by Markus Zusak
* * *
—
The night before, when they’d looked in the Gregory’s street directory, they’d seen the field behind the house, and all it said was The Surrounds. Now Penny was sure she heard hooves coming down the back, and deciphered the adjacent smell—of animal, of hay, and horses.
The agent tried to hurry them back in.
It didn’t work.
Penny was drawn closer, to the clopping she heard at the fence line.
“Hey, Michael?” she said. “Could you please lift me up?”
He walked the yard toward her.
His arms and her stick-thin thighs.
* * *
—
On the other side, Penny saw the stables, she saw the track.
There was the laneway behind the fence line, which turned by the edge of the house; Mrs. Chilman was the only neighbor. Then the grass and slanted building work, and the white obligatory sports fence; from there it looked made of toothpicks.
In the laneway there were grooms leading horses, track to stables, and most of them didn’t see her; some of them nodded on their way. A minute or two later, an old groom came leading the final horse by, and when its head leaned down, he shrugged it gruffly away. Just before he saw Penny he gave its mouth a gentle slap. “Go on,” he said, “get out.” Penny, of course, smiled, at all of it.
“Hallo?” She cleared her throat. “…Hello?”
The horse saw her instantly, but the groom was oblivious.
“What? Who’s there?”
“Up here.”
“Jesus, love, give a man a bloody heart attack!” He was a stocky build and curly hair, with moistened face and eyes, and the horse was tugging him over. It had a flash of white from ears to nose, but the rest was mahogany brown. The groom saw it was useless stopping him. “All right, here we go. Come on, love.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, give ’im a pat, he’s the biggest bloody sook here anyway.”
Before she did it, Penny checked that Michael was okay, and truth be told, she was light but not weightless, and his arms were starting to shake. She placed her hand on the horse’s blaze, the great white texture, and couldn’t hold back her delight. She looked in the prying eyes. Any sugar? You got some sugar?
“What’s his name?”
“Well, his race name’s City Special.” He gave the horse a pat himself now, on the chest. “Stable name’s Greedy, though, I wonder bloody why.”
“Is he fast?”
He scoffed. “You really are new around here, aren’t you? The horses in these stables are all bloody useless.”
But still, Penelope was charmed. When the horse bobbed upwards for a rougher pat, she laughed. “Hi, Greedy.”
“Here, give him these.” He passed her a few grubby sugar cubes. “Might as well. He’s a lost bloody cause, anyway.”
Beneath her, Michael Dunbar was thinking about his arms, and how long they could possibly hold her.
The agent was thinking SOLD.
Now it was Clay’s turn, to leave his father with the house and the Amahnu.
He stood above him by the couch, the morning still dark.
His hands were healed, from blisters to scars.
“I’ll be away awhile.”
The Murderer woke.
“I’ll be back, though.”
* * *
—
It was fortunate Silver was on a main line; trains came through twice a day in each direction. He caught the 8:07.
At the station, he remembered:
That first afternoon, when he came.
He listened.
The land beside him still sang.
On the train he read for a while, but in his stomach the nerves had begun. Like a kid with a windup toy.
Eventually, he put the book down.
There was really no point.
In everything he read, all he saw was my face, and my fists, and the jugular in my neck.
* * *
—
When he reached the city, late afternoon, he stood at the station and made the call. A phone booth near Platform Four.
“Hello, Henry here.” Clay could hear he was on a street somewhere; the close-up sound of traffic. “Hello?”
“I’m here, too.”
“Clay?” The voice came through tighter, faster, from the grip at the other end. “Are you home?”
“Not yet. Tonight.”
“When? What time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe seven. Maybe later.”
That would give him a few more hours.
“Hey—Clay?”
He waited.
“Good luck, okay?”
“Thanks. I’ll see you.”
He wished he was back in the eucalypts.
* * *
—
For a while he considered going most of the way on foot, but he caught the train and bus. On Poseidon Road, he got out one stop before he normally would, and the city was well into evening.
There was nothing now but cloud cover.
Sort of copper, mostly dark.
He walked and stopped, he leaned at the air, as if waiting for it to finish him off, only it wouldn’t—and quicker than he’d hoped, he stood at the mouth of Archer Street:
Relieved to have finally made it.
Terrified to be there.
* * *
—
In every house, the lights were on, people were home.
As if sensing the oncoming theater, the pigeons arrived from nowhere, and dug in close on the power lines. They were perched on TV aerials, and God forbid, on the trees. There was also a single crow, fat-feathered and plump, like a pigeon disguised in a trench coat.
But he wasn’t fooling anyone.
