It is the morning after and Erkki is sitting behind his desk looking remarkably relaxed. There are no nails in his mouth, no twitches, nothing. I cannot believe it.
“Look at this,” he says, and hands me a piece of paper with meaningless numbers and Finnish typing. “We made a profit in our first year of operation. I doubt that any team in Finland has ever done that. Most of them are heavy losers.
“You haven’t built your rink yet, Erkki. Don’t forget that.”
“Aha, but that is just the point, Felix. Now we will get our rink. I’ve just come from the board of directors and they are most pleased with our season.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious.”
“They’re not upset we lost out?”
“They’re businessmen, Felix. They look at the year’s overall performance. And you know better than anyone how far we’ve come. Nobody said we’d be anything but last when the season started, did they?”
“Sounds like you’re starting to take some credit for it all, Erkki.”
“Well ... why not? We’re a team.”
“You didn’t want to pay to have winners, remember?”
“But I did pay. And I’ll tell you another thing too. I paid for last night.”
“What about last night?”
“The toilet. The sink. Two doors. A mask.”
“I tripped.”
Erkki laughs. Strange, this. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s not important.”
I sit down, completely perplexed. This can’t be Erkki the Jerk. He sounds almost reasonable.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
Erkki smiles at me, his pie face rippling into meringue smiles, eyebrows, eyes, cheeks, mouth all leering at me in delight. “I think it is about time you and I became proper friends, Felix. After all, we’re in this together. When one prospers, the other prospers.”
“Are they going to keep my contract?”
“Of course they are. I told you they were very happy with our performance.”
“Our?”
“But there’s a hitch, right?”
“I’m sorry. A....?”
“Something you have to discuss with me, right?”
“What makes you think that?” Erkki asks, the first temptation to pop a nail in his mouth showing through the smiles.
“You called me in. You wouldn’t do that just so we could announce our friendship.”
“Well, there is a small matter.”
“Which is?”
“The board of directors has been fortunate enough to arrange for an exhibition game in Leningrad. The board of directors is very high on this idea. They think it would help promote better relations between our two countries. And they have asked me to ask you if you could keep the team together for two more weeks. All expenses will be covered and all salaries extended, of course.”
A Batterinski go to Russia? Not on your life. Jaja would twist in his grave so hard he would bring down Black Donald Mountain.
“I’m not a fucking Communist.”
“Nor are we Communist, Felix. But we have to live beside the Soviet Union just as you have to live beside the United States. We may not like it, but there is nothing we can do about it. This would be good for relations.”
“What’s in it for them?”
“Who?”
“Your goddamn board.”
“As I said, good relations.”
“Come on, Erkki. Don’t bullshit me.”
“Well, it is large market, of course. And we do a great deal of trade in kind. Not money, but trade. You know?’
“Fish lures for what?”
“Wood. Other things we can trade better. Oil. Iron ore.”
“And we’re to soften up the Russians, is that it?”
“No. That is not it. You are simply to go and show what a fine team you are.”
“Which is why you’re sucking up to me, right?”
Again, the perplexed look. “I’m sorry?”
“You know precisely how rotten the team is without me.”
“Well, it would be preferable if you did play.”
“But still, you’re worried?”
Erkki closes his eyes and leans back, sighing. “We can’t possibly have another incident like Sweden, Felix. It would have terrible results for us, and not just in trade.”
“But you can’t afford to leave me at home.”
“We don’t want to leave you at home. Particularly you.”
I smile. Of course — what could please the Commies more than to stick it to another Canadian? “Then you must be petrified.”
“Not at all. I have a deal with you, okay?”
“What deal?”
“I will pay for your girl, Kristiina, I think it is, and she can come with us.”
“Of course. A bribe to chain the animal. “If I promise to be good.”
“Yes.”
“Let her bring her friend Pia.”
“Only one. Yes.”
Keening has been hounding me for time before his flight and so I take him to the Viisi Pennia. It is a stroke of genius. In the three hours he sits with his tape recorder and a continual supply of Koff beer, courtesy of the Batterinski tab, I tell him everything he needs to know. We go over “Canucklehead” until he finally has it straight. I tell him all about Sugar. I straighten him out on the McMurtry report by asking him the obvious question: What can some academic from Ontario possibly know about big-league hockey? Say their universities are in trouble — do they come to Batterinski or Schultz or Moose for an answer? I guess not.
Eventually, Keening leaves, carrying me in the tape recorder. If nothing gets erased by the metal detector, in a few months from now I will have my say. I will be described sitting happily in Viisi Pennia while every Finn hockey player who comes in pays homage to the great Batterinski. Almost as if it was planned. Which it was. A photographer will shoot me in Leningrad — Keening has some arrangement with Sanomat — and soon enough I will have the truth out about Batterinski.
I don't know whether to put it at the start of the scrapbook or the end.
Kristiina’s reaction is not what I had imagined. She is in the bathroom, throwing up. On the phone she said she had the flu that is going around and asked me not to come over, but I had to tell her. Leningrad, I said. Sanko, she said. Pail. And reached for the plastic bucket beside the chesterfield.
