by Markus Zusak
“Hey, I’ll come back some other time,” I said too fast. I made sure to get the hell out of there. was giving me the best piss off look I’d ever seen.
“No.”
I was just about out the door when the word booted itself into my back. I turned around and Steve was standing behind me. His face was serious as he spoke the rest of the words.
“You don’t have to go, Cam.”
All I did was look at my brother and say, “Don’t worry,” and I turned and left without thinking too much about it. I had other places to go now anyway.
It was still fairly early, so I decided to run to the station and get a train down to Hurstville. In the train’s window I saw my reflection — my hair was getting longer again and standing up wild and rough. It was black. Pitch-black in the window, and for the first time, I kind of liked it. Swaying with the train, I looked inside me.
Octavia’s street was wrapped in darkness. The lights from the houses were like torchlights. If I closed my eyes tight and opened them again, it looked like the houses were stumbling around in the dark, finding their way. At any moment I expected them to fade. Sometimes human shadows crossed through them, as I waited, just outside her front gate.
For a while, I imagined myself walking to the front door and knocking, but I stayed patient. For some reason, it didn’t seem right to go in. Not yet. I was dying for her to come out, make no mistake about that. Yet I knew that if I had to leave again without even a glimpse of her, I would. If I could do it for a girl who cared nothing for me, I could do it for Octavia.
In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, then vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been taken instantly from my back and left somewhere on the ground. I wondered for a moment how I could stand outside her house so many times. I even laughed. At myself. She was erased completely a few minutes later when Octavia moved the kitchen curtain aside, and came out to meet me.
The first thing I noticed, before any words hit the air, was the shell. It was tied to a piece of string and was hanging around her neck.
“It looks good,” I nodded, and I reached out and held it in my right hand. “It does,” she agreed.
We went to the same park as the first night I came, but this time we didn’t sit on the splintered bench. This time we walked over the dewy grass and ended up stopping by an old tree.
“Here,” I said, and I gave Octavia the words I wrote the previous night in bed. “They’re yours.”
She read them and kissed the paper and held on to me for quite a while. I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night. I had to get back home, so I couldn’t stay too long. It was just nice to see her and touch her and give her the words.
When we made it back to the gate, I kissed her hand and left.
“e you this weekend?” she asked. “Definitely.”
“I’ll call you,” she said, and I was on my way.
At my place, when I returned, I was shocked to find Steve on our front porch, waiting for me.
“I was wondering how long I’d have to sit here,” he fired when I showed up. “I’ve been here an hour.”
I walked closer. “And? Why’d you come?”
“Come on,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go back up to my place.”
“I’ll just go in and —”
“I already told ‘em.”
Steve’s car was parked farther along the street, and after getting in, there were very few words spoken in the car. I turned the radio up but don’t remember the song.
“So what’s this all about?” I asked. I looked at him but Steve’s eyes were firmly on the road. For a while I was wondering if he’d even heard my question. He let his eyes examine me for a second or two, but he said nothing. He was still waiting.
When we got out of the car, he said, “I want you to meet someone.” He slammed the door. “Or actually, I want her to meet you.”
We walked up the stairs and into his apartment. It was empty.
“Looks like she’s in the shower,” he mentioned. He stood and made coffee and put a cup down in front of me. It still swirled, taking my reflection with it. Taking me down.
For a moment, I thought we were about to go through our usual routine of questions and answers about everyone back at home, but I could see him deciding not to do it. He’d been at our place earlier and found out for himself. It wasn’t in Steve’s nature to manufacture conversation.
I hadn’t been to watch him at football for a while, so I asked how it was going. He was in the middle of explaining it when Sal came out of the bathroom, still drying her hair.
“Hey,” she said to me.
I nodded, giving her half a smile.
That was when Steve stood up and looked at me, then at her. I knew right then that at some point, like I’d suspected, he did tell her about Rube and me. I’d imagined it on the park bench in Hurstville for some reason, and I could hear the quiet tone of Steve’s intense voice practically disowning his brothers. Now he was rewriting it, or at least trying to make it right.
“Stand up,” he told me.
I did.
He said, “Sal.” She looked at me. I looked at her, as Steve kept talking. “This is my brother Cameron.” We s hands. My boyish, rough hand.
Her smooth and clean hand, which smelled of perfumed soap. Soap I imagined you’d get in hotel rooms I’d never get to visit.
She recognized me through the eyes and I was Cameron now, not just that loser brother of Steve.
On the way back home sometime after that, Steve and I talked a while, but only about small things. In the middle of it, I cut him short. I said, with knifelike words, “When you first told Sal about Rube and me you said we were losers. You told her you were ashamed of us, didn’t you?” My voice was still calm and not even the slightest bit accusing, though I was trying as hard as I could.
“No.” He denied it when the car came to a stop outside our house.
“No?” I could see the shame in his eyes, and for the first time ever, I could see it was shame he held for himself.
