Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

‘Go … back … to … your … friends.’ I shrugged myself free of him.

‘They don’t have to see you,’ he said. ‘You can get back in your suit for them.’

‘Mo-dab … I’m … just … so … thirsty.’

But he began to fiddle with the suit. Or that is what I imagined. Later, on the road to Wilhelm, he swore to me that he had done no such thing, that he was simply patting me, but the fluttering feeling of his theatrically ringed fingers awakened old feelings of anger and I pushed him, hard.

He looked so hurt I thought he was going to cry.

‘Please … get … a … straw.’ I wrote s-t-r-a-w in the air, slowly.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘a straw.’

He rushed out and came back with a whole damn box of straws. He had perhaps a minute before he had to go and be the host.

Tristan, I have to work when I go in there,’ he said. ‘I just need to know that we’re OK.’

At last I had a single straw. I began to syphon down the chlorinated water.

‘Tristan, I don’t know who you are in there.’

He did not know, because he had not been there. He did not know that I had hidden in the darkness of the Feu Follet for eleven years, that I had worked each day on all the tricks he taught me and then lost interest in, that I could do things no doctor could ever have predicted, that I could juggle, tumble, stand on one hand.

I wiped my wet synthetic fur with his dainty little guest towel.

‘You … want … to … know … who … I … am?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he frowned. ‘Mrs Kram is waiting.’

‘I’ll … show … you.’

If he had told me who Mrs Kram was, I might have acted differently.

*

In Efica, unlike Voorstand, it is perfect manners to serve meat at a formal meal.

[TS]

Jacqui was sitting beside Clive Baarder, wondering if it would be rude to lean across the table and take the bottle of wine from in front of Peggy Kram, when she heard behind her a light bumping sound, like a baby falling down the stairs. Turning sideways in her ornate high-backed chair, she saw the Mouse tumbling.

I saw her see me.

I saw her embarrassment, the slow motion of her hand coming to cover her eyes. As she turned in her chair, I completed my gymnastic entrance, twisting in mid-air. I landed, feet astride, my back to her.

Chubby red-cheeked Clive Baarder — the gold-toothed gjent who had earlier faced me in karate pose — now retreated towards the sofa by the window.

The tall hollow-cheeked athletic man, Difebaker the posturer, stood in order to see me better.

But the queen-like Peggy Kram stayed seated at the head of the table — one jewelled hand across her pretty mouth, her other hand outstretched, grasping the slender neck of the Mersault bottle. This one, let me tell you, no matter what she hinted later in her deposition, was not embarrassed. She raised her glass and sipped the straw-coloured wine but her clear blue eyes never left me.

Thus Mrs Kram became my audience. She was awake, alive to the moment. As for the host, he had followed me into the room and was now behind me out of sight. I confess that I forgot him.

‘Well,’ the lady said in a small breathy voice, which still carried the glottal stops of the desert regions near the eastern border. ‘Well, how about that thing?’

She clapped her hands together softly.

‘Those things are dangerous,’ said Clive Baarder, blinking anxiously.

He was now back on the sofa, his short legs crossed, an embroidered velvet cushion placed protectively across his pinstriped lap. ‘You know that, Peggy,’ he said. ‘You damn all know it well as I do.’

But no one looked at Clive Baarder. They looked at me. What did they think I was? I did not know. I was kneeling, holding out my arms, looking straight at Peggy Kram’s clear wilful eyes.

Clive Baarder felt himself compelled to stand, and, whilst obviously most reluctant to do it, walked behind Jacqui’s chair to be a little closer to me.

‘Last time I saw one of these things, Peggy … Peggy. ’

‘Yes,’ said Peggy absently.

My knees were sore, and yet I feared to break the spell by standing.

‘It caught on fire,’ Clive Baarder said, ‘in a gondel in the Kakdorp. I saw it. I was up on the Colonnade near St Oloff’s with Dirk Juta.’

‘Dirk will be there tomorrow,’ Mrs Kram said absently.

‘Yes, and it caught on fire. They pushed it off near the Dagloner Kanal and it floated down for miles, still burning.’

‘Peggy,’ said Martel Difebaker in the careful rounded tones of the professional Sirkus class. He was almost opposite me, next to Mrs Kram. ‘One really must conclude that it is not a Simi.’

Mrs Kram broke her yellow egg-bread, and sipped her wine, still staring at me with such intensity that I began to blush inside my mask. Any moment, I felt, she would ask my father who I really was. But I did not know her history or her passions. She was from the Zeelung border where the Settlers Free first settled, where the Bruder stories are set, where we Eficans saw the sculpted feet of Bruder Dog rise from the desert floor. She was also a collector of artefacts, a connoisseur of folk art. She liked to show her expertise. ‘This is absolutely not a Simi,’ she declared.

Bill sat himself down next to the place where I continued kneeling. He talked over my head to Mrs Kram.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘This is totally my fault.’

What was he apologizing for? Peggy Kram frowned and pursed her lips.

‘On every side,’ Bill said.

‘This is not a Simulacrum?’ said Clive Baarder, now approaching the table, still holding the small black velvet cushion. ‘What is it?’

‘Easier to say what it is not,’ said Martel Difebaker, arranging his long and supple fingers so they rested on the tip of his pointed chin. ‘Not a Simulacrum. Not a child.’

This was the place where Bill Millefleur might have performed the formal introduction of his son. But now he feared that he had acted in bad karakter by bringing me to table in my costume. He shut his mouth and held on tight, hoping it would work out for the best.

‘You’re not a dwarf?’ Peggy Kram said to me. Her hair was gorgeous, a wild tangle of a mane. As she spoke, she pushed it back from her eye.

It was then I heard Wally sigh. For some time I had been aware of him in the corner of my eye, but now he was glowing with a sort of fury, blowing out his cheeks and wiping his bald head with his big freckled hands. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself,’ he hissed.

This comment created a strange little silence while all the Voorstanders, Mrs Kram included, looked briefly at the tablecloth.

Then Martel Difebaker spoke. ‘This is absolutely not a dwarf. I work with dwarfs — Serango, all those gjents. Can you imagine Serango’s head inside that suit?’

‘Tristan!’ persisted Wally.

Again the Voorstanders looked down at the tablecloth.

‘Who is Tristan?’ Clive Baarder asked when they looked up.

I was on the brink. I saw it coming. I was the girl in the cake. Now I would be forced to unmask. It was then, before anyone could speak, that I leapt up into Peggy Kram’s lap. I knew I risked offence, but I was walking on the slack rope. I had to go forward.

Peggy Kram squealed. And held her hands up. I would not have planned it, but the hands went up, the hands came down, and when they did my head was nestled between her generous breasts.

Jacqui closed her eyes. Wally held his bald head in his hands — everything I saw told me I had committed a faux pas, but neither Jacqui nor Wally could feel the heat of Peggy Kram. I could, right through my suit. I could smell her hair, her skin.