“How would he know if he had or hadn’t?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Why when he’s seven? Is that important?”
A shrug. “Seven is the lucky number for the Poles. Maybe only for extra luck. You should wear that number when you play your hockey, Batterinski.” The smile, dripping.
“It’s mine.”
Again the hands on my hands, strangely warmer. “Then you will always have luck with your hockey.”
I ask him before bed, over his final coffee. “Poppa, was I born with a caul?”
“A what?” The spoon rattles against the cup, splashing.
“A caul. You know, a mucka, a cap of extra skin. On my head.”
“How would I know?” He continues stirring, calmed now and methodical, deliberately paying little attention to me.
“You were here. I was here. You would have known.”
“So what if you were? What difference would it make?”
“Was I?”
He lifts the spoon and taps it dry on the oilcloth before looking up. “What is the point, Felix?”
“I want to know.”
“You’re talking stupid, son.”
“Just tell me, yes or no. I have a right to know for myself.”
“Well, then you were.”
He is asleep now and I can hear him moaning. I should go up and fluff his pillows, turn him a bit, perhaps bring some Vaseline, but I cannot bear to see him now. His coffee still sits here, cool now, untouched since our conversation ended with him standing up and heading straight for bed.
Not even a grunt for goodnight.
I am thinking crazy thoughts. Poppa has turned into Jaja. I am turning into Poppa, a dragonfly shedding the shell of the waterbug to find his wings have already been pinched off. I feel the way Poppa looks to me — defeated. Now it is me sitting here alone, just as Poppa would, me drinking his sliwowica prune vodka. The only light is the coal oil lamp on the kitchen table. The spoon has stuck fast to the oilcloth where he tapped the coffee off. I am even sitting in his chair.
Look, he has had my scrapbook out again, leafing through the Flyer years like I am forever skating around, Schultz and me, the Stanley Cup over our heads while Philly fans erupt in appreciation. The book is less thumbed after the Flyers. Poppa looks just so far and then quits.
He turns to something else like this damned paperback on Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement. Walesa and his big walrus moustache staring out like he’s the Black Madonna himself, for Christ’s sake. Poppa is obsessed with Walesa, praying for him, praying to him, for all I know. All he wants to talk about is Poland and Walesa and the goddamn Russians. It is as if he sees the Russians holding Walesa captive on the evidence they found in Jaja’s memoirs.
Only a Pole could hold himself so responsible.
He reads up the Flyers and the Cup, and then turns to Walesa, leaving little doubt in my mind just who Poppa believes is the champion of the world today.
Fine, Poppa, fine. You lie up there and you moan like a baby. And if you cry loud enough maybe Walesa will hear you and come running with comfort.
Me, I’m going out.
The moon is like a nail clipping, but enough. I can pick my way up behind St. Martin’s with ease. I know the ground; I know the trail from a dozen funerals; I know where she is and what she is doing. I hear the bitch laughing.
No one sees me. I leave the car in the hardware lot and walk up the school kids’ trail back of the store, cut across the Schama side road and through the cedars to the church. I scare up a hare coming through.
Batcha would say that was bad luck. But this time for her, not for me. I am sick of her controlling my life. Sick and tired and fucking well finished with it.
The ground is frozen stiff, our tramping three days ago into the graveyard has turned the scabs of snow. It is impossible to step without slipping or stubbing, so I go up high on the bush side and circle around on Batcha. This way the bitch won’t see me coming.
She really is a càrovnica. A true witch. Not just a jiza with folk medicines and superstitions, but a true witch with real powers. Evil powers. I know that now. The poplar crosses, the pins, the evil eye, the mole claws to scratch cow udders, the buried hearts — it all makes perfect sense to me now. It began with Matka’s death. My fault. And Jaja wouldn’t let her take over when they saw what I was. That’s why she hated me. Why he wrote it all down ... It should have been me pouring the wax into her keyhole. Bitch.
