Catch the Zolt Read online

  Dad and Gus were sitting beside each other on one of the two leather couches, I was on the other. My mum had discarded those couches about fifty annoying redecorations and eighty even more annoying decorators ago. Yes, the leather is cracked and, yes, the cushions are lumpy, but those couches are just the thing – or ‘just the ticket’, as Gus would say – for stretching out and reading the latest edition of Running World.

  Gus was wearing his usual clothes: a faded singlet that showed off his ropey old-man muscles, and shorts that were baggy, but not baggy enough to hide the stump. When Gus first arrived at Halcyon Grove I was terrified of the stump. But then I got used to ‘Stumpy’ with his funny little seamed head. Like an eyeless alien from a C-grade sci-fi movie. Even so, I preferred it when Gus wore his prosthetic, but I guess when you’ve been strapping an artificial leg on since you were fifteen years old, you’re going to get pretty sick of it.

  Dad and Gus were drinking whisky – straight, on the rocks – from hefty tumblers, and I had a glass of Coke. In the last few minutes the wind had picked up outside and occasionally, from the empty top floor of Gus’s house, came the sound of a branch rapping on a window with its wooden knuckles.

  Dad and Gus kept exchanging looks, clearing their throats, as if neither knew exactly how to start this conversation. So I did it for them, saving them some pretty major embarrassment.

  ‘I know all about sex,’ I told them. ‘We did it at school.’

  ‘You did it?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yeah, last term. With Mrs Prefontaine.’

  ‘Mrs Prefontaine?’

  ‘Yes, she taught us all about it. Well, the basics anyway.’

  A look of relief crossed Dad’s smooth face.

  ‘Dom, we didn’t actually want to talk to you about the birds and the bees,’ he said.

  ‘The birds and the bees?’

  ‘Your father means sex,’ said Gus.

  ‘There’s something much more serious we need to discuss,’ said Dad.

  ‘I thought sex was really serious,’ I said. ‘Mrs Prefontaine seemed to think it was, anyway.’

  Gus took over again, putting on his ‘me coach, you athlete’ voice.

  ‘You know what a debt is, don’t you, Dom?’

  That’s a pretty dumb question, I thought. I might be an athlete but I ain’t stupid.

  ‘Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.’

  Gus looked over at Dad before he said, ‘Well, our family has a debt.’

  ‘An enormous debt,’ added Dad.

  ‘You mean money?’ I asked, thinking of the house we live in; this house, which my parents had bought for Gus; our holiday house at Byron Bay; all Mom’s jewellery.

  ‘No, not money. Another sort of debt.’

  Now my brain was doing some work: what other sorts of debt were there?

  Suddenly it occurred to me that this might be an elaborate practical joke, played out on all male Silvagnis when they reach the age of fifteen. I scanned the room, looking for hidden cameras. But I couldn’t see any. And let’s face it, neither Dad nor Gus are the practical-joking types.

  Gus got up, moved to his desk, took a key from somewhere and unlocked the bottom right drawer. I’d always wondered why that drawer was locked, what it was Gus wanted to keep secret from me. He slid it open and brought out an old-fashioned binder with an embossed cover, the leather red and worn. He brought it back over to the couch, sat down, took a gulp of his whisky. Carefully opening the binder, Gus took a photo from inside and leant forward to hand it to me.

  ‘You know who this is?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, looking at the bearded man in the hat and the cape in the sepia-toned photo. ‘I was named after him. He’s Dominic, my great-great-great-great-grandfather.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gus smiling at me. ‘My great-great-grandfather.’

  ‘And my great-great-great-grandfather,’ said Dad.

  ‘So what do you know about him?’ said Gus.

  ‘Let’s see,’ I said. ‘That he was destined for greatness?’

  Okay, it probably wasn’t the best joke I’d ever come up with but it deserved some sort of acknowledgement: a smile at least, but I got nothing from Gus and Dad.

  Actually, I knew a lot about Dominic Silvagni because last year, when we had to do a school project about one of our ancestors, I chose him. Probably because he was the only one I could find a photo of. According to Gus there’d been a fire in his old house that had destroyed a whole lot of family photos.

