Then Came Heaven (18 page)

She looked away.

“I’ve got three more crocks in the back of the truck,” he said, and headed out to get the next one, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve brought some clean boards to cover them if you’ve still got the rocks, Sister!”

While he was gone she searched through the storage room and found some good-sized rocks that Sister Ignatius had used to weight the boards on top of the crocks. “Sister Cecelia?” she called up the stairs, “can you throw down a rag so I can wipe the cobwebs off these rocks?”

In the minute the rag came sailing down and she put it to use.

When Eddie brought in the last of the crocks, he had four square scrubbed boards under his left arm.

“Can you take these, Sister?” he asked.

She took the boards and he set the crock down beside the others, pushing it over with a gritty scrape till it clinked into line against the cellar wall. “Krystyna, she’d be pleased how this batch turned out,” he said, straightening and brushing off his palms. “It’s good this year. Crunchy. She said she was making the brine just a little less sour.” He dipped in and caught some sauerkraut in his fingers and ate it. “Take a taste, Sister, and see what you think.”

She stared up at him while he chewed the sauerkraut and a droplet of brine glistened on his chin. He had a strong, forthright chin and a strong jaw, and when he tipped his head back and opened his mouth, she felt her own mouth water.

“Go ahead,” he said, motioning for her to have some.

“Oh, I... no... no thank you, Mr. Olczak. I... um... that is, we’ll be having supper soon, Sister Cecelia and I were just preparing it, and... well... it’s...” Eating with seculars was strictly forbidden, 
in writing
! Their Constitution made it 
very clear
! And if sharing meals with nonreligious was considered a breach of propriety, certainly dipping sauerkraut in a shadowy basement with an unmarried man must be a sin worthy of confessing.

He used the side of his hand to dry his chin, and she watched the simple action in acute fascination. Masculine allure was so new to her that it caught her by the viscera, undoing her recent promise to keep out of his proximity and avoid useless conversations. “I’m... I’m sure it’s delicious,” she finished, and bent to place the four boards across the crocks. When she picked up the first rock he jumped to her side and said, “Oh, here, Sister, I’ll do that. They’re heavy.” He wrested the rock from her hands—a big round, awkward, fifteen-pound mass that had soiled her floor-length white apron—and in transferring it, he inadvertently touched her.

She jumped clear of him and grabbed her hand with the other, as if she’d been burned.

He looked up curiously, bent like an L with a weighty rock in his hands. “Something wrong, Sister?”

She shook her head wordlessly.

He glanced at her knotted hands and thought, 
She’s acting funny today,
 as he finished his work.

The worst thing she could do was run from him, she thought. Then he would surely suspect what was going on in her head. So she waited as he put all four rocks on top of the boards, bending, reaching, lifting, his muscles bunching while he handled the weight as if it were nil. She watched him unbrokenly, forgetting she was not supposed to. When he finished he straightened slowly, then stood awhile, pensive, staring down at the fruits of his wife’s labor.

“She’d be glad to know you got it, just like always.”

Sister Regina, too, stared at the four crocks. “How many years has she been making us our winter’s supply of sauerkraut?”

“I don’t know, Sister. A lot of years.”

“As long as I’ve been here, anyway.” They stood in silence for a moment, missing Krystyna, recounting the many good deeds she’d done for so many. Then Sister Regina suggested quietly, “Shall we take a moment to say a thank-you, Mr. Olczak?”

She folded her hands and closed her eyes, and he did the same. Side by side they prayed in silence, to God and to Krystyna, whom they were sure had to be a saint, as good a person as she’d been. It was both healing and intimate, and for those few minutes while they stood motionless, they shared a bond of almost mystic quality. They were friends. They liked each other. They had both loved Krystyna. They were comfortable standing side by side, praying in the most unlikely of places—in the must and the cobwebs of the murky basement, with their elbows nearly touching.

It was as close to intimate as Sister Mary Regina had ever been with a man.

