Polkacide (32 page)

I frowned. "What kind of proof,
Mom?"

"The recording." Mom stuck out her
chin, looking defiant. "He gave it to me."

For a moment, I didn't know
what to say to that. Baba Tereska had no such trouble.
"
Nonsense
. He's
given you nothing for years. Why start now? Why not give it to his
beloved Miss Peggy?"

"
Exactly
. Who'd expect him to hide
such a precious thing with me?" Mom smiled. "It's the
last
place anyone would
look."

She was right. It was sad,
but it made all the sense in the world. "So where is it now?" I
asked.

"At home. Tucked away." Mom
reached up and patted her hair, which was pulled back in a bun as
usual. "He made me promise to keep it safe."

"What else did he tell you,
Mom?"

She frowned. "He said it was
important. He also said he might need me to send it somewhere. He
was going to call with more information...but he never
did."

I pushed away from the stage and
grabbed her arm. "Can I see it? Right now?"

Mom stared into space for a moment,
then shrugged. "I don't see why not."

Baba hobbled over and
grabbed her other arm. "Just so there's no
Miss Peggy
involved." She raised an
eyebrow in my direction.

I shook my head. "Just me, I promise."
For now, anyway.

"All right then. Let's all
go have a listen." Mom said it casually, as if she were talking
about a run-of-the-mill recording, not the last artifact of two
dead polka legends. "I'll bet it's good."

I gaped in disbelief as I
followed her. "You mean you haven't
listened
to it yet?"

"I guess I was saving it," said Mom.
"So I could hear his voice one last time."

"Oh, brother." Baba Tereska
coughed loudly as she hobbled alongside me. "
When
are you going to get
over
him?"

Mom waved dismissively over her
shoulder at us. "I don't think that's any of your
business."

Chapter 47

Mom wouldn't show us where
she'd kept the recording hidden. She made Baba and I sit on the
plaid sofa in the cramped living room of her apartment with the TV
on, volume up high, while she retrieved it. We couldn't see where
she'd gone, and we couldn't hear a thing over the sound from the
TV.

Then, she strolled back in
carrying a manila envelope. Printed in big black strokes on the
front were the initials "LK/EK."

Lou Kachowski and Eddie
Kubiak.

Mom grabbed the remote
control from the dark brown wooden coffee table and switched off
the TV. "Ta da!" With a flourish, she held up the envelope for us
to see before undoing the clasp and opening the flap. "Drum roll
please."

"Now who's the showman?"
Baba Tereska gave me a sly wink.

A strand of brown hair had worked its
way free of Mom's bun, and she had to brush it back off her
forehead. Then, with a quick smile at Baba and me, she reached into
the envelope.

My heart beat fast as Mom fished out
the contents. The thought of finding the missing recording was
thrilling; I couldn't wait to hear what was on it.

"Gotcha." Mom pulled out her
hand, and a disk came with it...but not the kind of disk I'd
expected. Instead of a CD with a smooth, mirrored surface catching
the light, Mom brought out a
black
disk, also shiny but ringed with thin
grooves.

A 45-RPM
record
, in other words.

"Ha!" Baba rocked forward
and slapped her knees. "I hope you've got a
record player
,
synowa
!"

Mom held the 45 carefully,
by the edges, and stared at it with fascination. "Of course I
do,
teściowa
. You
didn't think I'd prolong the suspense, did you?" She handed the
record to me and walked off down the short hallway that led to her
tiny bedroom and office/wardrobe/storage room. Life after the
divorce hadn't been as kind to her as to Lou; her little apartment
was quite a contrast from his spacious house in Upper
Gdansk.

As Baba and I waited for Mom's return,
I gazed at the black disk in my hands. Turning it over, I saw that
the flip side was smooth, without grooves. "They only recorded on
one side. All that's on here is one song."

"It better be a hell of a song," said
Baba.

It already felt like a
letdown, the fact that they'd only recorded enough material for one
side of a 45. I'd been hoping for more--a whole album's worth of
music on a compact disk or flash drive. It would've been more of a
legacy, more of a thrill.

But this would have to do.

"Here we are." Mom marched
back down the hall carrying a box covered in pink vinyl. It was
about a foot long on each side, and a foot high. "Clear off the
coffee table, would you?"

Leaning forward, I scooped
up magazines and the TV remote control from the coffee table and
dropped them on the floor beside me. There was a centerpiece, a
glass bowl full of black and white marbles, and I slid that to one
side, leaving room for Mom's box. "How's that?"

"A little more room, please,
honey." I moved the centerpiece closer to the edge, and Mom set
down the box. "Thanks." Smiling, she popped a brass latch on one
side. "I've had this since I was a little girl." The box opened
like a clamshell, unfolding along a pair of hinges. Mom laid down
the top half, revealing a turntable complete with spindle and
stylus in the bottom half.

There was a power cord
coiled in the lid between two speakers. Mom pulled out the cord and
ran it over to the wall, where she plugged it into an outlet.
Stepping over the cord, which hung six inches above the deep brown
shag carpet, she reached for the record.

I hated to let go of it, but
I handed it over.

Mom slipped it down the
skinny chrome stylus and fit it over the plastic disk at the
bottom--an adaptor for 45s with their big central holes. "The
suspense is killing me." She turned a knob that switched on the
power and started the platter spinning. "Here goes."

There was a whirring sound
as the stylus arm popped free of its cradle and slid toward the
record. The stylus stopped, then smoothly descended. When it
touched down on the edge of the spinning 45, the speakers hissed
and crackled.

