A Clearing in the Wild (5 page)

“Wilhelm’s way has led us to our Lord well these years,” my father said. He snapped the words out. He pointed toward the kitchen door. “Emma. Your mother has need of you.”

“But, Papa—”

“Go.”

I threw a glance at Christian, but he looked lost in thought, and once again he seemed unwilling or unable to challenge orders given me by other men. Never mind that one was my father, a respected elder, and the other our spiritual leader. Christian needed to stand firm, I thought, as the door to the kitchen swung shut behind me, bumping the ruffle beneath my skirt.

“I’ll bake bread,” I told my mother, slamming down the tea tray.

“Now?”

“It will give me something to push around and pound,” I said, gathering flour into the doughboy and reaching for salt from the box.

“Well, a house can always use bread.”

The fluff of the flour and the saleratus with melted lard seeped into the flour hole I’d made and kept me occupied, if not pleased. I tried not to think of Christian Giesy as being someone weak, easily overpowered by my father. He stood so tall, had brought in too many new recruits to be a weak man. It was even rumored that every day he lifted himself seventy-five times from the floor by his hands without letting his knees even touch. It took strength for such pushing up, strength that must reflect a man of character, too. Even Karl Ruge, the teacher, a highly educated man and a Lutheran still, chose to live in the colony because of Christian’s enthusiasm and ability to express our views of love and
service to one another. And everyone adored Karl—many admired his fine mind and his long clay pipe.

And yet, and yet, what is a man if he cannot put other men’s wishes aside to tend to those of his beloved?

I imagined myself as Christian’s beloved.
Ach
, I thought.
You are a Dummkopf
. That’s what my father would say. I shook my head and knuckled the dough, imagining the conversation going on without me, imagining life going on without me, farther away, in Shelbina or maybe even Independence.

We Bethel colonists were asked to be in service, to treat others as we wished to be treated, and to go beyond, to help others live even better than we did. The Diamond Rule our leader called it, better even than the Golden Rule. And yet while women served, our voices were rarely heard except in music. Did not our Lord wash the feet of His disciples? Did not our Lord comfort those who grieved? Is that not what women do? And yet we are not invited into the halls of discussion, we are not asked to sit around the tables and talk with men making sense of a family’s future. No, we are asked to influence
through
our fathers and our brothers and our sons but never
with
them.

“I hope that’s not my head you’re thinking of. You knead that dough with such vigor.” Christian had stepped into the kitchen, his body dwarfing the doughboy table.

I wiped my forehead with the back of my palm. His height seemed out of place, but his voice fit here, low and calm and smooth as melted butter. “Or if it is, perhaps you’ll exchange it for a chance at my feet this evening. Your father consents to my squiring you to the dance, should you be willing.”

“And will something more come between us?” I asked, my hands on my hips now.

“Emma,” my mother gasped. “Rude you must not be.”

“She gives it fairly,” Christian said. “I’ll do my best to see I give her little more reason to express it.”

How could I refuse?

This dance held a special tone as it announced the New Year, new beginnings. The year 1852 held prosperity, as Father Keil had already received orders for special wagons made for traveling overland to the Oregon Territory. Whole towns in the Ohio Valley and farther east had signed up to go west, and, hearing of our furniture factory and wagon-building and our colony being so close to Independence and even closer to St. Joseph, many commissioned us to build them sturdy wagons. Even colony women would assist with the construction in order to meet the demand.

It was our practice that as colony work required more effort, each set aside plowing or candle-making and put all hands toward the greatest need, men and women working side by side. “Ve build many vagons this year,” our leader told us, and so we would.

Future prosperity lent a festive air to this occasion, and our leader charmed the crowd chattering and eating, paying scant attention to Christian and me. The band played and I watched Willie, our leader’s oldest son, step forward and execute a solo on his horn. He twirled himself around so dancers stopped to watch him, including his father, including us. People applauded, clapped Willie on his back as he finished, and shouted out hurrahs from across the large room. A few men drank small glasses of our colony’s Golden Rule Whiskey, and women not dancing or serving or watching after children sat in groups, their dark flannels reminding me of clusters of grapes waiting to be plucked.

