Some time after I’d snuggled down, the young man and his wife came to bed. I listened to their whispers, and to the progress of the whispers into murmurs and soft laughter, then into love-making, to his rapid endearments (as I supposed) and her moans and gasps. Afterwards, they spoke quietly with each other for a long time. I think they went to sleep before I did.
The couple gave me breakfast in the morning, and the young woman wrapped a sandwich in brown paper and handed it to me as I departed. The husband took me down to the road and told me where to wait for a ride. He took himself off with a wave, but then hurried back. He put a finger under each of my eyes and screwed his face up into an imitation of sobbing. Then he waved his finger under my nose and smiled. ‘Don’t be a baby anymore,’ was surely the message.
I was chastened for a while. But in the lulls of the day, waiting for rides, I thought back to the small, bare house and the lovely young wife, and it came over me that happiness was to be found in just such a place with just such a wife. My pretty young wife’s name would be Athena, but she would look very much like the young wife who had given me the sandwich I was carrying in my pocket. We would live on a farm in some more attractive part of Greece than any I’d so far laid eyes on—somewhere green and vivid, where peasants spent the whole day singing and dancing and drinking wine. Being a peasant girl, Athena would naturally want babies. We would have a number of babies, but only after maybe five years of incessant love-making. Athena would be somewhat in awe of my erudition, and indeed the entire peasant community would think of me as a genius, and bring their troubles to me to solve. I would be supported in my writing and study by a subscription taken up by the cheerful peasants. They would jokingly, but warmly, speak of me as ‘the scholar’, and take pride in showing me off to neighbouring communities. I would probably have a number of love affairs with other maidens of the village, but Athena would be very understanding.
These reveries lasted for the whole day and into the night, by which time I had been delivered, after a number of lifts, to Polykastro, a tiny village in Macedonia. It was snowing in Polykastro when I arrived, and there were no lights to be seen. It was not long before I was blubbering again, and was rescued this time by a small posse of kids who gathered about me with grave looks, then hustled me off to a house where I was greeted by an entire family as if expected at just this time on just this day. It was the home, once again, of a poor family; mum, dad and two kids were all sitting by an open fire when I was ushered in. Whatever account of my sudden arrival was being given by the posse seemed unimportant to the dad. He waved the kids away, shook my hand and introduced me to the mum, to the son, to the daughter. I tried to smile, but the open fire so attracted me that I could barely concentrate. Like a dog that has slunk in from the cold, my eyes kept sliding toward the flames, and the pleading look in my eyes finally won me a spot by the hearth.
The mum served me a plate of something dominated by eggs and spinach, so delicious that I began to sniffle once more, but with gratitude. The daughter brought me a school atlas, and I pointed out my country and city. A whoop of delight came from the dad, and a big congratulatory slap on the back, as if he’d just learned that I’d swum from Australia to Greece then jogged overland to his front door. I was made to understand that one member of the family was absent—an elder son, by the sound of it, who was in Germany. I was put to bed in the absent son’s room, which had been maintained to a particularly strict standard of housekeeping. I settled under crisp, white sheets, heaped blankets, slept like a baby and awoke to a hot breakfast.
An interpreter arrived a little after breakfast—a boy of about twelve whose uncle lived in Sydney. As he translated back and forth, he maintained that objective and disciplined air of the interpreter, smoothing out what seemed like surprise and alarm in the Greek he was taking in, and offering me a calmer English version.
‘Where you going for this day?’ he asked, prodded by the dad.
‘To Germany.’
Sounds of surprise.
‘Mister Kouriapoulis saying Germany many far.’
‘Oh? Well, that’s where I’m going.’
Shrugs, Scratching of heads.
‘Mister Kouriapoulis saying you too little—little?—too young for going to Germany.’
‘I’ll be right.’
Worried expressions.
‘Mister Kouriapoulis saying you going to Germany on bus?’
‘Hitch-hiking.’ I displayed my thumb.
Sounds of alarm.
