The Peerless Four Read online

  I was relieved because she didn’t smell like gin and the room smelled gin-less too. It was all body odor, stuffy with grief and sweat, and I opened the window a crack to help. She still wore her track outfit, and I shuffled around in the dresser drawer, looking for her nightgown, saying, “All right now, all right, that’s better, let’s get you to bed,” as if talking to a child. Then I remembered that she was almost a child, only seventeen, and there was no more anger inside me.

  When I pulled off her shirt, I saw that she had used her fingernails to make tiny red scratches all up and down her torso, and I said, “Oh, that’s not good, Bonnie,” and I moved her into the bathroom, set her on the toilet. But it made sense to me, cutting yourself a little to help let the pain out, just a little, where no one could see. I welled up with sadness for her, and for life making no sense. I wet a towel and washed her scratches, and she just sat there in her unhappiness and let me.

  “You okay in there?” came Jack’s voice from the other room.

  I told him to make himself comfortable and that we’d be out in a minute. We heard him shuffling around and settling, and then he said, “Ah hell, Bonnie. I’m so sorry. I’m so goddamned sorry you didn’t get to run.”

  Bonnie looked down a long minute, and then her face met mine with a sad, puzzled expression and she said, “I messed up.”

  I nodded, for there was nothing to say, and I crouched beside her and took her into my arms. She stayed there for a long time, and finally said into my hair, “I don’t cry, Mel, never, never. I never cry, never, never, not even when my momma died, and not even at her funeral,” and I said that she made up for lost time, and there was no shame in that, but that she needed to pull it together now for her team. We held each other some more, and a giant heat came from her skin and my body was cool and they merged and turned warm.

  When she was done, we pulled apart. I handed her the nightgown and she turned from me, unhooking her brassiere. She pulled the nightgown over her head, and when it was on, she slid her bloomers off and scooted them away from her with a foot. The whole time, she sat at the toilet, maneuvering her clothing, and then she asked if I cried when my momma died. I told her that I was a believer in tears and tried to cry at least once a week to help drain the sadness inside me, and that got a smile from her, a very small sad one, but I saw it and knew that she’d be okay then. I stayed crouched, stroking and taming her wild hair, and she bent forward just a little to give me better access. She said that even when she was a little girl, she’d go crazy when she didn’t win. That she could never do anything halfway, and no one could change that about her. She knew that it would be more fun the other way, she said, but she didn’t want to do anything unless she could do it better than everyone else. “It’s my dream to win gold,” she said. “To be the best out of so many millions at one thing.”

  “Maybe now,” I said, “you’ll think different. Maybe now, you won’t measure yourself in terms of winning and losing,” but she just stared at me.

  We found Jack sitting at the foot of the bed, his right ankle up and on his left knee. “Ah, hell,” he said when he saw us, his foot slipping from his knee to the floor, “Bonnie, I’m so goddamned sorry,” and he stood then, taking his turn at holding her. She surrendered to his embrace, and when it was all over, she said, “Who won?” and we told her the American girl, Becky Something-or-other, pretending not to know her last name, and Bonnie groaned and said, “Oh gawd, why’d it have to be her?” because we hated the Americans, entitled and refusing the pension, instead living large on their ship. Rumor had it that they ate ice cream every night, and no one liked them because they just assumed they would win. Overcoached, overtrained, overfed, and overconfident, was how Jack put it.

  Bonnie said, “When you hear it isn’t whether you win or lose but how well you play the game, it just doesn’t make sense.” She paused, scratched her elbow. “Why then,” she said, “did I work so hard to win the gold?”

  We didn’t say anything to that because she had a good point.

  “I’m so tired,” she said, sitting at the bed, “but I’m afraid to sleep.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I tried.”

  “What happened?”

  “Every time,” she said, her eyes round with wonderment, “I’m almost there, almost asleep, and I hear the gun and boom! I start running and then I realize what happened.”

