by Murray Bail
‘Take the Industrial Revolution! It could not have occurred without the full co-operation of thousands of legs. Those pale thin legs of the…downtrodden.’
Borelli nodded: they each understood together. He nodded at Borelli’s walking stick.
Splints and artificial limbs keep a man going: chiefly of varnished wood, though the trend these days is to plastic and aluminium—so a small sign with many spelling errors noted. A fine example of an antique peg leg was found to be, when they bent down, riddled with white ants. They were like maggots. Alongside it a Chinese model carved in pure ivory had millions of human hairs glued to its calf, for authenticity’s sake. And the guide, still going on about the storming of the Winter Palace and the tommies wading into the sea at Dunkirk, reached out and stubbed his cigarette into a large circular ashtray which happened to be an elephant’s ankle. Civilisation and its contents.
‘Any questions at this juncture? Mi lasci passare, per piacere.’
For they were crowding around barrels of insuetude shoes, the girls holding up greaves and clogs, delicately embroidered slippers, and exclaiming at the sabots from Normandy, boots and bootees (and jackboots), the ballroom pumps and moist galoshes, rope sandals, stilettoes, the inevitable blue thongs (one missing), wellingtons and moccasins, English plimsolls, a pair of Viet Cong sandals crafted from a Michelin tyre. Most were down at the heel and dusty, stained with sweat inside.
Agostinelli enjoyed their keen interest. There were comments and grimaces the way determined bargain hunters crowd the opening of a store’s annual Fire Sale. When Borelli went up and asked about Italy, Agostinelli only nodded, his eyes on the others.
‘The History of Footwear has been inserted at this point to provide light relief. It always works. These are cast-offs from the Bally Shoe Museum, in Switzerland. Do you know it?’
Borelli shook his head. ‘We haven’t been to Switzerland.’
‘The first measurements of distance were naturally made by the legs,’ the monopede remembered his job. ‘There is a universal harmony. When we run each step is about equal to our height.’
They trailed after him again, glancing to the left and right, as Agostinelli talked with his red back to them: difficult to get a word in edgeways. Fully warmed to the subject now he managed sometimes to fling an arm out as he heaved on the crutches, his tenor’s voice bouncing off the ceiling, walls and exhibits and back to them.
Arranged in a glass cabinet were examples of elastic garters and stockings through the ages. A misty photograph showed a man’s hand on a woman’s slender knee; Sasha couldn’t help laughing.
‘Madame,’ Agostinelli came tripping back, ‘permit me to be frank. Allow me to point out the obvious. Above the knee, your legs spread out and meet at the top—pointing to what?’ His voice had gone hoarse. He stared at Sasha. ‘Your legs,’ he persisted, gently, ‘point upwards to what?’ Glancing at Violet, Sasha reddened; North sauntered over to the collection of walking sticks. ‘Straight up,’ the Italian yelled, ‘to the most mysterious sacred centre of the body, your essence! To the centre of life itself. That is why we—I speak not only of myself—are drawn to a woman’s legs. We know what awaits at the top. Scusi…’ He bent down. ‘Ah, you have possibly the finest ankles I have encountered. They are museum quality.’
‘What’s he on about?’ Hofmann asked. He couldn’t hear at the back.
Sasha was looking around for North, but he was discussing with Gerald the selection of table legs, mainly South American. Violet told her, ‘You’ve got a great future. These Italians; but he is a world authority.’
‘He’s made good points,’ said Borelli. ‘I think he’s pretty good, don’t you think?’
He had asked Sheila, but she could only blink.
Nearby, Louisa said, ‘Oh, he makes it sound mechanical. He’s very theoretical. It’s not as simple. I don’t believe anything is,’ she added.
‘For a man on crutches,’ Borelli admitted, ‘he certainly is agile.’
‘I think so, yes,’ said Sheila suddenly.
Agostinelli had sketched the leg’s importance in evolution, in religion, in art. Wall posters showed how it figures in axioms and wise slogans handed down over the ages.
BEST LEG FORWARD
ONE STEP AHEAD
‘Feet of clay!’
YOU’RE PULLING MY LEG!
