The Hunter and Other Stories of Men Read online

  As Karen and I travelled from the airport to our hotel, the taxi driver asked me if we were in town on holiday. I replied that I was a travel writer; was he by chance familiar with the name Len Stelzer? ‘Never heard of it,’ he said. ‘But I trust you’ll want to write about the hospitals.’ I inquired about places of historical interest, recreational activities, restaurants, galleries. Karen asked about wildlife, outback adventures, abseiling. The taxi driver ignored our questions and proceeded to wax lyrical about the hospitals. I quipped, ‘I hope I’m fortunate enough to get Tyson’s Disorder, so I can experience one of these hospitals firsthand.’ ‘You wouldn’t want Tyson’s,’ he said. ‘No, of course not,’ I replied. We drove in silence for another kilometre or so, and then he added: ‘But if you got Tyson’s, I guarantee you’d receive the best medical care in the country, if not the entire southern hemisphere.’

  Although they haven’t yet determined the cause of the virus, it can be managed. At first, sufferers were simply physically restrained so they couldn’t gorge themselves into the next world. They had to endure terrible ‘withdrawal’ symptoms while being treated with drugs which caused their own unpleasant side effects. The hospitals have since developed a more humane and satisfactory treatment. Instead of forcing you to stop eating, they give you specially manufactured, bland substitutes for all your favourite foods, which satisfy the hunger without causing health problems. To put it simply, they get you addicted to this food so that you continue eating it after you’re discharged. This enables the hospitals to control what you eat.

  The problem with the special food is that it contains chemicals that induce a secondary symptom: a feeling of intense lethargy, which makes one feel as if one is constantly walking uphill, even when walking downhill. An early warning sign is that the sufferer frequently expresses a desire to be seated. Curiously, the sufferer continues to say ‘I need to sit down’ even when he or she is actually sitting down. This necessitates further visits to hospital to help get the balance right. The best outcome you can hope for is to be consuming the optimum quantity of so-called ‘hospital food’ to satisfy your hunger and keep you sufficiently energised for work, study, maintaining the home, etc. Periodic adjustments, requiring brief hospital stays, are necessary and this may continue for the rest of your life.

  Phil took us around to look at a few hospitals. At first I thought they were multistorey car parks. Architects here don’t go in for ornament. Even putting the hospital’s name on the exterior is considered unnecessary, since everyone knows the names off by heart: Prince Edward Medical Centre, Sunnyholt Private Hospital, The McCabe Institute, Royal D Institute of Medical Research, Nelson Centre for Microbiological Studies – the list goes on. In D, real estate agents talk up a suburb by emphasising its proximity to a hospital. I met a hospital administrator who went on at length about ‘cutting-edge research and cutting-edge technology’. In discussions of D’s hospitals, the phrase ‘cutting-edge’ runs a close second to ‘southern hemisphere’.

  The special hospital food substitute (it is in fact a brand: Hospital Foods) is a relatively recent development and still the subject of much discussion and analysis. I watched a television program on which several medical experts sang its praises. A couple were more circumspect, suggesting that it’s hard to predict the long-term effects of the food. More medical experts were called upon to comment. The overall response was vigorous support for the new treatment regime. One unofficial statistic has it that in D there is approximately one medical expert for every twelve people.

  The people of D seem to have a fatalistic attitude towards Tyson’s Disorder. This is reflected in the fact that, instead of taking the annoying but, for the most part, effective precautions recommended for avoiding infection, such as wearing specially designed masks (Karen and I never leave our hotel without them), they prefer to switch to Hospital Food in anticipation. You can’t just go and buy Hospital Food, but you can get cheaper and less powerful versions of it in supermarkets and other food outlets. It comes under a variety of brand names like Bright, Zest and Zip, all of which are owned by Hospital Foods. Each one promises healthier eating and less stupefying lethargy, but they’re all much the same. Anyway, most people agree that lethargy is better than heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or eating oneself to death.

