An Amish Family Christmas (8 page)

“It won’t be a thousand years, Naomi.”

“It could be never.”

The week after Thanksgiving, there were three more cards and two letters. Rebecca saw them but said nothing. One card brought Naomi to tears as she sat reading it at the kitchen table. Unable to
keep her emotions in check, she turned in her chair and practically cried out to her friend, “Oh, Rebecca, come here. Please, come and sit with me. I must read you this note from a woman in Ohio.”

Rebecca left off kneading the dough for the week’s bread, wiped her hands on a towel, and came to the table, taking a seat across from Naomi, who kept brushing at her eyes with one hand. In the other she held a Christmas card of baby Jesus in a manger.

“This woman’s husband was in Afghanistan. He was out in front of his platoon and was shot by the enemy. The whole platoon was caught in an ambush. They couldn’t go forward or backward. Only crouch down and shoot back. No one was able to go to rescue her wounded husband. The shooting was too great. No one would go to her husband. Only Micah.”

She tried to read the card but was unable to speak. Rebecca reached over and gently took it from her fingers.

Rebecca closed the card and laid it on the table. “I see,” was all she was able to get out. She bowed her head, and Naomi could see the struggle in her face. Eyes damp, she finally looked up again. “I wonder that the card came to you and not to him or to both of you.”

“A woman explained that in a letter last week. Micah had said that while he was in the field any letters or notes should be addressed to his wife in Pennsylvania. I suppose that was in case he should...” She couldn’t finish.

Rebecca took Naomi by the hand. “God is good.
Ja
, Micah has returned to us. And his good works for these men—his good works for God—have not been forgotten by these people. They thought to write.”

Naomi nodded.

“Why now, though? Why all at once?” Rebecca asked.

“A number were readdressed. Despite what Micah told people, some went to his unit. Then, of course, it’s Thanksgiving and Christmas, isn’t it? The
Englisch
set great store by Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“How many of these do you have now?”

“I don’t know. Eight or nine, I think. Each one I open blesses me. And each one stings.”

Rebecca reached over and put her hand on Naomi’s arm. “Perhaps there won’t be any more. Maybe this is all there is.”

“Maybe.”

But the letters and cards continued to come. Two or three a week. Naomi read each one and then shared with Rebecca, who took to reading them out loud when Micah was in the house. He might be eating alone in the parlor. Or upstairs with Luke, the bedroom door open. Or just coming in the door from tending to the cattle. But she
read them with the intent he hear each and every word. Sometimes, if he was nearby, he might stand and listen. Other times he quietly walked away or closed the parlor or bedroom door.

One day a letter came that changed everything for Naomi. In it a young soldier’s mother talked about her son’s death in battle. How Micah had done everything in his power to save his life. How other soldiers in the unit had told her he wept when her son died in his arms and how he had insisted on carrying her boy’s body back behind their lines, half a mile in the desert heat. As if that weren’t enough, two months later Micah had run through a hail of bullets and rocket fire to save her nephew from a burning helicopter—her nephew and seven others, including three women soldiers. Two other medics had worked with him, one of whom had been killed rescuing the pilot. Her nephew was joining them for Christmas in Texas. She had put off writing long enough, she said. The enduring image she had was of her young son, in his death, being held and carried in the arms of Naomi’s husband with as much love and strength as if he were the boy’s own father. Micah’s battledress had been soaked in blood, the other men had told her. But he would not take it off.

Her cheeks wet, Naomi went to the parlor where Micah sat eating soup alone and in silence. She read the letter out loud. Then she stared at him.

“Is it true, Micah Bachman?”

Rebecca came into the parlor. “Hush, Naomi. You are breaking the
Ordnung.
”

“I don’t care. He must answer me this question.”

“If they find out they will place you under the
bann
as well.”

“How will they find out? Will you tell them?”

“Of course not.”

“It’s understood I may speak with him if it’s an emergency.”

Rebecca glanced from Naomi’s face to the letter in her hand. “This is not an emergency.”

“Oh,
ja
, it is.” She didn’t take her eyes off Micah. “Did you not hear me read it, Rebecca?”

“I was feeding Luke.”

Naomi handed her the sheet of paper, still staring at her husband. She waited until Rebecca had finished. Her friend drew in a deep breath and placed a hand over her heart.

“My brother,” was all she said.

Naomi’s eyes were black flames. “I’m not leaving this room until you answer me, Sergeant Micah Bachman. Is this letter true? Does she exaggerate or is what she tells me exactly what happened?”

Micah looked back at her, silent. Finally he nodded.

Naomi went on. “And where is the uniform you wore that day? Do you still have it?”

Micah nodded again.

“Tell me the truth—did you ever wash it? Did you ever wash out that young boy’s blood?”

He hesitated, not responding for several long seconds. Then he shook his head.

Naomi flew from the room and snatched her winter coat off a peg by the front door.

“Where are you going?” asked Rebecca, running after her. “Don’t do anything rash.”

Naomi wrapped a black scarf about her neck with swift movements. “I’m going to Bishop Fischer.”

“Bishop Fischer? What’s your business with him?”

