The Gulliver Fortune

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by Peter Corris


  40

  San Francisco, September 1986

  Wade Phillips studied the newspaper article carefully. He read for the third time the outline account of the history of the immigrant Gullivers, and wondered for the third time why the item touched some chord in his memory. He sighed, pushed the paper aside and pulled another file towards him. Phillips was a research officer for Amnesty International, the organization that agitates for the release of prisoners of conscience worldwide. He made notes on the South African case in the file, but found it hard to concentrate. He lit a cigarette and got up from his desk.

  His office was in a building on Powell Street close to Union Square. He walked to the window and stood there smoking and looking down on the people hurrying about in the crisp fall air. Phillips was thirty years of age. A slim, small man with a neat head and a quiet, contented and as yet childless marriage, he had become interested in Amnesty while doing his PhD in mathematics at Berkeley. By one of the chances that sometimes happens in his field, the equation he had been set to examine had unravelled itself for him in a matter of weeks. His dissertation virtually wrote itself and he was left with at least two years of scholarship and study time. He wrote several mathematical papers but found the relative inactivity galling after eight years of hard undergraduate and graduate study. A friend mentioned Amnesty International to him. He attended a meeting, became involved in a case and was hooked. He graduated magna cum laude, but Dr Phillips did no more mathematics. He was an atheist and no idealist; he explained his dedication to the organization by saying that he'd had more than his share of luck and wanted to spread it around a little.

  He watched the people moving freely along the street. Not one in a thousand of them values the actual freedom, he thought, which, if they only knew it, is their sweetest possession. He moved back to his desk to ash the cigarette and his eye fell on the newspaper. The word 'Gulliver' jumped out at him. It was what had been nagging at him. Like most people he'd heard of Swift's book and never read it. But there was something else. Something to do with his work . . . He butted the cigarette, and the connection leapt into his mind.

  "Bolivia," he said. He banged his fist down on the paper. "Bolivia!"

  Ten minutes later he had the file of Juan Gulliver La Vita scrolling on the screen of his desktop IBM computer. He moved through it quickly, absorbing the contents with a speed born of having done the same thing hundreds of times before. He noted the birthdate, the parents' names, the date of imprisonment, the reports of various investigative committees, correspondence with authorities, petitions. There were many cross-references to Amnesty's vast computerized data base and library of printed material. Phillips scribbled notes, printed out pages from the files and sent out for books and newspaper cuttings. When a colleague put his head around the door and said, "Lunch?", Phillips did not even hear him. His ashtray filled and overflowed. The colleague put a cup of coffee and a doughnut on his desk and tiptoed away. Wade was notorious for his capacity for concentration and involvement.

  By early afternoon Phillips had assembled enough information to convince himself. The standard reference work on Latin American politicians had been vague about the birthplace of Eduardo La Vita but his odd and temporary nickname, 'el canguru,' had been recorded. Ferdinand La Vita was known to have travelled to Australia around 1910. He had never married, yet Eduardo had his name and was said to be sixty-four years of age when he died in 1964. Yolanda La Vita had visited her son in prison in Bolivia. Along with other members of her family, she had moved to Paraguay in 1964 and had died there in 1970. Juan La Vita now had no known living relatives in Bolivia.

  El Chico, after recovering from his wounds, had attempted suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule, but the poison had degenerated and the effect had not been lethal. In February 1968, four months after the summary execution of Che Guevara at La Higuera, Juan La Vita was sentenced to twenty-five years' imprisonment for the crimes of escape from legal custody, murder and armed insurrection. Governments had come and gone in Bolivia, but Juan was still in prison. He had spent long periods in solitary confinement, had lost privileges and had had years added to his sentence for infringement of prison regulations. Official records described him as 'rebellious', 'seditious', 'a malign influence', 'unrepentant', 'irredeemable'.

  Juan's Revolutionay Diary had been smuggled out of prison and published by a radical press in 1981. It had attracted little attention in the year of the return of the US hostages from Iran, assassination attempts on Ronald Reagan and the Pope, the assassination of President Sadat, hunger strikes by IRA men in Ireland and the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland. But the book was in the library of Amnesty International, along with similar works by scores of incarcerated men and women around the world.

