The girl reached the bus stop just in time to see a breathless man banging on the closing doors of a departing bus. "Gah!" he cried at the bus as it pulled away without him, but his face itself was peacably serene. He seemed merely to affect irritation for her benefit. The girl stood blinking, and he saw her. He smiled. He appeared to be foreign. He wore a checked shirt. "Does this often happen?" he asked her, appealing to her in a voice of unperturbed wonder. The breeze blew his words.
"It happens to me all the time," the girl answered kindly.
"You are not from here," said the man now he had an opening, "You're Russian, aren't you." It was not a question but a statement, an unmasking of her secret. But it was not her secret.
"No," she said, then, "Why do you say that?" It was now night. But shops and streetlights lit the scene.
"You're not from around here," the man said, "People around here don't talk. You talk. You must be Russian." He was smiling.
The girl took pleasure in this image of herself as being both exotically foriegn and without prejudice. "Actually," the girl answered, and the distance had closed between them - they now stood together on the pavement like friends, "I'm not. I'm just Australian. But funnily enough, I have a Russian name."
"Oh yes, what's that?"
"Vera. My middle name's Veronika."
"But they're the same name in Russia," the foreign man laughed. His own accent was subcontinental - Sri Lankan, perhaps. Then, taking her words in, he added, "But I knew it, didn't I! I could sense that you were Russian, you know?" And he put up his pale-palmed hands gently for her view, as if they were sensory devices of the most delicate and state of the art make. The peacable smile still lit his lips.
The girl did not like his hands, but laughed at his words. "Well," she said, "People often think I'm Russian. I don't know why. I used to pretend to be Swedish, at school."
"You are not really Swedish?"
"No. My parents were like... third generation Australian, or something. And their backgrounds were all English, Irish, Scottish, you know. Maybe a bit of French in there on my dad's side. I don't really know. Not very interesting anyway." She looked up the road for her bus.
"Do you know if all the buses going down this street go to Circular Quay?" he asked.
"Um, no," she said, considering. She enjoyed feeling like a Helpful and Considerate Person. She said, "I'm going down there, though. Wait, this bus coming-" and she stepped forward to flag it.
He followed her up the steps, saying, "You're going to Circular Quay yourself?" and she smiled back over her shoulder at him vaguely as she queued for a ticket,
"Yes."
She sat. He assumed the seat next to her. Although slightly nervous, she maintained the pleasant impression of herself, refracted back at her from the foriegn man's gaze, as an unprejudiced and fearless streetwise young woman. The streets were busy and she had the sense not to think herself in danger. In any case, she professed to hate the coldness of the modern city, where bypassers could not exchange pleasantries on street corners without inwardly accusing each other of hateful and perverse criminal purposes. Nonetheless, she began to sense about the man a slightly unwashed smell - real or imagined. She also became aware of the piercing lightness of his eyes.
"What is that building?" he asked, as Centrepoint Tower came in view out the window.
"That?" she smiled, "Centrepoint. Are you not from Sydney?"
"I have lived everywhere," he said, without the air of a conman. "The Phillipines, New Guinea, India, Broome..."
"Are you from India?" the girl asked.
He said, "You know something, I sense a lot of tense energy in you."
"Sorry?"
"I have a sense for these things, and I have a sense, you know - your spirit is not in balance. You find yourself feeling very anxious, sometimes, don't you?"
"Doesn't everyone?" she laughed, not showing herself startled by this new subject. She derived a sense of amusement from the idea that, in thinking she would believe in his psychic sensations, he was presuming her to be less educated, less sceptical, than she truly was. It occured to her that he meant to engage her interest by talking to her of her inner self as if that self contained great mysteries. She knew this was a respect in which many young women were manipulable.
"But you see, I sense this in you," he went on. "Perhaps you are very busy?"
"Well, I am studying."
"What are you studying?"
"I'm doing two degrees at once. Science and Law. Exams are coming up."
"You see, I knew it. You are working very hard, doing very well, yes? You are very stressed about it, and so you are not happy, you are not feeling your life is in balance, you know? I feel a lot of this negative energy in you."
"Well yeah, I'm stressed," she laughed - she felt her eyes flick about as if this really were an uncomfortable admission. She decided to play, "I'm very anxious, you're right. I don't take the Law too seriously, but it's a grind."
He took her hand. Proud of her upstanding qualities as a modern young woman, she did not let this bother her, as he said, "Yes I can feel this. You know what I can feel? One day you are going to be in the wig, the grey wig, a judge, you know?"
She laughed, "I don't want to be a judge."
"No, a barrister, maybe... but you will surprise yourself, I think. You will have lots of success, the career." He continued to grasp her hand, "But you must do something about this tension in side you, you know?" As he spoke she stared at his eyes, his nose, nostrils, his dry lips.
