by Dean Hughes
“I assure you that—”
“It’s all right. I don’t mean to insult you. And I must admit, I have something in mind that might help both of us.” He waited, and considered again, while Brother Stoltz tried to breathe as normally as he could with so much anxiety raging inside. “You said something important a few minutes ago. You said the Führer needs workers. And more to the point, I need help. If I see to it that your forms are processed quickly, and you get your papers, would you come to work for me? I have approval to hire someone; I simply haven’t been able to find a person to do the work.”
Brother Stoltz nodded and hesitated. He was trying to think this all through. Would he be in future danger? Would this be a good place for him? He wasn’t sure, but he hardly dared to turn the man down, given the offer. Brother Stoltz nodded a second time and said, “Yes. That might work out. This doesn’t strike me as a job I might dream about, but it’s office work—with no heavy lifting—and that’s what I need. Yes, Herr Lindermann, I would be willing to work here.”
“Good. Fill out the papers. If you can’t get everything, it will be all right. Don’t be running off to Dresden to track down birth certificates. Fill out what you can and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thank you, Herr Lindermann. That’s a big help to me.”
“I’ll tell you, Horst, if I may call you that.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Right now, I don’t care much if your real name is Churchill or Roosevelt. Every day there are new displaced people in this city, and there is simply no keeping track of everyone. The paperwork piles up deeper all the time, and I can’t do much about it. If you can move some things along for us here, you will lift a great burden from my shoulders.”
“I’m sure I can do that. I’m happy to do it.”
Lindermann stood up. “It’s Thursday. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Bring the papers back tomorrow. I’ll put you to work on Monday. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Lindermann, for the first time, was actually smiling, showing a row of crowded, crooked teeth. “Oh . . . and don’t misunderstand. I was only joking about hiring a spy. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes. Certainly.” Brother Stoltz laughed.
“You’re not Jewish. I can see that. And I can’t think what else could be wrong with you. A case like yours is really quite common. I’m forced to trust people sometimes. I don’t know what else to do. You won’t repeat anything I’ve said here, now will you?”
“Of course not. We are under attack by a vicious enemy. And we need to concentrate on that—not turn on each other.”
“Exactly. Very well put, Horst. That is precisely the way I feel.”
It was all a code. Many Germans were weary of the war—and even seemed to recognize how it would turn out, in the end, and yet they knew what they had to say. “Let’s make the best of this,” Herr Lindermann seemed to be saying. “Let’s help each other out here, and let’s both survive.”
“I assure you, I am not a spy,” Brother Stoltz said. “And surely not a Jew.”
“Certainly. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He reached out and shook Brother Stoltz’s hand.
On the bus, on the way back to the bombed-out apartment house where his family was waiting, Brother Stoltz began to realize the full measure of his blessing. He had seen, while talking to Herr Lindermann, that God was opening another door, but now it occurred to him that he might—once he had worked a while in the office—be able to make papers for his wife and children. If he could create a Niemeyer family, all with proper identification, his wife and Anna could get work. He could rent an apartment, and his family could live like other people.
Brother Stoltz got off the bus and walked down the back alley toward the destroyed building where he and his family had been hiding for over a week. He watched for a chance and then hurried through the pile of debris, where the Stoltzes had cleared a little pathway. Then he climbed a pile of bricks onto the first-floor landing, which Peter had worked hard to open, and he made his way down the stairs and into the basement. “Frieda,” he called as he stepped into the dark apartment. “It’s me. I have good news.”
His wife and children were in the living room, where they received a little light from a window. They all stood up as he entered the room, and he could see more anxiousness than happiness in their faces. It was hard to trust in good news these days. The last week had been tedious in this dreary, dusty basement, with too little light and nothing to read, nothing to do—and every day the fear that bulldozers might show up to push all the debris aside. One day President Hoch had called down through the window and visited them for a few minutes. He had brought some money and offered some encouragement, but he had little idea what to advise them to do. He had even been skeptical about Brother Stoltz’s plan to attempt to get identification papers. It seemed a dangerous move.
