River of Life

January 2025

Revelation 22:1; Ezekiel 11:19

“Victor Varon died.”

“Oh? What a sad, tragic man. Does Delphine know?”

“There’s no indication here. I suppose she knows. I doubt many will miss him. Poor Victor, he was difficult to like.”

Amari and I were browsing the Sunday paper after lunch. I’d just turned to the obits. She said, “I liked your sermon this morning, hon. Want another cup?”

I took my mug, slurped what was left, handed it to her. “Thanks, darlin.’ Please.”

She poured, set it on the table and asked, “Theirs was a quite amazing story, wasn’t it.”

“Truly was. Mm, that was back in ’73. ’74.”

“Remind me. It’s been so long.”

I was barely into my thirties and just out of seminary when I met Victor Varon. Pudgy, short, balding, nearsighted, irritating Victor. Sloppy, messy, unkempt, repellant Victor. Arrogant, disdainful Victor. Needy Victor.

Right off, he was difficult. Contentious. I recalled the very moment he stepped into my office and I said, How can I help you, and didn’t mean a word of it. I changed my mind when I saw a gamine woman peer from around the man. Her short, dark hair fit her head like a cap. Near-to-black eyes shone like sparks in obsidian. Pixie-ish came to mind. I gave her a double-take to make sure the tips of her ears weren’t pointed. Quite the contrast to her companion.

When Victor spoke, his voice had all the allure of a band saw. He squinted when he asked, “You are a Christian? A pasteur?”

“Yes, I am. David Dellamora.” I offered my hand. He ignored it.

With his arm across his chest, he announced, “I am Victor Varon,” full with the inference that he had transcended the ordinary. He pronounced his last name, ‘Vah-rone.’

“I am a Jew and I do not come to hear about your Jesus or God of any of that. I want you to help me understand something. Can you do that?”

“Mr. Varon, I won’t know if I can help you until I hear what it is you want. But please, come in.”

Varon’s taking a seat was an elephantine rudeness. I buried my wince with the customary open-palm gesture at a second chair: “Miss, please have a seat.”

Varon leaned forward, elbows on knees. Eyes the color of mildew glared at me through bottle-bottom glasses. “Good. You are straightforward. C’est bon.”

I checked the woman’s left hand, then Victor’s. No wedding band either way. I said, “Mr. Varon, if you please, introduce me to your … friend … associate.”

She spoke: “Bon jour, m’sieu. Forgive me. I am Delphine Abecassis. I, too, am a Jew, but un Juif comblé – one who is fulfilled.”

She made a small bow followed with a warm smile. Heureux do vous recontrer.”

“Forgive me, mademoiselle, but my French is limited to oui, non and Eiffel.” I hoped my smile would moderate my linguistic shortcomings.

She made a small laugh. Delicate fingers covered red lips. “I am please to meet you. That is what I say.”

“Oh. Thank you. I am pleased to meet you as well. You say you are a ‘complete’ Jew. Is that to say that you are a follower of Jesus Christ?”

Delphine’s joy sparkled. She clapped her hands, “Oh, oui, m’sieu le Pasteur! Oui, Jesus, he is mon Seigneur et mon Sauveur, my Lord and my Savior.”

At this, Victor made a rude noise and spat on the floor. Delphine and I traded shocked gapes. Varon looked away. He made no apology.

“And tell me, please, are the two of you, ah, husband and wife?”

“Non, m’sieu. We are but friends. Friends for the lifetime, you see, for our expérience, our évasion from France. From the Nazis, tu vois.”

“How may I be of help?”

Varon blurted, “Mademoiselle Abecassis, she will tell our story. Then I shall tell you of the problem I wish to have settled.” He turned his head to the woman, then back to me, giving us a glower that could curdle milk. “N’c’est pas?”

Delphine said, “Oui, Victor.” When she looked to me, her dark eyes danced. “M’sieu, Pasteur, how shall I say?”

“Pastor is fine. David is better.”

“Ah, mais oui.” She spun my name with the Jewish flavor. “Daveed it is.”

