Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 817 & 818, September/October 2009

The Witch’s Baptism by Tom Tolnay

Adding a further bit of spicy superstition to our fall double issue, Tom Tolnay returns with a story from his series about a family of Greek immigrants adapting to the strange new world they find in Brooklyn. Mr. Tolnay’s fifty-some stories in print have appeared in national magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. Most recently his stories can be found in Otherwordly Maine (Down EastBooks) and in two anthologies of prize-winning stories, one from Literal Latte, another from Writers Digest Books.

No doubt a few stray aunts, sundry second cousins, and overzealous neighbors had already taken up places within finger-dipping range of St. James’s massive marble baptismal font, a sculpture so imposing it may well have been removed, along with the Elgin Marbles, from the Parthenon; and Father Nick, his tidal wave of white hair in danger of crashing onto his creased forehead, must have been glancing repeatedly at the bright chrome watch on his hairy wrist: It was two-thirty and the immediate families of Dropolous and Loch — not to mention the honored, littlest guest — should have arrived half an hour ago. Worse yet, we were still a long way from being ready to leave my mother’s house in Brooklyn, and we had a long drive ahead of us, for though we had moved out of Queens many years earlier, we had never given up on our loyalty to St. James. Meanwhile various members of two entirely different families were gathering in its pews for a wedding at three, and two things a guardian of holy rites does not want lumped together are a christening and a wedding. But in the confusion of rounding up some dozen-plus bodies, so we could cram our pressed suits and starched dresses into assorted vehicles and rumble off to church, we had lost my sixteen-week-old son.

“You had the baby last!” scowled my mother, Evangelina, in the direction of my mother-in-law, Geraldine, whose hand had already gripped the front doorknob to make her way to their bulky black Buick.

“Not me!” cried Mrs. Loch.

“I saw you leave the bedroom with the baby just as I was coming up the stairs.”

“I most certainly did not!”

“What about the aunts?” said Gwen’s sister Lucy.

“The aunts?” Aunt Delphinia whined. “No one will let me near my nephew.”

“What about Gwendolyn’s sisters?” offered Aunt Harriet, peering from under her leafy green hat at the two fair-haired young women. “I saw them tickling the baby under the chin,” she said, her tone oddly suggestive of foul play.

Gwendolyn seemed on the verge of laughing out loud, as if she was the one who’d been tickled. Without a word she went down the hall and up the stairs, heading toward my old bedroom where the baby had been gurgling and sleeping and eating and wriggling in the bassinet — enjoying a steady supply of attention and liquid refreshment.

“Everyone just walks off,” I chuckled, “and forgets to bring the only one who really matters at a baptism.”

Just then my wife cried out upstairs: “My baby’s gone! — He’s really gone!”

I looked toward the stairs, still smiling. “A kid doesn’t just evaporate,” I called to her. “Not even one that small.”

“That’s what you think,” Aunt Merrula said darkly.

Back in the living room, where there was more elbow room for accusations and recriminations, voices grew louder and more dramatic, reverberating from the buckled ceiling to the petrified wooden floor to the gravestone-shaped windows. In the meantime Gwen had dashed downstairs, into our midst, and demanded: “Who’s got my baby?”

Several of the accused held out the palms of their hands to prove they weren’t hiding anything. That’s when it finally hit me that the baby actually had been misplaced, and that, being the father, I was the person expected by everyone to take charge. But the best I could do was declare: “Father Nick’s gonna have a hemorrhage if we don’t get to the church soon.”

The mention of that pious firebrand seemed to ease our paralysis, and the pack of us swarmed up the stairs, down the stairs, opened doors, closed doors, ran into rooms, out of rooms. Harriet searched behind the sofa; Lucy and Penny crawled under beds; Merrula waved a flashlight beam into the attic from its doorway, not daring to cross over the threshold; grandmothers Evangelina and Geraldine yanked open cabinets in the kitchen and pantry; Mr. Loch stuck his head into the baby’s hamper and carriage — one in the shape of a frog, the other fleecy as a cat. Delphinia concentrated on hall closets, top and bottom; Uncle Augie, professional cynic, checked out the furnace.

And my wife and I ran around double-checking all of them.

