Chapter 20
Fall, 1921
Gassmann homestead
There was much to be happy about and thankful for on the Gassmann homestead as the fall progressed. The family business was picking up: More and more orders for furniture were coming in, and since construction was up in the area, they were also able to easily sell all the wood they wanted to the saw mill in Varel. For the first time in so many years, there was a sense that work was going in the right direction: They were able to support themselves (and pay Viktor his wages), and Ulrich even hired two workers from Bockhorn to help out in the forest, since Hans and Viktor were increasingly occupied with cabinet-making.
It was also a banner year for the vegetable garden and fruit trees and bushes. Renate and Ethel were flat out with canning and preserving now, as harvest season approached its end. For her part, Ethel was also working on several quilt commissions, thanks to the enthusiastic reviews of her handiwork that Mrs. Kropp and Hannah had given to relatives and friends. Ethel thus found herself in the kitchen with her mother by day, surrounded by canning jars and crocks and vegetables and fruits waiting to be put up, while her evenings were spent in her joyful creative pursuits. She was looking forward to the onset of fall: The jars and crocks would be lined up in the root cellar, and she would be free to sew and quilt during the day, too. She would also have more time to herself, which meant more time to spend with Viktor. She was looking forward to that at least as much as to the quilting. Perhaps more, even.
Their courtship was proceeding quietly, without fanfare. Or, at least that was how it might have looked from the outside. A casual observer who passed by the homestead or an acquaintance who stepped into the yard might see Viktor and Ethel in quiet conversation. Fairies in the forest might glimpse them sitting together in the woods beneath cover of a decades-old lean-to. Quiet laughter might be heard, but no more. And although Ethel often popped into the workshop to check on Viktor’s progress with a chest of drawers or kitchen table, none of their gestures or words indicated more than simply a cordial, friendly relationship. That was the way the two of them wanted it, especially for Hans’ benefit. But despite the lack of any outward show of affection or words that would betray a growing depth of feeling and attachment, the connection was, nonetheless, there, and the young couple themselves felt it growing deeper and deeper.
This strengthening of their bond was clearly visible to Renate, though, and she was, on the whole, pleased by it. After all, her gauge of whether any given development was good or not was how much harmony it produced in the family. For now, life in the home was as harmonious as she had ever experienced since her marriage to Ulrich. There was a combination of hard work that produced good results and good prospects for the future; a stability in the supply of foods and other goods they needed to live; and a state of peace and joyfulness between everyone in the household. Touched by the sweetness that new love contributed to the atmosphere on the homestead, Renate told Ulrich that she was glad she’d given Ethel the go-ahead to think about Viktor, to allow him to court her, if he wanted to.
Ulrich, who hadn’t been informed previously of his wife’s initial discussion with Ethel, saw no reason to question Renate’s judgment. When had he ever done so? Why start now? Besides, he himself was growing fonder of Viktor, seeing in him a hard-working man with just enough creative vision to help the business, without derailing it with frivolities. There was also the sensitivity Viktor showed to the forest, his clear love for the trees, and for communicating with them. Ulrich was grateful for this younger man, whom he felt might be a good match for his daughter, in both his dedication to his work and his blossoming spiritual awareness. Unlike Renate, Ulrich didn’t really realize anything was growing between Viktor and Ethel until she pointed it out to him. But like his wife, he did recognize how Viktor had changed. He’d been observing with interest the young man’s transformation since the two of them had begun spending more time working together in the forest.
Hans, on the other hand, hadn’t yet caught onto either of these developments. What had captured his attention, and was holding it fast, was the swift growth of the business. Seeing the positive effects of Viktor’s methods – that’s what he called Viktor’s approach to working with clients: his methods – he discarded his initial skepticism and suspicion of the newcomer in favor of outright enthusiasm, and even respect.
Hans’ new view of Viktor was revealed quite powerfully toward the beginning of November, when Uncle Ewald, Renate’s older brother, came from America – “all the way from America!” “From the state of Illinois!” – to spend a month with the extended family.
Hans was only three years old when Ewald emigrated to Illinois, and so had almost no memory of his uncle. But he could see that Renate and Ulrich were – in their own, understated ways – growing more and more excited as Ewald’s arrival drew closer and closer, and this piqued his interest, too. Both Hans and Ethel – who had been born a few months after Ewald’s emigration and thus, had no memories of him whatsoever – noticed a combination of anticipation and impatience in their parents in the week leading up to arrival day. Ethel also sensed an anxiety in both of them that surprised her. In the course of the eighteen years she’d lived so far, she hadn’t yet had to endure the pain of such a separation from a beloved person. Thus, she didn’t have the personal experience with the doubts, offenses, resentments, disappointments, hopes, and fears that might have enabled her to interpret this fleeting expression on her mother’s face, or that moment of seemingly anxious silence in her father’s presence. But, although she lacked insight into her parents’ feelings, she was nonetheless fully aware of them, since they represented shifts in the homestead atmosphere. As a result, she, like the rest of the extended family, felt a strong sense of anticipation in the days leading up to what everyone saw as Ewald’s homecoming.
He spent the month staying with Renate’s sister, Lorena and her family, and their parents, on the farm where he’d grown up. Indeed, part of the reason he decided to make this long trip by boat was to see his parents, perhaps for the last time. Both Ingo and Veronika were very elderly now, and although of hardy farmer stock, both were failing. Ingo was nearly deaf, and Veronika was so crippled with rheumatism that Lorena had almost entirely taken over the running of the household, with her daughter Esther’s help. Lorena’s husband Stefan ran the farm with several hired hands. (Life was good for the Walters now, too.)
