Wildflowers of Terezin (18 page)

Meanwhile a dark shape approached from the direction of the sound, and he heard a low, distinct chugging coming closer, directly at them. If he could have scrambled back up into the boat and steered away, he would have. Instead, all he could do was slip the oar back into their boat and cling to the rail as a fishing cutter pulled up alongside, nearly sandwiching him in the process. He looked up to see strong hands grab him by the shoulders and lift him clear.

"Trying to swim all the way, are you?" A man in dark coveralls looked him over from the deck of the fishing boat, hands on his hips. A scale-encrusted pile of net lay on the deck beside him as Steffen gasped for breath, still on his knees on the rough wood deck.

"Should we throw him back, Neils?" The man who had rescued Steffen seemed to think he was quite funny. "He's pretty small."

"Shut up and get the others on board," answered a man behind the wheel. Their engine popped as they idled in a gentle swell. "German patrol should be coming back this way any time, and they all need to be down in the hold."

"What about the boat they came in?" asked the fisherman.

"Let it sink, Mogens. We don't have time to fool with it."

"Nej, wait. I'm not going." By that time Steffen had regained some of his breath, and he was able to struggle to his feet with a raised hand. He'd left a large puddle of dark seawater on deck, and his wet clothes clung to his body. He couldn't keep from shivering.

"Can't change your mind now." Mogens the fisherman appraised him even as he lifted the other four refugees over the side of the larger boat. "You heard him, get below."

"You don't understand. I'm not Jewish. I just rowed these others out here for you to pick up. I have to get back. In fact, I have a sermon to preach in the morning."

Mogens looked at him a little longer, then broke out laughing.

"Did you hear that, Neils? This one says he has a sermon to preach. What's it going to be about, walking on the water? Because if you think you're going back in that thing . . ." He pointed at the rowboat, nearly awash. "You're going to need some divine intervention."

"Perhaps. But we got here in that boat, and I am going back in it."

"Let's go!" Neils leaned out of the pilothouse in the stern as he revved up the engine and pointed toward a distant light on the water, moving quickly their direction. "In or out, I don't care. But the Germans are coming this way, and we're not going to have passengers out on deck when they pass by."

"I'm going. Thank you.
Tak."
Steffen straddled the kneehigh railing and prepared to jump. The little boat would have to hold him, one way or another. But before he could make his move, Hanne's mother grabbed him around the neck and landed a kiss on his cheek.

"You didn't have to do this," she told him as the lights from the patrol boat drew nearer. "But please, my Hanne, she . . ."

Her voice faltered as Mogens tossed a bucket into the little boat with a wave. Steffen thought she said something about "was going to be married," but that made no sense.

"What did you say?" he asked. But the others had pulled Hanne's mother way from the side of the boat.

"Lay low," Mogens told Steffen. "They won't see you if we get their attention. But if they spot you, well, you seem to know how to swim pretty well."

Which didn't sound encouraging, but Steffen did know how to lay low. He'd been getting plenty of practice in that.So he crouched in the bottom of the boat, trying to ignore the cold water that washed around his feet and over his ankles. He looked back up at the fishing boat as it powered up and turned away toward the distant Swedish coast, here only about twenty-five kilometers across the Sound. Lights winked just north of distant
Malmö,
neutral in the conflict and a safe haven for the Jews he had delivered this far. He imagined Hanne's mother huddled now in the safety of the fishing cutter as they faded from sight.

"Don't worry," he whispered, and the words surprised him."I'll take care of her. I promise."

Which seemed rather audacious, especially given the circumstances.Right now, he wasn't at all certain he could take care of himself, much less Hanne Abrahamsen. He wasn't even sure he could get himself back into Nyhavn without being seen, and before dawn. He imagined a half-drowned man rowing a small boat in from the Sound might not go unnoticed.

For now he could only remain low in the drunken little boat as it rocked in the waves, sluggish and drifting before a freshening wind that carried traces of distant mown hay and golden leaves in neat piles, the scent of green things in gardens, laying down for an autumn nap of freedom.

Was that the scent of freedom?

Steffen found himself wondering how a breakfast in Sweden might taste as he listened to the chug-chug of the fishing boat, this time growing fainter in the distance. Perhaps those wonderful pancakes, topped with sweet lingonberry sauce. Meanwhile the lights from the German patrol boat grew larger as they powered by with a throaty buzz, powerful and throbbing, and to be avoided at all cost.

Steffen watched, never taking his eyes off the lights. He even wondered if he might actually jump into the water and try to hide if it came toward him, the way Mogens the fisherman had suggested. Probably it would do no good. They would find him, and if they did, they would connect his presence there in the Sound with the departing fishing boat, headed toward Sweden.

