When it was evident that Clancy knew little more about the great birds than how to shoot them, Jeremy cut in to say that Prindy knew more about them than anyone there. Ernest looked at Prindy as if seeing him for the first time, stared a moment, then asked, ‘Zis bastard . . . how many ei he haf?’
Prindy looked at his grandfather, saw him buttoning up his face against laughter, but let his own brown face open in a wide grin, which he turned on Fergus, who looked fit to burst. It was too much for a boy. He tried to answer Ernest, but only squeaked, then squealed, and with a yell of laughter, slipped from his chair and rushed from the dining-room. That in turn was too much for the others struggling with mirth. They let it go. Among them were Mendelewitz and Magda, who spoke good English. But even the rest were caught in the laughter by sheer infection, except Ernest, who stared. But none laughed louder than Ernest did when the joke was explained to him. ‘Ei in German is Egg, ja? And German Ei sound like English Eye. And so of zis noble bird haf I mek ze vun-eye momzer . . . hahahohoho!’
Later, in the lounge, Cayley’s What Bird Is That? was produced. Ernest fairly gloated over its vast variety of edible birds. Of what he was now calling Ze Momzer Bird, he declared, ‘It grow to tventy pound in vild state. Zat ist ten kilogram. Oy, vot a bird ist zat! Vot a monster momzer ve can haf mit control foodink undt broodink . . . undt ze broodink season it ist all year round. Catherine, Magda . . . you ze expert are. At vonce investigation!’
Again no ritualistic walk, nor any hope of an alternative on the part of those who would have seized one: Clancy and Fergus, who obviously were jockeying for position, as it were. As soon as able to leave the lounge, Rifkah slipped away upstairs with Nan. Upstairs was something far more interesting for them than what was offering below, namely, those gifts from General Esk, as yet but glimpsed. They went to Nan’s room, which for the time they were sharing.
The gifts were clothes for Nan and gramophone records for Rifkah. There was a handsome gown of Indo-Chinese style, made by someone of Bangkok, in mauve silk shot with silver and edged with it, high-collared, ankle-length, with silver sandals to match. The records were one of folksongs in Yiddish, the other of synagogue singing in Hebrew.
Rifkah had Nan put on the dress at once. It fitted perfectly, and suited her so well as to give her poise and dignity, in marked contrast with her usual dowdiness in European clothes; the kind of clothes she ought always to wear, as Rifkah said. She squealed at that, ‘Eh, look out!’ But it was true, going to show that dressing is involved with race, and that the General was wise enough to know it. When Prindy came in and saw it he tried hard to get her to come downstairs wearing it. Failing in that, he tried to induce Rifkah to bring the records down and play them on the radio-gramophone, no matter if it interrupted the yip-yap going on below. Rifkah had to sing him such of the folksongs as she knew. But it wasn’t enough. She had to agree to play the records, softly, after the others had gone to bed.
Not even Jeremy was told about the proposed musical session. When he went over to the annexe upon the retirement of everyone about eleven, he did not know that Prindy, long since retired, was only pretending to be asleep, and that as soon as he himself had settled down, the boy slipped out. Nan and Rifkah were waiting in the bedroom. Prindy stole round the bedrooms checking on the rest of the household. Then they went below like mice.
They put on the religious record, Cantor and Choir renderings of the music of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Rendering it truly was, of true believers to a god truly living as far as they were concerned. There was no instrumental music, simply the Cantor, with a tenor of sweetness possible only in one whose soul sobbed in the joy of being in the presence of the Creator, backed by an all-male choir whose perfect harmony rang seemingly far and near, like echoes of the Voice on Sinai. No musical instrument could have begotten such sweet sound, except that fashioned by the Divine Hand itself, the true Vox Humana — Oov’shofar Gadol Yitakah — (The Great Ram’s Horn Bloweth!) — S’oo Sh’orim (Lift Up Thine Heads!) — M’louch Alkol Ho’ olam (Reign Forever O’er The Universe, Oh Lord!) — and the silver cry of the Shofar, the Ram’s Horn, the Voice, as Abraham heard it, and as Jacob, Moses, and every true Jew had heard it ever since — the Four Cries: Tekiah, Shevarim, Teruah, and oh, again Tekiah, crying until its echoes were lost among the stars.
