The Crepes of Wrath (12 page)

Melvin’s enormous noggin teetered on his knotty neck as one eye focused on Freni, the other on Susannah. “She’s just kidding, right?”

Freni shook her head. “That Magdalena is a stubborn one. She would do this thing just to spike you.”

Susannah nodded. “That’s ‘spite,’ Freni, but Stud Muffins”—my sister put a long slender hand on her husband’s shoulder—” I’m afraid she’s right. And if she does run, Mags could win the election.”

Both oversized orbs attempted contact with me, but only one eye made it. Melvin’s left eye focused on my ceiling, which quite frankly was in need of a good dusting.

“Okay, so I apologize. Is that good enough for you?”

“Not hardly.”

“Well, what the”—he caught himself just in time—” what is it you want, Yoder?”

“Say ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

“I’m sorry.”

“Now say it with feeling.”

“I’m sorry!”

“And you’ll have my car towed from the Keims’ farm and replace the three ruined tires?”

“Don’t you have insurance?”

“Sure, but I don’t want my premium to rise.”

“Do it,” Susannah urged.
“Please,
Snickerdoodle.”

“My sister wants to be the First Lady someday,” I said. “Don’t you want to see your carapace in the Oval Office?”

“Okay, damn it, I’ll do it.”

“Don’t swear,” I said sternly, and then dismissed the motley crew again.

This time they couldn’t wait to leave.

The first thing I did when I was alone was to get down on my knees and beg the Good Lord to forgive me for my intemperance. “But you turned the water into wine at Cana,” I reminded Him. “So a little bit of champagne—which is really just a fancy kind of wine—is not so bad, is it? No, of course not, because as I recall, your mama got in on the act too. And so did your brothers. Why, that whole wedding party was just sipping away, and none of it mixed with orange juice either.”

When the Good Lord didn’t contradict me, I got up, brushed my teeth, and took a long shower. To be perfectly frank, I was feeling pretty darn good. I, Magdalena Portulacca Yoder, was a woman of the world. Okay, maybe not
of
the world, because that surely was a sin, but I had dipped my toe in the waters of sophistication and lived to tell about it. No lightning bolt from Heaven, no earthquake from Mama rolling over in her grave. Of course, I would never again let alcohol pass these lips—in case Reverend Schrock was right when he said Biblical wine was really just grape juice—but still, I was glad I’d had the experience.

Then, because I no longer felt guilty, I felt guilty—if you know what I mean. And forget what you may know
about Catholic or even Jewish guilt—we Mennonites do it best, and I am particularly skilled in that emotion if I must say so myself. In fact, I would venture to say that I feel more guilty during an average day than any three people in Bedford County. But just thinking about all that guilt made me guilty of the sin of pride, so I got down on my knees again and prayed for deliverance from that sin.

Finally, feeling both spiritually and physically refreshed, I decided to take a walk. That’s the first thing I should have done when Melvin asked me to help solve—rather, to
solve
—the murder of Lizzie Mast, because walking clears my head. It can, however, do terrible things to the sinuses, so before stopping outside, I sprayed the inside of my generous proboscis with that green thumb thing so frequently prescribed now by allergists.

There are a number of pleasant destinations one can easily reach from the PennDutch Inn. The woods behind my place are lovely, dark, and deep, and not particularly dangerous if one stays away from the Mishler property during hunting season; the pair of elderly brothers are blind as bats and trigger happy. And if one is easily offended, one might do well to stay clear of Dinky and Flora Williams’s place. This couple, transplants from Philadelphia, are Hernia’s first official nudists, and believe you me, Dinky is not aptly named. In fact, I’m almost positive I saw
two
of them the last time I peeked, and I’ve been meaning to check a medical encyclopedia at Bedford County Library to see if that is indeed possible. At any rate, there is Slave Creek just down the road, and the town of Hernia itself. And then there is the Miller farm.

Don’t ask me why, but the Miller farm has always drawn me like a magnet. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with Aaron Miller, whom I fell in love with, first as a young girl, and then as an older, but still innocent, woman. And perhaps the fact that it is now owned by
Gabriel Rosen has something to do with my current obsession with the place. But I daresay, even if the place had always been owned by ugly strangers, I would still find it exceptionally beautiful.

