Gruel and Unusual Punishment Page 7

  Of course the title would come with strings attached. I mean, would I just have to know the man—in the Biblical sense—or would I be expected to do more? Like belly dance, for instance. But even more distressing than the aforementioned sins was the possibility that I might never be chosen to perform when he made his nightly pick. Could I endure the shame? It was bad enough being the last one chosen in gym class, but it would be just too much to bear if the potent potentate perpetually preferred pretty petite princesses over plain but prosperous proprietresses.

  "Don't I at least get the chance to audition?" I wailed. "And I want to choose my own outfits. Baby blue for that silk pajama thing, with matching chiffon for the veil. That color really accents my eyes, and they're my best feature. But no bare navel; that's just wrong."

  "Magdalena—"

  "Oh, I'll get my own tambourine, won't I? Because I want to name it Booty. 'Shake your booty, shake your booty.' That's what my sister Susannah says, although I haven't the foggiest idea what she's talking about. And castanets. I want my own too. Or is that Spanish?"

  Emma didn't look back. "You're very strange, Magdalena. I've heard rumors about how weird you are, but found them hard to believe. I guess what everyone says is true."

  "Who's everyone? And what all did they say?"

  We'd reached the end of the hall by then, and instead of answering me, Emma pulled a heavy tasseled cord that opened floor- length drapes. The resultant light was blinding.

  "There," said Emma. "You wanted to see my paintings. Well, take a good look."

  10 - Basic Boiled Grits

  Authentic grits are coarse in texture and require thorough cooking. Because the oily germ of the kernel is preserved under the cool grind of the stone, these grits must be consumed very soon after purchase or they will turn rancid. Luckily you can hold these grits in the freezer for up to six months.

  Old recipes always direct you to first "wash" the grits. Even today most modem stone-ground grits need rinsing to separate the last remains of the hull or chaff from the kernel. Simply cover the grits with cold water. The meal will sink to the bottom and the chaff will float to the surface, where it can be skimmed off with a kitchen strainer.

  1 cup stone-ground grits

  4 cups water

  ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

  2 tablespoons unsalted butter

  Pour grits into a large bowl and cover with cold water. Skim off the chaff as it floats to the surface. Stir the grits and skim again until all the chaff has been removed. Drain the grits in a sieve.

  Bring 4 cups water to a boil in a medium-size saucepan. Add the salt and slowly stir in the grits. Cook at a simmer, stirring frequently, until the grits are done—they should be quite thick and creamy—about 40 minutes.

  Remove grits from heat and stir in butter.

  Serves 4

  Note: Most grits in the grocery store are called "quick." The corn is ground very fine and then quickly steamed. Quick grits cook in much less time than coarsely ground traditional grits, and they definitely come in handy.

  Basically the proportion of liquid to dry grits is the same (4 to 1) no matter how the grits are milled. Only the cooking time varies, and the manufacturer's directions should be followed up to a point. All instant and quick-cooking grits are improved with longer, gentler cooking than the directions indicate. Or, at the end of cooking, you can just cover the pot and let the grits swell over very low heat for 5 minutes.

  11

  It took at least a minute for my eyes to adjust, and as they did, it became apparent that the hallway opened onto a large room that was enclosed mostly by glass. There were five easels, each with its own painting, and dozens of other paintings leaning against the clear walls.

  "Wow! This is really neat! How come I didn't see it from outside?"

  "That big sycamore blocks most of it. But that's okay. It's the north light that counts. I keep the drapes on the east and west sides pulled most of the time anyway."

  I stopped paying so much attention to the room and began to focus on the paintings. The one on the nearest easel was on stretched canvas and measured probably eighteen inches by twenty. I'm not a painter, but I guessed the medium to be oils. The subject matter was what interested me.

  "An Amish buggy wheel," I said. "Just a simple buggy wheel in a snowdrift. But it's really good. There's something powerful about those spoke shadows against all that white."

  "That's what the critics said. That's my first painting, and it's not for sale. Most of the others are, except for those that aren't finished, of course."

  I trotted over to the next easel. "I like the way this hand pump drips water on the dead leaves around it. It's sort of life and death all in one."

  "The critics said that too. This, incidentally, is just a signed print. I've sold over two thousand of them."

  I went from easel to easel and then started pawing through the paintings on the periphery of the room. The paintings were really wonderful, and I was prepared to shell out a few bucks to get a couple for my parlor walls back at the inn. Maybe even a few for the guest rooms upstairs.

  "How much are they, dear?"

  "That depends. The prices are written on little stickers on the back."

  I turned over a particularly appealing painting, one of a plow in an overgrown field. Tawny grasses grew up through the rusting disks. The colors would go beautifully with the earth tones in the guest room in which I planned to install Alison.

  "There aren't any price tags, dear. Just these long identification numbers."

  "Those are the prices."

  "Five thousand dollars? For a painting?"

  Emma was still breathing heavily, even though she'd taken a seat. Her ample buttocks completely enveloped the round black- leather-topped stool, and she appeared to be propped up by three rather spindly sticks of wood. I prayed that the tripod would hold.

