“I don’t understand,” I said calmly.
“Who do I love more than anyone else in the world?”
“Moi,” I said smugly.
“Yeah, but besides you.”
“Not the mantis!”
“His name is Melvin. And I can’t believe he didn’t love me back.”
I didn’t need a crystal ball to see where this conversation was headed. “Insect or man, he’s still a murderer. He killed my minister, for crying out loud. And if it wasn’t for my sturdy Christian underwear, he would have killed me too. Every day I thank God for Sears and JCPenney. If I’d been wearing something skimpy from Victoria’s Secret, I’d have been splattered at the base of Stucky Ridge.”
“Oh, Mags, you’re always so dramatic. If you’re not even going to try to keep an open mind, then I’m not going to tell you.”
“There’s more?”
She nodded.
“Okay, but if my brain falls out on account of my mind being too open, it’s your fault.”
“Mags, I’ve been having this dream. In it, Melvin contacts me and asks me to run away with him.”
My teeth settled into familiar grooves as I bit my tongue. “What is your response, dear?”
“I go with him, of course. Together we crisscross America dodging the long arm of the law, just like Bonnie and Clyde. We rob banks only when we have to eat. The rest of the time we rob fabric stores. But just so you know, we never actually shoot anybody.”
Needless to say, I was fit to be tied-my tongue, however, was not. “Well, I don’t care who this Bonnie and Clydesdale are. What you’re saying is disgusting. If Mama and Papa could hear you, they’d die all over again. From shame this time.”
“It’s only a dream, Magdalena. We aren’t responsible for our dreams.”
“Maybe. But it’s become the subject of your daydreams too, hasn’t it?”
“If I said yes, would you hate me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll always love you. But I’d be very, very disappointed.”
Susannah’s response was to burrow back under the covers until not a hair on her endangered head was showing.
9
My guests pay dearly for their food, but they can’t ask for a better spread. Even though Freni was worried sick about Doc, she produced a meal fit for a queen: blueberry pancakes with freshly churned butter and real maple syrup; waffles; biscuits as light as clouds; warm, fragrant banana-nut bread; bacon, ham, sausage patties and sausage links; fruit salad; flavored yogurts, as well as plain; oatmeal served with raisins and brown sugar; a wide variety of cold cereals; and, of course, eggs cooked to order. She also offered scrapple and headcheese, but there were no takers for those two delicacies. It has always puzzled me that some folks object to eating organ meats, but not to eating muscle tissue. They’re all parts of a dead animal, for crying out loud.
At any rate, because the dear woman has a habit of talking to no one in particular, it took a while to register that Freni was addressing me, and not the bacon sizzling in her frying pan.
“Why always a contest?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you not listen, Magdalena?”
“I’m trying to listen, but that bacon is mighty loud.” It was only the smallest of white lies, and told only so as not to hurt her feelings.
“The English,” she said, referring to anyone not Amish. “Why must everything be a contest? We have cows too, yah, but they are humble cows.”
“Who produce humble pies.”
“Ach, always so quick with the riddles.”
“Is it my fault I’m so talented?”
Freni shook her head. Given that she has virtually no neck, her entire body moved with the effort. Had it not been for her sturdy Christian underwear, it might have been unseemly.
“Your mama was my best friend, Magdalena. I was there when you were born, yah? Otherwise I am not so sure you are hers.”
“You were there?” This was news to me. I’d always heard it was Granny Yoder who helped bring me into the world, with the aid of canning tongs. It was either that, or the cabbage patch story.
Freni turned the color of rhubarb sauce. “Okay, maybe I am not there exactly on time, but it was spring, and I am feeling the oats. To make short the story, I did not see you born.”
“It was September, and you were already happily married to Mose. Your oats should have been well felt by then.”
“So now the truth, yah?”
“If you don’t spill it all now, I’m telling the English that your biscuits are store-bought.”
“Ach! Okay, I will spill.” She turned off the bacon and took a deep breath, her enormous bosom rising and falling like a small tsunami. “Yah, it is time for the truth.”
“And nothing but.”
“Your mama was barren, Magdalena. Just like you. And Miss Sarah, the friend you speak so much of.”
“You mean the Sahara, as in desert?”
“Please, Magdalena, this is no time for the riddles.”
Her words began to sink in. “No way!”
“But your papa-well, you already know about Zelda. So anyway, there was a young woman, a teenager, who came in the family way. Some say that the baby’s papa was your papa, and some say it was a stranger. To make short the story-”
“So I am adopted?”