And I can see now that she never let up. Kristiina, for sure. Batcha was there too. The night in the cottage with Pekka and Pia in the next room. Of course. It would have been that night that Kristiina became pregnant. And Batcha killed the baby, sure as shit. Why didn’t I ask Kristiina if it had been a boy or a girl? Would they tell her? Would they know? Was his little heart still pumping when they dropped him in the garbage? He was a boy. I know that now. He was Jaja’s dream of the Batterinski name continuing. That’s what the painting told me in Leningrad, sure. He was my gift back to the family and Batcha couldn’t bear it that I would take over from her, that I would control what became of us all. Bitch.
She was behind Wheeler too. She fucked Philadelphia. She fucked L.A. She fucked Helsinki. She fucked me in Leningrad. It was always her, always at the window, laughing. Just like I heard her the other day. Wasn’t the water at all. And she’s still laughing
Bitch!
Laugh, you fucking bitch! Laugh all you want!
I knew there would be no key needed. A thumb starter, hand clutch, four-gear snap shift on the floor, scoop-operated by swivelling the joystick. Not much different from what they had in Sudbury. I still remember.
I press the starter and the battery turns the starter engine, but it will not catch. Of course, the choke. I have to wait for the moon before I can find it. I slide it out to full and push again. The starter engine whirrs, then catches, and the main engine coughs into action. I push in the choke to quieten it, but kill the engine. Again, and again they catch. I let it idle loudly, then slowly press in the choke. Check to see that the scoop is up, then shift into first, release the clutch, step on the gas and the John Deere moves into action, howling across the crust.
But I could care less. This has to be done.
I have the decency to skirt the other graves. I came in on Batcha from behind, grateful there is not yet a marker. I dare not try the headlights, but it doesn’t matter. In the thin moon I can make out the mound and the flowers, frozen in full bloom. I back the John Deere in, swivel the scoop and shift seats to work it.
This is far more difficult. There are three joysticks, and with the scoop switched over I find one operates the up-and-down motion. One the scoop itself, and one the thrust. But I cannot coordinate them! I bump against the grave and the frozen earth knocks the John Deere straight back. I have not put down the pods. I turn back to the seat, search out a lever and press it. Hydraulics hiss into action and I feel the machine rising. I move the lever and the machine settles as if in water.
Back to the scoop. I pull it in tight, then press straight down. The blade hits badly. I try again and this time the scoop bites in. I push and it moves stiffly into the earth and bounces off. I try again, and this time it bites deep. But I lose it on the lift. I try again, and this time, finally, I come up with earth. It rises high over Batcha’s grave and I feel like cheering.
But why am I doing this? What the fuck am I doing here? What good will this do?
I don’t want the bitch up. I want her gone forever. I don’t even know now what I was going to do to her.
I shake my head. Poppa’s vodka. I am not quite right. I feel cobwebs wrapped around my body. I squirm.
Of course! She is doing this to me. She wants me to dig her up! She’s not yet through with fucking me around.
“You can’t fool meeee!”
I pull up the scoop and dump the earth. It falls badly, spreading over Jaja’s snow clean grave.
“You goddamn bitch!”
I
pull the scoop to its rest position, change chairs, work the hydraulics so the pods vanish, shift gear and turn the John Deere completely. I put it into bull low, crank up the gas, and grade straight up into the grave mound.
The John Deere hangs there a moment, weaving, then the earth gives, sinks and the big machine settles.
I am sure I hear the box crushing below.
Fools! How can they expect to catch the person who made the trails? I saw the cops’ lights flashing long before they made the turn at St. Martin’s. I saw Father Schula scurrying out to point. By the time they headed up toward the graveyard I was long gone, tucked into the cedars like a partridge.
Batterinski has a few moves yet.
Poppa is still asleep but the moaning has stopped. And I know why too. I know now what took me to the John Deere: not me, but her, but I fixed her proper. The bitch. His moaning had to stop. And now it is time to fix my own.
I just have to find that goddamn caul.
I must remember all that Old Frank told me.