Since it was only a short walking distance between the Gassmanns’ homestead and the Walters’ farm, various members of both families trooped back and forth each day – sometimes even more than once a day! – so they could spend as much time as possible with this beloved son, brother, and uncle. And brother-in-law. Ulrich, who had been so saddened by Ewald’s emigration seventeen years earlier, was perhaps the most moved of all of them to lay eyes once again on this man who had headed off across the sea so long ago. Thirty-nine years old now – to Ulrich’s forty – Ewald reminded Ulrich so much of the way his father-in-law had looked back then, as if both elderly Ingo and young Ingo were somehow standing side by side.
At that first meeting, on the day of Ewald’s arrival, Ulrich sought in his friend’s face traces of the young man he’d once been so close to. He asked himself: How? How did I not write to him these past seventeen years? How did I not write about what was really important? It suddenly seemed inexplicable to him: the combination of sadness and the feeling of loss, and of betrayal, even, that crept into his heart when Ewald first announced his plan to leave. He realized now, that this pain had remained there ever since, lying atop the layers of those same feelings which were laid down during his childhood, and which bore fruit as the melancholy that he couldn’t name, but felt nonetheless. How will Ewald greet me? Ulrich wondered as he walked to the Walters’ that first afternoon with Renate and Hans and Ethel. He was feeling nervous, wondering what lay within Ewald’s heart. Was he angry back then, too? Is he still? These questions flooded Ulrich’s brain more and more powerfully as the Walters’ farmstead came into view.
But now, in 1921, when the two men met anew, the time that had passed since 1904 – and all the myriad, conflicting thoughts and emotions – seemed not to exist. Ulrich and Ewald clasped each other in a strong, tender, and long embrace, each man’s cheeks wet with tears long kept inside. Their hearts overflowed with the love they both still held dear, despite the years and the distance and the as yet unresolved tensions.
The first time Ewald joined them all for dinner at the Gassmann homestead, he immediately and naturally took a seated next to Ethel (which, it turned out, had always been his spot) and opposite Viktor. Renate sat on his left, at one end of the table. This was the first look Viktor got at Ethel’s uncle: He, perhaps naturally, hadn’t been invited to the big welcome dinner at the Walters’. Here was a very strong man, Viktor saw right away. He also noticed a lightness and confidence that set him apart from Ulrich and Hans, and from Renate. He wondered whether this was part of Ethel’s family inheritance. Did she come by her ethereal nature thanks to the same hereditary qualities that seemed to inhabit her uncle? Of course, Viktor noted, Ewald’s ethereality was expressed not in his body, which was strong and solid, but in the very air with which he moved through space. Ethel’s, by contrast, manifested not just in her ringing voice and light hair and energy, but also in her seemingly weightless body.
How much of Ewald’s relaxed and self-assured air, Viktor wondered, could be attributed to the fact that he’d lived so long in America and – more to the point, as far as Viktor’s current reflections were concerned – that he hadn’t lived through the war in Germany? Sure, Viktor was willing to grant, America went through the war, too. But not the same way we we did here. Glancing at each person sitting around the table, he saw inscribed on each of the Gassmanns’ faces the imprint of the wartime cares and trials. Least of all on Ethel’s, it seemed to him, but still, it was there, too. But not on Ewald’s. His face radiated health and joy and strength. It seemed to Viktor that part of the reason for this must be the life he’d been living since he’d crossed the ocean to start a new life abroad.
Viktor’s suppositions were borne out when Ewald began telling about his life in the small town of Durand, in the large Midwestern state of Illinois, in the inconceivably – in Ewald’s view – sprawling country of America.
“I don’t know how to give you the idea of how large it is,” he told them as they all sat at dinner. The table was barely visible beneath the plates and platters and bowls full of the foods Renate knew her brother loved.
“When the ship arrived in New York, a relative of Mr. Becker – he was my sponsor from the Methodist church there – met me, took me home with him, and then got me on a train to Chicago. How long do you figure it took me to get to Chicago on that train from New York?” Ewald asked, looking to each of them in turn, already delighted in anticipation of what were sure to be their wildly inaccurate guesses.
Hans sat there, his brows coming together as he evidently strived to work out in his mind how long the train took from Oldenburg up to the coast, and how many times he’d have to multiply that number… He was good at calculations, but this was stumping him. While he was still working out this math problem in his head, Ethel blithely called out her answer:
“Eighteen hours!” She, too, looked at each other person around the table, her bubbly mood evident in her light tone and the laugh that followed her answer.
Ewald shook his head and looked at Ulrich. “Well, my friend? Your guess?”
Ulrich took in a deep breath, let it out with a sigh, and leaned back in his chair before answering, “A year and a day.”
“Close!” Ewald laughed, and Ulrich’s mouth showed a good-natured grin. It’s good to be laughing together again.
“Sis?”
“I’m not playing your game here, big brother,” Renate told him, shaking her head affectionately. “I know you too well. You love nothing better than when you know something we all don’t!”
“Anyone else?” Ewald asked. Viktor put up his hands in a gesture of surrender, not sure whether he had even been included in the invitation to guess.
“Going once….” Ewald began. “Going twice…”
“Three days, six hours!” Hans shouted out at the last moment, hurrying to raise his hand, like a bidder at an auction.
Ewald wagged his finger at Hans. “You always were good at measuring,” he told his nephew, “even at three.”
“Did he guess it?” Ethel piped up. “Tell us! How long?”
“Two days, nine hours,” he announced. “To Chicago. And then another two – hours, that is – to Rockford. That’s where Mr. Becker picked me up. But if you count the time waiting at Union Station in Chicago – now that’s a train station! – for the connection, add on three hours…”
“For a total of two days, fourteen hours!” Hans announced. “I win!” He jumped up from his chair, fists raised in triumph.
Renate observed this exchange with satisfaction. She was heartened by seeing Ewald and Ulrich in the same room once more, and by the generally lighthearted atmosphere. Life had been so demanding and draining for so long that she almost thought they’d all forgotten how to laugh and relax and simply enjoy each other’s company. Even Ulrich, she thought, although she could tell there were words yet to be said between him and Ewald. But that time will come, she knew. Soon.
