HONOR BOUND

          I heard most of Papa's stories in our kitchen, while the dinner dishes dried in the rack. He would pour a cup of coffee and settle in his usual chair with the graceful precision and control that daily workouts gave to even his ordinary movements. Whether he was tracing maps of mountains and forests on the worn oak tabletop or running a dark hand through his straight black hair to prolong a dramatic pause, all of his motions seemed unhurried and purposeful. I would perch across from him, my glass of milk doctored with a tiny dollop from his cup, and listen to the tales.
          "You hear about those Hatfields and McCoys in school, Magda," he would say in his formal and precise storyteller's voice. "They are amateurs compared to our people. It is the difference between a civilized country and a frontier."
          I would interrupt, sometimes, to ask what long words meant. He would explain, with a little complimentary nod to me, and continue as if my question had been a necessary part of the story.
          "Always, you understand, it is a matter of honor to avenge a wrong. But standing behind a tree and shooting someone shows no creativity, no finesse. In Eastern Europe, now...," and I would hear how a righteous man-often an ancestor-repaid some great wrong in a daring and artful way.
          Other times, he explained his own profession. Larceny, Papa called it, liking the rhythm of the word. He said it was our family heritage, a long and honorable tradition. He spun romances for me of gentlemen highway robbers and jewel thieves as aristocratic as their noble targets. Lamenting the absence of horse drawn carriages and diamond-bedecked countesses in America, Papa made do. He treated elaborate security systems like so many clever puzzles, designed to test his ingenuity and skills, and the wealthy frequently returned from evenings at the opera, society weddings, or jaunts to Cancacun to find their most expensive trinkets gone.
          In fact, my eighteenth birthday celebration was a prelude to one of his forays.
          My party was a small one, with Papa and his brother Gregory being outnumbered by my honorary kin: Uncle Leo, Aunt Anna and their twenty-year-old son Stephen. Leo and Papa did business together, although their relationship stretched back to the close-knit ethnic community their parents had joined as immigrants. Papa's generation was born in America but raised in a culture that valued its own rules and traditions over anything imposed by outside authority. Leo and Papa both married within the group, and Anna and my mother had been childhood friends. Leo and his family were such a part of my life that I couldn't have celebrated a birthday without them.
          Anna arrived at noon, to take over my kitchen. She had some right to it, since she taught me to cook and keep house. A small and energetic woman, she had left Mama's funeral twelve years before without echoing "If there's anything I can do...." She simply became, for my after-school hours and sometimes for whole weekends, the grown woman in my life. She took me clothes shopping and gave Papa the bills. She made her own two men, and Papa of course, eat my first meals and smile. When I turned fourteen, she sat me at her dressing table for giggled-filled lessons on eye-liner and lipstick. To Papa's, and sometimes Leo's, tentative allegations of interference, Anna stated flatly that they were men, didn't understand, never could, and should leave women's things to women.
          "So," she said, depositing two shopping bags of supplies on the counter to free her arms, deliver a hug, then hold me at arm's length. "You are nearly a grown woman now."
          "Eighteen," I agreed, returning her smile. "Old enough to run a house."
          "Yes, you do a good job taking care of your papa, but someone should still take care of you now and then. So. Today is your birthday, and I'll worry about the dinner. You just sit and keep me company."
          I was amused but not at all surprised to find myself peeling carrots, "Just to keep your hands from being bored," as we talked. What surprised me were Anna's remarks.
          "I worry about Stephen," she said, deftly flicking potato skins into a neat pile with her paring knife. "He is so determined to be grown up."
          "Well, he isn't much younger than Uncle Leo was when you two married."
          "Yes he is, Magda. He's younger than Leo ever was." The flicks became more rapid, and potato skins flew. "He wants to be established, and making money like Leo and your papa. But he has no patience, no willingness to learn. He bought himself a gun and he talks about holding up convenience stores. In our family!" Generations of persecution in other times and places had left a legacy of distrust for those in power and indifference to their laws. Illegality didn't bother Anna. Commonness did. "He's like that black puppy we had. Remember, Magda?"
