Milosz (23 page)

The small space is becoming overheated with bodies. Sammy nudges Milo again, signalling him to speak. ‘After Mother died,' Milo says, ‘you couldn't sleep in the big bed, remember?'

‘How touching,' Vera says.

‘After
my
mother died,' Pablo says, ‘my father humped my cousin.'

‘Cut,' Birgit says.

Vera serves potato cakes with lamb chops. Gus digs in. ‘
Jestem głodny
,' he says.

‘I like a man with an appetite,' Vera says.

‘
Dobra kolacja
.'

Sammy nudges Milo. ‘You used to love lamb chops, Dad, do you remember? Mrs. Cauldershot was always frying them up, with mashed potatoes and sprouts. You used to say, “What's wrong with a simple boiled potato? Why do the English have to mash everything?”'

‘Easier on digestion,' Vera says.

‘It's like with refried beans,' Pablo says. ‘If you cook the shit out of the beans they don't make you fart.'

Gus grabs another chop and two potato cakes.

‘He's half-starved,' Vera says. ‘When my cousin Alfie went into a home he lost forty pounds. Starving, he was, thinner than when he came back from the Jap camp.'

‘
Chce mi się sikać
,' Gus says.

‘What's he on about?' Vera asks.

‘I don't speak Polish.'

‘He looks a bit peaky.'

Sammy nudges Milo again. ‘Are you all right, Dad?'

‘
Chce mi się sikać
,' Gus repeats and stands up, revealing a wet patch on the crotch of his beige slacks.

‘Cut,' Birgit says.

After Val has found his father some dry slacks, Milo leads Gus and the crew to the basement, hoping that the sight of his beloved tools will jog his memory. Gus touches the mallets and chisels carefully then looks at Milo. ‘
Jakie masz hobby?
'

‘No,' Milo says. ‘It's
your
hobby. You're a stonemason.'

Gus runs his hands lightly over some blades. ‘
Bardzo niezłe
.'

Milo presses the start button on the cassette player. As soon as he hears the Polish folk music, Gus smiles his dopey smile. ‘
Lubię muzykę
.'

‘You used to love moo-zi-kah.'

Gus begins to sing and dance, which he never does. ‘
Lubię tańczy
.'

Pablo starts to clap in time with the music. Sammy signals Milo to start clapping. Gus begins a geriatric jig and Pablo joins in, linking arms with the old man.


‘
Cudo
,' Gus says and begins to chuckle, which he never does.

ammy, Birgit and the crew leave with assurances that they will be in touch. No mention is made of Milo's remaining ten Gs. He doesn't inquire about the balance owing because he hopes never to see Sammy and Birgit again. He puts Gus to bed and collapses on the couch. Pablo is already in position on the La-Z-Boy. ‘Your old man seems nice,' he says. ‘Maybe you just didn't know the whole person. It's hard to know a whole person. Sarah says we must not fear mystery in our relationships.'

‘What happened with Robertson? You were sanding the deck when she took him in a taxi.'

Pablo tosses a sock on the floor. ‘She asked me not to tell anybody.'

‘Why?'

‘She don't want people to know.' He tosses his other sock.

‘You can tell
me
, I know about all the weirdness over there.'

‘This is weirder. She don't want people to know.'

‘I'm not “people.”'

‘Sorry, but I'm a man of my word.' Pablo tucks his blanket around him.

‘Can you at least tell me where she took him?'

‘To that centre where they take the kids when they freak out.'

‘Did she leave him there?'

‘She was planning to. They've got this room the kid can go crazy in.'

‘The quiet room.'

‘He can't hurt nobody in there.'

‘Did he hurt her?'

‘I'm not telling you, Milo.'

‘Vera said he was saying terrible things to her.'

Pablo pretends to be sleeping. Milo throws a cushion at him. ‘What are Sarah Moon Dancer's views on Autism Spectrum Disorders?'

‘I told you already, she says they have special gifts.'

