The Copper Series

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Unexpectedly, she asked, “Vhat University?”

  “There’s one in New York called Julliard.”

  “Is dat Yu-lliard any good?”

  “Yes, Julliard is the best.” I kissed her, and enveloped her hands in mine for a prayer. “Lord God, bless Elisabeth’s future, and make plain your path for her. We know that You are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Amen.”

  Elisabeth never joined in with my prayers, but she didn’t seem to mind them, either. Tonight, she looked at me, earnest and unwavering. “Vhy don’t you tell dat Lord God to do someting for Danny?”

  Suddenly, I felt impaled by a huge stab of guilt. I had never thought to teach her to pray for Danny even though she had never stopped talking about him or worrying about him. Humbled, I prayed for Danny aloud, for his safety, for his well-being, for finding his relatives. I promised Elisabeth that I would pray every day for Danny with her. “What did Danny’s letter have to say?” I asked her, knowing she had received a letter from him today. In it was another unsettling letter from Karl Schneider, asking more questions about Herr Mueller. I wasn’t sure if I would respond.

  “Dey can not find anyone for him. But he says it is okay. He says he vill be yust fine. He says vhen he turns eighteen, he vill go to Palestine.”

  I went to my bedroom and tried to read. After a long period of quiet, angry voices exploded in the kitchen. I didn’t even need my radiator pipe to hear Robert and Alice arguing. Thankfully, William and Elisabeth were sound asleep. Aunt Martha came to my door, an anxious look on her face. She wanted me to go downstairs, but I told her that I shouldn’t. “No, Aunt Martha, they need to get this worked out.”

  “What happened to your dream of being an engineer?” Alice loudly challenged Robert. “You went to college to major in engineering! You were going to run your own mines. You let Father steal your dreams!”

  “Stole? You want to talk about stealing things?” we heard Robert roar. And Robert never roared. “You stole from us, Alice. You stole the reputation of our family! Mother was never the same after you left. She could never hold her head up. When you ran off, it broke her heart.”

  “You sound just like him! Blaming me for everything that went wrong!”

  “Do you have any idea how it felt to have a sister who ran off, pregnant with some kid’s baby? And then to hear you divorced him? In this small town, do you have any idea how that hurt us? All of us, Alice. A minister’s family?!”

  “How dare you lecture me about making a mistake! You of all people! The O’Casey’s told me about Ruth. I know she left you for another man.”

  Oh no, Alice! Don’t hurt him like that.

  Even Aunt Martha shuddered. “She fought like that as a child. Whenever Alice took off her boxing gloves, things would turn ugly. She’s still the same,” she said sadly. Then she turned back to me with a scowl. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” And she left to go to her room.

  No, I never could. It was one of my worst faults. And tonight, in particular, my good intentions had blown up. I took the cap off the radiator pipe to hear the rest of their conversation.

  “Look, Robert,” I heard Alice say in a surprisingly conciliatory tone, as if she realized she had gone too far. “I wanted my own life. I wanted to go to college. That’s all. And Father would never have let me. So I had to find my own way. I had to get out of Copper Springs. I’m sorry if that hurt you. I admit I wanted to hurt Father. But I never meant to hurt Mother. Or you.”

  I heard her walk a few steps, then stop to turn back to him. “It was a mistake to come back. I’m sorry.” So she left.

  And he let her go.

  I wasn’t sure if I should go downstairs, or wait until he came upstairs. Hours passed. Finally, he came up to bed, stretched out and turned away from me.

  “Robert?” I asked gently.

  “Don’t… even…start,” he said coldly, in slow measures.

  I turned away from him. I could not understand how he could offer peaceful solutions to so many in his congregation, yet not seek peace with his own family member. And it was so long ago. So much had happened to them since, so much had happened to the world since then. Why couldn’t they get past it now?

  At least Alice was willing to try. She came to Copper Springs. That took so much courage. It took her three attempts before she could even knock on our front door today. She must have guessed what a cold reaction might be waiting for her. I felt such admiration for her. But for this man sleeping next to me, for the first time ever, I felt a great disappointment.

