Antidote to a Curse

  ‘Leave them by the umbrella stand.’

  She followed him to the foot of the staircase and he took a seat on a salmon plush stool just by the doorway. When he had finished rolling up the bottoms of his trousers, she crouched to his level and said, ‘This way.’

  He ascended. As he ascended he looked at the framed photographs: father, mother, sister, and a recently dated certificate he couldn’t read. ‘The house seems empty.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Where’s your family?’

  ‘Dead.’ The tread splintered beneath her as she turned to face him. He felt a dull ache in his elbow.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Her eyes lowered so that her lashes met - an amalgam of copper and russet.

  ‘You live here alone?’

  ‘Yes, I live alone.’

  It was then he realised how neat everything was, noting the polish on the banister, the neatly arranged frames. ‘It’s like a museum,’ he said under his breath.

  She turned to face him when she reached the second level.

  He stood below her. Two steps below. ‘Do you have help?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The house,’ he said. ‘It’s perfect.’

  ‘I use little of it,’ she admitted.

  Upstairs and downstairs revealed door after closed door. ‘Easier to keep clean,’ he said, keen to see more.

  She chortled while stifling a hiccup, descended a step before admitting, ‘I pay my sister to do my share of the chores.’ Ludovico momentarily lost his composure and quickly looked her up and down. She said this as if Esmira was still alive.

  ‘Your mother, she set…?’ he asked, fully aware that most Bosnian mothers would assign chores and that the eldest daughter would be the first instructed.

  ‘We delegated down.’

  ‘You delegated down?’ he asked, amused a little by the sound of this.

  ‘They knew I wouldn’t marry.’

  ‘You were pregnant!’

  ‘Exactly. I handed the reins to my sister.’

  ‘They didn’t mind?’ Ludovico’s tone betrayed his disbelief.

  ‘They accommodated me, in the end – gave me the best room in the house,’ she said, pointing towards the heavens. ‘They knew I wouldn’t leave.’ Adding, somewhat obscurely, ‘I helped with the groceries.’

  He felt thrown, but nonetheless continued with his enquiry, ‘And Esmira?’

  ‘I paid her.’

  ‘Where did you get the money from?’

  She took a step back on the tread, a deep breath. ‘I bargained hard for my apples,’ she confided with steely resignation.

  ‘Apples?’

  ‘Not to be short-changed a penny,’ and after tilting her head as if to emphasise the point, ‘the groceries were my job.’

  ‘Did Zlatko help?’ Ludovico asked, zeroing in on what was of interest to him, since he’d known Zlatko well before Jasna did.

  ‘Briefly – all too brief,’ she conceded. Even though he knew Jasna had disapproved of his association with Fikret Abdić, she had received some benefits earlier in their relationship.

  ‘He was good at making money,’ Ludovico said, his voice low. He studied her carefully, but he failed to draw further comment. Ludovico imagined Fikret’s castle – yes, castle – on its elevated grassy knoll, and Fikret, that short, pudgy megalomaniac, minting his own coins. ‘What did you do with the money?’ The question was no further than his lips when he realised that he had momentarily lost the thread of the conversation.

  ‘I used it to pay Esmira.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, feeling a little lightheaded.

  Jasna smiled.

  ‘Sounds like you got away with murder.’

  Their eyes met. They shared a compromised silence. ‘Come.’

  Ludovico walked towards the end of the hall to the room on the right. As soon as he glanced through the doorway he could see its magnificence. The room occupied the front corner of the house. There were six white-framed rectangular windows in all, three on each side. He could see the luminescent white bark of the grey alder through the bright green fernery outside. He stepped onto the bamboo matting; cool under his bare feet, into the room infused with a green tinge.

  ‘This is where I work.’

  ‘Where you write?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her single bed was high and covered with a lace cover. To the side of the room was a large chest of drawers. He saw a small table by the window, hardly large enough for a sheet of paper and a cup, and though he knew it couldn’t be a desk, no other workplace seemed visible.

  ‘Where do you write?’ he asked.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing to the table he had just dismissed.

  She walked up to her chest of drawers. She pulled out the lower one. ‘This is where I keep my poems.’

  He walked over and looked into the drawer. ‘Fascicles!’ The drawer was a good eight inches deep and three foot wide and booklets were piled in rows neatly along the bottom.

