Dead Europe (27 page)

Stellios had been the one who had dug up the body. The boy's corpse had not decayed at all: the skin was grey and clung like a shroud over the boy's skinny frame. The mouth was contorted in a wide imbecile grin, and even the eyes had remained whole: in those empty glass eyes, Stellios had seen the summons of his own death. He had screamed, and would have fled if old Papa Nicholas had not grabbed on tight to his tunic. The priest had washed Stellios' hands in holy water, blessed him, had the man kiss the Holy Book, and together they had prepared the pyre. There was no smell to the boy, and Stellios noticed the short stubby penis.

—Was he a Mohammedan, Father?

The priest had not answered. It had been then that Stellios had understood. The boy had been a betrayer of Christ. He spat on the ground and threw the corpse roughly on the pyre of tindersticks and coal. He gave a quick sharp kick at the inert body.

—What are you doing? screamed the priest.

—Forgive me, Father, said Stellios, but it is a rare chance a man has to kick at Satan himself. I'll get to Heaven.

The priest poured oil over flesh, over wood and coal. He had told the gravedigger that it had been Maritha Panagis who had urged him to unearth the body. Stellios had not been surprised that the old woman and her
grandson had died. It was certainly no accident. It was the damn Judas' final satanic revenge. Lucia had no right to condemn her mother-in-law. Maritha Panagis had saved their village.

Night fell quickly as they began their steep ascent. Lucia had ordered her daughter off Stellios' shoulders, and they now walked hand-in-hand behind the man. Reveka kept close to her mother, her bright black eyes darting in fright at the forest's evening music. Is that a wolf? she cried. No, laughed Stellios, that's the wind running down the mountain. Is that a demon, Uncle Stellio? No, shushed the man, that's the moon yawning because he's just awoken. But Stellios too believed the night belonged to the wolves and the demons and he prayed as they climbed. He heard Lucia chuckle.

—I thought you a brave man, Stellio, a gravedigger. Why the hell are you praying?

—All we have in life is God's protection, Lucia Panagis.

—You are a fool, Stellio Leptoulis. This is the Devil's mountain. God doesn't live here.

 

It was the little girl who first heard the sobbing. She stopped and tugged fiercely at her mother's skirts.

—Why have you stopped, you stupid beast?

—Listen, whispered Reveka, someone is crying.

The adults listened to the night and they too heard the fits of grief.

—She's right, nodded Stellios, I hear it too. He turned to the woman and her daughter. You two stay here, I'll go and have a look. Crossing himself, he followed the sound of the sobbing.

Stellios came to the edge of a clearing and in the benign light of the half-moon he saw a young boy kneeling beside three misshapen forms. It was the boy who was crying. He looked up at Stellios' approach and pulled a knife from his belt.

—Vasilaki, don't be scared, it's only me. It's Stellios Leptoulis. I'm returning from town.

Vasilis Paparaklis hesitated, then he placed the knife back in its sheath and angrily wiped tears from his eyes. Stellios approached and looked down at the three figures lying still on the ground.

He guessed that they had been bandits. The two dead men had long black beards, and the dead woman had worn the stiff grey hides of the guerrilla army. The skin on the faces of the corpses had been burnt away, as had much of their dress. Red scars and boils were visible on the exposed flesh. Around them, visible even in the half-moon light, the earth itself seemed burnt and scarred, as if the sky had rained fire. The smell was putrid: death, rotting, and something unrecognisable. Something new, not of nature, something chemical, like the residue that clung to the one photograph Stellios possessed, of his mother and his father, God have mercy on their souls. He turned away from the abhorrent sight.

—They've killed my brother. The boy pointed at one of the corpses. This is his dagger.

Vasilis broke down again, and in his humiliation he turned away from the man. Stellios looked back at the forest path, and seeing that Lucia had not yet followed, he quickly made up his mind what he was to do. He knelt before Vasilis and violently shook his shoulders.

—Hush, Vasilaki, you will have plenty of time for grief later. Your life is in danger as well. They know you have been helping your brother.

The boy stopped crying and an angry suspicion filled his face.

—What do you know?

—I was in the town hall, Vasilaki, I had some business there in town. I overheard Lucia Panagis talking to one of the Colonels. She betrayed you to him.

