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“Yes! And he was petting Buster the whole time until the orderly chased us away. Jimmy seemed to remember Joe, too, and shook hands with him.”
“I wish I had been there to see it,” Mr. Barnett murmured.
“So do I. But it’s a good sign, don’t you think, Gordon? We should tell Dr. Morgan about it the next time we see him.”
“Yes, although I doubt if he’ll approve of Peggy’s canine therapy.” We all smiled, and it felt so good to smile.
“So now I have a plan,” I said. “If you’ll allow me to try it, that is. Jimmy’s buddy Joe lost his leg in battle and Jimmy got him to an aid station and saved his life. I’d like to find more of Jimmy’s pals from the war and ask them to visit, too. Maybe one of them can tell us what happened to Jimmy and when he started to change and why he became so depressed. Maybe they know who Gisela is and why he carries her picture. I’d like to remind him of all the good memories from his past—like saving Buster—and maybe sneak photographs and things into the hospital so he’ll remember how happy he once was. Joe and Dr. Morgan both said the electric shocks will take away Jimmy’s memories, so we need to help him get those memories back.”
Mr. Barnett took my hand for a moment and squeezed it. “I think those are very good ideas, Peggy. They’re certainly worth trying.”
“I’m a little afraid to show Gisela’s picture to Jimmy until we learn more about her,” I said. “I’m afraid it might bring back a terrible memory. But can you think of something else we can bring to him?”
“I’ll help you dig around in his room,” Jimmy’s mother said. “You can bring him anything you think will help—perhaps his photo album? The hospital probably won’t let him keep anything, but we can show him, can’t we? Oh, Peggy, I’m just so happy to think that our Jimmy laughed again.”
We went upstairs to his room as soon as we finished our coffee and cake. Mrs. Barnett showed me a wooden box Jimmy had made in Boy Scouts to earn a woodworking badge. He’d filled it with mementos—baseball cards, his string of perfect Sunday school attendance medals, a model airplane he’d glued together from a kit—nothing a grown man would want, but things that once held special meaning for him. Mrs. Barnett left me there to search by myself, and I lost all track of time as I sorted through the box.
I still hadn’t reached the bottom when I found a manila envelope filled with newspaper clippings. They were from May of 1939 and told about a passenger liner called the St.Louis. It seemed like a funny thing for a kid in high school to keep, but as I skimmed through the articles, I remembered how obsessed Jimmy had been with the story at the time. A steamship filled with Jewish refugees had been fleeing Nazi persecution but couldn’t find a nation that would take them in. Their plight had made headlines in all the newspapers as the world watched and waited to see what would happen. One of the articles showed a grainy picture of the ship in Havana Harbor, surrounded by rowboats filled with distraught relatives calling out to their families on board. One passenger became so depressed at the thought of returning to Germany that he had jumped overboard to kill himself.
The story made me pause for a moment. How had Jimmy reached the same point as this Jewish man, who had felt so hopeless that death seemed like the only solution? Jimmy had a home and a family to return to, a future as a veterinarian with his dad, and a hundred other things to look forward to. He must have known there were plenty of people he could turn to for help, unlike the man in the story. So why had Jimmy done it?
I continued reading. The United States government had turned down the passengers’ request for sanctuary and had sent the St.Louis away. The Canadian government did the same thing. I remembered how upset Jimmy had been by that news. “A lot of Americans are prejudiced against Jewish people,” he’d told me. According to the newspaper, our government decided that if they made an exception to their immigration quotas and let these refugees into the country, then multitudes of people would be jumping on ships and trying to get into the States. I shook my head in disbelief. If these refugees had no home and no country that wanted them, what were they supposed to do? I understood from my childhood a little of how those poor people must have felt—being disliked and unwanted and tormented for no reason at all. If Donna had her way, I might not have a home for much longer, either.
Along with all the newspaper articles was a carbon copy of a letter that Jimmy had sent to President Roosevelt, asking him to intervene on behalf of the passengers. That was just like Jimmy—always trying to right wrongs and fix things, standing up for people the same way he’d offered to confront the bullies for me. The last article in the envelope told how the ship’s captain had no choice in the end but to turn the ship around and return to Europe. I wondered what had become of those nine hundred passengers. The tragedy of the St.Louis seemed even more poignant now that the world knew the horrible truth about the Nazi atrocities—the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the crematoriums. Six million Jews had been murdered. Had the St.Louis’s passengers become victims of the Nazis, too?
