If I stayed in Germany, I could probably apply for a divorce. After all, Friedrich had abandoned us eight months ago, hadn’t he? He had broken the law by failing to report for the draft and by leaving Germany illegally. But was divorce the best choice for my daughter?
Sophie gnawed contentedly on my knuckle as she tried to work another tiny tooth through her gum. It was so quiet in the pasture that when someone approached, crossing the field behind me, I clearly heard the sound of footsteps rustling through the grass even before I turned to see who it was. I was hoping it was Emil, but I faced my father instead.
“What are you doing way out here, Louise? Don’t you know it’s dinnertime? Your mother is calling for you. Everything is on the table.”
He looked tired, his broad shoulders sloping as if he wore weights on his wrists. For the first time, I noticed how much he had aged this past year, especially since Kurt and Friedrich had left. Papa hated it when Mama or any of the rest of us fussed over him, but I tenderly brushed wisps of loose straw from his jacket.
“I’m sorry, Papa. I needed to be alone for a while, to think. I’m trying to decide what to do.”
“What do you mean decide? What’s to decide?”
“Well . . . whether I’m going to stay here or go to America.”
Papa’s mouth worked, his lips pursing and unpursing as if he were chewing on something. It was a habit of his, whenever he battled his emotions. After a moment his back went stiff again, and he lifted his chin in the air. When he spoke, his voice was rigid as well.
“There is no decision to make. You cannot stay here. You cannot live in my house any longer.”
“Papa! You don’t mean it!”
“Of course I mean it! You are Friedrich’s wife. You belong with him. That’s the end of it.”
“You would force me to leave home?”
“Didn’t you hear me? This isn’t your home anymore. You’re a married woman now. It has been this way all through the ages—Sarah went with Abraham, Rebekah left her family, Rachel and Leah left their home—and you must leave too.”
“Papa, no!”
“Oh yes! You stood in God’s house and made a vow before Him that you would honor and obey your husband until separated by death. That wasn’t just an idle promise, Louise. You vowed before God.”
“I didn’t know Friedrich would decide to move to America, or I never would have married him. I never would have vowed—”
“But you did vow. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer. What God has joined can never be sundered.”
“You wouldn’t force me to leave against my will . . . I’m your daughter!”
“Not anymore.” Some of the sternness had faded from his voice, replaced by sorrow. “I gave you away to your husband at your wedding, remember? Just as you and Friedrich must one day give Sophie away.”
I clutched my daughter closer to me, unable to bear the thought of losing her.
“Whose child is she, Louise? She isn’t mine, she’s Friedrich’s. He must raise her, not me.”
Friedrich had spoken of us becoming one flesh. The union that had produced Sophie linked us together—I had helped him escape from the authorities because of Sophie. Now Friedrich and I could never be separated because of her. I understood all of this in my head, but my heart couldn’t accept it.
“I can’t leave my home, Papa!”
“Your home is with your husband and that’s that. It’s time to eat.” He turned to stalk across the field toward the house, but not before I saw his jaw tremble, a sign of weakness he needed to hide from me. I knew that his out-ward anger had been a front to mask his sorrow. With my own heart as heavy as my dragging feet, I followed him.
Dinner was a somber affair. None of us had the strength to make small talk or to pretend that our grief didn’t exist. Papa merely pushed his food around on his plate, and Emil bolted his so quickly I wondered if he’d even tasted it, then they both hurried out to the barn. Oma clung to Sophie all through the meal, aware that her time with her namesake was short. When she carried Sophie upstairs to change her, Mama and I were alone with the dinner dishes.
Papa is making me leave,” I finally said. “Did he tell you? He says I have no choice, I must go to America with my husband.” Tears rolled down my cheeks and dropped into the soapy water.
