The Fire Blossom

by Lark, Sarah

  “No one here is vain!” Ida said, contradicting her father.

  But her flash of bold anger was already fading. Mostly, she felt tired, as she had constantly since the wedding. Besides, she knew any form of rebellion was pointless. Jakob Lange wouldn’t listen to the women. If they asked for cloth to make clothes, or for household goods or proper tools for gardening, the men only depreciated such items as extravagances. In Raben Steinfeld, they said, no one had needed any of that. Ida and the others could only repeat that they couldn’t weave without wool, and that the men themselves had insisted on leaving most of their cups, plates, pots, and pans in Mecklenburg. The men had reluctantly ordered gardening implements, but the rakes and spades broke when they tried to tackle the tough roots of the tussock grass. And the few clothes that the women had brought from the fatherland were practically falling apart. The men didn’t want to face the facts. In Raben Steinfeld, the families had been self-sufficient, but here, everything had to be bought and carried upriver by boat with great effort.

  “But we have to eat something!”

  In spite of her exhaustion and her father’s disapproval, Ida forced herself to keep talking. She could hear Karl’s voice in her head again. The land by the Moutere River is a kind of marshland. That means it gets flooded every time the river rises—and it does that regularly, in winter and summer. If the men didn’t change their minds soon, this disaster would be repeated.

  “Our first harvest has been washed away!”

  “And with God’s will, the second one will be even more bountiful!” Lange declared. “The New Zealand Company will just have to support us until then. There are often setbacks in farming.”

  Ida sighed. It was true that the New Zealand Company was still sending supplies. It had been assured in the contract that the settlers would be provided for until their new land bore fruit. But with every delivery, the rations were becoming less generous. There was hardly any fresh fruit or vegetables, and spices, butter, and even meat were great luxuries. Mostly, dried meat was delivered, which had to be cooked for a long time before it could even be chewed, and then it tasted of bland nothingness. Additionally, there was the problem of storage. There was still a plague of rats in the encampment, and much food was spoiled. The women had resorted to collecting herbs or just cooking the roots of wild plants. Sometimes they discovered something edible to enrich their menus, but often entire families were laid up with stomach cramps and diarrhea.

  Ida hadn’t dared to try such experiments; she simply didn’t have the energy. It wasn’t as if hard work bothered her. She’d worked tirelessly in the fields and gardens of Raben Steinfeld. But back then, she hadn’t had to put up with the torturous nights with Ottfried. Ida didn’t know how other women could stand it. Perhaps their husbands were less agile, or the women less sensitive. Ida still hated it as much as ever when Ottfried fell on top of her, penetrated her, and repeated the act as many times as he possibly could. She couldn’t stand the feeling of his breath on her neck when he finally lost consciousness, crushing her. His snoring robbed her of sleep, and his viselike embrace caused her anxiety. She could recover only when he was in Nelson. Fortunately, he was there quite often.

  In Sankt Pauli Village, Ottfried was recognized as the young man with the best English and the most self-assured character. His participation in Wakefield’s Wairau expedition had earned him the settlers’ greatest respect, so the elders of the village trusted him with their errands in town. He usually took a boat in the morning and returned the evening of the following day, and sometimes he even had to wait two days for ordered goods. Ida enjoyed the freedom, but had to pay with even worse nights when Ottfried did return. Then he would reek of alcohol, even the next day. Ida thought that was strange, until she finally discovered a bottle of whiskey among his tools. He was obviously filching money from the settlers for his visits to the pub and his personal purchases. Ida had briefly thought about reporting his behavior, but then he had returned home to get tools he had forgotten and had discovered her with the whiskey. Since then, she’d had real reason to fear him. After all, all women had to put up with the nightly molestations. That was just a part of married life, as Stina Krause had told her again. Ida hadn’t been able to take any more on her own, and had confided in the other young wife in the community. Stina Krause said the men couldn’t help it. They didn’t want to hurt their wives on purpose.

