My rescuer held his finger to his lips again then turned in a circle as if looking for some familiar landmark. Maybe he did know where he was going, I thought. Maybe he’d been here before and was leading me through the woods to this exact location. As improbable as it seemed, again, it was possible.
In the distance, I heard a sound as foreign to these American woods as a sheep’s bleating in the middle of Pittsburgh: German voices.
“Hier. Hier entlang.” Here. This way.
I turned toward my companion, but he was looked for something in the darkness. The voices drew closer, and I could now hear the occasional crunch of leaves. Quickly, I was pulled by my arm toward a stand of serviceberry.
My guide leaned in to my ear and whispered, “Get down and crawl.” He then dropped to his knees and disappeared under the shrub.
To my left, no more than twenty yards away, I heard a deep voice say, “Hier!”
Following my guide’s example, ignoring the intense ache in my leg, I got on my hands and knees and found a small opening at the base of the shrub.
I emerged on the other side of the shrub in what looked like a shelter nature had constructed for the very activity in which I was engaged. On either side were shrubs, serviceberry, thick enough to act as walls, and above was a heavy ceiling of low hanging pine branches. The whole room was no more than six feet by six feet and four feet high, but it was a room and a room that was hidden from the outside.
We remained still, me on my hands and knees and my new friend on his haunches, knees pulled up tight against his chest, listening as the sound of crunching leaves drew closer until they were just outside our hiding place.
I held my breath and tried in vain to steady my heart and disassociate the throbbing fire that coursed through my leg. Outside, just on the other side of the serviceberry, stood our pursuers. I didn’t know if all four of them had taken chase or if one or two had stayed behind to watch the prisoners, but at least two were out there. I couldn’t see them but could hear their feet shuffling through the carpet of fallen leaves and their lungs sucking in air. If they found us, if they discovered us hiding like two rabbits from a pack of hungry wolves, they would kill us on the spot. Well, I knew they would kill me, anyway. My friend I wasn’t so sure about. He was apparently one of them and would be considered a traitor of the worst kind, no doubt worthy of a fate much worse than death. At that moment I felt a unique bond with him, and I was moved by his sacrifice, by his willingness to make himself an enemy for my sake. I thought of something Jesus once said: Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. He wasn’t dying for me, but he was laying down his life, and I wasn’t even a friend, I was an American.
The shuffling continued outside and occasionally I would catch a glimpse of the flashlight’s beam as it fell on the shrubs. Apparently, though, from where the Germans stood, the passageway at ground level was not visible.
After a few minutes, one of the Germans cleared his throat and said, “Wir verloren ihn.” We lost him.
Then, after a short pause, I heard a sound familiar to any man who’s spent any amount of time in the woods. One of my pursuers was emptying his bladder.
When the German had finished he said, “Kommen!” Come! And the footsteps retreated to our right.
We remained still and silent until the sound of crunching leaves faded into the noiseless night, then, as if someone had flipped a switch, my rescuer took on the luminous quality he had shown in the basement.
24
“How do you do that?” I asked.
He looked at me with wide eyes, his face a question mark. “Do what?”
I waved my hand in front of his gleaming face. “Glow like that. How do you do it?”
He looked at his hands as if discovering for the first time that his skin was not like mine, not like any other human’s. “I really don’t know,” he said. “It just happens.”
“What do you mean just happens? You’re glowing. That doesn’t just happen. Hair loss just happens. Liver spots just happen. Alzheimer’s just happens. Glowing doesn’t just happen.”
He paused, thinking about what I’d just said. “I don’t know. But I’m sorry your grandfather has Alzheimer’s.”
I didn’t know how he knew about Pop’s condition unless he had spent time in the room with them and noticed his obvious state of delirium. “We need to get them out,” I said. “We need to go back. I can’t leave them there to die.”
He looked at me and somewhere deep in his cerulean eyes I saw both the innocence of a child and the intensity of a mercenary. “We will. But first you need rest. Your ankle, it’s badly sprained.”
My ankle. I was so mesmerized by my illuminated hero that I’d nearly forgotten about the pain. But thanks to my gleaming companion my nerves were once again sending pain signals to my fatigued brain. My leg felt like a barbed serpent had coiled around it and tightened its hold. “How do you know—”
But before I could finish my question, he pulled up my pant leg and laid his hand on my ankle. His hand was warm, not just warm like he’d had it in his pocket or tucked in his armpit, but intensely warm, like he’d had his hand soaking in scalding water. The warmth seemed to take on a life of its own in my leg, at first concentrating around the ankle, swirling clockwise in a slow circle, then climbing my leg, inching along, filling every muscle fiber, tendon, ligament, and blood vessel with liquid heat. I sat unmoving in dumbfounded silence as the sensation crept up my leg and settled in my knee.
And then Glowman removed his hand and the heat was gone.
“It’s important to have two good ankles,” he said. And with that he got on all fours and crawled through the opening in the shrub.
“Wait,” I said, scrambling after him. “Don’t leave me again.”
