Gatherers and Hunters (5 page)

It was, in fact, Jim who insistently spread the tag name of Ratmutton till it became currency, at least for that year.

Mick himself was looking forward to the big race, almost upon him. It did not matter, now, that when he stood on the blocks, his tight belly and muscly buttocks under the Speedo racing togs were pale as a peeled potato, or a white seal.

Turkish Coffee

Dragana had already cleaned all the sauce from her plate of pasta. She had broken the bread with relentless fingers. ‘Only a light meal, a small salad,' she had said when they first sat down. Rachel was still using her fork to divide the pale, dry sections of gemfish. These looked – and tasted – like string. Something out of the deep freeze. But almost anything she tried, today, would seem tasteless.

Dragana with sharp eyes scanned the crowded Italian ­restaurant. They were squeezed at a small table alongside the major party, twenty birthday celebrants, everyone in black. It was a very Melbourne function, the men swarthy and the women elegantly coiffed. Dragana's suit was plum coloured, the waist nipped in with a conscientious neatness that betrayed its origins.

‘Do you know I was in Belgrade in March? The twenty-fourth of March, when the Americans began their bombing. Yes, I was there, and only halfway through my research; I would be there now.'

‘How did you escape?' Rachel's interest was aroused. She had met Dragana only twice before. A mutual acquaintance, the formidable Ortrun, had declared Dragana a fire-breathing monster. Rachel was of course impressed. Anyone who challenged Ortrun had to be, at the least, estimable. Dragana, tonight, was all smiles and constant, if firm, chatter.

‘I should be in Belgrade still. But we crossed the border into Hungary and went up to Budapest. Two weeks after the bombing started. I am from Belgrade. I was born in Belgrade, so I felt these things.'

More Italians had arrived at the long table, more than there was seating for. The newcomers were also young, or youngish, and in black. The women's smiles were magnificent, their hair sleek and even more magnificent. Two of the young men, closest to Rachel, had at least four rings on each hand, heavy gold. She imagined gleaming medallions on golden chains rubbing their dark chest hair, but tonight silk ties were tight to the neck; and arms, in their expensive suits, sprawled everywhere, sometimes impeding the waiters. How they carry all that flamboyance, she thought. Such unselfconsciousness. She was a real sucker for that. She fell for it every time. And yet, beneath those well-tailored suits, they were probably only boys. But they all looked so young these days; she must not be critical.

The most expensive items from the
primi
were most popular: giant king prawns and the Moreton Bay bugs. Rachel carefully placed her knife and fork in a parallel flank among the discarded gemfish shreds and the steamed carrot and broccoli. She reached for the wine bottle and replenished Dragana's goblet.

‘Now. Yourself. What have you been doing?' But the waiter appeared with the Dessert selection before Rachel could reply and Dragana was instantly declaring her intentions. ‘This ice cream? What are the three flavours? I will not have chocolate, but if you have three flavours without chocolate, that is what I will have. And a little cream. Then, as a finish, give me the short black coffee. I always have a Turkish coffee at home but that is not expected here, so I will have a short black. And you, Rachel, have you chosen?'

There was a time when Rachel had almost invented Turkish coffee for herself. It was a drug. Then she had tasted real Turkish coffee in Istanbul. She had returned to Australia bearing a large brass samovar, two prayer rugs and an even more passionate taste for genuine Turkish coffee.

In time she had settled for Nescafe Espresso, but that was many years later. Many many years later, and the incident of the fortune teller no longer reminded her so insistently.

It is funny how the mind censors many things, how the past remodels itself in accordance with present predilections. It is as if we take what we will, or what we remember, out of a grab bag of memories with all the skill of a juggler, whose very art is not only precision, but deception. Everything must appear to be more difficult than it is. Everything must appear easier, almost a gift. Everything is on the surface. Everything is hidden.

