Slow Man Read online

  ‘So real!’ says Elizabeth Costello again. ‘Who would have thought it!’

  He presumes these remarks about the real are in some sense aimed at him; he presumes they are made with irony. What their point might be he cannot guess.

  The putative Blanka puts her head around the door. ‘She’s coming,’ she intones, and withdraws.

  Marijana has made no effort to pretty herself up. She wears blue jeans and a white cotton top that does nothing for her thick waist. ‘So, you bring your secretary,’ she says without preliminaries. ‘What you want?’

  ‘This is not meant to be a confrontation,’ he says. ‘We have a slight problem on our hands, and I thought the best way of clearing it up would be to have a quiet talk. Elizabeth is not my secretary and has never been. She is just a friend. She came along because it is a nice day, we thought we would take a drive.’

  ‘A drive in the country,’ says Elizabeth. ‘How are you, Marijana?’

  ‘Good. So, sit down. You like some tea?’

  ‘I would love a cup of tea, and so would Paul. If there is one thing Paul misses about the old way of life, it is dropping in on friends for a cup of tea.’

  ‘Yes, Elizabeth knows me better than I know myself. I need barely open my mouth.’

  ‘That’s good,’ says Marijana. ‘I make tea.’

  The blinds are angled against the fierce sun, but through the slats they can see two tall gum trees in the yard and a hammock slung between them, empty.

  ‘A lifestyle,’ says Elizabeth Costello. ‘Isn’t that what they call it nowadays? Our friends the Jokićs have a lifestyle to support.’

  ‘I don’t see why you sneer,’ he says. ‘Surely one is as much entitled to a lifestyle in Munno Para as in Melbourne. Why else should they have left Croatia if not for the lifestyle of their choice?’

  ‘I’m not sneering. On the contrary, I’m full of admiration.’

  Marijana returns with the tea. Tea, but no cake.

  ‘So, why you come?’ she says.

  ‘Could I speak to Drago, just briefly?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not at home.’

  ‘All right,’ he says, ‘I have a proposal to make. Drago has a key to my flat. On Tuesday morning I will be going out, and will be away most of the day. I will have left by nine and I won’t be back before three. Could you tell Drago it would be nice, when I get home, to find everything as it was before.’

  There is a long silence. Marijana is wearing blue plastic sandals. Blue sandals and purple toenails: he may be an ex-portrait photographer and Marijana may be an ex-picture restorer, but their aesthetics are worlds apart. Very likely other things about them are worlds apart too. Their attitude towards mine and thine, for instance. A woman he had dreamed of prising away from her husband. I want to look after you. I want to extend a protective wing over you. What would it be like in reality, looking after her and her two hostile daughters and her treacherous son? How long would he last, he and his protective wing? On the other hand . . . On the other hand, how proud her breasts, how comely!

  ‘I don’t know nothing about this key,’ says Marijana. ‘You give Drago keys?’

  ‘Drago had a front door key during the time he was living with me. During the time he was using my flat. You have one key and Drago has another key. He can take things out of the flat and he can bring things back. Whether I am at home or not. Using his key. I don’t see how I can express myself more clearly.’

  There is a chrome cigarette lighter on the table in the shape of a nautilus shell. Marijana lights a cigarette. ‘You also have complains?’ she says to Elizabeth. ‘You also think my son is thief?’

  Elizabeth shrugs theatrically. ‘I wouldn’t know what to think, I am sure,’ she says. ‘The young are subject to so many temptations nowadays . . . That word thief . . . So large, so heavy, so final. In America they use the word larceny. Grand larceny, petty larceny, and all the grades between. My guess is that what Paul has in mind is a petty larceny, one of the pettiest, so petty that it merges into mere borrowing. Is that not what you would want to be saying, Paul? That Drago or more likely one of Drago’s friends borrowed one or two items that you would like returned?’

  He nods.

  ‘That is what you come for?’ says Marijana. ‘No telephone, just bang on door like police? What he take? What you say he take?’