—Are you certain?

The man nodded.

—Go, Vasilaki, go and tell them about your brother. But then leave immediately for they will be coming for you. Run, don't hesitate.

The boy did not move. He looked down at the three bodies.

—Run, insisted Stellios, save yourself. I swear to you on my children's lives that they know you are involved. Your mother has already lost one son, don't let her lose another.

The boy rose and began to run. Stellios heard his rapid footsteps taking the forest path. The rank smell of the corpses reached his nose again and he had to turn away. He heard a tread and saw Lucia and Reveka walking out into the clearing.

—Don't let the girl come close, he warned, and ran and took Reveka in his arms. They both watched as Lucia walked up to the bodies and surveyed the ground around them. She turned, and in the moonlight, Stellios was shocked to see a triumphant smile on her face.

—What killed them, do you think?

Stellios did not move. He shrugged his shoulders.

—They say the Americans have a bomb that rains fire from the sky.

Lucia laughed loudly at this and clapped her hands. And then, slipping off her pantaloons beneath her dark skirts, she crouched beside the bodies and began to piss. The thick gold stream sent clouds of white steam up into the starry sky. Stellios tried to shield the young girl's impassive eyes from the horror of her mother's madness. She is a wild animal, thought Stellios, the Devil is certainly in her. Lucia pulled up her pantaloons, adjusted her skirts, and came over to Stellios and Reveka.

—Give me my daughter.

Taking Reveka's hand, she started to walk back to the path. She stopped and turned to Stellios.

—Who was it that was sobbing?

—Their souls, whispered the man, his voice harsh and trembling. We must have heard their souls.

 

Stellios Leptoulis' favourite spot on the mountain was a wide cleft step perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley below and the setting sun above. The step was wide enough for a small natural garden to have formed, and Stellios tended it by removing any overgrowth of nettles, pruning back the grassy knoll on which he sat and looked over his world. It was between the twin lofts of the neighbouring mountain that the sun set. It had been a terrible winter, thought the man, the worst he could remember, and he feared that his strength was beginning to fail him. He had grown very thin over the winter, his hair had started to whiten, and he was filled with guilt and anxiety for his soul over the acts that war and hunger had forced him to. But even with his failing strength, he had managed to protect his family, and now that the winter was passing and the wars were over, he took his seat on the knoll and thanked God that his family had survived. Stellios sat on the edge of the cliff, feeling the last warm rays of the setting sun, glad to be up above the world, away from the inanities of man. That very morning he had heard the first thrilling song of the sparrow, and in the middle of the day, with the hot white sun above him as he had been digging in his orchard, he heard a rustle in the corn grass. Bending on one knee and flicking back the cornstalks, he saw a serpent's course outlined in the soil. Spring, Easter was coming.

Looking down at the valley, he heard the church bells ring. Glancing across, he could make out a bent figure kneeling at a graveside but he could not tell who it was or whose death they were still mourning. I'm too old to dig many more graves, Stellios thought to himself, and he smiled, thinking of his oldest son, Gerasimos. It's your turn, son, he murmured,
your turn to become a man. He looked back at the valley and wished he could stay on his secure warm ledge forever. The trees, the wind, the sun, the sparrow and the serpent, all these belonged to God. It was the world of man that belonged to the Devil. But as the sun began to drop beneath the twin lofts, Stellios rose to his feet and began his walk back to his home and his village.

Michaelis Panagis also rose as he felt the sun's warmth fading. He had been kneeling before his family's tomb. His face was cold and still. He allowed himself three prayers. First, he prayed for his son, Christos; then he crossed his heart three times to honour his mother's soul; and three times he honoured his father. He then hesitated. Was it true, what the villagers had said, was it true that she had lain with the Devil? As he rose to his feet, his fingers searched his jacket pocket and he found some crushed camomile flowers there. May God forgive him, but whoever had murdered Lucia had done him a great favour. He was finally released from her enchantment. It must have been mercifully quick. When he had found her by the goat-shed she had been lying on the dirt floor as if asleep. There was a bullet wound at the back of her head. There were some in the village who gossiped that it was he himself who had murdered his wife. He hadn't, but again asking understanding from God, he sprinkled the crushed camomile on Lucia's grave and was grateful.

