Out of the Line of Fire (30 page)
But why?
To, as you say, parallel the creation of a fictional world with the way we perceive the real world. What he invented you took for real. What I think Wolfi was saying was that there is essentially
no
difference between a fictional world and the real world—that each world is particular to the mind that simultaneously perceives and creates it.
God, now
you’re
beginning to sound like Wolfi.
Yes, well if you had lived with him for twenty years you’d end up sounding like him too.
But if what you’re saying had been the case wouldn’t he have been better off if, for example, he had exclusively dealt with our time together in Heidelberg. For me to have said as I read: No, I didn’t say that, or if I did, that’s not what I meant. He would then have had the paradox of the creation of two completely different worlds based on the same apparent facts. No, I don’t think that’s the reason. It’s too complicated.
Then what
do
you think?
I honestly don’t know.
She looked disappointed.
It’s funny, she said. Somehow I thought you had all the answers.
I wish I did, I said. I wish I did.
She stopped for a moment and searched in her bag for something. She found what she was looking for and I went to move on. Elena, however, turned towards a heavy wooden gate set into a high stone wall beside which we were standing. I had been so engrossed in what we had been saying that I was totally unaware that we had been walking in its shadow for the last fifty metres. As she inserted the key into the lock I knew instantly where we were.
So this is what you wanted to show me, I said as she pushed the gate open.
Yes, I thought it might interest you.
The garden was overgrown and had obviously not been tended for some time. But as I stood just inside the gate under the canopy of trees looking up to the house I recognized it as being essentially the same image as the image in the photograph Wolfi had sent me years earlier.
So, I thought to myself, he had not invented everything.
I shivered involuntarily as I imagined that I was probably standing in exactly the spot where Wolfi had stood when he’d taken the photograph, and where he had stood that day listening to Debussy’s music floating down through the leaves. I felt almost as though I had passed through him, as if he were there watching us.
We went and sat on an old stone garden seat under one of the trees. I began to realize how much Wolfi
had
written with me in mind. I imagined him at his desk writing the description of himself standing there, smiling to himself, knowing that one day I would be standing in exactly the same spot.
It’s like he’s here, isn’t it, Elena said. Like he’s part of the leaves, like this is the soil he turned, the garden he created, the house he built—in his imagination. And now, behind this wall, here it is. It’s as though by isolating individual details he became part of them, as if everything he wrote had been projected here, and now he has become re-absorbed into its projection. Don’t you get the weird feeling that in writing what he did he imagined us eventually reaching this point, that somewhere between the lines of what he wrote is the story of this instant? I can almost feel him smiling, rubbing his hands together in delight, saying: I did it, I did it.
Yes, I said. I was just thinking the same thing myself. Weird, isn’t it.
I looked up towards the house.
But why kill himself?
I don’t know. Wolfi always had this strange sense of fatalism. Fatalism’s not the right word, of determinism, as though he were never really in control of his own life, as if he were just a part of somebody else’s hidden scenario, just a minor character in somebody else’s fiction. Remember, that’s how he felt when my father first arrived in Berlin.
So you don’t believe your father killed him?
No, I don’t know. I doubt it. It’s possible, but I don’t think so.
Then what do you think happened?
I’m not sure, but to tell you the truth, I think Wolfi did shoot himself.
But why?
Remember I said I had something to tell you. Well, you know, Wolfi was pretty smart. I really do believe that he saw us meeting here one day, that he knew you would find out about Anya, that he wanted you to know. This was all part of the hidden content of what he wrote.
She looked away.
But I already knew about Anya. It was obvious from the start.
But that’s just it. That’s what Wolfi wanted you to think, at least initially. But what he wanted you to know, eventually, I’m sure was that Anya is not my child. She’s not my daughter.
She looked back at me.
Then whose child is she?
My mother’s…She’s my sister. That’s what Wolfi was telling you all along. That’s what he told my father. He adored my mother and hated the way my father treated her. It all fits, don’t you see? They must have been lovers for years.
I sat there thinking about what she had said. It would take time for it to sink in, to piece things together. Now, in a way, it no longer mattered.
I looked up to the balcony and Elena’s room. I could swear I could hear music drifting down through the open door. In my mind I could see an image of Wolfi’s face floating before me and through it, the image of the room in the Hotel Belvedere and Elena lying in bed. Her nightgown had fallen open and one breast lay exposed.
*
Watching my hand write these last words is like watching the last scene in a film. In close focus the camera shows my hand writing while the credits roll up. Most of the audience still sit and watch. A few get up to leave. Others are saying: Wait, it hasn’t finished yet. Look, see it says: Wait, it hasn’t finished yet. Finally the last credit disappears at the top of the screen and the camera pans slowly along my arm up to my face which smiles enigmatically out at you.