That was where the fortune teller rankled. Rachel was not really filled, ever, with the trickeries or the difficulties of Turkey. She had, before that wonderful expedition, read her guide books and her histories. She was not one to stride down a bazaar wearing a short summer dress and sandals. Long flowing robes were infinitely more delightful and she knew she could never attempt them back in Brisbane. She wore heavy necklaces and amulets, earrings and bulky finger rings. She bartered with gestures and fingers and all the primal numbers in Arabic, which she had memorised while waiting for three hours at Bahrain airport. She knew when to walk away and when to throw up her hands. It was with infinite sadness that she finally accepted the penury of the stall holder and graciously consented to accept his trinket for a ridiculously small exchange of coins.

When she had made her one big killing – the samovar – that was the time she sat, graciously, on a cushion and carpet bestrewn divan and accepted her first Turkish coffee, surrounded by the two gentle old men and the excited clutter of little boys, all of them huge eyed and serious.

She was told the history of the large vessel, its antiquity and its provenance, though she only caught the one significant word – Suleyman – and she examined the pale markings with genuine interest and thought of the slaves and harems and giant eunuchs with servile hands.

The fortune teller materialised out of nowhere, or out of the milling crowds, who paused, moved, jostled and flowed all around her. The old men were evidently delighted to see her and she was given a place of veneration almost as reverently as that accorded to Rachel. The old woman motioned for her to finish her coffee. Rachel drained the dark sandy-textured dregs, wiped her mouth with the white hand­kerchief jammed into the amulet on her plump right arm, and looked, herself, into the murky depths of the tiny white cup, before handing it across to the eager brown fingers.

‘You speak English?' The old woman had a tobacco voice that reminded Rachel of her own Aunt Dolly – the ‘fast' one who had become wealthy in Potts Point. It was both a relief and a little annoying to find herself so promptly identified. She had not uttered a word during the entire negotiations, the bartering, the careful wrapping or the courteous invitation to coffee and this opulent interior of the small marketplace tent. At no point had Rachel felt the slightest hesitation or nervousness. She was prepared for anything, but not even her moneypurse, hidden beneath the flowing garments, had seemed in the least threatened. The fortune teller was tiny, wizened, and in her smoky voice, at one stroke, she exposed her. Rachel knew her bulky necklace had already been assessed and valued, the one turquoise ring among the pretty other baubles immediately noted, and she hoped the cynical twist at the corner of her mouth had been properly identified.

The old woman reached out her other hand before gazing, herself, into the proffered coffee grounds, and took up Rachel's turquoise finger. She looked into her eyes then, just for a moment though it seemed endless. Rachel knew not to waver.

‘Yes, you speak English, but you are not England.' She waggled the finger in her own grasp. ‘You come to Istanbul to find love, yes?'

Rachel had spluttered. The spell was broken.

‘I came here for … for …' But the words, surprisingly, had not come. She could have said ‘for adventure', or ‘for the sense of history,' or even ‘for the excitement of a world where I do not know the rules and where my wits must carry me.' But it had never crossed her mind to use the word ‘love' in any of its contexts.

She clutched the large samovar in her arms, as if it were the demonstration of her reason for being here.

The old woman saw. She nodded and grinned, revealing an almost full set of strong teeth, yellowish but decisive. ‘You have found your love, then. It will please you, but you will have dryness in your mouth.'

Then she finally took up the tiny cup and looked for a long while closely at the black dregs. Despite her disbelief, Rachel could not hide her interest or her curiosity. The boys by now had all gathered round and were craning, too, to examine the contents. The two old men sat back and waited. They had all day.

‘You wonder I speak the English?' the old woman said. ‘It is because of the war. I was young in the war, you will not believe how big my eyes were in the war, how big my hunger for everything. Words. Meanings. They were men, all those boys. They taught me and I taught them. The English. Then the New Zealand boys and the Australians. I was in Wellington two years, do you know that? You, you are not England, you are Wellington, or is it Sydney?' She laughed, a sound like paper being ripped, or parchment. ‘You see, I know everything about you.'

Rachel had been prepared for the well-documented ­strategies of fortune tellers – the quick observant eyes, the conversational scratching of tiny offguard revelations, the adept analysis of apparel, clothing like a personal definition that classifies everyone. She had felt complacent, aware that no other Australian would wear with such generous flair her ‘bazaar khaftan' as she liked to call it. She had walked out of the pensione that morning encased in her own sense of exoticism and theatrical pizzaz. What had given her away? What had betrayed her?

