by Jason Heit
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” he returned. “You’re Leo Reichert’s daughter, Annaliese.”
She smiled. “And you’re Mr. Feist’s son, Jakob.”
He nodded unsure of what to make of this. It felt much different than talking to his sisters. He felt much more uncertain.
“So, we both know who the other person is,” she continued, filling the silence.
“Yes.” He paused briefly thinking what to say next. “I’m not really sure what to say. I only know that I wanted to talk to you.”
“That’s very nice of you to say.” She smiled. “I wanted to talk to you as well.”
He smiled too and wiped the palms of his hands, not quite casually, on the backside of his pants.
“Did he hurt you?” she asked. “I was worried he had.”
“My jaw is sore, but I’ll be fine. I’m sure I can still eat.”
She laughed; he liked her laugh.
“Why did you hit him?”
“We have our differences.”
“I’ve heard he can be a hard man.”
Jakob nodded not knowing what else to say.
“That was a good catch you made in the field,” continued Annaliese.
“Thank you.” He smiled and folded his arms over his chest.
“You said you wanted to talk to me, but you don’t say much.”
She didn’t understand. There was too much he wanted to say, not too little. From the first time he had seen her in church he had constructed a secret world where he could go to be with her. They could hold hands and watch the sunset and talk until the stars came out, and in the winter they could sit by the fire and play cards. And she would smile the way she had smiled at him that day in the church. It wasn’t a regular smile. It was a smile of joy and celebration and love for the world and everything in it. He knew that smile, but it had been years since he had shown it himself.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“I was thinking of the first time I saw you in church.”
“Tell me.”
“You were singing. I didn’t see you right away, but I could tell there was a new voice that day. Yours was so beautiful, it made me shiver –” he stopped. Best not to tell her everything.
“That’s very nice of you to say.”
“I remember your smile.” He paused. She had turned quiet. “You don’t come to church often. I don’t see you and your family –”
“We live near Crane Hills.”
“Are you staying for the moving-picture show?”
“Yes, Father wants to see it. Mother thinks it’s the devil’s work. She says she’s only going because it’s in the church.”
“Maybe she thinks God will stop it from showing,” he said, then wondered if he shouldn’t have.
“Yes,” she laughed. “I think she’d be happy if it didn’t work.”
He smiled. “And what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m not scared if that’s what you’re wondering. I think it will be like looking at a photograph: it looks real enough, but it’s only an imitation of the people it shows.”
“I never thought about it like that.” He paused. There was a feeling he had from what she said and it felt important to tell her. “It makes me feel sad to think about it like that… pictures, I mean. They should be a happy thing, but they’re only another kind of memory.”
“I suppose it is sad, especially because the picture can still be here when the memory and the person are gone.”
Jakob gazed at Annaliese – a wave of sadness and fear rose from his heart when he looked into her eyes. How did she think like that? Her thoughts were like pieces of coloured glass – he wanted to see through them, to see the world as she did – they were precious, yet there was something sharp about them too. They could cut through his thoughts and feelings and make him bleed.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. He only felt like he didn’t want to stop being with her. “Might I bother to ask if you’d sit with me for the moving-picture show?”
She smiled. “That would be very nice.”
V
Little Frank wasn’t angry with Ignaz for pushing him. It hadn’t hurt much – only a few scrapes on his hands. All he had to do was spit in his palms and rub them together like the others had and they’d be fixed up. If he was mad at anyone it was his stepfather, Bernhard; he shouldn’t have spanked Ignaz. He’d ruined their game.
“Are you a little crybaby?” Ignaz said to Little Frank, after the adults had gone.
“No.”
“Then why did your father come out here? Crybaby.”
“Bernhard isn’t even his real father,” Lambert said. “His real father died before he was born.”
“He can be my father, if I want him to.”
“You don’t get to pick your father,” Ignaz argued.
“God does,” said another boy.
“No, your mother does,” Ignaz said.
“It’s both,” Lambert said.
“It doesn’t matter. My cousin Jakob says your father is a drunk and a thief and he only married your mother so he could steal your real father’s farm.”
“That’s not true,” Little Frank said.
“How do you know?” Ignaz replied. “He already stole your mother, and when they have a baby boy he’s going to give all your things to him.”
“You’re lying.” Frank looked to Lambert with desperate eyes. “Tell him he’s lying.”
“I don’t know. He might be right.”
“Look!” Andreas Stolz’s son, Stefan, pointed toward the baseball field. “They’re fighting.”
Frank turned to see Bernhard shake off Jakob Feist’s punch.
“See,” Ignaz said. “My cousin knows your stepfather’s no good.”
Frank was silent. He didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t want to see Bernhard hurt, but he was scared that if Bernhard kept hurting people then maybe they were right and he was just a bad guy.
“Shoot,” Ignaz said, as Bernhard knocked Jakob Feist to the ground with two punches.
“He’s going to kill him,” Stefan said.
“No,” Ignaz said. “My father will stop him.”
