The End of Always: A Novel (25 page)

“My mother died after that one. It took some time, a few days, maybe a week, but she died. And we were sad, but I think we all knew that women die because they cannot fight being women. That is one thing they are helpless to stand against.

“At just that moment, Elise decided to marry. Herman had been coming around and she had put him off and put him off, but when our mother died, she said yes. She was young. Sixteen. Seventeen. Not old. But old enough to know that she might be better off elsewhere. And I saw the way she changed. She became very serious. She took to walking in the fields. She would stand at the top of the orchard and look back at our house and see our brothers and sisters in the dooryard and the smoke standing straight like a stick out of the chimney. Perhaps she waited to be kidnapped by dwarves. Perhaps she meant to disappear. She never spoke of these things so I do not know. But I think it is fair to say that once she decided, there was no going back. Herman was tall and handsome and he teased her and made her laugh and our father approved of their courtship. So one day Herman came for her and carried flowers and she wore a dark red dress and they walked down into the village and met my father in front of the church and they got married just like that. The neighbors came. They ate cake. Elise had her picture made. And my father paid Herman a dowry in cash, which meant that they could get a start. It was not much of a dowry but it was something.

“No one thing made them decide to come here. The first baby died. Martha was born. I think they just took the temperature of the place. The winds were blowing. The Germans were not so easy on the Pomeranians. The people of Rügen felt that they had stood apart for many centuries but now they had to knuckle under. And then things had not been happy for the Lutherans for fifty years or more. For many years, whole parishes would pack up and come to start towns in Wisconsin. You would hear the name of the place in the streets and in the taverns. Wisconsin. Wisconsin. No one had any idea what the word meant. But there was the word, wherever we went, and it began to be something real, and of course it told a story in its very utterance. And many people had already gone and that made it seem like anyone could leave. That you could survive leaving.

“One night Herman met a man who had been to Milwaukee and that man said that everyone spoke German in Milwaukee and everyone was free and all of us would be equal. There was plenty of work and a man could get a house and land without any problem. Money flowed like water in Milwaukee. Not like Rügen, where the only constant was the lack of everything. Poverty and dispossession level the world that way. Herman thought about a farm. That is what I remember. He wanted a dairy farm of his own. That would not be possible on Rügen, I can tell you. So it was all decided. They packed their things. They sold their furniture. Elise took our mother’s watch fob with her and her wedding picture. A man is always what he carries but we usually think the opposite. This makes us feel powerful in the face of our own helplessness.

“A year later I came, too. My father had died and I felt his death like a door being unlocked. I decided it was time to move from there and I felt that the way someone young always feels that, which is to say, I did not know what a terrible thing it is for a man to leave his own country. A country is something that you do not leave behind. But I came on a ship with a big, promising name, the
California
, and I watched the ocean as we went. Never had anything seemed so far as land. When I got to New York, I walked up and down the city streets as if I was in a dream. I saw that people here were very wealthy. Buildings like cliffs everywhere around me and women wrapped in furs. After a few days, I took my sack and my case and went to Grand Central Station. I stood in the middle of the marble lobby as if I were in a church, and all the people passed me on the way to the platforms and they were like shadows running away from me, neither here in the present or part of my past. I went to a window and bought a ticket and walked down a set of stairs and stood next to the tracks until it was time to get on a train bound for Milwaukee. When I looked out the windows, I saw farms that were better than the farms on Rügen. And these were the common farms. These were the farms that any man might own. And I saw timber and open land and I had some ideas.

“When I got here, I took a job as a farmhand. The job came with a place to live and three meals a day. These are not things to be overlooked, as you know. And I liked getting up early in the morning and standing in the yard next to the barn and listening. First you hear the crickets and then they get louder just before the sun rises and then you hear the cows, whose first sounds of the day are grunts and moans, not the sounds you think they will make. And you stand there in the last part of the night and the air is fresh and sweet and none of this belongs to you so you can really just enjoy it. Really just take in all the newness around you.

