The Gathering Storm (3 page)

Jessica, alabaster skin pale and expression weary, spoke the name of her husband tenderly. "William."

Gina, the image of Jessica at that age, tossed blond curls fiercely
and began to cry. "But Mommy! Auntie Lora? Will Daddy come with us too?"

I embraced the child. "Gina, if we must leave"—Papa nodded. It
was a certainty— "your daddy will come along after us to France. Soon. He'll follow."

Gina clung to my waist and turned her face upward, imploring, "And your Varrick? Him too, Auntie Lora? Will Varrick and Daddy come together?"

"Together." I spoke confidently, but my knees felt suddenly weak. Leave Brussels? Leave the stone cottage at Alderman Seminary? The only real home I had ever known? Oh, why hadn't we left Belgium when the other members of Alderman staff had fled? "Papa?" I questioned with a glance toward Jessica. "What about..."

Jessicas clear pewter eyes became determined. She caressed her belly and drew herself erect. "There are doctors in France. Still a month until I'm due. Gina was ten days late. By then? Surely..."

Papa seemed to gather strength in Jessica's courage. "Yes. By then, we'll be in Paris. The French army is the best equipped in the world. Your American passports. Your mama always said, better than gold." Papa instructed us, but his passport was Austrian, a nation now under the control of the Third Reich. "We may just have hours. One suitcase each only. I've saved enough petrol over the months from the rations. Enough for us to reach France in the automobile."

I lay in my bed, acutely aware this might be the last time I slept in my own familiar room for a long time. Maybe forever. The door to my room was ajar.

Jessica and Gina occupied the spare bedroom.

Papa's voice floated down the hallway. "Good night, Jessica. Angels keep you, little Gina!"

Gina's sweet voice replied in an almost perfect American accent, "You too, Grandpa. Big ones."

I heard my father's footsteps approach. He rapped softly and the door swung open. The light shone behind him. His hair was still mussed from his hat.

"Still awake, Daughter?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, Papa," I answered.

"I almost forgot your birthday." His voice was sad. "Happy birthday."

"It's okay. I almost forgot too. I think for next year I'll change the date anyway, or it will forever remind me of this night."

"Things will come right for us again. For the world." He spoke the words but was unconvincing.

"What now, Papa?"

He crossed his arms. "Mobilization full on. North railway station packed with soldiers today. I went to see some of the boys off. So many women and children saying good-bye. I fear our brave boys face an uphill battle."

"What will become of Belgium? King Leopold?"

"I looked at the signs in the station. The train to Waterloo. It's only an hour to the battlefield at Waterloo, where Napoleon was defeated by Wellington. Different tyrant, but a tyrant all the same."

"Will there be another Waterloo?"

"Another battle, yes. Seven years since Hitler destroyed the German democracy. Yes. But whose Waterloo this will be is almost certain. This time the Allies have no Wellington to pull it off."

"How long can we hold out?"

"Days, I think."

"I heard from the nuns at St Mary's. After school. They said
Belgian soldiers have been issued wooden bullets. I told them it was
only a rumor."

"Not a rumor, I'm afraid. Belgian officers are passing out wooden bullets. The kind they use in practice maneuvers."

We considered this bleak information for a long moment. I sighed. "Pointless against German Panzers. Just like what happened to the Poles."

Papa agreed. "Someone in the government must think it will make the soldiers feel better about things if their rifles make a big bang..."

"...before they die."

"Our fortifications against the Germans are built to be impenetrable. So the Germans simply go around, or fly over."

"It is over, then, Papa? The battle for Belgium? Over before it's started?"

"Oh, Loralei, dear girl. I'm praying for a miracle. Miracles can happen."

"The Red Sea parted."

"We will pray."

I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer for Varrick and William.
Would they fight the Blitzkreig with wooden bullets? "The Polish Jews
have a saying. God is too high up, and America is too far away."

Papa replied, "We won't give up hope. Maybe the Germans will decide Belgium isn't worth their while. The lowlands of Holland.
Maybe the Nazis will turn on Russia instead of us. Yes. We will pray."

"That's all that is left to us for the time being."

Papa was silent for a moment. "God is watching to see what brave men will do. That is everything, my dear. So, happy birthday, my darling girl. I'm sorry I forgot."

"We'll celebrate in Paris."

His voice smiled. "Well, then. There you have it. When we reach
Paris, we'll have a lovely celebration. Until then, we'll pretend it's not yet your birthday."

"Night, Papa."

"Night, my darling girl." He turned to go, then paused, head bowed. "And...your mother loved you very much, you know."

"I'm sure of it."

"Always said you were the strong one. Stronger than your sister in a lot of ways. Texan at your core."

"Like Mama, I hope."

"Your mother always said God loves a good story. Courage and strength. Impossible battles."

I laughed gently. "Remember the Alamo, huh? These Nazis don't
know what they're facing if America comes in."

"America must..." Papa's voice faltered. "Ah, well. Enough of that.
You'll need to be strong in the days ahead. For your sister's sake. You'll need to help her through this. If William doesn't...I mean, he likely won't be around when the baby is born."

"I will, Papa. Be strong, I mean."

"There's my girl. There's my Loralei."

"You should sleep now, Papa. Thanks for remembering."

He nodded and padded down the corridor toward his bedroom.

Morning seeped through the blackout curtains. I was sleeping soundly and did not hear the alarm. Little Gina shook me by the shoulder and cried, "Auntie Loralei, wake up! The Germans are coming!" She left, her little feet racing down the corridor.

