The balcony at the rear of Ava’s house was her sometimes refuge. There
she sought sanctuary from her husband Pete, the prying eyes of her domestic staff
and the dank air conditioning in which she spent most of her days and nights.
She was nearly done reading her pile of East Timor cables. She wasn’t supposed
to take them out of the embassy, but everyone did. Otherwise you would spend
even less time at home.
Ava finished the last
one and looked around her at the inordinately high concrete walls topped with
jagged pieces of glass that surrounded the house on three sides. They protected
her family from thieves and gave them privacy from the gawking eyes of
neighbours, but lately it felt that perhaps the cost of this seclusion was too
great. The walls dimmed the natural light that might have eradicated the
cloying must, stymied the cool summer breezes that would have brought her
relief and gave the house a sense of isolation. No matter how grand and light the
house was inside, their shadow made Ava feel deprived and as though she was
only half alive. Her home, her haven, had become her prison, a sad empty battleground
in which her and Pete’s arguments echoed from wall to wall as Juliette hid in
her bedroom during the few hours they were together and awake under the same
roof.
Lately Ava’s job
brought her little satisfaction either. She was covering the two most important
issues in Australian diplomacy for years—regime change in Indonesia and the
resolution of East Timor—and yet she felt more dissatisfied than ever. Had she,
in order to do this work, compartmentalised her emotions so deeply that she was
no longer able to enjoy her job? Was it rather the stalemate she and Pete were
living in, the no man’s land in which they were neither separated nor together,
that caused her to feel such discontent? Or perhaps it was both, or neither. She
didn’t know. Her life, like the resolution of East Timor it seemed, was going
nowhere and she wondered if she might be stuck in this anesthetised half existence
forever.
Above her a cloud
burst. There was a bright jack of lightning that turned darkness into daylight and
was followed by a thunderous clap and rain that pelted down so hard it sounded like
hail. Ava jumped in her chair as her heart skipped, but at last she felt
something, even if it was just physical.
She stood up and moved
over to the edge of the balcony so she was only centimetres away from the downpour.
She put an arm out into the deluge, then her other arm. She wanted to feel
something again, that sense of reverence at being alive.
She stepped out now so
that all of her was submerged. She tried to look up, but the rain cascaded down
so hard it hurt her eyes. Instead the top of her head took the full brunt, but
even though it hurt it still wasn’t enough to spark any emotion from that part
of her that had been so deeply filed away.
Ava turned to go back
inside and under the dryness of the balcony saw Pete. He was standing with his
hands on his hips, shaking his head and looking at her with resentment in his eyes.
‘You of all people
should never have been given the East Timor job,’ he said. ‘It will never bring
you what you’re looking for.’
Ava flashed him a hurt
look as she walked past him into her bedroom, leaving a trail of water behind
her and locking the door so she was once again—or was it still?—alone.