He slips into a dimly lit bar and orders a beer. The only white man present. No one speaks to him. He drinks the watery beer and listens dreamily to the click of pool balls in the next room. Back out into blinding afternoon light. He thinks he would like to find the Savoy ballroom, would just like to look at it, but he has forgotten the address.
He strays along St. Nicholas for a time, no longer sure if he is walking north south east or west. Then he sees the man. He is nearly a block away, across the street. His back is to Dietrich. He is tall, wears a gray suit and hat. From behind, he looks like Fred Bishop. He pauses to buy a newspaper, glances at the headline, then folds the paper beneath his arm and walks away. Dietrich tries to follow, keeps the man in sight for several blocks. But it is hot and Dietrich feels very tired. The man walks quickly, turns along 145th Street, and by the time Dietrich is there, the man is gone.
He rides a bus across town to Yorkville. Enters the 86th Street Garden cinema. A German comedy is showing. Das Ekel—“The Jerk,” according to the English translation on the marquee. Nothing safer than comedy. He sinks into his seat, sipping an iced Coke, and gives in to his homesickness. The film is mindless and he doesn’t laugh once, but he sits through it because he could be in Berlin. In more ways than one. For newsreels follow, with reports on the growing tension between the Reich and Poland. Goose-stepping German soldiers pass before Hitler in review, and the audience cheers. When a Pole appears on the screen, people in the audience cry, “Kill them! Kill them all!”
Dietrich flees the theater and emerges into white-hot sunlight.
The American newspapers carry stories of lynchings in the South. Of government troops firing upon striking workers. Advertisements for jobs, for resort hotels, with the blatant stipulation “No Jews.” Writes in his diary. In this country the conflict bubbles beneath the surface. Someday it will break out as it has at home. Woe to those who are alien here. It is not a place to seek to avoid one’s destiny.
He skips supper in the seminary refectory and retreats to the Prophets’ Chamber with two bottles of wine. He is determined to drink as much as Fred did when he was banned from the pulpit of First Baptist Church. He does, and the floor spins and he sprawls facedown on his bed. But there is no one to expel him from his new safe haven and force him back to Germany. The ribbed oak walls of the Prophets’ Chamber close in on him like the bars of a prison cell.
Fred is beside him.
You got yourself fired on purpose, didn’t you? Dietrich says. So you’d have the courage to go in.
Fred is transparent, seems to waver and fade, returns for a second, then disappears. Without saying a word.
Perhaps Dietrich has dreamed all this. When he wakes, head throbbing and stomach sour, a breeze is blowing across the room from the open windows. It is morning, humid, but with a tangy promise of rain. The sun has burned away the early mist on Broadway, but 121st Street, facing east toward the sea, toward the Fatherland, remains a tunnel of white fog. Dietrich leans against the casement. A voice inside his head says, Go on in go on in. You should see inside. Walls blasted out of rock, ribbed walls. Like arches in a church. White dust flying like cut glass. First breath is the hardest. First breath burns. But after that it isn’t so hard.
Dietrich whirls around to grab his tempter and flails the air
THE PRESIDENT OF UNION SEMINARY, Dr. Coffin, owned a house on the water at Lakeville, Connecticut. On a weekend when the Coffins were away, Reinhold Niebuhr drove Dietrich there, “to escape this damned city heat,” he’d said, but he sensed his German friend was at the end of some sort of tether. So haunted and exhausted did Bonhoeffer look, in fact, that Niebuhr feared a nervous breakdown might be imminent.
They passed the journey in near silence. Dietrich stared moodily out the window yet barely noticed the scenery. Close to their destination the road narrowed and followed the shore of Lake Wononskopomuc. Patches of water glinted between stands of birch and fir trees. Here and there the peaked roof or gabled porch of a lakeside home could be seen. Then they skirted the wrought-iron fence of a small hotel. Niebuhr slowed the car and pointed out a sign posted on the gate that read
No Dogs
or Jews allowed
“Land of the free and home of the brave,” Niebuhr said.
