by Armin Wiebe
Ach, why did God give us eyes inside the head? And why do we want to convince other people with the pictures we see in our heads? Why do I see a Bloomuhkomst God? Should I have used up my whole life trying to convince other people that they should see a cauliflower too? Or could I have said, “I see a Bloomuhkomst, what see you?”
But here I am almost a hundred years old and it must sound like I am trying to convince someone about myself, and then when they go away to try to make sense out of my old woman’s yeschwieta, they will make up a story out of it because I didn’t tell them everything I know about mine. Maybe it is the difference between what is true and what we wish was true that gets us into all that trouble.
You see, Preacher Fuschtje Funk with his long, black vaumst was almost telling the truth, and if I had known that it was his shadow at the window and that he was going to tell such a gospel far and wide, I for sure would have counted Obrum Kehler’s freckles there on his bed until it got too dark to see. It was that kind of afternoon, and even in a long life like mine such afternoons have come along far too seldom. As it was, it was Obrum who decided when it was time to stop. Maybe that was something about Obrum Kehler that I somehow knew without really knowing. No matter how wild he might dance, he would never let go all the way. And even if sometimes something got away from him, he always needed to turn it around in a way that made it work for him. If Obrum had had money sense to go with it, he would have been a rich man.
I think Obrum sometimes had troubles with the church because of this double thing—they want you to let yourself go at the same time they want you to control yourself.
But for me, knowing that Obrum would never willingly let himself go all the way made it easier for me to let go. Without Obrum I might never have laughed in my life and might have had to live out my days as Preacher Funk’s wife. For sure, that evening when I couldn’t bring the truth by to my stone-faced parents, I saw my only hope was with Obrum Kehler himself. We hadn’t talked about getting married. I hadn’t even thought about such a thing, I had just been letting myself enjoy the dizziness and the freshness of being with this sommamolijch man who made me laugh. But in the house with Mamuh and Papuh, in the sitting room, yet, with the door closed, all I could think of was that I wanted to be back in the sod house with Obrum Kehler. He at least would believe me things. Something breaks when a parent stops believing a child’s true words.
I couldn’t schlikj myself out of the house until long after midnight, and even then I thought I heard fuscheling in my parents’ bedroom. But I couldn’t hold myself back anymore. I had to talk this over with Obrum. I needed him to catch me in the crook of his arm. I had on my milking dress so I could schlikj back into the barn at sun-up. Maybe I would be able to bring it by to people that I had gotten up early to milk the cows. I prayed that Obrum would be at the sod house and not at Yelttausch Yeeatze’s place, and as I stumbled down the path along Mary’s Creek, I remembered the dirty looks Hilda Yeeatze had been giving me in church the last few Sundays. I pushed the unwanted pictures out of my head and kept only a picture of Obrum sleeping on his bed to help me see the way. I splashed through Mary’s Creek without taking my shoes off and I didn’t bother standing on the board to wash them off when I was across. I hadn’t even bothered to lift my skirt but it was wet anyways already from the dew on the tall grass. I didn’t stop until I was standing in front of the sod-house door shining silver in the light of the half moon in the sky.
8
Susch
Darpslied Elders Villa
I saw a story on the television the other day, where a baby was born, and the mother said she hadn’t even known she was pregnant. For me that is hard to believe, but then if God made us each with different tickling nerves in the feet or under the ribs, why would he have made us all the same between the legs? And why should one kind of tickling give a bigger sin than another kind? I never told any other woman this, except Tien, and she never had any children so she couldn’t compare with me, but I knew the next morning that I was pregnant. I felt different, like a Bloomuhkomst that has just poked the first leaves out of the ground. I don’t know how I knew this even the first time—it really was the first time—and that was a bit scary, because I thought it would happen every time and a person’s life would be far too short to be satisfied with only that—but I knew, and the world started kjrieseling so fast that I almost fell off.