  Phillips had several photocopied sheets—pages from Juan's decoded and translated journal—in addition to his notes. The diary mentioned Australia, the name Gulliver and contained other clues which convinced Phillips that El Chico was the grandson of John Gulliver and, therefore, a person of great interest to Mr Benjamin Cromwell of Chelsea, London. Phillips turned back to his IBM computer, lit a cigarette and began to compose a letter.

  41

  London, November 1986

  Jerry hammered on the door to Jamie Martin's room. The house, an ancient terrace in Islington, seemed to shake to its foundations and Jerry heard ill-tempered protests from several of the other residents. Jamie opened the door to see Jerry, gasping for breath and trembling with impatience, standing on the gloomy second-floor landing. Jamie was wearing a threadbare, faded Japanese kimono he'd picked up in a street market. An old Arsenal scarf served as a tie. Jerry gaped at him. Jamie pulled her inside and kissed her.

  "Jerry," Jamie said. "Jerry. Oh God, I'm happy!"

  Jerry enjoyed the kiss but she broke free and pulled two sheets of photocopy paper from her jacket. "Look at this."

  Jamie recovered quickly from his disappointment. He and Jerry had been to bed in her flat several times, with highly satisfactory results for them both. But Jamie understood that Jerry, as well as being wary of a rebound relationship, was obsessed by the search for the Gullivers and very serious about her own writing. Jamie was content to bide his time. He took the sheets of paper and flipped them out of their folds. "What's this?"

  "Just read it. It's a photocopy of a letter to Ben."

  "From Amnesty International," Jamie said. "I imagine it's a while since Ben spared a thought for Nelson Mandela."

  "Or for anyone but himself," Jerry said. "Read it!"

  Jamie shuffled across the bedsitter's thin carpet towards the gas ring as he read. He stopped dead by the hand basin. "Christ," he said, "The Bolivian connection."

  Jerry elbowed him aside, filled the kettle at the dripping tap, and put it on the gas. "What a family, eh? Che Guevara, my God."

  "He's forty-four and he's spent more than half of his life in gaol," Jamie said. "The story just gets better and better."

  Jerry glanced at him sharply. "Or worse and worse. Mikhail won't be able to get out of Russia and . . . Juan's in prison. That family was cursed."

  The kettle boiled and Jerry fossicked for cups and instant coffee in the chaos of the shelves above the gas ring. "How did you get this?" Jamie said.

  Jerry rinsed two cups and spooned in the coffee. "I went to Montague's house to collect a couple of things I left there. I also wanted to leave the key Ben gave me. There was no one home and this letter was lying on a table. I rushed out and made the copy. Then I put the original back. I forgot to collect my stuff."

  Jerry poured the water into the cups and added long-life milk to both. Jamie took his cup and they sat on the unmade bed. Books dominated the room; several bookcases were crammed full and books lay in piles on the floor and in cardboard boxes around the room. Jerry's eye was caught by a silver trophy sitting on top of a pile of books. She pointed at it. "What's that?"

  "For football," Jamie said. "I'm not just a bookworm."

  Simultaneously,
they put their cups on the floor. Jerry slipped her hands inside the kimono and felt Jamie's ribs and hard, flat muscles. They kissed. Jerry stood and shrugged out of her jacket. She unzipped her skirt and took off her blouse. Jamie watched her as she shook her hair free. She seemed to float down towards him, but in fact he was rising to meet her, reaching for the top of her pantyhose and searching for her nipples with his mouth. They fell onto the bed and wriggled free of their remaining clothes. They kissed and explored each other and locked together in a hard, pounding rhythm that made the floorboards creak and brought a soft shower of plaster down from the old, cracked ceiling.

  Later, they sipped the cold coffee and reread the letter.

  "This arrived two days ago and Ben didn't tell us anything about it," Jerry said. "They're so greedy and impatient."

  "You gave them something to think about when you brought up the idea of selling the story to the movies."

