The Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘But to leave you?’

  ‘There’s a chance he may have outgrown me, too.’

  ‘Are you defending him? After the way he insulted you in public?’

  ‘An editor has certain deeply ingrained attitudes. We’re gratified when someone we’ve worked with does a really fine book, regardless of who publishes it. Such success ratifies our earlier judgment. And in Karl’s case I have to accept him because we need his help on your grandson’s novel. His imprimatur will make it legitimate. Besides, I’ve always been fond of him.’

  I had to admit that he was doing a splendid job in his essay by positioning Timothy in the category of those who had died young, such as the poet Sylvia Plath and the novelist Nathanael West. Karl’s foreword was going to be definitive. Even more satisfying was the reconstructive work we all contributed during sessions at Windsong when I led the gifted trio—Marmelle, Streibert, Sorkin—in putting in the proper sequence the five fragments indubitably written by my grandson and then linking them to the poetic material that he had completed and polished. It was as if he were being called back to a second life, and I was grateful to the magicians who were ensuring his survival, especially Streibert, my rediscovered friend.

  But the time had come when he had to return to his teaching at Temple, and on his last afternoon with us, Yvonne and I sat with him before the big windows and spoke of his future. I told him: ‘Karl, it’s preposterous for you to cut your ties with this community. You were born here, you had your education and your principal accomplishments here—and your friends … Timothy, Yvonne, me, you’ll find no better.’

  This did not trigger a sentimental reaction: ‘You can’t imagine how rewarding my new work is. And Philadelphia can be quite attractive, with new friends at Penn.’

  ‘But don’t you often regret not seeing the Wannsee, and your friends here?’ After a long pause he said: ‘Yes,’ and while Yvonne sat silent, listening, I continued: ‘Karl, Philadelphia isn’t far. What? Forty miles. Many men commute that far daily.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that. What you could easily do is establish a home here. Come here for your weekends. Keep in touch with your homeland—your college.’

  With his chin resting on his knuckles, he thought for at least a minute, which can be a long time when two interested people await your answer. Then he said something neither Yvonne nor I could have anticipated: ‘I’ve rather felt that Lukas Yoder stole my homeland from me. I have no taste—’

  ‘Oh, Karl!’ Yvonne cried. ‘You’re on your way to a notable career, I’m sure of that. It could be even more powerful if you keep in touch with your roots. I know, Karl, because I’m fighting that same fight. I need a foothold in reality.’

  Now it was my turn: ‘Has it ever occurred to you that with the death of my husband and grandson I have a house here that is too big for me alone? It would be no trouble to make part of it an apartment—which you could have … or rent, as you wish.’

  And then Yvonne added: ‘I now have a roomy house. A separate outer door could be cut that would open into your own rooms.’

  At this Streibert rose to his feet and cried, almost in pain: ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ and I said: ‘Because we love you. Because you’re part of our lives—an important part.’

  The idea that two people unconnected in any way to his major concerns could be so actively interested in him that the word love was not inappropriate was so revolutionary to him that he could not digest it, and the three of us sat in silence. As we looked out toward the gathering dusk we saw a lone figure tramping over the ground where the body had been found. It was Captain Stumpf, bullet head bent forward as he tried unsuccessfully to reconstruct what had happened.

  TUESDAY, 3 DECEMBER: A day of intense emotion for everyone and it was only by accident that I found myself in the middle of it all. It started innocently with Emma Yoder telephoning: ‘Can you come over here and help me knock some sense into my dumb Dutchman?’ Eager these days to leave the house on any pretext, I asked Oscar to drive me by the back Valley Mennonite Road to the Yoder farm, and there I found Emma waiting in her kitchen. Her husband remained out in his workshop, from which I could hear not typing but sawing.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I asked, and Emma said: ‘He and Zollicoffer are working on a hex painting. Take a look.’ And when I walked back to the workshop I found the two men busily engaged, Zollicoffer sawing boards for frames, Lukas adding fraktur drawings to enhance the weathered hex he had rescued from some doomed barn.

