The Carpenter's Wife Read online

  Stark heard one say, “Kennedy,” and they giggled.

  Then they were gone, and he pressed a “Hooay,” through his throat and exhaled, struggling to keep from watching them sway away. He’d been gone from home now for nearly a week, and the urge to turn around was overwhelmingly present.

  “Whoa,” he said. “What was that? What are they thinking?”

  Rainer Weiss mopped his brow. The bony fellow’s ill-fitting suit, grizzled hair, and especially his beard gave him a wizened appearance—though he was only 43. He reminded Tom of Honest Abe, America’s 16th top executive. All that was missing was the top hat, and maybe his head was a little too square.

  “Sorry.” Weiss’s voice was hoarse with embarrassment. “That was my fault.” He cleared his throat. “I should have warned you…”

  Stark, v-shaped under a white shirt, pulled on the knot of his stylish silver tie. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re near the Eisbach. Up ahead will be people wearing even less.”

  They heard music and laughter, shouts, and the splashing of water behind trees.

  The German smiled, unsure. “We can turn around if it’s going to bother you.”

  Stark shot him a prolonged glance. “Not if it doesn’t bother you.”

  Weiss shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

  This was incredible. “You’re used to women like that popping out of the woodwork?”

  “They are around.”

  Tom shook his head. Munich was turning into Tahiti, circa 1789.

  They walked on.

  “How does it affect the crime rate?”

  “You mean prostitution? It’s legal here as you probably know.”

  Tom knew. His own town was full of it. But he’d never seen anything like this.

  Weiss scratched his scalp. “But the women we just saw aren’t madames.”

  “So, what do you surmise they are?”

  Weiss took his time before he spoke. “Students from Ludwig-Max or the Arts Academy, maybe. Or models from the fashion fair, although I doubt that; they’d be at work now. Anyway. They think baring yourself is all natural and there’s nothing to it.”

  “Women…” Stark said, thinking of Swedes. The blonde could have been a Swede.

  Weiss grinned. “Hard to figure out, eh?”

  “I don’t get it,” the American rambled. “What are they thinking? Men are visual animals. What they see feeds their drives—to the point of no return.” He began to gesture. “Given their looks, it’s a miracle no slobbering peeps are tagging along. You can’t un-sexualize nudity; at least, the nudity of attractive women you can’t. That’s wishful thinking.”

  “You are right, of course, Amerrrican Prrreacher,” Abe Lincoln said. “Actually, in the Bible public nudity is either a sign of total innocence or—“

  “—or of demon possession,” the prrreacher said.

  Weiss nodded, birdlike. Having met for the first time during the conference, they were still sounding one another out, trying to grasp where the other stood by stating the obvious and waiting for noises of agreement. So far they shared many convictions.

  “And the authorities allow this?” Tom glanced back at the women, who were at a safe distance now. “I mean, the police doesn’t take an interest in them? What’s the law say about this… behavior?”

  Abe Lincoln’s mouth moved around in his face for a while. “It’s illegal to put pornography in front of anybody who didn’t explicitly ask for it, pictures and stuff. They’re trying to put a lid on that, I guess. And there are statutes against public nakedness. But the city doesn’t enforce them. Especially not in weather like this.” He flashed his embarrassed smile again. “I forgot to mention all that to you. Forgive me.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “The current ideology… Humanism, you know. It’s Romans one all over again.”

  Stark frowned. “Uh-huh.”

  “Most people are secularists—existentialists, humanists, whatever you wish to call them,” Weiss sermonized. “And what do those people have for joys in life? Work? Family?” He huffed. “Work’s the slammer and family’s a cage. So they give themselves the world’s longest vacations and break out.”

  “Eat, drink, and be merry,” the missionary growled.

  “Nothing wrong with that in itself…”

  “Bad if that’s all you’re doing.”

  “People are trying to have fun,” Weiss said. “At this time of year they usually fly off to sprawl out on some beach, where they pay the natives to toss grapes and fried monkeys into their mouths. It’s the pursuit of happiness in its Continental manifestation.”

