Gertrude did not correct her. “Don’t have time to think yet.”
Along with the buzzing stomach and the fears leap-frogging around in her head, Lena suffered the gnawings of a guilty conscience. She watched her mother-in-law across the table from her sipping her coffee, sitting like a stranger in her own house. In spite of her size, she seemed without Pa diminished. Her face was hollowed and streaked brown with fatigue. The usually puffy flesh around her eyes was shrunken, leaving her eye sockets cavernous and dark. Lena felt sorry for the old woman who slumped into herself and stayed upright, braced only from the front by the great bulwark of her breasts and stomach.
“Ma, I want to tell you this. I’m sorry for what I was thinking about you after that fracas with Walter.”
“Thinking don’t hurt nothing.”
Gertrude, who was born in Berlin, spoke with a thick German accent.
“Well, I thought the worst right off, you know. When I smelled liquor on Will, then I knew what was what, and I wanted to hit the both of them. The idea! Giving Will a drink. Today of all days. After it was drink that got him in all this mess. It’s like Walter did it on purpose. Why would he do such a fool thing?” Lena poked her fork around in the potatoes, but didn’t take any, her appetite suddenly quelled.
“Ach. You said it.”
“What? He did it on purpose, or he’s a fool?”
“Walter—” Ma shook her head, placed her cup on the table with a sigh and dropped her hands in her lap. “Always had to knock the sense into that head to get it to stick.”
“Well, something should sure stick after the knock he got today.” Lena chuckled and took a bite of the potato stuck to her fork.
“Will got all that was good in Pa.”
Lena stopped chewing. The chunk of potato lay in her mouth, somewhere between firm potato flesh and starch paste. Gertrude’s tone of voice, as much as her non-sequitur snagged Lena’s attention and made her shiver, just a little.
“Ja. Will got all that was good in Pa, and his weakness too. For the drink. Will is a stronger man than Pa. The weakness takes a different way in him.”
“I know, Ma. I know.” Lena didn’t want to talk about Will’s drinking.
But Gertrude continued, “In Pa the weakness stay weak, you know. He drink. He get quiet. He get so nobody can talk to him. He don’t talk to nobody. For days and days. Lotsa times you don’t know to look at him he’s drunk and gone. Useless.”
Lena was forced to swallow finally and held the dishtowel up to her mouth. The potato hadn’t gone down well. She hadn’t known Pa Kaiser was a drinking man. So much for his quietness.
Gertrude went on. “Will’s a strong man, it takes him in a strong way. A bad way.”
Will Kaiser was a belligerent, mean, fist swinging, foul mouthed drunk, a reversal of his personality when sober. That fact hung in the air between mother and wife and gave them a connection that neither of them might have wished for.
“You don’t have an easy time of it. That I know.”
Lena nearly burst into tears. She dropped the dishtowel and lightly brushed her hand across her face and stared at the steady little flame in the lantern. Outside the rumbles from heavy awakening clouds began to swell. “Well, we have to take what the Lord gives us. Will is a good man otherwise...”
“Oh, ja, but maybe not a big enough ‘otherwise’.”
The buzzing in Lena’s stomach had turned to a cramp.
“You know we’ll do what we can for you, Will and I. You know that.” Lena wanted to change the subject.
“Ja.”
“I suppose Julia will need some looking after too. A little. But all the boys will help out.”
Gertrude shifted her eyes and focused on Lena for the first time since they sat down. Lena could not read her expression, but it made her wonder if Gertrude still harbored strong feelings over the events of so long ago, and if she did, why she would kill Pa and not Julia. She startled herself. Of course the thought had been there in her mind, the possibility that Gertrude could have killed the old man. After today her belief in the old woman’s strength was confirmed. But it was still shocking to be sitting there eating funeral left-overs, thinking your mother-in-law across the table from you, a killer. But think it she did, and now that the idea had substance in her mind, she couldn’t turn away from it. So Lena went fishing.
“It’s too bad...you know, you and Julia. It would be so nice if the two of you could live together now. Keep each other company, you know. After all these years, maybe...”