Christian and I completed a
Schottische
, a pleasant dance with hops and easy twirls, but one that required a man place his hands across a woman’s shoulders as they skipped side by side. Christian’s hands felt smooth as river stones. The warmth that spread all through me as his palm squeezed mine surprised. He pulled me to him and smiled. I could have spent the entire night this way.

But after the fourth dance, we moved toward the door, where people coming in and out admitted a coolness. I couldn’t help but notice the envy in the eyes of girls my age, as I’d spent my whole time with an important man just a year younger than my father. Even when men came by to talk to him, he allowed me to remain, didn’t shoo me off, though most of the talk was of Christian’s journeys and when he might leave again or about his tin shop and what work he could complete before he left. I never offered a single word, careful not to embarrass him. In our colony, listening was a valued skill, at least for women.

Willie played another solo, this one with even more gusto.

“People say one day Willie will be our leader,” Christian said, leaning in to me as we stood still later with our backs against the wall.

“I doubt that,” I told him. “He’s too fun-loving, wants attention for himself.”

“Possibly,” Christian said. “But a leader needs to demonstrate enthusiasm in order to have followers. No one wants to be a disciple of a somber soul.”

“Father Keil is far from … merry,” I said. “Yet here we all are.” I spread my arms wide.

“Wilhelm is joyous and kind, Emma. That’s how we see him. He has the music, the band. He reminds us that we find abundance in living simply.”

“Living simply,” I said, disgust in my voice. I still had the ruffle attached, and I decided at that moment I would simply leave it there.
I’d wash it at home, not at the communal washhouse. No one would ever discover my interest in uniqueness.

“What else about Bethel distresses you?” Christian asked. He’d cocked his head to the side and had a wry smile on his face.

“You want my opinion?”

His eyes held mine and he sobered. I noticed that the color of his mustache bore tints of red. “I should know the things that cause unrest in you,” he said, his voice as smooth as hot cider, “if you’re to be my wife.”

I felt my stomach fall into my knees.

Catching my breath I said, “The word
if
looms large.”

“Indeed,
if
is larger. As with my dancing, I can step over that word rather than on it,” Christian said, “and make the request without venturing further into what brings you happiness or strife. It surprises—”

“No, no,” I said. “I want to be asked my thoughts.
Ja
, I do. Will my answers make a difference to the offer? It was an offer,
ja?
Or do I misunderstand?” My words twirled around, caught up now with my feelings like a kite string swirling upward in the wind. “Have you asked our leader? my father?” I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I already knew Christian could be easily dissuaded by either of these two men.

“Your father has concurred. Wilhelm has not.” I looked away. “Indeed, he knows nothing of it,” Christian said, his hand patting mine in reassurance. “I did not wish to begin that … dance until I knew you would step with me. Your father’s agreed first. Then if you say to proceed, I will approach Wilhelm. He is a kindly man despite what you may think, Emma. So I believe by his birthday celebration, we will be allowed to announce to all our marital intentions. God willing. You, being willing. You have yet to say if I can step over the
if
.”

“
Ja
,” I said. “I agree to be your wife, no ifs. But when the engagement
is complete and we have answered our leader’s probing, I hope you’ll still be pleased with your offer.”

“He doesn’t interrogate, Emma. He asks to be sure that husbands and wives will be happy to be together for life. It is his duty as a leader to inquire.”

“
Ja
, sure,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t be the last time Christian Giesy and his future wife would see the world through very different eyes.

