Part 5 (1/2)

”Louise, why do you bother filling your head with these things?” complained Miss Gordon.

I ignored her remark. I was really watching for Robert's reaction, though he didn't seem to have one. He kept his head down as he cut his asparagus. Dared I continue? Never one to let the restraint of good judgment stand in my way, I plunged forward.

”Since we're talking about sign language, I sent away to some organizations that help deaf children, and I received back some brochures in the mail today.” I thought I had just made a brilliant segue to the topic that I had wanted to bring up all along.

Robert looked up at me sharply. ”Louisa, I believe I told you William would be taught when the time was right.” Abruptly, he stood up to clear his dishes.

”But Robert, maybe that time is now. From everything I have been reading, time is of the essence to help William. The younger he is, the better. And there is so much help to be had! Do you remember I told you I had met a family with a deaf child on the train? And they told me about a new clinic in Los Angeles? Well, I found out that this clinic offers correspondence courses for deaf children.”

Robert picked up his plate and went to the sink.

”And it doesn't cost a penny.” I waited to let that sink in. I looked over at Miss Gordon, trying to gauge her interest. I was ready to pull out my trump card. The one piece of information I knew could greatly reinforce my position. Timing was key, and I knew this was my moment.

Strategically, I placed a piece of paper on the table. ”The clinic is called the John Tracy Clinic of Los Angeles. John Tracy is the son of Spencer Tracy. You know, Spencer Tracy, the movie star.” I cast a furtive glance at Miss Gordon.

”Spencer Tracy?” she gasped. ”The movie star? Spencer Tracy of Boystown? Father Flanagan?”

Now I had her hooked. Boystown was one of her favorite movies. Miss Gordon picked up the paper and started skimming through it.

”Why, yes!” I said, as if I had just made that discovery myself. ”The very one. His son, John, was born profoundly deaf, just like William, and his wife devoted herself to teach him how to communicate. In fact, Spencer Tracy provides financial support to this clinic. And Mrs. Spencer Tracy answers all of the letters herself.” I slid the letter I'd received from Mrs. Tracy onto the table, close to Miss Gordon. Just as I hoped, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and started to read it.

I looked over at Robert. ”She's had so much success with John that she started this clinic to help other families. She believes in early intervention with children.”

I pulled out another piece of paper from my pocket and started to read a paragraph I had previously marked. ”Listen to this: 'First, it's important to make a decision, rather than no decision at all. Hearing impaired children need early language and communication intervention in order to succeed in life. Deaf children are normal children who just have a hearing problem. Their handicap is communicational, not mental'.”

There. My speech was complete. I waited patiently, biting my lip, bracing myself for their response. For his response.

”You know, Robert, perhaps you should be willing to see what they offer. Just consider looking at the information from the John Tracy Clinic,” Miss Gordon coaxed. ”I really don't think Mrs. Spencer Tracy would mislead you.”

A glimmer of hope. If I got her on my side, I knew I had won the battle. We both looked over at him at the same time.

Leaning his hip against the sink with his arms crossed, Robert tilted his head, arching one eyebrow at me as if to convey that he was well aware of the strategic tactic that I had used to corner him. Then he sighed in resignation. ”I have the sudden sense of being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. All right, all right. I'll read the materials.”

A door had opened, spilling forth light.

That night, Robert took out his guitar, and we sat on the porch to listen to him. William climbed onto my lap. It seemed Robert hadn't played the guitar in quite a while because even Miss Gordon looked pleased. He strummed a few songs and then sang a song I recognized. It was an odd song to hear from such an erudite minister, just as odd as when I heard it from Dietrich. ”Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and ”Go Down, Moses.” I wondered where this kind of music originated, because they were the only two men I knew who played it.

Later, I tucked William into bed, stroking his hair until he fell asleep, whispering a prayer. Thank you, Lord, for caring about this little boy in the midst of a world at war. Please help us find a way to unlock all that is in the wonderful mind you created for him.

The following morning, I reached for a juice gla.s.s from the kitchen cupboard and asked Miss Gordon more about those songs.

”They're called gospel songs,” she explained. ”From the Negroes. Robert went off to seminary and made friends with a colored minister from Alabama, Franklin Fisher, while he was there. Robert and that Dietrich fellow you talk so much about, they used to go to church with Franklin in a place called Harlem. That's where he learned those songs.”

Miss Gordon seemed to be in a friendlier mood this morning than usual, so the time seemed right to show her the completed choir robe. Quickly, I went upstairs and brought down the robe.

”Miss Gordon?”

She looked up from the sink where she was was.h.i.+ng dishes. Slowly, her face softened into delight.

