River's Edge (28 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: River's Edge
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The door opened just as I finished reading. Mama, Cookie and the boys tumbled in talking and laughing and dripping wet. Everyone was smiling, and Mama shouted orders in a cheery voice as she walked in behind her brood.
“Boys, go on upstairs and get dried off! Comb your hair, and don't leave any wet towels on the floor. Hang them up in the bathroom to dry.” The boys complied, greeting me noisily as they raced up the stairs. “Cookie, you can help me put away the picnic things and get supper ready.”
“Yes, Mama. Hi, Elise!” exclaimed Cookie. “It was so hot we all went down to the river for a swim. You should have come!”
“Cookie, you know Elise was at work,” Mama reminded her daughter as she scurried happily about the kitchen putting away the remnants of a picnic lunch she was carrying in a basket and rinsing off the dirty picnic plates. “I tried to get them to wait, Elise, but the boys were all complaining so about the heat that I finally gave in. I hope you don't mind, dear. You must be exhausted after working all day in the tents. Why don't you let me run you a nice, cool bath before supper?”
Cookie interrupted before I could answer, not that I was making any attempt to do so. “Mama?” Cookie said and looked at me with concern. “Mama, I think Elise is crying.”
“What?” she asked, looking up. “Elise? What's the matter?”
She glanced from my face to the sheets of stationery covered with Junior's handwriting that were clasped in my hand, and she turned pale. “Is it Junior? Is something wrong?”
“No!” I assured her quickly, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “Nothing like that. It's just that, I was reading Junior's letter and he was praising me for my work at Mr. Jorgenson's—”
“As well he should!” Mama interrupted. She walked across the kitchen to lay her arm comfortingly around my shoulder. “We're all so proud of you, Elise. You're such a help to me, both of you are. Cookie is doing a wonderful job taking care of the house and freeing me up to take over Papa's pastoral duties, and the money you've given me has been an absolute answer to a prayer. I don't know what I'd do without you girls—that's a fact.” She beamed a smile at us both.
I was trying hard to control my emotions, but Mama's words launched me into a fresh wave of tears. “I got fired today!”
“What?” Cookie exclaimed.
“Mr. Jorgenson fired you? I can't believe it! Why?” Mama asked.
I told them the whole story. When I finished, Cookie was fuming. “That's not fair! You're his best worker, and he fired you just because you're German? It's not like you are over there firing guns or anything! How can people be so stupid?” she cried indignantly.
“Mr. Jorgenson didn't fire Elise because she's German,” Mama corrected her quietly, though I sensed that in spite of her calm reaction she was just as mad at the old farmer as Cookie was. “He did it because if he hadn't, his whole workforce would have walked out on him and his crop would have rotted in the fields. He must have felt like they had him over a barrel, but that doesn't make it right.” She furrowed her brow and shook her head, wearing an expression that was half disbelief, half disappointment.
“I feel like such a fool,” I muttered. “Mrs. Ludwig warned me that people would blame me when the war came, but I didn't really believe her. It just didn't seem possible that people in Brightfield could act like that. Not when they've known me for so long.
“When I think about how happy I was when he called to me this afternoon,” I spat in disgust, marveling at my own naïveté, “how I was thinking he might give me another raise! I was making plans for how to spend the extra money. I wanted to take you all to dinner and a movie. The other girls watched me leave the tent all happy and smiling, and they knew! They knew he was going to fire me. They told him to do it, and they were standing there laughing at me. I hate them!”
“Oh, Elise,” Mama said mournfully and reached up to push my hair tenderly back from my forehead. “You mustn't. They were just as wrong as they could be, but you mustn't hate them. Hate doesn't change anything, and if you give into it, you'll end up saying and doing things you'll regret.”
I thought about Mr. Jorgenson and how I'd wounded him with my words. Mama was right, but I didn't tell her so, and I couldn't bring myself to forgive the other women or forget their mocking expressions. “I can't help it, Mama. They made me feel so ... so ashamed,” I whispered.
“Ashamed!” Cookie retorted hotly. “What in the world do you have to be ashamed about? You didn't do anything.”
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. “I don't know exactly, but it was just like when I was new at school, when I first came here. The kids made fun of my clothes and my accent, and even though they were the ones who were being mean, I felt like it was my fault. Like I must be doing something wrong.”
“Working at Mr. Jorgenson's made me feel like I really belonged here,” I went on, “like I was finally of some use. You've all been so good to me, Mama. From the first day I came, you treated me like one of the family.”
“You
are
one of the family,” Mama interrupted.
“But I didn't feel that way, not really. When you accepted the money from me, I finally felt like I belonged here, because for the first time, I was actually helping the family.”
“Elise, you've always been a great help to me,” Mama corrected.
