After the Train Read online

  My job at St. Mary’s is to fill a cart with bricks and wheel it over to where Herr Schafer or one of the other bricklayers is working. After all the months shut up in the classroom, I thank my lucky stars that I am outside in a world of trees and sky and sun with not a desk in sight.

  For an adult Herr Schafer is easy to be with, and I feel as if he is someone I have known for a long time. He dresses like the other workers, in an old shirt and trousers, but he does not look like them. For one thing, he wears old-fashioned rimless glasses, and for another, though he is an excellent workman, he has always a look of not being where he is. I remember Father telling me that Herr Schafer was a professor, and it’s not hard to imagine him at the head of a classroom. I think of Herr Schmidt’s lectures and wonder what happened to Herr Schafer, as a Jew, during the war.

  While the other workers gather at noon for their lunch—sausages, big hunks of cheese, and cold bottles of beer—Herr Schafer sits by himself with his lunch and a book. The other workers like to joke, and I see that they are uncomfortable telling their earthy jokes with me nearby; so I take my own book and lunch to where Herr Schafer is. Sitting next to him is like having a book in your hands and not being able to look inside. At last I ask him, “How did you come to be a bricklayer?”

  He doesn’t answer my question but only says, “Nothing wrong with bricklaying. In his spare time the former British prime minister, Winston Churchill, was a bricklayer.” In a more serious voice he adds, “There aren’t many jobs and bricklaying is steady work. You have only to look around you at the buildings that have fallen apart from the bombs. All of Germany is like this, and the German people won’t put up with such messes. There will be work for us bricklayers for years to come.”

  Still, I don’t believe Herr Schafer will spend the rest of his life laying bricks. The books he reads are thick and have many pages. As he turns the pages, he underlines heavily and sometimes mutters angrily as if the book were a person who is arguing with him.

  In his bricklaying Herr Schafer is a perfectionist, which means I have a hard time. I dream of making my own contribution to the building of the church by laying neat rows of bricks that will be there for centuries, but all he will let me do is to carry the bricks and stack them near the spot where he wants them. Sometimes he finds fault with my work. “Peter, you have only to breathe on that pile of bricks you made and they will fall over in a heap. You must build the stack so that the bricks on the outer walls lean in slightly.” He is full of brickman’s language, as much trouble to me as Latin is. I have to learn the meaning of closure, wythe, header, and stretcher courses. I discover that a “rowlock sailor” is a brick that stands upright with its broad side facing out while a “soldier” is a brick standing upright with its narrow side facing out, as if all sailors were fat and all soldiers were thin. It’s my job to see that the bricks have just the right degree of moisture. After I stack them, I have to take one of the bricks and put drops of water on it. If I can still see the damp spot after a minute and a half goes by, all is well. If the damp spot disappears, I have to get pails of water and douse the bricks so they won’t absorb the moisture from the mortar and weaken the joints between the bricks.

  Herr Schafer is a pleasure to watch. With a long sweep of his trowel he can throw a mortar line along the tops of six or seven bricks and lay each brick level and plumb. Father knows all about his skill. “The architect has only an idea, Peter,” Father says. “His idea doesn’t exist until the workman brings it to life.”

  Herr Schafer listens carefully to Father, but he doesn’t always agree with him. When he doesn’t, he says so. “Herr Schmidt, excuse me, but the pattern of bricks you’re suggesting for the part of the east wall we are repairing will be like a dog with no ears and no tail. If you look at the old pictures of the church, you’ll see there was a course of brick like so.” He sets the bricks on the floor of the church to show what he means. “You see how that gives the wall a pretty line?”

  “Yes, yes, Herr Schafer, I agree. By all means let’s follow your suggestion.”

  But sometimes Herr Schafer and Father get into an argument. Then Herr Schafer grows very quiet and aloof. Father gets authoritative and plays the boss. Though Father fumes a little, in the end it’s usually Father who gives in. Herr Schafer smiles again. Father laughs and teases him. “I suppose you’d go on strike like your thirteenth-century brethren.”

  When I ask Herr Schafer what Father means, he says, “Seven hundred years ago the masons in France who were laying the bricks and stones on French cathedrals were commanded by the bishops to cut their long hair and shave their beards. They refused and stopped working. The bishops gave in.”

  After one such argument, Father says, “You see how Herr Schafer can tell the boss what must be done? That’s the thing about these Gothic cathedrals, Peter, that people don’t always realize. These churches are the first great monuments built by workmen who were their own masters. Just think of the pyramids—the slaves who built them carted stones under the scourge of the Egyptian lash. Thousands of workmen died to build the pyramids. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the great Gothic churches were built, men built with their hearts and minds as well as their backs. It was no longer just the master who decided what must be done. No, the workmen had a say. All the skill and imagination of the workmen was added to that of the master, and look what beauty came of men working freely!”

  “How did that happen, Father?” I ask. I like the idea of the workman having a say, for Herr Schafer is my boss and I’m his employee.

