by Celia Hayes
Peter grinned. He derived a great deal of pleasure from verbally sparring with Anna. She had a crisp snap and savor to her wits and conversation. Once one was accustomed to it, most other women seemed pallid and dull.
“Such news!” the old grandfather called to them, from the parlor. “Such splendid news!”
“The property is returned to us!” Dolph’s mother appeared in the doorway, her face alight with happiness. “Mr. Schuetze was sent to bring these—can you believe it? He is the brother of our Mr. Schuetze who was our schoolmaster. He brought these directly from the Governor’s office.”
“And such more good news!” Vati chimed in. “They have seen to it that my daughter shall have a regular pension, paid by the state! Can you imagine? And better yet—that they should make it start from the death of Son Carl!”
“So Colonel Hays came up trumps, after all!” Dolph seemed pleasantly surprised. “Well, it was only right, after all. He did promise he would write on Mama’s behalf.”
“His letters must have fair scorched the paper they were written on,” Vati bubbled. “To think of how he shamed them into generosity just when we had given up all thought of justice ever being done! It was enough for the return of the land, but this . . .”
“So Mama has a nice nest egg.” Dolph kissed his mother’s cheek while Fredi embraced her, and exuberantly kissed the other. “I guess a Reconstruction government is good for something after all. It’s quite splendid, Mama—what will you do with it?”
“Consult with your Uncle Hansi about investing,” Magda Becker answered. “And I shall ask Captain Nimitz and Judge Wahrmund for their advice as well.” She suddenly sat down on the chaise, clasping the papers in her hands, and the tears started to shine in her eyes. “It doesn’t seem quite real—and now that we are making a success at last of the store. I am so torn, Vati!”
“I am sure you will work out something, my dear.” The older man patted her hand, fondly.
“This must be good news for you,” Peter observed quietly to his cousin. He felt more than a tinge of regret that he could not claim any part in seeing to this just outcome, and also because Uncle Carl’s family were not in need of such services that he could render to them now. He had no real intent of returning to Austin, but his excuse for remaining away grew ever more transparent.
Dolph saw right through him, and answered in some amusement, “You do not think you might be well rid of our company and hospitality? Never! Don’t you remember what we talked of, when you first came—about my father’s land? Mama wishes to remain here with my sisters, and Sam. I think she has no real liking for returning to the farm. She loved it so only because of Papa. She will let me take it over. You and Fredi and I will run it, with the help of our old stock-man, Porfirio. No slipping away to a life of city luxury for you!” he teased his cousin, and then added thoughtfully, “Besides, Opa is getting very feeble. Everyone always looked to Mama to see after him.”
Peter was quite pleased. He had no interest in being within proximity of Amelia—as fond as he was of Hetty, Daddy Hurst and little Horrie. “What about Miss Anna, and her mother, taking care of Vati? They are not eager to depart such a pleasant roof, either.”
It seemed that a shadow fell over Dolph’s normal serenity, for Peter added, “Is there something the matter, Cuz?”
After a moment his cousin answered, “Aunt Lise has had some pretty odd fancies and spells, lately. Mama and I and Anna—we do not think her incapable, mind—but she does not always seem equal to coping with Opa.”
“He seems fit enough,” Peter answered. “And not half as absentminded as Doctor-Papa. That’s what we called my stepfather,” He began to tell the story of how his stepfather returned after a round of medical calls, having forgotten successively his hat, coat, stethoscope, medical bag, and his horse. Before he finished the story, Uncle Hansi had joined them, a burly presence hanging up his good cloth overcoat from the ornate coat rack in the hall, jovially complaining that supper wasn’t ready yet. Of course, he had to be told the good news, with everyone competing to tell him. Vati brought out some bottles of homemade mustang-grape wine for a toast.
The evening became quite merry indeed. Peter thought no more about the matter, for it seemed to be the accepted thing that it would be the young men who would return to the ruined house on the Becker lands.