As the many dishes were passed once, and then again, and again, everyone was eager to hear about Ewald’s new life.
“What’s Illinois like? Durand?” Ethel asked.
Ewald paused, knife at the ready to slice the piece of roast pork that his fork had already pierced, so as to think how best to describe the town where he lived.
“It’s a small town, smaller than Bockhorn, certainly,” he began. “A town square, a ‘downtown’ they call it, with a little park in the middle, between the two sides of the main street – that’s where most of the shops are.”
“Is that where your shop is?” Hans inquired.
Ewald shook his head as he chewed a bit of meat. “No. We’re off on one of the side streets.” He stretched his hand out, in front of Ethel’s face, in fact, as if to show which direction they should walk to find it. “But the town isn’t big, like I said. Doesn’t take long to walk from one end of it to the other.”
“What’s the land like?” This from Ulrich.
“Rolling in some places, flat in others. Flatter than here. You can see so far. That’s when you begin to be able to see how large the country is. Goes on forever. Farms. Corn fields. Cows and pigs.” He shook his head from side to side, as if still amazed by this.
“And what about the forests?” Ethel asked.
“Not so many forests there, I’m afraid,” Ewald told her.
She put down her fork. “What do you mean? I thought you went there to be a woodworker. Didn’t you?”
Ewald nodded. “Yes, yes, I did. And I am. But not a forester. No one does that there.”
This bit of information was met with disbelief. How can that be? they all seemed to ask at once. They looked back and forth to each other.
“I know,” Ewald told them. “Took me a while to get used to that, too. Here I get to Durand, to work with Mr. Becker, and all the way we’re riding there in the wagon, I’m looking around. Fields, farm houses, cows, and grain silos – these tall round buildings they store the grain in. But hardly any trees. Trees by the farmhouses, trees along the edges of the fields. Maybe a small stand of oaks or maples here and there. Finally, we get to Durand, and I say, Mr. Becker, Sir, where are all the forests? And he laughs and says to me, Son, this is farming country. Trees block the light!”
Ulrich was frowning by now. The rest of them were just staring, until Hans finally spoke up.
“But then where does the wood come from for your carpentry work?”
Ewald shrugged. “Up north. Minnesota, Canada. Still forests galore up there.”
“So,” Viktor said, speaking up for the first time, “looks like Germany has something on America after all – our forests!”
They all laughed, but then also felt a certain awkwardness. Everyone felt certain that Viktor wasn’t intending to bring politics or the recent war into the conversation. But his comment reminded them all that Ewald, although German by birth, was now an American citizen. What had that meant: being a German and an American, too, in America during the war? This was not a conversation anyone wanted to begin, at least not now, and Viktor was quick to try to shift the tone.
“I mean, we do have the best forests, right? That’s just a fact.”
“Yes, sir!” Ewald confirmed, his convivial tone and smile showing that he had taken no offense, and was even grateful to Viktor for understanding what he’d been thinking. “I may be a citizen of America now, but I am still a German in my heart, and it does my German heart good to see our woods again. And you’re right, Mr. Bunke, even the Americans admit that our forests can’t be matched. I’ve missed them,” he added, sighing. “I really have. The landscape just looks barren without them. Funny, isn’t it? All those fields there growing food for the whole country, and all I want to do is walk in the woods!”
“Well, we’ll do that, too, that’s for sure!” Ulrich told his old friend. He felt relieved that the rough patch had been smoothed over, and glad for the chance he knew a walk in the woods would give them to talk.
“Enough about wood and forests, now,” Renate announced, pointing a serving spoon from the bowl of potato salad at her brother. “What can you tell us about American women? Specifically, about your American woman. And those half-American children you’ve managed to produce.”
Ethel turned to face her uncle, tipped her head to the right, and pursed her lips slightly, while taking one braid in her hand and bobbing it up and down. “Now, you’d better tell me those American girls can’t hold a candle to us German girls!”
Ewald laughed and then looked from Ulrich to Renate, but neither showed any inclination to help him out of this pickle.
“You’re on your own,” Ulrich told him.
“Well?” Renate nudged.
“Now, you’re putting me in a difficult spot,” Ewald began. “I want to ‘plead the fifth’, as we – they – say in America. That means you don’t have to say anything that’ll incriminate yourself. But, as we say, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Between a rock and a hard place.”
“Enough stalling!” Ethel teased him. “What’s your answer?”
“Can’t a man eat a homecoming dinner in peace?”
Hans shook his head. “Nope. This is crucial information about American culture.” He turned to Viktor and winked. At this, Ethel looked at Viktor and raised one eyebrow. Viktor wisely maintained a poker face.
“All right, all right,” Ewald replied. “Well, if push comes to shove, I’d have to say that my Elise is the most wonderful girl in any country.”
Ethel feigned offense, frowning and planting her hands on her hips.
“Sorry, my dear Ethel,” Ewald told her. “I should have said, the most wonderful girl for me in any country. And I’m sure there’s a man right here in Germany who will say the very same about you someday.”
Ethel blushed, and it was all she could do to keep from turning her eyes to Viktor. Instead, she just said, “Well, all right, Uncle Ewald, I’ll let you off the hook.”
Having once more avoided discord, Ewald went on to tell about his family. Funny to think, Renate mused, as she listened to her brother, that he has a family of his own now. But then again, I have my own, too. Nothing so strange about it. As natural as could be. That’s what she told herself, but deep inside she detected a sadness that her brother had built an entire life for himself on the other side of the world, a wife and two sons and a daughter she might never meet. How can such a state of affairs be natural? Renate didn’t voice these thoughts, not wanting to dampen the high spirits of the occasion. At the same time, she recognized that Ulrich was feeling something similar: a regret that he had not been alongside his best friend as he built this new life, that he had missed standing up with him at his wedding, or being godfather to his children.
