Leota's Garden (37 page)

Leota sat silent.

He was sorry he had said anything. What an idiot he was. He could
feel
her silence. She was so still, he wondered if she was gathering strength for a blast of temper. She was probably going to tell him to march himself right out of her home and not darken her doorstep again. But when she slowly opened her eyes, she looked at Annie, not him.

“Bernard Gottlieb Reinhardt had the tenderest heart of any man I ever knew. And that is why life became so difficult for him. He felt responsibility for things he had no control over.” A look of anguish filled her face. She closed her eyes again.

Why had she made such a point of her husband’s tenderness?

Corban looked at Anne and saw tears trickling down her cheeks. Did she know what her grandmother was talking about? He looked back at Leota and grimaced inwardly. He really
was
a jerk. He was beginning to hate the whole idea of doing a term paper and using Leota Reinhardt as part of his research.

Leota tipped the chair up so she was sitting with her back straight, hands on the armrests, feet flat on the floor. “I suppose it’s time,” she said softly. Corban sensed from her expression that she had made a decision and was now determined to go forward with it, no matter how much it hurt.

Oh,
why
couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut?

“The first time I saw Bernard, I was with a friend at one of the dance halls downtown. Bernard came in with several of his friends. He was the sort of young man that young ladies notice right away. Tall, handsome . . . he was blond and had beautiful blue eyes. He wasn’t three feet inside the door of that hall before he was surrounded by women. He paid them no attention.” She smiled. “I loved to dance, especially swing, and I never lacked for partners. Bernard just stood and watched me all evening.”

“He never asked you to dance, Grandma?”

She chuckled. “He didn’t know how, and he had too much dignity to want to learn in front of everyone.”

“So how did you meet him?”

“The band took a break. I was out of breath and hot from dancing. Bernard was standing near the refreshment table. The evening was more than half over, and all he had done was stand and watch me. He had a glass of punch in his hand and was sipping out of it. He smiled at me and lifted his glass. So I took the bull by the horns. I walked right up to him, said I was thirsty, and held out my hand. He blushed when he gave me his glass. I drained it, handed it back, and asked him for more.”

“Grandma!” Anne said, laughing. “I’d never have courage enough to do something like that!”

“Most ladies wouldn’t think to do such a thing. I was always one to go after what I wanted. Besides, I figured if I waited for him, I’d be old and gray before he said a word to me. There were rumors of war, and life didn’t seem so certain. Then again, maybe that was just my excuse for being so brazen. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. I had never seen Bernard at the dance hall before. Seeing as he didn’t dance, I figured it was unlikely I’d ever see him there again. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. One look at your grandfather and I thought the risk of complete public humiliation was worth the chance he might ask me out.”

“Obviously, he did.”

“Oh, he did better than that. He asked me to marry him.”

“Right there in the dance hall? That
night
?”

“Well, later. In the rumble seat.”

Corban laughed. He couldn’t help himself. It was a side of Leota Reinhardt he would never have imagined in a million years. She turned her gaze upon him like a marksman ready to fire. He fought to regain control. “Sorry.” A rumble seat!

“Of course you are,” she said dryly. “I can guess what improper notions stampeded through your dirty little mind. Have you ever been in the rumble seat of a car?”

“No, ma’am.” His lips twitched.

“Obviously not. It’s a small space—a
very
small space—too small to carry on anything improper, I assure you. Especially when the car is in motion with the wind blowing in your face and the car bouncing over every bump in the road. And don’t give me that cheeky grin of yours.”

“Just getting even. Whose car was it?”

“One of Bernard’s friends’. Can’t remember his name, but he knew my friend and asked if we needed a ride home. The dance ended late, and we were waiting for the bus when they drove up. I wasn’t in that seat two seconds when Bernard put his arm around me, leaned down, and said someday he was going to marry me.”

“What’d you say, Grandma?”

“I said, ‘How about next Wednesday? It’s my day off.’ Of course, I thought he was joking. When he took me out the next evening, I realized he wasn’t.”

“It gives a new definition to whirlwind romance.” Corban grinned even more broadly. “One week.”

