Frieda laughs again. ‘You know that if you give that cornetto back to your mother, you’re just participating in her delusion,’ she chides you gently.
‘I know,’ you say, ‘but Mamma believes it, and if she thinks the curse is gone, it will change her whole life. She’ll feel free again, and that’s something real.’
You catch the afternoon train home to Cooma, and head straight to the post office to write Mamma a letter. You beam as you imagine the expression on her face when she opens it.
Dear Mamma,
There’s something I have to tell you. After a terrible accident in the Snowy Mountains, I lost my arm. I was trying to save the life of my friend Edik, but he didn’t make it. I know you’ll think this is bad luck, Mamma, but the amazingly good luck is that I survived.
I finally found Charlie in a hospital in Canberra, and he gave me back our family cornetto. I’m sorry I ever stole it, Mamma. I hope that by finally holding it again, you can feel at peace. I’ve found that peace myself, through enduring worse times than I ever thought possible.
Life is precious, Mamma. I’ve forged my own way in this amazing land, and made so many friends. Mario is the best of them all. They are all going to help me learn to live with one arm. Edik’s wife, Olenka, will need help to live without her husband, and Charlie will need help to live outside the hospital. But we will all be okay, because we all have each other.
Maybe one day you’ll come and join us here. That would make me so happy. Charlie’s farm is called Sandford’s Rise, and I’m longing to see it.
You lift the golden cornetto to your lips and lightly kiss it. Then you wrap it tightly in a sheet of paper, and seal it inside the envelope with Mamma’s name and address on the front. You hear the flutter of the envelope as it lands among the others.
Your new job starts on Monday: apprentice engineer for the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority. You can hardly wait.
Go to scene 36.
You walk over to the beggar and he squints against the sunlight as he looks up at you. ‘Thank you for fighting for our country,’ you say.
He doesn’t reply, just nods.
‘This is an old Italian good-luck charm,’ you tell him, crouching down and showing him the cornetto. ‘You don’t have to keep it – you can sell it, if you’d rather have the money. But I hope it does you some good.’
You tip it into his palm. It feels like a current of energy pouring out. The man takes it from his palm and inspects it closely.
‘This is from Italy, where you’re from?’ he asks.
‘Yes, it’s been in my family a long time.’
He nods slowly. Then he smiles. ‘This means more than money,’ he says. ‘My people have been here forever and you’re welcome here, sister. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re not.’
He offers his left hand for you to shake – he’s noticed you won’t be able to do a right-handed shake, and without saying a word, he’s just shown you a kindness in return.
As you walk away, smiling, your heart swells so much that it feels as if it’s actually trying to grow larger inside your chest.
‘Well, there goes the cornetto,’ you say to Frieda. ‘Off into the world again.’
It’s the second time you’ve given it away. But this time, you know what you’re doing. You feel a lightness – a freedom. Whatever comes your way in the future, you know that you can handle it.
‘Good on you.’ Frieda smiles. ‘But what is your poor old mamma going to say?’
‘Well …’ You laugh. ‘She’ll probably want to kill me with her bare hands. But she’ll have to cross the world to do that, and by the time she gets here, she might have managed to turn her bad luck upside down all by herself, like I did.’
Maybe moving here would be just what she needs, you think. A fresh start. I’ll have to see if I can convince her. Imagine if the whole family could come!
‘Let’s make sure you don’t miss your train now, Miss Apprentice Engineer,’ jokes Frieda. ‘That really would be bad luck!’
Your new job begins on Monday. You can’t wait to begin. You can’t wait to get home.
Go to scene 36.
‘Passa … the … salta,’ says Mamma.
‘Zia,’ laughs Mario, ‘it’s just “pass the salt”. Even when you try to speak English, it sounds like Italian!’
‘Naughty boy, rude boy!’ she exclaims in English, wagging her finger at him, but she’s laughing. ‘You teacha your children speaka bad to they nonna.’
‘Lidia, Teodoro,’ Mario says to them, ‘you must always be kind to Nonna. Never call her walrus-breath … or cabbage-toes … or a sausage-nosed old teabag …’
‘What are you calling me?’ she cries in Italian.
‘Never call her … a rotten apple!’ laughs Lidia in English.
‘Or a cow-pat!’ cries Teodor, nearly falling off his chair.
‘I’ll teach them what to call their daddy in Italian if you don’t behave,’ Mamma chuckles to Mario, still speaking Italian. ‘I know all of those words!’
Olenka comes into the dining room, one hand resting on her big, round belly. She kisses Mario on the lips and eases herself into the chair next to him.
‘You’re getting our children all worked up,’ she scolds him, but she’s smiling.
Mario takes her hand. ‘But that’s why you love me,’ he protests. ‘Mischief-maker Number One.’
Desmond taps his beer glass with a fork, calling for hush. ‘Now, you all know what the occasion is today,’ he announces. ‘It’s five years since we finally got our home back.’
