“Finland okay?”
“Been great. We got beat out in the playoffs.”
Danny pulls out a cigarette, taps it carefully on the edge of the box. “Too bad,” he says.
“Ah,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”
What kind of talk is this? Where are Danny and I, fishing off the creek bridge, dreaming about the NHL, planning how we’d get into Lucy Dombrowski’s pants, saying everything and anything that popped into our minds. There was no patrolling what you said then. I think something new, but cannot say it. Danny, you should see Kristiina. You’d love her. Personally, I’m just as glad Batcha’s dead. Isn’t my old man looking old? Do you ever look at yourself, Danny, and say “Holy old baldheaded, where did I go?” Do you, eh?
“Poppa says you’re doing good at the mill,” I say as Danny lights up.
He gives his answer in skywriting, the exaggerated nodding and absent-minded look at the ceiling sending the smoke arrogantly up.
“I’m doing okay,” he says.
“Good,” I say.
Danny smiles the old smile. He thins before my eyes, hair growing and curling once again around my head. “You’ve made a bit of the news, eh, lad?”
“You’ve seen?”
“Sure. Everybody got the picture of you spitting. I loved it.”
“Poppa’s not so pleased,” I say, nodding to the old man in the far corner.
“Fuck, everybody thinks it’s a hoot. That’s me old buddy, eh?”
I smile, feeling my own years shed. Soon we are standing there bouncing on the balls of our feet, laughing quietly at nothing in particular, just the warmth of our longstanding.
“You’ve had some troubles, lad,” Danny says.
“Yah, that son-of-a-bitch of an agent” — did I just say dat? — “I’d kill him if I ever saw him, you know.”
“And I’d be right there to help you.”
Soon I can see the conversation will not be able to help itself. When Danny finally asks, as I know he must, I sense he feels as awkward as I.
“You figure you’re through playing?”
I surprise myself with the answer. “Probably.”
But Danny surprises me even more with what he says. “We’re not kids anymore, are we?”
We? Kids? I stare at Danny, but he does not see me, his pig eyes sealed with delight. Why would he say that? I have not mentioned how fat he has gotten. I have not asked him where his hair went. I have not said that Lucy, compared to Kristiina, looks like a black bear in that stupid dress. He cuts me with banter and I build him up by saying nothing.
I let it go. I know why Danny must say these things. He knows that I know there is nothing inside that fat. He knows that I know the truth about his hockey dreams and he is damned if I will live mine out without him pissing in the bed.
Eventually Danny drifts to where the old men are lying about their pathetic lives. Fish are recaught, timber refelled, weights relifted, but no matter how many times they redo it, they cannot get it right because it will always be them telling the lie, not the man they imagined holding the rod, the axe, the canthook.
Father Schula conducts the funeral, the same stringy voice that used to tell me to keep my head up now asking me to keep it down for something I can’t quite buy. I hold Poppa’s good elbow and he weeps into a hanky, pretending it is a cough. I do not once think of Batcha, only of myself and Danny standing while he blows smoke and tells me my whole life — a life that makes his look like a mayfly’s in comparison — has been nothing other than an exercise in growing up.
We’re not kids anymore, are we?
Who does he think he is? Where’s your heart, Danny? Take a look at your own rep: fat boy, baldy, loser ... I’m too kind, too kind. If Batterinski had the same instincts in real life that he has in hockey, it would be Danny in that box they’re carting out to the cars now. Thank God I am also human, too human.
Father Schula cannot help but smile as we squirt through the muck up toward St. Martin’s cemetery. He would just as soon forget all the formalities and show us all how the parish’s proud new purchase has eliminated the need for a vault for all but the deepest winter months. From first thaw on he has a second-hand John Deere to do in an hour the workload Tomasz Kukurski used to take three days with a spade and pine shoring to complete, and Kukurski could only dig from May through October. The John Deere is still warm, melting ice periodically dripping down onto the manifold and steaming quietly into the air. Beyond John Deere, Batcha’s grave has been dug, a high mound of oily, black muck standing vigil by the near fence.