Frank felt the closeness of the other boys around him – the skip of their heartbeats and the weight of their breath on his shoulders and the back of his neck. Every slight glance and stare they aimed at him closed him in more. He wished Bernhard would stop. Instead the other men, Ignaz’s dad included, had to pull him away.
“I’m glad he’s not my father,” Ignaz said.
“Me too,” said another boy.
Lambert clapped Frank on the shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s not your real father.”
Frank nodded. Lambert was right. Bernhard wasn’t his real father. He’d never met his real father nor did he have a picture of him, but his mother often told him he looked like his father. That she saw him every time she looked into his eyes. It didn’t work the same for him. He couldn’t see his father; he only saw his own eyes. Still, he had his father’s name and that was something, although he called Bernhard ‘Father’. He wondered if he was more like Bernhard than his real father. Did it work that way? Was it like catching a cold? He tried to think of all the ways he was different from Bernhard – like, his nose wasn’t big and red like Bernhard’s, and he didn’t like to eat horseradish and drink coffee like Bernhard did, and he didn’t fart and burp and laugh like Bernhard did. He had manners like his mother, although Bernhard’s stinky farts and burps made him laugh, especially when Bernhard made him pull his finger. Was that catching? Did that mean he might turn mean and angry like Bernhard too?
“Let’s play, already,” Stefan said.
Away from them, the men were dragging Bernhard off t
he field, and Little Frank wanted nothing more than to get back to the game. He tried to hurry past Ignaz as casually as he could, but the older kid reached out and grabbed him by the collar. Frank’s guts began to wrench; surely, Ignaz was going to throw him to the ground or punch him in the face.
“Look!” Ignaz spun Frank around to see Bernhard crash into the man who’d being talking to his mother outside the church.
“He’s going to kill that guy,” Stefan said.
Frank swallowed hard. Would Bernhard kill someone? He didn’t know. He couldn’t be sure what he knew about Bernhard anymore; maybe he was sick, or maybe the other men were all wrong about something and Bernhard was trying to stop them.
“You shouldn’t watch this,” Lambert said.
“Why’s he doing that?” Frank asked.
“My father says he’s a drinker,” Ignaz said.
Frank had heard his mother say something like that before, a long time ago, when Elisabetha was only a baby. It was the day he’d poured Bernhard’s jug of booze onto the ground. It had tasted so awful that Frank had thought it was best to pour it out so the baby didn’t drink it. When Bernhard saw what he’d done, his eyes got big and he yelled, “Dummkopf.” Then Bernhard pulled down his pants and spanked him. Little Frank had never felt so embarrassed, so ashamed. No one had ever struck him before. Each strike of his stepfather’s hand seemed to cut him open. He cried; so did his mother.
“I wish I’d never married you,” she said. And that’s when Bernhard stopped. He pulled up Frank’s pants and left the soddie. Frank was so sore he couldn’t sit down. His mother made him lie belly down on the bed and she put a cool cloth on his backside; she stroked his hair and sang to him until he fell asleep.
Frank shook his head and snapped out of the memory. “Can we just play kick the can?”
“You can’t play with us anymore,” Ignaz said.
“Yeah,” Stefan agreed.
“Why?” Frank asked.
“They’re just scared. They don’t want you to hurt them,” Lambert said.
“We’re not scared,” Stefan said.
“It’s because your father is a thief and a bully,” Ignaz said.
“That’s not fair,” Frank said. “He’s not my real dad.”
“Yeah,” Lambert agreed. “Let him play.”
“Only if you do something first,” Ignaz said.
“What?”
Ignaz crossed his arms and didn’t say anything. Stefan sidled next to him and whispered something in his ear. Ignaz smirked. “I got it,” he said. “You’ve gotta prove he’s not your father.”
“But his real father’s dead,” Lambert said. “How’s he supposed to prove it?”
Ignaz puffed up his chest. “He’s gotta knock him to the ground.”
“That’s stupid,” Lambert said. “You don’t have to do that, Frank.”
“Fine,” Ignaz said, “and you don’t have to be our friend either.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Lambert said to Frank, but Frank didn’t move. “Come on, Frank.”
“I want to stay.”
Lambert threw up his arms. “Well, I’m going,” he said and walked away.
“Go run to your mother,” shouted one of the boys.
“Crybaby,” shouted another. This set off a chorus of laughter among Ignaz’s admirers.
Ignaz capped off the moment by kicking the can with all his might and sending it flying away from all of them. “Let’s go,” he said to the other boys. “This crybaby can play by himself.” And he walked off toward the can; the other kids followed.
Frank wanted to cry. He wanted to run to his mother and bury his face in her dress. He’d only wanted to play with the other boys. It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be the best day of the summer but it wasn’t. Bernhard had ruined it, and there was nothing Frank could do to change it. If he told his mother and the other parents, then the older boys would get mad and call him names and it would be worse than it was now. An idea came to him – he could run away. Leave. That would show them. He’d run where they could never find him.
