Chapter 32
Bremen
Thursday evening found the entire household once more headed to Bremen – as before, in their pickup truck and the Opel Kapitän, which Marcus had borrowed once more from Mr. Weiss. And this time, even Ingrid was with them. Having heard so much about Bruno Groening during the previous week, she’d begged so much to come along, that Marcus had finally said that she could come and see what all the fuss was about.
When they arrived at the Birkners’ house, Silvia Birkner ushered them all the house. She even leaned down and gave Ingrid a special welcome.
“Hello, Ingrid! So, you’ve come to see Mr. Groening, too? How wonderful!” She looked up at Kristina and Marcus, then back to Ingrid. “You can sit right with your mama and papa. Mr. Groening is always happy to have children come along, too.”
Kristina blushed at Mrs. Birkner’s assumption that Marcus was Ingrid’s father, but said nothing. Indeed, Ingrid did share both her mother’s and Marcus’ wavy hair, although hers was a few shades lighter than Marcus’ and much lighter than Kristina’s dark, dark tresses. And her blue eyes matched her future step-father’s almost exactly. Marcus, feeling pleased by their hostess’ assumptions, thanked her, and they all filed into the parlor.
Ulrich rolled Lina’s wheelchair into the spot at the end of the front row which Mrs. Birkner had already cleared for her, then sat down next to her with Renate. In the second row, Marcus took a seat on the end this time. Then came Kristina and Ingrid, who was sandwiched between her mother and Ethel. Viktor was next in the row, and finally Peter. As Peter walked easily down the row of chairs to his seat, he saw that Mr. Handler was already there, in the chair in front of him, just where he’d sat the week before. After getting settled, Peter leaned forward and tapped Mr. Handler lightly on the shoulder. When the latter turned, Peter told him that he, too, had been healed of a lame and injured leg. Handler jumped up and held out his hand warmly to Peter.
“Why, that’s just wonderful!” he cried, pumping Peter’s hand up and down in excitement. “I hear that this happens often with Mr. Groening – kind of a chain reaction of healing. One person gets their hearing back, say, and then suddenly someone else in the room can hear, too, after twenty years of deafness.”
Peter went on to tell Handler all about how he’d realized his leg was healed, about revealing it to the family at breakfast, about how he’d hopped around the kitchen, and how Ingrid – he pointed her out to Handler, had asked if the two of them could hop together. Handler and Peter ended up dissolved in quiet laughter. No one in the room seemed to mind, or find the laughter inappropriate, especially since most of them had been present the week before and remembered Handler’s healing and Peter limping. People began turning to each other with whispers of “the healing that young man there had after he left last time”.
Ingrid was taking in the people in the room and also inspecting the décor. She peppered Kristina with questions: “Who painted those pictures of the forest and the lake?” “Who are the people in those photos on the mantel?” “Can I go up and look at them?” “When will Mr. Groening get here?” “When will Lina get out of her chair?”
As Kristina fended off these inquiries as quietly as she could, she noticed that she was already feeling the same tingling that had flowed throughout her body the last time. To her dismay, she also began to notice a vague unease in the pit of her stomach. A bit of fear. But why? she asked herself. She turned to her right, to take Marcus’ hand, although whether out of anxiety or affection, she wasn’t sure. But as she did, she caught sight of the woman who had sat behind her the week before, the one who had come in doubled over in pain, and left fully upright and happy. The woman recognized Kristina, too.
“Hello, dear,” she said, stretching out her hand. She looked at least ten years younger, now that pain was no long contorting her face.
“You look well,” Kristina told her.
She nodded. “I am well. As you see, I don’t have to lean on my grandson at all anymore!”
“Was it true what Mr. Groening said to you?” Kirstina asked. “That you might have those pains again?”
“Yes, yes, that did happen. The night we were here, after we got back home, my stomach hurt so much that I was so afraid! But in the morning, I felt fine again.”
“And did you go to the doctor?”
“I did!” the woman told her, beaming. Then she leaned over across Marcus, so that she could grab Kristina’s arm. “He did the tests, and the cancer is gone! It really is!”
At this, everyone who was sitting within earshot stared at the woman, and the whispering began again. Marcus and Kristina exchanged glances, and both smiled, each for different reasons: For Kristina, it was because the woman’s experience had strengthened her faith that God could heal anything, while for Marcus, it was his belief in Groening’s personal power that had just received a boost.
Nearly all the seats were full by now, mostly with people who had been there the week before, but there were some new attendees, as well.
