by Tamar Myers
“Magdalena!” Gabe said sharply.
Ida spent all of ten seconds pondering my weighty words. She then threw her small, but pudgy, hands in the air—a sign that either she has conceded one of your battles, or else she believes that she is victorious.
“I vill return to my convent,” she trilled, “but vee vill no longer be apathetic. From now vee vill be passionate about embracing our outer selves. Vee shall be known as zee Sisters of zee Complete Package.”
“Ma! That has certain connotations.”
“Ya?”
I hadn’t a clue, but that buttinsky Olivia whispered in my mother-in-law’s ear. The stout nun recoiled in surprise.
“Oy! Not gut. Den vee vill be called zee Nude Nuns of Narnia.”
“Nix! C. S. Lewis put a lock on Narnia decades ago.”
“Vell, I vill tink of something.”
“How about the Sisters of Subcutaneous Inflammation?”
“Hon!” Gabe protested, but to no avail.
“I like,” said Mother Superior. “Vrite that on a piece of paper for me, Magdalena. Tell me, vhat should my new title be?”
“Well, since you’ll be head of the convent, and you are Caucasian, how about if the pustulants just call you Mother White-head? You will, of course, wear a white headdress.”
“Mags,” Gabe bellowed.
I scribbled the convent’s new name on an embroidered hankie I pulled from my dress pocket and handed it to her. “As the others will be merely pimples with wimples, it might be easier to have them revert back to their given names. There will be less confusion that way—and less paperwork. And less paperwork always saves one a passel of money.”
The five-foot-tall thorn in my side took off with the speed of a space probe. Frankly, I was so relieved to get rid of her that I didn’t much mind the dressing-down I received from Gabriel in front of my guests, or their added clucks of disapproval. Only Tiny seemed to find any humor in what I’d done—no doubt because she was the youngest, and my actions had been so immature.
I must add, however, that the mysterious Surimanda Baikal wisely held her tongue, and for that, she endeared herself to me.
23
As usual, Mary Berkey’s myriad children were delighted to see a car drive up to their house. It was a miracle I didn’t accidentally run over any of the urchins as they pranced joyfully in front of my moving horseless carriage. If I was to be their day’s entertainment, then I was glad to be of service.
Their mother, however, was a mite less enthusiastic. “Oh, you are back way too soon. I cannot possibly have the dress ready—there are too many pleats, yah?”
“Yah—I mean, yes, I’m sure there are more pleats in it than there are in a polka band worth of accordions.”
Her blank look was not encouraging.
“I understand,” I said. “I’m not here for that dress. I’m here to buy your dress.”
The children giggled.
“My dress?” she said.
“Not the one you’re wearing, of course, but another one—just as long as it’s clean or only lightly worn. It’s for me, in case you’re wondering. And no, I’m not about to switch over to the horse-and-buggy side; I merely want to look the part for a special occasion. It just so happens though that the special occasion is today, which really limits my options. Fortunately, you and I are approximately the same size. My bosom might be a tad larger, but it’s hard to tell given that you don’t wear a b—” I stopped, having remembered the kids, although I needn’t have worried.
“A bridle,” said Veronica, finishing my sentence. “She said that Mama doesn’t wear a bridle!”
Of course our vertically challenged audience found this immensely funny. Some of them even neighed like horses and pawed the air. Frankly, if they were my children I’d have told them to am-scray because we were having an adult conversation. But the Amish are far more indulgent than I am, and Mary, being a widow, is especially loath to discipline her offspring lest they abandon her someday.
“But, Miss Yoder,” she said, seemingly oblivious to their antics, “I have only two other dresses: my Sunday-meeting dress and another such as this.”
I gave her the once-over. “Is it clean?”
“Yah. But I have yet to iron it.”
“Then time’s a- wasting.” I dug my wallet out of a very uncooperative purse, and from its parsimonious mouth pulled three twenty-dollar bills. “Here, this should cover it, don’t you think?”
She waved the money away.
I smiled kindly. “You only own three dresses, dear, and you have more mouths to feed than your average breakaway Mormon family. I wouldn’t feel right accepting the dress as a gift.”
Mary Berkey covered her mouth with one hand as she laughed softly. Around her the children giggled like her very own backup choir.
“Oh, Miss Yoder, I do not want just sixty dollars for the dress. It is all handmade. It is worth much more.”
“Hmm. Okay, I’ll give you eighty. I can buy a nice spring dress at JCPenney’s in Monroeville for $79.99. And that’s before any kind of sale.”
“Yah, maybe. But you cannot buy an Amish dress in Monroeville.”
“Touché. Well, I can see that we’re related.”
She nodded solemnly, as did the pack of urchins. “There are many Yoders in my family tree.”
“And isn’t family what it’s all about?”
She continued to nod, and so did her cheering section.
“So then,” I said brightly, “how about giving your cousin a special price.”
“I think one hundred twenty-five dollars is a fair price for you—my cousin.”
“For just one dress?”
“Yah, but I will sell you a bonnet to go with it for two hundred dollars.”
“You have got to be kidding!”
