Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  For the next couple of weeks Brother Stoltz got up each morning and walked through the cold but snowless streets to the bakery. He spent his morning with the bread, with Franz, and then with the good people who came to the bakery. After, he returned to his small room and slept for an hour or two, and then he spent his time with his Bible and the borrowed Book of Mormon. It was a life without the things he wanted, and yet oddly, it was very full. He liked the young people in his Sunday School class, and he found them surprisingly open and inquisitive.

  The class was made up of girls and younger boys. Most boys fifteen and older were in the military now. On the surface the class members seemed as lively as any young people, but they had grown up knowing war most of their lives, knowing the sound of bombs, knowing brothers and fathers and neighbors who had died, knowing their own vulnerability. At times they expressed bitterness about all they had been through, but more than any young people Brother Stoltz had ever known, they were curious to know what life meant, and what lay ahead in the next life.

  Brother Stoltz felt a need to be well prepared, to bring these young people the best he had to offer, and they seemed to recognize that in him. After the first class, a girl of thirteen or so, Ursula Glissmeyer, stayed after, thanked him, and then said, “There’s something I’ve wondered, Brother Stutz. My brother was killed in Italy a long time ago. I was so little that I don’t remember him very well. Everyone says I’ll have a chance to know him in the next life, but sometimes I talk to him now–so he’ll know me, even if I don’t know him. Do you think he can hear me?”

  “I don’t know, Ursula,” Brother Stoltz said. “Maybe someone knows, but I’m not very experienced in the Church. I would think that he does hear you, though, or at least somehow knows about his family on earth. It seems the best way for families to stay close during the time they are separated.”

  “I think so too,” she said. “And it helps me to talk to him.”

  “I have a son who is away from me. And I can’t talk to him. I don’t even know for sure where he is. So I know how you feel.”

  “Talk to him. Maybe he’ll know what you say–like my brother.”

  It was a simple idea, and not one he would have thought of himself, but there was something right about it, and Ursula’s faith made it seem possible. That night Brother Stoltz prayed, asked that Peter might know his thoughts, and then he told Peter, out loud, how much he loved and missed him, how much he was praying for his safety. He told him about his mother and sister, about Anna marrying Elder Thomas, about his own attempts to find Peter. And then he said, “Peter, don’t lose hope. You may have been pulled into circumstances you wouldn’t have chosen, but don’t give up. Your mother and sister and I love you, and we want you back. I’ll find you if there’s any way I can do that.”

  When Brother Stoltz had finished, he was no longer comfortable with hiding this way. He felt that he needed to make another effort to find Peter. But to do that he needed new papers, and the only person he knew who could help with that was Georg. And so he talked to Franz, told him he needed to be away for a few days, and he did the only thing he knew to do, even though he was sticking his head into the jaws of a lion. He took a train back to Berlin.

  He had no choice but to use his first identity and his travel papers, justifying a move to Berlin. The dates on those travel papers would be hard to explain, should someone look closely. He only hoped that his simple dress and his skill at bluffing would get him through if someone questioned him. If someone happened to recognize the name, perhaps from some list of fugitives, nothing would save him.

  But no one checked his papers carefully, perhaps because the greatest threats to the trains were the frequent raids on the tracks, and even on the trains themselves. He was held up for a long time outside Frankfurt. He had to wait several hours, and he was told that a crew was working on damage to the tracks ahead. But eventually, he was able to get going again, and he made it to the familiar old train station, not terribly far from where he and his family had once lived. The destruction he saw in Frankfurt, however, was shocking. He wondered what had happened to all the people he had known there, his old neighbors, his friends in the Church. But there was no time to find out. He changed trains and traveled to Hamburg and then on to Berlin. Once there, he telephoned Georg and used code language to make an appointment. The next day he met Georg in the Tiergarten, where they had met before.

  It was a cold day, but the sun was bright. “I thought you were gone,” Georg said, when he stood next to Brother Stoltz by the pond.

  “I was,” Brother Stoltz said. And then he told about his mistakes and his flight to Karlsruhe.

  “You should have stayed there,” Georg told him. “You had found some safety.”

  “I know. But I need new papers. I’ll never really be safe until I have them. I wondered if you could help.”

  “We can do that. But I fear that you still want to search for your son. That’s what this is all about. No?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know what to do, but I can’t bear the idea of giving up.”

  Brother Stoltz watched an innocent white swan as it turned gently and headed to deeper waters. He thought of Peter, who was smart, but Peter’s natural tendency was to be forthright, not to live a lie. Maybe, in his own innocence, he would trust someone and not see the danger.

  “I can get you papers,” Georg said. “But don’t be a fool. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “How long will it take to get the papers?”

  “That’s never certain. Go back to the bakery. Stay with your work there. I have contacts in Karlsruhe. I can get the papers to you through my friends.”

  “All right. But I don’t dare take the train. I have no papers that explain my traveling in that direction.”

  “I can help you there, too. I can get you a ride. Call me in the morning, and I’ll have something arranged.”

  “Is there a way to create papers that would get me out of Germany?”

  “No. You’re too well known. You’re putting me and my people in great danger just being here, contacting me. Wait out the war now.”

