Amnesia: A Novel

by Peter Carey

  “If I’d got into your manuscript before I came up here, I would have left you to deal with your psycho mate.”

  She thrust her ruined face at me.

  “You’re a dreadful person,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Have you always been like this?”

  I was innocent. I had not laid a hand on her. But what came to my mind was the helicopter that had clipped the top of Sydney’s Westpac building and killed the pilot who I knew. I was sent down to Bondi Junction to ask the widow for a photograph of the dead man. I was twenty-one years old. The journos at the gate laughed at me for even trying. The widow wasn’t speaking, but I was already Felix Moore. I had my will. I knocked on the front door. A boy opened it, almost my age. I said I knew how he felt. I had lost my own father last week. I said the Sun-Herald made me come and do it and I needed the job to support my mum. For this I got asked inside. I was given a photograph. His mother kissed me. Yes I was a dreadful person. It had been my trade for years. But this—that I had discovered the trauma of Celine’s birth and not revealed it to her? Honestly, that did not seem as bad, although I certainly did not say that now. Instead, I apologised. I confessed that I had been infatuated with her. She had run away from home. She had been so frail. I could not bear to hurt her anymore. This, and other stuff, was true.

  “You’re a fantasist.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re a creep.”

  I wasn’t really a creep. I was a good person. I had been secretly in love with her. I had lost her to another man. Now was not the time for that discussion. “You’ve got the only copy in the universe,” I said. “Tell Woody to check the Mac. I deleted everything.”

  “You’d as likely chop your hand off.”

  “This is all there is.”

  “You’re a liar. But why would you think you could write this in the first place? How could you be such an authority of my mother’s home? I wasn’t even born. You were never there. What makes you think you can write about her?”

  “Show me what you read.”

  “825 Stanley Street, Woolloongabba,” she said, and thrust my stuff back at me. “The house isn’t even there anymore. They put a highway through it. Everyone is dead.”

  THE GREATEST VIRTUE OF 825 Stanley Street, Woolloongabba, I had written, was the trams which rattled past the front door and thence across the Brisbane River where, if you took care with your appearance, no-one would know where you had come from. Without these trams Celine Baillieux could not have been born.

  Celine’s grandmother—who died at the beginning of our first year at Monash—was “tall and skinny as a rake.” She “never had a sick day in her life.” She had a son and husband fighting overseas. She took in boarders, but she was always broke. She was a Methodist. During the Depression she fed her family by stealing her neighbours’ potatoes in the middle of the night. She had all the good manners and principles she could afford and when the women of Australia were instructed to welcome the “Yanks” into their homes, when they learned it was their daughters’ patriotic duty to be “Victory Belles,” in those few short months before she understood exactly what this meant, she communicated to the authorities that she would be very happy to entertain some officers, except no Jews.

  Her gratitude to the Americans was well based. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded Thailand, and the Philippines, seized Guam, marched into Burma and landed on the beach in British Borneo. Soon they would bomb the port of Darwin, then Broome, then what? They bayoneted men tied to trees, they raped and chopped off heads. They were headed for Brisbane and the British “could not do a bloody thing about it” except run for home. As for “our own boys,” they were in Egypt in their bargain-basement uniforms, trying to save the Poms.

  In these first days, Celine’s grandmother was grateful to the Americans with all her heart, plus, of course, sugar and cigarette rationing did not apply to GIs and they could be expected to unwind their well-fed bodies from their taxis carrying cartons of chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, silk stockings most of all. She was not alone in expecting this.

  Her daughter Doris (she who would be Celine’s mother) was at secretarial school in the city every workday, but both women were at home on Saturday afternoon when the Americans arrived.

  Celine’s grandmother was, at that time, only forty. She had good legs. She was ready in her best frock which was from St. Vincent de Paul’s although “you wouldn’t guess.” When the door knocker echoed through the dark hot house she collected Doris and brought her to the door.

