The Grave of God's Daughter (17 page)

“So what have you been doing this whole time? Running around town on those two feet of yours?”

I nodded apologetically.

“I’m surprised your shoes ain’t full of holes.” A small yet forgiving smile formed on Mr. Goceljak’s face. “Didn’t think I’d give you the job if you said you didn’t know how to ride the bicycle, did you?”

I shook my head.

“Smart girl. I probably wouldn’t’ve. So what did you do with the damn thing when I thought you were riding it?”

“I hid it in the field, out behind the shed. I figured nobody would go looking back there.”

“You’re right. Nobody’d be fool enough to go tromping into that briar patch. They’d get cut to shreds. But you went back there, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, modesty making me mumble.

“You must want this money pretty bad.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m not angry,” Mr. Goceljak explained. “Just remember one thing: the length between a lie and the truth is like the length between the thunder and the rain. One always comes after the other. Always.”

His words struck me as the truest thing I’d ever heard, and possibly the most intimidating.

“It rains a lot here in Hyde Bend,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“Yeah. Maybe not enough. Go on home then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I removed the canvas cap from my head, releasing my hair. “Sir?” I asked. “Who lives in the house on River Road?”

“Which house?”

“The one where the packages go and they have no name on them, just a number.”

Mr. Goceljak shifted his jaw, mulling over how to answer me. He set down the dish of ground meat on the butcher block.

“There’s a clean pail under the sink. Get it for me.” I did as he asked and held it out to him. “You stand here,” Mr. Goceljak instructed, positioning me on one side of the sink, then he got a sack from the icebox. Inside lay a heap of pig’s entrails, glassy and opalescent, not yet frozen. They were casings for the kielbasa and kishke he made.

“Got to make sure there aren’t any holes. Sometimes they get nicked with the knife. Hard to tell, though. So I’ll run the water through and you watch for leaks.”

He cut a few lengths of intestine, then put one end to the tap and handed me the other. It was silky and slick, like wet hair, which made it difficult to hold on to.

“You’ve got to get the right grip or it’ll slip right out of your hands. That or you’ll tear it with your fingers. Just hold it softly. Lay it in your palm and once the water gets going it’ll be easier.”

Mr. Goceljak turned on the tap, sending a stream of water coursing through the piece of intestine. The thin, filmy flesh
inflated and now felt as strong as rubber. I watched carefully, waiting for any sign of a leak.

“This one’s fine. Put it in that pail there.”

I carefully placed the length of intestine at the bottom of the pail. Mr. Goceljak looked on approvingly. We did a few more lengths, working in tandem and in silence.

“I don’t put her name on the packages because she asked me not to. Asked years ago, I can’t even remember how long. But she asked, so I didn’t.”

Mr. Goceljak passed me another length of intestine and we went on working as he spoke.

“It was so long ago that sometimes it seems like it didn’t happen. One of those things that your head doesn’t want to keep inside, so it lets it slide away until you make it remember.”

Unconsciously, he was shaking the piece of intestine, jostling it to force the water through faster.

“She had a son. He was a smart one, smarter than anybody else around here, that’s for sure. Smarter even than those engineers they got working over at the salt plant or those who come to inspect the mill. That boy knew things. Could tell you anything you wanted to know about any subject. But he wasn’t just smart and nothing else. He had this way about him that made everyone take to him, no matter who it was. Never made you feel dumber than him, never tried to show off. People started saying, ‘See if the painting on the dome of Saint Laddy’s is missing a saint because looks like we got us a real one.’”

The memory made Mr. Goceljak pause and smile.

“Wasn’t no doubt he would be something someday, be some
body important. We were all surprised though when he decided what. One day, the boy packed up and went off to the seminary. Came back a few years later a full priest, youngest one we’d seen. And was he something in that pulpit. Looking so much like a king in his robes and speaking so strong you’d think he could turn a convict into a Catholic. Laddy’s would be full up for every service. No one could get enough of him. That boy shined when he spoke, that’s what they said. Shined like a song going in your ear and straight to your heart. Hell, that boy even made me want to do things better,” Mr. Goceljak admitted. “And the way he talked when he talked about God, you saw how he loved Him. Almost doesn’t sound right to say, but it was true. That boy loved God, saw God in everything, and made you see it too. That was why people loved him. He could make you think a heap of dirt was divine.”

