The Retreat

by David Bergen

  Marcel was wearing a dark blue suit jacket and the collar of his shirt was folded over the jacket’s collar. The shirt’s top three buttons were open and he wore a gold chain with a fat pendant. His watch, quite expensive looking, moved back and forth over his wrist whenever he lifted his arm. He said that he loved coming home. “You should leave, Ray. Then you’d appreciate this more.”

  “I’m fine,” Raymond said. “I don’t need to leave.”

  “Tell you what. I’m twelve years older than you. You plan on doing something stupid, give me a call and I’ll talk you out of it.” He pointed at his chest. “I’m thirty. Lot of wisdom to impart to my baby brother. I’ll walk you through so you don’t end up before some asshole judge like Nottingham, who’d happily lock you up and swallow the key. Man is so fat it takes him years to shit it out. Know what he said to me? He says, ‘Mice deserve better than what you’re getting, Mr. Seymour.’ And then he bangs his gavel and goes for steak dinner.”

  In the sky, stars fell. In bed, before sleeping, Raymond listened to his brother tossing on the nearby mattress. “Marcel?” he said.

  Out of the darkness: “Hnnnh.”

  “I could come up with you. To Montreal. I’d find work. Take care of your place, cook and clean. Stay out of your way.”

  “You could be my wife, in other words.”

  “Other words?”

  “That’s what you’re saying.”

  “I ain’t saying that. I’m just asking.”

  “I thought you liked it here.”

  “I do. Most of the time.”

  “Reenie said you’ve got a girl.”

  “Reenie’s got a big mouth.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Alice. Hart.”

  There was a silence that extended and stretched and then fell into itself.

  A grunt and then: “As in related to Hart the constable, his daughter?”

  “Niece.”

  “She’s the niece.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Oh, boy. Who do you think you are? Jesus, Ray. This isn’t heaven.”

  “She likes me.”

  A laugh, derisive and disbelieving. “She likes me. Whoop-dedo. Listen, little brother. Hart’s in Nottingham’s pocket and this Alice is in her father’s pocket, and even if it seems like she’s jumped out of her father’s pocket into your pocket, your pocket isn’t big enough to hold her. Or keep her. Or whatever it is you want. Maybe you want to marry her.”

  “Forget it.”

  Marcel laughed. A slight snort and then a bark and the sound moved around the room. When he spoke his voice was softer, cajoling, and maternal. “What would you cook?”

  “Noodles. With cheese. Hamburgers.” Then he talked about Mrs. Kennedy and how she told him about the husband she used to have and the man she would soon be marrying and how she wore pink skirts just above her knee and he said that she smelled really good. “The wind comes from behind her and passes my way and I smell soap. She leaves me ten dollars every time.”

  “She wants to marry you.”

  “I said that?”

  “You think that. You imagine it. It’s all pretend, Ray, like with Alice.”

  “That’s not pretend.”

  “Yeah?”

  Quiet then. The plastic in the windows popped in and then out. Marcel said that clams and beer was fine. He could live on that. “You know how to prepare clams?” Then he said that a blow job was a good thing. “Nothing better in life.” He said that he hadn’t been laid in weeks.

  Raymond said he spoke some French. He’d taken it in high school.

  “Parlez-vous?” Marcel said, and he laughed.

  In the morning Marcel shaved outside by the pump. Then he washed his hair and under his arms and he towelled himself dry with a T-shirt. He stood and put on a clean shirt and buttoned it, looking out towards the sun in the east. He was wearing dark brown pants and black wing-tipped shoes. His duffle bag was in the back seat. His face was flat in the morning light. He punched Raymond on the chest and climbed into his car and drove away. The sun blinked off the top of the Monte Carlo just as it crested the hill. Then it was gone.

