The Grave of God's Daughter

by Brett Ellen Block

  We made the bed and were about to leave when Martin asked, “What’s she going to think when she sees that we’re gone? Isn’t she going to get scared?”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “Let’s leave her a note.”

  “A note? What’s it going to say?” We’d never left a note before and, more important, we had no place to go—not school, not church, and certainly not the river. Martin was already getting a piece of paper from his school pad. He sat down and carefully printed out the note in perfect, block letters: My od bawic sie.

  The note read: “We went out to play.”

  This lie was like a waft of air. It didn’t sting or twinge. Lying had become like everything else, like blinking, like breathing.

  We sneaked out of the house, then both of us started to run though there was no reason to. I was leading, running down Third, past Swatka Pani’s house and beyond. Martin was keeping up, the lunch tin swinging back and forth in his hand, but he soon slowed.

  “I’m hungry,” he panted, lopping to a stop.

  “We’ll eat soon. I’ve got somewhere I have to go first.”

  “Where?”

  “The butcher’s shop. I need my clothes.”

  “But you’re already wearing your clothes.”

  “You’ll see.”

  Mr. Goceljak was carving down a pig’s leg on the block when I tapped on the back door. He waved me in with his knife.

  “I must be nicer than I thought if you want to come see me on your day off.”

  “I came by because…I mean, I wanted to know if it would be all right if I borrowed the clothes.”

  He was confused. “What do you need them for?” My reticence left him room to guess. “Going up to Walt’s, eh?” Mr. Goceljak was working the knife’s blade close to the bone and the flesh was slumping off in a thick sheet. “Well, just be careful with that money. You worked hard to earn it, but it’ll only take you a split second to lose it.”

  I hadn’t considered losing, only doubling my money like Mr. Beresik had described. The prospect of having all of the money taken away almost made me change my mind on the spot.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “That your brother out there?” Mr. Goceljak asked.

  Martin had his face pressed to the door, then he ducked down and scrambled away.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t look much alike.”

  “Everybody says that.”

  “You taking him too?”

  “I have to. I couldn’t leave him at home…alone,” I added. “But I’m going to make him stay outside, down the road. I won’t let him come in.”

  Mr. Goceljak nodded approvingly. “He’s too young for it. Come to think of it, so are you.”

  He wiped the knife on his apron. He’d gotten all of the meat he was going to get from the leg. The bone gleamed white. “You can change out in the shed if you like.”

  I took the pants and cap down from the peg where I’d hung them.

  “Good luck then,” Mr. Goceljak offered.

  Martin hurried away from the door and pretended to be admiring the bicycle when I came out.

  “He saw you,” I said. “I told you to stay out of sight.”

  “I just wanted to look in a little.”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to?”

  “Yes,” he conceded.

  “If you do it again, if you disobey me when I tell you to stay hidden, then I’ll take you home. I’m not fooling, Martin.”

  “All right.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “Swear to God.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “All right, I swear to God.”

  “Good.”

  “Now can we eat?”

  “Go ahead, you eat. I’ve got to change.” I held up the pants and cap to show him what I meant.

  “You’re going to put on boy clothes?”

  “I do it almost every day.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  “No different than my regular clothes.” Martin considered the statement as he took a bite of his sandwich. “I’ll be right out,” I told him, slipping the latch on the door to the curing shed.

  “Okay, I’m not going anywhere. Not moving. Not an inch,” Martin attested between bites. “Swear to God.”

  The shed was pitch black. There was no light, no electricity. I clumsily slipped on the pants and tied the rope belt. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the shapes of hanging sausages, thick and fingerlike, as well as a half-dozen pigs’ legs, all lined up, like they were marching. I wound my hair into a tight knot on the top of my head just as my mother would do with hers, then I pulled the cap down firmly.

  “You do look like a boy. Kind of,” Martin said when I stepped out of the shed.

  “Kind of?”

  “It’s just ’cause I know you’re not.”

  “I guess we’re ready then.”

  “Do you ever get to ride this?” he asked, tracing the curves of the bicycle’s seat with his finger.

