Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (24 page)

Run.

Hilga stood straighter beside him. “We need a chaperone.”

“Well, of course you do,” Carl stammered.

A sigh of relief slipped through Matthias’s lips, but neither of them seemed to hear it.

“Amalie,” Carl said, directing her toward them. “And Niklas.”

Matthias stuck his hands into his pockets, his stomach sinking inside him. It wasn’t possible for this day to get any worse. He hated feeling trapped like this, like others were making all the calls for him while he sat on the sidelines and awaited their beck and call.

Carl put his hand on Niklas’s back and turned toward Amalie. “Could you two walk back to Amana with Matthias and Hilga?”

With Amalie and Niklas a few yards behind them, Matthias led Hilga toward the forest. The sun streaked light onto their pathway as they walked quietly under the canopy of walnut and cedar trees. Four wagonloads of Inspirationists rolled past them, on their way to Amana. The people waved as the wheels hammered the ruts in the road.

Then the silence folded over them as they walked toward the bridge. He could hear Niklas and Amalie whispering behind him, and it only made matters worse. Maybe Friedrich was right. Maybe the abandonment he’d endured as a child made it impossible for him to communicate with women as an adult. Maybe he had feelings for Amalie because he could never actually be with her. It was easy to love someone who didn’t know you loved them and whom you never had to tell how you felt.

The river raced under the bridge as they stepped onto it, and Hilga paused to breathe in the fresh air. Behind them Amalie and Niklas stopped walking, and Matthias wished they would join him and Hilga. At least the torment of their nervous silence would end.

Matthias picked up a twig from the bridge and tossed it into the water. The current swept it down the river for a moment, and then an eddy trapped it. The twig swirled around in the whirlpool, not going anywhere except in circles. When he glanced over at Hilga, her eyes were on the twig as well.

He broke the silence first. “Was it a good journey?”

She nodded in response.

“Was it long?”

“The steamer trip was long.”

He paused. “Do you miss New York?”

“I suppose.”

And that was it. She didn’t ask him any questions nor did she embellish her answers.

As silence poured over them again, he shivered. If they couldn’t even have a simple, polite conversation, how could they have a happy marriage? He didn’t need the blaze that seemed to spark whenever he spoke with Amalie—he’d rather not have it, in fact. But it would be nice if he and Hilga could maintain a conversation.

He threw another twig in and watched it wash down the Iowa River with the current.

“Your parents want us to marry,” he said, and then he turned to search her face. “But do you want to marry me?”

She looked away from him. “Oh, Matthias—”

“Because we used to be able to talk in Ebenezer but now conversation seems to escape us.”

Her lower lip trembled. “I will do whatever the Lord requires of me.”

The heaviness of her words washed over him. Would the Lord require this of them? A marriage that neither of them desired?

“Your parents think this marriage is what the Lord wants.”

“Ja,
they do.”

“But what do you think?”

She glanced behind them, at Amalie and Niklas talking along the pathway. “I—I don’t know.”

“We must pray, Amalie.”

Her voice fell to a whisper. “My name is Hilga.”

He turned from her so abruptly that something twisted in his neck. But he couldn’t let her see his burning face. Or sense the burning in his heart.

“We will pray,” he said before he turned to walk again.

God help him in his prayers.

* * * * *

Poor Niklas, Amalie thought. He waited in agony beside her even as he tried to carry on a pleasant sort of conversation. Or maybe the talking was to distract him from the beautiful girl on the bridge in front of them.

He chattered on about the upcoming harvest and the fact that her kitchen house was almost complete and he kept talking about the beauty in the forest. Amalie tried to appreciate his interest in the wilderness around them, but she would rather be in the kitchen house, over a stove, than hiking this muddy path through the woods.

In spite of his attempt at conversation, Niklas’s eyes kept wandering back to the slender figure in front of them and the sight of the handsome man hovering over her on the bridge, intent on her every word.

Surely Matthias would treat Hilga better than he did the other sisters in their society. For Niklas’s sake, he had to be good to her.

When they started walking again, Niklas groaned as if he was in pain.

“Why don’t you talk to Carl and Louise?” Amalie asked as they stepped off the bridge onto the dirt pathway.

“What would I say?”

“That you love their daughter. That you want to marry her.”

“I won’t be old enough to marry for two more years.”

“Then you should talk to Hilga,” she countered. “And ask her to wait.”

Niklas pointed to Matthias’s back. “But she loves him.”

“How do you know that?”

He shook his head, resigned to a life without Hilga. Amalie wanted to shake him. Like so many others, she’d been watching Hilga at the train station, and the woman clearly wasn’t as excited to see Matthias as she should have been. Even as they walked through the forest, reunited after three years, they didn’t appear to be talking.

Amalie loved Carl and Louise Vinzenz, but they were clearly blind in this instance. In wanting Matthias to be their son, they were sacrificing their daughter’s happiness.

“Hilga knows how you feel, Niklas, and I believe she feels the same for you.”

He glanced over, questioning her. “She has never said anything to me.”

“I’ve seen how Hilga looked at you in Ebenezer, how her face would light into a smile whenever you were near. It seems to me that she loves you just as much as you love her.”

His voice climbed. “Do you think?”

“It’s clear to everyone except perhaps you and her parents.”

He shook his head slowly. “I’ve loved her for a long time.”

She smiled. “I understand.”

“But she is supposed to marry someone else.”

“You have to fight for her, Niklas.”

“But what—what would Matthias say?”

“Exactly what he thinks.”

Niklas paused. “
Ja,
he would.”

“You aren’t afraid of Matthias, are you?”

He paused. “I’m more afraid that Hilga will laugh at me.”

