The Gulliver Fortune

by Peter Corris

  One night as Carl was carrying a book and a cup of tea upstairs, Diane Thodey stopped him. "Are you sure you're not overdoing it Carl? Do you have to study quite so much?"

  Carl fidgeted on the stairs. He was nervous with women, having had very limited contact with them since his mother died. He knew no girls of his own age and treated the women in the library simply as cardholders. "I want a scholarship to the teachers' college," he muttered.

  "I know, dear. But Hector says you are assured of one. It will be of no use to you if you impair your health."

  Carl smiled at her and went up to his room. In fact his long incarcerations with his books were not all for study. He had discovered the Russian novelists and was reading them voraciously. In a secondhand bookshop he found an edition of Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, in which the text on the right-hand page was in English and the left in Russian. He bought a Russian primer and was attempting to pick his way into the language, deciphering its strange, and to him fascinating, script. He could spend hours on a single page, totally absorbed.

  Carl earned honours in all subjects for the Leaving Certificate with the single exception of mathematics. He won a full bursary to the teachers' college and began his two years of training in February 1914. He was watchful and diligent. The lecturers marked him down as promising. Several female students tried to befriend him but Carl kept them at a distance. His images of women came principally from literature—they were alluring, dangerous, frivolous. The earnest young women at the teachers' college seemed to be none of these things, which threw Carl into confusion. The men he treated as he had his fellow students at Fort Street—as rivals. The competitive instinct, combined with ambition, conspired to make him aloof and unpopular.

  None of this mattered to Carl, who had discovered Vladimir Pavel one day when he was out taking a walk, as advised by Diane Thodey who worried about his pallor. Carl had heard muttering coming from behind a hedge that grew luxuriantly in front of one of the substantial houses of Stanmore, a suburb adjacent to Petersham. By now, Carl's grasp of the printed language was good. He had never heard it spoken but the mumbled words seemed like music to him.

  He stopped. "Russian," he said.

  A big, bearded face appeared through the untidy top of the hedge. "I am. This is a crime now?"

  "No, no, of course not. It's just that I've studied Russian for a few years but I've never heard it spoken. Say something else, please."

  In Russian Pavel said, "I am not a parrot."

  "You are not a peacock?"

  "Parrot!"

  "Parrot. Parrot? Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Yes, parrot."Carl searched his memory and attempted a stumbling phrase. "You have a fine garden."

  Pavel laughed. "Dr Archibald has a fine garden, also a fine fat wife and a cellar full of fine wine. I have none of these things."

  "You're speaking too fast for me. I understood wife and wine, that's all."

  Pavel snipped some straggling shoots. He repeated the sentence slowly and then said the same thing in English. He watched the pale young man absorb the lesson. An interesting fellow, he thought. In his experience most Australians were reluctant to learn anything, especially from a foreigner. "Do you have any other languages, young sir, as well as your terrible Russian?"

  "German," Carl said. "And you?"

  "German, French, Hungarian, some English—not much."

  Carl gaped at him. Grey, grizzled hair appeared to grow all over Pavel's face, leaving only space for his eyes, nose and mouth to function. Carl found it impossible to guess his age. Then Pavel smiled; his teeth were tobacco-stained but strong, his eyes were clear and keen. "I'd like to learn those languages," Carl said.

  It was the beginning of an association that had elements of a teacher-student relationship, strong bonds of comradeship and was almost a love affair. Pavel and Carl met often, in the evening and at weekends. They went for walks and talked endlessly, switching languages and framing ideas. The Russian made no secret of his radicalism and hatred for the old regime in Russia. This at first alarmed Carl, whose notions of Russia, as of everything else, were romantic.

  "Culture will be stronger after the revolution," Pavel insisted. "Books will be better and music will be sweeter, because they will be written by free men and read and heard by free people."

  Carl could find no counter-arguments.

