Etonian / Ethiopian X

 

Up in the Tropics it could all pass almost as a non-event, even Singapore if you carefully picked where you went. Before that on these shores the Jews in Balaclava had provided some kind of decent cover. Now on the return it would be the Muslims, Buddhists and Orthodox in Foots—the East Africans, Viets and Ethiopians. For a moment it looked like Faisal might in fact not have opened, despite what he had said the day before. The advertising stands were out on the street, not the tables or chairs. I don’t want the junkies sitting, Faisal explained at the coffee machine. It seemed the street people had been around earlier in some numbers; shortly after noon there were very few. Even some of the African places seemed to have shut. First up Greg needed a call and more so Al. The former was surprised. Yes, he’d been down to the Mission, where they had feasted on turkey and the rest, and also received $25 supermarket vouchers. It was always quite a show at the Mission for Chrissy, the locals took great pride in the staging, celebrity chefs, TV people & sports stars helping in the kitchen. Talk could not be prolonged, Greg promptly warned. No need of explanation; early afternoon with one hole filled, the chase would get going to fill the other. There was a tentative date set for Monday. Monday was a good day for Greg, yeah, yeah. First up Al didn’t make it to the phone. If he was anywhere other than in the living-room he could not beat the answering machine. It could wait. It was uncertain too whether the Viet bakery was open. Good chance, but you never knew. Couple of older girls on the bench outside the Hub; some occasional passing guys. With the bottle shop beside Faisal closed the quarter had lost its draw. There might have been something akin to the Mission put on for the locals here. Surprisingly, a middle-aged Ethiopian woman, regular, upright lady, later stopped out front of the bottle shop to ask where she might get alcohol. A short few minutes after Greg a new, thick-set fellow in a hoodie bowled up all of a sudden. Not interested in buying a $25 voucher for $10?... Ten minutes later he tried a couple getting into a Saab that you would have expected to scoot off quickly and nervously. On the contrary, the lad behind the wheel took some time fishing out what must have been ten in coins and handed it through the open door. In his characteristic marching gait Faisal had paced off shortly before for the communal prayer in back of one of the shops further down. This was something tailored for him, a goodie to tell on his return. The head was still reeling a bit from the Boris J. item on ABC from the morning. For some reason the pad had given a different version of it to the phone; much more comprehensive the latter. Lottsa detail that hadn’t emerged earlier. Fully eleven of the post-war UK PMs had been Etonians (Brown the odd man out). At a Writers’s Festival down here in fact at some point eight or nine years ago Johnson had been a guest. During a playful cat-and-mouse interview where some earlier inadequacy had been exposed he delivered from the podium an animated extempore recitation of lines from…. Wait for it…Homer’s Iliad in the original Ancient Greek! Achilles it sounded like in a long dramatic passage that might have been the agony over the death of Patroclus, or suchlike. Not a mere dozen lines; lasting a full 2-2½ minutes in total. I could go on, when he could finally bring himself to a stop. Highbrow vaudeville on the politico/literary funhouse stage, barrel of laughs. At the time the man had recently been given the meagre Arts portfolio, or shadow portfolio. A shaggy-haired performer cavorting on the platform like that; one willing and enthusiastic, soaking up the limelight. An inevitable counterpoint to the colleague across the other side of the Atlantic; altogether different kinda fish, though  cut from the same cloth/taken from the same tank. The Old Vic against talk show jabber variety. Apparently Johnson was vastly rich too; not merely average upper crust loaded. That had not made it into any of the reportage, not even on the BBC in all the time since his ascension. (Recently a mention of Trump being the richest President in US history too, when memory had Washington some little while ago unsurpassable.) One of the accompanying photos in the piece showed Etonians circa WWI marching in formation with top hats and rifles on their shoulders. Wandering far from Christmas, but by chance that had been the content of the morning’s lie-in reviewing the day’s news. The deal with the EU had finally been signed overnight, on the very Eve. Faisal was not surprised at the Saab deal. Greed was everywhere, Faisal contended. The cafe owner declared if he himself ever found money on the street he never took it for himself—acting out the placing of the note in his shirt pocket. No, Faisal put it in the box at the mosque. The same with anything left on the floor of his caf. After asking around among his customers and unclaimed, these monies too went into the box at the mosque. One of the chaps from early afternoon who had used the utility box for a ledge for a couple of Coke bottles he seemed to be drinking simultaneously returned later with what may have been a third 750ml. This time there was an older tradie friend in tow who drove a canopied ute. Shifting his bulk into the passenger seat proved a slow, arduous procedure for the Coker. Odd that Faisal had not heard about the Sudanese incursion into Ethiopia and the killing and reprisal killing that followed. When he was told he wrongly assumed it had been into the Tigray region. News of the near-fisticuffs between Abiy and Kenyatta at their meeting in Djibouti had reached him. The day before when Adib the Addis accountant had first revealed the events he expressed his fears for the worst. Like your country—meaning Yugoslavia. (x 4+ in the case of a country the size of Ethiopia; then factor the wider East African powder keg.) Like some others, Adib tried to shield himself from events in his former homeland. He was here now, this was his country, he had said a number of times. Thinking about the madness over there only made Adib mad, depressed. On this occasion the shying away had been unsuccessful. Al when he was reached was agreeable for a meat pie and sausage roll in lieu of turkey for Chrissy supper. As usual, it had been WeetBix for lunch.

