by Markus Zusak
As promised, Schwartz hit him like a train.
The 2:13 express.
His neat fringe came over the top as he buried him, half into Lane One, half in the wall of weeds, and Starkey followed with his knees. He gored Clay’s cheek with that facial hair. He even pinched him as they went kicking and a-gouging in the blood and the shove and Starkey’s beer breath. (God, that poor girl up in the bleachers.)
As if in suffocation, their feet kicked at the Tartan.
Seemingly miles away, a complaint arrived from the grandstand. “Can’t see a bloody thing!” If it went any longer in the infield, they’d have to run to the bend.
Inside the Bernborough Park greenery, there was a lot of grappling, but Clay always found a way. To him, there was no win at the end of this, or a loss, or a time, or the money. It didn’t matter how much they hurt him, they couldn’t hurt him. Or how much they held him, they couldn’t hold him. Or at least, they couldn’t quite hurt him enough.
“Pin that knee!”
A prudent suggestion by Schwartz, but too late. A free kneecap was a free Clay, and he was able to push himself off, hurdle the hundred kilos at his feet, and accelerate.
* * *
—
There were cheers now, and whistles.
A herd of nicknames came charging down, grandstand to track. From that distance their calls were very vague—more like the songs in his bedroom when the nighttime southerly came—but they were there, all right, and so was Rory.
For 150 meters, Clay had the ochre-red surface to himself. His heart clanged, the dry tear lines cracked apart.
He ran at the refusing light, at its stubborn, bulky rays.
He looked into his gait, at the elastic width of Tartan.
He ran at the cheers of boys, who called from the grandstand shade. Somewhere in there was that red-mouthed girl and her careless, wayward shoulder. There was no sex in the thought, just that similar thread of amusement. He wondered about her deliberately, for a suffering was soon to begin. It didn’t matter that this was the fastest he’d ever got here. Nothing. It meant nothing, because there, fifty meters from the finish, Rory now stood like a rumor.
* * *
—
Leading in, Clay knew he should be decisive. To hesitate would ruin him. Timidity could kill him. Not long before they met, at the far right margin of his sight, there was twenty-four boys’ worth of miscellaneous shouts. They damn near brought the grandstand down, and before them a glimpse of Rory. He was typically raw and wry.
And Clay?
He fought every urge, to sidestep, left or right. He virtually climbed into him and somehow made it over. He felt his brother’s anatomy: his love and lovable anger. There was collision between boy and ground, and just the one foot was held now. One arm locked around his ankle was the only thing standing between Clay and something long considered unachievable. There was no getting past Rory. Never. Yet there he was, dragging him behind. He was stretching back to palm him off. His arm stiffened, but an inch or two from Rory’s face, a hand rose up like a titan out of the deep. A handshake from hell, he crushed Clay’s fingers with one effortless clinch, and with it, he ripped him downwards.
Ten meters short, he hit the track completely, and what was it about Rory’s weightlessness? That was the irony of the nickname. A human ball and chain implied an unbearable heaviness, but here he was more like a mist. You turned and he was there, but when you reached out, nothing was left. He was already somewhere else, causing danger up ahead. The only things of mass and weight were the depth and rust of his hair, and those hard grey metal eyes.
Now he had a good hold of him, on the red and buried track. Voices were climbing down to them, from boys and folding sky.
“Come on, Clay. Jesus, ten meters, you’re almost there.”
Tommy: “What would Zola Budd do, Clay? What would the Flying Scotsman do? Fight him to the line!”
Rosy barked.
Henry: “He really surprised you, Rory, huh?”
Rory, looking up, gave him a quizzical smile of the eyes.
Another non-Dunbar voice, to Tommy: “Who the hell’s Zola Budd? And the Flying Scotchman, for that matter?”
“Scotsman.”
“Whatever.”
“Would you lot please shut up? There’s a stoush on here!”
It was often like this when the struggle set in.
The boys lingered, watching and half wishing they had the heart for it themselves, but grateful like hell they didn’t. The talk was a security measure, for there was something slightly gruesome about them, scissored on the track, with paper lungs and breath.
Clay twisted, but Rory was there.
Only once, several minutes in, he nearly pulled loose, but again he was held up short. This time he could see the line, he could almost smell the paint.
“Eight minutes,” Henry said. “Hey, Clay, you had enough?”
A rough but certain corridor was formed; they knew to show respect. If a boy might pull a phone out, to film or take a photo, he’d be set upon and duly thrashed.
“Hey, Clay.” Henry, marginally louder. “Enough?”
No.
It was said, as always, without being said, for he wasn’t smiling yet.
Nine minutes, ten, soon it was thirteen, and Rory was thinking of strangling him; but then, close to the fifteen-minute mark, Clay eventually relaxed, threw back his head, and very slackly, grinned. As a faint reward, right through all the boys’ legs, he saw the girl up in the shade, bra strap and all, and Rory sighed, “Thank Christ.” He fell to the side, and watched as Clay—very slowly, with one good hand, and one trailing—dragged himself over the line.
