My father stopped outside on the church steps to finish his cigarette.
“I’ll be inside in a minute.”
My mother ushered Martin and me through the door, and I clenched my eyes shut in anticipation as I crossed the threshold. But there was no lightning, no pain, no thunderous voice condemning me for what I had done. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more frightened.
My mother guided us to our usual spot in the far-right-hand side of the church, halfway from the front. We always sat in the same place. We often arrived early enough that we could have taken seats in the very first pew, but my mother never let us. She claimed that from that one particular vantage point where we sat, we had the best view of Father Svitek as well as the rest of the church, including the statue of the patron saint. Sometimes Martin would put up an argument, suggesting we try sitting somewhere else to show that this one spot wasn’t the best after all. He would go from pew to pew, sliding along the seats, testing each position out while my mother remained, steadfast, in her favorite place. Eventually, he would give up and return, unwilling to concede that she was right, yet too afraid to sit by himself to prove his point.
That day as we took our seats, Martin offered no resistance. He plunked down on the pew and resigned himself to the service. I sat beside him, then my mother filed in after me, leaving room for my father at the end. This was the way it went every weekend. The habit of coming to worship was so deeply ingrained in all of us that we could have been blindfolded and we still would have ended up in those same positions.
The church slowly filled. The musty-sweet smell of incense wafted through the air in waves, churned up by the people entering and taking their seats. The hum of moving feet and hushed voices was resonating off the stone walls, making it feel as if the pews were vibrating. The whispers mixed together, though there was no doubt what everyone was talking about. The hiss of Swatka Pani’s name punctuated the din.
Father Svitek mounted the pulpit, draped in his vestments, missal in hand, and the church quieted. My heartbeat began to bellow in my ears as I prepared to bear the consequence of my lies. Perhaps Father Svitek would call me out by name and unveil my sins to everyone. Perhaps he would make me stand at the front of the church, an example for all to see. Instead, Father Svitek simply began the service in his usual monotone. He went on to deliver a bland sermon on the virtue of being humble and the danger of pride. Everyone in the church appeared to be expecting Father Svitek to mention Swatka Pani’s murder, to rail against the evil deed, but he did not.
The priest brought his sermon to a close and the organist played as the altar boys, bearing the host, made their way down the main aisle. People turned to one another in the pews, wondering why Father Svitek had not spoken about Swatka Pani’s death. They got in line to receive communion, whispering all the while. It was clear that Father Svitek had not been told.
My father rose to get in line for communion while my mother lagged behind, letting me get in front of her. Martin was too young to receive the host. He grumbled something about being left out, then slumped back in the pew and swung his legs killing time.
The line for communion crawled forward. I couldn’t see over my father’s shoulder to tell how far back we were. I didn’t want to know.
Soon we were at the front of the line and my father was receiving the host. I was trembling as Father Svitek took the wafer from a plate and held it up to me.
“The body of Christ.”
I was terrified of opening my mouth. The instant I parted my lips, Father Svitek forced the wafer between them. The wafer lay on my tongue like a coin, refusing to dissolve. I thought I might choke on it.
The body of Christ.
I almost started to cry as I made my way back to my seat. I was too afraid to close my jaws and force the wafer against my tongue. I thought it might splinter into shards and cut my throat. However much I believed I deserved it, I was still scared. I passed the statue of Saint Ladislaus and, for an instant, he appeared to be looking me in the eye, his gaze unrelenting.
As I sat down, the pipe organ in the rafters groaned to life. The choir started to sing. The voices rang out in dense, indecipherable Latin, raining down on us as the melody of the music drifted up into the domed ceiling. My jaw ached from holding it open. I couldn’t fight the reflex to swallow any longer. I inhaled hard and tried to gulp down the wafer, only to have it melt like candle wax and coat my tongue. I swallowed over and over again, desperate to rid myself of its papery taste, but it persisted, like a poison.
The choir’s song came to a close, then people began to gather their coats and shuffle toward the door. Others stayed on, talking among themselves and nodding in Father Svitek’s direction. Martin jumped up, eager to leave.
“Can we go now?” he asked.
“Put your coat on,” my father told him, scanning the crowd, preoccupied.
Everybody was waiting to see if someone would go up to Father Svitek and tell him about Swatka Pani, though nobody approached him. We had all put our coats on except for my mother. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken her eyes off the tall cross staked high at the front of the church.
“Aren’t you going to put your coat on?” Martin asked her. The question roused her. “Here, I’ll help you,” he offered, taking hold of one of her coat sleeves.
My mother stood up, drawing the coat along with her and out of Martin’s grasp. “I’ve got it,” she said.
My father leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Martin zeroed in on the exchange.
“Father Svitek doesn’t know. That’s what you think, right?” Martin was proud of his deduction.
My father hesitated before he answered. “No, seems nobody’s told him.”
Martin faced my mother. “Maybe you should tell him.”
She blinked and didn’t respond.
“He’ll find out,” my father said. “It’s not our business.”
“But—” Martin began.
“Put your coat on, I said,” my father ordered.
