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  The notes, the fingers, the feet began again, and again sped up to a louder stomp. And a third time even faster. Suddenly with a proud toss of her head, flash of her hands and stomp of her feet, she was statue still again. Tommy was breathless. “Bravo! Bravo!” Speedy shouted. Tommy stood and applauded. The rest of the team followed. She gave the audience a slight nod and walked back into the shadows.

  “Wow! That was incredible! How did she do that?”

  “Practice.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Marianne Gonzales.”

  Surprised, Tommy looked at Speedy.

  “My sister.”

  5

  Tommy stood in front of the mirror struggling with his tie. He always had trouble getting the front end longer than the back one. He tugged at the knot and came up short. He untied it and tried again. It had to be perfect. Ever since he’d seen Marianne at El Gitano, he had been trying to work up the nerve to ask her on a date. Just before the Christmas vacation break, Tommy, Schmutz and Speedy had been hanging out in the Arts student lounge where, Speedy said, the chicas hermosas hung out. Speedy was constantly on the lookout for the chicas but Tommy had never seen him with one. Not that Speedy wasn’t good-looking. He had a chiselled angular face, a solid build, square shoulders, strong arms and a bulky chest. And he was smart. Maybe it was his intensity and his loudness that put girls off.

  He wanted to ask Speedy if Marianne would go on a date with him, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to be told that she was seeing someone and then be teased about it by Speedy and Schmutz. So, when it came, he jumped at Speedy’s invitation. This way he’d get to see her and maybe ask her and not have to go through Speedy and Schmutz’s ribbing.

  “My mother and sister said I wasn’t being a good amigo and they wanted to know what kind of bums I was hanging out with. So, you guys are invited for Fiesta de los tres Reyes Mages.”

  “Speak English, you immigrant,” Schmutz joked.

  “It’s the Eve of Epiphany supper.”

  “What’s that?” Tommy asked.

  “It’s after New Year’s. We celebrate the Fiesta of the three magi kings, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar.”

  “Hey, we’re three, and we’re kings of the soccer world, so it’s a holiday to celebrate us. Eh?”

  “Sí. King Schmutz, Wolfie and Speedy.”

  “It seems like you guys are always having a fiesta,” Tommy said.

  “Sí. Fiestas are great.”

  Trying to fend off the cold while he waited for the bus, Tommy tapped his feet together and held the scarf around his nose so his breath warmed his face. He hated winter, even after all these years in Canada. They had arrived in Montreal in December 1956, during one of the coldest winters on record. He had never seen such mountains of snow. The snowbanks were higher than the cars. And the people, all bundled up and waddling like penguins, often ended up on their asses. They had snow in Hungary but never this much, and it certainly wasn’t this cold. He still hadn’t gotten used to it. His ears, nose, fingertips and toes always felt frozen. For him, winter was a time for staying indoors.

  At least he didn’t have to worry about the chocolates melting. His mother had bought him a box of Pot of Gold to take. “You always take something sweet when you visit the first time,” she lectured him as she wrapped it. “This way you wish them a sweet life and show them that you are civilized.”

  The bus inched along Jean Talon Street. He’d never been to Speedy’s house or Speedy to his. Their friendship took place at Sir George and on the soccer pitch. He hadn’t even known that Speedy had a sister until that night at El Gitano.

  And, he had never been so far east in the city. St. Lawrence Boulevard, more commonly known as The Main, not only divided the city between the English and French but the French- and English-speaking speaking immigrants, and rarely did they cross it.

  The bus window was covered in frost. He put his palm against it to melt a peephole. All he could see in the dark were Christmas lights. There seemed to be a lot more on this side of The Main. As he peered out, a snowball slammed against the window. He jerked back. He smiled. In elementary school, his Canadian friends loved to snowball buses and have snowball fights. He didn’t, especially after he got hit in the head a few times. He preferred the warm indoors. He loved watching hockey but had no interest in playing it. Hockey and snowball fights required getting bundled up, going outside and freezing. It was not something immigrant kids did. At least not the Jewish ones he knew.

