Stars Over Clear Lake Read online

  I took a bit of satisfaction in thinking of overconfident Helmut reduced to a broken man. It would serve him right.

  Günther continued. “I know Jens must return to Germany, but I also know that he cares much for you. He has spoken of returning here after the war.”

  He smiled and touched my cheek.

  His words filled me with hope. Hope that this wretched war would soon be over, and hope that Jens felt the same way I felt about him. But on the way back to the house I remembered that Jens had seen me dancing with Scotty. Why would he return if he thought I was in love with someone else? I had to let him know how I felt about him. Before he left. But how? I couldn’t go to the Surf anytime soon, and even if I managed to go there, I might not have a chance to see or talk to him. He might never play there again.

  My hand patted Pete’s letter, which I’d been carrying around in my pocket since it arrived. Here was my answer. I could write a letter and send it with Günther. The idea was risky. What if a prison guard intercepted the letter? What would they make of an Iowa girl professing her love to a German POW? I’d have to be careful. I could trust only Günther to make sure Jens received it.

  I waited until bedtime, after Mom and Daddy had gone to bed and I could hear Daddy’s snoring through their closed bedroom door. Hopefully, Mom wouldn’t be roaming the hall tonight. Still, I didn’t risk turning on the light. I went to the window and opened the drapes, writing in the faint light of a full moon that shone in on the ledge.

  Dear Jens,

  I heard that you might be moved to England. I will miss you. I know I’m not supposed to feel this way but I do. And if you decide to come back to Iowa after the war is over, please know that I will wait for you.

  Love,

  Lorraine

  I wanted to write more but didn’t dare. Besides, it took the better part of an hour just to get those words out. I’d started with “sincerely,” then moved to “regards,” then finally wrote “love.” But it still seemed lacking so I added a line at the end: See you soon.

  The next day I folded the letter three times and carried it deep in my pocket when I brought their afternoon snack. I felt like a spy, like a traitor to my brother, to Jerry Ashland who was buried at the bottom of the ocean, and to all the boys who’d died fighting.

  As I left the house and walked to the fields my heart pounded with each step. Petunia let out a low moo as though warning me to stop. The corn stalks were like darkened streets where Lance Dugan and his cohorts could be waiting at any turn to jump out at me and confiscate my letter. They’d march me through town like I’d seen in the newsreel, and people would shout and throw things at me and demand that I be strung up in the bandshell for everyone to see.

  I was shaking by the time I reached the worksite. The men were picking corn by hand and tossing the husks into the wagon that the horses pulled, inching forward a few feet when Daddy commanded the horses, or when he pulled on their reins because they were stubborn.

  The men stopped working when they saw me. Even though it was a cool, windy October day, they looked tired and sweaty.

  “Just in time,” Daddy said, wiping his brow off on his shirt sleeve. The men attacked the basket of food and settled down for their break. Daddy and Ludwig talked machines while Jakob sat chatting with Norman, who now ate from the basket of food along with his prisoners. Norman even lent a hand with the corn picking now and then. If anyone had changed these past few months, it was him. He joked with Jakob, and had even bought a football for Ludwig to take back with him to Germany. I wondered if their friendship would extend past the war.

  I found Günther sitting alone, as usual, with a piece of Mom’s bread and a book. He was reading War and Peace in English.

  I almost turned back, but then I thought of how I might never see Jens again. What if something happened to him? How could I live the rest of my life if I didn’t let him know how I felt?

  I waited for Günther to look up. “I need your help,” I said quietly.

  I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, especially Helmut. My hand patted the letter in my pocket but I couldn’t bring myself to take it out. “It’s dangerous,” I told him. “It’s a lot to ask. You can say no. I’ll understand.”

  His eyebrows shot up as though he didn’t really believe me.

  My trembling hand lifted the envelope from my pocket with Jens’s name on it.

  He took it silently and put it in his book. “I see nothing dangerous,” he said calmly. “Now, Fräulein, I must get back to my reading.”

