Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

  The man introduced himself as Alexei Lebedev, and invited them to join him. After a few pleasantries, he told them he was from Moscow, that he’d arrived in Australia with his family more than twenty years ago.

  ‘So you left when Khrushchev was general secretary?’ Mikhail said.

  Alexei smiled, one of those smiles loaded with meaning. ‘Khrushchev’s thaw was not so good for me,’ he said.

  ‘In the end it was not so good for him either,’ Mikhail said.

  Both men found this hilarious.

  Their conversation quickly gathered pace. It was one of those exchanges that skipped from here to there as the men placed each other in the Soviet network, and established points of common interest. After a while, Galina slipped out to the kitchen to make coffee. When she handed the cups to the men, even Mikhail thanked her.

  Alexei was a widower. ‘My children look after me, and they visit often with the grandchildren. But they are not my wife.’ His fat face crumpled, and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘My children want me to sell the house, they want me to move in with one of them. But why, when I have lost my wife, would I willingly give up our home? We lived there for so long together. All our memories are there. It makes no sense.’ Then to Galina. ‘They worry about me. Like you worry about your uncle.’

  A short time later, Mikhail gave her permission to leave. He said he would make his own way home. Galina checked he had sufficient money for the taxi, and that the card with the saddlery address was in his wallet. Alexei stood up to say goodbye. ‘Do you mind?’ he said, holding out his arms. She stepped forward and he clasped her to his big soft chest. Mikhail had no choice but to embrace her too, yet it wasn’t just for show: as he held her close, he whispered, spasiba, thank you.

  Standing outside on the footpath, Galina felt different. A light breeze blew, the air was enticingly fresh, the sky with intricate ribbons of cloud was a work of art. She unbuttoned her coat and strode down the street.

  ‘It might turn out all right,’ she said quietly to herself. ‘It may just be all right.’

  She walked past terrace houses with tiny front gardens, she passed factories and warehouses and small corner shops. She smiled at a woman pushing a pram, at an old lady walking with a stick, at two boys in school uniform riding bikes on the footpath. Up ahead, she saw a woman, much the same age as her mother, tending an unruly creeper. She slowed down and breathed in the gorgeous perfume. Intense and flowery, this creeper with its messy habit and small innocuous white-and-pink flowers was nothing to look at, but its perfume was sublime.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ the woman said. ‘You know spring is coming when the jasmine appears.’

  A short time later Galina arrived home. While the coffee was brewing she rang Sylvie to report on the success of the visit. Sylvie was not home, so she left a detailed message with effusive thanks. She took her coffee out to the courtyard and sipped it slowly. It was quiet and peaceful.

  When she returned inside she went straight to her desk. She took a sheet of paper and ruled a line down the middle, forming two columns:

  I don’t want to throw him out I want my life back

  He has nowhere to go I want my home back

  My mother hated him He is family

  He is old I am young

  I have a duty I have my own life

  She studied the two columns. One of them, the left-hand side, seemed Soviet in flavour, while the other, the right-hand side, was more Australian. One of them, the left-hand side, reflected the past; the other, she decided, pointed to the future.

  ‘For such a controlled girl, the total collapse when the uncle appeared surprises me,’ Leonard said to Sylvie that evening after she played Galina’s telephone message to him. They had finished dinner, and were sitting together in the kitchen.

  Sylvie was not fooled. ‘Galya’s tough and strong, not because she’s made that way. She’s had to construct the steel cladding because she needs the protection.’

  Sylvie might well have been talking about him, Leonard was thinking. This business of a well-crafted, sturdy exterior to guard inner turmoils, he’d done that sort of double duty every day of his life, even more so since the phone call from the man he could scarcely remember, the man who was dying of AIDS. Leonard couldn’t put it off any longer. He was having the HIV test tomorrow — not simply because of the danger he might pose to his loved ones, nor because he was terrified of having contracted HIV, but because living with uncertainty had now become intolerable.

