Somewhere at some point Mrs Feinstein had remarked to Waldo: “I am so sorry you will never have had the good chance of meeting Leonard Saporta.”
“Is he a relative?” silly old Waldo asked.
Was he a relative! Leonard Saporta was a born relative.
Arthur had met this Mr Saporta, coming or going, never by arrangement, at Feinsteins’ other house. In Arthur’s life there were the convinced, the unalterable ones, such as Mr Allwright and Leonard Saporta, as opposed to those other fluctuating figures, of Dulcie, Waldo, his parents, even Mrs Poulter, all of whom flickered as frightfully as himself. Whereas Mr Allwright and Leonard Saporta must have kept the solid shape they were moulded in originally. Arthur was grateful for knowing they would never divide, like the others, in front of his eyes, into the two faces, one of which he might not have recognized if it hadn’t been his own.
It was during the First War that Arthur visited Mr Saporta in his shop. It must have been towards the end, for the merchant himself was there, discharged. Leonard Saporta had enlisted, gone overseas, and returned with several shrapnel wounds which he did not care to talk about. (It was while he had been on leave in France that Leonard had sent Dulcie the little Star of David, which she afterwards wore on a chain round her neck, and which would have become a source of jovial mirth to Mr Feinstein, if his wife had not implored him, with all the resources of her face and muted ’cello notes in her voice, to desist, for Dulcie’s, for everybody’s sake.)
Anyway, Mr Saporta had returned, and the day Arthur went to his shop, approached with the appearance of a merchant receiving a genuine customer — certainly business was pretty slack — and clapping his hands together, asked:
“Well, Arthur, may I show you a few first quality Oriental rugs?”
Altogether Arthur felt too large, too shy, drifting sideways amongst the piles of rugs, which the merchant was preparing to turn over as though they had been the pages of a book.
“No, thank you,” Arthur said, and giggled, “Mr Saporta. I’m really only wasting your time.”
However often he had been invited to drop the “Mister” in favour of “Leonard”, Arthur had not been able to — something to do with the respect in which he held the merchant’s solid foundations.
Not that Mr Saporta was particularly rich in goods, it seemed, and his appearance was undoubtedly what Mother and Waldo would have described as “loud”: the suit too flash, the shoulders too broad, the teeth too gold, the moustache too clearly parted under the great curve of his nose. Yet you could not have caught the merchant’s eye without suspecting him of gentleness and honesty. Perhaps, also, he was slightly, if only very slightly, stupid. For Arthur sensed on his way through life that only the very clever and the very stupid can dare to be dishonest.
On this occasion the merchant went on turning over his rugs for the pleasure of showing them off, only occasionally straightening his back on account of the twinges caused by the shrapnel, when Arthur started pointing with his toe.
“That! That! That is it!”
“That,” Mr Saporta agreed, “is a very fine Turkish rug. From Panderma.”
Arthur scarcely heard, and certainly he did not need the name.
“It has the mandala in the centre! But don’t you see, Mr Saporta?”
“Don’t know about the mandala,” the merchant said.
He obviously did not want or need it.
“Have you seen Dulcie?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Arthur, looking up.
He was suddenly certain this was a secret he would not mind the merchant sharing.
Mr Saporta’s glistening eyebrows looked very grave, as though he could not make up his mind how much depended on him personally, and how much could be expected to happen in spite of himself. Fearing his friend, at this, if only at this point, might be in need of assistance, Arthur began to chatter on what probably sounded too high, too irrelevant a note:
“One morning — one Saturday — I’ll come down from Sarsaparilla, Mr Saporta — to give us more time — and you shall show me all your rugs.”
But Mr Saporta hesitated.
“Not Saturdays,” he said. “Saturdays I am otherwise engaged. I go to the synagogue,” he reminded. “And my family expects me afterwards.”
He sounded sombre, but a sombreness of such rich dark colours and vibrating harmonies, Arthur was at once reassured.
Seeing his friend thus enclosed he went away soon afterwards, and in the street realized for the first time that the Star of David was another mandala, and that Dulcie’s marriage to Mr Saporta would be arranged.
In his joy and distress he sang one of those shapeless songs: joy that the person he loved most — after Waldo — would be made round, as he saw it, distress that he could not relieve Waldo of his ignorance. Waldo could only relieve himself.
All the way down Terminus Road Arthur’s twitching throat kept up a shapeless, practically a wordless singing.
And then the Peace came. He had always loved the excuse for singing in the streets. He bought a rattle. He bought a blower which unravelled as far as a pink feather on its end. He went to Sydney, to the streets for which celebrations are created, and for the occasion he composed a song:
“After the fireworks the fireworks
after the gas the gasworks
I shan’t mind my chop chop chop
after a day in the shop shop shop
no no no no no no no no NO!
Love is the biggest firework of all
don’t be afraid when it bursts
don’t be afraid if it hurts
it’s the best the fieriest way
to go off BANG!
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh OH!”
“Fuckun mophret!” A man spat.
And a girl shrieked: “Don’t let him touch me! That orange nut!” before disappearing as fast as her new button-boots and the crowd would allow.
But many of them kissed Arthur Brown. They seemed to want a mascot of some sort. They got him drunk. Who blew out his blower with the pink feather on the end, to stroke suddenly familiar features. In particular, he enjoyed the retreat of the sterner noses. Always when his blower had recoiled, again, there was someone to kiss him on his large face, slobbery with the joy of fulfilment, of recognition. Everybody was being and doing.
When things had settled down again he heard that Mrs Feinstein was dead. Although she had been his friend he didn’t exactly grieve for her, realizing that she had in fact died on her last trip to Europe. But again he went to the city, this time in search of Dulcie, in the house at Centennial Park. Some woman relative told him where she was, and that Mr Feinstein was too disconsolate to receive even those he knew intimately. Arthur found Dulcie sitting on an upright chair, on the edge of a room, wearing the black dress.
She smiled at him, and he saw that grief had destroyed her face, all except the bones, which were a polished yellow. Even so, she shone with a grave ivory beauty of her own.
“Sit down,” she said, in someone else’s voice. “Was the train full?” she asked, as though he had arrived for some other purpose.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, Dulcie.”
“They always are at this time of day.”
That seemed to upset her. She would obviously have liked to cry, only she had dried up inside, there was nothing there but a rack of coughing.
He sat comforting her by stroking the back of her hand with one of his forefingers.