Turn Left at Venus Read online

  TURN LEFT

  AT VENUS

  INEZ BARANAY

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  www.transitlounge.com.au

  Copyright © 2019 Inez Baranay

  First published 2019

  Transit Lounge Publishing

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Every effort has been made to contact the copyright owners of material referenced in this novel. Where these efforts have been unsuccessful the copyright owners should contact the publisher in the first instance.

  Cover image: Mark Owen/Trevillion Images

  Cover and book design: Peter Lo

  Author image: Melissa Hobbs

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  A cataloguing-entry is available from the

  National Library of Australia: trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN: 978-1-925760-40-8

  ‘Having reached an age at which it seems more dignified to cultivate illusions than foolish aspirations, I have resigned myself to the destiny of writing after my own fashion.’

  Antonio Tabucchi, The Woman of Porto Pim

  ‘A hopeless xenophile … all my life. In fact what draws me is so damn xeno it’s not really here.’

  Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.) in Julie Phillips,

  James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

  They were two little girls on a very big boat. They peeked out from behind big legs, big laps, looked at each other amid all the baggy trouser knees and coat-tails, the scarred stockings and restitched hemlines, and left all the big people to approach each other. The boat was full of people, all the fathers mothers aunts uncles grannies taking all the children to, to where they were going, they had to start thinking of where they were going, they were saying not to think about where they came from, they had no past, their lives beginning there, and the two little girls who recognised each other at once did not look away, found each other, never parted that whole lifetime voyage.

  They would get to where they were going but for a while in the present no other world needed to be imagined, any other world refused to be.

  They went about together, recognised by everyone as those two little girls who were such good friends since meeting on this boat; their friendship was smiled upon by all. Because they were together they were safe and strong. They would always create together an irresistible force.

  We know everything about each other, Leyla told Ada one day on the deck of the big ship, the world a thousand shades of grey, metallic greys, mineral greys, the huge skies and huge heaving ocean, everything was grey except them. If you saw opals in grey shades you’d see them in these waves. If precious stones came in grey you’d see them here. The whitish grey of smoke, the white distant spume curling upon the ocean waves turning silvergrey in the long twilight.

  A huge wave that rose above them.

  1

  AM I DREAMING?

  Am I dreaming? The usual way of checking is not possible. Ada cannot tell how long it’s been since she last moved or spoke. Sometimes when you wake up you might not quite immediately understand where you are, maybe an effect of a dream or the moment in the sleep cycle that the alarm or a sense of alarm might have shattered, thrusting you undefended into the reality of your own current bedroom in your own current neighbourhood.

  And into the returning knowledge of whatever had just happened, current obsessions sliding into your mind’s spotlight, its centre stage.

  It’s not like that. Those times, it comes to you quite swiftly or quite soon: you’re awake, the sense of dislocation is fading like those dreams that have evaded you, or you evaded them. It’s not like that because this has gone on for longer, Ada can tell somehow, if not tell how long it’s been. She cannot find in herself any intention of moving or speaking.

  ‘Ah-dah not Ay-dah,’ that voice is saying, in the tones of freshly acquired knowledge it is a source of pride to possess. Knowledge and pride and an assertion of connection to Ada.

  ‘Wha’ever,’ returns the trala-ing tones of a woman who is not interested in being corrected. If she does not stand corrected she has won. The important things are what she knows.

  The two of them at the side of Ada’s bed. Ada is the exhibit. The woman who’s been here a while is showing the new one the dimensions of the new assignment. Take care of this, this collapsed this ancient relic of a human. ‘She’s not the hardest not the easiest … You’re a good girl, aren’t you, dear?’ she addresses Ada now, as if Ada were a moron or an infant, or anyone under her care. She has barely spoken to Ada for all the time she has been alone in the room with her, her location in the room signalled by the breathing, occasional snoring, the fragrance of spearmint and lime losing to the woman’s natural odour of loam, humus, decomposing peels.

  Ada might like to be the hardest ever case, if only she could achieve that without moving or speaking. They breathe towards Ada as they contemplate her, unable to entertain any thought of her status as harbinger of their own future. They believe they will remain strong and firm forever. The tendency for this belief seems to be built into the human.

  Ada has been surrounded by people whirling about calling for assistance, delegating and appointing. They took her to the right room, good. There have been arrangements made; they swiftly decided what to do with her. They know she wrote no hospital. Someone said, ‘Apparently these are her wishes’. And quite recently. Ada understands that these two people in here are taking turns to look after her for as long as she does not speak or move.

  ‘They wrote Turn Left At Venus,’ says that voice Ada might be interested in listening to more. Even if she were vehemently uninterested in listening to more, she’s going to be hearing it anyway, unless she speaks or moves, which she’s not going to.

  ‘That’s an old one, I’ve heard of it,’ said the other as if hearing of it were all a work of art required. ‘Wasn’t that a movie?’

  ‘It’s going to be remade. With MahLila.’

