Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  Danny wanted to hear about Kowalski. It would be Kowalski’s medal. Danny knew exactly what Kowalski would be thinking: that this time he could get there, step out of the other swimmer’s shadow, that this time the race would be his. Why wouldn’t they talk about Kowalski?

  ‘I think Daniel Kowalski will win this.’ The other commentators nodded their heads and one of them was about to answer when Danny’s mother called from the bathroom.

  He pretended he hadn’t heard. He wanted to hear them talk about Kowalski.

  ‘Danny!’

  Regan raised her head, looked over at him.

  ‘In here, now!’

  There was fresh warm water in the tub. He slipped the towel off his shoulders and stepped into the bath. His mother had fitted a new blade into the razor.

  ‘Lift your arm.’

  He raised his right arm and she began to lather his armpit.

  ‘Has it started?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah,’ Regan called. ‘It’s boring. Just stupid men talking—can’t we change channels?’

  ‘Regan,’ his mother cautioned, ‘don’t you dare change the channel.’

  ‘I won’t let her, Danny.’

  Danny smiled at his brother’s reflection in the bathroom mirror and Theo grinned back. Danny knew what his brother was thinking, he could read him as clearly as if there were actual words going from his brother’s brain straight to his, like telekinesis might be. Theo was thinking that it would be his brother there one day, where Perkins and Kowalski were. That would be Danny one day.

  ‘Ouch!’

  The razor scraped the inside of his armpit. It was tender there.

  His mother slid the razor carefully against the thicker hair. ‘Sorry, Danny, this will hurt more.’

  ‘Don’t cut me, Mum.’

  ‘I won’t, but you have to stand still. I know what I’m doing.’

  Did his mother do this for the women whose hair she cut? She had wanted to use wax on him as she did for her clients. But he had been fearful of the wax, thought it might burn, and if it burned it might blister. And blisters were worse than nicks. Blisters niggled worse than anything.

  His mother was close to him as she shaved him. He could smell her, the perfume that smelled like fruit but also had the hint of something unpleasant, too sweet. It made his nose twitch. His legs were all pink from being shaved. They didn’t look like his legs anymore. He turned away, impressed by what the mirror revealed. They were strong legs. Almost imperceptibly he tightened his buttocks and glanced back. He could see the muscles of his thighs, stretching, flexing, clearly defined. His calf muscle was like steel.

  ‘Don’t move,’ his mother scolded. She wiped the black hairs onto a small washcloth. He wanted to scratch; the itchiness stung now. He stood absolutely rigid, looking at his legs again in the mirror. He would not scratch, he would not scratch. He disappeared into the words, spelled them forwards and backwards. I space W-I-L-L space N-O-T space S-C-R-A-T-C-H space H-C-T-A-R-C-S space T-O- . . .

  There was an excited cheer from the TV in the next room.

  ‘Is it starting?’

  The letters disappeared, but the sting under his armpit was still there. There was a strong odour, like meat mixed with earth, coming from his mother. He had never been close to such a smell before and he knew, as if by instinct, that it only belonged to women.

  ‘Mum,’ he whined, ‘it’s starting.’

  ‘Kids, are they anywhere near the starting blocks?’

  ‘No,’ Theo answered. Nevertheless he was excited about something, he could see something that Danny couldn’t see, because he was now kneeling on the bed and looking at the screen.

  ‘There,’ his mother announced, satisfied.

  The flesh under his arm was red, inflamed. She rubbed him with lotion but the sting didn’t quite go away. He flinched and she gave him a mocking smile and unexpectedly kissed him on the brow. ‘Now you know what we women go through.’

  What? He didn’t understand. Then he remembered from when he was a small boy a summer picnic in Whittlesea, his mother lying on the grass smoking, a glass of wine in her other hand. She had been wearing a sleeveless dress, and whenever she raised the hand with the cigarette in it he had caught a glimpse of coarse short black hairs growing back in her armpit. It had disgusted him, like seeing stubble on an old woman’s chin.

  He raised his other arm for his mother to shave him there.

