A Grain of Wheat

by Joseph Jacobson

  “Kay,” he said. The words stuck in his throat. Then, bursting through under their own pressure, they came rushing out. “Will you come with me to Christiania? I can’t face the future without you.”

  Her only answer was a tighter squeeze, a more audible sob of joy, and a jerking nod of her head. He clasped her to himself. He would not be alone anymore, no longer a lonely figure in a callous world. Not alone anymore!

  When eventually they loosened their grip on each other, they laid their heads back in peace, side by side. They were englobed by a serene thrill, cupped in the soothing hands of the life that lay ahead of them. The moon inched above the horizon and soon was showering them with its cool beams. The air was getting chillier now, but they weren’t ready to move away yet.

  “Kay, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-six last April.”

  “I was forty-six last January.”

  “See, I was right. You’re not old.”

  “I don’t feel very old right now.”

  “To me you feel very strong,” she remarked, running her hand up and down his chest.

  “What will people say? The hoary-headed professor with the beautiful young wife. And newly-weds yet!”

  “It will be fun for me to hear what folks have to say. I won’t care. Will you?”

  “Let them talk.”

  Then he took her by the hand and lifted her to her feet where, for the first time, they kissed each other standing up, a long and love-drenched kiss, bathed in bright silvery moonbeams.

  Just then an elderly spinster, a member of the local school board, happened by. She gazed at them from a little distance with her hands planted on her hips until she had had too much.

  “Well, I declare, Miss Kunstler! I’m sure the board will be interested in a report on the nocturnal activities of its young grade-school teacher and her affairs with tramps!”

  Steve and Kay fell apart like two positive magnets. But Kay speedily recovered her poise and retorted cheerily, “Miss Hinckel, I want you to meet my fiancé, Dr. Stephan Pearson.”

  The old lady’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. She looked Steve over from head to toe.

  “Well, I declare! Doctor Pearson! Well, ah…. Congratulations, that is!”

  And she bustled off to town to spread the news.

  XVII

  The very next day, Dr. Stephan Pearson sent two letters. The first was to Christiania College, informing them that he was available for appointment to a position on its staff in any of the Departments of Physics, Mathematics, or Chemistry and briefly outlining his activities since graduating from that institution. The second was to the institute in Pittsburg, resigning his position there and requesting that they make all the security arrangements necessary for his departure. Then in the afternoon he put on his best clothes, drove down to pick up Miss Katherine Kunstler after school, and with her paid a visit to the county clerk to buy a marriage license and then went on to Kay’s minister to make arrangements for a simple wedding the day after school was out.

  Christiania College had, of course, followed Dr. Pearson’s career with some interest. Upon receiving his letter, the administration was so elated that it found it hard to sound professional in the return letter. It offered him the professorship of physics that had for two years been in the hands of an acting chairman. This would involve not only the duties of the chairman of the Department of Physics but also the responsibility of serving as head of the entire faculty of science and mathematics. When Steve showed the letter to Kay, he beamed and said, “Who would ever have thought I would become another Brockhaus?” Then he entertained her with some tales about his old teachers at Christiania.

  And so in the fall of 1947, Dr. and Mrs. Stephan Pearson gratefully and joyfully took up residence in the little town of St. Mark, Minnesota. For nearly a decade, the black storm clouds in Dr. Pearson’s soul receded to the distant horizon, all but obliterated by the brilliant sunlight shining directly overhead.

  THE END OF BOOK TWO

  Book Three A

  I

  There is really no need to enter into a detailed explanation of why the mantle of serenity dropped around Dr. and Mrs. Pearson for the next decade. A newfound love, a newfound mission, and a renewed faith in God for both of them combined to hold at bay the menaces of doubt and guilt and a deteriorating world situation.

  Easily the most prominent stabilizer in Dr. Pearson’s life was Kay. She must have known her heart well when she married Steve. The life into which he led her was wholly compatible with all she held dearest and best, and in return she gave him the vicarious pleasure of living with someone who was as adoring and playful as she was basically happy.

  In their first year at Christiania, she witnessed the healthful effects which the radical change in his life was working on him—the disappearance of his morbid imagination, the restoration of his gentle humor, the regeneration of his faith in the good of what he was doing, the personal investment he was making in his students. Witnessing the rebirth of the new man out of the old stuff, she could scarcely contain her joy. She virtually bubbled over in her own cleverly educated way. Steve knew that the reason she was so happy was because of what he and his work meant to her. And that made him very happy in turn.

  During the first year of their marriage, Kay derived all the sense of fulfillment she required from supporting him in his rehabilitation. It helped that the college administration made no secret of their satisfaction with every aspect of how he was discharging his many responsibilities, whether in the classroom, in the laboratory, or in his administrative roles. It was enough for her to be at home when he came home, to pour him a glass of sherry and make him comfortable when he was bone-weary, to offset his habitual inclination to work too hard, to serve him delicious meals, to go to church with him and to hold his hand as they worshiped, to massage his shoulders and back in the evening to help him relax, and to love him with all her heart at night.