I CAN’T STAND IT
Such evidence supported Agostinelli’s overall view. Returning to history he switched from orthopaedics to metaphysics, to hold their interest.
‘Which country,’ he turned to them, ‘do you come from?’
‘Ah!’ said he respectfully. ‘A nation of travellers. You’ve never been afraid of using your legs. I understand Australian tourists are all over the globe. What are the figures? You must rank with the Americans and the Japanese. Why is this? Your country looks beautiful!’
‘Too right it is,’ said Doug.
But Agostinelli now mentioned the ‘feats’ of the early explorers, the boy scouts who trudged across the interior waste, in the end leaving a dying horse or camels. ‘On foot, on foot. One leg following the next. That is how your continent was opened up. From south to north, east to west. The despair!’
He knew more about the early explorers than they.
As well as the megacephalic Burke and skinny Wills, and Eyre, Leichhardt, Voss, he broadened his canvas with other noteworthies, Richard Burton and Speke; and of course Polo from Venice; naturally he emphasised South America first with Cortez, then Col. Fawcett, and Humboldt, and Charles Darwin; and then those loyal waders who struggled towards the North and South Poles on wicker snowshoes. Wasn’t Mount Everest conquered on foot? These were some of the glorious episodes of man. It gave the colour and tragedy to maps.
Speaking of endurance, of pushing on further: several in the party were standing on one leg or resting against pillars. Expressions were distant; Sasha banged her buttocks with her handbag. At least Borelli had a walking stick. He could lean on it. In an informal aside Agostinelli mentioned a cousin living in the outback at Alice Springs for dodici years running the Sand Museum, which sparked some of them up. No one had heard of it.
A photograph of a leg said to be the hairiest in the Southern Hemisphere. Famous legs standing to attention. The co-ordinated kick of a line of can-can girls. Interesting X-rays revealing hairline fractures and the infrastructure of talipes.
‘Do you get many visitors here?’ Garry asked casually.
The director appeared not to hear. Garry remained bent over a showcase devoted to ‘Athlete’s Foot (tinea interdigitalis!) examples of.’ Someone had scratched into the glass with a diamond pencil: HERB ELLIOTT RON CLARKE WALTER LINDRUM (AUST.) WORLD RECORD BREAKERS. It was extremely effective. Like the subtitles at the beginning of films it was impossible to see the water skis, the medley of soiled basketball shoes and football boots, the cricketer’s pads, Polaroid shots of twisted ankles, without registering the names of those athletes and recalling their feats. Straightening up, Garry tugged his earlobe and looked around. The rest of the museum seemed empty. He turned to show Sheila but decided not to. She was listening earnestly to Phillip North.
Legs of sprinters leaving the blocks; a jockey’s calf alongside that of a horse: ha-ha.
The cantilevered action of the mahogany crutches had driven Agostinelli ahead and his high voice from behind a corner caused here and there a glance, a smirk. It had been his style all along. Again he returned to the primordial function of man’s legs: we keep going, one leg following the other, day after day, don’t stop. They support the weight of the body. Legs tire before the arms. ‘Feel them now,’ he urged unnecessarily. Inherent here is the persistence of man: the inbuilt momentum. In the end it is all we have. Our brittle legs.
A blankness had washed the facial expressions; it had ironed their movements; and the brows of the older ones became corrugated as they felt the dull weight on their legs. Even North who had spent much of his life scrambling over rocks felt the strain.
Interestingly, it made some—Mrs Cathcart, Violet and Gerald Whitehead—gradually bad-tempered. There appeared to be a subtle gradient here, and the floorboards felt as hard as iron. When they stopped and stood patiently the aching became a hunger, a soaking acidity. Certainly they were aware of themselves, of their bodies’ perimeters in weight, endurance and such. It was exactly as Agostinelli had said. They continued, one leg trailing the other, out of habit.
It was all very well for him: he had his blessed crutches.
Waiting for the stragglers—the Cathcarts, Borelli and Violet Hopper—the upholstered leather shoulders enveloped his armpits. Most of them would have given anything then for a pair of crutches; and yet as museums went this was by no means a large one. The director seemed to be aware of their tiredness. He gave them a long encouraging smile. ‘I have a headache coming on,’ Violet told him.
