Princess of Passyunk

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  She smiled as she said it, but Ganny, standing in the doorway to the parlor, saw the slight pucker between her brows. A babka was not supposed to be light as a feather.

  When the Toschevs arrived sometime later, they brought a second cake box—a plain, white cake box such as might be found in any bakery. Ganny placed the box on the table himself; it was as heavy as three volumes of the Britannica. The kitchen table seemed to groan under its weight.

  The two boxes sat side by side on the table throughout the dinner preparations, accusing Ganady mutely that there was not a third box to join them.

  When the roast was in the oven and the bread sat cooling on the counter, Mama instructed the children to begin carrying food and dinnerware to the table. In and out they went, and every time, Ganny would look at the kitchen table and see two boxes.

  They sat down to dinner, and still there were only two cake boxes. But when Mama and Marija went back into the kitchen with the first load of empty plates, Mama switched on the kitchen light and said, “Oh!” and Marija echoed: “Oh!” and added: “It’s so pretty!”

  When they came out again, Mama carried plain white and red-and-white-striped cake boxes, and Marija carried a gold one tied up with a velvet ribbon of forest green. They placed the boxes in front of Vitaly Puzdrovsky’s place along with a large knife.

  When everyone had given them their full attention, Vitaly opened the white box and drew out a small, brown cake that looked as if it were studded with jewels and well suited to symbolize the sweetness of life. It looked nothing like a babka.

  “It looks like a fruitcake,” said Marija, putting everyone’s thoughts into words. “It isn’t supposed to look like a fruitcake...is it?”

  Vitaly Puzdrovsky hefted his knife and began to cut. And cut. And cut. Yevgeny exchanged a nervous glance with Nick. Mouldar Toschev cleared his throat sonorously, and his wife said, “Well, it is certainly a very dense cake.”

  It seemed an eternity, but at last the pieces were cut and the platter passed about the table. The fathers each picked up a piece and bit into it. The sound of their chewing was loud, labored, and long, and when at last they swallowed, there was more throat clearing.

  When no commentary was forthcoming, Marija bit into her piece as well. “It is a fruitcake!” she exclaimed. “Sister Mary Emanuel brought one to class last Christmas. It was almost like this, but without the babka spices.”

  “Were it not for the spices,” said Mouldar Toschev, “I would not call it a babka at all.”

  “I would not call it a babka even for the sake of the spices,” said Vitaly Puzdrovsky. “My daughter is correct. This is a fruitcake.”

  Yevgeny seemed crestfallen, but he dutifully ate his slice of cake as did Ganady, just to be polite. It was full of candied fruit and nuts. The cherries were of the consistency of month-old Jujubes and tasted not nearly as good. Ganny nearly broke his tooth on an errant piece of walnut shell.

  Attention soon turned to Antonia Guercino’s babka. It was as unlike Nadia’s cake as a four-seam fast ball is unlike a lollipop curve. It was tall and a pale, fleshy tan, and whatever fruit was in it showed as brown freckles in the fair surface.

  Vitaly Puzdrovsky cleaned his knife and cut the cake. The knife sliced through it so swiftly and with such force that the platter was nearly upset.

  “It is like air!” he exclaimed, and cut the rest of the pieces as quickly as he had cut but one piece of Nadia’s cake.

  When the strange, tall babka had been cut and served, the fathers once again took the ritual first bite. They chewed but once or twice and swallowed in perfect unison and said, in harmony: “This is no more a babka than the first one!” and “This is an angel food cake with raisins!”

  “There is too much vanilla,” added Vitaly Puzdrovsky at second bite.

  “And too little cinnamon,” added Mouldar Toschev.

  The rest of the diners tried their pieces and agreed that it was no babka, but rather an angel food cake in disguise.

  “But it is tasty,” acknowledged Rebecca Puzdrovsky with a nod at her eldest son.

  “It melts in your mouth,” added Yelena Toschev.

  Which, of course, no babka was supposed to do.

  Ganady had to admit that after the first two gifts, he was quite confident that Svetlana’s babka would be the best. Possibly even better than his mother’s, though he would never say such a thing aloud. He watched his Da take the cake from its box with anticipation and watering mouth. A quick glance about the table showed that everyone else was just as avid.

