Princess of Passyunk

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  Because I’ve just given away the one thing that connected me to her.

  Baba looked at him hard, then shrugged. “So, this Svetlana is gone. If she’s so easily gotten rid of, perhaps this is best, yes? There are other girls. Most of them are much easier to know than that one. You don’t have to dream them up. They’re just there. There are fine girls at Megidey Tihilim. I see the way they look at you in shul. I know what they’re thinking, too, those girls: see how tall and straight he is—like a cedar of Lebanon. And how like a raven’s wing his hair, and how clear and dark his eyes. They’re thinking you’re like King David, is what.”

  Ganady could see where this was going. Where the Opshprekher had failed, Baba Irina was hoping some nice girl from Megidey Tihilim would succeed.

  There were pretty girls at temple and nice girls and girls that were both pretty and nice, and talented and smart as well. But, he realized with a start, none of them seemed as vivid or real as the quite literal girl of his dreams.

  The girls from Saint Stan’s and Saint Casimir pleased him no better. He supposed he would outgrow this, or perhaps he would find his dream girl some day in the real world. But for now, they smiled at him, they flirted, they giggled after him in the halls between classes—all to no effect. There was even a girl named Rachel—daughter to his mother’s best friend—who brought him plates of cookies when she and her mother came to the Puzdrovskys’ for sewing circles, and who offered to help him with his history homework.

  But the cookies failed to beguile him, and he was hopeless at history, for he did not reckon it the way the rest of the world did. While Rabbi Andrukh reckoned it from the Bible, and Father Zembruski from the Gospels and the history of the Church, and his teachers from disaster to disaster and war to war, he thought of history in terms of baseball. 1912 was not the year the Titanic sank, it was the year Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park opened. 1914 might have marked the United States’ entry into the First World War, but that was overshadowed by the first pitch thrown at Wrigley Field.

  With his passion for klezmer, he was also in strange musical territory, for the girls he knew, if they listened to music at all, favored Sinatra over Tarras and Presley over Brandwein. And not one of them had the slightest desire to go to a baseball game on a warm Saturday afternoon.

  Ganny let his breath out on a long sigh. With Mr. O laid up, it was going to be a lonely spring.

  oOo

  It was worse than he expected.

  Since he would not acquire a girlfriend to even out their number, Nikolai and Yevgeny—who frequently took Annie and Nadia out on double dates—rarely socialized with Ganady. He became better than ever at clarinet and his grades at school were the best they’d ever been. He would graduate from Saint Casimir near the top of his class.

  When Mr. O went home from the hospital, he busied himself there, helping out after school and on weekends. Baba Irina would come along too sometimes, to bring the old man baked goods or to fix him hot meals.

  “I am a lucky old meshuggener,” Mr. O told Yevgeny one Saturday afternoon on which Baba Irina had chosen to ignore the mitzvot and come to cook dinner. “To have Irina Kutshinska in my kitchen making my dinner with her own good hands—such fortune I could never have imagined.”

  He leaned forward on his sagging sofa and gave Ganady a look, the old twinkle almost, but not quite, restored to his eyes. “I should like to take her to a ballgame, Ganady. Do you think I should?”

  Ganny realized with a jolt that the old man was sweet on his grandmother. The thought was astounding. But he paused to ponder it.

  “You mean a—a day game?” A real game, he meant.

  “Maybe, but I was thinking more of...” Ouspensky tilted his head toward Connie Mack and rolled his eyes skyward.

  “I think...I think she might like that, Mr. Ouspensky. Baba believes in miracles.”

  “Well of course she does,” said the old man. “You do not get to be as old as we are, Ganady, and not believe in miracles. You do not go through what we have gone through and not believe.”

  Later, when he looked back on the conversation, Ganady could only appreciate the irony: he had thought he would be spending his Saturdays saving Mr. Ouspensky from loneliness, but even Mr. O had a “girl” and no longer required his company.

  Still, Mr. O was more faithful than his younger friends, and requested the young man’s company, whether or not Baba Irina was in attendance. When Mr. O was able, the three of them began again to attend shul together and to go to Izzy’s afterward. Ganny and Mr. O continued to go to baseball games together, though Ganady spent at least half of every game worrying over the old man’s heart.

