A Universe of Clowns

A Universe of Clowns Serge Liberman PHOENIX PUBLICATIONS BRISBANE First published November l9E3 Second edition May l9M Pho€nix Publications Brisbane P.O. Box 210 Indooroopilly 4058 @ Serge Liberman Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of privarc study, research, criticism or rwiew, as permitted under the Copynght Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to tie publishers. AUSTRALIAN STAT{DARD BOOK NI.'MBERJNG AGENCY National Ubrary of Australia Canberra, A.C.T. 2500 rsiBN o %9780Mi Wholly set up aud printed in Australia by Albion Press (Manufacturing) Pty. Ltd., Newstead Avenue, Newstead, Queensland 4x)6. Cover design by Christopho McVrnish Illustration by Cpthia McVinish "we live as much as we believe; we love when faith is not enough." Manfred Jurgensen By the some author On Firmer Shores Several of the stories which appear in this volume have been published previously: "Envy's Fire" and "Words" tn Melbourne Chronicle "Greetings, Australia, To You Have I Come" and "Sustenance Was I to the Needy" in inprint "The Real ant{ Doubtful Virtues of Silence" n Matilda Mogazine "The Next in Line" in Brave New Word "Friends" tn Kivun. A Universe of Clowns - Serge Liberman CONTENTS A Universe of Clowns I Envy's Fire 55 Greetings, Australia, To You Have I Come 65 Words 77 Passage 91 Sustenance Was I to the Needy 99 The First Lesson 113 Moscow!Moscow! 129 Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh t57 AIlMyChildren 185 The Real and Doubtful Virtues of Silence 193 King Lear of "The Gables" 201 The Next in Line 2tl KittyCat 217 Friends 233 The Fortress 243 To Eva, Dvora, Jonathan and Noemi and to all who would digrity and humanity preserve even in the hours of deepest darkness. A Universe of Clowns It was madness, he knew, an insane and irrepressible madness transcending the mere want of tact. How mis- chievously, maliciously, already scheming, Martin and his crew, gorging their mouths with savouries and cream puffs and smiling their knowing satisfied fox-like smiles, had whispered in the corners amongst themselves. But it was not simply a question of tact. What had happeted had to happen. He had wanted it. Elizabeth had wanted it. And to find other excuses was futile. It was not the brandy nor the headiness of New Year's Eve, nor the abandon of the old to the new and the lashing out in new directions with new impulses that the passing of the minute hand from one year to the next engendered. It was more than that, far more. It was love - yes, love, however old-fashioned and suspicious a term for a man nearing fifty with almost adult children it was love and helplessness'and despur, the culmination-; so natural after long aching weeks of watching her slipping, her cheeks sinking, her brow tightening, her chin becoming that jot sharper, her orbits that whit harder, her fingers that mote leaner, he himself, professor of medicine, totally impotent, knowing that for all his expertise and for dl the science built up by a thousand other professors, he could do nothing to repeal the sentence that hung over her without relenting. Elizabeth. Young. Fresh. His patient. His - dared he say it? - lover. So easy her breathing, so tantalising still her smell of cherries and sweat, the warmth of her buttocks against his thigh, her spine quivering, even in her sleep, under his touch. And her repeated truncated little groans not of pain, the Lord be thankedi if a Lord there be, but- of some deeper if transient sleep-encrusted contentment.- But for himself, sleep had fled. Emerging from her, deliciously exhausted, he had napped an hour, two then woke, suddenly, to the assault of- darkness and- heavy shadow, to the still-unclear forms of remembrance and to the cool bracing breeze stirring the curtain through the open window. From the kitchen came the sound of steps and of the fridge being opened and shut, of the tap running, of a kettle, being set harshly on the stove and the rasp of the toaster lever being depressed. All of them abrupt angry movements directed, he sensed, he knew, at him by Barry who had come back home again. To have taken her to the hospital New Year party at all was a mistake, an indiscretion, a lapse an impetuous but unshakable decision out of character to- one normally given to reflective deliberation - and patent grist to the mill of ever- avid departmental gossip. But then to take her home - and as good as to proclaim ths fact, whether in tipsy jest or in mockery or defiance, to his colleagues or, rather, subordinates therein lay the stupefying madness that made people rub their- hands. What they thought, he had no need to guess. Small limited men, despite their academic attairments, they possessed small