The Western Light Read online

  “What can you do, eh, Louisa?” He gave her his dimpled grin. “Glad you came. And you too, Mary!” He blew a kiss at us before turning his back and shaking out his shoulders. He was getting ready to play, and I could sense his excitement. Then Jordie opened the door in the boards, and John glided onto the ice. Near us, a man booed. “Get off the rink, you loony!” John gave the heckler a friendly smile and bowed at the organ player sitting near the scoreboard. A jazzy version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” started to echo through the stands. John skated once around the rink, lifting his stick in the kingly gesture of victory that he had made at the Beaudry farm. A few people clapped.

  Soon both teams were skating round and round the rink, the ice ringing with the savage drawl and scrape of their blades. The crowd turned silent and worshipful. We were ready to see what John could do, and we watched with our mouths open, as he passed beneath us, leaning impossibly far forward, then impossibly far back, skimming the ice like a human swallow, his dark pompadour shining under the arena lights, his perfect stops and starts setting off fizzy rooster tails of spray. Grinning from ear to ear, Morley clapped enthusiastically. Jordie hung over the boards and clapped too. Half turning in our direction, John took a photograph out of his pocket and kissed it. “He’s giving the Queen a smooch!” a fan shouted. As John put the photo back in his pocket, it came to me what Morley had done. John was free, freer than me and Ben, or my father and Dr. Shulman. Out on centre ice, waiting for the puck to drop, he could play hockey as if his life depended on it and nobody had the power to stop him.

  I welled up as the organ player started on “God Save the Queen.” The Muskrats stood at attention. Maybe John was wet-eyed too.

  “Pilkie’s going to win the game for us,” I whispered to Little Louie.

  “Let’s hope so, Mouse.” She mock-punched my shoulder.

  “And another cow flew over the moon!” Sal scoffed. She didn’t fool me. She pretended she wanted John to fail, but secretly she longed for him to prove her wrong. Except that Sal couldn’t admit it to anybody, not even herself.

  He Shoots, He Scores

  The story of the Muskrats beating the Flyers was on the front page of The Chronicle under a banner headline. I didn’t care what happened in the rest of the world. I didn’t care if Charles van Doren told the House Committee in America that his answers on his tv quiz show were rigged. Or that Montreal player Jacques Plante had gone against the wishes of his coach Toe Blake and become the second NHL goalie to wear a facemask. (The first goalie was Clint Benedict, but he only wore it once.) All that mattered was The Chronicle headline that said, “Rats defeat Flyers 4–1 — Thanks to local boy, John Pilkie.”

  Morley read Kelsey Farrow’s report out loud to us, while Little Louie and I ate our soft-boiled eggs. Sal listened, too. “Off the ice for more than thirteen years, John Pilkie of Madoc’s Landing led the Rats to victory last night in a display of stick handling that hasn’t been seen here since Pilkie left town.”

  Our eyes never left Morley’s face. We felt glad for my father, but he didn’t notice. He’d gone to a place with no room for us.

  Kelsey’s article didn’t mention John’s crime until the last paragraph. “Dr. Bradford, Pilkie’s physician, obtained special permission from the Ontario Psychiatric Hospital for the hockey killer to play for the home team. Thirteen years ago, Pilkie was incarcerated for starting a fire that killed his wife and child.”

  Looking over my father’s shoulder, Sal said, “Here it is, Morley. Three penalties against John. Two for high sticking and one for slashing.”

  Morley smiled at me. “But John scored three goals, didn’t he, Mary?”

  I grinned like anything.

  “So I guess there’s no more to be said,” my father summed up.

  AFTER THE FIRST GAME AGAINST the Flyers, John scored the winning goals in three more games. The Chronicle ran news of the Muskrats’ victories on the front page. Dr. Shulman and Morley were proud of John. I felt proud of him, too. I slept with his old hockey card under my pillow and brought it with me to each game. One afternoon, when school was over, I sent John my composition about my great-grandfather. I didn’t tell Sal or Little Louie. I kept my fingers crossed they wouldn’t find out. I had rewritten it since the Bug House boys threw it away and I was especially proud of the first page:

  A Short History of My Great-Grandfather,

  an Oil Baron of Canada West by M.B. Bradford

  Every July when I go to The Great House for my summer holidays, my grandmother explains how my great-grandfather crawled out of the sea mud and discovered black gold in the muck he sprang from. My family has different versions of my great-grandfather’s story so I will start by listing their versions here.

