Sea of Many Returns

by Arnold Zable

  I wanted to lose myself in the crowd, to fall into its collective stride, propelled by the momentum of a journey that had conveyed me from the Ionian in blacked-out ships across the hemispheres via war-torn ports, to within sight of a desolate west coast. Then by rail to an inland city built on foundations of red dirt, where the raging mob bayed for our blood, ‘Go back to where you fuck’n come from,’ forcing us east beside the newly laid tracks of the trans-continental rail. And after many diversions and detours, chance encounters and miscalculations, I now stood on a summer morning on the threshold of a bustling metropolis, and envisioned possibilities I would never have imagined when I scanned horizons from the summit and awaited my father’s return.

  I glanced at Stratis and knew instantly he had similar thoughts. We burst out laughing and once started, found it difficult to stop. It was Old Niko I recalled as we laughed, leaping to his feet, dancing about the hovel, hands cupped to his ears, bellowing, ‘Listen! Listen to the voices of merchants climbing over each other like ants scrambling for air. Cosmos is the most beautiful of words. Cosmos is a straining for perfection out of chaos. Cosmos means harmony, but first we must enter the chaos and withstand the howling of wild dogs.’

  The noise of the city brought us back to our senses. I dusted off my jacket, lifted my suitcase and violin, stepped onto the pavement with Stratis, and flagged down a horse-drawn cab. The Gambler was right. I should approach life as a game of cards, accept that all is decided by the roll of the dice, and allow myself to be conveyed through a frenzy of cable trams, hansom cabs, wagons and bicycles, automobiles and pedestrians, one block west, and three blocks north, to the corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets, where we stepped out, paid the driver and hauled our suitcases up a flight of stairs to the rooms of the Ithacan Club.

  Put down your bags, take the weight off your feet, have a slice of halva, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, the manager urged. The boys will soon be here for lunch. At midday they began to arrive. Compatriots we had last seen in Port Said and Patras, Piraeus, Kalgoorlie, and on the island working limekilns and terraces, making their way to the fishing grounds. Or sitting, as they sat now, among friends, free to curse and call each other wanker, to speak the familiar tongue, free to scheme and lay future plans in the reassuring arms of the brotherhood.

  Among them sat Antonios Lekatsas, Mr Lucas, as the many waiters and chefs, accountants, kitchen hands, hostesses and cloakroom attendants on his payrolls, called him. And before the day was out we would be one of them, hired on the spot to work in Cafe Australia, one of the three establishments that Lekatsas owned within walking distance of the club.

  Not one to waste time Lekatsas guided us down the stairs, two city blocks south from Lonsdale to Collins Street. Gone was the laboured walk of the mountain boy, and the bow-legged gait of the seaman lurching from port to port. Gone was Antonios Ioannis Gerasimos Lekatsas of Exogi, second child of Ioannis the priest, and his wife Magdalene, grandchild of peasants tethered to the Ithacan earth and fishermen confined to Ionian coasts.

  In his place strode Antony John Jereos Lucas, fifty-four years old, hair receding from the temples, a man in his prime, dressed in a pin-striped suit, white tie upon white shirt, fob watch on a gold chain, black shoes polished to a silver glow, a man of many guises: entrepreneur, philanthropist, community dignitary, patron of the arts and orthodox churches, co-founder of the Ithacan Club.

  To this day I do not know which of his names to employ. Each has its connotation, each resides in its own universe, and on this first morning as he rushed before us, he alternated between Lekatsas and Mr Lucas, Ithacan compatriot and patron, fellow villager and boss. Stratis and I hurried to keep up as we turned left from Elizabeth into Collins Street and came to a halt at an arched entrance of white quartz. Lekatsas urged us through glazed-doors into the portal, where we stood in astonishment before a corridor of light.

  The light drew us on through the Fountain Court, flanked by three piers with reliefs of bare-breasted Echo, Daphne and Persephone, named in Greek lettering on the pedestals. Before we could take a second breath, Lekatsas was ushering us into the Fern Room, where we sat at circular tables flanked by three columns clad with gold delft tiles, encircling tubs of greenery. Goldfish darted about pools glowing with coloured lights, but before our bums had time to settle, Lekatsas was up and moving, urging us up a marble stairway to the grand Banquet Hall, where the last of the lunch diners sat over the remnants of their meals.

