by John Elliott
Later that night at the supper table he continued to scratch at his invisible itch. ‘Why can’t I have my own grandparents?’ he said querulously.
‘Don’t be silly. I’ve told you when they died. You’ve seen their graves in the cemetery often enough,’ his mother replied.
‘But why? Why?’ A glob of egg yolk dribbled down his chin as he struggled to get out the words. ‘Why is Batiste Cheto my father?’
‘I’ve explained it to you many times. Batiste and I love each other even though we can’t be together.’ Antonetta took his hand, which trembled in hers. Gloria was on the verge of saying something. Antonetta’s eyes entreated her to stay silent. ‘Listen,’ she said, after kissing Fernando’s eyelids. ‘Batiste’s in France. He works there. He’s never committed a crime. In war one side loses the other wins. We have to stay here and wait for things to change.’
‘He’s never asked you to join him—thought about that?’ Gloria spat out, unable to contain herself. ‘You kid yourself with that philanderer. It’s better the boy knows.’
‘Hush!’ Antonetta dabbed her handkerchief around her son’s mouth. He jerked away from her ministrations and gazed fascinatedly at the dark-puce blotch spreading on his aunt’s cheek.
‘Let me tell you,’ Gloria continued remorselessly, ‘the very morning after you persuaded me, against all my advice, to leave you alone with him, even while he was telling me about how he’d heard about Iusebio’s death and that Manolo Ayza had also died and that he and others had erected a cairn to the fallen on the French side of the border, even then, not content with having you, the greatest love of his life, he tried it on with me. These black clothes didn’t stop him trying to grope me while you were upstairs and the names of his dead comrades were tumbling from his lips. Yes, a real man you’ve found yourself. One to stand by you at every turn.’
Stung by her sister’s words, Antonetta rose from the table and went into her bedroom where she tugged open the middle drawer of the chest by the bed and took out a battered oblong tin surmounted by the partially worn away image of two bluebirds pecking at each other affectionately on the lid. On her own, listening to the heated voices of Gloria and Fernando, she raised it momentarily to her lips then dropped it to her side and resolutely carried it through to the light. ‘There,’ she said, as she put it down on the table and lifted the lid. ‘There you are. Your father thinks of you and me. He lets us know where he is and how he’s doing and when he can he sends us money.’
*
The letters came from Orias. They were written by Rosario Marva.
In the beginning, she simply forwarded the skimpy and erratic news Batiste sent from over the border, changing the two or three French republic notes into Mirandan green. What Sebastian Marva, her husband, made of it was anyone’s guess. In any case, he could not have interfered because soon an independent correspondence began to flourish between Rosario and Antonetta irrespective of Batiste’s letters.
Rosario asked about things in Llomera and wrote about her children, Roberto and Veronica, both of whom were fathered by our own Manuel Ayza, who taught school here before the outbreak of war. Antonetta replied with general gossip and tales of Nando and how hard it was for Gloria to live without Iusebio. She . . .
Agnes put the pages down and closed her eyes. Roberto Ayza again. His name was turning up too often to be a coincidence. Someone was definitely pointing her in his direction. Firstly, there was his involvement with Chance Company and her stay in Greenlea, and now, in addition, there was his appearance as a child in an unsolicited manuscript sent to Emily Brown by the Amadeo Cresci Foundation, whoever they were. Did he know her father, know where he was? Could he, himself, she paused on the brink of daring to think the impossible, be her father in a so far unrevealed identity?
She opened her eyes. They flitted distractedly over the shabby utilitarian furnishings and fittings of the nondescript room. Here she was, stuck in a brief transit area designed for someone who did not exist, thinking crazy thoughts. A succession of Emily Browns, or their equivalents, she guessed, had sat on the same sofa and were likely to continue doing so when, successful in her search or not, she had left the city. Nothing here belonged to her. Everything that surrounded her was someone else’s accessory, including Roberto Ayza. A gnawing sense of loneliness, which she had not felt in years, began to unzip her customary resolve. For the first time since she was a child, she had abandoned rational thought and had put herself completely in the hands of others whose motives, apart from making money, were obscure to say the least. She had let Chance Company, a nebulous outfit, entice her to a city she instinctively disliked, in the outside hope of finding the man she had long banished to a permanent exile or an unvisited grave. ‘I left him,’ she said softly then repeated it. ‘It was me who also left him.’
