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Peggy called Jim’s parents from Grand Central station, and they were waiting for us when we arrived at the end of our journey. Jim and his father had the same tall, angular build. They stood and moved and walked alike and had the same broad hands. His mother’s gray-green eyes were the same color as Jim’s, the color of the sea. She pulled me into her arms for a long embrace, loving me without question. Jim had poured out that same love on everyone in Buchenwald. I melted into her arms. We climbed into their car and crossed the river on a ferry. Peggy told my story to Jim’s parents on the ride home.
Home. We arrived at the home where Jim grew up a short time later. The dog who greeted me, wagging his entire hindquarters along with his tail, looked like he was smiling up at me. Jim’s mother opened her refrigerator and spread a banquet of food on the table for Peggy and me. I hoped she understood how overwhelming it was and why I could put only a few things on my plate. I wanted to rush to the hospital immediately but night had fallen.
“What time can we see Jim tomorrow?” I asked.
His mother shook her head. “Visiting hours are only on Sundays. We’ll have to wait another week to visit him again.”
“But why should we wait? We’re the people who care about him. We’re his family, and I am a nurse. Jim needs to come home.”
“I agree,” Jim’s father said. He slapped his hand on the table for emphasis. “The doctors had their chance to help him. We’ll go to the hospital tomorrow and bring him home.”
We talked and talked until it was very late. Jim’s mother showed me to a lovely bedroom of my own on the second floor. I halted in the doorway. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
It took me a moment to put my feelings into words. “There’s nobody else in it. I’m not used to sleeping all alone.” For as long as I could remember I had shared a room with someone—first with Ruthie, then with my roommates at nursing school, then jammed in with countless others in Buchenwald and the DP camp. I had slept alone in the tiny pantry in the former SS barracks for a few months, but there had been other people and lots of activity just outside my door. Except for the sound of insects beyond the open windows, this room was deathly quiet.
“You can stay with me, in my room,” Peggy said. “It has two beds.” I accepted her offer with great relief.
I washed in the sparkling bathroom, put on my pajamas, and climbed into bed. Peggy got into her bed and switched off the light. “I’m so excited you’re here, Gisela, and that you want to help Jimmy. Gosh, I don’t know how I’ll ever fall asleep! I’ve been hoping we could bring him home from the hospital for the longest time.”
There was something very comforting about talking to my new friend in the dark in this cozy room. Only a few hours ago, I had been in the bustling city, miles from this peaceful place, working in the bakery and trying to adjust to my new life in America. I hadn’t known that Peggy even existed. But she had quickly become my friend, just as Jimmy had in Buchenwald.
“I’m still very sorry for the way everything happened,” I said. “It was cruel of my uncle to send Jim away. I could tell that he was depressed when we were still in Germany, but I thought he would be all right once he got home.” And yet Jim had told me about the overwhelming darkness he’d felt. I could see why he hadn’t wanted to bring that darkness home to these lovely people.
“We’ve been talking to Jimmy’s Army buddies and following his journey through the war,” Peggy said. “Jimmy loved God and had a very strong faith when he left home. Even in the beginning when he first went overseas, he was always reading his Bible and encouraging everyone. But later on, he stopped. As the war went on, I think he may have lost his faith in a loving God.”
“He did. Jim told me he did.”
“That’s awful!”
“He talked about the terrible darkness he felt. Maybe he tried to kill himself in order to escape from it.”
“If that’s true, then we have to find a way to bring him back into the light. Back to his faith in God.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t know the way back. I lived beneath the same shadow myself, with only a tiny spark of light. Everything I’d been doing for the past few months—traveling to New York City, getting reacquainted with my uncle and his family, helping Ruthie feel settled and at home—those things had kept the light burning dimly in my heart. And the work Jim did in Buchenwald had kept his darkness away for a time. But when he’d arrived home, when my uncle told him I didn’t want his help, the darkness must have finally overwhelmed him. I longed to help him as badly as Peggy did, but I didn’t know how.
“I have a scrapbook filled with pictures of his friends,” Peggy continued. “And all the letters they sent, saying how much he helped them. If we can show Jimmy how much everyone loves him, maybe he’ll start believing that God loves him, too.”
I hoped she was right. But it would take much more than that to convince me that there was a God who loved me. I lay awake for most of the night and had a headache when I got up in the morning. Peggy’s bed was empty. She’d told me that she had to rise early to do her chores at the animal clinic. Jimmy’s father was just hanging up the phone in the front hallway when I came downstairs for breakfast.
“It’s settled,” he told us as we ate. “I talked to Dr. Morgan and told him we would be arriving later today to bring Jim home. Of course, he protested. He says Jim’s discharge will be against medical advice. I told him we didn’t care, and they should have him ready to leave when we got there at noon.”
I didn’t recognize Jim when I first saw him, sitting on an ugly chair in the hospital foyer. He was thin and haggard-looking, and his clothes hung on him as if they belonged to someone else. Peggy had warned me that he rarely spoke, so I was surprised when he struggled to his feet and said, “Gisela? What are you doing here?”
I hugged him tightly, not caring how many people stared at us. “My uncle lied to you, Jim. I never said all those things he told you. I never would have sent you away. I had no idea that you came to Brooklyn to find me until Peggy came to my uncle’s apartment yesterday. We’ve both been believing a lie, Jim.”
Peggy held one of his hands and I held the other as we walked out of the hospital. The view from the parking lot of the shining river and distant mountains was so beautiful that I stopped to savor it for a moment. I made Jim stop and look at it, too. Later, we stood at the rail together on the ferry ride across the Hudson River and I thought of my time with Sam on board the St.Louis. Sam and Jim would have liked each other. Sam would be grateful to Jim for saving my life.
Jim’s father and Peggy left for their afternoon rounds when we arrived home. I helped Jim’s mother pick the late-summer peas in her garden, then Jim and I sat talking with her on the front porch while she shelled them. Peggy’s dog refused to leave Jim’s side, sitting contentedly at his feet. The rhythmic creak of the rocking chairs and the pinging of the plump peas as they fell into the pot were soothing, as I told Jim’s mother about my long journey from Berlin to America. It was the first time I was able to talk about any of the things that I had endured, even to my aunt and uncle. Somehow the weight of the past seemed lighter after sharing it with her.
“My uncle Aaron just gave me your letter yesterday,” I told Jim, “with the address of Sam’s commanding officer in Palestine. I need to write to him.” His mother gave me stationery and an airmail envelope. I walked to the post office to mail it with Jim and Peggy and Buster after Peggy finished work. The tiny village was quiet and a little shabby-looking. The American flags that hung from the porches of many of the homes barely rippled beneath the warm afternoon sun. It was so peaceful here compared to the city. I wished I had brought Ruthie with me.
Peggy had a letter to mail, too. “It’s a note to Jimmy’s friend Chaplain Bill,” she whispered to me. “I told him Jimmy is home and that he should come for a visit.”
Jim remained quiet and distant all day, so unlike the warm, soft-spoken man I knew. At bedtime, when he went outside with his father to shut the barn doors and close the chicken coop, his mother took Peggy and me aside. “Jim had terrible nightmares before he went into the hospital,” she said. “He would wake up screaming and trembling. Gordon thinks we shouldn’t leave him alone at night. He thought maybe we could take turns watching over him. I’ll stay with him tonight and—”
“No, Mrs. Barnett,” I said. “I am Jim’s wife. I will stay with him tonight. And every night until he’s well.”
We would be companions in the darkness, watching for the dawn.
