Warsaw Requiem

by Bodie Thoene

  Lucy pressed her ear against the space and tried to hear her words, but the sound of a thousand other voices drowned out this one drama.

  Big Alfie was smiling happily as he stretched out his arms to present the baby to Lori. Lori’s face registered disbelief, then outrage, then panic. She did not, would not, take the child. She shouted something at Alfie; then the ship’s whistle exploded! Lori was shaking her head, denying that this could happen; refusing to accept the story that Alfie Halder explained patiently to her as he continued to hold the baby out to her.

  Lori turned to a strong-looking young man for help. She clung to his arm, pleading for him to do something. The young man questioned Alfie, gestured as if to ask where the woman was who gave him the baby. Alfie shrugged. His smile did not diminish as he held up the tag on the baby’s gown and then looked toward a little black-and-white kitten nestled in the arm of the young man.

  Alfie shook his head slowly. He was not going. He would not get on the ship! Lori was ashen-faced. Helpless. She could not grasp it! She too looked around through the mob. Lucy knew the girl was searching for her—that she would, indeed, give the baby back. Lucy fought the urge to run and snatch her baby from Alfie Halder’s arms and find some other way. Some other way!

  Looking from side to side along the wharf, she tried to think what she must do. This had been a terrible mistake! Several officials were gazing at the group of children, wondering what was going on. With a nervous glance, Lucy saw the nurse at her station checking papers. Would the woman recognize the baby that Lucy had begged her to take? Would she call out to the guards that a tiny imposter had stolen the identity of Alfie Halder and was trying to slip illegally into England? Would they come and take that baby away to the Danzig foundling home?

  “Please! Oh, dear God!” Lucy prayed.

  And then, at the far end of the tearful crowd, Lucy glimpsed the sunlight on the head and shoulders of someone who looked like—It was Wolf! Lucy did not take her eyes from him as he moved through the press of bodies. He searched faces; he scanned across the tops of heads in search of Lucy, in search of the child he claimed for the Führer! Two other men trailed behind him, heading directly toward where the little band of travelers stood together absorbed in pitched debate!

  Lucy bit her hand in an effort not to cry out. She felt the blood drain from her face. The world and the sky spun in opposite directions. Take him! Lucy cried silently. Take my baby! Before Wolf comes to you! Get on the ship! Go now!

  Alfie held up the baby. He nudged the tiny form against Lori’s body. A fragile little arm raised from the bundle. It waved below the girl’s face for a moment as if to beg, Take me!

  Wolf seemed to see the hand. How could he know? He called to his companions as the horn bellowed one last warning! They looked at Wolf and then at one another; then the three merged and pushed people out of their path in a frantic rush toward Lori and the tiny infant.

  And then, a miracle! Before the swell of the whistle faded, Lori reluctantly took the baby from the arms of still-smiling Alfie. The gently young man with the mind of a child patted his namesake and then retrieved the baby’s basket for Lori.

  Two dockhands stood at the base of the gangway to move it from the ship. Big Alfie raised his hands and stumbled forward to stop them. He pointed at Lori. At the baby. At the two other frantic-looking little boys with her. Then Alfie took the kitten from the other young man who pulled Lori to him in a final, careful embrace. A kiss, loving and desperate, passed between the two. All the while, Lucy’s child was held by both of them.

  The nurse at the table asked to see their tags as Wolf led his companions closer to the edge of the crowd. A wall of grieving mothers, ten deep, kept them back. They struggled and raged in their places while this final embrace took place. Then Lori, holding Lucy’s baby, backed up the gangway. She waved and called back to the young man who loved her. She touched the fingertips of her right hand to her lips.

  Wolf leaned hard against the human barricade. No one seemed to notice his roughness. He lunged past a man and a woman who simply turned their heads to look around him as they waved up to a little boy at the rail.

  Lucy willed Lori to hurry up the gangway! Could she not see the dark and menacing looks on the faces of the three men who struggled to reach her and tear the baby from her?

  Halfway up, Lori stopped. She gripped the rail for support, as though she might run back down. “Run!” Lucy cried as Wolf reached the inner perimeter and at last broke through.

