Black Sun

They pulled into Grand Marais in the early evening. A snowstorm had made the driving treacherous and they’d each taken turns at the wheel, peering into the storm and trying to follow the narrow track of Route 61 along Lake Superior. Even so, it was a nice drive. The last twenty miles, Harvey sat with Addie in the back seat, drinking wine and singing Christmas carols and teaching everyone army marching songs. The storm let up a few miles outside Grand Marais.

It wasn’t a big town. A lighted banner welcomed them to the Winter Carnival. Most of the shops were closed.

“Awfully quiet,” Addie said.

Harvey laughed. “Here maybe. Wait’ll you see the hotel. They go crazy. It’s all at the hotel anyway.”

“It’s a lovely town, isn’t it?” Grace said. “Doesn’t it remind you of something in Europe? I don’t know what.”

“France,” Harvey said.

“I think that’s it.”

The hotel was set off in the forest two miles from town. Seeing it again reminded Perry of the times they’d come with the old man for the races. It was a fine old monstrosity that grew on itself like a cancer, gabled and tiered and decadent from the days of the timber barons, red wreaths in the windows and a dozen chimneys perched on layered roofs. The windows were all lighted and the parking lot was full. Happy music played from loudspeakers.

Perry parked alongside the road and two boys came to help with the baggage. Harvey carried the skis inside, then went off to check on starting times for the morning races. The lobby was full of music and people and colored sweaters. Everyone seemed young.

“I love it,” Addie said. They found a place to sit near the fireplace. “Makes me feel rich. Really. Doesn’t it make you feel stinking rich?” Watching as she smiled at the crowds, Perry recalled how young she was. “Love it, love it,” she said.

Harvey came back with keys for the rooms.

“All set,” he said. “We’re up on the second floor. I vote we have a fast supper then join one of these parties. How’s that?”

The crowds were very loud. Somewhere off the lobby a rock band was playing and the drums thumped like cannon through the hotel. Harvey led them through a wide corridor and up a flight of stairs. The rock music seemed to follow.

In its way, the hotel was rather elegant. Originally it had been owned by a prominent St. Paul lumber family, and the fact showed in the fine timber work and beamed ceilings and the shadowing smells of old wood. Native fish hung on the walls with huge eyes and silver bellies. Except for the lounge and first-floor restaurant, which were carpeted, the floors were all polished oak, and the guest rooms were large and livable.

“Ten minutes,” Harvey said, handing him a key. “First supper, then we do some hard partying.”

“All right. Knock when you’re ready.”

“Ten minutes.” Harvey followed Addie into the adjoining room. Perry listened for a moment, heard them laugh about something, told himself to wise up and forget it. He opened the door and watched while Grace tested the taps and bed.

“Like it?”

Grace smiled.

“Better hurry then. Harvey says he’s giving us ten minutes.”

Grace bathed in the cramped porcelain tub, then Perry showered and they got dressed and listened to the radio until Addie came by with a bottle of wine.

“Got waylaid,” she grinned. “Rather, got laid on the way. Harvey’s still dressing.” She held out the bottle. “You want some of this?” She wore a white band in her hair.

“No.”

“Don’t be a sore loser. Here, drink up.” She poured some into two glasses.

When Harvey came they went downstairs for a late supper. The restaurant was full of music and young people and noise. Harvey and Addie were eager to get through supper, and afterwards they hurried off towards the sound of drums. Grace seemed glad they were gone. Perry noticed she’d developed the nervous habit of playing with her wedding ring, all the while smiling and nodding and agreeing. He told himself to be kind.

They spent a long time over coffee, then took a stroll through the hotel, then went up to bed. Grace wore a new nightgown she’d bought for the trip, and Perry told her it was sexy, and they listened to the radio until she fell asleep. For a time he felt fine, lying still, listening to the muffled drums and Grace’s breathing, not thinking about anything. Then he started thinking. He got dressed and went downstairs.

The bar was crowded and loud. Feeling guilty and lonely and a little foolish, he stood in the doorway until a man said he would either have to pay a dollar or find another place to stand, and Perry gave the fellow a dollar and went in. It was a mistake. Except for the dance floor and a section of the bar, the room was dark as a cave, bristling with ski sweaters and tight pants and blond hair, frantic noisy boisterous crazy sex.

He moved towards the bar. It was always the safest place. Three cash registers were busy and he waited in line, keeping his head down, scolding himself for not having the sense to stay away. He felt old. Bars always did it for him. Eventually he got a beer and retreated to one of the dark tables. He promised to drink the beer and get the hell out.

Harvey and Addie were dancing in the center of the crowd, and he couldn’t help watching. They looked happy. He felt rotten, but he couldn’t help watching. Some luck, he thought. A yellow-sweatered girl passed by, smiling at him, and he felt a little better, and in a few minutes she passed by again, then stopped and came back. He couldn’t see much but the yellow sweater.

“What do they do with an amputated leg?” she said.

“What?”

“This guy I was just dancing with asked me that,” she said. “I didn’t know the answer. Amputated legs. What in the world do they do with them?”

“I don’t know. I give up.”

“Don’t you know?”

