Cairo Page 5

  ‘I’m aware of that. Believe me, I am.’

  ‘This isn’t just some old Norman Lindsay painting of ladies with big tits sitting in a river. This is the towering genius of the century.’

  There was the strike of a match and the dry crackle of a cigarette. I smelled smoke as I pressed my ear to the wooden door.

  ‘I’ll deal with them,’ Max continued. ‘I promise. Imagine that much money. This could be the making of us.’

  ‘Or the unmaking.’

  They started to wander away, and their conversation dissolved into an urgent sibilance of whispers, from which I could only make out fading words or phrases. ‘Millions … Only one risk … A real crime not to seize this opportunity …’

  I stood in the hallway until I heard a door slamming shut. Then just the wind through the leaves of the peppercorn tree. When I was confident they had gone inside, I opened my front door and peered out into the warm, jasmine-scented night. No one. A possum scurried along the railing, stopping to glare at me before going on its way. I closed the door and returned to my bedroom, where I sat on my bed, thinking about what I had overheard.

  After ten minutes or so, I turned on the light and pulled out my yellowing copy of The Story of Art. I located the entry for the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Sure enough, Max was wrong — it was Vermeer who had painted it. I admired the colour reproduction, enraptured by its unearthly charm: her smooth face and eyes; those parted lips; that earring.

  I switched off the lamp, lay back in bed and closed my eyes.

  FIVE

  ABOUT A WEEK LATER, AFTER BREAKFAST, I CLOSED THE DOOR on my cool haven and made my way along the walkway with some herb seedlings, a tin watering can, a sack of potting mix and a trowel I’d found in a bathroom cupboard. I was intending to rejuvenate Helen’s plant tubs on the rooftop with some fresh herbs.

  Even at 8.30 a.m. I recognised the pensive, almost post-nuclear hum of a Melbourne midsummer morning. Some people dislike Melbourne in summer — and there’s no doubt it can be a difficult season, with its gritty northern winds, abrupt mood changes and wilting public gardens — but for me it has always been the most wonderful part of the year, and on that morning the heart in my chest swelled, a balloon of pure joy. I was seventeen years old, alone in the city, the world at my doorstep. Innocence, I have since discovered, is a condition to be both relished and feared.

  The rooftop was a concrete expanse, edged by a railing, measuring ten metres by twenty metres or so and, in accordance with the overall design of the block, in the shape of a deep U. It was littered with a number of cracked and dried-out garden pots, deckchairs and the detritus of numerous parties — grubby streamers, bottle tops, butts and empty bottles. Although still partly shaded, in an hour or two it would became unbearably hot up there.

  To my surprise, I spied Max Cheever sitting in a tattered canvas deckchair on the far side. Although he was already in the shadow cast by the peppercorn tree, he sat in the richer shade of a large, rose-red beach umbrella jammed into a hollow pole possibly intended in the past to support some sort of structure, an awning perhaps. In front of him, his slender back to me, sat his friend Edward. Each of them held in one hand a fan of playing cards. On a rickety coffee table between them lay disordered piles of playing cards.

  Max was talking in a wry, fluting voice: ‘But, Edward, for God’s sake, democracy has run its course. There’s absolutely no reason why it should be the default position, any more than any other form of government. Take a look around the city one day. Better still, catch a tram in the morning with the peak-hour crowd and you’ll see precisely what I mean. Those people are not only allowed to vote but are required by law to do so. And yet half of them have never even heard of — I don’t know — Charles Dickens. All they care about is the hedge of their suburban house and Allan Border’s batting average. They’re reading novels by Jackie Collins. They think Rambo is a great guy. And you think they should be deciding who is in charge of the country? No. I’m sorry, but no siree. We need a better system, a sort of … aristocracy, if you wish. A benign dictatorship. The mouth-breathers cannot be trusted to know what’s best for them. I wouldn’t trust most of them to look after my dog.’

  After delivering this tirade, Max lounged back in the low-slung chair with his right foot — sporting a blue espadrille — jiggling upon his left knee. He was wearing a white open-necked shirt, cream trousers and a frayed straw boater; the overall impression was of a scene transplanted from the 1920s.