“I do not joke, Miss Yoder. And, of course, you will want the beautiful traveling cape; every Amish woman must have her cape, yah?”
“Yah? How much?”
“Only three hundred fifty dollars.”
“Why, that’s highway robbery!”
“Miss Yoder, the bonnet has many more pleats than does the dress. Also, both it and the cape have been worn by me, so they will give the outfit an authentic smell.”
“You want me to pay extra for the scent of a woman?”
She had the chutzpah to look me right in the eye, without a bit of shame. “This is my offer. Take it or leave it.”
“Okay,” I groused, “but let it be known that Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen doesn’t drive the hardest bargains in the state. That honor is yours, my dear.”
Mary Berkey, like me, was trained to be humble about her accomplishments, but I saw a competitive glint in her eyes, if only for a second. Well, she did have a lot of mouths to feed, and the Amish do not accept public assistance, such as welfare. I was in a hurry, so she could win this time, but when I returned to pick up clothes for the English, then we’d see who was better at this game.
“When I come back in a couple of days, I plan to play hardball.”
Mary smiled. It was obvious she’d heard that expression before, which just goes to show you that most folks are more complicated than we give them credit for.
There is only one road to take from Mary Berkey’s farm into Bedford. Since I didn’t want to risk being spotted in my Amish garb, I had to come up with an illusion of some sort—rather like David Copperfield, I should think. Susannah dragged me into Pittsburgh to see him when he was on tour, and I’ll admit that, even though I was reluctant to go—magic is not a healthy Mennonite preoccupation—he managed to knock my socks off. That alone was quite a feat. But how he managed to get my woolies off and to the top of a flagpole in the arena without me knowing—that almost made a believer out of me.
At any rate, everyone who knows me knows that I have a penchant for speeding. But no one would think that an Amish woman driving a slow car was me. And just for the record, there are Amish who do drive cars—but they’re black cars
and mine is silver. Still, it isn’t the sinfully red BMW I had a few years ago, and for which the Good Lord made sure I paid my dues.
However, when I got into the city itself, I parked my car in front of a Laundromat and called a Yellow Cab. The driver’s name was Amir Hashish, and he’d been in the country exactly three weeks.
“This is my third anniversary,” he said in a Scottish lilt, which also happens to characterize—to my untrained year—the English of the Indian immigrants I’ve encountered. Other than his accent, his vocabulary and grammar were as good as mine, perhaps better. It was obvious that Mr. Hashish was an educated man, and probably had not been a cabbie in his country of origin.
“What is it you used to do in India?” I asked.
Amir sighed deeply. “Madam, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
I squirmed. “Please don’t say that. You are kidding, aren’t you?”
“Do you mean joking, madam?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, I was joking. I was an aeronautical physicist working on the Indian space program, but”—he laughed sardonically—“suddenly they no longer had space on their team for someone like me.”
“I see. Well, welcome to America.” I gave him the address to which I wanted to be delivered, but he didn’t know it from a hole in a wall in Calcutta. That meant I had to direct the poor fellow while I lectured him on the good and ill in American society, and warned him that there were some folks about—who shall remain nameless—who are capable of bargaining just as ruthlessly as Yours Truly.
By the time I got to my destination, poor Hashish looked a bit like a beaver that had been submerged behind its dam and was forced to come up for air. Frankly, whilst I wouldn’t want to listen to my own spiel after just three weeks in the country, I must say that I do dispense a lot of important information and a few tidbits of wisdom as well.
“Don’t say you plan to knock someone up, when your intent is to rap on their door. And in lieu of loo, you might want to try restroom or even bathroom—that is, if you want to be understood—although frankly I’ve never rested or bathed in a public loo before.”
“That is excellent advice, Miss Yoder. Thank you.”
“My, what a pleasant fellow you are.”
Since we were stopped, he turned and faced me full-on. “Is that not a bit condescending?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That the foreign cabbie is courteous: this should somehow be extraordinary? I mean, really, you of all people should be beyond such judgment.”
Why is it that when my heart begins to race, my blood temperature drops? Aren’t cold liquids supposed to congeal and move slower?
“What do you mean by ‘me of all people’?” I demanded. In all honesty my voice was so shrill that a lonesome magpie outside in a spruce tree began a mating call in earnest.
“Well,” he said, waving a hand much too close to my face, “this getup of yours—it might be authentic, but you’re not one of those Aye-mish ladies.”
“It’s pronounced Ah-mish, dear. And how would you know? You’ve only been in the country three weeks.”
“Because I am able to see auras, and you do not have the same color of aura as the Ayemish women I have had the pleasure to meet.”
“It’s Ah-mish,” I said through gritted teeth. “I wouldn’t say ‘Mum-bay,’ even though it’s spelled like ‘bait’ without the ‘T.’ ”
“Touché, madam.” He turned to face the front of his cab again. “Whatever your reasons for the illusion, it really is none of my business.”
