Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  “Peter, tell me who you are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me about you. You never say anything.”

  “I’ve told you some things.”

  “Peter Stutz is not your name.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Once you slipped and said something else. It wasn’t Stutz. It was Stoltz, I think.”

  “That is my name. Peter Stoltz.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that?”

  Peter looked back toward the sunset. It was reaching its full brilliance. Streaks of cirrus clouds were orange now, glowing pale yellow at the edges. “I couldn’t tell you part of the truth without telling you all of it. It was dangerous for you to know too much about me.”

  “Why?”

  “People could have been looking for me. Gestapo or SD or military police.”

  “We already knew that. We knew you had run from the army.”

  “It’s not just that. There’s a lot more.”

  “Tell me now. The danger is over.”

  Peter had been trying to believe that for the past couple of weeks. His mind told him that his greatest danger would come from the occupying forces, no longer from the Nazis, but he had feared much too long to start thinking a new way so quickly. What he did realize, however, was how much he wanted to stop making up his past.

  “Can’t you tell me now?”

  “Maybe it’s better not to say too much.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Just tell me. You aren’t bad. I already know that.”

  That seemed a remarkable thing for her to say, but he wondered whether she would say the same after she had heard. “I grew up in Frankfurt,” he said, but he still wasn’t certain how much he was going to tell her.

  “That’s what you told me before.”

  “I know. Whenever I could tell you the truth, I did, Katrina. I want you to know that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For calling me Katrina. You never call me by my name.”

  Peter knew that. It seemed too personal. He didn’t want her to think they were friends that way. “In any case, I grew up in Frankfurt. My father was opposed to the Nazis. He kept me out of the Hitler Youth as long as he could, but otherwise he kept quiet. We didn’t go looking for trouble, but it managed to come to us. I won’t go into the whole story, but I’ll tell you this: A Gestapo agent came to our house when my sister was home alone. He made threats, tried to . . . do things to her.”

  “Rape her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know what rape is, Peter. You don’t have to be embarrassed to say it.”

  He nodded, but he still didn’t say the word. “She protected herself. She cut his face with a butcher knife. Our whole family had to go into hiding. It was our only chance to stay alive.”

  “Is that why you went to Berlin?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you hid in a cellar there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me the rest. Tell me everything.”

  “Let me tell it my own way.”

  “That’s fine. Go ahead.”

  He glanced, and he saw that she was smiling. He knew what she was thinking—that she would get what she could of the story tonight, and then go after more later. He told himself he wouldn’t do that, but then he told her much more than he intended. He told about his family’s escape from Germany into Switzerland, about the Gestapo agent he and his father had injured, and he told her about being separated from his family at the French border.

  “Did the others make it across all right?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know. There were shots fired. I always tell myself that they made it, but I don’t know for certain.”

  “What did you do after that? How did you end up in the army?”

  This was what Peter didn’t want to talk about. The color was fading from the clouds. He watched the gleaming line along the dark horizon and tried to think what to say. “Katrina, I had no choice. I had to hide somewhere. Boys couldn’t walk the streets without being picked up. So I used this name you know me by, and I joined the army.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I fought for the Nazis. I killed.”

  “That’s what soldiers do. That isn’t your fault, Peter.”

  “Think about it, Katrina. I can claim that I attacked a Gestapo agent because I was fighting against the Nazis, or I can say that because I loved my country I fought for the Nazis. But I can’t claim both. It’s the worst kind of hypocrisy to fight for both sides.”

  Peter had known all this for such a long time, but he had never put the thoughts into such simple words. Now he had defined his own treachery, what he would have to live with the rest of his life.

  “No, Peter. When you fought for what you believed, that was not wrong. And then you were forced to do what every man in Germany did—what soldiers in every country do. If you’re guilty for killing, so is everyone else.”

  “I knew better. Most of the boys in the army had come directly from the Hitler Youth. They believed what they had heard. They thought they were fighting for something good. I was killing for me, not for my country. That’s murder.”

  Katrina stepped a little closer to Peter. She touched his arm. “Peter, you can’t convince me that you’re bad. You’re the kindest boy I’ve ever known.”

  The glow of the twilight was almost gone. The sky was shading purple to black. Katrina was mostly just a voice, but Peter was glad he couldn’t see her. He didn’t want to look into her face right now. “You don’t know what it was like, Katrina,” he whispered. “You don’t know what happens to soldiers in a war.”

  “I know some things. We had wounded soldiers here at our farm once. I saw what the men looked like. I saw the wounds. They held one man down, out in our barn, and sawed his leg off. I heard him scream and swear and rave about the Amis.”

  Peter nodded. “Everyone hates the enemy,” he said. “I hated the Russians because they wanted to kill me. I didn’t think about politics.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Katrina, I don’t know how to tell you what I felt. It was far beyond fear. It was . . . like falling into a hole—just falling and falling and finally wishing I could hit bottom so I could die and end the terror.”

