At first tonight the man hadn’t been there. Then, maybe a half-hour back, he’d appeared. She had to guess the time, because she hadn’t heard or seen him arrive. If this were one of her horror novels, he would be a ghost risen out of the earth of the old graveyard. She’d been easing the hose head back and forth, adrift in her night thoughts, which moved erratically, curving, burrowing, doubling back, unlike day thoughts, which had more practical places to get to, when she looked up and there he was, confronting the obelisk, closer to it tonight . . . On the second night they’d exchanged hellos, nothing more. She’d sensed his deepening seriousness and concentration. Maybe he was getting frustrated, too. Or scared of failure. Did crazy men fear failure the way the sane ones did? Thinking of Gavin now. All his short-lived ventures. His departure had been a relief in some ways — making a driven man feel important was an unfinishable job — but she missed him, too. Nights she did. For some moments she dwelt on missing Gavin in the nights. Then she looked up: hoarse, drunken shouting. Three kids, it looked like, crossing Balaclava Street, coming up the path. She was glad the man wasn’t right on the path tonight. She’d lived here long enough to know trouble at a glance. They had the Grim Reaper look — slumpy, faceless, in layers of dark baggy hooded sweatshirts. One of them had a biker jacket over his sweatshirt. Sure enough, they came to a slouching halt on the path not far behind the man, who was facing away from them, apparently unaware. One of them, tall and skinny, was holding something like a crowbar. She shuffled out from behind the boards and stood in the open between the rinks, letting the hose run onto the patch connecting them, keeping an eye on developments. The taunts began — too slurred and soft, at first, to get the words. The man didn’t move or glance back. Maybe he was too deep inside his meditation, or felt he was on the verge of success. The kid in the biker jacket was edging up. Hey, man. I’ve been hearing about you. His voice was firmer, clearer than the others’: Hey, stare at this, man. He shoved the man in the back, not hard, and the man did turn slowly, pivoting from the waist up. After a moment, his dark, visored face tilted like a puzzled dog’s.

Leave him alone, she called.

The hooded faces turned to her in cartoon unison. In some circumstances it would have been funny. The man swivelled back into his posture. The kid in the biker jacket started right toward her, hands in his jacket pockets. In her stomach a downrush of fear. The others followed him with slack, messy movements — they would have trouble when they reached the ice. She turned to face them as they came on through the half-light between the lampposts. She gave the control ring on the hose a half turn to reduce the flow and let the stream pool outward on the ice in front of her. The hose head was a half-foot of steel tapered to a flanged hole an inch and a half in diameter.

He a friend of yours? the leader called to her as he approached.

Gavin had been a connoisseur of confrontations and often gave his views on the best way to manage them. You don’t get into a war of words, he used to say, addressing her as if she cared — actually just reassuring himself. You let your opponent work himself into a state and talk away his wind. You stay calm and quiet and hold his stare.

Guess you must be friends. Neither of you talks.

What’s that? the tall one said.

They’re friends, the leader said. The statue and the Human Zamboni.

The sidekicks laughed, a crude, sloppy sound. As they entered the perimeter of lamplight by the rinks, she could see they weren’t kids. At a distance the baggy hooded shirts had made them look slighter, younger. They were in their twenties. It wasn’t a crowbar the tall one had — it was the wooden handle of a mallet or sledge. Still coming forward, the leader brought his hands out of his pockets and drew back his hood, slowly, with a sort of wry formality. He was smiling, lips closed. For a moment his face took up all her view. He was shockingly handsome. A twitch of attraction plunged downward with another spasm of fear, down into her womb, twin shocks, fused and unanimous in effect. It was a cruel face, beautiful. Strong brows, high-planed cheekbones, hooded grey eyes, plump lips inside a ring of stubble. The dark hair was brush cut, the skull knobbed as if muscled. She kept waving the hose slowly in front of her. The three stopped at the edge of the wet ice, just short of where the stream of water swept back and forth. Beads of spray sequined their trainers and lower pant legs.

You were talking to us? The voice was deep but nasal, grating, unsuited to that face.

I just said leave him alone.

It’s you we want to see anyway. He looked up at her. After a moment his smooth brow crimped slightly, his eyes welled wider. He’d figured it out. He said nothing. It was the third one who said, Is this, like, a woman? He was short and concave, with a pocked face, and he seemed the drunkest or most stoned of the three.

I don’t know, the leader lied. Ask her yourself. Is there a lady in there?

Never fucking seen a woman doing a rink.

I seen her, the tall one said. Told me to get the fuck off the ice last year.