Naomi took the letter from Rebecca’s hand. “This letter is my business.” She gazed almost wildly at her friend and then shifted her eyes to a cupboard over one of the counters. She marched across the kitchen and took down a packet of letters tied with a red ribbon. “And these as well.”

Micah had already used Maria and the buggy that morning and had not yet unharnessed the mare. Naomi sprang into the driver’s seat and snapped the reins. Maria pulled out of the farmyard at a fast trot. Rebecca stood at the window and watched Naomi drive onto the main road.

She was at the bishop’s house in ten minutes.

“Naomi,” the bishop greeted her as he opened the door. “Good day. What brings you out on such a frosty morning?”

Naomi’s smile was short and sweet. “Good day, Bishop Fischer. I’m sorry to come by just before lunch.”

“No, no, Mary tells me it will be another forty-five minutes. Come, come, let me help you with your coat.”

Naomi didn’t remove her coat. “I need you to read these.” She thrust the packet of letters at him. “It’s important.”

“Why, what’s in them?”

“I can’t explain.”

He took the packet. “Now? You wish me to look at them here and now?”

“Please. You need only read a few.”

He looked at the dark fire in her eyes. “Very well, very well. Have a seat.”

She sat in the offered seat as he untied the ribbon and put it in his pocket and then slipped on his reading glasses. He opened a Christmas card and read it quickly. His face gave no sign of how it affected him. He opened a second card. Again his features remained just as they had been when he first took the packet from her. Selecting a letter, he took it from its envelope and unfolded it. As he read he suddenly lowered himself into a chair, his eyes still on the
words handwritten across the paper. Then he folded it back up and returned it to its envelope and opened another card, one with a Thanksgiving pumpkin on it. Finishing it, he tapped the card against his knee and looked up at her, glasses still on his face.

“So. How long has this been going on?”

“They began to come just before Thanksgiving Day.”

“And more came even today?”

“
Ja
. This one.” She offered him the letter from the mother of the boy who had died in Micah’s arms and whose body Micah had carried. This time she saw a reaction in the bishop’s face. It seemed to her he read the letter twice. Then he looked off into the front room and through a window to the fields of snow outside.

“
Ja, ja
,” he murmured. “God’s ways are strange. They are not our ways. It’s up to us to learn from him and not the other way around.” He looked at her. “These must touch your heart,
dochter
.”

“Yes, they touch me deeply. As I hoped they would you.”

He sighed and looked out the window again. “They do touch me, child. But you must understand—the
Ordnung
is the
Ordnung.
It has been thus with our people for hundreds of years as they followed God.”

“Sometimes the
Ordnung
changes.”

“Not often,
dochter
.”

“But sometimes. You even told me so once when I was a child. You permitted rubber tires on our buggies because they don’t jar the older people so much on the long drives.”

“
Ja, ja
, but buggy wheels are one thing. What you are asking is much bigger than rubber tires.”

“I have not asked for anything.”

“Your eyes ask. You want me to change the
Ordnung
to allow our people to serve in medical situations. And not just any medical situations. In war. On battlefields. Where blood is shed and weapons strike men down. You wish me to say, ‘If God Almighty is
calling you to serve him as a medic in the army in order to save lives, go and do so. As long as you do not pick up a gun, as long as you reach out to heal friend and foe alike in the Lord’s name, go and do so, and may Christ bless.’”

Naomi didn’t move a muscle. “
Ja
. That is very well put.”

He grunted. “Very well put, eh? So I have been thinking about these things. But it would have to be very well put indeed to convince our ministers and our people. We would lose many families. We might lose all the families.”

“Not all.”

“Who can say? Certainly it would split our community in two. No matter how carefully I chose my words.”

“If everyone could read these letters from mothers and fathers and wives and sisters...”

“Everyone? You would let the whole church read these letters?”

Naomi sat even straighter. “
Ja
.”

“The leadership? Even Minister Yoder?”

“There is no shame in those letters. Only honor.”

He took off his glasses. “Honor? Is that what you want me to tell Minister Yoder? Doesn’t that smack of pride and vanity?”

“They that honor me I will honor.”

He stared, taking her words in.

“First Samuel, chapter two, verse thirty,” she added.

“I know.” Again he looked out the window. Then he got up. “Leave these with me, if you will. I can promise nothing. So rarely the
Ordnung
changes. And in matters that touch on war it never changes.”

“This is not about war.”

“Not about war?”

“There is making war and there is healing war. They are not the same thing. Would Jesus stand by and watch the man on the road to Jericho bleed to death?”

“Child—”

“Would you? Even if he wore a uniform? Or would you hurry past on your way to church?”

The bishop heaved out his breath as if it weighed hundreds of pounds in his chest. “Enough. I will share the letters among a few. We will see what God does. For he is a good God but also a strange God when it comes to what he will bless and not bless. That is all I can do. Good day,
dochter
.”

“Bishop Fischer—”

He opened the door, and a gust of wind brought in the winter cold. “Good day,
dochter
. Go with God.”

The drive home was slow and icy. She didn’t unharness the mare at the farmhouse because she wasn’t sure if Micah would be using the buggy again that day. She gave Maria some oats and went in, stamping the snow off her boots in the doorway.