Leyna drew in a sharp breath and looked to Erika. “I. . . . Yes, I am Leyna.”
“Have we met before?” Erika said, puzzled and worried at the same time.
“Nein, but I am acquainted with two friends of yours. Alisa and Jolanda Eckhardt.”
Jo gasped. Lisa stiffened as she gaped at him. A little chill went dancing up and down her spine. “And who are you?” she asked cooly. “And how do you know our names?”
“Ah, you must be Lisa. I am a longtime friend of your family.”
“Nein!” she retorted angrily. “We don’t know you.” Instinctively, the four of them moved in closer together. “What is your name?” she snapped.
“Ah, now you offend me. You have to ask? I have told you all four of your names. But you cannot tell me mine? That seems hardly fair.”
Lisa stepped forward, placing herself between him and the others. “You have your address, now go. We’re not afraid of you.”
“Ah, Lisa, Lisa. I surely know that. After Little Pig and Bully Boy, I can’t picture you being afraid of anyone.”
Lisa went rigid as the others gasped. Now the chills were coursing through her body.
Jo grabbed at Lisa’s sleeve. “Let’s go back to the school,” she whispered. “The guard will help us.”
“Oh, now that really hurts, Jo,” the young man said soberly. “Have you forgotten so soon?” Then he laughed softly and reached up and touched his cheek with two fingertips.
Jo, who had started to turn away, whipped back around, gaping at him. “Benji?” she whispered hoarsely. Then, to the utter amazement of the other three, she shot forward, covering the distance between them in four or five steps, hurling herself into his outstretched arms.
Shocked into immobility, Lisa stared dumbly at them as Benji whirled her sister around. As he did, his cap fell off, revealing more of his face. Her knees went suddenly weak and she grabbed Erika’s arm to steady herself. “Benji?” she whispered, tears instantly blurring her view.
“In the flesh,” he grinned, putting Jo down again and holding out his arms. “Guten Tag, Fraulein Eckhardt. It’s been a while, but it is so good to see you again.”
She launched herself at him as he opened his arms and laughed aloud. As she threw herself into them, he swung her off her feet and twirled her around and around. When he finally set her down again, he was looking over her shoulder at Jo, who was still rooted to the spot. “Hi, Jo. You’ve grown since I saw you last. Care to introduce me to your friends?”
3:27 p.m.—Near the Chinese Tower, English Garden
Benji leaned across the bench and put his scarf around Lisa. “Are you sure you’re not cold?” They were speaking in English, at her request.
“Cold! Who cares about the cold? You’re here, Benji! I can’t believe it. It’s like a dream. A wonderful, incredible, astonishing dream.” She reached up and touched his beard and his shaggy hair. “No wonder I didn’t recognize you. This looks nothing like the picture I have beside my bed.”
They were sitting near the most prominent feature in the English Garden, a pagoda-like Chinese tower near the park’s biergarten, which was now shuttered up. No one else was around. Without being asked, Jo, Leyna, and Erika had quietly left them and were walking slowly about fifty yards farther on.
Benji touched his beard too. “I don’t particularly like it, but I decided I wanted to surprise you, so I had to do something. Oh, Lisa, I’ve planned this moment for months. And it worked perfectly. Your mother and grandmother didn’t recognize me at first either. And I thought your father was going to throw me off the porch before I told them it was me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have made Mama and Papa take me to Marseilles to meet you. I didn’t even know you had gone to sea until I got to Utah.”
“But I wrote a letter from California, just before we shipped out. You didn’t get it?”
“Eventually, but not before we got to Utah. Oh, you don’t know that. Jo and I and the Zeidners were in Utah for almost six weeks.”
“Yes,” he said ruefully. “Your parents told me. I haven’t had mail from anyone for months. Oh, how I wish I’d known you were coming before I signed on.”
“But once you were off the boat at Marseilles, couldn’t you have at least called us? Then we could have met you at the train station.”
“Fraulein,” he said sternly, “I was not on a boat. I was on a ship. Only a landlubber doesn’t know the difference.” Then he laughed. “Actually, by the time I finally reached France, I had thought so long about our first meeting, that I knew I had to surprise you.”
She slugged him playfully on the shoulder. “Well it worked perfectly.”
“So you forgive me?”
“I nearly had heart failure. But you’re here. Of course I forgive you.” Lisa jumped up and pulled him up. “Come, come. Let’s go home, or Papa will be coming after both of us with a willow stick.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Erika and Leyna are to come home with us. Your mother called Frau Zeidner, and they’re coming over to dinner, so I’ll get to meet them too.”
“Okay, but one question first.” She shot him a dirty look. “And you’d better give me the right answer.”
“That sounds ominous, but all right. What is it?”
“How long can you stay?” As he drew in a slow breath, preparing to answer, she rushed on. “And you’d better not be telling me that it’s only for a week.”
“I. . . .”
“Two summers ago, my family was in Utah for three weeks. I stayed behind in Germany. This summer, Jo and I were in Utah for over a month, and you were not there. So, the way I figure it, you owe me at least six weeks, Benjamin Westland.”