  Jerry shook her head. "Ben wasn't convinced. I wouldn't put it past him to steal the painting somehow and defraud the Gullivers."

  "I'll ring Faraday," Jamie said. "I'll tell him everything. It's the story aspect he's most interested in, so he'll want every bit of information that's going. The Bolivian angle's great for him."

  Jerry recovered the Arsenal scarf from the foot of the bed and draped it around her neck. "What about Ben?"

  "I'll tell him we know about Juan and how we found out. He's a careless fool. I'll tell Montague the same. Ill tell them that Faraday knows everything. I'll repeat the threat about going to the newspapers. Whatever they've got planned, we have to stop it."

  Jerry nodded. "I'd still like to know about the baby. And whether another heir exists. They won't tell us, even if they do find out."

  "You kept the key, didn't you?" Jamie said. "What's the problem, then?"

  Leo,

  Kobi

  42

  'Southern Maid', March 1910

  Nurse O'Halloran handed the infant to Violet Clarke, who clutched the small bundle and pressed it to her thin chest. "You must swear to me that you will make caring for this child your first concern from this day on, and that you will bring him up in our holy faith. You must swear it!"

  "I do," Violet breathed. "Oh, I do swear it, and thank you. Thank you."

  "Sure, it's a pig in a poke you're taking," the nurse said. "But chances to save a soul don't come along every day. I have to get back to the doctor. If he asks me I'll say the child died, but I doubt he will, heathen that he is."

  Violet moved the swaddling cloth and looked at the small, puckered face. "The mother . . . ?"

  "Will not last the day. If I can be of further help to you I will, but you and your husband will have to make shift for yourselves."

  "Yes," Violet said. "Dennis is so clever. I'm sure he'll have some good ideas."

  "Is he a good man? Strong in the faith?"

  Violet nodded. She could not bear to think of the consequences if she told the nurse that her husband had merely gone reluctantly through some Roman Catholic instruction. Rusty had obliged her in this so that Violet could be married in the church attended by all her family. It had been a lovely wedding, but Dennis was more interested in his stomach than his soul. He had grieved when the baby died, but then the inheritance had swept him up and he'd followed rubber prices in The Times and talked about something called copra. But he had grieved.

  Grief was for from Rusty Clarke's mind at that time. Neither he nor Violet had been struck by the fever, and he counted that a good omen. He'd picked up a bit about New Guinea from some of the passengers and he was full of expectation. He sought Violet out to tell her the latest price for copra and was surprised to find her virtually hiding in their cabin, opening the door to him by only a few inches.

  "I say, Violet, let a chap in. Damned hot on deck, and I've walked a few circuits. Need a good lie down. I must tell you how the jolly old copra's faring." Rusty was already affecting a slightly pukka manner and imagining himself walking around the plantation near sundown with his overseer—Needs weeding there, old chap. Fence looks a bit shaky . . . Yes, Mr Clarke.

  Violet opened the door a few more inches and Rusty squeezed his bulk through. His wife held her fingers up to her lips. "Ssh," she whispered. "He's sleeping."

  "Who is?" Rusty's mind filled with thoughts of adultery. Violet was a scrawny little thing, but not bad-looking in her way. She was forever reading romantic novels. Rusty had picked a few of them up and thrown them down in disgust after a line or two. He thought them corrupting, and wondered if she'd been corrupted. Shipboard life. Notorious for it, he thought. But Violet was bending over something in the bottom bunk. He saw it wriggle and heard a muffled sound.

  "This is our son, Dennis. Yours and mine. It's a miracle."

  "It bloody is," Rusty said. He was sweating in the stifling heat of the cabin. He wiped his red face and passed his hand over the thin, fair hair pasted to his skull by perspiration. "I don't understand, Violet."

  She clutched his wet shirt and the words spilled from her. "I didn't tell you, darling, but after we lost our little boy the doctor told me I wouldn't be able to have any more children. Something went wrong inside. I was afraid to tell you. I was afraid you'd leave me."

  Rusty took her hands and held them together in one of his big, meaty paws. For all his vanities and delusions, he was a kindly man who loved his wife and knew he was lucky to have her. "Never, Vi," he said softly. "Never."

