abhaile Chapter 3: three, a fargo fanfic

A/N: soooo sorry for how long this took me. i have some other stories and swapped between which one to focus on and added to this chapter a few hundred words at a time. i really loved season 4, though i know that wasn't universal. i thought it was wonderful, i hope you guys thought the same! all the best and stay safe! x

three

Sometimes, in the dreams, it was me lying in that bed in our old cottage while James sat on the stool alongside me. I would hack and writhe and spasm against the sheets from a fever that never left me. Behind him, blurred shapes would pass between the rooms in the shapes of my mother and father and even Lynch. Lynch would come closest to the bed and shimmer into something more solid, putting his hand on my brother's shoulder.

Lynch had blood rippling from his throat and hard dark lines of it would spill out if he swallowed. It would ripple along his arms, stain the white shirt that my brother wore and touch the straw and hay scattered along the floor. He would open his mouth to speak and only birdsong would come out, not words, not something that I could understand.

And my brother would say, "She's not much longer for this world, like this, if we don't do somethin' for her."

Birdsong would follow from Lynch.

"No," James would always answer. "Not much longer at all, is she."

Dawn came through the curtains and turned the colour of the world to peach-fuzz. I awoke tired and drowsy and slouched to the bathroom, pulling at that latch that Rabbi had bolted against the door, hearing it swing behind me. In the bathroom, I washed and dressed myself in one of the shapeless, powder-blue dresses that Maxia had left for me, their hemlines brushing beneath my knees.

I heard the goldfinches stirring in their nests, whistling their morning songs into the chill that fogged across the rooftops of the houses in the neighbourhood, a fog that I could spot if I stood on my tippy-toes and peered out the window. I finished smoothing down my short hair that curled at my jawline and then patted down the creases that had bunched my skirt.

I swung open the bathroom door and startled myself because Rabbi was already standing in front of it, one hand raised as if he had been about to knock. He looked sheepish and awkward all over again, lowering his hand.

But he had no coat around him into which he could sink and hide himself from me. He stood on the landing in beige trousers and a black jumper tucked into his waistline, his suspenders casually dropped at either hip. It was such a foreign sight that I was reminded once again of how little I truly knew about him.

I watched his eyes drift behind me to that window clouded in fog from both the heat of my bathwater draining and from the fog of the morning.

"I should have asked you first," I said. "If you had wanted the bathroom, I mean – I figured you were still asleep, hadn't heard you in your room."

Rabbi shifted. "No. Weren't lookin' to take the bathroom. I was lookin' for you, if you want breakfast. Plates are taken up before nine, usually. So, if you don't eat now, won't be nothin' 'til lunch."

I felt the tension drop from my shoulders. "Oh," I mumbled. "Sure. I'll come eat with you."

He surprised me again, stepping sideways into the threshold of his room to let me walk downstairs ahead of him, though he was never far behind. The house was silent again, muffled and stuffy. There were the inky silhouettes of Italians through the frosted glass around the front door, still sitting on their porch, watching cars crawl through the neighbourhood.

Other men wandered the garden, passing the windows in the kitchen and bundling their hands into the pockets of their coats against the cold. In an hour, they would slip off into their cars and other men would emerge from between the trees to replace them until night came black and unforgiving and those men, too, would be replaced.

Rabbi brought two bowls of cereal to the table and poured orange juice for us both. He chose the chair that was turned to the hall, so that he could watch those who passed in the hall even if it seemed that it was only us in this house, alone.

For a moment, I imagined that we owned it and the idea thrilled me; two poor souls like us turning the tide and having enough to fill a house like this with all sorts of little trinkets that cost more than most people made annually. What thrilled me about it, really? I was not sure. Somehow, though, it made the cereal taste sweeter and the milk fresher.

"Heard you talkin' in your sleep."

Redness spotted my cheeks when I looked at Rabbi. "What?"

"Heard you talkin' in your sleep." He cleared his throat. "Didn't mean to. Don't sleep much me-self, you see."

"Bad dreams," I told him. "Sorry if I disturbed you."