  On our travels around D, we have found that certain roads, train stations, shopping precincts and other seemingly important landmarks are not represented on the official tourist map – or, if they are represented, they correspond to the physical reality in a tenuous sort of way. And yet the locations of the hospitals are invariably indicated with great precision. Each one is symbolised by a little black H inside a little blue square. These hieroglyphs – like so many abandoned swimming pools viewed from an aeroplane passing overhead – are thickly spread over the map of D. Every time I consult this map, I can almost swear that another hospital has appeared.

  You can usually spot people who’ve been treated with Hospital Food and haven’t yet got the balance right. They seem to be perpetually walking in slow motion, like so many shonky investment brokers on footage from a current affairs show; all that’s missing is the sinister background music. According to Phil, these poor individuals do the minimum amount of work possible, and spend the rest of the time watching TV or playing one of the virtual-reality games that have flourished in D. The most popular games are those that require the least virtual effort: virtual pool, virtual darts and the like. So powerful is the food-induced lethargy, it is even represented in the virtual world, hence the new breed of games currently on the market, including virtual gardening, virtual furniture shopping, and virtual going to the pub to watch a U2 tribute band.

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  Caption on many licence plates: D – City of Hospitals

  My frequent calls to D’s public transport information line have brought home just how ingrained the glorification of hospitals has become here. Like the real estate agents, the public transport information line customer service officers will, wherever possible, use a hospital as a reference point. If you say you’re unfamiliar with the hospital in question, a protracted silence may follow. Once that silence has come to an end, you may find that the customer service officer’s tone has switched from relatively chirpy to distinctly surly. On more than one such occasion, I was given the wrong bus number and ended up miles from where I wanted to be. It’s difficult to say whether this was a passive-aggressive act of retribution for my ignorance of D’s hospitals or just plain old incompetence.

  Idea for a travel book: 50 Hospitals You Must Visit Before You Die. Lighthearted look at medical facilities around the world – not just the best, but also the most interesting or strange. Cash in on the ‘before you die’ craze. Obvious sequel: 50 Morgues You Must Visit Before You Die – although that’s usually something you do after you die, and you tend to visit just one. New series: After You Die. Funeral parlours, cemeteries, crematoria, etc. Technically no longer in the travel genre, at least not the sort of travel you undertake by choice. I floated the idea to Phil at dinner one evening, but he thought it cheapened the fine work D was doing in the field of microbiology. This disappointed me. I’d thought that, being a relative newcomer to the city, he hadn’t succumbed to D’s collective hospital worship. Shortly after that, I noticed he’d consumed an entire Black Forest cake. The next day he was admitted to Sunnyholt Private Hospital.

  Slogan on Hospital Food products: Avoid Hospital – Buy Hospital

  After ten days in D it occurred to me that I had not seen a bookshop or a public library. When I located a bookshop in the city, the woman behind the counter lamented that there was no longer much demand for books, because so many people suffered from Tyson’s Disorder and therefore didn’t have sufficient energy for reading. Besides, the only healthy people who still bought books were middle-class professionals, who did it out of a sense that they ‘should read more’, which they only managed by organising themselves into reading groups and book clubs. I asked her if she stoc
ked anything by Len Stelzer. She had no idea what I was talking about. A nearby customer, overhearing the conversation, said: ‘Is he a celebrity chef?’ I said: ‘No, he’s a travel writer.’ She said: ‘Is he a celebrity travel writer?’ I said: ‘Evidently not.’

  We visited Phil at Sunnyholt. The Black Forest cake nearly killed him, but he’s already been weaned off regular food and is now wolfing down the Hospital variety. We brought him the mathematics paper he’d working on before he was struck down. We thought it would give him something productive to do and help pass the time. He picked it up with both hands as if it were a block of concrete, before laying it aside wearily. ‘I can’t really be bothered,’ he said. The nurse remarked: ‘Sadly, that is the mantra of the Tyson’s sufferer.’ I replied, a bit pedantically, that a mantra requires that something be repeated over and over, whereas the Tyson’s sufferer only has sufficient energy to say it once.