  “The monks in those days came from wealthy families. In the monasteries the monks spent all their time in prayer and had servants to wait upon them just as they had in the homes where they were raised. Along came St. Benedict, who said his monks must do physical work as well as pray. ‘Idleness is the enemy of the soul,’ St. Benedict said. Suddenly labor was honorable and respected.

  “There was something else. Everyone in the city or town where the church was going up felt a part of the building of the church. In the Middle Ages life was hard. The cathedral brought some beauty into people’s lives. It was a promise of what was to come in God’s kingdom. These churches have been called the Bible of the poor. People in those days could not read or write, and so the stories of the Bible were told in the sculptures and in the stained-glass windows.” After a moment Father says to me, “And not just the New Testament, Peter, but the Old Testament as well.”

  On our walks to and from St. Mary’s, Father has begun to tell me about the building of the churches, so our walks are like chapters in a book. “Life in the Middle Ages, Peter, was brutish. Babies died in their mothers’ arms; there were famines and plagues that killed half the population of a town. In all that ugliness and misery the beauty of the church was a promise of what was to come in God’s kingdom; the promise of Heaven enabled people to endure their cruel world.”

  With the steeples nearly finished, preparations are being made for transporting the new bells to St. Mary’s. “Bells have always been important,” Father says. “In the Middle Ages they rang out to warn of storms that might threaten a harvest, and four nights of the year, when witches were said to be abroad, the bells sounded all night to keep them away.”

  Because I have something to do with all the changes to St. Mary’s, I urge my parents to arrive at the service early on Sunday. I want to see the pleased looks on the faces of the parishioners as they examine the progress that has been made. Of course they haven’t counted the bricks I have moved about, but I have counted them. I am proud of the church and sure that God is as well. I like to think of him up there, a Herr Schafer with a long beard, checking off what has been accomplished that week.

  Though hardly a day goes by without Herr Schafer correcting me about something, when he sees that I am truly trying to learn, he promises me, “By the end of the summer, I’ll have you laying bricks yourself.”

  I cannot tell him that any day I expect a letter, perhaps with train ti
ckets, urging me to come to the Stauffenberg family. I imagine their pleasure in the reunion, how they will welcome me with open arms. I see myself strolling about on the grounds of their great home. Though I try to put it out of my mind, I can’t help being a little angry with Mother and Father for not returning me to my rightful parents after the war.

  Each day Mother places Father’s mail on a little tray in his study. When he arrives home, after giving mother a kiss on the forehead, he goes to his study and examines his mail. Since we have the same name, Peter Liebig, I think that is where I will find my letter. I make an excuse to Father for not walking home with him. “I’ve got soccer practice with Kurt and Hans,” I say. Then I take a shortcut to our house, quickly go over Father’s letters, and leave before he gets there. Three days go by, and then I find the letter. It is the second one in the tray.

  Dear Peter Liebig,

  I am an attorney for the Stauffenberg family, who have asked me to reply to your letter. Yours is not the first letter of its kind that the Stauffenberg family have received. I inform you as I informed the others that after the war’s end, happily all the children of the Stauffenbergs were reunited with their family.

  Yours very truly,

  Karl Schneider

  Attorney-at-Law

  Will I ever find out who I am? I don’t really belong to anyone. No one wants me. Well, maybe that’s not true. I’m sure my parents love me, but what about my real parents? I know it could be worse, and I think of Gustav and what happened to his parents and how he is really alone. I guess I was counting too much on the letter. After I get over my disappointment, I tell myself that I am a snob because I daydreamed about being a part of a famous hero’s aristocratic family. I turned my back on my own mother and father, although they have done everything for me, showing me love and affection every day. I feel guilty, but I am also miserable, because I still don’t know who I am. If I’m not a Stauffenberg, who am I? What if I find out something I don’t want to know?

  EIGHT

  IT’S HARD TO KEEP my mind on my work. When the bricks I piled up topple over into a heap, Herr Schafer says, “What’s this sloppiness, Peter? You must have your mind on some girl.” I feel my face grow red. I am glad to be busy. I work to the sound of Herr Brandt testing the organ, the deep tones of the music filling the church as if the music were water and the church a thirsty basin. Reiner Nordstrom is applying gold leaf to his decorations. The leaf is real gold and so thin that if you touch it, it flies apart, the bits of gold floating in the air. Herr Nordstrom applies it with a special brush and then burnishes it until it shines. The steeples reach a little farther into the air, landmarks now, because once again you can see them from a distance.

  I hadn’t planned to confess my worries to Herr Schafer, but we have grown close. Our lunches, taken together, always end in a discussion of something or other. It took a while before I saw that he launches these talks as a way of getting me to think. Whatever position I take, he takes the opposite. The Socratic method, he calls it. I know he was a philosopher, but our arguments are seldom about life-shaking issues.

  “Which is more important in your sandwich, Peter, the liverwurst or the pickles?”

  “The liverwurst.”

  “Would you eat the liverwurst without the pickles?”

  “No way—the pickles hide the taste of the liverwurst. Mother says the liverwurst we get from the butcher shop is probably made from stray cats.”

  “Would you eat the pickles without the liverwurst?”

  “Sure—I love pickles, especially the pickles Mother makes.”

