Copper Star

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

“He won’t talk to you,” she offered without elaborating.

  “William, come show me the town?” I waved to him to come. He cocked his head, looked at me, and jumped up to join me. I took his hand, and we started our tour of Copper Springs.

  The streets of Copper Springs were laid out in a haphazard way, wiggling here and there, as if no one had anticipated a town would eventually emerge. Telephone wires criss-crossed the streets, hanging like strings from abandoned kites.

  The buildings were just as erratic as the streets. New, stately buildings looked out of place next to small, hastily built and badly sun-worn storefronts. Residences were curiously tucked in between business buildings. And there were staircases, from the street, leading up to teetering cottages on the precarious ledges of the hillsides.

  “William, imagine anyone carrying groceries up fifty stair steps to their home!” His blue eyes appeared suddenly larger, as if he was seriously considering the notion.

  Only a few buildings looked as if they intended to be around for a while. The red brick bank, an obviously young building, had a Roman temple portico in front. Over the columns there was a bold proclamation: The First National Trust of Copper Springs. “Now there’s a name people can have confidence in,” I said to him.

  We passed by one lonely public telephone box. Gazing at the telephone box filled me with a sudden wave of nostalgia. Oh, the many times I had stealthily slipped into a similar box in Berlin, heart hammering, to deliver a message of a plot or to let someone know information had been conveyed. A strange part of me missed the thrill, the excitement, even the danger, of being part of Resistance Work. Now, I thought with an absurd twinge of self-pity, I didn’t even know a soul in America to call.

  Robert called to us as we walked back past the church. “I was just going home for lunch. Did you rest well?” he asked. Absentmindedly, he took William’s hand, swinging it back and forth as we headed home.

  “Yes, I really did. I just got up, I’m embarrassed to admit.”

  Miss Gordon had lunch waiting on the table. Meal preparation seemed to be her main preoccupation. Well, that and thoroughly sterilizing the house, as if the King of England was due any moment for an inspection.

  I tried to adjust to the family patterns in the next few days without getting in her way. William seemed to have the same strategy. He spent much of his day up in his tree house or in his father’s office.

  “Robert, do you have any idea of where I might be able to find a job?” I asked, during another quiet meal. I would need to find a job to fulfill immigration requirements, though I was also eager to start a savings account for my return trip to Germany as soon as the war was over.

  Robert frowned. “I’ve been asking around town the last few weeks, but there doesn’t seem to be anything available. I’m sure something will turn up.”

  “Someday, if you’re not too busy, would you show me around the countryside?”

  Miss Gordon promptly answered for him. “There’s a government ban on pleasure driving. Gasoline is rationed. There’s a war on, you know.”

  Did I know that there is a war on? Did I know? How dare she patronize me! She had yet to ask me a single question about the world that I came from. It was as if my past didn’t exist for her, only the fact that I interrupted her world now.

  Noticing my barely swallowed indignation, Robert quickly interjected, “Aunt Martha, Louisa is well aware there is a war going on. And I hardly drove the car in January. I have plenty of my gas allotment saved up.” He turned to me. “Yes, Louisa, William and I can show you around tomorrow, Saturday afternoon. Why not? Maybe we’ll take you to the copper pit,” he added, a pleased look spreading across his face.

  “To a…pit?” I asked, disappointed.

  “Well, not just any pit. A copper pit,” Robert answered. “It’s a crater. It’s where ore is mined to be melted down into copper. Any town in Arizona worth its weight in salt has a copper pit.”

  Weight in salt? Copper pit? What in the world was he talking about?

  * * *

  The next afternoon, I was reading in my room, hiding from Miss Gordon, when Robert knocked on my door. “Ready to go, Louisa? William is waiting for us. Oh, by the way, I’d like to put your passport into the lock box I have at the bank. Do you mind? Just for safekeeping.”

  “No, I don’t mind,” I answered, surprised Robert had even thought about it. At times he seemed so preoccupied, I wasn’t always sure he remembered I was here.