He studied her soberly, and Lisa immediately regretted being so forward. “Benji, I’m just teasing you. I know you haven’t seen your family in a long time too and—”
“My birthday is in May,” Benji started. “I am hoping to get my mission call shortly thereafter. And my family is very anxious to see me. So. . . .”
Lisa turned her head so her face was against her shoulder. “Don’t say it,” she whispered. “Let me have at least one day before I have to think about you leaving again.”
He reached over, put his finger under her chin, and lifted her head. “So you don’t want me to tell you that I have already booked passage on a ship out of Hamburg on—”
“No!” she wailed.
“—the twenty-fifth . . . of February!”
Lisa’s eyes widened. “Really? Oh, Benji. You’re not just teasing me? Please, don’t joke about that.”
“I would not tease you about something that important.”
Her eyes were dancing with joy and the color was rising in her cheeks again. “Then I have just one more thing to say to you, Benjamin Westland.”
“And what is that?”
She tipped her head back, looked up into the falling snow, and cried, “Whoo-ee!”
3:44 p.m.—Schwabing District
As they walked on, Lisa pulled her hand free from Benji’s and stepped away from him far enough to look up at him. “Oh. There’s something else I want to tell you.”
“What?”
“When the Reissners came down to spend time with us, Jacob talked to us about getting our patriarchal blessings.”
Benji stopped, turning to face her. “Really?”
“Yes. Since we don’t have any stakes in Germany, we don’t have patriarchs. But Jacob arranged for me and Jo to meet with the Church patriarch and get our blessings. We did that the day before we left to come back home.”
“Wonderful! Tell me about it. What did it say?”
She gripped his hand tightly. “I think I’m going to go on a mission. My blessing talks about me preaching the gospel to people of other nations and other tongues. Isn’t that neat? Maybe I’ll go to ano
ther country, and not just serve in Germany.”
“Great. You’ll be a wonderful missionary, Lise.”
She cocked her head and looked up at him.
“What? What did I say?”
“You called me Lise.”
“Oh, I. . . .” Benji smiled. “Is that all right? That’s what I always call you when I think of you, or when I’m talking to you in my mind.”
“You do that?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I’m writing letters to you. Does that bother you?”
She slipped her arm through his again. “No, I love it. No one else calls me that.”
“Good. So what else did your blessing promise you?”
“It says that I am to continue my education after high school. Which is funny. We don’t call it ‘high school’ here. And it talks about my musical talent.”
“Ah. That’s a promise you owe me, remember? You said if we ever got together that you would play the piano for me.”
Lisa laughed merrily. “Since you came all the way around the world to see me, I guess I can’t say no to that.”
“That’s right. What else?”
Her cheeks, already red with the cold, deepened in color. “Um . . . it says that I will find a righteous priesthood holder who will take me to the temple and make me the queen of our home.”
Benji nodded. “You deserve nothing less.”
Then her brow furrowed. “There’s one part that kind of bothers me, and yet it is really a wonderful promise. It says that in my life I will see much tribulation, suffering, and anguish because of the wickedness of the world, but if I am faithful and stay strong in the gospel, that I will also find great joy in my life.” She sighed. “I know that blessings are private, but do you think it would be wrong if I let you read it? I’d like you to.”
“I would like to. My blessing says something similar to that.”
She wrinkled her nose. “About you being the queen in your home?”
Benji laughed. “No, about the need to stand strong in the faith because of the challenges I will face in my life.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have your blessing with you?”
“No, I didn’t dare take it on the road. And a good thing, too. When Mose was killed and I ended up in jail, they took everything away.”
Lisa put her arm around his waist. “I want to hear what you experienced, Benji. Will you tell me all about it?”
He hesitated but then nodded. “When the time is right. But tonight, only happy stuff.”
January 27, 1935, 4:05 p.m.—Munich Branch,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Benji?”
Benji and Hans Otto were off to one side of the banquet hall speaking with the two missionaries assigned to the Munich Branch. Benji turned. Jo and Lisa were bustling toward them. He waved for them to come over. As they came up and greeted the two elders, Hans Otto cried, “Guess what, Lisa? Benji’s going to be a missionary!”
“I know,” she said, smiling at him. “And hopefully, he’ll get called to come to Germany.”
“No!” Hans Otto said, frowning. “Right now. He’s going to be a missionary right now.”
As Lisa shot him a questioning look, Benji nodded. “That’s right. The mission president has given permission for me to work with Elder Taylor and Elder Randall while I’m here.”
Lisa’s expression went from surprise to dismay and disappointment in a matter of seconds. “That’s nice,” she finally managed.
Jo turned and studied her sister’s face, then swung back to Benji and the missionaries. “And how often will that be?” she asked bluntly.
Taken aback by her directness, Benji hesitated before answering. “Every day this coming week.”
“No!” Lisa cried, but then she caught herself and quickly turned away.
Benji finally got it. “Every day. While you two are in school,” he said with a smile. “And maybe an occasional evening when they have a teaching appointment.”
