Strident voices shouted commands in German, answered by Herr Bonhoeffer’s calm tones. Footsteps led down the hall into the parlor, followed by a muffled conversation that seemed to last forever. The cold, silent bedroom where Mackenzie stood belied the danger that marched just outside its door.
She hardly dared to breathe for a time, but eventually her tense muscles demanded that she move. She shifted her weight ever so carefully, so the floorboards wouldn’t creak. Snaking a knitted afghan off the foot of the bed, she wrapped it around her shoulders. Then, inching to the window, Mackenzie settled into a plain wooden chair and pulled the big history book into her lap. She may as well use the time to find out how bad the ‘Curse of the Coronas’ was.
The side note on the next page of Herr Bonhoeffer’s history book made her feel terrible:
Justinian’s Plague of the 540s A.D. hopscotched across Europe, eventually leading to the Black Death of the 14th century. In like manner, Corona’s Curse skipped around the globe, to disastrous effect. Paris, France, was especially hard hit in 1811. The epicenter of the worst outbreak occurred in the Spanish mission colonies of Las Californias in 1852, where Gold Rush fortune seekers brought the disease to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento.
Corona quickly spread to the other missions and pueblos. More than half of the mission residents died, Spanish and Indian alike. Many fled to their villages in the mountains, taking the pestilence with them. The survivors, mostly children and youths, were quickly absorbed into Spanish culture. Their tribal identities were lost to history.
The memory of a native teenager’s smile tugged at Mackenzie’s heart. Surely he had survived, hadn’t he? But poor Father Sanchez and the others! She stared outside into the rain-soaked church cemetery and stifled a sob.
* * *
A log chunked into the parlor stove, and the iron door squeaked shut. The voices had long since fallen silent, and the footsteps had stomped away. Someone knocked, and the bedroom door opened.
“It is safe now, Fräulein,” Deitrich Bonhoeffer said. “Come join me in the parlor where it’s warm.”
A whiff of smoke lingered in the parlor air. Mackenzie crinkled her nose, remembering those last fiery moments in the Boonesborough stable. She reclaimed her corner of the long sofa as Franz laid his leather gloves on the pile of firewood stacked neatly in the corner.
The pastor held a short conversation with Franz in German, after which the shorter man left the room and the clergyman sat in an armchair.
“What on earth was that about?” Mackenzie asked, giving vent to her pent-up anxiety.
He shrugged. “I asked Franz to bring us something to eat.”
“I meant about the Gestapo.”
“You mean our Geheime Staatspolizei, the secret state police? They don’t like the nickname Ge’sta’po. Apparently someone heard voices in the courtyard and thought I was holding an unsanctioned church service. The police came to investigate.”
He smiled cryptically and continued. “If they only knew they were four hours too early, I would be in a great deal of trouble. And you will be in a great deal of trouble, if you talk freely outside these four walls. Saying the wrong thing can get you jailed, or worse.”
Mackenzie shook her head, trying to sort out what had gone wrong. Nik had said in class that England embraced freedom of religion long before America wrote its constitution – that’s why the Quakers and others were allowed to colonize the New World. Most of Europe followed suit. And she had never had to censor anything she said before. How was it that those liberties seemed non-existent in 1960?
Franz came in with a tray of food, interrupting her daydream.
“Wird das alles sein, Herr Pfarrer?”[1] He set the tray on the coffee table.
“Ja, danke.”
“What did he call you?” she asked as Franz left. “I thought your name was Bonhoeffer.”
“Herr Pfarrer means Pastor,” he said, pouring coffee from a copper kettle into dainty cups.
“So you aren’t a Catholic priest, then. I thought you would be, since this is the Holy Roman Empire.” She sat up straight to accept the teacup.
“No, I belong to the other state-sanctioned church, the United Lutheran Confession. Officially, that is. Tell me, Fraulein, is it sorrow you feel, or guilt?” He offered her a plate of cake and a fork.
