by David Bergen
“You smell like shit,” the old man said, and this appeared to decide things. He leaned forward and said, “Come.” He lifted him up and put his hands under Nelson’s arms and stood him upright, like a tree that had been cut down and was about to be replanted, and they faltered at the bottom of the pit, and then the old man led Nelson up towards a purple truck that seemed impossibly old, just as the man seemed impossibly old, a mere spectre.
Thursday morning, Lizzy woke early from a dream in which Thibault was asking her to remove her clothes; she had stripped naked and when she looked up Raymond was standing before her. She lay in bed and thought of the interview, and how she had answered Thibault’s questions so willingly, and she felt worried that she had been too free with her answers. She believed that Raymond would have been asked some of the same questions and she wondered how he would have responded.
The night before, late, she had gone to her father’s cabin and found him sitting in a chair by the window. When she entered, he looked up and for a moment he appeared surprised, as if he had been expecting someone else. Lizzy had stood by the door, and when her father spoke, she came and sat near him.
“You can’t sleep,” he said. “What’s going on?”
She said that she was worried about Raymond in prison. She had heard from Harris that the occupation was still going on, so maybe some people from there would help him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. “Don’t you think about Mum all the time?”
“She wrote a letter,” her father said. “It came the other day. She hasn’t forgotten you.”
“Yeah?”
Her father said that her mother had decided it would be best if she didn’t come back to the Retreat. She would meet them back in Calgary.
“Did she say that, ‘I’ll meet you back in Calgary,’ or are you just hoping?”
“Not those exact words, Lizzy. But she will. Of course.” He paused, and then his voice slid away, and for a time Lizzy did not hear his words, just the sound of his voice. And then he said something about her missing her mother, and Lizzy turned to him. He said that when two people who love each other share a room, and then one person leaves, that person is missed. He said that this is what had happened with her mother. “Her smell, her voice, the air that you shared. All of this is gone. And it makes you terribly sad.” He paused, and Lizzy waited, wishing for more, but he had nothing more to say.
Mid-morning, the sky grew dark and a thunderstorm passed overhead, pummelling the Retreat. From the shelter of her cabin, Lizzy watched the trees bend as the rain obscured the clearing, and then the storm passed as quickly as it had arrived. Everett had left earlier by bicycle and had still not returned and she wondered if he had managed to find shelter.
Vernon came to the Retreat at noon to see Lizzy, and when word arrived that he was waiting for her in the Hall, she at first refused to see him, but then her father convinced her to talk to him. He said that this Vernon had some news about Raymond. She found Vernon and walked with him to the other side of the clearing. The grass was damp and the leaves were still dripping water, but the sun had come out and the air was humid and hot. Lizzy faced Vernon and asked him to take off his sunglasses, she hated talking to someone when she couldn’t see his eyes. He removed the glasses and held them slightly aloft, as if this was only a temporary thing. His freckles appeared paler and smaller and his nose lifted as if sniffing her. He pulled at his ear. “Raymond ran,” he said. “He took off and I’m wondering if he’s shown up here. I suppose he will. He doesn’t have many places to go and I don’t think you want to be harbouring a criminal. Has he been here?”
Lizzy imagined Raymond running down a road and then into the bush. “No. He hasn’t been here. Look around.” She lifted a hand, offering him the whole area.
Vernon grimaced and shifted his weight and as he did so his face appeared helpless and lost. “I trusted him, and the stupid shit just took off.”
Lizzy was aware of biting her lower lip. She hated Vernon at that moment. “Don’t call him names,” she said. “You let him run.”
Vernon watched her carefully, or this seemed to be the case, because his glasses were on again and Lizzy could not see his eyes. He said that the other day, at his house, he had not meant to frighten her. “That wasn’t my intention.” Then he nodded and turned and left.
Later that afternoon, she and her brothers and Harris went to the pond. Everett, who had come back wet and bedraggled just after lunch, pushed Harris in his wheelchair. William, in order to hide the bare spot on his head, had taken to wearing a baseball cap, and looking down at him now Lizzy was conscious of his vulnerability. When Fish had asked Lizzy, the day before, what time their mother was coming back, William had looked up quickly, bewilderment on his face. Lizzy had said that their mother would meet them back home in Calgary, and William had looked away and his eyes had closed and then opened, as if he believed that Lizzy was making this up.
At the pond, the water was cold and William and Fish came up from their swim, shivering, lips blue. Lizzy wrapped them in towels and held them to her chest, one under each arm, until she too felt the chill of their bodies. Everett sat off to the side, pushing sand up onto his bare feet. The sun ascended and it grew warmer. Harris fell asleep, his chin resting on his chest. Lizzy imagined that Raymond might eventually come to her, and she did not know what she would say and do when he did.
She turned to Fish and held his head in her hands, pulled him close, and pressed her mouth to his small, cool ear and whispered that she loved him. She rolled back towards William and did the same to him, but he stiffened and pushed her away. Still, he’d heard her words. She lifted her head and listened to the sweeping of the leaves in the warm wind, which sounded to her like the distant cry of an animal, slack-jawed, hunting at the edge of the clearing.