“Some people might say we were raised like animals. My father was a very hard man. But in the end, that is your father, too, and you did not live in a house with a pig. And your husband. Very hard, as you were quick to find out. For my part, I thought we might have left this sort of thing behind. I did not think I would see Elise the way I saw her on the day we buried her. I did not think I would see in Herman something I had seen in my father. I do not know what I imagined. That we would get off of a ship and really believe that we were all equal? We say that we do. Do not try to tell any man in this country that he may not do as he pleases. Do not try to take that away. But a man believes in his own personal freedom and he believes in his own desires and in his own rage. He says that we should all be free. But then he goes home and bloodies his wife. If you mention it at all, he will only say that he is outraged by your complaint and unquestionably not to blame. That he has to live hard to put bread on the table and this is what happens when men are held down. He will look at you with the face of an angry child when he says this, as if he has no ability to decide his own actions for himself. He wants it both ways and we usually agree with him. Poor man, we say. He is not to blame. In my opinion he cannot have it both ways. But that is just my opinion. It is not a popular one.”

He stopped. We sat in a silence for a long time.

“What happened to my mother?” I said at last.

He looked at me and then looked at the pipe in his hands. He set the pipe on the table. “What does it matter?” he said.

“It matters to me.” I felt my words as small things taken by an empty sky.

He sighed. “What if I told you that I do not know?”

“I would say I do not believe you.”

“But belief has nothing to do with it. This is bigger than belief. That is why it is so hard to see.”

“That means you know.” I reached for his arm.

He picked up his pipe and pushed his thumb into the bowl and patted his shirt pocket and then picked up his matches from the tabletop. “Well,” he said. “If I were to answer that, it would suggest some certainty that I do not think I have.”

“Martha said it was a terrible accident.”

“It could have been.”

“But was it?”

I knew I sounded like a child demanding a piece of the adult world, as if I was entitled. But I thought that after everything that had happened, I had earned this one thing, this fact that stood beyond me, that my uncle Carl knew and must tell me.

He struck a match and held the flame to his pipe and again drew deeply. The window in the building across the street went dark. I rested my head against my hand and watched smoke coil around the lamp.

“So much damage has been done and yet so little is said,” he said then. “Even at the funeral, he said nothing.” He fiddled with the box of matches and then put the box in his breast pocket. “No one can know for sure,” he said. “Herman would have to say and Herman will never say. Elise never spoke to me of these things and I was not welcome in your father’s house.” He paused.

“I saw her one day on the street and she wore a scarf tied around her hair the way the women did in Rügen,” he said. “It was a beautiful warm day. Just after a rain. When I got close, I saw the marks. Those you cannot hide. So I think I knew then. But we stood in the street and talked about you and Hattie and Martha. She thought that Martha would marry that boy and she said she was glad of it because George was so soft. She said he was a good boy and quiet and peaceful. I knew that what she meant was that he was not hard like Herman. Or the rest of them.” He lifted his pipe and looked into the bowl and set it down again and looked at me. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”

I nodded. There was nothing new in the thing he described. My mother had fallen before my father and he had chased her into the yard. He had held her down and used the buckle end of a belt. He had taken up a piece of firewood from the bucket by the stove and used it on her head. Anything in our house could be used against her. And sometimes in the morning Martha would have a welt on her face. And sometimes I would stand before him in the front room with my throat closed, waiting for my turn. All he ever said was that he had to do this because he loved me.

Carl tapped the bowl of his pipe against his palm and fine ash fell to the floor. He looked at his palm and clapped his hands together and looked at his palm again. “It was the world,” he said. “Here. There. All the same. It was the world that killed her.”

I sobbed once and brought my hand to my face and held it palm flat over my mouth, as if sorrow was a thing that once come could never be contained.

