AC05 - Death Mask (16 page)

‘So are their lockers different sizes too?’

‘Goalies get wider ones,’ Gavin added, studying her. ‘You’re different from how I imagined.’

Anya felt her face redden. ‘What were you expecting?’

‘I Googled you. Pathology, rape examinations, victims’ rights – well, I mean —’

‘You expected someone old and serious, with no sense of humour.’

This time, Gavin’s face flushed.

The security guards were forming a line.

‘The players are about to enter the stadium. We should probably take our seats.’ He placed his hand on Anya’s back just as the team’s door opened.

They stood aside and a stream of men filed out. Some faces she recognised from television and movies, and others towered high and had the biggest size feet she had ever seen. A few of the Knicks players greeted Gavin on the way past. Seconds later, they heard the roar from the crowd. The excitement in the air was palpable, even though the game was purely for entertainment.

They were seated two rows from the front, mid-court. For a moment Anya felt guilty at taking the seat a dedicated fan would have loved. Gavin seemed right at home and rubbed his hands together as she looked around for Ethan. The stadium was full, and the crowd began banging blow-up beaters, magnifying the volume of noise. Music blared as the teams warmed up, hyping the fans even more. She wondered if she had imagined the smell of bacon.

Ethan appeared, grinning, holding a paper bag. ‘Some of our local fare,’ he said. ‘A knish, a hot dog covered in potato then fried. It’s delicious.’

Anya had no idea how Ethan could eat another morsel after their big dinner, but she was beginning to suspect the man had a bottomless stomach. Out of courtesy and curiosity, she bit through the crunchy coating and potato. Ethan was right. It was surprisingly tasty.

The teams were announced and the fans cheered and banged their beaters louder than ever. Long legs and broad shoulders filled the court as players for each team threw balls and hoops.

‘Who are you going for?’ she asked Gavin.

‘The Knicks.’

Ethan booed. ‘Go the Globetrotters.’

The exhibition game began and Anya had to admit to being swept up in all the humour. The professional players were not only great athletes, they were skilled entertainers too. She did
have to wonder whether the huge salaries and sponsorship deals they attracted were justified, though. They were, after all, throwing a ball, not curing cancer or saving the planet from global warming.

The Globetrotters scored three trick goals in a row, to the crowd’s delight. In some ways, the display was vaudevillian. At one point, no one knew where the ball had gone. The referees were as bamboozled as the crowd. Despite the messing around, all the players worked hard to make it look so simple.

Giant screens showed a slow-motion replay. Rock music filled the time-out as women in dance costumes did high-leg kicks while waving pom-poms. Anya took the opportunity to ask Gavin a personal opinion.

‘Are footballers more likely to be involved in team sex scandals and domestic violence accusations than basketballers?’

Basketball hadn’t seemed to have featured as heavily as other team sports in Anya’s previous research.

The sports doctor thought for a moment. ‘I guess basketballers tend to be a bit more selfish, and it’s not so much about the team for them. It’s about their own individual performance. Besides, their faces are on screens, their profile is so much higher, and their sponsorship contracts often have morals clauses in them.’

Ethan offered an alternate version. ‘There are fewer felons in basketball than football. Then again, maybe they have better managers and more money to pay people off. Morals clauses don’t tend to get invoked for players who are doing well, or are at the top of their game.’

‘Basketball players do get into their fair share of trouble,’ Gavin said. ‘Domestic violence often goes under the public radar, but that can be for lots of reasons. If the wives and girlfriends don’t press charges, there’s not much anyone can do about it.’

Ethan sounded unimpressed. ‘Violence against women should be on the public radar, especially when these guys are being paid a fortune and given everything they want, whenever they want.’

By the chants and cheers from the crowd, these players and celebrities could do no wrong. No wonder so few were ever convicted of domestic violence or rape. Victims weren’t just up against the legal system, they were up against the vast number of devotees. Anya was unsure which would be more frightening.

