Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  Howitzer shells, tin cans for army rations, rifle grenades, millions of bullets, gas masks, steel tank plates, electric motors, machine guns marched from Pittsburgh factories to the waiting and weary arms of the men overseas. Railroad lines clogged and jammed, made the men of the rails bang fists upon the steel beast as they waited for movement. Delays meant death, a doughboy without a gas mask or a round of bullets or a working gun. “If I fail, he dies.”

  Wilhelm would not speak of the war. For hours in the evening, he would read the headlines in the pages of the Pittsburg Press and then sit in stillness, his eyes unmoving, his focus on the white space between the words. And when Eveline found a crumpled and ripped poster in his bag that promoted Death to Germans, she did not question him.

  Then, one day in late afternoon, Wilhelm returned home without warning, sent his children upstairs and met his pregnant wife at the table. For a long while, he simply slouched against the backing of the cane chair, head bowed.

  Eveline remained quiet, placed an unsteady touch against her babies. “What is it?”

  He sat immobilized, his eyes blank. “I was fired.”

  “I don’t understand.” She blinked hurriedly. The sound of her children upstairs thumped in Andrew’s room and an explanation entered. “The accident.” She halted. “What happened on that train wasn’t your fault.”

  A quick spasm twitched his face. “He shouldn’t have been up there,” he seethed. “I shouldn’t have let him up there.”

  “But to fire you—”

  “I froze!” His upper lip rose in disgust. “Yesterday, I nearly derailed the train!”

  His head dropped into his hands and he pulled at the roots of his chestnut hair. “I froze, Eve. The tracks were wet; everything was damp.” His pupils dilated with the image. “It was just like that day. Except we were coming up to a stalled train and I couldn’t brake. Couldn’t touch it. The whistle kept blowing, over and over again. But I couldn’t move. Kept seeing his body falling from the roof, the shadow going by the window.” He fell into the trance of his words. “I froze.”

  Eveline reached for his hand, but he pulled back ferociously as if she were trying to bite him. “I told you I didn’t want that boy working with me. Didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you we had no business helping him?”

  The twins kicked against her ribs and she breathed through her nose with effort. “He lost his father, Wilhelm. They barely had enough money to live.”

  “Well,” he snarled. “He’s ours now, isn’t he? Another mouth to feed, a crippled one at that.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” His words made her sick. “You can go to the Baltimore and Ohio,” she reassured hotly. “Even the New York Central. They’d jump at the chance to hire you.”

  Wilhelm leaned back and crossed his arms. He laughed then, long and cynical. “Don’t get it, do you? They’ve been waiting to let me go. Think they want a German—a German with the name Kiser no less—working the rails? Think they trust a German transporting all the raw materials for their artillery and machines?”

  “You’ve been reading too many stories.” She removed the newspaper from the table and folded it, threw the pages in the trash before returning to the table. “The enemy is overseas, not a humble brakeman living in Troy Hill.”

  The scowl expanded to the lines of his face. “Want to know what was waiting for me in the bunk of my caboose?” His voice sank low and deep and his eyes stretched in horror. “Want to know what I found wrapped in a bloody blanket on my bed? A German shepherd with its throat sliced.”

  Chills crept up her spine and itched her scalp.

  “And tied to its mouth was a sign that said: ‘To Hell with the Huns.’”

  “My God.” She hushed. Eveline hid her face in her hands, but Wilhelm pulled her fingers away.

  “You don’t know what’s going on out there,” he snarled. “Don’t have a clue!”

  “What will we do?” She said the words out loud and regretted it. Eveline tried to realign her thoughts, unable to remove the vision of the slain dog from her mind. “Move to another city?” She never hid her hatred of Pittsburgh, but the thought of moving to Philadelphia or even New York made her ill.

  He laughed then. Long and slow. “Got good news for you, Eve. Traded this house for a place in the country.”

  “What?”

  “Never have to live in this city again. Never have to live in any city again.”

  Her temples throbbed and she rubbed one with her finger. “When did you—”

  “What, no smile? No hug? Come on, doll!” he crooned sarcastically. “Like a dream come true!”