There had been the light, the haze of the thin clouds, and the sun pushing through and falling onto the ground. And the smell in the air that Wednesday morning had been the clean brisk smell of fall as Raymond and Vernon left the courthouse in Kenora where the judge had set Raymond’s bail at ten thousand dollars. The judge said that the severity of the attack on Constable Hart, to which Raymond had confessed, warranted a large bail, and whether it was self-defence or not was yet to be determined. He warned him that his brother was still a wanted man, and whether he was guilty or not, Nelson had fled the scene. “You’d do well not to hide any information about your brother, Mr. Seymour.”
Raymond had been conscious of the uniformed policemen in the room and he’d wondered briefly if his brother Marcel might be willing to be his lawyer. He didn’t understand how any of this worked. He’d spent a number of nights in prison and the experience had left him frightened. The first night he’d been woken by a banging on his cell wall and his neighbour chanting. Then a voice had called out that he was a fucking hero, a cop killer, and someone else had cheered and soon everyone was joining in and Raymond had covered his ears, wondering about Hart. In the morning he asked one of the guards if Hart was dead, and the guard looked at him and said, “You wishing, Seymour?” That afternoon, in the exercise area outside, a man came up beside Raymond and said, “Bassett wants you.”
Raymond looked at the man, who had a pair of dice tattooed on his left temple. He had heard of Bassett, that he was a prisoner to be wary of.
The man had whispered something incomprehensible, and then said, “If Bassett tells you to eat shit, you eat it. You understand?” He turned and walked away. Raymond looked about, trying to determine which one Bassett might be, but he found nothing in the expressions of any of the men around him. That night he slept poorly, and at some point he heard someone call out and then he heard the sound of crying. The next morning, a guard stood by his cell door and said, “You a faggot, Seymour?” Then he said that today was court day and that the judge was waiting on him.
Vernon had taken him by cruiser to the courthouse. As he drove, he talked at the windshield. He said that Hart had been released from the hospital, and
for that Raymond should be thankful.
The courtroom was tiny and Raymond’s boots echoed on the hard floor. The judge told him to look him in the eyes when he was talking to him, and when Raymond looked up, he saw the darkness of the judge’s face and he found no pity there. On the way back to the prison, Vernon said, “Why are you lying, Seymour? You aren’t capable of violence. Least I didn’t figure that.” He looked in the rear-view mirror and said, “If you know your brother’s whereabouts, you better say. They’re going to find out anyway, so there’s no point trying to protect him.” Raymond was silent. Vernon shook his head, sighed, patted his front pocket, and said that he needed cigarettes. He slowed the vehicle and pulled in at the Shell station on Second Street. Through the window Raymond saw the marquee on the Paramount. Chinatown was showing. He shifted and said, “You wouldn’t let me use the washroom, would you, Vernon?”
“No way, Seymour, not on my watch.”
“Look at me, Vernon. You’re twice my size. Anyway, I don’t want to run.”
Vernon shook his head and got out and walked into the service area where he stood for a time, talking to the girl at the counter. The girl was laughing. She ducked her head shyly and then looked up and smiled and Vernon leaned forward onto the counter and then glanced back at his cruiser. A woman walked by in high black boots. The traffic passed. Vernon came outside, lit a cigarette, and stood eyeing the cruiser and then looking back at the girl. Finally, he walked to the cruiser, opened the rear door, and told Raymond to get out. When Raymond was standing alongside the cruiser, Vernon made a big show of unlocking his handcuffs. “Go take your crap,” he said, and he pushed Raymond forward. They walked, Raymond ahead of Vernon, past the front window and the girl inside, who was watching. The door to the bathroom was along the outside east wall of the building. A single toilet with no window. Raymond turned on the tap and let the water run for a long time, and then he bent forward and drank. When he straightened, he saw himself in the mirror and began to shake. He closed his eyes and he talked to himself. He said that it was okay and then he said his own name and, again, that it was okay. Opening the bathroom door, he saw Vernon standing over by the cruiser, talking on his radio. Then he stepped outside and ran.
Just after sunset, he walked out of the bush, stood on the highway about eight miles from Kenora, faced the oncoming traffic, and put out his thumb. A young man heading up to Sioux Narrows picked him up. The man said he framed houses for his uncle and that he’d put a nail through his palm with a power nailer just that morning and then driven himself to the hospital. He held up his left hand, which was wrapped in thick gauze. As they approached the entrance to the Rushing River Campground, Raymond pointed and asked the man to stop and let him off.
“You camping up here?” the man asked.
Raymond said that he was visiting some friends who were camping.
“You have a nice night then, eh?” the man said.
“Sure. You bet. Thanks.” Raymond got out and stood for a moment on the shoulder and heard the sound of the rapids. He walked into the campground and up to the north beach where he sat on a picnic table and looked out across the water to the campfires on the other side of the channel. Children’s voices drifted through the air.