“It is on,” Martin replied.
My father headed for the door and Martin skirted past my mother to catch up with him. I stood alone with my mother as she cast her eyes around the church. Though it was a place she saw every day of her life, it was as if she was trying to soak up every inch of it and memorize it, as though she would never see it again.
THAT MONDAY MORNING, my mother took Martin and me to school on her way to work, as always. She was attempting to act normal, but her pace was faster, her step out of sync with ours. Her hair was unkempt under her kerchief and her clothes hung off her differently, more loosely. Her mind was elsewhere.
“Seems like it won’t be so cloudy today,” she remarked as she hastened us down Third. Her attempt at cheerfulness evaporated as we neared Swatka Pani’s house.
“Look,” Martin cried, darting ahead of us.
He stood at the fence to Swatka Pani’s garden, peeping through the slats. Someone had come in the night and pulled up all of her rosebushes. Only the thorny legs of the flowers remained, lying limply with clods of dirt still clinging to their roots.
“Somebody broke all her flowers,” Martin said. “Do you see?”
My mother didn’t answer right away. She was transfixed by the overturned garden. “Yes, I see.”
Martin leaned into the fence. “I wonder who did it.”
“Could’ve been anyone,” my mother replied.
“Who do you think did it?” he asked me.
My mother was right. It could have been anyone. My guess was that someone from Third was responsible, maybe a teenager or a child who had been afraid of her and had come to reap one final revenge. This was a desecration.
Then I wondered, Had I done it?
I skimmed back through my memory, sincerely asking myself if I was the one who had destroyed Swatka Pani’s garden. Though I knew full well I hadn’t, I was still unsure.
“Maybe it was crazy Mrs. Koshchushko,” Martin suggested since
I hadn’t answered his question. “Maybe she snuck over here and ripped out all of the flowers.”
“That’s enough,” my mother said, urging us onward.
Even at school, the air crackled with whispers about Swatka Pani. The nuns were on guard, vigilantly silencing any talk about her. There were no prayers as there had been for the girl who had drowned in the river, no moment of reverence. The nuns only offered a warning, the same warning we had heard time and time again: the river was off-limits, a place of danger. It had never seemed more true.
When classes let out, I took Martin to the library as I had done each day the week before.
“I don’t want to stay here,” he griped.
“You know I can’t take you with me.”
“But I’m all alone here. And what if the man who got Swatka Pani comes to get me?”
“At the library?”
“You never know.”
“First of all, you’re not alone here. You have Sister Teresa. You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t be. I won’t be fine. I’ll be alone.”
“I’ll try to hurry. I’ll be early this time. I promise.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll stay here. But I won’t like it.”
Mr. Goceljak was talking to a man in the front of the store when I arrived at the shop that afternoon. Their discussion sounded grave. I stayed in the back room until the front bell chimed the man’s departure, then Mr. Goceljak came to greet me.
“I s’pose you’ve heard.”
I nodded that I had, then he took up a carving knife and sliced a few ribs off a small rack of meat. It must have been a calf.
“Well, you know what they say,” Mr. Goceljak sighed. “God’ll get you.”
It was similar to what one of the men had said by the river: God’ll get you if the devil doesn’t first.
The phrase struck a hopeful chord in me. Maybe I hadn’t been responsible for what had happened to Swatka Pani. Maybe God had killed her.
“Did you know her?” Mr. Goceljak asked.
“I live on Third.”
“Then you must’ve known her all right.” He wrapped the ribs in paper, careful to tuck down the bones, and taped the package shut. “She scare you?”
“I guess.”
“No shame in it. She scared most people. Not everyone, I s’pose.”
I liked the idea that God might have done it and I didn’t want Mr. Goceljak suggesting otherwise.
“But maybe it was God.”
“Could’ve been. Doubt it, though. There’s been talk that it was that slow boy she had working for her. You know, what’s his name.”
“Leonard?”
“That’s him.”
“It wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been.”
“And how would you know?” Mr. Goceljak teased, sensing my distress.
I remembered Leonard’s face as he stood outside the door to our apartment, so nervous and upset.
“It just wasn’t.”
“I’d take your word for it, only problem is, the boy hasn’t been seen since it happened. People been looking and he ain’t turned up.” Mr. Goceljak raised his brow and tapped the carving knife in the air to make his point. “He don’t have any place to go besides the Silver Slipper, and he hasn’t been back.”
I refused to believe that Leonard had killed Swatka Pani. I had no proof, only instinct. Both my head and my heart told me it wasn’t so.
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Mr. Goceljak said, stacking the pile of deliveries before me. “Just go on and get these done. Ain’t many of ’em, so you’ll be done early today.”
The first two stops were nearby. I dropped the deliveries off in a haze, then picked up the third to check the address. It was on River Road.
I cut across town past the steel mill, jogging rather than running. I didn’t have the energy to run. Then I rounded the corner onto River Road and my feet slowed as a realization descended on me. The address belonged to the woman in the crumbling house and I would have to pass the stairway down to the river to get there.
