The Last Season (49 page)

It is so quiet in here that I can hear the ice melting and sliding off the southeast corner. I sit listening like a doe with a spring fawn, worrying about every creak in the floor and draft in the curtains. I do not wish my tears to be seen by anyone.

But I cannot stop crying. I have tried to imagine this God listening, but it does not quite work. What can I do? Pray for Sugar? He's dead and hardly needs a late reference from the likes of me. Pray for Jaja, Ig, Matka? Does God continually have their souls monitored to see if enough prayers are being said in their favour? And what of someone like me? If I die and leave no one to pray for me, am I then doomed? And if not, then what is the use of ever praying for anyone?

Yet I can pray for Kristiina, the living. But I can't concentrate. My thoughts feel like they are in Kristiina's blender, each turning into the next, one cutting another.

In the end I am just a Pole. Alone. All I can truly pray for is Felix Batterinski, the poor dumb bastard. But pray for what? It is beyond my comprehension how so much could possibly have gone wrong. Right from Leningrad on. No, not there, from Sweden on. In Helsinki. Hell, with Wheeler in L.A. In Philadelphia, I suppose. No, in Sudbury, the summer Ig got it. When Batcha turned on me the day Jaja died. Maybe when Matka died, right from the first.

What was it that Batcha called me?

I cannot remember the word. Just the translation.
Monster.

I cannot believe I even have such ludicrous thoughts in my head. If this is part of prayer, then prayer is for fools.

I get up and leave, determined not to bow or genuflect or even act impressed. I got into this my own way. I will get out on my own. Alone. Just like always.

On the far side of Black Donald lake is a picnic site, the tables stacked under the high white pines, the orange garbage containers turned upside down for winter, the washrooms locked. There is also a pay phone, filthy with caked snow and spray from the winter's snowploughing. I pull off as far as I dare onto the shoulder and leap the ditch, sinking to my knees in hard-packed snow. There is a ghost of a winter trail to the booth, probably a motorist who slid off the road months ago calling for a tow truck, and I use the hardened parts of the trail for footing. I half expect the phone to be ripped from the box, but the old Danny is now too old and respectable, the new Danny and Tommy too young, and the phone sits intact and working, waiting for a quarter.

I place the call, charging it to Poppa's number.

The Kirurginen Sairaala switchboard is receptive this time. I can sense my name on a sheet and almost instantly I can hear the phone ringing in Kristiina's room. And then her voice, weak, tired, but my darling Kristiina.

“Hi babes! Canada calling.”

“Felix!” Her voice perks up. Good. “Where are you?”

“In the middle of the bush.”

“Are you here?”

“I told you. I'm in a phone booth in the middle of nowhere.”

“How did you find me here?” She sounds mildly irritated, typical of those who never wish to be seen to be sick.

“Pia. Pekka. They told me.”

“Told you what?”

“Told me where to reach you. Why do you say that?”

“No reason. I'm sorry. I am just tired. Please.”

“How did it go?”

“Fine. Perfect. I'll be out in two days.”

I am not sure I want to ask, but: “What was it all about?”

I can feel her pause. I wait, afraid to even breathe. “It was that infection,” she says. “It was what was making me sick. It was not important.”

“But why an operation? Why are you in a surgical hospital? Why couldn't they treat you with penicillin, or antibiotics?”

Again the pause. “It was, I think they say ‘women's problems' ... you know.”

When I shout I see my breath is forming in the booth. It is colder in than out. “No, Kristiina, I
don't
know!”

She laughs, but it is not quite her laugh. It is what she thinks her laugh sounds like. “Then you should not worry about it. It was nothing, really. I miss you, you know.”

“I miss you too. But I still want to know what was wrong.”

“Nothing. Believe me, please.”

I say it before I even consider it. The thought forms in my mind and takes shape on my tongue, my mind recoiling from the suggestion.

“You had an abortion, didn't you?”