“No. Is it a riddle?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “This guy I was dancing with … Do they bury them? Or maybe they just burn them. You aren’t a doctor, I guess.”

He said he wasn’t. He saw Addie and Harvey were still on the dance floor.

“Oh, I thought maybe you were a doctor,” said the girl. The yellow sweater seemed to swallow her. “You kind of look like a doctor, you know.”

“I’m unemployed,” Perry said. He had to shout.

The girl nodded sympathetically. “I know. Times are bad. This guy I was dancing with, he had the same problem almost.” She looked about the room and pointed at a blue and gold sweater. “That’s him,” she said. “I suppose you don’t know his name.”

“No.” He tried to think of something else to say. It wasn’t necessary. She sat down. A moustached waiter brought over two mugs of beer, and the girl said she worked in Duluth for the port authority, and Perry nodded, and the girl told him how she’d been coming to the winter games for years and years and years, but that actually she’d never tried skiing herself, and that her home was originally in Chicago, but that she hated the place and never went back except for holidays, and that she was here with a darling friend who never got in the way, and that she loved meeting new people and that this was the perfect place for it, and that she wore her wedding ring only for nostalgia because the divorce had been more than a year ago and she’d forgotten all about him. The yellow sweater swallowed her up.

“You want to dance?” Perry said.

“No.” As though hearing a dinner bell, the girl checked her watch.

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh, you know.” Vaguely, she turned her finger in the smoky air. “Meet people, that sort of thing.” She looked about the room, saw someone and waved. It was the blue and gold sweater. He came over smiling. She got up to dance with him. “Thanks for the nice talk,” she said. “You’re a nice man.”

“Bye,” Perry said. It happened all the time.

He got up to go, but Addie and Harvey were already at the table.

“Wow,” Addie said. “We thought you scored, what happened?” She was a little drunk. She seemed even younger when she was drunk. She took off her shoes and put them on the table. “Tell us what happened.”

“Nothing. I came down for a drink. How’s the party?”

“Spectacular. You had me furious,” she grinned. “Give me your beer. You had me furious with … I don’t know what. Tell him, Harvey.”

“Jealous,” Harvey said.

“That’s it!”

“I’m going to bed.”

“No. It’s a party.”

“Okay. Tell me all about it in the morning.”

“But it is … it is morning. We have to dance. You had me furious.” She pulled him up, and they went out and danced, then they drank a pitcher of beer and he went up to bed.

Grace was awake. She didn’t say anything but he could feel it. Some luck, he thought. He kissed her and lay back and listened to the drums pounding downstairs, wondering how it would have felt to have danced with the yellow-sweatered girl, remembering how it felt to dance with Addie, the way she danced with her pelvis out, barefoot and saying how furious she was, the band playing louder until it stopped and just the drummer played, how everyone stopped dancing and clapped in time to his drumming, then how the guitar joined in and then the electric piano, then how everyone began dancing again, the way Addie danced.

Much later, Harvey woke him. “Come on, come on. We’re partying in our room. Big frigging party, must have you there. Addie’s kidnapped a genuine Olympic cross-country skier and we’re holding him for ransom. It’s a big frigging party. A sad spectacle.”

“Are you drunk? What time is it?”

Harvey threw on the light. Grace rolled over and pushed her face into the blankets.

“No, you have to come. It’s a fine spectacle of a party.”

Reluctantly, Perry dressed and followed into the adjoining room. A radio was playing loud music.

“This is Danny or Dan or Daniel, one of those names.” Harvey pointed out a handsome boy asleep on their bed. Addie was wiping his brow with a cloth.

“He’s a little sick,” Addie said. “Hi, sleepy. You’ve missed a fine party. Did Harvey tell you? We’ve missed you. I think we’re all raving drunk now. Harvey, see if there’s wine for your brother. Look in the bathroom.”

“I thought you people went to bed. What time is it anyway?”

“Oh, we went to bed and then got up, you know very well how those things go, up and down, in and out, all that. Anyway, this is Daniel. He’s going to be skiing in the Olympics, did Harvey tell you? He is. I wish I could wake him up. Isn’t he some handsome Olympic skier? He got a little sick and threw up in the bathtub but now he’s all right. Did you find your brother some wine?”

Harvey handed him a full glass. “This … wine is slightly used but it’s vouched for as very good wine.”

“Oh, Harvey. Harvey, you’re a boor. Behave. Get your brother something respectable to sit on, that chair. And behave yourself.”

The boy awakened and got up and went into the bathroom.

“I think he’s sick or something,” Harvey said. “Just a kid, you know. Some Olympic champion he’ll be.”

“Had his picture in a ski magazine,” said Addie.

“Salute him.” Harvey lifted his glass and spilled some. “Salute. Addie’s been fawning all over him. She gets that way.”

“Behave yourself,” she said. “Paul, do sit down. We can keep the party going.”

“I’m going back to bed.”

“Never! No.” Addie sat on a blanket cross-legged, struggling to pull the cork from a fresh wine bottle.

“Victory for Daniel!”

“Behave.”

The boy came out of the bathroom. He looked a little better.

“Daniel, this is another of my great friends. Now, you just sit still, you can’t have any more of this.”