You see, Preacher Fuschtje Funk, after bearing false witness against his neighbours, then turned around and said we couldn’t get married in his church because Obrum and I weren’t baptized yet.
We went on a weekday evening to talk to Funk—he was still living at his parents’ place—and we found him in the pig barn where his father’s sows were kept. I wouldn’t have said that he looked at me with a Christlijch eye, but then maybe I am painting him with too black a brush. It was maybe hard to be a preacher inside the pigpen when he hadn’t shaved since Sunday and he wasn’t wearing his long, black preacher vaumst. And besides, a Maunsmensch is a Maunsmensch when he looks at a Frümensch, even King David in the Bible once he stopped shooting giants with his slingshot.
And maybe Obrum and I weren’t quite as deemütijch humble as we should have been, coming to ask for a wedding in the church. Obrum on this day didn’t yet know what I knew already, so getting married right away wasn’t as dringent a thing as it was after I told him. But we, after that night together, we were dringent to get married because we wanted to live together—even in a sod house if we had to. Preacher Fuschtje Funk and his false witness had pushed us together faster and harder than it would have happened otherwise, and I wonder now if maybe on that day we went to see him he didn’t feel like he had whipped himself in the face. There was an eyeblink when he let some schuldijch guilt creep over his eyes, but then his look went heenisch hard. I wanted to look away but his eye held me fast. His hands were folded over the end of the manure fork handle, and even as he stared me in the eye such devoutness came over his face, like he had put on a holy mask. If Obrum hadn’t been holding me by the hand I could have believed that Fuschtje Funk was praying.
“You are not baptized,” he said with such trüarijchkeit in his voice that I could almost see it leak from his lips.
“Well, no,” Obrum said, almost like he was hushing a child, “but we would get baptized first and then get married maybe the next Sunday.” My heart fluttered when it fell me by how hasty all this could happen.
“Baptism is a weighty matter,” Funk said. “One must be prepared first. Such a thing cannot be rushed.”
“But me and Susch learned the catechism many times in school.” Obrum’s voice stayed steady. “You could ask us the questions and we would answer. What else would be necessary?”
“Instruction is needed to make sure of belief and understanding of God’s word.” Funk was trying hard to keep to his preacher voice. “This is why we have baptism at Pentecost so that believers have all winter to receive instruction.”
“Some churches have baptism at other times,” Obrum said.
“We are not dippers in this church,” Funk said, “and the way of some States preachers who baptise anyone who is frightened into salvation by a noisy sermon is not our way.”
“It may have to be our way,” Obrum said, “if you must have yours.” I held my breath as they stared into each other’s eyes. Flies buzzed in circles over the pigs. When Obrum spoke again his voice dripped with as much trüarijchkeit as Funk’s had. “Of course, it could be interesting to hear your instruction on the meaning of the ninth commandment and to listen in when you teach young men about the evils of Selbstbefleckung. You must have much knowledge to give.” The preacher’s holy mask didn’t crack, but he had nothing to say to that before Obrum led me out of that stinking barn. We heard the manure fork clatter against a wall and then a sow squealed the way only a sow can.
We wandered out of the village until we were on the path along Mary’s Creek bef
ore we said a word. I hadn’t understood everything that Obrum had said, but he was so quiet that it seepered into my brain that he must have said something very insulting to Preacher Funk and I felt a cold breath at the cross of my back.
“Obrum,” I said, and I stopped under an oak tree beside the path. A squirrel clutched the trunk, its grey, bushy tail almost matching the bark. Obrum turned to look at me. “Ekj woa en Babuh habe,” I said. I will have a baby.
“Nah sure,” he said, starting to smile, “obah wie mottuh eascht Kjast moakuh.” We must first make a wedding.
“The baby will come even if we don’t have a wedding,” I said.
“Woo weitst du daut?” How know you that? His voice had a little hups of surprise in it.
“Ekj weit daut bloos.” I just know it.
