First Person

by Richard Flanagan

  Even as I heard myself saying it, it made no sense. Errors in lies? My book? I thought of his memoir as my book?

  What do you mean lies? Heidl said. His tone had altered. Being with Heidl was like eating an ice cream that turned into underarm deodorant that turned into an echidna. Lies? Heidl repeated.

  Lies? That’s all I have—

  Lies? Heidl interrupted, his tone one of incredulity. I fought off two men who were sent to murder me, but it’s not the end of it, I know. And you say I am a liar? A liar! he said again, this time shriller and louder. This is my memoir, Kif!

  Just tell me what you can and can’t wear. I can fix the rest.

  Heidl was mumbling something about needing to call Phil Monassis, his lawyer, as he picked up the phone, hit a few keys, put it back down, and walked over to the window. He swore under his breath.

  Where the book has an accidental collision with known facts, I said, can we just make sure that it’s a successful hit and run? And if not, that I can’t be found out as being wrong?

  Heidl glanced at me, and then looked out the window at a blue-black sky of darkening clouds and below them the cheerless concrete bunkers of Port Melbourne.

  And if there’s anything you want to add, I said, tell me.

  Once more there was that odd moment where Heidl looked at me blankly, as if searching for the next emotion to wear, and then his face turned to anger.

  Anything I want to add? hissed Heidl. You and Gene Paley listen to nothing I say; you’ve gone ahead and made up that pile of lies. You want me to put my name to it? I should never have signed with such a disgraceful company.

  And then he threw in the kicker.

  I should have got a real writer.

  He was crazed, impossible. I was exhausted by him, angered by him, insulted by his continuing idea of me as one more credulous fool who would believe any garbage he spun.

  You are a liar, I said. But I don’t care any more. We just have to get through these pages today.

  You’re the fiction writer and you’re saying I’m the liar?

  No one’s going to murder you, Ziggy, I said. Other than me. But the banks? They’re locking you away for a very long time. That’s their vengeance.

  They want to kill me.

  They want to do you slowly. That’s why they pay lawyers, not hit men. Now can we work?

  It’s just like Nugan Hand.

  Ziggy, can we work?

  They killed him.

  Who?

  Frank Nugan. They killed Frank Nugan.

  4

  I’m flying out at seven, I said. The cab will be here at five-thirty, and we have to have a signed-off manuscript that I can then finish back in Tasmania over the next week. That gives us a bit less than five hours.

  Heidl’s back remained turned to me.

  You don’t need to read it all, I said.

  My panic was a tennis ball in my throat. It was already past midday and still not one fact checked and not one step closer to Heidl’s signature on the release contract.

  They can do what they want, Heidl said to the glass. He brought a hand to his bruised neck and rubbed it. Cut me up into little pieces, he went on, post me in a box to Dolly. They’re out there, Kif.

  Who?

  Maybe I am the goat. You with me?

  What are you talking about now? I asked.

  They barbecue people for less, Kif, he said, and turned around. That’s what I mean.

  What?—Who, Ziggy? The CIA? Hungry Jack’s?

  Maybe. Maybe it’s the banks. Maybe it’s the banks and the CIA. Maybe it’s not. They’d know I’m here. Talking. Writing.

  I wish—

  And they have a common cause. I can see you’re with me now, Kif, and that’s what matters.

  What matters?

  Who killed Frank Nugan. That’s what I’m saying.

  To write I was overwhelmed is an underwhelming way of describing my state of being at that time. I was exhausted in every way, and I was out of ideas on how I might cajole or trick or persuade Heidl to finish the book. I had been on the job, day and night, non-stop for over four weeks now, except for the day and a half when Suzy had given birth to the twins. I needed to rest a moment, to go with him while I thought of some other ruse to get him back to the book. I ventured a nod.

  You’re getting it now, Kif, Heidl said.

  But I’ve never heard of Frank Nugan.

  Exactly my point, Kif. Nugan Hand Bank. You’ve heard of it?