“Victory for Daniel!” shouted Harvey.

“Hush up, you. Daniel, this is Paul. Daniel’s going to be skiing in the Olympics, aren’t you? Daniel’s all the way from St. Paul. Everybody sit down now.”

The boy was white-faced. Addie took his dirty sweater and wrung it out and hung it over the radiator. The boy sat on the bed then he lay back. “I believe Daniel’s very drunk,” said Harvey. “I do believe so. Got to have more stamina. Stamina and wine. Wine and stamina. Isn’t this a great party? Just me and you and Daniel and stamina and wine. Make a fine group. And Addie, too. Addie, aren’t you going to tuck Daniel in? Addie’s found an Olympic skier. A sad spectacle.”

“Harvey, behave yourself. I think we should all be quiet.”

“Stellar human being,” Harvey said. He was drunk. “Everybody’s stellar. Why aren’t we asleep? Bad races tomorrow. Wonder what time it is.”

“It’s dawn,” Perry said. “I’m going to bed, so you all have a nice party.”

“No!” Addie said. “Here, I have to get Daniel back to his room. Somebody has to help me.”

“Not me.”

“Victory for Daniel!” muttered Harvey. He was sitting on the floor. The radio was still going. Addie got the boy up. “Come on now, we’ll get you to a bed. Be a good boy. Isn’t he a fine-looking lad, Olympic material all the way?” She led him to the door. Perry held it open for her, and Addie guided the boy down the hall.

Harvey was slumped on the floor.

“Better get into bed,” Perry said.

“Think I’ll sleep here. I’m fine. A fine party. A stellar lad, that Daniel. Olympic material in his blond hair, don’t you think? Stellar. Wine and stamina.”

Perry helped his brother undress.

“Yes, that Daniel is a fine lad. He’s a fine, fine, fine … boy. Daniel is his name. Did you meet him?”

“Yes,” Perry said.

“Stellar lad.”

“Take off your shirt, Harv.”

“Addie’s fallen for him. Poor fella. You got my shoes? Can’t find them anywhere.”

“They’re under the bed. Lie down now, Harv.”

“What time is it?”

“Dawn and you have to race tomorrow.”

“Dawn. Good God. Gotta brush my teeth.”

“Just lie down. I’m going back into bed now.”

“Bed, my God. Gotta brush my teeth. Breath’ll stink in the morning if I don’t brush ’em.” Harvey went into the bathroom and closed the door. Perry heard him vomit, then the water ran in the sink and he listened to Harvey brush his teeth.

“Much better now,” Harvey said. He sat on the bed. “Stellar human being. Why can’t everyone be so stellar?”

“I don’t know,” Perry said. “You all right now?”

“Good God, yes. Do you have my shoes?”

“Under the bed. Good night.”

“Dawn. Night. Addie fell for the stellar chap.”

“I know it. You’ll be better.”

“She falls and falls. She falls for everyone. Why can’t I be stellar?”

“You’re a one-eyed stellar fellow.”

“War hero. I’m a bloody war hero. You know that?”

“I know it.”

“Scary. Did you know I lost an eye over there? Do you know how it happened?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Turn the bloody light off. Can’t even remember. Everything was so dark, cow shit and mildew. Addie and that stellar … Some holiday.”

Perry woke up with a toothache. He pushed his tongue against the raw tooth. Warmed it. He dressed, took two aspirin, and washed his face. There was a note from Grace; she was having breakfast. He shaved and pulled on a sweater and hurried downstairs. It was nearly noon. A blackboard stood in the center of the lobby, posting times for the first heats. Harvey was listed for an afternoon heat, and his own name was down for the last race of the day.

He went to the starting table and scratched his name from the races. He was too tired. The starter gave him a ten-dollar refund, and Perry walked up to the restaurant and found Grace and Addie having breakfast. Addie looked fresh.

“Some party last night,” she said. “I was just telling Grace about it. Do you want some coffee? I think they’ve stopped serving by now.”

Perry called the waiter over and ordered a fresh pot. His tooth was still aching.

Later they walked outside. After the night snow, the day was bright. Grace took his arm and they walked the half-mile to the racecourse. Addie went off to wish good luck to her new friend Daniel.

Balloons were tied to spruce boughs and the crowd was young and happy. The racecourse ran along an eleven-mile stretch of the Gunflint Trail, emptying on to the flat snow of a small lake. Iron poles were sunk into the ice and between them was stretched a cord with red and green banners dangling, the finish line. A heat was in progress on the trail and a loudspeaker blared out the positions and numbers of the racers. The crowd cheered and moaned and clapped for the unseen skiers, watching for when they would break on to the lake for the final half-mile. The day was brilliant. Children were building a snow fort behind the finish line, and further back were two large warming houses that sold beer and hot coffee and sandwiches, and when the loudspeakers weren’t announcing races they played happy music. Perry caught a glimpse of Addie and the boy, then they disappeared in the crowd. It was a bright day. He smelled hot popcorn. Soon the heat of skiers broke out of the woods and on to the lake. By the naked eye, they did not appear to be moving at all, spots of color crouched low, so slow in progress that to someone not looking for them they would have been missed entirely, tiny patches of color that instead of moving appeared rather to expand and grow, the sun behind them giving the scene a fluid unsteadiness. Perry stood and watched them come. The loudspeaker announced the leader as Number Nine, heat four of the championship flight. A few people cheered, likely Number Nine’s family or friends. Gradually the skiers came into focus. Then quickly. Then the sound of their skiing. Number Nine held a great lead. He skied with long professional strides, good rhythm.

