The Hidden Letters of Velta B. (39 page)

You stood with Mother, Ligita, Father, and me, and you watched and listened from the side of the lane: first one horse was carried off, and then the next, and then the next. What we couldn't see you narrated for us: the dismount of the stallion from the roof of the car to the sled, the pull of the sled, the strain on the harness, the triumphant moment when the first, the second, and then the third stallions were placed in their proper spots.

Owing to the great quantity of water standing about in the fields and on the Zetsches' drive, it was tricky convincing the fourth horse to stay upright. It had been sculpted to look as if it were in perpetual flight as none of its hooves actually touched the ground; a stout pole, one end affixed to its belly and the other to a small pedestal set in concrete, held it in place.

And, you told us, they finally arrived with the fifth horse. By this time, the sky had lightened to a slate gray.

We exhaled a collective sigh.

Then, from the direction of the Zetsche property, we all heard a loud blast. It was a sound we knew well: Mr. Zetsche firing his rifle.

You bolted from your seat. “Uncle!” you cried, as you ran out the door.

We heard them before we saw them: Rudy shouting epithets at the top of his lungs, “Bastard! Bastard!” and then Joels and Big Semyon carrying Rudy through the drizzle. Rudy's face was a whitish gray like birch bark. Dr. N. hurried behind, his black medical bag in one hand, a bottle of vodka in the other.

They carried Rudy to the kitchen table and laid him on it. Mother set a pot on the stove to boil. She put her palms on the stove's frame and leaned heavily against it. She couldn't bring herself to look at Rudy, to look at all that blood. Better to keep busy; that was the rule she lived by. And it was a rule I lived by, too. I could not carry his pain; I could not do a thing to bring comfort. But I could locate clean linens, salt, gauze. It was Ligita who patted his hand, whispered tender encouragement while Joels and Big Semyon held him down.

“Drink this,” Dr. N. instructed, as Ligita propped Rudy's head up. “It will help with the pain.”

It was unusual for this kind of procedure to be done in a home, but as Dr. N. explained, it was either here in the kitchen or at the clinic. As the tools and procedures would be precisely the same, there was really no point in moving Rudy if it wasn't absolutely necessary. And, of course, if he went to the clinic, there'd be paperwork, questions, and a hefty bill.

It took one bottle of vodka for Rudy and one for his leg, but finally Dr. N. dug out the bullet. Rudy gritted his teeth and kept his gaze locked on Ligita through all the sterilizing, digging, and bandaging. “You have beautiful ankles,” he murmured at one point, though I noticed his gaze had traveled considerably higher to her bosom.

“It's not perfect,” Dr. N. said to Mother, as he washed his hands in the sink. “It would have been better to do this at the clinic, but it will do.”

Mother didn't say a word, only leaned against her stove, which clattered and trembled.

Infection set in within nightfall. Rank and putrid, the odor of decay filled the room where Rudy lay. And just as Uncle Maris's leg had turned as black as oxblood so did Rudy's in five days. It was clear, even to him, what had to happen next. “Just do it quickly and cleanly,” he said to Mother.

We could not risk the chance of yet another infection. This time Dr. N. insisted on moving Rudy to his lab. As he had before, Vanags lent the use of his car. As Joels and Vanags loaded him in, Rudy could not have been any paler. His hands trembled; his whole body shook. I know that Father wanted to be with his son, but he could not get out of bed. The events of the last five days had beaten him down, and you agreed to stay behind with Father.

“Blood is just so loud,” you said.

“Wear your earmuffs,” I told you, and without another word, you complied.

Mother, Ligita, and I followed the Pobeda. The sky, that storehouse of water upon water, opened up its floodgates. Rain beat us into the mud. Vanags drove slowly over the lanes so as not to jostle Rudy.

