Fire in the Night (27 page)

Here, in this crowded place with the homey, checkered tablecloths, she could get a twelve-inch hoagie loaded with anything she wanted and a glass of water for five dollars (Pepsi cost two dollars). She rarely spent more than that on her break. She’d eat half of the delicious sandwich, mayonnaise squeezing from the sides of her mouth, pickle juice soaking the crusty home-baked wheat roll, and then take the remaining half in a Styrofoam container to eat later, usually in the van on the way home while she elbowed the other girls away.

Rose came bustling over, clapping a hand to her forehead while sliding into her booth. “I’m beat!”

“Busy?”

“Just run ragged. Where do all the people come from?”

Sarah shook her head.

“You want your usual hoagie?”

“I’m starved. Put plenty of ham on it.”

Rose hurried off, her small frame neat and compact, her sky-blue dress and white apron giving her a celestial quality.

When Rose returned with the oversized sandwich and a tall glass of ice water with a thick slice of lemon, Sarah squeezed in the lemon, added a few packets of sugar, and stirred as she half-listened to Rose’s encounter with an extremely harried boss.

“So, how are you? For real,” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. Okay, I guess. One day I feel sorry for Matthew, the next I miss him. I’m all mixed up.”

“Do you want Melvin and me to pick you up Saturday night?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll find someone to take me.”

“Whatever.”

“Yeah.”

With an awkward wave, Rose moved off, her eyebrows lifted a few notches too high in Sarah’s opinion. So, she was too good for her and stodgy Melvin. Well, that was fine with her. Melvin acted too bizarre around Rose anyway, trying to impress her with his stretched truths and weird rambling on and on about nothing. But then, most young men did that around Rose. Melvin was only being normal.

After a long Friday at the bakery, the two-hour ride home was a welcome reprieve. The market girls slouched in various positions, pillows stuffed into any available corner, and tried to gain back a bit of sleep. The van moved along with the four lanes of traffic, the lights stretching out from the fast-moving vehicles in an unbroken line, until they reached the darkness of the country.

The back roads of Lancaster County were always tedious, heads sliding, bobbing, as the driver maneuvered the van as efficiently—and as swiftly—as possible.

Half-asleep, Sarah jostled against Rachel Zook, who jabbed her elbow into Sarah’s arm.

“Look! What is that?”

“What?”

Sarah blinked, sat up, and peered out the window. She could see nothing out of the ordinary. She kept watching and saw a few lights, some buildings, the night etched in black and gray. Absolutely nothing unusual.

“There it is again!” Rachel hissed.

Sarah pulled back, grimacing. Whew, Rachel must have had Italian food for lunch. A strong garlic odor was escaping from her mouth in great, steaming billows.

“There!”

Rachel pointed, and Sarah turned her head, more to avoid the garlic than to concern herself with the horizon. A grayish, almost white line hovered above the horizon, so nearly the same color as the rest of the night. Suddenly, a reddish glow burst up, like northern lights, and then disappeared.

“I see it!” Sarah whispered.

The van rolled to a stop at an intersection and allowed a car to pass, before continuing on the way home.

“Hey, Ike!” Rachel called, sending the rich odor of garlic wafting across the occupants of the back seat.

“Ew! Rachel, what in the world did you eat for lunch?” Rose grumbled, half-asleep.

Sarah burst out laughing, holding her stomach as tears of mirth squeezed between her eyelids. That was the best thing about market jobs—the companionship in this fifteen-passenger vanload of girls along with a few older people, all contained together in an oblong box of steel and metal hurtling through the night. The close proximity produced a bond of sisterhood.

Only sisters would be so honest as to blurt out about garlic breath, or so Sarah had thought when she first rode to market in that van. She soon learned differently. They fought for doughnuts, scrambled across seats for bits of soft pretzel, pinched, punched, pulled sleeves and coverings and hair, yelled and teased and hooted with joy, then one by one, they all fell asleep. The driver was usually a long-suffering individual who tried to be strict but enjoyed the antics as much as anyone else.

“Hey, Ike!’ Rachel screeched again, causing Rose to turn her head and wave a hand furiously in front of her nose. “Look to the left!”

Sarah could see Ike’s silhouette leaning forward, alert.

