It may have been coincidence, it may have been divine or else demonic will, it may have been a catalyst, it may have been my imagination. I do not know. Whatever the reason, the arrival at school of the three Hirsch children coincided with a marked change in my outlook on life. No longer were my perceptive faculties exclusively located above my neck. My awareness of the things around me was now transmitted, at least as often, and sometimes indeed with exaggerated vividness and intensity, through my groin.
The proximity of Marlene Hirsch, for instance, had such a pronounced, indeed seismic, effect upon my equilibrium that I was sometimes hard-pressed to remain standing.
The Hirsches arrived in Elizabeth from Millicent, a small town in the south-eastern corner of South Australia, via Germany. They all had scrupulously sculpted, exquisitely balanced features, alabaster skin, fair hair, and merry, lithesome eyes that seemed to promise either romance or adventure – or, in Marlene’s case, perhaps both.
Carl, the oldest of the Hirsches, was as tall as an adult, and extremely strongly built – a bit like Martin Starcevich, without the personality disorder. I only ever saw Carl each morning and afternoon on the school bus because he was based, along with the other grade sevens, at the newly built extension to the school in Elizabeth Park, known as St Mary’s.
A year younger than Carl, Soren also commenced his time at the school at St Mary’s, and so my initial contact with him was limited. However, when I too transferred to St Mary’s the following year, Soren and I became the firmest, if in some respects least likely, of friends. Shorter than his brother, but still quite tall for his age, Soren was exceptionally lean and wiry and, while in grade seven, was the focus of considerable adulation for being, by some measure, the fastest sprinter in the school. He was also an extremely lively and amusing, if occasionally exasperating, companion.
Marlene Hirsch, alas, was never my companion, amusing, exasperating, or otherwise. What she was, though, was the closest thing to feminine perfection I had ever seen. Not that others would necessarily have agreed with me, but then perception of genuine beauty was, I somehow suspected, akin to divinely imbued, prophetic insight, and as such was accessible only to a rare few.
The closest thing to a direct personal encounter I ever experienced with Marlene came one Friday evening after football training when I was in grade six. A group of about a dozen of us decided, for a reason or reasons I shall probably never now recall, to walk home together, dropping people off as we went, and essentially circumnavigating the entire north, north-west and west of the city in the process. That, at any rate, was our declared intention.
Most members of the group were in grades five and six, but there were also a couple of grade sevens, Soren Hirsch and Francesco Viera, to whose incontrovertibly superior wisdom the rest of us, quite naturally, deferred.
In some respects, Soren and Francesco might almost have been a single entity, with Soren very much the controlling influence (though scarcely what could be called the brains of the operation). Where Soren went, Francesco followed. Whatever Soren said, Francesco agreed with, and would often repeat, like a faulty echo, merely changing one or two of the words, or their order, in a somewhat feeble gesture of autonomy. On the rare occasions that Francesco felt sufficiently audacious or inspired to venture an original utterance of his own he would be careful to construct it in such a way as to permit effortlessly speedy modification should Soren’s reaction – which Francesco would continually, solicitously monitor – suggest in any way that this might be advisable.
One upshot of this was that Soren had comparatively little experience of, and equally little tolerance for, dissension. Indeed, so used was he to getting his own way that, on the rare occasions that others elected not to defer to him, his reaction could be waywardly, even violently irrational. You sometimes got the impression that Soren was much less interested in truth than he was in eliciting approbation. If you disagreed with him, he took it as a personal affront, and his sense of personal betrayal was such that not even undeniable, categorical proof that he was wrong would sway him.
This, at least, is just about the only feasible explanation I can proffer for the bizarre sequence of events that Soren proceeded to orchestrate that Friday night. “I know a quick way home,” he told us, as we exited St Thomas More’s by the main gate. With that, he turned left, and headed due east, towards the Adelaide Hills – precisely the opposite direction from that in which most of our homes lay.
“Yes,” said Francesco, eager, as ever, to convey the impression that this was a plan to which he had contributed, “this is a really good short cut.”
Whether intrigued, amused, or simply acquiescent, we all dutifully followed. Perhaps, we may have thought, among the unimaginable complexities to which life under Mother Christopher’s grade seven tutelage exposed you, was a technique for contravening certain supposedly inviolable physical laws.
