Princess of Passyunk (14 page)

He supposed he was to enter, so he climbed the steps to find that it was as warm and mellowly bright as it had been in reality. But now there were no worshippers, no choir, and no priests. The pews were empty; the only sound the whisper of a thousand tongues of flame.

No, not quite empty, Ganady realized, for someone sat in the first row before the altar. It was a woman or girl, her hair covered with a black lace scarf.

Antonia, he thought, and glanced about, expecting to see his big brother. Nick was nowhere in sight.

Ganady made his way down the main aisle, wondering what he might have to say to his brother's beloved. He hesitated at the end of the first row, not wanting to interrupt her prayers. She didn't seem to have noticed him. Perhaps phantoms did not make noises other phantoms could hear. Or perhaps she was really here, saying prayers of thanksgiving for the miracle God, with a little help from Rebecca Puzdrovsky and Annie herself, had wrought this evening.

Ganady glanced up at the altar with its old-country crucifix, recalling with embarrassing clarity his comment about Jesus winking. Which did not stop him from wondering if He might have winked when Nikki came here with Antonia.

“Hello, Ganny.”

He turned to find Antonia watching him.

Except that it wasn't Antonia after all. It was the girl from another dream—Svetlana. The scarf was gone and her hair gleamed a pale, rose gold in the candlelight.

He moved with dreamer's grace and ease to slide into the pew beside her, marveling at how much the same she was: the twilight eyes, the pale hair, the delicate Slavic features. Everything about her was the same. That seemed remarkable to Ganady, who took for granted the changeability of dreamscapes.

“I thought you were Antonia,” he told her. “We saw her tonight at mass, so I guess I thought...”

“It made sense to dream about her.”

“I guess.”

“So how's that going, do you think? Your brother and Antonia, I mean.”

“Oh. Pretty good, I guess. I mean, the families have met.” He shrugged.

“And the womenfolk talked recipes?”

“Yeah. Antonia brought us these little cookies. Mama asked for the recipe.”

Svetlana nodded. “That's all right, then. Nikki should be happy.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “You know, I can bake cookies, too. And babka and
cruschiki
. But I'm best at meat dishes.”

Ganny could only stare at her. “Why am I dreaming about you?”

The question was directed at himself; he didn't really expect an answer.

She didn't give one. “Do you mind? Dreaming about me, I mean.”

“Well,
no
. Of course not. I like it.”

“Good. I like being dreamed about.”

A striking thought. He turned to look at her and noticed again the color of her hair in the candlelight. He noticed that it was long—cascading down her back to her waist. It almost reminded him of something...a tickle of the mind that did not quite generate a sneeze.

“What does it feel like to be dreamed about?” he asked.

She smiled. “How do
you
feel?”

“Me? I feel...” He paused to consider this. “I feel warm. Safe.”

“Happy?”

“Happy.”

“Well, I guess that's what it feels like to be dreamed about.”

“But dreaming about yourself doesn't count, does it?”

Her smile deepened. “That's not what I meant.”

“You mean
you're
dreaming me while I'm dreaming
you
?”

She gave him a mysterious look that made him feel as if those blue-gray eyes contained magnets. Then she blushed and glanced away.

“At least I
think
that's the way this works,” she murmured.

“Then...you're real?
Are
you real?”

The mysterious smile was back. “What do you think?”

“I think I'm dreaming you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, I thought I made you up.”

“Does that mean I made you up?” she asked in return. “Are you real, Ganady Puzdrovsky?”

Ganady was completely unmanned. This was in the realm of Armin the Opshprekher. He struggled mutely with the idea of his own reality before hazarding an answer.

“I
think
I'm real,” he said at last.

“Only real people dream, right?”

“I...I guess.”

“So then, if you're dreaming me and I'm dreaming you, we must both be real.”

The logic was inescapable and put him in mind of rooftop sanctuaries and ghost baseball. The warm, solid image of Stanislaus Ouspensky banished the shade of the opshprekher. He relaxed and went back to gazing at Svetlana. In dreams you could do that and not be thought rude.

