Cairo Page 4

  Eventually, I took out the single folded sheet. The letter was brief and written on unlined paper in an exaggerated feminine hand (loops and curls, large dots on the i’s).

  Dearest Max,

  Thank you so much for last night.

  I had a lovely, lovely time. You are so sweet. Call me soon.

  xx D

  Envious and mildly aroused, I stared for some time at what was evidently a love letter. It must have found its way into the wrong mailbox, but who on earth was Max? I re-read it.

  Careful not to reveal any sign of the letter having been tampered with, I re-folded the sheet and slipped it back into its envelope. I gathered up all the junk mail to throw out, and put any other mail to one side. The love letter I placed into my shirt pocket.

  I stood in my lounge room wondering what to do next. I needed to buy food and general supplies but was gripped by irrational anxiety. Where would I shop? Was I suitably dressed for this bohemian part of town? What if I got lost? It occurred to me with force that, aside from Uncle Mike and his wife, I was on my own. There was no one else to help me if things went awry.

  Eventually, hunger got the better of me and, feeling brave, I stepped onto the walkway outside my apartment, carrying the junk mail. Halfway down the stairs I encountered a tiny, walnut-faced Greek or Italian woman dressed head-to-toe in black. She was shuffling up with a cane laundry basket grasped between her outstretched hands, like a beetle with a disproportionately giant crumb. A silver cross on a chain around her neck bounced about with her exertions. On seeing me, she smiled one of those smiles calibrated to demonstrate not only her effort, but also her strenuous attempts to conceal that effort from her fellow humans and soldier on.

  Ever the polite country boy, I enquired if she needed assistance, but she shook her head.

  ‘Oh no. I will be OK. Thank you, young man. Very kind.’

  I gestured at my front door. ‘My name is Tom Button. I moved into flat number twenty. My Aunt Helen used to live there. Helen Button?’

  The woman made a face as if to imply this information could not have been more trivial to her had it been the results of a camel race in Dubai. I flushed with embarrassment and stood back on the sunny steps as she manoeuvred past and, for a second, we were wedged in such proximity that I felt it rude not to attempt further conversation.

  ‘Beautiful day,’ I said, as indeed it was; the sun shone and the sky was a flat, sheer sheet of blue. The garden was abuzz with insects and birds.

  ‘Yes,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Summer. Good day to wash clothes.’ Her basket squeaked against the metal railing. After re-adjusting her hold on it, she sighed, rested the basket on the rail and looked up at me. ‘I been here twelve years.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, it’s very nice here.’

  The woman made a noise that might have been of agreement or not; it was hard to tell. Then she scrutinised me as if committing my features to memory. I had the disconcerting impression she was preparing to lunge at me, but she merely licked her lips and grunted again. ‘Yes. Quiet. Except for bloody kid running around. You got no children?’

  Although phrased as such, I realised this was not a question but a statement, which she did not wish contradicted. I shook my head and told her I was living alone, an answer she heard with an expression of grim pleasure.

  Heartened by this exchange but unsure how to finish the conversation, I brandished my rolled-up junk mail and asked her the whereabouts of the bins.

  She put her basket down, gripped my upper arm with surprising strength, and spun me around so that we were facing the main entrance on Nicholson Street. It occurred to me that she was one of those hardy European peasants I’d read about in National Geographic — a woman who would live to a hundred and fourteen, chopping wood and slaughtering pigs in her kitchen until the day she died.

  ‘Round the side,’ she said, jabbing with a bony finger. ‘See there. The bins. Throw it in there, bah.’ She released me and picked up her laundry basket.

  I thanked her and was about to continue on my way when a thought occurred to me. I took the letter from my shirt pocket. ‘Excuse me. I was wondering if you knew anyone called Max who lives here?’

  She glanced at me with acute distaste, as if I had enquired about something intrusive — the state of her sex life, say, or the regularity of her bowel movements. Her eyes and mouth narrowed in concert. ‘Cheever,’ she said.

  I showed her the letter but she made a dismissive gesture, accompanied by another Bah.

