The Master Butchers Singing Club-Chapter 10-11-SPOILERS
Chapter 10 – Earth Sickness
When he got out of the hill, Markus fell sick. It was not the arm, although that was a bad break. He had a fever and was just sleepy all the time. Delphine called it earth sickness. She made him sit in the sun, have light all around----it was like he was swallowed up by the darkness. She stayed and nursed him.
Mazarine was riding her bike, the only asset her family had, when Betty Zumbrugge passed her in her father’s car----and she saw Franz in the car with her. And he saw her. Betty made fun of her, saying she only had one dress. He had not talked to Mazarine since the day the hill collapsed, when he felt like it was his fault because he had been in such bliss with Mazarine that night. Betty wanted him to come to her house with her, but he said he had to get home to work. She dropped him off.
Mazarine continued home, cooked a dinner for her and her brother with the little she found in the house, then she burst into tears.
There was a healing woman that one of the singing club members knew, and he convinced Fidelis to have her come to help Markus. She came, and she got some blue ribbon that she started to measure Markus with. She measured every part of his body. She recited German words while she did this. Then they left Markus, and he lay in fear, thinking what was that all about. All of a sudden, he walked into the kitchen and said he was hungry---for the first time in weeks. Delphine could not believe how quickly the cure had worked. He insisted he was going to school the next day, even though he had a slight fever still. It wasn’t until a few days later that she figured it out when Franz asked her what this was about, Markus being measured for a coffin.
Chapter 11 – The Christmas Sun
The weather turned bitter cold. The snow was just a light dusting of powder. Tante had not given up trying to find a job. She went out making her rounds every day. She was getting desperate. She had continued to nag Fidelis about bringing the boys back to Germany with her, and since the hill, he was softening to it but was not ready to let go.
One day, Tante saw a shop that had just opened on the main street. It was an odd store, with a jumble of things---baskets and fabric and tobacco cans. Inside there was a brand new sewing machine. On the door, all it said was “Notions”. She went in and asked the woman at the counter if there was a position. The woman was pregnant and said that she would have to be off for a while, and she would get the boss. She went into the back, and then Step-and-a-Half walked out. Tante didn’t register that this was the boss, and gave her a condescending look and stared past her to the back room. Step-and-a-Half asked her what she wanted, and said that she was the boss. Although Tante was in shock, she asked her for a job. She told Tante that if she could work the new sewing machine, she could have a job. Tante learned. And when the person she hated the most, Roy Watzka, came in, she didn’t acknowledge him.
At Christmas vacation from school, Franz had agreed to a date with Betty. They went out to a bar, and Franz had never been in a bar. She drank whiskey and beer well, and he only had two and refused more. They left and Betty drove to a deserted road and parked. As soon as he kissed her, he knew that this was wrong. She was fast and wild. He got out of the car and started to walk to Mazarine’s house.
When he got there, he was frozen. She was not going to let him in, but he was too cold to stay outside any longer and stepped past her into the house. Mazarine led him to the stove to warm up. She felt indifferent to him. She was calm. She didn’t hate him, but didn’t know what to feel. They didn’t talk while he warmed up. Then he went to leave and before he did, he asked her if she wanted him back….and she instantly said no.
It finally started to snow right for Christmas. Delphine headed home, thinking of hot chocolate. But when she got home, there were tracks up to her porch in the snow. Sheriff Hock was standing there waiting for her. He had gotten (finally) a warrant to search her house from Judge Zumbrugge. He headed right for her bedroom. She knew what this meant---she had to choose between him and a murder charge. He continued to search everything in her room---pawed through all her underthings. She left the room and went downstairs. She got her carving knife and sharpened it. She intended on scaring him off, then getting a good lawyer to keep him out of her house. When she went to tell him to leave, he had searched the closet, and found one of the beads from the dress in a crack in the floor. He was smiling at her. She took the knife and stabbed him, splitting his stomach open.
She fell apart for a minute, then composed herself. She went and drew a bath. She planned while in the tub. She packed her suitcase and planned to get on the morning train.
Delphine and Cyprian had agreed that Christmas was a sham, but he wanted to make this one the first good one of her life, and his. Both had memories of Christmas just being a time for drinking marathons---no decorations, no dinners. So Cyprian bought a goose and she got a tree and decorated. When he picked her up after work on Christmas Eve, she was not in a good mood. She said she was tired. But her mood bothered her---he had cooked, bought a good bottle of brandy, and lit candles all over the house. And she sat down and fell right to sleep. He brought her soup when she woke up, and she was distant and short with him. He finally blew up and told her to go back to Fidelis and the boys, then gave her a gift he had bought her. She just left it laying in her lap, and it broke his heart the way she was acting. Finally, he picked up the gift and left.
He went to the pool hall and got drunk. He left there before dawn and headed straight to Clarisse’s house. He woke her from the sofa where she had slept. She invited him in and made coffee, then she asked what he was there for….he gave her the gift.
At Fidelis’s house, there was a crate from Germany with lots of nice gifts. Tante and Fidelis talked about how well the family was doing there. He said it would be nice to get enough money together to go visit. They had been hearing news coming out of Germany, but it looked like things were well there. Tante got hopeful about taking the boys there. Fidelis knew that the boys needed more than he was able to give them, he knew he would be better off with a wife---and he thought of Delphine, but he could not dwell on that. She was taken, she belonged to the man who had saved his son.
Christmas morning, Delphine woke alone. She was disgusted with herself for her mood and how she had treated Cyprian. She decided to go over to see Clarisse and give her the gift she bought her. But Clarisse wasn’t home. Delphine knew where the key was, so she let herself in to just leave the gift on the table. But on the table, she saw a small box and the wrapping paper that Cyprian’s gift to her had been wrapped in. She left and as she was walking down the alley, she saw their car. She got in and drove the car home, making sure to park it where it could be seen.
Clarisse had always left things of good quality out for Step-and-a-Half, like that lovely red beaded dress, dirty but in good shape, that she had sold to a passing tourist. And this morning, there was a treasure trove. Good kitchenware, pots and pans, good knives. She was in such a good mood, and she picked out some good skirt and blouse material for a gift for Mazarine.
Delphine woke the next day, and was just ready to get breakfast when Roy came home. He told her that the sheriff had been found stabbed to death, murdered. Hock had been found with his pants around his ankles in Clarisse’s bedroom. She had been seen getting on the train with a ticket to Minneapolis. From there, she had disappeared.
So had Cyprian, but no one saw him leave. And no one missed him for months. At one point, Fidelis asked her if he had quit the singing club, and she just answered not that she knew of.
Delphine missed Clarisse, and felt the loss of all the women in her life---her mother, then Eva, and now Clarisse.
It was quite a shock to me, as well as all the characters in the book, to find that Step-and-a-Half had the money to open a respectable shop. And even more of a surprise to me that she hired Tante. The tables certainly have turned on that relationship, and I can't feel sorry for Tante. And I cheer Step-and-a-Half.
I really feel bad for Delphine....she always seems to lose people who matter to her. I guess we all have gone through this in life, but to see it in print breaks my heart. She is so strong, but you can see the loneliness in her.
Clarisse did not surprise me in her strength or her hatred for Hock. I did not expect her to kill him---that was shocking. And that she decided to just leave instead of saying and fighting charges against her is a puzzle, but then again, I don't know how that would have gone and she probably did. Cold and calculating. An interesting personality.
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