The Hidden Letters of Velta B. (15 page)

Back inside the living room, Rudy had his hands full. Ligita had stretched and danced solo all day long and now she needed a mule, she told Rudy. “Imagine that I am a bird of paradise and you are the strong stalk of support,” she said, turning on her toes, unfurling her body.

“Now lift!” she commanded.

Rudy grabbed her by the waist and flung her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He twirled in a wide ungainly circle.

Father smiled at the fireplace; Mother bit her lip.

“Clumsy!” Ligita shrieked. “Put me down!” Which Rudy did as gently as possible, but with Ligita flailing about, it wasn't as smooth a landing as she might have hoped for.

Fuming, Ligita raked at her hair until she had restored her bun and composure. She turned to Rudy.

“You will never be a good dance partner.” Ligita spoke each word carefully as if each one carried a mysterious weight that needed time to sink in. “You're not even a good mule.”

“It's true—I don't lift well,” Rudy said, his gaze on his feet. “Can you do anything well?” Ligita asked.

Because Father had taught him to be a gentleman, Rudy only ducked his head. But as he slid his slingshot into his pants pocket and passed by me for the kitchen door, I detected something desperate in the hunch of his shoulders.

You asked once what kind of a person Rudy was when he was younger and what kind of person I was. I said he was the kind of person who would walk a thousand kilometers to rescue someone who needed saving. He would defend the defenseless and love the loveless.

He'd do this without apology. His only flaw, in my opinion, was that he'd do these things indiscriminately, wasting the best of himself on people unworthy of it.

I did not love others as deeply or openly as your uncle Rudy. I suppose it is a shortcoming on my part because I know very well, and you do, too, that the Bible entreats us to love our neighbors as ourselves. But I had a hard time answering the question, Who is my neighbor? The Ilmyens, of course, and I did love them. Stanka I loved. But this girl, this woman, whose every word seemed intended to harm, I could not love. And I felt shame and guilt stirring inside of me. If Rudy saw fit to love her, why couldn't I?

By dinnertime, Mother stood over the stove, cursing a pot of uncooperative sorrel soup. Ligita sighed with the distracted air of one who was profoundly bored. Of one who was wishing a comet would drop on our roof if only for the novelty of a spectacle. And then, just as Mother set out the sorrel, Rudy returned. In his hands a rabbit swung by its heels. Spots of blood dotted its snout and gummed the whiskers.

Ligita gasped. But Rudy, undeterred, presented his gift to Ligita, it being his conviction that women long to be showered with the fruits of nature, dead or alive.

“That's very nice, son,” Mother said, with a wink in Ligita's direction.

“Please tell me that there's something else people do here for fun.” Ligita sighed. I saw the liquid shift in Rudy's eyes as he hung the rabbit over the salting board.

Then I looked at Ligita. In her I saw every beautiful girl who breaks every good boy's heart. And I got an idea.

“We go mushrooming,” I said.

“Really!” A cardiac glow bloomed over Ligita's pale face. Outside, the harvest moon loomed large and bright. In the air I could smell the ground cooling, the snap of seasons changing. A perfect night for mushrooming. As we passed the shed and wandered toward the river, I stepped over the licorice trail for Stanka. And I talked. I explained to Ligita what I knew of the invisible properties of mushrooms, namely the kinds you should feed the cows if you want them to come into season, which ones to fry with onions, which kept well in a freezer. I told her what your grandfather and grandmother had taught me. In short, I was testing her to see if she'd listen. Was she worthy of such knowledge?

As I talked, Ligita raced toward a stand of birch. “Ha!” she cried, triumphant. She'd spotted some fringed parasol, which were nice to look at but bad for the bowels.

“No. Not those.” I cautioned. And when she spotted the oyster mushroom, its dark tongues bracketing the bark of a tree, I said the same thing:
no.
Ditto for the liberty cap, which was slightly hallucinogenic. On this went, and as we approached a copse of birches, I could tell Ligita was getting frustrated. And I was glad. I wanted to wear her out. I wanted her to see that, like her, we were artists—talented and smart in our own fashion.

Ligita dashed toward the trees. “Chanterelles!” she cried, filling the trug. This time she wasn't far off. What she'd found was a nice troop of false chanterelles, which were known to cause acute nausea. In the dim light, hers was an easy mistake to make.

