by Tamar Myers
I nodded. I understood perfectly now. An Amish person—indeed, even most Mennonites—would rather walk naked through Times Square than be proud. Even if that pride is somehow justified. Utter humility is our ultimate goal. We are, as Susannah puts it, proud of our humility.
I glanced at my watch. Almost six hours had passed since Hooter Faun had said the magic words that were destined to change my life. Of course, the words weren’t hers, but Aaron’s, but you know what I mean. The point was, even if he jogged all the way from Hernia, Aaron was going to arrive sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I had a lot left to do.
“Thanks for everything,” I said.
I was being sincere. Bishop Kreider had at least convinced me that he was an honorable and God-fearing man. If, however, he ran off to Indiana with a parishioner named Pat, I would have to reconsider my opinion.
“Godspeed,” the Bishop said. “It’s too bad you aren’t Amish, Miss Yoder. I have a brother-in-law, now a widower—”
I left the bishop to his Haufa Mischt. I have nothing against Amish men, but Aaron Daniel Miller was closing in by the minute. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I could feel his body heat. Waves of it were wafting in from the direction of Hernia, undoubtedly melting the snow and hastening my Pooky Bear’s arrival. The last thing I wanted to do was stand by a manure pile while an Amish yenta fixed me up with a widower in black suspenders.
Blissfully I made a beeline for my car and boogied on in to Farmersburg.
Although I could feel Aaron’s approaching body heat, nobody else in Farmersburg could. Certainly not the thermometers. The one on the aluminum hinge attached to the knee of the Daisybell Dairies cow read six degrees. Wisely I refrained from sticking out my tongue and licking the monstrosity.
When Shirley Stutzman licked the flagpole during recess in third grade it took two thermos bottles of hot water to thaw her loose. Even then, part of Shirley’s tongue decorated the pole until the next warm spell. After that, every time we lined up to say the pledge of allegiance Miss Kuntz put Shirley in the place of honor, directly in front of the pole. After all, it was because of the pole that Shirley Stutzman could no longer say her s’s.
Much to my surprise, Arnold Ledbetter seemed glad to see me.
“Come in, Miss Yoder. Here.” He pushed some papers off a leather armchair and pulled it in front of his desk. “Sit down. I’ve been hoping you’d drop by.”
“You have?”
“Yes. I have some news for you about Mr. Hem.”
“Is Danny Boy all right?”
“Fine as frog hair,” Arnold said. He had the nerve to laugh at his own little joke. “You see, frogs have such fine hair that it can’t be seen!”
I gave him my best Sunday-school-teacher look. “Actually, Mr. Ledbetter, the speckled Congo cavern croaker has an epidermis covered with very coarse hair. Only the reticulated blue-and-green Bulgarian bullfrog is more hirsute. In fact, up until 1927 it was believed to be a species of small porcupine.”
“You don’t say!” His look of respect should have made me feel guilty, but as long as public libraries exist in this country, the truly gullible deserve their fate.
“But I do say. And not only that, if you ever get the opportunity, take a good look at the woolly Siberian catfish. It will knock your socks off. Of course, I’m not here to discuss zoology, am I? Somehow we got steered off the subject at hand.”
He rubbed a stubby hand across his own hair, which formed a black island on the very top of an otherwise bald head.
“Yeah, well, we were talking about Mr. Hem. I was about to tell you that he’s been located.”
“In Aruba?”
The dark eyes which peered out from under the inverted half-moon glasses contained not a glint of humor.
“No, in Charleston, West Virginia. He has a sister there he’s very close to. Someone he can turn to in times of need.”
“Danny Hem is in need?” I asked. “Did the backseat bar in his Mercedes run out of peanuts?”
“Very funny, Miss Yoder. I’m not talking about a man’s material needs here. As it so happens, Mr. Hem is in a state of emotional pain.”
“So he isn’t fine after all. What gives?”
He wagged a short fat finger at me. “You. You’re what gives. It’s you who are responsible for Mr. Hem’s condition.”
“I?”
“Yes, you. You were the one who introduced him to your sister.”
