The Knife Sharpener (33)

33.

She’d only grazed his knee. Helmut could feel blood seeping into his corduroy slacks. It burnt and hurt. He was exhausted. Clothes clinging and feet aching. He rolled another Champion cigarette as they drove. Found his hands to nearly be quivering. Steadied, sparked, and drove.

            Nichola kept her own vigil. Watched as the streets grew brighter as they neared the city. Got away from the outer limits of wind jackal territory. Crowded with actual accommodation. Business. Cheap restaurants. Ironic tributes to the Delinquency. A burger joint: Delinquicious. Wind jackal burgers with patties cross-sectioned like amplifiers. Feedback chips that were curly fries. No one out this late though. Few slow cars. A couple of homeless women in front of a TV store. Reading Melways by the light of the LED screens.

            The platinum spears of the city in the near distance. Helmut turned away from it down Victoria Parade. Towards Richmond. The north on one side. Cheap. Degraded. Still sound buffeted. But better this close. Slowly rebuilt. The princely apartments on the other side. Old Victorian era. Manhattan-lite. Doormen in bright red coats. Motoboys still out running late deliveries. Few well-heeled whiskey and cigar shops.

            ‘What next?’ asked Nichola.

            A pause. ‘I’m tired,’ said Helmut.

            ‘Yeah. Me too.’

            He turned off the tape. Thought about Jeff Buckley. Or Neal Diamond. There was nothing to orchestrate the situation. Smoked instead. Brushed off ash and picked at his t-shirt.

            ‘Maybe Chance can be trusted?’ said Nichola

            ‘Perhaps.’

            ‘He wanted to help. He helped us out of a pretty end of the road situation back there.’

            ‘He did.’

            ‘So, should we try to find him?’

            ‘How?’

            ‘I don’t know. Pull over one of the motoboys? They all have a line to him – did in that fridge, anyway. He must have a backup. He might have a way to dad.’

            Helmut looked over at her.

Nichola shifted her weight in the seat. ‘I mean, I don’t see any other way. What if your longshot chef friend doesn’t come through? Chance seemed like he had a plan. An idea. I’ve got to do whatever I can to get this knife back to dad. He’ll know what to do,’ she said. ‘I’m out of ideas. I don’t know if I even had one once I got the fucking thing.’

Let smoke dribble out his mouth. Not sure why he felt so talkative. Must be the pain. A distraction.

‘You should not trust him. Chauncey. He wants … more than what he should have.’

‘But you wanted to stay with him.’

            ‘When we were trapped.’

            ‘We could’ve helped each other.’

‘Yes. And then? Our value is limited for Chauncey,’ he said. ‘Once reached …’ Helmut let that hang.

            ‘How do you know?’

            ‘Know him. Way he sees the world.’

            ‘How does he see the world?’

            ‘Transaction. Worth. Power.’

            Chance-as-Chauncey in the Wastes. Peddling Carers. Judging their work. The middleman. Dealing in gold and kitchen utensils. Inflating prices and inciting grudges. Helmut had avoided him. Knew of his services. His control.

            ‘His – my dad’s, I dunno, “goal,” societal thread cutting, doesn’t seem too bad to me. Bit of a correction,’ said Nichola. ‘Seems pretty egalitarian, really. You make him sound capitalist. Like the old neoliberals, before Ministry unification.’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘Which is he?’

‘Depends where the cut is made,’ said Helmut. ‘How sharp is the knife? How clean the cut?’

            ‘That’s a bit abstract, Helmut.’

            ‘So is the knife.’

            Nichola looked at it. Hefted it.

            ‘Your father wanted freedom. The end of Ministry. Money,’ said Helmut.

            ‘That’s why he – why he did those things, yeah. Later, after the north’ said Nichola.

            ‘How would Melbourne look? When he won?’

            ‘He didn’t though.’

            ‘Thought about it?’

            ‘I’m sure,’ she said. ‘Wrote about it, too.’

            ‘You read?’

            ‘He burned everything he wrote. He was never happy with it.’

            ‘What comes after, then?’

