Gwendolyn

By Homer Charles Hiatt

A small town girl blessed with extraordinary physical beauty, slowed by a weak intellect, and sometimes goaded by a hot temper, Gwendolyn finds tragedy, unconventional love, notoriety, and revenge as she stumbles through a life of lucky turns and misfortunes. Gwen's story involves a host of characters, some loving and some hostile, and is a tale of stubborn survival. The reader is certain to root for her throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481747592

Homer Charles Hiatt

The author lives in rural Missouri with his companion Kate, two dogs and three pot-bellied pigs. This is his third novel.

Book preview

Gwendolyn

A Novel

Homer Charles Hiatt

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AuthorHouse™

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www.authorhouse.com

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© 2013 by Homer Charles Hiatt. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/07/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4761-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4760-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-4759-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907764

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my wife, Lisa, to Ellen Hill,

And to Shelly McNerney for their careful editing.

And a special thank-you to Melanie Layer

For the crafty cover design.

To Marilyn

ONE

St. John’s Lutheran Church faced north, its front battered by Minnesota snow storms in the winter and deprived of a ray of direct sunshine during the seemingly short summers. It was a plain building made of local timber and painted white. A tall steeple rose from a shingled roof and could be seen for miles around because the church sat on flat farmland a half mile from the nearest town, Zion, Minnesota. German immigrants built St. John’s in 1875, the parsonage a year later. Families buggied, and in later years motored, to their isolated place of worship every Sunday sharing the notion that peace and quiet promoted piety. They were right on at least two counts. The place was peaceful and it was quiet.

Once automobiles came into common use a driveway evolved, connecting a gravel country road to a dirt parking area at the south side of the church. This ill-defined parking lot was, in turn, bordered by a cemetery and the parsonage. The cemetery enjoyed a clear definition, its four sides clearly marked by a row of sizable, flat, smooth stones all painted white and spaced two feet apart. The parsonage, a white frame house that matched the church in simplicity, was separated from the cemetery by a patch of lawn, and was connected to the church by a narrow strip of sidewalk.

By the 1940’s, the interior of the church looked old and worn, but the place was kept clean and neat as a pin. Pews made of darkly stained wood filled the sanctuary, their scratches covered with repeated coats of furniture polish that, over the years, filled the room with a musty odor. The pews allowed for a sizable aisle to run straight from the south door of the church to a stage that supported a pulpit, a large ornate chair with a brass sign bearing the name of the current pastor, an upright piano, and two flags. One flag was the stars and stripes of the USA. The other belonged to the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church of America. A large, thin, bare cross hung on the wall behind the stage. Just under the cross was a small door that allowed access to the rope of the steeple bell. Both lateral walls of the church bore two large stained glass windows, all four of identical size and shape. The translucent glass of each window held eight colored rectangles haphazardly arranged so as to suggest a toddler had come up with the design. The glass rectangles, all 4x8 inches, came in four colors—blue, red, green and tan—and each window held two of each color. All in all, the stained glass windows looked out of character with the stern interior of the church, but no one in any given congregation had ever made an issue of it.

The parsonage hadn’t changed much since providing a home for the first minister and his family. The place had a living room, a kitchen, two second floor bedrooms and a small bathroom. A dank basement initially held a coal-burning furnace that was eventually replaced with an oil heating unit. A fresh coat of white paint and new roof shingles spruced up the exterior every ten years or so. A thoughtful member of the congregation built a swing and a sandbox for the small plot of lawn at the rear of the house. There were no outbuildings, and if the family had a car it sat exposed to the elements. Inside, the rooms were devoid of rugs and held little in the way of furniture and wall décor. The place rattled and echoed as one walked through it, the old wooden floors creaking in protest and the windows threatening to fall out of their frames. Winter was particularly hard on the occupants of the old house, not only because the structure lacked insulation, but because it sat on an unprotected lay of land that felt the full force of the northern wind. Even with the furnace working at its maximum, the Minnesota cold could render the drafty home a chilly 50 degrees during the day and even colder at night.

Welton Rathkamp was a third-generation minister to St. John’s and the first of the Rathkamps to be born in the United States. In fact, his grandfather was a founding father of the church, and his father held the pulpit for 35 years. Welton took the position just a year before the country entered World War II. He was 29 years old at the time, of average height and weight, sported a bad haircut, and usually wore a thread-bare black suit. And though his sermons pitched the traditional fire and brimstone like his father and grandfather spouted before him, his messages became tied to patriotism and the war effort. Each Sunday, Welton ordered his listeners to embrace sin and anti-Americanism as one and the same. He told them to see the obvious, the clear fact that God loved the Allies, hated the Nazis, and condemned the heathen Japanese to an eternity in Hell. But he carried the shame of the German-American people of that era even farther. He explained the little evils of daily life by suggesting a relationship between misfortune and an unforgiven German heritage. To find salvation, you had to wash the Hun from your soul, he often said. To do that, you had to pray, and you had to pray correctly. You had to pray as a Lutheran.

