The Good at Heart

by Ursula Werner

  “Take your time, I’ll be here for a while,” Edith said.

  Marina paused in the doorway. “Do you really love Oskar that much?” Edith reached for one of the walnuts that she had crushed too violently earlier. She found herself in a more patient mood now, ready to pick out tiny bits of membrane and shell from its nutmeat.

  “Yes, Marina. I really do.”

  – Nineteen –

  Johann Wiessmeyer did not have many parishioners; only a small circle of citizens ever attended his Sunday-morning services at the Protestant church. But his job as spiritual shepherd reached beyond his tiny flock to the larger Blumental community. In furtherance of that role, he spent weekday mornings making social rounds about town, checking on residents who were unwell and calling upon anyone who had sought his ear the day before. By the time the lunch hour arrived, he was happy to return to the rectory he called home, where he routinely ate a modest meal alone, reviewing his morning activities and contemplating his obligations.

  After lunch, Johann usually spent an hour or two in meditation and prayer. Today he felt particularly in need of that solitude. So many concerns vied for attention in his head—the impending arrival of the two refugees tomorrow morning, the complicating presence of Oskar Eberhardt, the potentially dangerous spy games of Max Fuchs, the questionable discretion of Fritz Nagel—but he had resolved to focus on only one this afternoon: the briefcase. Gottfried had given it to him before they parted in Berlin. He might never have to use it, Gottfried had said. There were other briefcases in other locations, for the Resistance never knew when or where an opportunity might present itself. “In the scheme of possible venues, your position on the Bodensee is fairly unlikely,” he had reassured Johann. “But it is on the route from Fürchtesgaden back to Berlin, so it’s not entirely out of the question.”

  Johann walked past the mossy headstones of the graveyard toward the church building. Opening its heavy oak door, he stepped into a long nave flanked by smooth walls of gray sandstone. Faintly colored light filtered through narrow glass windows, bathing the interior of the church in subdued shadows of cobalt blue and emerald green. Johann had fallen in love with this church the first time he laid eyes on it. It was so different from Birnau. Johann liked Birnau too, but his appreciation was grounded in amusement at Birnau’s gold filigrees and chubby pink dancing babes. He found it hard to take religion seriously in the Catholic basilica, as if it were a kind of playground where God let off steam and enjoyed Himself. But this small church on the edge of the forest was different. It welcomed contemplation, inviting Johann to rest on its pale brown flotilla of wooden benches, rocking gently on waves of muted blue and green.

  More often than not, the church was empty, which suited Johann. Today, a tall figure sat in the pews. A man, Johann saw as he came nearer, dressed in the gray woolen uniform of the German army, his head not bowed in prayer but staring straight forward, and so deep in thought that he didn’t appear to notice the pastor approaching. “Are you seeking solitude, or may I join you?” Johann asked.

  “Ah, well, my solitude is proving far too noisy,” the man replied, tapping the side of his head in explanation and sliding to the left to make room on the bench. “I welcome some change in focus.”

  Taking a seat in the pew, Johann suddenly recognized the man as the general who had rescued Hans Munter the day before. What was his name? Wolf. “Excuse me, General Wolf,” Johann began apologetically, again not wanting to intrude, “but I feel I must thank you on behalf of Blumental for your intervention with Captain Rodemann yesterday. We were all a bit paralyzed with fear, I believe, at the suddenness of the events that unfolded.”

  The general raised his right hand in dismissal. “No need to thank me. Captain Rodemann lost sight of his responsibilities as an officer. Fortunately, I was there to correct him.”

  “His responsibilities as an officer?”

  “Protection of the civilian population and adherence to the orders of superiors. He was commanded to secure the area against a possible invasion by the French, not to terrorize local inhabitants and exact vengeance for some perceived insult to his authority.”

  Johann nodded, impressed by the accuracy of this man’s analysis of the incident. “Of course, he is very young, and it was perhaps more difficult for him to keep his emotions under control.”

  General Wolf shook his head emphatically. “No excuse. Captain Rodemann acted like a boy playing a game, with no understanding of the true consequences of killing someone.”