  “I could if I wanted. I told Mr. Goceljak I knew how.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I know that.”

  “So did you try?”

  “It was hard. Much harder than you’d think.”

  Martin gazed at the bicycle with a mix of awe and apprehension. “Really?”

  “I almost fell down. And I wasn’t even moving yet.”

  “Oh,” he replied, a little put off. “Do you think, maybe, sometime I could try?”

  “I don’t know. I could ask Mr. Goceljak.”

  “Would you?”

  “I will, but only if you really promise not to sneak a look at where I’m taking you.”

  “But I already swore to God.”

  That no longer seemed like enough. It hadn’t for a while, and I feared it never would again.

  “Just remember, you look and no bicycle.”

  “Fine. Can we go now? It smells back here.”

  “It does?”

  “You don’t smell it?” Martin pinched his nose and made a face.

  I didn’t smell a thing. Then I remembered the first day I’d gone to work for Mr. Goceljak. The sweet, pungent scent of smoked meat blending with the tinny odor of the raw was so overpowering I’d worried it would cling to my clothes. Until Martin mentioned it, I hadn’t even realized that I’d become acclimated to it.

  “Come on,” I told him. “It’s a long walk.”

  WE MADE OUR WAY OUT of town and along the dirt road to Mr. Beresik’s house. The muddy ruts in the road were deeper than usual and marred with tire tracks. Several cars had passed that way. Martin hopped from one side of the tire tracks to the other, playing.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Do you want to run?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’d make you warmer.”

  “I’m not that cold,” he said. “How much farther?”

  “It’s just up over the hill.”

  “Thank God.”

  I hadn’t heard those words in a while, hadn’t said them myself, and they sloshed in my ears like icy water.

  More than a dozen cars and trucks were pulled up around Mr. Beresik’s property, all parked at different angles. We’d never seen so many cars in one place besides the lot outside the steel mill.

  “Look,” Martin marveled, running ahead.

  Most were beat up and rusted, the paint dull with dust. Nevertheless, together they made an impressive sight.

  “Look at that one,” Martin said, racing up to a crystal-yellow Mercury that looked like one long sweep of swelled metal. He ran his hand along the side, petting the car the way he had petted Ragsoline’s horse.

  “Don’t touch, Marty.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not yours.”

  “Who’s going to see me?” He patted the plump girth of the front wheel’s
hull.

  I was about to scold him when I realized that the cars would keep him busy and they would keep him away from the house.

  “All right. You can touch the cars. But you have to stay out here. You can’t come inside. You can’t come on the porch. You can’t even go near the door.”

  Martin saluted me. “Yes, sir,” he chimed, and I frowned. “What? You’re supposed to be a boy, right?”

  “Just stay out here. If anybody comes out that door, you hide. You hide by those bushes over there. And don’t go near that fence,” I ordered, pointing to the dog pen.

  “Why? It’s empty.”

  “No, it’s not. It might look like it, but it isn’t. Marty, I’m serious. Don’t go near the fence.” The gravity of my tone scared him, so much so that he took a step away from the pen.

  “You can eat my sandwich. And here. Take my mittens.” I pushed my mittens onto Martin’s hands. I still had the bandages on. “I’ll be out as soon as I can. But no matter what, don’t come inside.”

  I mounted the porch and could already hear the din of voices from below the house. I turned back and Martin waved, my mitten doubling the size of his hand.

  A handful of men were in the kitchen, taking bottles of beer from the icebox and popping off the caps. I tried not to make eye contact, but one of them nodded as I passed, a silent greeting. Then another man stopped me. “Ey boy,” he said in Polish. “Bring a few of these bottles down, will you?”

  “Okay,” I grunted, keeping my head low as I let the men fill my arms with beer bottles. I teetered down the basement steps behind them, bottles clanking, fearful of letting one slip.

  The basement was packed, crammed to the walls with more men. Chairs from upstairs had been brought down and lined up along the pit. Some of the men milled around while others had staked out their seats and wouldn’t budge. Most were smoking, bottles in hand. A cloudy layer of cigarette smoke hung at the ceiling, nowhere to go.

