by Dean Hughes
Alex took the bread when it was offered to him. It was grainy, dark and rich, and to Alex it symbolized the body of Christ as he had always known it in Germany—as something more substantial, even more wholesome than the fluffy white bread he had always received in his Salt Lake ward. He chewed this bread and tried to concentrate on the meaning of the sacrament. He was working hard these days to feel the Spirit. What he had found most meaningful, so far, was working with the members, visiting them in their homes—or shelters—and bringing them what help he could. The less he thought about the war, and the more he concentrated on serving people, the better he felt about his life.
And yet, the language of the prayer was difficult for Alex. He tried to concentrate on Christ’s sacrifice, the idea of it, but if he wasn’t careful the references to Christ’s blood and his broken body brought pictures to his mind—pictures he had been trying hard to forget. Today, an image forced its way into his consciousness, a memory that had come back to him many times: it was the face of a German boy lying in a glaring white field of snow. Alex had seen the boy in the Ardennes somewhere, after the battle for Foy. The young soldier had stepped on a land mine, probably one placed by his own army. He had bled to death, and the dark stain of his blood had saturated the snow in a half circle around him. The boy had been thrown from the explosion, tossed into the whiteness, without his legs. He had lain on his back and bled the snow red, his arms spread wide, like a cross. It was almost artistic, the picture, the way it would return to Alex now, probably made symmetrical, perfect, by his memory. This particular broken body was only one of hundreds that he had seen in the Ardennes, and Alex had paid little attention—or at least thought he had. It was not until the war was over and he had returned to his brothers and sisters in Frankfurt that Alex first thought of it again: this Christlike boy, dead by sacrifice—but an enemy.
Now that boy was back, once again asserting himself into Alex’s mind, as though waiting to be accounted for. At the time, Alex had experienced the kind of relief and satisfaction a soldier feels in knowing that a body on the ground is one of “them,” but the sacrament prayer didn’t allow for that interpretation. So Alex mourned the loss of the boy, remembered his peaceful blue-glazed face, and he wondered whether he needed to recall all the boys, one at a time, and mourn for each one. If he could do that, complete the whole process, find every one of the images of mutilation hiding in his head, maybe he could finally take the sacrament and not feel unworthy. But he actually feared that he might go crazy if he kept allowing these lives back into his mind, and he knew the opposite approach was the only one that worked. He had to rid his mind of them and think about better things, the future.
As Bruder Studdert and Bruder Fichte passed the water, Alex watched, kept his eyes open, tried not to see anything but the members in front of him. For the first time he looked carefully at the young man at the back, the one who had come in late. The boy was looking at Alex, leaning forward, as though he were straining to see better. And then he turned his head a little, and the light from the window made a clear silhouette. Alex knew the profile, he thought, was even certain for a moment—but then he doubted himself. It couldn’t be. It was too good to be true.
Alex watched, stared, and then the clouds moved, released a little more light. Alex saw the boy more clearly again, and he saw a look of recognition on his face. The two had reached certainty at the same moment, and Alex felt a kind of shock go through him. It was Peter. It really was.
Alex’s impulse was to jump up and run to him, but he couldn’t make a scene and interrupt the sacrament. He nodded at Peter, smiled, tried to show that he recognized him, and he saw the elation in Peter’s face. But he also saw how tattered and weary he looked. He wondered what the boy had been through since he had seen him last. And then the other realization struck Alex: Peter didn’t know. He didn’t know that Alex and Anna were married, didn’t know about his nephew—probably didn’t even know his family was alive.
Alex watched Peter take the little glass cup. He shut his eyes and drank, carefully, obviously well aware of what he was doing. Alex wondered how long it had been since Peter had had this chance to renew his covenant.
When everyone had received the water, the priesthood brothers returned the trays, covered them with the linen tablecloth, and walked back to their seats. Alex stood again. “Brothers and Sisters,” he said, but he was shaking. He took a long breath and tried to calm himself before he said, “Some of you remember the Stoltzes, who were members of the branch before the war. Heinrich Stoltz was in our branch presidency. What I have just realized is that Peter Stoltz has come in and is sitting in the back of the room.”
There was a little stir as the members looked around at Peter. Some knew him, greeted him out loud, and they were still smiling when they turned back to look toward Alex again.
What Alex had in mind was to tell Peter—and the congregation—about the Stoltz family, but his voice cut off, and he stood there silent. President Meis took that chance to stand alongside Alex and say, “Peter, would you like to come forward and greet the members, perhaps bear your testimony?”
Alex could see Peter hesitate, but then he stood and walked forward. Before he turned toward the members, he grasped President Meis, hugged him, and then took hold of Alex. Alex wanted to tell him so many things, but how could he put it all in a simple greeting? So he only said, “Peter, welcome.”