In the kitchen above, Sister Cecelia, ever on the alert for infractions to report to Mother Superior, cocked her head and sat still as a grouse off a pointer’s nose. She listened for a long while but heard nothing. Setting down her paring knife and potato, she crept to the door. The basement was so silent she could’ve heard spiders spinning their webs down there. Stealthily she descended four steps and strained forward till she could peer below the rafters into the dimly lit storage room about twelve feet away. But all she saw was Sister Regina and Mr. Olczak with their hands folded and their eyes closed, silently praying.

________

Every year in late October the various parish sodalities combined their efforts to put on an autumn bazaar. It was held on a Sunday after the second Mass, in Paderewski Hall. The ladies cooked and served a hearty dinner, made of donated foods from the fall crop: chickens, pies, vegetables and breads. The St. Joseph Society ran a booth where fancywork was sold—doilies and dresser scarves and embroidered dish towels, all displayed on wooden clothes racks. The Sacred Heart Society had a bake sale, and the Third Order of St. Francis put up a fishpond for the children. The Altar Society was in charge of the bingo game, most of the prizes donated by women who’d spent precious time making them. The Knights of Columbus operated a gambling wheel with bets placed on numbers laid out on the parapet next to the first-grade room. And on the west end of the school next to the boys’ bathroom the KC’s also had a beer garden.

It was there that Eddie was drinking his second bottle of Glueks when Romaine found him. They stood among a crowd of men, most of whom had shed their suit coats but still wore loosened neckties and felt dress hats. Eddie had rolled up his white shirtsleeves but kept his tie tightly knotted. Several of the men were smoking cigars and talking crops.

“So, how goes it, Ed?” Romaine asked.

Eddie took another swig of beer and stared across the hall while lowering the bottle.

“Lonely, Romaine, lonely.” He grimaced while answering.

“We’re going to the dance next Saturday. Six Fat Dutchmen are playing at the Clarissa Ballroom. Want to go?”

“Nah. It’s too soon.”

“You could get a baby-sitter. Do you good to get out maybe.”

“Nah. I’d rather stay home with the kids.”

“Okay, but I promised Irene I’d ask.”

“Irene?”

“Yeah, she said ask you if you were going, then she’d decide if she wanted to go or not.”

Eddie’s lips fluttered a little as he blew out a disdainful puff of air. “Irene,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

“She’s always liked you, Eddie.”

“Yeah, I know.” Eddie raised the bottle again. Above it he watched Irene place a kernel of corn on her bingo card on the other side of the hall. When he’d drained the bottle he set it on the table and said, “I don’t want to encourage her.”

“Irene’s a good egg. She just wants to help.”

“And she 
does
 help. Heck, I don’t know what I’d do without her. She drives in every morning to get the kids ready for school.”

For a while both men considered Irene. She’d had a new permanent and her hair was screwed up rather tight to her head. Her cheeks were florid and her breasts large, hanging over the table edge beside her pile of dried com.

“You know, Eddie, she misses Krystyna almost as much as you do.”

As if she felt his eyes on her, Irene looked up and caught Eddie watching her. The bingo caller announced, “N-thirty!” but she didn’t even check her card. “N-thirty!” the caller repeated, and Eddie knew what she was feeling, from clear across Paderewski Hall. He turned away and laid down a coin for another beer.

“I just don’t feel like dancing anymore,” he said.

Romaine caught him around the shoulders and said, “Okay, but let us know when you do.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Romaine drifted away and Eddie stood in a cloud of cigar smoke, finishing his beer. Anne and Lucy came up, breathless, and asked him for more money to play the fishpond. He gave them each four nickels and they pranced away with a gang of their cousins.

There were tables set up throughout the center of the hall, and his gaze wandered over them. Diners shifted, finishing their meals and leaving their wooden folding chairs askew between the tables. Though the Knights of Columbus were supposed to take care of the tables and chairs, this was Eddie’s bailiwick, and he reacted like a janitor, setting down his empty bottle and heading into the dining area, shoving chairs beneath tables as he went. In the far northwest comer, all the nuns were just seating themselves. They were invited as guests every year, getting their meal free and always occupying the same comer table nearest the door by which they’d entered.