  My grandmother, Louisa Vidal Barrett believes that my greatgrandfather is a hero like the Greek warrior Odysseus who never took no for an answer while my aunt Louisa Barrett says my greatgrandfather owed his fortune to Aunt Louie Vidal.

  In my Uncle Willie’s version, my great-grandfather Mackenzie Vidal was one shrewd customer.

  My father Morley Bradford has a different interpretation. He believes my great-grandfather was one of the misfits who made up the population of early Canada. Our land was crawling with losers, my father says: orphans from Paris slums, loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, remittance men from the old country, and my great-grandfather fitted right in. After all, Mackenzie Vidal was a draft dodger who wouldn’t fight against slavery. He came to Canada West to avoid the Civil War and he was given a lucky break when he struck oil in Enniskillen Swamp, a wilderness of clay mud in southwestern Ontario.

  There is also my great-grandfather’s version. My great-grandfather said that if he hadn’t grown up on the canals, he would have lacked the patience and the know-how to drill for oil. Canals were everything in those days. It was how you shipped barley, pig iron, ore, and timber from Canada to New York. In the 1840s, you could get a tow on the Lake Erie Canal all the way down to New Jersey and then back again up to Niagara Falls, your boat carrying grain for the Americans and returning with farm machinery for the farms of eastern Ontario. The railroads weren’t built then and in the summer the dirt roads dried out like old cow poop. When the rains came in the fall, the roads turned as sloppy as a kid’s mud pies so everyone used the canals. The nerve of a canal horse was a popular expression but nobody except my grandmother uses it now. She doesn’t mean it as a compliment.

  SAL HAD LEFT THE MORNING mail stacked up on the kitchen table. My name was written on one of the envelopes in letters that coiled across the paper like snakes with stuck-up tails and rounded eyes. In the left-hand corner, John’s name had been written in the same spiralling hand and the two I’s in “Pilkie” were drawn as faces with friendly, half-moon smiles — one face had a cowlick on top of its head, while the other was framed by dark streaks that looked like hanks of black hair. The second head had to be mine because my brown hair hung down in the same lank style, although I wished it wouldn’t. Smiling to myself, I stuffed the letter in my Scholastic notebook and went upstairs to read it.

  Dear Mary:

  I was pleased as punch to get your composition! So we’re buddies now, eh? I especially liked the line about your great-granddaddy crawling out of the sea mud. That sentence is good enough for Hemingway. I read it out to Jordie and he was so impressed I went around all day grinning. You have a capital F future as they like to say in this two-bit town. Doc Bradford must be proud of you.

  I’ve told Jordie Coverdale to make you a rink this winter in case your daddy is too busy. Jordie has nothing better to do after supper. Learn to skate, and I’ll show you how to play hockey. You don’t have to be big and strong. You have to be smart and read the play so you know how to position yourself. Remember. You’re an athlete.

  Your special friend,

  John Pilkie

  Excited, I hid the letter at the back of my closet where Sal wouldn’t find it. John wanted to teach me to play hockey and he called himself my �
��special friend.” Special in what way, I wondered. Special because he was old and didn’t have young friends like me, or special because he thought about me in a romantic way? But how could somebody like him have such feelings for a girl like myself (i.e., who would want to kiss somebody so crooked and awful looking)?

  29

  THE NEXT DAY, BEN ASKED ME TO HIS HOUSE FOR DINNER. IT was the first of many times I would go during the next few years, although I had to beg like anything before Sal gave in. As she said goodbye, she whispered in my ear that the spicy “kike” food would burn my tongue off, and then she warned me not to pester Dr. Shulman with questions about Pilkie. I told Sal I couldn’t help being interested in John, and Sal laughed. To be honest, it didn’t occur to me to talk to Dr. Shulman about his patients, but asking Ben’s father about John struck me as a good idea.

