The Grave of God's Daughter (11 page)

Like the run-in with Swatka Pani, I took the stinging in my muscles as a sign. The fire of each of my lies was coursing through my veins. In desperation, I turned to the wall where the Black Madonna had been. The empty wall shouted back at me as if to say,
You are alone in this.

I laid out three plates for supper and Martin followed behind me, setting out the spoons. My mother ladled some stew into each of our dishes, purposefully putting the sausage rinds onto our
plates instead of hers. I wasn’t sure if this was another apology or if she felt like she didn’t deserve them.

We ate our dinners sluggishly. Each mouthful was a struggle to chew. Staying awake took a sheer force of will. I could have fallen asleep there at the table, yet I kept my guard up, anticipating an attempt from Martin. He wanted to ask my mother where she had been, and though he was worn out, I guessed he still might try.

The soft chime of our spoons against the plates became a melody, one that lulled me off my watch.

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Koshchushko?” Martin asked, eyes fixed on my mother. He was trying to draw information from her with a sidelong question.

“What do you mean?” She was either honestly confused or being cagey.

“Why does she act the way she does, always crying?”

My mother leveled her eyes on Martin, head tipped knowingly low. She had guessed his game. “I wouldn’t know,” she replied. Her voice was smooth and solid. She had put an end to the duel right there.

When Martin opened his mouth again, I pushed his knee with mine. It was over.

We finished our meals, and I cleared the dishes. My mother washed them and I took my position beside her to dry them while Martin prepared for bed. This was the one chore I looked forward to. It was always the same. My mother would scrub each dish, run it under the faucet, shake the water off and pass it to me, then I would pat it dry with a dishrag. There was a rhythm to the routine, a togetherness. For this and this alone, she seemed to need me.

Once we were finished, I stacked the dishes in the cupboard
while Martin finished brushing his teeth, then he stationed himself in the doorway to the washroom, biding his time until my mother was unoccupied. She washed her hands, then began folding the drying rags into neat squares. Martin could wait no longer.

“We got the catfish today,” he proclaimed.

“Oh?”

It was hardly the enthusiasm Martin had hoped for. He was trying to cheer her up, to drag her out of her distant mood, but it was like trying to shake somebody out of a deep sleep. My mother was too far away to wake.

“We named him too,” Martin explained. He waited for her to ask him more but she didn’t, answering only with a nod. “His name’s Joe,” Martin went on. “Because he’s a boy and all. So we decided on Joe. Because it’s a boy’s name.”

Another weak nod was all my mother could manage. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Martin finally gave up.

We all went to bed early. My mother disappeared into her bedroom shortly after supper and never came out, leaving Martin and me alone to listen to the dying embers crumbling in the coal stove. Side by side in our single bed, we tossed and turned for a while, neither able to get comfortable or find sleep despite our exhaustion. We were facing away from each other, me to the wall, Martin to the room, when he whispered to me, “So what was it like?”

I rolled over, but still he kept his back to me. “What?”

“Working?”

“It wasn’t so bad really,” I said, unsure how to put the day into words.

“What did you do?”

In his small, plaintive voice, Martin was really asking for a
bedtime story, a tale he could fall asleep to. I snuggled up behind him and told him everything, each and every detail that I could remember, from the color of the bicycle to the size of Mr. Beresik’s dogs. I narrated the story of that day until my brother drifted off to sleep.

A
WEEK PASSED
, but the warm tide of spring refused to arrive. Winter stubbornly held on, clenching Hyde Bend in its gray grip. We awoke each morning to find frost lingering on the windows. Every night was heralded by a fast-falling sunset, then trumpeted by blustering winds. There was neither the luxury of snow nor the relief of sunshine. It was a middling, bothersome sort of cold, the kind that kept the laundry from drying on the lines and that hardened only the top layer of mud on the alley. Though the weather was caught in a dreary limbo, my world had begun to fall into a rhythm.