  What was there revealed were four officers of the United States Army, or if not officers you would never know, for the fabric was so fine, the cut so flattering it made you feel sorry for Our Boys who had no chance at all, poor buggers.

  The four soldiers stood there, together, their smiles extra-white, gifts held in their dark hands, that is, the Americans were as black as night, and Celine’s grandmother, a Woolloongabber all her life, held her right hand against her breast while the left searched unsuccessfully for the daughter.

  The men introduced themselves. Their voices were deep and melodious.

  “Oh dear,” Celine’s grandmother said when they were finished. “There has been a mix-up.”

  The soldier at the front was small, if only in comparison, but he stood proudly with his shoulders back holding his carton of Lucky Strikes. Peering from behind her mother’s stringy shoulders, Doris smiled at him.

  “I’m so sorry,” the future grandmother said. “There’s been a mistake.”

  Doris had detected the scent of aftershave which she had never smelled before. Behind her was what you would expect: cabbage and mutton fat. Ahead was America: cleanliness and beauty and a young man, at the rear, so tall and slender with modest lowered eyes. He had a cherubic face, if cherubs could be black, and it was clear they could. The girl smiled; the young man smiled right back.

  The mother was now pushing the door closed and the daughter was pulling it open.

  “No,” Doris cried, and held it open.

  “Shut up,” her mother hissed. “I didn’t ask for them.”

  At this the smiling ceased.

  “I’m sorry,” Celine’s grandmother probably said. “It’s not your fault. It’s just a mistake, that’s all.”

  And for a moment there was no pressure on the door.

  “Well ma’am,” said the short wide-shouldered man with the proud expression, “we are very sorry to have inconvenienced you. We will be on our way now, but it was not a mistake. Our Captain Cohen, he don’t make no mistakes.”

  Later Doris would possibly think her mother had been the victim of a prank, but at the time all she knew was that darkness had descended on the hall. The slap jolted her head sideways. She felt a sharp cruel pain, heard the loud heavy steps ascending the uncarpeted stairs. This injustice, this fear, was as normal as the smell of mutton stew and when Celine’s grandmother’s bedroom door had slammed, life remained as normal as could be.

  At Doris’s secretarial school a girl from Rockhampton was discovered wearing a scarf to hide the lovebites on her neck. She was sent away.

  Time passed. Sundays were slow. Doris crossed back and forth on the tram between Stanley Street and the city, back and forth, without particular hope. The houses in Woolloongabba were perched high on sticks. She could hear the bands at the Trocadero—Eastern Swing, Lindy Hop, Jive—all happening just a mile away.

  She turned seventeen. There was a song on the wireless late at night. It said that her lips were so close to his that she could not help but kiss him, and he didn’t mind at all.

  With her eyes deep in the pillow, Doris saw him very well. He was American of course. His uniform was tailored and his teeth were lovely and it had suddenly become a sin to prefer him to the Aussie boys as so many girls now did. They had wanted you to show hospitality to the Yanks. But very soon they started to hate you for doing what you had been told. You were an Aussie girl. Then you should only go dan
cing with the Aussie boys, your brothers who were dying for you, who had to wear the awful uniforms that the mingy government provided, not tailored, not slick, not even the right size. They were your flesh and blood, dear Aussie boys who had sunken cheeks, their teeth all pulled out to save the money on the dentist. The Americans were a knife twisted in their guts, overpaid, oversexed, over here.

  Each evening at sunset Celine’s grandmother locked the door. Outside, the trams from the city delivered more and more black men “with one thing on their minds.”

  The white Americans were kept in the city, but Stanley Street was near Brissy’s “black zone,” that is, an area where black Americans were allowed to look for entertainment. The blacks were bees to honey pots at the Trocadero dancing to “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

  Why us? Celine’s grandmother wished to know. The authorities think we aren’t no better. Can you see your father’s face? He’d murder them.