  Danny was saying the names to himself like a kind of prayer: Kowalski, Perkins, Brembilla; Kowalski, Perkins, Brembilla. That was what he was hoping for, Kowalski, Perkins, Brembilla. There was a hush in the motel room, and even the television announcers fell silent. The first youth was called to his block; he raised his arms and the South African flag appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Ryk Neethling; Danny didn’t think anything of Ryk Neethling, for it wasn’t possible that he could win. After Neethling was Hoffmann from Germany—he was a chance. Neethling, then Hoffmann, then Akatyev from Russia. Danny leaned forward as the young man approached the block. He hadn’t seen Akatyev before. He turned the name around in his mouth, liking the sound of it: A-KA-ty-EV. It was a much better name than Kelly.

  And then it was Kowalski. Who tried to smile, who waved at the cluster of Australian supporters waving their flags in the stalls, but Danny could see that all Kowalski was thinking about was the race ahead, the race that was his, that now belonged to him. It is yours, it is yours, Danny whispered deep into himself, because he knew that everyone else, everyone in the world wanted Perkins to win, to shrug off the lack of form, the illness, the bad year, nearly missing out on a place in the finals. Everyone—except Danny—wanted Perkins to win. But it was Kowalski’s race. Danny hardly registered Graeme Smith, the man from Great Britain, take to his block; he was still seeing the strain on Kowalski’s face as he tried to smile. A feeling of unease crept up from Danny’s gut. The strain on Kowalski’s face seemed a premonition of bad luck.

  Emiliano Brembilla was called and moved to his block, looking relaxed. Danny noticed his strong long legs—Danny’s would be that strong one day. One day he too would stand on an Olympic block, not anxious, not strained. Brembilla could win it, he thought, he had been the best swimmer in the heats; Brembilla could steal it from Kowalski. He whispered to himself, Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins.

  His eyes were on the screen but he didn’t see Masato Hirano from Japan. (Hirano can’t get it, Hirano can’t win it.) He could only see Kowalski and Brembilla. It was the cheers that forced him to make sense of the images in front of him. Theo and Regan were cheering, his mother was smiling; Perkins had his arms in the air and the Australians in the crowd were making a din. It sounded like the whole world was cheering. He thought of Kowalski: what must he be thinking? Was he not worthy of such adulation? The bad feeling grew in Danny’s gut. He had a smile on his face; he could have even said to Theo, Perkins can still get it, but that would be a lie. That wasn’t his prayer. His prayer was Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. His prayer wasn’t answered. Perkins led at the one hundred, at the five hundred, at the one thousand; and even though by the twentieth lap Danny could see that Perkins had slowed, was showing fatigue, the others were not equal to his swim. It was only to be silver for Kowalski, but then Danny started fearing that the swimmer might have started too strongly. Kowalski had been chasing Perkins from the very beginning. It was Perkins and it was Kowalski and then Perkins and Kowalski and Brembilla and for a moment Danny thought, He’s got it in him, he’s gonna push through, but then it was Perkins and Hoffmann and Kowalski and then it was Smith who began to scare Danny, for it was Smith who didn’t tire, unlike Brembilla and—Danny knew it as well as if he was there in the pool, as if he himself had become the struggling swimmer—unlike Kowalski. The race was won long before it was over; Perkins was half a body length, then a body length, then two body lengths in front, and then he pulled away to a place where victory seemed to be propelling him forwa
rd, where victory seemed to be swimming alongside him, where every doubt and every injury and every failure had been vanquished. And it was half a body length and a body length and two body lengths before it was five metres and then ten metres and finally he was twenty metres in front, and it was the last one hundred metres and Danny’s heart was sinking though he was not showing it at all, he was screaming, just like his brother and sister were screaming, both of them jumping up and down on the bed, ‘Go, Kieren! Go, Kieren!’ just like the commentators were screaming, like the crowd in the stadium, like the whole world. It was the last one hundred metres and Smith was coming in second and Kowalski was trailing and Brembilla could not win, and then it was the final fifty metres and Kowalski’s turn was beautiful, it put him neck and neck with Smith, and Danny heard an announcer yell, ‘Fight for the silver, son!’ and he didn’t know why but he felt that he had to scream so loud that it would tear his throat, ‘Fight for the silver, Daniel, fight for the silver, son!’ It was twenty-five metres and Kowalski and Smith were neck and neck and it was ten metres, Perkins had gold and Kowalski and Smith were neck and neck. And it was the finish, and the first hand to touch the tiles was the hand of the swimmer in lane four and just as it did so the swimmer in lane five also slapped the tiles. It was Perkins, Kowalski, Smith. It was gold for Australia, it was silver for Australia. Theo was jumping so high his mother was calling for him to stop, fearful he might hit his head on the ceiling, Regan was crying, the whole world was shouting and screaming and crying. This was what it felt like, thought Danny, this was what it should feel like. But there was an emptiness at the centre of him.