“I wouldn't eat those,” I said.

“I know what you're all doing to me. Making sport of me at every turn. But I've been to university. I know reverse psychology when I hear it.” Ligita shoved the entire mushroom into her mouth and chewed furiously. It occurred to me that not only was she angry, but having skipped so many meals, she was also probably very hungry. And she was right; I did want her to eat that mushroom.

Throwing caution to the wind, Ligita ate another. And another. And then I realized what I was allowing to happen. I took a few steps and dropped to my knees. There under a birch was a fine fruiting of bay bolete—one of Father's favorites, as it carried an air of nobility. Also, their fleshy stalks and caps were good absorbers of stomach acids. “Here.” I handed Ligita a bolete. “Try this one instead.”

Ligita stopped eating for a moment and contemplated the mushroom in my hand. “I need to use a bathroom,” she said.

I looked around the woods and shrugged. “Just squat behind a log.”

“It's a very unattractive position, squatting,” Ligita said, but her voice had lost its starch and she weaved on her feet. I hooked my arm around Ligita's tiny rib cage and steered her back toward our yard.

“Stanka! My love, is that you?” Uncle Maris called, as we passed the shed. Babel trumpeted and Ligita moaned. She lurched for the back steps, draping herself over the bottommost one.

“I need a bowl,” she said, and fished from her sleeve a bit of perforated fabric: a very fine lace handkerchief. As she did, I spied a purple line that ran from the inside of her wrist to midforearm. A scar thick and deep. Perhaps her life wasn't as enchanted as I had assumed.

I dashed into the kitchen and returned with Mother's orange polka-dotted mixing bowl. And not a moment too soon. One look at the bowl's busy pattern and Ligita began retching. When they heard the powerful heaves of a stomach turning itself inside out, Mother, Father, and Rudy rushed to the steps.

“What have you been feeding her?” Mother's eyes were flat with fury.

“Mushrooms.” I lifted the trug. The mere mention of the fungi provoked an explosive response from Ligita's stomach that was no match for the finely perforated lace, which acted only as a sieve. She retched like this for a solid twenty minutes, Mother holding her hair out of her face the whole time.

“The audition!” Ligita moaned.

Rudy carried Ligita to the couch while Mother made tea. Rudy sat on his knees and dabbed at Ligita's cheeks and neck with a damp cloth. Every now and then, he'd lean in and brush a quick kiss on her forehead. And because she was so weak, Ligita couldn't bat away his hand or hurl insults. Rudy had never looked happier. And Mother was happy, too. This girl—so petite and fine she could never have been borne of Mother's bones, a girl so unlike me it hurt to look at her—was at last allowing herself to be comforted. I didn't know if I liked Ligita for pleasing Mother in this way or if I hated her a little more for it.

Then from the lane came a colossal ruckus. It sounded like Babel braying, trumpeting as if the end of the world had started in the lane and was moving toward our yard. Then I realized it was only Stanka.

“My eyes! I cannot believe my eyes! Dutch buttons!” Stanka shrieked. And past our windows she went for the toolshed, one button at a time, her jaw pumping hard and fast. I slipped out the back door and followed her. Uncle had left the shed door open just wide enough to afford a glimpse of the confectioner's prize balanced now on the threshold. Stanka crouched to get a better look. Uncle snored with exaggeration. Just as Stanka reached for the button, the line jerked. The button flew. And following the button, Stanka careened into Uncle. He held her hard even as Stanka worked that enormous button off the hook into her mouth.

“Forgive me, Stanka. For everything. I'm begging you,” Uncle implored. Her mouth full, Stanka couldn't argue, couldn't refuse. “You really are dying, you bastard,” she managed at last.

Uncle coughed. And coughed. Each cough was a gouge, a rip in his lungs. Each cough set the piano strings rumbling, an orchestra of discordance, as if the piano were dying, too. I took a blanket from the corner and draped it over the soundboard and strings. Then I went for Mother and Father. When we returned, Uncle was still coughing. Nothing we did could make him stop, could end that terrible wet sound of a man drowning inside of himself.

Uncle looked at Father. “Please—cremate me the Gypsy way.”

“What?” Father could not hide his mortification.

My open Bible lay next to Uncle's cot. He'd smoked Matthew, he'd smoked Mark, he'd smoked Luke, and he was now well into John. And as these were the books in which Jesus did all his talking, I wondered if our Lord's words had finally driven Uncle to complete madness.