‘A lot of these museums become the same,’ Gerald was saying, complaining.
‘We are almost there, almost there. Ladies and gentlemen, please observe here this interesting graphic case.’ For the first time he pointed to one of the exhibits. They’d been standing beside it, and perhaps out of tiredness, had taken little notice. On the podium stood a life-size figure in a simple black dress, one arm outstretched like a window mannequin. They noticed then the face perspired under the spotlight, and an eyelid moved as a moth flew near. The woman—the figure—frowned slightly. She had grey hair pulled into a bun, a thin face. The director stepped in front of them.
He pointed to her legs.
Varicose veins.
Sounds of surprise and sympathy broke out as if their tongues had slipped sucking jubes. They shook their heads and stepped back for others to see.
These veins were like the roots of banyan trees which become part of stone walls and wrap around the trunks of other trees. It seemed as if her bulging tired soul was about to burst out from her limbs and leak.
‘What is your name, señorita?’ he asked for their benefit, and looked down at the floor.
A toneless voice: ‘Freda.’
As she spoke Kaddok who had fitted a flash took several pictures. There was some shuffling in the group at this, but Freda didn’t seem to mind.
‘Freda, how old are you?’
She told them.
‘How long have you been on your feet, as a waitress?’
‘Treinta siete años.’
‘In Mexico City,’ he explained to them.
They looked at her legs again.
‘The remarkable thing is,’ he said in a low voice, ‘is that these are not just any old varicose veins.’ He ran his hand over them. ‘You are perhaps not familiar with the region, but these duplicate the main rivers of Mexico. Below the knee there’—he pointed with his finger—‘is the entire network of the western reaches of the Rio Saldo.’ Agostinelli began moving away. ‘It is quite a find. Thank you, Freda. A real discovery. I don’t quite know what to make of it yet.’
It didn’t make much sense to any one of them, either. The legs were a blank statement, that was all.
Still it seemed necessary for some to declare a position. ‘I wouldn’t like to be in her sh—’ But it sounded wrong.
Louisa stayed behind and looked up at the waitress’s face. ‘The poor thing.’
She turned to Borelli. Such a sight made her pensive, heavily so.
‘In a street or at a bus stop we probably wouldn’t notice,’ he said. ‘It’s because she’s here.’
But Mrs Cathcart respected Louisa’s gaze. She would have nodded but Louisa wouldn’t have seen, so she assumed her grim determined expression. Things at least were not like this at home. The gnarled legs remained with them for a long time.
Trust Violet—to break the ice.
‘My legs are killing me. Are we through?’
Only Garry gave a snort, appreciating Violet.
As usual, as if they were at the end of a long journey, they began sparking up and talking again, although they were tired. There were wisecracks: a sign of relief and expectation.
The director remained the same, lecturing them over his shoulder. He turned a corner.
‘Do you still think he’s so interesting?’ Louisa asked Borelli. She touched his arm. ‘My, you look pale. Are you all right?’
She looked concerned. Louisa: so oval, smooth and blue.
‘It’s homesickness,’ he smiled weakly. ‘The subsequent melancholy produces paleness. I find it is often mistaken for a disease. Gum trees and heat and an expanse of beach give me back the required colour. All this is too technical and gan-green.’ He waved his walking stick: illustrations of artiodactyle freaks and plaster casts missed by the others.
‘Don’t be silly. What’s the matter?’
Borelli leaned forward. He seemed to be in pain.
‘Louisa, you’re very nice.’
He touched her cheek.
Instead, Louisa shook her head. Her breasts moved.
‘Why do you need that stick?’
She asked without looking down. The angle of his shoulder showed how he leaned on it now. In his faded jacket he could have been a Vietnam veteran convalescing on a verandah. He was the age.
‘It’s an affectation. I need sympathy from people, from women especially—like yourself—otherwise I’d come to a grinding halt. True.’
She looked away.
‘You won’t tell me.’
‘Listen…’
‘I don’t want anything to happen.’
‘Listen, everything I say is stupid. Don’t take much notice of what I say. And it’s the effect of this place, all these legs—they’re parts of ourselves. It has made me consider things. But I think you’re more interesting, really much more than all this. Come along.’
