A Complicated Kindness

Nomi remembers when Aunt Gonad discovered her and Trudie listening to music while taking care of the children during church. As punishment, The Mouth made Trudie take all the young girls to sing hymns at a Mennonite nursing home. With their gas tanks, hunchbacks, and habit of grabbing the girls’ hands and refusing to let go, the old people were scary. An old woman told Nomi to go to hell. Nomi and Tash begged Trudie to stop taking them there, and eventually Trudie got a job as the church librarian. She was very good at helping people find books they liked.

Nomi and Tash sometimes skipped church to help Trudie shelve books. They read books about Christian children and books about “staying quiet and clean when your husband comes home.” Sometimes they pretended to be German spies and left notes for each other in the books. Sometimes parents used the library to discipline children who were misbehaving during service. Ray built new shelves for the library; he was always happy to be with Trudie, no matter where she was.

While Trudie was working dutifully in the church library, Tash rebelled more and more, piercing her ears and listening to the radio nonstop. She started going out with a boy named Ian, who would grab her bottom while they walked around town together. Trudie marveled at how much Tash was growing, as if overnight; Nomi admired Tash and looked up to her. Tash took good care of her teeth and understood what fascism was. Nomi loved to watch her sister put on sexy lingerie before school while listening Ray shaving and Trudie cooking downstairs. Thinking about Tash and listening to the neighbor girls screaming in her yard, Nomi misses her sister so much she thinks she’s going to die. Then the feeling goes away.

Travis tells Nomi that the novelist Günter Grass mocks Mennonites in his writing, because in Germany they used to burn down mills that didn’t belong to them. Nomi says that she wishes her last name was Grass, but when Travis tells her to change it she says she’s joking. Travis says that she never means anything she says. Nomi and Travis start making out. Nomi thinks that she could never really change her name, because then Tash and Trudie couldn’t find her.

Nomi asks Travis to play his guitar so she can relax. She says that she’ll sketch him while he plays, but she ends up drawing a picture of her family instead. Travis is annoyed, but Nomi kisses him, and he says that she’s hot. Nomi thinks that he’s a little bit mean, but she doesn’t say so. Travis imitates pop stars to make her laugh.

Nomi worries that Mr. Quiring thinks she’s crazy. He knows her whole embarrassing family history—but then again, so does the entire town. Nomi actually enjoys her school assignments, which help her “focus and organize my thoughts.” But Mr. Quiring’s suspicious attitude still bothers her. One day in class, he tells her that he’s seen Ray mowing the lawn on Sunday, which is against the rules.