Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  And so it was decided we’d accept Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan’s offer of a partnership – always supposing Jimmy was allowed to stay, of course. Already she was influencing us. We were talking as if it had all been decided, based simply on her assurance that her woman’s intuition told her we were sweet with the Immigration Department. That she had got Cuffe’s number.

  When we got back to the island there was a registered letter waiting for Jimmy. Busta Gut had naturally forgotten to mention it, but Sue had been up to the post office to buy stamps and Ma Gutherie had told her about it. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no you won’t!’ the postmistress replied.

  ‘Why not? He lives with us!’

  ‘It’s registered, ain’t it?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Confidential. His business, ’fraid I can’t do it,’ she replied, lips drawn tight.

  ‘They come into port late on Saturday night – that means Jimmy’ll have to wait until Monday morning.’ She looked at the postmistress, appealing to her common sense. ‘It’s important, Ma Gutherie. He’s expecting to hear about staying in Australia.’

  ‘Won’t get it Monday mornin’, girl. We closed Monday mornin’.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I’m goin’ in’ta hospital for me varicose veins. They’s hurting somethin’ awful – comes from standin’ all day servin’ customers,’ she said accusingly, as if Sue was partly to blame.

  Sue thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Dr Light is much too busy to see you on Monday.’

  ‘What you mean, girl? I’ve got an appointment – eleven o’clock, Monday mornin’.’

  ‘It just got cancelled.’ Sue shrugged, looking sympathetic. ‘Sorry.’

  Ma Gutherie sighed, and handed her the registered letter without further protest.

  ‘See you Monday then – don’t be late, we’re very busy on Monday mornings,’ Sue called out as she left. She hadn’t been born and bred on the island for nothing.

  It was with a mixture of excitement and concern that, on our arrival home, Gloria handed Jimmy the letter in the government envelope.

  Private Richard Oldcorn

  Poste Restante

  Livingston

  Queen Island Tasmania

  21st April, 1954

  Dear Sir,

  Forwarded herewith is a Certificate of Exemption No. 54/179 which is valid for a period of five years from the 21st of April, 1954.

  Please retain this certificate in your possession and sign and return the attached receipt slip immediately.

  Yours faithfully,

  C.M.J. Cuffe

  Commonwealth Immigration Officer

  After all the weeks of anxiety the enclosed certificate was carelessly folded and on poor-quality paper with a badly typed cover note that didn’t even address Jimmy by name, but instead began with the ubiquitous and anonymous ‘Dear Sir’. It was bordering on being callous, so totally indifferent to the human emotions expended to bring it about, and felt like a slap in the face with a wet rag. But, of course, we threw our arms in the air and jumped for joy and the girls kissed and hugged Jimmy and we pumped his hand with silly grins on our mugs. Gloria produced two bottles of warm beer and we toasted Jimmy. On a whim I grabbed my harmonica. The others followed and we began to play ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’. Then, with me as the lead carrying the melody for the last line in each chorus, the others broke off to sing, ‘When Jimmy comes marching home!’

  It was already well into Sunday evening and too late to call on Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, so we hot-footed it over to the Gazette office as soon as it opened at eight o’clock the following morning. She was overjoyed – though, of course, she’d predicted it in the hotel dining room a week earlier – and hugged and kissed Jimmy. I’d never seen her hug or kiss anyone before, the only exception being when she’d greeted me at the wharf on my return from Korea with the news of my medal, and that had been sort of semi-official – more a peck on the cheek. ‘Congratulations, James. I’m overjoyed for you!’ she said, truly beaming.

  ‘Thank you. I owe it all to you,’ Jimmy said in perfect English.

  ‘Right on! You did it, Nicole ma’am. You made it happen!’ I exclaimed happily.

  ‘No, Jack – we made it happen.’

  ‘No, no,’ I insisted. ‘Getting Mrs Zara Holt involved and your theory of emotional exception, that’s what did it.’

  ‘It’s not my theory, Jack. Women have been practising it since Eve persuaded Adam to eat the apple.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the serpent did that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. Eve merely used the snake. You see, she wanted to get away from that idyllic, weedless garden after all – there’s nothing quite as boring as perfection.’

  ‘And Adam refused to break God’s law?’

