The Gathering Storm

by Bodie Thoene

  Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

  No hungry generations tread thee down;

  The voice I hear this passing night was heard

  In ancient days by emperor and clown:

  Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

  She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

  The same that oft-times hath

  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

  Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

  Frau Helga had spoken of the nightingale’s love for the white rose. I imagined Eben was the nightingale singing the same unchanging song through the ages. Keats’ poetry was too beautiful to ever be rendered into the harsh Germanic tongue. I whispered it aloud, pronouncing it as it might have been read by Keats on Hampstead Heath, where he first wrote it.

  Papa interrupted my adolescent reverie when he brought me a tattered volume from his library. It was written in Latin and printed in an archaic typeface.

  He opened it and said, “I thought perhaps you might like to learn more about our friend Eben.”

  “He is cold and arrogant and boring.” I turned up my nose.

  Papa’s eyes narrowed in disapproval of my disrespect. “He is among the thirty-six most eminent scholars of church history who live among us in the world. Apart from Edersheim, there are few who know the links between Israel and the church better than he. Here is a text he knows well. I do not doubt he could dictate it by heart. Written by Eusebius. The History of the Church.”

  I was aware that Eben was a scholar recognized for his mastery of ancient history and languages. At the White Rose Inn I had often listened, while pretending to be disinterested, as Eben explained ancient heresies reborn in the modern church.

  Papa gave me my assignment. “Today you will translate this passage from Latin to German and then into English.”

  “But I am translating Keats. ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’”

  “The message is the same…so? No mathematics today. This is far more important.”

  Though I sighed and pretended to be unhappy, the task was not unpleasant to me. It was rather like unraveling a mystery. I loved language and welcomed the chance to delve into its hidden secrets.

  I began at 9 a.m. and finished just before dinnertime. The meal was before us. We sat in our places and as Papa led us, we sang the blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: “What was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be…world without end, Amen, Amen.”

  Papa raised his eyes to me. “Well, Lora? You have something to share?”

  With a sense of accomplishment and excitement, I unfolded my work for the day. I began with the heading: “Eminent Evangelists of the First Generation.”

  “Among the shining lights of the period was Quadratus, who, according to the written evidence, was, like Philip’s daughters, eminent from a prophetic gift. Besides them, many others were known at the time, belonging to the first stage of apostolic succession. These earnest disciples of great men built on the foundations of churches everywhere laid by the apostles. They spread the message still further, sowing and saving seed of the Kingdom of Heaven far and wide through the entire world.”

  I looked up to see Papa’s eyes shining with pride. “Well done, Loralei.” Then to Mama, “Our daughter is set to be a scholar.”

  “There’s more, Papa.” I felt such a surge of joy.

  “Much more,” he agreed. “The most important part.”

  I continued reading from my translation.

  “…for even at that late date many miraculous powers of the divine Spirit worked through them, so that at the first hearing, entire crowds in a body embraced the worship of the Lord with wholehearted eagerness.”

  This small triumph of decoding the past was just the beginning.

  Papa questioned me, “What do Keats’ nightingale and the stories of Eusebius have in common?”

  I smiled. “Both are unchanged by time.”

  “Well spoken. True.” He waved his hand, drawing more from me.

  “Beauty and miracles continue. The source of all is Christ our Creator, who is immortal and unchanged.”

  “True. And therefore?” He urged me to further conclusions.

  “I don’t know,” I said, doubtfully, feeling drained.

  “What is your spiritual genealogy?”

  I did not understand the question. “You told me how to be a Christian, Papa. And Mama too.”

  “And who shared the story of Jesus with me and your mother?”

  “You said Gipsy Smith.”

  “And who told him about our Savior?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t say.”

  Papa lowered his chin and peered at me over the top of his glasses. “From one spiritual parent to another, the same, immutable truth is handed down, generation to generation, right back to the beginning. From the moment Christ emerged from the tomb. From the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled Peter and the others in Jerusalem. Death is conquered. The power of the Holy Spirit is unchanging, passed down from one to another. Miracles continue and abound even in our own dark time. The nightingale’s song…eternal, unchanged. Today you have deciphered a true story about the first generation of your spiritual family. They knew Jesus. They spoke and wrote the truth. They met Jesus. Ordinary people like us heard stories from the great ones who knew our Lord and spoke with Him after He was crucified and raised from death to eternal life.”

  Papa paused, as if conveying a great truth. “Jesus said, if He chooses that some live until He returns as our King, then what is that to us? From the laying on of their hands, the great gifts of the Holy Spirit are passed to each new generation. True witnesses, the righteous, survive in every generation. What was in the beginning is now…and ever shall be….”

  I did not fully comprehend the mystery Papa revealed, or why he had chosen that moment in my life to open my heart to something so profound. Perhaps he sensed that there would come a time when he could not share these things with me.

  Time was running out.

