The Gathering Storm (42 page)

I recognized immediately what he meant: from out of the distance in the direction of the sea came the ominous rumble of approaching airplanes.

"The blackout will not stop them, Lora. Nor will the sea. Nor any barricade. They will keep coming, now. Stand and be strong." The last word fell from his lips as the air-raid siren began to wail.

Sheltering the injured bird beneath my jacket, so that I could feel the throbbing of her heart against my own, we carried her into the shelter. And when the all-clear sounded, we took her home with us.

332

T

here could not have been a gloomier day. Eben had been gone for eight days. The nights passed in the restlessness of longing. Why hadn't he written?

The postman slid the mail through the slot just as the teakettle came to a boil. I set the tea steeping and hurried downstairs.

Among the letters was a postcard from Jessica and a thin white envelope addressed to me in Eben's handwriting. Thin meant a poem. I laughed and held the envelope to my heart. Closing my eyes, I imagined him alone in a dim hotel room, thinking of me.

I scanned Jessica's brief note in tiny cramped handwriting:

Weather fine. Baby healthy. Met a very nice American airman from Texas at a community dance. Fellow lost his arm...had so much in common might go out with him again.

Jessica signed off with
"wish you were here!"

I smiled to think of my sister grasping hold of her life again with both hands. It did not matter if the Texan only had one hand to hold her with, Jessica sounded so happy.

I propped Eben's unopened letter on the table and prepared my tea. I savored the aroma of Darjeeling and the delicious anticipation of reading.

I only lasted through two sips of hot tea and a cookie before I opened the envelope with a butter knife and took out the lined sheet of legal paper.

333

"It is! It is another poem!" I whispered. Unfolding the sheet, I began to read, and summer nights filled the room.

My darling Lora, Remembering summer nights, I am thinking only of you...

lilac breeze
white
sighs
linen
stirs your
breath
silken
nuance
brushes
my
cheek urgent
you

whisper
me

awake Lips
part one
kiss

suddenly fierce we

dance
soaring
swirling swaying

~
334 ~

I read it. I read it again. Each time I emphasized a different word
or phrase until a hundred messages of Eben's longing took shape.

It was twilight before I set it aside.

I spoke his words aloud:
"You consume me..."

Howl wished that we could be together every minute. He under
stood my hunger for him and felt the same for me. Our delight in one another was a banquet.

My tea was cold when I replaced the poem. I heard the sound of an airplane passing overhead. It was one of ours, but I thought again about the bombing raids and burned-out hulks of buildings. What if a bomb fell on our little flat? What if Eben's poems were burned in a fire? What if...?

Considering the loss of lives and the loss of everything else, this
seemed a strange, selfish terror. Nevertheless, I frowned and kissed the missive and searched for someplace safe to keep it.

I looked at the tall chest of drawers and remembered Eben kept receipts in a sturdy metal box in his top drawer.

Eagerly, before I drew the blackout curtains, I gathered all his letters and poems, removed the metal box, and opened it on the table.

The last rays of sunlight gleamed through the window and glinted on something bright beneath bits of paper and ration cards.

"What's this?" I asked as if he was there. Lifting a book of ration
stickers, I gasped.

Beneath everything was a familiar envelope inscribed in red ink. The flap was open, revealing a man's silver cigarette case and a pressed poppy. Where had I seen this before? I removed it and held it up to the light.

The case that was so familiar to me, yet I could not remember where I had seen it last.

Curious, I opened it. A lock of hair and a photograph tumbled out. I read the inscription. I gasped and read it again.

My memory suddenly flooded with the vision of the man without a face who lived at a cemetery in Flanders. I remembered

~ 335 ~

saying to Judah Blood as I read the inscription,
"I feel like I'm eavesdropping..."

Could this be the same cigarette case? I knew, somehow, it had
to be! How had Judah Blood managed to get it to Eben before Judah
slipped beneath the waves at Dunkirk?

Impossible!

But how had Eben come by it?

I stood motionless as the last gleam of daylight faded.

Who was Judah Blood? Who was the man who lived behind the mask in Tyne Cott?

I remembered his hands; the hands of an artist; of a healer; a man dedicated to saving lives and mending broken hearts.

The memory of Judah Blood's hands on the desk were vivid. Familiar hands.

What had he said to me that day? "I could use your face as a model for the Madonna..."

I sank onto the chair and caressed the box. "Oh Jesus!" I cried. Then I noticed the bottom was false. Removing the contents, I plucked at a leather tab and lifted it.

A blue silk kerchief concealed something about the size and shape of a man's open palm. I slammed the lid and walked away. If Eben wanted me to know, he would have told me.

I drew the blackout curtains, as if by resisting temptation for a moment, I could overcome my desire to know what this thing was.

Switching on the table lamp beside the bed, I hung back. The light reflected on the cigarette case. The box with its contents, strewn on the table seemed to speak.

Judah Blood at his desk in Tyne Cott.

The bouquet of poppies in the artillery shell vase.

"Loralei Bittick—Kepler. Missus...VarrickKepler. A happy ending after all..."

336

Somehow that evening, I resisted the temptation to pull back the blue silk scarf.

I did not yield to my curiosity to discover what, if anything, Eben had kept from me. I replaced the false bottom and then the cigarette case treasure from Tyne Cott, covering the mystery with ration books and receipts.