  Steve had been right, too, in his early estimation of her grace. She had a genius for being able to surprise him with just the thing he needed but would never have asked for on his own—a favorite meal at just the right time, a comfortable pillow as he was dozing off in an awkward position, a choice comment to put a strained situation into a better perspective—in short, a host of thoughtful little gestures which only love can see clearly to do. This same loving discernment of his mind and heart prevented her from getting underfoot—if that were possible!—when he seemed deeply lost in thought. And she appreciated that the accumulated quirks of a solitary middle-aged bachelor were not going to vanish overnight just because he was now married.

  Nor was the concern all on one side by any means. Steve was not being doted into presenile complacency by his pretty young wife. On the contrary, their relationship was fully interdependent, for Steve soon discovered that Kay had not been exaggerating when she called herself very diabetic. Her balance between the semblance of perfect health and a state of desperate illness was as precarious as Steve’s had once been between apparently sound mental health and periodic dips into depression. But she was one of those remarkable people who make this fact difficult to detect. She never complained of it, never even spoke of it. Of course, she watched her diet even when she prepared a hearty meal for Steve, but one might have attributed this to the self-discipline that kept her trim and in good physical shape. Her long walks while Steve was at work and their lengthy strolls together on the weekends could just as well have been seen as rooted in lifestyle practices, not health issues. There was little external evidence of the delicate blood sugar/insulin balance she always had to be on guard to maintain.

  Nevertheless, Steve was never unaware of it. From the day not long after their arrival when he returned home to find her slipping into a diabetic coma resulting in a very quick trip to the hospital, he appointed himself her defender and guardian. This accounted for the fact that he would phone home two or three times during each work day unless she had planned in advance to be gone
for the day with a friend. No matter how much she did for him, he never saw himself as a passive recipient, but always as the special protector of his lovely but fragile wife. This prevented their relationship from growing lopsided. They both knew how much they depended upon one another. Each loved the other dearly and was dearly loved in return.

  In the first year of their marriage, they experienced only one serious disagreement. Kay, who had been orphaned at the age of ten, had received a good but firm upbringing at the hands of her maternal grandparents. They had taught her by example the worth of affection and concern for others, devoting their last and weakest years to her with singular unselfishness. She especially remembered their tender vigil over her when at the age of fifteen she slipped into her first diabetic coma. After the war broke out, it seemed that the spirit of these patriotic octogenarians broke with it. Both died within months. As soon thereafter as she was able, Kay applied to join the Red Cross, keeping a commitment to her grandmother which she had willingly made. As a diabetic, she was automatically rejected. But being Kay, she had persisted until they gave in and accepted her with certain restrictions. Soon she found herself near the thick of the fracas, giving of the love that had been given to her. We have already caught a glimpse of how the plight of war orphans unhinged her. This, together with her not fully accepted inability to have children of her own, earned her the nickname Mother Katherine from her coworkers. None was so dedicated to these waifs as Mother Katherine, none so patient with them, none so sympathetic to their acting out, none so able to draw them out of themselves. She could put smiles on empty expressionless faces and even bring tears of love to long-shriveled eyes.

  For her, there was no question of what she must do after returning home. Already possessing the basic formal qualifications of a grade school teacher, she had no trouble securing a suitable position in Ciel des Montagnes, forty miles from where she had grown up. Grateful as she was for this, and much as she enjoyed her pupils, she sensed deeply that something was missing from her life—the love of a man, of the right man. As we have seen, when Steve came along, he was her man. And the joy of having a man like him to love eclipsed for a time the pain of knowing she must remain childless. But after several months of marriage, her longing for children resurfaced. This was the cause of their first and only serious disagreement.

  Even before their wedding, Steve, once he had grasped the seriousness of Kay’s condition, immediately set to work to find out how they could consummate their union safely. He began his research in the local library in Ciel des Montagnes and then consulted the local physician who lent him some medical books which proved helpful. Based on what he learned, he drew up a chart that told them which days in the course of her menstrual cycle were absolutely “safe” for intercourse. The main complication was the irregularity of her cycles caused by her diabetes and by the insulin that kept it in check. But Kay and Steve resolved to work together on it to ensure that they would make love only on those days when they could be absolutely sure that she could not get pregnant. To be on the safe side, the chart Steve drew up gave broad leeway for error. This turned the few “safe days” available to them every month into a veritable monthly honeymoon.

  Condoms were out of the question. Steve’s research told him they could not be trusted. Their failure rate was much too high. Both Steve and Kay had friends whose experience attested to that fact.

  In any case, one evening when they were still five days shy of her “safe period,” she came after Steve with an aggressiveness normally reserved for the “safe period.” He backed away from her in confusion. She pressed ahead. He rolled over and exclaimed in alarm, “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

  “My love,” she pleaded, “let’s either try to have a child, someone to call you Daddy, or let’s give up this rigmarole.”

  She had been acting funny ever since he’d got home. Now he knew why. Her hormones were raging. This would be the absolutely worst time to make love!

