Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak

  “Are you okay, Miss, are you okay?”

  Her teeth were perfectly paved.

  Penelope tried reaching over, but her arm was somehow confused.

  “I’m fine, Jodie,” and she should have sent her out, for help, or a drink of water, or anything to at least distract her. Instead, though—and talk about typical Penny—she said, “Open up that book, okay, and look up, let’s see, how about cheerful? Or gloomy? Which would you prefer?”

  The girl, her mouth and symmetry.

  “Maybe cheerful,” she said, and read the alternatives aloud. “Happy…joyful…merry.”

  “That’s good, very good.”

  Her arm still wasn’t moving.

  * * *

  —

  Then school, it came, a Friday.

  I was taunted, by Hartnell and his mates:

  There was piano and playing and poofter.

  They were virtuosos of alliteration and didn’t know it.

  Jimmy Hartnell had that fringe a little longer then—he was a few days shy of a haircut—and he’d leaned and muscled down. His mouth was small and slit-like, like a can just partly opened. It widened soon into a smile. I walked my way toward him, and found the courage to speak.

  “I’ll fight you in the nets at lunch,” I said.

  Best news he’d ever had.

  * * *

  —

  Then to an afternoon:

  As she often did, she read to those kids, as they waited for sight of the buses. This time it was The Odyssey. The chapter about the Cyclops.

  There were boys and girls in green and white.

  The usual foray of hairstyles.

  As she read about Odysseus, and his trickery of the monster in his lair, the print swam over the page; her throat became the cave.

  When she coughed she saw the blood.

  It splashed down onto the paper.

  She was strangely shocked by its redness; it was just so bright and brutal. Her next thought was back to the train, the first time she’d ever seen it; those titles typed in English.

  * * *

  —

  And what was my blood to that blood?

  It was nothing, nothing at all.

  It was windy that day, I remember, when clouds move fast through the sky. One minute white, one minute blue; a lot of shifting light. There was one cloud like a coal mine, as I walked down to the cricket nets, in the darkest patch of shade.

  At first I didn’t see Jimmy Hartnell, but he was there on the concrete pitch. He was grinning the width of his fringe.

  “He’s here!” called one of his friends. “The poofter’s fucking here!”

  I walked and raised my fists.

  Mostly it comes in circles now, in half turns right and left. I remember how terribly fast he was, and how soon I’d come to taste it. I remember the roar of schoolkids, too, like waves all down the beach. At one point, I saw Rory, and he was just a little kid. He was standing next to Henry, who was Labrador-blond and skinny. Through the diamonds of wire in the netting, I could see them mouthing hit him, while Clay watched numbly on.

  But Jimmy was hard to hit.

  First I was caught in the mouth (like chewing on a piece of iron), then up, and into the ribs. I remember thinking they were broken, as those waves came crashing in.

  “Come on, fucking Piano Man,” the kid whispered, and again he came skipping in. Each time he did that, he somehow came around me, and caught me with a left, then a right and another right. After three like that I went down.

  There were cheers and checking for teaching staff, but no one had yet found out, as I crawled and stood up quickly. Possibly a standing eight-count.

  “Come on,” I said, and the light kept interchanging. The wind howled through our ears, and again he came in and around.

  This time, as previously, he caught me with the left, and then that punishing follow-up—but the success of that tactic changed, as I blocked the third punch outright, and clobbered him on the chin. Hartnell went reeling backwards, and he stammered, adjusting, and swept. He took a shocked and hurried backstep, which I followed to the front and left; I committed myself with a pair of jabs, hard above that slit there, above and into the cheek.

  It became what commentators of every sport everywhere—probably even marbles—would call a battle of attrition, as we traded knuckles and hands. At one point, I went down on a knee, and he’d clipped me and quickly apologized, and I’d nodded; a silent integrity. The crowd had grown and climbed, their fingers all clenched in the wire.

  Eventually, I knocked him down twice, but he always came punching back. By the end I’d gone down four times myself, and on the fourth I couldn’t get up. Vaguely, I could sense the authorities then, for those beaches and waves had flocked; the lot of them were like seagulls now, except for my brothers, who’d stayed. Beautifully—and looking back, not surprisingly—Henry held out his hand, to some fleeing kid or other, who gave him the rest of his lunch. Already he’d had a bet on, and already he’d gone and won.

  In the corner, over near the cricket stumps, Jimmy Hartnell stood side-on. He was something like an injured wild dog, both pitiable and grounds for caution. The teacher, a man, went and grabbed him, but Hartnell had shrugged him off; he almost tripped on his way toward me, and his slit was now just a mouth. He crouched and called down next to me.

  “You must be good at piano,” he said, “if it’s anything like you fight.”

  I searched my mouth with my fingers; the victory of relief.

  I lay back, I bled and smiled.

  I still had all my teeth.

  * * *

  —

  And so it was.

  She went to the doctor.

