The Grave of God's Daughter

by Brett Ellen Block

“But—”

  “Now,” he commanded. The women watched me, waiting for me to obey. I tore outside, slamming the door hard enough to leave the bell jangling.

  The alley behind the shop was empty. The door to the curing shed was closed and locked, the bicycle chained by the stoop. Everything was the same. I hated the sight of that alley, that sameness, more than I thought possible.

  In a fit, I began to kick the bicycle. First with my toe, then I jabbed at it with my heels, ramming the delicate spokes with my boot. I kicked the wheels and the pedals and the basket until my limbs blurred with the motion.

  I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

  I couldn’t tell if I was shouting out loud or hearing the voice in my mind, yet I kept kicking. The bicycle slumped lower against the railing, hanging on by the chain.

  Mr. Goceljak came flying out the back door and wrestled me away from the bicycle, pinning my arms behind me and forcing my head to his chest, the bloody apron pressing against my face.

  “Stop. Stop it,” he said. He pushed me up against the shed to restrain me. As soon as my body stopped moving, I started to sob. Mr. Goceljak loosened his grip on my arms and they dropped to my sides. The cap fell from my head as I wept, and my hair slid down onto my shoulders and stuck to my teary cheeks.

  Mr. Goceljak kept his arms around me and let me cry. He held me lightly, as if he were holding a glass rather than a little girl. He was the only thing keeping me standing. If he had let go, I would’ve crumpled to the ground.

  “Leonard came back, didn’t he?”

  I nodded, chin quivering, and Mr. Goceljak sighed.

  “Would’ve been a full shift’ve men from the mill there this time a day,” he said, calculating how bad it must have been. He shook his head dismally. “That boy never should’ve come back here. Something like this was bound to happen. But I s’pose he didn’t have anywhere else to go. No family. No friends. Nothing for him to go back to ’cept what he knew.”

  “But I—”

  “What? You thought you were going to fight off all of those men? You might’ve done some damage to that poor bicycle over there, but boy clothes or not, you wouldn’t have had a chance against ’em.” Mr. Goceljak tipped my face to meet his, to make sure I knew how serious he was. “You couldn’t have helped Leonard. You understand?”

  My head pounded from crying and my eyes ached. Even nodding hurt, but I did it anyway to prove to him that I’d understood. Mr. Goceljak let go of my arms and I wavered, then steadied myself against the smokehouse door.

  “Easy there,” he said, preparing to catch me if I fell. “Think you can walk?”

  “I think so.”

  “All right then, we have to get you inside and cleaned up. You look worse than the bicycle.”

  The bicycle was listing against the steps. One of its wheels was turned up and spinning slowly.

  “I’m sorry about the bicycle. I don’t have enough money to pay you back for it.”

  “That’s for sure considering what I pay you.”

  Mr. Goceljak led me inside, where a few pots were boiling on the stove, steam rattling the lids. The syrupy smell of the stewing meat made the room feel warmer than it was.

  “Let’s start with the pants,” Mr. Goceljak said. “They even look dirty to me, and that’s saying something.”

  I went to untie the rope belt he’d tied for me earlier, but it was no use. My fingers were numb.

  “Let me,” Mr. Goceljak said. I tried to step out of the pants and couldn’t get my balance. “Lean on my shoulder,” he told me, leaning over so I could reach him. I shook off the pants, legs stiff, and he pulled them from my boots, then put them aside along with the cap. “Now we’ve got to do something about those bandages.”

  Mr. Goceljak unpinned the wraps and removed the bandages as gently as he could. My palms were worse than before. Without the protection of the bandages, they quickly turned an angry red. The skin around the blisters was puckered and still slick with ointment. “These are pretty bad,” Mr. Goceljak lamented. “You got more bandages at home?”