“Actually, it was almost a year, and most of that time was spent trying to change his mother’s opinion of me. You see, Bernard went home that first night. His folks had been worried and waiting up for him. He told them he had met the girl he was going to marry. By the time he spilled out the whole story, they were convinced I was . . . well, not the sort of girl anyone would want for their only son. A girl who danced with all the young men at a public hall and drank from a stranger’s glass and accepted a proposal in the back of a car.” She smiled sadly. “A Jezebel.”

She rubbed her thighs as though she ached. “I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me. Until Bernard went away to war, we had very little to do with Mama and Papa. Bernard would visit them on Sunday afternoons after church. I fixed dinner for them a few times, but . . . well, Mama Reinhardt was a very good cook, and I was a new bride who had lived on tuna casseroles, corned beef and cabbage, and potatoes.” She smiled in amusement. “Mama Reinhardt was not impressed.”

Corban felt anger stirring inside him at the hurt Leota must have felt. “Sounds like an old bat to me.”

“I think that’s probably what you thought of me in the beginning.” Leota gave him a pointed look. “Wasn’t it?”

“Now that you mention it,” he conceded with a wry grin.

“Maybe you still do. Didn’t anyone ever teach you to respect your elders?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now that’s one of the things I like about you, Corban. Your impertinence.” Leota’s eyes were twinkling, and Corban found himself liking
her—really liking her—for the first time. She must have been something when she was young.

“So you didn’t have them over for dinner often,” he said, hoping to get her back on track.

“Once a month we suffered one another’s company. I liked Papa right from the beginning, but Mama would sit and watch and not say anything. When she did, she spoke German to Papa, and he would translate.”

“Didn’t she speak English?”

“Not very well. Language was another barrier between us. English isn’t any easier to learn than German, but over the years, we learned to talk to one another. More toward the end.”

“Did Mother learn to speak German?”

“Your mother and Uncle George spoke German at home until their father returned from the war. After that, German was never spoken in the house again.”

Annie’s eyes widened. “Not even by Papa and Mama Reinhardt?”

“Not in Bernard’s presence.”

Corban waited, knowing whatever Leota had to say wouldn’t come easily. He could see the tears welling in her eyes as she sat silent, gathering her thoughts. She blinked, her hands rubbing and rubbing at her thighs. She looked gray and old. Vulnerable. As though she were drowning in painful memories.

“Mama’s loyalties were put to the test when Bernard joined the army,” she said finally. “She and Papa both had brothers and sisters with families still in Germany. I remember both of them saying what a madman Hitler was. They would read the daily newspapers and grieve over every word that was said about Germany. Some editorials called them ‘bloody Huns.’ The Reinhardts had been receiving letters ever since leaving Europe, and the later ones were filled with glowing praise for the
Führer
. Of course, Mama and Papa wrote right back with the truth. Then the letters stopped coming.”

She leaned back, her hands still. “I was with Bernard when he told them he had enlisted. Mama Reinhardt wept. I’d never heard crying like that before. Wailing like her heart was being torn from her. Papa told Bernard if the war turned in America’s favor and he ended up in Germany, to try to find and save whatever kin he could.”

She fell silent then. Corban bit his lip, giving her the chance to begin again. When she stayed silent, though, he couldn’t hold back the question. “Did he make it into Germany?”

“Yes.”

So much pain in a single word. Corban had never realized it was possible to communicate so much in one word. Annie sat still and silent, eyes flooded with tears, seeming to feel her grandmother’s suffering as though it were her own.

“Bernard made it to the town where Mama and Papa Reinhardt had lived. The unit he was with destroyed it.” She blinked, not looking at either of them. “He awakened one night after a recurring nightmare. He told me the men had gone mad, he among them. They killed everyone they saw. They wanted to wipe that town off the face of the earth.”

Corban couldn’t believe he’d heard right. He leaned forward.
“Why?”

She looked at him bleakly. “Just before they came to the town, they had freed a concentration camp. Bernard said the smell was beyond describing, dead bodies stacked up like cordwood. The town was close by, close enough to have known what was happening, close enough to have been supplying the soldiers there. Bernard never got over what he saw and what he did about it.” She closed her eyes. She was trembling.

