The Ragged Edge of Night(22)
He longs for the habit, his gray armor. He doesn’t know how to be himself in layman’s clothes. He never knew who he was in a soldier’s uniform, either, and so he doesn’t know himself now. The children, playing, dash by. They slip on rotten apples hidden in the grass and go down, shrieking, bob up again, turn and run. They climb up into the trees and lie like cats along the warm branches until their mothers scold them down and tweak their ears for staining their best shirts. How free they are, how unaware of duty or responsibility. They have taken no vows. Sometimes at St. Josefsheim, when his pipe could no longer hold his attention, he would play in the yard with the children. On days when fine weather put an early end to his lessons, he ran with his students in the field behind the school. He can’t run as well now—that’s the price of aging—but the longing for freedom and the innocence of play is no less powerful. He thinks, Lord, I have done what you asked. I have gone where you sent me. Now make me good at my work—better than I was at protecting my students from harm.
Three young men arrive late, shaking hands as they make their way through the orchard. Elisabeth leans close—not close enough to touch, but he is aware of her nearness and the unfelt pressure of contact that will never come, a phantom warmth against his shoulder. She lifts her chin in the direction of the newcomers. “The Kopp brothers. They own that big potato farm; you know the one. Out on the east side of the village.” She tells him the children call the Kopp brothers, collectively, Kartoffelbauer—“potato maker.” It is their private joke again, their habit of naming every citizen in Unterboihingen after his or her profession.
Kartoffelbauer make their way to the bride and groom. One must look closely to discern their differences—the nose a bit sharper on this brother, the chin stronger on that one, and the third with the first light lines of age traced in the corners of his eyes. They could almost be triplets, with their pale-blond hair and the same tenor note to their voices. In their three strong and youthful, sun-browned bodies, they make one polite, unison bow before the table of honor. They straighten at exactly the same time. Below the table, where Kartoffelbauer cannot see, Anton pinches the skin between his thumb and finger to keep himself from laughing.
“Herr Starzmann,” says one of the brothers, “we stopped by Franke’s place and loaded up your things.”
“How thoughtful! Thank you, my friends.”
“We’ve moved all your chests to the shed outside the house,” another says. He jerks his thumb toward Elisabeth’s stilt-legged cottage. “We didn’t want to go inside without your permission.”
“You know you’re always welcome,” Elisabeth says. “It was so kind of you to think of moving Herr Starzmann’s things. I had entirely forgotten to see to it.”
“So had I,” Anton admits. He shakes the three right hands of Kartoffelbauer.
“Any time you need help,” the eldest says, “I hope you’ll call on us, mein Herr.”
These days, everyone is inclined to band together, even in the cities. Now we look out for our fellow man. We anticipate needs and give small tokens of comfort. We offer the milk of human kindness, free to drink all you will, for every other kind of sustenance is rationed on the stamps, with never enough to satisfy.
The brothers disperse into the crowd, eager to join in the celebration while it lasts. Anton watches them go. He thinks, If we had taken up this habit of kindness long ago, before we fell into darkness, what suffering might we have spared the world and ourselves?
The bleakness of his own musing embarrasses him anew; again, he feels his face burn red. A man ought to cultivate happier thoughts on his wedding day. But Anton has never done this before.
9
Dusk comes earlier as autumn takes hold. It steals the light from the world so fast that the wedding celebration has barely broken up, the tables and chairs carried back into Frau Hertz’s house and the embroidered white cloth shaken off, folded in a neat square—and then full darkness has come. Anton and Elisabeth herd the sleepy children inside. The stairwell creaks and groans as they climb it together, this new-made family.
Inside, while the children cluster together in the dark, Elisabeth walks with her hands out, slowly and carefully, feeling her way toward light. She keeps a supply of candles in a small cupboard near the improvised kitchen: a porcelain sink, supplied by a hose from the farm’s cistern, and a woodstove in the corner, walled on two sides with terra-cotta tiles. A match strikes in the black room—a quick hiss, a crackle of flame, a spot of orange light flowering. The smell of sulfur, acrid and sharp. She nurtures the light with a steady hand cupped behind the candle, a sheltering curve of amber.
“There has never been any electricity in this old house,” she says, half apologetic, “so we’re used to candlelight. The good news is, we’re never troubled by blackouts, since we haven’t any electric lights to miss.”
The lone candle glows, revealing itself in an old-fashioned holder of plated brass with a dented handle. Behind the candle, behind the cupboard on which it sits, the wall plaster is pitted and cracked. Elisabeth produces from some shadowed corner another candle, whose wick she bends over with her stub of a match. The second flame catches. Then a third, and a fourth. The interior of the old house reveals itself, coming shyly out of hiding. It’s the first time Anton has seen the inside of Elisabeth’s home—his home, now. Curious, and with a tight lump in his throat, he examines the place. The sitting area, which takes up the better part of the main room, is neat and orderly. Sewing work lies folded in a basket, which is placed precisely next to a chair, with not a thread overhanging its edge. All the books are put away on a shelf below the window, in proper order with spines neatly aligned. There is an old-fashioned sofa against one wall, dark green fading to white on the worn cushions, but not a speck of dust on the upholstery. Everything is as tidy and ordered, as rigid as Elisabeth herself. Children never keep a home so well; their mother must spend every waking hour on housework when she isn’t sewing shirts for the few clients who can still afford to pay. This ceaseless cleaning, endless organizing—is it something she does because it is in her nature? Or do those chores distract her from the world, from the things she knows are happening out there beyond the walls of her home?