The lamps that had been burning all afternoon were one by one dimming and going out. Only the lamp on the table between Lena and Gertrude still burned brightly.
Among the thickening shadows, Lena sensed a yawning in time, as if the veils on this life were lifted till only a few remained to separate this world from the next. She had felt this as a child when her first brother died, then again and again as she got older when more brothers and sisters died—five in all. The sensation was even stronger as a young woman when she lost her father, and more recently, her mother. In the proximity of death Lena felt close to the eternal. She felt she could almost reach out and push aside that last veil and see clearly into the life beyond this one, a life she was sure was as bright and free of suffering as was promised by her religion. Always before this feeling gave her comfort. This time the veils lifted not only to the future but to the past as well. She felt a slippage of boundaries between past, present, and future, as if everything existed now, as if there was no time at all. Lena felt for a moment like she was falling.
Gertrude was muttering, “I don’t need nobody else now to look after. Now Pa’s gone, I don’t need nobody else to look after.”
“Well, it would be more company like. Nobody expects you to take care of her.”
“Julia needs looking after. Always did.”
If Gertrude was aware of the moment spreading out in all directions, past and future, she didn’t show any signs of it. Perhaps she was too much a part of it to notice. Gertrude seemed to be slipping back, her voice became less wheezy, less labored, her German accent getting stronger.
“Julia always needed looking out for. Even when she was little, she—ach!—did crazy things. She stood one time out in the road in front of a team of horses that was galloping down the road. She had a smile on her face like she knew them horses would not hit her.” Gertrude shook her head again and made little sucking noises on her teeth.
Lena was fascinated and afraid to interrupt, but Ma had stopped speaking. “What happened? Did the driver stop the team?”
“Nein. Nein. He couldn’t. Going too fast. I run out and pull her out of the way just in time and she is laughing. Laughing. I shake her. I say, ‘Why you do that?’ Over and over I say ‘Why you do that?’ But she laughs. Ach, ja.” Gertrude continued speaking in a low voice punctuating her phrases with sighs and mutterings in German. “Julia was always good at doing for herself. Her clothes was kept, and her hair, and her shoes. She found things. People give her things. But she couldn’t do nothing for anyone else. She couldn’t put a meal together. Or wash clothes that wasn’t hers. Some way she got people to do for her. Always found someone to do for her. Ja. It was usually me. Me and Pa. Then the boys as they got older. Nothing they wouldn’t do for their Aunt Julia. Soon as they was old enough, they was carrying her water, painting up her place, nothing they wouldn’t do for Aunt Julia. She came to live here. Pa bought up this place thinking one of the boys would take the other house when he got married. But Julia moved in there and just stayed. She helped Pa with his books sometimes. She knows her figures and could write all them things out in his little books. Pa was a great one for keeping books on his wells and accounts and what went into each well. Ja. It’s all there in those little books. Julia helped him with that. Of an evening.”
As the wind blew the first big drops of rain against the kitchen w
indows, Ma drifted off, muttering now only in German. Lena could understand German but her mother-in-law was speaking too softly for her to make it out. But she heard the last words, still in German, clearly. “I wish she had died. I wish I hadn’t pulled her out from under that team of flying horses. Sometimes, that’s what I wish.”
“Yoo Hoo! Anybody home! Lena, it’s me, Alvinia.”
Lena was cleaning her living room. At the sound of Alvinia’s voice, she trotted into the kitchen, happy to have company and particularly happy that it was Alvinia. Alvinia usually brought a child or two with her. This morning the mother of ten had only one child in tow.
“Oh, Alvinia, sit down. I just made coffee.”
“Always do with a cup.” Alvinia settled her ample bottom on one of Lena’s kitchen chairs.
“And you...” Lena beamed at the little boy.
Alvinia knew that no one could tell which child of hers was which. Like their mother all the little Torgersons were blond, round-faced, and blue-eyed. “Eldon. This is Eldon.”
“Come here, Precious. Would you like a cookie?” The child nodded slowly. Lena handed him a sugar cookie from the can she had filled that morning.
