Princess of Passyunk (23 page)

Dusk deepened around them, but in the park across the street, it was as if the lights had come on. Ganny swore he could see them, spreading their radiance across the grass of the outfield, heating the infield until it glowed like emeralds set in gold.

Ganny blinked. In a moment, he would see players take the field, he was convinced of it.

“Baba,” he whispered, “do you see it? Can you see the diamond?”

“I see just fine, thank you,” she said and continued to gaze out over the rooftop.

A squad of players took the field then, their uniforms gleaming white under the lights. Ganny exhaled. It was still there—magic. There was still magic in the world.

“Mr. O, about the ball I gave you...”

“Oh, Ganny,” said Ouspensky, “I'm so sorry. Didn't I tell you? The ball is gone.”

“Gone?” Ganny felt his heart sink through the soles of his sneakers.

“Ah, the Sisters. They're wonderful women, but not being of the world means they don't understand much about the world or the things in it. Like baseballs, for example. To us, that baseball was a piece of history, a miracle.” He scratched behind his ear. “They didn't quite see it that way. They found it under my pillow and threw it away.”

“Stanislaus,” said Baba Irina, “who is that player there at the first base? I think he is chewing tobacco.”

Ganny glanced back up toward the ballpark, but the spite fence blocked his view. He could no longer see the shimmering grass or the radiant dirt or the players arrayed around the diamond like pearls upon a string.

He excused himself, but neither of them heard him. The two old people had their heads close together while Mr. O explained each position and introduced each player.

Ganady slipped quietly from the roof, retrieved his clarinet from the kitchen table and walked home.

The house was dark, still, and locked when he got home, and the moon—full and fat and bright—was rising above the rooftops. Ganny imagined what it might look like glistening on the immaculate grass of Connie Mack's infield.

The Baseball was gone. Not merely no longer in his possession, but
gone
gone. Tossed away like so much rubbish...by a nun. Would she be called upon to confess her transgression, he wondered?

Father bless me, for I have sinned. I threw away an Eddie Waitkus autographed baseball.

Ganny had never felt so intensely alone in his entire life. It was as if all the magic in his world had drained away, leaving a powdery residue that only dimly resembled moonlight.

He sat on the stoop, took out his clarinet, carefully assembled it, and began to play. He thought of his mother and father and played
Sheyn vi di Levune
. He thought of his Baba and played a merry Purim tune called
Makht Oyf
. But he did not feel merry. He wanted more than anything not to have done anything to make Svetlana sad, to have not talked to Boris or repeated his words. He would never, never do such a thing again, of that he was certain. If only she would come back.

Thinking of Svetlana, he played
Yo Riboyn Olam
, because it was the last thing he had played for her and she had especially liked it. He put all the turmoil of his heart and soul into the music, turning each plaintive note into a prayer:
O God, Master of this Universe...

As the last lamenting tones trailed away, the street lamp opposite the Puzdrovsky stoop winked out, leaving Ganady in darkness and moonlight. A perfect reflection upon his mood.

“That was beautiful,” she said.

He glanced up so quickly, he cut his lip on his reed.

She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk by the lamppost, wearing a crown of moonlight in her hair.

He could only whisper her name.

“I missed hearing you play.”

“I missed playing for you. I missed
you
,” he added. “I was afraid I'd never see you again.”

She smiled. It was a ghost smile in the pale light. “But you apologize so beautifully. How could I refuse? And besides, I couldn't stay away.”

“But...but The Baseball. I lost it. I mean, I gave it to Mr. O, and he lost it. Well, actually, the Sisters lost it.”

She tilted her head in a way that made his heart do strange and wonderful things and said, “The Baseball brought us together, Ganny. But that's all it did. I think that's what it was supposed to do. I'm not here because of The Baseball. I'm here because of you.”

They were the most amazing words he'd ever heard, and he paused to savor them, closing his eyes for only a moment.

“Ganny? Ganny, for heaven's sake!”

His eyes fluttered open, and he found himself looking up into his mother's face. She was laughing at him.

