by Karla M Jay
Mama opened her long coat wide like soft dove’s wings and swaddled him inside. He wrapped his arms around her waist, losing himself in this safe place, her warmth moving through his cold hands and face. “Remember, Izaak . . . God is closest to those with broken hearts.”
His heart cracked open enough right then, and he imagined God must be squeezed inside the coat between Mama and him.
She kissed the top of his head, her lips tickling him. Then she stepped away, and with two quick strokes, pushed invisible hair away from her eyes, a habit that said she had an idea.
“Let’s go inside and look through photographs.”
For him, the pictures of the fun times his family had before the Germans showed up left him empty. Like someone borrowed his feelings, wrung them out, and handed them back, pale and limp. But if looking through the photograph books made Mama smile, he would do it because that was his new goal.
An hour later after nightfall, a lantern shone a flickering yellow light on Mama’s back as she stood at the small stained sink, washing their dinner bowls. Like Mama, he wore his coat with two layers of clothes underneath. The kitchen had a small stove they weren’t allowed to use. No cooking, no warm water, no lights. He sat at the small drop-down table where he was drawing in the dim light, his stomach feeling funny from eating the chopped onion and tulip bulb sandwich. He knew when the flower bulbs showed up, they were out of food. Izaak tried not to think about it, but some days he knew he tasted dumplings and cheese when nothing was there but spit. He set down his pencil and cupped his cold hands, blowing heat onto his stiff fingers. “Mama?”
She half turned. “Yes, love?”
“Do you think Dr. Schermerhorn is coming back?” If Mama needed to go get food, she might be stopped, questioned, and then arrested for hiding from the Germans. The thought of something terrible happening to Mama, or being alone, made his throat hitch as he swallowed.
“He always keeps his promise, Izaak. He’ll come when he feels it’s safe.”
“Do you think he would bring me a new pencil?” While he still had three sheets of sketch paper left, his last drawing pencil was worn until it was no bigger than his littlest finger.
“We can ask. But remember, Dr. Schermerhorn is in charge of many families like us.”
“I know.” He tucked his hands in his armpits.
Mama said the doctor received food from their very own Queen Wilhelmina. She moved to London with her family when the Germans arrived, but Mama heard the Royal Family was concerned for the people of the Netherlands. They sent money to Dr. Schermerhorn’s big Bible group to help out.
“I’ll bet he could get us apples.” Izaak loved apples almost better than anything else, and everyone knew they kept people from being sick. Now that he hadn’t eaten one for so long, it seemed to be all he could think about.
Someone rapped on the back door, and the sudden sound made Izaak’s head snap up. They’d been found. Would he be tossed into a truck like Guus? His heart raced and he grabbed his crotch, worried he would lose control again. He didn’t want to be like a baby, although Mama told him people of all ages can wet themselves when they’re afraid. He wasn’t so sure about that. Then the tapping turned into the secret code—three knocks, then four, and three again.
“It’s okay, love.” Mama slid the lock open, and Dr. Schermerhorn came inside with another man. Dr. Schermerhorn knew Mama from St. Mary’s Hospital where she was a nurse. The doctor was tall and had to bend over to kiss Mama on each cheek. He removed his hat. His usually neat brown hair looked messy as if he’d just climbed out of bed.
“How are you holding up, Rachel?” His voice was rumbly, but he always spoke softly—a calming sound, like faraway thunder.
“We’re good. Izaak is a brave boy, and his papa will be proud to hear that.”
The doctor turned and tipped his head toward the man in the shadows. Much shorter than the doctor, he had wide shoulders, and Izaak bet he could lift a lion, an act he’d seen a strong man do at a circus. When the man stepped into the light to greet Mama, Izaak noticed the scars on his hand. He had big bushy eyebrows that hung low over his eyelids, making it hard to tell if the man was kind. “This is a friend of mine. We’ll just call him Fritz.”
“Hello.” Mama smiled, but it wasn’t one of her wide happy grins.
