The Gathering Storm (27 page)

More news came by messenger midmorning. Madame Rose, because of her American citizenship, could return to America, but without her orphans. She read the message and angrily strode out of the church. She appealed to the American ambassador face-to-face. Within an hour she and the children of her Paris orphanage received the papers that allowed them to find haven in the tiny Welsh community where my cousin Elisa and her mother and several other children lived. This was good news.

Jessica rocked Shalom as the documents arrived. Madame Rose opened the thick brown envelope and smiled broadly. "Well, well." She leveled her gaze on my sister. "I received the permissions. Jessica, you and Shalom and Gina and the girls must come along to Wales as well. And Lora too. When the invasion begins, things will be difficult here in London. Come with me and the children, back to Wales. I will need your help."

Sizing up the sun-bronzed old woman, I had the sense that

~ 215 ~

beneath her wings, all would be well. Her spirit exuded safety, and unseen angels stood guard over those she loved.

"We'll be safe in Wales," Madame Rose said. "I saw that road blocks have been set up everywhere in the south. Overturned carts and automobiles. Across the roads. Manned by civilians." We all knew that such things would not stop the Nazis. "For the children's sake, you must come to Wales and help me. We can do what my sister Betsy and I did in Paris after the last war. So many little ones will need our care."

Jessica agreed immediately, but I did not. Feeling the hands of the Lord upon my shoulders, I knew some other destiny awaited me in London. The fleeting thought came into my head that perhaps I would stay in London and die. I was not unhappy at the possibility of death.

I said quietly, "I can't go to safety when so many here face peril.
Jessica, you know that."

Jessica replied, "So like our father. But you should come with us."

"If the Nazis invade, every hand will be needed here in London. I can better fight those who killed Varrick and William and Papa if I remain on the front lines."

Jessica looked up at the great window above the entrance of the church: Christ the King, returning in glory to redeem His own. With the blackout curtains drawn back, the light beamed through his face. The flames of the seven candlesticks that represented the churches of Revelation chapter 2 seemed especially radiant.

"Perhaps before this war ends we will meet Christ Jesus in the air," Madame Rose remarked, following Jessica's eyes. "And then it will not matter that one is here and the other there. We will all rise together to meet Him."

Such an argument transcended time and space, life and death. Jessica nodded in agreement that I should remain in London. She promised if the island fortress of England held out she would come back to visit me from time to time and bring the baby with her for visits.

216

So it was settled. I went home to our flat to bathe and change as
Jessica packed up her meager belongings for the journey north to the
safety of Wales. I confess that I did not care for my own life or my safety. Whatever was to come upon London and England, I hoped that I could die fighting. I expected to die. My heart only longed to go home to heaven and see Mama and Varrick and Papa very soon.

Civilian refugees from Holland, Belgium, and France continued to trickle in throughout the next week. Those who claimed some link with America were escorted to St. Mark's for shelter.

No matter how tenuous a connection, anyone with a distant relative in the U.S. was among the blessed. I could hear the chattering throughout the hall:

"My father's aunt lives in Chi-ca-go."

"My great uncle moved to America after the great war. A musician. I think he works in Hollywood."

"My brother-in-law's brother..."

"Philadelphia!"

"Pittsburg."

"Texas."

"Atlanta."

Without documentation the authorities could not be certain
about any story, and all U.S. visas were marked
Pending.
This meant
pending a work permit, or pending a guarantee of sponsorship, or pending proof of familial relationship.

With Eva's help, we set up tables for processing applications that would be submitted to the American Embassy. Eva, who spoke several languages, would check the pitiful attempts at written English and conjugate verbs properly in order to add some air of worthiness to the documents.

Were the applicants worthy to go to America? Are they worthy? Will they be worthy?

~ 217 ~

We knew the answer to these questions would lie in the hands of some junior clerk in the basement of the American enclave. The
power invested in someone we had never seen, nor would likely ever
meet, made us aware of how a whim or a hangover could change the course of a life irrevocably. If the answer was no, then the refugee might face long-term internment in England.

It was Eva who began the practice of laying hands on the documents and praying over each. We prayed with her and soon we looked up to see the haunted faces of the hopeful survivors all around us.

Within days Eva had begun a Scripture study for women in the hall. She stuck to the Old Testament because there were so many Jews among our group. There were not enough Bibles to go around, and the women shared with one another.

It was rare that a visa was granted. When travel papers did arrive, this was cause for great celebration.

Hope and sorrow had made sisters out of these who were the flotsam and jetsam of war. Like the beams of a dozen ships broken on the shoals, these shattered lives joined together to be built into a new ship. The women of St. Mark's carried one another's burdens and cared for one another's children. They had come to England not knowing one another, but they became a family in those first days.

I cannot think of any other shelter in London in which there was such camaraderie and hope.

218

It was past mid-June 1940 when the certainty of what we were facing came home to every soul in Britain.

Eben rapped twice on the frame of my open office door. I glanced
up from the stack of refugee documents I was translating.