  I said I had, because it was easier than saying I hadn’t, but other than Heidl’s occasional comments and a few mentions in the clippings file, I hadn’t really—something of a scandal, conspiracy theories about the CIA bringing down Whitlam’s left-wing government in ’75 in a more sober manner than they had Allende in Chile or Manley in Jamaica. I had been too young to take any real interest.

  It was an Australian merchant bank, Heidl said. Set up in Sydney in the early ’70s by an alcoholic Australian lawyer, Frank Nugan, and an American ex-Green Beret, Mike Hand. Except it wasn’t really an Australian bank, was it? And here’s the kicker—

  It’s nearly one, I said.

  It was a CIA front.

  I wanted to ask about the date you—

  It was full of CIA people, Heidl interrupted. Enough spooks and ex-generals to take a small country. Bill Colby, ex-head of the CIA, he became the legal counsel of this little Australian bank. Strange, eh? There were lots of others. Buddy Yates—he was a U.S. admiral—he became the bank’s president. Unusual? Dale Holmgren. I knew him, good guy, back in Laos. Ran the CIA airline there.

  So what? I said. Pol Pot wasn’t that great either, but if the debt collector repossesses my car it doesn’t make the Khmer Rouge responsible. Now, on page forty-seven you’ll see that what you’ve said contradicts what you say on page—

  Laundering heroin profits out of Indonesia, Heidl went on and over me, oblivious as rain is to sun, as sea is to sand. And where did that go? Straight into the CIA’s account in Tehran to run special ops there.

  I held up a page as if it were an incriminating document Heidl was compelled to answer questions about.

  Now, I said. When Tantalus Bank set up your second line of credit for thirty-seven million dollars, was it May 1988 or—

  But on Heidl went, ignoring my pleas, evading my questions, detailing how Nugan Hand had lines into money laundering and tax evasion through Nugan, and through Hand, who had worked for the CIA in Laos, lines into the drug business and gun running.

  Ziggy, it’s past one. We’ve got a bit over four hours—that’s all.

  Nugan Hand was everywhere, Heidl said. Selling bomb timers and plastic explosives to Gaddafi. Arms to Angola, spy ships to Iran. Then 1980—bang! Frank Nugan, shot dead in his Merc in Lithgow. Mike Hand vanishes from Australia, never seen again, all the money funnelled out of the bank over the previous few months, and nothing left except fifty million dollars of debts. You get it?

  Ziggy, how has this got anything to do with the book?

  Well, if you can’t see what I am saying here, Kif, I can’t tell you.

  He returned to staring out on the dismal Port Melbourne industrial park on that dismal winter day, a gathering catastrophe of tilt-slab concrete building and tilt-slab concrete-coloured sky. His voice was soft as he spoke.

  They’ll understand when I am found dead.

  I was worn out with Heidl. I wanted to kill him, but as far as I knew I was the only one. Sadly, it was a job even the loyal Ray wouldn’t do for Heidl. I sensed at heart the idea of his death was just another illusion he was inventing for us all to live in—a game that involved the near murder the night before, toying with the idea of suicide, homicide, the Glock, imagining with relish the posthumous mystery, the grand conspiracy theories…

  I couldn’t stomach the falseness of it all, the toying with people it involved, the perverse curiosity of placing people in extreme situations to see how they might react. I couldn’t explain the bruises, but I was sure the truth
was far more mundane than attempted murder. And I didn’t care. I simply understood his purpose with all his stories was to divert me from finishing the book. And as he kept on talking, I loathed him more than ever.

  5

  Shut up, I said.

  I pushed my Francis Bacon tub chair back and stood up. I felt something breaking inside of me, or perhaps it was several things—some tolerance, some balance, some acquired decency unravelling, transforming into one thing: rage. I walked over to where Heidl stood at the window.

  Please, Siegfried, I said. Please. Just shut up.

  Heidl spun around. He stared at me for some time with the snap-frozen intensity of a lizard with a fly. Then he became suddenly energised, and seemed almost pleased. All traces of his fretting and fear vanished, and he spoke with a new voice, sonorous and soothing, the voice of an HR manager sacking someone he particularly despises.

  Why all this negative energy, Kif?

  Shut the fucking fuck up! I heard myself yelling.

