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beautiful. I d forgotten anything could be beau-
tiful. Forgotten how it felt. I was surrounded by
darkness. By evil.
I closed my eyes. But I couldn t stop crying.
That boy all right? the man asked.
He s tired, Father said. He s upset from
being outside all night.
What he needs is some good food, the
man said. Look, my farm s just up here. Mother
always makes a large breakfast for the family and
the hired hands. Come on, have some breakfast
with us.
No, we couldn t, Father said.
Bus isn t till ten. It s right up here. That boy
needs warming up.
Uncle Isaac looked at Father. Father nodded.
Thank you, sir, Uncle Isaac said. That s
very kind of you.
We pulled into a long driveway.
We do all sorts here, he said. Vegetables
mostly. And chickens. Eggs.
T he W h i rlw i nd 105
The house was a long low affair, very neat.
As soon as we got out of the car, the smell of
fresh coffee and apple pie hit me. I was fam-
ished. I hadn t had a bite since the previous
morning.
My name is Gus, the man said. He called
ahead. Elizabeth, we have guests.
Elizabeth. I stopped for a moment. Instead
of the horrible feeling of sadness, even despair, I
always got when I heard her name, I was flooded
with memories of my Elizabeth. Our talks. Our
jokes. Our laughter. I remembered my Eliza-
beth and it made me feel happy to remember
her. The memory wasn t surrounded by agony.
Why? What was happening to me?
His wife came to the door. She was a big
woman with thick grayish hair pulled back in
a bun. Visitors? she said. Come on then.
It ll get cold. We followed Gus and Elizabeth
into the house. The front room was filled with
people two young women, with babies and
small children around them, three young men,
two older men all sitting at a long table.
We sat down at the end of the table. Plates
were put in front of us, piled high with eggs,
meat pies and fresh bread. I was given a glass of
hot coffee and told to drink it down. The food
was delicious. Everyone was talking at once.
The babies were crying. The adults were dis-
cussing the crops and who was doing what work,
106 Ca rol Matas
and then the older children had to get ready for
school and Gus said he d take us to the bus.
Father thanked Elizabeth. I m happy to do
God s work, she answered.
I looked up at her, shocked.
What s the matter, sonny? she asked.
Is this God s work? I blurted out.
Be kind to strangers. Remember how
Abraham invited strangers to eat with him? All
through the Bible, God shows us it s our Christian
duty to feed the stranger.
I m not Christian, I said.
Well, I can tell from your father s accent you
aren t from around here. Doesn t matter to me.
We re Jewish, I said.
Well then, you re God s chosen, aren t you?
More reason to be good to you.
Would you do it if God didn t tell you?
She threw her head back and laughed, and then
she looked at my father. He s quite a character,
your boy. She turned back to me. Silly question.
He did tell us.
Come on, Gus said, you ll miss your bus.
We got into the car. Gus said, Sounds like
your boy has a lot on his mind.
We escaped Hitler, Father explained. It
hasn t been easy.
Now that man is just plain evil, Gus said.
Me, I think we should ve gone to war years
ago, not waited this long. After all, if they d beat
T he W h i rlw i nd 107
England, where would we be? No, we didn t need
that attack on Pearl Harbor to get us into this war.
We did it all wrong. No one likes to get involved
if it isn t their fight, but we re all brothers and
sisters. It s our fight, all right. We found that out
too late. He shook his head.
I didn t understand. Had these people been
around all along? Nice people who weren t out to
get me, out to get us? Why hadn t I seen them
before? Why was I seeing them now?
108 Ca rol Matas
à Chapter Seventeen à
Mother didn t cry when I came home. She kissed
me. I love you, Ben, she said, but I m fed up
with you. It s time you started to think about
other people, not just yourself.
I started to tell her that all I d done was try
to get them to see sense, but there was a look on
her face that warned me it would be best to keep
quiet.
Later, when we d eaten and were settled for
the night, Marta sat on my bed and talked to me.
Why do you hate everything, Ben? she
said.
I don t.
Yes, you do. You ve hardly said a word to me
since we ve been here. It s like I m a stranger to
you.
I stared at her. She was right. She d barely reg-
istered on me since we left Berlin. But I m trying
to save the whole family, I protested. I m the
only one who sees the danger we re in.
T he W h i rlw i nd 109
You think Mom and Dad would let anything
happen to us?
They couldn t help Oma or Opa, I said.
But they ve taken care of us, haven t they?
she insisted. You have to admit that. She picked
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