“Look at you—asleep on the stoop! Where's your Baba?”

“She...she's at a ballgame with Mr. Ouspensky.”

Ganady's father passed him on the steps, moving to unlock the front door. “Ganny, you're still dreaming; the Phillies are in Chicago this series.”

“Oh, I just meant, she's at Mr. Ouspensky's. When I left, they were
talking
baseball.”

“Really?” said Da, apparently finding the thought amusing. “Did you hear that, Ravke? Your mother is talking baseball with her beau.”

“Oh, I'm sure he's not,” his wife demurred. “At their age.”

Ganny paused in the act of disassembling and packing up his clarinet. “Why not? I think Baba really likes Mr. Ouspensky. And I know he likes her. He's been so lonely all these years...”

Both his parents were looking at him so strangely that his voice withered in his throat.

Then his mother said, “You're such a sweet boy, Ganny, to think of Mr. Ouspensky's loneliness. And your Baba's too, I think, yes?”

“It's hard for her,” Ganady said. “With the rest of us not being Jewish, I mean.”

His father shook his head and chuckled, then pushed open the front door. “A romantic—that's what he is—a romantic.”

“Come in the house, Ganady,” said his mother. “Have some milk and cookies.”

Ganady snapped his clarinet case shut and scrambled up the stairs. “Oh, um...I'm really tired, Mama. I think I'll just go on up to bed.”

As he passed her in the entryway, she reached out a hand to brush the thick curls back from his forehead. “Are you feverish? What boy turns down milk and cookies?”

He kissed her on the cheek. “Goodnight, Mama,” he said and took the stairs two at a time.

He went directly to his dresser. Just to see, he told himself. Just to put to rest the absurd idea that his Lana had anything to do with The Cockroach. But as he stood before the dresser, staring at the empty statue of the Virgin, he thought of the odd thing Svetlana had said about The Baseball—that it had brought them together. What could she possibly have meant by that, unless...?

He hoped he would dream of her tonight. It would be the first thing he would ask her.

oOo

He didn't dream of Svetlana—at least not at first. He dreamed of all the other girls who, in recent memory, had baked for him, or invited him over for dinner, or helped him with his homework, or offered to mend his shirts, or asked him to play clarinet at their brother's bar mitzvah or Confirmation.

In his dream, they stood about him and argued as to which one of them he would marry, while his mother and grandmother and their earnest lady friends stood just outside the circle of girls and urged him on, saying, “Ganady, please! Choose!
Choose
!”

But he had chosen, he realized. He had chosen Svetlana. Two years before, he had chosen—the first night she had appeared in his dreams and spoken to him.

“That's very sweet.”

He was suddenly alone with her, standing on a sun-bathed home plate in Connie Mack Stadium. Clouds scudded overhead and the wind came briskly up from the river and he could smell popcorn in the air.

“It was love at first sight for me, too,” she told him.

And which sight was that
? he wanted to ask, but did not. Instead, he toed the bag and said, “My brother and my best friend are getting married at Christmas. Yevgeny—he's my best friend—”

“I know who Yevgeny is,” she said, dimpling.

“Yevgeny was joking about having a triple wedding.”

“Why joking? Don't they believe you have a girl?”

“Well...I'm not sure. Do I...have a girl?”

She gave him a most severe look then, making him wonder what her mother—the much-praised Stella/Rodenka Gusalev—looked like. “Ganady Puzdrovsky, am I to now find that you are one of those fickle boys who strings along a whole
gaggle
of girls?”

“Honestly, Lana, I didn't mean to string anyone along. But they will bake me cookies, and come to my house and stare at me, and follow me with their eyes in the halls at school.”

But she was laughing at him, her sea-green eyes alight. “What are you trying to ask me, Ganady?
Are
you trying to ask me something?”

In that moment, Ganady felt as if he had changed in some indefinable way. He did not consider the circumstances under which he stood at home plate with Svetlana Gusalev, but only that he
did
stand there, if only in a dream. He took her by the hand and stepped off home plate toward the pitcher's mound.