"Didn't mean it that way. Just meant – I heard you, is all."

"Good thing it's just us up there, then." I smiled and stirred my spoon through shreds of soggy cereal. "Is that why you don't sleep either? Dreams as bad as mine?"

Passing shadows on the porch distracted him. Through the long length of the hall, we could still see the front door with all those frosted windows and whenever the liquid shapes moved, he watched them.

When they settled, he swallowed another mouthful of his cereal and shrugged his shoulders.

"Do a lot of thinkin'," he said. "Can't seem to stop me-self even at night from doin' all that thinkin'."

"What do you think about?"

Again, his shoulders rose and fell. "Nothin' important."

"Important enough, if it stops you sleepin'."

Those shadows moved; his eyes followed. His throat bobbed and his spoon lay still against the porcelain of his bowl.

"Saturday I'm supposed to take you to the local store," he said quietly. "Supposed to drive you there and back."

"Mrs Fadda told me," I replied. "Didn't know it was you takin' me."

He was silent and so I glanced at him, noticing his distraction. Slowly my own eyes roamed toward those shadows that wavered and grew strong behind the frosted glass, deep pools of black the closer that those men came and the handle of the front door dipped downward – then, softly, it was released and the men returned to the table because something had distracted them and Rabbi swallowed without ever having taken another bite.

He looked at me, really looked at me. I felt something had passed, then, something that I had not fully understood. He seemed more comfortable in the house without those other men around, watching him, watching me.

"I usually take a drive out of town on Saturdays," he said. "D'you want to join me?"

"Did you ask the German girl to join you on drives?"

I had wanted to say it teasingly yet it came out tinged in worry, because I felt he was hinting at something, that it would be much better for me away from the house than inside of it where he might not be around.

"No," he answered. "But I should have."

Another thing about him that showed his Irish heart even if he himself wanted to pull it out and toss it aside – he spoke in riddles and hints and never said what he meant directly, only ever alluding, suggesting, warning.

Always I felt that Rabbi was warning me of something that he could not say and sometimes I wondered if birdsong would come from his mouth like it did from Lynch in my dreams.

I held his stare and nodded shortly. "I'll go with you."

Once we had finished, I collected the bowls and plates and dipped them in warm sudsy water in a basin, washing while Rabbi sat at the table, slouched low and looking into the garden. I was not sure what he did during the day or if he would stay in the house. He would sometimes glance at the porch and his brows would dip low together in thought, his lips pursed as if he was chewing on something, something gritty and tough.

I had finished with each plate and glass and wiped my hands on a cloth nearby. I found the apron that Maxia had told me about in the pantry. It was not fully necessary but something told me that Maxia liked the pageantry of it all.

I tied it around myself, fiddling with the strings.

"American goldfinches, you said."

I glanced up at him. "What?"

Rabbi cleared his throat. "The birds," he explained. "Yesterday. You said it was American goldfinches singing out there."

"Yes." I felt a pinkness on my cheeks, worried that he thought it was silly to pay attention to things like birdsong. "You can tell them apart if you listen closely. But most folk never listen to them."

Rabbi reached for his hat and fastened it on his dark hair. "You'll eat with Zero at lunch," he said.

"And you?"

He stilled. "What d'you mean?"

The pinkness worsened. "What will you eat, I mean? Will you not be here for lunch with us?"

"No," he said. "Should be back in the afternoon. Got some stuff to do, is all. Remember what I told you, Ava."

I nodded. "Keep to myself. I remember."

He moved for the hallway, with its shadowy depths seeping from its angled ceiling and heavily-curtained windows. The other men in the garden shifted position, like clockwork, rounding the grass with their guns glittering from their waistbands. I was not sure if Rabbi carried anything like that, for his coat hung loose and ill-fitted around his angular frame.

I watched him, though, struck by how kind he had been. I had been placed in his care, that much was true, but I doubted that Don Fadda had asked for so much. That was Rabbi himself, I could tell, his own gentleness peeking through.

"Be safe, Rabbi," I called softly to him.

