The gutters were overflowing. Since I was wearing rubber boots, I decided to walk right into the puddles. As long as Mum couldn’t see me from the window, I wanted to be a savage girl, free to do things on my own. I gleefully splashed everyone on the sidewalk because vacation was at hand. But once around the corner, I had to behave like a civilized girl! But my underwear told on me; everything was saturated with mud and water!
The vacation ahead meant a different schedule for us. My parents had finally contacted the Bibelforscher (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and were attending their meetings. A few families, people who loved to study the Bible, met in the city hall. There they learned about a Sunday school held by a retired nurse. Her name was Laure. About eight children attended the classes on Sunday mornings and answered the questions from a textbook called The Harp of God. I got to go. I was offered a Bible with a black cover and red edges. It was the greatest gift—I treasured it! It was my Bible. How different from catechism! Finally, I could freely ask any question and would be shown in my Bible how to find the answer. The hour was always too short for me, but too long for some others. And there were even some complaints when Laure ran overtime.
Aunt Eugenie was upset when she heard about the school. She had made an appointment with Mr. Koch and her brother-in-law. Mr. Koch, as an educated man, would be able to get Father back where he belonged, in the Roman Catholic Church. But his efforts were in vain.
“Adolphe is a poor victim of you, Emma,” Aunt said, wagging her finger in Mum’s face. She continued in a scolding voice, “Mr. Koch told me, ‘Mr. Arnold gave in because his wife wears the pants and he prefers peace in the house!’” How could she say that? Why do grown-ups judge without knowing the facts? My father certainly wasn’t weak. He was the one who took me out of catechism. He stopped smoking in just one day. He was the one who took us to the meetings. He was the one who introduced prayer at our meals. He was the one who asked me to attend Sunday school and to go out with Mum visiting people. But my aunt acted like her mother—she closed her ears tightly, accusing further, “It is a shame to drag Simone from house to house like a beggar.”
“But Aunt Eugenie, I love it,” I protested. Her ears were shut. Her eyes narrowed.
“You’re already poisoned by your mother’s fanaticism!” I learned a new word, “fanaticism.” But as soon as I found out what it meant, I came to the conclusion that it applied more to my aunt and to my grandma!
I often went with Mum as she visited the neighbors. Listening carefully to the remarks of the people helped me to clear up many questions I had asked myself. Strange ideas, like the one of that pastor who tried to defend the Trinity. Trying to prove the equal might, position, and eternity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, he said, “Take three eggs and make one omelet. It is still three eggs.”
Just as confusing to me was the idea that the soul would be judged right after death while the body was reserved for judgment at the end of the world. “When a person sins, which part commits the sin—the brain or the body? Can the body sin by itself?” The conversations started at people’s houses would continue at home around our table.
I also wanted to go alone to some farms to present a booklet about Cure for all Nations. It told about the wonderful prospect that under Christ’s rule the earth will become a paradise, no more death, no more sorrow. I had a keen desire to share this peaceful Bible message with the farmers—they were all very nice to me and gladly accepted the booklets. An hour or so later, as I returned to the village, the booklets came flying out of one house. The farmer hollered, “Doomed Bibelforscher! It’s a shame, a shame to exploit children!” Couldn’t they see that I wasn’t a child? I was eight years old! All by myself I had decided to visit those people!
I gathered up my booklets, raised my head high, and walked on, slowly repeating to myself, “The slave is not greater than his master.” I felt proud as I met the group who had called on other farms.
Why did all the Catholics say that the Bible is a Protestant book, looking at it like something damned? Later that day, Dad took a history book and sat down with me, helping me to find the true answer.
“The Bible used to be in Latin. Some Catholic priests translated it against the will of the Roman priesthood, which believed in keeping it in the Latin language. The love of its contents was stronger than the ban. Look here at that image—it shows the night of Bartholomew, the day Protestants were killed by the order of a Catholic government (August 24 and 25, 1572, when French Huguenots were massacred by Roman Catholic nobles and other citizens of Paris). During the Inquisition, the church tried to do away with its opponents. They were often burned alive, like the 15th-century Czech religious reformer John Hus and others.”
“I thought the inquisition was against the Jews.”
“It was against anyone who didn’t think according to the church teaching.”
I came to love our little Bibelforscher congregation. I had two young playmates, André Schoenaur and Edmund Schaguiné. I also gained a surrogate grandpa—Mr. Huber, a retired engineer who was a widower. He was a white-haired, well-mannered, fatherly man with a golden chain attached to a watch in his vest pocket. Marcel Graf was an office clerk at the potassium mines—tall, bald, and a real talker. The Zinglé couple often wore knickers because they were Swiss mountain climbers. Mr. Lauber, a widowed father of two small children, had lost one leg in the war. He faithfully attended all activities of the congregation, coming with his five-year-old Jeannette sitting behind him on a very old bike. There were the Dossmanns, whose son was in the Paris office of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and some others coming from outside the city.
Mum, with her missionary spirit, played a big part in the group’s activities, visiting many families, helping people like the Saler family to live a better life, getting them out of their needy situations. She believed not only in teaching but doing charitable work. Among the people she visited was Martina Ast, the lively 20-year-old maid of a Jewish family who owned the Galerie Lafayette, the main department store in Mulhouse. I loved to go visit her. She always had interesting Bible questions, but she also had nice pastries! She would even play with me sometimes.
Among our many friends, one couple was really special—the Koehls. One day when they were to be our guests, I eagerly waited for them at the window. They came in spite of the freezing weather. Adolphe, a barber, with the same name as my father, gently held his wife Maria’s elbow with one hand, and led their dog by the leash with the other. Maria’s hands were tucked in a fur muff that matched her silver fox collar. Both looked like they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Seated in our little salon, the two Adolphes got into a spirited conversation. Meanwhile, Mum and Maria exchanged recipes in the kitchen. After I played Maria’s favorite song, “La Paloma,” on the piano, Mum told me to serve the tea. My ears navigated between the two groups. But for some reason the left ear was “bigger” than the right. It stretched toward the two Adolphes.
“Who does he think he is—a god?” one said to the other.
“He’s just a puppet in the hands of the demons,” the other answered.
“He claims himself to be Germany’s savior—Heiland. He’s just a worm.”
“A very harmful worm, one made of rotten material.”
“He goes from victory to victory.”
“He does, but he will never prevail over Jehovah’s Witnesses.”[7] I just wondered who was this “he” that they were speaking about. In the center of the conversation was a book that our visitors had brought, Crusade Against Christianity.[8] They had it open to a drawing of some kind of camp.
“The information we learn from this book is very important. It will help us to become cautious like a serpent, and yet innocent like a dove,” both Adolphes agreed.
As the Koehls departed, they left behind the perfume of their barbershop. But they also left a big emptiness. I somehow felt that I now had another set of parents.