  We did, but I couldn’t use them, couldn’t be seen with them on. Mr. Goceljak took my silence as his answer, then riffled through one of the drawers and came up with a roll of his own. “You put ’em on at night. Once you’re in bed if you have to, then wake up early to take ’em off. But put ’em on, okay?” He held the roll out to me, but my fingers were too stiff to grasp it. “Here,” he offered, slipping the bandages into my coat pocket.

  “It’s late,” I said. “I have to go.”

  “Just one more thing.”

  Mr. Goceljak dug around in another drawer and came up with a little black comb. “Can’t have you looking like you been in a fight. Well, not more than you already do.” He held the comb out to me, then realized I wouldn’t be able to hold it either. “Sorry. Forgot. You want me to do it?”

  I was too tired to be embarrassed or to protest. Mr. Goceljak stepped around behind me and ran the comb over my head in tentative strokes. The tines of the comb slid through my hair and down my scalp. This wasn’t how my mother brushed my hair. This felt different, gentle, soothing. Then Mr. Goceljak hit a knot and the comb came to a tugging halt.

  “Sorry,” he said and I actually felt him flinch. “Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  Mr. Goceljak began again, working his way around my head until he reached the front. “Now what do I do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is it done?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see.”

  “Don’t have a mirror here,” he apologized. “No need for it.”

  “I’m sure it’s all right.”

  Mr. Goceljak was worried about whether he’d done a good job. “Best I could do.”

  “It’s fine, really. I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “All right then, I guess you should be on your way.”

  I doubted that Mr. Goceljak was aware of it, but that was the same phrase he had spoken to me every single day since I’d met him. I liked that we had a routine, that that was the way things always ended.

  “Should I come on Monday?” I asked, half-expecting him to fire me there and then.

  “Wouldn’t be Monday if you didn’t.” Mr. Goceljak offered me a smile. “Here,” he added, taking two quarters from his pocket. “It’s Friday, payday.”

  He held the quarters out to me. “Oh, sorry,” he said, then he dropped the quarters in my coat pocket along with the roll of bandages. “You don’t have a hole in that pocket, do you?”

  “No, it’s all sewn up.” There had been holes in each of the pockets when I got the coat from the nuns. There were holes in everything we wore. That was a given.

  “Good. We don’t need you losin’ the bandages or the money.”

  He opened the back door for me. The bicycle lay wounded against the steps.

  “Sorry,” I offered again.

  Mr. Goceljak waved me off. “Hey, you didn’t say if the woman—” he began. He was about to ask me what had happened when I went to the house on River Road. Instead, he looked me up and down, taking in the sum of what I’d been through, and simply said, “I’ll see you Monday.”

  FIELD STREET WAS FULL OF PEOPLE, all gathering outside the Silver Slipper. The women kept their distance while packs of men pushed in close to the Slipper’s front porch. Even some of the shopkeepers were leaning out of their stores. Though there was nothing to see, just people standing around as they had outside Swatka Pani’s house, I couldn’t bear to look.

  Sister Anne was standing on the steps of the school holding Martin’s hand in a rigid grip when I arrived. He was staring at his shoes, his books clutched in his free arm.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in English. The nuns refused to be addressed in Polish. To them, English was the formal language.

  “Your brother has a discipline problem,” the sister declared, her accent sharpening each word. Martin rolled his eyes furtively. “He tried to steal
one of the books from the library.”

  “Martin?”

  “I didn’t. I—”

  Sister Anne squeezed his hand between her bony fingers. “He had not checked out this book,” she said, holding up the one with the lamb on the cover, “and he packed it up with his school textbooks and tried to walk out with it.”

  “But—” Martin tried again. The sister clasped his hand hard, choking off his excuses.

  “There’s got to be some mistake. This book is Martin’s favorite. He checks it out all the time. Why would he try to steal it?”

  “Like you said, it’s his favorite. Maybe he didn’t want to have to check it out anymore.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Girl, are you telling me I’m mistaken? That I didn’t see what I saw?”

  I was standing on the step below Sister Anne and she was towering over me while clutching Martin, unwilling to let go.