She did not tell him that she was doing badly at law, and it did not interest her. That she had postgraduate study lined up in Science. That she was not going into a Law career. The dramatic irony of the distance between his presumptuous clairvoyant impressions of her, and her own better knowledge of herself and her intentions, entertained her. But at the same time, he had his talons in part of her brain. By his words about her tense spirit she felt herself dragged forward to face a picture of herself as a fated and miserable person. Lately, she had been haunted by this image.
He still had her hand. "You know," he said, "I sense something else, too. I can feel these things, you know, because I have lived a lot, and because my own soul is in balance. I can sense there is a woman. A best friend, yes? She has to do with this tension."
The girl had not had a female best friend in years. Her mind briefly threw up an image of the face of a female schoolfriend to whom she had once sworn undying devotion. But all had fallen apart into hate. That was years ago. She thought of her sister. "Well, not a best friend," she averred. She wished her hand was free.
He released her hand, and said, "Well, you love this person, you know? But you have to beware her, OK? I know this. I warn you. Don't trust her." It was with the utterance of his next sentence that she realised he thought she had a female lover. He said: "She will infect you, you know." And his words were literal, not metaphoric. "You catch something off her, you know? The STDs."
She expertly supressed a laugh. It was plain now that the man had no clairvoyant skill whatever. He was a quack. But of course, she had never thought anything else. "Is that right?" she asked, wearing her face like a mask of concern. Her quick, sharp mind took note that the experience she was having at this moment would be excellent material for future anecdotes. For amusing her friends when she arrived at the Quay.
He watched her, and she saw he believed that she was truly weighing his words. She saw that he believed he had hit on something. He said, "I had a female friend once, you know? In Broome. She was living with her lover, this woman, two women, you know? She thought she would never want a man. But you know what?"
"What?" the girl asked simply, resisting expressions of irony.
"She is married now, you know, with two children? So you should think about this. You might think, with this woman, you know who you are, but you cannot trust this always, understand?"
She blushed as naturally as if he really had pierced into her secret love life. She could not tell him that she was single, not even sexually active. "All right," she said, then, "Thank you. I mean, yeah, thank you." She wasn't sure what to say. She added, "I'll think about that."
They were approaching the quay. She was aware that other passengers on the bus had noted her association with the stranger, perhaps with concern for her safety.
He said, "You should."
She said, "I will." She gazed smugly inwards at this image of herself as a troubled lesbian, at risk of disease. After his generalisations, which by luck had hit on her inner state of constant anxiety, his words about this imaginary infectious woman had a hilarious specifity. He was incompetent. He thought he had her gulled, and she had gulled him. She reflected, with some pleasure, that she probably could have pretended she really was Russian. In his ignorance of her true life, he would have known no better. He was like a puny ant below her. She lost her habitual anxiety for a moment, and any fear for her safety, in a sense of herself as a playful, and slightly seditious, towering intellect.
"This is Circular Quay next stop," she said.
"You are getting off here?" he asked. And she knew that if she said yes, he too would alight behind her.
"Yes, I'm meeting some friends," she said deftly.
"Ah," he said. She saw in his eyes that his bus trip had been without purpose. That he was bound nowhere. She suspected that in asking her the name of Centrepoint Tower, he had asked her a question to which he already knew the answer. "Well, it is good that you understand now, these things to remember. You must try to relax yourself, you know, to find this peace inside you?"
The bus stopped, and she rose. He also rose. They stepped down into the cool night air. She was relieved of the imaginary smell of his checkered body as the breeze came.
"You know," he said, "I will be in Sydney for some time, if you would like to meet up for coffee, and I can tell you more about yourself. I can tell you many things, you know, because I am with myself spiritually. Perhaps Friday morning?"
She smiled perfectly, and said, "Oh you know, I'm very busy now, exams. But thank you. It's been lovely to meet you." This struck her as a perfect speech.
Unfussed, he said easily, "All right," and pressed her hand, like they had genuinely bonded. Again, she cast herself in his gaze as a Generous Person who had shown Unusual Tolerance and Engagement. In allowing him to press her hand without fear or revulsion, she had gone beyond the call of duty. She could see she had safely escaped him.
"I'm off to meet my friends," she said, reclaiming her hand and stepping back, "But thank you again, truly. And thank you for your advice."
"You remember," he said, and then, "Lovely to talk to you. You remember what I said. This will help you. For your safety."
"Of course," she laughed musically. Walking away, she looked back over her shoulder. She was grateful to see he had walked off in the opposite direction. He did not look back. She felt immense relief. He appeared to be heading nowhere. *Russian*, she mouthed in a laughing breath, strident. She imagined herself beautiful. She thought of Nastassja Kinski.