  “On the contrary, that’s how they show us their love!” she insisted. “After all, that’s how they give us children.”

  But when Ida confronted Ottfried with her suspicions, he slapped her, and the blow was brutal and premeditated. He would purposely hurt her again if she betrayed his secret.

  “I’m making good deals for the community,” he said when he’d calmed down somewhat. “It’s well and good if I get a little compensation for my work.”

  Ida absently rubbed her cheek as she thought about it, and fought back her fear. Someone had to tell her father, Ottfried, and the others that if God had actually had anything to do with the flood at all, the message was clear: settle somewhere else!

  “We’ll just reconsider where to build our houses and pray about it. Actually, that’s why I’m here, Ottfried, to thank God for the miracle!” Jakob Lange joyfully raised his arms to heaven and pointed to the slight rise in the floodplain where the already quite respectable-looking framework of the church stood. “Look, boy! And you too, Ida! God showed us his displeasure about our deeds, but he spared his place of worship. We shall continue his work immediately. Tomorrow, the ground should be dry enough that we can begin anew.”

  “What if the same thing happens again?” Ida insisted. “What if the river overflows its banks? Don’t you even think about what Karl—”

  “Don’t ever speak that name again!” Lange said thunderously.

  Ottfried grabbed his wife painfully by the arm. “I will not tolerate you spreading the foolishness of that lowlife. This land has been given to us by God, and it’s beautiful.”

  “And we will prove ourselves worthy of his gift,” Lange added. “However, perhaps it might be sensible to dig a few drainage ditches.”

  The settlers spent a week digging ditches, but then they lost motivation. The weather was sunny and beautiful, and the urge to continue with the building and replant the fields became overpowering. Ottfried repositioned his house a hundred paces away from the river, and now that the days had become longer, he found a few hours every day to work on it. He got his brother to help, and his father contributed what he could. The log cabin grew at a quick pace, and soon they would be able to move in. Ida started her garden again. Once more, she plowed and prepared the ground for planting.

  In the middle of February, the Moutere flooded again. This time, it happened on a workday, and was at least noticed immediately. Men and women hurried to protect their parcels of land from the rising water. Ottfried and the other men stacked up sacks that the women and children had filled with earth and stones, and Ida desperately swung her hoe for hours to clear the unfortified drainage ditches that Ottfried had dug after the last flood. The rain penetrated her bonnet, ran into her eyes, and soaked her skirts heavily, making the work even harder than it already was. Ida gasped with effort and then sobbed with exhaustion. She fell into the ditch and could barely get to her feet again because the rushing water was tearing at her skirts. But she didn’t give up. The other men and women also fought to save their own land, as well as the building sites of the church and school. When the rain finally stopped, they were all weary, but the resulting damage was much less than it had been in the first flood.

  “Let us thank the Lord!” Pastor Wohlers cried.

  Ida wondered where he got the energy. She just wanted to take off her wet clothes and sleep. But the missionary station hadn’t been affected by the flood this time either. It was built too high on the valley wall. Of course the pastors had helped in the village, but not as wholeheartedly as those who were fighting to save the fruits of their labor.
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br />   “This time, the Lord didn’t leave us alone in our fight against the elements,” Jakob Lange announced as he led the prayer meeting.

  “But this time it only rained for three hours,” Stina Krause murmured, pressing her baby to her breast. The young woman had been scared to death by the river’s sudden rise. It had almost washed away the baby’s bassinet, which she had set in a furrow at the edge of the field she had been working in.

  One day later, an abashed Johann Krause told the village elders that he was giving his building land to the community. He planned to move to Nelson with his wife and child.

  “But we have it under control now!” Brandmann said, objecting. “Hardly anything was ruined. And if we fortify the drainage ditches a little more—”

  “We don’t want to depend on that,” Johann Krause said. “My wife has had enough. She worked so hard on our garden, and now everything is flooded again. She would have to start the third time from scratch with plowing and planting. Even though she has high hopes, it will be too hard for her here. She can’t do it anymore. Especially since there’s so much other work. I will rent a house in town and take road construction work. Our decision stands. I’m taking the next boat, and I’ll come get Stina and the baby as soon as I’ve organized everything.”

