I stared at him and shook my head. To this day, I kick myself for not telling him about my badly bruised breasts. They were extremely painful and would be for a couple of weeks. But no Amish girl in her right mind would ever dream of doing such a thing and it honestly never even crossed my mind to mention my breasts to a man. At that time, I was not taken seriously and no female officer offered to look me over or take me to the hospital. I myself had no knowledge of such proceedings. I was just looking for help and hoping they would at least scare Peter so he would not hurt me or anyone else ever again.
“Well,” he looked skeptic, “we can’t just go out and arrest someone for unsupported claims made about them.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, standing up. “This man is going to hurt me, and I am absolutely positive he has been poisoning his wife, and you are saying there is nothing you can do?”
“Hold on, Emma,” Officer Jensen said. “Just sit back down. I didn’t say there is nothing we can do. I just said we cannot arrest someone without evidence to support the accusations.”
“Well, what kind of evidence do you need?” I asked trying to think of any evidence I could possibly get.
“For instance, if you had been raped, we could do a rape kit and that would give us physical evidence.”
“So you are saying I should have let myself get raped?” I asked indignantly.
“No, no, I’m not saying anything like that. I am just saying that, right now, it is just your word against his. I am not going to go haul the Bishop of the Amish church in without any evidence to prove he has committed a crime.”
“Can I just tell you briefly what is really going on?” I asked through clenched teeth. I was trying hard not to get angry at his skeptical behavior. After all I had been through and all I risked to get there, I was not in the mood for his skepticism. For the next ten minutes, I explained what had happened and how the Amish church dealt with such things.
“I don’t know.” Officer Jensen was still doubtful when I had finished. “I find all of it hard to believe. We have a good relationship with our Amish neighbors and have never had any trouble with them.”
I shook my head in frustration. “Of course, you haven’t had any trouble with them.” I stood up again. “Do you think they are going to tell you if someone is raped, murdered, or poisoned? You know that we are a society set apart from the rest of world. What would make you think they would ever let you know what is really going on out there?”
Officer Jensen seemed taken aback by my outburst and sat thinking for a moment.
“Do you think anyone else from your community would come forward and support these claims you are making?”
I thought for a moment and then shook my head. No one was going to risk it.
“Well, I really don’t know what we can do except go out and question his family to see if everything is okay, but I even hate to do that to an Amish bishop.”
“Why?” I asked. I was very angry now. “If he were not Amish, you would not hesitate to bring him in, right?”
“Well, it’s just that anyone could make the case that you are an Amish girl that is angry about something and has decided to falsely accuse the bishop of her church of a crime for revenge.”
I was furious now, and I spun around, slammed both palms down on the table and leaned toward him.
“Why is it so hard for you people to believe the Amish are just as capable of a crime as any other human being? The only difference is that they don’t have to pay for their crimes. And, ironically, these very people you hold in such high regard think you are all going to hell because you are of this world.”
“Well, I am sure that is probably true.” Officer Jensen nodded his head. “They are regular people, but they are raised with a strict doctrine they have to follow.”
“Or what?” I snapped. “Can you tell me the Amish policy on rape and murder?”
“Well, I never thought of them like that.” He nodded again, as if he might finally be getting my point.
“Exactly.” I straightened up. “I am so tired of you Englisch putting cameras in our faces and taking our picture like we are cute little puppies or something. We are people with all the same faults the rest of the human race has to offer.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “Do you really think they would even bother to tell you if I died tonight? No,” I shook my head. “You would never know. I would simply be buried in an Amish cemetery and no one would think I died from some unknown cause.”
“I find that a little hard to believe.” Officer Jensen looked at me in shock.
“Oh, really?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “How many Amish autopsies have you had done? How many Amish do you have walking in and out of your office every day? Don’t you find it strange that the rest of the world traffics through here on a daily basis, but the Amish never darken your door?”
“I have to admit you are the first Amish I’ve ever interviewed.” He leaned back in his chair.
“So you must agree that the Amish are closed off from the rest of the world?” I asked.
“Well, yes, I already knew that. I just didn’t think of them as being harmful.” Officer Jensen looked thoughtful as we both stood up to leave the room.
He held the door open for me, and I pulled my coat tighter around my small frame. I stopped and looked up at him before going through the door.
“Just remember that we are humans like everyone else,” I whispered, and then turned and walked back out to the car.
Karen was sleeping in the front seat and jumped a little when I knocked on the window for her to unlock the door. I got in, and she asked me how it had gone. I just shrugged and said I did not know. We drove the rest of the way home in silence.
Karen pulled up next to the horse shed, and we both got out. Simba was wagging his tail and whining for me to come over to him.
“So what are you going to do, Emma?” Karen asked me.
I just shook my head and looked around the wide-open field. “I guess I will have to go back to Jacob and Lillian’s,” I mumbled as I hugged Simba.
