—I was born a Jew. It means nothing. It means shit. There is no God.
I could see that Anika’s hands were shaking. It was as though I were no longer at the table, that they had forgotten I was ever there.
She spoke in French and he let out a wild, derisive laugh.
—See, Isaac, she is very religious, she is very righteous. She condemns me to Hell.
—That is not what I said. I said that you are in Hell.
I stared back down at my plate and attempted to force a limp garlic-and tomato-coated slice of eggplant down my throat. It felt like elastic. I realised that this man and this woman detested one another.
—What do you do for work, Isaac?
Her voice was again pleasant.
—I am a photographer.
She nodded but she was clearly uninterested.
—And you, I replied, desperate that the table would not once more descend to bleak silence. Do you work with Gerry?
She seemed shocked. Her eyes widened, she flashed an angry gaze at her husband, and then quickly she composed herself. She chewed, swallowed and then smiled.
—Did my husband take you to our business?
—Yes, this afternoon.
—I have not been there for a long time. Not since the fire.
This surprised me. Gerry had not mentioned it, and I had not seen any evidence of fire in the old structure, or spied any trace of renovations or remodelling.
—It was years ago, she continued, a tragedy. Many men died in the flames. My husband takes care of the business on his own now. I want nothing to do with it.
—It has made you rich.
She glared at Gerry.
—It has made me comfortable. It was not worth the lives that were lost. Her voice was sad.
Gerry reached across the table and tapped my hand.
—May I have cigarette?
—Let the boy finish eating.
—No, I exclaimed eagerly, glad for the opportunity to interrupt the torture of the meal, I’ll have one as well.
—Come outside, commanded the old man. We’ll smoke in my garden.
—Look at this one, Gerry said proudly, tapping a long, stout zucchini. Look how big I grow them. Did Lucky grow zucchinis this big?
—It was Mum who loved to garden. Lucky didn’t garden at all.
—Yes, Lucky was a man of the city. Like my wife.
It was a mild night but I was sweating profusely. I needed another drink to settle the tremors, to steady myself. The old man was oblivious to my fever.
—If I had met Anika here in Europe, we never marry, we never even talk. You know the San Remo Ballroom, in Carlton?
—Yes. The talk of home, the naming of a familiar suburb lurched me into a strong wave of homesickness. I wanted to walk down Nicholson Street, to buy a roll from the Italian deli, to hunt for old music in the second-hand music shop. I wanted to be with Colin.
—It was a big dance, he continued, the Greeks, the Italians, the Jews, we always had big dances in the ballroom. I saw her dance. I fell in love. Like that.
He let out a low moan, cursing in a language I didn’t know. It wasn’t French or European, it wasn’t Yiddish. It didn’t sound European.
—She bewitched me with her dancing. She had no one. She needed a strong man. She wanted me then. But if I had met her in Amsterdam, she would not look at me. She would not even spit at me. She would be ashamed to be seen with me.
Such hatred, I could hear such hatred in his voice, and so much passion.
—In Australia, all she speak of is Europe. Europe destroy her family but she never stop talking about it. I’m European, I’m European, she say all the time, I no belong here.
—But you’re European too. Didn’t you feel that way? My mother does, I wanted to add, my father did all his life. It was the migrant’s song.
He laughed at my question.
—Me, I’m a Turk. He waved towards the house. That is what she call me.
—Where are you from? I was searching his broad face, looking for clues, but I couldn’t decipher the mystery of his skin and features. He certainly wasn’t Turkish; he wasn’t European; but he wasn’t from the East either.
He pronounced a long complicated word.
—What’s that?
—It is a Bulgarian word. It means the place where the wolves fuck.
—So you’re Bulgarian?
—Who knows? This time his laugh was bitter. Where I come from doesn’t exist now. He snapped his fingers. Poof, it has disappeared. The wolves no fuck anymore.
He tossed the cigarette butt into his garden.
