The Amish Nanny (39 page)

Herr Lauten asked Daniel if he could tell us what else he'd learned from reading the letters, relevant to the agreement or not.

Taking a deep breath, Daniel said he'd be happy to, though it probably wouldn't be of much use to our search.

“Just a summary, then,”

“Mostly, they showed how upset Abraham was that Elsbeth had left. He wrote to her, over and over, saying that family was what was most important in life. He said he'd imagined her marrying and living at Amielbach and raising her children, with him nearby, perhaps living in the cottage.”

I glanced at Herr Lauten, who was listening intently.

“Letter after letter, he begged her to return. Every time she had another child, he asked her to come back and said he would welcome her husband too. He pointed out there was no danger for her sons. Things had changed here, and the Mennonites weren't being persecuted anymore. The more time went on, the more he begged her to return.”

Herr Lauten folded his hands together. “Well, as a father, I certainly sympathize with him wanting his only child to come home.”

Daniel scoffed. “But he sounded so desperate. So controlling. The whole time I was reading them, I kept thinking, ‘Just let her live her life.'”

I thought of my own parents and swallowed hard, having a difficult time imagining what that would be like.

“Toward the end of the letters,” Daniel said, “he does contemplate going to Indiana to visit her. There's a lot about that in the last letter. But then his letters end, so I don't know if he ever actually made that trip or not.”

“What's the date on the last letter, the one where he discusses his plans to come?” Herr Lauten asked.

“May 1898.”

“Then I can tell you what happened,” Herr Lauten said. “I think he never went to America at all. I believe he died before he could get there.” Pointing at the journal in my hands, Herr Lauten told me to turn to the back and read the final inscription.

“It looks like it's in a different handwriting,” I said, reading out it loud and then running my fingers across the words:

Abraham Sommers, 1814 to 1898

“That answers it, then,” Daniel said. “The poor old guy pined for his daughter for all those years, finally decided to go see her, and then died before he could get the chance.”

“Sad,” Herr Lauten said, and I nodded in agreement.

Very sad indeed.

Feeling far more somber than we had when we first came in, Daniel and I wrapped things up in the library, and then he, Herr Lauten, and I walked back down the long, dark hallway to the great room. It was time to head to the courthouse.

Soon we were off, rumbling down the road with Oskar at the wheel, each of us lost in our thoughts. As I looked out the window at the beautiful Swiss countryside flying past, I could feel myself growing more hopeless by the mile. Without that agreement, we really didn't stand a chance in court. Closing my eyes, I did the only thing left to do.

I prayed for a miracle.

E
ven with picking Will up at the hospital, we managed to reach the courthouse in plenty of time. Betsy Holt met us in the lobby, greeting us with handshakes and a solemn expression. Daniel introduced her to Will, explaining that he would be standing in for Alice. She shook his hand gravely and expressed her best wishes for his grandmother's speedy recovery.

My head was still swimming with all I had learned back at the house, so I was glad when she said it would be a little while before we were called in. She led us down a quiet hallway and gestured toward a door on the right, saying we'd be presenting our case to the judge in there.

A long, upholstered bench sat against the wall beside the door, and the five of us settled down on it to wait: the lawyer, Herr Lauten, Daniel, Will, and me—in that order. I was glad to be on the end, where I could quietly collect my thoughts. Daniel and Herr Lauten were asking Ms. Holt some final questions. A retired attorney himself, Herr Lauten seemed to know the woman already and obviously had great respect for her skills. At one point I heard her refer to her schooling at “Rutgers,” and then Daniel asked if she meant Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. Nodding, she explained that her mother was an American who had moved to the States after divorcing her Swiss father. Ms. Holt not only had dual citizenship but also dual law degrees, one from Rutgers and one from the University of Geneva School of Law. I realized that her family situation sounded much like Morgan's.

With just a few minutes left, the woman began addressing all four of us, saying that at least we'd landed a good judge with a keen legal mind, especially with regard to contract law. Though she was obviously trying to give us a pep talk, I could tell by the look on her face that she was still feeling pretty skeptical about the outcome. Our best bet, she said, was that single entry from one of Abraham's journals, the one where he mentioned the purchase of the land and the agreement, saying how he'd hidden it in a safe place.

The door beside us opened, and then a man in a uniform was waving us in. We all rose, and as we filed through the doorway, the lawyer turned to me and Will and whispered, “Just relax. There's nothing to be nervous about or intimidated by.”

Once she'd turned back around and continued toward the front of the room, Will gave me a look of something not unlike amusement. I was less amused, as the possibility of being nervous hadn't even dawned on me until now. The more I thought about it, the more my legs began to feel a little shaky.

The courtroom was good sized, as large as an Amish living room back home, but not exactly cavernous, as I'd expected. Bright and sunny with tall windows along one side, the back of the room held three short rows of seats, and Ms. Holt directed us to sit in the first row. Moving forward, she set her briefcase on a table in front of us.

At the other end of the room, facing us, was a large, curved desk, with seating for five. The center seat was elevated, and I assumed that was where our judge would sit. The room also held two podiums at the center and desks along each side, though all were empty.