“What is going on?” he said finally.

The van slowed, the driver also craning his neck for a glimpse.

“It almost looks like northern lights,” he observed.

“That’s close to Bird-In-Hand. Or Monterey. Somewhere along 340.”

The van rolled to a stop, heads popped up like corks, eyes blinking, the girls muttering questions. There—another finger of pinkish red, a gray sky stained by a color that was not really supposed to be there.

“Somepin’s goin’ on!” Ike observed, the driver’s jargon rubbing off on him.

They all held their breaths as a sharp whistle stabbed the night somewhere behind them. Quickly, the driver turned the wheel to the right, and they drifted off the shoulder, the van leaning toward a ditch filled with cold, black water. A gleaming red and silver mammoth, flashing the power of its presence, plunged through the night, roaring past them and leaving the van rocking in its wake.

“Has to be a fire!” Ike said decidedly.

The driver pulled back onto the road and asked if they wanted to see what was going on. There were exclamations of agreements and some grumbling went up, but they had little choice—riding in the van being guided by their driver.

Sarah’s heart began a frantic hammering as the light steadily grew more orange in color.

“It’s another barn, I bet.”

“I mean it, seriously.”

“If it is, we’re moving to New York.”

“They can light fires in New York, too.”

“You think?”

“Hey, be quiet. This isn’t funny.”

“Hush.”

But only Sarah understood the terror of another barn fire. It was a stake driven through her heart, producing memories of their fateful night. She began to shake uncontrollably as more fire trucks zoomed past, their engines whining and sirens screaming, bringing back memories of the smoke and flames, the charred dirty water after it had soaked the burning timbers and hay and straw. The fire had cruelly licked at the docile cows, annihilated the living, breathing horses, and thrown the gently, obedient creatures into a living hell of pain and fear.

When they came upon the scene, they stayed back, away from the red-faced, shouting fire-police volunteer who was whipping his green fluorescent flag in frenzied circles. The barn behind him had turned into a massive inferno of pain and torment. The flames whipped away from the barn toward the house, which stood close to the barn, separated only by the driveway and a small block of lawn.

The market workers decided to get out of the van. But Sarah could not move, her eyes pools of horrified memories. A great cry arose from the crowd as the small flames rolled along the asbestos shingles, the house clearly in grave danger.

“Sarah, come. We’re walking across the field for closer look.”

“Come on!”

The girls took off across the field as Sarah slowly got up and moved to the van door. Her heart pounding frantically, she gripped the vinyl handle and lowered herself slowly to the ground. Her intentions were to follow the small flock of girls, led by Ike and the driver, but the nausea rose swiftly in her throat and gagged her.

The whole world tilted dangerously to the right, then whirled recklessly around her. She lifted her hands to steady herself, but there was nothing to hold her up. She was being spun into a black vortex, the hot bile rising in her throat. She was as helpless as the brittle, brown leaves whirling through the cold November air. She was aware of making hoarse sounds, then mewling helplessly before she was gratefully erased to oblivion.

She thought she was at home, being sick in her bed, so she leaned over, her hands searching for the small wicker wastebasket with the Wal-Mart bag in it. She retched miserably over and over and tried to lift her head, but the dizziness was too severe.

When the rough stubbles of the alfalfa plants pierced the skin on her cheek, she became half-conscious and confused as someone held her head, stroked her back, and murmured words of comfort.

“It’s okay, Sarah. Don’t feel bad. It’s okay.”

A long shudder passed through her, and she turned her head away, ashamed, aware of some person here with her, with these vehicles, these cars, on this dark, windy night. The dancing orange light across someone’s head reminded her of why she had become ill and passed out like some eighty-year-old person with a weak heart.

“Oh my. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Two hands slid beneath her arms, and she was lifted to a sitting position. She struggled to stay upright but kept leaning to the side until two arms held her firmly, a clean men’s handkerchief wiped her face as she kept whispering apologies.

It was when he produced a stick of gum and the sharp smell of the Dentyne was held to her face that consciousness returned fully. Focusing through the haze of her blurred vision, she said, “Melvin!”

“No.”

Confused, she gave up, accepted the chewing gum, and sagged weakly against her rescuer.

“It’s me. Lee.”

