The Game

Murray walked out of the book store, his purchase tucked into his briefcase. The book with its lavish colour plates had tempted him to spend what he might consider at any other time to be an enormous, a reckless sum for such a commodity. He absently fingered the change in his pocket, then turned back up Yonge Street, back to a plaza with glass-bubbled display cases set on its piazza. He would not, after all, need an expensive lunch. He strolled absently through the plaza, noting distractedly the tanned leathers, appealing tweeds, inhaled the aromatic fragrance of the Laura Secord shop he passed, then stopped at the McDonald's.

The place was thronged with youngsters. He wondered why they were there, not at school, then recalled there was a school nearby and this was, after all, lunch hour. The place buzzed with adolescent ferment, chatter. But the analogy to a hive ended there, he thought wryly. Nothing productive was being accomplished, rather poor nutritional habits were being validated. He shrugged mentally at his own presence there, refusing to feel personally guilty.

At the counter he waited his turn, slightly out of place among all the casually dressed. He in grey suit, maroon tie, socks to match though no one but he would know that. Carrying his order to a tiny pedestalled table stuck in a corner he sat, not bothering to unwrap the hamburger, its odour suddenly unappetizing. His eyes strayed to a nearby table of girls and he watched them covertly as he pried open the Big Mac box, fingers searching blindly for the food. The girls wore uniformly long hair, faces shining with radiant health and youth. They looked strangely indolent there, presented a disconcerting appearance of sophisticated ennui.

God, he thought, Marilyn can't have been much older when he'd first met her. Younger than he'd been, but he hadn't known that at the time. She'd seemed older, as though she had been around. But then, things are rarely what they appear on the surface. He ran fingers through thinning hair, picked up the dripping hamburger, bit it, eyes still on the group of girls themselves alternately eating, chattering and sweeping eyes around the room like beacons inviting stray ships onto dangerous shoals. As though his steady stare had drawn her, one of the girls turned full around, looked straight at him and smiled hugely. The smile lingered, turned sultry, inviting.

He felt nauseated, pushed his food away, hastily rose, the chair scraping on the tile floor, grating his nerves. The book he'd bought weighed heavily in his briefcase. He'd almost forgotten to pick it up, propped on the floor against the table pedestal. He had to suppress an urge to use the briefcase as a battering ram to get through the crowds of shoppers, so dense they impeded progress through the mall, out the doors. Where had they all come from, so suddenly?

*******************************************************************

He'd awakened early that morning, anticipating the alarm. His mouth felt like a rusted sewer pipe, his tongue swollen and barbed like a cow's. Over in the other bed Marilyn slept, head a dark smudge in the half-light. She must be sleeping with her mouth open, he thought with disgust, her breath too audibly whistling in, wheezing out. Too much to drink as usual. But then he'd had enough time to become accustomed to the pattern, the predictability of it.

Those neighbourhood-friendly parties, how he detested them. "It's the least you can do", Marilyn insisted. "To come out with me. How would it look? You not there." How, indeed. He knew, she wasn't aware, that he was her entree. Oh Marilyn and Murray, what a distinguished pair, he the arts expert, she the artist.

Couldn't she see beyond the fawning: "What a wonderful relationship you two must have! The common interest. The stimulation you must derive from your discussions of the finer points of art appreciation. How utterly enviable!" Etcetera, ad nauseum. He tried not to listen, tried to ignore the remarks - directed at Marilyn anyway, since he never responded and she always did, obligingly telling her audience exactly what she imagined they wanted to hear.

Increasingly, art was a sound investment. Even so, it wasn't polite, just to purchase a painting and show it off. Too vulgar. The upwardly mobile among whom they lived didn't consider themselves philistines. One had also to discourse knowledgeably about one's acquisition. It had become de rigeur not only to host little cocktail parties to introduce one's latest investment - although it was never termed that - but also to impress with the 'originality of the vision', the 'execution', the 'scintillating colour', the ... oh yes, the artist's 'growing reputation'. And who better to invite as a foil than himself, the neighbourhood expert.

