by Murray Bail
Pleased to introduce Elisabeth to Sydney, Delage talking over his shoulder, making the best of his situation, of his many difficulties, deploying here the salesman’s expansive manner, he was on home turf, near enough, Botany Bay being a suburb of Sydney, Elisabeth had dressed for serious walking, silk scarf, brown flat shoes, still on his sea-legs, he slipped on the last step of the gangway where there was a gap to the wharf, fell headfirst onto the concrete. There had been no sign of the Dutchman, he must have disembarked, Delage wrote a note giving his Sydney address, Elisabeth slid it under the cabin door. As Delage lay on the wharf, his first thought was the pianos, the storage room between the office and the factory floor could be used to display the pianos under bright lights, instead of having them under wraps in a corner waiting for delivery, an idea worth putting to the Slovakian bookkeeper. Only a few people are interested in many different ideas. It is natural that a person’s most attractive qualities appeal only to a narrow range of others. Delage was left wondering if Elisabeth von Schalla now saw him as a weakened man, not to be relied upon, all too ordinary once seen in his own surroundings. From now on he was going to concentrate on the home market. One day he might go back to Vienna, just for a visit. Elisabeth was bending over, repeating his name. “The world changes slowly, too slowly,” from behind his minuscule desk, von Schalla hardly moved his lips, a man of experience, if ever there was, to Delage the world was slowly changing before him, he slowly thought it. He was happy to remain face down for a moment to gather his wits, before clearing his throat and getting to his feet, he grabbed at Elisabeth’s shoulder, aware of the German captain and some of the officers looking down at him. “I don’t know what went wrong there,” sensing he had become a slightly different person, now standing on firm ground, though still holding her shoulder.
MURRAY BAIL was born in Adelaide in 1941 and now lives in Sydney. His fiction, which includes Eucalyptus, Holden’s Performance, Homesickness and The Drover’s Wife and Other Stories, has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Eucalyptus was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.