The following is from the
first chapter.
Winkie Papuga started the whole thing.
He just had to go and say it to me one more
time, almost like he was underlining, then he let
go of my hand, blew his nose, stepped off the
porch, got into his car, rattled over the bridge,
unlocked his apartment, took out his teeth,
settled onto his daybed, clicked to the Wheel of
Fortune and went on, I guess, with the rest of
all the little actions that would make up the
whole entire remainder of his life, not ever once
knowing what he had done to mine.
No, he probably never ever gave it a second
thought how, right after telling me how my father
had been like a brother to him, then correcting
how that wasn't exactly right because he couldn't
really stand any of his brothers - no, he said
firmly, Adam Milewski had been more like the kind
of brother he wished his real brothers would have
been, had they not been such SOBs (that
expression meaning nothing against his own loving
and dearly departed mother, of course, I had to
be sure) - right after that, to change the
subject, because if he went on he was going to
start crying over how if my father truly had been
his brother then he might have had at least one
relative who would want to spend time with him in
his old age, Winkie Papuga added, without even
taking one breath to make it clear that now we
were talking about something totally different:
"You ever play the accordion any more?''
That day, people asked me did we have them
remove my father's gold teeth because what good
were those or any other such valuables going to
do him down there? Didn't we think they had
colored his moustache a little too darkly? Who
put that hammer and that sausage funnel in there
with him? How much was the casket and somebody
took a picture of it, didn't they? Who is going
to get all of his record albums? Did anybody get
a chance to say at least a few words to him at
the very end - and, if they did, what were they?
So there was nothing too strange about Winkie,
too, asking me something odd, or something that
went way back, many, many years previous to this
day, about a subject that had no connection to it
at all. And because of that I didn't need a
second to answer him no, I no longer play the
accordion, and I haven't picked up the thing
since the eighth grade. I decided to skip
reminding him of the details, how in the space of
a couple of months, my world went flying off in a
direction you couldn't find on any map, no matter
how big a magnifying glass you held up to it -
how I out of nowhere got stuck with a little
sister, got run over by a diaper truck and got a
real huge hate for the father I once had loved
like nothing or no one else.
Instead of telling Winkie all that, I just
said, "The accident. Remember?'' To help him
recall, I pointed to the right shoulder that,
even many years after what happened, still makes
cracking noises if I move it a certain way. I
brought it to that position just then, pulling my
hand up and back like I was going to hitchhike or
put my thumb on the low C on the keyboard, and
from under the shoulderpad of the blazer that was
the only black piece of clothing I was able to
come up with in my closet and that made me look,
I thought, like a hostess at a Steak & Brew,
came the snap of the noise that always sounds
painful to others but never actually hurts me one
bit.
Winkie, who I remember brought to my house
once I got home from the hospital a case of Moxie
and a carton of blue-and-white-striped paper
straws with little bendable elbows, winced and
whispered "Oh, yeah,'' and landed his eyes
on the spot next to me, where two pitted aluminum
screws kept the top hinge of the front storm door
in place.
"Too bad,'' he said solemnly. "For
all them years after, your father used to say to
me again and again, 'You know, Winkie, if she
keeps on with it, she could...' '' He stopped and
looked at me right here, well aware that I knew
the rest. Everybody in the world - at least
everybody in the world around here - knew the
rest of that sentence, because when I was a kid
and when my father was feeling in a certain mood,
he would would say to anybody who would listen to
him go on and on that "If she keeps on with
it, she could start her own all-girl polka band
like the one I saw that time in Chicopee...''
Winkie smiled at me, and, so why not, we
finished it together: "the one that makes a
killing at weddings.''
Then he laughed and I found I somehow was able
to as well, though not as hard as he was, and I
couldn't help but take the guy around the
shoulders and hug him fiercely like I was getting
ready for someone to try to pull him away from
me. I smelled camphor and Aqua Velva, but mostly
what was coming into my head was how his was the
height and size and heft of my father. This is
how he had felt, way back when we actually did
hug, and I would never feel that ever again. So I
held on for maybe longer than Winkie was used to,
if he was accustomed to any of this sort of thing
at all, and he eventually pushed me away. But he
did so slowly and kindly, and only so I could
clearly hear him say:
"You know, he loved when you made the
music.''
I smiled as much as I could and said that I
knew, because I did. For nearly eight years
straight, from the first grade on, my favorite
thing in the world was playing the accordion.
Mostly, I must add, my favorite thing was playing
it for my father. It was the main way we talked,
though no words as you would recognize them ever
were used.
I was not one of those kids who had to be
screamed at about how much the lessons cost and
how the thing is never used and what a waste it
was to buy it and it would be better off put out
there on the front lawn with a "for sale''
sign stuck to it because surely there had to be
thousands of kids out there who would jump at the
chance to have music lessons. Nobody had to
promise me desserts, or a puppy if I practiced
one hour a day for a year. Nobody had to make a
chart to hang on the refrigerator and paste
metallic stars on each of the days I did my
scales and went over the next few new bars. I,
too, loved when I made the music, and I practiced
willingly and without reminder for one hour of
each and every day of the week, just after supper
was over and everything was put away, from 6:30
to 7:30, dragging an armless chair from the table
to the center of the kitchen, unfolding my metal
music stand under the plastic glow-in-the-dark
cross braided to the string of the ceiling light,
then lugging the heavy black case from my bedroom
closet, pulling on the beautiful, shining
instrument, unsnapping the bellows and playing
over and over my father's many favorite polkas
and obereks and mazureks and waltzes, one after
another, stopping only to get another book or to
flip the page from "You Are Teasing Me, My
Darling,'' to "Wait for Me, Haniu,'' moving
my fingers easily along the keys and the buttons
with what Mrs. Dranka proudly pointed out to
anyone who stopped by The Melody Academy during
my weekly lesson was "a rare grace.''
And for each of those hours of each of those
days of each those nearly eight years of
practicing, my father would sit at the head of
the table, a silver rosary crawling through his
left hand, a Camel glowing in his right one,
smiling half at me and half past me, to (here
I've always had to imagine because I never got
the nerve to ask and he never told me) the place
he came from, some world that must have had music
like that playing everywhere, old-country
versions of "Pretty Maryska'' and "When
It's Evening'' and the Polish national anthem
flowing out of every house and tree and lake and
cloud the whole day long. My father was somewhere
else for that one hour with me, and it wasn't
within 5,000 miles of that kitchen table. And if
I've ever known any one thing for certain in my
whole entire life, it was that right then, I was
making him truly happy.