  ‘How much have you written?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Some?’ He glanced again into the drawer, taken by the copiousness of the neatly arranged bundles and the single-minded industry that they implied. She noticed his cheeks redden and she, as if suddenly cognisant of what had transpired, reddened also. ‘Perhaps,’ and she leaned towards the drawer in an attempt to close it with her leg, but it had been pulled askew on its runners.

  ‘Have you published any?’

  ‘Few.’ Her eye caught his and she allowed a little smile.

  ‘I thought you hadn’t published.’

  ‘Anonymously.’

  ‘Oh, where?’ His intonation rose along with the volume.

  ‘Here, in the local paper.’

  ‘You’re famous!’ he said. And he corrected, ‘Anonymously

  Her glance lingered, appreciative of the humour; she could have let it slip, but asserted, ‘I’m nobody.’ Her tone revealed a stony resilience.

  This startled him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Have you forgotten where we are?’ she asked, as her hand swept before her, indicating the windows as she invited him forward. Ludovico noted all of them in a glance, and stepping up to the one closest to the corner, just by the foot of the bed, he looked out.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he allowed, tracing the thin eighteen-metre trunks; the abundance of the single genus impressed him. He imagined an aerial view, the undulating green sweep of the canopy beneath him, one of Herzegovina’s jewels. How did a landscape of such beauty breed such tyranny?

  ‘It’s easy to forget,’ she said, close behind him. Intuitive to the mood, he stepped aside, a little, allowing her more of the view.

  ‘I don’t think our generation will forget,’ he said, looking outwards. ‘It hardly seems possible.’

  ‘Possible?’ She drew a sharp, short breath. ‘Dangerous to take things at face value.’

  Her terseness unnerved him. He had underestimated her, with her plain-spoken language, her relaxed hospitality and a drawer stacked with neatly arranged poems.

  Her hair gave off a sharp odour. He could tell that she was drawing closer, encroaching, present in his survey, as if determined to see the forest through his eyes. He could feel her breath on his neck. He looked straight ahead and aimed. ‘Is that why you write poetry?’

  A few seconds passed. The brush of air against his neck ceased. Ludovico couldn’t help but romanticise her; he imagined her meandering wildly in her thoughts for a quick appraisal. ‘What do you mean?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Poetry allows you to explore things deeply.’

  He turned around. She stood before him silent as a tree, her hair cascading over one shoulder – the other, apart from a dainty ribbon, was bare. ‘Except when I’m short of apples.’ The tone was self-effacing and intended to create distance. Even so, she walked back to her chest of drawers and invited him to take a seat on her bed. She crouched towards the drawer so that she could realign it.

/>   ‘Our writing benefits from a better understanding of our own motives, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course,’ she asserted. After a little fossicking she pulled out a fascicle, tied together with string, and turned to a page that she handed towards him. By way of replying she recited the first two lines, ‘I dwell in possibility – a fairer house than prose.’

  ‘A dead end!’ Zlatko yelled. Some of the cobblestones that made up many of Melbourne’s old horse-and-carriage paths were worn treacherously smooth.

  ‘Put it up!’ I yelled. I tied the hood of my jacket tightly around my face. He used the umbrella as a sword to fence his way through the rain.

  After a hasty joined shower I had raided Zlatko’s wardrobe for a clean shirt. The pelting rain had woken us up. With barely enough time for me to seize my bags and for Zlatko to grab an umbrella, we’d made a dash for it.

  A tram arrived within a minute. Inside, I pulled off my hood and rubbed my hands together. ‘Cold?’ Zlatko asked, surprised.

  ‘No, just wet.’

  Zlatko’s head was plastered. ‘I hope you enjoyed that.’

  He held up his nylon-clad sceptre as if posing for a photo. Even though he was sitting before me, dripping wet, I sensed distance. I imagined him traversing the memory of some experience half a world away. ‘The rain’s stopped!’ he announced. I looked out the window. In the sun’s glare the street evanesced. Without even attempting to, I conjured a scene from Herzegovina, a moment of inspiration. I could tell it was Herzegovina from the quality of the light and the colours. Ludovico was lying naked in the sun on the bleached limestone by the emerald river, unaware of Zlatko spying on him from the other side.

  ‘I know you’re late, but don’t you think we should settle this thing with Spiro?’ I asked as we got out of the tram.

  ‘It’s settled. He saw me yesterday.’

  ‘He came to the shop?’

