The Last Season (45 page)

Silent as breath I lift the desk chair and then the arm chair and pile them against the door. I then put the round coffee table on its side, forcing it so it wedges between the larger chair and the bed, which is itself anchored to the wall. The writing desk I also wedge in between the small closet and the edge of the door. Just let them try. Just let them
try
and get another Batterinski.

Timo and I are standing overlooking the memorial cemetery to the siege of Leningrad, and though he appears obviously pained by the view, he cannot possibly know what I feel. Head thick as a stump and as sore as if someone's tried to split me with a dull axe. And my damn knee — I haven't been able to straighten it since I jumped up for Timo's morning call and ran straight into the upturned coffee table. But at least it kept the fuckers out.

Timo speaks slowly, low. He tells me of the three quarters of a million Krauts kicking the shit out of the city for nine hundred days, the full million Russians bombed, shot or, more often, just starved to death. It's comforting for a Pole to know that once in a while at least the dogs turned on each other.

He stands in front of the memorial flame and surprises me with great, fat tears dropping off his cheeks, while I stand thinking only how much the gas smells like eggs we sometimes misplaced in Jaja's coop and could only find with our noses. He shows me what they call the graves. Not even a name. Nothing. Just dates, one for each year: 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944. Four numerical grave markings, each expected to say something special about more than a half-million faceless, nameless corpses.

For this, Timo cries. But I am a Pole and I feel I cannot cry for Russians.

I try to imagine Ig in a grave with two hundred thousand others, him screaming for his Jaja and everyone else shouting at the same time, drowning him out, trampling him as they storm toward whatever false reward they had imagined. Ig lying there with feet kicking him, hair in his mouth, limbs breaking, rotting, stinking, chewed by rats, maggots at his eyes, and him still thinking that Jaja is going to somehow find him and reach down and pull him up. Wash him, maybe, and send down to Hatkoski's for some new hair, maybe a new toque, a few spoonfuls of Nestlé's Quik, a bottle of Pure Spring ginger ale to whet the whistle....

Ig: 1966.

What does
that
say? Tell me that.

I close my eyes, though I know the image comes from within. I open my eyes and the blur tells me they are wet. I walk off from Timo, so he will not see.

Timo takes me to the Rembrandt room of the Heritage museum, a big pink palace on a river so filthy a worm wouldn't know whether to dig or swim. To me the pictures seem like faded Xeroxes, each identical one even duller than what has gone before. But Timo babbles on. He looks at paintings as if they were television screens, active, with breasts bouncing, guns shooting, people falling. For his sake, only for his sake, I make a single effort.

In the picture I'm looking at there is a boy in rags and he kneels with one torn sandal hanging off his foot. He is leaning into the comfort of an old man with several shadowed figures, four I can make out, looking on from behind. They have looks of pity on their faces. I check the placard.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, c.
1665. I try all different approaches to the painting to try and please Timo. I examine every small detail, but so much of it is as fogged, murky and dense as the river outside the window. I stare carefully at the boy but cannot really see him at all. His face is turned slightly to the right and there are no clear features to make out, only a hint of discomfort. I look again at the old man, his forehead high, nose long, eyes shrouded and kind, beard beginning black but growing to white, full and tangled. I stare and stare and stare again; and then, twenty-five years released in a blink, I see who the old man is.

Jaja.

The sports palace looks like a poor man's L.A. Forum, and Erkki, hardly the poor man's Jerry Buss, is waiting for us just inside the glass doors, pacing.

But no, Erkki is not angry or even nail-biting. When he sees Timo and me, he comes over, nodding kindly to big Timo, and takes my arm, leading me away.

“I have a telegram for you,” he says, his voice soft and practised.

He hands it over.
URGENT REQUEST FROM FATHER TO CONTRACT FELIX BATTERINSKI ON FAMILY MATTER STOP GRANDMOTHER DEAD STOP FATHER MOST ANXIOUS STOP.

“I'm sorry,” Erkki says. He puts his hand on my arm as if we are brothers.