Lina also heard what the woman told Kristina, since they were talking right behind her. This news, plus the knowledge of Peter’s healing, and the sight of Mr. Handler, who was clearly still walking with ease, without his cane, gave her hope. She wrapped her hand a little more tightly around the fabric pouch in her hand. She’d finished sewing the little bag that day when all of the women were talking in the kitchen. The tin foil ball was now securely stowed in the pouch, its drawstring pulled tight, and the cord looped around Lina’s middle finger. The warmth from the ball was flowing into her palm and on up her arm, and this comforted her. And when the woman who’d been talking with Kristina came up to her and said, “I know you’ll get your healing, too, Dear. I’m rooting for you!”, she felt even more encouraged. At the same time, though, she told herself not to get her hopes up. Can I really be healed tonight? Doubts started to flood in. She closed her eyes and frowned, and grasped the tin foil ball in her right hand even more tightly. Trust and believe. The divine power helps and heals.
Meanwhile, Ulrich was saying hello to Helmut Birkner, who, once again, was seated three chairs down from him. The same scarf rested on the chair next to him – Mrs. Birkner’s, Ulrich assumed – and there was the other empty seat. Ulrich supposed that Egon-Arthur Schmidt would sit there, if he was present again tonight. Indeed, after Ulrich and Helmut had shared their pleasantries, Mrs. Birkner strode energetically into the room, followed by the tall, light-haired Schmidt.
Now Lina opened her eyes and looked toward the two of them. This time she didn’t feel the need to observe everything in the room in detail, although she did note that the setup was the same as before: a little, round table to the right of the fireplace, with a small lamp and a glass of water. Another lamp on the bookcase against the wall by the arched entranceway to the parlor was also lit. The room seemed lighter to Lina than it had the last time, the wallpaper a bit less dingy.
Mr. Schmidt was talking to them now, following Silvia Birkner’s introduction. Lina saw Silvia settle into the chair next to her husband, leaving the seat next to Ulrich vacant for now. Mr. Schmidt’s instructions were, presumably, for the new guests, but he did say some things that she didn’t recall hearingbefore, so maybe he wasn’t just saying the same things. She began paying closer attention.
“You have come seeking healing,”Schmidt was saying. “Mr. Groening will only accept one gift from you – that is your illness. Give it to him! In return, he will give you what you have been longing for for so long – your health.”
Upon hearing these words, Marcus nodded and smiled. Yes, he will give that to us! “What Mr. Groening expects from you in return,” Schmidt went on, “to help the effect of his healing power, is twofold: one is that you must be inwardly prepared to take up the Heilstrom that radiated from him, and, secondly, that you must have a deep, unprejudiced belief in the divine healing power and, therefore, in the Creator.”
Can we really not have the healing power without believing in God? Marcus mused. Then he remembered the way Groening had admonished them before not to think but, rather, to feel. So, he turned his attention away from his own thoughts, and back to Schmidt’s instructions.
Schmidt was showing how they were to sit: backs straight, with their hands open atop their laps, without crossing their arms or legs, so that they wouldn’t short-circuit the flow of the energy. As Lina opened her hands, she heard Ingrid whispering to Kristina behind her.
“Mama! I feel all fizzy inside!” A small laugh escaped her lips. Ethel looked at her and smiled.
Kristina gently shushed her. “Yes, Sweetheart. That’s the Heilstrom Mr. Schmidt is talking about. I feel it, too.”
Lina looks around, too, to smile at Ingrid, and when she turns to face the front of the room once more, Bruno Groening is standing before them. He scans the room, nodding to those whom he has seen before, pausing a bit longer when his eyes meet the new visitors. Then he speaks. He motions to a dark-haired man who looks to be in his late twenties, and motions for him to come to the front of the room. Viktor recognizes him as the man he saw the previous week, who walked in hugging his left arm, which was bent at the elbow, to his chest. But now the man’s arm swings freely at his side.
“Sir,” Groening says to him, “can you tell us what you experienced after our last gathering here?”
“Yes, indeed,” the man says, although he looks at the gathered people rather shyly. Groening gestures with his hand, inviting the man to continue.
“Well, those of you who saw me last week, perhaps you saw that I couldn’t move this arm.” He raised his left arm. “It was broken during the war. I was trapped underneath a jeep during a battle, with my elbow pinned under the wheel. The elbow joint was broken – shattered, the doctors said. And by the time I was taken for medical care, well, they said the elbow couldn’t be made right again. They put it in a cast, but it never healed properly. It was as if it was frozen. I was given a disability card. These past five years, none of the therapies they’ve tried have helped at all. I just had to go around like this.” He moves his arm back into the bent position.
“And what happened when you came here?” Groening prompts.