  Pavel lived in two rooms in a boarding house in Glebe. He cooked on a gas ring, ate, smoked endless hand-rolled cigarettes and slept in one room, keeping his books in the other. The book room was a mecca for Carl who spent hours there browsing, reading and helping Pavel protect the books against the rising damp. There were only chairs in the room, no tables, and no writing materials. One day Carl asked Pavel whether he planned to write about his political and philosophical notions.

  "No," Pavel said.

  "Why not?"

  The Russian shook his head. "Because I found out some years ago something that more people should find out. Would stop so many bad books from wasting time."

  "What did you find out?"

  Pavel laughed and poured himself another glass of wine. "That I would rather read than write."

  Carl would not join Pavel in his wine drinking, nor would he go with him to the Darlinghurst brothels Pavel used frequently.

  "Only a man who gets drunk and has women knows his true vocation," Pavel said.

  Carl believed he knew his vocation. He smiled and asked Pavel to explain further.

  "Why do you think the Catholic Church insists on celibacy for its clergy?"

  "To save them from the distractions of a home and family."

  Pavel smiled. "Not really. The church fears that if its priests went with women their faith would falter. To hold a woman's breasts in your hands is a pure thing, perhaps the purest."

  "You talk a lot of nonsense, Vladimir. The church allows its priests to drink, anyway."

  Pavel grunted. "To forbid both would be impossible. They allow one as a consolation for denying the other. You should come with me. There is no experience like it. I have sometimes read five hundred pages at a sitting after making love."

  Carl had heard Pavel claim that he had done the same after drinking three bottles of wine but in his observation the claim was a fantasy. "I know my vocation. I want to be a teacher. That's one reason why I don't go with you."

  "Explain, please."

  "I have to pass a medical examination when I finish my training. If I have a disease I will not be allowed to teach."

  Pavel nodded; he recalled his own itches, sores and cures. "That is one reason."

  "One's enough," Carl said.

  Pavel denounced the European war as an imperialist conflict, interesting only if it brought down some of the repressive monarchies. He thought it might speed revolution in Russia but feared that it might come too soon for the backward peasantry. "Revolution must stem from the bourgeoisie, as you know," Pavel said.

  "As Marx says, you mean," Carl corrected him. Carl was interested in events in Europe and, aware of his German heritage, he was somewhat uncertain about his allegiance. He felt like a European and was distressed that 'his country' was tearing itself apart, but he was more concerned with the examinations and period of classroom training that were approaching. Hector Thodey was obsessed by the war; he picked over the news daily and frequently regretted that he was too old to enlist. Diane Thodey, deeply relieved that this was so, expressed sympathy. Carl's frequent absences from home she attributed to his having met a young woman. She was tolerant of Carl's quiet and secretive ways and assumed she would meet his choice when the time was right. The Thodey household continued to be comfortable.

  Carl sat his exams well prepared and confident. None of the papers presented him with any problems and he expected a good result. On Monday, 10 November 1915, aged nineteen, with his wiry hair plastered down, his boots polished and wearing a new suit, he presented himself at the Lewisham public school for a three-week period as a trainee teacher. Carl watched the assembly, stood to atten
tion as the anthem was played and heard the headmaster address the school on the subjects of inkwells, nits in the hair and the conflict in Europe. An hour later he was standing in front of thirty-eight fourth grade students. The subject was history, the exploration of the Australian continent. Carl could draw freehand an accurate map of Australia; he could position the major rivers and other features, give the dates of their discovery, and name and describe the journeys the explorers had undertaken.

  He drew the map and turned to face the class. That moment he would remember for the rest of his life. He felt his throat dry and his body began to shake. He clasped his hands to stop them flying wildly about; sweat broke out on his forehead; there was a roaring in his ears, and the classroom seemed to narrow in front of him and stretch away into the far distance. The closest desk, not fifteen feet from him, seemed fifty yards away. He shut his eyes and made harsh, croaking sounds. Some of the pupils laughed—the sound pierced him like a needle through the eardrum.

  "Mr Gulliver," the class teacher said. "Mr Gulliver, are you all right?"