          "Ebon," I said, recalling the muscular Irish Setter-Lab mix. Ebon the Adventure Dog, Leo had called him, glossing over the less attractive features of his escapades. "Remember when he came home so full of burrs that his tail stuck to his side? You had to shave him. And that time he tangled with a tom cat and nearly lost an eye?"
          "That dog wouldn't stay in the yard no matter what. He dug under the fence, so Leo put big rocks there. He jumped on the rocks and got out over the top. When Leo tied him, he chewed through the rope."
          She didn't finish the story, but we had both seen the end as we stood on her front porch fruitlessly calling the truant dog. Ebon's last adventure, the reckless pursuit of a squirrel, ended when an innocent motorist couldn't stop in time.
          "Leo couldn't teach him or control him," Anna said, gauging out a dark eye with a knife twist that took too much potato. "And it's just the same with Stephen. He doesn't even try any more. He encourages it. Last weekend, he let Stephen move into that little apartment over the garage. He says maybe if we treat Stephen more like an adult he'll stop trying so hard to prove himself. What good does a 'maybe' do?"
          I felt confused and disoriented, as if I had opened an old, familiar book and found the words subtly rearranged. Anna had never criticized Leo to me before, and her voice held an anger and bitterness that made my stomach tighten. I wondered if this was how my school friends felt when their parents fought.
          Anna looked up from her potatoes, and her face softened. "Don't look so upset, Magda. I'm not really angry at Leo. I don't know what to do, that's all. I wish he did."
          She fetched a large mixing bowl, rested it under the edge of the table, and began to scrape peelings into it. "Besides, maybe your papa will do Stephen some good. It could be that Stephen just needs to be in the active side of the business, he has so much energy. Maybe he'll listen to a man who isn't his father."
          And in that optimistic vein, we discussed Stephen's apprenticeship to Papa. In the last few weeks, they had spent hours in our basement. They were practicing lock-picking, I supposed, or discussing how to disable alarm systems. Tonight was to be Stephen's first job with Papa, and we passed the afternoon pleasantly speculating about the effect of real work on Stephen's attitude and character.

          Anna had just set the steaming leg of lamb in the center of the table and was transferring vegetables to serving dishes when the men invaded the kitchen. Leo and Stephen came together; Uncle Gregory arrived minutes behind them; Papa emerged from the front room, where he had retreated shortly after Anna's arrival. Hearty greetings, back-slaps, and hugs interrupted Anna's orderly traffic from stove to table until she shooed us all to chairs and out of her way.
          "Did you hear that Peter Nagy got arrested last night?" Leo asked Papa. "Had a new lot of goods in that little art shop of his, too. He'll be going away for a while." Leo assumed the darkest possible outcome for most events, and I heard the satisfaction as he concluded, "Of course, I stopped sending him anything months ago."
          "A genius again, Leo! What? Did you think he was getting careless?" Papa was never careless.
          "Not the way you mean," Leo told him. "It was his personal life that worried me." Papa often contended that everything worried Leo. He said Leo had the most difficult side of the business, needing to deal with outsiders and never being able to totally trust anyone. In contrast to Papa's muscular leanness, Leo looked thin, as if tension had eroded his substance from inside, yet he seemed to thrive on constant alertness and suspicion. His intricate manipulations in moving our goods were a match for Papa's caution in acquiring them.
          "He got involved with a girl whose family had some old feud with his," Leo continued. "Very old-fashioned, her papa. Said he wouldn't have his daughter defiled by a Nagy, and he forbid them to see each other. Being young and foolish," here he eyed Stephen until the pause became noticeable, "they thought they could do it on the sly, but everybody knew. When her papa got quiet about the whole thing, I thought he might make it a matter of honor."
          "Ah," was Papa's only comment. Once something became a matter of honor, the only question was what form the vengeance would take.
          "I haven't got the whole story yet," Leo said, with the confidence of one who would. "It sounds like some petty thief plea-bargained with the information on Peter."
          "So how could the girl's father have anything to do with that? Maybe it's just coincidence." Stephen's comment surprised me. I had decided he was too keyed up to think about anything but his first job with Papa. A younger version of Leo, without his father's iron control, he had been exuding an energy that almost crackled while he fidgeted with his silverware.
