The Master Butchers Singing Club-Chapter 8-SPOILERS
Beware----there be spoilers below.
Chapter 8 – The Burning of the Mutts
There were a lot of sicknesses in the Waldvogel family that first winter that Delphine went to work for Fidelis, and she was not able to keep to the hours she had set. She was often needed there all night to nurse one of the boys. She found that a mothering instinct had set in on her. But she is not the only one who is thinking of a family. She had been silently waiting, hoping that she was pregnant from her sexual encounter with Cyprian---and so was he.
But as the months passed, both knew that she was not with a child. Cyprian had decided that he wanted children, and he wanted to stay with Delphine, so one night he asked her to marry him. She had planned for this, and said no.
But there were good things too. Delphine was happy working at the shop now that she had control over things. The store did well under her management. And Roy was still not drinking. She enjoyed the routine of her life without all the drama.
Marcus was getting the chinchillas into top shape, because the fur trader was due any time. He was making all the calculations of how much he would get for them, and what it could get. Then……one night, the wild dogs that came for scraps got into the cages and ate every one of them.
The next day, as she came to work, Markus ran to her to show her what had happened. When Fidelis saw what the dogs had done, he didn’t say a thing. He just went into the slaughterhouse and got all the scraps he could find and dumped them at the edge of the field, then got a chair, both his guns, and extra bullets and sat under a tree.
While he was waiting, Delphine went into the shop. Step-and-a-Half came in for her daily scraps----but there weren’t any left. Delphine instead wrapped up a nice steak for her, but she wouldn’t take it. She asked how much----she had never paid for anything before, but she dug a nickel out of her pocket and gave it.
It was late afternoon before the dogs showed up. Fidelis had sat there quietly the whole day, and he waited for them to all gather, then he started shooting. Not one shot missed, and he killed every one of the wild dogs. Then he had the boys put the dogs in a pile. Hottentot, the chow, was one of them. They built a huge bonfire, soaked with kerosene.
When she got home, Cyprian again asked her to marry him….he promised her he would never be with a man again and he would take care of her. She could not imagine taking that away from him---that WAS him. So she changed the subject and told him about the wild dogs and how Fidelis had calmly and proficiently killed them all. Cyprian realized that he had been a sniper in the war, maybe the one who had killed some of his unit, or his great love.
Cyprian and Fidelis never spoke of the war or told stories about it. Both had seen too much and never discussed it. They were not proud of their service and what they had done.
Tante had moved out, but she was creating a vendetta about it. She dug up as much about Delphine as she could, and spread it around with her church friends. Delphine’s father was a drunk, he may be a murderer, they were Catholics and Polish, she was married (or maybe not???) to a foreign-looking man who was too handsome…..and she had moved in on Eva’s sickness to steel Fidelis. She wrote letters back to family in Germany and when they were answered, she would show them to Fidelis----who ignored them. She simmered. She plotted. She had to save face, and make her life better. Well, she could return to Germany, but she would have to take the kids with her to have any standing there. She wished for a rich husband, but that wasn’t happening. She decided to try to find a job. She sold her last piece of jewelry and bought a new suit to go job hunting in. Tante had never worn anything but black, and this suit was a metallic fabric. She could not find a job anywhere in town, and was distractedly thinking when she stepped out into the street, right in front of a car, and was hit. It did not do any real damage to her, she got up and headed home, achy already, and she laid down and cursed everyone she had seen that whole day.
Franz, the oldest boy, had found a love….Mazarine. They had a little hideout under a pine tree, where they would go necking. She had set rules, he could only do what she allowed.
Sheriff Hock was working late. He wanted to close the Chavers case, and knew it was probably some terrible accident, but he just couldn’t let it go. He remembered the beads on the floor, and remembered attacking Clarisse when she wore that dress with beads on it, and remembered Delphine’s comments to him about giving up on Clarisse. He had Clarisse on his mind every minute of every day----the only freedom he would get was when he would imagine locking her in a closet, and he would be free for the hours it would take her to break out.