Superficially alluring though this thought was, I was sufficiently mature at eleven to realise that truth, however multi-layered, did not include compartments labelled ‘paranormal’ or ‘sublime’. More likely, I imagined, Soren simply had some kind of ruse, or practical joke, in mind.
And so we trundled on, ignoring the fact that the hitherto distant hills, which lay in the opposite direction from home, were gradually getting closer. However, when the road along which we were walking began discernibly to slope upwards, Barry Ryan’s trust for one was ruptured. “This ain’t the way home,” he announced, his tone of voice perhaps a touch less conciliatory than he intended.
Soren said, “It’s just a different way, Bazza,” which Francesco reinforced with “Yeah, Bazza, it’s a short cut.”
But Barry Ryan had come to a stop, his normally quite defiant chin having now become positively rebellious. “Home’s back that way,” he insisted, pointing behind him, and endeavouring to elicit, with a plaintive stare, the support of others in the group. “Well, ain’t it?”
No one answered, although Gary Fowler, who looked across a little uncertainly at his older brother, Graham, seemed on the verge of it.
Technically, of course, Bazza undoubtedly had a point, and I am sure that each and every one of us knew it. However, at some other level we were aware that if we were to allow ourselves to be guided and constrained by technicalities we would end up living pretty charmless, denuded lives. And so, as though inextricably enmeshed in a collective cobweb of anticipation, we avoided Bazza’s eyes, and guilelessly succumbed to the only kind of life experience that can, when all is said and done, redeem.
“See, Bazza, nothing to worry about,” said Soren, with slightly excessive fervour.
“No worries, Bazza,” added Francesco, with a grim smirk that may have been his version of a reassuring smile.
When we finally reached the boundaries of civilisation Soren cheerily informed us, without missing a beat, that now it was time to turn left.
So we did.
“Who’s gunner win tomorrow, Bazza?” I asked, referring to the big interstate football match in Adelaide that several of us were planning to attend. In truth, I was not remotely interested in Bazza’s answer, but I imagined that by diverting his attention from the objective reality of our plight I might, in some way, reinforce the solidarity of the group.
“The Vics, of course,” he replied. “Without Big Bill we’ll get crucified in the rucks. Their rovers are better too. And Royce Hart’ll probably kick seven or eight on Elleway.” He stuck his chin out, as he almost always did, to reinforce, or else to challenge.
This last was too much, however. “No way!” I demurred, caught up in the topic despite myself. “Ron’ll be ‘way too tough for that weedy Tasmanian poofter!” I was consciously eschewing eloquence in order to forge a more elemental connection, sensing perhaps that Bazza needed to find an alternative outlet for his simmering rage.
“Nah,” he retorted. “Elleway only looks good for Port cos all the full forwards in the league are useless.”
“Eric Freeman’s a good full forward.”
“Yeah, but he plays for Port, and ‘sides, you’re just biased.”
“What about Sashy then?”
Bazza nearly choked on phlegm. “That great lump of lard!”
But we had reached another pivotal point in our pilgrimage, as Soren breezily announced, “Left here, fellas.”
“Now you’ll see,” said Francesco, who may even have believed it. However, if he had hoped that his words might provoke an inquisitive craning of necks, he was to be disappointed.
At long last, however, we appeared to be walking downhill.
Bazza and I continued to talk about the footy, with the Fowler brothers, who were also intending to go to the match, occasionally joining in as well.
The sun had set by the time we reached Elizabeth North Shopping Centre, which lies a mere half a kilometre or so from St Thomas More’s. However, by resorting to Soren’s short-cut it had taken us somewhere in excess of an hour and a half to get there.
“This is me,” said Bazza, who lived just a couple of streets away from the shopping complex. He was terse-lipped and pale, and studiously avoided eye contact with everyone as he hurriedly effected what no doubt felt like an escape.
Stephen Owen, John Conolly and a couple of others were quick to follow, although their homes lay at least a couple of kilometres away to the south. I engaged in what I hoped was a surreptitious but meaningful exchange of glances with The Politician and the Fowler brothers, my nearest neighbours in Elizabeth West, but any precipitate action on our part was speedily circumvented by Soren, who said, “Not far to go now, fellas. This way.”