Only my cousin Peter remained in place in the living room, refusing to look as ridiculous as the rest of us. After all, how could an infant have made its way into any of the places they were searching? Unless...

The irony — there always seems to be an irony handy to add richness to an absurd human activity — was that Gwen and I had waited far too long to get the baby named in a holy sanctuary — putting it off for some good and some not-so-good reasons for nearly four months. As each week passed my mother had assured me, in progressive order, it was a shame, a disgrace, a sin, a disaster, et cetera; and Merrula, bless her gloomy hide, was going around whispering that the child would turn out bad because Original Sin “sticks to the skin” if it’s not washed off with holy water within seven weeks. Why not six or eight weeks? I wondered sarcastically. But it was ex-uncle Christos who forced me to drop the superior grin: He said that if a child should be “taken away by God” before being christened, the child would be doomed to be raised by the Devil “down below.” He actually pointed at the floor, jerking his long finger downward several times. Not that there was any more reason to believe his folklore than Merrula’s. It’s just that Christos was such a sober soul; everything he said vibrated with a sense of truth. So when we’d finally gotten around to making arrangements at the church, and inviting people, and setting up the party to follow the baptism, it was a big relief to all concerned — me as much as anyone else. Now that the baby had turned up missing, however, I was tempted to consider seriously Merrula’s assessment: “God is punishing the parents for waiting too long.”

A man who had both patent leather shoes lodged firmly in this world offered a more temporal explanation: “Kidnappers,” said Uncle Augie. I only wish he had merely dabbled privately with this possibility — hadn’t said that word aloud, reinforcing the most exotic fears of the family.

“Oh my Lord!” yelped the grandmothers, in harmony for the first time all day, as Gwen aimed a perplexed gaze at Augie, then at Merrula, then at me.

“Let’s not get carried away,” I cautioned everyone, at which time tears came spilling down Gwendolyn’s cheeks. “My baby,” she moaned, “my baby.”

While I tried to make my wife understand that our baby had to be within arm’s reach — “It’s only common sense, honey.” — my own chest had come down a few notches with an increasing weight of distress that something awful had indeed happened to my tiny, helpless son. But I kept this notion to myself, wearing a valiant smile as I stood around as helpless as the rest. Unfortunately, the others were not shy about describing their fears, pushing Gwen and me and reason further and further apart.

The phone rang, silencing the bunch of us. I’m sure we were thinking the same thing: The kidnappers were calling in their demands. Encircled by both families, I whispered into the tiny holes in the mouthpiece: “Who is this?”

“Oh, it’s you, Father Nick.”

The families released a collective sigh.

“Yes, yes, I know, Father. I’m very sorry. There’s been a slight mix-up — we’re trying to straighten it out right now... Yes, I think you’d better go ahead with the wedding, and then we’ll — oh, you’ve got a funeral at four... Well, how about five?... Thank you, Father, we’ll try our best... No, I meant we’ll be there — one way or another we’ll see you before five.”

Inspired by Father Nick’s aggravated tone — plus a new outburst of opinions around me — I stepped up on a footstool and shouted “Everyone just shut up!”

Noone obeyed me, as usual, so I jumped off the stool, grabbed my grandfather’s gnarled cane (left in the umbrella rack after his death like a memento of his crankiness), swung the cane high, and smashed the ancient globe fixture above with a great crash. That light hadn’t worked as far back as I could remember, but had been allowed to continue collecting dust in part because Peter, the antiques dealer of the family, had once suggested that in addition to dust it was also collecting value. If the globe was worthless, as I suspected, it did serve one last, useful purpose: It restored order — without injuring anyone. But it was not the flying glass that shut them up so much as the destruction of an heirloom going to pieces, and were it not that her only grandchild was lost, I’m certain my mother would have used that cane on me.

I almost apologized for getting their attention in that extreme way, but I felt too upset by then to be contrite. “Listen,” I pleaded, “we’re running around like a bunch of cats without tails. We’ve got to go about this systematically.”

All three of my aunts glared at me fiercely; I’m not sure if they reacted this way because they had relied all their lives on their spiritual reserves to solve problems, or if they thought I was suggesting we should behave more like some other sect during a crisis.

