Merciless Gods

by Christos Tsiolkas

  His eyes that night were burning. I finally understood his zeal for travel, for not standing still, for bursting through walls. I could see the desert landscape of eastern Turkey, touch it, smell it.

  ‘The bus stops in the middle of fucking nowhere and we have a few hours to wait till we get on the next one that will finally take us to Rajan’s home in what he no longer calls Turkey, in what he insists is Kurdistan. I am in this town with literally one street, there’s an old woman herding goats down it, there are snow-capped mountains in the distance. “That’s Persia,” Rajan tells me. “Or so they say. But that’s also Kurdistan.”

  ‘Next to the bus stop is this small bazaar and we wander through it. The men are open-mouthed, wondering what we are, men or women, human or alien, the women cover their heads and faces as soon as we approach them, while the kids are all following us, touching us, asking for money, for cigarettes. I’m hungry and thirsty after the long, dirty bus trip and I start bartering with someone for some food when I hear Rajan shout out and I turn around. His hand is gripping tight onto this young boy, he can’t be more than seven or eight, who is struggling and kicking at him. Then I notice that the boy has my money belt in his hand, that he must have stolen it off me while I was pointing to what I wanted to buy.’

  Vince stopped and looked around at us, as though reminding himself that he was no longer there in Kurdistan but back here in boring and safe Melbourne. ‘I rush towards him and grab my belt from him. I didn’t care about the money or the traveller’s cheques or the passport, all of those could be replaced, but I didn’t want to lose the crucifix I’d bought for my mother. I open the money belt and everything is still there. I am about to turn to Rajan and tell him to let the kid go, that there’s nothing to worry about. But at that moment, with the gold cross and chain heavy in my hands, the kid looks up at me and grins. A sly mocking grin. And it is as if Nazin is in front of me, not this little kid. The little bitch is laughing at me. I flick the chain and the crucifix whips across his face, and the grin disappears alright—he’s not yelling or cursing after that. There’s blood on his chin.’

  Marie flinched. Vince continued, now speaking directly to her. ‘The kid’s gone quiet but everyone else is shouting, all his beggar friends, they’re all around us, yelling, trying to grab him, but Rajan still has a grip on him and I can’t stop myself, I start hitting this child, slapping him, on the face, on the head, on the neck and shoulders. By now all the women are crying and screeching, the kids are screaming louder, the men are walking towards us looking like they want to slit our throats. I know we could be in terrible danger, that what I am doing is unforgivable, but I don’t care. I just want to punish the little bastard, I want to make sure that he never grins that grin again.’

  Then Vince suddenly leapt up and shouted so loudly that Marie jumped back in fright: ‘Polizia! Polizia!’ He was laughing, towering above us, alive and on fire. He sat back down, his voice softening as he spun us back into his net.

  ‘Everything goes quiet, there isn’t a sound. The gods are smiling on us—Rajan has just yelled out the one word that can silence them. Everyone suddenly looks terrified and it seems that half the market has just vanished. Then from the middle of this crowd an old man emerges, like some kind of apparition, with a long grey beard, a turban, robe and sandals, like he doesn’t belong to our century at all. He comes up to us, grabs the kid, and then he starts laying into him. He is screaming abuse at him, he’s hurting the kid much more than I was, but the child is too scared to complain. He just howls and takes his punishment. The old man looks at me and starts speaking and Rajan translates. “This child is cursed! This child has the demon in him. Call the police, arrest him if you must.” He gives him one final slap and then throws him at our feet. The old man is looking at me and his eyes are full of tears. He is asking me to do something, he’s begging me, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying.

  ‘“What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” I ask Rajan.

  ‘“He wants you to punish this child. He says he doesn’t know what to do with him, that he is his poor departed brother’s child, may God have mercy on his soul, that he cannot do anything to discipline the child, that he will only bring shame on them all. In the name of God, will you do something?” ’

  I had somehow become conscious of Madeline. She had wrapped her arms around her knees, dug herself deeper and deeper into the sofa, moving further and further away from her lover. She was entranced and fearful. I knew this because I was in exactly the same state. We were all mesmerised.

  Vince didn’t look at any of us as his voice lowered. ‘It must have been the heat. The heat and not having eaten and the burning sun and the noise and the sheer animal stench of the place, but above all it was the old man appearing out of nowhere as if he were some Old Testament prophet. It was all of that and the kid being the exact double of Nazin. Her eyes, her face, her softness. I wasn’t in time, I was out of time, and I was looking into this old man’s eyes, this old man who looked like Moses, who looked as if he had spoken with God and he’s asking me what to do and all I can see are his Old Testament eyes and all I can sense is the crucifix in my palm and I just say, “An eye for an eye.” That’s all, I don’t know where it comes from but it does. An eye for an eye. The old man looks across to Rajan, who translates for him. Then it is as if all the fear and anxiety in his face disappears. There is still weariness and sadness but there is no longer fear. He grabs the kid with one hand and my arm with the other and we start following him.’