I got up quickly and opened the curtains, revealing a red dawn with high, streaked clouds beyond the buildings of the seminary. I stood at the window, thinking how everything looked the same as always, but I whispered, "Red sky at morning..."

Before I finished the sentence a high formation of about two dozen planes rumbled overhead. The crimson gold of the sunrise glinted on their bellies. Suddenly, dark specks, like so many eggs, spilled out from the aircraft and began to fall. "Papa!" I cried.

The long, shrill whistle of falling bombs was followed by terrible explosions over the treetops.

Papa shouted, "Loralei! Come on! Come on!"

I ran from my room as Gina and Jessica tumbled out of the house and rushed to the air-raid shelter in the yard. Papa followed, slamming the door closed behind us. We stood in the dark as thunderous booms echoed overhead.

After the fact, the undulating wail of Brussels' air-raid siren began.

Jessica clamped her hands over Gina's ears. "Now they tell us!"

I felt the color drain from my face as I considered how ridiculous our tin shelter was against a hail of bombs. "Like closing the barn door after the horses are gone."

Papa fumbled to light the lantern. "We'll be safe here."

We all knew this was a lie meant to make us feel better. The eerie glow cast long shadows. I saw the dark circles under Papa's eyes. Had he slept at all?

Gina, staring, gaped up at the thin corrugated tin ceiling. "Grandpa?"

I patted Gina's shoulder. "It won't last long." My reassurance was unfortunately punctuated by a series of jolting booms as a stick of bombs found their mark.

Papa said, "The airport."

"The first bombs," Jessica remarked. "Was that the North Station?"

Images came to my mind:
Young Belgian soldiers waiting for the trains. Wives and children. Sweethearts who had come to say farewell.
"Papa?"

Papa closed his eyes and nodded. He swallowed hard. The boom
of anti-aircraft guns commenced.

"We should all sit down." Papa motioned toward the benches as if we were waiting for a bus or waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.

I noticed we were all barefooted and in our nightgowns.

After an hour the all-clear signal sounded. Our little family sat silently, looking up for a few moments, as if we did not believe the attack was over.

"I'm hungry," Gina said at last.

"Well, then." Papa stood. "That's that. For now."

Another pause before he swung back the doors. Sunlight streamed in, together with the acrid scent of cordite. Above our heads the sky was marred by puffs of white smoke. Above the trees, the horizon of Brussels bloomed with black smoke.

"Poor things," I said as I stared in disbelief at the thick fumes roiling up from the direction of North Station. The clang of a fire truck's bell sounded some blocks away.

"Yes," Jessica whispered. "Poor, poor things."

The trains were no longer running. The frontiers were closed, yet an endless stream of refugees poured out of Brussels. The news on my radio was a muddle of confusion mixed with the monotony of American swing music, punctuated by Tchaikovsky's
1812 Overture.

I did not attempt to go to work. I telephoned St. Mary's. A janitor answered with the information that St. Mary's Convent school was closed today for prayer and quiet contemplation.

With the strange incongruity of the commonplace popping up in the midst of great human drama, the postman arrived. Elderly and gray-haired, he carried his leather mail pouch over stooped shoulders. I saw him coming up the walk and threw back the door before he knocked.

"Good afternoon!" he spoke in French.

"I'm glad to see you." I wondered if I had ever been so happy to see a mailman at my door. "You're delivering the mail. Even with the bombing."

"I'm too old to fight. This is how I fight the Boche. I get on with my work." He passed me a stack of letters—delayed birthday cards, no doubt, some with American stamps.

"I'm glad to see you, all the same." I smiled and pocketed the greetings.

"I don't know if I told you: your mother was a very fine lady. I suppose she is missed?" He knit his brow and adjusted his cap.

"Yes, very much. Thanks for saying so. She wouldn't think much
of all this, though."

"No. I suppose not." He shifted his satchel to the other arm. "I
see Alderman Seminary is empty. Those refugees. Where to go now,
eh? I never had letters to deliver to them, but always there was mail to pick up. They were writing letters home to villages the Germans destroyed and to people who no longer exist. So, they've gone."

"Everyone at the seminary has gone."

"Poor Jews. Perhaps everyone else will adjust."

"They had to leave."

"Two steps ahead of the executioner, always." The postman looked upward, studying the sky for sign of bombers. "North Station is a burned-out hulk. Everyone who goes now will travel on the roads. Unhappy rumors. Trainloads of refugees who left Holland yesterday were machine-gunned. British tanks on the way here are blocked by refugees. The great fortress of Eben-Emael fallen to some secret weapon. German parachutists falling on the countryside like blossoms in a high wind."

"The radio is no use." I concluded that the postman's rumors were no use either.

"Will you still be here tomorrow?" He cocked his head like a dog listening for a whistle.

"Of course," I lied. I did not want my father's whereabouts to become one of the postman's rumors, repeated to the Gestapo if Brussels fell.

"Well, then, I will see you tomorrow. Good luck." He tipped his hat and trudged off to find some other family on his mail route who had not taken flight.

It was after midnight when air-raid sirens screamed again across
Brussels. The howl awakened panic in Belgium before the bombs fell.
In the far distance a sound like a kettledrum boomed the news of
heroic last stands and brave men falling like dominos along the front.
They were dying in order to buy time for some to escape.

"France!" came the cry as the booms grew nearer and louder.

As civilians took cover in basements and inadequate bomb shelters, others, including all the Jews remaining in Belgium, took to the highway.

Aaron Alderman Seminary was dark. Fires were reflected in the window glass. Not one Jew remained on the grounds, and those who could leave were fleeing through the dark countryside. Soon enough the seminary would become quarters for Nazi soldiers.