Authors: Lynn Austin
When he finally lowered his hand, my cheek felt hot where his fingers had been. Then a careless grin spread across his face as he hid himself again. “So did Eva bake me something good for dessert too?”
For the next hour, we laughed and talked like the good friends we had never been. We were comfortable with each other, our conversation flowing easily, and we shared so much in common, it surprised me. Then I recalled Papa’s words about common traditions making a good basis for marriage, and I remembered Mama’s plans for a match between Markus and me, and I became so panicky I wanted to run. When I heard Mr. Lang rounding up all the children for the games and foot races, I quickly began packing away the picnic things. Markus stopped me, covering my hand with his.
“Can I ask a favor, Katze?”
“You want to take the leftovers home, right?”
“No,” he said, laughing, “it has nothing to do with leftovers. I was wondering if you’d write to me.” His face was serious again.
“Write to you?”
“Yes. It’s only a matter of time before President Wilson declares war on
Germany, and I’m going to enlist in the army as soon as he does. Will you write to me when I’m over in France and tell me what’s going on back here at home?”
“Sure, Markus . . . that is, if I’m home myself. I’m hoping to get out of Bremenville someday soon.”
“I’d be glad to hear from you wherever you are.” He released my hand and helped shove plates and napkins back into the hamper. When we were finished we stood, and I shook the crumbs off the tablecloth. Markus stared at his feet, suddenly shy.
“Can I ask another favor, Katze?”
“What now?”
“Will you give me a kiss to remember you by when I’m slogging through the trenches?” He turned his head and pointed to his cheek.
What’s the harm
? I thought and stepped toward him, closing my eyes. But at the last second he whirled to face me, kissing me full on the lips! He caught my bobbed hair in his hand and held my mouth against his until he had taken his fill. When he finally released me, my head spun. I was too stunned to remember to slap him.
“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since your sister’s wedding three years ago,” he said as he sauntered away, laughing. “Now I can die a happy man.”
When the United States declared war on Germany, Markus Bauer enlisted along with millions of other American men “to help make the world safe for democracy.” He came home for a brief visit before Uncle Sam shipped him overseas, and every girl in Bremenville except me swooned at the sight of him in his uniform. The Bauers invited our family to his going-away dinner. I found myself conveniently seated beside him at the table and knew that our parents hadn’t abandoned their matchmaking plans. Mama gazed across the table at us throughout the meal, her head tilted dreamily to one side. I felt like a fly under glass. When Uncle Gus lit a fat after-dinner cigar, I used the smoke as an excuse to flee to the Bauers’ front porch. I might have known Markus would follow me.
“Don’t forget, you promised to write,” he said as he settled down on the porch steps beside me. I moved to keep a good, safe distance between us, wary of being tricked into another heart-stopping kiss.
“I’ll write . . . but don’t expect a lot of sentimental mush. You’ll have to write to Hilda Lang if you want that kind of nonsense.”
He leaned back on his elbows and laughed, stretching his long legs straight out in front of him. His army boots were brand-new and spit-shined to such a high gloss I could almost see myself. They seemed out of place on Markus, who had always run all over Bremenville barefooted.
“Would it bother you if I wrote to Hilda Lang?” he asked.
“Not in the least,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I wouldn’t care if you wrote to every girl in town.”
“Brr!” he said, feigning a shiver. “You’re still as cold and cruel as ever, Emma. Promise me you won’t change while I’m away, okay? I’ll look forward to thawing your frozen heart when I get back.”
“You’ll have to find me first,” I said. “I’m planning to leave Bremenville as soon as I finish school and the war ends.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet . . . but far away from here!”
“You’ll be easy to find,” he said with a lazy grin. “I’ll just follow the music to where the fun is. You’ll be right in the middle of it all.”
The next day I waved good-bye to Markus and a whole trainload of local boys as they set off to “kill the Kaiser.” It gave me a funny feeling to think about them shooting at my German cousins. I only knew my relatives from photographs, but they didn’t look any different to me than the American boys who were so intent on killing them. No wonder the war had shattered Papa. If he could have stood in no-man’s-land between the two armies and shouted at them to stop the slaughter, he would have done it gladly.
