Homesickness (23 page)

And you know there is an obese Irish curator of the Potato Museum in Reykjavik—the world authority; in C., that pan-chewing Bengali docent all day under the sun who simultaneously spits out sideways a stream of betel juice (Scandinavian tourists step back, ‘Tuberculosis!') while pointing a lingam-tipped pole at details in the remarkable erotic sculptures; in the Vatican, what about that clattering cicerone with the permanent smile retailing amazing miracles? Dozens of them (cicerones with permanent smiles). Keepers of the facts, the inventory of civilisation and interesting flotsam manufactured and subsequently preserved.

In lower Quito was the MUSEO DE PIERNAS, and the only way to reach it was by foot. Stone bridges, cobbled alleyways, new districts had to be crossed—itself an experience. They arrived pleasantly puffed.

On the steps a group of twenty to thirty lazzaronis lounged in descending order, and abruptly stopped talking. Around them squatted a few shoeshine boys who should have been at school, as Mrs Cathcart observed, and began banging their brushes, rattling tins (Kiwi polish, export quality), pointing to the group's feet, ‘
Zapatos sucios!
'

It must have sounded an alarm, for the museum director came bursting through the swing doors, a short man on mahogany crutches, shouting in Italian, switching to Spanish: both sufficiently theatrical. He had one leg missing. Significantly, his remaining tan shoe was highly polished. The empty trouser hung like those deflated wind-socks at country aerodromes, partially raised here above the knee with safety pins, exposing clear daylight.

But his crutches; they had seen nothing like these on their travels. The instinct was to comment, show a keen interest. After all, this was a Museum of Legs; it licensed them, so to speak. As the man stood there Doug Cathcart squatted down, wife looking over his shoulder, and tapped with his knuckles the left side crutch.

‘Very interesting,' he said, ponderous, slightly nasal. He looked up at the others. ‘Take a good look at this.'

He was recommending it.

Both crutches were carved in the manner of one of Quito's baroque cloisters, the dark wood twisted with myths and figures, expounding the doctrines of Catholicism. A neat, nay natty man, the director. Little fella, he wore a ballooning red shirt.

So keen and natural was he that the Australians adopted their relaxed, normal manner. They stood around as if they had met years before. And by casually avoiding his face they announced to him their acceptance.

‘Ag-ost-in-elli,' he pronounced his name. And beamed at every one of them.

‘We have them living next door,' Mrs C. stepped back: this one had been eating garlic too.

‘What is an Italian doing here running a museum?' Gerald asked.

The Italian had an electric-bell laugh.

‘
Running a museum?
' He waved a crutch. ‘You can be funny! Ha, ha!' He had to stop and wipe his eyes. ‘I must remember that. The director of the Museo de Piernas is…
Scusi
. Why me? you ask. It is because of the shape of my country, Italy, and think of our history of tight trousers. Also, I was a Roman Catholic. I was a natural.'

On the steps Louisa looked pale and red-eyed, and seemed to take an excessive interest; beside her, standing in a kind of alliance, Sheila concentrated more than usual, and glanced occasionally in Atlas' direction. Squatting, Kaddok was busy trying to focus on the crutches. Everyone found the Italian interesting. The man's energy gave the impression of unbounded optimism.

Hofmann, his hands in his pockets, nodded: ‘What about your other leg there?'

‘On my own initiative,' said the director glancing at the space, ‘I had it removed. To draw attention to the contents of the museum. It was well worth it.'

‘He's pulling our leg!' Garry whispered.

Only Louisa turned and tried to smile.

As they watched, the Italian propelled himself up the steps—remarkably agile. He turned. ‘Without question, ladies and gentlemen, this is the most significant museum you'll ever see—and I mean anywhere.
Meraviglioso!
You ask, why a Leg Museo? Why so significant? Because,' out of habit he panned their faces, eyes bulging, ‘because your leg is fundamental. Not only to tourism. It is at the heart of all that is human. The quintessence!'

Raising a point of order Gerald cleared his throat. But Agostinelli had turned to usher them through, ladies first.

