Play It Again, Spam (19 page)

expression, dear. Is this on the level?"

"I heard her tell the reverend myself. You see, sometimes I do secretarial work for him - the church doesn't have a secretary

you know, even though Elm Hill Mennonite has a full-time paid secretary, and they're only half our size - "

"Get back to your story, dear. Please," I was careful to add. Lodema wouldn't hesitate to hang up on God.

"Well, the wall between the reverend's study and that little closet I get stuck in is only made of plywood. You can hear

everything through it. So anyway, there I am, typing away on the Sunday bulletin, and I hear Irma Yoder tell the reverend that

back in the early 1930s she worked in Paris. He asks what kind of work she did-maybe she was a missionary or something

because you know, the French are Catholics and in need of salvation-but oh no, she says she worked as a dancer in something

called the 'follies' and then when her legs started looking old, she switched over to singing. Sang in what they call a cabaret. Sort

of smoky nightclub, I guess, where they had variety acts. You ever been to any kind of show, Magdalena?"

"Is this a trap?"

"Oh, come on, you can tell me!"

"No, I haven't," I said honestly and quite emphatically. "Have you?"

"Once. I wasn't born a Mennonite, you know. My folks were Methodists."

I gasped. That was certainly news to me. Methodists were just spitting distance from Presbyterians who, everyone knows,

are practically Unitarians except that they believe in the Trinity.

Lodema sighed, ruffling my arm hairs again. "I was eighteen. For my high-school graduation present my folks took me into

New York City-to a Broadway play! West Side Story, can you imagine that? There was dancing and even a little swearing!"

"Any nudity?"

She sighed again. "No. But there were some awfully tight jeans."

I was tom between begging her for details and getting on with my business. Reluctantly I decided that Lodema's sordid past

would have to take a back seat to Irma's.

"How did Irma Yoder get on that slippery road to you-know-where? You did say she was born a Mennonite, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, but when she was still very young she was jilted by her fiancé. He literally left her standing at the altar. Walked out

during the middle of the ceremony.

"The very next day Irma left Hernia and went to Pittsburgh, where she got a job as a waitress. Then one day a customer

heard her singing and offered her a job at a nightclub. Well, we all know that the road to hell is wide and slippery, and Irma Yoder

slid straight from Pittsburgh to Paris. I saw an old newspaper story on her once. It said she was really quite good. Not only could

she sing, but she played some sort of horn. A trumpet, I think. Some kind of brass instrument, at any rate."

"Imagine that, a Mennonite girl in Paris."

"Well! She was no longer a proper Mennonite by then, was she? Lydia Shoemaker says she heard from Veronica

Rickenbach who heard from Anna Lichty that Irma took lovers."

"Get out of town!"

"Why, Magdalena, I thought - "

"It's just an expression!" I wailed. "I already told you that. Now get on with your story."

"Well, if you insist. Where was I?"

"Lovers," I hissed. This was not prurient interest, mind you - well, maybe it was, but I was properly appalled as well. Still, the

very word lovers intrigued me. Except for Melvin, Susannah had never had any lovers - just boyfriends and what she called one -

night stands; the dregs of society gleaned from rest areas along the interstate and cafes where the flies piled on the windowsills

with each passing year. I need not tell you that I had never had a lover. A lover was - well, it was almost literary. But still a sin, of

course.

"Ah yes, Irma Yoder's lovers. Aristocrats, most of them. Men with titles, or important government positions. She was a great

beauty, you know - in the worldly sense of the word. Anyway, it is even rumored that she was Charles DeGaulle's mistress for a

while.

Supposedly he dumped her because - well, there really is no decent word for it, Magdalena."

"Say it anyway!"

"Uh - okay, but I'm only repeating what I heard. Irma was insatiable.

"A strumpet with a trumpet!"

"Of course that rumor is pretty tame compared to some of the others."

Lodema paused. Whether for dramatic effect, or to catch her breath, it doesn't matter. While she paused, I prayed. If the

Good Lord didn't strike me dead or smite me with a plague for being on the receiving end of such juicy gossip, I would donate an

extra thousand dollars to the foreign missions fund for each additional rumor Lodema shared. That way some impoverished

missionary in Africa could benefit from my penchant for the prurient.

"Tell me the other rumors," I begged. I owed it to the missionaries, after all.

"Well, there was the rumor she had an affair with one of the German high command during the early days of Vichy France."

I gasped. "Irma did the nasty with a Nazi?"

"Apparently she was very much in love with him, but not he with her."

"That seems to be the story of her life. Tell me more about the floozy with the flugelhorn," I said, helping to spread God's

word in Africa.

"Well, I haven't even got to the best part. They say she had a baby by the Nazi. Actually, some folks say she had two babies-

twins. A boy and a girl."

"Oh, my." Fornicating with the devil was one thing, but having his litter quite another. The missionaries were going to make

out like bandits.

"Well, how do you like them apples ?" Lodema's voice rose with every syllable. No doubt the woman was high on hearsay.

I swallowed hard. Sin might be tasty, but it has a putrid aftertaste. "I must say, dear, that this is one of the most incredible

things I've ever heard. A horny hornist from Hernia as Hitler's harlot - "

"Don't be ridiculous, Magdalena. It wasn't Hitler - it was some other high muckety-muck. Franz something, I think his name

was."

