Part Two
ABORIGINAL CHARTER
OF RIGHTS
We want hope, not racialism,
Brotherhood, not ostracism,
Black advance, not white ascendance:
Make us equals, not dependants.
We need help, not exploitation,
We want freedom, not frustration;
Not control, but self-reliance,
Independence, not compliance,
Not rebuff, but education,
Self-respect, not resignation.
Free us from a mean subjection,
From a bureaucratic Protection.
Lets forget the old-time slavers:
Give us fellowship, not favours;
Encouragement, not prohibitions,
Homes, not settlements and missions.
We need love, not overlordship,
Grip of hand, not whip-hand wardship;
Opportunity that places
White and black on equal basis.
You dishearten, not defend us,
Circumscribe, who should befriend us.
Give us welcome, not aversion,
Give us choice, not cold coercion,
Status, not discrimination,
Human rights, not segregation.
You the law, like Roman Pontius,
Make us proud, not colour-conscious;
Give the deal you still deny us,
Give goodwill, not bigot bias;
Give ambition, not prevention,
Confidence, not condescension;
Give incentive, not restriction,
Give us Christ, not crucifixion.
Though baptised, blessed and Bibled
We are still tabooed and libelled.
You devout Salvation-sellers,
Make us neighbours, not fringe-dwellers;
Make us mates, not poor relations,
Citizens, not serfs on stations.
Must we native Old Australians
In our own land rank as aliens?
Banish bans and conquer caste,
Then well win our own at last. |
From: We Are Going
By: Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal
(formerly known as Kath Walker)
Published by Jacaranda Press
|
11: Where no Birds Fly
Ribcott Street is an ugly varicose vein between two suburban arteries of
the city. It has been cut by the railway line at one end and sealed off from
the river by the wall of the tile factory. There are zigzag cracks in the
roadway, pavement slabs are broken, dog-legged picket fences are propped up
by pale sickly weeds. The factory wall shuts off the sun for all but three
hours of the day. The few scraggly gardens which manage to survive the rain
of soot have stunted shrubs with weird flowers, looking as if they were grown
under rocks.
Most of the houses are tin sheds with four windows, two doors and a warped
wooden veranda front and rear. Yet Ribcott Street is not bleak or barren enough
to be free from smell. The stink of the backyards is caused by soapy water
from sinks and wash-troughs flowing into so-called drywells, hidden just below
the surface of the festering earth. Illuta said this was the odour very old
people get before they die. It might have been a lot worse if the local council
had not made the landlords connect the toilets to deep sewerage.
I was sitting on the front veranda, picking at a dry crust of blood on top
of my head, when I first met Helen. She was a do-gooder. All of the West Stuart
neighbourhood receives more than its fair share of lady-bountifuls and Ribcott
Street is a favourite route. It isnt because the west side has any monopoly
on poverty or the slums are much bigger or better than half a dozen other
places in the city. Ribcott happens to be the shortest route between the district
hospital and the leading golf club. For those heading back to the posh suburbs
on the other side of town, the railway crossing saves time by missing the
traffic lights of the main city block.
I watched the two women working their way along the street. Both carried
expensive leather satchels. I speculated on whether it was biscuits and bully
beef or bibles and brotherly love they were dishing out. The tap of high heels
on the pavement brisk and sure; knocks on the front doors firm and resolute.
It would be about ten thirty; the time when the sun hits the front verandas
of Ribcott Street, also the hour when the Friends of Stuart Hospital
are given the bum-rush by anxious nurses and belligerent matrons, eager to
be shot of them before doctors rounds.
Even before meeting Helen I knew exactly what the Friends said
to one another. My next door neighbour spent each morning sitting on the bench
outside the hospital, waiting for the days crop of alcoholics to be
discharged. The alcohs usually had two or even three weeks back pension
to come; depending on the length of time they had spent in hospital drying
out. Bessie helped them drink it. For some reason most of the Wahbuta tribe
are exceptionally good mimics. Bessie would stand at the wash-troughs on her
back veranda singing Wahbuta songs, then break off and say in flawless English:
Those gladioli of yours, Gwen, were simply divine; such wonderful colours.
I think flowers make so much difference to the sick ... Bessie didnt
have the faintest idea what gladioli were; yet wasnt trying to be funny.
She just liked the sound of the words and the voices.
The women had now worked their way along the street and were pounding industriously
on my neighbours door. Bessie was the first black woman to rent a house
in West Stuart. The landlord couldnt get a white tenant, because the
roof not only leaked water, but also exuded a sticky grey fluid composed of
clay dust and soot from the smokestacks of the tile factory. Bessie said the
fluid came from the dead people on the roof. In the Wahbuta tribe the dead
are placed on a platform in a tree and allowed to decompose before the bones
are inserted in hollow logs. I dont know if Bessie really believed there
were bodies on her roof or not; in either case it didnt seem to worry
her at all. Naturally after Bessie moved in the white families on both sides
moved out; this left a couple more houses vacant. I got one and Jess Willard
the other.
Bessies front door was only about forty feet away and the constant
knocking echoed in my head. The sound began to drive jagged splinters of thought
into the carefully numbed brain. As the older woman was looking at me and
impatiently jiggling her satchel, I thought I had better say something.
Woman belonga dat place, no dere, missus, I called.
WeIl! The old girl sniffed and stalked across the veranda. You
might have said so before.
I also might have mentioned that the occupant was out in the backyard digging
up the sewer pipe. But I didnt think Bessie would like the information
spread around.
I must have grown careless about keeping the brain blank, for suddenly I
was back in the courtroom. The lawyer said: What was your wife and this
man doing when you entered the tile factory?
Dancing your honour.
Is that all they were doing?
Yes!
Had you any reason to suppose your conjugal rights had been violated?
No.
Isnt it true your wife was naked at the time in question?
She wore no clothes. It was a tribal dance ...
Helen brought me back to the present by trying to close Bessies gate
behind her. The rusty iron frame had no hinges; it teetered and fell across
the path, missing her ankles by the thickness of nylon. As she bent down and
struggled to lift it, I really saw her for the first time. This was no ladylike
little finger act; Helen took a good grip and the sinews stood out on the
backs of her legs with the strain. The rust and dirt didnt seem to bother
her.
Leave it, Helen, the other woman snapped. Dont mind
the wretched thing.
But Helen, with a surprising burst of strength for her slight figure, stood
the heavy gate up against the fence post. She saw me watching her and grinned.
I felt the performance deserved something. Him bim proper cheeky fella,
missus, I said, all falla down alonga track allatime.
She smiled in reply and wiped her hands on a handkerchief.
Come along, Helen, the old girl snapped. I have to pick
Bertram up during the lunch hour and have him fitted for a school blazer.
You run along, Mrs Mackecknie, the girl answered with complete
assurance. I should like to visit a few more of these people.
That might not be wise, dear, Mrs Mackecknie said flatly. Dont
you think you had better come along with me. It was an order.
I shall be perfectly all right, dear. Helen dimpled and smiled
with her mouth; her eyes had the blank cold stare women reserve for one another.
Mrs Mackecknie returned the look and snarled. If you are sure you will
be all right, dear. She was already walking away.
They called a few, bye-bye dears, and then it was my turn. I
couldnt think of any way to get out of it; besides it is always easier
to take the gifts than go through the long rigmarole of why you dont
need bibles or biscuits.
Helen finished making a mess of her lace edged hanky and picked up the leather
satchel. She smiled. Well at least I wont have any trouble with
your gate. Will I now?
I worked up a deep southern chuckle that would have done credit to Paul Robeson.
Him bim proper easy gate, missus. Some cheeky fella bim takeum allaway.
I remembered the landlord had been rather voluble on the subject of the missing
gate. He went into a lot of detail about renting good houses to thieving boongs
and ended with the familiar theme: The more a man tries to do for you
thieving black bastards ...
Helen was laughing as she carefully selected a footing for her spiked heels
among the broken bricks of the path. She had ankles like wrists and walked
with a quick birdlike step that set her pleated skirt swinging.
I stood up and looked at my feet; adopting the correct posture for receiving
a handout. You bim mission lady, missus? I muttered in encouragement.
Bending my neck was a mistake.
Oh! You poor thing! she exclaimed. Whatever happened to
the top of your head?
Mebim proper clumsy fella, missus, I apologised.
Well we will have to get something on those cuts, she said with
brisk efficiency. Come inside and let me bathe them for you.
I was still looking at my feet and missed the initial movement. Before I
could stop her, Helen had taken three rapid steps across the veranda and flicked
the front door open. I snarled and jumped to close it, but she was already
inside and looking around with open mouthed amazement.
Good heavens! Why its beautiful she exclaimed in incredulous
disbelief. However did you ... I can hardly believe it!
I made a grab for her arm, but in a flutter of excitement she had darted
across the room and alighted near the bookshelves. I stalked around the carpet,
itching to get within throttling distance; the small hands and tapered fingers
stopped racing across the gold lettering of the calf-bound books and she was
off again. To touch the copper plate on the mantel; the Dresden figurines.
She danced around the imitation leather chairs and glided from painting to
mural with little squeals of joy; unconsciously posing straight blond hair
and milky whiteness against the darker patterned scroll of the wallpaper.
Her skirt brushed the fake tapestry screen and it slid open on well-oiled
rollers. For a few seconds the uninvited guest stood with her back to me peeping
into the bedroom; bottom stuck out in a cheeky flaunting of my privacy. Then
turned in a swirl of petticoats and stood perfectly still; lips parted in
a breathless question, I glared at her, my hands twitching at my sides.
With a trace of a smile, Helen mocked me in fluent pidgin. Camp belonga
you bim plenty alright sit-down, comealonga sundown.
I grinned in spite of myself. Now you have admired the modest comforts
of my home, would you mind getting to hell out of it?
She chuckled. Not until I have fixed those cuts on your head.
I had a sudden impulse to tear the complacency away; to get through to the
raw meat of her neat little soul and see how white and shiny it really was.
How long have you been in the handout business? I probed.
She smiled and extracted a small first aid kit from the satchel. Ever
since I left finishing school. About three years.
Found any rank depravity yet?
Helen bent over me and began snipping the hair away from the cuts. No,
I dont think so, she answered absent-mindedly. Did you get
in a fight?
No, I did it with a razor. There was just enough disinterest
in the question not to make a lie worthwhile.
You mean to tell me after three years of crawling around the cesspools
you havent struck one patch of vile foulness? Maybe just a little satanic
loathsomeness? She shook her head. Not even a bit of unnatural
practice to clutch icy fingers around your sweet pure heart; to send vicarious
thrills up your unbent spine?
I havent found that sort of thing, Helen answered primly,
because I dont look for it. However did you manage to slash the
top of your head with a razor? There are four or five cuts and theyre
quite deep.
I did it deliberately. Its the standard tribal procedure for
counteracting loss.
Does it work? she calmly enquired.
No. As a student of scum you might be interested to know pain does
not increase or decrease mental anguish. It merely transfers a balance of
physical sensation to the other side of the scale.
The self-pity side?
Exactly.
She walked around the curved breakfast-bar and rummaged in a kitchen cupboard
for a suitable bowl. You get your philosophy the hard way, dont
you?
How did you get yours?
Helen filled the bowl with water and added disinfectant. Mostly from
books, I suppose. She came back and sat on the side of the chair, dabbing
at my skull with a piece of cotton wool. Her skirt was hiked up over one knee.
I got tired of the sanctimonious act. Ah come off it, I snarled.
You leave your golf club and cocktail parties to climb down into the
pit, reeking of faith, hope and charity. If you dont descend for a little
roll in the slime, what do you come for?
She stood up and walked to the back door to empty the bowl; stopped in the
doorway with the sun on her blond hair and smiled at me over her shoulder.
Mummy always said, virtue was its own reward.
And apart from that, I sneered, there is always a chance
a black man might rape you. It never happens, but it might.
She raised pale gold eyebrows and walked out. After about five minutes I
followed to see what was keeping her. For some time I hadnt done much
laughing, but now the cap came off and it roared out of me. I thought
you didnt look at depravity, I bellowed.
Helen didnt answer. She stood on the back veranda watching Bessie Trotter;
the fence had collapsed in a couple of places and we had an unrestricted view.
Bessie was standing in a hole about four feet deep, shovelling furiously with
a long handled shovel; stripped to the waist, the top of her dress rolled
around her flabby belly. Every time Bessie threw a shovelful of dirt onto
the mound behind her head, the long pendulous breasts would slap against the
side of her neck.
Its a pity Bessies breasts arent just a bit longer,
I chortled. Then she could toss them over her shoulders out of the way.
Helen had turned pink with embarrassment. I followed her back inside. The
lady with the shovel is Mrs Trotter, I informed her. She is digging
up the sewer pipe. You can tell your society friends all about it.
Helen dropped the first aid kit while putting it back in the satchel; her
composure had also slipped a little.
The sewer pipe? she asked in pretended indifference; trying not
to look lost and out of her depth.
Yes! With the toilet blocked and the health inspector due tomorrow,
Bessie has no time to waste. She must get it cleared before he comes and has
the job done for her.
It seems to me like the landlords responsibility.
Not in this case, I hastened to explain. In Bessies
trade accidents happen and it seemed to her the best place to dispose of this
mishap was down the toilet. As you saw, she was mistaken and if the health
inspector ...
You seem to enjoy your neighbours troubles, Helen interrupted
as she picked up the leather bag and prepared to leave.
I walked over to the cocktail cabinet and unlocked it. Would you join
me in a drink before you go?
She frowned in baffled annoyance, but put the bag down. I thought you
were anxious to get rid of me?
The malicious satisfaction of watching her wriggle abated a little. I
feel like talking to someone for five minutes. What do you drink?
Helen sat demurely on the edge of the chair. I dont mind. A small
brandy; whatever youre having.
My hands were shaking as I poured the drinks. I hadnt slept or eaten
anything for the last three days. Not since the police woman came for Illutas
clothes and I finally got it through my head she wouldnt be coming back.
I became convinced if I stopped talking and sat perfectly still, then either
tears or something desperate would result; it wasnt quite that vague.
The something had more than an outline of violence and I knew it would be
directed at Helen and all she stood for. Probably rape; the utmost expression
of anger and contempt.
I said: By the way, I dont enjoy Bessies troubles. If I
thought she wouldnt be able to clear the pipe in time I would help her.
I am sure you would. The poor woman certainly looks as though she could
use a friend.
The rape thing was still there; I didnt want her approval. Nuts!
Bessie has plenty of friends; shes a prostitute. Its a never-ending
source of amazement to a Wahbuta lubra that white men will pay to sleep with
her. In Bessies tribe the husband might occasionally lend his wife to
a visiting friend, but there would certainly be no question of payment. However,
when in Rome ...
Helen was watching me over the top of her glass and taking little sips. Are
there many other coloured families in this street? I have only recently returned
from the Eastern States and most of the people I knew here seem to have gone.
She seemed to recognise the necessity for me to keep talking.
There are only two white houses left in Ribcot, I raved on. One
belongs to Mr Tollman and his old wife; they are both active members of the
Salvation Army. The other is rented by Fred Hambly; hes an alcoholic.
When sober enough, Fred tells anyone who will listen alcoholism is a disease;
he reads passages out of books to prove it. Mrs Hambly is a prostitute; she
says prostitution isnt a disease, its a bloody necessity with
a drunken bastard like Fred for a husband.
My spring unwound and I sat watching the effect of the midday sun, coming
down the chimney and reflecting off the brass firescreen onto Helens
legs. She saw me watching her and held out the empty glass.
Thank you for the drink. She made a half-hearted attempt to get
up, then relaxed as I refilled her glass.
Thank you for the first aid and the fraternising. You must realise
all of us boongs are fanatically colour conscious.
I suppose you would be. She smiled. I understood about
the pidgin English if thats what you mean.
No it isnt. All I meant was, youre incredibly white, arent
you? Damn near Snow White! No wonder the boongs thought the first white settlers
were the ghosts of their ancestors.
I imagined I still had some of my summer tan left. She pulled
her skirt down an inch and changed the subject. This is a really lovely
room; you must be very proud of your home.
Copied from a picture in a magazine, I informed her. Everything
duplicated, faked or imitated, right down to the china doll and the copper
plate. The dividing wall had to be torn out to make enough space. Some day
the landlord is going to find out about the missing wall, but up to date I
have managed to keep him and the neighbours out of the house.
You copied it from a picture! Then there is no womans influence
in all this?
Do you imagine any man would go to so much trouble just for himself?
She pursed her lips and looked around. No, I suppose not. I was just
trying to visualise the woman who would fit this room.
What type do you have in mind?
Helen frowned and tugged at her ear. Someone not unlike me I suspect,
but more precise and exacting in her ways. She grinned. How am
I doing?
You are going quite well. Perhaps the slight uncompromising stiffness
you notice belongs to me; still you qualify for the jackpot question.
And that is?
The woman you picture in this room. What colour is her skin?
Helen blushed, even the tips of her ears went red; yet without the slightest
hesitation, she answered: White.
I emptied the glass of brandy I had poured for myself into the fireplace
and watched the liquor soak the bark of the logs. It was at this moment I
reached a decision; knew exactly what had to be done.
Helen laughed a bit shakily. Im sorry, but that was an unfair
question; no offence intended.
None taken; you just helped me make up my mind.
Is that why you threw your drink away? Or dont you like old brandy?
I told her the truth. I have never tasted brandy or any other alcoholic
drink. Abunda dissolve in alcohol.
Yet you keep a cocktail cabinet full of expensive liquor?
Yes. The availability gave me a certain amount of morbid satisfaction.
As I stood up and carefully replaced the glasses on the cabinet, I felt curiously
light and relaxed, as though a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I said to Helen: At the risk of seeming rude I should like to thank
you for the first aid and wish you good afternoon. There is something I have
to do.
She gave a little bob curtsy and laughed. As we are getting all formal
and priggish, I also thank you, Mr Ahaa, for your excellent brandy and doubtful
hospitality.
Tribesmen have no surnames, I mocked her, but you could
call me Mr Abunda.
She smiled and held out her hand. Helen of the Reeves tribe, Mr Abunda.
I recognised genuine friendliness and at the same time realised how great
the gulf was between us. Helen was close to the end product of her race; the
thousand years of mastery culminating in small-boned easy tolerance. Serene
composure; almost total lack of prejudice.