Annie started to weep. She left the couch, knelt at her grandmother’s feet, and put her head in her lap. Leota stroked her hair slowly. “Your grandfather said when the rage in him died, all that was left was shame. Shame for what he had done, but more shame for the blood that ran in his veins.”

“Did Mama and Papa Reinhardt ever know?” Annie said tearfully.

“Bernard never spoke a word about it to anyone but me, and he only spoke to me about it one time, when it poured out of him against his will. It was like a cancer eating him up inside. Oh, his parents both knew something horrible had happened in Germany, something so terrible their son could never speak of the war. Perhaps if he had talked about it, he wouldn’t have suffered so.”

Corban couldn’t imagine what the man must have felt. “How—how did he cope with what happened?”

“He came home, went back to work, and tried to get on with his life. Papa signed the house over to him, and he and Bernard built the apartment behind the garage. Mama moved in grudgingly, feeling I had
stolen her house from her. She was filled to overflowing with resentment. She blamed Bernard’s depression on me, saying in no uncertain terms that a good wife would be able to bring her husband out of it. She just didn’t understand. And neither did I at that time.”

She sighed. “Our squabbling must have made things worse on your grandpa. And your mother and George were afraid of their father. They didn’t remember him, of course, since they were so young when he went away. After he returned, Bernard was given to bursts of anger in the beginning. He was a fine craftsman, but he’d work for a while, then lose his temper and get fired. He lost one job after another the first five years he was home. After word spread, he couldn’t get full-time work. That just made him feel worse because then it had to be me working to pay the bills. He’d lapse into long silences. He always did such wonderful work. He built the lattice in the backyard. And he did those cabinets in the kitchen and that built-in china hutch back there. Beautiful work, but all he could get were odd jobs.”

Eyes moist, Leota went on quietly. “In the evenings he would sit in front of the television and drink until he fell asleep.”

“Oh, Grandma,” Annie murmured, holding her grandmother’s hand between her own and rubbing it gently as though to bring warmth into it.

“He was a good man, but broken up inside.” Leota’s mouth trembled. “And I never knew how to put him back together.” Her lips curved in a humorless smile. “Like Humpty-Dumpty. Shattered.”

Corban didn’t know what to say or do to ease her suffering. The long silence made him uncomfortable, pointing out his ineptitude. The silence of ten minutes was unbearable to him. How had she borne the silence of years, especially knowing the cause of it?

“It’s not just Germans,” Leota said as though he had spoken aloud. “That’s the thing of it. I tried to tell Bernard that, but he’d never listen. Look what the Japanese did to the Chinese during the rape of Nanking and to anyone who ever fell into their hands during the war. Look at what the white man has done to Native Americans. Look what the Africans do to one another. We have the holy wars in the Middle East, jihad against us, the genocide in Southeast Asia, and the Soviets splintering and aiming warheads every which way. Here in our own country right now, you feel the tide turning against Christians. They’re being maligned and blamed for all kinds of things. No. There’s nothing new
under the sun. I remember thinking back in the sixties, when the Watts riots were going on, that what happened in Germany could happen here. And then the AIDS epidemic hit. It’d be so easy for the tide to turn against those who’re poor and sick.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not Germans. It’s
mankind
. It’s our own sin nature growing and taking control and ravaging the world. But Bernard would never listen. He would never accept God’s grace and mercy. He knew there wasn’t a way on this earth to undo what he’d done, and he wasn’t willing to let God wash it all away with the blood of Christ. Not until the very end. So he suffered. And he made everyone around him suffer right along with him.”

Annie shook her head, her expression filled with a sorrow that pierced Corban’s gut. When she spoke, her voice was choked with tears. “I don’t think Mother knows any of this, Grandma.”

“You’re right. She doesn’t. She and George were too young to understand what was going on. They believed what they were told. I always thought to keep to myself what I knew until I died. But lately . . .” She looked at Corban, her eyes clear and bright, pensive. “Sometimes you have to tell the truth, no matter how hard it is. Even when it doesn’t change anything. People seem to make the same mistakes over and over again.”