A few drops of water fell from a spot in the middle of the length of intestine we were holding.

“Look,” I said, interrupting.

The droplets quickly turned into a threadlike stream and, within seconds, the intestine tore, causing a rush and splatter of water. Mr. Goceljak pulled the piece from the tap and shook out the remaining water.

“What do you do with it now?”

He took one of the smaller knives and cut out the center of intestine, excising the portion with the tear. “I’ll use what’s left. Can’t throw the whole thing away because one part’s bad.”

He handed me the two halves of the remaining intestine, now as slack as string, and returned to the task as well as his story.

“Didn’t seem like things had changed. But they had. Just that nobody had known it.” Mr. Goceljak’s voice sank lower, more rue
ful, as if recounting this part made his tongue hurt. “The boy sounded the same, looked the same as always, so when the day came that we heard, people were shocked. More than shocked. It was like a hole had been torn in ’em.”

“What happened?”

“He killed himself. Someone from the church found him. Strung up a rope in the rectory and hanged himself.”

Mr. Goceljak swallowed hard, as if he were trying to get the taste of what he’d said out of his mouth.

“It was too much. Too much to believe. Like stuffing a whole pillow into your ear and clear through to your brain. Everybody was thinking about it, but nobody dared talk. At least not right away.”

Mr. Goceljak handed me the next piece of intestine and put it up to the faucet. The water from the tap seemed colder, hard and unforgiving, as it swept through the intestine.

“No one knew what to do about it, especially about burying the boy. They had to get a letter from the archbishop to figure out the rules, what could and couldn’t be done. Turned out the boy couldn’t be buried on church grounds, not in no sort of consecrated earth. Nobody liked the idea, but there was no choice about it. Couldn’t put him on someone’s property, someone’s farmland or such, so they found a spot on a piece of land the town owned. Hadn’t built anything there because of some problem with the soil. Unstable to build on for some reason or another. So they put him there.”

The pail was nearly full, the intestines glistening cleanly. The story seemed to have tired Mr. Goceljak. He kneaded his temple with his knuckle.

“I s’pose I still haven’t answered what you asked.”

I shrugged slightly.

“After the boy died, folks were looking for someone to put the blame on. They seemed to need to have someone to blame. That person ended up being the boy’s mother. Rumors spread that she’d pushed him to join the clergy, that he’d wanted to go off to college, be a doctor maybe or a lawyer. Something big. Something that would’ve meant he didn’t have to stay here in Hyde Bend. The family had enough money for it. Father had passed long before and left the mother and son with more than most of us will ever see. Don’t know if there was any truth to it, but by then, it didn’t seem to matter.” Mr. Goceljak dipped his head a little. “People turned on her. Wouldn’t speak to her. Made her unwelcome everywhere. Even at the church, the church where her boy had preached. There was nothing right about it, nothing decent, but it was done anyhow. People stopped seeing her around town and the house on River Road looked like it had been closed up. After a time, people thought she’d left Hyde Bend, moved away. But she hadn’t.”

Mr. Goceljak heaved the pail up from the sink and onto the counter, setting it down with a resounding thump. “Some people around town know. Not many, but some. Josef Buza at the market, he knows. Been bringing her milk and such to the house for years. Same as me. She puts the money she owes in the mail. Never pays in person, but always pays. When children got to talking, saying the house was haunted, I thought, fine. Let them stay away from the place and think it’s haunted. Give the woman her peace.”

“She doesn’t leave her house? Not ever?”

He shook his head solemnly. “Afraid to. Especially now, after so many years.”

“And no one talks to her?”

“More like she doesn’t talk to them. She only sends me notes about her orders. Mails them with no name or return address. I just know it’s her by the handwriting.”

Mr. Goceljak went to put the pail in the cooler.

“She said something to me.”

He stopped short. Over his shoulder, he asked, “She did?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’d she say?” Astonishment and curiosity were coloring his voice, though he wouldn’t face me.