  At that moment, the little boys with Lori nudged her along, pulling her with them up to the safety of the ship. The tree disappeared with baby Alfie through the arch of a doorway and then emerged an instant later to take their places among the others at the rail.

  Wolf moved forward toward the two young men who still gazed up at Lori. Then another man stepped from the crowd. He stood just behind Alfie and faced Wolf and his companions.

  Strong, muscular arms crossed over a barrel chest. His sun-browned face was set, his eyes hard, yet he smiled at Wolf. It was the sort of smile that boys in the schoolyard smiled before a fight. Lucy had not seen the stranger before this period. She did not know where he came from, but now he stood as a tangible barrier between Wolf and the boys and the gangway where Lori had taken the baby. The newcomer looked British, Lucy thought, his sandy hair and mustache sun-bleached like that of a dockworker. He seemed unafraid of the odds of three to one. Perhaps he welcomed the chance to fight.

  Wolf stopped midstride, pretending not to see the Englishman who had intervened with a look.

  Lori and the others were not aware of the nearness of danger. But crouched behind her crate, Lucy watched the standoff and wondered who the newcomer was.

  Still the stranger grinned, daring Wolf to come.

  Wolf and his men also crossed their arms. They spoke quietly among themselves. They were too late!

  Lucy could feel the air tremble from the power of their hatred. Their faces were set hard and ruthless against the young people who called out to one another in their grief. Wolf jerked his head and the trio turned away from the unspoken challenge of the bodyguard at Alfie’s back. For the moment it was over.

  Lucy looked back to the bundle in Lori’s arm. The final bellow of the ship’s horn vibrated the air around her. Dock lines were cast away. And the first perceptible movement of the great liner caused the voices and shouts to grow even louder.

  “Good-bye, Mama!”

  “Don’t forget to write!”

  “Say your prayers!”

  “I will think of you every hour!”

  Lori reached her hand out over the slowly widening gulf. Alfie and his friend reached up, as though they could touch her fingertips.

  The bodyguards stood as a sentinel at their backs.

  And in all the tumult the tiny hand of the baby reached up, fluttering for just one beautiful moment as if in poignant farewell to his mother.

  No one else seemed to notice. Only Lucy, hiding at the edge of the water to see what fate awaited her child.

  ***

  The massive brick spires of Danzig’s Marienkirche receded in the distance, shrinking at last to tiny dark slivers against the late-afternoon glare of the sky.

  Lori sat beside Jamie on a thick mound of coiled rope and cradled newborn Alfie in her arms. A white crescent of sand framed the bright blue waters of the Bay of Danzig. Behind a thread of breakers, she could still make out the matchbox-size structure of the Kurhaus Casino and Hotel. The pier that had seemed to jet out so far into the bay was now only a dark stub of a pencil protruding from the land. Lori imagined children sitting with their mothers on the benches that looked out to sea. They would point to this black dot of a ship and wonder where it was going.

  “We are going to England,” Lori muttered in a joyless voice.

  Jamie glared at her. “I know that.” Her comment made him somehow indignant. Or perhaps he was just upset at the unhappy way events had unfolded today. “Who are you telling? The baby
can’t understand anything.”

  Lori could hear in Jamie’s voice that her brother was angry at this helpless little one for taking the place of big Alfie. It was not what anyone had expected. Not what they had planned or prayed for.

  She looked down into the face of innocence and knew that, given a choice, the mother of this baby would not have given him away. Lori held in her arms the most desperate evidence of love that could be demonstrated on earth. Here was love so strong that a mother had torn her heart out and sent it away, perhaps never to belong to her again.

  Jamie scowled. “Alfie is a Dummkopf! Imagine, giving away his ticket to stay with a cat!”

  Lori wanted to slap his face for uttering such blasphemy; she wanted to shake him and tell him to open his eyes! For months they had been living beside the purest heart, the wisest soul; yet Jamie still could not see what Alfie Halder was! But Lori did not hit Jamie. She did not scold him for thinking the obvious.

  “Alfie knows much more than we give him credit for,” Lori said as she touched the cheek of the infant. “He sees . . . things you and I do not see.”

