The Caprices (12 page)

“This guy over at Coonawarra, is he black?”

Some people claimed that Stan was still in the area. They saw him every now and then, but it was a big area, and at any rate, Stan had done nothing about getting his old job back.

A couple of weeks later, Bob got an invitation in the mail. He looked at the tasteful cream-colored envelope for a good five minutes before he opened it. A reunion was incomprehensible. All those years of longing to see other faces and people who had not been reduced to sinewy specters . . . And now they were talking about renting a banquet room at the Sheraton in Perth. Did Bob want to make a donation? Was he going to bring his wife? He let his hand that still held the letter dangle off the side of the
chair. Noreen, who was now enormous, took his wrist and read the letter sideways.

“I’m telling you, Bob, you should go. It’ll be good for you.”

“Noreen, don’t be daft.”

“It’s time to put the past where it belongs.”

“Noreen, I’m warning you. This is none of your business.”

“None of my business? Two more weeks and you’ll be a father. What then?”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Everything, Bob. It has everything to do with everything.”

Bob crumpled up the invitation and sent it flying across the room. He went into the kitchen for a beer. Now that Noreen was very pregnant she could no longer race him for the fridge where she would fling herself in front of it, barring access until she’d had her say. The invitation had been signed by Graham Watt. Bob had no idea who Graham Watt was. Was Graham Watt leading a good life? Were Thailand and the railroad things that Graham Watt wanted to remember?

Bob got insomnia that night. Noreen had learned to sleep through his late-night peregrinations and no longer questioned sleepily from her side of the bed. Bob wandered out the back door—stepping carefully over the dog, who twitched and whined in a dream about a particularly stubborn ewe—onto the back veranda. The sky stretched in an immense blackness across the land and the stars glowed through it fiercely. Bob thought that night was a threadbare cloak pulled across the white heat of day. The darkness was comforting. He looked out in the direction of the shed, where a gentle breeze rattled the corrugated iron in a rhythmic way. Possums shook the branches overhead and the smell of wattle drifted in from the creek. Bob was thinking of walking over to the bottlebrush tree, where he’d seen a wombat earlier that week, when he noticed a figure standing in the gloom. He had his right foot resting against his left knee and was leaning on a stick. Bob watched, his heart pounding, because the
stick seemed to resemble the long arm of the shovel. And he, whoever he was, was staring out protectively in the direction of the flock. Bob shuddered, then drew himself up and began to walk in the direction of the man. He was about to call to him, when he realized that he was not supposed to speak. Instead, he whistled the first few notes of “The Drover’s Dream.” Bob waited for the response, and the wind carried it back to him, mournful and strange. Mark had returned. That was all. Bob turned in silence and headed back to the house. But if he’d listened carefully, he would have recognized that the notes belonged to a magpie heralding the coming day. And if he’d only taken a few more steps, he would have realized that the figure was Stan, lost in meditation of his last night in the area, studying the stars that would dictate his wandering.

The next morning, Bob awoke early with the events of the previous night weighing heavily on him. This cloudy frame of mind was not lifted by the thick black coffee. What was Bob supposed to do now that Mark had returned? Bob heard Noreen stirring in the next room and decided to head out to the feed store before she got out of bed.

Norm Burnside was in town that day. He was carrying a sack of oats and at first it seemed that the bandy legs and battered hat belonged to the sack rather than the man who was struggling along beneath it, but the hat was Norm’s. Norm was one of the old fellows who still kept corks bobbing around the brim of the hat, attached by fishing line, to keep the flies out of his eyes. Bob hadn’t seen him in years, not since before the war. That was not uncommon in a place where the stations were huge kingdoms unto themselves. You saw your neighbors at shearing time or at the rare social gatherings, which were usually at shearing time anyway. People often limited their sorties into town to a few times a year and running into someone was more of the exception. Norm heaved the sack of oats into the back of his truck and looked over at Bob with the same squinty-eyed expression that
he used when tallying up the casualties of the latest drought. Norm didn’t recognize him at first; Bob took his hat off to give Norm a good look before they even greeted each other.

“Hello, Bob.”

“Good to see you, Norm. How’s your wife?”

“She died last week. Wasn’t in good health the last few years.”

“I’m sorry, Norm. She was a good woman.”

“That she was.”

They looked down at the dusty street in a moment of respectful silence.