—It has been erased. God has erased its name.
The table was cleared and coffee was brewing in the kitchen. Anika was on the phone and hastily put it down when we returned.
—Who were you phoning? Gerry’s tone was suspicious.
—I was speaking to Helene. I have cancelled tomorrow’s lunch. I am not feeling well.
She made us coffee and as I drank it the acrid liquid raced through my body. My eyes were weeping and I had to wipe them with a handkerchief. We were back at the dining table and the smell of the food was still overpowering and obscene to me, though the old man and woman seemed oblivious to my agonies.
I wanted to hear more about my parents’ lives before I was born.
—How did you and my father meet?
—We are workers together at a factory in Abbotsford. We become friends.
—Did you work together for long?
—Not there. Gerry laughed out loud. Your father never work at one place for too long. But we become very good friends. Then, as my wife say, we move into a house together. In Park Street, Fitzroy. We have many parties there.
Here I was, in Paris, and the familiar street names of my childhood were being spoken. Anika remained silent. She seemed nervous. I felt like an intruder in her home. I knew she didn’t want me there.
—Your father taught me to read.
Anika glanced up at this statement. It was as if everything her husband said was aimed at provoking her.
—You must understand, he continued, I was illiterate. A dumb animal.
He grinned at his wife across the table.
—I am just a dumb, ignorant peasant Jew. Once upon a time, there were so many of us.
—How did he teach you to read?
Gerry turned back to me.
—He teach me as if I am a child. He teach me letters and words. Like a proud schoolchild, the old man carefully, slowly, recited the English alphabet.
I laughed out loud.
—Excellent.
Anika laughed as well, but her laughter was bitter and poisonous.
—He still cannot read.
—I have no need. I use my hands.
Gerry spread out his hands on the table. They were enormous, with long calloused fingers. He pointed them at his wife.
—Anika hates my hands. They are a real Jew’s hands. Hands of the earth, hands made for the land. These are not European hands. These are not a poofter rabbi’s hands. These are hands for work and suffering.
I was finding it hard to breathe. It was as if the hatred in the room was pouring into me, merging with the toxic bile in my stomach and threatening to rip through me, to crush me.
—They are murderer’s hands.
—Yes, he agreed, nodding in agreement at his wife’s words. But his smile was arrogant. They are murderer’s hands. They know pain and suffering.
—As do I. Her voice was powerful. Her answer was imperious, her tone commanding. Do not dare say I do not know suffering.
I thought of the photographs on the cedar bureau. The laugh of a young girl that had been forever stilled, forever banished.
And Colin was there beside me. I could sense him. He too smelt of the earth. He was there, shirtless, the blue tattoo on his skin gleaming fresh and sharp.
I staggered to my feet. Dizzy, I grabbed the back of my chair.
—Where is the bathroom, please?
My voice cracked. Hands led me to a corridor, I stumbled into a small room and fell to my knees next to the toilet. I raised the lid and vomited a spray of such volume that the basin was covered in streaks of black and red and purple slime. I retched again and again, into the basin, onto the floor. A light was switched on and Anika was beside me, stroking my brow. I was enveloped in her arms. I closed my eyes. For a moment there was peace.
In the darkness, she spoke to me. You are hungry, she said. You must eat. You must feed. Do you know who I am? she asked. I am exiled, as you are, from Paradise. You are mine, she whispered, but there was no French lilt to her accent – instead the voice was childish, a boy’s speech, he talked to me in my mother’s tongue and the arms holding me then were thin and icy-cold. I felt a kiss on my neck, a hand plunging down into my crotch, it was freezing and with a start the blackness disappeared.
I was lying on the floor, my head on Anika’s lap. She was stroking my hair, gently, soothing me. I was spasming.
—You fainted. She said it simply, calmly.
—I’m sorry.
—Do not apologise. It is a warm night, the food was very rich and you have been travelling. You are tired. Do not trouble yourself with the madness between my husband and myself. We are cursed to be together.