  Karen and I were invited to a barbecue where there were several doctors and at least one medical expert present. We sat at a long table set up on the lawn. For most of the afternoon, the doctors regaled us with stories of research and development, the evolution of treatments for Tyson’s Disorder, the fine-tuning of Hospital Food. Eventually Karen and I looked at each other as if to say: ‘Can’t they talk about anything else?’ And yet we felt a strong unspoken pressure to continue listening and acting impressed. I wondered if everyone else was as bored as we were. It seemed that they couldn’t get enough of this informal presentation, as if nothing else was deemed worthy of discussion. The children present were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, and they all invariably replied: ‘A doctor.’ Later, in the kitchen, one of the women (a doctor) asked me what I did for a living. I told her that I was a travel writer. She asked me my name again. She hadn’t heard of me or my books. She said: ‘I suppose I should read more but I simply never get the time.’ I wandered back outside, where I observed two people at the food table literally fighting for the last piece of honey soy chicken. As I watched, I realised that one of them was Karen.

  I’m sitting in a hushed room at Sunnyholt Private Hospital, watching the nurse arrange a tray of plentiful but strangely odourless hot food in front of Karen, who lies in bed, her eyes half-closed. I’ve heard that many hospital workers have been infected with Tyson’s. At least there are plenty of beds to accommodate them – two new hospitals are going up as I write this – and plenty of eager young doctors and nurses to fill the vacancies. Phil is in Ward 16, happily gobbling down Hospital pizza, Hospital fried chicken and Hospital chocolate eclairs while playing endless games of virtual pool. He doesn’t want to be discharged. Nobody here does. I’m eager to leave D as soon as Karen is out of the woods. But she’s already acquired a taste for the bland fare they dish up – astonishing, given her penchant for the chilli-infused delicacies of Sri Lanka, India and the western provinces of China. I think back over all my travels, the many and varied cuisines I’ve sampled. Caught up in this remembrance of meals past, I suddenly feel an all-consuming urge: I simply must go out and get something to eat.

  ON THE 345 TO ASPLEY

  When I first noticed him, always sitting in the same seat, on the window side just behind the rear doors, I asked myself: Why does he sit there every time? What is it about that particular seat? It began to play on my mind. So one Tuesday night, around ten o’clock, having boarded the bus on Roma Street near the Magistrates Court, I sat down in a nearby seat on the other side of the aisle. The bus was nearly empty but he was in his usual seat, as I knew he would be. I thought, I’ll lean over a bit and say something, some trivial opening remark just to get the wheels in motion, so to speak. I waited until we entered Normanby station, where, as planned, I leaned over a few inches. He remained as upright as ever, gazing at or through the glass panel that separated him from the rear doors. I thought my little movement might cause him to turn his head, but no. The fluoro lights of Normanby station shone through the bus windows. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  Maybe next time, I thought.

  It’s harder than it sounds, asking a complete stranger why he always sits in the same seat – especially this stranger. He was a trifle … what’s the word? Borderline? Marginal? He had a tendency to wear shorts regardless of the temperature, and I’d never once seen him smile. He also had matted hair and a beard. Not one of those fashionable beards, but one he’d clearly had for years, and which was now just as much a part of his face as his nose or teeth. He’d seen trends come and go – the goatee, the Van Dyke, the sculpted bush currently favoured by baristas – but clearly he paid no heed to any of them. Was any of this sufficient cause to place him in the borderline and marginal category?

  Let’s suppose for a moment that we were talking about a small, elderly woman who always sits in the same seat. You wouldn’t think twice about that. But a tall forty-something man in shorts with matted hair and a beard, never smiling, always sitting in the same seat – that gives you pause.

  There was also the question of what he would do if that particular seat was occupied. What was his back-up plan? As far as I could see, it would have to be either (a) find another seat or (b) wait for the next bus. My money was on (b). People who always sit in the same seat tend to have a lot time on their hands.