“M’sieu Varon and I, we come to America from France, après la guerre. After the war. We come as, how you say, réfugiés?”

“Refugees.”

“Oui. Oui. We both come from Lille, Victor and myself, near to the border with la Belgique. Perhaps you know this region as Flanders, n’est-ce pas? Victor, he and his family attendez a temple, le Synagogue de Lille, but my family, although we are Jews, Jesus is our messiah and we attendez la Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Church. Victor and I, then we were but youths, Victor, seize, myself, quinze.”

Varon growled. “She means to say I was sixteen, she was fifteen.”

From their appearance, I took them to be in their forties. I asked, “When did you come to the United States?”

“We make our way to American in 1946, or 1947 perhaps? Victor?”

Varon ignored her.

Delphine continued. “Pardon, m’sieu Daveed. When the German troops, the Boche, occupy Belgique et le Neder-land, we knew this: the Boche would soon assail France. We had all heard rumors of what the Nazi’s planned for the Jews, so Rabbi Eishel, he sought out all the Jewish families and he tell us we must either hide or flee. My petit sœur, Chloe, my sister, was only three years of age, too small for the ordeal of an escape. Papa et maman decide they should take their chances and hide with Chloe. Papa gave me a little money and his blessing.

“It was then I first met Victor, at the synagogue. He was very gallant and took my hand. He say, Delphine, you shall come avec moi, with me. Together, we shall make our way to Dunkirk. It is but seventy miles. It will take us but three days, four at the most, and then, we shall find a boat and go to England.

“Victor, because he was so certain of himself, I thought surely, we can make this trip. But we did not know then how difficult would be our journey.”

Delphine stopped talking and gazed out the window. I knew she was back in France and was about to give her an ‘ahem’ when she returned. “Pardone moi, m’sieu. You have a question?”

She couldn’t miss the furrows of my forehead. “Yes, I do. Were you able to locate your parents after the war?”

“Hélas, mais non. No, I was not. They were taken, you see, to the camp at Beaune-la-Rolande, and then to Drancy. Even petit Chloe. From Drancy, many Jews were taken to Auschwitz. Need I say more? Non. I returned to France, you see, to find them. For many months did I search for them. I found the record of my family at Drancy, but nothing after that. The records, they were destroyed in the bombings.”

“Mr. Varon, what about you. Were you able to locate your family?”

You know the expression, If looks could kill? Varon’s glare grabbed a cloud of fatality, merged it with storm of perdition and barked, “This! I do not discuss. Non! Delphine, continuez!”

“Oui, Victor, pardonne-moi, m’sieu Pasteur. Victor, he had a few francs, and I had those Papa had given me. We had only the clothes we wore. We were grateful for sturdy shoes. Victor wore a hat he had gotten in the Tyrol, the kind with a badger’s brush on the side. He looked quite dashing. We set out late in the day, thinking to walk and perhaps take the faire do stop.”

I gave my eyebrows the quizzical rise.

I was taken at how Varon could speak one word and make it sound like a curse: “Hitch-hike!”

Trying to acknowledge him with a cordial nod while wishing he wasn’t there took some effort. Not sure I succeeded. Delphine continued.

“We walked all night and as the sun rose at our backs, we came to a farmhouse where le fermier et sa femme, the farmer and his wife, they give us a meal. We sleep in the barn, in the hayloft. That afternoon, soldats come to the farm to take bread and fruit and wine, the farmer tell the soldats we are their children.

“Come evening, the wife, she prepares us another meal from what little the Germans have left. Le fermier, he tell us we should travel only when it is dark, for German soldats and panzers and trucks fill the main roads.

“That night, Victor and I, we find the road to Dunkirk and walk with great care, for Germans, they are everywhere. We have no travel papers, so we must not be seen. We hear gunfire and explosions, not many but enough that we must hide and find ways to go where the Germans are not. It takes much time, and we make only a few kilomètres before the sun rises.