  I laid my head on my pillow that night with my thoughts swirling. Outside my window I heard the nightingale sing. Had Ruth heard the same immortal song as she gleaned the stalks of wheat in the field of Boaz? Had Mary heard these same notes on a moonlit night beside the well of Nazareth? And Mary Magdalene, as she waited by the tomb before the dawn?

  I recognized some golden refrain ringing in that evening’s melody that I heard. Yet I could not identify the meaning. Many years would pass and many tears fall before I would hear that song outside my window again.

  Darkling, I listen; and, for many a time

  I have been half in love with easeful Death,

  Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

  To take into the air my quiet breath;

  Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

  While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

  In such an ecstasy!

  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

  To thy high requiem become a sod.

  Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

  There were times when Eben Golah did not come to the clandestine meetings in my father’s study. Along with a few others, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was set to the task of traveling and spreading the word of our plight in Germany.

  I asked Mama if we would see Eben again.

  “I think so. He is hard at work, Papa says.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Back in England, I suppose. He has influential connections with the English writers. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien are among his friends. They are speaking and writing.”

  And then I asked a question that surprised me even as I spoke. “Who is Eben, Mama? Or…what is Eben?”

  It seemed like minutes passed before she replied with words like a poem. “He is the nightingale. An an
cient voice sings at every twilight. His song is heard more clearly in the darkness.”

  _____________________

  1 See 1 John 4:4.

  6

  It is true that unrequited love can be very close to hate. I loved Eben. I hated Eben. Though Papa was oblivious to my sulky behavior when Eben came to the house for meetings, Mama noticed my pouty looks. She made mental note of the nights when I pretended to be ill so I could retreat to my bed and pine away in the darkness.

  It was a Monday night sometime after my aunt Anna, uncle Theo, cousin Elisa, and her American husband, John Murphy, had escaped to the safety of England. The Jewish Agency and my father’s evangelical Christian organization were working hard to arrange Kindertransports for Jewish children. Papa had organized a meeting of Christian pastors and Jewish Agency representatives from Great Britain that had lasted most of the night. Eben was among the group. Though I did not see him, I had listened to Eben speaking through the furnace grate. I longed to tell him again how much he meant to me. I remembered Frau Helga’s story of the white rose and the nightingale.

  Eben’s mellow, confident words were the nightingale’s song. Though I thought I had put him out of my mind, I was sick with love for him.

  At last I fell asleep, aching for him to come into my room and take me into his arms. I dreamed all night about the White Rose Inn and Hafflinger horses grazing in a field around an enormous Tannenbaum decorated with English volumes of Shakespeare and Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, while Eben sang.

  My dream made no sense, but it was a pleasant escape from the reality of the Reich.

  Mama knocked softly on my door the next morning before I was awake. “Lora?”

  I answered with a reluctant groan. The clock said half-six. I opened my eyes as, with a cup of steaming tea, she came in quietly and sat on the edge of my bed. She was beautiful in a soft blue cotton robe and slippers.

  Mama did not speak. She merely took a sip of tea, then offered me a pitying smile.

  “Mama?” I asked. “What?”

  “I want to tell you something about myself. Between us girls.”

  “All right, Mama. But at half-six?”

  “Isn’t everyone asleep?” she whispered.

  “Not you.”

  “Lora, darling?”

  “Mama?”

  “When I was younger than you, there was a music teacher. His name was George Helstrom. A young fellow, a music professor out of Amarillo. Handsome, handsome. Oh! I tell you, he was the love of my life, wasn’t he just?”

  This was interesting. I propped myself up on my elbow. She offered me a taste of her tea. Suddenly we were more like girlfriends than mother and daughter. I still had not grasped why she was sharing such a deep, intimate secret with me.

  “And?”

  “He loved another. Terribly. But she didn’t love him, poor fellow. I loved him. Wouldn’t my heart pound every time he came to the house? Just imagine how poor George and I suffered.”

  Mama brushed my hair with her fingers. I asked, “What happened to George?”

  “He ran off to Hollywood and married a rich girl. Works for his cousin at a film studio. A director of Marx Brothers movies. Can you just imagine?”

  “And you?”

  “I married your papa and have been happy every day of my life. I should have known all along: how could I have ever loved a man who would move to Hollywood and get hitched for money? So shallow.”

  “Mama?” I paused, wanting to tell her everything.

  “Yes?” She lowered her chin, and I knew she knew.

  “Eben is not shallow.”

  “No.”

  “I have loved him since the first time I ever saw him.”

  “I know, dear.”

  “He is older than I am.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I know he doesn’t care about me. He thinks I am a child.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “Poor Varrick.”

  “Yes. Poor boy.”

  “I think he loves you very much.”

  “Perhaps he does. But Mama, how can I fight such a love as I feel for Eben?”

  Now her expression grew more serious. “Has Eben told you how he feels?”

  “I told him how I felt.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He…said he would tell Papa how foolish I am.”

  Mama sighed with relief. “Well, then. How can you love a man who threatens to tell your father everything?”

  “I thought the very same thing. Cruel.”