  ‘He was born in Italy, in Calabria, in a village called San Luca in 1822. In 1851 he married Maria Barassi. They came to Australia during the Gold Rush in 1852. He was killed in the Eureka Stockade in 1854, which was a rebellion by miners against the heavy taxation imposed on them by the Victorian government. A month after his death his son, my great-great-great-grandfather, was born,’ I said.

  I remembered how proud I’d been at school to read out my namesake’s history. Especially when Mr Ryan said that the men who had died at Eureka Stockade were heroes, that they’d stood up for their rights, that they’d helped formed the democratic nation of Australia.

  ‘That’s very good,’ said Gus. ‘But there’s one more thing you need to know.’

  He drank some more whisky, then opened his mouth as if to talk, but no words came out.

  ‘Dominic Silvagni was born into a ’Ndrangheta family,’ said Dad.

  ‘He was what?’ I said.

  ‘Pen and paper?’ said Dad to Gus.

  My grandfather stomped over to his desk, returning with a pad and a black felt-tip pen. Dad opened the pad to a blank page and wrote in capital letters: ’NDRANGHETA.

  Written down, it looked sort of familiar.

  ‘Isn’t it like the Mafia or something?’ I said.

  ‘Like the Mafia, but not as nice,’ said Dad.

  At first I thought he was joking, but there was not a trace of humour in his face.

  Gus, who seemed to have found his voice again, proceeded to explain the origins of the ’Ndrangheta.

  Apparently in ancient Italy it was an organisation formed by peasant farmers to fight against the injustices of rich landlords. But over time it evolved into a criminal enterprise.

  ‘So if he was a member of the ’Ndrangheta,’ I said, stumbling over the pronunciation, ‘why did he come to Australia?’

  Again Dad and Gus looked at each other.

  ‘Because he wanted out,’ said Dad.

  ‘Out of the ’Ndrangheta?’

  Dad nodded.

  ‘Usually that’s not possible, because if you’re born into a ’Ndrangheta family then you are a ’Ndranghetista for life, but somehow he persuaded them to accept a sum of money in return for his, well, freedom.’

  ‘How much money?’

  ‘The modern-day equivalent would be around two million dollars,’ said Dad.

  I emitted a low whistle. ‘How did he get that much?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Dad, and there was no mistaking the contempt in his voice.

  ‘He would’ve!’ said Gus. ‘If he hadn’t given his life.’

  ‘Given his life?’ said Dad mockingly. ‘He died like a dog for a cause that had nothing to do with him.’

  Although I hadn’t heard it before, this sounded like an old argument, one in which the same phrases came from the same mouths over and over again.

  Dad continued. ‘Your great-great-great-great-grandfather came to Australia to prospect for gold, to find his fortune and pay back this debt. But then he went and got himself killed.’

  ‘For a cause he believed –’ started Gus, before Dad interjected, ‘Dad, just show it to your grandson.’

  Gus took a plastic sleeve out of the folder. Within it was a document, ancient-looking, the paper yellowed, brittle.

  ‘The ’Ndrangheta weren’t about to let Dominic just take off to the other side of the world, never to hear from him again,’ explained Dad. ‘So before he left they made him sign this.’

  �
�Be very careful,’ said Gus, handing it to me.

  I took the paper from him. It was titled Pagherò Cambiario.

  ‘But it’s in Italian,’ I said.

  ‘Basically it’s a debt agreement,’ said Dad. ‘It says that if the loan is defaulted, which is what happened, then all male Silvagnis, upon reaching the age of fifteen, must make six repayments on this debt.’

  ‘Repayments?’ I said. ‘Money?’

  ‘No, not money. Think of them more like assignments.’

  This was getting too weird; I had to close my eyes. The ’Ndrangeta, defaulted loans, assignments: what the hell was going on?

  When I opened my eyes again I wanted it to all go away. Or Dad and Gus to be laughing because of the great joke they’d just played on me.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes.

  They weren’t laughing. It was no joke.