  Ida was terribly envious of Stina Krause when Johann returned from Nelson a few days later with good news. He’d found a job immediately, even in his learned trade as a wagonmaker. Stina would be hired to help in the Partridges’ shop. To her family’s great joy, Mrs. Partridge was pregnant again. She needed someone to help her, and Stina would be a godsend.

  Stina said her farewells to Ida and the other women with tears in her eyes, but also with obvious relief. Elsbeth Lange was crying, too, but more from anger than the pain of parting with the Krauses.

  “It’s so unfair!” Ida’s little sister told her with a sob. “That was my job! Mrs. Partridge would have loved to keep me on as a shop assistant, and I would have been able to live with her and make myself useful. Instead, I’m stuck here.”

  As the Krause family sailed away, Elsbeth flung herself into Ida’s arms and wept out all the frustration and stress she had been wrestling with since her sister had gotten married. No matter how her father raged, the girl just couldn’t manage the household the way Ida had done in Raben Steinfeld. Back in the village, Ida had bacon and butter from the farm, vegetables and fruit from the gardens, and fresh potatoes from the field. But here, no woman could cook delicious meals with the meager provisions the New Zealand Company sent. And here, the men’s ruined clothes were impossible to mend. Poor Elsbeth didn’t have the cloth, the time, or the knowledge she needed to make new ones. The girl also didn’t have the strength to carry the necessary amounts of water from the river so the men could wash themselves in the evenings. Elsbeth failed at almost every task that was set for her.

  “And Franz is always sick. He complains all the time!” she moaned.

  Ida stroked her sister’s hair. All the children in the community were getting sick. There just wasn’t enough fresh food. The vegetables had been washed away before the harvest, and the men were concentrating so hard on building the village that they didn’t even take time to catch fish.

  “I tried fishing too,” Elsbeth said, “but I just can’t do it! I don’t like to kill animals, and I’m scared of the rats. At least send Chasseur to me sometimes, Ida.”

  The spotted, long-haired dog still slept in Ida’s hut and helped her with the self-discipline and humility that she was too exhausted to pray for. For Chasseur’s sake, she silently withstood Ottfried’s nightly “acts of love,” even when she had to bite her lips to keep from crying out. She couldn’t risk the dog barking again and her husband throwing him out—or worse. Thanks to Chasseur, Ida’s hut was the only one free of rats, for the most part. And Ida was more terrified of the rats than of almost anything else.

  “We should try to get more dogs,” Ida said evasively. “I’ll ask Ottfried to look for some on his next visit to Nelson.”

  She knew very well that he wouldn’t do it, if only because the owner of a puppy might want a few pennies for it. But the prospect comforted Elsbeth and thrilled Franz, who still mourned for the farm dog he’d had to leave behind in Raben Steinfeld.

  Even though the second flood had caused less damage, the settler’s spirits were lower than they had been after the first. Soon after the Krauses left, two more families relinquished their land, dismissing Brandmann and Lange’s entreaties for them to try again. No one mentioned Karl’s warning, but of course they all remembered it. The obvious conclusions were drawn, particularly by the families from other villages in Mecklenburg who had never known Karl as a poor day laborer but had only seen him as a well-dressed young surveyor. If it went on this way, Sankt Pauli Village would soon consist only of the previous residents of Raben Steinfeld.

  But then Pastor Wohlers returned from town one day with good news. “Cattle have arrived in Nelson,” he announced after church. “And I spoke with Wakefield about the sick children here and the insufficient supplies. The company is going to give us three cows for a good price.” He looked joyfully from one face to another.

