All God's Children

by Anna Schmidt

  “There is no one left to serve on such a committee,” Beth reminded her aunt. “You, Uncle Franz, and me—the others have all gone elsewhere.”

  Aunt Ilse chewed on her lower lip as she stared into space. Then she looked up at her husband. “Nevertheless we should consider this in prayer and silence—the three of us. We should seek guidance. After all, even if Josef’s father is successful in getting Beth the extension, that does not mean she cannot change her mind and go, does it?”

  “I’m afraid if Herr Buch goes to the trouble of—”

  “Herr Buch is not God,” Aunt Ilse interrupted. “We must not allow ourselves to be guided by his decisions.”

  “I agree,” Beth replied. Her aunt’s face was splotched red, a sure sign that she was working herself into an episode that might well require medication to control. “Let us consider the matter together and in silence.”

  For the next few hours the three of them sat in their separate chairs, their eyes closed, their hands either folded or lying open on their knees. Once Aunt Ilse rose as if to speak, stood for a long moment, and then sat down again. Beside her Beth’s uncle rested his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.

  As the hours wore on, Beth was aware that Josef had returned and gone straight up to his room. She could hear the creak of a floorboard as he apparently paced back and forth. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked off the minutes and hours as they waited for clarity in the matter of Beth’s decision to stay or to go.

  As the first rays of dawn found their way through a small pinpoint hole in the blackout curtains, Aunt Ilse stood. This time she spoke without any hesitation. “I am considering that, with Beth’s help, over the next few months I might find my strength again—enough so that she could be safely returned to her parents and brothers. It is for me that she has stayed so long. She has practically raised Liesl, and I have allowed this. It is not—as I had first thought—her American rashness that keeps her here. What keeps her here is her kindness and concern— and my weakness.”

  She sat down again and resumed her posture of silent prayer and meditation. After several moments had passed, Uncle Franz stood. He spoke as if to a group of several people and as if their Quaker family were still all together instead of scattered across Europe.

  “I cannot deny that it gives me great comfort knowing that Beth is here when I am away attending to my duties at the university. These are unsettled and unsettling times for us all, and we have come to rely on Beth’s indomitable spirit to help us keep in mind that the challenge of making difficult choices is a part of every life. I believe that Beth has considered carefully this difficult choice and that she has been led to this decision—not by others but by God.”

  Normally the clerk of the congregation would wait for everyone who was moved to speak to do so and then either announce a consensus of opinion about the matter before them or—if there was no agreement among the group—table it for further discussion at some future time. But there was no clerk—no one designated to declare a consensus. Beth waited in silence. The pacing above them had ceased without her being aware of its absence until now, she realized. She hoped that Josef had finally gotten some rest.

  Her uncle cleared his throat. “Then it is decided. Assuming Herr Buch can make the necessary arrangements to extend the expiration of her visa, Beth will remain here with us for the time being.”

  Beth took in a deep breath and slowly blew it out. She had not given them the whole story of why she had decided to stay. But God knew why she wanted to stay on, and she had to believe that if that had not been His plan for her then her aunt and uncle would have come to entirely different conclusions when they spoke.

  “Let’s start some breakfast,” Aunt Ilse said, taking Beth’s hand. “Liesl will be up soon, and Josef mentioned something about the need to arrive early for his morning rounds.”

  As Beth reached for the aprons she and Ilse kept on hooks behind the kitchen door, her uncle opened the blackout curtains, filling the room with the sunshine of a new day.

  CHAPTER 10

  Later that day after Josef returned from his rounds at the hospital, the professor invited him into his study. Josef prepared himself for the man’s usual excitement over some reference or study he had discovered that might help Josef in his research. The last thing he expected was that Beth’s uncle would hand him a copy of the incriminating leaflet that had fallen out of his briefcase the night before.

  Franz pointed to the paper that Josef held. “Seeing these in my briefcase last night is the reason you so carefully repacked the contents and presented the briefcase to me. I got the message.” He sank into a chair and sighed heavily as he drummed his fingers on the threadbare arm of the overstuffed wingback. “So, what are we to do? I want so much to take a stand, yet I am so obviously bad at subterfuge.”

  Josef’s mind raced as he imagined all of the ramifications if the wrong person had discovered the contents of that briefcase. “Tell me how these papers came to be in your briefcase in the first place.”

  A wry but weary smile passed over the older man’s lips. “You have learned your lesson well, Josef. First consider the facts….”

  “You taught me that lesson. Assume nothing until you have gathered all the evidence. Only then make a diagnosis. I am simply following your instruction.”

  “You want evidence then. Very well. I attended the meeting. The others were busy preparing to leave for the holidays, but they were also full of talk about expanding the scope of our distribution. I offered to take several leftover copies of an earlier leaflet and place them in strategic locations.”

  “And the notes?”

  The professor studied him for a long moment. “I have been working on the draft of a new leaflet—jotting down some thoughts.”

  “Surely you know the danger, Professor—not just to you but for your family, for Beth.”

