On arrival in the country of his choice, Himmelfarb had shocked those of his sponsors and advisers who took it for granted that a university professor would apply for a post equal to his intellectual gifts. Whether he would have received one was a doubtful matter, but refusal would at least have provided him, and them, with that wartime luxury, an opportunity to grouse. Himmelfarb, however, had no intention of applying. His explanation was a simple one: "The intellect has failed us." Those of his own race found his apostasy of mind and rank most eccentric, not to say contemptible. To anyone else, it was not of sufficient interest that an elderly, refined Jew should allow himself to be drafted without protest as a wartime body; he was, in any case, a blasted foreigner, and bloody reffo, and should have been glad he was allowed to exist at all. He was, exceedingly, and did not complain when told to report at a piggery. There, he became attached to those cheerful, extrovert beasts, enough to experience distress as it was slowly proved he no longer had the strength for all that was expected of him. At the end of an illness, he was put to polishing floors in the same hospital where he had been a patient. He washed dishes for a time, in a military canteen. He cleaned public lavatories. And was grateful for such mercies. The reason the peace found him at Barranugli, employed in the factory for Brighta Bicycle Lamps, might be considered a shameful one. This man of ascetic and selfless aspirations had so far diverged from his ideals as to hanker after physical seclusion. He had taken to wandering at week-ends round the fringes of the city, and on his wanderings had come across the small brown house, standing empty in the grass, at Sar-saparilla. As soon as he discovered that white ant, borer, dry rot, inadequate plumbing and a leaky roof had reduced the value of the wretched cottage, and brought it within reach of his means, then his carefully damped desires burst into full blaze, quite consuming his strength of mind. He could only think of _his__ house, and was always returning there, afraid that its desirability might occur to someone else. He grew sallower, bonier, more cavernous than before. Until, finally, spirit was seduced by matter to the extent that he rushed and paid a deposit. He had to buy the derelict house. Installed at Sarsaparilla, he promised himself treasures of peace, and when he had collected such sticks of furniture as he considered necessary, and his joy and excitement had subsided by several days, he went in search of employment in the neighbouring town of Barranugli. It cannot be said he chose the job with Brighta Bicycle Lamps. Truthfully, it was chosen for him. "This Brighta Bicycle Lamps," said the official gentleman in the employment bureau, "is a new, but expanding business, like. There's other metal lines besides: geometry boxes, and bobby-pins. Several unskilled positions vacant. And let me _see__, I have an _idea__, I'm pretty sure the proprietor is a foreign gentleman of sorts. Mr Rosetree. Yes. Now, if you don't mind my _saying__, that is just the job for you. Kinda Continental." "Mr Rosetree," Himmelfarb repeated. Then, indeed, the Jew's eyes grew moist with longing. Then the Kiddush rose above the wall at sunset. "Very well thought of," continued the official voice. "Have any trouble with your English, well, there is Mr Rosetree on the spot. You will not find another place anywhere around that's made for you personally." Himmelfarb agreed the position could be most suitable, and allowed himself to be directed. To abandon self, is, after all, to accept the course that offers. So he presented himself at Brighta Bicycle Lamps, which functioned in a shed, on the outskirts of the town, beside a green river. Here, on arriving for his interview, he was told to sit, and was ignored for an appropriate length of time, because it was necessary that the expanding business should impress, and as the applicant was stationed right at the centre of Mr Rosetree's universe, impress it did. For, through one door, Himmelfarb could watch two ladies, so upright, so superior, so united in purpose, one plump and the other thin, dashing off the Rosetree correspondence with a minimum of touch, and through another door he could look down into the infernal pit in which the Brighta Lamps were cut out and put together with an excessive casualness and the maximum of noise. The machinery was going round and round, and in and out, and up and down, with such a battering and nattering, though in one corner it slugged and glugged with a kind of oily guile, and through a doorway which opened onto a small, wet, concrete yard, in which an almost naked youth in rubber boots officiated with contempt, it hissed and pissed at times with an intensity that conveyed hatred through the whole shuddering establishment. There was music, however, to sweeten the proceedings. There was the radio, in which for the moment a mossy contralto voice was singing fit to burst the box. "I'm looking for my speshul speshurrll," sang the voice, nor did it