  This family didn’t seem to really talk to each other or even look directly at each other. They issued directives. “Aunt Martha, I need my ministerial robes washed and ironed for the Stollen funeral on Friday.” “Robert, the basement window is stuck again.” “William, go wash up for dinner.”

  I was finding I had little to say, as well, which was a notable change for me. My father used to say I was blessed with the gift of conversation. It was his polite way of asking me to be quiet.

  We climbed into Robert’s car. William jumped into the back seat, hard at work chewing a big wad of bubble gum.

  Robert described the town with evident pride. “Copper Springs is a town with an interesting history. It’s a mining town. There have been fortunes made and lost here, though you wouldn’t know it to see it. The town is only about seventy years old. People live simply, but many of them have become quite wealthy recently from the mines.”

  We stopped in at the bank. William and I waited while Robert was escorted into the vault by a bank teller to put away my passport.

  Then something curious happened.

  William watched his father disappear out of sight and then he took off, looking intently for someone or something, but staying carefully out of view of the other bank tellers. He slipped into an empty office and then slipped right back out, hustling to his place next to me as Robert re-emerged out of the vault, acting as if he never left my side. I was the only one who noticed.

  We climbed back into Robert’s car and drove down the main street to get to the highway, passing by a row of modest homes. One house clearly stood out from the others in its grandeur. “Who lives there?” I asked, pointing to the two-storied brick house with copper sheeting on the roof over the dormers’ windows. The yard was green and well-manicured; it was the only grass lawn I’d seen in this dry and arid town.

  “That’s the Mueller’s house. Friedrich Mueller runs the bank. And owns half the mines around here. Say, he and his wife are from Germany. You might enjoy talking to them. Now there’s the tavern.” He pointed to a rundown building. “Just stay clear of it on Saturday nights.” He glanced my way. “In fact, stay clear of it. Period. Not the place for a lady. This town can have a tough element. Seems like someone is always getting hurt in a fight or shot up on a weekend.”

  Finally! Some intrigue to this sleepy little hamlet.

  “And over there is our combined beauty salon and barber shop run by Rosita and Ramon Gonzalves,” Robert continued. “Ramon is the town barber, but he’s fighting in the Pacific, so Rosita cuts hair for men in town, just while he’s away. We’re all hoping he’ll return soon. Rosita only knows how to cut men’s hair in one style, so we pretty much all have the same haircut.”

  So that explained it! His haircut was odd, slicked back with a heavy-handed dose of pomade hair gel.

  “Let’s see. There’s the post office.”

  I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a tiny little building with a flag above the door. On either side of the door were two large war posters with earnest looking soldiers facing forward. One poster said: “Do with less so they’ll have enough.” And yet another pleaded, “Be patriotic, sign your country’s pledge to save the food.” I would. I’ll eat less, starting today. I would do anything I could to help America win this war.

  “And over there is the library.” He pointed to a tired looking old wooden building with a cheap metal roof tucked between Rosita’s salon and Ibsen’s General store.

  “A library?” I did not expect a provincial
town like Copper Springs to have a library. “William, we can go together to pick out books.” I looked eagerly at him in the back seat, but he was gazing out the window.

  “I thought you might enjoy it. I noticed you were browsing through my bookshelves. Most of mine are theology books from seminary; rather dull, even for me. We could get you a library card.” He glanced over at me. “Too bad there aren’t any books in German. There used to be; we have a lot of foreign miners in the area. But after war was declared, the Library Committee voted to remove the books.”

  I looked sharply at him, reminded of the censorship of anything Jewish in Germany. “All of the books published by Jewish authors were burned in Germany,” I noted.

  Robert had an expression on his face as if he wasn’t sure what to make of that comment. Deftly, he changed the subject. “How are you getting along with Aunt Martha?” he asked as we drove out of town into the open and barren desert.

  Oh no.

