by Murray Pura
“Recall that this decision to allow Jude the space of fourteen days to repent was made after much prayer.” The bishop stood up. “Is this all right with you, young man? We do not welcome one of our people back one minute only to shun them the next. You must have time.”
“Thank you,” responded Jude.
“But also you must bear in mind who we are, the kind of people you have been part of for ten years. You have put us in a difficult position. We love you. We are grateful for the kind of man you were in the war. Yet still it was a war, hm? You fought in it. You were a soldier. We Amish—we do not fight in wars. We do not engage in violence. We do not put on the uniform.”
“I know.”
He placed a hand on Jude’s shoulder. “It does not sound to me as if you are going to change your mind. We shall certainly not change ours. But—who knows? Perhaps you will view things differently in a few days.”
He walked toward the window that overlooked the drive. “I will remind Pastor Miller of this fourteen day period we agreed upon. Now, I see our first families are arriving. You will stay, Pastor Stoltzfus? Pastor King?”
“We are pastors to all the people,” replied Pastor King.
Lyyndaya’s father poured more coffee into Bishop Zook’s cup. “I’m not satisfied with Samuel’s response or Jude’s silence. Someone in the army knows the truth of the matter. With your permission, I will write an old friend who has been transferred to the War Department in Washington. His mother is Amish and lives at Bird-in-Hand so even though Nicholas has become English he knows us and understands us.”
Bishop Zook nodded and walked back to the table to take up his cup of coffee. “Why not? Truth is truth regardless of where it comes from, hm?”
Mr. Kurtz looked at Jude. “I’m sorry to interfere. But there is something you are not telling us that we need to know. That I need to know.”
Jude shrugged. “Do what you think you must.”
“It is not my wish to violate what you believe you must keep within, but—”
“Mr. Kurtz, I would rather you did nothing. Yet if you feel compelled to act, that this is God’s will for you, then you should go ahead, nicht wahr?”
Mr. Kurtz stared at Jude and nodded, his face set. “I do feel it is God’s will, yes.”
The first person through the door was Lyyndaya’s mother, surprising Jude by throwing her arms around him and kissing him on the cheek, her eyes glimmering with tears.
“So God blesses you and blesses us,” she said. “Welcome home, oh, thank God, look at you, how strong you look.”
“I have had good nursing,” Jude replied, hugging Mrs. Kurtz back.
“Oh, yes,” laughed Lyyndaya, “I did everything.”
Then the kitchen filled. Daniel and Harley Kurtz were asking if he had come by aeroplane and where it might be parked, Benjamin Kauffman was slapping him on the shoulder, Peter King and Luke Kurtz wanted to know if he had left the army and whether he would still fly whether he was in the army or not. Emma Zook came up to him towing Samuel Miller by the hand.
“Jude, it is so very good to see you again,” she gushed.
“Thank you, Emma. I’m glad you’re looking so well after your illness.”
“That was months ago. I’m as strong as a Percheron. Just not so big, I hope.”
“You look like the same perfect Emma.”
“Do I? Why, thank you.” She tugged Sam forward and hugged his arm briefly. “Did Lyyndaya tell you we’re engaged?”
Jude nodded. “Yes, she did mention that when we were back in Philadelphia. Great news. I’m happy for both of you.”
“Of course we can’t get married until November,” pouted Emma. “That’s the Amish way, you know.”
“A long wait.”
“But worth the wait.” Emma hugged Sam’s arm again.
The families had brought food, and the welcome turned into a meal that lasted several hours. Afterwards, once everything had been cleaned up and the buggies were rattling down the lane toward the road, Mr. Kurtz leaving with the rest of his family, Lyyndaya took Jude’s hand in hers.
“How was that?” she asked him.
He smiled. “It was fine, Lyyndy. Thank goodness everyone was friendly and not barking at me like Pastor Miller.”
“They all love you.”
“It certainly felt that way. Well, perhaps not so much from Sam Miller.”
“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Are you going to let his words stand?”
“Yes.”
“Even with me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe him. I don’t believe Sam. I think the bishop has a hold of something.”
They were looking out the window at the line of buggies moving along slowly in the evening winter light.
“So I am to accept that Sam feels you let the Lapp Amish down by enlisting?” Lyyndaya said, leaning her head against his arm. “Or maybe his harshness is because he’s worried that Emma will get drawn to you again?”
“Sam Miller has nothing to worry about from me,” he said.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why is that?” she teased.
“Must I spell it out?”
“Ja.” Lyyndaya held onto her bright grin. “I would like you to spell it out.”
“Can I say it in English?”
She nodded. “You have picked up a lot of quaint expressions from the English, yes.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I feel I have to use them to say what I really mean. The German doesn’t always convey what I wish to say. Especially when I’m in the pink.”
She made a face. “This pink is a good thing?”
“A very good thing.”
“And why are you in it?”
He gripped both her hands. “Because I love you, Lyyndy, that’s why.”
She smiled and said, “I don’t think you need English words to say that.”
Mr. Whetstone coughed as he came into the kitchen from the parlor. “Someone else is coming.”
