by Tamar Myers
“Freni Hostetler!”
“It’s Poor Man’s Goulash.”
“With lots of onions?”
“Three onions. As big as your fist.”
I ignored the reference to my hand size. “Okay.”
Freni beamed. “Now hush, Magdalena, and eat your pie. I’ll be done here in a minute.”
I ate, but I didn’t hush.
“Aaron is so on his way here. He bought a snowmobile and is taking it as far as he can. When the snow peters out he’s going to rent a car. He’ll be here before tonight, I just know it. So what do you have to say to that, Freni?”
I don’t think she heard the question. Her eyes had glazed over and she was weaving. I popped out of my chair and shoved it at her, but she pushed it away.
“Ach, don’t be so silly. I’m perfectly all right. I was just thinking about Mose. About how much I miss being with him.”
I smiled. “Now who’s being silly, dear? Put down that rolling pin and hop in the car. We’ll go find a phone and you can talk to him.”
Freni frowned. “I don’t want to talk to him. I miss being with him! But of course you wouldn’t understand, not being married and all.”
I smiled patiently. “But I do understand. And I still say we need to find you a phone. If you can’t be there, the phone is the next-best thing.”
Freni looked at me as if I’d lost my mind completely. “Ach, how you talk! Not even married, Magdalena, and you talk like that. Your mama would be ashamed.”
I shook my head vigorously, hoping to loosen a few of the cobwebs. “I beg your pardon?”
Freni was weaving again. “I’ll admit, I didn’t like it that much when we first got married. There didn’t seem to be much point to it, unless you wanted children, and we—”
“Freni, are you talking about what I think you are?” I might as well not have been there. “Of course, after a while I got used to it. It still seemed kind of silly, considering all the bother, but if it made Mose happy, then it was fine with me. After all, I could always use the time to plan my menus. Then one day Mose—”
“Freni Hostetler! Stop it right now. I don’t want to hear another word.”
“But I miss being with my Mose,” Freni practically wailed.
I was scandalized, and did not stick around to hear more. How I ever managed it out to my car on such wobbly legs, I’ll never know. Honestly, I had never been so shocked since the day I found Reverend Detweiler’s dentures in the bottom of the communion cup. Imagine, a woman in her seventies, and Amish yet, pining after the way of the flesh!
I started to drive back to the Troyers’, but then I remembered what Freni had said. Not about missing Mose, but about Susannah getting married. I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that wasn’t the case, but then again Annie Stutzman seemed to know everything that went on in Farmersburg, sometimes almost before it happened. If Susannah was married to Sheriff Marvin Stoltzfus, I was entitled to know. I turned around.
Marvin’s secretary was, as usual, very polite.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what, dear?”
“Sheriff Stoltzfus and that woman—I mean your sister—left town last night.” She laughed nervously. “A little impromptu vacation, I guess. I suppose by now they’re halfway to—”
“Aruba?”
She nodded.
“Are you sure about this, miss?”
“Oh, quite. Sheriff Stoltzfus had me make the plane reservations. It left this morning just after seven. Apparently they spent the night in Columbus so they could be at the airport in time.”
I willed myself to remain calm. When it involves Susannah, nothing is over until the fat lady sings, and Susannah is anything but fat. As for her singing, her attempts have been known to attract stray dogs from miles around. Until I saw that marriage certificate signed by an Aruban official, there was no real need to panic.
“Of course, you made the reservations at a travel agency and saw the tickets yourself,” I said. “Right?” I was still looking for chinks in her story, some clue that my baby sister hadn’t lost all her marbles and gotten married again just for a free trip to Aruba. And this time to a Methodist!
“No, ma’am. All I did was book him the flight from my phone here in the office. He was going to pay for the tickets in person when he got there.”
I swallowed. “But at least you went down to Columbus and saw them off. You know, waved bye-bye at that unmentionable hour this morning.”
“I haven’t seen the sheriff since he and your sister left the office yesterday evening.”
“What time was that?”
“Six. The time we normally close up, unless there are emergencies.”
My line of questioning was coming up as dry as our two cows, Bessie and Matilda, two summers before. Of course, their problem had to do with Dorothy Ediger sneaking in from town and milking them because she’d read in a health magazine about the benefits of bathing in raw, organic milk. My problem, on the other hand, had to do with too many riddles to solve, on top of being distracted by my Pooky Bear’s imminent arrival.
“If either of them calls, please tell them that I’m frantic,” I said.
“I certainly will. And I’m sorry again, Miss Yoder. I thought you knew about your sister’s plans.”
“It’s not your fault, dear. But you can do me a favor.”
“Yes, ma’am. Anything.”
“Tell Susannah that this marriage has violated the terms of her trust fund. Tell her that at the moment she said ‘I do’ in Aruba, she said goodbye to whatever it is she had coming to her from our parents’ estate.”
The secretary winked cheerfully. “Will do.”
Then, since Freni hadn’t made me that lunch, I went across the street to Pauline’s.
“You again?” Pauline looked as pleased to see me as my bank clerk does when I bring her bags of pennies.
