Part 34 (2/2)

Only from his father did he draw some comfort. In these long featureless days, unable to concentrate on a book, not wanting to do anything but sleep until the letters woke him, he felt a real compa.s.sion for the man he had so often slighted. Now they made sandwiches together. Izzie held out a slice of bread in each extended palm while his father, patient and uncomplaining, brushed on the melted b.u.t.ter. When these two slices were done, Izzie waited, palms extended, while his father placed the two b.u.t.tered slices on a sheet of newspaper on the floor, cut two more slices of bread, balancing the stale loaf on his thin knees, placed these two slices on Izzie's hands, and repeated the process again.

It irritated Izzie that his father should accept this inconvenience so meekly; that he did not demand the table where Rosa now sat.

Rosa had the table. She was conducting her interview with Dora, whose theatrical career had been ruined by an unexpectedly ballooning backside and who was now well spoken of as a fortune-teller.

Dora's arms and thighs and face had quickly followed the example of her backside without ever losing the complexion (”real peaches and cream”) of which she had always been so proud. She positioned herself carefully on the chair and placed a large cane basket on the table beside her. She sighed and smiled vaguely at Rosa who had not yet guessed the contents of the basket. Rosa returned the smile which offered a diffused sort of goodwill but no real affection: the two women had known each other too long; each had said too many indiscreet things about the other.

There was a movement in the basket. Rosa, a red scarf over her hair, c.o.c.ked her head. Her interest was diverted by Dora who now displayed a small gaily-coloured purse. It was made from tiny beads and had a striking floral pattern. Rosa murmured her admiration. Dora's smile tightened its focus a little.

The fortune-teller's hands had too many rings on them. They were the same rings she had owned when her hands had been thinner and the flesh had risen around the rings like the bark of a tree that will shortly engulf a piece of old fencing wire. Yet here again Rosa was prevented from critical concentration because the hands were now delving into the pretty purse and producing grains of coloured wheat and scattering them at random across the table. There were many different colours, all as bright as the beads of the bag.

Rosa kept her own hands beneath the table and watched. She felt critical of herself, and foolish, just as a married man catching sight of himself in a brothel mirror may suddenly see himself in a more objective light.

Indeed, looking at the two men, she discovered them both smiling at her.

”If you don't like it,” she told her son, ”you don't have to stay.” She imagined them sneering at her. They were smiling because they had guessed the contents of the basket and were waiting for her reaction.

When, less than a minute later, Rosa saw the chook, she did not shriek. She caught her breath silently and took herself in a notch.

”I am allergic,” she said softly to Dora, begging her with her eyes to put the thing back.

”You cannot be allergic to the future,” said the insensitive fat woman, clasping the bundle of white feathers so that the inert chook moulded itself to her and became a feathery extension of her bosom.

”It is blind,” Dora confided.

”Ah,” Izzie said, ”so the future is blind?”

”No,” Dora corrected him, ”the future is not blind. We are blind. The chook is blind.”

”I cannot believe in a chook,” Rosa said, looking for help from her husband. Lenny, perfectly capable of exacting small revenges, was suddenly busy cutting bread.

”If you don't believe,” Dora said hurriedly, placing the chook on the table, ”it makes no difference.” The chook cowered, a soft centreless thing. ”It is not like a seance where you have to believe. Are you swimming?”

”No, I am not swimming.”

”I am swimming, every morning.” The chook stood and started tapping at the tabletop with its beak.

”I am sleeping,” Rosa said.

”Ah, now, you see. It has taken a green one. You must write this down.”

”You write it, Dora. I am paying you.”

”No, no, you write. Quickly, now it is blue.”

”I will not,” Rosa folded her arms firmly and sank back against the caravan wall. ”It is stupid. I am allergic.”

”Suit yourself,” said Dora sulkily. She produced a slim tortoisesh.e.l.l pen (Rosa withheld admiration). She wrote down the colours of the grains of wheat as the blind chook ate them. She did not write down the ones that were knocked from the table. ”Tell me, why don't you swim? When you first came here, always, you were swimming. Every day, you told me.”

”Can it smell colours?” Rosa asked.

”It can smell smells, not colours.”

”Colours, though, have smells. I can smell yellow.”

”How does yellow smell, darling?”

”It has a yellow smell-what else? Are you writing down the colours? Such a nice pen,” she said. ”I think it was the green again.”

”How is your other business, Dora?” Izzie asked. The bread on his palms now held slices of cheese and grated lettuce.

”Miss Latimer to you,” Rosa said.

”It doesn't matter,” Dora said. ”Mrs Davis,” she added. ”Not so well,” she told the industrious end of the caravan.

”There is more demand for fortunes than enemas?”

”Yes, there is more fortune in the future,” she giggled. ”That's one of my sayings, one of my slogans. I think success makes one rather American, don't you?” (Izzie scowled.) ”Now, darling,” she said to her client, ”we have ten colours written on our chart so we can put our chookie back in its little house. Bad times,” she told Izzie, ”are good times for fortune-tellers. Rosa is worried about money. She is worried about her son.”

”I am her son.”

”The other son, your brother, the clever one, Jacob.”

”Clever?” Izzie asked. ”Who told you he was clever?”

Rosa blushed. ”Such a jealous little boy,” she murmured. ”Since he was little.”

”Clever? Joseph, my brother? Clever?”

”Always this one did things,” Rosa whispered. ”Steel wool in with his brother's Weetbix. You understand? The same shape. He tried to kill his brother. Now his brother is in Russia,” she raised her voice, ”who knows what has happened to him, but this one is only worrying about itself. He is safe and sound. His wife sends him money. He does not need to work. So rich. All around him, people worry. He is a king. His father makes sandwiches to sell. See: what is the son doing? He holds out his hands.”

”Leave him alone, Rosa,” Lenny said. ”You know why he is upset.”

”He is expelled. From what? From nothing.”

”Why do you pick on him? Leave him alone. Talk to your chook. Gossip with it.” Then, more quietly, he told his son: ”Take a walk. I'll finish these. Maybe you meet the postie.”

Rosa went back to her conference with Dora who had now produced a large volume, like a telephone book, that explained the significance of the chook's choice of colours.

”He won't give me my mail,” Izzie told his father. ”He says it must go into the letterbox. If I stand at the gate and hold out my hand, he won't give it to me. 'How do I know this is your letterbox?' He is a little bureaucrat exercising his power.”

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