The Retreat (22 page)

“Raymond’s too smart to do anything stupid,” Lizzy said.

Nelson laughed. He said that Raymond was in danger of being fired at the golf course, so he was doing the job. “I now punch his time clock.” He smiled, looked Lizzy up and down. “I’m becoming Raymond,” he said.

“I guess that would make you my boyfriend then,” she said flatly. “Anyway, I just came for a dress,” she said. “I left it here.”

“Look around, absolutely.” Nelson waved a hand.

She went into the bedroom and came back into the main room where Nelson, inside now, was sitting on a chair, waiting. She sat on a stool at a distance from him and said that the dress was gone.

“Your brother probably took it. He’s come up to visit me a couple of times,” he said.

“What are you saying?”

“Everett. Funny guy. Reminds me of me at that age. You know?” Nelson appeared slow and sleepy, as if he had been working at getting drunk.

“He came up here? How?”

“Like you. Bicycle. One time he carried the chess set with him. At the dance he said he liked chess and so I invited him up here to play and drew a map. Very eager boy. Awkward. Making sense of things. Not messed up.”

“He would have gotten lost, map or not.”

“He didn’t. People surprise us sometimes, don’t they? You think I’m messed up?”

Lizzy shook her head. “I didn’t say you were messed up.”

“Okay. But, the question. What’s the answer?”

“I don’t think so. You’re maybe a little sad. That’s one thing.”

“That’s right. Sad. Raymond says I should talk to someone.” He smiled briefly and then said that when Raymond came back he would tell him she had come by. He said, “You can visit any time. I’m not dangerous, you know.”

“Really? Why aren’t you up there at the occupation?”

“Me? I don’t believe in that shit. You watch, after all the threats and the talk, they’ll give up their guns and go back to their shacks. Thirty years from now, nothing will have changed.” He stood, leaned towards Lizzy, and said, “Raymond’s got this big vision and don’t be thinking that you fit anywhere inside that vision. You know?”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“No? Has he told you you’re special?”

Lizzy was quiet. She remembered Raymond holding her in this room, the two of them on the woollen blanket and him asking if she was okay. She wavered now and felt Raymond’s absence and Nelson’s cruelty. She said, “He told you something?”

“Naw, he didn’t tell me anything. I don’t even know Raymond, really. I’m just the prodigal brother. So, I can see things you can’t, and I’m telling you not to get too excited. Maybe he just wanted a white girl.”

Lizzy stared at him for a moment, then turned and went to her bicycle and got on. When she looked back, Nelson was standing in the doorway. She called out, “Everett won’t be coming up here again. You stay away from him.” Nelson was gazing out into the distance, not at her, but at something beyond her, and he didn’t acknowledge her words, though she saw his head move, as if he were ducking a blow.

That night, in the quiet of their cabin, when everyone else was sleeping, Lizzy told Everett that he was not allowed to visit Nelson again. She said, “I talked to Nelson and told him. What were you
thinking?”
Lizzy’s voice rose in whispers. “You don’t know anything about Nelson. He’s got nothing. He’s a talker. He makes things up. He can be mean.”

Everett hesitated, then said, “He hasn’t been mean to me. He talks to me and makes me feel good.”

“I love you. I worry. And I don’t like to be worried because then my chest hurts. You know?” Then she said, “What did you do with Mum’s dress?”

There was a pause, and Everett said, “Why?” Then he said, “I put it back in Dad’s cabin.”

It was quiet for a long time and finally Lizzy said, “Go to sleep.”

Silence. The soft pat of Fish opening and closing his mouth.

Then, “Lizzy?”

“Hmmm.”

“Do you think I’m strange?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Am I bad?”

“You’re only fourteen, Ev. No, of course not.”

“But you think Nelson’s bad.”

“I didn’t say that. I said he was
mean.
He can be cruel.”

“He said he knew a man in Winnipeg who operated an elevator, one of those old ones where you can see through the grating. He said he would take me there sometime.”

“Yeah? That’s wonderful, Ev.”

“He lived with that man for a bit. He learned how to box.”

“Maybe he’s just a little bit full of shit.”

“I
don’t think so. You worry too much.”

“I’ve got lots to worry about.”

“You’re not my mother.”

