Tea with Jam and Dread

by Tamar Myers

  TWENTY-TWO

  It has been said that I possess an active imagination. Mama used to say that I never knew where the truth left off and the imaginary began. My high school creative writing teacher, Mr James D. Sodt, even suggested that I might consider trying my hand at fiction writing. More’s the pity that I don’t agree with them. I don’t think that I have what it takes to write a recipe for boiling water.

  Thus it was that while mounted high in the custom-made saddle of Rudy’s John Deere tractor, the only scenario that I could place myself in was the Jewish nation of Palestine in the third century BCE. I was Alexander the Great, astride my war elephant, leading my army up to conquer Jerusalem and destroy the city. However, I would soon change my mind and spare this holy city. In the account given by Josephus, in his history titled The Jewish Wars, I would be met by the Jewish High Priest, Eliezer, dressed in crimson robes. The reception given me, and the glory of the temple, would so overwhelm me that I would spare Jerusalem and, in fact, offer a sacrifice of my own. From that day, until this, the name Alexander would be popular with Jews around the world.

  Of course, lacking an imagination, I had only to pretend that I was Alexander the Great. The rest was recorded history, and recently corroborated by the excavation of an ancient synagogue in Galilee which has a mosaic floor that depicts a war elephant, presumably that of the great Greek general. All that, by the way, I managed to glean from an issue of Hadassah magazine in the gynaecologist’s office, followed up by a visit to my local library.

  Whereas Alexander the Great was met by anxious Jewish officials, I was met by a most curious Jewish husband. ‘What the heck are you doing riding a tractor, Mags? And where have you been? While these morons have been looking for a non-existent battered corpse, I’ve been looking for you!’

  ‘Did you try calling?’

  ‘Only a million times.’

  I fished for my phone in the pocket of my modest, calf-length skirt. If you ask me, the world was a much simpler and therefore better place before these ding-dang things were invented. Family was never meant to be separated further apart than shouting distance. If you don’t believe me, then look to nature. Wolves live in packs, birds live in flocks, fish live in schools and starlings swirl in magnificent murmurations. If that is not enough to convince you, just try to imagine the twelve disciples, each with their own smartphone. I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but instead of following Jesus they might well have wandered off to wherever reception was the best and totally ignored their Lord and Master. Yes, siree, and Bob’s your uncle – wireless devices are one of the Devil’s favourite playthings, just like women’s lingerie catalogues are His favourite reading material.

  I glanced at the cursed object in my hand, which had clearly been turned off. ‘Oops,’ I said. ‘It must have accidentally got turned off.’

  ‘Great Danes and butterscotch cookies!’ My Beloved was becoming quite fluent in the art of Mennonite swearing.

  I smiled as winsomely as is possible for a woman who is getting long in the tooth and who would do well to begin standing on her head for eight hours a day to counteract the forces of nature. I also relied on a trick I picked up from watching a TV program; this one while waiting to see my dentist.

  ‘You really look good in that colour,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your royal blue shirt,’ I said. ‘It sets off your tan and frames your face beautifully. That’s one that you picked out, right?’

  ‘Mags, you know that I choose all my own clothes. I always have – not that I don’t trust you; it’s just that you’re kind of – uh—’

  ‘Conservative?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Babester said, ‘but that’s what I like about you. What the heck, why are we talking about the clothes? Let’s get back to the tractor.’

  ‘Oh, this little old thing?’ I climbed down, taking care to gather my skirts, for by now the so-called morons had crowded around us, and among them were at least half-a-dozen sexually repressed teenage Mennonite boys.

  ‘I see London, I see France, and I see Yoder’s underpants!’

  I felt myself turn a shade of Scottish white after a long, soggy winter. After all, only two men had ever seen my underpants – my current husband and Aaron Miller, my pseudo-husband, he of my inadvertent adulterous affair.

  ‘My Land o’ Goshen!’ I yelled. ‘Shame on you, you naughty earl. You’re supposed to be a gentleman, not a peeping Tom.’

  ‘I’ve a mind to punch his lights out,’ growled the Babester. He might have done it too, except that he was holding Little Jacob in his muscular arms.

