Body and Bread (24 page)

“This is the happiest day of my life,” he said, smooth as a Rotary Club chairman, and people applauded. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he said, pointing, and a whistle curled around the room.

Terezie’s napkin became a curtain, hiding her face, revealing joy.

“We want to thank y’all for coming, but we especially want to thank our parents.”

Tense, hopeful, the couples glanced at each other.

“But for the first dance,” he said, “I’d like Albina to be my partner.”

“Excuse, please?” Mrs. Cervenka said, blinking. She asked her husband to explain.

“And, Dad?” Sam continued. “Would you dance with my bride?”

Mother drooped. “Oh,” she said, shading her eyes.

“Hold your fire,” my father whispered. He patted her while he stood.

Terezie glanced from Sam to her parents. “Sam,” she called, but he couldn’t hear.

“And, Mother,” Sam continued. He held out his hand, beckoning. “Would you come dance with Josef?”

Kurt grinned, covering his mouth. “Uh-oh,” Hugh said.

“I know this isn’t traditional, but please. Just once.” While he walked to the head table, people turned their chairs to get a clear view. “Albina?”

Tradition
, I thought. He’d once described it as a habit without a reason.

Mrs. Cervenka refused. “Sit,” she hissed, turning away. Sam knelt, coaxing, as my father guided Terezie to the open floor. “Stop that,” Mrs. Cervenka snapped at Sam. “If he does not,” she said to her husband, “I will be leaving.”

“Sam,” Mr. Cervenka said, his voice heavy as a tree trunk, sharp as a saw, “your mother now you should look to, please.”

“Albina,” Sam pleaded, “why? You know you want to. It’ll be fun.”

“Get up,” my mother said, stretching across the table, trying to catch his arm. Hugh slumped, disappearing. “Sam, what’s wrong with you?” she said. “Everyone’s watching.”

Sam stared as though having to translate, then turned back to Mrs. Cervenka. “Just walk to the floor with me. We’ll stand there, not even move.” He pressed her back. “I’ll have an excuse, finally, to give you a hug.”

When Mrs. Cervenka walked away, her husband left with her.

My mother sighed, her shiny nail picking at the tablecloth.

Terezie ran, sleeves rustling, after her parents. Cyril followed her down the hall.

Then my father came toward Sam. “What’s going on?” he asked, his back stiffening.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “For some reason, Albina got mad.”

“Did she say anything?”

Mother leaned on her elbows. “She didn’t want to dance, but Sam, as usual couldn’t leave it alone.”

“What now, boy?” my father commanded. His body became a wall.

I thought of the times he’d whipped Sam, of their near fistfight in the study.

“What would be the
right
thing to do?” my father asked, glancing sideways, his voice a cracked chord.

Sam’s jaw flexed; then he ducked and ran.

During the next half-hour, I visited each table with Kurt, his fiancé, and my parents. “What’s that boy up to, Owen?” my grandfather said, tossing his napkin. “Doesn’t
look
good.” My grandmother’s eyes narrowed, while Ruby, who’d come with them, raised her chin like a flag.

“Nothing to worry about, Dad,” my father said.

My grandfather grumbled, “Expect you to take care of it.”

“Sam’s got everything under control.”

We assured the guests that the couple was fine, that they and Terezie’s family would soon return. Most people pretended to go along. Mrs. Cervenka’s sister, though, tapped her plate with a fork, saying, “Craziest boy ever
I
seen.” If Sam hadn’t appeared, I’d have gone looking for him.

At first he sat, studying his guests. Mrs. Cervenka clutched her purse, wiping her mouth with a Kleenex. Terezie leaned, whispering, until he draped his arm around her, pressing her close.

At midnight, the band took a break, and a group of married women led the bride to a chair in the center of the tin building. Sam, ignoring Kurt’s attempt to stop him, stood close by, his stance a military at-ease position. The women began slowly, somberly, singing a Czech song—“
Včera’s měla z růží věnec/ A dneskaj už máš, a dneskaj už máš/ černý čepec
, Yesterday you had a crown of roses but today you have a black cap”— while they removed Terezie’s white veil and hid her hair’s crimped ends inside a
čepec.
When they finished, she slumped, patting her head. Amidst cheers, Sam broke through the circle, pulled his wife to her feet, then kissed her mouth’s knobby scar.

Terezie was four months pregnant when she miscarried. For days, she and Sam cried, hugging each other and whoever else was nearby. They never mentioned their grief after that. He did, however, send a postcard with a cryptic message: “Don’t trust anyone who wants to forgive you.” In place of his last card’s sketched legs was a doll figure, and underneath it,
Troll
. I worried that I’d somehow offended him. I asked about it, but he walked away, saying, “How do you know it came from me?”

One year to the day after Terezie lost the baby, I started commuting from Palestine to Waco for an anthropology course at Baylor. Conversations with Saul became heated while I read Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and a 1959 translation of the Gnostic
Gospel of Thomas.
I studied Coptic, and a professor’s rare mimeographed transcriptions of other texts from the Nag Hammadi papyri sent me to Saul with more questions.

One day after lunch, Saul and I sneaked to our secret spot. He’d resisted because my questions of late had resulted in testy exchanges, sometimes exciting us until we flirted, aroused; other times we shouted, one of us leaving, silent, provoked. But this afternoon, before he could spread the blanket he’d brought as usual, I pulled him to the ground. The gray sky held us in a steamy cave; the pine brush cushioned our backs. For the first time, I became adventurous, guiding his mouth, hands. Afterward, Saul cupped my chin, pulling me to his downy chest.

“What have they been teaching at Baylor?” he said, sliding one hand behind his head. Trees cast turbulent shadows. “Can you register for a second course?”

I laughed. “Apparently, environment shapes sexual behavior.” I waved toward the garbage hill.

