The Virus

by Janelle Diller

  How have your thoughts about government control and freedom been impacted by reading The Virus? Do you view the world any differently after having read this book?

  If you want Janelle to join your book club by Skype, contact her through her website at www.janellediller.com.

  COMING SOON FROM JANELLE DILLER…

  The Secret War:

  a Mennonite Memoir

  I come from a long line of storytellers, which isn’t my fault.

  The burden of this is that I can never just tell you something. I have to give you the context that—unfortunately for the listener—often begins with “I was born in a small town in Kansas just before the Depression.” You’d be surprised how often that bit of information is important.

  When we were children, you could have asked me and my brother, Aaron, what we had for supper, and he, who somehow escaped the family curse, would have told you, “Potatoes and ham gravy.”

  Four words.

  Of course, it lacks detail, substance, and nuance, even if it does actually answer your question.

  I, on the other hand, would have felt driven to tell you about the drought, the price of pork, the relatives who gave up and moved to California, and the surprising ways you can stretch nothing into not much, but enough to get full on. I’d eventually remember to circle around and tell you about the potatoes and ham gravy, but that’d be after I also told you about the piano lessons I always wanted but never got and the fact that my brother was a terrible speller and to this day spells women, “wemon.” Aaron used to say, “When you ask Cat [that’s me] something, you better have your knitting along.”

  I’ve speculated about why Aaron doesn’t talk much. Back in the ‘20s, we used to have bands of gypsies that would jangle along the back roads between here and nowhere worth going. I think they stole Aaron from some dull Lutheran family up north in Pawnee County, and when they realized he was never going to be able to distract people with witty conversation, they dropped him off on our doorstep, thinking we German Mennonites would never even notice he was boring. I showed up after he did, so even though my mother always denied my version of things, I’m not convinced.

  Of course, I’m only telling you this so you’ll forgive me if I tell you more than Aaron would offer about those terrible times. In fact, if you want Aaron’s version, here it is: “The Depression nearly destroyed us. The war was worse.”

  My version? Well, I think you need to know a little more.

  #

  I was only seven at the time, but because it was such a rare treat to go into town, I might have remembered the day even if the Sweethome bank hadn’t shut its doors.

  We drove into town that day in our rackety old Ford truck, just Dad and me. The seats were so low I couldn’t see out the window very well if I sat like a lady should, so I kneeled on a pillow and draped my arms over the bench back and watched the world dizzily speed by just ahead of our billowing dust. The wind whipped my braids around so much that Dad called me Piggly Wiggly.

  We stopped at the bank first.

  “Set your fanny there, Kittycat, while I take care of some business.” He pointed to a stiff leather chair. “And don’t go gettin’ curious.”

  Cats and curiosity. He’d made that point before.

  The chair gave me a good angle on some old maid who worked at the bank. If she wasn’t an old maid, she must’ve been a widow lady with ten hungry mouths to feed since old maids and widows were the only kind of working ladies in the world. She kept a tidy desk. Two sharpened pencils sat ready to attack a stack of papers, but while I sat there, they didn’t move. Her mouth did, though. She seemed right glad to talk to anything that had two legs, me included. But I didn’t talk back because all my life I’d been told to mind my p’s and q’s and this seemed like a good place to practice. Besides, if I moved my mouth, I’d most likely end up moving my fanny, too, and I knew that would come to no good.

  I felt right at home there, though, because the old maid had an itty-bitty framed picture that said “Jesus Saves” on it, just like the one at church where we children had our Sunday school openings every Sunday. We used to also have a picture that said “Jesus Lives” until one of the bigger boys—probably one of the toothy Fred Miller boys—wrote, “in Enid Oklahoma and he ain’t none too happy about it” underneath the picture. The very next Sunday we had ourselves a new picture, this one with Jesus on the cross and with a glass cover. It didn’t have any words on it. I guess they didn’t want to spark anyone’s imagination.

  All in all, “Jesus Saves” made more sense since we kept putting our pennies and nickels in the offering basket for him. I didn’t know what Jesus was saving up for, but Sunday after Sunday like that collecting all those pennies, I figured it was going to be something big. Yessir. Most of all, though, I hoped it was gonna’ be sweet and he’d share it with me. Store bought candy’s what I had in mind.

