Season of My Enemy, page 13
She glanced over the disassembling crowd for her sister before spotting her by a shady elm all alone. Her gaze was on the departing soldiers, piling into their canvas-covered truck.
“I’ll go tell her we’re leaving,” Fannie said. She strolled toward her, startling her when she finally got close enough to say her name.
“Gee, Fannie, you scared me.”
“How can you be surprised with a crowd around?” Fannie smiled.
“You sneaked up on me. Maryann just left.”
“I know. I was hoping to talk with Faith.”
“Their mom had a roast in the oven.”
“On a hot day like this? I’m glad I’m not going to their house.”
“Me too.” Patsy turned toward Fannie and tucked something into her dress pocket.
“What do you have there?”
“Just a note from Maryann.”
“Oh?”
Patsy brushed by her. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Patsy wasn’t usually in such a hurry. Or so short on conversation. Fannie caught up to her, and they walked together to the car. “Want to go swimming later?”
“Sure.”.
“Maybe we can convince Mom to come.”
“I doubt it, but we can try.”
“Maryann have much to say?”
Patsy reached for the door handle of the automobile. “What?”
“In her note?”
“Not really.” End of subject. Patsy climbed inside the backseat while Fannie went around to the driver’s side.
The drive back to the farm was a quiet one except for Mom humming a hymn. Finally, Jerry piped up. “Kind of odd seeing the PWs at church today, huh?”
Mom shifted in the passenger seat. “I’ve heard they’re allowed to visit church services in the area. I’m glad to know that some of them at least are Christians.”
“Seems crazy to me.”
“Why so?”
“They’re fighting us.”
“Well … some of them must think the same thing of your brothers.”
Fannie glanced at her mom, a little stunned that she could think from the enemy’s viewpoint. “But their cause is far from noble.”
Patsy cleared her throat. “You know, a lot of them were forced to fight for that Hitler. They didn’t want to.”
Fannie glanced in her rearview mirror and stared at Patsy. Did her little sister just stick up for their enemy? “What makes you say that?”
Patsy shrugged. “I read it somewhere, I guess.”
That much was probably true.
Jerry leaned away from the window. “I guess we can see it’s true.
They’re pretty much glad to be out of the war and working on the farm.”
“Corporal Taft said the same thing,” Mom said.
Quiet filled the car again for several moments until Patsy spoke up again. “What do you think Cal will say when he meets the PWs?”
They shared glances. “He might not have to,” Fannie said. “If it takes much longer, bean picking will be done. We can pick the corn ourselves if we have to.”
Patsy groaned. “I hope not. I mean, I hope Cal is back before then, but I sure don’t want to pick all that corn by ourselves. I think Cal will know we need their help.”
Fannie caught her gaze in the mirror and smiled, wanting to agree, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it.
She pulled into the driveway a moment later. The temperature had climbed to near ninety, and the humidity weighed her down so that she barely felt like hiking up the stairs to her muggy bedroom to change clothes. Patsy didn’t seem to be under any such weight. She ran up the stairs past Fannie and swung her bedroom door shut behind her with a bang. Fannie tapped on it as she went by. “Want to jump in the creek after lunch?”
“Sure,” Patsy said loudly from inside.
“Okay.” Fannie strode into her own room and unbuttoned her dress, letting it fall to the floor. Her skin breathed. Oh, that was better. She dropped onto her bed and pushed her clean laundry aside before falling back across the sheets. She didn’t lie there long, however. She had to take care of her clothes and see if Mom wanted some help with lunch before going to cool off in the creek.
How did the prisoners manage in this weather? Did they just sit around in their T-shirts and slacks, wishing for shade? Did they even have shade? She knew they spent a lot of free time playing soccer and writing letters or reading, but who could play soccer on a day like today? Did they work on their English or read from the German books she’d given them? What other things did they do?
And what about Dale? What were his days in a German prison camp like? She only hoped he was comfortable and allowed the things he needed. Food, clean clothes, rest. Medical care if that was necessary. According to treaties of war on the treatment of prisoners, he should be getting those things. She frowned and pushed herself off the bed. She didn’t want to think that there was any chance he might be suffering. She pressed her eyelids together. “Please keep him safe, Jesus. Amen.”
Opening her eyes, she reached for a handful of clothes and folded them neatly. The things that needed pressing she draped over a chair by the open window. A breeze stirred through the opening, but it was a hot and sticky one. She changed into her swimsuit and a wrap-over skirt and left her room to help Mom set out lunch. Patsy’s door was open a few inches now. Fannie stuck her head inside.
“Ready to grab a bite and go?”
“What?” Patsy sat on her bed, holding a piece of paper. It looked like the same letter she’d been reading outside the church earlier. She quickly folded it in half in her lap.
“I asked if you’re ready to go. You don’t even have your suit on.”
“I will. Shut the door.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Never mind. Just go.”
Fannie frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Patsy’s tone was annoyed and anxious.
“Oh?” Fannie didn’t give ground. Patsy was up to something. Or her friend was. But what could it be? “What’s Maryann been up to?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.” Patsy shrugged, her hand crushing the note.
