The Persimmon Tree (95 page)

Janine cast me a quizzical look, then continued. ‘I’d never heard the term. “
Kinbaku
?” I asked Weatherall.

‘“Japanese bondage, sexual torture, a sort of Asian twist on what we used to call bondage and discipline,” he explained. “Very bloody popular among the silvertails, the judges, lawyers, you know — the high end of town. Why are you asking?” His left eyebrow shot up and he nodded his head towards Stan McVitty’s office. “Bit close to home isn’t it?” Well, I ignored his implication. “What more do you know about it, Mr Weatherall?” I asked.

‘“Not much, its very discreet; whoever’s protecting the operators is fairly high up in the force. It’s never been raided, never appeared in the papers, not even in the
Truth
. It’s run by this woman, Eurasian, tall, an absolute cracker to look at — she’s got these amazing violet eyes. They say she’s as cold as a nun’s tit.”

‘“Spare me the intimate details, Mr Weatherall,” I told him. Then I asked, “Do you know her name?”

‘“Yeah, Anna — Anna Til.”’

It was the repetition of the name that sparked recognition. I looked open-mouthed at Janine. I admit I was trembling. ‘I need a stiff brandy,’ I exclaimed. It had suddenly clicked and I could have backhanded myself at my sheer stupidity. Of course. Anna would have lost her papers, or had them confiscated. Coming out of Java as a refugee she could have been anyone she wanted to be. She’d decided to take the name of her old confidant, the
becak
driver, and use it as her own surname as a tribute to her murdered friend. Hence, Anna Til.

I arrived in Melbourne three days later, booking into the Hotel Windsor on Spring Street, opposite Parliament House. I’d arrived in the late afternoon and although the room was comfortable, I confess I endured a near sleepless night. So much was tumbling on the endless conveyor belt that ran through my head.

It had been five years since the end of the war, nearly nine years since I’d watched Anna’s tearful farewell as the
Witvogel
pulled away from the shore. I was twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven years old, and about the only thing that resembled the previous Nick — or Nicholas, as she’d insisted on calling me — was that I remained a passionate butterfly collector.

My war had certainly had its occasional hairy moments, but from what I’d heard from Ratih and Kiki, these paled into insignificance compared to hers. Did I have any right to interfere? Renew our teenage relationship? Wasn’t I presuming far too much? ‘Cold as a nun’s tit’ kept reverberating through my head.

At dawn I rose and walked to the river and watched the sun rise. Silly with lack of sleep, I found myself silently asking why the Yarra was always brown; it was just one of the crazy thoughts that wouldn’t stop racing through my mind. I was almost within a stone’s throw of Anna, yet I felt more terrified than I had been at Bloody Ridge.

After breakfast I wrote her a note, several notes, all eventually scrunched then thrown in the wire wastepaper basket. Finally I settled for:

Dearest Anna,

I’d love to see you. May I suggest morning tea tomorrow, say 11 o’clock, in the lounge at the Hotel Windsor?

Sincerely,

Nicholas Duncan

It may seem like a simple enough note, but it had taken an hour to compose. Each word carried a purpose:
Dearest Anna
(friendly),
I’d love to see you
(implies for old time’s sake),
May I suggest morning tea tomorrow
(no disaster if you refuse, a tentative and casual arrangement),
say 11 o’clock
(not too firm),
in the lounge at the Hotel Windsor
(sophisticated, worldly, urbane, non-threatening),
Sincerely
(relaxed, non-committal),
Nicholas
(nostalgia),
Duncan
(recall).

I sent the note in an unsealed envelope together with the butterfly handkerchief, handing the goggle-eyed pageboy a pound. ‘See that it is received by Miss Til at the address on the envelope and
nobody
else! Wait if you have to,’ I instructed somewhat forcibly. With a week’s wages in his claw he could only nod, stupefied.

The 20th of September 1950, a beautiful early spring day in Melbourne, brought probably the longest morning of my life. Anna entered the lounge at the Hotel Windsor at one minute to eleven. I had expected her to be late. She was so stunningly beautiful I wanted to cry, to burst into sudden tears.