“Life is an illusion, isn’t it?” I said, as I dug around in my oversize handbag to locate my wallet. “Take the most beautiful woman in the world, drape her in the finest silks, have her do nothing but lounge on a daybed as she eats chocolate-covered bonbons and watches reruns of Project Runway—I hear that it’s very good—but then turn off her electricity for a week and see what happens. After two days without a hot shower, she’ll start to get irritable. After five days, the shimmering silks will be as ripe as last week’s fish, and at the end of the seven days, the raving beauty will be ready to trade her firstborn for the chance just to wash her face.”
“Miss Yoder, in my country hot showers are a luxury, and there are many for whom even cold water is scarce—at all times.”
“Well, I don’t believe in auras,” I said, “and neither should you.”
There was nothing to be gained, and perhaps a lot to be lost, by betraying the immense amount of irritation I felt. Instead of saying another cross word, I wrested money out of my exceedingly reluctant wallet, and gave Mr. Amir Hashish a very handsome tip.
He nodded up and down and sideways as he thanked me profusely. “You are very generous, madam,” he added, “so I feel that it is my duty to warn you that I sense imminent danger in your path.”
“Poppycock.”
“Pardon?”
“Balderdash. Isn’t that what they say in England? I thought perhaps that they say that in India as well. At any rate, I don’t believe in fortune-telling.”
“Very well, madam,” and then he practically threw me out of the cab. Perhaps he expected a tree to fall on me, or a meteor to zero in on my newly acquired, very expensive bonnet as its landing place.
I’d asked Mr. Hashish to drop me off at a location that was a full two blocks away from Pernicious Yoder III’s house. I’d already called the house and gotten the answering machine, so I assumed that the man was either at work, or at the police station being grilled like a weenie about his professional relationship to Amy. Margaret—aka Mrs. Pernicious Yoder III—was already busy at her volunteer job, which was tutoring reading in the public elementary schools—Well, at least she didn’t answer their home phone.
One might think that the sight of an Amish woman on foot in an upper-middle-class neighborhood such as this might cause an eyebrow to rise, and one might be right. Such an action, however, required the presence of at least one eyebrow—something that seemed to be missing from the contemporary scene. Gone were the days of coffee klatches and the Fuller Brush man; here to stay were the days of two working parents and deserted streets at least between the hours of nine and three. In any event, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t seen during my brief highland stroll, and my “forced entry”—thanks to the myriad bobby pins that hold my bun in place (not to mention more than a dollop of experience)—went even smoother than I’d expected.
I’m only a partial fool. Upon closing the door soundlessly behind me, I called out softly into the shuttered gloam.
“Anyone home?”
Silence.
“Yoo-hoo, anybody here?”
Dead silence.
“Yoder to Yoder: calling once, calling twice, calling thrice, then shall I wander, as quiet as mice.”
A deafening silence prevailed.
“Let’s not all speak at once, dears. And just so you know, this wasn’t really breaking and entering, as I didn’t break anything. My hairpin merely found its way into the keyhole, and when I twisted and turned it—Well, can I help it that I have a gift? But enough about me; I’m here to see if I can discover something— anything—that will shed some light on the horrible bank robbery, of which I was a victim—and have yet to sue anyone about—and also on the death of Amy, who was also traumatized that day.”
I’d slipped in through the kitchen door (for some reason they’re always the easiest locks to pick) and was working my way through the formal dining room. It was obvious that Pernicious and Margaret took their meals elsewhere; on the dining room table were four color-coordinated, dust-covered place settings. That fact, and the elaborate centerpiece, indicated to me that Margaret took her decorating cues directly from the showroom.
The formal living room was also very much decorated, with no sign of life: not a magazine or gag- me-green afghan to be found. Just to be thorough, I located the spot where Pernicious and Amy had stood the night before when I’d hid in the bushes. In the daylight I could see quite cle
arly into the overgrown Japanese yews; I also had a better appreciation for what it might be like to be spied upon. Shame on me for lurking about in anyone’s bushes.
Frankly, it was hard to imagine that a cold- blooded killer could live in such harmonious surroundings. No, that wasn’t quite right. What I meant was that such a pleasant environment—Uh-oh, was that someone coming? I thought that I heard a snurffle. A snurffle, by the way, is a distinctly male sound, as opposed to snuffles and sniffles, which can be attributed to either sex. Oh shoot, there really was someone coming!
I glanced madly around the elegant room. Where could a tall, curvaceous, but still lithe, woman in traditional Amish clothing possibly hide? Not behind the drapes, which although quite beautiful, hugged the walls like newlyweds. And certainly not under the pair of facing sofas, not unless I could magically compress myself into the stick figure I always thought that I was whilst growing up. The only possible option was inside the large oak armoire in the corner opposite the kitchen door. But Heavens to Murgatroyd, who knew if the cabinet door was even unlocked?
The snurffles were followed by a snort and a loud footstep. At that point I flew across the room—literally—I’m sure of it. Fear got me airborne and the voluminous cape kept me aloft, and I will not be dissuaded of this notion. Anyway, much to my relief the armoire was unlocked, so clutching my cape to me, I leapt into it and pulled the door shut. Unfortunately, not all of the fabric made it inside with me. I tried yanking it in beneath the door, but to no avail. Besides, it was too late.
24
“Now where did she go?” a familiar voice said.
“Beats me.”
“I swear I saw her headed for this room.”