  ‘Tomorrow you will be working,’ he said, ‘but for now you are my guests. I want you to know what it is to be served, so that you will serve our diners with care and respect.’ He clicked his fingers to summon a waiter who relieved us of our jackets and helped us into our seats. He had started here as a waiter, Lekatsas recounted, when the cafe was known as Gunsler’s. In 1908 he had bought out the owner, and renamed it the Vienna, a name he would have preferred to retain since it evoked refinement.

  The cafe had earned a reputation as the city’s choice venue for coffee and dessert. Alas the adopted country was at war with Austria, and in the previous year, drunken soldiers on leave had stoned the entrance and cursed the patrons for dining in a cafe that bore the name of enemies who, at that very moment, were slaughtering their mates.

  A master at transforming adversity to advantage, Lekatsas had seized upon the enforced closure and hired the world’s best architect, no less, a Mr Walter Burley Griffin, to remodel the cafe. He had spent fifty thousand pounds to make this the premier cafe in the city. The work had been completed the previous November, and the elite of the city had attended the gala opening: politicians, councillors, architects and designers, artists, sculptors, the bohemian set and their entourages. And Nellie Melba, the opera singer, in person,’ added Lekatsas, still in awe of the fact.

  He had named his new establishment Cafe Australia because, as he now reminded us, we lived in patriotic times and must not bite the hand that feeds us. We should be thankful that with hard work and daring, and by adopting a polite and restrained demeanour, a newcomer could make his way to success.

  At two o’clock sharp, as arranged, the Griffins arrived. They strode to our table and, in response to Mr Lucas’ introductions, shook our hands. Marion Mahoney Griffin was taller and five years older than her husband, slim and straight-backed, with a sharp nose and an elongated neck. She walked head tilted forward like a spindly waterbird in search of prey. Her eyes were close set and flashed when she spoke. In contrast, dressed in a loose-fitting flannel suit with wide lapels and a knitted silk bow tie, Walter Burley Griffin was quietly spoken, with considered opinions, and at ease with his place in the world.

  Despite their differences the couple spoke as one. Ideas poured from them like the spring waters of the Kalamo. I strained to understand their Chicago-accented English, even with Lekatsas’ whispered translations. They were democrats they affirmed, and true democracy meant independence of thought. They sought their authority from within, rather than from an imposed external source.

  Their preferred clients were people of vision, and the best of clients were newcomers, immigrants willing to take risks. Adventurous souls like Mr Lucas, who could appreciate beauty, though he had to be cajoled, mind you, over long nights of discussion, until he was won over to their designs.

  While war raged their task was to keep the flame of creativity alive. The flame would not, said the Griffins, be extinguished in dark times. Their life’s work was the creation of an architecture that would elevate the spirit. We were, despite it all, living in exciting times. Great discoveries were being made in atomic physics, the newest science. Did we know of Einstein and his theories? Everything was interconnected, everything alive: from the human spirit to the raw material of the natural world.

  The architectural styles of the past could be adapted to the new world. They had applied these principles, the Griffins claimed, in their grand vision of the nation’s new federal capital, Canberra, and this vision had brought them here from Chicago, two years e
arlier, as winners of an international competition for the coveted job.

  Light was the word I heard most frequently in that first encounter. The Griffins were obsessed with light. Light united exteriors and interiors, and allowed the commerce of the streets to flow inside. Light created space, and shed new meaning on the Banquet Hall mural depicting gum trees shrouded in mist. Light filtered through the patterned glass ceilings on the lower level, creating the effect that had so astonished us when we first stepped inside. And the city was cast in afternoon light as Lekatsas ushered us through the arched entrance back into Collins Street.

  Within minutes we stood on the threshold of the Paris Cafe. Among the waiters who greeted us were men we had met hours earlier in the Ithacan Club. They glided from room to room, and from table to table, dressed in tuxedos and bow ties. They hovered attentively over the guests in vast dining halls where, said Lekatsas, luncheons, afternoon teas, and three-course dinners were served in the Continental style.

