A Stolen Season

by Rodney Hall

  Yao.

  Watching from her cave of stillness, he is light light light. She guesses his age at twenty-seven: coincidentally the same as herself. Premonitions bustle about in the overgrown garden as a thread of chilled air rustles the shrubs. At no stage did she plan on coming here. Yet she stays, risking discovery. With no excuse. Defenceless. A voyeur. Guilty. How could she possibly explain? Yao would be mortified if he knew.

  She flees. As impulsively as she came she leaves. Darting, swift and demon-chased, out from the shadows, away under the arch of woven wire overgrown with wistaria, and home. Making off with her plunder. Up the steps she goes, she flies, with the rockery on either side. There’s hammering at the windows of her heart. But the rich treasures in her memory are securely locked away.

  Light-footed and safe on the porch she cannot control her agitation. She covers her mouth with a trembling hand. There’s no denying her life has changed. When at last she’s ready to try, the door opens at first touch. Flaunting her guilt as a wrap of cool isobars she glides in, bringing with her not just a trace of garden air but the annihilating darkness.

  ‘Did you. Ar,’ Adam’s mechanical insomniac voice enquires. ‘Walk far. Sweetheart?’

  She glances his way. Shocked to see him at his desk, propped there by the Contraption. The treacherous night light still burns blue. He is fully awake, staring into the white glow of the screen. She hears his question. Also the anxiety that lies behind it. But she is given no choice. Her mind has no room for dishonesties—nor, really, room for him—she has secret visions to protect.

  She does not reply. She dare not even spare him a single word. She must ward off any intrusion on her treasures. She knows he has turned his ruined face her way. Eyes. Dodging the problem. Because why should she have to account for her needs? The banister accepts her hand to guide her away, away towards the solitude of her private world. There’s some new breathtaking certainty to be coped with. The delinquent in her mind returns over and over to the sight of a man who is whole—whole because preoccupied—and radiant with modesty. She secretes his lithe body as it gyrates around the fixed abstract frame of a room all too filled with artificial light. She knows she is a voyeur, of course, and that her vision of Yao is theft.

  Dreams being addictive, no sooner had Adam aligned his structures to fold him down on the bed (having mastered the Contraption) than he was tipped head over heels into a world of metaphor. Here the sleeping mind, to evade control, adopts the tactics of a fugitive, abruptly ducking and bobbing out of reach, leaving behind just one rescued memory like a body washed up on the beach. Himself, able to feel again the bliss of strength in his arms and legs. Gladness expands into ecstasy. She is near, of course. Very near. Her breasts stand up because she has reached for the shelf of rock where she left her beach hat. No, not the hat, she’s tousling someone’s hair. She presses against him while he inhales the delicate mystery. Her body fresh from the warm sea. To touch is to marvel. Was anything ever so exquisite? Her skin hot after too much sun and her hair wet. Waves rise in mighty parallels. With no one else in this place it is ours. Her lips find the chosen ear. Cool fingers slide along the chosen thigh. Sprawling. A delicate salt crust breaks among hairs. Actually, aboard a sailboat, this is a contest and some kind of . . . a contradiction. Patches of wind ruffle the water. Clouds race in to loosen the knot in his gut. Forging through crests and troughs. Far astern the rocking apartment blocks tower too far away. No particular landmark stands out, let alone the units where there’s a leaky balcony he needs to fix.

  It is the dog and the chain. Driven to sleepless fury in his cage of meat Adam half-squirms, half-lolls, raked by scarifying flares of insomnia, his eyes jump with strain. He has no protection from the truth, truth being natural to his quick spirit. He is tortured by wanting her, needing her. The aching urgency. Too aware—is it with merciless deliberation?—that she comes and goes at all hours of the day and night. Yet there is never a moment when he can simply touch her. He cannot bury his face in her hair. He cannot find the right casual phrase to propose anything of the sort. Nor does she touch him if she can help it.

  The surrounding night is inside as well.