Mackenzie poked at the cake, flaking off a crust of cinnamon and brown sugar. “Probably a lot of both.”
“Would you like to talk about it? I’m told ‘Confession’ is good for the soul.” He smirked at his own pun.
“Even without a confessional, is that it? But you’re Lutheran – is that even allowed in the Holy Roman Empire?”
“After the Peace of Westphalia, 300 years ago, the only sanctioned churches in Europe are Anglican in England, Roman Catholic everywhere, and Lutheran or Calvinist here. The latter two have since united. Of course, the king of each Imperial Estate is more or less tolerant of the religious traditions of his serfs, but for the most part, there are only two state churches you may attend publicly.”
She took a bite of cheesecake. Kings, serfs, and state churches – all of these were institutions America and Europe had long since abolished. England even banned slavery in 1838, long before America did.
“Is Franz your slave?” She took a sip of coffee to hide her frown.
“Technically, no. You could say both he and I are slaves of the church. I chose my form of slavery. To escape my family destiny of farm labor as a serf, I enrolled in seminary. For his part, Franz was involved as a teen in an uprising against the German Provisional Government in his native India. The rebels were captured and sentenced to servitude. The United Lutheran Confession purchased as many as they could to rescue the youngest ones from hard labor.”
“You can’t compare your situation to Franz. Your white privilege is showing. How can you call yourself Christian in the face of such inequality?”
He looked puzzled. “How does one’s skin color confer privilege? Since the beginning of time, nations of all color have clashed. The loser’s plight has never been pleasant. The church’s role has been to console the broken. But perhaps you should tell me: what about your timeline is different? How did you come to expect what you call equality?”
“That’s the heart of the question, isn’t it?” She took another forkful of cake, trying to distill all of Nik’s lectures into a concise argument. “The poor people from white nations came to America as indentured servants,” she said finally. “They chose to trade their labor for a few years to pay for the trip, after which they were set free. But the black people were captured and traded like cattle for hundreds of years, and never got their freedom. Even after Americans fought a war that ended outright slavery, they were still treated worse than white folk.”
Bonhoeffer leaned forward and set his cup on the tray. “You mean the people in power fought each other to free the oppressed class? I’ve never heard of such a thing in human history!”
“I guess you could look at it that way. There was a lot more happening politically that led up to it.” Nik’s lectures had emphasized states’ rights and economics in the run-up to the Civil War.
“Even so, I marvel. Many of us in the underground church have considered such a thing, but none have had the political power to bring it about.”
“The underground church?” She scraped up the last of her cake. It wasn’t as sweet as she was used to, but the tangy cream filling more than compensated.
“Many of us feel that the church has not gone far enough in reforms. It was never meant to be a servant of the State. We feel it cheapens the grace of God not to live our lives fully following Jesus. If you ever get the opportunity, look more deeply into the beliefs of those in your timeline who pushed to free the oppressed, because I have never heard a truer expression of Christianity than that.”
Mackenzie frowned. “I don’t see how the Civil War could be an expression of Christianity. Maybe the abolition movement, but there were still plenty of churches and Christians who supported slavery.”
Pastor Bonhoeffer licked his fork and set it on his empty plate. “Jesus himself said that he had come to declare freedom for the captive and set at liberty the oppressed. I don’t see how a Christian could believe any different.”
The room became uncomfortably silent. Mackenzie set her plate aside and nibbled a strand of hair nervously. She had honestly never considered the Christian aspect of the abolitionist movement. Nik’s lectures had focused more on the influence of philosophy. For his part, the pastor stared off into space, lost in thought.
“Tell me about Africa now,” she said finally. “I want to know if slave traders are still kidnapping people and selling them.”
His brow furrowed. “Fortunately, the Christian church has been effective at stigmatizing those who traffic in humans, but the Ottoman Empire, which controls all of Africa, has no such scruples.”
“I thought the Holy Roman Empire got half of Africa at the end of the Great War.” She pointed to the heavy history book on the floor by her chair.