Blowin the House Down

It was still difficult to get your head around the Hitler rallies. So many viewings; still a challenge. In some ways Benito was even more so. The footage for Bennie had been less voluminous, it didn’t get the same run. You had to guess the man had been a lesser force, less magnetic. The vaudeville seemed to be far more apparent in his case, all the strutting on the balconies, chin raised so absurdly high. What was that all about? Was it just a matter of the camera angle, taken from ground level? Jazz trumpeters went into that pose straining for the big blasts.

Ethiop

Ticking over half twelve, the Ethiopian lad crossing by Paisley corner had offered the nod & received in return. With the unseasonable cool his jacket was fully donned; through much of December it had been carried under arm. A number of weeks now since we had struck up the acquaintance, the first words back then the man having revealed with a conspiratorial smile that he too was a writer. Strangely, for some reason eagle-eyed Faisal maintained the fellow didn’t drink. Passing to-and-fro all day, Faisal perhaps had been fooled by the lolly-colours that alternated with the pale green. Lad came from a rich family in Addis—for a businessman like Faisal, who had a nephew fallen into the drug net, those cases were especially difficult to fathom. Soft, strongly Chaplinesque, nattering to himself quietly, scrounging ciggies & coin from the tables. Witticisms were exchanged with the regulars; not so much the street people, with whom there were good terms. One of the ladies had appeared the day before sporting a terribly dark black eye and sometimes the men wore other kinds of abrasions. As the sun rose one arm of the Ethiop’s jacket came off, care taken over its trailing on the ground. I need a holiday. I’m sick and tired of this. At the pass in the morning it had been unclear whether or not this had been a quip. As usual, the man had ignored the smile & nodding. Smiles the lad could give, but not easily receive. Many of us were struggling even with over fifty days of zero local transmission of the virus, news of the two new strains in the UK and the freedoms that had been restored.

 

 

                                                                                                                                         Melbourne

Publication news: ‘Tis the Season — New World Writing

Hello Readers

Hoping this finds you all very well.

One more publication to round out the year, NWW again.

This is a short sequence of flash that brings together elements of the festive period up in Singapore. (1,200 words)

Strange to see the Myers Department Store window decorations with their queueing crowds here in Melbourne after ten Decembers away!


Hope you like the item—

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-tis-the-season/

Pavle Radonic ~ 'Tis the Season - New World Writing 1. Crossing from the fruit by the sushi aisles there was a S - L - O - W slow amble through something about a Christmas tree. (Not the old up-tempo fave.) Almonds had not been tasted two full month… newworldwriting.net