  At that point Hande rose, took a cigarette and went out to the balcony. Mark told me later that she had gone utterly pale, her face drained of all colour and life. It was strange, he told me: Vince was talking about the old man’s face being weary and despairing and that was exactly how Hande looked at that moment.

  ‘I am following the old man, Rajan is behind me and behind him is all of the marketplace, all of the village. The little boy is now walking in front of his uncle and what astonishes me is that he doesn’t make a move to run away. We haven’t gone that far when the old man opens a door in a wall that leads into a courtyard. A group of women and girls are standing around a stove but they cover their heads and go indoors as soon as they see us. The old man pushes his nephew through the door, lets Rajan and me through but closes the door to anyone else. Some of the village kids have climbed the wall and are sitting up there cross-legged, looking down at us.

  ‘The old man picks up a hatchet from against the wall and hands it to me. The blade has been recently sharpened but there is rust at the base, the handle is made of knotted wood. He then grabs the kid and pushes him down so his arm is lying across a stone block that one of the women had been sitting on. He points to his nephew’s wrist. The boy is crying now, so hard that the cries are soundless. It is as if he can’t breathe, and there is piss running down his legs and wetting the earth under his bare feet.

  ‘Rajan is saying to me, “No, enough, what are you doing?” but the old man keeps pointing to his nephew’s wrist and ordering me and it is as if I can understand him, that he is saying this is justice and I am thinking the prophets have walked this land, we are where gods were born and destroyed and resurrected, and I am thinking about how Nazin hurt me, how she scarred me, and I am thinking of how that evil grin of hers hurt me and can still burn, can still burn through me, and I think, this punishment is just. I raise the hatchet.’

  ‘You’re a fuckwit, mate, you are such a bullshit artist!’ sneered Antony as he stumbled away to join Hande on the balcony.

  For the first time since beginning his story, Vince looked directly at me. I’m not making it up, he mouthed, shaking his head.

  He raised his arm, bent at the elbow, swung it down through the air. ‘The axe is old.’ His arm swung down and up once, twice, three times. ‘It takes me three blows to sever the boy’s hand.’

  It was Madeline I was thinking of: for the first time since she’d been with Vince, it was Madeline I was thinking of. I haven’
t been able to shake the memory of her as she was at that instant, her body trembling, her lips trying to form words. If it was a lie he had been spinning, it was a lie that had entrapped his lover as much as it had any of us. If it were truth, she had no more claim to it than any of us there. Madeline had realised at that exact moment what we had all known and had been too cowardly to admit: that Vince did not love her at all. Vince didn’t love any of us. He did not love me.

  I said it softly. ‘You’re an evil man. Whether it is true or not, you are an evil man.’

  His eyes met mine. His face was flushed, his expression grateful. He nodded his assent. I recall his relief and the wretched sadness in his eyes.

  •

  What was there to say after that? Did we believe him? Of course that was the question we all wanted to ask ourselves but then was not the moment for asking it. Our first concern was Madeline. She had started crying as soon as he’d finished speaking, but he didn’t comfort her or even touch her. Ashamed of her reaction, she fled into the bedroom and the women all followed her.

  We men sat in uncomfortable silence. Then Mark pointed towards the hallway. ‘You have to go in and talk to her.’

  Vince was nodding, as if in agreement. But then he jumped up off the sofa, searched for his shoes, put them on and grabbed his jacket. I had to look away. ‘I don’t have to do anything. She’s hysterical, I can’t abide being with her when she’s like that.’

  Antony rushed in from the balcony. ‘You useless, selfish prick. You can’t walk out on her—go into the bedroom and talk to her.’

  Vince’s eyes were glistening. ‘What are you going to do, Ant? You going to defend her honour?’

  It was clear that Vince would have loved nothing more than for Antony to punch him, that it would have been the fitting antediluvian response to the night. Vince was already victorious, I doubt he would have felt the need to return the punch. But we were not such men. I was ashamed, as were Antony and Mark. Vince shrugged. He turned to leave.

  I followed him, I believe Mark did call out, ‘Jesus Christ, just let him go,’ but I followed Vince.

  ‘Stay, Vince, she’ll be alright. It’s the drugs and the shock of the story, you hooked us all in, mate, just stay, please stay.’

  He patted my arm but did not reply; I watched him throw his jacket over his shoulder and walk down the stairs.

  He patted my arm. I remember this now and I am mortified. He patted my arm, like a dog.

  •

  While we men cleaned up, the women managed to calm Madeline, convincing her to stay the night in the spare bed. We all slowly took our leave. Marie, Hande and Antony shared a taxi while Mark and I decided to walk home through the city.

  The last thing Serena said to me as she kissed us goodbye was, ‘It’s not true, you know. None of it. Vince wouldn’t do that—none of us are like that.’

  ‘Of course it’s not true,’ scoffed Ingrid. ‘He did it because he couldn’t bear the attention to be on Hande and Marie. Bloody vain up-themselves conceited men.’ She took the bowl from the coffee table and hurled the remaining scraps of paper off the balcony. They fluttered in the breeze then spiralled down to the street below.