”Why, it's...it's perfect!” She dried her hands and came over to examine every seam. I wasn't concerned. I had antic.i.p.ated a thorough inspection. ”It's better than the Methodists' robes! Why Louisa, you're a fine seamstress. We'll have to show Robert. And the ladies in the choir! They'll be so pleased. In fact, I might run it right over to Mrs. Wondowlowski.”

Now I knew I had done well; Miss Gordon rarely left the house except for church, choir practice, or to exchange her rationing coupons at the grocery store. Once in a great while, she would attend a war bond rally or a recycling drive.

When I had first arrived, I asked her what the used tin cans and old toothpaste tubes she saved so conscientiously could be recycled into. ”Saving aluminum cans means more ammunition for the soldiers,” she answered authoritatively, as if she were in charge of supplying weapons for the military herself.

Martha Gordon might not fully understand the grim realities of war, but she took seriously her patriotic duties and united with the American people in efforts to conserve. If the government asked Americans to recycle, then she would carefully save paper, metal, and rubber. She had remarkable hunting and gathering skills.

At least once a week, I found her at the kitchen table, peppered head bent over, pasting stamps into bond books. Like many Americans, the Gordon family only served red meat once a week, ate cottage cheese by the quarts, was miserly with sugar, traded coupons with other families for favorite products, and tried not to use the car unless they had saved up their monthly gas allotment. The government had instigated such rationing to ensure that the rich could not purchase privileges. Every American was expected to do their part to help win the war.

But, besides leaving the house on an unscheduled visit, another reason I could tell she was impressed with the choir robe-she called me Louisa. Not Louise.

So I started to work on the rest of the choir robes. Miss Gordon arranged for the choir members to come to the parsonage for fittings.

As I pinned hems and chalked seams, the ladies chatted amongst each other as if I was invisible. I didn't mind. I thought back to my summers as a teenager working in Frau Steinhart's seamstress' shop, in the heart of the Jewish Ghetto in Berlin. Now I wondered, with a wisp of nostalgia, if that might have been where my shameful habit of eavesdropping got started.

I was waiting for the day when Frau Mueller came in for her fitting; I was planning to use the opportunity to find out more about her husband. When the day finally arrived, I spoke to her in German, hoping to coax her to reveal information.

In her husband's absence, she was quite talkative. She volunteered that they had emigrated ten years earlier from Berlin. Herr Mueller deliberately chose Copper Springs as their destination before they had left Germany.

He bought up several copper mines in the area during the Depression when prices were devalued. He started the First National Trust of Copper Springs; he had even designed the building himself. He traveled regularly on lengthy trips, often to Mexico, she said, evidently proud of his business success.

Privately, I wondered how Herr Mueller had the foresight to buy up copper mines during a Depression. As if Herr Mueller knew a war on the horizon and gauged the time was right to stockpile.

So spun the wheels in my distrustful mind.

One afternoon, as I was finis.h.i.+ng up another hemline, Robert knocked on my door and poked his head in. ”Well now I'm especially glad you are making those choir robes, Louisa. I'd hate to have to tell Aunt Martha she couldn't have her robes. Mr. Mueller just informed me the money we were going to use for the new roof and the paint job will have to be used for raised taxes or else the church will go into arrears.”

”What? Are you certain?”

”Well, I knew our taxes had been raised; I didn't realize by how much. Mueller has always taken care of the church's finances. I've never had reason to doubt him. We never could've weathered the Depression without his financial ac.u.men.”

”Did you already give him the money?”

”Yes, I wrote a check this morning.”

After Robert left, I turned back to the choir robe in my hand, but my mind remained stuck on Herr Mueller. Somehow, I doubted his story.

A few days later, a truck rumbled up to the house early in the morning. Gruff voices carried up the stairs. I quickly dressed and went downstairs. Robert was directing the men to move a large object, covered in blankets, over to a blank wall in the parlor. I looked quizzically at Miss Gordon and William, but they looked just as puzzled as I.

Robert's eyes shone with happy amus.e.m.e.nt. He pulled the blankets off with a flourish. ”It's a piano! Haven't you three ever seen a piano before?” He laughed. ”It's for you, Louisa. Mrs. Drummond's piano. Betty was in town a week or so ago and told me she was selling off some of her grandmother's belongings. She doesn't play the piano, so I asked if I could buy it from her. Seemed like you should have a piano to play.”

This avalanche of kindness overwhelmed me. I couldn't talk. I don't remember that ever happening to me before. Utterly speechless.

He walked over to me, a worried look on his face. ”Is something wrong? Don't you like it? I thought you said it had a mellowed tone.”