Stars Over Clear Lake

by Loretta Ellsworth

  “We should study,” I said, breaking the spell. I nodded at the words on the notebook paper I’d brought. I pointed at the first word on the paper and then at myself. “I.”

  “Ich,” Jens said, then “I.”

  The second word was you. I pointed at Jens. “You.”

  He nodded and pointed at me. “You.”

  A strand of hair fell out of my braid as I bent down to touch the third word. “We,” I said, pointing at both myself and Jens.

  He looked at me and pointed at himself, then carefully picked the strand of hair away from my face and touched my nose. “We.”

  It felt like a brotherly gesture, the kind that Pete would have made, but I flushed when his finger brushed my cheek.

  “You already know this. Don’t you?”

  “Ya,” he replied.

  “You should have told me.”

  “Good practice,” he said, and shrugged. He picked up a thick blade of grass and pulled it tight between his thumbs, then blew on it, making a whistling sound.

  He looked at me. “You?”

  I shook my head. I’d tried lots of times but could never make that sound.

  “Easy,” he said. He picked out a long blade and showed me how to hold it between my thumbs. He blew through his lips and nodded at me.

  I made a pathetic attempt that sounded like I was spitting wind.

  He laughed.

  “Not easy,” I said.

  He took out his dictionary. “Easy than learn.”

  “Easier,” I corrected him.

  “Easier,” he said.

  “Why do you want to learn English?”

  He opened his dictionary and scanned the pages, frowning as though he’d given this a great deal of thought and wanted to make sure I understood. Finally he looked up at me.

  “When I see you,” he said, pointing at me. “First day.”

  I didn’t understand. “The first day you saw me?”

  “Ya,” he said. “I want talk you.”

  “You’re learning English so you can talk to me?”

  He nodded. “So I can talk you.”

  *

  “A group of hooligans visited the POW camp last night,” Daddy told me the next morning as he poured a cup of coffee, pointing at an article in the newspaper. “They painted threats on the poles surrounding the camp. A poor way to show your patriotism. What poor excuses for human beings.”

  I wondered if Lance Dugan was involved. He seemed more like a schoolyard bully than the kind who would do this, though. “Has anything happened to the men who are working out of the camp?”

  “Not yet.” Daddy took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’ll keep a lookout, and if I see anyone poking their noses around here, they’ll get a load of buckshot in their rear ends.”

  “You can’t go around shooting people just because they’re on our property, Daddy.”

  “I got a right to protect myself and my boys.” Daddy put that page of the newspaper under his arm. “Tell your mother I spilled coffee on this section and threw it out.”

  His boys? Had Daddy adopted a crew of German prisoners?

  *

  “What movie are you seeing?” Mom asked later as she sat at the table nursing a cup of tea. It was too hot for tea, but a habit of hers this time of day. The kitchen smelled of liver and onions, and there was a swelling heat that held the promise of rain.

  It figured that Mom’s new excitement for my social life coincided with my date with Scotty Bishop. I tucked my yellow blouse into my gray skirt and picked up a white sweater, even though I didn’t think I’d need it.

  “Meet Me in St. Louis. It’s a musical. Supposed to be really good.”

  Mom swatted away a fly that lingered on her cup of tea. Old newspapers were riddled with black smudges as we tried to keep them under control throughout the summer.

  “And what time do you plan on coming home?” she asked.

  “When do you want me home?”

  “At a respectable time. You can spend half an hour in town after the movie is over, but I expect you home soon thereafter.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to wear my hair up in a ponytail or down. In the end the humidity decided for me and I put it up. But even with the heat I shivered at the memory of how close I’d come to kissing Scotty at the beach. Maybe tonight we’d share one.

  “Your first date,” Mom said wistfully. “I wish Pete could be here for this.”

  I let out a breath that sounded like a balloon deflating. Why couldn’t it just be about me tonight?

  “I remember his first date with Dixie Waverly,” Mom was saying. “He was so nervous he forgot his money and had to borrow some from Mike Schmitt.”

