Nate is running. His bicycle is behind him somewhere in the darkness, parked against a bench. The air is cool, strange against his new scraped face.
He runs for pleasure, taking it easy, jogging over dying grass grey in the street lights, through fallen leaves whose colors he can barely see but guesses: orange, yellow, brown. They collect the leaves in green garbage bags and truck them away now, but once they raked them into piles and burned them in the streets, the smoke rising wispy and sweetish from the centers of the mounds. He used to run with the others along the street, making sounds like a dive bomber, and then jump, clearing the mounds of leaves like hurdles. Forbidden, but if you missed it didn’t matter, the leaves were only smoldering. Men shaking rakes, telling them to bugger off.
Who did he run with, twenty or was it twenty-five years ago? Someone called Bobby, Tom something. They’re gone now, faceless; he gives them the nostalgia due to those who have died young. Casualties, though of nothing but his own memory. It’s himself, his lace-up breeks with leather knee patches, those goddamn wool socks always falling down, mittens ice-beaded and soggy from bombarding the enemy, nose dripping over his upper lip, himself running he mourns.
And after that, no longer for pure fun, sprinting at high school and third man on the relay team, around the track with the stick he would pretend was dynamite, he had to pass it on before it exploded. He was too skinny for football then but he could run. They never won anything, though once they came second. Mr. Clean, they called him in the yearbook. His mother thought it was a compliment.
When he was at law school he used to come here to the same place, Queen’s Park, an oval like a track. Queens’ park. He remembers the jokes, the couples he really did see, in trenchcoats, windbreakers, the casual intersections that aroused in him only a mild curiosity, a mild embarrassment. It was around that time his back started acting up and he stopped running; shortly after he met Elizabeth. An evolutionary mistake, the doctor said, meaning his height; men should have stopped at five feet. Now they were unbalanced. He told Nate that his right leg was infinitesimally shorter than his left, not uncommon in tall men, and he should wear a built-up heel. A piece of information about which Nate has done nothing. He refuses to join the ranks of the tin woodmen, those with false teeth, glass eyes, rubber breasts, orthopedic shoes. Not yet, not yet. Not before he has to.
He runs clockwise, against the traffic, the cars meeting and passing him owl-eyed, dark and sleek. Behind him are the Parliament Buildings, squat pinkish heart of a squat province. In the interior, red plush and plump as a cushion, seedy lucrative deals are no doubt being made, decisions about who will build what where, what will be torn down, who will profit. He recalls with more than discomfort, sheer disbelief, that he once thought he would go into politics. Municipal probably. Pompous nit. Stop the developers, save the people; from what, for what? He was once among those who felt the universe should be just and merciful and were prepared to help it achieve this state. That was his mother’s doing. He recalls his convoluted pain, his sense of betrayal when he realized finally how impossible this was. Nineteen-seventy, civil rights abolished, a war with no invaders and no enemy and the newspapers applauding. It wasn’t the arbitrary arrests, the intimidation, the wrecking of lives that had appalled him; that was no surprise. He’d always known such things happened elsewhere, and despite the prevailing smugness he’d never doubted they could happen here. It was the newspapers applauding. Editorials, letters to the editor. The voice of the people. If that was all they had to say he’d be damned if he’d be their megaphone.
His idealism and his disillusionment now bore him about equally. His youth bores him. He used to wear a suit and listen to conversations between older men about those in power, hoping to learn something. Remembering this, he cringes; it’s like the string of love beads he wore once, briefly, when that fashion was on the wane.
Ahead of him, across the street to the left, is the Museum, illuminated now by garish orange floodlights. He used to lurk there by the doorway at closing time, hoping to catch Elizabeth on her way out. At first she’d been remote and a little condescending, as if he was some sort of perverted halfwit she was being kind to. It knocked him out; that, and the impression she gave of knowing exactly what she was doing. Lapping Queen’s Park on Saturday mornings he would think of her inside the grey buildings, sitting like a Madonna in a shrine, shedding a quiet light. Though actually she never worked on Saturdays. He would think of himself running towards her as she receded in front of him, holding a lamp in her hand like Florence Nightingale. He’s glad he never told her about this ludicrous vision. She would have laughed even then, behind his back, and brought it up later to taunt him. Chocolate box, she would have said. The lady with the lamp. Jesus Christ. The lady with the axe, more like it. Now it’s a different figure he runs towards.
He passes the War Memorial at the apex of the park, a granite plinth featureless and without ornament, except for the Gothic wen at the top. No naked women carrying flowers, no angels, not even any skeletons. Just a signpost, a marker. SOUTH AFRICA, it says on the other side; he used to see that in the mornings, driving to work, before he sold the car. Before he quit. Which war? He’s never thought much about it. The only real war took place in Europe, Churchill saying they would fight on the beaches, a hot trade in chewing gum and women’s stockings, his father vanishing in a thunderclap somewhere over France. With gentle shame he recalls how he cashed in on that. Cut it out, you guys, his dad was killed in the war. One of the few uses for patriotism he still considers valid; and about the only use for the death of his father, whom he cannot at all remember.
He’s running south, Victoria College and St. Mike’s on his left. He’s almost around. He slows; he can feel the effort now, in his calves, his chest, the blood thudding in his head. He hasn’t breathed deeply like this for a long time. Too bad about the exhaust fumes. He should stop smoking, he should run like this every day. He should get up at six every morning, run for half an hour, cut down to a pack a day. A regular program and watch the eggs and butter. He’s not forty yet, not nearly; possibly he isn’t even thirty-five, He’s thirty-four, or was that last year? He’s always had trouble remembering the exact year of his birth. So has his mother. It’s as if they both entered into a conspiracy some time ago to pretend he wasn’t actually born, not like everyone else. Nathanael: Gift of God. His shameless mother takes care to point out this meaning. She pointed it out to Elizabeth soon after their marriage. Thanks a lot, God, Elizabeth said later, genially then. And later less genially.
He starts running harder again, sprinting towards the shadows where he’s left his bicycle. Once around. He used to be able to do this twice, he worked up to three times almost. He could do that again. On sunny days he would run watching his shadow, on the right till the Memorial, on the left coming back; a habit that started when he was on the relay team. Beat your shadow, said the coach, a Scot who taught Grade Nine English when he wasn’t teaching P.T. The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan. His shadow pacing him; even when there were clouds he could feel it still there. It’s here with him now, odd in the street lights so much dimmer than the sun, stretching ahead of him as he passes each light, shrinking, headless, then multiplying and leaping ahead of him again.
He never used to run at night; he doesn’t like it much. He should stop this and go home. The children will be back soon, perhaps are already back, waiting to show him their paper bags. But he keeps running, as if he must run; as if there’s something he’s running towards.