  ‘He’s creatin’ a real work of art,’ Zollicoffer explained and I could see the pride these sturdy Dutchmen took in their work. ‘What he does,’ Zollicoffer continued, ‘is find the hex on the side of some dyin’ barn, rebuild the wood by injectin’ some of this epoxy glue, find the right hunk of wood for the panel, add the little paintin’ of Dutch life, and it’s done.’

  As I bent down to examine what was becoming a significant work of art, I saw that despite the careful work of the two men an imperfection marred the finished appearance, but I felt unqualified to point this out. However, Yoder, always sensitive to people’s reactions, noticed my slight frown and asked bluntly: ‘What is it you don’t like?’ and his forthright question forced me to be equally honest: ‘You left this scar in the wood unattended. And it stands right in the middle of your picture.’

  ‘Not a mistake,’ Lukas said, almost snappishly. ‘I left it there on purpose. To represent the withering of age, to remind the viewer that this hex had served on a real barn—that it’s a fragment of Dutch history.’

  This adroit explanation satisfied me but not Zollicoffer, who bent close to the hex and said: ‘But this scar aindt old. Done recent, like a sharp ax scrapin’ acrost it.’

  I happened to be looking at Yoder when this was said and I saw him freeze. A heavy silence filled the workshop as if an evil hex had drifted in. Zollicoffer, looking up from the picture, saw that Yoder had been startled by something, or had perhaps been struck by a sudden illness: ‘What is it, Lukas?’

  With an ashen face Yoder said slowly: ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I didn’t say nothin’.’

  Lukas pointed to the blemish: ‘About that line across the hex?’

  ‘Oh, that? I thought you ought to fix it.’

  ‘The other part?’

  ‘You said it was old, I said it was new. Look for yourself. Like an ax drawn across it.’

  Lukas moved quietly to the door, satisfied himself that it was firmly shut, then said in a whisper: ‘You’re right, Herman. Did I tell you that last October, when I took the finished manuscript to you, I bought these three hexes from Otto Fenstermacher?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I think I must have. Anyway, when Otto and I started to cut the hexes from his old barn, the job became pretty rough, so he called for his son, that big fellow they call Applebutter. The boy groused. Said he had things to do. When his father insisted, saying I needed help, the kid cursed at me, under his breath, but I heard him. Then, in a fury, he tore at the barn to hack out the last hex, using a huge ax. Striking out with no control, he dragged the ax across the face, just as you pointed out. When I cried “Hey, watch it!” he looked at me as if he wanted to use the ax on me. I can still see his distorted face.’

  As I leaned forward Zollicoffer said, almost in a whisper: ‘Tell me again,’ but all Yoder saw fit to say was: ‘A big ugly-tempered fellow with a huge ax.’

  Zollicoffer said: ‘He’d be bigger now, more powerful.’

  Yoder added: ‘I remember having the feeling that if we’d been alone, just the two of us, he might have come at me with his ax,’ but Zollicoffer, always alert in his reasoning, pointed out: ‘There was no ax at the murder, we know that,’ and Yoder said: ‘But he might have been there with whatever weapon he’d picked up.’

  Zollicoffer did not respond to this; instead he bent over the damaged hex, studying the scar: ‘You say he did this with a swipe of his ax?
Sort of out of control?’

  When Lukas nodded, Zollicoffer sprang into action: ‘We’ve got to see Stumpf!’ and, bursting open the workshop door, dashed right through the kitchen, heading for his pickup, with Yoder and me trailing behind. When Emma cried: ‘Where’re you going?’ Lukas called over his shoulder: ‘We’ll be back soon.’

  When it was apparent that the three of us would have to crowd into the front seat of the dusty pickup, I suggested: ‘Let’s use my car. Oscar can speed us there.’

  As we drove along, Zollicoffer said: ‘Only time I ever been in a car like this was at my aunt’s funeral.’ Speeding into Dresden, we drove directly to police headquarters, where Zollicoffer announced in a respectful voice that he wished to see Captain Stumpf. ‘All of you?’ the young officer asked, and Zollicoffer said: ‘We’re all involved.’