Best of the best to all
Pavle

The Lit. Class

Held off on the Eve Babitz & Anais Nin purchases, City Library volume of the latter would suffice. The Four-Chambered Heart, after a sequence of pages in the stacks had read pretty well. Years ago Miki had been a fan, dismissing the recent discovery of falsity in what was presented as memoir. Who gave a toss about all that, said the astro-physicist. Almost 4PM at Degraves downstairs, where the image of Kerryn Jackson from Veki’s school photographs returned again. Such a time. Kerryn had been in Veki’s form group, not ours, together with a couple of other transfers that year from a neighbouring school. We had cleared maybe 10% of Veki’s books and some of the choice vinyl albums. Veki’s sister had left some photograph albums too for sifting. Kerryn. The only girl of that name in twelve years of schooling. Very little of her had come back in all the time since, understandably buried so far in the past. Another girl who had transferred in the group with Kerryn had stung Veki and continued to plague his mind all these many years later. All the relevant events had remained of course in the back of the mind, but it was the face and bodily form in the photograph that delivered the force of life. There was the girl again in her person in her thick abundant hair held by a couple of clips, full figure beneath her blazer, the vivaciousness apparent behind the blank facade for the camera. What a quantity of girl at that age! Anais and Eve were perfectly fitting precursors. How the girl had mown through our ranks left and right with no beg pardons! Firstly there had been six or nine months with big blonde Dicko. More than odd now looking back how the Jock had never for a moment thought anything of those lunches the pair took at Dicko’s place through the first half of Year 12. School and local team captain, leader of the pack, fully seventeen years of age—not the faintest inkling. The best friend more or less. We went down to the holiday house in Rosebud the year before. Fishing with the plumber old man in his little tin sardine can. (Terrifying.) Drinking buddies. There was one memory of parting at the bottom of the overpass one lunchtime, the pair of them going off to the right and Jock left. In retrospect later John had been flushed and awkward on the turn, lumbering away heavily. Kerryn had somehow been off balance too, as if concerned she had made herself transparent just then and been unmasked. Not the faintest idea; never a thought. Training; the game on the Saturday; later in the afternoon the Bombers would be playing in the big league. Schoolwork figured almost zero and girls little more. Suddenly half way through the year the best pal’s gal was assuming a seat at the desk in the Lit. class, during Othello it may have started. (Dicko did Accounting.) Some number of weeks later out of nowhere the suggestion to see a movie in town. Without any memory of astonishment there could have been none when Kerryn suggested the venture. Other meetings in Footscray had followed, only recalled because the house boarder Stojan’s approving remark on a sighting stayed in memory. Completely forgettable, as was the feature on the big screen on that first date. There surely would have been kisses sitting close together like that in the dark. How had they been erased without any trace? Weren’t you supposed to recall such blazing moments, like Veki all the ins and outs with his secret sweetheart? Kerryn had been awaited at the head of the ramp at Footscray Station, dropped off by her mother in the car. Rather than the first kiss, the signal moment had been turning to climb up the ramp for platform No. 4, the presence of mind taking the hand immediately without further ado. Hers; not the Jock’s; within the first couple of strides. Up and down and into town; the initial kiss had been minor by comparison. A bar on Collins Street had been discovered some weeks before with the boys. Not bad going being recognised almost by the waiter afterward. The part-time KFC had loaded cash in the pocket. At her folk’s place in Robert Street, over the other side of Geelong Road up from the oval—opposite North Footscray’s oval in fact, one of our opponents—kisses and squeezes on the couch while mum and plumber dad (another one) slept on the other side of the hall. Later in the year a phone call from the booth around in the next street promptly ended the affair. We were too alike; it was no good; bye. Gee, that was quick; over in a flash. Taken to mean we both wanted it on our own terms; the other coming onto us. Possibly. Precocious seventeen year old psychological assessment. Dicko was left badly wounded. There could be no explanation. What was to say? Later again that year or early the next, Ronnie W. reported a big love bite given to Kerryn’s breast. There seemed to have been no preamble, nor any sequel either for Ron. Some time after that too, suddenly out of the blue again, Viddy brings the gal over to the flat in Balaclava one afternoon, where she commented on the Jock’s perfect toenails up on the fireplace. Strange and unfathomable. We repaired to a booth at The Greyhound on Nepean Highway, whispering between the pair while Ronnie and the Jock were supposed to twiddle our thumbs waiting, was it? Hey guys, no! Ten or fifteen years later she appeared 15-20kgs heavier with her husband in Viddy’s office seeking assistance over their taxation. (The team had produced a number of accountants.) Guilt long-lingering, making you wince inside. Did Dicko ever recover? did he ever turn away from the booze, the choice VB? His role model father never did, dying early. Spectacular racey gal. Masterful. The Jock had topped the class in the half year Lit. exam, though with the need to catch up on the other subjects in the last weeks of swotting, a failure in the finals. Ron Dyet the new principal had taken the Othello class himself, a rare standout in twelve years of Western Suburban schooling. During the regular teacher’s classes the fifty minutes was devoted to more important learning. Quite something how the Shakes. would stand as a signpost into the future. Curious how the bard’s name had carried into that particular milieu; in the previous year MacBeth too had been set. Tackling that giant to the ground and making some kind of sense of the matter constituted a signifier right enough. The old Signet edition still on the shelves bore the alternate title that had been half penned/half gouged into the front cover: IAGO. Rightly understood, such command of love and fallibility deserved precedence over the foolish old blundering Moor; (odd how Shakespeare could get something like that so badly wrong). Had that been the teacher Dyet’s, or in fact the Jock’s own insight? We followed the twists and turns of love in the class reading and simultaneously out in the field.