I took her hand. Irritcha is my tribal name, I am called Chalky.
In all the tribes, after an exchange of names, the former stranger is given
a precise place in the group and an exact relationship with all its members;
even to the point of what portion of the food may be eaten and from which
totem a marriage could be arranged. I didnt know what my relationship
with Helen might be. I wish I had.
I walked with her to the front gate. She said: Goodbye, Irritcha. Can
I come and treat those cuts again?
I grinned. Well I cant say you know where I live because tonight
this place is going to burn to the ground.
Helen thought I was joking.
About five oclock I saw Jess Willard coming home from work and ducked
around to the back veranda. Bessie had cleared the pipe and for a while there
was a continual splashing sound as she filled in the now flooded hole. The
whistle blew at the tile factory for the change of shift.
For a long time I sat on the back steps listening to the night noises; the
bitterness fogging up my brain, a rolling in and out in waves of disgust.
Hours after Bessie had finished with the shovel, stones and little clods of
earth plopped into the water from the edge of the crater she had left behind
...
... Like the sound of fish jumping in a rock pool ... Half a day spent in
making a fishing line from palm fibre and thorns ... Four hours more for me
to catch three small fish ... It took Illuta ten minutes to extract the sap
from a special root and tip the juice into the water; two or three more minutes
before every fish in the pool came floating to the surface belly up. I told
her I didnt want to eat poisoned fish. She said they were only sleeping;
gave me a patronising smile as she selected half a dozen of the largest and
let the other swim away ... So as a tribesman Im a flop ... It proves
she knows more about catching fish than I do ... What of it! ... With the
money I earned we could have had fish and chips every night of the week, cooked
in batter, wrapped in news paper, sprinkled with salt and vinegar ...
Further up the street it sounded as if at least three women were all getting
murdered at once. The high pitch of the voices held part of the tone; the
one cry Illuta gave as the policewoman pulled her arms from the veranda post
and took her away. It was probably only Lulu screaming at her old man, the
pink snakes or both.
Then Ribcott Street was cemetery quiet. A street light at the back of the
lane accentuated the darkness. Like the honeymoon fires in the centre of the
great plain ... wells of light with two tiny figures crouched at the bottom
and all of the shining dead of the Abunda looking down on us ... Let them
look! ... So it was Illuta who fed me for two months ... Illuta who could
twirl the fires sticks and produce a flame while I developed nothing but blisters
... Illuta whose whizzing nulla-nulla dropped kangaroos in their tracks while
my spears shattered on rocks ... What of it! ... Rip the roof off No. 36 and
let the stars see what I did provide for my wife ... For what? ... So an ignorant
savage could have me testifying in court ... Isnt it true your
wife was naked at the time in question? ... Of course it was true! How
else would you expect to find a creature one link away from the Inapatua?
I went into the house, turned on the lights; threw half a gallon of kerosene
and two bottles of methylated spirits on the walls. This had to be a good
fire; it was essential to clear away the mess of our existence and leave a
fallow ash. I emptied the contents of the cocktail cabinet over the double
bed. Nomad tribes always fire the grass of the country they have passed through;
so it will be fresh and green when they return. I told this to the policeman
who arrested me he was not amused.
When it was ready to go I spent another quarter of an hour tidying up. Washed
the glasses Helen and I had used and put them back; vacuumed the carpet and
ran a polishing rag over the furniture until the wood reflected the light.
Maybe a man values his sweat more than his life; sees his essence dripping
from his body and seeping into the earth. He says in effect: My own sweat
and not the juice of others built this monument. No matter how futile or useless;
this thing proves I lived.
Two years of sweat and aching muscle went into that room; there had to be
some justification. It was beautiful both in the planning and the burning.
When the mattress and the walls were well alight I locked the doors and threw
the key under the house; stood on the back veranda and watched. There were
moving shapes in the room; rolling white fleecy clouds and black thunderheads.
Tongues of bright fire licked at the glass of the windows and flickered like
sheet lightning in a gathering storm. The flames had form and symmetry separate
from the things they consumed; a greedy all devouring fire. Until the windows
broke there wasnt much of a roar.
By the time my neighbours awoke and the fire brigade arrived the roof had
started to fall in and it was all over. I had shifted up near the back fence;
partly to escape the heat and partly the crowd.
Col Parker, the landlord, was overjoyed with the fire. He cursed me in a
jovial fashion for about ten minutes; kept saying: Lucky for me its
insured. I gathered the place was covered for a good deal more than
it was worth; which still wouldnt have to be much. Jess Willard wanted
me to come home to his place, but I said I wanted to rake through the ashes
when they cooled down a bit.
After Col and Jess left I squatted between the back fence and the toilet;
where I couldnt be seen by the rubbernecks who still hung around the
smouldering embers. It was full daylight now and I was watching a little river
of watery ash go trickling past into the lane.
In stunned awareness I suddenly realised I crouched at an altar. Here! Illuta
had knelt to pray! In instant humility lanced with shame and self-contempt
I saw the tarnished figure I had created become a consecrated child of God.
The slovenly housewife I had abused and defiled with a filthy cloak of civilisation
had knelt here heavenly-minded to worship and adore. Every screaming attack
about unmade beds and uncooked meals had been countered with reverence. For
every debasing act of convention forced upon her Illuta in genuflexion venerated
her God; repaid slur with homage.
I felt as though I had received a violent electric shock. I must have seen;
my eyes had looked even though my brain turned away. It was right at my feet.
I drove stiffened fingers hard into the ground and felt the stones tearing
back the nails as I scrabbled for severed roots. An epic poem was written
here! Perhaps the blood dripping from my fingers gave me brief contact with
the Earth Mother I saw only a blinding truth. Not an excuse for Illutas
failure to adjust; nothing to do with the pitiful shabby mantle I had forced
her to live under. This was the altar of a pure and holy being. It showed
not only affinity with the earth but a true oneness with everything-on-above-below.
I squatted at the edge of a shallow pit; a flat square where the earth had
been scraped away, about eight foot square and four inches deep. The horror
of the crime I had committed mounted with an ever-increasing intensity. It
came first from sight, then when this was saturated seemed to soak in through
a million pores. As a tree breathes so did the appalling truth enter my mind
and body; primitive, long-closed cells opened hungry starving mouths and sucked
at the polluted air. My feet ached to burst through their leather coverings
and wriggle deep into the dirt; an agony for the sap and sustenance of my
people wracked me. I cried out with the unbearable pain of a separation from
the earth from Illuta.
The floor of the pit was of soft red clay in which could be graphically seen
the footprints of hundreds of birds. It seemed as though all the birds of
Australia had at one time strutted about in this one place. Every winged thing;
from the almost invisible marks of the sandpiper; to crested pigeons, cockatoos,
ibis and the heavily indented tread of the cassowary. Each toe and claw mark
exactly as deep as the weight of the feathered body would sink it in the clay;
every line of every joint faithfully reproduced. Those who knew the tracks
of birds could say without doubt: A plover walked here, a quail there; an
emu walked across this yard ... Crossed the gaping jaws of hell and flew through
the deathly grey smog to walk the festering earth ... of this frightful place
where no birds fly.
Here Illuta knelt to pray. She didnt say the words, she drew the symbols
the feet of birds. While I was at work she crouched behind the toilet
and spent the lonely hours and days in prayer:
I, Illuta, recognise no victory over nature; neither wall nor roof
nor covering shall hide me from thine eyes of mercy. Dearly beloved rain,
sun, root and sap to thee do I send up my sighs, mourning and weeping in this
pollenless air. I beseech all living things, large and small, to open their
jaws and beaks and mouths to pray for me. Numbukulla reach down and pluck
your daughter from the jangaga; from those who plan the everlasting destruction
or enslavement of everything unlike their own twisted seed. To the whispering
worship of wing and tree; to the rivers throaty praise; to the silent homage
of the rocks and mountains I add my desperate plea ...!
I can remember rocking on my heels and howling like a dog; tearing a picket
off the fence and beating myself across the head until I lost consciousness.
When I came to I did it again. I was still there when the police arrived.
As I said, the landlord was delighted with the fire; but the insurance company
was not. I got six months for arson.
12: Red Feathers
Every week, while I was in prison, Jock McEwan sent me four packets of cigarettes
and a small tin of coffee. I have no idea why. The only thing we had in common
was that we both worked for Markostein. Jock still does. Probably if Markostein
had been less of a caricature, more subtle in feeding his voracious appetite
for possessions, I might never have fully understood why Illuta began to die
the minute she crossed the tribal boundaries.
Julius Markostein holds a long-term lease on a raised concrete platform owned
by the Stuart Market Trust. There are one hundred and twenty-three similar
rostrums under the sprawling roof of the S.M.T.
In the early hours of the morning, before the giant gates are rolled back,
the great stone desert is as clean and barren as a prison. Arc lights in the
roof shine down on a wasteland of cement; the wooden office buildings in the
centre of each bare stage add to the dreary, unaltering monotony. In itself
the S.M.T. is nothing; like the prison its sterile space is tenanted by productive
men.
Only after the gates are opened and the milling sea of trucks have unloaded
their mountains of produce do the markets become a reality. The sweating dago
unloading his crates of cauliflowers and cabbages; mumma with a black shawl
covering her head and bare muscular arms handing the cases of oranges to her
husband, or dragging the bags of pumpkins across the battered deck of the
truck. They are the essential; the presence in space; the real, actual, positive,
absolute. Watermelons, radishes, carrots, apples, pears, everything growing,
emerging, coming forth, compliments the grower. Nothing can be added or subtracted
by the ratlike cunning of the negative figures who stand between grower and
buyer. Illuta knew the strength in the thrusting seed; knew when certain green
shoots of desert plants broke the earth, when water lily bulbs would be ripe
and ready in lagoons far to the north. Knew the talk of trees and what one
plant said about another; heard the whispered secrets of ants and beetles
concerning rain or storm. IIluta would not understand the dealers in the market
place who traded in nix, nihility, ether. Neither did I until I sat on a prison
bunk rubbing the bumps and cuts on my head and thinking of the claws of birds.
No outside influence penetrates a prison cell; separated from present and
future there only remain the stark facts of what was.
Markostein was a pair of fat clutching paws, forever extended towards other
peoples possessions. Almost every item, both in his office and home,
is a bargain; a mute record of some personal tragedy. It was all good stuff,
he bought cheap and second-hand, but not shoddy. Julius read the death notices
before he turned to the For Sale columns and could remember the
death of a complete stranger occurring weeks before his effects came up for
auction. By this method he obtained two or three cars a year and always sold
them for more than he paid. One time he bought a Humber Snipe from a recent
widow for three hundred pounds and sold it two weeks later for eight fifty.
Cars were his hobby.
The carpets, lounge suite, typewriters, beds, filing cabinets, furniture,
everything Markostein owned had a little history of misfortune attached to
it. His constantly changing possessions came through receivers hands;
had been offered at deceased estate sales. Most of the electrical appliances
had been repossessed by a hire-purchase company and resold by public
auction. Only Markostein and the manager of this company knew when the
auctions were to take place and the bidding was not brisk. I suppose it is
merely coincidence, but Markosteins wife is a divorcee. There are three
children, all by the first marriage.
About three oclock in the mornings the big fridge motor, outside the
back wall of the cell block, plays its nightly fanfare for horsepower ...
If it hadnt been for the five ton Ford I might have worked as offsider
for another six months on Jock McEwans truck and then gone back to Table-Tops
and Illuta ... Maybe I wouldnt have ... I dont know.
Markostein bought the Ford from a bankrupt mining company; it was supposed
to be a used vehicle, but was in fact brand new. The little tits of rubber
still stuck out from the tyre treads and the footplates werent even
scratched. When I first saw her she was roped down to a flattop railway truck;
I only had my licence about a week. Markostein said he liked the offsiders
to have a licence in case the driver was away sick.
Better get her off, Jock grumbled. If I dont get
another load of spuds before dinner, it means three trips this arvo.
I kept looking at the Ford and wondering what her new driver would be like.
Whens the new bloke starting, Jock?
I dont know. If you ask him something Jock has to straighten
up and think about it. Tomorrow I suppose. The locomotion centre
of his brain must be connected to the voice box. Shud up and get a fuggin
move on, Chalky. I told you I gotta get them spuds.
McEwen looks a bit like a gorilla. The mat of hair on the chest spreads up
over the top of a black singlet and thins out across the lumpy shoulders.
Dark curly hair on the thick arms grows right down the wrists and across the
back of stubby fingers; there are little tufts of hair growing out of his
ears. Jock can sink a hook into a bag of spuds and toss it to the top of a
six high stack without effort; can back a loaded semitrailer into a bay with
less than a quarter inch of spare room. And he makes up little one-line songs
about traffic lights and girls and eating lunch. .Jock sings them to himself
below the level of the engine roar. Stop and go and eat my crib yo ho
ho ho. See her little bum wobble, twiddle twaddle twiddle twaddle.
I kept wondering about the Ford and couldnt get my tongue to leave
it alone. Marko had a big queue outside his office this morning. There
must be a lot of truck drivers out of work?
Jock fought with a stubborn knot but the fingers stopped tugging at it the
instant his mouth opened. Half them bludgers arent looking for
work. They hang around the labour exchange picking up the dole. He remembered
the rope and got lousy about stopping. Thats what youll
be doin if you dont get a fuggin move on.
All the ropes are off except the one youre buggerising about with.
Why do they apply for the jobs if they dont want work?
Because they fuggin well have to or the dole cuts out. Get in the cab
and see if the bastardll start. Check the oil and ignition.
I suppose I caught the horse hallucination off Jock, although Illuta also
invests inanimate objects with personality. Jock taught me to feel the pull
as well as listen to the engine; talked of horse power as though it was the
living flesh of horses; said a perfect change down was like lightly flicking
the team across the rump and feeling them surge into the harness. During the
early part of the depression Jock did some contract dam sinking with an eight-horse
team of Clydesdales. If I let the revs falloff and the vibration started in
the cab, the shuddering grief of it would be in his eyes. While learning to
drive I would feel the team stumble and bellow in hideous agony if the tortured
metal of the gear cogs refused to mesh. I learnt to listen and get the change
down in at the exact moment the revs began to falloff. If Jocks old
Chev went into a steep pinch in too high a gear, I would see the sinew standing
out on his throat and arms; my own neck and shoulders would start to ache
from the pull. Jock loves the wonderful horses under cylinder heads and hates
to see them belted to their knees.
I switched on the ignition and the amp needle swung to discharge. There is
no sewing machine purr about a five tonner; she sings the fanfare of a hundred
horse. I eased her into compound low and took the tension off Jocks
rope.
Thats fixed the poxed up bastard of a thing! He yelled
at me and threw the coiled rope over a pin. What are ya waitin
for, Chalky? Its no good hangin around for an offsider, the new
bloke will be coming with me.
I felt a jump in my guts as though a rabbit was loose. Im your
offsider! What are you raving about, Jock?
Shes all yours, Chalky. Marko said to get her registered before
you come back; pick up the new licence plates from the cop shop.
I sat high up in the cab staring down at him. You mean this is going
to be my truck?
Ah shit! Jock snarled. What do ya want, a written guarantee?
The roar of the engine was a high pitched song in my head as she gingerly
rolled off the flattop and down the side of the loading ramp. I pulled up
alongside Jocks Chev. Throw me crib over will you, Jock?
It came out fairly casual. And chuck us that spare hook. Your offsider
can get a new one from Marko.
He grinned and passed the paper bag and curved steel prong through the window.
You probably wont need the hook much. Marko has a couple of new
contracts; hes going to put you onto cartin tomatoes and bananas.
Jock started his engine and yelled at me. How does it feel, Chalky?
I laughed. Fine! Hope you get a good offsider.
Yer! He started to move off. Another useless bastard to
drink my coffee thermos dry.
Cars and people look small and vulnerable from the cab of a heavy truck.
At city crosswalks the team grumble and champ at the bit; the leashed power
is a lusty potent force of physical energy. Truck drivers feel obliged to
wave and whistle at girls.
It was the big deal with the boong-makes-good angle thrown in. I didnt
knock it; I liked slaving my guts out for Markostein I really did.
Atua-kurka no longer meant much to me, except I had to go into a cubicle instead
of lining up with the other truck drivers in the railway-yards toilet. Most
nights I had a peculiar dream which would begin with me being pressed against
the Nurtunja pole or the Jarandalba cross; it would end with Manala slapping
me across the face and saying, drink this, only instead of a frogs
belly full of water he would be holding out a shield brimming with blood.
I put it down to eating pastry before going to bed and sent Bob Tipper a letter
and some money. I asked him to put Illuta on the boat.
And two baboons got out bassoons and played here comes the bride ...
I didnt actually tell a lot of lies about Illuta. Jock knew I was married
to a woman of my own tribe. I told him she was due to arrive on the Sunday
morning. The impression he gained of red feathers and hula-hula skirt was
not of my making; although I did nothing to correct the curve away from the
truth. On pay-day he insisted I go up to the pub with him and his new offsider:
and down a few for the blushing bride.
The missionaries never sold me on the evils of booze; it was probably just
cowardice stopped me hanging around pubs. A solitary black skin in a horde
of white acts as a negative plate; in constant exposure to an ominous risk.
The peril exists in shops, streets, milk bars, cafes. It is a soundless stare
in these places; but near the boozers the thin intangible veil thickens like
a rolling bank of a fog. A drunk might say the words: Get lost nigger
... Whats this black bastard doing here? Like the flare of a match
in the mist the danger assumes a form ... of losing more than a fist fight
... of a casual encounter exploding into horrible screaming violence. It has
never happened to me. As the entire aboriginal population of Stuart would
not amount to more than two or three hundred almost total security is provided
by lack of numbers. Blacks constitute more of a rarity than a minority group
and therefore suffer less from persecution than protection. It doesnt
prove anything except the murderous efficiency of the early settlers.
The barman made the usual fuss about inspecting my citizenship papers; holding
the card well up to the light, his lips moved spelling out the unfamiliar
words. The smell of alcohol bothered me more than the check-up. Three stone
flagons of O.P. rum always stood against the far wall of Freds shack;
they had tapering wooden bungs driven into the necks. I learnt to tell whether
the jars were full or empty by the slight difference in the colour of the
wood.
Jock said: Right oh, fella! Youve seen it. Give us some beers.
The barman in addition to being a slow reader was evidently not accustomed
to making racial decisions.