Peter turned then, still holding his cap in his hand. “I’m happy I found you,” he said. “I’ve been in Frankfurt for a few days, and I’ve asked all around where your meetings were held. It was only this morning that I found someone who knew.” He hesitated, and Alex watched his shoulders rise as he took a deep breath. “I’ve been through some hard things since I left Frankfurt with my family. Sometimes I thought God didn’t care about me. But I can testify to you that he didn’t forget me—even when I had given up on him.” He looked toward the floor and breathed deeply. “It’s so good to see you again. I know only a few of you, but it’s the closest I’ve felt to home in many years. I’ve lost touch with my family. I don’t know where they are. Maybe someone here knows something. It’s what I hope. It’s why I came to Frankfurt.”
Now Peter had lost his voice. He didn’t close his little speech. He took a first step to return to his seat, but President Meis grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He put his arm around Peter’s shoulders and thanked him, told him, “We do know a good deal, Peter.” Then he looked at the members. “I want Bruder Thomas to take a few minutes, and I want him to tell Peter, and all of you, some wonderful things. This is a great blessing, what has happened here today, and I want all of you to know about it.”
Peter turned toward Alex, looking curious. Then he slipped to a front table and sat down. Alex looked down at Peter. He thought he was under control until he tried to speak, but it was all he could do to get the words out. “First,” he said, “Peter needs to know that his family is fine. His mother and father and sister are in London, as many of you know, and they are doing very well.” He nodded to Peter. “I’ll help you contact them.”
Tears were running down Peter’s cheeks now. He nodded back to Alex.
“But I’m afraid I’m going to shock Peter with what I wish to tell him next. Many of you know—but Peter doesn’t—that I’m now his brother-in-law.”
Peter’s head moved backward, as though he had taken a little push against his chin.
“I married Anna, Peter, and we have a little boy. Your nephew. His name is Eugene.”
Peter’s eyes widened.
“Peter, I’ve been searching for you since the war ended. I’ve been in prisons and displaced-person camps all over Germany. I’ve written letters, inquired through the Red Cross, done everything I could to locate you. Your father also came to Germany while the war was still going on, and he searched for you, put his life in grave danger trying to find you. When he and your mother and Anna learn that you’re here and in good health, they’ll be brought back to li
fe. It’s what they have prayed for night and day since you were separated from them at the French border a year and a half ago.”
Alex looked away from Peter, at the little congregation. “Brothers and Sisters, I know that many of you lost your loved ones. I don’t know why some of us were saved and brought back to our families, and others weren’t. But I do feel a witness today that God has had a hand in Peter’s return. I don’t know where he has been, and maybe on another occasion, he will want to talk to us about that.” Alex saw Peter look down, and he wondered—maybe that was not a story Peter wanted to tell. “But whether we ever know that story or not, what we do know is that Peter has come back to us with a knowledge that God loves him. I suspect that everyone in this room has felt abandoned at times during the war, but Peter has told us the truth. God was with him even when he thought he was alone. That’s the message we must all remember.”
Alex felt tears spill onto his cheeks. He wiped them away, stopped. After a moment, he said, “Brothers and Sisters, I too felt very far from God during the war, and I’ve struggled to get his Spirit back. I haven’t done very well, and I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, but at this moment, I feel God with me, with you, and I feel blessed to be here today.”
Brother Fichte, Rudi’s father, had been asked to speak. Alex apologized for taking so much of his time, and he introduced him. Brother Fichte was a quiet man, not one who liked to stand before a group, but he was also moved by what had happened. He did his best to build on what Alex had said. But his talk seemed rather long. All Alex could think of were the questions he wanted to ask Peter.
When Brother Fichte finally ended his sermon and sat down, Alex announced the closing hymn and prayer, and when the meeting was finally over, he stepped immediately to Peter, took him in his arms again. “You’re my brother, Peter,” he said. “Can you believe it?”
“I don’t understand,” Peter was saying. “When did you marry her? How did you find her?”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll explain everything. But greet the others for a few minutes. I need to share some rice I brought today. Then we’ll talk.”
“Where are you staying, Peter?” President Meis was asking by then.
“Nowhere. I tried to sleep in the train station, but they sent me away. I’ve slept in the streets for three nights.”
“You’ll stay with us tonight—and for as long as you need to,” President Meis told him, and Alex saw the relief in Peter’s face as he nodded his acceptance.
Alex walked to the corner of the room, near the kitchen door, and he hefted the bag of rice. He carried it to a table and tore the top open. Members lined up, some with open coat pockets, others with hats or satchels, and they accepted their share of the grain. They thanked Alex. “This will help so much,” Sister Walter told him. “We have enough to get by, but this will be something extra, something special. My little ones won’t be so hungry.”
Alex wished he had been able to bring more. He knew how well he ate, and it pained him every day to think how little the members, Germans in general, had to live on.
When the rice was gone, and the room had mostly cleared, Alex went back to Peter, who was waiting at the table where he had sat during most of the meeting. “I’m trying to think whether this can all be true,” he told Alex. “I’ve wondered so long about my family, but I never thought of this—you and Anna. But it was what she always wanted.”
