TWENTY-FIVE
One morning, a few months after Freddy was born, Joseph kissed his wife and sleeping son good-bye and set off for the restaurant. He strolled down the empty streets, singing happily to himself, already looking forward to returning home to his family at the end of his shift.
To his surprise, the front door was locked. By the time he arrived Stefan had usually switched the lights on and fired up the grill. Joseph got out his key and opened the door. The place was still dark.
“Stefan?” he called out. Joseph had noticed that his friend had begun to drink more heavily in recent weeks, and he wondered whether he was sleeping off a particularly bad night. “Stefan, wake up!” He turned on the lights and knocked on the door of Stefan’s room. When there was no answer, he pushed it open. The room was empty.
Joseph went through the restaurant. The old kitchen where Lomax had taught Joseph to cook was now used as a storage area. Two large refrigerators hummed quietly in unison. On the table in the middle of the room were neatly stacked piles of plates, ready for the day ahead.
Then he noticed that the door of the safe was hanging open. With a cry he ran forward.
His money was gone. The Kaiser’s medal was gone. Stefan had taken everything.
Numbly Joseph stood up and walked back into the restaurant. By the grill lay a piece of paper. On it Stefan had scrawled:
NO MORE.
Just then the front door opened and Jette walked in, yawning as usual.
“Stefan’s gone,” Joseph told her.
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“He’s left. Disappeared.” Joseph handed her the note.
“No more
what
?” muttered Jette.
“He opened the safe,” said Joseph. “He’s taken everything.” He sat down heavily on a chair and looked at her. “What are we going to do?” he asked.
Jette reached for her apron. “We’re going to do what we always do,” she said. “We’re going to feed people breakfast.”
And that is what they did.
For the next few hours Joseph escaped into his work, a solo performer once more. If the food took a little longer to appear that morning, nobody seemed to mind. It was only as he scoured the grill clean after the breakfast rush that Joseph was hit by Stefan’s treachery. This was how he was repaid for his kindness! A flash of wordless, white-hot fury seared through him, obliterating reason, demanding action. The grill was still scorching hot. Carefully, slowly, Joseph pressed his forefinger down on one of its cast-iron ridges, and held it there. The pain was terrible, but he did not move. He closed his eyes, wanting to remember the sensation forever. When Joseph finally lifted his hand away, whole worlds of agony had entered his body through the inch-long gash of blackened skin on his fingertip.
By the time he closed up the restaurant that afternoon, the pain had smashed his anger into a fragmented mosaic of humiliation and regret. He walked home slowly. When he told Cora the news, she reached for him and held him tight. Not one word of rebuke passed her lips.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into her shoulder. “I should have listened to you.”
“Hush now,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But Cora, he took
everything
.”
She gently pushed him away and looked at him. “Listen to me, Joseph.” She lay a finger on his chest. “Nobody can take away what really matters.” She turned and looked toward the cot where Freddy lay.
Joseph looked at his sleeping son and knew that his wife was right, at least in part. Stefan’s theft was easy enough to calibrate. In time he would be able to replace every dollar that he had stolen. But that was not the loss he mourned. Stefan had taken something much more precious than his life savings and his mother’s old medal. Joseph was left to pick his lonely way through the shattered fragments of thirty years of friendship.
Although it turned out that Stefan
did
leave one thing behind.
A
fter Stefan’s disappearance, Joseph’s days at the restaurant were long and difficult. On his own once more, he was exhausted by the end of each day. The burn on his finger ached for weeks afterward. The pain was strangely comforting, an apt accompaniment to his grief. The scar calcified into a cratered memorial of Stefan’s betrayal. Decades later, when Joseph was a very old man, its ghoulish ridges were still clearly visible on his ancient, paper-thin skin.
At least he had a means to escape his dismay. Whenever Joseph held his newborn son, his pain at Stefan’s desertion was eclipsed. He could gaze down at that small face until the end of time and never tire of it.