Karen nodded in agreement.
About ten minutes later, we were both surprised to see a police car turning into the lane and driving toward us.
Karen’s face went pale, and she motioned for me to see what they wanted.
“Excuse me, Miss,” one of the officers called to me as I walked up to the car. “Do you know which house belongs to Bishop Peter?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s right over there.” I pointed toward the white house that looked peaceful and innocent from where I was standing. I watched as the police car drove down the lane and stopped in front of the house. I could see Peter as he came to the door. They stood there talking for a couple of minutes, and I frowned as I saw Peter welcome them in his house as if he had nothing to hide. I could just imagine the charming scene that greeted the officers when they went inside the house. There were probably little Amish children peeking at them shyly. Phyllis was probably offering them tea. Peter was likely solemn as usual and maybe even holding the baby. Certainly, they would not be presenting the picture of crime these officers were used to, I thought to myself.
I went to the dog pen and sat next to Simba, who put his giant head in my lap and wagged his tail as if trying to cheer me up. After half an hour or so, the policemen came out and drove away. I sighed when I saw them waving to Peter, who stood on the porch with his hat in his hands. I watched as Jacob and Lillian walked over to see what was going on. I felt sick to my stomach. What I had done was slowly starting to sink in, and now Jacob and Lillian were going to find out. It wouldn’t matter whether they believed Peter was guilty of the crimes or not. What would matter was that I had involved the authorities in a matter that should have been aired in front of the church.
Leaving The Amish
Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the
lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
—Robert F. Kennedy
Not long after the police left, Jacob, Lillian, Phyllis and Peter came over to Karen’s to admonish me for calling the authorities and not handling the matter through the church. I was terrified as I stared at Peter. I felt panic being in the same room with him. I stood on one side of the room, close to Karen and Carl, and this made me feel a little safer.
I was admonished to drop the police report and I staunchly refused. I could see the anger in Peter’s eyes, but I wasn’t going to back down.
Pleadingly, I told Phyllis that I believed Peter was molesting Katie and that I feared Peter was giving her something to make her seizures worse, but she seemed to block me out. I was the bad one for going against the church; nothing could be worse than that. I had just been sexually assaulted by the bishop of my church, yet, here I was being admonished. I was the bad one, the one in need of punishment.
I was told to drop charges immediately and repent, but suddenly something came over me. I knew they were trying to silence me, like so many victims had been before me. Phyllis had been one of those victims, and yet, there she stood next to her husband. I had to break the chain; I would not be another silenced, broken woman who had to carry the burden of what happened to her alone, believing that it had been her fault. Was being Amish truly the only way to get into heaven?
“Emma, what are you doing?” Lillian asked me as I reached up and untied my head covering. I did not fully comprehend what I was doing; it was as if I were in a dream. I pulled off the stiff white covering and looked down at it for a second, watching as a few of my tears fell on it.
“Emma,” Peter said in a warning voice, “don’t do this. You will be excommunicated and shunned for life.”
I thought of Samantha. She would probably be getting married soon. If I did this, we could no longer write as often. I could not attend her wedding. I knew it was a hard decision I was making in one split second, but it was the right thing to do.
I let the covering fall to the floor. “You will not have the pleasure of excommunicating me, because I am excommunicating myself.”
Everyone in the room stood in stunned silence. I was kind of stunned, too. I had just left the Amish. What had I done? But as shocked as I was, I felt this was the only way to stand up for what I believed in. It was the only way I could live with myself. I could not go through life belonging to a church that hurt people and then silenced them. It just was not in me to do it.
“Emma, don’t do this,” Phyllis pleaded with me. “I know you are angry and sad because of what happened, but you will go to hell for what you are doing.”
I shook my head. I had made up my mind.
“If you leave the church, you will go to hell, Emma,” Peter informed me solemnly.
“You have nowhere to go, Emma,” Lillian said from where she was standing behind Phyllis.
I bit my lip; I had not thought that far ahead yet. “She can stay out back in our trailer until she figures it out,” Karen piped up.
“Yeah,” I fiddled with my apron. “I will stay in the trailer.” Such foreign-sounding words for an Amish girl. I was going to stay by myself in a travel trailer. What a scandal.
Peter looked angrily at Karen. “I want you to get off my property.”
“Nope,” Karen shook her head. “Not going to happen. We have a two-year lease agreement, and if you force me off the land, I will haul your a*s into court and tell the judge everything that went down here today. Do you really want that?”
They stared at us for a moment and then informed me that I was now in the Meidung, a form of punishment worse than the Bann. It was worse than the six-week shunning. It lasted for life or until one came back to the church and repented, agreeing to follow rules of the church. I was an outcast: no church member could eat with me, take gifts from me, or socialize with me. About once a year, a shunned person is allowed short visits with relatives, maybe for a few hours or even a day if they belong to a close-knit family. But usually these visits are so uncomfortable, the shunned person returns less and less, and then, eventually, not all. The official shunning would come later, but I already knew I would be in the Meidung. I had left the church of my own free will.