“I was in England, in a hospital, when your parents escaped. Anna wrote to my family in America to find out where I was. I was lying in bed one day, and she came walking in—almost the way you did today. We got married before I had to go back to the war. But tell me about you. Where have you been?”
“It isn’t so good, what’s happened to me.” Peter was holding his cap in both hands. He looked down at it. Alex thought of the innocent face he remembered, the boy he had first known in 1938. Behind several days’ growth of beard and the tousled hair, that face was still there, but not much of the innocence. Peter was not just older; he looked tired and haggard. Alex wondered what he had been through. “I fought for Germany. I was in the German army.”
“We knew that. Your father learned that much. You registered as Peter Stutz, didn’t you?”
“You knew that?”
“Your father almost got himself killed finding out. He walked right into the military records office and pretended he was tracking you as a runaway.”
“I did run away—finally. But not until almost the end.”
“We thought maybe you had. Where did you fight?”
Peter was still staring at his cap. “I didn’t fight Americans. I was on the eastern front.”
“We knew that much, too, or thought we did. And we knew you had no choice.”
Peter took a long look at Alex, as though he wondered whether Alex could mean what he had said. But he didn’t ask. “Tell me about my nephew.”
“He’s six months old, Peter, but I’ve never seen him. Anna writes me four or five times a week, and she tells me all the things he does. He crawls now, and pulls himself up in his crib. To hear Anna tell it, he’s quite the genius. Here—I’ve got a picture.”
He got out his wallet and let Peter look at the lovely little face, so much like his mother’s. Peter’s tears started again as he looked at it. “How can I let my family know that I’m alive?” he asked.
“We’ll send a telegram. I can do that at my base—if not tonight, first thing in the morning.”
“Do they want me back, Bruder Thomas?”
“Peter, how can you ask that? Of course they want you back.” But Alex understood. He knew the shame Peter had to feel. The last thing any of the Stoltzes had wanted to do was fight for Hitler. “What I want to know is where you’ve been since the war ended. I’ve looked everywhere I could think of.”
“A family took me in—the Schallers. The father had been killed in the war, so I worked in a mine to provide for them. I wanted to find my family, but I didn’t know how—and this family needed my help.”
“What brought you here?”
“Frau Schaller got a job with the British army. Once she had a way to look after her family, she told me I had to go look for mine. So I came here. I thought President Meis—or someone here—would know where they were.”
“How did you travel?”
“I walked, mostly—and I caught rides when I could. But no one stopped me. The Americans don’t care that you come into their zone. They’re not like the Russians.”
“Have you eaten anything?”
“Not much. Not for a few days. I had food with me . . . but I met so many on the roads who were hungry.”
“You gave your food away?”
“Some of it.”
“Oh, Peter, you’ve always had such a good heart. You haven’t changed at all.”
But Peter looked hard into Alex’s eyes. “No. I have changed,” he said. “I . . .” But he stopped, didn’t explain.
Alex wanted to see what was inside Peter, but his eyes were like panes of dark glass, like mirrors. Alex knew better than anyone what Peter had seen and done. The two of them didn’t have to talk about that. “Do you want to go to England?” Alex asked instead.
“Yes. Maybe. But when will my parents come back to Germany?”
“They’re not coming back, Peter. My family is trying to arrange for them to move to Utah. They’re going to emigrate when they can. That’s where Anna and I and the baby will be. That’s where you should go, too.”
“Would we be welcome there?”
“Yes. Of course. Our family would make you acquainted with everyone. They would know that you fought the Nazis, and—”
“I didn’t fight the Nazis.”
“You did, Peter. You only fought for Hitler when you were forced to do it.”
Peter looked toward the windows. “I want to be in Germany,” he said. “I want to rebuild our country. And there’s someone I met—a friend.”
“A woman?”
“Just a
girl. But . . . I don’t know. I would never see her again if I went to America.”
“You could come back and get her. You could move her to America with you.”
“She’s not a Mormon.”
“Will she be?”
“I don’t know. Alex, this is all so strange for me to think about.”
“At least go to England. See your family. They need that.”
“How can I get there?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you there.”
Peter nodded, but he looked troubled.
President Meis had tidied up the place a little, put the chairs back around the tables, swept up a little rice that had fallen on the floor. Now he came to the table where Alex and Peter were sitting. “I need to close up now,” he said. “Maybe Bruder Thomas can drive us back to my place in his jeep.”
“Of course I will,” Alex said.
Peter stood, and the three of them walked to the front door. As President Meis was locking up, Peter asked Alex, “I’ve had a question on my mind for a long time. Do you know what happened to the Rosenbaums?”
“I know more than I wish I did,” Alex said. “The parents were put to death in Poland. What I don’t know is what happened to little Benjamin.”
Peter nodded. “I always hoped they would survive somehow. We tried to help them, but we let them down.”
“No,” President Meis said. “If you tried to help them, you didn’t let them down.”
“I want to find Benjamin. I’ve never stopped thinking about him.”
“I’ll keep looking. But Peter, he’s almost surely dead.”