Dietrich didn’t respond except to look even more glum. He continued his silence at dinner, a splendid meal of fried lake perch and new potatoes, string beans, corn on the cob, and tomatoes from the backyard garden, all prepared and served by the Coffins’ Negro servant. After dinner they retired to a pair of rocking chairs on the veranda. The sun had set behind the black ridge of mountains and the lake was a pool of spilt ink.
“Two weeks until the beginning of your summer lecture series,” Niebuhr said casually, as though nothing was wrong. “Will you be ready?” When there was no answer, he lost patience. “Damn it, Dietrich. What’s going on?”
Dietrich didn’t stir, but he said, “You must find someone else to give the lecture series. I’m going back to Germany.”
Niebuhr stopped rocking. He had expected some sort of physical illness or family problem, even homesickness, but certainly not this. “What the hell are you talking about, going back! You can’t go back! War could break out at any time.”
Dietrich shut his eyes and thought of the telegrams that had flown back and forth between himself and Dohnanyi the last few days.
IS UNCLE RUDI COMING SOON STOP DIETRICH
UNCLE RUDI COMING VERY SOON STOP DEFINITE STOP HANS
DOES PREVIOUS OFFER STAND STOP DIETRICH
PREVIOUS OFFER STANDS STOP HANS
CONFIRM POSITION STOP DIETRICH
COMFIRM STOP HANS
RETURN NEXT BOAT STOP DIETRICH
“I have to get back to Germany before the war starts,” Dietrich said.
“But you’re safe now!”
“Yes. But Germany is my home. I live there, not here. And I love my country.”
Niebuhr stood and began to pace. “Let me get this straight. You’re going back to Germany even though you’ll be conscripted into the army. Even though you’ve claimed to be a pacifist and even though you’ve declared a Christian can’t serve a fascist regime. Do you really think you could refuse to serve and survive?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Dietrich said. “I’m joining the army.”
Niebuhr stopped pacing and stared at him.
“My brother-in-law is arranging it,” Dietrich said. “I can’t say anything more.”
“You’ve said quite enough,” Niebuhr said. “My God.”
The tone of Niebuhr’s voice, rather than his words, stung Dietrich. “You must trust me,” he said.
Niebuhr shook his head. “I remember when you first came here in 1930. Then you were Bonhoeffer the patriot, fretting over the Fatherland’s defeat in the Great War. Quick to take offense at any slight to Germany. I suppose George Bell filled your head for a time with those notions of Gandhi and peace and the brotherhood of man and so forth, but push come to shove you haven’t changed, have you?”
“How dare you judge me so? You don’t know what it’s like at home!”
“Spare me.” Niebuhr looked at his watch. “Nine-thirty. I think I’ll turn in, and I’d suggest we head back in the morning. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not listen to this drivel all weekend.”
Niebuhr went inside, slamming the screen door behind him, and climbed the stairs to his room, where he began to stuff his scattered clothes back into a small suitcase. Dietrich clattered up the stairs behind him and leaned against the doorframe. “After such work to bring me to the United States, are you so quick to dismiss our friendship?”
Niebuhr laughed. “After such hard work—and damn straight it was hard work to get you into this country, no telling what poor fellow got left out because you’re here—you’re going back to join the goddamn Nazi army. Why should our friendship mean anything? After all, I’m an American and you’re a German.”
“I was wrong,” Dietrich said. He
felt short of breath. “I was wrong to come here. A mistake. Please understand.”
Niebuhr folded his arms and waited.
“I’ve known it was wrong all along. On my first morning in New York I began my daily devotions from a prayer book I brought from home. The scripture that day was Isaiah 28:16. He who believes does not flee.”
“When I was a kid,” Niebuhr said, “I tried to make an important decision by opening the Bible at random and pointing with my eyes shut. My inspirational verse said, Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. Second Kings.”
Dietrich sat wearily on the edge of Niebuhr’s bed, took off his glasses, and wiped them on his sleeve.
“What do you suppose life in Germany has been like these past few years?” he asked.
