This time, Da demanded a name-a family.

"I don't know his name," Nick lied and gave Ganady, sitting once again on Da's footstool, a warning glance from his good eye. He held the cold tea poultice more firmly to the other. "I'm not sure he even goes to Saint Casimir."

"Then why does he hit you, this boy you don't know?" asked Da.

"I think he was little drunk."

"Drunk? How is it that he's drunk at a Church dance?"

"He and a couple of his friends had a flask of something."

"At these dances they allow liquor?" Mama gasped.

"They don't allow it," said Nick. "But some of the kids sneak it."

"Cigarettes, too," Ganady blurted, and drew a scowl from Nick.

"Two weeks in a row, you come home bloodied. Next Friday, Nikolai Puzdrovsky, there will be no dance for you."

Nick's eyes widened. "Da...!"

"Vitaly." Mama laid a hand Da's arm. "This is fair?"

Da's look was dark and thunderous, but his voice, when he spoke to Mama, was gentle, as always. "You want he should come home like this every week? What might it be next time, Rebecca - another black eye? A broken nose? An arm?"

Mama looked from Da's cloudy face to Nick's doleful one and back again. In the end, she deferred to Da, having neither the will to support Nikolai nor the heart to deny him.

"But what'm I supposed to do on Friday nights?"

"You could go to library," suggested Mama, "to study for school. More study wouldn't hurt."

"School's over in a month."

"You could come to shul with me and Baba," offered Ganady, garnering another lopsided scowl.

With his mouth open to retort, Nick's expression melted from annoyance to epiphany. He raised his eyes to his parents. "I could go to ma.s.s."

Mama and Da exchanged startled glances, then Da said,"You want to go to Friday ma.s.s, too? Already, you go on Wednesday and the Sabbath."

"I'd like to go," said Nikolai with pious resolve. "I think it would be good for me to go. Don't you think?"

It was a point no good Catholic parent could argue in good conscience. But Ganady distinctly heard his father say, as he and Nick went upstairs to bed, "My G.o.d, will the boy become a monk?"

Ganady laughed, notwithstanding he was sincerely worried about Nikolai, who had rarely, in his almost eighteen years, lied to his parents, and never-so far as Ganny knew-about something so important.

"What happened?"

Ganady reflected that he would have to get used to watching his brother meditate on the ceiling as if he found a vision of the Virgin there.

Perhaps he did, after a fashion.

Nick launched into a tale that, to his younger brother, was rife with excitement and intrigue. He and Annie had been cautious at first. Each staying close to their cadre of friends, touching only with wary glances that turned to lingering looks.

Then Stefano-Steve, to his cla.s.smates-had gone outside with his buddies, and the couple had maneuvered themselves to a quiet corner next to the fire stair. They had reckoned, however, without Antonia's so-called friend, Maria Teresa Reghetti who, seeing the sister slip into the shadows with her proscribed beau, ran to find favor with the 'dreamy' older brother by ratting them out.

"They didn't even wait for me to leave the dance. They came right over and tried to 'escort' me outside. I said 'no thanks,' so Steve took a swing at me."

"And that's when you got the black eye?"

"Nyeh. I ducked and he fell into the punch bowl." He paused to savor the moment, sending Our Lady of the Plaster a sly smile.

Ganady giggled. "Then how'd you get the black eye?"

"Steve got up and let me have it with the punch ladle. You should've seen him. Soaking wet. His shirt was all pink. Then his buddies got into it and some of my guys got into it and the chaperones had to break it up."

"You mean...a rumble?"

Nick laughed. "Rumble? Where'd you pick that up, kid?"

"I heard it somewhere," Ganny said defensively. "And don't call me 'kid.'"

"Sorry...yeah. Yeah, we got into a rumble."

"Aren't you in trouble?"

"I probably will be when Mama and Da get a call from the Center."

"Gosh, Nikki!" Ganady clutched his pillow. "Aren't you scared of what they might do?"

Nikolai c.o.c.ked his good eye in his brother's direction. "Like what? Make me go to ma.s.s instead of the dance on Friday night?"

Ganny's jaw dropped.

Nick grinned. "You're gonna catch flies."

oOo The Center contacted their parents Sat.u.r.day morning. There was shouting, inevitably, but little of it directed at Nick. Most of Da's ire was for the director of the Center.

"What sort of kids do you let into this place, em? Calling my son a kike. What sort of filth is that? You let such things go on? ...What?"

Ganady leaned closer to the banister, as if he might actually be able to pick words out of the faint buzz of sound that spat into his father's ear.

"I don't know anything about that. All I know is this boy was drinking and my Nikolai saw him. And for this he calls my boy filthy names? ...Yes, yes. Well, my Nikki will not be at any more of your dances. He has decided his time will be best spent at church."

The click of the phone returning to the cradle was resolute, but not angry. Da did not even seem angry when he called Nikolai downstairs for a talk.

Ganny watched his brother pa.s.s by, then scooted down two steps so as to eavesdrop more effectively.

"I spoke to the Center," said Da. "This other boy says he was trying to keep you away from his sister. Do you know why he would say this?"

There was a long, pregnant pause during which Ganady was certain he heard the scales in Nikolai's head, weighing his options.

"Her name is Annie," said Nick finally. "Annie Guercino. I really like her. I mean, we really like each other. But her brother doesn't care much for me."

"Because?"

"Because I'm not Italian like them and because Annie and me caught him and his buddies smoking and drinking outside the Center last Friday night."

"And why did you not tell us this before, Nikki?" Mama must be standing in the kitchen doorway. Ganady imagined her there, drying her hands on a checkered towel, smoothing back her dark, curly hair.