We arrived at Dr. N.'s, and the men carried Rudy inside. Joels would give his blood, and Vanags would lend some of his. We women waited in the corridor. We cleaned windows. We sorted Dr. N.'s laundry. We watched the sky. On her hands and knees, Mother pushed the mud down Dr. N.'s back steps. The water was rising quietly and steadily as the rain fell in an unbroken shower of gray and silver. Needles sewing our world to water. Dr. N. had located morphine and this was a great mercy. No one should have to hear the sound of their own bones being sawn in half. This was why Mother hummed loudly and constantly as she cleaned. A mother shouldn't hear the bones of her son being sawn in half. Nor a wife. Ligita joined in, her humming a rattling buzz in the back of her throat.

When it was over, Rudy lay still. He did not move, did not wake as Vanags and Joels carried him to the car. During the slow drive home through the drizzle, we thought we heard groaning, but Mother kept a tune steady. Through it all, the rain never stopped.

Time slows, stops, moves backward when sickness takes over a family, a room, a body. Rudy babbled. Some of the information was useful. At last we learned which of his friends had thrown that brick at the Zetsches' mansion. Other information, less so. The anecdotal accounts of his days at university, the forays into the forest, how many times and with which girls, who needs to know? And then about prison. This is what put Mother's head in the oven.

“It's enough, son,” Father said, passing a palm over his forehead. “Rest.”

Father prayed for Rudy; I prayed for Rudy. For two days Dr. N. did not report to the clinic. Instead, he paced in our kitchen, drinking most of the vodka.

Mother wanted to sing. I could see it in her eyes: a silent search for the right words. But what tune do you carry, what song is there, for times like these? We waited, not moving, not talking for a day, then another day. And on the third day we knew: infection. Again. And this I believe is what undid Father. For his own sake, he had run head-on toward death, but death wouldn't take him. Death wanted his son. But Father wouldn't have it. And so he wrestled hour after hour for the life of his son. Father took that infection inside his own blood and fought with it. Rudy's skin burned hot; Father's skin burned hotter. Rudy soaked three sheets; Father soaked four. Rudy kept a steady murmur of strange songs; Father recited passages from First Corinthians. Love bears no record of wrongs. In its weary bones love carries those wrongs, hoists them upon stooped shoulders, and bears them away. Because love can and wants to do it.

On the fifth day heavy silence filled our house. Rudy and Father were sleeping hard. Fighting death had worn Father down; his skin turned white and his face bore long creases deeper than any of those furrows men get from working outside in all kinds of weather.

Toward evening came a knock at the door. Mother went to the door and opened it slowly.

Mr. Zetsche stood on our porch, his felt hat in hand.

Mother remained on the threshold. She did not greet him, did not invite him inside.

“I came by to say how sorry I am. I only meant to frighten, you see, because we've had so much trouble at our place. And I just thought . . .”

“Yes.” Mother's voice was as dull as a worn pan.

“And it was still dark and with all that rain . . . I didn't mean, you see.” Mr. Z. worked the band of the hat. “Can I speak with him?”

Mother glanced over her shoulder toward the back room. Rudy was murmuring the words to an old song—a dirty one, incidentally—while Father intoned passages from Isaiah.

“It's not the best of times,” Mother said.

The hat traveled a slow rotation between Mr. Zetsche's hands. “Oh. I understand,” he said at last.

I'
M GLAD TO SEE THAT YOU KEPT
records of everything Stanka brought during those difficult days: lemons and ginger root for Rudy and sumac berries for Father. I don't believe that she's ever written down any of her home remedies, neither how the herbs and roots and strange lotions were prepared nor in what doses and with what frequency they were to be administered. As you remarked in your Book of Wonder, she delivered her instructions in such a way
(Drink this. Do it! Rub this on your chest. Right now; put this under your tongue, but for God's sake don't swallow it)
that banished any doubt as to their efficacy. And when people are sick, sometimes the best medicine is a strong voice telling them what to do, though I seem to recall your grandfather confiding to Joels that he had liked Stanka better when she had come around only to drink all our milk.

