After the Train (8 page)

With the pig safely in its box, we huddle together behind some houses waiting for my hair and shirt to dry in the warm summer night while keeping an eye on the movie to see when it’s over. We keep telling one another what happened. “They were falling down like bowling pins,” Hans said.

“That was my pig,” Kurt boasts.

“I just walked in and scooped it up,” Hans says, “and one of the men gave me three deutschmarks.”

“I should get half,” Kurt said. “You couldn’t have caught the pig if I hadn’t put it there.”

Hans says, “I’ve got some money saved. I’ll add it to that and buy a new size-five soccer ball and we can all use it.” Kurt, who loves soccer as much as he loves telling people what to do, is satisfied.

The doors of the movie theater open and people began to stream out. I give my wet hair a final pat and button Hans’s sweater over my damp shirt. We shake hands and solemnly promise never to reveal what we have done; then we all head in different directions, the sound of Hans whistling following me for the first block.

Mother and Father are sitting on the steps of the front porch having their nighttime cups of tea. “Well, how was the movie?” Father asks.

“It was great. Lots of excitement.”

“Not nearly as much excitement as there was at the hotel tonight.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well,” Mother says, “Herr Heintz next door was at the bar of the hotel having a beer and there was some sort of meeting in the next room. Suddenly all the lights went out. A minute later the sprinkler system was triggered. According to Heintz the men at the meeting were up to no good. Anyhow, they all got soaked, and what’s more, a greased pig got loose in their midst.”

Father says, “Whatever those men were up to, I don’t think they’ll be having any more meetings here in Rolfen. Too bad you were at the movies and missed all the fun.”

I
LONG TO TELL
Herr Schafer about our adventure, but I don’t want to get Hans or Kurt into trouble. I have pledged silence and I won’t break my word. Herr Schafer arrives at work with his dinner as well as his lunch pail. “Why are you bringing your dinner with you?” I ask.

“Some friends and I are turning an old building into a synagogue, and we want to finish the work before the cold weather comes. I lay bricks all day and then I do the same until dark.” He laughs. “At night I dream about laying bricks.”

“Dad showed me the plans for your synagogue. Maybe I could help you.” I’m curious about what a synagogue looks like. Besides, Herr Schafer works on our church,
so I don’t see why I can’t work on his synagogue.

“By all means come and help, but only if it’s agreeable to your parents and only for an occasional evening. Your vacation is coming to an end, and you won’t want to spend the few evenings you have left laying bricks.”

After supper that evening I slip out of the house, saying nothing to my parents, for I could see my going to the dinner with the Kassels worried them. Every time I get ready to leave the house, they ask me in roundabout ways what I’m going to do and who I’m going to be with. I’m not going to lie to my parents, but I don’t want to cause them any more worry, so on this night I sneak out while they’re listening to the evening news on the radio.

I have no trouble finding the little house Herr Schafer and his friends are turning into a synagogue. One tumbledown wall and half of a second wall have been repaired. Herr Schafer and Herr Kassel welcome me, but the third man, a Herr Schocken, only nods in a brusk way and, glowering at me, goes on with his carpentry work.

Herr Schafer explains, “We have more than ten Jewish men now in Rolfen, which means that we can have our own house of prayer. Several gather here every day and a few men come twice a day.” Church twice
a day! I am suddenly less enthusiastic about the Jewish religion. Herr Schafer sees the look on my face, and laughing, he says, “I’m afraid I’m not so observant. I come only once a week and on holidays.”

He takes me inside to show me the building, which surprises me, because the inside is nearly finished. “We’re working from the inside out so we can have services. Christians have an altar, Peter; we have the Holy Ark, which contains the Torah.” Sheltering the ark is a velvet curtain. Herr Schafer says it was sewn by Mrs. Kassel. “This stand is like a pulpit. It’s where we read the Torah.” There is a lantern with a little light in it. “The eternal light,” he explains, “to remind us of the lamp in the Temple in Jerusalem, which never went out.”

After showing me around, he says, “Now I must get back to my bricks. I see you have come in your work clothes, so if you want to help, you are welcome.”

When we join the others, Herr Schafer surprises me by saying, “Peter is skilled enough to lay bricks with me; he’s been doing that at St. Mary’s.”

At that Herr Schocken does some more glowering and grumbles, “David, this is no playground for boys to learn a trade. Let him learn at St. Mary’s. If he wants to do something, he can put the bricks where you can get at them.”