The house, which is backed by wooded hills, is set a long way in from the road. Flanking the driveway are broad sweeps of verdant cow pasture, and the one on the right, as you face the house, is punctuated by a large pond. On the near bank of the pond is a magnificent weeping willow. In short, it would make a perfect painting.

And a perfect painting was exactly what Dr. George Hanson was creating.

“Wow, you’re really good!”

He looked up grudgingly from his work. “My last six won Best of Show. I expect this one to take a blue ribbon as well.”

“I’m sure it will. That pond looks so real I could jump in it right now, if it weren’t for the snapping turtle you painted on that log.”

No comment.

“I love the realism. So much of what you see these days looks like”—I remembered my bout of nausea—“like someone threw up a pizza and decided to call that art.”

“Abstract expressionist paintings have their merit,” he said crisply.

“Yes, but do the artists have talent?
You
certainly do.”

He said nothing.

“You needn’t be afraid of talking to me, dear. I’m not crazy. Your wife gave me the walnut shell test this morning and I passed with flying colors.”

“She told me. And incidentally, we don’t use the word ‘crazy’ in our profession.”

“Well, do you believe her?”

“I believe her.”

“So why are you being so aloof?”

He sighed and put his brush in a little jar of water. “Because I don’t like you.”

“What?”
I was so shocked I had to sit down, and since this pasture has at times been used to actually graze cows, I chose my spot carefully.

“There’s no law that says I have to like everyone I meet,” he said. “I’m sure you don’t like me either.”

“That may be true now, but it wasn’t just a few minutes ago.
Why
don’t you like me?”

“Look, coming here for vacation was my wife’s idea. I made it quite clear to her that I wasn’t interested in visiting a culture that’s so segregated.”

“Segregated? What do you mean by that?”

He laughed. “Surely you’re joking. Come on, Miss Yoder, how many black Amish do you know?”

I swallowed. “Well, none, but that doesn’t prove anything. I mean, it’s a culture as well as a religion. But anyone is welcome to join.”

“I bet.”

That was true, although very few outsiders have joined the faith in this century. Although believers would be welcomed in theory, they would find it very hard to live in a society where virtually everyone else is related by blood. And—this pains me to even think about it—a family of white converts would find it easier to blend in than would a family of color.

“There are lots of black Mennonites,” I said defensively.

He looked around the pasture in a mocking gesture. “Where?”

“Maybe not here, but in other towns—Philadelphia, for instance—and in other states. And there are hundreds of thousands of them in Africa.”

“You don’t say.”

“Is that a taste of my own medicine, Doctor?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sarcasm. Purportedly I’m quite an expert on that myself.”

His smile was genuine. “I may change my mind after all.”

“About?”

“Liking you.”

“Don’t do me any favors, Doc. The feeling may not be mutual.”

“Are you always so straightforward?”

I didn’t have to think about that. The answer was no. I was, in fact, rather quiet the first three decades of my life. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, it’s just Mama usually said it for me, or corrected, often publicly, what I did say.

Susannah, on the other hand, was given free rein. When she told Mrs. Lehman that her coffee cake was “as dry as straw,” Mama had nodded in agreement and suggested the woman add more water the next time, or use a little less flour. And when Susannah told Mr. Kreider he sang like a frog, Mama had merely smiled behind her hymnal. When, at a church picnic, my little sister informed Reverend Lantz, our then pastor, that she smelled something bad whenever he raised his arms, Mama had practically beamed with pride. Of course, the good Reverend’s body odor was a major concern for the members of Beechy Grove Mennonite Church, many of whom had stopped attending just on that account. There had even been a meeting of the elders to discuss what to do about the situation. One suggestion had been to send the pastor an anonymous letter, along with a bar of soap and a tube of roll-on deodorant, suggesting he use the toiletries from time to time, perhaps on Sunday mornings. The problem was no one wanted to offend the Reverend, who was really a very kind and gentle man. Then along came my little sister and her mouth, and the next Sunday I could actually breathe in church without holding a handkerchief over my face. But you can be sure if
I
had told Reverend Lantz the very same thing, I would have had to eat the bar of soap. Maybe even the deodorant.