I tried to run, to blow past the stairs, commanding my legs to move, but all I could force out were a few hesitant steps. My body stalled right at the head of the stairway. All of my bravery from the other day was gone. I was no longer sure I wanted to see what, if anything, was down there.
A breeze welled up off the water, pressing me backward, away from the river, then it curled around and blew against my neck, forcing me forward. Below lay the stairway. The wooden boards weaved down the steep slope to the shoreline, undamaged, unmarked, unchanged. Their plainness was shocking. The railing was not broken. The steps hadn’t splintered. They were just as they had always been. The same was true of the river. The water was still an opaque gray, the color of the sky above, and it coursed by with unrelenting regularity.
I was ashamed of myself for being so afraid. What hurt more was the dull ache of reality, that nothing had changed. No trace of the murder remained. The ground was not harder. The wind was not colder. The sun was no less bright. The world had chugged on, ambivalent about what had happened, uninterested in any of us.
THE WIND OFF THE RIVER dwindled as I trudged up the rotting stoop of the old woman’s house. The front door opened right as I was about to knock on it. Startled, I backed away. A wedge of the woman’s face appeared behind the door.
“Here,” I sputtered, holding the delivery out to her.
She raised her hand, then retracted it. I was too far back. She couldn’t reach beyond the confines of the house to take the package from me. There was less than a foot of space between us, but for her, it was a vast chasm.
“Sorry,” I said, inching in close enough to pass her the parcel. Then, in that instant when we were both holding the package at the same time, the woman looked me in the eye and whispered, “I know who did it.”
“What?” I had heard her clearly, but didn’t trust my ears.
“I know,” the woman said, then she shut the door.
Her ominous sincerity sent me bolting off the steps and sprinting down River Road. I wanted to get as far away from there as possible. I ran all the way to the other end of town without stopping, then slowed to catch my breath once I got to the hill by Mr. Beresik’s house. My face was numb and the cold flesh weighed on my cheeks as my blood beat hot. My head felt as if it was full of steam. As I came over the ridge, I sensed that something was different. It was completely quiet. The dogs were nowhere to be seen.
“Hello,” I called.
There was no response. I knocked on Mr. Beresik’s door, softly at first, then harder. I must have been knocking for a full five minutes. My knuckles ached from pounding. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.
“Hello,” I called again. A lone light was bleeding in from the kitchen. The front room was practically empty, like it had been cleared out. Only a lopsided sofa and a steamer trunk remained.
“Mr. Beresik. It’s me. I’m here with your delivery.”
I took another step forward and felt something uneven underfoot, a worn rug caked with mud. The dirt had hardened into ridges. It was one enormous doormat that spanned the length of the room. I nudged at a clod of mud with my toe and up it came, along with a few matted blades of grass. I was about to call out for Mr. Beresik again when a low-pitched hum rose up from under the house, reverberating in the walls. I went into the kitchen, where the light was. Dozens of empty beer bottles were scattered on every available surface. The room was littered with them. Another rumble rolled through the kitchen like a wave, closer, more distinct, and peppered with voices.
There was a door at the rear of the kitchen. I thought it might have been a pantry, but as I neared, the voices got clearer. Cautiously, I opened the door and was met with a surge of noise, a jumbled gush of booing and cheering. A set of stairs led down to a basement, which ran the length of the house. At first, all I saw were men’s backs, most clad in their winter coats or shirttails. They were hunched over a railing. Others were sitting on cr
ates. They were all looking down, watching something beneath them. The room was cold, almost as cold as it was outside. When the men spoke to one another, clouds of breath steamed from their mouths. Soon I heard another sound under their voices and strained to make it out.
One man moved away from his position along the railing, and before the men on either side closed the space where he had been, I glimpsed what they were looking at. Beyond the makeshift rail was a dirt pit more than five feet deep. I couldn’t see into it, but I didn’t need to. An abrupt howl pierced the rumble of voices, followed by a smatter of cheers. It was a dogfight. I tore up the stairs and threw the package of meat on the kitchen table as I fled the house.
THE TRIP BACK TO TOWN was a blur. Mr. Goceljak was waiting for me in the back room. He was feeding meat into a grinder. With one hand, he spun the crank and with the other he forced the meat into the grinder’s mouth. His was a steady, fluid motion, never pushing or prodding, graceful in its precision, as if he were dancing with a partner who was standing still.
“I know,” Mr. Goceljak told me as he turned the grinder’s crank.
Those two words bulged in my brain, an echo of what the woman on River Road had said earlier. He could have been talking about any number of things I had done, so many I had lost count.
“You didn’t have to lie about it.”
I struggled to come up with a reply, but wasn’t sure what to apologize for.
The grinder chewed up the last of the meat and spit it into the shallow dish that lay waiting on the table. Mr. Goceljak sniffed loudly, annoyed by my silence. “Didn’t you notice anything when you came in?”
I was dumbfounded and desperate to come up with whatever answer he wanted.
“The bicycle,” he said finally. “It’s still locked up.”
I hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even thought about it. I’d totally forgotten to hide the bicycle in the field.
The Grave of God's Daughter Page 14