“All right, all right.” Saul stood, tucked his shirttail under his belt.

“Another Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve, all that begetting.”

He grabbed the blanket, pine needles scattering, and lurched up the slope.

“Some serious hanky-panky at that house,” I shouted. “The Bible never explains that.”

My parents hosted a Saturday dinner celebration of my twentieth birthday at their house. Everyone came, including Sam, Terezie, Kurt, his fiancé Randy, and Saul, whom I’d tried to convince to stay in Palestine. My mother served vegetables from a garden she’d planted; my father cooked steaks on the gas grill. We sat at the same dining table where my brothers and I had grown up, a parent at each end. Mother had been sitting there the first time she’d told us about Otis; years later I’d mashed gravy into her blouse. Tonight, our three new members would sit with us, and knowing how my older brothers felt about my boyfriend, I wondered whether there’d be more fireworks. I told myself to play the role my family expected (innocent female) and not to pop off when conversation got tense.

My father graciously invited Saul to say the blessing, and, surprisingly, no one seemed to mind. Dad sat stone-faced; his distraction was understandable, though. My grandfather lay dying in the hospital. I’d asked if I could visit, but he’d said, “Why? It wouldn’t do any good.”

I was the only one who could tell Saul was nervous, his mustache twitching while he studied our faces. He talked to Hugh about Bob Dylan. I complimented Terezie’s hair. She ate two helpings, her farmer’s hands slicing beef like a butcher. “This has a lot of marbling,” she said, chewing. “It must be USDA Prime.”

Sam was unexpectedly quiet. He seemed to hear what people said, but he wasn’t listening. The effect was unnerving, like wondering if you have the flu. Since he majored in psychology, I asked, “So, Sam, have you sat in on any therapy sessions at school yet?”

“Huh,” he muttered, “oh.” He squeezed his eyes closed then blinked. “A few,” he said.

“You’d be surprised what you might discover about yourself,” Saul said, and the room became an echo chamber. He cleared his throat; his mustache quivered. “The unconscious is not just evil by nature. It’s also the source of the highest good.”

My parents glanced at each other, waited.

“Exactly,” I said.

Kurt leaned across the table. “Your fanaticism doesn’t belong here.”

Saul raised his hands. “Forgive me, I—” he said.

“Kurt, really,” I snapped.

“Saul was quoting Carl Jung,” Sam said, expressionless. “So who, then, would you say’s the fanatic?”

C
HAPTER 15

B
Y
C
ORNELIA’S FOURTH VISIT,
we’ve established the idiosyncratic habits of friends. “Hi, Doc,” she says, leaning on the doorjamb, holding a giant cup of juice. “How’s our desperate non-housewife?” I know she’s alluding to a TV show, although I’ve never seen it. “Discover any new species lately?” Sipping from a straw, she sinks into a chair.

“Have you considered that I might be busy? Maybe I’m on my way to class.”

“You’ve got exactly,” she checks her cell phone, “two hours and twenty minutes. Great!” She coughs, rising again, “Lunch.” She pulls an apple from her fanny pack, takes a bite. “Will you still love me without
kolaches
?”

We walk toward our bench outside the building. When we reach the exit door, she puts on rhinestone-framed sunglasses but also shades her eyes with her hand. Wearing shorts and a Joan Jett tee, she looks like the throngs walking past or lounging on the grass, except each slow, sandaled step favors the heel. “You move our bench, Doc?” she says. “That must’ve been a bitch.”

When we finally sit, she coughs. “Aargh,” she says, imitating a malevolent pirate, slapping her chest, then taking a slug of juice.

“Mmmm,” I say, stretching, covering her need to rest, “this is just what I like.” The tower clock chimes like a pipe organ: 2:30. A group of students walk past, bantering

“I have a theory,” Cornelia says, crossing her legs, her sandal dangling like a stripper’s glove. “You study other cultures so you can understand yourself.” She sets her cup on the bench. “Actually, it’s Mom’s theory.” She presses her side, closes her eyes.

“You’re probably right.”

She looks at me again. “And to understand anybody you’re close to, right?”

“Culture influences our sensibilities, dreams, styles, perceptions of power. Yes, I’d say one studies a culture in order to ascertain origins of societal codes of behavior.”

“You’re a trip, Doc.” She shades her eyes again, her bubble-gum nails poised like a geisha’s. “Ask a question, get Anthropology 101.”

“I distinctly heard you say-”

“No, you. I meant
you
, Doc, not any geek off the street. You’re trying to understand yourself, right?”

“Absolutely not. My work is purely professional.”

“Nothing personal about proving that the rest of us are robots.”

“That’s a gross oversimplification.”

“Second theory: To you, behavior is like a math problem, so you can convince yourself that X makes Y.”

“I wonder if there’s an X that could explain your rudeness.”

“No fair. You’re as messed up as the rest of us.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did your brother kill himself?”

“Be careful. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“But I do. I need to. He was married to my mother, and I hardly know anything about him.”

“Ask her then.” I check my watch. “I appreciate you coming, but I have to get back to my office.” I take a step. “You should see my stack of papers.”

“Okay,” she says, grabbing my arm, “just one question.” She squeezes. “Please.”

A man dressed in a suit, carrying a basketball, trots by, pockets jingling.

“Depends on the question.”

“You’re not going to like it, but it’s important, and you’re absolutely the only possible person I can ask.”

“I’m not promising anything.”

“I can imagine
why
he killed himself,” Cornelia says. “What I want to know is
how
.”

Her face expands, the shadowed eyes now holes, sucking. “This subject,” I say, “is off limits, you understand? Besides its morbidity, your question is out of my realm.”

“You don’t understand,” she says. “I can’t ask anybody else.”