Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

Feeling foolish, feeling like everyone’s eyes were on him, Bill fumbled through his pocket. He had to re-count his money, confused by the foreign coins. He had only a dollar fifty in change. And a two-dollar Australian coin.

The old man had made his way back to the front of the bus and tapped Bill on the shoulder. ‘How much do you need, son?’

‘Fifty cents.’ Bill gratefully accepted the two quarters, took his ticket and moved down the aisle. The old man had sat next to a young woman who was listening to her iPod. As he passed, Bill said thank you to him, and the old man replied, ‘Don’t mention it.’

Bill took a seat down the back and then stood up again, balancing carefully as he weaved down the aisle to stand next to the old man. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ Bill took the gold Australian coin from his pocket and handed it to him. ‘This is a two-dollar Australian coin,’ he explained, ‘for you to use when you make it to Sydney.’

The old man beamed as he accepted the coin. ‘Thank you, son, you’re a mensch.’ He laughed at Bill’s puzzled expression. ‘It means you’re a good boy, son.’

Bill didn’t dare say a word for fear that if he did he would burst out crying.

He got to the bar fifteen minutes early and Trina was twenty minutes late. The first time they had come across it, it had been evening and the place was full. There was a crush to get to the bar and the music was loud; they had thrilled at ordering martinis and sitting at the bar, watching the mating rituals of the fashionably dressed young New Yorkers. They had sat in a blessed jet-lagged torpor, every so often looking at each other and laughing, We’re in New York, we’re in New York! But that afternoon the bar was empty except for the sullen-mouthed young bartender, her hair dyed platinum in a pageboy bob. Bill ordered a beer and took a seat at a front table.

When Trina did arrive she offered no apology for her lateness. He jumped up to greet her. ‘Do you want a beer?’

Instead of answering she threw her bag on a chair, barked at him to look after it and walked over to the bar herself. She returned with a white wine, placed the backpack between her feet and took the seat.

He leaned over to her, whispered, ‘I missed you.’

And he had, he really had; he had pined for the presence of her by his side. The city he had wandered through that afternoon had seemed grimier and far less miraculous than when she was with him, when she was seeing what he was seeing, taking in what he was taking in. He was jealous of all that she had done that day without him.

‘I didn’t miss you at all.’

The bar, the city, everything fell away and there was only a rising panic, a fear of what she would say next. During and after their worst rows, their most cauterising arguments, he had fantasised about life without her and had decided it would be possible. He knew he could survive leaving her. It was a truth that he zealously kept from her, a trump card that he would only play if she dared him with the threat of walking out. In the past, that certainty had warmed him: that he could answer back that he didn’t need her. But now, for the first time not assured of her devotion to him, he realised it was not the truth. He could not live without her.

He dared not speak.

A black youth, a khaki satchel flung over his shoulder, was running against a red light, crossing the road towards them. The youth jumped onto the kerb and walked over to the table.

‘How you all doing?’ He was remarkably handsome, still only an adolescent, with an open sincere smile. His clothes stank of his sleeping in them. ‘I am very sorry to disturb you but I was hoping you might have some loose change to give me.’

Trina had already brought her backpack to her knee, was opening it. Bill pulled out his wallet. He took out a ten-dollar note and handed it to the youth.

The smile widened. ‘Sir, I am so very grateful.’

There was a whistle from behind the bar. The three of them turned; the bartender was gesturing to the young man that he should leave. He dipped his head, almost a bow, and sauntered up the street.

Trina was shaking her head. ‘Was that some kind of fucking absolution? You think that makes up for what you said?’

Before he could speak, before he could even begin to think about what a possible answer could be, two older gentlemen came into the bar and sat at the next table. They were both slim and dressed in fine linen suits. The taller man was wearing a beret, which he placed on the table as soon as he sat down. He took off his jacket and carefully folded it across his knees. They were both softly spoken but Bill was sure that they were speaking Italian. One of the men took out a small map of the city and examined it while the other went to the bar, returning with two glasses of beer. He nodded to Bill and Trina. The two men clinked glasses and took a sip. Bill watched as the tall man leaned over and very tenderly wiped a line of foam from the other man’s top lip. Oh, he realised, they are lovers.

Trina got up and went over to their table. He heard her introduce herself and the three of them began a conversation in Italian. He did not feel slighted at all: he adored it when his wife spoke the language. She seemed more animated, more alive, when she spoke in her parents’ tongue. At one point one of the men pointed to Bill and she said something that made the three of them laugh. Bill lifted his shoulders and frowned in pretend annoyance.

Trina sat back down beside him. ‘They came to New York twenty years ago,’ she explained, ‘and they haven’t been back since then. Vincente,’ she indicated the taller man, ‘is from Abruzzo, not far from where my father was born. Carlo is from the Veneto. They met in university, in Padua, thirty-five years ago. Isn’t that wonderful?’

Bill wished she had said that without sounding so melancholy. ‘It is wonderful.’

Trina smiled at him, the first smile she had offered him all afternoon. ‘Carlo said that you are very handsome and I said that you need to keep your weight down.’

Bill laughed, heartily, hungrily; he tilted his head back and roared. He was sated by her smile.

After their second drink he asked her what she had thought of the Whitney.

‘The smug emptiness of the work stunned me.’ Trina gazed out onto the street. ‘I thought it was art that suited a city that had brought an entire economy to near collapse by speculating on the value of nothing.’

Trina shook her head as they both watched an old Chinese woman walk by carrying an enormous plastic bag full of empty aluminium cans. ‘I thought the art there was arrogant and vain and that none of it will survive. I don’t think any of it deserves to survive.’

He listened, wanting to tell her about the video installation, how that had not been cheap or inert, that it had moved him. But he dared say nothing.

After dinner they took the lift to the rooftop bar of the hotel for one final drink, a whisky for him and a vodka and soda for her. But a DJ was playing relentlessly anodyne house music, it was crowded, with every sofa and chair taken, and the bouncer at the door had moved to forbid them entry till Bill flashed him their room key.

They stood with their drinks in a corner, crushed against each other, looking east along Houston to the shadows of Alphabet City.

‘This was probably a really tough neighbourhood.’ Trina was shouting to be heard, her words sliding into each other. ‘Imagine what it would have been like when Vincente and Carlo came here twenty years ago.’

He could only nod. The pulsating drone of the music, the constant motion of a train of people pressing by them, the semidarkness which strained his eyes: he wanted it all gone, he wanted only to be alone with his wife.