Since his mission against the mosquitoes had begun, Martin’s enjoyment percentages soared. All the days were up around 98 per cent. The other boys delighted in him and made him the ornament of the bunk, to be shown off to visitors and wondered at. Martin remained an innocent performer. He spent most afternoons down at the marsh where the tractors were preparing new fields to run on. His arm was swollen with bites. Breavman applied calamine.
On his next day off Breavman took a canoe down the lake. Redwing blackbirds rose and plunged into the reeds. He ripped open a stalk of a waterlily. It was veined with purple foam.
The lake was glass-calm. He could make out sounds of camp from time to time, the pa announcing General Swim; recorded music filtered through the forest and crept over the water.
He went down the creek as far as he could before sandbars stopped him. The only indication of current was the leaning underwater weeds. Clams black and thickly coated with mud – an unclean food. A snap of water and the green stretched-out body of a frog zoomed under the canoe. The low sun was blinding. As he paddled back to his camp-site it turned the paddle gold.
He built a fire, spread out his sleeping bag in the moss, and prepared to watch the sky.
The sun is always part of the sky, but the moon is a splendid and remote stranger. The moon. Your eye keeps coming back to it as it would do to a beautiful woman in a restaurant. He thought about Shell. The same moment he believed he had the confidence to live alone he believed he could live with Shell.
The mist was riding slowly on the reflection of birch trees; now it was piled like a snowdrift.
Four hours later he awakened with a start and grabbed his axe.
“It’s Martin Stark,” said Martin.
The fire was still giving some light, but not enough. He shone his flash in the boy’s face. One cheek had been badly scratched by branches but the boy grinned widely.
“What’s your favourite store?”
“What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
“What’s your favourite store?”
Breavman wrapped the sleeping bag around the boy and ruffled his hair.
“Dionne’s.”
“What’s your favourite parking lot?”
“Dionne’s Parking Lot.”
When the ritual was finished Breavman packed up, lifted him into the canoe, and shoved off for camp. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Martin hadn’t been able to find him. That cheek needed iodine. And it seemed that some of the bites were infected.
It was beautiful paddling back, reeds scraping the bottom of the canoe and turning it into a big fragile drum. Martin was an Indian chief squatting beside him, bundled in the sleeping bag. The sky displayed continents of fire.
“When I’m back home,” Martin said loudly, “rats eat me.”
“I’m sorry, Martin.”
“Hundreds and hundreds of them.”
When Breavman saw the lights of the camp he had a wild urge to pass them, to keep paddling up the lake with the boy, make a site somewhere up the shore among the naked birch trees.
“Keep it down, Martin. They’ll kill us if they hear us.”
“That would be all right.”