          "A petty thief," Leo repeated. "Someone who couldn't know details, unless he were told. I recall that the girl's papa has an uncle, or a cousin, maybe, who's a criminal lawyer. With a little patience, that lawyer would have a client-someone who needed an edge-at the right time. The beauty is that most people would never put it all together."
          "Clever," Papa said, though I wasn't sure whether he was admiring the artistry of the scheme or Leo's astute analysis. But I was struggling with the unembellished facts.
          "It doesn't seem right to me," I said. "When you tell stories about revenge, Papa, it's always about some terrible evil, and the person who does the avenging is a hero. This sounds just like Romeo and Juliet. Two people fell in love. How could her father be so cruel?"
          "Well," Papa said, shifting uncomfortably, "I tell you stories so you can understand our heritage. I don't know if I would ever tell this one. Real life is different, sometimes, from tradition."
          "Much different," Anna said, forcefully. "Some traditions are better for telling than for doing."
          "But still," Stephen challenged her, "A man has to defend the honor of his family."
          "What do you know of a man's honor, yet? You're so young." Stephen flushed and clenched his jaw, but Anna seemed not to notice. "What kind of honor is it that hurts so many people just to keep old hates alive? What about the girl's feelings? Peter's relatives? Customers might be caught because of what the police found in Peter's shop. Should all these people now take revenge on that girl's papa, maybe on her whole family?"
          Anna's comments made me consider, as Papa's stories never had, just how far the ripples might spread when someone threw a stone of vengeance into the pool of human emotions and relationships. Leo just rolled his eyes, sighed, and waded to Stephen's defense.
          "Anna, Stephen isn't a child any more. It's good for him to consider our traditions and a man's responsibilities. And he's right. It's a man's duty to avenge the wrongs done to his family. Surely you understand." Leo's speech drew a grateful look from Stephen, but Anna was unmollified.
          "There was no wrong. Two young people fell in love, the girl as much as the boy. What I understand is that a man who couldn't control his own child punished someone else's." Now it was Leo who flushed and compressed his lips, and I sensed that another argument was camouflaged under our dinner table conversation.
          "I think all of you are right, except where you're wrong," said my Uncle Gregory, helping himself to more lamb and herbed potatoes before he continued. "First, Leo, even though you're superb at guessing what people will do and why, you may be wrong in this case. It could all be coincidence, as Stephen suggests. There is very little evidence."
          "Now you're talking like a policeman," Papa interjected.
          "Detective." Uncle Gregory never apologized for preferring private investigation to the family trade, but he accepted Papa's occasional digs good-naturedly. "But say Leo is right. Then, was it an honorable revenge? Anna's point, I think, is that honor lies in balancing the scales. The vengeance must be in proportion to the harm, and what was harmed here but an old man's pride? Who knows what trouble he's started or where it will end if Peter's relatives are as smart as Leo. Even so, Anna," he qualified his remarks, "we have responsibilities. For some wrongs, duty and honor do demand vengeance."
          Anna leaned forward and opened her mouth as if to counter the claim, then dropped her eyes to her plate without comment.
          "Which brings us to method. What that man did to Peter may have been clever," he said, using Papa's word, "but there is something disagreeable, dishonorable even, about using the police to settle a private matter."
          This was enough to launch Papa into a story of revenge honorable enough and clever enough to meet anyone's standards. As he gained momentum, I caught a wink from Uncle Gregory and smiled back in recognition of the way he had turned the conversation and eased the tension. In his own quiet way, he matched both Leo's understanding of human nature and Papa's skillful use of language. And in spite of his career choice, he shared their concern and respect for our deeper traditions.

          My party broke up in stages that evening. Anna and Leo took her car and departed together about nine, Anna having left my kitchen spotless and only slightly rearranged. Stephen stayed another hour and a half. I think Papa hoped he would relax, but I didn't see any signs of it. Finally Papa told him sternly, "There's nothing worse than a nervous partner. If you can't settle down, we're not going, because you'll get us both in trouble."
          Precise instructions quashed Stephen's panicked protest. "You will go home, get dressed for tonight, and practice relaxing every muscle in your body, like I showed you before. Do you understand that?"
          "Yes, sir," The words were almost inaudible.
          "Breathe deep, feel the tension leave. Sleep, if you can, until I call you. It will be sometime after midnight. Will you do that?"
          "Yes."