“Can it, dear,” I said calmly. “I told you last time I had no intention of competing with you. I just came in here for some food. Believe me, as soon as it’s possible, I’m heading back home with my Pooky Bear.”
“Pooky Bear?”
Of course, I was mortified. I wouldn’t have dreamed of using those precious words aloud in conversation. But as I said, I was distracted and anxious. Not to mention scandalized.
“My boyfriend. Pet name.” I tried to make it sound casual, as if I were Susannah. Unfortunately I must have sounded too much like Susannah.
“My boyfriend called his Wee Willy. That was before he ran off and married someone else.”
“I’ll take two tall stacks, one buttermilk, one buckwheat, a double order of bacon, with play, not crisp, and a large glass of orange juice. Preferably the kind with pulp.”
When one is distracted, anxious, scandalized, and mortified, it is best to head straight to the bosom of Aunt Jemima. She and Uncle Ben are my only relatives who never criticize me and who always manage to make me feel good inside.
Pauline didn’t bother to write down my order. A good waitress, one worth her tips, could memorize the Congressional Record if she wanted. But Pauline was owner as well as waitress and didn’t have to answer to anybody except her customers. I had a feeling most of her customers preferred to defer. I, however, chose not to.
“I ordered pancakes and bacon,” I said kindly, when she finally got around to bringing food to my table.
“So?” Pauline’s hostility seemed to transcend professional rivalry.
“So, you brought me a ham-and-cheese omelette and a side of French toast.”
“So?”
“So, that’s not what I ordered.”
The gum popped loud enough to make one middle-aged man, probably a Vietnam vet, flinch. “Does it really matter? Food is food, after all.”
I thought for a moment. “Nah, I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Food is food.”
Pauline’s victory smile betrayed a crumb of bacon. “I suppose you’re happy
about your sister getting married.”
“My, how tongues wag. But for the record, dear, I’m less than thrilled.”
“Why? A normal woman would be thrilled to have Marvin Stoltzfus for a brother-in-law.”
“Then I’m definitely not normal. My sister just broke with another man. This has got to be the world’s fastest rebound. Something is wrong with this picture.”
“Marvin takes a beautiful picture. He’s a photographer’s dream.”
I got to what was really bothering me. “I wasn’t even invited to the wedding! How do you think that makes me feel?”
“You? How do you think I feel?”
I shrugged. My mouth was full of the ham and cheese omelette, which was surprisingly good, considering it had been foisted on me.
“I feel lousy, that’s how! Well, I would feel lousy, if I believed the stupid story. Which I don’t. Marvin Stoltzfus would never marry a sleaze like your sister.”
I have long ago decided to ignore insults directed at Susannah. I have enough trouble countering the ones aimed at me.
“How come? Was he already married?”
“No! Marvin is my man.”
“I beg your pardon? Marvin is Wee Willy?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, toots. You’ve known all along about your sister making a play for my man, haven’t you?”
I tried explaining that Susannah and Marvin had only just met the night before, and that if Pauline really wanted to keep track of what was going on she needed to keep an ear to the ground. Preferably one of Marvin’s ears.
The woman was still in a snit when I paid my bill.
“Wait a minute!” she called after me, as I walked away. “This isn’t the right amount.”
I stopped and turned obligingly. “So?”
“So? So your bill comes to five twenty-five, and you only gave me a dollar and a quarter.”
“So?”
“So you owe me four dollars.”
I smiled sweetly. “Does it really matter, dear? After all, money is money, right?”
I knew when I walked out that it had better be my last visit.
Chapter Twenty-five
Catherine Mast's Egg Casserole
10 hard-boiled eggs
1 can cream of mushroom soup
l 12-ounce can evaporated milk
l teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 can French-fried onions
1 tablespoon butter
Hot cooked rice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice hard-boiled eggs in egg slicer and layer half the slices in bottom of buttered 8-inch glass baking dish. Blend soup, milk, and Worcestershire sauce until smooth. Spoon half the mixture over egg slices. Layer the remaining slices on top of sauce and spoon remainder of sauce over them.
Bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle French-fried onions on top of casserole and return to oven for another 5 minutes.
Serve over hot cooked rice.
Serves four.
Note: To get boiled eggs to peel easily, always start with eggs as fresh as possible. Slip eggs into boiling, salted water. Turn down heat and simmer ten minutes. Pour off hot water and rinse with cold. Rinse again in hot water. The expansion and contraction will loosen the membrane inside the shell that often makes peeling eggs so difficult. Rinse in cold water one more time. Allow eggs to reach room temperature before peeling.
Chapter Twenty-six
Amish bishops are chosen by lot from among the ordained ministers, who in turn are chosen by lot from among the baptized men. Amish bishops, like Amish ministers, receive no special training. Neither do they receive any pay.
It did not surprise me to find Bishop Kreider out in his barn shoveling away at his Haufa Mischt, pile of manure.
“Best to do this kind of thing on a cold day,” the bishop said, smiling.
I smiled back. “Same thing goes for cleaning chicken houses. Do you have a minute?”
