by Jason Heit
“I’ve noticed. She’s a proud woman.”
“It’s good you were there.”
Bernhard nodded. “Thanks.”
Peter tipped his hat to Bernhard, then put his heel to the horse’s side and continued on to Katherine’s.
She greeted him at the door, cradling baby Frank in her arm, as he hitched his horse to the post next to the house. She wore her long hair up, revealing the length of her neck. It was as strong and fine as a stem of golden flax. But it appeared the stresses of her life had begun to catch up with her. There were bags under her eyes and a slight hobble in her step.
“Peter, what a nice surprise. Come inside. I’ve got some coffee brewed.”
Peter followed Katherine into the sod house. Inside, Peter took off his hat and ran his hand through his dark brown hair. “I passed Bernhard Holtz on the way here.”
“Yes. Mr. Holtz’s been a helping hand through the harvest.”
“He says you bring out the good in him.”
Peter noticed the slight blush on Katherine’s cheeks as she poured him a cup of coffee. “I know he means well. And I think we all deserve the chance to have another start.”
Peter feigned one of his closed mouth smiles. Those words – another start – coming from Katherine’s lips were, to him, some kind of snake oil. A weak balm at best. The old impulse to tell her the truth about Frank twisted in his mind like red hot steel in the blacksmith’s forge. But what would be gained by that? He took a swig of coffee and swallowed it down. He set the cup on the table and noticed baby Frank reaching his tiny hands toward the cup as his tongue protruded from his wet lips.
“You want to hold him?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have much experience with babies.” He wondered if some dark part of him might awake and dash the child’s brains out. He felt a chill run through him. No, he shook himself, what a terrible thought.
“He won’t bite,” she chuckled. “Well, he might but it won’t hurt none.” She took a step closer and placed the baby in his arms. “My shoulders could use the rest,” she said, under her breath.
Peter bounced the baby in his arms as the child waved his tiny fists and blew spit bubbles from his mouth. “He’s happy.”
“Now he is,” Katherine replied. “He likes you.”
Holding the child, it struck Peter that this would be the last impression he’d leave Katherine with, for God knows how long, and he felt an overwhelming need to be extra careful not to upset or disturb the boy. Just as he thought it, the baby tensed and squirmed, Peter shifted the little one into a cradle hold and rocked it from side to side. Baby Frank settled.
“You’re good at that,” Katherine said. “Maybe one day, you’ll have one of your own.”
“Ha,” Peter huffed. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“There are many women that would be happy to have you as their husband. I saw the way Margaret’s sister, Adolfa, looked at you at the wedding.”
“There was a time, I thought –” he looked at her, then stopped.
“We were young,” she said.
He wondered if his thoughts were always so plain to see or if it was her special gift to read them as though they were written on his face. “Yes,” he said, “but it doesn’t change the way my heart works.” He couldn’t do it any longer. He stood up and passed the child back to Katherine.
“Are you going already?”
He lowered his head and stared at the earthen floor. He thought of asking her about Bernhard, whether she liked him, if they were starting a courtship, but it didn’t seem to matter. Whatever would happen, would happen, and him being around wouldn’t change it.
“You’ve always been special to me, Peter. You filled my young heart with fun and laughter. I only wish it would’ve ended differently for us.”
He fixed his eyes on her. “Do you blame me?”
“No, no,” she said. “Never. But sometimes I feel there are too many reminders.”
He nodded. “More than you know.”
She looked at him curiously.
“I’m leaving,” he continued. “I’m going west to find work.”
She closed her eyes. “How far?”
“I’d like to see the Rocky Mountains,” he said. “Maybe even the Pacific Ocean.”
She opened her eyes. It seemed they spoke their own language. Slowed the current of thought moving through the pools of his mind.
“Oh, Peter.” She paused. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Is this is the last time I’m going to see you, then?” she said. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a year. Probably longer. I can’t say.”
Katherine stood up from her chair. She stepped toward him and wrapped her free arm around him; he returned the embrace, mindful of the child she was holding. He felt her nuzzle her cheek against the collar of his jacket. “Write to me. Tell me everything you see. Then, when I read it, it’ll be like I’m standing next to you.”
“I will,” he said. He held her in his arms. Her green eyes steadied him. Fooled him into thinking that this life, her and the child, might be his. “I’ll imagine you’re standing next to me.” He closed his eyes and hoped to remember this feeling. Then he let her go.
She followed him to the door.
“God bless you and the baby,” he said.
She kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll be in our prayers.”
He smiled for her. A real smile. Then, not knowing what else to do, he unhitched his horse and turned west.
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
A Turn West
Fireworks Over Kaidenberg
1917
1
Father Selz was beloved by his parishioners. Not only was he young, barely 30, with boyish good looks – round dimpled cheeks with little trace of facial hair – he was also conversant and knowledgeable in the ways of his farm brethren, especially if the topic centred on the new technologies that were reshaping farm life. But his passion was photography. He was a true enthusiast, and owned several cameras both large and small. He was fascinated both by the mechanics and the chemical miracles of the craft – for him the camera seemed to be an apparatus of divine intelligence. Yet he knew not all in his flock were keen on the new inventions that were changing their everyday lives.