I exited the shelter and stood erect, amazed that my ankle had not one ounce of pain in it. Not even a remnant of discomfort. In fact, it felt stronger and more stable than it had before injuring it. I moved it around, clockwise, counter-clockwise, up, back, side to side. Nothing. No pain. No barbed serpent.
“What did you—”
My friend stood just feet away, back rigid, arms loose at his sides, head tilted up and back, eyes closed.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Listening.”
“For what?”
“Sounds.”
“What kind of sounds?”
“Sounds I can hear.”
“Sounds of what?”
“Them.”
The Germans. I assumed they had gone back to the house. My friend, however, was more cautious than I and was making sure they were not only gone, but long gone. I stood quietly for a few moments while he listened. I didn’t hear anything, not even the usual night sounds of nature, but his hearing must have been better than mine because when I asked him if he heard anything he held up a finger and nodded.
I waited another minute or so before he righted his head and opened his eyes. “They’re in the house,” he said.
“Which way?”
He pointed in front of us. “That way.”
I started to move but he caught me by the arm. “No. Not yet. You need rest.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my arm away and breaking his grip. “We can’t just leave them there.”
He reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get them. I promise. Trust me and do as I say.” His face brightened and a soothing warmth emanated from his hand and covered my arm. “You have to trust me.”
“Okay, okay. But first thing in the morning we go.”
He patted my arm. “Good enough. Now, let’s build ourselves a fire.”
“What’s your name?” I asked. I figured if we were going to be buddies I should probably know his name.
“Peter.”
“Peter what? Are you German?”
Peter looked at me like a child hiding a secret. “Just Peter.”
“Are you German? Are you a Nazi like the
m?”
He patted my arm again. “Let’s get a fire going and then we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
I followed him across the clearing. “How did you do that?”
“Fire first, Billy. Then talk.”
“No! Wait a minute. This is crazy. You . . . you healed me.” I bounced up and down on my feet. “How did you do it?”
Peter stopped and looked at me. After a deep sigh, he shrugged his shoulders and said “I don’t know” as if I’d asked him what the capital of Mozambique was.
“You don’t know? You just healed my ankle. It’s fine, no pain, no stiffness, no nothing. Look.” I lifted my leg and swung my foot in a circle then planted it on the ground again and bounced up and down. “It’s fine. And all you can say is ‘I don’t know’?”
Peter smiled, not a happy smile but a patient smile, a smile that said Oh ye of little faith. The same smile I imagined Moses donned a thousand times when the Hebrews complained and murmured about conditions in the wilderness, and the same smile I would have bet Jesus put on every day he spent with his disciples. “That’s right,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s not mine to understand. I won’t lie to you, Billy. Ever. Now gather some wood for the fire.”
Confused and frustrated, I gathered an armload of twigs and branches while Peter cleared a spot on the ground and encircled it with rocks. I knew I didn’t have any matches on me and hoped Peter didn’t assume I did. Dropping my bundle in the ring, I asked, “You have matches?”
Peter, who was squatting next to where I’d dropped the sticks and arranging them in such a way so as to let oxygen fuel the fire, looked up at me and shook his head. “Nope.”
“Nope? You don’t have matches? I don’t have matches. How are we going to start a fire? Why’d you tell me to gather all these sticks if you don’t even have matches?” I was tired, more tired than I thought I was, and my patience was wearing thinner than onion skin. “I’m sorry. Do you know how to start a fire without matches?”
If he was indeed a Nazi he was probably trained in survival tactics and must know a way to start a fire by using shoe polish or toothpicks or something.
Peter tilted his head and gave me that childlike look again. “Did I not tell you to trust me?”
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Of course he’d said that, but what did it mean? Trust him why? How? When?
While my mind was still stuck on that thought, Peter placed both his hands under the pile of twigs and sticks and closed his eyes. I was just about to think he was fully loco when his hands glowed bright white, like two light bulbs. The light filtered through the sticks and reflected off his face, reminding me of Moses’ radiant countenance after spending time with God.
I heard a low hissing sound, then a ribbon of smoke curled from the sticks and wove skyward. In a matter of seconds smoke was lifting from several different places on the stack. Then, with a crack like a whip a single flame appeared in the center of the pile, licking at the night air like a snake’s darting tongue. Peter withdrew his hands and they mellowed to their previous glow.
On the mound of criss-crossed sticks, the flame spread until a warm, rhythmic fire engulfed the entire pile.
Peter sat back on his bottom, smiling as his glow diminished and died without even a flicker. He looked at me and motioned with his hand for me to sit.
I swallowed hard and obeyed, sitting across the fire from Peter. What kind of man was this that healed and had skin with a strange luminous characteristic and could start fires with his bare hands? “How did you do that?” I finally said.
“Do what?” His innocence was not feigned, but genuine. I know when I’m being mocked or toyed with and Peter was doing neither.
I pointed at the flames separating us. “The fire. How did you start the fire?”
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well you must have done something. You just started a fire with nothing but your hands.”
Peter looked at his hands and smiled. “It just happened. Some things are like that. I don’t have all the answers, Billy.”
