Then, above the drumming of the rain on the porch roof, a steady roaring sound gradually grew in my consciousness like a mighty crescendo until it seemed to fill the night. The river. Swollen and angry, it prowled in the darkness just beyond my doorstep, stalking my family. Any moment now, it might rise up like an angry monster and devour us all. I finally understood what Herr Metzger had been desperate to make me understand.
My family. I had to get my family to safety.
I had always depended on Friedrich to make the decisions and decide on a course of action, but this time I couldn’t wait for Friedrich to save us. For once in my life I was responsible for my own life—and for my daughters’ lives. They were depending on me to make the right decision. What a heavy burden of responsibility Friedrich carries every day.
As quickly as I could, I laced on my sturdiest high-top shoes, then put on my winter coat. Kerosene lantern in hand, I waded across the flooded yard to the barn, the rain lashing my face. On my left, the church floated like an island in the middle of a lake, completely surrounded by water. Inside, the barn smelled of hay and manure and old wood, reminding me so strongly of Papa’s barn that I nearly called out his name. Then I remembered where I was and what I needed to do.
The animals squirmed nervously in their stalls as the wind howled through the cracks and rattled the doors of the barn. The mare was usually the calmer of our two horses, but even she whinnied fearfully, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the lantern light as I opened the door of her stall. I spoke soothingly to her as I fastened on the bridle and buggy harness, then hitched her to our carriage. She balked as I tried to lead her out into the storm, so I decided to let her stay in the barn until the girls were dressed.
I retraced my steps to the kitchen, my skirts wet and heavy around my legs. I quickly pulled off my petticoats and apron to make walking easier, then hurried upstairs to bundle the children in their warmest coats. They stood whimpering in the kitchen doorway, sleepy and bewildered, as I drove the buggy up to the back door. One by one, I carried them outside, and they huddled together on the carriage seat in the dark. Even with the flaps drawn, the buggy roof offered little protection from the drumming rain.
“I want Papa. Where’s Papa?” Sophie wept.
“We can’t wait for Papa, Liebchen. We’re going to spend the night at the Bauers’ house.”
I had to crack the buggy whip hard before the mare would leave the relative safety of our yard and head out onto the flooded road. She heard the ominous rumbling of the river and flattened her ears against her head, nostrils flaring. My arms soon ached with the strain of keeping her on course while all her instincts urged her to flee back to her stable. Rain pelted the leather carriage roof like a drum roll. The wind whipped it against our faces.
Cold, wet, and miserable, the children cried for their papa and pleaded with me to take them back home. I didn’t want to frighten them even more by mentioning the dam.
“I know you don’t understand what I’m doing or why you had to leave your warm beds, but you must believe that this is for your own good—because I love you.” My words seemed hauntingly familiar. They were what Friedrich had tried to tell me over and over again about leaving Germany and moving to America. I had to deliver my children to safety, just as Friedrich had felt compelled to deliver us to safety in America. I remembered the dream had in Germany about a flood, and I shuddered. I finally understood.
The wind had uprooted dozens of trees and knocked down branches all along the road. When one loomed ahead of us like a twisted wraith, the mare balked and no amount of whipping could get her to move forward. I had to leave the girls huddled in the carriage and climb down to lead her, pushing the branches aside so we could pass. The water was knee-deep in the road, the current swift, and I felt the mud sucking against my boots. Our progress seemed agonizingly slow. If Herr Metzger was right, the dam could give way any moment and sweep us all to our deaths.
I suddenly realized where Friedrich was. As soon as he heard of the danger, he would have gone to the lake to try to prevent disaster. Instead of fleeing in panic, he would be laboring with the other men to shore up the dam with sandbags, and trusting his family to God’s care. I knew he was praying for us—probably this very moment—but my fear for Friedrich’s safety suddenly welled up like the floodwaters around me.
At last we reached the bridge. I could see the wooden trusses outlined against the night sky, but the roadbed itself lay somewhere beneath the river’s roiling surface. A huge mound of branches and what looked like debris from a house or a shed had piled up against the bridge’s central support, creating a logjam and turning the bridge into a dam. As the force of the dammed-up water increased, it sloshed across the flooded roadbed in waves.