  Then, one Saturday afternoon in midsummer, Mr. O told Ganny that he had at last gotten up his courage and would ask Baba Irina to a ghost baseball game. Would Ganny help him with the ritual?

  That night at dinner, Nikolai and Antonia announced their engagement. Ganady’s imagination painted him a picture of his brother and grandmother double-dating. Perhaps they would even triple date with Yevgeny and Nadia. Perhaps they would have a triple wedding.

  He laughed until he cried.

  Less than a week later, Yevgeny turned up at the Puzdrovskys’ front door, quite alone.

  “Hey, Ganny, want to go to Izzy’s?” he asked, and Ganady was so surprised and pleased, he said “yes,” without pausing to consider why the invitation might be forthcoming.

  The wild thought—not quite a hope—flared in his mind that perhaps Yevgeny and Princess Nadia were no more and his best friend would now be returned to him—at least for a while.

  They went to Izzy’s deli; they ordered root beer floats; they sat at their window table, and Ganady reflected that his best friend looked even more serious than he ever had. Less and less like a boy and more and more like a man.

  “I’m to be assistant manager at The Samovaram,” Yevgeny said after they had chatted about graduation and Mr. Ouspenky’s health and the very idea of Baba Irina at a ghost baseball game.

  “What? That’s great. I thought your parents were going to make you go to college.”

  “No. They’ve changed their minds. I’m to start at the New Year, Da says.”

  “Wow, and you were just a busboy the last time I talked to you.”

  “I was a sous-chef,” protested Yevgeny. “And now I’m maitre d’. I’ve had to learn all the jobs. Da says it’s so I’ll understand the business. I do the books now, too...well, with Sophie’s help.” He took a deep breath, put down his spoon and said, “At the New Year, I will take over as assistant manager and...”

  Ganny stopped in mid-slurp and looked up at his friend, sensing something of great import was about to be said.

  “Nadezhda and I are to be married at Christmas.”

  Ganny swallowed the icy slurry he’d been holding in his mouth and managed to nod as if nothing could possibly be less surprising to him than the news that had just pierced him to the heart.

  Until now, he realized, he had harbored some ridiculous hope that Yevgeny would one day come with him to Izzy’s deli and all would be as it was before.

  “Nick and Annie are getting married, too,” Ganady said. “And I think there’s even a chance for Mr. O and my grandmother.” He smiled with all the sincerity he could muster and chuckled manfully. “Congratulations,” he added as an afterthought. “Really.”

  Yevgeny the Serious slurped his float again, dimples creasing his cheeks. “I didn’t think they’d let me do this. I thought I was for teaching. But when I told them I wanted to marry Nadia, they thought it over and decided I should have a good job to start our marriage with. If I went away to school, we’d have to wait for a very long time for me to establish myself, and this way...” He shrugged. “Alik is thinking he might even talk them into sending him to college. He’s not anywhere near getting married. What do you think of that?”

  “It’s good,” Ganny said. “It’s very good. You’ll be happy, I’m sure. And I hope Alik, too.”

  “What about
you, Ganny?”

  Ganny looked down into his float. “What about me?”

  “Well, you said you had a girl a while back—what was her name?”

  “Svetlana,” said Ganny through ice-cream-numbed lips.

  “Yeah. What ever happened to her?”

  He prepared to say: We had a falling-out. I don’t see her any more. But when his lips opened, what came out was: “Oh, we’re fine. She’s just had some...some family problems to take care of, but we’re fine. Great—we’re great.”

  Yevgeny’s face lit up, making his eyes sparkle and his freckles stand out across the bridge of his nose. “This is good news, Ganny. We were worried about you—Nadia and I. I’m so happy, I want you to be happy too.”

  “I am happy,” Ganady lied.

  Yevgeny leaned across the table. “Nick and Annie and Nadia and I—we’ve been talking about a double wedding. Who knows—maybe we’ll have a triple wedding, eh?”