“We hope to shelter in another barn, but there are none to be found. We make a thicket of trees our refuge. We drink from a stream. We have no food save for a stub of bread and an onion remaining from what the farmer provided. Victor, he sees an orchard nearby and when it is dark, he goes there and returns with four apples. This is our supper and breakfast.

“And so, our journey goes. We travel at night, we find shelter where we can. With our few funds, we purchase bread, some wine, and then our francs are gone. We drink water where we find it. It grows cold at night. We steal clothes from a clothesline for warmth.

“Five nights, perhaps six, I do not recall, we arrive at the outskirts of Armentiers. Victor says this is halfway to Dunkirk. It is very late. I am exhaust. We find a place to hide in a wooden shed behind a small mill where they make the cloth. Textiles. The shed is near to empty, save for a few bolts of cloth. I unroll some cloth and wrap it around. I lay there in the dark and wait while Victor forages for food.

“After a while, the door opens. I expect it is Victor but non, it is a German soldat. He looks at me. I look at him. He is but a youth, not much older than myself. I see that he is frighten. He points his rifle at me, it trembles. When he says, ‘Raus! it is the squeak of a mouse. Néanmoins, I am so afraid my scream stops in my throat.

“Again, he thrusts his rifle at me. He says, ‘Raus!’ I do not know what to do. And then the soldat, he fall in a heap and I see that he is dead. Victor stands behind him. A knife is in his hand. There is blood on the knife.

“Victor says, ‘Come, Delphine, we must go.’”

Delphine stopped talking. Victor hawked and spit on the floor. Again.

Indignity smacked me and I felt my eyes pooch out. “Mr. Varon, if you do that again, I will ask you to leave!”

The jutting jaw, the furrowed unibrow telegraphed defiance. He snarled, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Do with what?”

“The bad taste this conversation brings to my mout’.”

I passed a box of tissues to him. “Use these. Please.”

Glare. Glower. Scowl. Varon had long ago mastered the stink-eye. I chose to let it go. Good choice. “Delphine, you were saying?”

“Oui! Mai oui. Quickly, we leave Armentiers, for now there is no safety there. Victor, he say we must cross the River Leie, go to Nieppe. The bridge is the one way across the Leie and the Boche, they guard the bridge with soldats et Panzerspähwagens, fierce armored trucks with guns that bristle like le porc-épic.”

I gave Varon my quizzical look, hoped for an answer.

“Bristle-pig,” he said.

“Ah. Porcupine. I see.”

Delphine went on. “From a hiding place among the trees on the riverbank, we see how the Boche have make a rampart for the mitraillette, the machine-gun there, in the middle. Worse, we see the searchlights that will turn night into day. I say to Victor, we must make our way far upriver and cross there.

“He says, ’Non, I do not swim,’ and I say, ‘Then we shall float.”

“Surely you know, Pasteur Daveed, that everywhere there is a river, there are always objets that wash up along the banks, things of use. So, Victor and I, while it is daylight, we find a stone bâtiment, a small building for storage near to the river where we hide. As darkness comes, we make our way far upriver, perhaps a kilomètre or more. We search the bank of the river. Where the trees and shrubbery are thick, we find a raft fashioned from cast-aside boards and limbs of trees, a thing children have made. Victor, he says, “Mon Dieu, this is too small for us, we will sink it.’ I say, ‘Mais, it is not too small for us to cling to.’

“Together we push the raft into the water. We cling to the raft and kick our feet. The current catches us and the Leie sweep us down. Too fast, we go! Too fast! The current, it takes us to the middle of the river now and we kick our feet to make the other side, but the current, it is too strong. Ahead, we see the bridge. The eyes of searchlight search for us, back and forth, back and forth. The Boche, they will see us! I fear the sound of the machine gun will be the last we shall ever hear!

“Harder and harder, we kick our feet, but the current, it takes us. We are close to the bridge. Searchlights, they reach out to us. It is impossible not to be seen. Like a strong fist, the river grasps us.

“Victor hisses at me, ‘They are looking at us! See? They are preparing to shoot! We shall be killed!’