You look at the faces around the table. There’s Mamma and your three siblings, Giulia, Tommaso and Alessandro, whom you still can’t believe is a teenager already. Then there’s Mario, Charlie, Frieda, Desmond, Olenka and her two – soon to be three – children. Your beautiful patchwork family.
‘We’ve all come further than I ever hoped,’ Desmond continues. ‘I don’t know if it was luck that brought us together, or fate—’
‘I think it was love!’ calls out Frieda. You feel a blush run to your face as her sparkling eyes catch yours. Frieda makes you so happy – every moment with her is golden. It’s an incredible, precious gift that she seems to feel the same way about you.
It’s almost too good to be true, you think. Our family all together… my promotion at Snowy. We really have found our fortune.
‘Well, whatever brought us here,’ finishes Des, ‘this is now our home. And it will be home to the next generation to come, too. To Sandford’s Rise!’ he calls, raising his glass.
‘To Sandford’s Rise!’ everyone choruses.
You sip your drink and then chuckle to yourself about a memory from long ago.
‘What are you laughing about?’ Charlie asks you.
‘That letter Mario sent – the fake one from you, that invited him to work here. It was a complete lie, yet here we are on this very farm; it came true after all,’ you muse. There’s a contented pause around the table. Then you remember something. ‘I’ve never asked you, Mario – why did you put that code in there? Was it meant to tease me?’
‘What are you talking about?’ asks Mario, puzzled.
You remember the letter off by heart, so you scribble it onto a scrap of paper. ‘If you leave off the “Dear Mario” at the start, then circle every seventh word, it makes a message, see?’ you tell him. You worked this out a year or so ago, but never got around to asking Mario about it.
As you write it down now, everyone crowds around to look.
Dear Mario,
I hope that this letter has FOUND
you well. It was my great FORTUNE
to be rescued by you and HIDDEN.
This letter is to invite you ON
a voyage to Australia, to my FARM
to work there. If you can COME,
I’d be delighted to see you AND
you would be very welcome to SHARE
my home and food, such as IT
is. B
est wishes to one and ALL,
Charlie
‘It says, “Found fortune hidden on farm, come and share it all”,’ you point out. Mario’s jaw has dropped.
‘I did not put that in there,’ he insists, stunned. ‘That’s … just weird.’
‘Patterns.’ Frieda smiles. ‘The human brain is wired to find them everywhere.’
‘But even you have to admit, that’s a pretty big coincidence,’ you argue.
When Mario explains to Mamma what’s going on, she gets wildly excited and jumps from her chair. ‘It’s a sign!’ she crows in Italian. ‘This farm will make you all rich! Oh, thank you, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’
‘Well, Bob Dawe did think he was going to strike gold here,’ says Desmond. ‘All the geological signs pointed to it, apparently.’
‘Imagine mining machines pulling apart Sandford’s Rise,’ says Charlie sadly. ‘I’m glad it never happened. But I used to find little specks of it in the stream when I was a boy. Lidia and Teodor, after lunch, I’ll take you panning for gold, all right?’
The kids jump and cheer.
‘Do you think you’re lucky?’ Frieda teases the children.
‘I know we are,’ you tell her. ‘All of us.’
FACT FILE:
WOMEN IN WORLD WAR II
World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved most countries in the world, who broadly formed into two sides: the Allies (including Australia, Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the USA) and the Axis (including Germany, Italy – at first – and Japan). Seventy to eighty-five million people were killed, and it remains the deadliest conflict in human history to this day.
This book begins in Italy in 1943. Italy fought alongside the Axis powers but changed sides in the war and joined the Allies in October 1943. Then the Allies fought alongside Italian resistance groups to drive the occupying German forces out of Italy. (Some Italian soldiers in the north, however, were forced to keep fighting alongside the Germans as ‘military internees’.)
Before the war, very few women were in the workforce – instead, they were expected to stay at home full-time, doing housework and raising children while the men went to work. In Australia, Britain and the USA during World War II, however, women were able to become medics, drivers, mechanics and even spies, although they weren’t allowed to fight the enemy face-to-face. Nancy Wake, a New Zealander, was a famous spy from this time. She was so sneaky that the Gestapo (German secret police) nicknamed her ‘the White Mouse’, because they could never catch her!
One country that did allow women to fight in World War II was Russia. Their snipers included women such as Klavdiya Kalugina, who joined up when she was only seventeen, and Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a commander who killed 309 soldiers, making her one of the deadliest military snipers in history.
Over the last few decades, women have taken on more defence force roles, working as submarine captains, air force squadron leaders and more. In 2016, Australia finally allowed women into frontline combat roles.
Would you want to fight on the front line if your country was invaded? Or is there another role you think you’d be better at, like being a spy, a navigator, or a doctor? People of all genders can be heroes, and not just because they’re the strongest or the fittest – true bravery comes from within.
Return to the end of scene 4 to make your choice.
FACT FILE:
EUROPEAN MIGRATION AFTER WORLD WAR II
World War II triggered the greatest global migration ever seen at that time in human history (although we have since surpassed it). Many people had lost their families and homes in the war.