  ‘A photograph, from my collection. A Fauchery. A copy has been substituted for the original, a copy which has been doctored, for what purpose I can’t say. And we are not the police. That is ridiculous. The police don’t come by taxi.’

  Marijana waves towards the telephone. Are they being dismissed? He has not even finished his tea. ‘Original?’ she says. ‘What is this thing, original photograph? You point camera, click, you make copy. That is how camera works. Camera is like photocopier. So what is original? Original is copy already. Is not like painting.’

  ‘That is nonsense, Marijana. Sophistry. A photograph is not the thing itself. Nor is a painting. But that does not make either of them a copy. Each becomes a new thing, a new real, new in the world, a new original. I have lost an original print which is of value to me and I want it back.’

  ‘I talk nonsense? You make photograph, or this man, how you say, Fauchery, make photograph, then you make prints, one two three four five, and these prints all original, five times original, ten times original, hundred times original, no copies? What is nonsense now? You come here, you say to Drago he must find originals. For what? So you can die and give originals to library? So you can be famous? Famous Mister Rayment?’ She turns towards Elizabeth Costello. ‘Mr Rayment offer us money. You know that? He offer to take me away from nursing. He offer us all new life. He offer Drago new school, fancy school in Canberra. Offer to pay. Now he say we steal from him.’

  ‘That is only half true. I offered to take care of you. I offered to take care of the children too. But I did not offer a new life. I am not as stupid as that. There is no such thing as a new life. We have only one life, one each.’

  ‘So why you say Drago steal?’

  ‘I don’t believe I ever used the word steal, and if I did I take it back unreservedly. Drago, or more likely Drago’s friend Shaun, removed a photograph from my collection, borrowed it, and made a copy which he proceeded to doctor, I don’t pretend I know how, you understand these things better than I do. Now I would like the original back. After which there will be no more questions and everything will be as it was before. Drago can come visiting, his friends can come visiting, he can stay overnight if he likes. It is not good, Marijana, to get into habits of borrowing and not returning, not good for a growing boy. They won’t stand for it at this new school of his, Wellington College.’

  ‘Wellington finished. We have no money for Wellington.’

  ‘I offered to pay for Wellington, my offer stands. Nothing has changed. I will pay for other things too. Money is not the issue.’

  ‘So is not money, so why you so angry? Why you come bang on door? Sunday and you come bang on door like police. Bang bang.’

  He has never been good at arguments. Women in particular run rings around him in an argument. That was certainly true of his wife. In fact, now that he comes to think of it, perhaps that was why the marriage ended: not that there were too many arguments but that he was always losing them. Perhaps if he had won an argument once in a while he and Henriette might have stayed together. How boring to be tied to a man who can’t even put up a fight!

  And the same with Marijana. Perhaps Marijana wants him to try harder. Perhaps in her secret heart she would like it if he won. If he could tip the balance back he might yet hold on to her.

  ‘No one is angry, Marijana. I have a letter to deliver, and I thought it would be quicker to bring it in person. I will leave it here.’ He places the letter on the coffee table. ‘It is addressed to Mel. He can read it at his leisure. I also thought’ – h
e casts a glance at Elizabeth Costello – ‘we also thought it would be nice to drop by for a cup of tea and a chat, as one used to do in the old days. It’s a nice practice, sociable, friendly. It would be a pity if it died out.’

  But Elizabeth Costello is no help. Elizabeth Costello is leaning back, eyes shut, abstracted. Thank God Ljuba is not around to treat him to one of her glares.

  ‘Only people which come bang on door is police,’ says Marijana. ‘If you telephone first, you say you come for tea, then you don’t make frightening, like police.’

  ‘Give you a fright. Yes. I’m sorry. We should have telephoned.’

  ‘I agree,’ says Elizabeth, rousing herself. ‘We should have telephoned. That is what we should have done. That was our mistake.’

  Silence. Is that the conclusion of the bout? Plainly he has lost; but has he lost honourably, honourably enough to get a rematch, or has he lost abjectly?

  ‘You want taxi?’ says Marijana. ‘You want to call taxi?’

  He and the Costello woman exchange looks. ‘Yes,’ says Elizabeth Costello. ‘Unless Paul here has something more to say.’