  ‘Yes. Men like rules – it makes them imagine they’re in charge.’

  Jimmy and I laughed at the crack, but as usual ‘big mouth’ had to have a comeback. ‘In that case, she must have persuaded Adam that in order to eat the apple God would need to be the one to be persuaded to make an emotional exception?’

  ‘Quite right. Eve knew Adam, like all men, could be talked into thinking that he could have his snake and eat it.’

  Jimmy chortled. ‘Dat clever! Dat damned clever, Countess.’

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan drew up sharply, the grin instantly gone from her face. ‘Countess?’

  ‘Dat yo’ new name,’ Jimmy said ingenuously. ‘Yoh ain’t gonna be Nicole ma’am no more. From now we is gonna call yoh Countess, because we ain’t gonna let yo’ light shine under no bushel no more!’

  ‘Jimmy, that’s quite preposterous! Imagine what the people of the island will think!’

  ‘Dey gonna think dey got demself a countess, and dat a somebody!’

  ‘I really don’t think so,’ she said tersely. ‘Plain Nicole will suffice, thank you very much.’

  But Jimmy ignored the warning tone in her voice, something I could never have done. Instead, he looked surprised. ‘Whoa! Dat ain’t right,’ he protested. ‘We cain’t have no partner what ain’t no countess iffen we gonna be a classy outfit dat gonna sell lobsters to America. In America I gonna tell dem fish merchants, “Hey man, dis crayfish-lobster yo’ gonna buy, it come from da private sea belong to da Countess Lenoir-Jourdan o’ Queen Island where she da queen o’ da crayfish tribe!” Den dey gonna say, “Where dat island, Jimmy?” I gonna show dem da map where it show it da other side da world. “Dis cray, it been flown direct over da South Pole to New York. Dat why it so fresh, man – it cold up der in da air ’bove dat South Pole! Fresh cray foh yoh de-lec-tation, gennelmen!” Dey gonna hear dat, dey gonna flip der lid.’

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan laughed, despite herself. ‘Always providing the price is right. In my experience fish importers are a tough breed.’ She looked at each of us in turn. ‘Does that mean we have a partnership?’

  ‘Yes, but Jimmy and I agree, only if you may be referred to as Countess,’ I said, grinning cheekily, knowing I was chancing my arm.

  She thought for a moment. ‘Only by the two of you and only in private.’ For a moment she looked serious. ‘Please understand, my privacy is important to me and the past is no longer relevant. But I’m delighted to think we’ll be going into business together,’ she added, brightening. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for you to make, Jack,’ she said, looking at me.

  There you go – she’d seen right through me, as usual.

  ‘May I see the letter?’ she then asked. Jimmy handed her the letter, together with the certificate, and she seemed to take it in at a glance. Then she stabbed a finger at the page and read aloud, “Forwarded herewith is a Certificate of Exemption No. 54/179 which is valid . . .” Which? That is valid!’ she corrected. ‘Really, you’d think they’d teach their bureaucrats the rudiments of grammar, wouldn’t you?’ She sighed. ‘But then what can one expect from a horrid little man like Clarenc
e Cuffe!’ She glanced once again at the certificate. ‘Hmph! Carelessly folded, careless all round – not the sort of thing you’d frame above your bed, is it? But I really am so terribly pleased for you, James.’ She glanced over to me. ‘Cup of tea, Jack? And James, you’ll have coffee?’

  Jimmy grimaced. ‘No, thank you kindly, Countess.’ It was the first time he’d used her title with permission, but she appeared not to notice.

  ‘Oh, I have rather a nice surprise for you, James.’ She left the room to make tea and returned a short while later with a teapot, three cups, milk and a sugar bowl. Beside them stood a strange-looking glass jug-like device with a chrome lid. It was half-filled with what I took to be coffee that steamed up the top half of the glass container. Next to it was a foil packet nearly as tall as the container. ‘I found it in the latest catalogue at Mrs Dunne’s and sent away for it. It’s a plunger carafe, made in Italy,’ she said excitedly. ‘And this is . . .’ She picked up the packet and read from the back, ‘. . . “Genuine American Blend vacuum-sealed coffee”, ground from beans imported directly from Brazil. As advertised in Esquire magazine!’ She then proceeded to push down the metal rod that protruded from the lid. ‘It’s quite ingenious – such clever people, the Italians.’ She lifted the plunger carafe and started to pour the hot dark liquid into a cup. ‘I say, isn’t this rather jolly?’ she laughed, pleased with herself.

