Читать книгу Time Between Trains - Anthony Bukoski - Страница 10

Holy Walker

PANI PILSUDSKI kept a busy professional and social calendar. Today she had a nun’s aching feet to soothe, then a rosary sodality meeting to lead in prayer. She hurried over the railroad trestle and around the edge of Novack’s barley field. “Call me Pilsudski, the Wetter, do they, Pilsudski, the Couch Dampener!” She imagined the ladies whispering other slanderous things about her. Ceil Zawacki would say, “She permanently crippled and disabled Alec Mihalek when she repaired his callus. Do you see how he limps? Guess what else, girls? When she got up from our love seat, she left a wet spot I had to clean with spot remover.” Mrs. Pilsudski, who battled fluid retention and whose poor, swollen legs bothered her, knew Barbara Trianowski would start in next: “That’s nothing. She never flushes our toilet.”

Lies! Lies! Terrible lies! thought the old widow who struggled to do God’s work on her knees with such tools as a paring knife and a basin of water.

She’d come to your house if your feet bothered you. Despite her good intentions about your feet, it was very easy for her to make mistakes. She lived alone in a big, gray house hard by the railroad trestle. Over the years its front porch had heaved from frost, so that you climbed up three steps, then descended four or five inches to the door. If you left the front door open one minute, inside doors squeaked and swung shut the next, because, over decades, the winter cold had shifted the ancient foundation. Then, too, the upstairs rooms shook so from passing freight trains that Mrs. Pilsudski had to grab the headboard of her bed to steady herself. The house seemed confused, bewildered. Was it a railroad depot or was it Mrs. Pilsudski’s house? When C&NW freights rumbled past, it was like heaven was falling into tumult. Crucifixes on the wall shuddered; statues of Mary and Joseph toppled. The shrine of St. Anthony of Padua once marched two feet across the top of her cedar chest to jitterbug with St. Jude, Patron of Lost Causes.

The freight trains contributed to her shaking hands; maybe they were the reason she retained water, because she was so nervous all the time—then a slip of the knife, then a cry of pain, then a customer’s toe to bandage. If her mistakes continued, she’d lose people’s trust.When it all got too much, the widow stared at herself in a mirror and wept. “Starość nieradość,” she’d exclaim. “Old age is no good.” The loneliness, too. If she didn’t keep the television on to distract her, she’d think all day how life conspired against her.

Lord, how much there was to dwell on. She still hated the sodality women for bringing up an old story about her. During Mass once, she’d had to make a quick exit. In the ladies’ room, she pulled down her living girdle to relieve herself of what she called “water buildup.” As she hurried back to receive communion, a lengthy piece of toilet paper clung to her skirt. Though Mrs. Pilsudski concentrated on the Body of Our Savior during this sacred moment, on the trip back to her pew, people snickered, altar boys laughed. The parish was still laughing, because certain sodality women couldn’t shut up about the toilet paper that’d looked like a miniature bridal train. Even the priest at coffee hour said to her as though she were Mr. Whipple, “Don’t squeeze the Charmin, Stella.”

“Jezu kochanej,” she muttered, embarrassed even now at the memory.

At home she’d rouged her cheeks, pulled her gray hair into a bun, put on eyeglasses that pinched her ears. Despite resistance from her girdle, she’d pushed her body forward to work her feet into good, solid shoes. Finally, out came the wool coat she wore year round. Thus prepared, she set out across the trestle above the Left-Handed River, gradually coming to her wits’ end what with the heat and with the heavy work and social pace she’d been setting for herself.

