"So what're you all dressed up for?" Ganady asked his brother. "You look like you're on your way to church."

"I am. Annie and I are going to counseling with Father Zembruski." He chuckled. "You know what Baba asked me?"

Ganady pulled on a tee shirt, shaking his head free of the collar. "What?"

"She asked me how a man who wasn't allowed to be married could counsel anybody about marriage. She said I should go to Rabbi Andrukh because he's been happily married for seven years."

"So, what did you say?"

Nikolai just stared at him.

Ganny shrugged. "It's a question."

"I said, 'He's a priest, Baba. He's been trained by the Church to counsel people.'"

"And what did she say?"

"She said, 'But n.o.body in your Church can be married. How do they know what training he should have?' And I said, 'Well, I suppose they get it from the Bible, or maybe the Pope gets it straight from G.o.d.'" Nick looked expectantly at his little brother.

"Oh...uh...good answer. I suppose maybe they talk to married people too. Like Mama and Da. You know-to get ideas."

Nikolai seemed bemused by that, then smiled. "Yeah. Come to think, maybe we should talk to Mama and Da, too. Couldn't hurt, eh? You and Lana got an appointment with Father Z yet?"

"Not yet."

"Better get on it, little brother."

"Sure. We will." When I figure out how.

Ganny also sought a word with his Mama, though it had little to do with marriage, per se. While cutting carrots for Sat.u.r.day dinner, he asked: "Mama, does it really take two days to make a babka?"

"If you do it right."

She turned from the sink where she had been washing potatoes in a large colander, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n. "Are you worried that Svetlana won't be able to make one?"

"Well, I'm kind of worried she might not have time to make one. I didn't really get a chance to tell her until last night, and I don't expect she got started on it until this morning."

"Well, then she'll have to bake it tomorrow and it will be fresh for Sunday dinner. Of course, babka is really best the day after... But I'm sure her cake will be fine. She's a very good cook, after all."

She gave him an impish smile, a lock of dark hair falling across her brow. "I'm thinking in Yevgeny's household, he will have to do the cooking. And I expect we'll see your big brother around dinner time some nights."

Ganny returned the grin. "You mean the nights Princess Annie makes galobki?"

"Princess Annie? Does Nikki call her that?"

"Once in a while. It's because of a story Baba told us, about three princes and three princesses and magic arrows."

Mama laughed. "Your Baba and her stories. That's the one about the enchanted Frog, yes?"

"Yeah, I guess. I don't remember she ever finished the story-Nick was sort of making fun of her."

"So, you and Nikki and Yevgeny are the princes, eh?"

"I guess."

"Which one of you got the Frog?"

Ganady felt his ears go red with heat. "Well, gee, Mama-none of us got a Frog. That'd be...magic or something. There's only magic in fairytales, right?"

Mama tipped her head in a gesture that reminded Ganny so strongly of Svetlana he nearly cut himself. She turned back to her potatoes, lifting the colander from the sink and shaking the water from it.

"I don't know that that's true. I think there's much that is magic in the world. You just have to be able to see it."

Ganny put down his knife. "How do you see it?"

Mama laughed again. "You're in love-don't tell me you don't see magic! I think love makes magic out of most things. Sometimes the simplest, meanest things."

"Like moonlight on waves?"

"Yes. Like that."

She began to hum then, and Ganady knew that he had lost her to memory. He finished cutting the carrots, scooted them into a bowl, and went up to practice his clarinet.

oOo The next evening when Mama went to begin preparations for dinner, she placed a brightly striped red-and-white cake box in the middle of the kitchen table. Nick had brought it direct from Annie's house where she and her Mama had delivered it into his hands.

"Annie's worried because she's never made a babka before," Nick confided in his mother. "She said there's nothing quite like it in her family recipes, so she had to learn."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Rebecca a.s.sured him. "My, but it's light as a feather."

She smiled as she said it, but Ganny, standing in the doorway to the parlor, saw the slight pucker between her brows. A babka was not supposed to be light as a feather.

When the Toschevs arrived sometime later, they brought a second cake box-a plain, white cake box such as might be found in any bakery. Ganny placed the box on the table himself; it was as heavy as three volumes of the Britannica. The kitchen table seemed to groan under its weight.

The two boxes sat side by side on the table throughout the dinner preparations, accusing Ganady mutely that there was not a third box to join them.

When the roast was in the oven and the bread sat cooling on the counter, Mama instructed the children to begin carrying food and dinnerware to the table. In and out they went, and every time, Ganny would look at the kitchen table and see two boxes.

