by Alex George
The last letter arrived. Frederick never posted it; it had been found in the pocket of his tunic by Daniel Jinks, the carpenter from Joplin, who had sent it on himself. Jette opened the envelope, scarcely able to breathe. There was the date: October 13, 1918.
Curled up on a pew in that whitewashed church deep in the Argonne Forest, my grandfather handed Jette the key that would set her free. He did not write of his first day of engagement with the enemy—that long-anticipated confrontation. Instead he told her about the impromptu recital in the church with the kind pianist from Missouri. The music had woken up old memories and lifted his eyes beyond the bleak horizon of war. For the first time in months, he talked about coming home. Promises, crazy, impossible promises, spilled off the page, a glorious hymn to the future. Frederick was dreaming again. His last words to her were full of hope, of joy, of life.
Jette held the letter tightly in her hands. The man she had loved so dearly had returned to bid her a final farewell.
It was November 11, 1918, the day the Armistice was signed. The war had been won.
Now Jette could mourn properly.
She decided that there would be no funeral. She knew the crowd from the Nick-Nack would turn any memorial service into a mordant celebration, and she did not want that. Her husband was dead, his body abandoned in an unknown field on the other side of the world. The children had lost their father. They would stumble on, a lopsided trio, one corner of their perfect square gone forever. There was nothing to celebrate.
Instead she performed a little ceremony of her own devising. She built a fire in the backyard and burned all of Frederick’s letters, except the last one. She held each piece of paper over the flames in turn, watching his words slowly disintegrate. She planted a young apple tree in the yard and sprinkled the ashes of the letters in the soil around the sapling. Frederick’s words would enrich the ground he loved so much: new roots in America.
That afternoon, as the new apple tree swayed in the wind, she kissed her children’s heads and told them that their father was dead. Joseph buried his face in the folds of her dress. Rosa covered her ears with her fists. The three of them clung to each other and sank to the floor.
Later that day Joseph stumbled to Frau Bloomberg’s house. When she opened the door and saw his face, no words were needed. She knelt down on the doorstep and opened her arms. He clung to her, his shoulders heaving in wordless grief. Riva Bloomberg gently pried his fingers from around her neck. “Joseph,” she whispered. “Come with me.” She stood up and led him down the corridor to the music room.
Joseph looked away from the piano. “I won’t sing,” he said. “Not without him here.”
“But he is here,” said Riva Bloomberg. She gently placed her hand on Joseph’s chest. “He’s in here. Your father is part of you, and he always will be. If you sing, he’ll hear you. I promise.” She sat down on the piano stool and waited with her hands folded on her lap.
Joseph stood there for an age.
In the end, all his hard work did not go to waste. The recital took place, exactly as he had planned it, except that the songs were no longer songs of welcome, but a final good-bye. His voice, sweet and lovely, filled the empty room.
That evening, the mood in the Nick-Nack was ecstatic. People were celebrating. The Armistice had been signed. Victory was secured. The singing grew louder as the night went on. Jette stood behind the bar and listened. Toward the end of the evening, after a particularly boisterous rendition of “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” she climbed up onto the counter and clapped her hands for attention.
“Gentlemen, please!”
A sea of happy faces turned toward her.
“Our beautiful hostess!” called out a drunken voice.
“How about a victory dance?” shouted another. The crowd laughed.
Jette waited for the noise to die down. “You are all celebrating tonight,” she began. There was a cheer. “You want to honor the men who have fought for this country.”
There was a low rumble of approval. “American heroes!” called a voice from the back of the room.
Jette’s eyes were dry as she looked around the room. “Well, I have news about one American hero.” She took a deep breath and relinquished her secret. “My husband is not coming home. He was killed by enemy fire in France.”
In the stunned silence that followed, she climbed down from the bar, straightened her dress, and walked out the back door of the tavern. Not one person moved as she went.
Alone in the deserted alleyway, Jette slumped against the wall. Her chest tightened in a vise of melancholy. As she fought for breath, one of her legs gave way beneath her, and she stumbled forward into the darkness. She collapsed onto her knees, her body felled by tears.
A memory drifted back to her. During those long walks through the streets and gardens of Hanover, Frederick would tell her the plots of the operas he loved so much. There had been talking statues, deals with the Devil, megalomaniacal dwarves. She had laughed at the improbability of it all. But she reserved her greatest scorn for the absurd heroines who threw themselves about in twittering fits of melodrama, forever threatening to kill themselves for love. But whoever really died of a broken heart? she had asked him with a smile. Oh, he had replied, entirely serious, you’d be surprised.
So he was right all along, she thought. Grief began to smother her.
Then she heard the singing from the other side of the tavern door.
Jette propped herself up on one elbow and listened. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was seeping into the cold night air—but there was none of the usual celebratory pomp. Instead the men were singing softly in tribute to Frederick, their voices joined in gentle unison. When they reached the end of the fourth verse, there was a long silence. Jette gazed up into the starless sky. She wondered where she would ever get the strength to pick herself up.
The answer came there and then.