I got myself together.
I entered the kitchen with force—and there, by the fridge, stood Achilles.
Beside the mountain of clean dishes, I looked from murderer to mule and back again, deciding who to take first.
The lesser of two evils.
“Achilles,” I said. There had to be great control in that annoyance, that fed-up-ness. “For Christ’s sake, did those bastards leave the back door open again?”
The mule, true to form, toughed it out, deadpan.
Bluntly, boredly, he asked the usual pair of questions:
What?
What’s so unusual about this?
He was right; it was the fourth or fifth time that month. Probably close to a record.
“Here,” I said, handling him quickly, holding the thatch of his neck.
At the door I spoke back to the Murderer.
Back but matter-of-fact.
“Just so you know, you’re next.”
The city was dark but alive.
The car, inside, was quiet.
There was nothing now but homecoming.
Earlier, the beer had come out, it was shared around.
Seldom, Tinker, Maguire.
Schwartz and Starkey.
They all took some cash, as did the kid called Leper, who’d bet fourteen minutes flat. When he’d started gloating, they all told him to go get a skin graft. Henry kept the rest. All of it was performed under a pink and grey sky. The best graffiti in town.
At one point, Schwartz was telling them about the spitting shenanigans at the 200, and the girl had asked the question. She loitered with Starkey in the car park.
“What the hell’s wrong with that guy?” That wasn’t the question in question, though; it would be here in moments to come. “Running like that. Fighting like that.” She thought about it and scoffed. “What sort of stupid game is it, anyway? You’re all a bunch of dumbshits.”
“Dumbshits,” said Starkey, “thanks a lot.” He put his arm around her like it was a compliment.
“Hey, love!”
Henry.
Both girl and gargoyle turned, and Henr
y swerved a smile. “It’s not a game, it’s just training!”
She put a hand on her hip, and you know what she asked next, the lacy-limp girl, and Henry would do his best. “Go on, Clay, enlighten us. What the hell are you training for?”
But Clay had turned from her shoulder this time. He felt his pulse in the graze on his cheekbone—courtesy of Starkey’s whiskers. With his good hand, he searched his pocket, very deliberately, then crouched.
It bears mentioning now that exactly what our brother was training for was as much a mystery to him. He only knew that he was working and waiting for the day he’d find out—and that day, as it was, was today. It was waiting at home in the kitchen.
* * *
—
Carbine Street and Empire Lane, and then the stretch of Poseidon.
Clay always liked this ride home.
He liked the moths gathering tall and tight-knit at their various streetlight postings. He wondered if the night excited or soothed and settled them; if nothing else, it gave them purpose. These moths knew what to do.
Soon they came to Archer Street.
Henry: driving, one-handed, smiling.
Rory: feet up on the dash.
Tommy: half asleep against the quick-panting Rosy.
Clay: unknowing this was it.
Eventually, Rory couldn’t take it any longer—the calmness.
“Shit, Tommy, does that dog have to pant so bloody loud?”
Three of them laughed, short and stout.
Clay looked out the window.
Maybe it would have been fitting for Henry to drive the car ramshackle, to rampage onto the driveway, but it wasn’t like that at all.
The blinker on at Mrs. Chilman’s, next door.
A tranquil turn at our place—as clean as his car could be.
Headlights off.
Doors opened.
The only thing betraying total peace was the closing of the car. With four quick shots, the doors were fired at the house, and all went straight for the kitchen.
Together, they crossed the lawn.
“Any of you bastards know what’s for dinner?”
“Leftovers.”
“That’d be right.”
Their feet all plowed the porch.
* * *
—
“Here they come,” I said, “so you might as well get ready to leave.”
“I understand.”
“You understand nothing.”
Right then I was trying to work out why I’d let him stay. Just a few minutes earlier, when he’d told me why he’d come, my voice had ricocheted off the dishes and gone right for the Murderer’s throat:
“You want what?”
Maybe it was the belief that this was already in motion; it was going to happen anyway, and if the moment was now, so be it. Also, despite the Murderer’s pitiful state, I could also sense something else. There was resolve there as well, and sure, throwing him out would have been such a pleasure—oh, grabbing his arm. Standing him up. Pushing him out the door. Jesus H. Christ, it would have been bloody beautiful! But it would also leave us open. The Murderer could strike again when I wasn’t around.
No. Better like this.
The best way of controlling it was to have all five of us together in a show of strength.
Okay, stop.
Make that four of us, and one betrayer.
* * *
—
This time, it was instant.
Henry and Rory might have failed to sense the danger earlier, but now the house was rich with it. There was argument in the air, and the smell of burnt cigarette.
