by Bodie Thoene
For most of seventeen years the stone headmaster’s cottage bordering the parklike grounds of Aaron Alderman Seminary had been home to our family. But things were changing. Since Easter, every male student in the school of theology had been called up to military duty in Belgium’s antiquated army. The news reports were grim. If the Nazis attacked, few expected Belgium could survive.
The classrooms were empty. Those faculty who had connections abroad fled the chaos of Europe for England or America. But Robert Bittick remained. Faithful Papa. The Alderman buildings had been leased and were now managed by the Jewish Agency. The seminary was transformed into a transit hospice for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland. The ebb and flow of desperate strangers was constant.
Thirty-six Jewish orphan girls from Poland had been given Aryan names and enrolled in St. Mary’s Convent school, where I taught English. Girls were easier to assimilate than circumcised boys. If the Nazis attacked Belgium—if Belgium fell—Jews would be the first to be eliminated. A girls’ convent school like St. Mary’s would remain a safe haven for the children.
With one finger I parted the blackout curtain and peeked out the window.
A thin sliver of forbidden light gleamed from Papa’s office in the chapel. The air-raid warden would soon be knocking on the door to reprimand him. No light allowed. Only stars were permitted to shine brightly over Belgium. Perhaps Papa was immersed in another emergency meeting with the Jewish Agency. His grief over the loss of Mama had been submerged in travel permits and arranging passage for hundreds of Polish Jews to England and South America and the United States.
Perhaps Papa had forgotten my birthday. Without Mama to remind him, he was hopeless about remembering occasions.
I placed my briefcase on the scarred pine kitchen table. Opening a cupboard I mindlessly stared at the blue floral Meissen china Mama had bequeathed to me in a letter left in her top drawer.
And to my precious Loralei I leave my pair of silver candlesticks brought from Texas and also my best dishes. With them, I leave joy and laughter and the memories of all our special times together….
On last year’s birthday I had come home to a white linen tablecloth and places set for twelve guests. Since Mama’s death, I had not once set the table with her shining legacy.
Not even a cup of hot tea was waiting for my homecoming this evening. The copper teakettle was cold on the unlit back burner of the stove. Without Mama, the kitchen—neat, quiet, and uncluttered—was the loneliest room in the house.
No wonder Papa could not bear to be in the cottage alone.
Papa was Austrian while Mama, Janet, had been born in Texas. They met at a Gipsy Smith revival meeting in 1909 and fell in love. Mama had a Texan’s way of talking like no one else. She ended statements with a question, as if to ask if you really understood what she was talking about? Papa said she enchanted him. From their first conversation he knew she had to be his forever. They married two months after they met and Mama never stopped asking questions. Like a pair of eagles, their hearts were bound for life.
They pastored a church in a German-speaking settlement at Creedmore, Texas. My sister, Jessica, was born there, in 1911. I arrived seven years later. The family returned to Europe as missionaries after the “War to End All Wars” concluded. Though I had little memory of Texas, Jessica and I spoke perfect American English and considered ourselves Americans. Janet Bittick had not let her daughters forget their mother’s first language. From our childhood, Papa made sure the honor of our U.S. citizenship was prominently noted on our identity papers.
I switched off the lights and retreated down the hall.
The parlor was dark. The keyboard of Mama’s upright piano was open, and sheet music spread out on the stand.
Someone had been visiting. The piano was seldom played since Mama passed away. No one could pound out a song like she did. Honky-tonk and Southern Gospel music. “I’ll fly away, Oh, Glory! I’ll fly away!” Mama could draw a crowd every time.
Perhaps some seminary student in a shining new military uniform had stopped in to visit Papa before being called to duty in the Belgian army.
My husband, Varrick, and Jessica’s husband of nine years, William, were together at the border. With most of the young men of Belgium they stood guard against possible invasion by the German army. The horror stories of the Nazi invasion of Poland were fresh in everyone’s mind.
