“Ice cream.” Agota looked around the cramped kitchen, sitting uneasily at the round table by the back door, while Odell brought out some vanilla ice cream. “You know, ever since we worked at Nabisco, I can’t stand cookies no more. Maybe I ate too many while I was there.”
“I don’t like them either.” Agota sat wondering when it would be polite to go home, but then she felt a shivering and a tingling up her spine. She looked around and saw nothing, but thought she heard the faint humming of “Blue Tango.” Agota had always liked this tango. It reminded her of her youth.
Suddenly, Odell dropped the ice-cream container. “Lord, that song scares me half to death. It always starts with that same old tune.” She stood wide-eyed by the open refrigerator. Agota stooped to pick up the fallen ice-cream container, and when she got up, she saw a gossamer version of Ema Bartulis tango into the room, long hair falling in waves down one side and a Gypsy scarf around her hips.
“Oh-oh, I’m outta here.” Odell opened the screen door and let it slam behind her. “Yell if you need help, but I’ll be damned if I’d know what to do.” Odell stumbled down the steps and fell into the redwood chair. “Oh, my heart is racing. Tell her to go haunt someone else,” she yelled from the backyard.
Agota felt a tingle of fear run down her spine. She blessed herself and asked the angels and saints to protect her in case this was an evil spirit. Then, taking a deep breath, she asked in Lithuanian, “Ema, why are you still here in your old house? You should leave these poor people alone. You’re frightening them.” Agota’s heart was in her throat.
“What are these strangers doing in my house?” said the shimmering vision. “Tell them to leave. Who are those Negroes anyway?”
“They live here, Ema.”
“But this is my house. I live here. Tell them to go.”
“Ema, that was long ago; it’s been many years since you lived here.”
“It has?” Ema looked confused. “Who are you?”
“Agota Janulis from across the street.”
“Agota!” The ghost’s face lit up like Easter Sunday. She sat down at the kitchen table with her old friend as if it were 1950 and she had never died. “Agota, how you’ve aged. I didn’t recognize you.”
“I got old Ema, not like you.”
Ema’s face dropped and her chin quivered as if she were about to cry. “I died too young, Agota. It wasn’t fair. I was so full of life, music, tangos.”
“No, it wasn’t fair,” Agota agreed.
“And that stupid husband of mine—the critic—is he still alive?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Why did I die so young? Was I a bad woman? No, it was my husband who should have died young. Then, what a time Vida and I would have had without his angry looks and lectures! We would have made Napoleon cake every night.” Once again Ema looked stricken. “How’s my little girl? I haven’t seen her in such a long time. I miss her so. When I died she was so little. How could I leave her alone?” Ema looked out the window, as if she would see her daughter still playing in the backyard. “My poor little Vida used to come sit on my grave and pretend it was my lap, bringing doughnuts, ribbons, and pictures she’d drawn for me.” Ema looked back over her shoulder. “She doesn’t come to my grave anymore, so I came looking for her. You don’t know how lonely it is for a soul to be stuck here on earth after death. But I’m a stubborn Samogitian. I refused to leave out of sheer terror that my Vida would have to grow up with my husband.”
“Your brother, Apolinaras, came to look after her for as long as he could stand your husband.”
“I saw him at my grave.”
“You know, don’t you, that your Vida married my Jonas and they have two children, one named after you.”
Ema looked surprised. “Really? After me?” Ema stared off into the distance, her face glowing happily. “Imagine, my little girl is already a mother. I have grandchildren.” The ephemeral Ema held her hands together as if in prayer. “She hasn’t forgotten me?”
“No, of course not.” Agota wanted to pat Ema’s hand to reassure her, but she stopped herself in mid-air and pulled her hand back to her lap.
Ema’s face hadn’t aged in forty years, and Agota realized that Vida now looked older than her mother. “Why have you returned like those revenants in our villages?”
Ema laughed like the tinkle of a small bell. “Ha, my dear, you’ve forgotten that the world is filled with spirits. So many forgotten and lonely spirits waiting at their graves for loved ones to visit them, to pray for them. They’re all around, and let me tell you that they’re not all kind either!”