  “You’re not well, Wilhelm,” she said evenly and with concern. Eveline rose then, pushed away from the table. “You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

  He stood as well, the fake levity gone. “I know exactly what I’m saying.” And with a hostility that was quite unlike her husband, he grabbed her wrist and shoved a deed in her hand and made her fingers clutch it, made them crunch the paper in her forced fist.

  “You got your farm, Eve,” he proclaimed. Wilhelm smiled then in an unkind, ugly way. “Just what you always wanted.”

  * * *

  The book rested on Andrew’s knee, the pages fanned out from under the center binding. The warm air from the open window brought in the scent of Eveline’s climbing rose and the words from the conversation below. When the exchange had finished and the front door slammed, Andrew closed his eyes. The words echoed and pounded like steady stab wounds. Dully, he opened his lids, let his vision draw to the endless sea of slate roofs that twisted along the city street. A group of pigeons settled upon the nearest eave, bobbing heads until taking flight in tandem.

  The young Kiser boys suspended their marble game on his rug after hearing the shouting from downstairs. They waited for Andrew to turn to them, address them in some way with reassurance, but he couldn’t face them and just fell away to the emptiness found in the roofs and chimneys and cooing pigeons.

  Seven-year-old Will approached the bed and perched upon the mattress, bending one knee so it shelved his chin. “What’s a German shepherd?” the boy asked.

  “It’s a dog,” Andrew finally answered, the words soft and apologetic.

  The child’s face drained, stricken to the core. A marble rolled in the tiny, soft fingers. He turned back to Andrew, his doleful gaze drifting to his cousin’s severed arm. “Does it hurt?”

  Andrew nodded. “Yeah,” he said wearily. “It hurts.”

  The child had meant the arm, but the answer summed up an existence. Andrew dropped his eyelids again, wrestled with the anger, the bitterness, the burn. The doctor had said the pain would stop once the nerve endings healed, but the searing heat was with Andrew always—an ache in a body part that didn’t exist, like the memory of a broken heart, like the memory of his parents and his muzzled ambitions.

  Will inched closer to his cousin and squinted at the remnants of the amputation, studied the ragged scar. “Looks like the smokestack at the Heinz factory.”

  Edgar climbed up from the floor and scooted past his brother. “Let me see.” Andrew cringed as the little boys inspected the cuts. “Oh, I see it!” In the air, Edgar traced the line of the incision. “Looks just like it, got lines like smoke an’ everything.”

  Andrew watched the curious faces that held no pity. Consciously, he released the tension that hunched his shoulders and stiffened his neck, his body loosening like a deflating balloon. In spite of himself, he cracked a smile, the strange curve foreign, nearly forgotten. He allowed the boys to stare at the ravaged flesh, their inquisitive gaze softening the sting, a slight salve to the harsh words spoken down in the kitchen.

  Wilhelm Kiser might see him as a cripple, but—Andrew thought gratefully—these boys only saw a Pittsburgh landmark.

  PART 3

  All good things are wild and free.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  CHAPTER 13

  Plum, Pennsylvania—1917

&n
bsp; Lilith Morton stretched her arms wide, ran down the slope of the bristled farmland, the gusts pushing her to the valley, then uplifting her to the highest mounds. And she ran with the air, then ran against the thrusts so it pressed against her cheeks and whipped her wild hair in knotted wisps. She was a hawk—a kestrel. She was free and as she surged with the wind she held her breath for the moment when her feet would rise from the earth and her body would reach the sky.

  In her flight, the bread wagon rattled on the main road. She knew this without looking, had heard the familiar chains and squeaky wheels for as long as she could remember. She knew that perched on top were old man Stevens and his Negro wife, Bernice. Lilith knew they couldn’t see her from the road, but she was suddenly self-conscious, her wings clipped. She was not a hawk. She was a lanky girl of seventeen with tangled hair and muddy dress who wanted to live in the trees and sprout wings.

