Homecoming Read Free Page B

soon as the connection surfaced in his consciousness: land-mined zone. Vietnam. Life and nature abused. He dropped the shutter on hideous memory.
    ‘I’m not much good at writing,’ Martin explained. ‘Exams make me resentful. I find written work to be an imposition.’
    The tutor nodded. ‘But with minimal preparation you could have passed. You know much more than most students who receive credits.’
    Martin did not respond immediately. He had no wish to sound as though he was making excuses. Then he said slowly, ‘I know what I have learned, and if I can apply that to my life then that is meaningful education. For me.’
    Melanie looked at him as if she were envious. ‘What will you do now?’ The question did not seem intrusive or patronising.
    He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Enrol in another course somewhere else. Next year, after I’ve saved some money. Mind you, I’ve run out of places that will accept me.’
    ‘What other courses have you taken?’
    ‘Modern Australian Literature. Renaissance History. Politics. Psychology.’ He looked at her sombrely. ‘Failed them all.’
    The revelation was so casual and devoid of self-pity that it had overtones of dark comedy. The tutor threw back her head in astonished laughter. ‘Pardon me, but you sound as if failure is a natural progression in life. What will you study next?’
    ‘Comparative religion,’ he replied seriously and without hesitation. ‘I’d like to know more about the different forms of our greatest creativity. I want to explore what Mallarmé said in one of his letters.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘That we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul.’
    HE SHIVERS AND clasps his hands together to prevent them from trembling. The evening returns to haunt him. Those two men in the Falcon brought out in him a primate’s instinct for survival. For a moment he had felt as if there was no one else in the world. Fear snakes through him like a current. A cry escapes his mouth. Overwhelming panic, as depicted in Munch’s painting. Thick wavy lines of reddish-orange and yellow flash in front of him. He blinks. Meandering brown, like tree snakes. Or is it lava grey? The world on fire. Hands press against the sides of the head. ‘It’s in the past. The past!’ he whimpers. The pain of loneliness. So human. In entrapment and paralysis of will. Fragmentation. The mind in the picture is a gigantic prison chambered with crowded cells and unlit corridors echoing with menacing footsteps. That is how he is.
    ‘Did you by some miracle of the imagination transport yourself to the twenty-first century? Did you manage to seethe future? What was your vision, Edvard Munch, that enabled you to paint like that?’ Martin whispers. He speculates about the possible answers. Art, after all, is visual philosophy. It is one of those times when he flatters himself with the fanciful notion that the picture was specially painted for him.
    Gradually he calms down. He leaves the door open to rid the spare room of its musty smell. He has already rummaged through several boxes and selected four volumes of poetry for his friend, Colin Gear. He commends himself for the diversity of choice—Rilke, Neruda, Lowell and Paz. No one could possibly accuse him of being a narrow-minded advocate of literary monoculturalism. He has deliberately avoided selecting anything local. More than likely, Colin has read everything that Martin possesses in his collection of Australian poetry.
    He feels guilty about not having visited his friend for several weeks. By way of compensation he selects two more volumes of poetry. But this time, I won’t ask him about the manuscript. I won’t even mention it, Martin determines; given the opportunity, Colin talks at length about his memoir of the war. ‘There are already too many books about Vietnam,’ Martin had said when Colin couldn’t find a publisher. Colin had become indignant. ‘It’s soul