Sweet Bitter Cane

by G S Johnston

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Schatzi,’ Gertrude said, smiling, singing. Gertrude made no concession to hide her heritage, which Amelia admired.

  ‘I’ll start writing letters for your release,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Thank you, but they won’t listen.’

  Gertrude started to laugh. And Amelia could do nothing but join in. The two embraced.

  Outside the hut, the other Italian women had begun to walk, streams of them coming from the rows of huts, gathering to a river on the broad central road. No-one smiled, or frowned. They looked straight ahead. What a ragtag bunch of ‘enemies’, who had now again become friends of the nation. At the gate, the officers gave them money for their passage home.

  Amelia walked out through the flimsy barbwire fence and the cage gate with only one portmanteau, twenty months after her arrest. With each step, she felt guilty for those left behind, happy for those who were leaving, angry at the wasted time, but above all fearful of the time ahead. What would she find in Babinda?

  A fleet of buses waited for them.

  ‘Do you want me to come to Echuca?’ Maria said.

  Amelia considered it. She had no idea how to travel to Ilaria’s boarding school or even how far it was and how long it would take. She hadn’t seen Ilaria for over a year. But now she would. She felt a surge of excitement and thought perhaps Maria could help her. But that was selfish.

  ‘Go home,’ she said to Maria. ‘Your family needs you more than me.’

  They were taken by bus back to the Rushworth train station, not an armed guard in sight. With rapid waves of tears and promises to stay in touch, the women said goodbye to one another.

  ‘When we are home,’ Maria said as they parted, ‘all this will be forgotten.’

  ‘What I’ve said here will never be forgotten.’

  Tears crept into Maria’s eyes, and she assured her again that she felt no animosity for what had happened. ‘When the judge asked, I had one chance in two,’ Maria said. ‘I chose the wrong person.’

  Amelia had no desire to remonstrate Maria. The situation was impossible. None of the women were to blame for anything.

  ‘Go home,’ Amelia said. ‘We will see what the future brings.’

  Amelia would take a train that branched in another direction, further inland to Echuca. But now the fear and anxiety were too much, and she steeled herself to react to them as little as she could. On the train, the people in her compartment stared at her, eyes steady and narrowed. She smiled. They remained fixed, unembarrassed by their stare. Why were they looking at her? She realised she was wearing a dress only marginally better than rags. And it was obvious what she was. She moved from the compartment to stand in the antechamber at the end of the carriage.

  She watched the flat, dry land slipping along, stretching to the limit of the eye. What a different scene to her home. How would it be? The world was still at war. In the camp, she’d had a roof and food and security. They’d been overcrowded; now she was alone, the move from certain to uncertain unsettling. What would she face now? Italy may be an ally, but how many years would it take to salve all this hostility?

  And now she would go back to Babinda after she’d confessed everything of Fergus. She could only imagine how the tongues rattled in the town. She shook her head. What a useless act it had been. She’d learnt from letters that her predictions in front of the advisory committee had all come true: when Flavio failed to harvest the crop and defaulted on the mortgage, the Kellys had harvested the crop and been paid by the mill. The bank appointed Fergus Kelly as manager, and he bought back the new land. But somehow Flavio had held onto the original land. God love him. He’d fought off his own father. She had no idea what Faustian pact he’d signed. And she was too tired to care of it.

  At the Echuca rail station, she asked a woman the direction of St Joseph’s College. It was only a short walk, half an hour at most; she’d just to follow Annesley Street to the end and then turn left to the river esplanade, and she would see a sign. The day was already hot and there was little shade. She passed the Murray River, the tall gums languid in the hot sun, a paddle-steamer passing on the slow river, others patiently tethered to wharves along the bank.

  The college was an impressive edifice, two storeys, filigree brick details, arched, deep verandahs and a horseshoe drive. At the office, she asked for Sister Helen and waited and waited in the long hall, its high ceiling cooling the air, echoing any movement or sound.

  After some time, Sister Helen bustled along the hall, her dark wimple and gown fluttering, her smile wide and strong.