There is no answer. But there is, too.

“
Didn't you?
” I say.

“What did Pia tell you?” she says weakly.

“Pia told me nothing.”

“What makes you think it was that?” Her voice is filled with air, floating on hope.

“I'm not stupid,” I say angrily, my own voice heavy with hurt.

“Am I right? It was an abortion, wasn't it?”

Her voice is small as the distance is large: “Yes.”

I feel as if the gloves have dropped. Time slows. Batterinski moves in, attacking, in charge. “Don't you think it is something we should have discussed together?”

“There was nothing to discuss,” she says, voice growing with defiance. “It was my decision. The doctors said the pregnancy was not going well. I was very sick, you may recall.”

“My mother lay in bed for two months before I was born.”

“Your mother died, you told me. Is that what you wanted of me?”

“Not at all. I just think I had a right to know, that's all.”

“I'm sorry, but what right?”

“I was the father, damn it!”

“Yes, if there had been a child. There isn't going to be a child now.”

I can feel time quickening. I must go back on the attack. “You never even gave me a chance,” I say. “We would have gotten married.”

She laughs, this one not an imitation but the real thing. “Is that the way you fix these things where you come from?”

“It would have been the thing to do. Didn't you get my note?”

“Yes. And it was sweet. Thank you.”

“‘
Thank you'
? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Come on, Bats. What's with you?”

I am angry again, time slowing. “What's with
you?
Would you or wouldn't you?”

“Would I or wouldn't I what?”

“Marry me.”

“Oh please — we must not talk about that now.”

“No. I want to talk about that, okay? Would you? Will you?”

“Not now, please. Not now, particularly. Marriage is the last thing I want right now. I just want to go home and rest.”

“What about later, then. I love you, you know. Even after this.”

“‘After
this
'? Look my Canadian darling, you must not make this look like I've done something wrong to you. What I do with my own life is my business.”

“
My
business when you're pregnant.”

Her voice suddenly grows cross. “Not your business then, either. And especially not your business when I'm not pregnant. Understand?”

“What about later?”

“Later for what?”

“For us getting married, Kristiina. What in heaven's name is wrong with you?”

“There's nothing wrong with me. It is with you. And if you must have an answer, the answer is no.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm not ready, for one thing. Because even if I ever am ready I doubt we would be right for each other. You will understand.”

I can say nothing. I stare at the receiver. Ice has formed on the mouthpiece but it should be on my ear.

She fills the gap. “You asked.”

I sputter. “Okay, but what about us together. What was all that about?”

“Fun. Fun for me. Fun for you, too, I hope.”

“Just fun?”

“Sure. Fun. What else matters? Look, I still love you in my own way, isn't that enough?”

I am suddenly back walking on the ice of Helsinki harbour with her. She has let go of my hand deliberately.
You're different,
she says. Now she says
fun
. Batterinski is her toy — isn't he — nothing but a goddamn fucking toy you take off the shelf when you're bored and kick under a chair when you've better things to do.
Enough,
she says.

“No! It is not enough!”

I am screaming. I hammer the receiver down so hard it buckles the cradle. I can't even phone her back to finish. I yank the receiver as hard as I can, ripping the phone and cable free from the box and sending my shoulder stiffly back against the still folded door. I turn and I kick and the door gives slightly, but the snow has packed hard around the track and it cannot shut tight. I kick again and again and the door bursts, the thick glass shattering but holding together in patches. It falls, folding, the sound like a well-greased rifle bolt accepting its charge. Which, in a way, is precisely what Batterinski is doing.

Holding the receiver by the end of the cable, I whip it like a club against the three sides of the booth, stomping around the outside, falling in the drifted snow to my knees. The booth turns to cobwebs, the cobwebs falling in on each other.

I take the telephone and hold it like a lariat over my head, then send it full force against the door of the washroom so it leaves a deep gash and black skid. They will have to paint that again. Just like Jaja painted the goddamn things every year for bugger-all. That blow is for him.