Entering my bedroom, I kicked the door shut with my foot and closed the curtains before turning on the lamp. I picked up the framed photograph of Varrick and me beside the river Zenne last summer. We were squinting into the sun as Mama grinned around the camera and snapped the shutter. Holding the frame against my heart, I could almost see Mama’s face, commanding us to smile and not blink. With a sigh, I turned my back on the memory. What was a birthday, anyway, with so much going on in the world?
“Only another day. Never mind.”
Replacing the snapshot, I switched on the tabletop radio. Glenn Miller’s band filled the space with “In the Mood.” American big band music was becoming more and more popular these days as everyone dreamed of sailing into New York harbor.
I held my arms up as if Varrick had come into the room and asked me to dance. A moment. Imagination. Then I glimpsed my reflection in the round mirror on the wall. Alone. Same thick blond, unruly mane. Sad blue-gray eyes stared back at me as if I were seeing a stranger within my own reflection. Full red lips curved unconvincingly up at the corners as I tried on a smile. “I want you to smile? Honey? Okay. Pretty. Pretty. Now don’t blink while I just…just…say cheese?”
I would not allow myself to think of other birthdays…like last year. Belgian chocolate cake and presents on the table. Varrick and the young men from the seminary gathered ’round to serenade. Who could have imagined what a difference one year could make? The sudden absence of Mama’s cheerful strength had left me so weak.
I turned out the lamp, opened the curtains, and raised the window. Sinking onto the edge of the bed, I lay back on my pillow. The scent of lilacs drifted in. I remembered Mama planting the lilac bush on my tenth birthday. The thick bloom of Texas in her accent had returned. “My darling girl? You’re a big girl now. Ten years old? I can’t believe it. Outside my bedroom window at home in Texas? When you were born? There were lilacs. Just beginning to bloom. Happy birthday. Happy, happy birthday, my Loralei. From now on? I’ll always give you lilacs for your birthday. Forever. And when I fly away? Whenever you smell the scent of lilacs, you’ll remember the sweet times of our life…. Can you hold onto that? How much your mama loved you? You’ll remember me…remember us.”
It was past the dinner hour when I heard the sound of Papa and Jessica outside on the walk.
“But are they all leaving Belgium?” Jessica was incredulous. “Tonight?”
Papa replied somberly, “If they don’t make it to France before this begins…”
Little Gina reprimanded, “Grandpa, my daddy won’t let the Nazis in.”
A moment of silence passed. I leapt to my feet and hurried to meet my father, sister, and niece in the foyer. The door swung open, and Jessica, eight months pregnant, threw her arms around me in an awkward embrace. “Oh, Lora, the Wehrmacht is massing at the borders tonight!”
As Papa nudged them into the parlor, Gina piped, “Oh, Auntie Lora! All the Jews in the seminary? Leaving tonight! Going to France. Maybe us too.”
“Papa?” I questioned.
“True.” Papa’s dark brown eyes flashed concern as he glanced toward Jessica.
“But…us?” I put my arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “How can we?”
Papa ran his fingers through closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair. The last months had wearied him immeasurably. “We can’t stay. If they come…”
I understood who “they” were. But could it be that the Nazis intended to invade as they had in Poland? “Papa?”
Jessica replied quietly, “The train station. Chaos. Riots. They all want to get away.”
Papa looked around the room as though choosing what to take away when we fled. “We’re as much in the gunsights now as the people we have helped. It will be over in Belgium in a matter of days.”
Jessica, alabaster skin pale and expression weary, spoke the name of her husband tenderly. “William.”
Gina, the image of Jessica at that age, tossed blond curls fiercely and began to cry. “But Mommy! Auntie Lora? Will Daddy come with us too?”
I embraced the child. “Gina, if we must leave”—Papa nodded. It was a certainty— “your daddy will come along after us to France. Soon. He’ll follow.”
Gina clung to my waist and turned her face upward, imploring, “And your Varrick? Him too, Auntie Lora? Will Varrick and Daddy come together?”