  Ganny smiled and laughed weakly and finished his root beer float without tasting it.

  oOo

  The day after Yevgeny’s momentous announcement, he called to invite Ganady to play clarinet at The Samovaram for Friday dinner. This turned out to be so popular with the patrons that the invitation was immediately extended to Thursday through Sunday and modest wages attached to it, plus such gratuities as Ganny’s audiences would afford him.

  Ganady was both pleased and grateful. This seemed a much more promising start to a career than washing windows and sweeping floors, which he continued to do for cash. He knew he was expected to consider a real job in the coming year; his father had spoken of it soberly on more than one occasion, and his mother and grandmother and their women friends had each and every one commented that he must look to his prospects if he was to someday marry.

  Nick and Yevgeny having been settled, the attention of every woman in South Philly seemed to turn to Ganady Puzdrovsky’s prospects. What did he want to do with his life? Whom did he think he might marry? Had he thought of learning his father’s business?

  As the summer passed, he tired of the constant inquiries, the suggestions, the sage advice. Even Rabbi Andrukh and Father Zembruski took up counseling him as if it were a hobby. Rabbi Andrukh told him to follow his dreams; Father Zembruski that he would make a fine priest.

  He considered both of these suggestions. If he were never to see Svetlana again, perhaps the priesthood was not such an outlandish idea. But he had to admit that he had no legitimate calling to it—certainly not as he was called to music. He merely felt that disappearing into a monastery might put him and his prospects away from the constant attention afforded them. But it would also give him an uncomfortable amount of time in which to miss Svetlana. He could not even imagine the confessions he would have to make because of that. So much for becoming a priest.

  He had two dreams—one of which he was willing to confess, figuratively speaking, to Rabbi Andrukh. He couldn’t speak of Svetlana, so he told the Rabbi about his dream of playing his clarinet professionally—perhaps finding a band of other klezmorim to play with.

  Rabbi Andrukh did not cluck at him, or tell him to choose something more practical. Rabbi Andrukh smiled and said that it seemed a very fitting dream and that Ganady should, by all means, pursue it.

  So Ganny played for the happy patrons of the Toschevs’ restaurant, garnered a paycheck and tips, deflected questions about his plans, and thought about Svetlana incessantly. More than that, he debated himself about her: did she exist? If so, where was she? Did she think of him as often as he thought of her?

  He visited all the places he had seen her—or dreamed he had seen her—but she was not there, though he sometimes thought he could feel her presence if he held very, very still.

  On a Sunday evening when he had arrived home from entertaining the early dinner crowd at The Samovaram, he found his grandmother awaiting him impatiently at the front door of an empty house.

  “Your parents and sister have gone to an evening mass with Nikolai and Antonia,” she told him. “We are going to a baseball game with Stanislaus.”

  He knew the Phillies’ schedule; they were not even in town this weekend. If they saw any baseball played this evening, it would be through one of Mr. O’s time-eddies.

  They took a cab, for which Ganady paid from his evening’s tips. On the rooftop, in the still, over-warm air of twilight, Ganady, Mr. O, and Baba Irina walked through the movements of the Ritual, then pulled up their folding chairs and sat contemplating the spite fence.

  Dusk deepened around them, but in the park across the street, it was as if the lights had come on. Ganny swore he could see them, spreading their radiance across the grass of the outfield, heating the infield until it glowed like emeralds set in gold.

  Ganny blinked. In a moment, he would see players take the field, he was convinced of it.

  “Baba,” he whispered, “do you see it? Can you see the diamond?”

  “I see just fine, thank you,” she said and continued to gaze out over the rooftop.

  A squad of players took the field then, their uniforms gleaming white under the lights. Ganny exhaled. It was still there—magic. There was still magic in the world.

  “Mr. O, about the ball I gave you...”

  “Oh, Ganny,” said Ouspensky, “I’m so sorry. Didn’t I tell you? The ball is gone.”

  “Gone?” Ganny felt his heart sink through the soles of his sneakers.