He paused in the hall, halfway to its end, where the shadows blackened most of all, right before the door. He had heard me, of that much I was certain. He nodded stiffly, turning his head but never quite looking at me. There was a light mist out, then, a faint sprinkling of whitish droplets dripping from the overhang of the porch. It splattered the windowsill, left a light rhythm. That was all the sound in the world, for even the goldfinches had paused their tune, until Rabbi put one foot in front of the other and the Earth turned, the birdsong continued.

He was gone.

Thursday was bridge-day. Mrs Fadda would have all her girlfriends around, whose names were rattled off for me by Maxia. I had tried to memorise them – Antonia, Cecilia, Carmella, Rosa. Once she had finished, she left me in the living-room to roll up the rich, heavy rugs that Mrs Fadda told me had been brought from the Boot. Their frayed edges held that scent of oldness, of times past. It was spice and must.

I hauled them out onto the front porch to batter them free of dust like Maxia had told me. She had said that I could play the radio if I liked, but I preferred hearing the footsteps all around and knowing who passed through the hall.

The house had strange, sullen moods, much like those Rabbi had said plagued Mrs Fadda. But it also had lighter moments, when sunlight seemed to find the house between the picket fences lined outside, and it filled with a yellowish warmth that softened the sharp lines of furniture and gaudy frames around portraits of bleeding saints.

"Who the Hell are you?"

I had been crouched on the ground, rolling another rug in front of me. It unfurled, bumping dully against my legs as I stood and spun around to face a man. He was short and seemingly hungover, a lipstick stain on the curl of his off-white collar. He looked at me, his eyes bleary. He stood beneath the archway that led into the living-room.

"Josto!"

Maxia came from the kitchen and hugged the man, pecking his cheeks, which she then cupped between her hands. Her attitude shifted and she cursed at him in Italian, pinching his collar.

Then she looked at me and said, "Oh, Ava, this is my brother – Josto, this is the Irish girl."

Josto waved a hand vaguely in my direction. "Right, right. Listen, Eva –…"

"Ava," Maxia cut in.

Her smile was wide and strained. She had argued with Antoon on the back porch an hour after Rabbi had left. I had pretended not to hear it. Even without a lick of Italian, I could tell she had called him some choice words because he pushed around her and had not been back since. She had cried in the bedroom, but had since powdered her skin, so no-one could tell but me.

"Ava," Josto echoed. "You know how to make some damned coffee?"

"Mama has bridge," Maxia said.

Somehow, those three words were enough to silence Josto, who slunk toward the kitchen, grumbling to himself. He seemed not to appreciate his sister fawning over him and appreciated her scolding even less.

But he had sure surprised me. I had imagined the son of Don Fadda to be – well, different. He had spent his night in the arms of a lover and with a bottle of whiskey tipped to his lips too, evidently, and it had done him no favours, for he looked pale and irritable. Perhaps I had thought he would resemble his father, refined, a man of power.

"Ava?" Maxia called from the kitchen, leaning out from the arch to look at me. "Mama should be down soon."

I nodded. I had been told to clean the bedrooms but her mother's had been off-limits that morning. I had glimpsed it through the opening and closing of the door as Maxia had come out into the hall to speak with me. The curtains had been drawn and I had seen the lump of Mrs Fadda beneath her blankets, turned away from the door, drawn inward on herself. She had slipped into a black mood, one that meant it would be a struggle to rouse her for a game of bridge with her girlfriends.

"Mama is very tired," Maxia had said. "She had to lie down for a while. Needs her rest, you know."

I had nodded then, too, like I nodded most of the time that Maxia spoke. It was none of my business, whether Mrs Fadda made it to bridge or not. It was only my business to let the rugs breathe on the porch, bring them in if there was even a hint of rain, rid them of dust and return them to the floorboards after I had polished them. I would keep my head down, I would stay to myself, like I had been advised. It had been working out well so far. Maxia rushed off after Josto and I heard them squabble in the kitchen before he came storming out with a mug of coffee, which he accidentally slopped onto his shirt.