Frederick Lomax Meisenheimer had been named on the assumption, not unreasonable in the circumstances, that Joseph and Cora would only get one shot at nomenclatorial tribute. When, to everyone’s astonishment, I arrived less than a year later, there was some debate as to what I should be called. As she rocked me in her arms for the first time, Jette told my parents about her conversation with Lomax on the night of his death, and his quiet confession of a first name. After that, it was easy: I was to be James Martin Meisenheimer.
If Freddy was a happy miracle, then I was a freak, a billion-to-one shot. (My arrival also vanquished any lingering religious doubts that Joseph had. Now he was first to his knees every Sunday morning.) Still, for all that our presence in the world was in apparent defiance of biology, we were both sickly boys. Our puny bodies were pummeled by tides of germs and disease. We sniveled and coughed our way from one medical condition to the next, but even so my brother and I brought my family into the light once again. Cora’s eyes began to shine with their old confidence. Not even the sight of German troops marching through the Rhineland could diminish Jette’s joy in us, her snot-ridden, puking grandsons.
When Cora fell pregnant again at the end of 1938, she became something of a medical sensation. The third pregnancy was difficult, however. For the first few months she walked out into the yard every morning and noisily emptied her stomach into the bushes. When the vomiting finally abated, she had already begun to swell up like a balloon.
Freddy and I had been angels in the womb, but the new baby left Cora too exhausted to move. Jette and Rosa performed child care in shifts, ferrying Freddy and me back and forth between the two houses. They fed us and wiped our noses and kept us out of our mother’s way while she languished in bed.
Joseph was the one person in Beatrice who had stopped marveling at Cora’s sudden and extraordinary fecundity. He had decided that it was God’s will, and that was good enough for him. It did not occur to him that all those years of miscarriages and dashed hopes meant that Cora was now well beyond usual childbearing years, and that with each new pregnancy, no matter how miraculous, came increased risk. By then he had begun to believe that higher forces were looking out for them—and that, as a consequence, nothing could possibly go wrong.
On September 1, 1939, as German troops crossed the Polish border at Dirschau and fired the first shots in the bloodiest war in human history, Cora went into labor. It took two days for England and France to declare war on Germany. It took three days for Cora to give birth. For much of that time Dr. Becker—who by then was a very old man—hovered uncertainly at the end of the bed, scratching his chin.
For there was not one baby, but two.
When the twins were finally born, they immediately began screaming at each other at the top of their tiny lungs—a dialogue that would continue in much the same way for the next twenty years or so. Unlike Freddy and me, they were big, hearty boys, exuding rude health from the moment they appeared. Dr. Becker wrapped them in blankets and sent a startled-looking Joseph downstairs with them.
Jette was waiting in the kitchen, warming milk on the stove. When Joseph appeared with two bundles in his arms instead of just one, a hand shot up to her mouth.
“Oh, heavens,” she breathed.
Joseph beamed at her.
Jette raised her voice to make herself heard over the twins’ yells. “Are they . . . ?”
“Both boys,” answered Joseph happily.
But while Jette and Joseph blinked at each other in disbelieving joy, the miracle of Cora’s fertile loins morphed into tragedy. As she lay in the bed that had been her prison for so many weeks, her exhausted, pulverized body finally gave out. Something broke deep within her, and she began to bleed uncontrollably. Her whimper of warning into the sodden pillow went unheeded by Dr. Becker, who was in the bathroom, washing off the grime and sweat of three long days by her bedside. By the time he noticed the dark blood that had begun to pool around Cora’s midriff, the hemorrhaging had become unstoppable. Life gushed out of her.
The old doctor knew there was nothing he could do. He held Cora’s hand in sad silence and watched her go.
When Becker finally made his way down the stairs to examine the babies, his feet were leaden. He heard the newborns before he saw them, their lusty screams floating through the house. He pushed open the kitchen door. Joseph and Jette were sitting at the table, each holding one of the babies.
They looked up at him, their eyes shining.
