The Grave of God's Daughter

by Brett Ellen Block

  My father’s face was covered in a thin layer of soot, as it often was when he returned home from work, but there was also a long smudge of dirt running down his cheek, as if someone had taken a swing at him and grazed him. I couldn’t ask him what had happened and my mother chose not to. She didn’t seem to want to know.

  She peeled back the towel, exposing a short but deep gash in the underside of my father’s forearm. A steady stream of blood cascaded from the wound as soon as the towel was removed. Martin immediately began whimpering.

  “Take your brother outside,” my mother ordered.

  “No, no, I won’t leave,” Martin protested, panic-stricken. He was gaping at my father’s slashed arm, unable to move.

  “Go outside,” my mother shouted.

  “No,” Martin squalled, tears falling freely. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Do as you’re told,” my father snapped.

  Martin searched my father’s face and found only hardness, then he turned to me. I couldn’t say a word and simply implored him to go with my eyes. He burst into frantic tears as he struggled into his coat and boots, then bolted out the door, slamming it behind him.

  “Get me another towel and the soap and the iodine,” my mother commanded. “And that shirt I was mending. Get it and the scissors too.”

  I did as I was told without thinking. As soon as I set the shirt down on the table, it dawned on me what my mother was about to do. My father knew too.

  “Put the kettle on,” my mother instructed.

  I filled the kettle and shoveled all the coal we had into the stove, stoking the fire as fast as I could while my mother pressed the clean towel firmly against my father’s forearm. The force of her hand was enough to make him flinch.

  “Hold it there,” she told my father with reproach. She took the threaded needle from the collar of the shirt and pulled the thread even and taut.

  “Is the water boiling?” she asked through clenched teeth as she bit the end off the thread and knotted it.

  Slowly, the water began to bubble. I was willing the kettle to sing. Minutes passed in silence as my mother waited for my answer. Finally, the kettle wailed a single high note. “Get a pot and pour it in.”

  I grabbed a pot and the steaming kettle in one swift motion and delivered them to her. My mother soaped the towel and cleaned my father’s wound, then used another corner of the towel to swab iodine onto the gash. My father chewed the inside of his cheek, anticipating what was to come.

  “You’re going to have to help me,” my mother told me.

  All I could do was nod and stare at the opening in my father’s flesh. I moved in close to him and he turned his head to look the other way, ashamed.

  My mother held out her hand to him. “Give me your matches.”

  He dug in his pocket and dropped the pack into her palm. She struck one and carefully ran the needle through the flame.

  “You’re going to have to hold each end tight so the cut stays closed,” she explained without looking at me. “And keep your fingers away.”

  My mother didn’t wait for an answer from me. She slid the needle into my father’s skin, and he gnashed his teeth to keep himself from jerking his arm back. She threaded the needle through the other side of the cut, drawing the skin together and tugging it up. “Keep it tight,” she reminded me.

  Eyes closed, jaw clenched, my father sat as still as he could. Though he was drunk, he appeared to feel everything, from the jab of the needle to the unnatural wrenching of thread through skin.

  With swift precision, my mother wove six minute stitches. She didn’t glance up once to check on my father, merely kept to the task. As she tied off the last stitch, my father began to squirm. The raw pain of the procedure was making him nauseous. My mother made a triple knot, snipped the thread with the scissors, and was about to wipe the closed wound down with iodine when my father jumped up, gagging, and dashed for the sink. He coughed and spat, but did not vomit.

  “I’ll clean it,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

  My mother laid the towel next to the pot full of water and stood up. There was no thank you, no hug, no kiss, no moment between them. She removed the remaining thread from the needle, then drove it back into the collar of my father’s shirt and strode into the bedroom.

  The needle was still bloody and it left flecks of red on the pale blue fabric of the collar. I couldn’t be sure if my mother had forgotten about the blood or if she had made the stain on purpose, a reminder to my father of what he had done and what she had done for him.

  My father waited until the door to their bedroom shut to turn around. He surveyed the table, the evidence of the impromptu surgery. The towel he had come in with was laying in a lump, the blood still bright, and steam was rising off the pot of water as it cooled. He seemed unable to approach the table, almost afraid, so I took the other towel and rung it out in the water, then soaped one corner and offered it to him. He hesitantly took the towel and blotted the wound clean, putting his back to me again. That way I wouldn’t see him grimacing at the pain.

  “I’ll get the tape,” I said and my father gave a little nod. Real bandages were expensive, so my mother bought lengths of what was used as surgical tape at the time. It was white and gluey, and each time Martin or I got a cut, we dreaded the tape. Pulling it off meant practically ripping the wound back open or at least taking some skin off with the tape.

  I retrieved the roll of bandaging tape and brought it to my father. He moved to take the tape from me but paused. He couldn’t wrap his arm himself. He never met my gaze, only offered his forearm to me by moving it ever so slightly in my direction.

  I was more afraid of bandaging my father’s arm than having to hold his skin closed for my mother to sew shut. That was an urgent cause, beyond necessary, but this was more like a favor, a plea. My father needed me.

