The Gathering Storm

by Bodie Thoene

  “They are coming to England,” I whispered to Jessica. “All the boys who escaped.”

  “I was praying for them. For their wives and mothers. Just now.”

  “What was it the BBC was reporting before the telegram? Food and blankets. Clean clothes? The trains from Dover crammed with wounded. Rail station platforms overflowing with survivors.” I struggled to stand. “Poor fellows. I must go there, Jessica. Help them. So many. But every one of them—any one of those boys—could have been my Varrick. Perhaps on his journey some woman brought him food. Perhaps—”

  Jessica looked up at me. Lightning flashed again, and I saw her expression, beauty cast in pewter light. She smiled. “There’s my girl.”

  Clouds burst. Rain roared like a river from the eaves.

  “Varrick would want me to go. Expect me to go.”

  “Yes.” Jessica grasped my fallen umbrella and stood up. “We’ll go together.”

  The pendulum of the tall clock in the foyer swung. The hour struck. Too late…too late…too late…too late…

  The unthinkable was now our reality.

  Before we managed to get out the door, the phone rang. “I—I don’t think I can talk just now,” I said.

  Jessica went down the hall to answer it. When she returned she said, “It’s Eva. Says she’s met an American missionary and orphans. They’re in London. Lora, they need translators at St. Mark’s Church.”

  I knew the church on North Audley Street well. St. Mark’s was a block from the American Embassy near Grosvenor Square. Known as the American Church in London, it was a gathering place for important evangelical church leaders from the U.S.

  “Eva says St. Mark’s has been made into a temporary shelter. And will we come?”

  “Call her back and tell her we’ll be there soon.” As if to hurry us along, the downpour slowed to a drizzle and stopped altogether.

  Into a hamper Jessica and I gathered tins of tea, bread, scones, and pots of jam, along with our kettle and teacups. (But not Mama’s precious teacups, which were secured in a cupboard.)

  Arlice would watch the girls for the night. Shalom was coming with us.

  Switching off the light, we emerged from the house into the utter darkness of London. The air was rain-washed, fresh and cool. A breeze swept over us from Regent’s Park.

  I might have been happy to experience the sweet scent of the plane trees. If only…

  I steeled myself. I would not think of Varrick tonight. Perhaps tomorrow, when the sun rose, I would have time to mourn, but not now. Tonight the world no longer revolved around me.

  There was a slight reflected glow on the street from the slit headlamps of automobiles. The curbs were painted white, which helped a bit. Without stars or moon shining down on us, we felt our way along the sidewalk.

  Jessica asked, “Shall we try for a bus? Or walk a bit?”

  “Bus.” We linked arms as we made our way across the road to the usual bus stop at the park. Fifteen long minutes passed. I wondered if the buses were still running. Then a taxi rattled to the curb. Pinpoints of light shone from the headlights. How had he seen us? I wondered. I could not make out his face as he spoke.

  “Evenin’, ladies.”

  “Will you please take us to St. Mark’s Church in North Audley?”

  “Americans, eh? Righty-o.”

  The taxi driver said little as he drove us from Primrose Hill toward Mayfair. I did not know where we were as he drove, nor could I say what route he took to get us to the church. Suddenly his brakes squealed, and we were in front of the pillared portico of St. Mark’s.

  Stepping out, I pressed coins into the cabbie’s palm. Already I could hear a babble of voices from within the shadowed maw of St. Mark’s. The great stained-glass window above the entry was cloaked in black drapes. In former days light from within the building radiated out. It had displayed a stunning portrait of Christ the King in his majesty, standing among the seven candlesticks of the seven churches of His revelation.

  So, I thought, as we entered the packed and bustling building, the long arm of the Nazis has reached in to hide God’s glory even in the American Church of London.

  Within the sanctuary every window was painted over or boarded up. A dim glow illuminating the human misery in the crowded hall reached upward to the hammer-beams supporting the ceiling. I saw the outline of the now obscured clerestory windows just below the roofline. In each the leaded glass pattern of the Star of David was barely visible. The colors of God’s Covenant with Israel were concealed. On every wall, the stained-glass visions of our Savior were painted over, lest German bombers flying high above London see Christ’s light and bomb St. Mark’s.