Chłopa pjisca mjerza. A man is measured with his fists. I have been measured. I came out all right. Wupji. No, that is the teeth. You can do nothing about the wupji until he is dead. And I am most certainly not dead. The bitch is dead. I cannot control my hand. It moves on its own, thumb hooking in under the belt, the sign against wurok. So I am still afraid of her. But just for a little longer.
But where is it? Where is the caul? I know she kept it. That was what gave her power over me. That was what she used to fuck me around with. But where is it?
In her room! Poppa won’t hear me. I can hear him snore now, deep in sleep, the sound like the starter engine on the John Deere. I will look and find it and eat the cursed thing and then everything will be fixed right. The bitch will be entirely dead.
Poppa has fixed up Batcha’s room just as I last remember it. The bed is made. Her rabbit-fur slippers are even on the throw mat. There is no over-head light — she wouldn’t let the electrician in, would she? She knew I would try one day. The only light is her Christ table lamp. I turn it on but the light below is cut off by the shadow cast by the dresser. I have to grab Christ around his wounded chest and lift him, knocking off the red shade as I do. The cord, fortunately has enough slack that I can aim the light around like a mechanic’s lamp. But there is no longer anything stored under her bed. Nothing. Holding Christ in an armpit, I go through her drawers but there is nothing here but the smell of cedar boughs and the pitch black of Batcha’s inside: stockings, underwear, slips, shawls, sweaters, all black and formless as herself. In the top drawer there is a heavy old Bible with a carved wooden cover and underneath it a small chest, but it is only a tangle of hair nets, some manicure scissors and a small pouch filled with nail clippings.
The closet is more difficult to search. I have to lift the door and slide the lamp cord under it to gain enough length, and the door snaps at the lowest hinge, cracking through the house. I freeze and listen. Poppa snorts, coughs, catches and is off again snoring. I move and realize I am soaking with sweat. My shirt grabs across the shoulders, my pants catch at the knee. My heart pulses in my neck and I can feel it against the starch of the shirt collar. It is too close in here. The closet is filled with dark garments, dresses, coats, vests. On the floor there is a yellow chamber pot, matched and stacked black shoes, a single pair of unused winter boots. On the shelf only hats, toques, muffs, gloves. A hat box in one corner contains dozens of poplar crosses, pins, paper, two old and blackened Polish books.
But nothing else. I poke Christ into all the corners, but there is nothing left. Yet I know better. Marie said she dragged some of the memoirs out into the shed. She might also have taken the boxes from under the bed.
Perhaps I went up in ashes. Perhaps her main reason for lighting the fire was to burn the caul. To make it so I could never fix things. The bitch. I wish I had the sound of her box-crushing on tape, the way Torchy used to tape his sex sessions. I’d listen and I’d applaud. And then listen again.
I come back into the kitchen but cannot find the flashlight. There is only the old hurricane hanging on the spike. When I shake it there is a splash of coal oil, so I take it down and set it on the table, checking first on Poppa’s snore — still regular — and then the time: 5:35 a.m. The glass is filthy with dust and I have trouble lifting it and wiping it clean, frightened of breaking the mantle. I pump it, open the release valve, lift the glass again and strike one of Poppa’s long wooden matches and insert it. The lantern bursts, shards of flame shoot through the vents and wrap themselves in deep blue and yellow around the entire glass. I am afraid I have pumped too hard, or else the flame is working down the delivery tube, but suddenly the larger flame tapes high and vanishes into thick black smoke. I adjust the mantle and the pin glow grows to a tight wrap around the entire cloth. It clears the glass and fills the room with its light, a better glow even than Christ gave off.
As quietly as possible I pop the back door and step out and down, into the shell of the back shed.
There is a flutter under the eaves, then movement, swooping. A bat! Smentek! It twists through a missing wallboard and disappears into the night. Good! I place the hurricane down where it will be best protected, but the night wind still finds it, toying with the flame so my shadow sways through the remaining walls like black fire.
There’s a burned trunk I do not remember off to the far side. It might be blue, but there is more black from the fire than whatever colour it once was. It is behind the crates I know held Jaja’s memoirs. Poppa might have pushed it there so he could concentrate on Jaja’s stuff. There is so much extinguisher powder around that it sifts like fine talcum and has actually formed drifts around the base. But there might be a chance.