  Lana’s babka was taller than Nadia’s and shorter than Annie’s. It was a lovely shade of golden brown and the bits of fruit floated ghost-like in the honey-colored cake.

  Vitaly Puzdrosky cut the golden cake and laid the pieces upon the platter. The inside of the babka was creamy and dappled with raisins and orange zest and when cut, gave up an extraordinary aroma. A collective sigh rippled around the table.

  When the platter was passed and the pieces taken, no one waited for the fathers to take their bites and make their pronouncements. One and all they cut into the cake and tasted.

  “Oh!” said Rebecca Puzdrovsky, her dark eyes wide. “Oh, Ganady, this is wonderful! Better than my babka! Don’t you think, Vitaly?”

  Ganady, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, appreciated his father’s hesitation. Did he claim that this marvelous confection was not the equal of his wife’s, thereby disagreeing with her in front of guests, or did he affirm that this was indeed a babka unparalleled and relegate her own efforts to second best?

  In the end, he merely smiled, his mouth full of dense, moist, perfectly spiced cake, and said, “Hmmm-mmm!”

  Twenty: Three Princesses and a Wedding Feast

  Vitaly Puzdrovsky was beside himself with curiosity. He had received a hearth rug and a table centerpiece, some stew stock and a fine brace of galobki, an angel food cake and a babka worthy of the old country, and he was yet no closer to meeting his youngest son’s bride-to-be than he had been at the outset.

  It was peculiar. It was non-traditional. It was suspicious. Clearly Ganady and his fiancée were hiding something.

  Vitaly had freed himself of the notion that Ganny had no girl at all. Or almost so. For he could not conceive that with the modest wage the Toschevs paid him, Ganady could have afforded to purchase gifts of the quality he had presented to his family.

  Still, Vitaly was wary. Perhaps the girl was not merely a non-observant Jew, perhaps she was Protestant, after all. Or ugly. Or old. Or no longer a maiden. Perhaps she had been married before. And worse, divorced instead of widowed.

  Vitaly Puzdrovsky determined that he would meet this Svetlana Gusalev before she turned up at Saint Stanislaus. To that end he and Mouldar Toschev announced that they would host a pre-nuptial banquet for the three boys and their prospective brides.

  Nadezhda and Antonia replied very sweetly in person. Svetlana did not put in an appearance and Ganady said nothing except: “I’ll ask her.”

  He contemplated how he was to do this, for his dreams of Lana were few these days, almost as if she were as busy with wedding plans as the other brides. In the end, he approached his dresser-top shrine and addressed the empty statue of the Virgin Mary.

  “Svetlana?” he whispered, and was immediately abashed and red-faced. This was the first time he had actually spoken the name in association with The Cockroach. He felt as if he had just taken a step into previously unknown territory.

  He cleared his throat, sounding more like his Da than he would comfortably imagine, and said, “Is Svetlana there?”

  In the moment that he cursed himself for an idiot and started to turn away, The Cockroach appeared, antennae first, on the shoulder of the Virgin.

  “Oh. Uh...well, see it’s like this—Da wants to have a dinner. A banquet. To honor the wedding party. Week after next. At The Samovaram. You’re invited, of course. I mean—Svetlana is invited.”

  The Cockroach fluttered its wings.

&
nbsp; He stared at it for a long moment, then shrugged and started to turn away once more. He had a thought and turned back.

  “They really loved the presents. You made a hit. Home run. Especially that babka. Even Mama said it was the best she’d ever had, and she should know. You know, I don’t really expect you to show up at the banquet. So, if you could, you know, come see me and tell me what kind of excuse to give...?”

  But Lana did not come see him. Not that Sabbath or the next. The wedding plans moved forward apace and the brides-to-be and their Mamas conferred with the priests at Saint Stan’s daily, or so it seemed.

  He had begun to contemplate excuses he could make when Lana missed the banquet. And when she missed the wedding itself. He wondered if, since she was a real dream girl, they might marry in a Saint Stanislaus cathedral in his sleep. Or perhaps on the pitcher’s mound in a dreaming Connie Mack Stadium.

  Still, he fell into the wedding preparations himself as a dutiful son should, schlepping decorations and table cloths and vases here and there.