‘Mister Kouriapoulis saying is bad.’
The upshot was that Mr Kouriapoulis paid my fare by bus to the border of Yugoslavia—a journey of an hour. He also produced four large, silver coins—Deutschmarks as it turned out, probably sent by his son—and made me understand (for the boy who had been translating had gone off to school, together with Mr Kouriapoulis’ son and daughter) that these were for buying food (hand up to mouth, biting action, rubbing of tummy). I had earlier been given a piece of paper on which the boy who’d been translating had written Mr Kouriapoulis’ name, his wife’s name, and the names of the son and daughter. I was to write to Mr Kouriapoulis when I reached Germany and tell him that I was safe and in good employment. (I still have the piece of paper. It should be filed in a dossier under ‘L’ for Little Bastard, for I did not write to Mr Kouriapoulis.)
The bus to Yugoslavia stopped a little distance from the border. Together with thirty or so other passengers, I wandered towards a shack that was being guarded by a soldier dressed in what my reading of comic books prepared me to recognise as a Commie uniform; that is, an ill-tailored uniform with a lot of padding and big red stars pinned to it. The passengers were carrying light luggage, as if ready for a day trip, and not one of them seemed happy about the journey. I would later learn that they were Macedonians visiting other Macedonians across the border, but at the time I imagined them to be forced labour heading for work in dark cavities beneath the earth. Sure enough, they all climbed aboard a second bus after enduring the surly scrutiny of the soldier. As for me, it appeared that I would have to walk to wherever I was going. The soldier didn’t think me worth serious attention.
The countryside was green and sweet, but here and there off the roadside and on the hillsides I noticed grim, bunker-like buildings that offended me with their ugliness. I was, in a cluttered part of my head where a host of ill-sorted beliefs lived a fairy-tale life, a dedicated communist. It seemed to me that my fellow communists could do a little more to please the eye, so far as architecture was concerned. In my imagination, communist states were full of glorious palaces and castles (now the homes of the workers), charming cottages and lots of other good old stuff. I expected the workers to be cheerful, spending a part of each day doing nothing much more than chuckling, and maybe singing. It was my further belief that communist women had very loose morals (a good thing) and put sex, particularly with visitors from non-communist states, high on their agendas (because by having sex with visitors, they were subverting capitalism—I think that was my reasoning.) So far (an hour into Yugoslavia), not so good. But perhaps I was in a bad-tempered corner of the country. Things would improve.
I was puzzling over the whole business when someone shouted from a distance away. I put my suitcase down and looked about. I was alone. The nearest building was a turret-shaped hut on a hillside a fair way off. I picked up my suitcase and resumed my journey. Again, the shout, a little louder. This time I saw a figure advancing downhill.
The figure became a soldier. He had a rifle, and the rifle was aimed at me. I was thrilled. As he drew closer, I could see that he was young, very young, in fact no older than me, surely. He approached me with a serious yet not uncompromising expression, as if the rules of a game were about to discussed. Noticing my delight in having a genuine firearm aimed at me, he lowered the weapon and grinned. His teeth were not so good. ‘Passaport!’ he shrilled, and I smiled, fished out my passport and offered
it to him. He propped his rifle against his flank while he studied my picture. The rifle fell to the ground and he left it there.
He handed back my passport (which bore no entry stamp, let alone a visa), grinned even more broadly and made a motion towards his mouth with two spread fingers. ‘Cigarette!’ he said. I raised my shoulders and displayed my empty hands—the international alas! gesture. He nodded, still grinning. ‘Is Tray Ee?’ he said, and I smiled and nodded. He put his hands together in front of his chest and gave a series of small jumps. ‘Kang Crew!’ he said. Then a very loud, very pissed-off shout from the turret put an end to this cultural exchange. The boy-soldier picked up his rifle, straightened his cap, and ran back up the hill. I was disappointed to see him go. I’d been hoping he’d let me hold his rifle for a little bit.