  I stood there a moment longer, waiting perhaps for lightning to strike me. But Günther didn’t look back up. No one had seen. The walk back felt lighter, as though the letter had weighed me down. I had expected something to go wrong. But Günther’s calm voice had been reassuring.

  Still, I shivered and crossed my arms in front of me. It struck me that I had started something that could change my life. I had professed my love to a German soldier. In writing. Now I had to wait for Jens to write back.

  The next day at school was painfully long. Was it too soon to expect a reply?

  Scotty walked with me between classes. “Can you make the bonfire on Friday?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Say you’ll come,” he begged. “I can’t go without my girl at my side.”

  “Sure,” I said, thinking that it might seem suspicious if I turned him down.

  Later Stella asked me if I was still interested in singing with her cousin’s friend’s band.

  “They’re playing here again next month,” she said. “I could ask if they’d let you sing one song.” I knew this was her way of apologizing for telling Lance about the POWs.

  “I want to more than anything,” I told her, “but Mom won’t let me go to the Surf now without a chaperone or date to accompany me.”

  “But we used to go stag all the time.”

  “Pete was with us. I guess that made it okay.”

  “Then just get Scotty to take you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. I wanted to sing more than anything, but somehow it felt like I’d be using Scotty now.

  The bus ride home took forever. Even though I lived closer to town than most farm kids, we still made a dozen stops between school and our driveway. There were only a few students left on the bus when it reached our farm.

  I ran down the long gravel road through dry leaves that crunched beneath my shoes. I couldn’t wait to get into the fields. The late afternoon sunlight was already waning, making Daddy’s work days shorter. Soon I wouldn’t have to bring an afternoon basket; they’d be quitting earlier. Or they’d be shipped out. I’d miss seeing the men.

  *

  The first thing I noticed when I came around the side of the house was Grandma Kindred’s black Chevy. She lived near Charles City and seldom drove her car this far. I didn’t see Daddy until I was almost at the back door, until I had nearly stepped on him. Why wasn’t he out in the field? Daddy sat on the steps, his head down, grasping a letter. My stomach lurched.

  He looked up when he saw me. His eyes were puffy and red. Daddy never cried.

  It couldn’t be my letter in his hand. It couldn’t be a letter from Jens, either. Daddy would be angry, but he wouldn’t cry. Then I realized it wasn’t a letter. The yellowish paper was small, the size of a telegram.

  I froze.

  “No,” I whispered. “Not Pete.”

  I stopped and took a step backward, wanting to undo this moment.

  “Lorraine,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “No!” I screamed. “He’s coming home!”

  Daddy stood up. He grabbed me and held me tight.

  “He’s coming home,” Daddy said. “Just not like we planned.”

  “It’s a mistake,” I insisted. “I heard that happened once, that they told a family their son had died but they had the wrong boy. It was a mix-up. Pete would never die. He was careful. He wouldn’t leave us.”

  “No,” Daddy said, sh
aking his head, “Not a mistake. The Battle of Aachen.”

  “Where’s Mom?” I had to see Mom.

  “Grandma Kindred is inside with her now. She was alone when the telegram was delivered. I can’t imagine her having to see that car come down the driveway, having to answer the knock on the door and know what that man was holding in his hand. I wish I’d been here with her.” Daddy’s voice cracked and he put a hand on his forehead.

  I broke away and ran inside. The radio sat at its usual spot on the table but it wasn’t turned on. It was eerily quiet.

  “Mom!”

  Grandma Kindred came around the corner. “She’s resting upstairs,” she said quietly. Grandma gave me a tight hug. She was a small, stout woman who barely came up to my shoulder.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said, crying into my coat. “Not our Petey.”

  I stood there in shock, a statue. I let my grandmother hug me even though I wanted to run away.

  “Mom can’t handle this,” I finally said.

