A Forbidden Rumspringa

by Keira Andrews

  But he couldn’t stop.

  His toes curled in the grass as he flexed his thighs and pumped his hips, bracing his upper back against the tree and arching into the tight grip of his hand. In his mind he was naked in the night air, flying on top of the train, the wind whipping his hair back from his forehead.

  David was there, his eyes blazing, seeing right into Isaac’s soul. Then it was David’s hand touching him, his breath hot on Isaac’s face as he leaned in so close, lips soft, and then fierce as he claimed him—

  The train’s whistle sounded again, closer this time, and Isaac’s cry echoed with it as he spilled over his hand, the bliss tearing through him and leaving him quivering and messy. He opened his eyes, jerking his head around to make sure he was still alone.

  Chest heaving, he yanked down his nightshirt and scurried back to the outhouse. He tore off a ream of scratchy toilet paper to clean himself as best he could with shaking hands.

  When he was back in bed with his brother’s snores, Isaac prayed for forgiveness and the dawn.

  The long wooden bench groaned as Isaac took his seat next to Mervin and tucked his black hat underneath. It was already warm with all the extra bodies inside the Hooleys’ home, and Isaac wished he could blink away the next three or four hours in an instant. At least there were more children than adults in Zebulon, and they didn’t take up as much room.

  He supposed it would be wrong to ask the Lord that the service would be on the shorter side today, and said a quick prayer of forgiveness for even thinking it.

  As everyone squeezed in, Isaac found himself wondering—not for the first time—why they couldn’t just build a church the way the English did. He knew the tradition of hosting church at members’ houses had been born from persecution of the earliest Amish in Europe, who had to hide their services. But in America they were free to worship however they pleased. To Isaac it seemed a tradition that served no purpose. Of course he kept that to himself.

  At least he’d had the good fortune to be born only weeks apart from his best friend. They always sat together at church, with all the men filing onto their benches in strict order of age from eldest to youngest. Mervin was fairly vibrating with excitement, but when Isaac lifted an eyebrow, Mervin gave a wink that meant later. His green eyes sparkled beneath his mop of reddish-blond hair.

  In the meantime he gave Isaac a playful shove with his thick shoulder. Mervin Miller was short and stocky, yet surprisingly pale for all the hours he spent in the fields.

  He whispered, “When are you going to ask her out?”

  Isaac followed Mervin’s gaze to where Mary Lantz sat with her friends on one of the women’s benches on the other side of the room near the back door the women entered through. His eyes met Mary’s, and she jerked away, ducking her head close to her sister beside her to whisper something. Their pinned wheat-colored hair blended together perfectly beneath their black caps. Anna was barely a year younger, and they looked almost like twins.

  In Zebulon girls wore black caps and the married women white, although the girls who were finished school wore white caps at home during the week. Never off the farm, and never on Sunday, though. They all wore black bonnets over their caps if they were out in a buggy. Back in Red Hills the women had rarely worn bonnets at all, and their dresses had been lighter and a little shorter.

  In Zebulon dresses had to reach the tops of the feet, and Katie had grumbled that morning about the thick black socks she had to wear with her shoes to church even in summer, although she had never known anything different. No elastic or rubber was permitted, and they tied black shoestrings around their calves to keep socks from slouching down. And of course the women and girls had long sleeves on their dresses all year round, even when it was so hot the air shimmered off the road in waves.

  Often the Ordnung did not seem to follow any logic Isaac could identify, but of course it was not for him to question. He’d asked Father once why the bands on their hats had to be precisely five-eights of an inch, and why brims on married men’s hats were four inches, while for the bishop and preachers they were four and a half. Naturally the answer was that it was because the Ordnung decreed it. It was their way.

  “You should ask her brother to ask her for you. It’ll work, I know it,” Mervin added.

  “Shh,” Isaac hissed. David Lantz sat on the bench in front of them, but five men down to the right. Isaac glanced at David’s profile, the tip of his nose just visible. Around him the men all wore their hair past their ears, the strands forming little wings where it had curled beneath their hats. But since David wasn’t following church yet, he was allowed to keep his hair a little shorter like Isaac did. David stared straight ahead and didn’t seem to have heard Mervin’s too-loud comment.