Once the judge entered and the proceedings began, I found my nervousness fading the longer I sat there. Standing at one of the podiums, Ms. Holt presented our case well, I thought, though her Swiss German made it difficult to follow completely, even with Daniel quietly translating most of what she was saying for Will and me. I was a little uncomfortable with how heavily she stressed what had happened to Alice yesterday. I supposed she was trying to play on the judge's sympathies, but her description of the “poor old Amish woman” who had come all this way “risking her very life for this cause” seemed a bit heavy-handed and was not altogether true. Though Alice had indeed risked her life by coming here, we hadn't known that at the time. It wasn't as though she'd boarded the ship unsure if she'd ever return home.

When the lawyer got to the part where she would tell about the page from Abraham Sommers' business journal, she gave the actual journal over to the judge and then returned to the podium to read the relevant passage in German from a photocopy, out loud, giving the date of entry as May 22, 1877. As she read Abraham's own words, I understood a good portion, but thankfully Daniel whispered a rough translation, saying:

I want it documented for the Lauten family, the Kessler family, and my own descendants that I have bought the property adjacent to Amielbach from a man named Ulrich Kessler for the price of 80,000 Swiss francs. In conjunction with the deed transfer, Ulrich and I have also signed an agreement intended to help preserve this property for the potential return of him or of his descendants. Primarily, our agreement stipulates that I may not freely sell this property elsewhere unless I first offer it to Ulrich or his oldest living descendant for purchase. The notary has filed the deed with the land register of the Canton of Bern and has provided me with the appropriate transfer of ownership papers. I have retained the related agreement myself, preferring not to have its contents available publically, and have put it in a safe place, one that offers more privacy than the land registry office
.

The judge gave back the actual journal, trading the lawyer for her photocopy. She handed the original back to Daniel and then went on to present, item by item, many of the other documents we had reviewed in her office. She finished up by reading several excerpts Daniel had given her from Abraham's letters. Obviously, Ms. Holt was trying to paint a picture of a kind and generous old man, one who had lost his daughter—the only light of his life—to emigration, thanks to the persecution of the Mennonites.

“Let this persecution end now,” she finished, speaking strongly and dramatically. “Let these good and decent people bring history full circle. As demonstrated by the documentation entered here today, I present to you a direct descendant of Abraham Sommers,” she turned and gestured toward me, “and a direct descendant of Ulrich Kessler.” She gestured to Will and then turned back to the judge. “Your Honor, it is our desire that the paperwork we have been able to provide the court, along with the presence and cooperation and petition of these two people here, will clearly convey the appropriateness of your decision to clear this title once and for all, fulfilling the agreement first struck more than one hundred and thirty years ago between their ancestors. Thank you.”

By the time she sat, Daniel looked as though he wanted to applaud.

The judge then asked a lot of questions, and at one point he spoke both to me and to Will in English, clarifying some of the facts of our family history. He also questioned Daniel and Herr Lauten about other miscellaneous details. When it seemed as if things were wrapping up, Ms. Holt reminded the judge of our need for an answer by this Friday at three p.m. at the latest, thanks to the time limit imposed by the land and property commission. Though he seemed a little irritated to be given a deadline, he said he would take that into consideration.

Before ending the session, he and the lawyer had one last exchange, but neither Daniel nor Herr Lauten translated for us until they were finished and we were dismissed.

Moving out of the room and into the hallway, I asked Daniel what he'd said there at the end. His brow furrowed, Daniel replied, “That as much as he appreciated the families' efforts in coming here and the presentation of
such a clear and ample paper trail tracing the heritage and related events, he was not optimistic about being able to give a ruling in our favor unless we could provide the one piece of paper that would make all the difference: the agreement itself.”

Once outside, we parted ways with the lawyer, who urged us to keep looking and promised to give us a call as soon as we got our ruling. After that we all trudged to the parking lot, where both Oskar and George were waiting for us. A very exhausted-looking Herr Lauten climbed in with Oskar for a ride back to Amielbach, and the rest of us got in with George, who drove us to the hospital.

There, we all went inside and found Christy and Morgan in the room with Alice. They wanted to hear everything about our morning in court, so we recounted the main points, ending with the bad news that our prospects did not look good.

We all brainstormed for a while, the words from Abraham's journal ringing in our ears, that he had put the agreement “in a safe place.” What sort of place would he have considered safe? That was the question of the hour.

Eventually, Will seemed to grow tired of the entire matter, saying we had tried our best and now it was up to the courts.

“God's will be done,” he added, “whether His matches ours or not.”

The matter at an end for now, he moved closer to Alice and asked if the doctor had made rounds yet for the day. She said that he had, and that he'd told her that although she was doing a bit better, she still wasn't well enough yet to be discharged or travel home.

“He said it could take a few more days for the fluid to decrease enough for that,” Morgan added.

Will's expression was grim, but Daniel actually seemed pleased.

“I'm hungry,” Christy announced to no one in particular, but I realized as she said it that I was hungry as well.

Will wanted to stay with Alice, but the rest of us trooped off to the cafeteria for something to eat. On the way we fell back into brainstorming mode about where the agreement could be, and then a suggestion from Daniel opened up a whole new realm of possibilities.