  Anyway, I wasn’t any too surprised to find out that Jesus was saving at the bank, too.

  When Dad finally came out of the office, he was laughing and shaking hands with a short, baldheaded man. I know he was in high spirits because I hadn’t seen him happy very often, and I thought it was odd that a place like a bank would make him smile so much. I decided right then and there that when I grew up I’d never marry a farmer since they never laughed. I’d marry me a bankerman instead. That is, if a bankerman was in the “do” column of that long invisible list of dos and don’ts that Mennonites kept somewhere.

  From the bank, we stopped at the feed mill, and Dad let me pick out the feed sack the chicken feed came in that we were buying. I picked a pretty one with teeny tiny pink flowers. I always picked one with flowers because then maybe Mama would smile a little and sew the feed sack into a dress for me. In 1933, some folks got to shop at J.C. Penny’s, but not us.

  We also stopped at the grocers and bought a loaf of bread. I know we must have bought some other things, too, but store-bought bread was as rare as a smiling farmer, so that sticks in my mind. Dad’s last stop was at Brewster’s drugstore where he bought me a chocolate ice cream cone with two scoops of ice cream. He must have thought he’d get to finish one of the scoops, but I fooled him. I didn’t aim to share anything that special with anyone. Dad had a whopping big piece of lemon meringue pie and then grumbled it wasn’t nearly as sweet or tart or flaky as Mama’s even though he ate every last crumb of it and looked like he would have liked to lick the plate, too.

  After the ice cream and pie we headed back to the truck to go home. Just as Dad was cranking the engine, Elroy Perky came running down the sidewalk, his arms flailing. With his beak of a nose and long, skinny neck, Elroy was a twin to a goose. Today, he kind of tilted forward, too, which only added to the goose look. Running like he was with his arms flapping, he could have taken flight. He seemed to be calling out to the entire street and not to anyone in particular. “They closed the bank down! They just shut ‘er down!”

  Dad stopped cranking and got a funny look on his face. “What’d you say, Elroy?”

  Elroy stopped a moment and wheezed in some more breath. He swiped his nose with his shirtsleeve and spit on the sidewalk. “They just closed the bank down. I stopped there to get some money out, and they locked the door in my face. Wouldn’t even crack it open to talk to me. Talked through the glass.”

  Dad pulled out his pocket watch and studied it a minute. “They’ll be opening it on Monday though, right? Usual time, right?”

  Elroy’s face crinkled up painfully tight. “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. They just shut ‘er down. For good. You got money in there, it ain’t yours no more.”

  Dad’s face slowly took on the same painful, crinkled look that Elroy’s had. He dropped the crank and leaned through the window for his zippered canvas pouch. He opened it up and flipped through his papers once, twice, and then another time. His lip started twitching, so I knew I should be scared.

  “Did we have money in the bank, Daddy?”

  “No” was all he
said. His voice sounded thick and hoarse.

  I knew that voice. My tummy turned upside down. I didn’t know what was wrong since we didn’t have any money in the bank. All I knew was that whatever was worse than having money in the bank and then not having it anymore, we had it.

  Dad pounded on the bank door’s heavy glass, with each hit jangling the welcome bell that wasn’t welcoming anyone. He pounded for a long time, and even though we could see people inside, no one would come to the door. The short, baldheaded man was in there, too, but he didn’t look like he was smiling or laughing anymore. In fact, even through the window, it looked like he had the same painful, crinkled look on his face that Elroy had given Dad.

  Now Dad started yelling while he pounded. “Bernard! Bernard, open the door.” Bernard must have been the short, baldheaded man because he scurried into a back room. “Bernard!” Dad yelled again. “You didn’t sign the papers. All I need is your signature. I already paid off the loan.” He pounded some more but looked like it wouldn’t make any difference. “Open the door and talk to me, Bernard!” he shouted.

  By now, a few other cars came flying up to the bank. Dust swirled around us. A scattering of people came on foot.

