by Tamar Myers
Take Sam and Dorothy’s marriage, for instance: it would have ended years ago, had it not been for—
‘Sit!’ Dorothy squeaked.
‘I would, but your unmentionables are on the recliner.’
‘Then move them, silly.’
‘Uh – no offense, dear, but I am not about to touch something so personal.’
‘Good heavens, Magdalena, what are you, a wuss or a woman?’
‘I’m definitely a wuss.’
‘Harrumph.’
‘Again, I mean no offense, but the timbre of your voice does not lend itself to harrumphing.’
‘Cuckoo, cuckoo,’ Dorothy said, doing a fairly good imitation of a Black Forest clock. ‘I guess you’ll just have to stand while putting the screws to me.’ She laughed, sharing another of her vocal inadequacies. ‘If I were you, Magdalena, I’d get right to the point. As you know, one of the Yoder family traits is having ankles as thick as Redwood trunks. You, however, have legs like rubber bands dipped in plastic sauce. If a frog farts all the way over in Philadelphia, you just might topple over backward.’
I gasped. ‘How dare you use the F word?’
‘Get real or get out, Magdalena.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I would like to know why you weren’t upset by the million extra pounds that the wretched interloper ascribed to you, yet Sam was?’ Do you see how well I can exaggerate?
‘Oh, that!’ Then Dorothy’s laugh reminded me of the sound of a dentist’s drill, as heard from an adjacent room. ‘How far was she off? Ten, fifteen pounds? Who’s counting?’
‘Three hundred pounds, and I’m counting, since I’m the person assigned to investigate this case.’
‘That certainly explains your crazy get-up. I was thinking that either it’s Halloween again or Cousin Magdalena is back to playing Miss Marple amongst the maples.’
‘For the record, dear,’ I said, ‘I am your cousin-in-law, not your cousin, and what I am wearing is a genuine facsimile of a pseudo-policewoman’s uniform, as per the regulations of the Hernia’s Helpers Handbook, written by none other than the very generous citizen who pays our Chief of Policeman’s salary.’
‘A policewoman’s uniform, no matter how well it is tailored, does not flatter a bean pole.’
‘That hurt my feelings,’ I said.
‘I bet it did,’ Dorothy said.
‘No, really, it did. Besides, this really isn’t a genuine facsimile of a uniform; it’s a cobbled together hodgepodge of my own things to suggest a uniform.’
‘Then perhaps that explains what’s wrong with it. Listen, Magdalena, you will never in a million years convince me that a pipe cleaner like you minds being teased about her weight – or in your case, lack of weight and absence of shape. You know absolutely nothing about discrimination, or having your feelings hurt.’
‘I’m Yoder with the Odour, or didn’t Sam tell you about that?’
Dorothy snorted derisively, but given the timbre of her voice, that sound was surprisingly pleasant. ‘You didn’t think that we heavy people have our own problems with that?’
‘OK, I capitulate,’ I said. ‘You have had a much more difficult life than I, which is really my point, dear.’ I paused just long enough to let her swim up to my baited hook – metaphorically speaking, of course. ‘I can totally understand why you decided to poison that awful woman with a piece of homemade fruit pie. I might have done the same thing if I was in your boat-sized shoes – then again, who am I to talk, considering that my sturdy brown brogans have been certified as sea-worthy vessels?’ Rest assured that I would never kill another human being. We Mennonites, unlike Dorothy’s Methodists, have been pacifists for over five hundred years.
‘Why, you presumptuous little fruit fly,’ Dorothy said. As her temper soared, so did her voice. At any second windows would shatter, neighborhood dogs would howl and perhaps even satellites would begin crashing to earth.
I did the only thing I could think of to stop the scale-topping trollop from trilling off the top scales. I plopped atop her panties, sat on her skivvies, set my bum on her bloomers, dug my derriere into her drawers – all in hopes of scaling things back a notch. Much to my ongoing amazement my strategy worked and – this I add cautiously – to this very day Dorothy Yoder, the English woman (not from England, but merely a Methodist) speaks in a tone well within the normal range.