  When Stumpf passed through the waiting room, he recognized me and took us directly into his office, where Herman said: ‘What we got isn’t a proper clue but it is something that stopped Lukas and me cold.’ In his shrewd way he told of how they had eliminated one logical possibility after another, but these were paths Stumpf had gone down a dozen times.

  ‘Get on with it, please.’

  Zollicoffer could not be budged from a rational explanation: ‘We said it had to be a young feller, very powerful, who knew the area, maybe even the house.’

  ‘We decided that a month ago.’

  ‘But it’s what happened today.’ There followed a description of Yoder’s hex painting and his method of adding frakturs around the edges. Mystified, Stumpf looked at me in bewilderment. Then, triumphant, Zollicoffer turned the reporting over to Yoder, who told in short, quick sentences of buying the Fenstermacher hexes, cutting them out of the rotting boards, and of the ugly role played by the boy they called Applebutter. Lukas spoke so fast, with such obvious distaste for the boy, that Stumpf asked him to repeat his story slowly. At the conclusion he said: ‘There was no ax at the murder.’

  ‘We know,’ Yoder said, ‘but we’re convinced—I am, at least—that Applebutter was.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Stumpf growled. ‘No self-respecting police department could tell the press that it was hot on the trail of a guy called Applebutter. What’s his real name?’

  ‘Otto.’

  ‘Almost as bad. Now, gentlemen, not a word of this—not even to your wives. Otto has not been on our list of suspects, Mrs. Garland, but now he is.’

  ‘What’re you goin’ to do about it?’ Zollicoffer asked and Stumpf said: ‘That’s not for you to know. But we do thank you for your help.’

  Before my two amateur detectives left, Yoder tried to say: ‘When Tull’s book was published there was this story in the Inquirer—’

  ‘Mr. Zollicoffer pointed that out—weeks ago,’ and as we left he added: ‘I shall enter into the record that on this date Mrs. Garland, Herman Zollicoffer and Lukas Yoder stopped by to discuss the murder.’

  TUESDAY, 17 DECEMBER: In the days that followed our visit to the police, Captain Stumpf’s men worked overtime trying to understand Applebutter’s behavior patterns. Stumpf himself dropped by Windsong periodically to keep me vaguely informed about what was happening, and I learned that the young man was noted for his quick temper, insolent ways and misbehavior with cars, both his parents’ and those he borrowed, with or without permission. His football coach said he was one of the best; his principal, one of the worst. The police had nothing substantial except that he had ugly manners and was grossly overweight. But they did start quietly to track his movements, and on December fourteenth, when he ran a red light in Dresden and betrayed just a touch of alcohol, they had enough to arrest him, hold him in jail and, while he was there, to obtain a search warrant for cause, which allowed them to go carefully through his home—despite wild protests from his mother and threats from his father. In the middle drawer of a dresser in the boy’s room they found among a mass of junk, including books missing from the high school library and empty Coke bottles, a copy of the article with Timothy Tull’s photograph and the story that he was probably a millionaire.

  Then the grilling of Applebutter began, and since it was two days before his parents, who had been properly advised of their son’s Miranda rights, had the sense to call a lawyer and have him apply for a writ of habeas corpus, persistent interrogation began to reveal one suspicious fact after another. Stumpf, who assured me he followed the questioning attentively but without personally participating, kept warning his men: ‘Nobody touch that kid. Remind him of his rights at every session. Water to drink whenever he wants it. Time for sleep. And I want you, Hickham, to keep an hour-by-hour log of what’s happening.’

  On the second day, when Applebutter—the officers called him only that—was punchy, one asked him: ‘Why didn’t you use a gun?’ and he made his first mistake: ‘Everybody knows. You get into trouble if you use a gun.’

  ‘Why didn’t you use that ax you were so good with? Fellows say you’re a wizard with the ax,’ and he made his second slip: ‘Wouldn’t I look crazy, goin’ around with an ax in my pickup?’

  ‘What did you take with you, Applebutter?’ and suddenly the dam broke: ‘There was that dog comin’ at me and I had to hold him off.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘The steel bar.’

