COMMENTARIES, 6

The sun crept through a crack in the curtain, climbed and caught Jimmy's closed eyes, then turned and crossed the covers on spotting me crouched in the corner, waiting for him to wake. I didn't say a word, just got up, stretched, and went over and sat down beside him on the mattress, chin resting in the cup of my hands. The sun seemed to like what it saw, quickly deciding to do all it could to help me wake Jimmy, for he didn't look like budging anytime soon. So the sun sent its wild waking force through the crack, through the glass of the window, through the flimsy machine patterned material of the curtains, and then sooner rather than later, Jimmy opened his eyes. Then together we listened to the morning mail fall through the slot in the door downstairs and onto the handstitched rug that was a wedding present from my much travelled grandfather, and I smiled and put a finger to his slowly parting lips. Then watching the crack under the bedroom door I listened to his footsteps falling away, then return, more steadily. He closed the door behind him and held up two envelopes. The rest at best were firestarters, he said. He sat back up in bed, slipped his feet under the sheets and thumbed the first envelope open. It was from the university. He was accepted. I remember grinning, shaking my head, and saying over and over: I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And I took the piece of paper from his cold hands and read it over myself, and then again, while he went about opening the other, smaller envelope, finding inside - wait for it - yes, a postcard, but no, I don't have it and I don't know where it is. Jimmy might know but you'll have to ask him. Of course, you'll have to find him first too. As far as I can recall, the card had no greeting, no words at all for that matter, just a painting, a watercolour if I remember rightly, depicting, as far as could be told, according to Jimmy, the discovery of precious jadeite beneath the surface of the earth by three masked prospectors, whose skeletons could be seen on the outside of their skin, as they stood atop pools of blood which seeped into the colourless soil all around them. That's what I remember at least. And I remember how it was that painting more than anything to do with the university that got Jimmy jumping out of the bed that morning and into the shower so as to be ready to catch the 8.23. Or, like I said, at least that's how I remember it. You'll have to ask Jimmy. If you find him. Is that what you wanted to know? Is that why you came back here? My name is Elise Blayney. This is my statement. Will that do?

COMMENTARIES, 5

I heard a woman there say: Human beings could not have done this. That’s silly. I mean, I think I know what she was getting at, but it’s still silly. I mean, who else is there? Is there an evil out there beyond the human kind? Calling them monsters won’t help either. They called Hitler a monster too, but remember: One monster does not a massacre make. I’m sure they had ample volunteers lining up outside beer halls in Munich, each with the name of their own personal jew stitched into the lining of their lederhosen, on the slight chance of a sudden influx of amnesia, or any disturbing signs of decency that may have suddenly arisen. No, listen to me. Humans did this. We always do this. It’s one of the ways in which we make our mark. One of the many ridiculous ways of trying to achieve an immortality project. And now we’ve reached the stage where it’s all stations go. We find ourselves destroying a train full of morning commuters and schoolchildren. It has become part of the parcel. I just happened to be there, that’s all. I was about to pass over the bridge, I mean, I was coming up to it, approaching it, I was close, but not too close, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. Then it was as if the earth tore itself open from the inside. What use is democracy, one woman wailed, what is the point? I had no response to such an outcry. I admit, I almost laughed. I had to turn away. Then everything seemed to stop. I went about my day. Afterwards, they said I was a great help. I did what had to be done, that’s all. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. There’s nothing I can say. All I know is that one moment I’m watching the police standing guard by the wreckage, the rescue crews toiling away under the sun, and then it’s night and they’re hauling away huge blocks of rubble with the aid of chains and cranes and consistent cooperation.

COMMENTARIES, 4

I was in the kitchen peeling potatoes when I heard the train going by faster than ever before. Then there was a huge bang. There was a giant cloud of smoke. The rescue workers asked me to bring blankets. I brought all the blankets and sheets I own. I saw a man climbing out of the train. His hands were covered with blood. He was calling out a woman’s name. I remember that clearly, because it’s my sister’s name too. Only for a split moment did he resemble her husband. I took a deep breath. It was easy to see who was dead so we set about covering the wounded. There were bodies on the line. One man was lying there naked. They covered him up. People were wandering around with blood all over them. Nobody knew which way to go. You could see the wreckage from my front window. I know one of the ambulance drivers, they call him Beni, but his real name is Constantine, or at least that’s what his girlfriend says, Maria, who I see at Marigold’s on Tuesdays. All day long Beni ferried the injured to hospital, and then once his shift ended he didn’t know what else to do with himself, and so he went back to the scene and sought some kind of higher authority I suppose. I wonder where he should send the bill.

