Different Lights

Imagine          
         Hearts beat, hearts break, such fragile little things, hearts are. Some people are graced with the talent of possesing a heart as tough as leather, while other people's hearts melt into pools of molten lava, swirling orange and red liquid, at the thought of death. Imagine if you were ten years old, that's right, close your mind to the world around you at the present moment, whatever the time may be, and make sure to focus just on this one thing. You're ten years old, you perch yourself on the edge of a rock. Imagine the cold surface beneath your hands. Imagine the sun beating down on your back. Seems pretty pleasant doesn't it? Now, imagine the feeling of a slight tickle as a single tear slides down your cheek. Imagine the overwhelming pressure in your chest that's so real, so there that you can't cry at all. Imagine looking out at a beautiful sunset. Imagine feeling so alone, wondering how there can be a God out there when such terrible things happen in the world. Imagine the light dying in a child's eyes as faith cripples under the overwhelming force of reality. Yes, unfortuanantly, you've stepped into the world of Mina Hermann, April 14, 1943. Keep reading if you have a heart as tough as leather, a heart that doesn't melt at the thought of death. Keep reading, for, as always with war, sadness lies ahead. I will not attempt to hide the ending of this story. All that you have to do is flip the pages and read the final words to know that this is a story of tragedy, not one of happily-ever-afters. But, it's not the destination that makes this book, it's the journey, the tired footsteps of a young girl and a young boy. The young girl's name is Mina Herrmann, and this is her story.
         A Boy, a Basement, and a Memory
         Now it's time to set the scene. The time period? World War ll. The main character? Mina Hermann, of course. The setting? A beautiful summer day, where the clouds hug the sky, and the sunlight's gentle fingertips brush the top of a dark head of hair. As you've probably already guessed, that hair was Mina Herrmann's hair. She was famous for her hair. Well, at least her hair was famous on the small lane of concrete that was Muller Street. Kids liked to put their grimy little fingers to it, adults liked to brush the brunette waves, babies liked to look as the waist length locks swayed when she ran. Contrary to what you're probably thinking, Mina was not one of those little eight year old girls who wanted to be a princess; the damsel in distress. No, Mina would rather slay the dragon than watch it. In a way, she did that every day. She slayed the dragon of fear that was always speaking up deep down in her heart. What was she afraid of? Isn't it sort of obvious? The Fuhrer, Hitler, whatever you want to call him, he's bad. Mina Herrmann was not a stupid girl. She knew what he was doing. She was just eight years old at the time, but when you grow up like Mina Herrmann did, you learn to always expect the worst our of every situation and every person.
         The thing that she was most afraid of, however, was losing her best friend, Willie Schulz. She had met him when she was four years old. At the time, she didn't understand why he was in the cold damp square below the house that she later learned was called the basement. She didn't understand why her mother made her talk to no one about the small little Willie. What she did understand, though, was that Willie was a friend, a friend in danger. Four years they played in that basement. From '37 to the current year of '41. They had an unbreakable bond, as you might imagine would come about when two kids grow up in the same house like twins. Mina could still remember the very first day that she saw him. It was a fuzzy memory, bits and pieces floated around in her brain, but she could still reach out and catch the general feeling of surprise, terror, and excitement that ran through her head at close to the same time.
         Her bare feet struck the slimy steps, creating a slapping sound that reminded her of her mother's hands kneading bread at the kitchen counter. She had always had an irrational fear of the basement, but her father had sent her down to fetch some object that had that letter in it that she couldn't pronounce right. "Rake," her father had said. "Wake,"  she had said back. So there she was, reaching for the light, looking for something that started with an unpronouncable letter, watching her feet for the mousetraps that her father had so happily warned her about.
         When her hand finally reached the light, her eyes widened as colors and shapes flooded into them. At first she could just vaguely make out a pair of big brown eyes. Then, slowly, the puzzle pieces fit together and Mina Herrman realized that it was a little boy who was only four years old. There was something missing, though, that puzzle piece that you just couldn't find. Many years later, she would realize that it was hope.