  “No, Sister,” I apologized, trying to pacify her. “All I’m saying is that maybe he forgot. He’s so used to having the book and checking it out that he probably thought he’d already signed for it.”

  Martin looked up at Sister Anne hopefully. “That’s what happened. Really, Sister. I forgot.”

  I took the lamb book from him and flipped to the back cover, hands aching. “See,” I said, offering the book to her. Martin’s initials filled the check-out card.

  “Fine. But don’t let it happen again.”

  Sister Anne held out Martin’s arm to me like a leash. I went to take his hand and she eyed mine, the top of which still bore the welts she’d seen earlier. Though I’d convinced her to let Martin go, the welts confirmed to Sister Anne that she was right about us, that we were bad children capable of back talk, stealing books, anything.

  “Come on, Martin.”

  Martin scurried to my side and we hastened down the steps and away from the school. Out of the corner of his mouth, Martin whispered, “Do you think she’s still watching us?”

  “Yup.”

  “When we get around the corner, you think she’ll go inside?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then can I stick my tongue out at her?”

  “Yup.”

  Once we’d turned onto the next street, Martin stuck his tongue out in the direction of the school.

  “Feel better?”

  “Much.” He slid his hand into my coat pocket as we walked. “I did try to steal the book, you know.”

  I stopped midstride, forcing Martin to lurch forward to keep his hand in my pocket. “What?” I asked, assuming I’d misheard him.

  “I wanted the book, so I took it. You saw for yourself. Nobody reads it but me, and nobody likes it the way I do, so I thought it should be mine.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My brother was so calm, his argument simple, collected.

  “Martin, we’re not supposed to steal. It’s not right. I don’t care if you take the book out every day for the rest of your life, that doesn’t make it yours.”

  “Why not?”

  “You didn’t buy it. You didn’t pay for it.”

  “But I’m the only one who uses it. I think that makes it mine.”

  This is all your fault. My thoughts resonated like strings being plucked. This is all your fault.

  “Martin,” I said, facing him sternly. “Don’t take the book again. Please don’t. What would God think?”

  “I think God would want me to have the lamb book.”

  I strode off in frustration, moving fast enough to dislodge Martin’s hand from my pocket. He ran to catch up. “It’s about Him anyway,” he defended.

  “Martin, I don’t ever want to see that book in the house again.”

  He was horrified at the thought. “What? Why?”

  “I just don’t.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “It’s enough of one.”

  “What if I promise to check it out next time? You can make sure I haven’t stolen it. Please. Don’t say I can’t read the lamb book.”

  “No, Martin.”

  He ran ahead and got right in front of me. “Your face is different. I saw it when you came to get me. You were crying.”

  “I wasn’t crying.”

  “Liar.”

  I pushed Martin, nearly knocking him to the ground. “Don’t call me that.”

  He scowled, shocked, and righted himself. “If you’re lying, then that’s what you are.”

  “I said don’t call me that.”

  “Then say you were crying.”

  “Fine, I was crying,” I shouted. “Does it make you happy?”

  “No, but I don’t want you to lie. You can lie to everyone else. But not to me.”

  I laughed aloud. By then, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t not lie anymore.

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “I can’t laugh and I can’t lie. That doesn’t leave me much else to do, Martin.”

  “Yes it does. Tell me why you were crying.”

  “No,” I yelled. Martin backed away, genuinely scared. I had to say something and I knew what it would be. Another lie.

  “I fell when I was making my deliveries. I fell on my hands and hurt them even worse.” I proffered my sticky, blistered palms as proof.

  Martin examined my hands. “We could put bandages on them like you put on…” He kept himself from mentioning my father’s accident.

  “Mr. Goceljak gave me some. He told me to put them on at night, in secret, so no one sees.”

  “I can help you. We can do it under the covers. She won’t find out if you take them off before she wakes up.”

  Martin was so glad to hear what he thought was the truth that it made my heart feel as blistered as my hands.