"I guess I was afraid if her family didn't like me, you might not like her."

There was another silence into which Da sighed and Mama murmured, "Oh, Nikki."

Ganady, unable to stand the suspense, moved to where he could just see his brother's face through the banister. The elder Puzdrovsky brother was watching his parents' faces intently.

"Nikki," said Mama at last, "how are we to know if we like her when we haven't met her? If you like her, then I think we should like her very much."

The relief on Nick's face was clear.

"What about her family?" asked Da. "Have you met them?"

"Just her brother." Nick grimaced and touched his black eye.

"But not the parents?"

Nick shook his head. "Annie thinks if her Mama met me, she'd like me. She says her Mama's the queen of the family and what she says goes. But her brother is always watching her. The only time we can talk is right after school when Steve is in his study hall. He's not doing so good in school." He hid his smirk in an inspection of Baba's braided rug. "If he wants to graduate he's got to take this special study hall...and stay out of trouble."

"This is how he stays out of trouble?" asked Da.

"Vitaly?" Mama's voice sounded tentative. "Should we talk to this girl's parents, do you think?"

"Nikki is almost a man. I think we should let him find his own way through this."

"Then you're not going to make me stop seeing Annie?" asked Nick.

Da laughed. The sound so surprised Ganady that he almost laughed himself.

"Nikolai," said Da, "I would be the last man in the world to say you should not see a girl because of her people. If I could think of a way to help you, I would."

Nick grinned. "Yeah, well, maybe if you had some magic arrows." He glanced up to catch his younger brother's eye.

"Magic arrows?" repeated Da.

"It's a joke," Nick said and winked.

Swallowing a chuckle, Ganny slipped quietly up the stairs.

Eight: Princess Nadia.

Nick no longer went to the dances on Friday nights; he went to ma.s.s. The very ma.s.s the Guercinos attended, at which he could sit and fill his eyes with the Princess Antonia, and her brother could do nothing.

Baba, of course, had invited her eldest grandson to shul. His reply had been a rueful shrug.

"I'm not Jewish, Baba," he'd said, and Baba had merely nodded and continued her meal. But Ganady had seen the hurt in her eyes before she lowered them to her roast chicken.

Ganady was still miffed at Nikolai for this tactless rebuff, when, on a fine Sat.u.r.day afternoon one week after the cessation of school, the elder boy suggested the trio go over to Pa.s.syunk Square to see if they could cobble together a baseball game. Ganady contemplated declining, but Nick had been in short supply of late, and pa.s.sing up a game of ball was unthinkable.

Alas, there was no one about to be cobbled-there were only a couple of old men playing chess on a park bench. Nick did not seem at all disappointed, but merely suggested they play catch for a bit. They did, but Nick was soon bored.

"Batting practice," he announced, and sent Ganny out to pitch while Yevgeny played catcher.

Ganady was neither good nor bad at pitching. His pitches were solidly over the plate (Nick's glove) but not of a speed or location that would ever warm the c.o.c.kles of a coach's heart. He was, however, a good first baseman, as Father Cravic at Saint Casimir would agree. He put his pitches where Nick could hit them. As Ganady was also covering all positions in both infield and outfield, he was eventually exhausted.

"My at bat!" he announced after Nikolai had popped up his thirtieth ball. "You pitch."

Nick caught the thrown ball and flipped it into the air as the winded Ganady trotted up to him. He glanced up and across the street, his dark eyes gleaming, the ball leaping rhythmically from his hand.

"One last hit," he said.

"Nikki!" Ganady complained, "you've had your turn."

Behind Nick, Yevgeny rose, as if to underscore Ganady's protest.

Nick ignored them both. "He stands in," he said, doing his own play-by-play. He hefted the bat, balanced the ball on his fingertips. "He waits for the windup, the throw!"

The ball popped upward, Nick swung, his hands meeting in mid-arc on the grip of the bat. There was a crack of sound and the ball sailed away toward South Thirteenth.

"It's outta here!" cried Nick, then dropped his bat and tore off in pursuit of the ball. "I'll get it!"

It was, indeed, "outta here." It cleared a row of trees, crossed the street, hit the sidewalk and fetched up on the front stoop of a house whose flower boxes already contained a riot of color.

Ganady and Yevgeny exchanged glances and shrugs, then watched as the ball hit the front door and rolled easily to the very edge of the top step.

Reaching the curb, Nick did not cross the street. Instead, he lingered on the strip of gra.s.s between curb and sidewalk. Ganady exchanged another round of silent commentary with Yevgeny and was about to call out to his older sibling, when the most extraordinary thing happened.

The front door of the house opened and a raven-haired girl appeared, framed in the doorway. After a moment of hesitation, she stepped forward and knelt to pick up the baseball. Across the street, on the narrow sward of lawn, Nikolai Puzdrovsky straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. Behind him, Ganady echoed the movement, his fingers meeting and enfolding the scuffed baseball deep in the flannel confines.

The girl on the stoop rose, ball in hand, and brushed a gleaming wave of hair from her cheek. For a moment she regarded the watching Nikolai, then held out the baseball and smiled.

Nikolai tossed a grin over one shoulder at Yevgeny and Ganady, then loped across the street and up the steps to stand face to face with the girl. Their hands met around the baseball, lingered, then parted. Then the Beauty opened the door of her house again and gestured for Nikolai to follow her inside.

He turned back toward the park then, his face wearing as beatific a smile as Ganady had ever seen there, and shouted, "I'll see you at home!"