  In late October, payday in his pocket, Raymond went to the Kenricia and sat at a back table and ordered a beer and a whisky straight-up. The whisky went down hard and hot and the beer followed slowly. His feet rested on the chair beside him. He was wearing his best boots, the ones Alice liked, dark leather with yellow stitching. The warmth of everything good; work finished, the straw laid out across the greens, the clubs stored, “Closed for the Season” in the clubhouse window, a harsh wind coming off the lake, the anticipation of Alice and her thin arms. Leona brought another whisky. She set it on the coaster and Raymond flashed his bank, peeling off a bill and waving away the change. “Careful, big boy,” Leona said. She wiped the table. The sharp scent of her perfume, the whisper of a cue ball. Raymond was excellent at pool. He was gifted. Mr. Knight, his math teacher at Lakewood High, had told him that he was gifted. He could do whatever he wanted. “You can be a doctor,” Mr. Knight had said. For now, he was a greenskeeper. Still eighteen. Years to go.

  Alice blew in. A short dark coat with double-breasted buttons, hair straight and long, cheeks red from the wind. She sat and took off her coat. She was wearing a tartan jumper, white shirt, black knee-highs, and short boots with fat heels. The straps of the jumper criss-crossed her back. She wrinkled her nose and lit a cigarette. “What you buying me?” She called out for the same, waggling her fingers at Leona, pointing at the table. She swivelled and aimed her cigarette at Raymond’s nose. “I’m at Jenny’s for the night, so you have to take care of me. Okay?” She crossed her legs. The black socks reached to the top of her calves. Her knees were bony and bare and dry.

  They played a game of pool and Raymond let her win. At one point he stood behind her, his crotch against her bum, and he showed her the angle of the shot. “See?” She laughed and the vibration of her voice passed through her back into his chest. A man with oily hair watched from the bar. “Hey, Chief,” he called. Raymond didn’t answer. The eight ball dropped, Alice squealed and gave him a hug. They went back to the table and drank.

  “He worries,” Alice said. She was talking about her father. Raymond studied her bare arms. She liked to push her small breasts against his mouth. The pink of her nipples. Where he might be ashamed, she was proud. Laid out like the fallen branch of a birch, she peeled back the bark. Her lack of shame made him shy.

  Leona came over and said that Ed Farber was drunk and he was making threatening noises and because she was alone tonight she didn’t want trouble and she’d appreciate it if Raymond and Alice left. Maybe they could take a six-pack to go. Okay?

  Alice said she wanted another whisky, just one more, and that Farber could go fuck himself.

  “I don’t think so. Anyway, Alice, you’re underage, and if trouble starts, I don’t want your father running in here, you see, so just pick yourselves up and walk out and I’ll take care of Farber.”

  Raymond stood. He reached into his pocket but Leona waved him away. “It’ll be a long winter,” she said.

  Alice put on her coat, picked up her cigarettes and purse, and then clacked in her fat heels towards the door. Raymond followed her, past a man and a woman playing pool and, beyond that, Farber’s wide face, and then through the door and into a hard sleet falling. They took shelter under an awning, where a pale yellow light reflected off the wet sidewalk. Alice reached into her purse and took out a joint and lit up. She held out the joint. Raymond put his back to the wind and swayed and smoked. Alice slipped an arm into his, pushed her small face against his chest and said that her father’s float plane was down at the wharf and they could go hang out there, if he liked. At least it would be out of the wind. She tugged at him and he followed. The simplicity of being led, the pressure of her hand, the anticipation of her warmth, her voice at that moment announcing that Farber’s problem was he had a small dick, and this was why he went afte
r Raymond. And then a sweep of light and a police car pulled up alongside them and together they halted.

  “Run,” Raymond said. He stepped backwards and turned. Waited for Alice to follow.

  She moved towards him and then looked back and said, her voice uncertain, “Uncle Earl?” She pulled away from Raymond and stepped towards the police car.

  Hart moved around the front of the car, his hip brushing the grill. “Got a call from Leona,” he said. He nodded back at the hotel. “You okay?” He reached out and touched Alice, as if laying some sort of claim on her. He didn’t look at Raymond.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Cold maybe.” Her voice trembled.