This impression became quite distinct when he first arrived in the community in the autumn of 1915. After his first Mass, he was approached by a handful of the grey-haired congregation led by Mrs. Stolz. They were adamant that the mechanical binders used by their grown children to cut and bind sheaves of grain were possessed by the devil. How else could this magic be performed so quickly before their eyes?
“Father, we pray that you warn our sons against using the devil’s tools to harvest their grain,” Mrs. Stolz said. “No good can come of it.”
“Those demonic contraptions will surely bind their eternal souls to Lucifer’s dark heart,” Mrs. Zerr interrupted.
“Please, Father, they won’t listen to us,” continued Mrs. Stolz. “They’re blinded by the devil’s magic. He feeds their sloth –”
“And promises them riches.”
Father Selz smiled with child-like innocence. “Good mothers,” he replied, “I pray you believe me when I tell you these are not the devil’s tools. They are made by good Christian men, and used to the benefit of the Lord’s earthly kingdom. There is no need to fear for your children’s eternal souls
, especially as it concerns the use of the binder or any similar device.”
Of course, the old church mothers received his message with the courtesy owed to his position, but he knew that there was little hope of changing the hearts and minds of such folk. Their beliefs were born of ignorance and superstition and were thereby immune to logic and even his own authority. However, Father Selz, being both a man of the cloth and a repudiator of ignorance, gradually extended his pastoral mission to include challenging technological superstitions of this sort. It’s true he caused a sensation when he became the first in the community to purchase an electric plant to light his parish house, but it was the events and spectacle of the parish picnic of 1917 that his congregation would never forget and, for different reasons, neither would he.
Father Selz wanted to bring the young community together to celebrate its many achievements. In little over ten years, it had grown from a grid of survey markers in the prairie to a growing concern with a railroad, a scattering of prairie schoolhouses, two grain elevators, three general stores, a butcher and two lumberyards. The settlers had even constructed a large wood-frame church to accommodate the growing congregation; like the old sod structure it replaced, the new church was built next to the cemetery, a little more than a mile from town. Yet, over all these years, the townspeople and the farm folk had not come together to mark their successes. Father Selz knew the answer lay in the character of the people. Although they loved to sing and dance, they had become accustomed to poverty and this had made them modest. If he could show them a truly unforgettable event, perhaps, he could help them enjoy richer spiritual and communal lives. To do this, he knew he’d have to dream big and employ all of the tools at his disposal. There would be games, of course, and contests – the men loved to compete – but he wanted more. He wanted fireworks. Yes, he thought, that would be good. He’d be surprised if any of them had seen such a thing, perhaps some had while in America; many had passed through – some had even settled in the Dakotas – before coming to Canada.
He had his own memories of America. He had landed in Boston along with Father Trimbach, his friend from seminary. He remembered the heat of the city in the summer, how the air was thick and heavy, and still the people bustled here and there, always working. What a relief it had been to find the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and to commune with the Heavenly Father behind those stone walls. In the evening, he had taken a walk down Washington Street. He followed a group of young men towards Franklin Square. He turned on a side street. The sounds of men singing a merry tune poured out the doorway of a three-storey brick building. On the street, a group of young boys raced by him, chasing a friend down the sidewalk, while a young woman of refined appearance walked alongside a distinguished-looking older man, likely her father as there was some family resemblance. Then, to his right, swarms of young people piled into a little shop. He stuck his head in the door. The folks took their seats on long wood benches after depositing their three pennies in a jar. An apparatus not unlike a camera stood behind them. His curiosity had overtaken him, and he himself dropped three pennies in the jar and took a seat next to a pale-faced, red-haired man. Once the room filled, the windows were shuttered and a young man with greasy skin started up the apparatus, while a piano player struck up a pattering tune. Light from the machine projected onto a large canvas tacked to the wall. He felt his heart jump in anticipation of what he was going to see. An image of a title, the words in English, appeared before them. And then the picture moved again. It was like a black and white photograph that had come to life. Two men in hats and armed with revolvers entered a train office and tied up the clerk. Outside, a gang of men boarded a steam train and attacked the crew with their guns. They killed a man. Father Selz leaned forward. He was sweaty, nervous, his heart pounded with excitement. The gang hijacked the train and robbed the passengers before fleeing into the woods. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he was completely swept up in the story. He didn’t know whether he wanted the gang to run free or receive some sort of divine justice. The tempo of the music accelerated as the gang fled into the woods, and the music pulsed, trilled, became sombre and exciting in turn. A fiddle player had joined the pianist, but Father Selz couldn’t say at which point in the film this had happened. Next, a posse was formed, the outlaws were tracked and hunted down – a final gunfight and the outlaws were slain. The crowd applauded. Father Selz applauded too. He put his hand to his heart. Never before had he been transported in this way. It was like a dream cast into being. He felt his spirit rise. He left the nickelodeon and walked the streets in a kind of enchantment, deciphering the scene he had seen before him. This was something new. Something that would change the world, and that thought terrified him a little.