“Shh.” Henry slung an arm back and whispered. “Careful.”
They walked the hallway. “Matthew?”
“Here.” Pensive and deep, my voice confirmed everything.
For a few moments, the four of them looked at each other, alert, confused, all rifling through some internal catalogue, for their next official move.
Henry again: “You all right, Matthew?”
“I’m brilliant, just get in ’ere.”
They shrugged, they open-palmed.
There was no reason now not to go in, and one by one, they stepped toward the kitchen, where the light was like a river mouth. It changed from yellow to white.
Inside, I was standing at the sink, arms folded. Behind me were the dishes; clean and gleaming, like a rare, exotic museum piece.
To their left, at the table, was him.
* * *
—
God, can you hear it?
The hearts of them?
The kitchen was its own small continent now, and the four boys, they stood in no-man’s-land, before a kind of group migration. When they made it to the sink, we stayed close in together, and Rosy somewhere between us. It’s funny that way, how boys are; we don’t mind touching—shoulders, elbows, knuckles, arms—and all of us looked at our killer, who was sitting, alone, at the table. A total nervous wreck.
What was there to think?
Five boys and scrambled thoughts, and a show of teeth from Rosy.
Yes, the dog knew instinctively to despise him as well, and it was she who broke the silence; she snarled and edged toward him.
I pointed, calm and mean. “Rosy.”
She stopped.
The Murderer’s mouth soon opened.
But nothing at all came out.
The light was aspirin-white.
* * *
—
The kitchen began to open then, or at least it did for Clay. The rest of the house broke off, and the backyard dropped, into nothingness. The city and suburbs and all the forgotten fields were razed and chopped away, in one apocalyptic sweep—black. For Clay there was only here, the kitchen, which in one evening had grown from climate to continent, and now this:
A world with table-and-toaster.
Of brothers and sweat by the sink.
The oppressive weather remained; its atmosphere hot and grainy, like the air before a hurricane.
As if pondering that, the Murderer’s face seemed far away, but soon he hauled it in. Now, he thought, you have to do it now, and he did, he made a colossal effort. He stood, and there was something terrifying about his sadness. He’d imagined this moment countless times, but he’d arrived here hollowed out. A shell of all he was. He might as well have tumbled from the wardrobe, or appeared from under the bed:
A meek and mixed-up monster.
A nightmare, suddenly fresh.
* * *
—
But then—abruptly, it was enough.
A silent declaration was made, and years of stable suffering was intolerable for another second; the chain was cracked, then broken. The kitchen had seen all it could that day, and ground to a halt at here: five bodies facing him. Five boys were joined, but now one was alone, standing, exposed—for he wasn’t touching a brother anymore—and he liked it and he loathed it. He welcomed it, he mourned it. There was nothing else but to take that step, to the only black hole of the kitchen:
He reached inside his pocket again, and when he pulled it back up, there were pieces; he held them out in his hand. They were warm and red and plastic—the shards of a shattered clothes peg.
And what, after that, was left?
Clay called over, his voice in the quiet, from the dark toward the light:
“Hi, Dad.”
Once, in the tide of Dunbar past, there was a many-named woman, and what a woman she was.
First, the name she was born with: Penelope Lesciuszko.
Then the one christened at her piano: the Mistake Maker.
In transit they called her the Birthday Girl.
Her self-proclaimed nickname was the Broken-Nosed Bride.
And last, the n
ame she died with: Penny Dunbar.
Quite fittingly, she’d traveled from a place that was best described by a phrase in the books she was raised on.
She came from a watery wilderness.
* * *
—
Many years ago, and like so many before her, she arrived with a suitcase and a scrunched-up stare.
She was astounded by the mauling light here.
This city.
It was so hot and wide, and white.
The sun was some sort of barbarian, a Viking in the sky.
It plundered, it pillaged.
It got its hands on everything, from the tallest stick of concrete to the smallest cap in the water.
In her former country, in the Eastern Bloc, the sun had mostly been a toy, a gizmo. There, in that far-off land, it was cloud and rain, ice and snow, that wore the pants—not that funny little yellow thing that showed its face every now and again; its warmer days were rationed. Even on the boniest, barren afternoons there was a chance of moisture. Drizzle. Wet feet. It was communist Europe at its slow-descending peak.
In a lot of ways it defined her. Escaping. Alone.
Or more to the point, lonely.
She would never forget landing here in sheer terror.
From the air, in a circling plane, the city looked at the mercy of its own brand of water (the salty kind), but on the ground, it didn’t take long to feel the full force of its true oppressor; her face was dappled immediately with sweat. Outside, she stood with a flock, a herd—no, a rabble—of equally shocked and sticky people.
After a long wait, the lot of them were rounded up. They were corralled into a sort of indoor tarmac. The light globes were all fluorescent. The air was floor-to-ceiling heat.