Princess of Passyunk (12 page)

At length, he decided that perhaps he might coax it into a matchbox. He had not yet stopped to ask himself why. This cockroach couldn't be his bride. Not really. After all, a man couldn't marry a cockroach, and besides, he was only sixteen.

The thing had been sitting on the ball for days, but surely it couldn't stay there for
years
. He wondered how it had managed to remain on the ball without anyone but Baba Irina noticing. He thought of asking his brother if he'd seen it, but he doubted Nikolai noted much of anything that took place in their room, for it had nothing to do with Princess Annie.

And most certainly it would not do to mention cockroaches to Mama.

He created a small lean-to over the ball on his side of the dresser using his marble box and the Virgin Mary (with humble apologies) to prop up the baseball glove. The makeshift hiding place complete, Ganady went downstairs in search of a matchbox, but he didn't find one. He didn't get the chance, for Yevgeny arrived at their front door with tickets to a Saturday matinee of
Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy
.

oOo

Ganady had not been long gone when Baba Irina poked her head tentatively into the boys' room. She did not see the baseball at first, but shortly noticed the odd mitt tent atop the dresser.

It took only a tap to knock the glove askew. The ball was beneath it, but the cockroach was gone.

Irina's eyes darted about, seeking the insect. “Don't try to hide from me,” she told it. “I'm an old woman, maybe, but I can still thread a needle. If I can thread a needle, I can find you. And there are no
mitzvot
about
chasing
cockroaches.”

The sharp eyes swept the dresser and noted that the Catholic saint (a graven image, in Irina's opinion) had sprouted a fine pair of antennae.

“Ah, there you are! You see? I told you I had good eyes. Now, out with you. Out where I can see you.”

The antennae slowly lengthened; a head appeared, then a gleaming black-cherry carapace. At last the entire cockroach sat exposed atop Saint Mary's head.

“How do you do?” Irina inquired. “You see? I'm not afraid of a cockroach. Not even one as impressive as you. You startled me before,” she added by way of explanation.

The insect sat placidly atop the ceramic saint, seeming to be equally unafraid of an old Jewish woman.

Irina peered at the creature, tilting her head this way and that. At last, she moved the statue to the front of the dresser, careful to avoid picking it up, and tilted it—the better to study its passenger.

“Why is my Ganady so concerned about a cockroach, eh?”

The antennae waved amiably.

“You are an impressive creature,” she told it. “God's handiwork is always to be admired. But you are also vermin and you do not belong in my grandsons' room. Now, it's sabes today, as you know, so I can't throw you out. And you cannot speak, so I suppose there's no knowing how you came to be here. But when the sun sets, the sabes is done, and
then
may heaven protect you.”

Perhaps it was her imagination, but it seemed to Irina that the cockroach shifted ever so slightly in the direction of the window.

“Of course, if you were to leave of your own accord...”

Irina shrugged, tipped the icon upright and gave the insect one last tilted look.

“I'll leave the window open for you. There are no
mitzvot
about opening windows.”

She did open the window, lifting the sash only enough to allow something the size of a cockroach to slip through. She afforded the dresser one last glance, noting that the insect had now oriented itself entirely toward the window.

“Four hours to sunset, I think,” she confided, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Her daughter stood in the hall, a puzzled expression on her face. “Who were you talking to, Mamma?”

“Talking? Who should I be talking to?”

“Well...no one,” said Rebecca. “The boys are both out.”

“Perhaps I was talking to God.”

Rebecca looked skeptical. “In the boys' room?”

“Ravke Kutshinska! Can you imagine a place on this earth where one cannot talk to God?” She let those be her parting words and took herself off to her own room, her straight back an exclamation point.

oOo

The hiding place he'd so carefully constructed had been disassembled; the Virgin stood now at the edge of his dresser; The Baseball had rolled up against the box of marbles.

The Cockroach was gone.

A subtle sound from the window made him turn to find the sash up and the window ever-so-slightly ajar.

Had Baba violated the
mitzvot
after all?

