The Migration of Ghosts

by Pauline Melville

  Loretta guessed that the young communist was not more than twenty-two years old, short with a round serious face and spectacles. His brown hair was straight and fell in sickle curves on either side of his face. He had belonged to the Sem Terra for two years. Originally he came from São Paulo. In his hand he grasped a cheaply printed copy of the Communist Manifesto and some other tattered texts with pictures of Lenin on the front. Even in these circumstances, immediately after witnessing a massacre, his description and analysis of the events were illuminated by ideas and sayings gleaned from these books which he studied every night. Loretta listened carefully to what they said. His girlfriend was due to return to São Paulo where she would have the baby and then immediately give it up for adoption so that she could return and fight with the Sem Terra. Nothing, she said, flicking back her long straight hair, we have nothing. Nada. Nada. Loretta silently offered them bowls of maté tea. Just then Vincent had come in from building a pig pen, brushing himself down, filling the room with his sympathetic presence. Loretta did not speak. The Sem Terra were not liked by her own Macusi people. They burned the forest and squatted on the land. The Macusi claimed that the land was Indian territory.

  Loretta turned her face to the wall. The bed dipped in the middle, pulling her back towards Vincent whose snores sounded like a door steadily creaking. She put her hand out to touch the stippled cream wallpaper next to the bed. It felt cold and damp. The English room smelled stale and unused as if someone had died there a long time ago. It made her nauseous. For a while, in the dark, she tried to figure out what the rectangular shape sticking out of the opposite wall could be, then she realised it must be the washstand. Eventually she slept, dreaming that, instead of the struggle to fetch water from the well, her house in Brazil possessed taps with endlessly running water.

  They flew to Prague. Vincent, brimming with energy, was excited to be back in the haunts of his youth. Loretta found the large Embassy Hotel where they stayed oppressive. Breakfast was served between seven and nine in the morning. There was something disheartening about the restaurant’s heavy white tablecloths and the plain white dishes of dull fruit, muesli and cornflakes. The waitresses, uniformly thin girls whom the new, thrusting capitalism had taken by surprise, appeared like undernourished shoots from an old climate, and still retained the habit of keeping a discreet distance from foreigners. They blushed when asked for anything and went around in twos for confidence.

  Vincent stood next to Loretta inside the restaurant doorway, optimistically looking round for somewhere to sit. He was curious to see what changes had taken place in the country. Immediately he noticed how the restaurant was filling up with sharp-suited German businessmen, there for working breakfasts. Next to where they stood, one such breakfast was already under way. The German entrepreneur, a fair fleshy man, banged his fist on the table heartily and the cutlery jumped. He spoke in English.

  ‘We can build for you five hundred new police stations at an excellent price,’ he was saying to an executive of the new Prague government. ‘And if you give us that contract, our accounts department will give you the initial estimates for the new Dachau Road for nothing. Of course, we would hope to benefit eventually from the construction contracts for that road …’ His voice tailed off as he looked around for the pepper and salt to sprinkle over his sausages and tomatoes. As he dashed salt over his food, he stared sideways at his companion. Then he took a white envelope from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table.

  ‘Well, sadly our own Czech accountants are just not up to the job,’ replied the Prague official, who had a wispy moustache and looked too thin for his suit. He picked up the envelope full of US dollars that the German colleague had placed by his bowl of yoghurt. ‘I think we could safely say that your accounts department in Germany would be the best people to give us any estimates.’

  The more enthusiasm Vincent showed about sightseeing, the more silent Loretta became. She began to resent Europe altogether. They visited Prague Castle. Loretta stared unseeingly at the glass exhibition cases and stifled her yawns. The whole business bored her. Soon she was in a sulk. Later they threaded and ducked their way round Kafka’s tiny house within the castle precincts.

  ‘Imagine, this is where Kafka must have written The Castle,’ said Vincent, in awe. ‘It’s a wonderful book about bureaucracy – or is that The Trial? Anyway, I must get them for you. A great writer.’

