Scraps of Heaven Read Online Free PDF

senses are acute at this hour. It is the time of awakenings and speculations, a poet’s pastime. It is the hour of the muse who writes his verse upon transparent skies.
    Black-eyed Susans wink gold petals from a timber fence. A limp condom straddles a rib of the stormwater drain. Romek glances at the solitary palm that rises from a backyard in the block beyond the lane, the mute witness of his morning walk. Early morning rays illumine the pipes that extend over the lower rim of a brick wall; in a poet’s eyes the pipes are crimson veins swelling with blood.
    Romek turns right from the lane into Fenwick Street; he registers familiar markers upon the way: the neon POLICE sign, the whitewashed wall of a friend’s house, the horse trough on the corner of Amess Street. The shops in the Rathdowne Street strip are yawning into the light. The roofs of their verandahs funnel the length of the block, from Doukakaris’ milk bar to Chris the Cypriot’s all-purpose grocery shop.
    A light is on in Doukakaris’ back room. A man over fifty, he has recently moved in with his wife and three sons. Perhaps he too is crouched over a newspaper, stirring a Greek coffee. Romek is bemused that so much pleasure can be drawn from such tiny cups. Patterson, lord of the paperboys, has long been up. The boys are cycling back to his newsagency from their dawn rounds. A taciturn man, Patterson stands in the doorway of the shop, print-stained apron wrapped around his waist.
    The aroma of yeast from Kalman the baker’s blends with the exhaust of the Rathdowne Street bus. Romek pictures Kalman as he has seen him, shovelling the kneaded dough into the ovens. The ample flesh beneath his arms is shaking. The braided khallahs are lined up on the shelves, awaiting their Sabbath hosts; while several doors along, Posner is enjoying his final minutes of sleep in his bedroom above the barbershop. Perhaps he dreams of biblical beards and thickets of hair fluttering down upon linoleum floors. Or he lies awake in anticipation of the mid-morning gathering of the khalustre , the regular ‘gang’.
    Romek has seen them, trading opinions and quips like wagoners snapping whips, lounging on laminex seats as Posner lathers and snips. There is Potashinski, the cabaret specialist, with his rapid-fire jokes and barbed wit; Dobke, the Yiddish theatre bit-player, wiggling her ample hips; Zlaterinski, the Yiddish teacher, spouting opinions and spit from his fast-moving lips; and Waislitz, the Yiddish theatre legend, waving his arms as he rehearses his lines. Completing the circle are Gershov, the props man, and Podem, the Yiddish theatre caretaker, accompanied by an array of hangers-on, passing time.
    Across the road Weintraub the grocer is surely in the backyard harnessing his mare. Perhaps he serenades her with verses of ‘The Internationale’ . Fanny’s mouth is busy in her nosebag, the yard smells of horse dung and piss. Gibson, the bicycle repairer, is unlocking his shop nearby. A perpetual frown adorns his forehead, his hair flares a fiery white. He is, reflects Romek, a frustrated shopkeeper spoiling for a fight. His lean, muscular body suggests he was once an athlete who now bends his back to fit tyres, grease chains and adjust dynamo-powered lights.
    Romek extends his musings beyond Posner’s, to Stellios the fishmonger’s, O’Rourke’s hardware, and Bassos’ workshop. Where is it they come from? Yes. Carmignano de Brenta. Posner had spelt it out. Posner knows the details as hairdressers do, knows that Giacomo had arrived in Melbourne in 1951, and Gina in ’53. Knows that Gina had voyaged halfway round the globe as a proxy bride to marry a boy from the same town, the same street. Skilled artisans, determined workers, they had landed on their feet; like fellow countryman Mick Tallon, the shoe repairer’s one block removed, who tends the soles of numerous shoes that pound Carlton’s streets.
    Romek