Now, as he planned the community picnic, it was the remembrance of that feeling – running like a current of electricity from his head down to the base of his spine – which swayed him.
Yes! That’s it. That’s what he needed for the picnic. If he could bring that feeling to the people of Kaidenberg, if he could jolt their lives in that way, maybe they’d see something bigger in these stories and understand something of God’s nature in those moving pictures. He himself had said as much to Father Trimbach.
“It has led me to a better understanding of the Holy Trinity,” he told his compatriot the next day.
“What do you mean?”
“The image. The film holds our spirit not unlike God holds or extends one or more parts of His three-fold nature unto this world.”
“But God did not make this film. Men made it. And there is nothing to stop them from using these tools to blaspheme against the Lord,” Father Trimbach countered.
“Man can blaspheme in stone if he so desires. What I see in this new machine is more revelation than proof –”
“And what is your revelation?”
“That each man and woman imparts something of their soul or essence onto this world. We can see clearly in photograph and moving pictures that the spirit is animated; in this simple way, man can impart something of himself through his words and actions that extends beyond his place and time. Therefore, even the atheist must recognize that just as the moving picture pulls the image of men from the world, so too will God call upon the spirit of men, through Christ Jesus our Lord, and grant them the gift of everlasting life in his Heavenly Kingdom.”
His explanation had quieted Father Trimbach’s objections.
In the weeks and years that followed, he had relished the opportunity to discover more moving-picture shows during his parish stay in Berlin, Ontario, before moving west for his next assignment in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. He especially enjoyed the films of Charles Chaplin. Chaplin’s simple, well-meaning characters were amusing and generally created havoc in the lives of miserly aristocrats, arrogant strongmen, and anyone else who might try to dominate the little guy. And, for Father Selz, this was just fine. He was sure his parishioners would love the Little Tramp too, and if it all contested the views of dear old Mrs. Stolz and Mrs. Zerr and their lot, so much the better.
Father Selz took special care in his selection of organizers. He charged Sebastian Feist with organizing the men’s baseball game, as Sebastian owned several baseballs and was known to make good wooden bats. He asked Fredrich Gerein to organize the family contests: the tug-o-war and the three-legged races. “And add something for the young men too,” Father Selz said, with a telling grin. Fredrich, an avid card player and helpless gambler, smiled. “I have some ideas,” he said. Joseph Eberle jumped at the opportunity to orchestrate and set off the several dozen fireworks that had been purchased as the evening’s finale. And, as it was Joseph’s way to embellish his duties, soon the whole town was abuzz with rumours of cannon fire and explosives and hot air balloons raining confetti and ribbons from the sky. Andreas Stolz, a man who loved the attention of a crowd and always had a joke that hadn’t been heard before, was assigned the role of talent-show organizer. Soon the local
shopkeepers were adding to the fun – Mr. Ball promised Coca-Cola and Orange Crush to the winners of the contests, and Mr. Fetsch promised a piece of chewing gum for every child, while for the grand prize in the raffle, Mr. Zahn donated a single shot .22 caliber rifle with a thumb trigger. And, since his plans for the day would stretch beyond the afternoon and late into the evening, Father Selz commissioned the parish women to prepare not one but two meals to sustain the merriment of the day’s festivities. For this, he consulted with Mrs. Gutenberg and Mrs. Feist, whom he knew to be capable and earnest task managers. However, when it came to his most exciting plans – showing the first moving-picture show to his flock of German-speaking immigrants – Father Selz made the arrangements himself.
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The church overflowed. The pews were packed and in the aisles it was standing room only. The windows and doors swung wide, carrying the sounds of the prairie birds and crickets and the crackling rustle of sun-dried grasses through the room as a light breeze teased the sweaty collars and foreheads of the gathered faithful. There were nearly 300 of them. Word had travelled far and wide and people from as far as ten miles away had dressed their families in their Sunday best and hitched their wagons to make the morning Mass. There were two rows – more than 60 wagons – parked on the open prairie, and others were scattered along the roadway.
Father Selz was thrilled by the turnout. The room buzzed with excitement. The normally reserved and reverent folks passed each other frequent and jolly looks. There was a tipsy sense of impending disorder that revealed itself in more than a few suppressed laughs, a handful of elbows to the ribs, and more than a few dozen winks. Father Selz was not immune to the giddy and impatient current of the day and somehow managed to dispense with nearly 15 minutes of the Latin Mass. The church emptied in a rush, the littlest ones hoisted from the ground by their siblings and parents to save them from the trampling path of the herd.