  Carl dropped the chalk. His shirt, freshly pressed by Diane Thodey that morning, was a limp rag. Most terrifying of all, he felt his bowels loosen. He stumbled forward and would have fallen had not the teacher caught him. The teacher glared at the gigglers and led Carl from the room.

  After recovering in the infirmary, Carl was excused from the school for the day. There had been a lot of talk around him which he only half heard through mists of shame and misery, but he had caught a few words. "The worst case I've ever seen," the class teacher had said.

  He wandered the streets for hours, looking in the gardens where Pavel worked and not finding him. It was a hot day and he was exhausted, parched, sunburnt and light-headed when he arrived at the Glebe boarding house. He stood below Pavel's window and spoke the first words he had uttered since he had turned from the blackboard in the classroom. "Pavel," he croaked, "let me in, for God's sake. I want a drink."

  17

  Carl went on a bender that lasted three weeks. He drank in every dive Pavel knew in Sydney and accompanied the Russian into the brothels. He was drunk when he did so and the results were less than spectacular, nor did they ease the anguish that consumed him. It was as if his character was dissolving, as if he was dissolving it himself with each drink and cigarette and entry into a dimly lit, smelly room with a girl or woman he had laid eyes on only minutes before.

  One of the whores allowed him to gather her flaccid breasts in his hands and kiss them; he licked her nipples and she moaned professionally. When he bit them, she jerked away.

  "What the hell d'you think you're bloody doin'?"

  "Pure," Carl muttered. "It's supposed to be pure."

  "Pure my arse. What are you talking about?"

  Carl stared at her. The heavy makeup concealed a coarse, pitted skin that was heavily lined. "Pavel said it was pure."

  "Pavel," the whore snorted, "He's an animal. He does it up the bum. He likes it that way. You should know."

  "What do you mean?" Carl said.

  "Hasn't he done it to you? Up the rear end?"

  "No, he hasn't."

  "He will. Give it here, lovey, I'll give you your money's worth this way. Pure? That's a laugh!"

  Carl watched miserably as she attempted without success to stimulate him. He paid her and left while Pavel was occupied in another room. It was very late at night when he entered the Thodeys' house in Petersham. He packed some clothes and documents, and agonised over the selection of books. Eventually he decided in favour of the most portable—some paperbound editions of Russian and French novels and essays. He spent some time composing a letter to Hector and Diane Thodey and was reduced to tears by the inadequacy of the result. He tore up several drafts and left only a few lines:

  Dear Mr and Mrs Thodey

  I will never be able to thank you for your kindness to me but one day I will try. I have suffered a great disappointment as you will have heard from the Education Department, and something like a nervous breakdown following that. I feel well in my mind now and am planning to travel for some time. Please do not worry about me.

  Despite my recent lack of consideration for your feelings, I hope you will think well of me as I shall of you—always.

  Affectionately

  Carl Gulliver

  At ten a.m. Carl presented himself at the recruitment office in Pitt Street. After a wait of nearly three hours in the company of scores of men whose ages ranged from sixteen to sixty, he shuffled forward to the recruiting officer's desk.

  "Name?"

  "Charles Gulliver."

  "Age?"

  "Nineteen."

  "Parents' consent?"

  "I'm an orphan." Carl put the paper he had received on being discharged from the orphanage on the desk. The officer glanced at it and then at Carl. He saw a stocky young man, pale but with several days' reddish stubble on his face. Carl's recent dissipations had aged him and given him a tough, shabby look. He wore a collarless shirt and his jacket had acquired some food stains and lost a button.

  The officer banged a stamp down on a form and handed it to Carl. "Medical. Through there."

  The doctor found Carl to be sound of wind and limb and to have perfect eyesight. He was free of venereal disease and his teeth were good. He was ordered to take off his boots, put his feet in a bucket and step on a tiled floor. The footprints showed well formed arches.

