Beneath the Apple Leaves(53)
He squeezed harder and faster. The years of the railroad a lost dream that had broken up the fabric of his existence in rural Pennsylvania—a small reprieve—a gap of freedom that was quickly sewn shut again in the quilting of the farm life that seemed to be his destiny. And as he sat on the cold goddamn three-legged stool he felt worn as the old rotted wood.
Wilhelm caught his stretched reflection in the silver milk pail, saw his father’s eyes staring back, quivered with the debilitating pull of a life gone backwards, of repeating a history so hard fought to erase. But here Wilhelm sat. His father was back, his son his living ghost, and Wilhelm swallowed the image even as the truth lodged solid in his throat.
His mind drifted to his father again—a stubborn, stoic German, blood born from a whole line of other stubborn, stoic Germans. He had been nothing but practical. When the house or a table or a wall needed painting, Wilhelm’s old man took all the paint cans from the shed and mixed the paint together, leaving everything they owned in a dull painted gray. Wilhelm always remembered that. Remembered how the gray seeped into his mother until she wasn’t pretty anymore, just dull and muted without color.
When Wilhelm moved to Pittsburgh, he vowed not to turn his wife gray. He went against his grain and allowed Eveline the finer possessions, the thick rugs and feather comforters, the bone china and scented oils from France. But money hadn’t been an issue then. It was now and he suffered the weight of his accounts also going in reverse, of a family to feed and a land to tame.
He glanced at the new Fordson tractor parked behind the cows. For this much land, rocky and clay-packed land, he couldn’t take a chance with a used model. But now the purchase draped with frivolity. From savings Wilhelm had budgeted enough money to last a year and a half. Now he’d be lucky if it lasted through winter. And this, like so much else, he would ingest, keep to himself. He would not share the financial concerns with Eveline. Women didn’t understand money, didn’t understand what it took to care for a family, he thought. Their life centered around children and food and cleaning. And yet they complained. A life of simplicity and comfort and they still complained.
Well, his wife had her precious farm now. And yes, the corn and hay would grow. The hens would lay. The cows would bring milk. The pigs would breed and be sold to the butcher. The garden would feed the family. But Wilhelm had grown up a farmer and he knew these things took time and conditions must be right. Wilhelm Kiser knew the toll and work involved for every kernel of growth.
When the cow was dry, Wilhelm moved the stool to the next bovine, began again and tried not to let this life choke him.
*
Eveline flipped the potato pancakes with the spatula, the cakes browning quickly in the oil until they contracted and rounded like smashed, rotting zinnias. Wilhelm slammed the door of the porch and set the pails of milk near the pantry.
“Can’t you close that door without slamming it every time,” she snapped.
“Case you couldn’t tell, my hands were full,” he snapped back.
Eveline huffed, lifted each pancake, let the oil drip back onto the cast iron and piled them on the plate. Her husband would be whining about not having side meat with breakfast and she waited, itched for a fight. Eveline wiped her brow with the back of her hand. She was tired, irritated. It was all she could do to grate the potatoes and onions.
At the table, young Will wrapped one hand around his fist and cracked his knuckles. The noise brought her shoulders to her jaws. He switched hands and cracked the other.
“Will!” Eveline’s shout jumped everyone at the table. “How many times have I told you to stop cracking those fingers?” she scolded.
Will folded his arms and tucked his hands away sullenly, embarrassed by the direction and strength of her wrath.
“Leave him be, Eve,” Wilhelm ordered. “Boy didn’t do anything wrong. Christ, you’re testy today.”
Eveline beat a mash of potato and egg in her hand and tossed it in the hot oil. The burning grease jumped and bit her arm. She pinched her lips while the heat extinguished. Leave him be! he says. Not listen to your mother. No, simply leave him be! Testy today.
She poked at the spluttering cakes. She was testy, couldn’t help it. Everything about Wilhelm bothered her: his voice, his gait, the way a few hairs sprung from his ears. She’d been testy since she woke. Some dream or another interrupted by her husband’s snoring and she spent the last hour of night staring at the ceiling trying to remember what she had dreamed, what had made her want to smile in her pillow and sleep forever.
“Aunt Eveline’s right,” offered Andrew to his young cousin. “Shouldn’t crack your knuckles. Makes a man’s hand ugly.”
Eveline stirred the cakes slowly now, listened with both ears to his words.
“Huh?” Will questioned.
“Yep. Makes the joints all gnarled and sore when you get old.”
“No, it don’t,” argued the boy.
“Yes, it does.” Andrew got up from the table and went to the counter for the applesauce, poked his aunt playfully. “Knew a man back in the mines who cracked his knuckles since he was a kid. His hands ended up looking like bear claws.” He stretched out his hand like a grizzly to demonstrate. “Even when he dropped his shovel at the end of the day, his hands were so twisted it looked like he was still holding the handle.”
“Just from cracking his knuckles?”