Mighty Fortress Read online

he dwell on his loss, when they were to gain their lives and freedom?

  Lord, bless our journey. Bless this family. Protect them and the men who are helping them. Make the way to freedom smooth for them.

  Their arguing could be heard even before he opened the hatchway. He climbed up.

  “Pastor, please reason with her.” Sarah’s eyes and nose were red. She twisted a handkerchief in her hands.

  Frau Hochberg shook her head. “I am being reasonable. You heard what the pastor said. A little wooden crate! You want me in a coffin? I am not dead yet!”

  “Mutti, this is the only way to get out!” Sarah wailed.

  Avram raised his finger to his lips. “Hush, Mama.”

  Sarah sat on the floor and drew him to her chest. “I know, baby.”

  Frau Hochberg spoke, quietly, but with the force of age and wisdom. “I am old, Sarah-laibm. I cannot make this trip with you. Perhaps, when the war is over, I will see you again." She squeezed her granddaughter's hand. "Next year in Jerusalem.”

  Sarah wept, and buried her face in her son’s hair. Yitzak’s lined brow and sad eyes showed he probably understood what Mutti meant.

  Gottlieb certainly understood. “We have to go.” He handed out three sandwiches.

  He crouched next to Frau Hochberg and said gently, “I’ll look in on you when I get back.” He put the sandwich in her hand.

  Her gray eyes glittered in the feeble gleam of the battery-powered lantern. She waggled a finger. “You had better, young man.”

  + + +

  Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing;

  Were not the right man on our side, The man of God’s own choosing.

  Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is He,

  Lord Sabaoth His name, From age to age the same,

  And he shall win the battle.

  + + +

  For tense weeks they waited for news. Every day, he would take her dinner upstairs. She would look up from whatever book she was reading. She went through one a day, sometimes two. She would look up, her eyes wide and hopeful. He’d shake his head.

  One day, the postman brought an innocuous postcard from Lisbon. “Doing fine. Hope to see you soon. Love, the kids.”

  Gottlieb read it thrice, to make sure it was real. Yes. Lisbon. Thank you, Father!

  He tucked the card into his shirt pocket. A shame he couldn’t take it upstairs at that moment. But the sexton was cleaning the sanctuary floors. It would have to wait until dinnertime.

  He heated some tinned soup, then poured it into a thermos and took it upstairs with two mugs.

  She looked up from the book she was reading, eyes wide.

  He grinned and handed over the card.

  She gasped. She read the message, clutched it to her breast, murmured a prayer, and then read it again. Chuckling, she brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Yitzak hates it when I call them ‘the kids.’” She read the card again, then held it to her bosom. “Lisbon. From there London, and New York.”

  “Thanks be to God.” Grinning, Gottlieb poured soup into the mugs.

  “Amen.”

  “I never realized before how similar our prayers are,” he said.

  “Ha! Your Bible, you get half of it from us.” She took the mug from him, but set it aside.

  “More than half, actually.” He sipped the soup. It couldn’t warm him as that brief note from Yitzak did.

  She patted his knee, just like his own grandmother used to do. “Let me tell you something. It was I who picked this church to come to for help.”

  “Did you? I thought Yitzak planned it.”

  “Yes, Yitzak had the will to escape. Sarah and I, we might have just moved to a different place, and let the Nazis find us there. But Yitzak is a smart boy. He knows no place in Europe is safe for a Jew, now.” She sighed. “We did not know where we should go. Then we talk to Rabbi Goldman; he is living in a little apartment above a Gentile butcher shop—such a place for a rabbi—who would think to find him there? He says people tell him the churches, some of them will help. And I pass your church often; I walk by here to go to the baker’s. So I say to Yitzak, ‘We must go to that church, The Mighty Fortress. Just what we need, nu?’”

  Gottlieb nodded. “The name comes from a hymn by Martin Luther.” He shook a finger at her. “Which, speaking of Jewish writings, was inspired by the forty-sixth Psalm. ‘God is our refuge and strength…’”

  “‘…the God of Jacob is our Haven.’”