Headlights glimmered over the snow and windows.
“It’s an army staff car,” said Jude, peering through the glass into the semi-darkness. “Well, I telegrammed them where I’d be and here they are.” He gave Lyyndaya, who looked worried, a crooked smile. “Now we’ll see what they think of the Amish uniform you have me decked out in, won’t we?”
TWENTY-FIVE
Two officers spoke with Jude for half an hour in the parlor while Lyyndaya and Mr. Whetstone both had hot cocoa in the kitchen. When they emerged, Lyyndaya offered them a cup, and they sat down at the table for ten minutes and chatted. Then they were gone into the night, the staff car’s engine rumbling in the distance.
“They’re local boys,” Jude explained. “Stationed near Harrisburg. I have to report to a base by Philadelphia in forty-eight hours. I can muster out then.”
“Is that all?” Lyyndaya prodded, her hands wrapped around a third cup of cocoa. “Just muster out?”
“Well.” Jude sipped at his. “Whew. That’s hot.”
“What else, Jude Whetstone?”
He looked at his father and at Lyyndaya. “I can stay in. As a flight instructor.”
Lyyndaya stared at him. “And you would consider it?”
“Well—”
“Of course you would or you wouldn’t be hesitating. We just have you home safe and sound and now—”
“I don’t have to leave the country, Lyyndy.”
“The Lapp Amish will never accept that. A military flight instructor?” Lyyndaya felt the heat in her hands and forehead. “Never.”
“You’re forgetting they do not accept me now,” Jude responded in a quiet voice.
“How can you say that after the way they just welcomed you?”
He sat back. “I know they care for me. I know they love the aeroplanes and the flying. But they’re warm toward me today because they’re free to be warm. In two weeks, when I’m shunned, it will be a different story.”
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Lyyndaya glanced away from his dark brown eyes. “They believe you will repent and that there will be no Meidung.”
“But Bishop Zook and I both know there will be a Meidung. You also know this. And you, Papa.”
His father nodded.
Lyyndaya grew agitated, biting her lower lip and twisting a spoon about in her hand. “Why? Why must it be so?”
Jude sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’ve told you, Lyyndy. I can say the war was wrong. I can say all wars are wrong. I can say all killing is wrong. But I can’t say what they want me to say—that I should never have gone to war. There is no use asking me to confess and repent. I had to go, it was right for me to go, I can’t repent of something I believe God wanted me to do.”
She got to her feet and began to clear up the cups.
“Lyyndy, please sit back down,” Jude asked.
“No, there’s nothing more to say, is there?”
He saw the dampness in her eyes as she turned to the sink and continued.
“You are finished with the Lapp Amish and will be a flight instructor for the army. After ten years, your life in this part of the world is over. Jude Whetstone the blacksmith is packing up and moving on.”
“Lyyndy—”
“I will quickly wash these up and then I would appreciate a ride home. With you or your father. Whoever is less busy.”
Jude’s father cleared his throat and made his way to the door. “I will put Grit in the harness. But then I have to tend to the other horses.” He slipped on his dark winter coat and went out.
Lyyndaya was pouring hot water into the sink from a kettle she had lifted from the top of the woodstove.
“Of course I’ll take you,” Jude said to her. “You know that.”
“I get you back only to lose you again. It’s not right!”
At first they didn’t speak as Grit jogged along the road. The stars were spread out before them, and several times Jude wanted to say something about their beauty, but every time he glanced at Lyyndaya her face was granite. He began to whistle, something he hadn’t done before the war. Nor was it something he had begun in France. As he whistled several melodies he recalled the man named Pierce in a hospital bed in England. Lying next to him, Jude had listened to him whistle morning, noon, and night. Pierce had said whistling kept his mind off the pain of his wounds.
“What song is that?” Lyyndaya suddenly asked.
Jude stopped whistling. “I’m not sure.”
“How did you learn it?”
“A soldier in the hospital in England.”
“Well, can you do a tune you can tell me the name of?”
“Ja.” He blew out a few notes. Then he sang, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.”
“That’s a funny song for a war.”
He shrugged. “You try to cheer one another up any way you can.”
She rested a gloved hand on his arm. “Aren’t the stars lovely?”
“Ja.”
“I like the whistling. I can’t think of too many men who whistle among the Amish.”
“Maybe they whistle out in the fields and you just never hear it.”
“I don’t think so. Sing me something else.”
“All right.” He saw Flapjack sitting in his plane and waiting for the order to take off. What was that song that was always on his lips?
“Sometimes when I feel bad and things look blue
I wish a pal I had—say one like you.
Someone within my heart to build a throne
Someone who’d never part, to call my own
“If you were the only girl in the world,
And I were the only boy,
Nothing else would matter in the world today,
We would go on loving in the same old way.
“A garden of Eden, just made for two,
With nothing to mar our joy.
I would say such wonderful things to you,
There would be such wonderful things to do,
“If you were the only girl in the world,
And I were the only boy.”
“Oh, my goodness, now you’re going to make me cry.” Lyyndaya put a gloved hand to her eyes. “Please stop the buggy.”