  “But you said you had faith, that God spoke to you.”

  “Not for a long time. It was almost over when I finally felt that. But God was with me at the very worst time. That’s one thing I do believe.”

  “God still loves you, Peter.”

  “Yes. It seems so.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Peter knew he couldn’t let this happen. If she really comprehended what he had done—if she knew who he had been—she wouldn’t be so quick to say such a thing. Maybe he seemed innocent now, but he would never be able to cleanse himself of all the filth he had wallowed in during the war. Sometimes he lay in the attic at night and felt his skin, sure that the grime was still on him. “You love me the way you would a big brother,” he said, “but—”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Katrina, you’re only sixteen.”

  “You’re not much older.”

  Peter hardly knew what to say to that. In one sense, she was right. But when he thought of himself at sixteen he remembered the boy he had been before he had filled his head with abominations. The gulf between them was actually boundless. And yet, he also knew that he liked her touch on his arm. And now she was bending toward him, her face coming close to his. He could hear her breath, cautious and slow. He knew that he should move away, but he didn’t. And then her lips, stiff and tentative, touched his. He didn’t kiss her back, but he didn’t pull away, either.

  She didn’t reach around him, only held the delicate touch for a few seconds. When he did nothing, she stepped away, and then she said, “I’m sorry.”<
br />
  “It’s all right,” he said. Peter was confused. He wished he had kissed her, not hurt her this way. But he didn’t love her; he only longed to have someone love him. And he knew it would be wrong to lead her on. He had come to the Schaller home for help, not to take advantage of an impressionable young girl. “Katrina,” he finally said, “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve given you the wrong idea. Just be my little sister. That’s all there is to this.”

  “Maybe for you. Not for me,” she said. And then she turned and walked away. He could only see the hint of her shadow, hear her footfalls in the soft earth.

  A few days later, troops marched down the road—Brits. Peter watched from the field, where he was working. He was still wearing the heavy wool trousers and worn boots that he had come to the farm with. His shirt was tattered. If the soldiers approached him, he would pretend to be a refugee. Frau Schaller would lie for him.

  When a jeep turned into the lane and drove toward the house, however, Peter’s impulse was to run. He had to force himself to hold his ground and then to walk toward the back door. When he entered the kitchen, he heard an English soldier speaking loudly. It took Peter a moment to realize that the man was attempting to use German.

  “‘Rous,” he kept saying. “You must go.”

  Peter stepped into the living room, where Frau Schaller was facing the man at the front door. “Why must we leave?” she kept asking, and she had begun to cry.

  “You go. We’re going to stay here.”

  “Please, come in. You can sleep in our house. But let us stay.”

  “‘Rous. Schnell.”

  Peter knew soldiers like this. The man was a sergeant, an NCO, and hard as a bullet. Peter could see in his face, his dirty uniform, the grit on his skin, that he didn’t care about anything but having a warm place to sleep—and a bathtub. “They’re taking your house,” Peter told Frau Schaller. “It’s what soldiers do. They’ll use it for a headquarters.”

  “But where can we go?”

  Peter walked to the man. He asked in German, “Could we sleep in the barn?” He pointed to the lean-to that was attached to the house. There were no animals in it. The Schallers had no animals.

  “Nein. Nein. ‘Rous. You must go.”

  But another man, an officer, was at the door. He said something in English that Peter couldn’t understand, but the meaning seemed clear enough. The sergeant turned around and pointed to the barn. “Okay,” he said. “Out there.”

  This was in English, which Peter and Frau Schaller certainly understood. But now the man had hold of Peter’s arm. “You? Soldier?” he asked.

  Frau Schaller spoke in English. Peter understood very little of what she said, but he knew the lie she was telling.

  The sergeant cursed. He clearly didn’t believe her. But Peter also saw that he didn’t care. He spoke to Frau Schaller, and then she turned to Peter. “He says we can’t take anything out there, no blankets. What will we do?”

  “We’ll manage. I have flour sacks in the shed. We’re better off not to leave the farm to them—so they won’t tear it up so much.”

  “Tear it up? Why would they do that?”

  Peter didn’t know how to answer that. They were soldiers, and victors. How could anyone understand who hadn’t been there? But now the man was shouting again, demanding they move fast. Katrina had come into the room. Peter saw the sergeant glance at her, and for the first time, he felt some anger of his own. “Go with your mother, Katrina—into the barn,” Peter told her. “I’ll find the boys. Don’t speak to these men. Stay out of their way.”

  Katrina nodded, and Peter saw her fright. “What are we—”

  But now the sergeant was setting up a howl again, and Frau Schaller grabbed Katrina and took her out the side door into the barn. Peter faced the sergeant. “Fräulein. Nein!” he said. He pointed his finger at the man’s face.

  The Tommy was clearly amused by Peter. But now it was the officer who was barking commands to the sergeant, and the sergeant walked back outside. Peter went to find the boys. They had been playing outside when he had last seen them.

