The Copper Series

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Elisabeth gave her a brief sideways glance. “She looks like dat Reverend. She has his hair.” Baby Meg had a thick patch of black hair that looked like the top of a thistle. “She has more hair den me,” she added. She went back to her book, ignoring me but not objecting to my presence.

  “Your hair is growing in fast,” I lied, stroking it gently. “Did Robert tell you her name?” She shook her head. “Marian Marta-Elisabeth. I wanted to give her your name and Aunt Martha’s name. We’re going to call her Meg.”

  She stared up at me. “Yust because she has my name, I not going to help take care of dat baby. I don’t like babies. And dis one is noisy. She has da vorst cry.”

  Meg was loud. Aunt Martha already complained that she sounded like a cat with its tail stuck in a door. “I didn’t give her your name so that you would feel you have to help. I gave her your name because you’re so important to me.”

  She looked down at Meg, who was staring solemnly back at her. “I thot you were going to die. Yust like da ladies in da camp. Dey died when dey had da babies. You yelled yust like da ladies.”

  My heart melted towards her. So that was why she wasn’t interested in Meg. “I was pretty noisy, wasn’t I?” I said. She nodded vigorously. “But I wasn’t dying, Elisabeth.”

  She looked down at my saggy stomach. “Your tummy looks like Tante Marta’s yello.”

  It did! It looked and felt like Jell-O.

  “I am not ever going to have dat babies. Too hard.”

  Today, I shared those sentiments exactly. I put my arms around her and squeezed, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I felt a light squeeze back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next few weeks were a roller coaster of highs and lows in our home. Elisabeth started her gluten-free diet with immediate, astonishing results. She complained less frequently of stomach aches, started gaining weight, her concentration for schoolwork improved, and we received less frequent requests for conferences from the school.

  Insults were starting to drop off, as well. Mostly, though, she was looking more like a girl than someone who had grown old before her time. Again and again, I thanked God for Alice’s intervention. I found myself peering into Elisabeth’s face, searching it out. Was something different? Softer? Less hostile? A wound was starting to heal.

  William began second grade with Miss Howard. It had taken quite a bit of persuasion with Mrs. Olasky, but finally, she acquiesced, worn down by the Gordon family. Miss Howard’s enthusiasm won her over. “William’s desk will be up front where there will be fewer distractions,” she explained to reassure Mrs. Olasky, “and so that he can read my lips more easily. We’ll take things step by step, to see what works and what needs to change.”

  Actually, it was Robert who needed the reassurance. He still had reservations about this experiment. I had none. I knew I had done all I could for William. William needed to be a normal little boy, to make friends, to toss a football or swing a bat during recess. There was no doubt about his capable mind; he would keep up easily. And even Robert couldn’t disagree Miss Howard was a perfect match for him.

  I spent another restless day watching the clock when he headed off to school with Elisabeth that first day. Miss Howard prepared her class to understand William’s disability, that he sounded different, and would need them to look right at him, so he could read their lips. But, still, I worried; children could be cruel.

  My worry was for naught. William came home acting as if he’d been attending school all of his life. “Mom, I’m going to need a desk in my room to do my homework,” he said importantly, tossing his empty lunchbox on the kitchen counter. “Miss Howard piles a ton of homework on us kids.”

  “Can’t you do your homework at the kitchen table like Elisabeth does?”

  “Nope. She only sits there because she wants us to do her homework for her. I need a real desk.”

  I asked him if the kids said anything about the amplifier that hung around his neck. “One boy thought it was a radio and asked me to tell him the baseball scores.” He guffawed loudly. “Baseball teams haven’t even started spring training yet!”

  I half-expected to hear from the school principal this afternoon, with complaints about William or Elisabeth or both. But there was nothing. No news meant good news, I reasoned hopefully. Day one was a success. At least for William.

  Elisabeth’s school day lasted an hour longer than William’s. She stormed into the house after school, slammed the kitchen door and came looking for me. I was up in my bedroom, nursing the baby. She stomped up the stairs and burst into my bedroom, full of shaky fury. “You told! You told everyone!”

