Speak Through the Wind (5 page)

lthough he was a humble man and true servant of God, Reverend Joseph Hartmann was not a man of modest means. His parents owned several textile mills in his native town of Heidelberg, Germany, which they sold in order to bring a massive amount of cash to invest upon their emigration to America. Joseph was just fifteen years old at the time, already torn between following in his father’s industrial footsteps and his own desire to enter the ministry. His mother died of fever during the voyage, and his father had only enough time to build this home in the fashionable district of New York’s Centre Street before following his wife after succumbing to a bad piece of fish. The bright spot in young Joseph’s view was that the family fortune was largely intact. He took from it only what he needed to finance an education at a modest New York seminary. Within five years, at the young age of twenty-six, he secured a position as minister at the Tenth Street Methodist Church—the place of worship for some of New York’s most affluent Methodists—and as a spokesman for quiet reform.

On Tuesday afternoons, the New York City Abolition Society gathered in Reverend Joseph’s parlor to bemoan the tragic injustices of the South and to compose tracts to be distributed to all merchants who participated in trade with known slaveholders. On Wednesdays, several members of Reverend Joseph’s church came to his home to have a somber evening of prayer and petition for the needs of his congregation. Every third Thursday, the table in the formal dining room was covered with ledgers and lists of the month’s charitable donations, and the elders of the church gathered to discuss their dispensation. And on Fridays, Reverend Joseph sat placidly in his parlor, reading his Bible or some evangelical text, while acquaintances outside his congregation paid social calls.

The Friday morning visitors usually consisted of middle-aged mothers and their marriageable daughters. They arrived sheathed in propriety, managing to carry on conversations bemoaning the plight of the poor without dropping a single crumb of fruitcake, all the while scanning the elegance of the furnishings with wistful, hungry eyes. The mothers hung on every one of Reverend Joseph’s words, tilting their heads and eyeing him as if looking through a scope. The daughters kept their eyes downcast, as if entranced by the pattern in the fabric of their skirts.

When Kassandra was still a very little girl, her head still sporting tufts of soft, sandy blondness, the women would fawn over her, admiring her large gray eyes and applauding her ability to carry their emptied cups on a tray twice the width of her small frame.

“You’ve not found a home for this one?” they asked in sweet soprano voices.

“No,” Reverend Joseph would reply “Families want American children. Her English is not yet strong enough.”

As years went by, Kassandra’s status grew from being a foundling to an adorable little girl, and the mothers would comment on their own daughters’ love for children, to which Reverend Joseph would smile and offer them an opportunity to volunteer in the schools and orphanages supported by his church.

“Now really, reverend,” the aggressive matrons would coo, “don’t you ever intend to marry?” To which Reverend Joseph would smile and reply that he hadn’t yet met the woman who would be content to give away as much money as he did.

Kassandra’s very presence in the house became, after a time, a sore spot in the eyes of Reverend Joseph’s ministerial and social circles. More than once as Kassandra passed through the rooms, she heard the mutterings and chastisements of his colleagues and invited guests.

“You simply cannot just
keep
her, reverend. Not without a mother in the house.”

“She is becoming a young woman. It simply isn’t proper.”

“People are beginning to talk.”

But Reverend Joseph dismissed their criticisms and suspicions with a sweep of his hand, saying, “God brought her to me for a reason. I cannot simply turn her out.”

Each time Kassandra heard Reverend Joseph defend his right to keep her, she bowed her head and gave a prayer of thanks to God. But still, she was careful to be as inconspicuous as possible, especially when the Friday morning visits of the matrons and their daughters came with ugly glares and suspicious mumblings whenever Reverend Joseph left the parlor. It was at those times that Kassandra would lift her modest eyes and smile with a ferocity that defended his generosity, her virtue and, most of all, their territory.

The spring that Kassandra turned fifteen, she was summoned away from a particularly stifling Friday morning social call by an insistent pounding on the back kitchen door.

“Clara?” Reverend Joseph called to the house at large, before Kassandra could remind him that Clara was out paying a call on a sick neighbor. When he began to rise from his chair to answer the pounding, Kassandra, loath to be left alone with Mrs. Weathersby and her dull daughter Dianne, leapt from her chair, insisting that the three continue their conversation about the propriety of reading from the Song of Solomon from the pulpit.

The knocking intensified as Kassandra tore through the parlor and the dining room, and by the time she was crossing the kitchen she could hear muted profanities coming through the door.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” she muttered not quite under her breath. When she reached the door, she yanked it open with all the force of her frustration.