Hans and Ethel, though, Renate noted, were genuinely taken with Ewald’s tales of life in America. Especially Hans. He told Ewald that wanted to know more about the social life of Durand, by which he really meant that he wanted to know more about the girls there.
“What, not enough eligible young women here, in Bockhorn, or in Varel?” Ewald asked.
“Do you see anyone here with me?” Hans replied, spreading his hands open and turning to gesture at those at the table. “No such luck. Haven’t found anyone to suit me.”
“Another condemnation of German maidens!” Ethel announced with a ringing laugh.
“Well, my Elise is a German maiden,” Ewald objected. “By blood, anyway. She was born there, in Illinois, just in another town, but not far off. Lots of German families settled there, for some reason, in Freeport, in Lena. Durand, too. Lucky for me, they raised their children to speak German. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had anyone to talk to when I got there!”
“And your children?” Renate asked him. “Do they speak German, too?”
Ewald nodded. “We speak German at home. Or, German with a bit of English thrown in. That started once the kids went to school. Elise knew English, of course, since she went through school there. But she speaks perfect German. Cooks perfect German, too!” he added with a laugh. “But don’t get on your high horse, Renate. German food still tastes more like home here than it does there. Same ingredients, but they taste different there, somehow.”
Renate, pleased at her brother’s praise, immediately began spooning more potatoes onto his plate from the serving bowl. He didn’t object.
“Tell us about our cousins,” Ethel asked. “But eat, too! I’m sure we can come up with something else to talk about and give you a break for a few minutes.”
“Yes, let me eat! Ulrich, Hans, tell me about the business, how it’s going.”
“We had some tough years,” Ulrich began, “during the war. You know. Or can imagine. All I can say is, thank the Lord above for our forest. It’s the game and the mushrooms and berries that saved us when rations were scarce, or when there weren’t any at all. Naturally, there was no carpentry work for us then. Folks wanted wood from us, but without any money to pay for it.”
“Sometimes folks bartered with us for wood, or for meat, for eggs,” Renate explained. “And sometimes we just gave it to them,” she added. “What did we need with their heirloom plates or lace or jewelry?” She shook her head. “Could I really sit here now, eating off someone else’s plates, our serving bowls on top of some other woman’s doilies, knowing I’d taken their possessions for the rabbits that happened to breed on our land by happy circumstance?”
“Plenty of people did,” Ethel said quietly. “Barter that way, I mean.”
Ulrich nodded. “True. But your mother and I, we didn’t want to do that. Between Ingo and Veronika’s farm and our woods and garden, we were better off than most. We shared when it felt like we could.”
“But we also kept an eye on the forest,” Hans reminded him. “I patrolled. You patrolled, Papa.” He turned to Ewald. “Firewood was scarce or, as Papa said, people couldn’t pay for it. So they came in at the edges of the forest and wanted to cut their own on our land. We couldn’t let that happen.”
“We did do our best to hold the line on that,” Ulrich agreed. But those times of need and despair, and those moments when they had to confront trespassers in the woods weighed heavily on his heart. Hans, though, was a teenager at the time, and his devotion to protecting the family assets was more pronounced than his consideration for their neighbors’ plight. Still today, he saw little reason to apologize for safeguarding what was precious and life-preserving from those who sought to take it without right or permission.
“We were blessed,” Ethel remarked. The lightness in her eyes and smile took on a different quality now, as tears began flowing. “God protected us. We always had enough, and we had enough to help others, too. I know that most people wouldn’t say that – that we were blessed. And Hans,” she said, glancing over at her brother, “please forgive me for saying it, because I know you didn’t feel blessed when you were injured and sent home from training…“ She raised her hand to show that he needn’t say anything in response. “But you know, during that time, during the whole war, I never felt in danger, not really. We were always hearing news – from Aunt Lorena and Uncle Stefan, and Grandma and Grandpa, from the folks who came by. It was always bad news, and they poured out their hearts and their sorrows. But I always felt in my heart that we would all survive. And we did. By the grace of God.”
“By the grace of God,” Renate repeated softly. The others bowed their heads briefly in prayer, too.
“Let us give thanks for God’s bounty that He provides for us still,” Ulrich said.
He held out a hand to each of his children beside them who, in turn, reached to clasp the hand of the person sitting next to them, until they were all holding hands around the table, each silently expressing gratitude to God that they had come through the war. Except for Viktor, who had become acquainted with God only in recent months, in the forest that helped the Gassmanns survive the war. It wasn’t that Viktor wasn’t giving thanks. He was. It was just that, at this moment, he wasn’t focused on having lived through the war – he managed that, he reckoned, more by the skin of his teeth and the sharpness of his wits, than thanks to any divine help.
Precisely because Viktor hadn’t opened up communication with God before arriving at this heavenly spot, he concluded, during all those tough years of growing up and making his way, that God wasn’t working on his behalf. It was only once he landed in this divine spot and got acquainted with God, that he came to believe – totally, one hundred percent! – that God was protecting and helping him. He knew this had to be the case. Otherwise, how would I have found Ethel? He had watched her and listened in amazed silence as she said what she’d just said. He took in the shining light in her eyes – the light of God, he felt –and the depth of faith and love that her whole being expressed to a degree he had not seen before this. Certainly, both the faith and the love also found expression in her quilts and her cheese and her bread, but now it was simply radiating from her, Viktor saw. It was for this that he was offering thanks to God. For Ethel. For the gift of her in his life. Glancing around at everyone else at the table, he could tell that each and every one of them felt the same away about her.