Freni shrugged, which is to say, her bosom bobbled even more. “I think maybe you are half adopted, because you look just like your papa.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the soft hollows behind my knees. Truly, I was in danger of collapsing. And since I also felt like throwing up, I had to be careful where I landed.
“And Susannah? Is she adopted as well?”
“Maybe not so much.”
“Not so much? What does that mean?”
“It means that by now the desert is blooming, yah?” I staggered over to sit in a “distressed” kitchen chair-one of several for which I’d paid big bucks, following a freak tornado several years ago that demolished my heirloom kitchen chairs. The originals had been in Mama’s family for two centuries-ex-cept now she wasn’t my mama. Not really.
“Magdalena, are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right! Is Susannah my sister, or is she not?”
“Yah, of course.”
“Then what’s this blooming desert stuff? Honestly, Freni, you speak in riddles every bit as much as I do.”
Freni removed her grease- and flour-covered glasses. Believe it or not, without them she could see even less, which was no doubt her intention. That way my quivering chin and tear-filled eyes became a meaningless blur.
“Your mama and papa loved you very much. They could not have loved more the fruit of their loom.”
“That would be ‘loins,’ dear. But please, continue.”
“Every day, they thank God for you in their prayers. Then one day, when your mama thinks the change of life has come, she goes to see the doctor. He tells her she is to have a baby. At first she cannot believe it; at her age, it is not possible. But when the day comes that she must accept the truth, she becomes historical.”
“You mean hysterical?”
“That is what I said. So I ask her why she cries, and she says because now she is afraid that with a new baby, she will love her little Magdalena less. She says that you”-Freni nodded in my general direction-”meant more to her than anything in the world. More than your papa. Ach, maybe even more than God.”
I gasped. “She didn’t!”
“Such a terrible thing to say, yah? But for her, it is the truth, because she loves you so much. Then when Susannah is born, she gets this postmodern depression that everyone is talking about. One day she confides in my ears-you must promise never to tell anyone what she confides.”
“I promise!”
“No one. Ever. Not even your Gabester.”
“Yes, yes, go on.”
“She wishes to drown Susannah in Miller’s Pond. Like a kitten, she says.”
“I could not believe either. I ask Mose to hitch the horse to the Sunday buggy so that we could take her to see the pastor of your church. At that time, it was Reverend Amstutz-a very kind man, but maybe not so good with people.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it was the Devil putting such ideas in her head. He tells us to pray. So we pray-everyone in Hernia prays, I think- but the Devil does not leave your mama, and I must stay with her every second, even though by then I have my little Jonathan to care for, because she thinks always of the pond.”
I was on the edge of my distressed chair. “What about Papa?”
“Ach, a good man too. But maybe not so-Magdalena, this I do not know how to say.”
“Try Dutch,” I said, referring to the German dialect that is the first language of most Amish.
“No, it is not the words, but what they say.”
“You mean you have something to tell me about Papa that I won’t want to hear? Give me a break, Freni. Please. What did he do, go off and father six more children?”
“Ach! Look how you talk. Your papa did not think so well in this stressful time. That is why he went to Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?”
“To visit his aunt.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Six months.”
I was eleven years old at the time, but I hadn’t even the dimmest memory of my beloved papa taking a six-month sabbatical from my demon-possessed mama. I’d always believed Papa and I had enjoyed an especially close relationship, but boy, was I ever wrong. And to think I always felt closer to Papa, and, if I were to be absolutely honest, was more saddened by his death than I was Mama’s.
“What happened to Mama? How did she get rid of the demon?”
Using her apron, Freni smeared the grease-and-flour combo around on her glasses before popping them back on. Apparently, the worst was over, and it was safe again to make eye contact with yours truly.
“I think maybe it was not a real demon. When the prayers did not work so good, Mose and I drove your mama in to Bedford to see a doctor. One for the head.”
She paused to hang her own head in shame, for having resorted to psychiatry. The woman must be admired on several accounts. For one thing, her lack of neck turned head-hanging into a daunting task. I waited patiently until she continued.
“These head doctors, they are not in the Bible, are they, Magdalena?”
“Neither are dentists, but you and Mose have both been to see one.”
“Toupee.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like the French say, yah?”
“Ah, touché! But anyway, was the psychiatrist able to help? He must have been, because although Mama was as high-strung as a kite in a hurricane, I certainly don’t remember her as being particularly possessed.”
