River's Edge (23 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: River's Edge
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“Whenever he writes me, I write back. Not too many letters are getting through these days.”
There was nothing untrue in what I had said, but it wasn't the whole truth. As summer turned to fall, the correspondence between Father and me had taken a strange twist. His missives were becoming longer, more open and honest, and for the first time in his life he seemed beset by doubts. In his last letter he had even said that he now felt it had been a mistake to send me away and that, while he still believed it was safer for me outside of Germany, it would have been better if he had sent me to school somewhere in Europe. Or—and this was most shocking of all—that we should have left Germany together! I could not imagine my father—my strict, patriotic, thoroughly Prussian father—even considering the possibility of living anywhere but Germany. Why, even when he had been to Paris, that legendary “City of Lights,” he had written to me that, while he did enjoy French wines, he didn't care for their so called gourmet cooking nearly as much as good German fare and that he considered the French themselves to be “slack in body and mind, lax in moral character, and utterly lacking in national will.” And now he was saying that we should have come to America together! If I had not known his orderly handwriting so well, I might have thought that someone else was writing these letters.
By contrast, my letters to him had become more like the terse, obligatory “field reports” he had sent during my first months and years in America. I always thanked him for his letter, gave him a few facts about my progress in school, the weather, my general health and that of the Mullers, and then closed with my wishes for his continued good health and the required “Your affectionate daughter, Elise.” It seemed that as the war drew closer and my feeling for Junior grew stronger, I wanted to draw back from my past, not wanting my heart to be caught in a tug-of-war between Father and Junior.
“Elise! Elise!”
“What?” I asked with a start and turned toward Mrs. Ludwig, who was glaring at me impatiently.
“I was asking you a question,” she growled irritably.
“Sorry. I didn't hear you.”
“Have you written your father about you and Junior.”
“No,” I admitted.
She sighed. “You should, Elise. I know he is a long way away and that you've been angry with him for a long time, but he is your father.”
“I'm not angry with Father!” I countered, and Mrs. Ludwig gave me a piercing look.
“I'm not,” I insisted weakly.
“Maybe, and maybe not, but you should write him about Junior. When the war comes ...” Mrs. Ludwig began with surety.
Oh, why did everyone always use the words “when” and “war”? I asked myself. Only a few months before, the word had been “if,” and my life had been so much simpler.
“When the war comes you probably won't be able to send or receive any letters from your father. You need to tell him what you are feeling while there is still time, if there is still time.”
“Yes,” I conceded in a soft voice. “I know you are right.”
“Have you thought about what it will be like for you when Junior goes to fight? He will be fighting against your own country and people, perhaps your own father. How will you feel about that?”
“I haven't wanted to think about it, but, of course, I have. I don't know how I'll feel,” I said honestly. “I love this country. I love the people here. I love the Mullers, and I love Father. I don't know ...”
“Well, as difficult as that will be for you, it will be nothing compared to what you are going to have to deal with every day right here in Brightfield.”
“What do you mean? I love Brightfield. This is my home now.”
She bobbed her head in understanding and reached over to pat my hand reassuringly. “I know. I know. This is your home, and everyone in town likes you. You are a nice young woman. Polite, cheerful, hard-working, and abounding in charity to the elderly and infirm,” she said with a wrinkly grin.
“But the minute the war starts they are going to remember that you are German and that your father is an officer in the Nazi army—the army that will be pointing rifles at their sons and husbands. You won't be considered a nice young woman anymore. You will be the enemy, and a lot of people—not everyone, but most of them—are going to start treating you differently.”
“But,” I protested, “I'm not a soldier. I'm not fighting anyone. Why should they look at me as an enemy? No one wants this war less than I do.”
“Because it is human nature. When we are attacked and hurting, when our loved ones are in danger, we look for someone to blame our problems on. It doesn't have to be someone culpable, just available. In Brightfield, that will be you. It is called being a scapegoat.”
I could not accept her assertion. “But I know all of these people. They are good people. They wouldn't act like that.”
