The Witnesses

by Robert Whitlow

  “What’s in there?” Parker asked.

  “Something I want to ask your grandfather about after supper,” Blocker replied. “You might be able to help too.”

  Parker could see that there was writing in German on the outside of the folder.

  “My German is terrible,” he said.

  “I don’t need a translator,” Blocker replied. “I’m looking for a more specialized kind of assistance.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Flounder two ways,” Frank announced as he carried a platter of fish into the room and set it in the middle of the dining room table. “Broiled and stuffed with crabmeat and fried in peanut oil.”

  The sweet crunchiness of the hush puppies diverted Parker’s attention from his curiosity about the contents of the folder. He glanced at it several times before he stopped trying to guess what it contained.

  “Opa, these hush puppies are the best ever,” Parker said, holding up a tiny golden ball before popping it in his mouth.

  “And the asparagus is superb,” Blocker added. “Tell me about the sauce.”

  Frank explained the German origin of the recipe. Blocker answered in German, and the resulting conversation left Parker alone with his thoughts and the flounder.

  People who universally condemned fried foods had never eaten his grandfather’s fresh-caught flounder fillets. The delicate flavor of the white fish was enhanced, not destroyed, by its brief bath in hot oil, and the breading added just enough extra flavor to make every bite an invitation to another.

  “And this broiled fish is better than any I’ve had in the best restaurants in Charleston,” Blocker said. “The crab mixture on top is a delight.”

  “Thank you,” Frank said with a smile. “And I’m glad that Parker has gone to work with you.”

  “You are?” Parker asked, returning a hush puppy to his plate.

  “Yes.”

  Parker was dumbfounded, especially after hearing his grandfather’s summary of Blocker’s personality a few minutes earlier in the kitchen. In the back of his mind, he’d been uneasy about accepting the job without his grandfather’s approval. The older man’s simple endorsement was more important to him than thousands of dollars in additional salary. Parker picked up another hush puppy and enjoyed it more than any of the others he’d eaten.

  “The patriarch’s blessing is powerful, isn’t it?” Blocker said to Frank. “Tell me about your family in Germany. Parker just provided a tidbit.”

  Frank shared a brief summary. He didn’t even mention the war years. The conversation then moved to life in Germany during the 1930s while they finished the meal.

  “And I immigrated to America in late 1946,” Frank said.

  “Why New Bern?” Blocker asked.

  “I knew I was going to be a commercial fisherman, and coming to New Bern from Bern seemed the logical thing to do. Also, it’s the place where I could meet Parker’s grandmother.”

  “Can you tell me more about the war years?” Blocker asked.

  “No, that’s a time I don’t like to remember.”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you already know about him?” Parker asked.

  Blocker gave Parker an irritated look and then turned to Frank. “Parker knows I extensively research parties to lawsuits, expert witnesses, the lawyers on the other side of a case, and anyone else of interest to me.”

  “Why would you be interested in me?” Frank asked.

  The way his grandfather asked the simple question made the hair on the back of Parker’s neck stand up. He watched Blocker blink his eyes a couple of times.

  “Let’s circle back to that topic after supper,” Blocker said.

  They spent the remainder of the meal in small talk that failed to hold Parker’s attention. Listening with half an ear, he learned that Blocker had been to Germany over ten times during the past twenty years. Many of those trips had to do with genealogical research.

  “I saw the house where my great-great-grandfather lived in a village not far from Stuttgart,” Blocker said. “His son went into manufacturing and owned a business in the city.”

  “Stuttgart?” Frank replied. “I had relatives on my father’s side of the family who lived there.”

  “Have you tried to maintain contact with them?” Blocker asked.

  Frank looked intently at Blocker for a moment. “I’m more interested in the current generation than the past ones,” he said.

  After they finished eating, Parker stood next to his grandfather at the kitchen sink as they rinsed dishes to put in the washer. Blocker was in the living room. Parker glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.

  “What’s going on?” Parker asked. “Are you going to keep answering his questions about your past?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Of course not.” Parker placed a plate in the dishwasher. “And what changed your mind about me working for him? I thought you disagreed with my decision.”

  “I said I was glad you’re working for him,” his grandfather replied. “Which doesn’t mean it’s a good idea except that you’re supposed to learn something from it. The lesson, though very painful and hard, will be valuable to you in the future. I just hope you’re a faster learner than I was.”

  Parker put the last fork in the part of the dishwasher basket reserved for eating utensils with tines.

  “What exactly do you mean? I want to know.”

  His grandfather took his hands from the water in the sink, dried them on a towel, and turned sideways so he faced Parker.

  “One of the biggest mistakes of my life was misusing the gift God gave me,” Frank said. “And I can’t blame General Berg, or the war, or anyone else for what I did. It was my choice, and it’s taken me a lifetime to realize my sins and face the truth. I pray it won’t be the same for you.”