I smiled, but he did not return my greeting. "France is lost," he said. "The Nazis are marching into Paris."

I closed the file containing the account of three Jewish sisters who had escaped from Calais. "We knew it was coming."

"Come on, then. Churchill is speaking on BBC." Eben waited for me in the hall as I cleared my desk. We hurried from the church into the Star and Garter public house. The radio behind the bar was turned up full volume. The pub was packed with men and women who neither spoke nor moved nor lifted pint glasses to sip.

Churchill's droning voice penetrated a haze of cigarette smoke:

"...The battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of
Britain is about to begin.... The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows he will have to break this island or lose the war..."

Beads of perspiration glistened on Eben's forehead. His gaze was riveted on the radio. He unconsciously clasped my hand in his and raised my fingers to his lips. It was not a kiss but a protective gesture, as one might reassure a child that all would be well in the end. Still, I felt the intimate warmth of his tenderness uncoil in me.

219

I longed to have strong arms around me. My feelings for him at such
a desperate moment startled me. I gently pulled my hand away, and only then did he look down at me in surprise and embarrassment. Churchill's dire warning continued:

"If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science..."

The ominous truth of the prime ministers warning could only be fully believed by those who had already seen and survived the perverted, eugenic, pseudo-science of the National Socialists in Germany. Abortion, sterilization, euthanasia, socialized medicine, which selected who should live and who must die: these were only the tip of the iceberg in Germany.

Matters of life and death had gone far beyond who was physically acceptable to the state.

Now the state granted the right to live
only
to those citizens who
agreed
with the right of the state to kill those who disagreed.

Eben took my hand again, and this time I did not pull away from him. Churchill, who had for years been warning the world of what was to come, had finally been proven correct.

"...Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so
bear ourselves that, if the British Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

So the broadcast ended, and everyone in the pub stood and with tears began to sing "God Save the King."

From across the room I spotted Mac and Eva. I could tell his lips
moved, as mine did, with the words of America's version of the song,
"My Country 'tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty..."

Our spontaneous hymn ended with three cheers as strangers embraced one another in a show of solidarity and grim determination in the face of death.

Eben enfolded me in his arms. I laid my cheek against his chest as the crowd roared. The room reeled around me. He kissed the top of my head. His left arm encircled me as he shook hands with the men in the room. My eyes closed, I leaned against him for what seemed like a very long time.

The voice of Mac McGrath brought me round.

"Eben!" he hailed.

Eva chimed in. "Lora! Lora! What do you think?"

I hugged her, and she held my face in both her hands. There were
tears in her eyes. "So, it has come to this at last," she said to me in French.

Mac corrected her, "English, Eva. You're going to be an American."

We made our way to an empty table littered with empty pint glasses. Eva remarked, "I will be an American. Like you. I promised Mac I will speak only American. The French will soon be speaking German, I think."

Eben said, "If only the world had listened to Churchill eight years ago, this could have been stopped."

Eva raised a finger. "Poor fellow. He has been beating his head against a dead horse, I fear."

Mac interjected, "Something like that...oh well." He pushed back an overflowing ashtray. "The Brits will have to give up American cigarettes."

Eben agreed. "There will be rationing of everything in England. Not just luxuries."

I asked, "Do you think Hitler will invade soon?"

Eben scanned the blue tobacco-smoke haze. "I believe our future is recorded in history. A siege will come now—an ancient

military tactic. Isolate, blockade, and starve your enemy. Unless America enters the war, England will be broken by siege."

Mac ordered cider all round. "Churchill made a clear call to President Roosevelt today. The isolationists are still in control back home. England is the last fortress against Hitler in Europe. Got a letter from my mother from the States yesterday. She says U.S. sentiment to keep out of this is strong."

As the men discussed the collapse of France and the desperate plight of our island fortress, Eva rested her chin on her hand, smiled strangely at me, and addressed me in French. "You? And Eben?"

I protested, even as I felt my face redden. Had the electric charge
I felt at his embrace been so obvious? I feigned insult and replied in English, "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Time. That is what I am speaking of. Time to love. If this is the
end of the world, then I want to have lived my last moments loving
and being loved. Only one time, and that is now." She smiled sweetly,
batting her long black lashes over wide, bright blue eyes.

"I had my time."

"So brief. You can count it in only a few months."

"I loved, and I cannot love again."

"Cannot? The vow was: till death part you." Eva stroked my arm
and lapsed into French again. "Lora? Don't you see the way Eben looks at you?"

Mac raised his head in protest. "Eva! Speak English please. Translate...."

She shrugged. "Sorry. Yes, English. I was saying, the English are
between a rock and a fireplace now. No more ladies' stockings. No French perfume."

Eben lowered his chin as he considered Eva's interpretation. "Is that so?"

Eva raised her eyebrows comically, defending herself as she leaned close to Mac. "Stockings. Perfume. All feminine luxuries must be rationed. But love will survive, eh?"

Mac sipped his cider and winked at Eva. "There'll always be an England. I'll drink to that. Yes, indeed." Desire glinted in Mac's eyes. Eva returned the look.