. When we had covered it entirely, we repeated the procedure two more times until we had made a thick skin for Tomahawk out of three layers of tar and canvas. Despite the tar, the original patterns of the striped sails were still faintly visible. Tad thought that Tomahawk now looked like a striped whale.

“I think , “ said Tad , “itself a cross between a blue and white whale , with a little bit of gray whale thrown in.”

I remember patting the still warm sides of our animal with satisfaction and asking him what he thought the Nueremberg laws would have to say about that mixture , this Rassenschande , this shameful miscegenation of the deep.

The autumn rains stopped , but the loam of the river plain drained poorly. Mud was everywhere . It still did not seem safe to raid the house that held the needed dive tanks and the delay tried our patience. Finally, shortly after St.Jude Day ( I remembered because even I, knew he was the patron of lost causes) in late October the temperatures fell sharply below freezing during the night. That brought Tad ,early the next morning to our apartment door. Finally, a break we could move the tanks without being mired in the mud. But as we were dashing down the stairs. Tad grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Maybe we better wait another day to make sure the cart won’t break through”. We don’t know how hard the frozen crust of the mud will be.”

“The cart?”

Tad smiled mysteriously . “Yes , I borrowed my Aunt Hertha’s pull car and brought it to the hut the day before yesterday. Aunt Hertha doesn’t know it yet, but we won’t need it long.”

I was usually the one that slowed us down, not Tad , but that morning I didn’t want to hear of than another wait in getting things going. The long delay that the rain  had forced on us had made me edgy.

“Tomorrow will be either colder or warmer than today,” I said , feeling a little uncomfortable in the unaccustomed role of the instigator. “If its colder tomorrow, we will be worse off than we are now . I am for going down there today and trying. “

Tad hesitated for only a a second , startled by my unusual reversal. Then he grabbed me by the elbow.

“Let’s go, Raffles” he said. And we were underway.

No Sioux hunter nor any Kiowa brave testing his prowess had ever crept through the prairie with an arm-long plumber’s wrench stuck in his belt. Tad insisted the stealthy approach was necessary but even he found it rough going. The Kiowa brave had never crawled sideways before but that is what he ha to do because he was carrying a hacksaw, a screwdriver , a crowbar ,  and a very large ball of knotted rope under his shirt. I was right behind him and I heard him mutter about the sons of dogs and how he would nail their tongues on his teepee pole. I had tried to tell him a couple of times that we ought to just quietly walk up to the club house but he didn’t listen.

“Who ever heard of Indians just walking into an enemy camp when they were stealing horses , its just not done .” Tad hissed at me, as contemptuous as if I had asked him to beg an Apache for mercy.

But I was too impatient, and I finally got up and walked past crawling Tad t the door of the clubhouse. “These are water tanks, “ I said ,”they don’t neigh,” and I began to work on the lock. Soon we were standing in the shower room admiring its plumbing. The water tanks had been drained at the end of the summer and we were able to disconnect them quickly. The two cylinders were lighter than I had expected and we carried them to the cart without any difficulty.

Working on Tomahawk in the quiet afternoon , with only the hiss of the blow torch to keep me company , I smiled to myself as I remembered the frenzy that followed. We were resting by the cart in the high grass outside the hut . There seemed to be no other human being besides Tad and me on the whole wide river plain. The houses of Vienna swam in haze far away across the Danube. We sniffed the moist wind from the river like animals. Then we looked at each other and giggled. A high, joyous frenzy swept over us simultaneously. We ran back to the clubhouse, bucking like young goat. Without a word to each other we attacked the copper pipes that carried water from the roof tank to the heating units, and tore at the weave of horizontal pipes that connected showers, sinks, and toilets. What didn’t yield easily to the plumber’s wrench, we pried out with crowbars or cut with the saw.

The noises of tearing metal fed our frenzy. Tad, who had insisted that he wear gloves because the gentleman jewel thief Raffles always wore them for his Monte Carlo heists , now threw his to the floor. Entering the clubhouse, he had substituted a Riviera of destruction swept the Riviera scene and with it caution from his mind. The time is NOW!

“This is absolutely ripping” he said , using the English word and proving that detective storied and Realgymnasium language lessons sometimes can lend each other a helping hand. “The water lilies of their club have a great surprise in store. I almost wish I could see their faces when they open their doors in May.” I was kneeling on the floor next to him, tying bundles of pipe together, but I hardly paid attention to Tad’s malice . In my imagination I was already trying various spatial responsibilities for the shiny pipe sections on the floor in front of me. Just like a big copper erector set , I thought , and I could almost hear the rush of frothing green river water in the maze of pipes that I was assembling in my mind.

The song of the delta is beautiful , To fully appreciate it , one hast to have an ear for the obligato of resignation(Thank you , Professor Rohacek, for those nice music classes) that quivers in small apartments. To be fully charmed by dreams of the delta you have smelled  the rusty stink of a crushed bedbug on your pillow. I press my nose against the smug glass of the window. Beyond are other words that I cannot reach. I feel lonely and lost, circumcised and helpless, rejected , tossed about in the brown hurricane of hatred. To one like me the song of green waves is clean and sweet.

The blow torch hissed. It was getting dark outside but I kept working , below the dive tanks , in the flickering blue haze of the torch flame. Tad was supposed to come down with a pump that he found in his uncle’s mechanics shop in Doebling. It was time to leave.

Walking along the deserted dirt road to the bridge, I remembered the creased brown post card that Papa had shown me on the way to the Inner City this morning and my heart grew heavy with apprehension.