  “Maybe he’ll bring home a French wife,” I said.

  Mom was aghast. “Lorraine Kindred. Don’t say such a thing!”

  “I was just joking.”

  “He would never…”

  “Besides, what would be so wrong with that?”

  “Your brother is not bringing home a French wife. He doesn’t even speak French.”

  “It’s the language of love,” I said.

  “He’s going to marry an Iowa girl the same as his father. Besides, Pete’s always been sweet on Dixie.”

  I thought of mentioning that Dixie was dating someone else, but Mom’s face was pinched together like a shriveled raisin, as though my suggestion had opened up a terrifying possibility she’d never considered before.

  A black Buick turned into the long gravel driveway. Scotty must have borrowed his father’s car. I grabbed my sweater and headed toward the door.

  “You’ll wait until he knocks on the door proper and introduces himself,” Mom warned.

  I rolled my eyes and went back up to my room so it wouldn’t look as though I’d been waiting for him.

  A few moments later I heard a knock at the door. Mom’s voice carried up the stairs.

  “I think she’s almost ready, Scott.”

  I bounded down the steps before Mom got started on war talk, reciting who all was in the service from the area and who had died and how the Allies had just liberated Florence, because before he knew it she’d be showing him Pete’s globe and we’d never get out of there.

  “Hi, Scotty. I’m ready to go,” I announced as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Mom flashed her you know you’re not supposed to run down the stairs look.

  “We should go so we’re not late. I hear there’s going to be a long line,” I said as I hurried him out the door.

  Scotty shrugged. “Nice seeing you again, Mrs. Kindred.”

  “Tell your parents hello,” Mom said, following us to the door. Then she watched us out the window with moon eyes. She and Daddy never went to the movies. Mom said Daddy couldn’t stay awake for a whole movie and his snoring would disturb the entire theater. Maybe farm life took too much energy. Or maybe they were just too old.

  We’d almost made it to the car when Daddy drove up in the tractor. He waved at us but thankfully didn’t stop. He was followed by the truck carrying the POWs.

  I let Scotty open the door for me and didn’t make eye contact with anyone as the truck wound around us. Hooting sounds drifted from the back of the truck, most likely Jakob. I was sure Daddy would hear about this from Mom.

  Scotty stared at them. “Who are those guys?” he asked when he’d started the car.

  “They’re the men Daddy hired to help while Pete’s gone.”

  “Where are they from?”

  I paused, wondering what to tell him. It would be hard to explain the PW insignia on their shirts. “The POW camp in Algona.”

  His eyes widened. “German prisoners?”

  “They’re German POWs,” I admitted, although they no longer seemed like prisoners but more like hired help.

  “Holy buckets, Lorraine! You’ve got Germans on your farmland? Is your father nuts?”

  “No, he’s not nuts,” I said, sticking out my chin. “He’s got a farm to run and n
o one to help him. I don’t see what harm there is in using those men to do chores for us while my brother is off fighting for our country.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a preacher’s son,” he said. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be. The camp sends an armed guard.”

  “Wow. An armed guard. It sounds like the stuff of movies.”

  It actually felt very normal. Even Norman seemed okay with it now. He had become part of the background and the men had become part of Daddy’s crew.

  The truck had stopped to unload the water jugs.

  “That one German looks really young,” Scotty mentioned, and when I looked up I saw Jens sitting at the very back of the truck with his jacket slung across his sunburned neck. Our eyes met for an instant and I shifted my gaze, embarrassed.

  Scotty drove to town in silence and I worried I’d been too harsh with him, or that I’d betrayed something in the look I exchanged with Jens. But Scotty took my hand when we got out of the car and held it all the way to the theater line, which wound out front and down the sidewalk past the corner drugstore.

  His long fingers were interlaced with mine, making them look like a little child’s next to his. His hand felt strong, but softer than Daddy’s.

