After the Train (9 page)

Kurt, Gustav, Hans, and I are on the same team, while Gerhart Miller and Dieter Kroner usually play on the other team. On this night they have seven on their team, while we have to play with just six since our seventh player has come down with measles and there isn’t time to get a substitute.

Herr Schafer stands watching the play, his legs moving a little like he wants to get in the action. Gerhart and
Dieter give him a funny look. I kick the ball in his direction. He stops the ball with his chest, and the next thing I know he’s in the game and all over the field, juggling like there is no ground under his feet. With Herr Schafer on our side, we get the ball down to the goal and he gets it past the goalkeeper with a slider.

Dieter is furious. He glares at Herr Schafer. “We don’t want to play with Jews!” he shouts.

Herr Kreutzer trots out and shoves a yellow card at Dieter. “Watch your language, sonny,” he says, “or you’ll be out of the game.” Kreutzer, with a big grin on his face, turns to Herr Schafer. “I guess you’ve played this game once or twice before.”

Herr Schafer doesn’t hog the ball. He keeps passing it, but when it comes his way he’s phenomenal, running right into the ball and making it go where he wants it. Our team catches fire and scores two goals.

“Hey, we’re all going to be Jews tonight!” Hans shouts at Dieter. “And we’ll beat the stuffing out of your team!”

I watch Dieter shadowing Herr Schafer, and on the next play he works his way next to him and lets go with a high kick, his foot only inches from Herr Schafer’s head. Kreutzer goes puffing out with a red card and Dieter is out of the game, left to stand on the sidelines
digging trenches in the ground with his cleats.

Even though Herr Schafer sees to it that everyone on our team gets a chance at the ball, that can’t prevent our winning by a wide margin. While both teams crowd around him, I walk over to Dieter, who’s standing there with his hands tightened into fists.

“Your dad missing any of his carbon tetrachloride? Maybe you needed a little for a chemistry experiment? Maybe we should ask the police to help you find it?”

Dieter looks as if someone just pushed him into a wall face-first. That tells me all I need to know. At first I want to lunge at him, but what Dieter has done is bigger than anything I can punish him for.

I tell Herr Schafer. He says again he doesn’t want revenge, but adds, “Justice is something else.” He tells me he has received a letter from a friend at his old university in Heidelberg. “It isn’t exactly a job offer,” he says, “but someone there knows I’m still here.”

I head home, passing St. Mary’s. It soars over the town and I think of all it has seen and how it has survived. Some of St. Mary’s bricks have been here for nearly a thousand years. I run my hand along the course of bricks I laid. If there are no more wars, no more people hurting one another, my bricks might be here for the next seven hundred years. Father is already working
on plans to rebuild a smaller church across the city. He will go on bringing churches back to life and I will go on listening to Herr Schafer’s stories, and someday the two will come together and tell me what to do.

It’s Friday and school is over for the week. Ruth wasn’t in school today because it’s the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. I think I would like to do something to celebrate the day. I walk along nibbling a
Buchtel
I’ve saved from my lunch. As I cross the river Tave that circles the city, I remember Herr Schafer telling me about the Tashlich service. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah crumbs are cast into a river where there are fish. The crumbs represent our sins for the year, and the river carries them away. The fish are important because fish were the first witnesses to creation. Because their eyes are always open, they are like God’s ever-watching eyes. I toss some of the
Buchtel
crumbs into the water and feel lighter, as if a lot of my worries have been thrown away with the crumbs. Then I eat the rest, licking the jam off my lips, thinking of all that is sweet in my life.

National Book Award–winning author
GLORIA WHELAN
weaves rich historical detail into this compelling mystery. Ms. Whelan is the bestselling author of many novels for young readers, including
HOMELESS BIRD
, winner of the National Book Award,
PARADE OF SHADOWS
, and
LISTENING FOR LIONS
. She lives in northern Michigan. You can visit her online at www.gloriawhelan.com.

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