  “WHAT TOOK YOU TWO SO LONG?” my mother asked as we entered the apartment. She was sitting at the table, her feet propped on a chair, massaging her calves.

  “I was at the library,” Martin told her. “I was reading this book and I forgot what time it was.”

  Hearing Martin lie again should have made me wince like before. That time, it was more like a pinprick, sharp and then gone.

  “And where were you?” she asked me. I could see her flexing her toes beneath her stockings, spreading them wide, then curling them inward.

  “I was there. I was doing my schoolwork. I didn’t know how late it was.”

  “They don’t have clocks at school anymore?”

  Martin and I swapped glances in the uneasy silence.

  “I made her stay. I wanted to finish the book before we left.”

  “That book you’ve got right there?” My mother nodded to the book he was carrying on top of his textbooks. There was a tautness to her question, like she was testing us.

  “Yes,” Martin replied.

  “If you finished it, then why did you bring it home?”

  “It’s the one I like, the one I always bring home, the one about the lamb.”

  “You and that lamb book.” My mother slumped deeper into the chair, as if she’d lost interest in the topic, and started kneading her right shoulder with her left hand. “Put some tea on, will you?” she asked.

  While I filled the kettle, Martin unloaded his books on the table. I gestured for him to set out mine as well. It would be too difficult for me because of my hands.

  “I thought you said you finished your homework,” my mother said to me.

  “No, I said I was working on it. But I didn’t finish it. There was a lot today.”

  Carrying the kettle the short distance from the sink to the stove was a torture, punishment for the lies I’d just told my mother, I assumed. I switched on the burner, but there was no flame. “It won’t light.”

  My mother sighed. “Try it again.”

  I did, but still nothing. “It still won’t light.”

  “Get a match,” she said. Normally, she kept a box of long matches on top of the coal stove to light the fire with; however, the carton was empty.

  “There aren�
��t any left.”

  “Try your father’s cigarettes. There’s a pack next to the bed.”

  I hadn’t been in my parents’ bedroom in a long time. We weren’t forbidden to go in, not verbally, yet Martin and I rarely ventured beyond the doorway. Sometimes we would peer in, though we rarely crossed the threshold.

  The bedroom seemed different, darker. There were more shadows. The bed was less kempt. The blanket was pulled up to cover the sheets below, but it was as if my mother was only making her side. My father’s side was rumpled. The pillow seemed deflated and it hung out from under the blanket.

  “Did you find them?” my mother called.

  A pack of cigarettes sat on the chair next to my father’s side of the bed. A shirt hung from the back of the chair, which filled out the shirt like a set of shoulders. Tucked in one side of the pack of cigarettes was a paper book of matches. Beneath it was a five-dollar bill.

  There’s real money to be made at a dogfight. You could double your money.

  For us, five dollars was a vast sum. If my mother found out my father had been keeping the bill in a pack of cigarettes, and hiding it from her, she might not have forgiven him.

  We’re not supposed to steal. That’s what you told Martin.

  “Be quiet,” I said, trying to douse the thoughts with my voice.

  “What did you say?” my mother called out, growing impatient.

  “Nothing,” I answered, then I took both the book of matches and the five-dollar bill from the pack. I hid the money in the pocket of my skirt and rushed out of the room.

  “I found them.”

  “Then put the kettle on.”

  “But the stove?”

  My mother’s face drew in, angry. “I’ve been on my feet all day. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “I’ll do it,” Martin offered. “I can light matches. I know how. I’ve seen—”

  “Your sister’ll do it.”

  My mother talked me through the process of relighting the pilot light without turning to watch me. She was too tired even to swivel her head. “Put on the burner,” she directed. “Now strike the match.”

  I got the burner on, but fumbled with the match, my hands thrumming with pain. Once I had one match free, I struck it against the pack, but it wouldn’t spark. I tried again and again with no luck. The match began to buckle.