  ‘So there’s no one living here called Max?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘There, there. Place number twenty-eight. Max Cheever.’ With her chin she indicated a first-floor apartment at the bend of the U-shaped block. She put her basket down again. Then she looked around to make sure no one was in earshot and grabbed my hand.

  ‘You know what I saw one time?’ she said.

  ‘No. What?’

  She made a disgusting movement with her mouth, as if whatever she prepared to say possessed a physical component she was endeavouring to locate behind her bottom lip. Her eyebrows arched. ‘I saw one time those two doing very weird things with their pale friend. Late at night, at the full moon. Dancing over there in the park.’

  She made a noise in her throat, a sort of grunt, perhaps attempting to impart some extra meaning to the episode she had witnessed. When it became obvious I was not registering this subtext, she crossed herself with her free hand and grasped my arm again so tightly with the other that my fingers began to lose all feeling. ‘They were like devils.’

  This was interesting. ‘Devils?’

  ‘Like little, little devils. And a bottle of blood.’

  This was very interesting. I was speechless. The woman was mad. She gave me a final significant look and released me. ‘Stay away from them. You a young man. They no good for someone like you. Parties and all that. Bah!’

  And with that, she picked up her laundry basket and went on her way.

  I was left to ponder the meaning of her dire warning, which only further piqued my interest in this mysterious neighbour. I returned the letter to my shirt pocket and stood on the stairs, tapping the rolled-up junk mail against my lower lip, trying to decide what to do. The apartment she had indicated looked no different from all the others: a yellowing door with its round window, disused service hatch, frayed doormat.

  I retraced my steps back up to the walkway. At that time of morning it was shady up there, cool and peaceful. Through an open window I heard a radio playing pop music. Lining the walkway was an assortment of garden tubs with flowers and herbs growing in them. Parsley, thyme, mint, a burst of red geranium.

  I removed the letter from my pocket and, on instinct, licked and sealed it. I waved it about in the air to dry it (I was nothing if not cunning in my naivety). Then I knocked on the door of apartment number twenty-eight.

  FOUR

  I WAITED FOR SOME TIME BUT THERE WAS NO RESPONSE. AS I was preparing to leave, I heard the thump of footsteps and a man calling out from within.

  The door was opened by a black-haired, olive-skinned man in his late twenties. He wore blue trousers and a white shirt unbuttoned to reveal his hairless chest. A packet of cigarettes sat in his shirt pocket. He made no effort to hide his disappointment at finding me there. Clearly, he had expected someone else.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sorry for knocking so early. I’m wondering if someone called Max lives here?’

  The man seemed undecided whether to answer, then scowled. ‘And who wants to know, may I ask?’

  His abrupt manner caught me by surprise. I was shy at the best of times but now, more than usual, I struggled to answer.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  I held up the envelope. ‘I have a letter for Max. I moved into number twenty, along here. The old lady said a Max lived here, so I thought …’

  ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t open it. A
s you can see.’

  He made a face, snatched the envelope from me and squinted at it, taking his time over the single scrawled word. He sighed, and I smelled liquor on his breath. He appeared to be drunk, even though it was only nine-thirty in the morning.

  From inside the apartment there came a drift of woozy jazz trumpet. Someone coughed, and I made out a man’s voice, followed by an intimation of movement. A gaunt figure popped his head around the entrance-hall corner, then vanished so rapidly I wondered if I hadn’t imagined him.

  ‘It was with a pile of other mail,’ I went on gamely, realising I had made a mistake in bringing the letter here; I should have thrown it out.

  He turned it over. ‘When did you say it arrived?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It might have been there for a while. Although it was on top of the pile so it was probably recent. Are you Max?’

  The man wafted the envelope under his nose, touched it to his lips. He glanced back over his shoulder, then eyed me with suspicion. ‘Yes. I am Max Cheever. Luckily for you.’

  This caught me off guard, too. After a short silence, I held out my hand to shake. ‘I’m Tom.’

  Max ignored my proffered hand. Instead, closing the door partly behind him, he lurched out onto the walkway.