  Little Louie drove me over to the Shulmans’ house, which stood at the end of the hospital property on a long, snowy drive lined with glass lanterns on tall white columns. I’d noted in my book of true facts that in the early years, when the prison was a reformatory, the Shulmans’ house used to be a cigar factory. But the boys rebelled against the hard work of curing the tobacco and the cigar factory was closed. Naturally, I was interested in any place where delinquent boys made cigars.

  Little Louie kissed me goodbye and waved at Ben’s father who was holding open the front door for me. A man I didn’t know stood just inside. Dr. Shulman said, “Mary, I’d like you to meet Dr. Torval. He works for the ministry in Toronto. Dr. Torval, this is my son’s friend, Mary Bradford. Her father is a popular doctor in town.”

  Dr. Torval stared down at me through extra large black eyeglasses. “Are you going to be a doctor too?”

  “Yuck! I can’t stand blood!” The babyish words popped out before I could help it and the two men laughed. Ashamed of myself, I hurried into the front hall where I took off my winter coat and walked bug-eyed into the large living room to see where the boys had rolled cigars, although it was impossible to imagine anybody rolling a stogie here now. There was blond Danish furniture, big, padded sofas, and standing lamps made out of Quebec pine that didn’t match the modern tables and chairs. Mrs. Shulman liked mostly everything new. Big Louie liked mostly everything old, although “old” in Madoc’s Landing was a relative term that really meant “Victorian.” I was pretty sure the delinquent boys wouldn’t recognize the place.

  THANKS TO DR. SHULMAN, ALL the harmless patients ate on linen tablecloths and used proper cutlery. Their meals were served by the harmless patients who worked in the hospital kitchen. Mrs. Shulman used one of the patients who worked in the kitchen as her helper. His name was Jimmy and he welcomed me, a white linen napkin folded across his arm. Trying not to stare, I shook Jimmy’s harmless hand, and he led me into the Shulmans’ dining room.

  AT WHAT POINT SHOULD I stop pretending Jimmy was normal and scream if Jimmy did something weird? Not at any point, it turned out, because Jimmy was polite. It was the Shulmans’ food that gave me problems, but not for the reason Sal predicted. Dr. Shulman dumped a second helping of brisket on my plate without asking, and he gave third helpings to himself and Ben. Dr. Torval and I had to pep up the bland slabs of overcooked beef with mustard. When Jimmy brought in some tasteless white cookies called Mandelbrot, Dr. Torval began to quiz Dr. Shulman about John playing hockey for the Rats.

  “Aren’t you taking a big chance, Rob?” Dr. Torval raised his eyebrows above his eyeglasses, whose frames split his long, rubbery face in half. “Pilkie could escape again.”

  “It was Mary’s father’s idea,” Dr. Shulman replied. “He and I consider hockey part of Pilkie’s therapy. So far it’s going well. The Rats have been winning all their games.”

  “How convenient for you,” Dr. Torval said dryly. “You’re a hockey fan, I understand?”

  “Yes, I am. So is Addie.” Dr. Shulman smiled at his wife. “Don’t worry, Henry. Pilkie will be well-guarded.”

  “Rob, you know how I feel about that terrible man,” Mrs. Shulman said. “Guards won’t stop somebody like him.”

  The image of John’s calm, manly face being sprayed by the guard’s hose rose before me. “I think John Pilkie’s nice. He rescued me from the Bug House boys.”

  Silence fell. Nearby, Jimmy set down the plate of cookies.

  “Are you making up a story, Mary?” Mrs. Shulman asked.

  I shook my head. “Cross my heart and point to heaven,” I answered, holding Mrs. Shulman’s gaze for one, two, three seconds.

  “It’s true!” Ben said. “Pilkie scared them off.”

  “Do you know, son, a patient told me about that incident?” Dr. Shulman smiled slightly. “Didn’t you, Jimmy?”

  “I was in the work truck that day,” Jimmy replied in a low, nervous voice. We all turned around to stare at him.

  “Thank you, Jimmy, for telling us.” Dr. Shulman nodded at Jimmy who smiled shyly before he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Across the table, Ben caught my eye. “Mary and I are very interested in killers. We want to know what makes a person good, and what makes people bad.”