“Papa is right,” she said quietly. “You don’t have a choice.” She finished drying a cup and hung it on the hook in the cupboard before continuing. “When you were a little girl you wanted to be like Kurt and Emil, remember? You would put on their old boots and stomp around in the barn behind them. Their chores were more interesting, you insisted, more fun than ironing or mending or plucking chickens. You spent more time scrapping and wrestling with Emil and his friends than you did playing dolls with Ada and Runa.” Mama put her hand on my shoulder and made me look at her.
“It’s time to stop fighting, Louise. You’re a woman, not a man. There is no ‘happily ever after’ like in the fairy tales. There is no paradise until we die. We’re under a curse because of Eve’s sin. As Eve’s daughters, we will suffer pain in childbearing—as you already know. And the Bible says, ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband’—that’s why you miss Friedrich. But God also said, ‘He shall rule over thee.’ Now and always. That’s never going to change. God ordained that your husband make the decisions.”
She picked up a dinner plate and slowly dried it, battling her own tears. “Your papa and I both wish that Friedrich had decided differently, but he didn’t. He chose America. And now you have no choice but to go to him.”
No choice. I had no choice.
For the next week, those words rang through my dreams at night and shaped the course of my days as I packed my belongings for America. Emil followed me around like a lost puppy, with Sophie perched on his wide shoulders. I spent a day in the village with Runa, saying farewell, then another afternoon with Ada, doing the same. I hadn’t known when I’d said good-bye to Kurt at Christmas that I’d never see my older brother again.
Long before my heart was ready, I found myself standing beside the wagon as Papa loaded my trunks.
“You will take your leave here, in the privacy of our own home,” Papa had informed us the night before I would board the ferry to Rotterdam. “I won’t have my wife and children weeping in the middle of town for all the world to see.”
Emil clung to me until Papa announced that the wagon was ready. “I can’t watch you go,” he mumbled, then he turned and raced across the farmyard. As he disappeared into the barn, I caught my last glimpse of his broad, muscled back and flying hair.
Mama, Oma, and I were all crying. They would have let me stay, I told myself, but they lacked the power. “Who will sit with me while my babies are born?” I wept. “Who will I turn to when Sophie has an earache or the colic?”
At the last moment, Oma thrust the crying cup into my hands. “I want you to take this with you to America. Give it to your little ones for their tears . . . and may it soothe away your own sorrow whenever you think of me.”
“It won’t help, Oma. I’ll grieve until the day I die.”
“Liebchen, the power isn’t in the cup. It never was. The power to find joy again is within your own heart.” As I kissed her and Mama for the last time, I didn’t think I could ever feel joy again.
Papa said very little as we rode into town. Then he busied himself with the task of unloading my trunks and bags, making sure they were properly tagged for the voyage. As he waited on the wharf with me for the ferry that would carry me down the Rhine to Rotterdam, he kept clearing his throat. I wondered if it ached as much as mine. He didn’t find the courage to face me until we heard the signal to board.
“I hope you will forgive me for sending you away,” Papa said. “Your Friedrich is a good man—a man I can trust to care for my daughter. If he weren’t . . .” He squinted into the distance as if the sun were in his eyes, even though it was at his back. “If he weren’t such a fine man, I could never let you
go.”
He pulled me into his arms, hugging me so fiercely I feared that Sophie would be crushed between us. “May God go with you,” he whispered. Then, like Emil, he turned his back and hurried away.
I walked up the gangway as if in a dream. While the other passengers lined the rails, waving handkerchiefs and hats to their loved ones on shore, I carried Sophie to our tiny stateroom, unwilling to watch my village, my home, disappear forever from sight. Life would continue without me—births, deaths, weddings; my nieces and nephews would grow to adulthood—and I would miss all of it.
Inside, my emotions seethed, a blazing cauldron of feelings I could barely control. The sorrow and loss I felt were greater than any I’d ever known, but they were dwarfed by my anger—white-hot rage at my inability to choose the course of my own life; bitter resentment that others possessed the power. The heat and violence of this inner storm frightened me.