He noticed her hair again, and this time remembered why that was significant: he shouldn't be able to notice her hair because it should be covered.

Should he remind her of this? Had she forgotten? Or did she not know?

Another thought occurred to him: was
he
controlling this aspect of the dream? He had to admit he didn't want her to cover that glorious hair, but he supposed the ordinances of the Church should come first.

“Um...what happened to your scarf?”

“My scarf?”

“When I came in you were wearing a scarf...weren't you?”

“Antonia was wearing a scarf and you expected to see Antonia. So you saw Antonia,” she explained patiently. “I haven't worn a scarf since I was ten.”

Ganady didn't even try to puzzle that out. “You're supposed to cover your head in church.”

“Really? Why?”

“All the women do it at Saint Stan's. It's a rule of the Church...I think.”

“Why?” She repeated.

“Well, because...” He struggled to remember his catechism lessons and wished that Yevgeny were here to produce the appropriate quote. “I don't remember.”

“Well, who made the rule?”

“Saint Paul, I think. One of the Saints, anyway.”

Svetlana wrinkled her perfect nose. “Not Jesus?”

“Well, um...I don't think so. No, I'm pretty sure it was Saint Paul.”

“Well then.” She shrugged and smiled at him. “Do you really want me to cover my hair?”

Ganady blushed. Or at least he felt like blushing. “Not really.”

“Then I won't.”

“I guess this means you're not Catholic, doesn't it?”

She laughed, the sound rippling out like dove song.

Ganady woke to his room, the sound still in his ears. Even fully awake, with the rays of the sabes sun replacing candlelight, he heard the muted trill.

And the flapping of wings.

Ganady rolled toward the window. A trio of pigeons jostled there, occasionally pecking at the glass.

He was disappointed, as if he had expected to find the girl of his dreams perched upon his windowsill. Is that all Svetlana's laughter had really been—the chuckling of pigeons?

He wondered how late it was—or how early—and looked about for a shadow to inform him.

Movement caught his eye and drew it to the bedroom door. The shadow of the highboy dresser slanted long up the wall there, the collection of boy things atop it making odd, misshapen silhouettes. Among them, the Virgin stood tallest, and from where Ganady lay, it looked as if she wore a hat that was in danger of being blown away by a breeze.

If there was a separate world in dreams, was there also one in shadows?

Ganny struggled to shake off the dream. Of
course
the Virgin wore no hat. He had seen pictures of nuns in other countries that wore hats that looked like the sails of little ships, but he was fairly sure that Saint Mary had never worn one.

His eyes glued to the shadow, it occurred to him finally that he had merely to turn his head to see the effigy itself.

He turned his head slowly, trying to keep the bobbing shadow in view until he faced the dresser. Then he snapped his eyes to the left and discovered that finding the Virgin Mary among all the other stuff that decorated the dresser was easier imagined than done.

But he found her there amid the baseball gear, the snow globes, the box of marbles, the photograph of Da and Mama on their honeymoon. There was a cloth of some sort over her head—a big scarf of the kind he supposed the Apostle Paul had intended women to wear to pray. There was no hat.

There were wings, though. They appeared briefly above her shoulders, translucent and shot through with fragile veins of iridescence. He had never seen an angel with wings like that. He thought perhaps fairies had them. But the Mother of Jesus was neither an angel nor a fairy.

Ganady disentangled himself from his sheets and his dream, hit the floor and hastened to the dresser, where he pulled the icon out from among the general debris and turned her around.

She had no wings, angelic or otherwise.

He checked the other objects one by one: turning over the box of marbles, peering into the mitts and the Phillies cap. As he cleared each item of suspicion, he put it away—something his mother would most certainly applaud.

“What are you doing?”

Nikolai's voice, thick with sleep, startled Ganny so that he nearly dropped the Virgin Mary. Clutching her tightly he said, “I'm cleaning up a little.”

“You're what?”

“I'm...looking for...for my baseball.”