  When one man spotted the beer I was carrying, he approached and pulled one from my arms. “Thanks, kid,” he mumbled. Other men were soon doing the same.

  “Didn’t know you hired a waiter, Walt?” someone called out.

  Mr. Beresik appeared from alongside the pit. He saw me holding the bottles and cracked a grin. “Didn’t know I’d hired one either.” He helped me set the bottles down on the floor. “Don’t mind these old bastards. They’ll give you a hard time if you let ’em. But I won’t let ’em, okay?”

  I shook my head. It was all I could do because my arms were aching from carrying the bottles.

  “You ready to win some money?” Mr. Beresik asked.

  “I hope so.”

  “Hope ain’t got nothing to do with it. Just luck. And unfortunately, that’s worse.” He nudged me playfully. “You’ll do fine. I’ll find you when it’s a good bet. Help you put your money down with Vic. He handles all the bets ’cause I’m too busy with the dogs.”

  Mr. Beresik gestured toward the far corner of the pit room where a thick-nosed man in a squarish hat sat on a stool. Two crates were stacked in front of him as a makeshift betting table. I didn’t realize I’d be giving my money to anybody but Mr. Beresik and my apprehension showed.

  “Don’t worry. Vic’s good with the numbers, but his fingers aren’t slippery.”

  Mr. Beresik melted back into the crowd, greeting the men, shaking hands and slapping backs. I scooted over to the far side of the pit and hid in the corner, wedging myself in where the wooden slats that formed the railing met the wall.

  Boisterous laughter boiled up from one end of the basement, then blended in with the murmur of men discussing bets. Most had fallen in along the handrail encircling the pit. Some put out their cigarettes while others lit them in anticipation. A few were chewing tobacco and spitting it into empty beer bottles or down into the pit.

  The man beside me shook his head when he saw someone spit tobacco juice into the pit.

  “Means he’ll spit on the dog when it’s fighting,” the man said ruefully. He was a heavyset older man with an uneven beard and fat forearms that fanned out when he leaned on the railing. “Better not be my bet he’s spittin’ on.”

  A bell sounded from Vic’s corner and the room settled. Mr. Beresik cut through the crowd on one side of the pit and lifted up two cards with handwritten numbers on them.

  “Nineteen versus forty-one. Nineteen versus forty-one.”

  A door opened into the pit and a man in shirtsleeves came out holding a cream-colored pit bull on a tight chain leash. The dog had reddish eyes and a healed scar running the length of its shoulder. The man positioned the dog in the far corner of the pit, unhooked the leash and straddled the dog, then grasped it by the jowls, preparing to rein it back. Spit flung from the dog’s mouth as it worked itself into a frenzy.

  “Nineteen,” Mr. Beresik shouted. Then the door swung open again. “Forty-one.”

  Another man entered the ring. He was clean shaven and wore a dress shirt and brown trousers with a matching hat. His clothes gave him an air of affluence, which rendered him utterly out of place in Mr. Beresik’s basement and especially in the middle of the pit. His dog was mottled with black and brown speckles, and its fur was so ravaged with scars that it looked mangy. The man held his dog back in the same manner the other had, pulling on the dog’s face and exposing its teeth.

  Mr. Beresik nodded to Vic and the bell sounded again.

  What followed was a blur of movement. Both men released their dogs simultaneously, and Forty-one darted across the pen and tackled the cream-colored dog, pinning it to the ground.

  The men backed into the safety of the corners while the crowd went wild, hollering and leaning over the railing to get a better look at the fast start to the fight. The dogs’ heads were whipping from side to side, each trying to get a better angle on the other’s neck. Nineteen dove low and hooked its jaws onto the other dog’s shoulder, but Forty-one bucked and managed to wrangle free. The man chewing the tobacco spit on Nineteen, hitting it on the rump.

  “See,” the heavy man said to me. “What’d I tell you.”