  Lekatsas conducted us into rooms reserved for private suppers, where waiters were laying tables for the pre-theatre guests. The walls were lined with mirrors to create an illusion of spaciousness. The silverware, said Lekatsas, had been imported from London and Paris, and the cuisine prepared by a French chef.

  Like a man running on needles Lekatsas plunged back into the evening rush. We hurried past the town hall in Swanston Street and extricated ourselves from the throng at the three-storey building directly opposite, emblazoned with letters proclaiming Lucas’ Town Hall Cafe. Years later I can still see the displays in the shop-front windows: pyramids of peaches, plums and nectarines, mountains of boiled sweets and chocolates.

  The guests were greeted in the foyer by tuxedoed attendants, hostesses in black skirts and white blouses, and by Mrs Margaret Lucas nee Wilson, co-founder and manager of the cafe. A shrewd businesswoman, and the formidable force behind the Lucas empire, she supervised the staff of seventy with a firm hand and a flair for elegance. The Town Hall Cafe was the couple’s first venture, opened in 1894, a year after they were wed.

  Lekatsas guided us from the foyer into the ground floor cafe in which fruit platters, tea and coffee, ices and summer drinks were being served. A staircase rose from the cafe to the first floor dining hall. We glanced into rooms for ladies only and boudoirs fitted, said Lekatsas, with everything required for a woman’s adornment.

  We climbed to the top floor and inspected smoking rooms reserved for gentlemen, and rooms that could be converted at a moment’s notice into venues for euchre parties, soirées, club nights and banquets. The three-storey establishment, said Lekatsas, was a palace fuelled by a bakehouse and kitchen, fitted with gas stoves and vast ovens, alongside ice-rooms filled with fruit and provisions for 650 guests, no less.

  The secret of his success, Lekatsas proclaimed, was a willingness to spend large sums on renovations that appealed to refined tastes. The Continental cuisine, the table appointments and service, chandeliers and carpets, the string quartets, the elegant attire of the waiters and waitresses, and their unobtrusive presence, said Lekatsas, had placed his three coffee palaces on a par with the world’s best.

  I could not sleep that night. I lay in bed and replayed the scenes of the past day: arriving on the overnight train from Port Augusta, where we had parted with the Gambler; Stratis and I laughing beneath the station clocks as we surveyed the morning rush; climbing the stairs to the Ithacan Club, its walls lined with prints of familiar hamlets and ports; Lekatsas guiding us through the streets to the gilded reliefs of ancient goddesses in the Cafe Australia; the Griffins’ avalanche of ideas and the rapt attention with which Lekatsas listened while simultaneously keeping an eye on his staff; and the wall-mirrors in the Paris Cafe in which I caught my reflection beside Stratis, and saw two sunburnt peasants in weathered suits among well-heeled gentlemen and perfumed ladies out for a night on the town.

  And Antony John Jereos Lucas, grandmaster of ceremonies, standing beside Mrs Lucas, his comrade-in-arms, at the door of the Town Hall Cafe, the couple waving as we left, and made our way to the boarding house where we were to spend our first night. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I saw him, Lekatsas, saw the village boy in the man: a triumphant bow-legged goat scrambling to the summit, scaling miraculous heights.

  The meeting with the Griffins remained firmly in mind when I began work the following day. From time to time, the couple made their way from their offices in Collins Street to the Banquet Hall. They sat for hours with Lekatsas and discussed future plans. I was surrounded by their creations.

  Every morning I stepped through the glazed doors and walked the corridor of light. Each object had been designed by the Griffins: the balustrades and chinaware, ventilators and menu cards, the high-backed chairs composed of rectangles, the tables of native timbers, dark stained blackwood in preference to oak; and the blue tiles and black granite that flanked the arched entrance.

  The couple inspired me to learn English quickly. I strolled to the State Library after work and bent over the writings to which they had directed me. There were times when, frustrated by the limits of my untrained mind, I almost wept at not being able to decipher their meaning. I assembled Greek–English dictionaries and kept notebooks in which I scribbled new words and phrases. I studied lists of vocabulary by the kitchen table in the boarding house late into the night.