  Franz shrugged. “It is for them that I have joined this cause—for them and for my country.” He picked up another copy of the leaflet. “And unless you are the spy in our midst that my wife fears you to be, you agree that the work is important—vital for the future of Germany?”

  “I do.”

  Franz smiled and got a faraway look in his eyes. “Do you know what I find most appealing about these young people?”

  “Their enthusiasm? Their certainty?”

  “There are those things, of course. But it is the lack of appointed leaders that is the greatest part of their appeal. We Freunde also do not have a hierarchy of official or even unofficial posts.” He looked at Josef and leaned forward so that they were very close together. “And will you involve my beloved niece in our cause—is that truly the reason she has decided to stay?”

  Josef was surprised by the professor’s sudden shift in topic. But he respected the man far too much to dance around the question. “I have asked her to work with me mostly so that I can keep her safe. If she is distributing leaflets, then she cannot be doing things such as giving away her visa.” He stated this with the firm assurance that there could be no argument with his reasoning.

  Again the professor smiled. “Ah, but Josef, you do not yet know her. She knows no bounds when it comes to her concern for those she feels are weaker and unable to help themselves. She is brave to a fault.”

  “But surely you would not allow—”

  “I cannot stop her, and neither can you. For that reason alone you must think carefully about any decision you make to take action against the government that involves her. For she is falling in love with you, Josef, and whither thou goest so will she.”

  Josef knew that Franz was right. He stared unseeing at the words on the paper he held. “There was a book I read once,” he mused. “Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. His story was set in France—a group of students….”

  The professor nodded. “I know the story. They believed the people would rise up and overthrow the corrupt government. In the end no one came to fight with them. In the end most of them died for their lost caus
e.” He folded the leaflet he held into precise thirds. “One can only hope that in reality the outcome will not be the same. Although there is evidence that it could be worse—so much worse….” He told Josef about the news of Arvid Harnack’s grisly death. “And Josef, they have imprisoned that man’s wife—an American from Beth’s home state of Wisconsin.” He did not need to say more.

  Josef picked up the slim stack of leaflets. “Let me take care of these while you destroy any notes you’ve made for a new leaflet.”

  “I volunteered to deliver….”

  Josef smiled and held onto the papers. “My Christmas gift to you. And speaking of Christmas, I was going to ask Beth to go with me to the market today. It’s the perfect opportunity to get these delivered and out of your possession. We could take Liesl along as well.”

  “No, not Liesl. If someone—”

  “You’re right. But holiday or not, we need to get these out of your possession as soon as possible. Even in today’s Germany, one has to hope there is still a soft spot in even the hardest of hearts for a man and a woman in love out shopping for the holidays.”

  Franz nodded and then grasped Josef’s forearm. “Be careful.” Beth felt a rush of pleasure when Josef invited her to go with him to the Christkindlmarkt, Munich’s popular Christmas market.

  “Me too,” Liesl shouted.

  “Nein, Liebchen,” Franz said before Beth could agree. “I have a special job I need your help with. We must get a tree today.”

  “But I want to go to the market,” the girl whined, her lower lip beginning to quiver.

  “Now, Fräulein Liesl,” Josef said, “think about it. If you come with us, then how am I supposed to find that surprise I promised would be for you under the tree tomorrow night?”

  Beth noticed that he did not cater to the child. Instead he just kept eating his lunch as he made his point, speaking to her as if she were mature enough to understand the situation.

  Liesl’s lower lip was still extended in a sullen pout, but she was no longer on the verge of a tantrum. “I could close my eyes while you shop,” she suggested.

  Josef appeared to give this serious consideration, but then he shook his head and went back to eating. “No. There will be packages, and you might guess from the shape of them. And well, as much as I would be delighted to have you along, I just think not this time.”

  Beth’s aunt and uncle waited, their eyes on their plates, and Beth assumed that like her, they were anticipating a flood of tears and wailing from Liesl.

  “Next time then?” the girl bargained.

  “How about tomorrow?” Josef proposed. “You can help me choose a gift for your cousin here. After all if she is with me today I can hardly—”

  Liesl broke into a wide grin. “I know just the perfect thing,” she assured him in a stage whisper, and she actually winked at the man.

  “You certainly have a way with children,” Beth said later as the two of them set out for the market. “In eight years of being around Liesl, I have never seen anyone disarm her the way you did.”

  Josef grinned. “You women are easily disarmed,” he teased.

  “Oh, really? You are casting me in the same league with an eight year-old child?”

  “You, your aunt, my mother…You simply want to have your way. The trick is to find the path that allows that without surrendering the principle at hand.”

  She laughed and punched his arm playfully. “I knew you were arrogant, Herr Doktor Buch, but this goes beyond…”

  He lowered his voice even as he smiled at other shoppers they passed along the way. “Take you, for example. Your primary reason for wanting to remain in my country is because you believe that you can help others—your aunt and Liesl, of course, but also people like Anja and your friend Siggy.”

  “You are changing the subject.” She did not want to lose the lighthearted spirit of the conversation.

  “I am because it proves my point. In principle I do not agree with your plan to continue to risk your life to help people who are virtually strangers to you. And so I have proposed an alternate plan, the same way I did with Liesl earlier.”