COMMENTARIES, 3

You wouldn’t recognize me now if you knew me before. You’d know what I meant if you’d been here yesterday, when my sister came to visit. Seven years older than me she is, though you wouldn’t know it now for looking, no, not now. Only on the outside though, I must say, for inside it’s another matter entirely, I’m sure of it. Inside, I feel blessed to still even be here. Blessed, or just plain lucky, call it what you will, depending on your point of view, where you’re sitting, or how close you come to look into my eyes. And look, you should really look, because unlike some people I can’t hide behind my eyes. I’m as naked as a newborn. So look, see the gratitude. Of course you can see the sadness too, but that’s to be expected. Anything less and I wouldn’t be human. I wouldn’t be talking to you, I wouldn’t be telling you what I saw. The tremendous rattling, the tremendous shaking, like the land itself was trying to shake me awake. And tears, yes, they’re also to be expected. Infrequent, irregular tears. I stared at Tara’s shoes while she stroked my fingers. We didn’t say much but it was good for our skin to touch again. The shoes looked as if they’d been recently stitched. Maybe she’d just been to a cobbler. My eyes travelled over the red leather while her fingers travelled my fingers, rubbing my nails, my knuckles, massaging my joints, as pictures of stitches, welts and woe, circled the edge of my vision, that up till then was cushioned in codeine, and doing its utmost to deter further infiltration. But they inhibit wholeness, these types of medicines, and I won’t be taking them anymore. Tea will do. Tea will do fine. Trying to push down all those sights and sounds is not an option. Let them rush all over me. If that's what they want. Let them lick me clean. If the actual attack couldn’t kill me, then how could the memories? So I will sit here and wait and see it through. Tally my scars, or connect them in my mind like a dot to dot puzzle, and go on from there.

COMMENTARIES, 2

You could just as well say it all happened yesterday, you could, and I wouldn’t be wrong. Such matters show that time isn’t what we think it is. That’s what I say anyway. I wondered aloud to the man beside me how easy it would be for the flames to pass through the carriages, if a fire broke out and nobody acted in time. It was strange because I wondered this aloud to the man beside me with whom I had only exchanged the most cursory of greetings when we'd boarded. I wondered this, full of wonder, but it was obvious that we were not on the same page. He merely glanced over to the cafe and then emitted from his shut mouth a sound that could only be an acknowledgement that he’d heard me, and not much else. He went back to reading his newspaper. Maybe the newspaper got me thinking such thoughts in the first place, I mean I recall reading an article once, before I finally stopped reading the papers altogether, before any of this happened. It happened in Cairo I think, a few years ago, or it could just as well have been last week. Yes, it was Cairo. The morning train to Luxor. A fire broke out, it might have started in the cafe, or maybe a gas cylinder burst. The flames quickly spread. Witnesses said that the bars on the window prevented more people from escaping. A lot of them died anyway, those who did get out, as you would, jumping from a speeding train. I wasn’t a witness of course, I was more than that, I was right there, in the bloody filling of the chaos sandwich, destined for a stomach already way past full. I’m a survivor. I was. I am. Time starts to play tricks on you. In your mind’s eye you can see the newspaper photo at the scene of the devastation. Remnants of bodies burnt beyond recognition. You can’t help but look and wonder: Is that a skull charred to the bone? But as to what exactly happened to you yourself, you remain unsure. Though certainly I remember the sound, the sound that seemed to signal the tearing open of the sky. I almost expected horns to follow. Then a black faced man, one of his shoulders the width of my two, carried me out like a doll into the cool spring air, despite my telling him that I could walk, despite my telling him that I was fine, put me down, there’s barely a scratch on me, go, go help someone who needs it.