  The word killing echoed through the church and settled uneasily in Johann’s heart. “And what do you understand to be the consequences of killing someone in wartime?”

  The general seemed to consider the question carefully. He looked over to the windows, as if he might discern his response in the overlapping blue and green light shafts. “Early in the first war, the only way I could go into any battle was to dehumanize my opponent.” He looked back to Johann. “You have to reach a mental state of indiscriminate shooting, you see. And I could only achieve that state by thinking of my targets as abstract entities armed with deadly weapons trained upon me and my comrades.”

  “So the moral consequences of killing . . . ?”

  General Wolf let the unfinished question hang in the air before answering thoughtfully. “The moral consequences of killing, Father, don’t really factor into battle. Not for me, at least not until after the fighting is over. And even then, if the sight of a field of corpses lying facedown in the mud transforms itself in your mind into a field of individual bodies, dead sons who will soon be mourned by grieving mothers and wives, young fathers who will never see their children grow to adulthood—well, then you have our great military code of loyalty and duty, which steps in to help you compartmentalize. If you’ve been ordered to kill the enemy, you are required to kill the enemy. You kill the enemy so that he can’t kill you or your men.” He stopped abruptly and turned his gaze back to the window. Johann decided not to say anything. He had clearly touched upon a subject that the general was wrestling with in some way. Strange that they should both be in similar positions. Or perhaps not, Johann thought. After all, there was a war going on. When the general turned back to Johann, he seemed to have arrived at some conclusion. “Necessity,” he said.

  “Necessity? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “Necessity is an exception to the moral imperative against killing. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is certainly a precept to be followed, unless killing is necessary. In wartime, unfortunately, it is.”

  “Ah.” Johann had not expected the conversation to take this turn. When he first saw the general in the church, he was vexed that today of all days, there should be someone to distract him. But he was beginning to see that perhaps there was a reason for General Wolf’s presence here.

  “You don’t agree, I suppose,” General Wolf said. “The Church says the Ten Commandments are sacrosanct, and we are not to violate them under any circumstances, I imagine you’d say.” Perhaps the general was not here to seek guidance. Perhaps he was, unwittingly, here to give it. Johann too looked over to the windows and watched the colors flowing through them. He had a strange and growing sensation of fullness in his lungs, as if he were breathing in something richer than oxygen.

  The general was waiting for him to respond. “No,” Johann began cautiously, trying to feel out his thoughts as he spoke. “No, I am not certain I would say that.”

  General Wolf looked surprised. “Really, Father? So you agree with me?”

  There was a clarity to these colors floating toward Johann, and he tried to open his mind, to allow it in. He did not close his eyes. He was being told to look. When he eventually spoke, he felt a certainty that he had not experienced in a long time. “What I am saying is this: We cannot follow the Ten Commandments simply because we are afraid of making a mistake. We cannot be afraid of incurring guilt for our behavior. Because to be human is to be imperfect.” And there it was. The answer was completely visible before him. �
�To live freely, as a human being, it is impossible to avoid doing wrong. Of course!” Johann was amazed that he had not seen it before. “It is the redeeming mystery of Jesus Christ.”

  The general shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Father. How does Christ figure into this calculation?”

  Johann turned to the general eagerly. “Because Christ was human. And therefore Christ could understand sin, truly understand it, because he felt the possibility of being sinful firsthand. Being human, Christ could feel the same guilt that we bear when we sin. Yet God allowed him to be redeemed nevertheless. Do you see?” General Wolf’s face showed that he did not. Johann tried again. “God chose to make himself human through Christ to show us that there could be redemption in sin, that guilt is a necessary aspect of being human.”

  “So we might violate the Ten Commandments and still be close to God? Closer to God than we were before?” The general smiled. “That will make a lot of criminals and sinners very happy.”

  Johann shook his head emphatically. “No, no, it is not a blanket invitation for wrongdoing. The underlying motive must be well-intentioned, there must be a desire for responsible action. I am only recognizing that, in certain situations . . .” Like the one he was facing. Suddenly Johann knew.

  The general prodded him on. “Yes? In certain situations?”

