Part 29 (1/2)

Lana only smiled secretly.

Ganady was impelled into the gap. ”Svetlana is a circus performer-didn't I tell you? She's a-a magician-well, sure, you can see that, huh? That's-that's a-another reason why her parents are a little put out with her, see. And that's why you haven't met her before. She's been...touring. With the circus,” he finished lamely.

”Oh, how exciting!” cried Nadezhda, clapping her hands.

”Could you teach us to do that?” asked Annie from her place next to Nikolai.

Svetlana's eyes sparkled in the candlelight as she took a second galobki from the platter and slipped it into the opposite sleeve, saying as she did: ”I don't really know how I do it. I just put the 'little pigeon' up my sleeve and-” She flung her arms upward, scattering more live birds into the air. The a.s.semblage applauded.

Giggling like the schoolgirls they had lately been, Nadia and Annie each picked up a pair of galobki and stuffed them into their sleeves.

Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Annie asked, ”Do we count or say abracadabra or anything?”

Svetlana c.o.c.ked her pert golden head and shrugged. ”If you like.”

The two other girls exchanged looks across the table.

”One,” said Annie.

”Two,” said Nadia.

”Three,” they said together. In perfect unison, they flung their arms up and out.

Cabbage, rice, and meat sprayed everywhere.

Belatedly, the guests ducked and closed their eyes, hoping to dodge the hail of food.

When Ganady once again opened his eyes, they went reluctantly to his father's face.

Vitaly Puzdrovsky was as red as the cabbage on his plate, his eyes bugging out from his head as if he could not believe that his good Sabbath bow tie was now decorated with sauce and rice and ground meat. There was a truly horrible moment of silence, then Svetlana's bubbly laughter cascaded down the table.

Ganady held his breath, for Vitaly Puzdrovsky had begun to quiver, then to tremble, then to rattle like a boiling teakettle. Tears started from his eyes, and from between his compressed lips came a sound like the hiss of escaping steam.

And then, he uttered a sound Ganady had never heard before-he giggled. There was no other word for it. He giggled. He chortled. He chuckled. And then suddenly, he was laughing uproariously, his eyes streaming.

With the speed of waves chasing the wake of a harbor tug, the laughter circled the table, sweeping everyone away.

In the midst of it all, Svetlana cried: ”Oh, but Papa Puzdrovsky, your pretty bow tie is ruined!”

And so saying, she reached out to the dessert tray with its mound of bow-shaped cruschiki, and lifted a fat, sugar-covered specimen from the top of the pile. She put this delicacy up her left sleeve then, with a grace that brought to mind enchanted swans or Sonja Henie, she shook out the sleeve and delivered into Vitaly Puzdrovsky's hands a big, beautiful red satin bow tie.

Smiling and wondering, Vitaly unclipped the soiled tie and replaced it with the new one.

Meanwhile, Annie and Nadia, giggling, scrambled after the cruschiki. But where Svetlana had used one, the other girls each grabbed a handful of the delicate pastries, stuffing them into their sleeves. Then they shook them out again in a cloud of confectioner's sugar and broken crumbs. The tablecloth and the guests looked as if they had been snowed upon.

Svetlana laughed. Everyone else laughed with her. Even the two embarra.s.sed would-be magicians.

And Ganady, for his part, fell twice as much in love with the flesh-and-blood woman (if that she was) as he had with the dream. Three times. Four.

As coffee, tea, and babka were pa.s.sed around in what to Ganady was a happy, warm, scented blur, Svetlana excused herself to go up to the powder room on the second floor.

Ganady thought nothing of it until his mother also went there and back, and still Svetlana was gone.

”Where is Lana?” Rebecca asked her son.

He could only say: ”I was about to ask you. She wasn't in the ladies' room?”

Rebecca seemed surprised. ”I didn't see her.”

Ganady shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned. ”Maybe she went to the kitchen...for something.”

”For what would she go to the kitchen?”

”To find...recipe cards?”

Rebecca Puzdrovsky seemed to find that a reasonable idea and returned to her seat, but Ganady's insides were in a sick knot. Had she come to him only to disappear again? If they were indeed married, would she disappear still-once or twice a week? Every day?

He waited a moment more, then glanced about to make sure that everyone had returned to their celebrating. Everyone had, except for Baba Irina, who gave him a strange, veiled look and tilted her head toward the doors that opened into the service hallway and kitchen.

He rose, patted his mouth with his napkin and excused himself from the table. He would go to the ladies' room first, he reasoned, because that's where she said she was going. That was his intention. But as he entered the hallway and found the kitchen doors facing him, curiosity overcame logic.

He pa.s.sed through the doors. The kitchen was empty. Still, he made a slow circuit of the central island, eyes flitting here and there, drawn to the floor.

It was on the windowsill that he found it-the empty black-cherry husk of a huge c.o.c.kroach. He stared at it for a long moment, terrified at first, then wondering.

It was impossible, of course. Impossible that his beautiful Svetlana had... Had what? Slipped out of this carapace as a normal woman (a real woman?) might slip out of a coat?

But if it were so-if-what might happen should the coat be destroyed? Might the wearer be forced to do without?

The reasoning (if it could be called that) seemed sound from a dreamer's point of view...or from the point of view of someone in one of Baba's b.o.o.beh mysehs.

And he was not yet convinced he didn't dream.

He picked up the carapace between thumb and forefinger and carried it to the great, gleaming stove. His hand shook and the heat of the oven, propped open to cool, all but melted his resolve. But at last he grasped a k.n.o.b, and turned on one of the burners. Blue flame erupted from it, licking up through the cast iron cover.

He flung the carapace into the flame. It vanished in a puff of smoke and flame with a tiny sound like a sigh.

Behind him, the sigh was echoed and he knew his strange actions had been observed. He turned, readying some explanation that involved his Mama's fear of insects, but it was Svetlana who stood in the doorway watching him with sad eyes.

”What have you done?” she asked.

”I...I...I meant,” he finally got out, ”to free you. I thought if I burned it, you wouldn't have any place to go back to and you'd have to stay...like this.”

He'd already started the gesture toward her before he realized what it implied. What it meant he believed-and had believed for sometime, if he was honest. His face burned so hot, he thought he must be glowing red.

”Oh, Ganny,” she said. ”If it were that easy, don't you think I would have destroyed it myself by now?”

”I figured there must be some sort of rule about it. I thought maybe I had to do it.”

She sighed again. ”You'd already done it, Ganny. You'd already saved me. But now... Well, I've got to go back.”