“I’ll give you mercy,” yelled Jurgis as he jumped Stalin from behind the hedge. “The same mercy you showed my family,” he said as they fell in a heap. The two men rolled around the lawn in an agonized struggle. Jurgis felt thumbs digging into his throat as if Stalin wanted to squeeze the life out of him. He choked and gagged, battling for breath, until with a last bit of strength, he threw Stalin off with a hoarse roar into the night. Now he had the man and was going to show him no mercy. He wrestled him into a chokehold, and squeezed with all his might until he heard his neck snap. Suddenly Stalin began to fade and slowly disappear into the night air like a wisp of smoke from a pipe. Jurgis was stunned. He looked behind the hedges, checked behind the parked cars, and even lifted the lids of garbage cans. Nothing. He ran from one side of the street to the other. Everything was empty and still, shrouded in fog. Jurgis searched in all directions, trying once again to decipher the topography of his neighborhood. Had he been walking all night? Where was home? What about his sleeping children? How could he have left them? Jurgis walked until he reached a corner and saw a dusty road lined with birch trees. It was the familiar crossroads by the Akmena River that he remembered from long ago. He could hear the dry rustling of the grass as it was scythed. He could smell the sweetness of the hay. If only he could get to the end of the road, he would see his mother’s weathered face. She would be picking cherries in the orchard. His brother would be sharpening his scythe. His wife, Regina, would be bringing cucumbers in her apron, and his little Magda would be waiting for him, wanting to drink tea with him in those tiny cups. They would stop what they were doing to wave to him with their white handkerchiefs.
Jurgis opened his eyes to a sparkling dawn of fluffy clouds in a Delft-blue sky—the kind of morning that should fall only on Easter Sunday as if God had just scrubbed the world clean. Inexplicably, he felt light-hearted. He found himself curled up like a stray cat on the hood of Mr. Matas’ green Hudson as Magda pulled his arm to wake him. When Jurgis looked around and saw he was on his own street, he hugged his daughter fiercely and realized sadly that he hadn’t done that in a while. Magda smiled shyly and together they walked to their front door, as Jurgis stooped to pick up the Lithuanian newspaper. He stopped on the stairs, shocked when he saw the giant headline:
March 6, 1953—Stalin Dead!
“I don’t believe it,” he hooted, and for a brief moment he wondered if he had killed him. He shook his head to erase last night’s strangeness. “Now this is what I call a piece of news!” Jurgis sat down on his front stairs and started to laugh so hard that he woke his wife. Regina, surprised to hear the unaccustomed sound, came outside in her blue chenille robe, her hair still in pin curls, to see what was happening. It didn’t take long before she caught the contagion and giggled, intoxicated to hear her husband’s laughter again after so many years.
The Talman Rains
Ona Janulis, 1953
Neighborhoods can have a slippery luck depending on who moves in or out. Luck, like weather, can waft in like a soft breeze or mysteriously float away like a drippy fog. On a windy day in March 1953, Ona Janulis moved into her new home on Talman Street, changing the luck in that blue-collar neighborhood, which was never too good to begin with, but was about to take a peculiar turn for the worse.
Talman Street was lined with an elegant canopy of tall elm trees and working-class brick two-flats. In this corner of the South Side of Chicago, an earlier group of immigrants from Ireland still worked at the local Nabisco factory. The arriving Lithuanians were more-recent immigrants who mostly worked at the other end of the olfactory spectrum—the stockyards.
Ona sat on the front steps of her new red-brick house hugging Margis, her beefy basset hound. In her old school in Bridgeport, she had been taller and heavier than most of her classmates. They called her “Fat Ona” and it made her feel clumsy and shy. She couldn’t help it if she was big-boned. She was hoping for a fresh start at her new school.
While Ona sat brooding about her past mistreatment, her father and brother tried to wedge a bed through the front door, grunting as they tried to push it through. Having saved for years, her parents were proud to move into this neighborhood so full of tree-lined streets. Ona watched her brother, Jonas, struggle with the bed, when suddenly a neighbor sprinted across the street yelling, “He’s dead, thank God Almighty, the monster finally died!” Jonas dropped his end of the bed while the neighbor dashed up the stairs and clapped Ona’s father on his broad back, causing the bed leg to slip out of his callused hand. “I just read about it,” said the neighbor excitedly, the newspaper still tucked under his arm. Pranas Janulis scratched his ear, looking confused.
