Box Socials. W. Kinsella P.

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СКАЧАТЬ Bible printed in Ukrainian, was just the handsomest, best-looking man she had ever seen. She particularly like the uniform. Lavonia’s best girlfriend was Stevie Dwerynchuk, and one of Stevie Dwerynchuk’s brothers was in the Canadian infantry, but when he came home on leave his uniform was the color and texture of weatherstripping, and instead of a genuine military cap that made him look like Smilin’ Jack, he wore a turned-over-trough of a cap made of the same ugly, scratchy material as his uniform.

      Mrs. Wasyl Lakusta, her first name was Rose, though no one called her Rose, except Mr. Wasyl Lakusta, thinking of her old age, immediately recognized the Little American Soldier as good solid prospective son-in-law material. She boiled up many fat pyrogies (little dumplings stuffed with cottage cheese), each one bulging with the cheese; she fried them in bacon grease and onions; she had Lavonia carry them to the table and set them in front of the Little American Soldier, and when he didn’t seem to know what to do with them, she had Lavonia spoon thick sour cream over the pyrogies, sprinkle them with pepper and caraway seeds. Then Mrs. Wasyl Lakusta would appear from the kitchen, smiling from beneath her babushka, careful not to show her bad teeth, and say, ‘Eat! Eat! Lavonia cook, you eat!’ using up four of the half dozen English words she knew. And eat he did, his brown eyes happy. And he shaved each morning using Wasyl Lakusta’s straight razor, first dipping warm water from the reservoir on the cook stove and placing it in a white enamel wash basin with a scarlet line around the rim.

      During the Little American Soldier’s third week there, the Lakustas butchered a pig, one they’d intended to fatten until winter, but after a long conference involving the Wasyl Lakustas, Sylvie Lakusta and her oldest brother, Nestor, and Sylvie’s fiancé, Pete Yaremko, the conference held while the Little American Soldier was walking with Lavonia Lakusta along what would have been the banks of Lily Lake, if Lily Lake hadn’t dried up several years earlier. At the conference it was decided the most important thing they could do was feed Lavonia’s prospective husband, their collectively prospective son-in-law, and brother-in-law, as well as was humanly possible. That same afternoon the pig, who had expected to live at least until the first snowfall, and since the first snowfall was known to occasionally happen in August, probably long after that, was bashed in the center of the forehead by a sledgehammer with Pete Yaremko attached to the handle of it, had barely fallen to its knees when Sylvie Lakusta slashed its throat with a butcher knife, and Wasyl Lakusta attached a rope to its left hind foot and the three of them swung it aloft from the log arch above the corral gate.

      The Little American Soldier took to the Lakustas by the lake like fleas to a dog, but he especially took to Lavonia and her dark red hair, brown eyes, and delicate construction. One afternoon, he walked the four miles to the Fark General Store, where he picked up his army pay and bought for Lavonia’s dark red hair a pair of barrettes shaped like everlasting daisies, white flowers with yellow centers. And he brought home a sackful of store-bought groceries, including coffee, chocolate bars, and two packs of tailor-made cigarettes.

      He showed Lavonia’s youngest brother how to tie string to the four corners of a khaki handkerchief so as to make it a parachute, and how to fold that parachute, and how to put a stone in the middle and toss it up in the air, then to duck the stone when it fell back down and watch the parachute float to the ground just like dandelion fluff.

      Now the Bjornsen Brothers, both the ones in the Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers and the ones not, were no slouches as mechanics, so with a welding torch and the frame of a 1939 Terra-plane that had rolled in the ditch two miles west of Bjornsen’s Corner the winter before and been abandoned, and a certain amount of native Norwegian mechanical genius, they constructed a part or two that made the Little American Soldier’s camouflage-brindle, two-ton truck operational again.

      Five weeks had passed by now, and the Little American Soldier still phoned Edmonton every week, and the United States Army still told him to hang in there, that the parts were on the way from Michigan or Minnesota or wherever, and that they hadn’t forgotten him. The Little American Soldier had tucked the dispatch pouch, full of supposedly vital information, underneath the seat of his truck and more or less forgotten about it.

      Once the Bjornsen Brothers, the ones in the Bjornsen Bros. Swinging Cowboy Musicmakers, and the ones not, had used their native Norwegian mechanical genius to make the camouflage-brindle two-ton truck operational again, the Little American Soldier was able to drive around and explore the Six Towns area, nearly always taking Lavonia Lakusta with him. They’d drive up to New Oslo and buy gas, then head over to Doreen Beach, where the brick general store with glass windows had an ice house attached and, for about two hours twice a week had ice-cream cones available, the two hours being right after Curly McClintock had unloaded from his dump truck the grocery order from the wholesale in Edmonton, which included a gallon tub of ice cream.

      Once word got around about the Lakustas by the lake having acquired their very own American soldier, they had an inordinate number of visitors, including my daddy and me, who just happened to drive four miles out of our way after a trip in our horse and cart, to Fark General Store of a Saturday afternoon. It was, my daddy said, about as crowded at the Lakustas by the lake, as it had been years before when we acquired our very own radio, for the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, was there, as were just about every family in the Six Towns area who had an eligible daughter.

      The Little American Soldier, and Victor Lakusta, Lavonia’s youngest brother, demonstrated to me how to fold a khaki handkerchief the way a parachute was supposed to be folded, how to put a stone in the middle, how to toss the handkerchief and the stone into the air, how to duck the stone and watch the parachute float to earth just like dandelion fluff. I never did master folding the handkerchief, and after I got home I folded one of Daddy’s red bandannas like I thought a parachute should be folded, put a stone in the middle and tossed it in the air, where the stone came out but the still-wadded bandanna dropped straight down in a soft lump. The stone hit me on the top of the head causing a small hard lump and severely damaged pride. After that I remembered to duck the stone but the parachute never opened properly even once.

      When it became apparent to the families with eligible daughters, that the Little American Soldier was smitten by Lavonia Lakusta, the discovery unleashed a certain amount of jealousy. Folks in the Six Towns area, not only those with eligible daughters, for the widow, Mrs. Beatrice Ann Stevenson, who had no daughters, or children at all for that matter, and Mrs. Edytha Rasmussen Bozniak, whose daughter, Velvet, wouldn’t be eligible for five or six years, depending on what age one considered a daughter eligible, were jealous that it was Lavonia Lakusta who landed the Little American Soldier, and in their jealousy began asking themselves philosophical questions like, Why couldn’t the Little American Soldier’s camouflage-brindle, two-ton truck have broken down a mile from their house, instead of over by Bjornsen’s Corner? Or, Why couldn’t the Bjornsens have steered the Little American Soldier their way, instead of arranging for him to board and room with the Lakustas by the lake?

      The more outspoken asked questions like, How come the Bjornsens, who were Norwegians through and through, didn’t steer the most eligible bachelor to hit the Six Towns area in ten years to a Norwegian family with an eligible daughter, instead of to a Ukrainian family with two eligible daughters? That question got asked philosophically, then got asked out loud, then got asked directly to the Bjornsens, and got asked so loudly on a couple of occasions that a shoving match ensued, though it was broken up before it progressed to an altercation, a fist fight, or a genuine brouhaha, and before any blood was drawn on either side.

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