  You can forget that Victory Belle rubbish, her mother said. To emphasise this point she unplugged the hot water jug and doubled the power cord to make a whip.

  Don’t you even dream of going out that door at night, her mother said. She knew how to use that flex like the father used his leather belt. The flex hurt more than the belt. It left bright red stripes around the girl’s very shapely calves.

  Would her mother please let Doris go if she promised never ever to dance with a black man?

  No.

  How about the Red Cross Service Club? Aussies go there too.

  No.

  Doris was a good girl. She was very quiet and docile but she was wilful to a genetic degree. She folded her arms across her bosom. She returned to her room where she made nice French scanties from parachute silk.

  Her mother knew all about French scanties. She searched the room and found them and thrust them in the kitchen stove then sat down quietly with her darning. She knew what girls did in return for American stockings. She heard “the authorities” would soon require blood tests for women seeking government assistance for their American babies.

  Doris purchased more parachute silk and wrapped it in brown paper and hid it underneath the house. She sat out the warm winter days between July and October, but in November she managed to buy a pattern for the dress.

  Her skin was not from Brissy but the moon—translucent, glowing. Her eyes were sapphire-blue. In her room she stood up straight and pushed her chest out—she might have been American herself. She listened to songs on the wireless and danced in front of the mirror. She had wicked dreams. She sat by the front door, her head meekly bowed as she picked old socks apart for knitting wool. She was ready, or nearly ready, but when the opportunity presented itself—when her mother finally left the house to attend the Temperance—she had nothing but gravy mix to give her legs a stocking colour. She tried to draw the seam but could not get it right. It was already seven o’clock and she had to scrub everything clean with cold water. That made her skin red and raw but she had no choice. She gave her legs a second coat of Gravox and when that had dried she knocked on the door of the old poofter who worked as a window-dresser in Barry and Roberts. The joke amongst the boarders was that he wore a wig, but when he answered the door his hair was perfectly in place.

  His room smelled of peppermint and dirty socks. She was embarrassed to ask him to draw her seams, but when he finally understood what she wanted he was very sweet and kind, and also fast and accurate. He told her “Mum’s the word” and she kissed him on his soapy cheek.

  “Don’t get caught ducky.”

  Of course she would be caught. There was no choice. She could already feel the sting of the flex whipping around her legs.

  It was Thanksgiving on that balmy evening she got onto the tram, but that—if she had known—would have been of no significance at all. She had never heard of Thanksgiving. Australians did not give thanks. If you said thanks, your father would say, don’t thank me, thank Christ you got anything at all.

  November was a lovely time of year in Brissy. The tram had open sides and swayed and snaked towards the city and the girl sat up straight with her hands in her lap, seemingly unaware that she was beautiful. No-one dared to speak to her.

  The tram rattled across the dirty old girders of the bridge, and her silk gown glowed pearlescent above the oil-slicked water of the Brisbane River. The dress had a scooped neckline and just three buttons down the back.

  The American Red Cross Service Club was on the corner of Creek Street and Adelaide Street, just opposite the American PX. She walked from the tram stop with her little handbag, a clutch, beneath her arm, afraid of the attention she was drawing, surprised by the size of the crowd, Aussies and Yanks, milling in the evening air.

  She had gravy-mix legs and a parachute-silk dress. She was going to be examined like livestock in an auction and be judged by men she wouldn’t even fancy. The thick knot of uniforms pressed hard against her and she turned to go back home.

  That was exactly when the most beautiful man emerged from the khaki tangle of sweat and beer. There was a brownout and the voltages were dropped but there was light enough to see him very clearly—golden hair, broad shoulders, a narrow waist and strong arms that pushed against the confines of his shirt.

  “You are a songbird,” he said to her and she was astonished by the lilt of his voice as it slid upwards, tentatively, thus contradicting the assertiveness of his movement. You are a songbird question mark.

