Northern Lights (17 page)

“Under the bed. Good night.”

“Dawn. Night. Addie fell for the stellar chap.”

“I know it. You’ll be better.”

“She falls and falls. She falls for everyone. Why can’t I be stellar?”

“You’re a one-eyed stellar fellow.”

“War hero. I’m a bloody war hero. You know that?”

“I know it.”

“Scary. Did you know I lost an eye over there? Do you know how it happened?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Turn the bloody light off. Can’t even remember. Everything was so dark, cow shit and mildew. Addie and that stellar … Some holiday.”

Perry woke up with a toothache. He pushed his tongue against the raw tooth. Warmed it. He dressed, took two aspirin, and washed his face. There was a note from Grace; she was having breakfast. He shaved and pulled on a sweater and hurried downstairs. It was nearly noon. A blackboard stood in the center of the lobby, posting times for the first heats. Harvey was listed for an afternoon heat, and his own name was down for the last race of the day.

He went to the starting table and scratched his name from the races. He was too tired. The starter gave him a ten-dollar refund, and Perry walked up to the restaurant and found Grace and Addie having breakfast. Addie looked fresh.

“Some party last night,” she said. “I was just telling Grace about it. Do you want some coffee? I think they’ve stopped serving by now.”

Perry called the waiter over and ordered a fresh pot. His tooth was still aching.

Later they walked outside. After the night snow, the day was bright. Grace took his arm and they walked the half-mile to the
racecourse. Addie went off to wish good luck to her new friend Daniel.

Balloons were tied to spruce boughs and the crowd was young and happy. The racecourse ran along an eleven-mile stretch of the Gunflint Trail, emptying on to the flat snow of a small lake. Iron poles were sunk into the ice and between them was stretched a cord with red and green banners dangling, the finish line. A heat was in progress on the trail and a loudspeaker blared out the positions and numbers of the racers. The crowd cheered and moaned and clapped for the unseen skiers, watching for when they would break on to the lake for the final half-mile. The day was brilliant. Children were building a snow fort behind the finish line, and further back were two large warming houses that sold beer and hot coffee and sandwiches, and when the loudspeakers weren’t announcing races they played happy music. Perry caught a glimpse of Addie and the boy, then they disappeared in the crowd. It was a bright day. He smelled hot popcorn. Soon the heat of skiers broke out of the woods and on to the lake. By the naked eye, they did not appear to be moving at all, spots of color crouched low, so slow in progress that to someone not looking for them they would have been missed entirely, tiny patches of color that instead of moving appeared rather to expand and grow, the sun behind them giving the scene a fluid unsteadiness. Perry stood and watched them come. The loudspeaker announced the leader as Number Nine, heat four of the championship flight. A few people cheered, likely Number Nine’s family or friends. Gradually the skiers came into focus. Then quickly. Then the sound of their skiing. Number Nine held a great lead. He skied with long professional strides, good rhythm.

When Number Nine cut through the bannered finish line, the rest of the pack was so far back that Perry could not make out their numbers.

Grace found a bench and they sat to watch three more heats finish, then they walked back up towards the hotel, Grace holding his hand and chatting, and they had a long lunch alone. Afterwards she went up for a nap and Perry looked in on Harvey. The shades were drawn but Harvey was awake and waxing his skis. The room was littered with bottles and glasses. It had a peculiar odor.

“Hard night,” Harvey said matter-of-factly. “I swear that’s the last ounce of booze I touch, forever and ever. Truly a remade man.”

“Well, you look all right.”

“I slept. Clean living, too. Say, have you seen Addie?”

“No.” Perry decided to lie. He didn’t decide, he simply lied. “No, but you’d better put a hurry to it. You’re scheduled for three o’clock. You feel up to it?”

“Clean living. How about helping with that other ski? Be a good brother.”

Perry found a sock and began waxing one of the long skis.

“What time do you ski?”

“I scratched,” Perry said.

“Scratched?”

“Too tired. I’ll just relax and watch you win a big trophy.”

“Too bad. You were in the money, I’ll bet. All that practice and everything.” He started to smile, but the smile jerked like a tic.