  “Depravity,” scoffed Stark. “Dancing around the calf.”

  “Sure.” Weiss furrowed his brow. “It’s society untempered by Bible faith.” Ancient churches decorated the city’s every corner, but there were no new ones. “People are moral relativists now. You know, what’s wrong for you may be right for me. No absolutes.”

  “And now one man’s Eden is another man’s Gomorrah.”

  “Hey!” Weiss wagged his finger. “I’ll remember that. Sinner’s Eden, saint’s Gomorrah. That’s good.”

  Tom smiled smugly before he turned sober again. “The emperor has new clothes.” He chuckled and thought of Oklahoma, where the girls would have found themselves in police custody quicker than they could have said, “Stop gawking.”

  “Some Americans are like that too, no?”

  “Sure,” Stark allowed. “But the majority of ordinary Americans doesn’t appreciate dressing like that. Everybody with a daughter. Here it’s—like you say—mainstreamed.”

  “We have ordinary people too,” Weiss said. “Ordinary walkers and the streakers co-exist. They ignore each other. Some get frech, though. There are days when you see them in the streetcars. They only ride along for a station or two. Otherwise, police would make them pay. I don’t know if you follow politics, but Bavaria is a very conservative state, the most conservative in Germany.”

  “Right,” Tom said dismissively.

  “It’s the same on the banks of the Isar,” the river dividing Munich. “On some stretches and under bridges people camp out with no clothes on during hot days.”

  “Hobos?”

  “Humanists. And people on top of the bridges stand and watch.”

  Weiss suddenly stopped, bent down, and rolled his pants up to his knees. Then he shoved his socks down, baring calves the color of driven snow. The American watched, saying nothing, but his broad-jowled dress man’s face stifled a grin.

  Rainer got up and returned to their original subject. “So, how is Elmendorf?” He glanced sideways at his new American friend.

  “Small village outside Schweinfurt,” Stark said. They spoke English, more to humor the Bavarian than of necessity. The missionary was fluent in German.

  “Schweinfurt…”

  “Yeah. Pig City. It’s in the northern part of Bavaria. Church’s called ‘Pigs for Christ!’”

  Abe Lincoln giggled.

  Tom snorted. “Not really.”

  Weiss loosened his tie some more and undid a second button. “I was born in Hassfurt.”

  “That’s just twenty-some klicks away from us!”

  “Klicks?”

  “Kilometers.”

  “Kays. I see.” Abe nodded thoughtfully. An indolent bee droned by, getting lost on the withered lawn to their left. “Schweinfurt… The city’s in the news a lot. Pretty violent. Highest crime rate in the state—”

  “—and the highest unemployment rate,” the American said. “Ball-bearing industry really took a hit during the Nineties. It’s a post-industrial town now. Drug and murder rates are way out of line for a town its size.” He fell silent.

  Then he said, “Just two weeks ago this guy in his car was chasing his wife around town. When she finally crashed into a pole, he pulled her from the wreck and put a couple bullets in her head, right on the street. I mean, people were watching. Then he turned around and killed her lover, and th
en himself.” Tom looked into the distance. “Town needs Jesus badly.”

  “Amen to that.” Weiss wrinkled his forehead. “Do the GIs have a lot to do with it? I mean with the crime rate.”

  Stark stole a cock-eyed glance. “Some.” He breathed deeply. “The guy I just mentioned was a major in the Army. From Tennessee.”

  Schweinfurt was home to the 1st Infantry Division in Europe. The Big Red One’s 10,000 troopers walked the city streets and motored around in their Bradleys and Humvees on several large installations right inside a blue-collar city of 50,000.

  “But the MP’s pretty good,” Stark said. “They’re keeping a lid on things. Most violence happens among Turks and Yugoslavs; Russians, what do I know. That’s why we’re now in Elmendorf. Lived on Deutschhof before; it’s a Russian ghetto.” Tom’s arm wiped his face again. “But it’s not as bad as you may think.”

  Weiss broke a mild smile and said nothing. “How do you like Germany?” he asked after a while.

