Princess Of Passyunk Part 33

They wiggled some more and one scuttled forward a few steps and paused again to regard him. It must have been the jacket that had drawn them, smelling as it did of a c.o.c.kroach feast.

"You're welcome to any sc.r.a.ps you can find. Someone should get some joy from Mr. Joe's wonderful sausages." Ganady took off the jacket, taking care to remove the Baseball from the pocket, and laid it next to him upon the bed.

As if they had understood his words, they advanced, climbing up the legs of the cot, marching across the blanket single file, and taking up residence on the jacket where they feasted and, Ganady supposed, made merry after the manner of c.o.c.kroaches.

He had watched them for a moment when the largest one detached itself from the group and scuttled purposefully toward him. It stopped atop a small hillock in the blanket that covered his cot and saluted him with two front legs and a prodigious set of antennae.

Ganady held his breath. Absurdly expecting to receive some sort of communication, he reached down and held out his hand to the c.o.c.kroach, which obligingly climbed aboard.

"Gotteniu! Es iz tsu shpet!" the c.o.c.kroach said in a voice that was teasingly familiar.

Ganady gasped, suddenly completely awake. "Too late for what?" he begged. "What's too late?"

The lights went on suddenly, blinding him. He looked up, blinking, toward the door of the cell where his father and brother stood with the police sergeant, staring at him with identical stricken looks on their faces. The c.o.c.kroaches, caught in the light, vanished beneath the jacket.

The sergeant cleared his throat apologetically and opened the door. "Well, I'm sure I don't know where those bugs came from. We keep a clean jail here."

Da fixed the poor man with a dark scowl and he stepped quickly aside.

"Ganady?"

"Yes, Da?"

"Are you ready to go home?"

Ganady stood. "Can I?"

Da nodded. "Mr. Gusalev was kind enough not to press charges against you."

"I know. He just wanted to know why I did it. Well, and of course, that I should pay for the sausages." Ganady smiled. "He said it was okay that I should marry Svetlana. If I can find her."

Ganny reached down and picked up his jacket, revealing the bevy of c.o.c.kroaches cl.u.s.tered on the cot beneath it. He paused in perplexity, wondering what was required of him. He glanced up at his Da and Nikolai.

"I think maybe I'm supposed to take them home. I think maybe they were sent to help me. Instead of mice. I thought it would be mice, but it's c.o.c.kroaches."

"Gotteniu," mumbled Nick, and Ganady realized whose voice he had heard earlier and mistaken for a c.o.c.kroach's.

And why not? It was not much more absurd to think a c.o.c.kroach had spoken Yiddish than that Nick had.

Da said sternly, "I think your mother and grandmother would not allow it. You should...you should leave them here."

As if they had understood, the c.o.c.kroaches fled in every direction, like sequins shaken from a beaded gown. In a heartbeat there was not one to be seen.

Ganady felt strangely bereft and wondered if he was supposed to have fought harder to take them home. They hadn't really given him time, he argued. They had fled at the sound of Da's voice...or perhaps at his words...or perhaps at the thought of having to face Mama and Baba Irina.

Ganady acquiesced, shaking his jacket gently just to be sure it had no pa.s.sengers, then shuffled toward the door of the cell. Da and Nikolai traded significant looks that made Ganady feel profoundly guilty. What a Sabbath it had been for them; first Marija's shocking announcement at dinner, and now this.

He opened his mouth to utter an apology.

"Ah," said Nick, "There...there's one on your head."

Ganady's heart turned a somersault then beat faster and lighter. A c.o.c.kroach on his head? Such luck! He wanted to take it as an omen, but he wasn't certain he trusted omens just now.

He looked hopefully at his Da. "May I...may I take it home, please?"

Again, Da and Nick exchanged their significant looks. Then Da cleared his throat. "Well...I suppose. If it's just the one."

"Just the one," Ganady promised, moving toward the door. "I'm going to take a bath when I get home. It's no fun to go around smelling like a sausage. And I'm really hungry." He stopped to look back at his Da and brother, who had not moved. "Something wrong?"