“How don’t you know? You have a letter from her right in your hands.”
Patsy’s face flushed. Sure, it was warm in here, but the rose blooming her cheeks told on her, just like the way she averted her eyes, refusing to look directly at Fannie. Fannie frowned and came closer. Patsy drew the letter tighter in her fist.
“What’s the matter, Pats?”
“Nothing is the matter. Let’s go swimming.” She jumped off the bed, but the letter slipped from her hand.
It took only a glance for Fannie to see that the writing was not all in English, or if it was, it wasn’t written in a feminine hand.
Patsy lunged for it, but Fannie snatched it from her hand as soon as she stood up. “Hey!”
“I’m not trying to pry, Patsy, but—” Her glance took in the awkward phrases and the smattering of German spellings. “Who wrote this?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Patsy! Who?”
She chewed her lip then turned her back with a huff. “Just that fellow. That young one. Rudy.”
“You have a letter from a German prisoner? What are you thinking?” “It’s nothing, Fan.”
“Nothing?” Fannie trembled. “You call this nothing? Patsy—” She reached for her sister’s arm and turned her around. “He can get into a lot of trouble for giving you this, and you …” She looked her sister deep in the eye, taking in the set of her jaw, the youth combined with the growing womanliness of her pretty figure in the polka-dot dress. “You don’t even know what kind of trouble you’re asking for.”
“I’m not asking for anything.” Patsy spewed her words. “It’s just a stupid note. I didn’t tell him to write it. I didn’t even know what it was when he stuck it in my hand on his way out of the church.”
“Did anyone see him?”
“I don’t think so.” Her voice softened. “He was pretty quick about it.”
Fannie grasped Patsy’s hand and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Boys will do that sort of thing, but this is one boy you have to ignore. Completely. You can’t take letters or—or anything from him. Don’t even look his way.”
“But he’s nice. He doesn’t mean any harm. He just wants to practice his English. He said so the other day right outside, and he wants me to read it to see if it’s right.”
Fannie folded her arms. “So he says.”
Patsy growled.
“Don’t snarl at me. I know men better than you do.”
“Is that right? Since when? You don’t see anyone. Or are you talking about those PWs too? That man Wolf likes you. So does the other one. Leo. I can tell. I’m not blind. They all notice you. Don’t lie to me, Fan, and say you haven’t noticed.”
Her little sister was getting more grown-up than she’d realized. “Well, I don’t plan to notice them back. And you can bet I won’t be accepting letters from any of them.”
“You gave them books to read.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Fannie turned to the door, and Patsy followed. “It just is.”
“Humph.”
This discussion was over. Hopefully, she’d said enough to Patsy to make her realize the dangerous game she played. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell Rudy the same thing. She marched out the door.
The next day, they were back to picking beans. Fannie helped Jerry move some of the irrigation lines while it was early and still somewhat cool. Then Jerry drove the truck out to the field and parked it at the end of the row closest to where he picked and could keep an eye on it. The men arrived at eight o’clock, just as the dew was lifting off the plants.
Fannie left them to handle the picking without her. She’d help Mom with the wash. It would feel good to be doing woman’s work again, and she’d rather have her arms submerged in warm water than be bent over a row of beans for a change. Plus, it might be good to spend some time with Patsy. Her sister was too often alone with her thoughts. Who knew where those would take her?
After all the wash was strung out on the line to dry and Fannie had emptied the water on Mom’s flower bed, she went inside to help get lunch on the table.
Her mom handed her a plate of sandwiches. “Set these on the table then go and fetch Jerry. I cooked up a big batch of pudding this morning while the stove was still hot from breakfast. We’ll share it with the workers. Their lunch truck should be here soon.”
“You cooked pudding in this heat?”
“It didn’t take long. It was the best I could come up with without having to bake.”
“We don’t need treats, Mom.”
“It’s not a treat. We had a lot of extra milk to use up, and it’ll keep everyone going in this weather. I hope we get some rain soon.”
“I saw some clouds to the west.” “Rain clouds?”
Fannie grinned. “Just clouds.”
Mom gave a ladylike grunt. “What we need is a good soaking.”
Fannie agreed, and they chattered on while Mom sliced up cucumbers and set out the rest of their lunch. Then Fannie left the house to fetch Jerry.
As she stepped through the door, the heavy air hit her again like the damp blanket she’d hung up fifteen minutes ago. Perhaps there was hope that those clouds would turn into something and break the smothering atmosphere. Stepping across the yard, her ears perked at the sound of singing coming from the bean field. It wasn’t just a single voice she heard but the combined voices of a male choir—a male choir singing in English but with a marked German accent.
Was she hearing right? Were the PWs singing about having lots of land and riding through the wide-open country?
A solo voice took flight, crooning about the evening breeze and cottonwood trees and concluding with the popular title line “Don’t fence me in.”
Their voices rose again with another verse, and as Fannie made her way into the field, they became louder. No one seemed to notice her approach, but her curiosity jumped another notch when Jerry sang out a long line about straddling his saddle. And then Wolf Kloninger, standing straight and tall, belted out the next line. His voice was crisp and clear in its pronunciations, but his tenor was a little off-key. No one seemed to mind, but Fannie wondered if he knew what a cayuse was.