“Together.” I spoke confidently, but my knees felt suddenly weak. Leave Brussels? Leave the stone cottage at Alderman Seminary? The only real home I had ever known? Oh, why hadn’t we left Belgium when the other members of Alderman staff had fled? “Papa?” I questioned with a glance toward Jessica. “What about…”
Jessica’s clear pewter eyes became determined. She caressed her belly and drew herself erect. “There are doctors in France. Still a month until I’m due. Gina was ten days late. By then? Surely…”
Papa seemed to gather strength in Jessica’s courage. “Yes. By then, we’ll be in Paris. The French army is the best equipped in the world. Your American passports. Your mama always said, better than gold.” Papa instructed us, but his passport was Austrian, a nation now under the control of the Third Reich. “We may just have hours. One suitcase each only. I’ve saved enough petrol over the months from the rations. Enough for us to reach France in the automobile.”
I lay in my bed, acutely aware this might be the last time I slept in my own familiar room for a long time. Maybe forever. The door to my room was ajar.
Jessica and Gina occupied the spare bedroom.
Papa’s voice floated down the hallway. “Good night, Jessica. Angels keep you, little Gina!”
Gina’s sweet voice replied in an almost perfect American accent, “You too, Grandpa. Big ones.”
I heard my father’s footsteps approach. He rapped softly and the door swung open. The light shone behind him. His hair was still mussed from his hat.
“Still awake, Daughter?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Papa,” I answered.
“I almost forgot your birthday.” His voice was sad. “Happy birthday.”
“It’s okay. I almost forgot too. I think for next year I’ll change the date anyway, or it will forever remind me of this night.”
“Things will come right for us again. For the world.” He spoke the words but was unconvincing.
“What now, Papa?”
He crossed his arms. “Mobilization full on. North railway station packed with soldiers today. I went to see some of the boys off. So many women and children saying good-bye. I fear our brave boys face an uphill battle.”
“What will become of Belgium? King Leopold?”
“I looked at the signs in the station. The train to Waterloo. It’s only an hour to the battlefield at Waterloo, where Napoleon was defeated by Wellington. Different tyrant, but a tyrant all the same.”
“Will there be another Waterloo?”
“Another battle, yes. Seven years since Hitler destroyed the German democracy. Yes. But whose Waterloo this will be is almost certain. This time the Allies have no Wellington to pull it off.”
“How long can we hold out?”
“Days, I think.”
“I heard from the nuns at St Mary’s. After school. They said Belgian soldiers have been issued wooden bullets. I told them it was only a rumor.”
“Not a rumor, I’m afraid. Belgian officers are passing out wooden bullets. The kind they use in practice maneuvers.”
We considered this bleak information for a long moment. I sighed. “Pointless against German Panzers. Just like what happened to the Poles.”
Papa agreed. “Someone in the government must think it will make the soldiers feel better about things if their rifles make a big bang…”
“…before they die.”
“Our fortifications against the Germans are built to be impenetrable. So the Germans simply go around, or fly over.”
“It is over, then, Papa? The battle for Belgium? Over before it’s started?”
“Oh, Loralei, dear girl. I’m praying for a miracle. Miracles can happen.”
“The Red Sea parted.”
“We will pray.”
I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer for Varrick and William. Would they fight the Blitzkreig with wooden bullets? “The Polish Jews have a saying. God is too high up, and America is too far away.”
Papa replied, “We won’t give up hope. Maybe the Germans will decide Belgium isn’t worth their while. The lowlands of Holland. Maybe the Nazis will turn on Russia instead of us. Yes. We will pray.”
“That’s all that is left to us for the time being.”
Papa was silent for a moment. “God is watching to see what brave men will do. That is everything, my dear. So, happy birthday, my darling girl. I’m sorry I forgot.”
“We’ll celebrate in Paris.”
His voice smiled. “Well, then. There you have it. When we reach Paris, we’ll have a lovely celebration. Until then, we’ll pretend it’s not yet your birthday.”
“Night, Papa.”
