Copper Star

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  After dinner each evening, I made a habit of going out on the front porch to watch the sunset. It dropped behind the steep rock hills so quickly that the light changed dramatically. I had never seen such beautiful sunsets, filled with rose and yellow-tinged hues. The night falls in Arizona were long and peaceful. William often joined me, slipping his hand into mine.

  “William, do you know that you have early sunsets here? The sun hides behind the hills. Look, watch carefully! Going, going, gone.” And the sun disappeared, leaving us surrounded in pale, purple twilight.

  * * *

  Every Wednesday night at seven o’clock, Miss Gordon promptly marched off to choir practice. I felt like celebrating when she left the house. Tonight, I took the chess set down from the mantel over the fireplace and took it over to William. I showed him each piece and told him their names. I was teaching him how to set the pieces up for a game when Robert came in from his office and noticed what we were doing.

  Interest piqued, he sat down on the davenport next to William and started to play the game with me. I checkmated Robert in just three moves. In clearly an unexpected defeat, he sat there, stunned, frowning at the board, while I took William up to bed. When I came down again, Robert was still on the davenport next to the chess set.

  “Give me another chance?” he asked.

  So we played again. This time, he paid closer attention. It took a few more moves, but I was still able to checkmate him.

  “How did you ever learn to play chess like that?”

  I laughed. “My father taught me.”

  “He taught you well.” He leaned back on the davenport and crossed his arms against his chest. “Where are your parents now?”

  I picked up one of the chess pieces and held it in my hands. “My mother died long ago, many years before the war. My father was murdered by the Nazis.”

  Robert’s grey eyes grew large. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to elaborate or if he wasn’t sure he should ask anything more; he continued to look directly at me.

  “Hitler ordered all Jews to wear a large yellow star on their jackets to identify them. My father had worked for the Berlin Symphony but, back in 1933, all Jewish musicians were fired from the symphony and the opera. That’s when my father relied more heavily on tuning private pianos and one of the reasons he refused to wear that Star of David armband.”

  I picked up the rook from the chess set, holding it in my hands. I needed time to say this without emotion. Robert waited patiently for me to continue.

  “My father didn’t want to bring attention to himself or to his clients. He needed the work. Jobs were extremely scarce for Jews. Most were on welfare assistance. However, posing as a non-Jew was an act punishable by death. One night, the Gestapo stopped him in the street.”

  Someone had informed the Gestapo about my father’s identity, but that was another story.

  I replaced the rook on the chess board and looked directly at Robert. “The Gestapo shot him. Right then and there. They left his body on the street as a message to other Jews who might be tempted to hide their identity. Soon after, I went to Dietrich and joined the Resistance Movement.”

  A heavy silence hung in the air.

  “I thought you had said you had heard stories about the atrocities of the Nazis.”

  Robert shifted uncomfortably on the davenport. “Well, yes, but nothing like that. Is there no justice in the legal system?”

  I gave a short laugh. “Justice? No. Vengeance, yes.” I looked down at the board. “I’m sorry. We were enjoying a challenging game of chess, and I brought up unpleasant things.”

  “Actually, you were enjoying a game of chess; I was losing quite badly. And I’m the one who is sorry, about your father.”

  I glanced up at him. His eyes held genuine concern. For the first time, I thought he might be a good pastor after all.

  * * *

  Most evenings after dinner, Robert worked in his office unless he was called out on church business. People in the town, even those who weren’t churchgoers, seemed to count on him for their various crises. Some serious, some silly. Nonetheless, they looked to him for support, wisdom, and guidance.

  One night, William had gone to bed early, and Miss Gordon had a headache, so she, too, had gone upstairs. Robert came in to the kitchen to get his car keys, and I asked him if I could go with him. I wanted to see more of the area and I had taken William on as many walks through the town as I could possibly discover on foot. He hesitated, but agreed.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we climbed in the car.

  “To Mrs. Drummond’s. She’s been ailing, and I promised her I would get by this week. Not sure she’ll last much longer.”

