“Well, I guess that’s what it feels like to be dreamed about.”
“But dreaming about yourself doesn’t count, does it?”
Her smile deepened. “That’s not what I meant.”
“You mean you’re dreaming me while I’m dreaming you?”
She gave him a mysterious look that made him feel as if those blue-gray eyes contained magnets. Then she blushed and glanced away.
“At least I think that’s the way this works,” she murmured.
“Then...you’re real? Are you real?”
The mysterious smile was back. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m dreaming you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, I thought I made you up.”
“Does that mean I made you up?” she asked in return. “Are you real, Ganady Puzdrovsky?”
Ganady was completely unmanned. This was in the realm of Armin the Opshprekher. He struggled mutely with the idea of his own reality before hazarding an answer.
“I think I’m real,” he said at last.
“Only real people dream, right?”
“I...I guess.”
“So then, if you’re dreaming me and I’m dreaming you, we must both be real.”
The logic was inescapable and put him in mind of rooftop sanctuaries and ghost baseball. The warm, solid image of Stanislaus Ouspensky banished the shade of the opshprekher. He relaxed and went back to gazing at Svetlana. In dreams you could do that and not be thought rude.
He noticed her hair again, and this time remembered why that was significant: he shouldn’t be able to notice her hair because it should be covered.
Should he remind her of this? Had she forgotten? Or did she not know?
Another thought occurred to him: was he controlling this aspect of the dream? He had to admit he didn’t want her to cover that glorious hair, but he supposed the ordinances of the Church should come first.
“Um...what happened to your scarf?”
“My scarf?”
“When I came in you were wearing a scarf...weren’t you?”
“Antonia was wearing a scarf and you expected to see Antonia. So you saw Antonia,” she explained patiently. “I haven’t worn a scarf since I was ten.”
Ganady didn’t even try to puzzle that out. “You’re supposed to cover your head in church.”
“Really? Why?”
“All the women do it at Saint Stan’s. It’s a rule of the Church...I think.”
“Why?” She repeated.
“Well, because...” He struggled to remember his catechism lessons and wished that Yevgeny were here to produce the appropriate quote. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, who made the rule?”
“Saint Paul, I think. One of the Saints, anyway.”
Svetlana wrinkled her perfect nose. “Not Jesus?”
“Well, um...I don’t think so. No, I’m pretty sure it was Saint Paul.”
“Well then.” She shrugged and smiled at him. “Do you really want me to cover my hair?”
Ganady blushed. Or at least he felt like blushing. “Not really.”
“Then I won’t.”
“I guess this means you’re not Catholic, doesn’t it?”
She laughed, the sound rippling out like dove song.
Ganady woke to his room, the sound still in his ears. Even fully awake, with the rays of the sabes sun replacing candlelight, he heard the muted trill.
And the flapping of wings.
Ganady rolled toward the window. A trio of pigeons jostled there, occasionally pecking at the glass.
He was disappointed, as if he had expected to find the girl of his dreams perched upon his windowsill. Is that all Svetlana’s laughter had really been—the chuckling of pigeons?
He wondered how late it was—or how early—and looked about for a shadow to inform him.
Movement caught his eye and drew it to the bedroom door. The shadow of the highboy dresser slanted long up the wall there, the collection of boy things atop it making odd, misshapen silhouettes. Among them, the Virgin stood tallest, and from where Ganady lay, it looked as if she wore a hat that was in danger of being blown away by a breeze.
If there was a separate world in dreams, was there also one in shadows?
Ganny struggled to shake off the dream. Of course the Virgin wore no hat. He had seen pictures of nuns in other countries that wore hats that looked like the sails of little ships, but he was fairly sure that Saint Mary had never worn one.
His eyes glued to the shadow, it occurred to him finally that he had merely to turn his head to see the effigy itself.
He turned his head slowly, trying to keep the bobbing shadow in view until he faced the dresser. Then he snapped his eyes to the left and discovered that finding the Virgin Mary among all the other stuff that decorated the dresser was easier imagined than done.