  I gingerly wound the tape around his arm, careful not to wrap it too tightly. The tape made a ripping sound as it spooled off the roll, and my mother would undoubtedly have heard the noise from the other room and known what was going on. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept watch to see if she would appear at the door.

  After I finished, I tried to tear off the end of the tape, but it wouldn’t budge. The tape was stubbornly sticky and bent in on itself as I tugged at it. I was embarrassed that I was making a mess of such a small duty. I picked at the tape, which only made it worse, clumping the length together in a matted ball.

  “Get a knife,” my father said solemnly.

  The phrase rattled me, yet I did as he said, choosing the smallest knife we had. He took the roll and held it out, away from his arm, leaving me room to cut.

  “Go on,” he told me.

  I sawed at the tape, not wanting to press too hard, but it just buckled in on itself again, forcing me to work the knife faster, ashamed that I still couldn’t get this right. My father was starting to lose his patience. I had to do something. In one brisk stroke, I brought the knife down on the edge of the tape, severing it instantly.

  Freed from the tape, my father leaped up. The front door opened and Martin peeked in. He was about to speak, then he saw me holding the knife and our father hovering over me. Nobody said anything. Martin stared.

  “Swatka Pani is dead,” he announced.

  “What?” My father’s arm fell to his side.

  I reeled at the news. Snippets of the previous night streaked through my mind—Swatka Pani’s cane thumping in the mud, her foreboding silhouette, her frenzied whispers.

  “Did you hear that?” Martin said, looking past me. “She’s—”

  “I heard you,” my mother replied. She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, only half visible behind the partly open door.

  My father snatched his coat and marched outside yanking down his sleeve to cover the bandaged wound. Martin followed on his heels. I was about to join them, but turned back. My mother was staring right at me, as if she knew that was exactly what I would do, like she had made me do it. She was
still hidden halfway behind the door, keeping it in front of her, and she was holding me with her eyes, refusing to let go.

  It was the chance I had pined for, for her to want to see me, to look at me as though I was there. An unnameable joy crested in my heart, a feeling so fragile I was afraid to believe it.

  Then it was gone as quickly as it had come. I watched my mother grip the side of the door and shut it. That was how she slipped away from me. I must have stood in that spot for minutes without moving. I wasn’t sure what had happened, what I had done to get her to see me, then to lose her. I felt as if I was crying, wailing and screaming with every fiber of my being, but I wasn’t even blinking.

  I DO NOT REMEMBER LEAVING the house. The next thing I knew I had my coat on over my nightdress and was walking over to join Martin and my father, who were gathered at the end of Third with a growing crowd. Other people were rushing past me, racing to see what all the commotion was about. Third was jangling with noise and movement. The alley most people feared to traverse was now nearly packed.

  “What’s going on?” one man asked.

  “Somebody killed her,” a woman answered.

  “Good riddance,” another woman snorted. “I hope they find the man who did it so I can kiss him.” A few other women laughed.

  “Killed her down at the river,” a man announced as he passed me.

  “Pushed her down the stairs,” someone else offered.

  The crowd was pooled around the front of Swatka Pani’s clapboard house, huddled close to her stub of a porch. One policeman was guarding the open front door. Two others could be seen through the windows, searching the house. I wove my way into the crowd next to Martin. He was sticking close to my father’s side and was almost on top of him. I could tell that Martin wanted to hold his hand but knew better than to reach for it.

  “The police are inside. Everybody says they’re looking for clues,” Martin pronounced, pleased to have something to report.

  “Clues to what?”

  “To who killed Swatka Pani.”

  “But I thought someone said she was killed at the river.”

  Martin shrugged. He was too intent on enjoying the excitement to bother with an answer.

  When I’d first heard Martin say the words Swatka Pani is dead, they had melted into the air, into nothing. It wasn’t real. However, once I saw the people and heard them talking, alarm wound its way into my brain and knotted itself there.

  “What if she just fell down the stairs?” I asked. “Maybe nobody killed her.”

  Martin rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Swatka Pani doesn’t go to the river. Everybody knows that.”

  It was true. Nothing could get her to go to the river. At least, nothing in the past.

  “Then why was she there?” I asked.

  Martin preferred asking questions, not answering them, and he was getting tired of having his attention pulled away from watching the policeman on the porch, who was simply standing there with his hands on his hips, trying to look important.

  “I don’t know,” Martin snorted.

  “Quiet,” my father ordered. “Somebody’s coming out.”

  Two police officers exited Swatka Pani’s house empty-handed. The crowd surged forward, bombarding the officers with questions.

  “Who did it?” one man shouted.

  “How’d she die?” another yelled.

  “You gonna catch the guy?” someone else demanded.

  “Yeah, what about us?” a woman sang out. “There’s a killer out there. What are you going to do about it?”

  Nods and murmurs rippled through the crowd, yet the policemen said nothing. The one who was standing on the porch led the others down the steps and pushed his way through the onlookers, saying, “Make way. Make way,” in Polish.

