Inside the shop the old man performed another ritual, unmindful of the anxiously waiting customers. He took off his hat and jacket, and placed them in their respective places on the coat rack. Then he slipped a long apron, stained with meat blood, over his vest. He rolled his sleeves up past his elbows and tied the apron cord behind his back. Almost as soon as he finished, the women swarmed forward, converging on the empty display counters.
They all wore the indistinguishable black garb of their station. Some were more noticeable with colorful print aprons or lacy handkerchiefs added to the uniform.
The woman with the tight black bun spoke up. “You first?” she inquired of a crony.
“No, you were first,” replied a smaller, darker woman.
“It’s all right, you go.”
“No, no,” said the smaller woman in tones of martyrdom, “I have time. You go first.”
Amidst the chatter and the banter of the women, Tati Cuda proudly displayed his wares: the deep mahogany of the sirloin steaks, the brighter red of the chuck, the pale yellow of the chicken parts, and the marbled gray pork chops. He surveyed his shop: fresh sawdust on the floor, shining white tiles, and the polished chrome of his new freezer. It proved to him that there was still something to hold onto in this world, that there were still things worth living for. He slapped the last piece of meat in place and turned to his audience.
“Yes, ladies,” he announced with the charm of a showman.
“Just a pound of chopped meat, Tati Cuda,” said the woman with the bun. “Lean, you know how I like it.”
“Mrs. Kuchinkas,” he replied gallantly. “Yes, I know.”
He walked to the end of the counter, where he fed the chuck through the grinder.
As he worked, he spoke to the women confidentially.
“I’m sorry I was late today. But you know how I never miss a day. In forty-three years.”
All the women muttered their approval.
“You need help here, Cuda,” a slightly younger woman in thick glasses spoke up.
“Well,” Tati Cuda continued, as he wrapped the chopped meat expertly in white butcher paper. “My cousin arrived today from Indianapolis. You’ll see him here. He’s going to help me.”
The women cooed like a flock of pigeons.
“Is he nice, Tati Cuda?” asked Mrs. Kuchinkas, gathering up her package and laying a few crumbled dollars on the bloodstained chopping board. “Is he old like you?”
“Like all of us,” interrupted the smaller woman. “When since a new young man moved into Braddock?” she asked in broken English.
“Well, actually,” Tati Cuda replied, a stiff smile on his face as he spoke about the new arrival. The morning’s events were a bad dream to him now. “He is a young man. Not even twenty. You know our Palonis died just a short time ago, and Martin has come to my house.”
“So you’ll have help. And in the family, too. You don’t have to worry,” the woman in glasses commented.
“I must tell you. Martin is a little . . . slow.” Let the women think there is something wrong with him, Cuda thought, and they’ll let him be.
In unison, the women sighed commiseratively.
“But he can read and write,” Cuda brightened. “He seems pleasant enough. Perhaps . . . if he behaves . . . I can run deliveries again.”
“Deliveries,” Mrs. Kuchinkas repeated, happily. “Like the old days . . .”
“You’ll forgive him his strangeness, ladies. You see . . . it’s a family problem. Not in my direct line, you understand,” he reassured them, “but . . . among distant relatives.”
He had cornered their sympathies now and had them eating out of his hand. After years of this early morning banter, he could lead the poor unsuspecting customers anywhere he wanted. It was something he had perfected along with the clean sawdust and the shining chrome.
“How good of you to take him, Tati Cuda,” the women chorused. “What a wonderful man, our dear butcher.”
As Tati Cuda basked in their compliments, the tinny bell above the door announced Mrs. Bellini’s entrance. She had heard the tail end of the conversation and spoke up in disapproval.
“A young man in the house with Christina?” she pronounced like an old witch foretelling a prophesy.
The other women fell silent, reproachful expressions on their faces. “The old bitch is right,” they all thought. But caught up in their joy for the old man and relieved that his trip to the train station had brought good luck, and what’s more—excitement to their town, they had forgotten about propriety.
“Relative or no, that isn’t right.”