After a time Harvey went to the bathroom and brought out a half-empty bottle of wine and drank without a glass. He was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans. Even after his sickness, he looked strong. He was lean. He lit a cigarette and rested it on a bed-stand. “That Addie.” He wiped another coat of wax on his skis and shaved the edges with a razor blade. “I’ve carried on too much. Have to stop carrying on.”

“You’ll win her, Harv. It’ll turn into a good vacation. Grace is loving it. She likes vacations no matter what.”

“Got to stop carrying on so,” said Harvey.

“Right.”

“Came home from … feeling like a bum. War and all. Wasn’t so good, you know. I told you something about it last night, didn’t I?”

“Just a little. You were drunk. I forget.”

“Forget, remember, forget, remember. No matter, I was a goddamn baby anyway. Is that ski done? What time is it? Just forget everything I say.” Harvey took a swig on his wine bottle. He went to the windows and looked out towards the west. Then he came back. He put a hand on Perry’s shoulder, slight at first and then harder. “You’re a good man, brother,” he said. He looked at Perry through his good eye. “I’m serious, you’re really my goddamn
brother
, aren’t you?”

“Right,” Perry said.

“Impossible, you’d think.”

“I guess so.”

“I mean, what’s a brother?”

“Yeah. I don’t know.” They were quiet awhile. “I don’t know, Harv.”

“Don’t ever listen to me.”

“I don’t, Harv.”

“That’s good. Don’t ever start listening.”

“You’d better put a step to it. Quarter to three already.”

“I mean, what are we? We’re bloody
adults
now, have you ever stopped to think about that?”

“Now and again.”

“So you know it’s true. Bloody adults, I can’t get over it. You understand what I’m driving at?”

“More or less, Harv.”

Harvey smiled. “Good. You want some of this wine? Awful
stuff. Don’t know where I got it.” He stood up and slipped on his sweater. He put on sunglasses and a fuzzed-tipped stocking cap. “Did I tell you? I was thinking. I shouldn’t say, I guess. But what the hell. I was thinking maybe about asking Addie to get married, the whole schmeer. What do you think? After last night, I don’t know. I was just thinking about it.”

“Good idea,” Perry said.

Harvey grinned. “Good idea if it works.”

“Right. Don’t forget your leggings. Can’t be a winner without those leggings.”

“I’m a winner, all right,” Harvey said. “And you are a brother, aren’t you?”

“Stellar,” Perry smiled.

“Stellar. Right. Stellar, now that’s a good word.”

Perry carried his brother’s skis from the hotel and down towards the starting area.

“I’m betting on you,” he said. “Give it hell.”

It was the last championship heat. The day was already coming on towards dusk. Perry watched as six ski-mobiles took the racers down the trail to where the heat would begin. When they were out of sight, he walked to the finish line and had a cup of coffee and watched several heats come in. One turned into a good race, a wild and desperate finish that had the crowd yelling, won by a fifteen-year-old boy. The boy was a native and the crowd’s favorite. Perry cheered along with everyone else. The boy’s father was drunk and happy, hugging the boy and dancing about, holding a can of beer that spilled everywhere. The crowd was happy. Everyone jostled the winning boy and Perry went over to shake his hand. The boy’s father was jumping and dancing. While everyone celebrated Addie came through the crowd. Perry watched her. Eventually she saw him and smiled and waved and came over.

“Don’t be so nasty. I hope you aren’t going to start, too.”

“Some sweetie.”

“Peeping Paul. Here, let me have a sip of that. It’s actually colder out here than you’d think with all the sun.”

“So where’s your new friend Daniel?”

“Racing. Don’t be nasty now. I’m terrible, I’m a witch. Where’s a good spot to watch them finish?”

They found a bench overlooking the lake.

Addie had a pair of binoculars and she scanned each group of racers. As the heats finished, the crowd got smaller and less boisterous. The dusk was rapidly coming on, and with it the cold. Addie went off for more coffee, and as she returned a group of skiers broke from the forest. The snow had formed a dark crust. On the far side of the lake, the skiers seemed to advance just on the edge of dusk.

A brace of spotlights was turned on, illuminating the finish line and part of the lake, but beyond the slice of light it was night.

“Can’t see a thing,” Addie said. “Wouldn’t you know it?”

She handed Perry the binoculars. Through them, he could just make out the forms of the skiers. They were hunched low and did not look much like people.

“What number is your friend Daniel?”

