White Gardenia (34 page)

‘You might find yourself being investigated by the Australian government as a possible spy as well,’ said Vitaly, slicing a loaf of bread. ‘Anya, I promise I will write to my father tonight.’

Irina took the slices from Vitaly and began buttering them for sandwiches. ‘The Red Cross is inundated and has to rely on volunteers,’ she said. ‘Vitaly’s father can probably do more to help you anyway.’

‘That’s right,’ said Vitaly. ‘He’d like a project. Believe me, he will see it through to the end. If he can’t find my uncle, he will get another contact for you, somehow.’

Their support helped buoy me a little. I looked at the menu and tried to do my best to memorise it. I shadowed Betty while she took orders and, although there were still tears in my eyes, I smiled at each customer before leading them to their tables. Her lounge, Betty told me, was famous not only for its American-style coffee but for its chocolate and real vanilla bean milkshakes and iced tea served in tall glasses with striped paper straws. I noticed some of the younger customers ordering something called a ‘cola spider’, and in the afternoon Betty gave me one to try. It was so sickly sweet that it gave me a stomach ache. ‘The young ones love them,’ laughed Betty. ‘They consider them glamorous.’

The lunchtime crowd ordered mainly salads, devon sandwiches or pies, but by the late afternoon I was carting out trays of New York cheesecake, blancmange served with jelly, and a dish called ‘rarebits’.

‘Rabbits?’ I repeated to the first customer who asked me for it.

The man scratched his chin and tried again. ‘Rarebits.’

‘How many?’ I asked, trying to appear as if I knew what he was talking about.

‘Just one serve,’ the man said. He looked over his shoulder and pointed to Betty. ‘Ask the lady over there. She’ll know.’

I blushed from my collar to the part of my hair.

‘The man at table two wants a serve of rabbits,’ I whispered to Betty.

She squinted for a moment then picked up the menu and pointed to ‘rarebits’ and told me to go to the kitchen and ask Vitaly to show me the dish. It turned out to be toast topped with cheese mixed
with beer and milk. ‘I’ll make one for you after we close,’ said Vitaly, trying not to laugh.

‘No, thanks,’ I told him. ‘Not after my experience with the cola spider.’

On Friday I spent my morning off in the State Library. Bathed in the ethereal light from the library’s vaulted glass ceiling, I pored over Dostoyevsky’s
Notes from the Underground
. It was difficult to read such a complex work in translation. I used a Russian–English dictionary to help me and persevered with it until it became clear that it was a fruitless endeavour. It was a dark novel about the nature of humanity, but it gave me no clues to my mother other than to confirm what I had already found out from an atlas: Omsk was in Siberia. Finally I had to admit that I was clutching at straws.

I returned to Potts Point, tired and defeated. The sun was hot but a sea breeze was starting to whip up from the harbour. I picked one of the geraniums near the gate and studied it while I walked up the path. A man burst through the front door, pushing a hat down onto his head. We almost collided. He stepped back, startled at first, then a smile spread over his face.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re one of Betty’s girls, aren’t you?’

The man was in his early thirties and his jet-black hair and green eyes reminded me of Gregory Peck’s portrait in the coffee lounge. I noticed his glance drop from my face to my ankles and back again.

‘Yes, I live with Betty,’ I said. I wasn’t going to give him my name until he told me his.

‘I’m Adam. Adam Bradley,’ he said, reaching out his hand to shake mine. ‘I live upstairs.’

‘Anya Kozlova,’ I said.

‘Watch out for him! He’s trouble!’ a woman’s voice called out.

I turned around to see a pretty girl with blonde hair waving to me from across the street. She was wearing a pencil skirt with a fitted blouse and carrying a bunch of dresses over her arm. She opened the door to a Fiat and draped the clothes on the back seat.

‘Ah, Judith!’ Adam shouted back. ‘You’ve called me out before I’ve even had a chance to start afresh with this beautiful young woman.’

‘You’ll never start afresh,’ the woman laughed. ‘Who was that à la mode waif I saw you sneaking home the other night?’ The woman turned to me. ‘By the way, I’m Judith.’

‘I’m Anya. I saw your dress in the window. It’s beautiful.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling with big white teeth. ‘I’m off to a show this weekend but drop in and see me any time. You’re tall, slim and gorgeous. I could use you as a model.’