  That’s the difference. She gets on with her life as if the constraints are common as flu. She manages her part-time job from a desk upstairs, gazing down at the park and the great grey map of Melbourne beyond. Her employer being an eccentric who can’t do without her, she’s able to dictate her terms. She is not a homebody. Never was. Adam knows this in the marrow of his bones. She cannot allow his routines to shut her in. She is everywhere. Unpossessed.

  During the early hours he hears her swift tread as she arrives home bringing the dark air with her. He feels the demon wings of her passing. He speaks—he utters her name—receiving no answer. Whatever happened to her out there propels her upstairs at a single leap. Awesome. Time was, he could do that. He glances down at where his changed legs poke out from under the gown. And, sure enough, they are misshapen, useless and stained blue by the night light.

  ‘Welcome back . . .’ Adam calls. And hates himself for it.

  One thing, though, he is now certain that to allow Ryan to film him as a monster and display his monstrosity in public is exactly the right thing. He will welcome humiliation—ferociously—in return for a chance to hit back at the system. Bridget won’t care either.

  Unimagined (above his head) she stands suspended between desk and dressing table, arms outstretched, gyrating on slender ankles, bending slo-mo legs to open the channels of her energy to the night. She rotates, prances and sways and tosses her silent hair while surplus energy flings its desperation against the walls to go tumbling into the hallway as a bundle of wings and a scarlet throat. Later, though, and more than ever like a ghost, she follows it down.

  Otherwise the last of the night passes peacefully.

  Equally unimagined in his own space, Adam fights the feeling of being nobody. Light illuminates emptiness. At some stage he must have put himself to bed. He twists and turns. If only his ruined skin could sweat he might make himself comfortable. All else in the world being still, sediment settles to fill the outlines of this same old room stacked around him—it makes no difference that things have been switched about—every item enigmatic. The past coalesces as his not-forgotten father’s sideboard and bookshelf, pot plants, a table and chairs. Each in its bell jar of lost time. Well, for a man who has faced death, the briefest snapshot is worth celebrating. And, sure enough, future facts encroach on his space. Once again the daylight spills over to reveal precious surprises, including Bridget hugging her knees as she perches on the window seat. Her three-quarter back to him, she is preoccupied by gazing out at nothing. No doubt she senses that he has woken. No doubt she hopes the risks of the night are over and done with.

  They share the white space of separation.

  She begins to feel curiously contented in his company—content as never before—and they both know. Well, this is partly thanks to the fact that he has changed into a stranger. The downside being his terrifying wordless stillness . . . apart from anything else, this puts her precious theft of the moonlit garden at risk. She rebels, thinking the one thought over and over: we can’t go on. Truth be told, at any moment she might open her mouth and, if she does, a confession of guilt is sure to escape. Aware of him behind her, afraid of encountering eyes incandescent with urgency, she keeps her back turned.

  ‘You can think what you like,’ her voice says, making an attempt at gaiety and as if addressing the outside world.

  So now, just when he was on the point of giving up hope, here she is. She has spoken. Her voice links them. She has left the window. She is beside him. He smells her delicious warmth. Where has she been for half the night? Her closeness brings him to the breakpoint of tears. He feels such turmoil he does not dare move his rock-numb head to greet her. Already it is as if they have negotiated a pact.

  Now he must learn to liv
e with the realization that his body will not die. Yet. His lifespan may not be affected by his injuries. It seems possible that his indestructible core is going to defy death and force him to endure another fifty or sixty years of survival. Despite immense reserves of courage panic gets the better of him. He is racked with shudders.

  Bridget does not know what can be done. Instinct warns her against asking. Not only is he a mystery (he is so altered), she is a mystery to herself too. She must feel her way by instinct. And keep a lid on her feelings. It’s a question of denial. But the body has its reasons and logic. Her arms find their way around him. Having gone this far she nestles her head against his scaly neck. Aching minutes later his desperate tremors subside. She and he are the closest they have been. Perhaps ever. And she is all right, provided she keeps her eyes shut.

