The Master Butchers Singing Club-Chapter 6-SPOILERS
This thread is set up for discussion of the book by Louise Erdrich, and will be posted chapter by chapter (as I finish them or if you want to participate, you can post an OP for the next chapter). This way, we can see how our opinions of the book and characters change or not over time. If you are joining the discussion, stop after each chapter and post before going on so you don't have more information than anyone else reading this.
Chapter 6 - The Night Garden
Things just never seen to go well for the people in this book, at least not yet. Eva did get surgery for her tumor, but the cancer spread and she is dying. Eva has a garden, full of disorganization and chaos---just the opposite of her usual personality and the way she keeps her house. Delphine had never had a garden or paid much attention to nature before becoming friends with Eva. And now, Eva is unable to do much and they often sit and watch the garden and the birds.
Eva is close to death, and she thinks about what there is after death. She wonders if her mind will continue. She thinks about what clouds look like from above. Her son, Franz, convinces Pouty Mannheim, one of the singing club who owns a plane, to take her up in the plane but keep it a secret from Fidelis. Eva is so excited with the trip and her happiness shows. She realizes just how small we all are, and how small Argus is. She feels that religion is not what matters unless you need it, but that there is something bigger than any of it. And she tells her sons not to worry about her death, that she will not be gone.
Roy, Delphine's father, often comes to visit with Eva, telling her stories and entertaining her. He also helps around the place, doing anything that needs done. Although Delphine is grateful for his diversions, she is also jealous. All the years that she has known him, he has never given her this much attention or help....makes you wonder.
On the 4th of July, there is a picnic in the garden. Eva is bedridden but can see out to the garden. The men are all getting drunk out there, hiding a bottle in the bushes and Eva can see them pulling it out like kids. Eva is in constant pain now, but refuses to be a whiner about it. She had surgery, then had radium treatments that were horrible in their descriptions---radium inserted into her uterus that burned her body up. But the cancer spread.
Cyprian also comes to the picnic. He has been making regular runs to Canada for booze, and had looked after the meat store while Fidelis and Delphine were with Eva at the Mayo Clinic.
Eva's prayer as she went to care for Eva daily was "spit in your eye". She had no faith and lost any that she could have had. Fidelis' sister, Tante, is the religious nut in the group, and she comes to pray over Eva with all her church friends often. One of Delphine's duties is to give Eva morphine when the pain gets too bad. She gets ready to prepare the morphine and finds that it is gone. Since it is a holiday, finding the doctor, then the pharmacist, will be next to impossible. Delphine runs out to try to get more for her, and has a hunch----she stops at Tante's house because she remembered how her and her church friends were upset over her getting morphine. She was right, Tante had taken it----and threw it away. Delphine is livid and forces Tante to come with her. She leaves her at Eva's house to take care of her while she goes to find more. After hours of looking for the doctor or pharmacist, she comes up empty. She is heading back to Eva when she sees her father stumbling down the road. She is so pissed that she considers running him over, but then she realizes that he is not drunk.....he is trying to run. He has a bottle in his hand but it is not what she expected. It is not booze, it is a medicine bottle of morphine. Roy had broken into the drug store and broken the lock on the medicine cabinet to get this for Eva.
When they get back to the house, Eva is having a tantrum and breaking everything in the kitchen. She is trying to get a knife and her sons are holding her back. Tante is cowering in a corner. Delphine gets Eva calmed down a little and starts to prepare the medicine for her.
And that is how the chapter ends. Lots of turmoil. Lots of sorrow. I loved seeing Tante, who I have disliked from the time she first showed up in the book, put in her place....but I wonder what problems it will cause Delphine to have stood up to her and bullied her. This is a wicked woman, church or no church. I have the feeling that this will not be the end of it.
Roy continues to amaze me, but then again, this is often the way drunks are----nice to other people and hard for the family to deal with. I can understand Delphine's desire to run him over in the road. But deep down, he is a caring person. He just doesn't deal with life well.
We still do not have a clear character in Fidelis yet. We know that he loves Eva---he has been working double time just to pay for her treatments and medicine. He was also out trying to find the doctor on July 4 when the medicine went missing. But we have little to go on so far.
We will see how things progress.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That made me mad.
I'm glad that Ava & Delphine are friends. Poor Ava, I feel so bad for her.