  She should have been frightened but she felt relief that the auction was now over.

  “Beg yours?” she said.

  “You sing in the choir,” he said and she guessed his eyes would turn out to be pale and gentle like her own, as indeed they would.

  “Yes.”

  He beamed at her. “I can always pick a songbird.”

  “You must be a clever bloke,” she said.

  “Oh no, Miss,” he said. “It’s very easy to see a songbird in this crowd. You do stand out.”

  She was laughing, perhaps with relief, or just the simple wonder that someone would know she had a good voice, and when the man asked her would she like to go to The Society for a meal she was very grateful that she did not have to enter the churning scrum. He held out his arm and Doris took it, and as they cut through the mob towards Queen Street the crowd parted to let them through and she smiled more, thinking it a tribute to her beauty. She did not expect to be abused, but when the spit hit her cheek she thought, of course. I’m a tart, a traitor with a Yank.

  SEARCHLIGHTS CUT the empty sky and the tropical night was rank with beer and sandalwood, the latter the property of Hank, the American whose arm was now clamping Doris snug against his side, hurrying her to safety while the Australian soldiers called her tart and slut and cunt. She had a glob of slag on her cheek. She would not touch it with her hand, but in the doorway of a restaurant her rescuer produced a large white handkerchief and with it wiped her clean. In the midst of all the fear and fright there was space to know he was a lovely man.

  The door swung open and she stumbled into the restaurant with a cry. It was too bright. She was exposed, embarrassed, in awe, of the flowers, the carpet, the American officers and beautiful women. She was set on by a very old head waiter in a long black coat.

  “Pardon me,” she said. She knew her scanty line was showing through the silk.

  “Two,” Hank said to the head waiter.

  But it was at Doris the waiter looked. She was south Brissy rubbish. How dare she even breathe his air?

  She smiled right in his sour old face. You are a coward, she thought, you will not turn a Yank away.

  He didn’t either. He told the waitress number 23. Then Doris and her handsome fellow were led through The Society’s crowded downstairs room.

  They made a strong impression. Why wouldn’t they? Doris had gravy mix on her legs, and spit-smeared makeup. She followed the waitress along the hall and up the stairs and of course it was a second-best room, with one table of Australian NCOs and, in a far corner, two plain
American servicewomen in mufti, poor things, she pitied them.

  Hank was not intimidated by anything. He announced they would sit by the curtained window i.e. not where they were put. He held out Doris’s chair and waited for her to be comfortable before he took his place.

  “It’s lovely,” she said.

  He was incredibly handsome, with full lips and straight white teeth. He sat so square and broad, a lifeguard she thought.

  “I must look awful,” she said.

  “You are perfect,” he said, and he touched her cheek where the horrid spit had been.

  “Well,” she said, “you’re not so bad yourself.”

  “I’m no angel, baby.” But his voice was so light and its inflection so tentative she laughed. He smiled too, and narrowed his eyes so that her tummy went quite strange. His eyes were pale and clear as water with no stones or pebbles or specks or flecks or injuries of war.

  “You have lovely teeth,” she said, which was much too fast of her.

  “All the better to eat you with.” As a joke, he bit his own hand and then showed her the bright red teeth marks embedded in his skin.

  “You’re a strange one.”

  “Well thank you, ma’am,” he beamed at her, and took her fingers and kissed the inside of her wrist so gently that she had to snatch it back.

  “Whoa, Dobbin.”

  “Sing for me,” he said. And she might have (why not? who would ever ask her such a thing again?) but there came a great roar of men from the street below, as if a wicket had just fallen at the Gabba.

  Immediately he drew the curtain back. She whispered you were not allowed to do that after dark but he said it was a brownout not a blackout. Someone shouted to close the curtain. He said, not quietly, that the Australians were always in a panic. She was more frightened of what was about to happen in the dining room than in the street and was slow to understand the scene below on Queen Street which was turbulent with pushing men.