The Last April

by Belinda Kroll

  “Karl,” Gretchen said, grabbing his shoulders, “what’s wrong?”

  “What was in the box?” Karl asked before slumping out of consciousness.

  Twenty-Three

  Wednesday, 26 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  Karl woke to the deep murmurs of a masculine voice. He froze, expecting to struggle against bound hands and feet now that Werner had returned. Instead, someone had tucked him into bed. A large hand rested on his shoulder.

  The voice paused, sensing Karl’s stirring. When Karl pretended to be asleep, the familiar voice resumed in a language Karl did not recognize. And then, startling Karl, the man said in his heavy accent, “I know that you are awake. You have nothing to fear. You may open your eyes.”

  Karl cleared his throat. He peeked to find the bearded pastor from Gretchen’s church watching him with a conspiring grin. He looked around, surprised he was back in Werner’s bedroom. He did not know how that had happened now that the prodigal son had returned. Karl did not like how the pastor had tied the door handle to his chair so no one could get inside.

  “What were you saying?” Karl asked as he sat up.

  “I asked mein Gott to keep watch over His child. To guide you to your rightful mind.”

  Karl rubbed his shoulder, which ached from where he had landed. “Kind of you.”

  Pastor Baumbach shook his head, grin fading. “It is kind to Gretchen and to my Alina who will marry Gretchen’s brother.” He leaned back in the chair, and it groaned under his weight. He clasped his hands on his healthy belly.

  Karl wondered how many meals at home with family, away from bullets and screams, created that belly.

  “Fräulein Klegg continues to say you are to wed Gretchen,” Pastor Baumbach said.

  Karl wished he had not said anything. Even without remembering a lot about his father, he could tell a lecture was about to happen. “That’s what I hear, too.”

  “You do not want to marry Gretchen?” Pastor Baumbach said.

  Karl shrugged. He realized that was a mistake when Pastor Baumbach’s expression darkened. “That’s not it…”

  Annoyance wafted off Pastor Baumbach. Karl felt the room grow warmer.

  “Things moved fast,” Karl said.

  “How fast?” Pastor Baumbach asked. His tone was careful, ready to disapprove.

  Karl did not know what to say. He did not know how much Pastor Baumbach knew, since Gretchen claimed she could not lie to him. Not that Karl wanted to talk about Gretchen anyway. And he for certain did not want a father-son chat with Pastor Baumbach about her.

  Karl sighed. He was trapped with a religious man staring him down. He could see Pastor Baumbach waiting to accuse him of seducing Gretchen. Karl figured if that were the case, then the bright side was he must look stronger than a week ago when Gretchen found him.

  Pastor Baumbach’s expression continued to darken until it looked like he was fit to burst.

  Karl scowled. He could hardly say, “Who cares about Gretchen? I remembered something about myself. Will you let me be so I can remember more?”

  All Karl wanted to think about was that memory. Something about a box with a curtain. It must have been the last time he saw his family.

  “I do not know a great deal about you,” Pastor Baumbach said. “I do not know what you mean by saying things went fast.”

  His emphasis on the last word made Karl’s face burn. “Why do all you Dutchmen think I’m only around to take advantage of Gretchen? First Tante Klegg, now you! I no more chose this farm than it chose me! When a man’s on death’s door, he don’t get to choose which door to walk through.”

  Pastor Baumbach leapt to his feet. “What did you call us?” he roared.

  Karl’s mouth dropped open. He shrank back under Pastor Baumbach’s towering rage. He tried to remember what he had said.

  “Where did you hear such a word?” Pastor Baumbach demanded.

  Karl shook his head, shrinking further away.

  “Dutchmen,” Pastor Baumbach said. “I hate to have to say it.”

  Karl had no idea where that word came from, but it seemed it was a terrible thing to say. That was the thing about not having a memory. Karl had no idea what other words would come out at the worst time.

  Someone pounded on the bedroom door. “What’s wrong?” Gretchen said.