As Louisa stared at him the others stood before a map of the world showing the different ‘legs of an air journey’ and Gerald pointed to their next destination, north-east. ‘Hooray,’ cried Violet. Although tired they smiled. A few turned when Louisa and Borelli arrived and noticed how the pair looked thoughtful but perplexed; but it was more their obliviousness which struck Sasha and Sheila, and they openly gazed. They liked Louisa.
Hofmann had wandered ahead, the wittol, joined by Cathcart, the two not exchanging a word: Hofmann slender and straight, the other stubby and bow-legged. They glanced at a small library devoted to museum fatigue.
‘Hang on,’ Doug suddenly said, ‘this is a bit rugged. I don’t know about this.’
What were these in the tall preserving jars? Pale limbs suspended in a cloudy fluid. About twenty in all; each one labelled. All within sight of the front doors and daylight.
The director faced them.
He showed no interest in the ballerina’s leg in its soggy shoe—such elegant muscles; leg of Kentucky coalminer—mauve scarred and blackheaded; the German racing driver’s braking foot—donated by his widow.
There were more. (No two legs are the same.) A Catholic’s left leg and an obese woman’s of elephantiasis proportions. One labelled ‘Jarred Leg’ confused them—because all the legs were ‘jarred’—until the small print explained it was taken from a parachutist. The real growth of museums occurred after the invention of glass.
Agostinelli had his arm resting on the last jars. Separated but positioned close together they invited comparison. The first was a Commercial Traveller’s limb (tragic, alabaster); alongside it an Expatriate’s Leg—distinctly fleshy and hairless; Exiled Leg was similar but careful inspection showed it to be a shade paler, thinner; and finally to summarise the entire museum, LEG OF TOURIST (ENG.). It was thin, bony and experienced. It was thick-skinned. It had corns. It was theirs but it could have belonged to an old man.
Bending down Hofmann read out the former owner’s name: ‘Lambe’!
At that Garry laughed and turned around.
‘Recent donations,’ the director said, staring briefly at Violet’s ankles. Clearly this was the finale. Framed by the doorway his dark head was silhouetted inevitably against a volcano.
What meaning would he attach to the tourist’s leg? What angle?
‘This Lambe,’ Doug broke the spell. ‘Still alive?’
‘Tourists fly away, always.’
This led in nicely (but who was Lambe?).
Of all legs, the tourist’s is the most interesting; by far. He, Agostinelli, oughta know. Not only his museum lived off them; all museums do. The draped legs bringing in the bodies and the minds, of all shapes and sizes, all colours (smiles). The traveller’s inquisitive—acquisitive?—drive is transmitted as a kind of half-running from one place to the next, relying largely on the legs. Compare: an everyday working leg with that of the tourist. Discuss. Aren’t they one, yet not the same? What? Well, one comes before the other and then makes the other possible. Notice now a recently hard-working leg is unable to slow down, possesses a kind of inbuilt momentum, compelled by that inner force to march and fill in the minutes, accumulating, to do something—or rather, the sense of doing something. Some sense of achievement is apparently essential. Compare: the tourist with the sedentary holidaymaker. Different legs of.
What is a tourist?
By then a polite but distinct restlessness showed. Certain heads, especially those with a known aversion to speculations, swivelled more to the open door where clarity, rock solidarity, awaited them. The Italian had anticipated this. It was all to do (as was everything here) with legs.
Consider, he went on, the pressure. Feel it. More than most the tourist is made aware of his limits, not only in mileage terms, but the limits of comprehension and tolerance. Tired? There you are, you see. It was a measure of something. And yet you don’t stop. The tourist keeps going, one leg after the other, or stands waiting, queued. You embody the Human Condition. Stop. Keep going, Searching. For what? It is always a grand sight. You deserve medals.
Medals imply uniforms: trust a Latin.
Breathing heavily he pointed to Borelli leaning on his stick, and to Sasha, to still-dazed Louisa, Gerald, to Violet Hopper who had all assumed, without realising, the monopede posture of African flamingos, and held out his arms.