  “About what?” I asked, baffled. “What did I do?”

  “About dis!” She pointed to her tattoo. “Mrs. Graham vants me to give a class lecture on dat camp! And she said you have pictures of it! And you didn’t yust tell the teachers. You told da church ladies, too. Trudy told me!”

  Oh no. Lord, help me. From the look on my face, Elisabeth knew that her information was correct. “You hypocrite! Vhen I told da Reverend dat you vere going to have a baby, you said dat vas your story to tell. Dachau vas my story to tell!” she cried out in frustration. “I vish you had left me dere. I vant to go back. I vant to be vid Danny. I’d rather be dere dan here vid you!” She spun on her heels to leave, then turned back to me, narrowed her eyes, and added as punctuation, “I hate you!” She slammed the door behind her.

  I felt as if a piano just landed on me. Elisabeth opened her bedroom door and shouted something in German, then slammed her door again.

  “What was that?” Aunt Martha asked, rushing to my room.

  I looked at her. “It was a very uncomplimentary curse upon my mother.” I went down to the kitchen with her to explain why Elisabeth was so angry with me.

  Aunt Martha looked mortified. “I’m the one who told the church ladies. Maybe I should try to explain it to her.”

  I gave her a half-smile. “It’s best if she’s only mad at me, not you and Robert. She has every right to be mad. That was her story to tell.”

  The day following the incident in my bedroom, Elisabeth refused to speak to me. She pretended I was invisible. I tried to apologize, but she would hear none of it. I wondered how long her unresponsiveness would last. It was the first time I realized that silence has a sound. I wasn’t too concerned until I happened upon the library to drop off a book one morning. Miss Bentley, the librarian, confided to me that Elisabeth asked for help to plan a one-way trip to Germany.

  A few nights later, I was changing the baby’s diaper up in my bedroom, when I heard Robert’s voice in the kitchen. I knew Aunt Martha was at choir practice and that William was splashing in the bathtub. I went over to the radiator pipe to investigate.

  “Louisa didn’t share that information without giving it a lot of thought, Elisabeth,” I heard Robert say. “She felt she needed to let the teachers know why you were behind in school.”

  And why she looked half-starved, why she was so small, why her head had been shaved, and why she had a tattoo on her arm.

  “I hate her,” Elisabeth spat out.

  I heard Robert pull out a chair and sit down. “I know you’re angry with her. Maybe you’re right about being angry. But I don’t ever want to hear you say you hate her again. Louisa loves you; she went all the way to Germany to get you, you’re the only blood relative she has left. You might be mad at her, but you don’t hate her. And in this house, we never, ever speak to each other like that.”

  Elisabeth didn’t respond to him. I could just imagine her scowling, head bowed, kicking her legs back and forth under the table. “I’m going back to Germany. I’m going back to vhere Danny lives. As soon as I have money.”

  “Are you that angry with Louisa?” he asked gently.

  “I do not belong here. I vill never belong. My name is not Gordon.”

  I heard Robert walk over to the counter and bring something back to the kitchen table. “Look at this berry pie Aunt Martha made for the judge.”


  Silence.

  “Our family is like this pie.” I heard him scrape a plate on the table as he cut into the pie. “Look at it now, with one piece missing. That’s what it would be like if you were to leave. Like a piece of the pie is missing. It would always be missing for us. You do belong to us. It doesn’t matter what your name is.”

  Silence.

  “If you were to leave, do you know who would miss you even more than William, and Dog and Aunt Martha? Maybe even more than Louisa?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Me. It would break my heart if you were to leave, Elisabeth. I love you as much as I could ever love a daughter. I just couldn’t bear it if you were to go.”

  Silence. Then I heard her quietly say, “You have your own girl now.”

  “There’s no one who could ever take your place in my heart. My life would always feel like this pie, with a big piece missing.”

  Silence.

  “Elisabeth, I think school is going to be better for you. Soon. I think there will be some wonderful surprises ahead for you.”