Every time they published pictures of the war in the rotogravure section of the newspaper, Papa would shut himself up in his study alone. The pictures horrified all of us—hospitalized soldiers, blinded by mustard gas; a landscape of blackened stumps in what was once a German forest; mangled corpses lying heaped in a muddy trench. For some reason, I never worried about Markus. I knew he could take care of himself. He’d done it all his life. I envied him for traveling so far beyond Bremenville, even if the journey had taken him away to war. He wrote to me faithfully, describing the queasy voyage across the Atlantic on a crowded troop ship; the frenzied greeting the doughboys received in Paris; the blood-chilling sound of mortar shells exploding at close range. I answered barely one out of every three of his letters.
After most of Bremenville’s work force left, I wanted to apply for a job at the woolen mill to do my part like all the other girls my age. But when Papa learned that the mill had a government contract to make Army uniforms, he refused to let me work there. He was so adamantly against the war, he even
forbid twelve-year-old Vera to buy liberty stamps because the money went toward the war effort. “I’m the only girl in school,” she complained, “who can’t ‘lick a stamp and lick the Kaiser.’It’s unpatriotic!”
Papa did allow us to participate in voluntary rationing programs, such as “wheatless” Mondays and “meatless” Tuesdays. On “gasless” Sundays, all our parishioners hitched horses to their cars for the ride to church. When the Red Cross converted an empty storefront by the train station into a canteen, Papa reluctantly allowed Eva and me to do volunteer work there, since the Red Cross had a reputation as a neutral organization. We decided not to tell him that all the socks we volunteers were busy knitting were sent to our American troops.
Along with knitting, another of our jobs was to collect peach pits, which the army used to make charcoal filters for gas masks. It took seven pounds of pits to make enough charcoal for one mask, and since Uncle Sam needed one million masks, gathering pits kept Eva and me pretty busy. I held the record for collecting the most pounds in a single week—three-and-a-half. Hilda Lang tried to beat my record, foolishly eating an entire bushel of peaches herself, and spent a day and a night in the outhouse with dyspepsia. I remained champion.
But my favorite job at the canteen was entertaining the soldiers who came through Bremenville on the train from all over the country. If I couldn’t travel to interesting places, meeting interesting people would have to suffice. While the soldiers ate free sandwiches and cookies and drank gallons of coffee, I played popular tunes on an old upright piano to boost their morale. Sometimes their spirits soared so high we would push all the tables and chairs against the wall and start dancing. Of course, Papa knew nothing about this side of Red Cross work.
I was on my way home from the canteen alone one afternoon when I came upon a commotion in the street. In the center of the gathering crowd I heard the dull thuds and grunts of a fistfight. Curious, I peered over heads and between shoulders for a better look. Three middle-aged factory workers from the Irish part of town had ganged up on a fourth man, who lay on the ground like a heap of used clothing. My stomach lurched. Something about that clothing looked horribly familiar.
“You’re a spy for those filthy Jerries, aren’t you, man! Aren’t you!” Every time the fallen man moved, one of the others would kick him.
“Tell the truth, Fritzie. We know you’re one of them.”
“If you’re not, then let’s hear you say the Pledge of Allegiance.”
When the man crawled to his knees and tried to stand, they knocked him down again. But not before I caught a glimpse of the man’s bloodied face. It was Papa.
“Stop it! Stop it!” I screamed. “Leave him alone!” I ran into the street with my fists flying. I had no intention of turning the other cheek to these bullies like my father was doing. The ringleader grabbed my arm. “Well, then, and who might you be, girlie?” He had the florid face and reddened nose of a man who drank too much. I kicked him hard in the shins.
“Aye! You must be a bloody Hun too,” he said, grunting. “You surely fight like one!” He let go of my arm to rub his leg.
“I was born in America, not in an Irish bog like you!”
The other two bullies laughed as they circled around me, teasing and baiting me. I had become the center of their attention now, but I was too angry and too worried about Papa to be afraid for myself. I could hear my father moaning softly on the ground behind me.
“How dare you attack an innocent man! One who won’t even fight back!”
“Sure, and he’s not so innocent, missy,” the red-faced man said. “He talks just like the Kaiser.”
“Vee vill vin dis var!” a short, apelike man cried, mimicking Papa’s accent.