As the lid snapped shut and I returned it to its place and closed the drawer, I told myself it was nothing; just nothing. I believed that he would tell me what I needed to know about him, if it was important for me.

I fixed myself a fresh pot of tea, filling Mama's Meissen china teacup with comfort. I pressed my lips on the gold rim and sipped, remembering Mama smiling at me over a cuppa. I suddenly missed
her. Terribly. And how I missed Jessica! I wanted to go north to Wales
and meet her new beau. I longed to hold the baby. Shalom! Peace! How desperately I wanted to live an ordinary life. I knew that real living was made up of ordinary moments all strung together like the notes on a sheet of music. And in the end of life all those ordinary moments would make one eternal symphony of praise in heaven.

I closed my eyes, savoring the metaphor. I made a mental note to tell Eben all about it when I saw him.

An air-raid siren sounded moments later. I emptied Mama's teacup and wrapped it up, placing it in my purse. The hurried footsteps of our neighbors tramped down the stairs. The front door opened and slammed shut. Voices called to others as the people of Church Row made their way toward the deep shelter of Hampstead Tube Station.

Only I remained behind. In the far distance I heard the crump of falling bombs. I switched off the light and opened the drapes. Explosions erupted down by the river. The street below me was empty now. Stuffing Eben's letters and poems into my pockets, I retrieved his metal treasure box and my purse. Carrying these few precious things, I climbed up the steep stairs to the roof of our building.

~ 337 ~

All around the great metropolis of London, fingers of searchlights frantically combed the sky like the premiere of a Hollywood film. From this highest vantage point I looked down on the city and the river. The flotilla of barrage balloons were caught in the glow. Enemy aircraft moved through the strobe. Explosions of antiaircraft artillery as the Nazis released their deadly cargo.

Fire and light seemed strangely beautiful, like fireworks at the New Year. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament were bathed in a golden glow cast by the conflagration. Warehouses along the Thames as far as Greenwich burned. In the tarnished pewter smoke of the inferno I imagined glimmers of souls rising up to heaven. I began to pray the words of Psalm 91 as Mama had taught me: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee...Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day...."
⁷

I was perfectly calm; ready, no matter what befell me. Peace like
a river flowed over me and into me. This peace extended far beyond the absence of fear. It was, rather, the reality of passing through the valley of the shadow of death without any fear of evil.

I set my heart on praying for those I knew were dying. A shell-burst hit near the wing of a sleek silver Nazi plane. Engines sputtered flame. The craft shuddered violently as it passed above the Thames on its desperate route to the sea or perhaps with some hope of landing on the river. I followed its tortuous progress until somewhere beyond the Tower Bridge the sky erupted in a starburst shower. I wondered about the pastor's son, a boy I had allowed to kiss me on a long ago summer night. Later he had betrayed his faith in Christ and betrayed his father to the Nazi tyrants. His face was clear in my thoughts. He had laughed the night we all sat up by the lake and talked about heaven. He had mocked his younger brother when he mentioned hell as the final destination for Hitler. I remembered his words: "You say this is the truth? What is truth? I say truth is only what you can experience."

⁷
verses 7 and 5

338

Tonight the end of the world had come for so many. Was tonight
the night the boy would experience truth?

Why could I not remember his name? Was the inferno I witnessed in the sky his inferno?

Suddenly I turned away, feeling deeply what a fine line every soul walks between eternal redemption and damnation. Eternity is always just a breath, a heartbeat, away.

The great battle for men's souls raged all around me. Holding tightly to Eben's treasure I returned to the stairs. The way down was illuminated momentarily by the dancing shadows of the conflagration. Closing the reinforced door, I was left in complete darkness. Groping for the wall to steady myself, I was two steps down when behind me an enormous blast sounded from the direction of the High Street. I felt a wave of energy and stumbled, holding onto my purse to keep Mama's precious cup from smashing. Eben's letterbox tumbled from my hands and clattered down the stairs.

Steadying myself, I paused a long moment before continuing. I was certain the lid had flown open, and the contents were strewn everywhere. I reached into my purse and found my flashlight, switching on the low beam. Amid the litter of receipts and ration cards I spotted the cigarette case at my feet. I retrieved it, scooping up the mess as I descended.

And then I found the blue silk scarf. Beside the scarf, Eben's secret gazed up at me from the last step.

When the "all-clear" sounded I replaced everything as it had been. I put the box back into its nest among neatly folded socks and underwear.

The kettle boiled, and I made fresh tea. My neighbors tramped back home to a fitful few hours' sleep.

I could not sleep. Though I knew somehow that I had become a part of a mystery kept for centuries, I sat down and spread Eben's letters and poems out before me on the table. The puzzle made perfect sense to me now, though I could not truly grasp it. Had my father known?

339

I reined in my thoughts. What was it the Lord had spoken to my heart this very night?
"...ordinary things of life...notes strung together on sheet music...and in the end, in heaven...a beautiful symphony from every righteous act and every righteous life...."

Perhaps I was Eben's attempt at living an ordinary life? Once again I resolved not to question Eben about his secrets unless he brought up the subject first. I read aloud his poem to me. It was the poem of an artist.