Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  Alex didn’t disagree with any of that. But outside, he didn’t see Nazis. He saw hungry women and children who were trying to survive in the ruins, living in cellars or bomb-damaged apartment houses, or even in sheds and makeshift huts. No one was offering the Nazi salute. No one was saying, “Heil Hitler.”

  “I don’t know how to tell you what your job is right now,” the colonel said. He was sitting behind an antique desk—dark cherrywood—in a huge chair that wrapped around him. On the desk was a glass ashtray filled with cigarette butts. One thing Alex had learned already was that cigarettes were now the main medium of exchange in Germany. German Reichmarks, enormously inflated, were almost useless. Seven cigarette butts could be traded for a full cigarette, and a cigarette was worth more than a person could make in two days’ work—in the rare case that work could be found. The contents of the colonel’s ashtray could feed one of those hungry kids outside for several days.

  “Aren’t we supposed to track down Nazi leaders?” Alex asked.

  “Yes. Apparently. But no one knows exactly who’s supposed to do what right now. The soldiers in the field are taking a lot of that sort of thing into their own hands. They occupy a town, ask around, and grab up any Nazis they can find. We’ve got reports of our soldiers shooting some of the ‘big fish’ they’ve been able to land. They figure that if it gets into our hands, we’ll let them off, so they carry out their own justice.”

  Alex nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me.’”

  “Hey, let them shoot all the Nazis they want, if you ask me. The trouble is, it’s all so haphazard. There are guys getting away—big-time party leaders. They’re moving into the countryside and taking on new identities. They may be slipping out of the country, too. We have almost no control. This whole continent is on the move.”

  “I saw all the refugees on the roads.”

  “What you saw, the direction you came, was a drop in the bucket. There are millions of people displaced in Europe right now. I’m not talking two or three million, either. I’m talking maybe fifty or sixty million—something like that.” The Colonel had been leaning back, but now he put his elbows on the desk. He was in his forties, apparently a career soldier. All the edges of him seemed hard, but his voice rumbled from his chest, moist and thick, and something told Alex that he was trying to sound a little more staunch than he really was.

  “I don’t understand,” Alex said. “How can that many people be displaced?”

  “Well, it’s complicated.” Colonel Whitefield had stubbed out a cigarette as Alex had first entered the room. But he reached, already, for a pack of Lucky Strikes on his desk. He tapped the pack, and a cigarette slid out. This he bit with his lips and pulled from the pack. Then he reached across his desk and offered the pack to Alex. Alex shook his head and then waited for the colonel to light up. “See, the only thing anyone is talking about right now is all the Jews—and that is a mess. Some people think five million Jews were killed, maybe more, and there’s maybe a million or two still alive, most of them in concentration camps—a lot of them still dying. But we’ve also got something like ten or eleven million foreigners in Germany—Russians, Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Frenchmen, you name it. DPs, we call them—‘displaced persons.’ Most of them have been slave laborers for Hitler—building his bombs and airplanes, doing his farming. And some of them have been cooped up in camps themselves—especially the ones that were POWs.”

  “Are they trying to get back to their own countries now?”

  “A lot of ’em are. A lot more will be setting out before long. But it’s crazy. Most of the Russians don’t want to go back. They’re scared to death of Stalin. He’s demanding we send them back, and the DPs themselves are claiming he’ll kill them.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “They think he’ll see them as traitors—because they worked for Hitler while they were here.”

  “They didn’t have any choice, did they?”

  “No. But some fought for Hitler—because they feared Stalin even more. What a choice, huh? The Cossacks did that, and they probably will be killed if we send them back.” Colonel Whitefield took a long draw on his cigarette, then leaned his head back and blew the smoke into the air.

  “If a lot of refugees leave Germany, won’t that ease some of the food problems?” Alex asked.

  Colonel Whitefield shook his head, and for the first time Alex thought he heard a hint of compassion. “Thomas, we’ve got all those people boarding boxcars or heading east on foot. But there are even more coming the other way, into Germany.”

  “Why?”

  “Ethnic Germans live all over Europe. The boundaries of these nations have changed a lot over the centuries—especially after the first World War. You’ve got something like eleven million Germans living in an area that’s considered Poland, and Stalin has Poland now. It’s the same in Czechoslovakia, and there are big pockets of Germans in a lot of the countries that Russia has taken over in these last few months of the war. As the Russians came through, a lot of the Germans moved out ahead, and now the people in those countries are demanding that the rest of the Germans leave. Most are on foot, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and they’re dying of malnutrition and disease. Some of them make it to camps that we’ve started to set up, and then typhus goes through the camps and kills half of them.”

  He took another draw on his cigarette. As he spoke, the smoke seeped from his nostrils. “We could have more people die in Europe after the war than died during it. Something like half a million civilians died from our bombing raids. That could be a drop in the bucket compared to all the Germans who are going to starve to death.”

  Alex was stunned. “Aren’t we going to feed them?”