  She plopped onto the ground and plucked the sticky burrs and thorns off her sleeves and hem. The August heat seeped into her skin. It was a heavy heat that slowed the world, made the body want to rest and bask in thick warmth. Grasshoppers jumped around her hips, their dull green bodies clicking as wings stretched and then retreated. The honey- and bumblebees buzzed from long dandelions to nearly hidden violets. When she was a child, she would hold the bees in her palm, convinced that they would see that she was good and would not sting her. She was stung every time.

  Lily twisted a goldenrod stem around her finger and gazed at the deserted farm. She remembered a time when the old clapboard house had sparkled white. Now it was gray and peeling, with only spots of dull cream, like snow melting over a road of gravel.

  She rose from the patch of weeds and bugs, traced the line of the broken slate walkway to the ancient apple tree that leaned precariously over half the yard. Her old boots were long accustomed to finding the knots and bevels in the ridged bark and she climbed easily. Her knees scraped but had long ago grown numb against the rough grain. She stood upon the thickest, lowest branch and reached above to hoist up and continued that way until she sat in the crook of the highest limbs. Her back rested against the trunk as if in a man’s lap, the strong arms protecting on either side.

  The leaves speckled shadows across her light dress and across her skin. The sparrows and finches flew back to their perches, now fully used to her visits and handfuls of sunflower seeds. She reached for one of the apples, just starting to ripen under the sun, and plucked it off, leaned into the wooden arms and chewed the crisp, tart apple slowly, shielding her eyes against the spears of sun that peeked through the limbs and tickled her eyelids and forehead.

  A barn cat slunk along the perimeter of the lifeless house and stretched front paws forward and arched her back, the tummy low and flaccid from birthing litters. The calico flopped on her side and licked a front paw, then squinted at Lily in the tree and meowed. Lily threw the shreds of baked chicken from her pocket, the cat instantly upon them, chewing with back teeth. Lily sighed. This place was her home. She shared it with the birds and the bugs, with the wild cats and the weeds, and the sun and the moss and the old trees. But this was the last day. This farm was hers only for today and no more after.

  A bell rang far above the valley, shuddered in its clanging way across the hills. The chime hollered her name as clearly as if it had been a voice: Lily! Lilith, it called, time to come home! She closed her ears and her eyes, felt the warmth of this place leaving quickly. She took another bite of the apple, glanced down at the dilapidated farmhouse below. From up high she could see the moss on the far end of the roof and the spotted siding, holes where woodpeckers had started and then robins had built stick homes and wasps hung their paper nests the size of slop buckets.

  The bell rang again and the apple tasted sour. She threw the core to the ground, where it bounced. Her sister would be worried, but for once, she didn’t care. This was her space, her own corner of the earth. The farmhouse she imagined was hers and hers alone, her own garden, her own everything, to be made new and fresh and beautiful again.

  But it wasn’t her place or her tree. The new owners were coming in a day and wouldn’t take too kindly to a skinny bird girl perched in their tree. She rolled her eyes. Her arms would never be wings, just scrawny limbs that hung without vigor.

  Hope they got kids, she thought. Not enough little ones so close. The land along this stretch had aged along with the bodies that tilled it. Hearing kids laughing would be nice, almost as nice as sitting in this tree forever. Almost.

  The bell rang a third time. She could feel her sister’s panic as if it were her own. She sighed and looked up, took in the bright red apples like stars in twilight. Lily Morton swiveled and kissed the wooden heart between the limbs before inching down slowly and making her way back home.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Tin Lizzie cramped with a family on the move. While farmers were leaving the fields for work in the steel mills and factories of Pittsburgh—an exodus from rural to urban—the Kisers wormed backwards, heading to a life in reverse. So, the Ford drove from the soot-squeezed city over paved and even roads and crossed the divide from town to country—barreled onwards over narrow lanes and rocky, brickless paths to their future.