He yelped and let out a loud stream of curses, patting at the stain, which only worsened it. In a sudden fit of rage, he tore off the shirt, standing in his vest at the bottom of the stairs. He threw the shirt toward me, where it landed on a floor a few feet away.

"Forget the fucking rugs," he spat. "Find me a clean goddamn shirt."

Maxia came rushing into the hall, her heels clicking. She looked between us, then the shirt, then back at her brother. He marched upstairs and she quickly followed after him, calling his name. The argument continued upstairs for a few more seconds before his door slammed, a loud sound which ricocheted through the house. I stood, motionless, somewhat stunned. Maxia clopped downstairs again, dropping heavily at the bottom step where she looked at me and tried another weak, strained smile.

"His shirts should be in the laundry-room."

She walked off into the kitchen, her eyes brimming with tears all over again.

Zero had lessons with a tutor in the afternoon but came to eat lunch with me beforehand. He had to climb up onto the stool at the island in the kitchen, his shorts pulling up as he did so. He was quiet and polite and thanked me for the sandwiches with a nod of his head. He ate in chunks, tearing the bread and licking at the peanut-butter and jelly. I sat with him and ate peanut-butter sandwiches too, because I had not prepared anything else and I was afraid to be found rummaging in the cupboards too intensely, as if I was trying to steal. I had known maids fired for less than that.

Besides, Josto confused me and I did not want to fall on his bad side, which seemed so far to be his only side. I had brought him a shirt, like he asked, but he had snatched it from me without a word and whipped his door shut before I could even see him properly.

I preferred Zero.

"What lessons do you have?" I asked him.

He cocked his head, seemingly thinking about it. "English first," he said. "Then math. I hate math. My tutor makes me take a test every Friday."

"Wasn't my favourite subject either."

"Papa says it's important." He had a smudge of peanut-butter on his chin and I found a napkin to wipe it away for him. "He says everyone needs math."

"He would be right about that."

"What happened to Helga?"

I folded the napkin. "The German girl? I think she had to go home."

Zero stared at the other half of his sandwich, still on his plate. "Oh," he said. "Will you go home?"

"I would like to stay here. Would you like that?"

The boy considered me, his brow scrunched. It was quite funny, though I tried not to smile. He pursed his lips and then nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I think so. But I'll miss Helga. She used to give me an extra peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. They're my favourite."

His eyes slid toward me, not looking at me but hoping to determine if I would fall for his little ruse. I snorted, sliding off my stool.

"I think we can arrange that," I told him lightly. He perked up and I added, "If you get good results on that math test tomorrow, that is. Then we might be able to swing an extra peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. How does that sound?"

"Deal."

He stuck out his small hand and I could finally laugh, shaking it. It seemed one brother took after his father more than the other.

The cleaning of Don Fadda's office came in the later part of the afternoon. The ladies would soon arrive for bridge and Maxia had asked that I bring them refreshments after I finished with her father's office. I suspected this was more to demonstrate to the older women that the German girl had been done away with and thus there was no more need for idle gossip between them about what had happened in the Fadda house.

I had also heard Maxia pleading with her mother to get out of bed and dress for the occasion. I had simply continued with my duties, bringing the duster and sweeping brush to the office. I thought Maxia would take offense if I tried to offer help.

Don Fadda sat in his chair, eating peanuts. It was also a funny sight and I was in a light mood from having spent time with Zero. I had become fond of him rather quickly. He appeared shy and reserved but there was a boldness to him underneath it all, though he clamped up if anybody else passed through the kitchen or tried to talk to him.

He did not appear to be too interested in anything but his toys and a book he had been reading about a cowboy in the Wild West. This was what had made him like horses and gunfights, but he had nobody with whom he could play. I resolved to find some time during the day to play with him, because there were no other children around and it was a shame that he spent so much time alone in his room.

"Ava," Don Fadda said, "come, sit."