‘Has she ever tried living with one?'

Pablo unwraps a stick of Trident and starts chewing. ‘Do you think they'll let me be on your reality show?'

‘It'll be hard to keep you out of it.'

‘I've never been on
TV
. I wish Maria could see it.'

‘I thought you were over Maria.'

‘I am, I am,' Pablo says, a little too forcefully.

‘Where's Fennel?'

‘She had a late class. She's always going to class.'

‘Yeah, well, some people have ambition and actually want to do some­thing with their lives.'

‘What do
you
want to do with your life, Milo?'

He had an answer for this once. He was going to be a star of stage and screen. He picks up the remote and sees earthquake victims scrambling in rubble. The door swings open and in ambles Wallace with a woman. ‘Hey, boys,' he says. ‘Meet Lorraine.'

‘Hi, Lorraine,' Pablo says.

‘Aren't you cute,' Lorraine says. Her lips seem overly large and overly red.

Wallace heads for the kitchen. ‘I bought more vodka coolers, did the Mexican drink them already?'

‘I didn't drink no vodka coolers, Wallace.'

‘Fucking wetback.'

‘Is that nice?' Lorraine says. Wallace returns with two vodka coolers and begins to fondle Lorraine, who seems not to notice. ‘Is this your house?'

‘It's
my
house,' Milo says.

‘Actually, it's his dad's house,' Pablo clarifies. ‘Only his dad don't know it because he got hit on the head or something and can't remember nothing but Polish.'

‘How'd that go?' Wallace asks.

‘He's upstairs, don't wake him, apparently he has nightmares.'

‘Who doesn't?' Lorraine says. ‘Last night I was stuck in an elevator shaft and any second the elevator was going to whoosh down and cut off my legs.'

Wallace sits in the armchair and pulls her onto his lap but seems uncertain of his next move. Lorraine puts her arm around him and he resumes groping her breasts, awkwardly, as though he feels he should. An earthquake survivor holds her dead child in her arms and wails. Milo turns off the
TV
and heads for the Muskoka chairs. The moon, although no longer completely full, provides enough light to reveal the outlines of things. He stares at the trampoline and tries to imagine Robertson on it, life as it was before Christopher left.
It's not who you are with other people that counts, Sarah Moon Dancer said, it's who you are when you're alone. What goes through your mind in those moments of aloneness.

What goes through Milo's mind in his moments of aloneness are concerns about what's going through other people's minds: Tanis, Christopher, Robert­son, Gus.

Alas.

Then he sees her, on her newly sanded deck, sitting very still with her back to him. No light shines from the kitchen or Robertson's window. He approaches slowly, stopping several feet from her. ‘Did you leave him at the centre?'

‘Who told you he was at the centre?'

‘Pablo.'

‘What else did he tell you?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Good.' She drinks from a wine bottle that must have been intended for the couple to share. ‘There was this mother there,' she says, her speech slightly slowed by the alcohol. ‘Her son is sixteen, low-functioning
ASD
, like really out of it, and he's been bullied for years. It never stops, she says, no matter where she takes him he's called a retard and tormented. Anyway, they pulled his pants down and got their cells out and broadcast his penis worldwide. He kept trying to pull up his underwear but they just yanked it down again. Apparently it went on for fifteen minutes before they heard a teacher coming and took off. All the teacher saw was the violated boy throwing chairs. She sent him to the office. He told the principal nothing. The mother only found out because the sociopaths sent the link to her son and she knows his password. So there she was crying and telling me all this while her boy was trying to destroy himself in the quiet room.' She drinks more wine. ‘On my good days, I believe my son has a future.'

‘He does.'

‘No, he doesn't.'

‘He does. The bullies are the problem. He's not the problem.'

‘There is no life without bullies. Bullies rule.'

Milo would like to disagree but must admit that much of his life has consisted of submission to bullies in and out of uniform. ‘Isn't there some way to avoid them, take him somewhere safe?'

‘Like where?'

