100 Years of Vicissitude

by Andrez Bergen

  ‘Where are we?’ I heard Kohana ask.

  ‘It’s still January 1975. But we’ve shifted about eight thousand kilometres.’

  Somewhere nearby, perhaps two houses over, I could hear a Sherbet song I recognized: ‘Silvery Moon’.

  I noticed Kohana was staring at the boy.

  ‘His hair is so golden, it radiates,’ she marvelled as she circled him.

  ‘Needs a good haircut,’ I grumbled. ‘The 1970s, as you know, had a lot to answer for.’

  ‘What’s that he’s reading?’ The woman knelt on the grass to take a better look, something I had no need to do.

  ‘The Fantastic Four, issue 25—Part One of the Thing versus the Hulk.’

  She eased over the cover, though the boy didn’t notice. ‘Spot on. Number 25. I’m impressed. An Australian comic?’

  ‘Hardly. American. 1960s stuff, by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  I didn’t answer. I sat down next to the boy and tousled his hair. He kept reading, oblivious.

  ‘God, I loved this issue—I read it multiple times. A couple of years passed before I found issue 26, to see what happened in their big brawl. I preferred the Thing to the Hulk, and though he kind of lost this bout, he did have some wonderful moments. Oh, by the way,’ I flipped a lazy thumb at the boy, ‘as you’re possibly well aware, this is I.’

  ‘You? Then we’re in your memory?’

  ‘Looks that way, doesn’t it?’

  ‘This is odd. What’s the dog’s name? I’m sure she senses we’re here.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Sad, you agree? I vividly recall the name of the song on AM radio that’s playing right now’—which I did; it was ‘Ego Is Not a Dirty Word’ by Skyhooks, but they kept reminding me of the title in the repetitive chorus—‘yet I don’t remember what we called this little dog. I adored her.’

  I found myself peering underneath the canine.

  ‘You know, I’m no longer certain it was a girl. I could be wrong.’ At that, I recoiled. ‘I’m scared to look—in case the dog has become a hermaphrodite because I can’t recollect its sex. This is supposed to be my memory, and it’s defective.’

  I shook my head and gazed around the small enclosure, first from the humble, beige-coloured weatherboard house to the greying, wooden back fence and the outdoor loo with its septic tank. You could almost trainspot the enormous Nylex clock from here.

  Skyhooks had given way to ‘January’ by Pilot. I remembered only too well this inane, catchy song. The neighbours must have had their radio dial set to 3XY.

  ‘My grandparents’ backyard, in Duke Street, Richmond.’

  ‘Les?’

  ‘No, my dad’s parents. The shed here was like a goldmine—it was full of comics that belonged to my half-brother. My dad had married another woman, before my mother, you see. My half-brother was a few years old than me, and he lived here with my grandparents.’

  ‘You liked reading comic books?’

  ‘As much as you did,’ I reminded her. ‘Yes, I’ll admit it now—I cherished them. At first I started out on Casper the Friendly Ghost, then moved on to DC, the usual fodder like Batman, The Flash and Superman. But when I found my brother’s decade-old Marvel stash, I was hooked. The 1960s was a superb time for comics. Captain America, first as he was drawn by Kirby, then later a few precious issues by Jim Steranko.’

  I picked up one of the comics that lay beside the boy. It didn’t have a cover. The Avengers, issue 21. I remembered that one too. I flicked through it. The part where the Avengers disband had rocked the pre-adolescent me.

  ‘My dream job at school was to become a comic artist. I was always drawing superheroes and barbarians and scantily clad, buxom women. That was the style. I had capes down pat, but musculature was a challenge. I’ll tell you a quick story. Frustrated with the fact that there was no Aussie superhero at Marvel back in the ’80s, I created one for them—a fellow from Melbourne, of course—called “Southern Cross”. I sent the idea to Stan Lee at Marvel, and he actually wrote back, via his secretary, that he loved the idea and recommended it to the then-Editor-in-Chief… who shot the idea down in flames.’ I sighed. ‘Then again, Southern Cross was a patently silly name.’