We bury Batcha for good by returning to the church for coffee, tea, mazureks and placeks and uncrusted breads the women’s auxiliary are putting out in the basement. But first Poppa and Jan take me back to the church proper, where they genuflect and pray to the Black Madonna while I stare at my hands and wonder if they will ever again sing with the rush of blood. Danny’s sly crack is still bothering me.
I light one of the candles on the gospel side of the altar and slip two quarters into the small slot underneath a Scotch-taped sign asking for two dollars. Poppa sees me lighting the candle and nods in solemn approval. He does not know it is not for Batcha. It is for me.
On the way out, I walk slowly around the church, past the oak confessional with the drapes of dried blood, past the plaster angels standing on the skull, the screaming residents of hell below, down all the way to the rear of the room where there is nothing but the baptismal font and the smiling, confident faces of the four dead soldiers.
I still do not feel as old as any of them, even the nineteen-year-olds. Perhaps, though I now feel like them at the moment they realized the Lancaster was headed into the black pull of the gulf. Did they, too, sense that this was all a crazy mistake going on here and somehow they’d become trapped in it? Did they scream that it wasn’t time yet? Did they expect to pull out of the dive? Did, they too, believe the best was supposed to lie ahead?
The cheat was on for them, just as it’s now on for me.
When the telephone rings in the morning I do not know where I am. I recognize the rings before I recognize my own room, and before I can place myself I am downstairs in my underwear, the air strange about me and the linoleum ice-cold on my bare feet. It might be Kristiina.
I shout, expecting Finland. “Hello!”
The voice is close, surprised by my velocity. “Felix? Is that you?”
I tone down. “Yah.”
“Matt Kenning here, Felix. From Canada Magazine.”
“Oh yah, how are you? That story out yet?”
“That story isn’t finished yet, I’m afraid. What’s this crap coming out of Finland all about?”
“What crap?” I ask, but I know.
“You haven’t seen the Globe?” Fool, he asks as if there’s a box at the subway stop in front of the house. The only time people in Pomerania see the Globe is if they order china dishes from the catalogue.
“We don’t get it here.”
“You’re on the front page. Erkki Sundstrom has accused you of illegal pay-offs. It’s a wire service story — Reuters — not much detail, but it says Tapiola has an illegal penalty pay-off system worked out with the players. True?”
“Not quite, no.”
“The Finnish Ice Hockey Federation has voted to suspend Tapiola’s operations. They might be expelled from the league.”
“For that?”
“They’re really worked up about it, Felix. You’re a cause célèbre over there. I tried to call you and finally got Pekka and he said you were back home here. Sorry to hear about your grandmother.”
“Yah.”
“Pekka, by the way, thinks the pay-off thing’s all a big joke.”
“He would.”
“He asked me to tell you that Kristiina’s gone back to the hospital but you’re not to worry. He says he’ll call you himself. But he said it’s nothing serious, that she’ll be out soon.”
I can feel the sweat forming on my forehead, the phone slipping in my h
ands, my heart changing gears. “Tell me exactly what he said about her.”
“Just that. He said it was routine and you had no worries, but he wanted you to know, okay?”
“I’ll call him.”
“Look, I’ll call back for you, okay? Save you the money.”
“No.” Who does this guy think he is?
“Okay, but look — I’ve got to talk to you more, okay? We can’t have this story come out without clearing up these accusations, can we?”
“Can’t we just forget the story?”
“Can’t. The colour’s already locked in. We got nothing from the Leningrad shoot, of course, but research dug up some first-rate stuff from Helsinki. And of course there’s the NHL stuff.”
“You can’t hold back on the story?” I ask.
“Uh-uh. Look, the timing is to your advantage. Fight fire with fire, I say. I can’t move the editor on this, so we got two choices. One, we can either go with what we got, with an italicized news update at the end — but with nothing from you. Or we can do it right, rework it all to deal with this whole kerfuffle in mind, with your own say in the matter.”