  “We’re going to try. But how can you get that much food over here? And how can you treat all the disease? There’s no way to keep up with it.”

  Alex was thinking of all the ragged kids he had seen outside. The one thing he had told himself, as he had traveled across the country, was that soon the Allies would be getting food to them. “Isn’t there some way we can—”

  “Listen, Thomas, the Germans brought this on themselves. I know the kids didn’t choose Hitler for their leader, but their parents did. And now what they’re receiving are the wages of war. But it’s not our fault. The Germans are just lucky that we’re going to do as much as we can. A lot of nations wouldn’t.”

  “Yes, sir. I know that’s true.”

  “You’re here because you speak German—and because you lived here before the war. You know Frankfurt, maybe have some contacts. We want you to find out who the Nazi leaders were in this area. These men are criminals, and they can’t be allowed to run this country again. That’s all you need to worry about. Other men have to decide about feeding the kids. It’s not easy to see what’s going on in the streets out there, but there’s nothing you can do about it. For one thing, you’re not allowed to carry food out of here. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Then grow some thick skin. You’re going to see some terrible things in the next few months. You can’t shed tears about all of it. You’ve got a job to do.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alex got up. “Could I ask you one question?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How long do you think I’ll be here?”

  The colonel stood now, too. “I can’t say. You have a special assignment, so the point system doesn’t apply to you. If it did, you’d be one of the first to go. As it is, you could be here . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a year, maybe longer. I just can’t say.”

  Alex took a deep breath, drew in more of the stale tobacco smoke than he wanted. “My wife is going to have a baby—any day now. She’s in England.”

  “Maybe you can get a leave at some point. But you just had your thirty days. I don’t see any chance of your getting out of here for quite some time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Look, Thomas, I don’t want to be here e
ither. My wife keeps writing me, asking when I’m coming home. I have to tell her the same thing I just told you. I have no idea. But a war doesn’t end when the shooting stops. You and I got stuck with some of the mop-up work.”

  Alex nodded. Then he saluted, and he left the room.

  Over the next few days Alex saw a lot of Frankfurt, or what was left of it. It was miles of wasteland where the walls of buildings stood like ancient ruins, the windows gone, the interiors burned out. Many of the old church spires were at least partially intact, and the grand old fourteenth-century cathedral had survived fairly well. But that was only a reminder to Alex of what the city had once been.

  Alex was traveling about in a jeep. Some of the streets were impassible, but he could usually find a way to get through. The people had no way to start rebuilding homes, but their instinct was to clean things up, bring some order back into their lives. So every day people worked among the ruins, often carrying off the debris in handcarts and wheelbarrows. Everywhere Alex went, children gathered around him. He gave them what he had: crackers from K-ration boxes, hunks of chocolate, little cans of Vienna sausages or Spam. Colonel Whitefield had told him not to leave the headquarters with food, but he sneaked all he could anyway, and no one really tried to stop him.

  But he also ran out of food quickly every day, and then he had to say he was sorry. One afternoon he had a meeting scheduled with local police officials, in the city. They were working out of the first floor of a building that was destroyed from that level up. After the meeting, as he walked back to his jeep, a little girl approached him. She was wearing a ragged dress and broken-down shoes, with the soles flapping. Her hair was dirty, but her face was wonderful. She had eyes like robin eggs, and knobby little cheeks. “Cigarettes?” she said in English. “Chocolate?”

  “I have nothing,” he told her in German. “I’m very sorry.”

  He saw her surprise that he had spoken German, but he also saw the despair. She hadn’t expected anything. This was merely a ritual for the children. They asked every soldier, and once in a while they actually got something.

  “Where do you live?” he asked her.

  She was only eight or nine, but she was wary. Alex saw the doubt in her eyes. She stepped away from him.

  “Do you have a family?”

  “My mother and a little brother.”

  “Where’s your father?”

  She shrugged, and then she said, “Russia.” But Alex knew what that meant—he was probably already dead, or at least he wasn’t coming home anytime soon.

  “Come with me to the bakery. I’ll buy you a loaf of bread you can take to your mother.”

  The little girl backed farther away, but she didn’t say no. “There’s a bakery around the corner. I’ll walk there. You wait here and I’ll bring you the bread. Is that all right?”

  She nodded this time. But then, as Alex walked to the corner, she followed, staying at a distance. There were not many shops left operating, but he had stopped at the bakery once before, knew where it was. It was making only bread, but it was staying busy. Some people were finding ways to earn some of the inflated German money, mostly by selling off their possessions, or they were using cigarettes—mostly American soldiers’ gifts—as barter.

  Alex went inside and bought a large round loaf of black bread. The woman who waited on him also seemed surprised that Alex spoke German. “I’m buying this for the little girl outside,” he said. “But I’m afraid she’ll never get it home to her mother. I’m worried that someone will take it from her.”

  “It could happen,” the woman said, nodding. “People are desperate.”

  “I would walk with her to her house, but she’s afraid of me.”

