December 23, 1959. 8:10 p.m. The eastern outskirts of East Berlin.
It had begun to snow again, puffy flakes plunging in oblique, repetitious waves to earth. The train scooted nearly soundlessly through the darkness along the frozen rails, its wake sending the loose drifts of snow on either side of the track bed churning and swirling into the air like diminutive ashen whirlwinds.
The man at a window seat, the only person in the compartment, felt the train decelerate as it prepared pull into the village of Kronenberg. He watched a forlorn churchyard slide by the window where snow lay in plump mounds against the tombstones like pillows for the dead.
He studied his face in the reflection of the window. A thin, middle-aged man with a haggard face, underscored by sagging jowls and disheveled gray hair, stared back at him.
As they entered the station, the man looked up to where a gaggle of pigeons lined the steel girders under the roof line of the building, tipping their heads downward, scrutinizing the iron monster rumbling past them on the tracks below. Then a detached, hollow voice over the PA-system announced their arrival, but the man paid no attention, staring blankly out the window.
With a threatening hiss the train rolled to a stop, casting a dark shadow over the passengers waiting on the platform. In their shabby clothing that was thirty years out of style, they looked more like a collection of vagabonds than citizens of a perfect, utopian society. On a wall behind them, a large banner, perhaps five meters long and two meters high, stated in large white letters on a red background that: “The Leaders of Our German Democratic Republic Lead Us Along the Only True Path to Prosperity and Peace!”
Conductors opened the doors to the coaches and the people on the platform began crowding onto the train. The middle-aged man at the window turned to look when his compartment door banged open, a gust of cold air and coal soot invading his solitude. A large man in a brown leather coat forced himself through the doorway, followed by a woman with a round, red face, and a figure like a sack of potatoes.
They ignored the man at the window and settled into two seats on the other side of the compartment. The large man unfolded a crinkled copy of Neues Deutschland, the Communist Party newspaper, held it up in front of his face and began reading. The woman next to him lunged her hand into her bag and extracted a half-consumed sandwich, stuffing one end of it into her mouth. With a sigh of pleasure, she closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the seat cushion, munching slowly and thoroughly, as if mentally counting each chew.
The newspaper the man was reading touted itself as the “Voice of the Central Committee of the Socialistic Unity Party of Germany,” its headline declaring that: “Your party calls you; your party needs you.”
The train doors slammed shut, and, after a moment’s silence, the iron behemoth lurched forward and lumbered out of the station, gaining speed as it rumbled past streets and bridges and overpasses nearly devoid of pedestrians and vehicles.
The only sounds within the compartment were the occasional rustling of the large man’s newspaper, the potato sack smacking on her sandwich and soft hisses from a heating duct, which produced only hissing, but no heat.
The train window momentarily framed a slender church spire. The man at the window studied it and tried to muster up some hope, some faith, but it was no use – his hope had fled, and his faith had long since slipped through his fingers like ripples in a stream.
In front of a school, a spotlight illuminated a banner that read: “We Children Love Our German Democratic Republic.” Children don’t know any better, the man at the window thought. He tried to muster a measure of love for his homeland, a sense of pride and identity, but it was also no use. He felt like a foreigner in his own country, riding on a train about to plunge over a cliff.
Broken-down houses, just a few of the thousands that hadn’t been rebuilt after the war, huddled outside the window, strewn along the roadside in no apparent order. Then came a well-lit military base. Behind a barbed wire fence a group of Russian tanks sat buried under a cloak of snow.
The large man and the potato sack got up and stepped outside of the compartment to smoke. For a moment their fellow traveler watched their smoke swirl through the aisle and back into the compartment, before turning his head to stare bitterly into the darkness again. He had warned God, put Him on notice, that if He stood by and did nothing while her life faded away, he would no longer be interested the things of God.
He pulled a worn Bible out of his leather briefcase, opened it to the dedication page and read: “To Pastor Klaus Hirt, my beloved husband and my hero. As you enter the ministry, know that I will love you and support you always. Anna.” Under her name, Anna had written: “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. John 14:18.”
Now his Anna was dead. Klaus had pleaded with God to heal her. He hadn’t. If God was really out there, He wasn’t listening.
Klaus tore out the dedication page, folded it and slipped it into his coat pocket. He laid the Bible on the seat, then stood and pulled down on the handles of the window. It refused to yield. He hung on the handles and lifted his feet off the floor before the window finally opened with a rasping screech.