  “Do you want to hear something?”

  Isaac tore his gaze away from David and stared at his scuffed boots. After a summer being barefoot most of the time, his toes felt hot and confined. But come winter he’d have to get used again to boots every day. At least they didn’t wear their heavy felt hats inside. He wished they could wear their straw hats in the heat, but in Zebulon it wasn’t allowed on church days. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Ha ha. I talked to Jacob.”

  “Eli’s Jacob?”

  Mervin huffed. “Why would I talk to him? No, New-corn Jacob.”

  “Oh.” Jacob Stoltzfus had recently planted rows of corn on his farm on the outskirts of Zebulon. “What did he have to say?”

  Mervin rolled his eyes. “How are you still so dense? I asked him to ask Sadie if she’d go out with me!” He grinned. “She said yes! I’m driving her home after the singing tonight.”

  “But we’re supposed to go to the lake tonight!” At the sharp glance from Josiah Yoder nearby—Hog Josiah he was called, since he raised pigs—Isaac lowered his voice. “You said you were going to show me that trick you do when you jump off the rock.”

  “We can go to the lake any old time.” Mervin glanced at Sadie Stoltzfus across the room and sighed. “She’s the prettiest girl in Zebulon. Isaac, don’t you want a girl of your own? We’re eighteen now. Mark is already joining the church and he’s going to marry Josiah’s Katie come spring. What are you waiting for?”

  Isaac shrugged, since he didn’t trust his voice not to waver. It was a fine question, and he wished he knew the answer. Mervin was right—the time to be men was upon them. Mervin had already dated Rebecca Hooley, but they hadn’t been a good match. If Sadie was, soon he’d be courting her.

  Isaac glanced at Mary Lantz again. She was pretty enough—more than enough, with her kind smile and big blue eyes that were darker than her brother’s. There was nothing wrong with Mary. But Isaac was beginning to think there was something very wrong with him.

  He was saved from further reflection by one of the men beginning the service with a hymn. As the congregation joined the slow chant, Zebulon’s one bishop, two ministers, and one deacon rose and silently walked up the stairs to the Obrote, a separate room where they could confer. On this day, Isaac guessed the Obrote was the Hooleys’ biggest bedroom. The five people who were taking instruction on joining the church followed. David Lantz was last, and he closed the door at the foot of the stairs behind him, his expression blank.

  Isaac joined in singing the mournful German song, relieved that it was one of the shorter hymns—only ten minutes. Of course it didn’t really matter, as they’d sing as many hymns as necessary while the preachers did their business. The next hymn was nearly twenty minutes, and the applicants returned at the end of it. David retook his seat with a new tightness to his jaw.

  They sang on while the church leaders conferred privately. Isaac remembered what his brother Aaron whispered to him when he’d asked what went on in the Obrote.

  “It’s nothing, really. We sit there piously and they admonish us for our sins. We listen to them blather on about how wonderful the church is, and how we won’t regret this choice.” He laughed softly. “At least once I’m baptized I won’t have to g
o in there and pretend to listen.”

  The words of the hymn died on Isaac’s tongue as his breath caught, the longing to see Aaron again like an anvil dropped on his chest. He stuck his hand in his pocket, feeling the smooth folded handle of the knife. It had been next to his pillow when he woke that awful morning, and Isaac hadn’t needed to read the neatly creased piece of paper on Aaron’s side of the bed to know his brother was gone.

  He closed his eyes against the memories of Mother’s shocking sobs—never had he witnessed her come so undone, not before nor since—and Father’s silent desperation. It had felt like the end of the world. After a few weeks without word from him or a chance to help him change his mind, the bishop excommunicated Aaron and added him to the Bann. He was of course to be shunned. Meidung.

  Isaac shivered just thinking of it. As much as he dreamed of what waited beyond the borders of Zebulon, to be cast out alone in the world was unimaginable. He’d wanted to hate his brother for leaving like that—for stealing away in the night and not even saying goodbye—but he’d only been overcome with loss and longing.