A series of rides in trucks built with a stern disdain for anything elaborate in the way of suspension took me to the city of Skopje. The city, even under a pale blue sky, had a grieved, wintery look. The people also seemed a bit sleety. Every glance was hedged with suspicion. The goodwill I’d met with in the north of Greece had encouraged me to believe that Europe had taken me to its heart, and I held it against the Yugoslavs that they weren’t just a little more welcoming—me being a fellow communist.
That was one issue. Another was hunger. The day was getting on, and visions of the sort of food I would have loved to have seen laid out on a table began to torment me. Weetbix. Toast. Apricot jam. Sausages and mashed potatoes and gravy and tomato sauce. Tinned peaches. A big tub of Peters ice cream. I came to a bakery and drooled over the cakes in the window, spartan little pastries though they were. I went inside and displayed my silver coins. The woman behind the counter studied them aggressively, her jaw thrust out, and the customers in the shop joined in. Some senior person, probably the baker himself, was called in from the back. He shrugged laconically, and gave the thumbs up. Then I did something uncharacteristically sensible. I chose a fat loaf of bread instead of a bag full of cakes.
I had only the vaguest notion of the road I should take. Whenever a truck stopped for me I mentioned Germany, but if the driver indicated that he was going elsewhere, I changed my plans accordingly. This made for a lot of meandering. Sometimes I went through a town twice. Only trucks stopped. Yugoslavian car drivers never conceded the possibility of changing down a gear once they’d reached top. In any case, the truck drivers suited me fine. They were nearly all drunks, so I was able to rely on my experience of hitching with drunks back in Australia.
A drunk doesn’t require much of you. You’re offered a swig from a bottle (plum brandy in Yugoslavia, beer in Australia); you are invited to look at pictures of naked women in a magazine fetched from the glovebox, and to listen to tales of the drunk’s legendary sexual exploits; a little later, you join in a song (back in Australia, ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’, ‘Do What You Do Do Well’, ‘From a Jack to a King’; the Yugo drunks were, I’m sure, singing local equivalents). The golden rule is this: sympathise. If the drunk is jolly, you’re jolly; if the drunk becomes weepy, you go a fair way down that track with him. It all works out beautifully in the end.
But there was one local variation to the international rules of hitching with pisspots: the Yugo drunks wanted payment, and they weren’t kidding. I didn’t have any money except for my tatty Australian two-pound note, but I did have a suitcase full of items that the drunks could be persuaded to accept in lieu. My two packs of cards went first, then my pocket knife, followed by a couple of my copies of Life magazine, one of my four pairs of white socks and one of my spare ties (Paisley, much treasured). One drunk demanded my typewriter, but I said no, and I said it emphatically.
Night fell in what I think must have been Kosovo. My last ride had taken about two hours in a very low gear, climbing the mountains. We came to a branch road that looked as if it led exactly nowhere, and I got out with the sky turning a delicate quartz pink along the peaks. It seemed unlikely that I would get another ride that night, so I wandered into the scrub with my suitcase and unpacked two woolly blue blankets that I’d stolen from the ship. I put one on the ground and made myself a pillow out of my beach towel. I was feeling smug because I had in my suitcase the very items that would lend me comfort in this forsaken place: the loaf of bread and a candle. I actually had twelve candles. Back home when I was packing, it had suddenly struck me that I might want to write late into the night in my little hut in the Seychelles, and was it likely the Seychellois had electric light? It was not.
I fixed the candle in the ground, took off my tie and shoes and lay down with the second blanket pulled up to my chin. The bread was still fresh, still soft. I ate the entire loaf, watching the candlelight cast its own mini-sunset over the broad leaves above me. I was about to start reading The Grapes of Wrath, also stolen from the ship. I expected to enjoy it. The night was not cold, even so high up in the mountains, and in any case I was fully dressed in my green suit. Happiness filled my little world from horizon to horizon.