The neighbor put his hand out. “Mr. Janulis, welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Jurgis Vitkus, remember me? Your wife, Agota, cleans offices downtown with my Regina. We met at the annual Daughters of Lithuania picnic. My wife told me you were moving here, but this is a day for celebration for more reasons than that. Wait here.” The neighbor sprinted back into his blond brick house across the street. Pranas shrugged his shoulders and returned to the business of moving the bed. But no sooner had Pranas taken three steps into his new house than Jurgis returned with a bottle of cognac tucked under one arm and two shot glasses in his hand. “Come, let’s drink to his death. I hope it was a terrible one.”
Pranas finally lost patience. “Who the devil died?”
“What, haven’t you heard? Look at this wonderful headline, will you?” He shoved the paper under Pranas’ nose. “I’ve never seen better news. Imagine, Stalin finally died—we outlived the bastard.” Mr. Vitkus poured cognac into two glasses and handed one to Pranas. “Now that he’s dead, perhaps Lithuania will be free again, and we’ll be able to go home.”
Pranas shook his head, laughing. “Well, I’ll be damned!” He lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that, all right!” He swallowed it in one gulp and coughed. Jurgis poured another shot. “Welcome to Marquette Park, Mr. Janulis.”
“Call me Pranas.”
Next door, a stocky man with ginger hair came out of the house to see who was moving in. His red-haired daughter followed him and waved hello to Ona.
“Jesus, not another dirty DP family moving in,” he said to his daughter. “No wonder the Irish are moving out. This used to be a fine neighborhood.”
“Shh, Daddy, they’ll hear you.” The girl looked mortified by her father’s remarks.
“They can’t understand us. They’re all fresh off the boat,” he said, turning back into the house, followed by the girl, who gave Ona an apologetic smile.
Ona’s father scratched his head, frowning. “Ah, don’t pay attention to those Irish. They’ve forgotten what it was like to be new in this country.”
The March winds blew the elm branches wildly. The sky was darkening, and storm clouds were brewing. The two men stood silently for a moment. “Come inside,” said Pranas. “Gladly,” said Jurgis. “I heard this joke about Stalin on Dora Matas’ Lithuanian radio program. Stalin goes to heaven at night, just like the NKVD is known to do, and Saint Peter is puzzled, so he stops him at the pearly gates. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake. You can’t come here. You’ve robbed your people of all their worldly goods.’ Stalin smiles, sure of himself. ‘No mistake. Isn’t it said in the Bible that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God?’ ‘Yes,’ says Saint Peter, frowning. Stalin continues, ‘Well then, didn’t I save my people’s souls by turning them all into paupers?’” Jurgis’ voice drifted away as the two men went inside.
Ona stayed on the front stoop, eyes open wide in her moon face, watching the treetops do their mad dance with the wind, waiting for the thunder and the rain to start. There was something about a fierce storm with the wind lashing the tree branches that she found exhilarating. Whenever she heard distant thunder, she ran out to meet it and watched as the storm broke over the city.
Before long, the diminutive Regina Vitkus came from across the street with a large pot of borscht to welcome her friend Agota to the neighborhood. She brought along her squirming son, Al, telling Ona that they would be in the same class at Nativity School.
Agota came out to greet her. “Come in before you get wet. Where’s Magda?”
“My daughter wanted to stay home. She doesn’t like to go visiting.”
Ona saw that Al wasn’t happy about visiting either. “I remember you from the picnics at Ragis Farm.”
“Aren’t you the girl who told us about the ghosts in your family?”
“The domovoi.” She smiled, pleased that he still remembered.
“Why don’t you two play some checkers?” suggested Agota.
“I can’t,” said Al, his eyes darting around. “I gotta do homework.” He bolted desperately back across the street before anyone could protest.
