The Gathering Storm (33 page)

~ 261 ~

"I'm not sure we can do that," I said with reluctance. It was difficult to pass up any willing volunteers. "Without the consent of the Tunstalls we couldn't billet children—"

Meghan's plump hands flew to her rosy cheeks. "Oh, I wasn't meanin' that! Not atall, atall! Never in the big house! I've me own cottage, don'tcha see, as does Liam. Well, mine's good and snug, with a fine thatched roof. And I've got room and to spare...now." She paused, seeming to need a moment to come to grips with some inner turmoil, before continuing.

"Anyways," she resumed, "Liam allows as how he could use the
help, what with him gettin' on in years, and there still bein' the livestock and the gardens to tend and all. So if you'd be havin' a pair of strapping girls not afraid of a bit o' work, I promise to see 'em cared for and fed and all."

My thoughts instantly leapt to the Cohen sisters. Ages ten and fourteen, they were raven-haired Jewish beauties from Hamburg. With their heavy, dark eyebrows and prominent noses the girls were the total antithesis of Aryan perfection and well off to be out of Germany. They had left father and mother and one older brother behind, not knowing if they would ever see them again.

Strong and bright, you would think their placement would be simple, but it had not proved so. They spoke Yiddish and German, but their English was limited to a few simple phrases. This had already been cause enough for them to be considered and rejected a few times; that, and the fact they were desperate to not be separated from each other.

I had tried to reassure them that any parting would be only temporary, but the younger, Leah, clung to her sister, Naomi, and sobbed. I made up my mind to keep them together at all costs.

"Meghan, I think that's a wonderful idea. And I think I know just the girls for you."

I summoned Leah and Naomi from where the sisters were helping
mothers tend their babies. I had them stand beside me and instructed
them, in German, to introduce themselves, which they did.

~ 262 ~

Meghan's face broke into a brilliant, gap-toothed smile, but before she could speak, the woman behind her in the queue interrupted: "I can't imagine what you must be thinking."

It took me a moment to realize she was addressing me.

My chastiser was an angular English woman, thin of face, body,
and legs. She was clearly agitated, and her right thumbnail picked incessantly at the other fingers of that hand as she spoke. "These young women are Germans, are they not? They are already suspect as enemy foreigners, wouldn't you say?"

Leah did not understand the words, but the hostility came through loud and clear. She buried her face in her sister's sweater, while Naomi glared at the woman.

"What are you trying to say?" I demanded.

"Are you foreign too?" The woman sniffed. "Even so, you can't be
unaware of how things stand in this country. Everyone knows that Ireland is a hotbed of German spies. Why, even now the Irish are in league with Hitler, planning to invade us. Are you trying to plant an entire Fifth Column in the heart of England? Aren't there camps for such as these?"

Her expression implied she thought Meghan should likewise be interned.

Meghan's head bobbed in a slantwise motion. "I didn't think. Wasn't meanin' to cause no trouble, I'm sure." With a last sorrowful look, mirrored in Leah's pleading eyes, Meghan turned to go.

At that moment something whispered a question in my mind and I called out, "Meghan, wait. What did you mean when you said you had room to spare...now?"

Wiping her eyes on her sleeve Meghan faced me again. "It's this way. Me man, Sean...four years wed, we wuz, and him a soldier. I just got word from his mates as come home from Dunkirk. Sean was... killed on the beach, so he won't be comin' home, you see."

"I lost my husband too," I said, and before I knew it Meghan and I and the Cohen sisters were tangled in a fierce embrace of shared loss.

263

I like to think my formidable stare would have shriveled the English woman like an overdone joint of stringy beef. But when I searched for her again, she was nowhere to be seen.

There was joy in Inga's expression as we organized the sleeping quarters for mothers and children refugees who remained at St. Mark's. We set up bunk beds in schoolrooms in the annex, freeing up the pews in the main auditorium for lectures and music concerts and children's activities.

I believe Inga might have regained her desire to live if it had not been for one woman who had been a long-time member of the congregation of the church. The woman's name was Mrs. Reese. She had been the president of the Women's Auxiliary at St. Mark's for many years.

Hermione warned me, "When Mrs. Reese is in the building, something very dark indeed seems to sit whispering upon her shoulder. She has told the rector that our church has no business taking in enemy aliens who have never been given a classification. She hates Germans. But she hates Jews even more. We may have some trouble from that quarter."

Hermione's prediction was not long in coming true. Mrs. Reese's
resentment of strangers and foreigners invading her territory was clear to those of us who worked day to day among the refugees.

As the temperatures climbed, rationed bathing gave St. Mark's the permanent and offensive aroma of strong onions. Inga was
changing the soiled nappies of a tiny baby when Mrs. Reese stopped
to reprimand her. How dare she wash a baby's behind beneath the stained-glass images of Peter, James, and John? It was, she proclaimed, the desecration of a holy place.

Inga attempted to explain in broken English that the toilets always had long lines and that the baby needed his nappies now or risk a rash.

264

"This is the last straw!" Mrs. Reese roared. "I never thought I
would live to see such a thing. Look at you! Jew! You have no respect
for our church. None. Desecration! Last straw! We'll see about this."
Mrs. Reese proclaimed that "her" beloved church had been overrun
by filthy, illiterate foreigners and that she intended to put an end to it.
As Inga dissolved into tears, the woman stormed from the building.