I kick at the glass and turn to the sound of a logging truck gearing down for the slope. I don't even care. I stand proudly beside my shattered phone booth and stare at him, defiantly, but the bastard does not even take his eyes off the upcoming curve. Like everyone else, he seems convinced Batterinski no longer exists.

I know from Poppa's eyes that he is deeply troubled. When I first drove back out I'd hoped I'd be able to cheer him up with news that the road was opening up. Anything to avoid Kristiina or all this shit going on in Finland. But I knew by the time I reached the lane that all was not quite right. No outside light for me. Just a sad glow from the kitchen where he sat with a coal oil lamp burning in a recently rewired house. Not too subtle a slap, and I did not miss it.

He rises slowly from his contemplation of the wick.

“You should have called. I had supper ready.”

“Sorry.”

Sorry be damned.
This is 1982, not 1962, but suddenly I can taste toothpaste in my mouth. It is as if I have just come in from drinking in the gravel pit with the rest of the gang and I've squeezed the tube directly into my mouth. But Poppa always knew then. He knows now.

“You had calls,” he says.

“Yeah? Who?”

“Everyone, it seems. The CBC. The
Toronto Star.
The
Globe
and Mail.
Finland.”

“Who from Finland?”

“They left their number.”

He picks up a piece of folded paper. I see he has been looking through my scrapbook. The paper I take from him and unfold. Voitto. The nerve of him, to call back.

“What is going on, son?” Poppa asks sadly.

“It's a misunderstanding, Poppa. Same as the thing in Sweden. I tried to teach them how to be winners and now they're trying to treat me like I'm some sort of criminal or something.”

“Are you?”

“Poppa! Come on now! We gave out bonus money for aggressive play, it's as simple as that. Never for penalties. I turned a bunch of losers into winners, Poppa, and now they're saying they'd rather be losers.”

“Did you lose your job?”

“I guess. I've lost jobs before, Poppa.”

“But you won't be going back to Finland....”

“I guess not. It's beginning to look that way.”

Poppa closes his eyes. Closes in on what has really been troubling him. “Then how will we get Jaja's memoirs?”

He can't possibly know about Leningrad!
He just wonders where they are.

“I'm sorry, Poppa. I just forgot. I had so much on my mind today.”

“You didn't forget, Felix. You don't have them, do you?”

“Of course I have them”

“I went through your luggage, son.”

“They're in the trunk then.”

“Are they?” His eyes light up, apologizing and embracing me at the same time. I cannot do this to him.

“No. They aren't there.”

Poppa's face collapses. “But why, son? What did you do with them?”

“I lost them, okay? In Russia. They took them from me. It wasn't my fault.”

“
Who
took them away?”

“The police. The KGB. I don't know. They took them from me at the airport. I didn't even know I had them. And even if I had I still wouldn't have thought about it. But they took them.”

“Why?”

“The Polish stuff. And all those clippings you kept sending me. They read it all and then they wouldn't let me have them back.”

Poppa's eyes are glistening in the bad light.

“Poppa, please! It was an accident. Just like this was. Don't you see?”

But Poppa just shakes his head. The tears are dropping now. “This was no accident, son.”

I do not follow. “What do you mean?”

“Batcha set the fire on purpose. I was upstairs sleeping.”

“But you said —”

“I said so she could be buried from the church. She deserved that, at least. I couldn't save her, Felix, because she and every goddarned piece of paper out there was drenched in coal oil. She did it deliberately. She even managed to drag those boxes out from under her bed.”

“But why?”

“She'd hardly spoken to me all winter. Once Marie and I set to work on Jaja's memoirs she wouldn't have anything to do with us. I put it down to her sickness — but why she did it is beyond me.”

“She wanted to
destroy
his history?'

“What else? She was going to die anyway. She was hardly in any pain.”