Read Online The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen - Free Book Online

safety of the goldfish. He climbed through the prickly bushes and over the wall to inspect the miniature waterfall. Lisa was not there. He somersaulted down the hill to see if it was still steep enough. Wouldn’t it be funny if Lisa of all people should be waiting at the bottom? He sifted a handful in the sand-box to guard against polio. He did a test run on the slide, surprised that it squeezed him. He looked gravely from the lookout to guarantee the view.
    “My city, my river, my bridges, shit on you, no I didn’t mean it.”
    The bases had to be run, the upper ponds examined for sail-boat wrecks or abandoned babies or raped white nurses. Touch the tree trunks to encourage them.
    He had his duty to the community, to the nation.
    At any moment a girl is going to step out of one of the flowerbeds. She will look as though she has just been swimming and she’ll know all about my dedication.
    He lay under the lilacs. The flowers were almost gone, they looked like molecular diagrams. Sky was immense. Cover me with black fire. Uncles, why do you look so confident when you pray? Is it because you know the words? When the curtains of the Holy Ark are drawn apart and gold-crowned Torah scrolls revealed, and all the men of the altar wear white clothes, why don’t your eyes let go of the ritual, why don’t you succumb to raving epilepsy? Why are your confessions so easy?
    He hated the men floating in sleep in the big stone houses. Because their lives were ordered and their rooms tidy. Because they got up every morning and did their public work. Because they weren’t going to dynamite their factories and have naked parties in the fire.
    There were lights on the St. Lawrence the size of stars, and an impatient stillness in the air. Trees as fragile as the legs of listening deer. At any minute the sun would come crashing out of the roofs like a clenched fist, driving out determined workers and one-way cars to jam the streets. He hoped he wouldn’t have to see the herds of traffic on Westmount Avenue. Turning night into day.
    “Hello there.”
    A stout man of thirty in an Air Force uniform stood above him. He had been the centre of attention in the park a few days before. Several nurses complained that he had been too enthusiastic in the fondling of their male children. A policeman had escorted him to the street and invited him to move along.
    “I thought you weren’t allowed in here.”
    “Nobody’s around. I just felt like talking.”
    His uniform was sharply pressed. Really, he was too clean for thattime of the morning or night or whatever it was. Breavman isolated the smell of shaving lotion from the lilac-laden air. He stood up.
    “Talk. You have my permission. I’m going home.”
    “I just thought …”
    Breavman looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Talk! Why aren’t you talking? It’s all yours – the park’s empty!”
    There were gardeners in faded clothes on his street. They called to one another as they swept, all Italian names. Breavman studied their brooms made out of wire-bound branches. It must be nice to use something that real.

5

    “W ill you stop shouting, Breavman, or stand further back, I can’t hear a damn thing you’re saying.”
    “Bertha, I said! I just saw Bertha! She’s in town!”
    “Bertha who?”
    “Oh, you wicked and careless fool. Bertha of our childhood, of The Tree, who mangled herself under our noses.”
    “How does she look?”
    “Her face is perfect, really Krantz, she was beautiful.”
    “Where did you see her?”
    “In a bus window.”
    “Good-bye, Breavman.”
    “Don’t hang up, Krantz. I swear it was really her. I won’t say she was smiling. It was an open, blonde face with no family lines, so you could make anything you want of it.”
    “You go follow the bus, Breavman.”
    “Oh, no, she saw me. I’ll just wait here till it comes round again. She moved her lips.”
    “Good-bye, Breavman.”
    “Krantz, this is a most pleasant telephone booth I’m