Bequest

Chapter 12

You can't go to Japan, Dad,' Luke says on the phone.

'Of course, I can. And I'd love you to come too. Just think about it. The two of us overseas, we've never done that before. Why've we never done it? I'm paying. I won't have it any other way.'

'That's very generous of you, but I know you don't have the money right now. Anyway, it's hard for me to get the time off work . . . Dad . . . Dad? What's that noise? Is that the smoke alarm?'

'Oh . . . I've got fish and chips in the oven, hold on.' He puts the phone receiver down on the couch and shuffles into the kitchen, thinking his dinner is probably burnt by now; he'd forgotten all about it. But his kitchen is full of smoke, as thick and dark as the womb of a bushfire. On the bench-top sits a cross-legged Buddhist monk; his robe is on fire, his face is charring. Leonard stands in the kitchen mesmerised, drunk on the petrol-fuelled smoke, watching the Vietnamese monk's flesh burn. He has a straight-backed posture, a look of peaceful determination on his face. The photograph of this monk's self-immolation moved the entire world in the 1960s and here he is in Leonard's kitchen re-enacting his protest for the benefit of one very clever man.

Leonard flushes with excitement, convinced there must be a reason he keeps on seeing these things; the universe has lobbied together, held a meeting around the United Nations table, waved flags in a parade. Everything is saying he is destined for greatness, because history from his skin is appearing in his kitchen, in his living room, in his bed. The Vietnamese monk has a prominent position on his skin, burning on his left thigh, exactly as he is on the kitchen bench-top.

But slowly, the monk's body begins to tilt; embers fall from his face, his robe completely disappears. The smoke alarm continues to panic, and at last Leonard remembers to turn his oven off. He bends in front of it, hardly able to see through all the smoke, and turns two dials to "Off". He switches on the exhaust fan, opens a window, waves a tea towel in the air. The smoke clears and he sees that the monk has burnt into nothingness.

At last the smoke alarm goes silent. Leonard takes the tray out of the oven; his fish and chips are burnt black. Never mind, he tells himself, there's another half packet of each in the freezer. He can start all over again.

He remembers he's left Luke hanging on the line. He goes back to the living room and picks up the phone. 'Luke?'

'What happened? You've been ages. I was about to come around, I was worried—'

'It's all fine, fine. I just burnt my dinner. And there was so much smoke from Malcolm Browne's Buddhist monk. Can you believe I can remember the photographer's name after all these years? You all think that I'm losing my marbles, but I can still remember things like that. 1963, it was.'

'What, Dad? Is the kitchen okay? Nothing's burnt, is it?'

'The kitchen's fine. There wasn't even anything left on the bench-top afterwards.'

He hears Luke swallow a sigh. 'Go and eat your dinner, Dad. I'll come by on Sunday, okay?'

'Okay. And think about Tokyo. We'll talk about it then.'

'Bye, Dad.'