Lisa’s expression instantly brightened. “Oh? And that’s all?”
Benji turned to her. “I would really like to get an idea what missionary work is like.”
“Of course,” she said, smiling broadly now. “I think it is a wonderful idea.”
Jo stepped up to Elder Taylor, who was a good head taller than she was. She tipped her head back and smiled up at him. “Mama asked if you and Elder Randall would like to join us for dinner this evening. It will be at six o’clock. But it will be at the Zeidner home, not ours.”
“Um. . . .” Elder Taylor frowned. “We don’t want to intrude. The Zeidners are not members, right?”
“No. But Herr Zeidner is the one who told Mutti to ask you.”
“In that case, yes. We’d like to come.”
Jo gave them a cheery smile. “They don’t want you to baptize them, Elders. Just come to dinner.” Then she laughed as they both blushed.
Lisa gave them the address, and as they walked away, she popped Jo on the arm. “Stop flirting with the elders,” she said. “Go tell Mama and Papa that Benji and I are going to walk home.”
Benji looked up. “We are?” When Lisa nodded, he nodded back, and said to Jo, “We are.”
Jo laughed at his expression, waved, and walked away.
4:27 p.m.—Streets of Munich
“Well,” Benji said, after they had gone several minutes without speaking, “are you going to tell me, or not?” He spoke in German.
“Tell you what?” Lisa asked, turning to look up at him.
“I got the impression that you wanted to walk home because you had something you wanted to talk about.”
She feigned a pout. “So just having a few minutes alone together isn’t sufficient reason to walk two miles on a bitterly cold day?”
Benji laughed. “I came ten thousand miles to get here. Did you think that was just to get to know your father better?”
She giggled at that. “He likes you. Did you know that?”
He pulled a face. “How can you tell? He’s always looking at me like he’s thinking, ‘What is this guy doing here with my daughter?’”
“That’s just him. He’s the papa bear. Gruff. Growly. Grumpy. But he’s really a teddy bear.”
“So, is that what you wanted to talk about?” Benji asked. “How well your father and I are getting along?”
Lisa hesitated. “No.” Her smiled died away. “Well, not exactly.” She turned her head. They were passing by a small neighborhood park with a children’s playground and a couple of benches. Putting her arm through his, she steered him toward one of the benches. “Do you mind if we sit for a few minutes?”
“Of course not.”
There was still a couple of inches of snow on the ground, but the weather had been clear all day and there was no snow left on the benches. She sat down on the nearest one and pulled him down beside her. As they did so, she took the chance to study him. She had thought the beard made him look dashing and handsome, but now that he had shaved, she realized that this was the Benji that had been sitting on her dresser for years now. And it felt good to have him back.
Finally, she nervously began. “Vati came to my room last night. He said he had just come to say good night, but I could tell that he wanted to talk. We ended up having a long talk.” Her brow furrowed. “A very unusual talk, as it turned out.”
“About me?”
She nodded. “Kind of. Actually, it was about kissing.”
That brought his head up with a snap. “Kissing? You mean our kissing?”
Lisa hooted softly. “Thanks a lot. You think I go around kissing every boy I meet?” She blew out her breath. “I was shocked. He kind of hemmed and hawed, then he just asked me straight out if you had kissed me yet.”
“And what did you say?”
“I wa
s flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say. My face went beet red. So he knew that was his answer.”
Benji chortled. “Ah, and did you happen to mention that you kissed me back?”
“No! And he didn’t ask. But guess what he did ask next?”
“If this was your first kiss?”
She looked up at him, starting to blush again. “No, that was his third question. His second was how many times you had kissed me. I just stared at him, wishing I could die. This was my father! Who never talks about things like that with me.”
Benji was smiling. “And what did you say?”
“I was too mortified to answer.” She giggled softly, her eyes sparkling. “Besides, who’s counting?”
Benji just grinned. “And when he asked you if this was your first kiss, what did you say?”
She quickly looked away. “I said yes. Well, I let Heine Dungler kiss me in kindergarten, but. . . .” Her blush deepened even more. She was staring at her hands.
“Yes.”
Lisa looked up. “Yes what?”
“Yes, that was my first kiss too,” Benji said. “Except for the horse I got for Christmas when I was eight. I kissed her several times.”
Lisa slapped his arm, laughing. “Really? I was the first?”
“Yes.” Benji took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So, did that upset him? I mean, I have been here almost two weeks now. Did he really expect a no?”
“No, and that surprised me. I expected a lecture about. . . . I don’t know. It was really quite strange.”
Now it was Benji who laughed. “You and your father have an unusual relationship.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of . . . um . . . adversarial, in a way. Like you’re knocking heads sometimes, but the love between you shines through it all.”
She looked up at him with a puzzled expression.
“What?” he asked.
“You just described us perfectly. I do love him. Very much. But it’s more than that. I also have great respect for him. What he has done with his life, and for his family, especially in the last couple of years, is amazing. But, that’s for another time. So after his other questions, he reminded me that you are committed to serve a mission.”
Fire and Steel, Volume 6 Page 22
