Sugar House (9780991192519)

by Scheffler, Jean

  "Uh… look, we w-w-was just trying to have a little fun. Didn't m-mean no harm," Franz stuttered.

  "Yeah? No harm, huh? Just lighting fires in the middle of my street and blocking my Dad's shoe store with his own wagon?" replied the one named Abe.

  "What should we do to them, Abe? Let's clobber the big ones and then we can take the little ones' pants so they gotta run home in their underwear," the short one suggested. His eyes gleamed ferociously in the firelight.

  "Shut up, Ray. They're just little kids. What fun would there be in that?" replied Abe. "But Ray is right," he continued, looking at Franz now. "We've gotta get something for you Polacks coming into our neighborhood and playing your dumb pranks. How much dough ya got?"

  Joe and his friends emptied their pockets into Franz's hands. Counting quickly he replied, "Forty cents."

  "Forty cents?" the older boys slapped each other on the backs and laughed at Joe's group. "Forty cents won't get ya nothing round here! Ha! Forty cents!" Abe laughed along with the others.

  "How about forty cents and I don't tell my mother to put a curse on you?" Joe spoke, barely audible.

  "What'd you say, midget?" asked Abe, towering over Joe.

  "I said, how about we give you our money and I don't tell my mother about any of this?"

  "Ya trying to scare us, midget? We don't believe in curses—that's a bunch of old women garbage from the old country. There's no such thing," replied Abe.

  "Not normally, no," said Joe, growing slightly in confidence. "But on All Hallows' Eve a curse can cause serious damage if a spirit is called on to deliver it to an enemy. And the old country is where my mother learned how to do it. This old Jewish woman used to watch her when her mother worked in the fields when she was little. She taught my mother how to use evil spirits to get revenge against her enemies."

  "Bullshit! No one believes that! You think we're stupid?" Ray chimed in.

  "A klog tsu meineh sonim" Joe responded. The older boys laughing silenced. Abe peered down at Joe.

  "What did you say?" he asked.

  "A klog tsu meineh sonim."

  "All right, all right. You boys have had your fun. Now hand over the money and hightail it out of here." Abe looked curiously at Joe while Franz handed over the coins. The boys didn't wait after the coins hit the palm of Abe's hand. They started running toward the safety of their neighborhood.

  Breathless, the boys arrived back at St. Josaphat's. "Hey, what did you say to those Jews?" asked Franz.

  "It was Yiddish. It means a curse on my enemies. My mother mumbles it under her breath all the time at the market when the butcher tries to cheat her. She learned it from a Jewish neighbor in Poland."

  "Fantastic!" Franz said, "Never thought a Jew's curse would save my Catholic ass." The boys laughed again, punching each other's arms and teasing one another about how scared they had looked. The boys laughed and slapped Joe on the back.

  "Do widzenia!" (Goodbye!) he called as they neared his block. He wanted to get away before any other tricks were plotted. Joe ran down the lighted street and flew up the steps to his warm home. The lights from the pumpkin and turnips had gone out. The porch was dark and smelled of scorched pumpkin.

  Joe stepped into the front room and greeted his parents, who were reading Dziennik Polski by gaslight.

  "Have a good time, son?" Matka questioned.

  "Tak (Yes), Matka," he replied, removing his hat and coat and hanging them on his hook in the hall.

  "Not too much fun?" questioned Ojciec. His father looked him over from head to toe.

  "No sir."

  Ojciec stood and walked over to Joe. Joe looked up at his father as the man circled around his small body.

  "Have a bonfire with the boys?" asked Ojciec. "I smell smoke."

  "Yes sir. Just a small fire," he replied. Well, it was a small fire, thought Joe, so I am not really lying.

  "You were careful not to catch anything else on fire?"

  "Yes sir." Nothing else could catch on fire in the middle of a street so he was still telling the truth, right? Joe was getting really nervous now.

  "And you made sure the fire was out when you were done, son?" Ojciec kept questioning.

  "Uh huh" Joe replied. Now he was lying. Lying to his father. Breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Honor thy father and thy mother. He had heard that enough times from the nuns at school. Now he was going to hell and he hadn't even wanted to set fire to the stupid wagon. Darn that Franz and Paul, always showing off and trying to be tough.