  "My painting of fence posts at sunset," she wheezed, "sold for ten thousand. Of course it was a bit larger."

  "Maybe I should take up painting!"

  That seemed to startle her. "Do you have talent?"

  "No. I was just kidding, dear. The sad truth is, I have no talents of which I am aware—except for jumping to conclusions. If that were an Olympic event, I'd win a gold medal every four years."

  By the look on Emma's face, I gathered she was not amused. "I didn't become a painter on a whim, you know. I was born with the urge to create, and with a hand that could reproduce what my eyes saw." She sighed heavily. "That's why I had to leave the faith."

  I nodded. "I know Amish aren't supposed to have graven images in their homes, and they extend that prohibition to include photographs, but your paintings don't even have people in them."

  "Yes, but as a purely decorative art form, they're considered prideful."

  "There is nothing wrong with a little pride," I said. I meant it in the best Christian way. I, for one, am proud of my humility.

  She rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands. "I had to choose, Magdalena. I had to choose between the Ordnung and the gifts God gave me. It's a decision I still wrestle with."

  "If you don't mind my saying so, I think you made the right choice."

  She looked straight ahead, to the north, and in that perfect light, she was almost pretty. "It cost me my family," she said quietly.

  "I'm sorry, dear."

  "Thanks. But you didn't come here to listen to my problems, or to buy paintings. Why did you come, Magdalena?"

  I looked for a place to sit, and finding none, leaned against the nearest easel. "It's about Clarence Webber."

  She blinked. "What about him?"

  It occurred to me that she might not have heard about his death. "Well, uh—do you listen to the news, Miss Kauffman?"

  "Sometimes. I haven't lately."

  "I see. You read the paper?"

  "Magdalena, if I share something personal with you, will you stop playing games with me?"


  I'm all for buying time. "Sure. Share away—but this isn't going to be anything of a sexual nature, is it? I mean, I've had all the surprises I can handle in that department."

  She turned to face me, a faint smile playing at the comers of her wide mouth. "It has nothing to do with sex. At least not as far as I know. You see, I suffer from depression."

  "I get the blues every now and then myself, dear. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

  "This isn't the blues, Magdalena. It's clinical depression.

  When it hits, all the energy just drains out of me. Every step is like walking under water. Sometimes I get so I can't even lift a brush."

  Suddenly it clicked. "Ah, so that's why you were sitting there in the dark when I arrived."

  "Yes, that's why."

  "But you seem okay now."

  "It's easier to respond at some times than at others. Okay, so now you know my little secret. Tell me why you're here, and what it has to do with Clarence."

  "Clarence Webber is dead," I said softly.

  Emma swayed wildly, and for a second I thought I was going to have to catch her. I may be strong, but not that strong. One or both of us would go down. I could even be crushed to death. On the other hand, if one has to go by this method, having the crusher be a celebrity is a nice way to do it.

  Thank heavens I didn't have to meet my maker while shaped like a crepe. Emma stabilized herself quite nicely. She even made a futile attempt at smoothing away some of the wrinkles on that lime green dress before speaking.

  "When did this happen?”

  "Three days ago. Don't you read the paper? Watch the news?"

  She shook her head. "Not when I've hit a low."

  "Aren't you going to ask how it happened?"

  "I was just getting there. So, tell me."

  "It was poison."

  "Arsenic?"

  My pulse raced. "Why did you guess that?"

  "Well, it was obvious Zelda didn't like him."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "You wouldn't believe the sarcasm that woman used. 'Mr. Webber, you have a guest,' she'd say. 'Shall I show her in? Mr. Webber, will the two of you be having tea?' That sort of thing. She was always mocking him. Making faces even."

  "I wouldn't take those faces to heart, dear. Five pounds of makeup tends to have a life of its own. It could have just been her foundation shifting."

  "Very funny, Magdalena." Emma didn't sound at all amused. "As an artist, I'm first and foremost an observer. That makes me a fairly good judge of people. Zelda hated Clarence."

  It is, of course, always easier to mollify someone than to convince that person that she is dead wrong. I prayed for a patient tongue.

  "Zelda can come on a little strong. But tell me, dear, what's with the cookies?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You took Clarence a bag of cookies—"

  "Wait just one damn minute! I'm one of your suspects, right?"

  I reeled at her use of the D word, almost knocking over my easel. As in Susannah's case, Emma's apple had rolled out of the orchard altogether.

  "Well?" she demanded. "I'm one of your suspects, aren't I?"

  I leaned back against the easel. The gig was up. It was time to confess.

  "Yes, but you're not the only one. You are, however, the only one who brought him food."

  She stiffened, the stool beneath her wobbling precariously. Again I feared for her safety.

  "I wouldn't have had to take him a care package, if the food provided had been at all palatable."

  That did it. That hiked my hackles.

  "There is nothing wrong with Freni Hostetler's cooking! Why, once she even won a blue ribbon at the county fair for her bread- and-butter pickles."

