by Tamar Myers
“You look flushed, Magdalena.”
“I’ve been packing.”
“Going somewhere?”
“No, I’m just practicing in case I do.”
Just then Susannah came into the room dragging a suitcase large enough to have its own zip code. When she saw Aaron she all but squealed with delight. “Aaron!”
He glanced at her just long enough to see the suitcase. “Your sister must need to practice more than you do.”
I think Susannah might have said something then, but I don’t recall what it was. When Aaron’s in the room it’s hard to concentrate on anyone but him.
“So, where are you off to, Magdalena? Is Susannah going with you?”
I told him about cousin Yost’s death, and the need to take Freni to the funeral. I told him that Susannah had insisted on accompanying us, and about the arrangements I had made for the inn.
“Not to worry,” Aaron said. He put a muscular arm around my shoulder. “I’ll help Mose and Doc as much as I can. You just concentrate on getting to Ohio and back safely.”
Silly man. If my shoulder didn’t stop smoldering I wasn’t going to make it out of the driveway, much less to Ohio. I forced myself to think of practical things.
“All right, Susannah, it’s time to dump that dinky dog of yours.”
Susannah smiled sweetly. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Hand over your coat, dear,” I said. “You can take my old one.” Susannah’s coat is really a cape with a catacomb of pockets sewn into it. It would take a week to search it thoroughly, by which time her crafty canine could croak. Leaving it behind was the humane thing to do.
My sister parted with her wrap far too easily. When she threw it on the floor and did a quick tap dance, I knew it was time to start searching elsewhere.
“Okay. Hands above your head.” It was time to frisk her again.
Susannah smoothed her silken swirls and smirked. “No Shnookums, see? Or in my suitcase, either. Check it, for all I care.”
I did. Besides clothes, there were enough electrical gadgets in there to stock two hardware stores, but no dog. I would have pursued the matter further, but just then Freni came bustling in. It was time to go. Quite sensibly, she had only one small black fabric bag. The sight of it should have shamed Susannah, but of course it didn’t.
“Slumming it, are we?” she quipped.
Freni frowned. “This is a funeral we’re going to, Susannah, not an English party.”
“Well excuuuuse me!” Susannah flounced off to the car, without a coat, leaving her luggage behind.
Aaron gallantly carried all our bags to the car. As I was about to climb in, he grabbed me gently by the arm. He might as well have been using heated tongs.
“There’s something I just have to say before I let you go, Magdalena.”
I closed my eyes, straining to hear the sound of wedding bells. “Say it,” I murmured.
“Check your water and oil before you start back. That heap of yours has seen a lot of wear.”
I opened one eye. “Anything else?”
He released my arm. “As a matter of fact, yes. Stay out of trouble when you get there.”
I opened the other eye. “I don’t know what you mean, Aaron Miller.”
He smiled, revealing those perfect white teeth. Who would have thought that molars could be mesmerizing? “You’re attracted to trouble like ants to a picnic. And I have a hunch that your cousin was in a whole lot of trouble before he took that milk bath.”
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. I pursed my lips slightly on the off chance that Aaron would kiss me.
He did not. Mennonites are not big on public displays of affection. Instead he pulled a huge white handkerchief out of his pocket and proceeded to blow his nose. You would have thought a flock of geese had swooped down on the PennDutch.
That was my last view of Aaron that morning, but I cherished it nonetheless. Even with a handkerchief in front of his face, Aaron Miller was the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on.
We had just passed through the Allegheny Tunnel (where Mama and Papa were killed) when I heard a strange, high-pitched noise. My first thought was that Susannah was crying. She may not be a sensible gal, but my sister is at times sensitive. What else would explain the similar noises I heard the last time I caught Susannah entertaining a boyfriend in her room? His mother had just died, and she was crying on his behalf, she said. Somehow it sounded plausible at the time.