“I’m afraid my son is not ready to play with girls yet. Please don’t be offended,” said Regina. Ona smiled, but she was disappointed.
That night, because the visiting delayed the moving in, Ona slept in her bed that was still in the living room. For a long time, she couldn’t fall asleep, listening to the wind and rain lash the tall windows, but then she noticed the Irish family next door. From behind the nylon curtains, she could see their kitchen window. Ona watched them with rapt fascination through a scrim of rain, hoping this girl next door might become a new friend. Probably not, though, because this family seemed so different from her own, so American. They ate strange food, arguing loudly. They were so emotional, not like her family, who seemed to go about their daily life never saying what they really felt, but these folks yelled and cried.
The next day her bed got moved into her new bedroom, but she still watched the Irish family whenever she could. One night she saw the red-haired girl out in the backyard catching lightning bugs and putting them into a jar. Ona was horrified to see the bugs blinking on and off in the jar, so she waited until the girl was gone and then crept into the neighbors’ yard to let the bugs go.
“Hey, whatcha doing?” The Irish girl with a halo of red hair was standing in a lit doorway.
Ona was so startled that she flopped on a bed of snapdragons and clumsily got up to see what damage she had done.
The red-haired girl laughed, “You sure flattened those flowers good.”
Ona nodded sheepishly.
“Why are you stealing my lightning bugs?” asked the redhead.
“I’m not stealing, I let them go. If you keep them in a jar, they’ll die.”
“So what, they’re only bugs.”
“It’s cruel,” said Ona brushing the dirt off her pleated skirt. “They’re alive, just like us.”
“So, bug lover, what’s your name, anyhow? I’m Connie.” She smiled and looked Ona over. “You like to jump rope or ride a bike?” Ona shrugged shyly, never having done either. Even so, the two girls quickly became friends in the easy way that nine year olds do. In the following weeks, Connie introduced Ona to the world of Barbie dolls, Monopoly, Old Maid, and TV. Ona watched the Roy Rogers Show at Connie’s house, and afterward Connie put on her Dale Evans cowgirl outfit: the fringed skirt, the boots, and the six shooters. Ona swooned with desire for that outfit, but Connie wouldn’t let her wear it, saying it was too small for her.
Connie inspected Ona’s homemade flowered dress with the lace collar. “Don’t you have any sweater sets or pedal pushers? Something more American?”
That day, Ona went home feeling disturbed. She begged her mother for a pair of pedal pushers, wanting desperately to fit in. Agota didn’t like her young daughter to wear short pants, but she finally had to give in and make them just so that Ona would stop begging.
By the end of the week, Ona put on the new flowered pedal pushers and proudly went to show Connie her outfit. At the end of the alley, Ona could see four girls playing jump rope.
“Hi, Connie,” Ona said eagerly.
“Come play double-Dutch,” said Connie. “First Vida’s turn, then Irene’s, and then you can have a turn after me. Here, turn the ropes,” she said, handing them over. Ona remembered those girls from the Lithuanian picnics. They were DPs, too. She had watched these kids play in the alleys and streets until the streetlights went on, a signal for all to go home. Everybody’s parents worked, so their kids ran the streets and alleys, wild like feral cats, jumping over fences, climbing garages, or playing in the prairies.
Though Ona was disappointed that Connie hadn’t said anything about her new pedal pushers, she dutifully turned the ropes and listened to the singsong rhymes the girls were chanting.
“Engine, engine, number nine, going down Chicago line…” Dainty Vida skipped, and then Irene energetically jumped in, and finally it was Connie’s turn. Ona turned the ropes hypnotically, listening to the whoosh-whoosh sound each time the rope turned, until she realized with a jolt that her turn was next. As she watched Connie lightly skipping over the ropes, she carefully studied this rope-skipping method as if her life depended on it. She was starting to wish she had stayed home, knowing how clumsy she was. When her turn came she jumped once, twice, and then Al Vitkus rode his bike down the alley, chanting as if singing a jump-rope rhyme, “Ona, Ona, Fat Ona, going down Chicago line.” Ona turned to look at him and tripped over the double rope, falling heavily on her knees. Her new pedal pushers were torn, her knees bruised. Al doubled over in laughter. Ona turned a moist red. The other girls laughed along, while Irene started to sing a popular polka tune: “I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me, she’s too fat for me, yeah, she’s too fat for me…” Connie joined in with glee.