  I listened to his breathing. I could tell he wasn’t asleep yet. Should I say it? Probably not. Never good at heeding my own advice, I said, “Forgiveness is…well, it’s everything.” As soon as I spoke, I regretted it.

  He erupted. “Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?” he said sarcastically. “You’ve forgiven Nazis for murdering your father. You’ve forgiven the guards at Dachau for mistreating Elisabeth. And you keep trying to fix everybody else’s life. Sometimes I feel as if I’m married to a saint!” He spat the word out. “Isn’t there anyone in your life whom you can’t forgive?” And he stormed out of the room, not waiting for an answer. Down to the lumpy davenport.

  Yes, Robert, I thought gloomily. There is someone in my life whom I haven’t been able to forgive.

  I switched on the light and re-read Karl’s letter, thinking back to the afternoon of that awful discovery.

  * * * *

  Two weeks had passed since my father had been killed. Karl and I were having coffee in a coffee shop. He had been urging me to return to classes and get on with my life. I had no interest in school any longer, nor the piano. “I still don’t understand why he was singled out,” I said, chin resting on my elbows. “We were so careful.”

  Karl put his coffee cup down. “Annika, you have to stop thinking about it. It’s over. It’s done with.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said sharply.

  “Your father wouldn’t want you to just…languish. He would have wanted you to get back to class and remain in school.”

  Karl couldn’t understand how I felt. He just wanted me to feel good again, especially to share in his happiness over the opportunities he was facing. His face softened. “So what do you think about getting married next month?” He was leaving soon to travel to Hitler’s summer home and wanted me by his side.

  I tilted my head at him. “Karl, I could not be in the same room as Hitler.”

  He glanced around the coffee shop. “I wish you would stop making those remarks in public.” He reached out and covered my hand with his. “You don’t have to be in the same room. That could be dangerous.” He grinned. “For Hitler,” he whispered. He wove his fingers through mine. “Couldn’t you just put aside your political views for your husband’s career?” He pressed my hand to his lips.

  “Should you not be putting aside your career for your political views?”

  Karl’s body tensed up. “I should get to class.” He squeezed my hand. “You will think about it? About getting married?”

  I nodded.

  He bent down to kiss me on the top of my head. “I love you,” he whispered. He crouched down beside me. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I love you, too,” I said, meaning it.

  After he left, I swirled the cold coffee in my cup, not really sure what to do next. If only I knew what to do, which way to turn. I had never felt so lost. There had always been a goal ahead, but my father’s death changed my future. I could no longer tolerate the injustices that plagued Germany, the injustice of my father’s murder. I felt so helpless. Next to grief, helplessness was the heaviest feeling in the world.

  Last night, Diedre had encouraged me to marry Karl. She thought it would give me needed security and distance me from my Jewish heritage. “You love each other, Annika. That’s plain to see. What’s to stop you now?”

  What was stopping me?

  Maybe Diedre was right. Karl an
d I did love each other. And now, he was all I had left.

  Lord God, I prayed silently, throw light on my path. Show me where to go or what to do.

  As I swiveled in the chair, my foot knocked over Karl’s forgotten book satchel. I picked it up and hurried to catch up with him. A few blocks down, I found him waiting at the bus stop, talking to two young men. Karl’s back was to me. Just as I was about to interrupt him, I stopped short, realizing his voice was raised in anger.

  “Why did you kill him?” Karl asked them.

  One shrugged. “You said he was a Jew.”

  “I said to rough him up. That’s all.” Karl spoke in an icy staccato. I didn’t recognize his voice, he sounded like a stranger. “You pinned a star on his chest? You fools!”