  ‘Why, I thank you kindly, Countess,’ Jimmy said, obviously touched. ‘American Blend – hey, dat good.’ Later I asked him how it tasted and he gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Brother Fish, it taste like sheet, man!’ Jimmy was forever afterwards condemned to drink the countess’s coffee, always with due ceremony. ‘American Blend’ was her permanent gesture of love towards him.

  It wasn’t entirely her fault that Jimmy disliked her Esquire magazine coffee. He’d become accustomed to institution coffee laced with bromide to keep natural male urges at bay. He’d first encountered it when, with puberty approaching, he’d been given it in the orphanage, the coffee disguising the slightly bitter taste of bromide. This practice had been followed at Elmira Reformatory and again in the American Army. I don’t recall him ever referring specifically to Frau Kraus’s coffee other than in the context of the after-dinner potion she’d concocted to bring about the demise of her husband, Otto.

  Over tea and coffee with Sao biscuits spread with butter and fishpaste, I brought up the subject of the story she had started in the hotel dining room a week or so previously in Launceston. ‘Will you tell us the rest, please?’ I asked.

  ‘Should we not rather be doing an inventory?’ she replied. ‘The sooner we get started, the better, don’t you think?’

  ‘Countess, we got all ears,’ Jimmy exclaimed.

  ‘Very well then, where was I?’

  ‘You were alone in Harbin, the city of sin,’ I said, then immediately added, ‘You were just fifteen and your father was crook.’

  The countess looked at me, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘I promised I wouldn’t and I shan’t, but a Russian count does not get crook – he becomes unwell or very ill, the latter being the case at the time with my father. Now let me see, however shall I continue?’

  ‘Jus’ like before. It good, yoh use dem words “whorehouse” an’ also yoh can say “pussy” instead o’ “women’s private part” ’cos dat stilted usage and dem two other words dey good light an’ shade to punc-tu-ate da story an’ give it a sense o’ re-ality.’ Jimmy’s learning programme under her tuition was definitely getting a little out of hand. Although she hadn’t troubled with Jimmy’s idiolect, on an intellectual basis she was getting through to him loud and clear.

  ‘Oh dear. That doesn’t sound like me, I’m afraid. But you’re quite correct – colloquialisms do often have that effect on narrative. Shall I continue?’

  We both nodded, easing ourselves in our chairs, preparing to listen.

  ‘Well, desperation is the mother of invention and I got a billet in a nightclub, working with the Chinese staff.’

  ‘Excuse me, Countess, what dis billet?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, James. It means I obtained a job, a position as kitchen girl. The Russian owners could speak no Chinese and the Chinese servants no Russian, so that the waiters and the cook needed a translator. My wages barely paid the rent for our tiny room, but the major advantage was that I was fed at the club and the cook allowed me to smuggle food back to my father. Had it not been for this, we would have most certainly starved.

  ‘Soon enough, with the continued influx of refugees, all the nightclubs took to hiring desperate young Russian women as cocktail waitresses-cum-hostesses, the emphasis very much being on “hostess”. Their job was to persuade customers to drink French champagne at an outrageous price, while their own champagne glasses were filled with soda water with a tincture of cordial added to make it indistinguishable in appearance from the real thing. The girls existed solely on gratuities and the fact that their charms could be purchased to extend further into the night in a nearby hotel room. With an abundance of beautiful young Russian women available at no cost to the nightclub, all but the cook and the cleaning amahs were sacked and, of course, they no longer needed an interpreter.

  ‘The proprietor’s wife, Madam Olga Kolkoffski, whose husband had previously been a general in the Imperial Army, called me into the office to terminate my employment. I burst into tears at the prospect. “Please, Madam Olga, I need the salary – my father is very ill,” I pleaded.

  ‘“Ha! It is the same everywhere. People make up such lies.”

  ‘“Oh, madam, it’s the truth,” I begged.

  ‘“How old are you, Nicole?”