She seemed transparent, her skin bluish, her hair greasy and plastered to her head like she’d just removed a hockey helmet.
She puts a cool washcloth over her face. I don’t know what to do. I try to take over the dabbing but she recoils from my reach.
“Please,” she says from behind the cloth. “You must not touch.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, sounding like the one hurt.
She breathes heavily, the intake louder than exhaling, and every so often a moan sounds like it is coming from somewhere else in the room.
“Geez, you’re really sick,” I say.
She moans.
“Did you try and eat?”
She moans louder.
“What about a doctor? Did you call?”
A moan, or no, I’m not sure.
This is the reverse of the ferry ride to Stockholm, but I do not have Kristiina’s natural gift for comforting. When I offer something it only seems to make matters worse. Speaking doesn’t soothe, it frustrates. I touch and she shivers. All I can do is follow orders. She wants a blanket and I run for a blanket. She wants the blanket off and I peel it like wet wallpaper from her sweating body. She wants a blanket. She wants a drink, the pail, another drink, the pail again, help to the washroom, a tissue, a drink, a hand to hold.
And now she wants me to go.
“No way. You need me.”
She shakes her head, breathing heavily from her nostrils, as if exhausted. “No,” she says, her voice very weak. “I just want to sleep. Please, you do not have to stay.”
“Sleep,” I say. “I’ll be here.”
&nbs
p; She looks up and forces a smile, but it does not catch. “Please go, Felix. I will be better alone.”
How can I argue? I place my hand on her shoulder. She pulls my hand down and kisses the back of my wrist. She is very hot and clammy and I curse myself for hoping I don’t catch whatever she has. I want to grab her and hug her, but I am afraid of hurting her.
“I love you,” I say.
Kristina does not answer. She presses tight to my forearm, then moans. But whether in pain or pleasure I cannot say.
The two weeks pass quickly. I let Timo all but take over the coaching chores leading up to Leningrad. He, after all, has played the Soviets some twenty times and understands all that madness about double circling and five-man units and pic-ing. My experience with the Communists is so limited that I’ve basically got it all down to one play: send Eddie Van Impe out to beat the piss out of the first Red over our blueline. But I doubt the board would go for it.
Timo is as excited as a child about the trip. I had come to think of him as just my big dependable defensive partner and had forgotten that first and foremost Timo is an art historian with the government archives, with a particular interest in Russian art. Back home your teammates played hockey for a living, period; I had forgotten that in Finland hockey is little more than a hobby. It’s like finding out that Tiger Williams teaches linguistics off the ice.
Kristiina says she can’t go. The flu barely cleared and it is back again, worse than ever. She has lost weight. Her doctor says her red blood cell count is way down. He’s booked her into the Kirurgimen Sairaala for a complete physical. And if Kristiina is not going, Pia has decided not to either, leaving Erkki chainsawing his nails over the possible effect to our deal.
“It’s nothing serious?” I ask at her apartment the evening before our flight.
She smiles and shakes her head. She looks so much better lately I cannot believe there could possibly be anything worth going to a hospital over. She’s probably got mono, like Torchy in his second year in Philadelphia.
“This is common practice,” she says, “I want to go anyway. I keep putting it off.”
“You look fine now.”
“Surfaces can be deceiving,” she says, forcing a smile. “I still do not feel very well, you see. The doctor, he thinks it is some kind of small infection that takes over when my blood goes down. It is nothing to be concerned about. I will be out when you get back and we can go up to the cabin if you should like.”
“Alone?”
“But of course.”
I lean over and kiss her and she accepts me, mouth opening and ripe with the scent of toothpaste. It has been two weeks since we last made love and I can feel myself jump with eagerness. I shift on the couch and place a hand over her breast, slipping in through her gown. But she folds the gown on my hand, as if it might erase the intention. I move back and look at her, eyes begging.
“When you get back, okay?” she says “I am afraid I don’t feel up to it.”
I try to make light of the matter. “Well I sure do!”
She does not laugh. She does not even smile. She holds my head down onto her shoulder like I have hurt myself and need comfort.
I stay there, holding my breath, staring over her shoulder in search of something to focus on. But there is only the empty room and the sense of her too close to be seen.
On the afternoon of the departure I am waiting in the Inter-Continental lobby for the bus to the airport, which is late. And when I am pacing I notice a large envelope stuffed in slot 622, my room. I ask for it and am hardly surprised it is from Poppa. The bus horn blows and there is nothing to do but shove it in the zipper pouch with all the other letters and Jaja’s story and hope to read it on the flight over.
The loading goes well. We are up and away in a sky as clear as the 7-Up Pekka is pouring into a glass already half full of his beloved koskenkorva drink. I order a nice cold Lapinkulta beer, watch while we shoot out along the coast for signs of ice breakup, see none, and then turn to Poppa’s letter with a second beer.
March 23, 1982
My dear son, Felix,
By the time you receive this letter you should be very nearly through your season, according to your most recent letter which we received on the eighth of this month. It just doesn’t seem possible to me that time has flown by so quickly. But in a way, it can’t go fast enough here, for at least a while. We’ve just been through three weeks of solid ten to twenty below zero.
