The Light Ascending

Griffith Review 66: The Light Ascending
Edited by Ashley Hay
Edition 66 • November 2019 • RRP $27.99 / NZ $35.00

The Light Ascending tells tales of escapes: escapes from who we are, where we’re from and what we know. The stories in this collection traverse continents, cultures and generations: a Javanese artist’s model fights to survive in nineteenth-century Paris; a woman reckons with her past from deep within a coma; a trio of performers try to carve a place for themselves in an insular town; a family faces a tragedy that threatens to tear them apart.

The Light Ascending features the 2019 winners of The Novella Project VII: Julienne van Loon, Mirandi Riwoe, Keren Heenan and Allanah Hunt. The winners of Griffith Review’s seventh annual novella competition, supported by Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, were chosen by expert judges Maxine Beneba Clarke, Aviva Tuffield and Holden Sheppard.

This edition also includes new work by Holly Ringland and 2019 Griffith Review Fellow Krissy Kneen.

Learn more about the work featured in Griffith Review 66: The Light Ascending, and read excerpts from contributions by Holly Ringland and Mirandi Riwoe.

Slowly, purposeful, the woman took the lids off the dozens of enamel tins and upended them. Piles of ruby-coloured candies tumbled onto the tabletop and glistened in the light. Individually wrapped in clear cellophane, each one looked like treasure.

Soon a chorus of sounds rose above the normal market hum: the crinkle of cellophane and the gasp of surprise and pleasure as candies were popped into mouths. Word spread quickly. Customers and stallholders alike started to swarm to the woman’s table.

Watching their unabashed desire as they clamoured for a sweet morsel gave Emily a knotted ache in her stomach. The young woman didn’t appear to communicate directly with anyone, aside from an occasional slight nod towards the enamel tin for payment; she didn’t seem to be counting that either. After a while, all Emily could see was a multicoloured patchwork of people clustered around the woman’s table, their arms outstretched and reaching for a sea of shimmering red candies, while the sound of raining coins hit against enamel tins.

Emily splayed her toes in her boots to get a better grip of the ground beneath her feet. She wouldn’t admit to herself that the feeling coiling around her body, pulling tightly in her chest, was compulsion.

For as long as she could, Emily hung back among the shelves of her stall. Being near books was one of the few things that truly comforted her. Her love of fairytales in particular, for the hope in darkness within them, had been the reason she’d started her market bookshop after Robert left her with barely anything after their divorce. Emily picked up an anthology of Victorian fairytales and poems. Ran her fingertips along its edges, thinking of all the ways second chances might arrive in a life. Of how much she had to offer someone, how much love she had to give, if only she could find the courage. She pictured the brochure she’d kept on her fridge for so long, the cover had almost completely faded. It didn’t matter: Emily knew the details by heart.

When the mid-morning shadows started to lengthen, curiosity finally overpowered her. She squished through the elbows and nudges of the crowd until she was in front of the woman and her ruby coloured candies. The young woman didn’t look up. Curled in on herself, her gaze was downcast and indifferent.

Emily dropped her fifty-cent piece into one of the overflowing tins. The surge of people behind her pushed her thighs into trestle table’s edge. After slight hesitation, Emily picked a candy, unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.

The sugar-crystal shell slowly melted into the delicate flavour of a ripe apple, filling her mouth with sweet juiciness. Emily could do nothing but close her eyes, hold her hand to her throat.

It was only after she swallowed the last of the red sugar that she noticed the aftertaste, an insatiable lingering tartness. It was a recognisable, salty tang. Though she’d started to turn and walk away, Emily found herself pushing back through the crowd, another fifty-cent piece in her hand, reaching for another candy. And then, another. Her mouth was full of sweetness, then bitterness.

Later, no one would admit it. Even as they whispered about the woman, months and years after that one market day, no one would ever acknowledge that the lingering flavour of her candies was the strange and unsettling taste of a pin prick or paper cut.