I had once watched Papa and my brothers extinguish a grass fire, beating it down with blankets that had been soaked in water. Smoke and steam had encircled them, blurring them from view as the sparks and the flames gradually died. That’s what I began to do with my inner fire—blanketing my emotions, obscuring the reality of how I felt, losing myself in the process. Smothering my feelings was safer than allowing them to burn out of control, and I needed to feel safe. I didn’t realize until much later what a high price I would pay for extinguishing the flames. A heart that is deadened to pain is also deadened to love.
On the outside I probably looked the same. But inside, like Papa’s charred fields, little remained except a blackened wasteland.
* * *
Friedrich had carefully arranged every stage of my journey to America, from the steam ferry that took me down the Rhine, to the lodging house where I would spend the night in Rotterdam, to the second-class stateroom aboard the Hibernia. Sophie and I shared the cabin with a woman from Dusseldorf named Magda Bauer, and her four children, Wilfred, Paul, Stefanie, and Karl. Friedrich had met Magda’s husband, Gustav, in America. Sending for us at the same time assured them that we would have companionship on the journey.
Magda was seven years older than I was—I would be 21 next month—and quickly became like an older sister to me. Her youngest child, Karl, was not quite a year older than my Sophie. Magda was a plain, round-faced woman with wide hips and weary eyes; the quiet, hardworking sort of woman who would never be noticed in a crowd. With her drab hair and unadorned gray gown, she was a simple brown sparrow in a world of blue jays and cardinals. But she had a large, warm heart that was willing to encompass me, even though I gave her so little in return.
“Why don’t you come up to the deck with us for some fresh air,” she urged on our second full day at sea. “It has finally stopped raining, and the air will do both you and Sophie good.”
“Oh, Magda, I can’t bear the sight of all that water, stretching out in every direction, as far as the eye can see. It makes me feel so lost.”
She had been bundling up her children in sweaters for their walk outdoors, but as she paused to study me, her eyes filled with compassion. “You three run ahead,” she told her older children. “Wilfred, take Stefanie’s hand. I’ll be along in a moment.” When they were gone, she sat on the bed beside me, her youngest son wailing loudly at being left behind.
“I daresay most of the people on board this ship are looking forward to a new life in America. But you’re not, are you, Louise?”
“I’ve left everyone I loved back in Germany, except for Sophie. I have nothing to look forward to.”
“Are you trapped in a marriage you didn’t want?” she asked quietly.
“No, I consented to marry Friedrich, but I didn’t know he would make me leave home. If I had known, I never would have married him.”
“You would rather be a spinster?” Magda asked, smiling.
“No, that’s a horribly lonely life, with everyone pitying you. And I wouldn’t have had Sophie.” I smoothed my fingers through her silky hair.
“Tell me about Friedrich. He treats you badly?”
“Oh no. We were very happy together . . . until the draft law changed. He was very kind to me . . . very affectionate . . . hardworking . . .” My voice trailed off as I realized that I couldn’t think of any glaring faults.
“You are fortunate. Many wives are little more than their husbands’ slaves. I’ve known men who were drunkards, men who couldn’t hold a job, men who demanded their marital rights, giving little love or affection in return, men who worked their wives into early graves.” Something about the haunting way she spoke sent a chill through me.
“Is your husband like those men, Magda?”
She smiled slightly but there was no humor in it. “Gustav is always chasing dreams. That’s why he went to America—to chase his dreams. In Germany he changed occupations four times, always searching for something better. None of them ever worked out. Twice he borrowed money to embark on a new business venture, and twice he failed.”
“Did he ever mistreat you?”
She sighed, considering the question for a moment. “Failure can rob a man of his dignity and self-respect. I suppose a wife is an easy target for his frustrations. A wise wife learns to keep out of his way.”
“I’m so sorry, Magda.”
She gave a small shrug, as if to say it didn’t matter. “My childhood in Dusseldorf wasn’t so nice—my life actually improved when I married Gustav. I believe that America will be better still.”