  Deciding to have the test had been bad enough, but where to have it was even worse. Geoffrey, his GP, would have taken blood and sent it away, like he did for blood sugar and cholesterol; but Geoffrey was out of the question as they’d known each other for years. The AIDS council conducted tests, but he certainly wasn’t going there. In the end, he contacted an STD clinic he’d used before, and was told they tested for all STDs, including HIV. The receptionist asked if he’d like to make an appointment, or, if he preferred, he could just turn up. He was about to give his real name, stopped himself, had no idea what to do, and rang off. He had a vague memory of having used a false name when he’d attended the clinic before. It was best, he decided, just to arrive in the morning and not admit to any former visits.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough; at the same time he wanted it never to come. Sleep was unlikely.

  Sylvie stood up. ‘I’m going to my office to do some work.’

  He reached for her hand. ‘How about our going out for supper and a nightcap?’

  The suggestion surprised both of them.

  ‘Now?’ Sylvie checked the wall clock. ‘It’s after nine.’

  ‘Why not? If we were younger we wouldn’t give it a second thought.’

  Sylvie was already on her way to the bathroom to fix her hair and make-up. Five minutes later she was ready to leave.

  ‘I feel like a naughty girl sneaking out after curfew,’ she said, linking her arm through her husband’s and pulling him close. ‘We should do this more often.’

  15

  CLANDESTINE MOMENTS

  The STD clinic was a fluorescent-lit, medium-sheen space with easy-to-clean green plastic seating lining the walls, and greyish-green dappled lino on the floor. It was a generic space, interchangeable with hospital waiting areas, vehicle registration centres, passport application offices, and airport departure lounges. Years ago, Leonard had joked to Sylvie that the ubiquity of green in buildings of all types had resulted from a post-war overproduction of green dye, and, until stockpiles were depleted, both public and private enterprise had a patriotic duty to use the colour wherever and whenever they could. From then on, should they happen to see green walls or floors or furniture, the two of them would exchange a glance and burst out laughing.

  No laughter today, and no Sylvie either. Leonard was alone in a place that diagnosed and treated ‘communicable diseases’. Communicable diseases indeed. Everyone knew that this clinic did not deal with measles, mumps or the latest strain of flu.

  He had arrived at nine o’clock, hoping to be in and out before anyone else turned up, but with seven people already seated in the waiting area, he had badly misjudged. He hesitated in the doorway, but guilt and responsibility, together with the now unbearable torment of not knowing his HIV status, propelled him forward. He approached the elder of two receptionists, and a minute later was directed to a seat with a sheaf of questions to complete.

  This was his third visit to the clinic. On the other occasions, it was to treat something he’d picked up — a dose of gonorrhoea the first time, and a nasty seeping lesion the second. As he settled himself in a seat, he recalled his mother’s belief that good luck ran in threes; he desperately hoped that bad luck followed a different maths.

  When first he’d attended here, he assumed that the detailed questionnaire would eliminate the need for an embarrassing f
ace-to-face interview. He was painfully disabused of this when the questionnaire was used to shape a shockingly intrusive interrogation. Apparently, the state required reporting of certain diseases, including nearly all the STDs, and mandatory reporting itself required a detailed narrative around each occurrence of any of the mandated conditions. On both previous occasions he had experienced the interview as torture. He expected worse today.

  Two of the people in the waiting area, much the same age as Andrew, were wearing identical wedding rings; Leonard wondered what possibly could have brought them here. The man was dressed in a suit, the girl in a stylish skirt and jacket; their arms were linked and they were talking together in hushed voices. At one point the wife removed a thread from her husband’s collar. It was such an easy, intimate gesture that Leonard thought it impossible that this could be a couple in which one member had brought an STD to the marital bed after illicit sex elsewhere. They looked so close and loving — like him and Sylvie, he supposed. But then, like him and Sylvie, appearances might be deceptive.