He looked down at his boots and considered the many possible roads that would have led him to this particular place in his life, but he couldn’t get a firm grasp of any of the roads. The day before, he’d heard someone in the jail say that the occupation of the park might be ending, that the protestors would be giving up their weapons and walking out of the park. He did not understand how something that important could be ended so quickly, with so little excitement, and he wondered if he had been mistaken to be a part of it. He did not know what purpose it had served. Maybe Nelson had been right when he’d said that Raymond was too trusting. Even when they were younger and still lived together, Nelson was the one who had been sure of himself. Raymond had admired his brother’s confidence, and though he had tried to be like Nelson, he always felt he had failed.
That night Raymond built a fire with leftover wood gathered from abandoned campsites. The campground was half empty. He slept and he dreamed of his grandmother, who was burning grass in a small glass bowl, and she was washing herself with the smoke, and she looked right at him and her mouth moved, but he could not hear what she said. And then Nelson was in his dream and he was bleeding from his chest and holding out his arms and Raymond, though he was fearful of the blood, held his brother. He woke, breathless, and he saw the darkness and the stars above him, and he knew that he was in the kind of trouble there would be no escape from.
He could not sleep again and he built up the fire and watched the sun come up. He dozed off and woke later to a thunderstorm that forced him to find shelter in the nearby showers. When the sun had reappeared, he walked back out to the highway and caught a ride with someone from Minnesota who was running a truck full of sausage up to Winnipeg. He got out of the truck on the highway west of Kenora, and, keeping off the roads, he wound his way through the bush towards the Retreat.
By late afternoon he was sitting in the trees above the pond. He could see Fish and William swim and then run back in towards Lizzy, who towelled them dry. He saw Everett and the man in the wheelchair and he saw a tail of smoke rising from the kitchen at the Retreat. He had never seen Lizzy in a bathing suit. She appeared to be smaller, as if she’d been diminished by the last few days. He listened for her voice, but he could not hear her when she spoke and at some point Lizzy was holding her brothers and whispering in their ears. Raymond’s heart ached, and he imagined stepping down towards the pond to be with them.
A while later, they stood and gathered their towels and walked up the trail towards the clearing, Everett walking backwards and pulling the wheelchair over the rough path, and then they were gone and there was the sound of a bell, which meant that they would soon be going to the building where they ate. He remembered the first time he’d come for a meal at the Retreat. It had been the year before, and the group had stood around the table and held hands and sung and he’d not known what to do with his mouth, and so he’d looked down at the plate in front of him. The act of holding hands had surprised him, and the singing had been full and strong, and the food had been good. He realized he was hungry. He sat and waited. The sun dropped in the sky and then set. The air grew colder. The stars appeared. And still, he waited.
That night, Lizzy woke to a persistent sound, a voice or a tapping sound, a soft knocking, as if the wind were moving and banging a loose door. She saw the shadows of the beds across the room and the shapes of her brothers as they slept. She sat up, swung her feet off the bed, found her jeans, and put them on. Bending over, she felt for her runners and slipped them on over her bare feet. She went to the door and stepped outside onto the front stairs.
She saw Raymond at the edge of the clearing. He came forward and as he did so she went down the stairs. She said his name, “Ray,” and he held her as she said his name again and again. Then she pushed away and looked at him and led him to the empty cabin Franz used to stay in. Inside, it smelled of must and the air was thick. In the darkness she fumbled with the windows and opened the one that faced the bush to the west. A soft breeze blew in. Raymond moved back the curtain on the front window slightly, peered out, and said, “There’s a light on in one of the cabins.”
“The Doctor’s,” Lizzy said. “Don’t worry, his light is always on late at night.” They sat on the bed in the darkness and she held his hand and said that Vernon was looking for him. He was definitely not safe here.
He said that he wasn’t going to stay long. He’d just wanted to see her.
“Tell me what happened. Are you in the clear? This is bad, Raymond, really bad.” She had trouble catching her breath.
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Hart would have killed Nelson and me. He pulled a knife on Nelson and I jumped him and he fell and the next thing he’s got a knife in his chest. It was self-defence, but
for sure one of us will be blamed. Or both.” He said that he didn’t know where Nelson was now. “He wanted me to leave him at the dump. That he’d figure out where to go from there. He could be anywhere by now.” Then he said that he had taken Hart to the hospital and turned himself in and he had confessed to stabbing Hart. “That’s the story I gave. And now it’s the truth.”
“Jesus, Raymond.”
Raymond took out a cigarette and lit it. The match flared and Lizzy panicked and said, “Someone’ll see.” She went to the window and lifted a corner of the curtain. The Doctor’s light was out, the clearing was dark. She stepped back, breathless, and whispered, “You have to go. Now.”
His face was revealed briefly by the glow from the cigarette. He said that he had nowhere to go. He said that he had never been in a place like this prison before. It scared him. Maybe he’d run up north. Before morning, he said, he would start walking.
Lizzy was still standing by the window and she felt that the space between her and Raymond, the distance from the window to the bed, had become a vast chasm. She did not really know if he was telling the truth. He seemed different from the boy she had gotten to know that summer. She wanted to go to him but she didn’t know how to cross that wide space. She lifted a hand, then let it drop. “I’m afraid for you, Raymond. I’m really afraid.”