Face-Off

by Michael Betcherman

  The only downer was that Stefan couldn’t stay in Vancouver while all the details were being sorted out. He would need a student visa but the rule was that you had to apply from outside the country. Anna had called her member of Parliament, who said he would do everything he could to fast-track Stefan’s application, but he couldn’t say how long it was going to take.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Anna,” Boris said when it was time for him and Stefan to go through security. They said goodbye Berovian style, with a kiss on one cheek, then the other, and then the first one again.

  “I’ll see you soon, I hope,” Anna said.

  How soon depended on when Stefan’s visa came through. Boris and Roman had decided to go into business together after all, and had organized a tour of Berovia and Maldania beginning in mid-August. If Stefan got his visa before the tour started, Boris would return with him to Vancouver to help him get settled in and then would leave for Maldania with the tour. If that didn’t work out, Boris would come for a visit sometime during the fall.

  “Take care of yourself, Alex,” Boris said.

  “You, too.”

  Anna and Stefan hugged goodbye. Anna had tears in her eyes, as if she was afraid of losing him again.

  “Later, bro,” Stefan said to Alex after Anna finally let him go. They gave each other the athlete’s hug, their forearms between their bodies as they leaned in to each other. “Skype me when you get home, dude,” Alex said. They jabbed fists, and Stefan and Boris grabbed their suitcases and wheeled them toward security.

  “I feel sorry for Boris,” Anna said after they disappeared. “This must be very hard on him.”

  “I guess,” Alex said, although the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been too wrapped up in the excitement to think about anything other than Stefan’s return, but it didn’t take a lot of imagination to realize how Boris felt. As happy as he was to see Stefan reunited with his mother and brother, and for him to be able to continue his hockey career, Boris had to be sad that he would be so far away from his son. But he hadn’t hesitated when Stefan asked if he could move to Vancouver. Alex knew his mother would have done the same if the situation were reversed.

  He put his arm around his mother’s shoulders and leaned down to give her a kiss.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  Alex shrugged and smiled.

  Alex found himself thinking about the upcoming hockey season as he drove down Granville on the way home from the airport. In all the years he’d played hockey, he’d never been on a championship team. This year his Richmond team had a legitimate chance. Everybody was back from the squad that almost upset West Vancouver, the eventual league champs, in the playoffs the previous year, and West Van had lost a number of its best players, including their starting goaltender. Correction, Alex said to himself. That hole has just been filled.

  Alex had more than the championship at stake. If he continued to play the way he had been, he just might get that scholarship to the University of Minnesota. You got some serious game. He got chills just thinking about the compliment Bill Henry gave him. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, the Voice warned. He hasn’t seen your brother play.

  “I still can’t believe this has happened,” Anna said, interrupting Alex’s thoughts. “It’s like a fairy tale. I have to keep pinching myself to prove I’m not dreaming.”

  Alex nodded. It was like a fairy tale. So why did he have the feeling that everybody wasn’t going to live happily ever after?

  ELEVEN

  Alex was barely winded by the time he finished his five-K run. The workout program he’d started a month earlier, the day after Stefan and Boris returned to Maldania, was paying dividends. Hockey practice started in two weeks, the same day school started, and he was determined to be in the best shape of his life by then.

  In addition to his daily run, he was lifting weights five times a week, following the same program Lou Roberts used. Some people thought goalies didn’t have to be in great shape because they stayed in the net all game, but that just wasn’t true. A goalie needed the strength and balance necessary to move quickly, and the stamina to last an entire game. It was no coincidence that Lou Roberts could do more chin-ups than anybody else on the Canucks.

  After he showered, Alex logged on to his computer and fired off an email to Stefan. Any news? The Canadian embassy in Sarno had said his visa would arrive any day. Stefan got back to him right away. Still waiting.

  There was no progress in the hunt for the Stork and the Snowman either. A couple of weeks earlier the Berovian government had put up a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of either man. The authorities believed the two men were holed up in one of the many remote mountain villages that dotted the country’s rugged landscape. They would need help to survive and the government hoped the reward would persuade one of their supporters to turn them in.

