Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  Fritz pounded the wood with his fist. “There you go!”

  “We’re lucky they moved from Pittsburgh, aren’t we?” she said, relaxing. It was nice to talk to someone in public, even if he didn’t respond. If Fritz weren’t here, she’d still be stuck a row over from Emily Campbell.

  “Andrew goes to Pittsburgh,” Fritz said as he watched the players.

  “Strike three! You’re out!”

  “No,” Lily corrected kindly. “He’s from Pittsburgh.”

  “No, Andrew go to Pittsburgh.” He clapped his hands heartily as the next batter took his stance. “To see the whore.”

  Something deep inside of her curled and died. “What did you say?”

  Fritz smiled, drooled slightly. “To see the whore. Pretty lady, too.”

  Lily’s hand found her stomach. There was no way. She looked at Fritz’s profile to see if there was truth in the words, but he just stared out to the ball field. Fritz was slow minded, she reminded herself. He didn’t know what he was saying.

  “Fritz,” she asked softly, “do you know what that is?”

  “A whore?” he asked loudly. “Yeah, Fritz knows!” He laughed mischievously. “Naked lady. Wants to have sex. Sex with Andrew.” He giggled impishly. “Pretty lady, too. Taught him good.”

  A tied dog barked near the wagons, strained to chase a wayward baseball. Emily and her friends laughed loudly from beyond the way, clicked and chatted like beetles. Men smoked in a small ring behind the dugout. “Out!” yelled the umpire.

  The noise drummed around her ears, made her want to shove her hands against the inner canals. Lily folded her arms into her stomach, her insides swaying and queasy.

  “Fritz knows about the whore.” He slapped his knee, then rubbed it ferociously. “She showed him how to please her. How to touch a woman, he said. She was pretty.” He whispered to Lily secretly, “Pieter want one, too. Can tell he wants one just like Andrew had. A whore. Pieter want one bad.”

  Lily covered her mouth. The hope, the dream, fractured—the sharp points stabbing ruthlessly. Watch out, Lilith. Your horns might start to show. Inbreeding does that to a girl. Andrew had seen the horns. He saw the malady she was, the curse she brought to this world. And he would rather run to the arms of a whore than touch her.

  She fled to her buggy, the tears forming in rivulets over her cheeks, stinging and constricting her throat. Fritz cheered from his seat. The crowd clapped and rose.

  “You’re out!”

  * * *

  While the brown dust from the field rose and coiled around Andrew’s ankles, the mood of the opposing team sank and stirred into the dirt. The men in green brooded as they chewed tobacco. With each passing inning, the rust-colored spit flung with more vigor and less-focused aim.

  Andrew rolled the ball in his fingers, the stitching comfortable and familiar against the tender spots. He waited patiently as the next batter went through his ritual of kicking the plate, rubbing his hands upon his pants, kicking the plate again, spitting tobacco and adjusting the bat in his large hands.

  “Cripple’s gettin’ tired, Sam!” a man hollered. “See that arm shaking from here!”

  Andrew readied his stance, his body tight and expectant.

  “Kaiser’s biggest fan!” another shouted. “Spawned straight from the devil himself!” another quipped.

  He pulled back and hurled the ball across home plate.

  “Strike one!”

  The batter narrowed his eyes, his back bracing and hunched. He practiced three hard swings that could have smashed a tree. Andrew rubbed the worn leather of the ball, tan from use.

  “Coal miner piece of shit!”

  Andrew turned his head, raised his knee, pulled back his shoulder.

  “Least his pa’s dead. One less German we gotta deal with!”

  Andrew launched the ball, aiming it at the heckler, the ball crunching him in the skull. The batter dropped his bat, charged the pitcher mound. The men from the Creekers flooded forward with punching fists as Andrew walked away, the insults beating him harder than fists. But the fight broke quickly and the teams separated, the fissure widening with disgruntled force.

  Pieter wiped a bloody nose and jogged to Andrew. “Bastard had it coming.”

  The adrenaline fired through Andrew’s body, his chest heaving. Pieter took the corner of his shirt and dabbed his nose, inspected the growing stain. “It’s getting bad,” Pieter warned. “Like everyone’s all twisted up.”