  ‘You don’t think it’s true, Mark, do you?’ Serena had grabbed hold of his arm.

  Mark hugged her close to him. ‘He just wanted revenge, baby, and he got it. Vince always gets what he wants.’ I tried to catch his eye but he had moved past me in the hallway.

  ‘But it’s funny, isn’t it,’ Serena continued, not wanting to close the door, not wanting the evening to be over like that. ‘How is it that the first word we picked out was exactly the one he wanted?’

  ‘Any word would have done,’ Mark answered as he kissed her goodbye.

  •

  That evening marked the end of our social group, the setting of the sun on our intimate, privileged world. Not that it all ended abruptly, that we stopped seeing each other then and there. We stayed in touch for a while, in time even managed to make jokes about that night. Antony began referring to Vince as Hatchet Man. Here comes Hatchet Man. How’s it hanging, Hatchet Man? Keep your children away from Hatchet Man. But no one ever really laughed at it. We fell apart slowly. Vince and Madeline inevitably split up not long after that night, and she moved to Sydney. I’ve heard nothing of her for years. Hande and Antony married and had two children. I heard recently that they have divorced. Serena and Ingrid are still together and now have a daughter. Marie lives and works in New York City. Mark and I lasted for seven years, until I ruined it by having an affair with a work colleague. He couldn’t bear to see me for a few years. But recently I called and suggested we meet for drinks after work. We laughed and chatted without acrimony; and alas, for me at least, not without regret.

  Vince is in Athens. He is married, he is a father. In Europe on a work trip two years ago, I sent an email to the last address I had for him, saying I’d be in Athens for a few days and suggesting we catch up. I did not receive a reply.

  Marriage, children, divorce, affairs, travel, work. It was inevitable that we would all drift apart. I once thought our group unshakeable but that was a delusion of youth. We were far more ordinary than we believed ourselves to be.

  •

  That night as Mark and I walked home, out of the city, through the gardens, I don’t recall that we talked much. The exercise stilled the chemicals in our blood, brought us welcome fatigue. While he showered, I had a cigarette on his small balcony. In the waning of the night I watched a car pull up across the road; a young man got out and walked over to the toilet block in the park. While I brushed my teeth, Mark stood at the bathroom door. I could see his reflection in the mirror. He was naked, his hair wet, his skin flushed from the hot shower.

  ‘What word did you write down?’ he asked me.

  My mouth was full of toothpaste, I had to spit into the basin before I could answer. ‘It was silly,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t think of anything so I just wrote down “childhood”.’

  He smiled at this, a small tender smile, but when I turned to him I don’t think I’d ever seen him look so sad.

  Tourists

  AT THE END OF THAT LONG day, as they fell into bed, exhausted, they both agreed that it had all been worth it, if only for Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning, 1930.

  ‘You know,’ Bill said, cupping Trina’s body into his, his left arm gently curving around her belly, ‘I’m always a little scared when I finally get to view a painting I’ve always wanted to see that it will never be as good as my anticipation of it. But the best paintings never disappoint you, do they?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Trina answered, welcome sleep only moments away. ‘That’s so true.’

  His friend Brendan had emailed him from Sydney, had written, Dude, you have to go to the Whitney. It’s one of the things you HAVE to do in New York. Their friend Clare, who had recently returned home after a year in the United States, had told them the Whitney was fabulous. And their Rough Guide to the city had made special mention of the museum. They had to go to the Whitney.

  Their first mistake had been to think that they could walk there from their hotel, which was just south of East Houston. Though it was only late May, they had woken to a muggy morning, the light conquering the city’s seemingly impenetrable layer of haze to bathe the streets in hues of orange, gold and yellow.

  They had forgone breakfast at the hotel in order to find a café in Little Italy, but when they got there they all seemed to be shut. A skinny blank-faced girl was wiping down a table on Mott Street but when they went to take a seat she had shaken her head and said, Sorry, we’re not open till eleven. It was a curt, dismissive statement and it had given him the shits. They had kept walking and ended up in Starbucks. Their croissants were dry and their coffee bland, and he couldn’t stop complaining.

  ‘You’re such a snob,’ she laughed.

  ‘We got rid of Starbucks in Melbourne,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Bully for Melbourne.’ She laughed again. ‘We’re in New Yo
rk City—how can you even try to compare it to Melbourne?’ She struggled to find an analogy that would do justice to her feelings. ‘It’s like . . . like . . . It’s like comparing a village to a metropolis.’

  That had put him in a sulk. Then by the time they had reached 23rd and Third Avenue, the back of his shirt was damp with sweat. She seemed not to notice the heat, had not slowed her pace to accommodate it.

  ‘I think we should take the subway from here,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh, are you sure?’ She sounded disappointed. ‘I’m so enjoying the walk.’

  He hadn’t pushed it. But he quickened his steps, letting her fall behind, so that she had to call out to him to slow down. ‘Walk with me, don’t run ahead.’