  “Here,” Jack said, reaching inside his jacket, “I’ve got a solution.” Then he changed his mind. “Nah,” he said, “I want you to do something for me.” He pointed to the little desk with the pension stationery and pen tray, and he said, “Take a sheet of that paper and write out a contract, saying that . . .” he paused, looked at me, “saying that—”

  “Saying ‘I, Bonnie Brody, will not break down in public,’” I said. “‘I will save that for private, and I will be there for my team.’”

  “And then sign it,” Jack said, and Bonnie was already at the desk, the pen scratching across the paper.

  She signed and then said, “Done.”

  Jack came to the desk and read silently, then folded the paper and tucked it in his pocket. He sat at the chair, and Bonnie came and sat beside me at the bed. I scooted and motioned for her to lie down under the covers, and she did. Soon she was asleep, breathing heavily, and we turned off the light and Jack left the room. I stayed and slept in Flo’s bed.

  But before that happened, Bonnie said, “You want to know something?” and Jack said, “Of course,” and she said, “We were talking, all of us, me and Ginger and Flo and Farmer. We played this game where we had to say what scared us most in the world. Flo and Farmer said that they were afraid of death, and I said that I was afraid of losing. Ginger said that she wasn’t afraid of death and losing at all, that she was afraid of going crazy. Farmer got this look, and I asked her what she was thinking, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  She’d been staring straight ahead while she talked, but now she looked from me to Jack and back to me.

  “Now,” she said, “I know.”

  “All right,” said Jack, “tell us.”

  “Farmer knew,” she said, and she closed her eyes.

  “Knew what?” asked Jack. “I don’t understand.”

  But I did, so I answered for Bonnie, who kept her eyes closed. “Based on their fears,” I said, “Farmer knew that Bonnie wouldn’t win, and that Ginger will,” and it seemed obvious to me then that failure had been Bonnie’s focus, while Ginger had a foothold on victory, an intimate of inspiration and insanity.

  II

  I was light-headed from lack of sleep and from soothing egos, helping with meals, dispensing advice, listening to Jack. He felt responsible for what was happening and what was going to happen, the after looming before the now, knowing that the girls had all sorts of things in store, because he’d brought them to Amsterdam and it was history breathing on us.

  So I went from my room and was down the hall, and I was thinking about Onata Green saying that you don’t know a person until you know how that person wins.

  That morning Farmer had paused, the javelin lifted and resting on her hip. Not only had she cut the sleeves from her jersey, her bloomers were cinched to her thighs with elastic bands. There she stood, javelin bolstered, gearing up for her third and final throw. The javelin was so heavy—none of the equipment moderated for females—each time, she poked herself near her shoulder blade on her back, raising a purple-red welt.

  When she took off down the runway in long strides, I saw the angel, that profundity in motion that Wallace and I had talked about, her muscles working in beautiful reciprocity, and I, an unbeautiful watcher, felt it singing and working through me.

  The flesh on the backs of her thighs contracted and her arm pulled back, slinging the javelin while rotating. I stood along with all the others, knowing something was about to happen, inside the something.

  Her hand slipped—an audible intake of breath from us, her audience—but she regained her grip, ke
pt running, and we breathed again. Then she hurled the spear toward her imaginary prey. Her forward momentum made her hop on her right foot to regain her balance.

  The stick flew—going—going—a long trajectory—a low needling humming arc—past the flags marking her other throws—still going—past the second- and first-place throws—spinning and soaring—descending and spearing the turf. There it twitched angrily, as though saying, Take that, and granting her a gold.

  Later she said to me, “This is nothing but fun. And if it ever gets to the point where it isn’t, I’ll quit.”

  “How does it feel,” I asked, “to be the best?”

  “I just beat everybody who showed up today,” she said. “How about the gal somewhere in Africa? But she isn’t here. She could lick me. Forget about being the greatest in the world. I just beat the ones who got to show up.”

  I kept walking from my room, and I got to the sisters’ room, paused to listen to the burst of noise from inside. Ginger picking and strumming her ukulele. It was only sound, but then there was a recognizable tune, “The Charleston,” and there was Ginger laughing, and Flo and Bonnie laughing and clapping, and Danny telling her, Keep going, that’s good!