  In the back of my mind, a hammer tripped. Slowly, like a fog lifting, my mind grasped the meaning of his words. My heart slammed in my chest, sharp enough to hurt. The bus arrived; Karl pushed himself roughly between the two men and climbed up the steps. The men moved along, ambling down the street as I stood planted, too stunned to move. Just as the bus pulled away, Karl spotted me. The stark look in his eyes told me everything.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of Berlin. By nightfall, still trembling, I knocked on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s door. He opened the door cautiously, as expected. I blurted out, “I’m sorry to bother you at home, Reverend Bonhoeffer, but I am here to join the Resistance Movement.”

  He smiled and threw open the door for me to enter, allowing the light to chase away the shadows.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day, Robert and Aunt Martha took William and Elisabeth to Bisbee to see a movie. I passed; I had other things I needed to do and I was still frustrated with Robert about how he had treated Alice. I hadn’t slept well last night; my back felt stiff after a restless night.

  As the Chrysler pulled out of the driveway, I almost cheered, eager for a quiet day at the house. There were still a few things that I needed to finish sewing for the baby’s layette. I was down to my last month and knew it would fly by. After bending over the sewing machine for an hour or two, the mild ache from last night turned into radiating back pain. By mid-afternoon, I could hardly take a step or two without needing to lean against the wall.

  I glanced at the clock. Robert said the matinee started at two o’clock. At the latest, they would get home by six. I groaned. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but now it felt as if my lower back muscles were in spasms.

  I hated my helplessness. At this moment, I hated Robert, too.

  Carefully, I lay down on the bed, hoping to relieve the spasms as hot pain shot down my legs. Dog stayed close by, as if he sensed something wasn’t right. Grateful for his company, I even let him climb up on the bed with me. He stared at me with worried eyes.

  Around four o’clock, I heard a car drive up, but I couldn’t get up fast enough to see who it was. As soon as I heard high heels clicking up the path, I shouted for help. Dog ran downstairs, barking relentlessly at the door. I was worried that Dog’s loud bark might drown out my shouts. “Wait!” I called, in between Dog’s barks. “Please don’t go! I’m upstairs!”

  I heard someone’s steps fly up the stairs. Alice poked her head in the bedroom door, saw me lying like a beached whale, and burst through the door. “Louisa? What’s wrong? Have you fallen?”

  “No, no. I’m just having terrible back pain. I must have twisted it. I’m so relieved you’re here!”

  Alice transformed into an efficient doctor, assessing my condition. She put her hands on my swollen belly, just as my back seized up again. “Oh Louisa, you’re in labor!”

  I turned wide, horrified eyes on her.

  She grabbed my hand and put it on my stomach. “Look what a rock your abdomen turns into during a contraction.”

  “No! No! This can’t be labor. Rosita said labor feels like cramps.” This felt like knives running down my back. “And it’s too early.”

  “Everything will be all right. I’ll get you to a hospital.” She stopped herself. “There is a hospital in Copper Springs by now, isn’t there?”

  “No.”

  She swore under her breath. “What about an obstetrician?”

  “There’s just Dr. Singleton.”

  “No! Really? Is that old goat still alive?”

  I nodded, gritting my teeth through another contraction.

  “You’re having another contraction so soon? How long have you been in this much pain?”

  “An hour or so,” I said between panting. This wasn’t going the way I had expected. Not at all. I wasn’t prepared for this. And where was Robert? At the movies, I thought sourly. “You could try calling Dr. Singleton from Robert’s office. The phone number is by the phone.”

  She ran downstairs, out through the kitchen door, into his office. When she returned, she had a worried look on her face. “There was no answer.”

  I locked my eyes on her. “Alice, you can help me. I don’t need anyone else. God sent you.” A new worry barged into my mind. “We have to get extra towels and sheets. I can’t make a mess for Aunt Martha.”

  Alice shook her head, puzzled at the thought of that. “You’ve got to be kidding. You’re having a baby and you’re worried about getting a scolding from Aunt Martha about housekeeping?”

  I bit my lip in pain and nodded. “Yes.”

  Alice went to the closet and pulled out all kinds of bedding to place over the bed. Carefully, I stood up, held on to the bed post and tried to breathe slowly during what felt like a python squeezing my spine before swallowing me whole. Alice quickly prepared the bed, and then helped me climb back in.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. What made you come?”