MARGINALIA, 2

Here in this neck of the woods I could either sink or swim. The locals stress on sticking to the path, especially at night. For not that long ago some drunken english went to watch the stars at the end of the world, stumbled on some crag and caused at the very least a crick in one of their red necks, tearing their flesh and tumbling one or another over the edge like a tangled ball of beer soaked string. I spotted Joseph Balam making the rounds of the rotisserie. Eventually we came to chat again by the club's coffee machine. He looked different. The neat manicured beard gone in favor of a thin mustache that if anything only accentuated his potential mischievousness. He said he was surprised to see me again. I spoke of a persistent desire to make everything clear, once and for all. But why, why come back, he wanted to know, before confirming that yes, he did receive in the post a picture postcard a short while before the crash, and yes, it'll still likely be around the house somewhere, and yes Louis, you can have it if you want, before adding:

MARGINALIA, 1

Still living alone with two cats, Danby was much as I remembered him. I did not doubt for a moment he would open the door. We caught up a little while he made some tea. He wondered what had brought me back. I gave him some answer about smoothing out all the edges of the story just as my eyes were catching sight of the postcard pinned to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a seashell. It was true. The man in the hotel that night was right. There it was, right in front of me: one of the handmade watercolor postcards he was talking about. There, on Neville Danby's fridge, amongst all the other shotgun splattered memories vying for space and attention amid old shopping lists and a parking fine. Then he offered me some bread. Good, I thought, he's at least baking again. He's a master. But there was nothing from his oven for a good while after what had happened that morning on the train tracks. Neighbors said he simply stopped baking. Just like that. They said the walls around his house suddenly smelled lonely. They were missing the dough magic of a man who could warm your belly like the sun. Poor peeling walls. They must have got plastered when he picked up his pastry brush again.

COMMENTARIES, 1

They called me a witness, and requested, no, demanded my presence down at the precinct. Did the voice on the other end of the line really say precinct, or did I suddenly see myself as a guest in some gritty New York crime drama? They said I might have seen something of value. I don’t know. But we need to catch them, whoever did this. We need to put them in chains and block up the lock of their cell with quick drying cement. People like that should be only fed through bars, and fatty fried food at that, so they come down with a coronary. And spit in their water bottles if you like, I don’t mind. Piss in them for all I care. They deserve the darkest dungeons, the lot of them. Or maybe there is just one out there who is responsible for the lot of it. I don’t know. But I kind of doubt it. These things take time, piles of planning. I knew it was no accident. Not that I’ve seen anything like that before. That was certainly a first. I went walking down that way again earlier in the week, just to look, to see if anything jumped out at me, jogged my memory. I just want to help. They need all the help they can get. How are we supposed to go on after something like that? So anyway, I crossed over and turned down the narrow street that runs past the bungalows and lush gardens, rising towards the bridge that now ends in the middle of the air. It was all so quiet. I stood around a while and waited to see if a train would come past. But I couldn’t even hear a bird. I was pretty sure that I could smell something distasteful somewhere but I might have been imagining it. All the same I checked under the soles of my shoes. Nothing was there, just some sort of dust, from all the crushed concrete perhaps. The concertina I inherited from my grandfather now reminds me of that morning, the way the carriages were piled up.

A YELLOW INSERT

Here a handwritten page can be found, inserted just before the part of the manuscript entitled: Commentaries. It's in Louis's hand.

Start anywhere said the reporter, between sups of whiskey - While awaiting a flight to take him far, far from the no longer satisfying smell of foreign climes - Start anywhere I said, he said again - Regardless of their names - What they were called - Before - Before their names became a number in a queue - Sure you might only be freelance now but you're still one of us in a way he said- It's changing every day - Credentials however can be a godsend - It can be the difference between a scrape and an almighty scar - Or a box back home - Then he orders another drink that comes and nods hello before leaping down his gullet like a frightened brown mouse - They're calling his flight - We're heading in opposite directions - He's back to Europe - Meanwhile everything is becoming more like a dream - Then I'm waking again, this time on a train slowly climbing some mountains - Gradually leaving behind any trace of the flatlands - Later in the afternoon a blue boisterous spirit breath along with an awesome age old silence - Encountered on the outskirts of the thin vein of humanity that fragilely runs through the wilderness - The town of Katoomba - Have a closer look, it could just as well be Clonmel today, or Crouch End, mainly on account of the mist, the soft rain, though largely jet lag I guess - I get a bed for the night and play ping pong with a friendly Israeli, who finds the score 7-11, each time it comes up, considerably funny - Later we eat vinegar splashed hot chips with his recently acquired Scottish girlfriend - Countries, it has to be countries - For the moment, further identification remains unnecessary - In these our times of terror - Between consistent steady breathing and passport photos - Post offices - Postcards - Convalescence