I yanked hard on the mare’s bridle and started across the bridge, wading through water that reached to my thighs. The sound of the river’s fury roared in my ears, and I felt the bridge rumble and vibrate beneath my feet with the force of the raging river.
When we were a quarter of the way across, something struck the bridge with a jolt. The roadbed shuddered and swayed.
“Mama!” Sophie screamed. “I’m scared! Go back! Go back!”
The horse reared, yanking the bridle from my grip. As she bucked and snorted in terror, I knew I could never make her continue forward to the other side. But how could I get the wagon turned around on the narrow span to go back?
The bridge began to pitch and rock. I heard the hideous squealing sound of wood against metal as it twisted with the force of wind and water. It was breaking apart. We had to get off.
“Mama!” Sophie screamed again.
“Grab the reins!” I yelled. “Pull back on them as hard as you can!” I ducked beneath the harness and began to push against the carriage with all my might, trying to roll it backward off the bridge.
“I can’t! I can’t!” Sophie wept.
“Just pull, Sophie. You can do it. The horse wants to back up, let her know it’s all right, I’m helping her.”
I heaved. At first I couldn’t tell if the carriage was really moving or if I was just feeling the motion of the water and the bridge. Then the wheels slowly began to turn. Inch by inch, the carriage rolled backward. The mare followed. All the while, the bridge twisted and writhed beneath my feet.
I heard Emma mumbling something and realized she was reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Sophie joined her, between terrified sobs. I didn’t dare turn around until I felt mud beneath my feet instead of the wooden planks of the bridge. When I did, it was a horrifying sight. We’d barely made it to shore when the bridge began to collapse. Support timbers splintered and cracked like matchsticks, disappearing beneath the angry torrent as the logjam finally gave way. In a matter of moments, the bridge washed away in the churning rapids without a trace. I shuddered with horror. We might have been on it.
I couldn’t think what to do next. Our escape route to higher ground had vanished before my eyes. I leaned against the carriage, my knees too weak to support me, and trembled from head to toe. I felt alone—truly alone—with no one to help me, no way to save my daughters.
“What are we going to do?” Sophie wept, echoing my terror. Baby Eva hadn’t stopped weeping since I’d pulled her from her bed, what seemed like hours ago.
“Papa would tell us to pray,” Emma said solemnly, “or maybe sing a song.”
“Can you think of a song, Liebchen?” I asked in a shaking voice. When she didn’t answer, when the only sound was the river’s deafening roar, I knew the deluge was going to defeat me. We would all be swallowed alive.
Then, against all hope, Emma began to sing, her voice shining like a thin ray of light against all the darkness and fear.
“‘A might-y for-tress is our God . . .’” she sang, “‘. . . a bull work never fail-ing . . .’”
I began to weep. I knew she couldn’t possibly understand the words, but I felt their power lifting me, just the same.
“No, that’s not a good song,” Sophie s
aid. “Sing something happy.”
“But it is a good song,” Emma insisted. “It has a part in it about a flood.” She began to sing again. “‘Our help-er He-e, a-mid the flood . . . of more tall hills pre-mail-ing . . .’”
Slowly the words surrounded my fear, bringing it under control. Our helper He, amid the flood.
I closed my eyes as she sang and silently prayed to Friedrich’s God. “Lord Jesus, you always show Friedrich what to do. Please help us now . . . please show me what to do.”
When the mare snorted and backed against me, I opened my eyes. Downriver, silhouetted against the night sky, was the dark outline of another bridge truss. The railroad bridge. The tracks crossed the river by the mill, a little farther downstream.
With a great deal of pushing and shoving, soothing and coaxing, I got the horse and carriage turned around. We followed the main road along the river until it crossed the tracks, then we veered onto the raised railbed. The wheels thumped rhythmically as the carriage bumped along the crossties. I heard the roar of the river grow louder as we neared the railroad trestle. The horse heard it, too, and dug her hooves into the cinders, refusing to budge. I knew she could never cross the trestle in the dark, with only the railroad ties—spaced two feet apart—to balance on. It was useless to try to force her to go farther.