Then, the needle hit the start of the
recording cut into the black vinyl, and there was music.

The first thing we heard was
a typical fast-moving polka intro with horns, drums, and accordion.
Somebody whooped in the background--I think it was Eddie Sr.--and
then the song kicked into full gear.

And I was stunned. I was
really blown away.

I'd never heard an angry polka
before.

The tune bounced along, as
breezy as any polka, but the lyrics were fierce. Sung alternately
by Dad and Eddie Sr., they were all about the oppression and abuse
of the Polish people during World War II and the Soviet occupation.
The theme was sweet revenge carried out by the Poles--and polka
itself--exemplified by the phrase repeated over and over in the
chorus:

Polka strikes
back.

The first time I heard it, I
understood what Charlie had overheard Lou and Eddie arguing about
at the Falcons: not "strikes" as in bowling, but "strikes" as in
polka and Poland striking back.

Amazingly, the craziest part of the
song wasn't the angry tone or the title, though. The part that
really made my head spin was the bridge.

Instead of a straightforward
instrumental, the bridge was a jarring jumble of sound effects. I
heard gunfire, explosions, crashing, clanging...weeping, screaming,
screeching tires, crackling flames...dogs howling, lions roaring,
hyenas laughing. There were other sounds that I couldn't identify,
too, thrown into the mix with seemingly no rhyme or
reason.

For instance, snippets of
what sounded to me like chattering gibberish. I caught several of
them threading through the muddle of noise, and at first I couldn't
guess what they might be.

But then, I got it.

"What kind of garbage is
that?" Baba Tereska scowled at the ruckus coming from the
turntable's speakers. "They call this a
song
?"

I heard one last flurry of
gibberish before the chaotic bridge gave way to another clean,
bouncy verse. And I had an inkling of what Dad and Eddie Sr. had
done with this recording.

I smiled as the verse led to
another chorus and a big, swirling finish. "More like a message in
a bottle, I think."

Baba smacked my arm.
"What's
that
supposed to mean?"

"I'll let you know, if I can
borrow that record." I pointed at the 45 under the
needle.

When the last notes had
faded, and the stylus had hopped off the record and swung back to
its cradle, Mom switched off the turntable. "I don't know, honey.
Lou said it's the only copy."

"The only copy, maybe, but
there must be a master tape or file somewhere. Either way, it
doesn't matter." I waved my hand like I was shooing something.
"This might be Dad's last message, and we'll never figure it out if
we keep it locked up."

"Let her take it." Baba
folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. "It's
not
much of a
song
. Maybe it'll still
be good for
something
."

Mom gently lifted the record off the
turntable. She stared at it for a long moment, then sighed and
retrieved the manila envelope from the end table where she'd put
it.

Slowly, she lowered the 45
into the envelope. "You have to promise me you'll protect this."
Withdrawing her hand from the envelope, she folded down the flap
and closed the brass clasp. "It's the only thing he left
me."

She said it like it meant a
lot to her, which made me sad. Would she ever get over her feelings
for him? I doubted it. Had he taken advantage of those feelings to
find a safe place for his record? Probably.

Had he had a good reason for
doing so? I was going to find out. "I'll take good care of it, Mom.
I promise."

She held the envelope out to me, then
pulled it back. "Maybe I should just go with you,
honey."

"Please, Mom." I got up from
the sofa and reached for the envelope. "Trust me. I won't let it
out of my sight."

Baba Tereska sighed loudly.
"Just give it to her,
synowa
! Let her break it over
her
knee
if she
likes! Why spoil the memory of that ex-husband of yours with that
awful
racket
?"

Mom nodded and handed it over. "Good
luck with it, Lottie."

"Thanks, Mom." I kissed her on the
cheek. "I'll let you know what I turn up."

Chapter 48

It wasn't until I pulled up
in front of my room at the DeeLite Efficiency Motel that I realized
I hadn't smoked all day. I hadn't even thought about it since that
morning, when I'd tried to light up and found Eddie Sr.'s dead body
instead.

So did I want a smoke now? I
considered it as I switched off the headlights. On the one hand,
the fact that I hadn't thought about smoking all day was a good
sign that I hadn't fallen off the wagon
completely
. I could just write off
the one I'd smoked the night before as a fluke, a temporary
relapse.

On the other hand, now that
I thought about smoking, I craved it again. Nothing helped me wind
down at the end of the day like a cigarette. After the day I'd been
through, who could blame me for having one?

Since my room was
non-smoking, though, I'd have to light up outside. Switching off
the car, I fished the open pack of cigarettes out of my
butterscotch leather purse, found my lighter, and got out. I took
the manila envelope with me, tucked under my arm. It was the last
artifact of my dad; I hated to let go of it.

Standing beside the
rent-a-car, I popped a cigarette out of the pack and slipped it
between my lips. Even unlit, the tobacco smelled sweet to me. I
flicked the lighter to life and inhaled deeply, drawing in a warm
lungful of smoke.

I could feel the stress
draining out of me starting with that first breath. It had piled up
all day, from finding Eddie Sr.'s body to watching Eddie Jr. break
down, from facing off with Father Speedy to sparring with my family
over Polkapourri. Now, standing under the night sky with the
comfort of a cigarette in my hand and the comforting taste of
tobacco smoke in my mouth, I began to relax.

The parking lot fell
silent--no traffic on the surrounding streets, no doors slamming,
no voices, not even the wind. The only sound was the hissing of the
cigarette as it flared when I inhaled...then the soft rushing of
the smoke from my lips when I breathed out.