Even now, a year after the war ended, the nations still seemed to be arguing about what to do with the Jewish people. They filled displaced persons camps all across Europe, still looking for a permanent home. I had just read a newspaper article last week that told how President Truman was urging the British government to allow 100,000 Jewish refugees to immigrate to Palestine. The British foreign minister had replied that the Americans wanted them to move to Palestine because they didn’t want them in the United States. Where were all these people supposed to go?
I put everything back into the wooden box and went home, feeling discouraged.
Joe was sitting upstairs in our living room, laughing and drinking highballs with Donna and Pop. A Yankees’ game blared from the radio. The apartment was steaming hot and Pop had set up two rotating fans to blow the warm air around on high speed. “Hey! I remembered where Chaplain Bill was from!” Joe said when I walked in. “Danbury, Connecticut!”
“That isn’t far from here,” I said. “Just across the New York State border.”
“Told you I had a good memory.” Joe tapped his forehead with the empty highball glass he was holding.
“We could search for his name in the Danbury telephone book and—”
“Let’s go! We’ll take my motorcycle.” He rose to his feet, swaying slightly. Even if I had the courage to ride on the back of his motorcycle, I certainly wasn’t going to do it after he’d been drinking.
“How about tomorrow instead?” I asked. “We’ll get an early start.”
“What’s all this?” Pop mumbled. “Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere today, Pop.”
“Oh, go on, you two,” Donna said. “Why not take off and have a little fun?” She wore a sly smile and I realized what she was up to. If she could kindle a spark between Joe Fiore and me, he might take me off her hands.
“We’ll go tomorrow, Joe. Bright and early,” I said. And in my car. I went into my bedroom and closed the door.
I was up early the next day so I could do my chores at the clinic and explain to Mr. Barnett where I was going. Pop had let Joe sleep overnight in the office again, and waking him up at nine o’clock in the morning wasn’t something I relished doing. But it had to be done. I was much too shy with strangers to drive to Danbury, Connecticut, and talk to the chaplain by myself. Where on earth would I start? What would I say? Joe Fiore already knew the man, and besides, Joe was talkative and outgoing enough for both of us. I scrounged through my bedroom for all the spare change I could find for the pay telephone. Meanwhile, Joe got dressed and swallowed a fistful of aspirin and a cup of strong coffee. I talked him out of taking his motorcycle. “It will only make your headache worse. Maybe next time.” If there was a next time. Who knew when Joe would take off again?
We found two listings for William Ashburn in the Danbury telephone directory. The first was the chaplain’s father, who kindly gave us directions to Chaplain Bill’s parsonage. The former Army chaplain turned out to be older than I’d imagined, in his forties I guessed, with a worried-looking face, rounded shoulders, and thinning brown hair. He invited us into his kitchen for coffee. His wife apologized for the state of her house, blaming their three children. “Please don’t fuss,” I told her. “It’s our fault for showing up unannounced.”
He asked us to call him Bill, and he seemed to remember Joe, although Joe admitted he never attended any of the religious services that the chaplain led. I explained that I was an old friend of Jim Barnett and he said, “Oh yes! I remember Jim very well. We had a lot of interesting conversations. In fact, Jim was one of the few people who enjoyed talking about God with me.” His voice trailed off and he was quiet for a moment before adding, “He had a very mature faith for a man his age. I hope nothing has happened to him.”
“Well, he’s in the VA hospital, I’m sorry to say, suffering from battle fatigue and depression. He, um... he tried to end his life.”
The chaplain looked shaken. Coffee sloshed onto his hand as he returned his cup to its saucer. “Oh no... no, not Jim. I can’t believe that. He was one of the most courageous men I ever met. He would crawl around in the thick of battle, taking care of his wounded men even though mortar rounds were coming in and shrapnel and bullets were flying all over. I couldn’t have done what Jim did.”
