The Grave of God's Daughter

by Brett Ellen Block

  On occasion, his tales would grow graphic and gruesome, like the time he told me about Flint, who had ripped another dog’s throat out and had to be pulled off the body. Mr. Beresik recounted the bloody pit and the limp body of the fallen dog and the blood on Flint’s teeth. Because he believed I was a boy, Mr. Beresik seemed to be trying to thrill me with the account, but he had the opposite effect. I pretended to yawn, yet in truth, I was stifling a gag. Mr. Beresik must have picked up on my discomfort because afterward, he never went beyond the most general of details. He didn’t want to scare me off. He wanted me to come back. So instead, he began to explain to me how he trained the dogs. His voice would grow calm and measured. “Training is everything,” he would remind me. “If you don’t do it right when they’re pups, you’ll never break ’em in. Then that dog’s a loss.”

  Mr. Beresik described how he would take each pup from its mother one at a time and train them privately, rewarding the pup with a scrap of food when it heeded his whistle or sat when he snapped. He explained how he would wean them off the food reward and how they still did as he commanded. “That’s the trick of it,” he attested. “They’re always hoping they’ll get that scrap of food, so they obey even when they don’t. They’re still hoping.”

  As soon as the sun would start to dip in the sky, that was my signal to head back to town. “Better be getting on,” Mr. Beresik would say. I always had the urge to thank him for talking to me, for spending time with me and telling me about the dogs, but I didn’t think that was what a boy would do. Instead, I would simply wave, wish him good luck with the fights, and be on my way. Once I was far enough from the pen, Mr. Beresik would let out one short whistle, a cue to the dogs that they were free to move around as they pleased, and I always checked over my shoulder to see what they would do. Some would return to the barn or run the length of the pen, but there was one dog who always stayed near the fence, standing watch until I was out of sight—Sally. She had scared me at first, but after a few visits, I began to wonder what it was she saw when she looked at me. A liar or a friend?

  WHEN THAT FIRST WEEK CAME TO A CLOSE, Mr. Goceljak gave me my pay. He placed two dull quarters in my palm and said, “It’s a start, right?”

  “It’s a start,” I agreed. The number fourteen still hovered over my head, circling at a dizzying height, still such a long way off.

  “Just so you know, I delivered the kielbasa to Father Svitek myself. Figured it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to do it.”

  I had totally forgotten about Father Svitek. Nothing I could have said to Mr. Goceljak would have conveyed how grateful I was. “Thank you,” I told him, though the words were meager in comparison to what I felt.

  As I walked to school to pick Martin up from the library that day, I would have sworn I could feel the weight of those two quarters in my pocket, light but perceptible. I kept my hand in the pocket for fear of their falling out. But I wouldn’t hold them. I envisioned them snapping like wafers, too thin to stand even the gentle pressure of my palm. I showed the quarters to Martin and he begged to touch them.

  “They’re nice,” he said. “Not very shiny, though.”

  “I don’t care if they’re shiny. I only care that they’re mine.”

  “Where are you going to put them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should hide them.”

  “Hide them?”

  “You said that you being a delivery boy was supposed to be a secret. Remember?”

  Martin was right. I needed to hide the quarters. If my mother found them, she would demand to know where I’d gotten them. I didn’t want to consider what my father might do if he found them.

  “Where do you think I should put them?” I asked.

  Martin grinned. “I have the perfect place.”

  My mother was still at work when we got back to the apartment and my father wasn’t home. Since that evening when she had left the house unexpectedly, they’d been avoiding each other, sidestepping each other in a clumsy, stilted dance. During those few days, a new routine had formed. My mother would hurry in from the rectory and fix my father’s breakfast. He would roll in before his shift, light a cigarette, and eat his food in silence. The cigarette would only be half finished by the time he was through. Afterward, my father would change into his coveralls, then my mother would pass him his lunch pail as he walked out the door. Martin and I would pretend to do our homework while we surreptitiously studied the new dance, learning the moves and waiting for the next misstep. Once my father was out the door, my mother would prepare our dinners and tell us to set the table, after which she would usually remark on the catfish, reminding herself that it had taken up space in our bathtub for too long.

  “Why do we have to cook Joe?” Martin would whine. “He doesn’t want to be cooked.”

  “One more day,” my mother would say. “But that’s it. I mean it.”

  The care of the fish had fallen on my shoulders, which entailed feeding him and moving him into the sink when one of us needed to take a bath. Joe was the closest thing to a pet we’d ever had, and, for a fish, he seemed smart. He responded only to me, even recognized me when I entered the washroom. I was the one who fed him, so it made sense. It also made me feel special. Even after I would let Martin feed him, Joe would swim over to me and await his next helping.

  “I named you, Joe,” Martin would say. “You could at least act happy to see me.”

  He didn’t appreciate the fish’s favoritism, yet he was so happy to have a pet that he let the allegiance slide.

  That afternoon when we arrived home to the empty apartment, Martin kicked off his boots and bounded for the washroom.

  “In here,” he hollered. “The hiding place is in here.”

