Picks and Sticks

by Michèle Muzzi

  “Can I think about it?”

  “No — whoops.”

  “What do you mean, ‘whoops’?”

  “The ladder just sunk into the snow.”

  “Get off that thing right now! I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  When the ladder had scratched and scraped, tapped and fallen from the window, Mike came back into Jane’s room. She closed her eyes as he sat on the bed.

  “He’s crazy for you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Kinda like you for Irina?”

  “Yeah, anyway, so I was sayin’ about Irina — ”

  “Can you just tell me in the morning, Mike?” Jane sighed. “I can’t really take in anymore right now. I really need to sleep …”

  “Oh. Yeah. Okay. No problem. Want me to wait ’til you fall asleep?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Mike stayed, his elbows on his knees, and, as she drifted off, whispered the only thing she really wanted to hear.

  “You were great out there tonight … inspired, really, until the end.”

  Sleep didn’t last. Just before dawn, Mike tucked an exhausted Jane into her sleigh. They set out. Mike pulled her to Ivan’s cottage, struggling over the streets, then the field. Finally he asked, “Do you know anything about Irina and Ivan being Russian?” as his legs plowed through the snow. “What?” Jane exhaled. “No. You’ve got that wrong. They’re Yugoslavian.” She tried to save her breath. Talking was hard. “I don’t think so,” Mike said, and carried on.

  The wind was slight in the early morning darkness, and the snow was turning a deep indigo in anticipation of the coming light. From a long way off they could see Ivan standing on his small stoop, watching them approach. When they arrived, Irina came outside, and she and Mike helped Jane out of the sleigh and indoors.

  A kitchen table, sink, ancient hot plate, small refrigerator, and some crooked cupboards occupied one half of the open living space. A few chairs were scattered haphazardly around a fireplace, which crackled with flames. Jane noted doors leading to two bedrooms and a bathroom. The cold linoleum floor was cracked and yellowing with age; the walls were weeping with water stains. Ivan ordered Mike and Irina to move the chairs from around the fireplace and put the kitchen table in front of it. They did so, then lifted Jane with care and laid her upon it.

  Once Jane was in place, Ivan brought Mike over to the wall where the table had been. Irina stood beside him. Plastered on it was a myriad of newspaper articles. Jane craned her neck to see. Mike stood before the articles reading for a long time. No one spoke. Mike returned to Jane, wordless. Ivan stayed by the hot plate, and boiled water in a banged-­up kettle.

  “What’s going on, Mike?” Jane asked.

  “I … I can’t believe I didn’t clue into this,” Mike marvelled, stammering. “He’s Ivan Stepanov.”

  “What!” Jane exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Ivan said.

  “Ivan Stepanov. The next great coaching hope of the Soviet Red Army team.”

  “Well,” Ivan said, “… something like that.”

  Jane was flabbergasted. “Of course,” she said from her prone position. “Now it all makes sense. Your amazing coaching, the girls’ team you talked about … they’re in Russia.”

  “Dah,” said Ivan. “But girls’ team there is like here. Very few know it is something I do.”

  Jane tried to sit up so she could see Ivan. “I thought when we first met, you two were speaking Russian, but I wasn’t sure. I never really understood it, but … Mike, we’re idiots. We, of all people, should have known.”

  “No kidding. Stay still, Jane! You’re gonna reinjure yourself.”

  “We were totally into your defection story,” Jane continued, lying back down, craning her neck again. “But there were never any pictures of Irina printed, right?”

  “Is true,” Ivan said.

  “And you’ve grown out your hair a little, grown a mustache … no wonder we didn’t recognize you.”

  “I did not want anyone to recognize me,” he said, placing tea bags in a teapot.

  “I was so glad when you defected,” Mike said to Ivan. “All the sports writers, they wrote about how fair you were to your players … you and Coach Bobrov and Coach Kulagin … we weren’t expecting it … we were all supposed to hate you Soviets, but … all we could do was admire you.”

  “That is kind.”

  “Not really. I just figured we needed you here.”

  Ivan laughed mirthlessly. “And here I am, a fired Zamboni driver.”