  A cavalcade of tests.

  To us, for now, she said nothing, and all went on like always.

  Once, though, there was a crack of it, and it becomes so cruel and clean, the more I sit and type it. The kitchen is crisp, clear water.

  Because once, in Rory and Henry’s room, the two of them were wheeling and fighting. They’d abandoned the gloves and were back to normal, and Penelope ran toward it.

  She grabbed both scruffs-of-the-school-shirt.

  She held them out and away.

  Like boys hung up to dry.

  A week later, she was in the hospital; the first of many visits.

  But back then, way back then, that handful of days and nights earlier, she’d stood with them in their bedroom, in that sock-and-Lego pigsty. The sun was setting behind her.

  Christ, I’m gonna miss this.

  She’d cried and smiled and cried.

  Early on Saturday night, Clay sat with Henry, up on the roof.

  Close to eight o’clock.

  “Like old times,” Henry said, and they were happy in the moment, if feeling their various bruisings. He also said, “That was a great run.” He’d been referring to Carey.

  Clay stared, diagonally. Number 11.

  “It was.”

  “She should have won. A protest, bloody hell.”

  * * *

  —

  Later, he waited.

  The Surrounds, and the steady sound of her; the quiet rustle of feet.

  When she arrived, they didn’t lie down till they’d been there a long time.

  They’d sat on the edge of the mattress.

  They talked and he wanted to kiss her.

  He wanted to touch her hair.

  Even if just two fingers, in the falling of it by her face.

  In the light that night it looked sometimes gold, sometimes red, and there was no telling where it ended.

  He didn’t, though.

  Of course he didn’t:

  They’d made rules, somehow, and followed them, to not break or risk what they had. It was enough tha
t they were here, alone, together, and there were plenty more ways to be grateful.

  He took out the small heavy lighter, and Matador in the fifth.

  “It’s the best thing anyone’s ever given me,” he said, and he lit it a moment, then closed it. “You rode so well today.”

  She gave him back The Quarryman.

  She smiled, she said, “I did.”

  * * *

  —

  Earlier, it was one of those good nights, too, because Mrs. Chilman opened her window. She called out to them, and up.

  “Hey, Dunbar boys.”

  Henry had called back first. “Mrs. Chilman! Thanks for patching us up the other night.” Then he went to work. “Hey, I like your curlers there.”

  “Shut up, Henry,” but she was smiling, those wrinkles at work as well.

  Both boys now stood and walked closer.

  They crouched at the side of the house.

  “Hey, Henry?” Mrs. Chilman asked, and it was all a bit of fun. Henry knew what was coming. Whenever Mrs. Chilman looked up like this, it was to ask for a book, from his collections every weekend. She loved romance, crime, and horror—the lower the brow, the better. “You got something for me?”

  He mocked. “Do I have something for you? What-a-y’ think? How does The Corpse of Jack the Ripper sound?”

  “Got it already.”

  “The Man She Hid Downstairs?”

  “That was my husband—they never found the body.”

  (Both boys laughed—she’d been a widow since before they knew her; she joked about it now.)

  “All right, Mrs. Chilman, shit, you’re a tough customer! How about The Soul Snatcher? That one’s a bloody beauty.”

  “Done.” She smiled. “How much?”

  “Oh, come on, Mrs. Chilman, let’s not play that game. How about we do the usual?” He gave Clay a quick flick of the eyes. “Let’s just say I give it to you gratis.”

  “Gratis?” She was peering up now, contemplating. “What’s that, German, is it?”

  Henry roared.

  * * *

  —

  When they did lie down, she recalled the race.

  “But I lost,” she said, “I blew it.”

  Race Three.

  The Lantern Winery Stakes.

  1,200-meters and her mount was called The Gunslinger, and they missed the start terribly, and Carey brought him back. She weaved her way through the traffic and took him home—and Clay watched in perfect silence when the field had hit the straight; a riot of passing hoofbeats, and the eyes and the color and the blood. And the thought of Carey amongst it.

  The only problem came in the last furlong when she veered too close to the second-placegetter, Pump Up the Jam—seriously, what a name—and the win was taken off her.

  “My first time in front of the stewards,” she said.

  Her voice against his neck.

  * * *

  —

  On the roof, when the transaction was approved (Mrs. Chilman insisted on paying ten dollars), she said, “And how are you, Mr. Clay? You looking after yourself these days?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” She came out a little further. “Try to make it always.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, lovely boy.”

  She was about to close the window again, when Henry tried for more. “Hey, how come he gets to be lovely?”

  Mrs. Chilman returned. “You’ve got a lovely mouth, Henry, but he’s the lovely boy,” and she gave them a final wave.

  Henry turned to Clay.

  “You’re not lovely,” he said. “Actually, you’re pretty ugly.”

  “Ugly?”

  “Yeah, ugly as Starkey’s arse.”

  “You’ve looked at it lately, have you?”