  ‘Hit him, Daddy,’ hollered Alison, and she made smallish girl fists as she danced up and down in the small space allotted her by the crush of people. ‘Punch him in the nose.’

  ‘No one is getting punched,’ I said. ‘Although, shame on me, because I am supposed to be a pacifist and, truth be told, I would dearly love to have my husband avenge my honour.’

  ‘Oh, poppycock,’ the earl said. ‘Teasing a grown woman about her knickers is hardly a crime that merits vengeance.’

  ‘You tell her!’ The bleating voice belonged to none other than Daphne Diffledorf, my pastor’s wife.

  ‘Shut up,’ Agnes said, her voice seemingly coming from nowhere.

  My best buddy is, to put it frank, squat. She is short and round. She is most easily spotted from an aerial shot – taken perhaps from a drone or a helicopter. However, she can be hard to find in a crowd when one is searching for her on the ground, unless one is adept at reading signs. One such sign is the birds hovering above her in hopes of crumbs falling from her omnipresent snacks. That Sunday, I had been too focused on the oily earl to pay attention to swooping sparrows and swirling starlings.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Daphne demanded of her husband’s flock. ‘And me, a pastor’s wife?’

  ‘Perhaps you should act like one, then.’ The speaker was a woman, but she spoke so softly that I couldn’t identify her. Never mind, I would ferret her out later and have Freni bake her a cake.

  ‘Amen,’ Ned Baumgartner said.

  Trust me, old Ned was getting a cake as well.

  ‘Magdalena,’ handsome Toy said, making an appearance for the first time, ‘where’s the princess?’

  ‘She’s a countess, Toy, and she is on her way back to England as I speak.’

  ‘Come again?’ Toy said.

  ‘She is returning home to Doomsburythorpe,’ I said.

  ‘For your information, Miss Yoder,’ Sebastian said, pushing his way to the forefront of the crowd, ‘the name of our estate is Gloomsburythorpe – but only if you must pronounce everything in that dreadful American accent. With your mouths so full of vowels it is a wonder you have any room for all those blinding teeth. Rather like Chicklets, I should say. Ha!’

  ‘Jolly good, that,’ said his father, the Earl of Grimsley-Snodgrass. ‘Now what’s all this nonsense about my dear Aubrey returning to the proper side of the pond?’

  ‘Nonsense, is it?’ It had been a struggle not to sound harsh. Here was a man who loved his wife enough to play along in a very complicated charade in order to ease her pain. But the earl was so unlikeable!

  ‘Miss Yoder,’ the earl huffed, ‘Her Ladyship would never abandon her son. Surely not while his broken and bleeding body lies somewhere at the base of this cliff waiting to be discovered.’

  I thought fast. Thinking fast is something that I am quite used to doing, as a matter of fact. I’m not boasting, mind you; it is a genetic trait that I inherited from both of my biological parents who were double second cousins, third cousins four different ways, and fifth cousins so many times over that I am, in fact, my own cousin. Give me a sandwich and I constitute a family picnic.

  ‘Where is the lovely Lady Celia?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m standing right behind you,’ a young British girl answered. ‘I am surprised that you didn’t sense me. I’ve been boring holes through your head with my eyes. Usually people turn around, you see, giv
en that I have these psychic powers with which to command them.’

  ‘If you’re so psychic, why can’t you find Rupert?’ Those words just slipped out of my mouth, like those lima beans did one Sunday dinner with Granny Hostetler.

  ‘How dare you!’ said the Earl of Grimsley-Snodgrass in the most convincing bit of playacting I’d ever witnessed. His stiff upper lip must have been reinforced with steel bars if he truly believed that his son’s broken body lay unclaimed somewhere at the base of Stucky Ridge.

  ‘Whoa, Mags,’ the Babester said, and he actually tried to physically restrain me with one of his strong, tanned arms. Believe me, one can count on less of a reaction by throwing petrol on a fire.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Grimsley-Snodgrass, but Lady Aubrey told me what’s really going on.’

  The earl stiffened, seemingly frozen in place as if he were playing the children’s game that we called Statues. Meanwhile, his two children searched his face for guidance.

  ‘Oh, it’s quite all right, dears,’ I said. ‘The charade is over; I know everything.’

