With Gentle Powers
A Story of the Enterprise 1701 under Captain Robert April
officers aboard the Starship Enterprise knew how to throw a New Years Eve party. Shuttlebay Two had been set aside for the occasion, and was filled with enlisted persons serving as wait staff passing brimming glasses of champagne and plates of hors d'oeuvres to the laughing, clapping, paper-hat clad dancers. The beat of disco music echoed through the ship, evoking wistful glances from the personnel at duty stations. They were counting the minutes until their shifts ended and they could join the fun.
The morale was high. Enterprise had been instrumental in preventing a galactic war and forging an historic peace treaty. Their Captain and CMO had been the real heroes, but they had each contributed their own gifts to the peace, and the Captain had made sure they knew their work was appreciated.
"I'm leaving you in charge, Chris," Captain Robert April had advised his mentee and first officer, Commander Christopher Pike. "Make sure it doesn't get out of hand, eh? It's part of the captaincy, after all…"
"Sir, you should at last make an appearance. The crew is worried about you. They miss you."
Captain April's smile was a shadow of its former glory. There were dark smudges under his eyes. "I'm not up to it tonight, Chris. Make my apologies for me, please?"
Commander Chris Pike had shaken his head and dutifully gone off to join the party. The thought crossed his mind that the captain's daughter might be at the party, and that he might ask her to dance. He knew what a brilliant and inspired dancer she was; she had been teaching as many of the crew as wanted to learn the eightsome reel, in preparation for what she called "her Aunt Mary Anne's wedding ceilidh." Perhaps, if he could convince the young people to turn off that damned noise they called dance music, he could convince Lark Rise to sing for the company…
The mood of the Observation Deck, dimly lit by starlight, was very different. There was no champagne, no party hats, no high spirits. The mood was melancholy and meditative, somber and sorrowful.
Captain Robert April looked around the table lovingly, into each of the faces he so cherished. The unthinkable distances of space had come between each and every one of them for so long; and now they were together.
His wife, Dr. Sarah April, lover of cricket and medicinal herbs and horses, settled at his side, pretended to be utterly absorbed in shop talk with her dearest friend, his sister Mary Anne, but she hadn't let go of his hand all evening.
Commander Mary Anne April, who had delivered more babies of different species than any other midwife in Starfleet, who knew more about the old school communications stations than anyone, and who baked sourdough bread and knit wool socks for the crew "in her spare time", had come out of retirement to serve with her brother one last time. She had, as she expressed it, "left her ninety and nine sheep in the wilderness with Cousin Ellen" in order to serve with her brother for One Last Mission. Although the One Last Mission had gone from a few weeks to a few months, she stoutly maintained that she had signed on for this voyage for the long haul, and bless her soul, she wasn't going to leave her brother on the lurch when he needed her. Her tired, patient, brightly lit brown eyes surreptitiously glanced at her brother; but more often, they fixed on her husband-to-be's rugged, joy-suffused face.
Commander Duncan McLean was the impulse engineer onboard Enterprise. The only thing he loved more than the impulse engines he nurtured was his future wife, Mary Anne, his family, and the violin that was his true voice. He gloried in singing Johnny Cash songs "in a voice like a rook's" and ever since his engagement to Mary Anne had been going around singing "I Walk The Line," but it was in his violin music that the deepest loves and griefs and joys of his soul found their expression.
Yet there was an empty chair at the table, and an empty space in Robert's heart that not all the love of his family could fill. He had been missing his daughter for twenty five years; and he would ache, missing her, until his dying day.
The ache was overwhelming tonight. Just one week ago tonight, he had sat in the doctor's office, with Sarah at his side holding his hand, and had been told that he was incurably sterile. He and Sarah would not be able to have a dearly longed-for child together.
Since that terrible day, there had been times when the pain of his sterility was so great that he could not breathe. Other times, the tears came in like a flood and could not be stopped. Times when the tea cup in his hand seemed unbearably heavy and impossible to lift. Times when it seemed impossible to keep breathing.
Duncan had sat with him, weeping with him, when he first received the news. Mary Anne had held him, not saying a word. Sarah had not left his side for a moment, had poured her heart and soul into comforting him and being there for him. Only Lark, whom he judged was too deeply in her own grieving, did not know what was troubling her father. All she knew was that her normally joyous Tad, whose smile could light up a room and whose lilting voice made routine orders sound like the reading of poetry, wasn't himself. She didn't understand, but she worried.
The New Years family gathering had been her own idea, to bolster her father's sinking morale. As she studied her father's face across the table, pale and drawn, she had to admit, perhaps it would have been better to let him be alone for a bit.
Dinner had been the traditional Scottish New Year meal of neeps and tatties. The traditional haggis had been supplemented by a vegan dish of well seasoned mushrooms, lentils, and walnuts for the pescatarians, Robert and Sarah. Duncan had concocted cranachan for afters, a traditional Scottish confection of toasted oats, raspberries, honey from Mary Anne's apiary, and whipped cream. The traditional whiskey had been omitted out of respect to Robert, who had a deathly allergy to alcohol.