  As I set down my books, I saw that my hands were stained again from the meat I’d delivered. It struck me that the blood had ceased to bother me as it once had. Nonetheless, I had to get it off my hands before my mother noticed.

  Martin was waiting in the washroom, chin resting on the lip of the tub as he peered down at Joe. While I washed my hands, Martin asked, “Why don’t you wash the quarters? Maybe they’ll look better.”

  I’d been given pennies in the past, nickels and dimes too, but I couldn’t remember even having held a quarter. It was as if the sheer size of the coin put it out of my league, that I couldn’t be responsible for such a sum of money. I dug the quarters from my pocket, lathered them with soap, rinsed them, then patted them dry between the pleats of my skirt.

  “See. They do look better,” Martin said.

  As he spoke, the front door opened. It was my mother. I could tell by the way she shut the door. While my father would hurl it back behind him, leaving the door to rattle in its frame, my mother would close it in one steady sweep and hold the handle so the lock would engage the instant she let go of the knob.

  I held the quarters out to Martin. “What do I do with them?”

  “Give them to me,” he said, crouching down under the sink.

  My mother’s footsteps emanated from the main room. It sounded as if she was putting something away in the icebox, then the footfalls led into her bedroom. Martin nimbly slid his arm between the exposed pipes under the sink.

  “Won’t they fall out from behind there?” I asked.

  “No, there’s a little ledge where they can sit. They won’t fall.” Martin was straining to secure the quarters in their hiding spot. “Almost got it.”

  My mother must have heard the murmur of our whispers through the wall. Her footsteps stopped. “What are you two doing in there?”

  Before I could answer, the front door sounded again. This time it was a wall-shuddering slam. It was my father. His footfalls were equally as distinctive, an even, menacing lumber that made the dishes in the cupboard quiver.

  “There. Got it,” Martin said, then I quickly pulled him up from the floor and led him out of the washroom with me. Both my father and my mother converged on us at once.

  My mother repe
ated her question. “I said, what are you two doing in there?”

  “We were looking at the fish,” I explained, the lie burbling from my throat.

  “That damn fish,” my father lamented. “I’ve had enough of it. Anyhow, it’s Friday. We have to eat it. I’m draining the tub.”

  “No!” Martin took a step toward the washroom as if he could bar my father’s way.

  “Can’t we keep him? Please? Joe doesn’t want to be cooked.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a damned fish.” My father strode past Martin, then came the unmistakable sound of water beginning to drain.

  My mother was behind me. I would have had to turn around to see her face, to see if she was conflicted, unsure whether to stop my father, to intervene. But I was afraid to look. I feared that what I might find was an expression exactly like my father’s, an expression that said she didn’t care.

  The water from the bathtub made a gulping noise as it plummeted down the drain. Martin was about to protest once more, so I clamped my hand around his mouth. We were both facing the washroom, our backs to my mother.

  “Don’t. Please,” I whispered. “It’ll make him angrier.”

  Martin couldn’t help himself. I could feel his mouth working under my hand, silently saying the pleas he wanted to shout. Then a single tear rolled onto my finger and down over my knuckles.

  “Please don’t, Martin. Please.”

  With that, my brother’s face went slack under my palm and not another tear was shed. I released my hand and we listened to the last of the water slide down into the drain, culminating in one loud, sucking noise that sounded like a gasp for air. Martin must have thought it was the fish gasping for breath because he took a step forward. I held him fast.

  The door to the washroom was halfway closed, but we could hear the unmistakable sound of the fish hurling itself around the tub in the throes of death, its skin slapping against the porcelain. Soon the slapping slowed, then stopped altogether. I tensed, waiting for Martin to cry out. He didn’t. He didn’t even move until my father appeared at the door, then Martin recoiled, taking a full step back. It was either out of fear, or repulsion, at what my father had done.

  My father moved by us, his arm hidden behind his back, and laid the fish in the sink. My mother joined him. I could see her only in profile, though that was enough. In her hand, she held a carving knife.

  “Take your brother outside,” my father directed. “Take him for a walk.”

  I hustled Martin to the door. He was like a zombie, eyes glazed, limbs loose as I guided them into his coat and boots. I had one arm in the sleeve of my coat and was already spurring Martin onward, outside. The urge to glance back at my parents flashed in my mind, then fizzled. I didn’t want this to be the one thing they did together. I didn’t want to witness them making short work of the fish. I didn’t want to see another thing. I opened the door and pressed my eyes shut, praying that the image might dissolve or be blown from my mind by the cold, night wind that was already buffeting my face. It didn’t work.

  THIRD WAS DESERTED. Lights were on in the apartments, but no one was in the alley because it was suppertime. The tramping sound of our footfalls on the mud was accompanied by the lonely sobbing of Mrs. Koshchushko, which eventually blended in with the wind.

  Martin was plodding along at my side, barely keeping up. I took his hand and held it as we walked. His small fingers curled limply in my palm. My grip was the only thing keeping us together.

