The Man Game (5 page)

Birds continued to fall from the sky, cooked and or suffocated.

The burning roofbeam of a stable crumbled and fell on hay with a gush of sparks, a stableful of horses screamed like mothers. The owner of these ponies was nowhere to be seen. The dry bale in the corner that fed the horses now fed the fire. The hay was soaked in flame in seconds and the heat pushed the roof straight off into the air. The sound of those horses perishing was enough to put Sammy to the brink.

A dark horse came rearing down the street towards them with its whole body alight, white teeth exposed as she screamed, looking devilish, shaking a mane of fire. Suddenly the mare stopped, took a step to the side, burning ferocious flames off
her back and neck, and then toppled to the ground dead.

We should turn back, said Molly.

Toronto stopped the donkey.

We must go to Hastings Mill and see if my boss is alive, said Sammy, expressing the last of his courage.

Yes, sir, said Toronto.

At the corner of Dupont Street, Sammy and the others encountered a couple scathed and destitute young women mostly naked, wearing oddments of burnt clothing, picking along the hot smoking ground for whatever was left untorched.

Hello, said Molly.

Don't know how I'm alive, said one of the women.

I don't know neither, said the other.

They had sticks, these two women, which they used to upturn the ground. Now and again this tilling alighted small pockets of fire which they stomped out using their bare feet. Only a short distance away was a huddle of more young girls in similarly bad shape who appeared out of a thick, coarse smog. About ten of them in all, really nothing more than children but for the looks in their faces. Their soft bodies were exposed to the fire. Then the eldest appeared, a woman whose mane of sopping wet, curly hair dashed side to side flinging ashen sweat as she commanded her flock. She stepped forward and called ahead: Come back here, girls, don't go getting lost out here now. That's all we need.

At the sound of the woman's voice, the two girls awoke from the daze of this terrible trauma. Looking for the first time at the three travellers, the girls mistook Sammy for a corpse tied to a half-dead mule, and squealed a little when he startled them by saying hello.

Who are you? one of the girls said to Molly.

I'm Mrs. Erwagen, she said, and pointing to Sammy, This is my husband.

Such a pretty face for a day like today, the girl said to Molly, weeping.

Do you need help? Molly asked.

Do
you
?

Come back here, girls. Tell your friends to follow if they wish.

The girls looked at Molly. She asked them: Should we follow you?

The woman in the middle distance continued to beckon them back to the flock, and one girl said to Molly: We never go nowhere safe.

Is that your mother? Molly asked.

Her? Hell, no, not our mother, ha ha, that's Peggy.

Once they returned to their ragged band of sisters, it quickly became impossible to tell them from the others. The girls were kept in a tight formation and slowly faded from view as layers upon layers of dank smoke blew across the path.

The Indian coughed into his sleeve, and Sammy's view of the world changed when the mule was turned around and began to walk again.

It's Sunday, Molly said. We should go see if the church is safe. People will be there.

Oh, no.

But not everyone had been in church that day, as the threesome soon learned. Among the fire's victims was an atheist's family who'd sought refuge down a well and died there when the fire passed overhead and sucked all oxygen out of the air around them and from inside their lungs. They saw the family, from the smallest child to the tall, thin father, when they passed beside a group of weary survivors hoisting the family one at a time back over the edge of the well to lay them out in a flat row, dead and grey, melted and dried with a final look of fright across each of their faces.

Do something, said a man.

Do what? said his partner.

They looked at the family for what seemed like eternity.

Amid the mounds of glowing ash where an entire block of buildings once stood, a single set of brick walls remained, roofless and smoking. Groups of people unable to control their weeping examined the wreckage of tailor shops, soy factories, opium dens, and sushi parlours, all of which had once crowded together to share this small area of town. Now everything was flattened across the razed black earth, with only charred bonelike sticks of wood poking out here and there from the hissing ground. But when Toronto saw the one brick building that still stood, he raised his arms and, sounding as if he'd just remembered the plight of his own kinfolk, cried: Wa, wa, Calabi and Yau.

He ran towards the rubble, where Sammy and Molly could see a fair crowd already forming around this single fireproof edifice. On the ground in front of the building was a puddle of glass, the window of a burnt shop. Molly asked a soot-covered man beside her what the place once was, and he pointed to two Asian men being consoled by everyone and explained it was their bakery. People took turns embracing the bakers. Toronto took his turn. The men were both much older than he but still robust. They were bald, wrinkled and dark, with sunken eyes, but their arms were thick and strong and their bellies stuck out under their aprons. The Calabi & Yau Bakeshoppe was known for its Dutch oven and the remarkable pastry they made in it. The pastry was the result of a secret recipe. The crowd in front of the bakery all exclaimed that without Calabi and Yau no one would be capable of imitating this pastry.

Yeast is safe, said Calabi in his English. Dutch oven is safe.