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 3

The bridge just broke, but everything seems to contradict it. My eyes shift uneasily, and even begin to shake, before being summoned back to the spot where the young mother still stands, curtains draped around her shoulders. ‘Alison,’ she cries, ‘Alison, Alison, it was purer than sound, really. No serious damage done. Tell me where you are, honey, come on, please tell me where you are.'

One of the rescuing troops still hovering around, unsure of what to do next, speaks of the 'absolute devastation,' before he turns up his sleeves and sits straight back down on the scorched ground for a while, staring into space.

The others first who are first upon the scene are the surveyors who ably partition the unsullied soil into patches for all suitable suitors. Behind a boundary marker, a disembodied voice says: ‘I watched the remains and hoped I would soon wake up with something like cramp, or pins and needles. Just something to remind me of the extremity of the situation, but nothing like this. Something I could later use as a reference point, instead of these blunt details which somehow insist upon their own separate existence.’

Another voice says: ‘Raging at my stupidity, I saw, with horrible clarity, the angel deliberately till the earth and the sea until they seemed as one, especially when the train jerked upwards.’

A young girl swings from a railing while posing for photographs for one of the witnesses, her skin stained with blood, not all of it her own. A voice then inquires of her: ‘Are you an acrobat? Are you a gymnast? Please tell me who you are.’

Another passenger recalls standing in one of the groups squeezed together on the diminishing islets of unstained ground, secure in the knowledge, it was assumed, that they were indeed good at the game of life, at least a bit better than those others who perished so suddenly, so simply. And these survivors can now be seen consulting silverlined maps in the hope of securing some sort of destination far from where they're currently found, but all they end up doing is just rowing around in circles.

A tremendous rattling and shaking keeps going on in one of the nearby carriages, now solely situated inside my head. Blue lightning brings along more mass electrocutions. A burnt black piece of corrugated iron flips over in the wind and lodges itself at the bottom of the embankment.

The shuffling, hooded man passes my way again and says: ‘My legs are firmly set on the side of the road and yet I’m still able to hitchhike over chimneys. Here, take my orange pencil and catch a fish before the engine derails and piles into others. Bark to comprehend balance. And pay no attention to my frazzled features.’

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 2

Seen from far below the bridge, the multitude of girls he’ll never see again, quietly appalled by the carnage.

All the colour in the stationhouse has gone. The fire spreads from the bridge right up to the embankment. And yet still wild roses continue to bloom along the only approaching road, extremely conscientious, and occasionally wavering into a single clear flame.

The order came from out of the dark, deriving more than likely from one of those hovering surrounding images, which upon first glance seem so harmless: a cave, a snug, a thicket, an unattended altar.

Now only the remains of the carriages protrude somewhat, hollow and ghostly in the smoky air.

A shuffling hooded man nears a little closer. I notice him out the corner of my eye but pretend otherwise, until finally we’re within speaking distance of each another, and I hope he has something to say, for I myself can think of nothing. ‘It’ll be a lot colder in the morning,’ he says. ‘Expect some frost. And don’t bother hiding behind a windbreaker. Are you afraid of spiders?’

Torn by the force of the impact, the connecting passage at the end of one of the rear carriages stretches skyward like a gaping mouth, directed toward daytime despondency.

Later I see the shuffling hooded man again, crouching beneath a roof of corrugated iron, warming his hands over the few flickering flames left to him, safely out of sight of the authorities. ‘Never fear,’ he says, ‘sunlight will hold up the preciousness that was originally planted in the virgin earth. Don’t you worry now.’