  They stood on Karlov Bridge and looked down on the olive waters of the Vtlava. The wind was cold and made tiny criss-cross herring-bone patterns on the surface of the water. Great clouds moved fast behind the castle on the hill.

  ‘This all doesn’t mean too much to me,’ Loretta said, firmly setting herself in opposition to Vincent’s enthusiasm. She pulled her coat collar up against the wind.

  ‘Well, it does to me,’ expostulated Vincent, irritated by her negative responses. Sometimes her pessimism exasperated him. ‘I love it,’ he announced defiantly. ‘I used to come here as a child with my parents. I thought you would be interested.’

  They continued across the bridge in silence, both feeling in the right. In the middle of the bridge stood six young musicians playing traditional Slovakian songs on fiddles and drum. A confident fourteen-year-old boy with wide Slav cheekbones and cropped brown hair, which leaned forward like iron filings under a magnet, led the band on his fiddle. The slender girl singer looked defiant and free as she swayed to the music. A crowd had gathered around them. Loretta was startled by the appearance of one girl in the crowd who looked like an ice princess. Her blonde hair had been dyed almost white; scarlet lipstick slashed across her pale face. She looked to Loretta as if she had been turned upside-down and stuck in a bucket of bleach. Sometimes, the sheer whiteness of northern Europeans disconcerted her.

  The drummer, banging his hand-drum, turned in their direction and Loretta caught her breath in astonishment. He was unmistakably a native Indian like her: the same jet-black straight hair, the same brown face and flat features and fat brown eyelids over black pebble eyes. She pulled urgently on Vincent’s sleeve.

  ‘Look,’ she said, astounded, ‘an Amerindian boy.’

  Vincent looked.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Let me go and ask.’ And in one of the gaps between songs he went up to the band, engaging in conversation and animated mime with them as they tried to overcome the barriers of language. Eventually, he returned, laughing and shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘No, apparently he’s not Amerindian. He’s from Mongolia in what used to be the the USSR. His parents found their way here some years ago. He only speaks a little Czech. But your people are supposed to have come over from Mongolia originally, across the Bering Straits, aren’t they? Maybe that’s why you look alike.’

  ‘I never heard that,’ she said, frowning a little.

  The boy with the drum slung over his shoulder looked towards Loretta with curiosity. He nodded acknowledgement and gave a little bow. They faced each other across tens of thousands of years. She smiled back at him. Feeling unexpectedly liberated, Loretta forgot the sulk that had threatened to spoil the morning and walked happily, arm in arm with Vincent, towards Wenceslas Square.

  A street vendor had set up a stall. On one side he was selling old Russian army hats. On the other he was selling empty tin cans garlanded with labels that said, in bold red capital letters on a white background: ‘THE LAST BREATH OF COMMUNISM’. Loretta picked up one of the tins and looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s a joke,’ said Vincent. ‘It’s empty. Just air inside.’ He bought one for her and she put it in her bag, laughing.

  In the old part of town they came across more people gathered outside a church in a cobbled square. Loretta caught a glimpse of white.

  ‘Another wedding,’ she said.

  It took them a while to realise that the bride was a transvestite and that it was a mock wedding, a street theatre event. A gangly youth in a white bridal gown pretended reluctance at entering the church. Three burly ushers in formal
wedding attire tried to force him in. Every now and then the bride protested in an undisguisedly deep voice and a booted leg lashed out from beneath the lacy dress with the kick of a stallion. The crowd joined in the fun, egging on the bride and cheering. Finally, the bride shook the ushers free and to a scream of approval from the crowd, made a mad dash up the stone steps and into the tall fluted arch of the church entrance.

  Loretta had a disturbing sense of déjà vu. She seemed to know every detail of what was about to happen. For a few moments, as she walked along, the future merged vividly with the present. As the experience abated, she remembered the wedding in England and how she had imagined the bride turning into a man. It seemed to be coming true. Sometimes she felt she could make the world like that, dreaming it into existence. She frowned with concentration as she walked along. It all reminded her of something else too, a tale told by her mother who, in turn, had been told the story by a visiting Mayonkong trader from Venezuela.