“Night, my darling girl.” He turned to go, then paused, head bowed. “And…your mother loved you very much, you know.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Always said you were the strong one. Stronger than your sister in a lot of ways. Texan at your core.”
“Like Mama, I hope.”
“Your mother always said God loves a good story. Courage and strength. Impossible battles.”
I laughed gently. “Remember the Alamo, huh? These Nazis don’t know what they’re facing if America comes in.”
“America must…” Papa’s voice faltered. “Ah, well. Enough of that. You’ll need to be strong in the days ahead. For your sister’s sake. You’ll need to help her through this. If William doesn’t…I mean, he likely won’t be around when the baby is born.”
“I will, Papa. Be strong, I mean.”
“There’s my girl. There’s my Loralei.”
“You should sleep now, Papa. Thanks for remembering.”
He nodded and padded down the corridor toward his bedroom.
2
Morning seeped through the blackout curtains. I was sleeping soundly and did not hear the alarm. Little Gina shook me by the shoulder and cried, “Auntie Loralei, wake up! The Germans are coming!” She left, her little feet racing down the corridor.
I got up quickly and opened the curtains, revealing a red dawn with high, streaked clouds beyond the buildings of the seminary. I stood at the window, thinking how everything looked the same as always, but I whispered, “Red sky at morning…”
Before I finished the sentence a high formation of about two dozen planes rumbled overhead. The crimson gold of the sunrise glinted on their bellies. Suddenly, dark specks, like so many eggs, spilled out from the aircraft and began to fall. “Papa!” I cried.
The long, shrill whistle of falling bombs was followed by terrible explosions over the treetops.
Papa shouted, “Loralei! Come on! Come on!”
I ran from my room as Gina and Jessica tumbled out of the house and rushed to the air-raid shelter in the yard. Papa followed, slamming the door closed behind us. We stood in the dark as thunderous booms echoed overhead.
After the fact, the undulating wail of Brussels’ air-raid siren began.
Jessica clamped her hands over Gina’s ears. “Now they tell us!”
I felt the color drain from my face as I considered how ridiculous our tin shelter was against a hail of bombs. “Like closing the barn door after the horses are gone.”
Papa fumbled to light the lantern. “We’ll be safe here.”
We all knew
this was a lie meant to make us feel better. The eerie glow cast long shadows. I saw the dark circles under Papa’s eyes. Had he slept at all?
Gina, staring, gaped up at the thin corrugated tin ceiling. “Grandpa?”
I patted Gina’s shoulder. “It won’t last long.” My reassurance was unfortunately punctuated by a series of jolting booms as a stick of bombs found their mark.
Papa said, “The airport.”
“The first bombs,” Jessica remarked. “Was that the North Station?”
Images came to my mind: Young Belgian soldiers waiting for the trains. Wives and children. Sweethearts who had come to say farewell. “Papa?”
Papa closed his eyes and nodded. He swallowed hard. The boom of anti-aircraft guns commenced.
“We should all sit down.” Papa motioned toward the benches as if we were waiting for a bus or waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.
I noticed we were all barefooted and in our nightgowns.
After an hour the all-clear signal sounded. Our little family sat silently, looking up for a few moments, as if we did not believe the attack was over.
“I’m hungry,” Gina said at last.
“Well, then.” Papa stood. “That’s that. For now.”
Another pause before he swung back the doors. Sunlight streamed in, together with the acrid scent of cordite. Above our heads the sky was marred by puffs of white smoke. Above the trees, the horizon of Brussels bloomed with black smoke.
“Poor things,” I said as I stared in disbelief at the thick fumes roiling up from the direction of North Station. The clang of a fire truck’s bell sounded some blocks away.
“Yes,” Jessica whispered. “Poor, poor things.”
The trains were no longer running. The frontiers were closed, yet an endless stream of refugees poured out of Brussels. The news on my radio was a muddle of confusion mixed with the monotony of American swing music, punctuated by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
I did not attempt to go to work. I telephoned St. Mary’s. A janitor answered with the information that St. Mary’s Convent school was closed today for prayer and quiet contemplation.