  ‘What a sight,’ Sister Helen said. ‘We’d heard rumours but nothing official.’

  ‘We had no idea.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s a first step back to normality. Have you heard of your husband?’

  Amelia shook her head.

  Sister tightened her mouth and nodded. ‘I’ll make enquiries. Let’s get Ilaria.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s much loved. She celebrated her first communion last week. She’ll be pleased to see you.’

  ‘Will she?’

  Sister Helen wouldn’t countenance such a question, waved it away with her hand like a bad odour. ‘The other girls are very fond of her. They’ll miss her.’

  Sister Helen walked into the college. Ilaria was in a class of girls older than her, as the school had no preparatory classes. Sister Helen went inside. Amelia waited. She could see through the classroom windows that opened onto the hall. Sister Helen spoke to the teacher and Ilaria came to her and took her hand. She was so much taller but dressed like a little doll, her hair in tight pigtails. Clearly, she trusted Sister Helen completely. The other girls’ eyes followed Ilaria to the door.

  She jolted when she saw Amelia. Possibly, she’d not seen many women out of the order, their hair uncovered, but possibly her dress of rags shocked her. She clutched Sister Helen’s robe.

  ‘It will take her a while,’ Sister Helen said.

  Reticence was a curse of this country. In silence, Sister Helen took them, Amelia on one side and Ilaria on the other, to a small garden. They sat together on a stone bench in the sun, where Sister Helen left them. Amelia couldn’t bring herself to look at Ilaria. Instead, she looked up at a gum tree, peering over the building. From the high roof, a magpie warbled.

  ‘We can go home now,’ Amelia said, in Italian. But clearly Ilaria had forgotten it, and she repeated it in English.

  Ilaria looked at her. ‘But this is my home.’ She spoke in English.

  ‘Don’t you remember the farm?’

  Ilaria thought and shook her head. Amelia felt tired and drained. How could she not remember her home? But why would she? It was all so long ago, a third of her life.

  ‘Don’t you remember the fields of cane?’

  Amelia raised her arms in the air and moved her hands slowly and slightly from side to side as if a light afternoon breeze cajoled them.

  Ilaria shook her head. ‘I remember Nonna.’

  The child sat back, tired from the strain of thinking.

  Again, Amelia felt a stab of pain that she’d failed her. ‘Don’t you remember your brothers? And your father?’

  She shook her head. ‘I want to stay with Sister Helen.’

  Amelia looked up at the clear sky. What right did she have to uproot her again? None of this was Ilaria’s making, and yet she had paid for it. But Ilaria was her daughter. And she was her mother.

  ‘I can’t tell you this will be easy,’ Amelia said. ‘But we must try again, to be a family.’ She looked at the child and wondered how much she understood. ‘Otherwise, we will have lost everything.’

  For some moments Ilaria considered this, her expression scrunched in concentration. And then she relaxed, opened her face. ‘Will Nonna be there?’

  ‘No, but your brothers will. And I hope your father.’

  Ilaria nodded.

  The following morning, there were many tears in the main hall from all the girls who’d come to say goodb
ye. They hugged Ilaria, gave her a posy of flowers and some boiled lollies, handed her about like a precious doll. But Ilaria remained clear, focused, as if she’d resolved this was to happen.

  Sister Helen accompanied them to the station. Amelia was unsure if Ilaria knew exactly what was happening, but when the time came to part, Ilaria hugged Sister Helen.

  ‘May the Holy Mother care for you,’ Sister Helen said.

  The Sister’s face was unerring, giving no extreme emotion away.

  Ilaria turned away, took Amelia’s hand, and together they boarded the train. Once they found their compartment, they saw Sister Helen walking into the station, disappearing into the shadows, no parting glance. For some moments, Ilaria stared from the window. Did she expect Sister Helen to return? But when there was no more sign of her, none at all, Ilaria hoisted herself up and sat back in the too-large train seat. Amelia left her to her thoughts, partly from fear that any question might cause the child to shatter, partly as she felt no reserve to resolve any of these feelings.