Marilyn, idiot, can't you see they're using you? Those paintings of your own that hang in your erstwhile friends' homes, they only grace that space temporarily. Your paintings earn sniggers you'll never hear about, the subject matter so ridiculously at variance with the sweet picture of domestic harmony you paint so eloquently with words. Why don't you tell her, Murray? Because, he told himself truculently, there would be a price to pay he was not yet prepared to face. And oh yes, the children.

"The career I could have had by now, the following!"
"No one stopped you."
"I'm hamstrung! You, your children. Always pulling at me, demanding my time."
"You wanted the children."
"You're the one who persuaded me I'd be a good mother!"

Endless, circuitous, frustrating arguments accomplishing nothing but further alienation. What held him to her? God knew, the slack flesh clinging to those big bones no longer attracted him. Her talent, her original flair that he thought he recognized years ago that never borne fruit. Her self-generated bitterness stagnated whatever genuine awareness she might have had.

So Murray dutifully accompanied Marilyn, stood about nodding agreeably. Expert and so amiable Murray agreed in monosyllables with all the arts sycophants into 'art appreciation', eagerly taking non-credit courses offered by Carleton University, itself eager to cash in on the tight-economy squeeze, milk the growing awareness of art-as-security. His presence, the seeming concurrence of a National Gallery curator was all that was desired. He knew that.

Later, his name would be used, outrageous comments attributed to him, regarding their exemplary taste. Garbage, schlock, without one iota of originality or mastery of execution.

He had tried to give sound advice, at first. Visit recognized art galleries, public and private. Develop your own sense of aesthetics. Help it along by reading good art books. Carefully scrutinize and try to understand art in all its forms throughout the ages. No six-week arts appreciation course could adequately prepare or encourage a fine aesthetic taste.

Unsaid of course, was his conviction that one was born with that fine awareness, and one naturally gravitated toward appreciation of the genuine. The people to whom he spoke would listen, look reasonably intelligent, then interject with "but for the moment, what do you think? Should I look for a blue-tinctured landscape to match the living-room decor?" He could only wince when told seascapes made one person ill, portraits gave another the eerie sense of being watched. Gentle, nonthreatening landscapes were the hands-down favourite and most of the people to whose soirees they were invited were not averse to commissioning an 'artist' to paint "lots of flowers, and predominately in the orange hues - to match the drapes."

All of which helped to convince him that most people were boors, functionally incapable of distinguishing the obvious good from the palpably bad, and he finally gave up giving what he considered to be sound advice. No one, he finally admitted to himself, was really interested. Tacit, apparent approval was all that was required of him and his mere presence, quietly benign, sufficed. He became known in their expanding circle of acquaintances as "The silent type, you know. But one word from him speaks volumes. He is an expert, you know".

"You won't help me any other way, damn you! You could use some influence to give me a leg up, couldn't you? Couldn't you! You won't, or perhaps don't even have the ability to recognize my talent. Fake, hypocrite!"

He'd long ago learned to listen, or appear to be listening to her. The words resounded in the cavern of his mind. That mind he deliberately blanked free of thought. They made no impression on him. Not any longer.

God only knew what her continual rages did to their children. They learned too though, to quickly absent themselves. "Mom's having another fit", he'd heard Jeff squeal once as the two of them rushed hurriedly out the door. Could he take them away from her? Would a court award him custody? Was he prepared to try? Would he, alternatively, leave them with her? Conceivably her rage would then be turned against them. Vulnerable, his children. And he their protector. Who would protect him?

He'd slipped silently into his clothes, gone downstairs for a quick cup of instant coffee. Noticed as the day lightened that it was a fogbound morning. Wondered whether to call Air Canada to confirm his flight, but didn't.

********************************************************************

On arrival in Toronto he fled the sterile mausoleum of Terminal II, took the airbus service downtown, went on immediately to keep an early appointment at the R.O.M. Concluded his business there and checked into his hotel at eleven. Took a shower, called to confirm his appointment next day at the Sigmund Samuel, another at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and twelve-thirty found him wandering up Yonge Street.

The city was in constant flux. There seemed very little resemblance to the city of his youth. He still recognized landmarks, they were there still. Some of them, seedy corner buildings, some uplifted with the growing trend to urban renewal. The University of Toronto eating up properties in its relentless growth. Each time he returned there were changes. Yonge Street was still brash and colourful; gauche. Squalid, too. He was no prude, but the blatant advertising bothered him. The blaring disco soiling the air whenever a door was opened on the strip, repugnant, faintly distressing. Despite that, and despite his fatigue he enjoyed the walk.

