All My Love, Detrick (2 page)

As the park came into view, he glanced over to see if any of his friends were playing soccer in the field. Then, as he turned his head back to the road, he saw an old woman who had begun to cross right in front of him. On his right side, a vendor had set up a cart filled with rotting leafy green cabbages.

Left with no choice, Detrick swerved to the left to avoid the woman hobbling along the cobblestone walkway. As he did, Detrick found himself right in the path of a horse pulling a cart overflowing with red and green apples. His heart pounded as he maneuvered the bike to the right.
Hurry! Just a few feet to be out of danger!
Sweat trickled down Detrick’s brow. The horse snorted. Then, tossing its head, the animal whinnied, trying desperately to stop. Detrick never heard a thing; the intense thunder of his heartbeat filled his ears, drowning out all sound. His legs pumped the pedals.
Harder… Move... Faster
! Then a tremendous blow knocked the wind out of his lungs, as the horse plowed headlong into his back tire. The sound of crushed metal broke through to him. Thrown from the bike, Detrick felt himself catapulted into the air, flying across the road. It felt as if he were watching himself instead of living this nightmare. What seemed like hours took mere seconds. As he hit the ground with a thud, the pavement assaulted his face, hands, and knees, leaving him a mass of bloody scratches and scrapes. At first, he could feel nothing, only numb shock; then his body ached with bruises that would turn black and purple over the coming week. But fortunately, possibly because of his youth or an angel watching over him, he suffered only minor injuries.

Detrick raised himself from where he’d landed, wiping the dirt from his face and hair. He stretched and ambled back over to his shattered birthday present...and his broken dreams… As he
gingerly stroked the handlebars, tears welled up in his eyes. Wiping them quickly with the back of his dirty hand, he realized that he stood in the middle of a busy intersection.

“Get that thing out of the road before you get yourself killed!” a dairy vendor, sloppy and fat, with a hanging stomach and a black handlebar mustache yelled from across the street.

Detrick lifted the bent frame and pulled it along, keeping his head down. Ashamed of his clumsiness, but more importantly, humiliated, he could not hold back the tears. Detrick could not bear to face his friends. So, instead of taking his usual route home, he made a fateful decision and chose a longer way. It led him through the Jewish sector of town. Neither he nor his family or friends frequented this area, assuring him he would arrive at his destination without seeing anyone he knew.

Here, too, the streets buzzed with vendors peddling their wares.
But, instead of German, they cried out to their customers in Yiddish. The sign outside the butcher shop read, "Kosher." He wondered what that meant.

Men bearing long dark, curly side burns and tall black hats spoke to each other, their hands gesturing wildly as they strolled along, deeply engaged in conversation.

Brokenhearted, he stopped in front of a bicycle shop and peered into the window. Now, as he remembered how happy he’d been when he’d received his bike, he wept, and the tears mingled with the dirt and blood covering his face from the accident. The sorrow he felt extended beyond his own loss to his father, who would have used the bike to get to and from work, saving him commuting time. His father’s anger would surely turn to violence.

Detrick steadied himself against the coming wrath. He
’d been subjected to it before, but he would rather endure the lash of his father's belt a thousand times, than to see the hurt he knew would steal the joy from his mother’s eyes.

Inside the Abdenstern’s bicycle repair shop, Jacob Abdenstern prepared for the Sabbath. He hurried to finish his work in order to visit several of the food vendors before sundown. There was much needed for the Sabbath dinner. This should have been his wife, Miriam’s task, but she refused to leave the house. Since a skiing accident in the Swiss Alps had rendered their seven-year-old son, Michael, an invalid, Miriam spent her days at his side. It had been six months, and the boy showed no improvement. Karl, eight, and Leah, five, the Abdenstern’s two other children, had learned to compensate for their mother’s neglect. Meanwhile,
Jacob labored tirelessly to be father and mother to all three of them. He understood Miriam’s pain and he shared it, but he would not forget, as she had, that the others still needed him. As Michael grew older, he showed signs of being simpleminded. Had the accident caused this or had the condition been present before? Jacob would never know.

As Jacob reached above his head to place a hammer back on the shelf, he caught sight of the battered child looking into his shop window. Although the clock on the wall ticked, pushing the day into night, Jacob immediately stopped his efforts and stepped outside, concerned for the boy.

“Look at you… My God, child, are you all right?” He could not be more than seven, Jacob thought, as he looked at the soiled and injured child.

“Yes, sir,
I’m fine.” Detrick turned away.

“Wait. Hold on a minute.” Jacob saw the battered bicycle and, considering the boy’s appearance, he knew there’d been an accident. “Come on… Please. Let me help you.” He could not bear to see a youngster suffer, and Detrick’s tear-stained face did not slip past his observant eyes.

“Come in. It’s all right. Come on.” Jacob led Detrick into the shop.

“My name is Jacob Abdenstern. And you are?” Jacob brought a stool into the center of the room and motioned Detrick to sit.

“I’m Detrick Haswell.”

“Well…hello, Detrick Haswell. It looks to me like you took a pretty bad fall.”

“Yes, sir. I guess I did.”

“Let me help you. You shouldn’t go home like that. You will scare your mother.” Under his
workbench, Jacob kept a first aid kit. He took it out and opened it. Then he cleaned the cut along Detrick’s jaw and the scrapes on both of his knees and elbows. “There…you aren’t in too bad of shape, just maybe a little shaken up. But that bike of yours, well…now, that’s a different story. It looks pretty bad.”

“Yes, sir,
I know. I guess it’s done for.” Detrick chocked back the tears.

“Eh, not necessarily -
maybe I can fix it.”