Father, let them be blind,
he prayed for the men on the boat, and as he prayed he forgot to shiver.
Blind and deaf. Show them nothing but a dark, empty sea.

He waited, bucket in hand. And the German patrol did not seem to change course, but remained a kilometer or two off shore as it continued south. Another wave sloshed over the side of his boat, waking Steffen once more to the very real danger of completely swamping. And who would come to his aid if he did?

Still he felt cheered as he laid to the task of bailing as much water as he could from the boat. Good thing Mogens from the fishing boat had thrown him the bucket. Bailing with a tin cup might not have worked as well. Ten minutes later, he had the water back down to the floorboards, and the exertion helped him almost forget how wet he still was, except that now his clothes rubbed under his arms and across his chest, painful and like cold sandpaper.

Never mind.

Finally he shipped both oars back into place and pointed directly away from the scent of farms, directly away from the lights of Malmö and back to the darkness of his home—a fearful city guarded by a silent, cold mermaid. He pulled with a steady rhythm once more, quickening the pace and ignoring the chapped pain of his wet clothes. He rowed faster now, and his breathing matched each stroke, regular and strong, as he headed for home.

Did I really say I'd take care of her?
he asked himself, not allowing the caution that had always framed his life to blot out the picture of Hanne Abrahamsen, who he knew was the real reason he had just done this crazy, insane thing.

He kept pulling at his oars, moving backward toward the familiar threat of curfews and ugly hooked crosses, backward toward the deadly occupation where Hanne and so many others still hid in closets and barns. For his beloved Danmark was not yet, as the Germans supposed, judenrein. He strained at the oars, now harder than ever, ignoring the blisters forming on his palms and fingers. He rowed away from the scent of freedom and back to the terror, before he could change his mind.

SANKT STEFAN'S KIRKE, KØBENHAVN

SUNDAY MORNING, 3 OKTOBER 1943

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings

endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

—ELIE WIESEL

S
teffen cleared his throat and looked out over the small sea of faces in Sankt Stefan's congregation, waiting expectantly for him to begin the liturgy and read his prepared sermon on
Mattæus,
the sixth chapter. The one about serving two masters and not worrying about tomorrow.

He looked down again at his shoes, wiggling his toes to feel how soggy they remained after his dip in the Sound.Holding them over candles when he arrived home hadn't helped much. He cleared his throat again and pulled out the crumpled paper, the letter he'd shown to Henning. This would not be a usual Sunday, particularly since he'd not slept all night. This would be a first, in more ways than one.

"Before we begin this morning," he began, "I've been asked to read you the following letter on behalf of all Danish bishops."

He looked up once more to see every eye on him. Pastor Viggo nodded from his usual seat in the third row from the rear. He already knew what the letter said.

"It says that the Danish bishops have on September twentyninth, this year, forwarded the following communication to the leading German authorities."

Steffen tugged at his earlobe and worked his jaw up and down, trying to set the last bit of seawater free, then flattened the letter out in front of him and resumed reading.

"Wherever Jews are persecuted as such on racial or religious grounds, the Christian Church is duty bound to protest against this action . . ."

Duty bound. As he continued reading he could not escape those words, even as they pummeled him so hard he felt beaten and bruised. And the worst part was, he used to think he understood that phrase, and even how to live his life by it.Now he only knew that he knew nothing of the sort. Because whatever had once been duty to him, something else entirely had taken its place. So as he kept reading, his voice began to shake.

"Number one: Because we can never forget that the Lord of the Christian Church, Jesus Christ, was born in Bethlehem . . ."

The letter went on about God's promise and His chosen people, the call to love others, and the Danish concept of justice. "Despite differences of religious opinion," he read, "we will struggle for the right of our Jewish brothers and sisters to preserve the same liberty that we prize more highly than life itself."

Even if it meant rowing out into the choppy cold waters of the Sound with a boatload of illegal Jewish refugees. Steffen did his best to maintain his composure as he read the letter's final paragraph, but he found his voice rising with emotion.

"The leaders of the Danish church are fully aware of our duty to be law-abiding citizens who do not set themselves up against those exercising authority over us."

This part sounded like the old Steffen, the Steffen he once understood. What came next did not, and the truth dug in its teeth and shook him like a dog would shake a knotted rope.He took a deep breath, certain that no one would understand why their pastor was disintegrating right in front of them.

"But at the same time we are in conscience bound to assert the law and protest any violation of it. Therefore we shall, if occasion should rise, unequivocally acknowledge the words that we should obey God rather than man. Signed on behalf of all Danish bishops, H. Fuglsang Damgaard."