He continued to amble unhurriedly up Yonge, turned left at Bloor, then continued, finally stopping before the Old Gold Shoppe. A disembodied face looked back at him. With hostility, he imagined. He was reminded of his childhood when he would linger after school in front of the window of a variety store and gift shop. One of those places that dotted the city, selling magazines, cigarettes, chocolate bars, glassware, cheap statuary and jewellery. Miniatures of classic Greek sculpture like "Discobolus", "Dying Niobid", "Athena Lemnia" and the wonderful "Poseidon", enthralled him. The store had stood at the corner of Dundas and Spadina. No longer there. He'd checked. But he could recall clearly the voice of the proprietress who would always come bustling out to spout her magical cant that was supposed to drive lingerers away: "Vanna buy a vatch? Ged avay frum da vinda!"

Which reminded him to check his watch, and he realized he had less time to make his appointment than he'd thought. Back to Yonge, down into the northbound subway entrance, footsteps echoing hollowly, the station strangely deserted. He looked about nervously, recalling newspaper reports of people being pushed out onto the tracks before oncoming trains. Or people being mugged. Things like that happened invariably when there were no witnesses about to report or to intervene. Intervene? Good luck! He started, thinking he heard a sound behind him. But there was nothing. He tugged his shirt cuffs to show the required quarter-inch of white, juggled the briefcase.

Carefully he watched the street names flashing whenever the train pulled into a station. Certainly didn't want to miss his stop. Felt edgy about the few other passengers sharing the coach, studiously avoiding eye contact. They could probably tell, he thought, that he didn't belong. Finally, off at St.Clair. Then a short walk along the street, past a bridge he had never noticed before,where he crossed to the opposite side. Narrowly missed by a car, the driver swerved, swore and shook his fist. Murray shrugged, began searching numbers.

Ahead, a wrought-iron standard bore the number he was looking for. A stone fence topped with ornamental wrought-iron, curving gates, leading up a long driveway. He turned up the drive, leaves from autumn-turning trees flanking the drive floating about him. He felt himself an incongruous figure, walking up the long, undulating drive that did not permit a view of the house which he felt certain must be just ahead. In such a setting no one should be walking. He should be in an expensive imported car, driving up the driveway as though he belonged there, casually accustomed to such opulence. He glanced down, checked that his vest was buttoned all but the last button. Reached down to flick a clot of dirt off the toe of his left shoe, then regarded his soiled fingers with a slightly perplexed air.

A leisurely bend in the driveway and there stood before him a grey stone turn-of-the-century mansion. Surrounded with ornamental shrubbery, flowerbeds, and off to one side a Loblaws-sized parking lot. One black, one grey Mercedes-Benz parked forlornly in its macadamised vastness. The building and its grounds reminded him of the fabulous houses of Europe advertised in 'Country Life' magazine. Who might imagine what lay beyond those gates looking in from St.Clair, in the middle of the city?

Feeling more than a trifle awkward he looked for an entrance where he could announce his presence. Saw only a door with discreet signage reading 'Service Entrance'. A dark woman with the blackest eyes he'd ever seen, wearing a salmon-coloured uniform-type dress opened the door. Smiled civilly and asked an accented "yesss?".

"Hello! he said heartily, louder than he'd meant to. "I'm Murray Lazar ... uh, Mr. Lazar. I have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Boehm ...?"

The woman's eyes dilated visibly, making her appear almost moronic, Murray thought. She nodded and said "Just a meenit, plees". And left him standing there, the door politely ajar. Within, the sound of voices rapidly exchanging in a musical cadence. He turned, watched a man he hadn't noticed before working in a nearby flowerbed, digging in loamy soil, pulling up bulbs, separating them. He turned back to the open door, startled, when a voice asked, "Mr. Lazar?"

An assured-looking, middle-aged woman in a long dress extended her hand, laughing. "The maids are upset", she explained. "No one, and I mean no one, has ever come to this entrance before."

"Well ... it was the only one I could see." No one? No one, she meant, who was anyone.

