The Favorite Game (16 page)

“But, Krantz, it’s Montreal you’re leaving, Montreal on the very threshold of greatness, like Athens, like New Orleans.”

“The Frogs are vicious,” he said, “the Jews are vicious, the English are absurd.”

“That’s why we’re great, Krantz. The cross-fertilization.”

“Okay, Breavman, you stay here to chronicle the Renaissance.”

It was an early summer evening on Stanley Street. Breavman had been in the foundry for a month. The strolling girls had their bare arms on.

“Krantz, the arms, the bosoms, the buttocks, O lovely catalogue!”

“They’ve certainly come out.”

“Krantz, do you know why Sherbrooke Street is so bloody beautiful?”

“Because you want to get laid.”

Breavman thought for a second.

“You’re right, Krantz.”

It was great to be back in the dialogue with Krantz; he hadn’t seen him very much in the past few weeks.

But he knew the street was beautiful for other reasons. Because you’ve stores and people living in the same buildings. When you’ve got only stores, especially modern-fronted ones, there is a terrible stink of cold money-grabbing. When you’ve got only houses, or rather when the houses get too far from the stores, they exude some poisonous secret, like a plantation or an abattoir.

But what Krantz said was true. No, not laid. Beauty at close quarters.

A half-block up, a girl turned down to Sherbrooke. She was strolling alone.

“Remember, Krantz, three years ago we would have followed her with all kinds of fleshly dreams.”

“And fled if she ever looked back.”

The girl ahead of them walked under a lamplight, the light sliding down the folds of her hair. Breavman began to whistle “Lili Marlene.”

“Krantz, we’re walking into a European movie. You and me are old officers walking along to something important. Sherbrooke is a ruin. Why does it feel like a war just ended?”

“Because you want to get laid.”

“C’mon, Krantz, give me a chance.”

“Breavman, if I gave you a chance, you’d weep through every summer night.”

“Do you know what I’m going to do, Krantz? I’m going to walk up to that girl and be very gentle and polite and ask her to join us for a small walk over the world.”

“You do that, Breavman.”

He quickened his pace and moved beside her. This would be it. All the compassion of strangers. She turned her face and looked at him.

“Excuse me,” he said and stopped. “Mistake.”

She walked away and he waited for Krantz to catch up.

“She was a beast, Krantz. We couldn’t have toasted her. She wasn’t all that is beautiful in women.”

“It’s not our night.”

“There’s lots of night left.”

“I’ve got to get up early for the boat.”

But they did not go right back to Stanley. They walked slowly up the streets towards home: University, Metcalfe, Peel, MacTavish. Named for the distinguished from the British Isles. They passed by the stone houses and the black iron fences. Many of the houses had been taken over by the university or turned into boarding-houses, but here and there a colonel or a lady still lived, manicured the lawns and bushes, still climbed the stone steps as if all the neighbours were peers. They wandered through the campus of the university. Night, like time, gave all the buildings a deep dignity. There was the library with its crushing cargo of words, dark and stone.

“Krantz, let’s get out of here. The buildings are starting to claim me.”

“I know what you mean, Breavman.”

As they walked back to Stanley, Breavman was no longer in a movie. All he wanted to do was turn to Krantz and wish him luck, all the luck in the world. There was nothing else to say to a person.

The taxis were beginning to pile up in front of the tourist houses. Half a block down you could get whisky in coffee cups at a blind pig disguised as a bridge club. They watched the taximen making U-turns in the one-way street: friends of the police. They
knew all the landladies and store owners and waitresses. They were citizens of downtown. And Krantz was taking off like a big bird.

“You know, Breavman, you’re not Montreal’s suffering servant.”

“Of course I am. Can’t you see me, crucified on a maple tree at the top of Mount Royal? The miracles are just beginning to happen. I have just enough breath to tell them, ‘I told you so, you cruel bastards.’ ”

“Breavman, you’re a schmuck.”

And soon their dialogue would be broken. They stood on the balcony in silence, watching the night-doings get into gear.

“Krantz, do I have anything to do with you leaving?”

“A little.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’ve got to stop interpreting the world for one another.”

“Yes … yes.”

The buildings were so familiar and the street so well known. Even Gautama wept when he lost a friend. Nothing would be the same tomorrow. He could hardly bear to understand that. Krantz wouldn’t be there. That would be like a bulldozer turned loose in the heart of the city. They weren’t the kind of people that wrote letters to each other.

Krantz took a long glance around him. “Yup,” he said, like an old farmer in a rocking chair.

“Yup,” Breavman agreed over nothing.

“Just about time,” said Krantz.

“Good night, Krantz.”

“Good night, old Breavman.”

He smiled and clasped his friend’s hand.

“Good night, old Krantz,” and they joined four hands and then went into their separate rooms.

M
ontreal was madly buying records of Leadbelly and the Weavers and rushing down to Gesu Hall in mink coats to hear Pete Seeger sing socialist songs. Breavman was at the party by virtue of his reputation as a folk singer and minor celebrity. The hostess had subtly suggested on the phone that he bring his guitar, but he didn’t. He hadn’t touched it for months.

“Larry! It’s so good to see you; it’s been years!”

“You look beautiful, Lisa.”

With his first glance of appreciation he claimed her, because of the street they had lived on, because he knew the whiteness of her, because her skipping body was bound to his by red string. She lowered her eyes.