I stilled, looking at him in surprise. I had been dusting the figurines he kept and immediately worried that I had done something wrong. I took the armchair in front of his desk, the one where I had sat the first time I had met him, my hands clasped and twisting around each other like warring snakes.

"Is everything all right, Don Fadda?"

"Oh, I think so. Sun is shining, house is quiet." He reached out for the bowl of peanuts and tilted them toward me. "Do you want some of these?"

"No, thank you. I ate earlier – with your son."

"Zero," he nodded. "Good boy. Clever. You met my other boy also?"

"Yes, sir."

"Josto is a hot-head. Acts too quickly," he muttered. "But he has a good heart. He knows the business, knows what he wants. Do you know what you want?"

The question hung between us. "I'm not sure, sir."

He shrugged. "Normal. Me, I always knew what I wanted. But not always how to get it. This, you learn with time."

The room was stuffy and warm. He would not allow me to open the windows, would not allow the curtains to be drawn apart too much. He seemed to like this office for its secluded nature, tucked at the back of the house, furthest from the bedrooms and noise of his children arguing, of his wife prone in bed, awake but somehow not aware of it. There was only the brittle crack of peanut-shells broken in his hands for sound, They clinked against the bowl each time.

"I thought you should take a rest," he said. "Long day for you."

"Thank you, sir."

"Is Rabbi helping you?"

"Yes," I said. "He's been very kind."

Don Fadda hummed. "Another smart one, Rabbi. He will not guide you wrong."

There was a tap at the door. Calamita appeared. I had learned his name through hearing it spoken by the other men, even though he had been in the room that first day when I was hired. He had a strangeness to him, an ability to slither into place and make himself known in his sly manner. His eyes ghosted over me and focused on his boss, who continued eating as if there had been no interruption.

Calamita spoke in a soft tone, his words hidden from me in a shroud of Italian. Don Fadda, like Josto had done earlier, waved his hand dismissively and Calamita slid back into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

"Meetings," Don Fadda grunted. "Endless meetings. You can finish, Ava. Go to your room, do what you like."

"There is a bridge game, sir."

His eyebrows rose. "Tonight? Ah. You are right. After that, you finish."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

I grabbed the duster and brush. His office had only been half-cleaned yet he seemed not to mind. If anything, I thought he liked the comfort of this momentary solitude, in which he could sit alone for just a moment. But a large man, led by a gaggle of other men with guns in their waistbands and gifts in their hands, walked past me, tipping their hats at me before breaking into his silent world.

I heard the clink of glasses, the familiar chafing of a hefty envelope pulled from one pocket and passed to another. I had not been here long. Already, though, the sounds of the house had become as familiar to me as birdsong.

Mrs Fadda came to bridge wearing a pale yellow dress that hollowed her out. She was pale and tired. She drank one shot of whiskey and then went into the room where her girlfriends waited. I stood in the hall and followed with a tray of drinks for them. I had to stand there for most of that game, refilling glasses, nodding and telling them that I was the Irish girl they had heard about, that it was Ava, not Eva or Amy or anything else. I told them that America was wonderful, yes; no, I had not seen Italy; yes, it probably was a much more beautiful country; yes, of course America had its charms too; no, I could not speak much Italian but I would be glad to learn.

This was what led to those older women sitting me down between them, teaching me their words, glad that one person listened to them when it seemed they came from houses much like this one, where the women went into one room and men into another and their children had grown, now had babies of their own, did not care for stories of the old country, did not care for tradition and honour, not like in their days.

"I like her more than the Dutch one," Antonia said.

Mrs Fadda had sunken in her chair, one hand raised to cradle her forehead. Her hand was veiny and the blueness stood out.

"German," Cecilia said. "The girl was German."

"If a man starts calling you tesoro, you run," Carmella told me, placing a cool frail hand on my wrist.

"And run faster if he starts with puttana," Rosa added.

That brought a round of cackling laughter from the women. Despite their jokes, I had learned little phrases, small dashes into the language that made me feel that little bit better. Soon I was dismissed, for Maxia had swept into the room and wanted to play host.