There’s no light in the coach but still plenty of coal, and it makes no sense to speculate. Several of the carriages lie wedged together due to a whim in cursive scratching. The backup safety system never celebrated any flow of success, not even a trickle. And still the shivering notices continue to pile up. 'What about the tip of the final, flattened carriage?' Well, for starters, it couldn’t keep on carrying the burden. Then one of the other committee members points over his pencil and says, ‘Now, despite all the disregard for duty you so eloquently displayed the last time we requested your assistance, we are still obliged in asking you to return once again to that smoke filled hallway. Turn your jacket collar up if you have to, make good use of a scarf, and tuck your hands somewhere away from the grisly scenes going on all around you. Just remember to take your time, have a good look around. Try to notice any discrepancies, anything unusual. Perseverance here is the key.’

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 1

The remains of the commuters encompass the railway line as well as the crushed carriages. The next of kin have all been notified and by now nearly all of them have arrived on the scene. Next comes the arduous process of identification.

'Look, there by the flashing light,' a woman cries, recognizing the left shinbone of her dearly (and clearly) departed husband, beloved father of three devoted children. And look, there, closer, nearer to the bloody tracks, a young girl successfully identifies the gnawed through fingernails of her older brother, still attached to the bloody stump of his hand.

Somewhere along the line, seeing no other option, the Earth started its own proceedings. To make it easier to soak up the carnage, it encouraged the human remains to blend together with one another as orderly and quickly as possible. But the growing overwhelming stench hasn’t really helped matters run along smoothly.

Then, from out of nowhere, the City issue a decree for an all-at-one mass cremation. One final, fitting ceremony to end all ceremonies. Complete with punch. Everything connected with the events of the day will be burnt to a cinder. Furthermore, taking into account their well developed principle of utility, the City also come to the conclusion that it would be in everyone’s best interest to give the public the opportunity to add their own personal touch to the ceremony. The ceremony they now predict will one day go down in history as the Great Fire Of Remembrance.

Many of the folk now gathered around have decided upon the option of offering flowers to the flames, ones purposely picked for the occasion. Some simply fling in freshly purchased greeting cards, with personal messages scrawled inside. Others just can’t find the time to select something appropriate and so instead they chuck in cards signed to commemorate some other notable occasion. Some even make the most of the arrangement and add whole boxes filled with cards they no longer need or want. And still others decide that to offer photographs to the flames is the best option of them all, as it’s considered appropriately poignant. Of course, a few try to take advantage of the situation. One man throws in a shoebox collection of love letters long kept from his impetuous youth, reassuring his wife with the words: It’s all for the best, it’s all for the best. Another man, an avid collector of the daily newspaper for over the last twelve years or so, now decides he needs a change of direction in his life. So he adds pile after pile of crusty brown paper to the fire, watching the flames climb higher and higher as he contemplates the void of his days to come.

Soon the streets are paved with all kinds of debris, and it’s not long before pandemonium reigns supreme. Decrepit old ladies get thrown headfirst into the flames and the police take advantage of their position by exacting revenge on those poor sods considered to be persistent troublemakers. And the flames keep climbing.

Sit back and watch as the creditors and debtors start tearing each other to pieces. Screams and cheers easily drown out any futile waves of protest. Many can only look on at what’s happening with their mouths agape.

Don’t forget though, please don’t forget, that beautiful doe eyed girl standing back from all the wreckage in the safety of a dream, seemingly bemused by everything going on today, especially the supposed revelation of an entertainment society.

THE CONDUCTOR

It begins once you awake from that heavy night of sleep, when you slip out from the warmth of the covers and rest your feet on the compartment floor until the cold runs up through your legs. You rise and wipe the sleep from your eyes, open the curtain. Apart from a shadow of reflection, there is nothing to see but darkness.

You are seated, patiently waiting. A faint outline, resembling a set of hills, appears in the distance, but nothing can be confirmed as closer and more prominent sights also pass by the window: namely, masses of shadows, shapes, and various figures that suddenly appear and almost as quickly vanish, only present long enough to distort somewhat any other sights that may or may not be seen.

You approach the glass and look for something to fix upon, something in approximate line with your eyes. The reflection of your pupils, the whites of your eyes and your eyebrows, and the lower part of your forehead, together of course with the darkness, prevent any chance of a clearer view. Look for something in line with your nose, or ears, your mouth, chin or neck, shoulders, chest or stomach: not one angle has a view better than any other.