The bishop put down his shovel without protest and directed me to sit on a bale of hay that was visible from the open barn door. Propriety, like courtesy, must be observed at all times.
“Yah? Is something wrong, Miss Yoder?” the good bishop prompted in his twelve-year-old’s voice.
I scratched my head and discovered a piece of hay that had managed to imbed itself in my hair in record time. I love barns, but whenever I’m in one, I soon start looking like a scarecrow.
“Bishop Kreider, I may be leaving soon. I mean Farmersburg. But I wanted to talk to you about something first.”
“Yah?”
“You don’t really think that Yost Yoder and Levi Mast were possessed, do you? Or that young girl from the factory, either?”
“Possessed?”
“Yes, you know, like possessed by the devil. Or whatever. The reason you’re packing up your flock and taking them with you to Indiana.”
Bishop Kreider stared at me.
I stared back. “Well? Do you or do you not believe they were possessed?”
“Where did you hear that? Annie Stutzman?”
“My sources are irrelevant, sir. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
The bishop was still staring. I dug another piece of hay out of my scalp and brushed a handful off my lap.
“I know, I must look a fright. Hay and I just don’t seem to get along. Maybe it’s some kind of static thing I have going. You should see—”
“Miss Yoder, who have you been listening to?” “What do you mean?” She may be only a cousin once removed, but I wasn’t about to tell on Annie. “Please don’t play games with me, Miss Yoder. There is much for me to do.”
“I’m busy too,” I snapped. “My boyfriend is coming in from Pennsylvania on a snowmobile, and I hope to be going back with him at my earliest opportunity. In the meantime it has become absolutely clear to me, as it should have to you, that the recent deaths in your community were neither accidents nor the result of possession. They were murders. So far I appear to be the only person in the entire county who wants to see justice prevail, but I can’t deliver it by myself.”
I strode to the barn door, then wheeled. It may have been a dramatic gesture, but I’ve seen it work for Susannah.
“Oh, and one more thing. My sister just ran off to Aruba to marry a Methodist. If you don’t think my plate is full, then think again.”
Before I could wheel again and complete my exit, the bishop put up a hand.
“Please, Miss Yoder. I can see that we have a lot to talk about. May we start again?”
I shrugged. “It depends. Will you give it to me straight?”
“I try only to speak the truth,” he said softly. He looked genuinely offended.
I stepped away from the door and the freezing wind. “Then why the hell are you so damn hard to pin down on this possession thing?”
Believe me, I was more shocked than he at what had just come out of my mouth. My first swear word ever, and it had to be addressed to a bishop. On the bright side, Mama would undoubtedly start spinning in her grave so fast that she’d spin all the way through to the other side of the earth and out into orbit. Maybe then her grip on me would be loosened.
The bishop, however, seemed unfazed. “Yes, I do believe those two men were possessed.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“And the girl?”
“Yah, her too.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“I didn’t expect you to understand.”
“Because I’m only a Mennonite?”
“Yah.”
It was as simple as that. Despite our common bloodlines and shared values—such as pacifism, humility, and an emphasis on spiritual rather than material wealth—Bishop Kreider saw me as an outsider. Someone who couldn’t be trusted with the truth. Perhaps he expected me to run to the press with this revelation. Maybe he feared that by confiding in me, he would be opening the door to network television shows broadcasting remotes from cow pastures and cornfields all over the Farmersburg ar
ea.
“I am offended,” I said. There was no need to elaborate.
He looked away. “I’m sorry. What else was I to think? In a world where so few truly believe in God, how many do you suppose believe in the power of the devil?”
“Not many, but I do. Mennonites do.”
“Yah.” The bishop gestured to the bale of hay, but I shook my head.
“May I?” he asked, sitting down. “It’s been a long day, and my arthritis has been acting up. I expect we’ll have snow here before morning.”
“By all means, make yourself comfortable. Now can we talk? I mean, really talk?”
“Yah, now we can talk.”
“Remember, you promised the truth,” I reminded him.
It was important that I believed the bishop. The world is a much tidier place when clergymen tell the truth. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. I will admit to having my faith shaken once before by a minister. In fact, everyone in Hernia was stunned when Reverend Detweiler, whose teeth I found in the cup, skipped town with the church’s building fund and a lover named Pat. After that, however, they barely blinked when Pat’s wife became an atheist and moved to Texas to be near Madeline Murray O’Hare.
Bishop Kreider is no Reverend Detweiler. I am convinced that the man is without guile. He most certainly is without lust. Not so much as a lustful thought was directed my way, at least not that I could tell. Jimmy Carter would have been proud of both of us.
We talked calmly and seriously for a long time.
“Do you really think you can escape the devil by running off to Indiana?” I asked finally. It may not have been a tactful question, but he got the point.
“No, of course not. The devil is everywhere. However, I do think that by moving to Indiana we can escape a lot of the temptations we have here. Temptations that the devil feeds on.”
“Temptations? Here?” I didn’t mean to snort. But even I, who is as innocent as a day-old chick—or so says Susannah—could not see Farmersburg as a hotbed of temptation.