It was not hard to tell that she had chosen the best time, because most of the women were readying themselves to pull on their fur coats and shuffle off out to the cars which idled outside for them, surrounded by men from other families who probably loathed being sent out for such benign tasks.

Slubbing upstairs to my room, I noticed the light was on in the hall again. I looked right, into the bedroom that Rabbi had been given long before I had ever gotten here. He had bunk-beds and I wondered if there had once been another boy with him, though he was now a man and it seemed too small a frame for him.

But there he sat, on his own, nearest the window, in a chair too small for him also. He was looking out the sheer curtains. He was not aware of me for quite some time, until I tapped against his door. Twice, I tapped.

"Are you all right, Rabbi?"

He did not turn around. "I'm listenin'," he said.

"To what?"

"The birds," he answered. "Don't hear a difference between 'em."

I felt a warmth in my chest, moving into the room and drawing a chair alongside him. His room was airy and light, not like the morose patterns of mahogany and sepia which suffocated the other rooms. I plopped myself beside him and drew my chair close to his, leaning forward to open the gap in his window a little wider.

"The goldfinch sings while it flies and that sound is shorter. Like a titter." Though it stirred that pinkness in my cheeks again, I whistled three sharp notes for him. "A little like that. Then, they sometimes sit and make a longer whistle sound. But they make sounds for their mates, too. When the male looks for a female, he will change the tune, try to make it sound like a lot of sounds at once to impress her. Even takes notes from other birds, just to show off. Most of the time, though, it sounds like that little titter."

"Never pay them any mind," he told me. "Birds and the like. Where'd you learn it?"

"My father. Liked to listen to them all the time, he did. Said they told you things that man can't. Even when they're not singin'. Especially then, 'cause they're tellin' you to watch for somethin', to notice what they've already seen."

Rabbi was quiet. He came down from perches and yellow-coloured feathers long enough to say, "You met Josto."

"How'd you know?"

"Maxia told me." His voice cracked, once again sounding sore. "Said he was in foul humour. He'll settle soon, though. Josto always blows a gasket and then settles."

"I would take peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches with Zero over a moment with Josto any day."

I realised that Rabbi had taken off his heavy coat and draped it on his bed. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his hat left on his bedside table, alongside a Bible. He had told me that he did not believe in anything. There was no gun poking from his waistband. I did not know what to make of that. His arms were sinewy, shy of sunlight. It felt strange to sit in his room with him, perhaps too familiar, too personal. He might have been too polite to tell me, so I stood from the chair.

"I'll let you be," I said.

Rabbi whistled; three sharp notes, just like that. He had mimicked the sound I made earlier, only on hearing it once and once alone. Then he stood, sweeping the windows shut, cutting it off before they could respond to his call.

Saturday split between the houses in rays of warm, delicate sunshine that bathed our rooms on the third floor in golden light. I dressed myself in a white dress which, though simple and cheap, felt much lighter and prettier than that blue dress with its apron. I had been glad to slip out from the house. I pretended to walk some streets away, because Rabbi had thought it better not to leave together.

He had not explained more than that, but Calamita had been sitting on the porch and I felt him – felt more than just his stare, felt him like a shadow which loomed between the shifting of the trees, dipping down like drooping branches to bristle my shoulders and remind me that he was there.

Rabbi waited on another street, leaning against his maroon-coloured car. He opened the door for me and then slid into his own side. I felt the cool air drawn through the gaps of his rolled-down windows, brushing at my wrists, the hollow of my jaw, whipping stray strands of hair from my braid.

I had never imagined myself in a car like that, again, never imagined myself away from endless toil and labour in my own country, never imagined the American houses with flags and fences. There was toil here, there was labour aplenty, but there was something sweeter in the air. At least there had been, then, with Rabbi and the streets rolling past, their trees shimmering leaves down upon us.

I slipped my hand through the gap and turned my palm against the wind and thought it was a beautiful thing, to be here, to be temporarily American; for if I closed my eyes, I could pretend like I had that morning that house back there, so large and stately, was ours, its lawn and cars too, and these were our neighbours, our town all around us, until all the world seemed ours too.