  Tommy had never learned to skate. He had tried once. When he was eleven, he got a pair of hand-me-downs from their neighbour Mrs. Kolchyk, whose son Eddie was two years older than Tommy and had outgrown them. Although the Kolchyks were also immigrants, they came after the war and Eddie was born in Montreal. He was also a whizz on ice. Those things made him a Canadian, while Tommy, having arrived in 1956, loving soccer and being a klutz on skates, made him a greener.

  Eddie took him to Outremont Park once to teach him to skate. Tommy didn’t like wearing skates. They hurt his ankles and even the extra pair of socks didn’t keep his toes from tingling a few minutes after he stepped onto the ice.

  The rink was full of boys like Eddie with their duck-ass haircuts frozen stiff and their jackets open, flapping like wings. Their effortless gliding skates slicing the ice made them seem like they were flying, while Tommy, gripping the boards, carefully tip-toed behind in the sub-zero winter afternoon. Although he was coordinated and athletic, moving on thin blades on slippery ice did not come naturally to him.

  Eddie got bored trying to help him and took off to play pickup with his friends. Tommy tried to glide but he kept slipping, so he settled for tiptoeing.

  “Puck!” somebody yelled. He felt a hard thwack against his elbow and his arm went limp. A sharp pain, like when he hit his funny bone, shot through it. He let go of the boards and his feet went flying out from under him. He landed on his ass. He was surprised at how hard ice could be. The puck had cracked his elbow, ended his hockey career and reinforced his determination to avoid outside activities in winter.

  “Bienvenido. Come on in,” Speedy greeted him. Tommy stomped his boots before stepping inside. He handed Speedy the box of chocolates.

  “For me? How sweet of you.”

  “You’re too ugly. It’s for your mother and Marianne.”

  “So, give it to them,” Speedy said and shoved the box back at him. “Mama, Marianne,” he shouted.

  Mrs. Gonzales and Marianne emerged from the kitchen. Mrs. Gonzales was a tall woman with dark complexion. He could see where Marianne’s looks came from.

  “Welcome. Come in. Oh, gracias,” Mrs. Gonzales said.

  Marianne’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a ruffled black chiffon blouse with large red roses printed on it and an apron over her red skirt. The lady of roses, he thought to himself.

  “Sí. Welcome and gracias,” she said and gave him a two-cheeked kiss.

  It surprised Tommy. “Thank you,” he said after an awkward pause.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Tommy blushed. Marianne smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen. Mr. Gonzales led him into the living room. Schmutz was already there. “Hey, Wolfie.” He raised a glass to him.

  Mr. Gonzales brought him a glass. “Vino?” he asked as he poured.

  “Gracias,” Tommy said.

  “¡Salud! Sit. So how have you been?” Mr. Gonzales asked.

  The Gonzales house was similar to his parents’ except it was a split-level. It had wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room and a heavy gilt-framed mirror hung on one wall, reflecting a couple of big paintings of a flamenco dancer and another of bull fighting. The sofa crinkled under him. Like his parents, the Gonzaleses also wrapped their furniture in plastic. He relaxed a bit.

  “Very good.”

  “What are you doin
g during the vacation?”

  “Mainly staying inside. It’s too cold to be outside.”

  “You’re crazy,” Schmutz said. “It’s beautiful out. So much snow. I’ve been skiing in the Laurentians.”

  “You Danes are the crazy ones,” Speedy said. “Give me the Costa del Sol and the chicas in bikinis.”

  “Me too,” Tommy said.

  “The sun, or the chicas?” Marianne asked as she offered around plates of appetizers.

  Tommy was flustered by the question and the food on the plates. “Battered fried baby squid.” She extended the plate in her right hand. “Garlic shrimp.” She nodded at the other plate. “Which one?” she asked.

  “The shrimp, please.”

  “No, I meant the sun or the chicas, or maybe both.” She smiled and walked away before he could answer.