  So far there had been no takers and today was no different. Alex felt discouraged. Everyone believed the two men would try to escape from Berovia and find refuge elsewhere, where they weren’t so well known, and each day that went by without their capture increased their chances of getting away.

  Alex arrived at the agency at ten o’clock. A note from Tomas was taped to his computer. Bring me the revised itinerary as soon as you get in. The tour to Berovia and Maldania had started a couple of days earlier and the itinerary was constantly changing.

  Alex printed up the latest version and took it into Tomas’s office. Tomas wasn’t there so Alex put it on his desk. He noticed that a website for a plastic surgeon was on Tomas’s computer screen, with “before” and “after” pictures of patients who’d undergone a variety of procedures.

  “Maria thinks Lina needs to have her nose straightened,” Tomas said as he entered his office.

  “I never noticed anything wrong with her nose.”

  “That’s what I keep telling Maria. You know how much something like that costs?” He didn’t wait for Alex to answer. “Five thousand dollars,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “Is that the itinerary?” Alex handed it to him. He waited as Tomas read it over. “Perfect. Email it to Boris right away.”

  Alex had just sent it off when Lara came out of Roman’s office. She grabbed her purse.

  “See you later,” she said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Passport office. Roman wants me to pick up Sophia’s passport.” Sophia was Roman’s wife.

  “I guess you’re done for the day,” Alex joked.

  “You know what those lineups are like.”

  A few minutes after Lara left the front door swung open and Peter Jurak entered the office. Peter was Greta’s boyfriend as well as a friend of Roman and Tomas, and another member of the Berovian Mafia.

  “Hey,” he said to Alex, whose desk was closest to the door. He held out his fist. Alex bumped it. Peter was the only adult Alex knew who could fist-bump without looking like a dork.

  “That was fun the other day,” Alex said.

  “Glad you enjoyed it.” Peter was a makeup artist for the movies, and the week before he’d invited Alex and Lara to the set of a martial arts movie starring their favourite actor, Johnny Chin. When they arrived, Peter came out of a trailer with an old man whose face had more lines than a road map. It was only when he said hello that they realized it was Johnny Chin.

  “Are you working on another movie?” Alex asked.

  “Leaving today for a gig in Hungary,” Peter said. “Vampire Killers 3.” He held his nose to indicate that it was a real stinker. “I don’t really feel like going but if I was choosy about the movies I worked on, I’d be eating at the food bank.”

  Peter caught Greta’s eye and gave her a big smile. The two of them had been going out for over a year. At first Greta wouldn’t give him the time of day, but even though Peter didn’t suffer from a lack of women—“He’s a make-out artist, not a makeup artist,” Roman liked to say—he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Wh
y keep hitting your head against the wall?” Roman asked him once. Alex still remembered Peter’s response: “You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.” And going out with Greta was definitely like winning the lottery.

  Greta came up to them, purse in hand. “I’m taking Peter to the airport,” she said to Alex. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.” She and Peter walked out of the agency hand-in-hand.

  Lara still hadn’t returned by mid-morning when Roman sent Alex out on an espresso run. This time he was determined to ask Jenna out. No more wimping out, he said to himself, psyching himself up as he pulled open the door to the café. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.

  Jenna was working the cash. She smiled at Alex as he walked to the counter. The worst that can happen is that she says no, he told himself.

  “Hey, Alex,” Jenna said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good.” Alex could feel his resolve vanish into thin air. “Two espressos, please,” he said.

  Jenna called out the order to the barista and rang up the sale. Alex paid her and stepped to the side. He felt about two feet tall.

  He was still beating himself up about it when he got back to the agency. Roman was on the phone. Tomas was sitting on the couch.

  “It’s past seven o’clock in Brindisi. I’ll have to wait until the morning to call. Okay, see you for dinner,” Roman said into the phone.