“Yes, well, I was in attendance here, but when Mr. Groening asked what I felt, I said – and it was the truth! – that I didn’t feel a thing. I even thought, Oh, here you’ve come, and now you’ve wasted your time. That’s what I was thinking when I walked home. I live not far from here, and when I got there, I thought, You’re going to go in, and everyone’s going to want to know what happened, and you don’t have a thing to tell them. So, I walked into the back, where our garden is, and there’s a shed back there. And I walked over to the shed and opened the door and went inside. Just to collect my thoughts about what I’d say. And for some reason – I can’t explain why – I thought, Try to stretch your arm out now.” He looks at Ulrich, who’s sitting right in front of where he’s standing, and smiles. “So, I did. And I could extend it all the way out!” He demonstrates how his arm had moved, and smiles broadly, extending the arm and then bending it, then repeating the action a few times. “Well, once that happened, I knew my elbow was healed! So I ran right into the house, and everyone was confused about why I’d come in the back door!” He laughs. “I was so excited I couldn’t even speak. I just walked into our living room and kept stretching my arm out and bending it again, to show them!” The man is beaming now. “You should have seen their faces!”
The man’s good humor is contagious, and everyone in the room is soon smiling.
Next Groening calls up the woman whose cancer was healed, and she tells the story of the terrible pains, followed by the wonderful results of the doctor’s tests. “He just couldn’t believe it!” she tells them. “But I said to him, God is the greatest physician! That’s what you told us, isn’t it, Mr. Groening?”
Groening nods.
Peter is summoned to the front of the room next.
“Tell us,” Groening says to him, “how you noticed the healing.” And Peter obliges, happy to be telling tale again, since his earlier conversation with Mr. Handler had gone so well.
“And do you know how it happened that you were healed?” Groening asks, in a friendly voice.
Peter thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Groening. I don’t. I remember you telling us not to think of anyone else, and to pay attention to our own bodies. But I wasn’t doing that!”
“No?” Groening asks. “What were you doing at that moment?”
Peter gestures at Lina. “I was looking at my sister, Lina, and wishing with all my heart for her to be healed.” Lina presses her lips together, and tears come to her eyes. She mouths the words “Thank you” to him.
“Ah, yes,” Groening says, placing a hand lightly on Peter’s shoulder. “And in this case, dear friends, this was the right thing for Mr. Bunke to do. Yes, I told you that night to think only of your own bodies. But I also said, Do not think of your illness! Do you recall that?”
Some of them nod. Others cock their heads to the side, trying to decide whether this sentence is familiar to them or not.
“But often this is too hard for you – to not think of your own burden. And then, the Heilstrom – God’s divine power – cannot work. But Mr. Bunke –“ he pats Peter’s shoulder once more. “Mr. Bunke, here, all his thoughts were going to his sister. He wasn’t sitting on his burden, as I like to say. No! And in the moments when he wasn’t thinking of his own injured leg, but instead was wishing for his sister to be completely healed – then the Heilstrom could work! It did work! His leg was healed!” He looks over at Peter. “And now he can hop!” he adds, a smile spreading across his own face.
As if on cue, Peter begins hopping, to show that Groening has not exaggerated. The crowd laughs, and Ingrid claps her hands and bounces up and down in her chair.
“Yes, my dear friends,” Groening says as Peter moves back to his seat, “this is what can happen, when we tune in to the divine transmission, instead of the evil. When we say No! to the evil and take in the good instead.
Groening now begins walking slowly back and forth, from one side of the room to the other.“How did it actually come about that the human being became ill?The original human being was not ill. People have become bad, worse from generation to generation. The badness had escalated so much that it is almost impossible to live. Quarrels and strife in families, more war than peace between nations! Worries have brought emotional suffering to humanity and have taken such deep root that people are bound to get sick. People are miseducated; they have distanced themselves from what is natural; many have lost their belief in God. And whoever loses the divine path, also loses his health.”
Marcus frowns. Did I ever have that belief at all? But I’m still healthy…
Groening walks over to the window and points to the trees that stand just on the other side of it.
“Do you see these beautiful trees? The flowering bushes, with the bees buzzing around them?” People crane their necks, straining to see what is beyond the windowpane.
“Centuries ago,”Groening goes on, “man went on the path away from nature, gave up belief in our Lord God. Everyone believed that he could maintain things alone: ‘We are on this earth now. We’ll manage now as we see fit,’ they say. And everybody thinks, ‘We know how to help ourselves.” Here Groening stops his pacing and points at them with his finger. “But I let you know that nobody can be helped without our Lord God. And whosoever believes that he can withdraw from the nature that the Lord God has created so beautifully for us, let him go where he wants to. People have withdrawn from nature, going over to culture. But we cannot manage without nature. Man doesn’t have the right to withdraw from it. Nature is God.”
Here the Gassmanns and Bunkes nod and exchange happy glances. Groening has confirmed what they have felt for many years: God is in the forest.Except for Marcus, that is. He sees his entire family nodding. And, for a moment, negative thoughts begin flooding his brain, telling him that he must not be one of them, that he doesn’t belong, since he certainly doesn’t believe that God is nature. Or perhaps even that God is. But then Groening’s eyes meet his, and he feels the same powerful stream of love coming from this small man that he experienced the week before. And the disturbing thoughts fade away.