The men inside began to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” again. This time, though, all restraint had vanished. The usual lusty bellowing had returned, more spirited than ever, fueled by the euphoria of victory. America had won! To the victor the spoils!
Jette thought of her grandfather, directing his troops to slaughter from the safety of his ridiculous balloon. She realized then that nothing would ever change. Men would repeat the same stupid mistakes again and again, slowly wiping themselves off the planet. She clambered to her feet, her grief eclipsed by fury, and made herself listen to the revelry inside the Nick-Nack. She wanted the sound of the celebration scratched into her memory, an indelible scar.
Men would never curb their lust for blood. Even Frederick—sweet, gentle Frederick—had been hypnotized by all that violence. As Jette listened, she knew that the idiots in the Nick-Nack’s choir had learned nothing, and never would.
So then: the salvation of the human race lay in the hands of women.
Mothers would not send their children off to die.
The following morning, Jette made a placard out of a large piece of wood. On it she painted the phrase:
SAVE OUR CHILDREN. NO MORE WAR.
While the paint dried, she dressed in widow’s mourning. She kissed her children and walked slowly toward the main square, holding her handmade sign in front of her. She made quite a spectacle, this towering vision in black. People peered quizzically at her as she passed. In front of the courthouse steps lay the debris from the previous day’s victory celebrations, a tattered landscape of red, white, and blue. Jette began to march slowly around the building. Before long, every window of the courthouse was filled with curious spectators. A crowd gathered on the sidewalk to watch her progress. She ignored them all.
Halfway through the morning, Nancy Ott fell into step next to her. Her family ran the grocery store on Main Street—the store whose German sign Frederick had noticed moments before Jette’s waters broke. Nancy Ott
sat next to the till, where she rang up purchases and dealt in prurient, low-grade gossip. Jette had shopped there for years. Over the course of their long acquaintance the two women had never quite become friends, but the relationship had always been cordial. Now, though, the shopkeeper was scowling ferociously.
“Have you no shame?” she hissed.
Jette continued walking, looking straight ahead.
“Think of your poor husband, Jette. He must be turning in his grave, may God rest his soul.” Nancy Ott was struggling to keep pace with Jette’s long strides. “This is an insult to everything he fought for.”
“I loved my husband very much,” Jette replied calmly. “I miss him with all of my heart. He was a good man, and a brave man, too. But he was also an idiot. He chose to go to war, and he got himself killed. Now my children must grow up without a father, and I must go to the end of my days a lonely woman.”
“But the war is won.”
“Well, forgive me if I don’t share your joy. It won’t bring Frederick back.”
“This display of yours won’t bring him back either,” snapped Nancy Ott.
“That’s true,” agreed Jette. “But it might save others. And that is no insult to his memory, whatever you may think. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” With that she quickened her pace a fraction, and effortlessly left the older woman trailing in her wake.
“You’re no longer welcome in my store,” called Nancy Ott in fury.
Jette disappeared around the corner of the courthouse without looking back.
“Traitor,” cried Nancy Ott.
At midday Jette returned home. It was November 12, 1918—perhaps not the most obvious day to wear a sign saying no more war, but to her it made perfect sense. The first day of a new peace was precisely the time to begin her campaign. The sacrifices of the fallen were already fading from people’s memories, obscured by the complacency of victory. Jette knew it would not be long before the same mistakes would be repeated.
My grandmother might have understood what she was doing, but nobody else did. Word spread quickly through the town that she had lost her mind to grief. Wives shook their heads in sympathy. Men grumbled that mourning should take place in private. The whole spectacle, it was agreed, was in shocking taste.
That night at the Nick-Nack, the atmosphere could not have been more different from the celebrations of the previous evening. Jette’s presence behind the bar smothered good cheer like a wet blanket on a small flame. By then everyone had heard about her confrontation with Nancy Ott, and the sinister menace of the old woman’s final insult had grown with every whispered echo on the lips of others. People looked away as they ordered their drinks, words of condolence caught in their throats.
By chance William Henry Harris had been booked to play that evening, but the little pianist only added to the somber mood. Rather than his usual up-tempo selections, he just played mournful tunes. At the end of his set, he left the piano and walked to the middle of the stage. He looked out across the room and waited patiently for silence. Finally the room fell quiet, all eyes on the dapper pianist who, up until that point, had never uttered a word in all the years he had been playing there.
“I ain’t no poet,” he began. “I say what I have to say with my fingers, not with words. I got one more song, though, and I want to dedicate it to Mr. Frederick Meisenheimer. We never did have that much to say to each other, him and me, but he was a good man. He loved this music, and he loved this bar, and he loved this country.” The pianist sat down at the keyboard. “The national anthem,” he announced.
Rather than the simple, somber rendition that Frederick had so admired, this time William Henry Harris let loose a swaggering, finger-snappin’ stomp. His hands were a blur as the melody raced ahead, skipping and weaving through jazzy bass lines and strange harmonies. Notes flew from the piano at a ferocious clip, scattering in all directions. It was “The Star-Spangled Banner,” all right—red, white, and drenched in the blues. When he finished, William Henry Harris stood up and quickly left the stage.
In the surprised silence that followed, Jette saw her chance. She climbed onto the stage and faced the crowded room.