  Tight, edgy voices called out.

  “Open up! Just give us our money!”

  “We got a right to our own money!”

  “What are we going to do without our money?”

  Dad finally stopped beating on the door and wove his way through the gathering group back to the truck. Someone picked up a rock and heaved it at the door, barely missing the glass. The voices grew louder, meaner. More raucous. A few more cars pulled up. Men hopped out, mad. Another rock flew. This one jangled the welcome bell and rattled the glass.

  Dad cranked the engine a couple of turns and putt, putt, putted away. As we headed down Main Street, the sheriff flew past us, blowing his siren to tell people to get off the street. Since no one was on the street except for us, it was a pretty silly thing to do, but we might not have known how serious the sheriff was otherwise. My heart thumped in my ears, and I turned around in my seat to watch his dust cloud.

  “Is he going to get his money out of the bank?”

  “He’s going to help the robbers.” Dad’s voice was raspy and tight.

  I still didn’t know what the sheriff was going to do. “Does that mean he’s going to help the people inside or outside the bank?”

  But Dad didn’t respond. He used words like he spent dollars—few and far between. But even though he said little, his body shouted. Even at my age I could read that language as well as I could read a book. Dad’s muscles tensed, his mouth twitched, and he grew deaf. I guessed the end of the world was near.

  I held my breath so I wouldn’t cry.

  We didn’t head home. Instead, Dad drove out past the grain elevator and miles out into the countryside where there were no trees, only endless fields where the wheat should’ve been a velvety green carpet but wasn’t. I’d been this way before, but I didn’t know where the road took us. It turned out that the road took us to Simon Yoder’s farm. When I grew up, I eventually realized that all roads would take you to Simon Yoder’s if you followed them long enough.

  I knew Simon from church. He was a big man with a likable face and a happy, wide smile. When he let loose a laugh, you could see he had a shiny tooth outlined in gold. He was shiny on the outside, too, not just the tooth. Simon wore suits he bought in Dodge City at Hartley Brothers Department store and had them tailored to fit. He had more than one suit, unlike every other man I knew who got married and buried in their suits and wore them to church every Sunday morning and every Sunday evening in between. Sometimes to Wednesday prayer meetings, too. Maybe when it hadn’t been the Depression they’d had more than one suit, but since I’d only known life since the Depression, I wouldn’t have known those things then.

  I didn’t know why we’d gone here instead of home, but it was a good enough surprise. Ethel, Simon Yoder’s wife, had been my Sunday school teacher when I was little—little being a relative term when you’re seven. Ethel was a soft, pillowy woman with pumpkin breasts that swayed reverently and frizzy hair sticks that wouldn’t stay in a bun. She seemed like tapioca pudding to me: lots of lumps but no sparkle. She was all right with me, though, because when she taught Sunday school she purchased good behavior with sugar cookies. You could buy a lot with a good sugar cookie back then.

  “Wait in the truck, Kittycat,” Dad said, but I climbed out anyway knowing that if he really cared, his voice would have sounded harder.

  I guess I expected to walk into a cheery kitchen with racks and racks of steamy sugar cookies cooling and a smiling Ethel playing with flannel board Bible story cutouts. Instead, chaos reigned in the room. Dishes and unfinished plates of food cluttered the tabletop and sink drainboard. Ethel, looking ever so much like a fat bird on stick ankles, stood at the stove, soberly cooking up more chaos.

  Helen, one of the Yoder girls, leaned against the sink, arms crossed, and lazily chatted with her mother.

  My mama would have fallen through the floor if anyone had seen her kitchen look like that. So I knew that Helen was some kind of a no-good girl, even if she was a Mennonite.

  Dad cleared off a kitchen chair and left me, wide-eyed and silent, at the table while he disappeared. Ethel put a couple of stale cookies in front of me and pinched her lips together to make a smile. Her eyes didn’t get those sweet lines, though, so I don’t think you could call it a real smile. I wondered for a little while whether it was better not to smile at all or pretend to smile but not mean it.