“Best sejcha?” Are you sure? Obrum’s face went red so his freckles almost disappeared, and then it went so white that his freckles stood out like crumbs on a Sunday tablecloth. For the first time his eyes looked a little frightened to me.
“Yoh, sejcha.” I don’t know how I kept my voice strong when I just wanted to cry. Then Obrum’s eyes got a little watery and he smiled at me. I didn’t see any teasing in that smile.
“Dann mott wie boolt Kjast moakuh,” he said. “Soon we will make the wedding.”
“But Preacher Funk …?”
“Gaunz soo schmaul es dee schmallen Lebensweg dann doch nijch,” he said. “If what Preacher Funk has to tell the boys is true, his head would be as soft as a rotten watermelon already. No, Fuschtje Funk, quite so small the narrow life’s way isn’t yet.” But Obrum wouldn’t tell me what Selbstbefleckung was all about.
Then he took both my hands in his and he looked me in the eyes. “Susch, have you told your Mamuh about our baby?” I shook my head.
“Liestje?”
“No.”
“Tien?”
“No one.”
“Don’t tell anyone. It is enough that you and I know this.”
“But we must get married,” I said, just a little bit frightened.
“Oh, yes, we will.”
“Soon?”
“Oh yoh, soon.”
“When?”
“I will tell you in three days. Don’t say a word to anyone. Leave it to me.” And then he took me around in his arms and kissed me until I was feeling safe like a baby in a cradle.
9
Susch
Darpslied Elders Villa
There is something handy about letting a man make a wedding, though some would say it’s a little like giving birth without being pregnant. For sure, mothers and sisters would say such a thing because making a wedding gives a chance for doing things that have a little more kunst-arty stuff than they get to do every day on the farm. Mamuh, I think, was maybe most let down about that because I would have been her first chance to deal up close with a white wedding dress. For sure, later with Liestje’s wedding she had enough Kjast to satisfy a dozen mothers, but yes, it’s true a wedding gives some glue to a family and that we didn’t quite have with mine.
But in those three days I just trusted that Obrum Kehler would take care of things and when I thought I could get away with it I schuckeled myself on the lawnswing. I couldn’t be on the swing very much because there was lots of garden work to do and it was easier to be alone when I was working than if I wasn’t. Mamuh wouldn’t talk to me and she wouldn’t let Liestje talk neither. So I was safest if I stayed out of Mamuh’s way and still stayed close enough so that Liestje couldn’t get her claws into me. I would be the first up in the mornings like always and at night I would pooker around in the garden or the kitchen until even Mamuh had gone to bed and Liestje had long given up trying to stay awake.
Still, I wasn’t alone. Two or three times in a day when I looked up, I would see Grandmother Glootje Susch at the end of the garden or sitting in the armchair in the corner by the window and once I even saw her schuckeling on the lawnswing. She didn’t speak to me and she wasn’t laughing but she had a look on her face that was like a hug to me.
One evening when the house was already dark, I was still in the garden, watering the cucumbers with a small pail that I dipped into the water barrel we had standing on the end of the garden so the well water could warm up in the sun. As I stepped to the barrel to dip my pail in, I saw Preacher Funk like a shadow standing straight up. My heart pricked like I had touched a thorn and my head wondered how come that useless dog hadn’t barked. Then I was glad that the dog slept because I knew it would be better if I handled this preacher by myself.
“Susch Sudermann, frie die den Kjäla nich aun.” Marry not that Kehler.
“Daut kjemmat die nuscht, Omkje Funk,” I said. None of your business. I dipped my pail and lifted it out from the barrel.
“First thing you know,” Funk said, “that Kehler will yet want you to move to Mexico so he can live closer to his muttatje.”
“Better that than being your sombre wife and pumping water for your eleven children,” I said. I hadn’t forgotten how I had walked down the village street with him that Sunday.
“Meyall,” Funk said, fuscheling like a snake, “hasn’t that Kehler told you about the mumps he had in boarding school? Mumps so bad his balls swelled up. Den Kjäla woat nie Foda woren. Dee haft kjeen Scheetijch!” Kehler will never be a father. He has no bullets.