Brother Stoltz, of course, had considered all that, but every other approach seemed unfeasible. Going on the run again—without papers—would keep them in constant danger, and trying to get out of Germany was very dangerous.
The best news from President Hoch had simply been that he was all right. He had told Herr Biedemann that he had made a mistake to take the “Hofmanns” in. They had claimed to be misplaced people, and he had pitied them, but he had no idea they had any reason to be on the run.
The Gestapo agents who returned with Biedemann had made no accusations, didn’t try to harm President Hoch, even seemed to accept his story about being knocked down, his shirt torn, but one of the agents had asked, “Did you ever hear these people use any other names?” And then, “Did they ever mention anything about Frankfurt?”
President Hoch had given nothing away, and the agents had mentioned nothing about the Mormon church. Perhaps they knew nothing about that. What they knew, of course, was that a family of four, with a son and daughter, was on the run for some reason. Perhaps by now Herr Kellerman had received that much information.
“This should be our last night here,” Brother Stoltz announced to his family. “We can start to live like normal people.”
“Heinrich, how can we ever do that?” his wife asked, sounding skeptical.
“I’m getting papers. Tomorrow. And a job. I’ll begin work on Monday. We have enough money to stay in some sort of guest house for a week or two until I get my first paycheck. And then we can rent an apartment, if we can find one.”
Brother Stoltz could see that it was all too much to believe. Anna was so much like himself; she was running all this through her mind, considering the dangers and possibilities before she embraced the idea with full enthusiasm.
“Tell us what happened,” Peter said. He was clearly the one most eager to escape from the boring existence they had lived for so long.
Brother Stoltz sat down on the old couch where his wife had been sleeping for the past week, and he rehearsed the story in complete detail. When he was finished, Sister Stoltz was crying. “The Lord has done this for us,” she said. “He keeps looking out for us.”
“Yes. I believe it’s so,” Brother Stoltz said. “And think of the possibilities. Once I’ve been in the office for a time, perhaps I can make up papers for all of us. Then we could wait out the war without much fear. Peter could go back to school. The rest of us could work.”
“What if Kellerman is looking for us?” Anna said, and he saw the fear that was lingering in her eyes, even though she clearly wanted to be happy about this news.
“I doubt he could find a way to track us now.”
“But if he knows we’re in Berlin, he would have a way to focus his search. He might have pictures of us circulated, or he might come here himself. If we come out of hiding, perhaps we’ll be noticed.”
“It’s possible, Anna. I don’t know. But things have changed in the past year. With cities being bombed all across Germany, there is so much confusion. I don’t think the Gestapo would place us very high on
their list of priorities.”
Anna sat down next to her father. “Maybe,” she said quietly, “but I’ve thought about this so often. I can’t imagine that Kellerman will ever give up searching for us. I cut him so badly. Every time he looks in the mirror, he will think of me—and he’ll keep trying to find us.”
Brother Stoltz didn’t want that kind of talk. This was a day when things had finally taken a better turn. “Dear Anna,” he said, and he put his arm around her shoulders. She seemed far too thin these days, even though he was sometimes stunned to realize all over again how beautiful she was—and how much she looked like the woman he had married so long ago. “This is difficult for all of us. But we should have been dead a long time ago, and we have survived. I was once a skeptic about such things, as you know, but I agree with your mother. The Lord is looking out for us.”
“I know. It seems so. But if Kellerman comes to Berlin, would he come to the office where you’re going to work? Wouldn’t that be a place he might check, to see whether anyone like us had been trying to get papers?”
“It’s possible.”
“What if you were sitting there at the desk and he walked in? What would you do?”
“Maybe I can disguise myself. Wear a mask.” He laughed.
“I’m serious. What would you do?”
“I don’t know, Anna. But I don’t think it’s very likely.”
Still, the joy was gone from the room, as everyone recognized that Anna had a point, that the office had its advantages but also, clearly, its dangers.
