With amazing speed, the young men drag and turn the benches to form low tables with other benches at their sides as the women begin bringing out food for lunch and put it where the breakfast was served. The mystery of the contents of Katie’s basket of mason jars is revealed as four kinds of pickle—dill, bread and butter, sweet, and green tomato chowchow—and women are taking ice packs off the cold cuts and cheese balls, and big bowls of beets and pretzels and sweetened peanut butter. One platter has large balls of fresh mozzarella cheese and sliced tomatoes with a vinegar dressing on them, and at least ten loaves of homemade bread lay sliced in plastic sleeves. And the pies and cookies—an entire long table for those and the Kaffi and water.
The young men lead the elderly of our two communities respectfully to seats and the young women take their orders like waitresses and bring food to them, then the men get their plates to eat while the women watch vigilantly to see whose foods were preferred. I know we are not supposed to have a spirit of competition, but for the men this rule apparently doesn’t apply to volleyball and for the women to their cooking.
Finally, enough seats are vacant so that Miriam and I and the younger women can take plates of food for ourselves from tables that seem, like the loaves and fishes of Jesus, not to have been diminished a bit by those who came before.
And that is when the first trouble begins, when all our relaxation proves to be premature, and I for once do nothing to provoke it, at least not at first.
Chapter 4
After the meal, Papa and Brother Luke and the other men are sitting beneath the enormous burr oak that is bigger than a house and we can hear them talking as we clear the food away. One of the young men offers to help Miriam take the butter and the cold cuts back up to the old house refrigerator and since Sarah is busy and Papa won’t notice and she obviously doesn’t want me along, she leaves me to help with bagging up cookies and cleaning off the tables.
It seems the men have agreed to come over to the tables for one last handful of cookies before they finish up their conversation, which might go on all afternoon. They scoop up chocolate chip, sandies, and oatmeal cookies like there’s a siege coming. All of them seem in a hurry to get back to the tree, but Brother Luke lingers over the plates like it’s hard to make a decision. Then I realize that he is looking at me and that embarrasses me.
But he leans over and calls my name, and I look up again.
His eyes are full of softness and kindness.
“Bless you, dear Sister Leah, for all your hours of service.”
I dip my head.
“I see that you work very hard. That’s what Jesus did, you know, worked hard to help people. He will surely bless you for your unselfish service to all of us.”
He walks off and I stand stunned. Nobody talks that way to me, especially the men. Especially, especially, the men from Armstead.
When I am able to regain my concentration, I realize that the men under the tree have begun to argue.
I hear Papa telling the visitor men that we don’t have any Bible concordances here. As if to prove his point, several of our community’s men hold out their Bibles and I know they are showing the others how carefully we have used a single edged razor blade to cut those pages out of our Bibles. There is the wagging back and forth of a lot of black hats down there, and I don’t think Papa is being congratulated for this.
“You don’t understand,” he says. “This way we can’t be lazy, we have to read the Bible thoroughly and remember where verses are.”
“Can you use these?” One of the visitor men is holding up a little pad of Post It notes. “Like, to mark your favorites? Or to make a few notes?”
“Do you see me using any little pieces of paper when I preach?” Papa’s voice booms out. He stands up with his back to the burr oak. “Or Brother Luke? Or any of our ministers?” No one speaks up.
“We just use the Word here at The Anchor,” he says.
I hear Brother Luke’s voice now, conciliatory, appealing. “Well, I wanted to talk to you about something related to that,” he says. “It has always been the approach of people who want to live simply, that we don’t try to show off our Bible knowledge, as is good, as is right.” He waits for Papa to say something, but my father has folded his arms and put the sole of one boot up against the tree’s trunk where he leans. The shadows of the leaves dance across his face.
Brother Luke continues. I hear his voice and wonder if brauching is something you do with your voice, too. His is like warm oil.
“As more and more of the young people are working outside the farms, in factories and such, we are concerned about their devotion to Scripture, just because of the time they must spend away from us each day. So some of us have been looking into some games that challenge and encourage Bible knowledge.” He pauses. “Board games, for instance.”
My father is still silent.
“Our young people seem to like them, and if we can in good conscience create and sell wooden tops and other completely purposeless toys, why not use some that will help our children memorize scriptures, or remember facts about the Bible?”
My father is saying nothing.
“We would like to leave some of the games with you that we have brought so your young ones can practice, and then when we come back after harvest for the wedding…”
Papa’s voice is strong but not loud.
“You will do no such thing. We don’t want them.”
“Wait,” says Brother Luke, and he turns to the other men, his hands out. “This seems like an important issue. Do the others have any input on it?”
Papa waits a moment and then the silence settles the issue.
“They do not. They came with me here to The Anchor because they trust my judgment. And my leadership.”
None of our men say anything now, because what Papa has said is true.
Now Brother Luke is close to Papa and is saying something to him, his hand on his shoulder, but Papa pushes away his hand and walks away toward us women who pretend we have heard none of it.