Ministering Angel

 

Unexpectedly full house more/less at Glassmerchant, brunches the reason. Crickey! The old dame partly hidden among the foursome by the kitchen was sighted last of all in that group of retirees. Well-to-do clearly. In his late-seventies, sir had just insisted on settling the bill with a patrician half-wave, pacing across to the register in his silver, almost-disco gym shoes. Totally new, or perhaps only worn from the car to the restos. His lady would give the former Foreign Minister here a terrible fright laying eyes upon her. Doppelgänger to the max, 7-8 years her senior. Second thoughts, factoring the skin & hair treatment, perhaps 10-12 years. Shortly thereafter, once the other pair who had been treated had taken their leave, the wheelchair was suddenly revealed. Disco hub bent to lower the footrests and soon the lady was wheeled out. Car? Skiing? The pool or bathroom?? They suffered too, the rich; softening for them only went so far. (The sole justice in life, Bab used to say, death.) The line was drawn however at the former FM with all her tasteful jewellery, attire from a particular Sydney designer, the hair & skin, — in which guise all the various positions delivered at the international forums with utmost unction. It had been a horrid show to endure even in only glimpsed newsfeeds. At the same time the principled lady had stoutly upheld the standard for the white middle-class prof fem. Pitilessness. Nothing but pitilessness would be reserved for her kind at the final tribunal…. Four younger gals in the end booth against the wall dressed to the nines/tens in conservative unattached/childless dowdiness, celebrating what the balloon they had raised at their table displayed: 40 fetched by the one ensconced facing outward later opening the boxed pressies. You did need a break from the street-wrecks outside the grog shop beside Faisal’s in Footscray, muttering to themselves as they leant on the garbage bin. But certainly there had been no signing on for this on the other side of the river. Unavoidable pillar to post battering back in the old town. Nearing the first quarter after noon. Op Shop for shoes first of all, then sushi & bread from the Ruski baker, where a couple of words in the language would be produced like the balloons from the old circus pistols. That little round there you had signed for. Before making off an ABC update telling of the Ethiopian airstrike on the Tigrayan U. A final push on Mekelle was underway, the Ethiopians reported. 30,000 refugees had already fled to Sudan and the fighting now had reached near the camps in Northern Tigray that held 100,000 earlier Eritrean refugees. UNHCR had 4,000 crossing the border daily, half of whom were children. Few of the men at Faisal’s, veterans of the long war of independence, wanted to talk about the unfolding disaster, at least not with the white guy, however pleasant and familiar. The path needed to be beaten there in the morning nonetheless before the market. (The former Oz FM had reminded of the other too, the recent Minister of the Environment in Singapore: late-50s, reddy dyes, lashes on stalks, glittering pendants and into the bargain good reason to suspect sculpting. Holding the eco-justice portfolio and saving the planet for us both.) 

….Come the morning at the coffee machine Faisal did in fact offer some broader context to the conflict: there had been the former US close cooperation with the Tigrayan dominated post-Mengistu regime, and then in more recent time, especially with Abiy, the Chinese supplanting. A week later more deadliness still with the Dinka Mr Aguer’s factoring of the Egyptians, given their grievances over the new Ethiopian dam. The Tigrayan rebels could only seek refuge in South Sudan, from where they could carry on their resistance. Upheaval over the entire Horn every chance.

