A Clearing in the Wild

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  I hated that he called him Chris, as though he did not deserve the full use of his own name, as though our leader could ignore a name given at his birth that spoke of who he was and would ever be, Christian. The scent of green plants growing in this warm third-story floor seemed suddenly overpowering. The smell of earth, while usually so inviting, smelled of decay to me now. Our leader stood, revealing his long black coat hanging funereally to his knees.

  “She may be good with the Kinder, but it’s because she is one.” He acted as though I were one of his plants that could neither hear nor feel. “In the glove factory, she makes games and distracts. I have seen her toss turnips in the fields as though they were balls for the dogs to retrieve. She is too interested in those who travel to Shelbina, too interested in what is not here at home. These are signs too, Chris, signs I cannot ignore. I tell them to you out of love. For you both. Your union would be wrought with fractures no glue could repair. At the first sign of a trial, you would seek to separate, and this would not be a good witness to the colony.”

  I wanted to tell my part, defend myself, and reassure Father Keil that I could be in service to my husband and this colony. Disagreement wasn’t a sign of rebellion, only wisdom. Were not we Germans known for seeking knowledge? And what of joy? We held dances, our band played for entertainment, so what was wrong with my donning gloves like a rooster top to hop around the factory floor? People laughed, and what was un-Christian about that in the midst of work?

  Christian leaned forward, his hands folded together, his forearms resting on his thighs. My heart pounded. He remained silent, and it took all I could not to stand up, say what I wanted him to say. But I had agreed and would show my discipline was as good as … our leader’s.

  A clock ticked in the silence. Then Christian stood, eye to eye with our leader. He turned to me. I saw a pain there I hadn’t seen before. I felt my heart pound, sure that he would say now that he agreed with our leader and dash my hopes for a long and abiding love.

  But Christian addressed our leader, though he held my eyes. “I believe you are in error, Wilhelm. I believe your error comes from a good heart, one that honors me with your confidence that I do good things. But I do so with God’s help. Indeed, I did not bring in Karl Ruge to teach our children English. God did. I did not bring in new Scots-Irish recruits from Kentucky and Tennessee. God did this. And I believe that God has given me a future wife in Emma Wagner, whose father you so entrusted with our colony that you sent him out to find this Bethel, this “place of God,” this “place of worship,” as the Hebrew word translates. She’s been raised in our ways and knows them—”

  “She challenges them,” our leader said.

  “But she will keep the vows and understands what I am called to do,” Christian countered.

  Our leader puffed up his chest then. “You will defy me, Chris, over this … this trivial thing?”

  “Wilhelm, please. I have no wish to drive a wedge between us. There is a compromise. Emma turns eighteen on the twenty-seventh of this month. We would set the date for then and pray you will be the one to officiate. We will discuss this again when you’ve had time to pray and consider. Come, Emma. Let’s go, give Wilhelm time to prepare for his celebration.”

  How I wanted to have my say, but for once I chose to be right in silence. And my intended had stood firm and had even named a date, though I would have preferred to have some say in that. To witness a birthday and a wedding anniversary on the same occasion robbed a woman of one celebration. And in a world where there were few, I meant to have as many as I could.

  I followed Christian out, feeling the eyes of our leader boring a hole into my back. “We can announce our wedding, then?” I said when we reached the empty second-floor gathering room.

  “No,” he said. “I want Wilhelm’s blessing. It will be better if he comes around, if he sees that we have chosen and he cannot stop us. The colony will be the better if he too is in agreement.”

  “And if he doesn’t ever give his consent?”

  On the stair landing, he pulled me to him and kissed the top of my forehead. It was the first touch of his lips upon my skin. “We will marry, Emma. But we’ll keep this quiet for now. Agreed?”

  “Ja,” I said, not wanting to be the first to pull away from the firmness of his embrace.

  I’d remain silent, but I went home and sewed another ruffle on my crinoline.

  4

  Choose Life

  Right after our meeting, our leader sent Christian on a mission that took him away on my birthday and on the supposed wedding day. But he encouraged Christian before he left by telling him that when he returned in April, we could discuss our marriage possibility again. I suspected he would use the interim time to watch me, so I wore my best behavior. In the glove factory in the afternoons, I stayed to myself, working hard to finish off the deerskin gloves with the finest stitches. Our colony’s gloves had won awards in competitions at exhibitions back East, and I liked to think my work contributed. Father Keil made a fine time of hunting the many herds of deer in this part of Missouri, having the meat for our common meals and the hides for the factory. I thought again how blessed men were to do the things they loved yet name their acts as practical and thus always permitted.

  Secretly, I didn’t mind not having the wedding on my birthday. I could be open about the date as long as the event would happen. Being flexible about accomplishing a thing was always optional, I felt, as long as everyone could agree upon the outcome. Half the time people argued over how to do a thing more than whether it should be done at all. I thought the latter to be the topic of greater importance. If only people would take the time to voice their desires, others could assist them in achieving them; that was my motto.