She blinked. Who? Lee who? Oh, him. Here she was, held against him by his own strong arms in this cold alfalfa field with the fire blazing uncontrollably beyond them, the now-distant forms of the other market girls silhouetted against the flames.

“I understand why you…why you were sick. Please don’t feel bad. Your own fire hasn’t been so terribly long ago.”

In answer, she burrowed her face against his corduroy coat, which smelled of woodchips and steel and shaving cream. She burst into harsh, gulping sobs that tore from her throat, and he held her close and blinked back his own emotion.

“I am so sorry,” she said, finally spent of the horror and sadness the night had invoked.

“It’s okay.”

“Can I get up now?”

“Do you want to?”

“I think I can.”

She turned away, and he let his arms fall away obediently. A small cry followed as she teetered crookedly away from him. So he did the most natural thing in the world and reached out with both arms, pulling her against him. He held her there, leaving her with no choice but to apologize.

“The whole world is just spinning so crazily,” she gasped.

“Yeah, well, so is mine,” Lee answered.

“What? Are you getting sick too?”

She looked up into his face.

Yes, he was, he said, giving a small laugh.

“Sarah.”

She was startled by the sound of his voice, the deep emotion that rose from his throat.

“I’m sick about that Matthew guy. And you.”

Her face was only inches away, her eyes unfathomable, so large and dark and tortured with…

With what? Lee’s courage failed him, his speech slid away, and silence replaced it. She bent her head. His arms stayed around her. When she lifted her head, she spoke the truth in a soft, quavering voice, the humiliation so heavy, it broke his heart.

“Lee, you have to understand. It’s always been Matthew. Through school, through
rumspringa
, and now through Rose. I can’t help how I feel about him. I have to wait.”

Slowly, she pulled away, out of the unsettling circle of his arms. She turned her head to watch the roaring inferno beside them—the clanking of hoses, the voices of men, the roar of engines—and shivered.

Then she did something so surprising, he carried it in his memory for months. She stepped right back into the circle of his arms, grabbed the lapels of his work coat, and said, “But, Lee.”

He had to bend his head to hear her voice. “I won’t admit this to myself, hardly. But you…you are making this whole Matthew thing easier. Can you understand that?”

As he had never known the depth of his feelings for her, so had he never known the steely resolve, the desperate control he now needed to exercise over his desire to pour out his long-awaited love in a crushing embrace, just once touching his lips to hers, to allow her to feel his love. Just once.

When she stepped back, he gripped his hands behind his back to keep them from reaching for her, the emptiness unbearable now.

“I’ll be honest, Sarah, okay? If you say it makes it easier, do you mean I may have a chance someday?”

She was going to say, “Don’t wait for me, Lee.” She really was. What she said was, “Your eyes are so blue. They remind me of a…a… This is dumb, Lee.” She gave a low laugh. “Your eyes make everything easy. They’re calm.”

“Thank you, Sarah.”

He decided he’d never care much for Ike Stoltzfus from that night on, appearing from nowhere like that, followed by a gaggle of market girls wanting to witness the latest devastation in their community.

The farm was owned by Reuben Kauffman. Everyone called him Reuby. He was a short, rotund fellow with vibrant blue eyes set in a ruddy, glowing face and a benevolence toward his fellow men creating a kind aura about him.

He lost everything. The house was almost completely ruined in addition to the barn.

The vinyl siding had buckled and crumpled as windows shattered into thousands of pieces from the heat of the gigantic tongues of flame. The force of the late autumn gusts that had brought the first serious cold from Canada down to eastern Pennsylvania propelled the fire. They said the plastic pots containing African violets melted down across the shelves straight onto Reuby
sei
Bena’s clean, waxed kitchen linoleum. It was an awful mess.

They should have let the house burn to the ground, Mam said. They’d never get the smell of smoke out of the furniture, the rugs, and the clothes.

The following week, Sarah and Priscilla sat on either side of Levi, and Mam sat beside Dat in the spring wagon on the way to the Kauffman farm. The air was calm, harmless, almost an apology in its stillness. As Fred, the family’s new driving horse, trotted briskly, the heavy woolen buggy blankets kept them warm against a late frost. They smelled the dry, dusty odor of corn fodder being baled in Jake King’s corn field—or what remained of it.