Lizzy made a very soft humming sound, and then she was quiet. Everett heard her breathing and he knew she was sleeping. He lay there a long time, looking up into the darkness.
Outside, an animal moved alongside the cabin. A skunk, perhaps, or a bear. His father had seen a black bear the day before, out at the edge of the clearing, and he’d warned the children. The berries were gone, the nights were getting colder, the bear was looking for garbage. Everett fell asleep, holding the twinned thoughts of capture and escape.

T
he following morning, Lizzy found Franz and told him she wanted to go up to Anicinabe Park with him. “When you go,” she said. “If you’re still going.” He’d gone the day before and come back to announce that there was a huge police presence and anyone who tried to get into the park was being searched. He told Lizzy that he was going after breakfast and he would be pleased to have her join him. Lizzy wore a yellow sundress with thin straps over her bare shoulders and Franz said that she looked very handsome. She said nothing and turned away and rested her arm on the rolled-down car window. This was how Franz talked to her. Once, when she had come into the kitchen for a late-night snack, she found Franz eating bread and butter at the table, just sitting alone in the dark, a knife in his hand. He had asked, after some small talk, if she had a boyfriend. It was the kind of question that a man liked to ask, as if he was playing a game in which there was a stone fence, she on one side and he on the other, and he was asking if he could climb over the fence and join her. She also understood that some men liked to look at maps and that they dreamed of visiting foreign countries, countries that were out of bounds, and that the possibility of invitation to those countries was exhilarating to them.

That night, in the kitchen, she had quickly made a sandwich and left, aware of the glint of the light off of Franz’s knife. Now, sitting next to him, she was conscious of her own curiosity about him. Then Franz spoke, and the silence dissipated, and with it her mood. He said that the occupation was a good thing, the government was fascist, and he was all for the Indians blowing up a few buildings to make a point. “They’re oppressed,” he said. “And they want a voice. Who wouldn’t want a voice?” He said that this sort of oppression would never happen in Europe.

The entrance to the park gate was blocked by six police cars. Two officers held rifles. One of them approached the car. Lizzy recognized Vernon. He leaned in to talk to Franz and he saw Lizzy. “Miss Byrd. Sightseeing?” he asked. He shifted his rifle. Held it higher as if to make certain Lizzy caught a glimpse of it. “Because if you are, this is not the place to be. We’ve got a bunch of Indians with guns and Molotov cocktails who want to take down the town. I’d suggest you go back to your commune.” He said
commune
slowly, as if it were a strange and unwholesome word.

“Franz is from Germany and he wants to take some photos.”

“I know he’s from Germany,” Vernon said. “I remember your little brother. How
is
Fish?”

“He’s taken care of,” Lizzy said. She stared out past the windshield towards the gate and beyond as if she might catch a glimpse of Raymond.

Vernon said, “It’s not wise coming up here. It makes it look like you’re sympathetic to the Indians. Yesterday, three
communists from Winnipeg tried to get through here with a semiautomatic rifle. All the wackos are coming out of the closet. You don’t want to be counted as one.”

Lizzy didn’t answer. Franz held up his camera and said that he was interested in recording history. “You, for example,” he said. “Could I take a photo of you?” Vernon looked amused at first, as if unsure about the request, and then he smiled and said, “I don’t see the problem.”

He posed beside his police cruiser, one arm resting on the roof of the vehicle, a leg slightly bent, his rifle slung over the shoulder.

Lizzy stood behind Franz, who asked Vernon to hold his riffle in both hands. “Is it loaded?” Franz asked, and when Vernon grinned and said, “Of course,” Franz snapped two quick photographs.

Vernon took one step forward and said, “Enough,” and waved them away. He halted before Lizzy and, nodding back at the park, said, “Your Seymour friend in there?”

Lizzy shrugged. “No idea.”

“Be careful,” he said. And he walked away.

The following day, Lizzy saw the newspaper on the table in the Hall and picked it up. There was a photograph of a group of protestors, about twelve in all, raising their fists and rifles in the air and, according to the caption, singing the American Indian Movement anthem. Lizzy studied the photo and thought she recognized one of the men who had been up at Raymond and Nelson’s place.