“Papa, can’t we get out of Germany somehow?” Anna asked. “If we get papers, isn’t there a way to do that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something worth looking into. But if we were caught at the border, we would be considered traitors. We could all be put to death.”
“I know. But if we got out, we could live again.”
“Yes. And you could go to America and marry your Elder Thomas.”
Anna nodded. “Yes. You know that’s what I want to do. But we don’t even know where he is. He may be fighting in the war by now. It’s even possible that something has happened to him.”
Brother Stoltz had thought of all these things. He nodded and said, “I know, Anna. But I think things are going to work out all right somehow. For now, let’s be thankful we’re getting out of this basement.”
Peter laughed. “I’m happy enough for all of us,” he said. Anna took a long look at Peter. It suddenly struck her that all the confinement was a greater loss to Peter than to any of them. These were his years to explore and discover who he was, and he was spending them hidden away with his family.
Chapter 7
Alex was sitting on his bunk. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and he knew that he would soon reach down and unlace his boots. For the moment, however, he didn’t have the energy. It was seven o’clock in the evening, miserably hot and humid in the barracks on this July evening, and he and the men in his company—E Company, 506th Regiment—had been going strong since four that morning. Camp Toccoa was miserable, and the combination boot camp/jump school was a sadistic idea. Airborne men were supposed to come out of their training ten times tougher than anyone else, and that meant the training had to be ten times harder—or at least that’s what Sergeant Willard, the drill sergeant, claimed.
When Alex had stepped off the bus the first day, he had looked at Mount Currahee, which loomed over the camp. He had heard one of the other recruits refer to it as a mountain, and Alex had joked about it being nothing more than a hill, but Curtis Bentley, a fellow from Georgia whom Alex had met on the bus, had told him, “My guess is, they won’t let it go to waste—no matter what you call it. We’ll probably have to run to the top of that dang thing to graduate.”
That had sounded like a reasonable guess, but the next morning—at four—the climb up the mountain was used for initiation, not graduation. The men double-timed to the top on the first morning—or at least most of them did. Some passed out and had to be hauled back in ambulances. Others dropped out, and that meant they were dismissed from the paratroopers on just their second day.
Since then, in three weeks of training, Alex’s company had made the run every other day or so, but today’s climb had been cruel beyond belief. That morning the “sarge” had told them they got a day off—no running. Everyone was overjoyed, and they ate a huge lunch of all the spaghetti and meatballs they could eat. Then Sergeant Willard calmly announced, “Our orders have changed. We’re running after all.”
Needless to say, the men vomited spaghetti all the way to the top of Mount Currahee. Several didn’t make it—and were dropped from the company. Alex knew what Captain Morehead—the Company Commander who had given the order—was up to. He wanted to break all the men who could be broken. E company was going to stay together as a battle unit, and every mission they undertook would be murderous. The men had to be ready for anything.
After his dirty trick, Morehead stood before the men and gave a speech about Currahee. He said it was an Indian name that meant “we stand alone.” He explained in lofty language that airborne soldiers had to stand alone—together. It was all very pretty, but Alex wondered whether the biggest challenge wouldn’t be to stand against a weasel like Morehead.
Alex had felt sick from the run, had continued to feel that way during the afternoon training. It was while he was eating dinner that the exhaustion had really hit him. Now, sitting in this ugly, bare-wood building, with naked light bulbs for lighting, he found himself wondering why he was here. He could have avoided the draft; he had had the perfect excuse.
“Hey, what’s the matter, old man?” someone was yelling.
Alex looked up, and then he smiled. He was staring at the belt buckle of a kid from Rhode Island—Alberto Rizzardi. “Congratulations, Al,” Alex said. “You just spoke an entire sentence without swearing.”
So Al let out a blue streak—a whole string of profane epithets—and then said, “How does that sound to a missionary? Hear any words you recognized?”