Matt Hulse, Jocks offsider, was looking at me and the adjudicator in
frowning perplexity. If there were Ku-Klux-Klan or Strange fruit hanging
on southern trees in Australia, there might be some point to these ridiculous
situations.
Matt beckoned the judge to come closer. How vood you like a smack in
the ear? he asked conversationally.
The barman handed my card back. Got my job to do, he said with
a touch of pride. If a black fellas got his papers he gets a drink.
If he aint he dont. The law ...
Ah shut up and give us three pots, Jock snarled. Two pots
and a lemon squash, I corrected him.
Your papers are OK, the barman said confidentially. You
can have a beer if you wanta.
I dont wanta.
He wants a lemon squash! Jock said it as though this drink had
some particular virtue not shared by any others.
Matt lifted his pot. Heres to the blushing bride.
We drank to Illuta. Did you get a house, Chalky? Jock enquired.
Rented a joint in Ribcott Street, I casually answered. Its
not much of a place, but will do until I can look around.
In a couple of weeks of solid searching, this two-roomed shed was the only
dwelling where I had even come close to striking the combination of being
able to afford the rent and a landlord who would accept it off me. There is
no colour bar in Stuart; a black millionaire could live anywhere he liked.
I tried the Stuart Housing Commission, the form they gave me to fill in contained
the clause: marriage certificate must be attached to this form before
consideration will be given to placing applicants on the waiting list.
Explaining the Abunda marriage ritual to a government clerk seemed fraught
with endless possibilities of despair; besides the only proof of my status
was a lacerated organ, which I had no intention of pinning to an application
form.
What did they slug ya for the rent? the practical Matt enquired.
Fifty bob a week, I told him. The landlord said I could
keep the first weeks rent and buy a bit of paint.
Typical of the hungry bastards, Jock commented. Too bloody
lousy to have the joint painted by a tradesman. Any furniture in it?
There an old bed, a table and a couple of chairs. As fine a collection
of gifts as was ever assembled to win the fairy tale Kings daughter;
no horses with wings or magic rings but practical everyday useful things:
A wobbly legged pine table with a bit of greasy lino on top; two straight
backed chairs with perforated plywood seats and a squeaky iron bed, complete
with loose brass knobs. With this dazzling collection of junk, plus the privilege
of driving a truck, how could I lose? The funny part about it is I really
could have won a Princess. All I had to do was go down to the boat on the
Sunday morning and say the magic words: Stay aboard dont
join me, Ill join you.
And the missus never seen a city before! Jock said for the tenth
time, with the same tone of delighted interest.
Never lived in a house either, I skited.
She wears red feathers and a hula-hula, skirt, Matt began crooning.
Half a dozen or more drinks later, Jock was still reciting a litany in praise
of women: The good uns are all a bloody sight better people than men.
They dont go out on the tiles with anythin that comes along; get
up all hours of the night to a sick kid, whether the little bastards
sick or not ...
Like dogs, Matt interrupted. He indicated the door with the toe
of his boot. Whats that old mong waiting outside for me for? I
dont even feed him my missus does. I just kick his arse for lying
in my chair or rootin up the flowers; yet every Friday night I come
down here and he waits outside the door for me to walk him home.
Never seen a city before! Jock was shaking his head and looking
owlishly into his beer. Thats bloody wonerful, Chalky!
Bet you that old dog of mines out there right now, Matt
insisted.
Some time later the three of us went outside to see if Matts dog was
really there and the barman locked the door. We walked down the street bellowing
at top pitch:
An elephant brought her in, and though it may sound silly, shes
here with me and you should see us walk down Piccadilly ...
I dont need to drink beer; I get just as drunk on squash.
Matts boxer dog walked by his side. Dont forget,
he said earnestly. Soon as you and the missus get settled in, Chalky,
come around and meet my brood. You dont need a bloody permit to get
into my joint, mate.
Chalkys all right! Jock slapped me on the back in confirmation.
Hes not a bad sort of prawn buys in his turn. Stick his
boots under my table any time he likes.
Well do that, Matt, I promised. You too, Jock.
But we never did. Illuta lacked the right costume for visiting; the red feathers
and the grass skirt.
The harbour is built on the mouth of the river. I suppose its the mouth;
although a giant sewer pipe enters the water from the north shore and raises
some doubt. The dreaming of the harbour is in the quay of C, like in seagulls.
The thin plaintive cry of the gulls is also the voice of Illuta ... The prison
is not far from the harbour and all day the gulls fly overhead ... At nights
the fridge motor takes up the sighing and a sobbing ...
Linked with the cry in the sky there is an absurd tragicomic series of events.
I had a telegram from Fred Tipper saying which boat to meet; I think he was
a bit lousy with me for not coming up to the homestead, either before or after
the walkabout; it was an ignorant way to behave. Fred sent me a Christmas
present every year while I was at school; nothing much but always something
...
The great flocks wheel in flight above the harbour ... bolts of feathered
steel drop from the eye of the sun ... From immaculate blue they descend into
filth. Streamlined perfection of tendon and pinion debased by diving on the
rubbish floating in the harbour ... Ether hunters turned scavengers. Soggy
bread and orange peel are not the worst of it; there is the flotsam from the
sewer and the lavatories of the ships. Because it resembles a small, stubby,
grey fish, the wharfies jokingly call this pollution blind-mullet.
There were about forty or fifty people with me on the docks. All semi-excited
and shuffling about. Calling out: Look theres Mildred! ... Wave
to Aunty Joyce! ... Look! ... Shes seen us! ... A solitary boong
is forced to become a functioning part of a group; has to wave to bloody aunty.
The dreaming of the harbour also has a higher pitch; just below the true
key of C. Fork lifts like angry long-horned bulls charge around inside the
goods sheds ... Up one end of the docks the Kyitzu Maru takes on a
cargo of bulk wheat from a giant overhead hose. Its running at full
bore, this yellow satin river a haze of golden dust hangs over the
ship.
I began to wave like mad the second I spotted IIluta; my arm strained over
my head and the wrist flicking away as though trying to shake the fingers
off. She was dressed in some sort of loose fitting floral frock. Standing
at the rail between two frantically waving, middle aged women. IIluta remained
utterly still. With lack of response my wildly flapping hand slowed down and
fell to my side. I realised there was no need to do this sort of thing any
more; Abunda see no reason to poke their arms out and wobble wrists at one
another.
The first shock came when I was still yards away. IIluta was not only standing
at the rail, but riveted to it by the strength of some fantastic fear. I felt
the feverish quivering of the flesh as I put my hand on her arm; hair hung
in a tangled mess and there were little ridges of dirt and grease across the
back of her neck. Satiny skin had turned the grey muddy colour of approaching
death. Both hands were clenched tight around the rail; the eyes rolled back
and her face screwed up in a half insane grimace of pathetic dread ...
Giant travelling cranes look over the tops of toy ships; they grumble and
squeal as though tired of standing in the one place ... On the other side
of the harbour, way up the far end, is a patch of reedy foreshore ... The
entire Bibbulmun tribe are gathered here, waiting for the first white men
to land at the spot where the sewer pipe comes in ... The tribe begin
wading through the oil-coated scum of the reedy water; all are smiling in
anticipation of greeting long dead relatives and friends among the jangaga.
The Bibbulmun owned this section of country. They thought the first white
settlers to land were the spirits of dead tribesmen come back to visit. Jang
is the word for spirit, gaga, dead; the spirits of the dead ...
I called out softly to IIluta as though she slept. Her head jerked up but
she made no effort to turn around.
Illuta, it is Irritcha who stands behind you, I whispered in
Abunda. A queasy feeling of shame and disgust kept my voice down. Twice I
had to call her name before she would look away from the wharf; the eyes were
not properly focused, her throat worked but nothing came out. I watched in
revolted fascination as Illuta struggled to release cramped fingers from the
rail; tendons stood out on soiled wrists with the effort of letting go. A
strangled sob burst from her throat as she half fell and grabbed me by the
arm ...
The Bibbulmun ignore the thick oil coating their legs and the odd sheets
of sodden newspaper floating against them ... Illuta is with the women of
the Bibbulmun ... Then the sky darkens with a hundred million wings and the
cry of the gulls is a fantastic crescendo of sobbing sound ... A thousand
birds fold their wings, drop into the harbour and rise with the ghastly catch
dripping from stained beaks ... Illuta is everywhere! ... Her dreaming, sorrowing
eyes are staring up at the gulls ... She is part of the cry in the sky ...
Irritcha! We leave this debil-debil, she gabbled with slack mouth
and straining throat. I felt as though I was going to be sick.
A thin-faced white woman, with hair pulled back in a tight bun, stared into
my eyes. Are you related to this poor woman? she enquired.
I ignored her. The dress hung in a shapeless mass from Illutas shoulders;
it was at least three sizes too large. She smelt of vomit. Shabby spike-heeled
shoes threw her body out of balance, adding to the horrible cringing effect
as she clung to my arm.
I dont think he speaks English, a fat grey haired woman
said to the one with the bun. You wonder whats to become of the
poor things.
Once I explained the circumstances the driver helped me get Illuta into the
taxi. He stretched over the front seat and pulled on one arm while I shoved
from behind; fortunately, by the time I had half dragged her to the taxi rank,
the dockyards were almost deserted and there were few witnesses to my humiliation.
When we had the passively resisting creature bundled in and the door closed,
I had an interesting chat with the driver. Our conversation was all about
the wonders of the city in store for primitives; particularly those who had
never ridden in a car before.
Think shes liable to try and jump out? the driver asked
with some concern.
We both took a critical, appraising glance at the sick and sorry figure in
the back seat. Illuta sat hunched forward, head on chest and dirty, stringy
hair almost covering her face.
Nah! She wouldnt know how to work the door, I assured him.
Just to be on the safe side I lent over and pushed the locking pin down; a
stale, acrid smell hit me in the face and I started to worry about her fogging
up the cab. Illuta gave a little convulsive jump as the engine started, but
I was too busy cranking the windows down and nursing my wounded pride to offer
a word of consolation. A one-second drama started in my head. It ended with
the drivers tolerance strained to the limit and him suddenly stopping
the cab and snarling: You stinking boongs can get out and walk ...
What he actually did say was: Ribcott Street? Thats in West Stuart,
isnt it?
On the Clodale border, I corrected him with relief. It
goes over the Clodale crossing and down the side of the tile factory.
Oh yer! I know where it is. Did you both come down on the Cygnet?
I was going to say, my wife did, but changed it to: The
woman came alone. I work at the markets. To make sure my driver colleague
realised he talked to a man of substance, I added: Im truck driving
for Markostein.
Having cleared up the little matter of status I started to feel a lot better;
I even leant over, patted Illuta on the shoulder and wound her window down
a little more. She didnt move but her chest pressed against my arm as
I cranked the window. I thought of a soap ad on the wireless and elaborated
it into an hysterical comedy of dropping Illuta into a tub of soapy water
... Faintly, in the background, I could occasionally hear the spiral climb
of the horn; I suppose it spoke of man and wife ... there is this thin iron
staircase going straight up into the sky and from the top a single note climbs
into cold space ... It didnt occur to me to release Illutas fingers
from their frantic grip of the seat and hold her hand.
They tell me theres some pretty good jobs at the markets,
the taxi driver amiably remarked.
The moneys good, I boasted. Its bloody hard
work shoving those five tonners around, but we get plenty of overtime. I work
most Sundays and thats all double pay.
... In the half world where Illuta found herself, the air had a queer burnt
smell, as though it had been sucked through raging swamp fires. The fumes
stung her nose and throat. Broad, sensitive nostrils told her there was little
or no pollen in the rank and stinking air she breathed. Real people could
not live in the gas choked atmosphere of the jangaga for any length of time
...
How come? The markets dont open Sundays, do they?
Christ, no! But we gotta get the stuff off the trains from the Eastern
States and store it in the cold rooms.
What sort of stuff? I thought only passenger trains came in on Sundays.
The banana vans are always hooked onto the passenger trains.
... Illuta shivered with the degree of the evil. Horror mounted on horror
in the full awareness of pollen less air. She knew life is dependent upon
life. Unless a bond of sympathy exists between the forms, then it becomes
parasitic and mutually destructive. In this tomb of glass and stone there
could be no fellow feeling, no tender vibrant compassion for the dying tree,
the drying river. Here, savage forces of evil had severed the connecting link
between themselves and the life purpose. Seed and animal withered and died
unmourned in this wasteland of parasites. No pollen in the air! ...
Bananas, eh?
Well sometimes we get a rush haul on apricots or tomatoes that are
getting a bit ripe on it. But its mostly bananas. Most of the other
junk can wait til Monday. Not bananas! They ripen fuggin fast in the
trains and we gotta get them off.
I thought tomatoes were your main headache?
Some of the early season stuff, coming down from the north, is a bit
touchy, I admitted. But nothing ripens quicker than a banana.
Specially when its a bit hot.
Still I dont suppose you blokes mind the double time. How is
the little woman getting along?
Ah, shell be right. Just take her a couple of weeks to get used
to the city.
Sure! Must be quite a change coming straight from the bush. Whats
the number of your house?
Thirty-six. Thats it! The second weatherboard from the corner.
... Illuta stood with the heel of her shoe caught in the veranda boards.
It didnt occur to her to take her foot from the shoe or make any attempt
to get free. In nightmares the whole sequence of events is predetermined;
directed by an outside source that cannot be altered or controlled by the
victim. She had lost track of time but not of the direction. The tribe had
always known, south was evil ...
I waved to the taxi driver before bending down to pull Illutas shoe
free. He made some joking remark about coming down to the markets for a case
of cheap fruit. I just laughed and called: See you around.
13: Requiem for Vacuum Cleaners
We had been invited to attend a Kunappipi ceremony and walked northward into
the land of the Myall. Three days and nights we danced. In the flame-lit final
dawn, milk given by nursing mothers was mixed with the arm blood of warriors
and poured upon the earth. The ceremonies ended in a wild climax as frenzied
dancers threw themselves on the hard packed ground and copulated with ravenous
joy. Smell of semen was in the air as the weary, gently smiling children of
Kunappipi walked through the dawn.
And Kunappipi accepted the homage of her people. Dingoes whelped and blind,
woolly puppies sought brimming dugs; miniature heads poked from pouches of
kangaroos; a super abundance of striped chicks scuttled into bushes as free
striding emus led the hunters away from their broods. Bud and blossom covered
the land and fruit weighed the branches down in a time of frantic production.
In the palm of Kunappipi, the brother-sister relationship between tribe and
animal is not lessened by the competitive need for survival. Higher forms
complement the lower. All have compassion for the others struggle to
live; joy in the new seedlings. None could imagine the horror of pollenless
air.
This is your gunya, Illuta, I stated with pride. Yours
and mine.
Her nostrils flared a little but there was no other reaction. The way I dreamt
it, this moment should have been taken up with Illuta wide eyed in admiration
and gratitude. She kept looking at the fireplace; seeking the vague familiarity
of fire blackened bricks.
... Even within the tribal boundaries there is always a host of the recent
dead, to make the night beyond the protective fires, hideous with their revengeful
prowling. But here! In this land of the dead! A myriad of outraged ghosts,
maniacal in their ferocious malice, surrounded Illuta. She shuddered and the
first word to come from her lips since entering the house was barely audible.
Fire, she whispered.
We dont need a fire yet, I scoffed. Its too
hot! Ill run the bath.
Above the sound of the running water, I heard the door open; Illuta stood
on the back veranda looking across poisoned earth, divided into squares by
doglegged picket fences. Her shoulders sagged until arms dangled on level
with knees. I watched from the bathroom window as she edged her way down the
rickety steps; stumbled into the yard, made a little circle and came back
again. Three times she did this. Dogs make the same turning movement before
they lie down; new animals in the zoo walk in tight circles. Illuta crouched
by the back steps and wet on the ground.
The bath was postponed, although I didnt pull the plug out and let
either the water or the idea, of a sweet smelling, demure, civilised woman,
go down the drain. I suppose the missionaries convinced me heathen beliefs
could be dissolved by soap suds.
I lit the fire. Tongues of flame crept up from the bottom of the grate. Illuta
crouched with her head thrust forward, lips parted as she drank from the fluttering
forms. Dark eyes grew soft and misty with adoration. She fed from the essence
of the leaping, unquiet thing. Drew thin, sympathetic threads from the flickering
flames and wove them into a glowing, incandescent cloak; a protective mantle
against evil.
I threw a cigarette butt into the fireplace and Illuta snatched it out. The
heat of the fire was making her sweat and the smell of the cattle camps was
strong in the house as I held out a packet of cigarettes.
You smokem, she said gravely shaking her head. Leavum little
bit alonga me.
In mocking irony I hummed a few bars of Red Feathers.
Your gunya, Irritcha? Illuta asked quietly in Abunda.
Yours and mine, I repeated with slightly less enthusiasm in the
project.
You have plenty of wood for the fire, Irritcha?
Plenty, I irritably assured her. Why dont you take
those silly shoes off? Illuta gave the impression of not really wearing
either shoes or dress but standing awkwardly in them.
You do not like these shoes, Irritcha?
You look like a brolga standing in jam tins, I answered cynically.
As the fire was getting low and the mere sight of it seemed to be doing her
some good, I opened the back door to get more wood from under the house. Illuta
sprang and grabbed me by the arm. She kicked the shoes off and her figure
automatically returned to balance and some semblance of life.
Now the dress, I said half teasing.
No likum? Illuta looked down at the frock with the bewildered
dismay of a small child.
Too big, I explained, releasing her fingers from my arm.
Takum off! She babbled in the horrible, bastard English.
Its all right, I murmured in disgust. Just wait here
while I get more wood.
When I came back Illuta was crouched near the fire with the dress a crumpled
ball at her feet. She was crying. For about five minutes I managed to act
like a human being; held a lost and frightened child in my arms and spoke
the Abunda mothers litany: You are safe jim-bim and nothing will
hurt you. All things will be as kind and gentle to you as they were in jim-bim
land ...
She pressed against me and the dam of horror began to break. In the
belly of the ship, she murmured, the cold breath blows all the
time. It does not like people to walk in its guts and groans and wriggles
like its cousin the sea-snake.
I couldnt begin to explain air-conditioning or the normal motion of
a boat to Illuta. Besides the ship itself was not the main cause of her fear;
although seasick and homesick, she could have endured this and much more if
allowed to build a fire. Without its protection: They groaned, they
stirred, they all uprose, Nor spoke nor moved their eyes ...
