The Voyage

by Murray Bail

  She wasn’t interested in the ship tied with lines against the wharf, it was hard to know what Elisabeth was interested in, immaculate, waiting patiently while Delage stood admiring the bulging mass of orange-painted steel, it reared out of the green water, colossal in volume, its height and length went on forever, without snapping in two. To Frank Delage, it was a marvel of welded engineering; impossible surely for anybody not to be impressed, except, that is, Elisabeth. Fat in the water, it leaked streams of water, as well as small sounds, creaking and groaning metal, humming, and slowly hissed steam, wisps of smoke coming out of somewhere; all this the piano manufacturer from Sydney found interesting. As soon as he made an observation to Elisabeth, he could hear a pedantic tone coming from his mouth and nose, better to try out exaggerated explanations. At intervals the ship let out sighs, sometimes he confused them with the sighs Elisabeth gave out, alongside him. In the beginning he had wondered whether Elisabeth’s habit came from boredom, or else tiredness, she could have been tired, lack of oxygen to the lungs; unhappiness with a mother or father, of life in general, is known to bring on sighing. Women throw themselves into various tasks with tremendous energy, then collapse in a heap, suddenly tired: “the wreck of the Hesperus” he had heard only women say, his mother and close behind, his sister, women in the office too, the one time they don’t mind appearing gaunt. Telling Elisabeth ordinary things made her laugh, sometimes the English words didn’t fit, she had to listen carefully, it was one of the things he liked. To go ashore they took small steps down a steep gangplank, which had a rope for a railing, Elisabeth in glossy high heels, to reach the street, which had an oil-stained scrappy surface, they had to run between whirring forklifts carrying containers, warning lights flashing, men shouting, pausing for the tall grubby yellow gantry coming toward them along rails parallel to the ship. In her home city, Vienna, he had allowed Elisabeth to lead him about, here she turned to him for knowledge of the ship, the docks, the dangers, his second or third experience of the activities of docks. “See how she looked at me? I don’t think that woman likes me.” Delage hadn’t noticed, not necessarily disagreeing, said, “Don’t you find when sisters are together it’s difficult? They each influence the other.” The passengers kept walking up and down the street alongside the docks, stepping around the potholes, at the same time not letting the ship out of their sight, trailed by boys offering postcards, cigarettes, bottles of water, bananas. We can go further afield, Delage decided. The further they went from the ship the less he thought about the piano standing on its legs back in Vienna, and the different disturbances it had produced across the city which had affected people’s lives in a “ripple effect,” he was with the woman from Vienna who had left Vienna to be nearby, he wondered what she could see in him, the way she came on board with that smile and significantly heavy suitcases, without knowing the near future, or the distant future, let alone the merits or otherwise of a city like Sydney, if he had asked about her plans he would have become cornered, he thought; he allowed his thoughts to wander without purpose from the colossal orange ship to the pale shape of her, to the streets, palm trees that needed water, dirt, always a few single men looking on, when what he wanted was clarity, not entirely but when necessary. Some children running ahead bumped into the group, the bookseller actually tipped his hat, old school, the two sister-companions from Elwood, Melbourne, fanning themselves with colored magazines, Delage’s thoughts had already slowed to a standstill, the English couple in the lead, tall timber, the older of the short-haired sister-companions looking Elisabeth up and down whenever she could, not a happy woman, no wonder she had been discarded, it was the other one who did the talking. “Watch the handbag, it’ll get pinched.” Only a few hours before, they’d been on the ship at the one table having breakfast, now as a way to move on Delage made light of the moment, in a loud voice: “Can you recommend any monuments?” “The pyramids, I believe, are that-a-way,” the Englishman joining in. He wore a royal-blue knitted cotton shirt with buttons, and a gold watch. “That man,” Delage told Elisabeth, “has a real-estate agency in the south of England somewhere, and knows all there is to know about Gothic churches. He’s a walking Oxford dictionary on the subject. And he does his best to hide what he knows. I don’t mind him at all.” An Englishman who responded modestly and honestly to the solidarity of things, taking one step at a time, waiting before crossing the village street, a sequence which had produced strength in British engineering, medicine, law, science, the cataloguing of libraries, the design of umbrellas, as well as a pedantic tone in its literature, and art unable to shake an unhealthy obsession with the naked figure. They had been on the ship a week or so, Delage found himself glancing at her, Elisabeth, still not knowing enough about her, that was why, until he began being direct by looking direct; if she noticed, she would turn slightly, out of politeness or believing it showed her best side. The Dutchman had joined in and told them he regularly attended literary evenings, standing on one leg for hours at a time, drinking sour wine, while poets read aloud from their works, until it had ruined his health, not only his physical health, the Dutchman emphasized, had a large face and large eyes, but his psychological health as well, which was worse, he said, far worse, the result of taking in an exceptional amount of the most earnest, pointless words, very damaging, just as the body cannot be exposed to excessive X-rays, words and still more words of little or no value, even by well-known poets, who often had the worst reading voices, just as the worst poets had the best reading voices. “The poorest countries have the biggest postage stamps,” Delage chimed in. It was not only poets, the Dutchman went on, novelists and even, believe it or not, historians, biographers and journalists jump at the chance to give public