“No,” he confirmed, and he looked at me with something that resembled anger now, almost like he couldn’t stomach it. “Not you and Rube,” he explained, and his face looked injured. “Just you.”
God.
God, I thought, and my mouth was open. It was as if Steve had reached into me and pulled out my pulse. My heart was in his hands, and he was staring down at it, as if he too, could see it.
Beating.
Thrusting itself down, then standing up again. Almost bleeding down his forearms.
I said nothing about the truth Steve had just let loose.
All I did was undo my seat belt, take my heart, and get out of that car as fast as I could.
Steve followed but it was too late. I heard his footsteps coming after me when I was walking onto our porch. Words fell down between his feet.
“Cam!” he called out. “Cameron!” I was nearly inside when I heard his voice cry out. “I’m sorry. I was …” He made his voice go louder. “Cam, I was wrong!”
I got behind the door and shut it, then turned to look back out.
Steve’s figure was shadowed onto the front window. It was silent and still, plastered to the light.
“I was wrong.”
He said it again, though this time his voice was weaker.
A minute shuddered past. I broke.
Walking slowly to the front door, I opened it and saw my brother on the other side of the flyscreen.
I waited, then, “Forget about it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
I was still hurt, but like I said, it d matter. I’d been hurt before and I’d be hurt again. Steve must have wished he’d never tried showing Sal that I wasn’t the loser she thought I was. All he’d succeeded in doing was proving that not only had he once thought I was a lost cause, but that I was the only one.
>
Soon, though, I was stabbed.
A feeling shook through me and cut me loose. All my thoughts were off the chain, until one solitary sentence arrived and wouldn’t leave me.
The words and Octavia.
That was the sentence.
It wavered in me.
It saved me, and almost whispering, I said to Steve, “Don’t worry, brother. I don’t need you to tell Sal that I’m not a loser.” We were still separated by the flyscreen. “I don’t need you to say it to me either. I know what I am. I know what I see. Maybe one day I’ll tell you a little more about me, but for now, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I’m nowhere near what I’m going to be, and …” I could feel something in me. Something I’ve always felt. I paused and caught his eyes. I leaped into them through the door and held him down. “You ever hear a dog cry, Steve? You know, howling so loud, it’s almost unbearable?” He nodded. “I reckon they howl like that because they’re so hungry it hurts, and that’s what I feel in me every day of my life. I’m so hungry to be somethin’ — to be somebody. You hear me?” He did. “I’m not lyin’ down ever. Not for you. Not for anyone.” I ended it. “I’m hungry, Steve.”
Sometimes I think they’re the best words I’ve ever said.
“I’m hungry.”
And after that, I shut the door. I didn’t slam it.
You don’t shoot a dog when it’s already dead.
WHEN DOGS CRY
I saw a dog cry once.
It was one of those nights when the wind tries to tear the ground along with it, and a storm stirs itself amongst the sky. Lightning roared and thunder cracked above me.
The street was empty but for the dog, first walking the dangerous, desolate city floor, silently clicking over it with his paws and claws. He looked hungry, and desperate, until he simply stood there, and began.
He reached deep, and his fur stood on end, climbing ferociously up. From his heart, from everything in his instinct, he began to howl.
He howled above the howling thunder. He howled above the howling lightning, and beyond the howling wind.
With his head claiming the endless sky, he howled hunger and I felt it rise through me.
Iunger.
My pride.
And I smiled.
Even now, I smile, and I feel it in my eyes, because hunger’s a powerful thing.
CHAPTER 13
The phone was ringing. Wednesday night. Just past seven o’clock.
“Hello?”
“Ruben Wolfe?”
“No, it’s Cameron here.”
“Tell you what,” the voice went on, laced with friendly malice. “Could you get him for me?”
“Yeah, who’s callin’?”
“No one.”
“No one?”
“Listen, mate. Just get y’ brother on the phone or we’ll beat the crap out of you as well.”
I was taken aback. I pulled the phone away, then returned it to my ear. “I’ll get him. Hang on a minute.”
Rube was in our room with Julia the Scrubber. I knocked on the door and went in.
“What?” said Rube. He wasn’t happy to
see me, and neither was Julia. She adjusted her clothing.
I took another step into the room. “Someone on the phone.”
“For me?” Rube asked.
I nodded.
“Well who is it?”
“Do I look like y’ bloody secretary? Just get up and answer the phone.”
He looked strangely at me, got up grudgingly, and walked out, which left me in the room with Julia the Scrubber, alone.
Julia the Scrubber: “Hi Cam.”
Me: “Hi Julia.”
Julia the Scrubber, smiling and moving closer: “Rube’s been tellin’ me you’re not too much in love with me.”
Me, inching away: “Well I guess he can tell you whatever he wants.”
Julia the Scrubber, sensing my complete lack of interest: “Is it true?”
Me: “Well, I don’t know, to be honest. It isn’t really any of my business what Rube does … but I know for sure that whoever’s on that phone wants to kill him, and I’ve got some idea cause of you.”