         "Papa!" Mina ran up the stairs, her feet making those same slapping noises as before. Terror formed her expression. "Papa!" Her father met her when she turned the corner. She collided into him, going limp in his arms like a crash-test dummy. "Oh Papa!" She cried. "Papa, there's a boy in our basement!"
         A wide smile filled the bottom half of Wilfried Herrmann's face. "A boy? Why, really?" He playfully said.
         "Oh yes!" Mina nodded, taking the bait with an average dose of four-year old gullibility.
         "Well, we'd better go check this out!" Wilfried's left leg led the way down the stairs, his feet making more of a thudding sound than a slapping one.
         Willie Schulz sat huddled among the wooden crates and sheets at the end of the basement, his eyes as wide as ever, his soul laying out for the casual passerby in the Herrmann's basement to see.
         "Oh!" Papa turned to Mina. "You mean this little boy. Well, this little boy is our guest. But he's a secret guest. You can keep a secret, can't you?"
         Mina Herrmann looked up into her father's eyes and agreed with all the solemnity that a four year old can muster.
         "Good." Wilfried tapped Mina on her nose, then made his way back up the stairs, the echoes of slapping footsteps following him faithfully.
         For five sunny days, Mina Herrman didn't go down into the basement for fear of the little boy. Later on, the little boy would describe those days as feeling "alone but not understanding why."
         Of course, what the little boy didn't know was that three days before, his parents and five brothers and sisters had been taken from their home and burned. What Willie Schulz didn't know and what no one wanted to tell him was that he only escaped by the decision of his family. You see, when Willie Schulz's older sister, Aarika, was Willie's age, she would hide in the very back of the closet on the top shelf where the light couldn't reach. She would only hide there when she absolutely couldn't be found. Of course, all of the Schulz children were too big to hide there when they were just a few moments away from their impending doom, so they simply shoved Willie up there; giving him a little toy to tinker with.
         It suffices to say that a strange bit of luck came about Willie Schulz that night. You see, Wilfried Hermann just happened to be passing by their little square of burnt living space when he heard a muffled cry. Being the good person that he was, he ignored the lingering suspicion residing deep in his gut that that particular family was Jewish, and dutifully stepped into the closet, finding Willie with the ease of a seasoned hide and go seek professional. For that, Willie and Mina were forever grateful. He had purchased Willie a life with the coins of compassion, and Mina a sense of what was right in the world. He had bought both of them a friend.
         So, we now set the scene once more. It is a sunny day on Muller street during World War ll in the tragic year of 1941 where the clouds hug the sky, and the sunlight's gentle fingertips brush the top of a dark head of hair.
         
         "Mina, come play!" Aalis, a notorious school-yard bully who just happened to be a good friend of Mina's, called.
         "I can't! I have to go home! Mama will hit me if I don't come home soon!"
         "Who cares? Have a spine, coward!" Aalis taunted in her usual cruelly convincing manner. "Hans says I'm a pig! Let's show him who's the pig!"
         Nine year old Hans put his hands up and said, "I didn't do it, I sware!"
         Aalis then proceeded to yell at him, throwing foul language at his face with the tranquility of an army. Hans was soon on the ground.
         Mina smiled and ran home.
         The basement steps now made a smacking noise when she went down them. "Willie?" she whispered, her voice filling up the silence and making it swell like a hot air balloon.
         A grimy face decorated with smudges of charcoal revealed itself from behind the sheets and wooden crates. "Yes?" it said with a giggle.
         "Where'd you find the charcoal?" Mina asked, curiosity filling her voice.
         "It was over in the corner. A big chunk of it, there was. Now it's just this wimpy little tid-bit that you can't even call a pebble." Willie held the charcoal up. His fingernails were ripped and torn from trying to get the last of the drawing material. That was just how desperate for entertainment he was.
         "Oh Willie," Mina sighed. "You've gone and bloodied up your fingers again. You know how Papa hates that."
         You see, that was the thing about Mina Herrmann and Willie Schulz. They were so close, they were like family. In their minds, they both had the same Papa and sometimes, the same Mama. (Willie chose when he liked her or not.)
         "Yes, I know. It makes him feel guilty. He really shouldn't though- feel guilty that is. I mean, after all, he is hiding me in here." Willie hung his head.
