Peter Carey - Illywhacker

For Wysbraum had taken fifteen years of his life to become, at last, a doctor. He had given up everything, all hope of companionship, marriage, children, a house, just so he could be a doctor, and, when the time came, at last, on his fortieth birthday, he could afford no more than a new practice in Brunswick where the people were even poorer than he was and could not pay their bills.

When Leah was older she came to resent this description of him as "Poor Wysbraum", found something offensive in it, but when she was a young girl at home she understood the term better, and heard the soft strum of approval, envy even, in the word as well as pity for his loneliness. Later, when she came to analyse things, she did not understand so well and she forgot that it was not just she but all her family who loved Poor Wysbraum who was like food too rich for their ascetic taste, or a scene that was too colourful for eyes attuned to the bleached colours of St Kilda in summer. Wysbraum brimmed with an excess of emotions, angers, fears. He boiled over with stories, his big mouth full of food, while the Goldsteins, quite replete and accepting their headaches without complaint, sat with their hands on their laps and only Sid, their representative, would say: "And then Wysbraum, what happened then?"

You did not need to accompany them on their visit to the suit in the cupboard to know what sort of bond there was between these two men. You could listen to each of them, at table, extol the virtues of the other, and it was Wysbraum, because he spoke more, because he was not restrained by the house, who shouted his praise the loudest.

"An honest man", Wysbraum said, "will always do well. And it is this", he told Sid, "that is behind your success."

"Ah, but it is self-interest."

"Self-interest, yes, of course," Wysbraum would say, eating five pieces of fried fish or ten pieces of bread, not at once, of course, but the Goldstein girls were all counting. "And also self-interest to have your staff paid more than the union demands, and to know their names, but also honest. I drink to your success. It gives me pleasure, Goldstein. If you had been a bad man and done well, then I would be jealous." Lettuce hung from his mouth. "More. I would be angry. But you have behaved honourably."

"A kind man", Poor Wysbraum said, "has more importance in the eye of God than a man with a holy book."

"It is only his way of explaining," Sid said. "Isn't that true, Wysbraum? When you mention God it is your way of explaining your idea. He is not religious," he told his daughters. "Which God?" he demanded of his friend.

"Who knows?" said Wysbraum. "Not me. But He would not be much of a God if He did not say the kind man was the better man." Beetroot from the salad widened his lips and smudged his mouth amiably across his face.

"This is not Jaweh."

"Sit still, Goldstein, be calm."

"Because the fellow is a bully."

"Is a bully, was a bully," said Wysbraum. "I agree. I like you better than Him because you are kinder. Ah," he said, considering the table full of uncertain faces, "never tell jokes at the Goldsteins. The Goldsteins are kind, but they are no good with jokes."

When Wysbraum spoke in favour of kindness no one could doubt his sincerity. So who could have predicted his reaction when Sid Goldstein took it into his head to give away the suit he had shared with Wysbraum?

It was not, as Wysbraum assumed, a premeditated act. One minute Sid was walking on stockinged feet to answer the door and three minutes later he was waving to a stranger who, having come to the door selling shoelaces, was now walking away with the celebrated suit.

Sid Goldstein was not sorry to see the suit go. He did not grieve for it. He meant what he said when he spoke to the young man, whose pale blue eyes slid off the dark ones of the donor, embarrassed at the weight of emotion they contained.

"Here," the tall Jew said, "this is a lucky suit. It was lucky for me. I shared it with my friend and we both got what we wanted. May you", he held out the offering, "have what you want also."

He did not tell the young man that he had slipped a ten-shilling note into the pocket of the suit. He did not tell his family that the suit had gone. Neither did he communicate this to Wysbraum until he was, once again, seated at family lunch, devouring roast potatoes which were cooked in excessive numbers in deference to his appetite.

He waited for Wysbraum to begin his final appreciative scrape of the plate, watched the bread being torn, the plate wiped clean, and the gravy-smeared bread despatched into his friend's gaping mouth.

"Wysbraum," he said, when his friend had folded his napkin and threaded it untidily through the silver napkin ring. "Wysbraum…"

Wysbraum smiled at his friend and patted his stomach.

"Wysbraum," Sid Goldstein said with much emotion, "the suit is gone."

Wysbraum blinked. He pulled the napkin out of its ring and opened it slowly, peering at it as if it contained a tiny pearl he was anxious not to drop. "Gone?" he said, and blinked again.

"I gave it," Sid said.

"Gave it?" Wysbraum said incredulously, holding up the napkin to show there was no pearl. "You gave it. To whom did you give it?"

"To whom. A stranger," he smiled. "A nobody. A young man with no money and no suit. I said to him, this is a lucky suit. It was lucky for Wysbraum and I, and now it can be lucky for you."

Wysbraum did not move, but his big hands held each end of the napkin like a paper bon-bon he might tear apart with a bang.

"You had no right," he said quietly, placing the napkin gently on the table.

"Ha ha," said Sid. "Dear Wysbraum."

"Not joking," Wysbraum said softly. "You had no right." His tiny dark-suited body bent over the large white plate and he placed two tight fists on either side of the plate, in the places where the knife and fork should rightly sit.

"I told him our story," Sid said softly. "Maybe, who knows, he will be lucky too, and then," he spread his pale hands, "when he passes on the suit he will pass onhis story as well."

But Poor Wysbraum, the Goldstein girls saw, was not interested in this fancy. They watched in silence as he squinted his eyes as if to keep out an unpleasant light. Wysbraum's hands uncurled and fluttered anxiously. They took the bread-and-butter plate and stacked it on the dinner plate. They snatched the dessert spoon and placed it on top. Poor Wysbraum shook his head. He rose. He carried his plates and cutlery out into the kitchen. The Goldsteins regarded each other in silent misery, like animals who are unable to express pain. They could hear him clattering out there, but no one moved. The house took the noise of his washing up and blew it up to fifty times its size. The Goldsteins listened to the noise and their frowns deepened and their pale hands began to press hard down into their laps.

Poor Wysbraum emerged at last, holding a tea-towel in his wet hairy hands.

"You," he said to his friend with a great shaking voice. "You have all of this." His great lips trembled to hold the weight of his smile as he indicated (waving his tea-towel like a flag) the house, the wife, the three girls. "Past, present, future." The lips quivered but he did not drop the smile. "You have a history. You deserve it, my friend. Well done."

There was a silence while they waited, all of them, for the house to stop thundering.

Wysbraum did not see the girls. He did not see Edith. He saw only Sid Goldstein. It was in his direction he, at last, threw the tea-towel.

"You have given away my history," Poor Wysbraum shouted before he fled the house trampling on the eardrums of his hosts with his shocking oversize black boots.

The Goldstein women considered the desolate eyes of Goldstein pere with emotions that Leah at least, when she was older, was to recognize as grief of the order one feels in the face of death.