  Raymond was two steps away, hands in his pockets. He looked down and saw that the sidewalk had a thin layer of wet snow.

  Hart opened the passenger door and told Alice to get in. She looked back at Raymond with her sorry face, and then climbed in. Hart opened the cruiser’s rear door and motioned at Raymond, who said that he didn’t need a ride.

  “Nobody’s asking.” Hart held the door and waited. The shoulders of Alice’s coat, her too-small head. The heat of the interior. Raymond climbed in and the door shut.

  “Hey, I’m sorry.” Alice didn’t turn to look at him, she just talked to the windshield. “At least it’s a ride home.” Raymond didn’t answer. He was on the other side of a wire grating, looking at the back of her. The radio talked. Someone talked back. Hart climbed in and drove in silence. Alice didn’t say anything more to Raymond, and when they pulled up to her house she climbed from the cruiser and she didn’t look at him, just followed her uncle up the sidewalk, hips moving back and forth. Tiptoeing, like she was trying to creep back into the place she should never have left.

  The house was large, with many windows, and some of the windows had lights on, and in Alice’s room on the second floor, there was an orange lamp hanging in the window. And then Alice’s mother was standing behind the lamp and she looked out at the driveway. She reached up and a curtain was drawn across the window. Last June Raymond had been in that room. He had walked Alice home from school and they had gone inside the empty house and he had removed his shoes at the entrance and followed Alice up the stairs and then down the soft carpet of the hallway that led to her room. On that day after school, when they were alone in her house, she had lain down on her bed and she had invited him to lie down with her. Somewhere, in the house, the air conditioning had clicked on. Alice had gasped, a sharp, short intake of breath as he entered her, and she had cried out, “Yes, go,” and on he had gone, deep into her, and her head was sideways against the yellow slip of her pillow, her eyes closed, and he had finished quickly. She slid out from under him and walked to the bathroom adjoining her room and he watched as she sat naked on the toilet and grinned sleepily at him through the open door.

  The curtain was drawn now, and on the roof there were two chimneys, and smoke rose from one. In the driveway was a brand new car. A dark brown Cutlass. Alice’s father was a pilot. He flew rich Americans into remote fishing camps around the Lake of the Woods in his twin-engine float plane. It was from hearing about him that Raymond learned how luck fell down on certain people. Someone like Alice smelled of luck and when Raymond was with her she gave him the confidence that he might have some of that luck.

  Alice’s father stepped outside. He lit a cigarette and stood talking to Hart under the protection of the front porch. He never once looked over at the cruiser. He dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his shoe, patted Hart on the back, and went inside.

  Hart came slowly down the walk and climbed into the car and backed out of the driveway. It was midnight. Nothing was said for a long time. Hart drove east past the prison and then a right turn up towards Bare Point. When they passed Raymond’s grandmother’s house on the right, the light in the main room was on and Raymond imagined that his grandmother would be watching TV. Hart drove on, past Isaac Badboy’s house, and into the darkness. Snow dove at the headlights and then fell upwards. Hart spoke. “You like fishing, Raymond?” He looked in the rear-view mirror. “Sure you do. I can see that. You like fishing for white girls.” He paused. Then he said, “You catch ’em, reel ’em in, fuck ’em, and then throw ’em back. No harm done.” His voice was easy, as if he was talking to a close friend, or as if he was leaning forward to whisper a special secret. He turned in order for Raymond to hear him better. “And after me telling you to stay away.

  “You’ve got a boat up at Bare Point. That right? What I hear, you go out on the lake by yourself and fish. Sometimes you stay away all night, sleep in the boat, or park on an island so as to not waste time.” He nodded. “Good to know.