  How should I answer that? I chose my words carefully. “I’ve noticed your aunt is firmly convinced her opinion should be tacked on to every remark.”

  Robert grinned. “Well, she’s an acquired taste.”

  I looked over at him as he drove. I couldn’t decide if he was handsome or not. Nor could I determine his age. I knew he was younger than Dietrich at thirty-seven, but older than my twenty-three years. I guessed he was in his thirties, but he seemed older. Or, at least, he acted older.

  He had once studied alongside Dietrich Bonhoeffer at one of the finest seminaries in this country. Dietrich had spent a sabbatical year at Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1931. The two men met there and became fast friends. I knew Dietrich felt a great warmth toward this man.

  Certainly, Robert could have served in many churches. Why here? In this provincial little town? I would have liked to ask him more, but there was something about the Reverend that made a personal question formidable. I wondered how Dietrich, who enjoyed a good laugh as much as a debate on theology, could have struck up such a deep friendship with this formal, quiet man seated next to me.

  Soon, we arrived at the copper pit. Overwhelming in its size, this pit was a gaping, open wound in the earth. It looked as if someone had tried to chisel an amphitheatre of terraced steps with a blunt instrument. In the center was an ominously dark cavity.

  “Not pretty to look at but a very important asset to this region,” explained Robert. “William! Be careful! Stay back from the edge.” Robert waved his hands to motion William to stay back. William was picking up rocks and throwing them down in the center of the pit. I couldn’t even hear the rocks hit bottom.

  Robert was quite knowledgeable about copper production. As we walked around the pit, he described the process to me. “The rocks you’re looking at are actually copper ore, a low-grade copper. Underground mines tend to have a higher grade of copper ore. We have those, too,” he added with pride.

  I tried to look fascinated.

  “The copper ore is then crushed and ground,” he continued. “Then comes the floatation process, where water is added to the ground ore. Chemicals are added that coat the copper minerals and float them up to the surface. The copper mineral is dried off and sprayed with acid.” His eyes sparkled. “Still with me?”

  Lifting my eyebrows, I nodded, feigning interest.

  “The copper continues along in a process where another chemical is added to remove all but the copper from the waste materials. Those are called ‘tailings.’ And that waste is actually recycled into other useful products.”

  Now my interest was piqued. “So tailings could be called a ‘redemptive process’?”

  His face grew serious. “I guess…you could call it ‘redemptive’.” He tilted his head to one side, looking pleased. He launched back into his description of the mechanics at the smelter, but I was having a hard time following him; he didn’t seem to notice. It was the most animated I’d seen him be.

  He continued to educate me on copper: “After that, it’s refined in a fire, and what’s left is 99.9% pure copper. It’s poured into molds and sent off to the market to be used for just about anything and everything you can think of: coins, batteries, electrical wirings, automobile engines, airplanes, weapons. You name it. In fact, you came to America through Ellis Island, didn’t you? I’m sure you saw the Statue of Liberty. She’s all copper.” He seemed so proud that I would have thought he handcrafted the Statue of Liberty himself.

  Now I understood why Robert remained in Copper Springs. He loved it.

  On the way back, William fell asleep in the car, leaning against the window. “You speak English very well. Better than a lot of the miners around here. You don’t even have a very thick German accent. How did you learn it?” Robert asked.

  “Every German school child learns English from kindergarten on. I had a British teacher in gymnasium who was emphatic over proper diction.” I looked over at him. “But I find common expressions to be confusing. This morning, I offered to wash the breakfast dishes and your aunt told me that having me in the kitchen was like putting a milk bucket under a bull.”

  Robert tried, without much success, to hold back a grin. “She meant that she’d prefer not to have anyone else in the kitchen. She’s rather…territorial…about her kitchen.” His face broke into a smile. “Don’t Germans use expressions?”

  “Not like Americans. Germans are literal and precise. They idolize perfection. Their idea of it, anyway.” I shuddered in disgust, reminded of the Nazis.