Julia the Scrubber, laughing: “Rube’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
Me: “That’s true, but he’s also my brother, and there’s no way I’d let him bleed alone.”
Julia the Scrubber: “How very noble of you.”
Rube came back in, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Cam. There’s no one on the phone.”
“I’m tellin’ you,” I said, pulling Rube out into the hallway. Once we got there, I whispered at him. “There was a guy there, Rube, and he sounded like he wanted to kill you. So when the phone rings again, get up and answer it.”
The phone did ring again and this time Rube came running out of the room and got it. Again, they hung up on him. By the third time, Rube barked into the phone. “How ‘bout you start talkin’? If you want Ruben Wolfe, you’ve got him. So talk!”
There was no response from the other end, and the phone didn’t ring again that night, but after Julia left, I could see that Rube was a little pensive. He was about as worried as Ruben Wolfe gets, because he knew without doubt now, like I did, that something was coming. In our room, he looked at me. In the exchanging of our eyes, he was telling me a fight was looming.
He sat on his bed.
“I guess that bad feeling you had was right,” he began. “About Julia. It’s definitely that last bloke she had.” It wasn’t like Rube to be scared, because we both knew he could take care of himself. He was one of the most liked but most feared people in our neighborhood. The only trouble now was that nothing was certain. It was a feeling, that’s all, and I could sense Rube was feeling it as well. I could smell it.
“Did you ask what’s-her-name about him?”
“Julia?”
“Yeah.”
“She reckons he isn’t the brightest spark, and that he’s got way too much time and a lot of friends. She was with him for about a year.”
“And she just up and ditched him?”
Rube looked over. “That would about cover it.”
“For you? He must be a real ugly bastard if she quit him for you.”
“Don’t get smart,” he half warned. “… I’d consider gettin’ after him, but you always end up worse when you do that. That’s when they come back for y’ with half their bloody neighborhood behind ‘em.”
We were quiet for a while, both thinking about it.
“If somethin’ comes up,” finally said, “I’ll be there, okay?”
Rube nodded. “Thanks, brother.”
The phone rang the next night as well, and the next.
On the third call of Friday night, Rube picked up the phone and shouted, “What!?” He then grew quiet.
“Yeah.” A pause. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll get him.” He took the receiver away and covered the mouthpiece. “It’s for you.” He held it out to me, thinking. What was he thinking?
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” she said. Her voice reached through the phone and took me. “You working tomorrow?” “Till about four-thirty.”
She thought for a moment. “Maybe,” she said, “we can do something when you get back. I know an old movie house. I think they’re playing Raging Bull.” Her words were soft but intense. The voice was excitement. The voice was shivers.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “For sure.”
“I’ll come over just after four-thirty.”
“Good, I’ll see you then.”
“I have to go.” She almost cut me off, and she didn’t say good-bye. She said, “I’m watching the clock,” and she was gone.
When I hung up, Rube asked what I knew he would.
“Who was that?” He bit into an apple. “She sounded familiar.”
I moved closer and sat at the kitchen table and swallowed. I co
ncentrated on breathing. This was it. This was it and I had to say it. “Remember Octavia?”
Nothing was said.
The tap dripped.
It exploded into the sink.
Rube was halfway through another bite when he realized what I was saying.
His head tilted. He swallowed the piece of apple and made the calculation, while I was thinking, Oh no, what the hell’s about to happen here?
Something happened.
It happened when Rube went and tightened the tap, turned back around, and said, “Well Cam …” He laughed.
Was that a good laugh or a bad one? Good laugh, bad laugh? Good laugh, bad laugh? I couldn’t decide. I waited.
“What?” I asked. I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Tell me.”
Nervously started telling him about what happened. I told him about standing outside the house in Glebe. About Octavia showing up. About the train and going there, and the shell, and —
“It’s all right, Cam,” he said, but I wasn’t sure about the expression on his face. “That Octavia,” and he shook his head now. “You’ll treat her like a goddess, won’t y’ Cam?”
I smiled, but didn’t bare my teeth. This seemed too easy.
He repeated the question. “Won’t y’ Cam?” because we both knew the answer.
This time, I couldn’t hide the smile, even though I was still uneasy about Rube’s response. He seemed happy enough, but in all honesty, Rube was never the type to let you wonder what he was thinking. He laughed a little and I decided that was a good thing, and we stayed together in the kitchen, just as Sarah came in.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s all this smilin’? It looks like the end of a Scooby bloody Doo episode in here.”
Rube clapped his hands. “Wait till you hear this,” he nearly shouted. I don’t know — he appeared to be trying too hard. “Remember Octavia?”
“Of course.”
“Well.” He was more subdued now. “Looks like you’ll be seein’ a bit more of her again because —”
“I knew it!” Sarah went through him. She pointed at me. “I knew there was a girl, you little bastard, and you wouldn’t tell me anything!” I’d never seen Sarah grin like this. “Wait!” she said, and maybe thirty seconds later, she came back with her Polaroid camera and took an instant shot of Rube and me, both leaning against the sink.