Judith slipped into the driver’s seat of her car, did a U-turn and came to a roaring stop in front of us.

‘Do you want a lift to the newspaper, Adam?’ she asked, leaning over to the passenger window. ‘Or is it true reporters don’t work afternoons?’

‘Hmm,’ said Adam, tipping his hat to me and opening the car door. ‘It was nice to meet you, Anya. If Judith can’t get you a job, maybe I can.’

‘Thanks, but I already have a job,’ I said.

Judith tooted the horn and slammed her foot on the accelerator. I watched the car zoom up the street, narrowly missing two dogs and a man on a bicycle.

I walked up the stairs to the flat. I still had two hours until I had to return to the coffee lounge to help with the Friday afternoon crowds. I went into the kitchen and decided to make myself a sandwich. The air in the flat smelled stale and I opened the French doors to let in the breeze. There was some cheese in the icechest and half a tomato in the cupboard, so I sliced those onto the bread. I poured myself a glass of milk and took my lunch out to the verandah. There were choppy waves on the harbour and some sailing boats were moving quickly along it. I had not expected Sydney to be such a beautiful city. To me it had the atmosphere of a holiday resort, the way I imagined Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires to be. Though appearances could be deceptive. Vitaly had told me that where he lived, he never went out on his own at night if he could avoid it. Two friends of his had been attacked by a gang after they heard them speaking Russian. It was a side of Sydney I hadn’t seen yet. Some customers became impatient when I didn’t understand them, but usually people were polite.

A door banged at the back of the flat. I guessed it was either the bedroom door or that I hadn’t closed the entrance door properly. I walked back inside to fix it. The front door was shut and so was the tilting window above it. I glanced around the corner and noticed that the door to my room was shut too. I heard another bang and saw that it was the door to the room next to ours that was opening and shutting in the breeze. I grasped the knob, intending to pull the door shut tightly, but curiosity got the better of me. I pushed the door open and peered inside.

The room was slightly larger than the one I shared with Irina, but like ours it had two single beds pushed against opposite walls. The covers were
maroon with black tassels and there was a chest of drawers under the window. The air was old but the room had been dusted and the rug was clean. Hanging on the wall above one of the beds was a framed poster for a cricket match held in 1937, and some athletics ribbons were pinned above the other wall. My gaze moved from the fishing tackle on top of the wardrobe, to the tennis racket behind the door, to the photograph on top of a small dresser. In the picture two young men in uniform were standing either side of a smiling Betty. There was a ship in the background. Next to the photograph was a leather album. I opened the cover and found myself looking at a sepia photograph of two blond toddlers sitting in a boat. They were both holding up birthday cards with the number two on it. Twins. My hand flew to my mouth and I collapsed onto my knees.

‘Betty,’ I wept. ‘Poor, poor Betty.’

Sadness washed over me in waves. My mother’s crying face flashed before me. I understood what the room represented. It was a place for memory and private grief. Betty kept all the pain she felt inside in this room so that she could go on with her life. I understood why she kept it because I had a place like that too. It wasn’t a room, it was the matroshka doll. That was something I retreated to when I needed to still believe that the mother I had lost had at some time been a part of my life. It was a way of reminding myself that she wasn’t a dream.

I stayed in the room, crying until my ribs hurt and my eyes were so dry that I couldn’t cry any more. After a while I got up and stepped out into the hall, closing the door tightly behind me. I never mentioned the room to Betty, although from that afternoon on I felt a special bond with her.

After work Irina and I took a stroll along the Kings Cross strip. Darlinghurst Street was a scene that time of the evening, with people spilling out of the bars and cafés, drinks in their hands, smoking and laughing. We passed one bar and I could hear ‘Romance in the Dark’ being played on a piano. I wondered if the piano player was Johnny. I peered in the doorway but couldn’t see a thing through the crowd.

‘I used to sing in places like that in Shanghai,’ said Irina.

‘You could do that here,’ I told her.

She shook her head. ‘They’d want songs in English. Anyway, after a week in the kitchen I’m too tired for anything else.’

‘Do you want to sit down some place?’ I asked, indicating a coffee lounge across the street called Con’s Palace.

‘After all the milkshakes we’ve had this week?’

I slapped my palms together. ‘Of course not! What was I thinking?’ I laughed.