He was supposed to practice his clarinet, but instead he pocketed The Baseball and went looking for his Baba, feeling a certain strange guilt.

She was in the little garden behind the house, sitting on a wooden bench his Da had built. She had a sweater about her shoulders and was sipping a cup of tea. Mama was with her, carefully potting herbs on a workbench her husband had lovingly crafted from wood scraps he'd collected from the machine shop where he now worked as a warehouse manager.

Ganady hesitated. How could he ask after The Cockroach with Mama here?

He started to withdraw back into the house, but he had been seen.

“I don't hear music,” his Mama said, swiping hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand. “Why is it I don't hear music?”

“I...uh...I needed to ask Baba...”

Baba looked at him out of the corner of her eye, the teacup half raised to her lips. “Yes?”

“Uh, my dresser. There was something sitting on it and the window was open and I was afraid that...I mean, I wondered if the something might have blown off...maybe.”

“This may have happened,” Baba Irina said. “I opened the window to air the room out, but I didn't throw any of your things away, if that's what you're thinking. There are
mitzvot
, you know.”

He relaxed a bit. Perhaps The Cockroach had left on its own. And if it had done that, then...

Then what? He didn't have to
marry
it?

Ganady swallowed a giggle.

“This thing you've lost,” Baba said, gazing into her teacup. “How did you come by it?”

“Oh, I, uh...I found it. In an alley.” He shrugged. “It...it sort of ended up stuck to my baseball. Sort of.”

Baba's eyes were full on him now, her expression somewhere between amusement and bewilderment. “So you brought it home, this thing?”

“Um...yeah. Silly, huh?”

Mama looked up from her herbs. “What are you talking about, you two?”

Ganny felt as if his throat had frozen shut. “Oh, uh... It was...”

“A baseball card,” Baba finished. “A filthy thing, but special to the boy, you know? I thought perhaps, he should throw it away. I was
going
to throw it away, but he reminded me, my good
boychik,
of the carrying
mitzvah
.”

Rebecca Puzdrovsky smiled at him crookedly, a tumble of dark curls falling over one eye. “Well, our good
boychik
should forget just now about lost baseball cards and practice his clarinet.”

“Yes, Mama,” Ganady said and fled the garden in a warm tingle of relief.

Spring progressed, weather warming, the neighborhood coming to life like one of those wildlife habitats Ganady had studied at school.

The Cockroach did not reappear. Ganny tried not to believe it was because he kept the Waitkus Baseball in the pocket of the new denim jacket his parents had purchased for his birthday in June but given him early because, his mother said, she wanted to see him get some use out of it before he outgrew it.

He carried the ball with him everywhere and dreamed of batting fifth in the Phillies lineup and playing second base. He carried it with him everywhere, that is, until the Saturday night that marked the cusp between spring and summer. The Saturday night after the last Friday of school.

That Saturday night, the entire Puzdrovsky family was on its way out the door to go to a special showing of
The African Queen
, when Rebecca Puzdrovsky noticed the peculiar bulge in her son's jacket.

“What is this?” she asked, patting at it. “A baseball? Tsk. Ganny, you can't leave this at home?”

“Well,” he began, and Da said, “Leave it home, Ganny. We're going to a movie, not a baseball game.”

So he left the ball behind on his dresser.

After the movie, they went out for ice cream and Ganady all but forgot about The Baseball in the laughter and chatter, as they recounted their favorite parts of the film.

“I liked the
leeches
,” said Nikolai, putting his face next to Marija's. “Didn't you like the leeches, Mari?”

And little Marija, on cue, squeaked and shivered and screwed up her pretty face. “I
hated
the leeches!”

“What?” asked Nick in mock surprise. “You don't want leech-flavored ice cream?”

“Eeeuuw!”

“How about Swamp Surprise Sundae?”

“Eeeuuw,” said Marija again, rewarding her oldest brother with a great rolling of dark eyes.

Mama, of course, had liked the love story. Especially the ship-deck wedding ceremony. Romantic, she said, no doubt thinking of her own shipboard romance.