Agota suddenly remembered a year when she was a girl and her Teta Kotryna brought home a domovoi from Russia. That trickster took up residence in their pantry and wouldn’t leave until her grandmother finally banished it to the marshes where all evil spirits lived. Her grandmother knew more about these old ways than she did. Agota no longer thought America had no spirit life.
“Why aren’t you resting in peace? What do you want, Ema?” asked Agota.
“I want to see my Vida again, to make sure she’s all right.” Ema looked as if she’d cry soon. “Please, can you help me, Agota?”
“See Vida again?” Agota sighed deeply, wondering how she had gotten herself into this mess. “I’ll try.”
“Bless you, Agota, I’ll wait here.” With those words, Agota saw Ema dissolve into the ether. She sat there, too stunned to move or say anything until she heard Odell yelling to her from the backyard. “Is she still there?”
Agota put the melting ice cream back into the freezer and went outside. Odell was sitting in the redwood chair surrounded by lightning bugs winking happily in the starlit night. For a moment it looked as if Odell were a ghostly apparition in the garden. “No, I’m afraid she’s gone.”
“I’m afraid, too. Who was she and what did she want? I heard you two gabbing that foreign talk like you were old friends.”
“It was Ema Bartulis.” Agota suddenly felt so tired that she wondered if she had the strength to cross the street and climb the stairs of her house.
“Well? What did she want?”
“To see her daughter again.”
“Daughter?”
“And she’s still angry at her husband after all these years.”
“Man trouble. Women always got man trouble. Well, I can understand that, honey. I had some too. Wouldn’t mind coming back to scare the daylights out of one or two myself.” Odell chuckled and stood up to take Agota’s arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.” The two women waddled arm-in-arm across the street, and Agota was touched by this gesture of solicitude.
“Listen, don’t put your house up for sale yet, Odell. I think Ema will rest in peace after she sees my daughter-in-law, Vida.”
“What? This is your family’s ghost? Then tell me why the hell isn’t she at your house? Why is she bothering my family? We don’t even speak her damn language.” Odell had both her hands on her hips, infused with a righteous indignation.
“She used to live here. It was her house.”
“Oh, Lord help us! I don’t know how we got into this mess, but Lord get us out.” Odell prayed to the dark heavens and the pale sliver of a moon. “One week, Lord, I’ll give you one week to rid our house of this ghost. If she’s still here next week, we’re moving in with my sister, Hortense.”
Agota thought it was unseemly to threaten God that way. It was asking for trouble, in her opinion. She unlocked the front door and turned on the light. “Thank you for dinner, Odell.” Agota burped and realized that the barbecue chicken had given her heartburn. She patted her chest daintily. “I must make some potato kugelis for you to try.”
That next evening, Agota invited Vida and Jonas over to break the news to her daughter-in-law that she had just seen her long-dead mother, but no matter how many times she tried to broach the subject, she just did
n’t know where to begin. From the way Vida was looking at her, she knew she must be acting very strangely. Agota gave them a statue of Saint Joseph and told them to bury it in their yard in order to sell their house. And then, after much stuttering hesitation, Agota finally blurted out the news about Vida’s mother.
“You’re joking.” Vida sat there wide-eyed, looking at her mother-in-law as if she were suffering from dementia. Agota assured them that she was not joking, nor was she losing her mind. “It was your mother all right, still in her old house across the street, and she asked to see you.” Vida sat there totally dumbfounded and in shock. In truth, Vida had never gotten over losing her mother. For a long time she didn’t say anything, lost in her own thoughts, but finally she looked up, eyes brimming with unspilled tears. “I can’t believe it.”
In the end, it took two days of calls by Agota and three phone calls from Odell to finally persuade Vida to return to her childhood home.
On Friday night, Vida stood in front of her old home in such a state of sadness, mixed with anxiety, that she faltered on the very first step. Agota held her up, giving both physical and moral support. The thought of seeing a ghost terrified her, but this ghost was her beloved mother, who had asked for her. How could she refuse her?