  “I know this is going to tear her apart, but she’s an Iowan. We Iowans have a lot of gumption. And we’ll help her through it.”

  My chest was so tight I thought it might explode. All I wanted to do was crawl under a rock and die.

  Grandma patted her eyes dry. “Would you like something to eat, sweetie?”

  I shook my head no. I wanted to get away from Grandma’s stifling pity, but Daddy came into the kitchen just then.

  “I shouldn’t have let him go,” he said, his voice ragged.

  “He’d have found a way,” Grandma said, patting his back.

  There was truth to Daddy’s words. Mom had warned us. She’d said Daddy had picked duty and honor over his son’s life. Maybe Daddy should have tried harder to stop Pete from enlisting.

  Would Mom blame him for Pete’s death now?

  Grandma picked up a dishrag and started scrubbing the counter, which was already clean. “I wish this damn war was over. I’m ready to kill every one of those Germans myself.”

  Her words were like an ice pick. Was I just as complicit as Daddy? I’d professed my love to a German soldier.

  “Father O’Connor is on his way,” Grandma said. “He’ll bring us consolation and lead us in prayer.”

  I didn’t want consolation. I ran out the back door, away from Daddy and Mom and Pete’s room with his record player and blue chenille bedspread and all his things that were waiting for him just as he’d left them. Because no one had touched them, and now Peter would never touch them again. I ran past the barn and the horses and our cows and chickens, past the creek. I ran until I felt my lungs would burst.

  But I couldn’t escape. Pete was all around me, in the barn playing hide and seek, in the creek catching crawdads. There was no place to go. I collapsed beside a fencepost and finally let the tears flow.

  Twenty-two

  1944

  “There’s enough food to feed a battalion of men,” Grandma said as she came back from the kitchen. “You can tell how much Pete was loved.” Despite the rationing that was going on, people were generous with their food.

  I couldn’t eat. Neither could Mom or Daddy. I guessed the food must be for everyone else.

  I hadn’t known I could feel this empty inside. I wondered if it was how Mom felt. She was hard to read because her face was void of almost any expression. Daddy and Grandma were taking care of everything.

  Usually a person was laid out in a casket in the family home for viewing before the funeral, but we didn’t even have a body to bury. So we just put up a picture of him. His remains were buried somewhere in Belgium. I had to find it on Pete’s globe; I traced the distance between us with my finger, like Mom had done months ago.

  “I baptized Pete Kindred as a baby,” Father O’Connor said during the funeral service at St. Patrick’s Church. “And I know that even though we all share in your sorrow, his death isn’t defeat, but victory. We should be proud of his sacrifice and the sacrifices of all our boys.”

  I glanced up as the choir sang. Every member there had signed a card for me with their condolences. Miss Berkland had tears running down her face.

  “That was the most stirring sermon I’ve ever heard,” Daddy told Father O’Connor. “And I’ve been attending St. Patrick’s for more than thirty-five years.”

  Mom said nothing.

  Afterward, people crowded into our farmhouse.

  Daddy spoke to everyone: the men who talked weather and farming because it was too painful to talk death, the women who worried over him and related their own stories of death and loss. They said that at least Pete hadn’t suffered like so many of the other boys, and Daddy agreed with them, as though that was some kind of comfort. Daddy talked until his voice became hoarse. He shook hands and accepted hugs until his leathery face looked drawn and exhausted.

  “He was one of the good ones,” Mom’s cousin Viola said, putting her hand on Mom’s shoulder. Mom plastered a mournful smile on her face and said “Thank you for coming,” but mostly just sat on the sofa and held my hand, as though I was a lifeline to her other child.

  Everyone said Pete was a hero. He’d been on the outskirts of Aachen with his platoon as they worked their way into the city, crossing a field. He’d been responding to a fellow soldier who’d been hit. But as he went through a break in the fence, he’d stepped on a buried mine, which killed him and another man behind him.

  A single misstep. Two lives gone in an instant.