That evening Mrs. Reese returned, looking very smug as she led
the head of the local branch of the Home Guard to Hermione in the office. Colonel Taylor was an elderly gentleman who had fought in the Great War. His time in the trenches in France had left him with a bitter hatred of all things German. No matter that our residents were German-Jewish women and children who had miraculously escaped from the Nazis. He could not tell the difference between Yiddish and German. To him it all sounded alike. "Besides," he declared, "there were plenty of German Yids who fought against us in the last war."

Mrs. Reese added, "Once a German, always a German. Why are these people not in internment camps like the others?"

Colonel Taylor waved his swagger stick and with great authority cried, "I demand to see the documents of every enemy alien now housed in St. Mark's."

We had no official documents for these who had most recently crossed the English Channel.

Hermione squared her shoulders and pointed out that most of the children did not even have shoes to wear. "Nor do the mothers have ration books, let alone the official British immigration documents."

The confrontation went downhill fast. The Mayfair magistrate
was called in. He agreed with Mrs. Reese and Colonel Taylor that St.
Mark's must be cleared of dangerous foreign influence immediately.
By morning, he promised, the human debris of the war in France would be swept away. Mayfair would be Mayfair once again.

It was late when I heard Inga crying softly in the choir loft. "It is
my fault, Lora," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry! I should not have argued

~ 265 ~

with her. It was wrong of me to change the baby's nappies. I did not think of it. I am so sorry. My fault. I've brought trouble upon everyone."

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest. I stroked her hair and my thoughts flew to everything she had survived to come to this beloved haven of freedom. How could it be that Inga, who had endured so much brutality, could now blame herself for Mrs. Reese's fury? Could Inga believe they were being punished because she had changed a baby's nappies in the sanctuary?

I had witnessed such madness in Berlin. I had heard of a Jew beaten to death because he had dared to sit on a park bench beside an Aryan woman. The act of violence had no context to any reasonable person. It was cruelty for its own sake—perverted demonic pleasure. And now there were those who ruled nations and made laws that granted mindless brutality a right to exist in society. The world of Europe was upside down.

But here? In London? This was the place we had all dreamed of coming! I thought of the death of Inga's family. Her brutal rape by a gang of Nazi men along the highway to the sea. Did this dear young woman believe she had caused the evil men had committed against her?

After a time, Inga's trembling ceased. I said softly, "You must not blame yourself, Inga. Not ever, ever again. It is not your fault when evil people do brutal things. They choose to punish simply because they have the power to do so. Inga! You must never blame yourself for the evil others have committed against you."

She did not reply. I saw that once again she had lapsed into silence. Her expression was stunned, her eyes unseeing. When I said her name, she did not acknowledge my voice.

"So, you are gone again," I whispered.

I slept on the pew with Inga in my arms through the night. In the
morning when trucks came to collect their precious cargo and carry them away, Inga was first to climb onto the transport. She did not

~ 266 ~

look back or answer me when I called to her. Her eyes were empty as
she stared through the slats.

As suddenly as St. Mark's Church had filled with the destitute and desperate refugees, it had been emptied out.

I had taken my freedom for granted. My American documents were ready to be presented if any petty bureaucrat demanded to know what I was doing in England.

The order by which the refugees of St. Mark's were arrested demanded that every unclassified person between the ages of sixteen and sixty be incarcerated until a determination of status could be made. Mothers with small children would not leave them with us. The misery was palpable.

Had they fled the Nazis only for this?

Children whimpered. The heat radiated off the cobbled streets. Here and there I saw self-satisfied expressions on the faces of our Mayfair neighbors. It was no secret that many viewed the transportation of enemy aliens out of London as a precaution. No matter that the "enemy mob" was actually Jews about to be imprisoned by the very Nazis they had fled from.

Madame Rose, back again from Wales for yet another cargo of refugees, warned the commander in her gruff American accent there would be a great outcry in America.

But he paid no attention.

Midmorning, more livestock trucks pulled up at the front doors of the church. A collective groan rose through the ranks of those who waited.

Stricken, Hermione buried her face in her hands. "Not here! Not in England!"

I watched in horror as nearly everyone who had come to us for help and refuge was loaded and driven away. "Where will they be taken?" I cried in anguish.

~ 267 ~

A young Home Guard soldier remarked cruelly, "Straight to hell, for all I care. They're Jerries, ain't they?"

Madame Rose stepped between me and the youth. She was a for
tress he could not get past. "What is your name?" she demanded.

"Ted Walker, if it's any of your business."

"I'll make it my business."

"A Yank."

"And a well-connected Yank." She pulled out the front page photograph of her and her orphans arriving with the Dunkirk ships in Dover.

"Ah," he said, studying the newspaper. "I thought I recognized you." His face reddened. He tried to laugh off his rudeness.

She would not have it. "Young man, this is Lora Kepler. Also American. Daughter of the brave and famous Christian theologian Robert Bittick, lately murdered by the Nazis. Her father fought the Nazis before you were out of knee britches. Stand down, or you shall think the bricks of this hallowed building have fallen upon your head."

She was too much like the head mistress of a school for the fellow not to obey. "Yes, ma'am," he said, tucking his chin.

"Now," Madame Rose insisted. "Apologize."

He tipped his hat. "Pardon me."

Madame Rose continued. "And you will treat every man, woman,
and child in this sorrowful exodus with respect, or I will personally see to it you are set to work cleaning latrines...for the duration of the war."

My imagination worked overtime. I remembered the stories of Nazi concentration camps. Would there be food for the little ones? Beds? Clothing?

I raised my eyes to see Eben hurrying up North Audley Street as the last truck rumbled past him. He raised both arms as if in an embrace. His expression was as angry and troubled as my own.