  Emma regarded me stone-faced. "Then maybe she should have sent over her pickles. What she sent instead made Clarence sick just to look at it. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the place in general was a pigsty. I'm sure that toilet hadn't been cleaned in years, and that mattress! How is someone supposed to sleep on just an inch of foam?"

  "What was Clarence Webber to you?" 1 cried. "You sound like his mother!"

  "I was his wife!" She spat the words like a string of firecrackers. "He was the love of my life. The only man I'll ever love. The only man who will ever love me!"

  The shock of her emotional outburst was too much for me to bear standing up. That's the only way I can explain it. My spindly legs simply gave out, and I fell over backwards, taking the easel with me.

  It is a fact that I have a long pointed nose, and I've been accused of having a sharp tongue, but who knew my elbows were capable of so much damage? Especially the right one, of which I've always been inordinately fond? It penetrated the fallen canvas like a steak knife through an angel food cake.

  Rest assured, I was not hurt. The painting was, of course, ruined, and the easel was a shambles. As was my pride.

  Emma Kauffman was livid. Not only did she charge me sixty-five hundred dollars for the painting, she hustled my bustle to the nearest door. Most important, she absolutely refused to say another word about her relationship with the deceased. There was nothing I could do to change her mind. Even my offer to double the price on the damaged painting—for a little more info, of course—fell on deaf ears.

  Well, like they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and that's exactly what I did. I pressed the pedal to the metal until I reached the bottom of Buffalo Mountain, then I squashed that accelerator right into the floor. I know, the Good Lord expects us to be law-abiding citizens, but He also gave us plenty of examples in the Bible of folks who like to speed. Maybe they didn't have cars back then, but fast is fast. Even the angels zipped around so quickly no one was ever quite sure where they came from.

  At any rate, what would normally take me a good twenty minutes to cover, took me just over ten. I might even have shaved off another minute or two if I'd bothered to look up Agnes Schlabach's address. Unfortunately I had to stop once to ask where the piano teacher with thirty-two cats lived. I might as well have announced that I had plans to date O.J. Simpson. The fierce father of four frowned as he gave me a lecture on the follies of frolicking with a floozy famous for her feline fixation. The air for blocks around was fetid and foul, he fumed. Did I want to ruin both frock and Ford? I told him it was an old dress and I was driving a Buick.

  The truth is, I couldn't smell the cats until I was on the front porch reaching for the bell. But when Agnes opened the door, the rank odor nearly knocked me off my feet. I'd fallen one too many times that day, and was not in a good mood.

  "Thirty-two cats is too many," I managed to say kindly.

  She was a slight woman, perhaps nearly seventy, with a face as pale as cake flour, and yellow-gray hair piled in a formless mass atop a long narrow head. The unattractive do was held in place by enough bobby pins to build a scaffold around the Washington Monument, where they would have undoubtedly done more good.

  Her watery gray eyes searched my face. "Who are you? Are you the lady from animal control?"

  "No. My name is Magdalena Yoder, and I'm from picturesque Hernia. I'd like to have a few minutes of your time, if I may."

  "I already belong to the Methodist church," she said, sounding wistful, but started to close the door.

  There are advantages to having feet as long and narrow as mine. I was able to literally get a toe in the door before it closed. Unfortunately, Agnes was pretty strong for a woman her age, and I could well lose that nail.

  "I'm not here to convert you!" I cried.

  The door opened just wide enough for me to retract my flattened tootsie. "Then what do you want?"

  I can smell a lonely woman, even one who's been living with thirty-two cats. "I just want to chat."

  "Oh? What about?" The door opened wide enough for me to push my way in, had I the desire.

  "This and that. Look, dear, could we possibly conduct our little chat outside? It's such a nice day a
nd—well—I'm allergic to cats." Like I said before, there is nothing in the big Ten about lying—not when it comes to telling tales on oneself. Read the book of Exodus if you don't believe me.

  She stepped halfway out and scanned the sky beyond her porch. "Well, I suppose we could visit in the grape arbor. I've been looking for an excuse to do that all spring. Sit in there, I mean. Would you care for some lemonade?"

  "Do cookies come with that?"

  "Peanut butter. Just made them this morning."

  "With the crisscross fork marks?"

  She smiled. "Of course, is there any other kind?"

  I said a plate of those sounded fine* She excused herself and returned in a very few minutes bearing a mahogany tray with ivory handles. It was loaded with a large pitcher of lemonade, a plate piled high with cookies, two tall frosted glasses, and neatly folded napkins. I had the feeling she'd been expecting company.

  "This way," she said gaily.

  I followed her around to the side of the big white Victorian house. We squeezed past a Colorado blue spruce planted far too close to the foundation, and entered a secret garden. I couldn't believe what I saw.

  12

  The intimate space was barely larger than my boudoir at the Penn-Dutch. The old spruce, in fact, formed an entire wall of this natural courtyard. Lilac trees and the house formed the other three sides.

  In the middle of this outdoor room was a white wooden arbor with built-in seats. The rickety structure was peeling, and looked as if it might well fall apart were it not for the lush grapevines over it. In fact, the thick, woody vines had so intertwined themselves throughout the lattice that the arbor had long since become superfluous.