  “That don’t make him any less a hero,” Daddy said in front of everyone, and they all agreed. “He fought bravely for his country and was attempting to save his fellow soldier.”

  That doesn’t make him any less dead, I thought, and stopped myself before I said it out loud.

  Mom didn’t say anything. But she stared hard at Daddy as though he’d planted that mine himself. I hadn’t heard her say but two words to him since the telegram had come four days ago.

  Now I caught Daddy staring out the living room window at the fields, a pained expression on his face. Who would take over the farm now? The future had been ripped out from under him. All those plans gone, along with my brother’s life.

  Scotty and his parents stopped by. Scotty squeezed my hand and stood by me protectively. The room was intolerably warm with all those bodies, and I felt as though I’d suffocate right there in the living room with Mom on one side and Scotty on the other.

  Finally, I couldn’t take any more. I excused myself and went upstairs, where I changed out of my dress into rolled-up jeans and loafers and a heavy sweater. Pete’s door was closed, but at night I kept watch from my room, waiting for it to open and for Pete to stick his head out and motion to me to come over and listen to some new record he’d bought. He wouldn’t let me touch it, though. No messy fingerprints on his precious vinyl records. It struck me how none of this mattered to him any longer, that perhaps it hadn’t mattered to him for a while. Is that why he’d written and told me I could have his record player? Had he had a premonition that he wouldn’t be coming back?

  The house was heavy with grief. I had to get away. I snuck down the stairs, ducked outside, got on my bicycle, and pedaled as fast as I could. It was cold enough to see my breath and I hadn’t worn a coat, but I pedaled harder, the memories keeping pace. Everything reminded me of Pete; even the bike I was riding was a hand-me-down that Pete used to ride.

  I was near the main highway and my shoes were caked with gravel dust. I stopped and looked around, feeling the soreness work its way up my legs as I stood still. I was surprised at the pain, at feeling anything except the emptiness. There was nowhere to go so I turned around and pedaled back, pushing my legs even as my calves ached. When I returned my legs felt like rubber but my heart still felt like stone.

  The sun was setting, a fiery red too bright for this sad day. Everything about this day felt wrong. We weren’t alone in our sorrow, so many other people had gone through this, but it felt different now that it was our family. All hope had gone out of our
lives. I hated war and Hitler and I hated the fact that people couldn’t live in peace with one another. But mostly I hated Pete for leaving me.

  As I went to put my bike in the barn, a sudden noise startled me. It wasn’t the cats or the horses or our cows. It was whispery and sounded human.

  “Lorraine.”

  I approached the barn cautiously. I was almost inside when a hand reached out and grabbed me.

  I tried to scream but the hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me away from the light.

  “It’s me. Jens.”

  He removed his hand and stepped back. Jens wore a jacket over his work clothes, one with a dark green collar and shoulder straps. He had a musty, burnt-wood smell to him.

  “Jens. What are you doing here?”

  “I escaped.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Do not worry. I am going back to camp. But I had to see you. To tell you I am sorry for your brother.”

  “You escaped to say you’re sorry?”

  He nodded. “And to ask you. Please do not hate me.”

  “Hate you? No.” I hated myself. I’d refused to give in to the notion that Pete could die. I should have prayed harder. I should have written to Pete more. I should have told him how much I loved him.

  I looked at Jens and started crying. He held me, letting me bury my face in his jacket as my tears dripped onto his collar.

  “So, so sorry,” he whispered, rocking me as I cried.

  He held me for a long time, until I finally ran out of tears and could only manage small shudders of sobs. He handed me a handkerchief and I wiped my eyes and nose.

  “How did you escape?”

  “I hopped on back of truck that was leaving. Hid under tarp. No one saw me.”

  “How will you get back inside?”

  “If I walk up to gate, I think they will let me in.”

  “But you’ll get in trouble.”

  Jens shrugged. “I do not care.”

  “Günther said you’re leaving soon.”

  “Ya.” His eyes were sad.