  The tobacco juice dribbled off Nineteen’s pelt while Forty-one nipped at its face, then ripped into the dog’s ear. Nineteen yelped and tried to pull away, but Forty-one yanked back, hind legs jerking. The ear was hanging, bloody, with a piece partially severed.

  I dropped my head and pretended to cough from the smoke, but I was covering my eyes with the brim of the cap. A few fervent yowls rose up from the ring and I clamped my eyes tight. Soon I heard only one dog barking. I didn’t need to look to know it was Forty-one.

  “Glad I didn’t bet on that one,” the heavy man next to me huffed. “Nineteen used to be my lucky number.”

  When I allowed myself to look, Forty-one was standing in the center of the pit, wagging its stub of a tail. The man in the matching hat and trousers whistled twice and Forty-one trotted to his side, then together they disappeared behind the pit door and into the bowels of the basement.

  Someone from the crowd handed the man in the shirtsleeves a big sack cut along the seams.

  “What’s happening?” I asked the heavy man.

  “Winner took his dog back into the pens to wait for the next match. Winner always gets another match.”

  The other man covered the cream-colored pit bull with the sackcloth, hoisted it into his arms, and carried it through the same door.

  “Loser’s got to bag his ’un up,” the heavy man informed me.

  Three more matches came and went. Before each fight, I would look to Mr. Beresik across the pit, but he would shake his head, telling me not to put my money down. As soon as the owners and their dogs entered the ring, I fixed my eyes on the railing. With the brim of the cap covering my eyes, I hoped I looked like I was watching, at least from Mr. Beresik’s vantage point. Listening was almost worse. A constant snarling, the click of teeth biting air then biting flesh, and the barks or howls that followed mingled with the cheers and booing from the men.

  The four
th match was a draw. Both dogs had injured each other so badly that one limped out and the other had to be carried. The dirt pit was muddy with blood. Dust kicked up by the dogs during the fights clotted the blood into muddy pools.

  “Here we go,” the heavy man said. “This is the one I been waiting for.”

  Mr. Beresik held up the number cards: Seven and Forty-one. He gave me the nod and gestured for me to hurry over to Vic’s table.

  Vic spoke in a gnarled Polish accent, making it hard for me to understand him. “How much?” he said. He had to ask me twice.

  “I don’t know.”

  Vic frowned. Men were waiting in line behind me, impatient to place their bets before the dogs were let out and the betting was closed.

  “All of it,” I heard Mr. Beresik say from behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “How much you got there anyway?” I showed him the quarters and the five-dollar bill. He grinned.

  “Six dollars, eh? Freddy Goceljak must be getting generous. Put it all on Sally.”

  “Sally’s fighting?”

  “Yup. And she’s going to beat that bastard Szymkewicz’s bitch.”

  “Is that Forty-one?”

  “Yeah. And Szymkewicz’s as nasty as his dog. He’s lucky I still let him fight here.”

  “Why?”

  “Doesn’t train his dogs right. Doesn’t treat ’em right.” Mr. Beresik got a look on his face like he’d eaten something bitter. “He hits ’em with sticks or burns ’em to make ’em meaner. You can see the welts on the dogs when they come out. It’s bad business.”

  “Full six?” Vic asked Mr. Beresik, attempting to speed the line.

  “You want to do it? Bet it all?”

  “What happens if Sally wins?”

  “Odds aren’t in her favor,” Mr. Beresik said in a hushed tone so the men behind us wouldn’t hear. “People think she can’t beat Forty-one. But I know she can. She’d more than double your money in one match. You could take home a little over fifteen dollars.”

  The number chimed in my ears, ringing out over the din, irresistible. I tentatively laid my money on the crate, setting the quarters on top of the bill in a neat pile. Vic swiftly scooped up the money and it hurt to see it go. He handed me a scrap of paper with a string of numbers on it.

  “You turn that back in for your money. When you win, that is,” Mr. Beresik explained. He glanced at my newly bandaged hands. “Not a bad job. You rewrap those yourself?”