Merciless Gods Read online

  Christos Tsiolkas is the author of five novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head On; The Jesus Man; Dead Europe, which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award; The Slap, which was published in 2008 in Australia and has since been published all over the world; and Barracuda. The Slap won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the 2009 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the 2009 Australian Literary Society’s Gold Medal and the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year for 2009, and was longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. Tsiolkas is also a playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He lives in Melbourne.

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Christos Tsiolkas 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76011 205 9

  eISBN 978 1 74343 921 0

  ‘Petals’ first published in Overland 216 Spring 2014

  ‘Hung Phat!’ first published in Below the Waterline, ed. Garry Disher, Harper Collins, 1999

  ‘Saturn Return’ first published in Blur, ed. James Bradley, Random House, 1996

  ‘Jessica Lange in Frances’ first published in Pub Fiction, ed. Leonie Stevens, Allen & Unwin, 1997

  ‘The Disco at the End of Communism’ first published in Brothers and Sisters, ed. Charlotte Wood, Allen & Unwin, 2009

  ‘Sticks, Stones’ first published in the Get Reading! collection 10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2010, The Australia Council, 2010

  ‘Civil War’ first published in Picador New Writing 3, eds, Drusilla Modjeska and Beth Yahp, Pan Macmillan, 1995

  ‘Porn 1’ first published as ‘The Pornographic Scientist’ in Readings and Writings: 40 Years in Books, eds Jason Cotter and Michael Williams, 2010

  Internal design by Lisa White

  Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney

  For Wayne van der Stelt, who has been there from the beginning

  Contents

  Merciless Gods

  Tourists

  The Hair of the Dog

  Petals

  Hung Phat!

  Saturn Return

  Genetic Material

  Jessica Lange in Frances

  The Disco at the End of Communism

  Sticks, Stones

  Civil War

  The T-shirt with a Fist on it

  Porn 1

  Porn 2

  Porn 3

  Merciless Gods

  I WANT TO TELL YOU A story about an evening many years ago. I hardly see anyone who was at that dinner party anymore; apart from the occasional email we have all disappeared from one another’s lives. I dare say it could be argued that our drifting away from one another is not extraordinary, that it would have occurred in the normal course of events—the raising of children, changing address, moving away, stagnating friendship—but I am certain that the events of that evening had no small role to play in the fracturing of our group.

  There were nine of us seated around the table. We had been to university at the same time, some of us had worked together, we were a group of young professionals just beginning to pair off, find lovers, even think about marriage. Serena and Ingrid were the hosts that evening and the dinner was in honour of Marie, who was soon to leave for San Francisco to become an editor for a leading publisher of travel guides. I was there with Mark—we had just celebrated the first anniversary of our relationship—and there was Antony and Hande, and Madeline and Vince. We were also celebrating the news that Hande had just been accepted as a solicitor in one of the city’s major labour-law firms; we were all keen to toast her and Marie’s good fortune.

  We had all dressed up for the occasion; it was the first time I had seen Mark in a suit and a tie. The women had all bought new outfits for the evening and were complimenting each other and striking model poses. The men looked debonair and rather splendid in their dinner suits and crisp white shirts. We looked as though we belonged in the elegant apartment that Serena and Ingrid had just moved into on Collins Street; their view across the illuminated cityscape was dazzling. The Cold War had only recently been relegated to history, technology was promising boundless opportunity and the recession had not long ended. Our generation was buoyant. We owned the future.

  Mark nominated himself DJ that night (a beatless house track would follow Pearl Jam or the Screaming Trees—it was the season of grunge and Café del Mar compilations), Antony had scored us some ecstasy and Serena had spent the day cooking us a feast. That night was a film. We were a sophisticated art-house movie; we were chic and we were young. We were beautiful.

  Though the setting was perfect it could not be said that we were all completely at ease as we popped the cork from the first bottle of champagne and filled our glasses. I think now that we never really settled that night, never quite managed to give ourselves over to the abandonment that beckoned, even with all that fine food and the elation of the stimulants and intoxicants. It seemed that the evening had begun with a faint tremor of anxiety, and somehow that sense of unease never quite retreated; we never managed to banish it. It entered our drinks and our food, we breathed it in. It was a mild early-autumn night, the breeze was cooling without chilling us, but even with the balcony doors wide open, the air in the apartment seemed inordinately heavy.

