The Man Game (6 page)

FIGURE 1.5
The Mary Shelley; aka the Great Fire

Calabi's commentary: Torture by the burning grip; a dance greatly unbalanced in favour a the cruel flames that lick at the leader's conscience.

TWO

Mr. Plod: “I wish I knew how you reach your results.” Sherlock Holmes: “I reached this one by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag.”

–
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Evil is brought from the north over all the inhabitants a the Earth
. Thus spake prophet Jeremiah, said Dr. Langis to the manager of Hastings Mill, RH Alexander.

Is this a prescription or a counselling? said RH, pointing to his doctor's leather case, which sat at his feet.

Y-yes, said the doctor. He bent over and opened the case and fished through it while continuing to speak. Y-yes, what I mean is, firstly, that the Lord does deliver us signs, forewarnings, and we are wise to heed them.

Vancouver's doctor should have no truck with the Bible, said Alexander. Reason and science and observation should be his Trinity.

Now in his sixties, RH was a strong, long-legged capitalist with a spider's patience. He sat patiently in his chair like that, waiting to snap. His bloodshot eyes were stuffed inside loose bags of purple flesh and covered by tangled eyebrows. His white moustache was stained a coppery colour at the ends from the pipes he smoked or, less likely, the blood he sucked: the doctor could not be certain without examining his patient more closely. The veins in his neck pumped, and these cords curled their way to the paperthin skin on the backs of his hands, which were spread into a startlingly wide radius over the wide armrests of his leather chair. But it was RH's bloodshot eyes that Dr. Langis studied carefully, and that offered the
best view of what kind of rotten state he was in. RH's irises were foggy, dark pools of turpentine.

The two men were seated in RH's study. The room was an immaculate tomb with blood-red curtains and steep bookshelves. There was a globe on a brass axis and other trinkets of power. The doctor recognized the heavy scent of vanilla and coca evaporated into one another. The source of this smell was a telltale smoke. It was produced by a substance that happened to come into Alexander's possession via the medical case sitting between the doctor's feet. Langis freed the buckle and opened the top of the leather case to remove a glass phial full of a dark liquid—the substance—and handed it to RH, who bowed his head in thanks and passed back his payment.

I regret to say so, Langis stammered, but, w-well, you see, RH, lately my research suggests that continued intake a the laudanum might adversely affect one's health. After time, the body becomes addic—

—The world is full a such nonsense, said RH. I know better than to take orders from a country doctor. You see that I need it. Just as some men need the stimulation in tobacco. When I'm without, I get the worst vomitous headaches, unsafe drowsiness. Stupidity. Dysentery. I'm prone to influenzas. The laudanum is the antidote, as you can attest to from your very own observations a my health. I am suited to it. And so is my wife.

You see, the—, back east, it's the medical establishment, they declared it …

Are we living all the way in Vancouver on the edge a the known world in order to follow the directions a the establishment? Pardon my manners, Langis, but I respect
you
. Don't listen to the east. I respect your opinion on matters a health. Why should I follow the command a this establishment when I have you?

Th-thank you, RH. You know the feeling's mutual. But you see, I was compelled to make an oath.

Are all your dealings so readily visible to this false establishment?

There's paperwork I must fill out on all occasions.

Such a shame. You and I, we must forge ahead, even if it means leaving behind what we're told to believe. I'd like to write a letter, Langis, to tell the establishment what a disservice he's doing to his fellow man, how a gentleman struggles under such fool and foul conditions to build the new world. Ah, it's such a shame. And there's nothing we can do together as gentlemen to sort this out between us? No, eh? RH slumped into his chair. He took to staring gravely at Langis's left shoe and, obviously deep in thought, scratched the top of his head like an ape.

Very little was left standing after the Great Fire a month ago, but RH Alexander's grandiose and unwelcoming house was perfectly spared. That day the servants, under RH's close watch, covered the whole roof in wet blankets. Not that soaking wet blankets would have changed the fates of most other homes and shops in the area, all of which were completely incinerated, some in a matter of hot seconds. The flames licked RH Alexander's house but didn't come nearer, as if by his glare alone Alexander could halt nature's course.

Now, let me see if I have this straight, said Dr. Langis, picking up the lost thread of a conversation that was ostensibly the reason he was asked to come visit RH. You tell me you hired a bookkeeper paralyzed from the
neck down
and you want me to visit him? To evaluate his condition?

Startled from his thoughts, RH blinked and sucked his teeth, then said: Hm, yes, hm, yes, yes, that's why I've asked you here today, in fact. To see for yourself. When I met Erwagen the day a the Great Fire, he described his predicament to me. He said he was
petrified
. RH chuckled a little. Imagine my heart, Langis. There's nothing to see for miles but blackened earth, smoking with the most noxious stink like from the vents a Hell. Souls walking to and fro in complete shock, dressed in rags. And here comes a man towards me, ha ha, across this maniacal landscape, tied to a donkey, accompanied by the Indian Toronto, and the most beautiful young girl you've ever set your eyes upon. I mean it. And the man says, from the back a this donkey, tied there to him, he claims to be my new bookkeeper.

