The Saulie Bird

by Eliza Quancy

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Acknowledgements

  Want to read more?

  BLACK CROW: BOOK 1

  THE SAULIE BIRD

  (Circles of safety)

  Eliza Quancy

  Lame Crow Press

  First published in 2020 by Lame Crow Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Eliza Quancy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Book design by Paul Way-Rider.

  Cover based on photo by Kumar Harsh at unsplash.com

  ISBN (paperback) 978-1-913669-08-9

  ISBN (ebook) 978-1-913669-09-6

  www.lamecrowpress.com

  For Jill Tennison

  ‘I have seen the bird of paradise and I shall never be the same again…’

  from The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise by R.D.Laing

  1

  Wet and newborn, I am quiet while she screams. The cord has been cut and I am on the floor by the bed. Loud, violent, terrifying noise fills every space. I am breathing her scream. My mama is beside herself and someone arrives, doesn’t see me and kicks me by mistake. Soft shoe. I am pushed to the leg of the bed and get stuck. The person leaves. Sunshine fills the room and I long through the impossible distance. Long for my mother up there in the bed. I am helpless. Fingers curl uncurl. Arms wave. Then it’s quiet and I start to cry. I shout. I shout. Thin. Wail. Best I can do. Try hard. Her face leans over. My mother’s face. Fill lungs. Whole body. Make noise. Try harder. Get me, Mama. Pick me up. Love me. Love me.

  She gets out of bed and steps over me. I can smell her. Warm, sweaty. Flesh like mine. Goes to the window and I hear a ripping noise. She comes back and... picks… me… up. Ohhhhh. I am quiet in the heaven of her arms but she steals a glance, shrieks again and nearly drops me before I’m hurled into the air and flying through the window.

  I land in a bush and there are leaves all around, twigs and sticks, bendy with a little prickle. I lie there naked in the sunshine, still damp. No more sound. I’ve lost her. Gone. All gone. She’s thrown me away. Bush moves in the wind.

  Cars pass by in both directions. I’m next to a road. A car stops. It’s a van. Sliding door opens then closes. Footsteps coming towards me get loud, louder then walk past getting quieter walking away. Another door. Swish swish swish, not bang. Time spins and stretches in the sun but still, I’m getting cold. Fingers curl uncurl. Time spins and I’m getting colder. Bush moves in the wind. Swish swish, footsteps coming back and I cry, I cry. Loud as I can. Footsteps closer. Stop. Big shape above me, dark like a planet, bends down, sun gone. Light gone. Big hands around me pick me up. Van doors open and I’m wrapped in a sack and put in a basket. There’s an eye in here, one dead eye. A fish’s eye. Back doors slam and another door slides twice. Men’s voices talking talking, then we start to move. The van moves. It’s dark and smelly next to the fish and the basket is hard and scratchy. I’m tired. I’m thirsty and my mother is gone.

  Later it gets bumpy. Van gone. Basket jolting and swaying from side to side. Fish eye still there but something soft around me. I’m hot and thirsty. Start to cry. Nothing happens. No-one comes. I cry some more. As long as I can then go to sleep. Basket stops. Big dark hands lift me out and lay me on leaves, push something into my mouth. It’s a wet rag. I suck and suck. More, please. I hope for more and more comes. Rag wet again in my mouth. And again, and then I sleep.

  The bumpy basket and the wet rag go on forever and I suck and sleep, suck and sleep. Sometimes I am held under cool running water to wash me clean and then something nice and soft comes around me. Back in the basket, bumpy basket, but it’s all right now and then finally, the basket stops and I come out and don’t go back inside.

  I wake up in a clean space full of light with the smell of jasmine coming through the window. I’m in a wooden box - no, it’s a drawer - with a soft white blanket. Everything white. Sheet. Blanket. My baby-suit. White all around but my box and the walls are made of polished wood with reddish shine. No-one here. I cry and someone comes. Picks me up.

  ‘Hello, Aulani,’ a low voice, female, not mother. ‘Come on then, let’s have a look at you.’

  I stare out and see a lot of white, blurred white and a lot of light, blurred light. I feel a warm person holding me and I smell the jasmine. Hope she doesn’t throw me away like last time. The window is open and I can feel the breeze on my face. She carries me towards the window and I’m afraid. I start to cry but she holds me. I stay in her arms and she picks up a bottle, sits down and starts to feed me. Rubber in my mouth. Suck. Milk. Warm. Quiet. Her tummy rumbles then quiet again. I’m close, held close.

  ***

  In the mountains with Layla and Saul is where I am. We live in PNG and our country is beautiful. Papua New Guinea Saul says spreading out the words. I’m their only child and they look after me and love me. I laugh a lot. Pick flowers for Layla. Try to please. Run about happy. Layla is patient and calm with big soft hair and flecky brown eyes that are kind and smiley but sometimes faraway and occasionally, fierce. She used to be a teacher and Saul teases her about that. Says she sounds just like a teacher, then he laughs and she laughs, and me, well, I laugh, too.