“It's no surprise,” I say. “I expected this.”

“She'd been ill?” Erkki asks, still dripping with understanding.

“Cancer.”

“Oh, I see.”

I fold the telegram and put it in my pocket, not thinking of Batcha but of Poppa, now completely alone. Like me.

Erkki continues to hang on to my arm, squeezing. “I called our office, Felix. Your father is most concerned. I've arranged for you to fly back early, if you wish.”

I stop and stare at him.
What for?
Pekka couldn't get out of practice the day an uncle died and now they want to let me go home for an old grandmother I hated. What gives?

“And miss the game?” I say.

“It would be all right.”

“Do you
want
me to go? Is that it?”

Erkki blinks, acting surprised. “Your family needs you.”

“What for? What could I possibly do now?”

“Your father says it is urgent.”

“You'd like me to go, wouldn't you, Erkki? Then you wouldn't have to worry about your silly ‘deal' — isn't that it? Without Kristiina here you're afraid of what I might do.”

Erkki squeezes my arm harder, delighted for once to take on the calm role after so many months of hysterics. “Look, Felix,” he says, “I can well understand your being upset. I'll leave you to think about it, okay? But do you see that man standing over there?”

I follow his finger to a Soviet in a terrible blue suit, who nods toward me. More KGB?

“He is a taxi driver, and he's instructed to take you to the airport if you wish. You're booked on the eight o'clock flight.”

I look at Erkki, bewildered. “It's your decision,” he says. “I assure you, if you go home the board will understand perfectly. The president himself says you should go.”

He turns and walks away before I can question him further. I pull the telegram back out from my jacket. Why urgent? Poppa knows there is nothing anyone can do at this stage. Wouldn't he just tell me in the next letter? He knows what I thought about Batcha....

....And I want to play. I want to hit every Leningrad KGB or whatever they're called as hard and as slow and as sweet as I ever hit the kids in Renfrew or that turkey Billings or Orr or Unger or any of the thousand other bodies, ankles, faces or fists that have given way to Batterinski. The team needs me....

They do not need me. Erkki does not even want me.
I stand alone.

Why is Poppa so anxious? I crush the telegram and look back at the taxi driver. He smiles and nods on cue.

There is more at work here than coincidence. I have been away only slightly more than a day and someone has been at work on me. I came down off the Aeroflot flight, through customs and the exit door, and the flashes began popping before I got halfway down the escalator. I knew them instantly: Jarvi, Repo, Torkkeli, most of the others, all the old begging faces from the dressing rooms, the hands behind the microphones, the scribblers. And I knew instantly that they were not after a comment on Batcha's death.

Torkkeli didn't even wait for my full descent. “Mr. Batterinski!” he shouted, his television crew scrambling behind him. “We've had a report that Tapiola Hauki has played since Christmas under a bonus system that pays for rough play — do you have anything to say on the matter?”

I smile into the camera and say, “Where do you hear that?” But my mind is not on the words. Who has done this?

“An unnamed source,” Torkkeli says. “Is there any truth to the accusation?”

“None whatsoever.”

Suddenly the air is alive with my name. I wish I had showers or a training room to hide in and figure this out. It has to be that loser I turfed off the team when we played in Sweden ... What was his name?

“Are you familiar with Matti Kummola, Mr. Batterinski?” one of the scribblers shouts.

Of course — it was Matti. “Yes,” I say. “He played one period of exhibition hockey for Tapiola.”

“Is it true, sir, that he was taken off the team by you because he would not take penalties?”

“Not at all. Matti wouldn't take the game seriously, that's all. We believed the game should be taken seriously.”

“He says you deliberately encouraged violence.”

“Me?” I say, forcing a laugh. “I want my team to be physical. Hockey is a physical game. Body contact. It's a game of strength
and
skill. Sure we played hard, but we also won, didn't we?”

“Kummola says it is his understanding there was a system of monetary payments for players who fought.”

“No. We paid bonuses for good hockey, same as any team.”

“Are you saying Kummola is lying?”