  I led Martin toward the river. Like the nuns, my mother had forbidden us from going there, but I thought Martin deserved to do something he might like. The wind was stronger along the water. I still had my skirt on, and the cold was seeping through my tights. My toes tingled and the skin on my legs felt like stone, yet I kept walking. We reached the river and I guided Martin to the top of the stairway overlooking the shoreline. Moonlight was glinting on the water below and reflecting the long, orange silhouette of the cross on the other side of the river. The cross wriggled over the ripples, wavering on the water’s surface as though it was sinking.

  “I hate him,” Martin said.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I can if I want. I hate him. And I want him to die just like Joe died.”

  I gripped Martin’s hand hard enough that he tried to pull away. “Don’t say that, Martin. Don’t ever say that.”

  “That’s what she would say,” he countered.

  “Pray with me, Marty. We have to pray quickly.”

  I dragged him down to his knees, and we knelt together on the top step of the stairs, facing the cross.

  “Say a Hail Mary. Say it with me, Marty.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Say it.”

  In unison, we began rattling off the prayer in Polish. Martin was mumbling and squirming. “This hurts my knees,” he whined. “Can’t we stand up?”

  “No. Keep praying.”

  I was squeezing my eyes shut and wrapping my breath around each word. My knees were digging into the step, grinding the cold flesh against the wood. I could have moved, shifted my weight, but I thought I deserved to be in pain. I deserved to hurt for what my lies had done to Martin.

  We finished the prayer, yet it didn’t feel like enough. “Now tell God you’re sorry for what you said and that you take it back.”

  “I will not.”

  “Just say it, Marty, please. You have to or else…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Or else what?” He pushed to hear me say it aloud.

  “You know what.”

  “All right. I’m sorry, God,” he huffed.

  “Now say you didn’t mean it.”

  “I didn’t mean it.” His words were hardly sincere, though all that mattered was that he had said them, that God had heard him.

  The whistle for the steel mill wailed, signaling the shift change.

  “Now can we go?” Martin asked.

  “We can go.”

  I had to pry myself up from my knees. The cold had nearly frozen me in place. I envisioned myself being trapped there in prayer like a statue, an icy reminder to other children not to do what I had done. The reflection of the neon cross bobbed on the river’s surface, bidding us farewell.

  I TOOK MARTIN BACK HOME the short route, down River Road. Along the way, we passed the crumbling house where the old woman lived. At night, the decrepit facade was even more forbidding. No lights shone from inside. The house appeared empty.

  “See that house,” I said. “There’s a lady who lives in there who I’ve never seen before.”

  “Uh-huh.” Martin was uninterested and still mad at me for what I’d made him do.

  “No, really. I’ve never seen her in town or at the market or at church or anywhere. It’s strange, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe you didn’t really see her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard that house is empty. That nobody lives there. So maybe you saw a lady at the house, but she wasn’t really there.”

  “She was too. I brought a delivery to her. She took it right out of my hand.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  I tried to recall if she’d spoken, then remembered that the woman hadn’t actually uttered a word to me. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Then maybe it was a ghost.”

  “She’s not a ghost,” I protested. “She was real. I saw her.”

  Martin shrugged indifferently as we passed the house, leaving it alone in the night. He was trying to scare me the way I’d scared him by suggesting that he would go to hell for what he’d said about our father. The thought that what I saw wasn’t real, that the woman I had encountered could be a ghost, perched in my mind until we reached the apartment.

  Our plates were set out and the food was already on them. My mother had chopped the fish into small hunks, making it almost unrecognizable—almost.

  “Go wash up,” she said.

  Martin paused briefly to regard the plates.
Despite my mother’s attempt to conceal the food, he saw it for exactly what it was.

  “Go on now,” she added. “It’s already getting cold.”

  We did as we were told and joined her at the table. By then, the food was indeed cold, which made it even harder to stomach. My mother ate quickly and kept her eyes on her plate. Both Martin and I picked at our food, poking at it and moving it around on the plate rather than consuming it. I split each piece of fish into bits and tried to hide them under a crust of bread. Martin made no such effort. He corralled all of the fish into the center of his plate, then left it there, uneaten, in a display of protest.

  “If you’re done, put your dishes in the sink,” my mother said.

  Together, we all cleared and cleaned the dishes, then Martin took out the lamb book he’d borrowed from the library and began to read. My mother disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door, leaving me with nothing to do. I fiddled with a loose part of the hem on my skirt until I grew desperate enough to get out one of my textbooks and flip through it. I wasn’t reading. I just needed some way to occupy myself.

  The evening dragged on in maddening silence. The air was churning with the unsaid. I could feel it roiling against my skin and raising the hair on my arms. When I couldn’t look at the textbook a second longer, I went and stood at the window. The cold pressed itself through the glass. Shadows floated in the windows across the alley. Silence could be worse than any slammed door or sudden outburst. Silence burned slowly, like the coal in the stove, and the longer it went on, the louder it got.

  I sighed hard to break the quiet, to remind myself that silence wasn’t all there was, and my breath steamed the window, creating a blank page of glass. As it faded, I raised my finger and prepared to write my name. Then came a hard pounding on the door. Martin snapped up from his book.

  “Don’t answer it,” Martin implored. “Wait for her.”