  “If you would eat the pickles without the liverwurst, but not the liverwurst without the pickles, perhaps you need to rethink which is the more important of the two.”

  Then Herr Schafer has a good laugh.

  Having found out there is a mystery about myself, I begin to wonder if other people have secrets, so I ask him, “Weren’t you a professor at Heidelberg University?”

  “Yes, Peter. My days in Heidelberg were the happiest of my life, first as a student and then as a professor. Heidelberg is a student’s dream. There is a romantic ruined castle standing on a hill. A peaceful river wanders through the town, and beside the river is the Philosophenweg, the philosophers’ path, where great men like Goethe once wandered. There are cafés where students and professors talk and argue by the hour. To be a part of so great a university was all I wanted from life.”

  “But you couldn’t have learned to lay bricks at the university,” I said.

  “No, Peter. That is not where I learned to lay bricks.” He is quiet for a minute, as if he is deciding whether or not he can confide in me. He must decide he can, for he says, “The Nazis came along. They decreed Jews could not teach at universities. When I could no longer teach, it was misery to see my colleagues and students every day and know I could have nothing to do with them. Besides, I knew danger was coming and I wanted to be near my family. I went back to Hamburg, where I had grown up. My family lived in a pleasant flat near the Inner Alster, a pretty lake in the middle of town. From the shores of the lake you could see the spires of five churches and the town hall. We were Reform Jews and went each sabbath to the synagogue, but we did not take our faith too seriously. We had many friends who were not Jewish. My father had been a successful lawyer. A year before, he had suffered a heart attack and had to retire. My mother was a curator at the fine arts museum. She had studied art in Paris and was an expert in her field of Chinese porcelain.

  “Friends told my parents to leave Germany, but even after I had been expelled from the university, my parents said that leaving would be running away. Then it was decreed that if you were Jewish, you could not work at the museum, and Mother was separated forever from her beloved porcelains. At last my parents saw the danger ahead. By then it was too late to leave.

  “One evening we were at dinner. My mother prided herself on her cooking. She was artistic in everything she did. It was my birthday, and she had baked a cake for me. She had been saving eggs and had some chocolate given to her by a friend at the museum who, in spite of the danger, remained close to my parents. With the precious ingredients so hard to get during the war, she had made my favorite chocolate cake, a Schokoladentorte. We all sat for a moment admiring it. Just as Mother raised the knife to cut the cake, the doorbell rang. We thought it might be a friend who lived nearby and by some magic had guessed Mother had made one of her famous cakes. Father started to get up, but to spare him, for he was quite weak then and every movement was an effort, I hurried to the door.

  “Before I could get there, the door was battered down and six Gestapo officers rushed into the room. They had a paper with our names on it. “We give you five minutes to pack,” they announced, as if they were doing us a great favor.

  “Mother ran to Father, who was white as the tablecloth. He shook his head. “Never mind me. Go and get what we need, my dear. Take warm clothes and good shoes.” So I knew he had been thinking this time might come. Mother and I ran upstairs. I helped her throw some clothes into a suitcase and I did the same. They were shouting at us to hurry, but Mother ran back to her room to snatch a picture of the three of us together taken on a picnic when I was still a boy and Father a healthy man.

  “When we got downstairs, I saw that the torte had been eaten and the officers in their pristine uniforms and shiny boots had rings of chocolate around their mouths. To this day I cannot touch chocolate.”

  I can hardly bring myself to ask, but I have to. “What happened to your parents?”

  “There were trucks outside. One for the young and healthy, and one for the sick and elderly. When I insisted on going with my parents, I was knocked down and shoved into the truck for the healthy. Later I learned that my parents were sent to Auschwitz, where they were killed almost at once.

  “I was sent to a work camp, where they taught me how to make bricks. Like the Jews enslaved in Egypt, I made bricks for the enemy.”

  After a very long silence I ask, “
Herr Schafer, why do you stay in Germany? You could go to another country and teach in its universities.”

  “Jews have lived in Germany for a thousand years, Peter. The Nazis took everything from me, but they could not take my country. It is not theirs to take.”

  “Why aren’t you teaching here in Germany, then?”

  “There aren’t that many teaching positions. The universities are just getting back on their feet. Anyhow, I need to see the world a little more clearly before I go back to teaching students what they ought to think.”

  What I heard from Herr Schmidt were lectures. What I hear from Herr Schafer is real. “How can people be so evil?” I ask.

  “There are some Jews, Peter, who believe that in every generation there are only thirty-six righteous people in the whole world and no one knows who they are. Without those thirty-six the world could not exist. For myself, I think there are many, many more. The difficulty, Peter, is that we often do not recognize evil. Evil can begin with a word.”

  Because Herr Schafer has been so frank with me, I believe I can talk with him about my worries. We are having our lunch on a bench in the shade of a tree. We look at the people moving about in the bright July afternoon as if we are watching a play on a lighted stage. In the distance someone is pushing a lawn mower, and I can smell the newly cut grass. In the trees, squirrels are hopping restlessly from branch to branch.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” I ask.