  The preachers rejoined the congregation about fifteen minutes later. Daniel Lapp delivered the short sermon, although at forty minutes, “short” was not what Isaac would have called it. A kind old man, at least Preacher Lapp had a pleasant speaking voice. It was a relief to kneel for prayers. Although the wooden floor was hard on his knees, it gave Isaac’s backside a rest.

  Jeremiah Stoltzfus read the Scripture as always. A barrel of a man, Deacon Stoltzfus had been a blacksmith before drawing the short straw. He was one of the dozens of Stoltzfuses in Zebulon, and Isaac’s least favorite. He read the chapter of Scripture in a flat monotone, his bushy black hair sticking out over his ears, and his beard hanging to the top of his chest.

  While the deacon droned on, Isaac thought back to the Sunday several years ago when they’d chosen him. The previous deacon had died of old age, and now every baptized member of the church made their nominations for his replacement. Men with three or more votes were candidates. Isaac had always wondered how Jeremiah Stoltzfus had gotten any nominations at all for the post, let alone three or more.

  Bishop Yoder and the preachers had shut themselves away, and returned with a stack of seven songbooks, each tied shut with white string. Seven men in the lot. A few of the younger candidates had visibly trembled. Church that day was at John Otto’s farm, and while the house was fairly large and airy, Isaac remembered it being unbearably oppressive. While Mervin usually had a joke or two to whisper during a service, on this day he’d sat like a statue beside Isaac, his pale freckled hands clasped in his lap.

  One by one, the candidates chose a songbook and opened it. For the men with no slip of paper inside, they sagged with relief, some weeping their joy. To be a preacher or deacon meant a lifetime of service with no salary, and the end of the man’s life as he’d known it. In Isaac’s experience, few joined those ranks with happiness. Isaac shuddered at the thought that it could happen to him one day, but all baptized men knew it was a possibility.

  Jeremiah Stoltzfus had been second to the last in the lot. When he pulled out the paper from his songbook, he made no sound, his expression impassive. He’d accepted his fate utterly calmly, and Isaac remembered thinking that perhaps Deacon Stoltzfus was a man who would enjoy the power of his new position.

  As deacon, he enforced the Ordnung and collected alms for those in need in the community, although he was so glowering and gruff that Isaac suspected people gave generously because they were eager to be away from his beady glare. It was not a pleasant thing to have the deacon at your door for any reason, but if you’d broken one of the Ordnung’s regulations, Isaac had heard it was an altogether terrifying experience.

  At least Deacon Stoltzfus never deviated from his assigned reading to deliver an impromptu sermon of his own, as Isaac remembered the deacon in Red Hills doing. For that, if nothing else, Isaac could be grateful.

  Some of the children were asleep by the time Bishop Yoder delivered the main sermon. Isaac’s eyes drooped, and he pinched himself. He hoped the sermon wouldn’t be two hours as it had two Sundays ago. In Red Hills there had been four preachers who took turns delivering sermons, but that community was much larger. Bishop Yoder liked to sermonize, so at almost every service, he stood before them and rambled. The preachers never used notes and always spoke German in church.

  “For Joseph was a humble man, just as we in Zebulon are humble. We trust in God and follow the Ordnung, caring not what outsiders might think. For we live holy lives in a true community of fellowship with our brothers and sisters. We reject worldly temptations.”

  A tall, thin man, Bishop Yoder’s hair was almost white. His face was as narrow and pinched as his body, but his voice boomed. On and on he droned about the Bible and the rules of the Ordnung. Isaac thought it would never end. Although the small windows in the house were open to the September breeze, precious little air found its way to where Isaac sat in the crush of men.

  “And when we came to this prosperous land and called it Zebulon, we dedicated ourselves to the true faith.”

  Isaac perked up. Bishop Yoder always ended his sermons with a message about how smart and God-fearing they were to have left Red Hills, so at least it was almost over.