Eldon took it and ran back to his mother. He leaned into her with his head down and his arms across her lap. “What do you say, Son?” She smoothed back his hair. He buried his face in her skirts. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Thank you, Mrs. Kaiser,” he repeated in a tiny voice.
“You’re very welcome, Eldon. And when you finish that you can have another one. Would you like a glass of milk?”
The boy nodded slowly.
“Lena, I’m sorry I couldn’t come before, but I’ve had sick young ones, one right after the other and overlapping for over a month now. Never seen anything like it. Hope we’re through with it for a while. But I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I feel like I got Will in trouble and I sure didn’t mean to. When Dennis asked me...” Lena placed a cup of coffee and a glass of cold milk on the table for Alvinia and her son. “Thank you, Lena. I didn’t know what happened, or I can tell you, I would have kept my mouth shut.”
“You saw what you saw. You don’t have to lie for my man. He gets into his troubles on his own account. This is...” Lena rubbed her forehead and tried not to cry.
“Well, this is just terrible is what it is,” Alvinia continued with great feeling. “And no one, Lena, no one in this world thinks Will could have done any such thing. And that’s the truth.” Alvinia patted the table between them with the flat of her hand.
“Are people talking...?”
“Well, you know, tongues will waggle, but... Eldon, don’t mess now. Eat it, don’t play with it. Nobody thinks Will killed his Pa. Nobody.”
“Thank you, Alvinia. I really appreciate that. You know, you’re the only one who has come to see me.”
Alvinia asked with some surprise, “What about Gustie?”
“Oh, yes, Gustie came by. But now she’s gone again. Something funny going on there, too, and I don’t know what it is.” Lena clasped her hands in her lap. “Well, I just have to keep going. Just keep going. Sure wish she would get back though.”
Alvinia took a sip of coffee. “She is back.”
“Oh?”
“That’s another thing, Lena. I said tongues are wagging, and they are. I wanted you to hear this from me and not from somebody else.” Alvinia paused a moment. “You know I’ve always liked Gustie.”
Lena had expected to hear something about her husband, herself, or the other Kaisers. She was taken by surprise to hear Gustie’s name. “I know.” She felt that buzzing in her stomach that usually presaged bad news. But better to know it than wonder about it. She asked, “Hear what?”
“You know my Betty works over there at Olna’s waiting tables and doing the washing up, and Severn—he thinks he would like to be a doctor so Doc Moody lets him hang around his place doing little things for him. I think Doc is going to try to get him into school someplace. That would sure be nice. Anyhow, that’s how I know what happened, because it’s a funny thing that two of my chickens were there in both places to see it. I wanted to tell you before you heard it watered down, warmed up and overdone from somebody like Mathilda. You know she never likes anyone that’s not herself.”
“Hear what, for heaven’s sake?” Lena was all ears and impatient.
“Well. Betty was working at Olna’s yesterday, and Gustie was in there having supper. Olna was out doing something or other. So it was just Christine and Eddy, Olna’s girl and boy, and Betty. That Eddy is useless. Anyhow, these two squaws come to the back door. Christine is too scared to even talk to them, and Eddy is nowhere to be found as usual. Betty hadn’t worked for a couple days and didn’t know what it was all about. The two squaws were asking about some friend of theirs. Well, Gustie sees them and goes out to talk to them. Apparently, they wanted to know where Doc Moody’s office was. So Gustie gets into her wagon and they get into their old rattletrap thing and she leads the way to Doc Moody’s. She didn’t even pay her bill at Olna’s.”
“She will,” Lena piped. “Gustie isn’t that way. She’ll be back to pay. She just forgot. Olna will know that.”
“Oh, nobody is worried about that.”
“What are they worried about then?”
“Now, Severn told me a couple days ago they brought in this big Indian. He’d keeled over out back of Olna’s. You know the one who brings in game and fish and whatnot for her Sunday dinners? You’ve seen him around.” Lena nodded. Alvinia went on. “I think his name is Red Horse, Red Something Horse—I don’t know—they have such peculiar names. Doc looked at him and said his appendix had to come out and right now. The Indian was in so much pain he was in no shape to say aye, yes, or no, so Doc put him under and took out his appendix right there and then. When the Indian come to, he wanted to get back to his own folks, so Doc told the station manager and he got a note to Joe Gruba in Wheat Lake to get word out to the reservation. So that’s what these two squaws were in town for, you see, to bring him home.
