Notorious
‘
Notorious
is an extraordinary debut, a stunning performance, a literary thriller in a category of its own. A haunting opening in Morocco and a shocking post-war encounter in Sicily’s Triangle of Hunger anchor a truly riveting narrative that takes us through Poland, Italy, Borneo on a mesmerising journey for which Hitchcock and Rimbaud might have provided the maps, but during which Lowing always out-foxes us, is always in control. Her wit is rare, her sense of location uncanny, and her suspense is nothing short of masterful.’
—David Brooks, author of
The Fern Tattoo
‘This mesmerising book will haunt you for weeks. Its sumptuously described landscapes will be more real than your everyday ones. You’ll wake up saying: “Why am I in this misty forest? This lonely desert?” Its plots with its shocks, reversals, terrors and uncertainties will become your life; its characters, your trusted friends and dastardly betrayers. Lowing will become notorious for making insomniacs of us all.’
—Sue Woolfe, author of
Leaning Towards Infinity
N
OTORIOU
S
R
OBERT
A
L
OWIN
G
First published in 2010
Copyright © Roberta Lowing 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
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Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
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ISBN 978 1 74237 239 6
Cover art design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko, based on an original source from the
British Library collection
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Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
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For my family
Contents
Present Day: The First Morning
II The Wolves of Santa Margherita
III The Glass House of Castelmontrano: Part One
IV The Lost Plane of Kalimantan
V The Glass House of Castelmontrano: Part Two
VI The Jewelled Casket of Rue Sidi Hmad
VII The Butterfly of the Kabir Massif
T
he driver stopped the taxi beside the rusted iron gates and sat, silent and immoveable, in the front seat. I stared at the back of his dark head and the moles scattered on the white skin above the fur-lined collar of his jacket. The leather at the shoulder was weather-worn except for a shield-shaped patch below the seam.
I said, ‘You can’t take me to the house?’
The driver shook his head so abruptly that a gold chain rode up his neck. He cleared a circle on the misted glass and pointed out.
He said, ‘Terrible things there.’
I made my own circle and felt the cold gnawing my gloves. I looked through the ice-sheathed gates to the black jagged trees and the clumps of snow ribbed by black Polish earth.
The driveway ran straight to the austere silhouette of the mansion I had come so far to see. On my left, the fields, planed by the wind, fell back in bone-coloured waves of snow. Low humps marked out a long rectangle: the landing lights around the airstrip. I imagined the late-night arrivals: the rumbling engines coming to rest, the ramp grinding down, the hooded and tethered figures stumbling across the rutted ground.
I said, ‘That’s the famous field? Where the Polish army rode out?’
‘Worse than famous now. Not – not – ’
‘Notorious?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Not even for crops anymore. Everything goes in, dies.’
‘Diseased.’ I thought, No-one would expect the new tenants to tend the land.
He nodded. ‘Dis-ease.’
‘Blood below the soil.’
‘Pardon, Mrs?’
‘Miss,’ I said. ‘Never mind.’
From the rear passenger seat, I saw the spines of the books on the shelf beneath the glove compartment: Szymborska, Neruda, Milosz, Brontë. More poetry. I felt for the book in my pocket, pulled it out, looked at the dagger which pierced the bleeding red heart on the cover, the spiked black trees which scratched the jagged horizon, the title in its sprawling ecstatic French. The author’s name: Arthur Rimbaud.
Too much poetry. I would never get away from it.
I held out the book. ‘I want you to have this.’
The driver turned. He had very pale blue eyes. ‘No need to give book for me to come back.’
‘Keep it safe,’ I said. ‘For my brother.’
I looked up the driveway again. The leafless trees revealed the house in all its rigid lines: the tall pointed turrets raking the frosted grey sky, the stark lightless windows along the broad stone terrace, the tiles which were strangely clear of snow even though I could see the diamond dust – water in the air freezing as it fell – already coating the rust stains on the gate.
Soon the cleansed land would glitter. Erase the old stories, for a while.
‘Not go.’ The driver looked at the curdled grey. ‘Very cold, very soon. And dark.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I have a mind for winter. It’s hot places I can’t stand.’
I pulled my wool beret as low as it would go, bunching my hair over my ears and around my neck. I put on another pair of gloves and said, ‘I’ll call you when I’m done.’
‘Phones not work here.’ The driver pointed down the salt and peppered road. ‘I live in next village. Walk to there.’
‘What’s its name?’
‘Same as here.’
‘It’s called Koloshnovar?’
He wound down the window and spat. He said, ‘The family owns it all.’
I pulled my galoshes on over my calfskin boots and made sure I had the investigator’s file in my bag. Outside, the cold gripped my throat, tugged at my legs. Racing tendrils of mist streaked the frosted sky, reducing the sun to a sickly yellow watermark.
I threw my head back, let the cold bite my lungs, the corners of my eyes. I breathed out damp, pricking clouds of cold. It hurt. I welcomed it.
The gate was padlocked but the investigator had given me a jeweller’s pick and instructed me how to use it. He had said, Tell the border cops it’s an Australian cuticle cutter.
With a ragged snort of diesel, the taxi rolled away, its exhaust smoke spiralling. I waved but the driver wouldn’t look at me.
As I walked, the wind came up in a swell of beating breaths, a rush of broken murmurs, before it moaned, diving into itself again.
In the silence before the next rising, a door banged – one-two-three-four, pause, one-two-three-four – like someone methodically venting their anger. Close by.
But there was no-one else in this landscape. Nothing but the bleak season cutting its fossil-coloured chips into my cheek. No-one here but me, I thought. No ghosts. Ghosts belonged to poetry and I was no longer infected.
Grey snow blotched the driveway and turned a dirty brown where it hung like shaggy throat fur from the cream-humped hedges around the frost-bitten lawn. The poplars here were wind-stunted and twisted, their upward-flung arms netted in ice.
The house was already blurring into wreckage: the shutters hung from their hinges, tiles were missing from the roof, the broken windows were starred with radiating darkness. No smoke curled from the chimneys, only mist writhing into the implacable grey.
A splash of leaping, lustrous red: a squirrel landed in the snow, its tail a flag of mottled scarlet.
It stopped, closer than I expected, and regarded me with inky eyes. It raised its small velvety front paws, almost in prayer. I was so pleased to see another living creature that I squatted, extended my hand. The squirrel tilted its head. It understood me. I took off my outer gloves and leaned forward. ‘Here, baby,’ I said, too loud. The sky shivered. I said, softer, ‘Here,’ and leaned closer.
The squirrel hissed at me, the sound snaking out between long incisors coated in yellow foam. It advanced slowly, never taking its eyes off me, hissing again, hooking out a claw as it aimed for my eye. I scrabbled backwards. The squirrel hissed and advanced, hissed and advanced. The falling yellow droplets ate through the snow in steaming black holes.