  A thought came to me.

  I flicked through the pages, hoping it would be here. Not all ’60s Marvel comics had the ad, but a lot of them did, going by my dubious memories.

  ‘Ah-hah. Found it!’

  I opened the comic wide and showed Kohana a one-page advertisement.

  ‘The Insult that Made a Man out of “Mac”—see how this skinny kid is accosted on the beach by the local bully, humiliated in front of his girlfriend? He then does a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course, and goes back to the beach to sock the bully, win friends, and influence people.’

  ‘Your role-model perhaps?’

  ‘Don’t laugh too much. You’d be surprised what kind of impact on me this tall tale had.’

  ‘So, you gambled a stamp for the free body-building book?’

  ‘I’m not talking about that kind of influence. The stamp trick was only available to Americans. We would have had to pay far more in Australia—and anyway the comics were almost ten years old when I was reading them. I doubt the offer would have held.’

  ‘Obviously, you’ve thought this through before now.’

  I pondered that. ‘Mmm. Obviously, I have.’

  ‘Who was Charles Atlas?’

  ‘He was awarded the title of “The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man”, haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it says here.’ Kohana was checking through the fine print on the page. ‘Really?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well then. Peas in a pod.’

  She sat back on the grass too.

  As I mentioned, it was a beautiful day, dry and sunny and about thirty-two degrees in the old Melbourne—why not? We soaked it up. The boy had no idea he was positioned between two contemplative ghosts, tanning themselves.

  Kohana leaned back with her face in the sunlight. ‘You seem happy here.’

  ‘I was. My grandparents left me to my own devices. Nanny Deaps is probably cooking right now, and Paddy would be in the loungeroom, in his favourite threadbare recliner, multi-tasking—he liked to listen to the footy on his transistor radio while watching the horse racing on the telly. Me? I had these comics and I enjoyed exploring the area. Richmond was an interesting place to grow up, in the ’70s.’

  ‘Is this the grandmother who liked making doilies?’

  ‘No,’ I said, impressed she knew, yet not surprised she did. ‘That was Nan. My mother’s mum. Les’s wife.’

  33 | 三十三

  ‘I went home from Kyoto, and once I found out I was pregnant, cut my wrists with a razor. It was my intention to destroy both myself and the devil inside me.’

  There were no Technicolor images.

  Kohana huddled on the tiles, next to the hovel’s fireplace, with her chin on her knees. There were bits of ash and charcoal stuck to her skirt, and I’d never observed her face this beaten down.

  I dragged closer a blue plastic milk crate and placed it next to her, flipped it over, and then sat. I placed a hand on her arm.

  ‘Patently, you weren’t successful.’

  ‘Deshō?’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I believed I’d lost enough blood by the time my maid found me, damn her eyes, but she was a bossy woman and bundled me off to O-tee-san’s house. He stitched me up, and the two of them conspired to nurse me back to health.’

  ‘The baby?’

  ‘I didn’t miscarry.’

  Kohana stared at the fire for a time.

  ‘As my stomach grew, I cursed it. I loathed it. At the beginning of autumn 1975, a week before my birthday, I gave birth to a healthy girl, weight six pounds.’

  ‘That must have changed your mind.’

  ‘Why?’ Kohana’s r
esponse was flat, lacking any spark whatsoever.

  ‘It often does—or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘In my case, not at all. Once the baby was out of my womb, I pushed the thing into my maid’s welcoming arms. If I could have coerced the woman to be the mother, I would have, but she had three children of her own and, as I say, she was stubborn.’

  I stared at Kohana’s profile. Without wanting to make any noise, I carefully shifted my weight on the crate. ‘So you raised her?’

  ‘I had no choice! This child was the reason I bound myself to Toshiro, in a marriage all wrong—so she would have wedded parents listed on the government koseki.’

  ‘The man knew the child was not his.’

  ‘I didn’t love him, but I would never have misled Toshiro. Funnily enough, he proved to be the better parent, workaholic that he was. What’s the expression? “The flower falls close to the branch on which it grew”? Is that how it goes?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’m not good at idioms and homilies—they wear me out.’