  ‘Paul here has nothing more to say,’ he says. ‘Paul came in the hope of getting his property back, but as of now Paul gives up.’

  Marijana rises, gives an imperious wave. ‘Come!’ she says. ‘You want to see what kind of thief is Drago, I show you.’

  He tries to get up from the sofa. Though she can see what an effort it costs him, she makes no move to help. He casts a glance at Elizabeth Costello. ‘Go on,’ says Elizabeth Costello. ‘I’ll stay here and catch my breath before the next act begins.’

  He struggles erect. Marijana is already halfway up the stairs. One step at a time, gripping the banisters, he follows.

  PRIVATE, says the glaring sign on the door. THIS MEANS YOU. ‘Drago’s room,’ says Marijana, and throws open the door.

  The room is functionally furnished in blond pine: bed, desk, bookcase, computer workstation. It could not be more clean and orderly.

  ‘Very nice,’ he says. ‘Very neat. I’m surprised. Drago was never so neat when he stayed with me.’

  Marijana shrugs. ‘I say to him, Mr Rayment let you make mess so you will like him, but here you don’t make mess, is not necessary, is your home here. I also say to him, you want to go to navy, you want to live in submarine, you learn to be neat.’

  ‘True. If you want to live in a submarine you had better be neat. Is that what Drago wants to do: live in a submarine?’

  Marijana shrugs again. ‘Who knows. Is young. Is just a kid.’

  His own opinion regarding Drago, an opinion he does not voice, is that if he keeps his room shipshape, that is probably because his mother is always breathing over his shoulder. Quite intimidating, Marijana Jokić, when she wants to be. Quite a presence to bear with you into the future.

  Pinned to the wall over Drago’s bed are three photographs blown up to poster size. Two are Faucherys: the group of miners; and the women and children in the doorway of the wattle hut. The third, in colour, shows eight lithe male bodies caught in midair as they dive into a swimming pool.

  ‘So,’ says Marijana. With hands on hips she waits for him to speak.

  He steps closer and examines the second photograph. Mounted on the body of the little girl with the muddy hands is the face of Ljuba, her dark eyes boring into him. The fit is less than perfect: the orientation of the head does not quite match the hang of the shoulders.

  ‘Just playing,’ says Marijana. ‘Is not serious thing. Is just – how you say it? – slips.’

  ‘Shapes. Images.’

  ‘Is just images. Play with images on computer, what is thief in that? Is modern thing. Images, who they belong to? You want to say, I point camera at you’ – she stabs a finger at his chest – ‘I am thief, I steal your image? No: images is free – your image, my image. Is not secret what Drago is doing. These photographs –’ she waves towards the three photographs on the wall – ‘all on his website. Anyone can see. You want to see website?’

  She gestures towards the computer, which is humming softly.

  ‘Please not,’ he says. ‘I don’t understand computers. Drago can make all the copies he likes, I couldn’t care less. I just want the originals back. The original prints. The ones touched by Fauchery’s hand.’

  ‘Originals.’ All of a sudden she smiles, and not without kindliness, as if it has dawned on her that if he does not understand computers or the concept of the original or anything else, it is not out of wilfulness but because he is a fool. ‘OK. When Drago come home I ask him about originals.’ She pauses. ‘Elizabeth,’ she says – ‘she come live with you now?’

  ‘No, we have no such plan.’

  She is still smiling. ‘But is good idea maybe. Then you not alone when it comes, you know, emergency.’

  Again she pauses, and in that pause he senses that her purpose in bringing him upstairs may not just have been to show him Drago’s pictures.

  ‘You a good man, Mr Rayment.’

  ‘Paul.’

  ‘You a good man, Paul. But you get too lonely in your flat – you know what I mean? I get lonely too, in Coober Pedy, before we come to Adelaide, so I know, I know. Sit at home all day, kids at school, just baby and me – Ljuba was baby then – you get, you know, negative. So maybe you get negative too in your flat. No children, nobody. Very . . .’