You return to the bed and sit on the edge and immediately feel the cold bedspring through the thin mattress. You close your eyes and listen closely to the wind outside speed past and in through the small opening at the top of the window, the one and same wind earlier keeping the compartment cool and fresh all the while you were sleeping, completely dressed, snug under the covers. The curtain rings make the exact same sound each time as they slide back and forth on the railing. Soon other sounds fall within reach, bits and pieces that vary in loudness and clarity. You concentrate on them, follow them, but it is not long before you want to stop and move on to something else, as it grows harder to distinguish the sounds you can hear from the sounds you imagine you can hear so as to further pass the time.

Your eyes open. One hand rests on the other, knees not far apart. You try to fix upon a thought but fail to do so, the different images pass back and forth too quickly, and then only leave to be replaced by something else just as fleeting. Some snippets from letters or conversations may appear, or perhaps some colours, distinctive smells, different sights, different settings. You wonder how long it will take before you dismiss all distracting images from your mind for something more substantial.

Your eyes slowly fall and settle on the hills that are now a little clearer in the distance. The shapes, figures, and shadows still appear but they no longer cluster in such a mass, and, although the darkness remains, some of the shadows are a shade lighter than others, and others seem lighter than ever before. Looking up at the sky, albeit sure you are facing the east, there is still no sign of the sun.

Straighten your back. Press your feet flat on the floor. Sit and wait for the break of day. Briefly rise to pull down the window a little further. The figures and shadows and shapes soon disband to reveal a long empty plain stretching to the foot of the hills. A faint but notable orangecoloured glow appears, flickering momentarily, quickly vanishing. Press your face against the glass. The hills overlap behind one another, fold after fold. Since the darkness remains and there is no sign of it changing, you return to the edge of the bed again, and watch the window again, and then rise and see again, somewhere in the darkness between the ground, hills and sky, a similar faint orangecoloured glow. But still nothing happens afterwards, the glow still vanishes, not once does it grow even a little in size.

Your eyes fall and fix on the stopped watch still strapped to your wrist. There is nothing but silence. An old wooden chair from the corner of your room appears, and it captures your attention, along with the question how cold the chair would be if it were the only seat available in a damp, abandoned room, situated somewhere in the countryside, where outside there is one empty plain after another, leading away to where the ground meets the sky, where the sky hardly changes colour from the ground, a pale bluish grey. There is nothing but silence.

You close the curtain and return to bed. You prop your head higher up with the coat on the pillow. Then you pull the covers to the bridge of your nose and close your eyes. Amid the masses of shadows, shapes, and various figures that suddenly appear and almost as quickly vanish (the kind so associated with the darkness behind the eyelids), the gradual image of a train appears, until finally the train station from the night before comes to mind. The clock high up on the station wall is about to strike the hour. You board the nearest carriage and pass empty compartment after compartment, only catching a glimpse of the occasional face with tired eyes looking forward to a quiet night of undisturbed rest. The compartment corresponding to the number on your ticket is also empty, and nothing changes from the moment you first close your eyes and once you awake from that heavy night of sleep.

You unstrap the watch and slide it to the furthest corner under the bed. Then you return to a comfortable position, this time on top of the covers, still facing the window, in particular the small part in the top lefthand corner, where the curtain begins and a small section of glass remains visible. When your feet rise underneath the curtain, resting flat against the glass, the cold is not long in numbing the thickened skin of your soles. The skin of your wrist is soft and white, with little sprouting hairs initially pleasing to the touch. Still the silence remains. Focus on your breathing. Count to ten, then back down to zero. Then count to what you think is a minute, two minutes, three, four, five and six and so on, until you reach another apparent hour, and you open the curtain, and you pull down the remaining window, and you position yourself so you can lean the whole of your head and part of your body out in the early morning air. You begin to see through the darkness a wood. You can smell the pines and the bark and the animals hidden inside the wood. The hills, as if in a dream, are more or less covering the sky, and small flickering patches of faint orangecoloured light break through the leaves and branches of the trees and onto the side of the train. As the train arches round to the right of the nearest hill, and through the remaining wood, you begin to see the sun shine down through the trees and onto the tracks laid out before you.