‘There, now aren’t you just as pleased as punch with me?’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your voice, dear,’ I said. ‘You sound like a regular person now, not a canary. But really, there’s no need to thank me; simply arrange for me to shop in your store without having to pay – let’s say for three days, and we’ll call it even-steven.’
‘What?’
‘So call me greedy,’ I said. ‘How about two days? I’m giving you a thirty percent discount, which is mighty generous if you ask me.’
‘You’re crazy, you know that?’
‘You better believe it! OK, this is my last, and best, offer. I’ll give you two days off this deal; that’s more than a sixty percent discount.’ I shook a finger at her in mock earnestness as I simultaneously attempted to waggle an all but non-existent eyebrow. ‘Trust me, dear,’ I said seductively, ‘someone is making out like a bandit on this deal.’
‘Oh, I’m sure of that,’ Dorothy said.
I sighed dramatically, although I was far from beaten. ‘Final offer: give me one hour to fill one of your wimpy little basket carts and I promise never to mention the mellowing modulation of your vocal membranes, or the fact that you forced me, the sweetest of souls, and the kindest of kin, to sit astride the most objectionable object one could ever imagine. Honestly, Dorothy, you should write to President Obama with the suggestion that “bloomer-boarding” replace “water-boarding” as the US method of interrogating terrorists.’
Dorothy glared at me for all of three seconds and then smiled. ‘OK, you’ll get one of my little wimpy basket carts to fill, but you have just half an hour to shop and you’ll have to stay away from the spice rack.’
‘We have a deal,’ I said. Now was the time to ambush her. ‘So how come you didn’t mind that this real outsider – because you really aren’t an outsider, you know, having been born in Bedford, just up the road – portrayed you as a prostitute? And don’t deny it, either, because my source is impeccable. Really, Dorothy, such an admission is beyond the pale, if you ask me!’
Dorothy’s normally ruddy complexion took on the waxy tones of a plucked chicken. ‘How on earth did you know – I mean, who told you that?’
‘I can’t reveal my sources, dear. If I did, I’d have to kill you both.’
‘Sam! Why, I’m going to wring his scrawny neck,’ Dorothy said, without even chuckling at my pathetic pacifist attempt at irony.
‘Give Sam a break,’ I said. ‘He loves you so much that he defied his parents’ wishes and married outside the faith, and then for the last million years he’s remained faithful to the most unpleasant woman I know, and that’s including Wanda Hemphopple.’
Boy, did that little speech have her attention. ‘What do you know about Sam’s faithfulness?’
‘Consider the evidence: moi. Your Dearly Beloved has been trying to infiltrate my bloomers since I was a wee lass of ten, and he a lad of only nine – he was an early-bloomer you see, pun quite intend—’
‘Oh, shut up, Magdalena. You don’t expect me to believe for a minute that Sam finds you attractive, not when he can have’ – she then gestured crudely to herself – ‘all this – the Dorothy buffet. And another thing: I have serious doubts that you really are a Mennonite, much less an Old Order Mennonite, which is just a skip and a hop away from being Amish. You have the most worldly and sassy tongue I have heard on anyone – except for Joan Rivers. You know what, I bet your husband secretly converted you and that you’re Jewish now, or maybe you’re a Universalist Unitarian.’
Trust me; it is quite hard to produce an enigmatic smile with a severe u
nder-bite. Mona Lisa I am not, but I did my level best to emulate her timeless expression.
‘Magdalena,’ Dorothy said in response to the Mona Lisa look, ‘the lavatory is the second door on the left.’
‘I don’t have to go,’ I said.
‘Actually, you do,’ Dorothy said. ‘Maybe not to the lavatory, but you have to go from here. My favourite morning television show is about to come on, and besides, I need my rest.’
It has been said that the Devil is in the detail. Frankly, I was happy to attend to a few of his minutiae for him.
‘When I was eight,’ I said, ‘Sammy,’ as he was called then, pushed me down in the coat room and stole his first kiss. When I was eleven, he dropped a pencil by my desk just to look up my skirt. When I was twelve, we were riding the school bus when suddenly he jammed his hand down the front of my blouse—’
‘Oh, stop it,’ Dorothy said. ‘He was a precocious little boy experiencing new thoughts and urges that he needed to explore. They were all very normal and you’d know it if you weren’t so repressed.’
