Sugar House (9780991192519) (37 page)

"If she doesn't wake up, I've got a chance.
She's mean as a snake when she's drunk. I'm not Marya's favorite
relative, to say the least."

Cappie looked around the street and back at
the bar. "I've had enough for tonight anyway. It's getting a little
wild in there now. Wouldn't be surprised if the coppers show up for
a raid, as loud is it is. I'll help you get her home."

"But what about that good-looking Sheba you
were necking with?"

"She's just looking for a Daddy… thinks I'm
rolling in the dough." Cappie got into the front seat of the cab.
"She was trying to rub up against my front pocket to see how big a
roll of green I had. Damn floozies. I've had enough of that juice
joint for tonight."

When they arrived at the front of Joe's
house, Cappie picked up Marya and carried her up the porch steps.
Joe quietly opened the front door of Marya's house, and Cappie set
her on the living room couch. "They got an extra blanket down
here?" he whispered.

"Geez, Cappie, who cares? We got her home.
That's good enough." Joe was getting a headache from all the tap
beer, and he was fed up with dragging his cousin home at the end of
his rare nights out. Two nights in one week! He'd be glad to get
back downriver and back to work. Let his aunt and uncle worry about
what Marya was out doing.

"She's your family, Joe," Cappie said
quietly.

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Joe
reached around in the darkness and found a crocheted afghan. He
handed it to Cappie. He placed it over Marya's small sleeping
frame, tucking the top under her chin.

"Good. The blanket will catch the drool that
rolls down her chin. Are you happy? I wantta get outta here before
my uncle wakes up." Cappie looked nervously up the stairs. He
nodded and followed Joe to the hallway, but just as they reached
the doorframe, Cappie slammed his head on the bottom of it, causing
an enormous thud. He'd forgotten to duck in his hurry to leave. A
light went on at the top of the stairs. They both lit out of the
hall, down the stairs, and into the waiting cab.

"You should have seen your face when you hit
your big pumpkin head on that doorframe!" Tears of laughter poured
down Joe's cheeks.

"Shut up, Joe. I just didn't want your uncle
to come after me with a shotgun is all." Cappie hunkered down in
the back of the cab, crossing his muscular arms across his chest.
"Hey, why'd you jump in here, anyway? You should have run into your
house."

Joe broke up laughing again. "I guess that
scared look on your face cleared out my brain for a minute." He
turned to the cabbie. "Just drive around to the alley. I'll sneak
in the back door." He said goodnight to Cappie and jumped over the
small backyard fence. He saw the glow of lights in his cousin's
house and heard a loud voice and then Marya yelling as he walked up
the back steps.
Oh well, that's her kettle of fish
, he
thought. He walked up the stairs and passed out in his clothes on
top of his bed.

Joe pulled into the boathouse and turned off the
engine. Cappie was standing on the dock with another man, talking
and smiling that funny grin that made you think of a teenage boy
watching his first peep show at the circus. Joe threw the rope to
his co-worker. Cappie tied it to the dock and winched the boat up
out of the water.

"Hiya Joe!" the stranger called. Joe looked
over and saw that it was his Uncle Feliks. It had been almost a
year since he had handed him the train ticket to New York that
Saturday morning after the crazy night with Clara Bow and
Marya.

"Uncle Feliks!" he called, jumping out of the
boat and embracing him in a bear hug. "When did you get back? How
are you? How did you find me? Did you find Aunt Anna?"

"Hold on, Joe" he smiled. "Let's go inside
and get a cup of java and I'll explain everything." Cappie said
he'd unload the haul and for Joe to go inside with his uncle. They
entered through the secret basement door and walked up the narrow
steps. Joe looked around, slightly ashamed at the bachelor pad he
and Cappie had been living in. Dirty dishes lay in the sink, on the
table, and on the floor, surrounded by old clothes and fishing
equipment. Newspapers were stacked on the couch and on the dining
room table. Joe cleared a spot for his uncle to sit at the table
and tried to find two clean coffee cups. Finding none, he washed
two in the sink while the coffee brewed.