  Christian’s absence made me think of him all the more. During the noon break at school, I prompted Helena to talk of her older brother, but she spoke instead of her own choice long years before, to give up the love of her life, the son of the man who would later design the Brooklyn Bridge and who later built his own suspension bridges.

  “He was a good man, but we were not well matched.”

  “But you loved him, ja? Isn’t that match enough?”

  “He chose not to join the colony,” Helena said. She swept the tile floor as we talked.

  “Christian and I have no such barriers,” I said. I wiped the face of a small child whose berry jam smeared across her face, then sent her on her way.

  “True, you both share the faith,” she said.

  “Couldn’t you have married Mr. Roebling anyway?” Her story was a legend in the colony, that she had chosen service to the colony over love. My sister Catherine especially admired Helena.

  “Yes, but if two people do not share the same hopes, then discord will reign. They will be unequally yoked, as Scripture says.”

  “Nothing will rain on Christian and me,” I chirped.

  In silence she stacked the slate boards the children used, making a pile at the edge of the desk. She turned to me then, and I could see Christian’s thoughtful eyes reflected in her face, his high forehead and strong jaw. “It does cause concern, your youth compared to his … experience. He’s gained so much and given much, not being … hampered by a wife and children. He’s important to the colony, Emma. Almost as much as Father Keil. If he marries you, Christian will have little time for … peevishness. We have been successful all these years because our leader knows how to put self aside in order to serve. I hope you consider this.” She walked stiffly from the room.

  I tried to remember when I had been peevish or irritable with Helena or any of her large family; or when I’d done something to suggest I didn’t put others before myself. Nothing came to mind … except the ruffles that she knew nothing of and were of so little import, I couldn’t imagine them being any real barrier to the safety of my soul.

  I decided not to be peevish and argue after her. There’d be time enough to change her mind when I lived with the Giesys after we were married, while our
home was being built.

  At the second meeting with our leader, silence again became my first task, while our leader spoke a long prayer, seeking guidance and wisdom in this matter. Then while Christian and our leader quoted Scripture to each other, I bit my lip and stayed stiff as a boot hook. Our leader liked certain Old Testament words, and very few chapters from the New, except those that supported the common fund such as in Acts. He used them repeatedly in his sermons but always emphasized neighborly love, self-sacrifice, and prayer, and apparently he believed our marriage would do nothing to enhance those colony virtues.

  Self-sacrifice. I knew that was what he wanted from Christian and from me. He wanted us to be like Helena, married to the values of the colony rather than each other. Sitting there, seeing those fiery eyes that made people believe whatever he said, I realized what he expected most of all: obedience. That we’d come a second time to even talk of our marriage must have challenged him. Few ever did. In that instant, I knew he’d never approve this union no matter how we felt. Convincing Christian to marry against our leader’s wishes would be the greater task before me. He was second in command. Would he dare defy his spiritual leader?

  This second inquisition without my being asked my opinion nor allowed to speak told me all I needed to know about what course I’d take next.

  But then our leader turned to me. “Emma Wagner,” he said, “I must speak to you of something you know nothing about but is important should you ever wish to marry.” Should I cajole him? Should I defy him? He holds more than authority here; he holds power. “Do you understand the trials of childbirth, the pain of laboring, and the demand that follows?” He drew a hand up to silence Christian, who began to intervene. I sat like a rabbit with an owl above it.

  “Of course,” I said, gaining my voice. “I’ve helped at birthings.”

  “But not to watch the child agonize into the world,” our leader said. “You were too young to see or to assist as your brothers and sisters arrived, too young to gain experience except to comfort little Kinder in the household. So let me advise.” He made a tent of his fingers, leaned back in his high chair. “The infant presses against the smallest of bony places, where blood pours to weaken the woman as she writhes in pain. She pushes to bring forth this child, rising above the arc of searing torment.” He lifted his eyes to the heavens as he spoke, raising his long arms to sweep over the arc he described. “I have witnessed nine such trying times with my own beloved Louisa. All this pain is created to remind women—even devout women like my Louisa—of their early sin. Sometimes,” he almost whispered now, “small women do not live through this. Even with poultices to stop the bleeding, they die. Sometimes the infants die. The sins of the father are meted out onto their offspring and death results. You have not witnessed this, Emma Wagner. You are not prepared for this. I cannot have Chris marry a woman whose needs will overpower his work, a woman who could not endure the trials of Eve’s first sin.”

  My face grew warm. I had no choice but to let my tongue speak out. All would be lost if I didn’t; it was probably lost before I started. “Perhaps this childbirth pain suggests some flaw in God’s design if the birth canal is so much smaller than an infant’s head.”

  He gasped. “You blaspheme,” he hissed, his eyes like black coal burning.

  There was no going back. “I’ve heard that your herbs help relieve a woman in her time,” I said, holding his stare. “Are you interfering then with God’s design for the capture of each woman’s soul?”

  “Not now,” Christian interrupted.

