As time passed, Teresa grew to love gentle Sister Rosina. The nun, unlike Sister Gertrude, never held Teresa on her lap, but she was tender in the attention she paid to the girl. She often called her “smart.” In particular, Sister Rosina praised Teresa’s writing, as day after day, she handed in stories written at home.
“Maybe someday you’ll be published,” Sister Rosina said.
Encouraging Teresa to write, Sister Rosina assigned her to translate, each Monday, the priest’s hour-long Sunday sermon at Saint Anthony. This Teresa did. First, she translated the German sermon in her mind; then she wrote it in English. She loved this chore for she loved everything about Saint Anthony. Its High Mass’s pageantry soothed her. When choral voices surrounded her, Teresa sensed her mother’s presence beside her in the pew.
•
That spring, a nasty strain of influenza struck Schoenchen. People panicked. Some, covered with blankets, soaked their feet in hot water. Others swallowed small balls of French tallow and then drank piping hot four-flower tea to melt it. The melted tallow oiled lungs and was supposed to cure the disease, but nothing cured Bappa’s mother, Maria. Teresa missed her. An old-fashioned roly-poly lady, Maria once wrapped Teresa in a shawl to keep her warm in the cold church. Her death made the girl so anxious that every morning she checked to see if Bappa or Grandma’s skin had turned blue, a harbinger of death. As days passed and the Biekers remained healthy, Teresa hoped that the awful Spanish flu might pass by them.
In November, the flu vanished as unexpectedly as it had arrived. Thirteen had died in Schoenchen, including Pete, the beloved orphan who watered horses at Bappa’s tank. “Pete’s gone,” Teresa told Fanny. She did not cry, but Pete’s death left her with the odd sensation of a rock stuck in her throat.
•
Meanwhile, Russian news became steadily worse. Communists seized a Volga German village; they kidnapped the leading citizens of another village; they plundered a third village during church services. Similar news came about village after village on both sides of the Volga: food, clothing, wealth, livestock seized; citizens terrorized and often killed. Volga Germans fought back with pitchforks, scythes, axes, farm tools but lost. “We farmers are afraid to work in the fields,” Teresa read. “No house, no horse, no land, and no one’s life is safe.”
After Maria’s death, Bappa’s father, Joseph, in his eighties, came to live with the Biekers. A spindly man never without his tall fur boots, he talked a lot. “He can talk the hind leg off a mule,” Bappa said, and Joseph did rattle on about the good old days in Russia. Everything grew bigger and better there, he claimed.
“Why Russian wild plums must grow larger than oranges,” Teresa told Fanny. “But why did he come to America if he liked Russia so much?”
To go to his room, the guest room, Joseph walked through Teresa’s room. His room contained a mattress, his kerosene lantern, and Bappa’s large Victrola box. When grandchildren visited, Bappa brought the Victrola out, attached the big horn, replaced a needle, wound the machine up, and played his few records. Teresa liked “Silent Night” best. The Victrola wound down as it played, slowing the music’s beat and warping the sound until Bappa wound it up again.
Joseph was filthy and full of lice. Grandma hated lice. She had so little hair that lice never bred on her head, but they loved Teresa’s curly mop. She attracted them as though she were as foul as Joseph. Grandma scrubbed Teresa’s hair daily to keep the tiny insects at bay. Teresa gritted her teeth and tried not to struggle. Bad as her lice were, they didn’t cling as tenaciously to her hair as Joseph’s lice clung to his clothes. Grandma could hardly persuade the vermin to leave. Teresa watched her boil Joseph’s clothes outdoors in a big black kettle used to render fat into soap at butchering time until, at last, the lice disappeared.
That summer the bumper watermelon crop allowed Bappa to stack melons beside the road where Teresa sold them. Bappa no longer owned his store. Generous about letting customers charge, he had had difficulty collecting. Teresa knew, because when he got drunk, he called his lawyer to complain about his debts.
Teresa enjoyed selling watermelons. It brought her into pleasant contact with villagers who chatted as they searched their pouches for coins. Day after day the pile dwindled. When Teresa sold the last melon, she gave Grandma $30. How pleased Grandma and Bappa were with her—a rare occurrence!