  He was engaged in counting RSVP’s to the wedding banquet one afternoon four days before the eve of the event when his Mama and Mrs. Toschev sailed through the kitchen door on a draft of brisk fall air.

  “I’m telling you Rebecca,” said Yelena, pulling off her bright blue head scarf. “I can’t even imagine having the reception at Saint Stan’s now. Such a state of affairs!”

  “I’m sure I know how you feel.” Rebecca drew off her own scarf of red faux-silk and snapped it to clear the wrinkles. “Poor Father, he was so embarrassed. And those two girls! You’d think neither of them had seen such a thing before. Squealing and carrying on so.”

  Ganny looked up from his counting, holding the number forty-two solidly in his head.

  “What happened, Mama?”

  “Oh, you should’ve seen. There we were, in that little hall off the nave, discussing and all—where the brides would dress and where the grooms would enter and where the reception would be and all of a sudden those two girls start shrieking like demons. So Father Zembruski goes to look and what should dart out from under a table but the biggest cockroach you have ever seen.”

  “Nadia and Antonia ran right out of the room,” added Yelena Toschev. “Tsk. Is this how they’re going to deal with it when they find such things in their own kitchens?”

  “Oh,” said Ganny.

  His mother gave him a puzzled glance. “You look pale, Ganady. Maybe you should go for a walk. Tea, Yenna?”

  “Tea would be good.”

  Ganny glanced at his pile of RSVP’s. Forty-two. But in which pile? He couldn’t remember whether he’d been counting from right to left or from left to right.

  He got up and slipped silently from the kitchen, leaving the two mamas to their tea.

  oOo

  Standing in the dining room of the The Samovarom, Ganady reflected that even in the worst case, the evening would be over in five or six hours. Less if, as must be the case, his betrothed would fail to appear.

  The banquet table was resplendent: the tablecloth was royal red, the place settings shone mirror-bright, the cutlery gleamed, and the crystal sparkled in the light of myriad candles.

  Family members were beginning to take their seats, faces garbed in smiles. Smiles were the involuntary (if obligatory) reaction to the rich stew of aromas oozing from the kitchen. Ganady’s own lips tugged up at the corners, ignoring the roiling of his stomach. He made a game of cataloguing the smells: galobki, kielbasa, roast capon, babka, sweet red cabbage with caraway seed.

  A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he found himself peering into Yevgeny’s bright face.

  “Sit, Ganny. Sit!” His friend pointed him to a seat on the right hand side of the Puzdrovsky end of the table.

  A place of honor. He would sit at his father’s right hand, across from his brother, Nick. And at his own right hand, his bride-to-be.

  Maybe, Ganady thought, I can sneak out through the kitchen.

  He glanced that way, but Yevgeny had stopped pointing and started guiding, not stopping until Ganny was safely deposited in the honorific chair.

  He could hear the kitchen door swinging to and fro, beckoning him. From the corner of his eye, he could see other seats beginning to fill. He stared down into his plate. His own features looked back at him, distorted and clownish.

  Yevgeny and his beloved Nadia seated themselves on the opposite side of the table, two seats to Ganny’s right.

  Ganady sighed and glanced obliquely at the empty chair next to him.

  His breath stopped in his throat. The seat was not empty. It was occupied by a huge cockroach, its carapace gleaming, its antennae waving festively.

  Ganady couldn’t move. He couldn’t avert his eyes. He couldn’t speak. His face blazed with sudden heat and he could only sit and burn.

  Vaguely he was aware of his Baba Irina’s eyes upon him from her seat directly opposite the chair The Cockroach occupied.

  “Ah, Ganny!” Rebecca Puzdrovsky planted a kiss on her youngest son’s cheek, cupping his stooped shoulders and shaking him lightly. “Now where is your tei-yerinkeh—your sweetheart?”

  Ganady started, ripping his eyes from The Cockroach. Words failed him. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth; his throat was dry as dust. He knocked the cleverly folded napkin from the careful place-setting to the seat of the chair, hiding the creature.

  Before his muteness was noted, his father slid into his seat at the table’s head, laughing. “No doubt she wants to make a grand entrance, that girl.”