  “You are speaking in riddles, Josef,” Beth said and hated the tone of petulance that colored her words. Who was sounding like a spoiled child now?

  “I am not. I have already pointed out to you that there is a way that you could help others—a great many others—that would not carry with it the danger you risked in helping Anja and her family.”

  Beth felt the familiar shudder that went through her every time she considered how many times over the course of their interactions with that family that they all might have been arrested, taken for questioning, imprisoned…or worse. “I know what you want us to do, Josef, but…”

  “We have our first assignment.”

  “You mean…?” She knew better than to repeat the name of the group aloud. Even in the crowded marketplace, anyone might overhear her utter the words White Rose. “And that is?”

  Josef glanced around where shoppers pressed close to them, examining the wares. “It’s cold. How about some Glühwein?” Without warning he veered away from the bustling stalls of the market and headed instead toward the Gasthaus they had gone to with Willi after the concert. Once inside he took her coat and waited for her to be seated at a table. Then he hung their coats on hooks near the door and placed the newspaper he’d been carrying from the time they left the apartment on the windowsill behind the coat rack. After the waiter took their order and left them alone Josef leaned in close, his fingers tenderly stroking her cheek.

  “Listen carefully,” he said, his voice low and intimate, but in his eyes she saw that same fierce intensity that she had noticed that first day she met him. “Underneath that newspaper is a copy of that item we were discussing—the one in my lab? When we have finished our wine, we will leave, but the newspaper will remain here.”

  He continued to stroke her cheek, leaning back only when the waiter delivered their order. Beth was speechless and glad for the interruption. Once the waiter left, she wrapped her fingers around the mug filled with the fragrant spiced liquid and murmured, “So while the others have all left for the holidays you…”

  “I am helping a friend.”

  “What kind of friend?”

  “Your uncle.”

  The idea that mild-mannered Uncle Franz might do anything so brazen as to join forces with some rebel group was so ridiculous Beth laughed. “Now you are teasing me and it is cruel to—”

  His expression told her he was speaking the truth. She gasped. “What can he be thinking? Aunt Ilse…Oh Josef, we cannot allow….”

  Suddenly Josef was smiling, and his eyes actually twinkled mischievously. “Drink your wine. We have shopping to do.” Now he was speaking in a hearty and normal tone as if he wanted others to hear him.

  “Will you buy me a present then?” she asked, her own voice loud enough that patrons at neighboring tables glanced their way and smiled.

  Josef caressed her cheek. “Presents—lots and lots of them,” he promised.

  “Then we’d best get started,” she teased as she made a show of finishing her wine and stood up.

  Josef followed her lead, finishing his wine and then helping her on with her coat. They linked arms and left, but the newspaper stayed where Josef had placed it. Not one of the patrons or staff seemed to notice.

  “Do you think someone will find it—the leaflet?” Beth asked as soon as they were safely on their way to the market.

  “We can hope so. Furthermore we can hope that whoever finds it will read it and feel inspired to take a stand—perhaps copy the words and pass them on to others. That’s the only way this will work, Beth.”

  They held hands as they strolled along looking at the various wares in each booth at the market. Josef bought gifts for Franz, Ilse, and Liesl and then led the way to a nearby park where they could speak more freely.

  “I understand why you might wish to get involved in all this, Josef. You love yo
ur country and you—”

  “But you are wondering why I have involved you?”

  She nodded.

  “Two reasons. If you and I distribute these leaflets, then your uncle won’t have to.” He sighed heavily. “The professor’s inattention to small matters—the way he left his briefcase lying open in the foyer the other night as one example—is bound to catch up to him eventually.”

  She could not deny that. “You said there were two reasons.”

  “I believe that, politics aside, you hate this war as much as I do. What if we could help bring it to an end, Beth?”

  “We are two insignificant players in this time and place, Josef. All we can do is—”

  “Pray? Does God not expect His people to act on those prayers? Does He not lead us to follow His way to make a better world?”

  She took her time before speaking again. Obviously her uncle had considered very carefully the action he had taken in agreeing to unite with this band of resistors and join in their work. Quakers were not political, and he would never do such a thing unless he had prayed long and hard on the matter. “Very well, I will join you in this work. But there is one thing you need to understand, Josef Buch. I am not a child that you can manipulate as you did Liesl. I can do this and save someone like Anja again should God see fit to bring that person to my attention.”

  On the morning of Christmas Eve, Liesl was awake before dawn, her excited chatter filling the small room she shared with Beth.

  “It’s snowing,” she crowed triumphantly. “I prayed that it would, and look, Beth.” She pulled back the blackout curtain, exposing the small window that overlooked the courtyard below.

  Beth stood behind her cousin, wrapping her arms around the girl’s thin shoulders as together they watched fat snowflakes drift past the window and turn the scene outside to a wonderland. The radiator hissed and clanked but put out little heat.

  “Let’s get dressed and go outside,” Liesl said. “We can be in the middle of it all before others can walk through and spoil it with their footprints and shovels.”