I looked between the ties and saw the dark water swirling beneath me only six feet away—boiling, debris laden, swift. I closed my eyes for a moment to halt the sensation of falling. If the dam gave way, this bridge would be swept aside in moments, too, like the other one.
“We’ll have to walk from here,” I told the girls. “The horse can’t cross this kind of bridge.” I unhitched her and set her free, hoping she would eventually find her way home. She trotted down the embankment and disappeared into the darkness. The rain was still pouring down in sheets.
“But these are railroad tracks,” Sophie said. “What if there’s a train?”
I almost laughed out loud. A train was the least of our worries. Before I could reply Emma said, “There won’t be. Papa says to pray whenever we’re afraid, remember? And the angels will fly down to watch over us.”
“Jesus will never leave us or forsake us,” Sophie echoed shakily. The girls had Friedrich’s faith. He had done a good job of teaching them—in spite of me.
I gazed across the narrow, fifty-yard span to higher ground on the other side. We would have to keep our balance in the gusting wind, leaping from tie to tie in the dark, with no railing to hang on to. I shuddered at the thought of one of my girls slipping, falling between the ties, disappearing into the raging water below. I couldn’t ask them to walk across. I would have to carry them, one by one.
“Sophie, give the baby to Emma. That’s it. I’m going to take you across first, then I’ll come back for the others. Hold on to Eva tightly and wait right here, Emma.”
I gathered Sophie in my arms and left the two younger children huddled together on the carriage seat, clutching each other. As I started forward, Emma began singing a new song, her voice high and thin. “‘Fair-est Lord Je-e-sus . . . Ruler of all na-ture . . .’”
Child of the sunbeam, I thought. Able to sing even in the rain and storm.
It wasn’t until I was halfway across that I began to fully realize what a difficult, dangerous trip this was. And I would have to do it four more times. I needed to look down to watch my footing, but when I did, the rushing water made me sick and dizzy. I had to pause every few feet and close my eyes until it passed. My knees trembled so violently they could barely support my weight, much less Sophie’s. She clung to my neck, whimpering softly.
“I can’t breathe, sweetheart,” I gasped. “Don’t hold so tightly.”
The roar below me grew louder until I could no longer hear Emma singing behind me. I prayed to Friedrich’s God for strength, begging Him with all my heart to spare my children. Then, glancing up, I saw the other side.
When I left Sophie standing alone in the rain alongside the tracks, she looked so forlorn that it nearly broke my heart to turn away and leave her there. But I had to go back for the other two. I hurried across the span, the trip somewhat easier without a child’s added weight. I would carry baby Eva across next.
“‘Fair are the mead-ows . . .’” Emma sang. “‘Fair-er still the woodlands . . .’”
“I’m going to take Eva next,” I told her. “Can you be very brave, Liebchen, and wait here all alone until I get back?” She nodded valiantly, but her eyes shone with tears.
Eva wrapped her arms and legs around me, clinging like a vine to a wall. “Mama . . . Mama . . .” she cried, unable to stop.
The railroad ties were slick with rain, the leather soles of my shoes slippery. If I fell, there would be nothing to grip for balance. The baby could easily tumble between the ties and plunge into the flood below. I made my way with agonizing slowness—balancing, praying, stepping from one tie to the next by rhythm.
I had to pry Eva off my neck when I reached the other side. She didn’t want me to leave her, but I had to go back for Emma. Gritting my teeth, I left my baby, screaming, in Sophie’s arms. One more trip across the slick ties—hurrying, mindful that the dam might burst at any moment. In my haste I stepped too far, and my foot slid through the crack between two ties. I fell down hard’ banging my knee painfully against the rail. For a moment I lay stunned, then I crawled to my feet and hurried on, grateful that my arms had been empty. What if I had fallen with one of my children?