  No, there wasn’t. There couldn’t be.

  It was the best result—Kieren Perkins had made history. But there was a hole in Danny’s stomach. No, no, there wasn’t. This was one of the great moments in sport.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he screamed. ‘We’ve got silver, we’ve got gold. What a hero. What a hero.’ He didn’t look at the screen, not yet, not yet, because he didn’t want to see Kowalski’s face.

  ‘Look,’ his mother announced, ‘look at Perkins going to shake Daniel’s hand. That’s the first thing he does, that gives you the measure of the man, doesn’t it?’

  But Danny couldn’t look, couldn’t look at Kowalski’s face, at Brembilla’s face, at the face of the man who had come fourth—who wouldn’t stand on the dais, who wouldn’t hear any cheers. Only one man won. He could hear the Coach: Only one man comes first. Perkins won. But Kowalski and Smith, Brembilla, Neethling, Hirano, Hoffmann, Akatyev—they all lost. Only one man comes first. ‘Silver and gold,’ he screamed, hugging Theo, hugging Regan, hugging his mother, dancing. But it hadn’t been Kowalski, Brembilla, Perkins. He knew then that he had learned something, something about not letting it show. Not showing the strain of it, the anxiety of it nor the terror of it. He wouldn’t ever let it show. Only losers let it show.

  Later, when they had seen Perkins and Kowalski and Smith be awarded their medals, after hearing ‘Advance Australia Fair’, his mother called him back to the bathroom. ‘We haven’t finished, Danny.’

  She had filled the bottom of the bath with lukewarm water and this time she lathered his chest, spreading foam down his firm flat stomach to just above the line of his Speedos. Her hands were warm but he didn’t like that her hands were on him, didn’t want to think about how close they were to his bits. He could see a thin knot of black pubes escaping from the top of his costume and he wanted to push her away. He wanted her hands off him. He closed his eyes, screwing them shut so tight there were streaks of red and white light dancing in the blackness. But within the twists and the twirls of the light, he could see the face of Daniel Kowalski, he could see the tightness of his forced smile as he approached the block. Danny would not give in to fear and anxiety. He would learn from Kowalski; he would be as good a swimmer as Kowalski was, but a better competitor. Like Kowalski, he didn’t have the perfect skin, the perfect smile, the perfect pedigree. At the school meets, it was Taylor who got the loudest cheers, whose name was called, who got the other boys stomping their feet in the bleachers. It was Taylor they screamed for—Tazza! Tazza! Tazza!—not Danny. He would fight the envy, he would take it on and give it back to them. He would not swim for the adulation. He would swim to win.

  He could feel the cold blade scraping down his sternum. It was only when he could feel that she had finished that he opened his eyes. He went to step out of the bath.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she chided softly. ‘We haven’t quite finished. Turn around.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s just some hair on your back—’

  ‘My back!’ He was furious at her. He hated her and he hated his dad. Who wouldn’t pay for the electrolysis. Who wouldn’t pay for fucking anything.

  He saw that Theo was looking up, alarmed by his shout.

  ‘It’s OK.’ He knew his mother was stifling a laugh. He wanted to insult her, to call her something that would humiliate her. Bitch. You’re a bitch. ‘It’s normal, just some hair on the small of your back. It’s normal, Danny.’

  It wasn’t normal for Taylor or for Perkins. It was normal for wogs. Normal for ugly wogs, like her.

  ‘It’s OK, we don’t have to do it.’ His reaction had startled her.

  She wasn’t ugly, she was beautiful. She was going grey but she still looked younger and more attractive than any of the other mums at school; those women were all hard sharp lines: the cut of their hair, the jut of their chins and cheeks, the fit of their clothes. His mother was curves and flesh. His mother was beautiful. She would do anything for him. He watched her work the gel into a lather in her hand. He was the one who was ugly.