He started there. He ran from the boys, Lambert, his mother, everyone. None of them were watching anyways. He ran toward the wagons. He saw his uncle Nels and Bernhard talking with Uncle Christian and cousin Joseph. He had a thought: maybe, he could live with his uncle Nels and aunt Aggie, Lambert, and the rest of them. But that probably wouldn’t work. His mother would make him come home and live with them, and then things would be worse because Bernhard would know he didn’t want to be there. If that happened, he’d have no choice but to go and live by the lake where no one could find him. He could hide in the coulees and ravines and find an old badger hole to sleep in; he was small enough to fit and it’d keep him warm at night. There’d be rabbits to hunt and he could make a fire at night and no one would call him a crybaby or a scaredy-cat.
Frank was close to their wagon now. All he had to do was take it and go.
He climbed into the wagon box – carefully, so no one would see him and try to stop him. Peeking over the sideboards, he saw his mother and Elisabetha walking towards Bernhard and his uncles. He ducked for cover before anyone could spot him.
He thought about his plans a little longer. He wasn’t sure how long he’d have to live by the lake. Winter would be tough. He’d need a good coat and a fire to keep warm. That’d be too long really; he’d miss Christmas – the songs and the cakes, and the Christmas apple too. Things would have to get fixed by then. Would Bernhard leave? He could hear Bernhard talking with his mother. He peeked over the side of the wagon again.
He heard Bernhard say, “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
He couldn’t hear his mother’s words, but he could tell by the way she was speaking, with her hands clenched tight, she wasn’t happy.
Little Frank wondered who it was Bernhard was talking about. Who was looking at his mother? He dropped back behind the side of the wagon and, crouching, he hit his foot on a fieldstone that had been left in the corner. Frank turned around to see it. It was smooth like one of the rocks by the lakeshore and the same smoky grey colour as Bernhard’s booze jug. He wished he had that jug now. He’d throw it at him; knock it over his head. That’d be fair. Ignaz would have to let him play with them if he did that.
Sitting with his back to the side boards of the wagon, Frank hooked his foot on the far side of the rock, and dragged it closer to him. He picked up the rock with both hands. It was too big for him to hold up for long. The sides of the rock wore against the scrapes in his palms and he set it in his lap. He listened for their voices, but he couldn’t hear them…maybe, they’d gone. Then he heard footsteps. He listened carefully. It was Bernhard. He was sure of it. He knew the sound of his breathing. He could try to throw the rock at Bernhard or let it drop on his toe. Frank stood up, but Bernhard wasn’t there – just four fingers clinging to the lip of the wagon box, including the ugly one that made Frank shudder when it touched him. His eyes followed the arm downward to where Bernhard sat squatting next to the wagon wheel.
Frank set the stone on the ledge and let it fall. He hadn’t meant – no, maybe he had. Bernhard was getting up just as the stone went down. For a moment, he thought Bernhard would stand up and smack his backside black and blue, but he didn’t. He just fell to the ground. It seemed to Frank that Bernhard was staring up at him wondering what he’d done. Then Bernhard’s eyes rolled back in his head.
Frank jumped off the back of the wagon and ran as fast as his legs could take him, which didn’t seem very fast at all. It felt like he’d been loaded down with sand from the waist of his pants all the way down to the tips of his boots. Keep running, he told himself. But he didn’t know where to go. All he knew was he had to hide. Frank stopped behind another wagon and took a deep breath. He hadn’t imagined that could happen – that he could knock Bernhard out, maybe even kill him. W
hat if he killed him?
He had to find a good hiding spot. Maybe he should take the wagon and go to the lake. Whatever he was going to do, he should do it fast before someone found out what he’d done. He turned the corner on the wagon and ran straight into a man. He nearly fell over but the man caught him by the shoulder. Frank tried to run around him but the man held him back. There was no getting past him.
“Where are you going so fast, son?”
Frank looked up at the man: he was old; it was Ignaz’s uncle, Kaspar Feist. He wasn’t this man’s son. He was no man’s son. “I’m not your son.”
“You’re right.” Kaspar studied the boy. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“It ain’t my fault,” Frank said.
“What ain’t your fault?”
“Let me go.” Frank tried to run, but the old man was too strong. “Please, just let me go.” Frank sobbed. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“What?”
“I didn’t. I only wanted to scare him.”
“What are you talking about?”
The boy grabbed Kaspar around the waist and cried into his jacket pocket. Kaspar patted Frank on the back. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “Show me.”
Frank choked back his tears and took Kaspar’s hand and walked him to where his stepfather lay on the ground.
“You did this?”
Frank nodded.
Kaspar was quiet for a spell. He stared at Bernhard’s crumpled body and shook his head. Then he got down on one knee and set a pair of fingers on Bernhard’s wrist. “He ain’t dead,” Kaspar said.
Frank nodded gratefully.
Kaspar stared at the boy. “You got us in a mess of trouble.”