“Well,” said Cookie wryly with a half-grin on her face. “ ‘Always' might be stretching the truth. You may recall she broke about ten dozen glasses in the first year or so.” Cookie raised her eyebrows and bit her bottom lip, and her expression was so comical that I couldn't help but laugh through my tears. Mama and Cookie joined in, and I felt a little better.
I took my handkerchief from my pocket and blew my nose. “I guess there's no point in standing here feeling sorry for myself. What are we going to make for supper?” I walked over to where the aprons were hanging and took a clean one off a hook. “I'll give you a hand.”
Mama followed me and took the apron out of my hand. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I thought you said you were taking us all out for a night on the town.”
“Yes,” I answered slowly, “but that was before I was fired.”
“What does that matter?” Mama asked, her eyes sparkling playfully. “You got paid, didn't you? I say we all go out and enjoy ourselves.” She hung the apron back on the hook and called up the stairs, “Boys! Put on some clean shirts and slacks I had ironed for Sunday! We're going out!”
Cookie ran over and gave Mama a squeeze. “Good idea! I'm going to run upstairs and fix my hair and change. C'mon, Elise!” Her feet tripped lightly up the stairs as she called to the boys, informing them she wanted the bathroom next.
All this gaiety in the face of our sudden poverty was confusing to me. “Mama,” I protested, “don't you think it would be better to save our money for a rainy day? There's nowhere for me to work around here except Mr. Jorgenson's.”
Mama smiled, and the peaceful expression on her face was more than a display of mere bravado in the face of adversity. She radiated a genuine confidence. “Elise, do you remember what I said when Papa left?”
“You said we weren't going to be helpless.”
“That's right, and we haven't been. You especially. We've all pulled together, and through hard work and the grace of God, we've had everything we needed at just the moment we needed it. It's been a pretty good plan so far, wouldn't you agree?”
I nodded an affirmation, but my agreement was tentative. “But, Mama. It's going to be a long war. Everyone says so. It could be months and months before Papa is home and making his old salary.” I didn't mention what would happen if Papa didn't come back at all. “Don't you think it would be wise to keep something in reserve?”
“Elise, it is because it will be a long war that we need to budget for a few pleasures now and then, to keep up our morale so we can stand up to the days ahead, even the dark days. Don't worry so much,” Mama said, as she observed the doubt that was still written on my face.
“Before you got that job, we didn't know how we were going to be ready for winter, but we didn't despair. We prayed and worked, and God provided. It's been a pretty good plan, and it's worked for us so far. Let's not toy with success.” Mama grinned and jerked her chin in the direction of the staircase. “Now, go on up with the others and get changed,” she said. “If we don't get a move on, we'll be late for the movie. I don't want to miss the newsreel.”
Wanting so much to believe she was right, I mirrored Mama's encouraging smile, but I couldn't quite bring myself to embrace her faith in happy endings. As I climbed the stairs, I remembered the circle of women standing by and drinking in my humiliation with ill-concealed pleasure. The war had barely started. Not a single American soldier's boot had taken a step on German soil, and yet those women who hardly knew me were more than willing to label me the enemy. Mr. Jorgenson, who did know me and seemed to like me, let them do it. Helped them do it. Mrs. Ludwig had warned me about it; now I knew why.
Once the real fighting was underway, when the battle reports and casualty lists started coming on thick and fast, when the sons of Brightfield and the sons of Berlin stared down their gun barrels at one another, who would be willing to make me play the scapegoat then? Who would be willing to believe that I was just an innocent bystander? Would I even believe that myself?
Chapter 18
Christmas 1943
 
“
C
ookie! Where do you want us to set it up?”
I turned away from the ladder I was holding to see who was speaking. For a moment I thought the voice was coming from an enormous four-legged shrubbery that seemed to be walking up the aisle toward the altar. Two red heads emerged from under the greenery and shouted at Cookie, who was perched on the highest rung of the ladder, her mouth full of nails and her hands full with the hammer and the large, prickly Christmas wreath she was trying to hang at exactly the same height as the wreath we'd placed on the other side of the sanctuary.
“Cookie, c'mon already!” Chip demanded. “It's heavy!”
Cookie looped the wreath over her arm and spit the nails out of her mouth into her free hand. “My gosh! That tree is huge!”
“Fifteen feet,” Chuck reported proudly. “And it weighs a ton and is dripping melted snow on me, so where do you want it?”
“Over there,” she said. “In the corner next to the piano. Be careful not to drop needles all over the floor.”
Ignoring her admonition about dropping needles, the boys hauled the tree over to the corner. Cookie hooked the wreath on the nail she'd just hammered, then climbed down from the ladder, bringing the tools with her. Her face was smudged with dirt and evergreen pitch. “We should have measured the other one before we tried to hang this one,” she admitted wearily as she looked up at the unevenly hung wreath.
