Fire in the Night (14 page)

I
N THE MANNER OF THE
Amish, the help began to arrive immediately the next morning. Neighbors came to do chores at five o’clock, just as Dat was holding a lighter to the propane lamp.

It was Elam, wishing him a good morning, inquiring about his night’s sleep. Yes, he’d slept, Dat assured him but didn’t elaborate about the long sleepless hours when his heart had cried out with the voice of Job. “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me…. I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

Oh, he could exhort, lift up the weak, talk of reason and reward. But in the still of the night, he’d wrestled with his own personal angel. Where have I failed that all this trouble comes upon me? he silently asked. Where have I gone wrong? Perhaps I am puffed up, self-righteous. I have not given to the poor as I should have.

“Those poor Daveys,” they all said. “And him a minister, yet. You’d think he’d have enough on his mind,
gel
?”

Hannah was in charge, producing a breakfast casserole made with eggs, bread, cheese, and ham. She’d added parsley, peppers, and onion.

The men cleaned the barn and prepared the machine shed for funeral services, moving equipment and power washing. Dat and Mam sat with the
fore-gayer
(managers), the three couples from their church district who were chosen to organize everything over the next few days.

Elam and Hannah, of course. John and Sylvia Esh, and Reuben and Bena King. They were all in their forties or fifties and had experience with funerals. They would do well, Dat knew.

They sat together at the kitchen table and made a list of those they would “give word” to come to the funeral. Who would carry the coffin?

Grandfather Beiler arrived, leaning heavily on his walker, his knees wobbling as he let go of it to place a kind hand on his grieving son’s back. He knew well the throes of grief, having lost Suvilla two years prior.

Grandfather Kings, Mam’s parents, arrived, white-haired, thin, and capable for their age. Mommy King went to her daughter, her arms embracing the grieving form. They stood weeping, the one a solace to the other, as mothers tend to be.

Levi sat in his chair and told their neighbor, Elam, that Mervin had drowned in all that water. He told him people drown when they breathe water instead of air. It rained too much, but not quite as much as Noah’s flood.

Elam nodded and gave Levi a York peppermint patty. Levi asked if that was all he had; he wasn’t so
schlim
(fond) of peppermint patties.

In the new part of the basement, the women cleaned and scoured, washed windows and arranged long tables. The men set up gas stoves, and other women arrived bearing boxes of food. The fire company donated the sliced roast beef, the meat traditionally served on the day of a funeral. Dat said it was too much, and Mam shook her head and said that was for sure, but they wiped their eyes.

Aunt Rebecca sewed new black dresses for Suzie and Priscilla in one day. Mam said she was so talented on the sewing machine.

They all had to wear black now for a year, whenever they put on their Sunday best. It was a sign of mourning, of respect and tradition, and it was taken seriously. They did it gladly.

Aunt Rebecca sewed the black dresses, capes, and aprons with the summer’s heat in mind. She chose the fabric wisely, using lightweight rippled fabric that had a bit of body. Priscilla was very happy to wear the dress, as Aunt Rebecca was a bit fancier than Mam.

Sarah had two black dresses, one almost new, so she wore it on the first day of preparation. Since there was not much for her to do, she wandered to the basement, eager to see who was causing all the friendly chatter, the sounds of much needed fellowship.

Hannah grabbed her in a firm hug, shed a few tears with her, and asked how she was doing.

“Okay, I guess. As okay as I can be,” she answered.

Sylvia and Bena gripped her hands, patted her shoulders in the motherly fashion of older women, and then began asking questions, their eyes friendly, without guile, bright with curiosity.

Sarah related the drowning in Suzie’s words, while they clucked and sympathized.

“I never saw anything like that storm!”

“I hope I never have to experience one like it again!”

“It wasn’t
chide
(right).”

A large woman Sarah did not know brought two cake pans covered with aluminum foil. Hannah reached for the cakes, thanked her, and then wrinkled her nose in distaste when she saw all the horsehair clinging to the aluminum foil.

“You almost have to put your food in a plastic garbage bag. You know, the kind you pull shut. These hairs get into everything. Especially in spring, like now,” Sylvia complained.

