Tiger Lillie (7 page)

“And then bullets rained in a brutal mist upon the masses gathered upon a pavement going crimson. And we fought.

“It was very far away from our little Sopron, but we heard about it in time to feel our hearts swell, to remember, even though I had been but a small child when the Soviets came, what our beloved Hungary had been. We had enough time to relight our lamps of hope, to dream again of a place where we would live in dignity and pride and freedom as true Hungarians.”

Luca squelches a sob. Babi lays a hand between her shoulders.

“And”—my mother focuses on each one gathered there amid the bamboo torches, looking each one in the eyes—“we had enough time to feel as though our hearts would break beneath the crushing weight of a disappointment you cannot, here in freedom, imagine, when we heard the news at the beginning of November that the revolutionary forces were squelched. That great Russian tanks came rolling in. That aid was sought from the West. That no help came. That we had been left alone, David against an army of Goliaths.”

The Red Army was endless. For every man killed, another one was shoved in line. And another and another. When the Berlin Wall fell, I must say, I was more relieved than anybody I knew outside of my family. Cristoff understood though. And of course, Teddy picked me up, twirled me around and gave a good long hoot. That night, we french kissed for the first time. We were seventeen.

My Uncle Jimmy pours more wine and we await the next part of the tale, the part that still tints my life here in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, the part that ended up inside of my stomach years before as a swollen, abrading question mark.

“I had a friend. Her name was Fruzsina.”

Her name is still Fruzsina and she lives up in New Jersey with a guy named Tony. She won’t marry him. She’s rich and she can’t stand his kids, and “There’s no way those brats are going to get one penny of mine. Not a single penny.” She married well the first time when she came to America.

“One night we knew it was time to leave Hungary. Students from the nearby university, where my father had taught, were mowed down during a peaceful demonstration. We stole a bicycle from the people who lived below us. Fruzsina sat on the seat and I stood in front of her, working the pedals. Austria was only a few kilometers away. It was a cold, wet night. I left a note for Grandma Erzsèbet and I kissed Babi and Luca”—my aunts nod some more—“and I told them to be strong and to stay on their cot. I knew they would. They were such good girls back then.”

My uncles both bark out a laugh.

“The moon was hidden by clouds and we set out in the middle of the night. No one followed. No one heard us as we rode along a seldom-used footpath between dormant fields. I prayed inside of my soul, ‘Oh, God,’ I prayed. ‘Let us arrive safely. Please.’ An hour later, when the bicycle bounced over the border and into Austria, we were free. Free at last!”

I clap with joy, tears painting my cheeks. Everybody claps. What Mom doesn’t say is that her drawers were soaking wet when they got off that bicycle, she was so scared. Some years she tells of the young Austrian couple who gave them shelter. But not this year.

Grandma Erzsèbet, Babi and Luca, and my uncle Istvàn, who had made his way back home during the revolution, escaped two weeks later to join Katherina. The Bajnoks were free.

Every year I gaze upon my mother in wonder and feel my soul gape open, my legs dangling inside the chasm of my own fears, my doubts that if it had been up to me, these precious women would have never crossed the border.

Uncle Istvàn is dead now. I remember his funeral two years ago on the eastern shore of Maryland. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a professor of agriculture at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. I remember thinking of all he had survived only to die of an aneurysm.

He died a free man. That is what he would say if you could ask him about it. Not that we can really comment on our deaths. Can you imagine what one might say?

Well, now. I suppose, now that I’ve been through it, and I’ve seen how unimportant most of my opinions were, or rather, the matters I chose to have an opinion on were so frivolous and ridiculous, for example, why I cared so much that my church had a drum set or that young men not get tattoos, I would have chosen a much different approach. I died in my opinions. And they gave me no comfort at all.

I can see Rawlins coming to that conclusion.

Well, maybe not.

How about my father? He’d say, “Well, naturally, beyond the obvious rewards of a life of faith, I gambled on the value of a good marriage and it paid off. Yes, I’m dead now, but Kathy was right there, holding my hand as I left, kissing my lips as I drew my final breath. And maybe I didn’t save the world, maybe I only really helped a handful of people see things more clearly, but in the end, I died in love.”