I jumped to my feet like a schoolboy. ‘Anna!’ I exclaimed.

‘It is you, Nicholas,’ she replied, a tiny smile at the corners of her mouth, her violet eyes looking me up and down, inspecting me. ‘You are still beautiful,’ she said, suddenly laughing.

She reached into her bag and pulled out the Clipper butterfly in its teak box and placed it in front of me. ‘You see, Nicholas?’ she said. ‘I have never forgotten you.’

In an hour, over a pot of Darjeeling tea, I fell head over heels in love with her again.

I spent the next fortnight in Melbourne, not attending to business needs that should have found me in Canberra and then back in the islands. I kept on receiving frenetic calls from the little bloke, all much the same. ‘Wassamatta, Nick, ferchrissakes wha’ cha doin’ down dere? So yoh found Anna? What we suppose ter do? Wait til ya ain’t lovesick no more? We got two contracts, dey both bigger dan da secon’ comin’! Yoh gotta get ya sweet ass ter Canberra. Fuckin’ place’s goin’ crazy widout ya.’

Joe called from Honiara, the town built in the Solomon Islands by the American forces. ‘Nick, wot cha doin’, mah man? Pussy like baked sweet potato, dere ain’t never one dat don’t taste good. Yoh crazy ’bout dat doll, yoh bring her home, yoh heah?’

During those two weeks I’d make a time to see Anna and she wouldn’t turn up, or someone would call (never her) and apologise, saying she was indisposed. But whenever we did get together you could see she loved it. We’d have dinner or lunch and she’d leave obviously feeling great — either that, or she’d become the world’s greatest actress.

But she wouldn’t allow any intimacy between us. Her greetings and farewell kisses were chaste, to say the least. She physically drew away if I reached out and touched her arm. Anna had lost something important from deep within her. Her beautiful eyes would still sparkle, but if you caught them at an unsuspecting moment they showed a sadness, even sometimes a blankness. The trouble was that at such moments, when she looked vulnerable, she was even more beautiful.

Then Janine de Sax came to see me. ‘Nick, Kevin’s calling me every day, sometimes twice a day. You know how he is, full of bombast and bluff. But he’s genuinely worried about you.’

‘Janine, just give me a bit of space, a little more time,’ I begged.

‘Nick, I have some bad news,’ she said suddenly.

‘What?’ I asked defensively and a little angrily, even rudely I suppose.

‘Rusty Weatherall has been making enquiries. Anna is a heroin addict. It’s a long-time addiction; she’s used the one supplier since she arrived in Melbourne.’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ I clenched my hands around the broad armrests of the lounge chair. It explained so much of her recent behaviour. ‘What will I do? What the fuck will I do now?’ I wailed pathetically.

‘See the doctor. Get something to calm your nerves,’ Janine said quietly.

It had become obvious Anna enjoyed being with me and now I understood why she sometimes cancelled our assignations. I spent another sleepless night and in the morning called Janine. ‘Can you find out if there is a specialist who knows something about heroin? One who treats it regularly?’ I asked. The missionary in my father was showing in me. He’d always said to me as a child, ‘Nicholas, read and inwardly digest; knowledge is power. First find out and understand what is known and only then have you a right to question it. The world is full of ill-informed people making the wrong decisions based on speculative and impulsive information.’

Janine found a professor at the University of Melbourne who had been a biochemist and had then turned to psychiatry, the newest of the medical areas of human study. Surprisingly for a high-ranking academic, she was a female.

Professor Sue Wilson (‘Chemicals have a great deal to do with everything, Mr Duncan’) was busy, but she agreed to see me. She was tall, slim, blonde and not at all professorial looking, although her manner was politely abrupt. ‘What is it you wish to know, Mr Duncan?’ she asked moments after I was seated in her office.

‘How does one withdraw from heroin addiction?’ I replied.

‘You, or someone else?’

‘Well, yes, someone else,’ I said.

‘Does he, she, wish to give it up?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe?’ I ventured.