Bending her head, Sarah huffed, breathing out sharply, trying to rid the aluminum foil of the offending hair.

“Ick,” Sylvia said.

“A little horse hair won’t hurt you,” Bena laughed.

“Amish people grow up on it!” Sarah said, smiling widely.

The women planned lunch, preparing a kettle of chicken corn soup with homemade noodles that Bena had brought and canned chicken pieces from Omar
sei
Ruth.

Someone had brought ground beef; another had brought sausages. There was plenty of bread and applesauce and pickles, so that was what they prepared for the family, the relatives, and the many people who came to help.

In the late afternoon, the men from the funeral home brought the small, embalmed body back to the house. Tears flowed afresh as they prepared the little body for burial. They sewed a white shirt, vest, and trousers, a sort of half garment, draped over the body, appearing neat and very, very white. Mervin’s blond hair was so clean, his skin so perfect, his eyes small half-moons of dark lashes laid permanently on his cheeks.

Sarah choked, thinking of the hateful, clawing flood waters reaching up and over his sweet face, squeezing the warm loving life completely away from him at such a tender age.

How could God allow it? She cried silently with Priscilla.

She couldn’t bear to watch Mam lovingly dress her small son one last time, caressing the sweet face before tearing herself away and slumping against Dat, her grief almost more than she could bear.

The vanloads of people arrived then as the viewing was being held that evening. Relatives and friends, both English and Amish, came to grieve with David Beilers.

Da Davey und die Malinda. Sie hen so feel kott.
(Davey and Malinda. They had so much.)

Parents brought Mervin’s little classmates, all dressed in black except for the light blues and greens of the boys’ shirts. Their faces paled with various stages of anxiety, wondering if Mervin would look different when he was dead. They peered into the plain wooden coffin set on wooden trestles in the emptied bedroom and were too scared to cry, except for the older girls, who sobbed quietly into their handkerchiefs.

And except little Alan. He and Mervin weren’t just friends. They were real buddies. They scootered to school together, traded half their lunches with each other, and shared every bit of accumulated wisdom they had learned in each of their six years. They both thought the teacher was fat and grouchy, but they weren’t allowed to talk about it at home, so they talked plenty to each other.

Children were supposed to respect the teacher, whatever that meant. They just knew that it was no fun to color the best you could and then still get scolded for going out of the lines when you barely did ever. Or have your ear pulled if you got out of line at singing class, which wasn’t one bit your own fault either, the way Mandy pulled the songbook in her own direction.

Poor little Alan stood there in his lime-green shirt and black vest and trousers and his black Sunday shoes and blinked his eyes rapidly. And then because Mervin really was dead, he turned his face into his father’s side and cried and hiccupped with pain. His mother handed him a Kleenex and patted his thin, heaving shoulders. Death was very real, then, for six-year-old Alan.

Sarah sat with the family, shook hands solemnly with countless well-wishers. She held the grandchildren, helped her sisters-in-law with their rowdy little ones and crying babies, and shook yet more hands as the rooms became steadily warmer.

She was tired, her eyes red with fatigue and emotion, and she thought the night would never end.

Then Matthew and Rose appeared, dressed in the traditional black. Rose’s hair gleamed blonde beneath the propane lamps, and Matthew stood tall and dark and attentive behind her, his face already so tanned by the May sun.

And here I am wrinkled and tired and sweaty, holding this fussy baby. And here he comes, of course.

She received Rose’s hug graciously, their tears mingling. Sarah was truly in awe of her sweet, beautiful friend. When Matthew gripped her hand, she looked down at his vest and refused to meet his eyes.

The contact with his hand meant nothing at all. It was merely a handshake, same as everyone else. Then why did her eyes follow him as he moved across the room, the yearning in them unknown to him? She could tell herself anything she wanted, but her yearning was there, always.

She longed to get away alone, sink into a soft bed, and sleep for a whole long night and part of the following day. She longed to get away from here, this community, these people. Somewhere far away. Away from Matthew and the river of hopelessness. Maybe, just maybe after the funeral, she would.