Herr Schafer has his mouth open to say something, but he closes it again and nods in the direction of the pile of bricks that stands on the sidewalk. In no time I am watering bricks down and piling them up, and Herr Schocken, noticing I’m working hard, is no longer glowering. I stick it out for two hours. Herr Schafer and the other men are still working when I leave. It’s warm out and I feel hot and sweaty from my work. My back aches and there is a scrape on my hand that burns. A huge August moon climbs up from the horizon, making a gold path on the canal. I remember that Hans and Kurt have talked about going for a swim. I wish I had gone with them. I’m still angry at Herr Schocken for not letting me help to lay the bricks. I decide he can build his synagogue without me.

Hans is as good as his word and has bought a new soccer ball. In the days before school starts, the three of us spend all our extra time practicing, hoping to make the team when school opens. The last evenings of summer cannot be long enough. I gulp down my supper and am out the door to meet Kurt and Hans on the field we have appropriated for our practice. The evenings are a little cooler now, the dark comes quicker, the hours seem shorter. Hans is a wild man on the soccer field, everywhere at once, taking risks and making huge misses and
terrific kicks. Kurt is careful and accurate. He doesn’t always get the ball, but when he does, he knows what to do with it. I’m halfway between. What I love about the game is that the only thing I need to think about is what’s going on on the field. When it’s too dark to see the ball, we walk slowly home, not wanting the night to end, knowing each day brings us closer to school.

No one is happier with my nightly soccer practice than my mother and father. Once when I slip back into the house to change my shoes, I overhear Mother say, “We have our Peter back again.” I know they hope I have put the question of my birth mother out of my head. Of course I haven’t. I am just trying to keep so busy, I won’t have time to think about her or about anything connected with that other life. I can’t keep busy every minute, so there are still times when I wonder what my life would be if there had been no war and no death camps, if I and my birth mother and father had lived out our lives together. I try to guess what my home would have been like. Perhaps I would have had brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. It makes me sad to think that that life will never be except in my imagination.

Herr Schafer and I still have our lunches together, but he doesn’t mention my Jewish heritage. I know he
is waiting for me to be the first to mention it. I avoid the subject. Our talk now is of the celebration that is coming for the completion of St. Mary’s. When the last bricks are laid, Herr Schafer says good-bye to me. We promise to keep in touch. When I ask how the synagogue is coming along, feeling a little guilty about not having returned to help, he says it will soon be finished.

The Sunday we celebrate St. Mary’s completion, the whole town turns out in their best clothes. It is an early-fall day and the sky is a deep blue. Once more the bells ring out across the town. The church is so filled with flowers, it looks as if spring has come again. At the organ Herr Brandt plays a fine tune that I am sure must be something by his favorite composer, Bach. The deep chords of the organ fill the church and make me feel I have been picked up and shaken. The sun shines on the gilded wood and lights fires in the blues and reds of the stained-glass windows. The choristers in their new robes, black as night and white as snow, march down the aisle to Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and indeed, St. Mary’s seems like the fortress of a great lord. Pastor Heuer, his glasses shining in the candlelight, mounts the pulpit and opens the ancient Bible that has been a part of the church for hundreds of years. Above us the steeples reach high into heaven
and the service begins. Mother clasps my hand. Father heaves a deep sigh as if he has just put down a great burden. I see tears in his eyes.

To keep the workmen from getting too conceited about their work, Pastor Heuer clears his throat and reads from the Old Testament, “‘For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.’”

After the service people come up to Father and congratulate him on his part in restoring the church. There is a special dinner at the town hall for all the workmen. Herr Schafer isn’t at the service, but he is there at the dinner. I am caught in the crush around Father, and by the time I break away, Herr Schafer is gone. I resolve to visit him before the week is over, but all week there are the tryouts for the school soccer team. When Hans, Kurt, and I make the team, after-school hours are taken up with practice. Being on the team gives me a higher status at school. I never lack for lunch partners, and Ruth Kassel agrees to go to the movies with me. My assignment on Stauffenberg got me a good mark from Herr Schmidt, but that all seems a long time ago. My nightmares have disappeared. I look at my parents in a new way. I think of the chance they took for me. If it weren’t for their courage, I wouldn’t be here, going to school, walking down the streets of Rolfen on a fine September
day. Every step I take is a gift from them—and from my birth mother.

It’s a day in late October. Many of the trees are bare, and Mother has taken in all her flowerpots because of a threat of an early-morning frost. In a good mood because our soccer coach has made me a forward, I’m helping Mother dry the dinner dishes, taking pleasure in holding the glasses up to the light to be sure all the smudges are gone. Father is sitting at the kitchen table turning over the pages of the newspaper, mumbling to himself as he does when there’s some political nonsense that excites him. Suddenly he lets out a little gasp, as if someone has punched him in the stomach.

“Bernhard, what is it?” Mother asks.