‘Fundamental,' he kept on inside, ‘was that glorious moment when
homo sapiens
first straightened his legs, lifted his face from the earth, separating himself from the apes and monkeys. The leg is the key to our evolution. We know now that man stands upright'—the Italian's voice rose in sympathy, cracking at falsetto—‘in order to speak his thoughts, to propel words. Think of that. The straightened leg has promoted language, which is the supreme faculty of man! You see? You see? We never forget this. When man worships, the knee is bent—we return to earth. Such is our acknowledgment. The homage role of the knee before gods and kings…occasionally women. Custom dictates that we touch and kiss feet. Shoes are removed in mosques and other temples. Christ
walked
on water. He didn't crawl on water…'

Switching to etymology: the great word ‘knew' came originally from ‘knee'. But he threw that in as an aside (a footnote), in a fading voice. Only those in front—the Hofmanns, Gerald Whitehead, Borelli—caught the gist of it.

Silence. Some frowning among them; and pursing of the lips.

They passed wax and plaster casts of legs in genuflection, a Bourdon etching speckled with rust, ‘The Child Jesus Treading Sin Underfoot'. On the wall and under glass were famous examples of Achilles' Heels.

The Italian hobbled along. ‘The foot has twenty-six bones, thirty-three joints. An amazing engineering feat, ahem, by any standards.'

Unusual for a guide, he went ahead ignoring individual exhibits. Positioned on either side the items seemed like the small towns and things which support the broad path of history. He had studied the entire subject. He knew it backwards.

‘Human locomotion,' he was saying, almost talking to himself, ‘left-right, one leg before the other. Man keeps going—forward! We are brave. It is all we have. Understand. History is nothing if not a record of man's movements. Crucial messages were once delivered by runners. Wars were fought on foot, and always will be. The coward runs. Migrations! Refugees! Much has been written lately on the stirrup's influence on history. What about the invention of the horseshoe nail?'

A pause to let that sink in.

They had just passed a bronze replica of Rodin's masterpiece, ‘The Walking Man', and someone pressed a button on the counter and a life-size leg constructed by a Quito engineer of plastics suddenly came to life on a table, walking backwards and forwards, whirring, creaking, illustrating the miracle of tendons, muscle and fetlock. As they walked, it stopped. Then it began tapping to a 78 disc,

Gee, but it's great after bein' out late,
Walkin' my baby back
…

Agostinelli, their guide, had turned the corner, and they could hear him pontificating (which went so well with ‘Agostinelli') about the stirrup in history. Invented in the eighth century it revolutionised the early horse wars. Men could shoot from the saddle. It literally altered the map of Europe, of Asia. And doesn't the leg fit into the stirrup?

Resting on his crutches he lit a cigarette and kept it in his mouth squinting, like a Frenchman.

On a surgeon's table: an amputation kit, and a surgical saw used in the First World War. A vivid description of gangrene. Various jodhpurs, puttees and khaki trousers were tacked on the wall.

‘Take the Industrial Revolution! It could not have occurred without the full co-operation of thousands of legs. Those pale thin legs of the…downtrodden.'

Borelli nodded: they each understood together. He nodded at Borelli's walking stick.

Splints and artificial limbs keep a man going: chiefly of varnished wood, though the trend these days is to plastic and aluminium—so a small sign with many spelling errors noted. A fine example of an antique peg leg was found to be, when they bent down, riddled with white ants. They were like maggots. Alongside it a Chinese model carved in pure ivory had millions of human hairs glued to its calf, for authenticity's sake. And the guide, still going on about the storming of the Winter Palace and the tommies wading into the sea at Dunkirk, reached out and stubbed his cigarette into a large circular ashtray which happened to be an elephant's ankle. Civilisation and its contents.

‘Any questions at this juncture?
Mi lasci passare, per piacere
.'

For they were crowding around barrels of insuetude shoes, the girls holding up greaves and clogs, delicately embroidered slippers, and exclaiming at the sabots from Normandy, boots and bootees (and jackboots), the ballroom pumps and moist galoshes, rope sandals, stilettoes, the inevitable blue thongs (one missing), wellingtons and moccasins, English plimsolls, a pair of Viet Cong sandals crafted from a Michelin tyre. Most were down at the heel and dusty, stained with sweat inside.