  I listened with my ear to the door for a man’s voice or laugh, but there was none, so I decided not to knock, and kept walking until I was beyond their noise.

  I passed by Farmer’s room and paused to listen, since I hadn’t heard her in the sisters’ room with the girls. At first there was nothing but quiet, and I was just about to leave, but then there was a laugh and it wasn’t a regular laugh. It was throaty and full of gratification, and after the laugh came a long soft low moan, and as I listened, my face and body grew warm, because that’s the way a woman sounds when someone touches and pleasures her intimately.

  For a moment, I was genuinely confused, not knowing what to do, because the person who was laughing wasn’t Farmer but was a woman, and there weren’t any men to boot from the room. But I was the chaperone.

  So I knocked, believing that it was my job, but as soon as my knuckles hit the wood of her door, I felt that I’d made a mistake, and wished that I’d left them alone.

  There was quiet for a long time, and I stood frozen and silent, and I knew that they were inside, frozen and silent and waiting, and then finally, the door cracked open an inch or so, and there was Farmer’s face very close to mine.

  “Oh,” she said, relieved to see me instead of someone else, yet there was still something like fear in her face, and it resonated deep inside me.

  “I shouldn’t have disturbed you,” I said, and her face calmed a good deal, and she said, “That’s okay, Mel. We’re just celebrating my gold.” She smiled and said, “You’re all red-faced,” and I smiled back at her, but it must have been a strange and sad and shamed smile, because she said in a comforting tone, “Really, Mel, I mean it, it’s okay,” and then she closed the door gently, and I stood there alone.

  I tried to let everything settle inside me, but I was still confused and my body was hot, and it seemed that by standing there, trying to make sense, I was intruding. So I shook everything off, deciding that what had happened and what was happening in that room wasn’t my business, and that Farmer was a full-grown woman and not a teenager, and it was time for me to move on.

  So I kept on walking, and then I was in the lobby. I hadn’t been able to run since the train to Montreal, the restlessness building, and the walking helped, so I kept going, out the lobby door and into the dusk.

  I was well down the street when I noticed Jack on the other side, walking with his head down, as if he just happened to be there, except that I knew that he was following me, and sent him a stare to let him know.

  He kept his head down, but he knew that I knew and his hands dug further into his pockets.

  A bird shuffled and tweeted inside a tree, and I searched the branches arched overhead, leaves black-brown against the sky’s dying light, and saw the bird’s outline. Hello there, I thought to the bird, and it said hello back with song, and I kept moving, thanking the bird with my thoughts, because the walk was working and the bird was an answer.

  After some time, I stopped, closed my eyes for a quick Slip Away, listening to the leaves and the sky, distant car noises, the whirring of bicycles, the tinkling of a bicycle’s bell. The air smelled of beer, earth, beef, strawberries, exhaust, and something oily and indescribable.

  I got my fill and then I was walking again, moving through a narrow street into a less narrow street and back to a narrow one, winding my way beside a canal, Jack behind me, a flickering confirming glimpse of him, and we walked until we came to the water.

  The ornately gabled houses, cafés, and restaurants slammed together along the edge, their shadows glimmering on the surface from the streetlights, along with a thin drifting mist. A boat’s horn, and then the boat itself, gliding, flat, and filled with people, everyone quiet as it went past, its lights curling over the currents.

  We walked and came to a section as quiet as a graveyard—no wind, no people, no boats—trees hanging over the water, empty brick buildings. I leaned on a railing and looked across the canal. Jack leaned next to me. I gathered and gargled saliva, spat into the water, a plop. Silly and crass, all for effect.

  But Jack said nothing, as if he hadn’t seen, and he lit a cigarette and handed me his case. I took one. He leaned toward me and I heard the rasp as he struck a match. He held it for my cigarette, and in the flame I wanted to hide, feeling vulnerable, and that he could see inside me, and that that was why he’d put the light there in the first place. But then he flicked the match dead and I was hidden again.