Hock also had another old case----and this put a plan into his mind. He wanted to find out if he could get information on the cellar deaths, and planned to find out if there was anything to learn. He arrested Roy on the stolen morphine charge, even though that was old, and Fidelis had gone immediately to the sheriff, and was paying the druggist for the damage. But…….he then went and told Delphine that her father had been arrested. She assumed it was for the Chavers case, and he didn’t clarify. She wanted to see Roy, and he said she could see him anytime. She ran over to Clarisse’s mortuary immediately just for comfort from her friend, and following her, watching her was the sheriff. Hock stewed over how Clarisse treated him and he “knew” that he was the only man who would be able to deal with her, if she would just give in to his love. He got angry over her rejection, and wished he could crush her.
Then she went to see Roy, and found out his arrest was for the morphine theft….not murder. She was thrown off by this, but didn’t show it, and that disappointed Hock.
Fidelis had to work through the night, then got the kids up and out of the house, and worked through the day---until late afternoon when Delphine rudely told him he looked terrible and to go lay down, that she could manage things. He could not read her, she kept the relationship at a distance and they never spoke unless it was about business or the kids. He slept, and woke thinking of Eva, and their love…..and her burial.
Fidelis had put up the bond for Roy, and Delphine had to thank him, but she didn’t want to have to speak to him on a personal level. She scrubbed and cleaned the shop, stalling. She went and, with difficulty, thanked him. He just went on with his work, saying she and Roy had always been good to Eva. She told him that she did things for Eva because she was her friend, not for him. She explained that she did not want people to have more to talk about than the gossip she already knew Tante was spreading….but she was grateful for his help. They were both relieved when the conversation was over. It was difficult for them.
Shortly after this conversation, Delphine had another occasion to speak to Fidelis. She was worried about the boys and the way they played. She was convinced that one of these day, they were going to kill themselves. Fidelis just shrugged and said that they were boys. Well, they were up to something, she knew, but what???
Dogs again. Dogs in every chapter. This was a horrible experience, losing the chinchillas that were Eva’s last gift to the boys to help them have something to concentrate on when she died.
And Sheriff Hock is starting to show himself to be a sick individual. This cannot turn out well. He is sounding to me like a sadist who wants to hurt Clarisse with his "love".
A little glimpse into Fidelis, and we are starting to see that there is a spark of desire between Fidelis and Delphine……but I am not sure if they are aware of it. Or maybe they are aware of their own feelings, but not the other one’s feelings.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I am curious about who else is reading this book and holding back comments. But that's ok. These chapters are all long. There is a total of 16 or 17 in the book---ugh. So with long chapters, there is a lot going on. And I am beginning to see that little things matter in this book....like there was just a small mention of Sheriff Hock and how he was courting Clarisse. All of a sudden, it is looking like it is going to be significant. So you may get lost a few times when I come to a realization that I had never mentioned some little detail, but all of a sudden I bring it up later. You can see how much is missed by reading my summaries, since I never know what I can ignore-----and that is apparently nothing.
Like in this chapter, when Roy was taken to jail, he was disgusted with the filth in there and asked for a cleaning bucket, mop, and rags. He had been in there so many times when he was drunk and never gave a shit. But now that he is sober, he is like a different person and is a total clean freak.......should I have mentioned that??? I don't know. But I am not retyping the whole book---even if it feels like it. (Lucky for me, I started my life working as a typist!!! 
)
They have not given us any information on Marzine's family in this chapter. She shows up again in the next chapter, and I will deal with it then....but a hint: she is from a very poor family.
If you want my opinion of the sheriff and what he is up to....and this is just from the feel I get of the narrative...I think that he is intending on forcing Clarisse to marry him by finding a way to tie her to the Chavers being in the cellar, and basically setting her up and agreeing to keep it quiet if she agrees to marry him. I think that he is wanting to use her beaded dress as evidence....but the dress has been buried now. I don't know if this will work, and I hope not because he is a really sick bastard. He really wants to hurt her, dominate her, put her in her place because she is self-sufficient and can provide for herself with her profession. Now I am still unsure about how Delphine ties into this, except that she is her best friend and he might think she knows something about it.
Who knows. All I know is that Erdrich will develop all of this as time goes by, since she has so far.
Don't worry about all the details as you can tell I don't have a problem asking questions.