Eve's Daughters (12 page)

“You would rather be a spinster?” Magda asked, smiling.

“No, that’s a horribly lonely life, with everyone pitying you. And I wouldn’t have had Sophie.” I smoothed my fingers through her silky hair.

“Tell me about Friedrich. He treats you badly?”

“Oh no. We were very happy together . . . until the draft law changed. He was very kind to me . . . very affectionate . . . hardworking . . .” My voice trailed off as I realized that I couldn’t think of any glaring faults.

“You are fortunate. Many wives are little more than their husbands’ slaves. I’ve known men who were drunkards, men who couldn’t hold a job, men who demanded their marital rights, giving little love or affection in return, men who worked their wives into early graves.” Something about the haunting way she spoke sent a chill through me.

“Is your husband like those men, Magda?”

She smiled slightly but there was no humor in it. “Gustav is always chasing dreams. That’s why he went to America—to chase his dreams. In Germany he changed occupations four times, always searching for something better. None of them ever worked out. Twice he borrowed money to embark on a new business venture, and twice he failed.”

“Did he ever mistreat you?”

She sighed, considering the question for a moment. “Failure can rob a man of his dignity and self-respect. I suppose a wife is an easy target for his frustrations. A wise wife learns to keep out of his way.”

“I’m so sorry, Magda.”

She gave a small shrug, as if to say it didn’t matter. “My childhood in Dusseldorf wasn’t so nice—my life actually improved when I married Gustav. I believe that America will be better still.”

“Has he found an occupation he enjoys?”

“Yes . . . for now.” I saw the brief, humorless smile again. “Gus crossed over nearly two years ago. I was pregnant with Karl at the time. He has found a job selling farming equipment and says he’s doing well with it. But someday he wants to own his own establishment and sell automobiles—another dream to chase. He thinks the horse and buggy will become a thing of the past and everyone will want a horseless carriage someday.”

“What do you think, Magda?”

“I’m not a dreamer like Gustav. I’ve learned to look no further than tomorrow.”

Her honesty lent me the courage to be open with her in return. “I know I’ve been miserable company, but it isn’t because Friedrich mistreats me or anything like that. It’s because I love my family and my home in Germany, and I didn’t want to leave. Every mile this ship travels takes me farther and farther away, and I’m so afraid I’ll never see any of them again.”

“My life with Gustav has always been up and down—like the waves on the sea out there. You are down here, just now,” she said, motioning with her hands. “And so you think you will never be on top of the wave again. But you will, I promise you.”

“‘Joy and sorrow come and go like the ebb and flow,’” I quoted sadly.

“Yes, that’s true . . . I like that.”

“My grandmother had it stitched on a sampler. I saw it every day when I was growing up, but I never thought about what it meant . . . until now.”

“It’s the woman’s job to adjust to that ebb and flow, Louise, like adjusting the seams of a dress. We take the seams in to make it smaller, we add fabric to make the dress bigger. . . .” She patted her ample hips and smiled. “And when there is nothing left to do with it, we turn it into scraps and make a quilt. Men create the original design and pattern; women can only alter it and tailor it as we go along. We will adapt to America, Louise. You’ll see.”

With the comfort of Magda’s friendship—and five small children to look after between the two of us—the eleven days it took to cross the Atlantic passed quickly. On the morning that
Hibernia
steamed into New York harbor, the ship came alive with excitement, the decks swarming with jubilant passengers. It reminded me of the inside of one of Papa’s beehives when it was time to remove the honey. People craned their necks for the first glimpse of America and to see the famous statue in New York harbor, a symbol of the liberty their new homeland offered. Since the statue symbolized freedom, I couldn’t help
wondering why “Liberty” was a woman instead of a man.

Horns blasted and gulls screamed as tugboats guided the ship to the pier upriver. Stocky and plain, the hardworking tugboats reminded me, not unkindly, of my friend Magda. As second-class passengers, she and I had our entrance papers processed on board and would be spared the steerage passengers’ ordeal on Ellis Island. Clutching Sophie, my satchel in hand, I moved through customs in a daze. I knew that Friedrich would be among the crowd waiting on shore behind the wire netting, and I scanned all the faces for his as I finally made my way down the gangplank. Then, above the sound of cheering and people calling their loved-ones’ names, I heard my own.