  Pastor Baumbach sat down, glaring at Karl. He called over his shoulder, “Nothing, Fräulein Gretchen. Tend to your brother.”

  “He doesn’t need me,” Gretchen scoffed, “he’s got Alina. What’s going on in there?”

  Karl held his palms up and met Pastor Baumbach’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said, striving for sincerity. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  Pastor Baumbach’s jaw worked. After a tense moment of listening to Gretchen pace outside the door, he ran his fingers through his beard. “I can see that.”

  Karl began to play with the coverlet on his lap. He had a feeling this conversation was not going to improve.

  “I worry you have so much in that head of yours that could hurt Gretchen and you would have no idea.”

  Karl chuckled. “Unlikely.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, Gretchen lets everyone know when she’s upset. If I said something stupid, wouldn’t take long for you, or anyone else, to know.”

  “This is true,” Pastor Baumbach admitted.

  “And she’s an excellent shot. If I mess up, she’ll take care of me.”

  Pastor Baumbach’s expression shifted. “But will you take care of her?”

  “No one takes care of Gretchen. They just don’t get in her way.”

  “You are insightful for a man without a mind,” Pastor Baumbach mused.

  Karl bristled. “I got a mind. I don’t got a memory.” He scratched at the bandage wrapped around his head. “And I could take care of her, if she’d let me. I learn fast, and I’d treat her right, because she’s treated me right. I owe her my life.”

  Pastor Baumbach’s eyebrows rose.

  “Actually, I’m glad I owe her my life,” Karl said, more to himself than to Pastor Baumbach. “She’s got a good heart, and she’s loyal, and fierce. Could do much worse. These days, people are your friends until you realize they’re your enemy.”

  “What are you talking about in there?” Gretchen said through the door.

  “Will you get out of here? I’m chatting with the pastor,” Karl shouted.

  After a stunned moment of silence, Gretchen made a loud huffing noise and stomped out of the house.

  Pastor Baumbach stared at Karl with appreciation. “Perhaps Tante Klegg was right to choose you.”

  Karl kicked away the coverlet and dropped his feet to the floor. He leaned closer to Pastor Baumbach. “Why? Because I yelled at her?”

  Pastor Baumbach frowned. “No, because she listened to you. Gretchen is headstrong and smart. She would not listen to you if she did not respect you.”

  Karl leaned back, surprised and pleased with his answer.

  “Though,” Pastor Baumbach continued, stroking his beard, “how she can respect a man who has no memory of who he is…. That is beyond me.”

  “And here I thought we could get along, Pastor.”

  Pastor Baumbach tented his fingers together. “Are you aware of how we Lutherans prepare for marriage?”

  Karl shook his head. “Gretchen didn’t say anything and believe it or not, I do remember everything that’s happened since I got here.”

  “And how did you come to be on the Miller farm?”

  Karl wished he had not sent Gretchen away. He began to suspect why she could never lie to Pastor Baumbach. His eyes, so blue, made him seem innocent. Being a holy man heightened the effect.

  “Got left behind,” Karl said.

  Pastor Baumbach scratched his cheek. “Left behind? I recall you arrived as we learned about the president.”

  Karl ran his hand down his face. “Is this all you Yankees do? See conspiracy theories and blame the first stranger with an
accent?”

  Pastor Baumbach shrugged. “Perhaps we are still at war with our president taken from us.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Karl said. “Why’s it so difficult to understand I only want to know who I am, and where I come from, and if my family will have me back?”

  “And what if you learn you were better not knowing these things?” Pastor Baumbach asked, more curious than judgmental.

  “Don’t think that’s going to happen,” Karl said. “I know I had a ma, and a pa, and a brother, and I want to know what happened to them.”

  With a little squeal, Gretchen fell into the bedroom. She held a knife in her hand from where she had cut her way through the rope locking the door shut. “Anyone interested in coffee?”

  Twenty-Four

  Wednesday, 26 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  Gretchen rushed to hide her ankles. She could tell by Karl’s set shoulders and tightness around his eyes that he was not happy she was there. He had no call for displeasure. She was here to save him from Pastor Baumbach’s interrogation… by starting one of her own.

