The Grave of God's Daughter (19 page)

Martin took my instructions seriously. “What if they’re hiding? Hiding and waiting for you around the corner?”

“I’ll find out, I guess.” I inched open the front door cautiously, preparing to run. Third was clear. “Lock the door behind me. Do it now.”

Martin slammed the door and swiftly locked it, sending a gust of air rushing against my back. As I neared the corner of the apartment, I steeled myself for someone to jump out at me. There was no one, no waiting ambush, nothing except the rutted, narrow path.

The sight of the outhouse up ahead made the memory of that
night with Swatka Pani rear in my mind. The wind mimicked the hissing of her voice, beckoning me back into what seemed like a nightmare, something apart from reality.

This is all your fault. You did this.
I shook my head to dislodge the thought from my ears.

You hated her. You’re happy she’s dead.

I tried to cut between the laundry lines, but the wind started kicking up the clothes, sending them flapping and twisting, keeping me back. The sleeves on the shirts and the legs of the pants swelled high, waving, lifelike and warding me off.

You hated her so much that your hate killed her.

I felt as though I was sinking, being sucked down into the mud, into the depths that I imagined Swatka Pani had inhabited. I dropped the towel right where I stood and pried my boots from the mire, backpedaling from the groping limbs of the empty clothes, then I slipped on a stone and my feet skidded out from under me. Arms flailing, I collided with the ground with a sickening thud. Mud oozed through my fingers and sucked at my legs.

I’ve got you now.

I scrambled to get up, but slid down onto my knees. I clawed at the mud and my fingers caught on the very rock I had tripped on. Using it as an anchor, I pushed myself to my feet and took off running.

With trembling, mud-slick hands, I fished the key from my pocket to unlock the door, but it was already open.

“Martin, I told you to—”

My mother was standing at the stove, taking off her coat. Martin was at the table, warning me with his eyes.

“What happened to you?” she demanded.

The front of my clothes were spattered with mud while the back of me was black with it.

“You’re filthy.”

“No she’s not,” Martin protested. “The Germans are filthy. That’s what—”

A fierce glare from my mother stopped Martin in midsentence.

“I fell,” I said. “I tripped and I fell.”

“I told you she went to the outhouse,” Martin said. He blinked purposefully, signaling me to play along.

“Start running the bath,” my mother said, barely concealing her irritation. “And get those dirty clothes off. You can hand them out to me and I’ll wash them in the sink.”

Wearily, I went into the washroom, turned on the tap to fill the tub, then slunk out of my grungy skirt and sweater. Flecks of dried mud skittered to the floor as I peeled off my stockings. My hands were throbbing from the burns. Tiny blisters had bubbled the skin. I caught my reflection in the mirror. Droplets of mud were sprayed across my face, and one solid slash of mud was streaked under my eye like war paint. Through the door, I heard my mother asking, “Where’s the stew pot?”

It was in the washroom with me, sitting beneath the sink. I rushed to put my clothes back on.

“It’s in the washroom,” I heard Martin say. “I took it.”

“What for?” my mother demanded.

I was yanking on my skirt, willing Martin not to say any more, not to lie for me again. I burst out of the washroom with the stew pot in my arms because I couldn’t bear to hold it in my hands.

“What are you still doing in those clothes?” my mother admon
ished. “Go back in there and take them off. You’re making a mess of everything.”

She’s right
, I thought. I had made a mess of everything, in more ways than I could count.

My mother plucked the pot from my arms and began filling it. Martin nodded to me to get into the washroom before she could say any more. I re-stripped the clothes from my body, each piece heavy from the cold muck that clung to it. Naked, I eased the door open a crack, slid my arm through, and held the clothes out for collection.

“Here,” I said. There was no reply. “Here,” I repeated, more loudly. The water from the sink was muffling my voice. I pressed my body to the door while pulling it to me to keep it from opening all the way and exposing me. “Here,” I shouted.

Footsteps followed. My mother flashed by outside the door and the clothes were snatched from my arm. I remained there at the door until she set the stew pot down outside. Two dishrags hung from the pot’s handles, a cruel reminder. I crouched down to cover myself and edged the door open enough to drag the pot into the washroom. I dreaded picking it up, but it was that or bathe in the freezing water.