He has me and knows it. Suddenly I need him more than he needs me. If only I’d said no in the first place I could just hang up now and forget it. But that is the press: give them enough rope and they’ll hang you.
“Okay,” I say with a long push of air. “Shoot.”
“Over the phone?” He seems surprised.
“You’re on a deadline aren’t you?”
“The editor’s stretched it another week. He wants me to drive up and see you personally.”
“Why? You know what I look like.”
Keening sputters. “But it would be so much better, Felix. I could capture some of the homey atmosphere, show you as a real genuine person, with feelings. You know. Make your say a hell of a lot more sympathetic. I promise you that, friend.”
“No.”
“No? You mean you don’t want me to come up?”
“Not now. Please understand — these are not good times.”
“It would be so much better if I could —”
“You can call me back the day after tomorrow. Okay? I’ll be here.”
“Well, okay, but —”
“I got to go now. Talk to you then.”
I hang up without farewell. When I turn to run upstairs for Pekka’s number I am blocked by Poppa, standing in his long underwear by the doorway, blocking me. There is fear in his eyes
“Who was that, son?”
“Just a reporter from Toronto. The weekend magazine is doing a feature on me and just wanted some more details.”
“A feature?” But Poppa’s delight turns instantly to concern. “What kind of feature?”
“You know, my view of European hockey, that sort of thing.”
“You fix that lie about you spitting, eh?”
“I fixed it Poppa, don’t worry.”
He scratches, thinking. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Go back to bed, then,” I say, more crossly than intended. I am instantly sorry.
“We could easily have another fire here, eh?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “You won’t.”
“But we could. And I’m thinking about what we got left of Jaja’s memoirs we should do something about. There’s a machine at the newspaper office in Renfrew. I’d like to get copies of your letters and maybe leave them with Jan, what do you think?”
Think! What do I say?
“Sure, Poppa. But let me do it for you, okay?”
Poppa’s face settles. I tap him on the good shoulder and bound by him up the stairs and into the room where I will dress, dig out Pekka’s number and try to figure out how long I can continue lying to Poppa.
Poppa is outside hacking trenches with his one good arm to drain off the hollow in front of the bait shed. I can hear the steady chop of the axe in the late ice: I can imagine Poppa’s face turned up against the spray: I can see him flinch with every blow, but satisfied with my great lie about Jaja’s letters. How ironic that I am in here demanding the truth, shouting thousands of miles at poor Pekka, who keeps insisting that there is nothing for me to be worried over.
But I am. “How do you know that?”
Pekka laughs. “Because old man, Pia just got back from seeing her.”
“Is Pia there now?”
“No. She is out shopping. But she will tell you the same thing, I assure you of that.”
“You’re sure she’s all right then?”
“Positive, old man. Pia says they may let her out tomorrow. Is that not proof enough?”
“Where is she?”
“The Kirurginen Sairaala.”
“How do you spell that?”
“Don’t bother. It’s the surgical hospital.”
“Surgical!”
“I have told you — women’s troubles. But it is nothing, obviously. Here, let me get you the number, please ... Pia has it written down here somewhere ... yes, here — one seven ... three seven one.”
I scribble quickly. “What does that mean, ‘women’s troubles’?”
I hear shouts in the background, the line hissing through the distance as Pekka muffles the sound. He comes back on.
“Pia just came in. She’ll talk to you.”
The receiver is put down, picked up clumsily. Pia sounds either out of breath or nervous. “Hi Felix, how are you?”
“Fine. What’s with Kristiina?”
“Pekka told you. She was not able to end that sickness. There was some minor surgery and she is just fine now. I have seen her. She was asking about you.” A giggle. “Of course, everybody’s asking about you now.”
I respond with sarcasm. “So I hear. Look, what precisely was wrong with her?”
But Pekka has pulled the receiver away, shouting. “Hey, Bats, you’re big news over here, old man, did you know that?”
