Kornwolf (14 page)

She walked back down the stairs and proceeded to circle the house in agitation. An image of panic, impatience and rage, she parted the crowd, neighbors and friends, without greeting in search of an open window. She added to an already tangible air of unease that hung over the scene like a pall. While everyone else seemed inclined to maintain a veneer of normality, or subtle disquiet, Grizelda alone made no attempt to curb her outward display of worry. Embarrassed, Abraham, and even to some extent Barbara, attempted to cover for her, to pose a distraction, with awkwardly forced outpourings of joy at the sight of neighbors. These attempts were unsuccessful. Grizelda's presence was undeniable. And no one dared step forward to calm her—Abraham, her husband, least of all. While essentially respected, Grizelda was known as a problematically willful woman. Which is to say, she ruled her household. Abraham Hostler couldn't control her.

And neither could Benedictus, for that matter. Though he and Grizelda, as brother and sister, maintained an unwarlike repose in proximity, the two hadn't spoken a word in years. Long ago, they had come to an impasse.

Following the death of Ephraim's mother, Benedictus had gone on a three-week drunk. Beyond any doubt, by his own admission, he hadn't been fit for the task of parenting. Thereby, Grizelda, herself a new mother at the time, had been given charge of the boy. Which, on the whole, had been accepted by most of the community as being for the better. For three years, she had raised him as one of her own. In that time, Benedictus had shown no interest in having anything to do with him. Even after becoming a minister, he'd never stopped by to see his son. It was only when community demand had come to bear that he started to press for custody. An ordained minister should have been able to raise his only child, it was felt.

Staunchly opposed, Grizelda had taken the matter straight to the district council and, to it, before him as one of its members, pronounced him completely unfit for the task.

Even though Benedictus had been granted custody with little deliberation, the Minister had never gotten over the fact that his sister would dare to defy him in public. From that day forward, he had distanced himself from not just the Hostlers, but most of their relatives. He had forbidden Ephraim from more than required contact with any of them.

It seemed that an eon had passed when Bishop Schnaeder called the assembly to file. Responding, the women and girls dropped their bonnets and shawls in a basket brought out from the pantry. Members of the Kachel family gathered overcoats from the boys and men.

First to enter the house were the ordained men. They were followed by the district elders. Then came the middle-aged men. Then the adolescent boys—in single file, down to the youngest—then switching over to the opposite sex, beginning with the unmarried girls and working back up to the crones at the end of the line. At forty-three, Grizelda wound up toward the rear. It took her a while to reach the door, and longer to greet the ordained men inside—as usual, passing her brother in silence—and continuing into the kitchen to drop her bonnet on top of a wooden table, around which
several mothers sat cradling newborn infants and younger children. The walls were painted a cool shade of turquoise and mounted with brass-handled oil lamps. A woodstove crackled and spat in the corner, emitting a field of gentle warmth. A bookshelf lined with scripture stood next to a doorway that led to the sitting room.

She went in.

Most of the assembly was present already.

Copies of
The Ausbund
, the Old Order hymn book, were sitting, face-up, on every bench. A row of chairs toward the front of the room had been reserved for the ordained men. The oldest men in attendance sat with their backs to the wall or in rocking chairs. Behind them: a body of younger men. To Grizelda's right: the unmarried women. And square in the eye of the district body, at peak visibility, front and center, just as she had been dreading all week, seated on the “Sinner's Bench,” as it were (the plank on which those who faced social avoidance were (un)customarily placed during worship), with Gideon Brechbuhl and Colin Gray-bill on either side of him, likewise staked—his shoulders locked in a clench, his head tilted forward, his posture twisted crookedly: Ephraim, guilty until proven innocent.

Fannie would have broken down crying at the sight of him.

Grizelda could hardly bear to look. As though he weren't in for enough already—this morning, this service, this day, the whole season—Ephraim was set for a public shaming.

Benedictus held nothing sacred.

Finally, Bishop Schnaeder called the assembly to order. Grizelda assumed her place toward the rear of the congregation.