Vitaly Puzdrovsky shrugged and glanced at his elder son. "What could be wrong? We'll come home, you'll take a nice, hot bath, you'll get something to eat."

"Not sausage," said Ganady.

"No," said Da. "Certainly not sausage."

oOo Ganady wasn't quite sure what to do with it-the c.o.c.kroach-but he cleared a spot on his dresser in case it wanted to be in close proximity to the Holy Virgin. It set itself up on his windowsill instead. He left it there and fell into bed where he slept, his hair still wet from the bath, his body drained of all energy.

He dreamed of sausages. Actually, he dreamed of sausages and c.o.c.kroaches, and of talking to Joe Gusalev through the iron bars of a jail cell. It was a very odd dream.

But he dreamed. That in itself was significant.

And at the end of the dream-or at least the end of that part of the dream-the c.o.c.kroach said, "Es iz tsu shpet! It's too late!" Just as (he thought) it had said in the jail cell.

And then, with one of those segues that leave the dreamer breathless, he was saying it and he was not on a cot in a jail cell, but in a deck chair on Mr. Ouspensky's rooftop, facing Connie Mack Stadium.

Mr. O sat beside him, eating peanuts. He had put a whole peanut in his mouth and was sucking blissfully on the sh.e.l.l. Now he looked at Ganady in surprise. "What? What do you mean it's too late? How can you say that, Ganny?"

"I can say it because...because I'm afraid it's true."

Mr. O handed him a peanut. He put it in his mouth and was surprised by the vivid tang of salt on his tongue.

"Well, I'll admit there's not much left in the way of time, but who cares? This is love, right?"

"Oh, yes," said Ganny around his peanut. "Of course it's love. But I've heard people say that sometimes love isn't enough."

"Yeah, but not anybody who knew what they were talking about. You ever heard your Baba Irina say that love is not enough?"

Ganady shook his head. He had never heard his Baba say that. He had heard her say that sometimes you started with liking and respect and that love would come along later. And he supposed if he were ever to marry he'd find out all about that because at this moment he couldn't imagine loving anyone but Svetlana Gusalev.

"Love is too enough," said the old man. "If it's really love. And this is really love, strange as that may seem to you."

Ganady cracked open the peanut sh.e.l.l with his teeth and used his tongue to pry out the peanuts. They tasted like the bottom of the ninth in a tie game with the bases loaded and no outs.

"It doesn't seem strange," he said when he could talk again. "I know it should. But it doesn't."

Mr. O beamed. "I'm glad to hear you say that, Ganny. It means a lot to me and your Baba. Because you know, it seems strange to other people-I'm not naming names, you understand. They think it's..."

"Meshuggeh," said Ganady.

"Exactly."

"Isn't it?"

"What-for an old fool to be in love with-"

"A c.o.c.kroach?"

"What, c.o.c.kroach? I was going to say 'your grandmother.' Who's in love with a c.o.c.kroach?"

Ganady swallowed the peanuts, sh.e.l.ls and all, and turned to look at Mr. O, as if seeing him for the first time. "You're in love with my Baba?"

"Well, yeah. You couldn't tell?"

"I could tell. I was just sort of...distracted because of-"

"Svetlana."

Ganady nodded.

"So, what's 'too late' that's got to do with c.o.c.kroaches?"

Ganady produced The Baseball from thin air-one can do these things in dreams-and held it up for Mr. O to see.

The old man's eyes went wide. "You found it! How'd that happen?"

He explained about the nurse from Saint Mary's hospital who had found The Baseball in the trash and brought it home to her niece. He described meeting the niece at The Tavern and going home with her only to have her return The Baseball to him. He told of following the ball, and of mistaking the ersatz crone for Baba Yaga.

"But she wasn't really Baba Yaga at all. She was the witch who turned Lana into a c.o.c.kroach and she used me to get petty revenge on Mr. Joe, the Sausage King. And now, here I am at a dead end. And I think it's too late."

