Louise Erdrich - The Master Butcher's Singing Club

Everyone nodded, but no one answered for fear of setting him off on some other open-ended, infinite topic. “Nothing,” he said, pulling his nose. “God made schnapps for a reason and one reason only. He left a hole in us. Yes, He left a hole when He molded us from the clay. A cup. And then He felt sorry for us and He gave us fermented spirits to pour in the cup. Why do you think they’re called spirits ?” He looked around fiercely. “Think about it.” They all should have known that Roy was heading for a relapse.

Gradually, first with small trickles of beer and then in an increasingly fabulous wash, Roy proceeded to fill the emptiness again with his favorite substance. He often lied to his daughter about working with Step-and-a-Half, when he was really swigging away down at the bum’s jungle or sitting on the back steps of the pool hall (he was not allowed inside anymore), or he was somewhere else, anywhere that would have him, getting juiced to the gills.

Hoping to keep Delphine unaware, as well as avoid another series of visits from the unruly dead, the drunk Roy stayed away from his house. The spirits of the piteous Chavers family left him alone as long as he avoided the scene of their undoing. He was still able to sober himself up for two or three days each week, and on those days he stayed with Delphine and was, perhaps, overly solicitous. He cooked heavy breakfasts and washed his own clothing. He scrubbed floors. It was his absence and his homely industry then, an exact pattern she’d never known in him, that kept Delphine in the dark for such a long time. She only discovered the truth once she returned from Chicago and started to look for work.

Delphine hurried over to Step-and-a-Half’s shop the next morning. Outside, on the skim of concrete and the beaten dirt of the entry, an arrangement of butter churns, their paddles worn by female hands, listed slightly one to the next. She stepped around washtubs, an old iron mangle, chipped jars, and dented or bunged pots. Eyed an array of gap-toothed rakes, dulled hoes, brooms worn to the binding of the straw. The spill of junk into the street, which Step-and-a-Half didn’t always bother to bring inside at night, was meant to entice customers. Instead, the stuff made a barrier that either tripped people or sent them off the walk into the street to skirt the mess. Delphine entered with the hope that she could have Tante’s old position, but she took a small step backward when the junk picker leaned across the scarred wood of the counter.

“Tante’s old job? I gave her a job because I felt sorry for that bag of bones. Why is it you high and mighties from the butcher shop always come to me?”

Delphine folded her arms. “Forget it, then! You could sure use me around this place, but I’m not going to beg to sell your ratty old crap.”

“That’s more like it!”

Step-and-a-Half smiled to herself and put a toothpick in her mouth. Cigarettes were becoming scarcer, expensive. The roll-your-own bags of Bull Durham made harsh smokes and she’d started chewing toothpicks instead of lighting up around the precious fabrics because the wools, especially, absorbed the stink. She began to shred the toothpick with her teeth. From time to time her eye opened wide to fix Delphine in a light of intrigue. At last she spoke.

“You don’t need the work. You should just get away from that damn old drunk. Leave him to pickle. You could go anywhere and get away from him. The whole damn town feels sorry for you.”

“What do you know about it?” Delphine was furious now.

“I know plenty,” said Step-and-a-Half. “I kicked him out of here just yesterday, soaked.”

“He’s not drinking!”

“Your head’s in the dirt. He’s an old wino, Delphine. They do not change.”

“They do so,” said Delphine. “He finally has changed. The pledge took this time. You should see him.”

“I did see him and I smelled him, too.”

“Bullshit,” said Delphine, although she knew she was hearing the truth. An immense, dispirited darkness of mood caved down on her as she took in the fact that she’d ignored the signs in Roy. Why was she such a realist in every other way except when it came to her father? She left the store without saying another word, walked home, and crawled into bed to catch up on the sleep she’d missed out on in Chicago. When she woke, the cloud descended again. Heavy-brained and still groggy, she stumbled to the kitchen to cook herself a pair of sunny-side up eggs.

“So the old man fell off again,” she mumbled to the spatula. Worry over her father quickly changed to the exhausting old fury. “What the hell do I even care for,” she fumed, forking the eggs up straight from the pan into her mouth. Her lonely greed and nervousness embarrassed her. She put the fork down and vowed, “I won’t go looking for him! I’ll check on Markus instead!” With resolute haste, she made up a quick pot of the same dumpling soup Markus had survived on after his near burial. She wrapped the pot of soup in a towel and drove to Waldvogel’s. On the way there, she realized that she had only ten dollars left to her name and, now that she couldn’t count on Roy for a contribution, no prospect of paying end-of-the-month bills. If she didn’t find another job within the week, she’d sell the car, she decided. The prospect steadied her panic.

THERE WAS A RICH SMELL of garlic in the air of the shop. Fidelis must be mixing up a batch of Italian sausage, Delphine thought, and then she began to notice things. The cream was not put away. Watch that , she pointed as Franz came out of the side cooler, it’ll spoil . Nobody had cleaned the fingerprint smudges off the case’s glass front. Delphine grabbed a rag and did it herself, then threw the rag down.

“Where’s Markus?” she asked.

Franz gestured her to the back rooms and she left all that was distressingly undone in the shop and went back there, concerned to find that Markus was still in bed, but glad at least he wasn’t any worse. Of course, he hadn’t changed out of the clothes he’d worn to Chicago, even down to the same socks.

“God, those stink!”

Delphine coaxed the socks off his feet.

“I feel good. I just can’t stand up! I fall over!” Markus laughed. He was a giddily cheerful patient, glad to be home. Delphine was drawn to stay with him. His face was eager, his pale, peach-bright hair stuck every which way in bent curls. Delphine rummaged through the meager supply of clean clothing, found an unmatched, ragged, clean pair of pajamas. He clutched them to his chest and walked, weaving, light-headed, to the bathroom to put them on. Delphine tightened his sheets and remade his bed. Fluffing his pillow, she felt a sharp object in the cheap feathers, reached in and drew out the bundle of mementos from Ruthie, the notes, the clicker. Delphine began to examine these things, then realized they were private and stuffed them back. Markus came in, slipped into the bed, shut his eyes against vertigo.

“Drink this soup,” said Delphine. The name signed on the bottom of the notes stuck in her heart. He must have loved Ruthie Chavers, as only children love, to keep her notes hidden in his pillow. Delphine helped Markus sit up and then tried to feed him a spoonful of soup from the pottery bowl she held. “I’m not a baby,” said Markus. He took the spoon from her hand, swallowed the soup in it, and held out his other hand for the bowl. He fed himself, slowly and carefully, sipping broth and holding each dumpling for a moment in his mouth, as though he was grateful for it, absorbing its taste. Watching him, Delphine breathed deeply and then felt a quietness descend between them. The air was still, the sounds from the shop hushed and far away. The dog on the floor whined lightly in her dream. The spoon clinked against the side of the bowl. The boy carefully swallowed. Delphine felt as if this eating of the healing soup by the ill and hungry boy, and her watching of it, could go on and on and she would not mind in the least. It was as though she were witnessing some sacrament. She was sorry when he put the bowl to his lips, drank the last drops, and handed back the spoon. She waved it in the air.