I took Illuta into the bathroom and thoroughly scrubbed her and washed her
hair. She didnt object or struggle; just looked at me ... It would
have been strange even in a dream, to have seen those dead men rise ...
It was a small cast-iron bath that had been painted with white enamel about
five million times. At the high water mark thick layers of paint and rust
had chipped right back to the metal, leaving a serrated edge like the teeth
of a gigantic band-saw. The cold-water tap stuck out over the plug end on
a two-foot surplus of rusty pipe; copper tubing from the chip-heater wandered
in crazy coils before it entered the bath about half way down the side. Any
sexual maniac would recognise the set up for a wildly erotic scene. A chance
to recapture the joy of Kunappipi; to awaken Illuta from her deathlike trance.
All I succeeded in doing was to cut her arm on the paint chips; bash my head
on the pipe and burn my backside on the heater. I was disgusted with her for
not co-operating; for being an ignorant, superstitious savage; for not wearing
a hula-hula and swinging by her heels from the bath-heater.
Illuta begged not to be made to sleep on the rickety iron bed behind the
plywood partition. She lay down in front of the fire. Paid for the privilege
of burning my wood; with closed eyes and little lines of pain forming around
the corners of her mouth. I left her and went to bed, but was kept awake by
a low groaning whimper that seemed to whisper through the whole house. I had
to start work at four oclock in the morning; in desperation I dragged
the mattress out and threw it on the floor.
She murmured in lament: The ship passed into the country of the Bibbulmun
and in its guts I came uninvited. The spirits of the dead Bibbulmun women
were jealous and they poisoned me. I was very sick, Irritcha, from the magic
of the Bibbulmun.
You were seasick, I mumbled.
In the nights, Illuta whispered in my ear, I lay on the
floor and could hear the angry muttering of the dead. Their voices were many
and all were angry:
It was the engines of the ship, I snarled. For Christ sake
go to sleep, Illuta!
She curled up tight against me. It is wrong-side, Irritcha; why do
the Bibbulmun invite you to their tribal grounds, then tell their spirits
to poison your woman?
There are no Bibbulmun, I muttered in sleepy indifference. The
jangaga killed them all.
The information kept Illuta rigidly quiet for a long time. In between sleeps
I saw her reaching out and putting more wood on the fire; it was hot as hell
in the house and the mattress was soaked with sweat.
After I left for work in the mornings, Illuta crept out of the house and
sat under the back veranda, chopping wood with a hatchet. When the nights
supply was cut and stacked she carved pieces of soft wood into clubs, digging
sticks, toy boomerangs and pitchis. These items were added to the woodpile
and burnt on the evening fire as an obscure act of faith. On top of the kindling
wood, crossed digging sticks usually supported a water dish or soft wood cradle
and in the bowl would be one or two toy boomerangs.
For a time I tactfully ignored both the carvings and the lack of prepared
meals; while I concentrated on teaching the fundamental requirements of suburbia.
Illuta listened in respectful silence to repeated lectures on basic personal
hygiene, the correct dress and manner when answering door knocks, the use
of kitchen utensils and the method of cooking meals in pots on a stove. She
listened only to the tone and paid not the slightest attention to anything
else unless shouted in anger. In the middle of an involved lecture on the
functioning of the Metropolitan Water Supply and the advisability of turning
taps off, Illuta would start listing the rock holes and soaks in the Snake
River country, with asides on beehives and goanna holes. Her body was present
in the land of the Bibbulmun but her mind never ceased to wander the spinifex-clad
hills and gorges of the Abunda.
In the mornings the sun came over the wall of the tile factory and crept
across the front veranda. Illuta ignored the calls of the baker and the iceman.
When thirsty she would crawl under the house from the wood heap to the crack
below the front door and drink from the melting ice block. Before the sun
had travelled up the blistered paintwork to the bedroom window the days
supply of ice would be all gone. It took a good deal of patience and screamed
abuse before Illuta could be persuaded to put the cold stone in the icebox.
Even then she was inclined to leave it until after the baker called and make
one flying dash do for both jobs.
She never answered door knocks. The more observant types would probably notice
smoke coming from the chimney and suspect someone was at home. When they grew
tired of banging on the front door and came around the back, Illuta crouched
behind the wood stack and watched their feet through the cracks in the veranda;
she spoke of the callers in the abstract. We were visited by men with worn
shoes, rubber soles, new squeaky boots and all manner of footwear. Some knocked
loudly, odd types muttered to themselves or gave the door a little kick before
going away. Once we had a lady visitor with flat heels and blue panties; she
knocked softly, Illuta said the woman was fidgety and uncomfortable. I kept
wondering what the fidgety lady with the blue panties was selling; but I never
found out.
After six months the constant threats and nagging began to have some effect.
Every night we went through the same routine:
Why didnt you make the bed, Illuta?
You lightum fire, Irritcha?
No.
Makeum now.
Say it properly.
Make bed now.
It is to be made in the mornings, like I told you. No bed made, no
fire.
Cookum meat in pot alonga quatcha.
You what?
Cook water in pot with meat. You light the fire, Irritcha?
No! How many bloody times do I have to tell you the quilt goes on top
of the sheets and not underneath them?
Markostein sold me a second-hand vacuum cleaner. This thing had about the
same effect on Illuta as bringing home another woman a white woman
that is she would have welcomed a tribal sister with open arms. Apart
from being terrified of the noise, she immediately classified the vacuum cleaner
in the semi-human group. I yelled, shouted and pulled it to bits in front
of her; but proving it could be taken apart and reassembled only confirmed
the spirit category. In Illutas mind there was no mystery about the
snakelike neck and sucking mouth filling the belly with dust and fluff. She
said this evil demon of the Bibbulmun must once have occupied the body of
a platypus, because it still retained some of that animals shape and
habits. Its greed for the fluff from our mattress was proof of malignant intent.
All know the easiest method of invoking a voodoo hex is to possess your enemys
sweat; then name the curse as you burn his substance.
This fella grow into plenty big debil-debil, she concluded in
the despised pidgin.
When I left for work Illuta used every ounce of courage to pull out the plug
and separate the young devil from its parent in the wall. She knew it would
die once the umbilical cord was broken. The muffled death throb of a didgeridoo
played a requiem for vacuum cleaners as Illuta dug its grave. Three times
she buried the greedy-mouthed monster in the backyard.
As the man said: Its the little things that bug you. Like
coming home tired from a heavy day on the truck, then having to do something
as stupid as digging up a vacuum cleaner. Even the bloody gas stove I bought
off Markostein had some sort of evil attached to it. Illuta said the pipes
went down into the earth and were fed by the dead of the jangaga and Bibbulmun
who were buried there. It is asking for trouble to bury people in the ground,
then use their decomposing bodies to cook your meals. Illuta said she had
smelt the dead and they had the same sickly smell as gas.
Jock and Matt invited us to visit them several times; but I kept making excuses
until they stopped asking. Illuta was not yet up to visiting standard. By
coaxing her to come for walks through the back streets and lengthening the
area covered, block-by-block, the fear slowly began to abate. She seemed to
timidly enjoy window-shopping; though haunted with distrust for the unfamiliar.
The time I tried to get her on a trolley bus turned into a real circus act.
However, I hoped the big break through would come with a visit to the local
cinema and spent hours preparing Illuta for the wonders of talking pictures.
She was fascinated by the sounds coming from the theatre a few streets away
and would sit on the back veranda until they closed, listening to the faint
sound of music and machine guns.
As Illuta was less nervous before sundown I intended to take her to a matinee
for our first visit to the flicks; but the opportunity never occurred. Markostein
had a little racket going for beating the Potato and Onion Board and there
was quite a bit of overtime available. Jock and I drove our trucks into the
country on the weekends and picked up loads of spuds and onions from unlicensed
growers or those who had exceeded their quota. Marko was nervous about storing
the stuff and we often worked well into the night delivering to greengrocers
and fish and chip shops. We were well paid.
I spent a small fortune on furniture and bought Illuta a lot of new clothes;
she liked the underwear but could see no point in covering these fine things
with a dress. Two or three expensive frocks were ruined before I worked out
rules of when to wear what; also pointing out the distinct advantages gained
by washing the hair instead of rubbing butter in it. We had trouble keeping
the stockings up, as like the chicken and the egg, I couldnt figure
out which came first, the pants or the suspender belt. I asked Jock in which
order his wife donned these garments, and put up with the ribald comments
for the rest of the day. We were knocking off by the time he decided I was
serious; scratched his head and said: Buggered if I know, Chalky. Tell
you tomorrow.
There were now occasional evenings when walking into my house was like stepping
between the pages of the Home Beautiful; once or twice Illuta
was even sitting in an armchair with the table partly set for dinner and a
clean frock on. Most of the time she wore either underclothes or a dress,
but seldom both; I had nightmares of her opening the door dressed in stockings
and suspender belt and nothing else. However this eccentric fashion was trivial
to the problems already overcome. We had settled for cooking all the meals
on the stove and not chucking the meat into the lounge room fire to cook itself;
sleeping on the bed and avoiding crawling under the house with a good frock
on; speaking standard English or Abunda and eliminating pidgin. Keeping the
latter rule was not difficult as Illuta seldom spoke at all except to dreamily
talk of the Snake River or the dog Apmaura. She said the dog jumped from the
truck and howled at the wharf while the boat was pulling out. If I tried to
steer the conversation to local topics, Illuta would go blank on me or stare
silently into the fire. She seemed to gain some morbid satisfaction from talking
about Apmaura but would not let me buy her another dog. I imagined if I could
get her to come to the pictures and meet a few people she would find other
things to talk about; something to give interest and meaning to the new life.
I asked Jock and Matt to bring their families over for tea as soon as the
work slackened off a bit. Both said they would, but the only house warming
party I ever gave was too hot for company. The guests would have needed asbestos
suits.
14: Dance on the Tiles
As a prelude to rain, the smoke from the tall stack of the tile factory compresses
and gathers weight. It spreads out like a bucket of scum thrown across the
sky and comes down in a grey, greasy blanket, almost level with the top of
the factory wall. Above the smog the gathering storm rumbles and sits on the
chimney as it prepares to clean the polluting filth from the air.
In the slummy houses opposite the tile factory, low barometric pressure hollows
out gaunt heads and fills them with the silent scream. It scoops out guts
and endurance and crams half empty bellies with the queasy fog. With the yearning
for the flood; for great jagged bolts of lightning and sheeting rain.
In No. 36 Ribcott Street a brooding savage sat in a lounge chair; the chair
that was paid for in honest sweat and which she had a moral obligation to
sit in. Illuta of the Abunda who had never owned a chair before in all her
seventeen years she sat! Waiting for the storm to break; staring at
the brass screen covering the unlit fireplace, the matching coal scuttle and
tongs items bought by Markostein for a handful of silver sold
to his employee for two days of time and sweat. So Illuta might stare at her
reflection in the cold brass as she sat through storms, waiting for her lord
and master to come home and give permission for the fire to be lit.
Two thousand miles to the north other Abunda women might crouch naked in
the dust Illuta wore a frock of pale pink silk. ... Up there! ... wildly
stamping feet of plumed and painted rainmakers would be keeping time to the
throbbing drone of a didgeridoo ... The women adding their high-pitched, plaintive
chorus of intercession to the God of rain. Hour after hour it would go on;
days and nights if necessary ... Until the fat bellies of the storm clouds
were finally torn open by the curved fangs of the Rainbow Serpent ... Then
would come a torrent of soft warm rain and a delirious squealing joy as women
and children held their dripping faces to the sky ...
Illuta went out onto the front veranda; the double gates of the tile factory
were directly opposite and never closed. Across a wasteland of broken tile
and mounds of earthenware pipe, she could occasionally see flaring tongues
of flame as the kiln doors were opened and closed.
High up, beyond the smokestack, Burimba the evening star- tried to
catch a glimpse of the earth through the sullen, brooding mass of smog and
storm. Illuta knew a good deal about Burimba. He was an Abunda warrior of
the dreamtime who had climbed into the sky; mainly to escape the nagging tongues
of his wives. Illuta knew how desperately lonely it is, not to be able to
see the fires of your people and her heart ached with sympathy for the slightly
dull-witted star.
Ingmar Svenson was the stoker on night shift. A young man with the face of
a girl; a beautifully proportioned body and a hollow ache in his guts. A blue
eyed, blond haired, weak mouthed youth, who tended the hungry coal-eating
ovens of the tile factory. The kilns were enclosed only on three sides. High
in the smoke blackened beams a single electric light bulb, emphasised by shadow,
the sprawling roof, the vastness of the building. It did not add to the light
below. The white-hot glow of the kilns was light enough and heat in extravagant
abundance; the essence of the sun had been distilled and imprisoned here.
Feathery fingers with claws of molten gold explored the cracks in the doors
of the twin kilns. In fourteen hundred degrees centigrade, the roofing tiles
baked behind those glowing doors.
Ingmar walked between black mountains of coal and looked up at the storm
clouds. The sweat dried on his face and chest. He knew the North Star; knew
ice and fiords and shining mountains. A Swede from snow-girt tribal grounds;
sucked into the vacuum above the graves of the Bibbulmun; from perpetual twilight
into the maw of the blazing sun. Mind and body ached for release; he hungered
for cold and the thunderous crack of glacial ice ...
Ingmar came to work as the day shift were leaving. The kilns had been freshly
stacked with raw tiles and the red clay dust still hung in the air. The setting
sun, the dust, the gathering storm created a queer soft light in the vast
shed; shafts of clay filled light rose from the floor of the building and
lanced upward to a darkening sky and a dying sun. Ingmar knew the music of
the scene. It was written for a single golden trumpet; a pre-atom prelude
on a theme without variation or change. The high note held the plaintive honk
of the snow-goose flying south ... Flying high in a cold and darkening sky
... Ingmar had said: Dis place sometime remind me of home. He
knew it was the wrong thing to say before the words were out of his mouth.
Like mist across the fiords, he added in a hopeless attempt at
explanation.
More like a bloody brothel in a dust storm, someone had answered.
See ya, Ingmar. Keep the home fires burning. The cynical
laughter still rang in his ears.
Now Ingmar walked back to the kilns, talking to himself while he shovelled.
Spoke of saving the money and going home. He kept up the stream of muttered
words to the short rapid strokes of the shovel. For over two hours he fed
the roaring ovens in a vain attempt to translate loneliness into the tangible
reality of heat. In this time he fed in more coal than would normally be burnt
in an entire night. The bricks of the ovens turned cherry red and the steel
fire doors glared with a hard white light, blinding in its frightful intensity.
A glow like the rising sun drew IIIuta from the dark veranda. She crossed
the road and the yard of the tile factory; stood in the shadows of the great
doors and watched the fires and the man. Little rivulets of sweat cut snow-white
paths through the coal dust coating on his skin. After a while Ingmar put
the shovel down and sat on a box at the foot of a coal heap; he wore heavy
boots and a dirty pair of shorts, his wide shoulders tapered to a small waist.
IIIuta could see the dejected hang of the head; see his lips moving
she knew.
The lubra wore an expensive silk dress, but no underclothes and no shoes.
Abunda civilised slowly; soft clay and coal dust between her toes felt like
the powdery earth of a cave. As she edged closer to the kilns the heat caressing
her skin might have come from sun blistered Abunda rocks. Illuta was not frightened;
she was entranced by the glimpse of the blazing tropic sun peeping through
cracks in the now-closed fire doors.
She was no more than ten feet away when Ingmar saw the swaying movement of
her frock. He jumped up with a reflex of fright and the wooden box clattered
over on its side. Both he and Illuta froze in startled dread; ready to run.
When nothing happened they began to relax; each produced a tentative smile,
but did not speak. The vivid contrast in appearance made it seem unlikely
they could share a common language. Nothing was said either then or at any
other time there was nothing to say.
Ingmar watched the aboriginal woman staring fascinated at the kiln doors.
Saw the full lips parted and the flare of the wide nostrils; sensed she was
also a long way from home. He knocked the steel bar across the doors with
the blade of the shovel; the ring of steel still hovered in the air as the
fire doors swung open. Everything was totally different now someone was there
to share the magic. They both stared enraptured by the midnight sun.
He began to throw coal through the gaping door. Illuta first swayed to the
rhythm of the shovel then she began to jerk her head each time the coal left
the blade. Ingmar accompanied the movement with an exaggerated bend of leg
and swing of shoulder; it was the beginning of a dance. Heat, the only stark
and solid reality. His figure washed ghostly white by sweat; hers the
moist warm shadow of the flames. They danced with and were almost touched
by the fingers of the sun; but had no other contact with each other. Coal
dust in his blond hair picked up pinpoints of light; her dark eyes were gold
flecked with fire.
The dance took on the swirling rhythm, the boiling turbulence of the flames.
Sweat poured from their bodies. Illuta, hampered by the clinging folds of
the dress, pulled it over her head and threw the wet rag into the white-hot
core of the kiln. She offered her body to the Sun God. She danced for a fellow
exile.
Or perhaps the little slut was bored. Wandered over to the tile factory and
stripped off for the ape with the shovel; just to break the monotony. In line
with a ditty written on a dunny wall at the markets:
Cats on the rooftops, cats on the tiles,
And the tomcats arse all wreathed in smiles,
As he revelled in the joys of fornication.
I came home about ten. Jock and I carted spuds and onions all day, then we
had to clear the special before the whole consignment went rotten. The train
was two days overdue. We put twenty-five tons of overripe bananas into the
cold rooms. Some poor bastard of a grower was going to curse the railways
when he received his price for that crop. Jock said he would be lucky if he
made enough to clear the freight charges.
Twenty-five tons is a lot of bananas; all I could think of was a hot bath
and flopping into bed. The weight still lay across my shoulders and hung in
my arms as I walked through the empty house. After being in ballast all day,
I couldnt seem to put the burden away. The cumbersome mass weighed me
down and drove my feet into the ground with every step; the right arm hung
half bent, with the fingers clenched, as though they still gripped a case
or a steel bag hook.
I searched the house and even crawled underneath it; a few heavy drops of
rain plopped on the tin roof of the front veranda. I could see the glow of
the kilns. Knowing Illutas hunger for fire made me think she might be
over the road in the tile factory. There was nothing much to go on; she had
always been either in or under the house when I came home from work.