  Although a pair of sunglasses obscured Max’s eyes, I was aware of his gaze sliding over to me, registering my presence and flicking back to the cards in his hand. These movements took no longer than a second, but I felt I had been, blatantly, appraised, found wanting and disregarded as unworthy of any acknowledgement whatsoever. He showed no sign of remembering me from the morning I dropped off the letter at his apartment. With eyes still fixed on his cards, he reached down beside his chair, picked up a teacup with a floral design from its saucer, and took a sip before replacing it.

  ‘It’s your turn, you know,’ he said to his friend.

  Feeling exposed as I stood on the rooftop in the opulent sheen of the morning sun, trowel in one hand and bag of potting mixture in the other, I hesitated. A trickle of sweat zigzagged across my ribcage. It was excruciating, akin perhaps to forgetting one’s lines in the glare of the footlights. So thrown was I by the presence of Max and Edward that I forgot why I had come up to the rooftop in the first place. A tram ground past on Nicholson Street behind me, dinging its bell.

  I have always viewed most human beings with the mixture of fear and puzzlement that I believe most people view lions, say, or other wild animals: they are mysterious creatures, sure of themselves and their place on the planet. I, on the other hand, have never been confident of anything and lurch from age to age, always hopeful that each new decade might bring me the knowledge of how to be in the world. It has taken me a lifetime to understand that most individuals are beset by similar insecurities, but it is now too late to use this to my advantage.

  On that morning, my instinct, honed by years of discomfort in social situations, was to act as if I had suddenly recalled something vital (slapping palm to brow, chastising self) and retreat down the stairs, cower in the curtained gloom of my apartment and wait for a more opportune time to re-ascend to the rooftop, if I ever dared do so again. But somehow, gathering to myself a fistful of courage I had never known I possessed — let alone gathered — I began poking around in the three large wooden tubs from which I had picked basil and oregano for Aunt Helen all those years before.

  The actual tubs were in lousy repair, but perfectly usable. The same could not be said of their contents: any organic matter was no longer to be found. Instead I dug up more cigarette butts and bottle tops, along with aluminium ring-pulls and shards of broken glass, from the dry soil. This rubbish I put to one side before pouring the potting mix into the tubs and planting the seedlings of basil, thyme and parsley that I hoped would provide me with a bounty of herbs in the coming months. It was comforting to feel the soil under my fingernails and the trowel in my grip; it was an unimportant task, but at least it was a job I knew how to do.

  As I toiled, I detected the clink of Max’s and Edward’s teacups as they were set on the ground, the murmur of languid conversation. Mostly they sat without speaking, absorbed in their card game. Now and again I chanced a look in their direction; they paid me no heed.

  Potting the herbs was not arduous labour, but thanks to the sun, which by now had risen above the block of flats to our east, I was sweating profusely before long. I straightened up and realised, with some dismay, that the tap was located in the boiler room at the other end of the rooftop; I would have to walk right past Max and Edward to fill my watering can. In the twenty minutes it had taken me to clean out the pots and plant the seedlings, I had managed to quell my embarrassment, but the discomfort returned with vigour.

  Just then, however, Max staggered to his feet, accompanie
d by the frustrated curses of his opponent. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘rummy yet again, I’m afraid. I’m making a dash for la toilette. I have you where I want you, oh yes. And for the record, this victory will make it’ — he consulted a notebook, produced with a flourish from a trouser pocket — ‘twenty-two to twelve in my favour.’

  He then picked his way across the rooftop rather delicately, as if aboard a listing ship, and descended the set of stairs at the far side, whistling as he went.

  Still unaware of my presence, Edward lit a cigarette and leaned back with his bare ankles crossed. The smell of his cigarette mingled with those of the peppercorn tree, the sun-baked concrete and the fumes from busy Nicholson Street. Gritty and exotic, they produced a perfume that represented the city and all its potential for good and ill, the very reasons I had worked so hard to get here.

  I wandered over to the tap with my watering can. Sensing my approach, Edward made a gesture of greeting, hardly more than a flick of his cigarette, before hunching forwards to shuffle the deck of cards.