  “Georg, what if we were to blow up train tracks and power stations? Couldn’t we shorten the war that way?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. There are a few people doing that, I think. But the Gestapo has become more brutal than ever. They’ll kill a man just for suspicion. They don’t have to have proof. If that’s what you think you have to do, do it. But you’re not likely to survive–and how will that help your son?”

  Brother Stoltz felt the cold. He tucked his hands into his coat pockets. He looked about, wondered whether anyone was watching.

  “Do you know where I can contact people who are resisting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are any near Karlsruhe?”

  “Somewhat. Most are in the Ruhr, north of Karlsruhe.”

  “Tell me how to contact them.”

  Georg hesitated, ran his fingers over his cheek and across his bushy mustache. Finally he said, “I can give you a name and address. You must learn them, not write them down. I warn you, however, that you are entering into great danger to have anything to do with these people. We have helped them with false papers at times, but that is my only contact with them.”

  “Please. I want the name and address.”

  “I don’t have the address in my head. I’ll have to see you once again. But now I must go,” Georg said.

  The two separated, and Brother Stoltz strolled on through the park. At least, once he got the new identity papers, he could contact the OSS agent he had been scheduled to meet with before everything had gone wrong. He could possibly convince the organization to let his wife and daughter know that he was alive. That would take one great worry off his mind. But his frustration had finally struck him full force. Peter was probably not so terribly far away, perhaps in need of help, and there wasn’t one thing he, as his father, could think to do.

  He stopped and looked across the park again,
making certain he wasn’t being followed. And he took a final look at the swan, now drifting in the placid water. He shut his eyes and said, “Don’t give up, Peter. If I can find a way to help you, I will. But for now, stay strong. I love you. Your mother and Anna, they love you too.”

  Chapter 26

  It had been a long time since LaRue had shared much of anything with Beverly, but when LaRue finally got the call she had been waiting for, she knew she had to tell someone, and Beverly was the only one home. She ran up the stairs and burst into Beverly’s room. “Guess what?” she squealed.

  Beverly was reading. She was always reading these days. She had a few friends in the ward and at school, but she spent most of her time alone with a book in her hands. She often curled up downstairs on the couch, near the radio, when Dad wasn’t around, but today she was lying on her bed. She twisted around to look at LaRue, but she didn’t ask; she only waited.

  “That was him,” LaRue said. “He asked me to the Christmas dance.”

  Beverly sat up. “Really? How did you get him to do it?”

  LaRue, of course, knew exactly what Beverly meant, but she pretended not to. “What do you mean, how did I ‘get him to do it’? The boy has a mind of his own, doesn’t he?”

  “Not once you start to work on him.”

  LaRue believed that was exactly right, and she smiled with satisfaction, but she didn’t make that claim. She walked over and sat down next to Beverly on the bed. “But I didn’t think he was going to do it. He waited until the last minute. It doesn’t give me much time to work on Dad–and get myself a new dress.”

  She laughed at herself because what she knew was that she could pull that one off too. Dad wasn’t the tightwad he had once been, but he still had to be handled just right. He would claim that he and Mom had already spent way too much for Christmas, and then he would start his old tune about Christmas being too commercialized “these days.” But LaRue saw the angle to play, immediately. Reed Porter was not only president of the junior class; his father was a bishop in President Thomas’s stake. He was just the sort of boy Dad would want LaRue to be going with. She could play that trump card all the way to the prettiest dress in town.

  “He’s the best-looking guy in the whole school,” LaRue said.

  “How come you always say you don’t like the boys at school?”

  “I don’t like the ones my age. They’re all infantile. But Reed’s not like that. He’s sort of serious. He’s seventeen, and he looks even older than that. But he’s shy. I had his face almost burning up this week, just from teasing him.”

  “Is that how you do it–by teasing him?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You told me you wanted him to ask you to the dance, and then, all of a sudden, he does. How do you know how to do that?”

  LaRue got up and walked to Beverly’s dresser, and she looked into the mirror. She leaned close to it and checked to see what was happening with the pimple next to her nose that was finally drying up. She didn’t get lots of pimples, the way some kids did–but she hated to get any at all. She washed her face with Woodbury’s Facial Soap every day, and she used Armand’s Cleansing Cream before she went to bed at night. “I don’t know what I do,” she said. “If I like a boy, I just talk to him. You have to let a boy know you like him. Boys never seem to think of anything by themselves–until you plant a few ideas.”

  “What do you say to them? I wouldn’t know one thing to say.”

  LaRue turned around and sat on the chair by the dresser. “I don’t know. I told Reed he was conceited because he’s such a big sports star.”

  “Is he conceited?”

  “No. He’s sweet as pie. He was about the best player on the football team, and he’s only a junior, and now he’s playing basketball. But if you compliment him, he always says, ‘So and so is better than I am,’ and things like that.”

  “So what did he say when you told him he was conceited?” Beverly was clearly enjoying this. Her skin was pale normally, but her face had brightened with color now. LaRue felt bad that she didn’t talk to Beverly more often; it seemed to mean so much to her.