“Whoa, Grit, steady.”
Jude had scarcely reined in the horse and turned to look at her before she had taken his head in her hands and begun to kiss him, first on his eyes and cheeks and then on his mouth. He was so startled he almost fell backward out of the carriage. Finally he put his arms around her and drew her closer. They kissed for several minutes before she gently pulled away and then tucked her head on his chest.
“That’s enough for tonight,” she said.
“Can’t I kiss the top of your head?”
“I won’t stop you.” She laughed softly. “See what winter stars and whistling do to an Amish girl?”
“I was a million miles away, Lyyndy. And now I can smell the scent of your hair and feel the warmth of your face. It’s a miracle.”
“Shh. Sing me one more tune. Whistle it and then sing it to me.”
He peeled back her bonnet and put his lips against the part in her hair. “You’re very English tonight.”
“Well, hymns are not good for romance. Perhaps that’s why God also gave us the Song of Solomon.”
“Am I to quote that to you?”
“No.”
“But it’s the Bible.”
“Just sing. Whistle and sing.”
Jude leaned his head against hers and closed his eyes. “I could fall asleep right here. You are the perfect pillow.”
“Please.”
Was it Flapjack who liked the song about the wedding? Or was that Zed? He heard the deep voice. The person was taking a bath and singing at the top of their lungs. Always dropping the bar of soap on the floor. Yes, Zed.
He whistled the melody into her ear so quietly he could scarcely hear it himself. Then he hummed, trying to bring the verses to mind.
“The bells are ringing for me and my gal,
The birds are singing for me and my gal,
Everybody’s been knowing to a wedding they’re going,
And for weeks they’ve been sewing,
Ev’ry Susie and Sal.
“They’re congregating for me and my gal,
The parson’s waiting for me and my gal,
And sometime, I’m going to build a little home for two,
For three or four, or more,
In Loveland,
For me and my gal.”
She put her head in his lap and looked up at him, smiling in a very tiny way that she sometimes had. She traced his cheek with her gloved fingers. “Is that what you wish?”
“Wedding bells? For you and me? Yes. I want so badly for you to be my bride.”
“Is this your proposal then?”
“Oh, no, no, I can do better than that.”
“How long will you keep me waiting?”
“I would be asking you to leave your home—your father, your mother—Ruth—”
“I know.”
“The Amish people. Lancaster County. It seems too much…who am I to ask that of you?”
She didn’t take her hand from his face. “I’ve been thinking about all this since before I was told you were missing and presumed dead. And hardly anything else since you came back to life only days ago.”
Jude shook his head. “It’s not something I can ask of you. Look how beautiful you are. Look how perfect you are. It’s this place that made you the way you are. This place, your family, the Lapp Amish, God—”
“You.”
“No.” He played with a loose strand of her hair. “I’m not a man who moves such mountains. I enjoyed watching you grow up, though.”
“Ja?”
“Sure. I’ve been in love with you since we were eight.”
Her smile widened. “You have not.”
“Deeply and painfully.”
Lyyndaya was surprised. “And
you never told me.”
“Told the tomboy? How could I tell you? Instead I pushed you in the mud.”
“Many times. And got in trouble with Mrs. Beachy.”
“Ja, I did a lot of extra chores on account of you and your gleaming gold hair.”
“I suppose you will tell me it was worth it.”
“More than worth it. I just wish I’d kissed you once or twice and then pushed you in the mud. All the extra chores Mrs. Beachy would have loaded me down with would have felt as light as air.”
Lyyndaya curled one hand behind his neck. “I think I will break some of my rules tonight. I think I will take a few more kisses home with me, please.” She brought his head down to hers.
“You smell wonderful, you know,” he murmured.
“I didn’t know. It’s just ordinary soap.”
“How could anything you touch ever be ordinary again?”
She laughed. “My, you know how to win the extra kisses, don’t you, my brown-eyed Amish boy? Keep it up and we’ll never get home.”
“I don’t mind. I don’t feel the cold.”
“Neither do I.”
After another kiss, Lyyndaya put her fingers on his lips. “Mama and Papa will start to worry.”
She faced him and held his hands tightly. “Jude, before we go back, it’s important to me that you know that the reason I began to volunteer at the hospital was because of you. The reason I was prepared to help Dr. Morgan was also because of you. There you were in Europe trying to keep your men alive, trying to defeat the Germans without killing their pilots. You wanted men to come home to their families. All the Amish here were doing about the war was criticizing it, but they were saving no one. So I decided to do as you were doing. Get my hands dirty and work hard to rescue people from the valley of the shadow of death.”
He watched her eyes. “You are not just saying this, are you?”
“I don’t just say things. I mean them or I don’t speak.”
“There were Mennonites over there, you know, driving ambulances, motor ones and horse-drawn ones, some were bringing in the wounded on their backs, it wasn’t just me. I even met a few Amish. I suppose they would be shunned for doing it, wouldn’t they? Binding up wounds, cleaning out bullet holes. I know they were doing this for the men in the trenches.”