COLIN HAD BEEN arrested twice in his life. The first time was when he was eleven and he was caught for shop-lifting a small transistor radio from a store in High Street, Northcote. The second time was when he was fifteen. Along with two other boys he had taken the train into the city, from there a tram to the beach, and after scabbing enough money from passers-by to pay for two cheap bottles of bourbon, they had ended up drunk, and scaling the high wall of the East St Kilda cemetery. Once inside, they attacked and desecrated a row of Jewish graves. The alcohol fuelled both their recklessness and their hatred. They had not noticed the surveillance camera in an alcove in the high brick wall. The cops arrived and interrupted their rampage. Colin spent that night in the Caulfield lock-up.

 

—What did it feel like?

—What do you mean?

—How did it feel destroying those headstones?

—It was fun.

—You weren't scared?

—No, I wasn't scared. I was high. I thought I was doing God's bidding. I thought God was on our side.

—So what did it feel like?

Colin had turned away from me. I kissed his freckled shoulderblade.

—It felt like I was fucking flying.

—What exactly did you do?

—I didn't smash any headstones. The others did that.

—What did you do?

—I pissed on one of the headstones. He turned around and faced me now.

—There was no English on it. It was all Hebrew script and I remember it shat me off that I couldn't read it. I let my piss flow all over the grooves of the script. I couldn't stop laughing. The others wanted me to shut up but I couldn't stop.

I turned away from Colin and looked up at the ceiling, examined the fine cobwebs suspended from the lightshade. I wanted to look anywhere but in his steel-cold eyes.

—You must have really hated the Jews.

Colin said nothing.

—Maybe you still do?

I felt him stiffen.

—What's with the fucking interrogation?

—Do you?

He got up from the bed and looked around for his overalls. The streetlight fell on him and painted his pale skin a golden hue. He found a cigarette and lit one. I reached out for one as well.

—It's as if I hated the very word. Jew. I hated the very sound of the word, does that make sense?

—No. I could tell he was uncomfortable with the conversation but I also knew I needed it to happen. The swastika tattoo was invisible in the dark of the bedroom but it was as concrete an obstacle between us as a mourned past lover.

—It wasn't as if I knew any Jews, Isaac. It wasn't as if they were the only ones I hated. I was full of hate. I hated everyone.

—And what did you hate?

—If I saw a father playing with his son, I hated them both. If I saw some migrant woman tending her beautiful vegetable garden in the sun, I hated her. I hated the actors on the movie screen, I hated the politicians on the news. I especially
hated anyone who spoke of justice and right. I hated those cunts who used to come around pretending to care about Mum and me. I hated social workers. I hated social workers and teachers much more than I hated the Jews.

—So it was indiscriminate? My voice must have sounded hopeful because he looked hard at me. He was guarded, suspicious. But I continued to talk, finding hope in what he had just said. I wanted his hostility and hatred to have been random, purposeless; or at most the inevitable consequence of an adolescent raging against the hypocrisies and inequalities of the adult world. You didn't really hate the Jews, I continued, my words tumbling out, hopeful, expectant. You just hated everyone.

He had turned his face away again.

—I did hate them. I hated them completely, passionately. It was a joy to experience such a hatred. Such a pure, directed hatred. I think it stopped me going mad. I hated everyone and everything but I could focus it all on one thing. That one word, Jew. That's what made me feel alive, when I was pissing on that old Hebrew grave. I hated everyone and everything but they were at the centre of my hate.

—Do you still hate them?

—The cops congratulated me. As they were taking my shoes and socks, before throwing me in the lock-up, one of them knelt and whispered in my ear, Good on ya, son.

—Answer my question.

Colin pointed to his tattoo.

—I am ashamed of this, Zach. I'm forever ashamed of this.

—Do you still hate them? I had raised my voice. I could barely conceal my contempt. He took my hand but I tore it away from his.

—I don't have any of those old hates any more, Isaac. I promise you that. I have my envies. I can't fucking change that.

—What are you saying now? That you envy the Jews?

There was a pause before he answered. When he spoke, there was wonder, surprise in his voice.