  “You’re quick with your words, Emma Wagner. But quick wit does not prepare you for life’s tragedies. And these will come, mark my word. Mark God’s words from Deuteronomy: ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing—’ ”

  “ ‘—therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’ Deuteronomy 30:19.” I finished the quote, ever grateful the words had not escaped my reading just that morning.

  He actually stepped back. I didn’t know what Christian might think of my quoting Scripture to our leader; I hesitated to take my eyes from those black accusing coals.

  We heard shouts of children playing below us. Our leader’s little bottles of tinctures rattled as he stepped from around his desk.

  Christian cleared his throat. “You see, Wilhelm, she is called to be my wife and to bring forth my seed. She will look to the good of things and choose life. Is that not what we need? Is that not how the colony will truly grow, not just by new people coming to see our ways but by raising children up in the ‘way that they should go’? This too is scriptural.”

  “ ‘Be fruitful, and multiply,’ ” I added.

  Christian gave me a look, and I dropped my eyes. To our leader, I said, “I only meant to say that just because one has not experienced something doesn’t mean one can’t rise to meet the challenge when called to. I am up to the challenges of being a good wife within this colony.”

  Our leader’s eyes focused on something high and behind us. “We may not have long life in this colony,” he said finally. “I’ve told you, Chris, of my concerns, of the work we must do to ready our people. This woman will distract you.”

  “This woman will renew me.”

  Our leader clapped his hands then, startling both of us. At least I jerked in my seat. “You vill do vhat you vill do,” he said. “I do not give my blessing. It will go against my belief about the rightness of this, but I vill not stand in your way. Marry in Shelby County if you are so inclined to set aside my visdom on this matter. But you may have the party here, at Elim, and have the marriage recorded in the membership book. On April 22. So be it. I have spoken.”

  “Danke, Wilhelm,” Christian said, standing. “Thank you, so much. Come, Emma, we have taken up enough of Wilhelm’s time.”

  I rose, confused. Father Keil withheld his blessing and would not marry us here in Bethel, yet he’d let a worldly judge pronounce the vows and then offer us a celebration later in his own home? The last surely marked some form of consent. Did it save face for him, show that he stood firm by refusing to officiate at a marriage he felt was doomed, yet allow him to be generous and showy through a party in his home?

  My intended husband acted satisfied with this configuration, as twisted as a pig’s tail.

  I would not complain. The outcome would be as I wished it: I’d be Mrs. Christian Giesy and show our leader that one young and inexperienced woman could withstand the pangs of bringing forth new babies into life.

  We married in the Shelby County courthouse. I had long imagined myself walking down the red-tile aisle of Bethel’s church, Christian at my side, the colony as witness to our union. But the courthouse served us well, one of those adjustments to the stepping stones along a trail, if not the final destination. My family came with us, as did some of Christian’s fourteen brothers and sisters—but not Helena. Even Karl Ruge stood there for Christian. Good friends and family then witnessed our vows and the new dress my mother sewed for me. She even allowed blinker curls to coil on either side of my rosy cheeks. A short muslin veil covered my face, and I wore gray so as not to appear too worldly.

  Because my father had preached and helped found the Bethel Colony, he asked the blessing on our marriage and spoke the prayers when the justice of the peace finished our short vows. And later, at the dance on Elim’s second floor, our friends and the rest of Christian’s family, too, gathered for the meal—including a goose—that made it almost as festive as Christmas. At Elim, where our leader ruled, Father Keil even clapped Christian on the back and nodded politely as he became, he announced, “the first to call her Frau Giesy.” He wasn’t, but I didn’t correct him, grateful he’d chosen to acknowledge my married state.

  I looked for Barbara Giesy, Christian’s mother, and when my eyes found hers, she smiled. She and I were both Frau Giesy now, along with another Barbara and a Mary, already her daughters-in-law. I’d reserve the term Fr
au just for his mother, though. She served food behind the long table, her gray curls brushed tight against her head, as though to hide the flair of their waywardness. Secretly, I hoped our daughters would have such curly hair rather than take after me with my straight strands.

  Christian and I hadn’t talked of living arrangements, but I assumed we would have Christian’s room at the Giesy house until the colony could be freed up to build a house for us. Those worldly people heading west and needing wagons had yet to taper off, even though most pilgrims tried to be at Kanesville, Iowa, some miles west, by May 15 in order to cross the mountains before any early snows. But soon we could set about to make bricks enough, and meanwhile I could learn about the Giesy family and his many other brothers. Helena was his only unmarried sister. Living with them would be my next step as a married woman, one I welcomed.

  On my way to Frau Giesy’s side to help serve, people stopped me for good wishes, admiring the tiny stitches my mother put into my dress. Willie Keil wished me well, as did Louisa Keil, of course. She held my hand extra long and nodded silently. Several of the Nineveh families had come for the celebration too. I trusted the joy each expressed in their words and on their faces. These were good people in this colony who had chosen to follow our leader, to express their faith through actions and works. I belonged among them. Having won my objective to be Christian’s wife, I could even allow a softening for our leader. After all, this was his home, and he remained at this gathering for us, which offered a blessing of a kind. Perhaps all would turn out well as Christian insisted.