  You see, although we were all there to celebrate with Marie, we also knew that she had beaten Vince for the job. Since university they had both pursued careers in publishing. Vince initially backpacked through Indonesia and started filing travel reports on Flores, Borneo, Java and Sumatra for the nascent travel-guide industry. His writing was pungent, informative and free from cant or cliché, and before long he was editing and writing the guides to Oceania and the Pacific. Marie began working as a copy editor in a small publishing collective that was riding the last dying swell of second-wave feminism. When the press folded, Vince let her know there was an opening at the company he worked for. She got the job. Good-natured rivalry had defined their professional relationship for the first few months, but none of us were surprised when it became more competitive. Vince was brilliant, sharp, quick-witted, a child of migrant factory workers who wore his entry into the bourgeoisie as both a chip on his shoulder and a badge of honour. He had a wicked temper that made him unpopular with those not seduced by his charm and intellect. He did not hide his contempt for intellectual laziness. When the position in San Francisco came up, he had applied for it and so had Marie. It was Marie, whose father was a diplomat and who was fluent in three languages, who’d got the job.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Vince had barked at me when I’d brought up the subject in the locker room after our fortnightly game of squash. ‘She fucking deserves it.’ But he had played like a lunatic, the ball rebounding furiously, whipping towards me at such speed that I thought it would slice me. He did mind. He was proud and arrogant and hated being beaten. He minded deeply.

 
So, there we all were, Vince barely able to conceal his envy, Marie resenting her feelings of guilt, Madeline attempting to be the appeaser and the rest of us pretending everything was fine. It was fortunate that Hande was so excited that night. We could all rejoice in her happiness. The food that Serena had prepared was exquisite: fresh seafood from the market, lamb marinated in wine and with a crust of feta and herbs, an alcohol-soaked tiramisu for dessert. After the first few bottles were drunk the initial stiltedness of the evening seemed to vanish. At one point, between the entrée and the main course, Vince, Hande and I were smoking on the balcony, looking across into the empty lit-up offices across the street. Between draws, he said, ‘Well, it isn’t quite New York.’ Hande and I looked at him for a moment, then she replied, ‘At least it isn’t Beirut.’

  ‘Or Adelaide,’ I added.

  It felt good to finally laugh. The smells, the tastes, the music, the clothes, the conversation—I can remember everything about that night except who suggested the game. I suppose if I were to meet up with any of those old friends they would probably all guess that it had been Vince. I am also tempted to say it was him. But I think that is too easy. Mark would say that I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, that of course Vince had planned it all from the beginning; that I was letting my feelings for Vince get in the way.

  It is true: back then I was in love with Vince. Mark was never convinced that it was possible to be in love with two people at the same time. It is, I still claim that truth, though now I know that such a divided loyalty can never be equal. Vince and I had fallen into an easy camaraderie from the moment we’d met in our first tutorial at uni. By the end of that first week I was in love. It was adolescent love, impossible, destined to be unfulfilled and unconsummated, but university had emancipated me from the evasions and dishonesties of high school and I made an obsession out of that first liberating rapture. Vince tolerated my puppyish devotion, though we never spoke about it. One night on holiday in Bangkok we had got paralytic drunk and I had given him a blowjob after we’d miraculously managed to find our way back to the hostel. He claimed no memory of it the next morning but was surly with me the rest of the day. That very evening he went off with an American girl and I didn’t see him for three days. When he finally came back to our room I pretended to be unconcerned. Mark was right: I could forgive Vince anything.

  Yet, yet, yet . . . I don’t believe it was Vince who suggested that damn game. If I had to nominate someone I think it must have been Ingrid. As host of the evening she would have been especially conscious of the underlying tension, and might have suggested a frivolous game to steer the gathering away from argument. We had taken the drugs and the first euphoric wave had passed through us; we had danced wildly to the music, and were sweating and laughing on cushions on the floor, our ties and heels and jackets discarded. I recall that Vince had kicked off his shoes and was sprawled on the sofa, his shirt unbuttoned, Madeline running her fingers through the wet curls on his chest. I recall it because I wished it were my hand there. Mark was no longer playing punk and hip-hop but acoustic songs and mellow electronica. Hande had her head on my shoulder, Serena was in Ingrid’s embrace, Marie was listening dreamily to the music and Antony was rolling a joint. Someone suggested Charades and we all dismissed the idea. Exquisite Corpse? Truth or Dare? Botticelli? Then someone suggested the game.

  I had not ever heard of it and I have not heard of it since. Everyone has to write one word on a scrap of paper that is placed in a bowl. The word should, we were instructed, denote an emotional state or a category of morality or experience, like one of the seven deadly sins or a phase of maturity.

  Then it’s like Scruples? someone asked.

  No, once all the words go into the bowl we choose one and then we have to go around and each tell a story based on that word.

  I don’t get it.

  Okay, let me explain. Say I pick out the word ‘masturbation’ . . . We would have all laughed. . . . Shut up, don’t be such children! Say the word is ‘masturbation’. We all take turns to tell a story about masturbating . . .

  So it is like Scruples?

  No. No. This is what’s so great about it. It doesn’t have to be your own story. It can be a story you heard, something that happened to someone else . . .

  God, it sounds so complicated.

  No, it’s a load of fun, I promise you.

  How do you win?

  At the end of the round we all vote on the best story.

  A few of us groaned. The ecstasy was lovely; my skin seemed to shimmer; the last thing I wanted was for us to fall into trying to outdo each other. I just wanted to lie among my friends and sink into the night.

  I think we should give it a go.

  That was Vince, that was definitely Vince. One by one we all reluctantly agreed.