  I filled my watering can as slowly as I could, then sauntered across to him, water sloshing over my right knee. On the ground, around the two chairs and the makeshift card table, were three plates on which slumped the burned-down stubs of candles. Indeed, the remaining candle of a three-pronged candelabra near my feet still flickered, its flame almost invisible in the morning glare. Milky splodges of dried wax were spattered across the rooftop.

  Edward squeaked with surprise at my approach. He was the most extraordinary-looking person I had ever seen, and the memory of our first meeting remains vivid in my mind’s eye to this day. He was aged anywhere between thirty and forty-five. His face was thin, almost elfin, with a pointed nose, a tiny beak of a mouth, and a hank of straight black hair (greying in places) tumbling across his forehead. He was dressed most inappropriately for the summer heat in an elegant, deep-blue shirt and black trousers, although his rather cadaverous demeanour was leavened by a child’s digital watch on his wrist that bore the likeness of Papa Smurf. He blinked up at me with mild distaste in his raw-blue eyes.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, although I had not spoken.

  His teeth were uneven and discoloured, as if he had recently gobbled some vile liquorice. He gave me the impression of a sinister uncle from a fairy tale, an impression that, as I grew to know him better, became unnervingly apposite.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said, my courage failing me even as I spoke, ‘but I couldn’t help but notice your card game.’

  ‘I see.’ He blinked, then looked around as if attempting to locate the other, even less interesting party from which I had become detached.

  He sipped from his teacup, and I realised the teacups were not filled with tea at all but, thrillingly, whisky. A two-thirds-empty bottle of it stood on the ground beside the milk crate. He and Max were drinking whisky. At nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. From teacups.

  ‘I’m Tom,’ I said, aware of how provincial I must have sounded. ‘Tom Button.’

  ‘Tom Button?’ he said with amusement, as if my name alone were reason for mirth. He wiped his mouth and set his teacup and saucer on the ground.

  ‘I moved in downstairs last week. Flat twenty.’

  He narrowed his gaze and pondered this. ‘God. That wasn’t you playing Pink Floyd the other day, was it?’

  The manner in which he asked me this intimated that admission of such a crime would be tantamount to confessing involvement in the Holocaust. But would it be worse to be caught out in a lie? As I sought in vain for a witty rejoinder, I could almost hear the crackle of my capillaries blooming beneath the skin of my cheeks.

  In an effort to draw attention away from myself and retrieve the situation, I indicated the deck of cards still in his hand. ‘My aunt taught me to play rummy.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Idiot, I thought. Idiot. Idiot. ‘She used to live here. Before she died, I mean. Helen Button. Maybe you knew her?’

  ‘I don’t live here.’ He gestured with a flick of his bony wrist. ‘I live in … Italy.’

  I could think of nothing to say. Edward drew on his cigarette with practised languor — indeed, he fell asleep for a few seconds before jerking awake again. Not surprising, considering he had doubtless been awake all night drinking. Then he coughed and checked his Papa Smurf watch.

  ‘Christ. Is it nine o’clock? This tournament has gone on for long enough, I think.’

  ‘How long have you been playing?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh. Years.’

  ‘No, I meant this tournament. How long?’

  ‘Yes. I understood the question.’

  I laughed and blushed all over again, but my embarrassment was quickly replaced with that familiar toxic mixture of spite for this person and desperation to earn his friendship. Accordingly, I pressed on. ‘Anyway, if you need someone else to play with you …’ I trailed off, my voice sagging under the weight of his indifference.

  ‘I shall keep that in mind, thank you,’ he said, and set about shuffling the playing cards again with his long-fingered hands. It seemed I had been dismissed.

  After a pause, I walked over to the other side of the rooftop to water my seedlings. I packed up my tools and retreated, eager to escape. But to my dismay I encountered Max Cheever on the stairs, making his way back up to the rooftop. He looked distracted, deep in thought. The curled stairway was narrow; there was no way we could avoid each other. As we passed I mumbled, ‘Good morning’, which he ignored.

  Halfway down, however, I had a thought. The situation might yet be retrieved.