  They went silent at that. The tea kettle whistled. Ivan poured the water into the teapot and brought it to Jane at the fireplace, Irina and Mike following with chipped teacups. As he poured the black tea, even that sound was mournful. Jane said, “They wrote that when you escaped, the heart went out of your team.”

  “Maybe so,” Ivan said sadly.

  Into the brief silence, Ivan gestured for Mike and Irina to sit Jane up, and he passed each of them a teacup. As they sipped the soothing, bitter liquid, Jane said, “It must be hard to talk about it. Leaving your people …”

  “Dah,” said Ivan, staring into the diminishing fire.

  “And you’ve kept your secret for so long …”

  “… So … you read about Irina, then?” Ivan asked, bending to put another log on the flame.

  “Something about an operation they couldn’t do over there?” Jane asked. “Your kidney, wasn’t it? You came with the team, right, Irina? On the plane? And then you got here and you … disappeared …”

  “Dah, shoved into taxi in Montreal. Papers thrown at driver. I try to tell him to take me to hospital, and finally, he figure it out, dah, Papa?” Irina said.

  “Dah. We trusted Canadians, you see,” Ivan said, poking at the fire, his back to them. Then he stood and fixed his blue eyes upon the Matagov children. “And we still wish to trust them.”

  “You can trust us,” Mike blurted.

  Jane looked from Ivan to Irina. “You can,” Jane agreed. Then she pressed on, asking, “But what are you doing here? In Parry Sound?”

  “We wait here for news of my wife,” Ivan choked out. Irina put her arm around his shoulder. She poured him some of the remaining tea. Jane watched as he lifted the shaking cup to his lips and spilled liquid onto his shirt. Irina brushed it off. The Russians tried to compose themselves. In a moment, Irina was able to continue.

  “I come in a disguise, as hockey player,” she said. “The final night we stay home, Mama cut my hair. And because I am so tall, Papa sneak me onto plane.”

  “Miracle, you think?” Ivan said. “Nyet. I had friend, a female friend, Olya, who arranges seat on plane for one more player. She is my friend from childhood, dah, but she is KGB now. But because she know me, and I am a bit famous there, she help. Very foolish of her. When we go through Canadian customs, other KGB officials raise alarm. We are one too many, dah?”

  “Yeah. I get it,” Mike said.

  “So … in the confusion, Olya steal Irina outside of Montreal airport. Push her into cab. And they cannot find my daughter. They still know nothing,” Ivan said triumphantly. “My daughter is well now, and they know nothing.”

  “But I see them surround Olya as we drive away,” Irina murmured. “I see that she is scared …” Mike put his hand on Irina’s shoulder and she did not shake it off. “They send her home, dah, Papa … and now she is disappeared, too. Just like Mama.”

  “You had to take the chance,” Mike said.

  “Yes. We had to take chance!” Ivan said with vehemence. Irina flinched. “Not even me, coach of Moscow Dynamos, could get Irina operation she need. And so, we take chance.”

  “And we leave Mama behind,” Irina said, low. “And now she is taken.”

  “For a sick child, you will do anything!” Ivan whispered. Irina looked at the floor. Jane had the sense that though they had
barely revisited their traumatic decision, they were disturbed by it still.

  Ivan suddenly seemed to remember the purpose for Jane’s visit. “Enough,” he said. “You must lay down.” Mike and Irina helped her lay back again. Ivan put his teacup down and lifted her shirt, but he continued to talk while he probed her injury.

  “Now,” Ivan said, “Soviet team has lost and I and my defection are blamed. I was here in Canada with them; they won two, tied one, and only lost one. I defect, they go home without me, and they lose wind in their sails. Karmalov’s broken ankle … Bobby Clarke … that had nothing to do with it … loss was all because of me. It is all on me. This, from Seva Bobrov, I know, Russians believe …”

  “No, Papa …”

  “Dah. Is true. And so, now KGB have Ekaterina … we don’t know where … They would get to me somehow. If you are Russian, they never leave you alone …”

  “Papa — ”

  “I am sorry, Jane. I concentrate now.” He closed his eyes, and Jane felt his fingers searching for the source of the injury. She groaned when he found it.