“Six. Sixteen. Sixteen, I think. He’s wearing that maroon and gold college sweater.”

“Can’t see color.” He searched for Harvey in the coming forms. The binoculars were useless.

The forms were knotted together. They came in a pack. He heard them before he saw them. He heard their skis gouging the snow, then he heard them howling. He heard their breath in the back of his thoughts.

He gave Addie her binoculars.

“Here they come!” she said. “Here they come.”

Perry pulled his glasses tight and peered out. It was cold and he was shivering.

They were howling. The pack was tight together. Dark, hunched shapes. In the dusk, they had the forest weight behind them and they came hurtling in their pack, howling and banded together and merging into a single shadow as they crossed the lake towards the bannered cord and spotlights, the harsh sounds of their flight and chase coming closer. Their heads were low out and deformed over the snow. Their tongues and teeth. One of them fell and toppled and the fallen was left abandoned, and the others came on, crossing the lighted fringe and into the spotlights. The skis snapped against the snow, a quick crisp cutting sound, and in the spotlights the ski poles gleamed silver and Perry saw the racers’ breath frosting in a single cloud that was swept behind them, and the racers were braced in the spotlights. Perry leaned forward. Their faces were red. One of them shrieked and the others took up the howl. Red faces, shining, nostrils flared, they were separate from their skis. Twenty yards from the finish line, another skier fell and rolled.

It was over in a moment, the pack had a leader. Low and poles under his arms, the leader’s mouth was pulled in a long fierce grin, and he crossed the line and held his poles high and howled. The others came across like gazelles on a faraway plain, then a herd, the harsh grating noises as they braked.

“It was Daniel!” cried Addie from somewhere.

“What?”

“He won! I knew it, I knew all along.”

Addie got up and gave him the binoculars to hold and rushed off to the finish area.

The winner was surrounded.

Perry waited awhile then went down to the finish line. Daniel was being congratulated. The loudspeaker gave his
winning time. The boy did not look tired. The other racers were sitting or lying still, breathing hard, but the boy was standing and leaning against his poles while people shook his hand. His time was marked up on a blackboard.

Perry shook the boy’s hand and said it was a good race, and the boy nodded but he was looking at the blackboard, then at Addie, and he did not seem excited.

Then Harvey crossed the line. He was alone and his leggings and sweater were snow-clotted.

“Harvey!” Perry called, and watched as his brother slowed to an awkward silence under the lights. Harvey raised his head and his throat bulged, his skin cream white and old, and he howled. He quivered, his throat bulged again, and he turned to howl at the black sky, then his skis slipped from under him and in slow motion he sat on the lake, then lay back, face up.

Perry knelt down. Harvey was grinning. “Just a stupid country race,” he said.

“I know it.”

“Help me up, for God’s sake.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I fell.”

“How could you fall?”

“I just fell. I got tired. Help me up.”

Perry unbuckled the skis and clapped the snow from them.

“I suppose the Olympic champ won.”

“It was a good race. You all right?”

“I guess. Just a country race.”

“Yeah, come on.”

Harvey brushed the snow off. As he stood, the spotlights were turned off and the lake went dark. The remaining crowd was leading Daniel up towards the hotel. “There they go,” said Harvey. “It was just a crummy country race.” He bracketed his skis together and flung them over his shoulder.

“Where’s Addie?”

“She’s around. Let’s go up and get Grace and have some supper.”

They had a quiet meal. A small band played in one corner of the restaurant. Grace was golden and consoling. They had creamed chicken and fresh spinach and wine. Grace wore a long dress and she looked good and Perry was proud of her. Towards the end of dinner, Addie and Daniel came in, and Addie waved but she did not come over. They sat at a table near the band.

“That girl is a goner,” Harvey said.

“Forget it.”

The band played quiet music and a few people got up to dance. Harvey took out a packet of cigars and they had brandy and watched the dancers and drank their coffee from pewter cups. Later they went into the lobby, sat in stuffed chairs, then Harvey went up to bed and Perry took Grace upstairs to dance.

He went to the window. It was morning, and a crowd of skiers and brightly dressed people were milling in the snow. He touched the window, steamed cold. Outside, a platform had been erected in the snow and decorated with colorful pennants and streamers. Perry dressed and hurried outside. His tooth was hurting again.