  I have noticed this anger you carry.

  Can we just get the work fucking done?

  You can get help to manage these emotions, Kif. Perhaps they have someone here you could talk with. I can mention it to Gene—

  I held out a shuddering hand. I warned Heidl I had had enough.

  Somewhere there’s help, Kif. Never forget that. It’s a beautiful thing, an important thing. It would do you and Suzy—

  And then I was yelling that he was lazy, so fucking lazy, so fucking unhelpful, but now, just for once, he had to fucking work.

  Heidl froze, as if his mind were rebooting. And after a few moments, as if putting on another coat, he reappeared before me cloaked in righteous anger. He began yelling back in a manner almost identical to my own.

  Fuck you! he cried. I thought you were my friend! I trusted you—and now. Now! This! Fuck you!

  I wanted to hit him. Actually, I wanted to hurt him. He moved away; I followed. We circled each other. I was full of a great violence that needed release. If he came close enough I was going to hit him. Hard. And not just once. I was ready. He had no idea.

  Or he did, as he made sure to keep out of my reach as I advanced on him. For an overweight man he was surprisingly light on his feet. I would not have been surprised to learn that he was a good dancer.

  You arrogant shit, Heidl shouted, as he circled around. I gave you your big fucking break! Who do you think you are? You’ve done nothing in your life. Thirty-one calling yourself a novelist but there’s no novel.

  I felt my face tighten.

  Is there? I’m right, aren’t I? And Suzy? Poor thing. She supports you, doesn’t she? While you pretend to yourself and the world that you’re a talent. That you’re going to make it.

  I lunged at him, but he managed to dart out of reach.

  But you’re not, are you, Kif?

  He scurried behind the conference table, across which he now shouted.

  And I introduce you to Gene Paley! Vouch for you! I gave him my word that you were up to the job. But what have you done? This pile of shit—I have read it. It’s a disgrace. What am I to do?

  You lazy arsehole! I yelled. You haven’t read it. Even now you can’t be bothered to read it—can you?

  Heidl used the table to keep his distance, yelling and cursing. But his rage didn’t seem real. Nothing about him was real. I yelled at him all that I thought: about his cowardice. His laziness. His lies. His greed. His manipulation. His shit. About how we now had less than half a day to sign off on the book or there was no book.

  But I knew now that his cunning was so much greater, so much more determined and wily than my patience. We kept circling each other, screaming and shouting at each other, me ever wilder as his imitation of my rage grew more ludicrous with each passing minute. He imitated my anger, but he couldn’t mimic my madness.

  I finally managed to scruff him by one of his lapels. My other arm was flexing with a fist balled ready to punch him when his blue double-breasted sports jacket—when not in disguise he dressed as if for drinks at a yacht club or a Rotary dinner—fell open. Beneath his coat and tucked up under his armpit I glimpsed a black leather shoulder holster.

  And in it was a gun.

  6

  My grip loosened. There must have been some strange alteration in the balance of power between us. Heidl looked up from my fist with his wet dog eyes, his wet dog lips.

  He saw my gaze.

  Maybe he saw that I worried he might use the gun on me. Because I now feared he was crazy enough to shoot me. And I felt as if I had been caught in a net, or a trap, but like all traps it was not clear to the trapped how they might escape. For a moment I wondered if my only problem was that of the reader—of not knowing, of impatience—whereas if I was patient, if I just turned a few more pages, if I just went a little further on, everything would be revealed and a path of escape become clear. But with a growing terror I began to see that the pages before me had a purpose, that the gun had a purpose, and I began to fear Heidl was the author of these things, and all I knew, all that I wished for, was that his ending now not include me.

  Heidl’s face, which was still close to mine because I was still scruffing him by his jacket, returned to its more normal impassivity. Once again he seemed to be taking stock.

  You’re a monster, I spat.

  Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

  For God’s sake, can we just get this—

  And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

  What are you on about?

  Aphorism 146, he said.

  Is that your beloved fucking Tebbe again?

  His disciple, Nietzsche.