“I’ll have some more of that pie,” he is booming and smiling and the women begin to flutter over the covered dishes. “Now, which one was it, the one with the really flakey crust?”
Later in the afternoon Miriam is back and the young man of her attentions, Ryan Herbert, has gone to help with midday chores. He is a tall, blonde man with green eyes and a sense of humor that makes even Miriam laugh, and that is no small feat. She looks longingly out toward the fields where he is and doesn’t seem to notice what I am doing.
Though the Sunday meals are simple, there are so many people to feed and only a little while to rest before supper. Soon the men come back from the fields and go again to the barn to smoke while the young men stand around waiting for the evening hymn-sing and their only time to socialize without many adults around.
Katie comes toward me, holding a woman by the hand. She has black hair that springs out in moist tendrils from her prayer cap and she fans herself with a paper plate. “Leah and Miriam, this is my mother, Sister Elisabeth, the others call her,” Katie announces. I stick my hand out awkwardly as she continues, “But I call her Mama of course.”
I cannot help myself. This woman smells like vanilla, smells like my mama. And she has softnesses in her face, and everywhere. I lean toward her.
Miriam’s alertness has returned and she speaks up, taking control of the conversation, edging me aside and offering her own hand. “So, Sister Elisabeth, this is the first time for you to bring your family to The Anchor?”
A toddler is tugging at Sister Elisabeth’s apron and she motions toward the child and then toward two school-age boys who are tussling over a wooden slingshot.
“I have been either expecting, or with little children, each time the others have come. But Katie and Matthaus insisted this time.”
At the sound of Matthaus’s name I blush, I know I do. And he hears his name I suppose, because he is suddenly there, standing beside his mother and his sister, his
arm around each. I see them together in a row and it is as if they are triplets, for their dark eyes and hair and crooked sweet smiles are just alike, but he has corners and edges where they don’t. But I find I cannot look long and I begin poking at a rock with my boot while Miriam is talking about the long wagon ride to get here.
Nearby, other young people are talking in low tones about the disagreement between Papa and Brother Luke and I listen to them and not Miriam, because I see Matthau’s boots now walking a step toward that group and I don’t want to talk about Miriam’s wagon springs and asphalt.
“I don’t know why Brother Abe feels so strongly. I like the Bible games,” says Orrin Knittle, who has been coming to The Anchor since the first time the Amish visited us. “The trivia one is fun. Sometimes the questions are really hard, and it makes me go look up the answer.”
“Like what kind of questions?” someone asks.
Orrin furrows his brown. “Like, who was the lame grandson of King Saul?”
The young men stand silent for a while.
John Miller, Minni’s son whose engagement was just announced, speaks up.
“Ask Leah. She knows the Bible better than most of the men.”
I feel them all looking toward me, so I swallow hard.
“So,” says Matthaus, and his voice is kind. “Leah-who-knows-the-Bible-better- than-anyone, what was the name of said crippled boy?”
I freeze. Something about King Saul hurts my eyes or my mind and stops my thinking processes for a moment. I can’t be weird now, I just can’t. I struggle and then remember.
“Mephibosheth,” I whisper.
I hear a low whistle.
“Leah who does indeed know the Bible,” Matthau says, and I think I hear admiration in his voice. But at that moment Caleb-Miller-the-brat raises his head up from the top he has been spinning.
“Well, she may know the Bible but it doesn’t help much because my mama says she thinks dead people talk to her.”
“What do they say? And does she answer?” One of the visitor young men is snickering.
All the warm air whooshes away and I feel cold again. I start to walk away but Sister Elisabeth tries to catch me by the arm. I look into her eyes, pleading, and slip out of her grasp. I walk very, very fast back to my house and Miriam doesn’t try to stop me because now everyone knows, and she wants to stay for the singing where Ryan will be.
I have sat now in my courtyard for two hours, but I stopped crying a long time ago. The sun has set and though I have a pang of conscience I don’t think I can go out and help with the meal. Someone has already made excuses for me and I don’t want to face anyone. Besides, I know that neither Miriam nor Sarah would take the time to walk me back, and it will be dark soon.
I can hear the singing going on, the strong young men’s voices showing that they know the words, and the sweetness of the girls who show they can follow, that it is good to follow.
I know they will sing for hours more because I have always sat here in the courtyard and listened to the teenagers singing, every time the Amish have come, since The Anchor’s beginnings.
This is the first year where I could be considered almost old enough to participate and I’d hoped. . .
I hear a rustle near the wrought iron gates and I get up from the chair and pull my cape around me. It is too early for the dreams, and I am awake, but the darkness is when they come and I must not be outside when they do. I turn to go inside but I hear a voice.
“Leah, wait.”
I freeze. It is Matthaus.
“What do you want?”
“Just to, to talk, I guess.” His voice sounds tired.
“Talk to the freak?” I am speaking over my shoulder, still walking toward the back door of my house.
“No. I want to share some things with you.”