  "Okay son. Fill the big bucket full of water and have a good washing to get the smoke smell off of you. Leave your clothes in the kitchen for Matka to clean tonight," said Ojciec. As Joe turned to follow his father's instructions, Ojciec added, "Make sure to say your prayers before you got to sleep tonight to ward off any lonely spirits wandering the streets."

  A few minutes later, Joe climbed into bed, where Frank was already sleeping. Joe lay awake and thought about the destroyed cart . It might have belonged to a poor Negro who collected junk to sell or salvage. Joe knew coloreds had a hard time finding work and had to eke out a living by any means. (Poles were not high on the ladder of society either, but they easily ranked above the Jews and blacks.) Or maybe the cart had been a Jewish boy's toy and his mother pulled him to the park in it on sunny days. He was glad that Franz had forgotten the outhouse prank. Soaping windows, making garbage piles and moving the shoe store wagon weren't destructive. They were just part of All Hallows' Eve as far as Joe was concerned, but igniting the cart made his stomach hurt. Now he wished they had just overturned an outhouse.

  He closed his eyes and worried. Would he get caught for being part of the arson? Even worse, would he get caught for lying to his father? Joe was grateful the next day was a holy day of obligation, when the family would go to church to pray for the dead. Maybe if he prayed hard enough, God would forgive his sins. Feeling slightly better and then remembering the spirits that haunted the earth on this night, he drifted into a troubled sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Mass was a solemn affair, with many women crying into their handkerchiefs as they remembered their loved ones who had died. Many men, including Mikołaj, were not in attendance, as it was a workday and employers did not care if All Saints' Day was a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church. The priest would hold a Mass that evening for the laborers to remember their dead. The somber atmosphere fit Joe's mood perfectly, and he got caught up in the rituals of the day.

  After Mass, the women and children walked the two blocks to Woodward Avenue and caught a ride on a streetcar to Mount Olivet, the Polish Catholic resting place seven miles east of the city. The first Catholic cemetery in Detroit, Mount Elliot, had been established within the city limits in 1841 and had filled very quickly. It expanded twice, but by 1888 the Mount Elliot board of trustees decided to purchase hundreds of acres outside the city to accommodate the flood of immigrants moving to Detroit. The potential for the city to grow and expand was foremost in the minds of the trustees. They developed a grand cemetery outside the city—as they knew had been done outside Paris, France—capable of holding three hundred thousand souls.

  At the cemetery Blanca told Joe she wanted to wait for the other members of St. Josaphat's who had driven in their own cars or buggies. Joe wandered over to a large metal sign at the entrance. It read:

  Mount Olivet Cemetery

  Visitors please remember that these grounds are dedicated to the internment of the dead and a strict observation of all that is proper in a place dedicated will be required of all who visit it. Persons with firearms or accompanied by dogs will not be allowed to enter the grounds.

  Why would someone bring a dog to a cemetery? Joe wondered.

  Frank picked up a stone that was lying on the dirt road and attempted to throw it over the ornate metal fence. Fortunately Matka was not paying attention because the procession of cars was pulling up to the gates. The sun glanced off the windows of the Model T's and off the shiny black carriag
es as their wheels crunched over the dead leaves. Matka turned her attention back to her two young charges, calling them over to stand by her.

  A beautiful stone building greeted the group as they entered through the gates. Blanca went inside and purchased three small candles, one for each of them to set on a grave. Catholics from many ethnic backgrounds were milling about the grounds. An older woman Blanca knew whispered that they should follow the Jozefatowos to an area where the St. Josaphat parishioners were buried.

  The group walked down a dirt lane bordered by trees, shrubs and hanging vines. A small sign directed the visitors not to pick the flowers planted along the paths. The group dispersed upon reaching the Polish sector. A light fog hovered over a few low-lying places, creating an otherworldly feeling, and a peaceful silence descended upon the visitors. Several stately monuments adorned with angels and crosses dotted the meadow. Joe noted two large mausoleums in the distance but didn't see any in this section.