  Saul is not patient. Sometimes he’s angry and then I go outside to hide, listen underneath the window before I come back into the house. He always loves Layla but sometimes he doesn’t love me. I never know when he’s going to be angry and I don’t understand him but if I’m careful, everything is all right. So I’m careful and, most of the time, it works. He goes to fetch wood from the bush and chips away chips away. Every day he chips away and lovely things come out of the wood. Animals. Birds. Fish. Sometimes small round tables made of one piece of wood with parts that interlock and fold in and out.

  The tables get fish carved into them, usually fish. Little curved marks for scales and small, straight indentations fanning out for fins and tail. One table has birds. Not fish. I run my fingers over the little marks. I stroke the wooden animals. One is for me. It’s special. A flying dolphin. It stands up straight rising from a small round base. It’s like a fish standing on its tail with a curved body reaching upwards. A dolphin is not a fish. I know that. It’s an animal but it looks like a fish and it lives in the sea. Saul says they spring out of the waves and jump back in again. Fancy that.

  Saul takes the wooden things down the mountain to sell at the hotels and comes back with food and money. Layla works in the garden and she teaches me everything. Outside, I learn about the earth and the plants. Inside, I learn reading, writing, mathematics and science. And ‘life’. Something she calls ‘life’ and we have special l
essons for that. The life lessons are sometimes outside, sometimes inside. She has a row of large blue books on her shelf and she uses those. (Saul has his own shelf. They don’t share.) Funny, really that she uses the books because there’s always google and google knows more than the books on the shelf, but mostly it’s the books that she uses. I don’t go to school because there isn’t one here. I learn from Layla and the books, but I do use my laptop a lot and I watch movies on it. Other children are not like me. They go to school and live in places with lots of other people. I haven’t even got any brothers or sisters, uncles or aunts, cousins, grandparents. Nothing like that.

  All around our house and garden there is a big circle and every day, I go with Layla to sweep it. It’s a large circle, and, as I said, it goes right around the back where the garden finishes and the trees start and round the sides and joins again at the front. In fact, it doesn’t join. There isn’t a join - you can run around it forever sweeping and sweeping without coming to the end. But I’m not allowed to run. I have to show respect and walk carefully when I do the circle sweeping. When we come back from the bush, we step into the circle and have to sweep the circle back into place.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘To make sure,’ Layla says.

  ‘Make sure of what?’ I ask.

  ‘To make sure we’re safe,’ she says.

  ‘How does the circle do that?’ I ask but she won’t tell me. One day, she says, she’ll explain but not now. The circle is important. I do know that.

  Layla says that we’re lucky. Most people in our country don’t have laptops and a wifi connection and a tv with a little aerial on top, but we do. The wifi connection comes from the phone. It’s a hotspot. The electricity comes from our generator. We’re rich. It’s because of Saul. He gets money for the wooden things and he buys stuff. And we get food from the garden, kaukau and corn, pumpkin, cabbage. Layla cooks and shows me how to do it. We eat kaukau and fish from tins with red and yellow labels and Mackerel written on the side.

  When Saul comes back from his trips, we have fresh fish and that tastes better than the stuff in the tins. Sometimes he goes fishing in the streams nearby. But not often. The water flows too fast he says. And then there’s the tv. I love the tv and movies best of all, but mostly, the tv hasn’t got our people on it. It’s got people from foreign countries.

  ‘Why is that?’ I ask.

  ‘Coming soon,’ Layla says and laughs. ‘Our people are coming on there soon. Some of them are there already. On the news.’

  ‘Not soon enough,’ Saul says. He’s impatient, sometimes talks in a loud voice and says our people are best, better than the people in the movies on the tv. ‘We’re an independent country,’ he says, ‘but still in the shackles of the Australians.’

  ‘What are shackles?’ I ask.

  ‘Metal things,’ he says,’ to stop you moving.’

  I daren’t ask any more because he is looking angry but he is faraway angry, not with me. Saul is dangerous when he’s like that.

  ‘Where is our family?’ I ask Layla when we’re on our own. I’m thinking about brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and grandparents.

  ‘It’s here,’ she says. ‘It’s the three of us.’

  ‘Nobody else?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says so that’s that.

  2

  Saul and Layla are not my mama and papa. I’ve asked. They don’t know where my birth-mother is or my father. Don’t know who they are. Saul says he found me in a hibiscus bush when I was a baby and brought me home. Sounds unlikely but that’s what he says and Layla tells the same story. Why haven’t they got any children, I ask and they tell me that Layla can’t have babies so that’s why they got me. They had baby things all ready when I arrived. It’s a confusing story.

  One day when I am fifteen, I decide to run away down the mountain. I’ve got to find my birth-mother and father. I’ve just got to. Saul and Layla are the best, but still, I’ve got to find my own people. They won’t tell me anything and Saul will never take me with him when he goes down to the city to sell the wooden things. Layla and I never go. We stay here in Keroko. Our little place is called Keroko and it’s all by itself in the mountains in Central Province. Our house is the only one here and Saul didn’t build it. It was here when they came. It’s on stilts (fat wooden poles) so it’s safe from animals and we can sit under the house in the shade. It’s made of local wood and bamboo and the generator was already here when Saul and Layla came. Who made it, I ask, but they don’t know. Or won’t say. One or the other.