limited thoughts that ran most naturally to the seamy, lascivious and prurient, particularly Martin Lauder, the assistant professor, whose specialty, apart from endocrine diseases, was the telling of lewd indecent jokes. But Barry what drd he think, what could he think, knowing Elizabeth- to be a patient in his father's ward, a woman of twenty-five, youg enough to be an older sister, then seeing her in the lounge-room of their home, half stripped in petticoat and bra, her hair down, his f,ather's shirt unbuttoned and his belt unfastened, coming home as he did so unexpectedly early and angry, or thwarted, from his own celebrations? He was courteous, discreet, yes, but his pursed lips beneath that moustache, his darting metallic eyes, the way he tossed his head and raised his nose spoke a con- demnrtion more damning than the basest words. He, the father, would have preferred to hear his purist son scream, "You dirty old buggert" and be done with it. And then perhaps an opening might have been left for an answer or an explanation. But go explain to a twenty-year old, a mere fourth-year medical student whose mother was still alive and legally married to his father, that what he saw was not degradation, much less debasement, when from the first he did.not let himself be reached by the touch of words. Startled, his son had regained his poise quickly enough, said, if somewhat unconvincingly, "We're moving on to another party, f've come for my tobacco and pipe" and, after rummaging in his room, had left the house hurriedly, deigdng to look not at Elizabeth who had by this timeput on his mother's orange floral dressing-gown, but throwing a fierce glance at him, his father, who, out of decorum, 2 however belated, had buttoned his shirt and refastened his belt. Barry's story had been an excuse, a confabulation, he knew, for after the boy's escape, he heard no hum of an engine, no movement of wheels, saw no head-lights through the lounge-room window. His son had left, where otherwise he would surely have stayed, to roam the streets, to brood, to spill out, ejaculate the venom out of himself, as he did whenever the pressure of his anger or frustration grew too intense. Elizabeth, caught unawares, her long black hair free of the oimson ribbon that had held it back in a tail, her increasingly pale cheeks showing heightened colour, her brow puckered with embarrassment, said "That puts you in a fix, doesn't it?" and he said "I'll talk to him in the moming,', wanting, for her sake, to run out after him there and then and to find the boy, to grab his arm, catch his eye and to explain, explain all that needed explanation. Instead, they fell upon each other, reaching, pressing, clutching, Elizabeth whimpering through sudden tears "To this, my last year,, and he responding "I shall do, my darling, my pet, all that is in my power to do," the two moving unabashed, naturally, freely, to the bedroom where the curtains rustled and a sharp invigorating breeze fanned the fire that welled, turgid and explosive, within them. Lyrng awake in the darkness, listening to - wanting to shut out - Barry's angry movements about thd kitchen, the evening and its aftermath returned to him in pellucid clarity. The sumptuous smorgasbord, the alcohol without apparent depletion, the brilliant lights, the music, laughter, loud talk, he, as so often, at the centre of it, surrounded by a cluster of second assistants, registrars, interns and students, all listening, laughing, appreciating his anecdotes of visits to Montreal, Boston and Mexico, clinging to him, he knew, each of them wanting above all to be noticed and recognised, to be mentally registered in their unspoken competitive quest for appointment, reappointment and promotion. Liberated by drink, they listened and laughed affably enough. But he had also seen the current beneath the surface. For it was Elizabeth that they watched, stealthily to be sure, but unmistakably, unable, he knew, to withhold completely their attention from her, not merely because there existed such an intriguing disparity of years between himself and her, nor because liaisons between physicians and their patients were (officially at least) frowned upon and somehow unsettled their sense of propriety, nor because Etizabeth was so impressively elegarit, articulate and beautiful - though all of these were true - but also, less tangibly, elusively, because that elegance, intelligence and beauty was to prove - who among them did not know - so transient and each in his own way, even under the influence of drink, was attempting to reconcile inevitable reality with denial, the stubborn conflict at the very root of mute mortality.

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