  “Praise be to the Lord!” Peter Brandmann cried, in defiance of all the depressed-looking settlers. The two families who had given up had departed for Nelson on the boat that brought Wohlers. Many of the women had cried when they left, and the men were insecure about their decisions to stay. “Is that not reason to celebrate? We will finally have livestock again, and milk for the children! Things are looking up, my friends! Now, who wants to be responsible for a cow? Who knows how to milk one?”

  “He should be asking who has the highest pasture instead,” a settler next to Ottfried and Ida grumbled, “so the creatures won’t be drowned in the next flood.”

  “I thought the promise of the cows would be enough to bolster their spirits,” Wohlers said unhappily, later.

  The Brandmanns had invited the missionary to Sunday dinner, along with Ottfried and Ida. It was a princely meal. The previous evening, Ottfried’s younger brother, Erich, had scared up one of the rare birds that lived in the woods and didn’t sing during the day but wandered around at night making shrill whistling sounds. The creature had been easy to catch and kill, and now it was roasting on Frau Brandmann’s fire. The mouths of the family and their guests were already watering at the smell of it.

  “The people are overworked and bitter about the setbacks, and now autumn is coming.”

  “It’s the women’s fault!” Peter Brandmann said in annoyance. “They lack endurance and faith. They’re turning their men against the community.”

  Ida whirled around. She was upset that the three families had left, and especially sorry about Stina Krause, whom she considered to be a kind of friend. What was more, she still had Elsbeth’s complaints on her mind. Perhaps she would regret opening her mouth afterward—Ottfried increasingly rebuked her if she spoke her mind and didn’t refrain from punishing her physically either. He took out his stress and worries about the settlement on his wife. But now, she couldn’t restrain herself.

  “We aren’t lacking endurance and faith! We’re lacking clothing, household supplies, and food!” she declared, and turned to the missionary. Perhaps the pastors would be more understanding. “We’ve been living for over half a year in makeshift huts, we cook over open fires, and sometimes we share a cooking pot among three families. We’re forced to deal with an infestation of rats. The children are constantly ill, and we work away our days in the fields and gardens. Is it any wonder if some have had enough, especially when there are ‘setbacks’?”

  She couldn’t say the word “setback” without sarcasm. Ottfried would doubtlessly make her regret that later. But Pastor Wohlers, a large bald man with gentle, watery blue eyes below thick, pale brows, listened attentively. And to Ida’s surprise, Frau Brandmann nodded as well.

  “Yes. She’s right,” she said. “The young women weren’t very farsighted; they brought
almost nothing from home. Now we are often missing the most basic of items. And they are corrupting the men with their complaints about life here. They desperately need something to distract them. The cows are already a good start. But we should also buy sheep, goats, and pigs.”

  “There aren’t any,” the pastor said regretfully.

  “Perhaps there are at least some cats and dogs that would be able to do something about the rats,” Ida said. “And there are plenty of household goods; the Partridges’ shop is full of them.”

  The pastor nodded and raised a hand as though in benediction. “We’ll certainly consider that,” he said gently. “It’s not right for the women to corrupt the men with their nagging, but it’s also not right that they don’t have the tools they need to perform the tasks expected of them. Miss Ida, would you like to accompany your husband on his next trip to Nelson? The community would supply you with funds, and the women can make a list of what they want. Within reason, of course. You are welcome to purchase as many of the things as you can, depending on the financial possibilities. That should raise the spirits of Eve’s daughters, should it not?”

  Ida could barely comprehend what had happened. She hadn’t reckoned with ever being allowed to leave Sankt Pauli Village in the foreseeable future. Now, just a week later, on a sunny day in March, she found herself aboard a passenger boat again. Ottfried stood next to her, his chest swelled with pride for the important task the community had entrusted him with. He had been given the responsibility of not only picking up the cows but also purchasing a team of draft horses and a wagon. Ida carried a long list compiled by all the women of the village after days of excited negotiations about what was really necessary, what could be afforded, and what might bring a little shine into the monotony of their days.