“Louise! Over here! . . . Sophie! Louise!”

I froze at the bottom of the ramp. A man I didn’t recognize pushed his way to the front of the mob, waving and calling my name. At first I thought that Friedrich had sent someone else to fetch me, but as the man drew near I saw that it was my husband after all. The sun had bleached his hair the color of flax, and his skin was deeply tanned. But most shocking of all, he had shaved his beard and mustache. I had never seen him without them.

“Louise! Oh, Louise!” he cried as he lifted me off my feet and twirled me around. He hugged me so hard my wide-brimmed hat slipped off. His arms and chest felt more muscular than I’d remembered, and I thought of the brothers I would never see again. Friedrich’s joy overflowed at the sight of us, but I had given up too much to feel any joy at our reunion. My smile felt pasted in place.

Friedrich reached out his arms to Sophie but she drew back in fear, hiding her face on my shoulder. “Give her time, Friedrich. I’m sure she’ll warm to you.”

“She’s grown so big. And she’s almost as pretty as her mother. Oh, Louise! I’m so glad you’ve come at last!”

I searched in vain for something to say in reply.

“Fred . . . Hey, Fred, you ready to go?”

Friedrich turned to answer a nattily dressed man in a straw boater hat. “Yes, any time you are, Gus.” When I saw that the man held Magda’s oldest son Wilfred by the hand, I realized that he must be Gustav Bauer. Friedrich introduced us.

Gustav looked to be a few years older than Magda, probably thirty or thirty-one, with the ruddy face of a man who likes his drink. Friedrich was dressed conservatively in his best dark suit—the one he’d worn when we were married—but Gustav’s clothes were in the newest style: a blue-and-gray-striped
suit and tie, a striped shirt with a stiff white collar, a shiny gold watch-chain dangling across his vest, his straw boater hat tilted at a rakish angle. A cigarette drooped from his bottom lip. He spoke very loudly, smiling as he pinched his children’s cheeks, but I had the feeling that his temperament was much like a spring day—warm and sunny one moment, clouding over the next. The difference between his appearance and Magda’s was so startling that I couldn’t help wondering why he would choose such a plain wife. I watched her rounding up her children and their belongings while Gus chatted with Friedrich, and I thought of her words:
Many wives are little more than their husbands’ slaves
.

“What did Gustav call you?” I whispered as we walked toward the row of delivery wagons.

“Fred. That’s how my name translates into English. It’s what all the Americans call me.”

I hated it. It sounded so bland . . . like cooked vegetables without any butter or seasonings. “Must I call you that too?” I asked.

He stopped walking to turn and smile down at me. “You may call me anything you like . . . just don’t call me late to dinner.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, laughing. “That’s just an American expression I picked up along the way.”

As he made arrangements with a driver to collect my trunks, it sounded odd to hear Friedrich speaking another language—although when the drayman had difficulty understanding him, I gathered that Friedrich still didn’t speak English too well. I listened to the strange babble all around me, and tears came to my eyes at the thought of learning a new language, new customs. I felt like a paper character, cut out of my familiar context and pasted in the wrong place.

On the carriage ride to the rooming house, I saw all that I ever cared to see of New York City. It was dirty and smelly near the wharves and unbelievably noisy as vendors competed with each other, hawking their wares from carts that they pushed through the lanes—selling everything from newspapers to roasted sweet potatoes. I had never seen anything like the tangle of horses and delivery wagons and carriages that jammed the narrow, littered streets.

“Not every part of New York looks like this,” Friedrich assured me. “Up on Fifth Avenue, where the Vanderbilts and Carnegies live, there are wide, tree-lined boulevards and magnificent mansions.”

But that wasn’t the side of New York that greeted me. Most of the buildings were ramshackle wooden structures, called tenements, that looked as though
they would topple over on me. Everything in America looked newly built and hastily thrown together, nothing at all like the centuries-old buildings I was used to in Germany.

I spent my first night in the same German rooming house that Friedrich had stayed in months ago. Comforted by the cadences of my own language and the tastes of familiar foods, I clung to the hope that I might survive this drastic transplantation after all. Once we retired to our room, though, I suffered the nervous unease of my wedding night all over again. I felt shy and uncertain with this clean-shaven stranger the Americans called Fred. Friedrich was tender and patient with me, just as he had been the night we were married nearly two years ago. I thought of Magda and her haunting words:
Some men demand their marital rights, giving little love or affection in return
.