  ‘Don’t look surprised – he’s come before,’ he said, shooting me a wink.

  The tram made a stop that had those standing reaching for the hand rails. As I approached the door I felt the pointy end of his sceptre close behind.

  We walked through Chinatown, past a laneway, and turned left into Waratah Place. ‘You don’t mind if I hang around the back? I’ve got some writing to do,’ I asked, sliding past the coloured strips.

  ‘Ah, the new one!’ Winking again. I hadn’t shown him a single word.

  The shop assistant looked limp and vague and happy to be going home. It was nine in the morning.

  ‘Hi, Zlatko – good to see you. I think I was about to nod off.’

  We greeted each other, a smile, a nod, but Zlatko didn’t bother introducing us. She collected her bags, lifted the flap, and like a bird released from a cage made straight for the door.

  ‘Do you ever do the night shift?’ I asked Zlatko.

  ‘Nah, that’s casual work.’ The till slammed open with a convincing ring.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re on contract?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The casual’s job,’ I repeated sceptically. I’m obviously in the wrong field, I thought to myself. ‘Is she single?’

  ‘No … well, yes, mother of three.’

  I knitted my brows.

  ‘We don’t all have it as easy as you,’ he teased.

  ‘I’ll go out the back?’ I asked, holding my laptop to my chest.

  ‘It’s all yours.’ He gestured towards a closed door. A part of the store I’d never visited. I opened the door and saw an old wooden desk and a chair beneath a sash window. A writing space! I looked at the window with disappointment. It wasn’t much of a window. For one, it was old, splintered, and its orange-yellow paint had peeled. The buckled state of the frame indicated that the upper sash was jammed. The window was secured on the outside with a crisscross wire mesh. It looked out onto the lane lined with giant council bins. I could hear the wind coming through a gap in the window frame.

  He looked at the screen and with a raised brow asked, ‘Getting there?’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I cautioned, the ending feeling years off.

  Out back was an excellent workspace. Not as plain as Zlatko’s flat but more austere, with a warehouse-high ceiling and, I imagined, boxes of magazines and videos and other paraphernalia that the store specialised in. I didn’t drift far. I could hear Zlatko opening up boxes, stripping and ripping at arm lengths in the room next to me.

  As I leaned towards my computer my reflection rose in the glass. My mind settled on Jasna and the last scene. How did Jasna become so rich? I asked myself. The clichés of the relationships between race, class, sex and money persist only because of the formulas we are fed or the formulas we ourselves insist on reading. Jasna was not just comfortable but wealthy, new wealth. ‘We delegated down,’ she declared mysteriously, if not disingenuously. But my attraction to her lay in her fierce singularity, the solitary trajectory she had carved out for herself.

  Like all characters, Jasna vacillated from being present in the mind and on the page to sliding back into ephemerality. I felt like I was getting her and not getting her, all at the same time. With my battery fully charged and my laptop open like a giant clam I felt bereft of her presence. I tapped at the keyboard but she lay mute; no letter or word seemed to evoke her presence. It felt pointless. The vain strike reverberated around me. I looked up at the high ceiling and the intricate exposed pipework overhead. All I could seem to focus on was the timbre of the wind. It was not a howl and not a whistle, but a rich, multi-textured thread transmitting the muted screams of a nation in a barbarous phase. She existed; I knew it and persisted in believing that I could locate her in transitory episodes.

  It was lunchtime before we got to Spiro’s. A workman was stripping the plastic film off a newly installed plate-glass window. ‘Looks like the insurance came through after all.’

  ‘Or the money I gave him.’

  ‘How much?’

  Zlatko’s gaze was fixed on the setting.

  ‘Six hundred.’

  ‘Excess?’ I asked.

  ‘Excess.’

  ‘Well, maybe we should sit outside and enjoy it.’

  ‘Guys, take a seat.’ Spiro wheeled on ahead of us to talk to the workmen.

  ‘Well, at least we got our space back.’

  Zlatko looked annoyed.

  I gestured helplessly.

  Zlatko turned his attention to the traffic, his eyes a mere squint. Spiro appeared in the doorway. ‘Coffee?’

  Zlatko gave a curt nod.

  ‘Hey, Leila, the guys are back.’ Signalling towards Zlatko, ‘They’re on the house.’

  I gave him one unabashed smile.