  “What a mob!” Scotty shouted as we hurried to the back of the line. I’d been to a few movies in my life, but hadn’t ever seen a line this long. Scotty saluted two men in uniform who stood not far in front of us. They were home on leave from boot camp and they were laughing, their spirits high on this warm August night.

  I remembered Pete bringing me to see Bambi two years ago. Even though I’d been almost fourteen, I’d cried when Bambi’s mom was killed and Pete had put his arm around me. Where was he right now? What was he doing while I was standing in line at the Lake Theater?

  “Hey, give us cuts.” Lance Dugan pushed his hefty frame into line behind us. His shiny new Packard sat curbside in a no-parking area, but Lance didn’t seem worried. No doubt his father would take care of any tickets he incurred. I held back a gasp when I saw Stella with him. My eyes widened and Stella replied with a small shrug. Why hadn’t she mentioned she was dating Lance?

  The line finally moved and we crowded into the cool theater, where Scotty found seats near the middle. The theater was one of the few places that had air conditioning, and that alone was worth the price of admission. Stella sat between Scotty and Lance. I caught my breath as the room darkened amid hushes and excited voices. The movie newsreel played first. It showed American soldiers sweeping the streets of Rennes for mines hidden by retreating Nazis after the liberation. The next clip showed cheering crowds along the streets as U.S. soldiers marched by. Could Pete be one of those soldiers? He’d only been gone six weeks, but as I searched among the faces the camera panned by quickly and I wished I could see the clip again. The reel ended with an angry mob trying to attack two collaborationists as soldiers took them away.

  “Kill those Nazi sympathizers!” Lance yelled, and people cheered.

  Scotty cheered as well. “See?” he whispered. “Who knows what those Germans are burying in your father’s field?”

  I flinched. What if Scotty was right? I could imagine Helmut doing something to undermine our crops. And I didn’t really know the other men well. Neither did Daddy. I thought of Jens and his eagerness to please me, of Ludwig’s helpfulness with the machinery, of Günther’s curiosity about American life. Could it all be a ploy to gain our trust? Why would they want to help provide food for the enemy?

  Mom said that Daddy and I had our heads in the sand. Maybe Daddy’s devotion to the farm had given him rose-colored glasses, and maybe a smile from a blue-eyed boy with a dimple and disheveled blond hair had done the same for me.

  Scotty squeezed my hand, wrapping his long fingers around my smaller ones. His hand felt sweaty now and I held my arm out awkwardly, trying not to think of how differently Jens’s hand had felt in mine.

  Fourteen

  1944

  “How you say this?” Jens pointed at a word in his book.

  “Saxophone,” I replied, stretching out the sound of the o.

  “Saxophone,” he repeated, emphasizing the vowel like I had.

  We were sitting under an apple tree next to the barn, hidden from view of the house. The sweet smell of ripe fruit hung above our heads. Daddy had the men in the loft moving hay today. It was dusty, dirty, hot work, and Jens smelled of sweat and the barn. His tanned arms held a layer of dirt and he had a piece of straw stuck in his hair that I had to resist plucking out.

  Daddy was downright smitten with Ludwig. The two spent their break time together fiddling with the tractor or the truck or whatever else needed fixing around the farm. Pete had been the one to help Daddy with such things, and Ludwig now filled a lonely gap that Daddy must have been feeling without Pete around.

  Maybe that’s why Daddy didn’t mind me tutoring Jens, although we had an unspoken agreement not to mention it to Mom. Daddy and I were learning about their culture while teaching them our Iowa ways, but Mom would never understand.

  The rest of the men were on the other side of the barn. Norman didn’t seem bothered by the fact that Jens was sitting beneath the tree with me and Ludwig was with Daddy, completely out of his vision. Norman had become more at ease with the men, even Helmut, whose disgruntled complaining had become commonplace, but I noticed Helmut’s body had filled out now that he was eating Mom’s cooking, and his pale face had color now. When cigarettes became hard to get, Norman traded Jakob his wristwatch for four packs, as Jakob was able to buy cigarettes with his ration stamps from the camp canteen. Jakob said he hid the watch under his mattress so it wouldn’t be confiscated.