His fist was stilled in midair, ready to administer another blow, his face barely discernable under the cap pulled low on his brow.

“Not a very patient one, are you?” Kassandra asked, opening the door just wide enough to poke her head out.

“Not when it’s nearly five minutes I’m out here, frappin’ until my hand’s nearly thick with blood.” He shouldered the door open and pushed past her. Once inside the kitchen he turned to face her and asked, “Where are you wantin’ this?” referring to the canvas-wrapped bundle he had slung over his shoulder.

“I am not sure,” Kassandra said. Clara was meticulous in her power over deliveries—a duty she had never sought to share.

“Well, until ya are, I’m leavin’ it right here.” He dropped the bundle on the middle of the kitchen table, causing the crockery vase of freshly cut flowers to jump nearly an inch off the surface. “It’s a heavy son.”

The young man took his cap off, revealing a mass of tight red curls. He turned to Kassandra, who was still standing in the open doorway, and fixed her with a bright smile that made her feel as if a tiny bird had been let loose somewhere behind her rib cage.

“You know, miss, you might want to shut that door before you bring in too much of a chill into this nice, warm kitchen.”

“Of course.” Kassandra felt a slight sense of uneasiness when the door clicked behind her, not knowing if it was such a good idea to be trapped alone in this room with this boy. As a matter of precaution—and to keep standing despite the very real threat of her legs buckling beneath her—Kassandra kept her hand clasped on the doorknob, and her eyes fixed on the mysterious bundle on the table.

“It’s a lamb,” he said with a demonstrative gesture. “My guess is the reverend ordered it for his Easter dinner.”

“Of course,” Kassandra said again, mentally kicking herself for her lack of originality

They stared at each other for a minute. At least she was sure he was staring at her—her face was burning so—but she kept her own gaze in constant motion around the familiar room.

“Of course …” he said, his voice tinged with the amusement of echoing her words, “you could just leave it out here on the table. But I suspect it might start gettin’ a little green after a bit. Would you be wantin’ me to take it to someplace a bit cooler? Like maybe a cellar?”

“Of course!” Kassandra said yet again, thrilled to have a plan at last. “I mean, yes, the cellar. Right this way.”

She let go her grip on the kitchen doorknob and walked, head down, into the pantry just off the kitchen. She heard him behind her, grunting as he shouldered the weight of the lamb once again.

“It’s just down there,” she said, kicking back the mat that covered the cellar door.

“Well, now, do you think maybe you could open it for me? I’m a bit burdened here.”

Before she could stop herself, Kassandra said, “Of course,” again before stooping to grasp the iron ring and raising it to expose the open, empty blackness.

“And is there a ladder?” he asked.

“Of—yes, there is.”

“And is there a light? Or would you rather I broke my neck tryin’ to bring you your Easter dinner?”

“A lamp. Yes, I’ll get one,” Kassandra said. “Wait here.”

She stepped back into the kitchen, grabbed the kerosene lamp off the shelf above the stove, lifted the globe—amazed at the steadiness of her hands—lit the wick, and held the burning match while she replaced the glass, remembering to shake it out only when she felt the first twinge of the ñame against her skin.

“You all right?” he called.

She scurried back around the corner, holding the lamp in triumph. “You go on down,” she said. “I’ll hold the lamp for you from up here.”

“Scared to go down to the pits of hell with me?” he said, cocking his head and sending her what she was sure was a wink.

Before she could reply, he was descending the ladder, lamb balanced perfectly on his shoulder, leaving her at the threshold of the cellar, breathless.

n the evenings after supper, Reverend Joseph retired to his study with his pipe, his brandy, and his Bible. He was left there alone for exactly thirty minutes while Kassandra helped Clara clear away the supper dishes and put the kitchen back in order. When all was tidied away, Kassandra went to the study door and knocked softly three times. Sometimes she would be given a muffled, “Good night, Sparrow,” through the heavy wooden door, but other nights—and these were the nights she treasured—she would be summoned inside to sit on the thick, soft rug at Reverend Joseph’s feet.

It was here that Kassandra first learned to speak English, carefully mimicking Reverend Joseph’s pronunciation and intonation as she recited Scriptures in the firelight. Meaningless words at first, but as her understanding of the language grew, so did her comprehension of God’s holy Word. One evening, when Kassandra was still a very little girl, Reverend Joseph leaned forward in his big leather chair and settled his Bible on his knees, running his well-groomed finger along the words as he read aloud in slow, clear English: “
Are not two sparrows sold for ajarthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”