Ona felt a disturbing quiet come over her, as she calmly untangled herself, stood up, and started to walk back down the alley. Her feet seemed miles away from her head. Behind her, she could still hear the girls singing when she got to her backyard fence. “Hey, Ona, come back, we were just teasing,” yelled Connie.
A light drizzle started to fall. Ona felt like crying, but no tears would come. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the comforting rain as if the clouds were crying for her. As she opened her back door, she heard the rumble of thunder in the distance and stopped a moment, turning to listen before she closed the door.
Saturday morning, Ona woke late, refusing to get out of bed. Her mother, sensing some upset, brought her some hot chocolate, saying nothing about the torn pants. Even her brother, Jonas, who normally stayed in his room with his hobby, collecting anything he could find more than two of, shared his Classic Comics collection with her. Ona read them all while petting her dog, and when she finally got up to wander through the house, Margis faithfully waddled behind her. As the days went by, she no longer watched Connie’s family through the window. Now she closed the curtain, lest Connie see how foreign Ona’s family was compared to her American one.
Outside the rain kept pelting down. The rain had stopped all over Chicago except for Marquette Park. At first no one took much notice, but before long it was evident that the rain was an affliction on this neighborhood alone, and the folks on Talman Street didn’t know what to make of it. All sorts of remedies were tried: some spat three times to ward off the evil eye, others brought out family relics and prayed, while others sought out spells to break the curse. But the rain continued, merciless and relentless.
By the end of the week, the rain had gotten on everyone’s nerves, and curses were flying. People began accusing their neighbors of causing it—the Irish accused the Lithuanians, who, in turn, accused the Communists. The Polish accused them all. Long-forgotten grievances, some going back several generations to the Old Country, were resurrected, and a leaden depression was beginning to set in.
Ona watched the rain, thinking that the whole neighborhood could wash away for all she cared. Each day it became more and more of an eyesore. The houses had been wet for so long that the bricks were developin
g a patina of green mold, and the wood was beginning to rot. Front lawns, once so proudly tended, now were squares of drowned grass. The smell of decay and mildew was daily getting stronger, but it was the riot of worms and slugs that was really getting on everybody’s nerves. No one could take two steps without squishing half a dozen. Real estate values plummeted.
Ona sat at her window quietly, watching through lidded eyes.
Before long, the deluge wore the neighbors down, as anger turned into resignation and people began to dream of the sun with a terrible longing. A general gloom was settling over the neighborhood, now ashamed of its unfortunate state, the way a crippled man is sometimes ashamed of his deformity.
Finally, in desperation, St. Patrick’s, the local Irish church, sent their new priest, the handsome Father Dan O’Malley, to bless the street. It was sunny when he left his parish but when he reached Talman Street, he felt the despair as the rain steadily pelted the neighborhood. With two altar boys holding umbrellas, he marched boldly through the slanted rain, flattening armies of worms in his wake, as he sprinkled each house with holy water. He said his most powerful incantations, but even so, the rain defeated him.
The priest from St. Stanislaus, the Polish church, fared no better.
The Lithuanian parish, not wanting to take any chances with failure, called out Bishop Petraitis to stop the rain. The bishop was a tight-lipped man with ferret eyes and a reputation for casting out evil that had followed him from Kaunas to Chicago. He was a man who knew the power of ritual and uniform, so he ordered a full procession: a bevy of nuns, altar boys carrying crosses—the works. Bishop Petraitis decided to wear his full costume as well, complete with mitered hat and staff, and for good measure, he called out the local folk dancers in native dress.
The bishop had heard about the ceaseless rain, but he was quite unprepared for the dismal sight. A lesser man might have thought twice, but he simply steeled himself, opening his umbrella as he began the procession. The Lithuanians had all gathered to witness the miracle, while the Irish neighbors stayed dry in their houses, peeking suspiciously from behind nylon curtains.
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