"Sorry for the mess, Uncle Feliks. I guess
we've been slipping on the housework. They've got us making three
runs a night now, and we sleep most of the day. So, are you just
back today?"

"No, I've been here a couple weeks. I've been
staying with your ma and your brothers." Uncle Feliks looked much
thinner but healthier than when Joe had seen him last. His cheeks
were tan and his clothes neat and ironed, but his light blue eyes
had an aura of sadness about them.

"Joe, I want to thank you for what you did
for me. I don't think I showed you the proper amount of
appreciation at the time. I was angry that my nephew was helping me
out, and I was embarrassed at the situation I had put myself in. I
almost didn't go to New York. Oh, I planned on getting on that
train with the tickets you had bought but I was going to jump off
somewhere east of here and try starting fresh." Uncle Feliks took a
sip of the bitter coffee and set it down on the table. He looked
out at the river. The sun, just rising above it, created a rosy hue
on the water.

"So I was sitting there on the train and
trying to figure out the best place to get off when the train
stopped. This young woman with two children came up the aisle and
sat down next to me. She was traveling back to New York also, and
we started talking and I played with her kids to help her keep them
occupied. She said her name was Jenney and she was taking a ship
back to Europe to meet her husband. They had come to the United
States to find the American dream but her husband had missed his
native country and had gone back after the war to set up a business
and house and he'd sent for her now that he was established."

Joe's stomach grumbled and he smiled at his
uncle. "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat."

Joe got up from the table and put a frying
pan on the stove to heat. Then he started on the dishes while his
uncle continued his story.

"Well, she was worried about traveling all
the way to New York alone and then across the ocean with her two
little daughters. After a few hours of talking with her, and
sharing a lunch she had brought I offered to accompany her. Her
ticket for Europe was for the same ship you had booked me on Joe. I
thought it was God's way of telling me I needed to follow through
with what you and I had agreed to. So, we arrived in New York and
then we boarded the ship together. We were both in second class;
thank you, by the way, for that, Joe. I wandered down to third and
what a sight! Anyway, we passed the days eating meals together and
me playing with the girls. She was a kind lady and a very good
mother. When the ship reached port we said our goodbyes and I felt
rejuvenated—like a new man with a second chance at life. I decided
I'd follow through with my promise to you and go find my
sister-in-law and bring her back to America."

Joe threw six eggs in the iron skillet with a
dab of butter and placed white bakers' bread into the electric
toaster Cappie had bought last month. Cappie came up the stairs,
and the men sat down to eat at the now clean kitchen table. Cappie
pulled out three cans of peaches and poured them in bowls,
reminding Joe of the time he had first eaten canned peaches on the
ride to Amherstburg. Cappie said he'd do the dishes when he woke up
and headed off to bed. Joe smiled knowingly at his uncle and got up
and did the dishes while his uncle continued his story.

"It took me two weeks to make my way to
Jastarnia. That whole continent still looks like the war just ended
last week, Joe. You wouldn't believe it if I told you. Ancient
buildings reduced to piles of rubble, people living in shacks and
tents alongside the roads. If you can call them roads. More like
paths of mud. I wasn't sure what I'd find in Jastarnia, but the
village looked the same as when Alexy, your parents, and I left.
Fewer people, quieter, but the buildings were the same, and the
church still stood. Feeling like I was starting over to live a good
man's life, I went to the old church first seeking confession.
There was a young priest there. He didn't remember our family, but
he was happy to listen to my sins. After I told him about all the
drinking and gambling and, er, women, he gave me absolution and
asked why I'd returned. I told him about your aunt, and he asked me
to meet him at the front pew of the church. I figured he knew right
where she was, and as I opened the door to the confessional I
thought about the party your Ma was going to throw me when I
presented Anna at your front door."