  "Accepted." Another stamp hit the form and Carl was invited to sign his enlistment paper. He bent forward to read it and the officer jabbed him with his stick.

  "What do you think you're doing?"

  "I'm reading the paper."

  "Say 'Sir', you're in the army."

  "I'm reading the paper, sir."

  "Are you a troublemaker? I can tear this bit 'a paper up, you know."

  "I'm not a troublemaker. I just . . ."

  The officer pointed to the stack of forms on the desk. "Sign it. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you."

  Carl signed.

  After eight weeks in a training camp at Bathurst in western New South Wales Carl, as a private in the Second Brigade, First Division, AIF, embarked for Egypt. From the minute of his enlistment he had been paid five shillings a day with one shilling deferred until the end of his service. The pay rose to six shillings after embarkation. Like the other soldiers, he spent most of the money on beer, tobacco and food to relieve the monotonous army diet. Unlike the rest, he spent some of the money on books.

  The training period had been hard and dull. Carl's wiry physique had enabled him to keep pace with the other men at all exercises and his strength had increased. He was a first-class rifle shot almost by instinct and he found ways to occupy his mind through the endless drilling: he recited to himself verses he had memorised and composed vocabulary lists in English, French, German and Russian. He was not popular with the other men, who regarded his reading and manner of speech with suspicion, but he was respected for his shooting and increasing ability to hold his beer. They called him Charlie.

  "See this, Charlie?" Col Andrews, newly promoted to lance-corporal, flopped down on the next bunk and produced a bayonet that had been honed to a razor sharpness. "I'm gonna stick a Hun with it and then skin 'im."

  Carl nodded. He thought of his mother with her soft voice and mild manner. She was a Hun, and I am half a Hun. He had done a good deal of work with the bayonet on wheat bags stuffed with straw, but he doubted he would be able to use one on his fellow man. "Don't cut yourself," he said.

  The lance-corporal rolled a cigarette. "I'm goin' on deck to wave goodbye to me mum. Comin' up?"

  "Later," Carl said. He did not go on deck; there was no one to wave to. He had not communicated further with the Thodeys or with Pavel at all. The shame of his failure in front of the class still tortured him. He knew it was absurd but he punished himself by cutting off all his existing human contacts. If he could not be a teacher, he did not know what he could do. For now, he would be a s
oldier; it suited him because, one way or another, there was no future in it. He lay on his bunk and did not hear the clatter around him as men stowed their gear, dropped rifles, played cards, shouted and swore. He felt the lurch and tug beneath him as the ship pulled away from the dock. He smiled as several of the young soldiers paused in what they were doing, lost colour and rushed away to be sick.

  "What're you grinnin' at, Charlie?" Andrews was rolling a cigarette but he was unsure of his ability to smoke it. His stomach felt loose under his belt, heaving as if he'd had twenty beers.

  "I was thinking that I came out here on a boat something like this. Only five years ago. Now here I am going back."

  Andrews lit the cigarette. "We're goin' to Egypt."

  Carl shrugged. "That's closer."

  "Mad bastard." Andrews jumped from the bunk and rushed towards the door.

  Carl watched him go and examined his own feelings; he had not been seasick on the voyage out and he felt no uneasiness now. He was not frightened of the fighting because he did not fully believe it would ever happen. This was the twentieth century; civilized nations would not throw themselves madly against each other. There were no Napoleons now, no Wellingtons. The whole thing, he concluded, was like a giant play: the armies would posture and wheel about to avoid each other; the monarchs would confer with their ministers; the diplomats would talk and the correspondents would scribble. He was an actor with a tiny part in a vast panoramic spectacle in which men would be transported, trained, fed and shouted at. No shots would be fired although rifles would be cleaned and polished. He was going to Egypt, the land of the Pharoahs, where Caesar's legions had marched. And Europe was just across the Mediterranean. He felt better. He was going to enjoy himself.

  "Where's the bloddy kip?"

  "Polish 'em up, mate. Let's go."

  "Come in, spinner."