  “We must never forget the sin and worldliness that drove us here. Remember how narrow the escape was for our children, who here are firmly on the path of righteousness. In Zebulon, holiness holds sway over the wild and ruinous excesses of the past. Our young people recognize the path to salvation and do not need to taste the evils of the unclean English world. They are wise beyond their years, and fill our hearts with thankfulness.”

  Excesses. In Zebulon—as was the Swartzentruber way—they never uttered the word rumspringa, and the younger children had no concept of it. Thoughts of Aaron flickered through Isaac’s mind, unbidden.

  He’d come home from hunting with the other boys in Red Hills smelling of cigarettes, with moonshine on his breath. How Mother and Father would scold him, shaking their heads and muttering about Aaron’s soul. “At least he’s dating Marvin’s Rebecca the proper way. He will come to the church soon and leave this foolish time behind.”

  Isaac tried to imagine their reaction if he dared be caught now with a worldly cigarette or worse. While none of the parents in Red Hills had ever encouraged the running around, they had grimly tolerated it, punishing the youngies when they went too far, and doing everything they could to convince them to join the church. But in Zebulon? He shuddered to think of the consequences for running wild.

  In the silence that followed the Bishop’s sermon, Isaac held his breath. Blessedly, they all said a final prayer and escaped.

  Outside, the women served lunch, and they ate in shifts at the long tables. When Isaac and Mervin said their silent grace and took their seats next to each other, someone else sat on Isaac’s other side. When Isaac looked, he froze. It was David. Isaac stuffed a forkful of cabbage salad into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to say anything.

  He was painfully aware of how their shoulders and arms brushed, and he kept his knees pinned together under the table to avoid touching David’s thigh. He wished he knew what it was about David that put him so off-kilter.

  As he shoveled in a spoonful of chicken corn soup, Isaac’s attention was drawn to the older man on David’s other side, Noah Lapp.

  “Your hair is too trimmed, but look at the length of your sideburns. Too worldly.”

  David swallowed his soup. “Thank you for your guidance.” His tone was even.

  “Why aren’t you letting your beard grow? Your baptism is approaching. Do you not want to be a good Amish man?”

  “Of course,” David answered. He offered no reason for why he was still shaving.

  “Why do you not drive any of the girls home from the singing? You are joining the church. You must find a wife.” Noah slurped his soup.

  David opened his mouth, but after a moment closed it again, and blew out
a long breath. “Yes, you’re right. Thank you for your guidance. I promise to do better.”

  “Good, good.” Noah eyed David critically. “You will be at the singing tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your buggy seems a little tall.”

  “I’ve had it for four years and no one’s complained.” David took another sip of soup, his spoon clenched in his hand. “The buckboard’s seventeen and a half inches, just as it’s prescribed in the Ordnung.”

  “Hmm. Is it? Perhaps we should measure after lunch.”

  David smiled, his lips pressed together. “Of course. Thank you for your guidance.”

  Isaac and Mervin shared a pained glance. This haranguing was routine for anyone joining the church, and they all knew they had to smile mildly and bear it. Any signs of rebellion or resentment could mean a delay in joining—and more scrutiny. The preachers were bad enough, but most in the community joined in, criticizing the smallest things with what Isaac thought was secret glee.

  “When are you boys joining the church? It should be soon, shouldn’t it?” Noah asked.

  Isaac’s stomach dropped as he realized Noah was speaking to him and Mervin. He cleared his throat. “Soon.”

  “Yes. Very soon,” Mervin added.

  Noah nodded before speaking to David again. “You took so long to join that other youngies might get ideas. We must all help each other find the true path and honor God.”

  He could sense the tension in David as old Noah Lapp went on and on, with others at the table soon joining in. Through it all, David smiled and nodded, keeping his gaze on his lunch. When Isaac finished eating and stood, David turned to look at him.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Isaac smiled tentatively, and David smiled back, the dimple in his cheek appearing.

  Although he’d just had three cups of water, Isaac’s throat was dry, and he refilled his cup from the jug, gulping the cool liquid down before hurrying to catch up with Mervin.