TWENTY-SIX
My mother was the only woman Joseph had ever loved. He had adored her from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Cora was the crucible where all his hopes and dreams had been forged. Her sudden absence untethered him absolutely. He staggered through the house, seeing her everywhere. She would not let him go. Or was it he who could not relinquish her? She haunted his thoughts as he stumbled numbly through each day, but it was the wishful trickery of his dreams that he dreaded the most. Night after night his subconscious duped him with fresh phantasms of hope, cruelly resurrecting Cora’s ghost. There she was, as beautiful as ever, us boys in her arms, laughing and smiling. The hope of that vision lingered on in each new dawn, but never for long. Even before Joseph was fully awake, the bitter truth crashed over him. He lay in the empty bed, pinned in place by the weight of his loss, and wept at the prospect of another day without Cora by his side.
Joseph might never have gotten out of bed at all if it hadn’t been for me and my brothers. As it was, the world outside his stilled heart was more chaotic than ever, thanks to our collective pandemonium. There were four small lives to nurture and care for. Nights were punctuated by the twins’ hungry wails, which sent him blearily downstairs to warm milk on the stove. Freddy and I were too young to understand what had happened, but Cora’s absence disturbed us. We had both taken to wandering through the house in the middle of the night, looking for her. Joseph took our hands and coaxed us gently back to our beds.
Jette saw the despair in Joseph’s eyes, and remembered her own sorrow at the prospect of a life without Frederick by her side. Twenty years had done nothing to dull the ache of her own loss, and now she felt her heart break all over again. She feared for us, growing up without a mother’s embrace to warm and protect us, and she did everything she could to fill the hole that she knew could never be filled. She bathed us, fed us, held us close. She crooned old German lullabies. She kissed us, again and again and again, and tried not to fear for the future too much.
A week or so after the twins’ birth, Jette gently pointed out to Joseph that the babies would need names. He looked at her blankly. He and Cora had both been so sure that the new baby would be a girl that they had not even considered one boy’s name, let alone two. He asked Jette if she had any ideas. As it happened, she did; and so the twins were named in honor of two of my grandmother’s political heroes—who were not brothers themselves, but did come from the same family. Theodore and Franklin Meisenheimer took to their presidential names with ease. From an early age they behaved as if they were already accustomed to the privileged entitlements of high office, as they imperiously squawked at the rest of the family (and each other) to do their inarticulate bidding.
The family quickly improvised new routines. During the day, Jette looked after us while Joseph hauled himself across town to open the restaurant. He hired Mrs. Heimstetter, doyenne of fried chicken at First Christian Church, to take orders and pour coffee in Jette’s absence.
When Rosa returned from the schoolhouse in the afternoon she assumed control of our carelessly marauding existences, and Jette retired to her armchair to calm her ragged nerves. Mealtimes were never the most joyful of occasions back then. Teddy and Frank screamed indignantly throughout. Freddy and I sat in our high chairs and made as much noise as we could, just so we could be heard above the twins’ racket. The adults watched us, battered by sadness and exhaustion. After the dishes had been cleared away, a tired convoy made its way back across the grass to our home. Joseph bathed us, all four boys in the bath at once, and put us to bed. Once he had tucked us in, he would lie on the floor between the cots and tell us a story. He concocted epic adventures in which our family had the starring role. Of course, in these tales there were not five of us, but six. Each night Joseph wistfully brought Cora back to life, and it was always she who single-handedly saved us from danger. Without her, we would have perished every time. We listened, deaf to the catch of fear in our father’s voice. One by one, the four fidgeting bundles around him would subside into stillness. Sometimes he didn’t notice that we had fallen asleep, and would carry on with his tale long after there was nobody left to hear it, bewitched by his own fantasy. He often fell asleep where he lay, lulled by the gentle rhythms of our sleep.