‘Yours in sisterhood, Elizabeth Kerry.’ The phrase kept troubling her. She picked up the pages again and flicked through them, looking for any further mention of Roberto Ayza. There was none she could immediately see; yet there was something wrong with the text, something that had bothered her earlier. It did not make sense. It purported to be a kind of oral history, but none of the contributors, listed or not, could have known the innermost thoughts, or recalled in such detail the long-past conversations, of the main protagonists. Who was the real author? Why give it to her if not to point her in a particular direction? Do something, she told herself. The trouble was, there was no routine to follow, no busyness, which normally filled her life, only the gap between being Agnes Darshel and being Emily Brown, and it was beset by unanswered questions.
She went into the bathroom, lowered the plug and turned on the hot tap. As she studied herself in the mirror, the phone rang. She lessened the water flow and moved back into the hallway. ‘Emily Brown.’
There was a pause. She heard the muffled sound of voices, then one voice, deeper over the line than when they had talked at the gallery.
‘Emmet Briggs. I’ll be a little late this evening. There’s another business I must see to. Don’t worry. Wait for me.’
I’m not completely on my own. There is someone else, Agnes thought. His voice was calm and steady. The look in his eyes, she recalled, had been different from the shifty looks of others or the apologetic glances of Leo Manners. He was prepared to meet things head on, no matter what. She had sensed it then. Careful, don’t be sucked in, she reminded herself. Remember he’s being paid by Chance Company.
‘Do you know the Polygon district?’ she asked, when he had finished speaking.
‘Sure, though it’s not on my usual round. The local joke is you only end up there if you’ve given up on life. Death’s waiting room, they call it.’
‘I want to go there. Will you take me?’
‘Leave it till tomorrow. We’ll stop off on our way to Alakhin. I’ve got to go. See you tonight.’
The sight of the orange-coloured Greenlea directory beside the phone when he rang off made up her mind. She opened it at the residential section. Ayza R. There it was, the single entry, 2 Charlock Rd. She dialled the number. After a moment, a pre-recorded tape came on. ‘Sorry, I’m not available just now. If you wish to leave a message please speak after the tone.’ His voice was light and modulated, without a trace of what she imagined a Mirandan accent might be. She spoke firmly, carefully choosing her words over her increased heartbeat.
‘This is Emily Brown. I’m a client of yours. I know you’re on leave from work, Mr Ayza, but I’d very much like to discuss my stay in Greenlea with you in person. I’ve been reading about you when you were a boy. Please call my number. It’s 81164 if you don’t already know it. I look forward to hearing from you very soon. My real name is Agnes Darshel.’
She had done it. Whether for good or ill, time would show. She put down the phone, went into the bedroom and undressed. What would he look like, this so far elusive Roberto Ayza? Slight build, jaunty step, pencil moustache, slicked back black hair? She continued parading a motley collection of masculine feat
ures when she immersed herself in the just bearable heat of the bathwater and shut her eyes: paunchy with dark jowls and brown eyes, clean shaven, taller than expected with some feature or characteristic that resembled a certain photograph a drummer had sent her. She stopped imagining. No, don’t start to think that, but, it was too late, she already had. Would there be something in his make-up, in his physiognomy, which would betray the connection she was looking for? How old would he be? She tried to recall if there had been any dates or events she could place in the text she had been reading. None came to mind. He was older than the other boy, the subject of the biography, Fernando Cheto Simon, of that she was sure. Her imagined picture of Matthias Lemmel from the Mountain Road book flitted into her mind. She watched as her composite, shifting image of Roberto Ayza solidified into the hazel-eyed, open-featured, smiling Matthias, who, for a second, turned his rapturous gaze away from the undulating Swedish countryside outside the carriage window to stare directly into her, his reader’s, eyes.