His wife is …

Langis, believe me now or never, Erwagen's young bride is … talk aboot your se
raph
. If I could a cupped that face in my hands, felt that skin, and for just one minute stared into that perfect face, this whole nightmare would a ended. When you meet her, you can imagine the contrast. Her face, this black burning world behind her … my god. You almost have to look at her from out the corner a your eye to really see her.

Like the sun.

The sun is a mediocre star in comparison.

My, I'm sure curious to meet this couple. Scientifically speaking, I'm curious. But I stand by my belief. Like the prophet Jeremiah, you should be wary a signs like this, RH.

Calling attention to the words a God, Langis.

I don't recommend a cripple in charge a your finances.

You should see this man, Langis. I want you to. Samuel Erwagen. He's more than made up for his frozen limbs with the fire in his skull. I see a terror in his eyes, as from a vision. A vision a my future finances. Ha ha. He's a mystic just like you and I, Langis. As you are a mystic a medicine and I, capitalism, I believe contrary to your, what shall we call it—
medical prophecy
—that Samuel Erwagen is going to have an excellent effect on my finances.

As your doctor, may I suggest a cure for Mammon?

No.

Now tell me, RH, said Langis, gracelessly apropos of nothing, do you know who started this fire? There is a rumour some a your lumberjacks with a donkey engine …

Indeed, after hearing the same, I immediately conducted an internal investigation, and you're welcome to tell the man on the street I did so. I can't reveal the details, but I made sure the persons responsible won't be seen again in this city.

So it
was
your own employ.

Let's not excuse Mother Nature for the contribution a her wrath. The fierce winds were a factor that day, too, undoubtedly. Still, I remain disappointed that such stalwart fellows as my own good hires could allow a burn to get so out a hand.

Who were they? Litz and Pisk?

Cannot say.

They let loose Hell that day and haven't been seen since. Good then. I hope you meted out some a your own hell on them.

Yes, and whoever they be, they deserved their punishment.

Lately, I see nothing good in this place, said Langis, looking at his hands' fingers as he locked and unlocked them. I don't know how long I can last out here in this jungle.

There's worse things than being a doctor in the land a evil, I should think. After all, business is brisk. This is prime real estate. The Gates, my friend, are nearby.

North and South.

For a few more minutes they argued like gentlemen about money, God, and women until RH had had enough.

No chance you give me laudanum next time I see you, eh?

I'm sorry, Mr. Alexander, said the doctor as obsequiously as he could muster, pushing his pince-nez spectacles up the bridge of his moist noise.

RH nodded his head.

Very well then, said Langis, seeing that his time with this wealthy man was up. He stood and smoothed his pants and scratched his beard. The two men shook hands.

Langis went to see the Erwagens immediately, flushed from the conversation and the heat of curiosity. And if fear of the unknown was the reason he held steady to the banister as he reached the front porch, then seeing Molly, and in particular Molly's venerable beauty, was what caused the real loosening in his step. The wobbles. She deboned his legs just by looking at him so intently. He rashly accused her of having muddy steps, then immediately apologized for his impoliteness and blamed his own clumsiness for stumbling down three steps and bruising a shin.

I'm very sorry, he said. Since I got my licence in '75, I've been a farm doctor in Saskatchewan—coldest winters
imaginable—, Montreal the same but with city problems, Swift Current—a mudhole—, and now Vancouver. Never once in all that ice do I slip on a house call.

It's quite all right. Here, please, let me help.

No, no, all I need to do is adjust the kneecap here and … voilà, tip-top shape again.

She helped him gather his doctor's tools and put them back in his leather case, and he thanked her after three attempts to say the simple words. The fresh sweat on his nose meant he had to continually push his pince-nez spectacles back up his bridge.

Please have a look at my husband and tell me if there's anything you can do. It is terrible for a wife to ever be in a position to pity her husband. Wouldn't you agree? He deserves so much more. Will you be honest with me?

Abso-certainly, said Dr. Langis, limping along as he followed her into the house, watching her hips swing and the slow motion of her smooth round haunches under her skirts. I'm an h-h-honest man, he said and his face blushed deeper red, constricting towards purple.

But, listen to me, Molly said, trembling, and promise you'll do as I say. If you judge his condition, and it looks to you that he won't
live
, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

I understand.

Promise me?

Y-yes.

First he studied Sammy's pipestem legs for signs. The toes were as responsive as dried apricots. The knees did not react to repeated raps of the hammer. Langis massaged his pituitary glands. He hammered on Sammy's ribcage and listened to his heartbeat stethoscopically in his ear. The heart, the stomach, the organs continued their chores. He laid Sammy on his stomach, pressed the steel amplifier to Sammy's back (nothing so much as an involuntary twitch at the touch of cold metal), and heard the collapsing flesh muffle his shortened breath. He rolled the peak of each vertebrae in his fingers, examining the contours for fractures.
The wedge of skull at the top of the neck was the first place Sammy's sensation returned, but in the fibres and tissue below that point there was a total, ghastly absence.