Joe finished the dishes and made some more
coffee. He sat back down at the table to give his uncle his full
attention. Joe smiled at Uncle Feliks and poured some more coffee
into his cold cup. "The priest had come to the parish only a year
before, after the war had long ended. He was trying to unite the
town again, as they had lost the sense of community that a fishing
village must have to survive. The war had been hard on everyone in
Jastarnia, and the people had formed tight-knit groups of immediate
family members to survive. In the last days of the war the
Prussians had become desperate, realizing the Allies were going to
win. The soldiers who had taken over the village decided to flee in
the middle of the night, while the people of the village slept.
They feared for their lives, expecting a violent retribution from
the townspeople. The soldiers had become extremely cruel to the
villagers after we made our way to America. They stole their food,
raped their women, and beat and killed the men who fought to
protect their families. The lieutenant who forced your aunt to
marry him was the ringleader, and all despised him. It was he who
was leading the exodus, and he decided he could not leave without
Anna. Knowing she wouldn't come willingly and his fellow comrades
would not consent to dragging a hostile, struggling woman with
them, he was at a crossroads."

Joe's eyes grew wide, fearing the end of his
uncle's tale.

"The lieutenant cut off all her hair and made
her dress in an old uniform of his. He told Anna if she fought him
he'd kill her and then come to America and find her family and
murder them. He had her pull the cap of her uniform down to her
eyes, hoping that in the darkness the other soldiers would not
realize she was his wife. They reached the forested hill behind the
village, the rendezvous spot where his troops had convened, and he
stood in the middle of the group giving directions and orders. Anna
silently moved from his side to the outer circle of the group. All
the young soldiers were nervous with anxiety and were listening
intently to the lieutenant as if his words were their path to
safety. She jostled one of the soldiers, lifting his gun from its
holster, unawares to him. Anna walked directly into the middle of
the circle where the lieutenant was still giving his orders and
shot him point blank in the face."

Joe let out a gasp and clapped his hands
together. He smiled. But he saw a tear form in the corner of his
uncle's eye, and his heart dropped.

Uncle Feliks shook his head and continued.
"Anna started to run past the dead lieutenant, trying to make a
break for the village; but one of the soldiers fired at her and
shot her in the back. They left her there and scattered like mice
in an attempt to flee as they had planned. Your aunt lay there for
hours, bleeding from her wound, cold on the mossy ground until the
sun rose and the villagers came out of their homes to decipher the
cause of the gunshots heard in their cottages the night before.
They found her lying five feet from the evil man who had forced her
to become his wife, pieces of his brain matter and skull within
arm's length of her. There were no signs of the other Prussian
soldiers except their footprints in the dirt. Two fishermen carried
her back to the village and set her on the steps of the church.
They could tell by her rasping breaths that she didn't have long on
this earth, so they believed last rites would be more propitious
than a doctor. The old priest, the same who had baptized her and
your mother, was awakened from his sleep. He performed the ritual
right there on the church steps. She whispered that she had killed
the lieutenant. She asked for absolution. He granted it to her and
thanked her for ridding the world of such evil."

Tears poured from Joe's eyes as his uncle
finished the story. What a horrible life his aunt had had to endure
in the hands of the lieutenant. And then, days before she would
have been free at last from his terrible grasp—for the war would
have ended and she surely would have been able to escape him
then—she is killed in the same grove of trees his mother had told
him she and her sister had played in for hours, watching for their
father to return from the sea. Joe was thankful his aunt had
received absolution, but a wave of guilt passing over him. He
couldn't recall the last time he'd been to church. The tragedy of
Anna's sad life was too disconcerting for words.

"I know what you're thinking, Joe, but no.
Your thinking if she'd only gone along with the soldiers for a
couple of days; if she'd just stayed quiet, perhaps she could have
survived till the end of the war. But the troops would have
realized that it was her in disguise the minute the sun rose. You
see, the lieutenant was mad with desire for Anna. In his desperate
desire to keep her with him, he couldn't think clearly. His militia
would have insisted on her death immediately upon her discovery…
especially in their state of heightened anxiety as they tried to
make their way back to their homeland.