“Terrible about Mark,” Norm finally ventured. “Now there was a good lad. Handsome and strong. Best sheep shearer I ever saw . . .”

Bob nodded in agreement.

“Hear you married Noreen Grey . . .”

Bob nodded again. “Is there gonna be a funeral?”

“Funeral? I’m afraid not. It’s been too hot . . .”

“Well, it’s been good seeing you, Norm. I’ll pass the sad news along to my mother. She always liked . . .”

“Margaret.”

Bob nodded and returned his hat, lowering the brim across his forehead. He watched Norm’s pickup, followed by a cloud of dust, as it edged toward the line of the horizon. Bob looked down the road that led back to his house. Somewhere back there was Mark; he could hear him laughing. The laugh echoed in his head, but Bob could no longer conjure up Mark’s features. His face wavered in false memories; his likeness was recalled in the framed photographs that littered mantels all the way to Perth. Mark with a trophy. Mark in uniform. Mark holding a merino in an awkward embrace, shears poised. Mark with his arm around his little brother—two-dimensional memories that seemed far removed from truth. They were not his recollections but the legends of his townspeople.

Bob picked up the sack of feed and put it in the back of his
truck. With a red handkerchief, he wiped the sweat from his brow. The sun was still high in the sky. Bob squinted up until the yellow glare bathed all in a cleansing white, erasing the feed store, the road, his truck. He knelt down to his shoelaces and tied them in firm knots. He stood, pulling himself straight until the two tricky joints in his back snapped into alignment, and then he began to walk.

Folly

K
EES BOUMAN
stood alone in the sala of his house. The breeze, which had earlier bowed the tops of the palms, was suddenly quiet and the only sound was the clock as it shuddered to each tick. Middle age was making him contemplative, he thought, because with each forward step of the clock, second by second into a modern future, Bouman felt the jungle struggle forcefully against it. Here in the tropics there was one endless season that cycled on and on, then circled back onto itself like a serpent eating its tail. He felt like the first, or maybe the last, man on earth. His evening tea was not waiting on the table and his daughter, Katrina, was not ready to serve it.

Bouman went to stand at the door. The orange sun was sinking fast behind the topmost brushes of the palms. There was a soothing
hush hush
of waves, out of sight from where he stood. A bird excited by the final moments of the day let forth a rattling cackle, beat the warm air with its wings, then followed the sinking sun into the jungle. If his wife had still been alive, she would have stood on the doorstep and started yelling. One call from her and the entire household would have leaped to attention, come running across the swept dirt of the compound. The very chickens
would have cackled to life. That gnarled pony tied to the post would have raised his head in respectful attention, but Bouman could only transfer his weight from one bare foot to the other, adjust the waist of his baggy pants, and hope that someone would notice him so forlorn and bereft of tea.

He smelled chicken curry. Bouman looked to the cooking shack and was surprised to see Katrina exit. She was wearing her new white kabeya, the one embroidered in a floral motif, which had been very costly; she was hurrying through the compound’s center with such speed that she lost her slipper and had to go back for it.

“Katrina!” called Bouman.

She stopped, stunned, and seemingly guilty. “Father?”

“Where is my tea?”

Katrina put her slipper on and turned back in the direction of the cooking shack.

“What is this nonsense?” he called again.

“Father, we have a visitor.”

“A visitor?”

“He’s on the veranda. I’ll bring the tea there.”

Bouman raised his eyebrows in resignation. He hadn’t heard anyone on the veranda but now on reentering the living room he could hear the low voice of Aya, the housekeeper, chattering away. He peeked out the door and sure enough, seated at the table—on which someone had set a large stinking bunch of frangipani—was a young native in brilliantly pressed colonial whites. Bouman looked at his own bare feet and baggy batik pants with some amusement. His European shirt, made from coarse local cotton, was frayed at the collar. Bouman felt a certain pride in all of this, especially the way that it would annoy Katrina, the way her immaculate dress was annoying him. Aya was squatting on the floor next to the visitor’s ankles. Her elbows rested on her knees and she absently swatted the air in front of her face for mosquitoes.

When Aya noticed Bouman she jumped up straight.

“Tea,” she said, embarrassed.

“Oh, forget the tea,” said Bouman. “Gin now and some limeade for our visitor.”