When Number Nine cut through the bannered finish line, the rest of the pack was so far back that Perry could not make out their numbers.

Grace found a bench and they sat to watch three more heats finish, then they walked back up towards the hotel, Grace holding his hand and chatting, and they had a long lunch alone. Afterwards she went up for a nap and Perry looked in on Harvey. The shades were drawn but Harvey was awake and waxing his skis. The room was littered with bottles and glasses. It had a peculiar odor.

“Hard night,” Harvey said matter-of-factly. “I swear that’s the last ounce of booze I touch, forever and ever. Truly a remade man.”

“Well, you look all right.”

“I slept. Clean living, too. Say, have you seen Addie?”

“No.” Perry decided to lie. He didn’t decide, he simply lied. “No, but you’d better put a hurry to it. You’re scheduled for three o’clock. You feel up to it?”

“Clean living. How about helping with that other ski? Be a good brother.”

Perry found a sock and began waxing one of the long skis.

“What time do you ski?”

“I scratched,” Perry said.

“Scratched?”

“Too tired. I’ll just relax and watch you win a big trophy.”

“Too bad. You were in the money, I’ll bet. All that practice and everything.” He started to smile, but the smile jerked like a tic.

After a time Harvey went to the bathroom and brought out a half-empty bottle of wine and drank without a glass. He was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans. Even after his sickness, he looked strong. He was lean. He lit a cigarette and rested it on a bed-stand. “That Addie.” He wiped another coat of wax on his skis and shaved the edges with a razor blade. “I’ve carried on too much. Have to stop carrying on.”

“You’ll win her, Harv. It’ll turn into a good vacation. Grace is loving it. She likes vacations no matter what.”

“Got to stop carrying on so,” said Harvey.

“Right.”

“Came home from … feeling like a bum. War and all. Wasn’t so good, you know. I told you something about it last night, didn’t I?”

“Just a little. You were drunk. I forget.”

“Forget, remember, forget, remember. No matter, I was a goddamn baby anyway. Is that ski done? What time is it? Just forget everything I say.” Harvey took a swig on his wine bottle. He went to the windows and looked out towards the west. Then he came back. He put a hand on Perry’s shoulder, slight at first and then harder. “You’re a good man, brother,” he said. He looked at Perry through his good eye. “I’m serious, you’re really my goddamn brother, aren’t you?”

“Right,” Perry said.

“Impossible, you’d think.”

“I guess so.”

“I mean, what’s a brother?”

“Yeah. I don’t know.” They were quiet awhile. “I don’t know, Harv.”

“Don’t ever listen to me.”

“I don’t, Harv.”

“That’s good. Don’t ever start listening.”

“You’d better put a step to it. Quarter to three already.”

“I mean, what are we? We’re bloody adults now, have you ever stopped to think about that?”

“Now and again.”

“So you know it’s true. Bloody adults, I can’t get over it. You understand what I’m driving at?”

“More or less, Harv.”

Harvey smiled. “Good. You want some of this wine? Awful stuff. Don’t know where I got it.” He stood up and slipped on his sweater. He put on sunglasses and a fuzzed-tipped stocking cap. “Did I tell you? I was thinking. I shouldn’t say, I guess. But what the hell. I was thinking maybe about asking Addie to get married, the whole schmeer. What do you think? After last night, I don’t know. I was just thinking about it.”

“Good idea,” Perry said.

Harvey grinned. “Good idea if it works.”

“Right. Don’t forget your leggings. Can’t be a winner without those leggings.”

“I’m a winner, all right,” Harvey said. “And you are a brother, aren’t you?”

“Stellar,” Perry smiled.

“Stellar. Right. Stellar, now that’s a good word.”

Perry carried his brother’s skis from the hotel and down towards the starting area.

“I’m betting on you,” he said. “Give it hell.”

It was the last championship heat. The day was already coming on towards dusk. Perry watched as six ski-mobiles took the racers down the trail to where the heat would begin. When they were out of sight, he walked to the finish line and had a cup of coffee and watched several heats come in. One turned into a good race, a wild and desperate finish that had the crowd yelling, won by a fifteen-year-old boy. The boy was a native and the crowd’s favorite. Perry cheered along with everyone else. The boy’s father was drunk and happy, hugging the boy and dancing about, holding a can of beer that spilled everywhere. The crowd was happy. Everyone jostled the winning boy and Perry went over to shake his hand. The boy’s father was jumping and dancing. While everyone celebrated Addie came through the crowd. Perry watched her. Eventually she saw him and smiled and waved and came over.

“Don’t be so nasty. I hope you aren’t going to start, too.”

“Some sweetie.”

