Fields Of Gold (22 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: Fields Of Gold
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Then, in May of 1940, neutrality about the war became impossible. In a single day the Nazis invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland. No one could believe it. In less than two months' time, every nation had surrendered. Holland capitulated only five days after the first German tanks rolled across the border.
When I heard the news, I jumped into the car and drove to town as fast as I could, looking for Paul. He sat at his desk while the radio reports droned on and on, sitting up straight and silent in his chair while tears rolled down his face and I looked on helplessly. Finally, I pulled a chair up next to his and listened with him, hoping my presence would help.
The surrender of France changed people's minds. Farmers, thick in the middle of crop worries, started to talk about war and to realize that Hitler wouldn't be satisfied until he controlled all of Europe. The
Daily Times
put the war back on the front page. Not long after the French defeat, Slim made a speech on the radio.
Paul came over for supper that night. After the pie was eaten and the dishes cleared, I took out another piece of Morgan's old clothing, a pair of black pants worn out in the seat and started cutting them into one-inch blocks while we listened to the radio. At one point in the broadcast Slim said people shouldn't pay attention to “this hysterical chatter of calamity and invasion which has been running rife these last few days.”
Paul actually leaped to his feet, eyes blazing, put his face in front of the Philco as though Slim were sitting right in front of him, and shouted in frustration, “Good Lord, man! They're marching around the Eiffel Tower and eating in the cafés! It's not like people have made this up! What's the matter with you, Lindbergh? Are you blind or a coward or both?”
Words of defense bubbled up in my mind as I searched for some excuse or explanation for Slim's attitude, but there was none. I blushed red with shame, so red that Ruby asked if I was feeling all right. I just said the fire was too warm and went back to my cutting, concentrating on making each black square as perfect as possible.
After the broadcast Paul said he'd better be going, then cleared his throat and asked if I'd mind walking out to his car with him, “There's a book I just finished reading that was very good. I thought you might want to borrow it.”
The night was chilly. I pulled my sweater closer around me. Paul, usually so ready to chat or joke after spending an evening with us, was silent. He had been pensive lately. No word had yet come from Nils since the invasion, and I knew his mind must be tied up in knots of worry for his brother's safety. We walked toward the car in perfect time. Our feet crunching the gravel in unison sounded brave and out of place in the wide stillness of night. Paul reached in the backseat to fish out the book.
“Here,” he said holding it out to me. “It's not new at all. It's just an old copy of
The Great Gatsby.
I know you've already read it, but I needed an excuse to get you alone, and I remembered I had a copy in the car, so ... here. Take it anyway. You might like reading it again.”
I accepted the book and wrapped my arms around it, holding it protectively against my chest, schoolgirl fashion. “Have you heard anything from Nils?” I asked.
“No,” he murmured, “not yet. I suppose the mails are completely disrupted.” He held the back of his hand to his face, as though shielding his eyes from the sun, and for a moment I thought he might cry. “Oh, Eva! This horrible war ... being cut off from my brother and not knowing when I might see him again, it's got me thinking about families and the people we love. We mustn't take them for granted. It's important to say the things you want to say, while you have the chance. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I do,” I agreed. “When Papa died, I was so filled with regret for all the things I felt and never got a chance to say to him. I think he knew it all anyway, but still ... You always think there will be time enough for everything.”
“Yes.” Paul nodded earnestly. “Times like these make you realize it's important not to waste a moment.” He rubbed his face with his hand and sighed impatiently to himself the way he did on those rare occasions when he couldn't remember the exact word he was looking for in English. “I know you said, when we first became friends, that I shouldn't ask too many personal questions, that it takes time to build trust, even among friends, but we have known each other a long time now.”
It was a long time, I thought to myself, and we were friends, good friends. Surely after all that time he had earned the right to ask whatever he wanted, but I said nothing. I knew what the question was. We had been through too much for me to forbid him asking—but I hoped he wouldn't.
“What I want to know is”—he raised his head and looked me steadily in the eye—“about Morgan's father. Is he someone from around here? Do you still see him? Do you still love him? Will there ever be room in your heart for anyone else?”
Paul had buried my father, and through his patience and care he had resurrected my mother. He had befriended my son and challenged the boy's mind. He had braved the clucking tongues of disapproval to forge a relationship with an unmarried woman of questionable reputation.