  Each morning, despite the fact it was another bed in another unfamiliar hotel, Ilaria woke at the same time, six-fifteen, made her bed, the sheets and blankets expertly tight, dressed, prayed and waited to be told to eat. Amelia had her own rhythm, different but as precise, and at times on the trains as the long hours rocked away, they were both paralysed, waiting for some instruction, roused only by the train’s tooting or the stationmaster’s whistling.

  Over a week of dusty travel later, Amelia stepped to the train platform. Babinda held blue skies, dotted with cotton-white clouds. The platform hummed with voices. Some faces she knew, but all failed to acknowledge her. She looked around one last time. She’d half hoped Italo would be there, but there was no sign of him. She didn’t know if he’d been released from Loveday. She had no idea where he was. And Flavio and Mauro had no idea of her return. She’d not written.

  She turned back towards the train door, shifted her portmanteau to her right hand and stretched her free hand to Ilaria. Ilaria waved her hand away and walked the steep stairs on her own. Amelia stepped back but the child remained fixed, glaring at the surroundings. The poor child had been shunted from bed to bed, through Victoria and New South Wales and into the far north of Queensland. And Babinda, of all places, was foreign to her. Amelia tugged at her hand, but she remained.

  ‘We’re going home,’ Amelia said, in English.

  She tugged again and with some reluctance, Ilaria stepped forward. She missed Sister Helen and the routine of the school. It would take them all time to adjust. They approached the stationmaster. He nodded, but made no more overture to recognising her, intent on his clipboard and the mail bags and luggage from the train.

  ‘Would you be so kind to telephone my home?’ she said. ‘One of the boys can come for me.’

  ‘I could try,’ he said. He looked from his clipboard and scowled. ‘But the line’s disconnected.’

  Amelia jarred. She should have thought of this. Flavio had been unable to pay so many bills; of course, the telephone account would have been one of them. The man returned to his clipboard.

  She’d not show her embarrassment. ‘It’s such a lovely day. We’ll walk.’

  ‘It’s a long way,’ he said. ‘I’m sure if you wait, someone will pass who could give you a lift.’

  Amelia looked at the people leaving the station. She was sure the man’s tone suggested this as a kindness, but she doubted these people would help her.

  ‘I’ve not been able to walk a long way for nearly two years.’ She looked at Ilaria. ‘It will do us good. Could I leave this suitcase with you?’

  He nodded.

  They started in the direction of the farm. Ilaria pulled her hand from Amelia’s. They were soon away from the village, passing along the high fields of cane, their white flowers swaying in the light breeze.

  ‘I remember seeing them for the first time,’ Amelia said.

  But Ilaria remained with her eyes turned down, no interest in the cane or Amelia’s memories. Amelia couldn’t reach the child and looked to the sky. A dark wedge-tailed eagle reeled slowly, round and round above the patchwork field, then strafed onto some hapless prey, rising again and gone, a mother fetching for her young. What a poor job she’d done as a mother, forced to circle over fields she’d never intended to. But still, the guilt remained.

  They continued in silence. For so many months, every day Amelia had walked around the camp’s perimeter, but her legs had no sense of this distance and grew tired. It would take an hour, at least, to arrive at the farm.

  ‘Would you like to rest?’ she said, in Italian.

  Ilaria stopped and looked at the road ahead. ‘Why do you speak that funny language?’

  Amelia was conscious of this switching. ‘We should speak English, like everybody else, when we’re in public. But when we’re alone, don’t you think it might be nice to speak Italian?’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  Amelia breathed out. ‘You used to speak it so well.’

  Ilaria shrugged her shoulders.

  Amelia had forgotten how quickly the rain could come, unheralded, untold. She cursed it. But she’d not felt it for so long, not rain like this, large drops, almost bath-warm, not piercing and biting and cold. What fortune rain had brought her. What a change to have rain, rather than tears, running down her cheek. She closed her eyes, leant back to face it. She remained so, unaware of anything but the beating. When she finally opened her eyes, Ilaria stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  Amelia smiled.

