The Man Game (14 page)

After returning from the bakery, Molly gave her husband a manicure and pedicure while he read the headlines and advertisements in the
Daily Advertiser
, which he preferred to the other rag. He couldn't feel her push back his cuticles, but he appreciated her diligence all the same. She could be doing any kind of work. She could be playing a calimba. All he loved was her proximity. The tart pomegranate scent of her hair, the dunes of her desert skin, the spark off her fingers. She clipped his white moons and filed him smooth. Sometimes her tongue poked out the window of her mouth as she worked, lollygagging over the proceedings. He adored the way she lost herself in this small yet meaningful task.

You must have had dolls growing up, he said. Combed their hair and dressed them. Didn't you?

She laughed and pushed her hair back off her shoulders. Come now, you're not my doll. This, my dear sweet Chinook, this I would do for you even if you could lift this house. I don't know why but I like trimming your nails. I much prefer it to scrubbing the floor. And no, she added, I never did have dolls. If anything, this reminds me a how I used to care for the horses. I didn't think about dolls at all, to know they existed or what for. That I should desire one. This was not my life. Instead I was surrounded by clowns and acrobats and confidence men, you know. What did I need with the inanimate. Night after night, I saw every fantasy come alive. My parents were unhappy people. We never had a penny. I remember them. Remembering my parents singing, rehearsals at all hours a the day, laughing hysterical one hour and sobbing the next. No matter the situation, we always found a way to laugh or cry aboot it. And one day that is all supposed to be gone? This did not occur to me? Am I making sense?

Yes, a course, Sammy said, hoping she would make herself clearer and more detailed as she continued. If you'd like to speak with me aboot your family, your mother, father … I shall not interrupt.

When you ask me to think a my mother, my father, Molly said, you ask a terrible thing. Will it satisfy your curiosity to know that when I try to remember my mother and my father all I can see is that day I went for bread, and when I came back from the bakery, it was to see the whole theatre gone? Razed. A blackened pile. Imagine my grief. My parents were in there, I was sure. And so I ran. Where does a young girl go? Canada.

She wouldn't say more. He felt like a rock skipping across a lake, covered in tears but never sinking, amazed but missing the point. Maybe he would never know her. This sinking he desired maybe was not necessary. Maybe he didn't need to know. Maybe he knew her already. Whatever the case, when Toronto arrived home again later in the afternoon from his daily trip to the post office, he had in his hand a telegram that had arrived at Hastings Mill for Sammy. It was from Father Erwagen back east in Toronto.

It read:
SEPT IF YOU DIDNT KNOW STOP HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM STOP
.

Sammy asked Toronto to burn the well wishes in the fireplace. His wife raised an eyebrow.

The more I learn aboot you, the more there is to know, he said. Every time I inquire into your past, I feel as though I have changed completely after hearing you. To hear you speak is like reading a book where most a the print falls off the pages as soon as you open it.

Indeed, she said. Who was the telegram from?

A business associate, nothing, a trival … a message from the Orient, said Sammy, deceiving his wife so as not to trouble her with his contempt for his family. Hm, yes, and speaking a high society, he said, the Emperor a China has promised to buy a great deal a lumber from the mill to build his fortress. I shall arrange for the sale. This is boring you. Let's talk aboot you again.

I must be on my way, she said.

Without hesitation, Sammy said: Please do go. A young lady needs the stimulation a fresh air. Such a safe place Vancouver is for a merry young lady to walk alone. According to the news headlines I read, there is proof the po-lice are vigilant. They've hung a man's boot from a gallows, with half the victim's leg still in it, attracting flies. Delightful. And now didn't I hear there's a mugger on the loose?

You think I could be mugged?

I know you're unmuggable.

I'll probably catch him.

Will you still love me while you're gone?

Inevitably.

That's what I like to hear.

When the canoe was ready, she kissed her husband one final time and went to meet Toronto by the boat where it was beached close to a nearby stream. With Toronto guiding her— she still hadn't quite made her mental map of the hundreds of creeks and rivers that flowed through the forest—she toured slowly around the coastline, southeast through creeks and flooded valleys, through channels in the muskeg and swampgrass, before setting down on the banks of the North Fraser River. From there she travelled due north through a dense maze of blackberry bush to where Litz and Pisk met her, introduced themselves, blindfolded her, and took her to a secret glen where they sat and ate sunflower seeds and talked.

I didn't want to fight him, Pisk told her. It wouldn't a been a simple scrap, eh. He'd put me out in broad daylight. That's Daggett's style. Seeing him move in like that. What a bull. What else could I do to save my life? That's me spur-a-the-moment.

Litz felt compelled to add: There's a difference between a temper and being a killer. Pisk's got a temper.

Daggett's a killer, said Pisk. It wasn't my day to die, not in disgrace. Sorry if I offended you, me showing you all I'm packing. But you probably don't kumtuks how …

Thank you, she said, but no, I wasn't offended. I trust that once we're better acquainted you'll see I do understand.

Y-yes, said Pisk, looking at his fingers. He thought to himself, What use is a suitjacket if you don't even remember to clean your nails?

I heard stories, the Shanghai boot …, she said.

I'm no coward, eh? Daggett's born for murder. Other than fight him, what was I supposed to do? Took a screwing a my courage to do what I did. Still got my skin.

Why have you chosen to stay here? Molly asked.

This is our home as much as anybody's. I never left somewhere in disgrace and I don't plan to start today, said Pisk.

This is your camp, where are we?

You ask a lot a questions, said Pisk.

We got safe cover, said Litz. No one will ever find us.

I heard that man Clough is an excellent trapper.

You heard that, eh? said Pisk. Who told you that, Clough himself? Clough couldn't sniff out a bird dropping if it landed on his fingers.