Clear of the trestle now and of the barley field where in the fall she picked caraway seeds to chew on the way to Mass, she spied St. Adalbert’s Church and across from it the school with its gymnasium where the sodality circle met. She felt the coat hang heavily from her shoulders. Something else hung in her mind: the demons who would talk about her and her wet spot, Baba this, Baba that. The main thing was that she—the once envied, respected Mrs. Pilsudski—was leading rosary sodality tonight, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Each so-called Rose, or worship group, was here. She heard the good Polish ladies of Rose One chattering in the school gym downstairs; the Lithuanians of Rose Two; the Slovaks of Rose Three. (Oh, those Slovaks irritated her using their word sokol instead of the proper English word sodality. Harriet Bendis especially got to her the way she always played up to the priest.) On and on Mrs. Pilsudski counted how many Slovaks were here, how many Lithuanians, how many Poles.

Upstairs above the classroom and gym, Sister Dorota in coif and wimple sat on a couch with white lace doilies. Wiping the remains of a heavy supper from her chin, she wiggled her toes in the warm water of the metal pan Mrs. Pilsudski kept with the nuns.

“How are your feet?” inquired the podiatrist when she came in, out of breath from climbing the stairs.

Falling heavily to her knees, she swished water in the basin, trying to concentrate on the rosary sodality. But all she could think of was the thief and grocer Harriet, the Slovak the ladies called Jadzia, who’d recently presented the old church a new confessional. Jadzia, Jadzia, she hated the name! “If Jadzia’s behind the counter at her store and you order a pound of wieners and are just a little over, Sister, she’ll break one with her thumb and throw the piece back in her meat cooler. What goot’s a half-inch long wiener to Jadzia? ‘Mrs. Bendis,’ I always say to her, ‘I pay for wienie. Don’t break it t’at way.’”

“Ow,” Sister said when Mrs. Pilsudski nicked her toe as though it were a wiener on Mrs. Bendis’s grocery scale.

“Here. It’s not bleeding. We’ll soak it,” said the bunion scraper.

She cut around on the nun’s other foot, feeling privileged to do such humble service—like Mary Magdalene would. She cut off a slice of callus like a slice of pear. She scraped at Sister’s other calluses.

“I have sodality meeting,” Mrs. Pilsudski said a moment later as she washed her hands in the kitchen. “I’m tonight’s leader.”

Hoping for the nun’s blessing, she heard only the four other nuns discussing their favorite TV reruns. Mrs. Pilsudski powdered her face. A light blue ribbon hung from the sodality pin above her heart. She adjusted the ribbon and pin.

Taking a breath, she corrected her posture. Though she did-n’t fear leading the women in the Apostles’ Creed, she did fear the Hail Mary. That prayer would confuse her, for lately—no, it’d been a year or two already—she’d been saying the rosary without thinking what the prayers meant. At home she’d pray with the TV on reruns of Mister Ed or Green Acres. Her lips would move reverently, fingers edging along the beads, but her mind would be lingering on what Mister Ed said to Wilbur. In the middle of the Hail Mary, she’d laugh at how they made the horse’s lips move or she’d sing the Green Acres theme.

At sodality she’d lose her concentration, too. It never failed. While other ladies bowed, she’d stare at Mrs. Waletzko’s dishpan hands or calculate how much hair Mrs. Simrak had lost.

“It’s ‘Hail Mary, full of the grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou amongst the women, and blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus,’ not ‘Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners . . . ,’” she told herself. She always got the Hail Mary and the Holy Mary mixed up. That was what came of watching TV nonstop: you didn’t pay attention to your rosary. Fifteen times she said it: “Hail Mary, full of the grace—”

Downstairs, forty-five sodality women waited. Each, according to the rules, was to say three rosaries by herself per week, one for each of the three mysteries of the rosary.

Each mystery contained five smaller ones, such as the Mystery of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

Checking behind her to see that no baby-soft Charmin stuck to her, Mrs. Pilsudski peeked in. The newest sodality members sat at the lower end of the warped hardwood floor, the older ones at the gym’s other end. Someone was saying, “Baba,” thought Mrs. Pilsudski, but overcoming her fear, she marched in. “Prayer time,” she said. After hurried talk and the rustling of glass, plastic, and wooden beads, each Rose held the crucifix of her rosary.

The Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father passed smoothly. As Mrs. Pilsudski began the first of ten small beads with “Hail Mary,” though, a spiteful voice cut her off.

Forty-four selfless voices responding to the Hail Mary, and one selfish voice had to rush her response.

Mrs. Pilsudski tried again. “Hail Mar—.” Before she finished, the voice said, “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” in perfect English. Two beads deep and it was a prayer war.

The widow had heard that annoying, urgent voice for years at the grocery store saying, “It’ll be forty-five cents for this” or “sixty-three cents for that.” Now Mrs. Pilsudski was hurrying to get away from it. The faster she, Stella Pilsudski, said, “Hail Mary,” the faster the other woman’s voice: “Holy Mary.”

“Hail Mary.” “Holy Mary.” “Hail Mary.” “Holy Mary.” It was a holy race.

Jadzia, the conserver of wieners, exalted herself with each response, which was just like her. She was wearing a summer suit, sensible for tonight’s weather, conceded Mrs. Pilsudski, though perhaps a bit formal. The corner grocery store magnate had had her hair fixed, too. The bouffant did little for that turned-up snout. Now the widow Pilsudski’s own hair fell about her forehead in sweaty ringlets. Her winter dress trapped the summer heat. She could feel her hands and legs swelling with water, her head growing light.

“Hail Mary, pray for us, the sinners,” she said. “No, Hail Mary, I mean, full of the grace. That’s what I mean.”

“Holy Mary,” the ladies were saying when the widow could-n’t remember offering up a “Hail Mary.” She and her living girdle weren’t breathing right.

Knowing how the Lord suffered in the garden, she resolved to suffer herself and struggled through ten beads, through an Our Father, then through two more beads.

When the air got thick in the gym, she was moaning, “Hail Mary,Who art in heaven, Green Acres is the place for me.”

“Stella-dear. Stella,” they were saying, coaxing her back to consciousness. Someone opened the gym windows.

“Thy kingdom come,Thy will be done,” the widow kept on, then muttered how much she liked Eva Gabor, even though Eva was Hungarian. She felt drowsy . . . couldn’t for the life of her recall the character Pat Buttram played on Green Acres. The ladies lifted and fanned Mrs. Pilsudski’s hair after they undid the bun. Even Harriet dabbed a wet handkerchief to the widow’s flushed temples.

“I’m okay. Get away wit’ that hankie. I saw a horse. I experienced a miracle. God on a horse. The horse neighed. A Polish horse, not Slovak!”

“You forgot your prayer, Stella.You were saying the Apostles’ Creed, then talking about Green Acres. You dear thing, doing God’s bidding like this.”

“No, a talking horse,” Mrs. Pilsudski said. “The owner’s Wilbur. T’at’s it, it’s Wilbur.”

The ladies congratulated her on her suffering and devotion to prayer.

“I always do what I can,” said Mrs. Pilsudski humbly.

She wished the praise would continue until she realized how foolish she must look slumped over, head lolling, glasses steamed up. She was angry that Jadzia Bendis, a poker and pincher of frankfurters, had gotten to her.

When Mrs. Pilsudski stood up, she felt something. Oh, Lord! She couldn’t look down at the “wetting accident.” All the time smiling nervously, she grabbed her coat, side-stepped to the wall.

“Stella, stay for coffee,” said Harriet.

“No coffee, no coffee,” said Stella, then mouthed the word ac-ci-dent.

She wrapped the coat about her. God help me, I am a baba! she thought as she made her way out, for strength touching the sodality ribbon and pin that honored the Blessed Virgin.

Though completely done in, she managed to make her way down Third Street through the field onto the trestle. With no train coming, it was a clean walk home. A wooden railing rose from the walkway beside the trestle tracks. On one side was the forest and the river’s long curve through it. Often from her kitchen window she’d watched people come across the trestle, just as someone could be watching her this very moment, huffing and puffing, the setting sun at her back. Maybe Mr. Boruczki, the neighbor, was drinking vodka and watching her before he went to his night shift at the gas plant. Or maybe Joseph Lesczyk was watching from the hill.

