The Grave of God's Daughter

by Brett Ellen Block

  “Yes, Sister,” Martin shouted.

  “Okay,” Sister Teresa said with a smile.

  I guided Martin to a study table and waited as he got settled. “I’ll be back before the library closes.”

  “You’d better be.”

  I checked the clock on the wall. It was nearly three-fifteen. I left my books with him and dashed out the door. I ran all the way from Saint Ladislaus to Field Street in what felt like a minute flat. I charged in the front door to the butcher’s shop still panting as the bell sounded my arrival. Mr. Goceljak was waiting for me. He noted the time on his watch.

  “Am I late? I’m sorry. You didn’t say—”

  “No, you’re not late. You’re here earlier than Donny was at least. That’s a good thing.”

  Mr. Goceljak’s sentiment made me breathe a little easier.

  “Hope you came ready to work. I’ve got a lot of deliveries to go out today.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, feigning full confidence in myself. Not only did I have to learn how to ride a bicycle in an hour and a half, I also had to make deliveries. The full force of that fact had yet to settle in my mind, and that was probably another good thing. If I’d really given it any thought, I might have fainted there on the spot.

  “Come on then, I’ll get you the packages and load up the bicycle for you.”

  I followed Mr. Goceljak into the back room where a stack of parcels wrapped in butcher paper waited on the wooden block.

  “I put all of the names on them so you’ll know who gets what. Go to Mrs. Zahorchak’s house first. She can get nasty if she doesn’t get her sausages on time. You can leave Mr. Beresik for last. He doesn’t care when he gets his delivery, as long as he gets it. Got it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, yes, sir.”

  “I like that. ‘Yes, sir,’” Mr. Goceljak said, repeating me. “Donny never called me ‘sir.’ Sounds…dignified.”

  “Okay, sir,” I said. I was glad I had pleased him. Nothing I ever did or said at home seemed to please either my mother or my father. It was heartening to learn that it was actually possible.

  “I’ll help you with these.” Mr. Goceljak took the packages in his arms and headed out the back door. He gingerly placed each parcel in the bicycle’s basket, then twirled the dial on the lock.

  “I don’t give out the combination. At least I didn’t give it to Donny. Afraid he’d steal the thing. But if this works out, maybe I’ll give it to you.”

  I was taken aback by Mr. Goceljak’s offer. He must have stunned himself as well because he grew bashful in the silence that followed.

  “All right, then. Better be on your way.” He removed the lock and freed the chain from the spokes of the bicycle’s front wheel.

  “Excuse me, sir. Could I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would it be all right if you didn’t tell anyone I was doing this? You know, working for you.”

  Mr. Goceljak registered my request as an insult.

  “I’m trying to save up money, but it’s a surprise. For a present, sort of,” I explained. “I don’t want anyone to know what I’m doing.”

  Mr. Goceljak understood. “I won’t tell anybody. But what if the people you’re making deliveries to know you?”

  Anyone who was well-off enough to receive deliveries at home probably wouldn’t recognize me. However, Hyde Bend was relatively small, so there was a chance, albeit slight. “I didn’t think of that,” I admitted.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mr. Goceljak said, then he disappeared into the store. He returned with a slouchy canvas cap in his hand and a pair of men’s trousers draped over his arm.

  “Donny left the hat here and the trousers used to be mine. I was going to cut them up for rags. You put these on and hide your hair up in the hat, then nobody’ll recognize you, I bet.”

  I took the pants from Mr. Goceljak reluctantly. I was still wearing my school uniform, the sweater and pleated skirt, and couldn’t imagine how this was going to work.

  “You can pull the pants on over that school getup of yours and I’ll get a rope to make a belt.” My face betrayed my doubt as well as my discomfort. “Don’t worry,” Mr. Goceljak assured me. “Nobody can see back here, and I won’t come out until you say it’s all right. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, still reticent. Once Mr. Goceljak had gone inside, I opened the pants. They were far too long and the waistband was more than double my size. I put them on over my skirt, which took up a little of the extra room, but not much.

  “You decent?” Mr. Goceljak called.

  “Yes, sir.”

