“Lavina stuck up for him, remember?” Susanna sputtered. “The only one around these parts who did, that I know of.”
“Lavina’s a crazy one, she is,” said Benjamin. “Nadierlich—naive as the day is long.”
Surprised that Ben was coherent enough to pay any mind to her ramblings, Susanna seized on the opportunity. “Cousin Lavina has a right gentle way about her, though. Folks seems to know better than to meddle with her opinion. They just leave her be, really.”
“Leave her be? The way most of our grown children have turned a deaf ear toward Rachel, you mean?”
Benjamin’s words pricked at her heart. “What’s important now is that postcard Gabe wrote—a love note to his English girlfriend. If that don’t beat all.”
“Well, what’d it say?”
“Don’t have it no more.”
“But you said you found it, didn’tcha?”
“Philip Bradley did,” she corrected. “He brought it down and showed me this morning before breakfast, but I was so flustered when I saw it, I didn’t wanna have nothin’ to do with it, so I gave it back to him.”
“You did what?” Ben’s face had turned redder than any beet she’d ever peeled.
“I told him I had no use for it.”
Ben shook his head. “Well, didja read any of it?”
“Mostly romantic prattle. I didn’t care to read it really.” She wasn’t sure she should say more—especially the part where Gabe had asked Adele, his English sweetheart, to pray that he might uncover more of the sin and darkness in the community.
“That’s all it was, then—just a love note?”
Ben knew her too well to let this drop. True, he wouldn’t go ’round tellin’ folk that he’d smelled a rat in his own bed-room, but if she didn’t come clean and confess everything, he’d probably know anyways. Insight from God was right strong in Ben. Everybody knew it was. One of the many old “family” gifts Benjamin believed in.
“Well, jah, there was more,” she said at last, a bit reluctant to own up. “Gabe wrote something about evil spirits at work among the People. ‘The kingdom of darkness,’ I think was how he put it.”
Ben motioned for her to come to bed. “Aw, that’s alt— old news, Susie. Long ago dealt with. Nothin’ to worry about now, I’d say.”
“S’posin’ you’re right.” She knew she’d sleep ever so much better now, just hearing her husband say that there was no need to be concerned, this wonderful-gut man who knew far more about the intangible things of life than most anybody. If Ben Zook said it, most likely it was true.
Philip stayed up late, writing the first draft of his Amish family article on his laptop computer. Every detail, each cultural nuance that Abram Beiler had mentioned fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and when Philip was satisfied with the initial draft, long past midnight, he decided this assignment had been one of the easiest he’d ever undertaken. Quite possibly the most enjoyable in recent months.
But it was the message on the postcard that energized him. Tomorrow morning he would drive downtown to Duke Street, to the Lancaster County Library, and begin his research on Gabriel Esh’s death. Perhaps someone in Bird-in-Hand would know something of the man’s life as well. After all, the postmark had originated there.
Young Annie crossed his mind, but he rejected the idea of pursuing a small girl with such serious questions. Surely Susanna Zook’s young granddaughter would not have been told stories involving a preacher-man who’d planned to leave the Amish for a modern woman. Philip resolved to be more cautious around the Zooks, especially prudent with Annie— that is, if there was to be another encounter with the precocious child, though he had left some space in his article in case he was able to chat with her about Christmas gifts. Annie had an uncanny way about her, delightfully attractive. She was gifted in all the social graces, especially for one so young. And strikingly pretty, as beautiful as the woman whom he’d observed touching the child’s cheek. Annie’s mother, he was sure.
The more he pondered it, the more he realized he could not leave just yet. He would discuss with Susanna Zook the possibility of booking the room for a few more days. Yes, he would take care of that small matter tomorrow, immediately after breakfast.