•
In the middle of the night, Saint Anthony’s church bell rang like crazy. Fire! Teresa sat up in her dark room, then groped her way into the main room where Grandma stood at the telephone. Bappa lay in bed, a heavy comforter pulled over his shoulder. Then Grandma hung up, turned, and said, “The war is over.”
Teresa couldn’t believe her. The war over? Just like that?
The good news swept through Schoenchen like an untamed river. When Teresa heard horns honk and bells ring, she ran into her room, pulled her dress over her head, and dashed outdoors. Villagers filled the street. Their lanterns created pools of light in the 4 a.m. darkness.
A kind of frenzy filled the air. Men slapped each other on the back and brandished liquor. Women waved their shawls and danced. Children marched ringing cow bells and crying, “The war is over! The war is over!” When Teresa joined the women’s dance, no one seemed to mind. She swirled and spun, dipped and leaped until the rising sun sent everyone home.
In school that day, Teresa listened to Sister Rosina say, “At eleven in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the Great War ended.” That was eleven o’clock French time, six hours later than ours, she explained. She told the class how men met in two railroad coaches in a French forest to sign the treaty. The Germans didn’t come. They sent their acceptance on a machine called a radio, which sends voices over the air.
“Like a telephone?” Teresa said.
“Not quite. When you speak on a telephone, only the people on that line can hear you. But if we had a radio in this room, and someone spoke over it, everyone in the class could hear him.”
Now in seventh grade, Teresa rejoiced that the Allies had won, but she suspected that wars are rarely won, not even by its victors, and especially not the Great War, which caused so much suffering. Sister Rosina said eight to nine million solders were dead, more than had ever been killed in a single war. Teresa could not imagine that many dead men; she couldn’t even imagine a million. Then when Sister Rosina told the class that the Spanish flu killed twice as many people as died in the Great War, Teresa gripped the corners of her desk. How many people were in the world, anyway?
•
When the Schoenchen soldiers returned, Teresa saw that fighting had changed them. After Mass, she and the rest of the congregation shook hands with each returning man. One winked at her, which startled her so she looked at him again. He was humming, “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree.”
She laughed, but Grandma jerked her elbow, “Come along, Trasia.”
At home later, Bappa and Grandma discussed her nephew, Wilhelm, who refused to marry the Schoenchen girl his parents picked out for him. Teresa pricked up her ears. She never heard of a Volga German marrying someone that his parents didn’t choose for him. It just wasn’t done. Everyone knew the rules. However, in the following months, soldier boy after soldier boy refused to marry “his own.” These young men didn’t just refuse to marry Volga German girls from the correct village, some of them refused to marry Volga German girls at all.
Such independence thrilled Teresa. Maybe she could marry whomever she wanted, but when she declared her intent, Grandma said, “No, no. We’ll pick out a fine man for you.” Teresa tried to argue, but Grandma shook her head. “No, you listen to us. The old ways are best.”
But the old ways continued to change. Young local woman mimicked America’s Roaring Twenties styles. Hair was bobbed. Skirts no longer swept the streets; they rose daringly to the ankle. Women exchanged shawls worn over the head for fashionable hats. Necklines crept downward.
“Gran
dma, why don’t you shorten your skirts a little?” Teresa said. “You’d look so stylish.”
“Stylish?” Grandma snorted. “Those hussies!”
When the fashionable young women wore hats, bobbed hair, shortened skirts, and drooping necklines to church, Father Wenzel branded their new styles dangerous to health and morals; he scolded the women for wearing them: “They are the hallmarks of loose women.”
Grandma nudged Teresa.
But Teresa envied those women. She so wanted to be daring and stylish.
•
The next afternoon, Teresa saw Grandma slide her pint of moonshine whiskey from behind her sugar sack and pour herself a drink. She didn’t bother to hide the pint again. Seeing Grandma drink so openly annoyed Teresa. Grandma didn’t used to drink as much or as often as Bappa, but now the two seemed to race to see who could drink the most.