  It had come to this: Nazi oppression cast a shadow over the whole of the terrified earth, and a friendly gleam of light could produce death.

  18

  In search of Eva I scanned the restless refugees who packed St. Mark’s Church. Built for the orderly worship needs of 1,500 Victorian parishioners, the Greek-revival structure was never meant to house five hundred homeless hungry people who had lost everything but their clothes.

  Against my will I remembered the fires of Kristallnacht in Berlin. The ashes of Jewish homes had filled my nostrils. We had left everything behind that night…everything. Surely the strong presence of my mother would be with me tonight, as comforting to many as she was for me.

  I had so little strength to offer. I walked between two worlds: the world where Varrick peopled my memories and the hollow, accepting emptiness of my loss.

  Where was Eva?

  She was nowhere to be seen.

  Confusion reigned in St. Mark’s. The dark cherrywood pews on the floor of the church were being transformed into beds by a mix of quarreling French, Dutch, and Belgian refugees. They had somehow managed as we had, amid the chaos of war, to sail across the Channel in small vessels. Women and children dominated the population. A handful of American expatriates were among them. The cacophony of foreign languages and the cries of hungry, exhausted children were deafening.

  Jessica, who had mastered five languages in our family’s travels, scanned the crowd and spotted a harried, dowdy British matron serving tea near the altar rail. It was clear she spoke only English and a smattering of unintelligible French. Every nuance of communication was lost to her.

  A Belgian woman with two small boys whining at her side asked in clear Flemish where the lavatory was located. The Brit grimaced at the rafters and tried to comprehend, then replied in fractured French, “No. No, thank you. Patient her prevail. Tomorrow he bathe.”

  The refugee blinked in horror at the butchered verbiage. “Tomorrow?”

  “Oui.” The British matron seemed pleased to have communicated successfully.

  The Belgian spread her hands in exasperation. She gestured emphatically at her squirming little boys, then firmly complained, “Tomorrow, too late!”

  The tea-server tried another approach. In very loud and carefully pronounced English she said, “PLEASE TAKE YOUR TEA AND BE SEATED. WE WILL FIND A PLACE FOR YOU TO SLEEP SOON.” She sighed and muttered to herself, “Somewhere.” The matron continued to dole out weak tea in mismatched cups to a line of weary and anxious exiles.

  Shalom tucked into the crook of one arm, Jessica grasped the Belgian lady’s and marched her to a narrow passageway flanking the narthex. Together they discovered two lavatories. Jessica bid the grateful mother adieu and made her way back to a queue of other dejected supplicants yammering in French at the hapless matron. In precise language Jessica stepped up and directed the women and their young ones to the toilets. The troop evaporated.

  “What did you say to them?” the tea attendant asked in wonder.

  With a smile, Jessica introduced herself. “I’m Jessica. This is my sister, Lora. Both our husbands and our father were killed fighting the Nazis.” Jessica’s matter-of-fact pronouncement dissolved any suspicion.

  The matron managed, “I’m dreadfully sorry for you both. And I am extremely pleased to meet yo
u, as you might imagine. Hermione’s my name.”

  Jessica asked, “How can we serve?”

  Beads of perspiration clung to the woman’s round, flushed face. “No one here seems to speak English except myself.” Then she added in what pretended to be a confidential whisper, “One cannot count the Americans as English speakers.”

  Jessica did not take advantage of Hermione’s gaffe. “We received a call that there was a need for interpreters? My sister and I—”

  Hermione pressed her palms together in a prayerful gesture of gratitude to God. Grasping my sister’s hands with relief she cried, “An angel, you say? Two angels? I am Missus Hermione Smythe-Jones, also widowed, but my late husband was a bigamist and a drunkard, and thus not as noble as your own. By the grace of God I am secretary to the pastor of St. Mark’s. Reverend Hill and his wife are quite ill with bronchitis, so this disaster has fallen upon my head. A judgment of the Almighty for my slackness in school in the study of languages. Every foreign tongue is Greek to me.”