  I am ready to go. I have thought about this for a long, long time but I was scared. I am still scared. Partly I’m afraid of going down the mountain by myself because I shall be in the bush alone at the night times. And partly I’m afraid of what I might discover when I get down there. But mostly I’m afraid of Saul because I know that he will be angry with me for going and that Layla will think he is right.

  It will be easy to find the way down because there is only one track. I wait until Saul has gone on his journey to the city and then one day more. Then I wait until Layla is in the garden. She works in the garden every morning now that I’m older while I do the school exercises by myself. We go through them together in the afternoons. Today, I pack my bilum so that the string bag stretches with all the things I need to take. Layla made this bilum. In fact, she often makes bilums and Saul sells them along with the wooden animals. It’s red and green with diamond patterns. I’ve tried, too, but I’m no good at making string bags. More patience, I’m told. I need to be patient. Saul says that Layla is not strict enough with me, but she takes no notice.

  I try hanging the bilum on my shoulder but it’s heavy and cuts in, so I carry it around my head like Layla taught me with the bag hanging down my back. I’m taking my laptop and my phone, an exercise book, pens and some clothes. I’ve stolen some money from Layla’s purse and I’m sorry about that but I know that I’ll need it. And now I’m off.

  I nearly run to begin with but remember that I shouldn’t. It’s a long way down and soon I’m walking steadily. I’ve been taught that it’s dangerous to run when you’re going downhill (and impossible to run when you’re going up). So no running. Down and round and round and down, the track winds steadily down the mountainside. It’s quite overgrown and sometimes not easy to see. Nobody passes me. Not a surprise. Nobody lives near us. Nobody comes to our place. Ever. I’m nervous and I keep on listening. Think I can hear a cassowary crashing through the bush, but it’s not close. They can rip you open with just one kick. The birdsong echoes in the air and bounces through the trees. Clear, separate, chirping sounds. Sweet and loud.

  My phone rings. It’s Layla.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m sorry, Layla,’ I say. ‘I’m going down the mountain,’ I hesitate. ‘I’m going to find my birth mother,’ I pause, ‘and maybe my father.’

  ‘It’s dangerous,’ she says. ‘Come back, baby. Come home.’

  ‘I’m not a baby,’ I tell her although I know she doesn’t mean it like that. ’I’ve got to go.’ There’s a long pause. She’s upset and I’m sorry.

  ‘And where will you look?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I tell her. ‘Don’t know yet. But I’ll think of something.’

  I do have an idea but I don’t want to say. I know which road it is where Saul found me because he told me about it. I know the name of the road but I don’t know which building it was. I’ll have to look for a hibiscus bush in front of a building and start from there. Or maybe the bushes will have changed. Not much to go on but that is all I know. I’ve come prepared. Got two cooked kaukau and a bottle of water. I laugh about that. The kaukau won’t last long, but I’ll manage somehow. After I’ve found my birth mother and father - or at least my mother - I’m going to come back. Don’t want to speak to her, just want to have a look and I told this to Layla on the phone.

  All she said was, ‘Oh, Aulani. Oh, my dear. Oh, Aulani.’


  Mostly, she calls me Auli. My name sounds the same as ‘Owly’ and I like that. I would like to be a wise bird but no, they tell me, that’s not what I am. My name means ‘traveller’. Just ‘traveller’.

  It is a long way down the mountain and when the night comes, I am still not down. I go into the trees and gather firewood so I can light a fire. I’ve remembered to bring some matches from the shed where Saul keeps them. I light a fire and sit beside it. I am tired but can’t sleep. I am frightened. I have never been on the mountain alone at night but it will be worth it. They won’t tell me about my parents and I have to find out. Perhaps they don’t know.

  For hours, I listen to the night animals making noises in the bush. Night-time isn’t as quiet as you’d think. There’s a silence and then something yelps or howls. Or swishes. That’s worse because I don’t like snakes. After a long time, I sleep but wake up as soon as it’s light. I feel hungry and thirsty and dirty and stiff. I find a place with water trickling over the rocks and I wash and drink and fill my bottle.

  Layla and Saul keep phoning to see if I’m all right, but I’m worried that my battery will run out so I don’t answer. I text them saying not to worry and that soon I’ll be back. Layla says that Saul is coming to look for me so I text again to say that I am already in the city. He won’t find me. I‘ll be home soon.

  It’s not true. It is evening before I finally reach the road at the end of the track. This is where the city starts. I am thirsty and very dirty. Two days now and I’ve eaten both of the kaukau and drunk all the water. I keep looking for a stream to fill the water bottle but there is nothing like that in the city. Of course, there isn’t. I know all about cities because I watch tv and I’ve looked on google, but still, it comes as a shock. It is dirty and smelly and full of cars and trucks and people. Hundreds of people. All going somewhere. Like ants but not marching together. Can’t believe it. Thought it would be nicer.