“Now Gustie takes them over to Doc Moody’s and they look in on him and Doc says it’s getting late and he doesn’t like the idea of the fellow traveling so soon—can’t they give him another night’s rest? He was laid up there in the back of the clinic. Doc has a nice little set-up there. Have you ever been back there? I had to leave Alice there once when she got bit by a horse. Doc sewed her up but she still has a hole in her leg.” Alvinia shook her head. “Severn says that when the Doc suggests they stay the night, Gustie seems all right about it...and then Mrs. Moody says, ‘Of course, they can stay in the barn.’ Well! It’s like Gustie gets goosed! She says, ‘In the barn?’ And Mrs. Moody says, ‘Why yes, there’s plenty of room.’ And Gustie, with a look that could wither a flax field, says, ‘I’m sure there is.’ And she says to the squaws, ‘You’ll come home with me.’ And then she tells Doc they’ll be back early in the morning to pick up Red...Something...Horse whatever-his-name-is and did he know where they could find his horse, the Indian horse...the horse he was riding on...you know what I mean.”
Alvinia stopped to breathe. “Now, do you suppose Gustie thought Mrs. Moody should have invited them to stay in her house? Mess up her nice linens and everything? Gustie being from the East and all wouldn’t know how things are here. Can you imagine her saying to Edna Moody, ‘I’m sure there is...’ just like that? And in front of a waiting room full of people? A kinder, better, more charitable woman than Edna Moody does not exist in Stone County.”
Lena nodded her agreement.
Alvinia continued, “I’m sure that Gustie didn’t mean to hurt Edna’s feelings or stir up a hornet’s nest.”
“No, I’ve never known her to hurt anyone’s feelings. She’s always a real tactful person.”
“Things are probably a lot different where she comes from.”
“Gustie has her own ways, that’s for s
ure.”
The two women shared a silent moment trying to fathom Gustie’s strange behavior.
Alvinia suddenly thought of something else. “And another thing. Gustie’s all bandaged up.”
Lena had been studying her floor. Now her attention snapped back to Alvinia. “What do you mean ‘all bandaged up’?”
“Well, Severn said...and Betty noticed it too...Gustie has bandages on both wrists and he thought she had some across her chest, too, because he saw bandages like, right around her neck, so thick she couldn’t button the top two buttons on her blouse. And when the Doc asked if she was all right and should he look at it for her, she said no, it was taken care of. Well, what do you make of it?”
“I have no idea. I guess if she’s up and around and able to drive her wagon, she’s not in too rough a shape. I don’t know.”
“Anyway, I wanted you to hear it from me, the way it was. My chicks just told me what they saw.”
“Thanks, Alvinia. You’re a brick.”
“We just got some groceries. Do you need anything? I’ve got a wagon full out here.”
“Oh, no, we’re fine.”
Eldon had wandered across the kitchen and was reaching up for the fresh-baked bread on the counter. “Eldon, leave that alone, you’re not at home now. You’d think these chickens never got fed.”
“Oh, here. He can have some bread and butter.” Lena jumped up to cut off a slice. “You want a little sugar on it?” She sprinkled the buttered bread with sugar and handed it to him. “Mmmm. That’s good isn’t it?”
Eldon looked up at her with a shy smile forming around his mouthful of bread.
“His eyes are the size of saucers. My, but you’ll be a heart-breaker one day, won’t you? Yes, you will...” Lena chucked him under the chin. The little boy giggled and ran back to his mother.
“Do you want to take some cookies with you?”
“No, thank you. No need to turn this little chicken into a pig.” Alvinia took a small square of cloth out of her pocket, stuck the end of it in her mouth and with the moistened tip, wiped sugar and butter off Eldon’s cheek. He pulled away and buried his head in her lap again.
Charity Page 11