Melbourne

Drips & Drabs (Email reply)

Saw reference to it in the newsfeeds, but not the visuals until now. Eight years in the steamy tropics, slap bang on the equator, never saw $5 dyes run anywhere. Not ever; not the merest drop. Ordinary joes, rough sleepers, costermongers, deliverymen all held up firm the same. Can't understand. Isn't the aircon laid on thick in those media rooms? Musta been the lights of the cameras trained on him like a rabbit in the crosshairs, maybe. Did Giulio get so het up inside with the Venezuelan connection, Maduro & Soros, he sprung the leak like that and couldna stop oozin? Trumpet's fix held up so well over the whole of the four years. Really hard to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_xp7rq58vc

Total War (Tigray)

One of the benefits at these stripped down African places was no muzak, no funk, no artwork, fliers &etc. The Muslim Eritrean in particular carried almost no decoration, providing an unusual kind of refuge.  

And a guy coming into a cafe with a transistor hadn’t happened anywhere the last thirty years at least.

Election Day up in the north; here there seemed to have been a real war declared somewhere. A new war, with no apparent advance notice, no lead up.

War? Where?

Only slowly the man answered, as if he had been pressed to own up to something untoward. Ethiopia.

The guy at the table behind with the radio, sitting with this compatriot he had to be, said he was Ethiopian.

The man was not from Tigray himself, but from the east, the Somali border region. In fact looking at him he had been guessed to be Somali; not one of the regulars at Faisal’s, or his brother Fausi’s place.

Mid-forties and older than the companion who kept quiet, the one holding the radio in hand for the pair of them.

Ethiopian; not identifying as Somali-Ethiopian, as some did in the borderland. (The third largest group in the country were Somalis, though far smaller than either the Amharic or Oromo.)

The book being read was appropriate and especially timely then, even though it dealt with a war of another era—the mid ’30 attack by Mussolini’s forces.

The Shadow King, recent Booker shortlist. It was one of those rare books you persevered with despite the conventional, overblown prose. Airport fiction really that might make a movie were it not for the setting.

You read for the history and the granular cultural matter, Wikiped on hand for filling in the gaps. In one paragraph passing references had turned up such buried items as the Italo journo wiring back home who had bought himself a 12 y.o. Eritrean girl. After she had been used up, as used to be said, the girl was sold on to a general. 

In the Wiki listing the man concerned, Indro Montanelli, who went on to become a notable historian and opinion writer for a major newspaper, slipping around in his politics like so many of that generation, and not only that generation, once Montanelli was quoted referring to his child sex slave as “a small animal.”

This was Africa. The reminder lagged a little that it was also the time of racist lynchings and murderousness in so many locales.

Years later in Milano Brigate Rossi had attempted to assassinate Montanelli.

In the same paragraph another of the mentions of reporters turned up the US journalist who had first interviewed Castro up in the Sierra mountains in the early phase of the rebellion against Batista.

Faisal at the cafe didn’t know Montanelli, but added his own grandmother had been married at the age of ten. Children, however, Faisal was quick to add, did not come until the grandmother was nineteen.

109m population; second largest in Africa. Could be explosive, worse than Yemen, Iraq or Libya, commentators suggested. Just last year the President Abiy Ahmed had won the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for finally managing to bring the war with Eritrea to an end and beginning normalisation. Mixed Oromo and Amhara, brought up by his mother and like his wife, despite the name Abiy was Christian.

The Tigray region that bordered Eritrea and was resisting rule from Addis was another small component of the Ethiopian nation state, but with outsized wealth and former influence.

On the footpath in Irving Street someone with prior knowledge had already scrawled ABIY MUST GO! In the days later the same had cropped up on shop shutters elsewhere in Footscray.

In Melbourne the numbers of Eritrean and Ethiopian were equal, no sign of trouble between them to date.

In 1935 the Italians had gone down through Suez to Masawa, the Eritrean port, forging south toward Addis from there. A few short years later of course they would take the shorter crossing to Montenegro; (in the European theatre the Italians had needed to wait on Hitler’s lead). Dondo Nikola, who married Bab’s younger sister, had lost a sister of his own in a Partizan bombing of one of the occupier’s lorries. Selling the produce on the coast with a companion from the village, the girls had caught a lift with the obliging foreign gallants. Great Aunt Jane settled down on the waterside at Kostanica had lost a cat to a guardpost near her house. A short while before the zabari, frogs had attempted to buy her handsome gato. Having been refused they simply stole her. It was well known the Italo predilection for frogs extended to cat meat too.