            ‘I guess, something fairer. Less fascistic. Share the load. Give people more of a chance. Education. Money. Work. Whatever. No more Ministry dictating to us. Watching us and telling what is safe, for our own good. Deliberately lying to us. Fabricating,’ said Nichola. ‘Dad used to think he understood what was best for everyone. It was proper Ministry protocol. When’d he’d Biff, it was a major part of who he was. “The only truth,” he’d say, “is the one which protects them.” He realised, though, eventually, that there is grey in black and white. And that the Ministry only sees red and blue.’

            Helmut dragged. The dregs of his Champion. ‘How would it work?’ he asked. ‘What comes next?’

            ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if he did.’

            ‘Abstract, then?’

            ‘I guess so,’ said Nichola.

            ‘And Chance’s Melbourne?’ asked Helmut.

            Nichola slouched into her seat.

            ‘A blank canvas is dangerous when given to creative men,’ said Helmut. Not sure if he believed it. Sounded right.

            ‘That sounds like an old saying, like an adage.’

            ‘A Carer thing. Later.’

            The finished cigarette went out the window. City quiet drifted into the van. Tires cruising over road. Occasional drift of wind. Sweet smelling July winter. Hint of gums. Little light smog.

            ‘If Chance is all about value, I can see your use.’ said Nichola. ‘What about me? Why allow us to have the knife – even if he can’t use it. Let me carry it.’

            ‘Rudiger.’

            Again, the name lingered there.

A different knife in Rudiger’s hand. The beard. Ferntree Gully alight in the background. Helmut had been reckless. Too many lives for a boast. For what seemed to be a trivial use.

‘Right,’ said Nichola.

            ‘There’s something Chauncey doesn’t know.’

            ‘He thinks dad does?’

            Helmut ran his fingers along his tapes. Felt tired. Knee ached. True to the theme, his eyes drawing half closed.      

‘I need to go to Messer,’ said Helmut

            ‘What?’

            ‘My cat. She needs to be fed.’

            ‘You don’t seem like a cat type.’

            ‘What type am I?’

            ‘I don’t know. Not a cat man, I thought,’ said Nichola. ‘Not the, like, magic, alchemist-blacksmith type, either. But here we are.’

            ‘It’s not like that.’

            ‘What’s it like?’

            Turned onto Hoddle St. Fish sauce and chilli floating from Victoria St. Soup. Chicken bones.

            ‘Attention to detail.’

            ‘I didn’t know there was so much “detail” possible in a knife. Any kind of tool, really. I only thought they had basic functions. I mean, you can be creative every now and again. A spoon can open a beer.  But a spoon, it’s still like a spoon, at the end of the day. A vessel for food. Ingredients. Things.’

            ‘Exactly. Attention to function,’ said Helmut. ‘A spoon carries. Digs. Measures. A Carer makes it do all these things better. A knife cuts. A Carer makes it cut better.’

            ‘And it’s all in the detail? There’s no magic to it?’

            Helmut paused. ‘Maybe,’ he said, eyes on the terrace housing around them. The tall, imposing, electrified, iron picket fencing.

            ‘Do you keep in touch with other Carers?’ asked Nichola.

            ‘No other Carers.’

            ‘Really? Chance said there may be a few –’

            ‘No. Weren’t that many to begin with.’

            ‘What happened?’

            Helmut drove. Nichola waited. Was about to speak. ‘Greed. Pride,’ said Helmut. ‘Forgot about utility. Replaced it with art no one understood.’

            Nichola thought. ‘Was it good art, though?’

            ‘Beautiful,’ said Helmut.

            It started to get too cold, airy in the van. Helmut rolled the window.

            ‘So, we’re going back to your place? To feed the cat?’ asked Nichola.

            ‘Yes.’

He heard her breathe. ‘If they know about the van, Helmut, and you, they’ll have traced it back to your place. Your cat,’ said Nichola.

‘Where else to go?’

Helmut turned and saw Nichola leaning her head against the window. She peered back at him. He worried about Messer. Knew she was alright. Tough three-legged thing. He felt lost. Pained. In need of familiarity. Escape from memory. An idea to lose the girl and the knife.

‘St Kilda,’ she said. ‘My place.’