         Mina, however, was not fooled in the least. "You can't fool me, Willie. I know you too well."
         Willie looked up, a mischevious grin stretching across his face. "Fine. But I will fool you someday. You see through me too well right now, but when we're eleven or twelve, you won't see through me at all!"
         Mina looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. "If we make it that long," she said, sorrow coloring her tone.
         Willie grinned. Mina smiled. Simaltaneously, two voices filled the cold, damp square. "Gotcha!" they said.
Some Foreshadowing
         Mina Herrman lay on her bed; her Papa had fallen asleep in the big yellow chair beside it. Willie, she thought. It was about this time every night that Mina thought about Willie sitting there in the basement, all alone. In her mind, the darkness shrouded around him and the Fuhrer occupied his mind.
         "Papa?" Mina Herrmann said drowsily, the words barely creeping out of her mouth.
         Papa opened up one big blue eye and said, "Yes, Mina?"
         "Papa, will the war be over soon?" she asked, hope filling her voice.
         "No, Mina. No, I'm afraid it won't."
         Then. Silence.
         Slowly, Mina peeked over at her Papa and saw that his eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. She pulled herself up out of the bed and tiptoed out the door.
         Slowly, a man sitting in a big yellow chair opened one blue eye and smiled.
         Mina Herrmann tiptoed down the basement stairs, her feet making a smacking noise, and her heart keeping a gentle thudding beat.
         "Willie?" she asked, her voice still drowsy.
         "Willie?" This time her words were more forceful.
         "Mina?" came a tiny whisper. "Mina, what are you doing down here?"
         Mina reached for the lights. Her eyes widened as colors and shapes flooded into them. "Willie, what are you doing?" she asked, her eyes straining to take in everything all at once.
         The sheets were down off of the far wall, and there was a big blue sky painted on the ceiling.
         "Where'd you get the paint?" Mina asked curiously.
         Willie smiled and they both said, "Papa."
         "What's it going to be?"
         "You have to wait."
         "I don't want to wait."
         "You have to."
         Mina sighed in resignation and said, "Fine."
         Let's fastforward to 1943. A small girl with short brown hair sits in a basement, staring up at a big blue sky. She stands and runs her fingers along the bits of charcoal rubbed against the wall beside her. She mumbles something like, "I should have known." Then a hand reaches through the crates and sheets and pulls her away from the wall. "I should have known," she says. "I should have known."
         
         A child's voice flows through the kitchen, past the bedroom, and down the basement stairs. It fills up the room with a cacaphony of noise. Another voice joins it; a quiet, tired hum. The notes string together like popcorn at Christmas time. A girl walks down the stairs in her pajamas, her feet making a smacking noise. A present sits in her arms, creating a heavy weight that she gladly bears. Big brown eyes peek out from behind the crates and sheets in the corner of the basement.
         "I brought you something," the girl says.
         The brown eyes grow wide. "A present?" comes a voice quivering with excitement. "I've never had a present before. Not even before, well," shoulders shrug, "it happened."
         Mina Herrmann smiles and says, "Well, then this will be your first. Sorry about not getting you one until now.It's not much, but I think you'll really like it."
         She hands it to the boy behind the curtain. He opens it with trembling hands, wrapping paper falling to the floor with shaky movements. Inside lies a stack of papers. Drawings of a family of eight decorate the pages.
         The boy's eyes widen. "Is this?" he hesitates. "This can't be." The boy looks up at Mina. She nods.
         "Your sister Aarika drew these when she was eight. Papa went back to where you used to live. There's a shoe shop there now. Turns out the guy who owns it is against them. He found these when he set up shop and gave them to Papa when he demanded them. I guess he was scared." Mina Herrmann smiles. The boy's hands tremble even more now. He runs his hands over the faded pictures.
         Willie Schulz looks up at Mina, his eyes glossy. "Thank you," he says. Those two simple words leak such gratitude that when Mina Herrmann goes up to her room an hour later, she starts to cry.
         "Thank you," she says as tears slide down her face, and her voice chokes.
         A small girl sits in her room holding a treasured memory. A small boy sits in his basement, holding three words and some pieces of paper. "I love you," he says to the paper. The paper is silent.