  “Lived here for three years now, mostly upstate.”

  Nothing followed, so Weiss pressed on, “How did you end up in Schweinfurt? I mean, you come from where? Ohio? How does someone from Ohio end up in Lower Franconia?”

  Tom grinned. “We moved here from Tulsa. But you’re right. It’s a long story. In the beginning we really liked Heidelberg. We—”

  “Heidelberg!” Abe Lincoln said. “Why is it that all Americans love that town? Like it’s some enchanted place with a special magic to make Americans happy.”

  Tom was about to answer, when they rounded a bent in the walkway—and the shore of the Eisbach unfolded in his view.

  What he saw felt like a fist in the gut.

  A teeming mass of flesh, old and young, taut and wobbling, pierced and tattooed, weather-beaten, leathery, brown, and brilliant white, swarmed on the parched grass. Skin of all shades and colors and races—unclad humanity—sat before him.

  Or so it seemed.

  Of course, some people wore clothes, colorful and gaudy ones at that. Others didn’t. They splashed one another and shrieked in the narrow, shallow Eisbach, the ice-cold creek in the middle of the park.

  Stark swallowed. What were they thinking?

  One sporty teen had his surfboard in the water. He’d tied it with a length of rope to an iron ring on the side of a bridge made of quarry stones. The creek rushed by underneath, its current strong enough to make stationary surfing possible. He and his friends whooped when they slipped and crashed into the stream.

  Not far from them a boy, just out of diapers, scratched the river bank with his shovel, carefully depositing the sand in a tiny bucket.

  Families sat on beach blankets. Tom saw a mom reach into the cooler for another beer.

  Beyond the trees, Frisbees rotated across the meadow, tossed by slender reeds with pale bodies and caught by triple-chinned blobs frolicking about. Colors swirled.

  A guitar strummed.

  Groups of college students sat below branches of wide oaks, steeped in earnest discussions. Disciples of Socrates.

  Tom squinted, his eyes roaming, taking in the improbable scene. On the surface everything seemed so natural, so harmless. This could have been Eden before the fall.

  But clearly, it wasn’t.

  Most skin was not particularly attractive. Some was ugly. Tom swallowed, sickened, and rubbed the goose flesh on his neck.

  His eyes shifted to the gravel path.

  There, on iron benches, sat shabbily dressed men, Turks with prayer beads and others. With impassive faces they watched the throng play catch.

  A pony-tailed man—he had to be at least fifty—kissed his girlfriend. She giggled after a while, wriggled free, and sat up, readjusting her pink bikini top.

  Tom was appalled; the girl could have been the guy’s daughter. What did she want with him? Why wasn’t she with people her age? Didn’t she see that this was a wretched hippie preying on stupid teens!

  Why was she here at all?

  Why wasn’t she properly dressed and groomed and in her room, doing her homework?

  She tossed her purple-dyed hair back. The man grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back down.

  Hard anger bubbled up in Tom. There were butterflies too, but the anger dominated. He clenched his fists, about to walk up to the ponytail, intending to tell him which side was up—when he felt Weiss’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Leave him,” he said gently.

  “Can’t you see that she’s too young for this—?”

  “Can’t you see tomorrow’s headline?”

  Tom blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “’Slugfest in Park. Pastor Pummels Man Over Choice of Girlfriend.’ That’ll go over real well.”

  Tom’s fists were balled. Then both men laughed and he relaxed.

  “One man’s Eden, another man’s Gomorrah,” Rainer said in his melancholy way, his sad brown eyes staring into Tom’s orbs of ice.

  Tom gulped. “Gomorrah.” He punched his hollow hand and peeked once more at the odd couple. Unnerved, Stark turned away. “It was a mistake to come here,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Just then the undiapered youngster slipped and fell into the foaming creek; Stark saw his hand and shovel disappear. He blinked—then understood. “That kid!” His finger was indicating. “He’s going down!” He dashed up to the shore and searched the water. Weiss ran after him.

  There!