“Let's help the boys with the tree and try again after we've had a break,” I suggested.
Cookie nodded. Her gaze shifted to the aisle, and she sighed as she noticed the trail of pine needles on the carpet runner. “I'll get out the sweeper and clean them up later. They sure make a mess, but I have to admit, they picked out a beautiful tree.”
By this time, the boys had pushed the evergreen into an upright position. Cookie and I walked over to admire it. The whole church was filled with the fresh, sharp, resin smell of newly cut pine. “Boys, you did a great job, but it's so big! Are you sure you'll be able to keep it upright?” Cookie asked doubtfully. “If it falls on the choir in the middle of a song, I'll never forgive you!”
“Not to worry, Little Lady,” Chip said in an artificially low, theatrically officious voice. Now fifteen, the twins towered over all the women in the house and had taken to calling all of us—Cookie, Mama and myself—“Little Lady” at every possible opportunity.
“We have that all figured out. My brilliant brother,” Chip continued pompously, in his best carnival-barker imitation, “Chuck Muller, Esquire, is going to climb to the top of the ladder and, working without a net, drill a large eye-screw directly into the spot above the dead center of the tree. I will then—again without use of nets, mirrors, or protective devices—tie several pieces of high-test, nearly invisible fishing line to strategic tree branches and run them up to the ceiling and through the eye screw, thus insuring the tree will continue to remain secure and upright during the entire performance.” Chip grinned and took a bow as his brother applauded enthusiastically.
“Besides,” Chuck piped in cheerily, “if it did fall, it'd probably only hit Elise, anyway. She's the one who'll be closest to it.”
“Oh well! If it's only going to hit Elise,” Chip joked, “then I say we leave it as is. Save ourselves some work.”
“Ha. Ha. You're hilarious,” I said flatly and rolled my eyes at the grinning twins. “What I want to know is how you were able to afford such an enormous tree? I thought Cookie said we only had a couple of dollars to spend on a tree.”
“Yeah,” Cookie said, “how much was this one? Mr. Collier must have given you a great break on the price.”
“Well”—Chip scratched his nose and sniffed—“we didn't quite go to Collier's. That is, we went, but the only trees we could afford there were so scrawny that we decided on an alternate plan.”
“Chip?” Cookie questioned, a tone of warning creeping into her voice. I tried to suppress a smile. The twins really were incorrigible, always into some kind of trouble or another, but they were so funny that it was impossible to stay mad at them for long. Besides, their hearts were in the right place. “Chip,” Cookie continued, “where did you get that tree?”
“Back of Hazelton's place,” Chip reported unapologetically.
“You didn't take it from the yard!” Cookie was aghast, but the twins just grinned at each other. “Did you at least ask Mr. Hazelton if it was all right to cut it?” Cookie asked weakly, but I was sure she already knew the answer.
“Sheesh, Cookie! Don't get so worked up. It was way on the back corner of the property, and he's got at least six or seven others bigger'n this. I did knock on the door to ask if it was okay to cut it,” Chip said.
“Not very loud, you didn't!” Chuck reported gleefully. “Mr. Hazelton's so deaf you'd have to knock with a sledgehammer to rouse him.”
“That may be true, but at least I tried. Mr. Hazelton was unavailable for consultation, so I took matters into my own hands.”
Cookie groaned, and Chip sighed impatiently before continuing, “Oh, come on, Cookie. He's about ninety years old! He never goes out in the yard anymore. He won't even know it's gone. Besides, if we had been able to ask him, I'm sure he would've agreed. Two of his great-grandsons are in the navy. Heck! He should be proud to have his tree as the star of the show at our benefit”—Chip's hands spread wide toward the towering evergreen, and the theatrical timbre returned to his voice as it raised to a stirring crescendo—“shin-ing goodwill down on the audience, filling them with that warm, glowing spirit of giving and a patriotic fervor that'll inspire them to toss wads of paper money into the collection plate and buy war bonds in large denominations!”
“Makes me proud just to think of it!” affirmed Chuck, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.
Cookie shook her head in defeat. “If anybody finds out ...”
“They won't!” the twins promised in unison.
I agreed. “They're right, Cookie. I'm sure Mr. Hazelton won't even realize it's gone, and it does look awfully nice there.” Cookie murmured doubtfully, and I put my arm around her. “It'll be even prettier when we decorate it. Come on. Let's go get the ornaments down from the attic.”
Chip winked at me as I led his sister away in search of Christmas decorations. “It
is
pretty,” she admitted in a hushed voice, then, biting her lip thoughtfully, she asked, “Do you think we'll have enough ornaments?”
The Brightfield Battlefield Benefit Christmas Concert had been Cookie's idea originally, but it didn't take long for the whole family and quite a few folks from the congregation to get behind it.