          "And don't look at the clock every five minutes."
          "No, sir," Stephen answered, but his stricken look was being replaced by the same near-smile that I saw Papa suppressing.
          "All right then," Papa said, clapping him on the back. "Leo gave you his car keys? Good. I'll call you in a couple of hours."
          As Stephen strode out the back door, looking six inches taller than I knew he was, I thought again of Ebon the Adventure Dog, straining at the leash.
          Papa shook his head and asked Uncle Gregory, "Was I that bad the first time?"
          "Worse, I think. I seem to remember Uncle Karl giving you a medicinal beer in desperation. Speaking of which, what about it? I've got time."
          "Not for me," Papa answered, getting a cold can for Uncle Gregory. "Uncle Karl must have been crazy."
          "I'm sure you drove him to it."
          Their comfortable relationship still puzzled me at times. Uncle Gregory's preference was for missing persons work, especially finding children. When he was successful, the grateful but still anxious parents often asked for advice on security, and their referrals generated much of his business. He charged wealthy, childless clients high fees, saying only, "They pay the rent." Still, he did a competent job for them, and it could have been awkward. Papa's profession was to take their goods, and Uncle Gregory's was to prevent that. It took me years to understand their code.
          "The Andersons, up on Birch Hill in the Hunt Club district," Uncle Gregory would mention casually, leaning back with his beer in easy reach. "New clients of mine."
          "You're getting so successful, Gregory," Papa would say, just as indifferently. "And the Henly place, beside it?"
          "Never heard of them. Of course, the Andersons might refer them. Being next door neighbors and all."
          "Not for another few weeks, I expect," Papa would reply.
          And when the Andersons and the Henlys returned from the same fund-raising dinner two weeks later, only the Henlys would find their bedroom safe open and empty.
          Tonight, it was more friendly curiosity than business that prompted Uncle Gregory to ask, "Did you found a nice property for tonight?"
          "Perfect, I think. Up in Hunt Club. New owners, old security system. They'll probably get it replaced soon, so now's the time. The grounds have been neglected, pretty overgrown. The best is, they're out of town for the next two weeks. That kid isn't ready for a job where the owners might return at any minute."
          A frown had appeared on Uncle Gregory's face and it grew deeper as Papa spoke.
          "I think I'm sorry I asked. That's not the Rennig place by any chance?"
          "Shit!" The uncharacteristic profanity burst from Papa. "Are you going to tell me...?"
          "A referral, just yesterday. I think I was the last thing on their list before they left town. Cancel milk deliveries, take dog to kennel, call security consultant. Acted like I should be grateful when they gave me a whole half hour to rush over there and get their business. I wish I'd known you were looking at the place. I'd have been happy to turn them down." There was real regret in Uncle Gregory's voice.
          "Well, what's done is done," Papa said with disgusted resignation. He went and got a beer for himself. "Stephen's going to be disappointed, though. I hate to have to tell him." He glanced at his watch. "It's a five minute drive. He ought to be home by now."
          But Papa preferred stories with happy endings. He procrastinated through the first beer and had opened seconds for each of them before he concluded that Stephen needed more discipline and patience anyway. He sentences became clipped and stern, as he braced himself to make the call. The side of it that Uncle Gregory and I heard was brief and unfortunate.
          "Stephen?....No, it's not time yet. We're not going tonight....It's got nothing to do with that....Maybe you talk to your father that way, but not to me....That's enough! When you're ready to apologize, then we'll talk." And Papa actually slammed down the phone.
          "That's not like you," Uncle Gregory told him. "Are you sure it's Stephen you're angry at?"
          "Well, he has no restraint," Papa said, evading the issue. "No wonder he's driving Leo and Anna crazy."
          Perhaps wisely, Uncle Gregory did not pursue the matter, and the next fifteen minutes passed in near silence. Finally, Uncle Gregory got up to leave.
          "I'm driving by the Rennigs' on my way home. Told them I'd have a few look-ins while they were away. And I want to see the grounds at night, see where we need the outside lighting. Bother," he finished sourly.
          "Yes. And I suppose I could call Stephen back and explain a little more. Not that he deserves it, you understand, but I was a little hard on him."