He considered me. “It is a great deal to take in, and you have had a number of shocks already these days,” he said. “But that does not mean I cannot help you. In fact, I think it makes me more inclined. I do not want to see you end up like my mother or my sister.” He turned his pipe in his hands and then unlaced his tobacco pouch and tucked the pipe inside. He sat at the table and fastened the laces, and the leather made a sound as he drew it through the eyelets.

We sat in the trailing light. Then he slapped his hand against the tabletop. “We like to talk, right?” he said. He stood up. “But what can you do? Still there is the world.”

I stood and walked to the wall switch and pressed the button. The room went dark and the window glass shimmered silver. I crossed to the window and Carl came over and stood next to me. I felt his presence. His kindness like a river. But when he stood next to me, it was as if he stood on the shore of a far distant land. And then I knew that if I felt marked it was not just because the people we passed on the street had stared at me, my swollen head as bulbous as a seedpod on a stem. It was not just because August had so changed me. I wrapped my arms around my waist and my uncle put his arm around me and I leaned against him. Over the horizon the moon rose through pale clouds and the wind moved dark clouds over the brilliant light and we stood together and looked far off into the invisible distance.

T
hree weeks later the weather turned cool. I rose and washed my face and hands. I pinned my hair. I opened the wardrobe and shook out my green dress. I moved carefully, like someone who is afraid she is about to fall into pieces. I pictured myself on the floor in bits and parts, where the breakage would be obvious to anyone who came along. Elbow over here. Vertebrae over there. My head split in two.

Bertha met me at the corner. She paced beneath the street lamp and walked toward me as soon as she saw me. I touched my face nervously and she smiled. “You look fine,” she said. I knew she wanted to comfort me but I wanted to hold my arms out and show her how all my bones had exploded, as if I were a girl made of shattered glass.

Jared Thompson stood when I came into the room. He told me that this was the time for me to tell my side of things, officially and for the record. He asked me if I was ready. He said that he would take down everything I said and then he would write the whole thing up and take it before the judge. He said that August would have a chance to answer and we would not be able to do anything until we had that answer. He explained that I must be truthful in everything I said. This was my statement and I would be under oath.

This last part made me squirm. I no longer believed in God and I had also begun to realize that I had never believed in God, at least not a god who set things up so that I would suffer at the hands of men. So I looked Jared Thompson in the eye and said that I would tell the truth, for the truth was all I had, but I could not swear to God to tell the truth because as far as I could tell, God had never done much of anything for me. Jared gave me a funny look and told me that I must swear nevertheless. And I gave up. If this was what it took, I would have to go along. All of these rules belonged to the world that did not belong to me and this particular rule was no different than any of the others. The skinny clerk with the green baize eyeshade came through the door and took a Bible from the drawer. He held it before him like an offering on a plate. “Raise your right hand,” he said.

Jared Thompson asked me how long I had been a resident of Waukesha and how long a resident of Wisconsin. He asked me when August and I had married. He asked me for the exact date. He asked me to describe the amount of money that August had given me each week and he asked me to name the last time I had been given that amount. He asked if I had been given any other amounts. He asked if I had received money from other sources. He explained that he needed to know if I had a job or if others gave me money to help with my support. I told him that I had been very hungry so I had gotten a loan from Martha but it was really some of the money I had earned at the laundry and the same money that my father had taken from me and kept from me so that I was for all practical purposes destitute in his house. Jared Thompson held his hand up and said, “One thing at a time, Mrs. Bethke.” He wrote furiously on his pad.