“But it is the strangest things, Pasteur Daveed. Victor’s words, they do not trouble me, non, for I am trusting in the Lord. “I say, ‘Not to worry, Victor. I shall pray. The Lord will provide.’

“There in the middle of the Leie, the searchlights bright as noonday, I close my eyes and I pray, ‘Seigneur Jésus, help us now in our hour of need. Help us reach the other side of the river in safety.’

“And Daveed, the miracle! It happens! Suddenly, the bridge is behind us! We are on the far side of the river! Our raft, it comes to rest on a sand bar!

“Victor, he says, ‘Delphine! Qu’est-il arrivé? What happened? How did we get here?’

“I have but one answer. ‘Victor,’ I say, ‘it is miracle! We are saved by the hand of God!’

“We leave the river. We are chill to the bone. We huddle in the trees. Later we gather our strength and continue our journey. We take food as we can find it. We hide in the daytime. When darkness comes, we scurry like the lapines.

“Somehow, we avoid the German patrols. After three days, or four, I do not remember, we make our way to Dunkirk. There, we see many men on the beach and many boats in the water. It is the English soldats, but in their midst, other refugies, Hollandais, Belges et Français, even soldats de Afrique, are being gathered into ships and into boats. Victor, he finds an Englishman who speaks French. We tell him notre histoire, our story, and we are enfolded into le évacuation. We are taken us to safety in England.

“For the time of the war and with the help of the Jewish Refugee Committee, we manage, Victor and I. We help other refugees at the Kitchener Camp. Many Jews, they emigrate to Australia. After the war has end, Victor et moi, we are like brother and sister, bound together. Very much of England has been destroyed by the Luftwaffe. London and Sheffield and Birmingham, the cities where fabrication was done, are ruined. Life is difficult. Food and shelter are scarce. Through the Quakers, we are offered a chance to come to America. We embark on a ship, the USNS Henry Gibbins, and are taken to a camp for refugies at Fort Ontario. After a time, President Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, they arrange for some of us to work in Brooklyn, New York. In a year, two, Victor hears of work here in your city. And that is our story.”

“And I am amazed. Delphine, Victor, thank you for telling me. But that is not why you have come to me, is it?”

Varon bleated, “Mais non! Delphine, she insists that her God, this Jésus, saved us from being killed on the River Leie. I say non, it is not possible. It cannot be, for there is no God!”

Delphine’s words were soft, silken tissue. “This is why we seek your opinion, Pasteur Daveed. I want Victor to hear from other lips, that indeed my Jésus, he performs miracles today! That we were indeed saved by a heavenly miracle!”

I wanted to shake my head, no, but didn’t. Instead, I said, “Well, you should know that I have read about a dissociative disorder, a kind of delusion called a fugue state, where individuals have found themselves removed from one place to another and do not know how they got there. But I have never heard of two people having shared that exact same experience. It is possible, I suppose. But Victor, I must say for myself, being a man of faith, I believe the best explanation of your experience is what Delphine said.

“As for myself, I have no doubt miracles are possible, there are centuries worth of accounts of miracles, broad and sweeping events, quiet, precise individual ones. When I consider your story of crossing the Leie, what with the timing and action that you cannot account for, I believe a miracle is the best description of what happened. More than that, Victor, I cannot say.”

Victor’s crabbed hope flickered out as if someone had reached into his heart and turned off a switch. Creases in his cheeks and brows furled, signaling his discouragement like signboards. I felt a fool for even attempting to provide any manner of comfort to the man’s wounded spirit. I wished he could see Delphine’s example, how she, having endured the same experience, had restrained defeat, even triumphed over it. But that was not to be for Victor’s, for his spirit had been, I believe, too badly wounded. Delphine’s faith had saved her; Victor’s residue, sadly, was only of despair.

But, that did not keep me from trying. “Victor, you say it is not possible. So, why, after all these many years, are you asking this question? And why seek help of a Christian pastor? Surely you know I would favor the miracle.”