  When he popped his head out the back door and saw me in the trousers, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “A little big, eh? This’ll fix you up.” He produced a long piece of twine. “You put this through the loops and it’ll be like a belt. I had to do it like that when I was a kid too.”

  “But you weren’t wearing a skirt under your pants.”

  “True.”

  I fed the twine through the belt loops, then pulled it tight and tied it into a knot. “What about the legs?” I asked. My feet had completely disappeared beneath the fabric.

  “You got to roll ’em up. I had to do that too. Always had my brother’s hand-me-downs, so nothing ever fit quite right.”

  I turned up the pant legs until I could see my shoes. “I don’t think they’re going to stay like this.”

  “I’ve got just the thing for that.” Mr. Goceljak went inside, then came out again, this time with a roll of butcher’s tape, then he got down on one knee and began to tape up the pant legs. “Now all you need is the hat,” he said, holding it out to me.

  I pulled the hat down to my ears and tucked my hair up under it. Mr. Goceljak studied my face, tugged the brim down farther, and pushed a few stray hairs beneath the brim.

  “There,” he said, satisfied. “I’d barely recognize you myself.”

  The twine was synched so tightly around my waist that it made the pants look enormous and the white butcher’s tape stood out starkly against the dark trousers. Thankfully, the hat hid most of my face.

  “Don’t I look a little strange?”

  “Hell yes, you look strange. Strangest-looking thing I’ve ever seen. But you said you didn’t want anybody to recognize you. Now nobody will. They’ll think you’re, well, a boy.”

  “I don’t know any boys who look like this.”

  “Neither do I, but I certainly don’t know any girls who look like this neither.”

  “Won’t people look at me funny?”

  “I guess. But they’ll just think you’re poor.”

  “I am poor.”

  “Then you should be used to it.”

  From inside came the sound of the shop’s doorbell ringing. “See you when you get back,” Mr. Goceljak said, then he headed inside.

  I was finally alone with the bicycle but baffled about what to do with it. First, I attempted to hoist my leg over the crossbar while steadying myself against the pipe railing. Before I could get my balance, the bicycle began listing from the weight of the packages in the basket. Next, I tried leaning the bicycle against the railing and scooting onto the seat from behind. However, the sagging crotch of my newly fashioned trousers got caught and I spent the following minute untangling myself. Already frustrated, I made one last-ditch effort to mount the bicycle by taking a running leap at the seat and swinging my leg over the top of it. I immediately slid off, nearly coming down hard on the crossbar, but managed to land on my tiptoes and steady the bicycle only to have the front wheel turn, causing the bicycle to take a nosedive. Fortunately, I caught the handlebars before the contents of the basket could go clattering to the ground. It was a losing battle and, I decided, another fitting punishment for lying about being able to ride a bicycle in the first place. The meat couldn’t stay outside for long, but there was no way I could use the bicycle to make the deliveries, at least not yet.

  Mr. Goceljak had a small curing shed a few yards behind his shop, and
beyond that lay the empty field. Tall weeds and briar bushes that had grown unchecked for years had overtaken the land. The tops of the bushes were higher than my shoulders. No one, not even the most adventurous of children in town, would attempt to enter the field for fear of the prickling bushes and sharp weed stalks. If I could hide the bicycle in the field, there was no way it would be found.

  I quickly packed the parcels of meat into the waistband of my makeshift trousers, tucking them securely between my skirt and the twine belt Mr. Goceljak had made for me. With the thick packets of meat around my waist, my body must have appeared to have doubled in size, adding to my disguise. All the better, I thought as I hitched up the pants and prepared to move the bicycle into the field.

  No longer weighed down with the meat, the bicycle was much easier to maneuver. Getting it into the field would be the hard part. I pulled the sleeves of my sweater out from under my coat to cover the tops of my hands and hunched my shoulders to protect my neck, then forged through the threshold of briars and weeds. Thorns bit into my fingers and scratched at my face. The underbrush was as thick as mud, making it difficult to plod even a few feet into the field, but a few feet was enough. I stomped down the brush to clear a place for the bicycle and laid it on the ground as gently as I could. Even though it was stubborn, rusted, unconquerable, and ugly, I liked the bicycle. I wanted it to be safe.