“Thank you, Larry. And you’ve managed to become famous.”

“Hardly famous, but it’s a good word.”

“We saw you interviewed on TV last week.”

“In this country writers are interviewed on TV for one reason only: to give the rest of the nation a good laugh.”

“Everybody says you’re very clever.”

“Everybody is a vicious gossip.”

He brought her a drink and they talked. She told him about her children, two boys, and they exchanged information about their families. Her husband was on a business trip. He and her father were opening automatic bowling alleys right across the country. Knowing she was alone launched Breavman’s fantasies. Of course she was alone, of course he had met her that specific night, she would be delivered to him.

“Lisa, now that you have children, do you ever think about your own childhood?”

“I always used to promise myself that when I grew up I’d remember exactly how it was, and treat my children from that viewpoint.”

“And do you?”

“It’s very hard. You’d be surprised how much you forget and how little time there is to remember. Usually you act right on the spot and hope your decision is the best one.”

“Do you remember Bertha?” was the first of the questions he meant to ask.

“Yes, but didn’t she —”

“Do you remember me?”

“Of course.”

“What was I like?”

“I suppose you’d be annoyed if I said you were like any other ten-year-old boy. I don’t know, Larry. You were a nice boy.”

“Do you remember the Soldier and the Whore?”

“What?”

“Do you remember my green pants?

“You’re getting silly.…”

“I wish you remembered everything.”

“Why? If we remembered everything we’d never be able to do anything.”

“If you remembered what I remember you’d be in bed with me right now,” he said blindly.

Lisa was kind, wise, or interested enough not to make a joke of what he said.

“No, I wouldn’t. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t. I’m too selfish or scared or prudish, or whatever it is, to risk what I’ve got. I want to keep everything I have.”

“So do I. I don’t want to forget anyone I was ever connected with.”

“You don’t have to. Especially me. I’m glad I met you tonight. You have to come over and meet Carl and the children. Carl reads a lot, I’m sure you’d enjoy talking to him.”

“The last thing I intend to do is talk books with anybody, even Carl. I want to sleep with you. It’s very simple.”

He had intended by his recklessness to reach her quickly and disarm her, but he succeeded only in making the conversation fashionable.

“It’s not simple for me. I’m not trying to be funny. Why do you want to sleep with me?”

“Because we once held hands.”

“And that’s a reason?”

“Humans are lucky to be connected in any way at all, even by the table between them.”

“But you can’t be connected to everyone. It wouldn’t mean anything then.”

“It would to me.”

“But is going to bed the only way a man and woman can be connected?”

Breavman replied in terms of the flirtation, not out of his real experience.

“What else is there? Conversation? I’m in the business and I have no faith in words whatever. Friendship? A friendship between a man and a woman which is not based on sex is either hypocrisy or masochism. When I see a woman’s face transformed by the orgasm we have reached together, then I know we’ve met. Anything else is fiction. That’s the vocabulary we speak in today. It’s the only language left.”

“Then it’s a language which nobody understands. It’s just become a babble.”

“Better than silence. Lisa, let’s get out of here. Any moment now someone’s going to ask why I didn’t bring my guitar, and I’m liable to smash him in the mouth. Let’s talk over coffee, somewhere.”

She shook her head gently. “No.”

It was the best no he ever heard because it had in it dignity, appreciation, and firm denial. It claimed him and ended the game. He was content now to talk, watch her, and wonder just as he had when the young men in white scarves had taken her away in their long cars.

“I’ve never heard that word spoken better.”

“I thought it was what you wanted to hear.”

“How did you get so damn wise?”

“Look out, Larry.”

“Look what we found.” The hostess beamed. Several guests had followed her over.

“I’ve never heard you play,” Lisa said. “I’d like to.”

He took the unfamiliar guitar and tuned it. The record-player was turned off and everyone drew chairs around or sat on the thick carpet.

It was a good Spanish instrument, very light wood, resonant bass strings. He hadn’t held a guitar for months but as soon as he struck the first chord (
A
minor) he was happy he’d agreed to play.

The first chord is always crucial for him. Sometimes it sounds tinny, bland, and the best thing he can do is put the instrument away, because the tone never improves and all his inventions jingle like commercials. This happens when he approaches the instrument without the proper respect or affection. It rebukes him like a complying frigid woman.

But there are those good times when the tone is deep and lingering, and he cannot believe it is himself who is strumming the strings. He watches the intricate blur of his right hand and the
ballet-fingers of his left hand stepping between the frets, and he wonders what connection there is between all that movement and the music in the air, which seems to come from the wood itself.

It was like that when he played and sang only for Lisa. He sang the Spanish Civil War songs, not as a partisan, but as a Tiresian historian. He sang the minor songs of absence, thinking of Donne’s beautiful opening,

which is the essence of any love song. He hardly sang the words, he spoke them. He rediscovered the poetry which had overwhelmed him years before, the easy line that gave itself carelessly away and then, before it was over, struck home.

He played for an hour, aiming all the melody at Lisa. While he sang he wanted to untie the red string and let her free. That was the best gift he could give her.

When it was over and he had put the guitar away carefully, as though it contained the finer part of him, Lisa said, “That made me feel more connected to you than anything you said. Please come to our house soon.”

“Thank you.”

Soon he slipped out of the party for a walk on the mountain. He watched the moon and it didn’t move for a long time.