  “Guten tag, Gretchen,” Pastor Baumbach said. He sat at the foot of the bed and waved for Gretchen to take his chair. “Did you worry I was telling your verlobter the family secrets?”

  Gretchen snorted and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Pastor Baumbach patted the chair. “Come. Join our conversation. We were about to speak of wedding preparations.”

  Gretchen laid the knife by the wall and patted it, as if she would return to it later. “It sounded like you were distracting Karl from remembering his past.” She sat in the chair, placed her hands in her lap, and smiled at Pastor Baumbach. “But I’m not here to talk about Karl. I’d like to let Karl rest for a moment. He’s had a rough week.”

  Pastor Baumbach frowned, seeming confused. Gretchen was glad.

  She swallowed and said in as calm and collected voice as she could manage, “Why did Werner go to your farm before ours?”

  Karl slouched against the headboard. It was obvious he would not be alone for a while yet, so he might as well get comfortable. He stretched his legs out, but kept his feet from Pastor Baumbach sitting on the end of the bed.

  Pastor Baumbach shifted in his chair. “Have you asked your brother this question?”

  Gretchen’s jaw worked. Werner was no more her brother than Karl was. She could not tell Pastor Baumbach that, though. Not until Werner married Alina. Even after all the cruel things Werner had said and done to her, Gretchen did not hate her cousin. She did not understand Werner, but she did not like him, either.

  Pastor Baumbach folded his hands over his round belly.

  “I tried,” Gretchen admitted, “but he refused to answer and then Alina and Tan—” she paused. She licked her lips and tried again. “Mama sent me away because I was upsetting Werner.”

  “Yes,” Pastor Baumbach said, nodding. “Werner has always been excitable.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Gretchen said. “You could also say he’s prone to tantrums.”

  Having been on the receiving end of Werner’s trigger hand, Karl thought this was an understatement.

  “He went to your farm because he was so upset that he couldn’t even come home?” Gretchen asked.

  Pastor Baumbach cleared his throat. “I should not say if it will upset Werner.”

  “This is the same boy who proposed to your daughter behind your back and then ran off to war,” Gretchen said. “He’s not a saint because he lost an arm.”

  Pastor Baumbach ran his hand down his face. “How large your mind must be. You never forget moments that, if you did forget them, would make you a happier person. You are so like your aunt. Do you know this?”

  “You’re stalling,” Gretchen said.

  Karl thought Gretchen was channeling her anger well. That was twice now that Pastor Baumbach had referenced her family. That was twice that she had not taken the bait. How long until Gretchen admitted her brother was her cousin and her aunt was her mother?

  “Werner came to us last Sunday, after Alina returned from her visit with you after church.” Pastor Baumbach’s expression was wry. “After you bruised her face and made her almost unrecognizable to her own verlobter.”

  Gretchen flushed.

  “I know my daughter, and I know you,” Pastor Baumbach said. “I must assume she said something that made you lose your patience.”

  Gretchen held up her hand. “And if I did?”

  Pastor Baumbach shrugged. “My daughter takes after my wife. Which is to say, they live in their own interpretation of the world. They do not like it when someone reminds them. And if I were honest, I would say I am surprised it did not happen sooner.”

  Gretchen sat there, not expecting to hear such things from the pastor about his own wife and child. She wondered whether the world was falling to pieces around her, or if she was waking to the reality of the world.

  Pastor Baumbach turned to Karl, whose entire body flinched under the attention. “You study me. You are uncertain whether to call me friend or enemy.”

  “A sign one way or the other would help,” Karl said. “Can’t tell if you’re here to help me or Gretchen or anyone else. I thank you for your prayers, though.”

  “There is only one enemy, and that is the enemy of the Lord,” Pastor Baumbach said.

  Karl laced his fingers behind his head and crossed his ankles together. “When I was in… the war, I heard men on both sides saying the Lord was on their side. Were they lying?”