“Enough,” Freni said, after I had ignored the sobs for almost a mile. “If Susannah wants to sit up front that bad I’ll change seats.”
“I don’t want to sit up front,” Susannah almost shouted. “What I want to do is sing. How about we all take turns singing our favorite hymns?”
Immediately I slowed down and pulled over. Something was rotten in Denmark, and my sister was speaking Danish. I turned in my seat and inspected her. She hadn’t been crying at all.
“Okay, what gives?” I asked calmly.
Susannah’s an expert at giving blank looks, and gave me a doozy.
“Susannah, I don’t have time for—” Suddenly a heart-rending sob filled the air, although Susannah’s lips remained as tightly closed as a clam at low tide.
Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake, but just one more sob was all it took for me to deduce that my sister had somehow managed to convey her canine to the car and had stashed the stowaway in the trunk. And sure enough, I found the pitiful pooch, along with a pile of poop, in Freni’s black bag.
“Ach du Heimer!" my elderly cousin exclaimed.
Literally that means you are a hammer, and that’s as bad as Freni can curse.
I will admit that I had a few choice words myself, but of course nothing quite that strong. Mama had washed out my mouth with soap enough times to ensure that I stuck to clean speech for life.
I suppose we presented quite a sight there by the road—one Amish woman, one Mennonite woman, and fifteen feet of flowing fabric, all gesticulating as if we were engaged in an animated game of charades—but I didn’t especially care what others thought. The people in the cars whizzing by were not without their own dramas, and I was sure that our little scene was tame compared to some of them.
In the end, Susannah promised to do Freni’s laundry, and Shnookums was liberated from Freni’s bag, but only to be detained in Susannah’s bra. Since I didn’t relish driving through the tunnel two more times, there was nothing to do but press on. But can you blame me for arriving in Farmersburg with a splitting headache? Perhaps if I’d only felt better I wouldn’t have gotten into all that trouble Aaron had warned me about.
Chapter Four
We drove straight to the widow’s house. I had no idea how to get there, but I had Freni with me, remember? That woman has a sixth sense for ferreting out relatives. As far-fetched as it may sound, I suspect that she might actually be able to smell shared genes.
“That’s definitely a Hostetler house,” she said, as we neared Farmersburg. “Bloughs live on that farm. Oh, now there’s a Mast place if ever I saw one. Ach, look at that Bontrager barn—you would think the Troyers have always been a bit vain about their flower beds. You’d think the Stutzmans could plow straighter rows than that. The Shrocks should be ashamed to hang out laundry in need of mending, if you ask me.”
So, I was relieved, but not really surprised, when Freni had me turn right on Hershberger Lane and left on Leesburg Lane. Immediately after the second turn we saw the dairy farm owned by the late Yost Yoder and his wife, Sarah. That one even I could identify, although I must confess that the sea of black buggies in the front yard might have been a tip-off. Amish generally don’t congregate to party on Tuesday afternoons.
There were a few other cars there, so our arrival did not raise much of a stir. Except for some children who scampered up to stare, no one seemed to notice us— Amish often rely on their more liberal neighbors for long-distance rides.
We got out of the car.
“Is this the
Yoder farm?” I asked a towheaded youngster just to be on the safe side.
The girl giggled, and I saw myself when I was three or four. With limited gene pools, one doesn’t need photo albums.
Another towhead, about six years old, pushed the girl aside. “Yah, this is the Yoder place,” he said. “Who is she?” He pointed at Susannah.
“My name’s Susannah. I’m a distant cousin,” my sister explained.
“Well, you look like a clown!”
The children all laughed and scampered away, proving that English children don’t have a monopoly on bad manners.
“Why I never!” Susannah said.
I patted her arm comfortingly. “It could have been worse, dear. At least they didn’t scream.”
We made Freni lead the way to the house. Even though her dress differed slightly from that of the Ohio Amish, she was still obviously one of them. Amish houses don’t have doorbells, but Freni is a world-class knocker. People with termites should pray Freni doesn’t knock on their doors. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that structurally unsound houses have collapsed under that woman’s knuckles.