  Mrs. Drummond lived quite a ways out of town on a small goat ranch in a well-loved, weather-beaten house. As we drove up, noisy roosters greeted us, mistaking our headlights for a rising sun. A pleasant looking woman opened the door to us.

  “Hello, Rev’ren.” The woman eyed me with curiosity. “Hello, Miss.”

  “Evening, Betty. This is Louisa Schmetterling. How is your grandmother feeling tonight?” Robert’s voice was kind.

  Betty’s eyes were locked on me. I smiled to reassure her. “Hello, Betty,” I said.

  Eyes still locked on me, she answered, “oh, not so well, Rev’ren. Her feet are swollen up something fierce.”

  “Who is it, Betty?” called a wrinkled voice from the front room.

  “It’s the Rev’ren, Gran.” Adding in a loud whisper, “and he brought a lady with him.”

  “Come in here, Reverend. Bring your ladyfriend so I can see her,” called the wrinkled voice. We walked into the front room. Someone had moved Mrs. Drummond’s bed into this room; I think she didn’t want to miss anything. The furnishings were scarce and modest, but the room was cared for and clean. On the four poster bed perched a small, frail woman with bright, curious eyes. Instantly, I liked her.

  “Mrs. Drummond, this is our houseguest, Louisa.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Drummond.” I walked over to her bedside to shake her gnarled, misshapen fingers.

  “Is she a German?” she asked Robert, peering at me over her spectacles.

  “Yes, she is,” he answered.

  “Is she a Nazi?” She looked me up and down.

  “No, Mrs. Drummond, she’s not a Nazi.”

  “Well then, good. I approve. Come closer, Louisa. You’re such a pretty girl. I didn’t think Germans could be pretty.” She winked at me. “Sit down here next to me.” She patted the bed. “Tell me how Martha is treating you. I’ve known Martha Gordon since she was a girl. Even as a child, she looked as if she’d just been starched and ironed.”

  I burst out laughing and quickly covered my mouth, glancing guiltily up at Robert, but his eyes were smiling.

  “I can tell we’re going to be good friends, Louisa,” warbled Mrs. Drummond.

  How ironic! The first person in America who chose to befriend me, just for being me, not out of any obligation, was on her deathbed.

  Robert wondered if he could do anything for them before we left, so Betty asked if he would help her move some firewood in from the barn. I stayed in the front room with Mrs. Drummond. It was a nice change to hear someone chatter away. Conversation didn’t go beyond the day’s necessities in the Gordon household.

  On the other side of Mrs. Drummond’s bed was a beautiful, old upright piano. It looked to be the only really valuable furnishing in the house. When I complimented her about the piano, she invited me to play, but I hesitated. I hadn’t touched a piano since the day my father had died.

  I went to it and sat on the bench, gliding my hands gently over the keys. Without even consciously intending to, my fingers found their place and started to play my father’s favorite piece: Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in D. The piano was old and slightly out of tune but had a lovely mellowed tone. Many fingers before mine had polished these ivory and ebony keys.

  Lost in the music, I closed my eyes and let memory take control. I though
t of my father, yet without the pain that doing so usually evoked. When I finished, I sat quietly for a moment, then turned back to Mrs. Drummond. Robert stood in the doorway. I hadn’t even heard him come in. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. “I’m out of practice.”

  “It’s time we headed back home. I’ll come again soon, Mrs. Drummond,” he said, without a word about my playing. He took Mrs. Drummond’s tiny hands in his large ones and prayed a tender prayer for her.

  The car ride back was quiet, but companionably so. Finally, Robert broke the silence. “First chess and now piano. I had no idea you were so talented.”

  “Well, I’m the daughter of a piano tuner. It would be a disgrace not to be able to play a tune or two.”

  He glanced over at me, raising an eyebrow. “A tune or two?”

  I looked out the window, unseeing. “I studied classical piano at University. But that was a lifetime ago.”

  “Is Beethoven your favorite composer?” Robert asked.