  “They didn’t lose because of you,” Mike said. “They won because of you. We were good, of course. But your team was amazing. We had no idea.”

  “Dah,” Ivan said. “I was fair, as you say. Seva was fair. Boris was fair. Too fair for Soviet Union. They got home without me, and it all fell apart. Seva and Boris had no support … and Canadians had their Espositos and their Cournoyers and their Hendersons … such heart … But we had heart, too. They just … ripped them out of my boys … grilled them about my defection … I must make diagnosis.” Ivan stopped talking and seemed to listen to Jane’s body with his hands. “Is serious bruise, but is not broken,” he decided. “This is good.” He went to a cabinet and handed Irina a salve. “Irina, please put this on her. Gentle. It will work itself in.” As Irina began her task, Ivan examined the serious faces of Mike and Jane. “I am sorry for our secrets,” he apologized.

  “I also,” Irina said.

  “You’ve been such a mystery to me, Irina,” Jane said, looking up at her. “Now I know why you always seem so sad.”

  Irina’s eyes were hollow, their colour faded. “Yes,” she said.

  “… When you had that paper at the pond … when you and your dad were fighting … was that news of your mother?”

  “A letter from her … but KGB read it and cover writing with black line and black line all through and there is nothing left to read but her name.”

  Where’s your soul, Irina? Jane thought. Trapped in the letter.

  “How did you escape, Ivan?” Mike asked. “The papers said nothing about it.”

  “How could they write that? Then, so many people are in trouble. We are found for sure. No. No press …” Ivan said.

  “How then …?”

  “They hid me under some dirty towels in large bin in basement of hotel in Vancouver. Tretiak. Evgeny Zimin. He did most. They got to him, too, I guess. Tretiak was too valuable and was forgiven, but not Evgeny. They got to him like they got to my Ekaterina … took him to military prison.”

  “Papa! Is enough!” Irina stopped what she was doing, and grabbed hold of her father, hugging him tight. “We do not know where Mama is. Maybe she is well!”

  Mike reached out and stroked her hair. She let him.

  “But I still don’t understand why you came here. To Parry Sound,” Mike said. “Why are we so lucky?”

  Ivan answered, disentangling from the embrace, cheering a little. “I always dream to see Parry Sound, home of Bobby Orr and Bud Matagov.”

  “Right! Of course,” Mike said. “Jane told me you played against him and the Kelowna Packers. Unbelievable.” Irina returned to Jane and her fingers continued their painful magic.

  “Ivan, can you tell us more about that?” Jane whispered, a plea for distraction. “I guess you didn’t play for Yugoslavia after all …”

  “Is true. Only Soviet teams compete against Kelowna Packers in 1958 in Moscow.”

  As the bright sun rose over the field releasing the night’s blueness from the snow, Ivan recounted his tale.

  “Your papa and I play against one another at that tournament. We are both captains: he of Packers, I of one of the Soviet teams, the Moscow Selects. But authorities do not let teams talk together. So, after Kelowna Packers beat us, I wait. There is a dinner for Canadians. I wait in my car while a boy go inside to find your father. He come out and he get in my car. I pour him vodka and we drink. We toast the other. He speak some Russian, your father, I speak some English. I hear something about your country, your freedom, but then we get scared. His family come from Ukrayina, dah? They could catch him, and he be made to stay. This is our fear. So he leave car, and put into my hand all rubles in his pocket. He make me rich for one month. And he give me something to dream about.”

  “Cool,” said Mike evenly, but Jane knew he was as much in awe as she.

  “I can’t believe you talked to him,” Jane said. “It sounds like it was so dangerous.”

  “Yes. And still. Nothing is changed there.” Ivan grew quiet, and Jane and Mike respected his silence.

  “Bud Matagov was amazing skater. But I think Mike is better,” Ivan continued after a moment. Mike blushed at the unexpected compliment. “And Jane has his … how you say … potential.” Ivan watched Irina working on Jane and asked, “What happen at home last night? Did your mother see you are hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “She was too angry at your defection.”