They sat down to dinner, and still there were only two cake boxes. But when Mama and Marija went back into the kitchen with the first load of empty plates, Mama switched on the kitchen light and said, "Oh!" and Marija echoed: "Oh!" and added: "It's so pretty!"

When they came out again, Mama carried plain white and red-and-white-striped cake boxes, and Marija carried a gold one tied up with a velvet ribbon of forest green. They placed the boxes in front of Vitaly Puzdrovsky's place along with a large knife.

When everyone had given them their full attention, Vitaly opened the white box and drew out a small, brown cake that looked as if it were studded with jewels and well suited to symbolize the sweetness of life. It looked nothing like a babka.

"It looks like a fruitcake," said Marija, putting everyone's thoughts into words. "It isn't supposed to look like a fruitcake...is it?"

Vitaly Puzdrovsky hefted his knife and began to cut. And cut. And cut. Yevgeny exchanged a nervous glance with Nick. Mouldar Toschev cleared his throat sonorously, and his wife said, "Well, it is certainly a very dense cake."

It seemed an eternity, but at last the pieces were cut and the platter pa.s.sed about the table. The fathers each picked up a piece and bit into it. The sound of their chewing was loud, labored, and long, and when at last they swallowed, there was more throat clearing.

When no commentary was forthcoming, Marija bit into her piece as well. "It is a fruitcake!" she exclaimed. "Sister Mary Emanuel brought one to cla.s.s last Christmas. It was almost like this, but without the babka spices."

"Were it not for the spices," said Mouldar Toschev, "I would not call it a babka at all."

"I would not call it a babka even for the sake of the spices," said Vitaly Puzdrovsky. "My daughter is correct. This is a fruitcake."

Yevgeny seemed crestfallen, but he dutifully ate his slice of cake as did Ganady, just to be polite. It was full of candied fruit and nuts. The cherries were of the consistency of month-old Jujubes and tasted not nearly as good. Ganny nearly broke his tooth on an errant piece of walnut sh.e.l.l.

Attention soon turned to Antonia Guercino's babka. It was as unlike Nadia's cake as a four-seam fast ball is unlike a lollipop curve. It was tall and a pale, fleshy tan, and whatever fruit was in it showed as brown freckles in the fair surface.

Vitaly Puzdrovsky cleaned his knife and cut the cake. The knife sliced through it so swiftly and with such force that the platter was nearly upset.

"It is like air!" he exclaimed, and cut the rest of the pieces as quickly as he had cut but one piece of Nadia's cake.

When the strange, tall babka had been cut and served, the fathers once again took the ritual first bite. They chewed but once or twice and swallowed in perfect unison and said, in harmony: "This is no more a babka than the first one!" and "This is an angel food cake with raisins!"

"There is too much vanilla," added Vitaly Puzdrovsky at second bite.

"And too little cinnamon," added Mouldar Toschev.

The rest of the diners tried their pieces and agreed that it was no babka, but rather an angel food cake in disguise.

"But it is tasty," acknowledged Rebecca Puzdrovsky with a nod at her eldest son.

"It melts in your mouth," added Yelena Toschev.

Which, of course, no babka was supposed to do.

Ganady had to admit that after the first two gifts, he was quite confident that Svetlana's babka would be the best. Possibly even better than his mother's, though he would never say such a thing aloud. He watched his Da take the cake from its box with antic.i.p.ation and watering mouth. A quick glance about the table showed that everyone else was just as avid.

Lana's babka was taller than Nadia's and shorter than Annie's. It was a lovely shade of golden brown and the bits of fruit floated ghost-like in the honey-colored cake.

Vitaly Puzdrosky cut the golden cake and laid the pieces upon the platter. The inside of the babka was creamy and dappled with raisins and orange zest and when cut, gave up an extraordinary aroma. A collective sigh rippled around the table.

When the platter was pa.s.sed and the pieces taken, no one waited for the fathers to take their bites and make their p.r.o.nouncements. One and all they cut into the cake and tasted.

"Oh!" said Rebecca Puzdrovsky, her dark eyes wide. "Oh, Ganady, this is wonderful! Better than my babka! Don't you think, Vitaly?"

Ganady, who had been thinking exactly the same thing, appreciated his father's hesitation. Did he claim that this marvelous confection was not the equal of his wife's, thereby disagreeing with her in front of guests, or did he affirm that this was indeed a babka unparalleled and relegate her own efforts to second best?