  “Fishing for white girls is dangerous,” he said. “’Cause sometimes you catch something that’s so big it threatens to pull you in with it. That’s what’s happening here, Raymond.” He sighed. His radio crackled and he reached to turn it off. “Don’t need company,” he said. Then he said that he’d heard a story once about a man who was fishing off a wharf. “Just sitting on the dock, enjoying the day, probably sunny, warm, feeling a little sleepy, and all of a sudden, bang, a big motherfucker takes the hook and the rod goes skittering along the dock and the man jumps for it and hangs on. Only the fish is a monster, and when the line is all wrung out, the rod along with the man are pulled right into the lake and down under the water. That big. Only the man won’t let go. He’s hooked this fish and damned if he’s going to lose it. He should let go but he can’t because the line is caught around his wrist and the fact is the line is cutting his wrist down to the bone and if he could he would cut himself free but he can’t, you see, because he got greedy and thought he could pull the fish in. And then the line snaps and the man ascends, up through the dark water, and when he breaks the surface he is far out into the lake with no fish and his hand bloodied and he bobs out there thinking that he almost gave up his life for some impossible thing, something he would never touch or see.”

  Hart paused and then said that it was pretty obvious to anybody with a brain what a man should not do, but it never failed to astonish him how there was always one more ignorant man out there in the world, and sometimes these men were boys, who jumped foolishly into a place that was not for them. “You see what I’m getting at? I think I’m being pretty obvious here. You shouldn’t have touched what wasn’t yours. Uh-uh. Even if she asked you to touch. She’s a bit of a simpleton, giving her father lots of grief. She can have anything she wants and she spreads her legs for what? Here we are.”

  The cruiser came to a stop before a marina with two jetties. Hart got out and opened the rear door. Raymond followed the constable’s back down to the south jetty. Hart was pointing in the dark, his arm stretched out like half a scarecrow. “Which one’s yours?” he asked, and he halted and turned, his face shadowed and dark.

  Raymond nodded to the left, pointing with his nose. His hands were shaking. His legs.

  “Good stuff. You got gas, I imagine.” Hart hopped down into the stern of the boat, lifted the gas tank, and grunted. “Get in. Loose the rope.” He gestured at the bow and then released the stern rope. Looked up at Raymond, who hadn’t moved. “You can run,” he said, “but you won’t get far.” He motioned again at the bow and watched as Raymond climbed in. Hart pulled the starter, one, two, three times, and then manoeuvred the choke and pulled again. The engine fired and started, a loud whine that gathered and howled until Hart pushed the choke back in. He backed out and then, once clear of the jetty, slipped the engine into forward and pointed the boat at the middle of the lake. He didn’t speak. The snow was still falling. It hit Raymond’s face, and it fell against the bottom of the boat and melted and collected in small pools. Raymond was wearing a thin shirt and a jacket of nylon that protected him from the wind slightly, but it was cold enough to make his ears ache. There was nothing to see and the prow of the boat banged against the larger waves and the water came up over the gunnels and splashed Raymond’s back and neck. He ducked. The hull vibrated against the soles of his runners a
nd up into his shins.

  Hart knew the lake and he was clear about this journey. The darkness was no impediment. It was as if he were charging into an obscurity out of which only he could discern the escape. He angled the boat to the left, bulling into the blackness at full throttle, and then he eased off, standing and leaning forward, as if sniffing the wind that would lead him to land. And it did. The island appeared as a wall and then, as the boat entered the leeward shore, trees took shape and the softness of a sandy bay accepted the bow of the boat. Hart cut the engine and leaped from the boat and waded onto shore.

  “Get out,” he yelled, and Raymond obeyed. He obeyed in the same manner as when he had climbed into the police car and then climbed out again and stood waiting by the boat. Like a dumb animal, he followed the beck of the policeman.

  His feet hit the icy water and he wallowed up towards the dark trees. The boat shifted in the waves and hit his thigh, banging him sideways. Hart had him sit on a log. He looked down at Raymond and said that there was only one story to tell. “Understand? You were out fishing and you lost your way and ended up here. Your boat was taken by the waves. That’s the story. You’re lucky to be alive. What a salvation. Marooned in the Lake of the Woods. Someone’ll find you. If not, you’re a fucking Indian. Do your thing.”