* * *
—
To our front yard—one of the few with no fence, no gate, just lawn—it was leafless, freshly mowed.
The porch, the roof, the blink of one of my movies.
Strangely, Henry’s car wasn’t there, but Clay couldn’t be distracted. He walked slowly on, then, “Matthew.”
He only said it at first, as if careful to be casual and calm.
Matthew.
Just my name.
That was all.
Just above quiet.
And again, a few steps more, he felt the cushion of grass, and now, in the middle, facing the door, he expected me to come—but I didn’t. He had to shout or stand and wait, and he chose, as it was, the first one. His voice so much not-his, as “MATTHEW!” he screamed, and put down his bag, and the books inside—his reading.
Within seconds, he heard movement, and then Rosy let loose a bark.
I was the first to appear out front.
* * *
—
I stood on the porch in almost exactly what Clay was wearing, only my T-shirt was dark blue and not white. The same faded jeans. The same thin-soled sports shoes. I’d been watching Rain Man, three-quarters through.
Clay—it was so damn good to see him…but no.
My shoulders fell, but barely; I couldn’t show how much I didn’t want to. I had to look willing and sure.
“Clay.”
It was the voice of that long-lost morning.
The killer in his pocket.
Even when Rory and Tommy came out, I kept them back, almost benignly. When they argued, I held up my hand. “No.”
They stayed, and Rory said something Clay couldn’t hear.
“Go too far and I’m coming in, okay?”
Had it all been whispered?
Or was it spoken normally and Clay just couldn’t hear it for the noise inside his ears?
I closed my eyes a moment, and walked to the right, and down; and
I don’t know how it is with other brothers, but with us there would be no circling. It wasn’t Clay and the Murderer, like boxers—this was me, and I walked at him just short of a run, and it was soon that he hit the ground.
Oh, he fought, all right, he fought hard, and he searched and flailed and falled—for there was no grammar to this, no beauty to it at all. He could train and suffer all he wanted, but this wasn’t training the Clay way, it was living my way, and I found him from the first; no more words but those inside me:
He killed us.
He killed us, Clay, don’t you remember?
We had no one.
He left us.
What we were is dead—
But now those thoughts weren’t thoughts at all, they were clouds of landed punches, and every one fell true.
Don’t you remember?
Don’t you see?
And Clay.
The smiler.
As I watch us now, after all he later told me, I see him clearly thinking:
You don’t know everything, Matthew.
You don’t know.
I should have told you—
About the clothesline.
About the pegs—
But he couldn’t say anything, and he couldn’t even remember going down the first time, except that he’d fallen so hard he left a gash there, a scar in the grass—and the world was incoherent. It struck him that it was raining, but truth be told, it was blood. It was blood and hurt and getting up, and going down, till Rory called out enough.
And me—chest heaving, calling in air.
And Clay on the grass, all curled up, then rolling toward the sky. How many skies were there, really? The one he’d focused on was breaking, and with it came the birds. The pigeons. And one crow. They flocked into his lungs. That papery sound of flapping wings, all fast, and gorgeous, at once.
* * *
—
The next person he saw was a girl.
She said nothing. Nothing to me, nothing to Clay.
She only crouched and took his hand.
She could hardly say welcome back, and actually—shockingly—it was Clay who moved to speak.
I stood a few meters to the left.
My hands were all quivered and bloody.
I was breathing, trying not to.
My arms were awash with sweat.
Rory and Tommy kept a short distance, and Clay looked up at the girl. The good-green eyes. He said and slowly smiled it:
“War of the Roses?”
He saw her change from abject worry, to a smile all long and hopeful, like horses entering the straight.
“He okay?”
“I think so.”
“Just give me a minute and we’ll take him in.”
The small exchange was hard for him to hear, but he knew it was me and Carey, and soon the others were near. Rosy licked his face.
“Rosy!” I said. “Get out of there!”
Still no sign of Henry.
* * *
—
Finally, there was Rory:
He had to step in at some point.
He told everyone to get the hell out of his way, and picked Clay up and carried him. In his arms Clay hung like an arch.
“Oi, Matthew,” Rory called, “check this out—it’s all that letterbox practice!” Then to Clay, down at face and blood. “How’s this for a heart-to-heart?” And finally his happiest afterthought. “Hey—did you kick him in the coins, like I asked?”
“Twice. The first one wasn’t that good.”
And Rory laughed, right there on the steps, and it hurt the boy he was holding.
As promised and planned, I had killed him.
But true to his word as ever—Clay just wasn’t dead.
It felt good to be a Dunbar boy again.
They bought the place, of course they did, and things began to begin.