  The crowd pressed farther in. More questions flared and went unanswered. The police officers climbed into the police car that was waiting at the end of the alley. It was almost silly that they had driven. The police station was a minute’s walk from the alley. The only thing closer was the Silver Slipper. The police car just added to the show.

  As the policemen took off, the people booed them. Some muttered curses. Yet, we all remained there, watching them drive away.

  After the police were out of sight, nobody knew what to do with themselves. People milled around outside Swatka Pani’s house, whispering speculation, then the group began to disperse. Women hustled their children back to their apartments while most of the men headed off to the Slipper, eager to break the news to their friends and trump up the tale of what little they had seen.

  “Go on back to the house,” my father told us, wanting to join the other men.

  “Don’t leave now,” Martin pleaded.

  My father couldn’t stand it when Martin begged. Martin’s plaintive whine would always set him off, as if that wasn’t what boys were supposed to do.

  “You heard me,” my father said, raising his voice.

  “What about your dinner?” Martin was grasping at anything to change his mind.

  “I’m not hungry.” He was already walking away in the direction the other men had gone.

  “But?”

  “It’s okay,” I offered. “He’s got to get hungry sometime.”

  Martin rolled his eyes, disappointed. We both knew my father wouldn’t be back for hours, if at all.

  “All right,” Martin sighed. “We can go back now.”

  “You sure? We can stay if you want.”

  “No, there’s nothing to see.”

  And there wasn’t. All that was there was the same house we had seen every day of our lives, the house we never dared play near, the house we ran past if it was getting dark. Swatka Pani was dead. It was a concept I couldn’t grasp. The fact that she had been killed, that someone had murdered her only hours after I had seen her, defied my comprehension. The long shadow of the stranger was all I could think of.

  A few men were still loitering outside Swatka Pani’s porch. I overheard one say that they were going to the river to see where it had happened.

  “Let’s follow them,” I whispered to Martin.

  “Why?” he protested. “I heard the policeman say they took her away to the big hospital in Pittsburgh. Anyway, we’re not supposed to go to the river.”

  “Don’t you just want to see?”

  Curiosity made him relent. “I guess.”

  We trailed behind the men, staying far enough back that they wouldn’t notice us.

  “What if they get mad that we followed them?” Martin asked.

  “What can they be mad about? You said she’s not there anymore. So really, we’re only going to look at the river. What harm can that do?”

  Martin frowned but came along anyway.

  At the river, the men studied the stairway, shaking the railing to test it and trying to gauge the distance down to the water. Beyond them, the cross stood on the mountaintop, a bright form against the dawn sky. The men were huddled in a tight circle, their backs to us. I edged nearer, trying to hear what they were saying.

  “Too close,” Martin whispered, pulling me back. Still, I pushed in closer, drawing him along with me against his will.

  “Forty feet, easy,” one man said.

  “Maybe even fifty,” another corrected.

  “She could’ve slipped. The steps might have iced over in the night.”

  “Railing’s rickety as hell too.”

  “Nasty way to go. A fall down these steps would have broken every bone she had.”

  “Mean old bitch probably did slip.”

  “Just proves that God’ll get you if the devil doesn’t first.”

  The conversation was upsetting Martin. He tried dragging me away. As he did, he slid on some gravel. One of the men spun around, then the rest.

  “What are you doing here?” one demanded.

  Neither Martin nor I replied.

  “This isn’t no place for you. Go on home,” another told us.

  “It’s just the rive
r,” I said.

  One man was about to argue but stopped himself. We were all thinking the same thing. This wasn’t just the river anymore. It never would be again. People died in those waters all the time. It was a given that the river would claim the victims it wanted and ignore the others. Yet, we all flocked to it, offering ourselves up like sacrifices. Swatka Pani’s death was different. She hadn’t drowned. The river hadn’t chosen her at random like it had the rest.

  “Something’s gone on here and it’s nothing that kids should be seeing,” one man declared.

  “What’s there to see?” I asked, knowing as well as he did that nothing tangible had changed. The stairs would still creak when you stepped on them. The railing would still shift under your weight. And the river would roll by indifferently, as always.

  “There could be blood down there or something,” a different man insisted. “It’s not for children’s eyes.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud. If you only knew what my eyes have seen, I thought.

  Whatever awaited on those stairs didn’t frighten me. It would be nothing compared to what I had already witnessed even in the last hour. I stood my ground, unmoving, and the men stared at me.

  Martin tugged my sleeve. “Come on,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

  This time, I let him pull me away. Once we were halfway down River Road and far enough away, Martin laid into me. “Are you crazy? What were you thinking?”

  “We had as much right to be there as they did.”

  “But they’re grown-ups and we’re not, so if they say go home, we go home.”

  I knew there wasn’t anything down on the river’s edge, but I wanted to see for myself. I wanted to see the spot where Swatka Pani had died. I wanted to be convinced that she was dead.

  Martin took the lead, setting a brisk pace. He was anxious to get home. I was lagging behind, straining to remember every shred of sound I had overheard the night before. All that came to me was smierc.

  Death.