  ‘Well, the naming of the child I left up to O-tee-san. “Kaede” was a poor choice, in light of Kurosawa’s later movie Ran. The Lady Kaede in that film is a coquettish bitch who lays waste to all around her. My Kaeda was a spiteful, mean-spirited child, qualities she likely inherited from me, but I sensed Hachi-sama lurking in there as well.’

  ‘Not the chef?’

  ‘I wished.’

  Kohana threw back her head, scrutinized the ceiling, and let out a grunt of exasperation.

  ‘I wish I could have been a fitter mother, but I don’t know if it would have changed things. This augured sadly for Kaede’s daughter, many years later. My grandchild was a godsend, a girl with a heart and a beautiful nature. Kaede had a field day despoiling these, and there was very little I could do to stop her—until she killed herself, again an action provoked out of spite. That saved Nina. Is it terrible I feel nothing but relief that Kaede died?’

  ‘You had a daughter, and wanted to give her away,’ I said slowly, fighting against an overwhelming pain in my chest. ‘I had a daughter, and was robbed of her.’

  34 | 三十四

  We disembarked in a wide, cream-coloured, empty corridor, the most striking feature of which was a disinfectant smell, masked by something artificial—reminiscent of strawberries.

  I shuddered. ‘A classic stench I never could abide. Where are we?’

  Standing beside me, my travelling companion was dressed in a simple black dress and wearing little makeup. Her expression told me she was struggling with inner demons, but the aroma of the place less mortified her.

  ‘Looks like a hospital.’

  ‘Oh, surprise,’ I muttered.

  ‘I don’t have any recollection of being here.’

  ‘Aren’t we getting absent-minded in our old age?’

  I smirked indulgently at my minor league put-down. At the same time, I leaned over to read a poster on the wall.

  My initial attraction to this public notice was that it was pasted up at an angle, not straight, something guaranteed to annoy me. English dominated the thing, warning women of breast cancer. In the bottom right-hand corner, the poster was branded with a purple, not entirely legible hospital stamp, about the size of a twenty-cent coin.

  While I couldn’t read all these details, I didn’t need to. I recognized the hospital’s name.

  ‘I know this place.’

  ‘You do?’

  I nodded my head. ‘Yes. Why are we—?’

  Comprehension didn’t just dawdle up to me; it cudgelled my senses. This in turn caused a loss of balance, and Kohana put a confoundedly reassuring arm around me. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Christ, it’s another bloody flash from my past.’

  ‘Well, that explains things.’

  ‘This is wrong. I do not wish to be here. Take me away, immediately.’

  ‘Um… Not that easy, Wolram.’

  ‘Not so long ago, you intimated it was. End this. Now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. This is your memory, like you say. You brought us here—it stands to reason only you can wind it up.’

  ‘How on earth do I do that? This is ridiculous. Wrong. I would never again inflict this on myself.’

  I decided to act on my own—stuff the woman—and peeped both ways down the corridor. Perhaps I could stroll out of the fix? Manageable. No need to run. I could retain some dignity.

  Just as I made up my mind to do this, I noticed the closed door.

  It’s possible I hadn’t marked the entrance because the door was the same colour as the walls and the ceiling and the linoleum floor, but it was distinct enough now. I really needed to have my eyesight retested.

  The number there—42—clutched all my attention. Oh yes, I knew it well, and what life on the other side implied.

  Mostly pain, anguish. Memorable things like these.

  ‘Also joy,’ Kohana broached softly.

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Look again. You need balance to remember this correctly. It’s not how you convinced yourself to see it.’

  ‘Rehashing existentialist hogwash, like you?—No bloody way. I recall exactly what happened. Right here.’

  I tapped my temple. By chance, I did so on the same stretch of skin where Floyd’s bullet had ostensibly entered my skull.

  ‘And let me tell you, once was enough. I never volunteered for this—we were only ever supposed to visit your memories.’

  ‘Not particularly fair, stalking my seedy past while you get to remain aloof. What kind of business arrangement is that?’