  Once the bicycle was hidden, I bounded out of the field as fast as I could, brambles snagging my clothes as I went. When I emerged, my coat was covered in nettles. I could feel them through the trousers, but I had little chance to care. There were eleven deliveries to be made, each at various ends of town, and since I had to make the journey on foot, there was no time to waste.

  I couldn’t run on Field Street without drawing attention, so I stuck to the alleyway along the field. I was moving my legs as fast as they would go, but the parcels of meat strapped to my sides started to slip and I was forced to clutch my hips as I ran. The regular percussion of my heart was replaced by a relentless pounding. My blood was drumming through my body and air was churning in and out of my lungs. At first, the sensation scared me. I’d run before, run until I was out of breath, but never like this. For a second, the feeling was akin to fear, a condition I was more than familiar with. Fear could creep along over your skin, climb its way up your ribs, or leap onto your shoulders without warning, I’d learned that much. I couldn’t remember a time when my father didn’t drink or a time when I wasn’t afraid of what he could or would do. He might erupt in rage or laughter, angry about some unimportant incident or amused by some imaginary joke. Both were equally frightening, and the waiting, that constant waiting, was worse than any beating I could endure. The feeling that overtook me that day as I ran with all my might down the alleyway, the weeds quivering in my wake, was like nothing I’d ever known. My fear had turned inside out. It wasn’t gone, but I almost didn’t recognize it.

  THE ALLEYWAY ENDED NEAR THE STEEL MILL, and my first stop, Mrs. Zahorchak’s house, was only a half block over on Oak Lane. The homes there were sizable, but Oak Lane didn’t carry quite the prestige of River Road because the houses faced the mill, which was hardly picturesque, and after each shift change, the road was flooded with a mass of men marching back to their homes in sooty coveralls. The street had once been lined with tall rows of oaks on either side of the block, hence its name, but once the mill went up, all of the trees were felled to widen the street. Each oak was lopped off at the trunk and leveled rather than dug up. The thick stumps were left in the ground like tombstones.

  I tried to pick the nettles from my coat before I reached Mrs. Zahorchak’s house. There were so many of them that I finally gave up. I doubted the nettles would make much of a difference given my already curious appearance. I was about to knock on Mrs. Zahorchak’s door when I realized there was a doorbell. I knew what doorbells were and had seen them on other houses, but we certainly didn’t have one and I’d never rung one before. The prospect of doing so was strangely exciting. I lightly laid my finger on the button, testing its feel, the smoothness and size, then pushed it and quickly withdrew. The high, clear chime of the bell floated through the door.

  Footsteps resounded from inside the house and I pulled the parcel marked with Mrs. Zahorchak’s name from the back of my waistband. Just as I had arranged my sweater to cover the rest of the packets, the front door swung open. Mrs. Zahorchak looked down at me with an imperious glare.

  “You’re late,” she said, her English clipped by her accent.

  She stood rigidly in the doorway. She was wearing a pale green cotton dress that seemed to have too much starch in it. It hung stiffly off her body and the collar pointed out at a harsh angle. The dress looked like it would hurt to wear it.

  “You’re not the regular boy,” Mrs. Zahorchak proclaimed. “Where’s the regular boy?”

  “He broke his arm.” As I spoke, I realized my voice sounded nothing like a boy’s, but it was too late. Mrs. Zahorchak squinted at me, examining my face and clothes.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, her tone distrustful.

  It was a question I wasn’t prepared for. I scrambled to come up with an answer. I flicked back through my memory and plucked out the first name that came to mind.

  “Nowczyk,” I said. “I’m one of Stash Nowczyk’s boys.”

  It was another lie, an echo of what my father had told Martin and me about the catfish, and it rolled off my tongue with credible ease. Mrs. Zahorchak appeared to be turning the name over in her head, then she promptly dismissed it as one that had no importance or bearing. She took her package of sausages and kielbasa from me with a quick jerk and said, “Since you’re new, I’ll make an exception about you being late. But I’m a very important customer. I expect to get what I pay for on time. So don’t be late again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Zahorchak shut the door on me, nearly clipping my toes. I stood on her porch for a minute collecting myself, but when I saw her peering at me through the curtains, I hurried off.