“Yes, things have come back since then,” Ulrich began, slowly and softly, as if reflecting on the war years and the nearly three years that had passed since the war ended. “People are rebuilding, and even though so many are still out of work, enough are working that there is work for us, too.”
Ewald had taken a look in the workshop with Ulrich earlier in the afternoon, and he’d been pleased to see several projects in progress and hear that the orders were coming in steadily.
“Enough work for a new helper, too, I see!” Ewald said, gesturing at Viktor, who nodded.
“He’s a clever one,” Hans said, even clapping Viktor on the shoulder. “Always seems to know what’ll bring a client in, what they’ll like. And then we make it. We’re on more solid ground every day, thanks to him.”
“I’m glad to be able to help out,” Viktor said plainly. Then he added, “and grateful for the work. It’s been a scarce commodity, as you’ve heard.”
Viktor felt pleased at Hans’ praise, but cautious, too, since he was well aware that Hans didn’t feel at all welcoming to him early on. He knew he was treading a narrow path here: He was a valued employee, and Hans was even presenting him as key to the business. But Viktor was also developing a new role here – not just in business dealings, but in the family, with his courtship of Ethel. And he knew that he had to proceed with utmost care as he moved forward, so that Hans wouldn’t feel threatened by his success with the clients, or by what he hoped and prayed would be success with Ethel.
“We’re grateful to have you,” Ulrich said. Then he inquired of Ewald, “So you have plenty of work there, too, in Illinois?”
Ewald nodded. “We fared better there than you did here…” He paused. “It pains me to say that, though. It was really hard being there while you all were here, and knowing I couldn’t do anything.” Ewald knew how much his family had gone through here during the war years, and he felt guilty, somehow, for having always had enough food at home – home in Illinois – and for never having to worry that his daughters or wife would be in physical danger. And yet, it didn’t seem right to pretend that all had been smooth sailing. “I had to keep my own head down, actually.”
“Germans not so popular in America then?” Ulrich asked, without any trace of a smile.
Ewald nodded. “Some folks we know – other German immigrants – they forbade their kids from speaking any German, and spoke only English themselves at home. We didn’t. We reckoned, everyone we worked for or with already knew who we were, knew us well. If they didn’t want to work with us, they wouldn’t.”
“Your Mr. Becker,” Ulrich asked, “he’s a German, too, if memory doesn’t fail me?”
“That’s right. But his family came over late in the last century, and they married Americans, some of them. He and his brothers and sisters, they all learned English first, along with German. Actually, his German’s kind of old-fashioned, stilted. His schooling was in English, and he picked up what German he did at home and from relatives. So, Germans like him, they had an easier time of it. Since his shop has had a good reputation for years, and since he vouched for me and Ralf – we’re the only two German Germans working there – he didn’t lose any business.”
“But what about you and Ralf, and your and Elise’s family?” Ethel asked, laying her hand on her uncle’s wrist. “Did you run into any trouble because of the war?”
Ewald shook his head. “The benefit of living in small towns where everybody knows each other, I guess. I mean, I can’t say what people thought in their heads, or what they said in their own kitchens. But what I can say is that we really encountered mostly kindness from everyone.”
“Mostly?” Renate asked.
“There’s always this and that,” Ewald replied with a shrug. But the look he gave her, and which she immediately understood, told her it was better not to get into this topic more than they already had. She got it: This is a happy occasion. Let’s count our blessings.
Ethel, who also intuited her uncle’s wish for a shift in topic, asked him to tell them everything about her cousins, and he happily obliged. Pulling out two cardstock black-and-white photographs from the satchel he’d hung on the back of his chair, he proudly displayed them, introducing his children to their cousins, aunt, and uncle.
“This is Marie, our oldest,” he began, pointing to the tallest of the three children. Thirteen years old, she had blonde braids, like Ethel, and she was healthy and strong looking. She wore a gingham dress and dark stockings and black, lace-up shoes.
“She looks like you, Mama, don’t you think?” Ethel asked Renate.
Peering at the photo, Renate nodded. “More like you when you were that age, I’d say.”
“And this is John. He’s in the middle, twelve now.”
“And already tall like his dad,” Ulrich noted with a smile. He liked the look of the young man in the plaid shirt and the dark pants that hung on him. “Got some filling out to do, hasn’t he?”
“Yep, a bean pole!” Ewald laughed, too. “He’ll tower over me before long, I think.”
“Interested in carpentry?” Hans asked.
“Afraid not,” Ewald told them. “For some reason, he’s gotten into the dairy business, helping on one of the farms with the milking. Who knows why? Can’t stand the animals myself. My God, the smell that comes off those cow fields when you ride by!”
“And who’s this one?” Hans asked, pointing to the third child, a dark-haired girl, with braids that matched her sister’s, and a similar dress, too.
“Little Erika. She’s just about to turn ten.”
Ethel held the photo up close to her face to study it, while the others complained that they couldn’t get a good look at the girl.
“Who’s she look like?” Ethel asked. “What do you think?” She passed the photo around, but no one had a clue.
“She might have your mouth, Ewald,” Renate ventured, “and your hair, except hers is dark, but other than that, I don’t see any of you there.”
“Yep,” Ewald confirmed with a nod. “She’s practically all Elise.” And, so that the group could draw their own conclusions, he took out a second photo, one of him and Elise together, and laid it on the table next to the photo of the children.
“Oh, yes!” Renate exclaimed. “Erika’s the spitting image of your wife!” She noted her own delight and marveled at it, somehow both surprised and pleased that she was experiencing genuine happiness at Ewald’s family, pleased that joy had replaced her earlier disappointment at having missed out on being near Ewald over the past seventeen years.
“You weren’t lying,” Hans told him, eyebrows raised. “A real beauty! If she’s what your Midwest has to offer, sign me up!”
Everyone laughed and expressed their agreement with Hans’ assessment. But Ulrich’s smile faded before the others’, and Renate noticed some slight anxiety in her husband.