Soon, a
Vorsinger
, Jan Pratt, an auctioneer colleague of Jon's by day, addressed the assembly by raising
The Ausbund
and calling for hymn number ninety-eight.

In a doleful, trembling falsetto, Pratt began to sing. Once his pitch was set, the assembly joined in, a cappella. It was painfully slow. The hymn extended for several minutes. Upon its conclusion, the ordained men withdrew to a room upstairs, as scheduled, for
Arbot
, or counsel. Its being two weeks into the final
harvest, custom demanded that autumn affairs and related concerns be brought to the council's attention this morning, before the service. Even though Ephraim's predicament wouldn't have qualified as an autumn affair, the visible rash of welts on his neck was all the excuse Grizelda needed.

As several young men left their benches and filed to the right toward a doorway that led to a staircase, Grizelda rose to her feet and followed them—edging ahead of the wary crowd, forcing everyone back an obliging step—and then up the stairs to the council room door.

She knocked on it, waited for only a moment, then slapped it flush with an open palm.

A startled murmur went up all around her.

Minister Zook opened up, looking visibly shaken. Behind him, around a table sat Bishop Schnaeder, Deacon Byars, Minister Grabers and Benedictus. Before them stood Jonathan Becker, struck with alarm at the sudden appearance of Grizelda. But Grizelda hadn't come for him. He just happened to be there, that was all. Her purpose lay in demanding her nephew's removal at once from the Sinner's Bench: placing him out on display, as such, would accomplish nothing at all, she told them. It was ridiculous, inhumane and thoroughly idiotic treatment—and the boy faced plenty of
that
already …

At the table, Benedictus threw up his hands, as though to say “
Here we go again
.”

He turned away, refusing to look at her.

In spite of him, Grizelda, gently barred from entering the room by Minister Zook, continued to rave, insisting her brother had never been fit to raise beans in a jar, to say nothing of children. One needed only consider the state of his business to know that. Johann Schnaeder got up from the table. He raised his hands while approaching her. “
Please
,” he spoke in German, cutting her off. His tone was firm.

The Schnaeders had always been thought of as sturdy, dependable, scrupulous, God-fearing people. Johann, in keeping with all
of those traits, was known as a man of equal compassion. In the ten years he had served as a bishop (the briefest tenure among the ordained men), he had opposed in theory and (unsuccessfully) in practice the Sinner's Bench. For him, social avoidance without a ruling was unjust, pure and simple. He stood alone on that principle—not even Minister Zook would defy tradition. Nevertheless, alone he
stood
. And not without drawing considerable attention.

Some district members considered the Bishop too soft, too lenient, far too permissive—unlike his predecessor, Bishop Holtz. Schnaeder had succeeded a disciplinarian. Time was, Ephraim—with Colin and Gideon, would have been shunned from The Order already. But Schnaeder was made of different stuff. So was Minister Josef Zook. Of the five ordained men present, the church stood virtually split down the middle on discipline: Grabers and Bontrager favoring more traditional, stricter, hands-on enforcement, Schnaeder and Zook being less inflexible—and Deacon Byars, at eighty-seven, in latter-day geriatric oblivion, vacillating between them, and somehow preserving the church, if only symbolically. Byars, the last of the district's founding clergy, had long been considered the mortar by which the assembly held together. Upon his much-anticipated passing, the church would dissolve into three separate bodies. The Bontrager crowd would remain in place, consigning the district, at last, to ruin; Zook, with a party of fifty less rigid, though fervent souls, would join District Ten; and Schnaeder's group, nearly half of the current church, would found a whole new assembly.

Grizelda felt certain that Schnaeder, of all the ordained men, would be the most sympathetic. Not only was he more progressive-minded, he had issues with Benedictus. Having grown up down the road from her brother, Schnaeder knew Bontrager all too well. He had never considered him fit for the cloth. Ideally, a minister's role in the church involved upholding standards of basic decency—including in business and family matters. Yet Johann Schnaeder had always considered the Minister's line of work obscene.