“Peeping Paul. Here, let me have a sip of that. It’s actually colder out here than you’d think with all the sun.”

“So where’s your new friend Daniel?”

“Racing. Don’t be nasty now. I’m terrible, I’m a witch. Where’s a good spot to watch them finish?”

They found a bench overlooking the lake.

Addie had a pair of binoculars and she scanned each group of racers. As the heats finished, the crowd got smaller and less boisterous. The dusk was rapidly coming on, and with it the cold. Addie went off for more coffee, and as she returned a group of skiers broke from the forest. The snow had formed a dark crust. On the far side of the lake, the skiers seemed to advance just on the edge of dusk.

A brace of spotlights was turned on, illuminating the finish line and part of the lake, but beyond the slice of light it was night.

“Can’t see a thing,” Addie said. “Wouldn’t you know it?”

She handed Perry the binoculars. Through them, he could just make out the forms of the skiers. They were hunched low and did not look much like people.

“What number is your friend Daniel?”

“Six. Sixteen. Sixteen, I think. He’s wearing that maroon and gold college sweater.”

“Can’t see color.” He searched for Harvey in the coming forms. The binoculars were useless.

The forms were knotted together. They came in a pack. He heard them before he saw them. He heard their skis gouging the snow, then he heard them howling. He heard their breath in the back of his thoughts.

He gave Addie her binoculars.

“Here they come!” she said. “Here they come.”

Perry pulled his glasses tight and peered out. It was cold and he was shivering.

They were howling. The pack was tight together. Dark, hunched shapes. In the dusk, they had the forest weight behind them and they came hurtling in their pack, howling and banded together and merging into a single shadow as they crossed the lake towards the bannered cord and spotlights, the harsh sounds of their flight and chase coming closer. Their heads were low out and deformed over the snow. Their tongues and teeth. One of them fell and toppled and the fallen was left abandoned, and the others came on, crossing the lighted fringe and into the spotlights. The skis snapped against the snow, a quick crisp cutting sound, and in the spotlights the ski poles gleamed silver and Perry saw the racers’ breath frosting in a single cloud that was swept behind them, and the racers were braced in the spotlights. Perry leaned forward. Their faces were red. One of them shrieked and the others took up the howl. Red faces, shining, nostrils flared, they were separate from their skis. Twenty yards from the finish line, another skier fell and rolled.

It was over in a moment, the pack had a leader. Low and poles under his arms, the leader’s mouth was pulled in a long fierce grin, and he crossed the line and held his poles high and howled. The others came across like gazelles on a faraway plain, then a herd, the harsh grating noises as they braked.

“It was Daniel!” cried Addie from somewhere.

“What?”

“He won! I knew it, I knew all along.”

Addie got up and gave him the binoculars to hold and rushed off to the finish area.

The winner was surrounded.

Perry waited awhile then went down to the finish line. Daniel was being congratulated. The loudspeaker gave his winning time. The boy did not look tired. The other racers were sitting or lying still, breathing hard, but the boy was standing and leaning against his poles while people shook his hand. His time was marked up on a blackboard.

Perry shook the boy’s hand and said it was a good race, and the boy nodded but he was looking at the blackboard, then at Addie, and he did not seem excited.

Then Harvey crossed the line. He was alone and his leggings and sweater were snow-clotted.

“Harvey!” Perry called, and watched as his brother slowed to an awkward silence under the lights. Harvey raised his head and his throat bulged, his skin cream white and old, and he howled. He quivered, his throat bulged again, and he turned to howl at the black sky, then his skis slipped from under him and in slow motion he sat on the lake, then lay back, face up.

Perry knelt down. Harvey was grinning. “Just a stupid country race,” he said.

“I know it.”

“Help me up, for God’s sake.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I fell.”

“How could you fall?”

“I just fell. I got tired. Help me up.”

Perry unbuckled the skis and clapped the snow from them.

“I suppose the Olympic champ won.”

“It was a good race. You all right?”

“I guess. Just a country race.”

“Yeah, come on.”

Harvey brushed the snow off. As he stood, the spotlights were turned off and the lake went dark. The remaining crowd was leading Daniel up towards the hotel. “There they go,” said Harvey. “It was just a crummy country race.” He bracketed his skis together and flung them over his shoulder.

“Where’s Addie?”

“She’s around. Let’s go up and get Grace and have some supper.”

They had a quiet meal. A small band played in one corner of the restaurant. Grace was golden and consoling. They had creamed chicken and fresh spinach and wine. Grace wore a long dress and she looked good and Perry was proud of her. Towards the end of dinner, Addie and Daniel came in, and Addie waved but she did not come over. They sat at a table near the band.

“That girl is a goner,” Harvey said.

“Forget it.”

The band played quiet music and a few people got up to dance. Harvey took out a packet of cigars and they had brandy and watched the dancers and drank their coffee from pewter cups. Later they went into the lobby, sat in stuffed chairs, then Harvey went up to bed and Perry took Grace upstairs to dance.

He went to the window. It was morning, and a crowd of skiers and brightly dressed people were milling in the snow. He touched the window, steamed cold. Outside, a platform had been erected in the snow and decorated with colorful pennants and streamers. Perry dressed and hurried outside. His tooth was hurting again.