  I shot a look at him, impressed that he had recognized Moonlight Sonata and knew the composer was Ludwig Beethoven. “No. No, I think Felix Mendelssohn is my favorite composer. Are you familiar with him?”

  “Didn’t he compose The Wedding March? From Midsummer’s Night Dream?”

  “Yes! The very one.” I hadn’t expected Robert to be knowledgeable about classical music.

  “Every preacher knows that melody. So why is Mendelssohn your favorite composer?”

  “He’s considered to be the ‘Mozart of the 19th century.’ His music is very graceful and lyrical. Even spiritual. He’s mostly known for his organ and choral music, but he was also a painter and spoke five languages. Most people don’t know that he was a Jew who converted to Christianity, but his music was banned in Germany because he had Jewish blood.”

  I gazed out the window and looked up at the sky. I had never seen a night sky like the one in Arizona. It seemed as if I could reach out and touch the stars. Tiny jewels on black velvet. I pointed to a bright star. “That one is so bright that it doesn’t even twinkle.”

  “You’re right. It shimmers. Miners call it the copper star,” he explained. “There’s an old legend that the first miners followed that star until it led them to the copper mines.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “Truth to be told, it’s really the North Star. It’s positioned along the axis of rotation of the earth, so it never seems to move. It always appears fixed above the North Pole. So, if you’re ever lost, look for the copper star, and you’ll know your course is due north.”

  We rode along in silence for a while until I said, “it’s hard to believe we’re standing under the same sky as my friends in Germany are. All over the world, people look at the same moon and stars and sun.” Somehow, I didn’t feel so far away when I looked at the night sky.

  “Louisa, when did you last see Dietrich?”

  “A few months ago in Berlin.”

  “When you last saw them, how was he?”

  “Weary.” I looked out the window at the stark desert. The moon cast shadows on the mesquite and sagebrush. It looked eerily beautiful. Then I noticed rows of lights. “What’s that? Over there,” I pointed.

  “Where? Oh.” He saw the lights, too. “That’s one of Mueller’s copper mines. His biggest, in fact.”

  “Why are there so many trucks heading out? Do miners work at night?”

  “They’re probably heading over to the smelter. It’s up north, near Tucson, close to the railroad.”

  But the convoy didn’t head north. It was heading south. Toward Mexico.

  * * *

  A few days later, Robert drove out again to see Mrs. Drummond and invited me to join him. She must have sent word to him that she wanted me to come, because I doubted he would have thought of it on his own.

  This time, I played hymns for her. She especially loved Bach’s Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. I wished that I could play more than German composers given that her country was at war with mine, but those were the only composers we were permitted to study at University. Still, I felt renewed and refreshed after playing for her. Music could do that. It wasn’t limited by language, culture, or a world at war.

  Mrs. Drummond died in her sleep the next week. At her funeral, a wave of grief washed over me, surprising me with its intensity. I had only known her a few weeks, but I had been blessed by her. I had lost my first friend in America.

  In her will, she left the church one thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars to be used for whatever the Reverend felt was most necessary. Her life savings. The choir members felt they needed robes but the elders insisted the church and the parsonage needed a new roof and a paint job. Herr Mueller, head of the finance committee, proclaimed the money belonged in the bank, drawing interest. It became quite a heated controversy in the First Presbyterian Church of Copper Springs.

  Being a choir member with considerable influence, Miss Gordon used every moment at home to stress to Robert the need for new robes. I found it somewhat entertaining to see her campaign so diligently. It was the most conversation I’d heard between them, but I could tell Robert was wearying of the constant badgering. She was unrelenting.

  “I might have a solution,” I offered at dinner one evening.

  They both stopped eating and looked at me.

  “I used to work for a seamstress during my summer holidays. I could make the robes. Then you would have enough money for the repairs.”

  Robert looked delighted. “Louisa! That’s a fine idea! That would solve both problems. How about it, Aunt Martha?”

  She glared at me. “We want Christian choir robes, not something made from a…” She stopped herself from finishing the sentence.