  “What’s a kindergarten?” he asked. “And what does gymnasium mean? Around here, it means a place to shoot hoops.”

  “Kindergarten means ‘garden for children.’ That’s what we call the first year of school. Gymnasium is another word for school.” I looked at him. “Are hoops a type of bird?”

  For the first time, he laughed out loud. “I meant basketball. You know, a big ball that kids throw through a hoop. A basketball hoop.”

  I ignored his amusement. “Will William start school soon?”

  Robert’s features turned solemn as he glanced back at William. “Well, he will need to wait for a while.” For a long moment he was quiet and then said, “You probably already realized this, but William is deaf. ‘Profoundly deaf,’ the doctor said.”

  I had guessed as much. William’s silent demeanor, coupled with Miss Gordon’s wild hand motions, was hard to ignore. Yet I was amazed that Robert and his aunt had sidestepped this issue with me as if it was something to be ashamed of. “There’s certainly nothing wrong with his mind,” I said.

  Robert turned his head sharply toward me. “What makes you say that?”

  “He’s obviously very intelligent. I can see it in the way his eyes watch what’s going on around him. Have you noticed how he feels vibrations to detect when someone is approaching? I saw him do it last night when I was coming upstairs. He puts his hand on the floor and then seems to know who to expect coming up the stairs, just by recognizing the specific vibration.”

  He looked blank.

  “Surely you’ve noticed how your aunt stomps her feet when she wants William to come in to the kitchen from the parlor. It’s the same idea.”

  “Well, it’s just…a complicated situation with William.”

  “How so?”

  “The doctor felt that there might also be some additional problems.”

  “Was this doctor a specialist?”

  “Well, no, just our town doctor. Who, by the way, is a very good doctor. He delivered William. In fact, he delivered me,” Robert said defensively. In a milder tone, he added, “He felt that William’s withdrawn behavior indicated some degree of retardation.”

  “Isn’t it possible he could be withdrawn because he’s been upset about his mother?”

  Robert shot a look at me that made me realize I hit a nerve. Not that I knew anything about William’s mother. Still, I could tell I had crossed a line. In a softer tone I asked, “have you considered taking him someplace for more testing?”

  �
��What’s the point? When he is older, he’ll be able to attend the Southwestern School for the Deaf. They’ll be able to teach him properly.”

  “But you’re his father. You can’t hand him over to a school and expect it to work miracles. He could be learning to communicate now while he’s still so young.”

  “I would never consider sending him away at such a young age. For now, he’s fine.”

  “I’m not talking about sending him away. I’m talking about you and your aunt, and even me learning how to communicate with William. The sooner the better. I met a family on the train with a deaf child, a little girl about William’s age. They told me about a new clinic in Los Angeles that is encouraging early intervention with children as young as William. Children even younger. Imagine what it would be like for him to have words formulate in his mind and to be able to communicate. It might not even be that hard to learn. I’ve noticed you and your aunt already use gestures to communicate with him.”

  “Gestures are different from sign language,” Robert answered, irritation growing in his voice.

  “But this family on the train didn’t use sign language. Their little girl had a box around her neck, with ear phones, and they were actually teaching her how to read lips and how to talk. They said that there is a window of opportunity for a child to understand speech.”

  “That opportunity will come in time, and he will be taught properly by professional teachers. Not by his father who is not.”

  “Perhaps this isn’t my place to say—”

  “That’s right.” Tersely, he cut me off. “It isn’t. Thank you, Louisa, but this is really none of your concern.” Slam! The door was closed. Silence loudly filled the car.

  He was right. This really wasn’t my business. I had just met this family. What was I doing? Trying to change the way they lived their life? Trying to act as if I knew everything? I could hear my father’s voice echo in my head: “Have patience. You have very good ideas, but you must have patience with people. Let them come to their own conclusions.”

  Oh Lord, would I never get it right?