Each day after school, I would take Martin to the library, where he would stay until I was finished with my route for Mr.
Goceljak, then I would sprint straight to the butcher’s shop to pick up my deliveries. Mr. Goceljak would welcome me with a load of wrapped parcels and unlock the bicycle for me, usually remarking on the cold and cursing it for not having the good sense to know when enough was enough.

“All right then,” he would say, then he would bid me a safe ride and return to his work. Once he’d gone, I would hide the bicycle in the field and run to each of my stops. I visited house after house in my boy’s costume, and nobody ever questioned me or suspected I was anything other than what I seemed. Sometimes even I lost track of myself in the costume. The saggy pants hid my knobby legs and the cap concealed all but my nose and lips. I could have been anybody. No one looked at me on the street, though I was used to that, only now it was as though I was fooling them, and it made me feel powerful.

Those days, I ran so much that I began to think I was faster than the bicycle could be, but I still dreamed of riding it. I attempted to shave more and more time off my routes in the hope of having an opportunity to practice with the bicycle. However, there was one thing that held me back. Since Mr. Beresik lived the farthest away, I left his delivery for last, and I often found myself lingering at his house longer than I should have. Every visit started out the same way. As I approached the hill to his house, the dogs would begin to bark in the distance, announcing my arrival. The whole pack would be waiting along the pen’s perimeter when I got there, barking and leaping against the fence in a frenzy. Then Mr. Beresik would appear on the porch to greet me and the barking would break off instantly.

Mr. Beresik always seemed pleased to see me. He would walk
me around the fence, pointing out each dog and describing its various weaknesses and attributes, listing its lineage and rattling off its wins. There were more than thirty dogs in the pen, but he could nevertheless recite with encyclopedic clarity the details of every match each dog had fought. He spun the fights into epic sagas, complete with the drama of defeat and the shining glory of victory. He could gesture to a certain dog, then snap his fingers and that dog would trot over obediently. The dog would sit perfectly still while Mr. Beresik pored over its pelt, pointing out each battle scar and explaining how the dog had gotten it. He would lift their collars and run his finger along the healed bite marks, regaling me with the traits of the dog that had inflicted the wound. Some were scrappy and fast, others oxlike and brutish. The scars were hard fought, and Mr. Beresik took honor in each and every wound.

On occasion, his tales would grow graphic and gruesome, like the time he told me about Flint, who had ripped another dog’s throat out and had to be pulled off the body. Mr. Beresik recounted the bloody pit and the limp body of the fallen dog and the blood on Flint’s teeth. Because he believed I was a boy, Mr. Beresik seemed to be trying to thrill me with the account, but he had the opposite effect. I pretended to yawn, yet in truth, I was stifling a gag. Mr. Beresik must have picked up on my discomfort because afterward, he never went beyond the most general of details. He didn’t want to scare me off. He wanted me to come back. So instead, he began to explain to me how he trained the dogs. His voice would grow calm and measured. “Training is everything,” he would remind me. “If you don’t do it right when they’re pups, you’ll never break ’em in. Then that dog’s a loss.”

Mr. Beresik described how he would take each pup from its
mother one at a time and train them privately, rewarding the pup with a scrap of food when it heeded his whistle or sat when he snapped. He explained how he would wean them off the food reward and how they still did as he commanded. “That’s the trick of it,” he attested. “They’re always hoping they’ll get that scrap of food, so they obey even when they don’t. They’re still hoping.”

As soon as the sun would start to dip in the sky, that was my signal to head back to town. “Better be getting on,” Mr. Beresik would say. I always had the urge to thank him for talking to me, for spending time with me and telling me about the dogs, but I didn’t think that was what a boy would do. Instead, I would simply wave, wish him good luck with the fights, and be on my way. Once I was far enough from the pen, Mr. Beresik would let out one short whistle, a cue to the dogs that they were free to move around as they pleased, and I always checked over my shoulder to see what they would do. Some would return to the barn or run the length of the pen, but there was one dog who always stayed near the fence, standing watch until I was out of sight—Sally. She had scared me at first, but after a few visits, I began to wonder what it was she saw when she looked at me. A liar or a friend?