The first time the doctor met Izaak, he explained he belonged to a Bible study group. It had to be the biggest church group in the whole world because he overheard the doctor tell Mama 13,000 people were working together. And somehow the church was in the underground, an image Izaak tried to picture but never could. The doctor never looked dirty during the three times he’d been to their rooms, and although the doctor carried a Bible, he hadn’t opened it. Until now.
He pulled out an envelope. “Izaak. I need to talk to your Mama about something.” He tapped the envelope against his pant leg. “Could you go into the other room and show Fritz your drawings?”
“What a good idea,” Mama said. Izaak didn’t trust what was about to happen because when Mama tried to light a small lantern, the match shook back and forth. Once lit, she handed it to Fritz. “Izaak is a bit of a prodigy.”
He wanted to ask what a prodigy was and why they didn’t think being eight was old enough to hear the news. When he and Mama went to the Catholic Church hidden inside an apartment, they both listened to the British forbidden broadcast on the nuns’ secret radio. He wouldn’t go against an adult’s request, so he didn’t argue.
He slowly gathered his sketch pad and pencil and headed for the tiny area off the kitchen. It might have once been a pantry, but now it was his and Mama’s sleeping area. Mama called it that because it wasn’t a real room—just large enough to fit the mattress on the floor. The walls had empty nail holes, and Izaak wondered what kind of photographs or paintings once hung there. A broken light fixture on the wall sprouted wires as if a big bug pushed its feelers out of the hole and was stuck there. It scared him several times when he forgot they were there, and the wires brushed his arms.
Fritz followed and sat next to Izaak on the sagging mattress. A puff of moldy air rose when their weight squished it, and Izaak waved it away from his face. “It’s stinky in here, huh?” He snuck a peek at the man, who was dressed in work pants and a heavy plaid coat.
“It’s okay with me.” The man held the light on his knees, and it brightened a big circle around them. The shadows on the man’s face made him look angry, but his voice was kind. “I’d like to see what you’ve been drawing.” He nudged Izaak with his shoulder like his papa would have done.
Izaak pulled out his recent pencil sketch. It showed his family standing next to each other with small drawings around the edges of the page. “This is us by the Zaanse Schans windmills.” He moved his finger to another area on the paper. “These are the wooden shoes we learned how to make.” He pointed to where he’d drawn a pair and was proud of the shading he’d managed on them—they almost looked real.
Mr. Fritz leaned closer. “Izaak. This astonishes me.” He smiled and lines around his eyes crinkled. “Your mama said you were good, but this is more than I expected from a child.”
His shoulders slumped because he didn’t like being called a child. He liked it better when Mama called him her Little Man. “I’m in second grade at school now . . . I mean, if I went to school that’s where I’d be. And I used to take art lessons.”
“It shows. What are these other things?” Mr. Fritz pointed to three items sketched around the page.
One day Izaak hoped to draw like a real artist, with the items in front of each other, all together like in a painting.
“That’s a burst of sunshine because it was a happy day. And these two are foods. A special goat cheese with salt crystals in it and a sweet almond cake.” The thought of food made his stomach ache as though he had a bad sprain in there that wouldn’t heal. That day trip to the windmills was the
last outing his family took before the Germans forced Papa into the truck. That night, Izaak fell asleep on the ride home, safely tucked in the front seat between his mama and papa. Now his chin quivered and tears filled his eyes. “Are you going to get Papa back?”
“We’re moving you to a safe place so your papa can join you.”
“Really?” This was the best news ever! From the nuns’ secret British radio broadcast, Mama and Izaak heard the Germans were slowly losing the war they started. Papa would come home! In the summer, they’d go to the Artis Royal Zoo, and wintertime meant they would ice skate on the frozen canals and warm up next to the bonfires in the park.
The nuns called the Germans “Barb Arians” that day, words that made his mama and the sisters laugh. Izaak didn’t understand, but thought it meant they didn’t follow any commandments, especially the “Thou Shall Not Kill” rule.