And as for parenting, one needed only consider the state of Ephraim's tobacco …

Seizing the Bishop's arm and twisting, Grizelda pitted her weight against him and desperately, mournfully begged him to do something, anything please—this couldn't continue.

Again, the Bishop attempted to calm her, gently dislodging himself from her grasp, then imposing his own with a firm command: “Be quiet, Grizelda,” he whispered in English. He fixed her gaze, overriding it. “
Please
.”

Abruptly, the young men crowding the stairwell behind her, watching, caught Schnaeder's attention.

He backed her into the hallway, shut the door behind them, turned and, gently leading her by one arm, proceeded down the hall to a second door. He opened it, pushed her inside and stepped in. She flinched at the sound of the door slamming shut. Turning to face her, he spoke in hushed frustration. “Now
listen
…”

She took a step back.

Holding his voice at a low, intent whisper, the Bishop explained how first, aside from their placement on the Sinner's Bench—an informal, draconian custom observed (almost) exclusively in District Seven—the boys were not to be singled out in speech or deed throughout the service. Their case was to be discussed in two weeks' time at the regional autumn council. Judgment would be reserved until then, Sunday, October 31st. The council, arranged to convene in New Holland, would be comprised of selected ordained men from thirty-one districts throughout the state. When the moment arrived, Schnaeder explained—leaning forward and dropping his volume further—this matter would be addressed to the whole of the regional panel for a detailed review. Bishop Schnaeder himself would see to it. Ephraim's recent encounter with Officer Beaumont had struck a community nerve. Demand had arisen not only to chastise the boy—by excommunication, if needed—but to figure out what in the world was wrong with him, and to make sure it never happened again. Being more than a nuisance, he had become a cultural hazard /
liability. Simply removing him wouldn't suffice. His condition would have to be sorted out. Meaning: a long-awaited assessment of Minister Bontrager's role as a guardian—and thereby, his place in the whole community—would be up, at last, for a proper review.

The Bishop had waited a long time for this. He couldn't let anyone jeopardize it. Creating a scene here would only hinder his coming appeal. This was a critically delicate juncture. A service devoid of strife was imperative. Grizelda, for all of her good intentions, was placing the chance of a lifetime at risk.

Aside from that, he understood her concern—and promised her this, on his word of honor: he would do everything possible to have the young man removed from the Minister's home. The coming storm would be long overdue, and would justly purge a good deal of The Basin. Once it was over, with God's blessing, Ephraim, absolved of all culpability, would remain in the fold—under her care, presumably.

But until then, Grizelda was interfering. As much as it pained her to stand back and watch, she would now have to do exactly that. If left unprovoked, her brother would surely hold his peace—for the moment, at least.

Acquiescing to Schnaeder's command, Grizelda stood nonetheless unconvinced. Johann Schnaeder was not to blame for his ignorance. And clearly, his intentions were noble.

He just didn't understand what he was dealing with.

Two weeks from now, it would be too late.

She turned away without further comment. In silence, the Bishop watched her slowly walk to the door with her head hung low.

Before leaving, she turned to look back at him—standing there, bathed in the glow of an oil lamp. He nodded solemnly.

Staring back, Grizelda lost all hope in the church.

The
Lobleib
, traditionally the second hymn of every service, was underway as she slowly reentered the sitting room. Drawing stern,
wholly unamused looks all around, she resumed her place at the bench and ignored them. She made no attempt to join in the singing. She didn't pick up her copy of
The Ausbund
. She didn't even look at her husband or children. All she could do was fixate on Ephraim, staring intently at the back of his head. Flanked by Colin and Samuel, deliberately centered, though lesser in stature and width, he was sweating already: a flow from his scalp, down his neck. The Sunday shirt clung to his back.

Jonathan, appearing from the kitchen, reentered the sitting room, an image of sainthood in contrast: walking tall, bespectacled, oiled and powdered and clean as an April shower—with every snag in his trousers hemmed, every hook and eye on his vest well-polished. Down the aisle, he attracted the gaze of the whole assembly. He sang as he walked. He returned to his seat, to the right of and four rows behind the Sinner's Bench.