“You can also be displaced,” Groening tells them. “You have truly been moved from the place where God put you. Why? Just because you listen to other people rather than to God. As you have now become obedient to God – you tune into the divine transmission now –you will slowly get back to the place from which you were displaced.”
At this moment, Kristina begins to cry. Yes, she is thinking, Yes! I was displaced. Ingrid and I! The fear that has been lurking just below the surface of her awareness flares up now. She is suddenly back in the forest again, terrified that someone will kidnap Ingrid. Unable to control herself, she cries out and, wrapping her arms tightly around Ingrid, she pulls the girl to her.
Lina turns around and sees a look of sheer terror in her friend’s eyes. Marcus has laid his arm around Kristina’s shoulder, but she seems not to notice.
“Nature is God,” Groening says to Kristina kindly. “You and your daughter are safe now.”
“But why is she still so afraid?” Lina asks him, recalling Kristina’s reaction when she fell from her chair in the woods.
“This is not the original fear,” Groening says. “Nor was it the other night in the woods, Mrs. Windel,” he tells her. “This is a Regelung. The evil is mighty, but God is almighty. The evil is now coming out of your body, out of your mind. You need not be afraid of this Regelung pain. On the contrary: be happy about it, because when new life moves in, everything is straightened out again, and that sometimes hurts.”
Now Kristina’s eyes grow a bit calmer, and she loosens her grip on Ingrid, who was frightened by her mother’s outburst.
“I did feel so free after we were here last week,” Kristina tells Groening. “For the first time since Ingrid and I left home, I felt calm. All the worries were gone. I felt peaceful. I knew everything would be all right.”
“It is all right,” Groening replies. “What you felt in the woods the other night, and what you felt just here, just now – it is all the Regelung. And now you are truly free.” Then he looks at Ingrid and leans toward her over Renate and Ulrich’s shoulders, so that he is closer to eye level with her.
“And you, little Ingrid,” he asks. “What do you feel now?”
“I was scared when Mama screamed and grabbed me,” she tells him.
“And how about now?” he asks her, his voice soft and tender. It even seems to the little girl that his eyes are sparkling.
“Fizzy!” she replies brightly. “Fizzy. Like I could hop all day, with Uncle Peter!”
The people in the room laugh, relieved to be able to release the tension that built up in them when Kristina cried out.
“Do you feel happy?” Groening asks her.
“Oh, yes! Happier than ever!” Ingrid tells him.
Groening nods. “And you don’t have to worry about that nightmare any more. You know which one I mean. We don’t need to say it here.”
Ingrid gives him a surprised look. She is about to ask him whether he means the nightmare about the dogs – which she has never shared, not even with her mother – but Groening puts a finger to his lips.
“It’s gone now!” he tells her.
Groening turns his attention back to Kristina. “What do you feel now?”
“Calm again. Peaceful. Happy.” Now her tears are tears of relief.
“No worries?”
Kristina shakes her head.
“Good. You have taken in the good. Now keep it!” Groening tells her, moving to the center of the room now, in front of the fireplace. “Do you see, friends? You must not reconnect with evil any longer. Firstly, dissociate yourself from it. At the moment you disconnect, the disturbance in your body will be removed. Then, tune in to the divine stream. If once isn’t enough, do it twice. To be precise, you must always do so, daily.”He pauses and looks at one or the other of them. “Do not tune in simply when you are here in kind Mr. and Mrs. Birkners’ parlor! No! You must do this not just every day, but every morning and every evening.” He leans this way and that, so that he can see how they are all sitting. Here and there, he corrects a person whose legs are crossed, or whose fingers are interlaced.
“And now,” he tells them, “Free yourself from all the bad things and take in the good which is the healing wave here, which is not from humans, but from God. Give me your illness! Give me your worries! You can’t deal with them. I’ll bear them for you. I have broad shoulders.”
He directs his gaze to Renate, in the front row.
“You, Madam. What do you want?”
She clasps her hands together, but then, remembering Groening’s admonition, unclasps them and lays them back on her lap, facing up. She gives Ulrich a quick look, then replies.
“Forgiveness, Mr. Groening,” she tells him quietly, and her face flushes.
Behind her, Ethel knits her brows. What does Mama need to be forgiven for? She exchanges glances with Viktor, who shakes his head. I don’t know, either, his gaze tells her.
Groening, meanwhile, is looking deep into Renate’s eyes. He stands silently for about ten seconds, looking a bit above Renate’s head, then tells her, “Mrs. Gassmann, do not worry. Your sister says she never blamed you for what happened.”
As Renate takes in Groening’s words, all of the family members are wondering what Lorena might have blamed Renate for – all except for Ulrich, that is, who knows that Groening is referring to a sister the others never even knew Renate had had.
“She’s forgiven me?” Renate asks.
“What happened to her was not your fault. It’s very important to her that you know that.”