  ‘“Fifteen, Madam Olga,” I had not yet learned to lie.

  ‘She seemed to be thinking, then finally said, “Would you like to be a cocktail waitress, child?”

  ‘I was taken aback. “I don’t think I could charm the gentlemen into buying champagne, madam,” I answered truthfully.

  ‘“Can you dance?”

  ‘“Oh yes, and play the piano.”

  ‘“Modern dancing?”

  ‘I nodded, keen to impress her. “All the steps.”

  ‘“We’ll see. Are you a virgin?”

  Jimmy and I both shifted in our seats, but Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan continued her story.

  ‘I was suddenly terribly embarrassed, and when I answered my voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Yes, madam.” At that moment the general walked in. He was a large man with a girth that gave him the look of one of those Russian dolls you can’t knock down. I suppose to keep the idiom I should say he was a bear of a man, with a blunt, bullish face, a great bulbous whisky nose, walrus moustache and a wild shag of grey hair that looked like scouring wire. In appearance he resembled a peasant and did not seem to come from good stock. Yet, it was claimed, he had been an important general and a personal favourite of the tsar. I curtsied to him as he approached, keeping my eyes glued to the floor. “Good evening, general,” I said shyly, trying to conceal the fact that I’d been crying.

  ‘He ignored me and addressed Madam Olga directly. “What’s the kitchen girl doing here?” he demanded. “She ought to be with the servants!”

  ‘“I am terminating her employment, Rudi. We no longer need a translator,” Madam Olga replied. Then her tone changed. “I thought perhaps a cocktail waitress – what do you think?”

  ‘General Rudi Alexei Kolkoffski looked down at me and grunted. “What do I think? She’s got no titties.” He pointed a tubby finger at me. “How old?”

  ‘“She’s fifteen,” Madam Olga said, before I’d had a chance to reply. ‘“Poulet,” he grunted. “A young chicken. Give it to her – at least her barrel hasn’t been reamed too large to take a cartridge like the rest of the bitches.” Whereupon he walked over to a large cupboard and, withdrawing a key attached to a chain from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked it and removed a bottle of Chivas Regal. He locked the cupboard once more and lumbered towards the door. As he reached it, he turned
and said, “Maybe I’ll break her in for the establishment, eh, Madam Kolkoffski?”

  ‘I could see he thought this was very funny and he went off chortling to himself, his huge shoulders moving up and down and no doubt his stomach wobbling with mirth. Terrified out of my wits, I observed his departing back, too young to know if he was truly joking. For months afterwards I would have nightmares where his huge and disgusting corpulence lay on top of me.

  ‘“Well you’ve got the job, child,” Madam Olga said. “Do you have an evening gown?”

  ‘“No, Madam Olga.”

  ‘“Surely, from your mother?”

  ‘“She’s dead, madam. There’s just me and my father, Count Nikolai Lenoir.”

  ‘“Yes, well, titles don’t mean anything any more. I have two countesses on the floor, and the bartender, Petrus Chernikoff, is also a count and not a very good bartender – he keeps overfilling the champagne glasses and forgets to water the gin. The second-hand shops are full of evening gowns. Find yourself one that fits and let me know the price – we’ll take it out of your tips.”

  ‘“My salary, Madam Olga. How much will it be?”

  ‘“Salary? You won’t get a salary, child.”

  ‘“But . . . but how will we live?” I asked her tearfully.

  ‘“Tips. You work for tips, my dear.”

  ‘I hesitated. “I don’t think I could be a hostess, Madam Olga.”

  ‘“Why not? You said you could dance, and you’re a pretty little thing – the rest will come naturally. We Russians can’t afford to be choosy any more.”

  ‘I was trembling, but stood my ground. “Thank you, Madam Olga.” I could feel the hot tears running down my cheeks. “But I can’t,” I whispered.

  ‘“Suit yourself, child. But you soon will – life makes us do lots of things we think we’ll never do. Take my advice – this place is better than most. Fifteen is not so young – do you have your periods yet?”

  ‘“Yes, madam,” I sniffed.

  ‘“There you are, you’re a woman now.” But I remained firm and I shook my head. “You’ll be back,” she said. “There are no more fairytales for little Russian girls – the prince does not appear on a white charger to carry her away.”