  Andrew wasn’t listening. He looked out into the crowd, scanned the benches for the woman with the green eyes, the woman whose light would numb the black words and make his heart pump with desire instead of anger. But Lily was gone. Andrew took off the baseball shirt and hat and shoved them in Pieter’s arms. “I’m done.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Lily went back to doing laundry and mending for Frank’s clients—dry basting clothes, starching and ironing until her face flushed with moisture and steam. Hidden in the back of her dresser drawer, in an old sock of her father’s, the coins from her egg money jingled pathetically. The money tugged, now more than ever. Just leave. Go away, Lily. There’s nothing here for you. But the coins mocked her with their words, for the meager total wouldn’t even get her past Pittsburgh.

  On this evening, Frank had gone to town to play cards with the sheriff, the town clerk and the other townmen. They would talk about the war and she was glad they were in town and not here at the house. Always war, war, war. She was tired of the talk. Lily did not like to think of the battles across the sea. Always about the Germans. She thought of the ones she knew, and they did not match the pictures painted by the men in town. There was Mrs. Mueller who used to drop off food to Claire when she was too sore from beatings to cook. There was Mr. Cossman down at the brewery who always brought extra grains to Mrs. Sullivan for her horses. And the Kisers. Lily fanned these Germans in her mind and didn’t believe that the men against the Allies could be so different. Hearing Frank talk, they were a pack of savages, no hearts, just guns and a thirst for killing babies and raping women and taking over the world. But somewhere those men had mothers and sisters; they were somebody’s sons and brothers and lovers.

  Andrew floated into her mind and the rosiness in her cheeks grew even as the steam lessened. She tried to push him from her thoughts, to rid herself of the memory of his fake kisses and vacant words. She was worthless and he knew it, the reality numb and harsh. She was drained of tears and dead to hope. Lily had just been a temporary fix between the women who could satisfy his needs.

  Lily placed the flatirons back on the stove to heat again. Claire sat next to the table lamp and mended buttons on the shirts. The coins tugged again; a draft blew from the old windows, tapped her across the shoulder blades, and she bit her lip. Lily watched her sister carefully before beginning, “Winter’s going to be a hard one, don’t you think?”

  Claire shuddered. “Sounds like the hardest one yet.”

  She picked up an iron and spit to test the heat, let it rest a bit more.

  “I get to feeling it in my bones, you know?” Claire rubbed her fingertips together. “Get all numb by the nails now.” She grinned. “When we were kids, we’d run around in the snow with only our dresses and boots. Remember that? Don’t even remember feeling the cold. Funny how that is.”

  Lily agreed, picked up the iron and let the humid, wet air trickle to her face and gush her pores. “Be nice to head south, don’t you think?” She glanced furtively at Claire for any sign of unrest. “Florida’s nice all year. Heard people got lemon and orange trees growing in their backyards. Be nice making fresh juice, wouldn’t it?”

  “Ah, that’d be nice.” Her sister smiled into her needle and thread.

  Lily draped the shirt over the chair and picked another from the pile. “We could do it. You and me.” Her heart beat slowly, cautiously. “Just for a visit maybe.”

  She shook her head. “Frank can’t leave; you know that. Got too much with the business.”

&nbs
p; “I know. But was thinking just the two of us could go. Wouldn’t be gone long.”

  Claire glanced up and knowledge hinted behind the slow eyes, recognition. But then the child returned and nearly stomped. “No, no. Frank wouldn’t like that. Me going away like that. You know how he gets, Lil. He wouldn’t like that at all.” She pulled the moth-eaten sweater tighter around her middle.

  A knock came to the front door and Claire stood, craned her neck to see the outline of the porch. “It’s Andrew,” Claire said merrily. “And he’s got flowers.”

  “I don’t want to see him.” Lily threw the shirt on the chair, retreated to the corner.

  “But he looks so handsome, Lil—”

  “Just tell him I’m not here.”

  The door knocked again. “You sure?” Claire asked.

  “Please, just make him go away.” Lily curled farther into the wall, her lashes wet.

  Claire stepped out of the room and the door to the porch opened, creaked loudly. “Lily can’t see you now, I’m afraid,” mumbled Claire.

