The Retreat

by David Bergen

  There was a quarter moon just above the treeline. It offered a pale light that allowed Lizzy to find her way to the outhouse. She sat and wondered how it was that older people could complicate what should be simple and clear. What resonated with her was Harris’s use of the word puppet. It had been like a slap and she had wanted to protest, but she hadn’t.

  Coming out of the outhouse she came down the path and met the Doctor, who was standing and observing the sky. He turned to her and said that a sky like this one — and here he lifted a hand towards the stars above them — made immortality seem possible. He asked Lizzy if she believed in everlasting life.

  She shrugged and stepped sideways. The moon was behind the Doctor’s head and it lit up the path and the trees. She said, “I should get back to my cabin.”

  The Doctor appeared to not hear her. He said that he had seen her come out of Harris and Emma’s cabin. “You were with Harris,” he said. Then he said that Harris lacked both conviction and faith and that he was suffering from a failure of ego. “This happens to men sometimes. We’re swimming along, taking our good fortune for granted, and suddenly we begin to sink.” The s of the final word whistled from his mouth.

  Lizzy was aware of the Doctor’s youthful face and she was suddenly conscious of his vanity and of the night sounds and the late hour. She said, “My mother loves my father. She’s been sick and he knows what she needs.”

  The Doctor nodded, as if her statement made perfect sense. “Of course he does.” He paused and then said that he had seen Lizzy with the Indian boy. He said that he was worried about her. It appeared that her parents didn’t worry, or didn’t take any responsibility for her choices, and so he was offering some advice. He said that she should be careful. She was a stunning young girl and she could do better than this Raymond Seymour. Did she know that?

  “What are you talking about?” Lizzy said. “You don’t even know him.”

  “But I do,” the Doctor said, and he motioned that she could pass. She hesitated and then moved past him. He said good night and she said good night in return, and then she walked quickly up the path to her cabin.

  She stepped inside and heard the sound of her brothers breathing. As she undressed in the dark, a voice whispered, “Where’d you go?” It was Everett. He was sitting up, and she could see his shape in the dim light.

  Lizzy sat on the edge of her bed. “The Doctor was out there,” she said. “He was looking at the stars.”

  She lay down. It was quiet for a long time and then Everett said, “You sleeping?”

  “No, you’re not letting me.”

  “I’m not tired.” Then he said, “Mum danced with Dad.”

  “I know, I saw them.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Raymond’s brother Nelson’s nice. He has a gun and he shoots rats down at the dump. He’s gonna take me. He drew me a map so I’d know how to get to his cabin.”

  “You aren’t going to visit Nelson.”

  Everett was quiet, then he said, “You like Raymond?”

  “No. But I like his truck.”

  “Mum isn’t very happy, is she?”

  “Don’t worry about her.”

  It was quiet then for a long time and Lizzy was almost asleep when Everett said, “I don’t want to be old.”

  “Go to sleep,” Lizzy said. And she heard nothing more as she fell sideways and then downwards, and a light flickered briefly across her vision, and then it went out.

  In the clearing, by the Hall, William was swinging Fish. Lizzy had asked him to take care of Fish and he’d been doing that since mid-morning, when Lizzy had begun to prepare. She’d showered and shaved her legs and she’d tried on various skirts and shorts and tops. Everett had been in the cabin, lying on his bed and helping her, and as she slipped the clothes on and off, he looked away and then offered his judgment when she was ready. He had good taste, and they’d settled on a fringed white skirt that dropped to mid-thigh, and a black plain T-shirt that wasn’t too tight. He said that if it were him, he’d wear their mother’s red dress, the sleeveless one with the zipper up the back. She said that that was for evening wear, in the city, and this sure as hell wasn’t the city, and besides, they might end up at the dump, shooting rats. She put on flip-flops, looked down, and said that she hated her feet. “I wish I had Mum’s feet.”

  She smoothed her skirt and studied her brown legs. It was just before lunch. She went outside and sat on the steps, and waited.

  Her father walked by, appraised her, and said, “Hey, beautiful, goin’ fishing?”

  “Raymond’s picking me up.”

  Her father squinted at the sky, as if ascertaining some possible revelation, and then said, “The boy with the chickens?”

  “He’s not a boy.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true.” He looked at her and said that she should take a jacket, it looked like rain. “Remember who you are,” he said, and he walked down towards the kitchen. Lizzy watched him and thought about how fragile he seemed. His neck appeared to be too thin and his back was slightly bent.

  She watched the rest of the group enter the Hall. William and Fish, her mother, dressed in pink shorts that were too small on her, Ian and Jill, who looked as if they’d just climbed out of bed, and then Emma, pushing her husband’s wheelchair, as if they were a normal couple. Harris saw her and waved and Lizzy lifted a hand in response. Emma looked back over her shoulder at Lizzy and then leaned down to whisper in Harris’s ear. Lizzy felt self-conscious, unsure if Harris would even recall their late-night conversation. He had been quite drunk.