Mrs. Ludwig sighed again, and her eyes looked suddenly weary. “Maybe I'm wrong, Elise, but I don't think so. By the time this war is ended, you may feel very differently about Brightfield and the people here. You may even feel differently about yourself.”
The old woman's voice trailed off. She paused, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. She stayed that way for a long, long moment. I began to worry that something might be wrong with her and was just about to ask if she was all right when she suddenly took a deep breath and lifted her head to train her bright, beady eyes on me as though she had reached some important conclusion,
“What is it?” I asked.
“War is always terrible. Always. I have lived through enough of them to know. But there are things about this war, things you could not possibly know about, that make it horrible beyond imagining. Not many people know about it. Not yet. I didn't want to tell you, but I think I must.”
“I don't understand.”
“Elise,” she said evenly, “do you remember that day, a few months after you'd been coming to see me on Saturdays, when you came to my door and you knocked and you knocked, but I wouldn't answer?”
“Yes,” I replied slowly, remembering. “I think I'd been here about a year. Maybe a little longer. When you didn't come to the door I was worried that you were sick or had fallen.”
“That's right. You started calling my name, shouting through the door and jiggling the knob until I finally came and said that I wasn't feeling well and you should come back another time.”
“I remember that you wouldn't open the door even a crack. You said you didn't want me to catch anything from you.”
Mrs. Ludwig nodded as I spoke, indicating that my recollections were accurate. “That was a lie. I wasn't sick.”
I tipped my head to one side, trying to understand why she would have lied to me. Her eyes shimmered liquid, but her voice was flat and unemotional, like someone reading a newspaper story aloud. “I didn't want to see you because I had received a letter that day. It was from one of my relatives in Poland, my great-nephew Dodek, one of my brother's grandsons. He wrote to tell me that in April of 1940 a troop of Nazi soldiers came to his village. They made everyone come out into the street and ...” She paused. A single tear seeped out the corner of her ancient eye and down her crinkled cheek. She covered her face with her hands, unable to go on.
A sharp taste of bile rose unbidden in my throat, and I swallowed hard to keep it down. I waited for her to finish the story, but a part of me wished she wouldn't.
Mrs. Ludwig dropped her hand and looked at me with eyes full of tears and sympathy. “Oh, Elise. Dodek told me about many things ...”
“Like what?” I pressed.
The old woman wiped her eyes. “Things I won't burden you with, but there are such terrible things happening in Europe. Such terrible, terrible things.”
The bitter, punishing taste rose in my throat again. It tasted like shame. I understood what she was trying to tell me.
She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her blue-checkered workdress and blew her nose. “When I first met you, I felt sorry for you—a poor, motherless child. But since the first day you came to see me, that day when you yelled at me and spilled tea on my lap, I have loved you. If God had ever given me a daughter instead of all those boys, I think she would have been a lot like you. Hardheaded. Strong. Kind. Like you.
“You are so dear to me, but on the day the letter came though, all I could remember was that you were German and the daughter of a Nazi officer.” Mrs. Ludwig reached up and gently pushed a stray lock of hair off my face.
“Elise, I didn't tell you this to hurt you but only to make you understand, to prepare you. Things are going to be very difficult for you when the war comes. You need to be prepared for what is coming and how you will feel—caught in the crossfire of a battle between the places and people you love. I cannot tell you how you are to survive this; I only wanted you to know that you can. You will. You are strong. No matter what happens, you must stay strong.”
 
When I got ready to leave, Mrs. Ludwig did a thing she had never done before. She hugged me. I had put on my jacket and thanked her for the basket of rolls. Then, just as I was about to say good-bye and that I would see her next week, she put her arms around me and squeezed me as hard as she could, and I realized that she knew something I didn't. That she was saying good-bye.
I squeezed back. “I don't know what I would do without you!” I cried. “You are so good to me, and I don't know why. You have taught me so much! I can't think what I would do if I didn't have you to talk to!”
“No, no,” she said, patting me on the back and shushing me. “You don't need me anymore. Remember what I said, Elise—you are strong. It's important that you remember.”
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and promised I would.