  “Responsible action must include a readiness to accept guilt. In some situations, if we wish to live responsibly and fully, we must be willing to incur the guilt that arises out of our wrongdoing.”

  “And killing someone could be one of those situations?”

  The church door was pushed open suddenly and loudly. General Wolf and Johann both looked back to see Max Fuchs trotting up the aisle with a pair of brown envelopes.

  “Pastor Johann! Pastor Johann!” he called. “I’m so glad I found you. An urgent telegram for you. From Berlin!”

  “Well, well,” Johann said. “Come, Max, sit, you look like you need a rest.” As he patted the bench he had been sitting on, he noticed General Wolf looking at him with some astonishment.

  “Ah! Of course—you are Johann Wiessmeyer. Of course,” Erich repeated.

  “I’m sorry, General, I should have introduced myself earlier.”

  “No, it’s quite all right, I should have known it was you.” The general shook his head. “I have heard so much about you, you see.” To the pastor’s quizzical look, he replied, “Marina Thiessen thinks very highly of you.”

  “Ah, Marina . . .” Johann’s voice trailed off.

  Max Fuchs had been leaning against the church pew, panting heavily. He glanced at the envelopes he was carrying and thrust one of them at Johann. “Here you go, sir, that one’s for you,” he said. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “And this too, this was just given to me by—” Max looked at General Wolf and leaned forward to whisper in Johann’s ear. “This is a private message for you, Pastor, from Frau Thiessen. She asked me to bring it to you as soon as possible.”

  Johann opened the folded paper, recognized Marina’s handwriting, and closed it again without reading it. He slipped it into his shirt pocket. The telegram rested precariously on his lap, unbalanced. “Sit, Max. Your breathing is making me feel winded.”

  “But I can’t. I can’t stop right now. Frau Schenk told me I couldn’t stop until both telegrams were delivered. I have to find General Wolf right away.” The boy was waving a second brown envelope in the air. The general raised his hand in the air.

  “I’m General Wolf, young man,” he said. “You can indeed rest now, your job is done.”

  “Oh, that’s lucky!” Max happily handed over the second telegram. Then he jumped to attention. “But I’m not tired at all. I could run another ten kilometers if I had to.”

  “I’m quite certain you could,” the general said. He searched his pocket for a coin, and finding one with enough size and weight not to be an insult, he gave it to Max. Max examined the coin carefully, a smile spreading across his face.

  “Thank you, General!” Before either man could engage him in further conversation, Max turned and ran toward the exit. “Thank you too, Pastor Johann!”

  “I’m not sure what I did to deserve thanks,” Johann said as the oak door swung closed behind Max. “Other than to keep you here in conversation and facilitate the most efficient delivery of his telegrams.”

  “Well, I was very grateful for the conversation,” the general said somewhat absentmindedly. He ran a finger along the edge of the envelope and stared at his name, carefully written in elegant cursive. Putting the envelope in his coat pocket, he stood. “I should be going now. I have some matters to organize, and I should leave you to your news from Berlin.”

  “It was a pleasure sitting with you, General. If you don’t mind, I will let you see yourself out,” Johann said, taking a seat on the bench again. He watched General Wolf head down the narrow nave. The church had grown silent and gray as clouds outside cloaked the sun. Once the general had left, Johann placed his own telegram flat in the palms of his hands, as if by feeling its weight he could divine its content. A telegram from Berlin could mean only one thing: an opportunity to use the briefcase. Was he ready to take this step? Johann took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope.

  – Twenty –

  Before the war, trains had passed through Blumental regularly, but the war had reduced their frequency. Now there was one in the morning for passengers, one in midafternoon for mail, and a final one at midnight for freight. So after the four o’clock train there was absolutely no danger in walking along the tracks that ran from west Blumental, where Max had delivered his last telegram, to east Blumental, where Lara lived.