  Nice thought, Robert, but I wasn’t sure that I agreed, especially with Mr. Koops as her teacher. All day long.

  I heard the kitchen chair scrape along the floor as she pushed it back.

  “Any chance you’ll change your mind and stay with us?” he asked.

  “I’ll tink about it,” I heard her finally grumble, in a tone somewhere between sulky and sour.

  My heart swelled with gratitude for Robert. I wish I could have told him I heard the conversation, but I was too ashamed to confess about my habit of eavesdropping. But tonight, I didn’t feel guilty. I needed to hear him say those words, too.

  Just as Elisabeth began to thaw out, baby Meg started to cause her own set of problems. She slept during the day, but in the quiet of the evening, just as everyone was settling to sleep, she would start to whimper. As her cry finally brought forth noise, it nearly blew the roof off. Doctor Singleton diagnosed it as a case of colic that she would grow out of, sooner or later. Even he had to admit he’d never heard such a piercing cry on such a little girl.

  The parsonage was so small that I resorted to taking baby Meg over to Robert’s office during the wee hours. I would walk her around and around and around, hoping to coax her back to sleep. “You should stop spoiling that child,” advised Aunt Martha. “Let her cry it out a few nights.”

  If I weren’t so tired, I would have laughed. No sane person would dare to wake up Aunt Martha in the night.

  “I just don’t know why that baby has such a loud cry. No Gordon baby ever had such a wail,” Aunt Martha complained. I rolled my eyes, growing accustomed to the fact that any positive aspect to this baby seemed to be directly related to the Gordon lineage, and anything negative seemed to be the result of my own dubious pedigree.

  A good night’s sleep seemed like a distant memory to me. I was exhausted, short on patience, and hadn’t yet gained my energy back after the delivery. Robert tried to help as often as he could, but I tried not to ask him for help unless I really needed it; he was often interrupted in the night for minister’s duties as it was.

  Once, he mentioned that William had cried a great deal as a baby, too. Neither of us said it aloud, but in the back of our minds was the worry that baby Meg might be deaf, too. It was too early to tell. At times she startled easily by noise, but other times, such as when Elisabeth stormed my bedroom, she slept or nursed right through.

  One night, I took baby Meg to Robert’s study, to settle her down. I rested her small head against my shoulder and swayed, back and forth, rocking her gently in front of the window. It was a moonless night and the stars were luminescent.

  Suddenly, a shiver crawled down my spine.

  Out on the street, a man stood, hands on hips, watching me. I blinked a number of times, expecting him to disappear, like a mirage. The man didn’t budge. His eyes were locked on me. My heart started pounding. Oh, why didn’t I bring Dog with me? I couldn’t see his face distinctly, but there was something eerily familiar about him. Not just his stature, but the way he stared at me, not caring that I saw him.

  It was Friedrich Mueller. I was sure of it. Blood pounded in my temples. It felt like as if ice water coursed through my veins. Even the baby seemed to quiet suddenly, as if she sensed my fear. I glanced down at her, and when I looked back up, he was gone. I ran back to the house, locking the kitchen door behind me, still trembling as I reached our bedroom.

  “Robert? Robert? Wake up!” I shook him on the shoulder.

  “Ummhmm,” he mumbled.

  “I think I just saw someone outside.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” he said sleepily.

  “When I was walking in your office with the baby. A man was outside.”

  “At this hour?” he asked through a yawn. “On a Monday night?”

  I shook him again. “I think it was Friedrich Mueller.”

  Now his eyes popped wide open. He sat up. “Louisa, you’re so tired you’re starting to imagine things. Probably because of that news report tonight.”

  I had been closely following the Nuremburg Trials, an international war tribunal to bring to justice the war criminals of Germany. Tonight, a French journalist had given heart-wrenching eyewitness testimonies of the atrocities at the death camp Auschwitz. The news report added that many of the defendants looked bored during the testimony. Bored!