“We don’t tolerate spies,” the leader said. “We believe in America for Americans.”
“We’re more American than you are, you stupid Micks!” I shouted. “Just because you’re too old and decrepit for the army doesn’t give you the right to start your own private war!”
They were no longer laughing. I had made them mad. Monkey-man grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms. “Let me go, you ugly ape!” I kicked and struggled to free myself, but he was too strong. I despaired of anyone helping me, when a man suddenly pushed his way through the crowd of bystanders.
“Leave them alone! Let her go, Liam! What’s the matter with you?” I could tell by his accent that he was Irish like the other three.
My captor jerked roughly on my arms. “We’ve caught us a couple of spies, Paddy. And a feisty one, at that.”
“Aye, this one here refused to buy liberty stamps.” The florid-faced leader gave Papa another kick in the ribs.
Before I had time to cry out, the newcomer grabbed the bully by the front of his shirt, nearly lifting the man off the ground. “You want to fight someone, Kevin, fight me!” he said in his face. “Not a harmless man of the cloth.”
“But he’s a Protestant—”
“This isn’t Ireland! Haven’t you had enough hatred for one lifetime? Isn’t that why we came to America? To get away from prejudice and fighting?” My defender was in his early twenties, much younger than the other three men, but he wielded a mysterious power over them that caused them to back away in respect.
“Now, I’m thinking you owe these people an apology,” he said, releasing the man.
The leader straightened his clothes. “I’m not apologizing to Huns,” he said sullenly.
“Then don’t you dare show your face at St. Brigit’s until you do, Kevin Malloy.”
“Aw, now Paddy, what are you taking their side for? They’re Jerries . . . and Protestants to boot.”
Paddy took a step toward him, fists clenched. “Help the man to his feet, Liam.”
“But he-”
“I said, help him to his feet!”
They quickly obeyed, hauling Papa to his feet none too gently. I couldn’t understand the magnetic authority the young man had over men who were twenty years his senior. After they got Papa off the ground, Paddy coaxed a reluctant apology from the three bullies.
“I forgive you,” Papa said, holding a handkerchief to his split lip. I was furious.
“How can you forgive them? Look how they’ve hurt you!” He’d been beaten so badly he couldn’t even stand up straight, and I feared by the way his left arm hung that it was broken. Papa held up his hand to silence me.
“I forgive them because the Bible says that we must.”
“Well, I’ll never forgive them for hurting you. Never!”
The young Irishman and I helped Papa to a chair inside the canteen. “You ought to see a doctor, Reverend,” he said. “I’d like to help you. Who is your doctor? Let me fetch him.”
“Thank you, but I’ll be fine.” Papa allowed me to clean the blood off his face with a wet cloth, but he insisted that we forget the matter and go home. We went home, but forgetting the matter didn’t turn out to be so simple.
News of the attack quickly spread all over town, and a group of elders and deacons came to the parsonage that night to talk to Papa. I stood in the hallway outside the closed parlor door and listened to every word.
“We need to arm ourselves, Pastor! If they would do this to you, what would stop them from attacking our women and children next?”
“He’s right, Friedrich. These incidents aren’t happening just in Bremenville. Anti-German hysteria has spread all over the United States. We need to fight back!”
“Listen to yourselves,” Papa said. His voice was soft, his phrases clipped, as if it hurt him to draw a deep breath. “We cannot stoop to their level. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Is that what you want for your families?”
“We want our families safe, not beaten to a bloody pulp!”
“There’s something else we need to say, Pastor Schroder.” I recognized Mr. Metzger’s voice. He was the head of the consistory. “There are new laws . . . the government is inflicting heavy penalties for criticizing the war. We think you should stop preaching sermons about peace.”
“Am I now taking orders from you instead of the Holy Spirit?” Papa asked angrily. “Are you telling me what I can and cannot preach?”
“We are asking you to consider what happened today. It could have been any one of us. Until this war ends, we dare not draw attention to ourselves or to our German ancestry.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was calm but firm. “The board has decided to cancel the German-speaking service and to hold English-only services until the war ends. The elders and deacons will be warning our members to speak English in public and to avoid all contact with the Irish-Catholic population. We need to stick more closely together as a community to protect ourselves and our children. . . .”