Ewald, though, pleased that his wife and children seemed to have won his family’s approval, was in an expansive mood.
“Plenty of good girls to marry,” he said, tipping his head to the side as he looked back at Hans. “And plenty of work for good cabinet makers.” Here, he, too, must have sensed that Ulrich was becoming tense, and he tried to turn it all into a joke. “For all of you,” he said, taking in Ulrich, Hans, and even Viktor in an encompassing gesture. “We can move your whole operation to Illinois!”
“That won’t do at all!” Ethel objected lightheartedly. “I’d miss our forest too much, seeing as how they’re in short supply there in your Illinois. Unless we can take it with us, that is. Can we?”
“Guess not,” Ewald told her. “Guess not.”
“Then count me out,” Ethel told him firmly. “I’ll stay a German girl in Germany. Especially since you have plenty of German girls there!”
And so, the discussion of the life in the great American Midwest ended for now, and although it seemed to have finished up on a light note, Ulrich felt a rising anxiety in his guts. Renate noticed it. So did Viktor, who had, over the past few months, grown more attuned to his employer’s moods. But Hans noticed none of this. A seed had been planted.
* * *
The very next day, Ulrich got the chance for the private conversation with Ewald that he’d been wishing for ever since he learned his old friend would be coming to visit. It was Saturday afternoon, and Ewald walked over from the Walters’ farm, also eager for some time alone with Ulrich. When Ulrich saw him walk into the workshop, he immediately set down the piece of wood he was holding and put his hand out. Ewald took it, drew Ulrich in, and gave him a hearty hug. Without even talking it over, the two men headed out into the forest. They eventually came to sit on a fallen spruce trunk that was waiting to be attended to before the snow set in.
They sat silently at first, both men taking in the sounds and smells of the forest. This helped calm Ulrich, and soothe his mind, so that he’d be able to speak clearly with Ewald. But Ewald was overcome with nostalgia: Once again, after seventeen years, he was sitting deep in the forest, and not just any forest, but one in which each and every sound and sight and scent came together to form a whole that to him represented that very specific German forest of his youth. He was so moved by the unexpected feeling of being home, that he felt tears rising. Ulrich knew Ewald – at least the Ewald of their shared youth – well enough to let him sit, quietly, until he felt ready to speak. This approach also had the benefit of giving Ulrich time to decide what he wanted to say to Ewald.
After a bit, Ewald sat up straight and let out a long sigh. “It’s been a long seventeen years, Ulrich,” he said finally. “Don’t get me wrong. A good seventeen years, very good.”
“You have a beautiful family,” Ulrich said, nodding. “Mostly, I think that’s the most important thing – family.”
Ewald grasped two meanings to Ulrich’s words, even if his brother-in-law didn’t consciously mean them that way. “It’s not easy having your family split on two sides of the ocean,” Ewald went on, “even if the family you’re with is the most loving one there could be.”
Ulrich nodded. “Renate’s missed you. I’ve missed you. You parents have, too. And Lorena.”
What am I supposed to say to that? wondered Ewald. He could feel Ulrich’s melancholy, and his own annoyance. Why can’t he just be happy that I’m back for a while? Why replay all of that again? Or if he has to, why not just shout at me and be done with it?
“All of that” was the scene – that’s how Ewald thought of it, and had done, for all these long years – the scene Ulrich made just before Ewald set off, back in ’04. In a rare – or, rather, singular, unique – display of strong emotion, Ulrich came to him in his bedroom, where he stood, in the middle of packing his trunk for the ship, and begged him to stay. It’s not fair to your parents to leave, he said. Not fair to Renate. And not fair to me, to our work. How will we get by without you?
That was the only time Ulrich ever played on his brother-in-law’s emotions – or anyone’s, as far as Ewald was aware of. It wasn’t something he did. Ewald always knew that Ulrich felt things deeply. Even before his emigration, he’d long been aware of his friend’s tendency to melancholy. But never had he seen Ulrich try to change someone’s mind about a decision using what, these days, we’d call emotional manipulation. And, unwilling to be influenced by this tactic that his own mother had employed, ultimately unsuccessfully, Ewald said something to Ulrich which he had regretted for the past seventeen years:
“Just because you’re going to have a harder time in the workshop, doesn’t mean I can’t go live and work where I see fit.” That was it. And it worked, if by “worked”, we mean that these words shut Ulrich up. What could his friend say to that? Stay for the sake of those who love you. Sacrifice your plans and your dreams for us. No. It had cost Ulrich a great deal of pride and strength to make the request in the first place, and after Ewald’s response, he had no strength left to mount a second campaign.
“Look,” Ewald said, softening a bit when he saw Ulrich’s face fall, saw him drop his eyes to the floor, “I’m going to miss you all, too. But – it’s America, Ulrich! There’s no limit to what we can do there. It could be good for all of us!”
Ulrich frowned. Then he found his voice again – not to try to sway his brother-in-law, but just to set out what was in his heart. “Good for all of us, Ewald? I don’t see how. How is you leaving hearth and home going to be good for us when we’re here and you’re there?”
But Ewald’s reasoning convinced him that his decision was fully validated by all Ralf had told him about Illinois and Mr. Becker and the booming carpentry business there. Why wouldn’t it benefit us all if I get set up with good work, even if it’s far across the ocean? Ewald didn’t consider that this might be just the thought he clung to in order to justify indulging his wanderlust, as well as a certain conviction that dogged him: that the last place he wanted to be trapped for the rest of his life was on a farm in the German countryside, where he’d end up marrying some girl he’d known since he was three, a girl from a neighboring farm (and he knew full well that his mother had such a girl in mind) and raising a family of his own within no more than half a mile from where he grew up. Yes, he certainly would miss Ulrich – Ulrich was the only one he would probably truly miss – but Ulrich was not reason enough to stay.