“I heard.”
Pekka’s old laugh ripples through. “You got Erkki in some hot air — water — you know, ‘trouble,’ old man. They fired him this afternoon. It was just on the news. You remember Voitto down at the Sanomat? He really did a large story on you both. Erkki came out looking like a liar and you like a German SS officer. I think the team’s going to be disbanded.”
“You’ll be out of a job.”
“It’s just a game — who cares?”
I care you stupid fucking Finn! It is not just a game! “Yah, true enough.”
“You cannot imagine the coverage here. Front page. Television. Half seem to want to toss you and Erkki in prison, half are saying you’re telling the truth and, of course, Finns don’t want to hear it.”
“It is true.”
“It must be true. I was just talking to Timo and he’s had offers from both Tampere and IFK if Tapiola folds. I had a call yesterday from Lahti. Everybody wants to find out just what Batterinski did to pull us up so high. What’ll happen to you, old man?”
If I only knew. “I don’t know. I got next year’s contract, so I presume they’ll honour that. Right now there’s a lot to do here.”
“Everything’s okay there?”
“Yah, fine. I just got things to do.”
But when I hang up I realize I have only things to undo. Poppa still works on the trenches, every wet thunk telling me his energy comes from the knowing I have salvaged all his work on Jaja’s memoirs. Somewhere Danny is talking about me and laughing. We’re not kids anymore, are we? And Kristiina — what’s with her? What does she feel about my note?
But the hospital will not accept my call. Someone eventually comes on whose English I can understand and she tells me that only family can call. I say I am Kristiina’s fiancé and all she will do is promise me that she will check with the patient. And she will not check now, but later, after the rounds. I can call back, if I wish, in a few hours.
Poppa comes in from his ditch construction, scraping the muck off on the side of the door frame. He leaves the boots on the steps and walks out
of them, gripping the first chair so his socks don’t slip on the floor. He looks at me and smiles.
“What do you say then, shall we take them in?”
“Huh?” I am still in Finland. “Take what in?”
“Jaja’s papers. The copying, remember?”
The papers! Who cares about the goddamn papers!
“Poppa, I’ll do them, okay? I said I would.” I am almost shouting. He recoils, every part of him snapping but his eyes. They rest on mine, measuring.
“I could go in with you,” he says.
“I’ll go in myself. I want to think, okay?”
The eyes blink. “Is everything all right, Felix?”
I should have more patience. “Yes, everything is just fine, Poppa. Now get off my back, okay?”
The eyes apologize. “I’m sorry son. It’s been a bad week.”
“Tell me about it!” I shout, grabbing my coat and slamming the door on him as I leave.
Outside, his trenches run like crooked spokes out from the centre of the forming pool. Six exits, only one of them open, and in that runs laughter, the runoff snickering as it passes down the Batterinski lane, across the road and onto the brown ice of the swamp, where it freezes in layers, solid, waiting for the sun.
The kids are engineering again on the Schama side road. I honk when I pull onto the main highway and when they wave back I find I am pulling over and they are standing around looking frightened, as if I might be from the highways office down in Renfrew.
“Hi, kids!” I shout in Clarkie’s hospital-visiting voice.
“Hi!” they shout back, relieved.
There are five of them, four boys and a girl, and they are shy, yet friendly. Untroubled Pomeranians with nothing to prove because there is no one to notice, just yourself in another house or on another farm. Their faces are all wide, flat and solid, except for one boy whose curly hair has stuck to his head with perspiration. But even he has their eyes, eyes that reflect nothing and capture little. These kids are just another part of the landscape, even in their own minds. When they wake up tomorrow the hill will be there blocking the sun; there will be church on Sunday, potatoes for the plate, O’ Malley’s mill when they are old enough to work, the liquor store, the public house, fists to fit their faces, faces for their fists, trips to the used car lots in Renfrew, near fatal and fatal accidents on the way home ... and eventually the graveyard at St. Martin’s.
The Last Season Page 39