Robert had led the blessing with his Nan's traditional grace: "Bless this food that it may sustain us to do thy will; we ask in thy holy name, Amen."
He felt that saying his Father's familiar, traditional grace might break him down. And he did not want to break down.
The conversation and laughter at the table had been subdued, so unlike the usual gaiety and mirth that echoed through the ship when the family was together. The shadows of the past were over all of them.
"Tad, what was that song you and Auntie always used to sing at New Years?"
Lark Rise was a harpist and a singer of traditional music by profession, and she had freely offered her gifts to help raise the morale of the Enterprise crew. Tonight, however, it was her father's morale she was concerned about.
Robert smiled tenderly at his daughter. She was the apple of his eye, the light of his life. She had chosen to come along on this mission, in spite of the dangers, because she would not leave his side. He was grateful for her presence, reveling in being able to reach out and hold her hand, and hear her voice. They had been separated by the unthinkable distances of space for far too long.
He was not sure how he could bear it when her diplomatic assignment ended and she had to go on to the next one.
"What song is this, my darling? 'Auld Lang Syne?'"
Lark Rise shook her head. Her long braid of coconut sugar brown fell over her shoulder. "No, not that one. The WWII one, the one you always sang in German, just like Nan taught me—"
He knew exactly what she was talking about. If the prayer hadn't broken him down, that song would.
"My darling, I don't think I—"
"'With Gentle Powers'?" Sarah broke in. "Why don't we all sing it. The way we used to, remember, when Lark was a baby?"
Robert and Sarah, Mary Anne and Duncan, had been singing together for over thirty years.
"And Tad will lead on piano. I'll follow on the harp, and Uncle Duncan and Aunt Mary Anne—"
"And I'll play the last verse on guitar, as long as no one expects me to sing—"
"My darling," Robert said to his wife earnestly, "you have the most beautiful voice in the galaxy. You'll sing, won't you? For me?"
With a professional singer for a daughter and a man who regularly sang with the Coventry Cathedral choir for a husband, Sarah April often felt shy and self-conscious about her own singing voice. But there was no need. Both her family and her crew loved and cherished her singing.
Lark Rise gently took her father's hand in her own and led him to the piano.
Duncan took his place at his brother's side. Lovingly, he lifted his violin from his case and tucked it under his chin, ready for his cue to begin.
Mary Anne let her cello rest in its case and clasped her work worn hands over her knee. She would be singing in Gaelic the lyrics she had translated from German herself.
Lark seated herself at her harp and with her hands, stilled the sympathetic vibrations of the strings.
Always the deck sitter, Sarah settled herself cross-legged on the floor next to the piano, with her guitar in her lap, looking up at her husband's face.
"Now tell us the story of this song, Tad," Lark Rise coaxed.
Robert settled on the piano bench, and turned to face his family. He looked long and earnestly into each beloved face as he answered.
"'Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen,' which translates loosely into 'With gentle powers lovingly surrounded,' was the last poem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his fiancé from prison in Germany, during WWII. He resisted unto blood, striving against evil. He knew, when he returned to Germany to resist the evil Third Reich, what might happen to him. Four short months after he wrote this poem, he was put to death."
Robert's eyes were shining with unshed tears. Bonhoeffer had been his hero since boyhood, along with Archer and Cochrane. He had drawn from them the courage to do the right thing in the face of suffering and death. Now, he needed the courage to live with the wounds those choices had left on his mind and his body.
His family listened in respectful silence. After a little, Lark Rise spoke, huskily.
"I think you should start us off, Tad. In German."
As his long pianist's fingers settled on the keyboard, a look of peace, of transcendence, settled upon Robert's gentle face. In his typical understated style, he softly played through the intro, and then began to sing.
His voice at first was a bit faint and frail but gained strength and conviction as he sang. His was a tenor voice, perfectly true and sweet.
He sang in flawless German, but each one translated into Standard in their heads, as he had taught them.
Thus will I spend with you these final hours…
The weary sorrow faded from his eyes and the old light began to glow in them, and when he reached the chorus, his voice rang out from an overflowing heart.
With patience we'll endure, let come what may…
He turned to his daughter, sitting starboard of him, her warm brown eyes fixed on him for her signal to come in. Softly he said, "Take it, Lark."
Lark's calloused fingers touched her harp, and called out the most exquisite chords. Then she began to sing.
The voice of an angel, her father thought tenderly. And it was. She had inherited her Welsh Nan's singing voice, as clear and pure and sweet as a thrush singing at the break of dawn, a voice that pierced hearts with the clarity of early spring sunshine. She sang in Welsh, the lyrics her father had translated from German for her.
We're troubled still by long and wicked days…
Lark's clear voice faltered over the line, thinking of her fiancé, Daniel, who had died horribly at the hands of space mercenaries for a cargo hold full of medical supplies.