Teresa wished they’d both stop. She hated when they drank, especially Bappa. When she saw his lopsided grin, she knew he was about to come after her. Sometimes she slipped outdoors and eluded him by fleeing to a safe spot along the Smoky Hill River.
By the time Teresa turned thirteen, she could no longer endure Bappa’s hands on her body. His long flat fingers tickled worse than spider legs, and his curious smile caused bile to rise in her throat. At fifty-eight, Bappa was a repulsive old man.
Teresa supposed that all fathers did to their daughters what Bappa did to her until one day, out of the blue, she asked Regina if Fred did that to her. She expected Regina to say, “Yes,” and then they could talk about it, but Regina surprised Teresa by saying, “No, ugh, he would never do anything like that.” Regina shuddered. The two regarded each other strangely.
Later Teresa wondered if she were the only child whose father did that or if Regina was the only child whose father didn’t. She decided to ask Mary Childs; she was honest, blunt even. So when her family visited Schoenchen, Teresa asked Mary if her foster father did that. To her amazement, Mary’s father didn’t either. This made Teresa wonder about Bappa’s activities.
“What do you think?” she asked Fanny. Fanny said nothing, but Teresa knew what she thought: Bappa was doing something he shouldn’t be doing. The real question was how to make him stop.
What if Bappa’s touching her was a sin? Perhaps she should tell Father Wenzel. She’d gone to Saturday confession since she was seven. Why not mention it there? What if she did, then what would Father do if he knew the things Bappa did to her? A strange thought occurred: What if Father believed the sin was hers, that she let Bappa do it? What if Father made her say hundreds of thousands of Hail Marys as penance?
Several Saturdays passed before Teresa found the courage to speak to Father Wenzel. Even so, waiting in line, she continued to question whether to tell him. If her confession made Father mad at Bappa, then Bappa would be really angry with her. But what if it made Father angry at her? At the last minute, as Teresa slipped inside the dark confessional, she decided to take the risk.
“Sometimes I let Bappa touch me all over,” she said. Father Wenzel was silent. “I mean, I let him lift up my dress and touch me all over.” Still, Father said nothing. “I mean even between my legs.”
There! That was as far as she could speak about this indignity she’d suffered so many times. She let herself cry and waited for Father’s comment. None came. Teresa smoothed her dress. When Father Wenzel remained silent, Teresa changed the subject: “And I lost my temper again this week and I wished I were grown up so I could wear my neckline low.”
Then Father told Teresa how many Hail Marys to say. Not many. Just about what he usually said. She left the confessional uncertain. Did Father not believe her? Did he believe her but thought it didn’t matter? She didn’t know what to think.
“How dare Father ignore me?” Teresa asked Fanny. “Bappa shouldn’t be doing that to me, I don’t care what Father thinks, Bappa shouldn’t make me sit on his lap like that.”
She understood that Father Wenzel would not help her, that she would have to help herself. So she decided not to let Bappa touch her anymore, even though Bappa couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her now visible breasts. He reached and crunched one even if Grandma was in the room. Teresa hated that. Wasn’t anything hers alone?
•
One day that summer, Teresa wandered into the Bieker guest room, vacant since Joseph died. When she heard Bappa—“Unfruchtbar! Unfruchtbar!” —she knew that he called Grandma “unfruitful” because a surgery, after a miscarriage, left her with no uterus. Bappa hated that.
Teresa walked to the open window and looked at the Biekers arguing. Bappa held his rifle over his shoulder, as usual.
“Why the hell don’t you give me that farm of yours?” Bappa’s face was red. “It should have been part of your dowry.”
“Be glad I have income.” Grandma seemed wobbly on her feet.
Then Bappa saw Teresa in the window.
“What are you looking at?”
But before she could answer, Bappa ranted about her hair. Teresa never wore her hair to suit him. He wanted her to wear it “like a girl,” full and loose, curling around her cheeks and bouncing down her forehead. But when she wore it that way, Bappa laced his fingers through her curls and embraced her breast. So Teresa never wore her hair full and curly. Today she had combed her curls high above her forehead and pinned them in place.
“Why do you wear your hair that way?” He gestured at her. “It’s ugly. All those curls lifted straight up from your forehead. You look like George Washington.”