I prayed for the Good Lord to stop my tongue from speaking evil. Is it my fault then that this prayer, like so many of my prayers, went unanswered?
‘Sammy – I mean, Sam – wrote me a long, passionate letter the week before your wedding, imploring me to reconsider his multitude of marriage proposals. This was back when we were both young and nubile, and dare I add fertile as well? He thought we should immigrate to Australia and start a Mennonite colony in Melbourne; he thought that this particular alliteration had a certain melodic ring to it. I told him I was opposed to the idea – oh, I wasn’t anti-Antipodes, mind you – but it was the thought of cleaving my Yoder flesh to his Yoder flesh, as the Bible instructs us, in order that two shall be one.’ I held up a large, albeit shapely hand. ‘Most unfortunately, it is incumbent upon me to breathe. So I shall now pause for a couple of seconds.’
Dorothy was as quick as a striking cobra. Her voice, however, which had once been so high-pitched that only angels and women could hear it, now sounded like a foghorn.
‘Get out, Magdalena! You’re a husband-stealing hussy, and I want you out now! You are the strumpet and harlot. In fact, you are worse.’
TWELVE
My, what a glorious day it was shaping up to be: the strumpet with the trumpet had called me, arguably the homeliest hausfrau in all of Hernia, a ‘husband-stealing hussy.’ If only Mama could have heard Dorothy. Mama would have been shocked – mortified, is how she usually put it – by such sinful talk. But perhaps it might have served Mama right for repeatedly referring to me as ‘a carpenter’s dream,’ on account of my flat-as-a-board chest, or the fact that Mama said that I had a ‘horsey’ face. I feel that the latter statement was cruel; even though on two occasions, upon getting a close-up glimpse of Yours Truly, Amish horses had pulled free from their traces and followed us home.
Yes! It’s true – never in the history of Hernia, Pennsylvania was a girl born who was so unlikely to find a suitor. In fact, my parents – may they rest in peace up on Stucky Ridge – were so convinced that I was doomed to a life of spinsterhood that they left the controlling share of their estate to me. It was this very lack of faith in me that allowed me to preserve the farm and turn it into a thriving bed and breakfast. In the meantime, my pretty sister Susannah – she with the bubbly personality – bubbled herself into all kinds of trouble, including, as I’ve said, into the bonds of unholy matrimony with a homicidal maniac of the mantis persuasion.
So, although Mennonites of my ilk don’t have sex standing up, lest it leads to dancing, and we don’t dance, lest it leads to enjoyable sex, and we seldom skip, because Heaven forefend it should be too enjoyable, late that morning, as I left Sam Yoder’s Corner Market, I found myself skipping with joy. For the record, Hernia is a very pleasant village in which to skip.
The streets are lined with tall maples, oaks and sycamore trees. The wood-framed houses, two-story Victorian with fancy gingerbread trim, sport fresh coats of paint. Most of these historic residences have been kept white in keeping with the times, but here and there a soft yellow, or a robin-egg blue has crept in, and the result, in my opinion, is rather charming. In late summer, against the shady foundations of these lovely homes, one might expect to find billowing hydrangea bushes flanked by masses of ferns. If it were not for the fact that the PennDutch occupied the site of my family’s homestead dating back to 1780, I would move into town in a heartbeat.
Then again, misanthropes, such as me, may not be cut out for village life. As I neared the church parking lot and saw that a small crowd had surrounded my car, my colon started dancing the polka. Since dancing is a sin, and I was in a public place, one can imagine my consternation.
‘Stop it,’ I growled.
My colon growled back.
‘All right, have it your own way,’ I said aloud.
Discovering what a pushover I was that morning, my stomach started in on a samba. A second later my bowels were doing the bossa nova. That was too much.
‘Cut it out,’ I snapped.
By then I was amongst the crowd, but not one of the women seemed to think that my words were meant for her. This was, of course, a relief for me but a sad commentary on our times. Now hidden mikes allow us to wander the streets, blabbing away on hidden phones, whilst all the while appearing like the mad folk of yesteryear.