With us, Joseph was always as gentle as a lamb, but a smoldering anger was creeping up through the cracks of his sorrow. As Dr. Becker had stood in the kitchen doorway and told him that his wife was dead, my father’s faith drained out of him in one sickening, lurching evacuation. No matter how miraculous Cora’s pregnancies might have appeared, he knew at once that divine intervention had nothing to do with it, after all. No deity would grant his wife’s wishes and then kill her for them—not even the snarling, unforgiving deity that Reverend Kellerman liked to invoke in his sermons. It was all a sham, Joseph saw. There had been nobody up there listening.
One evening several weeks after Cora’s death, Reverend Kellerman appeared at the front door, a basket of freshly baked rolls under his arm. Joseph stood on the threshold with his arms crossed, unwilling to let him into the house.
“We’ve missed you at church, Joseph,” the pastor said, a look of friendly concern on his face. “You know, it’s at times like this, when your heart is heavy with grief, when you need your faith more than ever. There’s solace in worship.”
My father said nothing. Reverend Kellerman cleared his throat. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways, Joseph. I don’t know why He chose to take Cora from us, but He had His reasons. He always does. Ours is not to reason why.”
Joseph stepped forward and took two warm rolls out of the basket.
“There’s more nourishment in the love of Christ than in a million of those rolls,” said Reverend Kellerman with a smile.
By way of response Joseph threw one of the rolls at his visitor. It hit the preacher squarely on the nose, bounced off, and landed near his feet. Both men looked at it for a moment.
“I understand that you’re angry right now,” said Reverend Kellerman, “but don’t allow your grief to eclipse God’s love.” The next roll hit him on the forehead, more forcefully than the first. Joseph stepped forward and took the basket. Reverend Kellerman relinquished it and folded his hands in front of him. “Cora loved Jesus,” he said. “She wouldn’t want you to turn your back on Him.” The next roll hit him just below the eye. “Well,” sighed the minister, brushing some crumbs off his cheek, “I should probably be going now.” He turned stiffly and made his way back down the garden path. An aerial bombardment showered down on him as he went. By the time he reached the gate, the basket was empty, and our front yard was littered with sweet-smelling grenades. Joseph stood on the front porch and watched the pastor retreat. He had not said one word.
To Reverend Kellerman’s credit, he was not put off by my father’s fusillade of baked goods. The next day, a Saturday, he appeared at the restaurant just before closing time, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He sat quietly at the farthest booth from the door with a cup of coffee and a slice of cherry pie, and began to make notes. Joseph watched him suspiciously from behind the counter. The last diners left the restaurant, until only Reverend Kellerman remained. When Mrs. Heimstetter hung up her apron and bade them both good night, the minister looked up and smiled at Joseph.
“Will you join me?” he asked.
Joseph picked up the coffeepot and brought it over to the table. He refilled the pastor’s cup and poured one for himself before sliding into the booth. “I suppose you have something more to say,” he said.
Reverend Kellerman gestured to the papers in front of him. “I’m working on my sermon for tomorrow,” he said. He took a sip of coffee. “I know these are difficult times for you, Joseph. I can only imagine the pain you’re feeling. You’ll need strength to get you through.”
“I’m strong enough, thanks.”
“God is the source of your strength.”
My father shook his head. “Not mine.”
“Yes, Joseph. Yours, too. Everything comes from the Lord. And just as he gives it, he can take it away. Think about Samson. God gave him the strength of a hundred men. He killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. But when his hair was cut, he lost that strength.” Reverend Kellerman sat back. “Do you see? His power was a gift from God. And God took it away.”
“You’re saying that if I lose my faith, I’ll lose my strength.”
“If it happened to Samson, why not you?”
“But he lost his strength because Delilah cut his hair.”
The minister frowned. “Look, Samson was weak. He told Delilah his secret. That was his downfall.”
Joseph folded his arms and said nothing.
Reverend Kellerman changed tack. “You remember the parable of the lost sheep. Matthew, chapter eighteen. There was a shepherd who looked after a hundred sheep. One of them got lost in the mountains. The shepherd left the rest of his flock and went to look for the one that was missing. He did everything he could to find that one little sheep.”
