Tyrant's Novel by Thomas Keneally

Author:Thomas Keneally [Keneally, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General Fiction
ISBN: 9780385511469
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Published: 2004-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Poor Matt McBrien, who was now the chief matter for my concern, kindly dropped by later with a bottle of vodka, and I set to work on it. He refused to understand that the problem really was my mental capacity—I did not have the sinew to write a book even if I could think of one. For McBrien to suggest material to me was a little like a healthy man rallying a starving one by himself devouring a meal.

I woke late next day, and with a headache, but got up to go to a café. I had in my mind the sole concept of a large glass of iced orange juice. I saw the postman at the letterboxes though, and with a smile which I later thought might have been prescient, he placed an air letter in my hands. It had German stamps, and a Frankfurt postmark. I put it in my jacket pocket, for I did not necessarily want to be seen reading it by those who might be observing my movements on the street. From the doorstep I surveyed the pavements and the narrow string of traffic, and could see the limousine and white Toyota of the Overguard. When I got to my regular café down the street and ordered my orange juice, my coffee, my boiled eggs, I opened the letter. I had already half recognized the writing on the envelope—I had suspected it was Peter Collins's writing from Frankfurt, and it proved to be.

Dear Alan,

I hope you're in a good state to receive these greetings from Frankfurt. From the heart of my winter of exile.

That was typical of him . . . winter of exile . . . He'd heard that Sarah had died unexpectedly and he sent the normal commiserations. In a sane country, he said, she would never have lacked fulfillment or employment. He almost implied that Great Uncle's unconscious thwarting of her acting career had somehow brought on her death—a suspicion I found unwelcome, since there might be truth to it. He hoped that I was as well as I could be in the circumstances.

I should tell you what we have heard through the ages, from the famous exiles of the Roman Empire onwards. Exile is not a happy condition, whether chosen or imposed.

But he had done, he told me, a few feature articles for Frankfurter Zeitung. He was singing songs in a Tuesday evening cabaret each week, and had done a little television, and some radio interviews. But he feared his career would be limited chiefly to that of an academic, almost anthropological curiosity. He'd always liked the fact that his songs and tales were organic to the people, his people. He had never wanted them to be museum pieces. But if you chose exile, you had to expect that, he said.

He told me then that there were other prices, too, not as apparent. He had fled for good cause, he said. He had been given an impossible task to perform. A

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