Safe Haven

by Anna Schmidt

  “We’re moving into a new era, and people are war weary. They don’t want to think about the war. They want to think about the future,” he told the others. “The whole landscape of the world will be forever changed once this thing finally ends. This is the time for new blood, new ideas.”

  Theo thought perhaps Jim should be the candidate, and one of the other men suggested that. “I’m too old, and besides, folks know me. We need somebody young who will make voters think about the possibilities of rebuilding their lives after the war.”

  “Well, tonight we need to get this mailing out,” one of the others announced, and that ended all discussion of an election that was still almost a year away. They turned their attention to the stacks of papers on the table and began stuffing envelopes, sealing them, and applying postage.

  As they worked, one of the men asked Theo’s dad about his brother-in-law. “I understand that Ellie’s brother and his wife and daughter finally made it out of Germany. Will they be coming here to live with you, Paul?”

  “Doesn’t look likely,” Theo’s dad replied, and then he explained the terms of the rescue. “Theo knows a lot more than I do about the politics of the thing,” he added. “He was out there with them all last fall.”

  The room had gone quiet except for the rhythmic shuffling of paper as the others continued the work, but everyone was looking at Theo, apparently waiting for him to take up the story. So he did.

  He tried to give them a clear and thorough account of the situation. He praised Director Smart and Ruth Gruber from the Department of the Interior, recounting in detail how they had fought to make sure the refugees had more than just the essentials. He also talked about the generosity of the charitable organizations, as well as the Nazi POWs enjoying more government support and liberty than those inside Fort Ontario. He concluded with the story of Karoline Bleier’s suicide.

  The room went completely still as all work stopped. They all looked at Theo as if waiting for more.

  And Theo found that he wanted to tell them more, wanted them to understand the frustration that he felt not only for his aunt and uncle and cousin but for the others as well. He wanted to tell them about the young woman Ilse had told them about in their last telephone call. A mother of two young children who had been through so much and come so close to finally being free to live the life she and her husband had probably thought they would have the day they married.

  Finally a man sitting at the far end of the table spoke. “You say the bulk of them are Jews?” The way he said it left little doubt that he thought that explained a lot and was reason enough for the government’s plan to send them back.

  Theo thought about Hilda and Hugh and their rampant anti-Semitism, and he had to fight the urge to lash out at the man. He thought about how Suzanne had learned that certain government officials—in some cases entire departments—shared those views. Stan was certainly not alone. In fact, he had a lot of company. But Theo’s father spoke first. “Come on, Stan. In a country built on the idea that all men are created equal, what does it matter if they are Jewish or Methodist like Jim here is or Quaker like my family? They are people who have been persecuted and starved and chained up like animals in those concentration camps—some say they’ve seen even worse. Why else are we fighting the Nazis and their kind if not for the right of all people to live free?”

  Stan looked away, and a couple of other people around the table cleared their throats uneasily.

  “Besides,” Theo continued, undeterred by the aura of discomfort that had permeated the room, “there are others there as well—Catholics and Protestants—some who are Greek Orthodox. I expect there are more than a few that would not own up to any faith after what they went through over there. The stories they tell—you wouldn’t think such things could be possible in a civilized world.”

  “I don’t get it,” another man said as the work resumed. “I mean, the government brings them here and then wants to send them back?”

  “It all has something to do with the immigration quotas set following the Great War,” Jim Sawyer explained. “This country could have been overrun with those displaced by that war if those restrictions had not been put in place. It’ll be worse once this thing is over. Our boys and the Brits are blasting most of Western Europe to smithereens. Even folks who have made it without going through what those poor souls in Oswego have had to suffer are going to want out.”

  “That makes sense, then. We have to stick to the quotas that are already set,” Stan said.

  “Still you scoop up these folks and bring them here …,” another man began.

  Stan interrupted him. “Look, Theo told us they signed a paper. They knew what they were getting into. They agreed to go back.”

  Theo met the man’s fiery gaze. “The question is, back to what?” he said quietly.

  The two women at the table who had accompanied their husbands to help with the mailing and who had not spoken a word both stood and, with smiles that were twitching nervously and too bright, suggested it was time for coffee and cake.

  Later that night Theo thought about those women and smiled as he imagined Suzanne and Gisele seated at that table. Now, there were two females who would not have been satisfied with the role of stuffing envelopes and serving the men refreshments in silence. They would not have been able to keep quiet. He wondered what Suzanne was doing now that she was back in Washington. He assumed that she had heard about the suicide, and if he knew her at all she would be fairly itching to return to Oswego and get what she liked to call the story behind the story.

  They had each managed to write one letter after parting in the fall, but he wasn’t much of a correspondent and apparently neither was she. The last communication he’d had from her was a postcard wishing him and his family a happy New Year and ending with a promise to write soon.

  Downstairs the telephone rang. It was late for anyone to be calling. He heard his father answer and talk for several seconds to the caller, obviously someone he knew well. Then he heard him say, “Okay, I’ll get him,” and start up the stairs.