‘Forgive him,’ her mother had whispered when she had leant over the hospital bed to gently brush her hair for what turned out to be the last time. She had nodded, of course, and had said yes several times, but forgiveness had been, and still was, beyond her powers. Let him exist in the world at the same time as me, she had thought. It was as far as she could go. A single meeting, then end it, remained her goal.
Stepping out of the cooling water, she wrapped the white, towelled bathrobe around her and wiped some of the steam from the mirror glass. Emily Brown—Agnes Darshel. Roberto Ayza—René Darshel? Was that how he had begun? How he was again? A man from a country her mother had never mentioned, an employee of Chance Company, who, in his spare time, might still play some trombone? She wiped the mirror edges and made up her mind. If Mr Ayza did not ring back then she would visit him at home.
*
‘Aha, look how fortune throws us together even on the other side!’
Sonny heard the words coming from somewhere behind him, but, because he did not connect them in any way with himself, he continued pushing through the straggling lines of people waiting at the bus station, towards the taxi rank beyond, until a hand touched his sleeve and a voice spoke his name. Surprised, he stopped and turned to be greeted by the beaming face of Albert, visibly out of breath with the exertion of catching him up.
‘Didn’t you recognise me back there? You looked so preoccupied when I called out. You were quite lost in your own world, but you see, my friend, no matter where you go you’re sure to bump into a fellow Mirandan. You’re not rushing to meet a client are you? I’m not holding you up?’
Sonny shook his head. ‘No. I’m on leave, remember? I’m only wandering around passing the time.’ His real reason for coming to Panalquin struck him as so ridiculous and arbitrary that it was best left unsaid. The tantalising opacity of Elizabeth Kerry’s message was in danger of turning him into a spurious detective, a snapper up of foolish and inconsequential connections, who lacked the fundamental knowledge of what it was that had to be detected.
‘What a waste!’ Albert exclaimed. ‘Don’t you get tired of this northern greyness and murk? You could be somewhere in the sun.’
‘The sun shining in the sky doesn’t change what’s on the ground or in people’s hearts. Lyon, Yokohama, Greenlea, the next place I move to, they all have their weather. I adapt.’ He shrugged, and then, regretting the stern note which had crept unwanted into his voice, he suddenly embraced the startled Albert and patted him twice on the back. ‘Thanks for the meal last night and thank Monse for thinking about me.’
Albert returned his embrace. Heads swivelled in their direction, intrigued by the sight of two middle-aged men, incongruous in their respective heights, one short and dumpy, the other wiry and thin, greeting each other in such a conspicuously effusive manner.
Without realising it, Sonny thought, you and Monse prolonged my life. If she had not stumbled across the Forest Mushroom article I would not be standing here with you today. He regarded Albert with a warmth and affection he rarely showed. ‘And where are you off to, man?’
‘The ferry. I’ve finished my bit of business here. I was seeing an old customer, Vic Larries, on Marine Drive. To tell you the truth . . . ’
‘Electrical goods,’ Sonny interrupted. ‘He runs electrical goods shops.’
‘No. What gave you that idea? He’s an insurance broker. You seem very carefree this morning. I must tell Monse how much better you look.’
‘Oh, it’s only a story someone told me. Obviously a different Victor Larries was in it, but what was the truth you were going to tell me?’
‘Well, to be honest, it’s the prospect of getting back on the ferry. It’s silly, I know, but it makes me feel quite queasy. Drowning, you see. I have this stupid fear I might drown. I get on board and I think what if we went down with all hands or what if the rail suddenly gave way and no one saw me as I plunged into the water, no one was there to shout man overboard or throw me a lifeline. Crazy, I know, completely irrational. The estuary is sheltered for God’s sake, and accidents virtually never occur. After all, I got here safely. Nothing dire happened and yet while I was on board, I tell you.’ He hunched his shoulders apologetically. ‘I didn’t know where to put myself. The constant throb of the engines, the weight of the water moving under the hull, they’re like the quickened beat of my own pulse, the oppressive coursing of my own blood through my veins. I wanted to be sick, but there was nothing to retch up. No sooner was I on deck to try and grab some air than I thought no, this is worse, so I ended up back in the saloon with my eyes tight shut, willing myself to think about anything rather than the sensations of the journey. Truly a hopeless case.’