‘He was so happy in the ravine.'

‘He can't live in the ravine, Milo, get real, please.'

‘What did he do to you?'

She drinks more then swishes the wine around in the bottle.

‘Please tell me what he did to you.'

‘It's not important.'

‘It is to me.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I love him.' He has never said this before, never thought it before. Is it real? He fears she will think him insincere, or say he has no right to love Robertson or that he has no idea what love is. All of which might be true.

‘He tried to strangle me.' Her voice becomes so thin and shaky he has to step onto the deck to hear. ‘When he was a baby he'd push his forehead into my neck so hard it left bruises. It was like he was trying to push through me to something. It was like I was in the way. I'm in the way.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘He never looked for me when I picked him up from daycare. Other kids, they'd
look
for their parents, and get excited when they saw them. I could've been anybody. I just wanted him to reach for me once. Just once.'

‘He doesn't express himself that way.'

‘How does he express himself, Milo? Since you're the expert.' Her venom shocks him. She's in pain and wants to kick the shit out of her female side.

‘You mean more to him than anybody,' Milo says.

‘Only because I feed and shelter him and put up with his abuse. I could be anybody. Christopher's right.'

‘No he isn't, I'm sure he isn't.'

‘What makes you so sure? You're projecting
your
needs onto my son. You don't know my son. Nobody knows my son. My son doesn't even know my son.'

‘I think he does. I think he knows himself better than most of us know ­ourselves. He sees what's in front of him. The rest of us are running around trying to see something else, be something else. He just is.'

The screams from the house cause them both to freeze. ‘It's my father,' he says.

‘Your father's dead.'

‘No, he's not.'

Gus takes the blue pill supplied by the dwarf without hesitation. ‘
Jezu Chryste
,' he mutters.

‘He doesn't care,' Milo says.

‘
Przepraszam
.'

‘Are you okay?' Milo can see that Gus isn't. Sweating and shaking, he can barely hold the glass steady.

‘
Gówno
,' Gus says.

‘I think you had a nightmare.'

‘Of course he had a nightmare,' Vera says. ‘My cousin Alfie had terrible nightmares after the Jap camp. Even after he went dotty he kept having nightmares about the Japs.'

‘If he was dotty,' Milo says, ‘how could you know what his nightmares were about?'

‘Because he sounded like he was being tortured, just like Gus.'

‘Gus wasn't in a camp, he was a boy.'

‘Boys were in camps.'

‘He wasn't in a camp. We're not Jewish.'

‘You think they only put Jews in camps? What do you think they did with the
DP
s?'

‘What's a
DP
?' Pablo asks.

‘A displaced person,' Vera says. ‘Eastern Europe was crawling with them, refugees escaping the Russians.'

Pablo scratches his armpit. ‘So, were they, like, put in concentration camps?'

‘Converted army barracks,' Milo interjects. ‘They had food from the Red Cross.'

‘Not enough. The soldiers kept them on restricted rations and imposed curfews. My sister Vicki married a Czech
DP
. The poor sods were already starved from being on the run, had lice and countless other illnesses, not to mention psychological problems. Zikmund was always terribly jumpy. Vicki had to be careful not to touch him when he was sleeping because he'd lash out at her. Once he gave her a black eye. That's when he explained to her about the camp, what the older boys did to the littler ones.'

‘Gus never said anything about camps,' Milo says.

‘Why would he? Not exactly something to be proud of.'

‘He would have told me.'

‘Alfie never talked about it. Neither did Zikie, except when he gave Vicki the black eye.'

‘
Nie podniecaj się
.'

‘We don't understand you, love,' Vera says. ‘Speak English.'

‘
Nie mogę tego zrobić
.'

‘It's okay,' Milo says, ‘don't worry about it.' He strokes Gus's hair the way Birgit did. Touching his father has always felt prohibited. His hair feels surprisingly soft. The stroking seems to calm Gus. He lies back on the narrow bed. ‘Is the bed okay?' Milo asks.