Free Princess of Passyunk by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff Page A

understand that the family comes first. The eldest son, by tradition, takes the family business. And if Alik is to have the restaurant, Yevgeny would do very well to go to university.”
    â€œBut if Alik wants to be a teacher and Yevgeny wants to work in the restaurant, what does it matter? All the bases are still covered.”
    Baba blinked at him. “What, bases?”
    â€œI mean, they’d still have a son who’s a teacher and a son in the business.”
    â€œTo the oldest son goes the business, Ganny. It’s the same in your family. It’s tradition. It’s more than tradition, it’s duty.”
    â€œBut what if Alik would make a better teacher and Yevgeny a better chef? What if—”
    â€œGanny, why does this trouble you so?”
    Why, indeed? He pondered that. “I guess because I’d like Yevgeny to be happy.”
    â€œWho says he won’t be happy? You remember that prince, Ivan, with his frog?”
    Ganny nodded slowly, uncertain where his grandmother was headed.
    â€œWell, how happy do you think he was when he waded into that bog, em? Do you think he made a brocheh for his da’s wisdom when he saw that frog with his arrow? And how did he end, I ask you?”
    Ganady squinted up his eyes and tried not to look disbelieving. “Happily ever after?”
    Baba shrugged. “How do I know from ever after? But in this life, he was happy.”
    At this juncture, a shadow fell long upon the sidewalk, thrown from the street lamp toward Wharton. Ganny looked up expecting to see Yevgeny. Instead, he saw his brother, Nikolai. Hands in pockets, shuffling along, his head down. As he realized the shuffle was actually more of a limp, Ganady rose.
    Baba, too, came to her feet with an alacrity that belied her age. “Nikki? What’s wrong?”
    Nikolai stopped just below the stoop, cramming his hands even further into his pockets. “Nothing,” he mumbled.
    Baba smacked the flat of her hand on the railing. “Nikolai Feodor Puzdrovsky, don’t give me ‘nothing.’ Come here.”
    He hesitated, but obeyed, coming into the light from the front windows.
    Ganady felt his stomach clench. His brother’s clothes were rumpled and dirty and a dark smear of blood swept from his upper lip to his chin.
    Baba grasped Nikolai’s face in one wiry hand, turning it this way and that. She let go of his chin to brush at the front of his shirt.
    â€œSuch a mess! Your poor Mama. Do you know how hard is dried blood to get out? Inside with you!”
    He moved, then, up the steps and into the house while Ganady and Baba trailed, one in shocked silence, the other giving a running preview of what each parent would think, feel, say and do when they saw their eldest son.
    Baba’s prophecies were quickly proven, for Mama let out a kvitch of maternal distress and launched into immediate action. And while moist rags and ointments appeared out of nowhere, Da shouted and paced and demanded the full knowledge of what had happened and what lump had done it.
    It was not, however, until Baba had brought tea (the universal curative) and Nick had changed clothes and remanded his ruined garments to a sink full of cold water and Da was merely pacing and Baba merely hovering and Ganny sitting on Da’s footstool where he could see that Marija had padded out onto the upstairs landing to eavesdrop, that Nikolai related his tale of woe.
    He had been minding his own business, getting a breath of fresh air on the rear stair of the Youth Center, when he had been thoroughly thumped by another youth.
    â€œFor no reason?” Da asked.
    â€œHe called me a kike ,” said Nick, not looking at anyone. “I told him I was Catholic, but he said I was just a Jew boy in disguise.”
    â€œ Oy , such words,” murmured Baba.
    â€œWhy did this happen?” Da asked, and Mama said,”It’s bigots, Vitaly. This surprises you?”
    Now Nick looked at