But he found her there amid the baseball gear, the snow globes, the box of marbles, the photograph of Da and Mama on their honeymoon. There was a cloth of some sort over her head—a big scarf of the kind he supposed the Apostle Paul had intended women to wear to pray. There was no hat.
There were wings, though. They appeared briefly above her shoulders, translucent and shot through with fragile veins of iridescence. He had never seen an angel with wings like that. He thought perhaps fairies had them. But the Mother of Jesus was neither an angel nor a fairy.
Ganady disentangled himself from his sheets and his dream, hit the floor and hastened to the dresser, where he pulled the icon out from among the general debris and turned her around.
She had no wings, angelic or otherwise.
He checked the other objects one by one: turning over the box of marbles, peering into the mitts and the Phillies cap. As he cleared each item of suspicion, he put it away—something his mother would most certainly applaud.
“What are you doing?”
Nikolai’s voice, thick with sleep, startled Ganny so that he nearly dropped the Virgin Mary. Clutching her tightly he said, “I’m cleaning up a little.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m...looking for...for my baseball.”
“This early on a Saturday morning, you gotta find your baseball? It can’t be seven o’clock yet. Mama hasn’t called us for breakfast even. Go back to sleep.”
But Ganady could not sleep. All he could do was recall the dream, wondering what it meant that he had dreamed of the same girl twice.
A non-Catholic girl. A girl who didn’t think it was necessary for her to cover her head in church.
Was it a sin to dream of a non-Catholic girl not covering her head in church?
Should he perhaps confess?
In the end, as he glided back into sleep, Ganady decided this was a question for someone with more wisdom than he.
oOo
“Do you think it might be a sin to dream of a non-Catholic girl?”
Baba Irina did not stop walking, but her cadence faltered and she looked sideways at him.
“You’re asking a Jew about such a thing?”
He blushed hot to the roots of his hair. “I just meant...I mean, if I were Jewish, would it be a sin to dream about a—a—”
“A goy? Baba’s lips twitched, whether with mirth or disapproval, Ganady couldn’t tell.
“Well, yeah. Like with Mama and Da. Was it sinful of her to dream of him?”
Baba took a tighter grip on his arm, walking in silence for a measure of steps, her eyes on Marija’s back, bright in her new yellow dress.
“Jews do not think about sin in the same way as Catholics,” she said at last.
Ganady glanced up the street, realizing that they were less than a block from the synagogue—Marija had almost reached the steps—and his question was still unanswered.
“We Jews do not confess our sins to a rabbi,” Baba observed.
“But if you did, would Mama have had to confess if she dreamed of Da?”
Baba’s eyes remained fixed on the sidewalk ahead. “I am certain I once th
ought so,” was all she said.
“So...it is a sin, then, you think?”
“I think,” said Baba Irina, “that I am no authority on what is a Catholic sin.”
He decided to try a different tack. “Is there a mitzvah?”
“For dreaming?”
“For dreaming of...forbidden stuff.”
“Oh, so now you say ‘forbidden.’ If a thing is forbidden, then of course there is a mitzvah. But a sin? That I don’t know.” She patted his arm. “Come now, hurry. Marija is already at the doors.”
oOo
“May I ask you a question, please, Rabbi?”
Rabbi Andrukh turned at the sound of Ganady’s voice and smiled. “More questions, Ganady? What this time? I think I’ve told you everything I know about miracles.”
“Oh, it’s not about miracles. It’s about mitzvot.”
“And what would you want to know about mitzvot?”
Ganady ignored the rabbi’s obvious amusement and asked: “Are there mitzvot about dreaming?”
“Dreaming?” Ibrahim Andrukh looked as if he were trying very hard not to laugh.