We completed the evening with not another word about our future. It was hardly a romantic declaration, all wrapped up in talk of civics and ascendancy. And yet wasn’t that what I’d been aching for, to have conversations between men and women, express words that did more than tease the mind? No, I’d been aching to be truly seen by Christian, to be known not as “one of the colony women wearing faded flannel and her hair parted in the center,” but as someone another might pick out from a crowd.

Now that he had, I felt lightheaded: I might actually receive what I wanted. I’d begun to weave, and God had just handed me the finest yet most foreign of threads.

Youth claims perfect pitch and often fails to note disharmony. When I told my mother of Christian’s intentions, she smiled and held me, her apron comforting with
Sauerkraut
smells. “I know,” she said. “Your father forewarned me, though he didn’t tink what you might say.”

“You never saw my interest?” I asked my father later as he drank strong tea at the head of the table.

My father merely raised an eyebrow, his “well, well,” look, the same he gave me when as a child I asked some question about why sheep’s wool held heavy oils or when I urged him to tell me something I didn’t already know. I suppose he welcomed my inquisitive nature, knew in advance the challenge Christian’s life would have for me, both encouraging it and tempering it.

Jonathan sounded the only sour note I heard. “What’s Christian Giesy see in you?”

“
Ach
, Jonathan,” my mother cautioned. “Be happy for your sister,
ja?
”

Jonathan grunted as he cut his sausage, popped a section in his mouth. “He’s a tinsmith with the gift of gab,” he said. “Think of how many girls he’s been exposed to. Why would he settle for you?” I don’t think he meant to hurt my feelings, and in truth, he said out loud what
would have eventually made its way into my consciousness. But until then, I saw Christian’s interest as an answer to my prayers, as a tapestry God saw fit to stitch together: two hearts, two hands, two souls hemmed by faith.

“Do you think Father Keil will forbid it?” David Jr. said. He held his fork midair above his egg. “There is something noble in being a bachelor, I think.”

“Why should he?” I asked. “Papa’s approved. And Christian is beloved by Father Keil. He wants him to be happy.”

“He didn’t think of it himself, though,” Jonathan said. “Father Keil likes to be in charge of all things. A good leader is, sister. Willie told me that.”

My father corrected. “It’s a leader’s duty to have authority, but this does not mean power used for personal views. He doesn’t think he must order everything, Jonathan. Maybe Willie chomps at the reins the way young men do. Willie’s time will come.”

“It will be a strange marriage with Christian leaving again soon,” Jonathan said. “That’s his way, his work.”

“I’ll not hear any more contrary thoughts.” I put hands over my ears. “Not from you or anyone else.” I left the room.

Christian and I agreed not to say anything outside our families until receiving our leader’s blessings. I didn’t know what the Giesy family thought of me, though it seemed that Helena was more distant in the classroom, where we helped Karl Ruge, than she’d been before. She acted more formal, but I might have been imagining that. I have an active imaginary life, which led me to wonder if Christian’s absence after New Year’s was planned or happenstance. Either way, Jonathan proved himself clairvoyant. Christian and I had had no time together since he stated his intentions. But then, he was a busy man, had always been.

He met with our leader and the men’s council, a group of twelve
who advised about the happenings at Nineveh, an offshoot colony near Hannibal, where we ran a ferry and a steam mill that powered huge textile looms. The men advised about work at Bethel too. Christian was often gone, but I felt sure he’d return for our leader’s birthday. It was always a grand affair. I prayed for patience.

Two days before our leader’s birthday, Christian again knocked on our door, Sheppie’s happy wagging tail expressing my thoughts completely. That day, I asked Christian about what my brother and sister said. We sat at my parents’ house on a hard bench set before the fireplace while my family discreetly kept us within sight but out of hearing, my mother spinning and my father polishing a bridle to keep the leather soft. The boys stayed outside, and my sisters whispered in the rooms above us. I could almost imagine them hovering over the opening that allowed heat and sound to rise up through the ceiling. Christian had first spent an hour with my father, telling news that he’d gathered on his travels, leaving me to eavesdrop.