Adelsverein

by Celia Hayes

  Anna raised her eyebrows. “And that is what matters to you?” she asked. “That people not stare and look away?”

  “Anna!” Magda hissed reprovingly.

  Peter shrugged; he still looked quite pleased. “I am surprised you didn’t see it at once.”

  “Those who know you—they see you!” Anna replied. “They do not see the arm that is not there. Or that is there now. Are you your arm, Mr. Vining? Or are you yourself?!”

  There was an awkward silence, broken by Dolph saying gravely, “In truth, Cuz—others do not make so much of it as you think, for there are many such men, missing that or another limb. But that you do not feel the loss as much now, that is good, and it was very clever of Berg to make it so you could hold a set of reins.”

  Hansi slapped the table again. “Aye, he’s a clever man. Now, I see you have brought today’s newspapers. Good—pull up a chair, for we have plans to make!”

  Magda thought that she had worked hard in the shop, but that was nothing compared to the days spent going from warehouse to warehouse with Hansi and the younger men: traipsing through smoky offices and cramped showrooms piled high with crates and hampers that spilled over with dizzying quantities and varieties of goods. It amused her very much to see how the important men, with their golden watch chains arrayed across their fine and fancy waistcoats, would first speak to Hansi and attempt to divert her and Anna elsewhere. They would offer some little refreshment, sent for by an errand boy, and show them to some little anteroom with a couple of chairs and a table to wait while the men did business. Oh, their faces, when she and Anna instead calmly accompanied the men into the dim and dusty warehouses, looping up their skirts to step around mounds of excelsior and over piles of lumber and boxes! It was nearly as amusing as the expression on their faces when Hansi not only asked Magda and Anna for their opinions, but deferred to their judgment. Oh, that was delicious, that and the sudden new deference when those important men realized that within the firm of Steinmetz, Becker and Richter, Mrs. Becker and Miss Richter spoke with quiet but powerful voices.

  At one warehouse, though, Hansi and the boys withdrew to the anteroom, claiming with much merriment that with regard to this particular class of merchandise, they preferred to leave it in the hands of the distaff side of the firm.

  “You know your budget, Annchen,” Hansi warned, for it was a dry goods merchant with a shipment of fabric newly received from the east. “And how much space we have allotted in the wagons.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Anna returned sedately. She and her aunt spent a blissful morning with the merchant, his assistants unrolling bolts of calico, flannel, wool goods and linen for their perusal and judgment.

  “We have not been the least bit extravagant!” Anna assured her father afterwards. “We only bought a few things for ourselves, Papa. The most of it is for the store.”

  “But the silk and bombazine…” Magda ventured.

  “Auntie, since you will not wear colors, you may as well have your black dresses made of fine cloth.” Anna looked sideways at her aunt and ventured, “You could wear grey, now, for half-mourning, trimmed with a bit of purple ribbon. That would look very elegant, I think.”

  “No,” Magda answered firmly. She would not be moved.

  In the afternoons she walked with her daughters along the seashore, Lottie and Hannah searching for shells as the waves lapped gently at the blinding-white sand that was packed as firmly as a dance floor underfoot. Sometimes she allowed the girls to take off their shoes and stockings and wade into the shallow water, especially when the sun had been shining all day upon it, making it as warm as bathwater.

  At times she would see Anna walking arm in arm along the strand with Peter or with Dolph, although at such a distance she did not know what they talked about. She supposed she might be judged a very careless chaperone, but Anna—being so level-headed and formidable—made such a convention hardly required.

  They dined in the Casimir House dining room, or sometimes in their parlor, which the management arranged as a private dining room for them as well, and relished very much the fresh fish and oysters available with the ocean so close. Dolph and Fredi talked of little else but their hopes for the farm. Dolph did seem content and happy, though he once complained of how slow work had progressed. The roof was repaired, but little else.

  “How fares the orchard?” Magda asked him

  “In bloom, but not much chance of a good crop this year,” Dolph answered. “Every tree lacks careful pruning, and there are only so many hours in the day.”

  “I should return,” she sighed. “Do you think I ought to?”