Litz cracked a sunflower seed between his molars. Shells lay pell-mell at his feet. He looked above them and saw the polestar, then, eyes dilated, asterisms began taking shape in the darkening skyscape. He saw the winged horse Pegasus. It was time to start a fire. The thought of her skin, the sight of her features cast in the dancing light of a fire, set Litz's hands to work in search of kindling. Under cover of darkness from a view no one knew possible, they whispered like kids, surrounded by seaweed and tiny white crabs.

This town lacks for good entertainment, said Molly. For this outpost, entertainment must blend with life. I watched how quickly men worked to rebuild the town after the Fire. It was an activity, a direction. The men in Vancouver come to participate, not to watch from the bleachers. The pews are empty. The pulpit is in the street. Every man can speak his mind.

Hmm, eh, said Litz, not totally following her logic.

As Molly continued to talk, gesturing to the sky, the earth, and each of their bodies, Pisk's hands remained in his pockets. He needed a bath and he knew it. As clouds went by a friendship was beginning to take root among the three that was different from a friendship that existed between two men. Pisk was impressed by her graceful movements. The more at ease he felt with her presence, the less at ease he felt with his own, an unexpected slip down the learning curve. Litz spat the sunflower shells into the fire now, and watched them burn on the logs until they were nothing but black junk slowly frittering away to nothing. He listened as Molly talked. It didn't seem as if anything she said was out of the ordinary. Her observations seemed logical but he just couldn't make sense of them, any more than he could explain how the millipede avoids tripping himself. He couldn't have put her observations into words himself, but he trusted she knew where she was going.

… I thought tomorrow? she said, finishing a thought Pisk didn't hear, having lost his concentration.

Tomorrow, he said.

I have an idea for a …
sport
I'd like to share with you, if you'd be so patient.

Sport, he said.

If it works, you could stand to make some money from bettors. What do they call money around here, in Chinook?

Chickamin, said Pisk.

Yes, chickamin. A lovely jargon, Chinook.

It's not really meant for uh,
ladies
to use, said Pisk. Chinook's for business between us and Indians and Chinamen.

I do love this part a the world.

Hm, said Pisk, suddenly perturbed by the thick calluses on the palms of his hands, which he scratched at as they hid inside his pockets.

So, are you interested?

Might as well give it a try, Litz said.

Again here?

No, said Pisk. I know a better place. I'll draw you a map. But don't show it to nobody.

I'll memorize and destroy it.

With a grin, Pisk set down to mapmaking. She looked over his shoulder and he could smell pomegranate as the breeze passed through her hair. Yes, I see, she said. She took the map and looked at it one final time before pushing the page into her mouth and chewing it. The two men watched her with almost concave absorption as she swallowed.

Breaking free the spell, Pisk said: We'll meet you in the afternoon how's aboot?

Perfect.

How old are you? asked Pisk.

How old are you? she asked.

Well, I'm twenty-one, said Litz.

Twenty-seven, said Pisk. I'm the old man, I suppose. How old are you?

I'm seventeen, said Molly.

Seven-
teen
is still young, said Pisk, rolling his eyes. Where'd you grow up to get such ideas, eh?

Tangiers, my birthplace, is a great sandcastle populated by maniacs and mystics selling rugs and baskets. I never lived there. Mine is such a thin bloodline, a bloodline a one, that I might thread a needle with it. The theatre society, my true adopted family, they are all interlopers. Not regular, calm people. The theatre lives by dusklight.

Litz nodded.

Pisk likewise felt at a loss for how to contribute. He took off his hat and polished his slightly fuzzy bald pate with his coatsleeve.

Where is your family from? she asked.

Oh, Germany, a course. My mother, she lives in Penticton now, a little lumber town a few hundred miles east a here.

And yourself, Litz?

Poland, but all that's left a my family is me, too.

Yes, said Molly.

This is personal, said Litz.

This is
business
, said Pisk. Furry and Daggett force us to hide so as they can take over more land. That's what this is really aboot. This isn't aboot the fucking Fire. This isn't aboot that.

I know that, said Litz.

It's
not
personal.

Yeah, said Litz. You know what I mean.

I'm talking to
her
, said Pisk.

I know that, said Litz, looking at him with a blush of anger for being admonished, corrected, in front of a brilliant lady. When they were done talking, the tide looked so far out it might have actually drained back under the American mountains and left her canoe stranded in gravel.

We're exiles, said Pisk. In more ways than you know. We shouldn't be out here like this.

We're exiles, said Molly. Count me among your outcasts then. Men will gravitate to the game, she told them. Men gravitate to performances with strength, agility, endurance, and violence. Men want to watch the exiles battle for a position in society.

Litz nodded his head graciously and scratched his moustache. He was on the tip of saying something, if he could only think of something to say.

I saw you the day a the Fire, Molly said.

Y-you did? said Litz, scratching his collar.

Yes, you were fighting. Very nasty. Fists and bullocks out. You fought that day the way you did in front a the Sunnyside versus Daggett.

I'll tell you one thing aboot fighting in the buck, miss, said Pisk. Keeps you honest.

Hm, yes, I see. Whatever caused you two partners to
brawl
on such a dangerous day?

So, uh, you're from Morocco? said Pisk, abruptly changing the subject. He was not much quicker with words, but no matter how much he tried to keep the attention on her, the small talk lasted only a moment before she was on the water anyhow. Miffed perhaps. In a matter of a blink and a stammer, the canoe was on its way. She did reply but her words were lost in the waves. Pisk felt only the beginnings, the murmur of
consolation in the tone of her voice, which was beautiful and intent, even canoeing away into the dark distance.