  “How’s Sophia’s grandfather?” Tomas asked.

  “Not good. Not good at all.” Roman turned to Alex. “Boris called,” he said. “Stefan finally got his visa. He’s coming back with the tour on the thirty-first. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “Fantastic,” Alex said, but he had to force himself to sound enthusiastic. His brother would be here in ten days. He’d been waiting for this moment ever since he and Anna took Stefan to the airport. Heck, he’d been waiting for it his whole life. So why didn’t he feel more excited about it?

  TWELVE

  By the time the big day arrived, Alex understood why he was so ambivalent about his brother’s arrival. It all came down to hockey. This was supposed to be his year. He had it all mapped out. First team all-star, maybe even the league MVP for him, and a league championship for the Richmond Cougars. Stefan’s entry on the scene threatened to upset the apple cart.

  Alex stepped off the bus across from the travel agency just as Lara got out of her mother’s red Honda Element. She waited for him to cross the street.

  “You must be excited,” she said. “I can’t wait to meet Stefan.”

  “He’s looking forward to meeting you, too.”

  “I can’t believe summer’s over already,” Lara said.

  “I can’t believe school starts on Tuesday.”

  “I know. What a drag.”

  They forgot all about school as soon as they stepped into the agency. Everybody was in a frenzy. The tour’s return flight to Vancouver from Berovia had been delayed because of a bomb threat at the airport in Sarno. Boris had taken everyone to a nearby hotel so there was no danger, but nobody knew when the flight would be able to take off. Lara and Alex were kept busy all morning answering calls from anxious relatives.

  “Where’s the Jameson file?” Tomas barked, as he flipped through the top drawer of the filing cabinet. He’d been in a foul mood all day.

  “It should be there,” Lara said.

  “Well, it’s not,” Tomas snapped.

  It took Lara all of ten seconds to find the file. She handed it to him. “You’re welcome,” she said sarcastically when he didn’t thank her.

  Shortly before noon Roman came out of his office. “Boris just called,” he announced. “They’re on their way to the airport. The flight leaves in an hour. It’s due in around ten.”

  Everybody clapped. “Start calling people back and let them know what’s happening,” Roman said to Alex and Lara. He came up beside Tomas. “Boris said he saw Peter in Sarno yesterday, getting into a taxi with a tall blonde,” he whispered, glancing over at Greta to make sure she couldn’t hear. “I thought he was working on a movie in Hungary.”

  “So did I,” Tomas said.

  “I can’t believe Peter’s such a sleaze bucket,” Lara said to Alex after Tomas and Roman returned to their offices.

  “Maybe there’s an innocent explanation,” Alex suggested, although he couldn’t think of one.

  “Yeah, right,” Lara said.

  “Peter’s crazy about Greta. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sense has nothing to do with it. When it comes to sex, men don’t think with their heads,” Lara said, emphasizing the word head to make it clear she thought another part of the male anatomy was making the decisions.

  I don’t believe it, Alex said to himself. Peter wouldn’t go all the way to Berovia just to have sex. He wasn’t that desperate. Unlike me, he thought. He’d walk from Hungary to Berovia if it meant he was finally going to get laid. Walk! Hell, he’d crawl.

  The family members waiting for the tour group stood in front of the arrival doors at Vancouver International Airport. They were huddled into two separate groups. Alex knew that one group was Maldan and the other Berovian, although you couldn’t tell them apart by looking at them.

  “He’s here,” Anna said excitedly as the flight status for Air Berovia Flight 517 from Sarno changed to “landed” on the arrivals monitor.

  It was another twenty minutes before the first tour group member came through the arrivals door, identifiable by the bright orange tag with the name of Roman’s agency attached to his suitcase.

  Roman handed Alex a stack of restaurant vouchers to give to their clients. It was a goodwill gesture to compensate them for the delay, even though it hadn’t been the agency’s fault. “You take that side,” he said, pointing to the left side of the ramp leading out from the arrivals door. “I’ll take this one.”