As they turned to file out of the house, Peter suddenly turned and stepped over to where I was standing. My first reaction was to back away, but I did not. I didn’t want him to see how much he scared me.
He just stood there menacingly, his eyes reminding me of Brian’s. There was something very wrong in the way he looked at me.
I felt sick and my body began shaking violently. After they left, I ran outside and vomited in the tall grass.
I sat there for a few minutes and looked out over the rich farmland—everything that I loved and knew so well. I knew I would miss these familiar surroundings and my daily activities. I knew nothing beyond being an Amish girl. I knew how to cook, take care of children and I loved quilting and sewing. But all of that was not going to matter anymore. I was no longer Amish. That very thought was unreal, and I felt as if I were in a dream. Did I really have what it took to leave everything I knew behind and start out on my own? I knew I did not possess this strength on my own, but my firm belief in God would get me through. I truly believed He was guiding me to do this.
I thought of Brian and Mamma and wondered if they would ever find out I had left. I did not plan to tell them, but I knew Samantha sometimes wrote them and would probably tell, eventually. I could just imagine Brian’s gloating face as he nodded to himself and told Mamma that he had always known that I had a Jezebel spirit.
I shook myself out of my reverie. I had left the Amish; that was all there was to it. Now I was going to pursue the dreams I had been repressing all my life. I was going to find a way to be a medical missionary. I knew it would be a long, hard journey, but I believed it was my true destiny. I believed that my intense faith in God would guide me through the rough, trying days ahead.
Eventually, I went back into the house, where Carl and Karen were waiting for me.
I sat down in a chair and just looked at the floor.
“Emma,” Carl addressed me after a moment. “We have to figure out where you are going to live.”
Karen shook her head. “It is not safe for you here, Emma. Where can you go?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said in the same numb voice. I thought hard for a moment. Where was I going to go?
“Well,” Carl thought for a moment, “there is that halfway house you stayed in for a month, Karen. I’m sure we could talk to the lady in charge; they would probably take Emma in and help her get situated.”
Karen nodded at first, but then shook her head. “Look at her, Carl,” she pointed to me. “She does not look a day older than fourteen. Those women would eat her for lunch.”
Carl nodded. “Well, she can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.”
“Is that what you want to do, Emma?” she asked me.
I nodded. “I’ll contact the YWAM School while I am at the halfway house and find out what I need to do to get into their missionary training school.
“Okay.” Karen got up slowly. “I will take you there, but you are going to need different clothes.”
I looked down at my Amish dress and apron. I wanted to take them off, but I was afraid. I had worn these clothes for so long and had always been taught that to wear anything different was following the ways of the harlot. I had not left the Amish over a desire to dress like the rest of the world, but rather because I wanted to stand up for all the people who had been hurt.
“I don’t want to wear any pants,” I hesitated.What would I wear? “I will still wear dresses, just not
Amish ones.”
“You are going to have a hard time out there like that,” Carl said shaking his head. “Karen only gets away with it because she doesn’t care, but you’re a young girl. It’s going to be different for you.”
I put a hand to my head, and Karen told Carl to shut up as she rummaged through a box. “Here.” She held up a purple dress with blue flowers on it. “This dress was one of the first I tried to make, and it is too tight and too short for me. You might be able to wear it.”
I took the dress and asked Karen if I could borrow one of her scarves. Not having my head covered made me feel naked and as if I were doing something very bad. She handed me a white one, and I went behind their room divider, took off my coat and unpinned my teal Amish dress and apron. My hands trembled as I looked in the large mirror that leaned against the wall. I looked at the tear in the front of my dress and at my ashen-colored face. I kept asking myself what I was doing—my body seemed to be acting without my direction. I looked down at the dress and apron that lay on the floor.
I felt that everything these clothes represented had been a lie. Now, at twenty-two years old, I was just beginning to realize that my life had been based on a lie. I had been told that the Amish way was the only way to heaven, but now as I thought about it, I realized that almost everything they claimed was in the Bible was not there. I had always known this, but I had never let my mind fully process it before.
I slipped into the flowered dress and stared in the mirror as I fastened the pink pearl buttons. The dress did not have a collar, and the neck line fell below my collar bone, making me feel a little uncomfortable. The dress was huge on my small frame, but at least it was not Amish, I thought. Having the flowers on the dress was a strange feeling, too, but I was sure there was nothing in the Bible that said women had to wear solid-colored clothing. I knotted the white scarf and then balled up my Amish dress and apron and put them in the bucket Karen used as a trash can.
Tears of the Silenced Page 21