Peter Carey: Illywhacker

Goldstein is not happy. She wishes to leave, but what would she do if Hissao released her? Who would employ her, feed her? Hissao keeps her locked in her cage. The sign on her door says "Melbourne Jew". She spends a lot of time explaining that she is not a Jew, that the sign is a lie, that the exhibition is based on lies; but visitors prefer to believe the printed information. This information, after all, is written and signed by independent experts. The chart on my door says I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old. It also says I was born in 1886, but there are no complaints. The customers are happy.

I have not seen Mr Lo for years, but I suppose he is there, and Emma I see sometimes when she walks out with her boy, proudly inspecting the display on a Sunday afternoon.

But mostly, in the daytime, I see the paying visitors, and at night I see Hissao. Late at night he walks around the clever cages he has made for us, and blames us. And it is I, Herbert Badgery, he blames most of all. He comes after midnight and sits beside my bed drinking brandy. There are all sorts of noises in the night, and I don't mean the keening of an aboriginal woman or the grumbling of a mason, but rather the noises in the street outside where the enemies of the emporium have set up their camp. I have never seen them, but anyone can hear the sirens, the shouting, sometimes the drumming of police-horse hooves.

Our conferences, mine and Hissao's, are not remarkable for their wit or elegance. He pours himself a cognac and insults me, sometimes in Japanese, sometimes in English. His face has coarsened and is showing the effects of all this alcohol. He has become red-nosed, a little pudgy.

"Why don't you die, you old cunt?"

That is the standard of the debate, but there are plenty of times when I would happily oblige him, on nights when my once-handsome face is streaked with white lines. My arteries are as clogged as old drainpipes. They make me feel bad. You would not believe you could feel so bad and still not die, but I cannot die. I will not die, because this is my scheme. I must stay alive to see it out.

"Die, arsehole," says Hissao Badgery.

The poor little fellow. Is he frightened of the enemies who shout his name in the street? Can he feel their passions? Their rage? Is that what it is, my little snookums? He must feel dreadful – he was such a nice boy – everybody liked him – he has not been prepared to be the object of such intelligent and necessary hatred.

For, you see, the emporium is working, sucking rage and hatred towards itself. Such vilifications. Such tempers in the street. Last week we had CS gas drifting through the skylight. The parrots had to be replaced but I drew deep on the gas as if it were honeysuckle. My old optimism is returning.

Did I hear crashing glass, the sound of the first wave breaking as it enters the ground floor? It is this which Hissao fears, this which I wait for, which keeps me alive through all these endless days. But it is not time, not yet.

I take the boy – he is light as a feather – and put him to my breast. His red Bacchus lips pout like a baby. Ah, there. His little lips suck and the contractions are a deep and steady, rhythmic thrum.

It would be of no benefit for him to know that he is, himself, a lie, that he is no more substantial than this splendid four-storey mirage, teetering above Pitt Street, no more concrete than all those alien flowers, those neon signs, those twisted coloured forms in gas and glass that their inventors, dull men, think will last forever.

No, he cannot know.

I close my eyes and do the only thing I can do. I am, at last, the creature I have so long wished to become – a kind man. With my swollen blue-veined breast I give my offspring succour – the milk of dragons from my witch's tit.

It will give him strength for the interesting times ahead.

Peter Carey lives in Sydney. He is the author of the highly acclaimed selection of short stories, The Fat Man in History, and the novel, Bliss.

The Fat Man in History 'A new talent is always exciting. A new talent that seems formed, not just promising, is exhilarating. The Fat Man in History introduces a remarkable Australian, Peter Carey. His view of things is totally original, his eyesight alters the world… The effect is dazzling!