Welton had a personal reason for believing that, because of his heritage, he was a cursed man. On his forehead, about an inch above his right eye, grew a large, black, protruding mole that sprouted coarse hairs. As a boy, he hated the thing and begged his father to arrange for its removal. The rigid Lutheran minister wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that physical flaws grew from God’s will and Satan’s doing. Welton grew up hearing that his blemish was to be a reminder of his imperfection and a target for prayers of purification. When finished with his seminary training, Welton actually came to embrace his father’s view, but a religious rationalization didn’t diminish his embarrassment over his ugly mole. He snipped off the hairs once a week and covered the black mass as best he could with a variety of hats and caps. When preaching, he hid the blemish with a piece of adhesive tape, which only drew attention to his forehead. So, as Welton stood before his congregation telling them to cleanse themselves of the devil Hun, his shame stood out like a white flag. If he saw his hypocrisy, he never admitted it to anyone.

Welton’s parents died before he reached the age of thirty, and he lived alone in the parsonage until he eventually married Alma Kich, a person he had known most of his life. Alma was the daughter of the pharmacist in Zion, and had been a high school classmate who once shared a co-lead with Welton in a senior class play. She openly admired his gift of gab and flair for the dramatic, and thought it a wise choice on his part that he enter the ministry. When Welton attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, they wrote frequently, and when he took over the pulpit at St. John’s from his father, Alma sat in a front pew every Sunday to listen to him preach. The woman seemed to appreciate Welton for things other than his appearance, often asking members of the congregation if they were as inspired by his sermons as much as she. Alma quickly became known as the minister’s most ardent admirer. And it didn’t hurt the couple’s relationship that she apparently didn’t care a lick about his mole.

Alma was a large and gangly woman. She carried her father’s heavy long bones, big ears, and long pointed nose. Prematurely gray, she wore her hair in a bun. She usually wore a cotton house-dress and sturdy black shoes. Her talent lay in sewing. She could take a bolt of fabric and turn it into a handsome dress for church or a visit to town. If there was anything odd about her, it was the way she spoke. Alma tended to use incomplete sentences, as though stringing together nouns, verbs, and adjectives was a waste of time. The funny thing was, windbag Welton Rathkamp liked the way Alma talked. He occasionally joked that her curt style made more room for his loquaciousness.

Welton and Alma were married in front of a guest pastor at St. John’s Church in the summer of 1941. Welton wore a suit he ordered from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. Alma wore her deceased mother’s wedding dress. The couple spent their wedding night at the parsonage. After a sharing a piece of cake graciously provided by Alma’s father, who used up a month of sugar rations to come up with the pastry, Welton and Alma retired to the upstairs bedroom that held the minister’s double bed. It was nearly 10 o’clock and the night was cool. Welton waited under the covers while Alma readied herself in the bathroom down the hall. There could be little doubt the two were filled with anticipation, but they couldn’t have readied themselves for the impasse that awaited them.

Come on, Alma. Don’t keep your husband waiting, Welton called. The impatient man appeared to be listening for the creaking of the old wood floor that would signal his bride’s approach. Soon enough, heavy footsteps echoed in the hall, and then Alma appeared at the bedroom door in white cotton bedclothes.

Get the light, would you? Welton asked. Alma flipped the light switch near the door and the room darkened. Then she climbed into bed with Welton, who wasted no time unbuttoning her clothes and putting a hand on her bare chest. There could be no doubt that what he felt shocked him. What are those? he cried.

Problem? Alma asked.

Welton jumped out of bed, flipped the light back on and returned to sit on the edge of the bed. Open up, he demanded, pointing to Alma’s bed clothing.

Alma sat up and did what her husband asked of her, opening the front of her gown just enough for him to see the many little moles and skin tags on her chest. Welton gawked at them, and then took the liberty of peeking down the back of her gown. He found a sea of blemishes on her back as well. Why didn’t you tell me? he said, almost in a whisper.

Mean these? Alma said as she brushed over her moles with a hand. What’s to tell?

Cover up, Welton said as he stood up and began to pace. He rubbed his mole as he walked back and forth. We can’t have children, he finally stammered.

Why not? Alma said.

Our curse. We’d turn out monsters.

What curse?

The minister stopped his pacing and stared at his wife. Do you see this? he said as he pointed to his mole. This is the devil’s work. He’s been working on you as well. We can’t pass this on to our children.

Crazy talk.

Welton acted like he didn’t hear his wife’s last comment. Lord, what am I going to do? as he resumed pacing.

Be a man, Welton, Alma said.