The six championship-flight finalists were being introduced by a man in a giant Eskimo parka. Daniel was on the stage along with the fifteen-year-old and the others. The crowd was dressed in sweaters and nylon ski jackets and stocking caps. They clapped loud for the fifteen-year-old.

Perry found Grace and Addie sitting on a bench. They stopped talking when he came up.

The man in the Eskimo parka made the introductions and the six finalists trooped off the stage. Everyone applauded and waved scarves.

“Just a minute,” Addie said. “Don’t have breakfast without me, I’ll be right back.” She hurried over to Daniel and walked with him partway to the starting area, then she kissed him and came back. “Okay,” she grinned, “now we eat. He’ll win.”

“Bless your Olympian.”

“You said it.”

“I think it stinks.”

“Maybe over breakfast it’ll smell better.” She smiled straight at him.

Later Harvey joined them. He was sour, refusing to look at Addie. As soon as possible Perry took Grace’s arm and led her out of the hotel. They took a van into Grand Marais and spent the morning looking in the shops. Grace found a set of carving knives she liked, and Perry bought them, then they decided to hike back to the hotel. It was a sunny, deceptive sort of day.

“Sorry it’s not coming to a better time,” he said.

She took his hand and they walked quietly for a while.

“That Addie should be spanked.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s a vacation anyway.” A big truck went by and they moved off on to the shoulder of the road. “I like it when we’re alone like this. And it was nice of you to dance with me last night. Wasn’t it fun?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad. It was nice of you. Sometimes you do nice things and I like it.”

“It would all have been better if Addie behaved herself.”

“Well, I like being here with you. Can we come back in the summer? I’d like to be here in the summer. We could spend a whole week here, couldn’t we? I’d like that. Can we do it? I was looking at some brochures in the hotel and they have all sorts of things going on. We can come alone then, all right?”

“Maybe. Maybe so.”

When they got back, the championship race was over and Daniel had won easily. The times were posted on the hotel blackboard.

Perry sat with a newspaper in the lobby, content to be alone. He read about events in Washington and Paris and Minneapolis, forgetting the details as he read. The twilight crowds were coming in, some heading for the bar and others to prepare for dinner, and people were laughing. Perry put the paper down. For a time he simply sat alone, watching the people move through the lobby and listened to them. He saw the yellow-sweatered girl and she said hello and passed on towards the stairs. A fire was going. The lobby had high ceilings and crisscrossing beams and leather chairs.

Reclining, absorbed into the lobby as if he were an odor or physical object, Perry sat alone. The winter evening restlessness. Too bad about Addie, too bad for Harvey, too bad in general. Everything was too bad. He did not want to go upstairs. And he did not want to go to the bar, or sleep, or wander, or be still. He lit a cigarette and snuffed it out, then thought what the hell and relit it, crossing his legs. When the cigarette was smoked, he took a walk around the hotel, stopped to watch some children skating on a large artificial pond, then he went inside and took a chair nearer the fireplace. Too bad about Addie, too bad about Harvey, too bad in general. He untied his shoes, slipped them off, let the fire bake the smell of his socks into the air. The yellow-sweatered girl came by again. She waved and said hello and continued into the bar. Too bad in general. Later the tiny elevator deposited a group of young skiers into the lobby, the doors creaked, the elevator climbed again and came back with Addie and her new friend Daniel.

She was playful. She wore a long dress with gloves. The boy was careful not to touch her.

“Do you know Daniel? Daniel, this is my very good friend and confidant and trainer, Paul Milton Perry. Paul is a special friend and you have to be nice to each other. And Daniel, Daniel is the cross-country champion, you know. Daniel is my new friend, Paul, and you have to be kind to him, you must promise.”

Perry promised and shook hands with the boy.

He seemed nice enough. The boy had nothing to do with it. Sitting with his chin slightly tilted, he looked a bit of an aristocrat. He wore a maroon sweater trimmed in gold. Perry asked him about the Olympics and the boy blushed and said it was something he was aiming at, nothing certain.

“Oh, you can’t listen to Daniel,” said Addie. “Daniel never says the truth. The truth is always too good to be the truth. Daniel, Daniel has already qualified and he’s in training. He just won’t say that. Isn’t that right, Daniel?”

The boy nodded and smiled at the floor.

“And Daniel is also a student at the university and he’s majoring in … What is it? Premed. That’s it, he’s going to be an Olympic champion and then a doctor, isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” the boy said, smiling at Perry. Perry smiled back at him.

“The skiing doctor,” said Addie, “can’t you see it? Skiing out to the farms with his black bag, arriving just in the nick of time, saving the pregnant mother, the baby dies but it isn’t Daniel’s fault, and the woman cries but he consoles her and tells her there will be other babies, other pregnancies, other dreams, other … I don’t know what. It’s a great story and I can’t wait to watch it on television.”

“Shut up,” the boy said suddenly. He didn’t appear angry, but he meant it.

“You see, you see?” said Addie. “Doesn’t he have an Olympian doctor’s presence of mind? He’s so positively certain about everything. It drives me wild. He’s not at all wishy-washy. Now, watch me ask him to get us all a drink and watch him refuse. Daniel?”