So this was God’s punishment of the faithful: wetting your favorite girdle, she thought. When I’ve given so much to the poor and offered Christian witness through podiatry work, why this? When she tried recalling exactly what charitable work she’d done, though, she shamefully recalled pulling down the shades when she spotted the March of Dimes lady making her neighborhood collection. When Stella’d heard the lady knocking at the door, she hadn’t answered. Later she spent the money she should have given to charity on a facial scrub and a loofah brush at Walgreen’s. She did the same when “Jerry’s Kids” knocked for Muscular Dystrophy. Who was really close with her money, though? Harriet Bendis was!—the Jadzia that God “punished” by giving her a corner grocery store, while she, poor Stella, scraped people’s feet for a living.

The widow recalled a million terrible things about Harriet, such as the time, one summer evening, that Mrs. Respectability gave her, Stella, a head of cabbage from her garden for free, a present, but then at the end of the month she found on her grocery bill: “Head of Cabbage, Price—Fifty Cents.” Calluses, nuns, bouffants, sodalities; she was through with them all. And she was really through with Jadzia!

Angry at having been embarrassed, she took the sodality pin from her dress, looked over the side, then dropped it from the trestle. The blue ribbon floated down, landing in muddy water. Mrs. Pilsudski watched it spin out of sight before she headed home thinking how—though it might offend the Church—she would extend her podiatry practice to Baptists and Lutherans.

For years she’d come this way to Bendis’s market, to footcare patients’ homes, to church, to sodality. She’d taken care of her feet; others neglected theirs. Now the lot of them could suffer the sorrow and heartbreak of burning, itching feet, she was thinking spitefully when she heard the whistle.

Until it blew again, she couldn’t tell the direction. At the end of the trestle, the tracks curved through the trees. You couldn’t see far ahead. Behind her now, though, a beam of light bounced up and down.

Heavenly Mary, more than half a trestle to go, she thought, and the whistle blowing for the crossing on the avenue. She tried walking faster, but it was so hard. Her glasses steamed up. Oh, Lord, that whistle! She concentrated on a rusted bolt holding the wooden guard railing together. Clutching the railing, she felt herself grow wetter. A minute later, the living girdle was newly soaked. Onto the trestle rattled the engine—hopper car, tank car, flatcar. From the terrifying whistle alone, the trestle would shake apart, she thought. Her hands clutching the railing, she remembered her missal lesson: “When hands are occupied, indulgences for saying the rosary may be gained as long as the beads are on one’s person.” Fearful of losing a grip on the railing, she couldn’t get to her rosary.

“Ouch!” she cried, feeling sharp pain as the locomotive rumbled past. Her poor heart seemed to burst. Petrified, she looked at the sky through the diesel smoke, felt the rusted bolt moving as though it would come out and the entire trestle fall into the river and float down to the abandoned ore dock.

“Ow,” she kept saying. “Ouch. Oh, God. Ow,” she said. Each time a boxcar passed, she remembered a sin she’d hidden from others and from the priest.

The train came, cars swaying, clicking. “Make me a rose in Your service,” she said to God as an empty flatcar threw sawdust in her face, then a tank car with a yellow crust of sulfur and the words HYDROGEN SULFIDE rolled toward her. Now a tank car with CLAY SLURRY written on it. Now one with bauxite that blew more dust into her face. Now another car with INHALATION HAZARD painted on it. “Ow! Ouch!”

She stood dumb a moment. Another click. The rails stilled. Prying loose her fingers, she inched a step forward to see whether her legs could hold her up. Beyond the widow’s house, the train blew for the crossing. Now it was quiet, as if a haze, a blue veil, had descended over the earth and over the widow.