“My husband came to this country and fell in love,” she began. “He adored this place. He loved the ideas that this nation was built upon. Tolerance. Opportunity. And, more than anything, freedom. He loved them so much that he was prepared to sacrifice his life for them.” Jette looked around the room. “We made this place our home. Our children were born on this soil. This is my country,” she declared. “And I am a good American.”
A low murmur spread around the room.
“I am as thankful as anyone for this victory,” Jette continued. “I am grateful that the war is won. But my children’s hearts have been broken.” She paused. “When I march through the town I mean no disrespect, to my dead husband or to anyone else. I am frightened, that is all. I am frightened that there will be more wars. More good men will die. And if that happens, then Frederick’s death will have been for nothing. That is why I march.” She looked at the faces in front of her. “I know many of you disagree with me. That is your right. But I beg you, in the name of the freedoms that my husband died for—let me say what I have to say.”
With that, Jette turned and left the stage.
It was a tremendous performance. And, astonishingly, it worked.
We Midwesterners are a reasonable lot. If you argue your corner, you’ll get a fair hearing. And so it was: the citizens of Beatrice listened to Jette, considered the merits of her argument, and they decided that perhaps she had a point. The following morning, when she appeared outside the courthouse dressed in black, people bowed their heads as she passed, only now they did so as a sign of respect, not disgust. Even if people weren’t exactly happy about her protest, they recognized her right to make her feelings known.
As she marched, my grandmother—that reluctant American—was shining a small light on our country’s freedoms.
FIFTEEN
Winter wrapped the countryside in its cold embrace. Snow came in the first week of December, but still Jette appeared each morning for her lonely vigil at the courthouse, her black uniform stark against the glistening white of the town’s deserted streets.
But something far more ominous than snow rode in on the cold fronts that swept across the country that winter. A deadly strain of influenza was spreading, hastened over continents by the troops returning home. It was the war’s final shake of its monstrous fist. Death came quickly, victims dying in agony as blood seeped darkly from their noses, ears, and mouths. Their lungs filled with treacherous liquid, drowning them from within. Men returned home from the war, pleased to have survived, and then dropped dead, felled by a more lethal foe. In the end, the pandemic killed more people than all the bullets and bombs and poison gas combined.
The first reports of the disease came from Fort Riley in Kansas, only a few hundred miles away, but in its rush to devastation, the deadly virus passed Beatrice by. The townsfolk monitored the horror in the newspaper and took no chances. Strangers were no longer welcome. Every time a child coughed, Dr. Becker was hastily summoned. Rosa no longer had to concoct fictional illnesses—now there was a genuine reason for her to worry. She became convinced that she would be the first to perish. She took to walking everywhere with a thick scarf tied over her face and obsessively monitored her own symptoms, or lack of them. Most of all, she worried about who would look after Mr. Jim when she died.
Inevitably, death finally came to our little town, and when it did, it brushed close enough to my family to make me wonder how different our own story might have been.
After the war Johann Kliever had resumed his prizefighting career, traveling across the state and beyond to clobber the life out of unsuspecting opponents for cash. A day after his return from a bout in southern Illinois, he fell ill. He writhed on his bed, blind with del
irium. Anna held his hand, but she did not call the doctor. She knew that there was nothing to be done. The disease spared nobody, and inviting Becker into their home would merely hasten its spread across the town. She wiped her husband’s brow and waited sadly for the end.
Kliever was still an ox of a man, and immensely strong. He fought the virus with the same ferocity that he dispensed with those foolish enough to clamber into the prize ring with him. Astonishingly, he was still alive a week after the disease had risen up to claim him. After ten days, the fever relinquished its grip, and he slowly began to recover. As his huge body lay limp on the bed, Anna began to wonder whether she might dare to hope.
But hope is for fools. That night, as she lay next to her sleeping husband, the virus lay siege for a second time. Anna’s life slipped away as Kliever slept on, too weak to be roused by her fevered cries. By the following morning her screams had stopped.
The deaths of Frederick and Anna drew their sons closer together. Both Joseph and Stefan had discovered that the world was not the perfect place that they had once imagined it to be. It was knowledge that neither of them could ever escape. They weren’t ready or able to talk about the pain of their loss, but each knew that the other understood. Their bond of shared grief was all the stronger for never being put into words. Those deep, inarticulate ties gave the boys comfort and strength. Alone, either might have collapsed beneath the weight of his grief, but together they propped each other up and staggered on toward the future.
The old games that had so absorbed them in the past were long forgotten. Instead they discovered new distractions. Sometimes Stefan borrowed one of his father’s shotguns, and the boys would trudge up to Tillman’s Wood and shoot at animals. They never killed anything, but that didn’t matter. The heft of the gun in their arms, the sharp recoil against their shoulders, the whiff of cordite in the air—that was what was important. Their wayward bullets ripped through the undergrowth and splintered old tree trunks. Joseph and Stefan found comfort in those small trails of destruction. They were imposing a measure of control over the chaos that had overturned their lives. The deafening ring of gunshots in their ears obliterated their loss, at least for a while.