He wrote for a long time and then read what he had written. He struck a line through a sentence in the middle of the page and added a note in the margin. Then he looked up at me and asked me to describe how August had treated me. I told him he knew that. He shook his head and explained again that I needed to tell him this now so that he could write it down in a way that was particular to the law. I explained that ever since our marriage August had treated me in a very hard way. That he had belittled me. That he had struck me again and again. That he had spent all of our money on drink and had come home drunk or had not come home at all. That he had threatened me with his fist and with his razor and with his gun. That he had struck me so violently about the head and face that I had fallen. That he had kicked me until my ribs were broken. That the men who lived near us had to come and pull him off of me or he would have killed me without fail. That the injuries to my face were so severe that my jaw did not work and I could not chew any food. That my neighbor had taken me in to her home and protected me and nursed me until I was well enough to walk again. That August had come at night and stood on the lawn and screamed things at the front of the house. That one day while he was at work my friends had taken the things from our house, a bedstead, some bedding, the kitchen knives, the cups and plates, a washstand, everything they could carry, and placed these things in a wagon and had taken me to live in a room my uncle Carl kept in the city of Milwaukee. That they had done this so that August would not be able to find me. That they had done this because August had told the neighbors he would kill me. That my injuries were terrible. That I was in fear for my life. That I was sure my life was over, and if not my actual life then everything that had passed for my life before this and would never pass for my life again.

I stopped. This was the moment I had feared, and I waited for Jared Thompson to tell me that he did not believe me or that it was my fault or that this was all normal and to be expected. That I had brought all of this on myself. I waited for all the things I had been told until now to come up and provide the cause for Jared Thompson to put me out of his office, me and my fissured, fragile self, broken into a million homeless shards.

But he said nothing. He wrote and turned the page and filled another page and then wrote another page. I looked out the window and waited. I could hear his pen on the paper, a scratching like small birds in a yard. I could hear him breathing. I could hear the rolling wheels of carts in the street. I wondered how the operations of court could ever work on my behalf. It did not seem that either law or justice would find me a fit contender. Yet here I was.

When I could not stand it any longer, I said that I could have no life if I remained bound to August Bethke. No man should be able to do what he had done. I wanted my freedom and I could never go back, because August would kill me. And then I said that some people might think that it was all right for August to kill me, but they would not want August to kill our unborn child and that would be the result if August ever got ahold of me.

At this, Jared Thompson stopped writing and lay his pen down. “What do you mean?” he said. When I did not reply, he asked again and then told me that I must tell him what I meant and that I must explain how I knew this. He knew that this was a very private thing for a woman. He would respect my privacy. He would ask no questions for which he did not need answers but that this would be important, if true, and it was not something to hide.

I looked hard at the peeling pine boards of the floor. Surely they had come from up north. Surely they had come from the deep woods. Perhaps they had even had my brother’s hands on them. Willie who had disappeared, gone like he had never existed. That would not be me. Jared Thompson waited and dust turned in the air and then without lifting my gaze from the floor, I said in a very soft voice that I had stopped bleeding and this had been for several months now and when the baby came, I would have to keep it away from August. I felt heat rise to my hairline. There can be nothing more embarrassing than to think that someone has imagined you doing things with your husband in bed. I waited for the questions that I thought must come. How did he touch you, Mrs. Bethke? What exactly did you feel? And I thought that if I had to answer these, I would reveal how much I had wanted August to touch me and how wrong I was to ask for a divorce. How much I was at fault. How little August could be blamed.

But all Jared Thompson did was ask if I was sure. When I said that I was, he turned the page over and wrote something on the back. Then he asked me to tell him again about the night that August tried to kill me. He asked me if there were men who had seen this. He asked me their names and he asked me if I remembered their addresses. He asked me to be patient with him because the law required that he collect this information and make certain that all of it was right. Finally he said that he understood that I was an unhappy woman and that my unhappiness had led to my rejecting God but that we would have to set that aside for now. What he needed now was for me to swear again when the documents were all typed up. I would need to swear that I had read the complaint and that the contents were true to my own knowledge except for any matters stated as a consequence of information and belief, and as to those, I would need to swear that I believed all of them to be true. He asked me if I understood. I nodded and he sent me outside to wait in the room with the clerk. He told me that it was all right to wait and not to worry too much about the clerk, whose bark, he said, was worse than his bite.

