The Gathering Storm (8 page)

I assumed Eben was a messenger who delivered some financial support for our family and the ministry.

I said no more about it but ate my supper in sullen silence.

The next morning my studies were laid out on the dining table like a banquet. The volume of John Keats' poetry had been my favorite since our summer in Switzerland. Among all his poems, I most cherished "Ode to a Nightingale," which was strangely linked in my heart to my love for Eben Golah.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Frau Helga had spoken of the nightingale's love for the white rose.
I imagined Eben was the nightingale singing the same unchanging song through the ages. Keats' poetry was too beautiful to ever be rendered into the harsh Germanic tongue. I whispered it aloud, pronouncing it as it might have been read by Keats on Hampstead Heath, where he first wrote it.

Papa interrupted my adolescent reverie when he brought me a tattered volume from his library. It was written in Latin and printed in an archaic typeface.

He opened it and said, "I thought perhaps you might like to learn more about our friend Eben."

"He is cold and arrogant and boring." I turned up my nose.

Papa's eyes narrowed in disapproval of my disrespect. "He is among the thirty-six most eminent scholars of church history who live among us in the world. Apart from Edersheim, there are few who know the links between Israel and the church better than he. Here is a text he knows well. I do not doubt he could dictate it by heart. Written by Eusebius.
The History of the Church'.'

I was aware that Eben was a scholar recognized for his mastery of ancient history and languages. At the White Rose Inn I had often listened, while pretending to be disinterested, as Eben explained ancient heresies reborn in the modern church.

Papa gave me my assignment. "Today you will translate this passage from Latin to German and then into English."

"But I am translating Keats. 'Ode to a Nightingale.'"

"The message is the same...so? No mathematics today. This is far more important."

Though I sighed and pretended to be unhappy, the task was not unpleasant to me. It was rather like unraveling a mystery. I loved language and welcomed the chance to delve into its hidden secrets.

I began at 9 a.m. and finished just before dinnertime. The meal was before us. We sat in our places and as Papa led us, we sang the blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
"What was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.. .world without end, Amen, Amen."

Papa raised his eyes to me. "Well, Lora? You have something to share?"

With a sense of accomplishment and excitement, I unfolded my work for the day. I began with the heading: "Eminent Evangelists of the First Generation."

"Among the shining lights of the period was Quadratus, who, according to the written evidence, was, like Philip's daughters, eminent from a prophetic gift. Besides them, many others were known at the time, belonging to the first
stage of apostolic succession. These earnest disciples of great
men built on the foundations of churches everywhere laid by the apostles. They spread the message still further, sowing and saving seed of the Kingdom of Heaven far and wide through the entire world."

I looked up to see Papa's eyes shining with pride. "Well done, Loralei." Then to Mama, "Our daughter is set to be a scholar." "There's more, Papa." I felt such a surge of joy. "Much more," he agreed. "The most important part." I continued reading from my translation.

"...for even at that late date many miraculous powers of the divine Spirit worked through them, so that at the first
hearing, entire crowds in a body embraced the worship of the
Lord with wholehearted eagerness."

This small triumph of decoding the past was just the beginning.

Papa questioned me, "What do Keats' nightingale and the stories of Eusebius have in common?"

I smiled. "Both are unchanged by time."

"Well spoken. True." He waved his hand, drawing more from me.

"Beauty and miracles continue. The source of all is Christ our Creator, who is immortal and unchanged."

"True. And therefore?" He urged me to further conclusions.

"I don't know," I said, doubtfully, feeling drained.

"What is your spiritual genealogy?"

I did not understand the question. "You told me how to be a Christian, Papa. And Mama too."

"And who shared the story of Jesus with me and your mother?"

"You said Gipsy Smith."

"And who told him about our Savior?"

"I don't know. Can't say."

Papa lowered his chin and peered at me over the top of his glasses. "From one spiritual parent to another, the same, immutable truth is handed down, generation to generation, right back to the beginning. From the moment Christ emerged from the tomb. From the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled Peter and the others in Jerusalem. Death is conquered. The power of the Holy Spirit is unchanging, passed down from one to another. Miracles continue and abound even in our own dark time. The nightingale's song...eternal, unchanged. Today you have deciphered a true story about the first generation of your spiritual family. They knew Jesus. They spoke and wrote the truth. They met Jesus. Ordinary people like us heard stories from the great ones who knew our Lord and spoke with Him after He was crucified and raised from death to eternal life."

Papa paused, as if conveying a great truth. "Jesus said, if He chooses that some live until He returns as our King, then what is that to us? From the laying on of their hands, the great gifts of the Holy Spirit are passed to each new generation. True witnesses, the righteous, survive in every generation. What was in the beginning is now...and ever shall be...."