He paid particular attention to Sister Regina. She’d been acting funny toward him for a couple of weeks now, ever since the day they’d put the sauerkraut in the basement. She was never in her room after school anymore when he went in to clean it, and he missed seeing her and chatting with her. Whenever they encountered each other in passing she refused to meet his eye, and once, when she’d seen him coming toward her down the hall, she’d done a quick turnaround and made a beeline for the girls’ lavatory. More troublesome was that peculiar reaction he’d noted when he took the rock from her in the basement. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was afraid of him. Why else would she have jumped that way? And afterward, when he’d looked up at her she was clutching her hand and looked scared to death. The change in her had him absolutely befuddled.

Watching the nuns now as they carried their plates to their table, he noticed they were short two chairs. Sister Dora and Sister Regina were left holding their plates without seats.

Eddie grabbed two chairs, clapped them shut and headed their way.

“Here you are, Sisters. Two chairs coming up!”

“Thank you, Mr. Olczak,” they all chorused as he seated Sister Regina first, then Sister Dora. When they were both seated, he asked the group at large, “Anything else I can do for you?”

Old Sister Ignatius, back from the hospital and enjoying this rare escape from cooking, replied, “Yes, Mr. Olczak, some coffee for me, if you don’t mind.” She tilted to the nun at her right and explained, “My hands were full.”

“Coming right up, Sister. Anyone else?” Some had coffee, some had not. “Sister Gregory? Sister Regina?”

Though Sister Gregory smiled and replied, “Yes, please, Mr. Olczak,” Sister Regina refused to look at him. She kept her eyes lowered and her chin on her chest.

“Coffee, Sister Regina?” he repeated, and she finally looked up.

And that’s when he knew.

It struck him like a broadside how she was blushing, how very red her cheeks were against the pure, stiff white of her wimple, and how she could not hold his gaze. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Olczak,” she nearly whispered, her glance skittering away self-consciously. She had always been demure in manner, keeping a proper distance, a soft voice and a retiring attitude. But today was different. Today she shied away like he’d sometimes seen Irene do. Just like that day in the basement. Just like a woman who’s battling a case of lovesickness.

But that can’t be,
 he thought. 
She’s a nun!

The possibility rattled him so badly that he ran off to fetch their coffee, with his heart thundering in his ears. “Three coffees for the nuns, Tillie!” he ordered, butting into line and forgetting to excuse himself.

What if the others saw her blush and grow flustered, and suspected the same thing he did? What would happen to her? He didn’t have any idea what they did to a nun if she got caught liking a man. Put into words, the idea seemed stupid. Preposterous! For of all the nuns he’d ever known she was the most prim and soft-spoken. She acted as if she was so happy with her life and at peace with herself—that’s why he’d always enjoyed being around her.

Suddenly he started worrying that he’d made some unintentional remark or gesture that she’d misread. But, no, he had always treated her with perfect respect, staying his distance and keeping any conversation really light and impersonal.

When he took the three cups of coffee back to their table, he intentionally set hers down first, then moved around the table with the others so he could look back at her.

“Now, Sisters, if you want anything else you just whistle,” he said, giving away none of the confusion he felt.

They all acknowledged him but Sister Regina. She kept her head averted, her eyes on her plate, and wiped her mouth on a paper napkin, as if she didn’t trust herself to catch his gaze.

Something inside Eddie went 
ka-wham!

And it wasn’t ego.

And it wasn’t virility.

It was just plain fear.

CHAPTER TEN

Immediately after the Sunday of the fall bazaar Eddie began doing two things: avoiding Sister Regina’s classroom until he was sure she was gone after school, and going to dances again. He hired a baby-sitter on Saturday nights and joined his brothers at whatever dance hall they were going to. Irene was always there. He danced with her occasionally, but mostly he stood by the bar with the men, drinking beer and comparing every woman he saw to Krystyna. They always came up lacking.

Sometimes on Sunday morning he’d have a headache, and it would be hard to get up in time to ring the early bells.

He thought about Sister Regina often and decided his suspicion was wrong. She couldn’t have a crush on him. It simply wasn’t in her nature. She was the most totally dedicated nun he’d ever known, almost angelic in her serenity, convincing him that she loved the life she led. That meant he must have done something to alienate her, and it bothered him considerably, wondering what it was.