“But you're not a Gypsy,” Mother said.

“And we Roma in Latvia don't burn our dead, dear,” Stanka reminded.

“Doesn't matter. I never asked for much. And what a man asks for on his deathbed he should get.”

Father hung his head. Cremation, in his opinion, was only one step shy of burning in hell. “If you must insist on this bodily blasphemy, at least put your heart right in the sight of God,” Father pleaded.

“What's God ever done for me?” Uncle asked, and Father pulled his cap onto his head and went back to the house. Such a question was so stark, so blunt, that even as I followed Mother out of the shed I could not help despairing for Uncle, who would travel through the door in the dark—all alone, without even God.

The morning light thickened outside our windows. Rain began to fall. Ligita, as pale as bleached paper, appeared in the kitchen, her small bag packed in readiness for the seven-fifteen bus that would make a brief stop at the end of the lane.

“Here.” Rudy put a hand at her elbow and held Ligita's coat for her. “At least let me walk you to the bus stand.” Ligita took the coat from his hands, opened the kitchen door. “I will walk myself,” she said, descending the steps with great dignity.

Rudy stood at the threshold and watched her go. Mother and I watched, too, observing Ligita as she stopped in at the hall to make a final deposit in the shiny porcelains. “I suppose she was too refined for us anyway,” Mother whispered, her gaze fastened to the tattered floor mat flapping on the line. Beside it hung Ligita's lace handkerchief. We'd never get all those stains out.

In the course of that day, we emptied Uncle's basin fifteen, maybe twenty times.

He was peeing and peeing, draining himself dry, peeing his strength and will into that basin. Where could all this water come from? I asked Father, who merely shook his head slowly from side to side. Uncle was weak; he could barely lift his head.

“There she is.” Uncle nodded at a dark corner of the shed. “Dripping wet and all dark wing.”

“Who?”

“The girl from the river.” His words were failing him and it took all his strength to simply breathe. By late afternoon, he couldn't even cough, and to see him like this—so quiet, so agreeable—was utterly terrifying. Father sat on a folding chair at the foot of the cot, and Stanka sat on a chair at the head, where she held Uncle's hand in hers. He lay on the cot, his gaze fixed on a point above Stanka's head. That's how he died, his hand in Stanka's. Mother pulled a sheet over him and for the next hour we sat at the kitchen table. We did not speak Uncle's name. Mother knelt in front of the open oven, her head thrust inside so we wouldn't see her tears. Father held his cap in his hands. His shoulders shook as he wept quietly. And across from Father was Rudy, his hands shielding his face. Uncle Maris had once been his hero and now he was gone. Also gone was Ligita.

Stanka scrutinized Rudy for several minutes. “Your heart is broken. But I know the remedy for that,” she said, rising from her chair and approaching Rudy. Rudy's eyebrows lifted. We both knew there was no herbal tincture or mushroom in the world that would mend a wounded heart not done with its weeping. And it sounded so strange to hear Stanka say this when her own eyes were dark and wet with tears.

“Stand up,” she said. Rudy rose from his seat.

Stanka stepped out of her sandals, stood on her tiptoes, and put a hand on Rudy's shoulder. The other hand she placed gently in his open hand. “Now close your eyes and dance.” Rudy shuffled his feet first one way then the other, Stanka steering him with small squeezes on his shoulder. Then Father and Mother sang a song for Uncle.

What if our song is silenced?

What of it?

Go on singing!

Mother kept her eyes on Stanka's feet, those stout ankles that knew sadness but had known happier times, too. And before long, the melody brightened and Stanka's feet moved quickly and lightly. Whatever her heart felt, whatever sorrow she held in her eyes, her feet were finding their way toward joy. And through it all, Rudy, his eyes still closed, kept up.

“You are a wonderful dancer,” Stanka whispered. “Now open your eyes and don't forget.”

Without another word, Stanka stamped out the back door and down the steps. The hour of grieving had passed and now Uncle needed us. We followed Stanka into the yard, Rudy dragging our plastic washtub behind him into the shed. Rudy and I held Uncle up by the armpits while Stanka and Mother washed his body. First, they poured water over his head and neck then his right arm and everything on the right side down to his foot. Then they did the left side.