  “Ah, the Sisters. They’re wonderful women, but not being of the world means they don’t understand much about the world or the things in it. Like baseballs, for example. To us, that baseball was a piece of history, a miracle.” He scratched behind his ear. “They didn’t quite see it that way. They found it under my pillow and threw it away.”

  “Stanislaus,” said Baba Irina, “who is that player there at the first base? I think he is chewing tobacco.”

  Ganny glanced back up toward the ballpark, but the spite fence blocked his view. He could no longer see the shimmering grass or the radiant dirt or the players arrayed around the diamond like pearls upon a string.

  He excused himself, but neither of them heard him. The two old people had their heads close together while Mr. O explained each position and introduced each player.

  Ganady slipped quietly from the roof, retrieved his clarinet from the kitchen table and walked home.

  The house was dark, still, and locked when he got home, and the moon—full and fat and bright—was rising above the rooftops. Ganny imagined what it might look like glistening on the immaculate grass of Connie Mack’s infield.

  The Baseball was gone. Not merely no longer in his possession, but gone gone. Tossed away like so much rubbish...by a nun. Would she be called upon to confess her transgression, he wondered?

  Father bless me, for I have sinned. I threw away an Eddie Waitkus autographed baseball.

  Ganny had never felt so intensely alone in his entire life. It was as if all the magic in his world had drained away, leaving a powdery residue that only dimly resembled moonlight.

  He sat on the stoop, took out his clarinet, carefully assembled it, and began to play. He thought of his mother and father and played Sheyn vi di Levune. He thought of his Baba and played a merry Purim tune called Makht Oyf. But he did not feel merry. He wanted more than anything not to have done anything to make Svetlana sad, to have not talked to Boris or repeated his words. He would never, never do such a thing again, of that he was certain. If only she would come back.

  Thinking of Svetlana, he played Yo Riboyn Olam, because it was the last thing he had played for her and she had especially liked it. He put all the turmoil of his heart and soul into the music, turning each plaintive note into a prayer: O God, Master of this Universe...

  As the last lamenting tones trailed away, the street lamp opposite the Puzdrovsky stoop winked out, leaving Ganady in darkness and moonlight. A perfect reflection upon his mood.

  “That was beautiful,” she said.

  He glanced up so quickly, he cu
t his lip on his reed.

  She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk by the lamppost, wearing a crown of moonlight in her hair.

  He could only whisper her name.

  “I missed hearing you play.”

  “I missed playing for you. I missed you,” he added. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

  She smiled. It was a ghost smile in the pale light. “But you apologize so beautifully. How could I refuse? And besides, I couldn’t stay away.”

  “But...but The Baseball. I lost it. I mean, I gave it to Mr. O, and he lost it. Well, actually, the Sisters lost it.”

  She tilted her head in a way that made his heart do strange and wonderful things and said, “The Baseball brought us together, Ganny. But that’s all it did. I think that’s what it was supposed to do. I’m not here because of The Baseball. I’m here because of you.”

  They were the most amazing words he’d ever heard, and he paused to savor them, closing his eyes for only a moment.

  “Ganny? Ganny, for heaven’s sake!”

  His eyes fluttered open, and he found himself looking up into his mother’s face. She was laughing at him.

  “Look at you—asleep on the stoop! Where’s your Baba?”

  “She...she’s at a ballgame with Mr. Ouspensky.”

  Ganady’s father passed him on the steps, moving to unlock the front door. “Ganny, you’re still dreaming; the Phillies are in Chicago this series.”

  “Oh, I just meant, she’s at Mr. Ouspensky’s. When I left, they were talking baseball.”

  “Really?” said Da, apparently finding the thought amusing. “Did you hear that, Ravke? Your mother is talking baseball with her beau.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s not,” his wife demurred. “At their age.”

  Ganny paused in the act of disassembling and packing up his clarinet. “Why not? I think Baba really likes Mr. Ouspensky. And I know he likes her. He’s been so lonely all these years...”

  Both his parents were looking at him so strangely that his voice withered in his throat.

  Then his mother said, “You’re such a sweet boy, Ganny, to think of Mr. Ouspensky’s loneliness. And your Baba’s too, I think, yes?”