He rolled his tiny pencil back and forth across his leg and snuck another glance at the man. “Is my papa still building the wall?”
Dr. Schermerhorn explained that Papa and all the men taken away were making a giant cement fence called the Atlantic Wall, over 3,200 kilometers long. Hitler was afraid to let more outsiders into the Netherlands, so the wall started in France and would end all the way north in Norway. They received one note from Papa before they had to leave their house and go into hiding. Papa wrote he was sorry he might be away longer than expected because the wall was enormous. He reminded Izaak to say his prayers and take care of Mama. At night, under his soft quilt, he traced his papa’s writing on the back of the note paper, his finger brushing over the slightly raised pen marks, his chest tight. He saved Papa’s note in his journal, but it was still tucked under his mattress where he’d forgotten it.
“Your papa is now working in a camp, Izaak.” The man dragged a hand over his thick hair.
Mr. Fritz seemed to know more about Papa than what he was saying. “But he’ll be coming back soon, right?”
“We’re working on that.” The man paused and kept looking at him, so Izaak waited until he spoke again. “Do you know I have a secret name?”
What did this have to do with Papa? Izaak shook his head.
“I’m called the Wanderer.”
Izaak remembered a fable about a knickerbocker, who traveled the world whenever he wanted, making knickers, or marbles as he called them. The man discovered a Japanese monster called an Oni. Izaak always wanted to be able to travel like that. “Do you get to go anywhere you want?”
“I do”—he nodded and then paused—“and tonight, Izaak, you and your mama are going with me.”
Herbert Müller
Tulpehocken, Pennsylvania - November 11, 1943
Herbert Müller swept the cement floor around the millstones, the setting sun announcing he and his father, Otto, had outworked the day once again. “Pop. It’s quitting time.” His voice echoed across the main mill floor of the gristmill. The big stones sat silent after a day of rasping and groaning against each other. His father was in the workshop attached to the central floor tinkering with something he said was broken. Herbert leaned sideways with his hands pressed against his back, urging the stiff muscles there to loosen up. How his seventy-year-old father still worked the mill astounded him, but Otto was always quick to remind his son his grit was forged by surviving the Great War. He liked to add he had strong German blood pumping through his veins. Although Herbert shared that same bloodline, he was often outworked by his father, who rested only while asleep.
“Herbert!” Jutta’s faint voice carried well over the flat field between the mill and the one-story wood-frame house Otto had built after immigrating to America in 1920. It had taken two years to scrape together the money for four ocean-liner tickets. Then a month on the boat, and then another month for his father’s family to finally settle in central Pennsylvania. Now dotted with checkerboard farms spread out across the frosted fields.
Herbert stepped outside and raised a hand in the orange hue from the setting sun to show he’d heard his wife, and she raised hers in return. She was a marvelous cook. It would be a shame to let whatever she’d prepared grow cold.
Back inside, he found his father slapping the dust off his trousers, standing by the one-ton grinding stones. If Herbert wanted to know what he’d look like in another thirty-five years, he only needed to study his father. They had the same angular face and brown hair, although Otto’s was shot through with silver. Otto was deceptively vigorous, despite the years marking his face and the bend in his back that kept him from holding himself to his five-eight height. His hands, twisted with arthritis, never stopped him from the demands of running the largest grinding mill outside Germantown.
“We need to get, a new weld, on this.” Otto grabbed the damsel pole and wiggled it. On average, it shook three hundred pounds of dried corn a day through the hopper onto the grinding stones below.
“I’ll weld it first thing in the morning, Pop.” He laid his hand on his father’s back and felt the bones there that muscle once covered. Age was wearing his father thin, but there was no way to convince the man of that. His father’s motto was “The devil moves closer the less a man works.” He let his hand remain there as they left the building. “I don’t know about you, Pop, but I’m bushed.” Herbert closed the mill door behind them.
