Part 18 (1/2)
”But...but the sign...”
”Oh, that. I bought the shop from a guy named Otto Gusthof. He had sons. I don't have sons.”
There was something so infinitely sad about the way he said it, that Ganny had to stop himself from imagining that the butcher had wiped a tear from his eye. He recognized this for what it was-the moment for his question.
”Do you...do you have a daughter?”
Mr. Joe's eyes snapped to his face with such force that Ganady thought he should hear a click. ”A daughter? Why do you ask?”
Ganady had not considered having to answer that particular question. ”I...well...”
”What-you'd like to inherit my Sausage Empire?”
”No I...I know a girl whose last name is Gusalev, that's all.”
Now he had the butcher's complete attention. He felt it as a hot, p.r.i.c.kling sensation upon his cheeks. Mr. Joe put his paper down on the gla.s.s top of the empty meat case and leaned forward on his stool.
”What girl is this? What's her given name?”
Ganny swallowed. ”Svetlana,” he said, and he heard Mr. Joe let out a long, low sigh.
”Svetlana.”
Ganny nodded. ”Svetlana.”
”How does she seem, this Svetlana? Is she well? Is she healthy?”
”She's...she seems okay. She's kind of hard to get to know though. I don't know where she lives or anything like that.”
”You don't know where she lives? Where'd you see her?”
”In church.”
Mr. Joe's eyes bugged out. ”In a church? What kind of church?”
”Saint Stan's-Stanislaus. Over on Wharton.”
”A Catholic church? Chas v'cholileh! Well, at least it's not Protestant.”
”So, um...then your daughter isn't-”
”Daughter? I have no daughter. My daughter is dead.”
Ganny's heart turned to ice in his chest, but then the butcher muttered not quite beneath his breath: ”The ungrateful wretch.”
”But she's not dead dead?”
The butcher threw him a strange look. ”What do you mean, dead dead? You've seen her-you just said so.”
”Well, yeah, but only...” Only in my dreams?
Ganny stopped himself from saying the words, picked up his bucket and sponge and rags and stood. ”I've got to do the cases.”
”Sure,” said Mr. Joe, but he continued to watch Ganny work, which made Ganny s.h.i.+ver and sweat in turns.
Finally, he was finished and put away his tools and prepared to go. He was at the door when Mr. Joe asked him: ”So, this Svetlana Gusalev you know-and I'm not saying she's my girl, mind you-she seems...normal to you?”
”Well, not exactly. She...she does things I don't think other people can do. And she seems sad. She says she misses her Da something terrible.”
Mr. Joe's eyes watered a little, but his face seemed hard as a frozen side of beef. ”Does she? Well, that's as may be. But what things does she do that seem so strange to you?”
”It's kind of hard to say.”
Gusalev shrugged. ”What-hard to say? Just say. Tell me one thing she does that's not exactly normal.”
”She comes into my dreams.” There, he'd said it.
The butcher shrugged again. ”What's not normal about that? My Rodenka-my Stella-came into my dreams when we were courting. The next time you see her, this Svetlana-and I'm not saying she's my daughter, mind you-you tell her for me that a girl should do her duty to her family. It's that simple. A girl should do her duty. You'll tell her?”
Ganady could only nod, staring through the perfectly clean gla.s.s of the butcher shop's front door as it swung shut behind him. The muted, delicate tinkle of the little bell suspended above the lintel jarred him from his astonishment and he turned and ran home as fast as his feet would carry him.
oOo Ganady did not dream of Svetlana that night. Not until the next sabes did he dream of her. They went to Pa.s.syunk Square and watched the old men play chess, and Ganny found it was all he could do not to look at the butcher shop that was on the corner even in his dreams. Svetlana, for her part, made no mention of it at all.
They went to Izzy's next. And Mr. O was there-or at least, Ganny thought, he had put Mr. O there. They talked of baseball heroes long gone and when the subject of Lefty O'Doul came up, they were suddenly at the ballpark with Mr. Ouspensky watching the Giants and Phillies play ghost baseball.
As he did most nights after dreaming of Lana, Ganady went to his dresser and, by the light of the moon, he studied the c.o.c.kroach. This night, he did something that would have been unthinkable even weeks ago-he took the baseball along with the wooden stand he had made for it, and the creature that sat atop it, and moved it to his bedside table. He found that if he set the ball just so, he could see the c.o.c.kroach in silhouette against the window shade, backlit by moon and streetlamp.
What would Mr. Joe think, he wondered, if he asked him if his daughter was sometimes a c.o.c.kroach?
Fourteen: Bagel Boy and Cookie Girl.
”So, you are a businessman now, are you?” Baba Irina said, glancing at Ganady out of the corner of her eye.
They made their way down Tenth toward Izzy's for an after shul snack.
”I wash windows, Baba.”
”For two businesses. This is a beginning.”
Ganady smiled. Only Baba Irina could see two window-was.h.i.+ng jobs as the start of a career.
At Izzy's they sat at their window table and listened to the radio.
”You do good work,” said Baba Irina, tapping the gleaming gla.s.s with a fingernail. ”Doesn't he do good work, Isaacson?”
Isak Isaacson sat at the counter reading a paper. His wife Esther was not to be seen which, Ganny suspected, was fine with Baba Irina.