This time, Alma got Welton’s attention. He stopped in his tracks, looking for all the world like he was making a big decision. Then he walked over to turn off the light and then crawled back into bed. This is all on you, he said.

Alma didn’t say a thing. The consummation was over in less than a minute. Then Welton and Alma Rathkamp fell asleep.

*     *     *

A year later, Alma gave birth at County Hospital. It was a still-born. Welton first heard about the tragedy in the waiting room.

I’m so sorry, Reverend, the doctor said to Welton that day. Sometimes first-borns have their troubles. You two will have others, I’m sure.

May I see the child? Welton asked. He had a dusty fedora pulled down over his mole.

Of course. This way.

Minutes later, Welton stood over a bassinet in the corner of the hospital’s nursery. He pulled back the sheet and gazed at the wrinkled, lifeless child. Damn it all to hell, he whispered as he beheld the heavy sprinkle of moles and tags that covered the pale body. It’s the curse of the Hun. Then, in anger, he stuck a finger under his fedora, sunk a fingernail into the flesh of his cursed mole, and pulled away some black skin until blood ran down his face. He remained at the side of the bassinet until well after the blood had dried and his son was cool to the touch. I told her, he said, over and over.

Welton didn’t visit Alma’s bedside that day. Instead, he drove home and walked directly to the Rathkamp headstone in the St. John’s cemetery.

I swear to you, Father, there will be no more children from our seed, Welton yelled. His face turned crimson with rage, and a sweat soaked his fedora. Both hands were clenched in fists. I told Alma, Father, he went on. She carries the curse, just as I do. But this still-born was her doing. I’ll make her pay, Father. She will pay for this."

Several days later Welton and Alma sat together in the kitchen of the parsonage sipping vegetable soup at their vinyl-top table. It was dark and cold outside, and a single overhead bulb lit the little room, casting an eerie light on the couple huddled just in front of a cask iron sink. Welton kept his black suit coat on to ward off the night chill. Alma wore a tattered wool sweater buttoned to the neck. Their dead son lay in a child’s coffin in the dark living room next to a lifeless fireplace. For a good while, the only sounds came from the slurping of soup. At long last, Welton said something to his wife.

How are you feeling, Alma? Welton muttered.

Fair to middlin’, Alma replied, not looking up from her soup.

The doctor said you named the baby.

That’s so.

You should have consulted me.

Oh yah?

Still-borns don’t have souls. There’s no need to name them.

Don’t say.

You’ll forget the name, hear me.

Alma didn’t respond. Rather, she collected the two empty soup bowls and carried them to the sink. While washing the dishes she asked, Be fetching a proper casket?

The old one will do, Welton said.

And the funeral?

I’ll say a few words at his grave, and that’ll be it.

Seems cruel to me.

What’s cruel is this cursed German blood we carry. We’re marked, Alma.

Ach, don’t believe that.

You’ll believe what I tell you to believe. I am the pastor. You are my wife. You’ve got to play ball here.

Ah, phooey.

I told you about having children, Alma.

Alma swung around and faced her husband. Think I wanted a still-born? she screamed.

What if it had lived? Welton shot back. It would’ve been covered with moles.

So what?

No more, Alma. No more children.

Alma turned back to the sink and started to sob, a big hand over her eyes.

No crying, Welton ordered. Come pray with me.

Though still in tears, Alma joined her husband at the table. Welton took her hand, saying, You will do the praying tonight. You owe it to me.

What?

Repeat after me: God bless my husband and God bless the United States of America.

Alma stared at Welton. Crazy talk, she muttered.

Say your prayer, Welton insisted.

Won’t.

Welton stood and grabbed Alma’s hair. Say it, he yelled.

God bless husband… and the United States, Alma screeched.

That’s better, Welton said as he released his hold. Alma ran to the stairs and clamored up to the second floor. Welton surely heard the bathroom door slam. Then, he walked to a dark window and stared at the reflection of his face. He leaned in and examined his mole. The ugly thing was still there all right, likely prodding him to say, No more. No more.

*     *     *

A month after infant Rathkamp was buried in an unmarked grave in a corner of the St. John’s cemetery, Alma readied herself to run errands in Zion. Because their old Ford wasn’t running, she had to ask for a ride from one of the church members. The old coot showed up in an Oldsmobile an hour late.

What’s wrong with your Ford this time? her driver asked after spitting tobacco out of his window. The man wore a sweat-stained hat and dirty overalls.

Moisture I expect, Alma said.

Fords ain’t what they used to be. Parts are probably goin’ overseas.

Alma had no response. She just sat up looking prim in her gray dress and blue hat, likely wanting to make an impression of respectability as the wife of a minister. In no time, the Oldsmobile pulled up in front of the Zion post office.

Meetcha back here in an hour? the man suggested, spitting again.

Fine, Alma said as she exited the car and walked away.