This is exactly what Ewald’s original response conveyed to his brother-in-law, and it stung Ulrich: the realization that, when push came to shove, this friendship between them was just not strong enough. But, Ulrich did not ask himself, Strong enough to what? To survive being apart? To keep Ewald here? What was it that Ulrich was really worrying about here? What did he want from Ewald, exactly? He wasn’t able to formulate an answer for himself. All he could do was fall back on the same thought that came to him, over and over, during his childhood, when fate dealt him this or that blow: This is not fair! That’s what it came down to for Ulrich, even if he couldn’t articulate it: It wasn’t fair that his mother left and died, that Aunt Claudia poisoned his childhood, that his father grew distant, that Erich grew distant… A whole string of It’s not fair! experiences.
In 1904, at age twenty-four, Ulrich still, remembered each of these unfair moments, but with a child’s brain and heart. At this moment, when his closest friend was about to leave him, Ulrich felt every bit as powerless as during all those other unfair moments. So, he couldn’t have said what he wanted from Ewald. He had no sense of himself as someone who could take action to remedy a situation so large and painful. All he felt capable of doing – and this was a monumental achievement in and of itself! – was to state his view of the situation. Then, he hoped, although without consciously realizing it, Ewald himself might make a decision that would turn it all around. That was what Ulrich was hoping for, deep inside, when he made “the scene”. But Ewald didn’t play along. He simply and bluntly stated that his friendship with Ulrich was not enough to hold him there. He doesn’t love me enough to stay, Ulrich concluded suddenly. Just like Mama. Just like Erich. This realization – and all that lay beneath it in his heart – devastated Ulrich and added a new, deep, and rich layer to his mind’s already fertile field of melancholy.
And that was how the two men left it. That was how it was between them when Ewald’s father drove him off in the wagon to meet the train that would take him to the coast, to his ship.
Once in America, once he got a bit settled in Durand, Ewald began writing to his family regularly, letters full of cheery news about his work, and amusing details about life in America. He wrote about meeting and marrying Elise, about the birth of the three children. Except during the war. The other Germans there advised him not to write. Indeed, the same conversations played out here, at home, in Germany. The Walters’ friends whispered, or even said in loud voices, that it would be best not to write. Thus, during those four long years, there was no communication, while worries abounded on each side of the ocean, alongside hopes that their loved ones were being protected through all their prayers. And so they were.
But throughout the years between 1904 and now, whenever the letters could flow freely, Lorena always passed them on to Renate. She read them to Ulrich, who invariably nodded and replied, “Good. He’s doing well then. That’s good.” Or, when the first one arrived after the war ended, Ulrich crossed himself and murmured, “Thank God.” But he never once asked to hold or read one of these letters himself.
Several letters written just to Ulrich arrived, too, in the early years. Ulrich didn’t share them with Renate, so she had no idea what was in them. Nor did Ulrich volunteer any information, even when Renate asked him outright what Ewald had written. “All going well.” That was the most Ulrich ever said. All these years, Renate had wondered. Is he telling the truth? What does Ewald have to say to Ulrich that he can’t say to us all in the regular letters? In her own, sisterly, sadness, she felt envious of these individual letters to Ulrich, even a bit resentful. And envious whenever she saw Ulrich sit down and put pen to paper, to write back to Ewald. What heartfelt things was her brother sharing with her husband, with whom he didn’t even parted on good terms? Why did he receive letters of his own, while she, his very own blood sister, had had to make do with the family letters?
Now, in 1921, as Renate stood at the kitchen window (her favorite vantage point for keeping an eye on the goings on on the homestead, since it afforded a clear view of the yard and the workshop, as well as the main path into the woods), she got to wondering again. What was in the letters? Is that what they’re going to talk about? She stood, a dish rag in her hand, and watched these two men, both so dear to her, walk slowly into the woods. The short distance between them conveyed to Renate both a desire to be physically close and friendly, and an invisible obstacle that was keeping them from achieving that, despite how warmly they’d greeted each other at their reunion. Yes, she could see that the obstacle was still there. At least for now. Renate prayed that they would emerge from the forest different men.
Ulrich was surprised by the way Ewald started their conversation. Things were hard for him? Ulrich thought.
“Was it really so hard?” Ulrich responded, a bit surprised that he had gotten right to the heart of it. Ewald was surprised, too. He didn’t realize that his friend, the friend of “the scene” had learned a little about transcending feelings and moving to action in the past nearly two decades. Ulrich had learned this, with difficulty, during the war, when it ceased being possible to live one’s life without deciding how to live it, without choosing sides, without assertiveness.
Ewald turned and looked at him, in an attempt to interpret Ulrich’s tone, which sounded both challenging and sad. He nodded. Then he began to feel annoyance rising in him. Anger, even, an old and deep feeling of resentment. “Did you even read my letters?” He asked, an edge in his voice, too.
Ulrich nodded.
“And?” Ewald asked.
“’And’ what?” Ulrich was just looking at him, and it seemed to Ewald that the sadness was winning out in Ulrich, despite his somewhat hard tone. He seemed in some ways the same Ulrich of that departure day in 1904, the “it’s not fair” Ulrich. Ulrich the sad sack. But the fact that Ulrich was now questioning him so openly hinted that something had changed in his old friend.
“Well, I mean, did you read them? I ask, because you never wrote back.” Ewald was holding Ulrich’s gaze now.
“Oh,” Ulrich said with a sigh and a shake of his head, “I did read them. And I did write back.”
“But I never got a letter back from you,” Ewald said, his brows knitting together.
“That’s because I never mailed them,” Ulrich told him, and a hint of a smile came to his lips. This was a very conscious choice – to write but not mail that letters – that Ulrich made once and then held to for the intervening years.