  The next few days were not as bad as Peter had feared. A whole crowd of men, mostly officers, moved into the place—twelve of them at times. They weren’t gentle about what they bumped or knocked over, but they didn’t purposely damage the place. Nor did they bother Katrina. In fact, they said almost nothing to Peter and the Schallers. Then one night one of the officers walked into the barn, looked around, and said something in English. Frau Schaller nodded and then told Peter, “He said I can go inside and get some blankets.”

  The officer was speaking again, and Peter waited for a translation. “He says we can have food, too. He has cans of meat in the kitchen. If I will cook for them, we can eat the food as well.”

  “All right. But be careful.”

  “He’s a nice man. He doesn’t scare me.”

  Peter was thinking the same thing. He knew that most German soldiers on the eastern front would not have been so considerate. And certainly the Russians would have been much worse, had they been the ones to occupy this area west of Berlin.

  So that night Rolf and Thomas ate much better than they were used to. And when they played soccer with their homemade ball, some of the British soldiers joined them. Even in their combat boots, they showed some skill, too. Peter had played the game as a boy but had never had a chance since he had gone on the run with his family. He was tempted to play with the men now, but he decided he would only make a fool of himself.

  Two weeks passed, and things only got better for Peter and the Schallers. Some of the officers were much friendlier than others, but the nights were getting warmer all the time, and sleeping in the barn was not a problem. It was cramped, and there was no place to wash except at the pump out back, but Peter had been through much worse times. Rolf and Thomas seemed to like the company, and they picked up all the English words they could. They also accepted all the chocolate the soldiers would give them. In some ways, they had never had life so good. Katrina gradually became less wary, too. The officers teased her a little, and she tried out her school English. In fact, she seemed to find the attention she got from the men rather appealing.

  Frau Schaller was nervous, of course, and she hoped this occupation wouldn’t last very long, but she made the best of it. She spoke more English than the others, and she liked talking to the officers. “It’s nice to have some people more my age around,” she told Peter one day. And then she admitted, “I wish I looked a little more presentable.”

  Peter felt sorry for her. He thought she had been a pretty woman at one time, and she was young, still in her thirties, but she had a worn look about her, sometimes even a sad look. She was too thin, her skin too papery. It was Katrina these officers liked to look at. And she was blossoming. She had no makeup, nor any way to curl her hair, or even to get a decent haircut, but she had begun to move and act more like a woman, and Peter found himself annoyed by that. He kept warning her to be careful, but one day she finally said, “Why should you care?” and Peter didn’t know how to answer.

  The soldiers were happy to have peas and new potatoes from the garden, and soon other vegetables would be coming on. Since the men were feeding the Schallers from their own food, Peter couldn’t complain about the vegetables they used. But the refugees who passed through the area were more of a problem. Some mornings Peter would find footprints in the garden and could see where people had grubbed with their hands for potatoes. He couldn’t blame them. He had stolen food when he was a soldier. But if the refugees tromped through his garden, took everything, the day might come when the Schallers would have nothing to eat. There was no predicting how long the officers would stay around.

  Peter began to sleep outside, close to the garden. Some nights intruders came, but all he had to do was sit up and tell them to move on. The people were like sheep, easily driven, not aggressive—probably too weak to think of taking Peter on. But as they slumped away in the dark, he felt sick
at the thought of sending them back to their little makeshift camps with nothing for their children. He began to keep a little of his harvest close to where he slept, and when the refugees came, he parceled out a few potatoes or carrots. The people thanked him quietly and then moved on.

  Then one night a man accepted the vegetables but in a strange German dialect said, “My son is sick. Can you help us?”

  Peter hesitated. Camps were being set up for these refugees. The British officers always made a point of reminding Peter of this. Locals didn’t need to feed them. If the refugees could make it down the road a little farther there were places where they could camp and be fed. And there was medical treatment. But Frau Schaller had talked to a friend in town who said that typhus and other diseases were spreading through those camps, and thousands of people were dying. “Don’t get near the refugees,” her friend had told her. “They have lice. They’re full of disease.”

  All this was in Peter’s head, but here was a man in front of him, standing in the dark, his voice like a prayer. “He’s only two. He can’t walk anymore. He coughs until I think his chest will tear apart.” The man had begun to cry.

  Peter was still trying to think what he should do. He thought of little Benjamin Rosenbaum, long ago. The boy’s memory would always hurt him. “Where are you camped?”

  “By the road, just north of your farm.”

  “Stay there in the morning. I’ll try to get some medicine. But I can’t promise anything.”

  “Please try.”

  The man trudged away. Peter tried to sleep, but he was restless. Early in the morning he walked to the barn. “Frau Schaller,” he whispered, and she sat up.

  “There’s a little boy dying—one of the refugees camped by the road. Can you talk to the soldiers? Maybe they have sulfa tablets, or penicillin.”