  “While, giving away a ticket for England is easy enough for anyone to do these days in Danzig,” Jamie mocked. “Walk out on any street corner, hold up your ticket and your visa, and then watch out. A thousand people would mob you in thirty seconds.”

  His eyes narrowed. He felt somehow betrayed. Jamie loved Alfie, and Alfie had chosen to stay behind.

  “Why would he do such a thing?” Jamie shook his head from side to side. “After all the trouble everyone went to get us here, and Jacob wanting to come, but Alfie gives his ticket to a complete stranger, and—”

  Lori put a hand on Jamie’s arm to stop the tirade. “Oh, Jamie, don’t you see? Alfie—Alfie the Dummkopf, Alfie who was judged unworthy by the state to live, Alfie who can never be like other people—Alfie gave this little baby more than a ticket to England.” She held up the tag for Jamie to see again. “Alfie gave the baby his name. His life! All new and bright in the Promised Land to start over!” She found that the bigness of what she knew was true. “It was what Jesus would do, Jamie. You see? Our Alfie is closer to heaven’s heart than anyone I know!”

  Jamie grew pale and silent, wanting her to help him understand.

  “Today Alfie was the answer to some woman’s prayer.”

  “Right!” Jamie scoffed. “Help me give my baby away! Some prayer!”

  “No,” Lori said. “You are wrong.” She opened the basket at her feet and took out a delicate satin gown wrapped in paper and labeled with these words:

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: PLEASE PLACE MY BABY IN A HOME WHERE CHRIST IS KNOWN. THIS GOWN IS FOR THE CHRISTENING. I WILL THINK OF HIM DRESSED IN THIS AND HOLD THE THOUGHT IN MY HEART LIKE A MOTHER’S MEMORY. MAY YOU BE BLESSED FOR SEEING TO THIS SMALL REQUEST. I WILL PRAY FOR YOU WHEN I PRAY FOR MY CHILD. THANK YOU. LUCY STRASBURG.

  Jamie read and reread the words. He swallowed hard. He looked away and then back at the baby. So new! What darkness there was in the world when mothers wrote such notes and shipped their babies over the oceans in little baskets! Jamie resented having to contemplate such heartache. “I wish I was a baby again,” he said softly. “When I see Mama I’m going to climb up in her lap and lay my head against her shoulder . . .” His eyes clouded with emotion. He looked hard at this motherless child. “Can I hold him awhile, Lori?”

  She carefully passed the sleeping infant to Jamie, showing him how to support the head and the back as he took the new Alfie into his arms. And then for the first time all day, Jamie smiled. He knew for himself what Lori had been trying to explain, and his resentment melted away. “Alfie’s heart is a genius, isn’t it, Lori?”

  She nodded, wishing only that she could have been near enough to have given her ticket away to this child’s mother. Lori’s own heart had remained behind. With Jacob.

  ***

  At the Danzig train station, Alfie and Jacob took turns making Werner jump for pieces of bologna out of a stale sandwich. Captain Orde stared out at them from the little square windows of the red telephone booth. He was talking long-distance to London, Alfie knew, explaining to Lori’s mother why a baby named Alfie was coming to England instead of a big Alfie.

  Alfie also knew that everyone was blaming the whole thing on Werner because, as Captain Orde said, “The cat is a loud drunk, is he?”

  This made Jacob laugh, and Alfie had laughed too. Alfie decided that anyone who could make Jacob laugh on a day like today was worth liking. So Alfie liked Captain Orde. He even liked calling him Captain, because it made him feel as if he were in the army. A soldier, just like the little tin soldiers in his bag. It was exciting, and Alfie was very glad that he had decided to stay.

  When Werner had eaten the last of the sandwich, Alfie looked all over the loading platforms to see if he could find Lucy. Captain Orde had told them about the three men who were coming after them, and Alfie had worried that maybe they had gotten Lucy. He was glad to know that the baby got away with Lori and Jamie and Mark. But he certainly was worried a lot about Lucy. He prayed for bright angels with swords to cover her. He also prayed that she would find Herr Frankenmuth of Fresh Fish Daily because sometimes he seemed like a gnarled-up old angel to Alfie. Herr Frankenmuth would see the bruises on her face and help her. If only she could find him.