Father opens his mouth and then shuts it as if he can’t make up his mind about telling us. I bend over his shoulder and see a small article headlined
NEW ROLFEN SYNAGOGUE SET ON FIRE
. I take in the rest of the article at a gulp, throw down the dish towel, grab my jacket, and am out the door, ignoring Father’s plea to wait. The article says the fire occurred on the day before the synagogue was to celebrate its opening. I’m sure someone has watched the efforts of Herr Schafer and the others, cruelly waiting until they were finished.

The wooden door to the synagogue and the roof are badly burned. Herr Schafer, Herr Schocken, and Herr Kassel are on the roof tearing off scorched shingles. A group of silent watchers, mostly kids, stands about. I walk up to them and say in an angry voice, “If you aren’t going to help, you can take off instead of standing there gawking!” Embarrassed, they melt away.

I gather up the discarded shingles and stack them neatly and then at Herr Schafer’s bidding open a bundle of new shingles that lies beside the building and carry them up a ladder to give to the men. Herr Schocken hands me an extra hammer. “Herr Schafer will show you how,” he says. There is no grumbling and no talk of my learning at their expense. We work steadily with little conversation, only a few sly jokes between Herr Kassel and Herr Schafer about who is working faster versus who is making a better job of it.

When it becomes too dark to see what we are doing, we climb down from the roof. Herr Kassel and Herr Schocken go on their way. Herr Schafer says, “We’re all taking turns sleeping here to keep watch. Tonight it’s my turn. It’s good of you to help, Peter. I can’t think why there must be this destruction of the places where people go to find their God. It’s like the wood carving in St. Mary’s of the little mouse gnawing at the roots of
an oak tree. It takes only a few evil people to eat away at the character of a town. Every unkind act cheapens this town and makes it easier for the next person to commit some spitefulness.

“But Peter, some good has come of the evil. Many people on this street have brought us food while we worked, and like yourself, they have lent us a hand. Still it was a cruel thing, and between you and me, Peter, it made me think of leaving Rolfen. Last week I had a letter inviting me to come to a university in the United States. I miss teaching and I feel my life is wasted in the laying of bricks. I was ready to accept, but now I don’t know. It would be running away from my friends at a difficult time. Germany is still my
Vaterland
, my homeland, and I won’t turn it over to a few hoodlums.”

“Do you know who did it, Herr Schafer?”

“The firemen knew it was arson. They could tell almost at once what started the fire from the smell. It was carbon tetrachloride, a chemical used in dry-cleaning shops.”

Dieter Kroner’s name pops into my head. “There’s this boy at school whose father owns a dry-cleaning store. He never believed what Herr Schmidt told us in class about what happened to Jews. I’ll bet he did it.”

“The fire department and the police are investigating.
Leave it to them, Peter. I’m not interested in revenge. Revenge begets revenge. Let’s not speak of it anymore. Tell me how you are. I’ve missed our talks.”

“I wanted to see you, but I made the soccer team and there’s practice in the afternoons and then at night some of us get together for a scrimmage.” The minute the words are out of my mouth, I realize what a lame excuse it is.

“Peter, you’d never believe it from the belly I carry around now, but when I was your age I was quite the soccer player. I played at Heidelberg University. Maybe I’ll come and watch one of your practices.”

I walk home from the synagogue in darkness. Pads of damp leaves lie long the sidewalk and smell of autumn. It’s the strong smell of the leaves that makes me think of Herr Schafer saying the firemen could smell carbon tetrachloride. I don’t want to believe that Dieter would have done something so evil, and even if he had, I wouldn’t know how to prove it. Without proof it would be wrong to accuse him. I don’t understand how God could let such things happen. Father always says, “Don’t judge God by what men do,” but life seems very mysterious, full of questions and not a lot of answers.

I ask myself why I have made no move to practice my Jewish faith. Do I sincerely believe the Christian
faith in which I was raised, or am I just avoiding a lot of the kind of hatred that caused the burning of the synagogue? When I see ahead of me the lighted windows of our house, I start to run as if someone is chasing me and our house is the only safe place in the world.

To my surprise Herr Schafer turns up the next night for our soccer scrimmage. Anyone interested can play. Herr Buchhalter, the chemistry teacher from school, is there most nights. Karl Mann, a policeman, comes with his red-and-blue striped shirt, and Gustav Uhlich comes too. Werner Kreutzer, the barber, is umpire. Kreutzer actually saw the World Cup championship game when Germany won in 1954, so having him here makes our scrimmage seem like the real thing. Everyone knows Kreutzer longs to play, but he weighs about three hundred pounds and even blowing his whistle leaves him short of breath.