  ‘Oh, and get Zlatko some sugar cubes,’ he chuckled to himself.

  ‘And an ashtray,’ Zlatko said in the hope of changing the subject.

  The milfeis were sprinkled with icing sugar. The custard felt a little solid and the pastry took a couple of bites before it broke up on the tongue. I looked at the new plate glass, the chalky corners smeared with a cluster of fingerprints.

  ‘Another coffee, guys?’ Spiro stuck his head around the doorway.

  I looked at Zlatko. ‘One more?’

  ‘Just clear these plates here,’ he answered.

  Spiro clapped towards Leila, ‘A hand?’ He turned to me and asked, ‘Like the new look?’

  ‘It’s great,’ I offered, unable to share in the enthusiasm.

  ‘Hi, guys,’ Leila said, stacking the plates.

  ‘Where’s your father these days?’ I hadn’t seen Darko for ages.

  ‘Serbia,’ and holding up a polished plate she announced, ‘a death.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I could see that Zlatko knew. I sensed a link between Darko, Spiro and Zlakto that I couldn’t fully delineate. Zlatko’s willingness to divulge stories about his past in Bosnia and his brief relationship with Jasna was counterpoised by a whole barrage of stories that he kept close to his heart.

  ‘Insurance came
round, hey,’ I said, giving an appreciative wave at the cafe.

  ‘We’ve gone for clear lines, clean and simple.’ From the doorway, Spiro gave Leila an approving look.

  Zlatko muttered something to himself.

  Even though there was a relatively cool autumn wind, the sun felt warm on the skin. It emerged and re-emerged through the fan of cumulus clouds that was sweeping towards the east. It was invigorating to sit outside after being stuck at a laptop with relatively few ideas.

  Leila came out with a macchiato and my latte, more of a Vienna coffee, crowned with fresh cream.

  Sitting outdoors was beginning to feel like an event. Leila stepped in momentarily only to step back out with cutlery. ‘Spiro’s ordered mains for you guys. So stick around.’

  I eyed the fresh cream. Zlatko looked unmoved. As soon as Leila was out of earshot I said, ‘He’s making an effort.’

  Zlatko allowed the briefest of smiles and dismissed his mood with a light wave of his hand, but something about his bearing had shifted.

  Leila re-emerged with a new napkin holder. The napkins were decorated with a repeated geometric motif – the Greek key.

  ‘Will you be joining your father?’ I asked, in an attempt to make some small talk.

  ‘No,’ she said with a despondent shrug. ‘Looks like it will have to be another time.’

  ‘Been there before?’ I ventured.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Ah, so you were born here?’

  ‘Sure was.’ Leila gave me a bright, appreciative smile before retreating into the cafe.

  I slipped on Zlatko’s sunglasses and leaned back so that I could enjoy the full benefit of the sun. As I sat there in silence I wondered what brought people together, and about the role that money had in certain unions. I considered my relationship with Zlatko and his relationship with the cafe staff.

  True to her word, Leila came out with two mixed gyros. I sat up, ready to dig in. ‘Gosh, Leila, who inherited all the money?’ I asked, scooping up a spoonful of cream.

  ‘Not me,’ she intoned, turning towards the doorway. And under her breath, ‘Not even a mention.’

  Her exclusion from the family will stung. As she made her way to the river, she realised the future held no certainty. Pregnant, with an ex-suitor who had defected, she had brought an indelible stain to the family name. Her relationship with her sister had always been sound, but now Jasna would be no more powerful than ‘second wife’ the day her sister married. She pulled her shawl over her shoulder but knew, even before she closed the door, that she had dressed inappropriately. Jasna trudged in her plastic ankle-cut boots through the mire of sludge and decomposed leaves. She knew that without financial means, escape would be about as empowering as exile. Zlatko had given her money, and she had stupidly given him all the proof he needed to declare his innocence by passing on photos, revealing ‘good’ times together. Still, she had accepted the money and was grateful for it. She had folded it carefully and placed it in her white wallet among her poems. She would not marry him and she would not start a family, but like Zlatko, defecting to the only Muslim enclave aligned with the Serbs seemed her only alternative – though, unlike Zlatko, contrary to her will. Her knowledge of the political loyalties of local families and the more esteemed families in the surrounding towns would make her a valued member of the opposition. Her years of weekly market forays and travel to nearby villages had allowed her to amass knowledge on her neighbours.