Louise Erdrich - The Master Butcher's Singing Club

Wasn’t this the perfect solution, if she looked at it objectively? Wasn’t this exactly what she’d have wanted if she could have solved the impasse she and Cyprian had found themselves in the night before? She did not love Cyprian, and even though his sudden defection stunned her, it was definitely better that he found someone else. A burden had been lifted. She already felt lighter. The scene with the man in the park, he and Cyprian twining almost invisibly in the dark, flashed before her. If that happened, she thought, so be it. Certainly not her problem anymore. The situation even contained an element of its own revenge. Delphine knew herself well enough to understand that, contradictory though it was, she’d need to comfort herself occasionally with the thought of the difficulty that Clarisse faced in loving Cyprian Lazarre. And vice versa, she thought, too, recalling the red bead dress.

CLARISSE ALWAYS LEFT out things that had more use in them. Carelessly packed in boxes, sacks, or tied in old skirts, they made a tumbled pile on her back porch. Step-and-a-Half was prompt and regular in her visits to gather what was left. Sometimes the castoffs were of a quality that she could sell, like the glitter dress all hung with red beads. She’d found the dress some time ago, wrapped with newspaper, tied with string. The dress had some dirt on it, as though it had been in the ground and dug up, of all things, but the garment was perfectly fine once Step-and-a-Half aired it out, picked away the grains of dirt, sponged down the fabric with a fine soap. Step-and-a-Half had got three dollars for the dress from a lady who came traveling through with her husband, a man who dealt in scrap metals. No, Clarisse had been a lucrative source, a discarder of valuable rubbish, although sometimes Step-and-a-Half wondered whether some of the things — the hats, the shoes, even items that Step-and-a-Half ended up using herself — might have belonged to the dead people Clarisse fixed up in Strub’s basement.

Just after dawn, on the back porch, Step-and-a-Half found a trove. Pots, pans, a whole set of kitchenware, a very good carving knife. Step-and-a-Half gathered up her finds and brought them back to the little room behind her shop that she used for sorting her pickings. She scoured the knife clean and placed it among her own cooking implements. Then she went through the rest of the objects, frowning with critical attention and testing the strength of handles and weighing the heaviness of the pots in her hands. After she had decided what to do with all she’d found, Step-and-a-Half treated herself to a breakfast of chicken wings, a pile of hardtack, and a wrinkled carrot. As she chewed, she assessed the bolts of fabric that surrounded her — the calicos and broadcloth, the light and heavy woolens. She wanted to give a present to a person she thought deserved it.

Once she’d finished her meal, Step-and-a-Half pulled forth a length of heavy cotton printed with stripes, but then shook her head and replaced it. She turned aside from the flowered prints altogether after a few moments of thoughtful attention. No, they weren’t at all right. The wools were better, warmer, for skirts. The linen would do for a blouse. That way the top could easily be washed, and the linens wore very well, she was told. She tested a heavy butter-colored fabric with the tips of her fingers, and then smiled at the texture of a very pale blue. This blue was the color of the palest sky on a cloudless November day, a watered blue just a shadow brighter than gray. And the subtle plaid in the brown woolen, just the slightest hint of gold and yellow in the blue and green weaving, would be perfect for Mazarine’s hair. She nodded, putting the fabrics on the broad table fitted with a yardstick tacked tightly to the near edge.

The Christmas sun came bitter through the window, just a ray or two played across the frozen fronds of ice. The little potbellied stove cast out a steady heat from the tiny room just in back where Step-and-a-Half did her account books and wrote out new orders. For a collector of scraps and town remnants and discards, Step-and-a-Half had extremely fastidious personal habits. She was, in fact, the influence on Roy that had caused him to clean his jail cell the year before and effected such a surprising alteration in his standards. Around Step-and-a-Half, Roy had to blow his nose on a real handkerchief, wipe his lips on a real napkin, and excuse himself when he made rude noises. Fortunately, she herself was a snorer and used to vast sounds occurring in her sleep — the windows rattled in the store when they slept there, he on the floor and she in the little cot bed, but they dreamed in black unawareness.

Step-and-a-Half lowered her eagle’s face to glare at the fine expanse of the cloth now. She adjusted the angle of the fabric just so, then hefted an extremely sharp pair of shears with painted black handles and made the first cut, which she followed with a steady concentration until she’d lopped off the perfect length. She folded the soft plaid wool, then measured and cut the two pastel linens. Last, in a kind of reckless gesture, she swore hard and swiped down, from a side shelf that featured her most luxurious materials, a figured midnight blue satin that she herself found irresistible. Every woman who spent any time at all in the shop, poring thoughtfully over fabrics, stopped before this fabulous satin and fantasized, she could see, herself in a gown made out of it. An evening gown — though where could it be worn, here, in this town? A nightgown, then. Something so warm and cool at once, so understated, so exquisite that fingers couldn’t help extending and stroking and figuring and then, with a regretful sigh, rejecting.

Step-and-a-Half cut a dress length off quickly, before she could argue herself out of it. She laid it on the counter along with some colored threads, pursed her lips, set examples of buttons against the plaid and the linens, and added those along with the rest in a little bag. Lastly, she put some ribbons in. Hair ribbons for a girl. She wrapped the package up in plain brown kraft paper and thin string, then bundled on her coat. Pulled on a man’s fur-lined leather hat, mitts, slipped her feet into rough boots, and banged out the door with the package underneath one arm. She was muttering, irritated with herself for thinking of this much too late. If she’d only thought of it yesterday, she could have dropped it off in the cover and comfort of her favorite time of the night.

DECEMBER’S FUGITIVE thaw turned into implacable cold; the wind brought on a headache as a person walked outside. In her room, far from the stove, Delphine slept under every quilt in the house and when she got out of bed she immediately put on a set of wool long johns underneath her skirt. She wore her coat in the house. Now, she was standing near the stove, bundled up, peeling potatoes for a potato pie. Thinking of browning a lump of uncased sausage she’d brought home from the shop. Maybe an onion, if they weren’t all sprouted. Suddenly the door banged open and then shut on an icy blast of air. Roy rolled into the house shedding his padded woolen coat and unwrapping two knitted scarves from his head.

“Murder and mayhem,” Roy announced in an aghast voice. “Terrible doings. Clarisse under suspicion!” He nodded to Delphine, as though, since she was Clarisse’s friend, she should know all the details. Then he continued to speak in newspaper headlines. “Whole town in shock. Sheriff found stabbed!”

Roy sat down at the kitchen table, his mouth agape. He shook his head in bewildered protest. “Hock,” he stated, as though trying to persuade himself. Then wonderingly, he said again, “Hock. Of all people!”

Delphine held up the peeler, riveted in shock. She stared at her father as though he’d suddenly spoken fluent French or grown a hoof.