"Even so, I've known Irma Yoder all my life, and she doesn't have any children."

"They say she gave the baby - or babies, as the case may be - up for adoption. One story says they were placed in a

French orphanage, another that they were brought back here and adopted by a Mennonite family."

It took me only a few seconds to do the math. I wasn't born until well after WWIl, and I didn't have a brother - that I knew of.

Still, I've always had the feeling I was adopted. Never mind that I'm the spitting image of Mama when she was my age. Surely my

real mama would have relented and allowed me to go to the senior prom, even if there was dancing.

"Why is it Mennonites are not allowed to have sex standing up?" I asked bitterly.

Lodema cleared her throat. "They're not?"

"Of course not," I snapped, "it might lead to dancing."

"Must you always be so tawdry, Magdalena?"

"Me? You're the one who started yapping about a tuba-tooting tootsie who did the hootchy-cootchy with half of France."

"Well, she did, and like I said, I think it was a trumpet."

"Trumpet, crumpet, it just doesn't seem like her. She may have a tongue that can dice dairy, but other than that, the Irma

Yoder I know is the most devout member of Beechy Grove Mennonite Church, present company excepted."

"Thank you, Magdalena - "

"I mean me!"

"Always putting yourself first, aren't you, Magdalena? Well, just remember that you lived with a married man who was not

your lawfully married husband."

I gasped, and had to spit out a mouthful of Lodema's hair. "That is so unfair of you! I didn't know Aaron was married."

"Well, that's what you say, at any rate."

"Let's not forget Formula number twelve!" I screamed.

"And you know what? I think you made all that stuff up about Irma Yoder. I mean, what did she do, suddenly have a religious

conversion?"

"Exactly," Lodema said, cowed by my threat. "I still think that's ridiculous. I know people can change, dear, but that much?"

"Converts can. They're twice as zealous as everyone else."

"You should know, dear. Didn't you just say you were once a Methodist?"

Of course I deserved to get the receiver slammed in my ear, but to be absolutely honest, it should have happened earlier in

the conversation. No doubt Lodema was genuinely worried about her missing husband, which would explain why she was off her

stride. At any rate, I could feel that someone was watching me so I casually laid my receiver back in its cradle. Trust me, a face-

saving gesture is not the same as a lie.

I scowled at young Marjorie Frost. Contrary to what Susannah says, one cannot plant corn in my creases.

"Doesn't a gal deserve a little privacy?"

The earnest hazel eyes met my gaze without blinking. "You told us to gather here at eight-thirty, and it's eight- thirty-two. I

thought you valued punctuality."

"Don't get fresh with me, dear," I said sternly. Frankly, I admired the child. I wouldn't have dared be that forthright at her age.

It wasn't until my thirtieth birthday, when I realized I had nothing left to lose, that I began to be candid. I said as much to Marjorie.

"I was a real woose," I added.

"That's wuss," she said with a faint smile. "Miss Yoder, I'm afraid my husband won't be joining us on the search."

"What do you mean your husband won't be joining us on the search?"

"Frank says he has some business in town."

"Which town? Hernia?"

Marjorie shrugged. "My husband is a busy man."

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, dear, but there is no one in Hernia to do business with, except Sam the grocer and those

folks over at the feed store."

"Then maybe it was that other town."

"Bedford?"

"Look, Miss Yoder, I happen to trust my husband. He's not like that horrible Mr. Hart."

"Did I hear my name spoken in vain, little lady?" Bob was standing in the door between the parlor and the lobby, and, much

to my relief, he was alone.

"Indeed you did, dear. It seems that your little band of followers is deserting me."

"How's that?"

"Well, young Marjorie here tells me that her husband has backed out of the search party."

"Don't call me young Marjorie," she snapped.

I nodded. "Sorry, dear." I turned to Bob. "Is it true you’re a master tracker?"

Black bushy brows lifted in surprise and then settled on a happy face. Flattery, I have finally learned, will get you just about

anywhere you want to go. At least with me. Tell me I'm beautiful, and I'll let you ride in my BMW for free. And although, in some

cases, flattery might well be a distant cousin of deceit, it doesn't have to be a flat-out lie.

"As a matter of fact, Miss Yoder, I am a good tracker - if you mean it in the sense I think you do. I do a lot of hunting back

home. Shot me a buck with a record rack last year."

"Perfect! We could use a good tracker."

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Oh, not for deer or anything like that. I mean people."

"Well, ma'am, I don't know as how I'd be so good at that. That professor fellow disappeared yesterday, didn't he? Them

footprints might be pretty messed up by now. But now my daddy, he coulda done it. His mama was a full-blooded Cherokee. Only

Daddy's dead now, you see. Died twenty years ago in a terrible accident. Happened right here in Pennsylvania, as a matter of

fact."

"Oh?"

"Yes, ma'am. In that long tunnel between here and a town called Somerset. Two trucks boxed a car in and, well, the driver of

the one truck pushed the car into the back of the first, and the car just sort of folded up. Like an accordion, they say. Anyway, my

daddy was a trucker, and he was way past retirement age. That was supposed to be his last haul, you know."

Every hair on my head stood up - well, tried to. Fortunately I was wearing it in a bun, but the bun became as hard as

yesterday's roll.

"When exactly did this happen?"

"It was exactly twenty years ago August thirteenth."