‘Why put yourself through it? Couldn’t you have sent someone else?’
‘It’s a rare occurrence, thank goodness, but Mr Larries demands the personal touch. He could easily go to one of our local competitors who are quoting cheaper rates. Anyway, now you’ve seen the uncertainties that plague me whenever I step beyond my set routine. The gods are jealous of my unflustered domesticity, the everyday pleasures I find in my little loves. It doesn’t matter how I try to propitiate them, they prefer to see me undone by fear, sweating under the anguish of impending loss.’ The ferry hooter signalled the five minutes departure time as if in accordance with Albert’s presentiments. He turned and looked towards its berth. ‘I must go. I don’t want to miss it.’
They embraced again. ‘I’m sorry I’m not travelling with you,’ Sonny said.
‘I didn’t expect you to. I’ll live. Didn’t your Sebastian Marva once boast that one day he would possess the powers of Orpheus, that he would charm the rocks and mountains into song, that he would be afforded safe passage wherever he went? A youthful folly, of course, and who, apart from us, mentions him or his music today?’ With these parting words, Albert hurried off, raising his right arm in a brief backward wave as he threaded his way through the crowd.
Sonny watched him disappear, then, when the hooter had sounded for the final time, he crossed the road to the first taxi in the line, gave the direction, Old Station Yard, and settled into the back seat. The driver nodded, dropped the newspaper he was reading and started the engine. He took the continuation of the dock road in preference to the east town intersection. A possibly longer route, Sonny guessed without saying it.
Blurted messages of future pickups filtered through the crackle of the intercom as the chassis bumped its way over the increasingly dilapidated road surface. Sonny half expected Elizabeth Kerry to come through it next with an update of information, but that only happened in the movies, not here on a grey, drear day in Panalquin.
‘Ah putain, c’est du cinéma!’ He could hear Mado’s voice snort dismissively, just as she had in the past whenever he had instinctively put forward a romantic interpretation of events. ‘L’abri, la bouffe, baiser bien, le fric, le pouvoir.’ The spoken litany of her materialism rang in his ears. ‘Shelter, grub, good fucking, that’s what we need. Money and
power. Who’s got it? Who wields it? That’s what we need to know, my poor dreamer. The rest is for the movies.’
The strictures of her words remained clear across the intervening time and space, yet he realised, with a sense of shame, he could not picture her face in its full details. It was blurred, like the distorted noise still coming over the intercom. Certain features and characteristics surfaced alright, like the addresses and names the office controller was dispatching to other cabs: her auburn hair twisted in a chignon or later radically shortened in a bob cut, the dark-chestnut colour of her eyes grown soft and translucent as he eased his fingers up between her thighs, the wry down turn of her mouth when she tentatively bit into something she instinctively knew she would not enjoy, were retained, but her totality escaped him. The real separate her was missing, unconnected from its constituent parts, as perhaps it had always been. She was like Lyon itself, he thought. If he did go back, in truth, he would soon be lost. The connections between places would be other than he remembered, and the new would have replaced many of them. He let her go. Like himself and Lyon she was now someone he did not know. There were enough ghosts he hauled around.
He looked out the window. The berths along the quayside were empty. Apart from himself and the driver, the only signs of life were the seagulls perched on the bollards and timbers by the water’s edge. Out in the estuary, through a spreading rift in the gunmetal clouds, slanting weak sunlight caught the line of container ships waiting for high tide. Somewhere beyond them, no doubt, was the ferry and Albert’s confessed voyage of unease. In sympathy for his friend’s plight, Sonny mentally sketched the bell of a buoy in mid-channel, its tongue clanging mournfully, while the waves uplifted, pitched, then lowered it once more. There was sufficient space for him to encapsulate it in a few quick strokes and shadings on the margin of one of the Elizabeth Kerry papers, but he allowed the bell to drift away undepicted, as he had jettisoned Mado’s fugitive presence, and instead turned his attention to the driver, a seemingly taciturn man, who had not spoken a word since the beginning of the journey.