  ‘By the way,’ I said. ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring was painted by Vermeer, not Rembrandt.’

  Max stopped wearily, as if I were the last in a long line of querulous supplicants. He turned around and looked at me, perhaps noticing me for the first time. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring. I overheard you one night last week when you came home. I was in my kitchen getting a glass of water and you were talking loudly outside my apartment. I couldn’t help but hear some of what you were saying.’

  Max gazed over my head into the grounds of the Catholic school next door before allowing his eyes to alight on me. He resettled his sunglasses on his hawkish nose. ‘You couldn’t help it, eh? And who are you again?’

  ‘Tom Button. From apartment twenty. Remember, I dropped that letter in for you.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  I pointed towards my door, a few metres away. ‘You were standing right outside my kitchen window.’

  He doubled over the railing to see. ‘I thought that apartment was empty?’

  ‘I moved in there a few weeks ago.’

  ‘And I suppose you’re an art expert, are you?’

  I blushed. ‘No, I mean I looked it up in a book.’

  ‘In a book?’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  Max considered me from behind his sunglasses, as if deciding whether to believe me. He ran a hand through his floppy hair. Then, without another word, he turned and mounted the stairs to the rooftop to continue his card game.

  After my humiliation at the hands of Edward and Max, I withdrew to my apartment and sat on the sofa, trying to compose myself. I felt I had grievously erred in my efforts to befriend my new neighbours. I drank a cup of tea.

  Eventually, I stuffed my dirty clothes into a large plastic bag and headed to a laundromat on Brunswick Street. While I waited for the machine to complete its cycle, I wandered across the road to Cafe Rhumbarella to have a coffee.

  When I had finished my laundry I took it back to Cairo, and spent the remainder of the afternoon reading One Hundred Years of Solitude on the grass in the Carlton Gardens across the road. On my return home, I discovered an unaddressed envelope lying on my hallway floor. Its message was short:

  Come to our place for dinner this evening

  Apartment 28

  8 p.m.

  Yours,

  Cheever

  SIX

  IT WAS WITH TREPIDATIO
N THAT I APPROACHED APARTMENT twenty-eight that evening. The front door was open on account of the heat, as were most of the other front doors in the block. From inside I could hear music and voices. I called out.

  Max jogged down the hall, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, face screwed up against the smoke. He ushered me inside with a foppish bow. In stark contrast to our first two encounters, he was remarkably welcoming, saying how pleased he was that I was able to accept his dinner invitation. I was too overwhelmed to register very much of what he said but, talking effusively, he guided me by the elbow around a bicycle propped against the wall, along the hallway past the kitchen door, and into the lounge room.

  The lounge was much larger than my own. It was packed almost floor-to-ceiling with such a profusion of furniture and objets that it resembled a wunderkammer. There was a sofa and some armchairs with faded floral designs; two bookcases crammed with books and files; piles of records; a waist-high, free-standing ashtray in the shape of a stern, rather Churchillian butler. A palm spread its fronds from a large tub by the curtained window. Persian rugs covered the wooden floor. Perched on a stack of magazines on a sideboard, a metal fan circulated the fuggy air and caused an elegant paper mobile consisting of the faces of famous composers to sway as if in time to music. The apartment’s white walls were covered in photographs and paintings of all sizes, butterflies pinned to boards. In addition, there was a (distinctly moth-eaten) mounted deer’s head that gazed glassy-eyed over the chaos.

  The item that dominated the room, however, was an upright piano against one wall. On top of the instrument were reams of paper tied with ribbon, more books, a black-and-white group photograph (‘My grandfather playing cricket with those ghastly Mitfords,’ Max later told me), and a lamp with a red shade, the black stand of which was a statue of a wildly grinning Josephine Baker captured mid-gyration.

  In contrast to the humble dimensions of my two-room apartment, Max’s place contained poky hallways and numberless unseen rooms. Rather than a bright modernist living space designed for busy workers, the apartment felt more like the cramped under-quarters of a once-grand mansion. The labyrinthine effect was unsettling, and I struggled to reconcile it with the exterior of apartment twenty-eight, which looked pretty much the same as those of all the other apartments.