  When we heard that, Robert flipped off the radio. He knew how those accounts stirred up my memories of Germany, but I still felt it was important to stay informed about the trials. I prayed over them, begging God to bring justice in the verdicts over the next few months.

  Maybe Robert was right. Maybe Friedrich Mueller was a figment of my active imagination. “But Robert—”

  “Louisa. Enough! Mueller is over and done with,” he said sharply. More gently, he added, “The baby is asleep now. You need to sleep when she is sleeping. I’ll get up with her when she wakes up again. You really, really need to get some rest.”

  I lay down and tried to sleep, nestled in his arms. It was true. I was beyond exhaustion. Could I be seeing things? Was it my imagination? I still hadn’t responded to Karl Schneider’s most recent letter. Could that be why Herr Mueller was on my mind?

  Or did I actually see Herr Mueller?

  * * * *

  I had completely forgotten about William’s photographs until I noticed them on the dresser where Robert had left them. After dinner, William laid them out on the kitchen table to compare them. It was fascinating to see the exact same scenery colored by changing black and white light.

  “Who’s that?” asked William, studying the pictures carefully.

  “Where?” Robert asked.

  William pointed to a few pictures of the church that he had snapped, the last on his roll. There was someone coming out of the church side door. The next picture showed the person running down the street. Still dawn, it was just a shadow of a dark figure, clearly a man, judging by his size. Robert glanced at me, a look of alarm in his eyes.

  Later, in our bedroom, out of earshot of the family, I said, “I told you! I told you I saw someone last night and you wouldn’t believe me!”

  “You said it was Friedrich Mueller, and Louisa, that is ludicrous. Do you honestly think Mueller would be stealing carrots from your little garden?” He rolled his eyes. “And I don’t want you telling anyone else your theory. You’ll get everyone all riled up again. He’s probably just a drifter, looking for some free eats. He’ll head out of town soon enough.” He looked worried, but then he brightened. “Maybe Elisabeth isn’t the town organizer, after all. Maybe someone else is.”

  * * * *

  I was starting to think having a baby was harder than being in the Resistance. On Friday morning, I went over to Rosita’s and burst into tears when she asked me how I was doing. “I think I must be a terrible mother, Rosita,” I sobbed. The more anxious I felt, the more the baby cried.

  Even Rosita looked worr
ied. “What does the doctor say?”

  “He thinks it’s colic and that she’ll grow out of it.”

  That night, baby Meg woke up yelping around one a.m. I plucked her out of her crib and walked down to the kitchen, surprised to find Elisabeth following me.

  “You go back to bed,” Elisabath said. “I vill take care of dat noisy baby tonight.”

  I looked at her large brown eyes and nearly fought back tears of joy. It was the first time Elisabeth had shown empathy for someone else. “Why are you doing this, Elisabeth?” I asked.

  “Because it hurts my eyes to look at you. You got da raccoon eyes. You look schrechlich.” Awful.

  Well, I did ask.

  “Yust tell dat Tante Marta to let me sleep in tomorrow. She always tells me she wants me up wid da roosters and we don’t even have roosters.”

  I handed the baby to her. “Please don’t go outside. Even if Meg is loud. Just stay downstairs. In the house.” I was still uneasy about that sighting—apparition, Robert called it—of Herr Mueller the week before.

  I went up to bed and tried to sleep, but worries kept bouncing in my head about the rapidly approaching concert date. What made me think I could perform a concert so soon after having a newborn? What was I thinking? I could barely find time to practice, and when I did, I had trouble concentrating on the sheet music in front of me. It often became blurry, forcing me to stop and blink a few times. Today, I found myself nodding off, right on the piano bench.

  I punched the pillow and rolled over. Lord, help me. I was so discouraged. And even more intimidating was the conversation I had yet to have with Elisabeth about performing with me in the concert. Soon, I thought wearily. Soon, I should talk to her.

  I must have finally fallen into a deep sleep, because suddenly Robert was shaking me, telling me to wake up. A blood curdling scream rose up from the parlor.