Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  The Stoltzes had actually received an abundance of gifts, almost all of them from Alex’s family in Salt Lake City. Three large boxes had arrived a few days before Christmas. The largest one had been mailed to Master Eugene Thomas. And the box had been a treasure trove of things he needed. There were clothes to last a year, in increasing sizes, and a dozen heavy cotton diapers. But with it were also American powders and lotions, wonderful baby foods and bibs and spoons. There were also toys. What Gene loved most was a little wheeled toy with a bell on it that rang when he pushed it across the floor. He would roll it and laugh and then crawl after it. The Stoltzes watched him play with that and a soft toy tiger, and this provided most of the joy in their day.

  There were two lovely dresses for Anna, a soft blue one she could wear to church and another for everyday. There were also some wonderful fabrics. Sister Thomas had sent a note that said, “I don’t know your size, Frieda, but I’ve heard that it’s hard to get material in England. Maybe you can sew something from these. I hope you have access to a sewing machine.” What she had sent was a pretty cotton print, some cream-colored nylon for a blouse, and a lovely rose crepe for a dress. She had even sent thread and buttons. Sister Stoltz was thrilled by all of it. A woman in the building had a treadle sewing machine that she had offered to lend to Frieda, and so she knew she could make the most of the fabric. “I won’t look quite so threadbare,” she told Anna, but not in front of her husband, and Anna knew why. She didn’t like to make him feel bad about the sparseness in their lives.

  Brother Stoltz was also thrilled with his gift. President Thomas had sent him a copy of Jesus the Christ, by James Talmage, and A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, by LeGrand Richards. Brother Stoltz knew of these books, had known members in the London branch who owned them, but to possess them himself was obviously thrilling to him. And then he opened a letter inside one of the books. President Thomas had written a note: “Dear Brother Stoltz, we know that you have lost much of your livelihood by taking your stand against Hitler. We honor you for that, and we want to help. You are such a blessing to our grandchild, and we can do so little. Let us help you a little for now with this small token of our appreciation. I will send more later and continue to help, if you don’t mind.” Inside the letter was a folded money order for $500. It was more money than the Stoltzes had seen at one time since they had gone on the run in Germany. It would go a very long way when converted into pounds, and it would make life much easier for them for quite some time.

  Anna knew that the money was not easy for her father to accept, but she told him, “They want their grandson to be all right. It’s only right that they want to share in taking care of him.”

  “That’s right,” Sister Stoltz said. “It’s not a handout. It’s a fine thing for them to do for us.”

  Heinrich seemed to accept that, and Anna thought she saw some relief in his face. He sat and read the first chapter of Jesus the Christ, struggling a little with the English at times and looking up quite a few words, but obviously delighted with the project.

  The Thomases had sent nothing for Peter, having sent the box before anyone had known that he had been located, and Anna wished that they had something more for him, with all these other presents. But in Germany, before the war, they had never given lots of gifts, and the Bible and Book of Mormon the family had bought should surely please him—if he got there someday.

  By evening, Anna was actually glad to have the day almost over. It was one more Christmas without Alex, and one more without Peter, ended. She hoped that she would never experience another year of the same kind. And maybe tomorrow they would receive mail, some word about what was happening to Peter.

  It was well after dark when someone knocked at the door. “Who can that be?” Sister Stoltz said, but it was hard for Anna not to hope. Both got up at the same time, and then Anna nodded and let her mother be the one to go to the door. But she stood and waited, watched the door from across the kitchen.

  When the door opened, Anna saw a young man. A full second, maybe two, passed before her senses could accept what she was seeing. There was Peter, a man—not the boy she had held in her consciousness all these years. He was tall, taller than his father, but slender. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and a rather fleecy beard covered his chin. But she knew his eyes, her father’s eyes, deep and good and unchanged.

  “Peter!” Mother gasped.

  Anna hardly knew what happened after that. Everyone ended up inside, in the kitchen, all wrapped around each other, all crying. No one could think of much of anything to say. Mother kept repeating, “Peter, you’re home. Home at last,” and Anna heard her father say, “Oh, Peter, I’m sorry for what I put you through.”

  But Peter still hadn’t spoken his first word.

  After a time, Anna thought of the baby and went to her room. She brought back Gene, still asleep, but with his eyes rolling open at times, and she put him in Peter’s arms. Peter held him close and sobbed. Finally he said, “I thought I would never see you again. Any of you.”

  It was a long time before everyone could sit down at the kitchen table. Anna took Gene back, rocked him a little, and put him in his crib. When she returned to the kitchen, her father was saying, “I’ve always wondered what happened that day—there at the border.”

  “I saw the guard coming, with a dog, and I had to go back. Then I heard the shooting, and I didn’t know whether any of you had been shot. I went back to Bure, the way Crow told us to, but he didn’t come, and then a policeman tried to arrest me, so I ran. I went back to Basel, but the Gestapo was waiting for me there, at the British consulate.”

  “They arrested you, didn’t they? I found that out.”

  “Yes. They took me into Germany. But the train I was on was bombed, and I escaped.”