“You, Funk,” I said, “Dü best een selbstbeflecktda Shuft.” And then I spilled my pail over that swinish preacher’s pants and stamped away to the house, feeling better even if I still didn’t know what Selbstbefleckung was all about.
For three whole days I didn’t hear from Obrum and I almost didn’t think about him. I just let myself relax like I was wrapped up in a soft, white cloud. I even forgot to count the days and on the fourth day when I got up early to go milking, I didn’t even think that this day should maybe be different. But Tien was waiting for me beside the back barn door with a letter from Obrum pasted closed in an envelope. Tien didn’t tubba me to open it in front of her, but she looked at me with a forsching schmuista in her eyes.
“You?” she said. Then she looked me straight through before she whispered, “You really look like an Engel Mäakje. If I ever feel like you look I won’t say no neither.” Then she clasped me around with her arms and pressed her cheek to mine for a long minute before she left me alone to tear open the envelope.
“Everything is fixed ready for us,” the letter said. “Just come to my sod house on Sunday after dinner for 2:00. Come alone.”
Then I felt so alone it hurt. I wished Tien hadn’t run away so fast. I even wondered how come she hadn’t asked me a whole catechism of questions. Tien, the only person who could tease serious words out of me, hadn’t seemed interested enough to ask what was happening with me. I shivered and wondered if she believed what Preacher Fuschtje Funk had spread around. And I wished I had asked her about mumps. I mean, a girl who had helped her mother bring babies into the world would maybe know such things, but all I had were my cows and they just wanted to be milked.
I put the letter inside my dress and let the cows into the barn. Once I started milking I could think my way back into the soft, white cloud and when I leaned my head against the cow’s belly and looked sideways, I saw my grandmother Glootje Susch sitting on a stool beside me. She bent toward me with one hand cupped behind her ear, so I talked to her and told her all the things that were kjrieseling through my head. Glootje Susch listened, but she answered only with a schmuista look in her eyes and the almost smile on her lips and she was so real I thought if I reached out, I could touch her. And so for the rest of the week whenever I felt like I would maybe break apart and start to cry, Grandmother Glootje Susch would be there like a koddadakj crazy quilt wrapped around my shoulders. Once I saw her standing straight at the end of the garden, holding in both hands against her black dress a Bloomuhkomst, cauliflower white.
That
made me shiver about something else to do. I had been so weckeled up in my soft, white cloud I had altogether forgotten to think about what this bride would wear to her wedding. In my head I fitted on all the dresses in our little closet until I decided on my best Sunday dress. What else could I do? I really couldn’t make myself a new dress without Mamuh and Liestje finding out and besides, where would I have found new cloth? I mean, even Mamuh didn’t have any money unless Papuh gave her some and most of the time Papuh didn’t have money neither. Anyways, I had to wear something that nobody would notice so that I could easy schlikj myself away after dinner on Sunday afternoon.
It is hard to believe that I did things the way I did or that Mamuh never sat me down and made me talk to her about what was happening. Maybe it was because we hadn’t ever been a talking kind of family or at least that I had always been so shy that it was hard for anyone to neighbour with me, even Liestje. Now I think we all felt like we had slapped each other in the face. So we hardened our hearts—like in the Bible yet—and none of us could give in enough to have a conversation. The saddest thing was that the hardening never completely went away.
Saturday night it rained, thunder and lightning and rain, and when I wasn’t lying awake I was dreaming about walking forever in the fog, trying to find Obrum Kehler’s sod house in the tall, wet grass.
But Sunday morning the sun shone hot with not a cloud left in the whole blue sky. Still, the cows’ udders were muddy, and it was hard to get my hands clean for going to church. At the breakfast table it seemed like Mamuh was looking at me a lot and a few times I thought she opened her mouth to speak but then she closed it again.