Tickets were one dollar each, fifty cents for children under twelve, which, together with any extra donations people gave during the collection and proceeds from concessions, promised to raise $500 for the USO, maybe more. Additionally, Mr. Loomis, one of the church deacons who also sat on the local draft board and had contacts in the state government, had arranged for a special appearance by Shirley Calloway to come and sell war bonds at intermission and sign an autograph for everyone who bought a bond. Miss Calloway wasn't exactly what you'd call a shining star in the Hollywood firmament, but she'd had speaking parts in a couple of Westerns. Everybody was excited about having a real, live actress in Brightfield.
Tickets sold out in the first couple of days, so we'd decided to put extra folding chairs in the balcony and aisles to accommodate as many people as possible. Suddenly what had seemed like a nice, patriotic means to make a few dollars for a worthy cause took on a life of much bigger proportions than Cookie had ever imagined. With the concert less than two days away, she was understandably nervous.
I was nervous, too, and had been from almost the first moment Cookie told me about the concert and asked me to play for it.
“You've just got to help me, Elise! People are going to be paying good money to attend. We need some real musicians!”
“No, Cookie. Look at all the names on your list. You don't need me.”
She glanced at the clipboard she was carrying and scanned the list of acts. “I've got numbers, but no talent. Albert Grimes is going to do a violin solo, but he's more fiddle player than violinist, and Mrs. Soames volunteered to sing an aria from
Carmen.
”
Cookie's forehead creased with worry as she mentioned Mrs. Soames. “She was so excited about it that I couldn't really tell her no, but she's pushing sixty, and sometimes she kind of slips off the note. Come on, Elise! You've got to help me!” she pleaded. “I don't want this to turn into some amateur-hour talent show. You're the only one in town who can play or sing well enough to make it a real concert. I want you to play something really impressive. Something grand!” Her eyes and face lit up as a new idea popped into her mind. “A concerto or something like that!”
“Cookie, that's crazy!” I said, trying to help her see reason. “You need an orchestra for a concerto, and all we've got is Chester Grimes and some kids who play drum and bugle for Boy Scout jamborees. We can't pull off something like that.”
“Fine,” she replied efficiently. “What could we pull off? What about that thing I heard you practicing the other day? The really hard one?”
I knew exactly what piece she talking about, but I hesitated before answering. “The Sonata in C Minor?” It was the composition I had attempted, unsuccessfully, to learn so many years before. The one piece of music that I'd thought could save my mother's life and heal the hurts of the world. I hadn't touched it since she died until I'd found it a few weeks previously when I'd been going through my old music folders. Looking at the complex tangle of notes graphed on the staff, I knew that it was just as complicated as it had always been and that my earlier struggle to master it had not been for want of talent or technical expertise. The music was as challenging as any I had played, but the difficulty lay not just in musical technique but in something that couldn't quite be expressed in mere musical notation. No, this music required honesty and maturity, a willingness to be vulnerable and emotionally bare in order to play the music and not just the notes. I wasn't sure I was ready for that, but something compelled me to try to master it—not as a performance piece but for myself alone. I had not intended that Cookie or anyone else would ever hear me play it. “The Mozart Sonata in C Minor?”
“Yeah! That one! I heard you working on it. It's perfect!”
I paused a moment before answering. “Oh, Cookie. I don't know ...”
“Great! Piano solo by Elise Braun!” She seized upon my indecision and her pencil, and scribbled my name on her list. “Thanks, Elise!”
“Now, wait a minute!” I protested. “I just started working on it, and I'm miles from ready. I'm not sure this is a good idea. I don't know how I'll find time to practice.” That wasn't an excuse, just the simple truth. We were all working to the point of exhaustion. After graduation that spring, Cookie had taken a job as a seamstress at a plant in Harmon that made military uniforms, backpacks, and tents. Mama had been busier than ever, seeing to the spiritual needs of Brightfield's growing population of widows and orphans. In addition, she had volunteered to roll bandages and assemble packages for the Red Cross whenever she had a spare moment. This left me as the logical person to take care of the house and children. We never really discussed it, but after my experiences working at Mr. Jorgenson's, I think we all sensed it wouldn't be good for me to make myself conspicuous by taking a job in one of the myriad industrial plants that had sprung up as part of the war economy.
The pre-storm calm of two years before had definitely passed. The war was in full, bloody flower, and the citizens of Brightfield were gripped by patriotic fervor and righteous hatred of their enemies. I read the newspaper accounts of battles taking place abroad. I added up the numbers killed in battle, and I saw the pain written on the faces of the waiting wives and parents who opened Defense Department telegrams with trembling hands, knowing the worst even before they read the dreaded phrase, “We regret to inform you.” I could not blame them for despising their German and Japanese foes.

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