It was the cry of the Shofar if ever so muted on the toned-down gramophone, that brought the others. Only Prindy heard their ghostly footfalls. Rifkah, crouched before the set, with copper hair glinting like holy fire in the tiny light of the dials, on bent knees, head in hands, was softly weeping. Nan on heels beside her, erect, was invisible save for her glistening tears — Hayom Harat Olam (This is the Hour of Earth’s Creation!)
The ghosts faintly materialised as those plump oldish ones, Zangwill and Catherine. They stood back for a while, till the Kol and Nidre and Vehogein Baadeinu (Be Our Shield, Lord God of Israel!) when Catherine sank to the floor with the others, and Zangwill’s handkerchief appeared as a white blur to cover his bowed head, both rocking and weeping freely.
Yaaleh . . . Yaaleh . . . Yaaleh . . . Let Our Prayer Ascend.
We pray unto Thee at eventide. We cry unto Thee at dawn.
Redeem us till the eventide, pardon us with the dawn.
At last assure us of Our Atonement.
The recording ended. Prindy, crouching by the set, moved to turn the record over to play the other side, when arrested by a harsh voice sounding from the stairs, ‘Vot isht . . . Midnight Mass?’
The others started. Heavy steps on the stairs. Then a bulky ghost seen in the little lights, from which issuing harsh guttural speech. Catherine rose hastily. Zangwill snatched the handkerchief from his head, pocketed it furtively, turned and vanished. Catherine, too, slipped suddenly away. Rifkah was slow to rise, and then only because the harsh voice put the lash round her personally. Sniffling her tears, she said to Nan, ‘It is late.’
Nan rose. Rifkah took her hand. Both looked at Prindy, whose face was golden in the light as he stood over it. He was looking at the glittering eyes of Ernest. Then they, too, vanished. For a moment Ernest and Prindy stared at each other. Then Ernest spoke, with comparative softness: ‘You like it . . . zat music?’ The golden face moved in assent. ‘Ist not strange zing for leetle boy like you . . . yes, no?’ Prindy only stared. Then a fat hairy hand appeared, touched the golden hair, and then the slender shoulder. ‘But time for leetle boy to bed, I zink.’ The hand reached for the control panel, switched off the set. Ernest said, ‘Ve all vont to be early risingk tomorrow . . . Gutten nacht!’ He was gone.
Prindy sighed, stood a moment, then left the lounge, left the house by way of the kitchen, looked up at the stars as he crossed to the annexe, singing under his breath: Oshamnu, oshamnu, oshamnu . . .
Later in the night, Jeremy was wakened by the sweet straining little voice singing in sleep: Oshamnu, Oshamnu. He lay listening, perhaps wondering what language it was, surely never realising that in English it meant — We have trespassed! For how could anyone, except who walked hand-in-hand with God, confess so joyfully to sinning, as if trespass were a part of righteousness, a part of God’s True Purpose, which must be Life, not Death, as the Goyim have it. Life, Life, L’chaim.
IV
Despite Ernest’s declared plans for the day and his being a superplanner and a Jew, he and his company might have been lazy-bone Goyim the way they lay abed that Sunday morning. No doubt the reason was the upset he had called Midnight Mass, emotional as well as physical, since obviously there was subtle conflict over the Voice that had been crying through the Shofar. Only the regular members of the household were up early, and peep-o’-day boy by calling, Fergus. Even Clancy the Cowboy was snoring his head off with the rest upstairs, as reported by Fergus when he joined those in the kitchen for a cup of tea.