“Mr. Bouman . . .” The visitor was now standing, his hands clasped behind his back, his head at a respectful incline.

“Yes, I am Bouman. And you?”

“I am Tan Lumbantobing. I deeply appreciate your hospitality.”

“I can take no credit for that,” said Bouman. “But I am not so rude as to deny that the hospitality of my daughter and my housekeeper is correct and admirable.” Bouman smiled. He was actually relieved at his guest, better than a European planter, who would be eager for fresh sympathy over disease and sullen workers. “You will not mind if I call you Tan?”

The young man smiled.

“Are you a visitor or a customer?”

“That depends on what you’re selling.”

“You are looking for weapons and gunpowder.” Bouman shook his head. “Excuse my frankness, but I am an old man and don’t want to die not having spoken my mind.” Bouman was just forty-five, but felt a great deal older. The sun had creased his skin and the army had calcified his joints, which made him seem old at first but, on closer look, permanent.

The drinks arrived and Bouman poured himself a glass of gin. Tan was smiling at his hands in subtle, respectful silence.

“I would offer you gin, but I suspect your religion forbids it. If you care to help yourself, go right ahead.”

Tan took the glass of limeade. He sipped and nodded at Bouman. “This is very refreshing,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bouman, “refreshing. I prefer my beverages steeped and aged—pickled berries,” he said, raising the gin, “or dead leaves soaked in hot water.”

Katrina appeared at the door with the tea. She set it down on
the table and wiped her hands on her skirt. She was flushed and distracted.

“Sit down, for heaven’s sake. Have some tea. Have some gin, if you like.” Katrina did not move. She looked from the guest, back over to her father, then at her hands. She was paralyzed with embarrassment.

“Where’s the food?” said Bouman to his daughter.

“It will be ready soon,” Katrina whispered.

Bouman took a mouthful of gin and closed his eyes. He smiled. “She is a quiet girl,” he said to Tan, “but good. She is nothing like her mother, who was wild and, in my opinion, better. I find it hard to believe that there was something that could kill that woman, but there was. And now she is dead ten years.”

“You are lucky to have a daughter to care for you,” said Tan.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Bouman drank again. “And you, where is your family?”

“My father is in Aceh. My brother is also on a buying expedition. He has gone to the west.”

“How are you traveling?”

“By prahu.”

“I saw none.”

“My brother has taken the boat with him. I do not mean to tax your hospitality, but your housekeeper told me that I could stay in a room in the manager’s quarters. It is only for one week.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you like.” Bouman did not care what Tan did with his time. “You are from Aceh?”

The young man nodded.

“A relative of the raja?”

“Yes.”

“I trust he is alive and well?”

“Alive, but not well.”

Even better, thought Bouman. “Did he speak of me?”

“Only to say that during the war, you had been on opposite
sides, but if there was one Dutchman in Sumatra who could give me a straight answer, it was you.”

“I was on the side of pepper. That’s what we fought for in Aceh. Many lives were wasted, uselessly, on both sides. I will not have the stuff on my table.”

“Pepper?”

“Pepper and war, so if we must talk of arms, we will do so after we eat.” Bouman spun his glass on the table.

“You lost your fingers in Aceh?” asked Tan.

Bouman raised his right hand. The thumb was solid and his fore- and middle fingers had survived the war, but the other two were sheared right off. The shadow of Bouman’s altered hand fell across Katrina’s face. “During the war, but not because of it. A bull elephant frightened by the conflict entered camp. Some were trampled and in the effort to kill it, a stray bullet took off my fingers.”

“I am sorry that you lost your fingers.”

“Oh, I still have them, and later, if I’ve had enough of this stuff”—Bouman raised his glass—“I will show them to you.”

Katrina looked shyly at her father. She had an overbite and when she was uncomfortable, struggled to get her mouth closed over her teeth. Despite this, she was pretty. Bouman thought she had taken the best physical traits of her mother, the gentle brow, the broad cheeks, the unblemished skin that glowed in the sun. From him, she had inherited horsy European teeth—at odds with her small jaws—and social awkwardness. At seventeen she looked more womanly than her full-blooded native peers. She also lacked their guile and awareness. Bouman noticed sadly that Tan had taken a few cautious glances in Katrina’s direction and that her burning cheeks and anxiety had been noticed and seen as encouragement.