THE COMPLETE SHORTER WORKS OF LOUIS ALBUQUERQUE

Some of the pages in the manuscript Louis sent are typed, some are handwritten, and some are typed with lengthy handwritten amendments in the margins. And that's just what he got up to before he shut it down and took up residence in some hostel in the south of Australia. The rest he sent - the originals - which he suggested I finish translating, can wait a little longer, it won't kill them.

IT WAS HERE THAT I LEARNED HOW MEMORY

Fold, unfold. Unfold, fold. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what book Boris was talking about. And I don't know if I want to know. I thought about looking, but I just keep coming back to the pen and ink. I thought about looking but I just keep coming back. Fold, unfold. Unfold, fold.

He knew immediately that I was watching him, loneliness had sharpened his instincts. Orange trees and jasmine were growing in the courtyard and the arches were covered with vines. If life has no intention of doing you any favors, I’d rather go out where I can’t be expecting any. Selfsufficient and indifferent to the suffering of the rest of the world, with the unquestioning straightforward glance of an animal. She led me on along the littered slopes, past shattered china and bits of wire and broken springs and rusty pipes, all glimmering grotesquely in the moonlight. In a way you look older, and in another way you look younger, first one and then the other. It was here that I learned how memory can keep the diseased heart beating. None of it felt real, and for one paralytic moment I was sure that I was gliding away into another sphere of sensations. I feel a small electrical flash of love go out toward anyone I am in contact with, no matter who it is or where. The real remembrance lies in a momentary fragrance. It’s the thing hiding inside that gives us shivers. I knew he was awake, staring straight ahead as if he were gazing into a mirror, searching for something neither on earth nor in the sky. I began to hate him. Physical uneasiness can instil odd thoughts into the mind, thoughts frilled up in all their elaborateness, in all the bizarre intuitive fullness of a dream. But of course the truth is that intimacy and closeness were all an intricate hoax, an ingenious dream, a subtle but halfhearted mirage. Be fragile, be tender, humiliate yourself, and let the discolouration of dream close in on you. The reality becomes a cruel dream while the dream fades into a tender manmade reality. But all attempts at verbal communication he had surely dismissed as vanity years and years ago. A penetrating yet unseeing gaze, as if he were looking through me as through glass down corridors scarcely human. You remain alone, you can’t get inside the rest, they can’t get inside you. A million little spirits each with its own peculiar tastes, hopelessly far away from one another. But as I was beginning to doze off I heard a sound, a low buzz, steady and quite unexplainably frightening, the sound of time rolling past, and the world turning on its tiny axis. In my dream it appeared, among other things, that the oranges had dried out, had turned hollow and metallic, had changed into little bells.

TILL THE LAST TRICKLE

1 - JR - And how goes the camera? - The computer? - Hope they're working for you somehow - And I wonder whether you're doing any reviews - Or have left that malarkey behind - There is a pizza here that tastes as if it has been mysteriously transported straight from the best wood fired oven in Italy - Served by dark haired, dark eyed slender beauties - Kind, gentle - So gentle and kind - Susie is better off - For me monogamy at best has only ever had the slightest of holds anyway - Do you remember those girls when we were about 13 or 14? - Nicola something or another with me - Siobhan something or another with you - It was an Irish name at least - Even though she sounded as if she was mere steps away from ascending to the english throne - God we thought we were in love - At first -And I suppose in a way we were - I don't know about you but I felt in some kind of love with each of their friends too - Yes even Siobhan - There were about seven or eight girls in that group and I desired them all - And listen, I don't think much has changed

2 - No I don't think much has changed at all - There is an older man here at the hostel who says women will always be a torment till the last trickle of testosterone has left and packed up for new climes - Jesus it's a wonder I ever got married at all - Growing from a boy I would observe various men who had sworn loyalty and dedication and who knows what else to the woman beside them - White white white - At various functions - In hotels - Embassies - Wherever - And even before I first needed to shave they struck as belonging to either one of two kinds, as a result of marriage - Or if they were particularly unfortunate, both - Drunks or Idiots - And so I swore eternal bachelorhood - And yet - And yet, here I am - Stuck on the underside of the world - Looking for something likely no longer there - Likely gone, gone for good - Good