At any rate, in my thirty-third year two things happened to loosen my tongue. First was the death of
Mama; without her to shush me, my tongue gradually began to do more than just taste. The second incident—and this is undoubtedly an outgrowth of the first—was my realization that my own life was one third over (we Yoders tend to be long-lived, tunnel accidents excepted) and I had millions of things yet to say.

“Life’s too short to beat around the bush,” I said to Dr. Hanson. “An old man like you should know that.”

He laughed. “I’d offer you my chair, Miss Yoder, but an ‘old man’ like me needs to sit.”

“I’ve already got the grass stains,” I said cheerfully. “It’s really not necessary.”

“Tell me about yourself, Miss Yoder.”

“That’s Magdalena. And you’re not trying to shrink me, are you?”

He laughed again. “Call me George. And no, I’m not doing my doctor thing. I have a feeling you wouldn’t co-operate if I did.”

“You’ve got that right. So, what do you want to know?”

“Are you from here? I mean, born and raised.”

“You might say that. My family founded Hernia two hundred and twenty-three years ago.”

He whistled. “That’s a long time. I have no idea where my family was then. Maybe on a slave ship headed toward the Carolinas.”

“Amish didn’t own slaves,” I said quickly. “That stream you may have crossed on your way here—just outside of town—is called Slave Creek. No one knows why for sure, but several historians have speculated it was named that because runaway slaves from Maryland followed it up to freedom. I’d like to think that my ancestors fed and clothed them.”

“Easier on your conscience that way, huh?”

“I don’t have a guilty conscience,” I snapped. And then, remembering our truce, arranged my mouth in a facsimile of a smile. “How about you, George? Where are you from originally?”

“Orangeburg, South Carolina.”

I tried to whistle, but sounded like a teakettle with the lid half off. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Came up north to go to school. Harvard. Got all my degrees there. Met Dr. Hanson—I mean, Margaret, as a freshman med student. We shared a cadaver.”

“How exciting.”

“Actually, it was. I proposed to her over the spleen.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“And you thought I was nuts.”

“Ah, ah, ah, we don’t use that word, remember?”

“I thought it was ‘crazy.’ ”

“Same thing.” George removed his brush from the water jar, and pressed the bristles carefully between two folded paper towels. “You paint, Magdalena?”

“I don’t have any talent—except for making money. I do all right at that.”

“I’m not surprised. You have any hobbies?”

I shrugged. “I quilt.”

“Yes, yes. That big quilt I see on the frame in the dining room—did you do that?”

“Didn’t you read your brochure? That quilt is there for the benefit of customers who want to try their hand at Amish crafts. You’re welcome to add a few stitches if you wish.”

“But you started it, right?”

“Right.” The truth be known, the quilt is there for my benefit as well. Each time one is completed, I haul it over to Lancaster County, where Amish goods sell at a premium. Selling it as authentically Amish is not dishonest, mind you, since Freni adds a stitch or two whenever she has time.

“Ever create your own designs?”

“I’m not creative,” I mourned.

“I bet you are. You just haven’t given yourself a chance.”

“You’d lose.”

We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. While George added a second, smaller turtle to the log, and a couple of cattails to the bottom-right-hand corner, I pondered my pitiful contribution to life. No children, no works of art, no important discoveries, no cures for anything, just a silly bed-and-breakfast and enough money in my checking account to choke a goat named Amanda.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the entire sum of my accomplishments. I did teach Sunday School, I looked after Susannah whenever she was truly in trouble—which is to say, at least once a week—and I helped Melvin solve Hernia’s most difficult crime cases. In other words, nearly all of them. If I had one talent, besides the ability to make money, it was to ferret out the truth. “It takes a liar to know one,” Mama used to say. Well, I most certainly am not a liar, but I have shaded the truth a few times, and from my vantage point in the dappled shade, I can usually spot a liar.