Vollard holds the girl by the shoulders so that she can’t give chase as the horses pull the coach onto the road again, disappear into the night. Annah wants to wail, double over and roar with fear, but a boy, smut smeared across his face, stops to stare. Two gentlemen, dressed in evening greatcoats and glistening silk top hats, frown at her, look enquiringly at Vollard.

‘This way, my dear,’ he says, propelling her towards a building dark with grime. Long, timber shutters close in the windows of the first floor and the number six is inked onto the wall. When Vollard knocks, a woman opens the door. Vollard explains their presence and she nods, stepping back for them to pass through. Annah pauses when they step over the threshold, held at bay by the damp pong of cabbage and mould. So different from the scent of peonies and spice at Mme Pack’s. Too similar to the room Annah was locked in before that.

‘Come my dear,’ says Vollard. ‘Everything will be fine.’

As they climb the stairs, the woman returns to her rooms, closing herself and her candle away. Annah trips on a step, her eyes unable to adjust to the sudden gloom. It’s as though they wade through pitch and Vollard only releases his grip on her arm when they reach the landing.

A man wrenches open a door. He’s as tall as a bear, a dark silhouette against the red glow of the room. He holds his hands out and pulls Vollard into a short, hearty embrace.

‘Vollard, you scoundrel. Come in. What have you brought for me?’

‘I’ve brought you that girl I told you about. From Nina Pack.’

The room is dimly lit by one lamp, its scarlet shade frilled and flimsy like the flounce of a lady’s hemline. The man stoops to light three candles on a saucer, and by the flare of the match Annah sees that his largish nose is ruddy, covered in a web of veins. He wears a fez pulled low over his hair, the lamplight lending the dark wool a rouge tinge. A kerchief with crimson pinstripes peeps from his shirt pocket.

‘No beer? Not a scrap of food for this poor, starving artist?’ The man’s laugh is a bark. ‘Not to worry. Maurice brought me a bottle of claret last night. We will finish it off.’

Vollard gestures for Annah to step forward. ‘This is Annah. I thought she might model for you.’ He tugs her bag from her grasp, and places it on a chair.

The tall man stands in front of her, rests one arm across his waist, brings the other upwards so his chin rests on his hand as he contemplates her. Her heart shudders against her ribs, making her feel queasy. She stares into the shadows beyond the candles. Tries not to feel his eyes creep across her skin. She should be used to this sort of scrutiny by now. She has learnt to pretend she doesn’t notice. Doesn’t care.

‘Quite lovely. She’s Malay, did you say?’

‘Something like that, I should think. Nina told a fat banker friend of hers that she wanted a Negro girl, and not three months later a policeman brought this girl to her. Found her wandering about the Gare de Lyon, with a sign hanging around her neck giving direction to Nina’s address. And her French is quite good,’ says Vollard. ‘Nina did warn me that she might be a trifle stubborn though.’

‘Fascinating. And where are you from, Annah? Before you were with Mme Pack?’

Annah thinks of the grey room on Rue de Clichy, where she spent so many months. But she knows he doesn’t mean that. He wants to know where she was born, from where she has travelled. Annah repeats what she was schooled to say to Mme Pack’s guests. ‘Envoi de Java.’ What was written on the sign that hung about her neck. 

‘Ah. How exotic. That is almost perfect. I think she’ll do quite nicely, Vollard.’ The tall man puts his hand out for her to shake. ‘You can call me Paul.’

Her eyes flick to his, back to the shadows again.

‘His name is Paul, Annah. Be a good girl, now. Say Paul,’ says Vollard.

‘Pol.’

‘Paul,’ he repeats, pulling a chair out from the table.

She pronounces his name once more but doesn’t try too hard.

The tall man shrugs. ‘It is of no consequence, Vollard. Pol it will be.’

He takes a seat by the other. ‘And she will bed here?’

‘That would be best. I have nowhere else for her to go.’

Pol pours two glasses of wine. He complains of the rent he must pay for the apartment, of the poor furnishings the owner has supplied him with. He takes to his feet for a moment, fetches some cheese from a cabinet, slides it onto a plate next to a hunk of bread.

‘Nina said Annah’s not so good at housekeeping, I’m afraid. But try what you can with her, Paul.’

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