The day of the funeral service dawned a perfect day, the kind where the humidity has been lifted by the force of a storm, the air so clear it intensifies the green of trees, hills, and crops to a heartbreaking hue. Now it reminded Sarah so intensely of heaven. Purple and lavender irises took on a brilliant new color, the light of the sun coaxing all of God’s majesty from them. The late tulips waved their red and yellow banners of comfort and encouragement to the mourners who attended the services.

The driveway and surrounding areas were covered with gray and black buggies, horses of black and brown obeying their drivers, stopping when asked, and moving on when it was time. Young men from David Beiler’s church district moved among the teams, numbering the sides of relatives’ buggies with a piece of white chalk.

It would all be done in order, the parents riding in the first buggy behind the specially built carriage that would carry the plain wooden coffin. The remaining family members would follow in buggies marked with the number 2, then 3, and so on, until the cousins, uncles, and grandparents were all in line, moving slowly to the graveyard.

But first, hundreds of people gathered in the clean implement shed, squares of carpeting laid on top of the stained concrete, the glossy benches in neat, parallel rows. The mourners were directed to their allotted spaces by the kindly
fore-gayer
.

In the house, a close relative led a special service for the immediate family. It was an hour spent grieving together, the coffin in their midst, before the actual service.

After that, they filed solemnly behind the pallbearers into the large shed containing hundreds of their friends and relatives, all dressed in black except for the men’s white shirts and the women’s white coverings. The clothing was an outward sign of inner peace and love, the weaving of lives in a simple black and white bond of unity. They were all there together, all believing in the same God, their souls redeemed by the same Jesus, their views and values not always identical but always tempered by the fires of surrendering to one another, bending to each other, acquiring a level of unity by love.

The sea of black and white spoke to Sarah’s heart, the tremendous impact of generations of a people who strove to live together. They believed firmly in holding their neighbors in high esteem, in loving their neighbors as they loved themselves. This love was built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Oh, it wasn’t perfect, she knew. Views and values were often solitary, each individual deciding what was right and wrong for them, shifting like sand. The winds of change and self-will constantly worked against this solid foundation. But the
ordnung
provided a guideline, a coming together, a rope on life’s pathway to heaven.

When Isaac Stoltzfus, an uncle to the family and a minister, stood up, the funeral became starkly real. Sarah bowed her head. Isaac spoke of heaven’s joy at receiving a small child who was innocent and had not yet trod life’s sin-cluttered path. In her mind, Sarah saw Mervin with a small white robe around his heavenly body and wings of sparkling gossamer. He would have lovely blue eyes, his open mouth smiling, singing, his hair as gold, as heavenly as anyone could imagine. Happiness was all about him, a giant bubble of perfect love that no one on earth could begin to fathom.

Sarah cried. It was the parting, the agony of his death, the way he had died, the murky brown water entering his nose and mouth. How terrified he must have been. How alone. That was the hard part.

A second minister spoke of God’s love, the love He had for Mervin, and how much further along he was now. Meanwhile, those left behind battled on, courageously meeting Satan and his allies on life’s road to heaven.

When the service was over, each person filed past the open coffin. Many shed discreet tears, then left the family to view the beloved face of its youngest member before the lid of the small wooden coffin was closed.

Sarah looked at Mervin one last time and etched his features in her heart. She lifted the soaked Kleenexes to her nose one more time, her head bent, and told him goodbye.

In the buggy that was marked by a 7, there was a plastic bottle of water and two sandwiches in a Ziploc bag. She rode with her cousin, Melvin, with Priscilla and Suzie in the back seat, the youngest in the family, riding behind their parents and older brothers and sisters and their wives and husbands.

Melvin took up the reins, and thanked Dan, the young husband of her friend, Anna, who had tended the horses. Melvin looked at Sarah, grinned, and asked if she trusted him to drive.

“Of course,” Sarah said, grinning back.

Bending, she retrieved the bottled water and the sandwiches. She asked her sisters if they were hungry, then handed them a sandwich to share.