  It slowly dawned on me what she intended to say. “A what? Please finish your sentence. Do you mean you don’t want something made from a German? Or a Jew?”

  “Both,” she answered, radiating waves of disapproval.

  The sharp words hung suspended in the air, waiting for someone to act.

  I pushed back my chair from the table, went up the stairs and firmly closed the door to my room. Fighting back hot tears, I flopped down on the bed and buried my face in a pillow. How dare she treat me like that! What had I done to deserve that? Hearing that bitter tone in her voice brought up a stinging set of feelings.

  My silent diatribe was interrupted by the buzz of a fierce discussion going on downstairs. Curious, I got up and went to the radiator. My room was directly above the kitchen. I unscrewed the cap and found that if I held my head right above the radiator pipe, I could hear their conversation as if I was in the same room as them.

  “I insist that you apologize to her,” I heard Robert say. “I won’t tolerate rude remarks like that. I won’t tolerate prejudice in my home, either.”

  “But Robert, she’s a…Jew!” Miss Gordon pronounced the word as if it were dirty. “You never even told me. I only found out because she told me so herself.”

  “Why should that matter? She’s a guest in my home.”

  “You also never mentioned this houseguest was going to be a young woman.”

  “I didn’t know myself until she stepped off the train. The papers I received said ‘Louis Schmetterling,’ not ‘Louisa.’ The typist must have left the ‘a’ off.”

  Aha! That explained the baffled look on Robert’s face when he met me at the train station.

  “Just how long will she be here? I thought this was going to be short-term.”

  “As long as she needs a home. Probably until the war is over.”

  “It just isn’t fitting for a minister to have a young woman as a houseguest. People will talk. Lord knows they already have plenty to talk about.”

  Irritation rising in his voice, Robert snapped, “I don’t make my decisions based on town gossip.”

  “Well,” sniffed Miss Gordon, “if you ask my opinion, I think you are getting a little too friendly with her.”

  “I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” Robert said curtly.

&
nbsp; Then there was silence. I heard the dishes clink as Miss Gordon returned to her dishwashing.

  After a moment, I heard Robert’s voice softly imploring, “Aunt Martha, you haven’t even given her a chance. She helps you with William. He seems to like her. Haven’t you noticed that he seems happier lately? Please. Just give her a chance.”

  Carefully, I screwed the top back on the radiator with a greater appreciation for Robert. And an even lesser one for his aunt.

  Chapter Three

  The day following the incident in the kitchen, I took William to the library. Partly for his sake, partly for mine. It gave me needed distance from Miss Gordon.

  I loved everything about a library, any library. I had to admit that this old rickety building in Copper Springs was a dire disappointment. Nonetheless, as I walked through the doors, I inhaled deeply. The dusty smell of books held such promise, like a pink bakery box tied with a string.

  William enjoyed our ritual, too. As soon as we entered, he ran to our special corner of the library, next to a cracked and dirty window that let in some natural lighting, which gave us the added bonus of watching people walk down the street.

  There wasn’t much to do in Copper Springs.

  Today, as I watched William’s blond head peering out the window, I wondered again about his mother. I had yet to discover a single clue about what happened to her. Not one. Even the townspeople seemed to have taken an oath of silence on the subject of the Reverend’s wife. No one uttered her name. There was no sign of her in the house—not a picture, not a trinket, not even a recipe card with her handwriting on it. I knew; with the air of a burglar, I had checked.

  I had even searched for her grave in the cemetery by the church one afternoon. There I found Robert’s parents, side by side, but no sign of Robert’s wife, though I didn’t even know a name to look for, other than “Mrs. Gordon.”

  My curiosity was one of my worst faults. I knew it wasn’t any of my business and, clearly, no one was going to fill me in, but I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of this woman. My latest musing was that she had died in a tragic and horrible accident, so heartrending that no one could speak of it. And surely the Reverend was still so bereaved he couldn’t bear to have any memory of her. Well, so I imagined, anyway.