Yes,
I thought, looking into his solemn eyes,
you've earned the right to ask the question. I can trust you with the answer.
I told him the truth, all of it, how Slim and I met and loved and parted. How I'd loved Slim from the first moment. How I loved him still.
Paul's eyes grew even more solemn as I told him the story. I could see him struggling to don the neutral mask of a confessor, but he failed. He shook his head in bewilderment. “Eva, if it were anyone, anyone else but you, I would say they were lying or ...” He stumbled to find the right word. “Or delusional. But I know you wouldn't lie. Yet what you are saying is just ... Well, it's just so hard to believe!”
“Why?” I shot back defensively, the color rising in my face, “Because of who I am?”
“No!” he exclaimed vehemently. “Not because of you, but because of who that man is.” He spat out the last words contemptuously; then his expression softened. He reached out and pulled back a strand of my hair that had fallen out of place and moved closer, the lock of hair still clasped between his fingers. “I don't doubt that Charles Lindbergh landed in your father's field and fell in love with you the moment he saw you,” he whispered. “I don't doubt that for one second. Seeing you, your sweetness, the way I do now, how could he not have loved you?” His hand dropped from my face to my shoulder down to the small of my back, lighting just on the swell of my hip. The naturalness of his touch surprised me, as though the curve of his palm had been carved to fit that particular spot. I remember feeling, not relieved, but tired, so very tired. I wanted to lean into his chest and rest there. For a moment, I did.
“He loved you,” Paul murmured into the tangle of my hair, “and maybe, at that moment, you loved him. But that you love him still? No, that I can't believe.”
I took a step back and let his hand fell away from my waist. I pulled myself up tall again and blinked hard, determined not to let Paul see me cry. “What's so hard to understand? We have a child, a beautiful child. Have you looked at Morgan?” I frowned, irritated by the blank, patient look on Paul's face. “He looks exactly like him. He's perfect. He's Slim.”
“No, Eva. He is you. His face may belong to Lindbergh, but his heart is yours. Thank God.” Paul groaned. “Eva, I don't know what Lindbergh was like when he was young. Maybe he really was the hero you say he was, but don't you see what he's become? Did you hear him tonight? It's not possible that you could love such a man as that.”
“Be quiet, Paul!” I snapped. “You don't know anything about it. I want us to stay friends, so just don't talk about it, ever again!” As I started back toward the house, Paul reached out and held me tight by the wrist.
“I have to, Eva. Because we are friends, I have ask. You really love him? Even after what you heard tonight?” His eyes searched my mine anxiously.
“Yes,” I answered with finality, not wanting to explain more. I knew Slim was changed, or rather, he was lost. When I searched through my clippings of cutout, newspaper-gray photographs, I couldn't find him hidden behind the thin, hard gaze of Charles Lindbergh, but I had to believe he was there, because if he had disappeared, I might too.
Paul continued carefully and less emotionally, as if he were filling in information on some blank, white form, but he couldn't keep an edge of contempt from stealing into his voice. “And he loves you?”
I nodded with more conviction than I felt.
“Then where is he, Eva? Why isn't he here?”
Unbidden tears sparked, angry and hot in my eyes, and I inhaled deeply before finding breath to answer. “He couldn't be. He was meant for big things, things you can't strike at tied down to someone like me. I knew that, even then. I sent him away myself because I wanted everything for him. Because I loved him.”
“But he never came back,” he said flatly.
“No, you're wrong,” I retorted. “He came back. He wanted us to be together, but he couldn't stay. See, he didn't know about Morgan. If anyone had found out it would have ...” Tears were filming in my eyes, and it was hard to see Paul's face, hard to remember why Slim had left, why he'd never returned. “It was just impossible, don't you see? It would have ruined everything for him! You just wouldn't understand.”
“You're right, I wouldn't. I don't.” He encircled my wrist with his hand and drew me closer to him, our bodies only an inch apart. I could see the tiny crows-feet near his eyes and the cloud of his breath in the cold night air. His words spilled out, brisk and whispered, almost mechanically, like a prayer memorized and repeated so many times that you don't need to think about it anymore.
“If you were mine, I'd never leave you alone. I wouldn't share you with anyone or anything. No ambition, or hope, or mistake could keep me from you, and the night would be so full of you and me, there wouldn't even be room for the stars. Now explain to me, Eva, about love. Because if that isn't it, then you're right. I don't understand.”