  Smoke coiled and disappeared from our mouths. I could barely hear the suck and lap of the water against the sides. I was thinking that he could ask me questions. Afraid that he would ask, but at the same time keyed up, hoping and wanting him to ask. Wanting to tell him something that I couldn’t admit, wanting to admit and tell him at once.

  We were quiet for a long time. I got angry, brooding, thinking that none of this was about me. I thought about the noises that came from Farmer’s room, and how that wasn’t about me, and how this wasn’t about me either, and I got angry. I thought about how Jack looked at Ginger sometimes, how all men looked at her, and there was something like jealousy inside me.

  Jack had a habit of edging as close as possible to Coach Sacks, and he and Sacks would watch Ginger when she practiced, making themselves invisible, occasionally calling out instructions. Ginger would only look back at them with a blank confidence. She didn’t care whether they looked or not. She was good, and she knew she was good, and she didn’t need their looks and coaching to confirm it.

  A cold breeze swept along the canal. The water sparkled from the streetlights, as though winking at the sky.

  I didn’t look at Jack but he was looking at me. I could sense him looking.

  I tipped my head back and watched the dark blue dome of the sky shivering with stars, and a sagging disappointment filled inside me, believing that none of this was about me.

  It wasn’t until later that I realized that maybe Jack had followed me to be absorbed with me in silence, and that I hadn’t understood.

  But that night my blood got hot, rising inside me, and I looked at Jack and said, “You want me to convince Ginger to give her image to your franchise. Convince her to become the Dream Girl for you.”

  He said nothing, staring into the dark canal.

  I coughed, found my breath, sucked in smoke and exhaled.

  “Don’t blame me,” he said, looking up.

  I squinted in confusion.

  “Don’t blame me,” he continued, “for the way the world works.” His face was a dark gleam, his eyes and nostrils darker gleams.

  “Look,” he said, “the others, they’re going to be okay, but her, I don’t know. There’s something about her, I don’t know—makes me worry.”

  “She’s a grown woman,” I said. “She can—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he
interrupted, for he didn’t want to talk, and it wasn’t until later that I understood that it wasn’t about his plans, or the Dream Girl, or any of that.

  He took my arm and guided me, and we walked for an hour or more in silence, until we came to a lit-up tavern, and we went inside and drank beer and listened to the small band. A group of Germans in a corner waved, figuring out who we were, and one of them went to the band and spoke to the leader.

  The band struck up “The Maple Leaf Forever.” They played it six times for Farmer’s gold, and each time, the group of Germans came to attention in the corner, standing stiff and formal in our honor.

  The next morning, we had some free time and the girls were feeling homesick, so the girls and I decided to go into town. Farmer and I didn’t talk about what had happened, and we never did. The ease between us wasn’t disturbed. On the street, there was this little old man—he must have been eighty—with eyebrows like white feathers, and one ear that stuck out of his head like a cauliflower. He put us all in his carriage and said he wanted to show us something in the art museum. So he drove us into town, and he was excited, and we got happy. I didn’t think the girls would be interested in an art museum, but they were.

  When we got there, the driver escorted us inside, had us put our hands over our eyes, and then he took us to one painting. “Look,” he said, and we did. It covered the entire wall. Rembrandt’s Night Watch. It was staring us back in the face, and we just kept staring at it for a long time. I had seen pictures of paintings in books, but it was alive on the wall, all movement and noise, shadows and light, and a golden girl near the center. Something about the painting put us all in a quiet mood but it wasn’t sad or heavy. We had never seen anything like it before. We spent the rest of that morning into the afternoon looking at art, and everyone forgot about being homesick.

  III

  Sam Sacks lettered in three sports at the University of Toronto—hockey, track, and baseball. A natural but he squandered his talents because of indolence, nights out, women, booze, and cigarettes. But he was such a natural that it was difficult to squander them completely. He ran the 800-metres and at twenty-two was on his way to the Olympics when he got drunk in broad daylight and fell down the front stairs of a bar, breaking his right leg in several places and cracking four ribs.