  ‘This is going to be good,’ Alison said, stepping up beside me to get a ringside seat of the action. I can’t say that I blame the gal; she is a very bright young teen and life in Hernia can be rather boring, if farm chores and cleaning guest rooms are not your cup of tea.

  Hearing that the charade was over, the starch went out of the earl’s face, along with the colour. Forsooth, his cheeks sagged so much that his monocle slipped but was quickly jammed back in place. In that microsecond, however, I saw something that raised the fine hairs along the nape of my neck and set to ringing an alarm bell in some seldom-used corridor of my mind, as it were. I can’t define my feelings further other than to say that they were quite unsettling. Then again, I’d nibbled on one of Janet Ticklebloomers’ egg salad sandwiches an hour earlier, and given my luck that day, salmonella was a possible explanation for them.

  ‘What do you mean by everything? Rally, I should tread very carefully if I were you, Yoder. You Americans have this silly notion that one is innocent until proven guilty. Ha, ha, what a preposterous idea. We Brits, on the other hand, make one prove that one is innocent of a crime. That is a far harder task, you know.’

  ‘Hold it right there, Your Highness,’ Toy said. ‘No one is accusing you of crime, and if someone was, it would be me. I am the law around here, not Miss Yoder – I mean, Mrs Magdalena Yoder Rosen.’

  ‘Whatever,’ the earl said. ‘I don’t care about her name. And it is not me who is in danger of being accused of a crime, but she!’

  ‘Moi?’ I said.

  ‘My mom?’ Alison said.

  ‘Yes, you,’ the earl said. ‘If you say anything libellous, I will sue you in Her Majesty’s court, and upon winning, which I shall, you will be left with nothing but your string of worthless names.’

  ‘Why, I never,’ I wailed.

  ‘And it is no wonder that you haven’t,’ said Daphne Diffledorf, my pastor’s wife. ‘With all that wailing, you sound like a fire engine station!’

  ‘Hey lady, leave my mom alone,’ Alison said.

  The assembly murmured, many approvingly. ‘Hear that?’ said Daphne. ‘This woman with the unsaved Jewish husband is causing our flock to wander astray, each man to his own way. Scripture warns us against that.’

  ‘You’re misquoting that scripture verse,’ I said. ‘And for your information, Earl, I have no intention of slandering you. In any event, I have decided to address my remarks to the good folks of Hernia’ – I paused to give Daphne Diffledorf a meaningful look – ‘and I repeat, the good folks of Hernia. According to the woman known as Countess Aubrey of Grimsley-Snodgrass, who has since departed for a gentler, moister clime, her eldest twin son, known as Viscount Rupert, perished approximately a year ago in a polo accident.’

  Alison isn’t the only one in our village who is starving for entertainment. Virtually every one, including the pastor and his wife, pressed in to hear what I would say next, and since I am but slightly claustrophobic, I managed to keep my wits about me by scrambling back aboard the tractor.

  ‘I see London, I see France—’ the earl began childishly.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Daphne Diffledorf in a most un-Mennonite way. Two seconds of silence followed her outburst, and then the mostly Mennonite crowd gasped with such strength that their combined suction caused the wheat that had not been trampled to ripple in waves across the field.

  ‘Now she’s done it,’ cried Alison gleefully, and she hopped from foot to foot, slapping them in turn in an impromptu heathenish jig.

  ‘Spit it out, Mags, I’m begging you,’ said the Babester, ‘before our daughter causes you-know-who to bust a gut.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain. You see, folks, the countess’s grief at losing her son has been so intense that she has been in denial all along.’

  ‘Moses was in the Nile,’ said Nora Shnootheimer, ‘but that was a long time ago, I reckon. Didn’t know the Nile was still around.’

  ‘Well, it ain’t,’ said Harvey Gruber. ‘They closed that thing down years ago on account of the virus; West Nile Virus, they even called it. Margaret, it ain’t a sin to read the papers, you know?’

  ‘People,’ I hollered. When I put my mind to it, my pipes can be heard three counties over. Once, just the sound of me bellowing caused a tree to drop its leaves simultaneously, all the way down in the State of Maryland. I know this to be true, because my fourth cousin, once-removed, Prudence Mast, wrote and told me this on her hand-pressed, lavender-scented stationery, something that she would never do had it not been so.

