by Murray Pura
“So. How long has this been going on?”
“They began to come just before Thanksgiving Day.”
“And more came even today?”
“Ja. This one.” She offered him the letter from the mother of the boy who had died in Micah’s arms and whose body Micah had carried. This time she saw a reaction in the bishop’s face. It seemed to her he read the letter twice. Then he looked off into the front room and through a window to the fields of snow outside.
“Ja, ja,” he murmured. “God’s ways are strange. They are not our ways. It’s up to us to learn from him and not the other way around.” He looked at her. “These must touch your heart, dochter.”
“Yes, they touch me deeply. As I hoped they would you.”
He sighed and looked out the window again. “They do touch me, child. But you must understand—the Ordnung is the Ordnung. It has been thus with our people for hundreds of years as they followed God.”
“Sometimes the Ordnung changes.”
“Not often, dochter.”
“But sometimes. You even told me so once when I was a child. You permitted rubber tires on our buggies because they don’t jar the older people so much on the long drives.”
“Ja, ja, but buggy wheels are one thing. What you are asking is much bigger than rubber tires.”
“I have not asked for anything.”
“Your eyes ask. You want me to change the Ordnung to allow our people to serve in medical situations. And not just any medical situations. In war. On battlefields. Where blood is shed and weapons strike men down. You wish me to say, ‘If God Almighty is calling you to serve him as a medic in the army in order to save lives, go and do so. As long as you do not pick up a gun, as long as you reach out to heal friend and foe alike in the Lord’s name, go and do so, and may Christ bless.’”
Naomi didn’t move a muscle. “Ja. That is very well put.”
He grunted. “Very well put, eh? So I have been thinking about these things. But it would have to be very well put indeed to convince our ministers and our people. We would lose many families. We might lose all the families.”
“Not all.”
“Who can say? Certainly it would split our community in two. No matter how carefully I chose my words.”
“If everyone could read these letters from mothers and fathers and wives and sisters...”
“Everyone? You would let the whole church read these letters?”
Naomi sat even straighter. “Ja.”
“The leadership? Even Minister Yoder?”
“There is no shame in those letters. Only honor.”
He took off his glasses. “Honor? Is that what you want me to tell Minister Yoder? Doesn’t that smack of pride and vanity?”
“They that honor me I will honor.”
He stared, taking her words in.
“First Samuel, chapter two, verse thirty,” she added.
“I know.” Again he looked out the window. Then he got up. “Leave these with me, if you will. I can promise nothing. So rarely the Ordnung changes. And in matters that touch on war it never changes.”
“This is not about war.”
“Not about war?”
“There is making war and there is healing war. They are not the same thing. Would Jesus stand by and watch the man on the road to Jericho bleed to death?”
“Child—”
“Would you? Even if he wore a uniform? Or would you hurry past on your way to church?”
The bishop heaved out his breath as if it weighed hundreds of pounds in his chest. “Enough. I will share the letters among a few. We will see what God does. For he is a good God but also a strange God when it comes to what he will bless and not bless. That is all I can do. Good day, dochter.”
“Bishop Fischer—”
He opened the door, and a gust of wind brought in the winter cold. “Good day, dochter. Go with God.”
The drive home was slow and icy. She didn’t unharness the mare at the farmhouse because she wasn’t sure if Micah would be using the buggy again that day. She gave Maria some oats and went in, stamping the snow off her boots in the doorway.
Rebecca looked up from a pan of bread she had just pulled from the oven. “How is it with you?”
Naomi unwound her scarf and took off her coat. “Oh, who knows?”
“How is our bishop?”
“Well enough. I showed him the letters.”
Rebecca bent and put fresh loaves into the cookstove. “I thought you would. How was he with them?”
“He says the Ordnung never changes when it comes to matters of war.”
“Of course. What did you expect him to say?”
“I expected him to open his eyes. I expected him to open his heart.”
“Naomi, honestly.”
Naomi flared. “Why not? Is God Old Order Amish? Might he not have something new to say to the people? Might he not want to change a few minds? Soften a few who inside themselves are stone?”
“You’re asking a lot of one bishop, no matter how kindhearted he is.”
“I’m not asking for the moon. I’m only asking for God to have more of a say in this than the Ordnung. I’m asking—”
She stopped abruptly.
Rebecca glanced over as she straightened up, closing the oven door. “What? What is the matter?”
She followed Naomi’s gaze.
Luke was standing fully dressed at the bottom of the staircase.
Eight
“Luke!”
Naomi ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him.
“You’re up...you’re all right!”
Luke’s arms remained at his side. When Naomi pulled back to look at him, he didn’t smile or speak. But his eyes showed more light than she had seen since the accident. He glanced at Rebecca, who had started toward him and stopped. He looked from her to the fresh loaves of bread cooling on the counter. Then he walked past his sister and Rebecca and sat down at the kitchen table. The two women glanced at each other and at him.
“What is it?” asked Naomi. “What do you want, Luke?”
Rebecca went to the cookstove. “I’m pretty sure he wants coffee and some fresh bread with butter and jam.”
