The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

Author:Louise Erdrich [Erdrich, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Butchers, Literary, Historical fiction, Historical, North Dakota, Veterans, World War; 1914-1918 - Veterans, Married people, General, Romance, Triangles (Interpersonal relations), German Americans, World War; 1914-1918, War & Military, Singers, Fiction, Domestic fiction, Immigrants, Love stories
ISBN: 9780060837051
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2005-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

DELPHINE DID EVERYTHING she could to distract herself from the fact that she had to thank Fidelis, had to talk to him about having freed her father on bail. She transferred all the meat from one case to the next, and scrubbed out the first air-cooled case with a sharp mixture of vinegar and water. Then she arranged all of the meats in the case again, placing between each tray the careful decorations, cut of green waxed paper, that set off the pork chops and sausages and steaks. While she was finishing, she thought of all of the other jobs she could do, but even as she added them up she grew irritated with herself. Why not talk to him this very minute? In the middle of dunking a rag to make another swipe at the glass and enamel, she wrung it out instead and laid it on the steel counter. Closed the sliding doors.

“Fidelis” — she stood behind him and he turned from his task — “you paid the bail for my father.”

He nodded, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Yes.” He acknowledged Delphine, then tried to turn back to the meat he was grinding and spicing, but there was more.

“You’ll get it back.”

“Sure,” said Fidelis.

“I will pay you back,” said Delphine. “If he…”

“But he won’t leave.”

This was going to force him to say more, and he knew it, and all that morning he had thought it out. But it was still hard for him to say what he had to say to this woman. He took a huge breath, and made the attempt. “What you did for Eva, and then what Roy did…” But that was as far as he could go.

“She was my friend, and good to my dad. I didn’t do it for you.” Delphine had decided to speak plainly.

Fidelis shrugged to say that didn’t matter, but she preempted this.

“Look,” she said, “I don’t want people to start saying things. And Tante, her especially.”

“She doesn’t know I paid.”

“But she will. She does your books. And then so will everybody else in town.”

Fidelis frowned, considering this, but remained stubborn.

“So if they do,” he said, “they’ll think of what you and Roy did for Eva.”

“I don’t want people thinking about that.” Delphine tried to keep her voice low, but it rose beyond her, sharp. “I know what they think already, I’ve heard it, and I know that your sister feeds those rumors with her gossip. I want an end to it. But I’m glad…” Here she stumbled a little, for it was hard for her to say this, and her voice dropped, low and shamed. “Thank you for getting him out. I never knew my father sober before this. It was hard on him, getting locked up, and in real trouble, after he’d finally taken the pledge.”

This was more than she’d ever said to Fidelis here, or revealed to him in this shop and in Eva’s house. It had been easier to speak her mind to him on her ground back at the farm.

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