Teresa felt anger flush her face as red as Bappa’s.
Then Bappa lifted his rifle and pointed it right at her. What’s he doing? The bark of his rifle shocked her but not nearly as much as the whistle of the bullet tearing through the open window right past her head. Oh sweet Jesus! He shot at me! She trembled so she could hardly run, her legs awkward as stumps. He shot at me! He shot at me! One part of her mind was insistent, but deeper down, she couldn’t believe what Bappa had done.
Outside, she ran from house to house, until she remembered that of course no one was home. It was summer, the houses all stood empty. She could find no one to help her. Even Father Wenzel didn’t answer his door. She’d have to deal with this alone.
Teresa sat by the riverbank a long time, rubbing both arms and thinking. She knew why Bappa shot at her. Not because of her hair, but because she avoided him, attaching herself like a leech to Grandma’s side, leaving the house the instant Grandma did, not ever wanting to find him alone. He hadn’t touched her for days. He’ll probably give me away now, like the Foundling gave me to him.
Suddenly Teresa imagined creeping back to the house, finding that gun, and turning it on Bappa, shooting him in the back, the belly, the chest, the head. Between his legs. Her desire frightened her. She struggled to calm herself. At least, luckily, the bullet hadn’t hit her. This could be worse. What if the next time he didn’t miss?
After a while, Teresa returned to the house, still furious at Bappa. She vowed to keep her distance, although how she could avoid him in the main room they shared for meals she didn’t know.
Teresa skulked around the edges of the house for days, even though Grandma called the shot an accident. “He didn’t mean to shoot.”
But Teresa wasn’t sure. Had he pointed it at her by accident?
She stayed out of the house by day, helping Grandma or reading in the outhouse. The “Nuschik,” the Biekers called it. A Russian word. She stayed inside for hours, reading and rereading the catalogs: Sears and Montgomery Ward. In the evenings, she stayed in her room. She didn’t mind the solitude and the darkness, but she missed reading and writing in the main room under the kerosene lamp’s golden glow.
•
September brought relief. In her eighth grade classroom, hours passed without a thought of Bappa. Instead, she dreamed about Heinrich Dreher, a cute classmate whose cowlick, which fell over one eye, made her quiver. She never spoke to him. Oh, no! Watching him struggle to translate
English in class or standing beside him for a moment at recess was sufficient.
One day as Teresa explained her failure to translate the Saint Anthony sermon again, Sister Rosina said, “You’re sure it isn’t your fondness for Heinrich that keeps you from your studies?”
Teresa quivered like a trapped rabbit. How does Sister Rosina know? Can she see right inside me?
After school, troubles escalated. Bappa seemed obsessed with pinching Teresa’s breasts. He lay in wait for her, springing, grabbing a nipple, twisting it so hard she shrieked. How he infuriated her! When she refused to let him touch her, he beat her. His heavy blows felt worse than Mr. Urban’s did because she could not change her behavior to protect herself.
Worse yet, Grandma could be right in the room and say nothing. She was no shield.
So Teresa holed up in her dark bedroom and continued to neglect her studies.
“Do you think they’ll get rid of me?” she asked Fanny. “I don’t know what to do.”
Sometimes dancing by the river helped; sometimes it didn’t.
Riddled by uncertainty, Teresa couldn’t concentrate. As she became increasingly inattentive in school, Sister Rosina grew concerned but her support didn’t flag. “You’ll amount to something someday,” she said. “I know you will.”
Teresa dared to turn to no one, not even Sister Rosina who seemed to understand the girl’s anguish, both physical and mental. She kept cautioning, “Teresa, be careful.”
•
Then Fanny died. He died instantly when Prince, one of the Bieker horses, kicked him, and Bappa laid the little dog’s corpse at the river’s edge. When Teresa heard, her legs wobbled, her heart pounded faster than her feet as she raced to the river. When she saw Fanny, as dull and heavy as a human corpse at a wake, she broke into a sweat.
“No! No!” She picked up his body and cradled him in her lap, blind to his caked blood smearing her good school dress.
Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story Page 8