While shambling through the factory gates there was a flash of lightning
and the rain started to pelt down. I couldnt run to escape the soaking
coldness; only walk stooped and bandy, the edge of a banana crate biting into
my chest; sloshing through instant puddles, water running from my face and
hair tasting of salt. As I came closer the light from the kilns played on
a silvery, wire curtain of rain, hanging across the front of the building.
Near puddles turned into pink splashing pools like fountains of watery blood.
... The watcher inside my head never gets angry. Even when Im yelling
and screaming abuse, I am aware the thing behind the red curtain of malice
and hate is a little shocked. It stands at the back of mean, narrowed eyes
and sadly assesses the situation; a thin, dirty grey living camera, with large
compassionate eyes.
The big-eyed bug wasnt even offended at seeing my wife dancing naked
for another man. Its thought pictures are all time-exposures and sometimes
take months to develop; all the aspects have to collect and filter in through
a half closed lens. The light of truth, after penetrating the layers of understanding,
shines on a blank and negative plate entirely devoid of preconceived
opinions. The pictures seldom develop at all; there is too much bloody insipid
tolerance.
Standing under the eaves of the kiln shed, I took a quick snapshot of copper-tipped
breasts and blunt hair covered femaleness belonging to me by rite. The picture
showed a dirty, fornicating little slut. I picked up an old fire-bar that
was leaning against the wall, a solid chunk of iron about four feet long and
five inches in breadth and depth; a ridiculous weapon, weighing eighty or
ninety pounds.
I walked bandy-legged down the path between the two coal heaps with the fire-bar
held out in front like a crate of bananas. I think they both saw me at the
same time. Each froze in mid- prance and then slowly came back to a jerky,
awkward life. Illuta tried to fold both arms across her breasts and at the
same time hold her hand between her legs; the gesture made her horribly naked.
She backed away in a crouch and half fell against the coal pile in front of
the second kiln; lay on her side staring at me with a sort of gaping frown,
as though not sure how either of us happened to be there.
The blond Swede also backed off; with the shovel held in both hands and extended
towards me like a peace offering. I expected him to fall against the opposite
coal heap. He looked white and shaky; his mouth gaped open, lips loose and
turned down at the corners, seeming ready to cry. He didnt fall. Ingmar
kept his pale blue eyes fixed on my chest, lifted his feet high and began
to back up the coal slope.
I went up after him. Felt as though I had stepped onto a treadmill; plodding
up and sinking down into a low black mountain. Took two steps up and slid
back one and a half, buried almost to the knees in coal; dropping the fire-bar
stopped my legs plunging so deep. I started to catch up on Ingmar and he half
turned and began scuttling up sideways like a crab. None of it seemed real;
the whole chase had the quality and form of a bad dream.
The heap was about twenty feet high, perhaps a little less. On the lower
slope all I could hear was the roar of the kilns; higher up the drumming of
the rain on the vast roof drowned out the noise of the fires. The air grew
moist and steamy; near the top, it had none of the dry heat of floor level.
At close quarters the huge, smoke-blackened rafters looked as thick as tree
trunks. I had no idea what I was going to do when I caught up with Ingmar.
He stopped right on the peak and turned his head a little sideways, as if
listening to the rain. It had a peculiar dreary sound, like it was going to
go on falling forever. I made a grab for the shovel and touched the handle
with the ends of my fingers; Ingmar snatched it away but lost balance with
the sudden jerk. His heavy boots were buried in the coal and he fell back
in slow motion; still facing me, a look of mild astonishment on his face as
he went sliding backwards down the hill. Picking up speed he dropped the shovel.
Both legs came up over his head until the iron-studded boots pointed towards
the roof. He started to backward somersault, then half way down managed to
go into a roll.
I dont think Ingmar intended to stand up; but near the bottom his legs
seemed to become jammed under him and he was thrown to his feet. He went the
rest of the way in a tilted run. There was no hope of stopping in time; arms
stretched full out as the blast of heat hit him. Ingmar knew what was going
to happen he screamed. The sound came up and hung in the damp air before
being swallowed by the rain.
It was like watching a horror film from high in a gallery. Ingmar hit the
white-hot fire doors of number one kiln with the palms of both hands; his
body jerked three times as he tried to push himself away from the searing
heat. There should have been a sharp, sizzling, spitting sound before he crumpled
into a ball in front of the kiln. My ears were strained, listening for the
crackle of burning flesh; but heard only the melancholy beat of rain.
Sliding down the slope the smell of charred meat came up to meet me. I dragged
Ingmar clear and propped him in the pathway with his back against the coal;
he was semiconscious until he looked at his hands.
From the back they were just bearable. The nails of the fingers were still
there, but blackened and slightly opaque; hinting at lack of flesh on the
other side. He was looking over to where Illuta crouched by the opposite coal
heap; staring at us through a fringe of hair. Ingmar tried to say something
to me; as the words formed he looked down at his hands and slowly turned them
over. Lips and eyes closed as he shuddered and passed out. The one barely
audible whisper to pass his lips sounded like: Sorry.
On a white paper backing, charcoal bones were struck together in the shape
of hands. I vomited on the coal. The burnt skeletal mass was only held by
the transparent layer of skin on the wrists and backs of the fingers. The
judge called it: Causing grievous bodily harm.
Illuta crawled across to me; saw what was left of Ingmars hands and
put an arm around my leg to steady herself. Eyes were dilated and rolled back
in her head. I dont know why I had to have my leg free I just
did. Illutas clutching arm and bare body pressed against the calf of
my leg seemed intolerably gross and obscene; I kicked out and sent her sprawling.
She lay whimpering like a hurt dog before getting back to her knees. A thin
wailing cry echoed in the building as she crawled down the pathway.
Then the night watchman and the police stepped through the curtain of rain.
There was a trial. Not mine! Illutas! Once I had proved the extra money
I earned came from overtime and not by procuring IIluta for stokers in the
tile factory, a lot of sympathy came my way. Obviously the blame rested with
the bit of black-velvet, which had strayed from across the road.
I only had to answer a lot of questions: The accused is not your wife,
is she?
Yes! She is!
How long have you been married to Illuta?
Seventeen years.
Tell the court how old you are. Twenty.
You claim to have been married at three years of age?
There is no rapport; no connection at all the phones off the
hook ... Down below the floorboards of the courthouse; under the foundations
of the city of Stuart are the bones of the Bibbulmun. The skeletons havent
had time to turn to dust; the last of the Bibbulmun died of measles in 1879.
Fifty years after the first white man put his foot on the shores of their
territory, an entire tribe was wiped out; by mumps and measles, rifles, clothing,
syphilis and sugar, flour and flu. They stood the bullets better than the
lethal kindness. So would Illuta.
There is no bridge across the thousand years between the Stone Age and civilisation.
How do I tell them? I was allotted a mother-in-law a few days after I was
born. Seventeen years ago my mother-in-law gave birth to a female child!
Illuta was married to me before she was born.
The judge said: You must answer the questions put to you.
The woman, Illuta, has always belonged to me.
Belong, related? Or belong, property?
Both.
You claim to own this woman as another man might possess a dog?
Illutas counsel objected to the question. The judge sustained the objection.
I wondered about the other judge. Not the prig in the wig the guy
in the sky. Has he any objections? ... This was a heavily wooded land; packed
with game, edible seed, broad rivers. Birds, bees, honey stored in hollow
trees ... Under the courthouse is a great horde of Adams and Eves. And their
dogs and kids and the seed of the Bibbulmun tribe is buried with them
under the city of Stuart ... But listen, Judge! Dont send your son to
right the wrong this time! The jangaga no longer make wooden crosses; they
cast them in bronze or iron and will pin your sons effigy on with a
rivet-gun. There is a giant bronze cross set in cement outside the central
cathedral; no body on it blank and waiting. This death size cross looks
as though it has been prepared for the second coming ...
You attended high school for three years?
Yes.
Yet twelve months ago you returned to the North and claimed a tribal
wife?
Yes.
If you believed this woman to be your wife, why didnt you claim
citizenship on her behalf?
The conceit! The arrogance of these bloody convicts! We dont need a
paper to say we are citizens of this country. You do! Apply to the rightful
owners. CONVICTS GO HOME!
The Abunda warrior in the pin stripe suit leant against the polished rail
and answered respectfully:
My wife didnt want to become a citizen.
She wished to return to her tribe?
Yes.
But you prevented her?
I made a home for her here.
Half the time the judge, the Native Welfare Officers, the lawyers were not
trying Illuta; they were judging themselves. The guilt has nothing to do with
the Bibbulmun under the floor. Its called The White Australia
Policy. This awareness of the cloven hoof treading the primrose path,
fans out into a ring of white bodies encircling an ancient continent. A bad
dream, in which white arms hit mythical Chinamen on the head as they crawl
out of the sea; black women with babies in their arms stagger exhausted across
the beaches and are thrown back into the ocean. Its not the whole truth;
but is part of the mystic guilt of White Australia. A semi-tangible
sin; not composed of real guilt just a faint unease. It did not affect
the verdict.
The judge said Illuta had indirectly been responsible for causing grievous
bodily harm. And, although claiming to be married, was in fact a ward
of the State; as were all Aboriginals without citizenship papers. He
directed she be found suitable employment in an institution and held there
until twenty-one years of age.
Illuta finished up in the Haven of the Poor in the laundry.
The place is run by The Sisters of Mercy. Mercy!
15: Helen of the Reeves Tribe
Helens charitable enterprises were extensive. Apart from being a Friend
of Stuart Hospital she was also a Friend of the Prisoners.
Twice a week for four months Helen visited the prison; then I was released
on parole and went to live with her just like that.
We developed a lot of fancy theories to lay at the door of lust. The thousand-year
vault; the magnetic force uniting the primitive with the decadent, and many
more saddles slapped on the wrong horses. It was less than skin deep. A mixture
of stardust and bulldust sufficed for the nights; but in the mornings we both
suspected this attraction of opposites had been carried to the obscene.
An explanation can be produced for anything if an uneasy brain slogs away
at it long enough. My reasons for living with Helen make even less sense than
a ditty carved into the washroom wall of the prison. I dont know why
bad nerves I suppose but around this time I seemed to get hysterical
amusement from ribald rhyme:
The sexual ways of a camel
Are stranger than anyone thinks,
He cools off his animal passions
By attempting a rape on the Sphinx:
But the Sphinxs posterior passage
Is blocked by the sands of the Nile,
Which accounts for the hump on the camel
And the Sphinxs inscrutable smile.
Helen and I did have one thing in common; I was living partly in one world
and partly in another and Helen thought of herself as exactly half a woman.
One half of her body is perfect but the other is badly scarred. It doesnt
show when she is dressed because one brassiere cup is filled with sponge rubber
and the steel pin through the left hip functions almost as well as the original
joint.
In my case, Charles Carson performed just as inefficiently as Irritcha, the
doubtful warrior. A shadow filled cubicle in my belfry had a faulty
lock and the door kept on slamming back and forth; little zephyrs of recollection
chased around the flat. A parallel of opposites existed. From the top of her
shiny hair to her delicate ankles, Helen was all butterfly grace; a decorative,
composed elegance, complemented by faultless taste in frothy, feminine clothes.
Only the comparison of absurd extremes reminded me of Illuta. We never left
the flat without Helen making a quick bird like check of stocking seams; always
the shade of Illuta would accompany us out the door, with a wrinkled mass
of silk clinging to her legs. Helen, fussily and efficiently stowing the vacuum
cleaner in its cupboard was totally unaware of Illuta, standing silently by
her side and pointing tearfully at a mound of earth. Whenever Helen sat at
the dressing table, putting on nail polish or taking it off, the hands of
Illuta would be mirrored in the polished wood. The fingernails of Abunda women
are miniature horns, often more than a quarter of an inch thick; scrabbling
for lizards, digging roots, unearthing yams and ants turns the nails into
blunt steel prongs, with the shape and strength of cold-chisels.
Helen doesnt have to work; the brittle, painted, carefully tended half-moon
crescents on the ends of her fingers never touched the earth. She was awarded
£22,000 when she was injured, and her father killed, in an automobile smash.
The insurance money is invested in Government bonds; Helen draws about twenty
pounds a week. Presents also arrive on Christmas and birthdays, from Mummy
and frequently consist of a substantial cheque.
I suppose my knowledge of Helen was intimate enough; but it was never the
kind of hand and glove familiarity that entwines one life and mind with another.
I knew more about Helens history than her moods; we relied on words
rather than frowns or smiles.
The family wealth came originally from sheep. Grandfather Reeves deserted
a sailing ship, after knifing one of the petty officers; he then worked industriously
as a jackeroo on Glenwin Downs sheep station for fifteen years.
When the squatter died, William S. Reeves married the spinster daughter; which
meant instead of going to town and getting drunk every second Saturday, he
could now get gloriously drunk every night of the week. Luckily for the family
fortune, this state of affairs did not last much longer than it took to get
his middle-aged wife with child. After a drunken argument and a good deal
of boasting, Grandfather died; he broke his neck trying to splice a rope to
the top of a flagpole. Helen went to a great deal of trouble to trace her
family history; mainly to spite her father.
William S. Reeves, the second, referred to his father: The retired
sea captain who turned squatter, as having some vague connection with
royalty. It was vague indeed! In fact the closest Bill Reeves ever came to
sovereignty was the royal-yard-arm of the barque Speedwell. If the
authorities had caught him, he would have swung from it on the end of a rope.
Helens father, under the fussy, doting, dithering stupidity of his
aged mother, grew up with the cold, calculating, bad-tempered disposition
of a cobra. Unfortunately for the reptile race, William met and married a
kind and gentle woman who had no snakelike qualities at all. Mary Reeves sublimated
intelligence to an incredible capacity for love; she adored her worthless
husband all his life. For twenty years, Mary patiently withstood the dreary
succession of infidelities, lies, constant nagging and shouted abuse. Her
love stood like a wall of steel under the vicious shell fire of petty meanness,
cheating and filthy temper. Not that William hated his wife he didnt.
Helen knew in his own twisted way her father gave all the love he was capable
of giving.
Helen hated and feared him; mainly for the grief he caused her mother. She
was delighted when Daddy was killed and counted the blessing as part compensation
for her injuries; in fact, Williams daughter would have gladly sacrificed
a breast, at any time, to be rid of him. Of course Helen was totally unable
to share in the mourning for her Poor dead father and decided
to leave home before Mummy became aware that she wept alone.
Its a great pity Helen didnt find a city requiring a Joan of
Arc; she could have summoned from her mothers teaching and example all
the steadfast faith and courage necessary for the war against injustice. The
sword-swinging maid being obsolete, Helen was forced to crusade in the slums.
She found it more like wading through slime than a clean fight against ignorance
or disease; the battle became boring when she finally learnt her chief adversaries
were not vice or sickness, but poverty. Poor people cannot afford the really
juicy depravity that would make a crusaders life more exciting. Anyone
of the slum dwellers could have told Helen, poverty is the deadliest crushing
bore man can endure; there isnt much wrong with any fringe inhabitant
a thousand pounds wouldnt temporarily cure. The maid found tedium can
become almost as bad for those who fight it as those who live with it. Almost
but not quite.
Helen dropped all her social welfare work from the moment I moved into the
flat. The need disappeared. She took a cause home with her; even slept with
it.
I tried not to think about Illuta and was moderately successful during the
days. It was mainly at nights, in the interval between turning over and going
to sleep, when the door in the upper storey would creak open and little pictures
form of Illuta and I on our honeymoon. Helen is a dead loss in bed. Its seems
strange for anyone so generous and open handed in every other way to be completely
selfish with sex. During the couple of hours prelim, both hands have to be
kept in the middle of her back and ears whispered into at regular intervals;
otherwise she goes to sleep. Helen doesnt give at all. Providing the
mechanical routine is adhered to, she submits. Illuta doesnt give either
she takes ...
In the late afternoon, on our first day out from the Alchilpa, I hadnt
spoken a word to my bride and was still striding along out front, wondering
where the hell I was supposed to be going. Manala and his woman had turned
in another direction hours ago; I cursed myself for not following them. Eventually
we came to a small sandy place at the foot of a crumbling cliff. I promptly
squatted down as though arriving at a satisfactory destination. My heart pounded
like a frightened rabbit.
We will sit down here, woman, I said in a commanding gruff tone
of voice. We stay until the morning. I was too busy examining
a spear to deliver the oration to her face. Illuta didnt answer.
As usual I was thirsty; but the dry, hot feel of the sand underfoot made
digging for water seem unlikely to meet with any success. Besides, having
tied myself up in so many knots of dignity, even making the attempt was impossible
unless certain water would be there. I tried casually working the point of
the spear down into the sand and then pulling it out to see if it was damp;
the blade hit a stone and snapped off. Dying of thirst seemed easier than
turning around and looking at my bride, let alone asking her questions about
water. The dog circled me sniffing suspiciously; when I put out a friendly
hand it growled and backed away.
A snake broke the embarrassing situation. A nulla-nulla whizzed past my ear
and thudded into the rocks at the base of the cliff; the snakes tail
was just disappearing into a shallow vertical rock face. As Illuta grabbed
her knob-headed throwing stick and started up the cliff the big rock python
doubled back; it was a good eight feet long and fat as a mans arm. I
threw a rock that hit too close to the tail to do much harm; it slithered
into another crack and disappeared again. We both yelled as the thick body
appeared on a narrow ledge. Illuta was half way up the cliff and balanced
on one foot when she threw the club; it was a perfect shot and smashed the
snakes head flat, but the throw upset Illutas precarious balance.
She came sliding down the cliff in a cascade of little stones and fell on
top of me.
We rolled over and over in the sand laughing with the excitement of the chase;
Apmaura running around us in circles and barking her head off. It was the
funniest thing ever to happen on earth. The touch of flesh, the feel of weight
and size quickened, flushed to a fever thrill. Giggles slipped down our throats
into belly rumbling chuckles, slowly died away into a low continuous murmur.
There was no love or prissy sentiment, but a fierce jab and clutch. Illuta
took with a snarl on her lips and pain and ecstasy chasing across her face.
There was no turning back, either we swung from a star or sunk the teeth in
and drank each others blood. The savage pride of real womanhood knows
nothing of submission. Illutas full lips were pulled back from her teeth;
the low sound coming from deep in her throat was part of the feline fever
the fierce female puma snarling defiance as it takes the seed of life.