  He turned around, and let her shave him.

  It is your race to win. It was the first thing he told himself that morning when he threw back the blanket and looked down at his new smooth body. It is your race to win. He kept whispering it to himself while warming up in the gym. He repeated it to himself as he flexed his muscles in front of the long mirrors, wishing he could strip, wishing it was like the ancient days when athletes competed naked, wishing it were those days so he could stand in front of the mirror loving his new hairless body that allowed him to see every curve and hollow of each muscle. He worked out—nothing too strenuous that could pull a muscle. At one point Danny put down the barbells. He was sweating heavily, it was a shiny casing over his new skin. No one was looking at him, they were all concentrating on their own bodies, their own future. He slowly pulled up the bottom of his singlet to his upper chest. His abdomen glistened, his chest gleamed. He was all muscle and he was clean and smooth. He looked like Kowalski and Perkins and Brembilla.

  He would win the two hundred metre freestyle. He would win it because he deserved it, because it was his to win. It was his race to win.

  He kept telling himself that with every lap he swam in his preparations that morning. The water slid by his new body, caressed it. In the water, he could feel his speed and power.

  He could feel this speed and this power standing on his block, awaiting the signal to dive in. He knew Taylor was in the third lane but he didn’t think about that again. He thought no more about Taylor, who also wanted to win that race. But Taylor wouldn’t win that race because it wasn’t his to win. It is my race to win. He dived and his body entered the water as if he were in one of his flying dreams. Time once again receded. He knifed into the water and then he was slicing the water that bent and shifted and became his. He breathed more freely than he did in the air. He knew that he was at the twenty-five-metre mark, but time did not exist. He was breathing, swimming, bending and being in the water. He was at one hundred metres and he was breathing and bending and shifting the water. One hundred and twenty-five metres and his muscles, his new body, were doing all that he wanted them to do. With every turn he could feel the muscles in his thighs, in his calves, in his shoulders as his arms lifted and broke and shifted the water. It was one hundred and fifty metres but time did not exist and he was shifti
ng and bending and conquering the water. His hand touched the tiles at the end of the pool and he didn’t even need to look up, he didn’t need anyone to tell him that he had won.

  He had won.

  In the warm-down pool he found that he was shivering and fighting wave upon wave of nausea. Then the pain started, first in his chest, then in his leaden arms which felt as if the muscles were ballooning. They felt as though they would burst through his skin, but he knew that they were in fact constricting, that the pain would come sporadically throughout the day, and would intensify and deepen in the night. The next morning his body would feel far from new, but he would have to get back in the pool and struggle to make his body bend and conquer the water once again. The water would not love him as it had during the race; tomorrow it would once more be a force to battle, to master, to defeat. He exhaled and the pain lessened. Slowly his teeth stopped chattering, his muscles loosened, and his cramps began to subside. He looked around to see Taylor shivering next to him. The other boy was taller, with a bigger chest and longer arms, but his legs weren’t as strong as Danny’s. Danny suddenly understood that he had won it with his kicks, in the water and at the turns. He felt down to his smooth new thighs and almost groaned as the pain kicked into him again. He raised his arm in a mock salute.

  Taylor nodded quietly, a half-smile on his face—a loser’s attempt at a smile, thought Danny. Taylor extended his hand. ‘Congratulations, Danny.’

  He’d fucked it. He should have been the first to offer the handshake, as Perkins had with Kowalski. That was what a true sportsman did, that was what would be in all the papers that morning, he was sure of it: the handshake. Should he hug Taylor or would that be a loser’s thing to do? He should have been the first to extend his hand. He would never make that mistake again. Being gracious was Taylor’s attempt to get under his skin, Taylor trying to undermine him. Give it back, turn it on him. Danny put an arm around Taylor’s shoulders, looser than a hug. Taylor’s skin was smooth, he still had a child’s skin—he could afford electrolysis but he didn’t need it, he would always be smooth. Danny’s arm over Taylor’s shoulder wasn’t drawing him in, it was just an affectionate jokey touch which said, We both did well, we were neck and neck for a while, but I won.