I awoke to birdsong of a sort I’d never heard before: a soft chattering that would suddenly rise to shrill argument, then abate again. I was surprised to find how far I’d gone into the forest and how alien its features were. I felt rested, and potent—ready to make terrific observations. A few years earlier I’d read in an obituary for Ernest Hemingway that he had so dedicated himself to capturing the real, the essential thing in landscape that he would set himself up somewhere out in the mulga with a notebook and pencil, just like a painter with easel and brushes. And he would get down what was real and essential just exactly as it unfolded. I wanted to do something of the sort.
I brushed off my green suit, put on my shoes and tie, then hunkered down with my typewriter on the grassy floor of the forest. I didn’t quite know what I should observe, though. I typed out a few sentences about the trees. I recall noting that the trees were big and that the leaves of the trees were green and shiny.
Waiting on the side of the road for the first lift of the morning, I made an important decision. Come what may, I would not be a baby anymore. Imagine Ernest Hemingway crying because he didn’t have a place to sleep. Or imagine the scorn of Woody Guthrie if he had seen me sobbing because my feet were cold and my tummy empty. Nope, no more baby stuff. Also, it wouldn’t be all that attractive to women, probably. I had once looked up a term I’d come across in a novel—sang-froid—and I was pretty sure that I wanted to be just that, or have that, or be known for that, or whatever it was that you did with it. Sang-froid.
But at the same time I was very hungry. I wished I’d kept some of the bread for brekky. As soon as I got to a decent-sized town, I would exchange my two-pound note and buy a pie and some chips and a bottle of Coke and a doughnut.
Hours passed. No trucks, no cars. Gazing at the mountain peaks, at the silent forest, at outcrops of bleak, grey stone, it occurred to me that I could possibly starve to death where I stood. What on earth would be the use of sang-froid if nobody could see me displaying it? The Zen book I’d read about the archer who tried too hard to hit the target had made the point that nothing much good can come of craving an audience, craving approval. But I couldn’t see what else there was if you ruled out approval, applause. I might have been content to starve to death with great stoicism if only a thousand people had been watching. But to be found cold and still on the roadside without anyone knowing what I’d endured!
Looking back, I can see that it wasn’t fame that I craved, but endorsement. I wanted people—anybody really—to shake their heads in disbelief and murmur, ‘What a kid! What guts!’ Back in my home town I once got a game in the local Juniors (the Thirds) footy team—I was hanging around when the captain was struggling desperately to find enough players. At half-time it was the habit of the coach of the senior team to stagger over, blind drunk from the nearby pub, and regardless of the score to counsel the players to show a bit of guts and determination: ‘Y’ fuckin’ weak the pack of yez, fuckin’ like a pack of
fuckin’ bridesmaids the way y’ fuckin’ tackle …’ Then back he’d trot to the pub to put away a few more glasses before he led out the senior team. ‘Guts and determination’ was one of the immortal clichés of the code, and I loved the sound of it. I wanted with all my heart to be known for guts and determination.
Standing on that roadside in the mountains of Kosovo, I began to think of my death, and to compose the sort of obituary that I would have enjoyed reading: ‘He left the comforts of home at the tender age of sixteen to try his luck in the wide world, but not in his wildest dreams could he have predicted that he would languish fatally in Yugoslavia and die a painful death from hunger and exposure. Yet not a murmur was heard from him as death stealthily approached across the frigid mountains. What his premature death robbed us of, it is too moving to dwell on, but in notes we find stories that rival those of Ernest Hemingway and Anton Chekhov at their best, full of extraordinary observations both of the landscape and of the many exceptional characters he came across in his strange travels …’
I was obliged to bed down in the Kosovo forest for a second night. This time, I was less jolly. My bread was gone. All I had were candles and books. I watched the sunset with my blanket at my chin. The Grapes of Wrath was providing no cheer. It is one thing to read of people struggling against the tide of the greatest economic calamity of the twentieth century when you feel happy and contented. It is quite another when you’re hungry and cold. But I was at least able to dwell on the motives and incitements that had landed me on that mountain.
The Boy in the Green Suit Page 6
