"So, tell me, boychik, are there nightclubs in town? How about a discotheque for my groovy mace? How's the weather? Oy, is that a paper cut you've got there? I have some antibiotic cream here."
He, apparently, was enchanted.
I wondered if the pounding in my chest was the beginning of a heart attack.
". . . and isn't that interesting," I heard Aunt Sathe say with a preposterous amount of excitement. "We speak the same language yet five an opposite sides of the globe. What a shame though."
Exiting Customs at last, it was me who was the wreck. My dumb beige dress stuck to me with sweat as I steered my aunt toward our connecting Melbourne flight.
"What's the matter, tatala? Why the long puss? I thought that went well."
Barbara joined us a few hours after we checked into a hotel—the Hilton, of course. Aunt Sathe would have been depressed had we stayed anywhere else. Aunt Sathe adored Barbara—especially after she managed to pry her nice Jewish last name out of her. I was horrified. Last names were something Goa Freaks never discussed. They were too connected to the straight world we'd rejected.
"Where's Max?" I asked, desperate to steer the conversation away from Barbara's family tree.
"He stayed in Bali with the Baby. Because of his long hair we decided it would be best if I came alone."
That night a guy Barbara knew from a previous visit took Barbara and me to a local club. Like Melbourne in general, it was ultraconservative, but we had a Brand time scoffing at the natives.
"Look at those white socks over there. What IS that dance step the man is doing?" We laughed. "I think he's trying to imitate an ostrich." We stared openly at his feet. "A pregnant ostrich."
"I don't think ostriches get pregnant." We laughed louder and continued to stare.
"That's it exactly, then. A surprised, pregnant ostrich!" We pointed, laughed some more, and attempted to imitate the step. We were Goa Freaks, elite beings, and no one else mattered.
A bouncer approached, asking Barbara's friend to remove his hat. "Men don't wear hats indoors in Melbourne," the bouncer told him. When the friend refused to comply with the archaic request, the three of us were politely asked to leave.
The next day, white Aunt Sathe was at the beauty parlour, Barbara told me about the trouble she'd had later that night after they dropped me off. "I was followed by the police," she said. "I'm living in a quiet, residential neighbourhood. Maybe they didn't like my freaky clothes."
"Maybe they were just making sure you got home safely," I suggested. "When will you take the cases?"
"I was supposed to meet the connection tonight to weigh the dope, but now I don't know. What if the police are watching me?"
"Barbara, I can't wait here forever. This hotel and my aunt are costing me a fortune."
"But I'm scared."
"Okay, if you don't want to go, I will. Give me the name and address, and I'll do it myself." Feeling confident and fearless, I was sure I could handle it. "Of course expect more money," I added.
In the end, Barbara decided to go that night herself, and she had no problem. A few days later, she gave me forty thousand Australian dollars, and we kissed goodbye, planning to meet in Goa. I gave Aunt Sathe half, twenty thousand dollars.
It was still too early to go back to India. The house wouldn't be ready yet. Aunt Sathe and I decided to stay in Australia and have a vacation. We flew to Sydney and checked into another Hilton.
"So, tatala, how do I find my rich next husband. Nil? Any suggestions?"
"Find a man you like and stare at him. You'll see. It works."
"Oy! I couldn't!"
She could. And she was great at it. Elegant and beautiful, she didn't have to work hard to collect admirers. As we explored the city, we never went far before Aunt Sathe found us a personal guide. We'd visit the opera house, the koala bears at the zoo, and other assorted tourist sights, and, not long after we arrived back at the hotel, one of our guides would be calling her or sending flowers.
"Why don't you answer the phone, already?" shouted Aunt Sathe from the bathroom, removing rollers from her hair.
"I don't want to miss this TV program. It'll be for you, anyway. Who is it this time? The lawyer?"
"I hope it's the mensch from the opera. Remember? With the moustache?"
We intended to stay in town a while, so we moved to an apartment, and I made plans to model—just for fun; I didn't need the money. One of Aunt Sathe's boyfriends sent her an opal necklace.
One night he heard a knock on the door. Aunt Sathe and I looked at each other.
"Who is it?" we asked.
"POLICE. OPEN THE DOOR."
"Oh, shit."
No choice but to open the door. Three of them entered, two men and one woman. "We have reason to believe there's heroin or methadone in this apartment," the woman said.
Aunt Sathe had no idea I'd been doing smack. The amount I'd brought to Australia with me had recently run out. For two days I'd been making desperate—and obviously not subtle—quests for more. I'd been able to find only methadone, and that was exactly what I had in the apartment—a full bottle of methadone. The police began to search.
Less than an hour before the police had come, I'd swallowed a speed pill that now took effect and caused me to buzz around joyously. While I was concerned they'd find the bottle of methadone—not to mention Aunt Sathe's kosher stash—it was nonetheless difficult for me to stop smiling. My mouth couldn't restrain its happy grin. Soon the policemen were charmed, and they joked with me as they peered into drawers and cupboards. They thought Aunt Sathe charming too as she chattered about the difficulties of the currency exchange system.
And all I had with me was some of your Australian dollars, and of course they wouldn't take my American dollars, and then, oy, when I pulled out Indian rupees.
The policewoman, however, was not impressed. She threw me dirty looks. When she examined my passport and saw my birth date, she became ferocious. It turned out we were born the same day of the same month of the same year. We were both twenty-six, only she looked over thirty and I barely looked eighteen. She hated me.
"Where is it?" she asked me coldly. "We know it's here. Where is it?" She seized my handbag and hunted through it. She unfolded a letter I was in the middle of writing.
OH, NO!
THE LETTER! Memory of what I'd written shot through my brain. OH, SHIT! I'd recounted the details of the Melbourne scan, and how much money we'd made. If she read that, Aunt Sathe and I would be dead.
I lunged at the policewoman and grabbed the letter from her hand. I wanted to jam all four pages in my mouth and swallow them. She held on tight, though, and her eyes flashed poison as we struggled. Of course she pried it back.
Gratification spread over her face as she read it.
"Look at this," she said to her companions when she'd finished. She oozed with triumph and smiled menacingly in my direction.
Meanwhile, something had stunned me—the image of wrestling with a Inspector of the police. Only criminals fought with police, and I'd never pictured myself a criminal. I viewed my enterprises as capitalist, not felonious. Drugs were illegal in the western world, true, but they hadn't always been, and they weren't illegal everywhere in the world. I considered the prohibition against drugs a temporary situation and considered myself an innocent creature in a time trap. A criminal—no! Not me! I'd always been comrades with the police. Struggling with the woman placed me on the other side of the law for the first time, and I didn't like the way it felt. Her side was so much stronger.
They continued searching. My pensive state coursed away on the tide of the speed pill and I floated through the next hour, peppy and exuberant. A policeman took Aunt Sathe to the safe in the office and found our cash—the exact amount of Australian dollars I'd mentioned, braggingly, in the letter.