"Not too late," protested Mr. O. "Not while you've got love in your heart and that Baseball in your pocket." He turned his head and called back into the apartment. "Irina, come out and tell this boychik of yours what's what."

And just like that, Ganady awoke.

Gone was the rooftop and the stadium and the taste of peanuts. There was sunlight pouring through the window and the memory of sausage and smoke in his nose, and the sound of someone knocking at his bedroom door.

He sat up, disoriented, and glanced over at the windowsill. The new c.o.c.kroach saluted him, its carapace glistening in the sun.

"Ganny?" It was his Baba, and this time he did not mistake the voice for a c.o.c.kroach's.

"I'm awake."

She came in, all business, a steaming cup of something in her hands. She sat on the edge of his bed and he smelled hot chocolate. She held it out to him.

"No, boychik, you're not awake. But you will be. Drink."

His obedience was habitual.

"So," said Baba Irina. "You saw the in-laws?"

He choked on the chocolate and glanced up at her, surprised to see a glint of humor in her eyes.

"You mean the c.o.c.kroaches?"

"No, I mean the Gusalevs. Why would I mean c.o.c.kroaches? Ganady Puzdrovsky, have you brought another c.o.c.kroach into this house?"

He snuck a look at the windowsill. The c.o.c.kroach was gone.

"Yes. I did. Not the one I wanted to."

She shook her head. "You're such a..."

"Putz?"

She looked at him severely. "Don't put words in my mouth, Ganady Puzdrovsky. I was going to say, 'you're such a romantic.' Like your mother. Nothing between your ears but moonlight on waves. What made you think you would find your Svetlana inside a sausage?"

He hesitated, then said, "Something you said...about a Bard and Baba Yaga. But I didn't find Baba Yaga. I found Svetlana's Aunt Beyle."

"Small world. What made you think Svetlana's aunt was Baba Yaga?"

"Well...the Baseball led me to her and...she looked like Baba Yaga."

Baba's eyebrows rose. "Chicken legs?"

That drew a smile from Ganny, which he supposed was her intent. "No. No chicken legs."

Baba Irina watched him drink his chocolate for a moment. Her close and silent regard made him uncomfortable.

He said, "I know what I did was crazy, Baba. I just wanted a miracle so much-anything to lead me back to Svetlana-that I thought the Singer was a miracle. When she gave me back my Baseball, I was sure of it. When the ball led me to the old woman, I guess I figured that had to be a miracle, too. But none of it was a miracle, was it? Or even magic. It was just...a bunch of coincidences, wasn't it?"

"You're asking me?"

He looked at her from beneath his lashes, trying to read her expression. "Mr. O said you'd tell me what's what."

"Ouspensky told you that? And when did this happen?"

He thought about fibbing, saying he had seen Mr. O here or there, when in truth he'd not seen him in the flesh for a month of Sundays. Instead, he looked her in the eye (a very difficult thing to do) and said, "Just now. In a dream. He told me it's not too late for Svetlana and that you'd tell me what's what. He said love is always enough if it's really love. I guess his head is full of moonlight on waves too."

He expected his Baba to snort or harrumph or make some tart comment about the state of Mr. O's head, but instead she smiled, her eyes going distant as he had seen his mother's do from time to time when she looked at his Da, and said, "I suppose it is."

Then her gaze moved to his face and became purposeful and sharp. "You think all these things that have happened are coincidences? Do you want me to tell you that's what they are?"

"No."

"It's certainly what your Mama and Da would like me to tell you. But I can't tell you that, Ganny, because I don't know. An old man falls in love with an old woman. Their friends and family shake their heads and say it's meshuga.s.s. Ouspensky and I say it's a miracle. So, who's to say that your Baseball isn't a miracle that can lead to more miracles?"

"But it only led me to do something so stupid I ended up in jail."

"And what happened in jail? Nothing? I think something must have happened in jail."