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. Wh
y 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.
The arched door was unlocked. I stepped inside to be greeted by a musty odor so disagreeable that even Sophie wrinkled her nose. Simple oak pews flanked the center aisle, facing an unadorned pulpit. The four narrow windows on each of the side walls were made of clear glass. I remembered the rich, walnut woodwork and stained-glass windows in the stone church where I’d worshiped back home and felt cheated. I had been forced to give it up—for this?
By the time I walked back to the farmhouse, Herr Metzger was preparing to leave. I thanked him for fetching me from the train station.
“My wife will pay you a visit in a few days, when you’re settled,” he promised before he drove away.
I turned back to my new home, staring in dismay at the dingy gray box. There were two large maple trees in the front yard, but nothing else; no bushes or shrubs, no flowers or climbing vines or painted flower boxes.
“Come inside and let me show you around,” Friedrich urged. I followed him up crooked wooden steps and across a wide front porch with railings all around it. “This will be a nice place to sit on summer evenings when it’s hot,” he said.
The walls of the frame house seemed flimsy and thin compared to the thick-walled German farmhouses I was used to. I wondered what would happen when the winter wind blew. The front door opened onto a dark hallway with stairs leading to the second floor. Friedrich opened the door to a small room on the right. “This will be my study someday. Can’t you picture it with a desk and some bookshelves?”
The parlor was through the doorway on our left, and beyond it was a formal dining room with a bay window. All of the rooms were sparsely furnished with items donated by the parishioners. Undismayed by the barrenness of the huge, high-ceilinged rooms, Fritz showed me a thick magazine.
“This is the Sears Roebuck catalogue. It has everything we’ll need to furnish a house. And the prices are very reasonable too. We just mail in our order with the money, and they deliver it by mail or railroad freight.” I tried to feign interest as Friedrich leafed through the pages, pointing to pictures of upholstered sofas, rocking chairs, oak bedroom sets with dressers and nightstands—even pianos and sewing machines. But Friedrich was too excited to linger over the catalogue for very long.
“Wait until you see the kitchen.” He led me by the hand into a kitchen so large that Mama, Oma, both of my sisters, and I could have all worked without bumping elbows. It had a cast-iron cook stove that would burn either wood or coal, a pantry lined with shelves, a granitine sink with a hand pump, a well- worn linoleum floor, and wainscoted walls. A gas lamp hung from the ceiling and three extra lamps lined a shelf above a porcelain-topped worktable.
“There’s plenty of storage space for your dishes and things,” Friedrich said, unlatching the door to one of the two tall cupboards that hung from the wall. “And when we get hungry, there’s some chicken and dumplings in the icebox for our supper, courtesy of Mrs. Metzger.”
I was weary of forcing a smile on my lips that I didn’t feel. For some reason, I felt close to tears. I turned to peer out of the kitchen window to hide them and saw a couple of apple trees, a garden area, a small barn, the privy, and two other outbuildings.
Friedrich took my hand again.” Want to see upstairs?” His grin vanished when he saw my face. “Louise, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry . . . I guess I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”
He lifted Sophie from my arms and set her on the floor. When she began to cry I reached for her but Friedrich stopped me, pulling me into his arms instead.
“She’ll be all right for a moment or two. I’ve scarcely had a chance to hold you without the baby wedged between us.” He gave me a long, lingering kiss, then took my face in his hands. “I love you, Louise. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make you happy here.”
Friedrich meant well, but all my joy had been extinguished as I had sailed away from my home and my family in Germany. This was my first day in my new house in America. I should have been content. But I was sure that I would never really be happy again.
* * *
I soon learned that I had many expectations thrust upon me as Pastor Schroder’s wife. In nice weather, Friedrich liked me to go with him on his rounds, paying social and condolence calls on his parishioners, bringing meals to the sick and shut-in. Although I was one of the youngest wives, I was expected to lead the women’s missionary society, raising funds in support of overseas missions in China. I was called upon to help prepare meals for all the church functions, such as picnics and weddings and funeral luncheons.
Friedrich was immensely successful and well-liked in the community, but as I listened to the glowing tales of the former pastor’s wife, I realized that compared to her, I was a great disappointment in every way—not the least of which was my inability to play the piano. Judging by all the attention and the pitying looks the older matrons gave Friedrich—the gifts of breads and pies and pastries they brought to him—I knew they all felt very sorry for poor Pastor Schroder. What a heavy burden he carried, encumbered with a useless wife like me.