Adjusting her hat, Alma walked into the lobby of the post office, passing under a painted sign that read Zion, Minnesota pop. 809. The town was a flat square mile with six dirt streets running east and west and six running north and south. Towering elms and oaks lined the thoroughfares, as did bumpy sidewalks that ran between the trees and the modest homes or humble places of business. The citizens were mainly of German descent and attended one of two Lutheran churches. There were perhaps twenty-five Methodist families who had a church of their own. The single family of Catholics had to travel to a neighboring town for Mass. The older residents retained a clipped accent attributed to having been exposed to the German language as children, and they used odd expressions that evolved from tortured translations. Often heard, for example, was Seest do, which stood for Do you understand. The younger generations sounded a good deal different from their elders. The distinct Minnesota accent hit their ears early on and gave their speech a Nordic flavor. So, while a grandfather would offer a short Ya as an affirmative, his grandson would likely utter, Oh yaaah. Alma fell in between these groups, perhaps explaining her sometimes confusing, abbreviated speech.

Inside the post office, Alma scanned the interior she had looked at countless times in her 32 years. Three walls of the post office lobby were made up of mail boxes, each with a number and a built-in combination lock. On the fourth wall hung a map of Zion that showed the grid of streets all bearing rather generic street names, the locations of the three school buildings, the town park, the community hall, and the building that housed the police and volunteer fire departments. In a probable attempt to give the map some class, a prankster had drawn a water tower in the middle of the design with Chicago printed on it. Alma headed for the Rathkamp box, dialed the three-digit combination and swung open the metal door. Inside she found a flier asking patriots to buy war bonds. She found no letters. There wasn’t even a bill. Needn’t bother, she said to herself.

Next, Alma walked down a tidy sidewalk to Stelling’s grocery, a small store in the first floor of a two-story brick building on Main Street. War time rationing made the grocery look empty indeed, and the owners displayed their merchandise on shelves placed toward the front to make their foodstuff seem more abundant. Alma nodded a greeting to Mrs. Stelling as she walked in, and, after a little browsing, bought a brick of Velveeta cheese, a loaf of bread, a pint of milk, a tin of coffee, six apples and a head of lettuce. She looked in the meat counter and, as usual, found it empty. Mrs. Stelling bagged the groceries and told Alma she would have her son deliver the food to the parsonage, a kindness Alma returned with a nickel donation to Mrs. Stelling’s church, the other Lutheran church near Zion, St. Paul’s.

Alma’s next stop was her father’s pharmacy. This store also sat in the first floor of a two-story building on Main Street, but it had a large picture window in front that read, KICH PHARMACY in red letters. Inside, a long wood and glass counter running from front to back along a wall displayed a wide assortment of goods including cheap jewelry, pocket knives, fishing lures, toys, and ink pens. Magazine stands and tables were arranged along the opposite wall and offered customers the latest editions of the town newspaper, the Zion Herald, as well as reasonably current magazines. School supplies could be found there as well. In the rear rested an enormous worn desk where Bill Kich dispensed prescription medications and gave advice on over-the-counter products. Behind the desk were shelves that held a dozen or so brown glass vats. The contents of these vats comprised the medication of the time, desiccated thyroid, Phenobarbital, strychnine, and so forth. The pills gave a peculiar odor to the back of the store, a mysterious, medicinal smell that told customers Bill Kich was a man with a profession.

This day, Alma needed nothing from this store. But she never missed a chance to visit with her Papa. She found him in a private room that was separated from the shop by a heavy curtain.

Ach, it’s my fraulein, Bill Kich cried when he saw Alma. Sitz du. I’ve got coffee, he said in his thick accent.

Bill slipped off his wire-rimmed glasses and smoothed back his gray hair before pouring two cups of strong coffee. The gangly man with big ears and a narrow nose left no doubt he was Alma’s father.

You look like your mother in that hat, bless her soul, Bill commented as he handed his daughter her coffee.

Oh yah? Alma said, looking self-conscious as she fiddled with her hat.

I wish you had known her. She was quite the woman.

As always, Alma fell silent at the mention of her long-dead mother. No one knew what came over her during those moments, not even her father. Whatever it was, she rarely let it linger. She sipped on her coffee, and winced. Got sugar and what-not-all? she asked her father.

Not these days. Rationing, you know.

The two look-alikes shared their hot drinks without speaking much, appearing to be waiting for the other to bring up something worthy of conversation. Finally, Bill mentioned the baby.

Your spirits any better since you lost your son? Bill asked.

Believe so. Time heals, Papa.

And how is Reverend Rathkamp?

Alma squirmed at the question. You know Welton, she murmured.

That I do. What can you say.

Made him mad over the stillborn.

I’m not surprised. He’s as easy to rile as he is stubborn.

Then I should respect that. But I mess up.

"Don’t blame yourself. You married a