          A few minutes later, Papa replaced the receiver and gave it a speculative stare. Stephen hadn't answered. "Just how foolish do you think that young man is, Magda?" He didn't expect a response because he immediately went to the bedroom and changed into his working clothes: navy blue polyester jumpsuit, close-fitting knit cap and noiseless sneakers. I knew the jumpsuit covered a colorful shirt and light jeans, and allowed a complete change of appearance in seconds.
          "I'm going out for a while, sweetheart. Don't stay up too late."
          "OK, Papa," I answered. Maybe he really didn't know that no matter how quiet and dark the house looked, I was always awake when he returned from a job. Tonight I changed into pajamas but read a magazine in the kitchen until Papa returned an hour and a half later.
          The jumpsuit had been discarded, and he was looking grave.
          "What happened, Papa?"
          "It's not good, Magda. I went to that Rennig house, up through the back yards. I saw fresh dirt in the squares of the chain link fence, from someone climbing it. I went over myself, and up to the house. The wires of the alarm system were cut, and a window was jimmied open. All of it just the way we planned."
          "So Stephen went without you."
          "I thought so. I was about to go in myself, but I heard cars slow down and stop on the street in front, so I decided to disappear. A cop made it to the back yard just in time to see me go over the fence."
          I felt myself grow still and frightened, even with Papa so plainly safe in front of me. "What did you do?"
          "I know that neighborhood pretty well. On the very next property is an empty chauffeur's apartment built over the garages. I went last night and unlocked the door. These rich people, you understand, have alarm systems for their houses and their cars, but they don't care about their servants so much. Instead of crashing through the bushes like that cop was doing, I slipped up to the apartment and locked the door behind me. He didn't even rattle the doorknob, and after a while he quit looking and went back to the house."
          "And so you came home."
          "Not right away. He probably called it in, and it wouldn't have been smart to wander around the neighborhood just then. Anyway, I could see some of that house from the chauffeur's apartment and I saw Gregory letting the cops in the back door."
          "Uncle Gregory!" I said in surprise. Then I considered a moment. "Oh. He said he was going to look in on the place. And he'd never expect you to be there."
          "Of course not. After we talked tonight, he'd know I would never touch the place. He was just doing his job. Probably already calling the cops from his car phone when I got there."
          "So then what?"
          "Well, Gregory stayed on the porch and the cops went inside. Now here's where I wonder if it was Stephen after all, because I heard shots, like a little gun fight. The cops don't fire that often unless someone's shooting back, and I hope I got it through that boy's head that in this kind of work you should never carry a gun."
          "Oh Papa," I said, feeling sick. "Stephen bought one. Aunt Anna told me this afternoon."
          Papa said nothing, but he put an elbow on the table as if his arm were a great weight. He dropped his head until he could massage his brow with an open palm that hid his eyes.
          The telephone rang and we both jumped. Papa caught it before the first ring faded. When he hung up, he said, "The worst. That was Gregory. He'll come as soon as he can, but he has to give a statement first." Replaying that night a thousand times afterward, I realized it was his storyteller's instinct that made the dramatic pause automatic and unconscious. "It was Stephen in the house. The boy shot first and wounded a cop. The police weren't too careful after that, you understand. Stephen is dead."
          "Oh no, Papa." I didn't recognize the thin wailing voice as my own. The words were as involuntary as if I were a talking doll and someone had pulled the string.
          "I don't know how long it will take them to get to Leo and Anna."
          "We should call them."
          "I suppose," he agreed, but instead he pulled out a beer and opened it, then stared at the can until the sweat had beaded and run into a small pool at the base.
          "Magda," he said suddenly. "I think you'd better get ready to leave."
          "Leave?" I echoed stupidly. All my life I had been taught about leaving. It was why we always rented, and why Papa paid cash for nondescript cars. It was why I received good jewelry every birthday, so that I could wear my financial security if I had to. Papa and I had rehearsed plans for fleeing together, and for getting in touch if he had to leave without me. It was the price we paid for his career. Now, I stared with the same momentary disbelief I might have felt if the house were on fire, having learned all the escape patterns without ever believing that I would have to use them.