Although I knew a lot of women in the village by name, I didn’t feel close to any of them. Magda was the only “family” I had, and I didn’t see her very often. She lived more than a mile away on the other side of the river. Gustav traveled a great deal with his work, stranding her at home without transportation. I looked forward to Sunday church services not for the opportunity to worship God, but because I would see Magda.
I blamed Friedrich’s God for my losses. Friedrich preached that He was a God of love, and that He’d shown His love by sacrificing His Son, Jesus Christ. But to me He was the God who had told Friedrich not to serve in the army, the God who talked to him in dreams, the God who convinced him to immigrate, and then held me to my marriage vows until death.
The God I’d once known had been left behind in the stone church in Germany where Papa was an elder, Kurt was a deacon, and our lives were held in perfect balance—the church where Sophie was baptized at the walnut font in the nave, and where my grandfather rested beneath a stone marker in the cemetery outside. Having faith in Friedrich’s God meant giving up control of my fate. He was one more person who wielded power over my life.
And so I sat in the pew with Sophie on my lap, Sunday after Sunday, too angry to pray. The only control I had was over my emotions, and I chose bitterness and resentment.
Friedrich was jubilant when we learned later that first summer that I was expecting. We both wanted another baby very badly. But in September I suffered a miscarriage.
“It’s little wonder that a child can’t live in my womb,” I told him. “I feel so dead inside . . . like I have nothing to live for.”
“Aren’t we enough, Louise?” he whispered as he lay in the darkness beside me. “Aren’t Sophie and I enough?” But I was afraid to love them, afraid I would lose them too.
My grief and despondency lasted well into December. It was Friedrich who decided we needed a Christmas tree and dragged one into our parlor, trimming it with candles and ornaments from home. It was Friedrich who cut pine boughs to decorate the church for the Christmas Eve service. And it was Friedrich who greeted all the parishioners who stopped by the house, bringing Christmas gifts and baked goods. If the Metzgers hadn’t invited us to their home for Christmas dinner, we wouldn’t have had a dinner at all.
Friedrich was in the habit of rising early every morning to read the Scriptures and pray before he left for work at the mill. One morning when I was unable to sleep, I found him on his knees
before dawn. “What do you need to pray for?” I asked bitterly. “You got your own way. Your prayers were answered. We’re here in America where you wanted to be.”
I saw the sorrow in his eyes as he pulled himself to his feet. “I pray that you will forgive me for bringing you here,” he said softly. “And that you will love me again someday.”
Friedrich never stopped trying to show his love and to win mine in return. True to his promise, he filled our home with furnishings from the Sears Roebuck catalogue and stocked my kitchen with blue-enameled cookware and all the latest cooking gadgets. In springtime he brought me bunches of violets and apple blossoms, tucking a flower in my hair or in the buttonhole of my shirtwaist. In summer he presented me with the first ripe tomato from our garden, still warm from the sun. When I stood at the sink washing dishes he would often come up behind me and encircle me with his arms, resting his head against the back of my shoulder. He never begged me to love him or demanded that I return his love. He was never angry or impatient with me, even when I was sunk in despair for days at a time. He simply loved me. But I felt nothing in return.
I learned that I was expecting again the following spring, one year after arriving in America, and suffered a second miscarriage that summer. I had lost so much weight, the doctor said that I was too unhealthy to carry a child to term. I gazed at the hollow-eyed woman I saw in the silver mirror and wondered how Friedrich could still think she was pretty.
My despondency deepened my second winter in America when Mama wrote to tell me that Oma had died. She had suffered a bad fall and had died a week later. I buried Oma’s crying cup deep inside a drawer in the sideboard.
Meanwhile, my friend Magda had delivered her fifth child, a son, and was pregnant with her sixth. Gustav had become dissatisfied with his job selling farm equipment. He had worked at the mill with Friedrich for a while, but he had been fired after an argument with his boss. Now he worked as a traveling salesman, peddling patent medicines door to door. Friedrich bought a supply of Dr. Brown’s Vegetable Cure from him, hoping it would cure my malaise.