“I wish you did not need to travel so often,” Liesel Steinmetz Richter said to her husband later that evening. “I feel so much safer when you are present, my heart.” She was already in bed, having planned this beforehand; that he should see her, plump and pretty under the candle-light. Her hair lay in loose ringlets across the snow-white feather pillow at her back. The strings of her shift were loosened so that the delicate fabric cupped her breasts. She had dabbled rosewater behind her ears and in the shadowy valley between her breasts. It pleased her to watch her husband, pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers, standing before the washstand. The single lamp cast his shadow on the wall behind him as he washed.
Liesel had adored her stolid, bull-shouldered husband since she was a small girl in Albeck, and he was a stocky boy more than a little interested in her clever but plain older sister. How Magda could have been scornful of his interest and seemingly unaware of Hansi’s qualities—qualities that Liesel counted up to herself as if they were a treasury—was a mystery beyond all rationality. A mystery and a miracle too; “That blockhead of a boy” Magda had called him, when she was sixteen and Liesel two years younger. Perhaps he had only asked Magda to marry him out of courtesy, she being the oldest, but his affections then turned to Liesel.
Liesel had desperately hoped and prayed they would, had worked the folk-spells and charms that would bring him to her. She had dared even more than that, in the hayloft of Vati’s old farm in Albeck, things that maiden girls weren’t supposed to do or even know about. And perhaps girls like Magda, with their heads in books and dreams, managed not to know about them; but Liesel did, and bound Hansi to her with thin and shining bands of steel and affection and vows spoken in the church. Nine children had she borne to him since, seven of them still living and all but Anna, the oldest, being born in America. Liesel supposed, when she thought about it, that her children must be counted as Americans. The older boys, Jacob, George and Elias, and their sister Marie—they were all nearly grown, working at a trade with the freight wagons or in the shop, helping their father, their aunt and grandfather.
She dearly cherished her two youngest, five-year-old Willi and three-year-old Grete. Liesel worried about them the most—so little, so many dangers to little children lurking around every corner! Accidents, wild animals and raiding Indians, and the sicknesses like diphtheria . . .she had lost a child to that plague, dear little Christian who died gasping for breath in spite of all that could be done. Liesel’s pulse began to hammer in her throat—no, she told herself desperately, do not think on that.
The children, they were asleep in their beds, in the rooms they shared with their siblings and cousins. Vati and the oldest boys, Fredi and that scar-faced nephew of Magda’s husband, they were downstairs in the house. She could hear their muted voices, downstairs in the parlor; there was naught to fear. Her husband had come upstairs to her, leaving whatever interesting conversation they were having. Business, Liesel supposed. Men’s business. She was no more interested in that than Hansi was interested in cheese-making or polishing the lamp chimneys until they gleamed like diamonds.
Now as he splashed water from the pitcher into the basin, Hansi answered terse and plain, “If we had returned to my farm, Lise, I would not need to travel.” Liesel’s heart felt as if it would stop. He was angry with her, she could tell. He continued, calm and implacable, “But since you will not countenance living out in Live Oak, then I must do something to earn our keeping. You cannot have it both ways, Lise; either we remain under your father’s roof and I am away with the wagons for weeks and nights at a time, or we live under mine—out in the country, among all those Indi
ans and wild animals and all those things you spend so much of your life fearing!”
“Hansi,” her voice sounded as if a hand clutched her throat, half-strangling her words and her breath. “Oh, dearest, don’t ask that of me, I cannot bear it! You promised that we should be safe, the children and I!”
“So I have not asked it of you,” Hansi answered, his voice muffled as he toweled away water from his face, his shoulders, and waves of dark hair that still fell so thickly over his brow and ears. It was not for her own Hansi to grow bald with a pitiful straggle across his crown, like other men. “I let you have your way in this, Lise—even if the war is over, and we could return to our house—remember, the house I built for you, just as you would have it? But no, you want to stay in town, in your father’s house! It’s as if we had never come away from Albeck and dreamed of lands of our own!”