With the tips of my fingers, I lifted the heavy stew pot to the lip of the tub and spilled it over the side. The pot wobbled along the rim, threatening to overturn, and I had to resist the impulse to brace it with my leg. The metal would have burned me yet again. I tested the water with my pinkie. It was lukewarm, though that would have to do.

Climbing into the tub was the next hurdle. I couldn’t hold on
to the edge because of my hands, so I balanced myself on my muddy knuckles and forearms, then threw my legs into the water. I tumbled into the tub, sending up a splash that caught me in the face. Once my body settled to the bottom, the waterline pushed up over my lips and under my nose, leaving me just enough space to breathe. Wisps of dirt curled into the clear water while the larger clods of mud from my hair and arms sank. Exhausted, I wallowed there, feeling the water’s temperature already dropping.

See what you’ve done. You’ve made a mess of everything.

I rubbed the soap cake over my head and scrubbed my hair. Soap bubbles drifted over the top of the water, eventually covering the surface and turning it opaque.

You know what they say. God’ll get you.

I hunkered down in the tub, lower still, holding my breath as my nose slid underwater. Fiercely, I continued to lather. My lungs began to burn from the lack of air.

God will get you.

My eyes and the tops of my ears were the only things left above the water. With a bobbing jerk, I dunked down below the surface, hoping to drown out my thoughts altogether. Feet braced against the tub to keep me under, I gazed up from beneath the water. Bubbles filled the space where my head had been, sealing the surface in a soapy film. It was as if I hadn’t been there at all.

The world went mute, the thoughts hushed. Lungs throbbing, eyes stinging, I lay there. Perhaps if I punished myself, God wouldn’t have to. If I made myself suffer, He wouldn’t. Lightheadedness set in and I lost the strength to keep pressing my feet against the tub to hold myself down. My head burst through the water’s surface and I let out an enormous gasp.

I was back in the world and it was no different from before. Tiny streams of water trickled across my face, trailing from strands of hair. I looked myself over. I was clean, at least on the outside.

I toweled off, then realized I had no clothes to change into. I cracked the door partway. My wet hair was dripping down my shoulders. Water was pooling on the floorboards. My mother was busy ringing out my skirt in the sink. Martin was at the table with one of his schoolbooks.

“Martin,” I whispered. He didn’t hear me. “Martin.”

My mother turned. The one time I didn’t want her to hear me, she did.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t have anything to put on.”

“Get your sister her nightdress.”

Martin sprang from his seat and rushed the dress to me. He clamped his eyes shut and pushed the nightdress at me through the slit in the door.

“Don’t come out if you don’t have to,” he whispered. “Stay in there as long as you can. Something’s wrong,” he said, then hurried back to his seat.

Through the crack in the door, all I could see was my mother’s back. Then I heard it, a noise mingling with the water running in the sink. My mother was humming. The sound was high-pitched and glassy, so sweet it seemed unreal. Martin nodded at me from his chair, urging me to return to the washroom. I tried to pull myself away, but it was as if the tune she was humming was warming the air and wicking the chill from my skin.

I shut the door and the spell was broken. I could no longer
hear her. A shiver rattled through my body, shaking me back to reality. I pulled on my nightdress and patted my hair dry, wondering what to do with myself. There was nowhere to sit except the edge of the bathtub, which was dirty again. I filled a few minutes by cleaning it for the second time that day, Martin’s comment clinking in my ears all the while.

“You’re good at cleaning. Like her.”

How could you be good at cleaning and at making a mess of everything at the same time?

After I finished the bathtub, I had nothing to do, then I remembered the quarters. I squatted under the sink and slid them out from the ledge where Martin had hidden them. I couldn’t cup them in my palms because of the blisters, which had formed a line of fierce red bumps across the inside of my hands. Instead, I held the quarters lightly between my fingers, tipping them so they would catch the light and glint at me, a secret wink.