  Jessica replied, “May I call you Hermione? It seems we have come to the right place.”

  Setting the hamper on the table, Jessica went to work with confidence, issuing orders as if we were back home. Somehow the throngs previously milling in disarray between the horseshoe-shaped arches and the ranks of immigrants acquired a newfound orderliness.

  It was like watching Mama and Papa rolled into one. I was so glad to have Jessica take charge.

  “Lora, find paper. Look in the church office for supplies. Paint signs in every language you can think of, directing to the lavatories. Also post signs for male and female.” As I hurried off, I heard her say firmly, “We must divide the hall into sections. Sleeping arrangements by nationality. War has made too strange the bedfellows here in St. Mark’s. Belgians do not like the French. Dutch do not like the Belgians. The French do not like anyone.”

  Jessica was suddenly at her best: taking charge and organizing the chaos of misery into method. Everyone she met exclaimed about what a beautiful child Shalom was. The baby and his winning smile were the only credentials required for women of all nations to trust Jessica and obey.

  As for me? I did not have a moment to think of my loss. No time to grieve. I saw grief on the faces of nearly every wife and mother in the church that night. I walked among them, understanding in part their sorrow. We women of the war were divided by language and nationality, but loss united our hearts.

  What had they endured to bring their children to this island haven? What scenes of death had they seen on the highways as they fled for their lives?

  Hollow, vacant eyes identified those who had suffered the worst. Those who sat alone, unseeing, were the most wretched. They carried the image of Luftwaffe dive-bombers etched into their faces. Bombs and machine-gun bullets had scored their souls, even if their bodies were undamaged.

  “Stay busy, Lora,” Jessica warned. “Keep your thoughts focused. There’s so much to do. Better for you too.”

  The gallery and choir loft overlooking the auditorium was reserved for single women and girls over the age of ten, as well as women who were pregnant or nursing infants. Did they find comfort and security beneath the image of Jesus as the coming King? Or had desperation and weariness left them desolate and without consolation?

  There were less than seventy-five men in the number. For the sake of modesty, men and boys above the age of ten were assigned the crypt as their quarters.

  A chapel at the front of the left aisle was commandeered as a place to offer clothing, blankets, and hot tea to all, regardless of nationality. The walls were lined with memorials to the fallen British dead of the Great War. Bronzes and marbles honoring brave young men who had lived and died before I was born offered cold comfort to present hurts.

  French and Belgian women with children outnumbered the Dutch and were assigned the back three-quarters of the auditorium. They were closest to the toilets. The Dutch occupied the front quadrant of the left aisle, nearest the tea trolley and the supplies.

  It was some time after midnight when the hubbub in the church began to settle down. The women bedded on the gallery pews spoke very softly to one another. Children slept propped upon their mother’s shoulders.

  Hermione lumbered toward Jessica and me with cups of tea on a tray. “Well done,” she said, and we three sat down near the back of the hall.

  I sipped my tea, conscious of my exhaustion, grateful to be weary. Perhaps I would sleep tonight and not dream of where I had come from. Perhaps I would not wonder where I was going.

  Jessica and Hermione, now fast friends, discussed what must be done tomorrow: food and clean clothes. Organize transport into the countryside for women and children.

  I inhaled the steaming brew and peered around the sanctuary. One window, boarded up on the outside, drew my attention. Even in the darkness I could see another stained-glass image of young Mary holding the Christ child in her arms. At that moment in her life did she know what sorrow awaited her? Had she really understood the words of the man who warned her that a sword would pierce her heart? Somehow that image and the picture of Judah Blood saying he would use me as a model for a Madonna were entangled in my mind.

  Love was so dangerous, I thought, as I looked out over the human driftwood that had washed onto England’s shores. Once they had been teachers and housewives and women waiting for their men to come home from work. They had cared about shoes and silverware and school reports. They had mirrored beauty, anger, affection, and expectation. They had identified themselves by where they lived, and who their neighborhood greengrocer was, and how many family members were coming to supper on Christmas Eve.