“You will spend your lifetime wondering, Niklas, if you don’t ask her how she feels.”

“If she says no—I will see her for the rest of my life, walking around with Matthias and their children. I don’t know if I can bear it, knowing that she knows how I feel.”

“It’s possible that you might be the one walking beside her instead.”

She looked at Matthias and Hilga walking silently in front of them, and her own mind wandered. In no time Friedrich would return to her. He would get off the train, and the two of them would stroll under the trees together, back to the village.

There would be much for them to talk about, so many words and thoughts that they hadn’t been able to communicate in letters while she was still in Ebenezer. She could almost hear him, entertaining her with stories about the war and the reasons that he had to leave her. Then he would tell her how much he missed her, and she would tell him she missed him as well.

Matthias and Hilga weren’t like that. They walked through the forest like they were strangers. Or maybe they were just nervous after being apart for so long. Maybe that was why Matthias had been so irritable lately—he’d been nervous to see the woman he would marry.

She and Friedrich might turn out like that if they weren’t careful. Lovers through their letters but strangers in person.

She and Niklas followed Matthias and Hilga out into the fields at the edge of the forest and then into the village where Carl and Louise and many others were waiting. The celebration continued as half of them crowded into Henriette’s kitchen. They would be eating in shifts until Amalie’s dining room was complete.

As Niklas left for the dining room, Amalie brushed her hands across her apron and walked toward the kitchen door. It was time for her to return to the kitchen, to help Henriette and Sophia and the other assistants who’d been assigned to help with the dinner rush.

Reaching for the door, she turned and saw a flash of blue over her shoulder. Brass buttons gleaming in the sunlight. Her heart leapt, her fingers frozen around the doorknob.

Friedrich?

She squinted at the soldier, trying to see his face under the brim of his hat. Clutched at his side was a cane, supporting his left side as he moved through the village.

Had Friedrich been hurt in the war?

This man seemed shorter than Friedrich, more husky than the man she remembered.

But it had been three years since she’d seen Friedrich. Perhaps she’d forgotten how tall he was.

It felt like she was in a trance, as she released the door handle and moved to the man. Drawing closer, she saw his mustache, a grayish tint that matched his hair. And she saw the solemn expression frozen onto his face. It wasn’t her Friedrich, but why—

Dear God.

Why was this soldier in Amana?

Ah God, my days are dark indeed,
How oft this aching heart must bleed.
Martin Moeller

Amalie’s body trembled as she stepped farther away from the safety of the kitchen house. There were thousands of soldiers in Iowa, seeing one shouldn’t alarm her so. She tried to approach the man, to welcome him to the village, but she didn’t want him here. If he brought news with him, she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

Matthias appeared unexpectedly beside her, and she welcomed his presence. While she couldn’t seem to find the words to say, he didn’t hesitate. “Are you here to take more of our men away?”

The soldier shook his head. “No.”

She waited, wishing the man would change his mind and say he had come to Amana to deliver more conscription letters or that he was here to tell them about a new law.

“Then what do you want?” Matthias’s words sounded hollow. Scared.

“My name is Colonel O’Neill,” he said. “I’m looking for a woman named Miss Wiese.”

Amalie stepped forward with a shaky smile. “I’m Amalie Wiese.”

He didn’t return her smile.

She struggled to take a deep breath, fighting to control her voice. “Do you know Friedrich Vinzenz?”

The man’s head dropped. “Friedrich was a good soldier.”

She swayed to the side, and Matthias secured her arm before he spoke with the colonel.

“What do you mean, he
was
a good soldier?”

“Friedrich—he was killed during the Battle of Chickamauga.”

The world seemed to spin around her.

“Killed—” The word tasted bitter in her mouth. She could say it, but she couldn’t comprehend it. The brick houses around her blurred, and the kitchen house seemed to disappear as she collapsed onto the dirt street. If only God would take her away as well, take her to Friedrich.

“Amalie.”

She heard Matthias whisper, but she didn’t see him. His arms scooped her off the dirt, and she buried her head on his shoulder.

“Where is he?” she heard Matthias ask.

“The Federals lost the battle, so they will have to wait to retrieve those men who were killed.”

“But how do you know he is dead?” Matthias demanded.

Hope surged within her. Maybe Friedrich was still alive. He could be wounded or captured or something else. If they didn’t have his body, they couldn’t know for certain he was gone.

“I received a telegram this morning.” The man’s voice was filled with regret. “One of his fellow soldiers saw Private Vinzenz fall. He said Friedrich would want me to tell Miss Wiese.”

“How—how did he die?” she whispered.

The colonel shook his head. “I don’t have any more information.”

Matthias thanked the man for delivering the news, and Amalie wanted to scream at them both. The man wasn’t to be thanked.

“I’m sorry,” Colonel O’Neill said, and she moaned at his words.

“I’ll take care of her,” Matthias told him.

She lifted her head and tried to push away from him. She wanted to run and hide. Cry. Scream. Anything but be near Matthias right now.

“Let me go,” she hissed as he carried her away from Colonel O’Neill.

Friedrich Vinzenz was gone.

* * * * *

Matthias carefully lay Amalie down on the sofa and closed the room’s curtains to ward off the sunlight and the curiosity of all those who loved her. She mumbled something he didn’t understand, so immersed in her own pain that she didn’t seem to realize where she was or whom she was with.

He slid down into a chair, his head in his hands. Everything within him ached. He wanted to pretend the colonel was wrong, that it wasn’t possible for Friedrich to be gone. But in his heart he knew the man was telling the truth.

The village doctor raced into the room, his black bag anchored to his side. He opened his bag and lifted Amalie’s head, spooning something into her mouth, and she collapsed back onto the cushions. Drifting away again.