One Man`s Bible

49

She wants to look at ancient forests. You say where will you find ancient forests in Sydney, it will take days driving to some uninhabited place on this continent, Australia. Anyway, you've seen everything from the plane. It's an expanse of red-brown dry land with some jagged, fishbone-like mountain ridges poking up out of it. It was like that for hours on the plane. Where will you find primeval forests?

She unfolds a tourist map, and, pointing at a green patch, says, "Right there!"

"That's a park," you say.

"A national park is a nature preserve," she insists. "Animal and plant life there are kept in their original habitat!"

"Are there kangaroos?" you ask.

"Of course!" she replies. "You don't have to go to a zoo to see them. This isn't France where your wolves are purchased from all parts of the world, then fenced off somewhere so they can poke out their heads for tourists to look at."

Unable to change her mind, you mumble, "I'll have to see friends at the Performance Studies Centre about a car."

You also say that, although they had invited you here to put on one of your plays, you had only just met them and don't want to impose on them. She says that the trains go right there, and, pointing on the map to Central Railway Station, draws a line down to the patch of green at the Royal National Park.

"There's a station at Sutherland. See, it's easy to get there!"

She, Sylvie, hair cropped short, boyish like a middle-school student, looks much younger than she actually is, but her ample buttocks indicate that she is already a mature woman. You toast a slice of bread and add milk to your coffee. She drinks her coffee black, never with sugar, and eats her bread without butter. It's all to keep her figure.

The two of you come out of the small building where you are staying. Suddenly, she runs back inside, remembering to get a towel and her bathing suit. She says that just across the nature preserve, the Royal National Park, is the beach, and she will be able to have a swim and lie in the sun.

The train goes from Central Railway Station right through to Sutherland, a small station, and only a few people get off. Outside the station, there is a small town, but it's not clear where the forest is. You say you will have to ask someone, and return to the exit to ask the ticket seller, "Which way is it to the ancient forest? The park, the Royal National Park!"

"You need to go to the next station, Loftus," the ticket seller at the little window says.

So you get tickets and go back into the station. Twenty minutes later, a train comes, but it doesn't go to Loftus. That will be the next train.

Half an hour later, there is an announcement over the loudspeaker that the next train is running late, and the passengers should go to the platform on the other side. She asks the fat stationmaster what the problem is. The man replies, "Just wait, just wait, it'll be here." The door of the guardroom promptly shuts.

You remind her that the day the two of you arrived in Australia, people said it took two to three days, or even a week, by train from Sydney to Melbourne, and that they themselves would never make the trip by train. If they didn't go by plane, they would go by car. You say it's likely you will both be waiting until dark. But Sylvie paces back and forth and is all worked up. You tell her to sit down, but she can't stay seated.

"Go to the vending machine and buy a packet of peanuts, or those oily Australian nuts, the round ones, what are they called?" You're teasing her, and she ignores you.

An hour later, the train finally comes.

Loftus. Outside the station is an even smaller town, also gray and drab, and on the overhead bridge above the railway tracks is a horizontal banner: visit the tram museum.

"Do you want to go?" you ask.

She ignores you, runs back to the ticket window, then signals to you. You start toward the exit, and the ticket seller motions the two of you to go back into the station. You ask her, "Is the ancient forest on the platform?"

"You don't understand his English!" she says.

As you return into the station, you thank the ticket seller in English. She gives you a look, and laughs. She is no longer angry, and explains that the man said it was closer, going via the platform. All right, you follow her across the tracks, walking on the gravel heaped there for repairing the road. A man on duty, in a uniform, is watching the pair of you, and you shout out to him, "The park? Where is the Royal National Park?"

You know this much English. He points to an exit where the fence is broken.

The two of you get to the highway, where there are lots of speeding cars but no pedestrians. A big sign on the fence around the railway station reads TRAM MUSEUM; there is an arrow on it. There is no option but to go there to ask the way. Inside a high gateway is a small, toy-sized wooden hut, and, nailed to it, is a sign with the admission price clearly written on it, the price is different for adults and children, but there is no one inside selling tickets. A large open space has been laid with small metal tracks, and a carriage of an old tram with neatly painted paneling stands there. A woman with ten or so children surround an old man wearing a cap with embroidered sides and a sunshade. He is explaining the history of the tram. The old man finally finishes talking, and the woman and the children get on board the tram. He now turns to them, and touches his cap to salute. Sylvie tells him why she is here, and the old man spreads out his hands and says, "This is the National Park. It's all around us, the two of you and me. This museum of ours is a part of the park!"

He points out the area of the museum, the space from the gateway to where the old tram carriage is stopped.

"But what about the forest, the ancient forest?" Sylvie, her hair short like a boy's, asks.

"It's all forest-" He turns and points at the eucalypt forest by the highway.

You can't help laughing aloud. Sylvie glares at you, then asks the old man, "Which is the way into it?"

"You can go in anywhere, and you can also get on board. It's five Australian dollars for each of you, you're both adults."

"There's no question about that." You then ask, "Does this tram also go into the forest?"

"Of course. These are return tickets, and you don't have to pay me now, pay me if you're satisfied. If you're not satisfied, you can walk back, it's not very far."