  A week later I almost asked him again. We were crossing over the Inner City Bypass and I was sitting directly behind him, having devised another strategy: I would ‘accidentally’ drop my pen so that it would roll forward under his seat, stopping near his feet. He’d see it, pick it up, and turn around and hand it to me; or he’d see it, pick it up, and I’d lean forward and ask him to hand it to me; or he’d see it, do nothing, and I’d lean forward and ask him to pick it up and hand it to me; or, in a fourth and final scenario, he wouldn’t notice it at all – anything was possible with this guy – and I’d lean forward, etc, etc. I held the pen in my hand, poised, ready to drop it. The bus drove on through the night. My hand was sweating, so much so that the pen slipped out of my grasp and hit the floor. It hit the floor but it didn’t roll forward. It remained at my feet, mocking me. The pen had ruined everything.

  This whole business was beginning to do my head in. I wondered if my travelling companion enjoyed some sort of special status – if, maybe, having loyally caught the 345 to Aspley for so many years, he’d literally been given his own seat. I wasn’t aware of such a policy but you just never know with TransLink. I asked the bus driver but she gave me short shrift – I’d venture to say no shrift at all.

  I had no option but to return to the source. And yet I remained hesitant. You have to be careful with a man who sits in the same seat every time. A man like that could be … I was going to say unpredictable. For all I knew, he could be wildly unpredictable about everything other than sitting in the same seat, always wearing shorts and never smiling. A man so rigidly consistent, or consistently rigid, in his habits may well be consciously suppressing certain impulses, dangerous impulses.

  And what of his failure to crack a smile? It struck me that the reason he hadn’t smiled thus far was that nothing had occurred to make him smile. He was, after all, just riding along in a near-empty bus at night, staring ahead. So I devised a third plan: I’d smile at him, and when he smiled back I’d ask the question. He has to smile back, I thought. Even if it’s insincere and perfunctory, he has to smile back.

  I got on one balmy Tuesday evening and made for the rear of the bus, so that I could, under the pretext of moving to another seat, walk past him, look back and smile. I remained at the rear until we reached Newmarket, sailing down Enoggera Road towards Sedgley Park. My stop was coming up; I couldn’t delay any longer. I stood up and moved down the aisle, clutching one backrest after another to steady myself. Then I was right behind him, near the doors, looking down at the very top of his head; his matted hair was thinning, the scalp just visible. I pushed on. A few more steps and then I did it. I turned around, smiled. This was the moment, the moment to deliver the question so meticulously
framed in my mind.

  Our eyes met but he didn’t smile back. It threw me completely. It’s one thing not to smile on your own account, but certain social contracts must be upheld. Even a man who has nothing to smile about should still smile occasionally.

  So the question, and hence the answer, was deferred once again. On the plus side, I see us both riding the 345 for years to come. Perhaps, when the time’s right, when the circumstances are absolutely favourable, I will get to the heart of the matter. You can’t rush these things.

  THE CASE OF NATHAN GANT

  Jerusalem, a city that conjures up a sense of the holy, the historical and the heavenly, holds a unique attraction for people of several of the world’s faiths and religions – especially Jews, Christians and Muslims. When people dream of Jerusalem, they do not see the modern, politically controversial Jerusalem, but rather the holy biblical and religious city. Since 1980 Jerusalem’s psychiatrists have encountered an ever-increasing number of tourists who, upon arriving in Jerusalem, suffer psychotic decompensation. In view of the consistently high incidence of this phenomenon, it was decided to channel all such cases to one central facility – the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre … for psychological counselling, psychiatric intervention and, if deemed necessary, admission to hospital. Over the course of 13 years (1980–93), 1200 tourists with severe, Jerusalem-generated mental problems have been referred to this facility. Of these, 470 were admitted to hospital. On average, 100 such tourists are seen annually, 40 of them requiring admission to hospital.