Sister said when Mrs. Pilsudski nicked her toe as though it were a wiener on Mrs. Bendis’s grocery scale.
“Here. It’s not bleeding. We’ll soak it,” said the bunion scraper.
She cut around on the nun’s other foot, feeling privileged to do such humble service—like Mary Magdalene would. She cut off a slice of callus like a slice of pear. She scraped at Sister’s other calluses.
“I have sodality meeting,” Mrs. Pilsudski said a moment later as she washed her hands in the kitchen. “I’m tonight’s leader.”
Hoping for the nun’s blessing, she heard only the four other nuns discussing their favorite TV reruns. Mrs. Pilsudski powdered her face. A light blue ribbon hung from the sodality pin above her heart. She adjusted the ribbon and pin.
Taking a breath, she corrected her posture. Though she did-n’t fear leading the women in the Apostles’ Creed, she did fear the Hail Mary. That prayer would confuse her, for lately—no, it’d been a year or two already—she’d been saying the rosary without thinking what the prayers meant. At home she’d pray with the TV on reruns of Mister Ed or Green Acres. Her lips would move reverently, fingers edging along the beads, but her mind would be lingering on what Mister Ed said to Wilbur. In the middle of the Hail Mary, she’d laugh at how they made the horse’s lips move or she’d sing the Green Acres theme.
At sodality she’d lose her concentration, too. It never failed. While other ladies bowed, she’d stare at Mrs. Waletzko’s dishpan hands or calculate how much hair Mrs. Simrak had lost.
“It’s ‘Hail Mary, full of the grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou amongst the women, and blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus,’ not ‘Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners . . . ,’” she told herself. She always got the Hail Mary and the Holy Mary mixed up. That was what came of watching TV nonstop: you didn’t pay attention to your rosary. Fifteen times she said it: “Hail Mary, full of the grace—”
Downstairs, forty-five sodality women waited. Each, according to the rules, was to say three rosaries by herself per week, one for each of the three mysteries of the rosary.
Each mystery contained five smaller ones, such as the Mystery of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.
Checking behind her to see that no baby-soft Charmin stuck to her, Mrs. Pilsudski peeked in. The newest sodality members sat at the lower end of the warped hardwood floor, the older ones at the gym’s other end. Someone was saying, “Baba,” thought Mrs. Pilsudski, but overcoming her fear, she marched in. “Prayer time,” she said. After hurried talk and the rustling of glass, plastic, and wooden beads, each Rose held the crucifix of her rosary.
The Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father passed smoothly. As Mrs. Pilsudski began the first of ten small beads with “Hail Mary,” though, a spiteful voice cut her off.
Forty-four selfless voices responding to the Hail Mary, and one selfish voice had to rush her response.
Mrs. Pilsudski tried again. “Hail Mar—.” Before she finished, the voice said, “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” in perfect English. Two beads deep and it was a prayer war.
The widow had heard that annoying, urgent voice for years at the grocery store saying, “It’ll be forty-five cents for this” or “sixty-three cents for that.” Now Mrs. Pilsudski was hurrying to get away from it. The faster she, Stella Pilsudski, said, “Hail Mary,” the faster the other woman’s voice: “Holy Mary.”
“Hail Mary.” “Holy Mary.” “Hail Mary.” “Holy Mary.” It was a holy race.
Jadzia, the conserver of wieners, exalted herself with each response, which was just like her. She was wearing a summer suit, sensible for tonight’s weather, conceded Mrs. Pilsudski, though perhaps a bit formal. The corner grocery store magnate had had her hair fixed, too. The bouffant did little for that turned-up snout. Now the widow Pilsudski’s own hair fell about her forehead in sweaty ringlets. Her winter dress trapped the summer heat. She could feel her hands and legs swelling with water, her head growing light.
“Hail Mary, pray for us, the sinners,” she said. “No, Hail Mary, I mean, full of the grace. That’s what I mean.”
“Holy Mary,” the ladies were saying when the widow could-n’t remember offering up a “Hail Mary.” She and her living girdle weren’t breathing right.
Knowing how the Lord suffered in the garden, she resolved to suffer herself and struggled through ten beads, through an Our Father, then through two more beads.
When the air got thick in the gym, she was moaning, “Hail Mary,Who art in heaven, Green Acres is the place for me.”
“Stella-dear. Stella,” they were saying, coaxing her back to consciousness. Someone opened the gym windows.
“Thy kingdom come,Thy will be done,” the widow kept on, then muttered how much she liked Eva Gabor, even though Eva was Hungarian. She felt drowsy . . . couldn’t for the life of her recall the character Pat Buttram played on Green Acres. The ladies lifted and fanned Mrs. Pilsudski’s hair after they undid the bun. Even Harriet dabbed a wet handkerchief to the widow’s flushed temples.
“I’m okay. Get away wit’ that hankie. I saw a horse. I experienced a miracle. God on a horse. The horse neighed. A Polish horse, not Slovak!”
“You forgot your prayer, Stella.You were saying the Apostles’ Creed, then talking about Green Acres. You dear thing, doing God’s bidding like this.”
“No, a talking horse,” Mrs. Pilsudski said. “The owner’s Wilbur. T’at’s it, it’s Wilbur.”
The ladies congratulated her on her suffering and devotion to prayer.
“I always do what I can,” said Mrs. Pilsudski humbly.
She wished the praise would continue until she realized how foolish she must look slumped over, head lolling, glasses steamed up. She was angry that Jadzia Bendis, a poker and pincher of frankfurters, had gotten to her.
When Mrs. Pilsudski stood up, she felt something. Oh, Lord! She couldn’t look down at the “wetting accident.” All the time smiling nervously, she grabbed her coat, side-stepped to the wall.
“Stella, stay for coffee,” said Harriet.
“No coffee, no coffee,” said Stella, then mouthed the word ac-ci-dent.
She wrapped the coat about her. God help me, I am a baba! she thought as she made her way out, for strength touching the sodality ribbon and pin that honored the Blessed Virgin.
Though completely done in, she managed to make her way down Third Street through the field onto the trestle. With no train coming, it was a clean walk home. A wooden railing rose from the walkway beside the trestle tracks. On one side was the forest and the river’s long curve through it. Often from her kitchen window she’d watched people come across the trestle, just as someone could be watching her this very moment, huffing and puffing, the setting sun at her back. Maybe Mr. Boruczki, the neighbor, was drinking vodka and watching her before he went to his night shift at the gas plant. Or maybe Joseph Lesczyk was watching from the hill.
So this was God’s punishment of the faithful: wetting