  She trailed behind Vincent as he strolled through streets and markets, never looking behind him, enchanted by the old district of Prague. The images of her mother’s story unreeled in front of her eyes like a cinema film. First, there was the stone-like egg, from inside which it was possible to hear noises, words, songs, laughter and screaming. The owner of the stone-egg used to stick his head in there when he wanted to sleep because night was in there. The owner was away. Iarakaru the mischief-maker had opened up the stone-egg. All at once everything went dark. Night had burst out of the stone-egg. The mischief-maker, Iarakaru, was terrified. He started running in the dark, not as a man but as a white monkey. He was the grandfather of all white capuchin monkeys. He went running running into the arched trees at the forest entrance.

  Loretta emerged from her daze to find that Vincent had stopped in front of a tap-dancer performing to recorded North American music. He danced on top of a circular granite plinth about three feet high. The sun went in abruptly behind a dark scalloped cloud whose edge was lit with silver. To Loretta, everything seemed sinister all of a sudden. The young man tap-dancing wore a top hat, black tailcoat, white tie and white waistcoat. His shiny tap shoes were black. The click of the shoes sounded staccato on the granite. Amber-tinted glasses gave him the sly appearance of a secret policeman.

  ‘Let us go. Let us go.’ Loretta tugged once more at Vincent’s sleeve. He conceded and amiably moved on through the quiet streets, away from the tourist crowds. The afternoon drew on. They walked through flaking, decrepit stone buildings which still retained some warmth from the sun. Ordinary people went about their business. This is what it will be like when we are gone, thought Loretta, and Prague closes over behind us as if we had never existed. She would be grateful when they left.

  As they walked through the crumbling streets, it began to rain, a light drizzle. Suddenly, in the maze of streets, they stumbled across a heavy wooden door in the wall with the words ‘Laterna Magica’ written on it.

  Vincent pushed and the door opened. Together they entered a small empty courtyard. He shut the door behind them. It was quiet. All around, there were murals on the walls, painted in a childlike, slapdash manner. Rotund, naked women rolled in and under the blue waves, an aqueous erotica in pale blues and yellows, gentle and playful. The sight was entirely unexpected. Its mood belonged to a warmer climate. They stood still in the secluded courtyard as if treading water in the warm centre of the city. The heart of Prague, despite the Czech Republic being a land-locked country, seemed to belong to water spirits. A seductively pleasant, light-hearted freedom permeated the space. The tall buildings around on every side must have contained a few offices because, from nearby, a wave of laughter from some secretaries broke over them and one of the women began to sing.

  Loretta’s tongue began to tingle. She talked animatedly.

  ‘Do you think spirits can migrate?’ she asked. ‘This reminds me of some of our own water spirits. There is one story about a carnival, a big fête by the river. The young girls are told not to dance with a man wearing a hat. But a charming man in a hat who is a wonderful dancer arrives. He dances with one of the girls. In the morning she is gone. The man was really a river dolphin. He took her back to live under the water and she lived like this.’ Loretta gestured to the murals around her.

  ‘I don’t think spirits migrate,’ said Vincent, giving the topic his full attention. ‘Do you remember when I showed you the Tower of London? Well, you don’t find the ghost of Anne Boleyn walking around Roraima in Brazil with her head under her arm. In fact, now I think about it, spirits are quite conservative. They stick around the same place.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Loretta thoughtfully, but all the same, she felt cheerful, as if she had been sent a message by someone from home.

  ‘My god,’ yelled Vincent, smacking his forehead as he looked at his watch. ‘We have to get back quickly and change or we’ll be late for Iveta and Paul.’ They had arranged to meet his old friends that evening for dinner.