Most of the men at Faisal and Fausi’s cafés had had their grandfathers conscripted into Mussolini’s army, mostly willingly it seemed. Tensions across the Horn on that territory went back numbers of generation through successive Ethiopian overlords—Yohannes, Menelik and others were mentioned. 

It had always been a pleasant surprise how much friendliness and intermingling had occurred between Christian and Muslim Eritreans, then also the Somalis, Sudanese and the others into the bargain.

Not unexpectedly given Faisal’s nature, his grandfather had preferred prison rather than fight against his brothers over the other side of the river in Ethiopia. Later he and men like him were transported to the warfronts in Libya and Somalia.

Tribal leaders had been bought off by the Italians, Faisal suggested, selling off their fellows. Other men suggested enlistment in the fight against Ethiopians was perfectly willing. In the online potted histories pre WWI army service was said to be one the chief income sources for the male population of Eritrea.

1935 when Shadow King opens was the year before Lazar went up to the house at Savici with his older brother and brother-in-law seeking a wife. Six years later during the Italian occupation the couple parted after the elder brother’s ruse to get himself and his brothers out of harm’s way there on their hill at Bijela. Uncle Jovan had been drawn into interpreting for the Italians. A former gendarme commander was automatically marked by the Red Partizans.

Never to return to their home the brothers, leaving their bones in the foreign land. Immigration. Australia. Melbourne. A rupture that is a whole other long story. 

Smallest incidental and tangential fragments from the era and the region were valuable, even from a theatre of war many hundreds of kilometres south. The brothers would travel through the Red Sea coming out, right past the Eritrean port of Masawa. 

The murderousness was possibly even worse, and possibly much worse, in Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia. And all the new friends of the last twenty years from Eritrea had, like our Croat Slav compatriots, come from families who had “collaborated” with the Italians in the assault on their neighbours. Fuller comprehension of political movements and events had been a necessary lifetime study. The late German and Italian attempts at empire. The earlier “successful” English, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese. The current American. Threads brought together. One had been a political animal from the outset without too much consciousness earlier. From early childhood there were only ghostly memories of men gathered around the kitchen table sitting close in conversation; replicated in the Eritrean cafes.

Marking the blunt, bald prose in the book with squiggles continued to the end pages. One needed to be better than that. And the outrageous blurbs from Rushdie, the NYT &etc.

 

Window On the World (updated endDec22)

Raindrops on the tin overhead. The heat blast of yesterday had unexpectedly passed. Better close the roof window, even little drops would damage the plaster. Early morning the light in that window had lit up a square of cumulus cotton like a lightbox, succulent blue and puffery like a dream. Renaissance era holiness. Sleepy-dopey it could not be ignored and got a second, longer look. Now fetching the rod for the window, the kitchen window below on the lower level held a number of vivid flowers that had again sprung from those sharp grass fronds in the garden. Unlikely repeated offerings not much regarded at earlier appearance only a few weeks ago. Now too they would pass within days. Mistaken attempting to seize anything of this world, you ought know, you old Zen man you.

Character Study (Huong)

 

In brief. Lad a Viet, either born or arrived early years in HK. Late thirties. Keen to learn the new language, particularly slang, not standard textbook. And that was quite apart from the formal competence required for his PR test. Commonly approached the former teacher/writer at table in order to show off his most recent acquisition. “When I go to the market I like to haggle.” Managed the spelling too. “After work I like to take a pizza.” As if that was something. “I am happy like a pig in mud.” Returned the more common, colourful alternative, occasioned some unpleasantness to the ear; frown across the brow over the top of the mask. Distasteful. Nonplussed, the man. Explanations fell short. Undaunted, however, finally. Are you a piss...? Pissed? Pissot?!... No. Piss-pot... It was difficult for the migrant newcomer to distinguish vulgar. In recent years the categories had also become confused. Certainly not a middle class lad; that was not the problem. It was common in Asia, shrinking from blunt, coarse language. A foreigner did not easily get to first base either with the practised, roughhouse exponents. Earlier the chap had brought out a new, large dishcloth to a compatriot at the table served a bowl of soup, young lady in white Dixie dress tight at the bottom and hanging on long straps. Unfolded, she could place it over her front as indicated. The nice man. Part of the character. (Huong in Footscray was straight & simple. Good fare. Minor pretentiousness. Hopefully the story of the lady owner’s Buddhist nun aunt making the spring rolls in her home kitchen could be trusted.)

