Dragana had
already cleaned all the sauce from her plate of pasta. She hadbroken 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 in
Lygon Street. They had been 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 24th 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, estimiable. Dragana, tonight, was
all smiles and constant, if firm, chatter.
went up to Budapest. Two weeks after the bombing started. I am from
Belgrade. I was born in Belgrade, so I felt these things."
"Since the NATO bombing started I have wondered about a surgeon friend of
mine, he lived in Belgrade. He had done much to promote my own research
project over there, his name was Dusan..."
"Dusan Vuletic, yes, other people have mentioned him. He was in Australia some
years ago."
"That was when I met him...."
"I know. I had intended to interview him, but these things intruded so my
plans had to be changed. All my plans. I had arranged one of my Australian
interviews to be published in our leading medical journal, I had written it in
Serbo-Croat...."
"Will it be published now?"
"Who knows? Everything is altered. So. It was a famous magazine, a very
famous magazine. It would have made an impact."
"In Belgrade?"
"Yes, oh in Belgrade of course. But further than that. As I tell you, it was
an important journal. Now: we shall see, we shall see."
More Italians had arrived at the long table, more than there was seating for.
The newcombers were also young, or youngish, and in black. The women's smiles
wefe 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 menu 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 cram? 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 offee. 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 for insistently.
It is funny how the mind censors many things, how the past remodels itself in
accordince with present predelictions. 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, or even
shorts and a flimsy white blouse. Long flowing robes were infinitely more
delightful and she knew she could never attempt them back in Brisbane. She
wore heavy necklaces and amulets, ear-rings 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 sandy-textured black 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 her 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, your 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 eye, the conversational scratching of tiny offguard
revelations, the adept analysis of apparel, clothing like the personal
definition that classifies everyone. She had felt complacent, knowing no
other Australian who had worn 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 realized, 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 ljoke 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 afair, 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 chidren. 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 unwravel. You want to know how many
children? I cannot tell you that. Do you think of chldren?"
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 realized
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 incessently 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 to 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 mer
chants 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 Rebecca
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 hung over the backs of chairs, at least one of the
girls had strands of hair that were not part of a conscious gamin
presentation, and for the first time Rachel noted the bloke at the head of the
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 extraversion 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?
She turned to her companion. "Dragana, do you notice that young man over
there, the one in the cowboy waistcoat, it's like a Bolero. Yes, that's the
one."
But Dragana glanced and turned back without a nod. "They're all Macedonians"
she said. "We call them cowboys."
"I thought they were Italian."
Dragana gave her a level look. "How long, Rachel, since you were last
overseas? No, I do not mean that American trip, which was when we first met,
in LA. Didn't you once tell me you had been for a week in Istanbul?"
"Twenty five years ago. I tremble to think what has been done to that
beautiful old city."
"You would not want to go back. I almost do not want to go back to Belgrade.
My husband is a Croat you know. This last time, from the start, had its small
upsets but you cannot allow such things to prevent your plans. Look at that
girl near the end. No, not so obviously. You see? Nowhere in Italy would you
see bones like that, except among refugees. Oh, perhaps up in Triese, but
that is hardly Italy. We had our honeymoon in Triese. The wind blew
constantly, from every angle."
Rachel was thinking of Istanbul, though, and of how she deliberately missed
her plane that time. She had not found love, but there had been her brief
intoxication, as she was later to call it, with proper irony. Benno had been
born in Brisbane. For sixteen years he had absorbed her utterly, that was
true enough. She stole another look at the young man, but turned her
attention to the crepe in front of her. She had allowed it to get cold.
When Benno had decamped it had been a relief. Simply that. Benno knew every
art of blackmail and he used each one. She had not initiated any panic
search. It was almost as if she, herself, was the one who absconded. Two can
play at games, she had said to herself, then or sometime later. She took a
position in Melbourne. She did not pick up the pieces, she allowed them to
drop away into whatever nooks and corners. It was always refreshing to start
with a clean slate and she had done precisley that.
Dragana hailed the waiter. "Now. We are ready for coffee. Ah, is there a
place nearby where it would be possible to have a Turkish coffee? No, I am
not serious. You see, in the end, I am always a creature of compromise." She
took two sips of her tiny cup and looked up at Rachel. "So. You have
organised your whole life? Commendably?"
"Commendably." Rachel smiled at the expression. "Yes. I think I have
organised my life commendably. I've had a lot of practice, as it were. But
do you know, I can't get that young man at that table out of my sight. Do
you know what it is? He reminds me of my son. Of how my son might be, at
that age."
"Really? I did not know you had a son, but why not? Where is he now?"
Even Dragana could not hide the implication and the suggestion. She angled
and fished but could not get Rachel to say more. "Well, you are a close one
sometimes. But I like that. Come, I must write up my notes. The next
conference is in Toronto. You must make the effort to get there. It is
commendable also to expose oneself to chances and risks I think. Like in
Belgrade n March. Oh, we took our risks all right. But when it happens,
sometimes life does overtake. Then it is commendable to make a quick exit."
She gathered her things and raised her hand to her captive waiter. "My
husband speaks of children, but there is no time. I do not want to raise a
child in Belgrade." She shrugged.
Rachel reached into her purse. She could not avoid the feeling that Dragana
was being patronising. But she had learned to settle for that.
As she walked to her car, alone, she was thinking, again, of the brash young
man with his black hair and his too willing smile. Those sturdy shoulders.
Slowly she imagined him stripping off his clothes, it was like a scene from
some forgotten movie or an imagined, or unimagined, past. The setting was a
hot hotel in Istanbul. She could afford to be indulgent.
As a boy Benno had been charming, and wilful, and imperious. He had gauged
her weakness for the strong, black coffee and when he wanted something he
would brew it for her - pungent, fragrant. She would not have it any other
way. But that was before he became unmanageable and could smell his freedom.
Well, she too had lit out. One must never become dependent. She had
organised her life, yes, commendably. Children, after all, are only a loan.
This was the first time in many years she had seen somebody who so strongly
conjured up his image, or his possibility. Yes, she thought. The old Gypsy
fortune teller had been right. There was still a dryness in her mouth. But a
mother is allowed only such a tiny sip out of the coffee cup, and all the
rest, at the bottom, is the grit of bitter grounds.