  The main course was also exotic. And the table conversation was animated and punctuated with loud laughter. The Gonzaleses spoke as if they were in a constant passionate argument with each other. Schmutz got right into the spirit of it. Tommy stayed quiet, content to watch Marianne.

  When the dishes were cleared away, Marianne brought out a large ring cake.

  “Roscón de Reyes,” Mrs. Gonzales said.

  It was decorated with glazed fruit pieces like a crown studded with exotic green and red jewels.

  “It’s to symbolize the three kings who brought gifts for the baby Jesus,” Marianne explained as she poured coffee and her mother cut the cake.

  Tommy stuck his fork into the cake and hit something rubbery. It was a small figurine wrapped in plastic, about the size of the plastic toys that came in cereal boxes. The figure was wearing a blue robe and a turban. The Gonzaleses applauded and laughed. Tommy and Schmutz looked at them as if they were crazy.

  “It’s tradition to hide a little king in the cake. Whoever gets it is the king of the banquet,” Mr. Gonzales said.

  “And will have good luck for the year,” Marianne added.

  Tommy smiled at her. She nodded.

  “So, King Wolfie, what is your command?” Schmutz asked.

  “Sí. Speak and we will obey.” Speedy said and slapped him on the back. Tommy almost went face first into his cake.

  “Loco,” Marianne said and slapped Speedy upside the head. “That’s no way to treat the king.”

  Tommy frowned. “Hmm.” He had to be careful. “I command the two other kings of soccer, Speedy and Schmutz, and the princess of flamenco to come to my casa for Passover.” He hoped that by making it a funny invitation, he would cover up his nervousness and not feel let down when Marianne said no.

  “What’s Passover?” Speedy asked.

  “What do you pass over?” Schmutz asked.

  “It’s a celebration of freedom. Sí, for me,” Marianne said. “But if you guys are kings, then I’m a queen.”

  6

  “Answer the phone!” Tommy’s mother yelled from the kitchen.

  He was the telephone guard. He had been ever since they got their first phone when he was nine because he understood enough English and spoke it well enough and almost without an accent. He was the first line of defence against the New World as well as the bridge to it, and when it was a French caller, he could recognize it and say non, merci, and hang up. Because he was an immigrant, he had been exempted from learning French in elementary school. And in high school, Monsieur Charles, his French teacher from France, repeated daily to his mainly immigrant-filled class “Si vous n’êtes pas capable de parler comme il faut, gardez vos bouches fermées.” So, he and the other immigrant kids kept their ears and mouths shut. The French he did know he learned on the street. It was nothing like Monsieur Charles’s. In this class, he learned that whatever you said, you put tabernak, hostie, ciboire, or calvert after it. Some even used them at the start of sentences. He knew that they were curse words and that they had something to do with the church but because he wasn’t Catholic, he didn’t understand or feel their impact. English cursing was simpler, more universal and made more sense. It seemed to have only one curse word, which was used, in all sorts of ways. Fuck, fucker, fucking, fuck you, what the fuck, and the one that usually led to fights, motherfucker. Even the French kids used it along with their French curse words. The Hungarian curses he’d heard from his father, usually aimed in jest at his cronies, and from his aunt, aimed in all seriousness at merchants she felt were trying to cheat her, were a lot more varied and colourful. They usually involved animal genital parts and genealogy.

  He picked up the phone in the TV room, where he was sprawled out on the couch.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Tommy? This is Marianne.”

  “Oh. Hi.” He sat up.

  “How are you?”

  “Uh, good. And you?”

  “How’s your toy?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your king?”

  “Oh, I have it on my trophy shelf.”

  “Place for royalty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you busy?”

  “No. No. Just watching TV.”

  “What are you watching?”

  “Hogan’s Heroes. Do you ever watch it?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Desperately, he tried to find something to talk about. “Umm, what do you like to watch?”

  “The Ed Sullivan Show. Do you?”

  “Uh, yeah, sometimes, when he has groups on.”