“Has he found an occupation he enjoys?”
“Yes . . . for now.” I saw the brief, humorless smile again. “Gus crossed over nearly two years ago. I was pregnant with Karl at the time. He has found a job selling farming equipment and says he’s doing well with it. But someday he wants to own his own establishment and sell automobiles—another dream to chase. He thinks the horse and buggy will become a thing of the past and everyone will want a horseless carriage someday.”
“What do you think, Magda?”
“I’m not a dreamer like Gustav. I’ve learned to look no further than tomorrow.”
Her honesty lent me the courage to be open with her in return. “I know I’ve been miserable company, but it isn’t because Friedrich mistreats me or anything like that. It’s because I love my family and my home in Germany, and I didn’t want to leave. Every mile this ship travels takes me farther and farther away, and I’m so afraid I’ll never see any of them again.”
“My life with Gustav has always been up and down—like the waves on the sea out there. You are down here, just now,” she said, motioning with her hands. “And so you think you will never be on top of the wave again. But you will, I promise you.”
“‘Joy and sorrow come and go like the ebb and flow,’” I quoted sadly.
“Yes, that’s true . . . I like that.”
“My grandmother had it stitched on a sampler. I saw it every day when I was growing up, but I never thought about what it meant . . . until now.”
“It’s the woman’s job to adjust to that ebb and flow, Louise, like adjusting the seams of a dress. We take the seams in to make it smaller, we add fabric to make the dress bigger. . . .” She patted her ample hips and smiled. “And when there is nothing left to do with it, we turn it into scraps and make a quilt. Men create the original design and pattern; women can only alter it and tailor it as we go along. We will adapt to America, Louise. You’ll see.”
* * *
With the comfort of Magda’s friendship—and five small children to look after between the two of us—the eleven days it took to cross the Atlantic passed quickly. On the morning that Hibernia steamed into New York harbor, the ship came alive with excitement, the decks swarming with jubilant passengers. It reminded me of the inside of one of Papa’s beehives when it was time to remove the honey. People craned their necks for the first glimpse of America and to see the famous statue in New York harbor, a symbol of the liberty their new homeland offered. Since the statue symbolized freedom, I couldn’t help wond
ering why “Liberty” was a woman instead of a man.
Horns blasted and gulls screamed as tugboats guided the ship to the pier upriver. Stocky and plain, the hardworking tugboats reminded me, not unkindly, of my friend Magda. As second-class passengers, she and I had our entrance papers processed on board and would be spared the steerage passengers’ ordeal on Ellis Island. Clutching Sophie, my satchel in hand, I moved through customs in a daze. I knew that Friedrich would be among the crowd waiting on shore behind the wire netting, and I scanned all the faces for his as I finally made my way down the gangplank. Then, above the sound of cheering and people calling their loved-ones’ names, I heard my own.
“Louise! Over here! . . . Sophie! Louise!”
I froze at the bottom of the ramp. A man I didn’t recognize pushed his way to the front of the mob, waving and calling my name. At first I thought that Friedrich had sent someone else to fetch me, but as the man drew near I saw that it was my husband after all. The sun had bleached his hair the color of flax, and his skin was deeply tanned. But most shocking of all, he had shaved his beard and mustache. I had never seen him without them.
“Louise! Oh, Louise!” he cried as he lifted me off my feet and twirled me around. He hugged me so hard my wide-brimmed hat slipped off. His arms and chest felt more muscular than I’d remembered, and I thought of the brothers I would never see again. Friedrich’s joy overflowed at the sight of us, but I had given up too much to feel any joy at our reunion. My smile felt pasted in place.
Friedrich reached out his arms to Sophie but she drew back in fear, hiding her face on my shoulder. “Give her time, Friedrich. I’m sure she’ll warm to you.”
“She’s grown so big. And she’s almost as pretty as her mother. Oh, Louise! I’m so glad you’ve come at last!”