Ganny nodded.

"So you met Svetlana at her father's shop?" Da asked.

"Yes, I...I mean, no...I..." Ganady stopped. "Sort of. I met her there, but I didn't talk to her until later. I never see her at the shop anymore. I think she stays away because of the trouble with her father."

Mama tsked and shook her head. "Such a disobedient girl..."

"Ravke Kutshinska, I do not think you are one to speak ill of the disobedient," said Baba Irina tartly.

Rebecca ignored her. "Well, perhaps if she marries, this trouble will be solved, yes? Then her Da might let the shops go to both of you and you could run them."

"Mama, I don't know anything about running butcher shops."

"You could learn," said Da sternly.

"So, tell us about your Svetlana Gusalev," said Baba Irina, dabbing her napkin to her lips. "I hear she likes baseball."

"Yeah. And she likes klezmer." A smile tugged at the corner of Ganady's mouth. "And Mama's pierniki."

"Then I shall bake some for Sabbath dinner. You will invite her, yes?"

"I'll...I'll try."

Da broke the soft spell in which they'd sat by snapping open his napkin and spreading it in his lap. "Eat your breakfast, Ganady. You will go with me to work this morning. I want you to see what business it is your father does. Perhaps you will inherit sausage shops, perhaps not. But it will not hurt for you to learn a business."

"But, Nikolai is learning your business."

"Why can't both my sons do as much?"

There was no answer to that, so Ganady acquiesced.

Before he left for the machine shop with his father and brother, he slipped upstairs and went to his dresser as a supplicant to a shrine. She was there, The c.o.c.kroach, this time at the feet of the Virgin.

He studied the insect for a moment, then said, "My mother would like to know if you can come to dinner Sunday."

The c.o.c.kroach waved her antennae at him and then climbed the icon to roost upon her shoulder, facing Ganady. He stood there a moment, holding his breath, half expecting the creature to speak. Then the absurdity of the situation overcame him and he began to laugh.

He was still laughing when he met his father and brother in the front hall.

oOo Ganady received no answer to his question that night, nor the next, nor the next. On Wednesday evening, he went to The Samovaram to play for a bat mitzvah in the banquet room. The celebration was quite grand to Ganady's eyes and he was impressed with the generosity of the guests, who tipped him as though he were not receiving a fine payment from the hosting family.

He sat at a table in the empty and darkened main dining room after, counting his tips, wondering if perhaps he couldn't make a living playing music after all. Restaurant staff came and went through the access hall that led from the banquet room to the kitchen, paying Ganady no heed.

"You played beautifully tonight. But then you always play beautifully."

Ganady glanced up and across the table. Svetlana sat in the chair opposite, her long hair draped like a silken shawl upon her shoulders. It shone softly in the subdued light from the banquet room.

He was struck mute, or perhaps simply lacked the will to do more than gaze at her.

She smiled. "I thought about dinner Sunday night. And I would really love to come, but I...I just can't. Not yet. It's not the right time."

"Will there ever be a right time?"

She looked at him for a long moment while behind her the kitchen door opened and closed and the clatter and tinkle of dishes waxed and waned. She said, "That depends on you."

"Me? Why me?"

She shook her head. "I can't say. Please apologize to your family for me. Tell them...tell them I have to take care of some family things."

"All right. But they think we're getting married. What do I tell them about that?"

Her eyes locked on his. "You did ask me, didn't you? You meant it, didn't you?"

"Of course I meant it. Lana, I love you. I want to be married to you. Can we really marry?"

"Why shouldn't we marry?"

"Well...your Da..." And the fact that I'm not sure you're real.

"My Da won't be any trouble. He's already done what he's done. You're the one who has to decide now, Ganny."

"But I don't understand. Where would we be married? In a synagogue or a church or...just in my dreams?"

She laughed. "Silly. If we got married just in your dreams, we wouldn't really be married, would we?"

"Well, where then?"

"Where are Yevgeny and Nick getting married?"

"At Saint Stan's. But you can't get married there, can you? You're not Catholic."

"I'm not anything right now," she said solemnly. "My Da isn't observant, you know. He only closes the shop on the Jewish Sabbath because Mama insists. He doesn't even go to shul anymore. And you know what I think? I don't think G.o.d is Jewish. Or Catholic. I think He's just...G.o.d."

"Then...you want to get married with Nick and Yevgeny?"

"That would be wonderful. I would like that very much."

"You're serious. You want me to-to plan our wedding."

"Well, I'll help, too, of course. Goodness, Ganny, you can't plan our wedding all by yourself."

"But...what can you do?"

"You'd be surprised what I can do."

"Then I can tell people we're getting married?"

She grinned and tilted her head and his heart reeled dizzily in his chest. "I kind of think you have to. And besides, it sounds as if you've already told somebody."

Ganady grimaced. "I guess I talk in my sleep. My brother Nick overheard me propose to you. I asked him not to say anything, but he told Da, and Da told Mama, and then he told the rest of the family at breakfast the next morning. I guess Nick can't keep a secret."

"Well, if we're going to be married, it can't exactly be too secret."

Ganny looked down at the bills he had half-counted. "What about Mr. Joe? Are you going to tell him? Or your Mama?"

She looked for moment as if she might cry. "I can't talk to Mr. Joe."

"I know he's mad at you but-"

"No, Ganny. You don't understand. And I can't explain. Not yet. Just tell your parents that I can't come to dinner on Sunday, but that I'm really looking forward to meeting them."

And that was exactly what he told them when he saw them at breakfast the next morning.

They exchanged glances, then his mother said, "Oh, well then. Tell her the invitation is open. She may come any Sunday."