Me? What will I say? Well, let’s face it. It’s always easier to project for someone else. All I know is this: I’m not ready to talk about my death, because I don’t know what this life is really about yet. Oh yeah, glorify God and enjoy Him forever and all. Sure. But how to do that? That’s the biggie, isn’t it? And sometimes, I think it’s the “enjoy” part that really trips me up. Who am I to enjoy the almighty Creator of heaven and earth? Huh? Tell me that.

4

Tacy

I hated lying to my mother, but there was nothing else to be done. How could I tell her I’d already been dating Rawlins for two years? As Rawlins said, we’d never get their blessing on our relationship if they found out we’d been forced to keep things a secret for so long. I kept wondering, though, if the blessing would actually mean anything with two years of deception as our foundation. Of course, Rawlins did have a point when he said that, being my intended, he was the head of our “household” and as such, I could follow his lead without worry. God would judge him, not me, and he was willing to bear the responsibility, if indeed, what we’d done was truly deception. “Think of Rahab, the harlot, dear one. Now there’s someone who kept a secret.”

“She lied, “Rawlins.”

“Yes, She did. And God used that lie, didn’t He? Who are we to question His dealings?”

That sounded a little weird, only I didn’t know why exactly or what to say because what happened at Jericho happened, and the Bible never editorialized word one about Rahab’s lie to the soldiers of the town. No, Rahab was only praised and given the immense privilege of being an ancestor of Christ. See, things like that in the Bible confused me. I thought of Joseph’s brothers selling him as a slave and how the Bible said, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” And it didn’t say God allowed it for good, it said meant. As in, “I meant to do that” or “I meant to say that.” Purposeful. And that confused me. I struggled so much with the good and evil and God questions. And Rawlins was no help there. He told me to leave the spiritual aspects of life to him. But people have always struggled with that, for thousands of years, and not one person has come up with the defining answer. At least I didn’t. Or Rawlins either. As I lay in my bed, knowing I’d introduce Rawlins to Mom and Dad the next day, performing the role of my life, I realized that in the end you accepted God as the truly indefinable being He is, or you muddled along in frustration. I never thought He ever expected us to stop wondering though. I really didn’t, despite What Rawlins said. “God doesn’t mind our questions,” Dad always told us. “And He is more than capable of rendering an obvious scenario, obliterating the need for faith altogether.” I looked out my bedroom window at the dome of the night blue sky and saw something beyond fathoming but so worthy of the pursuit.

Being called Rawlins’s “intended” also did something for me. I knew then our relationship was destined for permanency. Of course, he reminded me that my lie to him started the whole ball rolling.

A week later, as we sat out on the brick patio behind the manse, Mom and Dad fooled blind, Rawlins said, “You’re so beautiful and sweet and trusting, Anastasia. You’d be an easy target for someone who wants nothing more than to take advantage of you.”

“Yes, Rawlins, I know.”

“Predators take many shapes, dear one.” That’s what he said.

Lillie

We try our best at Extremely Odd to blend in with the occasion. I should have asked Pleasance to pencil on my eyeliner, but she was so busy readying the female attendants, dressed like priestesses, that I did it myself. One line meanders upward from my eye, the other wanders downward, lending me an air of confused surprise. And no matter how hard I tried, each attempt worsened the effect. At least the tunic flows loose and comfortable, hiding my padded hips a bit.

I don’t really think of myself as an Egyptian princess, but more like Memnet, the nursemaid to Charlton Heston in
The Ten Commandments.
Oh my, when she pulls out that bit of Levi cloth and shows it to Nefertiri, my heart always stops. Poor Memnet. All that dedication only to end up falling from a high porch. There’s thanks for you.