  She sat on the stairs through lunch, aware of her hunger, but not wanting to embarrass herself by joining the group. She went into the cabin and looked at her face in the small mirror hanging beside her bed. She glanced at her breasts. She took off her T-shirt and unclasped the bra and removed it. Put the T-shirt back on. Looked in the mirror again and deemed it okay. She went back outside. Watched a trail of ants pass across the bottom step and disappear under the stairs. She wondered if Raymond, when he reached up under her T-shirt and discovered her bare skin, would think she was too easy. The door of the Hall opened and out came William and Fish, who both squatted in the dirt and poked away at the earth with newly found sticks. Lizzy knew that if Fish saw her, he would come running and climb on her lap and push his dirty hands against her clean skirt, so she stood and walked up the driveway towards the main road, thinking that she’d flag Raymond down on his way into the Retreat. When she reached the main road, she paused and looked east and then west. A car passed, a purple Cutlass like the one her father used to drive in Calgary. The driver honked and Lizzy waved. She stood on the shoulder. Within half an hour three vehicles had passed, two of them logging trucks that left in their wake a backdraft that lifted her skirt and dusted her hair and face. She moved off the shoulder and down into the ditch, where she sat on a rock. A baby frog leaped by.

  By now the wind had picked up and she heard a vehicle coming up the path from the Retreat. She wondered for a moment if she had missed Raymond, but then the utility truck came into view, a white rusted half-ton with no front panels. The truck pulled over onto the shoulder and her father leaned over and called out of the passenger window and asked if she wanted to go to town. He was picking up some lumber and if she was tired of waiting, she could join him.

  Lizzy stood and went to the truck and got in. Her father put it into first and pulled out onto the road. He steered with his left hand and his right rested on his thigh, and over the sound of the engine he shouted that he’d thrown out his back dancing last night, you know. He winked at Lizzy and said, “Your mother loves to dance. In fact there was a time when I thought she’d run away to Las Vegas to be one of those dancers that kicks in the air, you know what I mean, and so now when she gets the chance, it’s good. Really good. You know?”

  Lizzy offered a grimace, then turned away.

  At the lumberyard, while her father paid for his order, Lizzy sto
od on the asphalt parking lot and leaned against the pickup and watched a young man operate a forklift. He knew she was watching him; he drove with greater abandon and when he climbed down off the forklift to adjust a load he looked at Lizzy and nodded. She looked away. When she looked again, he was walking towards her. He said that his name was Chuck. “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” he said, and laughed. “My dad used to say that to me. How ’bout you?”

  “My dad never said that,” Lizzy said.

  “I mean your name.”

  Lizzy studied him, and then she said, “Lizzy.”

  “Thin Lizzy,” Chuck said. “My favourite band. You waiting for someone?”

  “Hmm-mm.”

  Chuck looked around. He took off his cap and pulled up his T-shirt so that his stomach showed and he wiped at his face. He had a line of hair running just below his belly button. His belt buckle was wide and it said “Chuck.” He lowered his shirt and asked if she liked fishing.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Probably never been,” he said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “Then how can you know whether you like it or not?”

  “I guess I’m guessing.”

  Chuck snapped his fingers. “Come fishing with me. I’ll take you on Saturday morning. We’ll leave early, you can catch all the walleye you like, and then I’ll bring you home. I’ll supply the beer, you can keep the fish. I’ll even fillet it for you.”

  “I’m busy Saturday.”

  “How ’bout Sunday?”

  “I got church.”

  “That’s a lie. You married?”

  “Whaddya talkin’ about?”

  He squinted. Then said, “You gotta man? You know, like a ball and chain?”

  “Yeah. Raymond Seymour.” She said it so quickly, so matter-of-factly, that she surprised herself and, it appeared, Chuck as well.

  “Seymour? You his squaw?” Chuck laughed and said, “Jesus.”

  Lizzy wanted to take back what she’d revealed. She had not expected that this boy with his bullet-shaped head would know Raymond, and even if he had, she would not have expected this response. She touched at her mouth, and then pulled back on a few strands of hair that hung loose by her cheek, and she said, “You know him?”

  “Sure. Went to high school with him. For a while. Until he left. These days he lives with his brother who works at the dump.” One eye closed and opened. “No, no, no, Lizzy. You can do better than that. I’ll take you out on the lake.”

  Her father came out of the store and walked over and looked at Chuck and then at Lizzy and got into the pickup. “I guess I gotta go,” Lizzy said, and she moved past Chuck. She could smell him, a mix of freshly cut spruce and sweat, and she liked it because it was a sign of something, perhaps of work and brawn and stomach muscles and the hair on his body. She could imagine pushing her nose against the dampness of his underarms. Her father started the engine and pulled into the loading yard and said, as if he had been asked, “Stay away from that one, nothing between his ears but sawdust.”

  They went for a Coke at the hot-dog stand, the same place Raymond had taken Fish and Lizzy, and she looked around as if expecting to see him again. But there were only two old men smoking, and a young mother screaming at her toddler.

  Her father sat down across from her and said, “So, little Lizzy, tell me where your head’s at.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You like it here?”

  “Not really.”

  “I didn’t think so. But then, we can’t always get what we want. Look at me.”