  “Theo?” His dad tapped at his partially open bedroom door then stepped inside. “That’s Jim Sawyer on the phone. He’d like to speak with you.”

  “About what?” Theo was already following his father back downstairs.

  “He thinks you’d make a good candidate for Congress and wants to know if you’re interested.” His dad started back toward the stairs. “Hey, Theo? This might be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. I think you can do this, Son.”

  Theo’s first thought was that perhaps this was the plan for his life—this was how he could be a part of the change that would have to come with the end of the war. His second was about how disappointed his parents would be when they realized he wasn’t really interested in farming. He hesitated. But his father put all his doubts to rest.

  In a few words, Dad told Theo that not only was he well aware of his son’s ambitions but that he gave those dreams his blessing.

  CHAPTER 9

  You need a platform,” Jim Sawyer told Theo a few days later as the two of them sat across from each other at the diner in Madison. Outside the window Theo could see Wisconsin’s impressive state capitol building that occupied an entire city block. Passersby paid little attention to the landmark as they hurried by, clutching their coats close to their necks and hanging on to their hats in the blustery January wind. Theo wondered how the weather was in Oswego, recalling Aunt Ilse’s description of the thin walls and the way the cold penetrated even the outer walls of the wooden barracks.

  “Are you listening to me, Theo?”

  “Yes, sir. A platform. I’ve got a few thoughts about that.”

  “Let’s hear them.”

  “Well, in our faith …”

  Jim held up a hand to stop him. “Can’t be mixing religion and politics.”

  “No, sir. I just—”

  “And stop calling me Mister and Sir. If we’re going to work together, it’s Jim a
nd Theo, got it?”

  “Yes, sir—I mean Jim.”

  Jim rolled his eyes and took a swallow of his coffee as he glanced out the window. A cluster of students from the university strolled by as if it were a balmy day in May. The boys were wearing letter jackets and the girls were clinging to their arms possessively. “Those young folks?” Jim nodded toward the group. “Those are your future, Theo. If we can get you into Congress in the fall with their help, they’ll vote for you every election.”

  “They don’t look like they’re old enough to vote.”

  “That’s not the point. Before you know it, they will be old enough if they aren’t already, and you need to make them feel part of what will be a postwar world, feel like they will have a voice in shaping that world.”

  For reasons he didn’t fully understand, Theo thought about the group of medical students in Munich that his uncle had joined in an effort to inspire others to stand against Hitler. In the months he had spent in Oswego, Franz had talked often about that group. The White Rose was what they had called themselves. They were German young people—mostly university students—who saw a bleak future for their country if things continued the way they were going. Most of them were dead now—tried in kangaroo courts, found guilty, and some of them beheaded.

  As he watched the Wisconsin students head on down the street, he wondered if they had that kind of passion. “Okay, forget the part about my faith,” he said as if he and Jim had been discussing the matter at length. “Maybe the platform is about building the kind of world we fought for—a world where people can live free regardless of their faith or nationality or color or—”

  “You’re running for Congress, Theo, not master of the world. You’ve got to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.”

  Theo smiled. “So I’m not ‘running’ for Congress. I’m ‘crawling’ in that direction?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, kid.” He squinted as if trying to see Theo more clearly. “Are you sure that you really want to do this? Because it’s not too late. We’ve got time to draft somebody else.”

  The quick temper that he’d fought most of his life to control flared up. “I can do this,” he said, forcing his voice to remain low and even.

  Jim visibly relaxed.

  “But I am my own man,” Theo added.

  The squint came back. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I run on a platform that I can wholeheartedly defend.”

  “Well, of course.” But Jim did not seem as convinced as his words indicated.

  “And meaning if you’re having second thoughts on your end, now would be the best time to speak up.”

  Theo hoped he sounded confident and determined because he sure didn’t feel that way. If Jim Sawyer decided that the party had made a mistake choosing him to groom as their candidate, Theo wasn’t sure what he would do. Ever since his dad had called him to the phone that night, he’d been building the dream that a seat in Congress could allow him to start making a real difference—something he’d been wanting to do since the day they had listened to President Roosevelt’s radio address to the nation following the attack on Pearl Harbor. In spite of everything he had been raised to believe about the futility of war, there had been a moment when he had wanted nothing so much as to volunteer.

  “Theo, you’re pretty green when it comes to politics. Take my advice and wise up. This business is a game, and if you want to get anything done—and it’s pretty clear that you do—you’re going to have to learn the rules of that game.”

  “Crawl first. Got that part. So are you okay with this?”

  Jim smiled. “You took a big risk there. What if I said I wasn’t?”

  Theo shrugged. “I go back to farming. It’s not a bad life.”

  “Just not the life for you?”

  “I won’t lie. I’d like to try something else, but I have no problems making an honest living off the land. It was good enough for generations of my family—it’s good enough for me.”