  Now Norman often left his gun locked in the truck so he didn’t have to carry it around. The men teased him about his nightly shenanigans at the White Elephant Tavern in Algona, which he related with a certain pleasure. He relished their attention. I had to admit, my time with Jens was a nice break away from Mom, whose slippers I heard padding up and down the stairs all hours of the night and whose moodiness I had to face during the day.

  As I sat with Jens, I remembered Scotty’s warning. But sitting in the hazy afternoon sun surrounded by the chirping grasshoppers and clucking chickens, I refused to believe that Jens was my enemy.

  His eyes brightened whenever he saw me, and I couldn’t help but be awed that I was capable of lighting up his face that way. He’d been practicing hard and was able to carry on a basic conversation, although there were words he still struggled with. Günther said he was the hardest-working student in the class he taught.

  “You have fun on date?” Jens asked, his tone sounding a bit accusatory. He picked at the grass and looked up at me from beneath furrowed brows.

  The question startled me. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Scotty in front of him. I’d started wearing my hair down sometimes instead of in a braid. I wanted Jens to see me as older, so I bragged, “Yes. We went to the movies.”

  “Good,” Jens said, making a wiping motion atop the grass with his hands. “Nice American boyfriend.”

  “Well, he’s more than nice. He’s on the basketball team and he’s the smartest boy in our school. He’s going to college next year.”

  Jens flashed a confused look. “College?”

  “University,” I said. “He’s going to the University of Iowa.”

  “Oh. You go too?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m a junior now. I have two more years of high school.”

  “You are smart. You go.”

  “I’m thinking of going to California.” Of course, those thoughts had nothing to do with studying, and more to do with singing.

  “Not be with boyfriend?”

  I looked away. I hadn’t really thought about it. Definitely not something I wanted to talk to Jens about.

  “How about you?” I asked. “Do you want to go to college?”

  He shook his head. “I no go, three r
eason.” He held up one finger. “One, not smart. Two,” he said, holding up another finger, “I must work, support family. And three,” he said, holding up a third finger, “I am in prison camp.”

  “Number three will change,” I reassured him. “The war will be over and you’ll go back home.”

  He squinted into the sun. “I want go home. I hate war.”

  “Then why did you join the German army?”

  “No choice. They come to my town, say I must fight. Make brothers fight, too. If resist we are traitors. Will be shot.”

  Jens hadn’t wanted to fight. He wasn’t like Pete who was performing his patriotic duty, who felt it was an honor to serve his country. I had heard Germany had a draft system. He ran his hand across the grass. “I am not Nazi. I am just soldier who no good fighting. That why I end up in prison camp after first skirmish.”

  “Is it terrible there? In the camp?”

  “No terrible.” He sighed. “Beds bumpy, no good to sleep, some guards hate us, treat us bad, not like Mr. Kindred. Other men from camp work canning factory. I am outdoors, learn about American agriculture. I prefer here. I am better farmer than soldier.” He ran a finger along the grass. “Helmut say I disgrace Deutsch army.”

  “Why does he say that?”

  “My freundschaft”—he stopped and pressed his lips together—“friendship with daughter of farmer. He say I face discipline when Germany win war.”

  “I didn’t realize,” I said, angry that Helmut was threatening Jens.

  Jens shook his head. “I do not care.”

  “I care. And Germany isn’t going to win the war. We are. So you won’t be disciplined when you return.”

  “I will miss this farm. I will miss you.” He looked up at me with eyes that were bluer than Clear Lake. I leaned over and took the piece of hay from his hair. My fingers lingered on a strand of hair and I had an urge to run them down his cheek and across his lips. I wondered what his lips would feel like against mine.

  Then I remembered the newsreel. The collaborationists. Is that what I’d be if I let him kiss me? Would I be arrested and marched through the streets with people shouting and hitting me? What would Pete think? Mom would disown me.