  “I didn’t know a subject like that would be of interest to children,” Dr. Torval said.

  “All children want to know if they’re good, Henry.” Dr. Shulman chuckled. “I’m hoping this interest will lead my son to study psychiatry, but I fear he has his heart set on playing professional hockey.”

  For a moment nobody spoke. Dr. Torval looked askance at Ben, as if wondering how such a plump boy would make it onto an NHL team. Ben’s face fell.

  “I want to know if adults are good too,” I said quickly. “I mean, as good as my father. Sal says my father would withstand the devil himself to help his patients.”

  Dr. Shulman and Dr. Torval laughed their heads off, and I could feel myself flush. After they composed themselves again, Dr. Torval turned towards me, his lips compressed in a thin line. “You’re too young to understand. John Pilkie never learned the golden rule.”

  “Henry, did you know the Christian religion borrowed the golden rule from us?” Dr. Shulman asked. He spoke in the boring “Old-Man-So-and-So” tone he used for scoring a point. “Rabbi Hillel said, ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour.’”

  “You phrase it in the negative,” Dr. Torval remarked.

  “Yes, but we came up with it first. One of our scholars, Maimonides, created a code of charitable acts. What Pilkie did for Mary is an example of number five. Giving charity without being asked.”

  Dr. Torval’s eyes turned dark behind his spectacles, but Dr. Shulman didn’t seem to notice.

  “Henry, you may not know this yet, but I’m pushing the government to review cases like Pilkie’s. Some of our patients have committed crimes that won’t be repeated. So why should they be locked up for life?”

  “Rob?” Mrs. Shulman shook her head warningly. Dr. Shulman’s smile faded. In a false, jokey tone, he added, “So why can’t our patients get their cases reviewed? After all, Henry, how many times can you kill your wife?”

  “That’s not funny, Rob,” Mrs. Shulman replied. “Shouldn’t the two of you be getting back to work?”

  “You’re absolutely right, Addie.” Dr. Shulman stood up abruptly. “Ben, show Mary the list of the eight levels of giving. It’s in the Mishneh Torah.” He nodded at me. “I think she’ll find it interesting.”

  Is Goodness the Same Thing as

  Keeping Your Bedroom Tidy?

  In the Shulman library, Ben showed me the legal book that listed the eight levels of giving, which the scholar Maimonides had written into Jewish law. I copied them down on a sheet of foolscap. Later, alone in my bedroom, I scribbled in M.B.’s Book of True Facts: Dr. Shulman said that John Pilkie performed a charitable act when he rescued me from the Bug House boys. Then I added: So maybe John is a little bit good. But goodness is confusing. My father puts the needs of his patients before himself, and he does it over and over again. Is my father good if he’s looking after other
people because his mother told him that a man his size could go around killing them? And are you good if you’re only doing good deeds because it’s expected of you? Aren’t you fooling yourself? What if being good is a habit, like keeping your bedroom tidy?

  I copied out the eight levels of giving into M.B.’s Book of True Facts, going from the least good to the most good:

  8. When donations are given grudgingly.

  7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully.

  6. When one gives directly upon being asked.

  5. When one gives directly without being asked. (I wrote John Pilkie’s name in capital letters beside this number.)

  4. When the recipient is aware of the donor’s identity but the donor does not know the identity of the recipient.

  3. When the donor is aware of the recipient’s identity but the recipient is unaware of the source.

  2. When the donor and recipient are unknown to each other.

  1. When the donor gives a loan that stops the recipient from becoming poor.

  As I was finishing number one, Sal poked her head into my room. “What on earth are you doing, Mouse?”

  “Writing down a Jewish law,” I replied. “Dr. Shulman says the Jews thought up the golden rule before we did. This proves the Hebrew faith is older and smarter than the Christian religion.”

  “Listen, Lady Jane. I never said Jews aren’t clever.”

  “Well, you didn’t come right out and say it. But you called them ‘kikes.’”

  Sal’s face turned red. “You won’t tell your father that, eh?” She looked nervous. I shook my head. Then she swore that she wasn’t prejudiced. But I suspected her of prejudice all the same.