“Let me guess,” said Joseph. “I’m the lost sheep.”
The minister smiled at him. “Not for long, I hope.”
“And you’re the shepherd?”
Reverend Kellerman shrugged. “It’s my calling.”
“You’ll do whatever it takes to rescue me?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“You’re a brave man.”
“I have strength of my own.”
“Which God gave you.”
“Of course.”
Joseph stood up. “Well, Reverend, I hope God doesn’t take your strength away, too, like he did with Samson. Because I’ll warn you now, I’m one stubborn son of a bitch.”
T
hat night Reverend Kellerman had difficulty getting to sleep. He was unable to put his conversation with Joseph out of his mind. The minister was profoundly bothered by my father’s indifference at the prospect of being saved. He heard the mockery in Joseph’s voice.
I hope God doesn’t take your strength away, too
.
When he finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep, his dreams were foggy echoes of their exchange in the restaurant. There was long-haired Samson in chains, pulling down the pillars of the Philistine temple; Reverend Kellerman himself, carrying a gnarled staff, the good shepherd, heroically seeking his missing sheep; and Joseph Meisenheimer, coffeepot in hand, turning away from him.
In the middle of the night the minister awoke and sat bolt upright in his bed. He blinked rapidly in the darkness, filled with a sense of wonder. Careful not to wake his sleeping wife, he pulled back the covers and went to his study. He threw away the notes he had been making the previous afternoon and excitedly began to write a brand-new sermon for that day’s service. The minister scribbled away excitedly, not stopping to consider whether the brain wave that had shaken him out of his sleep was really (as he fancied) a gift from God, or instead the result of some disastrously muddy nighttime thinking.
The next morning, Reverend Kellerman’s eyes were shining as he climbed into the pulpit. He told the congregation how Delilah betrayed Samson to the Philistines by cutting off his hair. Then he related the parable of the shepherd and his lost sheep. Joseph Meisenheimer was his very own lost sheep, he declared. It would require faith and determination to rescue him, he declared. It would require
strength
. He would not be weak—like Samson. Then Reverend Kellerman drew himself up tall, and vowed loudly before God and the people of Beatrice that until he had brought Joseph Meisenheimer back into the fold of the church, he would not cut a single hair on his head.
The congregation sat there uneasily, unsure if they had heard him correctly. Everyone was too polite to point out the profoundly illogical nature of his proposal. What had left the minister blinking in sleep-addled awe the previous night made no sense at all in the cold light of that Sunday morning, but Reverend Kellerman was too swept up in the drama of it all to notice. He beamed down triumphantly at his flock, mistaking their collective bewilderment for hushed admiration.
Word quickly spread about the sermon. When Joseph heard about the clergyman’s peculiar vow, he simply shrugged his shoulders. But the next time Reverend Kellerman came calling, he refused to speak with him. And the next.
The minister soon realized that he had made a horrible miscalculation. He had woefully underestimated my father’s limitless reserves of obstinacy. Every morning Reverend Kellerman stood in front of his bathroom mirror and scratched his growing beard, ruing the day he had ever taken Joseph on.
It soon became apparent that neither man was going to give in, so the rest of the town settled back to enjoy the fun. Reverend Kellerman’s flowing locks became a public index of our family’s godlessness. After a year or so, the shaggy-haired preacher who climbed up the pulpit steps every Sunday to deliver his sermons with an increasingly manic gleam in his eye seemed far more eccentric than the trim, mild-mannered cook whose soul he was so determined to save.
The unbending forcefulness of my father’s atheism surprised everyone. It was one more thing that distinguished us from the other kids in Beatrice. Most people’s lives revolved around the twin suns of extended family and church. We had neither. We were cocooned in those two little houses on the outskirts of town, an uneven mishmash of three generations. I’m sure we were rich material for the town’s rumor mill, but none of us cared. We were just trying to muddle through and make it to the end of each day in one piece.