So it isnt nice! What a pity Illuta missed the slow drip of the poison;
never learnt words like: indelicate-suggestive-loose- indecent-bestial-licentious;
the vocabulary of the delicate fornicator. Unlike Helen, Illuta attended no
finishing school for modest virgins and missed the advance course with its
dogma of opposites purity and impurity. Chaste lust is what Helen seemed
to be striving for; continent carnality; virtuous voluptuousness. The ideal
not quite an immaculate conception, but a striving for the same type of spontaneous
combustion. Dear daughter, try to live in decent, delicate, decorous debauchery!
Dear son, something has to despoil the white flower of womanhood! There arent
enough swans to go around ... Turn the light out daughters, lie stiff and
unbending, tell him you have a headache ... Be ashamed you Rabelesian rip,
you lecherous, goatish, erotic, salacious, blackman ...
Helen did the shopping and for a short time I was the best-dressed boong
in Australia. Probably the bark-string armlets, Manala and I made; the rabbit
tails in the anklets, the bone through the nose, spoilt me for a tuxedo. I
felt like a boong every time we went out together. Nobody paid a great deal
of obvious attention; just about the same as if I had no legs, but a good
deal less than if I had two heads. In theatres some people turned around in
their seats and then turned back again. Waiters and shop assistants were polite
and slightly puzzled; it wasnt anything that worried them. About the
same effect as a public display of a modern painting; some people smiled or
frowned, but the average saw something in the picture of the blonde and the
boong they neither understood nor cared about one way or the other.
There were exceptions, of course. Not many, but enough to make Helens
cause seem worth while and satisfy her flair for martyrdom, I remember asking
with weary resignation:
Who is insulting you now?
Do you think I dont notice the smirks and stares wherever we
go! She sobbed.
Dont cry, Helen, I said, adding fuel to the flames. They
probably wouldnt stare so much if you didnt glare around the restaurant
or the pub before you sat down. The average are curious but not insulting.
How can you say that! What about that despicable pig of a steward last
night?
What about him? You were half full of gin, he was rushed off his feet
and you kept calling him boy. So he told you he wasnt a
bloody nigger.
Oh, darling! If only other people possessed your wonderful tolerance.
For Christ sake come off it, Helen! What are you trying to prove?
After a while Helen dried her eyes and wrote another long letter, beginning
as usual, Dear Mummy ....
In time she began to suspect nobody was interested in making our hides into
snappy black and white handbags. Not a single stone was thrown at us and the
only poison-pen letter we received was not stamped. It came from the poor
old bat in the flat downstairs, who disliked Helen for complaining about her
pet parrots to the landlord.
While the summer lasted we swam and surfed like berserk porpoises. Lying
on an immense white towel next to the oiled and now golden Helen, I had no
great desire to change my environment. If I had I would have done so. Who
could doubt this beautiful white-sanded beach, with its backdrop of green
lawns and pavilions, was in every way superior to a stretch of tidal mud flats.
Like the place where Illuta and I spent part of our honeymoon: a pebbled shoreline
with mangrove trees; their stilt-like legs buried in slimy mud. We couldnt
swim; the long trailing stings of northern jellyfish paralyse and kill; shark,
eel and sea-snake are always ready to support their shore-based cousins, the
crocodiles. Keen eyes cannot avoid microscopic coral growths. A tiny animal
becomes an itch in the swimmers ear; it eats through the eardrum and
the victim goes mad with the pain. Only a lunatic would want to swap City
Beach for the Riviera of the Abunda.
I fought against Illuta and the tribe with every memory and argument I could
find; probably protested overmuch ... The mosquito-ridden swamps and thirsty,
burning plains were incidental to the poor food extracted from them ... There
was no question of me being in love with Illuta ... She was given to me as
a chattel, a payment for manhood, in exactly the same category as spears and
woomera ... Abunda warriors possess women; they are never possessed by them
...
Why then! With Helen using my stomach for a pillow, did I hear Illutas
voice ... See, Irritcha! The jim-bim play! See, Irritcha! With
reluctant unease I would turn my head and watch the curling edges of the waves
... See, Irritcha! ... Always the lilt of excited happiness in
her voice. With sick despair I would strain for a glimpse of the laughing,
tumbling spirit children in the flying spray. I would see her standing naked
on a rock and pointing excitedly at the ocean ... See, Irritcha! See
the jim-bim play! ...
Perhaps during the night my fingers touched the puckered scars on Helens
hip. Maybe it was then the breeze moving the curtains of the bedroom window
became a cool night wind blowing across an immense hinterland ... On the third
night we built our fire in the centre of a vast plain; there was no horizon,
just a distant blue haze of infinity. All day we had been ants crawling across
the entire width of a flat and barren world. Now the rim rushed in and only
the glow of the fire stopped it from engulfing us. I asked Illuta about the
scars on her thighs.
Womens business, she impassively replied. When the
atua-kurka return from the Apulla ground and the ulmerka are no longer with
them; it is a day of small death. While she spoke both hands covered
her hips. Sometimes the women promised to the newly made wurtja have
new cicatrix scars put on their bodies. A little blood for the little death.
It is a foolishness of no importance womens business.
Illuta smiled shyly and went on cooking the meal. The scars begin as thin
lines on her buttocks and run across her thighs; they are like white marks
made by a sharp piece of chalk. No ash was rubbed into the open wounds and
the lines are not raised in weals like the beads above her breasts. They are
nothing to look at; merely three parallel lines on each hip. The miracle is
that they were made for me. In sympathy with the pain of my initiation IIluta
had stood in front of a gnarled old grandmother while a flake of grass was
drawn six times across her firm flesh.
In the daylight the marks were hardly visible. It was only when the night
fires died down and the sides of the well closed in; when we shrank until
we were only about an inch long; when the two tiny naked bodies squirmed closer
together to squeeze out the cold that I saw the significance. The scars feel
like thin wires; they are near the surface on the buttocks and gradually sink
into warm softness. Thin steel wires to cling to in the night.
16: Close up Pinish
On a Sunday afternoon, when Helen had decided to wash her hair, I went to
the Haven of the Poor. It is a sort of reformatory run by the
nuns on a paying basis; their vans pick up and deliver laundry all over the
city. Although the girls are not strictly prisoners, they are only allowed
out under exceptional circumstances; for various reasons they have been declared
wards of the State. Mostly neglected children of broken marriages, with a
sprinkling of the daughters of prostitutes, thieves and bums.
There are wide gardens all around the red brick buildings, with gum trees
and orderly rose beds set into well-kept lawns. There isnt a leaf or
blade of grass out of place; the stone borders of the paths are all painted
an antiseptic white.
It took me a full week to get to see Illuta. The Mother Superiors office
is in the East Wing; there Sister Theresa decides who will see her girls and
who will not. An old wrinkled faced nun, who could barely totter along, led
me through miles of highly polished corridors with tightly closed doors on
either side. Each of the doors had a massive brass knob, all so brightly gleaming
it seemed unlikely anyone would ever dare to turn them. The smell of beeswax
and the scarified cleanliness of the place gave me the impression of being
inside a giant beehive. I was worried lest my shoes mar the mirror-like polish
of the floor. In the distant background I could hear a murmur of chanting
or singing; but the sound did not fully penetrate and only added to the solemn
quiet. I walked on tiptoe all the way.
The Reverend Mother sat at a wide desk writing in a ledger. She put the pen
down and automatically picked up a cross, dangling from her belt on a string
of beads. Dark brown eyes stared at me for at least a minute as I guiltily
stopped fidgeting and put my hands behind my back.
Sister Mary Joan said you wished to see Illuta? The nun questioned
me in a low musical voice. Are you a relative?
Her husband, Sister, I mumbled.
She folded her hands about the cross and looked at me for so long without
replying I felt obliged to add proof to the remark.
We were married by tribal law, I murmured apologetically.
Illuta has been with us over six months, she stated without emphasis.
What did you wish to see her about?
Just wanted to see her, I stammered idiotically: The Reverend
Mother opened her lovely hands and let the cross lie on the palms.
Illuta has been ill, and for the present is confined to her bed. You
could not see her today.
The thought of Illuta lying sick behind one of those closed doors seemed
grotesque and horrible. Couldnt I speak to her for a moment?
I blurted out.
The Reverend Mother stood up and walked around the end of the desk. Sister
Theresa is tall and well built; must once have been a very beautiful woman.
I am afraid not, she said with kindness and conviction. Male
visitors are not allowed in the dormitories. If you would care to ring me
next Sunday afternoon, perhaps Illuta would be well enough to see you.
Sister Mary Joan opened the door and like a guilty schoolboy I edged out
sideways, mumbling my thanks; it didnt occur to me to discuss or debate
the issue. Nobody ever argues with Sister Theresa.
Once clear of the convent grounds I stopped worrying about Illuta. It felt
good to be back with Helen and away from the smell of furniture polish and
antiseptic; we had a lot of differences to share and these were a reasonable
substitute for having nothing in common. As an added attraction, life with
Helen was about as far from missions and convents as it is possible to get.
Yet in many ways Helen and the Reverend Mother are identical. Not physically
or in the comparative sizes of their eyes, where a few fractions of an inch
can convey an impression of saint or prostitute; but in the confession of
faith, where each takes a different symbol and through it tries to achieve
the same end. One took a figure nailed to a cross; the other an initiated
blackman. Somewhere in the protoplasm of women must be the desire to speed
up the process of natural selection; it can become practical or symbolised,
depending on whether they seek the catalysis through God or man. Deep down
beyond the swaying hips and flaunted breasts is a matrix. Women know their
bodies contain not only the egg, but also the touchstone for the whole human
race; they are semiconscious of guarding all of the past civilisation and
all of the future. Holding in trust the sum total of existence.
Maybe you learn something by drinking blood and being held up to a barbaric
cross; perhaps the female hair binding of the Nurtunja pole contains the message
any atua-kurka would understand the essential goodness of Helen. Jangaga
confuse the issue by oblique reference to the mystery of women; Abunda are
fully aware that women have no mystery. Mysticism is the prerogative of the
male. No Abunda woman has ever attended true tribal religious rites or ever
will. There is no desire in tribal women to mystify, theirs is a core of factual
reality in substance the cradle of mankind. A large part of the seeming
mystery comes from male attempts to penetrate to the inner core of women
usually selecting what appears to be the easiest and shortest route
and gaining a good deal of satisfaction; but not the answer. The matrix is
locked in an emotion-proof casket any savage is aware of this and seeks
no further. Should Helen be branded with a mark of shame because civilisation
has failed to breed out of its women the knowledge that any seed of the species
will fertilise equally well? Few white males would admit it even to themselves,
but all their women are aware of the primal fact.
The lecherous old idiot who tended the garden of the flats asked me: What
attracts a white woman to a black man? I answered him with one word:
Sex.
On the following Sunday morning I rang the Reverend Mother; she said I could
see Illuta at two thirty. It wasnt a day to be easily forgotten; Helen
had a hangover and a fit of the sulks. Do what you like! she snapped.
Live at the convent if you want to! That is exactly what I did
do.
On the stone veranda, just outside the main doors, Illuta sat in a cane chair;
she looked like a broken rag doll! Just for once I saw the truth of the picture
without distortion and stopped worrying about how shocking and painful it
was for me. My wife sat slumped in the chair with her head almost on her chest;
arms like parchment-covered bones fell straight to her sides.
Illuta! Who less than two years before had run across the floor of the Alchilpa
with Apmaura loping at her side, was now little more than a skeleton. Hardly
any flesh remained on her legs, they hung below the shapeless print frock
like grey, brittle sticks. From a distance the discarded puppet effect was
added to by a lifeless wig of hair hanging from the gaunt bones of the skull;
yet neatly combed into lank string.
I stood with my hand on the chair, unable to speak. Blank, unseeing eyes
looked up from under bloodless and partly closed lids. There was no recognition.
I held out a bag full of chocolates and fruit; she made no move to accept
the pitiful offering abjectly put down near the chair.
Illuta! I crouched down next to her. Its me, Irritcha.
No more eatum, she said in the toneless pidgin reserved for white
men.
Illuta! You must come away with me, I sobbed.
Yesem. She mumbled in abject obedience and unsteadily jerked
to her feet. I held out my hand to assist, Illuta pulled away, parting her
lips in a grimace to show there was no offence meant.
She stumbled across the lawn but each time I tried to take her arm cringed
back, Painful, faltering steps slowed and stopped as she sank to her knees
on the grass.
Me close up pinish, Illuta explained apologetically. A complete
lack of expression in the bald statement held a sickening overtone of desolation.
It was a long time before I could speak, and then only able to plead with
a human being to go on living. The chance to beg forgiveness or try to instil
hope had long since passed.
Sposem you go alonga Table-Tops and sit down. No more pinish?
Illutas head lifted with slow caution, then slumped back on her chest.
No more walkabout. No more eatem me pinish.
Ill get you out of here! We go alonga boat, I pleaded.
She looked up at me and frowned with the effort to concentrate. Walkabout
alonga Table-Tops belonga you, Irritcha. A faint trace of excitement
crept into her voice. You takem bones belonga me; givem Dhalja?
I didnt reply; I couldnt. Illutas hand crept out and tightened
on my wrist. A spark of anger gave her momentary strength. I am your
woman, Irritcha, she said in Abunda. Do not bury me among the
jangaga.
Suppressed sobs were tearing at my throat; it wasnt possible to utter
even this assurance. Illuta took my silence as refusal. The dry desperate
eyes searched my face; I dumbly nodded my head. She didnt trust me and
lapsed back into pidgin for a last hopeless plea.
No buryem in hole like dog.
There was no sound as she crept away, I lay face down in the grass; my chest
and throat felt like raw, bloated meat. I knew Illuta would not survive another
boat trip so did she. When I sat up I could see her through the trees,
slowly climbing the stairs to the second storey dormitories. She paused for
breath at the top of the flight and stood leaning against the balcony, too
weak to go inside.
Somehow the sight of the forlorn figure cut completely through the dung of
civilisation I had plastered all over myself. It was essential to tell Illuta
I was with her in grief and would respect her wishes when she was dead. No
amount of bastard pidgin could do that. My head jerked back until mouth and
guts were in line; the desolate sorrow came tearing out in a stricken, howling
cry of pure pain.
Illuta did not move. I was sure she heard me but conscious of nothing else.
Again and again the trumpeted lament mourned her loss; to me; to the tribe.
The sound tore at the too complacent, too peaceful air and climbed upward
... It told our ancestors of Illutas coming ... said plainer than a
million words ... she had been a good wife. They would hear and her status
in the spirit world would be in accordance with the amount of grief accompanying
death. Again and again I called for her and to her. Words kill emotion; they
are a shell, binding the spirit within their narrow confines. Everything between
Illuta and me and God became contained in the eerie scream of the Abunda death
cry; a baying, throbbing heartbreak, tailing into a sobbing wail. It is not
strange! A cold white card with a black edging around the formal, printed
message thats strange!
The Abunda lament is a thing of the full moon. It contains a yearning for
the dreamtime; for the stars. Apmaura used it for a love call. The dingo never
learnt to bark like other dogs or talk or print cards. Down through
the endless years Apmauras ancestors listened to sound once common to
all the inhabitants of the earth. The high keening of vanished things and
races. The dingo was there to hear the inconsolable grief as the last of the
giant reptiles saw its mate die in a primeval swamp. This sound the dingo
took for his voice. On the nights of the full moon Apmaura and her cousins
remind the Abunda of what was and what is. Illuta knew the howl of the dingo
knew all of birth, life and death was contained in her wordless requiem.
I did not hear Sister Theresa come across the lawn, but felt her hand on
the top of my head. My goodness! she exclaimed. What is
all this about?
A cross with a bronze figure racked in pain hung level with my eyes. It swung
from a metal chain spaced with large black beads; a broad leather belt held
the chain and encircled a small waist. Sister Theresa is of Italian descent.
A starched white cowl frames the dark compassionate eyes and the oval of her
face; the habit may flatter her a little she has the face of a saint.
Reverend Mother, I sobbed, Illuta is dying.
She faintly shook her head and held out both hands to me. It was the gesture
of a lover; not personal universal. I touched her fingers and stood
up; some of the Sisters of Mercy have an aura of consolation about them. With
some: It falleth as the gentle rain.
We sat on a bench under a blood-wood tree. The bark grew in a raised diamond
pattern; each leaf a separate living entity. Everything stood out with the
exceptional clarity of grief; it was like looking at the world through a microscope.
I could feel and almost hear the tiny rivers of sap pumping beneath the broad,
gum-stained trunk.
Sister Theresa had been holding the cross in her hands but now let it fall
to her side. You must tell me the truth, Irritcha, she said. Has
Illuta been boned?
A question on black magic seemed ou t of place, coming from her. I shook
my head.
She didnt believe me. I was at Boongana Mission for six years
before coming to this convent. We saw some of the sickness Illuta seems to
have.
I looked down at the small white hands folded in her lap, the delicate wrists.
Its hard killing work on a mission station; the Sisters of the Poor
give a great deal and ask nothing in return they have a fantastic inner
strength.
A witch doctor has pointed the bone at Illuta, hasnt he, Irritcha?
No, Sister.
Does Illuta believe in the power of the bone?
Reverend Mother, Illuta is dying for lack of something to believe in;
not because of it.
Why are you convinced your wife is dying? The doctor says there is
nothing physically wrong with her.
Illuta is dying, Sister, I murmured hopelessly. She told
me so, it will be soon now. I looked up but there was no one on the
balcony, the screen door had been left open and moved in the wind.
Manicured fingers picked up the cross and held it between the palms of her
hands; she pressed the metal effigy to her breast and then her stomach. It
was something she had done countless times before. A habit of offering warmth
and consolation to the tortured figure. I knew the offer was open to all.
A dam broke. It came pouring out of me in a flood:
I killed her! Understand this! I, Irritcha, killed my wife! Dont
stand at her deathbed and say it was Gods will; hold your cross and
know it wasnt. I murdered Illuta!
Smashing my fists against the tree helped keep the strangles from my throat;
blood squirted from the knuckles and flecks of red spotted Sister Theresas
white gown.
It wasnt a shinbone that took the will to live away from Illuta.
I killed her! What do you think would happen if you hacked the roots off this
tree and threw it on a rubbish dump? On a dirty, filthy cesspool of rubble
and twisted humanity.