In the end, he merely smiled, his mouth full of dense, moist, perfectly spiced cake, and said, "Hmmm-mmm!"

Twenty: Three Princesses and a Wedding Feast.

Vitaly Puzdrovsky was beside himself with curiosity. He had received a hearth rug and a table centerpiece, some stew stock and a fine brace of galobki, an angel food cake and a babka worthy of the old country, and he was yet no closer to meeting his youngest son's bride-to-be than he had been at the outset.

It was peculiar. It was non-traditional. It was suspicious. Clearly Ganady and his fiancee were hiding something.

Vitaly had freed himself of the notion that Ganny had no girl at all. Or almost so. For he could not conceive that with the modest wage the Toschevs paid him, Ganady could have afforded to purchase gifts of the quality he had presented to his family.

Still, Vitaly was wary. Perhaps the girl was not merely a non-observant Jew, perhaps she was Protestant, after all. Or ugly. Or old. Or no longer a maiden. Perhaps she had been married before. And worse, divorced instead of widowed.

Vitaly Puzdrovsky determined that he would meet this Svetlana Gusalev before she turned up at Saint Stanislaus. To that end he and Mouldar Toschev announced that they would host a pre-nuptial banquet for the three boys and their prospective brides.

Nadezhda and Antonia replied very sweetly in person. Svetlana did not put in an appearance and Ganady said nothing except: "I'll ask her."

He contemplated how he was to do this, for his dreams of Lana were few these days, almost as if she were as busy with wedding plans as the other brides. In the end, he approached his dresser-top shrine and addressed the empty statue of the Virgin Mary.

"Svetlana?" he whispered, and was immediately abashed and red-faced. This was the first time he had actually spoken the name in a.s.sociation with The c.o.c.kroach. He felt as if he had just taken a step into previously unknown territory.

He cleared his throat, sounding more like his Da than he would comfortably imagine, and said, "Is Svetlana there?"

In the moment that he cursed himself for an idiot and started to turn away, The c.o.c.kroach appeared, antennae first, on the shoulder of the Virgin.

"Oh. Uh...well, see it's like this-Da wants to have a dinner. A banquet. To honor the wedding party. Week after next. At The Samovaram. You're invited, of course. I mean-Svetlana is invited."

The c.o.c.kroach fluttered its wings.

He stared at it for a long moment, then shrugged and started to turn away once more. He had a thought and turned back.

"They really loved the presents. You made a hit. Home run. Especially that babka. Even Mama said it was the best she'd ever had, and she should know. You know, I don't really expect you to show up at the banquet. So, if you could, you know, come see me and tell me what kind of excuse to give...?"

But Lana did not come see him. Not that Sabbath or the next. The wedding plans moved forward apace and the brides-to-be and their Mamas conferred with the priests at Saint Stan's daily, or so it seemed.

He had begun to contemplate excuses he could make when Lana missed the banquet. And when she missed the wedding itself. He wondered if, since she was a real dream girl, they might marry in a Saint Stanislaus cathedral in his sleep. Or perhaps on the pitcher's mound in a dreaming Connie Mack Stadium.

Still, he fell into the wedding preparations himself as a dutiful son should, schlepping decorations and table cloths and vases here and there.

He was engaged in counting RSVP's to the wedding banquet one afternoon four days before the eve of the event when his Mama and Mrs. Toschev sailed through the kitchen door on a draft of brisk fall air.

"I'm telling you Rebecca," said Yelena, pulling off her bright blue head scarf. "I can't even imagine having the reception at Saint Stan's now. Such a state of affairs!"

"I'm sure I know how you feel." Rebecca drew off her own scarf of red faux-silk and snapped it to clear the wrinkles. "Poor Father, he was so embarra.s.sed. And those two girls! You'd think neither of them had seen such a thing before. Squealing and carrying on so."

Ganny looked up from his counting, holding the number forty-two solidly in his head.

"What happened, Mama?"

"Oh, you should've seen. There we were, in that little hall off the nave, discussing and all-where the brides would dress and where the grooms would enter and where the reception would be and all of a sudden those two girls start shrieking like demons. So Father Zembruski goes to look and what should dart out from under a table but the biggest c.o.c.kroach you have ever seen."

"Nadia and Antonia ran right out of the room," added Yelena Toschev. "Tsk. Is this how they're going to deal with it when they find such things in their own kitchens?"

"Oh," said Ganny.