The slamming of the front door signaled my father’s arrival. I returned the quarters to their spot and went for the door, knowing my father would want to get into the washroom to shave before his shift. We both grabbed for the handle at the same time. My father got to it first. Discovering me in the doorway gave him a start and he snorted angrily.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, scooting past him. My time for hiding was over.

D
URING SUPPER
, my father seemed to be in an unusually good mood. That meant he actually spoke at the table. He was describing what he’d heard people saying about Swatka Pani.

“Seems no one cares much that she’s dead. But they do care about knowing who done it to her.” He exhaled a spurt of smoke, punctuating his statement. “Word is, that retard she kept around for handy work’s gone missing. People are saying it must’ve been him. Police’ve been looking for him high and low, and ain’t nobody seen him for days. Hasn’t been back to the Slipper neither. And that’s the only place he’s got to sleep. I say, could’ve been him. Strong as an ox. Dumb as one too. I seen him carry beer barrels half his weight like they were sacks of sawdust. He could’ve pushed the old bitch down those stairs as easy as breathin’.”

Martin wanted to interject and was pursing his lips to keep the words from springing out.

“Swatka Pani wasn’t no saint,” my father said, stuffing a few forkfuls of food into his mouth. “But that don’t give that retard the right or reason to kill her.”

Martin finally let loose. “Leonard was here that night.”

My mother’s eyes darted toward Martin, then I heard myself screaming inside my head,
Don’t tell him that
. It was too late.

My father’s head snapped up from his plate. “What?”

“He came over, knocked on the door, then left,” Martin recounted. “I forgot about it. I forgot to tell that to the policeman.”

“Leonard was here? That night Swatka Pani died? Damn it, why didn’t you tell me that?” He threw a ferocious glance at my mother. “What else did he do?”

“Nothing,” Martin said, sad that he didn’t have more to offer. “That’s it.”

My mind was sputtering. “He only came by looking for food,” I said.

“Food? Why the hell would he do that?” my father demanded.

“Because sometimes, sometimes I’d give him one of our apples. Just the littlest one. He never has any food, so I thought…”

I was afraid of what my father would say, but was even more afraid to look at my mother, to read the reproach in her eyes.

“Don’t give that retard our food,” my father ordered. “Don’t ever do that again. Do you hear me?”

As I lowered my head to hide from my father’s glare, I caught a glimpse of my mother’s expression. Instead of drilling me with angry eyes, she was searching my face.

She sees me.

My father shoved away his plate and stabbed out his cigarette. “You thank God your brother said something,” my father told me, already halfway out the door.

“What about your lunch?” Martin called, running to retrieve his lunch tin from the icebox for him. The door was closed by the time Martin had it in his hand.

Martin returned to the table and slumped down on his elbows. “I didn’t think it was so important. If I knew it was, I would have told him sooner, I swear,” he said. “Did you know that Leonard coming here was important?” he asked my mother.

“No,” she answered hollowly.

“It’s not important,” I found myself shouting. “It doesn’t matter. Leonard didn’t do it. So it doesn’t matter.”

“How do you know?” Martin asked.

I had to stop myself from saying what I always did, that I just knew. But that was truer than ever before. I felt it. I felt it the same way I could feel the floor under my feet. The feeling was so strong it had to be fact.

“Enough,” my mother said. “The dishes need doing.”

“But I’m not done with—”

My mother and I simultaneously shot him a glance, then Martin set to gobbling down what was left on his plate before I whisked it out from under him and took it to the sink.

Our bed felt especially cold that night, as though the blankets had gotten thinner during the day. Martin shivered and snuggled close to me. I pulled the blankets up over our heads so our breath could warm us. We would stay under until the air ran out, then I’d lift the edge of the blanket enough for us to breathe.

“I saw your hands,” Martin said. “You burned them on the pot, right?” I nodded. “Do they hurt bad?”

I nodded again. I didn’t want him to feel guilty. The mistake was mine and I was paying for it. Worse yet, I couldn’t bandage my hands for fear of my mother noticing. Every movement pulled at the blisters. I laid my hands out along my sides, palms sideways to keep the skin from coming into contact with anything.