  ‘Very gloomy?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t know how you say it. You grab. Anything come, you grab.’ With one hand she shows him how one grabs.

  ‘Clutch at straws,’ he suggests. It is the first intimation she has given that the makeshift English she employs is not enough for her. If only he could speak Croatian! In Croatian, perhaps, he would be able to sing from the heart. Is it too late to learn? Can he find a teacher here in Adelaide? Lesson one: the verb to love, ljub or whatever.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘Elizabeth come live with you, then you forget Marijana. Forget godfather too. Is no-good idea, godfather, is not realistic like. Because where he lives, this godfather? You want godfather come live in Narrapinga Close? Is not realistic – you see?’

  ‘I never asked to come and live with you.’

  ‘You come live here, where you sleep? You sleep in Drago’s bed, where is Drago sleeping? Or you want to sleep with me and Mel, two man, one woman?’ She is bubbling over with laughter now. ‘You want that?’

  He cannot laugh. His throat is dry. ‘I could live in your back yard,’ he whispers. ‘I could have a shed put up. I could live in a shed in your back yard and watch over you. Over all of you.’

  ‘OK,’ she says briskly, ‘is enough talking. Elizabeth come live with you, she fix up everything, no more gloomy.’

  ‘Gloom.’

  ‘No more gloom. Is funny word. In Croatia we say ovaj glumi, doesn’t mean he is gloomy, no, means he is pretending, he is not real. But you not pretending, eh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that.’ And, to his surprise, perhaps to her own surprise too, she rises on tiptoe and gives him a kiss, two kisses, one on each cheek. ‘Come, we go down now.’

  Thirty

  Elizabeth Costello is not by herself. Standing over her is a strange figure: a man in baggy white overalls, his head hidden under what looks like a canvas bucket. The man seems to be speaking, but his words are irretrievably muffled by the mask.

  Swiftly Marijana crosses the floor. ‘Zaboga, zar opet!’ she exclaims, laughing. ‘His hair is catched! Every time he put it on’ – she gestures towards the strange headgear – ‘his hair catch, then I must . . .’ She makes twisting motions with her fingers.

  She grasps the man by the shoulders – it is Miroslav – turns him around, and begins to disengage the mask from his long hair. Miroslav stretches backward with his hands, groping for her hips. She sways out of the way, frees the mask. He
lifts it up: his face is ruddy from the heat; he seems to be in a good humour.

  ‘It’s the bees,’ he explains. ‘I’ve been moving hives.’

  ‘My husband is beekeeper,’ says Marijana. ‘You meet my husband? Is Mrs Costello, she is friend to Mr Rayment. Mel.’

  ‘How do you do, Mel,’ says Elizabeth Costello. ‘Elizabeth. I have heard about you but we have never met in the flesh, so to speak. You keep bees?’

  ‘It’s just a hobby like,’ says Mel or Miroslav.

  ‘My husband, his family always keeping bees,’ says Marijana. ‘His father, and before him his greatfather. So he is keeping bees too, here in Australia.’

  ‘Just a few hives,’ says Mel. ‘But it’s good honey, from the gum trees mainly. Got the eucalyptus tang, you know.’

  The ease between the two of them tells all – that and Marijana’s laughter and the freedom of her fingers in his hair. Not an estranged couple at all. On the contrary, intimate. An intimate relationship with a row every now and again, Balkan style, to add a dash of spice: accusations, recriminations, plates smashed, doors slammed. Followed by remorse and tears, followed by heated lovemaking. Unless the whole story of the fight and the flight to Aunt Lidie was a lie, a fabrication. But why? Can he be the object of an extended plot, a plot he does not begin to understand?

  ‘Pretty hot in overalls,’ says Mel. ‘I’ll go change.’ He pauses. ‘You come to inspect the bike?’

  ‘The bike?’ he says. ‘No. What bike?’

  ‘We would love to see the bike,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s not finished,’ says Mel. ‘Drago hasn’t worked on it for a while. There’s a couple things still needs to be done. But you can take a look, seeing as you have come all the way. He won’t mind.’

  ‘We would love that,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Paul has been looking forward to it so much.’