Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  And so he started the car, then drove all the way out State Street to Twenty-First South. Along the way, he kept telling her that he hadn’t meant to compromise her standards. He would never do that again.

  But LaRue knew the truth: he had been perfectly willing to let her go back on her own word. He had left all the choice up to her and would never have stopped until she made him stop. She was sure of that, and it made her angry.

  When LaRue walked into the house, she saw her mother sitting in the living room by herself, listening to “Kraft Music Hall” on the radio and embroidering. Dad was probably at the stake center doing interviews or holding a meeting. “You’re home early,” Mom said, trying to sound neutral but clearly still self-conscious about their earlier conversation.

  “Just a little,” LaRue said, and she headed for the stairs.

  “Was there some reason for that?”

  “For what?” LaRue knew what she meant, but she didn’t like this kind of interrogation.

  “Coming home early.”

  “I just thought I’d better get home.” And then she thought of the right half-truth: “I still have a little homework to do.” If she had said, “And I’m going to do it,” that would have been an out-and-out lie.

  “Well, that’s good. That shows some wisdom. Although I think it would be better if you had taken care of that earlier, when you weren’t so tired. You can always learn better when you’re not all worn out.”

  LaRue couldn’t believe it. There was never any end to this. Dad would have said, “I want you to get that done before you leave this house and go down to that canteen.” Mom was only saying the same thing in more measured words. Either way, they were both saying, “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you, LaRue?”

  LaRue was all the way up the stairs before her anger boiled over. She dropped onto her bed, and she struggled not to cry. She pounded her fist into her pillow, and then she picked the pillow up and screamed into it. She was so furious with her mother. She knew exactly what Mom would be saying right now if she knew what had just happened. I told you, didn’t I? You really aren’t old enough to take care of yourself.

  But she was. She just hadn’t done it. She would never be so stupid again. She had learned her lesson now.

  She lay back on her bed when the anger had passed, and she felt a nervous, buzzing sense inside her, a confusion and excitement she didn’t know what to do with. She thought of the things that had happened, went over it all, slowly, and the fact was, she had liked it all so very much.

  Suddenly she was ashamed. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said, in her own little version of a prayer. It crossed her mind to tell the Lord that she would break up with Ned, that she would stop going to the USO. But she couldn’t bring herself to go that far. Instead, she closed her eyes and began a real prayer. She promised not to get into a car with Ned again, not to let him touch her like that.

  When she opened her eyes, she stared at the ceiling, focused for no reason on a little crack in the ceiling plaster. She didn’t feel relieved of the guilt; she even knew that she was clinging to things that weren’t good for her. But she didn’t want her parents to be right, or think they were. She had been thinking lately that she ought to stop going to the USO one of these days. She knew she had to stop cutting herself off from her high-school friends. If she was going to be popular at school, she had to be more involved. There was one particular boy, Reed Porter, who had been paying attention to her lately, and she really did hope he would ask her out. But she wasn’t going to quit the USO yet–and let her parents win. She would do it when she was ready, and in the meantime, she would prove to herself–and to Ned–that she wasn’t dumb enough to make a “mistake” with him.

  She shut her eyes again and rolled over on her side. She had begun to cry. What she really wanted to do was go downstairs and tell her mother that she was sorry, tell her that she loved her, and then talk, the way they used to do. She missed her mom so much sometimes. She didn’t know when life had become so complicated, what had forced such a distance between her and her parents. She couldn’t tell her mother what had happened. She was too ashamed to do that. But she wondered, was that what growing up meant? Feeling so alone all the time?

  Chapter 25

  Heinrich Stoltz was in Karlsruhe, near the French border. There was no obvious way to get across the wide Rhine, and he knew that if he decided to escape Germany, he might have to wait until the Allies crossed into Germany and occupied the area. That meant he could get caught in the action–the bombing raids that might come first and the artillery barrage as troops approached–but it still might be his best hope of getting out.

  He took a room in a little boarding house, identified himself by the name of Heinrich Stutz, perhaps for the same reasons Peter had chosen the name but also to feel some connection to his son. He had the one full set of identification papers, but the name on them was known to officials now, and he would have to be very careful about using them. Fortunately, the older woman at the boarding house listened to his story–that he was a veteran who had been injured in Russia and that his family had been lost in a bombing raid in Hamburg–and she believed it all. She didn’t ask to see any papers. It was illegal to move without registering a departure and then registering again in the new city, so he was highly vulnerable if officials became aware of his having arrived in town. Brother Stoltz knew he was going to need a lot of luck–or guidance–if he was going to survive.

  Another problem was that he could run short of money if he was forced to stay very long, so after a few days of hiding in his room to make sure his path was cold, he looked about the city for work. He found a baker, a man named Franz Kieffer, who said he was desperate for help but couldn’t find any with all the men off to war. “I’ve been discharged myself,” Brother Stoltz told the man. “I hurt my shoulder in an accident, near Stalingrad. But I’m well enough now to do some lifting–as long as it’s nothing terribly heavy.”

  “Can you lift a sack of flour?” Kieffer asked.