Yes, I am cursed as well. I lifted my head off her lap and slowly rose to my feet. She was still sitting on the floor, not looking at me. Slumped against the cold white tiles she looked old, frail and wasted. She looked exhausted. I wiped the saliva from my lips and, offering her my hand, I lifted her to her feet.
As she switched off the light, we heard the doorbell ring.
A policeman was at the door, speaking to Gerry. Anika offered me a whisky and I drank it gladly. The smooth, biting liquid stilled my stomach. When Gerry returned he resumed his seat and poured a large splash of whisky into his glass. He was looking hard at his wife. Anika had a small, discreet smile on her face.
Without looking at me, he tapped the ashtray, indicating he wanted another cigarette.
At this, Anika broke her silence and spoke in French. I understood, from the fierceness of her smile, by the cool jubilation in her tone, that she had uttered an obscenity.
The old man lit his cigarette, and he too finally spoke.
—I intend to live a long time. With you, a long time with you. I will never leave you.
His next words shocked me.
—Sula has been arrested.
—Why?
—She is an illegal.
I realised that though he spoke the words to me, his eyes had not left his wife’s face. I was merely a witness. Anika’s next words indicated that she too demanded this role from me.
—Those apartments belong to me, they are in my name. How dare you risk everything I have created?
—Yes. Gerry seemed serene, at peace. He was still taking slow sips from his whisky.
—I apologise for placing you at risk, Anikaki. Send them all back, send them all to Hell. What the fuck do I care?
—Do the police wish anything else from us?
The look the man gave his wife was pure sorrow.
—No, we’ve done all we can to help them.
We sat in silence at the table. All I could think of was my burning bowels, the howling inside my body. I inhaled the aroma of the whisky in order to stay the rising bile.
—Would you like another?
I nodded and Gerry rose and filled my glass. He then approached his wife and stood over her. He touched her hair, lifted her chin.
—Tell me, he whispered, that it was not you who betrayed her.
Anika just smiled.
He broke her nose. There was a crunch, she gasped, cried out, and the blood splattered across the table. I could almost taste it, sinewy, thick, nourishing. I looked on as his fist hammered into her flesh, as the proud visage was transformed into an obscene pulp but all I was aware of was the blood. Finally, exhausted, the old man fell to his knees, his body convulsing, his moans bestial. The woman was splayed back in the chair, her body inert, blood slicking her face and neck.
I get up from my chair and move towards the stench. I take the limp body into my arms and hug her, pressing my mouth to her face. I lick her nose, her lips, her mouth, her neck, drinking in the vital carnal liquid; it is as if I can still trace the beat of her heart in the thick drops that course down my throat and into me. I lick her face clean. I falter. My hunger urges me to further depravity. I want more of her: she is such a slight figure in my arms, this old body, this frail spent body. I could snap her in two, I could devour all of her. But I drop the body back onto the chair and her eyes flicker.
The old man pulls me off her.
—Enough.
I watch him clean her; as he is ministering to her his voice is pained and apologetic. He speaks to her in a tongue that I do not understand; she makes no reply to him. She watches him warily as he cleans her face, washes her hair, puts her to bed. My hunger satisfied, I am filled with an impatience to leave the house and to be in the night. The whole world seems aflame with an electric light that warms me. The world is tame and not frightening. I belong completely to it. I want the old man to finish with his wife and to drive me into the city. I have no intention of spending the night in the cramped small apartment he has put me in.
—Are you finished? I blurt out. I have to get going.
He doesn’t answer me but he kisses his wife goodbye, shuts the bedroom light, and I follow him to the garage. As soon as the truck reverses out into the clear night I am intoxicated by the smells and tastes of the earth. And of the city. I can smell chemicals and electricity, the stink of a million bodies. For the first time in my life I understand what it is to know that I am indeed the centre of the world. None of these bodies matter. The old man driving does not matter. Nothing matters except myself. Clarity.
