The Twins. Sheldon Cohen

covered with perspiration. He entered the kitchen with its homemade cabinets, tables and chairs that he had built from the trees on his farm.

      Brigid was in the kitchen wearing her apron. She had prepared dinner and she took one look at Werner with his dirty, grease-covered hands and face, disheveled hair, and lips turned down into that familiar scowl, and she wondered what would erupt. She knew that there was tension between them and she knew the reason. She twisted her apron strings, as she was prone to do when she was nervous. Their situation gave her considerable depression, which caused her to become more withdrawn. Even her rare smiles had disappeared. Werner would often find her with her head in her hands looking down at the floor, her cheeks pale, and her sparkling brown eyes and hair turned dull. “You better leave me,” she would say. “I can’t give you a son.”

      Werner had not responded yet, but she knew how he felt. The support Brigid needed during this very stressful time would not come from Werner; it never had. Her depression continued, and with it, she was losing all interest in the physical side of their marriage, feigning headaches and avoiding him whenever she could.

      Werner was becoming more angry and tense. She had been dreading the eruption, but at the same time hoped it would happen so that the issue could be settled. One look at him told her now might be the time. She was right.

      “You don’t want to try anymore? Are you waiting for an Immaculate Conception?” said Werner with a stern, angry look on his face, as if that had been the topic of discussion all along. “That only happened one time in history. I’m boiling inside. Why the hell I put up with it I’ll never know.”

      “I don’t care what you do,” she said.

      “Let’s go to a doctor in Munich and see if he can find out what’s wrong with you.”

      “Doctors can’t do anything; it’s an act of God. If you leave, I’ll understand.”

      “He was right,” said Werner.

      “Who was right? What are you talking about?” she asked, making eye contact with her husband for the first time.

      “I talked to Pastor Braun. He said that you would say just what you said. He told me that women get depressed when they can’t get pregnant and want to give up and leave so their husbands can marry someone else.”

      “I’d understand if you did that. Why did you speak to Pastor Braun?”

      “It took me awhile to get up the nerve. It was digging a hole in my brain. I needed someone to talk to before I blew up. I can get what you have to offer anytime. There are plenty of women out there that might be interested.”

      “So go,” she said, her gaze drifting away from her husband.

      “The whole thing is driving me crazy. At least the pastor will not shoot his mouth off; he’ll keep it to himself. Do you want me to divorce you?” he asked.

      With unchanged expression, she said, “That’s fine. You’ll do what you want anyhow.”

      Banging his greasy hands on the clean white tablecloth, he said, “That settles it. Pastor Braun wants to see us. He said to come in tonight. I told him we’d be there another time because I have to go to Alfred’s bachelor party. Tomorrow’s Alfred’s wedding day. Remember?”

      Werner turned and left the room. Brigid sighed in relief. The tirade was over for now, but she knew he had laid down the gauntlet. Not a word passed between them the rest of the night.

      CHAPTER 3

      Werner dressed in his Sunday finest. He and two of Alfred’s friends were to meet Alfred in the town’s beer hall where they would spend one last night with him while he was still a bachelor. Werner was in no mood for levity, but this obligation he could not ignore.

      Alfred was the first to arrive. He chose a booth in one corner of the large square room farthest from the bar. He sat there contemplating his future as a married man, burying his insecurity behind a confident demeanor.

      Werner’s younger and only brother, Alfred, was twenty years old. He lived in town and worked as an apprentice glass blower. In fact, he was the source for the glass tubes for his father’s experiments. During the heavy season of malt production, Alfred would spend whatever time he could spare working on the farm helping Werner.

      He was the same size as his older brother, also had blue eyes and blond hair, and knew how to have a good time. Unlike Werner, who resembled their father, Alfred had more of his mother’s appearance. He had a thin face, high cheekbones, and a slightly upturned nose. Several months ago, he had announced his engagement to Helene Schmidt, the only child of a local hotel owner.

      Besides blowing decorative glass works, Alfred was involved in producing the cathode ray tubes physicists and chemists used for experiments at the University of Munich. He would receive drawings of these special tubes and then shape them according to the scientist’s specifications. This was the most difficult task in glass blowing, and Alfred’s boss, Sigmund Halder, blew the more complicated forms. Alfred would tackle the simpler structures, and, when he showed improvement, Sigmund would give him some of the more difficult tasks. He would fashion a cathode ray tube for Ludwig and wonder why his father was wasting his time on “that stuff.”

      The second son of a German farm family needed an occupation to depend upon, because the first-born son would always inherit the farm. In German society, this was tradition. Many second sons would leave Germany in difficult times. The majority of them immigrated to the United States.

      Alfred was secure for the time being. Although his income was insufficient to support a wife, his apprenticeship was doing well, and working with his brother in malt production supplemented his salary enough to give him the confidence to go ahead with the wedding.

      Ludwig had no such faith, and he suggested his son should wait until he had more financial security. Alfred would have none of it.

      “My job is good,” he would answer his father.

      Ludwig would counter. “I know what you do at the glass works. You spend a lot of time blowing those glass shapes for the University of Munich…”

      “Yeah, I do. So that’s good, isn’t it?” interrupted Alfred.

      “It’s been good, but the use of those glass tubes is for a certain kind of research. And they’ve made discoveries about the atom and light and electricity that could mean that this kind of research might not be necessary anymore. They may cut down or even stop using those glass tubes. You never know.”

      “How do you know about that kind of stuff?” Alfred would ask.

      “I read plenty. You should try it sometime. They learned a lot by passing electricity through those tubes. In fact, they learned what electricity is, so they may not need to experiment like that any more. It looks like they have better methods now.” At this point Alfred’s eyes would glaze over, and Ludwig would realize that he had just wasted his breath.

      Alfred remained deep in thought as he waited for his guests at the beer hall. Noisy and boisterous patrons filled the room. The Augsberg beer hall was the most popular meeting place in town.

      The room was about forty meters square with a high ceiling held up by twelve pillars. Tables seating two to eight patrons filled the center of the room. Booths seating four to eight patrons surrounded the periphery on two sides. A large bar with stools occupied a third side. Behind the bar were two entrances to the kitchen.

      Alfred’s waitress approached him. “Yes sir, what would you like?”

      Alfred could only stare. The waitress was very attractive. She had large brown-green eyes and brown hair that flowed an inch past her shoulders. She wore no makeup, but Alfred could see that she needed none, for her complexion was as clear and unblemished as an artist’s portrait. She wore an apron over a floor length brown skirt and an orange blouse with embroidered frills on her shoulders. However, a frown and her moist shimmering eyes shattered the image as Alfred noticed that she appeared to be on the verge of tears.