Mighty Fortress

Mighty Fortress Part 3

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.