We walked on past the shops selling trinkets from India, cosmetics and second-hand clothes until we reached the junction with Victoria Street and turned to go home.

‘Do you think we will ever fit in here?’ Irina asked. ‘I feel like I’m on the outside, looking in.’

I watched a smartly dressed woman step out of a taxi and hurry past. I used to be like her, I thought.

‘I don’t know, Irina. Maybe it’s easier for me because I speak English.’

Irina glanced at her hands and rubbed at a blister on her palm. ‘I think you’re trying to be brave,’ she
said. ‘You used to have money. Now you have to save up just to go to the pictures once a week.’

All I’m worried about, I thought, is finding my mother.

‘I’m just stepping out to the bank,’ Betty said one slow afternoon. She slipped on a light coat over her uniform and checked her lipstick in the shine of the coffee percolator. ‘You’ll be right with any customers, Anya, won’t you?’ she asked, squeezing my arm. ‘Vitaly’s in the kitchen if you get stuck.’

‘Sure,’ I told her.

I watched her step out onto the street. It was one of those overcast days that was neither hot nor chilly, but if you didn’t wear a jacket you felt cold and when you put one on you felt too warm.

I wiped down the counter and the tables although they were already clean. About half an hour later I heard the front door open and looked up to see a group of girls saunter into the lounge and take the Joan Crawford booth. They were wearing office suits with straight skirts and pumps, and hats and gloves. They seemed to be in their late teens, but they were trying to look sophisticated by lighting up Du Mauriers and shooting puffs of smoke towards the ceiling.

They gave me the once-over when I approached their table. One of them, a girl with large shoulders and pimples on her cheeks, whispered something and the other girls laughed. I could feel trouble coming.

‘Good afternoon,’ I said, ignoring their rudeness and hoping they only wanted small orders. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

One of the girls, a plump brunette with her hair pulled back too tightly from her face, said, ‘Vell, let me see…I would like you to brrring me some vater and perrrhaps some coffee to drrrink.’

Her imitation of my accent brought squeals of laughter from the other girls. The pimply girl slapped her hand on the table and said, ‘And I would like some coffee and a rhubarb crumble. Make sure you bring me rhubarb crumble now, and not rrrhubard crrrumble. I believe there’s a difference.’

My hand moved to my throat. I clutched my notepad, trying to keep my dignity, but my face blushed. It shouldn’t have mattered. Part of me knew that they were only ignorant girls. But it was hard to stand there in my waitress’s uniform and not feel like a second-rate person. I was a migrant. A ‘reffo’. Someone the Australians didn’t want.

‘Speak E-n-g-l-i-s-h or go back to where you came from,’ one of the girls muttered under her breath.

The hate in her voice took me by surprise. My heart started to pound. I looked over my shoulder but I couldn’t hear Vitaly or Irina in the kitchen. Maybe they were in the lane, putting out the garbage.

‘Yeah, go back,’ the plump brunette said. ‘We don’t want you.’

‘If you have a problem with her perfectly good English, you are welcome to get your coffee on King Street.’

We all looked up to see Betty standing in the doorway. I wondered how long she had been watching. Judging by the tautness of her mouth it had been long enough to catch the gist of what was going on. ‘You’ll pay another shilling or two for your drinks there,’ she told them, ‘so that’s two shillings less for your diet pills and pimple cream.’

A couple of the girls hung their heads in shame. The plump girl fingered her gloves and smiled. ‘Oh, we were just joking,’ she said, trying to dismiss Betty with a wave of her hand. But Betty was on top of her in a minute, her face right up to the girl’s, her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t seem to understand, young lady,’ she said, hovering over the girl in a manner that would have made anyone frightened of her. ‘I’m not making you an offer. I’m the proprietor of this place and I’m telling you to get out now.’

The girl’s face turned red. Her lip quivered and I could see she was about to cry. It made her look uglier and, despite myself, I felt sorry for her. She stood up, knocking over the napkin dispenser in her hurry to get away. Her friends sheepishly got up and scuttled out after her. None of them looked sophisticated any more.

Betty watched them leave and turned to me. ‘Don’t you ever let anyone speak to you like that, Anya. You hear?’ she said. ‘Never! I have some idea of what you’ve been through, and I’m telling you, you are worth twenty of them!’