Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

‘Yes, Meneer,’ he said, but she could see he was not VIA, and as the gondel nosed out of the back kanal, and into Bleskran Kanal, as the great spires and domes, the luminous filtreeders, rose high above her, Jacqui left the cabin and went to stand alone in the prow. Then Saarlim appeared above her, around her, like the fairy city of the vids. It was one of those rare moments when a city can suddenly, unexpectedly, appear to open its doors to a stranger, and take them from the dirt and heat of the streets into that other secret world it shows only its creators and intimates.

Yet this experience, far from bringing our nurse a little peace, produced in her passionate heart a fierce agitation.

You see , she told her mother, who could not see, was not here, could never know, even if she were told. You see — you do not need to live your life like a pinched-up piece of leftover in a saucer in the fridge.

She sat in the prow, looking at the skyline, accepting the glass of champagne — from Bill Millefleur , who came out on to the deck to give it to her personally.

She sipped champagne, and thought contradictory and agitated thoughts about that cautious street her mother still lived on, the genteel poverty, the suspicion, the habitual meanness which was thought of as caution, the damn leftovers, the frozen scraps with date labels three years old.

I am going to wait in Saarlim for the snow.

Through the glass she could see Bill and me and Wally in intimate conversation. And she was somehow persuaded about me in a way she had not been before.

She sat out in the fog looking in at me.

She sat in the prow as the gondel glided along the black silky waters of the kanal, beneath the golden gates of the Bleskran, under the great illuminated wharf of the Baan, where uniformed doormen waited to help us disembark.

She arrived on the private wharf with the champagne glass still in her hand, and walked in through the foyer in her now slightly soiled male costume as if she too were already someone special.

When she entered the carpeted elevator it was as if she did it every day. The elevator was, as appeared to be the Saarlim habit, glass-walled. As our little party rose into the night we were presented with this jewel-box view of the city, its water, its boats, the rippling glass towers of water filters, the glow of the Sirkus Domes, like so many Florentine cathedrals clustered densely around the Grand Concourse but then spreading away into the great dark night of Voorstand.

*

The Dome Projection is naturally little known in Voorstand, where no one would waste their time viewing a vid reproduction of a Sirkus. In the rest of the world, Meneer, Madam, this is often how we know you. Chemin Rouge, for instance, now supports two live Sirkuses, which change their show every three months or so. In contrast we have sixteen different Dome Projection theatres whose entertainment changes weekly.

[TS]

*

You may be surprised to see that Bill Millefleur did not have to explain who Dirk Labelaster was. Labelaster is hardly a star, but he has a following among the Eficans. Dirk Labelaster? you ask.

In Chemin Rouge?

And I, in my turn, say to you: you have no idea of your effect on those of us who live outside the penumbra of your lives

.

[TS]

I had been pleased to see my father. I loved him, although I had spent many years insisting I did not. But each time he did not understand my speech, he emphasized our eleven years of separation. This was the father who could not do the time. He could do what was ‘brave’ and ‘dramatic’, go to the Mall and say, ‘This is my son, Tristan Smith,’ or paint his face with Zinc 3001, but he did not have the spine to be a father.

When I saw the flashy gondel bobbing at the wharf, I saw one more of his dramatic gestures.

Of course I now know that this was unfair, that a gondel is not ‘flashy’, that it is, in fact, a perfectly ordinary conveyance for a Saarlim bhurger. But when I was carried inside the cabin, I did not understand that gondels are hired by the hour by bank clerks and fishmongers, or that the liquors displayed so proudly in spotlit niches cost a very reasonable 3 Guilders a nip. Laugh if you like, but when I saw the black leather banquettes and small brass lamps, I thought he was trying to seduce me with his money, and by the time I sat on the banquette I was as depressed as Wally was, although for different reasons.

Bill, meanwhile, plunged anxiously onwards. He was in full gallop, round and round, smiling, laughing, juggling tall-stemmed glasses in one hand while with the other he eased the cork from a dripping wet bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

I declined the glass in sign language, holding my Mouse head to show him why I could not drink.

Then the damn fool began to fiddle with my suit.

If he had only thought a moment more he would have realized I might not wish to undress myself in public, to show myself to him like this. I pulled away from him and turned, not towards Wally who was staring mournfully out into the night, but towards Jacqui who was seated on my left. In our days of tin-rattling my nurse and I had finally become allies. In the Water Sirkus she had been my friend and companion. Twice she had touched my knee, once my arm.

‘Stop … him,’ I said. ‘Please … get … him … off … me.’

But when I touched her arm she gave a small, apologetic shrug and slipped off the banquette away from me.

‘Just … tell … him …’ I said, but I saw she had become my father’s friend. She walked out of the cabin and up towards the prow, and let me tell you — it was obvious to me then — as she walked up and down that little deck, she walked not like a man, but like a woman, and a damn frisky one at that.

You may be thinking, Madam, Meneer, that Jacqui left the cabin from a sense of delicacy, a wish to leave me alone for my difficult reunion with my father. Equally you may imagine that Bill Millefleur, in carrying champagne to her on the deck, might have been performing his role as a gracious Saarlim host.

I was in no state to imagine any such thing. I watched Bill and Jacqui, a man and a woman silhouetted against the lights of the filtreeders and wolkekrabbers.

It made me half mad with jealousy — this whole world that I could never enter.

I turned to Wally. ‘Let’s … go … back … to … the … hotel.’

But Wally had found a bottle of whisky and was pouring himself a generous drink.

‘Take your suit off,’ he said. ‘Have a little drink. Enjoy yourself.’

‘He’s … a … creep.’

‘Give him a chance.’

‘He’s … such … a … phoney.’

‘Don’t be such a rucking Bruder. Take your damn suit off. Can’t you see he’s pleased to see you?’

‘Mr … Walk … Away.’

‘Relax, he’ll be back in a moment.’

‘Fuck … him.’

But then Bill did come back, stooping under the low roof and seating himself beside me.

‘Now, Tristan, speak to me.’

But he seemed so far from me, so far, far away.

‘You … don’t … know … what … I’ve … become.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, laying his hand gently on my shoulder.

For a moment I imagined he was apologizing for something that had happened on the deck, but then I saw it was the same old thing.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t catch that first bit. Maybe if you took the suit off. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so muffled.’ It was typical of him that he did not ask me why I wore the suit, or what I was doing with it.

In any case — I did not wish to take my suit off, and suffer his misunderstanding, all the false pity in his eyes. I wanted to set it straight with him — I was a man. Thus I began to speak to him, slowly, very carefully.