Highly trained and experienced
psychotherapists guide acolytes through the process. Ana Radidovich is one
of them but in order to stay in Australia when her visa expires she needs a
husband.
It's 2000 and I'm 48 when a former lover, Ruth, rings me
at work out of the blue. We’ve lost contact but she’s found me courtesy of the
interweb and a newsletter I publish as part of my job. She asks if I’d consider
marrying Ana Radidovich for ten thousand dollars. It’s a lot of money to a man
of meagre means.
A meeting is arranged. Ruth
arrives at my door at 11am, sunny morning, Ana Radidovich with her. I shake Ana’s
hand, a beautiful silky hand whose tactile quality is like none I’ve felt
before. Although she grips my hand, her handshake is more like a caress. She
has black hair, come-hither eyes and a voice to charm the spots off a
toadstool.
Marrying this woman seems
eminently sensible to me immediately.
We sit at my dining table and
Ana and I parlay the terms of the possible marital arrangement right down to
who has what in whose wardrobe and for how long. For $10k I have to be prepared
to perjure myself by telling the Immigration Department, should they ask, that
our marriage is a genuine and wonderful thing.
Ruth, who says nothing during
the meeting, rings me next day, tells me she never witnessed anything like it
in her life, the strange mixture of practical directness imbued with genuine
warmth for each other.
Over the next week I learn from
a number of sources that these visa-marriages are quite common; that the going
rate is about $27k. I ring Ruth, tell her I can’t marry Ana. I’m relieved, but
not because my principles would have been compromised. It’s all about the risk,
the legal risk.
On the other hand I learn that
every man has his price, and mine is the going rate. For $27k I’d’ve been in
like Flynn.
Rock on.
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