Victor scowled and growled and I feared he was going to decorate the carpet again. Instead, he said, “I have made inquiry about you, Dellamora. People who know you say that you are a man who speaks the truth, a man who cares for others. A mensch. That is enough for me. I offer you my trust. And now, I have my answer. I remain unconvinced. To me, the fugue state you say, it make better sense to me. Nonetheless, Delphine, she is certain that we were saved by God. That is her miracle, not mine, and that it is how we are forever joined.”

Varon jutted his jaw like the prow of the Queen Mary. “You see, Pasteur, I know what I am – rude, unattractive, difficult. Yet Delphine loves me.”

Delphine nodded. The smile she gave to Victor was a portrait of grace.

I knew we weren’t done. This discussion of miracle vs. delusion was not the only reason this oddly-matched couple had come to me; it wasn’t even the primary reason.

I had an inkling. “Victor, I know this is a most tender subject. But were you able to locate any of your family after the war?”

Varon’s entire countenance changed as if a cloud of invisible smoke settled over him. His eyes squinted tight and had his jaw clenched any harder, he would have shattered his teeth. His body went rigid and for a moment, I feared he was having a stroke. Two minutes passed, three, four, then five and I lost count.

In a whisper, Delphine leaned toward me and said, “M’sieiu, Victor, he never speaks of that. Never!”

Like a fish taken from water, Victor gasped for breath. Miniature tears gathered in his eyelashes. He seemed to gather energy from the air around him. His eyes flashed open, fury blazed as he exploded, “Non! Non! Non! No, ma famille did not survive!”

“Unlike Delphine,” he said, “I did find records.”

Varon’s face was a confused matrix of hatred and despair. His voice, rusty steel dragging across rough granite, grated out the words he had held unspoken for more than two decades. “Tous ont été assassinés! My family, they all, all, were murdered at Auschwitz!”

In my years as a pastor, I have dealt with death and grief many times. Never have I heard such anguish as from Victor Varon. The moan, the cry, the wail that came from the depths of his bruised and broken heart was the voice of the hundreds, the thousands of Jews who survived the Holocaust while their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers were herded into chambers where their final breaths were of cyanide-based pesticide. Their corpses? Packed into brick ovens and turned to ash. Their ashes? Landfill.

Victor Varon, sad, broken, hapless Victor, bent and pressed his face to his knees and sent forth a lifetime of grief and horror and despair, all the while hammering his thighs with his fists.

I will never forget the wails that issued from Varon’s ruined soul.

For how long? I don’t know. It wasn’t important. When his grief subsided, finally, he sat up again. He gave Delphine a thin, hopeful smile.

Delphine returned his smile, hers, a radiant thing that seemed to infuse the man with a thin blade of courage. At least I think it did. Me? I could barely see for my own tears.

And then I did something I never do without first asking permission: I stood and offered my hands to him and asked him to stand. He took my hands and I wrapped Victor Varon in my arms and pressed my cheek to his and I prayed for him. I gave thanks for him, and I asked God to bless him with that wonderful, vast and incomprehensible peace, the peace that carries the Lord’s own divinity and light and grace within it, the light-peace that brings healing and wholeness and blessing.

For as long as we stood, Victor’s arms around my shoulders were a granite vise.

Finally, we took our chairs. Victor’s deep gasp vacuumed the air. When he could speak, disdain colored his voice. “And that … m’sieu, le Pasteur … is why there can be no God.

“What manner of God would inflict such horror, such suffering upon his own chosen people. Non, there is no God and the so-call miracle of our salvation in the River Leie, I must attribute it to something else … a fluke to the fabric of time, a fault to our thinking, a mistake of our compréhension.”

Delphine, with a tenderness I have seen expressed only by mothers to their infants, touched her fingers to Victor’s face and kissed his cheek. “Je t’aime, mon ami. Je t’aime.” Victor covered Delphine’s hand with his own and gave a nod. It was a moment I carry in my heart to this day.

Against my own good advice – I should have let the moment be, to speak for itself, but no, I had this foolish need to say something. As soon as I spoke the words, “Victor, you know, of course, that God did not cause the war, the Holocaust,” I wished I could take them back.