“Well, Mrs. Bellini, I . . .” the old man started.
“You shouldn’t have, Cuda. How will it look? It can only mean trouble,” she said knowingly.
Tati Cuda’s face clouded. He could only let this old woman go so far. It was none of her concern, especially in his shop. At least he had to retain what was left of his dignity on his own turf.
“It looks as you want it to look, Mrs. Bellini,” he said solemnly. “My family knows how to behave. We have private laws in our family. And they are stricter than you know.”
He spoke the last line with such grimness that the women were frightened into agreeing with him.
“Yes . . . and it’s none of your business anyway,” Mrs. Kuchinkas called as she left by the front door.
“Tati Cuda is a good man!” the woman in glasses spoke up as she moved to the front of the line.
Tati Cuda thanked his supporters with his eyes, but in his heart he knew the old hag was right.
• • •
The afternoon light cast a wavering diffused pattern through the cracked shades in Martin’s room. Even in the fading light he wore sunglasses over his sensitive eyes to reduce the glare. After his long journey and the tortuous morning, he welcomed the idleness of laying on his narrow bed, his favorite books spread before him.
He leaned against the wall, a down-filled pillow propped behind his back. He was deeply immersed in reading one of the paperbacks, Bill Severn’s Big Book of Magic. On his lap were some little colored balls and handkerchiefs which he used for practicing the tricks. On the nightstand three other books were arranged: Electronics Made Easy, Crossword Dictionary, and Teach Yourself to Draw. A well-worn deck of cards lay next to the paperbacks. In order to amuse himself through the dreary and often secluded hours, Martin had turned to the public library for friends. But soon these too had to be returned and with what little money he could scrape together and steal from Uncle Palonis’s leather purse, he invested in the paperbacks now spread out before him. Without benefit of formal education, but with years of continual practice, Martin had developed a fairly high reading ability and comprehension level. He liked to challenge himself with difficult crossword puzzles and tricky electronics problems. His fascination with magic was deeper. With the zeal of a scientist proving the existence of the atom, or a clergyman showing a distrustful congregation the proof of God, he sought to demystify the witches’ craft. “When will people come to accept my sickness?” he thought sorrowfully. “When will I be allowed to live in peace?”
Martin had been staring at one of the pages in the book for over fifteen minutes. He was trying to decide whether or not he would be able to manage one of the tricks. It seemed simple enough and he had all the necessary props. He just had to round them up and decided to do it before Tati Cuda returned from the shop. Suddenly, he got up from his bed, knocking the deck of playing cards to the floor in his haste. Like a puppy looking for a handout, he trotted down the stairs, a lighthearted mood propelling him.
He bounded through the permanently shaded front parlor, nearly knocking over a crystal vase on a spindly-legged cherrywood table. He moved past the overstuffed, chintz-covered sofa and armchairs with their delicate lace doilies. The mantelpiece held a photographic gallery of relatives past and present: Tati Cuda as a young man, his mustache coal black, his walking stick absent, and his new bride blushing in the retouched portrait;
Uncle Palonis, his skin a pale and deathly white even as a young man, his stare direct; Cuda’s parents, stiff and starched in their Sunday best, posing for a traveling photographer in the old country.
Martin’s eyes briefly rested on the high-school graduation picture of Christina, Tati Cuda’s granddaughter. She appeared kind and sweet, straight black bangs framing deep brown pools, a demure string of pearls gracing her slender neck. Martin hurried into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers filled with string and twine, rubber bands, old bottle caps, and other paraphernalia collected over almost fifty years. The kitchen was as it appeared when the house was first built. A huge cast-iron stove was shoved against one wall, the shelves above it filled with condiments and seasonings. A rack of ladles, wooden spoons, and carving knives hung above the shelves. A lopsided chopping block, its rectangular bulk taking up much of the room, stood on the other side of the stove. A round oak table with three rickety chairs nested under the window, the floor boards worn smooth where the chair legs had scraped through hundreds of meals. Everything was ancient but clean. The smell of disinfectant blended with the lingering odors of open spice jars, garlic cloves, and freshly baked bread.
