The Man Game (62 page)

Oh yes, said his wife, as am I.

And then at the doors, the Chief turned to the couple and asked that Toronto enter the longhouse unaccompanied. Molly's shoulders fell, and her chin stuck out. Girlish woman or womanly girl or performer, whatever it was made her say: No, we'll come. For his safety we should.

The Chief waved his hand, no. The Snauq wanted to speak to Toronto in private. It was time for the ghost of Snauq peoples to return home. But he must do so alone.

No, said Molly, we want to come, too.

Dear, said Sammy.

What? I think it's—

I go in alone, said Toronto. Is okay. Is okay.

The raven's head and beak split open, and the tranquil interior darkness of the Snauq longhouse—perforated by bands of linty sunlight—held the soul's own fragrance in its body. Not a house at all, but a creature, a sleeping beast. The great shadowy mysteries of the Snauq longhouse. And that brief encounter was all the Erwagens got before the doors shut again.

Those Indians who weren't included returned to their chores. A man added another bale to the stacks of dogbane tied up and piled against the longhouse's south wall. Beyond that, a long rope was tied between two trees where long fleshy sleeves of cedar bark hung to dry in the sunlight. A woman
was lifting each tawny strip and rotating its position to give the other half some sun.

The Erwagens were left alone to wheel awkwardly around the Snauq reserve, first between the smaller log houses then finally making their way down to the beach, where the creek narrowed under the Burrard Street Bridge. They unnerved the ducks, who shattered the surface of the water as they took briefly to flight. A gull on a log raised its wings and jumped as the ducks passed, then resettled.

It's pretty here, said Molly.

You're pretty here, said Sammy.

I'm not pretty. I'm one a those ducks. I should flap over there with them and paddle along in the seaweed.

If those ducks looked like you, said her husband, the whole city would be swimming beside them.

Hm, said Molly.

Such as it was, the married couple were having trouble. It was at the beach, under the bridge, where they felt the need to reflect.

Molly said: There's a man game on Sunday, and I want you to see it. I believe it will be our first official performance.

What have you been doing till now?

Rehearsals, she said. Auditions, she said.

Rehearsals and auditions, said Sammy. Hm, that's not how I've heard it put before.

Sunday shall be altogether different. It's truly ready for you to see now.

You're certain?

Yes, I've decided.

It's all arranged then.

Yes, I'd say it's almost ready. I need only arrange for the competitors … but I need to know you'll be there, yes?

Let me take a look at the calendar, he said. Traditionally, Sunday has been the day I spend at rest, he added.

I swear, if you're not there to see it, I won't speak to you ever again. I might live with you, but you won't hear my voice.

Oh, come now. What if I have a crisis at the mill?

I
swear
. You don't come, I button down the lips.

The lips, he said. But I love the lips.

Then …

It was low tide, and they looked over the wide bar—fifteen-twenty acres of rocky, shell-crusted beach that Sammy yearned to walk over. How he missed the simple chore of walking on a rocky beach, turning over stones, watching the crabs scatter, prodding the starfish. The sea, cold as granite, and silent. The waves squeezed lightly on the beach like toes curling.

Sammy saw how they fished here. The top halves of a long set of fences were visible in the water. Made of maple vine and cedar stakes driven into the mud, they corralled the fish from the opening in the strait, and as the fish swam into the narrow, the fences tapered to a point in the waters entering False Creek, trapping the halibut, mackerel, and smelts together for easy netting. On the beach he could see the round nets, their fine thread of stinging nettle spread flat and laid to dry. He saw the mossed slab of island in the water, a sandclot in the tidal surge and suck, a few hibiscus growing in the gaps.

That must be where they put their dead, said Sammy. Toronto told me that when they thought he'd died, they wrapped him in blankets and put him on smam-chuze, the island a the dead. This must be it, eh.

You never told me he said that.

I didn't want to disturb you.

How well do you think you know me if you won't tell me a delicious story like
that
?

Nevertheless, this must be smam-chuze, the Snauq's island a the dead.

And he awoke …

Yes, said Sammy, and he awoke, almost suffocating inside the blankets, what he believes was the following night. He called across for help to return home, but no one answered him. It was as though he no longer existed. When he saw his mother at the beach, she fell to her knees and grieved to the
island as if he had died, as if he wasn't calling to her. She disbelieved in him utterly.

How very sad.

It's become a sort a friendship between us, said Sammy. He was exiled from his family, and I exiled myself from mine.

He could see her thinking hard. Her eyes blinked especially hard. I like to know
everything
, she said.

Yes, I know, said Sammy.

She looked at the water. Oh, Chinook. You're so smart, she said, lifting herself onto the toes of her leather boots, twice, before settling down. I'm sorry. I know you'd never conceal something from me intentionally. You're much too good a man to do that.

Yes, he said, thinking of the telegrams he'd received and wondering why he couldn't tell her about his mother's death.

Behind them, they heard noises coming from the longhouse. As they listened closer, Sammy realized it was laughter. Peals of laughter.

Laughter? said Molly.

Sounds friendly enough, said Sammy.

I knew they would, said Molly. After all that holus-bolus, they welcomed him back in the end.