  “That was a miracle, Peter.”

  Peter looked down at the table. “Maybe. I don’t know. But it put me in a bad position. There was nowhere to go. Everywhere I turned, I knew I would be arrested again, and I had no food, no money.”

  “That’s why you joined the army, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t have to join. I could have gone to jail.”

  “They would have killed you.”

  “Probably.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  Peter looked at his father, and Anna saw the shame, the worry. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to talk about it now.”

  “You did the right thing. There are things I did, Peter—things I wish I had done other ways. We all have those regrets. But you did the only thing you could do, and you survived a nightmare.”

  But Peter didn’t seem to accept that. Anna could see that he was troubled—seriously troubled—and she wondered what it would take for him to heal. “It’s Christmas, Papa,” she said. “Let’s think about that—and not all these other matters.”

  Peter nodded. “There’s something I want to tell you,” he said. He looked at his father. “Papa, one time, when I thought

  I was lost, and God didn’t care about me, I heard your voice. I heard you speak to me and tell me you still loved me. I heard it in my head, and it kept me going.”

  Brother Stoltz bent forward and held the sides of his head in his hands. “I spoke to you so often,” he said. “I always believed that somehow you would hear me.”

  His tears were dripping onto the table.

  Chapter 12

  Bobbi Thomas was on a train, on her way home. She had hoped to get out of the navy before Christmas, had even received promises that she would, but her papers hadn’t been processed until January. She was still irritated about that, but at least she was going to be home in time for Wally’s wedding. Now, however, as she crossed the Sierra Nevada, she wondered whether she shouldn’t have stayed in Hawaii until spring. She had longed to see winter again, to know four seasons, but the snow was piled so high in some of the passes that the train was delayed several times. She was reminded of just how cold and inconvenient winter could be.

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nbsp; By the time the train approached the Wasatch Front, however, and she could see “her” mountains in the distance, she was moved by her sense of the familiar. This was, after all, home, and nowhere else ever could be. Before long she would be seeing her family. She walked to a little rest room on the train and washed her face, tidied her hair, and put on a little lipstick. She hadn’t been able to get a berth in a Pullman car, so she had sat up all night, and she was afraid she looked pretty dragged out. She found herself quivering a little, partly from the excitement, perhaps, but also because she hadn’t slept much. Maybe, too, she had spent too much time during the night wondering about Richard. He had written regularly lately, and he was saying all the right things. His hands continued to improve as he exercised them every day, and he was eager to have her home. But none of this seemed to fit with the confusion and reticence she had seen in him before he had left Hawaii. She wondered whether he was only saying what he thought she wanted to hear.

  Bobbi had her answer. She was going to marry Richard. What she didn’t feel was any peace with the decision. There were times when she wanted to say, “Lord, I know I asked, and so you answered, but couldn’t you have ignored me? You’ve done it plenty of times before. If he’s the right one, how come I have so many questions in my mind?”

  The train stopped in Ogden for much longer than Bobbi liked, but she didn’t get off. She sat and watched the sun rise higher above the mountains. In her car she had heard eastern people and southern people, talking in odd accents, but now some of the people boarding spoke with a certain absence of music that she associated with her own speech. She couldn’t have said what it was in the voices that she recognized, but it sounded like home. One man sat down and began to read an Ogden Standard-Examiner. When he opened it, she saw the back page, with a huge ad for new Fords, now back on the market, but when he turned the paper around, the headline read: “violence flares in chicago, la strikes.” So much was changing in the country now. People wanted to put the war behind them, but they had lost their common goal, and with that was coming renewed discord, and maybe even some greed. Bobbi understood that, but she wondered whether people at home had learned the right lessons from the war. She had seen Tokyo, knew what war meant. She had read recently that Emperor Hirohito had been forced to announce to his people that he was not to be considered divine, and she knew how humiliating that would be to all the Japanese. She almost hated to see Americans getting so much so fast.

  The train finally pulled from the Union Pacific station and pushed south toward Salt Lake City, past Kaysville, Farmington, Bountiful. She had driven through those towns, on Highway 89, and she knew the sort of people who lived in the houses. They were good and solid—her people. She liked

  the look of the planted trees, the straight streets laid out on a grid, but she also knew that most of these people hadn’t seen as much of the world as she had. She didn’t want to return home smug about her experiences, but she couldn’t escape the idea that her vision of life had been broadened beyond that of those who had stayed at home. She had known and even been friends with people who would have created suspicion here. Mormons had a way of talking about “us” and “them” and feeling a little superior, morally, to all of “them.” “That’s what we believe,” people would say, “but out in the world . . .” And the contrast always made everyone else seem corrupt and godless.

  How would she like living here again? She wasn’t the same person. In some ways she wanted everything back—the way she remembered life at home—but she knew there was no way to slide back into her old ways and cast aside her understanding of people, or the way she perceived her world now.