“Yah?” said a woman who was perhaps in her late thirties. For some reason she looked right over Freni’s head and straight at me.
“Sarah Yoder?”
“Yah?”
“I’m Magdalena Yoder from Hernia, Pennsylvania, and this is—”
“Freni!”
Freni and Sarah, Yost’s widow, were in each other’s arms and talking a mile a minute. Unfortunately for Susannah and me they were speaking in “Pennsylvania Dutch,” a form of High German. Outside of a few prayers and harmless expressions, neither Susannah nor I can speak it. At least I can understand it, which is more than can be said for Susannah. Even the King James version of the Bible taxes her linguistic abilities—which might have something to do with why she married a Presbyterian.
Sarah literally pulled Freni into the crowded house. Susannah and I followed anxiously on our own steam. Despite our kinship, and friendship, with Freni, we were entering a world where we were the outsiders. The strange ones. For Susannah that might not have been a first, but for me it most certainly was. I must confess that I was nervous enough to perspire—of course ever so slightly.
At least I had introduced myself to Sarah Yost, whereas poor Susannah had been utterly ignored. To her credit, my baby sister handled this social gaffe with remarkable aplomb. Instead of drawing attention to herself in a negative fashion, Susannah appeared to be content merely rolling her eyes. This action not only speaks louder than words, but substitutes for at least fifty in my sister’s vocabulary. Whereas I get the bulk of my exercise from jumping to conclusions, Susannah gets hers from ocular rotation. In our defense, I must state that neither form of exercise requires any special equipment, and both can be performed virtually anywhere.
At any rate, the message was clear. Susannah was bored.
“Ahem,” I interrupted. I have learned the hard way that it is best not to push the limits of Susannah’s patience in public.
Freni frowned. “Magdalena, can’t you see that our cousin needs comforting?”
I nodded at Susannah, whose eyes were rolling so fast they were a blur of white. The poor girl was going to exhaust herself any second and pass out. Either that or go blind.
“I am touched that you two came,” Sarah said graciously. Her English, like that of most of the younger Amish, was flawless. “It means so much to me to have family around at a time like this.”
“We’re delighted to be here,” I said, and then would have kicked myself, had I not been wearing my pointed shoes. “I’m so sorry about Yost’s death,” I added feebly.
At least Sarah’s tears were genuine. “I suppose I’m still in shock. Somehow it doesn’t all seem real.”
“I know just how you feel,” Susannah said. “I felt that way when Bubbles, my goldfish, died.”
I am not averse to kicking Susannah with my pointed shoes. “Is there anything we can do?” I asked.
Sarah smiled wanly through her tears. “No. Just your being here is enough.”
“Well, maybe we should go find a motel,” I offered. Freni had filled me in on a few statistics on the way over. Since Amish traditionally have large families, I was not surprised to learn that Sarah and Yost had ten children, and she was a lot younger than I.
“Ach! How you talk!” Sarah said with sudden vigor. Clearly she and Freni were blood kin somewhere down the line.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that I’m anxious to leave. We can look for a motel later.”
Sarah wiped her face with a sleeve. “Imagine staying in an English motel when you have family!”
“I only meant—” I gestured helplessly at the crowd.
“Just Freni will be staying here. The two of you will be staying with Samuel and Elizabeth Troyer. Sam is your father’s second cousin once and your mother’s third cousin twice, and Lizzie is your father’s fourth cousin once removed and your mother’s double second cousin twice removed. They only have five children— all boys—so there is plenty of room. It has already been arranged.”
I was only mildly surprised. If the American people really wanted a balanced budget and a government that ran as efficiently as Swiss trains, they would elect an Amish woman to the Presidency. Of course, no Amish person would be caught dead in the White House. (Although I have yet to convince Susannah that Abe Lincoln wasn’t Amish.)