  Lily couldn’t hear Andrew, but his presence filled the house, made the pain of what he did that much harder.

  “J-j-just better if you go,” her sister flustered. “I don’t know. All right. I will. Thanks, Andrew. Best to your family.”

  The door creaked again. Claire found Lily and handed her the bouquet of white and purple mums, the woody scent filling her nose and weighting her chest with missing.

  Claire’s expression mixed with remorse and confusion. “Why would you slight him like that, Lily? He do something mean to you?” Claire waited for an answer, but none came. “Should have seen him. Looked like he lost his best friend in the whole world.”

  Lily pushed the flowers at Claire. “You keep them. I don’t want them.” She picked up the hot iron again and the steam stung her eyes, made tears form when she was using every reserve to keep them down. Her stomach ached and twisted.

  Claire put the flowers in a vase, set them on the side table. “Pretty, aren’t they?”

  Lily’s fingers covered her mouth and her lips opened. “Keep an eye on the iron, Claire.” Her voice doleful, weak. “I need some air.” She hurried outside, passed the remnants of her tiny vegetable garden, the old lettuce leaves translucent and lacey from morning frosts. The tiny barn tilted menacingly to the right, the low splintered roof a poor shelter to their two cows. Lily entered the stall, rubbed the nose of the black beast.

  She remembered when Frank bought the cow and how she gave birth soon after. Frank sold the calf a few days later and the mama brayed endlessly in grief for nearly a month. Lily had hid her head under the pillow and cried with the low mourning, vowed to never let a calf be separated again.

  She placed her forehead to the cow’s. “I’m sorry.” She wept into the soft fur, the wet nose thick with breathing under her chin. “I’m sorry what we do to you.” And she wept for the cow and she wept for the calf and she wept for not what was taken away from her life, but for what was never given.

  The cow snorted and backed up. Lily dried her eyes on her shoulder.

  “Lily?”

  She spun around. Andrew stood in the open door, tall and handsome, and her soul burned to run into his arms. But she knew what he had done and so she stepped back. His presence, the very sight of him, deveined her.

  He inched forward. “You’ve been crying,” he said. She shook and Andrew didn’t understand. Didn’t understand the look of hatred upon her face.

  “I don’t want to see you anymore,” she hissed. The vicious words shocked him, left him cold.

  “Why?” he challenged, his figure unyielding. “If you don’t want to see me, I won’t bother you again. But I want to know why.”

  “I heard things at the game, Andrew,” she huffed, and wouldn’t look at him. “About you.”

  He remembered the slurs of the baseball players, didn’t realize Lily had heard them as well. And instead of staying there for him, supporting him, she had left. The disloyalty made him fierce. “You heard what they said and you’re blaming me?”

  “You’re not even going to deny it?”

  “Deny what?” He rubbed his hand through his hair gruffly. He wasn’t going to apologize for defending himself or Pieter. “That I enjoyed doing what I did? That I acted like a man?”

  Her face twisted in disgust and new tears threatened to spill over her eyes. “How could you?” she spluttered. “A man doesn’t do that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Andrew seethed, put his hand on his hip and stared at the broken slats of the barn. She didn’t have a clue. “I’ll tell you what,” he stated harshly. “If tempted, I’ll do it again. Not a man who wouldn’t.” He turned to leave. “And if you can’t understand that, Lily, then I don’t want to see you either.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Winter barreled upon Pennsylvania, the easygoing fall finally pushed out the door no different from unwanted guests. And as fall pushed out, all was pushed in. The cows and sheep and pigs were locked in the barn, the annoyed grunts echoing through the beams as their boredom and tight quarters crowded their sensitivities. The chickens were locked in the coop, the windows so dirty that even in full sun the coop stayed in semidarkness and the chickens responded with rebellion against egg production. And the Kisers shoved within the confines of the old farmhouse, without the grace of transition, without that grace of insulating the house or chopping enough firewood or cleaning the nests and old leaves from the clogged chimneys.

  Everything had to be bought, every ounce of food had to be brought in or delivered and Wilhelm watched the numbers of the bank account lessen like the backward twist of a clock.