  “Yes. I understand.” The woman had once been heavier than she was now, Alex thought. The skin on her cheeks, her arms, seemed loose. Her dress hung slack around her. But she had a kindliness about her, a tranquil voice. “I have a son,” she said. “I will send him with her.”

  “That would be a great help,” Alex said. “Give this to him.” Alex set an American dime on the glass counter.

  “No, no. There are others who need it much more than we do. My son won’t mind doing this.” She pushed the dime back toward him.

  “Thank you,” Alex said, and he picked up the coin.

  “I would feed everyone if I could,” the woman said. “I would give them the bread. But then we would starve. I don’t know what to do.”

  “There will be more food. We’re going to help. But it takes time.”

  “I know this. Some of your soldiers are hateful to us, of course. That’s only natural. But most of the young men are good. They remind me of our sons—the way the boys were before all this.”

  “All they want now is to go home,” Alex said.

  “Yes, yes. That’s clear.” The woman stepped to a door at the end of the counter. “Johann,” she called. “Please come here.” As she waited, she looked at Alex and said, “Tell me, is your family German? How did you learn our language so well?”

  Alex glanced to see that the little girl was still waiting. “I was a missionary here in Frankfurt, before the war.”

  “Missionary?”

  “Yes. For the Mormons. Do you know this church?”

  “Only by name. And I know a member. Herr Meis.”

  “You know him? Do you know where he is? I’ve been looking for him.”

  “He comes here. He buys bread for his family—and for others.”

  “Do you know how I can find him?”

  The woman’s son had appeared at the door. “I want you to do something for me,” she told him, and then she explained the errand. He seemed less thrilled with the idea than his mother had claimed he would be. All the same, he agreed, and he returned into the apartment behind the store. His mother had told him to be sure to take his coat—and to hide the bread inside it.

  When she looked back at Alex, she said, “Herr Meis told me that his building was destroyed. He is now renting a downstairs room from a family, somewhere around here. I know only one thing. He said his church meets in this neighborhood, too—in a Gasthaus that was damaged by bombs and is closed to customers. It’s called the Black Swan. You will see it if you go around the corner and down the street. It’s not far at all.”

  Alex was overjoyed. Suddenly the aroma of the baking bread was wondrous, what he remembered from his days here before the war. He had tried all week to locate the Church or the Meis family, and he had made no headway. Now, by accident—or maybe not by accident at all—he had found them. When Johann returned, he tucked the loaf of bread under his coat. Alex walked out with him and explained to the little girl what the boy was going to do.

  And then he gave Johann the dime after all. The boy suddenly looked much more pleased about his errand. And if that much joy could be created by a dime, Alex dug into his pocket for another one, and he gave it to the little girl. She grasped it tight in her hand and said “Danke,” nothing more. But Alex saw the life that had come into her pretty eyes. She had a loaf of bread—and money to buy more. For a few days, life was going to be better.

  On Sunday, at seven-thirty in the morning, Alex was waiting at the Black Swan. But no one came, the old schedule apparently changed. It was a few minutes before nine when Alex finally saw a stout little man striding down the street, limping a bit. Alex turned toward him, and then he waited. He was curious to see when President Meis would recognize him.

  But President Meis kept coming, even nodded to Alex and said “Guten Morgen” before he suddenly stopped. As he did, his arms jerked up and out, automatically, and he whispered, “Oh, is it true?”

  “Good morning, President Meis,” Alex said, and he laughed.

  “Brother Thomas, I can’t believe this.” He stepped forward and grabbed Alex, tossed his arms around him. He pounded on Alex’s back as he said, “This is too wonderful. Too wonderful.”

  “I’m so happy to see you,” Alex told him. “I wondered whether you would be all right.”


  President Meis stepped back. “I got pulled into the war at the end,” he said. “Everyone did. I was on the western front. But I was more fortunate than most. I was shot through the leg, and they sent me home.”

  “We have something in common. I was shot in the leg too. But in my case, they fixed me up and sent me back.”

  “Yes. This would have happened to me also. But the war ended in time.”

  They stood looking at each other. There were so many memories jumping back into Alex’s mind, but also a strange realization. “Where were you when you were shot?”

  “In the Ardennes offensive. I was hit by a machine gun.”

  Alex nodded. He stood silent for a time. “I was there, too. In Bastogne.”

  The irony didn’t need to be stated. They looked into each other’s eyes and accepted it. “Now it’s over,” President Meis said. “In time, things will be better.”

  “I told you once that I would never be your enemy.”

  “And you weren’t. You’re not.”

  Alex wanted to believe that. It was so good to hear his old friend say it. Tears spilled onto his cheeks. President Meis took hold of him again, this time by his shoulders. “It’s we here in Germany who have much to be ashamed of. Not you. By the time I was forced to enter the army, it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But I had no choice.”

  “If those who wanted to fight had done the fighting, maybe the war could have been held in a boxing ring,” Alex said. He tried to laugh.