spare the farthest corner. Ladies sat at their assembly trays, and repeated with dainty skill the single act they would be called upon to perform. Or eased their plastic teeth. Or shifted gum. Or patted the metal clips with which their heads were stuck for Friday night. There were girls, too, their studied eyebrows sulking over what they had to suffer. And gentlemen in singlets, who stood with their hands on their hips, or rolled limp-looking cigarettes, or consulted the sporting page, and even, when it was absolutely necessary, condescended to lean forward and take part in some mechanical ritual which still demanded their presence. Bending down in the centre of the floor was a dark-skinned individual, Himmelfarb observed, whose temporary position made his vertebrae protrude in knobs, and who, when straightened up, appeared to be composed of bones, veins, and thin strips of elastic muscle, the whole dominated by the oblivious expression of the dark face. The blackfellow, or half-caste, he could have been, resumed possession of his broom, and pushed it ahead of him as he walked backwards and forwards between the benches. Some of the women lowered their eyes as he passed, others smiled knowingly, though not exactly at him. But the black man, involved in some incident of the inner life, ignored even the mechanical gestures of his own sweeping. But swept, and swept. As oil reveals secret lights, so did the skin stretched on the framework of his naked ribs. As he continued sweeping. It was an occupation to be endured, so his heavy head, and the rather arrogant Adam's apple seemed to imply. Himmelfarb began to realize that the plumper of the two typists was trying to attract his attention. While remaining seated in the office, she was, it seemed, calling to him. "Mr Rosetree," she was saying, "is free now, to see you." Both the typewriters were still. The thinner of the two ladies was smiling at the keys of hers, as she hitched up the ribbon of a private garment which had fallen in a loop over her white, pulled, permanently goosey biceps. Fascinated by all he saw, the applicant had failed to move. "Mr Rosetree," repeated the plumper lady louder, the way one did for foreigners, "is disengaged. Mr Himmelferp, " she added, and would have liked to laugh. Her companion did snicker, but quickly began to rearrange her daintily embroidered personal towel, which was hanging over the back of a chair. "If you will pass this way," almost shouted the plump goddess, perspiring on her foam rubber. She feared the situation was making her conspicuous. "Thank you," Himmelfarb replied, and smiled at the hand which indicated doors. She did not rise, of course, having reduced her obligations at the salary received. But let her hand fall. Himmelfarb went into Mr Rosetree's sanctum. "Good day, Mr Himmelfarb," Mr Rosetree said. "Make yourself comfortable," he invited, without troubling to consider whether that might be possible. He himself was comfortable enough. Formally, he was a series of spheres. His whole appearance suggested rubber, a relaxed springiness, though his texture was perhaps closer to that of _Delikatessen__, of the blander, shinier variety-_Bratwurst__, for instance. Now he might just have finished buffing his nails, and forgotten to put away his dimpled hands, while his lower lip reached out after some problem he would have to solve in the immediate future. There was no indication Himmelfarb was that problem, but the applicant suspected he was the cause of a bad taste which Mr Rosetree, it became obvious, would have liked to spit out of his mouth. "Any experience? No? No matter. Experience is not essential. Willingness is what counts." Mr Rosetree asked and answered in the tone of voice he kept for minor emergencies. "Only the remuneration," he said, "will be less. In the beginning. On account of you are lacking in skill." He dropped a rubber into a little Bakélite tray, where it plunked rather unpleasantly. "That is understandable," Himmelfarb replied, and smiled. For some reason he was feeling happy. Is this one clever, or just stupid? Mr Rosetree debated. In the one case he would have reacted with anger, in the other, merely with contempt. But now he was in doubt. And suddenly he would have liked to revolt passionately, against that, and all doubts. The air grew quite sultry with displeasure. Himmelfarb was inwardly so glad he remained unconscious of the change of climate. "You are not from here?" he had to ask, but very, very cautiously, for he himself had worn disguises. "I am an Australian," Mr Rosetree said. But saw fit to rearrange several objects on his desk. "Ah," sighed Himmelfarb. "It only occurred. Excuse me, won't you?" "But will not deny I came here for personal reasons. For personal reasons of my own." Mr Rosetree tossed the rubber up, and attempted to catch it, but he didn't. "I do not wish to appear inquisitive, but thought perhaps you were from Poland." Mr Rosetree frowned, and bent the nasty rubber double. "Well," he said. "Shall we call it Vienna?" "_Also, sprechen wir zusammen Deutsch__?" "Not on the premises. Not