Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Vienna, City of My Dreams

Chicago, Illinois

December 1959

Marion Chapman had been jumpy and on edge more than usual. The phone call she had just gotten a few days before from a stranger wanting to use Dena’s picture on the cover of Seventeen magazine had rattled her so that she was having a hard time trying to get things together for Dena’s Christmas. It was only a week away but the same nagging questions were gnawing at her: Why did that woman really want to put Dena’s picture in a magazine? And why had she mentioned a mother-and-daughter photograph? Was someone trying to connect her and her daughter? And why had the Mother Superior given out her number to that woman? Did she know something? Had she said anything to Dena? Her thoughts raced in a hundred different directions. She was so distracted that she had to wrap and unwrap the last of Dena’s presents, something she was usually expert at doing. Lately, even at work, the simplest of tasks seemed so difficult that she could hardly get through them.

She had just put the last box in the closet when the phone rang and startled her. Who could be calling at this time of night? Could it be that woman again?

But it wasn’t. It was long distance from Vienna. Theo was in the hospital, dying. The man said Theo had given her name as next of kin, and if she wanted to see him she had better come right away.

When she put the phone down her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly think. All she knew was that she had to get to him. He needed her and there was no time to waste. She quickly packed a bag, ran out in the freezing rain, and hailed a cab for the airport. Thank God she had kept her Austrian passport. Eighteen worried and sleepless hours later, she arrived at the hospital.

When she was led into the ward where they had him, she was shocked to see the person the nurse pointed out. At first she could not be sure if it was her brother. The man lying there was so small, his face was so old and drawn. It couldn’t be Theo.

But it was. As she got closer she recognized his hands, his long, delicate fingers. They were the only part of him that was still young, still beautiful. Tears ran down her face as she sat by his bed and held the hand of what was left of her brother. She sat there with him for the next three days until he died.

She could not be sure if he had even been aware that she had been there or whose hand he had been holding, but at least he did not die alone in a charity ward.

For those three days she had felt so helpless, such a sense of deep despair. To think that Theo, of all people, who could have brought such joy and beauty to the world, should have ended up like this. That he would have been so tortured, been driven to murder all because of that one drop of blood. Poor Theo. Every bone in her body ached with regret that she had not done more to help him.

Two days later she stood alone, shivering in the bitter cold in a small cemetery on the outskirts of Vienna, looking down at the small headstone that read:

THEODORE KARL LE GUARDE

MUSICIAN

1916–1959

It was all over. She had done everything she had to do. Now she could go home to Dena.

As she walked back through the cemetery, a sudden wind kicked up and she thought she heard a small limb or twig snap off a tree. She turned to look but she did not see anything. She had not slept for days and was now burning with a raging fever, but as she continued on she began to feel a strange, almost euphoric feeling, an odd sense of relief, almost as if all the stress and tension had suddenly been lifted. At that moment she looked up and suddenly noticed for the first time how blue and clear the sky had become.

She rode the streetcar back past the botanical gardens near Schönbrunn Park, where she and Theo had been taken so many times as children. When she got off near her hotel, she did not go in. Instead she walked.

She had been so occupied with Theo that today was the first time she actually realized: she was home! Suddenly it seemed that the entire city had come into sharp focus. Colors looked brighter to her and sounds seemed strange and amplified, almost as if they were coming from an old radio or phonograph.

She walked over to their old apartment house in the Lothringerstrasse, looked up, and remembered the good times, the music, the laughter. She walked over to the Alsarstrasse, past the general hospital, where her father and grandfather had practiced medicine, and along the Elisabethstrasse Promenade beside the Danube, past the Central Café, the Café Mozart, and everywhere she went she heard music. She did not see the bombed-out buildings. She saw only what she remembered. Vienna was now occupied by French, English, American, and Russian soldiers but she did not notice them. To her the aroma of the coffee mixed with the rich, sweet smells of pastries and warm bread were still the same. As she rode the giant Ferris wheel two hundred feet high and looked across the city, she felt ten years old again and happy. She was so glad the war had not destroyed her beautiful city. Vienna seemed almost exactly as she had left it.

It was late afternoon when she walked back to her hotel. As she turned the corner she stopped and could hardly believe who she saw. It was her childhood friend Maria, watching the animated Christmas display in a shop window. She could see her face clearly in the blinking lights. She called out and rushed toward her.

“Maria! It’s me, Marguerite!”

The little girl’s parents looked at the woman who thought their daughter was someone named Maria and realized she must not be in her right mind. They quickly took their little girl and hurried away into the crowd.

She went into the Hotel Sacher, asked for her key, and went upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later she stepped into the tub full of warm water. Despite the fever, she felt so relaxed and yet so alive. She was back where she had once been happy. She reached up and opened the small window and heard the sounds of the city below. She could hear a soprano rehearsing in one of the rehearsal rooms in the Staatsoper House across the street. She smiled and leaned back and waited until all the water had gone down the drain.

For the first time in years she wasn’t afraid. It had come to her this morning at Theo’s grave that she was the last of the Le Guardes. The only one left. The one, last drop of blood in her was the only link that could connect Dena with the Le Guardes. That little drop of blood was all that was left. She closed her eyes and squeezed the razor blade in her hand. She knew what she had to do.

It was so simple. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

Where was it, she wondered? Was it on her left side? Where was it lurking? Did it stay in one place or did it travel throughout her body, running and hiding, determined to haunt her year after year? She would just get rid of it once and for all. First the left side, the ankle, then the wrist. She must let it escape. Then the right side. There, it was done. She leaned back and waited. She felt a strange calm come over her as she felt the blood begin to leave and wondered if she would be able to feel it as it flowed out of her, so red against the stark white tub, past her, and on down the drain. Soon it would be gone. Oh, what a relief to finally get it out. Then she and Dena would be free. She leaned back and took a deep breath of the cold, fresh air that blew across her naked body and waited. As she lay waiting, a faint tune began to play over and over again in her head, a sad sort of waltz … what was it? She began to softly hum the tune.

What was it? Oh, yes, now she remembered. It was an old waltz, “Vienna, City of My Dreams.” A waltz from her childhood. Yes, soon she heard the music, softly at first, and then it slowly became louder and louder, drowning out the sounds of the street and the piano across the way, until the sound of an entire orchestra filled her ears and the words sang to her from so long ago. She could feel herself moving with the music. But where was she? She opened her eyes and looked.… Oh, she was dancing with her father in the gold-mirrored ballroom, under the crystal chandeliers, and there was her mother across the way, sitting in a small gold chair, dressed in satin and chiffon. Glittering stones sparkled on her neck and ears and she swayed with the music, smiling at them. Marguerite was ten again and she was waltzing with her father. She glanced up at him, so handsome in his tuxedo and white gloves, and he was young and happy and she was so proud to be his partner, so happy to be dancing again, she felt light, free, as they were sweeping and turning. He lifted her higher and higher, up and up, and as they waltzed they were lifted still higher, twirling and turning, around and around all the way up to the sky; now they were dancing among the glittering stars … higher and higher until they danced past the stars and on out of sight. The music lingered for a moment, then softly faded.…

She had only been trying to get rid of one drop of blood. She had meant to go back to the little girl who now sat in the apartment in Chicago waiting for her and live happily ever after. She had not meant to kill herself. It had just happened.