  “A child? You and I? So that’s it…. You know we can’t have children; we can only have each other. Isn’t that enough? Are our intimate times nothing but rigmarole to you?”

  Steve was both frightened by her actions and deeply hurt by her words. Lying beside her in bed under the dim light, he broke out in a cold sweat. In the pit of his stomach, it felt as if his world was caving in on him.

  Steve’s crestfallen questions cleared Kay’s head in a matter of moments. It dawned on her all at once how badly she had wounded him by what she had said without thinking, and she shrank back in shock from her own words. Watching him before her very eyes wither away into the shadow he had been before she came into his life, she felt like a fool, ashamed and sick at heart. What could she do now to heal the wound she had just ripped open? Painful as the truth was, Steve was absolutely right. It was a matter either of nurturing what they were able to have between the two of them and being thankful for it, or of having nothing at all.

  Steve turned and looked at her in dismay. Disillusionment was etched all over his face. Looking back at him with flushed cheeks, her eyes brimmed over with tears. They hesitated for the merest instant. Then they flew into each other’s clutches.

  “This must not happen again!” whispered Steve, nibbling her ear.

  “Never again!”

  This was a promise she strove never to break, especially as the after-effects of that evening lingered like a cloud over Steve for several weeks. She had a great man to love and sustain. What more could she ask for? She had better set her whole heart on loving him well.

  Despite this temporary setback, Steve’s general progress was upward, decidedly. One of the evidences of this which encouraged Kay was his desire to make and keep new friendships. The fact that he had returned to Christiania in search of some answers spawned in him a motivation to make the acquaintance of those who seemed to have found some of them. Such a man was Dr. Harold Thorsheim, chairman of the Art Department, and such a woman as his wife, Mary, twenty-one years his junior. The Pearsons and the Thorsheims met at the president’s reception for new faculty members. Their mutual delight in meeting another couple with a similar age-spread piqued their interest immediately. Dr. Thorsheim, at sixty-two years of age, looked more like his wife’s father than her husband, and more like their children’s grandfather than their father, even though both of their children were already in their upper teens. These two couples sensed a deeper affinity between them than the circumstances of the reception allowed them to explore. Soon they were gravitating toward each other and spending time together of their own accord.

  Dr. Harold Thorsheim was widely admired in the field of church architecture for his resourcefulness in weaving traditional Christian symbols into the idiom of contemporary construction techniques. Readers will no doubt have been exposed to his inspired and inspiring architectural masterpieces, churches of his design found throughout the Midwest and beyond. He had the ability to penetrate below the surface of a simple object and fashion it to make it speak to you through your eyes. The way he disposed a bare row of joists in the nave of a church, for example, would set the mind of a thoughtful worshiper to meditating on spiritual truths. This sensitivity of his to how the Word of God is always visually communicating Itself throughout creation enabled him to design many churches whose apparently effortless architecture is in reality an inexhaustible fund of triggers for the fertile imagination of the prayerful. There was something about the wedding of scientific principles and spiritual insight in his work that struck a chord with Dr. Pearson. And the artist, for his part, found in Dr. Pearson a similar marriage on a different level, the blending of an insistence on scientific objectivity with a lively concern for the human soul. In any case, here was a scientist who not only listened to him when he strayed off into a rhapsody on some aspect of church architecture, but who often encouraged him to expand on it! Not many of his fellow architects took that much interest in what he had to say!

  Kay and Mary moved just as swiftly to close the gap be
tween them. Kay could not hear enough of Mary’s tales about the blessings of unity and mutual appreciation which the disparity in their ages had brought into their marriage. She could easily foresee many of these blessings in her future years with Steve. They had to concur that the maturity of their spouses added depth and poise to their marriages and counterbalanced their more youthful impetuosity. Mary was delighted to find out that Kay was a grade school teacher. She herself had just returned to teaching two years earlier, ostensibly to help put Carolyn and Peter through college, but really because she loved kids and the challenge of helping them grow into the persons God had created them to become. So there was always plenty of engaging conversation going on between those two women, while their husbands were solving “weightier issues” in the front room.

  Soon after their first Christmas in St. Mark, the Pearsons moved into the house a little beyond the edge of town which was to be their home until the end. Harold Thorsheim had heard that the previous owner was intending to sell and had notified the Pearsons. They were on his doorstep even before he had put it on the market. The place extended an immediate invitation to both Steve and Kay, with its five wooded acres of land, its large garden where Kay could work off those dangerous excess calories, its arbored view of the calm pastoral landscape surrounding it, its invigorating half-mile hike to the hill, its proximity to the Thorsheims whose home was nestled in a secluded grove halfway between them and the college, and the quaint and cozy efficiency of the house itself. When Steve offered to pay the asking price in cash the next day, the seller’s only question was when they wished to move in. If Steve’s years of service to Uncle Sam had done nothing else for him, they had at least fattened his bankroll to the point where, mismanager and generous soul though he was, he was never short of money. Kay never did find out where he had all his money invested or deposited or stashed. I am not sure he himself knew.