After showing me around, he says, “Now I must get back to my bricks. I see you have come in your work clothes, so if you want to help, you are welcome.”
When we join the others, Herr Schafer surprises me by saying, “Peter is skilled enough to lay bricks with me; he’s been doing that at St. Mary’s.”
At that Herr Schocken does some more glowering and grumbles, “David, this is no playground for boys to learn a trade. Let him learn at St. Mary’s. If he wants to do something, he can put the bricks where you can get at them.”
Herr Schafer has his mouth open to say something, but he closes it again and nods in the direction of the pile of bricks that stands on the sidewalk. In no time I am watering bricks down and piling them up, and Herr Schocken, noticing I’m working hard, is no longer glowering. I stick it out for two hours. Herr Schafer and the other men are still working when I leave. It’s warm out and I feel hot and sweaty from my work. My back aches and there is a scrape on my hand that burns. A huge August moon climbs up from the horizon, making a gold path on the canal. I remember that Hans and Kurt have talked about going for a swim. I wish I had gone with them. I’m still angry at Herr Schocken for not letting me help to lay the bricks. I decide he can build his synagogue without me.
Hans is as good as his word and has bought a new soccer ball. In the days before school starts, the three of us spend all our extra time practicing, hoping to make the team when school opens. The last evenings of summer cannot be long enough. I gulp down my supper and am out the door to meet Kurt and Hans on the field we have appropriated for our practice. The evenings are a little cooler now, the dark comes quicker, the hours seem shorter. Hans is a wild man on the soccer field, everywhere at once, taking risks and making huge misses and terrific kicks. Kurt is careful and accurate. He doesn’t always get the ball, but when he does, he knows what to do with it. I’m halfway between. What I love about the game is that the only thing I need to think about is what’s going on on the field. When it’s too dark to see the ball, we walk slowly home, not wanting the night to end, knowing each day brings us closer to school.
No one is happier with my nightly soccer practice than my mother and father. Once when I slip back into the house to change my shoes, I overhear Mother say, “We have our Peter back again.” I know they hope I have put the question of my birth mother out of my head. Of course I haven’t. I am just trying to keep so busy, I won’t have time to think about her or about anything connected with that other life. I can’t keep busy every minute, so there are still times when I wonder what my life would be if there had been no war and no death camps, if I and my birth mother and father had lived out our lives together. I try to guess what my home would have been like. Perhaps I would have had brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. It makes me sad to think that that life will never be except in my imagination.
Herr Schafer and I still have our lunches together, but he doesn’t mention my Jewish heritage. I know he is waiting for me to be the first to mention it. I avoid the subject. Our talk now is of the celebration that is coming for the completion of St. Mary’s. When the last bricks are laid, Herr Schafer says good-bye to me. We promise to keep in touch. When I ask how the synagogue is coming along, feeling a little guilty about not having returned to help, he says it will soon be finished.
The Sunday we celebrate St. Mary’s completion, the whole town turns out in their best clothes. It is an early-fall day and the sky is a deep blue. Once more the bells ring out across the town. The church is so filled with flowers, it looks as if spring has come again. At the organ Herr Brandt plays a fine tune that I am sure must be something by his favorite composer, Bach. The deep chords of the organ fill the church and make me feel I have been picked up and shaken. The sun shines on the gilded wood and lights fires in the blues and reds of the stained-glass windows. The choristers in their new robes, black as night and white as snow, march down the aisle to Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and indeed, St. Mary’s seems like the fortress of a great lord. Pastor Heuer, his glasses shining in the candlelight, mounts the pulpit and opens the ancient Bible that has been a part of the church for hundreds of years. Above us the steeples reach high into heaven and the service begins. Mother clasps my hand. Father heaves a deep sigh as if he has just put down a great burden. I see tears in his eyes.
To keep the workmen from getting too conceited about their work, Pastor Heuer clears his throat and reads from the Old Testament, “‘For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.’”
After the service people come up to Father and congratulate him on his part in restoring the church. There is a special dinner at the town hall for all the workmen. Herr Schafer isn’t at the service, but he is there at the dinner. I am caught in the crush around Father, and by the time I break away, Herr Schafer is gone. I resolve to visit him before the week is over, but all week there are the tryouts for the school soccer team. When Hans, Kurt, and I make the team, after-school hours are taken up with practice. Being on the team gives me a higher status at school. I never lack for lunch partners, and Ruth Kassel agrees to go to the movies with me. My assignment on Stauffenberg got me a good mark from Herr Schmidt, but that all seems a long time ago. My nightmares have disappeared. I look at my parents in a new way. I think of the chance they took for me. If it weren’t for their courage, I wouldn’t be here, going to school, walking down the streets of Rolfen on a fine September day. Every step I take is a gift from them—and from my birth mother.