Rachel crept downstairs to the parlor, her tape recorder in hand. She’d waited till the house was quiet, until Annie had fallen asleep. A taped letter to her dear cousin was long overdue. Already two weeks had passed since she’d received Esther’s ninety-minute cassette recording in the mail. How wonderful-gut it had been to hear from her. Working the land, sowing seed—and this with Esther side by side with Levi and their children. She could just picture all of them out in the field with the mules, the smell of manure and soil mixed together, the sun shining down on their heads.
The scene in her mind made her awful lonesome for Jacob. She figured if he were alive today, she, Aaron, Annie, and the child she’d miscarried would be doing the selfsame chores together as a family . . . out in Ohio.
Closing the door to the small room, she located the electric outlet under the lamp table and plugged in the recorder. Then she felt for the masking tape where Mam had marked the Record button. She pushed it and sat on the floor next to the recorder, pulling her long bathrobe around her.
“Hullo, again, Esther,” she began, holding the tiny microphone close to her lips. “It’s been ever so long since I talked to you this way. I can’t begin to tell you what a busy time we’ve had this fall, what with the steady stream of outof-town tourists. But, then, you must surely have the same thing there in Holmes County, right?
“I haven’t been too happy about certain things that I ’spect are goin’ on behind my back. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mam went to visit Blue Johnny last week. Maybe she even stood in for me, the way she used to have Elizabeth and Matthew do for ailing elderly folk now and then. Anyways, there was one day when she was gone for the longest time, and I honestly felt somethin’ right peculiar come over me. But, of course, none of the powwow magic worked on me, because I have very little faith in it. I memorized the Bible verses in Jeremiah you read in your last tape to me. ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green.’
“Anyways, when Mamma finally did come home, she kept a-hummin’ the same tune—sayin’ the words over and over again. I never asked her about it, but I sure thought somethin’ was up. Like maybe Blue Johnny gave her some charms to say around me.
“Oh, I wish you could come visit again. I wanna talk to you more about that article by Jacob Hershberger. You remember how we discussed it up one side and down the other, back when my Jacob was still alive? Well, I can’t put my finger on it, really, but there seems to be something to what that Hershberger fella wrote so long ago. Seems to me he’s right, though Dat would prob’ly make a big fuss if he knew I was talkin’ to you about such things.
“Well, it’s gettin’ late, so I best sign off for now. Send me a tape back real soon, ya hear?
“I love you, Esther. Take gut care now, all right? Tell Levi and the children I said hullo, just don’t let anyone else listen to this. And I promise to do the same when I hear next from you.
“Ach, I come near forgettin’ to tell you that Annie and I spent the afternoon picking pumpkins over at the neighbors. They promised to give us whatever we picked, so we’ve got us a pony cart full. The pumpkins felt so smooth and round in my hands, I could almost feel the deep orange color, though I wouldn’t say that to anyone but you, Esther. Certain folk ’round here might get the wrong idea and start thinkin’ they oughta come to me for their amulets and charms. Honestly, I want nothin’ to do with powwow doctoring. You know my heart in this.
“Well, back to the afternoon, which took me by surprise. I felt that I’d gone right back to our pumpkin-pickin’ frolics when we were little girls. Oh, I wish you and Levi had never left here. Any ch
ance of you returning to Lancaster County? Never mind, that’s not fair to ask. Of course you wanna stay put there in Ohio. I’d give just about anything to have land . . . with Jacob and Aaron still alive to help farm it. But we all know that wasn’t God’s will.
“The Lord be with you, dear Esther. From your cousin in Pennsylvania.”
Rachel pressed Stop and then ejected the tape from the recorder before unplugging it. She slipped the “letter-tape” into her bathrobe and carried the recorder upstairs.
Her fondest memories of Jacob made her cry, and when it was time for her bedtime prayers, she only had tears to say.
Philip thought he heard talking in the room below him. He couldn’t be sure if what he heard was a woman’s voice or a child’s, but something was going on downstairs in the parlor.