Renate begins crying, softly at first, and then in wracking sobs that cause her shoulders to shake. Ulrich takes his wife’s hand and squeezes it.
“How do you know?” Renate asks, wanting to believe Groening, but also wanting proof of some sort.
“Because she is right here with you,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Spiritually, of course. In the form of a girl of about ten.”
“Oh! I saw a vision of her the night we were here, and she was just that age!” Renate announces, turning to Ulrich and then to Lina.
“But in case you don’t trust that vision,” Groening goes on, “she asks me to tell you that she was wrapped in a light yellow blanket the day she died, and that you had embroidered daisies along the edges of it for her.”
“Yes! That’s true, that’s true! Oh, dear Anna-Liese!” Renate whispers through her tears, looking all around her, seeking to see Anna-Liese again.
“She has been your guardian angel ever since that day,” Groening tells her. “So you see, there is no need for her – or God – to forgive you. Just you must forgive yourself.”
Renate, still overcome by what Groening has told her, simply nods and presses the handkerchief she’s dug out of her pocketbook to her eyes.
“And you, Miss Bunke,” Groening says, turning slightly to face Lina. “What do you want?”
“To walk,” Lina tells him fervently, encouraged by the stories the others have told, and by what her grandmother has just experienced, even if she doesn’t understand what it is all about. “The same as last week. The same as always. To get up and walk and never need this chair again.”
Groening nods.
“Each one of you has come tonight with a wish in your heart, have you not? So, I tell you once again, do not give any attention to your burdens. To do that is to deal with the evil, and we do not do that here! No! Pay attention to your body. Don’t feel just anything, but what really is in your body. This is truth. It is also the truth, that today you are here, and you have been given the opportunity to reflect on your body.
Everyone in the room closes their eyes to concentrate, striving not to think about their own illness, trying their best to notice what they are feeling in their body. But at the same time, all of Lina’s family members, having just heard her express her deepest wish, are all inwardly asking Bruno Groening to please take her burden, to please make her legs work again. Groening can see this, just as he has been able to see all of the details he has already mentioned. Now he steps over to the edge of the second row, where Marcus is sitting.
“What do you feel?” he asks.
Marcus takes an inventory of his body and replies, almost apologetically, but also with a bit of a challenge in his voice, “Nothing.”
Groening lays his hand briefly on Marcus’ shoulder, and suddenly the young man sees two images in succession, in his mind’s eye. First, he is standing with his father in the workshop, Viktor’s arm gripping his shoulder like a vice as he whispers in his ear that there is no use fighting him about the Civil Service job. The second image is from just a few days earlier: Once again, he and his father are in the workshop, that afternoon when they were with Ulrich and Peter, talking about his wedding and the log sawing. Again, Viktor’s arm is around Marcus’ shoulder, but now, he is smiling. The two of them look happy. Stunned that these memories have popped up at the moment Groening laid a hand on his shoulder, Marcus just looks up at the small man beside him with a questioning expression. He notices that Groening’s touch is both firm and warm. Loving. And Marcus now feels like a hot stream of something is flowing into him at his shoulder, and from there spreading out throughout the rest of his body. But before he can say what he is experiencing, Groening removes his hand (although the sensation stays in Marcus’ body for the rest of the evening).
“I have said,” he tells them all, walking back to the front of the room and taking a small sip from the glass of water that stands on the small table there,“that it depends upon the person whether I can help them, irrespective of what ailment they have. It does not depend upon me. It depends upon the person! Each person has a choice. To accept the divine power, or not.It is out of the question that I will be able to help everybody, because it is about good and bad people here. For example, my friends can bring just about anyone to me. When I know that the person will not change, nothing can be done. Some people are still carrying their weaker self inside. There are people who say, ‘I will give him a good dressing down!’ Friends, don’t ask me to carry on now. Otherwise, I might get personal. I might even name individuals. This type of person is still serving evil today.”
Marcus has a fleeting thought: Is Groening talking about me? But before he can even begin to consider this, before the frown that is wanting to come to his face can even take shape, the thought flies out of his head. He recalls that this is just what happened the other day in the workshop, when he’d been unable to actually say the words that would provoke his father. Instead, now, as then, he feels the calm that has arisen as the current flows through his body.
Groening goes on. “Each and every person has the duty and the obligation to do good here for as long as he is allowed to be here on this divine Earth, so that nothing evil happens to him. Woe to the person, though, who does evil here and who burdens his own conscience. And, if a person would, to sum it up, walk over dead bodies here – without a concern for a human life, if he has fallen for this greed, this selfishness, and works on how he can get a lot of money, and if he then believes that he can do a better job of forging his own destiny… No, dear friends, those who fall for the evil, who serve the evil, they really won’t fare well.“
Here Groening slowly scans the assembled group. His gaze comes to rest on Viktor, who is suddenly feeling extremely hot. His stomach is burning inside.
Groening asks him, “What do you want?”