          "Magda," Papa said gently, "one reason I never got caught is that no one ever looked in my direction. It's the same with Leo. Stephen shot a cop, and they're going to be looking. Except for that last stupid thing with the gun, it was a professional job, just like I taught him. The cops are going to know he didn't operate alone, with no connections. First they'll look at Leo, and then they'll get to me."
          "Oh Papa, I never thought...." It was the talking doll's voice again, pulled from somewhere deep inside, edged with tears.
          "I know, honey, we all hope it will never happen. And we have some time. Days, probably. Maybe weeks. I doubt if they could even tie me or Leo to any specific job, but we couldn't do anything new. And we would be a danger to other people in the business if we were watched. Trust me, Leo and Anna will be getting ready to leave soon too."
          "We should call them, Papa. They shouldn't hear about Stephen from the police."
          "No honey, it's better that way. They would never be able to hide the fact if they already knew."
          I stared at him for a long minute, and for the first time, felt a small loss of respect. "All right, Papa," I said, and the little doll's voice was gone. "I'll call. We owe it to Aunt Anna and Uncle Leo."
          He didn't try to stop me, but the phone rang just as I reached for it. It was Anna, sounding hysterical.
          "Magda, you need to get out of there. Now." I immediately thought of the "leaving" Papa and I had discussed.
          "But Aunt Anna, Papa says we have days, or even weeks."
          "No!" It was nearly a scream. "Don't let Leo find you."
          "But-" I was completely confused.
          "The police came. They told us about Stephen. My son! My God!" I heard her choke off a sob. "Leo said nothing until they left, then he just went crazy. In all these years, I have never even seen him angry. Always he was in control of everything. Tonight, it's like he saved all the anger from his whole life for this one thing. Oh God!" She burst into tears again, then continued through huge sobs. "He blames your papa for everything. For not being in control. For getting Stephen killed."
          "But Papa wasn't even there! He called Stephen to cancel the job. Stephen went alone."
          There was a small silence. "I didn't know that." Then the urgency was back. "Leo doesn't know that either. Magda, you've got to get out. Leo is crazy. He's calling it a matter of honor. He took a gun."
          I used reason against the chill that ran through me, as if calming Anna would erase my fear. "We'll tell Uncle Leo what happened when he gets here."
          "We? Magda, Leo doesn't even know your father is there. What he said when he left is, 'A child for a child.' I have already lost a son tonight. You are a daughter to me. I can't lose you too!"
          Before I could answer, the back door crashed open, and Leo filled the frame. He had a gun in his hand, but it was his eyes that froze me. They were riveted on me with the unblinking stare of obsession. I don't think he even noticed my father, sitting at the kitchen table almost between us, until Papa spoke.
          "Leo." He kept the word soft, as if it's very vibrations might cause an explosion. Without knowing what Anna had told me, Papa was guessing. "Leo, it's a terrible tragedy, what happened to Stephen."
          If there was a right thing to say, Papa hadn't found it. Without taking his eyes from me, Leo responded, "Yes. You've killed my son, and for that, you'll lose a daughter."
          The gun's report was like the final word in his sentence, but Papa was already in motion. In a single lithe move, he had left his chair and stepped between me and Leo. I saw my father's shoulders give a little jerk, almost a shrug, as he took the bullet. He swayed and staggered, then crumpled to the ground in slow motion. His falling body removed the barrier between me and Leo, but I knew the threat was over as Leo's trance-like mask melted into a look of sick horror. He turned and stumbled out the door. Some fragment of my mind recorded the hollow thud of gun dropped on wooden porch floor, a sound of retching, a car engine starting. None of it mattered as I threw myself cross-legged beside Papa and pulled his head and shoulders into my lap, where I could hold him, touch him, and see his face at the same time.
          There was blood on his chest, and his breathing was raspy and gurgling, but his eyes were open, and he looked at me in puzzlement. With effort, he got out a single word, "Why?"
          "Oh Papa," I moaned, "Uncle Leo thought it was your fault that Stephen died. He told Anna it was a matter of honor." Papa closed his eyes in acknowledgment, and I knew he was slipping away from me. I couldn't let him go without making him know what I'd seen in Leo's face. "He's sorry, Papa. He's so sorry. And I love you so much. Don't leave me."