3 - Good - She's better off - Besides everything else, I got tired of terrorism too late - What in the end does it matter who did what to whom? - What the hell was I looking for? - Some secret - Likely in the end some silly secret - And then all of a sudden it's too late - Your world, your world in the end evaporates - And yet all the same I can't help but wonder what has become of my papers - Those I sent you - Way back when - And I wonder whether you took a stab at translating any of the ones I never got to - I mean, if so, you could have made Mr Dunnerly proud - Wherever he is - He was a good teacher - He was a good man - Melbourne's mighty cold - A different kind of cold - Wait, there's a Sudanese cab driver I know trying to catch my eye - Later - LA

KEY OF THE DOOR

Boris is dead. I found him. He was sitting in his spotted armchair. Not sleeping. Dead. Appearing to be asleep. But not asleep. Dead. He didn't come to bingo. He said he was going to come to bingo but he didn't come to bingo. We spoke earlier in the afternoon. He was working on another wall. I said it was that time of the month again, come on, let's go have a drink together, and just listen to the numbers as they come up, they might remind us of old phone numbers in our lives, that kind of thing, and bring up associated memories, and what not, who knows. He chuckled at the phone number idea but all the same said he'd come. But he didn't, he didn't come. Numbers were being called. I surreptitiously sank some sauvignon blanc and then snuck out the side entrance between the calling of numbers. There was no answer at his door. Boris, I said, between knocks. Boris, Boris. But still no answer. I knew he wouldn't have been outside, it was getting too late, the sun was setting, the wind was picking up, and history showed that he would have by now called it a day, he would have by now popped a stout bottle open and quietly supped from a glass (in the meanwhile) before his early evening comedy came on. Boris. Boris, come on, open up. So I turned the knob and found it unlocked. And there he was, upright in his armchair. I knew as much then as I ever would. The crux of the matter being that I had to get out. No, not the room necessarily, but the whole place. The retirement village. There was something wrong with the whole set up, the whole idea that these elderly live out their last breaths surrounded by one another, each in a lonely room, with framed photographs on the walls of family and better times. There was just the other day the man in 23 needing a lightbulb changed, and the handyman was away, so I said I'd take care of it. He was a teacher in times past. On the wall were framed photos of his family, as well as framed handwritten poems from his students over the years, and what looked like framed examples from students' exercise books. English composition. Spelling. Comments on Blake's Songs of Innocence. Earlier in the day I'd been talking with the woman in unit number 17 again. She'd mentioned how in Yorkshire during the Second World War she and her co-workers at the bank would take it in turns to go up onto the roof after hours to help keep watch for German planes. I want to fly away. I want to fly again. I want to fly away, Boris. Boris, look at you. In your lap a piece of paper, betwixt thumb and forefinger, unfolded, and the prominent creases reminding me of the streets in a simple well laid out city in which I might like to one day take a casual tram ride around, cold bottle of beer in hand, cute girl by my side, and a conductor checking tickets with the gab of one Harpo Marx. Boris, come on, wake up. But he wouldn't wake up, of course he wouldn't, he was dead. Come on, man, he's dead. Get it together. So I took the piece of paper from his lap and carefully folded it back up, put it inside my inside coat pocket and then went back to the recreation hall to go look for Mrs Shearer and let her know what had happened. She was in between calling out numbers again. I went up and whispered about Boris, and she nodded and then went about calling the next number. Then someone called out bingo. Motioning me with a tilt of her head, I followed her to the head office and she closed the door behind me. Are you sure? she wanted to know. Yes, I'm sure, I replied. They're not supposed to do that here, she said, and which I took to mean to die. They're supposed to be able to look after themselves, she said, they're supposed to be in better health than that, otherwise we would have sent them elsewhere. A hospital, or one of those places where there's a nurse to take care of your needs, feed you, wash you, if necessary, that kind of thing. Then her cheeks suddenly went red and she started crying. I was about to tap her on the shoulder and say 'There there', but something better immediately came along and told me to do otherwise, which meant to do nothing. And I had no idea if she even knew Boris.