Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

My dab folded his handkerchief carefully and jutted his chin at the landscape — red and yellow clay, bright green foliage, creepers with orange and red flowers growing over collapsing ramparts.

‘It’s … pretty … here …’

‘Pretty?’ he almost spat. His grey eyes, when they turned to me, were filled with upset. ‘You don’t even know their language.’

‘The … creepers … the … trees.’

‘Throw the fucking thing away,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t even talk to you if she wanted to. There’s no one here to sew you up if you go slashing yourself. Just remember that.’

‘That … was … six … years … ago.’

‘Give me the flower, Tristan,’ he said. ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’

I turned my head away from him.

‘I knew this was going to happen,’ he said. ‘There’s going to be women everywhere. You’re going to have to learn to deal with it. Look at me. You know what I’m talking about.’

What he was talking about was Phonella.

Phonella was my nurse from ages twelve to sixteen. It was because of Phonella we agreed not to hire women again. It was because of Phonella that we had Jean-Claude, lived all those years with sour-smelling men: whiskers, sweat, nothing in the vases. When the incident with Phonella occurred I was sixteen years old and she was twenty.

Phonella was passionate about the ruins of Angkor Wat. She had clear unblemished blue eyes and wild curling red hair. She was kind and soft with me, but when my porpoise stood on end she thought I needed to make pipi. I thought I was aware of myself, but I had no idea who I was. I fell in love with Phonella, completely, hopelessly. I could barely sleep for thinking of her. I woke at dawn, just waiting to see her sweet triangular face again.

‘Girls like that, they do things and never think about the consequences. She gives you a flower — she doesn’t think what it means to you. She’s not thinking you’re a man. It isn’t on her mind.’

‘Shut up,’ I cried. I threw the flower at him. It was a poor twisted sappy thing. It fell into his lap and he picked it up and, as the truck swayed and growled up the steep rutted road towards the high saw-tooth silhouettes of the Mountains of the Moon, he dropped it over the side. The truck ran over it, I guess, squashed it, broke it.

‘You wouldn’t want to live here, son.’

I was too hurt and ashamed to speak.

‘It’s not so pretty.’

‘I … don’t … want … to … live … here.’

It was then we smelt the burning rubber. A tyre had blown but the condition of the road was so bad that no one — certainly not Aziz — detected it before the tyre was ripped to pieces and the truck was running on its rim. Wally stood — remember, it was not an easy thing for him to do — and began to strike at the cabin roof with his walking stick. The truck continued to roar and crash towards the border and Wally — hoping to attract the driver’s attention — began to pitch pumpkins over the cabin. Three pumpkins later, the truck stopped, and Aziz presented himself at the tail gate, his eyes dark, shaking his finger, but not about damage to the truck.

These are not my pumpkins,’ he said.

‘Pumpkins? Wally jumped from the tray and landed on the roadside with a small cry of pain. Tor Chrissakes, mo-ami,’ he said, grimacing, and holding his hand against his coccyx, ‘can’t you smell? You’ve got a blow-out.’

‘They are my brother’s pumpkins,’ said Aziz.

‘You don’t drive on a blown sock,’ Wally said to Aziz. ‘Do you understand, Aziz? You fuck the rim. The rim, mo-ami.’

The roadside was no longer deserted. Behind Aziz there had appeared, from nowhere, three men with coarse black trousers, grubby white shirts, bare dusty feet and wide black hats. One of these men had a brand new wheelbarrow. Another (whose sideburns echoed Aziz’s) carried an antique military rifle. There were also several small children, four or five of them — I did not count.

There was no house or vehicle they could have come from, but they were there, and together they stared, not at the smoking torn rear tyre, not at hunched-over Wally or handsome Jacques, whose white sneakers were enclosed in plastic bags. They stared at me, the monster in his wheelchair on the back of the truck, rocking back and forth as he tried to free himself from his nest of pumpkins.

‘You have to pay for the pumpkins,’ Aziz now said to Wally.

‘For Chrissakes — you blew a sock. I was trying to get you to stop before you shredded it.’

‘No,’ said Aziz. The tyre is flat.’

‘Yes,’ said Wally. ‘The rim is wrecked as well.’

The man with the rifle stepped forward so that, had he not been a good foot taller, he would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Aziz. ‘We are poor peoples,’ he said. ‘He have only one tyre.’

Jacques spoke quickly to the man and listened carefully to his answer. ‘He means there’s no spare,’ Jacques said. ‘They wrecked their last spare yesterday.’

They gathered in a semi-circle, staring at the remnants of the ruined tyre.

‘You give me Guilders,’ Aziz said at last. ‘I go to Droogstroom and buy a new one. I come back tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ Wally said.

But I was the shapoh, not Wally. I was the one whose money it was. And I did not want to stay in the truck, being a freak on exhibition. ‘We’re … all … going … back,’ I called to Wally. ‘We’re … not … staying … here.’

Jacques began speaking to Aziz in creole.

‘Shut up,’ Wally shouted. ‘For Chrissakes, shut up everyone.’ Then to me he said, ‘Don’t make a dick of yourself. She just gave you a flower. She doesn’t want you. She just gave you a fucking flower.’

‘Shut … up …’ I hissed at Wally. ‘Don’t … talk … to … me … like … that … in … public …’ I was humiliated. My face was blazing.

‘How much further to the border?’ Wally asked Aziz.

‘Ten miles, fifteen.’

Wally left the semi-circle and came to the back of the truck tray. He brought his shining bony face up against mine. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry how much this hurts, but I’m not taking you back near that girl.’

He turned. ‘We’ll walk,’ he said to Aziz. ‘Ask that man how much for the wheelbarrow?’

‘What about my truck, the pumpkins?’ Aziz said. ‘It is not possible to leave them here.’

The tall man with the rifle then said something to Aziz. Aziz said something back. They spoke earnestly, quietly, for some time. They might have been judges in chambers — such was their gravity. When they finished talking they stepped back a little from each other. Then Aziz gave the tall man his pistol and the tall man gave Aziz the rifle. Then they both crossed themselves and spat on the earth.

‘This will cost extra,’ Aziz said. ‘This is much more money.’

‘All right,’ said Wally. He did not ask how much. ‘No problem, mo-ami. No problem at all.’

Aziz watched him with his dark intelligent eyes. ‘It is ten miles.’

‘No problem.’

‘And I have to pay for the guard, and the pumpkins.’

‘No worries, mo-ami. We need to purchase his wheelbarrow as well.’

‘That’s … my … money … you’re … spending,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry,’ Wally said. ‘We’ll be in Voorstand tonight.’

My face never coloured evenly. When I was upset my nose streamed. I dribbled, and my head jerked and rolled. Wally picked me up. He was seventy-three years old. He curved his body around mine, and pinned my arms around my chest. ‘You want to get laid, son,’ he said, ‘it can happen in Saarlim. Anything can happen there.’