  Helen’s eyesight must have been bad because she didn’t even nod her head my way but kept on chattering about her hair that she wanted to name “Bob.” I didn’t know girls named their hair. What I did know was that Mennonite girls didn’t cut their hair. Eventually, they wrapped it up under prayer coverings like their mothers and then had lots of babies. On Sundays, Helen’s hair was always hidden under her covering, so I figured it was long like God wanted it to be and she was just a short time away from baby making. But here she stood, talking about Bob and her hair, which was actually quite short, hardly to her shoulders. It was the first time I realized you could lie with your hair. Here everyone thought she was a virtuous girl and she wasn’t.

  I nibbled quietly, not understanding what I was doing at that moment in such a dirty spot on earth and feeling confused and maybe a little sick. Three sugar cookies and no milk later, Dad returned with Simon Yoder. Simon’s only son, Harold, slouched in behind them. Simon flashed a golden edged smile at me and winked conspiratorially like we were long lost buddies. I should have felt warm inside.

  “Mama,” Simon said to Ethel, “Ezra and I are going into town to have a little conversation with Bernard Hibble.” He tilted his head toward Harold. ”You drive little blondie home and explain to Rose why Ezra’s going to be late.”

  Harold glanced in my direction but didn’t move a muscle except to smile slyly. I knew this boy from church, but until this moment, I didn’t realize I didn’t like him. I wanted to go home with my dad, not with this oily looking boy who wouldn’t even stand up straight.

  That no-good girl Helen must have stopped thinking about naming her hair because she perked up and noticed me finally. “I’ll drive her.” She said it fast.

  I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t.

  “No!” I sounded more panicked than I meant to, but girls didn’t know how to drive. I knew this was true because my grandma was a girl and I’d ridden with her lots of times and I knew for a fact she didn’t know how to drive. I’d been in my share of ditches with that lady.

  “It’s okay,” my dad said tiredly. “She can ride along with us. Rose will just have to sit with her worry. Won’t be the first time.”

  So Simon, Dad, and I all climbed into the truck and headed back into town. I sat in the middle but scooched close to Dad. Simon talked while Dad drove. He said reassuring words. “Bernard will listen to me, Ezra. He owes his j
ob to me, as well as a good share of the bank’s business. I’ll make him sign, or I’ll see that the board votes him out.” But Dad’s mouth twitched anyway. Maybe he was already thinking about future debts.

  Dusk fell around us, draping the fields and road in roses and ambers. The motor rumbled under my feet, steadily lulling me to sleep. I woke when Dad killed the engine. We hadn’t stopped at the bank but in front of a broad brick house set back from the street. A low, wrought iron fence outlined the front of the yard and red brick front walk, nothing practical that would keep a cow in or out. A car sat on a brick driveway. It was so shiny we could see ourselves in it as we paraded past. The three of us looked like squat bugs, even tall, skin-and-bones Dad.

  “Got your papers, Ezra?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Just let me do the talking.”

  A mouse of a woman with a halo of coppery brown hair opened the door. Her tummy was big and round, like she had a huge sack of feed under her dress. She rested her hands on the top of it while she talked. That seemed like a handy thing to be able to do. “Bernard’s not here. He hasn’t come home from the bank yet. I’ll tell him you stopped by, though, Simon.” She nodded at Dad and glanced at me without lowering the tip of her nose.

  “Well, Alice, we’ll just wait in the parlor for him then,” Simon said as he opened the screen door. “I’m sure under the circumstances, he’ll understand.” He showed this Alice his gold tooth so it looked like he was smiling.

  The mouse woman opened her mouth, but only squeaked a protest before the three of us were standing in the entryway. I thought she might stamp her foot and huff at us since that’s what I’d likely do if I had that look on my face, but she didn’t. Instead, she shifted into the role of a fidgety hostess and ushered us into the parlor. She disappeared while the three of us sat stiffly on a puffy davenport that was never intended to make a body feel welcome. Everything in the room that could be covered in fabric was, and none of it was the kind that had once been a feed sack. Flowers flowed everywhere: roses and peonies and dahlias twined down the heavy drapes, streamed over the furniture, and spilled onto the carpet. More than enough flowers to make me dizzy.