A Tender Victory Page 3

  The ladies had slowly seated themselves, but the gentlemen stood around Johnny. They were like elderly terriers warily surveying a young mastiff. Really, Johnny, Dr. Stevens thought, you don’t talk of evil to those whom Evil has convinced he does not exist.

  Yet now the old minister spoke, mildly. “It has been said that Satan’s greatest triumph was in convincing those he wished to destroy that he had no reality,” he said. “I think Mr. Fletcher really means that evil men are born in every generation of men who hate others. The ignorant among them are called psychotics. The more intelligent, and influential, help to create wars and stimulate hatreds—either for financial profit, or personal satisfaction, or power.”

  He put his hand firmly on Johnny’s left arm, and pressed discreetly. Johnny had become pale, and his exhaustion, which was more spiritual than physical, revealed itself in his abstracted face, his air of momentary withdrawal.

  “Well, one can understand that,” said the President of the Board loftily, giving Dr. Stevens a reproachful glance. “One doesn’t need dramatics, and talk of a—a personal devil—to make that point.”

  Johnny stirred quickly. “We admit that evil exists. Since it is so widespread among so-called Christian nations, I believe we have opened ourselves to absolute chaos within the next few years.”

  “Chaos?” repeated one of the gentlemen with disdain. “The war is over, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Johnny. “It is never over.”

  They were silent. The young minister searched every face again, imploringly, hopefully, pleading for understanding. But now even the ladies’ faces were nervously closed to him. He must know by now, Dr. Stevens said to himself, miserably. But he is one of the noble heroes who will never give up. Dr. Stevens was an old man, and he was very tired. His mind began to buzz incoherently. Somewhere, he remembered, a paint company had used a very telling slogan: “Save the surface, and you save all!” Too many people were trying to “save the surface,” while it was cracking violently, thunderingly, to the farthest reaches of the world.

  Johnny suddenly went to the children. They watched his approach with their wild and furtive eyes, their inscrutable faces, their air of suppressed savagery. Dr. Stevens shuddered. I’d be afraid to go within a foot of them! he thought. But Johnny was not afraid. He looked at them tenderly. The boy Pietro, the monkey-boy, let a glimmer of teeth show between his lips in a soundless snarl. Max, the vacant-faced, was wringing his hands again. Jean, the crippled, glowered at the young minister. The little girls merely stared at him, taut as forest beasts.

  Johnny spoke to the adults in the room, but did not take his eyes away from the children. “Look at these little ones. I’ll tell you where I found them in a moment. They’re orphans; they don’t know who they are. Their parents were murdered in concentration camps. Who killed their parents? Who drove the minds and the souls of these children back to the dawn age of man, the age of tooth and claw? Look at them, and I’ll tell you the answer!”

  Stiffly, reluctantly, all eyes turned to the group huddled against the wall. Johnny swung slowly on his heel, and he surveyed the ladies and gentlemen with mournful and piercing anger. “You will say the Germans did—the Germans, our enemies. You will accuse the frightened little German housewife, with her own brutalized children. You will say these infants here are the victims of the timid German clerk, the harassed German shopkeeper, the thin German schoolmaster, the German burgher who only wanted peace in which to conduct his business. You will confuse the instruments with those who used the instruments.”

  His voice rose more passionately, a true orator’s voice. “I tell you that no nation is the enemy of another nation, no people the enemy of another people! There are no bad nations; there are only bad governments, which are taken over by the men of evil. ‘The spawn of Satan,’ as the Bible calls them.”

  The President of the Board said with a smile, “You’re a very eloquent young man, Mr. Fletcher. Excellent training. All Dr. Stevens’s graduates are. And now, since we are on the subject of governments, there is another old saying: ‘A people deserve their government.’”

  “No,” said Johnny, and there was bitterness in his voice.

  Frantically, Dr. Stevens tried to think of other churches where Johnny would be welcome after this.