Stanka also brought the latest reports from the river, all of which you verified. I suppose her accounts of the water moving with such force that it gouged small chunks out of the Riviera's exposed foundation convinced me to tuck Velta's letters, your Book of Wonder, and a few photos behind the oven in the hall. It was the highest and driest place I could think of. Dr. N.'s barn was two-thirds underwater. He put a halt to the Joyous Bovines experiment in order to outfit the cows in their buoyancy suits. I know Dr. N. was grateful for your help; not every ten-year-old can slick a small herd in vegetable oil and wriggle them into full-body floatation devices.

About this time, Joels carried Mr. Ilmyen to our house. And this seemed to revive Father a little. His eyes brightened as Joels deposited Mr. Ilmyen onto the cot next to Father's bed. The chess set was laid out on the night table wedged in between the cot and the bed.

Mr. Ilmyen moved a pawn. “Faith is like a marriage. It surprises; it disappoints. Then it surprises again.”

“No,” Father said. “It is an infection.” Father castled his king.

Mr. Ilmyen moved a bishop, putting Father into check. “Then may we never recover,” he said softly.

That night Father called me to his side. You sat on the edge of the bed, your grandfather's hand in yours. Father pointed to the Bible that lay open at the foot of his bed.

“Ezekiel. Forty-seven,” he rasped. You read: “And he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.”

Father laid a hand on his chest. “The waters are rising inside. Listen.” And you laid your ear to Father's chest. And then Father recited from Psalms.

Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing;

I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

I recognized this one not because I had a memory like Father's, but because it was one of the strange ones that Grandmother Velta had copied out in her letters. It didn't seem so strange to me now.

You kept your ear to Father's chest. Rain pecked at the roof, made music in the eaves. “It is raining inside this psalm,” Father said. “And you”—he turned his head toward me—“are a girl made of silver strands. And you.” Father turned to Rudy. “You are iron and stone fitly welded. But your true strength . . .” He lifted his finger in Ligita's direction.

Then he called Mother. It was hard work for him to breathe. He had to rest in between his words. “Have I done enough?”

Mother touched his arm so gently it hurt to watch. “You did enough. Rest.”

Again you bent over Father, pressed your ear to his chest.

Your ears burned bright red, glowing as you listened to Father laboring for each breath. “Do not be afraid,” you whispered. And then Father was gone.

That night Joels cut the boards while Rudy supervised from a wooden folding chair. Long shearing wails rose from the skill saw. Joels's rich baritone filled the spaces in between the passes of the saw. “When all is in the crapper, think of us.” His new jingle for Chem-Do Dry Toilets. By morning, the coffin was ready. Joels and Buber went to the cemetery and dug a hole next to Uncle Maris. They had to work fast. Rain had fallen all night long, and the river had crept up to the edge of our property. When they were done, Joels rang up Vanags, who came around with the Pobeda. They folded down the seats and left the hatch open, and in this way, the car that had previously been an ambulance was now a hearse. Mother, Ligita, you, and I trudged through the mud in our rubber boots. There had not been time enough to chisel a headstone. We'd have to use a simple wooden cross held together with twine.

Though Father had been a quiet man, he'd made many friends over the years. At the cemetery the widows Sosnovskis and Spassky huddled beneath a yellow umbrella shaped like a tulip. The Lee and Lim families, the Arijisnikovs, the Gipsises, and even the families who had argued most bitterly over where their plots lay came to pay their respects. And Mrs. Ilmyen. She stood by Rudy and me. “Your father solved many difficult mysteries.” Her voice was a low hum, sounding like a wire stretched tightly. “He understood how to live.” Mrs. Ilmyen turned and headed back to the cluster of dark shapes standing just beyond the low stone wall: Big Semyon, Jutta, Little Semyon. This is how we learned that Mr. Ilmyen had also passed in the night.