  Parker felt like the breath had been knocked out of his body. “I’m just trying to help us better represent our clients,” he said.

  “And I don’t have the right to lecture you. But I hope you’ll figure out the right path before you go too far down a wrong one.”

  Parker suddenly saw his grandfather as a young man wearing a spotless uniform and sitting erect at a shiny conference table along with a group of high-ranking German officers. He blinked his eyes and immediately returned to the kitchen in the fishing bungalow where his opa, a sorrowful expression on his face, stood slightly stooped before him, wearing a wrinkled blue shirt and tan pants.

  “Would you tell Layla you believe I made the right choice?” he asked. “I really want to patch things up with her.”

  “Layla is the only one who can convince Layla of anything.”

  Parker knew his grandfather was right. They joined Blocker in the living room. Parker sat beside the trial lawyer on the couch, and Frank positioned himself in his recliner. Blocker held up the folder.

  “I’ll get right to the point. Several months ago I was contacted by a German lawyer who found me on a genealogy website and asked if I’d be interested in helping him find someone for a client. I agreed to help, and he sent me a generous retainer. My search led me to Parker.”

  “Me?” Parker asked in surprise.

  “Through a paper you wrote in law school about the legality of German reparations after World War I.”

  “For my international law class,” Parker said. “The professor gave me an A, but the paper was never published in a legal journal.”

  “Maybe not, but he liked it enough to mention a few statistics you reported in an article he wrote about postwar legal remedies that appeared in the Virginia Law Review. You received credit for the information in a footnote, and he entered your paper into the database for your law school.”

  Blocker reached in the folder and took out several sheets of paper stapled together. He handed them to Parker. “Here,” he said.

  Dumbfounded, Parker read the familiar words of the first paragraph he’d slaved over during his third year in law school and never thought he’d see agai
n.

  “But why did this pop up in your search for the rich German client?”

  “Read the bio at the end.”

  Parker turned to the last page, where he read, “Parker House is a second-generation American whose grandfather, Franz Haus, immigrated to North Carolina from Switzerland after World War II.”

  “Yeah, I remember telling the professor about my background when we first discussed the topic, but I didn’t put that information in the paper.”

  “Then he did it on his own. When I searched for anyone in the US named Franz Haus, the bio for your paper was one of the hits. From there it was easy to track you to New Bern. It was a bonus when you were in the courtroom on the day I came to see if Layla would be picked for a jury. After that, I checked the active files in our office and saw we’d been retained in the Mixon arbitration, and your firm was on the other side. It was a small case, and one of my associates was going to handle it, but I saw it as a chance to get to determine whether your grandfather was the man my client was looking for. The unexpected bonus for me was discovering how talented you are as an attorney. Finding you turned out to be much more important to me than locating Franz Haus.”

  Parker looked at his grandfather, who was sitting motionless in his chair with his lips tightly pressed together. Parker pointed to him. “Is he the Franz Haus you’re looking for?”

  “If your grandfather has the ability to witness the future before it occurs, then the answer is yes. The man I’m looking for served on the staff of a general named Berg in southern France. Hauptmann Haus had an uncanny insight into strategy and tactics that earned him the nickname the Aryan Eagle. Apparently he was never wrong.”

  NORTHERN FRANCE, 1941

  Franz and his division were serving as an occupying force in the hedgerow region of Normandy. The common rumor among the lower-ranking staff and troops was that they were going to be the tip of the spear for the impending German invasion across the English Channel. The broken remnants of the British Expeditionary Force had struggled home in a makeshift manner from the beaches of Dunkirk, and despite Winston Churchill’s public bluster, the English were soft and could be defeated easily. The Channel coasts were not heavily fortified, and some officers, including Franz, started to learn English in preparation for their interaction with a subjugated British population.

  One evening after dinner, General Berg summoned Franz to his quarters and told him he needed to know the location of any resistance units made up of French soldiers or civilian partisans that were operating in the area. Twice before, Franz had provided accurate information in similar circumstances. The general ordered him to deliver the intelligence first thing the following morning.

  What transpired for Franz was a night of torment. At first he found a quiet spot and waited for insight to bubble to the surface. When that didn’t work, he tried to fall asleep and dream. Anxiety trumped sleep, and he tossed and turned for several hours. Finally, he got up and spent the time left until dawn poring over military maps of the area, pausing at the names of tiny towns, and waiting a moment to see if he had an impression. Nothing came. After drinking two cups of black coffee, he shaved and pressed his dress uniform. Thirty minutes before his meeting with the general, Franz decided it wouldn’t hurt to take one last look at the maps to see if anything jump-started a helpful impression. When he did, he saw the name of a provincial town, Lisieux, and quickly committed it to memory. He then went to see General Berg.

  “Well, Hauptmann,” the general said when Franz stood at attention before him. “What do you have for me?”