  ‘Why would you have a steel bar?’

  ‘To pry open a window, if they was all locked.’

  ‘You were going to look for money in the Mansion?’

  ‘Yes. Then a light went on and a man came runnin’ toward me, and the dog leaped at my throat. I had to defend myself, didn’t I?’

  ‘Did you hit the dog?’

  ‘Yes. I knocked him back.’

  ‘Did you hit the man?’

  ‘No. But the dog didn’t stop, so I had to kill it. The man tried to protect the dog and I didn’t mean to hit him, but he got in the way.’

  ‘He was hit many times, Applebutter.’

  ‘He kept barkin’ at me and I swung.’

  ‘The man was hit many times—maybe a dozen times.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it, I just kept swingin’ at the dog.’

  ‘Did you get any money?’

  ‘Another light came on in the house and I ran to my pickup.’

  ‘What did you do with the steel bar?’

  ‘Threw it in the Wannsee.’

  ‘That’s a far piece.’

  ‘I was afraid to go home on the Cut Off. I eased around.’

  ‘Did you know you’d killed the man?’

  ‘No. But I did hurt him some.’

  When Applebutter’s lawyer finally appeared on Wednesday he was appalled to learn that his client had talked so freely and shouted: ‘You denied him his Miranda rights,’ and Stumpf showed him the record: ‘At the beginning of every interrogation from the moment we arrested him for drunk driving a different officer read him his rights. Nine different times.’

  ‘You haven’t a single clue,’ the lawyer said, and Stumpf replied: ‘But three divers in Arctic protection gear are searching the shore waters of the Wannsee right now, with powerful metal detectors.’

  FRIDAY, 20 DECEMBER: At eleven this morning Captain Stumpf called in the press but ordered Zollicoffer, Yoder and me to stay at home and see no one for the next two days. Waiting till police reporters from the three German cities arrived, he announced, in carefully chosen words, which my two Dutchmen and I heard on the television in the big room at Windsong, that intensive police work, ‘plus helpful hints from concerned citizens,’ had solved the murder of the famous writer Timothy Tull. A young man, after being carefully told of his Miranda rights, had confessed and the murder weapon had been retrieved from ten feet of icy water in the Wannsee. When reporters demanded the accused’s name, Stumpf said very carefully: ‘Otto Fenstermacher, nineteen years old, who lives on his parents’ farm at the junction of Rhenish Road and Cut Off.’

  Minutes after the briefing ended, photographers and reporters swarmed over the Fenstermacher place, but one especially bright
young woman from the Allentown Call-Chronicle ignored the farm and dashed through Dresden interviewing people at random. She learned that the killer’s nickname was Applebutter. The national frenzy was on.

  When other reporters studied their tape-recorded notes and remembered that Captain Stumpf had used the phrase ‘plus helpful hints from concerned citizens,’ they pestered him to learn who those citizens were and what hints they had contributed. Having anticipated such inquiries, he said that in view of the coming trial he could not reveal facts that had been brought to his attention, and flatly refused to identify his informants; he knew that once he mentioned Yoder’s name, the press would be climbing all over his farm, and if he mentioned Zollicoffer, the talkative Dutchman would promptly involve Lukas, who, after all, had flashed the signal that had set the wheels of justice into motion.

  MONDAY, 23 DECEMBER: Both Emma and I quickly perceived that the arrest of Applebutter and the attendant publicity had a curious effect upon Lukas. She told me over the phone: ‘He’s begun leaving home early in the morning and driving his car slowly along back roads to Neumunster to study the town where Applebutter went to school, then through the underpass to remind himself of how Windsong looks in various lights. He slows almost to a walk driving down Cut Off to the Fenstermacher farm, where he sometimes sits silent in his car, trying to absorb details about the old barn, now razed, the new shed, the way the farmland rises and falls. With his eye he outlines the homestead as it must have been at the turn of the century, before the present generation sold off many of its best fields. Then he drives east along Rhenish Road, as if imagining the Fenstermachers in their relationship to Dresden.’