“This early on a Saturday morning, you gotta find your baseball? It can't be seven o'clock yet. Mama hasn't called us for breakfast even. Go back to sleep.”

But Ganady could not sleep. All he could do was recall the dream, wondering what it meant that he had dreamed of the same girl twice.

A non-Catholic girl. A girl who didn't think it was necessary for her to cover her head in church.

Was it a sin to dream of a non-Catholic girl not covering her head in church?

Should he perhaps confess?

In the end, as he glided back into sleep, Ganady decided this was a question for someone with more wisdom than he.

oOo

“Do you think it might be a sin to dream of a non-Catholic girl?”

Baba Irina did not stop walking, but her cadence faltered and she looked sideways at him.

“You're asking a Jew about such a thing?”

He blushed hot to the roots of his hair. “I just meant...I mean, if I were Jewish, would it be a sin to dream about a—a—”

“A
goy?
Baba's lips twitched, whether with mirth or disapproval, Ganady couldn't tell.

“Well, yeah. Like with Mama and Da. Was it sinful of her to dream of him?”

Baba took a tighter grip on his arm, walking in silence for a measure of steps, her eyes on Marija's back, bright in her new yellow dress.

“Jews do not think about sin in the same way as Catholics,” she said at last.

Ganady glanced up the street, realizing that they were less than a block from the synagogue—Marija had almost reached the steps—and his question was still unanswered.

“We Jews do not confess our sins to a rabbi,” Baba observed.

“But if you did, would Mama have had to confess if she dreamed of Da?”

Baba's eyes remained fixed on the sidewalk ahead. “I am certain I once thought so,” was all she said.

“So...it is a sin, then, you think?”

“I think,” said Baba Irina, “that I am no authority on what is a Catholic sin.”

He decided to try a different tack. “Is there a
mitzvah
?”

“For
dreaming
?”

“For dreaming of...forbidden stuff.”

“Oh, so now
you
say ‘forbidden.' If a thing is forbidden, then of
course
there is a
mitzvah
. But a
sin?
That I don't know.” She patted his arm. “Come now, hurry. Marija is already at the doors.”

oOo

“May I ask you a question, please, Rabbi?”

Rabbi Andrukh turned at the sound of Ganady's voice and smiled. “More questions, Ganady? What this time? I think I've told you everything I know about miracles.”

“Oh, it's not about miracles. It's about
mitzvot
.”

“And what would you want to know about
mitzvot
?”

Ganady ignored the rabbi's obvious amusement and asked: “Are there
mitzvot
about dreaming?”

“
Dreaming
?” Ibrahim Andrukh looked as if he were trying very hard not to laugh.

“What I mean is,” Ganady continued, keeping one eye on his Baba, who was visiting with a couple of the members of her
glayzele tey
group, “if you were to dream about something forbidden by a
mitzvah
, would it be...” The word “sin” perched on the tip of his tongue. He called it back. “Would it be the same as breaking the
mitzvah
?”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“If Baba was to dream of eating pork or taking out the trash on sabes, would it be the same as if she had done it?”

“I suppose only God could really answer that question. Why do you ask? Has your grandmother dreamed of pork?”

“Oh
no
, Rabbi, It was more of a hypothetical question.”

“Such big, important words our children learn at school!”

Ganady glanced aside to see that his Baba had circled around and come to stand at his elbow. Mr. Ouspensky peered over her shoulder at him, smiling.

“What does it mean, ‘hypothetical?'” Baba asked.

“Um, it means ‘what if.' A ‘what if' question. You know, like ‘what if something were to happen.'“ He shrugged.

Baba was not to let him off the hook quite so easily. “Oh? Like what if you were to dream of a non-Catholic girl?” She sent the rabbi a knowing look.

“Ah, I see,” said Rabbi Andrukh, and Ganady blushed to the roots of his hair.

oOo

Mr. Ouspensky shook his head and made clucking noises as they made their way down the front steps of Megidey Tihilim.

“Irina, Irina,” he said. “Such a thing to do to your grandson.”