  “I was coming to say goodbye,” she said as she patted the covers over me. “I appreciate what you were trying to do, Louisa, bringing Robert and me together; but, it just isn’t going to work.”

  “You have to…give him more…time, Alice…” I puffed during a contraction. “He can change. He can soften. He just…needs time to get to know you.”

  “Don’t talk anymore. I’m going out to my car to get my medical bag. And I’m going to try to call the doctor one more time. I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t know Alice well, but I was a little concerned by the anxious look on her face. “Wait. Alice, what’s wrong? Is something wrong with the baby?” I asked, grabbing on to her arm.

  She sat down on the bed. “No. It’s just that…the back pain you’re feeling could mean that the baby is…positioned a little funny.” She smiled. “This baby just doesn’t want to come out and face the music. Everything will be fine, Louisa.” She patted my leg. “You let me do the worrying.”

  Face the music? “Oh Alice, what a good idea! Would you mind turning on my radio? Over on my bureau?” I had it tuned to a classical radio station. Music, always music, could help settle my mind. It established order in the midst of chaos, and today, my body and emotions felt chaotic. As the room filled with symphonic sounds, my mind calmed and my anxiety lessened, de-intensifying the hold of pain. I wondered if I would always associate labor pains with Mozart’s Horn Concerto #2 in E flat. I hoped not. It had been one of my favorite pieces.

  “Quite a difference,” Alice noted when she came back into my room. “I’ll have to remember that.”

  Still, the next few hours dragged by. She tried to distract me by getting me to talk. It worked for a while. I told her about coming to Copper Springs, about adjusting to the Gordon home, the breakthroughs we had with William and his language development, my discoveries about Ruth, and even about Herr Mueller. Then I asked her a question I had wondered about for over a year. “At the internment camps, did the government really use people for hostage exchanges?”

  “Where were they going to send you?”

  “Crystal City, Texas.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “And you said you had information about a prisoner in Germany that the Nazis wanted to indict?”

  Now I nodded. “So
…would I have been sent back? Had I not married Robert?”

  She glanced down at the floor. “Most assuredly.”

  A contraction interrupted this conversation, but I hadn’t quite finished. “Alice? Please don’t tell Robert that I asked you that.” Another contraction hit me like a wave. “I don’t regret marrying Robert.” Well, right this minute I did. “I just always...wondered.”

  “I won’t, Louisa. I understand. He’s just like Father.”

  “No, Alice. He’s not. He’s…very tender-hearted, and he’s a wonderful minister. His congregation adores him. He can be open-minded and willing to change, and he doesn’t have the prejudice that Aunt Martha does. Look at me—I’m half-Jewish! Can you imagine how your father would have felt about me?”

  She raised her eyebrows at that thought. “Well, Robert inherited the cautious and law biding genes in the family. I’ll grant you that.”

  The contractions started rolling in, yet I never seemed to get closer to the end. I could tell Alice was concerned by my lack of progress. I wasn’t able to carry on a conversation anymore. She started to tell me stories about growing up in the Gordon home—something I would’ve loved under ordinary circumstances—but I couldn’t concentrate.

  Finally, close to midnight, Robert’s car pulled up in the driveway. A minute later, Elisabeth burst into my room. “Dat d--- car broke again.” Then she stopped and stared at me. “Vhat is da matter vit you?” She took one long look at me, and then at Alice. Robert flew up the stairs carrying a sleeping William, alarmed by the tone in Elisabeth’s voice. Aunt Martha followed. All of them stood by the door, peering at me.

  “Louisa! What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Robert asked, his face full of worry.

  Alice answered for me. “She’s in labor, Robert. She’s been laboring all day. It’s just slow going.”

  “Oh, dear,” was all Aunt Martha had to offer before quickly disappearing into her room.

  “Have you called Dr. Singleton?” Robert asked Alice.

  “Yes. No answer.”