  ‘Listen,’ he began, leaning in as if preparing to impart some confidential information. But then, changing his mind, he shoved the letter into his pocket and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.

  *

  Although disconcerted at being rebuffed in such a fashion by Max Cheever, I set about the rest of my day. The excitement of living in my own apartment was dizzying. I was desperate to explore my new city but felt overwhelmed by the choices available to me, so I opted to stay close to home.

  I shopped for supplies in Smith Street and, after making a cheese sandwich for my lunch, set about cleaning the apartment with gusto. I put on my Pink Floyd record and rolled up my sleeves. My father had given most of his sister’s clothes away; the wardrobe was empty aside from a few coathangers and an ancient winter coat that had been left behind. I scrubbed the bathtub and toilet, brushed away the spider webs that had accumulated in the high corners, and tidied up the few personal items scattered about. Although dusty, the apartment wasn’t especially dirty, and it was small; it didn’t take long to make it habitable.

  Occasionally I found myself standing, rag in hand, stunned to discover myself on the verge of a life I had so often dreamed of. Surely, I would be thinking, surely this has to go wrong somehow? It was all too easy. I half expected to hear one of my sisters (Meredith, most likely) slopping up the stairwell with her overstuffed suitcase. I’ve left Bill and decided to move in here, she would announce in this awful fantasy. Have you got any biscuits? The thought made me shudder and prompted me to peek — quite irrationally — out the door every so often. Perhaps I should change the locks?

  It was while I was organising the kitchen that I found a set of keys on a hook beside the doorway. I recognised them at once and laughed with delight. The blue Mercedes. Of course. I had completely forgotten Aunt Helen’s old car.

  I dashed downstairs and located it parked in a side street. I must have walked past it earlier on my way to the supermarket without noticing. A hubcap was missing, and it was covered in bird droppings and dry leaves. The left side mirror was cracked. Otherwise, it looked undamaged. I unlocked the driver’s side door and sat inside. The interior smelled of sun-baked leather.

  The steering wheel was hot under my palms and moulded to the grip of my fingers. Inside the glovebox was a mess of registration papers, pencils, a crumpled soft packet of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes and a bottle of dried-up Liquid Paper.

  When I used to visit her, Aunt Helen drove me around in this beautiful vehicle: once, to the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne for scones and tea; and sometimes to St Kilda Beach, where she would paddle in the shallows with her dress tucked into her underwear as I flung myself about clumsily in the gentle waters of Port Phillip Bay. Even as a boy I was aware of the car’s special qualities, and a trip in it was always accompanied by a degree of fuss and pomp. Helen was a reckless driver who cruised through red lights, cut off cyclists and generally behaved like a dignitary who owned the road — all without the car suffering a scratch. ‘The Krauts know how to make a car,’ she would say warmly as (gimlet-eyed, chin tilted upwards) she careered front-first into a parking spot with absolute precision.

  Sitting in the red leather driver’s seat, I was once again overcome by my good fortune, even as it was tempered by the knowledge the car had come to me as a result of Helen’s death. I tried the ignition and, miraculously, the car started. The Krauts certainly did know how to make a car.

  I wound down my window and leaned back with my left arm flung over the passenger-side seat. I was wary of driving in city traffic, but for now it was good enough to sit in the fabulous car, dreaming of the places I could go. I imagined escorting girls around with the radio on, elbow on the window ledge, a cigarette between my fingers.

  While adjusting the rear-vision mirror, I saw in its rectangular frame the figures of Max Cheever and the other man I had seen that morning in his apartment. They were walking on the opposite side of the street at a rapid clip, engaged in intense debate.

  Max was gesticulating wildly, tossing his head to throw his hair from his eyes. His companion was very tall, extremely thin and wore a suit in defiance of the summer heat. He walked with his torso tilted forwards at the waist, as if so accustomed to accommodating the lesser height of most people that it had become an established part of his demeanour. Even at that distance, what struck me most about him were his eyes, which were of a pale, almost luminous, blue. The pair of them resembled charismatic aliens, both dangerous and alluring. Although it was unlikely they would see me sitting in the car, I instinctively slouched down in my seat as they drew closer. Still talking, they crossed the road in front of me and walked around the corner into Nicholson Street without noticing me.

