The Favorite Game (30 page)

S
ince his mission against the mosquitoes had begun, Martin’s enjoyment percentages soared. All the days were up around 98 per cent. The other boys delighted in him and made him the ornament of the bunk, to be shown off to visitors and wondered at. Martin remained an innocent performer. He spent most afternoons down at the marsh where the tractors were preparing new fields to run on. His arm was swollen with bites. Breavman applied calamine.

On his next day off Breavman took a canoe down the lake. Red-wing blackbirds rose and plunged into the reeds. He ripped open a stalk of a waterlily. It was veined with purple foam.

The lake was glass-calm. He could make out sounds of camp from time to time, the PA announcing General Swim”; recorded music filtered through the forest and crept over the water.

He went down the creek as far as he could before sandbars stopped him. The only indication of current was the leaning underwater weeds. Clams black and thickly coated with mud — an unclean food. A snap of water and the green stretched-out body of a frog zoomed under the canoe. The low sun was blinding. As he paddled back to his camp-site it turned the paddle gold.

He built a fire, spread out his sleeping bag in the moss, and prepared to watch the sky.

The sun is always part of the sky, but the moon is a splendid and remote stranger. The moon. Your eye keeps coming back to it as it would do to a beautiful woman in a restaurant. He thought about Shell. The same moment he believed he had the confidence to live alone he believed he could live with Shell.

The mist was riding slowly on the reflection of birch trees; now it was piled like a snowdrift.

Four hours later he awakened with a start and grabbed his axe.

“It’s Martin Stark,” said Martin.

The fire was still giving some light, but not enough. He shone his flash in the boy’s face. One cheek had been badly scratched by branches but the boy grinned widely.

“What’s your favourite store?”

“What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?

“What’s your favourite store?”

Breavman wrapped the sleeping bag around the boy and ruffled his hair.

“Dionne’s.”

“What’s your favourite parking lot?”

“Dionne’s Parking Lot.”

When the ritual was finished Breavman packed up, lifted him into the canoe, and shoved off for camp. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Martin hadn’t been able to find him. That cheek needed iodine. And it seemed that some of the bites were infected.

It was beautiful paddling back, reeds scraping the bottom of the canoe and turning it into a big fragile drum. Martin was an Indian chief squatting beside him, bundled in the sleeping bag. The sky displayed continents of fire.

“When I’m back home,” Martin said loudly, “rats eat me.”

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

“Hundreds and hundreds of them.”

When Breavman saw the lights of the camp he had a wild urge to pass them, to keep paddling up the lake with the boy, make a site somewhere up the shore among the naked birch trees.

“Keep it down, Martin. They’ll kill us if they hear us.”

“That would be all right.”

G
reen? Beige? Riding in the bus he tried to remember the colour of his mother’s room. In this way he avoided thinking about her lying there. Some careful shade determined at a medical conference.

In this room she spends her time. It has a good view of the southern slopes of Mount Royal. In the spring you get the smell of lilacs. You want to throw the window open to get more of the perfume, but you can’t. The window slides up only so far. They don’t want any suicides littering the lawn.

“We haven’t seen you for a while, Mr. Breavman,” said the head nurse.

“Haven’t we?”

His mother was staring at the ceiling. He looked up there himself. Maybe something was going on that nobody knew about.

The walls were clever grey.

“Are you feeling better, Mother?” He gave the cue.

“Am I feeling better? better for what? that I should go outside and see what he’s doing with his life? thank you, for that I don’t have to go outside, for that I can lie here, in this room, beside the crazy people, your mother in an insane asylum.…”

“You know it isn’t that, Mother. Just somewhere you can rest —”

“Rest! How can I rest with what I know? traitor for a son, don’t you think I know where I am? with their needles and their polite manner, a mother like this and he’s away swimming —”

“But, Mother, nobody’s trying to hurt —”

What was he doing, trying to argue with her? She flung out one arm and groped for something on the night table, but everything had been taken away.

“Don’t interrupt your mother, haven’t I suffered enough? a sick man for fifteen years, don’t I know? don’t I know, don’t I
know …
?”