  “No, not yet, Mama,” Dolph answered practically. “There is still so much to be done. You would not wish to see it as it is now.”

  She left it at that, for in her heart she agreed with her son. One could not return to a riverbank. Places changed, no matter how dearly one remembered what had happened there. Perhaps it would be better to keep the memory green in one’s heart, rather than attempt a return journey. And besides, there was the shop, and this new enterprise.

  “I wish,” Hansi often observed with regret, “that Lise had been able to accompany us. What a holiday, eh?”

  On the last full day, she and Anna and Hansi went to one particular merchant and picked out a china tea set for Liesel. The porcelain was as thin and translucent as a sea shell, glazed a delicate pink and trimmed with gold.

  Hansi had it all re-packed in straw and a stout wooden box. “Just room enough, in the wagon,” Hansi said in satisfaction. “Don’t tell Lise that we have bought this for her—I want to surprise her.”

  “It’s perfect, Papa.” Anna went on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “And she will be surprised—shall we just bring the crate into the kitchen, or shall we unpack it ourselves and leave her to find it in the parlor?”

  “Whatever you decide will surprise her the most, Annchen!”

  Chapter Seven: Vati

  For some days after Hansi and the boys departed with their heavily laden wagons, Magda, her daughters, and Anna remained in their rooms at the Casimir House. They enjoyed daily strolls on the hard-packed beach, and one day they attempted to locate the approximate site of the sandy declivity which they and the Altmuellers had shared as a camping place—without success, for although there was still a marshy and rush-fringed lagoon behind the sand-shoreline, it was much changed in shape, and the brush-topped dunes had long since been flattened and covered with warehouses and stores. Once they’d had enough of leisure, although Hannah and Lottie claimed they did not have nearly as many seashells as they would like, they set out in the regular coach for Victoria, San Antonio, and points north.

  Anna sighed and settled back against the padded seat as they departed the rag-tag plaza in San Antonio. “I shall be so glad to be home, and to sleep in a familiar bed once again, even if Marie talks in her sleep. And snores, however much I toss hairbrushes at her. Was Mama as noisy to share a bed with, Auntie? Was it as restless as sharing a bed with a husband?”

  “I couldn’t really say,” Magda replied with austerity. Her own husband had been a quiet sleeper; save on those occasions when he had nightmares and talked in his sleep. Of that, she felt herself obligated not to discuss out of loyalty and love. Anna sent her a sideways glance and they talked little as the coach began to skim along the road north, towards the blue shadow of the hills.

  They anticipated their arrival home with joy, looking forward to sharing an account of their travel and doings with Vati, Liesel, and Rosalie. Around noon Hannah looked from the window and cried, “Oh, Mama, look! The wildflowers are blooming! Shall we take a walk down to the creek tomorrow and pick some?

  “As soon as everyone is done with their chores,” Magda answered. She lifted Lottie onto her lap so that her younger daughter could see out of the stage window. “But they are so beautiful, like a painting of the sea, all blue and white!”

  Sam waited for them at the stage stop behind the hotel, and Charley Nimitz, too—as wa
s his right as the owner of the finest hotel within two thousand miles. But as soon as she saw their somber faces, Magda knew that a joyful return was out of the question. Sam’s normal ebullience had been quenched.

  Charley took her hands to help her and the girls alight from the tall stage step. “Mrs. Magda, I’m afraid I bring you bad news.”

  Before Charlie could say another word, Sam blurted out, “Mama, Opa’s awful sick. Doctor Keidel says he likely won’t get better.” He swallowed, looking as thought he were bravely forcing back the urge to bawl as if he were Willi’s age.

  “Oh, Samuel!” Magda drew him to her. Of her children, he was closest to Vati, as she had been in turn. Sam and Vati shared a love of books and matters of the mind. Magda also thought that perhaps Sam had looked up to his grandfather in ways that boys deprived of a father would look to a fair substitute. She looked over the top of his head—oh, when had Sam grown so tall, that he came up nearly to her chin?