  All that was gone. What were they now? Who were they without all the things they had believed made up their lives?

  I heard the door of the sanctuary open and close. Eva and her Mac, now safely returned from Dunkirk, entered. They were surrounded by a little flock of ragged children. I stood. Jessica stood with me. Eva waved with some amazement at the tranquility of the sleeping refugees. Hermione saw her duty and hurried off to fetch more tea.

  And then I spotted him…just behind Mac’s right shoulder. It was Eben Golah. He seemed like a ghost who had stepped from the past to remind me of a time when there might have been a way to stop this…all this.

  My heart beat the message. “Too late…too late…too late…”

  Eben was unchanged. His resolute expression was unmistakable. His gaze fixed on the baby in Jessica’s arms. And then he looked at me, full on, taking me in, just as he had when we were in Switzerland.

  His look seemed to say to me, “So, Lora. We have come to this moment at last. The German church shrugged and accepted the socialist plans of Hitler as though it was the will of God. The German nation has shut out the light of Christ. And now the churches of England and the world must shut in the light.”

  It came to me that Eben was not surprised to see me standing erect among the wreckage. It had all come to pass, just as Eben predicted.

  As I helped a mother and two children settle in the side chapel, I felt Eben’s gaze upon me. I remembered our encounter beside the pasture in Switzerland when I foolishly proclaimed my love for him. What a child I had been. It had ended with Eben threatening to tell my father.

  Now I was not a schoolgirl but a woman, and a widow.

  I did not want to speak to him—not now. The deaths of Varrick and my father were too fresh to try to make small talk. The reality of what had befallen the world since that blissful summer was too painful. My infatuation for Eben was long over, leaving behind only a residue of embarrassment.

  He did not approach me but waited at the top of the aisle until I finished my task.

  I glanced up, hoping to appear uninterested in his presence. His gaze was strong and full, taking me in like an embrace. I raised my hand in a slight acknowledgment as I scanned the dimly lit auditorium for Jessica and the others. Jessica was in the back of the church. I walked toward her. It was enough for Eben.

&n
bsp; He lowered his chin and met me, blocking my path. He took my arm and guided me into an alcove.”Lora, my White Rose.” Handsome. Confident. Unchanged. Arrogant?

  “Just Lora.”

  “Never…just.”

  “Too much has happened for us to have this conversation as if I am a child you can tease and flatter.”

  He bowed slightly. “Of course you are right, Missus Kepler.”

  “You heard about Varrick?”

  “Eva told me, yes. I’m sorry. And for the loss of your father. A great man.”

  “It doesn’t seem to matter how great or good, does it, Eben?” I felt angry. Bitter. “My father dead in his prime. My husband killed before we could have a life together. It’s all too late.”

  “Yes.” His intense green eyes seemed to see into my soul. “I am sorry for you, Lora.”

  “Thanks. I suppose your sympathy should make me feel better, but it’s too fresh, Eben. And all that talk—all those meetings—what good did it do?”

  “You’re here. You and thousands of others made it out.”

  “A drop in the bucket, and you know it.”

  “Every drop matters, Lora.”

  Ashamed, I answered, “Of course. Every…what I meant was…”

  “Yes, I know what you meant. You were listening to us. A white rose clinging to the banister. You bloomed above us in your little loft while we talked about saving millions.”

  I remembered that summer. I had not cared when they spoke of saving lives. Selfish and vain, I had thought only of how much I loved Eben. At the memory, the blush climbed to my cheek once again.

  “What is it?” Eben asked.

  “We were all young and innocent then, weren’t we? White roses reaching for the light?” An angry tear escaped, coursing down my cheek.

  He was silent for a time, as if he heard a distant voice. Raising his index finger to my face, he caught my tear and raised it to his mouth, tasting my sorrow. Eben whispered, “Lora. White Rose.” Then his hand caressed my cheek so tenderly I could not draw back. A moment more he held me with his eyes before he left.