“I've asked you a question at every base,” he said. “Now I will ask you a question from the heart of the diamond.”

He stepped up onto the mound, drawing her after him, and it seemed that as he did, he took a final step from childhood into manhood. He felt different. He wondered if he looked different.

He gazed down at her, his hands on her slender shoulders, and said, “Svetlana Gusalev, will you marry me?” And what he meant, of course, was:
Can
you marry me?

She smiled at him in the sunlight, making it dance in her eyes and shimmer through her hair. She didn't say “Yes.” She said “Play ball!” and laughed, and kissed him on the lips—long and thoroughly.

He kissed her in return, and decided that from this time forth, the words “play ball” would never mean quite the same thing as they had before.

When he woke with sunlight streaming through his window, it seemed to him that the glow of it suffused him inside and out. He rolled over and turned to the window and saw The Cockroach, sitting upon the sill, gleaming like a black-cherry jewel.

He sat up. It couldn't be. Cockroaches simply didn't live that long...did they?

“You were talking in your sleep again, Ganny-boy,” his brother informed him from the neighboring bed. “You were talking to that Lana again. I think you may have proposed to her.”

Ganady laughed. “Of course I've proposed to her. Why shouldn't I? You proposed to your princess; Yevgeny—oh, excuse me—
Eugene
proposed to his. Don't I get to marry a princess, too?”

Nick threw his little brother a
look
. “You're in an odd mood. What happened to my so-solemn little brother, eh?”

“Why do I have to be solemn? Can't a guy be goofy sometimes?”

“Goofy, huh?” Nick shook his head. “You've been holding out on us, eh? About this girl, I mean. You didn't tell me it was this serious.”

Ganny shrugged and threw off his covers. “I didn't tell anyone it was this serious.”
Not even myself
.

Now Nikolai sat up too. “You really asked her to marry you? When?”

“Oh...last night. You were all at church. When I got back from Mr. O's she was waiting for me on the stoop and I just...popped the question.”

“Yeah? How does she feel about being married to a musician?”

“She likes it just fine, and why not?”

“Yeah? And how does her family feel about it?”

Ganady thought about Mr. Joe and Boris the Bagel Prince, and the bottom dropped out of his waking dream. He managed to stammer, “Well, her Da likes me,” and deflected any further questions. But he knew without doubt that he would have to answer many more like that one if Nikolai announced his engagement to the rest of the family.

“Hey, Nikolai—Nick, listen. We...Lana and I...we've actually got a few little problems to work out with her family and all. So I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything about this to anybody, okay? Let me tell.”

Nick's dark brows rose. “Sure, kid. But you'd better do it soon or I'll spill the beans for you. You got that?”

“Yeah. Sure. Got it,” Ganady said. He glanced back to the window where Princess Cockroach sat sunbathing and wracked his brains for some sort of story to tell about Svetlana's family.

At this point, it occurred to him that explaining his beloved's family was quite possibly the least of his worries. How, after all, was he to explain
her
?

Nikolai Puzdrovsky kept ears and eyes peeled, but his little brother had told no one anything about the mysterious Svetlana. Nick waited a week, figuring that perhaps Ganady meant to divulge his secret at Sabbath dinner where the entire family would be present. But Sabbath dinner came and went and Ganady said nothing.

That night, as he bade his father goodnight, Nick paused just inside the parlor door. He opened his mouth. He closed it. He shifted from foot to foot. He leaned toward the doorway. He leaned back.

Vitaly Puzdrovsky looked up from the Sunday paper. “What is it, Nikolai?”

“Oh...uh...well,” said Nikolai, “I...I just wondered if maybe Ganny had said anything to you about—um—about his girl?”

“His girl?” repeated Vitaly incredulously. “He has a
girl
?”

“Well, yeah. Svetlana. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned her.”

“Your mother has mentioned a Svetlana. To tell you the truth, I thought she might have made her up. But you say, Ganny has talked about her, too?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Then why haven't we met her, this Svetlana?”

Nick shrugged. “I don't know. Ganny said something about her having some family troubles.”