Beneath the Apple Leaves(108)
The wildness left Andrew. He stepped back from the knife as if it were a cobra ready to strike. He reached for Lily and hugged her to him, his breathing desperate and protective. And they all watched the man fumble, the anger dissipating among them. Claire came out, white as a ghost. Will held her hand.
Frank was without sight now, swaying and snaking up the rutted drive. He wouldn’t bother them again. He would be dead by morning.
PART 5
War is organized murder, and nothing else.
—Harry Patch,
last surviving soldier of World War I
CHAPTER 55
On November 11, 1918, the armistice was announced. The Great War had ended. In its wake, over 116,000 American fighters perished, another 200,000 wounded. Worldwide, over 37 million soldiers lost their lives on the battlefield.
But the greatest cost to lives did not come from guns or bombs but from the Spanish influenza pandemic that killed over 50 million men, women and children across the globe. In Pittsburgh alone, six thousand people died of the flu, 1 percent of the city’s total population.
As the war ended, the citizens of the nation tried to recover from the carnage. They looked up and blinked at the sun again, shook off the stupor that had paralyzed and crazed a country. Posters crafted with hatred and propaganda were torn from windows and telegraph poles. The American Protective League faded into obliteration like exhaust. And those who had cursed and abused their German American neighbors, colleagues and customers now averted their eyes. Their actions distant and inexplicable to their own hearts, clouded as a nightmare.
Pieter Mueller returned from the war. He had only been stationed overseas for four months, but enough time to leave him thin and limping from shrapnel and with a pretty young bride on his arm.
Those who lived along the narrow country road on the outskirts of Plum gave Pieter a hero’s welcome. Widow Sullivan gave him her favorite tan mare, refused to take her back. Bernice Stevens made a cake the size of a butcher block. Every Mueller from every inch of Pennsylvania brought beer and roasted chickens, sausage linked like garlands. Heinrich butchered two hogs. Lily and Claire brought piles of cookies and pies of every fruit. Accordions squeezed and Germans sang. Old man Stevens danced a jig with Widow Sullivan, their hunched backs twirling like dancers in antique music boxes. Chinese firecrackers lit up the night while Fritz, Anna, Edgar and Will spun under the sparks as they rained in pink and green and gold splendor. Gerda clapped with her thick hands, nearly made the earth shake with her stomping feet.
Andrew sat on the ground, leaned against a giant maple in the Mueller yard, Lily sitting between his legs, her head resting on his chest. A violin started. A voice of deep baritone sang into the night, the handsome tune reaching straight to the stars.
Pieter carried a full glass of frothy beer in one hand, his other flung around his wife. And she held the hand of another young man who walked with a cane, his eyes blind, clamped shut and scarred.
Andrew and Lily rose to meet them. Pieter let go of his wife and gave Andrew a burly hug, the men thumping each other on the backs, grinning ear to ear. “How’s it feel to be a hero?” Andrew asked.
“I’ll let you know when I meet one.” His old friend smirked, the harrows of the war still embedded in the tired lines around his eyes. Pieter turned to Lily then and sighed, gave her a long, easy smile that washed away any hurt of the past. “Hi, Lily.”
“Hi, Pieter,” she greeted him, the relief swelling her cheeks.
“I want you to meet my wife, Gwyneth. If it weren’t for her, doubt I’d be standing here.” He kissed the shy brunette by his side. “Something about a pretty nurse picking shell bits out of your thigh makes it almost worth getting shot.” Pieter’s face turned sublime, serious. “Thought you two would get along.”
The women shook hands, timidly at first and then naturally, as if their paths had crossed before. “When are you due?” asked Gwyneth.
“Early spring.” Lily rubbed her belly. “She’s kicking already, though. Think she’s hungry for some of those cakes.”
“Come on,” the woman urged. “Didn’t want to be the first one to grab a plate. Now I have an excuse.” She laughed and the ladies headed to the rows of tables piled with food.
“Andrew, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Pieter put his hand on the shoulder of the blind man beside him. “This is Gwyneth’s brother, Robert Weiner. We served together.”
The man put out a strong hand and Andrew took it in greeting. “Pieter’s told me a lot about you,” Robert said. “Talked about nothing else at the hospital. Almost had to tell the nurses to bandage my ears along with my eyes.”
Pieter chuckled, then raised his chin at Andrew knowingly. “Robert was with the Veterinary Corps, in charge of the horses in our battalion.”
Andrew’s stomach dropped, the yearning for a dream sudden and unexpected.
“He ran a practice in Maryland before the war,” Pieter continued. “Looking to start anew in these parts.”
Robert Weiner’s face waited, the blind eyes placed on Andrew as if with sight. “I was hoping you might help me.” The request came humbly, a pang of grief laced with the words. “I need someone to be my eyes. Help me with surgeries.”
“I’m sorry, Robert.” Andrew’s voice dropped away. “I never made it to college.”