“I most certainly did not! I simply went to park my car, and when I saw Susannah again, the two were entwined like vines on an unpruned trellis. I take no responsibility whatsoever for their liaison. And what does this have to do with emotional turmoil, anyway?”
“Ha! Denial seems to be the disease of the nineties, doesn’t it? Well, just to refresh your memory, your sister set a trap for Mr. Hem, and once she’d caught him, she heartlessly let him go. Broke their engagement just like that.” He tried in vain to snap his pudgy fingers.
Thank goodness I didn’t have any brothers and Papa, despite Mama’s protests, had taught me how to snap my fingers, as well as whistle and launch a mean spit wad. In all modesty, the snap I produced then sounded like a chicken bone cracking.
“Have you got it wrong, buster! It was Danny Boy who dumped Susannah. Not the other way around. And it is I who should be consoled. Because of your boss, my baby sister is off in Aruba consummating her marriage to an inept sheriff.”
Arnold smiled, proving he had lips. “You mean, our sheriff? Marvin Stoltzfus?”
“Yes, good old Marvin Stoltzfus, who missed his calling. Somewhere there is a circus cannon waiting to lob him across center ring. So you see I’m the one who’s supposed to be upset here, not Danny boy.
“And speaking of whom, what’s his sister’s number down in Charleston?”
“It’s an unlisted number.”
“What’s her address then?”
“Sorry, but I’m not privileged to divulge that kind of information.”
“I see. Well then, do you have anything to prove that Danny Hem is even alive, much less staying at his sister’s place in West Virginia? I mean, for all I know he could be inside one of your cheese presses getting the headache of the century.”
Arnold jumped up and practically yanked that leather armchair out from under me.
“I don’t have to take this kind of abuse, Miss Yoder. You want to make your snide little accusations, you take them outside. Mr. Hem is fine, like I told you. Now get the hell out.”
I am all for liberated women, but the fact remains, the average man is stronger than the average woman. Still, the shoe marks on his office linoleum attest to the fact that, by becoming dead weight, women can retard the process of eviction. As for the teeth marks on his hands, I plead the Fifth Amendment.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It was getting dark by the time I knocked on Annie Stutzman’s door. I don’t blame her for being cautious, but there is a limit, you know. She made me stand outside in the bitter cold while she grilled me like she was the Gestapo. Understandably, I was slow to reveal a few identifying facts about myself.
“Okay, my middle name is Portulaca, and I’m forty-six. But I won’t tell you my weight.”
“Then you’re not coming in!”
“All right. I weigh one hundred and ten in my clothes and ninety-nine dripping wet.”
“You do not! You might be flat on top, Magdalena, but you’ve definitely got a Yoder bottom.”
“Aha! So you do know it’s me. Now open up, Annie, before I freeze to death out here. It’s almost zero degrees.”
The door cracked just wide enough to tease me with a ribbon of warm air and the smells of supper.
“You by yourself, Magdalena?”
“Yes. Please, Annie, let me in. I need to talk to you.” The door opened wide enough for one of my shoes, and it was all over but the pushing. Once I was inside, Annie seemed glad to see me.
“I was expecting company, but it looks like they won’t be coming aft
er all. You want to stay for supper?”
“That depends. What’s cooking?”
“Skillet pot roast. It was my Samuel’s favorite.”
“What’s for dessert?”
“Chocolate crazy cake. I just baked it this afternoon.”
“Well—”
“Please. I’ll even whip up some cream for the cake.” I relented and sat down to a sumptuous feast that couldn’t possibly have been intended for one woman alone. The crazy cake, when it was served, seemed to confirm this observation. Although it had been freshly iced, I detected several dozen little holes, about the size made by birthday-candle holders.
“Annie, dear,” I said over my third helping of cake, “you wouldn’t by any chance consider yourself a nosy, interfering gossip would you?”
“Why I never, Magdalena!”
“Of course, I meant that as a compliment, dear. Some people are just more observant than others. There are those who say it’s a gift.”
