The Leap Year Boy (18 page)

Alex was on the verge of tears. He appealed to Benjamin, his long arm reaching for his brother’s waist.

“You know I won’t take it, Alex.”

Abe called, “Boys, dinner.”

Benjamin folded his hand over Alex’s. “Just stick it back in your pocket for now.”

“Don’t tell Dad, either. And Alex, don’t steal no more.”

“Boys!”

Ida placed bowls of pickles and bread on the table. She sniffed at the paper bag. “Fish?”

Abe said, “Your Friday regular.”

“You don’t have to do that anymore. I’m no longer with the Romans.”

Abe sipped his rye. “What the hell—pardon my French—is going on with you, Ida? No booze, no cursing, and now you’re telling me you’re not a Catholic, just like that? What’s it all about?”

Ida’s smile was beatific. “I met a man.”

Chapter 14

Three inches of wet snow had turned to sooty slush, but even if it had transformed into quicksand, it wouldn’t have deterred the masses that came to clap and cheer and collapse in front of Reverend Billy during his Monday night sermon on the first of February.

Ida and Alex arrived two hours early, so determined was she to find a seat on the aisle, center section, as close to Billy’s podium as she could get. She’d packed a dinner of meatloaf sandwiches, green bean casserole and oatmeal cookies, along with a thermos of hot chocolate. She’d considered picking up a pint of Irish whiskey, too, just the thing to navigate a cold, blustery night, but then, she told herself, she was beyond that now. She’d pledged for Reverend Billy. How could she throw over their relationship for a bottle?

Alex insisted on removing his new coat, even though the air inside the makeshift tabernacle was cold enough to vaporize his breath. He watched the workmen sweep the stage and place a bullhorn and microphone on Billy’s famous pedestal, from which he’d been known to do leaps and handstands. He wandered up to the men as if he were inspecting their work, and soon became a distraction for them—what’s yer name, sonny, you’re
how
old, now quit playing with me, my boy. Ida chased after him and tried unsuccessfully to get him to sit still. Finally, to keep him occupied she gave him two cookies and her Bible, randomly opening to Corinthians.

By seven o’clock the makeshift house of prayer was almost full, with both curious first-timers and dedicated regulars. The murmur of anticipation for the evening’s service was palpable. Occasionally, groups of people broke out to sing the praises of the Lord, a cappella, a righteous warm-up to the evening’s event.

On the side of the aisle opposite Ida two rows back from Billy’s pedestal stood a uniformed chauffeur and butler. They held a rope between them that stretched across six seats, and politely but briskly turned away anyone that attempted to occupy the prime real estate. When Alex tugged on their pants or kicked at their ankles to get their attention, they ignored him as if they were guards standing in front of Buckingham Palace.

The very front row was out of bounds, however, even for the holy wealthy, for that row was reserved for Reverend Billy’s special cases, which included the infirm, the crippled and members of clergy that came either to “praise Caesar or to bury him,” as Billy might joke.

Thirty minutes before the service was to begin, every seat was taken, and then some, with people standing in the back—
God hears you in the back just as good as in the front,
the saying went. Ida and Alex sat next to an older couple, the Santorinis, who had journeyed to the makeshift Mecca from Wheeling, West Virginia, some forty miles south. They were taken by Alex and his sweet voice and smile, and they offered him their hard candies, which he stuffed into his cheeks and pockets.

The Santorinis confided to Ida that, like her, they’d suffered the loss of a child—two, in fact, for their sons had been buried alive in the Monongah Mining Disaster of ’07, an explosion that claimed the lives of 362 boys and men and created 250 widows. “And what does the company say to you? Nothing. What do they do for you? Nothing. What is the death of your boys worth to them? Nothing. Not a blessed thing. They’re worried about their mine, that’s all, about how soon can they get it going again. The almighty dollar, that’s their religion. That’s who they bow down to. The workingman is like a slave to them, a dime a dozen. Our poor boys, dead and gone.” It was their third time to see Reverend Sunday.

“Solace for our suffering. That’s why we’re here.” Ida squeezed Mrs. Santorini’s hand. “It’s my fourth time, dear, and my Alex’s first. Isn’t it, sweetheart? Alex? Alex!”