Odell opened the door and showed Vida and Agota into the kitchen. Vida looked around, studying the details of the house that she remembered. The furniture had changed, but it was still the same house with the same rooms. Odell put a plate of cookies on the table and went to join her daughter outside. Vida looked around nervously, and neither woman touched the cookies.
As soon as Vida heard the distant humming of “Blue Tango,” her mouth dropped, too stunned to speak. She looked around and then crumpled onto the table in tears. Agota gave her an embroidered handkerchief she kept in her pocket. “There, there, dear, don’t cry.”
The ethereal Ema Bartulis danced into the room and went to look at Vida slumped on the table. “Is that you, my little Gypsy?”
When Vida raised her head, her mother peered into her face, studying her features. “Oh, my little girl, you’ve changed so much. So grown up. You look a little like my mother.”
“Mama.” Vida’s voice sounded like a child’s. “Is it really you?” Vida laughed through her tears. “I’ve missed you so much, Mama.”
“Not half as much as I’ve missed you, child.” She patted Vida’s hair, but her hand seemed to disappear. “How are you? Tell me everything. Did you bring photographs of my grandchildren?”
Agota sat in amazement as the two women visited, heads together, crying and talking as if no time had passed since they had last seen each other. Vida told her mother about her life, her husband, and her children. Her mother wanted to know why she had gained so much weight.
“I keep trying to make your Napoleon cake, but it never turns out like yours. What’s your secret, Mama?”
“Cognac. VSOP.”
“Do you drink it or put it in the cake?” Vida laughed.
Her mother gave her the secret recipe and asked her to make it and bring it to her grave. “Have a picnic on my grave like the old days, light a candle, bring your family. And put one of those Jesus the Worrier statues on my grave to let him worry over my family so that I can rest in peace. You know the wooden statues of a sad Jesus sitting, leaning his head on his hand, as if saying, ‘Ayayay, what a world.’”
“Mama, I used to visit your grave every day. I used to tell Papa I was going to school, but I would go to the cemetery instead and sit with you.”
“I remember, my Gypsy girl. I was so happy when you came, but then you stopped. Why?”
Vida hesitated and then her voice dropped, “It was because of Mr. George.”
“Mr. George?”
“Yes, I want Mr. George’s thing to shrivel up. Can you arrange that?”
“Thing?”
Vida pointed a finger between her legs. She felt embarrassed. “You know, that thing men have down there.”
“Vida, don’t be crude.” She started to laugh. “But why, dear?”
“He touched us, Mama. Me and Irene.” Vida told her mother how the boarder had molested her and her friend. “It was awful, Mama.”
“My poor baby. Why, I’ll not only shrivel his thing, I’ll…I’ll cover him with boils that will burn. That louse, I’ll show him what it means to touch innocent children. May his eyes rot in his head. May his tongue no longer fit in his mouth.” Ema Bartulis was quiet for a long time. “What about your father? Did he know about this?”
Vida shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“You tell your father I want a word with him, will you?” The light surrounding Ema blazed brightly, fueled by a righteous anger. “I want to give him a piece of my mind. Tell him to come here, or he won’t like it if I have to go look for him.” The glow flared up like flames around her. “And don’t you worry, my dear daughter, I’ll take care of that Mr. George. There’s no hell to pay like a mother’s anger.”
It took several days for Vida to gather the courage to talk to her father, who was living in the Holy Family Villa retirement home. At first, when she told him about her mother, he refused outright, saying he had a weak heart, but afterwards his dreams were troubled—each night his avenging wife came to him like some Valkyrie. Finally, after several sleepless nights, he called his daughter to say he was coming.
For this occasion, Agota put on a simple gray dress and wore her flats. The afternoon was blustery by the time Mr. Bartulis finally arrived in a taxi, so he held on to his hat as he climbed the stairs. Agota was surprised to see how he had changed over the years—old, bent, and frightened beyond words to face his dead wife. His hands shook and his blood pressure rose as he reached the door of his old house on Talman Street.