  The captain stepped out of the telephone booth and waved the phone at Jacob. “Come here, lad.” He was smiling at Jacob. “Your mother-in-law wants a word with you.”

  Alfie laughed at the strange, nervous look that came over Jacob’s face. Jacob looked very guilty at first; then, as he walked up to the captain and took the phone, he straightened up and made a gruff and brave face.

  But his voice was like a little boy.”Hello, uh . . . Frau Helen?” He shut the door behind him so that Alfie and the captain could not hear what he said. Captain Orde was enjoying the way Jacob was sweating and squirming in there, Alfie thought. It was fun to see Jacob look as if he had just knocked over a lamp in someone else’s house.

  Alfie picked up Werner and held him up to the glass pane of the booth so Jacob could see him. “Heh-heh, Jacob” —Alfie pretended that Werner was talking— “you should have thought about what Frau Helen would say before you married Lori! Heh-heh!”

  Jacob was not amused. He put his big hand over the pane so Werner-kitten could not talk to him. The captain seemed very pleased by the whole thing. Jacob’s face was very red, but when he slid the glass door open Alfie heard him say, “Give her a kiss for me. Tell her . . . I love her.” And then as he hung up, his face seemed satisfied and relieved. He looked straight past Alfie to the captain. “You warned them?”

  Captain Orde nodded. “There will be an armed escort at the docks to meet the ship. Murphy says that his family is well protected. He was not surprised by the news, just surprised that they have just now caught up with you.” The captain looked very serious. “If you had not been warned to leave your flat, well . . . things would not have turned out this nicely. Danzig is a powder keg.” He looked toward some tough-looking young men at the entrance to the station. “And Herr Hitler has already lit the fuse. It is a good thing you contacted London when you did.”

  Jacob looked at Alfie, who pretended not to notice. “That was Alfie’s idea, Captain Orde,” he said quietly. “You’ll see. Alfie knows things. Lori says angels speak to him.”

  Captain Orde did not make fun of Jacob. He put his hand on Alfie’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes the way other people seldom did. “And a little child shall led them,” he whispered. Then in a louder voice he said, “Well, what shall we name you? You have given your name away. Who would you like to be?”

  A slow smile spread across Alfie’s face. This was probably the best thing anyone had ever said to him. “I gave my name to the baby,” he repeated. “He will wear it good. He is a smart baby. I can tell.”

  Jacob joined in. “But now you have to pick a name! The name of a prophet, don’t you think so, Captain
Orde? Pick someone from a Sunday-school lesson, Alfie! Someone you like a lot.”

  Alfie frowned in deep thought. This was important stuff, the choosing of a name. He wished that he could have also spoken to Frau Helen on the telephone, because she had been his Sunday-school teacher and maybe she could help him.

  “A prophet,” Captain Orde said as the train whistle blew. “Exceptional idea. Very good.”

  It was a simple choice after Alfie ran all the stories through his mind. He did not want to be Jonah, because Alfie had seen the inside of fish bellies at Herr Frankenmuth’s Fresh Fish Daily. The smell was most unpleasant. It would not be fun to be burped up by a fish.

  He likewise did not want to be Jeremiah because the king’s men had put him down a muddy well and left him for a long time. For a moment, Alfie considered Daniel; then he remembered how bad it felt when Werner nicked him with his little claws. A lion’s den would be a scary place to spend the night.

  There were others who had done good things, but Alfie did not especially like their names.

  He smiled and held up Werner-kitten. Werner’s mother had thought her baby kitten was dead, hadn’t she? She had pushed tiny Werner with her nose and looked at Alfie for help. Then Alfie had worked and worked on Werner until his little kitten ribs had heaved up and down.

  In a way it was like the story of Elisha, Alfie thought. Elisha was a good-hearted sort of prophet who did the same thing for a little boy that Alfie had done for the kitten. He had brought the boy back to life and given him back to his happy mother.

  Alfie very much liked stories with such happy endings. It made him think of seeing his own mother alive in heaven. It made him imagine hugs and sitting together in the park to feed the ducks on the banks of the Spree River.

  “Well?” Jacob asked impatiently. “What do we call you, Alfie? Now that you have given your name away.”