The Bible lay open on the seat, but Alex was nowhere in sight. Ida stared left and right, got down on her hands and knees and groped under their seats. She shouted his name but her voice was swallowed up by singing and organ music.

During a rousing chorus of
Gimme That Old Time Religion,
Alex had worked his way across the aisle and, hidden behind a large woman’s legs, gazed intently at the open purse of Mrs. Winston Childs, the wife of a cousin to one of the Fricks. Alex had his eyes on something sparkly, but he thought, Arthur doesn’t want me to steal anymore, but I could give it to Grandma. She bought me all new clothes. It would be a present, not stealing.

He scanned the row, taking in the chauffer and butler, who every so often shot a menacing glance at him. Mrs. Childs was on her feet, her white ermine wrap bouncing on her neck as she clapped her hands to the music, along with her best friends and bridge partners, Chappie Morton and Ginny Smith-Walters. When everyone else raised both hands in the air, up to Heaven as Billy implored them, Alex reached into the purse for the bracelet, but simultaneously felt himself being lifted into the air by a man who smelled of pomade and herring.

Meanwhile, Ida went from worshipper to worshipper, tugging arms, tapping shoulders, frantic to find her grandson. When she described him in detail, most people thought she was out of her mind, with or without the Holy Spirit, but one elderly man said he thought he might have seen a very small boy in an orange cap, but which way he went, he couldn’t be sure. She doubled back to her seat in the hope that Alex would miraculously turn up on his own, for after all, this was the place for miracles, and the Lord knows she deserved one.

She had sunk to her knees and raised her eyes to the heavens, prepared to tell God she was ready to give up ten years of her life to get Alex back, when there he was, or rather, there was his orange hat. It bobbed up and down above the crowd, coming closer and closer. God has lifted him on high, she thought, above the multitude, until she saw that it wasn’t God at all, but a man with a greasy hat, a dark goatee and pince-nez glasses, riding Alex on his shoulders. A few moments later he was in Ida’s arms, courtesy of Dr. Sergei Malkin.

Ida hugged Alex tight to her breast. She also twisted his ear so hard his yelp turned heads two rows away. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, you little scamp.” She squinted at Malkin. “You. I know you.”

“Ah, Mrs. Ida, Dr. Sergei Malkin, at your service.” Malkin bowed and bumped his elbow into Mrs. Santorini’s ribs. “Excuse me, madam. Such a crowd it is here. Lucky was it that for you and the boy that I happened to be it in the vicinity of which he was standing, no? When he showed it to me where it was you are sitting, I felt it to be it my duty to bring him back to you. It is the second time I am delivering this little one, is it not?”

“What?”

“I am making it a joke with you, you see, for I have delivered him both at birth and now. Well, perhaps it is me only that I find it the humor in it.”

“What? I can’t understand you with all this noise.”

“Yes. Well,” he shouted, “I think you should know it that I caught the little one here with his long arms trying to steal it a bracelet.”

“What?”

Malkin shouted, “A bracelet I am saying.”

“I heard what you said.” Ida grabbed Alex again by the ear. “Stealing? Don’t you know stealing is a sin, Alex? Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not steal. Repeat it after me, Alex. Thou shalt not steal!”

“But I was just looking at it.”

Malkin shook his head no.

Ida tweaked his ear even harder. “And thou shalt not lie, either. How could you do this to me, Alex? My grandson stealing, it’s a black mark on me. Don’t you want me to be saved? Don’t you want to be saved, my dear little one?”

Alex thought that if getting saved meant having his grandmother stop pinching him and getting out of this place, he was all for it. “Yes, Grandma.”

“Praise the Lord.” Ida hugged him. She could see now that she had her work cut out for her, to bring her little one back to the path of righteousness and away from the temptations of stealing and whatever other sins he might have committed. His brothers, they must have put him up to it. Stealing, and a lie on top of it. God forbid Reverend Billy would get wind of a thief in their midst, even such a small, adorable one. She turned to Malkin. “The Christian thing to do would be to thank you. But I’ll never forget what that mumbo-jumbo tonic of yours did to my daughter. Probably killed her, that’s what.”

Malkin bowed his head. “Sorry it is that I am to lose it any patient, particularly the mother of the little one, and I pray it to God she is up in Heaven, but you see, the diphtheria, The Dip, it will take it who it wants until there is a cure, which, by the way, may be with this little boy.”