“I‘m coming, Emma,” I called out. “Keep singing, sweetheart.”
I saw her outline in the distance. She sat perched on the buggy seat, bravely starting another song. The words soothed my trembling limbs like balm. I wanted so badly to believe they were true.
“‘I do not know how long ’twill be . . . or what the future holds for me . . . but this I know, if Jesus leads me . . . I shall get home someday.’”
When I finally reached her she hugged me tightly, shivering. Then, with hands as cold as ice, she wiped my wet hair from my face and pressed her cheek against mine. I started back across the bridge for the last time—slowly, carefully, my throbbing knee a reminder to gauge each step. If we lived through this, I knew that I would hear the roar of the river in my dreams for years to come.
I heard Eva crying in the distance and knew I was almost there. Her little voice was hoarse. I set Emma down and lifted her in my arms. “Shh . . . shh. It’s all right. Don’t cry, Eva. Mama’s here.”
While I soothed her, I planned what to do next. We were still much too close to the river to be safe. But the railroad tracks would lead to the mill yard, and from there we could follow the road up the hill to Magda’s house. How far? It had to be at least half a mile.
“You’ll have to walk from here,” I told the older girls. “I can only carry Eva.”
“I’m cold, Mama,” Emma said. She was soaked and shivering. We all were.
“Maybe walking will warm us up. Hold Emma’s hand, Sophie.” We started forward in the driving rain, Eva riding piggyback, Emma clutching my skirts with one hand and Sophie’s hand with the other.
“Is this a flood,” Emma asked, “like Noah and the ark?”
“Yes, darling, this is a flood.”
“But Papa said God would never send another flood to destroy the earth,” Sophie said.
“Your Papa’s right. This flood doesn’t cover the whole earth like Noah’s flood did.”
“God sent a rainbow, remember?” Emma added. “That means He will keep us safe.”
“Where is Papa?” Sophie asked. “Is he safe?”
I remembered that Friedrich was farther up the valley, closer to the dam, and felt a deep, soul-shaking fear for him. I began to talk, saying the first words that came into my mind, hoping that a long, rambling explanation would serve as a distraction to keep all of us going.
“Back home in Germany there was a terrible drought the year you were born, Sophie. A drought is the opposite of a flood—when there is no rain
for a long, long time and the river dries up. Floods and droughts are just part of the normal cycle of life. God promised not to destroy the earth, but sometimes He causes the river to flood and we’re so afraid it’s going to destroy us but it doesn’t, you see, because . . .” I had to stop as the flood of sorrow I’d been holding back all these years threatened to let go.
“Did we live by a river in Germany?” Sophie asked.
I cleared the lump from my throat. “Yes, it flowed through the little village where you were born, where your papa was a schoolteacher. When I was a girl I could see the river if I climbed my favorite tree in Papa’s pasture. My brother Emil and I would climb it together and play a game called Someday.”
“How do you play it?”
“Well, you take turns saying: ‘Someday I’m going to . . .’ Then you fill in whatever you’d like to do. It’s kind of like wishing on a star. My brother Emil wanted to see the world for his Someday dream.”
“Did he get his wish?”
“Yes. He traveled all the way to the islands in the Pacific Ocean and even to China.”
“What did you wish for, Mama?” I paused to rest a moment, shifting Eva to my hip. I was puffing from our uphill climb, so I knew we were probably high enough to be safe now if the dam broke.
“Oh, lots of things . . . but what I wished for the most was to marry a handsome baron.”
“What’s a baron?”
“A very rich man who owns a mansion and lots of land.”
“Papa is handsome, isn’t he,” Emma said.
I thought of Friedrich’s broad shoulders, his sandy hair, his gentle blue eyes. “Yes, darling. Papa is very handsome.”
We walked and walked, and for the first time in almost eight years, I began to talk about my family in Germany, telling stories my daughters had never heard before. I told them about Mama and Papa, my brothers Kurt and Emil, my sisters Ada and Runa, and finally my precious grandmother, Oma. A flood of words and memories poured out, held back for much too long.