The fortune teller's silence and concentration held the whole crowd spellbound. Rachel had leaned forward, too, despite the cynicism.

‘It is so.' The old woman finally muttered. ‘Look, see!' But she had whisked the tiny bowl too quickly under Rachel's eyes and now was staring at it again herself, fully in control. ‘You are a strong woman. But that will not protect you.' She turned then and spat, accurately, onto the one small area of sand outside the tent flap, some three feet distant. ‘It never protects you.'

And it was at that moment that Rachel realised, with some genuine disappointment, that the old woman was more an autobiographer than a prophet, a teller of futures and fortunes. It would have been enjoyable, in this rich and truly exotic context, to have been offered a magical formula, something she could joke about later but remember.

It would be nothing but some old habits of mind from this old woman, practicing her English on the first comer, no doubt delighted to have spotted her prey, and indeed accurately to have assessed Rachel's origins. No doubt it had been something she noted from afar, like her walk, her stance, the cast of her shoulders and forearms in motion, that had identified her. Rachel, herself, had picked out Aussies in Venice only last month, just by the way they lounged and lurched in a crowd from the Vaporetto.

‘You are strong, though, and there will be many good moments. You are marked for a rich life. There are children. Yes, there are children. Children are always a joy and a disappointment. They are balls of wool. They should be neat and perfect but they always unravel. You want to know how many children? I cannot tell you that. Do you think of children?'

But Rachel, whose life to that point had been crammed with ambitions and plans and a whole Atlas of opportunities or possibilities, had never had the slightest inkling of children. Her sister's infant shat in her lap, once, and Rachel decided on the spot that it is not necessary to suffer everything. There are choices. Rafe was around at that stage, too, and Rafe's definition of ‘choice' was another of the more arcane of the maps on their shared atlas. They had booked on the same liner to Rome, though after that first week with Rafe and his new friend Orlando, Rachel had been happy to launch out on her own. She, not Rafe, had been the
cicerone
on that first week. She had memorised all the itineraries and, perhaps for the first time, had realised how retentive and accurate her own memory was. Rafe had been content to let her lead. That had been another bone of contention. And besides, Orlando had been the one to complain incessantly of weariness. He could not manage a cathedral without endless pauses, much less one of the thoroughgoing galleries.

‘And who is the father of these children of mine?' she had asked airily. ‘Do the coffee grounds tell you that? I would be curious to know,' she added, aware that the old fortune teller would be already making assumptions.

‘That, I think, is for you do decide. Yes. That is something you will decide. But believe me, the children are there and they will not be denied their entrance into this world of sorrow and pain.' She gave a sharp nod, one of the children instantly snatched the coffee cup from her hands and disappeared. The old men moved forward. Rachel knew this was the moment and that she must not fudge it. The coin she fumbled from the pocket of her khaftan (Pockets! Such useful receptacles!) was suspiciously generous looking, but it must do. She sailed out of the tent bearing her samovar and did not even look behind at the old woman, though surely there must have been some arrangement, some commission, some form of licence or exchange. Her part in the scenario was done. She found herself without the heart to enter into further barterings or negotiations with the sellers of slippers or the merchants dealing in bronze or leather. For the first time, ever, she was convinced, she had been implanted with the idea of children.

In the Trattoria Rustica on Lygon Street the crowded table just behind Rachel and Dragana had become noisy, toasts were beginning, and all the young people had relaxed out of their elegance into more argumentative or amorous positions. Coats had been flung over the backs of chairs, at least one of the girls had strands of hair that were not part of a conscious gamine presentation, and for the first time Rachel noted the bloke at the head of that table – he had a black and white hide jacket showing now which must have been previously hidden by his expensive Italian suitcoat.

It was vulgar and debonair, cheeky in its way but decidedly placing him in that company as being both egotist and vulnerable, his wide shoulders and the almost Valentino moustache and sideburns reinforcing the assertiveness and the loud extroversion that was dangerously close to innocence, so that she glanced immediately at the other members of that party, and decided that he was perfectly at home and that not one of them saw his gaudy outfit as being other than himself. He was that sort of person. She had a sudden flash of memory. How old would Benno be now?