By gentle powers lovingly surrounded…
The lyrics bolstered Lark and she drew them around her raw spirit. Looking around at each beloved face in her circle, she knew she was surrounded by the gentle powers of her loving family, and that the healing the song asked for was forthcoming.
"Take it, Uncle Duncan," she said quietly.
Duncan's eyes shone with reflected starlight as he lifted his bow and began to play. The most tactless and clumsy of men, he transformed the moment he put bow to strings and revealed, through his music, the greatness of the love in his heart.
At his side, Mary Anne eschewed her cello and instead began to sing. She chose to sing in Gaelic, as she had translated the German lyrics herself. Her voice was as warm and wholesome and nourishing as the homemade bread she baked for her family. She steadily met her brother's eyes. The message in this stanza was for his heart.
The cup so heavy, so painful, it's the most that we can stand…
The tears that had been threatening all evening overflowed, and no amount of biting his lip or blinking or holding his breath could keep them back. He let them well up and tried to hide them as they silently ran down his cheeks.
His wife was utterly absorbed in watching Duncan and Mary Anne for her cue to come in. But Lark saw the tears on her father's face, saw him desperately trying to wipe them away without drawing attention to himself, and unobtrusively left her place at the harp and came to sit at his side on the piano, slipping her arm around him for a long squeeze. He slipped his arm around her and rested his tear wet cheek against her hair.
"Take it, Sarah," Mary Anne said quietly.
Cross-legged on the floor, Sarah's wheat blonde hair had slipped from the professional bun she wore for work and was lightly brushing her face. Her moor green eyes were shining; her slender surgeon's fingers closed around the frets of her instrument, and very very softly, she began to accompany herself.
Then we will all the past events remember…
All the past events that had brought them to this place were here, in Sarah's heart, in her husky, sweet, tentative voice.
Robert looked tenderly down at his wife, and his heart turned over. Come what may, she was by his side, with her never failing love and her plain spoken Northern ways and her compassion that knew no boundaries. She had known when she married him that he could not give her a child, and she had stood by him anyway. She was his trusted companion and dearest friend, as he was hers. He could face the painful days of grieving and mourning ahead with her at his side.
And then it was his turn, again, to play. His daughter gave him one last, gentle hug, and slipped away to her harp.
Robert unobtrusively wiped his eyes and then gestured to his family. "Suppose we all collaborate on the final stanza."
The tears that had come straight from his overflowing heart had given him some measure of relief. The precious head of his daughter resting against his heart had eased the smothering ache there. His wife's gentle hand had reached up to touch his side in love and understanding, and her nearness comforted him. And so he could put his whole heart into singing what was a hymn of hope, a beacon of goodness in the midst of great evil.
And certainly on every future day.
The musicians let out a collective sigh as the final echoes faded.
"Brother, if tha'd give over," Mary Anne suggested, gesturing to the piano bench, "I might be able to recall some of my old piano lessons before I took up the cello…"
"And tha's been going downhill ever since," Robert teased her. He could never let an opportunity to make a cello joke slip by him and his adored sister.
Mary Anne shot him a look full of sauce as she took her place at the piano. Her fingers rippled through the scales. It was as though she had never stopped playing the piano. At last, fingers properly limbered up and accustomed to the keyboard once again, she swung into a piece so celebratory, so joyous, so overflowing with love, and yet tinged with sadness, that Sarah abruptly blurted out,
"Why, it's our wedding song! Wedding Day at Troldhaugen!"
Memories of their wedding day lit a candle flame of joy in Robert's heart. He could see that same candle flame in his wife's eyes. He realized that he was keeping time with his hand and that Sarah was tapping out a rhythm with her booted foot. How many country dances and reels and waltzes had they danced together in their youth?
Presently, he started up and held out his hands to his wife. Instantly she responded. Round and round the starlit room they circled with rhythmic grace that was wonderful. In his arms, Sarah danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of Mary Anne's music entered into her and swept her away. All the innate richness and color and charm of her nature, that was so often hidden under her professional persona, had broken loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of motion.
In her arms, the grey-faced, sad-eyed shadow that had taken her husband's place since that terrible day at the doctor's office had faded away, leaving the man she had fallen in love with. The heart so full of hopes and dreams, dauntless in the face of suffering and tragedy. In each other's arms, the deck beneath their feet and the overhead above them melted away and they were alone, dancing through the Milky Way, two lovers keeping time to the music of their hearts, dancing amidst the starry night.
The music slowed to a more melancholy, pensive slow movement, and the dancers slowed with it. They moved very close together, cheek to cheek and heart to heart, their eyes closed, reassuring each other with gentle pats that just as they were in a time of deep pain and sorrow in their relationship, that there would once again be joyous times ahead, just as the music turned from somber and reflective to joyous and lilting once again. They moved into sweetheart position once again, completed the dance, and then dropped into their seats, breathless and laughing. And under cover of the laughter and chaffing of their family, they kissed in the starlight, long and deeply.
It had been a moment of hearts ease and togetherness, a time to gather strength to meet the coming days.
And sometimes a moment is all we get.
