On Monday, I had a call from Mildred, the Bysen family factotum, to say they had cut a check for Sandra Czernin and were messengering it down to her. “You might like to know that Rose Dorrado started work this morning as a supervisor in our Ninety-fifth Street store. And Mr. Bysen feels he’d like to make a special gesture to Bertha Palmer High, since that’s where he went to school. He’s going to build a new gym this summer, and, next winter, he’ll install coaches for both the girls’ and the boys’ basketball teams. We’ll be holding a press conference on this down at the school this afternoon. We’re creating a whole new program for teens called the ‘Bysen Promise Program.’ It will help teens keep a Christian focus through athletics.”
“That’s wonderful news,” I said. “I know Mr. Bysen’s Christian practices will be highly regarded on the South Side.”
She started to ask me what I meant by that but decided to change the subject, just asking for my fax number so she could send me the complete details.
The press conference took place right before Monday’s basketball practice. The girls were so excited that it proved impossible afterward to keep them focused on their workout. I finally sent them home early, but told them they’d have to have a double practice on Thursday to make up for it.
The Bysen Promise Program wouldn’t start formally until next fall, which meant I was stuck with coaching the team for the rest of the season. To my surprise, I found I was glad to stay with them.
During the dreary winter months, Billy flew to Korea to see his sister. He brought her home with him, and they bought one of the little houses Pastor Andrés had been helping build. I had the feeling that Billy and Josie’s passion might have run its course. He was such a scrupulous kid, he continued to look after her, to see that she worked hard on her academics, but his energy now was turned to a program he and his sister were running called “The Kid for Kids,” to provide tutoring and job training for young people in the neighborhood.
Right after New Year’s, April Czernin had her cardioverter defibrillator implanted. It would be several months before she could return to school, but she did show up for the Lady Tigers home games, where the other girls treated her as a kind of mascot. Celine and Sancia, the co-captains, were very solemn about dedicating their games to her.
Sandra used part of the rest of Bron’s indemnity check to build a small addition to her house, so her parents could move in and help look after April. She also bought a used Saturn, but the rest of the money she squirreled away for April. She knew she had me to thank for getting her the money so fast, and without any legal battles-or fees-but it didn’t make her any less venomous when we ran into each other at the high school.
During the winter, I also kept having to make depositions to the various lawyers involved in the legal battles over By-Smart’s operations. They were following a predictable course of discovery, investigation, motions, continuances-I didn’t know if a judge would set a trial date in my lifetime.
I was outraged to learn that Grobian had actually gone back to work at the warehouse: Billy, flushing painfully, said his grandfather admired Grobian for his forcefulness. William, on the other hand, was taking an extended leave of absence: Buffalo Bill couldn’t forgive his son’s wish that he have a stroke and die. And Gary had begun divorce proceedings against Aunt Jacqui-another legal battle that was likely to go on for a few decades. She wasn’t going to relinquish those Bysen billions at all easily.
The only good thing, really, to come out of the By-Smart carnage was a thaw in my relationship with Conrad. After basketball practice, we’d meet sometimes for a cup of coffee or a whiskey. I never told Morrell about it-Conrad and I were old friends-we could have a drink now and then. After all, it wasn’t like he was staying with me the way Marcena was staying at Morrell’s while she recovered her strength. Even if Morrell preferred my conscientious spirit to her insouciance, I didn’t much like finding her propped up in the living room every time I went over.
If this were Disney, if this were that kind of fairy tale, I’d end by saying that the Lady Tigers went on to win the sectional and the state. I’d say they played their hearts out for me, their battered coach, and for Mary Ann, whose funeral we attended together late in February.
But in my world, things like that don’t happen. My girls won five games during the whole season, where last year they had won two. That was all the victory I was going to get.
I had dinner with Lotty the day after the Lady Tigers’ season ended, and told her how discouraged I felt. She frowned in disapproval, or disagreement.
“ Victoria, you know my grandfather, my father’s father, was a very observant Jew.”
I nodded, surprised: she rarely talked about her dead family.
“During the terrible winter we spent together in 1938, the fifteen of us crowded into two rooms in the Vienna ghetto, he gathered all his grandchildren together and told us that the rabbis say when you die and present yourself before the Divine Justice, you will be asked four questions: Were you fair and honest in your business dealings? Did you spend loving time with your family? Did you study Torah? And last, but most important, did you live in hope for the coming of the Messiah? We were living then without food, let alone hope, but he refused to live hopelessly, my Zeyde Radbuka.
“Me, I don’t believe in God, let alone the coming of the Messiah. But I did learn from my zeyde that you must live in hope, the hope that your work can make a difference in the world. Yours does, Victoria. You cannot wave a wand and clear away the rubble of the dead steel mills, or the broken lives in South Chicago. But you went back to your old home, you took three girls who never thought about the future and made them want to have a future, made them want to get a college education. You got Rose Dorrado a job so she can support her children. If a Messiah ever does come, it will only be because of people like you, doing these small, hard jobs, making small changes in this hard world.”
It was a small comfort, and that night at dinner it felt like a cold one. But as the Chicago winter lingered, I found myself warmed by her grandfather’s hope.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sara Paretsky is the author of thirteen previous books, including eleven V. I. Warshawski novels. The winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers’ Association, she lives in Chicago.
