The Mascot Read Online Free PDF Page A

He studied my face but then turned away from me and faced the wall. “No. Forget it,” he said. “It’s nothing, really.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘nothing’? You just said something terrible happened. What was terrible, Dad?”
    He turned to face me again. “Forget it, son. You wouldn’t understand.”
    I could see only his silhouette against the light from the other end of the tunnel. I moved closer to him. His face was pale and his features had become inexplicably gaunt. He breathed more heavily than usual, as if trying to expel some inner tension.
    â€œIt was terrible what they asked me to do!”
    â€œWho are ‘they’? What did they make you do?”
    He was distracted by the sound of someone else entering the tunnel and stiffened again at the echo of approaching steps. I was baffled by his response and instinctively reached out to grasp his arm in an attempt to soothe his nerves. I was surprised by my own gesture: neither my father nor I were physically demonstrative with each other.
    A man in a suit hurried past us, with his head down. My father gave him an embarrassed smile. We must have made a strange scene—two men standing in silence in the dark center of the tunnel.
    By the time the figure had faded into the distance, my father seemed calmer. I could almost feel his heart slowing down. “Tell me, Dad,” I said gently. “Are you in trouble? Is something the matter in Melbourne?”
    He shook his head. “Nah, son. It’s not worth worrying about. Just something that came into my mind. Out of nowhere.” He repeated the words “out of nowhere” and then seemed genuinely perturbed by what he’d just blurted out, as if he’d given too much away.
    â€œI won’t force you, Dad,” I persisted, “but if you feel like telling me…”
    He stared at me with a blank face. Finally, he spoke. “C’mon, Marky, I feel like an ice cream. Where can we get one?”
    He loved sweets and desserts, especially chocolate and ice cream, but I knew immediately that this abrupt change of topic was nothing more than a ploy to try to make light of what he had just said. Yet such was the force of his personality that I felt compelled to go along with the diversion.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” he said, taking charge. “This place makes me feel”—he clicked his fingers as he habitually did when he was trying to search for a word in English—“claustrophobic.” He chuckled lightly at finding the right word so quickly. He put his arm around my shoulder affectionately—again uncharacteristically—and began to move us both toward the light at the far end of the tunnel.
    We surfaced into the hubbub of the street above. My father, who had always had keen eyesight, spotted a gaudy, pink-striped ice-cream van farther down the road, and after queuing for his favorite—“Strawberry. I love strawberry”—we made our way to a park nearby. As we walked along I cast a furtive glance at him. His face lit up with childlike pleasure in his ice cream.
    A small crowd had gathered in the park, enjoying the late-afternoon sun. We found a bench and silently observed the children playing on the grass nearby. My father must have quietly drawn his case onto his lap because suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that he was fumbling in his pocket for something. He pulled out the well-worn key and inserted it into the case’s lock. As always, he opened the case just wide enough for his hand to slip inside. He pulled out a flat envelope and carefully closed the lid of the case before passing the envelope to me.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I asked in a low voice.
    â€œSomething you should see, son.”
    I felt a sense of trepidation and hesitated to open it. As I made a move to do so, he suddenly snatched it back.
    â€œOn second thought, let me do it!” He