  Pastor Baumbach shook his head. “The Lord is with everyone who needs Him.”

  “Well, I guess Werner needs Him pretty bad if he can’t remember where his family is,” Gretchen said. She flinched when Pastor Baumbach glared at her, but then she waved her hand at him. “I know, I know. Werner’s seen all sorts of things in the war, and I need to give him time. But guess what? Werner’s been out of the war a long time. He’s been hiding because he’s a deserter.”

  Gretchen slapped the mattress. “Why did he even desert? Who’s going to keep a soldier with one arm? Excitable, that’s what we keep calling him. All I see is plain selfishness, and I’m tired of everyone defending him.”

  “Gretchen,” Pastor Baumbach interrupted, “what is wrong? This is not like you.”

  Hands clenching into fists, Gretchen stood. “I was wrong to come in here,” she said. “And you’re right, this isn’t like me. This is, however, the most I’ve ever acted like Werner’s sibling, which is funny, considering.”

  “You act as though he betrayed you by reaching my farm first,” Pastor Baumbach said, wonder in his voice. “He was feverish, he thought he was home, and it took days for his fever to break. We could not move him until he was out of harm’s way. Did you not notice Alina’s visits had stopped? She was his nursemaid all that time.”

  Gretchen shook her head. She had not noticed Alina’s absence. She had been worrying Karl was the president’s murderer. She had been waiting for signs that Karl’s memory was returning. She had suffered the shock of learning she was her aunt’s daughter.

  Also, Gretchen had assumed Alina knew she was not welcome at the farm until Werner returned. Now that Werner had returned, everything was different now. Gretchen no longer cared what Werner and Alina did. She did care what Karl knew about his past.

  Pastor Baumbach rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. “I do not know what is happening with this family. I hope Werner and Alina’s wedding will begin the process of healing.” When neither spoke, Pastor Baumbach shook his head and left the room.

  After a few moments, they heard voices and feet shuffling. The kitchen door shut behind Werner, Alina, and Pastor Baumbach. Adelaide began to cry. Tante Klegg’s heavier footsteps paced in the kitchen before storming out of the house.

  “Is that bad?” Karl whispered.

  “Well, it can’t be good,” Gretchen retorted.

  Booth Killed and Herold Captured

  Friday, 28 April 1865 / T
he Ohio Daily Statesman

  It will rejoice the people, as it does us, to learn that Booth, the man who assassinated President Lincoln, has been killed.

  Perhaps the gratification would be greater if Booth had been taken alive; but this he evidently had determined should not be done. The particulars attending his death and of the capture of his accomplice Herold, will be found in the telegraphic columns.

  Booth was shot, and survived three or four hours. In the first dispatch announcing the circumstances attending his attempted capture and death, we were told that he died blaspheming the Government. In the later dispatch this statement is not repeated, but it is reported that when asked if he had anything to say, he replied: “Tell my mother I died for my country.”

  This message suggests the question; “How did he suppose his country would be served in the assassination of President Lincoln?”

  The man Herold, who has been captured alive, may throw some light on this subject or he may not. As Booth was on the threshold of eternity, he did not even utter one word of contrition for the infamous crime he had perpetrated.

  Twenty-Five

  Friday, 28 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  Gretchen listened to the familiar words of Werner and Alina’s ceremony, but paid them no mind. She stood in Pastor Baumbach’s home as a witness with her mother, aunt, Mrs. Baumbach, and Karl. Pastor Baumbach kept glancing at Gretchen, searching and concerned. She paid him no mind, either.

  She counted the number of flounces on Alina’s dress instead. There were fifteen, and they ran the entire circumference of her skirt. Mrs. Baumbach sewed every last one of those flounces. Gretchen knew because Mrs. Baumbach had said so five times before the ceremony began.

  Gretchen rolled her shoulder, trying to ease a pinch point on her rib cage where a bone from the corset poked her. Adelaide frowned at her to stop fidgeting.