With a clang, the old tram moves off. The bell doesn't sound old, and has a clear ring. You are happy, just like the children on the tram, but Sylvie pulls a face and starts to sulk. The tram goes into the forest. There are eucalypts and more eucalypts, all sorts of eucalypts that you can't tell apart. The trunks are brownish-red, brownish-yellow, or greenish-yellow, and the bark is peeling off in strips on some of them. There is also a patch of black, charred trees, and the tips of the contorted branches, quivering in the wind like long, disheveled hair, give an eerie feeling.

A quarter of an hour later, the track comes to an end.

"Have you seen a kangaroo?" you tease.

"So, you're making fun of me. I'm off to get one for you to have a look at!"

Sylvie jumps off the tram and runs onto a path with an arrow pointing to an information kiosk. You sit down by the path. After a while, she rushes back, clutching some pamphlets, and saying there's a path down to the sea, but that it is a few hours' walk. The sun has already moved to the lower part of the forest, and it is almost four o'clock. She looks at you, but doesn't suggest anything.

"Then let's go back the way we came. In any case, we've visited a museum," you say.

The two of you get on the tram with the children, and she ignores you. It's as if it is entirely your fault. You go back to the station and board the train for Sydney. The carriage is empty, and she lies down on the seat. You examine the tourist map and find that there is a station on the way back, called Cronulla, which is right by the sea. You suggest getting off the train right away, and drag her to her feet.

The sea is not far from the station. Beneath the setting sun is the deep-blue sea with lines of cloud-white waves rolling in and charging at the beach. She has changed into her bathing suit, but she has broken one of the ties on the back and is really cross.

"Find a nude swimming pool," you can't help teasing.

"You don't know what living's all about!" she retorts.

"Then what can you do?" You say you can pull the tie from your trunks to replace it.

"Then what about you?"

"I'll just sit on the beach and wait for you."

"That's no good; if you don't go in the water, then neither of us will!"

She really wants to go in, but also wants to appear magnanimous.

"I can pull out my shoelaces," you say, rising to the occasion.

"That's a great idea, you're not so stupid after all."

With the help of your shoelaces, you manage to help her get her breasts cupped securely. She gives you a big kiss and runs into the water. It is icy cold, and you are shivering by the time the water gets to your knees.

"It's really cold!"

In the distance, on the left end of the bay, a few boys are surfing beyond the reef. Further out is the deep, ink-blue sea, lines of white waves surging up and vanishing, then surging up again. Clouds hide the setting sun, there is a sea wind, and it gets even colder. The people swimming nearby have all come out of the water, and those lying and sitting on the sand also get up and collect their things. Almost everyone has left.

You get back to the beach and put on your clothes. You stare out to sea, but you have lost sight of her; the surfers have climbed onto the reef. You are worried, and stand there looking. In the distance, surging up with the white spray, there seems to be a black spot, but it seems to be moving out to the open sea. You feel uneasy. The reflected light on the waves is no longer bright, as the sky of the vast South Pacific Ocean is drawn toward darkness.

You have not known her long, and certainly don't understand her. Before this, you had simply slept with her a few times. You mentioned that friends had invited you to put on one of your plays, so she arranged some leave and came with you. She is perverse, and you don't know if you love her, but she fascinates you. She has had several boyfriends who, according to her, were companions. "Sexual companions?" you asked. She didn't disagree, and, maybe because of this, she excited you. She said she opposed marriage, she had lived with a man for some years, but then they separated. She couldn't belong to just one man. You said that you approved. She said that it was not that she didn't want a stable relationship, but, for a relationship to be stable, it had to be stable on both sides, and that was difficult. You said you felt the same, and that the two of you had some things in common. She had to live transparently, she told you this the first time she went to bed with you and stayed overnight. She also told you of her past and ongoing sexual relationships. She said that male-female relationships were important, and you agreed. She was quite frank, and this was why she excited you.

In the distance, the surface of the sea is no longer visible, and you frantically look around on the shore to see if there are any lifeguards on duty. She comes around from the side and, seeing that you have seen her, she stops. She is pale with cold.

"What are you looking at?" she asks.

"I'm looking for a lifeguard."

"Aren't you looking for a beautiful woman?" she asks, giggling. She is shivering and covered in goose pimples.

"There was a blond here just now, sunbathing on the sand."

"Do you like blonds?"

"I also like brunettes."

"You rascal!" she softly berates you, but this pleases you.

You have dinner in a little Italian restaurant, where a white Santa Claus is chalked onto the glass window of the kitchen. Above the tables hang paper streamers in the form of dark-green pine needles. It will soon be Christmas, yet it is almost summer here in the southern hemisphere.

"Your heart's not in it. Coming with you for a vacation is really no fun," she says.

"But isn't a vacation just having a rest? There doesn't have to be a specific goal," you say.

"Then there wasn't any need to bring a specific woman, any woman would have done." She stares at you from behind her glass of wine.

"On the beach, I was frantic and about to call the police!" you say.

"It would have been too late." She puts down her glass and, stroking your hand, says, "I deliberately gave you a fright. You're really very silly. Let me show you what living is all about!"

"All right," you say.

That whole night, you and she make wild, passionate love.