Simone Arnold-Liebster - Facing the Lion

I was extremely unhappy. I didn’t want to obey Dad. And yet I had received the order from Mum. What a frustrating situation!

Later on, Dad came back home, still upset. With an attitude bordering on contempt, he muttered, “I’ll investigate that book of those Bible Students, those Jehovahs.” And laughing, he added: “They must write lots of nonsense in that Jehovah’s Witness Creation book.”

“Claudine, did you hear Dad? Finally he will open the book that he got in the mail. Dad is very keen on astronomy; he studies books. Sometimes, before he was sick, he would take me on his lap and show me pictures. Claudine, did you know Saturn has a ring around it? I’ll teach you.”

Sometimes late at night I would have to go to the toilet. Dad would still be reading and smoking. The following morning, he would be reading and coughing. Every morning he had that same terrible cough. Maybe he, too, had specks in his lungs. I knew he was sick; he was pale and crotchety, and he even got mean. I tried to get by without being seen.

In school, the priest talked a lot about the nativity, the day God came down to earth and chose Bethlehem in the land of the Jews. But they had no room, no house for him and Mary and Joseph. The holy family had to go to a stable, and Jesus had to be warmed up by the breath of a cow and an ass. “And remember,” the priest said, “the Jews killed Jesus, the incarnated God, and asked that his blood come upon their children. That’s why the Jews are condemned for eternity.”

At home, the smell of the anise cookies had replaced the smell of the waxed furniture. Mother was busy finishing baking the different traditional cakes and cookies. They were spread out on a white cloth on the dining room table. The end of the year with its festivities was at hand. It was going to be a wonderful Christmas. Ever since Dad read the Creation book, he had recovered and was enjoying food and games again.

Mother called me to come to the dining room. She had put the Christmas tree in the corner next to the wooden carved cupboard. In her hands she held a big box. “Come and help me,” she called. She put the whole package on the sofa and opened the lid. She had saved all the colorful glass balls from the previous year.

“You saved them; this way the Christchild won’t have to bring more!”

“Simone, we have always celebrated Christmas, but there is no such person called Christchild. For the French it is Père Noël ; every country has its own fairy tale. Look how I do it; you never put two of the same color together, and we will put the candleholders here.” It was fun, and it smelled like Grandma’s forest. A little shy ray of sunshine reflected in the glass and made the “angel hair” glitter.

“Our priest told us that Christmas is the day of Jesus’ birth. That’s why there is a manger set up in the church next to the altar. A baby is lying in the manger with lots of animals all around.”

“December 25 thisn’t Jesus’ birthday. And besides, Jesus is not a babe anymore. Like you, he has grown up. Then he died, was resurrected, and is now a King in heaven!”

“Mum, Zita wants a cookie. Can I give her one?”

“One, no more.”

The tree was almost finished before I realized what Mum had told me.

“But if it isn’t Jesus’ birthday, why do we put up the tree? When was Jesus born?”

“Jesus was born in the autumn, not in the winter.”

“What does that tree stand for?”

“It has nothing to do with Jesus; it comes from ancient pagan times.”

“Then why do we do it?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

I had the golden glass ornament in my hand, ready to put it on the top. “Mum, does God accept a pagan tree?”

“I guess not.”

I let my glass ornament fall, and I took all the other ones down and began trampling them to pieces. I was shaking all over.

Silently, Mother swept up the broken glass and put the fir tree back on the balcony.

That night, under my bed cover, disappointment and anger invaded my heart. Adults just lie. The stork and the baby, the fairy tale about the Christchild, the tree that is not really for Jesus but is pagan, and they say it’s just a nice story like the Grimms’ fairy tales! They make religion into a tale. My anger grew.

Mother explained herself. “Yes, we have been cheating you. People who do not study the Bible don’t think that it is bad to make a pagan feast, and they do not know that Christmas started with the Roman sun feast. You made the right choice; always go according to your conscience. Together we will work to get all the fairy tales and lies out of our worship.”

I was appeased, but something was broken in my heart. My parents had been lying to me for seven years, and the priest still did! From that day on, I was even more suspicious because I realized grown-ups can tell tales, grown-ups can cheat, grown-ups can mislead.

It was impossible to reach Bergenbach; it was buried in snow. We would go in the spring. Dad played with me and Zita; he threw snowballs in the air, and Zita chased them. At the end of that wonderful vacation, Dad said: “Tomorrow, Mum will go with you to school. Your classmates are right. You, we, are not Catholics anymore. Your mum has found the truth: the Bible is the truth, and we all will hold to it as closely as possible.”

Music, laughter, and games had returned to our home. Dad was happy again, pampering me whenever possible; he was as jovial as ever. His return to painting and the violin indicated the extent of his healing. He had even stopped smoking. Because I had put some chocolate cigarettes in his tobacco box to tease him, he had proclaimed to Mum, “I’ve always condemned priests who smoke, so I have to stop, too. And Simone needs to have a father who sticks to what he says!” Dad never smoked again, and his terrible morning cough went away.

With much enthusiasm, he brought the new cotton print fabric for my room, the one he had promised long ago and had forgotten for months. Humming along with the sound of the sewing machine, Mother cheerfully made my curtains and bed cover. Our young downstairs neighbor John would soon wallpaper my room while we were away in Bergenbach. Dad gave me some lessons about cold and warm colors, and then had me choose the color for my room. I decided not to have blue because I did not want to freeze in my room.

At school, no one wanted to hear my Bible quotations anymore, and my teacher’s reaction was a sample of how people would view my family. I was no longer her favorite. Whenever possible, Mademoiselle ignored me, and she seldom gave me an opportunity to answer questions in class. But the peaceful, happy atmosphere at home outweighed the cold one in my class. I realized that the same thing had happened in the past. My teacher often talked about the first Christians in the time of the Romans. Whenever we children had done a fine work, she would relate the story of Fabiola, Nadine, Ben Hur, and the famous “Quo Vadis.”

At home among Dad’s art collection, we had a reproduction of an Italian painting picturing the first Christians in the Roman arena, ready to be eaten by lions or to die by fire rather than give up their belief. From my very first school year, it had been my aim to be like them. But I couldn’t understand one thing: Why didn’t anyone want to hear more about the Bible? It got even worse. As soon as my parents took me out of catechism, the class started hating me. The same children to whom I had given my bread, cookies, and chocolate now turned against me. Why do they do that? I asked myself. What had changed?