His voice faded into memory. After a minute he shook his head with a sad little smile and continued. “Anyway, the notes I have about the Radbukas—well, let me get them.”
While he went up to his study I helped myself to fruit and rolls from his refrigerator. He came back in a couple of minutes with a thick binder. He thumbed through it, opening it to a sheet of cheap grey paper encased in plastic. Even though the ink was fading to brown, Lotty’s distinctive script—spiky and bold—was unmistakable.
Dear Max,
I admire your courage in taking this trip. Vienna for me represents a world I can’t bear to return to, even if the Royal Free would grant me a leave of absence. So thank you for going, since I am as desperate for a conclusive answer as everyone else. I told you about my grandparents. If by a miracle they have survived and have been able to return to their home, it is Renngasse 7, third-floor front.
I want to ask you also to look for any record of another family from Vienna, named Radbuka. This is for someone at the Royal Free who sadly cannot recollect many details. For instance, the man’s first name was Shlomo but the person doesn’t know his wife’s name, or even if they would have been registered with some kind of Germanized names. They had a son called Moishe, born around 1900, one daughter named Rachel, two other daughters whose names the person isn’t sure of—one might be Eva—and a number of grandchildren of our generation. Also, the address isn’t certain: it was on the Leopoldsgasse, near the Untere Augarten Strasse end: you turn right from U.A. onto L-gasse, then it’s the second turning on your right, into the interior courtyard, and on the third floor at the back. I realize that’s a hopeless way to describe what may now be a pile of rubble, but it’s the best I can do. But please, I ask you to treat it as seriously as your search for our own families, please make every effort to see what trace you can find of them.
I am on duty tonight and tomorrow night both, so I won’t be able to see you in person before you leave.
The remainder of the letter gave the names of some of Lotty’s aunts and uncles and concluded with, I’m enclosing a gold prewar five-Krone piece to help pay for your journey.
I blinked: gold coins sound romantic, exotic, and wealthy. “I thought Lotty was a poor student, barely able to make her tuition and rooming payments.”
“She was. She had a handful of gold coins that her grandfather had helped her smuggle out of Vienna: giving one of them to me meant wearing her coat and socks to bed in lieu of heat that winter. Maybe that contributed to her getting so sick the next year.”
Abashed, I returned to the main question. “So you don’t have any idea who in London asked Lotty for help?”
He shook his head. “It could have been anyone. Or it could have been Lotty herself, searching for relatives. I wondered if it might be one of her cousins’ names: she and Hugo were sent to England; the Herschels had been quite well off before the Anschluss. They still had some resources, but Lotty once or twice mentioned very poor cousins who stayed behind. But I also thought it might be someone who was in England illegally, someone Lotty felt honor-bound to protect. I didn’t have anything to go on, mind you. But one imagines something and that was the picture I painted to myself . . . or maybe it was Teresz’s idea. I can’t remember now. Of course Radbuka might have been a patient or colleague from the Royal Free for whom Lotty felt similarly protective.”
“I suppose I could get in touch with the Royal Free, see if they have lists that date back to ’47,” I said doubtfully. “What did you find in Vienna? Did you go to—to—” I looked at Lotty’s note and stumbled through the pronunciation of the German street names.