  “Amen”

  They shared a few moments of silent meditation. The Spiegels’ safe arrival in Lisbon proved the profound truth of those words. He picked up her mug and held it out.

  She shook her head. “No. Not today. It is Yom Kippur.”

  “Mutti, you do not have the strength to fast. Please eat something.” He couldn’t remember when he had stopped calling her “Frau Hochberg.” It seemed she had always been “Mutti.”

  “My friends, my neighbors who have been taken away, do they have anything to eat?” She pierced him with eyes like nails. “They fast every day, nu?” She closed her eyes and prayed quietly in Hebrew.

  He left the soup, and left her alone. What else could he do, nu?

  + + +

  And though this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us;

  We will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.

  The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him;

  His rage we can endure, For lo! his doom is sure;

  One little word shall fell him.

  + + +

  He had prepared a tender illumination of the Christ child for his Christmas Eve sermon. But how to deliver a sermon on God’s love with Nazi soldiers in the pews? Stormtroopers, Wehrmacht, Schutzstaffel—even a couple of Gestapo. It was all Gottlieb could do to keep his heart beating. The sermon was dry, all the adoration drained from it by those hateful black spiders.

  It was a relief to give the benediction, to hear the organ swell with a refrain from Handel, to know the night was almost over. He would check on Mutti and go to sleep.

  But what if all those Schutzstaffel and Gestapo were here to search? Would they do that? Sit politely through a sermon, stand when they should, sing what they should, say the Lord’s Prayer as they should, and then tear through the church looking for Jews?

  A crazy idea. But if they were crazy enough to think of it, they would find one.

  Sweat trickled down his neck.

  She would die, and he would go to a work camp. They had already taken the Catholic priest, and he hadn’t been hiding anyone—that Gottlieb knew of.

  Pastor Gottlieb stood at the door of God’s house, shook the hands of the Nazis as they left, and refrained from vomiting on their highly polished boots.

  When everyone was gone, the candles extinguished and the church silent, he made a sandwich and took it up to the little room behind the pipes.

  She didn’t look his way when he poked his head through the hatch. “Mutti?” She was sitting up in her corner, the thin gray blanket tucked around her legs. Her hand lay limp next to the book on the floor.

  A rat dashed across her lap. Its nails scratched the floorboards as it wriggled through a hole into the pipe chamber.

  He bit his lip to stop its trembling. He stepped up into the room. His shoes clomped like lead weights on the floor. This day had to come. But why so soon?

  Gottlieb knelt next to her, stroking her thin gray hair. “Oh, Mutti.” His tears dropped into her hair. He laid her down, closed her eyes, and drew the blanket over her head.

  + + +

  As he hurried down the street to the butcher shop where Rabbi Goldman was staying, Gottlieb planned a letter to the Spiegels. It was not the worst possible news. She hadn’t been captured. She had gone to God in God’s own time, and in God’s way. Her death had not come at the hand of any man.

  A block ahead, a Schutzstaffel colonel with a beautiful young lady on his arm app
roached.

  For the first time since the Anschluss, the sight of the black uniform and the crooked cross did not make Gottlieb start or tremble. His heart did not race, nor his blood boil.

  And why should they?

  The invaders had no power. The Spiegels were safe in New York, and Mutti was in the safest place of all.

  The Lord was more powerful than the Führer. He had already used Gottlieb to thwart the Nazis. Gottlieb’s heart swelled. Use me again, Lord. It is a privilege to be an instrument of your justice.

  Perhaps Rabbi Goldman knew of others who needed help.

  The colonel lifted his hat as they passed on the street. “Good evening, Pastor.”

  Gottlieb made a stiff smile for the adversary. “Happy Christmas.”

  + + +

  That word above all earthly powers, No thanks to them, abideth;

  The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth;

  Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also;

  The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still;

  His Kingdom is forever.

  Amen

  About the Author

  Kristen Stieffel is a writing coach, helping writers polish and non-writers write. Her services cover the gamut from proofreading to ghostwriting. Despite ten years of newsroom experience, Kristen still believes in preserving each writer's unique voice. She is a member of The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network and the Editorial Freelancers Association.

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