As I walked down the lane toward the Mullers', I turned around to see Mrs. Ludwig standing on the porch of the farmhouse with cracked yellow paint, watching me go. I waved good-bye, and she waved back.
She died on Wednesday. Papa said her funeral service.
When Harold was cleaning out her kitchen, he found a manila envelope that said
Give to Elise.
Inside was Mrs. Ludwig's handwritten cookery book, all the recipes she had taught me. On the inside cover there was a note scrawled in her big, impatient writing. It said,
Dear Elise,
You don't really need this because I know you know all my recipes by heart. You have learned everything I can teach you, but I wanted you to have them to remember me by. Besides, I have to give them to someone I trust, if only to keep them out of the hands of my daughters-in-law. They would only make a mess of things.
 
With love, Matylda Ludwiczak
Harold and Betty moved into the old farmhouse. They put in a new bathroom and radiators and gave the clapboard a new coat of paint. They left it the same sunny yellow, though, and I was happy about that. Somehow it made me think Milda was somewhere nearby, doing what she'd always done, baking
sernick babci
and bossing people around, but she was doing it in a better place, where the paint was fresh and the sun shone warm all day.
Chapter 15
I
continued to hope that somehow American involvement in the war would be avoided, but I wasn't surprised when it finally came. Neither was anyone else, though the way we entered the fight was a shock. It was as if the whole country had been standing in a field watching a thunderstorm move in from the west, certain that at any moment they were going to hear the boom of thunder and see the crack of lighting, only to find themselves pelted by an unexpected tempest of hailstones that fell without warning from the east. Pearl Harbor caught us unaware, and when Germany declared war on the United States almost immediately after, we found ourselves suddenly and surprisingly forced to engage two separate enemies on two separate fronts. In the space of a few hours, everything had changed. We went from peacetime to wartime with hardly a breath in between.
Almost as shocking was Papa's announcement that he would be joining the army. He declared his intention five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, right after saying a particularly long dinnertime grace in which he thanked God for each and every member of the family. We were astonished by the news.
Only Mama seemed calm. She kept her eyes on her plate and cut her pork chop into tiny pieces without commenting. Obviously, she and Papa had discussed his decision, but I couldn't tell from her demeanor if she was supportive of his plan or not.
The twins were the first to speak. Chuck, tactful as always, asked the question that the rest of us were too polite to voice. “Aren't you kind of old to join the army?”
Papa smiled. “I want to be a chaplain. That is kind of like an army minister. I'm too old to fight, but not too old to bring spiritual comfort and guidance to the men who will be doing the fighting. They'll be needing a lot of that.”
Curt asked the next question. “You'll have to go away? To Japan or Germany or somewhere far away like that?” His eyes were sober, and his expression was concerned.
“Maybe,” Papa responded gently. “I probably won't get to decide where I will be sent. It is always possible I could get a posting somewhere in America, but if I can, I would like to be sent closer to where the battle will be taking place. I think that is where I will be most needed.”
“But,” Curt countered in a voice so soft and forlorn it was almost a whisper, “I need you here.”
Mama suddenly got up from the table to refill the water pitcher. Her back was to us as she ran the water from the faucet. I didn't see the slightest tremor in her shoulders, or any other sign that she was crying, but I knew that at that moment she didn't want anyone to see her face.
“Curt, it will be hard for you, I know. It will be hard for me, too, but I can't think only about what I want right now or even what you want. In the next few weeks you are going to find that a lot of papas are going to be leaving to help in the war.”
Papa lifted his head slightly and looked around the table. “I won't lie to you. This war is not going to be easy. We've got to fight on two fronts on two opposite sides of the globe. It won't be over in a few weeks or months, and there is no guarantee that we'll win. In the whole history of our country, we've never faced a situation like this. If we are going to have a hope of winning, every single one of us is going to have to make sacrifices. My sacrifice will be in leaving my family behind. Yours will be in letting me go and holding together as a family while I am gone. I know you'll do the right thing. No matter what happens, I know we are going to make each other proud.”