  “You are returned just in time, I think,” Charley added. “We would have sent word to Hansi. I have sent a message to the Stielers in Comfort to watch for him and urge his return with all dispatch.”

  “Papa is naught but two or three days away,” Anna said. Although her eyes were dry, her voice quavered. “He had planned a detour to Neu Braunfels, but Uncle Fredi and Dolph will receive your message in a day or so. How is Mama bearing up?”

  “As well as may be expected, but I daresay all the better now that you have returned,” Charley answered, although his face was set in lines of grief. He loved Vati as well as one of his own family, having visited their house almost from the first moment he arrived in Friedrichsburg, when it was nothing but a sea of stumps and half-built houses. “I’ve told young Sam that I will make the cart available to you, for your sisters have been looking for you every moment since the coach arrived. Such poor comfort, eh? The use of a cart?” he kissed Magda’s hand, clapped Sam on the shoulder, and embraced the girls as if they were all of one age—and that very young. “We will see to what is necessary, don’t you worry about that. Herr Steinmetz is someone we all hold in deep affection.”

  Without any more ado, he carried their bags from the coach and saw them away, in the light one-horse cart that he used for hotel guests and their business around town. All the joy and anticipation of homecoming on a bright clear spring day had vanished, smothered by a dark cloud of grief and dread. Yet the sight of Vati, deathly ill, could not be as wrenching to Magda as the sight of her own husband in his coffin, or that of her mother’s canvas-wrapped body sinking into the sea with barely a splash. No, Magda told herself desperately—nothing could be as bad. And Vati was not that old, he had never been ill, the doctor must be mistaken. She and Anna, together with her sisters—they would nurse him back to health.

  “What happened, Sam?” she asked her son as he took up the reins. “When did he fall ill?”

  “A week ago,” he gulped, steadying his voice with an effort. “No, about ten days. It was a fair day and he was reading in the garden. I was digging in fresh muck around the trees. Around midday he asked me when Auntie Liesel would have supper ready, and I went to ask. Almost the moment I turned away, I heard him cry out. He stood up, clutching at his head as if he was in pain and then he fell down. His glasses broke on the stones when he fell and,” shamefacedly he added, “he had wet himself, like a baby. His eyes were open, but he was not there, not himself, and he did not know us for many hours, until the next morning. Doctor Keidel says that a blood vessel burst in his head and that was what pained him so.”

  “But did he speak, did he not recognize anyone?” Anna asked. She rode in the back of the cart with Hannah, sitting on top of the bags. Poor Hannah appeared so tearful and stricken; Anna held her close for the comfort of both of them.

  “He knew us,” Sam answered bravely, “But he can barely speak … and half of his face droops as if he cannot move it. Doctor Keidel told Auntie Liesel that he had a slight p-p-paralysis of his limbs, but that it is becoming worse instead of better. All that we can do is to keep him comfortable and wait.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Magda said helplessly while her son stared straight ahead, struggling to master his feelings. “I so wish Johann were here … or even Doctor Herff!”

  “It’s not as if they could make it any better just by saying so,” Sam answered, wretchedly. “They’re all doctors, after all. They’d say pretty much the same—I know, because I asked to look in some of Opa’s own books about what might be done for what was wrong with Opa.”

  “How have your aunts managed?” Magda asked, carefully.

  Her son almost sounded cheered when he replied, “Aunt Rosalie cried simply buckets, but not when we worked in the shop. She was very brave, then—everyone who came in asked about Opa, of course. Mrs. Schmidt came to help Auntie Liesel nurse Opa. Everyone has just been waiting for you and Onkel Hansi to come home, including Vati.” He reined in Charley’s horse at the front door of the house. “You should go in from here, Mama—I must take Captain Nimitz’s cart back to the hotel.”

  Carrying Lottie in her arms, Magda rushed through the door. The stair-hall was empty, but only for a moment. Rosalie appeared from the shop and cried, “Oh, thank God! He has been asking for you, so piteously I could not bear it!”

  Magda whispered fiercely, “Don’t you dare begin to weep, little Rose, for I could not bear it either!” Her sister smiled to be brave and took Lottie from her.