She put the paper aside and lifted Fish and walked to the pond. William followed them, dragging a stick. Lizzy sat on
the grass while the boys looked for frogs in the reeds at the edge of the water. At night, she had woken frightened and breathless from a dream in which Raymond had been standing with his back to her. She had circled him, trying to catch a glimpse of his face, but there were shadows and he appeared not to see her. When they had made love he hovered close to her and sniffed her all over. There had been no words, just the sound of him breathing as he moved over her. Perhaps Nelson was right and Raymond’s vision did not include her. She took a cigarette from her bag and lit it. Fish came up out of the reeds and said, “You’re smoking.”

“You’re right,” Lizzy said, and pointed affectionately at his nose.

His eyebrows went up. His mouth puckered. He turned away and surveyed the pond. Then he sat down between Lizzy’s legs and pushed himself against her chest. Lizzy lifted her head as she exhaled. She imagined Raymond admiring her neck. Fish was hot against her. “Go swim,” she said.

He didn’t move. He was humming and touching the down on her arms.

She put out her cigarette. Everett had arrived earlier, wheeling Harris to the edge of the pond, and now Harris had swivelled his chair so that he was facing her and she caught him sneaking looks at her legs and breasts. “Go,” Lizzy said, and she gave Fish a push. He stumbled upwards and walked over to Everett and sat on the sand beside him. “Ev,” he said.

Harris called out that he wanted to move away from the edge of the pond. Lizzy stood and went to him.

“Sorry,” he said. Since the night of the dance, they had not really talked again. It was as if after sharing an intimacy there was nothing left to say between them and they were strangers again. They had seemed to avoid each other. A door had opened and then been slammed shut, and in some way she felt bad.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You have no reason to be sorry. You need someone to help you and so I’m helping you. Where’s Emma this morning?”

“She went out early to paint. She likes the morning light.”

Lizzy snapped back the brakes and spun the wheelchair so that Harris’s feet dragged through the sand. She wondered if it hurt him, but he didn’t say anything.

“This okay?” She had placed Harris so he was facing the sun. She set the brakes. He observed the sky.

She told Fish she was going back to the cabin to read. Did he want to go see Dad or did he want to stay?

“Stay,” he said.

“Don’t go in the water without Ev.” She turned to Everett. “That all right?”

“Fine.”

The skin on her back and shoulders was breaking out again. Tiny bumps, a form of acne that she couldn’t get rid of. Her mother had once asked if she wanted to go on the pill, but Lizzy had refused. She pulled on her shorts over her bathing suit, and she picked up her shirt, and walked up the path through the clearing and past the outhouse and the garden where the Doctor’s wife was tending her vegetables. Her father was standing beside her, hands in his pockets,
talking. He didn’t see Lizzy, and she didn’t call out or wave. She passed the Hall, imagining that she heard her mother’s sharp, bright laugh. Instead, she heard the Doctor’s voice, low and lisping, and then Franz’s Teutonic tones, which is what her father had said one day when he had been mocking the German. “Listen to the Teutonic tones,” he’d said, and he had compared the man to a finely tuned Mercedes-Benz.

When she saw Vernon standing by his pickup at the edge of the clearing she realized he had been watching her for a while. She paused, and when he waved, she went to him and said, “What’s wrong?” She had panicked and thought that something terrible might have happened to Raymond. “Nothing wrong,” he said. “I’m off today and was passing by and I thought I’d see what a little hippie girl does with her time.”

Lizzy did not speak, nor did she acknowledge what seemed to be a mocking flirtation in his voice. She realized how bare her midriff was, and how slight her bathing-suit top must seem, and so she slipped on her shirt and buttoned it up.

“You’re so straight,” he said, and grinned. He was out of uniform and was wearing jeans and a light blue shirt with short sleeves. The shirt was tucked in. His right forearm was tattooed with a bullet. His hands were big. “Come for a ride,” he said.

She shrugged and said that she wasn’t dressed to go anywhere.

“Just a drive. I saw Raymond yesterday, at the park. I’ll tell you all about him.” He grinned.

“Tell me about him here.”

He shook his head, motioned at his watch and said he’d have her back in an hour. “Trust me,” he said. “I’m a cop.”

Lizzy looked back at her father and Margaret, then she went around to the passenger door and climbed in. He drove to town, talking about the house he’d just bought, a bungalow with two bedrooms and a finished rec room. He said that it felt good to be a landowner. He hit at his chest once, twice. Lizzy studied the tattoo on his forearm. She asked him if he had cigarettes.