on no account," Mr Rosetree hastily replied. "We are Australians now." He would have flung the situation off, only it stuck to him, like discarded chewing-gum. For Himmelfarb was plunging deeper into a conspiracy. The latter lowered his voice, and leant forward. He was tired, but had arrived, as he very softly asked, "Surely you are one of us?" "Eh?" Mr Rosetree was not only mentally distressed, he was also physically uncomfortable; he could not detach the pants from around his groin, where they had rucked up, it seemed, and were giving him hell. "Yes," Himmelfarb persisted. "I took it for granted you were one of us." Then Mr Rosetree tore something free, whether material or not. He said, "If it is religion you mean, after so much beating in the bush-and religion in these countries, Mr Himmelfarb, is not an issue of first importance-I can plainly tell you I attend the Catholic Church of Saint Aloysius." Nobody was going to threaten Mr Rosetree. "The Catholic Church," he emphasized, "at Paradise East." "Ah!" Himmelfarb yielded. He sat back. Just then there came into the room a gentleman in his singlet. He was of such proportions that the cardboard walls appeared to expand in order to accommodate him fully. "There ain't no 22-gauge, Harry," the gentleman announced. "Not a bloody skerrick of it." "№ 22-gauge?" Here at last Mr Rosetree was given the opportunity to explode. "That is correct," said the gentleman of the singlet, who was mild enough once he had established himself; he stood there twiddling the hairs of his left armpit, and breathing through his mouth. "№ 22-gauge!" screamed Harry Rosetree. "But this chep-pie which I told you of, has promised already for yesterday!" "This cheppie has dumped us in the shit," the mild gentleman suggested. For want of other employment, Himmelfarb sat and observed the belly inside the cotton singlet. There are times when the position of the human navel appears almost perfectly logical. "What do I do to peoples? I would really like somebody to tell me!" Mr Rosetree begged. His mouth had grown quite watery. He had taken the telephone book, and was picking up the pages by handfuls, in ugly lumps. "Peoples are that way from the start. Take it from me, mate," the foreman consoled. At that point, the plumper of the two ladies in the outer office stuck her head in at the door. Her necklaces of flesh were turning mauve. "Mr Rosetree-excuse me, please-Mrs Rosetree is on the phone." "For Chrisake! Mrs Rosetree?" "Shall I switch her through, Mr Rosetree?" "For Chrisake, Miss Whibley! Didn't Mrs Rosetree let you know?" Mr Rosetree, it was obvious, would favour jokes about Men and Women. Now he took the phone. He said, "Yes, dear. Sure. And how! No, dear, I am never all that busy. Yup. Yup. Yup. What! You have decided for the epple pie? But I wish the _Torte__! Not for Arch, nor Marge, nor anybody else, will I never assimilate the epple pie. Arrange it for me, Shirl. Sure. I have business now." The pitching of his stick of gelignite into the domestic works made him look pleased, until he began to remember there was something else, there was, indeed, the treachery of all individuals connected with supply, but something, he suspected, more elusive. There was this fellow, Himmelfarb. Then Harry Rosetree knew that a latent misery of his own, of which he had never been quite able to dispose, had begun to pile up in the fragile, but hitherto protected office, assuming vast proportions, like a heap of naked, suppurating corpses. He could have spewed up there and then, because the stench was so great, and his considerable business acumen would never rid him of the heap of bodies. So he said thickly to the applicant, "Come along Monday. You better start then. But it will be monotonous. I warn you. Bloody monotonous. It will kill you." "I have been killed several times already," Himmelfarb replied. "Probably more painfully." And got up. These Jewish intellectuals, Harry Rosetree despised the bloody lot of them. Freud, and Mozart, and all that _Kaffee-quatsch__! If he did not hate as well, not only a class, but a whole race, it was because he was essentially a loving man, and still longed to be loved in a way that can happen only in the beginning. But there, his childhood was burnt down, not a trace of it left, except that the voices of the dark women continued to vibrate inside him. "What's up, Harry?" asked the foreman, whose name was Ernie Theobalds. "Done something to your leg? Never noticed it was crook before." "I done nothink." "You was limpin'." "It has these needles." And Harry Rosetree stamped to bear it out. How the two ladies in the outer office were bashing into their typewriters now. The bloke Himmelfarb had gone out, and was walking alongside the green river, where nobody had ever been seen to walk. The river glistened for him. The birds flew low, swallows probably, almost on the surface of the water, and he held out his hand to them. They did not come to him, of course, but he touched the glistening arcs of flight. It seemed as though the strings of flight were suspended from his fingers,