Job-wise, Michael still did his construction work, with his always-powdery hands, and Penny did her cleaning, and studied English till the time was near. She started wondering about a different career, and was pulled between two teaching strands: the first could only be music. Then English as a Second Language.
Maybe it was memory that did it:
The indoor tarmac.
The floor-to-ceiling heat.
“Passport?”
“Przepraszam?”
“Oh, Jesus…”
She chose the ESL.
She applied to university, resolved to still going cleaning at night—an accounting firm, the lawyer’s office—and the acceptance letter arrived. Michael found her at the kitchen table. He stood, not far from the exact same place where, many years later, he’d be watched and interrogated by a mule.
“Well?”
He sat down closely next to her.
He watched the insignia, and letterhead.
Some people celebrate things with champagne, or a night out somewhere nice, but in this case, Penelope sat; she put her head against Michael’s side, and read the letter again.
* * *
—
And like that, the time flowed by:
They planted things in the garden.
Half of it lived. Half died.
They watched the Wall come down in November of ’89.
Through the slits in the back fence, they often saw the horseflesh, and loved the racing quarter’s other eccentricities—like a man or woman walking out on the road, midafternoon, with a stop sign to hold up traffic. Behind them, a groom would lead a horse across, likely 10-1 next day, at Hennessey.
The last and most important quirk of the place, though, already back then, was the number of forgotten fields; you only had to know where to look. In some cases, as we’re well aware, such places could hold great meaning—and one was near the train line. Sure, there would be The Surrounds, and the dying track at Bernborough—but this one, too, was crucial.
So I’m begging you please to remember.
It had everything to do with the mule.
* * *
—
Three years into Penny’s university course, the phone rang at 18 Archer Street; Dr. Weinrauch.
Adelle.
She’d died at the dining room table, most likely late at night, having just typed a letter to a friend.
“Looks like she finished up, took her glasses off and laid her head down next to the Remington,” he’d said, and it was sad and aching, but beautiful:
One last, lethal combination.
A hard-hit final full stop.
Of course, they drove straight out to Featherton, and Michael knew he was lucky, compared to Penelope. Here at least they could stand in the church and sweat beside the box. He could turn to the retired old doctor, and stare at his tie, which hung like a long-stopped clock.
“Sorry, son.”
“Sorry, Doc.”
Later, they sat in the old house, at the table, with her blue-rimmed glasses and the typewriter. For a while he contemplated putting a new sheet in and punching out a few lines. He didn’t, though, he just looked at it, and Penelope brought tea, and they drank it and walked the town, and finished out back, by the banksia.
When she asked if he’d take the typewriter home, he said it was home already.
“You’re sure now?”
“I’m sure.” He realized. “Actually, I think I know what to do.”
For whatever reason, it just felt right, he went out to the shed; he found the same old shovel and dug one more hole, to the left of the dog and the snake.
In the house, he sat a last while with the Remington.
He found three rounds of plastic, strong and smooth, and wrapped it up, so clear you could see the keys—first the Q and the W, then the midsection of F and G, H and J—and i
n the old backyard of an old-backyard-of-a-town, he took it there, he placed it there, and buried it in the ground:
The TW, the snake, and Moon.
You didn’t put that in ads for real estate.
* * *
—
At home again, life had to go on, and it did, with Michael staying up with her, as she wrote her assignments, and checked them. When she did the practical work, she was sent to Hyperno High. The toughest high school in town.
On her first day, she came back beaten:
“They’ve eaten me alive.”
On the second, it was worse:
“Today they spat me out.”
There were times when she would shout at them, in total loss of control—of them and of herself—and kids moving in for the kill. When once she near exploded, screaming, “QUIET!” then a mutter of “Little shits,” the class erupted with laughter. The mirth, the mockery of teenagers.
The fact of Penny Dunbar, though, as we know, is that she might have been slight, and perennially fragile, but she was an expert at somehow surviving. She spent lunchtimes with whole classes—the queen of detention and boredom. She bludgeoned them with organized silence.
As it turned out, she was the first candidate in years to last the student-teacher period, and they offered her a job, full-time.
She left the cleaning completely.
Her workmates took her out drinking.
Michael sat with her next day, by the toilet. He rubbed her back and spoke to her soothingly:
“Are these the spoils of freedom?”
She threw up and sobbed but laughed.
* * *
—
Early the next year, when Michael picked her up from work one afternoon, there were three giant boys surrounding her, with their sweat, their haircuts and arms. For a moment, he nearly got out, but then he saw it—she was holding a copy of Homer; she was reading aloud, and it must have been one of the gruesome bits, for the boys all grimaced and crowed.