  “These children,” said Johnny despairingly, “are not only the victims of German butchers. They are our victims too. Over ten years ago, long before the war, we gave our assent to the evil in the German government. By our silence—by our wicked silence. When only a word, only one powerful, Christian word, would have overthrown Hitler, would have saved the German people themselves, and would have saved countless thousands of other children like these. But we didn’t give the word. What were we afraid of? War? There would never have been a war if we had spoken in 1936.” He sighed. “And there would not be a Stalin, now, or a Communist government, if a generation ago we had given the saving word.”

  Now he was towering with wrath again. “Why didn’t you—why didn’t we—speak? Where were the pastors, the educated and civilized men? Where were our leaders—in 1917, in 1936?”

  No one answered him. With the exception of Dr. Stevens’s, every eye was cold. How hateful are those who demand confession and contrition from others! thought the old minister sorrowfully. How detestable is the man who shows us our sins of omission and commission! We much prefer to think well of ourselves.

  Then the President of the Board turned portentously to his fellows. “I think we should have a meeting early next week,” he said. “Monday, at half-past two? Is it convenient?”

  He didn’t ask me, Dr. Stevens commented to himself. Well, Johnny, that’s the end.

  Johnny must have known it too. He said, “Aren’t you interested to know how I got these children? Don’t you care?”

  “That, Mr. Fletcher,” said Mrs. Grant firmly, “is your own business. I’d suggest, though, that you put them in an orphan asylum. If the Immigration people will permit you.” Her hard eyes narrowed speculatively. Johnny took a step toward her. He said, “They’re not going to any orphan asylum. That was suggested for them in Europe, by others. They would have been separated, and that would’ve been frightful, for they trust only each other, with justification.”

  “Dear me,” said Mrs. Howard, “don’t they trust you, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “No, they don’t. Why should they? I’ve had them ten months. But I’m a man, an adult, and they know what they’ve suffered from men. Even I don’t know the full extent of it. So why should they trust me? They don’t know what a minister is. You see, they never met a minister before. And why didn’t they? Perhaps you can tell me.”

  But no one answered him. The ladies were rising with a final rustle, patting hair, adjusting hats, exchanging significant glances. The gentlemen took up their hats and gloves. Johnny, standing near them now, scrutinized them, but no one looked at him, though his hand was lifted appealingly.

  “Now, where is my purse?” asked Mrs. Grant, turning anxiously from her chair to the table. “I had it on that table near the door—I think—”

  Johnny turned swiftly to the children with an exclamation. Yes, it had happened again. Kathy, the stout, sure, blond little girl, had not only pounced on the purse somehow, but she had opened it. She clutched it in her left hand. Her right hand was clenched defiantly over something, and she was glaring at the adults. Jean, the fierce-eyed cripple, had moved protectively to her side, his pathetic fists knotted. The children were a wild and savage group, prepared for any violence, and prepared to return it.

  Johnny said, in the gentlest voice, “Kathy, don’t you remember? My little girl doesn’t steal things. Kathy?”

  The child’s distended eyes, shining with a wolflike light, looked at him. Dr. Stevens was again alarmed and overcome. “Kathy?” repeated Mr. Fletcher, and he advanced to the girl and held out his hand. Jean took a step toward him, raising his fists, lowering his head. “Stop it, Jean,” said the young minister sternly. “You
know I’m not going to hurt Kathy. Behave yourself.” He then ignored the boy, who continued to stand there like a belligerent statue.

  “Thieves!” cried Mrs. Howard. “How dreadful, how—”

  “Yes,” said Johnny, not looking at her, but only at Kathy. “How dreadful.” He held out his hand sternly, but with a smile, at Kathy. The other children crowded about her, glaring at him, and again that hoarse mutter rose from them, wordless but frightful.

  “She doesn’t want your money, Mrs. Grant,” said Johnny. “She just wants your compact.” He smiled steadily at Kathy. “You see, I told her, months ago, when I rescued her—from adults—that she was a lovable and pretty little girl. That she had blue eyes like flowers, and hair just like a daffodil. Someone—a man, probably—had told her she was too ugly to live, and that she was to be killed for that. That’s the kind of torture they used on children in the concentration camps, before they murdered them. So Kathy steals mirrors now, to look at herself, to see whether she is really pretty, and so won’t be killed.”

  “Well, why didn’t you buy her a little mirror yourself?” demanded Mrs. Grant haughtily.