  Ilaria stayed so stony, but then looked away and started to laugh. And then dance. Did she remember this style from Marta? That wasn’t possible, but there it was, as if their limbs reacted in the same manner to the rain’s rhythm.

  And Amelia started too, holding both Ilaria’s hands, the pair turning and turning, soon wet to their skins. People driving by glared at them, these two fools in the rain, but no-one stopped. And she wouldn’t have accepted their approach. They were wet. Sodden. Nothing more could touch them. And she was independent. She needed no help.

  By the time they’d reached the farm turn-off, the rain had eased.

  ‘This is our home,’ Amelia said.

  Ilaria looked at the road with no sign of any building. The boarding school was grand, and Ilaria had expressed wonder at living in such a place. But the entrance to this home was just scrub, no wrought gate.

  Amelia started but Ilaria remained fixed. She walked back the few paces and took her hand, and so they walked along the road curving around the hill. Ilaria seemed uncertain, not a flicker of recognition on her face. And there it was, the land for which so much had been fought and lost. The fields were bare, overgrown with high weeds, no sign of cane. If the fields weren’t tilled, so quickly the forest would reclaim the whole farm. The impermanence thrilled her. It would take work to clear them, to ready them for planting. But what did it matter? They’d lost the new fields to the bank and then to Fergus. They still had the main field, something to be grateful for.

  They walked towards the house, past the stables, the barn and the barracks. There was no sign of life, the horses sold and gone. What a pity, as with petrol rationing they’d come back into their own. The gravel yard crunched under their feet. Amelia pushed the gate, which cried in pain, the garden unkempt and overgrown, destroyed by neglect. Amelia sighed. Simply another thing to put right. She looked to the house, to the second floor, the beautiful broad verandah, to the tower and her office. The sun flashed in her eye. A woman in crimson and sapphire robes stared down at her, her face so open and tranquil. Amelia had no idea who she was. Amelia raised her hand to shield the muted sunlight. And then she heard the bell-beat of wings. A cloud of red and sapphire eclectus parrots rose into the sky. Amelia smiled. The woman was a trick of the light, the colours from the birds, a memory. The vision, from so long ago, meant this was home.

  She looked to the lower level. A man stood in the open front door. She stepped back. He wore
dark woollen pants and a white cotton shirt draped from a painfully thin frame, not a hair on his head, the last worn away by worry. Italo. He remained so framed, not moving, so like him, and Amelia in the open space stood still too, still holding Ilaria’s hand. Across such a distance, such an expanse, she looked at him, and he at her, into each other’s eyes, neither smiling nor frowning, laughing nor crying.

  She searched his face.

  As he searched hers.

  And then the sun, warm with delight, came from the cloud. The shadow of a parrot whirled over the ground between them. Amelia looked to the sky. The bird circled into the sun and disappeared. All things would pass. With time and effort, everything would be set right.

  EPILOGUE

  Many years later, as far forward as 1991, three nuns from the Loreto Sisters spent the June long weekend south of Berrima, in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, in a small cottage, a sparse place: two small bedrooms, separate dining room with a long refectory table and a lounge room and kitchen with nothing more than a cold open fire. It rained and rained and rained, and Sister Mary Margaret thought it the wettest place on earth. Until she remembered Babinda.

  She’d not thought of her home, not in these close terms, for many years. Memories – no, that isn’t close enough; sensations – faded in and out with each wave of water lashing the corrugated iron roof, some drops crossing the broad verandah to thump against the windows. She felt the feathery waving heads of the cane, the sounds and vivid colours of birds in the forest canopy, her Nonna Lucia’s firm but gentle hand.

  When it was clear the rain had set in, when too many card games and rounds of Monopoly and Cluedo had degenerated into squabbles (yes – nuns cheat and squabble) Sister Teresa suggested they tour the nearby Berrima Gaol. Sister Mary Margaret was opposed to it. A part of the prison’s life was interning German immigrants during World War I, and she felt no need to gawk at the dregs of sorrow. Sister Agatha suggested the nearby Berkelouw Book Barn. In an instant, Sister Mary Margaret agreed and hoped they could lose one another for an hour between the shelves.