Part 7 (1/2)
This time, Da demanded a name-a family.
”I don't know his name,” Nick lied and gave Ganady, sitting once again on Da's footstool, a warning glance from his good eye. He held the cold tea poultice more firmly to the other. ”I'm not sure he even goes to Saint Casimir.”
”Then why does he hit you, this boy you don't know?” asked Da.
”I think he was little drunk.”
”Drunk? How is it that he's drunk at a Church dance?”
”He and a couple of his friends had a flask of something.”
”At these dances they allow liquor?” Mama gasped.
”They don't allow it,” said Nick. ”But some of the kids sneak it.”
”Cigarettes, too,” Ganady blurted, and drew a scowl from Nick.
”Two weeks in a row, you come home bloodied. Next Friday, Nikolai Puzdrovsky, there will be no dance for you.”
Nick's eyes widened. ”Da...!”
”Vitaly.” Mama laid a hand Da's arm. ”This is fair?”
Da's look was dark and thunderous, but his voice, when he spoke to Mama, was gentle, as always. ”You want he should come home like this every week? What might it be next time, Rebecca - another black eye? A broken nose? An arm?”
Mama looked from Da's cloudy face to Nick's doleful one and back again. In the end, she deferred to Da, having neither the will to support Nikolai nor the heart to deny him.
”But what'm I supposed to do on Friday nights?”
”You could go to library,” suggested Mama, ”to study for school. More study wouldn't hurt.”
”School's over in a month.”
”You could come to shul with me and Baba,” offered Ganady, garnering another lopsided scowl.
With his mouth open to retort, Nick's expression melted from annoyance to epiphany. He raised his eyes to his parents. ”I could go to ma.s.s.”
Mama and Da exchanged startled glances, then Da said,”You want to go to Friday ma.s.s, too? Already, you go on Wednesday and the Sabbath.”
”I'd like to go,” said Nikolai with pious resolve. ”I think it would be good for me to go. Don't you think?”
It was a point no good Catholic parent could argue in good conscience. But Ganady distinctly heard his father say, as he and Nick went upstairs to bed, ”My G.o.d, will the boy become a monk?”
Ganady laughed, notwithstanding he was sincerely worried about Nikolai, who had rarely, in his almost eighteen years, lied to his parents, and never-so far as Ganny knew-about something so important.
”What happened?”
Ganady reflected that he would have to get used to watching his brother meditate on the ceiling as if he found a vision of the Virgin there.
Perhaps he did, after a fas.h.i.+on.
Nick launched into a tale that, to his younger brother, was rife with excitement and intrigue. He and Annie had been cautious at first. Each staying close to their cadre of friends, touching only with wary glances that turned to lingering looks.
Then Stefano-Steve, to his cla.s.smates-had gone outside with his buddies, and the couple had maneuvered themselves to a quiet corner next to the fire stair. They had reckoned, however, without Antonia's so-called friend, Maria Teresa Reghetti who, seeing the sister slip into the shadows with her proscribed beau, ran to find favor with the 'dreamy' older brother by ratting them out.
”They didn't even wait for me to leave the dance. They came right over and tried to 'escort' me outside. I said 'no thanks,' so Steve took a swing at me.”
”And that's when you got the black eye?”
”Nyeh. I ducked and he fell into the punch bowl.” He paused to savor the moment, sending Our Lady of the Plaster a sly smile.
Ganady giggled. ”Then how'd you get the black eye?”
”Steve got up and let me have it with the punch ladle. You should've seen him. Soaking wet. His s.h.i.+rt was all pink. Then his buddies got into it and some of my guys got into it and the chaperones had to break it up.”
”You mean...a rumble?”
Nick laughed. ”Rumble? Where'd you pick that up, kid?”
”I heard it somewhere,” Ganny said defensively. ”And don't call me 'kid.'”
”Sorry...yeah. Yeah, we got into a rumble.”
”Aren't you in trouble?”
”I probably will be when Mama and Da get a call from the Center.”
”Gosh, Nikki!” Ganady clutched his pillow. ”Aren't you scared of what they might do?”
Nikolai c.o.c.ked his good eye in his brother's direction. ”Like what? Make me go to ma.s.s instead of the dance on Friday night?”
Ganny's jaw dropped.
Nick grinned. ”You're gonna catch flies.”
oOo The Center contacted their parents Sat.u.r.day morning. There was shouting, inevitably, but little of it directed at Nick. Most of Da's ire was for the director of the Center.
”What sort of kids do you let into this place, em? Calling my son a kike. What sort of filth is that? You let such things go on? ...What?”
Ganady leaned closer to the banister, as if he might actually be able to pick words out of the faint buzz of sound that spat into his father's ear.
”I don't know anything about that. All I know is this boy was drinking and my Nikolai saw him. And for this he calls my boy filthy names? ...Yes, yes. Well, my Nikki will not be at any more of your dances. He has decided his time will be best spent at church.”
The click of the phone returning to the cradle was resolute, but not angry. Da did not even seem angry when he called Nikolai downstairs for a talk.
Ganny watched his brother pa.s.s by, then scooted down two steps so as to eavesdrop more effectively.