  I remember when it came to Mark he shrugged his shoulders and looked at me. ‘You interested?’

  I looked at Vince. ‘Yes. It could be fun.’

  •

  We agonised over finding that one damn word that would work for the game, a word that would both entertain and impress. The buzz of the drug was now flooding out of my belly and rippling through my whole body. I looked over at Marie, who was biting the end of her pen, and she gave me a sheepish smile in return. So much of what we did then seemed to be an effort to convince our friends that we were witty and erudite. Conceited though it might sound, we did believe ourselves to be special, that we stood apart from the common herd of twenty-somethings in our city. That all seems so absurd to me now, but in our defence it must be remembered that we had not yet found ourselves at the other end of stagnant occupations, or relationships that had failed through inertia and predictability, we had not yet discovered that we were as mundane and trivial as everyone else. It could not be an ordinary word that was placed in the bowl: it had to be superlative, breathtaking, a word that challenged and astonished.

  Vince was the first to crumple his scrap of paper and throw it in the bowl. Mark was next. Hande and I were the last. My word was simple but telling and I blush to think of it now. What did I expect to happen when it was read out? The word was ‘unrequited’.

  ‘Marie should pick the first word,’ announced Ingrid, always mindful of her role as host. ‘Marie or Hande. It’s their night.’

  Marie lazily shook her head, tucking her feet under her and reclining further back in the armchair. She waved at Hande, who was still sitting on the floor beside me. ‘You do it, babe, the table’s too far.’

  ‘You lazy bitch.’ With a laugh and a flourish as though she was performing a conjurer’s trick, Hande picked out a tightly crumpled piece of paper. It’s Vince’s, that was my immediate thought. I looked across at him. His face was impassive, but I sensed an almost imperceptible tension grip his body. I don’t think anyone else would have been aware of it, not even Madeline sitting next to him would have been conscious of the agitation he was hiding so well. They had been lovers for only seven or so months; she might know his body intimately but she had not followed him, coveted him, adored him for nine years. In that time I had closely observed his every mood, coming to understand his likes and dislikes, his fears and ambitions. I knew Vince. I was the only one who really knew Vince.

  Hande was unrolling the paper. She looked at it and dropped the paper to the floor. ‘The word is “Revenge”.’

  Were there cruel angels in the apartment that evening, malevolent ghosts dictating how the night was to unfold? But as I have explained, it was a cool evening with only a slight breeze coming through the open doors to the balcony. It was accident, chance; and possibly any word would have led to the same conclusion.

  ‘So who goes first?’

  Serena shrugged. We were all suddenly struck by shyness.

  It was Antony who finally raised his hand. ‘I’ll go.’ He took a last pull of the joint and rested his hand on Hande’s thigh. ‘I’m going to tell the story of what I did to Peter Rothscomb.’

  Hande scowled. ‘Do you have to
?’

  ‘It’s the only revenge story I have.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be your own personal story,’ Ingrid interjected.

  Hande made a dismissive gesture. ‘He can tell it.’ She slapped his hand off her thigh and got up. ‘But it’s a horrible story.’ ‘Is it okay if I tell it?’

  Hande had gone to the fridge for another bottle of wine. ‘Tell it,’ she called out. ‘Bloody men,’ we heard her add as she kicked the fridge door closed.

  ‘It isn’t a particularly edifying story,’ began Antony sheepishly as he watched Hande refill his glass. ‘But it is about revenge.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You all remember Peter Rothscomb?’

  We all nodded. Rothscomb was a member of the Young Liberals on campus, a pale effeminate man who was always putting forward conservative arguments in the political science tutorial I attended with Antony and Ingrid. He was perfectly harmless but I think we all detested his smugness, his unapologetic assumption of inheritance and the right to rule. Our hatred of him was only exacerbated by the fact that his arguments were usually informed and cogent. Antony’s animosity towards Peter was even more pronounced as they had both gone to the same private boys’ school together and had been in competition with each other for years. Since the fucking sandpit, Vince would often observe.

  ‘In our honours year there was a prize for the best thesis in political science.’

  I nodded again. Antony and Ingrid had both submitted their thesis for the prize. I had not. I’d been lucky to scrape through.

  ‘My thesis was on the conditions that led to Perestroika in the Soviet Union. I slaved that year, I read anything and everything I could.’ Antony was getting increasingly animated, as if in the telling he was becoming the student he’d been four years before.

  ‘Remember how I hardly went out that year? I became obsessed with it—it seemed momentous to me, the crucial subject of our age. It felt impossible to keep up with the events that were unfolding so rapidly in front of our eyes. It was 1989 and the Communist regimes had started to collapse.’ Antony slammed his right fist into his other palm. ‘Bang, bang, bang! Everything that was solid seemed to melt into air, as if democracy was collapsing Marxism into itself. I think it was the first time I discovered what it really was to study, not to parrot information by rote, but to really develop and express an argument.’ Antony paused and sipped his wine. Mark had crawled along the floor to the stereo to turn down the music.