Of course, she did. A warm house heated against all German regulations; an illegal gathering of music aficionados; mismatched, elegant chairs assembled in a semicircle; women in evening gowns and men in dress suits, all eyes on her—the woman they had adored and risked the wrath of the Gestapo just to hear her play once again.
“You accompanied me. The flute.” Somehow, Alma managed the words. The memories cut. It was strange to be holding Ima’s hand in hers again. It was a mirthless reunion for all the wrong reasons. The last time they parted ways, Alma was still a free woman.
Ima presented her with a radiant smile. “Yes! It’s so kind of you to remember. I was such an amateur… most certainly you felt I was beneath your best effort.”
Alma felt the beginning of a quiver in her bottom lip and bit into it, hard. “Nonsense. You played excellently.” Alma was proud to hear her voice so calm. The self-inflicted pain worked its magic, as it always did.
Magda Hellinger whistled softly through her teeth. “A celebrity, then? Why didn’t you say so when you asked me for the blasted violin?”
“Does a person need to be a celebrity to play the violin in this place?” Alma asked, sharper than she had intended.
“Not necessarily, but it helps while trying to obtain one,” Hellinger explained. “To organize things in Auschwitz, it requires a lot of work. It will cost me, getting a violin for you. The only person who knows anything about music is this little Fräulein. Don’t hold it against me, but I had to verify it with her first.”
Ima was already pulling at Magda’s sleeve as she searched the Blockälteste’s face with her pleading eyes. “Oh, Magda, dear, please, do get it for her! You will fall over with amazement once you hear how splendidly she can play. A true virtuoso; you take my word for it. You’ll feel as though you’re in the Vienna Philharmonic at once—”
“Vienna Philharmonic, my foot,” Magda grumbled under her breath, throwing a glance in the direction of the door. “Even if I get one through Zippy, how is she to play it here in secret? Or do you suggest we stage an open concert here, right under Dr. Clauberg’s very nose?”
“Dr. Clauberg and the SS Blockführerin leave at six.” Ima refused to surrender. “They won’t come back till the next morning. The compound shall be all but deserted. We’ll put a couple of girls as door watchers so they can alert us at once if someone approaches the block.”
“What of Block 11? Don’t you think they’ll hear her play?”
After a pause, Ima shrugged, a gentle, tragic smile appearing on her face. “They’re all condemned men there. Do you truly believe they’ll report to the SS the last beautiful thing they heard before going to the wall?”
Much to Alma’s astonishment, the very next day Magda presented her with a violin. With the slyest of looks, the block elder produced it from inside the pillowcase and held it before bewildered Alma’s eyes with visible pride.
“Zippy sends her regards.”
Alma grasped at the violin’s neck with hunger other inmates displayed only at the sight of bread. “Who’s Zippy?” Alma inquired, out of politeness mostly.
All her attention was riveted to the instrument, to which broken pieces of straw still clung from where it had been extracted from its hiding place. Slowly and with great reverence, Alma’s fingers caressed the lines of the violin. It had been eight months, eight excruciatingly long months, since she had held her own Guadagnini—her faithful companion that she had to leave for her lover’s safekeeping in Utrecht.
Something caught in her throat when Alma remembered Leonard’s warm hands on her wet cheeks and his assurances that she would surely be back before she knew it and that her violin should be right there, with him, awaiting her return, just like he was…
With a sudden chilling cynicism, she wondered whose bed her Leonard was warming now, much like Heini before him. In the course of the past few years, Alma had grown used to the men’s betrayals. Only violins stayed loyal. Her Guadagnini was with her when first husband Váša asked for a divorce; it was still with her when her lover Heini had fled, leaving her to fend for herself in pre-war London. The idea of Alma being the breadwinner in the family didn’t appeal to him, much like the discomfort of having to start from the blank slate with a woman he used to swear he loved more than life just weeks before they left their native Austria, with Alma’s father in tow. Poor Heinrich, Alma mused with a smirk, didn’t even have the guts to look her in the eye before beating his hasty retreat. She ran from Austria to save her life; he ran back to Vienna to save his—the life of comfort devoid of any unnecessary hardships.
“Who’s Zippy?” Magda snorted softly, a conspirator’s look about her. “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out. Now, put it away and don’t even think of touching it until I tell you personally that it’s safe. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“You ought to say, Jawohl, Blockälteste.” When Alma looked up at her sharply, Magda softened the order with an unexpected smile. “You don’t have to give me their idiotic military response when it’s just us girls here. But you ought to say it when the SS wardens, Dr. Clauberg, or Dr. Wirths are present. And you ought to reply in the same manner to them, too, or you’ll get it from them, with a whip across your back. Well, not from Dr. Wirths; he’s essentially a reasonable man and not violent by nature. In fact, it’s thanks to him that we have bedsheets, nightgowns, towels, and even soap in our block. But the others, they’re far from being so charitable. They’re big on discipline, the SS.”
As though not having heard her, Alma continued to stare at the violin with a blissful smile.
Magda Hellinger had already turned to take her leave when she heard an unexpected, “Thank you, Blockälteste.”
In spite of herself, Magda discovered that she was grinning. “You’re welcome, Your Highness.”
That evening, the setting sun colored the underbellies of the clouds tender-pink. All over the camp, silence lay once the outside gangs had been marched in. Inside their cages, the guard dogs slept, locked up for the night. Only Block 10 was in wild excitement. Women, the ones who weren’t bedridden that is, moved their cots to free the space for a makeshift stage in the front of the room. Violin in hand, Alma shifted from one foot to the other in great impatience, her nerves strained to the utmost as though she were to play before the Vienna finest again and not this pitiful, suffering herd.
At last, everything was arranged. Perfect silence descended upon the Experimental block. Stepping in front of her audience, Alma brought a bow to the strings and closed her eyes. The first long, tentative note probed the stillness of the descending night. It cut itself short, hesitated, then suddenly gained force and unraveled in a crescendo of runs and, all at once, the very name—Auschwitz—had ceased to exist for its victims. They weren’t here any longer; eyes closed, dreamy smiles on their exhausted faces, the women swaying slightly in time with the music, each immersed in her own world where beauty once again had its meaning, where lovers twirled them in their arms to a Viennese waltz, where their loved ones still lived, despite all, for music is eternal and so are the memories.