I bent over the bench and stared into her face. You know what the poor
heathen did, Reverend Mother? Scraped a bare patch in the earth and drew the
feet of birds. At the back of the toilet she knelt in prayer; tried to bring
the smell of pollen and the beat of wings into her stinking cathedral.
I couldnt speak for a moment. Sister Theresa touched me on the throat
as though to ease the strangling sobs. Perhaps God heard her prayers,
Irritcha.
Looks like it! Doesnt it! I laughed insanely. You
had better keep your gentle Jesus out of this, Sister. Give him the benefit
of the doubt! Say he didnt listen to the pagan! Sure! Not baptised,
thats it. But the poor simple savage who washed your fine clothes had
no need to be dipped in holy water. You see, Sister, Illuta is of the Gods.
She walked HER land secure in the love and respect of HER people. All the
things that grew and flew paid homage; they were hers by right. Illuta walked
tall and proud. A Goddess who walked with God; not your God! Her God! Numbukulla
held her hand.
The spring ran down or dried up or some bloody thing. I sat sobbing on the
bench. If the Reverend Mother was shocked she didnt show it; for perhaps
half an hour there was only the click of the rosary beads.
We have to do something for Illuta, she said quietly. Dont
we, Irritcha?
Cant you understand, Sister, I angrily muttered. Its
too late.
We shall see. She stood up with a determined switch of gown and
clink of chain. You come to the office with me, young man.
I felt too drained out to refuse. As we walked across the lawns she pointed
to a bed of roses. I am very good at transplanting, Irrichta.
She smiled. The head gardener was positive the Lady Ansteys
could not be shifted at this time of year; but as you can see they are doing
quite well. Of course I would not have moved them if it wasnt for the
new wall of the boiler house ...
It wont work, Sister, I wearily interrupted. Illuta
is terrified of the boat; she would be dead long before it arrived.
Sister Theresa took a fine linen handkerchief from the sleeve of her habit
and handed it to me. She didnt say: Soak your head, but
she said it in that tone of voice. Wash the blood off your hands under
the tap. When you have finished come inside.
There is a small statue of the Virgin Mary just outside the door of the Mother
Superiors office. I stood looking at it, putting off going in and facing
the futility of trying to right a buried wrong. It wasnt a good statue
but I felt a common bond with the effigy of the virgin; I knew she didnt
have a body beneath her carved robes- just a block of plaster.
Sister Theresa called out to me, she had an opened book on her desk; a school
atlas turned to the map of Western Australia.
Exactly where is your tribe located? she demanded in the usual
school teacher manner what is the capital of Turkey?
name the principal ports of Spain.
Table-Tops wasnt mentioned on the map, but I indicated its approximate
position. The roads are closed, Sister. This is the end of the wet season
in the North.
She frowned at the atlas. Which station is it?
Table-Tops.
Is there an airstrip for the flying doctor?
I shuddered at the mere thought of trying to get IIluta on a plane. Illuta
has never been on an aeroplane, I said with the slow care necessary
to explain things to idiots. She is in no condition to stand a new experience
. The Table-Tops strip is merely a rough clearing in the bush and can only
be used during the dry season. The flying doctor does not operate this far
south Its hopeless.
She only half listened to me. How much money could you raise, Irritcha?
I threw my wallet on the desk in disgust. About four pounds!
Perhaps your employer would advance a loan against holiday pay or future
wages?
I told her the truth; conscious of getting a good deal of malicious satisfaction
from the words. She couldnt save IIluta and I hated the presumption
of her manner ... good at transplanting ... the Lady Ansteys!
I am not employed, Reverend Mother, nor able to borrow money from any
source. Im a criminal on parole.
She took the information without a blink and picked up a pen. Who is
the station owner at Table-Tops?
Jack Tipper is the manager; it is part of the Beresford holdings.
Has he a sending set?
All the stations have two-way wireless.
What hours do they operate?
It should be a relief to turn from uncontrollable grief to answering practical
questions; but it isnt. I felt cheated and replied with a growing surliness:
I dont know when they come on the air.
There used to be a Country Womens session, following the morning
medical calls. She pursed her lips. Is Mr Tipper a generous man?
Jack is a Presbyterian, I sneered. If you mean would he
pay to have IIlutas dead body flown in by plane, I doubt it. Why should
he?
She put the pencil down with a faint show of impatience. I meant kind
rather than generous. You have been under a great mental strain, but at the
moment your chief concern should be for your wife.
I felt like saying: which wife did you have in mind ... it would be interesting
to know Gods choice ... I married neither in Christian ceremony ...
a simple selection, black or white ... the living or the dead? If I am criticised
or pushed around the deadliest venom to fit the occasion pours into my mind;
fortunately I seldom have enough guts to utter the words.
Sister Theresa made a few notes in a book and picked up the telephone. She
lifted the other hand in dismissal. Irritcha, I want you to be back
here at ten oclock tomorrow morning.
Yes, Sister, I mumbled obediently, and walked out.
I didnt go back to the flat, but spent the night sitting under a palm
tree on the esplanade, staring at the river. Not thinking about anything nor
even imagining I was; there is no relation between grief and thought. I just
stopped being white. Boongs are experts at staring into space; the art has
been lost by the more advanced tribes replaced by get up and
go.
Under the palm tree it was the dreamtime of Illuta. Or perhaps just a blackfella
staring into space; mooning about; in his usual bloody Zombie-like trance.
We Z class citizens are poor adjusters. Primitives deprived of totemic lands
are apt to look into the Alchera and decide the newly allotted role of paid
slave is trivial and sterile; has no spiritual value; is not worth sweating
nor living for. What does one individuals reaction matter when whole
tribes have already made the same decision and lay down and died?
Having sat staring at the river for some twenty-odd hours, I went back to
see the Reverend Mother. A picture of Jesus Christ hangs above Sister Theresas
desk. When I came in she was talking on the phone:
The patient will be on a stretcher ... I am sure you will be able to
remove some of the seats and make room for it ... Could you ask your Mr Gallaher
to come to the phone ... Very well, I will ring back in an hour ...
In the picture the chest has been cut away to show an oversized heart with
gold lines radiating from it. The heart is in the wrong place, looks as though
it has exploded and blown the chest open. I had a feeling Sister Theresa was
liable to suffer the same fate.
After another night on the esplanade I went back again to see if Illuta was
dead. Her body was on a stretcher waiting for an ambulance to take it to the
airport. She looked dead; eyes blank and half open until Sister Ignatius closed
them. A blanket covered Illuta to the chin; it seemed to require only the
gesture of lifting the rug over her face for death to become official. The
stunned melancholy I felt was tinged with envy. I wished my eyes could be
closed in the same way.
The Reverend Mother said: She is under heavy sedation and will know
nothing of her first plane ride.
I suppose its only possible to remain a short time at the bottom of
despair before a law of life says: either die or start the ascent. Sister
Theresa had a lot to do with my decision. She sat in a straight-backed chair
near the stretcher, counting rosary beads and looking like a serene and virginal
Buddha. I never received the impression she prayed like other women knitted
because there was nothing else to do or as a last resort. When Sister
Theresa talked to God, I am sure she was more likely to be saying thank you
than please.
Your wife is going to be all right, Irritcha, she said with the
cross in her hands. I watched the pretty mouth say the sentence and heard
the utter faith and conviction in the words. When Illuta wakes in the
morning she will be at Table-Tops among her people.
I believed her! All at once Illuta seemed to be sleeping and not dying. Suddenly
there was no doubt; for a positive fact Illuta would live Sister Theresa
said so. The change was a little too sudden to take, my mouth hung open and
tears were running down my face.
The Table-Tops airstrip is open, Sister? I was sucking for air
and the words came out a bit at a time. It was just something to say; if Sister
Theresa said Illuta would be home tomorrow, she would be.
It is all arranged. The passenger plane will take your wife to Port
Darling and the flying doctor from there to the station. Mrs Tipper is going
to keep Illuta up at the homestead until she is well enough to return to the
camp.
The ambulance came and went with brisk, bustling efficiency. There was only
time to touch my lips to Illutas mouth before she was gone. It was a
white mans gesture but I felt it would meet with the approval of Sister
Theresa. Nothing could be allowed to upset the balance of her endorsement;
I felt as though a single frown or even the shadow of anger coming into those
dark eyes might cause her God to swipe the plane from the skies.
We watched the ambulance clear the main gates. How can I ever repay
you? I murmured.
The Reverend Mother promptly took over from Sister Theresa. You owe
the convent one hundred and five pounds sixteen, she said without the
slightest hesitation. Less the money you left on my desk.
I have a rough idea of how a convent or a mission works, knew she would have
to answer for every penny, either to her Bishop or a board of directors. I
will get work, Sister, I promised, and you will have the money
as soon as possible.
She said: We need a man here to replace the boiler attendant and assist
with the heavy work in the laundry. Do you think you could do it?
I had no intention of going back to Helen; the weight of the whole earth
seemed to have been lifted from my shoulders. It was an effort not to put
my hands around Sister Theresas slim waist and lift her off the floor
in a wild dance of joy.
Yes, Sister, I gratefully replied. Im sure I could.
17: Dreamtime of the Buffalo
The rains of the cold south began in June. Wet logs steamed and hissed on
the fire-bars before exploding into flames. The rain dripped through holes
in the roof and turned into vapour as it touched hot iron. For days on end
a white cloud floated between the top of the boiler and the roof of the shed.
It was cold and wet outside, but I lived in a steaming jungle of wood and
iron with the sun drenched promise of Abunda hills growing nearer each
day. The big face of the pressure gauge was continually beaded with sweat
and stood at one hundred and seventy pounds of live steam to the square inch.
I hadnt really worked since leaving the markets. The judge mentioned
hard labour to go with the arson sentence, but this had long since become
a joke; with overcrowded prisons the axes on the woodpile have a waiting list
a mile long. For the first week on stoking the boiler I was an aching mass
of blubber.
Most of the wood was donated by the local mills and came in all sizes, from
six-foot billets to full-grown trees. Some of the logs had to be rolled down
to the fire doors and then levered into position with a crowbar; the stack
sloped back from the boiler house like seats in an amphitheatre. Steamy little
rivers ran across the cracked concrete floor and disappeared into the bark
and charcoal littered yard.
During the second week Helen managed to slip past Sister Theresa. She sat
in the stalls on a big karri log and watched me sweating it out in the arena.
It was a noisy old donk and Helen had trouble making herself heard. She yelled
out: Hi! and I echoed the word back again. Knocking off work and
going into any huddles or tearful good byes never even occurred to me.
After about ten minutes the water intake valve stopped clanking for a few
seconds. Helen said: The Reverend Mother told me you were working here
to pay a plane fare. She also gave me a lecture on Christian morality.
I grinned up at her. Christians shouldnt sit around watching
savages; you should be down here in the arena and the pagan up there egging
on the lions.
The water pump started up again and I missed most of the speech. Helen talked
for quite a while and I picked up odd words and phrases here and there: No
need to live like this ... more important work ... mean anything to you ...
not a savage ... She looked sweet, righteous, wronged and a little lonely
with her feet dangling down the side of the log. I remembered a lot of nice
things about Helen; but all with a curious detachment, not connected with
present or future. We were Inapatua creatures who had met and merged on the
edge of the salt water; the time had come for Numbukulla to change us into
separate human beings.
The figure could now stand; eyes wide open, nose shaped and nostrils bored.
A few more tons of wood to burn in the boiler and the Inapatua would become
eagle-hawk Abunda. Helen said something like: will pay the money you
owe the nuns.
I hurled a fat billet through the doors and laughed. You do,
I yelled, and you go in here with all the other logs. Anyway, Sister Theresa
wouldnt take your money. It seemed wrong to be getting such a
big kick out of paying penance.
I opened the damper full out and watched the pressure gauge climb around
the dial. It hit the red mark and the safety valve lifted with a full-throated
roar; Helen disappeared in a cloud of steam. I never saw her again.
Fred died. I sat on an old upturned laundry basket in front of the boiler
and read the death notice over and over. A shameful voice kept whispering
that another link in my chains had snapped. I tried to prod a little genuine
sorrow into pain and grief by staring at printed words: Carson: The
funeral of the late Mr Frederick Carson, of the Starboard Light Hotel and
formerly of Bindora Station, will leave our Gibson Street chapel at two oclock
next Monday afternoon. I wished I had known Fred was in Stuart.
Standing in the rain, watching the coffin being lowered into a raw slash
in the earth, I tried hard for some word of Freds to remember him by.
All I could get was endless stories about lunatics. There arent
many men your old uncle Fred cant drink under the table, Chalky boy
Fathered a couple of football teams of yella-fellas ... I am
a pioneer, I have lived all my life in the rugged North I passed this
way therefore I am. I was glad it wasnt a fine sunny day; the
cold, steady drizzle of rain at least gave an impression of misery and tears.
The polished wooden box with its silver handles lay on the mud in the bottom
of the hole. The grave echoed with a hollow thud as the minister dropped a
clod of wet clay onto the lid. Freds funeral cured me of the belief
that lying the dead on a leafy platform in a tree is a barbaric method of
burial.
... Had a young Government bloke over to Bindora a couple of years
ago... The dead of Stuart lie shoulder to shoulder inside the fenced
area of the graveyard ... I said Son, fifteen thousand head are kangaroos
and scrub bulls. Do you want me to fence that useless lot of bastards in or
out? ... There was a row of old graves not six feet away from where
we were standing; the publican of the Starboard Light and five of Freds
drinking friends stood with hats in hand staring glumly into space.... The
mound of newly dug earth touched the marble border of the nearest grave; it
had a low brass rail and a layer of white granite chips spread evenly over
the inner surface. The headstone flanked by two small stone angels, with folded
wings and closed eyes. At the base of each pedestal wide-necked vases of clear
glass held dead and blackened lilies. The rain dripped from the rotting stalks
of the flowers into the glass bowls; they were both about a quarter full of
scummy water.
I suppose the least I could have done was to give my undivided attention
to the funeral service; there must have been thousands of pleasant little
memories of the old man to think about; but my eyes kept watching the water
dripping from the lily stems ...
Illuta came back to our first camp with an armful of fat tuber-like roots.
She cut the ends off and stood them around the sides of her pitchi, with the
cut ends in the bottom of the dish. We watched the slow drops of water form
at the base of the roots, fill the grooved channel and creep a little way
up the sides ... clear, cool, sweet water drips from boab roots ... The minister
said: Dust unto dust, and wiped his muddy hand on a clean handkerchief
... The rest of the poem kept repeating itself in my head: and under
dust to lie, the wine, the song, the singer and the end. By squinting
through one eye the stone angels turned into stone rum bottles with tapered
wooden bungs.
A couple of weeks later I received a copy of Freds last will and testament.
It was posted in Port Darling with the address scrawled on the envelope in
Stutterin Joes large, clumsy handwriting. I suppose he had strict
instructions from Fred about what to do in the event of death. Having thoroughly
pickled his own brains in alcohol, Joe cruised on the automatic pilot and
always waited for decisions, orders and instruction to come from Fred. Over
a period of years those portions of the mind not completely embalmed rusted
up for lack of use. Fred often said Joe only used his brains to keep his ears
apart; I wondered what would happen now that the pilot was dead.
Under the terms of the will Stutterin Joe inherited Bindora for the
remainder of his life. Fred must have imagined necessity would start the rusty
wheels turning again. A clause stated: Providing Charles Carson resides
on the property for not less than eight months of the year, one quarter of
the net annual profit is to be paid to him as a monthly wage.
Another a proviso was added, stating I must live on the station for ten years
to confirm rights of tenure; in the event of failure to comply with this clause,
the executor Tom Tipper was required to sell everything and
distribute the profits among several named charities: The main body of the
will read: After the death of Stutterin Joe and ten years residence,
Bindora, its lands and holdings, buildings, stock and effects becomes
the property of the said Charles Carson and his descendants without restriction
or restraint.
As I had no intention of ever going back to Bindora the terms of the will
did not concern me. Stutterin Joe was welcome to any profits; although
I strongly doubted if there would be any without Fred to organise the muster
and keep the windmills in repair.
Joe was more likely to concentrate on drinking himself into a paralytic stupor.
After nearly forty years dependence on windmills, he had still relied on Fred
to diagnose trouble and explain the repair procedure step by step. It was
the same with the muster; Joe was a first class horseman, an excellent stockman
and one of the best men in the north with a branding iron or spaying tool;
yet without Fred I couldnt imagine him ever deciding to saddle up. With
Joe in charge a quarter share of the profits would very likely amount to exactly
nothing.
I was more interested in a letter the Reverend Mother received from Mrs Tipper.
She said Illuta was slowly recovering and beginning to put on weight. By
the state of the sheets, Mrs Tipper wrote, I suspect Illuta sneaks
from her bed on the veranda, sleeps in the camp and returns in the early hours
of the morning. They seem to know what is best for them and we dont
interfere. Irritchas brother gave her a fearsome looking barbed spear
which she keeps under the bed; her dog, a huge crossbred dingo name Emora,
has taken up residence under the porch steps a few feet away from her mistress
and keeps a watchful eye on the nurse. The Abunda have astonishing powers
of recovery and I am sure, Sister, you need have no further fears on Illutas
behalf ...
My bed was near the wall of the boiler house and well within the meridian
of the summer season. I could lie warm under a light blanket and listen to
the drumming of the rain on the low tin roof. When I closed my eyes it sounded
like warm tropical rain. The dreaming of the Spay had already begun. Illuta
and I had our camp near a great river which made a noise like a giant organ
composed of a million gutters and downpipes; all the plumbing in Stuart began
to speak of Table-Top mountains and crocodiles in chocolate water. I knew
Illuta had taken the barbed fishing spear and began to draw new strength and
purpose for both of us from the river.
Later on when I told her of the letter about the dirty sheets and the spear,
she smiled and said: They did not matter, Irritcha. Without a spear
I still knew the evil dreaming was coming to an end.
And the new dreaming had a powerful voice, Illuta. For even while I
fed the boiler I saw you standing in the river and the Spay was loud in my
room.
There was no need to tell her this for, as Illuta said: I am your woman,
Irritcha, and the paths of our dreamings are side by side.