Liesel quailed against the pillows; he was angry, angry with her, and she couldn’t bear that. She had never been able to endure Hansi’s anger, or even Vati’s—slight and ineffectual as Vati’s displeasure usually proved to be. Such terrified her . . .but not as much as the emptiness of the sky and the endless hills all around; there was no way to cajole the sky, the wilderness, the wild Indians. She had always been able to use her wiles on Hansi and rest of her family.
“Hansi, heart’s love,” she begged tearfully, “oh, do not be so unkind to me, I only meant. . .”
“I know what you meant, Lise.” Hansi neatly folded the towel and replaced it on the washstand, his voice sternly controlled. “Having made your choice you should not constantly complain to me of the results. It does you no credit.”
“I am sorry, dearest.” Hot tears gathered, spilled over her cheeks. “Truly, I don’t know why I say the things I do, sometimes.”
“I don’t know either, Lise,” Hansi answered patiently. She felt the bed shift slightly as he sat on the edge of it, next to her. He touched her cheek, and wound a tendril of her hair around his fingers. “But you are crying as if you are a child about to be punished and I am nearly out of patience with it.” With that touch, she forgot all intent of what she had wanted when she crept upstairs to make herself ready for him. She had no wish for his lusty affections now and he was in no mood for them either. Liesel had been married long enough to be a fair judge of Hansi’s desires. She sobbed in his arms while he held her close, and when she finally had done with tears, she saw that he had tucked his shirt in again and kept on his boots. That nearly set her off again, with a pain in her heart from dread, wondering if her husband’s affection might be slipping away from her. What could she depend on in this uncertain and capricious country, if she could not depend on Hansi?
“Stay with me,” she begged in a whisper, “don’t go away from me. Not now!”
But he shook his head and answered, “I must talk to the lads, Lise—while I have a chance and they are here. Fredi and Dolph are all afire with this news about Brother Carl’s land, but George and I have business in Neu Braunfels tomorrow. I’ll be back upstairs soon enough, Liesel-love—dry your eyes and go to sleep. Shall I leave the lamp burning, until then?” He kissed her gently and settled the covers over her shoulders, seeming to disregard the hand that clung to his. “I wish you would consider changing your mind about accompanying us to the coast,” he added. He reached towards the lamp, adjusting the little wheel that held the wick with deft strong fingers. “Your sister and the girls are so looking forward to it, Lise . . .and seeing Sophie Guenther and the children. Her husband says that San Antonio may as well be next to Friedrichsburg, for there are so many German enterprises there. You would feel quite at home, if you could but consent to come with us.” And he smiled at her, a look that had always melted her resistance, that had challenged her ever since she was a little girl in short skirts and Hansi dared her to climb the tallest tree in Vati’s garden.
“I can’t.” Liesel felt as if her lips were suddenly ice cold, incapable of forming words, and Hansi sighed again. Putting her hand aside from his, he tucked the covers over her as if she were one of the children. “Who would see to Willi and Grete, to Vati and the house?” she pleaded.
He turned away saying, “Ah, Lise—the children could come with us and Mrs. Schmidt can see to the house. We’ve talked on this a hundred times before and you have the same old threadbare reasons. You care not for travel and adventure and now I have a great taste for it, since it is presently my business. Go to sleep, Liesel-my-heart, I don’t know how long our plans must keep me from bed.”
And he went softly from the room, closing the door after himself. Liesel pulled the coverlet close about her and lay with her arm across the place where he would be, listening to the voices downstairs in the parlor, hearing the low rumble of Hansi’s voice as he rejoined them. What must they think of that, or did they think aught of it at all? Liesel wept silently into her pillow and resolved to do something. She had to face up to it, to lift her chin as Magda did and take her fears in hand. Surely it could not be so hard, this thing that Hansi wanted of her, what everyone expected of her, that which she had not so long since thought nothing of doing. Town was perfectly safe.
Liesel schooled herself to breathe quietly, told herself the children were perfectly safe in their beds. Perhaps she did not need to take another of those bracing tonics, those strange-tasting dark brews that sometimes helped to damp down her fears, made her feel merry and giggling again.