Viktor pauses, looks into Groening’s eyes, and replies, “I just want to make everything right.”
“What, precisely, do you want to make right?” Groening asks, holding Viktor’s gaze.
Viktor looks at his lap and says nothing. Ethel has turned to him and is staring at him intently. Everyone else in the room is doing the same.
Groening clasps his hands behind his back and begins pacing slowly to and fro across the front of the room.
“Does God forgive, Mr. Bunke?” Groening asks, his voice stern. Viktor snaps his head up, hoping that Groening will give him the answer he so wants to hear.
“Mrs. Gassmann’s dead sister has forgiven her.” He indicates Renate with a nod of his head. “But then again, there was nothing really to forgive in that case. Mrs. Gassmann mistakenly took the blame upon herself. But what about when there is blame? Then what happens? Does God forgive the kind of ‘everything’ you ‘just want to make right’?”
“I don’t know,” Viktor replies, his voice so soft that most of the people in the room can’t make out what he’s said. They each turn to their neighbors and whisper, “What did he say?”
“Let’s start with what those things are, Mr. Bunke,” Groening goes on, still pacing.
When Viktor continues to sit silently, Ethel calls softly to him. “Viktor?” But he can’t bring himself to look at her. He is feeling tremendous pain in his chest and stomach now.
“All right, then,” Groening says. He has stopped walking and is standing at the front of the room again now, facing them all. It just so happens that Viktor is right in the middle of the second row, directly opposite Groening.
“Let’s start with Schweiburg,” Groening suggests.
At this, Renate, Ethel, and Ulrich all begin to feel uneasy. How does he know we lived there? Ethel wonders. Viktor is sitting stock still.
“We’ll take just one example from Schweiburg. The Jewish family’s bakery where you and your ‘friends’ broke the windows and set the fire.”
A collective gasp rises in the room. Renate and Ethel and Ulrich, who never knew any actual details of what Viktor was up to in Schweiburg, and later, in Varel, feel their stomachs start to turn. Ethel takes hold of Viktor’s arm with her right hand.
“Viktor,” she whispers, tugging on his sleeve. “Tell him to stop! Don’t let him lie about you!” But Viktor remains mute and motionless.
Groening continues. “Plus other additional incidents. There and in Varel. Is that correct?”
Viktor nods, almost imperceptibly. He is sitting ramrod straight, and in his posture, he still resembles, as he always has done, the strong oaks of their family’s woods. But just as trees that have suffered an attack by insects, or a limb broken in a high wind, decay and die from within long before they ever topple to the forest floor, Viktor’s cornflower blue eyes betray his inner struggle: He has almost stopped breathing and is wondering how he will manage to keep from bursting from the pounding in his chest.
Ethel has pulled her hand back in shock, and uses it to cover her mouth instead. Her pale skin has grown even more pale.
“And then there is the war to consider,” Groening says. His voice does not seem angry to any of them, but neither do they sense there the kindness and love that has reigned in it until this point. “Shall I go on, or would you like to tell about the ‘things’?”
Without looking up, Viktor lifts a hand and gestures to Groening, indicating that he should continue.
“As a member of the Death’s Head Unit, you were second in command of the Concentration Camp Administration.” Groening pauses. “Please stop me if I make any mistakes, Mr. Bunke.” When no reply is forthcoming, he goes on, his arms now crossed in front of his chest.
“Throughout your tenure in this position, which you held from 1940 to 1945, while prisoners in German concentration and death camps were starving, as were many Germans living throughout this country, you and your colleagues routinely received bonuses in the form of special foodstuffs – such as cigarettes, chocolate, and coffee, for example. These goods you regularly sent along to your own family, outside of Bockhorn.”
Every single person in the room is quiet now, not shifting the slightest bit in their seats, so as not to miss anything. Ethel is slowly shaking her head, and her body begins to sway forward and back, and then side to side, like a bird trying to free itself from a trap that’s tethering it to the ground. We accepted those packages, she recalls, and a chill comes over her. Renate is looking straight ahead, at the fireplace, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her hazel eyes, both guarded and challenging, look up at Groening. She wants to protest, We didn’t know! Ulrich’s shoulders have slumped, and his arms, instead of resembling the upward-striving branches of the aspens he loves, droop to his sides, as if suddenly deprived of the life force.
“In April of 1944, as part of your duties, you were dispatched to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. There you personally gave the direct order to the Camp Commandant to inject 200 prisoners with phenol, thereby causing the deaths of these human beings.”
People in their seats let loose cries and gasps. Audible crying can be heard.
“Mr. Bunke,” Groening says softly, leaning forward, “are these the things you just want to make right?”
Viktor has now propped his bent elbows on his knees and leaned forward to rest his head in his hands, which are compulsively clutching and releasing his thick, sandy hair. All he can manage at this moment is a nod.