"Oh, she assured him, solemnly now, as though it mattered. "There's another one! The main entrance, around to the front. Would you like to come this way? It's really the kitchen and servants' quarters. Or would you prefer to come around to the front and enter there?"

"I'm here, now. This entrance is good enough for me", he said, acknowledging to himself that in the world she inhabited it probably was good enough for him. She stood aside and he entered, following her through a large sunny kitchen lined with mahogany cupboards, copper pots glinting off the walls. Two look-alike women flustered there, in the same uniform-dresses.

"This", Mrs. Boehm announced, bringing him through a long hallway, "this is the front entrance". He stood beside her in a chandelier-hung foyer, floor a checkerboard of marble squares, an elegant staircase double-spiralling to unknown upper reaches.

"I've never been in such a huge place before", he said. "That is, a private house." She smiled graciously, drew him into a lounge off the foyer, opening, he could see, into an immense drawing room set in period furniture.

In the lounge, with its pale green wainscoting, its baroquely gilded mirrors and burgundy upholstery, she introduced him to her husband, a grey-haired man with a carefully trimmed beard, mustache, seated on a lavishly-carved rosewood settee, wearing a navy silk smoking jacket. Mr. Boehm, it was explained, was nursing a cold. "Trying to smoke it out", he said complacently, puffing his pipe.

Both men reached to shake hands. Mr. Boehm not quite rising, but politely appearing to make the effort. "Mrs. Berensen sends her regrets", Murray said, trying to recall the little speech he'd rehearsed on his walk up the driveway. "She has entrusted me to give you the necessary details. She'd genuinely wanted to be here, but other, urgent business called her away." Hints of prime-ministerial calls, and from their expressions, he could see the effort was not wasted. Money and power are natural bedfellows, sharing the profoundest regard one for the other.

Murray looked around the room. From somewhere, Bach's aria 'Air on a G String' wafted ethereally about them, in exquisite counterpoint to the setting. He'd seen such interiors before in magazines like 'Apollo', 'The Country Squire'. God, the ceilings must be all of twenty-five feet. And the walls were hung, every square foot, with paintings. Not just any paintings, but masterpieces by early Canadian masters. There were even some hung, improbably, on the ceiling.

"I've never seen a place like this before", he explained, feeling awkward, unable to pull his eyes away from the distraction of so much that compelled him.

"That's all right", Mr. Boehm said, his voice warm with generosity. "Look around, it is rather unusual. You knew, of course, that we have an outstanding collection of Canadian paintings?" Oh, he'd known, but nothing had prepared him for the reality, not even Brenda's lavish, enthusiastic descriptions. Her disappointment at not being able to make the appointment had seemed to him ridiculous, but now he could see why ... it was quite the experience.

Mrs. Boehm, at her husband's suggestion, invited him to look around the ground floor rooms - a few of them - before they addressed themselves to the "business at hand". She led him through the salon. Along one wall were inset Gothic stained-glass windows, the autumn sun throwing a kaleidoscope over the oriental rugs. The walls were unabashedly crowded with Tom Thomsons, A.Y. Jacksons, Cornelius Krieghoffs, Emily Carrs, Paul Peels, and much, much more. He goggled.

The vigorous strokes of colour in one of Thomson's most famous of paintings took him back to his youth, recalling a large copy hung just off the principal's office in his elementary school. Another copy off the front entrance in his old high school. The jewel-tones of Krieghoff's habitant scenes recalled an art calendar with many of the same paintings reproduced. The sombre West Coast totems of Emily Carr stared soberly at him in a myriad of haunted eyes. Lorne Harris's angular northern landscapes chilled him.

Mrs. Boehm walked on, almost offhandedly keeping up a running commentary, an explanation of the history, the acquisition of each painting they stopped briefly before. She explained what a coup it had been, discovering the Verner in the dingy attic of some little out-of-the-way antique shop. He murmured his appreciation before each canvas.

The walls of a smaller lounger were hung with Kureleks. Murray recognized them, the originals, from a recent national magazine article. In that room a huge picture window looked out over the parkland of the estate. Emerald greens mingled with the orange and russets of early-turning maples, the mullioned panes of the great expanse of glass transforming the colours into balls of colour brighter than their reality. The leaves; he could almost smell their acrid flavour. Or was it inside himself, the acridity, a not very ennobling bitterness.