  ‘I saw about that,’ for that silly scandal aired here too lately. ‘They change things too much. Nothing wrong with the old movie.’ She is old enough to have been a kid when it was new.

  ‘First it was a book. Their book,’ says the husky voice with that pride in the knowledge.

  ‘The book is always better.’ Seems to like things to remain untroubled by reconsideration.

  ‘Always?’ A mild but laden challenge from this other person who, Ada intuits, is not a stranger to adaptation.

  First-one-here caregiver shrugs it off. ‘I don’t really have time to read. I’m the kind of person more interested in what’s going on.’ Returning to the subject or object, she says, ‘She’s stable, but you’ll have to keep an eye on it.’

  The husky voice says, ‘I’ll be fine, Miss Corinna, I’ll call in if I need to.’ The formality, calling the other Miss Corinna, a performance of deference tinged with sarcasm. Combining sincerity and mockery is second nature to this one.

  ‘If there’s no change by tomorrow we’ll have to move her.’

  ‘Why?’

  That Why left out any deference, so Corinna doesn’t have to answer that. She asks, ‘So does J stand for anything?’

  ‘No, it’s Jay Ay Why, it’s my name: Jay.’

  ‘So how’d you get into the agency’s good books?’ Good books, she says, while Ada knows only of good books. To be in someone’s good books – so they’re still using this expression.

  ‘Kay Dee loves me, they had to give me this job,’ Jay willingly discloses.

  �
��The director.’ The woman does not want to be impressed that Jay is loved by the director of the agency for carers.

  ‘We’re from the same tribe.’ Which you don’t even know about.

  ‘So where’d you work before?’

  ‘Everywhere. I’ve just been touring with a show – I’m also a performance artist, actually. Don’t worry, I haven’t lost my caregiver touch.’

  A moment in which the other decides not to inquire further. ‘Well then, Jay, I’ll leave you to it. Might see you tomorrow. If there’s anything. You know what to do if you need to.’

  ‘Be assured …’ Jay’s voice becomes theatrical, uttering a sentence of studied intent ‘… I am not in this line of work because I think it’s glamorous.’

  ‘I’m sure you are competent and dedicated,’ says the other one in a tone frankly of hope rather than conviction.

  ‘Also a bit glamorous,’ Jay stage whispers as the departing professional caregiver closes the door behind her. Leaving that slowly fading odour of cleaning products and loam.

  A kookaburra warbles inside the room, an electronic laugh, cut off mid-cackle.

  Jay says, ‘Kay Dee! … Yes, just me, now. I totally know … I know, I am … That’s what she told me too, “We’ll have to move her.” Can they do that? … I will, this is one of our treasure makers! … Cool, send it all to me.’

  No hang-up sound. Because the phones we have now, pocket phones.

  Electric kookaburra again. ‘Hey, I was just going to text you, I’m with my patient … I know, did Brix tell you? Kay Dee knew all about them. It’s Ah Dah Ligeti, the real A. L. Ligeti … I know you did, I’m looking at it all now … No way, they’re really old and, you know … Gotta go, send me that link.’

  Jay moves closer to Ada and is now speaking to her. ‘It’s OK if you heard that. That’s my M.O., that’s my code: I let you know about the life around you, be a real person to you. It’s all about you. I’m looking after you and everything will be all right. You are getting topnotch care. If I had the choice of any care I could have, I’d choose exactly what you have. Including my good self.

  ‘I’m going to know all about you, Ligeti. Everything. They told me who you are. I’d heard of you. Brix used to be a moderator at the first Ligeti message board.’

  Ligeti 21st Century, it was called, back when they were still getting over reaching the twenty-first century.

  ‘You’re in Our Elders. It’s this project, Our Elders. It’s about people who have gone before, cutting the path for us to walk along, and it’s up to us to enlarge it and make it an actual road. Some of Our Elders are from olden times or from the movies, like Ancient Mother in Professor Weird series two, the best series.

  ‘I might be a lot younger than you but I’m not exactly young-young. Not that there’s anything wrong with not being young. No one should have to pretend to be any age they are not. Except for fun. Anyway, I’m old enough to have respect for those who cut the path. I think if I was from your generation, I’d still be me, but I know I’d have a much harder time being allowed to be me. “Ew, what a cute little child, is it a boy or a girl?”’ Jay puts on a high mocking voice. ‘My mum said to them, “What if it’s neither, bitch?” So, thank you.

  ‘I feel it’s no coincidence that I am your caregiver right now. I am going to know all about you. Our people are totally on it. I’ve got a ton of reading. Lucky I’ve had practice. I’m putting a lavender crystal here by your bed. And Brix who now is my Wiccan friend is sending me a spell for guidance.’