  Ganady made his lips do something he hoped was a smile, and nodded. His fiancée’s flair was well known—everyone had heard the tale of the rug, the galobki, and the babka. Everyone could see the evidence of her elegance in the exquisitely woven carpet that lay beneath the centerpiece of this very table.

  His smile stayed frozen in place as he watched his mother’s hand enter his field of vision, reach down, and whisk the rich red napkin back to the table.

  The kvitch she uttered was most likely heard across the river in Camden. The napkin fluttered into the air, and the chair tilted backwards to hit the floor with a solid thud, expelling The Cockroach. It tumbled to the carpet, where the napkin engulfed it.

  “Ai!” shrieked Rebecca, leaping back from the fallen chair. “Ai!”

  In answer to the flurry of questions from around the table, she pointed and stamped her feet, following the progress of the napkin, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own and which was now in full flight toward the kitchen door.

  “Is it a mouse?” asked Nick, hovering three feet away. “You want I should put it outside?”

  “It’s a cockroach!” shrieked Rebecca. “Kill it!”

  The Cockroach scuttled into the kitchen, napkin camouflage and all. Rebecca lifted an empty tray from a serving cart and gave chase.

  Ganady shot to his feet and followed.

  In the kitchen, cooks scattered as the madwoman rushed about with her tray, kvitching and invoking Jesus, Mary, the Father, and Moses in turns. Ganady could barely keep up with her.

  Around and around the central prep table they danced and dodged. The napkin was nimble, graceful, cagey. It darted back and forth beneath the butcher’s block; it lost itself under the bread rack.

  “Mama!” cried Ganady, reaching for her—for the great, deadly silver tray. “Mama, let me—”

  “Ah!” she crowed, rounding the butcher’s block for the fourth or fifth time. “Now, you filthy bug!”

  There the napkin sat, unmoving. As if, at last, Rebecca Puzdrovsky had worn its wearer out. She raised the tray to strike.

  The kitchen door swung open and Baba Irina appeared around it. “Ravke! What are you doing? The rabbi is here, and your priest, as well. Why are you hanging about the kitchen and not greeting them?”

  Ganady took the opportunity to step in front of his mother. “Mama, Baba is right. You should be greeting our guests. I’ll take care of this. You shouldn’t have to smash bugs
today, of all days.”

  She hesitated with the tray hovering over her head. “And you should?”

  He tried to smile. “I should learn how to do it now—for Svetlana.”

  “Come, Ravke,” said Baba, and her daughter lowered the tray.

  Ganady relieved her of it and ushered her to the door where he handed her over to Baba Irina. His grandmother met his eyes briefly, her look enigmatic and opaque.

  He made sure they had returned to the dining room before he went back to where the napkin still lay on the black and white checkered floor by the butcher’s block. He was surprised to see it there. He’d half expected the creature would have scuttled under cover.

  He lifted the napkin. There was no cockroach beneath it. There was no cockroach beneath the butcher block. No cockroach beneath the bread rack. And, he prayed, no cockroach on the soles of anyone’s shoes.

  He was down on his hands and knees on the floor when he became aware that someone was calling his name.

  “Jeez, Ganny! What are you doing? You lose something?”

  My mind, he thought, looking up into his brother’s face.

  Nick didn’t wait for Ganny to answer, but reached down and hauled him to his feet. “Come on. Da wants to get started.”

  “But—but Svetlana...”

  “Yeah, yeah. Grand entrance, just like Da said, and you not even there to see it.” Nick grinned at him. “I gotta say, I almost thought you’d made her up, you know? Had the galobki and babka made at that new deli over on Eleventh. But here she is, after all.”

  He was steering Ganady toward the door now.

  “She—she’s here?”

  “What’d I say? And beautiful as a movie star, and with a platter of cruschiki that Mama would kill for.” He paused to look at his brother bemusedly. “What’s with you? C’mon, let’s go.”

  Ganny clutched at Nick’s sleeve. “She’s here?”

  The look turned suspicious. “You two have a spat or something?”

  “Uh...” said Ganny. “Yeah. A spat. We had a spat and I wasn’t sure she’d come.”

  He stepped through the kitchen doors, propelled by Nick’s insistence.