  I don’t give a fuck about Nietzsche, I said, pulling him back into me, I don’t give a fuck about Tebbe, all your pretending to your German fucking darkness, all your crap about being hard done by, all your shit about the CIA and Laos and Frank-fucking-Hand. You’re just a low-life who got lucky, and you’re lucky again with me, because I only get ten grand but you get two hundred and fifty, and I have to do all the work. All you have to do is approve what I have written here, sign off, and then we’re free of each other.

  But I knew I was defeated. I looked away and I shouldn’t have. I should have stared his blank face down. Like you do a dog. But instead I let go of his lapel and stepped backwards.

  His mood transformed again. He was abruptly calm. He was possibly happy. Certainly he smiled.

  What sort of smile?

  The worst: benign.

  The worst: knowing.

  For once he said nothing. His tongue darted out, licked his upper lip as if it were an envelope being sealed, and vanished.

  7

  At that moment there was a knock on the door and lunch was brought in to us by Gene Paley’s secretary—cold spanakopita, Greek salad, rolls, and cakes. And strangely, bizarrely, amazingly, we sat and ate in peace. It was as if the spanakopita was an armistice we had signed announcing a cessation of hostilities. Yet, Heidl, who seemed to enjoy meals, ate little, nibbling at the spanakopita’s edge, before filleting a chicken roll of its chicken and tomatoes and then leaving the roll on its plate. Over the meal, I again asked him to sign the release form. Heidl said of course he would, just as soon as he had answered all my questions thoroughly. He then spent half an hour on the phone to Monassis.

  Sensing the effect of the gun—or so it seemed to me—his manner was now almost serene. We still were terse with each other, but some element of madness had passed and my behaviour felt to me almost as theatrical and as insincere as his.

  I went back to work, reducing my ambition to resolving eight of the most ludicrous errors. When Heidl finally got off the phone, I pleaded with him, pointing out that without a signed release there would be no further payout on the advance. But for once even money failed to move him. He fobbed me off with a Tebbeism (“Creation is the correction of errors in order to make a larger mistake”) and seemed
preoccupied with some other, more pressing matter. But whatever that matter might have been was a mystery to me.

  Your book is beyond repair, he taunted. You’ll have to answer for that now. But as I’m here, ask me whatever is worrying you. I’ll tell you whether you’re right or wrong.

  Yet again I asked questions and yet again Heidl failed to answer in any meaningful or even vaguely sane way, and in this manner that long day dragged on, a single moment of exhausted defeat extended over several hours. I failed again and again to get his take on this or that contradiction in the story, all of which he argued were simply further proof of my incompetence rather than of his cosmic deceit. Instead he continued bravely shaking his rattle bag of lures and diversions—everything from ASO’s management philosophy to Nugan Hand resurrecting the Tonton Macoute. But even on these, his most beloved obsessions, I felt he spoke coldly and wearily. It was as if it had become too much even for him, valiant as he was. Finally, even Heidl seemed to tire of heidling, and at three-thirty the game was up.

  He made yet another phone call, and when that ended he announced he was off to meet Monassis for a pressing meeting. After that he was returning home to Bendigo to prepare his speech for the auditors’ conference he was addressing the following day. He wished me the best “tidying up” the manuscript.

  I am not finishing anything, I said. There’s nothing to finish.

  I was done with him, but he wasn’t done with me.

  But you must, he said, as he went to a bookshelf and picked out some books to steal. How else are you going to do your job?

  And with that, Ray opened the door, and, looking at me, shook his head as Heidl put several books into his briefcase, snapped it shut, walked past me and left.

  I sat in that dismal office alone. Outside, the storm at last broke and wild rain slashed at the windows. I went to his desk and noticed sitting on it the release form. It was unsigned. I picked it up. I stared at it until it blurred. I looked at my carefully annotated manuscript, so much hard work, and all of it now for nothing. Without the necessary corrections, without the signed release form, Gene Paley would be unable to publish the manuscript. There would be no book. There would be no ten thousand dollars. Nor, now, would there be a future for me as a writer. For the first time since I had dreamt of becoming a writer at the age of—what? seven? twelve? I couldn’t remember—I felt my dream vanish.