Race That Stops a Nation

ABC gal in her emerald green dress & heels on the morning reporting from Brighton Beach. It was unclear how she had gotten onto the sand and how she'd get herself back into the car. Aided by camera & sound men presumably. With the public prevented from attending the race this year thought had been of the gardens & parks filled with picnickers in their operatic & catwalk wear. The beaches had failed to enter calculations. Yesterday Williamstown Beach had been crammed with sun lovers, social distancing out the window and dangerous/tricky navigating on the bike path. Convertibles & thundering exhausts had added fizz to the festivity. With four “doughnuts” in a row now—zero new cases or deaths—the partygoers could be expected to celebrate to the max on this great day. (On the morrow the Democratic celebration up in the north would draw far less interest here, though if they were asked a good proportion of race-goers could be expected to favour the incumbent.)

 

 

NB. Cup Day is a national holiday in Australia, the race held at Flemington in Melbourne. The last number of years the AFL football Grand Final, always staged pre-Covid in Melbourne, had become a Victorian public holiday.

 

Goats & Monkeys!

Near seven months now no lady had laid a glove on you. Not since teen years had anything like that deprivation occurred. How could it possibly have been endured earlier? How did the unpartnered young manage currently? A Canadian medico some months ago had suggested sexual union might need to be practised without kissing. Well, there had been some of that in March too. On Ni’s last visit up north we had managed pretty well like that. Luckily, the gals up there seemed to be missing more or less equally, it seemed. Here the fantasies flipped around in the usual way in the cycle of visions and memories, with the new goatee more and more featuring. The goatee had come of its own more or less, from the 4 ½ star on Macquarie Street quarantining, back when the government was picking up the tab. No change of clothes, showering or shaving through that fortnight. By the end of the term, voila! rather fetching Arabic under-chin goatee; not a little to do with the near decade among the Malays of course. Whatsapp video calls with the gals had drawn compliments, pleas indeed in a couple cases to keep the look and not return to the other. Useful at the desk too it turned out for a fellow in your line, stroking like in the manuals. How had deepest cogitation proceeded earlier was a question now. Twisting the strands, stroking, pulling, fluffing up and out—an abundance of options. Over the weeks later a hope had arisen of some dalliance ahead involving the thicket. Ni, or Rina perhaps; possibly even Era or Sugi featuring. Once she had returned from UAE maybe even Umairoh might be tempted. (Every indication in the messaging Umairoh had regretted her earlier resistance and was now ready to rock.) Fair chance one of that quartet—without hint or direction of course—in the rising fever would seek out the goatee and ruffle, caress, or even give one or two sharp tugs perhaps. Something, a strong kind of instinct, gave hope. It would be a sudden venture, like so much else that had been received in that region. Many of the gals’ fathers and brothers sported beards of one sort or another; husbands and earlier partners. There was fair chance; some kind of logic involved. In old Montenegro grandad Rade, Bab’s father, would say, Ne diraj mi brk! Touch not my moustache! The moustache was highest honour; mess with that there surely would be hell to pay. In the night when the children were asleep, when the wind blew over the thatch and the wolves howled, you wondered what liberties may have been granted the young wife, the former widow taken from grandad’s clan of Ivovic cousins around on the ridge. Beside the cold hearth in the love-making on the hay bundles.

Philadelphia

You keep on stupidly wanting to say unbelievable. Was the incidence of such events similar pre-Trump? During Obama? Wasn’t there a period of lull betw the KKK and this? Chicago ‘68 an aberration? With all the video capture still continuing and no apparent prospect of let up.

Stumbling On Imperialism

Scottie in SOCAL responding to The Progressive fwd on Joe’s flubbing at his town hall meet over American foreign policy. Typing on his iPhone the dude notices the prompt on his device fails when American is put together with IMPERIALIS…. The last word needed to be banged out almost to the last. Hmm. INTER—esting. You would wager in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, lottsa places in Europe, the North Pole, no such trouble at all. Unless the American disease of ignorance pervaded the manufacture itself.

