The train began to puff and wheeze and Wilhelm turned to me and smiled. Then he put his hand on the windowsill to feel the vibrations from the rails below. The train lurched forward, and a whistle blew that the boy did not hear. The platform began to fall away, and with it, Vienna. I didn’t know if I would ever be back. The future looked so dark and unclear.
As I watched the city drift past, I practiced in my mind what Emilie and I had decided I would say to the Swiss canton officials when I at last arrived in Lucerne.
I had procured my Swiss travel visa by stating that I, as Wilhelm’s nanny, was bringing him to Lucerne to see an elderly aunt and also visit the school that his parents wanted him to attend when he was older, Sister Gertrude’s school. We were to be in Lucerne only seven days. That was what I was going to tell both the German and the Swiss border officials.
But that was not what I was going to be telling the canton officials in Lucerne.
I was instead going to be begging for temporary residency for Wilhelm. I knew I’d have the backing of Sister Gertrude’s conventand school, and also the local Catholic relief agency and the family who had agreed to care for Wilhelm until he could go home safely to Austria and not be in danger. But still.
“When I tell them that, the canton officials will know that I lied when I got the visa,” I’d said to Emilie as we were making these plans.
“No, they won’t,” she’d said. “I’ll send you a telegram two days after you arrive telling you that Wilhelm’s life is in danger and he shouldn’t return home. And that’s when you will go to the canton. That’s when you will ask if you can stay also. It’s widely accepted that it’s not wise for Americans to reside in Nazi-occupied territories right now, Helen. You can remind them of that, and you can say that your Austrian work visa is about to expire. You tell them you will require nothing from the canton except permission to stay. Sister Gertrude will tell them she will provide you room and board in exchange for teaching English, so that you will not be taking any wages from a Swiss worker. Oh, and offer your services to the canton as an interpreter. You speak English, French, and German. You can be an asset to them during this uncertain time.”
“And if they say I can’t stay?”
“If they say no, you will be no worse off than you are now. But you’ll probably have to attempt to find a way home to America. It’s not that easy right now to travel to the U.S. Ocean liners from Europe aren’t crossing the Atlantic anymore. It’s full of German submarines and the Swiss know it. So you can just make a show of trying to get home. Perhaps you will actually find a safe way to do it, Helen. But until then, we can try to get more disabled children out of Austria.”
“But how will we do it?” I ask. “I can’t go back into Austria and do it this way again.”
“No, you absolutely cannot. We will have to find another way. I don’t know yet how, but we will. We have to.”
•••
The hours on the train passed slowly, and I couldn’t help but flinch every time someone walked by our seats. Wilhelm gazed out the window, looked at books his mother had packed in his rucksack, and played with little farm animals also tucked in his pack. We ate sandwiches his mother had made and dozed. Finally, in the late afternoon, we entered the Arlberg Tunnel— fifteen thousand meters of railway inside the heart of the Alps. Wilhelm loved it.
By the time we had changed trains again and arrived at the last station before the border, it was after eight in the evening, but the long July days meant dusk was only just beginning to fall.
Sister Gertrude had instructed me to use the Rhine River border crossing at Höchst, two hours north of Lucerne. She had friends in St. Margrethen on the Swiss side who would be waiting for Wilhelm and me and would give us lodgings for the night and get us to the train station the following morning.
Again I needed a porter to help us get our travel cases to a waiting taxi, which then took us to the border crossing on the St. Margrethen Bridge. Wilhelm and I joined a dozen other people who had queued to walk across the Rhine to Switzerland on foot. I used hand signals to tell Wilhelm to hold on to my skirt with one hand and his rucksack with the other as I carried both our travel cases and my handbag over my shoulder. I could tell Wilhelm was tired of traveling, and the thrill of seeing Swiss cows had waned. He looked at me, signed the word for his mother, and mouthed the wordMutti.
“I know. Soon,” I said, enunciating all three words carefully so that he could read my lips.
Finally it was our turn.
I handed our documents to the German official who asked forthem. He looked at mine, looked at Wilhelm’s, and then at mine again.
“Why did you come this way?” he said curiously.
“Sir?”
“Feldkirch would have been quicker for you. Why this crossing?”
I mentally tamped down a little knob of alarm. “I have friends in St. Margrethen I wish to see before we go to Lucerne. Just for overnight.”
Then he looked down at Wilhelm. “And how old are you, little one?”
“Wilhelm is shy around strangers,” I said. “And you can see on his documents that he is six.”
The official stared at me. My heart began a staccato beat in my chest.
But then he stamped our documents and we walked the few meters to the Swiss side of the bridge, where we would have to do this all over again.
There was the same scrutiny, the same careful study of our documents.
“And why are you coming to Switzerland for these seven days?” the Swiss official asked disinterestedly.
I gave him the answer I’d practiced. “To see Wilhelm’s aunt and visit the Catholic school that his parents wish him to attend when he is a bit older.”