He took one step, hardly moving, closing the bare space between us and circled his arms around my shoulders and waist, leaning into me and putting his lips to mine for a moment, just a moment, before I pushed him away.
“Stop that,” I said, wiping tears from my cheeks. “Don't do that again.” He wasn't listening.
“I am here, and I always will be, no matter what you do. Even if you told me to leave, I'd stay. Where is Lindbergh?” he asked accusingly.
Without thinking, I pulled my arm back and swung at Paul's cheek, slapping him as hard as I could. The sound of it rang out like a gunshot in the night, and the second it did, my tears stopped flowing.
“Don't you ever ask me that again! Ever! It's none of your business, Paul!”
I fled to the house before he could speak. I wouldn't have heard him, anyway. The echo of his question pounded in my brain and drowned out everything else.
 
The morning paper carried an article about Slim's radio address. I read it over eggs and coffee the next morning.
The “hysterical chatter” is the talk now heard on every side in the democracies if France and Britain stand in danger of defeat by Germany. Colonel Lindbergh is a peculiar young man if he can contemplate this possibility in any other light than as a calamity for the American people. He is an ignorant young man if he trusts his own premise that it makes no difference to us whether we are deprived of the historic defense of British seapower in the Atlantic Ocean. He is a blind young man if he really believes we can live on terms of equal peace and happiness “regardless of which side wins this war” in Europe. Colonel Lindbergh remains a great flier.”
I cut out the article with short, careful snips of the scissors. Before putting it in the envelope, I smoothed it out and laid it on the table alongside all the other clippings. I read them yet again, trying to add up the equation in my head, pieces of a puzzle that didn't match the picture on the box they'd arrived in. Finally, I gave up and put them all back in the envelope, out of sight, knowing there were still pieces missing.
Chapter 16
“
W
ell,” Morgan quipped, “now that you three got me all tied up good and tight in this straight jacket, how do I look?” He stretched out his arms and turned around in a circle so we could see him from all sides.
“Oh, Morgan,” I sighed. “You look fine. Just fine. You
look
like a valedictorian in that suit. So grown up.” He did, too. The thick wool of the jacket made his shoulders seem broader and more substantial and gave his lanky frame an aura of maturity that he didn't possess when dressed in dungarees. He seemed so much older than eighteen. For a moment I wanted to tell him to take off the jacket and put his childhood back on. It was too soon for him to be so old, but the pride and expectation on his face were contagious. His future couldn't be postponed.
“Is Paul coming?” Morgan asked. “I haven't seen him for ages. Did you and he have a fight or something? You'd better patch it up quick if you did. I want my fishing buddy sitting with the family at graduation.” He twisted around to look at me quizzically. Ruby clucked and told him to quit moving while she was trying to mark the hem of his pants.
I answered without looking at him, concentrating hard to see that the suit lay smooth across his shoulders. “We didn't have a fight. We're just busy, that's all. He's got a whole congregation that wants him at their dinner table. It wasn't fair of us to keep monopolizing the pastor's time that way.” I pushed in pins to ease the seam I was going to take in. “Of course he'll come to the graduation; he's got to give the prayer. I imagine he'll be sitting up on the stage, not in the bleachers with the rest of the audience.” I stuck a last pin into the puckering seam and stood back to examine my work.
“Those sleeves need to be let out,” Mama noted practically. “His wrists are showing at least three inches.”
“Oh, we can fix that,” said Ruby. “It's not his fault he's so tall.”
“Still,” Mama said begrudgingly to Morgan, “you do look nice. Real nice. Just make sure you've got your speech memorized, in case you lose your place. I hate it when people get up on a stage and read to me. It's like they're afraid to look me in the eye. Grandpa always says you can never trust anybody who doesn't look you in the eye.”
“Don't worry, Mamaw. I'll look at you. I know the whole thing by heart. Listen. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he boomed, planting his feet apart and hooking his thumbs under his lapels in a mocking, elocutionary stance, ‘It is said that great floods flow from simple sources, and as I look upon my fellow graduates of the class of 1940, as I gaze into your blank and vacuous faces, I see some of the simplest sources imaginable—'”
“Morgan!” Ruby clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. “You're not going to say that, are you?”
“Oh, Aunt Ruby! You're too easy,” he said, laughing. “Of course I won't say that.”
“That's a relief, anyway,” said Ruby with a sigh. “But, what are you going to talk about?”