There is complete silence for perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds. Then Marcus, who now notices intense rage rising up within him, beings to lean forward. He fully intends to attack his monster of a father, throw him to the ground, do whatever is warranted in such a case… But then, for some reason, he glances in Groening’s direction. The small man, while still holding his gaze on Viktor, has extended his left arm toward Marcus, who understands what Groening is communicating to him: Now is not the time. Sit back. So, Marcus runs a hand over his hair, then settles back into his chair. He wants to try to sort out the thoughts that were coming into his mind a moment earlier, but he finds they are gone now. So he tries his best to do what Groening asked them all to do earlier, and observe what he is feeling. Aside from the anger, which is more muted now, there is a disorienting feeling of dizziness, as if the floor beneath him has turned to sand, or water.
“I ask again,” Groening says, lifting his eyes to look at each of them in turn now, “Does God forgive?” Here some of those present nod tentatively, while others have crossed their arms angrily in response to the litany of Viktor’s sins that they have just heard recited. Groening reminds them with a movement to open their posture once more. “I tell you,” he offers, finally, “that God does forgive. If,” and here he raises one finger in the air, “If we regret the evil acts we have done. If we hold onto the evil, we cannot be free, cannot be healed.” Now he watches the reactions of the people before him. “But if we say, ‘Dear God, I know I have done evil, I know it was wrong, and I regret it, and I will never do evil again…’ Then, dear friends, yes, then God does forgive. But those who cling to their actions, saying, ‘I was right to do it!’ ‘I would do it again tomorrow!’ – They will not receive God’s forgiveness.”
Now Groening pauses and stares for a moment at the space above Viktor’s bowed head. Then, he says, firmly, “Mr. Bunke?” Viktor can tell by Groening’s tone that he must look at the man before him. Reluctantly, he raises his eyes and meets Groening’s gaze.
“It is forgiven,” Groening tells him. Now the kindness reigns in his voice once more.
Viktor keeps his eyes focused on Groening for half a minute or so. Just as Renate wanted some proof that what Groening had told her about Anna-Liese was true, now Viktor is not sure whether he can accept what Groening has told him. Does he really know this? But as Viktor continues to look into the small man’s gleaming, blue eyes, everyone in the room around him seems to fade away into clouds, into silence, and in Groening’s gaze, he glimpses something he cannot name in words, something he cannot even fully grasp. It is a knowing, more than something tangible that he can see. But in his body, which is shaking uncontrollably now, he feels a lightness that grows, until it expands to fill every cell. It feels as if some spiritual being’s gossamer arms are embracing him, and as he looks into Groening’s eyes, a deep peace comes into him and takes him over, along with a feeling of the greatest gratitude: for this moment of connection with God (for he knows for sure that this is what this is), for the forgiveness he now knows God has granted him, and even for the horrible moments he somehow feels he had to endure in order to gain this connection with God. In the months to come, there will be times when he wonders whether he really did experience God when he looked into Groening’s eyes, because he will not be able to call these feelings back into his body and mind and heart. But then, each time, he will tell himself, No. It did happen. And that knowledge will carry him through what he has to go through next.
But as Viktor is staring into Bruno Groening’s eyes and feeling God’s boundless love, many around him in the room have begun to feel anything but loving. The whispering has started up once more.
“Is there any person here who does not need God’s forgiveness for some act?” Groening asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Raise your hands.” Some of the guests look at the floor, others to their companions. Shrugs and pursed lips can be observed.
“I thought not,” Groening tells them, his voice again soft and loving. “Dear friends, what you have done in the past – what others have done… Hand that over to me now, too. All of it! For those memories – of your own evil deeds, and of others’ – they only burden you. One should not do this – think back about the evil, about the war, about how others have wronged you. Or how you have wronged others – once you have repented of your evil actions, it goes without saying.” He scans the crowd and knows that some of those present are not yet feeling able to release incriminating thoughts, whether about themselves or those close to them.
“Haven’t you learned from it yet?” he asks them. “When you thought back, looked back, even one time, to the evil of the previous years – or even just to two days ago – weren’t you sad? Please look back now on an evil hour, an evil moment! On a moment of fear, when you – when your whole body – was seized, when it was petrified. Such as Mrs. Windel, here. Think about it now! And keep thinking about it! Then evil will soon have a grip on you. And so I ask you: Do you want to always bring up the past, throw it down in front of your own feet – or your loved ones’ – again and again, and always walk over it, and be reminded of it again and again?”
Each person shakes his or her head. Some even have sheepish expressions on their faces now.
“Forgiveness,” Groening tells them softly, “comes not just from God. It comes from each of us. Do not keep the evil in your hearts!”
While the people in the room mull over these statements, Groening once again walks over to the little table and picks up the glass of water. He takes a leisurely drink and sets the glass back down. Then he strides quickly across the room and halts three feet in front of Lina.