“Nearly home,” embellished Francesco, whose complete and unequivocal faith in Soren was clearly such as to be independent of experience or circumstance.
And so our pilgrimage resumed, adhering, so far as I could tell, to no predetermined plan or structure, but nevertheless being embraced by Soren – and, to some extent by Francesco – as a kind of evocation of divine will.
With me, the Fowler brothers, and The Politician as the soon-to-be-incinerated sacrificial offerings.
We reached the railway crossing at Broadmeadows, which was about a kilometre away from where Soren and Francesco lived in Elizabeth Field. The rest of us, though, still had four or five kilometres to go.
With uncharacteristic boldness Francesco, who perhaps gleaned a certain inspiration from having at last reached familiar territory, informed us that we were almost home.
“You might be,” returned The Politician testily. “We’re still as far away from home as ever.”
But Soren, who presumably considered words superfluous in the face of such indefatigable logic, merely laughed, and Francesco, after evincing a momentary suggestion of discomfiture, joined in.
I, by this time, had immersed myself completely in what I had increasingly begun to perceive, if still somewhat imprecisely, as a kind of rite of passage. I may even have been grinning.
Soren’s house proved to be almost identical to mine, at least superficially: west facing, red bricked, the trademark tin roof, and a front porch and veranda tacked on to the south wall like a wholly incongruous last minute afterthought.
As befitted tradition, we trooped around to the back of the house, whereupon Soren clambered onto the porch and rapped sharply on the fly door to attract attention. Moments later his mother appeared, looking a trifle quizzical, but boasting a kindly, winsome smile that put me in mind, paradoxically, of Sister Damien.
My eyes did not linger long on Mrs. Hirsch, however, for peering around from behind her, still dressed in her school uniform, was Marlene, who was gazing unmistakably, or so I convinced myself, in my direction.
As Soren, somewhat ramblingly, and with minimal attention to the facts, attempted to provide his mother with an explanation of his lateness, I allowed myself to stand transfixed, slowly becoming enmeshed in a connection that I was scarcely able to believe was being forged. A second or two spent staring into Marlene’s eyes was tantamount to a sliver of eternity, and seemed to yield a wordless explanation of all that was necessary. Perhaps I realised even then that this is as close as we would ever come to being lovers in any conventional, fleshly sense, but the moment contained enough of an intimation of transcendence to sustain me for a life time.
To touch was not to love, I saw. To touch was an act of desperation, a refusal to accept, and she and I would never, ever touch.
Mrs. Hirsch was addressing me now, her tone of voice at once implying solicitude, and complete obliviousness as to what, in every sense, had just transpired. Feeling everything with almost too great an intensity to bear, I reassured her blithely, drawing flashes of approval from my beloved, so that ever after, without the sullying need for any kind of intercourse, our destinies, indeed our very cores, would be wholly, haplessly, inexorably intertwined.
For I was Johann Ulrich Voss, and she was Laura Trevelyan. I was John Evelyn, confused, duplicitous, misled, alongside the vestal incorruptibility of his Margaret Godolphin. We would die apart, unmourned and possibly unremembered by one another, but somehow still entrenched in that moment.
The rain had started by then, of course (“heavy ground – suit the Vics”), but I even succeeded in turning that to my advantage, with a glib parting shot that was the equivalent of a vow of eternal fidelity. And so, embedded more deeply than ever in the reality that fate had seemingly proffered, I wandered home, reluctant even to speak, aware that henceforth only through silence and solitude would the true shape and contours of our marriage be affirmed.
By happy chance, I went to the following day’s football match alone, as all of my friends had been ‘grounded’ (The Politician for a full month!) for their collusion in Soren’s and Francesco’s Grand Tour. Freed from distractions, I was able to concentrate exclusively on the on-field action, and as it went on the match developed, for me, into a kind of religious rite. The fact that I escaped the same censure as my fellow miscreants is almost impossible to credit unless you believe that our destinies are shaped either by fate, or by some divine or demonic will.
Which only goes to prove that the truth is not always as obvious or logically inferable as we would like to imagine.
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