16

The performances at the giant shell-like building have been much like the others, although the people here speak English and Bonny no longer tries to impress them. There is a stiffness to his movements and a forward curve to his shoulders, the same as Dorondera developed after Jurano died. When Bonny throws the spear, it misses its target. The newspapers report that he seems lazy. When Bonny asks Louis for twice his normal allowance, Louis agrees without argument.

‘Cunningham’s troupe’ has also recently arrived in England. Photographs have been taken of them, and prints made. Louis gives one to Bonny, who looks at the startled faces and shakes his head. I watch his expression tighten in anger. In Paris, I heard the group tell Bonny that they had been forced to make the journey across the sea, and that even when they had tried to escape they had been recaptured. Bonny tears the photograph in two and gives it back to Louis.

I watch Bonny as he stands under a flowering tree in Basel’s zoological gardens. He looks up into the tree’s branches and studies the shape of its leaves. It is unlike any other tree growing in Europe, and there are none like it in Australia. Bonny asks Beeral if, like him, it has been brought here on a ship. He stares up into the fleshy white flowers, crisp against the blue of the sky, the blossoms’ fragrance thick in the warm summer wind. In the hotel, Louis and Hilda are unwell with coughs, not as bad as Jurano’s was but enough to put them to bed. Hilda is the sicker of the two, and I pray that she recovers quickly. Bonny walked alone to the gardens from the hotel at first light when the air was cool and clean. He confides in Beeral that he no longer trusts his own ability to judge the goodness of a man.

‘Crowds,’ Bonny says, looking again to the east where Beeral is, ‘are more predictable. They promise little and do not disappoint.’ He stops for a moment. ‘As soon as I have enough money I will leave. I will find my way to the Queen in Germany, or England if she has returned there. If Hilda wishes to join me, she can come, but not Mr Müller. This is what I will do, Beeral. I have heard nothing of my people on K’gari. Tell me, how are they?’

A zoo attendant approaches and taps Bonny on the shoulder, interrupting his one-sided conversation with the great spirit. There is talk amongst the scientists that Bonny is losing his mind. The attendant points at the tall, limbless tree trunk to his right, which Bonny already climbed three times the previous day. The attendant smiles and asks Bonny in a different form of German if he might climb it again. Bonny holds up his hand to indicate five minutes. For now, the crowd is transfixed by the antics of a baby bear that is standing on its hind legs and reaching for an apple that a keeper is dangling in front of it. On its fourth or fifth attempt swinging at the polished red globe, the infant bear falls backwards, and the crowd laughs.

Rain begins to fall, and Bonny indicates to the zoo attendant that the tree pole will be slippery. He will climb, he points up the tree, only if he is given more money. He speaks quietly in German and holds out his hand.

The attendant shakes his head, and Bonny starts to walk from the enclosure. ‘Where are you going?’ the Swiss man asks.

‘To the hotel.’

Grudgingly, the attendant reaches into his pocket and hands Bonny more coins. ‘The director will be angry with me.’

Bonny walks to the tree and begins to climb; the audience turns like a school of fish and gathers around him. Yesterday, he agreed to have his photograph taken, standing in a field holding his bar’gan. After today’s shows he will sell copies of the picture and will keep most of the money for himself.

He looks down from the tree at the crowd who, enclosed by the garden’s perimeter fence, appear to be another collection of animals in the zoo. He takes one hand off the trunk to wave. It is not a usual part of his show, but he is restless. The crowd gasps as he holds on with just one arm and his legs.

‘Be careful, Bonny,’ Can-o-bie appears to call. The leaves rustle in the breeze.

Bonny reaches into the pocket of his cut-off trousers and takes out a coin, which he tosses into his beret at the foot of the tree, indicating what he expects of his audience. Several people follow suit, throwing money while urging him to even greater feats of daring. He lifts one of his legs off the tree and waggles it, still holding on with one shaking arm and waving at the audience four man-lengths below. Several more people throw coins at the beret. Some coins make their target. Others dot the grass and dirt.

Bonny claps his hand against his leg in applause at the audience’s payments and leans out a long way from the tree, showing off.

I can see Bonny’s supporting leg and arm shaking with the effort of holding himself there. People cup their hands over their open mouths. Bonny swaps arms and legs and waves again in the opposite direction, and a few in the crowd laugh. He points at the beret. More money is thrown. He takes from his trousers a length of twine which he then lassoes around the tree and, in his final feat of daring, holds onto the trunk with both of his arms and, by pressing inward with his forearms and elbows, is able to extend his legs directly out behind him. A circus trick. It is not something he has attempted before, but he has seen the Sinhalese perform great feats on the end of a stick, and he does not want to be outdone. The audience applauds, and Bonny clasps the tree again with both hands and feet before descending and retrieving his beret and gathering up his payment. A man extends his hand and Bonny shakes it casually, walking forwards already to the next person who is waving a note of money. It is more than Louis normally gives Bonny in a day. Bonny takes the note the man is offering and shakes his hand enthusiastically. He lets the man fly his bar’gan. Another man asks to try it, but Bonny holds out his hand for payment first.

‘You are a stupid people, aren’t you?’ he tells them in his own tongue, smiling as he does so. ‘Coming to watch me climb trees and paying me good money for it.’

The audience members smile and nod, telling one another that they have witnessed something extraordinary. When the director approaches, Bonny folds his bulging beret into his pocket.

The director shakes Bonny’s hand and indicates that he can return to the hut that is his resting place during the day. He then leads the crowd to the next show – the Samoyeds from the Russian arctic – six people, four reindeer and a dog. The Samoyeds have constructed a conical shelter they call a mya with many poles covered with reindeer hide. Earlier in the day, they invited Bonny, by way of a few shared German words, hand signals and mime, to camp with them here tonight, to sit around their fire, to cook meat and dance. They shared humorous stories of the whites and their puzzling ways. Bonny pointed to the pile of bones the Samoyeds had placed near their tent, asking where they got their meat. Misunderstanding, they pointed to the sky where the distant god Num lived. The bones were an offering to him.

One of the Samoyed boys sees Bonny now and runs towards him, jumping onto his back for a ride. In the boy’s mouth is a whistle made from a goose feather, and he blows it with all his might.

The director calls to Bonny, telling him to return to his enclosure, but Bonny appears not to hear. Instead, he runs with the young boy on his back, and the boy laughs in bouncing, jolty beats as Little Bonny once did when Bonny gave him rides along the beaches of K’gari.