Ewald stood up and spread his arms in exasperation. “And you’re laughing about it?”
“Nothing else to do about it now,” Ulrich offered. It was already seeming ridiculous to him that he stubbornly remained silent all those years. He’d realized the ridiculousness of that as soon as he saw Ewald again. And, having understood this himself, it somehow didn’t occur to him that Ewald might not have gained the same insight.
“But why not send them?” Ewald pressed him. He was confused by Ulrich’s laugh. Has he been mocking me all these years? Did he really stop caring about me the day I left? “Why didn’t you send them?” he repeated.
“Pride?”
“Pride?” Ewald asked. “But I was the one who wrote to ask you to forgive me for being so cruel.” He paused, sat back down on the tree trunk, and asked, without looking at Ulrich, “You couldn’t forgive me? Was that it?”
Ulrich shook his head. He kept his eyes ahead of him as he answered, focusing on the beetles scurrying in and out among the fallen, dried leaves. “No, that wasn’t it. Of course I forgave you. I was hurt. I was mad. But I forgave you.”
Now Ewald looked at Ulrich. “But then why not write? Were you trying to punish me? All these years, I just figured, when I never got any answers back, that you just disowned me, that you decided it was best to cut me off and show me just how bad a mistake I made in leaving.”
This surprised Ulrich. “Do you think it was a mistake?”
“No. Well, not exactly. Not entirely.” He paused. “Yes, in some ways.”
“What ways are those?”
Ewald took a deep breath and then let it out, and lifted his eyes to stare out into the forest. “This, for one thing. The forest. You know, I… I don’t know what I thought. Well, yes, I do, in fact. I thought, if I’m going there to do carpentry work, there’ll of course be places like this. How could there not be? Or, well, actually, now I come to think about it, I didn’t think about whether there would be forests like this. I assumed there would be. But not in the sense that I consciously asked in my mind, ‘Will there be forests like this?’ I never asked myself that, because it wasn’t until I got there, to Illinois and those Midwest plains, that it even occurred to me how important these forests were to me. It dawned on me gradually, when I woke up in the morning and there was no scent of the forest nearby. When there was no place I could go where the day turned dark from all the trees around… That’s when I began to understand. That was one mistake.”
“And others?” Ulrich asked. He was fully aware that he had not answered Ewald’s question, about whether he’d sought to punish him through his silence. But he wasn’t yet ready to answer the question, just as he hadn’t been ready back then to send off the letters he’d written.
Ewald understood this, too, and he chose not to press his brother-in-law. He’d grant him the right to answer when he chose to do so, if he ever did.
“Others…” Ewald replied, thinking. “Family. Friends. Friend,” he said quietly, as if to himself. “This is a cruel thing to say, Ulrich, but I’ll say it only because I don’t see things this way anymore. The way it seemed to me back then, when I was leaving, was that America was far, but it wasn’t so far, and that, anyway, what I wanted to do was most important. I figured I could do without you all. At least for a while.” He paused. “You may not believe me, Ulrich, believe what I wrote in those letters to you. About wanting to bring the family over, so we could all live a good, solid life there together. But it was the truth. I had these two ideas – and I know they don’t work together – that, on the one hand, I didn’t need you all in order to make in there in America. And on the other hand, I concocted this idea of all of us together. As if I was just the pioneer, and you’d come along afterwards. Ralf and I talked a lot about that, about bringing both our families over.”
“Oh, I believed you, all right,” Ulrich told him, reaching out now to rest a hand on Ewald’s shoulder. “And I understood both those things you’re talking about here: that here you didn’t need us, but that you wanted us there. Clear to me.”
“Then why not write and tell me you understood?” Ewald asked again, exasperated now.
“I couldn’t figure out a way to say what I needed to say without it being hurtful,” Ulrich began.
“And what was it you needed to say?”
Ulrich swept his right hand across the view before them and then pointed in the direction of the house they’d come from. “I couldn’t leave any more than you could stay,” Ulrich told him, turning to look him in the eye. “Not even for your friendship.”
The two men didn’t speak for a bit. At one point, Ewald rested his bent elbows on his thighs and lowered his head to his hands. Ulrich saw the head shaking slowly back and forth.
“That’s the hard thing, isn’t it?” Ulrich asked finally, laying his arm once more on Ewald’s shoulders and pulling his friend gently toward him.
Ewald nodded. He no longer needed an answer to his question about punishment.
“But you know, Ulrich,” he said, “Sure, I have a good life over there. Like I said, a wonderful family, a loving family. And I love them. Don’t get me wrong! But at the same time… I’ve felt so alone there. Like an outsider in my own town. Sometimes in my own home. If you had been there, Ulrich, it would have been different. I’m sure of it.”
Ulrich listened quietly, nodding to show that he was taking in what Ewald was saying, but staring off into the forest before him.
Then he turned his gaze to Ewald. “I’ve felt alone, too, Brother.”
Ewald felt a twinge in his heart. He couldn’t bear to answer for a minute or so. And Ulrich didn’t push him for a reply.
“Are things any better now?” Ewald asked finally. “I mean, business is good. And the new fellow, Viktor. He seems to have fit in well?”
Ulrich nodded. “I’m grateful for him. He’s great with the wood. But more than that… I don’t feel as alone with him around.”
“I’m grateful for him, too, then,” Ewald replied softly.
After another quiet moment, Ulrich gave his brother-in-law’s shoulder a gentle shake.
“Let’s not make these mistakes again, Ewald. Let’s not.”
Ewald nodded again. “Life is too short. Too much of it has already passed.”
A while later, Renate saw the two men emerge from the forest, Ewald with his arm around Ulrich’s shoulder, and Ulrich smiling and joking. Renate let out a sigh and nodded, smiling out of gratitude, as tears began flowing down her cheeks.
Sue Downing 