Martin paid no heed to these incriminating details of his relatives’ uninspiring lifestyle. He dove into the drawer like a hungry shark searching for a meal. Sifting deeper through secretarial supplies of pencils, lined notepaper, staples, and paperclips, he found a roll of Scotchtape and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.
Walking over to the round oak table, he noticed a bowl of walnuts and grabbed one. Using a small pocketknife, he very carefully cut the shell in two at the seam and scraped out the nut meat, munching happily as he went along. He then pulled a dollar bill from his worn, plastic wallet, which still held a dimestore photograph of Jane Russell, folded it into a little square, and inserted it in the walnut shell. Using some glue that he found among the other supplies in the drawer, he carefully put the nutshell back together again, like Humpty Dumpty’s cracked head, and finally set the bogus nut on top of the stack in the bowl.
As he was returning the supplies, he heard a noise at the front door, quickly scooped up the remaining items and hurriedly shut the drawer. In his haste to get out of the kitchen and into the sanctuary of his room without being noticed, he ran straight into Christina, who was wearily coming home from her day as a secretary in a small insurance firm. It was one of the only businesses remaining in Braddock. “Someday, there’ll be no one left to insure, and they’ll close up the door, and I’ll be without a job,” she often complained to Tati Cuda, who barely moved his head in agreement behind his evening newspaper.
As in her high-school graduation picture, she was dressed rather conservatively. With her short, unstylish hair and straight bangs, she looked more like a schoolgirl than a sophisticated working woman. Even her mode of dress was ten years behind the times with a small little purse, an unbecoming somber-toned shirtwaist, and pointed-toe pumps. But underneath the conservative exterior, a glimmer of undiscovered beauty managed to show through, as if she were a scrawny caterpillar about to turn into a glorious butterfly. She was of medium height and rather slender, although the dress made her appear dumpy and squat. Her appearance was no more surprising to Martin than his was to her. She reacted with a sharp, startled intake of breath, staring at him through great sad brown eyes. For a moment, they greeted each other in silence. Then she spoke.
“You’re Martin?” she asked, relieving the uncomfortable quiet.
Martin responded with his characteristic reticence, as he had with the businessman on the train. He had developed this manner of dealing with people in heavy situations to perfection.
“Is . . . is Cuda home yet?” Christina pursued nervously.
Without further hesitation, Martin turned suddenly and rushed away toward the unthreatening darkness of the upper hallway and the safety of his room.
Speechless, Christina quietly set her purse down on the table, a baffled expression crossing her tired and suddenly worn-out looking face.
Standing just abreast of the door to Christina’s room, Martin peered out of the shadows like a fugitive from a terrible crime. Noticing the garlic sprays which he had snatched off earlier lying unceremoniously on the floor, he picked them up and in a gesture of supreme humility hung them back on the nail in the door frame. Then he ran frantically into his room, slamming the door behind him and throwing the bolt against any further intrusion.
For a young woman in her mid-twenties, Christina’s life, by modern standards, would be considered boring. After a grueling eight-hour day working for a boss who squeezed every ounce of strength out of her rather than hiring some part-time help, she would hurry home to prepare a meal for her grandfather. But Cuda ate so fast that it didn’t matter what she put before him. Usually, though, she was able to relax for an hour or so before starting the preparations for supper. She was now in the kitchen, having changed into an old housedress which hung on her like a misshapen sack. She was a person who accepted much with few or no complaints—on the surface. She usually kept her feelings bottled up inside her. Cuda had turned a deaf ear on her girlish longings for new clothes, a pretty hairdo, and a brighter future long ago. Now she buried her thoughts in her diary, which she kept religiously, despite her maturity. It was one leftover of her girlhood she did not want to relinquish—a receptacle for her innermost private thoughts.