Patrice Winslow wanted a dawn wedding. I tried to talk her out of it, the possible, horrible scenarios too numerous to voice, not to mention the one a.m. rising time for us. And considering she is marrying into the family of one of the biggest liquor distributorships on the East Coast, it isn’t surprising to see the groom now, dressed like Pharaoh, hurling the contents of his stomach behind the set. I doubt if he and his men even went to bed. And the nightmare begins.

“So let it be written, so let it be done.”

I’m sure we all pictured Yul Brynner, and only a nauseated guy in a diaper fills the role.

It will all be over by two o’clock, I remind myself as I run over to him with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Tear down. Clean up. The whole mystic setup carted away in trucks back down to The Everyman Theater, which went halvesies with us on the pyramid since they’ll be doing
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
next season.

Cristoff runs over, dressed in a tunic like mine. No eyeliner for him though. He vowed never to wear makeup again after he decided he loved Jesus more than Bradley and the others, sold his florist shop in Chelsea, and moved back to Baltimore, me, and a church full of happy old ladies in housecoats and knee-high pantyhose down on Erdman Avenue. They’re so tickled to have a young man in their midst, one who sings baritone in the choir, provides flowers free of charge each Sunday, and is always the first visitor when one of them has a stint in Bay View Hospital or Franklin Square. Say what you want about gay men, but they sure do have a mind for details others don’t.

“The flowers look wonderful, honey!”

Cristoff never hears compliments when he’s upset. And judging by the way he points to the two greyhounds we rented for the occasion from some greedy breeder at an astronomical price, he’s angrier than poison ivy. The dogs, erect and alert, sit by the stairs leading up to a small platform at the base of the pyramid. Patrice Winslow requested they be dyed black to look like jackals, but after careful research and an “Absolutely not!” from the owner, not to mention a vision of myself scrubbed to a Rexy Van Bibber gray after the dying process, I gladly refused. This breed, Egyptian in origin, has been around for at least twenty-five hundred years, was mentioned in Song of Solomon, and, darn it, if it was good enough for those people, it sure as heck was good enough for Patrice Winslow and her “priestesses.”

“Those awful dogs are peeing all over the arrangements by the steps,” Cristoff says. “They’ve even whizzed on the pyramid.”

“I told Patrice it was risky, but she insisted.” Sometimes you just have to lay the blame where it belongs and work from there. “How are the attendants?”

“Perfect. The larkspur garlands around their necks are the
pièce de résistance.”

“Well, consider the source of inspiration, honey.” And I hug Cristoff. He didn’t get many hugs as a little guy so I give him all the hugs I can.

He kisses my cheek. “All in all, I think it’s going well.”

“Two minutes to show time.”

You know, every once in a while I schedule time to watch a talk show, and I hear all this “positive thinking” stuff I call “hope speak.” Now, I can appreciate the fact that without visualization nothing can be a reality.

But.

Sometimes things you never begin to visualize appear, dreadfully real, horribly unexpected. I see the cat. Darn it, I see a cat.

Just as the morning sun gets a leg up over the horizon and its first beam reflects off some New Age, pyramid-shaped crystal Patrice brought back from a trip to only the Lord knows where; just as the attendants file in two by two with flowing, iridescent robes and extended arms supporting shallow, golden bowls of flower petals; just as the groom, corners of his mouth blushing with carnation pink crescent moons of Pepto-Bismol, takes his place on the platform, his feet spread, going for…yep, Yul Brynner; just as Patrice, in full Nefertiri garb, complete with jangling headdress and shining collar, appears from the patio doors; just as the crystal shines a beam of light so brilliant the guests inhale simultaneously (oh, the precise measurements required to set it up and the price paid for an astronomer to do the calculations!); just as the scene fills so gloriously pregnant with the glorious, inevitable gloriousness of Egypt and its glorious mysteries (yeah, right, I know); two flea-bitten strays in search of that cat tear into the serenity, barking like crazy, and run by the greyhounds, who begin snarling and pulling at the golden chains I’d spray-painted the day before.

Guess the gods weren’t looking down in favor on this union. Or who knows? Maybe unexpected cats bring good luck and a happy life after crossing the River Styx. Maybe the appearance of stray dogs at your wedding gives you a free pass on Charon’s boat.