“She said she knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Who killed Swatka Pani.”

Even in profile, I could see Mr. Goceljak’s expression change, his brow furrow. “Is that all she said?”

“Yes.”

His shoulders dropped slightly, relieved, then he hoisted the pail into the cooler.

“If she doesn’t ever talk to anybody, why did she talk to me?”

Mr. Goceljak shut the cooler door. “Don’t know.”

“Did she talk to Donny or any of your other delivery boys?”

“Never.”

“Then why me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe you’re different.”

I didn’t care for the sound of
different
. It rang of indictment. “Different how?”

“Just different,” Mr. Goceljak replied, then he added, “I want you to do something for me. Promise me you won’t tell anyone what I told you. And promise me you won’t tell anyone she talked to you. Nobody.”

“I promise.”

Mr. Goceljak locked eyes with me briefly, as if to seal the deal we had made. “You better get changed and get home. It’s getting late.”

He pushed through the curtain and into the front of the store, leaving me the privacy of the back room. I hung the clothes on a peg next to where Mr. Goceljak hung his overcoat. They were merely a pair of pants and a cap then, hanging there next to a real man’s clothes, no longer a disguise. I considered thanking Mr. Goceljak for his kindness, for not firing me for lying about the bicycle and for telling me about the woman on River Road, but I simply slipped out the back door without realizing I still hadn’t gotten her name.

T
HE BELLS OF
S
AINT
L
ADISLAUS
sang out sonorously, cleaving the cold air and sounding the time. It was four o’clock. I arrived at the school earlier than usual, as promised, and went to the library to get Martin. Sister Teresa was in there alone, eyes shut. There was no sign of Martin’s things. My stomach cinched, registering his absence.

“Sister Teresa?” I said loudly. “Sister Teresa?”

The sister’s eyes fluttered open. She clutched her heart. “My word, girl. You nearly scared me to death.”

“Sister, where’s Martin?”

“Who?”

“Martin. My brother. I left him here with you right after school.”

“I don’t know. He must have left.”

“Left?”

“Yes.”

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps the boy went home. Did you check there?”

I raced out of the library and went running down through the corridors, calling his name. My voice was bouncing off the hallway walls and being pelted back at me. Martin wouldn’t have gone home. He was too scared to walk back on his own. All of the doors to the classrooms were closed, the lights off. I went to the front office to see if he was waiting there, but the room was empty except for one of the nuns, who was busy filing.

I combed through the building, shouting, “Martin, it’s me. Where are you? If you’re hiding, please come out.”

I got to the end of the second-floor corridor and listened, hoping I would hear him, hear something. All was quiet. It was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard.

I pictured every room in the building, trying to imagine where he’d be, then I took off toward the other end of the building, to the bathrooms. I was about to throw open the door to the boys’ room and go charging in, but thought better of it. I made sure I was alone in the hallway, then inched open the door. The handle was low, built at a height for young children, and the sign on the door was in both Polish and English.

“Hello?” I called. “Martin? Are you in there?”

I heard a sniffle.

“Martin?”

Another sniffle sounded, timed like a reply. I rushed inside. Stalls lined one wall, urinals the other. I’d never seen a urinal and the curious shape had me staring. This was nothing like the girls’ room. With its blue tile and gray paint, it was a foreign realm made solely for boys.

“Martin, where are you?”

“In here.”

I could see the shadow of his feet in the last stall. The door was closed.

“Can I come in?”

“Uh-huh,” he whimpered.

Martin was standing in the corner of the stall and had wedged himself behind the toilet. His face was tear streaked. His clothes and hair were a mess.

“What happened?”

“I…” he began, then his chin started to quiver.

I pushed myself back into the corner with him and held him.

“I was in the library,” he said, talking into my shoulder. “But you said you’d be early, so I went outside to wait. I was sitting there, just waiting, not doing anything wrong, and some older boys came up to me. They took my books and threw them in the grass. Then I saw that one of them was that boy, the one who came to our house with the catfish. He pulled me up by my coat and said that I was a sissy and called me a little girl. When I said I wasn’t a little girl, that I was a boy, he pushed me and I fell into the road.”