I sighed and shook my head resolving to let my questions go unanswered. At the moment. But there was a question he could answer. “Are you German? Are you a Nazi?”
“Just because someone is German by nationality, doesn’t mean they’re Nazi. Nazism is a philosophy for some, a religion for others. You can be one and not the other.”
“What does that mean? All Germans are Nazis. Everyone knows that. They’re mutually exclusive.”
Peter rubbed his jaw. “Are all Americans Christians?”
“No, of course not.”
“No, of course not. Most say they are, but some are atheists, some are communists, and some, regardless of how well they try to hide it, are Nazis. Not all Germans are Nazis. This may surprise you, but some are even Christians. Very devout Christians, in fact, who hold very strongly to Jesus’ teachings of love and forgiveness.”
My ears were capturing his words correctly and my brain was interpreting the signals correctly and reason and logic told me Peter was right, but my heart refused to believe it. Germans were Nazis. I hated Nazis and therefore, hated Germans. All Germans. To think that there were Christians in Germany, doing nothing about Nazism and therefore condoning it was simply preposterous. Maybe they thought they were Christians. A lot of people think they’re Christians. The Catholics during the reformation years who did ghastly and unspeakable things to other people in the name of Jesus thought they were Christians. Even Hitler claimed to be a Christian. The idea of any Germans being true Christians, followers of Christ, in the same family of God as me, was simply unthinkable.
Peter lowered his head and peered at me through the tops of his eyes. “You don’t believe me. What about that box in your pocket?”
The pillbox. I reached into my pocket and withdrew it. Holding it up to the light I ran my fingers over the words, then over the swastika. “This? Seems hypocritical doesn’t it?”
Peter’s face was orange in the glow of the fire. “No more so than if you’d replace the swastika with an American flag. The swastika is not evil. It stands for evil now but originally it was simply a symbol for German nationalism. Its history is long and good. Did you know that in the First World War your own American 45th division had a swastika on its shoulder patch? It wasn’t until Hitler came along and used it as an icon of hate and death that it took on an evil meaning.”
“Thanks for the history lesson, but it’s still hypocritical.”
He stuck out his hand. “Let me have the box.”
I tossed it to him.
He held it up to the light and caressed the cover with his thumb. “God with us. Emmanuel.”
“It’s yours, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yes. I left it in the woods so you would find it.”
“Are you a Christian?” I knew my question sounded condescending, as if I didn’t possibly think he could be a Christian and wanted to trap him in his answer.
Peter stopped his thumb and shifted his eyes to mine. “Not in the same way as you, but I serve the same God you do, the same Jesus, the same Spirit.”
“Are you a Jew then?”
Peter chuckled, a warm laugh that was in no way mocking. “No. I’m not Jewish. Most Jews don’t serve Jesus as Lord. He’s their Messiah, but they rejected him. I would never do that. I’ve seen what it can do.”
25
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. This German . . . Nazi . . . Christian . . . whatever he was—Peter—was an enigma. He spoke in cryptic language that led to more questions than answers.
He looked at me blankly, eyebrows raised, eyes wide. “Mean by what?”
“What you just said, ‘I’ve seen what it can do,’ what rejection can do.” Something told me there was more to this stranger, this rescuer of mine, than he was telling me.
He looked at the fire, and flames danced in his eyes. For a few moments he said nothing but watched the fire as if he were viewing
some far away scene from another time and place, a scene that brought both heartache and fear. Tears welled in his eyes and eventually spilled over, running silver lines down his cheeks. He swallowed hard, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob, then he cleared his throat. “Some time ago . . . friends of mine rejected God. They tried to persuade me to join them, tried hard, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. They . . .” More tears fell from his eyes, like rivulets of rain coursing down a window. “They . . . well, let’s just say we are no longer friends.”
I could see the pain etched in the lines of his face. His eyes darkened and a shadow fell over him. Whatever it was that happened between him and his friends was serious and it had broken his heart, left him wounded and scarred. Peter’s sudden show of emotion left me feeling uneasy.
“Why are you here?” I asked, changing the subject.
Peter blinked, wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and sniffed. “What?”
“I mean, why are you here with those other guys? You don’t seem anything like them.”
“I’m not like them. Nothing like them. They’re brutes, beasts with little or no conscience.” He looked again at the fire and, once again, appeared as though he might start crying. “But Jesus died for them too.” Then he moved his eyes to meet mine. They seemed to bore into my head and find my soul, the softest spot of my own conscience. “Don’t ever forget that Billy. Jesus died for them too.”
I didn’t know what to make of that comment. Jesus died for those Nazi animals? Deep down, in the core of my being where truth hid, I knew he was right. Christ died for all men, for the sins of the whole world. But I didn’t want to believe it, because if Christ died for those four monsters, for all Nazis, even the worst of the worst who did unspeakable crimes against other people, than that meant they were savable. All they had to do was believe in Jesus, place their trust in him for salvation and they would be forgiven, equals with me and every other born again, Bible-believing, upstanding Christian who worked hard to please God and live an upright life. The thought didn’t sit well with me at all. I didn’t want to accept it, a part of me couldn’t.
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