  *

  Senator Zacharia Griffiths parks his Range Rover across the street from Revolver, the upstairs nightclub he used to haunt when he and Adam were on the loose. But he cannot decide to go in. 2am. Lights ablaze, the place is pumping. Young people jostle outside on the beer-stained red carpet, waiting their turn to be let in by the bouncers. Very young people. Very young people skimpily clad, arms and shoulders dusted with glitter—boys too—twitching to the thunderous music. Just watching them is enough to undermine his resolve. Secret treacherous doubts whisper that he is already too old. He was never much of a dancer. And girls like these will laugh at a guy his age cruising. The bouncers have noticed him. Perhaps he should give the whole idea away. Just drive off. No one the wiser. In any case, he may need to do nothing. Things could work out, all of their own accord . . . soon Bridget (for example) will be looking for someone. What about that for an idea? Good one. He may never need to risk making a fool of himself. True. The next time he takes fruit over, it will be for her. So this is a wasted effort. Two men walk up holding hands. In disgust he turns the ignition key. One of the bouncers gives him the finger.

  By the time morning breaks, Adam’s mind has taken command. Finding himself alone and on foot, he is sprinting across the desert toward a never-to-be-reached cleft in the scarp—crouching for cover, like those around him, fully buckled into survival gear—ever since crossing the long bridge over the Tigris. Lucky we didn’t know we’d come to this. Scanning dusty Mesopotamian streets through telescopic sights. Gone, the glory moments of action when madness rules and you know you’ll fight to the death. Gone, the everyday urgencies among men alert for orders, among helmets, hollow mouths, anonymous eyes, hunched bodies jumping down to run full tilt into some life-or-death crisis across a landscape unfolding its cosmic carpet of jagged stones. Gone, the rush of firing off a blitz of bullets and the hyper-reality of being fired at in reply across a war zone crammed with filth and vandalism, old towns and villages, ambling crowds who’ve been left owning next to nothing but the gift of sociability, people prepared to die to keep faith with their faith. The men here fight with furious tenacity. Women strap explosives under their robes and fling themselves into action. Well, somewhere at the back of it all a fairytale storehouse of ancient heritage lurks. The campaign map itself is sprinkled with names rich in biblical reminders: Mesopotamia, Ur, Babylon. This is the territory between the Tigris and Euphrates, cradle of civilization, older perhaps than Egypt. And did these feet in ancient times walk upon this garbage dump? Here and there a building of dignified origin is reduced to a fireball. Domes, glazed with tiled patterns and symbols, lie smashed to rubble. How do I feel? I feel the way any ordinary guy feels—unready.

  To’ve fought there and understood nothing!

  ‘That is not. The drill was,’ Adam mumbles aloud.

  And the reason is that he has woken to find himself already surrendering. Male hands seize his flesh as no man ever did. Josh gets to work moulding his hips and knees with tactless dexterity to bend the unbendable . . . till even the ribcage might break open. An old man’s voice grieves over feeling prematurely useless. Unattached knuckles reaching for a pot of withered flowers, knock among obstacles. And next thing a dish smashes on the floor. Dead transparency winks.

  ‘You drifted off a moment there, mate,’ Josh croons, tweaking a sinew so remote it may not yet have been named by science, awakening sparks of memory in the traumatized flesh. So the morning is real. A morning regrettably definite about the end of the night when Bridget changed shape and came to him.

  ‘Well done,’ the manipulator breathes judicially. Then, reminded that every move may be monitored with this patient, he adds, ‘Well done, sir,’ suggesting that his masterful reclamations are simply the outcome of obedience to orders. ‘Now let’s try the other leg.’

  Oh, but the flayed abused tissues ache with prehistoric lethargy. Pachyderm knobs for unknown functions creak. Only the unseen secretive mind is able to move with freedom, turning catherinewheels of scintillant pain. ‘Fuck it!’ Adam gasps.

  Yes, I am Adam, Adam of Garden of Eden fame.