“Oh well, that’s true,” she said, “but I would hardly call myself nosy. And I’m certainly not a gossip!”
“Of course not, dear,” I agreed. “But it would be a shame if those astute observations of yours were kept all to yourself. Nobody would benefit from them, right?”
“Right.” Annie folded her napkin into precise thirds before carefully tucking it into a wooden ring.
“On the other hand, if some of those observations were inaccurate, and they involved your friends and neighbors, and you passed them along anyway, then you could be accused of spreading rumors.”
Annie’s fork froze just outside her mouth. “Now what’s this about me spreading rumors?”
“Oh, did I accuse you of spreading rumors?”
“Don’t you be coy with me, Magdalena. I’ve known you since you were in diapers.”
I licked both sides of my fork. That frozen stuff in tubs can’t hold a candle to freshly whipped cream.
“It’s just that a number of people have quoted you as a source of misinformation on a very sensitive subject.”
“They have?”
“Yes, dear, they have.” I pointed politely to my upper lip.
Annie, sharp as a tack, wiped the whipped cream off her mustache. “What have these people been saying?”
“That you’ve been telling everyone Levi Mast was possessed.”
“But he was! I saw him myself. Flapping his arms and crowing like a rooster. That’s something only a possessed man would do, isn’t it?”
I caught her gaze and did my best to hold it. “Is it? Do you honestly believe that Levi Mast was possessed, dear?”
“Well, uh—”
“Or was he acting like those hippies sometimes acted? You know, the ones who led your Samuel astray.”
“Levi Mast was not a hippie!”
“That’s beside the point. The point is, you’ve been telling everyone that Levi was possessed. Yost too. Do you realize what that has done to this community?”
“But the bishop thinks it’s possession, Magdalena. And so does Stayrook, who is an ordained minister.”
“But you don’t, do you?”
She wouldn’t answer.
“You didn’t want to tell anyone that you suspected drugs because that would remind them of your Samuel, and how he ran off with the hippies, right?”
She nodded.
“Then why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut altogether?”
Annie’s face looked just like the one on my rubber doll after Papa backed over it with his pickup truck. Of course, Molly didn’t have a mustache.
“So I may have embellished things a little from time to time, Magdalena. And maybe left a few things out. But I don’t see any harm in that. When you get to be my age, and are living by yourself, you need to do—” She paused to wipe tears from her eyes with the corner of her apron.
“Do what, dear?”
“Well, certain things so that people will pay attention.”
I patted her sleeve. “Negative attention isn’t what we really want, is it, dear?”
She jerked her sleeve away and began gathering up my dishes.
“Just you wait and see, Magdalena. You might not understand now, but you will. Forty-six and still not married. You’ll see what it’s like to be lonely.
“Now when Samuel was here—” The apron made another pass. “When my Samuel was here, things were different. But an old woman alone is just that. You’ll see soon enough.”
But I won’t, I thought. I’ll have my Pooky Bear and we’ll rock away our old age on the porch of the PennDutch, provided it isn’t winter. I glanced at my watch. How had I let so much time get away from me? Even if he crawled, Aaron could be at the Troyers’ by now.
“Thanks for a delicious supper,” I said, jumping up. I did my duty by grabbing what dishes were left and carting them over to the sink.
“Ach, you’re not going yet, are you, Magdalena?”
“Why yes, dear. Tempus fugit."
“Please, no slang.”
“I’m expecting company myself, Annie. I have to get back to the Troyers’.”
“But you can’t leave me alone tonight. Not now that you’re here.” She must have seen the resistance in my eyes. “Can’t you stay at least a little bit longer?”
I reached for my purse. “Maybe next time. I’ve really got to go now, dear.”
Annie’s touch on my sleeve was softer than a cool spring breeze. “Please stay, Magdalena. Please stay at least until I’m asleep.”
“What? What’s going on here, Annie?”
“Tonight is my Samuel’s birthday.” She swallowed hard. “It’s also the anniversary of when he left to go with those hippies off to India. The supper you just ate was for Samuel. I make it every year, just in case he might decide to come back.