  Kohana gripped my hand, and with force laid it on the stainless steel door handle. She allowed her fingers to remain there, holding mine.

  ‘It is your choice, but don’t play the coward.’

  ‘I’ll have you know, I’m no coward. Let go.’

  ‘If you’re not afraid, it shouldn’t be any trouble to step through this door—a piece of cake, right? Easie peasie?’

  ‘I refuse to listen to these inane clichés. I have nothing to prove.’

  ‘Only that your bravado is not mere blustering.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Then why vacillate?’

  ‘I’m not. I am considering options. Let’s go someplace else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Madagascar.’

  ‘Obscure. You have other important business there?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Liar. Madagascar is definitely out. Let’s focus closer, on the next room. I’ll come with you. I won’t vanish, I promise. I owe you.’

  ‘You owe me nothing.’

  ‘If you think I’m persistent now, just wait till I get going.’

  I pressed my lips together so hard it hurt. ‘For goodness’ sake, will it stop you playing the harpy?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘And you’re coming with me?’

  ‘Didn’t I say as much?’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  ‘Hallelujah for small mercies.’

  ‘Bah.’

  In spite of better judgment to hotfoot it away, I had a yen to prove the woman wrong, swallowed my distress, and opened the door.

  On the other side was a bright, relatively spacious private hospital room, just like I recalled: an electrocardiograph machine in one corner, a huge bouquet of irises in another.

  The centrepiece display was a woman on her back on top of a hospital bed, stomach huge. I couldn’t see her face, but I could clearly hear the shrieking.

  There was a midwife hovering nearby, and a man who sat on the edge of the bed next to the pregnant woman, holding her hand. He leaned over to wipe the woman’s face with a damp cloth, and whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

  Me, at fifty. I was already an old fool.

  Right then, the door slammed in our faces.

  ‘Did you lose your nerve?’ Kohana wondered aloud.

  ‘Of course not! I had nothing to do with that. Although, come to think of it, t
his may be the opportune moment I stepped out to indulge in a Cuban cigar.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Well, what? It was the done thing in traditional Western culture. I’m not going to apologize for smoking it.’

  ‘Not the cigar—I could care less. I mean the door.’

  ‘Ah.’ I again pushed it open. The scene, and its furnishings, had changed.

  There was a pretty woman sitting up in bed, face drawn and pale, her expression jubilant.

  Dozens of red and yellow roses occupied every available space.

  And again there was me, this time in an armchair alongside the woman, holding a bundle at which we both gazed. A priceless combination of wonder and elation was stamped upon my face. If it had been at all possible, I’d have strode right up to me and torn the expression off my cheeks.

  ‘The best of times, the worst of times,’ I mused, as the room folded up on itself, and other memories assembled before me.

  I had no idea if Kohana caught these.

  ‘I never thought to quote Dickens—what’s the world coming to? Hackneyed stuff. I suppose, however, if you write twenty tomes, like him, you’re bound to hit poignant at some stage.’

  There was a longer vignette, a memory of the baby, now aged about fourteen months, asleep on top of a bed.

  ‘Corinne.’ I threw myself into the sight. ‘God, I adored this little girl. More than anything you could begin to imagine.’

  ‘I see that.’

  ‘From my memory here, or from the stupid look on my face?’

  ‘Both?’

  Kohana nudged me, in a playful way. I wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘What was it?’ I mused. ‘What changed me? A combination of the small things?—I guess that’s what you call it. The feeling of warm, tiny hands enclosed in mine, the way she started seeing everything around, as she grew and developed. I remember hours, lying in warm sunlight from the window, staring at the miniature person sleeping so soundly beside me. It was a miracle. A goddamned miracle. When she started to walk—the ambles we had together, observing the world with brand new eyes. Insects, rocks, flowers, junk, all fresh. As she got older, the infectious smile on her face once I set foot through the door after a long day’s work. I never told Corinne how I used to rush from the office, push through people, and race to our house, just to be gifted with that smile at the end of the sprint.’