W
ith the players doing media and charity events during the morning, Anya was keen to use the few hours off to explore New York. The call from Ethan Rye mentioning an exhibition he wanted to see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art had been welcome. It also gave her the opportunity to find out more about his knowledge of players’ off-field behaviour. She suspected he kept a lot of secrets about what he’d seen and heard.

Since their hotel was near Grand Central Terminal, he suggested they take the subway uptown. From the room window she could see that the sun was struggling to make an appearance. People wandered along the streets, some in jackets, others in shirtsleeves. A breeze battered the flags atop an adjacent building. She pulled on jeans, a pale blue shirt and comfortable walking shoes, and carried her black trench coat. In her bag she had a small digital camera, her purse, a scarf and her room key. Ethan was already in the foyer when she left the lift.

‘Ready for some culture?’ he said with a broad grin. He held in his hand two takeaway coffees. ‘Thought you might need this.’

Anya had to admit to being excited at the opportunity to visit places she’d only seen in movies or read about in books.
They passed through the foyer of Grand Central to a door leading to the main concourse, sipping their coffees as they walked. True to its name, the building was grand. Its vaulted ceiling with constellations of stars was spectacular. The whole place had a feeling of old-time romantic travel.

‘Notice anything different about the constellations?’ Ethan asked.

Astronomy was not her strong suit. ‘I couldn’t even name them. Besides, the constellations in the southern hemisphere don’t look the same.’

Ethan stared up, hands in his pockets. ‘It’s ingenious. The whole thing’s backwards. The sky’s designed as if you’re looking down on it from outside.’

They bought tickets and took the line to 86th Street. Outside, parents were pushing children in prams, accompanied by small dogs. Couples headed for Central Park with backpacks and rugs. They wandered west to 5th Avenue, then south to 82nd Street in a comfortable silence.

The sense of community was evident. A troupe of acrobats in basketball jerseys entertained the crowd who sat on the steps. The buskers combined acrobatics, comedy and a ‘no drugs’ message. Anya found herself laughing at some of their antics and donated a ten-dollar note to their cause.

Like Australia, America had a relatively short history since colonisation, so the treasures within the Met were more revered than they may have been in Europe. Once past the bag check at the entrance, she couldn’t help but smile. The high ceilings, arches and skylight of the great hall made her feel happily insignificant.

‘You’re like a child at Disneyland,’ Ethan grinned.

Up the central staircase, they headed towards nineteenth-and early twentieth-century European paintings and sculptures. Once inside, Anya felt humbled by the magnificence, and number, of Impressionist works. She moved through works by Manet, Cezanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Monet and Degas.

Ethan paused at one of the bronze sculptures. ‘I like that
Degas takes the glamour out of his ballet models, and the natural poses he chose to capture.’

‘She looks as gawky as most teenagers feel.’ Anya remembered the awkwardness of those years.

‘She has no idea how beautiful she is. It’s what makes her even more compelling.’

Anya turned to see his expression, but he had already moved on.

She stopped at Claude Monet’s ‘The Path through the Irises’ and sat on the nearby bench to take in the entire image. She was amazed at how close she felt to being in the garden the painting depicted.

Ethan sat down beside her. ‘Monet was supposed to have had nuclear cataracts at this stage, which changed the way he perceived colours. Cataracts absorb more light and desaturate colour, making everything appear more yellowy and certain colours muddy.’ The painting did have a predominance of yellow, but he had still perfectly captured the purple hues of the irises. ‘For him that must have been the cruellest affliction. He described in letters how he saw the world in a fog, and from 1915 his paintings became more abstract. But that could also have been due to his advancing age.’ Ethan stood and moved nearer to examine the painting more closely. ‘His brush strokes were getting broader at this stage. It’s possible that by his mid-seventies, he’d lost some fine hand control, even if his handwriting didn’t show it.’

Ethan munched on some nuts from a bag in his jacket pocket.

Anya sat up, surprised at the extent of his knowledge of art.

‘What?’ He popped another peanut. ‘I might have worked a couple of art fraud cases in my time. How about I show you my favourite pieces.’

Anya was happy to be led to sculptures by the Frenchman, Jean-Antoine Houdon. ‘These guys feel like old friends,’ Ethan said.