The road turned bumpy and rose in hilly mounds, arching, dipping, arching again. The horizon bubbled thickly on the asphalt. The landmarks were telephone wires and the occasional gas station dotted in-between the long stretches of fields and nothingness, with a house dropped onto some flat plot of yellowed grass.

I leaned my head back against the seat and eyed Rabbi, who was hunched forward around the wheel, eyes fixated on some fuzzing dot up ahead. "Why did you offer to bring me?"

He licked his lips. "Thought it would be nice for you. D'you regret comin'?"

"No. Just wonderin'."

"What else would you be doin' on your day off?"

I smiled, shrugging my shoulders. "Eatin' peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, I suppose."

"Have those in Liberal too, they do." He angled his head to look at me. "If you're hungry."

I studied him closely, though he had turned back to the road. Was he truly this kind or had Don Fadda asked him to occupy me outside of work hours? Afraid that I might hear or see too much in that house, where men often whispered to one another, where I spotted their knuckles bleeding and torn, their lips cut, though never were such wounds brought up. Only a promise that business was good, in Kansas City. It was booming.

"I could eat," I said.

The restaurant that we had chosen was on a corner and we got a booth that looked out into the street. I ate apple-pie and he drank coffee, his eyes skimming the faces around us. I watched the waitresses in their checked aprons, their bonnets, their soft shoes which scuffed against the tiles. I thought of Don Fadda and what he had said, in the cocoon of his office, sealed off from the house and the old country and the world, when he had asked me what I wanted.

"Would you wait here for me a minute?" he asked.

I was confused but nodded. "Sure."

Rabbi stood, sticking his hat atop his head and stepping out into the street. I watched him weave between passing cars, to the feed-store, where he went inside for a couple of moments and emerged a while later, without a bag or anything else in his hands. He returned to the booth and finished his coffee. He was antsy and smoothed down the pockets of his coat.

"You been to the movie theatre yet?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"Would you like to go?"

The film was projected on a screen so large that I thought I could reach out and touch the actress. Bette Davis, he told me. And Anne Baxter. I forget the others. He sank low in his seat and the lights flickered against his face, drawing out the shadows beneath his eyes, hollowing his cheeks, but brightening that thoughtfulness there in his stare, that furrow in his brow. He was handsome, I decided. He was very handsome.

I never would have sat in a theatre with another man like that, would have feared what was thought of me for such a casual way of acting around him. But it was different here. I was no actress, no movie-star on a screen. I was simply watching a story play itself out and thinking it must be wonderful to stand up there like those other women and mouth words and summon tears for the sadder scenes and I leaned low in the seat like he did, revelling in the freeness of it all.

The car was warm and cosy. He had given me his scarf. It had been a gesture brought on by the chill of the evening, for we had spent a long time in Liberal. I would find an excuse for where I had been but he would not be asked, he said. He often left and returned and left again. He was only wanted if Don Fadda asked for him. I listened to him while we rattled along the old roads with potholes and puddles and great spots of blank nothingness, though I felt I recognised the knots in the telephone wires and the tufts of yellowed grass a little more than I had when we had left earlier.

"Thank you, Rabbi," I said.

He glanced at me. "For what? Only a movie."

"Never seen one before," I told him. "Not on a screen that big neither. I liked it. I liked Annie Baxter."

"Anne," he corrected.

"She's beautiful. What a life they must have."

"What a life," he repeated.

He said that we could do it again next Saturday. The clouds spun purple and red and I dozed, dreaming of flags fluttering in a light breeze. I had no night-terrors, then, in that car.

I locked the latch on my door twice. Only then would he move away from his door and lay down in his own bed while I lay in mine.

In the morning, he was listening to the birds again. I saw him through our open doors, saw his silhouette etched against the pinkish tone of dawn. This time, I thought he understood what my father had talked about, for there was no tightness in his shoulders, no tension in his hands. He listened and saw those yellow-feathered creatures flitting between the trees like he never had before.