“The last time I saw the baby was—” I checked my watch: ten to three — “maybe half an hour ago, when Gwen was laying out his christening suit in my old bedroom. Somebody had to be with the baby between the time I came downstairs and the time we realized he was—” saying the word made me compress inwardly — “missing.”

“Penny,” said Gwen, her makeup eroded but dry, “you went up to see the baby around that time.”

Gwen’s sister conceded this but said she had given way after a few minutes to Delphinia.

“All I wanted to do was bring the baby a piece of feta cheese,” my aunt Delphinia declared defensively, “but your mother barged in and yanked the cheese out of my fingers.”

Geraldine Loch was resolute: “Cheese is loaded with bacteria.”

Turning to Gwen’s mother, my aunt snapped, “It’s only goat’s milk; that’s the best thing for a baby.”

Before Mrs. Loch could counterattack, Gwen said, in a tremulous voice: “What happened when you were in the bedroom, Mom?”

“All I did,” Mrs. Loch testified, “was gather some of the baby’s things, but just as I was going down the hall to the bathroom I saw Evangelina coming toward his room.”

“I was only going to peek in on him before going to my own room to get my hat.” She pointed to the black pillbox on her head.

“Anyway, you were holding the baby,” Evangelina accused, aiming a finger at Mrs. Loch. “Too much everybody picks up the baby.”

“No! No! That bundle you saw was the bunting. The little one had dribbled all over it and I was taking it to the bathroom to wipe it clean.” Mrs. Loch wiped a rusty strand of hair off her speckled forehead. “When you came up the baby was still in the bassinet.”

“He’s not there now,” Merrula pointed out, flashing her eyeteeth.

Lucy’s husband, broad-chested, easygoing Tony, tried to sum up the proceedings. “That means the baby was alone for a short time.”

“The baby was alone,” I repeated stupidly.

“Couldn’t have been more than a minute or two,” Mr. Loch said. “After I let in your aunt downstairs I went into the kitchen and drank the last of my coffee. Then I went upstairs. Geraldine, you were in the hall outside the baby’s room. After I visited the bathroom, we walked downstairs together — and you were still carrying the bunting.”

“Without the baby?!” Gwen nearly shouted.

My mother-in-law screeched back at her: “The baby was gone from the bassinet, and since I’d seen Evangelina going towards the bedroom as I was going into the bathroom, I naturally assumed she’d grabbed my grandson. Everybody picks him up too much.”

“I didn’t touch my grandson,” declared Evangelina with an alarming arch to her neck, like a cobra about to strike.

Then Augie and Christos, Harriet’s current and former husbands, got into a squabble over whose responsibility it was to keep an eye on the kid. Of course they were really arguing about something else entirely.

“Quiet down!” I roared.

It was Penelope’s soft urging, “Take it easy, Alex,” that made me realize I’d become slightly hysterical, a reaction which only served to trigger another blast of hysteria from Gwen:

“Who stole my baby?!”

Gwen’s sister Penny, though younger than everyone else, seemed the only mature soul in the room: “Daddy, which aunt did you let in before you went upstairs?”

“Anna, I think she said.”

Harriet snapped, “We got no aunt named Anna in this family.”

“Yes, I’m sure she said Anna. Anna Rhinoceros, or something like that.”

An ensemble of Merrula, Evangelina, Delphinia, and Harriet groaned starkly, and I verbalized what they were unable to express: “Mrs. Rhinosos is not an aunt. She’s a witch.” It wasn’t something I actually believed. But under that ceiling of emotional chaos I wanted to believe it — at least it would have provided an explanation to what otherwise seemed inexplicable.

Grunts and fretting and chuckles (the latter contributed by Penelope’s husband, tall and lanky, good-natured Bruce) filled the deep, stuffy room as Evangelina offered a brief history of potions and portents and disappointments relating to Anna Rhinosos, concluding: “No man would ever have her, so we began to call her Mrs. out of kindness.” My mother summed up her story by claiming, “Mrs. Rhinosos has been trying to steal the bloom out of a child’s face for many years with her Evil Eye. Alex, too, when he was a boy!”