—Can you drive me into the city?
—Your things?
—We’ll pick them up, I confidently give my order. Was it only minutes ago that I was awed by this man, thought him strong? I look across at him. He’s aged, he’s near death. There is nothing to fear. We have entered a motorway and we are carving through a dark, grey tunnel illuminated by the glare of yellow streetlights.
—She does not understand what she did.
—Who?
—Anika. She was scared.
This makes me laugh and he flinches. I am sure that his wife understood exactly what she was doing when she informed the police that a fugitive was living in one of their apartments. I did not believe it was fear that led her to such a decision. Or even something as commonplace as jealousy. It was revenge.
—My wife trusts no one and because of that she fears everyone. She was a girl when everything was taken from her. This destroyed something important in her soul. This was what was done to all of us.
I let him talk. He is convincing himself. He tells me the story of Anika’s family, the grim tragedy of annihilation. But I cannot be moved by these lamentations. There is poetry after Auschwitz: I can taste a juicy drop of Anika’s blood on the bottom of my upper lip. I lick it, feel it trickle down my throat and I breathe out deeply, flooding my nostrils and lungs with blood. There is poetry and life and adventure and pleasure and movement; always movement, it doesn’t stop. Life doesn’t stop, suffering does not end. Anika’s suffering, Gerry’s suffering, Sula’s suffering which is about to begin again. I am in no mood for stories. Those stories have been told and will be told again. There is nothing to apologise for, nothing to regret, no sins or evil to make recompense for. I have nothing to be sorry for. At this wonderful moment I am alert to the glory of life, of rich satisfying bloody life. I cannot be saddened, I cannot be humbled. Every cell of my body is singing sweet electric life. I will never apologise again for life. It is worth killing for this life, it is worth any horror to be in this life. I taste the blood and I have clarity. Any brutality is worth this life. Be brutal, be cruel, be alive. It is as if the old man has read my
thoughts.
—You know nothing of suffering. Only God knows what she has suffered.
Who, I want to ask? His wife? Sula? I am in no mood to be affected by his scolding. I am in no mood for God. I look out into the night and there are shapes and forms fleeing across the barren landscape. God created this suffering, I want to say to him. If there is a God. I let out a deep breath and my body is light. I am one with the vehicle I am in, flying through the air and through space. I am free of this ancient, spent God.
—Are you truly a murderer?
—I killed a man who was sheltering me. I was a youth. He was sheltering me and I killed him. I did not trust him to not betray me. I was a Jew and a partisan.
—There must be some reason you killed him. What made you think he would betray you?
Gerry’s eyes are focused on the road.
—Why? I am insistent. I have to know. I am aware of the great blasphemies I have just uttered to myself. I am on a precipice and I see this. I am not scared. I am not in despair. I am challenging God, I am gambling with eternity.
—Why?
—Your father knows. I told your father.
—My father is dead. Tell me.
Gerry slides the truck off the road and it screeches to a halt. The noxious reek of the burnt rubber surrounds us. There is a young policeman standing guard at Sula’s door, and he leans over the bannister to look at us. Gerry switches off the lights.
—He find me with his wife. He find me with my Jew cock in his wife’s cunt. He screams that I am a filthy Hebrew and I have betrayed him. He says he will kill me. I kill him first. He gestures with his finger across his throat. I slit him like an animal and I cut his whore wife. I kill them both. Only Lucky and you know this.
I am laughing ferociously. I am crying tears of joy. I have won my bet. The old man starts laughing as well.
—You are like Lucky. The old bastard laugh too. He laugh and laugh when I tell him.
—You have nothing to be sorry for.
The old man eyes me suspiciously. I haven’t stopped laughing.
—There are no apologies to be made, do you understand? I feel like singing, dancing, drinking, whoring, laughing forever. We have nothing to be sorry about.