“Mother, please, don’t scream —”

“Oh! he’s ashamed of his mother, his mother will wake up the neighbours, his mother will frighten away his goyish girlfriends, traitor! what all of you have done to me! a mother has to be quiet, I was beautiful, I came from Russia a beauty, people looked at me —”

“Let me speak to you —”

“People spoke to me, does my child speak to me? the world knows I lie here like a stone, a beauty, they called me a Russian beauty, but what I gave to my child, to treat a mother, I can’t stand to think of it, you should have it from your own child, like today is Tuesday over the whole world you should have it from your child what I had, rat in my house, I can’t believe my life, that this should happen to me, I was so good to my parents, my mother had cancer, the doctor held her stomach in his hand, does anyone try to help me? does my son lift a finger? Cancer! cancer! I had to see everything, I had to give my life away to sick people, this isn’t my life, to see these things, your father would kill you, my face is old, I don’t know who I am in the mirror, wrinkles where I was beautiful.…”

He sat back, didn’t try to break in again. If she let him speak she wouldn’t hear. He really didn’t know what he would have been able to say had he known she was listening.

He attempted to let his mind wander, but he hung on every wild detail, waiting for the hour to be up.

He knocked on Tamara’s door at about ten o’clock. There were a few whispers exchanged inside. She called out, “Who is it?”

“Breavman from the north. But you’re busy.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night.”

Good night, Tamara. It’s all right to share your mouth. It belongs to everyone, like a park.

He wrote two letters to Shell and then phoned her so he could get to sleep.

E
d’s bunk was expected to win the baseball game.

The foul-lines were marked with Israeli flags.

What right did he have to resent their using the symbol? It wasn’t engraved on his shield.

A child brandished a Pepsi, cheering for his side.

Breavman passed out hot dogs. He was glad he’d learned to suspect his Gentile neighbours of uncleanliness, not to believe in flags. Now he could apply that training to his own tribe.

A home run.

Send your children to the academies in Alexandria. Don’t be surprised if they come back Alexandrians.

Three cheers. Mazel tov.

Hello Canada, you big Canada, you dull, beautiful resources. Everybody is Canadian. The Jew’s disguise won’t work.

When it was Ed’s turn to umpire, Breavman walked across the field to the marsh and watched Martin kill mosquitoes. The tractor man knew him well because he often came to see Martin fulfil his mission.

The boy had killed over six thousand mosquitoes.

“I’ll kill some for you, Martin.”

“That won’t help my score.”

“Then I’ll start my own score.”

“I’ll beat you.”

Martin’s feet were wet. Some of the bites were definitely infected. He should send him back to the bunk, but he seemed to be enjoying himself so thoroughly. All his days were 99 per cent.

“I dare you to start your own score.”

As they accompanied their groups back to the campus Ed said, “Not only did you lose the game, Breavman, but you owe me five dollars.”

“What for?”

“Wanda. Last night.”

“Oh, God, the pool. I’d forgotten.”

He checked his journal and gratefully paid the money.

A
ll the days were sunny and the bodies bronze. All he watched was the sand and the exposed flesh, marvelling at the softer city white when a strap fell away. He wanted all the strange flesh-shadows.

He hardly ever looked at the sky. A bird swooping low over the beach surprised him. One of the Brandenburgs was blaring over the PA. He was lying on his back, eyes closed, annihilating himself in the heat and glare and music. Suddenly someone was kneeling over him.

“Let me squeeze it,” went Anne’s voice.

He opened his eyes and shivered.

“No, let me,” Wanda laughed.

They were trying to get at a blackhead in his forehead.

“Leave me alone,” he shouted like a maniac.

The violence of his reaction astonished them.

He pretended to smile, waited a decent interval, left the beach. The bunk was too cool. The night air hadn’t been cooked away. He looked around the small wooden cubicle. His laundry bag was bulging. He’d forgotten to send it off. That couldn’t be right. Not right for him. There was a box of Ritz crackers on the window-sill. That wasn’t how he was supposed to eat. He pulled out his journal. That wasn’t how he was supposed to write.

M
artin Stark was killed in the first week of August 1958. He was accidentally run over by a bulldozer which was clearing a marshy area. The driver of the bulldozer, the Hungarian named Steve, was not aware that he had hit anything except the usual clumps, roots, stones. Martin was probably hiding in the reeds the better to trap his enemy.

When he didn’t show for supper Breavman thought he might be up there. He asked a junior counsellor to sit at his table. He walked leisurely to the marsh, glad for an excuse to leave the noisy mess hall.

He heard a noise from the weeds. He imagined that Martin had seen him coming and wanted to play a hiding game. He took off his shoes and waded in. He was terribly squashed, a tractor tread right across his back. He was lying face down. Where Breavman turned him over his mouth was full of guts.