It was not left at that, of course. They asked her address; he told them only that she lived on Thirteenth. They asked where she had gone to school; he said he didn't know. They asked where he met her and what they did together; he told the story of seeing her in Saint Stan's, and of going to baseball games, and of ice cream at Izzy's. Then they asked where she worshipped and he said, "Mikveh Israel."

This caused a bit of a sensation. Baba Irina smiled secretly; Vitaly and Rebecca cast each other worried glances; Nikolai and Marija merely wanted to know where Mikveh Israel was.

"She is Jewish, this girl?" asked Vitaly.

"Well, her family is Jewish," Ganny admitted, "but not very observant. At least, not her Da. She says..." He hesitated, unsure whether to repeat Lana's words about G.o.d. In the end, he decided to tell the truth-if it could be called that, considering the source. "She says she doesn't think G.o.d is either Jewish or Catholic. She thinks He's both. That doesn't matter, does it-that she's Jewish?"

He fixed his parents with a searching gaze and knew that his Baba, who sat in her chair by the hearth pretending to embroider, and his sister, who knelt beside her pretending to learn a new st.i.tch, were watching them as well.

After a moment of silence, Rebecca Puzdrovsky raised her head, thrust out her chin, and met her son's eyes. "Of course, it doesn't matter. After all, I am Jewish."

"Rebecca!" exclaimed Da, who never called his wife by her Americanish name.

She turned her eyes to him. "Well, it is so, yes? I was born Jewish-not only of faith but of blood. My blood has not changed, and my faith in the Fathers has not changed. It is only that I now also believe in the Savior. I think this Svetlana is right: Our G.o.d is the G.o.d of Abraham and Moses and of the prophets, even if He is also the G.o.d of Jesus. Jesus Himself says so. I have read it," she added when her husband's mouth popped open to reply.

Vitaly shrugged and muttered something about asking Father Zembruski, but Ganady did not think he would.

The Puzdrovsky Patriarch now turned his eyes to his youngest son and said, "It remains that we must meet this girl, Ganady. You cannot marry someone who is a stranger to us, no matter what her faith."

After this a stream of invitations flowed forth from the Puzdrovsky household for Svetlana to join them at church, or at shul, or at dinner, or at The Samovaram, or at a baseball game, and Ganady carried every one faithfully. But her answer was always the same: The time was not right.

Eventually, the Puzdrovsky elders began to murmur among themselves when they thought Ganady was absent or not listening. Conversations that contained Svetlana's name would die swiftly when he entered a room or turned a sudden corner to become a conversation about something else. And his brother plied him with questions: What color was her hair? And her eyes-had he said they were like the sea or a spring leaf? Was she tall or short? Thin or thick? Had he reported her to say this or that?

Nor was it just is own family who pressed him. Yevgeny questioned him as well, trying to be casual. And Yevgeny's mother and father and sister and brother all paid him more than the usual attention when he went to The Samovaram to play.

It didn't take long for Ganny to realize they were trying to catch him out, that they supposed Svetlana Gusalev might not be real, after all. And Ganady realized that were they to come out and ask him point-blank-is Svetlana Gusalev real?-he would not know what to answer.

Seventeen: Hearth Rugs.

Finally, one Friday supper in October, his father spoke from the head of the table, saying: "Mouldar Toschev and I were talking yesterday."

Since this was obviously a precursor to some sort of formal p.r.o.nouncement, all eyes raised, expectant, to Vitaly Puzdrovsky's face.

Under the weight of everyone's gaze, he cleared his throat. "Weddings are doorways to the future," he said. "But they are also windows to the past."

Ganady perked up his ears at this, for it sounded very like what Mr. O had said about time eddies.

"There are traditions-rich traditions-that follow us from the country of our birth." Here he nodded at Baba Irina and Rebecca, his wife. "It is of those traditions that Mouldar and I spoke, and of which I wish to speak now."

"No one stops you," observed Baba dryly.

Her son-in-law afforded her a reproachful glance before continuing. "There is a tradition among Poles of gift-giving before a wedding takes place. From the brides-to-be to the families of the grooms. And these gifts must be fashioned by the bride's own hands."

"This has not been done for decades," objected Baba. "Centuries."

"That does not mean it is not a good and fitting tradition. Mouldar and I mean to revive it. And since this is a wedding of threes-three grooms, three brides, three families-so the gifts shall be three. And the first..." He looked around the table at the faces-expectant, amused, wary. "To symbolize the warmth of the family hearth: a rug."

"A rug?" repeated Rebecca.

"Each bride shall weave with her own hands a hearth rug to warm the parlor of her family-to-be."

"But our family has two brides," said Nikolai.

"And so?"

"We have only one hearth."

"No matter. Your two girls must weave or sew for us hearth rugs. That is the tradition." He picked up his knife and fork then, and without further ceremony began to eat his supper.

The others watched him for a moment, then bent to their own meals, each thinking his or her private thoughts about the new-old tradition of the families Puzdrovsky and Toschev.

It was sabes. Ganady had some hope he might dream of Svetlana that night. He chafed through Friday night ma.s.s, daydreamed through the prayers, fretted through the litany, and forgot the words to the responses he had mumbled since he was a small child.

Yet, on the way home, he fell behind the others, so deep was he in pondering how he was to put his father's request to Svetlana. He was scuffing along, trying out different variations on the theme, when he realized someone was keeping step beside him.

"So now I've fallen asleep on my feet?" he asked without looking up.

"How can you be asleep, silly? You're walking home from church."

"And you?"

"I'm walking home from church, too."

He looked over at her then. She was wearing the green sweater he'd seen her in before. Her hair was braided, and the gleaming plait fell to her waist. She was wearing a very wide velvet headband that he supposed could be interpreted as a head covering. "I didn't see you there."

"I was sitting in the back."