Back in the main salon Mrs. Boehm walked him down the opposite wall, chatting unaffectedly all the while. David Milne, Jacques Tournequer, hazy Horatio Walker pastorals. She stopped before an Ozias Leduc still-life, told him how much she'd paid for it, what its current value was. "I don't imagine you really want to see any more?" she asked brightly. He really did not. He felt drained. Incapable of taking in any more.

In the lounge he seated himself again across from Mr. Boehm, said, "I guess we'd better get down to business. I'm wasting your time." They protested, said not at all, they enjoyed talking about their acquisitions, showing people around. Noting reactions. Oh, Murray thought, doubtless.

"Now, about the tapestries...", he began, but just then one of the maids came in and Mrs. Boehm spoke quickly to the woman, then turned to him. "She's Mexican. I speak Spanish quite fluently, as you can hear. I spend my winters down there. I really love the place."

Mr. Boehm chuckled, coughed, looked at her indulgently, said nothing could keep her in Toronto "once the snow starts flying". The weather, she said, was "fit for barbarians", in wintry Toronto. Or poor slobs like me, Murray thought. Try Ottawa in the winter.

A few minutes later the maid was back, skillfully passing a tray of canapes, her face blandly disinterested, dark skin pulled taut over high cheekbones, black hair glistening. Removed in caste from those seated in the room as surely as she was by her ancient lineage. Murray was urged to help himself, and hastily chose a dainty concoction from the proffered tray, not really wanting it.

"Now, the tapestries", he sat back, trying again. "I understand you want me to appraise them ...?"

"Not at all!" Mrs. Boehm objected. "I'm perfectly capable of evaluating them myself. They are a valid art form." Her voice brooked no argument. "The tapestries are original works of art", she expanded aggressively, voice rising. "I commission Canadian artists to draw cartoons. From that the Mexican artisans weave the tapestries - entirely by hand."

Sounds like a cottage craft, he thought. Of course the nomenclature 'entrepreneur' to explain her part in the process would be unacceptable, offensive, too crude for her refined tastes. "I see", he said politely. "Perhaps I was misinformed?" What the hell had Brenda told him, in her haste?

"Murray", Mr. Boehm spoke gently. "Murray, you don't mind if we call you that? You mustn't mind my wife. She becomes rather excitable when she talks about art, cannot abide the thought of someone not appreciating her expertise."

"...I've been commissioned to purchase paintings for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, to conclude important negotiations for the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Museum!" she went on in an aggrieved litany. "Naturally, I'm confident of my expertise!"

"I wouldn't presume to question your credentials, Mrs. Boehm", Murray said quietly, noting the rising hysteria of the woman's voice, comparing it quite favourably to Marilyn's. "Far be it for me to cast any doubt as to the originality of the tapestries..."

She paused, her mouth opening, half closing a few times, as though she were a fish, drowning in oxygen. Then a short silence, and she smiled at him, graciously. Mollified.

"That's better, Dear", her husband said, smiling apologetically at Murray. "Now. Why don't you take Mr. ... Murray, down to have a look at the tapestries?"

Murray set the uneaten hors d'ouevre on its scalloped-edged napkin on the marble top of a commode, took a last hasty sip of his wine, placed the goblet beside the napkin, and followed the stiff figure of the woman out into the hallway, down a wide staircase to a lower level where, in another reception area, tapestries hung the walls. A number of tapestries, he noted, lay over oriental rugs, on the floor. Those on the floor, Mrs. Boehm commented shortly, were unsatisfactory.

"They cost about three thousand apiece", she said carelessly.

The tapestries were bright, beautifully woven. He examined them carefully, fingering the fabric, noting the closeness of the weave and remarked out loud on their craftsmanship. To himself, he noted their superficial resemblance in their epic subject matter and production to French tapestries of the 15th, 16, 17th Centuries. These were no Gobelins, but nice work.

He looked briefly around the room, wanting to run his hands over ormolu-mounted commodes, desks. Exquisitely carved armoires, rococo mirrors and tall-case clocks watched him, confident of their place in this sumptuous world of wealth.