  During the last few miles—as the train approached the Rio Grande station in Salt Lake City—Bobbi stopped asking such questions. She pictured her parents at the train, and probably LaRue and Beverly. She wondered whether Wally would be there too, or whether she would have to wait to see him. And, of course, she wondered whether Richard would come with her family. She thought she knew him well enough to guess that he would not want to be part of a crowd. That would make him feel too much of a spectacle. And, actually, Bobbi was relieved to think that he might not be there. She could “come home” first and then answer her questions about Richard later.

  As the train rattled into the station, she leaned close to the window and looked out to the platform, but she couldn’t see her family or anyone else she knew. She hoped her parents had gotten her telegram from San Francisco. She had given them the arrival time. The train was more than an hour late, but she didn’t think Mom and Dad would turn around and go back home.

  She got her two suitcases down and put on her navy coat. In San Francisco she had changed into civilian clothes—a cotton dress that was hardly suited to the weather—but her only coat was a navy raincoat that she hoped she would be wearing for the last time. She followed a big fellow who was working his way to the door of the car. As she stretched to reach the wooden step that a porter had set by the train door, she tried to take a quick look around at the same time, but still she saw no one she knew. And then she heard footsteps coming, and she glanced to her right. “Bobbi,” she heard, and she saw Richard. He was wearing a dark blue overcoat, a white shirt with a tie showing at the neck, and a gray felt hat. No wonder she hadn’t noticed him; she had never seen him dressed like that. His tan had faded, too. He hardly seemed the man she had known in Hawaii.

  And now he was taking her into his arms as though he owned her. “Oh, Bobbi, I’m so glad you’re finally here,” he said. She liked the warmth of his voice, the enthusiasm she had sometimes accused him of lacking—liked it more than she

  had expected. She hugged him back, her face pressed to his chest, but she didn’t kiss him.

  “Where is everyone?” Bobbi asked.

  “I talked them into letting me pick you up. I wanted to see you first and have a chance to talk things over just a little.”

  “Oh. Are they all at home, or—”

  “Yeah. Wally wanted to come too. I hope you don’t mind my delaying you seeing him just a little. He said he’d be at your house when we got there.”

  “No. That’s fine. I don’t mind.” But Bobbi did mind. She wasn’t ready to “talk things over.”

  But now Richard was picking up her luggage and striding off toward the station. She followed him out to his car—a surprisingly nice car, she thought, without exactly deciding what kind it was. He opened the door for her and then put her baggage in the trunk. When he got in on his side, he threw his hat onto the backseat and turned toward her. “I’ve done the wrong thing again, haven’t I?” he said.

  There was something childlike in his voice. She had hurt him already with her stiffness, and he had read her exactly right. But she was also looking into his good face, those wonderful silver-blue eyes. “No. I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here. It just took me by surprise.”

  “I need to talk to you, so I’m going to drive just a little, without delaying you very much. Is that all right?”

  “Sure.”

  Maybe he knew her better than she thought. He started the car, backed from the parking place, and then drove up Broadway. At State Street he didn’t turn south, as she thought he might, but kept going east. “Bobbi,” he said, “I wish, in a way, I had never been sent to Hawaii so soon after everything happened to me. I don’t think I was ready to see you. I had too many things going on in my head, and I couldn’t be the kind of guy you needed.”

  “Richard, I don’t want you to behave some certain way just because you think that’s what I like. I just want you to be yourself.”

  “I know. But I couldn’t do that. You have no idea what kinds of things I was thinking about. I’m amazed now that I could even carry on a conversation.”

  “But that’s just it, Richard. You wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Richard didn’t respond to that. He kept driving for a couple more blocks, up the hill toward the university, and then, at Thirteenth East, he finally
turned south. This was another way home, and that relieved Bobbi. “I wouldn’t have known what to say then, Bobbi. I was too confused about the things that kept going through my head. But a guy coming out of something like that probably has to get it behind him a little. Some men talk about those kinds of things, and others don’t. I just don’t know what there is to gain by going over it. Mostly, it’s a matter of moving ahead.”

  Bobbi thought of what Sister Nuanunu had told her. There were times, she had said, when a person had to look ahead, not back, and accept the good things life offered without questioning everything. Now Richard was saying the same thing, and maybe that was right. But why couldn’t she feel the rightness? “Richard,” she said, “memories don’t go away just because you don’t talk about them.”

  “No. But they calm down a lot. See, that’s what I want to talk to you about. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” He slowed at Fifteenth South and turned east again. “There’s a place I want you to see. Just hang on a minute.” He glanced at her and released his best weapon—that innocent smile she loved so much. The effect was surprising, too. Some of her resistance did melt away. But still, she wondered where he was taking her, what he had in mind.

  He was driving now, not talking. When the pavement stopped, he turned onto a muddy little dirt road through sagebrush and matted cheatgrass. It all seemed little more than wasteland, with patches of snow here and there in the shadows of the brush. It wasn’t exactly Bobbi’s idea of a romantic spot—not compared to the places where the two of them had talked in Hawaii.

  Richard stopped the car and then came around and opened the door for her. “It’s kind of cold out here, but I want you to get out and take a look.”