  “But young Varrick. Can’t you just see how he could be helped through this difficult time by a mature young woman who sees things as they are?”

  I considered her suggestion. “I like Varrick. Once I thought I loved him. Perhaps I did in a way.”

  “Maybe you’ll find a reason to love again, Loralei Bittick. Just don’t give up hope. Aren’t I certain the Lord has some fine young man for you to love?”

  “How old is Eben?”

  “Perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight, I would guess. Thirty?”

  “Mature.”

  Mama looked at her hands a long time before she answered. “You cannot know the life of a man like Eben Golah. Few know him well. Your father knows his history but tells me nothing about him. Perhaps he is too old for you. I do think so. If he is ten years older than you, think of it. When you are my age…forty-six…wouldn’t he be fifty-six?”

  A shocking thought. “Oh, dear. So old.” I lay back on my pillow. I felt as though my soul was purged. I rubbed her hand. “Thank you, Mama. I have felt very alone until this morning.”

  Mama winked. She seemed so very young in that instant. I marveled that my own mother did not look even close to her age. “Between us girls, eh? I’d hate for your father to ever think I wanted to marry a fellow who lives in Hollywood.”

  Just as Mama’s American citizenship protected my father’s interim ministry in Germany, my U.S. citizenship became a cherished treasure that might somehow save lives.

  As I completed my studies at the dining room table late one night, men I had first met at the White Rose Inn discussed the saving of even one Jewish life.

  Bonhoeffer, Eben Golah, and members of the desperate Jewish community, including Varrick’s father, Mr. Kepler, used my mother’s citizenship as an example. The Nazis still feared American opinion. As long as America remained neutral, the Third Reich could do whatever they liked. The Nazis were not eager to offend Americans by preventing Jews or German opposition from leaving. The marriage of a Jew to an American might open the way for an entire family to emigrate to the U.S.

  I heard Mr. Varrick say, “The only way now for a German Jew to obtain a visa to the U.S. is by marriage to an American.”

  Bonhoeffer said, “What we need is a surplus of American men and women willing to marry.”

  Varrick’s father immediately cried, “My son Varrick has great affection for your daughter Lora, Pastor Bittick! Could we not consider—”

  Then Eben added, “Robert, the marriage of your daughter to young Varrick could possibly open the door for all the Kepler family to escape. Would your daughter Lora consider such an arrangement?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face as I heard my name on Eben’s lips, emanating from behind the door panel of Papa’s study. Marriage?

  Mama came out of the kitchen door. She was drying her hands on a dishtowel. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes grew wide. She looked at me, then stared at the door. She lapsed into English and said in her strong Texas accent, “Are those men discussing what I think they are discussing?”

  I nodded and closed my book. “Oh, Mama.”

  “Marry you off like a mail-order bride?” She threw the towel onto the table and untied her apron. “I’ll set those fools straight.” She started toward the door.

  I stood. “Mama, don’t. Don’t! They’re right!”

  She turned on her heel and stared at me as the dialogue behind the door continued. My heart pounded.

  �
�What are you saying, Loralei Bittick? Marry a young man you don’t love so he can get a visa to America…”

  “So he can be free? Oh, Mama! Yes! Yes, I’ll do it. I’ll marry Varrick in a minute, if he wants to. This is the first time I’ve felt…like I can do something. Don’t you see? I will!”

  Mama’s beautiful lips curved in a knowing smile. “But Lora, you don’t love him, do you?”

  I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Did I? Did I love Varrick? Or was I still hanging on to some shred of hope about the older man in my life? Was I still dreaming of Eben?

  “Jesus,” I whispered, “help me know what to do.”

  Mama put her arms around me. I cried a little on her shoulder. “I…like Varrick. A lot. Maybe love. I mean, I think I could love him. But that’s not the point. The Kepler family…all of them. If this is the way—”

  She stroked my hair. “You are amazing, Lora. You know you are, honey?”

  I nodded. Suddenly I was no longer helpless. I could make a difference in a world gone mad.

  “I’ll tell them,” I volunteered. “If Varrick Kepler will have me for a wife—I mean, if it’s okay with Varrick—it’s okay with me.”

  And so, in March 1938, Varrick and I were married by my father in a quiet ceremony witnessed by an American newsman named Shane Dean, who was on assignment in Berlin. My parents knew him well. His report of our wedding was sent by wire to the American newspapers. It was illegal in Germany for a non-Jew to marry a Jew, but my citizenship put the issue outside Nazi jurisdiction. An article was printed in the New York Times pronouncing that true love had even overcome the racial laws of National Socialism.

  Varrick and I spent our first two nights holding hands on a slow train carrying us to our honeymoon across the German border to Kitzbuhl, Austria. The newsman also rode on the same train as we and in the same carriage, in case there was trouble from the authorities.

  His presence and our marriage certificate, combined with my American passport, made the crossing uncomplicated. From Austria, the plan was for Varrick to go on to Switzerland without me. We would meet again later. I would return to Berlin to start arranging papers for his family.