  Max’s mother had forbidden him to walk along the rails, but Max felt no remorse in ignoring this prohibition. His mother was always imposing unnecessary restraints on his life. Differentiating between the valid and invalid demands she made was, Max felt, part of growing up. Thus his conscience was entirely clear as he alternately strode and hopped from one rail tie to the next, occasionally stopping to examine the grass between the iron rails when he thought he saw something glint in the early-evening sun. You never knew where you might find a spent artillery casing or cartridge shell, or, even better, a grenade safety pin. All of these were valuable in the Meerfeld and Blumental community of boys, who jockeyed for recognition and influence in a world where military distinction was paramount. Since, in their minds, they had been cruelly excluded from the war arena, these boys eagerly collected any remnants affiliated with combat and channeled all their frustrated military fervor into the parade and trade of these items. Max was collecting grenade pins and rings, which were far more difficult to find than artillery or mortar shell casings, as they were smaller and thinner and more easily hidden on the ground when they fell. So far this summer, he had gathered eighteen, all of them rings from German M39s that he had found on or near the train tracks, where Rodemann and his men had practiced military maneuvers. Two weeks ago, he had traded ten of his M39 rings for four of Freddi Klein’s Soviet RG42 rings, which were copper-colored. When Max saw how nicely the RG42s shone when polished, he went back to Freddi for one more, but Freddi, sensing his advantage, had demanded an unreasonable four M39s in exchange. Max was irate, but ultimately he was going to have little choice if he wanted the necklace he was making to be symmetrical. Five gray M39s interspersed with five sparkly copper RG42s; the combination would look perfect on Lara’s porcelain skin.

  From the length of his shadow strolling ahead of him along the tracks, Max knew it was getting close to dinnertime. Passing the deserted East Blumental station, he calculated that he had just enough time to check for spies and still be able to make a quick stop at the Eberhardt property if he jogged the rest of the way. Max scrambled down the embankment toward the station building, scattering pebbles. Keeping his head low, he crawled through the dirt on his stomach to the cement building. It would have been faster to run, but what if today there reall
y was a spy watching through the window? They had never had a spy in Blumental, but there were all sorts of stories about Allied spies up north, and one or two spies, perhaps French or, better yet, Russian, may have drifted south.

  The window that Max approached was easily accessible now that the boulder was in place. Standing on top of his rock, he placed his fingers on the windowsill, then slowly pulled his head up just far enough to look through the glass. The room inside was shadowed, save for the space around the opposite window, which was illuminated by the crouching sun. One end of the room was spanned by three long wooden benches, wide enough to accommodate a sleeping body, if a spy decided to spend the night. But the benches were empty in the settling darkness, no one visible on or beneath them. Max quickly scanned the room, his gaze sweeping past the stained yellow train schedule, the unoccupied ticket counter with its shutters, the open doors of the vacant baggage lockers. Nothing. Nobody. He was only mildly disappointed, jumping off the rock and starting back to the tracks at a trot. He wouldn’t have had time to discover a spy today, not if he wanted to stop by Lara’s house before dinner. Five minutes later, panting slightly, Max saw the curved clay roof tiles of the Eberhardt home and the large chestnut tree he was aiming for. Skilled climber that he was, Max had no trouble finding footholds in the tree’s massive, deeply ridged trunk. He pulled himself up through the thicket of branches to his favorite perch. The dense foliage on this limb was perfect camouflage, and the spot offered a good, if obstructed, view of the bedroom that Lara shared with her sisters and mother.

  The door of the closet near the bedroom window stood ajar. Two dresses were slung over the top edge. That was Lara’s closet, Max knew from prior visits to the tree. The other one was shared by Sofia and Rosie. Lara was standing in front of the half mirror that was nailed to the inside of the closet door, wearing a third dress and swinging its skirt back and forth while watching herself from different angles. When she stopped briefly, her back was to Max and he saw—with great delight, some fear, and a skip of his heart—that the dress was unzipped. He had a view of a part of Lara’s body that he had never seen before, from her shoulder blades to her midback. It took his breath away. This path of skin and flesh—beautiful, smooth, creamy white, unblemished, pure—epitomized everything Lara was for Max. He knew he should avert his gaze, but he couldn’t. He longed to reach forward and touch that skin, stroke it, feel its warmth. He didn’t want to kiss it—that was too strange a concept—but he did want to make contact with it. Unconsciously, Max leaned forward, and because of that slight shift, he almost fell out of the tree when Lara did what she did next.