The crowd applauded. Toronto stood slump-shouldered with a look of sorrow and relief across his face. Molly was curious to learn more. She took a place in line and finally introduced herself to the bakers. Unable to approach the Rubicon of her eyes, the bakers greeted her with bowed
heads and humble noises, hardly speaking. Yau was the older of the two, a hunchback from years stoking the stoves. He wore his short hair inside a black Mandarin toque. Calabi, in a wide jacket and wider pants, was more contemporary in his style, and wore his sleek black hair in pigtails. His features were more symmetrical; he was a tall, intelligent-eyed, wideshouldered and outspoken fellow, fluent in English, who told Molly that Toronto was one of many many residents in town whose main source of nourishment was Calabi&Yaus, popular pastries. The extraordinary and renowned pastries made by Calabi and Yau were considered by Vancouverites as almost the highest achievement in foodstuff anyone could ever have created, and most of the population lived off them. Blackberry Calabi&Yaus with cream cheese icing formed the majority of Toronto's daily food intake. He often ate a dozen a day. The pastry itself had a sweetness that was a perfect molten combination of honey and maple, a sweetness that burbled and popped below the instant tang of orange zest that hit you the moment the Calabi&Yau met your tongue, and that finished with the savouriness of a fried chicken crust, plus the various fillings that changed with the seasons as certain fruits became available. While they always served a loyal dozen flavours that ranged from blackberries to chocolate, salmon to bacon, wasabi to red devil chili, the seasonal variety was what made so many residents of Vancouver addicted.

As they talked, Sammy noted how the two bakers seemed to be awed by his wife's unmistakable beauty, so much so that by the end of their conversation, both men were finally in tears. As she separated from their embrace, the heavy realization of how close they had come to total annihilation struck the bakers suddenly and with great force. They fell on each other sobbing while the Dutch oven behind them stood as immutable as a stone pillar from antiquity.

We should look for my boss now, said Sammy.

Yes, said Toronto with visible anguish, we go see Whitemans RH Alexander now.

We watched Ken and Silas avoid the possibility of broken bones, dancing or wrestling or both, back to back, hand in hand, traipsing side by side in a struggle to upend the other or start something. While they pulled and fought they still managed to be nimble, keeping up a one-two step, slap and thwack, twist and dodge
{see
fig. 1.4
}
. The crowd was hyper. Frothed by the action of this vile entertainment, laughing with fat teeth, they all knew this one-two step. Thump-thump, pompom … This jock's dance was side to side, a gutless masquerade of barbarity that passed for suburban joy. I was pale and logical compared to its lumbering rhythm. My tie was pale blue with an elegant design, the atomic shape of the silk molecule. I didn't know how to be here.

Can we leave now?

What's wrong? Minna asked.

Nothing, I said.

You don't want to stay a little longer, please?

FIGURE 1.4
Dip the Schnitzel

Calabi's commentary: It is like seeing a waltz performed by starlings, fast as light on water, a delicate pattern visible even as the men strike, dodge, and pummel.

I guess I can wait a little longer. It's just that—

What?

Oh, nothing.

Whatevs, Minna said, hugging my arm. Why would you think aboot something like that right now? Don't dwell.

I thought to myself: How could we talk of
love
in this context? Wasn't that obviously what we were talking about when we talked about rejection? My intentions weren't coming across.

The yard's grass was doomed. These guys were ruining it. What did I care? I wanted to have an out-of-consciousness experience. Instead I was over-intellectualizing everything. I tried to figure out what else I was thinking just then. If I was fated to think, what was the most intelligent thing I was thinking? Finally I said to her: You remind me a someone I've yet to meet.

Who's that? she asked.

Oh, I said, you know, the love a my life, perhaps.

That's not fair. I'm a real person.

Hm, you're right. I suppose it isn't. I'm sorry. Fairness doesn't come naturally to me. It's because I'm introverted.

I'm a real person, not some half fantasy.

I'm still sorry.

Yes, yes. But aboot what?

I felt a little sad. It was the sadness of being exposed as the dumber one. Of course she was right. She wasn't on earth for my purposes. There was nothing more or less real than Minna on a day like today, as we spectated this weird sport.

I thought one of them might not just cramp or dislocate a shoulder but lose an entire arm. What they were doing to each other was carelessly dangerous, somewhat like watching elementary school children re-enacting cartoon pratfalls that would shatter the hips of your average adult.

I said: Ouch.

She said: No kidding.

They started doing something else that was like mutual, competitive Indian burns, like attempting to wring blood out of each other's elbows at the same time. Ken was flushed and sapped, copiously sweating down his back in forking streams, and looked ready to call uncle, even while turning up the heat with his own twisting grip on a wretchedly screaming Silas. The pain showed in Ken's mouth and eyes, but Silas was screaming at the top of his lungs
{see
fig. 1.5
}
. A lot of people in the crowd were involuntarily clenching their jaws.