  2

  THE INDIGNITIES OF OLD AGE

  Ada knows them all, what they call the indignities of old age

  The cramps that seize your legs in the middle of the night

  The sudden sharp memory from long ago

  The fresh surprise that you are no longer strong in your body

  The dull old knowledge that your body is no longer strong

  There is too much memory

  Forgetting the names of things you know very well

  Arriving in one of your cities to find no one you knew is still here

  No one else is still alive

  She’s sometimes not sure she herself is still alive. She might be a ghost

  Seeing the wrong face in the mirror

  Ada wants everyone she ever knew to outlive her

  The dead outnumber the living

  You want to piss again and almost don’t bother going to the toilet, one day you might really not go just let it come lying where you are

  Scratches on the skin don’t heal and they used to always heal quickly and where even do these bleeding scratches come from, who did this, you can’t remember being scratched, bitten, wounded

  Burn marks appear on her arms and legs, darkening, sinking into the skin

  The skin mottled and creased

  Bitten burned scarred scratched wounded

  Ada walks steadily, she does not take her walking stick, she walks steadily, places her feet one by one on the ground in her good comfortable shoes.

  The young people who pass her seem large, looming. Ada does not make herself invisible, she wants them to see her, as she might not be able to get out of their way swiftly enough. They say old people, old women especially, become invisible, but the young woman with her arms tattooed with flowering vines looks penetratingly at Ada, as if Ada is the answer to something she has been asking herself, something Ada might be supposed to know.

  It has become evident that Ada can see every day as one more day on this side of her very last day.

  It could be any day or not necessarily soon. Isn’t this by now something you should be ready for?

  ‘Is that it then,’ Ada asks Noemi, ‘that was the meaning of life, it was all about getting ready?’

  ‘I will come and haunt you,’ Noemi promises.

  Ada is older now than Noemi ever was.

  The vast tracts of time your mind contains

  The body you inhabit as if you were a stranger exploring a strange new place

  The sense of tremendous strength in your body

  The discovery of feebleness in your body

  How vivid some things in the mind. Memories of early times. A dazzling insight. A new bafflement.

  But where are you now. Still living in the body. The street outside is and is not the same street, all the times you were there are present, you thought you could see them, all at once, translucent layers. As if space could show you all time exists at once.

  Returning to Sydney for the last time. Her oldest, dearest, most own city. The one city she first knew, consciously knew. ‘I’m going to Sydney,’ Ada told Saul. Changes, of course, but you can see through layers of palimpsest. And also, you have to have places on this Earth, in this life, to return to. ‘Where is your spiritual home?’ Ada heard someone ask someone else in the airport lounge.

  Ada begins to feel so light, that she is too light, not anchored to the ground, so light she might float, float up, she looks up, there she is, floating.

  The sense of time distorts, or reveals itself as the illusion it always was. She might have lived for centuries. Might have for a very long time stood here looking at this poster, for is it a singer or a band, on a lamppost or telegraph pole, sometimes not seeing it at all.

  Someone is here repeating something, someone right here, the young woman here in this street with a look of friendly concern. The flowering vines on the girl’s arms writhe and bloom.

  ‘Yes,’ replies Ada, ‘I’m quite alight, I mean, all right; merely arrested by thought’, and receives in turn a look of appreciation and bafflement. How can humans bear it. We do, though. Ada should have brought her walking cane out with her.

  Whether you fade out of life like dreams fade from your mind.

  You wake with the sensation of a dream that still partly you are in but you are no longer in it. You have a strong sense of a story told, a place or places, people, conversations, materials, sensations, powers. But just as you begin to tell yourself the dream
it turns into something inchoate ineffable fading and nothing of it can be grasped and even its traces turn to vapour, absorbed into air. Vanish into air. Melted into air, into thin air.

  There’s a whirling around her, calling for assistance, people making themselves busy around her.

  The strangest thing about being very old is the most obvious thing, the redundant to say thing: that one has lived a very long time. And, and this might not be so very obvious, not the first thing you think, the consequence is, there is so much to remember, more than you can think of at any one time or in any one day. Memories move along faster than life does, that is, you don’t need the cinematic ‘real time’ to take a look at the memory of an event, memories like dreams exist in a different measure of time, and in memory a great deal can happen and many things can happen simultaneously, while in waking life only moments or nano-moments in a row have ticked along, one after another. At an earlier age all of your memories could be gathered in one big heap, swirled around yourself, and a specific one could be plucked out of the heap, or would roll out from the heap, catching your attention, and you could dwell a while upon it, the time that you sat up in a tree saying, ‘We know everything about each other’, the time you went on a train and a boat and arrived in Bali. The time they were two little girls on the first boat.

  And now, it’s not like that; now you don’t so much dwell as jump upon that memory as it speeds past, crashing into spectres and remnants.

  3

  GOING OUT: THE SPACE TRAVELER REPORTS

  It was during the Expedition to Otzey. The Space Traveler was still determined to try to communicate with the species she met, although until now she had only been permitted to speak with one representative, who was also a veteran of The Space Studies Code of Ethics. That day, her informant, Otzie Lu, met The Space Traveler as arranged, to take her to one of the most special and venerated rituals on Otzey. Otzie Lu warned her that she should be especially sure to obey the most important rule.