“Sectional violence eventually kicked us off that continent,” he replied. “But more to the point, tribal wars have been happening since time immemorial, and the prisoners of war get sold to the slave traders along the Gold Coast. So who is most at fault, the owners who buy the slaves, the slavers who transport the slaves, or the warriors who sell them?”
“All of the above,” she said without hesitation.
The pastor nodded in agreement. Footsteps shuffled down the hall, and Sean lumbered into the parlor. He brightened at the sight of the food tray.
“Mmm, cake! By the way Mac, Nik wants his tablet.”
She handed it over.
“Back in a jiffy.” He went down the hall briefly.
When he returned, Herr Bonhoeffer turned another teacup upright. “Come sit down, my young friend. I was wondering if the smell of Kaffee und Kuchen would wake you.”
Sean took his snack and sat down. “What did I miss, Mac?”
“You know what we canceled?”
“The Declaration of Independence.” He sounded so proud of himself.
She frowned, and he tried again.
“America? What am I missing?”
“Yes, along with women’s rights, freedom of religion, freedom of – well, just about anything! Seems like serfdom is still a thing, and slavery. We also killed Paris, Williamsburg, and half of California with the Coronavirus.”
“What is this Declaration that you apparently canceled?” Bonhoeffer sat back with a fresh cup of coffee and crossed his legs.
“The American colonists wrote it to declare their independence from Great Britain,” Sean said. “They wanted freedom from taxation. But we changed all that.”
Mackenzie sighed, beginning to wonder if taxation was the Americans’ only issue. The heart of the Declaration was emblazoned in her memory, thanks to her dad.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” she recited, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The pastor’s right leg unwound and slammed to the floor with some force. He leaned over his knees and stared in disbelief. “And you objected to these words? Why?”
“Well,” she stammered, “because they didn’t apply to everyone. It was centuries before women and people of color got any measure of freedom, and we’re still fighting for it! Those men were hypocrites!”
“I have encountered many a hypocrite within the walls of the church,” he said slowly. “What I have found is this: hypocrites are merely people who give lip service to ideals they don’t live up to. I would be a fool to throw out the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ just because some people didn’t live up to it. Instead, I work to challenge them to greater faith and obedience to those selfsame ideals.”
Sean’s plate teetered on his knee, half-forgotten. “Are you saying we gave up on good ideals instead of living up to them?”
“I’m afraid so. And wherever you go next, you’re going to have to consider the results of your actions, good and bad. Time travel is a weighty thing.”
Mackenzie groaned. “That’s just it. Before we changed things, massive numbers of people died under communism. Even more masses have died because of the changes we made. Even you were affected, Pastor. I looked it up – you were supposed to have died fifteen years ago for standing up to an evil dictator.”
His hand shook as he set down his cup. There was a long silence before he spoke. Mackenzie traded nervous glances with Sean, noticing for the first time how red his cheeks had gotten, beneath the reddish beard. During the whole trip, they hadn’t thought once of sunscreen.
“I can’t wish death on myself, or anyone else,” the pastor said finally, folding his hands to keep them from shaking. “But I will say this. Those rights of Life and Liberty – those are the most Christian ideals I have ever heard, and those I would die for. If you could undo what you have done, with all my heart I wish you would.”
“Mac?” Sean looked worried. “If we do get home again, do you think I’ll have to learn Spanish?”
[1] “Will that be all, Pastor?” “Yes, thank you.”
Disclaimer for social media: This is historical fiction for entertainment only. Any resemblance to living persons is accidental. Resemblance to current events is pure imagination. Interaction with actual history is sheer conjecture. (The rest of us already knew this, right?)
Footnotes for chapter 9 can be found here.
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Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Van Gorkom
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.
Cover illustration: cropped flag from a larger oil painting by Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome, Artist. Betsy Ross,/ J.L.G. Ferris. , ca. 1932. Cleveland, Ohio: The Foundation Press, Inc., July 28. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719536/. Public domain. No known restrictions on publication. No renewal in Copyright office, 11/91.
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