Upstairs, he assured them that ample room could be found in the second-floor gallery for a show revolving about the tapestries. He told them the packers were expert, knew exactly what they were about, and they were fully bonded and insured. Perhaps, he mused aloud, they could ask the Mexican ambassador to open the show. He would suggest it to Mrs. Berensen. The Boehms appeared appropriately gratified.

They pressed another drink on him and he protested. He should leave now, really. they insisted that he stay, talk with them. He thrust himself back on the loveseat, tried to relax, felt unbearably weary, but hadn't the capacity to assert himself, insist he had to leave. He looked at the ceiling while Mrs. Boehm talked animatedly, eagerly. He half listened, looking occasionally over at Mr. Boehm, who nodded encouragingly from time to time in his wife's direction, as though reminding her of something she'd overlooked. Mrs. Boehm talked of accompanying her husband, years ago, when he'd gone on business trips. How, during the day, she would haunt art galleries and little shops and intuitively buy paintings that later proved to be priceless, a national heritage.

He wondered idly, would they leave the collection to the public, like the McMichaels? Probably.

With what seemed like a sudden clarity of vision, he realized that he and the Boehms were players in a game. He represented the majority of players who made their tentative, ultimately abortive moves hoping to improve their tenuous positions on the board. The Boehms, on the other hand, moved effortlessly from pinnacle to pinnacle of success, taking everything in their implacable stride forward. Winners.

The thought left a rancid taste in his mouth. He wished he had the nerve to ask now for that drink, after all.

Marilyn, when he goes on business trips, does not purchase incredible works of art. No, Marilyn paints incredible works of art.

She always likes to say she's emulating life as it really is. Marilyn does not care for non-objective art, insists on painting life-like, academy style, yet with a flair all her own. There was nothing, she said, surrealistic about her replications.

"You're very fortunate" he said to a startled Mrs. Boehm. "Oh, I don't mean just all this", he expanded, sweeping his arm all-inclusively, recklessly, around the lounge. "No. I mean that you've been able to realize a drive, satisfy an ambition of your own. Things are different, more difficult for other women with perhaps similar aspirations."

"Yes ...?" she responded, voice uncertain, not quite understanding where he was leading, but polite. Of course", she said delightedly, after another few seconds. "That is true. I've simply never thought of it. What does your wife do?" she countered, and her husband leaned forward, interest apparent in his face, intent on Murray's response.

"My ... wife? Well. Of course she's been fortunate too, I'm glad to say. My wife ... is an artist. Yes. An artist in the mold of say, a fortuitous combination of Mary Pratt, and let's see, Salvador Dali. Very original." His tongue had almost betrayed him, spoke the name of Hieronymus Bosch, that progenitor of tortured art depicting every human frailty, each fearful evil the sleeping mind envisages in helpless, nightmarish activity. "We're very proud of her. that is, I am, and our children."

"Oh?" Mr. Boehm queried, placing his pipe on a cabriol-legged table before him and wrapping his jacket more securely to his chest. "The whole family is concerned with the visual arts? How interesting. Your experience must parallel ours, then. How many children have you?"

"Oh, one boy, and a girl. The girl came first", he laughed, tightly. "She's always telling me it's symbolic, my wife."

"Well, that sounds like quite the family", Mr. Boehm said, leaning back comfortably. "Any time you have the family in Toronto, bring them by. We would be glad to show your wife around. Perhaps we'll see some of her works publicly hung some day." Was there more than a hint of a patronizing tone there? Murray, do you really care?

Oh yes, surely he'd bring the family around. Marilyn could bring a canvas for Mrs. Boehm, to demonstrate her talent. Perhaps, perhaps Mrs. Boehm would like to acquire one - or a dozen.

One or a dozen they were all the same. Each and every one a grotesque depiction of an eyeless woman-thing, crawling maggots for brain, breasts mutilated, spurting black ooze. Small children pulling pieces of the woman's flesh, voraciously devouring it. "It is different", he admitted, the first one he'd seen. "Your technique has improved" he said finally, viewing one after another; a stab of diplomacy. What else could he say?

But, to the present.

It bore thinking about.

Perhaps Mrs. Boehm could launch Marilyn's career. Droll. The discovery of a raw, new talent.