Publication news: “The Hearth (Montenegro)” and “Jakarta 1440H” - NWW

 Hello all

In Melbourne we are climbing out of the Covid hole again, while in so many quarters new struggles begin. I hope you all are managing.

This recent run with Frederick Barthelme at New World Writing continues, a nice confirmation after all these years of salt mine labour.

A warning: there is a good bit of vulgarity in this first piece, though I trust it will be understood to some purpose.

It is with pleasure that my old Montenegrin voices here have found this platform in the US. Hope you like "The Hearth (MN)." (900 words)

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-the-hearth/

Pavle Radonic ~ The Hearth The Hearth (Montenegro) The fucking of the sun had always irritated and wounded Bab. It was uncouth and seemed to her to be as unholy as the fucking of God, Jesus and even worse, the mother. The wo… newworldwriting.net

Further too. The recent Frankie homage, "His Way," that had been published at NWW, had originally been part of a trio under the title "Jakarta 1440H." The editors had initially accepted the last of the three and paused for further consideration on the opening two segments. These now have been appended and "JKT" shows whole in that earlier 7 October slot.

Here is that link too, (Now 3.4k words):

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-jakarta-1440h/

Pavle Radonic ~ Jakarta 1440H The Witching Hour The knock on the door came shortly after 3. Wooden particle board making the light rap resound, of course at that hour especially. In the days prior there had been some concern an… newworldwriting.net

All best

Pavle

Nullity

Difficult to rise to the challenge seizing something now. Well-practised as you were, alert and eyes peeled, exceedingly difficult. The other evening the kitchen window had presented a Zen scene—glistening new leaves on the plum framed by the worn old architrave. Surprisingly, a good number of the plantings here had taken, testament to the years of chooks and other nutrients in the former vegetable gardens. There had been no rain; the spray of lustre had been carried by the new growth and the unusual last bright shafts of dusk. Up in the village new Spring grasses among the rock nemogu se gledat, could not be observed, so sharp was the green. This on the other hand was titillation and caress by comparison: leaves flaring like uncanny flames. (Recently ailing Al in Williamstown had recalled Bab’s remark about everything young being beautiful.) Could the sight be captured by a camera? The porch light was flicked just in case. Highly un-Zen-like running hither and to when the standing form had only been glimpsed briefly. Many afternoons now the lower river and the bay was passed largely unseen; the creek likewise for all the pelicans and swans. Continuing publications lifted the spirits hardly at all. There was little will for the messaging of the girls back on the Equator, even the one you were supposed to love who had been resisting all manner of solicitation, engagement ring included (an old roué like you). She will/she won’t/will/won’t. Maybe to escape her “toxic mother,” she had offered at one point with too much information. After one hundred days of lockdown liberalisation was likely next week, an opportunity to see some familiar faces and possibly short café sitting. In recent days the heart core who had passed seemed somehow to have receded further too; an unexpected added distancing coming with age. How much the glancing encounters and interactions always figured; you knew you were going bad when the shop assistants had become valueless too. Confinement to the room and back garden had become preferable to cycling the suburban grid in order to reach the open spaces by the riverside and the bay. One saving grace was the lingering chill, sorely missed so long. There was no doubt about it, pedalling against the battering of the wind had come to be relished.

Publication news: “Johor Bahru Old Town” - Midway Literary Journal

 

Hello everyone

Again, hoping all of you are hanging tough.

A short piece of mine from earlier this year has just been published in another US journal. "Johor Bahru Old Town" is a pair of flash from one of my regular haunts in Southern Peninsular Malaysia, 1km distant from SG and always refreshing. (900 words.)

Here is a glimpse of JB, —

http://midwayjournal.com/johor-bahru-old-town/

Cheers & best wishes

Pavle

Publication news: “The Heirs” & “The Whip Hand” - Ginosko Lit. Journal

 Hello again all

Hoping this finds everyone strong and very well.

Another publication to announce.

An odd pairing this and recently penned the second, just published by a San Francisco lit. journal called Ginosko #25.

“The Heirs” mourns a cousin in Montenegro taken too early, while “The Whip Hand” presents a Buddhist housemate up in Singapore. (Pages 74-78, 2.3k words.)


Here’s the link—

Ginosko Literary Journal


Hope you like them.

Pavle