Da just smiled and said it was a very fine film.

Ganady, for his part, had liked the adventure of it best of all. The heroism. It was a different kind of heroism than they portrayed in most of the other wartime movies he'd seen, but it was heroism nonetheless.

It was like baseball, he supposed. There were the home-run hitters and there were the guys who threw out the opponents' runner at the plate, who stole bases quietly and without a big fuss, who executed double plays as if they could do it in their sleep. Charlie Arnott was that kind of hero, Ganny thought. And that was not such a bad kind of hero to be.

He climbed the stairs to his room thinking these things and stopped unaccountably on the threshold, reluctant to enter. He was reluctant, he realized, because of what he feared he might find on his dresser.

He scoffed at himself. What—did he think that just because the Waitkus Baseball was back on his dresser, the cockroach would come back to the ball?

“What's the matter, kid? Fall asleep on your feet?” Nikolai shoved past him into the room, flicking on the light as he went in.

Ignoring his brother's use of the humiliating word, Ganny made himself step across the threshold—made himself walk to the dresser and look.

The Baseball sat there, next to his box of marbles. Empty. Not a cockroach in sight.

He relaxed, laughing at himself and wondering if he'd inherited his imagination from Baba Irina or if she'd merely fed it up with her stories.

oOo

Summer began and the days settled into a pattern of chores and movies and clarinet practice and ballgames usually attended by Ganady, Nikolai, and Yevgeny, occasionally by Mr. Ouspensky and less frequently by their Da. Since Vitaly Puzdrovsky had assumed a manager's role at the machine shop, he seemed to have less time these Saturdays to spend on such things as baseball games.

If his attendance at mass was any standard, Nikolai would soon be eligible for sainthood, or at least beatification. He had gotten on well enough with Mrs. Guercino, but Mr. Guercino never spoke a word to him except to grunt when he said hello. Stefano continued to hate his guts.

Nothing much came of this hatred for some time, for Nikolai was careful in his attentions to Annie, timing them to her brother's absences. But, inevitably, there came another evening upon which Nick hadn't arrived home by the time his younger brother was abed, and the household was filled with a tense but hopeful dread.

When Ganady awoke in the morning to see the familiar and comforting lump in his brother's bed, he was relieved. But relief quickly turned to curiosity and curiosity to frustration. While Nikolai snored beneath his covers, Ganady burned to know where he'd been so late and if anything had been said when he arrived home.

As he debated whether to wake his brother, their mother called up the stairs that breakfast would be on the table in a matter of minutes.

The lump that was Nikolai stirred and mumbled.

“Nikki!” Ganady called.

“Yeah?” came muffled from beneath the covers.

“What time did you get home?”

“Late.”

“How late?”

“I don't know...around midnight.”

“Why? Where were you?”

“At the movies.”

“Until
midnight
?”

“I took Annie home.”

“Until
midnight
?” Ganady's voice squeaked.

“On the way home, I had a long talk with her brother.”

Ganny sat up. “A talk? What did he say?”

“That he hates my guts and doesn't want me around his sister.”

“You already knew that.”

“And how,” said Nikolai.

“Did Da yell?”

“You hear yelling?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I guess not.”

“Mama didn't cry?”

“Mama wasn't up still. Only Da.”

“But he didn't yell?”

“No yelling.”

“Nick? Ganny?” Their mother was at the bottom of the stairs. “Breakfast, you lazy boys!”

Ganady hopped out of bed. “Better hurry,” he said. “Mama will want us to beat the rugs today before we go to the game.”

Nick was silent. He hadn't moved. “I don't think I'm going to the game today.”

“Not go to the game?” Ganny repeated through the fabric of a half-pulled-on tee shirt. “Why not? You sick?”

Another, more disturbing thought occurred to him. He pulled the tee shirt full on and circled Nick's bed to stand where he could see his brother's dark thatch of hair poking out of the covers.

“Are you in trouble with Mama and Da?”