Cookie's lip had been trembling the whole time Papa had been speaking. When he finished she could hold herself together no longer. “Oh, Papa!” she wailed.
Chip rolled his eyes, obviously disgusted by his sister's emotional outburst. “Cookie, knock it off. You're makin' everybody feel bad. Women!” he complained. “Papa, are you going to get a uniform and a gun and everything?”
Papa gave his son an amused smile and said, “I don't think so, Chip. The waging of spiritual warfare doesn't require quite the same kind of artillery as physical combat.”
“But you might get to fire a few shots?” Chip inquired hopefully.
“Well”—Papa shrugged—“I suppose it is possible, though highly unlikely.”
Chip practically leaped from his chair for joy. “Whoo-whee! My dad might become an actual war hero! Just wait'll Roy and Gary Gilbert hear this! After all these years having to listen to them brag about their old man just 'cause he's a railroad engineer and razzin' me because you got such a sissy job!”
Realizing what he had just said, Chip suddenly turned a mortified shade of pink. “Gee ... sorry. No offense, Papa.”
“None taken, Chip,” said Papa and broke into that wonderful booming laugh of his. It seemed to break the tension in the room. I think we all felt that if Papa could laugh like that, it must mean everything would turn out all right. Mama returned to the table with a full water pitcher and a composed smile. The children all started talking at once and passing the platters of food. Everyone except Junior, who sat at the end of the table with his head lowered, silently spooning applesauce onto his plate.
 
It was a school night, so Mama shooed the younger children off to bed as soon as the dishes were cleared, but I lingered in the kitchen after supper. Cookie wanted to spend time studying for the geometry test that was scheduled for the next day. I offered to do the washing up. Papa wanted to talk with Junior. They were in his study with the door closed. After getting the younger boys tucked in, Mama came back downstairs to help me clean up. I washed and she dried.
I really didn't mind doing dishes; I liked working in the cozy kitchen, the feel of the warm, soapy water on my hands, and the way the lamplight cast tiny rainbows on the surface of the sink full of soap bubbles. It was always such a quiet, reflective activity for me, and when the work was done and the shelves were full of sparkling glasses, the countertops still slick and shiny from washing, I felt a sense of accomplishment, even though I knew that in a few hours the job would need doing again.
I was trying, somewhat feebly, to explain this to Mama, but she seemed distracted. She nodded in all the right places and murmured agreeably, but she didn't seem to really hear me. I wanted very much to say something wise and comforting to her, the way she always did to me when I was worried, but I couldn't think of anything. Instead I jabbered on nonsensically about how good the dinner had been and how it had been a good idea to add walnuts in with the green beans.
I turned my back for a moment to scrape the congealed grease from the roasting pan into the empty coffee can that was reserved for this purpose, and heard the sharp ring of breaking glass. The sound startled me, but not as much as the sound of Mama's angry “Damn it!”
I turned around and saw her squatting on the floor picking up pieces of the cut-glass pickle dish that had slipped from her hands as she was drying it. “Damn it!” she repeated.
“Let me help,” I said and got down on my knees beside her. The shards of glass were still slippery from the rinse water and some of the pieces were so small that the only way to find them was to move your head from side to side and look for the telltale glint of light on crystal. Mama squinted as she carefully searched the floor for broken glass and muttered in frustration as she did. “So stupid of me. So careless. How could I be so careless?”
“Was it expensive?” I asked tentatively. I was having a hard time understanding the vehemence of Mama's reaction. It wasn't like this was the first time something had broken in her kitchen, but I'd never heard her swear over a broken dish or anything else.
“No,” she said irritably. “Not expensive, but valuable. To me, I mean. When we got married my Aunt Rose sent me ten dollars as a present, and I used the money to order an iron and some laundry baskets from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. We needed just everything, practical things, but I saw this pickle dish, and I ordered it instead of an ironing board to go with the iron. It came in the mail the morning after our wedding, and I thought it was beautiful. It was the first pretty thing on our table. So stupid of me!” she repeated through clenched teeth and reached out to pick up another tiny glass sliver of the ruined dish. She was so focused on that tiny shard that she didn't notice a larger piece of the dish lying next to it. As she reached out the heel of her hand accidentally brushed over the sharp glass edge of the other piece, cutting her and drawing a thin line of blood that stretched from the base of her pinky finger almost to her wrist.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!” she practically yelled, grabbing her cut hand with her whole one. She sat down hard on the floor and started to cry, not from the pain, I could tell, but from frustration at her inability to keep the things she cared for intact.