I knew that my husband was a good man, as Papa had said. He didn’t drink alcohol or abuse me or treat me like a slave. Why, then, couldn’t I love him as he so obviously loved me?

NINE

“You were right,” I told Friedrich, “this countryside does remind me of home.” I gazed out of the window of the passenger train at a green patchwork of rolling farmland—fruit orchards and dairy farms, scattered forests and hills. We had left the ugliness of New York City behind and traveled into the state of Pennsylvania.

“That’s one of the reasons I decided to settle here,” Friedrich said. “I’d hoped that the familiar surroundings would help you feel more at home.”

“I keep thinking we’ll ride over the next hill and I’ll see Papa’s farmhouse. Those could be his cattle grazing in the field . . . his horses pulling that plow. . . .” Friedrich squeezed my hand, then returned to the formidable task of trying to win Sophie’s affection. She clung to me as if overwhelmed by all the strange new sights and sounds, refusing to accept even a sweet from her father’s hand. But when he enticed her with a game of peekaboo, hiding behind his hat then peeking out again, Sophie’s resolve began to weaken. It had been a favorite game of hers, played with Uncle Emil.

Late in the afternoon, the train pulled into the station in Bremenville. The Squaw River, which flowed through town, wasn’t nearly as wide or majestic as the Rhine, but the village, nestled at the base of Squaw Mountain, was pleasant nonetheless. I was relieved to see that many of the signs in the store windows were in both English and German. Even so, Bremenville looked very American to me. Most of the buildings were constructed of wood, with roofs that were flat or covered with dark shingles if they were peaked. The houses looked flimsy to me, as if a strong wind would blow them over. The public buildings in Germany had been huge, barnlike structures built of brick and stone, their humped roofs red-tiled. Only the main street of Bremenville was paved, and the sidewalks, when there were any, were made out of wood. I missed the rumbly cobblestone streets of home.

We said good-bye to Magda and her children at the train station. The home Gustav had rented for them was in the village, on one of the steep streets
partway up Squaw Mountain. One of the deacons from Friedrich’s church, Arnold Metzger, met us at the station with his wagon and drove us to our new home across the river, a mile outside the village. Along the way, Friedrich pointed to a cluttered work site near the river where a wood and brick structure was under construction.

“That’s the new textile mill I’m helping to build.” I remembered his clumsy efforts with the bookshelf back in Germany and found it hard to imagine. “Of course, I’m not one of the carpenters or masons,” he explained. “All I’m good for is hauling and loading, but even that pays pretty decently.”

“Is that the church?” I asked when I saw a white, wooden steeple in the distance, poking through the trees.

“Ja, that’s it,” Herr Metzger replied.

The road was little more than a lane, bordered by fields and woodland, following the course of the river below it. I didn’t see any other houses.

“Do we have neighbors nearby?” I asked.

“The Metzgers are the closest ones, about a quarter of a mile up the road. I know it seems isolated now, but with the new mill going in, I wouldn’t be surprised to see new streets and houses all the way from here to the village someday.”

I felt gritty, hot, and weary after nearly two weeks of travel, but I saw boyish excitement in Friedrich’s eyes as he swung me down from the wagon in the driveway of the parsonage.

“Well, Louise, this is your new home. What do you think of it?”

I thought that the square, clapboard house, painted a dingy gray with darker gray trim, was one of the homeliest I’d ever seen. I couldn’t lie, but I didn’t want to say anything insulting in front of Herr Metzger either.

“It . . . um . . . it looks big,” I managed.“Much bigger than our cottage back home. What will we do with so many rooms?”

Friedrich laughed and chucked Sophie under her chin. “We’ll just have to fill them up with children, I suppose. Why don’t you have a look around while we unload these trunks.”

I decided to start with the church, thirty yards away, and walked across the weed-choked yard that separated it from the parsonage. Friedrich had explained that the church served about forty families from Bremenville and a neighboring village. The white frame sanctuary was boxy, plain, and in desperate need of a coat of paint. Up close, the steeple looked as if someone had chopped off a third of it, then pasted the belfry back on top.