Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

I get up too, I ask the filth with the keys that I must go to the toilet.

In the latrine I can hear Stiv Gharin pissing a fountain. Then he lets drop a foul fart as he shits.

Two years and three months.

I kick door and he has no time. Brow meets brow, and I am hitting him so hard with my forehead that the sound is a clean Orthodox bell ringing on the mountains. He places a hand to the wall of the latrine, he has courage this beast, he will fight Death, but he cannot go to his feet before I pulling at his hair and bringing his head down hard on the concrete slab of the toilet. I do it again. And again, the bells ring.

I pull his head up by his hair to give it to him a third time.

He is a caught fish, a dying fish, his mouth opening closing opening closing.

I let go of his hair.

He is seeing black and in the black a yellow light. He can’t get up, he is there around my legs, twisting like the damned adder he is. I let him squirm. I wrap Tzim’s cloth around my hand and I dip into the latrine, I grab his three fat shits.

— I hears you have accident, Stiv.

He knows what is awaiting for him. He is trying again to go to his feet but I smack him hard and he falls back on the latrine. I pull his mouth, he is a frightened dangerous serpent but I am now having the hunger of a god and I don’t care that he is bite me and scratch me and punch me. I am opening his mouth, I am seeing right down to his black heart and I am grabbing the shit and pushing it all the way down, I am filling his mouth and I am filling his throat. I fill the animal’s lungs with the shit.

Two years and three months.

I leave him, let him drop. I go to wash my hands. I clean them and I clean them, I don’t want his stink on my skin. I clean them and I clean them and I can hear the Stiv is making retches and then I hear him vomiting. He is on his hands and knees. He retches again and then the vomit is coming, all that shit but also there is pink and there is the yellow of the sun and there is blue and there is orange and there is purple. So many colours for this shadow place.

Mother of us all, where have you taken me, that vomit is beautiful here? Stiv is taking a breath, still on all fours and looking up at me. Black his eyes, dark the wild stare in his eyes: I am not managing to conquer that.

I close the tap. I open my lungs and I start to sing.

Where are the greens of the meadow, the water from the well?

— Who said you can sing, wog?

Two years and three months. I’ll go to the desert, that most bleak of seas, I’ll become a black bastard. I’ll make that my home.

— This is Australia, wog! We speak Australian here, wog!

Every hour of every day. Every hour of every day, dear God, these condemned, these barbarians, these animals, they cannot take breath without curses falling from their mouth.

Two years and three months.

I am walking back to the latrine. He is a snake, that is what he is, he is venom. I am kicking him, he falls. Then I am raising my right foot, our boots in here they are thick-soled and they are heavy. With all my might, with all the strength that God has given me, I am smashing my foot down. I am Bobi Mor, I am Eusevio and that miracle child, I am Pelai. I am sing, Where are the greens of the meadow, the water from the well? With every kicking of my foot on his head, I can’t do anything but singing.

All around me, just for a moment, one blessed moment, there is the sweetest scent of roses.

Written in Greek and translated into English by the author

SHE NAMECHECKS HYPATIA AS A HERO. She wraps herself in white cloth: scarves and sheer shawls. ‘You know how they killed Hypatia,’ she asks me, ‘do you?’ I don’t.

She tells me. They stripped her and hacked away at her skin with shards of broken pottery. ‘They ripped her skin off.’ She shudders. ‘Can you believe that?’

Hypatia was head of the library at Alexandria, keeper of knowledge for the whole of the ancient world. They burned down the library, destroyed the scrolls. They skinned her alive.

‘Who’s they?’

She shrugs. A scarf is wound theatrically around her head. ‘They is they : the Pope and the Emperor, their priests and their soldiers. The same they as always. That’s the part of history that never changes.’

She’s a pessimist. It comes naturally, she says, she doesn’t have to bullshit to be it. But she can’t shake her addiction to astrology and will always read a horoscope if she comes across one. We’re walking down the street, oblivious to the movement around us, we are together in her world. I’m guiding a path and she’s reading aloud from a Woman’s Day . ‘Crap, crap, crap.’ Her voice is a stiletto. ‘Horoscopes are just another lie,’ she loudly tells the street. She throws the magazine onto a bench and we keep walking. A few steps on and she’s changed her mind, turns back to grab the magazine, to have another look. ‘It’s because I’m a Virgo,’ she explains. ‘We’re hard to please.’

Virgos are hard to please. Virgos make enemies easily. They love to talk but they’re not subtle, and at their worst they are just plain fucking rude. The ones I know are all independent. They’re virgins, untouched. I don’t know shit about astrology but my best friends are always Virgos. It is the only sign I can pick. I can always pick a Virgo.

‘I can piss standing up,’ she tells me.

‘Bullshit.’

‘Wanna bet?’

‘Okay. How much?’

‘Five dollars.’

She’s got her feet wide apart, knees slightly bent, leaning over. She’s doing it. I rub the bottom of my chin with my thumb. I’ve lost the bet and the piss is sinking into the dirt.

She hitches up her undies.

I hand over the money.

•

We’ve known each other from day one. Which is not quite true, but true enough. We met in school when we were fifteen. She had been a student in some hippie institution, and wore colours and beads. She and I liked each other immediately. We fell upon each other. We were misfits but we desperately wanted to be liked.

I was very young when I worked out that I preferred spending time with girls. Kid-in-the-sandpit young. At fifteen, it was a little bit different. I was kissing girls as well as hanging out with them and that was changing everything. She didn’t care; sex didn’t muddle us up. We knew it straight away, just by looking at each other. She made me laugh, and she seemed like a sister to me. I don’t have a sister but I imagine her and me is what it would feel like.

She gave me good advice about sex, about love, about the differences between men and women. Much better than anything I received from other girls, from guys, from Mum, Dad, from my teachers; even better than the television. I had another friend, Jessie, and we used to talk, but one night we rolled around together drunk at a party and pashed on. They were only alcohol kisses. The next day at school, we avoided each other. My crush was on Bella, big, beautiful, black-haired, long-legged Bella. But Bella never looked at me.

I was also close to Derek. We were cool. He was okay, but he wanted to fuck me. That sounds up myself but it was true. He told me and I said it was alright, that I didn’t mind, that I was kind of flattered. But that changed things too. Again, I just wasn’t interested. I did have sex once with a guy, Dominic Borstino. I guess it was sex. We wanked together watching porn. His dad was out and we found the pornos under Mr Borstino’s bed. We watched them and touched each other’s dicks a few times. We didn’t look at each other. As soon as I blew, he jumped up and left the room. He spent ages in the bathroom. I heard a flush through the porno-disco music and he came out with a towel, all zipped up. I was pissed off. I had wanted to see him come. I never told Derek about Dominic. But I told Zazie.