  “Go up then—and hurry, for we feared that he only holds on to life for wishing to see you!”

  Up the stairs, while the girls gathered around Rosalie. Her heart was wrung, for this should have been a happier welcome, with the girls telling stories of Indianola and the curiosities to be found there, and of walking by the sea and eating ice cream cooled with ice brought from faraway New England and dearest Vati would be drinking in every word. Silence hung oppressively upstairs, as well as the faint pervasive smell of a sickroom. As she reached the landing, Liesel opened the door to Vati’s room, a basket of laundry in her arms. She looked old, Magda realized with a pang; old and strained. She looked even more like Mutti, now that she had nearly reached the age that Mutti had been when Vati cajoled her into agreeing to accept the Verein’s terms of emigration.

  “I thought I heard your voices,” she said with relief. “I had told him a hundred times that today was the day when you were expected. He forgets everything!”

  “Vati always does,” Magda answered.

  Liesel sniffled a little. She closed the door behind her carefully, and kept her voice to a whisper. “No, now he forgets from moment to moment. Oh, I so wish Hansi was here! If only . . . ”

  “It’s not as if your husband can somehow fix what ails Vati,” Magda observed tartly. Liesel’s eyes filled and spilled over onto her cheeks. Why did everyone in this house begin weeping at the slightest provocation? Magda raged to herself. She wished that Hansi would hurry his team along and return as fast as he could, for at least he would not be dissolving into useless tears. “I am sorry, Lise, I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Shall I go in and let Vati see that we are safely returned?”

  “Yes, of course.” Liesel gulped, and set the laundry down on a small table which had been moved to stand beside the door. Magda realized it was there for someone to set a tray or burden on whilst opening the sickroom door. “Let me take your bonnet and mantle. He’s sleeping now, but never for long.”

  Within Vati’s room was silence, and light pouring in from dormer windows on either side. When Hansi and his sons had extended the house to make a larger workroom and storeroom below, they had made the room above into a bedchamber and study for Vati, with views onto the street on one side and onto the garden on the other. Vati lay propped on white pillows, so tiny and shriveled, hardly larger than one of the children. Her heart was wrung anew by the sight and by the sight of his glasses, lying on the dresser nearby, folded like the legs of a delicate gold insect. One of the thick lenses was smashed and a thin crack ran across the other.
Poor Vati, he could barely see without them! Kindly, clever and endearing, he may not have been her parent by blood—having married Mutti when she was a tiny child—but her own father could not have been more tender or careful of her. Now they were about to lose him, but she pushed that thought aside.

  She sat in the chair by his bedside with a quiet rustle of skirts. She would have taken his slack hand in hers, but feared to wake him. Someone had thought to arrange the furnishings so that he could look out from his bed into the garden, where his precious pear tree held up a cloud of delicate white bloom against the dark wall of the smokehouse and the hedge of wild mountain laurels separating the garden from the stable yard.

  Liesel had assured her that Vati slept lightly and never for long. He stirred at the hastily muffled sounds of voices and footsteps on the stairs, turning his head on the pillow and opening his eyes, wide and unfocused without his glasses and as grey as rain. She saw that what Sam had said was true, that half of his face slumped downwards as if he had not command of his own features. But his eyes were alight with the same interest and affection that had ever burned in them, as he struggled to speak.

  “M-m-g-da,” His words came out a hopeless mush. “H-h-m . . .”

  “Yes, dear Vati—we’re home,” she answered, tenderly. “Don’t try to talk. You’ll exhaust yourself for nothing. Shall I tell you about our journey? Just nod yes or no to my questions, Vati. We are so glad to be home, although we had a wonderful time, visiting the city! Hansi has bought the loveliest tea set for Liesel. This year we have prospered, we really have. Not as much as young Mr. Guenther.” She continued on, keeping her voice soothing as she told Vati all of what she had been longing to tell him. He listened at first with attention, but within a short while his gaze became unfocused, wandering about the room and finally fixing on the window beyond her shoulder.

  “P—p-r . . .t-t-t-re—ee,” he made a great effort, “b-b-b-l-o-m.”