  “I recommend a patrol be sent two kilometers west of Lisieux,” Franz said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  “Be more specific,” the general demanded. “I’m not sending troops on a sightseeing visit to old Catholic churches.”

  “Not in the town, Herr General, two kilometers to the west,” Franz said, hoping the general wouldn’t be offended because he merely repeated himself. “That’s the best I can offer.”

  “Dismissed,” the general said grumpily with a wave of his hand.

  Franz left not knowing if the general would do anything with the information. The following day he received another summons to headquarters. He stood before General Berg, who couldn’t speak at first because he was experiencing a coughing fit. Two of the general’s aides stood beside him. Finally, red-faced, General Berg looked at Franz.

  “The patrol sent to Lisieux was ambushed two kilometers east of the town and suffered eight dead and twelve wounded. They killed three partisans who were French soldiers still in uniform. That’s not how to win a war.”

  Franz was speechless. He braced himself for the next words from the general’s lips—an order for his immediate court-martial.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” the general said, his hand covering his mouth. “Do you understand me, Hauptmann?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trembling, Franz left.

  “Never wrong?” Frank asked softly. “What does ‘wrong’ mean? Was it wrong when I provided information that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Allied soldiers? Was it wrong that I let my ability be used for greedy ends by evil men? Was it wrong when I pretended to know something I didn’t and as a result soldiers in my own unit were killed?”

  Parker stared at his grandfather as if seeing him for the first time. Blocker, too, was speechless.

  “So it’s true,” Blocker said, shaking his head. “I thought it might be a wartime myth blown out of proportion by the passage of time and faulty memory.”

  “It’s not a myth or a fairy tale,” Frank replied. “But whatever I’ve done in the past, I want to be left alone now.”

  Blocker had the folder open on his lap. He glanced over at Parker, who was holding his breath. The trial lawyer looked down for several moments, carefully turned over several sheets of paper, and then closed the folder.

  “Very well,” Blocker said. “I think it’s a reasonable request. I don’t know why the German lawyer hired me to find you, but I’m going to refund the retainer and tell him I can’t help.”

  “Thank you,” Frank replied.

  “No, thank you for the delicious dinner,” Blocker replied. “And for the influence you’ve had on Parker. I believe he’s going to be a special lawyer, and I want to be a part of making that happen.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Early the following morning Frank sat on the back porch cradling a cup of coffee in his hand. After Parker and Blocker had left, he’d spent a restless night trapped in random wartime images that flashed through his mind without forming a cohesive narrative. He took a sip of coffee, but the rich beverage didn’t bring the usual satisfaction. Placing the cup on the floor, he went into the living room and got his Bible.

  He’d finished reading the Gospel of John and was now deep into the Acts of the Apostles, which he quickly realized wasn’t limited to the lives of a few men but represented the broader experiences of an explosively vibrant new church. His bookmark was at Acts chapter 21, where he’d been following Paul’s trip from Greece and Asia Minor to Jerusalem:

  Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’ ”

  When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

  Frank stopped and flipped over a few pages where, sure enough, Paul ended up arrested by Roman soldiers in Jerusalem. Frank looked up fro
m the pages of the book.

  What happened in Caesarea was another Bible story that moved seamlessly across two thousand years and into Frank’s present. Hearing, knowing, warning, and witnessing were parts of the lives of the early disciples with which he could totally identify. There were the four daughters of Philip, probably no older than Layla, who prophesied. And there was Agabus, who issued a warning to Paul that came true. But the twist that caught Frank’s attention was the apostle’s refusal to change his plans because of the threat of imprisonment. There was something greater at work in Paul’s life than self-preservation and personal safety. He had an awareness of God’s will for his future that trumped every competing influence or source of pressure. Frank had never considered that there was something beyond knowledge and wise reaction to it. He stared through the screen wall of the porch and into his backyard.

  And wondered what that greater will might be for him.

  When Parker arrived at the house on Pollock Street, a familiar car was parked along the curb. Inside sat Vicki Satterfield. Taking a deep breath, he approached the vehicle from behind and gently knocked on the driver’s side window. Vicki jumped and quickly lowered the window.

  “Why did you sneak up on me like that?” she demanded.

  “Because I wanted to scare you. Would you like a tour of the office?”

  “Yes.”

  As he showed Vicki around, Parker tried to decide if he wanted to broach the subject of a job to the receptionist/bookkeeper/pseudo lawyer. He didn’t have to debate very long.

  “Is there a place for me here?” she asked when he showed her where the receptionist would sit.

  “I can mention it to Mr. Blocker,” he said noncommittally. “But the decision will be his.”

  “And he’ll rely on your recommendation,” Vicki replied. “Mr. Blocker is going to have you flitting around all over the place, and you’ll need someone here who can watch your back. Remember how I helped you when Donna McAlpine filed the grievance against you with the state bar.”