Wolfgang Schönborn
Klagenfurt
June–October 1986
Dancing on Coral
Glenda Adams
Introduced by Susan Wyndham
The Commandant
Jessica Anderson
Introduced by Carmen Callil
Homesickness
Murray Bail
Introduced by Peter Conrad
Sydney Bridge Upside Down
David Ballantyne
Introduced by Kate De Goldi
Bush Studies
Barbara Baynton
Introduced by Helen Garner
The Cardboard Crown
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Brenda Niall
A Difficult Young Man
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Sonya Hartnett
Outbreak of Love
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Chris Womersley
When Blackbirds Sing
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Chris Wallace-Crabbe
The Australian Ugliness
Robin Boyd
Introduced by Christos Tsiolkas
All the Green Year
Don Charlwood
Introduced by Michael McGirr
They Found a Cave
Nan Chauncy
Introduced by John Marsden
The Even More Complete
Book of Australian Verse
John Clarke
Diary of a Bad Year
J. M. Coetzee
Introduced by Peter Goldsworthy
Wake in Fright
Kenneth Cook
Introduced by Peter Temple
The Dying Trade
Peter Corris
Introduced by Charles Waterstreet
They’re a Weird Mob
Nino Culotta
Introduced by Jacinta Tynan
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
C. J. Dennis
Introduced by Jack Thompson
Careful, He Might Hear You
Sumner Locke Elliott
Introduced by Robyn Nevin
Fairyland
Sumner Locke Elliott
Introduced by Dennis Altman
The Explorers
Edited and introduced by
Tim Flannery
Terra Australis
Matthew Flinders
Introduced by Tim Flannery
Owls Do Cry
Janet Frame
Introduced by Margaret Drabble
My Brilliant Career
Miles Franklin
Introduced by Jennifer Byrne
Such is Life
Joseph Furphy
Introduced by David Malouf
The Fringe Dwellers
Nene Gare
Introduced by Melissa Lucashenko
Cosmo Cosmolino
Helen Garner
Introduced by Ramona Koval
Wish
Peter Goldsworthy
Introduced by James Bradley
Dark Places
Kate Grenville
Introduced by Louise Adler
The Quiet Earth
Craig Harrison
Introduced by Bernard Beckett
Down in the City
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Delia Falconer
The Long Prospect
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Fiona McGregor
The Catherine Wheel
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Ramona Koval
The Watch Tower
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Joan London
Out of the Line of Fire
Mark Henshaw
Introduced by Stephen Romei
The Long Green Shore
John Hepworth
Introduced by Lloyd Jones
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
Fergus Hume
Introduced by Simon Caterson
The Unknown Industrial Prisoner
David Ireland
Introduced by Peter Pierce
The Glass Canoe
David Ireland
Introduced by Nicolas Rothwell
A Woman of the Future
David Ireland
Introduced by Kate Jennings
Eat Me
Linda Jaivin
Introduced by Krissy Kneen
Julia Paradise
Rod Jones
Introduced by Emily Maguire
The Jerilderie Letter
Ned Kelly
Introduced by Alex McDermott
Bring Larks and Heroes
Thomas Keneally
Introduced by Geordie Williamson
Strine
Afferbeck Lauder
Introduced by John Clarke
The Young Desire It
Kenneth Mackenzie
Introduced by David Malouf
Stiff
Shane Maloney
Introduced by Lindsay Tanner
The Middle Parts of Fortune
Frederic Manning
Introduced by Simon Caterson
Selected Stories
Katherine Mansfield
Introduced by Emily Perkins
The Home Girls
Olga Masters
Introduced by Geordie Williamson
Amy’s Children
Olga Masters
Introduced by Eva Hornung
The Scarecrow
Ronald Hugh Morrieson
Introduced by Craig Sherborne
The Dig Tree
Sarah Murgatroyd
Introduced by Geoffrey Blainey
A Lifetime on Clouds
Gerald Murnane
Introduced by Andy Griffiths
The Plains
Gerald Murnane
Introduced by Wayne Macauley
The Odd Angry Shot
William Nagle
Introduced by Paul Ham
Life and Adventures 1776–1801
John Nicol
Introduced by Tim Flannery
Death in Brunswick
Boyd Oxlade
Introduced by Shane Maloney
Swords and Crowns and Rings
Ruth Park
Introduced by Alice Pung
The Watcher in the Garden
Joan Phipson
Introduced by Margo Lanagan
Maurice Guest
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Carmen Callil
The Getting of Wisdom
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Germaine Greer
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Peter Craven
Rose Boys
Peter Rose
Introduced by Brian Matthews
Hills End
Ivan Southall
Introduced by James Moloney
Ash Road
Ivan Southall
Introduced by Maurice Saxby
To the Wild Sky
Ivan Southall
Introduced by Kirsty Murray
Lillipilly Hill
Eleanor Spence
Introduced by Ursula Dubosarsky
The Women in Black
Madeleine St John
Introduced by Bruce Beresford
The Essence of the Thing
Madeleine St John
Introduced by Helen Trinca
Jonah
Louis Stone
Introduced by Frank Moorhouse
An Iron Rose
Peter Temple
Introduced by Les Carlyon
1788
Watkin Tench
Introduced by Tim Flannery
The House that Was Eureka
Nadia Wheatley
Introduced by Toni Jordan
Happy Valley
Patrick White
Introduced by Peter Craven
I for Isobel
Amy Witting
Introduced by Charlotte Wood
I Own the Racecourse!
Patricia Wrightson
Introduced by Kate Constable