Klaus reached for his Bible and tossed it through the window into the night.
It had begun to snow again, puffy flakes plunging in oblique, repetitious waves to earth. The train scooted nearly soundlessly through the darkness along the frozen rails, its wake sending the loose drifts of snow on either side of the track bed churning and swirling into the air like diminutive ashen whirlwinds.
The man at a window seat, the only person in the compartment, felt the train decelerate as it prepared pull into the village of Kronenberg. He watched a forlorn churchyard slide by the window where snow lay in plump mounds against the tombstones like pillows for the dead.
He studied his face in the reflection of the window. A thin, middle-aged man with a haggard face, underscored by sagging jowls and disheveled gray hair, stared back at him.
As they entered the station, the man looked up to where a gaggle of pigeons lined the steel girders under the roof line of the building, tipping their heads downward, scrutinizing the iron monster rumbling past them on the tracks below. Then a detached, hollow voice over the PA-system announced their arrival, but the man paid no attention, staring blankly out the window.
With a threatening hiss the train rolled to a stop, casting a dark shadow over the passengers waiting on the platform. In their shabby clothing that was thirty years out of style, they looked more like a collection of vagabonds than citizens of a perfect, utopian society. On a wall behind them, a large banner, perhaps five meters long and two meters high, stated in large white letters on a red background that: “The Leaders of Our German Democratic Republic Lead Us Along the Only True Path to Prosperity and Peace!”
Conductors opened the doors to the coaches and the people on the platform began crowding onto the train. The middle-aged man at the window turned to look when his compartment door banged open, a gust of cold air and coal soot invading his solitude. A large man in a brown leather coat forced himself through the doorway, followed by a woman with a round, red face, and a figure like a sack of potatoes.
They ignored the man at the window and settled into two seats on the other side of the compartment. The large man unfolded a crinkled copy of Neues Deutschland, the Communist Party newspaper, held it up in front of his face and began reading. The woman next to him lunged her hand into her bag and extracted a half-consumed sandwich, stuffing one end of it into her mouth. With a sigh of pleasure, she closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the seat cushion, munching slowly and thoroughly, as if mentally counting each chew.
The newspaper the man was reading touted itself as the “Voice of the Central Committee of the Socialistic Unity Party of Germany,” its headline declaring that: “Your party calls you; your party needs you.”
The train doors slammed shut, and, after a moment’s silence, the iron behemoth lurched forward and lumbered out of the station, gaining speed as it rumbled past streets and bridges and overpasses nearly devoid of pedestrians and vehicles.
The only sounds within the compartment were the occasional rustling of the large man’s newspaper, the potato sack smacking on her sandwich and soft hisses from a heating duct, which produced only hissing, but no heat.
The train window momentarily framed a slender church spire. The man at the window studied it and tried to muster up some hope, some faith, but it was no use – his hope had fled, and his faith had long since slipped through his fingers like ripples in a stream.
In front of a school, a spotlight illuminated a banner that read: “We Children Love Our German Democratic Republic.” Children don’t know any better, the man at the window thought. He tried to muster a measure of love for his homeland, a sense of pride and identity, but it was also no use. He felt like a foreigner in his own country, riding on a train about to plunge over a cliff.
Broken-down houses, just a few of the thousands that hadn’t been rebuilt after the war, huddled outside the window, strewn along the roadside in no apparent order. Then came a well-lit military base. Behind a barbed wire fence a group of Russian tanks sat buried under a cloak of snow.
The large man and the potato sack got up and stepped outside of the compartment to smoke. For a moment their fellow traveler watched their smoke swirl through the aisle and back into the compartment, before turning his head to stare bitterly into the darkness again. He had warned God, put Him on notice, that if He stood by and did nothing while her life faded away, he would no longer be interested the things of God.
He pulled a worn Bible out of his leather briefcase, opened it to the dedication page and read: “To Pastor Klaus Hirt, my beloved husband and my hero. As you enter the ministry, know that I will love you and support you always. Anna.” Under her name, Anna had written: “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. John 14:18.”
Now his Anna was dead. Klaus had pleaded with God to heal her. He hadn’t. If God was really out there, He wasn’t listening.
Klaus tore out the dedication page, folded it and slipped it into his coat pocket. He laid the Bible on the seat, then stood and pulled down on the handles of the window. It refused to yield. He hung on the handles and lifted his feet off the floor before the window finally opened with a rasping screech.
Klaus reached for his Bible and tossed it through the window into the night.