I stop because him doing the talking was not what I would have expected. I thought he’d be wanting explanations from me. I walk back toward the iron gates and I can see his outline against the bright moonlight.
“How long have you been there?”
I hear him hesitate.
“I guess about ten minutes before you stopped crying.”
I try to remember if I sobbed or blew my nose or how I cried. I only remember how hot the tears were on my face, and my apron is still damp. But I don’t feel as if he eavesdropped, and I wonder why I feel that way. I think of Job’s three friends, sitting for a week in silence with their suffering friend on an ash heap.
“Okay. I’ll listen.”
“What I heard about you, about communicating with the dead, I’ve heard from other people.”
I can hardly believe my ears.
“Other Amish?”
I hear a soft sound that sounds like a snort, then he says, “No.”
“Then who? In town?”
“Yes, in town. I work at a factory, at night, stocking the shelves with supplies for the manufacturing plant.”
I wait.
“One night I got to work early. The man who gives me a ride works there too. That night he had to run some errands and I was afraid he might make us late, so I asked him to drop me off at the store. I was sitting on the curb waiting and a group of kids, my age probably, came walking toward me, Goths.”
Goths. I try the word out on my tongue like Caleb-the-brat did with “quince.”
“Do you know what that means?”
I am ashamed to say no because I am still in the As of the dictionary. It will be years before I get to the Gs. He takes my silence for the ignorance that it is.
“They are dressed all in black, with long coats. And all of them, the guys too, have black lines around their eyes and all of them have black hair and black fingernail polish. They start talking to me, teasing me a little bit because I am, so, Amish.” He laughs a little bit and it is a kind sound, laughing at himself. “And they try to shock me and I guess it works, but they aren’t being mean, just curious about how I’ll react. I ask them where they are going and they say things I can’t understand—not because it’s in English but because the words are strange. Like the word Goth itself, I guess.”
I nod at him. For the first time I can see his face and I realize I have been walking toward him as he spoke.
“And these people—dead people talk to them?”
“Not exactly. But they believe it’s possible. And they have books about it, and there are movies and television shows about all kinds of. . .” (here he searches for a word) “creatures or beings that are dead or have been dead.”
I shudder, and I know he sees it.
I whisper my question. “Where do they live? Do they live in the fields?”
He looks at me sharply.
“In houses, I guess. Some of the older ones are out on their own. But the ones I know are young, so they live in houses, with their families.”
I think about this. In houses. With their families.
“So why are you telling me this?” I ask him. “It scares me even more.”
He seems to crumple a bit when I say that.
“I don’t know. I’ve wondered about what they said, and talked to some of the other guys too. We went to a couple of movies in town, about. . . dead people. My parents don’t know, of course. I just thought it might help you to not feel alone.”
I look out at the moon now rising above his head.
“Thank you, I guess.”
He looks at me through the bars and I feel like I am in jail. Then he moves suddenly.
“I almost forgot to tell you that my mother wanted to talk to you, too.”
I am feeling very weary. “I can do that in the morning, I suppose. You’ll all leave around dawn, as usual?”
“I promised her I would bring her to you tonight.”
I cannot answer him, no matter how awkward the silence is. He stops looking at me and looks up at the grape arbor.
“All right. Bring her to the front door of my house.”
I sit in my chair for a couple of minutes afte
r he leaves, and then I clean my feet carefully and go through the house and open the front door. Sister Elisabeth is hurrying around the corner. She comes into our front room, puffing a little bit and trying to hide it, and sits beside me on the long bench, silent for a minute or two, with her arms around me.
“Some of the women told me about your mother’s passing and how you have grieved,” she murmurs into my ear. “I am so, so sorry.”
I lean into her, the first time I have yielded to anyone since Mama died. I feel myself melting onto her. She is making sounds like Mama used to make sometimes, a kind of a deep sound like mourning birds.
“I want to help you,” she is saying. “I want to help comfort you.”
I nod into her shoulder and I think I am going to cry.
“I want to help you get over this sadness,” she says.
I can’t imagine what she could do. What anyone could do.
“I can’t take your mother’s place. But I can be a friend to you and tell you what your mother would tell you. Your mother would want you to get over this, dear one. She wouldn’t want you to be focusing on this, this communicating with the dead.”
My melting against her hardens up like butter in a chilled bowl. With all the strength I have left, I push myself gently away from her and lift my face so she can see my eyes.
I will never forget how she reacts to what I say.
“No, Sister Elisabeth, she doesn’t want me to forget. That’s why she talks to me every night.”
Autumn
Chapter 5
When our Amish friends left last summer they were like the children of Israel leaving Egypt, for our people loaded them down with the best we had, fragrant cedar planks from our forest and so many paper-wrapped jars of fruits and vegetables that the floors of the wagon beds rose nearly to the side rails. One of the last things I saw in the pale morning light was people riding in the wagons with their knees chest-high as if they were sitting on toy benches, lurching with the motion of the wheels over the ruts of our road, the horses straining already and the journey and the hot day just beginning.
What Will Be Made Plain Page 4