Thus it was that Fergus was able to talk to Rifkah without intrusion by Clancy or chance of her dodging him. He tried again to get her to come with
him on the flight he would be making back to Leopold Mission after breakfast, and called on Nan to help him when Rifkah said she couldn’t leave Nan alone to cope with this mob. ‘Because of kosher?’ he demanded. ‘Big Ernest didn’t seem so kosher last night when he broke up your midnight synagogue, now did he? Besides, you can leave all the kosher stuff to Prindy, by the look of it.’ Mention of Prindy gave Rifkah the idea that Fergus should take him along instead of her. He argued: Prindy and her. At last he agreed to take the boy if she would declare before Nan that she was his girl and gave an assurance to have no hanky-pankies with Clancy. The deal was made, sealed with a kiss that she had to fight to get free of. Fergus went off to the annexe to clinch it with Prindy and Jeremy.
This time Prindy climbed the sky in the co-pilot’s seat, raised on leather cushions for full viewing, and by the intensity of those grey eyes, missing nothing. The homestead, green, white, yellow, with its tiny scampering creatures, spun for a moment in the middle of the wide green-greyness under the blue, the blue, the blue . . . then vanished. The red wall of the Plateau was rushing at them. Up and over. A flicker amongst the rocks to westward showed that they had an escort. Thus there must be care not to look upon that Ring Place. As they approached it, the fair head dropped. Fergus noted the action, asked, ‘Feeling sick?’ The head shook. ‘Frightened?’ Another shake. There was no doubt about the fidelity of the responses when the head was raised again and the grey eyes leapt from rock to rock like the disturbed creatures belonging to them. The lips moved as if in silent song.
They climbed for smoother flying. Fergus suggested a lesson in handling the magic thing, saying when the eyes rolled in astonishment, ‘Nothing to it, flying straight and level. Look. Hands off. She flies herself. Have a go.’ It wasn’t long before Fergus was sitting with arms folded, correcting little slips with occasional touches. How wide the grey eyes now in joy in the superhuman accomplishment!
Fergus said (or rather shouted, since that was the mode of communion above the din), ‘Head for that bit of cloud.’ It was a tiny white puff where the green-grey of the earth met the northern blue. Soon it was revealed as the highest peak of a long cloud mountain. ‘The Inter-Tropic Front building up,’ remarked Fergus. After a while he asked, ‘Know what means?’ Prindy nodded. The split lip was revealed in a grin. ‘Bet you don’t!’ But such was the look in the grey eyes turned on him, that he added: ‘Bet’s off. Maybe you know more about it than I do.’ That was the Anthropologist speaking. Nevertheless, the Aeronaut had his say, telling of how the earth’s biennial tilting in relation to the Sun caused the seasons. While a golden ear was cocked to take in the glib logic of the kuttabah, the eyes fixed on the dazzling heading were surely seeing something else; and what else was the Inter-Tropic Front but the southward drift of the dreaming Cloud Spirits according to the eternal law of Koonapippi?
A silver glinting now between earth and sky. ‘The sea,’ said Fergus. Then first glimpse of those old pythons’ tracks, wriggling in from the sea. ‘Leopold River,’ Fergus said. A nod. ‘You been here before?’ Nod. ‘Not in an aeroplane, though?’ No response. Did one need an aeroplane to see it, when the Dream Time Ones had left behind lookouts everywhere? Still, an aeroplane certainly helped. Fergus said, ‘Let me take her. We’ll drop down and follow the river, see a lot of buffaloes and crocs and things. Besides, we’d better take a look-see how the Coot and his boys’re doing.’
As they swept down over the rainforest of the Plateau’s northern slope, the nutmeg pigeons rose in their myriads to float like snowy clouds beneath them. Of several birds of prey high-hovering one, a wedge-tail eagle, came gliding in ahead to take a closer look at the rival to his majesty of the air, halted in the blue to wait and watch, motionless save for slight working of finger-like tips of primary feathers of great wings glinting bronzily in the sunlight, occasional flick of wedge-tail rudder, serpent-like roll of big hook-billed challenging head. They passed within thirty feet of him. Fergus shouted, ‘Ain’t he a beaut?’ And he waved to the bird: ‘’Ow are yo’ mate?’
Prindy took a swift look back at the pigeons settling to their fig-gorging, at the line of concavities underhanging the sheer red wall of the escarpment about the trees. It wasn’t the same spot where he and the Pookarakka had camped to watch Igulgul rise to work his Wrong side magic on the world of night and the pigeons come like dawn-clouds with the rising of Koonapippi to put things right side again. Not the same spot, but much like it.