  It was a fifteen-minute walk from the cafe to the wrought iron gates of the library. I ascended the stone steps from the forecourt to the columned portico, stepped into the foyer, and climbed a flight of marble stairs to the reading room. From the moment I stepped in I felt an uncanny sense of familiarity. I climbed the cast iron staircase that spiralled from the floor to the upper galleries, and leaned on the balustrades.

  The room was laid out in a perfect octagon. Eight elongated spokes of oak, lined with desks, extended from the central rotunda to the book-lined walls. Three smaller desks made up the spaces between each spoke. The four entrances were equidistant, as if placed at the major points of the compass. The base of the dome contained sixteen portholes, two to each side of the octagon. Daylight streamed through the glass-panelled portholes, casting pools of light over the linoleum far below.

  I lifted out books at random, took them to the oak desks, opened them out on black-leather writing-pads, and settled back in an adjustable chair. In time, sentences, paragraphs and entire chapters began to reveal their meanings. A new language was taking shape, a language that for many months had seemed beyond reach.

  I moved from the few works written by the Griffins to volumes devoted to architecture. I battled through papers depicting the rise of the new sciences, elated with the idea that matter and energy were one. I leaned close to the books and sniffed the scent of times long past. I read as the sun streamed through individual portholes and rendered the pages golden. I read until day gave way to pools of amber cast by shaded globes, and, lifting my head, saw that the skylights were covered in night.

  I left the reading room and wandered the streets of the city. I allowed myself to be swept along by the throng streaming to and from theatres and movie houses, coffee palaces and dance halls. I paused to listen to preachers who spoke of apocalypse and eternal damnation, and marvelled at their venom. I threw coins into the violin case of a street musician, and made out the motifs of ancient architectures woven into the buildings. The new city, I now understood from my reading, was composed of the accumulated visions of ages past.

  Whenever I returned to the domed room I was assailed by the sense of familiarity I had felt when I first stepped in. One afternoon, as I lifted my head after hours of study, it occurred to me that the ascending galleries were an inversion of the terraced landscapes to which I had been born, and the shelves of books that lined them, pathways to the heights. The portholes were telescopes that illumined the oak and linoleum, just as the Ithacan sun spotlighted tiled roofs and bell towers in its daily passage over the slopes.

  The ground-floor desks seemed as far from the dome’s ape
x as the lower hamlets from the summit, and the bas-reliefs on the balconies as intricate as the impressions created by wind-blown olives. The entire dome was a giant brain vaulting to the heavens, and the panelled skylights the membrane of the summit. In that moment the idea, or call it illusion, took hold: I had found my way back to the mountain. I had returned home.

  Stratis and I moved to a rooming house in Gertrude Street, twenty minutes’ walk from the cafe, and he occasionally read beside me beneath the dome. We were united in our passion for knowledge, but there was one vital difference between us. Stratis’ wife and two boys remained on the island. It was his unspoken burden. His longing could be triggered at any time. The sight of a father playing with his sons, a family strolling on a summer night, or children at play in the alleys unnerved him. ‘One more damned year,’ he would mutter, ‘and I will return.’

  He moved from job to job, from building sites to restaurants. As soon as he accumulated capital, he set himself up in a small business: a fruit stand at the Victoria market, a milk bar in Fitzroy, a small cafe in Elizabeth Street. The pendulum swung between small fortunes won and small fortunes lost. There were times, after losing out on one of his ventures, when his eyes betrayed his panic. He would lie in bed for days before regaining his composure. ‘One more damned year,’ he slurred, like a punch-drunk boxer rising from the canvas.

  He was not alone. Each of us separated from family approached it in our own way. Some lost themselves in the company of friends in the rooms of the brotherhood. There were those who kept mistresses and frequented brothels. There were those who disappeared with their second ‘wives’, and those who vanished without trace. There are details I do not wish to divulge. Why blacken the names of families who were later reunited? Why disturb the ghosts of those who did what many others would have done in their place?