Michener, James A. (89 page)

'What an exciting letter!' And when he passed it along, Allerkamp's hands almost trembled as he turned the flimsy pages covered with small, precise gothic script, and his breathing almost stopped as he focused on particular paragraphs which arrested his attention:

No matter what they tell you, Alois, rattlesnakes leave an area which is well tended. 1 have not seen one in six months. And mosquitoes which are so dreadful along the shore of the sea do not molest us here . . .

I assure you that there are a million wild horses to be caught and tamed if one has the patience, but we buy ours from Mexicans, who are superb at this skill . . .

Melons, squash, beans, potatoes, cabbages of immense size, rutabagas, beets, celery, onions, radishes, peaches, pears and corn, we have them all in abundance. Venison, beef, mutton, pork we enjoy every week, but fish we do not have as yet . .

We do not bother with a church or the ministrations of a clergyman because we have such strong memories of their having been the agents of the Margrave back home, but we do go to the English minister for our marriages, which should always be entered into with God's blessing. In daily life we are our own priests . . .

Land is available in vast quantities, millions of unclaimed acres. It is waiting for you when you come . . .

Night after night we go to bed exhausted from hard, manly work. Bohnert who was a poet in Grenzler builds furniture, the best in this area. Hoexter who wanted to be a professor in Germany is a farmer in Texas. Your friend Schmeltzer who trained to be an engineer is a grower of sheep and cattle, and a good one. And I who was to be a professor am a farmer of more than five hundred hectares. How the great wheel of the world changes in its revolutions.

I will tell you one thing, Old Friend. Sometimes at night my heart breaks in longing for Grenz, the good food, the singing, the winter fires, prayer in the church. And if you join us, as I pray you will, your heart will break too in its hunger for the old ways, especially in December and January when there is no snow on the ground. But there is a greater consolation. Here you will be free. No Margrave, no thundering minister, no conscripting officer from the regiment. You will be free, and, Alois, that makes all the difference . . .

Carefully Allerkamp refolded the letter and handed it back to Metzdorf: 'Powerful statement. He certainly seems to be happy in Texas.'

'Every letter, he begs me to join him. I don't think Hugo would deceive me.'

Allerkamp reached out and tapped the letter: 'So you accept what he says?'

Metzdorf looked about his shop and whispered: 'Every word. My brother would never deceive me.' Ludwig nodded, for the two men wanted to believe that a refuge like Texas existed.

'But,' Allerkamp warned, 'he says nothing reassuring about the Indians.'

'Ah!' Metzdorf cried. 'He said that in his last letter,' and he produced an earlier, well-thumbed epistle in which Hugo had said explicitly:

I know you must be apprehensive about the Red Indians. They have long since left these parts, and I myself in all this time have seen only

three or four who came here to trade. They were much like the Poles we saw that day in Grenz, different in speech, different in coloring and appearance, but ordinary men otherwise. 1 myself have traded with them and thought nothing of it

After studying this letter, Allerkamp started toward the door, wildly excited by the visions of Texas both epistles had reawakened, but before he could leave, Metzdorf said quietly: 'I have this new book from Paris, and I want you to read it.' And he took from a hiding place beneath his counter a small, unimpressive book which had been smuggled across many borders: Poems by Hein-rich Heine, the Jewish exile. It was not a crime to have a book by this unpleasant man, but copies were confiscated when found and persons who had read them were noted by the police.

Allerkamp, like most Germans of his type—men who had been to university as had their fathers and grandfathers—adhered mainly to the great poetry of Goethe and Schiller, whom they revered, and few had any acquaintance with the renegade Heine, but they had heard rumors that he was an impassioned poet with much to say, so that they were naturally inquisitive as to his message. Also, the fact that he was Jewish lent his poetry an added aura of mystery, for such men knew few Jews and were alternately repelled by them and fascinated.

'Listen to what he says about us:

'And when I reached St. Gotthard Pass I could hear Germany snoring, Asleep down below in the loving care Of her thirty-six rulers.'