The boy shrugged and sauntered off towards the bar.

“He is a good lad,” she said, watching him go.

“You’re a sweetie, Addie.”

“Thank you,” she grinned. “And where’s your lovely wife Grace?” Then she stopped. “I am sorry. I’m being nasty and I hate myself. I’m in a mood. It isn’t so easy as you think, you know.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know. You think you know. You don’t know at all. You don’t know this—Harvey wants us to get married. There’s something I’ll wager you don’t know. He asked just yesterday, can you believe that? Even with Daniel and everything, he asked even then. Now there’s something Peeping Paul doesn’t know. How’s that? How do you think that feels, smarty-know-everything? Think it over awhile. You don’t know everything, you see?” She looked at him as though he’d hurt her, glaring. “There’s something you don’t know,” she ended softly.

“You’re such a sweetie,” he said. “Some sweetie to ruin it all.”

Then she grinned again. “Yes. Yes, that’s one of the world’s great truths. I’m such a sweetie.” She sighed, and her grin relaxed and she just looked at him. “I love you anyway.”

The boy came back and said the hotel didn’t allow drinks in the lobby. He was polite, winking at Perry as if there were knowledge between them.

“Well, we must go inside then,” said Addie. The boy stood aside, waiting for her to stand. He was careful again not to touch her. “Aren’t you coming? Daniel will be upset if you don’t celebrate with him.”

“Please come along,” the boy said.

“I’ll just sit. Thank you.”

“Very well, very well,” Addie laughed. “You have only yourself to blame when you die of thirst.”

“Have a nice celebration.”

The boy nodded and smiled, and they went off. Addie walked fast ahead of him.

Perry spent another hour in the lobby then went upstairs. Harvey was not in his room. Grace had finished her postcards and they went down together to post them. They took a walk outside, down towards the lake and back up and around the hotel, then to their room. Harvey was still not in.

“Poor Harvey,” said Grace.

“He’ll be all right.” It was just too bad. They ordered sandwiches from room service. Grace wrapped up her new carving knives. Perry finally turned on the color television.

Such a small place, Perry thought. He had experienced the sensation before—inconsequence and smallness. The hotel restaurant was deserted. Red and blue tableclothes were draped in random readiness and the hotel had collapsed around the emptiness. Already the smell was musty. It overwhelmed him: an enormous lassitude that pressed down like low gravity, anchoring him to each slow-moving unfolding, each conversation like an echo, unspoken currents, each concern a well-traveled maze with each step plodding in the tracks of that previous. He waited a long while before a woman opened the kitchen door and took his order. When she was gone, Grace began talking, a waiter brought coffee, the morning unfolded as if begging for corroboration, and Grace was talking. “And I don’t see why you should go, it doesn’t make sense. It’s another of Harvey’s ideas and it’s worse than most of them, so it must be pretty awful. I just wish you wouldn’t.”

“I promised I’d go along. You know that.”

“I know …” she trailed off.

“It won’t be so bad,” Perry said slowly. “Harvey’s got things arranged, maps and about a billion dollars worth of gear, the best stuff, and he’s … After all this, maybe it’s what he needs, I don’t know. And it’s only for a few days and all. You should stop worrying about it.”

“I’m not exactly worried,” she repeated. “I just don’t know.”

“You’re acting like it.”

“I’m sorry then.”

“Don’t be sorry. If you’re worried, say so. There’s nothing to worry over. Three days, four days. It’s not like we’re going whoring. That’s how you’re acting.”

“Paul.”

“All right.”

Nothing was settled. She ate her breakfast in a puckered, hurt way which he tried to ignore, knowing that in the end she had no real choice in the matter and would accept it as she accepted everything. Finally, when they finished coffee, she asked if they could take a walk. The invitation was a cripple. Pathetic except for the porous affection. So they walked out of the hotel and down to the lake and watched the ski-mobile races. Grace hugged his arm.

Afterwards they hiked down the road to the parking lot, and Perry got out the two orange rucksacks and threw them over his shoulder and they returned to the hotel. He went back alone for his skis. The sky was frosted gray.

Waxing his skis, he held quiet against her sulking. She sat on the bed and read travel brochures. “Maybe Harvey will call it off,” he finally said as a gesture. She didn’t look up. He shrugged and went next door and knocked and went in. Harvey was drinking red wine.

“You get the rucksacks?”

“In my room. Where’s Addie?”

“I’ve put her out of my head.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, out of sight out of mind and so on. She’s well out of sight. Having a good-bye with her Olympic champion. What’s his name?”

“Daniel.”

“Right, Daniel. The giant slayer. No, is that Daniel? Daniel, David. I don’t know. Lion slayer? Anyway they’re off having their good-byes and we’re here. Did you catch any of the ski-mobile races?”

“A few minutes. Stinking boring. What you doing there?”

“Just encasing this map in plastic. It’s always a good thing to do,” said Harvey. Here, take some of this.” He handed Perry the bottle and Perry drank some and gave it back. “I suppose Grace is still putzing and moaning?”

“She’s accepted it. She’s that way.”