“Don't worry.” Morgan winked knowingly and tapped his head with his forefinger. “I've got it all up here, and if you to want hear it, you'll just have to show up at graduation in a week's time, park yourself on the bleachers, listen, and be amazed, just like all the rest of the paying customers. Won't she, Mama?”
“That's right.” I smiled. “And I, for one, can wait. I don't mind being surprised.”
Maybe we'll all be surprised,
I thought. I hadn't been able to stop myself from dropping a graduation invitation in the mail addressed to Slim, care of Reilly, McCormick and Martin, Attorneys. He'd never answered before, but maybe, just this one time.
“In the meantime, Morgan, we've got to have you looking your best,” I said, picking up my pincushion again. “Hand me the scissors, would you please, Mama? Let's see what we can do about these sleeves.”
 
That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, there was a tentative knock on my door. It was Morgan.
“That was good timing,” I said. “I just finished hemming the lining on those jacket cuffs. Why don't you try it on and see if the length is better.”
“No, Mama,” he said distractedly. “I mean, I will later. Can I ask you something?” I laid the jacket over the arm of the chair and gave him my full attention. He took a deep breath and plunged in. “I know how excited you are about me going to college in the fall.”
“What do you mean me? You're the first college man in the family.” I knew I was beaming. “Your grandmother's so proud she's about ready to bust, and folks in town are starting to walk to the other side of the street when they see Ruby coming because they're afraid she'll corner them again while she tells them all your marks since grade school. We're all just as proud as can be, Morgan. Me especially.” I reached over, took his hand, and squeezed it.
Morgan chuckled halfheartedly and started to pick at his fingernails, the way he did when he was nervous. “Well, I'm glad you're all proud, but I've been thinking, Mama. Maybe it would be better if I didn't go to college. There's an awful lot of work around the farm, more than you can do by yourself.”
“Now, Morgan, that's all settled,” I reminded him. “I told you before, I talked with Luther Krebs. He lost his place for taxes and is willing to work for a share of the harvest. He's all set to move into the old implement shed in September, do all your old chores, and the planting as well. And I've got Ruby, too. She's stronger than most men. We'll manage. You'll see.”
Morgan kept his head ducked down and didn't say anything, just tapped the toe of his foot in rhythm with his own thoughts.
“What is it?” I asked. His sudden change of heart was genuinely confusing. “Are you scared to go away? Morgan, you're as smart as anybody else. You'll do fine,” I reassured him.
“It's not that.” He raised his head and looked at me seriously. “I'm just worried about you. I really think I should stay here.”
“And do what?” I asked, truly perplexed. For as long as I could remember Morgan had talked about going to exotic places and seeing new things. He cut photographs of islands and rickshas and deserts out of magazines and pinned them up on his wall next to his autographed picture of Slim. He'd tacked up a map of the world next to the pictures and, with bright red Xs, marked all the places he'd visit someday. His walls were fairly papered with all those daring dreams, and now he didn't even want to go as far as Oklahoma City? It didn't make any sense. His concern for me was genuine, I was certain. Ever since he'd been a little boy he'd tried to take care of me, sensing in his too-grown-up way that no one else was going to do it, but there was something more to this than simple feelings of obligation.
“Morgan, of course I want you to take over the farm someday, but you need to see some of the world first. Then, after you've got your agriculture degree, you'll be able to run this place better than ever. You're a young man! Go see the world!” I urged. “You'd be bored to death spending your days with three old women.”
“No, I wouldn't,” he promised brightly, his scheme finally suddenly spilling out in a fervent, convincing-sounding flow of words. “See, I was thinking I could take care of the farm and start my own business on the side. I could take the money for college and buy a little plane, get my license, and in a few months I could start a business crop dusting.”
“Crop dusting?” I asked doubtfully.
“It's the latest thing!” he enthused. “You can fly over a field and fertilize or drop chemicals to kill pests quick as a wink. I've already picked up so much from Whitey Henderson over at the airfield, I can practically fly a plane already. I could have my pilot's license in just a few weeks.”
“That idiot Whitey Henderson hasn't let you go up in that rattletrap plane of his, has he?” I growled. Whitey, who was in charge of the tiny airfield in Liberal, owned a World War I surplus trainer so old and rusted it looked like it was held together with baling wire. Ever since he'd learned to drive, Morgan had spent most of his free afternoons at the airstrip, watching the few planes that landed in Liberal and running errands for Whitey. “You listen to me, Morgan. I will not have you flying in that death trap,” I scolded, shaking my finger at him for emphasis. “I told Whitey that.”