  Jim scooted himself out of the booth and stood. He threw a dollar bill on the table to pay for their coffee. It occurred to Theo that the older man still had not answered his question. He wiped his mouth with the paper napkin and then stood up, noticing that he was a good three inches taller than Jim was.

  “You go think through that platform idea and get back to me by next week. Let’s get you elected to the United States Congress, Theo Bridgewater,” Jim said as he grasped Theo’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Once this war is finally over, we’re going to need men like you to show us a new way.”

  The fort’s parade ground was a white wasteland set against a backdrop of the enormous Lake Ontario’s frozen shoreline as Ilse hurried to the infirmary. Franz had been suffering from a terrible cold and hacking cough for over two weeks now—ever since the funeral for Karoline. He was weak, and the fact that he had little appetite did nothing to help rebuild his strength. She had left him with Gisele while she went to ask for some stronger medicine. She never left him alone these days because he insisted on getting up by himself and trying to make it upstairs to the men’s communal bathroom without help. What if he fell?

  Two weeks earlier as she had turned the page on the wall calendar that hung next to the door of their apartment she had felt so defeated. January 1945. A new year. By now she had thought that the war would have ended. Certainly every day the headlines in the Oswego newspaper heralded the victories of the Allies. Every day it seemed as if surrender was imminent. By now she had thought that they would be settled somewhere, ready to begin their new life.

  Of course that location was uncertain as well, for Franz wanted to stay in America while she wanted to go home to Germany. She wanted to find her sister. She wanted to go back to Munich, the city she had always loved. That was her home—no matter that the Nazis had sullied its image and the Allies had bombed its landmarks. She had been through enough change in her life. All she wanted to do was to go home. If she was destined to start over yet again, she wanted to do it in her own country. But although the Americans occasionally conducted a survey to collect data on what the refugees wanted, they only asked Franz as head of their family. They did not ask her.

  The door of the infirmary blew shut behind her with a loud bang. The nurse looked up and smiled. “How is Mr. Schneider?” she asked.

  “His fever is down, but he’s still so weak, and the coughing is not improved. I wondered if perhaps you might have a stronger medicine? He is not eating because he chokes on the food due to coughing.”

  The nurse frowned. “I’ll have the doctor come see him later today.”

  The doctor did not arrive until after dark, and by that time Franz’s breathing was labored and shallow.

  “Pneumonia,” the doctor told Ilse. He was a doctor from town that the government had hired to replace the refugee physician as the fort’s medical director. “I’ll make arrangements for him to be transferred to the fort hospital. They can make him more comfortable.”

  More comfortable. What about making him well?

  But the doctor was already closing up his black bag and starting for the door. Ilse knew that in addition to his work in the fort he also maintained his practice in Oswego. The man always seemed rushed and overwhelmed. She also knew from gossip she’d overheard that he had more than once made negative comments about the Germans.

  “Tonight? You will see that he is transferred tonight?”

  The doctor sighed and frowned. “I’ll make the arrangements. It could be tonight or tomorrow morning. As you are no doubt aware, the fort’s facility is small, and I have to be sure there is a bed for him.”

  Something in his manner caused Ilse to feel fury well up in her, filling her chest the way this American doctor had described the fluid filling Franz’s chest. “We may be German, Doctor,” she said quietly, “but we are not the enemy. My husband spoke out against the Nazis—it is why we were hunted. It is why we are here.”

  The doctor paused, and she saw by the slight redden
ing of his neck above the limp collar of his shirt that she had guessed right. It was hardly the first time that she and Franz had had to defend themselves as “good” Germans.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Schneider. I will make sure that your husband is transferred as soon as possible. Do you have someone to stay with your daughter?”

  Ilse was confused. “You are saying that I may be with him?”

  He set down his black bag and took her hand between both of his. “The hospital here may be small, but your husband will have the finest care we can offer. Still, I must warn you that he may not recover from this, Mrs. Schneider. You should be with him, and yes, I will make that happen.” He studied her for a moment. “You must be strong for your daughter.”

  Ilse nodded and slid her hand free of his. Only hours earlier she had been thinking of how she and Franz disagreed about where they would live after the war. Now she faced living without him. “Please hurry,” she murmured as if speed would make a difference.

  After the doctor left, she walked down the hall to the apartment where she had sent Liesl to do homework with friends after supper, not wanting her to hear what the doctor said. On the way back she explained that Papa was going to the hospital.

  “Will he die there?” Liesl asked, her voice shaky but matter of fact. What kind of world were they living in where children saw death as an ordinary occurrence?

  “The doctor is going to do everything he can to make him well,” Ilse replied as they reached their door. “Now go to your father and sit with him while I get Gisele. She’s going to stay with you while I go to the hospital with Papa.”

  Liesl clung to her, suddenly the scared, confused child that she was. “Mama?”

  “Sh-h-h.” Ilse brushed her daughter’s wispy bangs back from her forehead. “Go sit with Papa and tell him about your day. Make him smile the way only you can with your stories about school and your teachers and the other students.”