  "The nurse gave him to us. His mother's dead of the fever but he's alive . . ."

  "We can't just . . . take a baby, Vi. What about the father?"

  Violet Clarke pulled away and stood up to her full height, which was not much above five feet; Rusty towered a foot and an inch above her but at that moment he felt smaller. "He has four other children to care for," she said fiercely. "And we have none. What's more, he didn't even know his wife was carrying."

  "Poor man," Rusty said.

  "And he's a Protestant, or worse."

  The baby emitted a mewing sound and Violet swooped down to the bunk. Rusty Clarke had little of it himself, but he knew determination when he saw it. He smiled and patted his wife's thin shoulder. "Righto, dear. Think I'll go and have a gin sling to toast the little feller's arrival."

  "Nau, tain bipo, mi pikinin, nau mi stap long sip. Nau, bihain, mi lusim sip long bilum."*

  Leo Clarke's story of how he was taken from the ship by his adopted parents was only one of the tales he used to fascinate the New Guinea Highlanders among whom he grew up. He also told them about London and Sydney, the first of which he had never seen and in the second of which he had spent only days when he was a few weeks old. A description of the beard and nose of King George V were also in his repertoire, along with an eyewitness account of the KO of Tommy Burns by Jack Johnson at the Rushcutters Bay Stadium. This happened in 1908, two years before Leo was born, but Leo never let a little thing like that interfere with a good story. He did say that he was very young, at the time.

  Leo Clarke was a liar. Violet Clarke's unremitting effort to bring him up with a respect for the truth—so much so that she had told him the circumstances of his birth and adoption as soon as he was old enough to comprehend them—had had no effect. Leo was not a reader—Violet had told him his real name, but this meant only that Gulliver's Travels was added to the list of books he had failed to complete. Rather than read the tales of others, Leo was led to weave inventions and fantasies around his own life. He started with the children of the labourers on Rusty Clarke's first plantation—the one Rusty had inherited and quickly bankrupted—and continued as Rusty moved around New Guinea, first as a plantation manager, then a bookkeeper, then an overseer, until he finally came to rest in Bougainville as the apparent owner of a number of trade stores on the island. Only Rusty, among the Europeans on Bougainville, knew that the stores were actually owned by a wealthy Hong Kong Chinese.

  Leo's real life had been adventurous enough to support the embroidery.

  "I was with Mick Le
ahy in '31 when we went into the highlands," he used to say. "First white men there and bloody nearly the first to die."

  It was almost true. Leo had gone gold prospecting in the highlands eighteen months after the pioneers, and had indeed seen the warlike Kukukukus fire arrows in anger. Not at him though—at the kiap, the government patrol officer, and the native policemen he took care to travel with.

  "Very hush-hush business, that coastwatching," Leo would say after 1945. "We all had to sign the British Official Secrets Act, so I can't say much about it."

  Again, there was embellishment. Through all his years of transience in New Guinea, Rusty Clarke had endeavoured to provide Leo with an education. Violet, growing more and more gaunt and yellow as the climate took its toll, insisted that he be sent to prestigious Catholic schools in Australia. Leo attended a good many of them—a St Patrick's here, a St Michael's there, in the cities and larger provincial towns—but he quickly became homesick for New Guinea and pleaded for release. Violet and Rusty always relented, with the result that Leo's education was patchy. But as a white man and public schoolboy, fluent in pidgin and competent in Morse, he was able to be of some minor use to the coastwatchers who relayed information about the Japanese to the navy.

  So Leo had a reasonable war in Bougainville and the British Solomons. Rusty had died within hours of hearing the news of the fall of Singapore, almost as if the fortress had been his own personal defence. Thirty years in New Guinea had intensified his Britishness as it had reinforced Violet's Roman Catholicism. Against all the odds they had been happy together and although disappointed in Leo (Violet had named him after a pope she mistakenly believed to have been canonized), they were comforted by the feeling that they had done their duty by him. Also, he had made them laugh with his stories and they had always been glad to see him when he lobbed in from one of his semi-successful ventures.

 

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