I could not deny that Jared Thompson gave me hope. He wrote so meticulously and he spoke so kindly to me that I believed he wanted to help me. I knew that women did not go to court, but I thought Jared Thompson could speak for me and make sure things turned out right. This was America, after all, and no one could be possessed by someone else. The country had fought an entire war over this proposition and the question had been laid to rest. But I also knew that the things that were said about America were often not true where women were concerned.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of James Pulliam’s place. Dark shade, dark grass, dark windows. The sun would be down soon. Around me the sounds of fall, unseen wagons moving harvest to market on the nearby roads, the racket of geese as they scissored in great waves overhead. There was very little wind, but still nuts and leaves and small dead branches fell onto the grass. Far up in the blue sky a single white cloud turned on a deep spiral of air.

When I got to the porch, no one answered my knock. I stepped back and looked up at the windows, where the shades were drawn and nothing moved. I wanted to say thank you but Edwin did not appear.

In the middle of October, I returned to Jared Thompson’s office, where he gave me August’s response. This is how the law works. You make your complaint and the person against whom you have laid your claim has an opportunity to tell his side. August had admitted we were married and admitted to being twenty-one years old and admitted that if there were to be a minor child of our union that he was the father of that child.

As to every other allegation, matter, or thing described in my statement, August denied each and every one. He said that he had always provided for my comfort and well-being. That he had only treated me with kindness and forbearance. That he had turned over all of his wages to me save for those he needed for his own expenses. That he had even provided for my family by giving my sister Hattie Reehs a place to live. He said that I had become angry when he told Hattie that she must pay for her board or else leave our home and that I had threatened to leave him if Hattie Reehs were compelled to leave the house. He said that I had without warning or notice removed all the household furniture and fixtures and utensils, all of which he said was worth five hundred dollars and had been given to us at our marriage by his generous relatives. He said that I had gone to live with a married sister residing at 746 Clarence Street in the city of Milwaukee and had resided there ever since. He said that he had come to me every night with the sole purpose of persuading me to come back and live with him at our home but that I had refused to do so until Hattie Reehs was permitted to come back and board with us. He said that he had steadfastly refused to allow this without money for board. He said it was my own fault that I had not come home. He said that he was ready and willing to provide for me and our child and eager to do so. He was a carpenter able to earn the sum of two dollars and sixty cents a day but that he had for some time been in ill health and so had lost wages because of an inability to work steadily. He said that he had no money, property, or income whatsoever except such as he was able to earn when he worked. He prayed that my complaint would be dismissed.

Jared watched me as I read. When I was through, I looked up at him. His gaze was steady and neutral.

“Do you want to tell me where you live?” he said.

I had read August’s words as if they were claims made by a stranger. He told his story so earnestly that it sounded like it was true. He seemed reasonable and calm. He was only worried about an extra mouth to feed. He was only concerned about the welfare of the household. About my welfare. The welfare of our child. He had done everything he could.

I realized this was not the first time August had told a tall tale. If I had been paying attention, I would have known that I had heard it all before, and would just keep hearing it, again and again. I wanted to punch the wall. “I live in a room kept by my uncle,” I said, my tone defiant, as if I dared Jared Thompson to take August’s side.

“The address?”

“I do not know. I just know where it is.”

“No number? No street sign?”

I shook my head. No one told me when I started that August would be able to tell lies about me. I thought he would come to court and tell the truth and I would tell the truth and it would be as simple as that.

“And your married sister? Where does she live?”

“I do not have a married sister,” I snapped. “I have two sisters who live with my father. And I live in my uncle’s room.”

“If I asked you to, would you be able to take me there?”

I nodded.

“And your sister? Hattie Reese?” He said her last name the way an American would, hard and long, as if in the speaking he had spelled it differently and changed her. “Where does she reside?”

“With my father.”

“Has she ever resided with you and your husband?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Bethke.”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

“So these are just lies?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “All lies.”