I did not fully comprehend the mystery Papa revealed, or why he had chosen that moment in my life to open my heart to something so profound. Perhaps he sensed that there would come a time when he could not share these things with me.

Time was running out.

I laid my head on my pillow that night with my thoughts swirling. Outside my window I heard the nightingale sing. Had Ruth heard the same immortal song as she gleaned the stalks of wheat in the field of Boaz? Had Mary heard these same notes on a moonlit night beside the well of Nazareth? And Mary Magdalene, as she waited by the tomb before the dawn?

I recognized some golden refrain ringing in that evening s melody that I heard. Yet I could not identify the meaning. Many years would pass and many tears fall before I would hear that song outside my window again.

Darkling, I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'dhim soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

There were times when Eben Golah did not come to the clandestine meetings in my father s study. Along with a few others, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was set to the task of traveling and spreading the word of our plight in Germany.

I asked Mama if we would see Eben again.

"I think so. He is hard at work, Papa says."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Back in England, I suppose. He has influential connections
with the English writers. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien are among
his friends. They are speaking and writing."

And then I asked a question that surprised me even as I spoke. "Who is Eben, Mama?
Or...what
is Eben?"

It seemed like minutes passed before she replied with words like a poem. "He is the nightingale. An ancient voice sings at every twilight. His song is heard more clearly in the darkness."

It is true that unrequited love can be very close to hate. I loved
Eben. I hated Eben. Though Papa was oblivious to my sulky behav
ior when Eben came to the house for meetings, Mama noticed my pouty looks. She made mental note of the nights when I pretended to be ill so I could retreat to my bed and pine away in the darkness.

It was a Monday night sometime after my aunt Anna, uncle Theo, cousin Elisa, and her American husband, John Murphy, had
escaped to the safety of England. The Jewish Agency and my father s
evangelical Christian organization were working hard to arrange Kindertransports for Jewish children. Papa had organized a meeting of Christian pastors and Jewish Agency representatives from Great
Britain that had lasted most of the night. Eben was among the group.
Though I did not see him, I had listened to Eben speaking through the
furnace grate. I longed to tell him again how much he meant to me. I
remembered Frau Helga's story of the white rose and the nightingale.

Eben's mellow, confident words were the nightingale's song. Though I thought I had put him out of my mind, I was sick with love for him.

At last I fell asleep, aching for him to come into my room and take me into his arms. I dreamed all night about the White Rose Inn and Hafflinger horses grazing in a field around an enormous Tannenbaum decorated with English volumes of Shakespeare and Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, while Eben sang.

My dream made no sense, but it was a pleasant escape from the reality of the Reich.

Mama knocked softly on my door the next morning before I was awake. "Lora?"

I answered with a reluctant groan. The clock said half-six. I opened my eyes as, with a cup of steaming tea, she came in quietly and sat on the edge of my bed. She was beautiful in a soft blue cotton robe and slippers.

Mama did not speak. She merely took a sip of tea, then offered me a pitying smile.

"Mama?" I asked. "What?"

"I want to tell you something about myself. Between us girls."

"All right, Mama. But at half-six?"

"Isn't everyone asleep?" she whispered.

"Not you."

"Lora, darling?"

"Mama?"

"When I was younger than you, there was a music teacher. His name was George Helstrom. A young fellow, a music professor out of Amarillo. Handsome, handsome. Oh! I tell you, he was the love of my life, wasn't he just?"

This was interesting. I propped myself up on my elbow. She
offered me a taste of her tea. Suddenly we were more like girlfriends
than mother and daughter. I still had not grasped why she was sharing such a deep, intimate secret with me.

"And?"

"He loved another. Terribly. But she didn't love him, poor fellow. I loved him. Wouldn't my heart pound every time he came to the house? Just imagine how poor George and I suffered."

Mama brushed my hair with her fingers. I asked, "What happened to George?"

"He ran off to Hollywood and married a rich girl. Works for his cousin at a film studio. A director of Marx Brothers movies. Can you just imagine?"

"And you?"

"I married your papa and have been happy every day of my
life. I should have known all along: how could I have ever loved a man who would move to Hollywood and get hitched for money? So shallow."

"Mama?" I paused, wanting to tell her everything."Yes?" She lowered her chin, and I knew she knew.

"Eben is not shallow."

"No."

"I have loved him since the first time I ever saw him."

"I know, dear."

"He is older than I am."

"Yes."

"And I know he doesn't care about me. He thinks I am a child."

She chewed her lower lip. "Poor Varrick."

"Yes. Poor boy."

"I think he loves you very much."

"Perhaps he does. But Mama, how can I fight such a love as I feel for Eben?"

Now her expression grew more serious. "Has Eben told you how he feels?"

"I told him how I felt."

"What did he say?"

"He...said he would tell Papa how foolish I am."