  “I don’t remember what he said–something about trying to do his best for the team. You know how boys talk.”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Well, you should. You read those lovey-dovey romance stories night and day.”

  “No, I don’t.” She held her book out. It was a library book; that’s all LaRue could see. “I read mostly books about horses.”

  “A girl and her horse. And the boy she meets.”

  “Sometimes.” Now Beverly was really blushing. She looked away for a moment and then asked, “Did you say anything to him about the dance–that you wanted to go or anything like that?”

  “Oh, Bev, no. Are you crazy? You can’t come straight out with something like that. I told him that all the girls liked him. He wouldn’t admit that either, but I told him unless a girl was really, really cute, she didn’t have a chance with him. He was almost dying, he was so embarrassed.”

  “Didn’t that make him mad at you?”

  “No. He just tried to act like it did. And then . . .” LaRue hesitated for effect, and she winked at Beverly. “And then he told me . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well . . . after I said that about having to be really cute, he said, ‘I guess you know you’re the cutest girl in the whole sophomore class. I’ve heard lots of guys say that.’”

  “Really?”

  LaRue was embarrassed to have told the story, but she was also triumphant. Reed Porter was the boy all her friends talked about, the boy she had targeted, and now she was going to the dance with him.

  “What about Ned?” Beverly asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Don’t you like him anymore?”

  “Sure I do. But he’s mostly just a friend.”

  “Are you still going to dance with him at the canteen?”

  “Sure. What difference does that make?”

  “Do you want two boyfriends at the same time?”

  “No. Of course not. I want ten . . . or maybe twenty.”

  Beverly giggled, and LaRue liked that. But the truth was, she did feel the need to break things off with Ned. He had been a gentleman since that one night, but he was still pressing her to be serious about him, and LaRue didn’t want that. This new attachment was going to make a breakup a lot easier. LaRue was even thinking that she wouldn’t go to the USO anymore. Rumors had spread to the high school, and some girls had asked her whether she had a boyfriend at the canteen. She wondered what else people might be saying about her. She didn’t want the boys at the high school to start telling tales or to think she was getting wild.

  “What kind of dress do you want?” Beverly asked.

  Beverly was wearing an ancient thing herself, a green cotton school dress, faded and limp, with puffy little sleeves. It made her look even younger than she was. LaRue wouldn’t have been seen in anything so worn out. “I don’t know what I want,” LaRue said. “I need to look around. Maybe you can go with me.”

  This was a major concession for LaRue. She had gotten so she didn’t like her sister tagging along, saying “little girl” things in front of the salesladies, but she also felt sorry for Beverly, and in this moment of victory, she could be generous.

  “I think you should get red velvet. That’s perfect for Christmas.”

  “Red velvet is for little girls. It’s what we always used to get when we were kids.”

  “I know. I loved those dresses. Remember that year we both got new red dresses and new winter coats?”

  “Sure. But that was a long time ago.”

  “That was the year Wally took us down to W. T. Grant’s, and we bought that funny tie for Dad–the one with the ducks painted on it.”

  “He still wears it, too,” LaRue said. “I’ve thought about dipping it in gravy some time, just so he’ll throw the old thing away.”


  “Wally was funny that day, wasn’t he?”

  LaRue nodded. It hurt to think of that Christmas. Wally had made everything so fun. “He took us to Walgreen’s for strawberry sodas. Remember that?”

  “Yeah, I do. He caught me looking in the mirror at myself–and he teased me about it. But I remember what he said. He told me, ‘Come on, Bev, you’re just as beautiful now as you were a minute ago. You don’t have to keep looking.’ I still think about that sometimes.”

  And LaRue understood. Not many people told Beverly that she was beautiful. “I wonder if he’s still like that,” LaRue said. “I wonder if he still laughs and jokes around.”

  Beverly gripped her book close to her, wrapped both arms around it. “I saw some prisoners of war in a newsreel at the Marlo last Saturday. They got out of prison in the Philippines. But they were skin and bones and sick looking. Do you think Wally is like that?”

  “I don’t know. But Dad says he’s probably not there anymore. He thinks the Japs took him to Japan.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe it’s better there.”

  Beverly nodded. And then she asked softly, “Do you remember that time Wally and Gene played Fox and Geese with us? We were up in the fields by the prison.”

  “We did that lots of times.”

  “I only remember once. Wally got me down and was going to wash my face with snow. And then Gene threw snowballs at him to make him stop.”

  “That’s how Gene always was.”

  “Do you still miss him?”

  “Sure.” LaRue looked down at Beverly. Her shoes were off, but she was wearing white anklets, folded down. One had slipped down onto her heel. LaRue pulled it up for her and tugged it straight.

  “He was funny, too. And nicer than Wally. He didn’t tease so much.”

  “It seems like he was the nicest boy ever,” LaRue said. “But maybe that’s just the way I want to remember him.”

  “No. It’s true. He was.” But LaRue didn’t want to talk about that–not now, on a day when she was so happy. She tried to think how to change the subject. Before she did, however, Beverly said, “Sometimes, I hope I can go a whole day without thinking about him. But I never can.”