She filled a mug with coffee and set it in front of him. He looked at it but didn’t touch it. Rebecca cut two thick slices of bread, put them on a plate, and brought it to him along with homemade butter and blackberry jam. Luke made eye contact with Rebecca, and she felt a warmth there. He turned in his chair and fixed his eyes on his sister.
“Cream and sugar. That’s what he wants,” she said with a quick laugh. “He always has to have his cream and sugar.”
She took cream from the icebox while Rebecca gave him the sugar bowl. Once he had both in front of him, he put three heaping spoonfuls of sugar in the coffee and poured in a generous amount of cream, stirring them together until the black coffee was a muddy brown. Then he picked up the blue mug and began to drink.
Though he still seemed to be far off in the distance, Naomi couldn’t resist mussing his brown hair and smiling. “My sweet brother and his sweet coffee.”
She was rewarded by Luke shifting his eyes from his coffee and its curl of steam to her face. A small movement of his lips lifted both corners of his mouth. A surge of happiness, flashing light as if it were silver, went through Naomi’s chest.
“Thank you, Lord,” she said out loud. “This is much more than I expected, and it comes much sooner as well.” She hurried to the parlor. “Is Micah in here?”
“No,” Rebecca told her. “He went out to the barn.”
“I must tell him.”
Rebecca smiled. “Another emergency?”
Naomi hadn’t removed her coat and was quickly out the door. “Ja. Don’t you think so?”
She found her husband grooming several of the horses inside the large gray barn.
“Micah. Forgive me. I must speak. Luke is up!”
He gave her a puzzled look, stopping what he was doing, brush in ha
nd.
She laughed. “I’m sorry. I mean to say he’s up on his own and dressed. He came downstairs from his room without any help and now he’s sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating bread and jam. We must tell the doctors. And the bishop and the ministers.”
Micah instantly put the brush on a shelf behind him and ran for the house. As he passed his wife he reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. She followed him inside. Even from across the room she could see fresh life come into Luke’s dark brown eyes as Micah rushed in and wrapped his arms around him, lifting him from his chair. Slowly Luke’s arms went around Micah in return. Naomi had already cried so much that morning, reading the letter of the young soldier’s mother, she didn’t think she had anything left inside her. But tears slipped down her face just the same.
“All of us should have coffee.” Rebecca brought the large pot to the table and put it on a coaster. “And bread. And cheese. It’s lunchtime.”
Micah sat down next to Luke for a few moments, smiling into his face and gripping his shoulder. But when Rebecca and Naomi brought cheese and roast beef to the table, he immediately got up, shook Luke’s hand, and went to the parlor with his plate of bread and meat and a cup of coffee.
Rebecca bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord, for the fruit of the earth and the labor of our hands, which you have blessed. Thank you that Luke is once again sitting at the family table. In Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Luke stared at Naomi as she began to butter a slice of the white bread. She tried to read his expression but didn’t understand what he was saying to her until he flicked his eyes to the parlor door and back to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how much you remember. You were in an accident.”
His head seemed to move slightly as if in a nod.
“It was very bad. A car struck the buggy. Mama and Papa—” She couldn’t finish the sentence and hung her head a moment. Then she tried again. “It was on the way into Lancaster. The car collided with our buggy. The horse was killed. Mother and father were killed. Ruth was killed. You were thrown clear and hit your head. Other than that, you weren’t terribly hurt. But your head injury was bad enough. You have been in bed. Hardly able to move. It’s because of the injury you’re not speaking.”
He set down his coffee and left the rest of the food on his plate untouched, focusing all his attention on her.
“Now it is only you and me in this house, you and me and our dear friend Rebecca, who I’ve asked to live with us for a while. Micah, you may remember, enlisted in the army last year and went to Afghanistan as a medic. Now he is back, I thank God, and is living here as well.”
Luke’s dark eyes continued to ask the question that had launched Naomi into her lengthy explanation of what had occurred since the crash.
“Luke, Micah was placed under the bann because he went to war. You know that’s what our people do when someone breaks the Ordnung. Even though he has returned, he’s not been welcomed back into the community. If he would repent of what he did, the bann would be lifted. But he hasn’t and he says that he won’t. He tells us he believes God called him to go to war to save the lives of the wounded. Ja, he said this to the bishop and the entire leadership. So the bann remains in force. He can’t speak with us, nor can he eat with us. Even though we’re husband and wife, we can’t share the same room, can’t touch. That’s why he’s in the front parlor and we’re sitting here.”
Luke’s eyes remained on her.
“Oh, Luke.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Micah and I love being part of the Amish community. Both of us want to remain Amish. Our roots are here. Our childhoods. Ja, we believe our future is here too despite the difficult circumstances we’re living under right now. So we’re abiding by the bann and praying God will work things out somehow. It looks impossible to me. But seeing you up on your feet and moving around on your own seemed impossible to me a few weeks ago, and look at you now. So the God who has set you free can set Micah and me free as well, can he not?”
Another question formed in Luke’s eyes. It felt strange to Naomi to be conversing with her brother in this fashion, but it also felt strange that she seemed to be able to understand what he conveyed through his face and eyes.
