Part 7 (1/2)
I looked at her, astounded. ”I can't believe you said that! Don't ever, ever say such a thing! Rosita, he must be defeated. Americans don't understand how evil he is, how dark Germany has become. Hitler has committed terrible, horrible atrocities. Don't even think that Hitler won't be defeated!”
Rosita was taken aback by my strong reaction. But I felt surprised at her ignorance, too. At times, I felt so frustrated with Americans. They had committed their country to fighting Hitler, yet so many seemed nave about the horror of Hitler's diabolical ways. True, most did not know the depth of the terrible atrocities that I was aware of, but after reading the newspapers and listening to the radio for news reports, they had more information than they wanted to admit. Sometimes, I felt as if Americans just didn't want to concern themselves with the suffering of others.
”Louisa, you and Father Gordon and his aunt and William, you all come to Sunday dinner at my house,” offered Rosita in a conciliatory tone.
”Oh, Rosita.” I sighed. ”Forgive me for las.h.i.+ng out at you.” I looked at her, chagrined. ”Robert's aunt says that if anyone even mentions. .h.i.tler's name around me, they end up feeling as if they walked straight into a buzz saw.”
Rosita laughed. I felt relieved, glad that awkward moment was behind us.
”About your dinner invitation, I would love to accept for myself, but I'll have to ask the Gordons'. Reverend Gordon not Father Gordon, remember? Maybe you should just call him Robert. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. May I bring something?”
”You just come and bring a big appet.i.te.”
I smiled at her. ”Okay, Rosita, so who else is on your bachelor list?”
Happily, she chattered away, detailing the positive and negative points of each single man under the age of ninety in Copper Springs, until Esmeralda called to her to come home. After the sun rose high in the sky, it became too warm to work. I went inside to wash up and told Miss Gordon about Rosita's dinner invitation.
”Please give her my apologies,” she said.
I turned to look at her. ”Is there any reason you are unable to go to Rosita's home?”
”I have too much to do.”
”You take a nap on Sunday afternoons.”
”Then that is what I'm going to be busy doing.” She marched upstairs with the clean towels she had just finished folding.
I knew exactly why she was too busy to accept Rosita's invitation.
On Sat.u.r.day, I baked a cake that I used to make for my father. I covered it with a dishtowel to take over to Rosita's for dinner tomorrow as Robert came into the kitchen to listen to Walter Winch.e.l.l's commentary on the radio.
”Smells good. Can I have a slice?” He lifted up the dishtowel.
I shook my head. ”Ah-ah. Don't touch. I made it to take tomorrow to Rosita's. My father used to call it 'the forgiving cake'.”
Robert walked over to get a coffee cup and started to fill it. ”Why did he call it a forgiving cake?”
”Because no matter what I did to it, it still turned out well.” I filled up the sink with warm, soapy water to clean up the dishes I'd used.
Robert picked up a dishtowel to help dry the dishes. ”So are you more like your father or your mother?”
”Oh, definitely, my mother. She and I never seem content to leave things well enough alone.”
”Yep,” he nodded in friendly agreement.
I frowned at him but couldn't hold back a grin. ”My father was the peacemaker in our family. Like you.”
He took the last dish from me and dried it, then handed me the dishtowel. ”Louisa, do you have any relatives left at all?” he asked, his voice kind.
I glanced over at him. ”Well, my father had a cousin in Mnchen, in Munich, and she had a little daughter who played the piano like I did. Better than I, actually. They went into hiding a year ago.” I had tried to trace their whereabouts, to provide care packages and money to them, but I could never find a single lead. A good sign, I hoped.
I took the dishtowel from him and hung it carefully on the dish rack to dry, just the way Miss Gordon liked it. I looked around the kitchen to make sure I had left it in pristine condition for her. This was the first time she had let me use the kitchen without supervision. Satisfied that it would pa.s.s inspection, I said, ”Robert, why is your aunt so prejudiced? You're not. Sometimes I don't even understand how you could both be from the same family. You're nothing alike.”