There. That most certainly got their attention. In fact, Steffen could only dream of such focus from his congregation when he delivered his sermons. And the thought did cross his mind that perhaps he should read this kind of letter from the pulpit more often. When he looked down at his letter, he noticed a drop of water, which startled him until he realized it was a tear.

His tear. And it shamelessly threatened to dissolve his practiced Lutheran demeanor. Because Lutheran pastors— and especially this Lutheran pastor—did not deviate from the script, nor did they entertain uninvited emotions. See now what had happened.

"Please pardon me for a moment." He turned away with a handkerchief, well aware that every eye still rested on him, and blew his nose as if a minor touch of a cold might have caught up to him in an unguarded moment. And it certainly might have, given what he'd been doing all night.

When he turned back, he'd reclaimed most of his composure, setting aside the wrinkled letter in favor of his sermon notes. He took a deep breath and shook it off.

"Well, then. Let us rise for the reading of the lesson, found today in the first book of Moses, the eighth chapter, beginning at the twenty-second verse."

He waited for the congregation to respond as they always did, in the words they had all recited since they were old enough to see over a pew:

"Praise be to thee, oh Christ."

The words soothed him, for the most part: the familiar Scripture, the antiphonal readings, back and forth between himself, the congregation, and perhaps even the Lord himself.On the best of Sundays, Steffen could easily lose himself in the service, rising on his toes in worship. Even though that would be as demonstrative as a Lutheran could expect to get, it was enough, and he assumed even God did not expect any more of him.

Now, as he read flawlessly through this Sunday's Epistle (Paul's letter to the Galatians,
Galaterne,
starting with verse twenty-five of chapter five) and the Gospel (his preaching text from Mattæus the Evangelist, beginning at verse twenty-four of chapter six), he could hear his own voice echoing from the lofted beams high overhead. He had once liked the sound of that voice, as it seemed to fill the sanctuary so easily, and in such a way that even old Pastor Viggo in the third-from-the-last row had no trouble hearing him. He knew just by looking, as the older man nodded with approval at all the right places. He could count on that much.

But this morning he could see his own words fall short of the ceiling and return clattering in broken pieces, back upon their heads. Inadequate and powerless, all of them. He wondered why his people didn't duck for shelter.

No one else seemed to notice, however, how he'd left out one line in the reading from Mattæus. One line that screamed his name. And when he reached that line, he simply paused and left it out, skipping over as if he'd never even noticed:

Oh you of little faith.

Worse yet, after the service Steffen had to smile and shake people's hands with appropriate enthusiasm as they complimented him on his empty words. One or two of them even seemed to mean what they said as they stepped out large oak double doors into the midday sun, trying its best to make an appearance.

"Very nice sermon, as always," said Fru Vestergaard, extending her white gloved hand. "Well said.
Vel sagt."

But then she said that every Sunday, didn't she? "Will we be seeing you at the get-together this afternoon? We've invited a few friends, just a casual early dinner."

He cringed inwardly and scolded himself for not having a legitimate excuse on hand. Something. Anything. But his mind went blank, and he smiled back, helpless to refuse.

Someone, it seemed, had not informed Fru Vestergaard and her husband, Ernst, that there was a war on, that most people hardly had enough rationed potatoes to eat (certainly not enough meat), and that people were actually being gunned down in the streets. No, to Herr and Fru Vestergaard in their spacious flat in the fashionable
Charlottenlund
district, life went on as always, one gala after the other. Her "casual" early dinner would include many of the city's most wealthy couples and politicians, some of them dropping in just to make a brief appearance.

And if all went according to plan, Pastor Petersen would again be seated next to the Vestergaard's single daughter who possessed the most annoying laugh Steffen had ever heard, and who knew all the latest American band leaders, but very little else. Despite their wide age difference, Fru Vestergaard thought her daughter the perfect catch for a young pastor and made little effort to hide her opinions in that regard.

"Jytte will be there," said Fru Vestergaard with a sly smile."She's taking a break from her studies. Of course you would be welcome to bring a guest, as well."

Fru Vestergaard knew that Steffen would have no guest to bring, though she would mention the possibility for protocol's sake. And if there was one thing Eva Vestergaard knew, it was protocol.

"That's very kind of you. I'll . . ." His mind still raced for a gracious way out. And all this time, Fru Vestergaard never released Steffen's hand. "I'll of course be very glad to stop by.The usual time?"

"A little earlier today. Say, three? It's been getting dark so early, these days. We don't want to keep people out late."