Part 19 (1/2)
It was Svetlana who broke the companionable silence. ”You have something you want to tell me.”
”I do?”
”Well, I think you don't want to tell me so much as you feel like you should. I think you tried to tell me last sabes. When we went to Pa.s.syunk Square?”
”Oh... You mean about the butcher shop?”
”And about the butcher.”
”Uh...well...I've been cleaning his windows is all. For the last month or so.”
She nodded. ”I wondered when you'd tell me.”
”You knew?”
She smiled and tilted her head from side to side.
”How?”
”Dos hartz hot mir gezogt,” she said. ”My heart told me.”
”I asked him about you. Did it tell you that too?”
Her brow furrowed. ”Why Ganny? Why did you have to ask him about me?”
”I wanted to know that you weren't-”
”A ghost? That again?”
”An angel, maybe.”
”So are you sure?”
”Well, I got a little ferklempt when your Da said he didn't have a daughter...”
She winced.
”But then he asked how you were. Did you seem okay, healthy-that sort of thing. I...I think he misses you.”
”So, how is he-Mr. Joe?”
”He's okay, I guess. He was a little upset about you being in a Catholic church. He said, 'G.o.d forbid.'”
Her jaw set, and in her sea-green eyes a squall brewed, and Ganady added quickly: ”But he said at least it wasn't a Protestant church.”
Her mood turned with a swiftness that stole Ganny's breath, and she laughed. Impulsively, he reached out and grasped her hand.
”Maybe you should go see him. Maybe you should ask him to forgive you for whatever it was he thinks you did. Maybe you should-you know-patch things up. Maybe he'll take you back.”
She shook her head, solemn again. ”It's not that simple, Ganny. It isn't just a matter of forgiveness for something I've done. It's a matter of forgiveness for something I won't do. Something I can't do. Especially not now.”
”He said something about me telling you to come home and do your duty to your family. What did he mean by that?”
She hesitated to answer him, and in that moment of hesitation, G.o.d intervened in the form of Rebecca Puzdrovsky calling her son to the evening meal.
”Ganaaady! Diiiinner!”
He glanced at the door. ”Do you want to meet my family?” He asked.
When she didn't answer, he glanced back to find her gone. The world tilted strangely and Ganny sat bolt upright, barely catching the clarinet before it slid from his lap.
”Did you hear me, Ganady? Dinner's ready!”
He gripped the woodwind's sleek, black barrel. ”I need to put my clarinet away, Mama,” he called, and hurried to do just that.
oOo Summer had somehow slipped away and a new school year crept ever closer, darkening the mellow afternoons. The thought of school made Sat.u.r.days and Sundays special again. Ganady found he savored even his window-was.h.i.+ng duties, for it wasn't an unpleasant thing to have one's hands in cool soapy water on a warm day and Izzy would always reward him with an ice cream or a soda in addition to his payment of two dollars.
He was surprised when Joe Gusalev, whose windows he always did first, one Sat.u.r.day gave him several pounds of fine chicken to take home to his Mama.
”You still see that Svetlana?” Joe asked him as he wrapped the chicken in brown butcher paper. He never called her 'my daughter,' or 'Lana,' but always and only 'that Svetlana.'
”Yeah. Now and then.”
”Yeah?” Joe peered at him oddly from behind the meat counter. ”How does she look?”
”She looks really nice. She's very pretty.”
”Nothing odd about her?”
Ganny stared at the package of meat now sitting atop the counter. ”Uh...what do you mean-odd?”
Now Joe stared at the chicken too, so their eyes did not quite meet. ”I don't know. Just...you know, the way she dresses or talks or the things she says.”
”She says...wise things. Sometimes she says funny things. She knows an awful lot about baseball. I suppose that's odd. For a girl, I mean.”
”Huh,” Joe said. ”So what sort of things do you do? Together.”
Ganady lifted the package down from the counter and Joe's eyes skittered away to the front window where his name was spelled out backwards. The letters threw shadows on the black and green tile floor.
”We go to baseball games sometimes. She listens to me play the clarinet.”
”Clarinet, huh? You any good?”
Ganny shrugged. ”I don't know. My mom and grandmother think so. Lana thinks so.”
”What kind of music you play?”
”Klezmer.”
”No kidding. I'd never have thought it of a kid your age. Thought klezmer was for old folks.”