  I had never smoked a great deal, but I dislodged a cigarette from the packet I’d found, located a book of matches on the floor and lit up. The tobacco was stale; I had to force myself to enjoy it. I crouched there for a long time, thinking and smoking. I was deeply, fatally intrigued by them.

  *

  As fascinated as I was by Max Cheever and his friend, I had at that time much more pressing matters to address. My envelope of eight hundred dollars (by then stashed in a biscuit tin on top of the fridge) would not last me very long, certainly no longer than two or three months at the most. I wasn’t paying any rent but I needed to buy new clothes, and the Mercedes needed some attention. In short, I needed a job. It was a daunting prospect. There was not much I knew how to do except wait on tables in a country cafe, but my former employer, Eddie, had written me a glowing reference.

  With this reference tucked in my shirt pocket, I spent the afternoon walking the streets of Fitzroy, asking for work at a number of local establishments: the Great Northern Hotel, the Colonial Inn.

  Eventually I entered a gloomy French restaurant called Monet, on Nicholson Street. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. The chef was a portly, moustachioed man named Marcel, who I later learned was Swiss. He was sitting at the rear of the empty restaurant with his maitre d’, an effete Frenchman in a black suit whom he introduced as Claude. Both of them were smoking — Marcel a cigarette, Claude a pipe. Marcel read my reference, pursed his lips and took me out the back to the kitchen, where he showed me the industrial dishwasher and gave me a rundown of the hours. I was hired, with a trial shift scheduled for the upcoming weekend.

  I retired to bed early but woke disoriented in the middle of the night. The anaemic glow from the streetlight through the peppercorn tree cast a shadow of restless leaves on my bedroom wall. I was wide awake, too excited to sleep.

  Without bothering to turn on the lights I groped my way to the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of water. The liquid was cool and refreshing. I drank and refilled my g
lass. My fridge whirred like an outmoded but determined robot. Having slaked my thirst, I was preparing to return to bed when I heard murmuring and footsteps drawing closer along the walkway outside my apartment. As the voices became clearer, I discerned they belonged to Max Cheever and his friend. They were obviously drunk, unaware of how loud they were talking.

  ‘I mean it’s not the bloody Girl with a Pearl Earring,’ Max was saying in his toffy voice. ‘We don’t need Gertrude to equal Rembrandt, do we?’

  ‘Vermeer,’ said the other man.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vermeer painted the Girl with a Pearl Earring, not Rembrandt.’

  They stopped directly outside my door. As if compelled by an invisible force, I stepped into my hallway to listen. Through the porthole window in my front door, I could see the silhouettes of their heads bobbing around. They were no further than a metre away, and I felt a thrill not only at the illicit act of eavesdropping, but also at my proximity to them.

  ‘No,’ Max said. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I bet you one hundred dollars.’

  ‘You’re on. But who can we ask to be our referee? Who would know such a thing?’

  ‘Gertrude.’

  ‘Well, she can’t be. She’s on your side.’

  ‘But she’s the expert.’

  ‘What about Anna Donatella? Let’s ring her up when we get in.’

  ‘Look, Max. I’m telling you. It was Vermeer. Everyone knows this.’

  One of them belched.

  ‘Bloody kebab,’ Max said in a drunken whisper. ‘Anyway, back to our girl. Back to old Dora.’

  ‘Oh God. Dora. Yes.’

  ‘This has fallen into our laps. Tamsin says it would be a cinch.’

  ‘The art student.’ His companion snorted.

  ‘Yeah, OK. Maybe not a cinch, but she says they don’t have any special security or anything. But listen, Edward. The thing is …’ Another burp, followed by a groan of discomfort or disgust. ‘Think about it. For what we could get for her, it could be so simple.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, Max. You don’t have to deal with, you know …’