'Do the police know you have this book?' Allerkamp asked. 'No, no, but I want you to read it. Heine has a lot to say to us.' 'Will you try to join your brother in America?' Metzdorf made no reply. He simply forced the book into his

friend's hands and led him to the door. When Ludwig left the

shop he looked up and down the main street, but the policeman

was gone.

That evening Ludwig Allerkamp assembled his family and said gravely: 'Franziska, fetch the Bible.'

The quiet little girl, her two pigtails bobbing beside her ears, went to the bedroom, where she lifted the heavy brassbound Bible and carried it to her father. He opened it to Psalms, from which he read regularly to his brood, and asked each member of the

family to place a hand upon the sacred book. This was a curious, meaningful act, for in recent years he had grown increasingly impatient with the church, which sided always with the government and invariably against the interests of its parishioners. In fact, Ludwig Allerkamp, like most Germans who were contemplating emigration, had begun to drift away from the stern Lutheran-ism of his youth, for he found the church repressive and unresponsive. Yet still, in any moment of crisis, he turned instinctively to the Bible.

'Swear that you will repeat what we are about to say to no one, absolutely no one.'

Six right hands shared the open pages of Psalms. Six voices took the oath.

'The question before this meeting of the Allerkamp family— shall we, with or without permission, leave Germany and go to Texas?'

No one responded. Each member of the family visualized such evidence as she or he had heard and each weighed the awful consequences of the decision to be made. Thekla the mother recalled the two earlier Metzdorf letters she had read telling of life on the prairie, and all that she had heard reassured her that only in some such refuge could her four children find freedom. She was prepared to brave the dangers of the ocean crossing, the mosquitoes and the rattlesnakes, if only she and her offspring could build good new lives, and all negative considerations were abolished, even her fear of Indians. Her eldest son, Theo, who so desperately wanted to marry but who had been sentenced perhaps to perpetual bachelorhood by the stern laws of Germany, was eager to do anything to escape. He would emigrate tomorrow and would say so when invited to speak. Brother Ernst, aged eighteen, had for some years imagined himself to be Uncas, striding through primeval forests, and was most eager to undertake such adventure. Brother Emil, sixteen, was prepared to go anywhere, and the more Indians, pirates and gold-seekers en route the better.

That left Father Ludwig and Franziska, and their preferences were more tentative than those of their kinfolk. Ludwig loved Germany and even though prevented from entering his chosen profession of teaching in some university, he felt a burning desire to stay and witness the unfolding of German history. He felt his homeland to be on the verge of great accomplishments; perhaps a unification of the hundred petty states, perhaps a release from the strictures of Metternich's oppression, perhaps a bursting forth of the German spirit into brave new worlds of industrial expansion and revitalized universities. He was extremely optimistic where

Germany was concerned and foresaw the gradual disappearance of anachronisms like the old Margrave. But he was also cruelly aware that his family must somehow survive the period of transition, and he saw no likelihood of accomplishing this under current circumstances. His persistent fear was that Germany would engage in a revolution which would accomplish nothing but which would surely engulf his three sons, for they were lads of strong opinion and firm character, not likely to remain aloof from such vibrant movement. Hugo Metzdorf's most recent letter from Texas strengthened his resolve to seek refuge there immediately

Up to now, Franziska had rarely participated in family discussions of any gravity, for she was a carefully nurtured girl who had been taught to sit properly, never intrude on a conversation, and respect the instructions of anyone older than herself. But she had a most lively imagination and a sharp perception of what was occurring about her, and her family would have been surprised at the accuracy with which she assessed their motives and anticipated their actions. Encouraged by her brother Ernst, who wanted to roam with Uncas, she had read The Last of the Mohicans and seen pretty quickly that it was largely romantic nonsense; also, several reports in the German press, inspired by rulers who were determined to keep their subjects at home, had told of great dust storms, hurricanes, Indian attacks and the prevalence of rattlesnakes in Texas. Unlike her brothers, she had read books sponsored by the rulers and written by Germans who had emigrated to Texas, only to return home on the first available ship:

Texas is a dreadful place. The food is inedible. The houses have no windows. Paved floors do not exist. A strange disease they call El Vomito kills people within a week of landing. Indians and rattlesnakes prowl behind the barn, if a man is lucky enough to have a barn. Do not come to Texas. 1 tried it and lasted only one week. How passionately I kissed the deck of the good German vessel that carried me back to Bremen.