  ‘What sort of assignments?’ I said.

  ‘They will let you know,’ said Dad.

  ‘They? The ’Ndrangheta, you mean?’

  ‘It’s probably better you don’t use that word,’ said Dad, tearing the piece of paper out of the pad and scrunching it up. ‘Just think of them as The Debt.’

  Suddenly I was reminded of the van, white, streamlined, futuristic-looking, the missing four minutes.

  ‘They’ve already contacted you?’ said Dad, studying my face.

  ‘I think so,’ I said, and I told them what had happened.

  ‘So there were no injuries or anything?’ asked Gus.

  ‘Not really,’ I said, but then I remembered. ‘There was, like, this red lump on the back of my right hand.’

  I pointed to where it had been, and Gus gently ran his fingers across the surface of my skin.

  ‘And now I have this, like, weird feeling that I’m being –’ I started, but Dad held up both hands as if to say Stop.

  ‘We don’t want to know, okay? We can’t know. It’s between you and The Debt.’

  I looked across at Gus. He had a resigned look on his face as if as to say I’m afraid your dad’s right on this.

  ‘Okay, what if I refuse to make these instalments, to do these assignments?’ I said. ‘What can they possibly do to me?’

  ‘In caso du mancato pagamento, il crediture può riclamane una libbra della carne del debitore,’ Gus read from the document.

  ‘What in the hell does that mean?’

  ‘In the event of the debtor defaulting on his repayments the creditor is entitled to take a pound of flesh.’

  ‘A pound of flesh?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dad.

  The expression was familiar – wasn’t it from Shakespeare or something? – but what exactly did it mean in this context? My eyes were drawn towards Gus. And his crutches. And his stump.

  No, it can’t be.

  ‘Your leg?’ I asked.

  Gus nodded.

  ‘It wasn’t cancer?’

  Gus shook his head. ‘There was no cancer.’

  ‘You didn’t repay The Debt?’

  Gus nodded.

  ‘And that’s what they did to you?’ I asked, pointing.

  ‘They took their pound of flesh,’ said Gus.

  This answer, literally, took my breath away. Struggling for air, I slumped into the couch.

  Again I had that feeling that this wasn’t happening, this wasn’t real.

  But when I looked up at the walls, I could see the same appalled look on the shadowed faces of Roger Bannister, John Landy, Hicham El Guerrouj, all the runners assembled there.

  The Debt took their pound of flesh!

  As I looked at my dad, in his immaculate short-sleeved shirt and his immaculate chinos, something occurred to me.

  ‘And you did repay The Debt?’

  ‘I did what I had to do,’ he replied, throwing Gus a look of utter scorn. ‘I dragged our family back out of the sewer.’

  What was going on here? I knew that there hadn’t been a lot of money around when Dad was growing up but I’d never heard him describe it as a ‘sewer’ before.

  ‘But why would Dominic sign such a thing?’ I said.

  ‘You’ve got to remember,’ said Gus, ‘they were very different, shall we say unenlightened, times. Red in tooth and claw. And your great-great-great-great-grandfather was an optimist. He was certain he would make that money, that he would dig that much gold out of the ground.’

  ‘The man was a fool,’ said Dad.

  Gus’s grip on his whisky tumbler tightened.

  ‘A fool who bred fools,’ continued Dad in a tone of voice – sneering, dismissive – I’d not heard him use before. ‘Or if you want to put it in more modern terms, the fool gene has had a big say in our family history.’

  Gus’s knuckles were white, the ice clinking as the glass shook.

  ‘But we’re breeding it out, and that’s the main thing,’ said Dad.

  He looked at me and smiled.

  ‘Isn’t that right, Dom?’

  There was a loud knocking sound from upstairs.

  I knew, logically, that it must’ve been that branch rapping on the windowpane. But right then it seemed to be something else, a herald, because something very dark and very sinister had just come into my life.

  Dad sloshed the last of the whisky into his and Gus’s glasses and said, ‘There’s just one more thing, Dom.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, David!’ said Gus.

  My dad glared at his dad, jabbed his finger at the document and said, ‘It’s The Debt!’