  Jane smiled weakly. “Yeah.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Jane swallowed and tried to look Ivan in the eye. “I told her I would quit hockey. Then I told George to tell his father the girls’ team is done. Done, before it even started.”

  “I see.”

  “Maybe that will make Al Leblanc give you your job back.” Irina’s fingers paused.

  “So,” Ivan said, “did George tell his father this?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Listen now. You must tell George not to say anything. Already team is more important to me than job. You understand this? And also, Jane, is not for you to end.”

  “But I can’t play,” she protested. “That’s it for me.”

  “But we can,” Ivan countered. “You are not solo on a team, Jane. You do not decide for everyone.” Jane blushed, chastised.

  “Okay, Irina, that is good,” Ivan said. “Stop massage.” Irina went to the kitchen and washed her hands. Jane gazed out the dirty window. The sun was above the horizon now, glaring into the room, the magic light of dawn vanquished.

  Ivan handed Jane the salve. “Put this on every three hours. Mike. You help her. No figure skating today, Jane. You do not skate before you go to this far-­away competition.”

  Jane blanched. “That’s impossible. I just promised them I’d concentrate. I’ve got new choreography to learn.” She told them of the significance of the change in levels, the added pressure.

  “Pretend to have a cold. Is very bad for a skater’s balance. Leonard knows this,” Ivan said.

  “I’ll … I’ll try,” she promised, thinking how painful it would be to cough or blow her nose.

  “But really, is better if you do not go to Canadians at all,” Ivan stated. “The rib is not well.”

  “I have to.”

  Ivan sighed and looked to his daughter. She nodded.

  “Then, we will go, too.”

  8

  The Canadian Championships

  JANE TROD CAREFULLY down the boarding ramp, and entered the plane bound for New Brunswick. Her mother followed with Leonard close behind, resplendent in a new white mink. My mother’s money on his back, Jane thought bitterly.

  For the balance of the week, she had managed to fake a bad flu, infuriating Leonard and ruining their chance to work on the
new half-­minute section. She stayed in bed, resting and icing her wounded side, had Mike apply Ivan’s salve in generous doses, and reflected on her life. As she hid its honey smell by drinking lots of tea, she realized that she loved the team. Ragtag and new as they were, she loved the idea of it, the whole notion of different kinds of people coming together, working together: Russians, Aboriginals, rich girls living on Belvedere Heights, girls from the technical school who would end up being hairdressers, factory workers, or professors for all she knew; girls Jane never would have spoken to, ever, in her life before the team.

  As the spasms settled down and she tried to walk through the pain, she carried on a constant conversation in her head. How could she get her mother to understand that hockey and the team made her happy? Figure skating was just so solitary … so lonely … Well, it doesn’t matter now, she thought as she gritted her teeth and forced her stiff body down the plane’s aisle, aware of her mother’s eyes boring into her back. It will take more than one miracle to get me back on the ice in either sport.

  Jane carried her skating costumes in a dress bag flung over her right shoulder. The bottom of it fluttered in people’s faces, disturbing their preflight preparations, but she could not lift it any higher. Deb insisted that Jane’s expensive skates come with them in carry-­on, winning over the protesting flight attendant with a promise of tickets to the event. Deb lugged the bulging skate bag down the narrow corridor until they found their seats.

  “I’ll sit on the aisle,” Jane volunteered, hoping for a little room.

  “Oh, darling, I don’t mind. I’m sure you’d love to look out the window.”

  “No, really. I … I need the air.”

  “Aren’t you feeling better? You told me …”

  “Yes, Mom, yes. I’m fine. I just want …”

  “All right. All right. You sit here,” Deb said, conceding.

  The two of them manoeuvred into their seats while Leonard took his across the aisle. “Rest up, Jane,” he urged once they were settled. “Soon you’ve got to be in flight in more ways than one!” He chuckled at his own cleverness.

  Jane rolled her eyes, and willed the plane to take off. Once they were in the air, she could recline her chair, close her eyes, and shut out the world.