As if she were conducting a symphony, she kept many pots going at once—a medley of broccoli, a quartet of potatoes, a chorus of carrots. She enjoyed her time in the kitchen and whistled while listening to the friendly drone of a radio talk show as she bustled through her nightly chores.
With an ear toward the radio announcer’s hearty voice as he dealt with one of the lonely caller’s problems, Christina went to the tall cupboard near the hallway door. She threw it open and searched through the half-closed boxes and the stacked canned goods for a box of bread crumbs. As her hand alighted on the box, she noticed a strange flickering shadow behind the door, but paid it no mind. She tapped the door closed and was startled to find her cousin standing quite inconspicuously in the shadows. She clutched the box of bread crumbs to her chest like a child.
“Oh . . . oh, I’m sorry,” she said as if by reflex as she jumped back in alarm. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come down.”
She watched as the strange figure seemed to lurch toward the kitchen drawer and returned what seemed to her to be a roll of Scotchtape to the tangle of secretarial supplies she had managed to “borrow” from her office. Then he turned and looked at her with the eyes of a young boy who had just filched a roll of Lifesavers from the candy counter. Christina felt a shiver run through her bones as she stood transfixed by the cupboard door, still clutching her box of bread crumbs. But she quickly recovered and moved swiftly toward the stove.
Cuda said he was a little strange, she reassured herself. It is just his new surroundings, she hoped rather than believed.
“I’m making stuffed cabbage,” she offered as a token of friendship to the silent young man. “Do you like it?”
Again, she was answered by silence, she looked up to find Martin’s face squarely across from hers.
“Do you like stuffed cabbage?” she asked, more firmly.
Martin shook his head.
“Terrific,” she returned to her cooking. “Well, it’s Cuda’s favorite. Things are done around here Cuda’s way.”
A slight mumble erupted from Martin.
“What?” Christina asked and moved to the counter, snapping off the radio.
She found Martin staring straight at her when she turned to face him, a frightening expression across his face as if communication with another human being was an alien experience.
He reached up and clicked the radio back on. The announcer’s voice came on with a blast of static and laughter.
“Oh,” Christina attempted to make small talk. “I didn’t know you were listening. That’s a crazy show. It’s on all night from six to
six. I like to listen to it, too. You hear other people’s problems and your own seem like blessings sometimes,” she laughed nervously. She busied herself with rolling the chopped meat into cabbage leaves and securing them with toothpicks.
She realized that Martin was not an easy person to get to with the small talk that served her so well with others—Tati Cuda when he was inclined to listen, her boss, her boyfriend Arthur, the old women in the town. She turned her attention to the caller who was now berating the announcer for the evils of the welfare state, as if they were his fault.
“They’re all bums and should go to work,” the woman complained nasally. “And all they do is have babies so they can collect. But it’s the Democrats’ fault, Kennedy and Johnson . . .”
“Ouch,” Christina exclaimed as she burned her finger on the casserole which she had preheated for the stuffed cabbage. Her mind was elsewhere these days. Problems with Arthur and the monotony of her job and now this silent stranger with a mysterious past who was welcomed into her home as if he were a long-lost brother. She sucked on her burned finger, and her eyes turned toward Martin.
“Cuda should be here,” she said, taking her aching finger from her mouth. She said it more for her benefit than Martin’s. Maybe Cuda could get the sheepish doe-eyed boy to talk.
“He opened late today so he could pick you up,” she explained. “So I guess he’s working late. He’s gotta put in at least eight hours, sick or healthy, rain or shine. I’d call if we had a phone. Supper’ll be ruined if he’s not here soon.”
She paused in her nervous chatter, wiping her bangs from her perspiring forehead with her wrist. “Would you like a drink . . . wine or something?”
Martin tossed his head from side to side.
Christina was slightly more comfortable with this semblance of a response. “At least I’m not talking to the wall,” she thought. “Maybe the kid’s a mirage and I’m really going nuts.”
She turned her back on Martin and prepared a simple green salad with lettuce, parsley, and peppers from the small garden she had planted in the backyard. The tomatoes were just about turning red on the plants and not ready to be picked.
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