readings, anything to be on stage and listened to by a live audience. It was the age of performance. Why anybody would go to the trouble of putting on a fresh pair of trousers, go out into the weather, take the tram or bus, find the venue, and hand across hard-earned money, in order to listen to an author was, he could see now, beyond his comprehension. “Years of my life have been wasted combing my hair, and attending festivals, and listening to writers reading. The years wasted. And there’s nothing I can do about it now, which only makes it worse. I lie wide awake at night.” The two sisters had nothing against poetry readings, one of them had written poems herself. At literary festivals, which have spread like an infectious disease across the western world, a by-product of prosperity, the connection just came to him, the Dutchman, there is a never-ending stream of opinions spoken by writers, either they’re reading aloud or else seated on stage discussing their books, or tackling other weighty subjects such as free-market economics, or Islam and censorship, or whether it’s possible to write a good poem with a baby at your feet, or death, subjects they have little or no knowledge of, but still they keep on talking instead of writing, and are listened to reverently. The Dutchman had become exasperated at what he saw around him, “trash and camera-vanity,” one producing the other, “there is nothing firm underneath,” as he put it, his wife complained he never had anything positive to say, she enjoyed literary festivals, and after twenty-three years of marriage had left him, “an otherwise ordinary Saturday, taking just a suitcase, and wearing a raincoat,” and moved in with some women who were obsessed with puppet theater. “I am hoping the sea voyage will settle my nerves,” he said. The audience was small on the ship. People require distraction as never before, the Dutchman told them. What to do in our leisure time is the most important question today. It hasn’t been answered yet. “They could think about playing a piano,” Delage said to Elisabeth. “Opening night at galleries is the worst,” she said. “I don’t ever want to go to another one. You and I met at a lecture, but it could hardly be called public. It was someone lecturing about music, wasn’t it? I wasn’t paying much attention.” The strangeness of Port Said was strange in an ordinary way, small traders, large trucks, many gaps, and they felt slow and strange toward one another, wandering into side streets at random, the furt
her they went from the ship the more they found the town and each other interesting. They were polite to each other, almost too careful, Frank Delage thinking it necessary to make a firm impression, while avoiding the false step. Figures lay asleep on concrete benches, “concrete,” he decided to tell Elisabeth, “because of termites.” “Termites?” checking on his seriousness, “How do you know that?” Further on she asked, “What is it you would like to know about me?” How many other men had she slept with? was one question that came to mind, a distant curiosity, little more, which he would never get around to asking. Instead it was her mother, remote yet attentive, who invited questions and slid away, replaced by her daughter, now by his side, who had parts of the same smooth face, Amalia von Schalla’s, the same way too of extending a silence, all of which interested him. Past the mosque, what could have been a mosque, a side-street mosque, the boy in a white shirt, followed by another, threw a stone, others followed, one hitting Delage on the neck, he took Elisabeth by the elbow. “It would appear we’re not wanted here. Better not rush it.” The same boys brushed past, six or seven, different sizes. As they came in close, Delage reached for the hand of one of them, held it tight, clicked his biro and carefully drew a face with big teeth and ears, the boy looked up at him, then waved his palm with a cry, the others came forward wanting theirs. They had passed the opera house. Delage was in her hands. It stopped raining, which was a precise moment he always liked. The many different kinds of gray, of black, patches of gray-black reflected, laid out on and at angles to the streets, rectangles of it tilted and glistened, glass had turned as dark as mirrors, mixed with what was rounded. Taking his hand, Elisabeth led him into the von Schalla apartments, walked in, and opened the door to the main room. “Mister Sydney Piano has agreed to join us.” A silver-haired man in a dark suit reading a newspaper stood up. Elisabeth led Delage across a large apricot-colored carpet. Some people stand up and go forward, others remain standing and the visitor is forced to go forward. Visitors to Konrad von Schalla invariably wanted something, it was only to be expected he would remain in the one spot and for them to step forward, if it were the other way around, even meeting halfway, the advantage could shift at that moment from him to them, it didn’t take much for the pendulum to shift, over the years hundreds of people in business and governments had arrived at the von Schalla apartments with requests, or offers, or suggestions, or whispers of some sort, information of course can be valuable, von Schalla standing up from his armchair or behind his tiny desk, so many people had crossed the large soft carpet, cap in hand, while he remained standing in the one spot, it had become a habit for him not to take a few steps forward, even to his own daughter. She kissed him and stepped back. “This is Mr. Delage from Sydney. He is the maker of a special piano. I think that is the way to describe you.” Delage nodded at the small man who was looking at him. “Relax, I’m not here to sell you any grand pianos. I’ve just about given up on that. It’s been hard to get a response. I met Mrs. Schalla yesterday. Beg your pardon, or was it the day before?” Amalia von Schalla had shown sympathy, and he had reached out and touched her breast. Delage didn’t care what he said to this man, who remained looking at him, although he saw in the eyes a watery blue warning, what appeared to be a faint smile of welcome, or condescension, nodding rather than saying anything, taking his time, Delage glancing past his shoulder expecting, or at least preferring, to see Amalia. “You might tell your mother her guest has arrived,” von Schalla said in German.