It’s a day in late October. Many of the trees are bare, and Mother has taken in all her flowerpots because of a threat of an early-morning frost. In a good mood because our soccer coach has made me a forward, I’m helping Mother dry the dinner dishes, taking pleasure in holding the glasses up to the light to be sure all the smudges are gone. Father is sitting at the kitchen table turning over the pages of the newspaper, mumbling to himself as he does when there’s some political nonsense that excites him. Suddenly he lets out a little gasp, as if someone has punched him in the stomach.
“Bernhard, what is it?” Mother asks.
Father opens his mouth and then shuts it as if he can’t make up his mind about telling us. I bend over his shoulder and see a small article headlined NEW ROLFEN SYNAGOGUE SET ON FIRE. I take in the rest of the article at a gulp, throw down the dish towel, grab my jacket, and am out the door, ignoring Father’s plea to wait. The article says the fire occurred on the day before the synagogue was to celebrate its opening. I’m sure someone has watched the efforts of Herr Schafer and the others, cruelly waiting until they were finished.
The wooden door to the synagogue and the roof are badly burned. Herr Schafer, Herr Schocken, and Herr Kassel are on the roof tearing off scorched shingles. A group of silent watchers, mostly kids, stands about. I walk up to them and say in an angry voice, “If you aren’t going to help, you can take off instead of standing there gawking!” Embarrassed, they melt away.
I gather up the discarded shingles and stack them neatly and then at Herr Schafer’s bidding open a bundle of new shingles that lies beside the building and carry them up a ladder to give to the men. Herr Schocken hands me an extra hammer. “Herr Schafer will show you how,” he says. There is no grumbling and no talk of my learning at their expense. We work steadily with little conversation, only a few sly jokes between Herr Kassel and Herr Schafer about who is working faster versus who is making a better job of it.
When it becomes too dark to see what we are doing, we climb down from the roof. Herr Kassel and Herr Schocken go on their way. Herr Schafer says, “We’re all taking turns sleeping here to keep watch. Tonight it’s my turn. It’s good of you to help, Peter. I can’t think why there must be this destruction of the places where people go to find their God. It’s like the wood carving in St. Mary’s of the little mouse gnawing at the roots of an oak tree. It takes only a few evil people to eat away at the character of a town. Every unkind act cheapens this town and makes it easier f
or the next person to commit some spitefulness.
“But Peter, some good has come of the evil. Many people on this street have brought us food while we worked, and like yourself, they have lent us a hand. Still it was a cruel thing, and between you and me, Peter, it made me think of leaving Rolfen. Last week I had a letter inviting me to come to a university in the United States. I miss teaching and I feel my life is wasted in the laying of bricks. I was ready to accept, but now I don’t know. It would be running away from my friends at a difficult time. Germany is still my Vaterland, my homeland, and I won’t turn it over to a few hoodlums.”
“Do you know who did it, Herr Schafer?”
“The firemen knew it was arson. They could tell almost at once what started the fire from the smell. It was carbon tetrachloride, a chemical used in dry-cleaning shops.”
Dieter Kroner’s name pops into my head. “There’s this boy at school whose father owns a dry-cleaning store. He never believed what Herr Schmidt told us in class about what happened to Jews. I’ll bet he did it.”
“The fire department and the police are investigating. Leave it to them, Peter. I’m not interested in revenge. Revenge begets revenge. Let’s not speak of it anymore. Tell me how you are. I’ve missed our talks.”
“I wanted to see you, but I made the soccer team and there’s practice in the afternoons and then at night some of us get together for a scrimmage.” The minute the words are out of my mouth, I realize what a lame excuse it is.
“Peter, you’d never believe it from the belly I carry around now, but when I was your age I was quite the soccer player. I played at Heidelberg University. Maybe I’ll come and watch one of your practices.”
I walk home from the synagogue in darkness. Pads of damp leaves lie long the sidewalk and smell of autumn. It’s the strong smell of the leaves that makes me think of Herr Schafer saying the firemen could smell carbon tetrachloride. I don’t want to believe that Dieter would have done something so evil, and even if he had, I wouldn’t know how to prove it. Without proof it would be wrong to accuse him. I don’t understand how God could let such things happen. Father always says, “Don’t judge God by what men do,” but life seems very mysterious, full of questions and not a lot of answers.
I ask myself why I have made no move to practice my Jewish faith. Do I sincerely believe the Christian faith in which I was raised, or am I just avoiding a lot of the kind of hatred that caused the burning of the synagogue? When I see ahead of me the lighted windows of our house, I start to run as if someone is chasing me and our house is the only safe place in the world.
