Louise Erdrich - The Master Butcher's Singing Club

Maybe it was the pile of bills that had finally persuaded Fidelis, or that he could not pay Delphine for the hours she was working. Perhaps what had happened to Markus in the hill was the reason. Or the forehead of Emil, peppered with still healing dents made by a neighbor boy’s BB gun. Maybe it was Erich’s last fall off the roof, which laid him out cold for half an hour. Or the raft they had constructed of trash lumber, which had whirled them miles down last year’s spring river. Maybe it was all the clothing they needed and Fidelis could not afford. Their wristbones had grown past their sleeves. They were still in short pants, which galled Markus.

The plan for tomorrow was for everyone to drive down to Chicago in the DeSoto. Fidelis, Tante, and Delphine would ride in front. The boys in back. For three days, Franz would take care of the shop. They would leave in the middle of the night, get there in the morning and handle all of the passport proceedings and red tape with the consulate on that first and second day. On the third day, Tante and the boys and their luggage would board a train to New York City. The day after that, their ship embarked. They had reserved one cabin with an added floor pallet and a tiny window, luxurious according to the agent they had telephoned, and yet a bargain.

Delphine spooned more fruit onto the sopping bread. The brandy loosened her shoulders, but her face burned and a ringing started in her temples. She sealed the top of the crockery jar and decided that she would go home and get some rest. It felt as though she were dragging herself through an underwater atmosphere. As though she were suddenly twice as heavy. Added gravity. As she was washing her bowl and the rest of the dishes in the sink, she felt Markus enter the kitchen. She did not turn. He walked up behind her, as the boys often did when she was working at the stove. As always she pretended not to hear him, allowing him to draw very close to her.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Just washing dishes.”

He stood with her, watching her hands move in and out of the water and the suds. Delphine had noticed that there was something about a woman doing kitchen chores or standing at a stove that seemed to make boys feel safe. With her back turned, they would be apt to confide in her. They would stand right next to her while she was stirring or frying food and they would tell her things they’d never reveal if they were, say, sitting at a table across from her. Markus, especially, was apt to do this after his school day was ended. Delphine stirred soups endlessly and drew out her chores just to keep him talking — over potato soup he’d told her, for instance, that he’d got a Valentine once from the Ruthie who died in the cellar. And he’d also told her what it was like to sleep inside the hill. He told her some of his dreams, and he also, with a lonely eagerness, talked about his mother. And when he talked about Eva it was good for Delphine as well. Once she’d said, ladling out a bowl of dumpling soup, “Your mother taught me this recipe, but I’ll never make it like she did.”

“Yeah,” said Markus, “but yours is good, too.”

And when he’d said that, a rough emotion grabbed her throat, and she’d put her hand on his head, actually stroked his hair.

Now she was supposed to say good-bye.

“I’m going to send that soup recipe to your grandma. That soup you like so much,” she told him.

“Oh,” said Markus. “That’s good. Do they make good dumplings in Germany?”

“That’s where the dumpling was probably invented,” said Delphine. “Noodles, too, spaetzle, and they bake bread like nobody’s business. Your mother told me. She said they have a chocolate so dark it is almost black, that tastes of oranges. And they have this light cheese they spread on toasted rolls in the morning, and jams of all kinds. Marmalade. You ever have marmalade?”

“It’s on the store shelf.”

“I don’t like it, but she just swore by it. She said the marmalade they have over there comes from oranges in Spain. Not like the pitiful oranges here, she said, all rindy and full of seeds and too sweet. These Spanish oranges taste like bitter sunshine even preserved in sugar.”

“That sounds good,” said Markus, his voice clogged as if he was about to cry.

“I know it sounds like I’m hard-hearted, talking about marmalade when you’re leaving all the way to Germany,” said Delphine, turning to him. “I’m all broken up inside. I don’t want you to see it.”

She turned away and as she did so Markus put his head against the back of her arm, and leaned there. She did not move. There was a long sigh of quiet in the kitchen. He had chosen her, once again. At that moment, Delphine decided. He was hers. That was that. She would not let him go. It was just a matter of finding the right way to keep him, but she would do it. Tante hadn’t a chance.

Eventually, Markus grew embarrassed and moved off, wishing that he could speak, but unable to choose the right words. He started eating a cheese sandwich she put into his hand. Hypnotized by despair at the familiarity that he was soon going to lose, he chewed too quickly. He wanted to tell her that he could not go. Maybe even to beg her to hide him, or bring him home with her, or do something to persuade his father that this was a mistake. But his tongue was fat in his mouth, numb and stupid. The sandwich was dry and sticky all at once, and very difficult to eat. I’m just luggage getting moved from here to there, he thought. A thing that doesn’t matter. A stuffed pants and jacket. He couldn’t find the words to tell this to Delphine.

* * *

IN THE DEEP BLACKNESS, they loaded the car and the boys crawled sleepily into the backseat, collapsing immediately back into their slumber. Fidelis would take the first shift, driving, and so he got behind the wheel. Tante made certain she slipped into the middle seat, jostling Delphine aside in her haste to set herself next to her brother. Her sewing machine was latched in the trunk, nestled in its traveling case, crated besides so it would not suffer on the voyage. A small valise of her clothing was also set in the trunk, and her large black leather purse was secure in her lap. Tante was prepared. She had freshly aired and pressed her tough and shiny suit. She’d brought five boiled eggs in a sack — it hadn’t occurred to her to bring one for Delphine. But no one would notice the eggs, anyhow. Delphine had made sugar cookies in the shapes of animals, special for the boys, and she brought fried doughnuts, sausages, bread, hard cheese, apples, and a small insulated box that contained bottles of beer.

Delphine was wearing an ordinary suit and coat, but in a round green case she had brought along two changes of underclothing and her one smart wool suit with a pinched-in waist. The suit matched a hat with a curved green feather stuck in the band, a hat she could tilt rakishly over one eye. There was a short dotted veil inside the hat that she could put down if she wanted to look more coquettish yet. But she didn’t. She just wanted to get through the whole mess. While Tante and Fidelis wrangled papers and got passports cleared, her job would be to take the boys out to see the monumental sights of Chicago. After lunch, she switched places with Fidelis. Driving, she could concentrate silently on the road. The car’s atmosphere was gloomy. There was some cheer from Tante, but Delphine thought it morbid. The boys drowsed and drifted in sleep. The closer they got, the more Delphine felt that her appointed task — walking around with them looking at parks and historical markers and art museums — seemed about the grimmest, most upsetting thing she could think of to do. Once they were settled, she decided, they’d find a circus.

WE SPENT TWO DAYS feeding peanuts to the goddamn elephants , she would remember with Markus, later on. Because while Tante and Fidelis made their complicated arrangements, that’s where they were. At the beginning of the stay, Delphine went into a bookstore, consulted a guidebook, and marked out in her mind which educational sights they should supposedly be seeing. After she made the boys memorize facts about the sights, they went straight to the circus and spent the morning at the sideshow feeding the monkeys and elephants and talking to all of the attractions, who were on duty in their carts and behind their cages or on their little podiums, their placement depending on their oddity. Because it was a raw late winter day and there weren’t many gawkers, and because the boys were so obviously smitten with wonder, but mainly because Delphine liked to talk to people, they made friends.