“Their what?”
“The word she was searching for was rumspringa, though now that I think about it, I kind of like ringalinga instead.”
“It does have a nice ring to it. Or rather, a nice ringalinga.” We both laughed. “So what did you do?”
We searched the shelves of toiletries by the front desk as I continued with the story. By the time I’d found a roll of antacids and paid for them, Morgan was nearly doubled over with laughter.
“So is this trip your ringalinga, Ada?”
“Sure is,” I replied. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I added, “But as soon as I can get myself pregnant and land me husband, I’m outta here!”
Blushing furiously, I clamped my hand over my mouth, shocked by the audacity of my own joke. Morgan thought it was the funniest thing I’d said yet, and soon we both had our hands over our mouths, trying to contain the volume of our laughter.
By the time we got back to the room, we had managed to calm down, which was a good thing because Alice and Christy were both sound asleep in their bed. After changing into my nightgown, I got into the other bed, but Morgan surprised me by wrapping up in a comforter and settling down on the floor. I told her we could share, but she insisted she was fine where she was.
I thought she’d gone to sleep when she said softly, “Ada, may I ask you a question?”
“Ya.”
“Would you leave if you could?”
“Leave?”
“Your church.”
“Oh, I can. No one would stop me.”
“You wouldn’t be shunned?”
“No. Not unless I had joined the church first and then decided to leave.”
“But Daniel said you wouldn’t be treated the same by your family.”
I didn’t answer her for a moment. “That’s true, to an extent. It wouldn’t be the same. But I don’t want to leave.” Most of the time, anyway.
“Even though you can’t go to college? Or fly in airplanes? Or have a professional job?”
At the moment, Morgan wasn’t going to college. Or flying in an airplane. Or working as a professional. I quietly pointed this out.
She didn’t seem amused. “But I can do all those things if I want to. No one’s going to tell me I can’t. And I already graduated from college.”
“Our church has its reasons,” I answered, resisting the urge to let my inner teacher come out yet again. “It works for us.”
A moment later she said, “Why did your aunt move to Switzerland?”
Turning, I peered over at the other bed, just to make sure Christy was still asleep. Watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, I took a deep breath and tried to decide how to answer.
I could have said something vague, but I felt compelled to be more honest. Maybe it was that I knew she wasn’t going to judge me. Maybe I wanted to shock her a little, to show her I was more than she thought. “She’s actually my birth mother,” I whispered after turning back around. “She moved to Switzerland once I was born.”
Morgan’s head popped up, her chestnut hair falling around her face. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Keeping my voice low, I told her about Lexie arriving last spring and how her search for her birth family led her to me. I told her about Giselle moving to Switzerland all those years ago and how Zed had tracked her down. By the end of the tale, Morgan was sitting on my bed.
“Do Daniel and George know all of this?”
I said they didn’t. “But I wasn’t lying when I told them she was my aunt—legally she is.” I had to explain that twice, how Mamm, Giselle’s sister, and Daed had adopted me.
“Why didn’t you tell Daniel?” Morgan asked. “I think he would understand. He’s geeky, that’s for sure, but he seems pretty thoughtful. Besides, I think he really cares for you.”
I blushed. He was, indeed, quite thoughtful, but after a whole week together on ship, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him.
“Ada?” She was smiling and up on her knees now.
I shook my head. “Why would he care for me?”
“Why wouldn’t he care for you? You’re sweet, clever, easy to be with—not to mention totally DDG.”
“DDG?”
“Drop-dead gorgeous, girlfriend.”
A sharp laugh burst from my throat. I quickly covered my mouth, and both of us looked over to make sure I hadn’t woken Alice or Christy.
“Don’t say that, Morgan,” I scolded in a whisper. “It’s not nice to lie. I know very well how…unattractive I am.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “Unattractive.”
“Yes.” Did she have to rub it in?
“Are the Amish allowed to use mirrors, Ada?”
“Mirrors? Of course—”
“Then are you just stupid?”
First she agreed that I was unattractive, and now she was insulting my intelligence? Before I could figure out how to reply, she was gripping me by the wrists and forcing me to look her in the eyes.
“You…are…drop…dead…gorgeous,” she said. “Maybe not in a fashion model way, but in like a…” She searched for the right word. “Like in a pure way. Angelic. When people look at you, they see a beautiful face, a woman who seems delicate on the outside but is really tough and strong and brave on the inside.”
Her speech over, Morgan surprised me by releasing my wrists, sliding back down to the floor, and wrapping herself in her comforter again. I was still sitting there, speechless, when she spoke one more time.
“It’s been a long time since a guy looked at me the way Daniel looks at you, Ada. If I were you, I wouldn’t take that for granted.”
EIGHTEEN
The next morning, as we waited in the train station in Le Havre, we were amused by the reactions of the French people hurrying past us. Morgan, Christy, and I sat side by side on the wooden bench. People would turn their heads a second time to get a better view.
“I take it there aren’t any Amish in Europe?” Morgan asked.
“No,” Daniel answered. “There are Mennonite but not any Old Order. We’re going to draw quite a bit of attention everywhere we go.”