Niebuhr waited.
“What do you think it will be like when war comes?” Dietrich asked.
“A hell of Germany’s own making,” Niebuhr replied.
Dietrich nodded. “I don’t dispute that. But my family is there, and our neighbors and friends. The people I have known all my life. In Germany.”
“Or in Germany’s concentration camps.”
“Yes. Of course that. All the more reason. And beyond people, there is the land itself, the mountains and rivers and farms. The cities. All facing a devastating war. I’m sorry, Reinie. I must live through whatever my country lives through. Someday this nightmare of ours will end, and Germany will be made new. But I shall have no right to take part in that new day unless I face the trials of this time.”
“Serving in the army,” Niebuhr said.
“Yes. It’s the only way I can go back without being killed at once. But I won’t be your enemy or the enemy of any nation. You must trust me.”
“The situation is past compromise, you must know that. You are taking sides. How should I trust you when you wear Hitler’s uniform?”
“By what you know of me. And by what I am about to say. I’m facing a terrible choice. When I return, I can work for the triumph of Germany and thus the destruction of civilization. Or I can work for the defeat of Germany in hopes of saving civilization. I promise you. I shall be working for the defeat of Germany.”
“That would be treason,” Niebuhr said.
“I can’t tell you more and you mustn’t ask.”
“You can work for the defeat of Germany here, in the United States. In safety.”
“In safety,” Dietrich echoed. “I can’t make such a choice in a safe place. It would be too easy, and it would not be Christian.”
Niebuhr shook his head, started to speak, then turned away. Dietrich stood still, head down and hands in his pocket.
“My God,” Niebuhr said. “You’re so damned arrogant. You think you’re going to save civilization by some wild heroic act, don’t you?”
Dietrich smiled and shook his head for answer.
Niebuhr sighed. “Sonofabitch,” he said.
On July 7, Dietrich Bonhoeffer took ship for England aboard the Bremen. He stood at the rail as the ship moved past the Statue of Liberty and out of New York Harbor, felt wistful, nostalgic even, as the city skyline slipped off the edge of the horizon. Goodbye to Reinie. Goodbye to the ghost of Fred Bishop.
Five days later, George Bell met him on the dock at Southampton. They embraced, and Bell said, “Sabine is waiting for you in Chichester. Gerhard has a temporary job in London and couldn’t get away. I have to warn you, your sister is worried and upset with you, and so am I. We’re all of us determined to talk you out of returning to Germany.”
“You must allow me get back my land legs,” Dietrich protested as they walked to the boat train along a platform that seemed to pitch and roll. “Then we’ll talk.”
He found Chichester little changed from five years earlier. The same modest market town. The same cathedral precinct, ancient stone surrounded by the darkgreen of late summer. Hettie Bell in a floppy straw hat, rising from her knees in a bed of roses and removing her dirt-stained gloves before taking Dietrich’s hand and offering her cheek to be kissed. What was new was to follow the Bells into the bishop’s palace and find Sabine in the morning room. When she saw Dietrich she gave a little cry and ran to him. George and Hettie slipped out while the twins embraced and closed the door quietly behind them.
Sabine wept against Dietrich’s chest, while he shushed her and brushed the hair from her damp forehead as though she were a small child. When she had regained her composure she said fiercely, “I shall give Hans a piece of my mind when I see him again!”
“You mustn’t blame Hans. This is my decision and mine alone.”
“It’s homesickness. That’s all it is. Stay with us in England a few weeks and it will pass. You’ll see. I miss the family and Germany as well, but it’s not unbearable. Stay with us. You don’t have to go back to America. You can find something to do here. George will help you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t stay, Sabine. I know that would be easiest for us all, but I could never live with myself.”
“You don’t think less of me for being here.”
“No, of course not. But you have a husband and children. God has given me something else.”
Sabine pulled away from him. “You can’t believe God wants you to die.”