  She didn’t want to talk about him and about his disappointment. This grand idea of the Retreat and her mother’s vision of salvation, the Doctor as a guide to a higher plane, hope for the family. And then the emptiness, the lazy people, the paltry meals. The night before it had been little heaps of corn scraped off wilted cobs and then cooked in chicken broth and served up as stew. Slices of dry white bread that had been picked out of the Dumpster.

  Lizzy put her mouth over her straw and sucked her Coke slowly. Her legs were sticky with heat and sweat and she uncrossed and then crossed them again. A flip-flop dangled from her toes. She felt sluggish and restless and recalled Chuck’s midriff. A shimmy between her legs. She shifted. Her father was talking but there were no important words. Something about the Doctor and then he said, “Everett,” and then, “How about you?”

  “How about what?”

  “These talks, these speeches he’s making, dragging kids into his dingy den and doing God knows what, and doing this all in the name of community. You been in there?”

  “Yeah. Once.”

  “Really? Where’ve I been? Where’s your mother been? Why would you go into the Doctor’s den? He’s got nothing, absolutely nothing to offer you.”

  “How do you know, Dad? You’ve never really talked to him.”

  “Don’t have to talk, you just have to listen for thirty seconds and you know. Man doesn’t have any idea what a wrench is, or what a hammer’s for. What does a man need to survive? The words to talk about some old and tired idea or the hands to replace a generator that will run the electricity to heat your stove or bake your bread? You can’t eat words.”

  “Maybe the Doctor’s ideas are useful.”

  “That’s bullshit. He wants to make everybody into a copy of himself. I told him that he wasn’t ever to ask one of our children into his office again unless I was invited as well. I was furious, I’ll tell you, when I heard that Everett had been in there.”

  “Mum knew.”

  “She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t abide such twaddle.” Then he said that that night, when she’d walked into the cabin, he’d been talking off the top of his head. “Shouldn’t have said what I did. And then Fish hearing my nonsense. And you.” He paused. “I love your mother. And she loves me.”

  Once, mid-afternoon, Lizzy had seen the Doctor come out of her parents’ cabin, hopping cheerfully down the stairs, as if it were his pleasure to make house calls. Lizzy had turned and walked away, not wanting to meet him; she had felt shame and imagined that by talking to the Doctor she would be conceding that she and her mother thought alike. She looked at her father now. His wide jaw, the manner he had of pushing it out as if determination alone could drive away all trouble. He was very handsome. Sometimes, when she watched him too carefully, she got sad. Her father lifted both hands as if he were a juggler and said that William concerned him. So resolute, creeping after Emma. “He just sits and watches. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Can you?”

  Lizzy shook her head. Felt a sharp ache for William, who didn’t seem to know what he wanted.

  Her father stood and said that he liked the land here. “All this water, the lakes you can get lost in. Beautiful, deep, black lakes that go on forever.”

  “You’re never on the lakes, Dad,” Lizzy said.

  “Oh, I will some day. Soon.” He started walking towards the pickup and said, “Maybe we should move here permanently.”

  Lizzy didn’t answer. She knew it wasn’t true, like much of what her father said. Let him talk.

  They passed down the Main Street and then up the 71 and past the mill. Three boys on bicycles wove into the traffic and then stopped to throw rocks at the highway sign. Lizzy waved and they waved back, and then one of them gave her the finger.

  At the turnoff to the Retreat there was a police car and beside it was a young cop. Lewis slowed and turned onto the small road. Down near the clearing Lizzy saw Raymond’s pickup. She saw another police car and a group of people gathered in the clearing by the dining hall. And then her mother was running up the path towards the pickup and she was crying and calling out, and she was saying Fish’s name, and as she drew nearer, she said what Lizzy had already feared was true. Fish was gone.

  In the Hall there was a map and the map had been drawn into grids, and when a grid had been searched, it was coloured in by a chubby police officer, who also took notes i
n a little brown book and asked questions of the searchers, many of whom were volunteers who had arrived from town.

  Mrs. Byrd, pale and helpless-looking, was sitting on the stairs of her cabin, waiting. Lizzy saw her and then she saw Raymond at the edge of the clearing and she went to him. He took her hand, saying that all would be fine. He said it so confidently, with utter clarity, that Lizzy had for a brief moment been overwhelmed with relief. But this had passed. One of the police officers was a red-haired man named Vernon, who when he wasn’t directing the search, was watching Lizzy and asking her questions about where she was from and why did she live in this place and was she a hippie or any such thing. “What are you talking about?” Lizzy said, and she turned away. The third policeman was Constable Hart. He was an older man, with a squat neck, and he was the one in charge, asking to interview everyone from the camp. When Hart questioned Lizzy, he asked about her relationship to Fish, when she had last seen Fish, and if Fish had been alone. He was sitting so near to the edge of his chair that Lizzy kept picturing him falling. He asked about Raymond. What she knew about him. What time he had come to the Retreat that day. He seemed less interested in finding Fish than in finding someone to blame for her brother’s disappearance. Lizzy didn’t like him.

  “I was with my father in town,” she said. “When I left, I don’t remember seeing Fish. Anyway, it’s not anybody’s fault. Fish likes to explore, to wander. He’s curious.”