  The first major snowfall landed and did not stop. It paused and napped briefly but then started up more sternly than before. The snowdrifts blew to white pyramids scattered against the high points of the property and the farmhouse sat in a palm of snow, the fingers reaching to the bottoms of the windows.

  Wilhelm hoped to put off his final run to town for supplies, but when the snow showed no signs of waning for the season he realized he couldn’t wait another day or they’d all be eating pinecones. So, he bundled himself in a wool coat and hat, layered his long johns under his trousers and stuffed the bottoms into his socks and walked to the only friend he had, Heinrich Mueller.

  Wilhelm stomped through the snow that met his knees, the air panting loud and labored as he huffed down the valley, over the frozen stream and up to the main road. He already was heated beneath the wool layers even as his nostrils, chin and cheeks numbed. He looked up at the steel gray sky, at the white flakes drifting toward the earth. And they landed on his eyebrows and the whiskers of his jaw. As a boy he would have stuck out his tongue to catch the snow, but he wasn’t a boy and so the thought never crossed his mind.

  A few miles to go and he stepped methodically, one foot over the other, faster until he felt chased. The old farmhouse, barely in view, faded behind the large white flakes, the distance bringing more relief than anything in his life. For a moment, he thought, I’ll just keep walking. He would walk to the train tracks, hop on a car and go as far away as the engine would travel. He would have no money, but he could start over. He could run away and ride the trains and leave that dreary farmhouse and the dead cries of the twins that still hung in his ears and Eveline’s scolding and Andrew’s arm behind like a bad smell. And for a moment there was hope. His footsteps livened. The farther he moved away from the farm, the fresher the air, and he breathed it in, let it scald his lungs with ice. And he wanted to run. Panic for freedom shrieked in his cells: Run, run, run!

  Wilhelm stopped then, stared—a solitary figure amid the falling snow and the abandoned street. He observed the wide expanse where he was not trapped, where there was a future and possibilities. But then he saw his footsteps etched in the snow. Realized that he’d have to retrace the steps back. The gray of the sky permeated then, the ash sledging through his veins no different from sewage through a clogged pipe. And he did not w
ant to run any longer, did not want to watch the flakes fall from an endless sky. The gray took over and dragged him like a lamb to the Muellers’ front steps.

  “Mr. Kiser, vhat are you doing out dere!” Mrs. Mueller took to the man as if he were a naked infant left out in the cold. “Come! My vord! Come in from dat snow, Mr. Kiser!” She pulled him in with the hands and arms of a man, took off his hat and patted the piles of snow off his coat. “Heinrich! Mr. Kiser’s come in from the farm nearly froze to death! Anna, bring hot broth for our guest!” she yelled through the house.

  Wilhelm was touched by the instant generosity, the instant warmth of the house, tried not to think of the direct opposite of his own living situation. “Thank you, Mrs. Mueller. It’s all right. Worked up a sweat on the walk over.”

  “Nein, nein,” she harped. “Your face like a frozen tomato.” Her hot, plump hands pressed into his cheeks. “Take orf your boots and sit by the fire, now. You go now.” She pointed animatedly as if he didn’t know where the fire was.

  Heinrich came in buttoning a wool sweater over his flannel. “Vilhelm!”

  Little Anna came in with a steaming mug of broth and Wilhelm took it by the fire but did not sit, knowing his pants were quite wet from the snow. Heinrich hit him on the back. “Vhat brings you here, my friend?”

  He went quiet. The exertion from the walk left him shaky. The warmth of the house, the quaintness and finished aspects, made him think of his own home with horror. Heinrich lost his smile and nodded, read his neighbor’s demeanor as one remembers a dream or his own story. Without taking his eyes off Wilhelm, he called out to his wife, “Gerda, bring up the new stout. A man needs a bit more fire than broth.”

  Gerda laughed. “Ha. Fire is right. Dat stout burn the chest hair right orf ya. Pieter,” she called. “Bring up the stout.”

  Heinrich pointed to the chair and waved off the wet pants with a nod that said, Will dry. A few minutes later, Pieter carried the familiar worn cask, set it on the table between them. “Hello, Mr. Kiser,” he greeted merrily, his cheeks pink with health.