Greening treetops swayed in the breeze. The morning air was thickly fresh. The blowhards on the city's streets were huffing and puffing about the man game, imitating moves and guffawing. They gassed on about work, what little of it there was. A lot of guys were wasting their breath on next Sunday's meeting about the
pestilent wind from the Orient
, with speakers counting themselves among the Knights of Labour, according to the posters, which were everywhere.

With his head down, brushing dust from his whiskers, RH slinked in the door of the laundry, and with a less-thanrespectable nod of his head to the Chinamen who struggled with irons over whole hampers' worth of Whitemans garments,
each stack tagged with a card in Chinese, he proceeded past stacks of linens that waited to be spat upon and steamed of their wrinkles. With a shortage of labour, wait time for laundry in Vancouver, as RH well knew, was up to three days. His wife complained about this. Laundry was a concern. He knocked twice on a clapboard wall at the back of the store and no sooner had he rapped than a set of long-nailed fingers on the other side scrabbled and pried away a narrow splinter of wood at eye level to reveal the burning stare of a Chinaman guard, who let RH pass beyond into the realms of the unreal, the opium sellers' cave.

What you want today, Mr. Alexander? said the dealer in less than a whisper.

RH passed him the money and he handed RH two balls of mud for the dimes.

The dealer covered his mouth with one hand. He said: I hope you know how to fight for your life, sir.

What d'you mean by that? RH asked.

San Francisco know everyting happen here.

What does he know?

This meeting S
un
day … said the dealer, shaking his head with disapproval.

The Knights
of
Labour, thought RH, are going to get me killed.

When the effects of the opium wore off and he was able to walk again RH returned to the tunnels, followed the wet dark underground route that took him to the Stag & Pheasant saloon, surfaced there in the ladies room, established his presence by ordering a whisky before saluting the patrons and rushing home. He credited the looks on everyone's faces as uncloseted patricidal envy. Once inside his home he shut the door, locked it, double-checked it, shut the drapes, took a breath. Without so much as removing his coat or galoshes, RH met his wife in the den, where she'd readied the trays and pipes and lit the paraffin so that the moment he arrived they could set down to smoke, relax the niggling intellect, and sink into calumny.

At the opium den he'd bought an ounce of Ta Sin, with its especially coca aftertaste. It said on the tin:
You will know no difference between day and night
.

Minutes later, the smoke lingered in the air. His wife sat. He laid his head in her lap, holding her at the waist. The Chinamen. They're going to kill me, he said.

I simply won't allow it.

If it's not the snakehead, it's my own
men
.

They'll have to come through me first.

Even this petty dealer. He knew I was marked.

Don't talk like this, Mrs. Alexander said. You scare me. He raised himself from her bosom and went to rest on the day bed. She followed behind him and knelt at his side, watching him explore the snug chasm between the upholstered backrest and seat. He found a dirty penny, pocketed it, and collapsed in fatigue.

Ah, God, he said, near to tears. I cherish the smallest compensations.

Darling, no, please, she said, kissing his knuckles. I've been waiting to share this moment a tranquility with you. I cherish this time, too. Let's think aboot your predicament after dinner. One must always make important decisions on a full stomach. For now, let us simply enjoy, as you say, our small compensations. I promise that no harm will … Her eyelashes fluttered and her neck bundled up as her jaw fell open with a dry smack. The cords of her neck blooded her mind. He knew where she was because he was there too. In too deep.

The sun was a vein of gold capping a lion's jaw of blue mountains. Great schooners sat anchored on their quiet reflections in the waters of English Bay. Up the beach, Toronto shook hands with Joe Fortes, who sat himself on a log overlooking the gentle crests falling on the sand. The Negro looked neither disturbed by the sunset nor at peace with it.

The two men talked briefly.

Fortes asked him: You wanna go for a swim with me?

Nah, said Toronto. Not today. Feel sick. Only stop to say klahowya.

Well, too bad. Even now?

Better.

What kind a sick you been?

Toronto pointed to his stomach and rear end.

They fixed you? Fortes asked.

Hoping so, said Toronto.

Damn, a swim do you good, no?

No, said Toronto.

I
love
a swim. Always have. Ever since I been a little boy it's been my belief that a swim in the ocean ever day is good for your health. Your lungs. Your muscles. Your joints. You feel good after a swim. Even your confidence is helped by learning to swim.

Toronto was looking southwest over the bay in the general direction of his Snauq Indian reserve, unseen behind a voluminous white mist. Where you come from, Joe? he asked.

Maybe this story's familiar to yours, said Fortes. Place called Barbados. Plenty far south from here. You in a boat for
months
. I learn to swim on my island.

You live on island?

Water not like here. Very warm, so warm. Beautiful island. You go around Vancouver in short pants you catch pneu
mon
ia. In Barbados, you swim all year round.

The waters of English Bay turned apricot as they rippled. Then plum. An evening wind picked up. A soaking wet Fortes was still seated on the log and Toronto remained standing beside him and they watched the sun go down. The blue herons returned to roost in the park's big-leaf maple trees, one after the other, shouting husbands returning with dust in their hair after a long day of neck-breaking labour. Then, as if experiencing a memory shared by every Vancouverite that ever was, Toronto watched Fortes bolt down the beach at a heavy clip, kicking sand, and dive headlong into the inky waters. He stood up from the first few strokes and hooted,
wiped his face and scalp and turned to look back at Toronto. Come on in, Fortes said. Water's all warmed up.