W
HEN THAT FIRST WEEK CAME TO A CLOSE
, Mr. Goceljak gave me my pay. He placed two dull quarters in my palm and said, “It’s a start, right?”

“It’s a start,” I agreed. The number fourteen still hovered over my head, circling at a dizzying height, still such a long way off.

“Just so you know, I delivered the kielbasa to Father Svitek myself. Figured it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to do it.”

I had totally forgotten about Father Svitek. Nothing I could have said to Mr. Goceljak would have conveyed how grateful I was. “Thank you,” I told him, though the words were meager in comparison to what I felt.

As I walked to school to pick Martin up from the library that day, I would have sworn I could feel the weight of those two quarters in my pocket, light but perceptible. I kept my hand in the pocket for fear of their falling out. But I wouldn’t hold them. I envisioned them snapping like wafers, too thin to stand even the gentle pressure of my palm. I showed the quarters to Martin and he begged to touch them.

“They’re nice,” he said. “Not very shiny, though.”

“I don’t care if they’re shiny. I only care that they’re mine.”

“Where are you going to put them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should hide them.”

“Hide them?”

“You said that you being a delivery boy was supposed to be a secret. Remember?”

Martin was right. I needed to hide the quarters. If my mother found them, she would demand to know where I’d gotten them. I didn’t want to consider what my father might do if he found them.

“Where do you think I should put them?” I asked.

Martin grinned. “I have the perfect place.”

My mother was still at work when we got back to the apartment and my father wasn’t home. Since that evening when she
had left the house unexpectedly, they’d been avoiding each other, sidestepping each other in a clumsy, stilted dance. During those few days, a new routine had formed. My mother would hurry in from the rectory and fix my father’s breakfast. He would roll in before his shift, light a cigarette, and eat his food in silence. The cigarette would only be half finished by the time he was through. Afterward, my father would change into his coveralls, then my mother would pass him his lunch pail as he walked out the door. Martin and I would pretend to do our homework while we surreptitiously studied the new dance, learning the moves and waiting for the next misstep. Once my father was out the door, my mother would prepare our dinners and tell us to set the table, after which she would usually remark on the catfish, reminding herself that it had taken up space in our bathtub for too long.

“Why do we have to cook Joe?” Martin would whine. “He doesn’t want to be cooked.”

“One more day,” my mother would say. “But that’s it. I mean it.”

The care of the fish had fallen on my shoulders, which entailed feeding him and moving him into the sink when one of us needed to take a bath. Joe was the closest thing to a pet we’d ever had, and, for a fish, he seemed smart. He responded only to me, even recognized me when I entered the washroom. I was the one who fed him, so it made sense. It also made me feel special. Even after I would let Martin feed him, Joe would swim over to me and await his next helping.

“I named you, Joe,” Martin would say. “You could at least act happy to see me.”

He didn’t appreciate the fish’s favoritism, yet he was so happy to have a pet that he let the allegiance slide.

That afternoon when we arrived home to the empty apartment, Martin kicked off his boots and bounded for the washroom.

“In here,” he hollered. “The hiding place is in here.”

As I set down my books, I saw that my hands were stained again from the meat I’d delivered. It struck me that the blood had ceased to bother me as it once had. Nonetheless, I had to get it off my hands before my mother noticed.

Martin was waiting in the washroom, chin resting on the lip of the tub as he peered down at Joe. While I washed my hands, Martin asked, “Why don’t you wash the quarters? Maybe they’ll look better.”

I’d been given pennies in the past, nickels and dimes too, but I couldn’t remember even having held a quarter. It was as if the sheer size of the coin put it out of my league, that I couldn’t be responsible for such a sum of money. I dug the quarters from my pocket, lathered them with soap, rinsed them, then patted them dry between the pleats of my skirt.