“I’m grateful for your kindness and help with my scrapes, sir, but I don’t have any money to pay you.”

“Who said anything about money? Did I ask you for money?” Jacob’s eyes twinkled with kindness. The warmth and sincerity of his grin reached out to Detrick.

“No, sir, but I would have to pay. I could not allow you to fix it without paying. My parents would never approve.”

“Hmmm,” Jacob stroked his beard. “I see… So you must pay. You are not going to let me have a
mitzvah
on this Sabbath, eh?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“A
mitzvah
…a blessing - it is a blessing to help another. And on the Sabbath…well that makes it an even greater blessing.” He laughed, nodding his head.

“You’ve already helped me. My parents would be angry if I accepted charity.”

“Ah...I see.” Stroking his beard, Jacob studied the boy. “So, I have an idea. How about you come and work for me until the repair is paid off? What do you say?”

Now, this possibility opened a door. Here he’d found an option he could accept, and a way to make things right again. Detrick felt relief flood his young body, as if God himself had come down offering a blessing.
And perhaps he had.

“Yes, sir,
I would like that very much.”

“On one condition -
you’ll call me Jacob instead of 'sir.' Yes?” Jacob planned to pay the boy for his work. He knew he would never take money from this child for fixing the bicycle. Jacob’s eye glimpsed the child’s well-worn clothing, and he felt sure that Detrick’s family could not afford to pay for the repair.

“All right,
I will call you Jacob.” Detrick smiled all the way up to his eyes as his dimples came into view, and Jacob returned the smile, patting Detrick’s shoulder.

The natural curiosity of a seven year-old took hold of the boy and he inquired, “I hope I am not being too bold by asking, sir, I mean Jacob, but what is that you are wearing on your head?”

“It is called a
yarmulke
. I am a Jew.” Jacob showed Detrick the black and gold skullcap.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a Jew before. I’ve seen a few of them, but never actually talked to one.”

“So, this is a first for you.”

“Yes, and I like you very much.”

“I like you too, Detrick.”

Jacob’s dark, kind eyes met Detrick’s deep blue ones, as a bond like soldered sliver forged between them, each of them trusting the other fully, but not knowing why.

And so, unbeknownst to them at the time, began a friendship that would alter both of their lives forever.

Berlin, 1932

After the loss of the First World War, followed by the signing of the treaties of Versailles, Germany plunged into a great depression. The country suffered both financially and psychologically. The people lost their jobs and their pride. Currency and food became scarce as the Germans searched desperately for a leader with ideas and conviction who would end their pain. The blow came down hardest upon the heads of the lower working-class men. Many had served in the army and took the loss of the war as a personal defeat. With their inability to scrounge out a living wage, as well, they grew angry and bitter, searching for answers and someone or something to blame. The cry for a hero sounded like a lion’s roar throughout the land, until it fell upon the ears of one who had been quietly watching and waiting, like a spider in its web.

1

Berlin, 1933

“Are you still working for that Jew?” asked Konrad Klausen, Detrick’s best friend since childhood, lighting a cigarette as they walked home from school together.

Charcoal-gray rain clouds hung angrily over their heads, threatening a storm.

“Jacob Abdenstern is a good man. He is more of a father to me than my own father ever was, Konrad. And furthermore, what is this with you and the Jews? Why are you so filled with hatred?”

“My man, do you not see what is going on here? The Jewish bankers are the reason we lost the war. They take our jobs. They steal our money. Don’t you realize that the Jews are the reason we’re poor?
Lying, cheating, no-good bastards.”

“Konrad, you’re my oldest friend and I care deeply for you, but I won’t stand by and listen to you talk like this about Mr. Abdenstern. He’s my friend too.”

“He’s your employer, can’t you see? He owns the shop. You do all the work.”

Detrick laughed; his dimples and full lips gave his otherwise chiseled face a boyish appearance.

“Oh, Konrad, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Jacob pays me far more than anyone else would for the job I do. He allows me to make my own hours so I can attend track practice. And the man works far harder than he would ever expect, or even allow me to.”

              They walked in silence for a few moments. Konrad had seen the anger flash in Detrick’s eyes when he criticized the Jews and for a split second, a finger of fear tickled his spine. Detrick could be a powerful force. Konrad had witnessed that a few months ago when the two had been in the park and some older boys taunted Konrad. Without a trace of trepidation, Detrick confronted the boys, hurling several punches at one of them and sending the others running for cover.

Then he’d turned to Konrad, who'd stood relieved that the fight had ended without his participation. “Bullies are only strong in numbers. As soon as one went down, the others backed off, because none of them could truly stand on their own.”

Konrad, never popular, had come to rely on Detrick’s help. Since childhood, his clumsy body and lack of self-confidence had made him a target for the type of boys who group together and instinctively find the weakest child to terrorize. Only by torturing the pathetic do people of this nature find that, they are able to hide their own shortcomings.

Because of Detrick’s independence, gangs of angry, oppressive young men tried to recruit him. When they came offering friendship, Detrick just laughed, refusing. This flippant attitude ignited a strange jealousy in Konrad that he could not explain. Although these gangs of boys disliked Konrad and hurt his feelings as often as possible, he still vied for their approval, while Detrick came by it without any effort at all. Not only did they shower him with their acceptance, but their admiration as well.
And Konrad often wondered how it was that Detrick never felt the desire to become a part of these groups of popular boys, while he longed for their acceptance.

Carefully, Konrad spoke, “Detrick…tonight there is a rally in the center of town. I thought you might like to go. The speaker is a man, a new leader that everyone is talking about.” He dropped the butt of his cigarette and smashed it with the toe of his shoe “His name is
Adolf Hitler.”