There was a big story in the Ottawa Citizen about your old buddy Torchy Bender. What’s wrong with that boy? It makes you wonder about that California. Everything’s got to be a trend, eh? I saw him the other day on the television and he was making a fool of himself. May as well have been begging on the street for his money. You think about it, son, you never hear of a good Catholic going that way.
Back home, your old friends are doing a bit better. Danny got promoted full yard foreman down at O’Malley’s and his head’s near as big as his stomach now. Building a big new place up Schama’s side road back of the mountain too. One of them Viceroy homes, comes just like a toy all boxed up and you just stick it together with spit. (It’s gorgeous, really, and I hear it cost them nearly $18,000 — can you feature that? Hi Felix, Marie.) They got another kid, too, him and Lucy, but I’ve lost count how many all told. (Three — Marie.)
The worst news I have to pass on is about our beloved Batcha. She’s very, very ill, Felix. The doctors say it won’t be long now. Her blood’s just running out. Doctor gave her a transfusion last week and she fought like the dickens. He’s also left us some painkillers, but she won’t have nothing to do with them. I’ll let you know the moment anything happens, don’t you worry.
I almost forgot. (I didn’t — Marie.) Our Marie has got a job coming up over in Renfrew. (It’s in the Manpower Centre, Felix, they must have gotten so sick of me coming in bellyaching all the time that they hired me just to shut me up. Ha! Ha! — Marie.) I’m sure going to miss her. You can’t believe, son, what a help she’s been in all this. We’re close to finishing up, at least the stuff I mark off. I doubt anyone would ever get through it all, and, quite frankly, some of it’s not worth bothering with.
I’m going to tell you about something, Felix, that I want you to know in case I’m not around once you get to Jaja’s works. Marie and I found a sealed envelope in the last big box, down near the bottom, and it has a handwritten note from Jaja on it that simply asks us not to open it until his immediate family is gone. I’m not sure what he means by that. Him and Batcha, I think, but Marie says I’m immediate family too. It might be the deed they got when they took up here, I don’t know. Whatever, I’m going to honour it at least as long as poor Batcha’s still with us. Then you and me can make the decision together. One thing I know, it’s not money. There never was any around to put in.
You’ll notice I’ve included a few more clippings you might be interested in. You can thank Marie for them because she picks up things she thinks I might be interested in when she’s in Renfrew. (It’s nothing, really — Marie.) Time magazine made Lech Walesa “Man of the Year,” did you see that? Every Pole throughout the world can be proud of that, I say. We can lay claim to the two most inspirational leaders in the world, his Holiness Pope John Paul II and Walesa The radio here has said Jaruzelski will not even permit Walesa to attend his baby daughter’s christening. He has not even seen his baby, you know. You know what Jaruzelski’s real fear is? The Roman Catholic Church, that’s what. He’s afraid to let Walesa be seen near a church in case he asked the bishop for sanctuary. With Walesa under the blessing of God, the Communists would be destroyed and they know it. So pray for Walesa and for Poland.
You read Jaja’s accounts carefully, Felix. You will see that there is nothing new on this earth if you are a Pole. Jaruzelski has been around before, in different disguises. When your great-grandfather died so valiantly, Jaruzelski was known as the Marquis Alexander Wiepolski, a Russian flunky who was set up as dictator. He was a Pole by name an
d birth only. In soul, if they have one, which I doubt, he was a cursed Russian. Just like Jaruzelski.
Enough of that. There is more intelligent stuff in Jaja’s papers, selections of which we are enclosing. I have only two more points to mention, one good, one I pray is not as bad as it first sounds. The good is your Kristiina. She sounds lovely and intelligent. You know well my thoughts are on a grandson to carry on the name of Batterinski, so I won’t go over them.
The other point concerns a photograph that appeared in several of the Canadian newspapers. Certain highly respected people in Pomerania have brought it to my attention. (Not me, I swear. If you’re wondering who, you might try a certain “highly respected” person at St. Martin’s — Marie.) The picture shows a hockey player spitting in the face of a man from Sweden. I cannot clearly see the face, but the newspaper says it is my son. I have faith in you, son, and have told people it is all a mistake. I am sure you will prove me right.
We are all praying for you. You pray for Batcha. She needs you.
Your loving father,
Poppa.
I will pray for Batcha, all right. “Oh Most Merciful Father, make it quick. I wish no pain on anyone. Amen.”
I can feel the jet sag, the whining slow. We are descending on Leningrad. There is only time to quickly scan Jaja’s notes. I will have to get back to them later.
How appropriate that the Poles, my people, who came to Canada would end up being sent into the worst kind of wilderness to build what was called a “settlement road.” We were sent up the Bonnechere River and then further up the Opeongo into the hills. All the men knew what their job was, to build roads good enough that the Scots and Irish could come along behind and cut down the white pine for shipment back to Europe. We, the Poles who had waited over a hundred years for Europe to come in and give us back our home, we were thousands of miles from our beloved homeland, sleeping in swamps, fighting flies and trying to lay down roads on topsoil that turned into pure granite two inches down, all so we could help to build a Europe that would never come to our aid.
The Last Season Page 34