For a fleeting moment, he wondered how many secrets the walls of this house had witnessed. Were there others, like the mysterious postcard, hidden elsewhere? What about compartments in old furniture? He’d read once about a late-1700s Rhode Island desk and bookcase combination that had sliding panels, concealing six separate hiding places. He suspected that his brain was tired, thus the curious notions.
After turning out the light, he got into bed. A piece of the moon shone through some scraps of clouds, the faint light filtering in through the window. The crickets were more subdued tonight, making it possible to overhear, but not decipher, the soft words spoken in the room below. A woman was talking alone, to herself perhaps, Philip decided just as he fell asleep, though he was too drowsy to determine if the sounds were merely part of a dream or not.
Susanna was altogether dumbstruck at the things her daughter was saying in the quietude of the parlor. She had been thirsty in the night and needed some water. Tiptoeing out to the kitchen, she’d heard Rachel’s voice, of all things.
What in the world? she wondered, starting to open the door, then realized that Rachel was prob’ly up making a latenight recording to Esther.
Instead of interrupting, she leaned her ear against the door, listening to the most revealing one-sided conversation she’d ever heard tell. Jah, she knew of Rachel’s and Esther’s plan to send taped messages back and forth once a week. In fact, she’d encouraged the idea, thinking it would give Rachel someone to pour out her heart to, though she wished her daughter might share her thoughts with someone besides Esther. Someone like her own mother, although she wouldn’t have admitted to being envious. Never!
But this . . . this idle rambling about Blue Johnny! How could Rachel have known where Susanna had gone last week? Puh! The girl must be a diviner, as receptive and open to intangible things as the water witchers and powwow doctors themselves. After all, her daughter had been just six, around Annie’s age, the first time someone handed her a hazel twig—a dowsing fork—and, praise be, if it didn’t start a-jerkin’ like nobody’s business, right there in Rachel’s tiny hands. ’Course, then she was so awful young she couldn’t be expected to go chasing after well water with other dowsers. Which was prob’ly just fine, what with past years of community strife over the use of black magic or hexing having finally died down.
Still, the more she thought about it, the more she suspected she was right about the real reason for Rachel’s resistance to sympathy healers these many months. Nay, most all her life.
Susanna shivered with excitement. Could it be that her youngest daughter had been rejecting the inclinations in her own mind—the uncultivated giftings of a full-fledged powwow doctor—all along? Supernatural gifts were often passed from one generation to the next, and in spite of the folk who condemned powwowing practices, the age-old giftings continued to flourish through the blood lines, though kept hush-hush to outsiders. Mediumistic transference—from one powerful dowser or powwow doctor to a younger member of the community or family—was another way the “miracle” gifts were passed on.
Susanna wondered if Rachel had shied away from Blue Johnny out of bashfulness, though she didn’t see why Rachel should be afraid, if she was. After all, it was considered a high compliment to be chosen—anybody knew that. If her guess was right, he’d had Rachel in mind all these years, wanting to bestow the full mediumistic transference to her.
Susanna nearly burst out laughing. Here was a young woman who’d willed herself not to see, of all things! Her highly sensitive, reserved Rachel—why in the world hadn’t she thought of this before? Her very own daughter had all the makings of a Brauchfraa—powwow doctor—and to think that she was most standoffish around one of their best-known healers of all!
’Course, it would be prudent for Susanna not to be mistaken about any of this. She decided to get Benjamin’s opinion on the matter. Ben would understand her suspicions, maybe even stamp his approval on them.
Tomorrow, just as soon as breakfast was served to the B&B guests, she would find out and settle the whole thing in her mind. Once and for all.
Fourteen
Philip had often noticed during his years of research that librarians seemed to subscribe to a most gracious and accommodating code of behavior. More so than any other profession he could think of. “Why, certainly,” they’d say. “I know well that particular book.” Or, “Why, yes, I just spotted that reference for another library patron.”
Patron? The word conjured up visions of the wealthy elderly who made huge annual donations to well-known organizations. Never anonymously, however.