“How old are the Troyer boys?” my sister asked hopefully.
My pointed shoes quickly put an end to that line of questioning. I said a few more words of comfort and whisked Susannah out of speaking range.
“Excuse me, but do you know if Annie Stutzman is here?” I asked a woman who was the spitting image of Mama at her age.
The woman pointed wordlessly at a girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve.
“No, I’m sure that’s not her. This Annie Stutzman was my father’s cousin.”
The woman shrugged. “I know eight Annie Stutzmans, dear. Do you want me to point them all out to you?”
I decided to save Annie for later. Anyone who didn’t have a phone yet was capable of calling me up at six-thirty in the morning to pass on news she had just heard would manage to get in touch with me before I left the area. Anyway, Annie had said she would see me at the cemetery. If she wanted to talk to me that afternoon, all she had to do was come up to me and open her mouth. Two tall English women, one wearing enough makeup to supply a small suburb of Pittsburgh for a year, could not be that hard to spot in a sea of bobbing bonnets.
For the next several hours we sat around like warts on a pickle, waiting for the Troyers (who were present) to leave. Although all the Amish were extremely cordial, it is sometimes hard to connect with a roomful of strangers, even if half of them are wearing your face. I wasn’t particularly interested in learning that Emma Hershberger’s bunions were acting up again, or that Milla Kauffman made her broad noodles without any eggs. As for the fact that Amanda Miller was three weeks overdue with her eighth baby, well, in the words of Susannah, “Who cares?”
There were three other English there, but undoubtedly they had been brought up better than Susannah and I. They wore their looks of boredom quite gracefully.
I struck up a conversation with one of them—an ample woman named Harriet. She had driven a carload of Amish over from Goshen, Indiana, but she had done it for money. Harriet had just begun her career as a middle-aged mercenary, driving the devout in dire times, and what she knew about the Amish would fill one page in a doll-sized notebook.
“I think their ancestors were pilgrims,” Harriet said. “That’s right, the Amish are some kind of modern-day pilgrim, and they believe in dressing up like in the olden days. Which is really kind of silly, when you think about it,” she added, “because even the Indians today don’t dress like they used to.”
“Is that so,” I said politely. Susannah, however, smirked.
“Now take the Mennonites,�
� Harriet said knowingly. “They’re a queer bunch as well.”
“Do tell,” I urged.
“They’re sort of diluted Amish, if you ask me. They’re not as strict, but they’re just as clannish. Won’t look you straight in the eye if you’re not one of them. Did you know that Richard Nixon was a Mennonite?”
I stared at her. “He was a Quaker,” I said firmly. “It’s not the same thing.”
She gave me a pitying glance. “How much were you paid to drive your Amish passengers here, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“A thousand dollars.” It was a joke said with a straight face—which isn’t the same as lying.
Harriet’s eyes bulged and she gasped for air. “Well,” she said at last, “I’m going to have me a talk with the Berkeys before I drive them home!”
I prayed silently that God and the Berkeys would forgive me. “I suppose the Berkeys told you about the oil wells they have on their farm?”
Harriet shook her head. “Nope, but it doesn’t surprise me none. The Amish might look poor—on account of their pilgrim costumes—but they’re smart businessmen. The Berkeys said that the Amish man who died was starting up a rival cheese factory. Farmersburg Swiss, you know.”
“Yes, the Amish are Swiss.” At least she had gotten one fact right.
“No, I meant the cheese. Farmersburg Swiss cheese. Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“Not until now, dear.”
Harriet rolled her eyes, giving me a preview of what Susannah might look like twenty years and fifty pounds down the pike. “Farmersburg Swiss is gourmet. Everybody knows that. Even in Goshen, Indiana, people with sophisticated taste eat Farmersburg Swiss.”
“You don’t say.” This from a woman who made “gourmet” rhyme with “your pet”!