  Joe's family did not have any relatives buried here, having just moved to Detroit the year before, so Matka led the boys over to an unvisited gravesite. The simple headstone read" Wizkorski "across the upper portion and listed the names Dewitt, Amboline and Flora underneath; Flora having only lived four years. The deaths had all occurred in the winter of 1890.

  "Why would one family all die in the same year?" Joe asked his mother.

  "That was the year of the Russian Flu, Joe… a terrible illness that raced across continents killing hundreds of thousands. I am sure this poor family all succumbed to it," she said, making the sign of the cross.

  Matka set all three candles on the stone and lit the wicks. She instructed the boys to kneel before the memorial and say a prayer for the souls of the young family. Joe kneeled down in the damp grass and said a short prayer for the Wizkorski family and then one for himself.

  "Dear God, please don't let my parents find out about setting the wagon on fire" he pleaded. He was brought out of his anxious prayer by the soft voice of his mother speaking out loud. Tears trickled down her face as she prayed for her own mother, who was buried in the village where she had grown up, interred with her ancestors. Matka worried there would be no one to light a candle and pray for her soul. Her father had perished away from her village, fighting in the revolution a decade before. Matka did not know where her father had been buried and had stopped trying to find out when she came to America.

  Frank wandered off toward a grove of trees on the outer edge of the cemetery. He was following a squirrel who was burying acorns. Joe chased after his little brother and grabbed his hand. They walked back together among the headstones and statues. Frank wriggled out of Joe's grasp and hid behind a large tomb. He peeked his head out from behind the stone to look at Joe and declared they should play a game of hide and seek. Sure thing, thought Joe. Like I don't have enough trouble right now without adding playing on top of a bunch of graves on All Souls day.

  "Come on, Frank," he said, grabbing his brother's hand again. They headed back to where Matka was still praying.

  "Dear Lord, forgive me." Matka was whispering, tears pouring down her face. "Forgive me, forgive me."

  "Matka, stop crying," said Joe.

  Matka looked up at the boys in a daze. Her light blue eyes tried to focus in on her two small sons. "I'm all right, Joe… just missing my mother. Here… help me up."

  Joe stood stiff, and Matka used his short body to help support herself as she rose."Matka, Ojciec will be mad at you for kneeling out here on this cold ground with the baby inside you. He's always telling you to sit down and rest."

  "You are right, my good son. Let's go home and you can heat up some dinner for us. I'll sit by the stove and warm myself. Enough of the dead for today. Let's think of this little one who is yet to arrive." Matka wiped her eyes with the skirt of her dress, straightened her babushka and, holding Frank's hand, started toward the cemetery gates.

  They climbed the steps of the streetcar that was sitting at the front of the cemetery. Blanca sat Frank on her lap and settled into the seat. Joe looked up at her, concern in his bright blue eyes. She looked at her handsome son and smiled a gentle smile.

  "Did I ever tell you about my village in Poland, Joe?" she asked.

  "Not really, Matka. Just that you lived by the sea."

  "Life in Poland is not like it is here at all, Joe. I was born in Jastarnia, a small town that lies on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is located on a narrow peninsula. This area is referred to as Kashubia. Our language is slightly different from the other regions of Poland, but we have always considered ourselves as Poles.

  "Oh Joe, it is such a beautiful place. I wish you could see it. The sea is so blue. Every morning in the summer I'd open up the front door of our stone cottage and look out at the water. And so many boats, Joe, wide flat boats, sailing back and forth into the marina like busy mice scurrying about. The fisherman would set off at dawn and sail out into the sea to catch cod, herring, whitefish and smelt.

  "We had pretty groves of trees growing on the hills behind the town. I'd play there with my older sister, Anna. For hours and hours we'd have tea parties with acorns and leaves on a large tree stump and pretend to invite the animals to join us. Anna would climb the trees and get so dirty. My mother would get so mad and say that Anna came home looking like a forest imp. I was frightened of climbing so high, so I'd climb just high enough for Anna not to tease me. Near suppertime, we would both sit on a thick limb and stare out at the water to see who could spot our father returning from his day of fishing. Then we'd climb down and run back home to greet him." Matka looked thoughtfully out ahead as if she could see her father walking toward the cottage with the sea behind him.