  The couple lived in a cramped apartment in a dilapidated block of flats not far from where Vincent and Loretta were staying. Another man had been invited for dinner as well, an attractive, younger man who worked as a singer and musician in a band. Iveta’s husband, Paul, was a middle-ranking accountant whose firm had nearly gone bankrupt since the velvet revolution. He was a shy man with short, colourless hair, who had grown plump since Vincent last saw him. Vincent watched Paul meekly serve spinach, tomatoes and dumplings to the younger man who was clearly having an affair with his wife.

  To Vincent’s embarrassment, Iveta, now grown excruciatingly thin, her chestnut hair piled up untidily on her head, shared constant jokes with her lover. Despite the presence of guests, they caressed each other with increasing lack of inhibition as the meal progressed. Her husband’s pink face shone with misery as the evening wore on.

  Loretta occupied herself with the task of eating. It was a relief that none of her hosts seemed to be interested in either her or the continent she came from. The lack of attention made her feel safely invisible.

  ‘Tell me all about the revolution, Iveta,’ said Vincent, clapping his hands together and trying to overcome the situation by exuding his usual bonhomie.

  ‘Well, we stood in Wenceslas Square for hours and it was freezing,’ said Iveta, taking a forkful of spinach and feeding it to the grinning young man. Clearly, she was not interested in the topic.

  ‘But are things better now?’ persisted Vincent.

  ‘Oh yes, I suppose so.’ She shrugged in a noncommittal way. ‘Children don’t have to learn Russian in schools any more. And we have McDonald’s and Benetton.’

  Paul got up to carve more pork. He tried to patch over Iveta’s obvious lack of interest in the country’s recent history.

  ‘There is a lot of investment coming in. A lot of new building work. My company of accountants is bidding for a contract to do the accounts for a new road they are building. The Dachau Road. We are very hopeful. The trouble is that outsiders are flooding in to set up new businesses. A French and Japanese conglomerate has bought this old apartment block, so we shall have to move. But if my company gets the contract I shall get a rise and perhaps we can move to a better area.’

  Paul knew that a move to a better neighbourhood was his one chance of holding on to his wife. He turned to her. Her head was resting on the young musician’s shoulder.

  ‘Where would you like to live, darling?’

  ‘Maybe I wouldn’t like to be settled any more. Maybe I would like to tour around,’ she said with a flirtatious glance at her lover.

  Vincent was taken aback by Iveta’s cruelty. At the end of the meal, Iveta offered or rather insisted on giving both of them and her musician friend a lift home. As Iveta took the plates into the cupboard of a kitchen, Paul, not wanting his wife to go out, whispered frantically to Vincent, ‘Please don’t let her. Please don’t let her give you a lift.’

  They turned down the lift and insisted on walking back, but it was no use. The musician acce
pted her offer with a sneering smile and the last they saw of her, she was nuzzling up against him in the front seat of the Lada before driving away, leaving Paul in his wretchedness to clear up.

  The situation shocked Vincent. Everything had changed since his last visit when Iveta and Paul had been full of warmth and contentment. He and Loretta walked to their hotel with that shameful feeling of relief that couples have after visiting another couple whose marriage is clearly in difficulty. Their own unlikely match did not seem in such bad shape.

  But back in England, that sense of partnership evaporated again. The day before they were to return to Brazil, Vincent borrowed his brother’s car and took Loretta for a final spin to see London all lit up at night. For reasons she herself did not fully understand, she had reverted to a mood of resistance to these outings. It was wet and after they had driven for more than half an hour in silence, he pulled the car up on the Embankment opposite a floodlit Big Ben and the House of Commons. The river on their left was silvery black like seething tar.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked in a temper. ‘Can’t you see that this is beautiful? Good god. I’ve taken you to London. I’ve taken you to Prague. Two of the great cities of the world and you don’t like any of it?’

  He peered up at Big Ben: the recently cleaned structure of stone lace was biscuit-coloured under the floodlights. Then he looked at her in puzzlement. The street lights made her complexion even more bronze and her hair a deeper black. Suddenly, his wife seemed a complete mystery to him. She stared straight ahead at the colours of the traffic lights swimming in the gleaming wet road.