  At last the session is over and he is left cowering naked under a sheet, tingling, humiliated, nauseous, defeated by whatever paltry improvement has been achieved.

  ‘That. Ar. Sorted me out,’ he sighs. ‘Thanks Josh. I suppose.’ Panting with exhaustion he revives. ‘But remind me to. Beat you to a. Pulp. When I’m back. On my feet.’

  At which Josh laughs obligingly.

  The support team can be overheard exchanging assessments. It seems they are briefing the wife on his progress: casual Australian voices with an edge of military iron. ‘We should . . . this,’ Vanessa suggests. Josh agrees, ‘But not . . . that.’ She: ‘Best to . . . don’t you think?’ Eventually it’s Bridget who chips in to insist on keeping an element of doubt alive. There seems to be some sort of plan. And that’s news to him.

  ‘Well, good for you!’ Vanessa enthuses.

  Something of the sort was said to him, too, by these same people.

  Never before has he so wished he had been thrown on an Iraqi rubbish heap. Better to have died than to live on, a mere number in the catalogue of casualties. Casualties! The word casts off its polite disguise. Back under the bedsheet, rescued from death, he is witness to the fact that mutilation is in the nature of warfare and always has been. Meanwhile the victory of the victors boils down to ancient boasts, insupportable justifications, tall tales and outright lies.

  The overcast sky being crammed full of grey and white, the garden glitters with drizzle. Yao’s light cotton trousers are soaked by the long wet grass as he inspects the ground for clues. Warm rain instantly sets about dark-nailing the shirt to his skin. He pauses to take in the full benefit, the rhapsody. A few floating hairs escape his topknot to draw cursive inscriptions across his neck. From under the kitchen porch the little girl watches critically.

  ‘You’re getting wet, Daddy,’ she decides.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Well you can come. You can get wet like me, if you want.’

  ‘I’m dry.’

  ‘See how rain makes everything shine.’

  ‘You look silly.’

  ‘Ah well,’ he replies, amused. ‘I can’t blame that on the weather.’

  He has found what he came to find: a patch of weeds trodden flat into the soft soil. His heart fills with confirmed desire. At least in private he can admit to the dream. She was here. She did come. He didn’t imagine it. He wonders about her life and hopes. Her contradictory nature speaks to him—at once reticent and impulsive, hesitant and untamed—though of course he must not indulge any such fantasy . . . he has a strong sense of honour. Adam is his friend.

  ‘And she did the best she could, too,’ he tells himself, despite everything, thinking of his absent girlfriend.

  Eyes closed against the rain he tilts his face to enjoy cool needles of the morning sky. He knows his fantasies are inadmissable. Wrong. Yet somehow—by means of spiral logic—he encompasses them. Naturally reserved, such is his feeling. He di
vines by intuition that, if asked, she (Bridget) might consent. The rain intensifies, pattering among leaves.

  ‘Daddy!’ the little girl protests as she dares the downpour and rushes to claim him, clutching his leg.

  ‘Time for school,’ he warns her gaily.

  No one has accepted responsibility for that missile. No one knows who fired it. A direct hit out of nowhere by no one. Well, it terminated his war, reducing the vehicle to a twisted steel cage which had to be prised open for salvaging such chunks of him as could be packed in septic blankets and secured with velcro straps: a pallet of meat shipped headfirst into the void. Quick thinking on somebody’s part. And much later, as his dawning awareness of the hospital registered, the assault defined itself. Body suspended in sterile space, the agony grew so colossal it fired his whole tree of nerves, branch and root, icy flames tunnelling deep in the bone till all he could wish for was death. But it would never occur to him to give in. Not in his nature.

  Even things he thought he had forgotten he remembers.

  He had lain conscious through much of it, brain too desperate to let go. Training tells. Defiantly ignoring the growls of a carnivorous beast, he heard remotely, in one clubbed ear, the medical orderly’s practical question: ‘Can this one be saved?’ . . . ‘worth a try maybe’ . . . ‘load him up, buddy’ . . . ‘to ship back to his wife ay?’