Agostinelli enjoyed their keen interest. There were comments and grimaces the way determined bargain hunters crowd the opening of a store's annual Fire Sale. When Borelli went up and asked about Italy, Agostinelli only nodded, his eyes on the others.

‘The History of Footwear has been inserted at this point to provide light relief. It always works. These are cast-offs from the Bally Shoe Museum, in Switzerland. Do you know it?'

Borelli shook his head. ‘We haven't been to Switzerland.'

‘The first measurements of distance were naturally made by the legs,' the monopede remembered his job. ‘There is a universal harmony. When we run each step is about equal to our height.'

They trailed after him again, glancing to the left and right, as Agostinelli talked with his red back to them: difficult to get a word in edgeways. Fully warmed to the subject now he managed sometimes to fling an arm out as he heaved on the crutches, his tenor's voice bouncing off the ceiling, walls and exhibits and back to them.

Arranged in a glass cabinet were examples of elastic garters and stockings through the ages. A misty photograph showed a man's hand on a woman's slender knee; Sasha couldn't help laughing.

‘Madame,' Agostinelli came tripping back, ‘permit me to be frank. Allow me to point out the obvious. Above the knee, your legs spread out and meet at the top—pointing to what?' His voice had gone hoarse. He stared at Sasha. ‘Your legs,' he persisted, gently, ‘point upwards to what?' Glancing at Violet, Sasha reddened; North sauntered over to the collection of walking sticks. ‘Straight up,' the Italian yelled, ‘to the most mysterious sacred centre of the body, your essence! To the centre of life itself. That is why we—I speak not only of myself—are drawn to a woman's legs. We know what awaits at the top.
Scusi
…' He bent down. ‘Ah, you have possibly the finest ankles I have encountered. They are museum quality.'

‘What's he on about?' Hofmann asked. He couldn't hear at the back.

Sasha was looking around for North, but he was discussing with Gerald the selection of table legs, mainly South American. Violet told her, ‘You've got a great future. These Italians; but he is a world authority.'

‘He's made good points,' said Borelli. ‘I think he's pretty good, don't you think?'

He had asked Sheila, but she could only blink.

Nearby, Louisa said, ‘Oh, he makes it sound mechanical. He's very theoretical. It's not as simple. I don't believe anything is,' she added.

‘For a man on crutches,' Borelli admitted, ‘he certainly is agile.'

‘I think so, yes,' said Sheila suddenly.

Agostinelli had sketched the leg's importance in evolution, in religion, in art. Wall posters showed how it figures in axioms and wise slogans handed down over the ages.

BEST LEG FORWARD

ONE STEP AHEAD

‘Feet of clay!'

YOU'RE PULLING MY LEG
!

I CAN'T STAND IT

Such evidence supported Agostinelli's overall view. Returning to history he switched from orthopaedics to metaphysics, to hold their interest.

‘Which country,' he turned to them, ‘do you come from?'

‘Ah!' said he respectfully. ‘A nation of travellers. You've never been afraid of using your legs. I understand Australian tourists are all over the globe. What are the figures? You must rank with the Americans and the Japanese. Why is this? Your country looks beautiful!'

‘Too right it is,' said Doug.

But Agostinelli now mentioned the ‘feats' of the early explorers, the boy scouts who trudged across the interior waste, in the end leaving a dying horse or camels. ‘On foot, on foot. One leg following the next. That is how your continent was opened up. From south to north, east to west. The despair!'

He knew more about the early explorers than they.

As well as the megacephalic Burke and skinny Wills, and Eyre, Leichhardt, Voss, he broadened his canvas with other noteworthies, Richard Burton and Speke; and of course Polo from Venice; naturally he emphasised South America first with Cortez, then Col. Fawcett, and Humboldt, and Charles Darwin; and then those loyal waders who struggled towards the North and South Poles on wicker snowshoes. Wasn't Mount Everest conquered on foot? These were some of the glorious episodes of man. It gave the colour and tragedy to maps.