This is great. Just great.

“Do something!” Patrice’s father bellows from the confines of his tuxedo. (No flowing robes for
him
, thank you, Patrice, and I’ll thank you not to tell your father what to wear.)

But I’m already springing forward, a butterball in flowing robes. Bounding up to the platform, I grab the golden staff of the translucent, New Age “guy” (does one call them priests?) ready to conduct the ceremony, and I chase the strays into the woods behind the estate house, a weald thriving with thorns and sticks. Bugs too.

Oh man, I hate bugs. Teddy always killed the spiders for me.

But, all of this, no match for a Strong Hungarian Woman, right? Well, think again.

I emerge as the couple mumbles their personally written vows, which were cornier than Wordsworth. Ruffled enough to resemble some odd Celtic woodland deity, I shuffle at the rear of the gathering, and no one notices, thank goodness, except Mr. Winslow, who gives me a slow, appreciative nod.

Why didn’t I remember to bring Bactine?

Tacy

I walked with Rawlins into our church. I was always so proud of Saint Stephen’s—its robust stone exterior, its curious little bell tower—but Rawlins, who had a thing against Catholicism and actually the whole liturgical tradition, made me unsure. The sun pierced the day too brightly and my smile felt like I’d buttered it on while I fixed my toast that morning.

Afterward he drove me to the restaurant where we all were meeting for dinner. “I’m glad you’re a preacher’s daughter, Anastasia,” he said.

Priest, I thought, he’s a priest.

“It’s plain to see your father is the driving spiritual force of your home, which, I assure you, will be the way our home will be run. The Bible is clear about wives submitting to their husbands.”

I felt a frigid hand clutch my stomach. Mom and Dad were loving partners, and the whole submission thing didn’t come up often. But Rawlins just took my left hand and kissed the ring finger and said, “The Bible also tells husbands to love their wives even as Christ loved the church and gave His life for it.”

Then he kissed my eyelids and said, “I would die for you, Anastasia. I would lay down my life for you.”

I knew I’d never find another guy like him.

He’s screaming now, though, and it’s chilling my blood.

Lillie

“Thank God,” Mr. Winslow says with a charming smile and a shake of his bald head once the loaded trucks pull away and his stately manner settles back into the relaxed ease it possessed before we arrived to begin setup. “Those dogs gave us at least one moment of normal!”

I laugh. The fathers always crack me up. They rarely understand their daughters, but the fact that they go along with their crazy schemes puts them high up on my scale of good parenting.

He rips out the check from the large binder on his desk and tosses his pen onto the blotter. “Patrice has always been a little, well…extreme.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. That’s what we’re all about.”

“Well, I don’t know whether I should begrudge your company for giving her the opportunity for an offbeat wedding like this, or if I should praise you for it.” He hands me the check.

“What did she say to you before she rode off in that chariot?” It took me five weeks to find that darned chariot.

“She said, ‘Daddy, today was a dream come true.’”

I fold the check and stuff it in my Day-Timer, thanking God the office rent will soon be paid and we are solvent for another month. “I guess that says it all.”

Mr. Winslow escorts me to my car. “Nice wheels, Miss Bauer. Your business is doing well, then?”

“Oh, me and my Uncle Jimmy fixed this thing up together a few years ago. But as far as the business…we started about a year ago. Thought we’d have more clients by now…but we’re surviving. I can’t complain too much when I still look forward to work each morning.”

“This a ’63?”

“Sure is. Good eye, Mr. Winslow.”

He whistles low. “I’ve always loved this one. Can I take her for a quick spin?”

“Only if I can come along with you. Not that I don’t trust you, Mr. Winslow. I just hardly ever get to ride shotgun.”

I know I’ll look back on this moment for years to come, the day the founder of Baltimore Financial took me for a spin in my own car.

A long evening lies ahead of Mr. Winslow, a widower with only Patrice in his quiver. I figure rambling around in that big house all alone is the last thing a nice elderly gentleman like him needs today.