  Gus sat with his head bowed for a while before he seemed to gather himself, got up from the couch and went back over to the open drawer of his desk. When he returned he had something in his hand. It had a wooden handle, an embossed tip.

  Was it a sort of stamp?

  ‘Okay,’ said Dad. ‘Let’s get this over and done with.’

  Both he and Gus undid their belts and lowered their pants. Dad pointed to high up on the inside of his right thigh. Within a rectangle, there was a single word: PAGATO. At first I thought that it was some sort of tattoo, but then I realised that it was formed from scarred flesh not inked flesh, that it was a brand.

  I wondered why I hadn’t ever seen it before. But when I thought about it, Dad had never been a walk-around-stark-naked sort of dad; he always wore boardies when he went swimming, never Speedos. I looked over at Gus, leaning on his crutch. I could see that he had the same brand, and it was in the same place.

  Or was it the same?

  His brand was less distinct than Dad’s and it was harder to read, but it seemed to be incomplete somehow.

  ‘The mark of the debtor,’ said Dad.

  Now I knew that it was a branding iron, not a stamp.

  ‘No!’ I said, getting to my feet.

  My fight-or-flight response had kicked in, and it was getting ready to get me out of there.

  Gus put his hand around my wrist.

  It was a strange gesture and not something that he’d done before.

  But I immediately knew what he was saying: there’s no escaping this, Dom. But I’m here to look after you.

  As I looked into his face, into his old-man eyes, I realised that I trusted Gus more than I trusted anybody else in the world.

  I let myself fall back onto the couch.

  Dad took an antique Zippo lighter from the desk’s drawer.

  His thumb came down and a huge flame leapt up.

  ‘Hell!’ I said.

  ‘Don’t make them like this any more,’ said Dad.

  ‘Drink this,’ said Gus, handing me his glass of whisky as Dad heated the tip of the branding iron. I swallowed it in one gulp. The liquid slid down my throat, and then exploded, a fireball in my guts.

  ‘Hell!’ I repeated.

  ‘You ready?’ said Dad.

  No, of course I’m not ready. This is ridiculous. This is crazy. But when I looked over at my father and my grandfather, the two men in the world who loved me the most, I knew I had to trust them.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, pulli
ng down my trousers and baring the inside of my right thigh.

  Dad brought the tip of the branding iron closer and I could feel the heat, feel the hairs singeing.

  I couldn’t help it, I moved my leg away.

  ‘You need Gus to hold your leg?’ said Dad.

  ‘No!’ I said.

  Instead I held out my hand for Gus to hold.

  ‘I love you, Dom,’ Dad said, his voice low and reassuring.

  ‘I love you too, Dad.’

  I tensed my leg, and he pressed the branding iron firmly into my skin. The pain was indescribable, like nothing I’d felt before, like nothing I’d ever want to feel again. I squeezed Gus’s hand so tight, it’s a wonder I didn’t break his fingers. But almost worse than the pain was the smell, the nauseating smell of my own searing flesh.

  It seemed like minutes, it was probably seconds, but eventually Dad said, ‘Son, it’s done.’

  Despite the pain, despite the smell, a thought occurred to me: We’ve all got the same mark now.

  I looked down at my thigh expecting to see the same brand as Dad’s, but instead there was just an empty rectangle, red and raw.

  It took me a while to think this through, but when I did I let out an almost involuntary, ‘No!’

  I would be branded after each successful instalment. Which is why Dad’s brand was complete and Gus’s wasn’t.

  So even if I did repay an instalment, it would be with the knowledge that this indescribable pain would follow.

  ‘No!’ I said, as I charged at Dad, fists raised high.

  How could my own father let this happen to me?

  I wanted to pummel him, crack every bone in his body.

  But Dad wrapped me in a bear-hug.

  ‘No!’ I kept repeating, struggling to get free. But it was no use, he was much stronger than he looked.

  Finally there were no more ‘no’s and I let myself go limp.

  Dad released me and when I stepped away I could see the wet patch my hot tears had made on his shirt.