To my surprise Herr Schafer turns up the next night for our soccer scrimmage. Anyone interested can play. Herr Buchhalter, the chemistry teacher from school, is there most nights. Karl Mann, a policeman, comes with his red-and-blue striped shirt, and Gustav Uhlich comes too. Werner Kreutzer, the barber, is umpire. Kreutzer actually saw the World Cup championship game when Germany won in 1954, so having him here makes our scrimmage seem like the real thing. Everyone knows Kreutzer longs to play, but he weighs about three hundred pounds and even blowing his whistle leaves him short of breath.
Kurt, Gustav, Hans, and I are on the same team, while Gerhart Miller and Dieter Kroner usually play on the other team. On this night they have seven on their team, while we have to play with just six since our seventh player has come down with measles and there isn’t time to get a substitute.
Herr Schafer stands watching the play, his legs moving a little like he wants to get in the action. Gerhart and Dieter give him a funny look. I kick the ball in his direction. He stops the ball with his chest, and the next thing I know he’s in the game and all over the field, juggling like there is no ground under his feet. With Herr Schafer on our side, we get the ball down to the goal and he gets it past the goalkeeper with a slider.
Dieter is furious. He glares at Herr Schafer. “We don’t want to play with Jews!” he shouts.
Herr Kreutzer trots out and shoves a yellow card at Dieter. “Watch your language, sonny,” he says, “or you’ll be out of the game.” Kreutzer, with a big grin on his face, turns to Herr Schafer. “I guess you’ve played this game once or twice before.”
Herr Schafer doesn’t hog the ball. He keeps passing it, but when it comes his way he’s phenomenal, running right into the ball and making it go where he wants it. Our team catches fire and scores two goals.
“Hey, we’re all going to be Jews tonight!” Hans shouts at Dieter. “And we’ll beat the stuffing out of your team!”
I watch Dieter shadowing Herr Schafer, and on the next play he works his way next to him and lets go with a high kick, his foot only inches from Herr Schafer’s head. Kreutzer goes puffing out with a red card and Dieter is out of the game, left to stand on the sidelines digging trenches in the ground with his cleats.
Even though Herr Schafer sees to it that everyone on our team gets a chance at the ball, that can’t prevent our winning by a wide margin. While both teams crowd around him, I walk over to Dieter, who’s standing there with his hands tightened into fists.
“Your dad missing any of his carbon tetrachloride? Maybe you needed a little for a chemistry experiment? Maybe we should ask the police to help you find it?”
Dieter looks as if someone just pushed him into a wall face-first. That tells me all I need to know. At first I want to lunge at him, but what Dieter has done is bigger than anything I can punish him for.
I tell Herr Schafer. He says again he doesn’t want revenge, but adds, “Justice is something else.” He tells me he has received a letter from a friend at his old university in Heidelberg. “It isn’t exactly a job offer,” he says, “but someone there knows I’m still here.”
I head home, passing St. Mary’s. It soars over the town and I think of all it has seen and how it has survived. Some of St. Mary’s bricks have been here for nearly a thousand years. I run my hand along the course of bricks I laid. If there are no more wars, no more people hurting one another, my bricks might be here for the next seven hundred years. Father is already working on plans to rebuild a smaller church across the city. He will go on bringing churches back to life and I will go on listening to Herr Schafer’s stories, and someday the two will come together and tell me what to do.
It’s Friday and school is over for the week. Ruth wasn’t in school today because it’s the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. I think I would like to do something to celebrate the day. I walk along nibbling a Buchtel I’ve saved from my lunch. As I cross the river Tave that circles the city, I remember Herr Schafer telling me about the Tashlich service. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah crumbs are cast into a river where there are fish. The crumbs represent our sins for the year, and the river carries them away. The fish are important because fish were the first witnesses to creation. Because their eyes are always open, they are like God’s ever-watching eyes. I toss some of the Buchtel crumbs into the water and feel lighter, as if a lot of my worries have been thrown away with the crumbs. Then I eat the rest, licking the jam off my lips, thinking of all that is sweet in my life.
About the Author
National Book Award–winning author GLORIA WHELAN weaves rich historical detail into this compelling mystery. Ms. Whelan is the bestselling author of many novels for young readers, including HOMELESS BIRD, winner of the National Book Award, PARADE OF SHADOWS, and LISTENING FOR LIONS. She lives in northern Michigan. You can visit her online at www.gloriawhelan.com.
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ALSO BY GLORIA WHELAN
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Indian School
THE
ISLAND TRILOGY:
Once On This Island
Farewell to the Island
Return to the Island
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Richard Tuschman
Jacket design by Alison Klapthor
Copyright
AFTER THE TRAIN. Copyright © 2009 by Gloria Whelan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061975776
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