Poppa has piled things on the trunk, all of them useless. One of Jazda’s workhorse collars for the pub hauling, two tractor wheel rims, some twisted, rusted and now charred cable. I clear them quietly, glad there is enough ash and snow and paper char on the floor to soften any blow. The top of the trunk is badly burned, almost as if this was where she had poured her coal oil. I pull and the cardboard tears. I lift up the lamp and tilt it so I can see inside.
Poplar crosses! There must be thousands of them. How they failed to catch is beyond me, they feel so dry and old to the touch, but the flame never made it quite through the surface. There is only some drifted ash inside; otherwise it has been untouched.
There are some books inside, all Polish, all incomprehensible. And several tins, some containing beads, some buttons, some empty.
But nothing else. I yank the box so it comes completely free, and as it turns I notice on the side mostly badly burned there is a hole, but whether caused by a fire or by Poppa’s rats I cannot be sure. Several bottles have broken and spilled against the framework of the shed; they might well have slipped from the box as poor Poppa kicked it aside to get closer to the doomed memoirs.
I get down on the floor and sift among them with my bare hands, touching very lightly for fear of broken glass. The jars are badly charred and my hands become inked with the coating. Some are broken. Some contain nails. More buttons. One has coins ... And one is neither clear nor burnt. It is blue ceramic, about eight inches tall, flanged in the middle untouched.
I reach and grab the jar, lifting it like a chalice. It has a ceramic top with a cork base built on, all held in place by an attached clamp. The clamp is fastened tight and rusted in place. Probably for years.
But it seems empty. I weigh it and it seems no heavier than what can be seen. I shake it and nothing. I shake it again, my ear riding with it, and I think I can hear something ever so vaguely. Something light as powder. Light as dried skin!
Clutching the jar I grab up the lantern and make it back into the kitchen, where I close the valve on the flame and set the jar down carefully on the oilcloth, smudging everything. There is a washcloth hanging on the old pump. I take it off, wet it under the tap and clean up the soot, wiping the table clean, moving the scrapbook and the Walesa book and pla
cing the ceramic jar dead centre, where I can take a good look at it.
But I do not want to see it. I want to see inside. I have to see inside. I can barely negotiate my own fingers. They grab badly at the clamp and the jar nearly slips from my grasp. I grab again, holding it with both hands and push on the clamp with my thumbs, but it does not give.
Poppa always has penetrating oil around and I find it on the sill. I try to pour it on, but my hands are shaking too badly. I have to put the jar down, smear the oil on my fingers, then work the oil in along the clamp, using the washcloth again to clean up. And then I have to let it work in. I take my pulse because I do not know what else to do. One hundred and forty beats per minute. A five mile run. I take the scrapbook up but find I have no stomach for it: each picture is like one of Danny’s lies, serving a momentary purpose but then gone. I cannot look back on what I should still be looking forward to. And damn! I’ve gotten oil on it anyway. I get the cloth again but the oil has caught in the newsprint of the scrapbook pages, spreading out, spreading back, the smudge being passed from one page to the next.
Goddamn it all to hell!
I try the clamp and it budges. A deep breath, a second effort, and this time it gives completely. The cork lifts free of the ceramic neck and a stale putrid smell wafts lightly and is gone. I stare immediately down the throat but it is pitch black inside the bottle, and no matter how I angle it to the overhead light I cannot see because of my own shadow.
From the cupboard I take down a cereal bowl. I place it in front of my own chair and then pump the ceramic jar like a ketchup bottle, tapping the neck and then the bottom with the edge of a straightened finger. For a moment I panic, convinced there is nothing inside. But then a grey, matted powder trickles out. Nothing else.
What would I look like? If I am thirty-seven years old this powder should also be thirty-seven years old. I don’t even have a clue what a fresh caul would look like, let alone one that’s thirty-seven years old.
The Last Season Page 42