  “I did. But she thinks, I’m afraid, that I just painted a picture on it of a pretty little girl, so that she’ll be fooled.”

  Mrs. Grant and the other ladies gasped incredulously. The gentlemen turned aside their faces. They always do, Dr. Stevens thought.

  “So,” Johnny went on, “she keeps stealing mirrors in compacts, so that she can believe for herself, in other people’s mirrors, that she’s pretty and won’t have to die.”

  He approached closer to Kathy, and she shrank away. “The purse, dear,” he said. “Look, I’ll buy you a pretty gold box tomorrow, with a mirror in it. Tomorrow, Kathy.”

  And then a strange thing happened. Mrs. Grant spoke. “Let her have the compact.”

  Johnny swung to her. Her firm lips were trembling. “I—I said, she can have the compact. I just want my purse.”

  A great joyful light burst out on Johnny’s face. “You see, Kathy!” he exclaimed. “The lady said you can have her mirror. All for you, darling, so you can look at yourself. But you don’t want the purse—”

  The child glared at him, and then at Mrs. Grant. Then she flung the purse at the young minister’s face with one strong thrust of her arm. He dodged, but it hit him on the side of the head, and he staggered at the impact of the heavy article. The children exploded into a roar of laughter and hoarse shouts of triumph. “Johnny!” cried Dr. Stevens, over the uproar.

  But Johnny had calmly recovered his poise. He rubbed the side of his head and studied the children. “What monsters,” murmured the President of the Board. “We’ll have to consult with the Immigration authorities—dangerous to permit them at large—you never can tell—”

  The children were jiggling together in a hysterical dance of hate and victory. And terror. They had begun to chant some jungle rhythm born out of the depths of their savagery.

  “That’s all you could do for them, in ten long months?” said Mrs. Howard, her voice shaking with fear and disgust. “You could do no better than that? Look at them! They’re—they’re nightmares!”

  “Yes,” said Johnny, his back to her. “Nightmares. Our nightmares.”

  He advanced to the children, after giving Mrs. Grant her purse. He said to Kathy, “Won’t you let us see what the kind lady gave you, dear? Jean and Pietro and Max and Emilie would like to see it, too. Look, I’ll put my hands behind my back.”

  The children became abruptly silent. They were one stare of hatred and suspicion and cunning. Then Kathy’s eyes wavered. She held her elbow close to her side, her fingers so tight on the compact that they were colorless. Then slowly, moment by moment, as if under entrancement, she let the fingers open, and on her palm lay the compact. The children craned their heads to see, fascinated.

  It was a beautiful thing, and Dr. Stevens was astonished at Mrs. Grant’s generosity. It was a round circle of gold, encrusted with turquoises, amethysts, and topazes. It caught the sunset and a spray of many-colored light sprang from it. “Oh, oh!” groaned the children in ecstasy and they shuffled their feet again in that awful dance. But Dr. Stevens noted, with a shaking of his heart, that not one of them tried to snatch it from Kathy. They were rejoicing with her that she now possessed so lovely a treasure. Ah, thought Dr. Stevens, where is the “civilized” man or woman who would rejoice with anyone else, even with the closest brother, without secret envy or malice? The children’s faces were a shimmer of radiant delight.

  He wanted to thank Mrs. Grant. She was smiling reluctantly, and she was very flushed. “Shall we go?” she said, turning to the ladies.

  The ladies left, and the gentlemen followed. The door closed after them. The room was darkening in the first twilight. The children still chanted their joy over Kathy’s possession, bending their heads over it. Max had stopped wringing his hands. He was actually clapping them, and stamping his feet. Kathy had opened the compact and was gazing into it intently. Then she cried out in rapture to Johnny: “Pretty! Pretty! Me! Me!”

  “Yes, dear,” he said, and now when he touched her smooth braid she did not wince. “Pretty you. My pretty, darling little daughter.”

  3

  “You mean, sir, that we have to cut up all the meat for them? Those big kids?” demanded Edith, the elegant maid, quivering with resentment. The cook, Mrs. Burnsdale, turned from the big white stove and glared at Mr. Fletcher, holding a spatula in her hand.