“I used to think that time would take care of everything. Maybe dim my memory. At least heal the pain. But it doesn’t, you know. Not very much, at least. I can still see Samuel riding off with those hippies in their car painted like a rainbow. Riding off and laughing.” She shuddered. “Today it was thirty years. I thought he’d come back today. Of course, he didn’t. But you did, Magdalena. You came and ate Samuel’s supper with me. You made tonight bearable. Please, Magdalena. Please stay a little longer. Just until I’m asleep. Please?”
“Well, I—uh—”
“Please, Magdalena. You’re my cousin’s child. You’re all I have. You’re my only friend. You can’t abandon me now.”
It would have been impossible for me to leave just then. There was something in both Annie’s voice and her words that dredged up all the guilt that Mama had tried but failed to produce in me. Even Mama’s favorite standby, the thirty-six-hour-labor story, was impotent compared to this.
I suppose a lot of it had to do with the fact that Annie Stutzman was alone, a veritable hermit, in a community where aloneness is unheard of. Whether it was shame or defensiveness that motivated her I don’t know, but Annie Stutzman had succeeded in all but alienating herself from her friends and neighbors. To put it bluntly, she had become a pest. And even though it was clear to me that the distance that existed between Annie and her community was one that she was primarily responsible for creating, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. At a time in her life when Annie should have felt particularly loved and cherished—gathered up to the bosom of her church, so to speak—she was alone and lonely.
What made it all so tragic was that it needn’t have been so. True, Annie’s children had left the community, possibly even the faith, to get away from their father’s legacy, but had they remained behind in Farmersburg, the community would have continued to offer their loving support. Of that I am sure. After all, there probably isn’t one Amish family in Farmersburg, or anywhere for that matter, that hasn’t, in its history, had at least one troubled soul defect from the fold.
Although it broke my heart to hear the woman claim me as her only friend, it was, as I said, the guilt that gave me no choice but to stay. How coul
d I abandon Annie, as Susannah says I abandoned her?
Please understand that I never intended to abandon my sister. In fact, for years I honestly believed that I hadn’t. After all, I was also in shock when our parents died, and felt just as cut loose as Susannah did. True, I was ten years older than my sister, but I had the burden of the farm placed suddenly on my shoulders. I tried to look out for Susannah, I really did, but I obviously failed.
If I had given more of myself to my sister in those early days, I’m sure she wouldn’t have run off and married that Presbyterian. She surely wouldn’t have felt a need to throw herself at anything in pants, and wouldn’t, at that very moment, be trying to validate her worth by consummating a marriage to a man she didn’t even know, and whose ears were large enough to span two time zones.
“Of course I’ll stay with you, dear,” I heard myself say. If my Pooky Bear was in town, and had meant what he’d said, then he would wait.
“Ach, Magdalena, you are so sweet,” Annie cooed.
My guilt barometer plummeted further. I am not sweet. I only agreed to stay to assuage my guilt for having abandoned Susannah. I certainly was not doing it out of kindness. Nor did I intend to do it cheerfully.
After I washed the dishes and helped Annie finish one of the quilts she was working on, I literally tucked her into bed. The fact that I made her a cup of cocoa and read her some comforting passages from the Bible is incidental. I’m sure Annie knew I was eager to leave. Consequently, I will accept no credit for charity.
As soon as her eyes closed I was out that door like a stallion who smells a brood mare. Only the other way around, of course. If Annie Stutzman woke up in the middle of the night I would be only a pleasant memory, making, I hoped, pleasant memories of my own.
It was snowing. Not flakes, just that fine powdery stuff that is the result of intense cold. Even my headlight beams revealed only a vague general whiteness, as if the clouds were being fed through flour sifters. But the snow was coming down at a good rate and had obviously been doing so for some time. In the time it had taken me to assuage my guilt, several inches had piled up, and I had to clear off the windshield before going anywhere. In retrospect I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had taken the time to clear the rear windows as well. But I was in hurry to see my Pooky Bear and couldn’t be bothered with such minor issues as personal safety.