“I don’t expect to die anytime soon,” he said. “But if that is what happens, then so be it. Death is inevitable, after all.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “I recall when we were children,” she said. “At night in bed you were certain you were about to die. You’d panic and I had to talk to you and talk to you until you fell asleep. You’ve always been terrified of death, Dietrich, and half in love with it as well.”
“Sabine.”
He moved close to her, but she waved him away. “No, no, don’t expect to comfort me. I know something you don’t. We only just read it in the Times yesterday. A pastor named Paul Schneider—you knew him?”
“Yes, Paul attended Martin Niemöller’s meetings.”
“He’s dead,” Sabine said. “Tortured to death in Buchenwald.”
Dietrich turned pale. He seemed to have trouble catching his breath. “Tortured to death?”
“The government doesn’t try to hide it,” Sabine continued. “They’re no longer ashamed of such things. An example. That’s what they call it. What chance do you stand with them, Dietrich? And soon the war will begin and we shall be caught on opposite sides. We won’t be able to speak on the telephone or even to write. I’ll have no way of knowing how you are. I tell you, I won’t be comforted.”
When they joined the Bells for a late lunch they had composed themselves, but barely. Dietrich tried to speak calmly of his time in New York.
“What do the Americans say about the situation over here?” Bell asked.
Dietrich shrugged. “Most Americans aren’t paying much attention. They don’t know or care what’s happening in Europe. Many of the conservatives, the business people, are sympathetic to Hitler, but they don’t want to see him fight England. People on the left hate the Nazis, but they’re a minority. No one wants to see America in a war, although Roosevelt seems inclined to help England any way he can short of calling out troops.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” Bell said.
Dietrich said, “Sabine will have told you that I’m taking a position in the German army.”
There was an awkward silence. Sabine picked at the food on her plate and said nothing.
“We would seem to be made enemies very soon,” Dietrich said. “But you mustn’t think that is what we really are. I apologize, as I did to my friend Reinhold Niebuhr, for I can say little more. Only I hope in the future you will think of me as you have known me, and not as I may soon seem from afar.”
“You have never been my enemy,” Bell said, “nor ever shall be.”
The two men stared at each other as though exchanging silent vows. Sabine suddenly began to sob, and left the table. Dietrich stood, but Hettie Bell said, “I’ll go to her. You and George need
to talk.”
Dietrich sat down slowly.
“She’ll be all right,” Bell said. “She needs time.”
Dietrich shut his eyes. “I seem to have a gift for bringing pain to the people I care for most. Tell me, George, am I wrong to go back?”
“Only you can answer that.”
Dietrich nodded. “Then I have answered it. Only I would ask you one more question. What would you say to a man who fears he must sin, and sin to the point of endangering his own soul, in order to help others?”
Bell was silent for a long time, then asked, “What sort of sin?”
“Lying. Blasphemy. Betrayal. Killing. The denial of everything one has believed in.”
“And the benefit to others?” Bell asked, then quickly added, “No, don’t answer that. I know. I can think of no greater sacrifice for a man like you.”
Dietrich flushed. “A man like me?”
“Why be hypothetical? We both know this is no intellectual game. I’ll tell you what I think. You’re right not to say any more to me. I mustn’t know, and you must learn to keep your own counsel. As to the final disposition of your soul, that is in God’s hands. Is that your conclusion?”
“My conclusion,” Dietrich answered, “is that it would be self-serving to allow concern for the disposition of my soul to push me off this course.”
“In that case,” Bell said, “you have stepped off the edge of a high precipice and are beyond human aid. God help you.”
Evensong in the cathedral. Choirboys robed in white and black sing the psalms like angels and, when no one is looking and they are hidden behind their benches, trade toy soldiers they have stashed inside their voluminous sleeves. Dietrich and Sabine sit side by side on uncomfortable high-backed seats while George Bell, wearing his bishop’s vestments, reads the collects and lessons. When he delivers the second collect—Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee, we, being defended from the fear of our enemies—he pauses deliberately and looks at Dietrich, then continues—may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour—while two of the smallest choirboys nudge one another, anxious to be done and home for supper.
Saints and Villains Page 33