The next woman to pass us turned on her high heels and stared, stepping back toward us, her mouth wide open.
“What’s the matter?” Morgan called out. “Haven’t you ever seen an Amish girl on her ringalinga?”
The woman gasped and then hurried on as Morgan and I both burst out laughing. My friend had more of a sense of humor than I’d thought. I was going to miss her.
George smiled at the exchange, but Alice stared straight ahead, her face solemn. Our way was to simply ignore stares and go about our business. Something I hadn’t done.
As we boarded the train, it worked out that Daniel, Morgan, Christy, and I shared four seats together. Alice went on with George in seats kitty-corner from us. She kept an eye on us though, glancing our way every few minutes. She wasn’t as relaxed as she’d been the evening before.
The train pulled away from the station in the late morning, and office buildings and shops gave way to apartment buildings and houses, alleys, and narrow cobblestone streets. We left the city, and the French countryside rolled out on either side of us, dotted with Jersey cows.
Christy pointed to a stone house. It looked ancient. A moment later there were more, and then we were passing behind a village, catching a glimpse of the road down the middle of it between the houses. Except for the asphalt, the scene could have been from the 1870s when my relatives were leaving Switzerland. They probably took the train to Le Havre. Of course, the shipyard wouldn’t have been as busy, but the harbor would have been there even way back then.
The train stopped at Gare St. Lazare, one of the Paris stations, where we boarded the Métro to Gare de l’Est to catch the train to Basel. Morgan said she would come back to Paris, maybe on her way home. She definitely wanted to go to some museums. I would have enjoyed a chance to go exploring there as well, but I knew Alice and the others had no desire to see Paris at al
l.
In eastern France Daniel said there was an Anabaptist farm close by that had been confiscated by the Swiss government in the early seventeen hundreds. The current owner was fascinated by the history of his property and hoped they would include it on the tour. Daniel had visited the site last summer, but he and George didn’t want to take time to visit it now. They wanted to go on to Amielbach. Perhaps, they said, we could stop on the way back.
We were going to spend the night in Basel, so we all disembarked with Morgan, happy to stretch our legs and have the opportunity to eat somewhere other than on the train. It had been a long day and was well past dinnertime. Morgan called her father on the cell phone she’d purchased the day before and then said he would arrive shortly. He was coming straight from work, even though it was a Saturday. I said I’d wait with her while the others went to the bistro.
“He’s always late,” Morgan said.
“He’s probably stuck in traffic,” I said, having no idea what traffic was like on a weekend day in Basel, Switzerland. I thought of my own daed, who was never late and hardly ever stuck in traffic, except maybe in a line of buggies on the way to church.
“May I ask you a question?” Morgan turned toward me. “What would you miss the most if you left?”
“Besides my family? Mutual aid.”
“Mutual what?”
“Helping each other. When a barn burns down, everyone comes together to rebuild it. If someone’s sick, everyone pitches in with meals and to do chores. If someone dies, everyone else helps out.”
“So it’s like you’re never really alone?”
I smiled. “Ya, you could say that. Or maybe that we’re never isolated.”
“You know what’s really cool?”
I shook my head, hoping she wasn’t going to bring up the subject of Daniel again.
“That you and Christy and Alice all get along so well.”
I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
“You make it look so normal hanging out with someone so much older—and younger—than you. You seem to really enjoy them.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Are you kidding? Of course it’s unusual.”
Shrugging, I explained that our generations always spent a lot of time together.” I thought of Mammi. Sure, in the last few years since the stroke her health hadn’t been good, and before that she sometimes had sad spells, which I now understood. I told Morgan I spent as much time with her as with my mother, working alongside her in the vegetable and flowers gardens, doing the washing and mending, and cooking together. She had read to me when I was little and helped me with my homework all through school when I needed it.
“Wow.” Morgan stretched her hand out on the bench. “I only saw my grandparents once or twice a year. I wish I had seen them more. I really loved my grandmother.” Her eyes were moist. “She used to pray for me. Every day, she said.” She sighed. “Everything I learned about God, I learned from her and from reading Jane Eyre.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“It’s true,” Morgan said. “It’s quite a spiritual story. Where did we stop? Right when Helen dies?”
We definitely had gotten to that part.
“Helen teaches Jane a lot about God. It affects the rest of her life. You’ll have to read to the end.”
I nodded. I’d like that.
Morgan sat up a little straighter and squared her feet on the tile floor. “I wish I could have gone on a trip like this with my grandmother. She wasn’t always in a hurry. If I went on a trip like this with my mom, we’d kill each other.” She grimaced.
We were silent for a moment, and then I felt compelled to expand on the conversation from the night before. “Why were you uncomfortable when we prayed?”
“Ouch,” she said. “Was I that obvious?”
“Ya.” I smiled.
She took a deep breath. “Probably for a lot of reasons.”
“Such as…”
She shrugged. “I don’t see God really caring about how I feel, let alone what I need.” She repositioned her backpack at her feet.