  A fat man with long black hair and a goatee was the first to come down Alex’s side of the ramp. “Did you enjoy the tour?” Alex asked as he handed the man a voucher. The man nodded. He had one brown and one green eye, just like Lou Roberts.

  The arriving passengers received emotional welcomes from their family members. Even though there had been no real danger from the bomb threat, the relief on everybody’s faces was visible. The two groups gradually mingled into one as the Maldans and Berovians who’d been on the tour said goodbye to one another.

  Stefan was among the last group to arrive, pulling a huge suitcase and carrying his guitar. The moment Alex saw his brother all his misgivings vanished. He watched happily as Anna wrapped her arms around Stefan. The two boys beamed at each other. They were back together, and this time it was for good.

  THIRTEEN

  “Good luck, sweetie,” Anna said to Stefan as she pulled up in front of the school. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” she added in a reassuring voice. “You’ll have some new friends before you know it.”

  Stefan smiled. If he was nervous for his first day of school in a new country, he sure didn’t show it.

  “Mr. Dowd,” Anna said, referring to the school principal, “told me all your teachers are expecting you, and that they’ll do whatever they can to make sure you don’t have any trouble keeping up.”

  “Great,” Stefan said with a smile. He didn’t seem too worried about that either.

  “If nobody comes to pick you up for your practice, call me and I’ll come get you,” Anna said to Stefan, popping the trunk so he and Alex could get their hockey bags. They both had practice after school. Coach McAndrew had arranged for Stefan to get a ride to West Van.

  “I will,” Stefan said patiently. They’d been through this a million times.

  “Did you remember to pack an apple for his teacher?” Alex asked Anna.

  “Very funny,” she said.

  “An apple?” Stefan asked after Anna drove away. “You Canadians are weird,” he said after Alex explained the saying. “In Maldania we give our teacher a bottle of slivovitz.” Slivovitz was a kind of plum bra
ndy that was popular in Berovia and Maldania. It was Roman’s favourite drink.

  “You’re kidding!” Alex said before he realized that Stefan was joking.

  Freddie Curry and Kenny Nelson were standing by the front door.

  “Holy shit,” Freddie said. “I knew I had too much to drink last night.”

  “Say hello to Kenny Nelson,” Alex said to Stefan, pointing at Kenny. “You can ignore the other guy. Everybody else does. This is my brother, Stefan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Stefan,” Kenny said. “Welcome to Canada.”

  “I’m Fred Curry,” Fred said. He gestured to the school. “Welcome to hell.”

  “Kenny plays for Richmond,” Alex told Stefan. “He was on Team B.C. He scored the first goal against your team.”

  “Left wing. Number 11,” Stefan said by way of identification, to the amazement of both Kenny and Alex. “Wrist shot from the face-off circle. Nice shot.”

  “You were screened,” Kenny said. “West Van’s chances of repeating just got a lot better,” he said to Alex.

  “That’s for sure. We’d better get going,” Alex said to Stefan. “Dowd’s waiting for you.”

  Alex sat in math class staring out the window, waiting for school to end. He was eager to get to hockey practice. It was the first practice of the season and he’d been thinking about it all day.

  A pigeon landed on the steeple of the church across the street, reminding Alex of San Marco. Nearly two months had passed since the Stork and the Snowman went into hiding, and Alex wondered if they had managed to escape from Berovia. The government claimed it was checking every vessel that left the island, but the Italian coast was less than a hundred miles away, only three hours by motorboat, and if the trip was made at night a boat could easily avoid detection, no matter what the authorities said.

  The bell went off, interrupting Alex’s thoughts and triggering a mass exodus from the classroom. Alex saw Stefan standing by his locker talking to Emma Robinson. She was laughing at something he said. You’ve got to be kidding, Alex said to himself. Emma Robinson? On his first day? She was one of the hottest girls in the school. Emma laughed again, putting her hand on Stefan’s arm for a second, and walked away.