“I'm saying Kummola was not good enough to play for Tapiola — we are a good, honest, competitive hockey team and we play a tough brand of hockey. What's the point you're trying to make?”

“The point would be that someone was rewarding violence,” says a surly-looking young man with a hand-held microcassette.

“Hard-hitting hockey is its own reward,” I say, proud of my comeback.

“Did
anyone
pay?” one of them shouts.

“Please,” I say. “Only Erkki Sundstrom can answer questions relating to finance.”

I push through them, ignoring further questions and shouts, pushing a path, elbowing off microphones, out through the automatic doors to the taxi area, the sharp night air welcome on my face. I realize I am covered in sweat as the night pours up my sleeves and down my open throat, circling, teasing, alerting, telling me the problem has not been left scrambling around the luggage carousel.

On this side of the room I am stark naked, wilting; on the far side of the room I am again pushing through the airport crowd, my last comment fingering the Jerk. Torkkeli is on air now, backdropped by the Inshallen and the orange and purple Tapiola Hauki team banner. He has the look of television sports announcers everywhere, always speaking directly to their Grade six teachers who never thought they'd amount to anything.

“Quick! What's he saying?” I call out.

The saloon doors to the kitchen swing open and Kristiina's shadow moves into the room, the glow of the television rippling like moonlight over her nakedness. She carries two vodkas, my sixth, her third. Unfortunately, since I arrived only the drinks have been stiff. My fault completely. I am not myself.

Kristiina listens intently, handing me the drink without looking. Matti's picture, then Erkki's, slip onto the screen.

“Well?” I say, sweat bubbling again.

“Shhh — wait.”

Torkkeli signs off and fades from the screen, back to the anchorwoman. Kristiina turns off the set and sits down, her leg rubbing along mine with no visible effect.

“The Finnish Ice Hockey Federation has announced a full inquiry into the charges,” she says.

“Jesus Christ! What else?”

“They have tried to contact Erkki in Leningrad for comment, but did not get through — as usual. Matti Kummola says he will say in any court that the allegations are true.”

“What did he say about me?”

“That you were evasive. That given your reputation as a
kovanaama
it seems quite possible to him.”

“He doesn't even know me.”

“He says you would be a perfect candidate for such a scheme.”

“And that's it?”

“Pretty much. Tapiola spokesman have denied it and said the company would not be associated with any such tactics.”

“That'll be Erkki's line too.”

Kristiina takes a drink, then turns, worried. “Is it true?”

“In a way.”

Kristiina seems disappointed. I try to explain: “Well, it's not the big thing that they're trying to make out of it, that's for sure.”

“But did the players get paid for taking penalties?”

“They got paid for aggressive play. If a penalty came out of it, that had nothing to do with the system. I just wanted the players to show a little balls, that's all.”

Kristiina laughs. “A little what?”

“Balls, you know.”

“No. I don't.”

I illustrate. “These!”

She laughs, louder. “A bonus just for
having
them?”

“For
showing
them!”

“It is no wonder they are holding an inquiry,” she says, teasing.

I go to her and we meet, fitting together like clamps, swaying back and forth in the silence. Both my arms are about her neck, the soft silk of her hair light as gossamer on my forearms. I pull her tight; she smells and feels again like the Kristiina I love.

“Feel all right?” I say.

“Just fine,” she says, weary of the convincing. The doctors have given her a clean bill of health, she says. Just some low-grade virus that won't leave her system. She's fine now; there never was anything to worry about.

But now she is worried for me. “How about you, okay?”

“I'm not sweating it.”

“No. I mean about the news from home.”

“You know my feelings on her,” I say. “I just want to talk to my father, that's all.”

“My big darling,” she says. “Felix is not having a very good time of it.”

“I'll be just fine as long as I have you,” I say, kissing her shoulder, teasing with my tongue. I feel warm inside, the vodka burning and Kristiina feels warmer still, her breasts flat against my chest, her long lovely hand rubbing up and down the inside of my legs, her nails turned to barely touch what the team was supposed to show, the nails walking lightly out along what was impossible only minutes before.