Suddenly we were all yelping and blaming again. Mass madness it was, especially considering that Mrs. Rhinosos resided a long way off in Queens, was very old by that time, and hadn’t been heard from in years. Perhaps it was all this insanity jammed into that narrow space that impelled me toward the telephone and, nearly knocking the instrument off its designated table, I dialed 911. The sight of me hitting only three digits stalled the bizarre dance they’d been performing, and every eye, wet or dry, turned on me.

“Hello, yes, I want to report a kidnapping — yes, I said kidnapping!” half shouting the word.

“Tell them how little he is!” Gwen screeched.

Trying to wave her off, but without success — she hovered over me — I somehow managed to provide all the information requested by the operator. Once I’d finished, the mad dance churned up again, only it was more out of control than before, swirling around the room and accompanied by bellows and screams and tears, lots of tears. Especially from my wife.

Unable to take it anymore, I sprang out the back door to plant my feet on grass for a few moments, hoping to establish solid footing in my perspective too. And there they were, beyond the twisted, barren apple tree: Mrs. Rhinosos and my sixteen-week-old, unbaptised son. It had never occurred to me — to any of us — that he could have been carried just a few feet outside. Our minds would only permit us to think that if he’d been taken out of the house, it had to be far, far away.

Mrs. Rhinosos had walked into the house and straight up the stairs; and in the confusion, the one or two people who happened to notice her had assumed she had a right to be among us. Into the empty bedroom she went, picked up the baby, stepped down the back stairs, out the kitchen door, and into the yard. Planned or not, her timing had been brilliant.

Sitting in a rusted outdoor rocker, the witch looked as hunched over and as coil-haired as I remembered her from my childhood. Even her saucer-brimmed hat, with its crushed paper lily, seemed left over from those days. My baby, buttoned up in a frothy white suit, was giggling joyfully as the woman famous for her empty life held him close against her broad chest. Afraid to frighten her into doing something peculiar, I stepped softly over the grass up behind them, and was about to reach down and snatch the child out of her arms when she said, without looking back at me, “Your son, he is beautiful. What is the name you will give him?”

I stiffened and stuttered, “John... Christopher.”

“Good strong name for good strong baby.” She sighed, looking long into my son’s face, which was pink with laughter and sunlight... no shadows whatsoever of Original Sin.

As I stood there wondering how she’d heard about the baptism — secondhand through one of my mother’s visits to the old neighborhood, I supposed — a gang of relatives came bursting out of the back door of the house, growling audibly, teeth bared. I made a face and raised my right hand like a school crossing guard. Mr. Loch, Harriet, and Bruce stopped short on the grass. But Merrula kept coming.

“You’d better not take another step,” I threatened.

My aunt froze and suddenly looked hurt — looked human, the way she used to look before she’d begun to find evil everywhere. It was almost as if, for just a moment, she saw that evil existed more in her own mind than in the world.

I never felt a single pinpoint of coolness touch my hands or face, so I didn’t realize it had begun to rain until I saw the dots of wetness spreading on the paper lily stuck into the old woman’s hat.

“Mrs. Rhinosos, would you like to come to the christening?”

Faded green eyes of another place and time she turned on me, and said, in a child’s voice, “Ah yes, Alex, I’d like very much.”

Mrs. Rhinosos began pressing her black witchy shoes into the grass, rocking the chair gently back and forth, never allowing her eyes to move away from the baby’s face. Watching intently, my family, flat-footed on the hardscrabble lawn, didn’t speak, didn’t stir. Not until a figure in a dark blue shirt and trousers emerged from the back door, Gwendolyn right on his heels; his eyes were sharp, hers were wild. Fleetingly I mistook him for a man of the cloth, but then I noticed that the heel of his hand was resting on the gun in his holster. This time I raised both arms high and frantically waved them off. The officer stopped, but Gwen pushed past him, forcing me to intercept her midway across the lawn by wrapping my arms around her waist. Though she kept wriggling to break loose, I managed to hold on to her long enough to allow my son to remain in Mrs. Rhinosos’s wrinkled arms a minute longer: After all, in the wider scheme of the universe, the baby was as much hers as ours.

Copyright © 2009 Tom Tolnay