In one marble bust, the artist had portrayed a young girl, probably five or six, who had the proud look of a child who was
beginning to become independent in small ways. She knew that look well, from her own son.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Ethan asked as she lingered, mesmerised.

She tried to divert the conversation. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be something women ask men and drive them insane?’

He smiled. ‘You didn’t answer. Are you missing your son?’

Anya stuck her hands into her jeans pockets. ‘If you really want to know, I miss everything about him. I miss his laugh, the cheeky look he gets when he’s about to be silly, the dimples on his knuckles still left over from when he was a baby. I even miss watching him sleep.’

In honesty, she missed Ben so much it hurt right now.

‘Do you have children?’ she asked.

‘Me? No. Too selfish.’ Somehow, his words didn’t sound convincing. ‘I think you’d be a fantastic mother.’

Her face reddening, she turned back to the exhibition. ‘This sculpture is so full of life and interest. Voltaire, the famous writer, philosopher and civil rights activist.’ She thought out loud as she noticed the accompanying description. ‘There’s a man I’d really like to have met.’

Ethan’s eyes seemed to pierce hers, as if he were searching for something.

‘You know, he reinvented himself after being imprisoned.’

‘Like so many celebrities and sports stars.’ Mike Tyson came to mind. Anya focused on the reason for being so far from her child. ‘I’ve been thinking about the five Bombers players. No one is caught speeding the one and only time they exceed the limit. If you do it often enough, eventually you will get caught. Rape is part of a pattern of behaviour. It’s not a one-off act. If a man hits a woman once, he’ll do it again. If he rapes, he’s usually done it before and will again.’

‘So I guess once someone’s off your Christmas card list, there’s no redemption.’

Anya saw his wry grin and wondered if he were baiting her. They meandered their way through a few more galleries, and
she paused at Poussin’s ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’, which depicted the abduction of Sabine women by the Romans, who wanted to make them their wives.

‘The Romans didn’t have women,’ Ethan told her, ‘so they took them by force, for the so-called good of their society. What would have happened to any of the soldiers who dissented because they thought abducting women was wrong? Groups, religions, governments, tribes, even families distort morality for their own advantage. Always have and always will.’

‘You forgot to mention teams,’ she added pointedly. ‘On the other hand, they can also nurture a sense of community, and act for the greater good.’

‘Or what their leaders manipulate them to believe is the greater good.’

Ethan Rye was sounding more and more like a loner.

‘Don’t you think people just like to belong sometimes? To find like-minded people they can relate to and trust? You told me on the plane that you agreed with the ethos of football, giving disadvantaged kids hope.’

Anya glanced around the room. An adolescent girl sat on a portable stool and sketched in charcoal. An elderly couple listened to the audio guide as they skirted the room, and a couple in their twenties, both dressed completely in black, seemed more interested in each other than the works of art.

‘Belonging can be overrated, and it can be highly destructive. Are you familiar with Milgram’s experiment?’

She had read about the famous scientific attempt to explain why ordinary people participated in the heinous crimes that occurred in Nazi Germany. The experiment involved using volunteers in the presence of an authority figure in a white coat. Volunteers were instructed to ask a series of questions of a person in another room, whom they could hear but not see. A wrong answer or no response incurred an electric shock, which increased in intensity each time. Despite the audible screams of pain and protestations by the person in the other room, two-thirds of the volunteers would have continued with the
experiment, eventually giving electrical shocks so high as to be lethal. The shocks were simulated, of course, as were the screams, but the volunteers did not know that until after the experiment. The frightening conclusion was that if the authority figure told the volunteers to continue, they did, despite their reservations.

Anya asked, ‘Which theory do you subscribe to? That the participants felt powerless to control the outcome, so abrogated responsibility for their part, or that they merely believed that what an expert said had to be right, even if they had doubts?’

‘Neither. I think the problem was that they didn’t perceive the person getting the shocks to be human. If they eventually did realise that they could have hurt or killed another person, few had the capacity to resist the authority. I’m thinking that happens with gang-rape. Someone initiates it and maybe someone else goes along for the thrill.’