There was no way to say it politely, but I had a feeling that one reason she thought God didn’t care was because her parents didn’t seem to care—at least not like they should. I shuddered, grateful to the core that I had parents who did care, even if sometimes they showed it too much.
We were silent for a moment and then she asked, “Do you like being Christy’s au pair?”
“Au what?”
“It’s French. For nanny.” She laughed. “It sounds better, don’t you think?”
“Better?”
“Than babysitter or child care provider or nanny.” She shrugged. “Do you like it?”
“Au pair,” I repeated quietly and then answered, “Yes, very much. It’s the next best thing to teaching.”
Her eyes lit up. “Can you do that?”
“I’m hoping for a position back home.”
“But you could only teach until you get married? Right?”
“Pretty much.” I knew of teachers who taught after they wed, but they quit before they had children.
She glanced toward the exit of the station and then back toward me, meeting my gaze. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why do you want someone else telling you what you can and can’t do?”
“What do you mean?”
“All those rules. About how you can dress. What you can drive. What job you can have. You must have a superthick what-not-to-do manual.”
“Actually, it’s called the Ordnung and it’s not written down. We just know it. It gives structure to our lives.”
“But it doesn’t give you any choices.”
I had to think about that for a moment. Then I said, “It isn’t about choices. It’s about a way of behaving that helps us follow Christ’s teaching. It helps us avoid vanity, pride, and envy. That sort of thing. And remember—it’s not as though we’re told a bunch of rules and have no choice but to follow them.” My mind raced for an example. “That’s like saying a husband and wife have no choice about dating other people. Of course they don’t. They took a vow that bound them to each other, and certain rules go along with that. When we commit to the faith and join the Amish church, we take a vow and willingly agree to do the things that go along with that.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“Plus, our rules keep our priorities straight,” I added.
“How so?”
“Take telephones—land lines. Back when Amish families first started having them installed in their homes almost a hundred years ago, there was a fear that the telephones would take the place of face-to-face visiting, so that was one reason it was decided they would be put in sheds and barns instead, plus phones weren’t as invasive that way too. For us, direct contact between people is more important than convenience. From what I’ve seen of the rest of the world, that decision was a pretty good one.”
“So people come first? Instead of things and careers and stuff like that?”
I shook my head. “Jesus comes first. Then others. Then yourself. All of our decisions come down to that. Christ taught us to live in community. He wants us to be His hands and feet.”
She shifted her eyes to the floor and, again, I was afraid I’d offended her, but then she said, “That’s really cool. Thanks for the explanation.”
We were still waiting for her father when the others returned. Daniel handed me a sandwich and Alice handed one to Morgan.
As we were finishing our food, a man approached. He had broad shoulders and silver hair and was wearing a suit and tie.
“Morgan,” he called out. “So sorry I’m late.” He was about to give her a hug but then stopped suddenly, taking us all in, and broke into a grin instead. “I see you’re still a bleeding heart, taking in strays.”
Morgan looked flustered and embarrassed as she stood, reaching out to hug him quickly and then introducing all of us. We said our goodbyes, and she promised to try and visit the Emmental while we
were still there. She’d traded cell phone numbers with George, and she also gave me her email address, just in case.
Then she followed her father toward the exit. I stood and watched her go, surprised when she turned and pulled something out of her backpack.
“Ada,” she said. “I want you to have this.”
She ran back toward me, and as she did I could see it was her copy of Jane Eyre.
“Even if Christy doesn’t want to hear the rest of the story, you should read it.”
I thanked her with a final hug, and as I turned, I almost bumped into Daniel, who had been standing just behind me. He and I joined the others in our group to take a bus to the hotel, but we ended up getting off at the wrong stop. By the time Daniel asked the driver for help and got us redirected, it was growing late. When we finally arrived at the hotel, we were all exhausted.
Alice and Christy were both looking pale, so Daniel and I managed to get their luggage to our room, and then I made sure Christy took her medicine and that she and Alice laid down. Once they were resting, I stepped out into the hall where George was talking on his cell phone. It sounded as if he was confirming our driver for the next day.
When he finished, I explained my worries about Christy’s health and Alice’s age, saying that I didn’t think either one of them was really up to this right now. Even though Christy had seemed fine on the ship, she still had a heart condition we needed to be mindful of and overtiring her wasn’t in her best interest or anyone else’s. He assured me that today had been, by far, our longest and most difficult day.
“It gets much easier from here,” he said. “Make sure and call your aunt in the morning. We’ll be in Langnau by tomorrow afternoon.”
As tired as I was, I tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about Giselle.
The next morning as we ate in the hotel restaurant, George handed me his cell phone. I stood and thanked him and then made my way out the front door. This wasn’t a call that I wanted anyone to overhear. I’d tucked Zed’s printout of the email from Giselle into the zipped compartment of my purse along with my passport. I pulled out the piece of paper now and shook it open, my hand trembling as I did. Then I dialed the number. It rang. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I was sure she wasn’t going to pick up. Six. Seven. Eight. I shifted my weight to my other foot. It should have gone into voice mail by now. Nine.
The Amish Nanny Page 18