  The August morning seeped hot and hazy, so humid that the fabric of even the most diaphanous material clung to the skin and squeezed beads of sweat over foreheads, under arms and down the back. Wilhelm drove, his face hard. Eveline held her stomach with each bump, tried to keep the twins from being birthed en route. Andrew scrunched in the back, his long legs bent, while Edgar slept on his lap. Will sat next to him, his head bobbing against Andrew’s arm, the cotton shirt spotted wet with the boy’s drool.

  The hot car crossed deeper into the land. Towns grew farther apart. Vegetation replaced humans. Black-and-white cows dotted the hills and the air grew thick with the smell of manure and animal hair and fur. Over the miles, the sky filtered out the gray and the blue expanded. Clouds, white as down, floated in bloated puffs. The body felt clean, perspired salted water instead of toxins. Even Wilhelm breathed in the air deeply through his nostrils. The poison of the city was leaving.

  The Kisers passed farm after farm—white clapboard beauties with new, glimmering silos; red barns with chocolate brown mares milling about split-rail fences. There were older farms, too, built with limestone blocks and pure white mortar. Old plows scattered like rusty tombstones attesting to years of hard labor. But beyond the homes it was the land that called forth and welcomed in open expanse. The golden hay and wheat that rippled and waved. The green spears of corn that saluted the sky above. The waves of alfalfa and clover that blanketed the hills in undulating emerald silk.

  By afternoon, they passed into Plum Township. They passed a covered bridge over Pucketa Creek, whose water would eventually join hands with the Allegheny River and from there merge with the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the outlines to the iconic Pittsburgh triangle. All seemed to flow to that great Pittsburgh—except for Wilhelm and his family, the man who flowed backwards with his family, against the current.

  From the tiny Plum town, the roads narrowed, veined off from the main street and cut through a line of corn higher than the car on each side, forming an unroofed green tunnel. As they emerged from the maize, a white farmhouse stood to the left, neat and perfect among the zinnias that bordered the picket fence. Two spotted horses galloped in a ring behind the house. And so they drove on, passed a wooded grove of oaks and maples and ragged cedars leaning toward the road, tipping roots forward as if attempting to cross.

  Wilhelm adjusted in the seat, his bottom sticking to the leather. He pulled out a map and glanced intermittently back at the winding road. “Should be the next one.” He folded the paper and pushed it aside, his knuckles gripping the wheel tight as his eyes danced between each side of the road.

  “I see it!” Will pointed from the back open window. “Through the trees. I saw it!”

  “Looks like we’re home.” Wilhelm’s voice mixed in equal parts of expectation
and terror. They rose over another mound and the entrance to the lane came into view. A ragged, metal mailbox leaned forward as a head nods in slumber. They turned into the lane and as the front wheel landed in a deep hole the car jerked fiercely and stalled.

  Wilhelm stepped out of the car and inspected the front wheel, the tire ripped with the jagged edge of the crevice. “Guess we’re walking from here.”

  One by one, they stepped out of the car, stretched stooped muscles and inert legs. The lane was a disaster. One side deep and nearly washed out from years of hard rain and lack of use. To the right, a long creek sliced through the land—a jagged cut, twisting and rough, with sides of clumped weeds threatening to fall into the shallow stream.

  “How could they have delivered our furniture?” Eveline asked.

  Wilhelm pointed at the dip below and the wood slats covering the crevice. “Must have brought the wood along, laid it out inch by inch.”

  They passed the makeshift bridge, then a line of trees before the homestead stretched ahead. But there were no squeals of delight, no sounds at all.

  The wood-sided farmhouse tilted, the white paint long chipped away. The wrought-iron yard fence was covered in rust and large lines lay flat on the ground sinking into the soil. One shutter clung to the siding for dear life, a pathetic black rectangle hanging on the bottom window. The roof grew black and green with moss and mildew, the edge eaten away from hard weather and vegetation. A huge, unpruned apple tree stalked the yard, so majestic the expanse nearly eclipsed the house.

  But as they looked at the old house—at the broken fence and cracked slate walkway, the worn brown barn and sheds, rusted old plows and scattered and unnamable mechanical pieces—one revelation stood out more than any other: There wasn’t a blade of grass in sight.