  The next few deliveries were nearby, however after the scolding I’d taken from Mrs. Zahorchak, I ran all the way to each of the stops. When I knocked on the door at the following house, I was greeted by a teenage girl wearing wire-rimmed glasses and an irritated scowl. Inside, a baby was crying. As the baby began to wail even harder, the girl snatched the parcel of meat from my hands with a huff, then closed the door on me.

  The woman who answered at my next stop was holding a toddler on her hip and smoking a cigarette.

  “Delivery from the butcher,” I said in as low a voice as I could muster.

  “Thanks,” she answered blandly, then she disappeared back into the house as the door lazily swung shut behind her.

  It didn’t cross my mind that these women were cold or unfriendly. That was what I was accustomed to. The fact that one had actually thanked me was more than I had counted on.

  The next delivery was labeled with an address on River Road, but no name. When I got to the house, I recognized it instantly. Unlike all of the other well-tended homes along the river, this one had fallen into disrepair. The tall brick home rose three floors high and loomed over the street like a crumbling monument. Years of neglect had transformed the house into an ominous, hulking wreck.

  The bricks had cracked as the house settled and the posts on the sprawling front porch had begun to bow. Too many harsh winters had forced loose most of the shutters. The roof sagged, as if the sky itself was pressing on it, making the house look as if it might topple with the slightest breeze.

  The front steps felt spongy underfoot, liable to give way at any moment. There was no doorbell here, only a massive knocker that hung in the center of the door. It was nearly too high for me to reach. When I finally managed to get hold of the heavy, brass ring and knock it against the door, the sound reverberated in a low bellow. I waited for a few minutes with no response and was about to knock again when the lock turned. The door crept open to reveal an old woman, h
er thick, white hair disheveled, her eyes nervous.

  The air that drifted out from inside the house was stale. The lights were off and all of the window shades were drawn. The rooms were brimming with clutter that overflowed into the hallway, where uneven piles of books and newspapers rose as high as the woman’s hips.

  “Delivery,” I said hesitantly, more a question than a statement. “From the butcher’s shop,” I added, but the woman wouldn’t respond.

  She had two sweaters layered over a housedress, as if she were armored for a blizzard, yet the weather was mild that day. The woman didn’t look up or make eye contact with me, but I could see her blinking rapidly, as if she were working up the courage for something. Then she held out her hand for me to give her the package. Her fingers did not extend beyond the door frame, not even the very tips of her nails, which forced me to reach in to her. Just as I laid the parcel in her palm, the woman jerked her hand back into the house. It was a sudden movement, a motion she hadn’t appeared capable of.

  The woman stood in the doorway for an instant longer and gave a single, short nod in thanks. It was as though she couldn’t thank me out loud, that those words, any words, were petrifying to utter. She shut the door and rebolted the lock, as though she was trying to keep any more of the outside world from seeping in. I lingered there on her porch for a minute trying to place her. I scrolled back through my memory of faces that I’d seen in town or at church, but I was convinced that I had never seen this woman, not ever.

  THE SUN WAS BEGINNING TO FALL and the breeze coming off the river was laced with a wet chill. It would be dark in an hour, if not less, and still I had one delivery left to make—Mr. Beresik. Him I knew, but only by name. He lived on the opposite end of Hyde Bend, beyond the salt plant on a lonely dirt road that didn’t have a name. For years, he had made a living fixing people’s farm equipment. However, when the steel mill and the salt plant went up, people stopped farming the nearby fields and Mr. Beresik was put out of his job. Few people in Hyde Bend had cars. There was almost no purpose for them. Most men worked only blocks from their homes. So in Hyde Bend, owning a car was considered an extravagant luxury, and having a new car was the ultimate in status symbols. A new car attracted as much attention as a parade. Children and adults alike would stop and stare whenever one of the brand-new Buicks or Fords rolled by with their burly frames, pearly paint colors, rounded features, and chrome trimmings. Those were the exceptions. Most of the cars in Hyde Bend were used and looked old beyond their years. They ran slow and loud. There were a handful of rusted mammoth sedans and the occasional two-door coupe, yet all showed the scars of age. Crumpled fenders, dented hoods, and missing hubcaps were common casualties. Even those metal bodies weren’t immune to the ravages of the winters in Hyde Bend. Even they weren’t safe.