“What I mean is,” Ganady continued, keeping one eye on his Baba, who was visiting with a couple of the members of her glayzele tey group, “if you were to dream about something forbidden by a mitzvah, would it be...” The word “sin” perched on the tip of his tongue. He called it back. “Would it be the same as breaking the mitzvah?”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“If Baba was to dream of eating pork or taking out the trash on sabes, would it be the same as if she had done it?”
“I suppose only God could really answer that question. Why do you ask? Has your grandmother dreamed of pork?”
“Oh no, Rabbi, It was more of a hypothetical question.”
“Such big, important words our children learn at school!”
Ganady glanced aside to see that his Baba had circled around and come to stand at his elbow. Mr. Ouspensky peered over her shoulder at him, smiling.
“What does it mean, ‘hypothetical?’” Baba asked.
“Um, it means ‘what if.’ A ‘what if’ question. You know, like ‘what if something were to happen.’“ He shrugged.
Baba was not to let him off the hook quite so easily. “Oh? Like what if you were to dream of a non-Catholic girl?” She sent the rabbi a knowing look.
“Ah, I see,” said Rabbi Andrukh, and Ganady blushed to the roots of his hair.
oOo
Mr. Ouspensky shook his head and made clucking noises as they made their way down the front steps of Megidey Tihilim.
“Irina, Irina,” he said. “Such a thing to do to your grandson.”
She looked at him archly and took Marija’s hand in hers. “He’s my grandson, old man.”
“I’m just saying.”
Baba snorted delicately and led Marija off down the sidewalk.
“So, you’ve dreamed of a girl, have you?” Mr. O asked as he and Ganady followed.
Ganady thought of denying this and saying it was a friend, but Mr. O would probably not believe him, and if the dreaming itself was a sin, he would only compound it by lying.
He nodded.
“Who is she, this girl?”
“Her name is Svetlana.”
“Svetlana? That’s very pretty. Very pretty.”
Mr. Ouspensky got that look in his eyes that told Ganny he had opened one of his windows in time and was gazing through. Whatever he saw there made him smile.
“I don’t know any Svetlana.” Baba Irina had slowed her steps and now looked back at them over her shoulder. “Does she go to Megidey Tihilim?”
“No. At least, I don’t...” Ganny caught himself. “I don’t know where she worships. I just know she’s not Catholic.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mr. Ouspensky.
“She doesn’t cover her head. In church. She said they don’t do that where she goes.”
“Ah. And where did you meet this Svetlana?” asked Baba, slowing further.
Ganady had no answer that made sense. He could say “in church,” but he had first seen her on their front stoop. Of course, in either case he could just as easily say “in my dreams.”
“I’ve seen her twice,” he said. “Once on our front stoop and once in the sanctuary at Saint Stanislaus. The first time, I thought she was you, and then I thought she was Antonia.”
The expression on his grandmother’s face brought him up short.
“Sort of. What I mean is, I dreamed of seeing her.”
Baba stopped walking, drawing Marija up short. “But she’s a real girl, yes?”
“She said she was real.”
“She said?”
“Well, I mean—of course she’s real.” He glanced over at Mr. O, who merely smiled back at him, nodding as if the topic of conversation were perfectly normal and one might meet girls in his dreams as a matter of course.
“Say, Ganny,” he said, “game today. Why don’t you drop by later and see?”
“Sure,” Ganny said. And thought: Right after I go to confession.
oOo
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...I think.”
There, that sounded as if might cover the bases. Ganady wasn’t at all sure that there wasn’t a penalty for falsely reporting a sin.
“You think? You’re not sure?” Father Z’s voice came to him from beyond the screen.
“Oh...oh, I’m sure I’ve sinned sometimes, but I don’t remember what I did.”
There was a moment of silence, then the priest said,”Continue, my son.”
Ganady took a deep breath and started again. “Bless me, Father, for I think I have sinned. I dreamed of a non-Catholic girl.”
Father Zembruski was silent.
“In the sanctuary. At Saint Stanislaus.”
More silence.
“With her head uncovered.”
A strange sound came from beyond the screen. It sounded like a cough or a hiccup...or perhaps a sneeze?