“You haven’t heard Micah’s arguments. I happen to agree with him. I think Rebecca does as well.”
Rebecca nodded, sipping her coffee. “I do, Luke.”
“So that’s not an issue between him and me,” Naomi went on. “However, we haven’t been able to convince the leadership. That means Micah will be shunned until he confesses he was wrong. But he asks us how he can in good conscience say he was wrong to save the lives of men and women injured in battle.” She shrugged. “What can I say to that?”
After he ate, Luke wandered about the house, looking in every room and examining different objects. Several times Naomi and Rebecca watched tears form in his eyes. He picked up an old faceless doll Ruth had played with as a child, his father’s pipe, and his mother’s sewing kit and took them upstairs to his room. Naomi followed him and watched as he arranged the doll and pipe on his bookcase and placed the sewing kit on his bedside table. Then he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.
Please let the healing continue, Lord, Naomi prayed. Inside and out.
She walked across the road to where a small wooden hut held a telephone and called the doctor’s office to explain what had occurred and make an appointment. After that she drove the buggy to the bishop’s house to tell him Luke was up and around but still silent. He praised God and prayed with her and said he and the ministers would come over the next afternoon. Returning to the house, she found Luke still napping and began to help Rebecca make supper. At five o’clock she wiped her hands on a cloth and smiled at her friend.
“Three at the table and one in the parlor. I’ll wake Luke and fetch Micah if he doesn’t come in from the barn on his own.”
Micah was walking in the door and thumping the snow off his boots when Luke trailed his sister down the staircase. Micah smiled at them and served himself a bowl of cabbage soup along with a plateful of scalloped potatoes and corned beef and peas. Rebecca followed after him into the parlor with coffee and a roll.
“Thank you, Father, for food and shelter this night,” prayed Naomi at the kitchen table. “Thank you for the family you’ve given us here. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Luke began to eat and then stopped. Naomi saw his eyes travel to the parlor door and back to her.
“He must eat alone,” Naomi reminded Luke. “We’re not to speak with him. That is the Ordnung. Micah has agreed to abide by it.”
His eyes locked onto hers and seemed to catch fire. He took his bowl and plate and stood up, crossing to the parlor and going in. Rebecca and Naomi looked at one another. Naomi took Luke’s coffee to him. When she entered the parlor, the two men were eating side by side. Micah looked up and smiled at her. Luke kept his head down and spooned the soup into his mouth.
“What are they doing?” Rebecca asked once Naomi had returned to the table.
“Abiding by the Ordnung,” Naomi replied, cutting her corned beef with a fork and knife. “Both are eating in silence.”
Nine
A day later Luke marched into the house ahead of his sister and headed up the staircase to his room, still wearing his coat and boots. Rebecca looked from him to Naomi, who was unwinding her black scarf.
“What did the doctors say?” asked Rebecca.
Naomi shrugged, her face tight. “They’re happy with Luke’s progress. To a point. They felt the BZD regimen should have loosened his tongue by now. So they’re talking about stronger medication that can have severe side effects. Or shock treatment. I said no to both. And so they tell me I have doomed my brother to a lifetime of silence.”
“Did they speak with Luke himself?”
“Ja. As well as they could.”
“Did he respond at all?”
“Ja, sure. When they talked about stron
ger pills he got up and left the room.”
“Ah. So then you’re doing what he wants.”
“And what I want. But not what the doctors want.”
“How bad can the side effects be?”
Naomi’s face grew more rigid. “Bad.”
“Then you’ve done the right thing. We have prayer. And love. And faith. Let’s see how far those will take us.”
“I hope they’ll take us a lot further than we are right now.”
Naomi spotted Micah in the parlor doorway, winter jacket buttoned to his neck, flecks of hay on the arms and collar, coffee in his hand, listening to her. Their eyes met and remained on one another. A warmth suddenly spread through her entire body from head to foot. He drained his cup and came and put it by the sink. Stepping past her, he opened the door and headed outside. A final look from him caused a flush to sprout from her neck up over her face.
Rebecca smiled. “Even in silence our men can tell us things.”
Naomi put a hand to her cheek, embarrassed by the heat she could feel there. “So it would seem.”
“There may be a bann against you two eating together or speaking together, but no Ordnung can ban my brother from being your husband or from loving you. I see by the way he looks at you that he’s proud of you—of how you’re standing by Luke, of the strength God has given you, and of the grace in your heart. Ja, he’s proud of you in a good way.” She returned to her pan of cinnamon buns, using a butter knife to spread frosting over their tops. “Proud. And in love. More in love than most husbands in our community.”
Naomi’s face flamed a deeper red and cut at her skin with a stronger heat.
“When did you say the bishop and ministers are dropping by to pray with Luke?” Rebecca asked to change the subject.
“Oh.” She continued to stand in the doorway. “It will be after lunch.” She crossed the floor and sat at the kitchen table, still wearing her coat. “It’s not just to see Luke. They will talk to me about the cards and letters. Perhaps they’ll even wish to see Micah, to ask if he’s had a change of heart. Of course I could ask the same of them.”