          Papa opened his eyes again, and he struggled for more words. "Don't.... Tell Gregory, don't...." Then he seemed to decide on a more important thing. "I love you, honey." And as I hugged his shoulders, I felt the muscles relax. I knew then that there were such things as souls, because I could feel Papa's depart. It left an emptiness behind, the way a setting sun leaves darkness.
          Uncle Gregory must have driven up minutes after Leo left. He found me there, still crying and begging Papa not to leave, though I knew he was already gone. He could see for himself that it was too late for Papa. There had never been time, it all happened so fast.
          "Magda," he said, shaking my shoulders. "Magda! What happened?" And through tears and sobs, I told him everything: Anna's phone call, Leo's misunderstanding and grief-crazed revenge, the way Papa saved me. As the story unfolded, I saw lines set around his eyes and mouth in growing hardness.
          "Your papa would have said 'No finesse,'" was his first comment. "All right. We can't wait much longer to call the police. I'll move that gun on the porch to my car trunk. We may use it later. When the police get here, you say you were asleep and something woke you up. You didn't see anything. You were afraid to leave your room, and you called me from there because I live so close. When I got here, we found your papa. We have no idea who could have done this terrible thing. Can you do that?"
          I stared at him in disbelief. "Uncle Leo did it. Why would I say anything else? If they don't get him right away, he'll disappear. You know he's always been ready to do that."
          "I want him to disappear. The longer he worries and wonders, the better. Up to a point."
          "I don't understand. You want him to escape?"
          "He won't escape. Tracking people down is what I do." He made it sound as if his whole life had prepared him for this. "But I told you before, it isn't honorable to use the police to settle a private matter."
          Suddenly I understood. It was that "honor" word. I heard myself making an excuse for the inexcusable. "But it was all a horrible mistake. Uncle Leo didn't know."
          "Uncle Leo didn't ask. What he did was unforgivable. It's for us to right the wrong, Magda." I was stunned. These were Papa's words, from stories that had entertained but never touched me. Uncle Gregory looked steadily into my eyes, and I saw compassion in his, behind the resolve. "You're old enough, even though it's hard. It's time to accept the responsibility of our heritage, our traditions. For your papa. For my brother. It's a matter of honor."
          I felt the seduction, as I counted our losses. Papa was gone. Stephen was gone. Leo would go, and Anna with him. Uncle Gregory was all I had left. I wanted to take the tradition he offered and wrap it like a cloak around me, to fend off the pain. I wanted something to believe in, because I had lost almost everything else.
          "It's our duty to your papa," Uncle Gregory said quietly, as if he read my thoughts. "He would expect it of us."
          "Our duty," I repeated slowly. Papa's stories had not prepared me for the blood that covered his chest and soaked my thin pajamas. Papa's black villains were never anguished fathers half insane with the agony of a son's death. Papa had never shown me, as Leo had, a look of sick remorse when reality cracked the fragile armor of "honor." Suddenly I knew how Papa would tell this story. As surely as Leo had twisted our tradition of honor to escape from his grief in rage and blame, my papa would have ignored the ugly facts for the sake of a good romantic tale.
          "No, Uncle Gregory. Papa wouldn't expect it. He hated to hurt people, no matter why. He could hardly make a phone call if he had to give bad news. He wouldn't put such an obligation on us, to track down a man, to murder a man, for revenge." I recognized Papa's faintly formal, faintly foreign rhythms echoing in my speech. They comforted me, and I didn't realize I was crying again until Uncle Gregory traced a teardrop down my cheek with a gentle finger. He was patient, but I knew I hadn't convinced him. I struggled for control and said, "There's something else. The last thing he said before he died was that he loved me."
          "It's good he was able to tell you that. The words of a dying man are the most important message he will ever send."
          "But what he said right before was for you. He knew about Leo's mistake. I had time to tell him. And Papa said, 'Tell Gregory...don't avenge me.'"
          "Your papa said that?" There was more wonderment than disbelief in his voice. I only nodded, and I watched him consider. Finally, he nodded too. "Yes. He might have said that. Your papa understood us."
          As I reached for the receiver that still dangled from Anna's aborted call, I said, "We leave Leo to the law. It's enough."
          Uncle Gregory was right. I was old enough for the responsibility. Papa knew that, I think, when he trusted me to finish one sentence and used his last few words for a more important thing.

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