Tomorrow, she decided, I’ll walk out tomorrow. I’ll prove it to myself, and then I’ll tell Hansi that I’ll come with him on this grand adventure to the city. It won’t be so bad; Magda is coming. Maybe we will see something nice in the shops, and I can make her put on something other than that eternal black that she always wears now.
Yes. Think of bolts of pretty fabric, shimmering silk and gaily printed calicos, the rolls of cobweb-fine lace and silk ribbons that a mercer in the big city would have in stock, think of buttons as bright as jewels. Think of that and not the other . . .Liesel fell asleep at last, rousing only briefly into wakefulness when Hansi at last came to bed. She curled herself against his comforting presence as much as a cat settles itself against a new source of warmth, and drifted away into even deeper slumber.
She woke in the morning, still resolved upon the task she had set for herself. All things seemed possible in the morning, a bright winter morning such as this: the air crisp and cold, the sky above scrubbed clean of clouds and clear, clear blue. Every leaf and blade of grass in the garden was rimed with a crisp edging of frost.
She looked around the door to the shop, where Anna was busy with a broom and duster. “I’m taking some things to the Sunday House for the lads,” she said. “Some bread and sausage and cheese, to have for when they hunger but not feel like walking over here, late at night.”
“Very well, Mama,” Anna replied. Liesel saw the brief flash of surprise on her face. “Did you want me to come with you?”
“No need,” Liesel answered, although her heart gave a small skip in her chest. No, that was the whole point of this errand; to take the basket and walk out of the house, through the garden and . . .
It was perfectly safe, Liesel told herself. There was nothing out there, not in the streets, not in Market Square. The few Indians who visited came to trade, harmless wanderers selling baskets of pecans, or trading dried meat and cured skins. Those masked men of the dreaded Hanging Band, they were also gone, fled into Mexico or locked in a stone jail in another county. The yearly trail season, bringing crowds of strangers with their pack trains and wagons bound for California and the far west—that would not open for months yet. There was no one, nothing to fear in venturing outside.
Liesel tied her bonnet ribbons under her chin; fuchsia-pink silk, a casual present from Magda who had gotten them as a gift before her widowing but thriftily held on to everything for which there might be an eventual use. She looked at herself in the mirror of the elaborate hall rack. Mr. Tatsch had made it to Hansi’s order when the freighting business began to prosp
er, a splendid thing in the latest fashion, with a rack for umbrellas and walking sticks, brass hooks, and an oval mirror in the very center. Hansi had paid so much money for it and brought it home as proud as a boy with a pretty fairing for the girl he loved. Liesel thought on this every time she looked at the fair polished wood, the brass and the mirror.
The woman whose face looked back at her in the mirror seemed a stranger, a pale stranger with a strained expression in her eyes. Liesel pinched her cheeks to bring out something of their customary pink and drew her heaviest shawl around her shoulders. There, that was better.
“I’m going now,” she called tremulously into the shop and passed out through the garden door onto the terrace at the back of Vati’s house. The trees lifted their bare grey limbs towards the sky, the rose bushes presented nothing but a clutch of bare, thorny sticks, and the vegetable garden beyond the bathhouse was bare and dug over, awaiting spring planting. Magda’s pots of rosemary offered the only splash of green against the stone pavers. Liesel drew her shawl ever closer against the chill of the morning and the frost breathing off the stone. She walked briskly across the terrace, past Vati’s cherished pear tree, and the limp and dry remnants of last year’s bean bushes and squash plants strewn across the frozen ground.
George and Jacob busied themselves with the horses in the stable-yard beyond, along with Fredi and Peter Vining. Liesel’s pace slowed just a trifle as her eyes followed after her sons. Such fine, sturdy boys, hers and Hansi’s pride! They were not as clever as sharp-tongued Anna, but they worked so hard for their father’s business interests. She wished those interests did not have to take them away so often . . .no, not that thought. It felt as if a cold hand squeezed her heart, made her short of breath.
Willi, the youngest of them all, was perched on a pile of timber beams, chattering like a magpie to his indulgent older brothers and cousin. She waved to the boys and called, “Willi, do not be a bother, when the men have work to do!”