“I know, Mama. I know,” Morgan huffed impatiently, like a dog pulling against his lead. “Whitey's so scared of you, he won't let me near his plane. He's just been showing me stuff you learn in ground school—navigating and how the engine works. Things like that. I could pass the ground-school exam today. I've read every book about aviation I can get my hands on. I
know
that's what I want to do with my life. I just need a plane. There's a fellow in Tulsa Whitey knows who's got a used Stearman trainer he's willing to sell real cheap—a little over a thousand dollars—and it's in good shape. The college money would cover it plus some extra for flight school. I could have my pilot's license in six months and start earning money right away instead of waiting four whole years.”
Four years. I had forgotten how eternal four years can seem when you're eighteen and so impatient for life to begin that time drags you down like a pocketful of stones. I looked at my son's handsome, unlined face, so fervent and anxious to find his purpose.
“Morgan, I know you want to fly. It's something that goes deep in you, but four years go so much faster than you can imagine right now. Flying will be there always. You can go back to it, but a college education will stay with you for life, and now is the time to do it, while you're young and energetic, free of responsibilities. When you've finished you'll know so much about agriculture you'll make this farm as fine a place as any in the county. Then you can get any plane you want and fly in your free time.”
Morgan shook his head and frowned as if I were speaking a language whose words made no sense to him. “No, Mama. That's not for me. You said yourself, flying goes deep in me. I haven't even piloted on my own yet, but I know it's part of me, like an extra heart beating inside me, a rhythm that's different from what everybody else is walking to. I don't want to farm, Mama. I want to fly. I want to get myself up off the ground and never come back down.” He took my hands in his own and peered into my eyes, begging me to understand.
“Look at me, Mama. Look hard. Can you really imagine me spending the rest of my life being a farmer? Because I just can't see it. Can you?”
He was right. Everyone I knew was either a farmer or a merchant, and so I'd thought that's what Morgan would be, too. Actually, I hadn't thought, not at all. Just going to college seemed so fine and elevated to me, I hadn't ever thought what it would lead to, whether or not it would make him happy. No, I couldn't see him as a farmer. But a crop duster? That didn't seem right, either. It didn't seem big enough somehow.
Maybe that was the problem, I didn't know how to think big and I hadn't taught Morgan how to, either. Some of us are so timid and uncertain when we're young that even the crumbs from the table can seem like a banquet. That's the way I was. Morgan didn't know yet about how dreams that seemed so rich and unattainable today could shrink and leave him hungry once he actually held them in his grasp. Some late night, years from now, he would furrow his brow and puzzle: why wasn't he happier? Then he'd chide himself for ingratitude.
No, I vowed, it wouldn't be that way for Morgan. Not if I could help it. I needed money. I could write Slim's lawyers and get it that way, but that was a last resort. It had been hard for me to accept Slim paying off the farm mortgage. I just couldn't bring myself to write and beg for more money, not even for Morgan, unless there was no other way on earth.
But there is a way,
a voice that wasn't mine spoke in my mind.
You know there is.
All at once I knew what to do. For the first time in a long time, I felt Papa was very near to me, giving his blessing to a plan that would have seemed inconceivable only a few minutes before.
“All right,” I said, nodding decisively.
“All right what?” Morgan asked softly, searching my face for a clue to my thoughts, barely daring to hope that “all right” might mean yes.
“You can have your plane, and you can learn to fly.”
“Yeow!!” Morgan yelped in exultation and lunged forward to scoop me up in his arms.
“But!” I shouted over the noise, making him halt in mid-whoop, “You are still going to college.” Morgan's face fell, but I continued before he could begin arguing. “You don't have to study agriculture. You can study something that will help you with your flying. I don't know what that would be, but at such a big school there's bound to be something. We'll buy the plane. You can keep it near school and take lessons on the weekends. I'm sure we can work it out.”
Morgan started to interrupt, but I stopped his protestations with a firm shake of my head. “Morgan, right now crop dusting sounds like a fine profession, but as you get older you'll want something more exciting. Something where you'll be breaking new ground every day. I don't know what that is, but you'll figure it out. I'd bet the farm on it.”

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