“He gave your mama some pills, and soon she is better. Not like before the post-pardon depression, but still, much better.”
I waited to see if there was more, but there wasn’t. “Is that all, Freni? Is there anything else you’ve neglected to tell me? Do I have a brother chained in the attic?”
My kinswoman turned as white as boiled rice.
“There isn’t,” I cried. “Is there?”
“Not anymore.”
“What?”
For the first time in ages a smile crept across her pale, unadorned lips. “So now you feel better, yah?”
“No, not really. I can’t believe I was lied to all these years. I feel betrayed. Why did they do that? My parents, I mean. And why did you lie to me?”
“Ach, I did not want to hurt you. You are like a daughter to me.”
“But this hurts!” Tears were streaming down my face. If I wore mascara, like Susannah, I’d look just like a panda bear-albeit a comely one, with the figure of a brick outhouse. So says Gabe.
Freni extended her stubby arms. Her intention was to hug me. But just seeing her attempting to perform this unnatural act opened my floodgates even wider. I bawled like an eight-year-old girl who’s been told that she is too old now to get Christmas presents other than bobby socks and sturdy Christian under-wear-not that I would necessarily know about such a child.
“Shush, meine kind,” Freni said and grabbed me in a warm and somewhat redolent embrace. (Even at this hour of the morning, she smelled of green onions.) “It will be okay, yah?”
“No, it won’t! How could Mama and Papa do this to me? They’re dead, and now I’ll never know the truth.”
It’s not just we Yoders who engage in backslapping hugs, but virtually all Mennonites of Amish ancestry and, of course, the Amish. It has been postulated that this ritual behavior, usually performed upon greeting and departing, has its origins in the fact that both groups are intensely food oriented, and that the back-whacking is actually a precursor to the Heimlich maneuver. To corroborate this theory, bear in mind that the first person to deviate from normal hugs was a gentleman by the name of Heimlich Yoder. Enough said.
There are limits to backslapping too, and Freni had reached hers. “So now I will tell you why your mama lied,” she said.
10
Butter Pecan Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 pint (250 ml) single/light cream
2 oz (50 g) brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 pint (250 ml) heavy/double cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (or according to taste)
1/4 cup pecans (chopped)
Place the single cream, sugar, and butter into a saucepan and mix together over low heat. Stir until the mixture starts to bubble around the edges. Remove the saucepan from the heat, and allow to cool.
When the mixture is cold, transfer it to an ice cream maker and stir in the double cream and vanilla extract. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions, but remember to add the pecans as the ice cream starts to harden.
11
“Your mama was afraid that if you knew the truth-that you did not share the pants-then maybe you would stop loving her,” Freni said.
“Share pants? Mama didn’t put one foot inside a pair of trousers until Susannah was a teenager. By then, I was out of the nest. Okay, so I still lived at home then, but I’d grown my adult plumage. I could have flown, and might have too, if Mama hadn’t been so clingy. I mean that figuratively, of course.”
“Ach, du lieber! Not the trouser pants-the jeans.”
“Wrong again, dear. Mama never touched a pair of Levi’s.”
Freni wrung her scallion-scented hands. “Not the cloth jeans; the ones inside the body. The MBNA, yah?”
Then it hit me, like a ton of Mama’s eggless dumplings. (To put it kindly, Mama was culinarily challenged.) “DNA!” I screamed. “Genes!”
“Yah, that’s what I said.”
“Are you telling me that Mama thought that just because we didn’t share the same flesh and blood, that I wouldn’t love her?”
Freni nodded, no doubt speechless upon finally discovering that my stupidity knows no bounds.
“But that’s so-so-well, I’m not that shallow.”
“Yah, not so shallow. This I tell her, but with different words.”
“Thank you. And Papa, what was his excuse?”
“Your papa”-she paused, and I could tell she was praying for a Christian tongue-”he made the honky-tonky with this woman and that woman, but of your mama, he was always afraid.”
“She was half his size, for crying out loud.”
“But she had a giant personality, yah?”
“For sure.”
“You must always remember one thing, Magdalena; Mose and I do not care about this DMA. To us, you will always be a Yoder and a Hostetler. And, of course, now a Rosen too.”
“I love you, Freni!” I threw my arms around the stout woman, hugging her tightly to me. Taking her by surprise as I did, her arms were pinned to her sides. It took her less than thirt
y seconds to cry uncle.
“Ach, let me go!”
“Not until you say ‘I love you’ back to me.”
Tamar Myers Page 6