Reverend Sunday shouted, “Can I have an A-men?”

Alex, who hoped his grandmother would hear the repentance in his voice, shouted, “A-men!”

“What are you talking about?”

Malkin explained that it was quite extraordinary that a little one such as Alex could survive The Dip when it took the weak and the old and even the boy’s mother, a healthy young woman, and that if Ida would consent to let him study Alex, draw blood and tissue samples and the like, perhaps he could find a cure or an antidote or even develop a vaccination against the dreaded disease. He had felt this way for many years but never had the chance to properly study the boy. “So you see, missus, it is for the scientifical progress of disease prevention for which I am asking it.”

Reverend Billy implored the crowd. “Say it with me, ladies. Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine!”

Women responded heartily. Men frowned.

“I don’t have a clue in the world what you’re talking about, but whatever it is, it’s something you’ll have to take up with his father.” She turned her attention to Billy, who leaped into the air, his coat tails flaring out behind him. “And anyway, what are you doing here in the first place? You ain’t no Christian, that’s for sure, not by a long shot.”

Malkin reached into his medical bag. “You see?” It was a flyer, promoting his practice—
Dr. Sergei Malkin, Medical Doctor, Dentist and Babies Doctor also
. “There could be it here a lot of new customers for me, God willing, as the preacher he might put it, not that I am in competition with him for the healing.”

“Sisters, oh my sisters,” Billy said, “who among you are true daughters of Jerusalem?”

*

That week, as part of his penance, Ida had Alex read to her every evening. “Not from the encyclopedia, dear, from the good book.”

“But I want to read about Africa. Elephants, Grandma.”

“Africa? Where the darkies come from? I don’t want to hear about that foolishness. Here.” She handed him her copy of the New Testament. Without looking, she flipped open to Luke 24. “Read.”

Alex stared at it for a few seconds. The text seemed alien. “‘But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb.”

“Toooomb, dear, not Tom-b, tooomb.” She closed her eyes, and she could see the golden desert sand and the palm trees that fluttered in the gentle, restorative breezes of the Holy Land, and camels and goats and holy men dressed in flowing robes, walking to the tomb. If she truly wanted to be a daughter of Jerusalem, as Reverend Sunday had said, she had to find a way to get there.

“They went to the too-oomb, taking spices which they had prepared.”

Ten seconds later, she was fast asleep. Alex didn’t notice until he stopped reading and asked her what became of Jesus’ body.

*

Reverend Sunday moved on from Pittsburgh, but the Holy Spirit was alive and kicking in Ida Murphy, fueled by Alex’s recitations of the Ten Commandments and his nightly readings from the good book. The way he pronounced the words was so moving, so sincere—out of the mouth of babes, she thought—that she wondered, perhaps the Holy Spirit had entered him, too.

With a gift like his, so wonderful and rare, the Christian thing to do was share it. She knew Billy Sunday would approve, and so she called on her next-door neighbor, Margaret Conroy.

Despite their friendship, Margaret had never been farther inside Ida’s house than the vestibule, and was a bit taken aback when Ida invited her for dinner, ostensibly to thank her for baby-sitting Alex. She arrived at five-thirty in her second-best dress, carrying a loaf of soda bread she’d baked that morning.

After dinner Ida set out tea, and the women made small talk about how the neighborhood was going to hell in a hand-basket, what with the Dagos and Polacks moving in like termites, you couldn’t trust them, that was for sure, they were
clannish
, and besides, wasn’t it bad enough the Jews already owned half the real estate on the street? “Well, anyway, Margaret,” Ida said as she stacked the teacups in soapy water, “you are in for a revelation. Wait until you hear Alex read.”

Margaret said, “He can read? I didn’t know that. But he hasn’t even been to school yet, has he? He’s awfully young to know how to read.”

“Sometimes I think he’s older than Methuselah, the things that come out of his mouth. Alex?”

He came into the room holding a pretzel. “Hello, Mrs. Conroy.”

Ida said, “Dear, would you like to read for Mrs. Conroy?”

With nothing better to do, he nodded yes, and took the New Testament from the bookcase.

Margaret hesitated. “I thought you meant a children’s book.”