Philip stood in line to request microfilm for the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal—for the last fifteen days of May 1962. Unwittingly, he made the comparison between the amicable qualities of most librarians and the lack of such traits of his former girlfriend. Not that Lauren held any residual influence over him. No, what their relationship had granted him was the realization that he was now able to describe in words the kind of woman he wanted to marry someday.
First and foremost, she must be a lady, someone mannerly and appreciative. He also did not think much of married women who felt they had to invent their husbands. He had decided the day after Lauren and he broke up that if ever he was to marry, the girl would have to be demure—a nice change. A young woman who allowed him to lead, though he was no tyrant. In the two years he’d spent dating Lauren, the role of leadership—something he believed a man and woman ought to share equally—had been totally usurped. Was it old-fashioned to long for sweet submission in a mate—and be willing to give it as well? His own mother’s humble approach toward his father had worked beautifully for their marriage, and when asked to give their formula for a lifetime of happiness, they often referred to Bible verses, pointing to characteristics such as meekness—a give-and take relationship. That, he would be quick to acknowledge, had never once occurred with his former girlfriend.
“How may I help you?” asked the librarian, bringing him back to the task at hand.
He made his request and waited, wondering where he might meet up with the sort of girl he’d decided he must have, or be content to remain a bachelor. Would she love books and research as much as he? Perhaps she might be a librarian or at least a library patron. He grinned at his own thoughts.
When the librarian had located the particular microfilm spool, she was all smiles. “Here we are.” She handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, his mind on the data he held in his hand. The mystery of the postcard had gripped him beyond belief.
The obituary stated that the twenty-seven-year-old man had died on Sunday, May 30, 1962, and been laid to rest in Reading, Pennsylvania, though his place of birth was listed as Bird-in-Hand. Why Reading and not Lancaster County, somewhere close to his family? Philip found it equally interesting that no services had been offered for the young Amishman. Why?
According to the obit, Gabe had been the only son born to John and Lydia Esh. His surviving sisters were many: Mary and Martha—twins, Nancy, Ruth, Katie, Naomi, and Rebekah. There was no way of knowing Gabe’s birth order, though the thought of being the only brother of seven sisters made Philip break out in a sweat.
W
hile there, he looked up the name Herr in the Reading phone book. To his amazement, he discovered page after page of Herrs. He decided that, if necessary, he would go to the trouble of driving to Reading at some point and put his investigative skills to the task. But first he wanted to drop in at the Old Village Store in Bird-in-Hand, nose around a bit, get acquainted with some of the local folk.
He left the library, briefcase in hand, and walked a block down sun-dappled cobblestone sidewalks to his rental car. Then, driving to King Street, he turned east and rode past long red-brick blocks, reminding him somewhat of the famous Beacon Hill row houses of Boston. He passed the Conestoga View County Home, then veering left, took Route 340, also known as the Old Philadelphia Pike.
The sun had climbed the sky while he was inside the library, turning hot enough for Philip to push the AC dash button. The day was as bright as any September day he recalled in recent years, and while driving along the busy road, he realized just how inspired he had become since arriving here a scant two days ago. He made a mental note to phone his sister and let her know that he had been surprisingly revitalized on this trip. He guessed what her response might be. She would say she wasn’t surprised, that he’d needed to experience a simpler, less-harried pace. She might also encourage him to go a step further and get in touch with his Maker. After all, Pennsylvania had long been considered a “God-fearing” state, due to William Penn’s influence, offering land to immigrants in search of religious freedom.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he noticed a horse and carriage trailing behind him as he came up on the old, abandoned Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse. The horse and buggy followed him down the pike, past the Hand-in-Hand Fire Station on the left and the Greystone Manor B&B on the right, then under the railroad bridge. He definitely wanted to thank his editor for having shoved the Amish assignment down his throat. Yes, he would do just that the minute he stepped foot back in the magazine office.
The Postcard Page 11