“See. They do look better,” Martin said.

As he spoke, the front door opened. It was my mother. I could tell by the way she shut the door. While my father would hurl it back behind him, leaving the door to rattle in its frame, my mother would close it in one steady sweep and hold the handle so the lock would engage the instant she let go of the knob.

I held the quarters out to Martin. “What do I do with them?”

“Give them to me,” he said, crouching down under the sink.

My mother’s footsteps emanated from the main room. It sounded as if she was putting something away in the icebox, then the footfalls led into her bedroom. Martin nimbly slid his arm between the exposed pipes under the sink.

“Won’t they fall out from behind there?” I asked.

“No, there’s a little ledge where they can sit. They won’t fall.” Martin was straining to secure the quarters in their hiding spot. “Almost got it.”

My mother must have heard the murmur of our whispers through the wall. Her footsteps stopped. “What are you two doing in there?”

Before I could answer, the front door sounded again. This time it was a wall-shuddering slam. It was my father. His footfalls were equally as distinctive, an even, menacing lumber that made the dishes in the cupboard quiver.

“There. Got it,” Martin said, then I quickly pulled him up from the floor and led him out of the washroom with me. Both my father and my mother converged on us at once.

My mother repeated her question. “I said, what are you two doing in there?”

“We were looking at the fish,” I explained, the lie burbling from my throat.

“That damn fish,” my father lamented. “I’ve had enough of it. Anyhow, it’s Friday. We have to eat it. I’m draining the tub.”

“No!” Martin took a step toward the washroom as if he could bar my father’s way.

“Can’t we keep him? Please? Joe doesn’t want to be cooked.”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s just a damned fish.” My father strode past Martin, then came the unmistakable sound of water beginning to drain.

My mother was behind me. I would have had to turn around to see her face, to see if she was conflicted, unsure whether to stop my father, to intervene. But I was afraid to look. I feared that
what I might find was an expression exactly like my father’s, an expression that said she didn’t care.

The water from the bathtub made a gulping noise as it plummeted down the drain. Martin was about to protest once more, so I clamped my hand around his mouth. We were both facing the washroom, our backs to my mother.

“Don’t. Please,” I whispered. “It’ll make him angrier.”

Martin couldn’t help himself. I could feel his mouth working under my hand, silently saying the pleas he wanted to shout. Then a single tear rolled onto my finger and down over my knuckles.

“Please don’t, Martin. Please.”

With that, my brother’s face went slack under my palm and not another tear was shed. I released my hand and we listened to the last of the water slide down into the drain, culminating in one loud, sucking noise that sounded like a gasp for air. Martin must have thought it was the fish gasping for breath because he took a step forward. I held him fast.

The door to the washroom was halfway closed, but we could hear the unmistakable sound of the fish hurling itself around the tub in the throes of death, its skin slapping against the porcelain. Soon the slapping slowed, then stopped altogether. I tensed, waiting for Martin to cry out. He didn’t. He didn’t even move until my father appeared at the door, then Martin recoiled, taking a full step back. It was either out of fear, or repulsion, at what my father had done.

My father moved by us, his arm hidden behind his back, and laid the fish in the sink. My mother joined him. I could see her only in profile, though that was enough. In her hand, she held a carving knife.

“Take your brother outside,” my father directed. “Take him for a walk.”

I hustled Martin to the door. He was like a zombie, eyes glazed, limbs loose as I guided them into his coat and boots. I had one arm in the sleeve of my coat and was already spurring Martin onward, outside. The urge to glance back at my parents flashed in my mind, then fizzled. I didn’t want this to be the one thing they did together. I didn’t want to witness them making short work of the fish. I didn’t want to see another thing. I opened the door and pressed my eyes shut, praying that the image might dissolve or be blown from my mind by the cold, night wind that was already buffeting my face. It didn’t work.