You Will Never See Any God: Stories by Ervin D. Krause

face, one of the boys said afterwards, to look at Old Schwier. The old man was very frightened. Diedrich did not get out of the car at all.
    Old Schwier had never had use for a doctor, but there was one out almost every day now. They told him he was old, he had a murmur and it looked bad. No, there was nothing they could do really. They would try, of course, to help, and to ease any pain.
    Old Schwier spent the summer sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. He had no breath left and he could hardly walk without Diedrich to help him. He had stopped chewing tobacco and his voice was very soft now. The bankers and the doctors came up the hill to see him now. The town was glad to miss Old Schwier. It served the old son of a bitch right, they said.
    After the third heart attack that fall, Schwier had to stay in bedfor nearly a month. When he arose again there was a visible tremor not only in his hands but in his entire body. Even his head shook now, slightly and perpetually. He was frail and he looked his full seventy-eight.
    When he recovered enough to move again he had Diedrich drive him down to the minister’s house. They were there together, he and the minister, for over an hour, and when Old Schwier came out again he was weeping.
    The minister made daily visitations to the house on the hill. He brought his little case along and there was the sacrament of communion there often.
    The changes were many then. The old man wept and prayed most of the day, and he called Diedrich in and wanted him to pray, too, but Diedrich only looked at him and hobbled out again.
    “I have sinned so much,” the old man wailed. He said he wanted his son to forgive him and for them to love each other. Old Schwier had the minister contact the Red Cross to try and locate his children but the Red Cross could not find any of them. They had probably all changed their names, the minister said.
    Old Schwier threw out the housemaid he’d had and he got an elderly woman to do his cooking and cleaning. He took $40,000 and had an organ installed in the church and had a small gold plaque, “In memory of my beloved wife, Hilda,” placed on it. He went to church every Sunday then, and the minister seated him in the front pew and delivered several sermons in succession to God’s forgiveness and love. Schwier sold a couple of farms and gave the money to the church towards a new one they would build in the spring. It was a gift from God, the minister said. There was talk that even the president of the synod would be there to help with the cornerstone. Other things changed, too. Old Schwier lowered the rent on his farms, he sent out fence material and paintand wallpaper without being asked. He had the minister say public prayers for himself and his wife and his children.
    I have done such terrible things, he told the minister. I have sinned so terribly. They called Diedrich in and asked about his legs and if he wanted to go to Rochester to the Mayo Clinic to be helped, and Old Schwier said he would spend anything to help his son. Bless you, my child, he said, with love in his eyes, bless you for being with me even when I was terrible and cruel. Diedrich, who had lately taken to chewing tobacco, only spat on the floor.
    When they rarely went downtown, Old Schwier tried to be benevolent and kind. He took candy and small coins with him to press on the children he saw. Everyone said he was a wonderful old man. They said he had made a mistake and he knew it and he was really fine now. Only the old-timers would sometimes recall the old Old Schwier, but they were shushed.
    In the spring the church was begun with the president of the synod there and Schwier standing between the minister and the president, the old man leaning heavily on two canes. It was to be the most beautiful church in the area, the president said. A month later Schwier sold a couple more farms and gave the money to the school for a new gymnasium. It was to be called Schwier Auditorium over the