Victor gave me hurt and empty eyes, then said, “Oui, but he allowed it, m’sieu le Pasteur. God, if he exists at all, allowed monsters like Hitler and Eichmann and Heydrich and Göring to slaughter of six million of His beloved people! Not only that, but of Romani and Sinti – the ‘gypsies,’ you know – for they, too, were executed, as were les Noirs, the blacks. Anyone who was disabled in mind and body, it made no difference, child or adult – Mais! Defectives! Get rid of them! Poles, Soviets, homosexuals! Even the harmless Jehovah’s Witnesses! If they were not of Aryan stock, kill them all!”

The man’s jaw thrust at me again. Fist hit palm. A roar erupted from his chest. “You cannot know, Pasteur Daveed! You cannot know!”

I waited, two breaths, three, then, “Oh, but I do, Victor. I do. My wife, she, too, is Jewish. Her grandparents, her aunts, her uncles. They, too, perished in the Shoah. At Majdanek.”

Hands pressed over his eyes, Victor groaned, “Aaaagh! When will God crush the heads of his enemies?”

Grief, silent but palpable as bales of cotton wool, stifled the room. After long, painful moments, Delphine’s small voice was a beam of light. “Victor? Mon ami? Est-ce que tu vas bien? Are you all right?”

Victor made a nod and a slight grunt, “Oui. Bien.” Delphine again leaned toward me. “Victor, he has never spoken of this. All these many years, he has held the monstrous horror of the camps inside. His heart, it is a vault filled with the angoise, the anguish, the pain. All these years, he has lived in the torment of knowing what the Nazis did to his mother and father, his brothers and his sister. Pasteur Daveed, Victor’s life has been swallowed by Hell.”

…

Victor’s response to my appeal to meet for further counsel was lukewarm. It was only because of Delphine’s, “Oh, oui oui, Victor, s’il vois plaît, made the difference. Our meetings began well enough but quickly waned; Victor’s heart, stricken as it was, remained as obdurate as a stone, impenetrable to the living Word.

Amari thought to pursue another track, to have Delphine and Victor as dinner guests in our home once a month. She and I agreed that our coming together would be without agenda and while our dinners began well, it was not long before Victor began to find reasons to decline our invitation. Once, twice, Delphine came without him, and predictably, that ceased as well.

It was four years later that Delphine sent word of her marriage, but the ceremony was to be held in the groom’s North Carolina hometown and Amari and I were not able to attend. Not long after, our communication was reduced to Christmas cards; that, too, faltered to an end.

Victor’s funeral was held at Sacred Heart Church; being a Catholic, I assumed Delphine had made the arrangements, but she had not. Amari and I saw her there. Her hair had gone grey and deep lines etched her eyes. We exchanged warm greetings and met her husband. Our conversation was polite and perfunctory. We spoke kind words of Victor.

A week or so after the funeral, Amari brought me a letter, hand-addressed in scrawled handwriting to Pasteur David Dellamora. I knew who it was from.

Pasteur David –

In these recent years, I have thought of you often. I write now

to thank you for your kindness and for your desire to usher God’s

peace unto my heart, for which I am truly appreciate. I have a

cancer, you see, and as I write, the doctors they tell me it is only a

matter of months, perhaps even weeks.

It gives me sadness to tell you that after Delphine married,

our relationship came to an end for her husband took such a strong

dislike to me that he demanded that she choose: him, or me. I

understand; as I said to you long ago, I know who I am.

Yet I bear him no malice, nor her, for in these later

years, God has brought a woman to my side whose mercy and

compassion knows no bounds. Estelle, a former nun, attends to

my needs and has accomplished what you and dear Delphine

tried and I refused. Ne regrette pas, for I shall soon kneel before

the Throne of Grace and render my soul unto the hands of my Lord,

Jésus Christ. Your prayers, and mine, have found their answer.

Thanks, in part to you, I am at peace.

Faithfully, Victor Varon

River of Life

January 2025

Revelation 22:1; Ezekiel 11:19