—No, no, I don't. I still envy the rich. I envy you wogs because you can be passionate and touch each other without cringing. But I don't envy the Jews. I've exiled myself from the Jews.

—What the hell does that mean?

That moment I did hate him.

—You know how you can see a black man on the street or an Aboriginal woman or an old Vietnamese geezer and the first thing that you are aware of is their difference from you? You understand that?

His tone had become cold and distant, but there was an urgency to it. I reluctantly nodded.

—And then you know how you can talk to the stranger, get pissed with them, ask about the weather, the football, talk about a film, and the difference just disappears? It's no longer about skin colour or language, it's just you and the other person, does that make sense?

—Yes.

—Well, that can never happen between me and a Jew. He tapped his arm. This tattoo, it's not ever going to go away.

I leapt out of the bed then. In the toilet I punched the wall. It was him I was wanting to hurt. You fucking romanticise your past, I wanted to say to him, you fucking use everyone as a scapegoat for the idealisation of your own poverty and pain. You're still proud of that ugly cheap tatt, you're such a working-class hero that you can't tolerate the reality of a suffering more real, more painful, more fucking noble than yours. Fucking gutless white trash scum.

I returned to our bedroom determined to leave him. I loathed him.

He had put the light on, was sitting on the edge of the bed, and he was wearing boxer shorts and a ripped white t-shirt.
He looked up at me with an acute sadness. I would have done anything to make him smile, to give him peace again. I held him tight.

—It doesn't matter, Col. It's all in the fucking past, it doesn't matter. I kissed him, held him as he cried, wiped the tears away. But, of course, it did matter. For something was exchanged between us that night. If with me Colin had found someone prepared to accept his shame, I now shared something of his exile. As I was holding him, loving him, my own dark arm brushed against his pale flesh, and against his tattoo. The ink was on my skin too.

 

I was sick. A fierce nausea consumed me as soon as the train began the exit through the western suburbs of Prague, but I assumed that it was nothing more than the just consequence of my indulgent time with Sal Mineo. I was fortunate that my train carriage was not full and there was space for me to stretch my legs. But as the train hurtled towards Germany the nausea worsened. I was nearly paralysed by an impossible hunger: I say impossible because nothing could satisfy it. I ordered a greasy tub of chips from the slack-jawed attendant in the catering car but at the first taste of the food I began to retch. I apologised to the scandalised passengers in the carriage, and their multilingual murmurs of disdain followed me as I made my uneven way to the toilet. I emptied the chips, and what little solids were in my stomach, into the soiled bowl.

I took in nothing of the scenery that whizzed past. My only reality was the burning pain that attacked my stomach and my bowels. But if I was insensible to sight and to sound, I was acutely aware of smell in a way I never had been before. The seat stank of acrid human sweat, and of the faint chemical dew that was sprayed across it to disguise the stench. Of my fellow passengers I was aware only of their perfumes and their odours. The stink of my own vomit and
the reek of the shit-stained toilet permeated the carriage. I was aware of the musty reek of the marijuana in the joint in my pocket; I couldn't believe the glum Czech guard who had inspected my passport could not smell it, did not immediately haul me away. But he only glanced at my documentation, flicked it back at me and left me alone. I closed my eyes and laid my cheek against the cool train windows. I think I must have prayed for death.

It was then that I sensed her. She had taken the seat on the other side of the aisle from me. Her stink was powerful and I knew at once that she was bleeding. The smell itself seemed to have a coarse corporeal solidity to it; the only word to describe it would be velvet. I could smell the velvet in her cunt. I opened my eyes and looked across. She was a short, dark woman, with two large gold hoops dangling from her ears and wearing a strapless black dress; her slim naked shoulders were richly tanned. She was young, a student. I lifted myself out of my slouch and smiled over at her. She had lit a cigarette and was absentmindedly looking over in my direction. Cautiously, she returned my smile.

The pain in my stomach, the call of my intolerable hunger, had not vanished, but it was as if by inhaling her aroma I was able to steady myself, to right the shudders and quakes of my racked body. My mind was racing. My desire for her was such that I contemplated the most sickening of fantasies. Taking her, assaulting her, devouring her. Instead, I coolly planned a seduction.