  This was not the case with the others in the room. There was a long-limbed gaunt man, probably a good deal younger than Leonard, but with a face carved by deep wrinkles, he could have been mistaken for seventy. He had coated his face in thick, clay-coloured make-up, which, rather than concealing the great cracks, set them in greater relief. He was dressed in jeans and a frilly jacket, and on his feet were red stilettos. His hair, bleached the colour of straw, was piled in a nest on the top of his head. He was intent on his nails, removing them carefully one by one, and putting them into a matchbox.

  A few seats away was a boy who looked no more than fifteen. He was a dark, sweet beauty, like one of Caravaggio’s boys; his eyes were closed, and he was nodding along to a Walkman. There was a women whom Leonard assumed was a prostitute, perhaps the beautiful boy was too, and a buffed and moustachioed man who, judging by his relaxed and animated conversation with the receptionists, was well known here. Leonard touched his own moustache, and wondered if he should shave it off. The last patient — were they all patients? This was not a normal medical clinic, after all — was a man in his forties. Well-groomed, athletic, dressed in smart, casual clothes, and, yes, with a moustache, he was, at this very moment, smiling at Leonard. Surely the man wasn’t coming on to him? Here, in an STD clinic? That would be taking opportunism to a sick level. Leonard did not smile back, he had nothing to smile about. He hid behind his newspaper and swore to himself that if the test were negative, he would never enter this place again. Ever.

  The plastic seats had arms — to keep us from touching and infecting one another, Leonard was thinking. He nagged at a knob of plastic on the edge of his chair. Bloody touch. Bloody sex. He hated sex. Hated himself. And Winston, he hated him, too, not just for leaving, but for leaving him to do this alone. And if the test turned out to be positive, the punishments would just keep rolling in: the confessions, the exposure, the appalling illnesses, the shame, the pariah status, and of course, the death sentence. He couldn’t bear it. Better to call it cancer and swallow a handful of pills. It would be terrible for Sylvie and Andrew, but not nearly as bad as the truth and the end that would entail.

  He turned a page of his unread newspaper. A name was called, and the woman who was probably a prostitute responded. First names only in this place, he noticed, or perhaps she was known here, a regular like muscle-man. And he turned another page.

  ‘I’m getting a coffee. Would you like one?’

  It was the man in the sports clothes. He was coming on to him.

  When Leonard remained silent, he added, ‘There’s a machine in the foyer.’

  Whatever the man’s motivation, he did seem kind and friendly, and Leonard was tempted. Yet he declined the offer: his actions alone had brought him here, he was in this alone, he had to suffer alone.

  After nearly an hour of pretending to be engrossed in his newspaper, he heard his name called, and was directed to one of the consulting rooms. The doctor seated behind the small desk was fortyish, with brown, receding hair, a grey suit, and no wedding ring. Of course, many men didn’t wear wedding rings, and Leonard had considered removing his for the appointment, in the same way he had considered giving a false name. But he had determined to do everything by the book. He was so scared, and there was an irrational voice suggesting to him that good behaviour would be rewarded — as if behaviour of any sort could save him now.

  With the introductions over, the doctor got down to business. He began with a general medical history, which, given Leonard’s excellent health, was completed quickly. The doctor then moved on to Leonard’s sexual history, a picking over the past that sounded so sordid: sex in public toilets, in parks, in swimming-pool change rooms, in the swimming pool itself, in sand dunes, in a cemetery. The interrogation delved into his first sexual experience (with a boy at school), right up to and including his years with Winston. There were questions about safe sex, when this began, and whether he always practised it now. The doctor typed all the information into an extremely neat computer. It was much the same size as a milk crate, and a far more compact machine than those the girls used at the office; if the circumstances had been different, Leonard would have asked about it.

  With the history noted, questions now focused on the sexual partner Leonard knew to be HIV-positive, the man who had brought Leonard to the clinic today. The doctor requested his full name, and, when Leonard hesitated, noted drily that the man’s secret, if ever it was a secret, was no longer. At the mention of the name, the doctor nodded.