“God bless you, Father,” said Ganady.
“Oh,” said the priest. “God bless you too, Ganady. And your...your sins are forgiven you. But...”
“Yes, Father?”
“You did no wrong in simply dreaming of this girl, my son. It wasn’t you in the sanctuary with your head uncovered, after all. However, if you see your dream girl again, perhaps you should suggest that she go to confession. And cover her head, of course.”
“But... That’s just it. I don’t think she’s Catholic.”
“These are your dreams, Ganady. You can make her Catholic.”
It was a startling idea. Of course Father Zembruski was right. If she was in Ganady’s dreams, then he should be able to make her Catholic if he wished.
The question that bothered Ganady was: Why hadn’t he made her Catholic to begin with?
Eleven: Three Wheels
The Puzdrovskys’ first Friday mass was not their last. While they did not always attend it, they often did, as if it were necessary to keep reminding the Guercinos that they, too, were legitimately Catholic.
The mass also marked a change in Ganady’s life. The two and a half years of age between him and his brother, once insignificant, seemed suddenly overwhelming. Nikolai Puzdrovsky was now a young man of nineteen; Ganny, though only weeks from seventeen, was still a boy.
They were still brothers, but no longer fast companions. Nick had left their trio to become part of a couple. Which left Ganady and Yevgeny paired as well. They would include Mr. O in their number for baseball games and such, but it was not the same and never would be again.
This realization, only half thought out, filled Ganady with a vague but vast sense of loss.
The first inkling Ganady had that life had changed even further was a Saturday morning in late June that started much like any other Saturday. He got to sleep in, for the family had attended late Friday mass. Mama made blintzes for breakfast, which put Ganady in a good frame of mind for his Saturday chores.
He had just started those when Yevgeny called to suggest they go to the ballpark as they did most Saturdays the Phillies played at home.
Ganny asked his mother—a mere formality, for the answer was always, “I suppose. But not before your chores.”
He finished his chores, as always he did, and went upstairs to practice his clarinet until Yevgeny should arrive. He was putting the clarinet away when he heard his friend’s knock on the front door, and his mother’s greeting in the entry.
He closed his clarinet case, grabbed his glove and his Phillies cap and ambled downstairs. Two steps from the bottom, he stopped, brought up short by the sight in the foyer.
Yevgeny was there, but he was not alone. Beside him, looking like a pink and gold rose in pale green foliage, was the girl from their springtime adventure in Passyunk Park.
She smiled at Ganny shyly, her eyes seeming to match her green headband, which matched the green sweater that was draped across her shoulders, which in turn matched her rolled-down ankle socks. She carried a beat-up baseball mitt.
Yevgeny’s smile held just the slightest hint of apology. “Hi, Ganny,” he said. “You remember Nadia?”
“Sure. Hi.”
“I...um...I invited her to the game.”
She held up her glove. “I brought my mitt. To catch foul balls.”
Yevgeny beamed. “She knows all about baseball. Her brother plays for college.”
“Penn State,” said Nadia. “Nittany Lions.”
Ganny glanced at his mother, who was hovering in the archway to the living room, a knowing smile on her lips. Their eyes met.
Rebecca Puzdrovsky excused herself, murmuring that she had better fix her husband’s luncheon.
An awkward silence fell upon the foyer of the Puzdrovsky home, into which Ganady said, “Um, I guess we should go.”
As he led the way down the front steps, Ganady heard Nadia’s sweet voice behind him: “Ganny, Eugene says you got a ball with Eddie Waitkus’s autograph on it. He said you’d tell me about it if I asked.”
Ganny turned back to look at her as she reached the sidewalk. Her smile was eager and bright. Over her shoulder, ‘Eugene’ grinned at him.
oOo
It wasn’t a terrible afternoon, all things considered. Nadia really did know about baseball. Her brother was a star second baseman, her father a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox.
Princess of Passyunk Page 11