  Having got everyone’s attention, I kept nothing back. ‘And so you see,’ I concluded, ‘I have here, as my honoured guests, three of the kindest, most self-sacrificing human beings on the planet. This bereaved father, albeit an earl, and his two grieving offspring were acting like a normal family on an American holiday – that’s what the Brits call a vacation, Nora, Harvey – just to ease Her Ladyship’s breaking heart.

  ‘But’ – I paused dramatically – ‘just as a rubber band can be stretched too tight, so it is with the human psyche. Up there at Lover’s Leap, poor young Lady Celia experienced a break from reality and thought that she imagined her deceased brother, Rupert, being pushed over the cliff by his twin. This doesn’t—’

  ‘I protest!’ Cee-Cee cried as she raised a dainty white fist high above her golden head.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ roared her father as he punched the air with an impromptu walking stick made from a length of dead sycamore branch.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Ascribe your own motive to lying to these good people and depriving them of their much-needed Sabbath rest. And since this was not an emergency, and therefore cannot be construed as an act of charity, Rudy Swinefister will be more than happy to assess you for the damages. Hmm, let’s see: ten rows of trampled wheat comes out to be …’ I turned to my husband. ‘Are you good at converting dollars into pounds?’

  Well, that certainly did the trick; that took the wind right out of the earl’s sails. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said without moving his lips the breadth of a human hair, ‘weh tebbly close, you see. But you must undahstand that the dual role that my son Sebastian played was only to ease his mothah’s aching hawt.’

  So it was that when the wind left the earl’s sails it took with it his ability to pronounce the letter ‘r.’ All of a sudden the most incomprehensible switch was flipped in my brain: whereas hitherto I have insisted that the only way to say a word is to pronounce all the letters, like the Good Lord intended, I now found the earl’s dropped consonants functioned as an aphrodisiac.

  Now, a thoroughly modern woman like Millie Freedenbauer would tell you that it was the stress that made me think like that. The truth is, however, that it was the Devil – or one of his minions – plain and simple. Fortunately, I knew a sure-fire if only temporary remedy for routing them.

  ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ I bellowed.

  Perhaps I should have given the earl a he
ads-up, or at least a primer on sexual repression, guilt and redemption. The poor man reared like a horse chancing upon a snake – which indeed he might well have been, given that the Devil was so near.

  ‘What the blazes?’ he demanded. ‘Has this woman lost her mind?’

  ‘Are you implying that she ever had one?’ Daphne Diffledorf said.

  ‘Ha, jolly good that,’ the earl said, and whether or not he intended to do so he poured petrol on difficult Daphne’s metaphoric fire.

  ‘I suppose now you’ll be changing your mind about spending tonight at her den of iniquity,’ Daphne said.

  ‘Say what?’ the earl said.

  ‘Well,’ said Daphne, ‘any number of murders have been committed there, and since murder is the worst of sins, it only stands to reason that other sins, such as fornication, usury, lying, envy, dishonouring one’s parents – and of course, adultery, have all taken place under her roof.’

  ‘It was inadvertent adultery,’ I wailed. ‘And I have never knowingly engaged in usury; I’m not even sure I know what it is.’

  At that, the new Viscount of Grimsley-Snodgrass, the surviving twin, Sebastian, jumped to my defence. ‘If you were to seek my opinion,’ he said, ‘Mrs Rosen Yoder is inadvertent in just about everything that she says and does. It surely isn’t her lifestyle that bothers me; it’s the desiccated corpse that she keeps on her lift.’

  You could have heard a frog fart all the way over from Miller’s pond. Unfortunately, that golden silence lasted all of two seconds, and then a torrent of noise broke loose. Thanks heavens that Toy was the first to react, and he did so by blowing a small, silver-tone whistle that had become tangled in his chest hairs.

  ‘You,’ Toy said, pointing at Sebastian, ‘do not have diplomatic immunity, so get that notion out of your head, if that’s what you were thinking. One more word about what you saw at Miss Yoder’s this morning and I will have you put back on the first plane to London. Do I make myself clear?’