She was therefore not at all eager to leap into such an adventure, but when she remembered how her brother Theo had sagged when the Margrave said 'You may not marry,' she could look ahead to the mournful day when it was she standing before the ruler seeking permission to marry some young man of Grenz, only to hear the harsh words 'You may not,' and she knew that her only salvation was emigration to some free land like Texas.

She also recalled how her plea for an education had been denied, and she became angry: 'We should go,' and when her small voice

uttered these words a flood of comment was loosened, and the Allerkamp family, aware of all the terrors mental and physical which threatened, decided that as soon as the opportunity presented itself they would quietly slip away from the beloved Margravate of Grenzler, with or without legal permission, and make their way through whatever dangers to the wharf at Bremen, where they would offer themselves as emigrants to a better land.

When the unanimous decision was reached, Ludwig asked them to place their hands on the Bible again: 'On our solemn oath we speak to no one.' And when this was agreed, he told his children: 'I want you to study these poems of Heine again. He's a Jew, and his work is outlawed, but he speaks like a golden trumpet,' and before passing along the book he read from it:

'Time passes on but that chateau That old chateau with its high steeple It never fades out of my mind Filled as it was with stupid people.

'That's what we're exchanging, the stupid chateau for the free forest.'

'Will you be a bookbinder there?' Franziska asked, and her father said: 'No. They'll have no need of bookbinders in the forest.'

'What will you do?' the girl asked, and before her father could respond, Ernst-Uncas cried: 'He'll shoot deer and make moccasins.'

'We'll certainly have a farm,' Ludwig said. 'But I'll find other work, too.'

'What kind of work?' Franziska asked, and he replied: 'We'll have to see.'

They all agreed later: 'It was a miracle.' And in a way it was a twofold miracle, because the very next day a wanderer from the north came to town and passed along the main street, stopping everyone and asking: 'Do you wish to buy paper which entitles you to free land in Texas?'

In various ways a large supply of scrip issued by the Republic of Texas had found its way to Germany, and each certificate entitled the purchaser to acres of land without further payment. Half the paper for sale consisted of legal documents circulated by Toby and Brother of New Orleans to encourage immigration, and this carried certain complexities regarding surveying and court' procedures, but the other half were bounty warrants issued to veterans of the war, and this gave immediate title to three hundred

and twenty acres, provided only that an official surveyor could be found to identify and map the land chosen. It was supposed that the surveyor would receive for his services one-third of the land so identified, unless the holder of the scrip wished to pay a fee in cash.

Ludwig Allerkamp, a cautious man, suspected chicanery in such an offering and would have nothing to do with the paper, regardless of which form it took. Some did buy, however, for modest sums, and it was here that the second miracle occurred, because the mayor of the town bought six certificates—four Toby, two soldier bounties—for a modest sum, only to find that the police were taking down the names of all holders: 'Nothing illegal, Mayor, but the Margrave wants to know who's been dabbling with the idea of emigration.'

'Not me!' the mayor lied, i have no papers of any kind.' And to make this assurance viable he quickly hurried to the bookshop of Alois Metzdorf, known to be an agitator, to whom he confided in a jumble of whispers: 'These papers . . . the police inspectors . . . In my position as mayor, you know, there's nothing wrong, you understand . . . but in my responsible position as mayor . . . Here, you take them, they can do you no harm.'

As soon as the mayor left, Metzdorf slipped out the back door and ran through alleys to the home of Allerkamp: 'Ludwig, it's providential! I know you want to go to Texas, and someone I can't name just gave me six certificates for land there. I can't emigrate yet, but . . .'

The conspirators stood silent, and slowly Metzdorf pushed the sacred papers into his friend's hands. No one spoke, and then in a rush of gratitude Allerkamp embraced his friend: 'Alois, I'll hold the best fields for you . . . till you come.'