  “That I can do. But can you buy one?” Brother Stoltz asked.

  “Sometimes,” the baker said, and he laughed. He seemed to like Brother Stoltz. “That’s good then, Herr Stutz. Can you get yourself out of bed and make it here by four o’clock each morning?”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t sleep very well anyway.”

  “That’s my curse, too,” Kieffer said. “But I’m an old man. That’s how it is with people my age.” Then he stuck out his hand. “Call me Franz,” he said.

  “And you call me Heinrich.” Brother Stoltz waited. Would Franz ask for his papers? But the man didn’t seem suspicious, didn’t even seem to think of checking his identity. So Brother Stoltz had gotten lucky again–or blessed–and he felt some comfort in that.

  What evolved over the next couple of weeks was a strange sort of peace for Brother Stoltz. He longed to be with his wife and daughter, and he knew they would worry about him, but at least there was comfort in the simple life he had found. He arose in the night and went into the warm, lighted bakery, where he carried out his specific assignments, mixing the various types of dough, kneading it, folding it into proper-sized lumps for bread or rolls. He and Franz talked at times, but Franz was not a gabby man; he spoke mostly about the work, the bread. They talked about the war, of course, but only to guess what might be coming, not to discuss the politics.

  Once the sun was up and the bread was ready, Brother Stoltz put in a few hours out front in the store. The neighborhood women would come in, present their ration cards, and ask for a loaf of dark rye, or of “weiss Brot,” and Brother Stoltz would chat with them a little, choose a nice loaf, and stick it into the bags or nets that the women would bring with them. Then he would collect the ration cards and the change that the women parceled out so carefully.

  He knew that many families were living almost entirely on bread, and it seemed a sacred thing to him to provide it–or at least be part of providing it. What he saw in these good people was what
he remembered of the Germany of his younger days. The customers were reserved people, hard working and decent. It was difficult to imagine that any of them had ever screamed their support for Hitler. Almost no one greeted him with Nazi salutes or with “Heil Hitler.” In fact, many had returned to their familiar religious greeting, “Grüss Gott.”

  Brother Stoltz liked these good mothers, felt glad in his heart that he had come back to Germany to see this. He knew that the sins of the Nazis had to come back on the heads of all Germans, to some degree, but he also knew that these people who got up early, walked or bicycled to the store, and spent their few pfennige for a good loaf of bread were not killers, not haters. He liked the look of the women on these December mornings, in their heavy wool coats and their mufflers bundled around their red cheeks. They were so much like his mother, who had worked hard for his family, labored on their farm next to her husband, and made certain that he and his brother and two sisters got to church every Sunday.

  So many of the women were widows, and so many others were home with their children while their husbands were away at war. They were doing their best to keep going in the midst of air raids and food shortages. Sometimes the younger women came with small children, and they demanded proper behavior from these little ones, speaking to them strictly, the way Brother Stoltz’s mother had done. It was charming to see, the little children with their rosy faces and lively eyes, not understanding about war, not seeming disheartened by it all. They were the best of Germany–the part that would survive when the war ended, Brother Stoltz told himself.

  One morning a young woman came into the store after the morning rush had ended. She had her little boy with her. She was a pale little thing herself, and thin, but her son was full of life. He paced back and forth before the glass display case and looked at the bread. The mother finally told the boy, “Stay still, Reinert.” The child did stop pacing, but he continued to look into the case, as though wishing for something better than the bread that was there.

  “I wish we had some pastries or something sweet,” Brother Stoltz told her. “But you know how things are. We can only bake bread these days.”

  “He’s never eaten a pastry or Kuchen. He doesn’t even know what they are.”

  Brother Stoltz was struck by the sadness of it, and again he thought of his own childhood when his house had been full of the smells of his mother’s baking. His family had been poor, but they had always eaten well. “Is your husband a soldier?” Brother Stoltz asked.

  “My husband was killed in action last winter,” the young woman said. “In Russia.”

  Brother Stoltz nodded. He looked down at the little boy. “I have a son on the eastern front,” he said softly. “It seems only a few days ago that he was like this one.”

  She glanced down at her son, then stepped a little closer to him and touched his hair. He could guess what she was thinking.

  “There’s too much of this,” Brother Stoltz said. “So many widows. So many children without fathers.”

  The woman looked him straight on for only a second or two, and then she looked down again. “He’s only known war in his life,” she said. “He doesn’t even cry when the air raids come. We go down in the basement and play together. He’s never had things, either, so he has no idea how much we do without.”

  The boy was so lovely, with his big eyes, brown like his mother’s, full of curiosity. “I’m four,” he said, smiling.

  “And such a big boy,” Brother Stoltz said, smiling back at him. Then he told the mother, “Things will be better in time.”

  “I suppose. But not quickly.”

  Clearly they understood each other. Neither was claiming, as Germans sometimes still did, that the war would be reversed and Germany would still win. What they both knew was that the Allies would occupy this territory before too much longer, and a bad time would follow–like those awful years after World War I. But even that was better than things continuing this way, with bombs dropping and the men gone, all in danger.