  ‘You know him?’ Leonard asked.

  ‘Knew him,’ the doctor replied.

  The doctor wanted to know the dates and whereabouts of their affair, as he and his colleagues were mapping the spread of the disease, what the doctor called ‘its geography’. And he wanted to know what their sexual practices had been, or, given the length of time that had elapsed, their likely sexual practices. ‘We’re trying to create a profile of the sort of activity that increases the chances of transmission.’ He also wanted to know about Leonard’s general health during his time with the infected man, as there was a possibility that the presence of other infections increased susceptibility to the HIV virus.

  It was embarrassing, it was humiliating. Every question felt like a condemnation, not because of the doctor’s manner — he was businesslike, and showed no emotion — but due to the data itself. Leonard just wanted the interrogation to be over, and thirty minutes later it was. Except for one final issue.

  ‘Your wife,’ the doctor said. ‘If you test positive, your wife could well be infected.’

  ‘But we haven’t slept together for twenty years.’ Leonard heard the pleading in his voice.

  ‘And we don’t know how long this disease has been around. Although I do concede it’s unlikely to have been twenty years.’

  It was the only good news in the entire consultation.

  ‘But,’ the doctor continued, ‘the virus is also transmitted by blood.’ He shrugged. ‘If you test positive, it’s feasible that a cut or a wound could have exposed your wife to the disease.’

  There was no good news.

  He took Leonard’s blood pressure, listened to his heart and lungs, peered inside his mouth, palpated his liver, traced his digestive tract, prodded his armpits and neck and groin, asked about skin lesions, upper-respiratory-tract infections, diarrhoea, anal warts, herpes. He removed the surgical gloves and typed his findings into the computer. Then with a clean pair of gloves he took blood. Leonard watched the procedure, he watched as if it were an operation being performed on someone else. It was the only time during the entire appointment he felt detached from what was happening.

  ‘The results will take two to three weeks,’ the doctor said, sealing and labelling the vials. ‘How would you like to be notified?’

  Leonard gave his direct line at the office, and was about to ask for discretion when the doctor said they
were well aware of the need for privacy. They would, if Leonard was unavailable, leave an innocuous message asking him to call back.

  It was eleven o’clock when Leonard left the clinic. The sun was shining, the trees were bursting with blossom, spring had definitely arrived — and far too tempting to see this as a good omen. Leonard had parked in a one-hour space; of course there was a ticket on his windscreen. He had known he would be longer than an hour, and he knew the parking officers in this area were ruthless. It was as if he were deliberately courting a manageable type of punishment in order to neutralise the punishment that was out of his control. But for what? Being who he was? Who he had always been? As he pocketed the parking ticket — easily paid, easily dismissed — he wished he had the same control over whatever might be swirling in his blood.

  For the next two and a half weeks, Leonard arrived at the office early and remained until late. After dinner, he went for a walk — not his usual solitary hike, he did not want to be alone, but a more leisurely stroll with Sylvie. If it had been feasible he would have liked the two of them to walk out of their life altogether: new city, new friends, new interests, new beginning. Of course it was impossible, and not just the confessions and the practicalities involved, but Sylvie had an aversion to change. The giddy, irrepressible girl who had waylaid him all those years ago in the men’s department of Myer had, through the years, become more and more fixed in her ways.

  So there was no leaving the life they had made together. But during these long evening walks, they did decide to visit Canberra and see the new Parliament House, and they made plans to renovate their bathroom. They talked about friends, and they discussed the relationship between Andrew and Galina; just being with her made him feel better. They went to the movies, and on a couple of occasions they met in the city for a meal and the theatre. To his surprise, Sylvie delighted in their new practice. ‘We’d become far too settled,’ she said. And then added, ‘It’s the challenge of all marriages, isn’t it? How to keep them fresh.’