He also decided that he would come back and kick those rednecks’ asses.
Those same feelings had once again emerged within him in the mid-eighties, during the witch-hunting McMartin days in Los Angeles, when the public seemed to see child-molesting satanists behind every tree. Someone had reported spotting a group of devil worshipers in a cemetery, and the LAPD had ended up disrupting a Molokan burial service. It was understandable. The anonymous tipster had reported a group of robed figures, all dressed in white, walking through a graveyard at night, chanting, and the police had been obliged to investigate. But the Molokans, also understandably, were not only deeply offended but angry.
Despite America’s guarantee of religious freedom, they had never had an easy time of it, and what the Constitution promised and how citizens actually acted were two different things. The Molokans had left Russia, fleeing religious persecution from the czar and the Russian Orthodox Church. They were pacifists, living strictly by the laws of the Bible, and the fact that they recognized both Christian holidays and Jewish celebrations such as Passover led to as much misunderstanding in the United States as it had in Russia. Even more offensive to Americans was the fact that Molokans were conscientious objectors, opposed on religious grounds to participation in the military. That had led to discrimination against them in the United States as well, particularly during World War II, and far too often that prejudice had been validated and reinforced by civic authority.
The police had not been the problem here, however. It was the media. The cops had merely investigated, apologized, and moved on, but the local news stations, in their insane quest for ratings, had milked the “satanist” angle for all it was worth. Million-dollar anchors had joked about smog and marine layers with their comical weathermen, then expertly shifted their smiles into expressions of grim seriousness and solemnly reported that perpetrators of the satanic rituals described by molested preschool children had been spotted desecrating a cemetery in East L.A.
Even though it was not true.
Even though the police had already rejected and discounted any connection between the Molokan burial service, satanism, and child molestation.
He’d been embarrassed by the Molokans when they’d made the news for those two days, but he’d also been angry at their accusers and had fired off a series of letters to the local television stations and the Los Angeles Times, taking them to task for their inaccurate and inflammatory reporting.
Embarrassment and defensiveness.
It was the constant duality of his life.
Teo and Adam finally tired of their Old Maid game, and Teo asked him for the hundredth time to describe their new home to her. Adam and Sasha both groaned loudly, but Gregory launched into a by-now-pat spiel, recounting how he and their mother had found the house and instantly fallen in love with it, painting a picture of the huge lot on which the house sat and the hill that abutted the back of the property, and describing the location of each of their bedrooms and how they were going to fix them up.
He caught his mother’s gaze in the rearview mirror once again.
He’d saved the best news for last, and it was time to reveal it.
“There’s also a banya,” he said.
His mother’s eyes widened. There was a tinge of excitement in her voice. “Banya?”
He smiled. “Remember the Shubins? They used to live right next to our new house—”
“The Megan place?”
“Yes!” he laughed. “The Megan place. It’s our place now. And the Shubins’ burned down quite a while ago, so the people who bought the Megan place bought their property as well, and now it’s all ours. Both lots. There’s nothing left of the Shubins’ house at all, but the banya’s still there.”
“Completely untouched,” Julia said.
“What’s a banya?” Teo asked.
“It’s a bathhouse,” Julia explained. “In the old days, houses didn’t have water or indoor bathrooms. You had to get water from a well, and you had to go to the bathroom in an outhouse. And instead of taking a bath or a shower, people used banyas.”
“Not all people,” Gregory amended.
“Russians,” Julia said. “Americans filled up tubs with water or took sponge baths, but Russians used the banya. The women and girls would all go in at once, and the men and boys would all go in later.”
“They were all naked?” Teo giggled.
Julia smiled. “Yes. They sat around on benches and heated rocks in a fire and put them in the middle of the floor and poured water over them to make steam. The steam cleaned the skin, and they used eucalyptus branches to lightly slap their back and chest and legs.”
“Why?”
“Because it smelled good. And they thought it helped open the pores and get them even cleaner. Afterward, they’d go down to a stream or a river and rinse off with cold water.”
“So it’s just like a steam bath,” Sasha said.
“Yes,” Julia agreed. “Like a steam bath.”
“And we have one?” Adam grinned. “That’s cool.”
“Dork,” Sasha said, hitting him with her elbow.
“I used to do it myself,” Gregory said.
Sasha grimaced. “That’s gross. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Gregory and Julia laughed, and they followed the moving truck off the interstate and onto the highway that led to McGuane.
It was an hour or so later when his mother suddenly let out a Russian oath. There was a hint of panic or fear in her voice, and Gregory quickly turned around to make sure she was okay, that nothing was wrong.
A stricken look had come over her face. “Jedushka Di Muvedushka,” she said.
Oh, no, he thought.
He fixed her with a glare and shook his head, indicating the kids, before turning back around to face the road.
She paid no attention to his hints. “You don’t ask him to come, do you?”
He sighed, not knowing whether to argue with her or humor her. “I forgot,” he said.
“Jedooshka Dee—what?” Adam asked.
“Muvedushka. Moo-VEH-doosh-ka.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s the Owner of the House.” His mother’s voice sounded pinched and strained.
“It’s a Russian”—Superstition, he’d been about to say—“tradition,” he said instead. He’d never been able to make his mother understand that he and Julia did not hold the same beliefs she did, that they had purposely kept their children from many of them, and he shot Julia a glance of apology.
She nodded, understanding.
“Is my fault,” his mother said in the back. “I should have told you. Should have remind you.”
“It’s okay,” Gregory said.
“It’s okay,” Julia repeated.
“I should have known. I should have ask him to come myself.”
“Why?” Adam said.
“He’s the Owner of the House. He protect you. He make sure everyone in the house is safe and healthy, that nothing happen to you. You ask him to come with you so he protect you in new house.”
“You mean he’s been living with us all the time?”
She nodded. “That is why nothing bad ever happen.”
“What’s he look like?”
“A little man with the beard.”
“Where does he live? In the attic? Or under the house?”
“He live where you cannot see him.”