I got quickly to my feet and found a clean kitchen towel and the box of bandages Mama kept on a lower shelf in the pantry. I kneeled down next to her and wrapped her bleeding hand in the dishtowel. It was an old one, soft from use and covered with a pattern of fading white daisies which were suddenly transformed into a field of brilliant red ones as Mama's blood soaked through the fabric.
Mama sniffed and shook her head. For a moment I thought she was going to argue with me that she could do it herself and that I shouldn't fuss, but I interrupted before she could utter anything more than a weakly protesting “Elise ...”
“It's all right. This won't take a minute.” I spoke soothingly as I pressed the towel down to stop the flow of blood, put iodine on the cut, and covered it with a clean gauze bandage. “There!” I said as I surveyed my handiwork with satisfaction. “All better.”
Mama sniffed again and used the clean end of the bloodstained towel to dry her eyes. “Thanks, nurse.” She smiled weakly. “I'm sorry I fell apart like that. I don't know what's got into me. It's just that ...”
“Papa ...” I hesitated before going on. I felt a little presumptuous, talking to Mama about her and Papa as though I were grown up and entitled to comment, but I sensed that it was all right for me to speak to her as a friend right now. She needed a friend. She needed to talk.
I sat down next to her on the floor with my legs crossed. I'm sure if anyone had come into the kitchen they would have thought it was awfully strange to see us sitting on the floor next to a puddle of water and broken glass, but we didn't even think about that, and no one disturbed us.
“Is it all right with you—his joining up? Did you talk about it first?”
“Yes, we discussed it. Even before the Japanese attack, we'd been talking it over. For weeks and weeks. Since that night when he told you about the first war and his brother. He feels like he should go, and as much as a part of me wants to keep him here, I think he might be right,” she said softly. “There will be so many young men, hurt and afraid and alone, teetering on the very threshold of heaven. We need him, but I believe they will need him more. I said he could go.”
“But now you've changed your mind?”
“No. I haven't changed my mind. It is just that, well, it's real now. I don't know how I'll manage without him and ... I'm afraid.”
Mama dropped her head and stared at her bandaged hand while the silence grew. Someone had to say it. I took a deep breath. “You're afraid he won't come back.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Well, why don't you just tell him that? Tell him you've thought it over and you've changed your mind, that you need him here. He's not so young, Mama. He's nearly fifty.” Mama's lips turned up just slightly as I reported this information. “Surely there are other men, younger men, who can go. The army doesn't need him as much as we do!” These last words left my lips a bit more urgently than I'd intended. I couldn't help it. Why should I risk losing two fathers to this war?
A gentle understanding replaced the vacant expression in Mama's eyes. “I know,” she said. “It doesn't seem that anyone could need him more than we do, but that's not true. We have to let him go.” She spread her hands apart, palms up, as though she were releasing an injured bird into the air.
“Elise,” she continued, “do you remember when we were talking that night, when Papa told us about the first war?”
I nodded.
“Junior reminded Papa what he'd said to that young man who was considering entering the ministry.”
“About not doing it unless he was called?”
“Yes. A calling to the ministry is more than a decision. It is God's irresistible pull toward the things He has planned since the beginning of time. Sometimes those things are hard. Sometimes they will cost you everything, but if you are truly called it doesn't matter. It is what you must do, and if you resist it, you deny your whole reason for being. You lose yourself.”
“But that doesn't seem fair,” I protested. “It doesn't just affect Papa. What about you?”
Mama smiled bemusedly. “Let me ask you something. You and Junior have butted heads from almost the moment you laid eyes upon each other, and now, inexplicably, you say you are in love. How did that happen?”

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