  "Did you eat fish every day?" Joe asked.

  "Almost. Sometimes we had to eat seagulls in the winter, when the sea would freeze and he couldn't catch any fish. Father would lay a seagull trap behind the house with a piece of bread lying on it. When a bird flew down to scavenge a bite, the brass trap would snap shut, killing it. My mother would soak it in salt water for two days; this would help remove some of the fish taste. Sometimes Anna and I would hunt the beach for seagull eggs, and she would bake cakes with them. Food could be scarce, but we had buttermilk to drink every day, and I never remember going hungry as a child."

  The streetcar was quiet as the few riders were reflecting on lost loved ones; busy with their inner thoughts, they were not listening to Blanca. Frank was unusually quiet, and Matka continued her story.

  "The church in my village was also very beautiful. Not as large as St Josaphat's but just as pretty. The pulpit where our priest would speak his sermons was made to look like a ship riding the waves. Imagine Father Gatowski preaching from an elaborate brown ship just above your pew! Two sculpted angels looked down from above to symbolize God protecting our fishermen. Each end of the wooden pews was carved into the shape of a rolling wave. The towering walls were painted the same blue as a calm sea with gold trimmings embellishing the arches and domes of the ceilings.

  And the organ! Such melodious songs it would play. Hundreds of organ pipes driving out thunderous notes; the melody could be deafening. Then, when your ears felt they were going to bleed, the organist suddenly softened the music and played so sweetly and delicately tears would gather in my eyes.

  When there was a wedding in our village everyone would attend. The kapela—that's a group of musicians, Joe—would bring their instruments and play long into the night. Anna and I would wear bright red costumes adorned with a pretty white apron that our mother had embroidered. We would braid colorful ribbons into our hair and dance to the Maruszka and Krzyznik songs of the kapela for hours.

  There were violins, clarinets and accordions along with special instruments that only Kashubes play. One was called a burczybas. It's a sort of double bass wooden barrel without a bottom. Horsehair is attached to it and wetted down by one player as another pulls it to make a low rumbling sound. And they played devil's violins, which are not really violins at all but a
percussion instrument in the form of a long stick with un-tuned strings and jingles attached. It's decorated with the mask of a devil and many ribbons at the top. And the strongest man in the kapela would play the bazuna, a trumpet three feet in length, made of maple."

  A few small farms dotted the scenery as the streetcar drove back toward the city. The rocking of the car had lulled Frank to sleep, and Matka laid his head on her lap. Thick gray clouds rolled in and hid the sun. Joe listened intently to the tale of his mother's childhood.

  "But life for the people of my village was not as peaceful as the scenery. Prussia took over our land almost two hundred years ago, and Poland was not even a country anymore. The Prussians tried to erase our culture and traditions. Decrees were passed outlawing the use of the Polish language in our schools and in public life. Poles could not hold political office, and any one resisting the laws was arrested and imprisoned. A Prussian bishop was even installed to be the leader of all the Polish Catholics!

  "Such indignities were far too much for my father. The Polish language was as important to him as was his faith in God. When I was twelve years old, he left with a group of men from Jastarnia who wanted to rebel and fight for our right to live as our ancestors had. He never returned. We heard reports from a few of the men who came back that he had been jailed, and then later we heard he was dead. We never received notification from the Prussian government."

  Tears welled in Blanca's eye's and she squeezed Joe's hand. Taking a deep breath she continued.

  "After my father was gone we had trouble getting by. My mother would make Kashubian embroidery and give it the men who were going into the interior of the country to try to sell. She was very talented. Her embroidery was quite extraordinary. Kashubian embroidery uses just five colors—green, red, yellow, black and blue. Green represents the forests, yellow the sun, black the earth, red the fire and blood that has been shed in defense of our homeland and three shades of blue to represent the sky, the lakes and the sea. But no one had money to buy her beautiful work. All the Poles that were being persecuted were dirt poor, and the Prussians wouldn't buy any Polish goods.