A full moon hovered above the nearest hill and shrouded the Müller land and orchard in a silvery cold veil as a brisk wind brushed by. Their nearest neighbor’s land abutted five acres to the north—another German family—but to the south were the Amish farms, one Irish family, and a few Swedes. “Europe West” he liked to call it. Herbert knew his and his children’s lives were filled with many more opportunities here in contrast to life in Germany. Thankfully, his father saw the need to move the family after the First World War.
With a second war with Germany raging across Europe, he’d recently heard of local raids on German immigrant farms, families who hadn’t been here long and were still assimilating, learning the language, fitting in. As Americans, he and his family would be safe. He and Jutta married in Pennsylvania, and their children were born in the upper bedroom of the farmhouse. American children, who attended an American school, and spoke only English, much to their grandfather’s dismay.
The small white house with green shutters sat a hundred yards away on a knoll. Herbert could think of nowhere else he’d rather be.
They followed the paving stones in the direction of the back door, his father’s boots scraping along the ground, moving slowly in the dim light, his vision not what it used to be.
“We had, a good week, son.” Otto inhaled deeply, filling his lungs until his chest lifted. “Just smell that. Your mother, she loved the fall.”
“And spring, and nighttime, and morning and the other seasons as well.” He smiled. Everything made his mother happy when she was alive.
“Zat’s about right.” Otto chuckled and started forward again.
A wave of sadness coursed through Herbert at the thought of his father getting older and ultimately dying, too. His mother, Anni, died nine months ago of a massive stroke while picking peaches in the orchard. A blow to the family for sure. The matriarch remained vibrant at sixty-eight with her sometimes too-harsh honesty. She always made up for it with her deep family devotion and wanted nothing but to ensure her family’s happiness. Otto seemed cut in half after her death even though surrounded by his loved ones. Herbert missed seeing his parents sitting close together outside on a warm summer evening, talking and laughing, often sharing a glass of lemonade.
He rubbed his achy right hip. His joint might as well be a barometer the way it signaled a storm’s arrival. It also made him unfit to serve in the military. Herbert was turned away while Karl, two years older, fought in the Pacific with the U.S. Army Air Forces. Guilt about his 4-F status often rose to the surface, and he cursed his faulty leg length. But he stayed focused on the long hours grinding grai
n—food necessary for the troops. Or by taking his five-hour shifts in the watchtower on Pumpkin Hill, the tallest rise in the area, to help national security by watching for enemy planes. Yet he was embarrassed at the monthly Elks’ meeting when it would be just him and the old guys, having a beer and planning community functions.
Caught in a brisk gust of wind, maple leaves raced past his feet. From inside the house, he heard the sound of crockery clacking against each other.
Dried twigs snapped behind him. In a blur, he felt something hit his midsection, and it sent him crashing to the side, face-first, to the frost-covered ground, his teeth nearly jarring loose as his jaws slammed together. “Hey!” Something gritty flew into his mouth and he spit out bits of dirt and wood. His mind spun. What the hell? He scrambled to his knees, found his footing and shook his head to clear his vision.
Two figures, one tall and one shorter, circled his father in the eerie moonlight, but Otto stood his ground. “Schweine!” he called out.
It wouldn’t take a translator for the attackers to understand what they’d just been called. When they moved closer to Otto, Herbert raced toward them. “Leave him alone!”
The shorter one held up his hands like a boxer and turned toward Herbert, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was backlit in the moonlight, so Herbert couldn’t see his face.
The taller man spoke. “We’re sending messages to Nazis.”
“Nein! We are not Nazis,” Otto said, straightening his spine.
Herbert panicked as his father took a bold step toward the tall attacker. Otto wouldn’t back away from danger, and these men already demonstrated they meant to do harm. Herbert moved in front of his father while keeping the shorter one in sight. He raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Go inside, Pops.” He needed to get the situation under control and not incite the men any further. He had Jutta and the children to worry about.