“A stellar woman. Truly. Has a lot of sense and a good head on her shoulders and all that.”

Harvey’s face was sliced into two planes, sallow and bright red. The bones seemed to want to push out through the skin. He was in his shorts. His beard was full now and dark against the rest of him. It looked to Perry like a fungus, some sort of fuzzy parasite that had taken Harvey in his sickness and was not yet defeated. “So,” Harvey was saying, “I’ll take a run into town and get the things we’ll need. I’ve got a list ready. I’m glad we’re going. I’m glad. Plenty of chocolate and peanut butter. Did you know how many calories peanut butter has? Guess. Just take a stab.”

“I don’t know, Harv.”

“A hundred! A hundred calories for each tablespoon, can you believe that? Each tablespoon! And it has protein, too. Anyhow, I’ll pick up a couple of big jars and some instant coffee and matches and chili and canned stew and that sort of thing. It’s all down on the list.” Perry took the list and scanned it. It looked complete.

“Okay, Harv.” Perry tried to think. He wasn’t a woodsman. “You called the weather bureau?”

Harvey stared at him. Then he grinned. “Sure. Hunky-dory. Just don’t forget your sleeping bag.”

“All right then. I’m going to take Grace down for some lunch. Want to come along?”

Harvey shook his head. He was intent on rubbing the gold wax into his skis. “Say a beautiful good morning to Addie if you see her.”

“I will, Harv. Take a nap if you can.”

“Righto.”

Perry went downstairs for cigarettes. Addie and her new friend were sitting by the fire. They didn’t notice him and Perry turned his back and went outside and smoked a cigarette, walked once around the hotel for air, and they were no longer in the lobby when he went in.

He went to his room. Water was running in the bathroom. He kicked the snow off his boots, unlaced them and put them before the radiator. The room was cold. He lay on the bed. A pack of Grace’s menthol cigarettes was on the night stand, and he took one and listlessly smoked it down to the filter. He thought of Harvey for a while, then of Addie, then of Grace, then quickly of Daniel. Then of himself. It was too bad. He smiled. He went to his suitcase and took out the thermal underwear and put it on. He looked at himself in the mirror. The underwear made him look fat. Amazing changes. He got into his jeans and shirt and had another cigarette, and when Grace came out of the bathroom they went to the restaurant for lunch. It was nearly empty. The parties were over. A resonant hollowness followed everywhere. Three young girls were sitting at one table, quietly having their lunch. They were not very pretty. Perry guessed that it had not been a very good weekend for them. In a while Addie came in. She did not have much to say. She looked tired. She ordered a Coke and asprins.

“Suppose Daniel’s gone,” said Perry.

“I suppose.”

It was a slow anesthetic lunch. Perry found himself happy in Addie’s new pensiveness. And Grace was quiet, and the hotel seemed to cry with tinny echoes, and Perry for once felt they were all in it together, the same mood as on a dying January day.

It seemed to Perry that they rushed too blindly to the forest. Too quickly and without proper preparation and forewarning.

Harvey was in a hurry.

They dressed in high wool socks, cotton anoraks and parkas.

Harvey was all business, taking charge. He packed the new-bought rations into the rucksacks, rolled the sleeping bags and tied them and stashed them inside the packs.

The momentum of departure was taking hold, an inertia that seemed to have started years before, slowly growing until it was a locomotive that wailed down an incline uncontrolled, and Perry held on, following Harvey’s lead.

They helped Grace and Addie carry the baggage to the car. No one talked much. Grace seemed far away. As if viewing her through a badly remembered dream, physically out of joint. He gave her a short kiss and she held his arm a moment, then she whispered something he couldn’t hear and got into the car. Without looking at anyone, Addie grinned and waved and got behind the wheel. Perry wanted to say something. Instead he waved at Grace and stepped back. Addie drove the car over the icy parking lot, honked and turned on to the road leading south. “That’s that,” Harvey said. Perry shook his head as though trying to clear it of apprehension. “That’s that,” Harvey said again. He smiled ghoulishly, letting his dead eye float upward. The iris disappeared behind the bone of his forehead.

In the lobby they gave their skis a last coat of wax. Everything was still. Harvey studied the map again, jotting notes in the margin, then he gave the map to Perry and went into the kitchen to fill his Thermos with coffee. Perry sat with the map. The lobby fireplace was sputtering and all was warm and quiet and still. When Harvey returned, they had a cigarette, threw their butts into the fireplace and helped each other into their packs, breathed in the warm hotel air, then went outside.

Perry was lost.

He stepped into his skis, pulled up the woollen leggings.

Down the road, hanging from evergreens, were batches of half-deflated balloons and scraps of crepe paper. A man in earmuffs was dismantling the loudspeaker platform, using a hammer to knock the wooden struts out of place, and the man’s breath hung in the air.

“Saddle up,” Harvey said.

“Which way?”

“After me, after me.” He stooped and tied his safety straps. “We’ll take it nice and easy. Ready now?”

Harvey skied down the slope leading to the lake. Without pausing, he swept across the road and on to the lake, the orange rucksack bobbing on his back. Perry hurried to catch up.