  The children were sitting about the large round white table in the kitchen, heads bent, eyes peering warily from under narrowed lids. The hot electric light beat down upon them, revealing, without compassion, each wild face, each tense chin and curled hand on the linen tablecloth. Mrs. Burnsdale, a middle-aged woman who resembled Mrs. Grant remarkably, was particularly indignant at these “invaders,” and disposed to look without kindness on the young man who had brought them to this proper parsonage. Edith, tall, nervous, temperamental, and very thin, was her niece, and Mrs. Burnsdale never let any occasion pass without mentioning that Edith was “only” assisting her here, because help was almost impossible to find in New York these days. Edith, she would say, looking reproachful, had had a high-school education, and had been admitted to a nursing school “in one of New York’s big hospitals, I can tell you!” Though this was definitely untrue, it was a pleasant fiction which enhanced both Edith’s and Mrs. Burnsdale’s position, they believed, with those who might be inclined to “take advantage” of them.

  Dr. Stevens, sitting nearby in the vast warm kitchen, felt new depression. Why could not people learn that “service,” whether in a kitchen, a pulpit, a factory, an office, or anywhere, as a matter of fact, carried no degradation with it except in the mind of the one who “served”? We all serve, he thought angrily, and who was the greatest Servant of all? God Himself. Had He not washed the dusty, calloused feet of His own disciples, in the supreme gesture of revealing to them the honor of service, the dignity of service?

  “Edith ain’t—isn’t—a nursemaid, and neither am I!” said Mrs. Burnsdale in her gruff and sullen voice. “We always said—if a minister came here with kids, he’d have to have a nursemaid for ’em. Two maybe, if there was more than two kids. And kids like these! Dr. Stevens!” She whirled on the wilted old man. “You never told us Mr. Fletcher’d bring wild Indians here! We don’t have to stand for it.”

  Dr. Stevens glanced at Johnny. But Johnny was watching the children tenderly, his youthful face full of compassion and weariness. He seemed totally unaware of anyone in the kitchen but those three boys and two little girls.

  “There he goes again!” cried Edith, shrinking elaborately away from the sink with a gross imitation of terror. Mrs. Burnsdale rushed to her side, brandishing the spatula. Max, the lumpish, silent one, was washing his hands feverishly under the faucet, over and over, rubbing at the nails, the palms. They were already excoriated from long washing, the skin corroded. Max noticed neither the women nor the men. He m
oaned as he scrubbed, the suds foaming about his fingers, and then, to Dr. Stevens’s broken-hearted pity, tears burst over his cheeks.

  Johnny said in a calm, low voice, as the children avidly watched the boy, “It’s all right, Max. Max, it’s all right. You know there wasn’t any stain at all, any time. Do you hear me, son?”

  The boy shrank up against the sink and stared at Johnny, who smiled comfortingly. “Son, son,” the boy stammered. Then he sobbed: “Papa! Papa!” He crouched, and he wrung his hands, and sobbed louder in anguish: “Papa! Papa!” He pushed his fingers through that dry hair of his, so that it was a bush of agony about his square and distraught face.

  Oh, my God, thought Dr. Stevens. What is it? What is it?

  Johnny still sat, but he held out his arms to Max. “Come to Papa, Max,” he said. The children were completely silent, each tormented young face fixed as if in stone, waiting.

  Max was shuddering, bent over, and the two women regarded him with indignant revulsion. This was no “nice” American boy, playful and rosy and natural, full of laughter and mischief. This was some awful “foreigner,” with a guttural voice. “Crazy,” muttered Mrs. Burnsdale, and put her arm protectingly about her niece. “Guess we’d better leave. They’re all crazy.”

  “It was just a bad dream, Max,” said Johnny, and his voice was full and sweet and commanding. “See, I’m your Papa. You never hurt me, son, never. Come.”

  Very slowly, the boy lifted his head and fastened eyes which appeared sightless on Johnny’s merciful and loving face. Moment after moment passed; the boy’s sobs became fewer. They subsided to a catch in his breath. He still looked at Johnny. And then, very faintly, questioningly, he said, “Papa? Bist Du mein Papa?”