”Well, Aunt Martha has never lived anywhere else, never even traveled further than Tucson or Phoenix. She has a set view in her mind of the way people are. It's hard to change, I suppose, at her age.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.
”She has such brittle requirements for everyone. Who isn't she against? She doesn't like Mexicans, Catholics, Jews, she doesn't like divorced...”
Robert winced.
I clamped my mouth shut. Up to that moment, up until his reaction, I didn't really know he and his wife had divorced. Even though I wondered about this mysterious woman often and was aware of the damaging effects her absence had created in this family, it had never really occurred to me that she and Robert were divorced. A divorced minister, no less. I felt terrible. I hadn't meant to insinuate anything. Would I never get it right? Would I never think before I spoke?
”What I meant is that Copper Springs has a great deal of diversity; she's been around people of different races and cultures all of her life,” I said feebly, trying to deflect my thoughtless remark.
He poured the rest of his coffee down the drain. ”Well, sometimes that can reinforce stereotypes, too. If all she has ever known about a Russian, for example, is a Russian miner who gets drunk every Sat.u.r.day night, then that's what she thinks they're all like. Give her time. She'll come around.”
He flipped on the radio, and we heard the familiar words of Walter Winch.e.l.l as he began his commentary with his usual catch phrase: ”Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the s.h.i.+ps at sea. Let's go to press.”
Later that night, the house was so hot from the day's heat that we sat on the porch. The parsonage had a swamp cooler in the attic, but Miss Gordon said it couldn't be turned on until it was hot enough to melt b.u.t.ter. I didn't quite agree with her, but she said I didn't know how hot ”hot” was yet.
She brought out fresh lemonade for everyone. As she handed me a gla.s.s, she pointed to my arm and asked, ”What's that?”
She was referring to three small scars, evenly placed a few inches apart from each other in a row on my left upper arm. ”Nothing really,” I answered.
”What on earth could have made scars like that? It looks like someone came at with you a hayfork.”
I crossed my arms, covering the scars, more than a little embarra.s.sed by her persistence.
Miss Gordon reached for my arm. ”And they're not so old, either.”
She was right. They hadn't completely healed. ”Just some battle scars,” I said, hoping she would drop the topic.
Now Robert noticed. ”Louisa, what happened to you?”
”I got them when I was escaping through France.” I took a sip from my lemonade. They both looked at me, waiting for me to continue. I didn't really want to say more; dark memories of Germany left me feeling edgy. But they kept staring at me, waiting for me to elaborate. ”I had made it through Switzerland and was in Chamonix, France. They say that is where downhill skiing began. It's a beautiful village. Someday, after the war, you should try and visit Chamonix.”
Robert had that look on his face which communicated clearly, without saying a word, to please get to the point of the story.
”So,” I hurried along, ”there was a very kind farmer who helped me get to Beaune. He transported me in a hay wagon. Beaune is a medieval town, another beautiful French village. We pa.s.sed by some German soldiers sitting on the roadside. I was hidden under the hay in the back of the wagon. The soldiers stopped the farmer's wagon and poked a pitchfork through the hay, just to make sure no one was there.”
Miss Gordon gasped. ”How did you keep still?”
”Sheer terror. Fortunately, the pitchfork hit my arm, and the soldier thought he had hit the bottom of the wagon, so he let the farmer pa.s.s on.”
”He could have put out your eyes...or worse,” she noted.
I gave an uncomfortable laugh. ”I am sure he would have preferred to have done just that, rather than to have let a German refugee get away. But...you are exactly right. It could have been much worse. For the brave farmer, too. I was one of the lucky ones. A narrow escape, yes?” I stood up to go get William from Robert's lap and take him upstairs to get ready for bed.
William's bedroom was directly over the porch. The windows were open to let the breeze in, and as I tucked him into bed, I could hear Robert and his aunt talking about me down below. I knew I shouldn't have listened, but it was just too tempting.