  “Maybe Reinert won’t have to go to war,” the mother said. “Maybe there won’t be more wars.”

  “I hope that’s right,” Brother Stoltz said.

  When the woman left, he could only think of his own little boy, who was probably in danger somewhere–if he was alive. He would have given anything to have Peter next to him, like little Reinert, to be able to stroke his hair, to comfort him.

  There was a branch of the Mormon church still carrying on in Karlsruhe. Brother Stoltz found it on his second Sunday in town. He was careful not to let his landlady know where he was going, and he used his false name with the members, but he was happy to be able to attend church. In London he had enjoyed the meetings, but here, with his own language, his own people, he was more at home. The branch was sizeable, too, although many couldn’t make it every Sunday. Usually there were fifty or so, and the branch president, President Griebel, was an impressive man. He was a good speaker and a warm man who kept track of his scattered flock.

  Brother Stoltz loved the meetings, the friendship before and after, and the faith that was expressed in all the sermons. It struck him as strange, sometimes, how easily faith came to him now. He had always doubted, instinctively, but these years of depending on God had made faith a practical matter, something he needed, something that worked. He rarely argued with the things he heard in church now, even when much of what people said seemed simplistic to him. It didn’t matter. It was their own expression of faith, their own experience, and he accepted the spirit of it.

  On the second Sunday he attended, the branch president asked “Brother Stutz” to stay after sacrament meeting, and then he sat down with him in one of the rented rooms. “I merely wanted to get to know you,” he said. “Tell me where you’re from.”

  President Griebel was a white-haired man, probably in his sixties. He had a rather gaunt look about him, with thin cheeks and hardly any flesh on his neck or arms. But his wonderful voice, rich and gentle, was fatherly, and it bespoke his kindness. Brother Stoltz knew he would have to trust this man. He couldn’t tell him the lies he had had to invent to protect himself. “My name isn’t really Stutz,” he said. “But it’s better that I not tell you my real name. If I do, and someone comes looking for me, you will be better off not to know.”

  “My goodness,” President Griebel said. “I wonder what this is all about.”

  “It’s best only to tell you this: I am a member of the Church–an elder. I’ve served in a branch presidency before. I’m a member in good standing, too. My problems are with the government–the Nazis–but I am guilty of nothing that would put my membership in question.”

  The president nodded. “I believe you,” he said. “And I don’t need to know anything else. I understand how things can be these days.”

  What he didn’t say was what he thought of the Nazis himself. Very few Germans, even fellow members of the Church, dared to say exactly what they thought. Even when people expressed their enthusiasm or commitment to the Führer, it was never easy to be certain that they weren’t posturing, perhaps even protecting themselves.

  “Let me ask you this,” President Griebel said. “Would you be willing to teach a class in Sunday School–a small group of young people? There are both girls and boys, all between twelve and sixteen. Most Sundays we have four or five, sometimes more.”

  “I would love to do that. But one day, suddenly, I could be gone, without ever saying a word to you.”

  “One day, suddenly, we could all be gone. That’s the nature of war. And mortality.”

  “No. I mean, I might have to leave.”

  “I know what you mean. But my point is still the same. Nothing is certain for anyone right now. If the Allies cross the river and push through Karlsruhe, I have no idea what will happen to us.”

  “Yes, yes. I understand. But I have family–a wife and daughter–outside of Germany. If I can find a way to get back to them, I will go. I also have a son in danger. If I can work out some way to reach him
, that could also take me away.”

  “Also outside Germany?” President Griebel asked.

  “I can’t tell you more than that. It’s not fair to you to do so.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Let me ask you this, President Griebel. Does the Church have any way to contact other members, outside our country? In America–or anywhere?”

  “Not that I know of. Not anymore. Early in the war, before America was part of it, we could reach Church leaders ­sometimes through certain contacts, but those were all forced out when America joined the Allies.”

  “How do you keep the branch functioning without any guidance from Church leaders?”

  “I do have a district president. But I don’t see him often. Mostly, we just do the best we can. Before the war, we relied a good deal on the missionaries to give our sermons and teach classes. Sometimes, now, the members–especially newer ones–get away from the doctrine and teach their own ideas. I do what I can about that, but it isn’t always easy.”

  It was what Brother Stoltz suspected. “I promise not to teach the young people my own ideas–but I should warn you, I’m a fairly new member myself, and during the war, I’ve rarely been able to attend church. Do we have any lesson manuals I can use?”

  “Not really. Sister Wood left certain lesson books long ago, when she and President Wood had to leave so suddenly, but we’ve used those over and over, and our children know them by heart. It’s better now to study the scriptures with them–choose the things you want them to learn, and teach those from the Bible and Book of Mormon.”

  “President Griebel, I have no Book of Mormon. Is there any way to get one?”

  “It’s very difficult. I can lend you one for now.”

  Brother Stoltz was touched by such a generous loan. He had longed so much in the past two weeks to be able to use more of his time for study. He had been reading a Bible he had borrowed at the boarding house–reading it more carefully than ever before in his life, but he had wanted so much to have a Book of Mormon.