Mist formed above the Left-Handed River. The moon rose. The air looked so blue and fresh, she thought. For the first time, she felt at peace.

A mystery, a blessed mystery of Christ!—kneeling before the nun, leading prayer, being struck dumb with anger and pride, the ordeal with the locomotive. Throughout all of this, she believed she’d grown even more beautiful, a faithful, dewy rose of Christ whose sins had been forgiven.

It was a splendid evening, cool enough now that the coat felt good. Frogs sang. Lightning bugs flitted among the trees. Lake boats far off in the harbor blew their whistles; the tugs responded. Familiar, comforting sights and sounds.

Still, a deep sadness filled her. Feeling something missing from her heart, she remembered the sodality pin with the blue ribbon floating in the air as it descended to the river. What would she do with that empty place over her heart? Or was it her heart that was empty?

Opening the porch door, which closed when she opened it and opened when she closed it, she looked for her sodality’s sheet of membership rules and principles. There it was atop the lace cloth on the dining room table. “Each bead of a rosary represents a crown of roses woven in Mary’s honor,” she read. Then she read again how women of “slowackiego (Slovak), czeskiego (Czech), rusinskiego (Ruthenian), or litewskiego (Lithuanian) extraction” could join the sodality. Still shaky, she couldn’t read more. She felt certain she’d fix Blessed Mary’s feet in heaven someday for having been through all this on earth. After seeing those delicate feet crushing the head of serpents so often on statues and in pictures, she knew the Virgin’s tired feet would need skilled attention. Stella Pilsudski was the podiatrist for Blessed Mary! EXPERIENCED FOOT CARE, she’d advertise in heaven.

Mrs. Pilsudski expected the upstairs to be a mess after the long freight train’s passage, Mary and Joseph fallen from the dresser, St. Anthony from the cedar chest. When she went upstairs, though, she found the saints abiding in her absence as she’d left them. Despite her wobbling legs, she kissed each saint, then kissed the feet of the Savior on the cross. Around her fingers she strung the rosary beads, wishing she could keep her hands forever steady with the rosary, steady the way her mind was now that she’d survived the ordeal on the trestle.

Looking out at the darkening river, she closed her window shades to change out of her dress, girdle, stockings. Surely Jesus could forgive a faithful woman’s incontinence.

Next she washed up, studying her face in the bathroom mirror. A wrinkled face, but pink like a rose. She let the loosened knot of gray hair fall to her shoulders. Ready for bed, she sat in the wing chair—first, to praise God, then to thank Him for her blameless life. She next sought a blessing on the house, thinking how each room had stood up courageously over the years to the violent surprises of a life near the tracks. “A good house, too,” whispered Pani Pilsudski, thinking of this bedroom, of the adjoining very holy and sacred bathroom, of the holy spare room down the hall. Then she thought of the living room below her with the flex-steel hide-a-bed and reupholstered chairs, holy as well; then of the holy kitchen, bright and airy with the good counter space, stainless steel sink, oven, stove, the dependable, holy, frost-free refrigerator. She prayed for her rooms, her knickknacks, her loofah brush—all precious because she’d worked hard to acquire them. And she was the holy woman at their center, a truly holy woman radiating goodness and humility.

Next she prayed for the salmon patties in the refrigerator, for the ham and bean soup, for the half-eaten wienie bought from Jadzia’s store. She prayed for herself, too, and for her dear, deceased husband, Stasiu, but mainly for herself, beseeching Jesus to allow her to keep on with Blessed Footcare Work. In fact, once the 9:17 freight passed through tomorrow morning, during the hour she could stand up without the house shaking apart, she’d clean the leftovers out of the refrigerator, then, before the next freight came through, hurry across the trestle, first to confession in the new confessional, then to buy a pound of ground chuck or a soup bone at the market. Once there, she, Stella, would drop a quarter into the March of Dimes canister—no, make that thirty cents, she thought.