  This time he gave Clay a shove, and a friendly slap to the ear.

  It’s a mystery, even to me sometimes, how boys and brothers love.

  * * *

  —

  Near the end he started telling her.

  “It’s pretty quiet out there.”

  “I bet.”

  “The river’s completely dry, though.”

  “And your dad?”

  “He’s pretty dry, too.”

  She laughed and he felt her breath, and he thought about that warmness, how people were warm like that, from inside to out; how it could hit you and disappear, then back again, and nothing was ever permanent—

  Yes, she’d laughed and said, “Don’t be an idiot.”

  Clay said only “Okay,” and his heart was beating too big for him; he was sure the world could hear it. He looked at the girl beside him, and the leg slung loosely over. He looked at her highest buttonhole, the fabric of her shirt:

  The checks there.

  The blue turned sky blue.

  The red all faded to pink.

  The long ridges of collarbone, and the pool of shadow beneath.

  The faintest scent of her sweat.

  How could he love someone this hard and be so disciplined, and stay silent and still so long?

  Maybe if he’d done it then: if he’d found the nerve earlier, it wouldn’t have gone the way it did. But how could he ever predict such things? How could he know that Carey—this girl who lay across him, and whose breath drew in and out on him, who’d had a life, who was a life—would make up his trifecta, or triumvirate, of love and loss?

  He couldn’t, of course.

  He couldn’t.

  It was all in what was to come.

  Back then, for Penny Dunbar, she packed her bags for the hospital, and the world that waited within it.

  They would push, they’d prod and cut bits.

  They would poison her with kindness.

  When they first talked radiation, I saw her standing alone in the desert, then boom—a little bit like the Hulk.

  We’d become our own cartoon.

  * * *

  —

  From the outset there was the hospital building, and all the infernal whiteness, and the spotless shopping mall doors; I hated how they parted.

  It felt like we were browsing.

  Heart disease to the left.

  Orthopedics to the right.

  I also remember how the six of us walked the corridors, through the pleasant terror inside. I remember our dad and his hard-clean hands, and Henry and Rory not fighting; these places were clearly unnatural. There was Tommy, who looked so tiny, and always in short Hawaiian shorts—and me still bruised-but-healing.

  At the very back, though, long behind us, was Clay, who was scaredest, it seemed, to see her. Her voice fought out from the nose cord:

  “Where’s my boy, where’s my boy? I’ve got a story, it’s a good one.”

  Only then did he come between us.

  It took all of everything in him.

  “Hey, Mum—can you tell me about the houses?”

  Her hand stretched out to touch him.

  * * *

  —

  She came in and out of the hospital twice more that year.

  She was opened, closed up, and pinkened.

  She was sewn and raw-and-shiny.

  Sometimes, even when she was tired, we’d ask if we could see them:

  “Can you show us that longest scar again, Mum? That one’s a bloody beauty.”

  “Hey!”

  “What—bloody? That’s not even proper swearing!”

  She was usually home by then, back in her own bed, being read to, or lying with our dad. There was something about their angles; her knees curled up and sideways, at forty-five degrees. Her face lay down on his chest.

  In many ways, that was a happy time, to be honest, and I see things through that frame. I see the weeks go by in a shoul
der blade, and months disappear in pages. He read out loud for hours. There was wearing round his eyes by then, but the aqua always as strange. It was one of those comforting things.

  Sure, there were frightening times, like her vomiting in the sink, and that God-awful smell in the bathroom. She was bonier, too, which was hard to believe, but then back at the lounge room window. She read to us from The Iliad, and Tommy’s body, in pieces, asleep.

  * * *

  —

  In the meantime, there was progress.

  We made music all of our own:

  The piano wars went on.

  There were many outcomes that could have arisen from my bout with Jimmy Hartnell, and many of them did. He and I became newborn friends. We became those boys who fought each other to find our common standing.

  After Jimmy, there were many more lined up, and I was up to fending them off. They only need mention the piano. But there were never the heights of Hartnell again. It was Jimmy I fought for the title.

  In the end, it wasn’t me who was famed for fighting, though; it could only ever be Rory.

  In terms of age, the year had clicked over, and I was well now into high school (free of the piano at last) and Rory was in grade five, and Henry the year below him. Clay had hit year three, and Tommy was down in kindergarten. Old stories soon washed to shore. There were memories of the cricket nets, and boys who were more than willing.

  The problem with that was Rory.

  His force was true and terrible.

  But the aftermath was worse.

  He dragged them through the playground, like the brutalist end of The Iliad—like Achilles with Hector’s corpse.

  * * *

  —

  There was one time, in the hospital, when there were kids from Hyperno High.

  Penny sat, punctured, in bed.

  God, there must have been more than a dozen of them, crowded and noisy around her, both boys and girls alike. Henry said, “They’re all so…furry.” He was pointing at the boys’ legs.