“Stand up!” Groening tells her stridently, in a voice that brooks no opposition.
And Lina stands.
“Now, walk!” Groening commands her, stepping backwards to give her room.
Lina looks at him and begins to reach for the arm of her wheelchair, but Groening shakes his head. “Now, walk!” he repeats.
Lina takes first one tentative step toward Groening, and then a second. A third step follows, and a fourth, until Groening, who has been taking one step backwards with each of Lina’s toward him, has backed all the way up against the wall.
“Now turn around and walk back,” he tells her.
As she slowly puts one foot in front of the other, Groening motions – without taking his eyes off Lina – to Egon Arthur Schmidt. Schmidt gets up, picks up his own chair and comes around behind Groening, who is matching Lina’s movement forward, step by step. Groening motions to Schmidt with this left hand, and his helper deftly rolls Lina’s wheelchair away and replaces it with the wooden chair. When Lina reaches the chair that now stands where her wheelchair had been, Groening instructs her to turn around and sit down. This she does. In a daze, she, like her father a minute before, is unaware of any of what is going on around her. She hears only Groening’s voice instructing her, and feels only the sensation of her legs moving beneath her.
Now that she has sat back down, Lina assumes that she is done, but that is not the case.
“Stand up again, please,” Groening tells her, and then instructs her to walk back and forth across the front of the room. She does so, slowly at first, and Groening walks alongside her, his smile growing broader with each turn, as he sees her movements gaining in both strength and speed. Lina, too, is beaming. I am walking! she tells herself. Walking! She starts to turn to look at her family, but Groening tells her quietly to focus.
“Just walk now. You can look at them in a bit. I can tell you that they are all smiling. Your mother is crying,” he says with a smile, at which Lina laughs a bit. She is crying, too.
“That’s enough for now,” Groening tells her tenderly, after they’ve walked to and fro before the guests five or six times. “The muscles are still a bit weak. But you are walking! You are healed!”
Lina, who is, indeed, feeling tired now, but pleasantly so, turns to Groening before returning to her seat. “But Mr. Groening,” she asks, a puzzled look on her face, “How did it happen? Why now?”
Those present are leaning forward in anticipation of the reply. Groening looks at her, and there is a twinkle in his eye.
“All evening, instead of handing your burden over and trusting the Heilstrom to work, your family has been thinking only about your healing. Wishing for it so strongly that the divine power could do nothing. But when I was talking with your father here, everyone’s thoughts turned to him. For a second, they forgot about you. Then there was an opening. Then IT could work! And you were healed.”
Lina barely notices how the rest of the evening passes. She is in a daze of exhilaration and exhaustion and joy. She notices that Groening gives a photograph of himself to each one of them.
“The power of the Heilstrom is contained in it,” he tells them. “I do not need to be physically present in order to help you. You need only address me in your thoughts, and I will help.”
Lina holds the photo he gives her in her hand gently, so as not to bend it. Somehow, she understands that it is time to go, and stands up. As she is walking out of the room alongside her father, Bruno Groening comes over to him. “I will be in touch with you,” Groening tells him. “I am going away for some time now, but I will get word to you about when and where to come. But for now, use the photo to connect with me. And this.” Then Lina sees him hand Viktor a tin foil ball just like hers.
What Lina does not see is when Marcus approaches Groening, just as the crowd of guests is beginning to disperse. But Kristina sees this, because Marcus whispers to her that he’ll return in a minute, and then walks up to Groening. Kristina sees that her fiancé’s manner is humble and thoughtful. He and Groening exchange a few words. Marcus places his hand on his own abdomen. Then, it seems to Kristina, Marcus asks Groening a question. She can tell by the intensity of Marcus’ expression, and by the focused way he gazes at Groening, that the answer to whatever question he has posed is very important to him.
As Kristina looks on, Groening takes a moment to look Marcus in the eye. Then he tips his head slightly to the side, as if considering his reply. Then, finally, he nods and gives a slight smile, an expression that is both warm and a bit stern. He lays his hand on Marcus’ shoulder and nods. Marcus immediately rises up a bit taller, and Kristina can tell that he is pleased by Groening’s answer, excited, even. Groening’s smile broadens, and, at the same time, he wags a finger at Marcus. Marcus nods, and Groening places something into his hand. Then, a moment later, the small, unassuming man moves out into the hall. Marcus looks over at Kristina and gives her a little wave. “We’re going now,” he mouths to her across the room. He rejoins her and Ingrid, and they, too, exit the Birkners’ parlor.
The next thing Lina notices is that she has walked all the way to the car on her own – after Groening cautions her family to believe that she is fully healed, and to treat her accordingly, after giving her a few days to rest up. Then, she is in the car, with Marcus driving and Renate, Ulrich, Kristina, and Ingrid squeezed into the back seat. Before they have been on the road for even ten minutes, she is fast asleep.
Sue Downing 