These women, I soon discovered, were the members of Righteous Readers, the First Mennonite Church’s book club for women ‘of a certain age.’ With them was their mentor, who was also their pastor, Rev Nathaniel Troyer. Upon realizing who they were, I briefly entertained saying nothing about my own bizarre babbling, or inventing a little white lie to cover it up. Instead, being the chronic and confirmed sufferer of Veritas maximus that I am, I confessed to the facts.
‘My innards were misbehaving in lewd and licentious ways,’ I said, ‘so I had to give them a stern talking to. That said, good morning, ladies, Reverend.’
Several of the women twittered in the old-fashioned sense of the word, and a number of them twittered electronically. No doubt I had amused them yet again with my eccentric speech. Perhaps I should wear a sign around my neck that reads: Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen, Catalyst for Gossip Extraordinaire.
‘Good morning, Magdalena,’ Reverend Troyer said. He was a ruggedly handsome man in his late thirties, who had twinkling eyes and a winning smile. He also happened to be a ‘confirmed bachelor.’ The hens in his flock said that Reverend Troyer was a ‘man’s man’ – by that they meant that he was really masculine – and so they flirted with him shamelessly. Our Chief of Police, Toy, on the other hand, had confided to me that his definition of a ‘man’s man’ differed quite a bit from that of the members of the Righteous Readers Book Club.
Nonetheless, my knees knocked beneath my modest skirt and my belly continued to dance as I stood but an arm’s length away from Pastor Nate, as he likes to be called. Although he held out his hand for me to shake, I declined to touch it, offering to bump fists with him instead. Nate knows me well enough not to take offense. Unlike many people, he is fully aware of the fact that the modern custom of shaking hands evolved from the medieval custom of proving that one was unarmed. Today we know that smearing sweaty palms together is a great way to spread colds and influenza, both treats I would just as soon pass up on.
Pastor Nate had been eyeing my faux policewoman’s getup with a knowing smile. ‘I see that you’ve been asked to help Toy with the murdered author’s case.’
The gasps emanating from the gaggle of Righteous Readers were truly gratifying. ‘Indeed, I have. Would you like to take a spin in the cruiser? We could drive up to Stucky Ridge with the siren on and the lights flashing?’
One of the twinkling eyes winked. ‘Why, Magdalena, isn’t Lover’s Leap up there?’
The oral sort of twittering sounded like a flock of starlings had landed at our feet.
‘I was thinking of the cemetery,’ I said quickly. ‘Or just the lookout
part.’
‘Magdalena was pushed off the lookout,’ Lodema Short said, ‘by her brother-in-law, who was also our Chief of Police a few years before Toy arrived.’
‘Is that so?’ Pastor Nate said, and winked with his other eye. ‘It’s a wonder that you didn’t die. That is a wickedly high cliff.’
‘I was saved by my sturdy Christian underwear,’ I said, and then realized a second too late that my Veritas disease made me suddenly want to vomit. Sturdy Christian underwear, how corny was that?
‘Please, Magdalena, expound,’ Pastor Nate said. ‘This is one subject we never got around to studying in seminary.’
There followed a chorus of agreement: cries of ‘yes,’ ‘expound,’ and even one misguided ‘expand!’ I have no intention of bulking up, so I ignored that last entreaty.
‘Then listen up, folks,’ I said. ‘There is nothing secretive about sturdy Christian underwear. Simply remember that your body is the temple of the Lord, and the Lord wants a safe, clean, dry temple. That means generous cotton covers for both downstairs and upstairs furniture – if you get my drift.’
‘What?’ Marlene Schmucker said. Her parents are double second cousins, which helps to explain her confusion. ‘How did furniture get into this conversation?’
‘Just trust me,’ I said. ‘You want to use wide straps for the upstairs furniture – that’s what saved me. And wear a petticoat – one that can catch the air if you sail off a cliff.’
‘The woman’s a genius,’ Thelma Berkey said and nodded her head in admiration. I beamed expansively at her in payment.
‘The woman is bonkers,’ Marlene Schmucker said.
I treated her to one of my infamous ‘one is not amused’ looks; if it hadn’t been for these icy expressions of feigned disdain, global warming would have been a done deal decades ago.