The jangaga hear a faint whisper of the stored memory which is in all things
and sometimes say: There is something familiar about this place
I think I have been here before. Abunda know they have always been in
all places; the memory of the silent things, whispering trees, murmuring oceans
and rivers contain the memory of eternity. All consciousness springs from
the Alchera and people pass through many dreamings before becoming a part
of the all-mind; which contains the dreamings of all.
Illuta went back to the Spay and drew some of the free, surging power of
the mighty river into her weakened body. The dream began again ... From her
would spring a host of Abunda warriors to go on down through time and eternity
... She would not only people the earth, but in time would people the heavens
with the burning star bright bodies of her sons ... The Abunda would look
up for evermore. They would say: See, small one, there is Illuta, the
mother! The seven bright ones around her are her sons ...
It took three months to pay off the debt and two more free pays to buy a
jewel-studded cross for Sister Theresa, a musical trinket box for Mrs Tipper.
Eight more weeks for my fare.
People change but the true dreamings do not. Illuta was still painfully thin,
yet even from a distance I could see her oiled skin had turned from grey to
velvet back, the curl beginning to come back to her hair. I sat on the parapet
and stripped naked; placed my shoes and socks, wrist watch and clothes neatly
in the suitcase before dropping the lot into the river. Then crept around
the end of the crossing and watched Illuta fishing ... There was a ripple
near the rock. The dark, dreaming eyes sharply focused ... Illuta raised the
spear and her breasts were lifted; the copper circles around the nipples gleamed
in the bright sun. She was waiting to spear a fish a barramundi. Waiting
for a new embryo to stir in the womb of time; another dreaming to begin.
Illuta and I arrived from Table-Tops just as both tribes were preparing to
leave the Alchilpa. As it is not practicable to spend the wet season in the
Snake River country, we decided to accompany the Myall on the yearlong circuit
of their tribal grounds. Manala and his woman, Hakea, came with us.
From the moment we crossed the tail of the Snake Illuta began to come back
to life; the spring returned to her step and the joy of living drove the gaunt
haggard look from her face. We walked north-west and each day Illutas
mirth blended more and more with Hakeas ready laughter. The squealing
excitement at catching a fat lizard or digging a big yam still lurked in Illutas
eyes as she cooked the evening meal.
When the lilies of the billabongs and the nuts of the cycad palm were finished
bearing the tribe moved on to the spawning beaches of the turtle; for six
weeks we feasted like kings on enormous quantities of eggs, dugong and turtle
steaks. The rains began and the sweet fleshed barramundi went racing up the
rivers to wash the salt from their gills. The tribe followed and before the
monsoons had turned the coastal plains into a sea of mud we were well inland;
trailing the kangaroos out into the semi-desert country.
In the life of a nomad there are times of plenty and times when too much
rain or too little have caused a scarcity of game; a crop of seed or nuts
to fail. Joy and fear are never far apart. It is not only dry waterholes that
cause the women to stare stony-eyed at the horizon and the children to whimper
in fear; walking a hundred miles to a lagoon where floods have killed the
lilies or cockatoos eaten the cycad nuts can be equally disastrous. The very
young or old may not make the next camp; even if they do the pattern is broken,
there may be weeks to wait for the turtles to come ashore, the fish to run.
Survival in this land was never easy; but now more and more cattle eat the
seed of the grass; the wild game and the years of plenty grow further and
further apart. The Myall say this year has been a little better than average.
Even before the turtle feasting the firm flesh began to pad Illutas
bones, there was soon little difference between her rounded buttocks and Hakeas
curves. While we were in the billabong country the women spent most of the
time duck-diving for deep lily roots; game was scarce and Manala and I had
little to do but sit around and watch our inverted women gathering the harvest.
A favourite occupation was to squat by the edge of a swamp loudly commenting
on the value of the high protein diet and the wealth of fat mounting on the
stern ends of the divers. These academic discussions were often brought to
an end by nulla-nullas whizzing around our heads. Hakea picked up the club
throwing habit from Illuta. Manala recommended we either permanently carry
shields or catch the pair of them in an unguarded moment and apply the flat
of a boomerang.
In the plain country kangaroos were fairly plentiful; there had been good
penetrating rains the previous year and meat was in the cooking fires more
often than not. My hunting ability still left a good deal to be desired, but
Emora more than made up for my shortcomings. We were now good friends and
kangaroos missed by my spears seldom escaped the powerful jaws of the dog.
I still preferred the boomerang to the spear, even for killing kangaroos.
Manala raised his eyebrows at the unorthodox method; but I fashioned an unusually
heavy boomerang and had reasonable success with it. No doubt the weapon would
be useless in heavily timbered country; however on the plains there are few
trees to interfere with the curved flight.
About the end of the third month with the Myall, Illuta found she was pregnant.
With shining eyes she whispered to me: A jim-bim has come from the land
of laughter, Irritcha, It is making a little sea of its own to play in until
the time comes to be born.
Will you be all right, Illuta? I questioned in anxious concern,
Shouldnt you have other things to eat?
She partly agreed with the idea, Meat and yams are all Abunda need;
but jim-bim are greedy for honey. We must find some or the little one might
go away.
A few weeks later Manala also started started talking about honey ants and
climbing likely looking trees in search of bees. The Myall were highly amused
and christened us the Honeycombers. They dont share the
Abunda belief about the spirit childrens liking for honey; yet in tolerant
kindness the women presented Illuta and Hakea with dozens of the fat storage
ants; on one occasion both were given thick slabs of the rare and highly prized
honeycomb of the native bees.
The addition to the diet proved effective, for the jim-bim not only remained,
but enlarged their ponds and rapidly increased in size. Illuta blossomed,
although her hair lost some of its sheen, the life within shone from her eyes
and showed as a dim glow in her cheeks. Each morning I awakened at dawn and
turned my head to look at Illuta. She was always awake; her dark eyes staring
up at the paling stars or a moving bush, The rustling leaves of our windbreak
sang the song of the morning with a deeper, more resonant note; a prelude,
a fantasia, that would change to the Gregorian music of the family. There
were times when Illutas whole being turned inward and spent the hours
in holy communion with the unborn child; her eyes held the soft glow of utter
content.
At nights, as we lay close to the fire, the jim-bim began to send out tiny
impulses; ethereal feelers searching our minds for protective assurance and
some measure of security.
Illuta pointed to a group of stars by the side of Canthus, In the dreamtime,
she murmured, the junkgowa made a man and two women. He sent them out
to commence a horde family in the sky,
I chuckled and pinched her, Do you think I should take another woman,
Illuta?
If you do, get one with a thick skull, she advised, For
every day I will beat her.
And every night I will stroke her bruises.
It slowly occurred to me that Illutas growing preoccupation with the
stars was not idle fancy. She searched the heavens, seeking security for her
baby; yet knowing full well safety is a luxury no tribesman can possess.
We have seen the stars draw closer together, she remarked on
another night. This is because, in the wet season, the husband makes
a big gunya for himself and his family. Next year when the star family begin
to make their gunya, we too must have shelter from the rain.
There has been little rain this year; the Myall do not bother with
gunyas.
When the billabongs are dry and the grass is empty of seed many of
the Myall die.
Do you want to go back to Table-Tops, Illuta?
We are of the Abunda and this is not our land, Irritcha. Tomtip would
give ten sheets of iron and you could build a gunya near Dhalja.
Tomtip already complains he has too many mouths to feed. I have been
thinking of another way and will speak to Manala about it.
Illuta pointed to a star. Jurrapan thought of many things as he sat
in idleness by his fire.
Good for Jurrapan, I scoffed. Illuta frowned. It was bad
for his family. She always spoke of the stars as though each one was
a member of the tribe. Jurrapan knew he had been wise to build up his
horde until it was stronger than any other. He had the respect of all who
knew him, yet was still not content. One night, restlessly waiting for the
dawn, he saw the morning star rise above the hills; Jurrapan left the earth
and climbed into the western sky. He made his body glow like Burimba ...
My plan does not involve leaving the earth, I interrupted. There
is a way where all who wish it, including the Myall, could live like the jangaga
all through the wet and yet still return to the Alchilpa every year. When
Stutterin Joe dies all of Bindora will belong to me. The land rightfully
belongs to all the Abunda and I will give it back to the tribe.
It takes a long time to unlearn the rapacious greed of a possessive mentality
and begin to think clearly in Abunda. Illuta desired a measure of security
for her baby; yet had not the slightest desire to own anything. People who
have not even considered harnessing or conquering nature are above greed.
The Warrumunga gave us the land, Illuta replied indifferently.
It would make no difference to give it again.
This time the jangaga also give. I have a paper which says so.
The jarandalba boards are all the Abunda need; the old men would laugh
at the paper.
You dont understand, Illuta. All the cattle on Bindora, the horses,
the buildings, everything will belong to us.
The animals will not know or care who owns them.
The jim-bim will know if your breasts are dry and his belly is empty.
There was no answer for a long time. I was almost asleep when an arm crept
around my neck and Illuta whispered: It is not good to wish the things
of the jangaga, Irritcha. Jangaga munya bomunggur Abunda.
I held her head on my chest and looked at the stars, while Ribcott Street
and the scraped earth behind the toilet passed in front of my eyes like a
reel of horror picture. Jangaga munya bomunggur Abunda. I wished
I had known the meaning of those words before taking Illuta to Stuart
the smell of the white man kills us Abunda.
For a few weeks I forgot about Bindora. My desire to own a share in a cow
or a horse was never strong; living with the Myall probably helped to leach
out what remained of the possessive poison. Illuta brought up the subject.
We were well into the desert country and had been on short rations for five
or six days; the lack of rain had caused the kangaroos to head back for the
coast earlier than usual.
Irritcha, she queried, when Joe dies will there be white
men on Bindora?
Not unless its sold.
The atua-kurka could spear the cows?
If they want to. It would be more sensible to hunt the kangaroos and
scrub bulls; the more killed the better for the beef cattle.
Many are of the kananga totem and would not enjoy killing their brothers.
What is good for the cattle is bad for the kangaroos.
Manala is of the kananga. He would prefer to hunt other game right
now; but there is no other. On Bindora those of the kananga could hunt scrub
bulls and eat more sparingly of their totems flesh. After the muster
there would be plenty of flour, tea, sugar and tobacco for all.
The smell of the jangaga will still be in the house, Illuta murmured
with mixed interest and distaste.
It could be pulled down and the iron and boards divided among the families.
This method of sharing the homestead appealed to me. I started to elaborate
on the idea. Each could build his own gunya wherever he wished ...
There are caves at the back of the homestead, Illuta said, staring
pensively down at her stomach. The water tank is not far away; One-eyed
Peggys sister lived at Bindora. She turned over and burrowed her
hip into the sand. The wet season will be over when we get back to the
Snake River; no gunya will be needed for a long time.
But when it is? Would you go to Bindora?
The husband goes in front and the family follow, Illuta said
patiently. I have finished talking.
Manala was slightly more enthusiastic. He said: When we return to the
Alchilpa you could ask all the atua-kurka if they would like to go to Bindora.
What do you think they would say?
They would not say anything. After talking, drive your spear into the
ground and leave it there; when all have thought about your words, those wishing
to go would stick their spears alongside yours.
Where would your spear be, Manala?
We are jalbaru, Irritcha! The spears of blood brothers stand side by
side.
Having no clocks of calendars, my people speak of particular years as: The
time of the flood The time of the fire the drought the
famine. Our son, Irrikurta, was born in the country of the Abunda in the time
of the buffalo.
We had intended to stay with the Myall until they arrived back in the Snake
River country and joined up with the Abunda for the Lartna ceremonies. However
as Illutas time was drawing near and she wished the baby to be born
in the Alchilpa, I reluctantly agreed to cut across the swamp country and
wait for both tribes in the bed of the Snake. Manala and Hakea were to have
come with us, but at the last moment Hakeas legs swelled and she was
forced to stay with the tribe. Illuta refused to give up the idea and no amount
of threats or pleas had the slightest effect. She picked up her dilly-bags,
tucked pitchi, digging sticks and nulla-nulla under her arm and walked off.
The thought of her having the baby and no other woman within a hundred miles
terrified me. Illuta was calm and confident.
I know what to do when the time comes, she said with smug complacency.
The first hands to touch our jim-bim will be mine.
On the fourteenth day after leaving the Myall the dreaming of the buffalo
began. My people were once great song makers and authors of corroboree; but
now, though they sing the old songs and perform the old stories, no new ones
are added. The corroboree makers were stunned by the impact of the jangaga
and have not yet recovered from the flood of miracles.
If I was a maker of corroboree I would begin at the time when we came to
the country of the buffalo ... I would make the sign of afternoon, to show
the sun-woman had hunted little more than half the sky ... At the crest of
a hill a man and dog pass between two huge stones and pause; both look back
at the woman who toils slowly up the track behind them. This woman is big
with child. Over the last few miles she has been walking slower; pausing more
often to look at the shimmering heat of the horizon. She makes a sign to her
husband; he goes back to her side and sees the agony written on her face.
The jim-bim comes! The words are squeezed from between her clenched
teeth. Quickly gather sticks for a fire, then take the dog and go.
She squats in a little clear space on the boulder-littered hillside. Great
beads of perspiration stand out on her forehead. The dog whines as the man
clumsily collects a pile of sticks; both he and the dog are badly frightened.
The whites of the womans eyes are rolled back and her face has a blank
crazy look of extreme pain; she groans softly then signs for him to go. Her
husband protests; he cannot leave her.
She gives a sharp cry of unbearable torment; a terrible sound on that heat
soaked hill. But at the same time her fingers scrabble for a throwing stick
and she waves it threateningly at the man and the dog. The pain comes again!
The sinews of her throat stand out like flesh-covered wires; this time she
makes no sound at all.
Once again the woman weakly attempts to raise the club and man and dog creep
over the crest of the hill; they crouch among the rocks halfway down the other
side. Both have their ears strained, listening for a cry that does not come.
Several times the man imagines he hears something and begins to get to his
feet; but the dog whines and begs him not to go back. Emora seems to know
this is womans business and her mistress would only be more distressed
by male presence. It is a frightful thing to crouch on that hill and not know
if there is to be birth or death on the other side ...
A half hour later Emora lifted her head, sniffed at the wind and went bounding
down the hill. I followed slowly, not interested in the hunt, but staring
with blank unseeing eyes at the horror in my brain. Almost unaware of following
Emora out onto the plain; yet knowing the only constructive thing to do is
to provide meat for the cooking fire. A buffalo calf broke from a hollow with
Emora in hot pursuit. The calf swung in a wide arc and was directly behind
me when Emora pulled it down.
The big bull came surging to his feet from a wallow behind a thin screen
of paper-barks. His harem of six cows lumbered off; there were three other
calves with them. Both of us stood perfectly still. I was too stunned with
concern for Illuta to be conscious of personal danger. The bull cocked his
head and listened in outraged anger to the agonised bellowing of the calf;
his giant horns were more than five feet from tip to tip, each a powerful
curve of black polished bone. We stared at each other for about five minutes,
perhaps less; somehow the time when either of us could have turned away disappeared.
He daintily lifted a heavy foreleg, let the hoof dangle, then suddenly struck
the earth a heavy blow. There was a puff of dust as he raised the other hoof
and struck again. A lump of dried mud fell from the massive chest and black
hide gleamed in the sun.
A final weak cry of approaching death coming from the calf made the big bull
swing his head from side to side as though to block the sound from his ears.
The mighty curve of horn was lightly carried by the rope-like sinews of the
neck and huge bulge of chest muscle. He didnt bend his neck but gave
a faint inclination of the head and sighted me up between the horns. The great
bulk lumbered into a fast trot; now there was no escape. A buffalo makes none
of the mistakes of a bull; he keeps his eyes on the target all the way and
can hook accurately on either side much further than a man can jump. One buffalo
could account for every matador who ever lived. The trot changed to the hammering,
pounding beat of a dead flat run. I flung a spear into the woomera and fluked
a hit between the eyes; it was almost a fatal mistake; the spear glanced off
solid bone as though it had struck rock or iron. With less than forty feet
between us I put everything I had into the second spear. It didnt do
much more than nick the thick leather hide; the razor-sharp tip of ground
stone barely entered the flesh of the throat. Death was no more than two seconds
away, when the shaft tilted down and began to plough a furrow in the dust.
It struck something solid. The beautiful mulga-wood spear bowed, but before
it cracked and flew, over two feet of the shaft had been driven into his neck.
A dark red fountain of blood squirted out. The eyes never left mine. Knees
buckled, yet the speed of the charge carried him in a slide almost to my feet.
The eyes glazed over and the buffalo was dead. Dust still hung in the still
air, the fierce song of the family was loud in the land as I hacked a huge
slab of meat from the quivering flesh.
... At this place in the corroboree should be a great aria; for as the man
and the dog turn from their kills a wisp of smoke rises on the other side
of the hill. It suddenly becomes a dense black column, climbing high in the
sky and beckoning the husband to come. A dread question mark hangs in the
afternoon.
They come running over the brow of the hill, the man and the dog; but a few
feet from the clearing their feet slow and stop. A true miracle has happened
here! The earth has been swept with a green bough, which now burns on the
fire and sends up its triumphant message to the Alchera. Illuta kneels by
her pitchi and in the wooden dish is the perfect miniature of a man. His coppery
skin, not yet turned black, has been powdered with fine white ash. The eyes
are tightly closed, yet already the tiny mouth is sucking in its sleep. Does
a miracle lessen because it has happened before? No! It is not less but more!
For the barren hillside becomes an extension of a dream ... An eagle-hawk
flies high above blue, froth-edged water. The baby draws up its feet and frog
kicks as though still romping in the surf of jim-bim land ... This child who
will drink from the shield of Abunda blood ... who will go to school and yet
run free across his own land ... The beat of powerful wings is almost audible
in the hallowed silence. The woman looks up and tiredly smiles; her eyes are
soft and dreaming as she looks back at the child. Her husband feels as though
he has embraced the Nurtunja pole and is being lilted up to his father the
sun. A soft liquid voice is added to the singing wings: Dearly beloved
sun and earth and moon and stars; to leaf and sky ... The voice is drowned
in a swelling sea of jim-bim laughter. Now in the background a mighty chorus
of Alchera warriors begin to chant over the cradle: Behold him! Behold
him! The jim-bim of Illuta ... For this is the power and the glory;
this is our life our sweetness and our hope. A world without end.
Intro | Part One.1
| Part One.2 | Part
Two | Title