  The boy flushed by the legs of an unnoticing teen, who grinned, wiped his face, and waded back to the surfboard, where his friends were having fun.

  Tom jogged along, his eyes on the child underwater, until he finally plunged into the brook, feet first. The water was so cold, his breath ran short; he groaned. Groping about, he got a hold of a small leg and pulled up on it. When the boy broke the surface, he turned him around and cradled him in his arms. The kid gagged, then cried, his eyes closed in shock and horror.

  Abe Lincoln’s outstretched hand hovered over Stark. Tom took it and was pulled ashore.

  The wailing child drew everybody’s gaze, until a man with an auburn tan came up, a splashy dragon adorning his entire body. He pointed at the kid.

  Stark put the child on the ground.

  The man offered his hand, the kid took it, and together they wandered off, the boy’s fist still clenched around his toy shuffle. Tom stared at their backs as the dragon-bearer flicked his cigarette butt away.

  “You are wet.”

  Stark turned toward Weiss and then looked down on himself. His immaculate pants were now streaked with mud. “Saving people is messy business.” He pulled his shirt away from his belly. “I’ll dry.” He pointed at Abe’s trousers. “Your leg...”

  Weiss checked and found his right pant leg down. He crouched and rolled it back up.

  Stark scanned his environs again and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You said you went to Heidelberg?” Rainer asked. The blaze had already dried Tom to a passable degree. They were now on their way to the park’s Chinese Tower restaurant for a drink and to escape the burning air.

  Stark slowed down, thinking of an answer. “Tried to start a work. Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Didn’t work out. Then a group from Schweinfurt found out about us and invited us to do a meeting for them, about twenty people. They had collectively gotten the boot from another free church in town and wanted to grow a new one, one where the shepherd was also a teacher. Said they hadn’t done anything wrong to upset the old pastor, that he was just paranoid, saw enemies everywhere; you know, threats to his authority. My guess is, the guy just had his repertoire of five messages that he repeated in variations—you know how it goes—and after a while it wasn’t enough—” Tom caught himself, astonished at his own frankness. Falling silent, he studied Rainer out of the tail of his eye.

  Weiss’s gaze was on the gravel. “Sounds like an ideal group to start with. Plus, Schweinfurt and Heidelberg are poles apart; they are opposites. One’s quaint, the other’s… queer.”

>   “You’re right, aren’t you?” Tom said. “Anyway. They were in bad shape. But I feel we gave them a clean new start. Tripled in the last one and a half years to seventy people. Plus kids. Still not a lot, but—”

  “More than I have. We run sixty-three. Been at it for ten years.”

  Tom kicked up a cloud of dust. “Like they say, the country’s difficult.”

  Weiss sighed. “Who are you talking to? Down here you’re Catholic. You’re anything else, you’re a cult. So, we’re still a cult, after ten years. Not always easy—especially on the children.”

  Tom didn’t reply. During the conference he’d met a multitude of pastors who were frustrated, burned out, suffering from lack of success, barely able to make ends meet for their churches and privately. But he didn’t share their sense of futility. He was happy with his work, and not just because most of his money, such as there was, came from America. His city was tough, sometimes weird, always loud-mouthed, but he felt at home in it. Maybe he even loved the town. In any case, it was where God had planted him and therefore all things had to fall in line. It was as simple as that.

  They boarded the lead wagon of Tram Bahn Number 54 at the Tucherpark station, intending to ride it into downtown, and were barely seated on one of its maroon benches soft from the heat, when they heard an ornery giggle behind them. Both men turned around. Two Eisbach-girls, young teens, both mature beyond their age, were clambering on board, wet and shivering. Just as Rainer had foretold.

  A groan escaped Tom’s lips.

  Weiss looked at him. “How do you say? Twelve, going on twenty?”

  The muscles in the American’s face flexed and he closed his eyes. God. This is insane!

  A raspy voice suddenly bellowed, “Not in my train!”

  Tom looked up. The tram driver had left his seat. His bald head glistened as he stood on the little platform up front and gestured wildly at the teens, who sat close together on the bench behind his station, shuddering, holding hands.