Jane Smiley - Some Luck

Walter came to the creek. The water was about eighteen inches deep, and crusted with ice from the banks toward the middle though right in the middle it burbled along, dark against the pale ice. Maybe the ice and water were six feet across, or seven. Three years ago, the creek had been three feet deep and twelve feet across (though that was in February) and hadn’t dried up all summer, and the year Lillian was born, it had stretched bank to bank — you could swim in it if you dared, which he did not. Well, that was the year of the big floods down south, and which did you want in the end? That was another year when it seemed like he would finally get a good price and he didn’t, just the same price as always. Something, he thought, maybe stupidity, did not equip him to understand the life that he led.

THE FIRST TIME Frank heard the word “communist” was the day of Opa’s funeral, when Eloise came home from Chicago. He heard Granny Mary tell Mama when they were standing in the kitchen with their backs to the door, “Eloise isn’t a communist. It’s that boyfriend.”

Frank went over to the plate of sandwiches and took another one. He was of course sorry that Opa had died, at least in a way. He, Joey, and Lillian had gotten to say goodbye to Opa only four days before — Mama had kept them home from school and dressed them in ironed shirts and pants, then she and Papa had taken them in the car to Opa and Oma’s house, where the bed was in the front room. Opa was lying there, covered up to the chin even though the weather was pretty hot. Opa’s head was tiny, and his eyes were closed. Frank could just hear him breathing, but that was about it. Mama had led them to the bed one by one, and had each of them take Opa’s hand and say, “Goodbye, Opa, the Lord be with you. I love you,” then give him a kiss on the cheek. His cheek was wrinkled and dry, like an autumn leaf. Mama said he was alive, and Frank supposed it was so, but it was a faint sort of life, Frank understood, and ready to be gone.

Frank was an accomplished eavesdropper (though he would not have called it that — he would just have called it “paying attention”), and so he had overheard all sorts of stories about Opa: Born in 1840, before there was even a state of Iowa, came to America on a tiny ship with no windows that he was allowed to see out of, met Oma just after the War Between the States, in Cleveland, Ohio, where, apparently, everyone spoke German just like back in Germany. And then they came to Iowa.

Granny Mary now said to Mama, “Well, Opa always said, better a communist than an agriculturist. But he only said it in German.”

“A communist was a different thing in those days.”

Frank’s ears might have been ten feet across, but he loitered innocently at the table — he had two ham sandwiches and an egg salad, which he liked very much. He reached for a schnecken.

In Iowa, to hear Opa tell it, he plowed his fields on his hands and knees with a spoon, although Oma always tapped him on the knee when he said this and exclaimed, “You had Tata and Mosca, the two best Belgian draft horses in the county!”

“ Ja , well, they watched me and whinnied to me if I was doing a good job with my spoon!” Then everyone would laugh. Opa started with sixty acres. (“That many! In Germany, no simple man like your opa ever had sixty acres! He had six feet by four feet, most of the time.”) Eventually, Opa ended up with eighty acres, and was happy with that, he always said. Uncle Rolf had been farming them for him for ten years now, Frank thought. He had them in hay some years and oats some years.

Frank saw Granny Mary start to cry again, and took his plate out of the room. Granny Mary said, “I was always so glad that he was my papa. I always was.” And Mama said, “We all were.” Mama put her arm around Granny Mary.

Eloise was sitting on the sofa with Lillian on one side and Joey on the other. She was playing paper, stone, and scissors with them, and Lillian was laughing. They tapped their three fists on Eloise’s knee and made their bets. Joey opened his fist, Eloise opened her fist, and Lillian spread her forefinger and middle finger, then pretended to cut the “paper” produced by the other two. Frank set down his plate and said, “Can I play?”

Eloise said, “Sure,” and Joey scowled. Lillian said, “Frankie hits.”

“He does?” said Eloise.

Joey said, “If he’s the rock and you have scissors, Frankie says he can punch you in the arm.”

Eloise looked at him. “Is that true?”

“It’s not a hard punch.”

“Yes,” said Lillian decidedly, “it is.” Lillian was four and a half now, but even though she was small, Frankie thought she talked like a six-year-old or a seven-year-old. He said, “I won’t hit this time. I’ll stop that rule for now.”

“Okay,” said Eloise.

They played four rounds. Frank won one round with paper; Joey one with rock; and Eloise two, one with scissors and one with rock. Lillian yawned and leaned against Eloise, who put her arm around the little girl. Joey reached for Eloise’s wrist and looked at her watch. He said, “It’s nine-fifteen already.”

“Late,” said Eloise.

“So go to bed,” said Frank. He wanted to find out what a communist was.

At the very thought of bed, Joey yawned.

Frank said, “I’m not tired.”

“Are you ever?” said Eloise.

Frank shrugged. Actually, the answer was no. Even when he went to bed at night, it was because he was told to, not because he was tired. Frank asked Eloise, “Do you miss Opa?”

“Sure. Everyone misses Opa. He was always nice. He’s the only person I ever met who was always nice.”

“Why was that?” said Joey.

“He said he left his naughty side in Germany,” said Eloise. “Standing on the dock, calling to him, as the boat left the harbor. His evil twin. For years, I thought he really had a twin.”

“Did he?” said Joey. But Frank knew the answer.

“No. It was just a way of talking.” They were quiet for a long time after that, and, just like a miracle, Joey yawned again and got up from the couch, while Lillian, who should have been in bed hours ago, closed her eyes and fell asleep. Frank said, “Eloise?”

“What?”

“What’s a communist?”

Eloise only smiled.

“Are you a communist?”

“Not quite. Did someone say I was?”

“No.”

“Then why do you bring it up?” She shifted on the sofa and laid Lillian out flat, then took a shawl that Granny Elizabeth had made off the back of the sofa and laid it over her.

“They said your beau is a communist.”

Now Eloise laughed out loud.

“Why are you laughing?”

“At the idea of Julius Silber ever being called a ‘beau.’ He would call himself my comrade.”

“What’s that?”

“My friend and fellow worker, someone who wants the same things I do. We don’t use words like ‘beau’ or ‘fiancé.’ They’re too French. Julius is English.”

“So a communist is someone who doesn’t like French things? Grandpa Wilmer is like that.”

Eloise pursed her lips and sat back, then said, “Well, Frankie, either you are putting me on, or you’re really interested. I can’t ever tell with you.”

“I want to know. I do.”

She blew out some air and looked toward Granny Mary, then said, “Communists are people who see how unfair the world is and want to make it more fair. They see that some people have much, much more than they will ever need, and other people have nothing, and they don’t think that there is any special reason for that, like God ordaining it or something.”

“Why do you think it is?”

“I think there are a lot of reasons, but the reasons are different here than they are in France, say, or England. Julius was born in England, so he has different ideas from mine.”