He bent back to his row of beans as all the men joined in the final lines of the verse, ending with another resounding, “Don’t fence me in.”
Corporal Taft clapped, and a couple of the men took a bow. Jerry clapped too.
Fannie’s steps swished faster between the rows of bushes, taking her closer to her brother. She was unable to quench her smile as he noticed her. “Hey, Fan, want to sing with us?”
She chuckled. “Mom sent me to tell you it’s lunchtime.” The men went on picking, but they cast furtive glances her way. When she caught Wolf’s gaze, he plopped some beans into his gunnysack and scratched his neck, as though their connection was completely accidental, yet somehow she knew it wasn’t. “Who taught them Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters?”
Jerry shrugged. “They learned it at the camp, I suppose. Some of them are trying to practice their English. The rest are just mimicking the lyrics.”
The remark reminded her of Patsy’s comment yesterday about the letter written by Rudy, supposedly to practice his English. She was tempted to find out what the letter actually said, but Patsy would never forgive that kind of prying. She’d probably hidden it good and well by now anyway.
The rumble of the camp lunch truck brought her around. “Ready to go?”
“Sure.” Jerry hefted his nearly full sack of beans over his shoulder and lugged it toward the end of the row.
Fannie walked alongside in the next row. “It’s going well out here? The picking, I mean?”
“No trouble at all.” He gave her a sideways glance. “I keep my eye on them. I’m not leaving it all up to the guard.”
“I heard you singing too. Do you talk with them?”
They reached the truck, and Jerry deposited his bag. “Now and then. I’ve gotten to know a couple of the ones closer to my age. Horst knows about cars, and Richard is a farmer back home. Rudy likes to hear me talk about football.”
A bee buzzed around her, and a droning began in her brain too. Were they forgetting these men were the enemy? The very men their brothers and neighbors fought against and in some cases were killed by? “What else do you talk about?” She had to know. Did Rudy ply Jerry with questions about Patsy? The buzz inside grew louder as aggravating possibilities took hold.
Jerry brushed his hands together and they turned toward the house. “Not much.” He chuckled. “Their regular English is pretty bad. I do most of the talking. About hunting and cars. I do know they want to go swimming again.”
She glanced back at the field and saw that the crew was also making its way out of the field. “Did you know that Rudy wrote a letter to Patsy?”
Jerry’s stride hitched. “No, I didn’t know that.” He smirked. “Figures. He probably has eyes for her.”
“She’s a child.” Fannie spoke with indignation, letting the bee in her bonnet have its way. It felt good, like it was supposed to. They’re our enemies, not our friends.
“She’s not really that little anymore, Fan, but I know what you mean.”
She cast him a long look. Her brother was growing up too. If the stupid war lasted much longer, the army might take him—except that they couldn’t now that he was the only male left to run the farm.
They reached the yard, and Jerry veered away to douse his head at the pump before coming in for lunch.
Fannie strode onto the porch. Before opening the door, she glanced back at the workers approaching the yard. Wolf clapped a hand on another fellow’s shoulder. The lines of his face stretched in a laugh, and she couldn’t help noticing the overall handsomeness of his features. His skin had tanned to a deep gold, and his blond hair was bleached nearly white.
He glanced toward the house and caught her looking, and she could almost tell just how blue his eyes were. The bee in her head returned, only this time, instead of buzzing angrily, it hummed and sipped warm nectar. She stared. She didn’t want to believe he was a bad man, but there was the fact that the gas had been tampered with, and there was the truth that he was a German captain. A man didn’t attain such rank because he was incapable. There were just too many reasons to hate him. She had to remember that. In fact, maybe it was time to reestablish some lines.
She lifted her shoulders and strutted back down the porch steps. He watched her approach and smiled so that friendly lines appeared at the corners of his eyes.
“Herr Kloninger, a word, if you please.”
His smile sagged, and he glanced at Corporal Taft, who had heard Fannie and nodded at them. She moved off into the middle of the lawn away from the others but still in plain sight.
“Something is wrong with our work?” His English was definitely improving, but he still made all his w’s into v‘s.” It bothered her that she liked the sound of his voice and accent.
She shook her head. “No. Your work is fine. It’s something else.”
He waited for her to continue.
“It has come to my attention that one of your men wrote a letter to my little sister, Patsy.”
He sighed and pinched his lips together. This was not good news to him either. This brought at least some relief to Fannie.
“He passed it to her at church. I don’t have to tell you what this means.”
He shook his head. “Nein. You do not. Who was it?”
“Rudy.”
Lowering his gaze to the ground, he nodded thoughtfully. “This does not surprise. He is … young.”
“He is old enough,” she said under her breath.
“Ja. I speak with him.”
She expelled a deep breath. “I don’t want trouble.”
“You will tell to Corporal Taft?”
She allowed herself a glimpse into his eyes, and she couldn’t help succumbing to the hope in them. A battle squared off inside her. Could she trust his motives? The balance tipped. “No. I won’t. As long as I have your word nothing like this will happen again.”