Alex didn’t respond. He finally did reach down and untie his laces. It wasn’t dark yet, but Alex wanted to stretch out and go to sleep as soon as possible.
“Leave that man alone,” one of the southern boys yelled. “He’s missing all those wives he left behind in Utah.”
Again, Alex didn’t honor the remark with a response, didn’t look around, but he reached down and pulled his boots off.
“Ain’t that right, Thomas? Ain’t you used to beddin’ down with some of them wives every night?”
Alex knew that the guy who was doing the talking was a moose of a fellow named Duncan. Everyone in airborne training had to pass an intelligence exam as well as a rigorous physical, but Alex couldn’t imagine how this guy had passed either one.
“Duncan,” Rizzardi said, “that’s not a nice way to talk to a missionary. And a college boy. Be a little more respectful.”
Alex wished he had never admitted so much about himself. The first day, on the bus to Toccoa, the new recruits had been asking each other about their backgrounds. Alex had simply told some of them what he had been doing the past few years. He hadn’t thought it would create such a problem.
“Hey, I do respect him,” Duncan roared. “I’ve gotta respect a bull who can take care of a whole herd of cows. I just wish I could change places with him.”
Alex stood and turned around. “Duncan, that’s enough,” he said, and he surprised himself with the power in his voice.
Duncan walked toward him, grinning. He was a huge kid, with shoulders like bags of grain. If he lost another twenty pounds, as he surely would at this pace, he was going to look like the picture of Goliath in Alex’s children’s Bible. But Alex was no small-fry himself.
“Golly gee, Thomas, can’t you take a little guff from one of your good buddies?” Duncan walked too close, clearly trying to intimidate Alex with his size.
“That stuff isn’t funny, Duncan. My great-grandfather was a polygamis
t, and I’m not ashamed of that. He was a fine man.”
This got a surprisingly different reaction from what Alex expected. Most of the men laughed.
Duncan continued to grin, with teeth that were deeply stained from tobacco chewing. “So your grandpa had all the fun, and all you get is the guff? Is that how it is, Thomas?”
“Just lay off, okay?” Already the anger was gone and embarrassment was setting in. How could these guys ever understand plural marriage? It was useless to respond to such stupid talk. Alex stepped back to his bunk and sat down.
Duncan walked away. “I ought to paste ol’ Thomas in the kisser,” he said, “just for talking to me like that. But I wouldn’t want to ruin his pretty face.”
Alex pulled off his fatigues. The back of his shirt was already soaked through with sweat, even though he had showered an hour before. He lay back on his bunk, and for at least the tenth time, he thought seriously of dropping out of airborne. On that first afternoon in this barracks, Sergeant Willard had walked in with Lieutenant Summers, the platoon leader. All the new recruits had jumped to attention, and Summers had walked by all of them—looking them over, sizing them up. Then he had barked, “At ease,” and Alex had had his first chance to get a good look at the guy. He was tall and lean and deeply tanned, no older than Alex, and he was wearing starched khakis with silver airborne wings over his left pocket. “Men,” he had shouted, although he was practically on top of them, “you have made a big mistake. You have come to the wrong place. No one in his right mind wants to be a paratrooper.”
He walked along, looking into each man’s face. “We are the shock troops of the army. We get the worst, most dangerous duty. We get dropped behind enemy lines and then fight our way out. The odds are, you’re going to die in this war if you stick with us, and I invite you, right now, to drop out and go back to a straight-leg unit. If you have any brains, raise your hand right now, and I’ll send you away—no dishonor at all.”
Airborne troops wore jump boots, not shoes, and they tucked their pants inside those boots and then bloused them out. Everyone recognized a paratrooper, and every paratrooper looked down on regular infantry soldiers. That was clear enough, and Alex knew that Summers was actually selling an image. But the recruiter had told Alex he would be safer to fight with a crack company, and now the lieutenant was saying the opposite. Alex wondered which was true. All the talk that Alex’s German background would earn him an intelligence assignment had been forgotten, never so much as mentioned since Alex had arrived.