  “Which groups do you like?”

  He twirled the cord around his finger. Somehow, he managed to wind it too tightly. The tip of his finger was turning purple.

  “I like the Beatles. You?” he asked as he tucked the receiver between his ear and shoulder and tried to yank his finger out. It wouldn’t budge.

  “The Stones.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I like Jagger, the way he moves around. Like a proud Spanish rooster.”

  “That’s funny,” he said as he finally unwound the cord. He watched the purple colour change back to flesh on his fingertip.

  “Hey, Tommy, I was wondering. My friend Naomi, she knows you, you’re in her Poli-Sci class. Anyway, she’s having a party next Saturday and asked me if I wanted to come. She said I could invite some of my friends.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “Yes, you do. She’s got short red hair and is very opinionated. She smokes like a chimney.”

  “Oh, yeah, the girl who’s always arguing with the teacher and the other students in class.”

  “That’s Naomi.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “She works part time at The Jewish, in the lab.”

  “Oh,”

  “Do you want to come?”

  “Sure.” He tried to sound matter-of-fact but his heart was racing. He hoped she couldn’t hear it.

  “Are you still there?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say. “Is Speedy going too?” he finally managed to ask.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s Saturday night. Nine o’clock.”

  “What time should I pick you up?”

  “You don’t have to; I’ll already be there helping Naomi.”

  “Okay.” There was more silence. “What’s the address?”

  She laughed. “Oh, right. 1835 Lincoln.”

  He grabbed the pen next to the phone but couldn’t find a piece of paper. He scribbled it on his palm. “Oh. That’s right near the campus.”

  “Yeah. The cross street is St. Marc.”

  “Got it.”

  “Apartment 304.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, see you there.”

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  He was about to hang up when Marianne added, “By the way, can you do me a favour?”
<
br />   “Sure. What?”

  “Don’t tell Roberto.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, see you.”

  “Bye.”

  Dumbfounded, Tommy stared at his palm. This had never happened to him, nor to anyone he knew. Girls like her didn’t call guys and ask them out. The guys on the team joked that only ugly, desperate girls called guys for dates. And because they were so desperate, they would put out. Marianne certainly wasn’t ugly. He was sure guys would be eager to go out with her. But was this a date? He wasn’t picking her up. And she said she was inviting him as a friend. Maybe he was just one of many. But why didn’t she want Speedy to know?

  “I know nothing,” Sergeant Schultz said. Tommy glanced at the screen.

  “Tabernak, hostie, ciboire, calvert,” Tommy said and smiled.

  7

  Tommy arrived early. He blamed his parents, who were fanatical about punctuality. They had drilled it into him so he couldn’t be late even if he tried. To kill time, Tommy strolled along Sherbrooke Street. Though this was his usual route to school, he’d never really paid much attention to it. Only now did he notice how broad it was. The large elm, spruce and maple trees, the apartments that looked like castles, the greystone hotels with uniformed doormen and the expensive stores with brass-framed art deco windows and doors gave it an Old World look. The store window displays got his attention. They were completely different than the ones on The Main where his parents did most of their shopping. Those were packed with as much merchandise as could be stuffed in them. Here the windows were almost bare. One or two mannequins, one or two pieces of jewellery. And the art galleries! In his neighbourhood if you wanted a painting to complement your walls, couch or carpet, you went to a furniture store.

  He stopped in front of a gallery that had three windows with a large painting in each. One looked like somebody had thrown paint at the canvas. Another consisted of a bunch of brightly coloured circles in the shape of a target. The third, the one that really caught his attention, was almost blank. It was a large grey canvas and halfway down, at a slight angle, a thin strip of masking tape ran across it. How was that art? he wondered. And who would buy such a thing? He’d never seen anything like this in the homes of his parents or his parents’ friends. Their walls were decorated with paintings of ladies in turn-of-the-century dresses, nature scenes and still lifes. His parents’ most precious painting was of an old Jewish man with his prayer shawl over his head, reading from an unscrolled Torah.