‘And the cow jumped over the moon! Nonsense!’

‘I beg your pardon, Professor?’

‘Nonsense!’ she repeated. ‘He, she, must want to withdraw.’

‘I think she does, she just doesn’t know how,’ I suggested.

‘You think she does, or she does?’ she asked pointedly.

‘I think she does,’ I said, guessing.

She sighed and I knew she’d caught me out. ‘Mr Duncan, every heroin user I have ever encountered wants to give it up. But there is a peculiar aberration in the brain that is difficult, if not well-nigh impossible to overcome: every heroin addict believes that they need only one more shot to stop the torment and thereafter they’ll commence on the road to a certain cure. “Just one more shot” is the mantra of this drug.’

‘Well, presuming she does, what’s involved; how do I go about helping her?’

‘How long has she been addicted?’

‘Five years, maybe more.’

‘Is she sick?’

‘No, I don’t think so, just unreliable.’

‘Is she injecting?’

‘What, into her arms? No, there are no needle marks, or none that I could see, anyway.’

‘Is she on the street?’

‘No.’

‘Has she got the money to buy drugs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then she’s probably chasing the dragon.’

‘Chasing the dragon?’ I was beginning to feel very ignorant.

‘Smoking heroin, that way she avoids the illnesses associated with injecting the drug.’

‘Well possibly, but will she die if she is suddenly withdrawn?’

‘No, of course not! And in case you were about to ask, Mr Duncan, unlike alcohol rehabilitation, she won’t even need medical supervision.’

‘How long before she’s free of the drug, Professor?’ I sensed she was growing impatient with me.

‘There are two answers to that question. The major symptoms that reflect the drug in her body should be over in seven to ten days.’ She paused. ‘But she’s not out of the woods then, a protracted abstinence syndrome will persist, often up to thirty-one weeks.’

‘You mean psychologically? Psychological addiction?’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that, but, yes, the mind is the most powerful factor.’

‘Will she, I mean, with the withdrawal symptoms, will she, you know, suffer a lot?’

‘What do you think, Mr Duncan? If the cure was a simple matter, then every heroin addict would be clean. Let me list the symptoms of withdrawal for you.’

I was beginning to think she was secretly enjoying answering my questions, putting me in my place. But I could hear my father saying ‘Persistence, sheer persistence, will eventually prevail. Knowledge is only gained by curiosity and curiosity is fuelled by persistence.’

‘Yes please, Professor, I need to know what to expect.’ Why do doctors always assume you’re a couple of intellectual levels below them?

She seemed amused. ‘I hope you’re a strong man, Mr Duncan. Let me begin with what you can see.’ She started to count on her left hand, using her forefinger to tap the pad of each finger in turn, then flicking the fingers and thumb on her right hand to continue: ‘Dilated pupils, piloerection —’

‘Piloerection?’ I interrupted.

‘Goose bumps,’ she said impatiently, then continued, ‘watery eyes, runny nose, frequent yawning, tremors, vomiting.’ She paused and repeated, ‘Vomiting! Nausea, this is the big one, here is where you’ll need to be strong.’ She continued, ‘Shaking, chills, followed by profuse sweating. Those are the symptoms you can
see
,’ she concluded.

‘And the ones you can’t see?’ I asked.

‘Ah, muscle cramps, stomach cramps, insomnia, panic, diarrhoea, irritability. That’s about it,’ she said, smiling. ‘But once you’re over the primary symptoms, you have to battle depression and, more importantly, what I previously mentioned, the certainty in the addict’s mind that feeling better is just a single dose away. That is why so many addicts relapse, they know the drug can make them feel better than their present state of mind.’

Whew! It was quite a list.

I tackled Anna the following day about her addiction. At first there was denial, then anger, then tears. ‘Nick, you don’t understand, I didn’t do this on purpose, become an addict.’

‘Anna, you can tell me about all that later. What’s important now is getting better. Darling, I love you. I always have.’

She was suddenly furious. ‘Love? What are you talking about, Nicholas? Where is there love? Show me?’