I leaned over and introduced myself, and began to ask a series of innocuous questions. She responded, initially diffident, but I was charming, and soon I was sitting across from her. She was a graphic design student from Sao Paolo and she was on her way to Berlin to meet up with friends. She had, she told me, fallen in love with Prague. In her excitement she fumbled and skittered over the English language but I continued to smile and encouraged her
reminiscences. No, no, your English is excellent. She listed the various sites and attractions of the city and I too pretended to be enthusiastic about the cathedral in the Old City, about visiting Kafka's sister's house. I too gushed about the beauty of the city's architecture. The culture, it is magnificent, she rhapsodised, and I echoed, yes, yes, it is magnificent. I told her that I was a photography student and I eliminated ten years from my age and hoped that she would be kind enough to not openly doubt me. All the time, the vinegary perfume of her cunt filled my nostrils, touched all of my senses; the aroma expanded and filled my head and my lungs. The conversation took a turn towards music and from there I quickly steered it towards a discussion about drugs. Did she smoke? Yes, occasionally. I patted my shirt pocket. Would she like to share a joint with me? She hesitated and scanned the passengers in the carriage. I indicated the toilet car. She slowly nodded.

 

It took all my will to control the fierce violence in my stomach. The marijuana seemed to have no effect on me at all, but it must have been potent, for after a few puffs a smoky glaze clouded her eyes. In the small space, I was looking directly into her eyes, her body was touching mine, and I was aware of both her youth and her shyness. I leaned over and kissed her neck. She neither responded nor moved away from me. She remained looking into my eyes. I kissed her neck again and this time I touched her thigh. She shivered, then kissed me on the mouth.

It was agony not to push her against the wall, rip off her dress and devour her. But I controlled myself, kissing her softly, and all the time my fingers were stroking her thighs, feeling underneath the cotton of her panties where her sanitary pad was. I brushed the rough coils of her pubes and she lightly slapped my hand away. I sensed her embarrassment, but even more I sensed the sweet, rich blood that
was flowing out of her. It's okay, I whispered, and then kissed her again, I don't mind. My hand moved back up her leg and this time I lowered her panties, rubbed the raised tender curve of her mound and slipped my fingers inside: I was immersed in the slush of her moist meat. I dropped to my knees.

Her body stiffened but I forced her legs apart and pushed my face into her groin. The smell was overpowering. It was as if her cunt was a cellar filled with a heady store of wines and spirits, all emitting wafts of gaseous bouquets that recalled all the possible eruptions of the body. She smelt of farting and diarrhoea, shitting and pissing, burping, bile and vomit. I forced my tongue into this churning compost. Her blood was calling me. My tongue furiously worked the craters of her cunt and I felt the blood, coarse and thick, trickle onto my lips and into my mouth and onto my tongue and down my gut and I forced my lips over her clit and sucked on it till I felt I was drawing her into my very body and the blood kept flowing onto my lips and into my mouth and my guts and I rubbed my face across the hair and skin and meat of her and as I licked at her cunt and arse I opened my mouth wide and bit into her thigh and I did not hear her squeal for all I was aware of was the clean neat puncture and the blood that began to flow from it which fell onto my tongue and into my mouth and my gut, and her blood pumped through me and calmed the agonies in my belly and head and I knew I was alive; and laughing, drawing away from her I was aware that above me a body was heaving and I pushed my face back into her, all my fingers, my tongue, my chin, inside her: a bitter cool spray washed across my face. Her body convulsed, shuddered, trembled once more, and then fell to stillness. She had come.

I look up at her and smile. I feel the wet uncomfortable spread of my own semen fill the pouch of my underwear. She crouches down and wipes my face. I am still laughing
loudly and she spreads the fingers of one hand across my mouth to stop me. I wash my face, and kiss her on the mouth as I wipe my cock with toilet paper and piss into the foul bowl. I leave her in the toilet and walk through into the carriage. The whole world is ablaze with golden light. Through the windows I can see details that are miles and miles into the horizon: squat village houses, a flimsy scarecrow in a field of corn. The light that pours into the carriage is warm and it feeds me. I breathe it in, smile at my fellow passengers, then drop into my seat and am promptly fast asleep. I am awoken by the German guard demanding my passport. I look across the aisle but the Brazilian woman has gone.