This was especially so for Jewish people, who had suffered horrifically as Hitler and his Nazis attempted genocide (the murder of an entire race or nation of people) against them. Other refugees within Europe were trying to escape Communist states that were created at the end of World War II and were controlled by the Soviet Union. Everyone despaired at the lack of food, shelter and other necessities after the war.
New workers were needed all around the world to help boost countries’ economies and workforces. Immigration officials from Australia travelled to Europe to advertise Australia as a land of exciting new opportunities.
The voyage from Italy to Australia by boat took six to eight weeks, and once immigrants arrived they had to deal with the shock of a very unfamiliar culture and language. Italian migrants were unable to find even simple ingredients they were accustomed to using in their cooking, like garlic or olive oil, and many racist Anglo-Celtic Australians mistrusted these ‘foreigners’.
Letters and news took weeks to travel back and forth between continents, and immigrants knew they might never again see the family and friends they had left behind. Despite the risks and hardships European migrants endured, the journeys that they took after World War II have made the world richer in many different ways.
Return to the end of scene 8 to make your choice.
FACT FILE:
THE WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY
The Australian colonies federated in 1901. Horribly, the very first act of the new Federal Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act, which was designed to exclude migrants whom the government considered unacceptable – usually those who weren’t British or from certain white countries in Europe. This was one of many laws throughout Australia’s history that amounted to a ‘White Australia Policy’.
Supporters of the White Australia Policy wrongly thought that Australia would be more harmonious and better off if only white people were allowed to move there. These supporters completely ignored the fact that Australia had been a nation of black Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for tens of thousands of years before white colonisers stole the land.
After World War II, the White Australia Policy was relaxed somewhat to allow Southern Europeans such as Italians and Greeks to move there, although the government still restricted those from many other countries. Over the following decades, the White Australia Policy was slowly reversed, until at last, only in 1975, the Whitlam Labor government made it unlawful to discriminate against anybody based on their ‘race’.
Now, we look back on the White Australia Policy with shame. The laws were not only racist and hurtful to those they discriminated against; they also meant that for many decades Australia missed out on the cultural richness and the many things Australians could have learnt by welcoming a diversity of people.
Australia is now declared to be one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world, although our problems with racism are far from over. There are, disgracefully, still groups in Australia – with representatives in parliament – who call for a return of the White Australia Policy. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are often not treated with the respect that they should be. And sensationalist and racist publications similar to Truth (a real newspaper from Sydney, 1890–1958, and Melbourne, 1902–1995, featured in this book) still exist today and try to falsely represent non-white groups of people in a negative light.
Have your wits about you when you read the news! Is it really the Truth?
Return to the end of scene 16 to continue with the story.
FACT FILE:
THE SNOWY SCHEME
There are many ways that electricity can be created, for example by solar panels, or by turbines (big wheels) turned by wind, water or steam. Some of these methods are more harmful to the environment than others, but what they all have in common (except solar panels) is that they create electricity by powering turbines that spin huge magnets inside a wire coil to create an electric current.
Hydro-electric power is created by using water to turn the turbines, just as people used to use water to drive their mills or waterwheels centuries ago. Creating a hydro-electric scheme means drastically altering the landscape by damming rivers, and diverting the water down steep pipes. This can have a huge impact on the environment, although modern dams are doing a better job than the old ones at mimicking natural ecosystem flows and habitats.
However, once a hydro-electric scheme is up and running, the power it generates is renewable and free from pollution.
In the 1950s, when this book is set, the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme (‘the Snowy’ for short) was one of the most ambitious engineering projects in the world. It took twenty-five years to complete and 100,000 people from over thirty countries worked on it.
Around two-thirds of Snowy workers were migrants who had left the horrors of World War II behind to start a new life. At first, Snowy bosses worried that mixing together workers of different nationalities who had been at war with each other would lead to fights. But people had had enough of fighting: they were keen to put their pasts behind them and work on a new, exciting project.
Often the work was very hard physical labour, in remote wild areas or deep underground. Safety regulations were less strict in those days than they are now, and the technology was more basic. There were accidents, some of which were fatal: one hundred and twenty-one people died during the construction of the Snowy Scheme.
The Snowy Scheme is still in operation and remains one of the most complex and impressive civil-engineering projects in the world. These days, it has extremely high standards for workplace safety and also actively recruits women into senior and technical positions. The existing scheme links seven power stations and sixteen dams with one hundred and forty-five kilometres of tunnels and eighty kilometres of aqueducts.
Return to the end of scene 20 to make your choice.
FACT FILE:
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Although you, dear reader, were hopefully raised to see women and men as equal, the truth is that for most of recorded human history, things haven’t been seen this way, and often still aren’t. Throughout history, women have been controlled, criticised and ordered about by men. Institutions such as governments, religions and businesses have been set up mostly to benefit men.
Move the Mountains Page 16