Odell greeted them and showed them into the kitchen. She felt like her new home was turning into a social hall for Lithuanians—living, half-living, and dead.
It didn’t take long for them to hear the soft humming of “Blue Tango.” Mr. Bartulis stood by the door and wouldn’t sit down. The man seemed to shrink into himself as he licked his dry lips and his fingers drummed nervously against the door, his eyes darting around the room. Agota had warned him that it would all start with the tango. He wanted to call his wife’s name, but his throat was so dry his voice cracked. A vision of tiny lights appeared and gathered itself into his young wife, dancing a sultry tango.
“Lord, have mercy on me,” whispered Mr. Bartulis.
Odell got up from the table as if she was getting used to these strange visions. “I’ll let you family members visit while I go collect my thoughts in the backyard.” When she opened the door, a violent wind rose, sending leaves flying into the kitchen. The door abruptly slammed shut, imprisoning her skirt. Odell shrieked as though it was her last hour. “Oh my God, she’s got me,” she screamed, tugging at her skirt for dear life.
The ghostly Ema came to her aid, attempting to open the door, but it was stuck shut. Then she tried to help Odell, tugging on the skirt until it ripped. Odell’s eyes widened. “Is she trying to kill me? Tell her to stop.”
Across the room, Agota hid her smile with her hand, watching this comical scene. “She’s only trying to help you, Odell.”
With outraged dignity, Odell finally managed to tear her skirt out of the door, but she lost her balance and tripped over a chair leg, falling heavily. “Ow,” she bellowed as Agota tried to help her up.
“Oh dear,” said Agota. “Are you all right?”
“No, damn it, I’m not all right.” Odell rubbed her knees. “I’m going to have two big bruises on my knees and, look, I’ve skinned my hand. You tell that woman to leave me alone. She may be a ghost but she ain’t seen nothing until she’s seen me get mad.”
Agota tried to control herself but couldn’t. She collapsed into giggles, which she tried to stifle.
Odell’s head whipped ar
ound. “What’s so funny?” she asked, casting an irritated look at her neighbor. “You better not be laughing at me.”
“No, no,” Agota shook her head, but couldn’t stop laughing. “Ema said you scared her.”
“I scared her!” Odell was steaming mad.
“Yes, she said you fell so hard that the whole room shook and she thought it was an earthquake.” Agota shrieked with laughter. “An earthquake,” she repeated weakly, “right here on Talman Street.”
Odell’s mouth twisted into a half smile. “This damn ghost thinks she’s a comedian.” Odell shoved her kitchen chair back. “Tell her I’m going to get Rubina from Haiti in here to work her hoodoo and send her to zombie land.” The fact that Odell didn’t know anybody from Haiti didn’t stop her bluff.
“Wait!” cautioned Agota. “Ema says she’s very sorry that you hurt yourself. She asks that you please not tell your friend Rubina.”
Odell walked to the door and yanked it open. “All right then, but tell her I’m getting mighty burned up about all this. Tell her to holler at her husband and get this over with before this storm comes in. I don’t like sitting out in the rain.”
Agota had almost forgotten about Mr. Bartulis in all the commotion. She looked at the old man, who was cowering in the corner, ashen with fear.
“My husband?” Ema turned her gaze to him. “This little feeble old man is my husband?”
Mr. Bartulis blessed himself. “Yes, Ema, it’s me, dearest.” His voice was shaky.
“Oh, so now I’m your dearest. Before I couldn’t do one thing right; your harsh words followed me as Vida and I quaked in fear of you.” Her eyes bore into him like the Angel of Death.
He fell to his knees. “Forgive me, dearest, my most precious, my holy wife. I was wrong to be so harsh. You were so full of life that I thought I’d lose you to someone else unless I reined you in. But I lost you anyway. Forgive me, please.”
“Forgive you?” Ema stood looking at him, not saying anything. She had carried her anger to her grave, but now, here was this broken old man on his knees, begging her forgiveness.
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