*

Five weeks later she sat in a food court in a different part of the city, in the afternoon, eating a nougat bar in tiny bites. She was thinking of work matters, and the gift she had just bought her mother. A voice intruded:
"Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Centrepoint?"
She looked up. She thought she knew the face. She was not sure she had heard right. "Sorry?" she mumbled in guarded distraction.
"Do you know the way to Centrepoint?"
She saw the piercing eyes. "Um..." she began. His question seemed to contain some deeper proposition. She was not quite sure it was him. "Um, no, uh, sorry..." she trailed off, alarmed. She of course knew the way, but for a moment it truly seemed to her as if she didn't.
In a hard voice, he marveled, "You don't know the way to Centrepoint?" A challenge.
He had asked her a question to which he knew she knew the answer. She had to stick to her story, "I'm sorry, I don't," she repeated, more surely.
He stared for a moment. "You're German," he cursed her, and strode off.

IN PROGRESS - DO NOT READ.

The girl reached the bus stop just in time to see a breathless man banging on the closing doors of a departing bus. "Gah!" he cried at the bus as it pulled away without him, but his face was peacable. He seemed to affect irritation. The girl stood blinking, and he saw her. He smiled. He appeared to be foreign. He wore a checked shirt. "Does this often happen?" he asked her, appealing to her in a voice of unperturbed wonder. The breeze blew his words.
"It happens to me all the time," the girl answered kindly.
"You are not from here," said the man, "You're Russian, aren't you." It was not a question - it was a statement, an unmasking of her secret. But it was not her secret.
"No," she said, then, "Why do you say that?"
"You're not from around here," the man said, "People around here don't talk. You talk. You must be Russian." He was smiling.
The girl took pleasure in this image of herself as being both exotically foriegn and without prejudice. "Actually," the girl answered, and the distance had closed between them - they now stood together on the pavement like friends, "I'm not. I'm just Australian. But funnily enough, I have a Russian name."
"Oh yes, what's that?"
"Vera. My middle name's Veronika."
"But they're the same name in Russia," the foreign man laughed. His own accent was subcontinental - Sri Lankan, perhaps. Then, taking her words in, he added, "But I knew it, didn't I! I could sense that you were Russian, you know?" And he put up his pale-palmed hands gently for her view, as if they were sensory devices of the most delicate and state of the art make. The peacable smile still lit his lips.
The girl did not like his hands, but laughed at his words. "Well," she said, "People often think I'm Russian. I don't know why. I used to pretend to be Swedish, at school."
"You are not really Swedish?"
"No. My parents were like... third generation Australian, or something. And their backgrounds were all English, Irish, Scottish, you know. Maybe a bit of French in there on my dad's side. I don't really know. Not very interesting anyway." She looked up the road for her bus.
"Do you know if all the buses going down this street go to Circular Quay?" he asked.
"Um, no," she said, considering. She enjoyed feeling like a Helpful and Considerate Person. She said, "I'm going down there, though. Wait, this bus coming-" and she stepped forward to flag it.
He followed her up the steps, saying, "You're going to Circular Quay yourself?" and she smiled back over her shoulder at him vaguely as she queued for a ticket,
"Yes."
She sat. He assumed the seat next to her. Although slightly nervous, she maintained the pleasant impression of herself, refracted back at her from the foriegn man's gaze, as an unprejudiced and fearless streetwise young woman. The streets were busy and she had the sense not to think herself in danger. In any case, she professed to hate the coldness of the modern city, where bypassers could not exchange pleasantries on street corners without inwardly accusing each other of hateful and perverse criminal purposes.

[what is this building... German... question the answer to which she could not fail to know]