The coastal plain was red and yellow patched with parched swampland awaiting the coming of those sleepy clouds; that is until it neared the glitter of the sea, where it was blue-green with maritime jungle. Dropping down to the trees of the upper reach of the Leopold River, in the comparative quiet of throttled-back engines, Fergus remarked, ‘Just like a snake, that old river, isn’t it? That’s what it ought to be called . . . Snake River. Leopold was one of Queen Victoria’s half-wit sons, I suppose. D’you know the blackfellow name for it?’
Prindy answered promptly, ‘Snake.’
Fergus stared at him unbelieving, then muttering, ‘Well, what d’you know!’ He turned back to his flying.
They dropped down to about a hundred feet above the river, to follow its curving; while the egrets, the cranes, the cormorants, the cockatoos, the spoonbills, flying up ahead of them, took a look and scattered in ragged flight. What appeared to be black logs on a sandbank suddenly leapt into life, dived, left leprous-looking muddy patches on the green-gold mirror of the water. Then a strange sight to starboard that caused Prindy to crane that way, and Fergus, seeing the movement, to take a look and swing the kite. A billabong paralleling the river was strangely yellow and seemed to be bubbling. Fergus dropped down to approach it at about fifty feet. It was just as if a huge stone had been thrown into it. Great gobbets of yellow mud spilled over its outer banks, not to fall where they landed, but to go sweeping in glistening masses over the sparcely grown flat earth. Fergus laughed, ‘Buffaloes . . . hundreds of the bastards.’ He opened his throttles, got down almost on the backs of the stampeding monsters, yelling, ‘Ride ’im cowboy!’ Prindy laughed the high squealing laugh of the tickled blackfellow.
Up again with a rush, and back to the river, to disturb the peace, along with the black Shade hurtling along through the timber of the western bank, to stir up the blue air with white birds and the green water with the panic of crocodiles. The river was much greener now, much wider.
Then suddenly rounding a bend, they came upon other denizens of this noise-ripped Eden, these not nearly so timid, ready for what was coming at them, because they knew what it was; three canoes full. Nevertheless, there must have been something shocking about it — perhaps the Shade, since at the angle of approach it would be running ahead, because one of the canoes capsized as they passed over it.
‘Hey . . . what’d I see?’ yelled Fergus, opening his throttles wide and jerking aloft. Then he stall-turned and came sweeping back. ‘Yeah . . . the Coot!’ Yes, there was the chubby red face, plain to see amongst the black, the black faces split with gleaming grins, but not the red. Not so funny, for a certainty, to be spilled amongst crocodiles, without knowing anything about what to do except in theory — that is to say that, knowing a crocodile for a coward, you get after him, and having caught up with him, get on his back and stick your thumbs in his eyes; and not so easy for one primarily a theorist. But Fergus, turning again to make another swooping survey, only laughed. There were other red faces to be seen now, one in the water with the Coot, Denzil Dickey’s, the others in another canoe. Denzil had probably just surfaced. He was clinging to his lion-hunter’s hat as to a life-preserver. Perhaps those unspilled had been bobbed down so as not to show themselves before, on the orders of their commander. At any rate, that was Fergus’s idea of the situation, as laughingly he talked about it while he and his mate went on their way again. ‘The sneakin’ bloody bastard . . . reckons he’s going to make it right to the sea unaided. How long’s he been in that canoe? You can come thirty or forty mil
es by that branch back there eastward. When I saw ’em the other day, they were that far away from here . . . with the horses. Hahahahhoho! The Coot’ll never live that down. I’ll see to that.’
Now the river was widening rapidly, its colour changing; from emerald to olive, to brown-streaked dull green opal; while the timber lessened in height, to become denser in growth, until it was impenetrable even for the attendant part of the Old One, which had to skim the top. Then suddenly they were over mangroves, the greenness of which turned the water silver, not just one wriggle of silver, but myriad veins of it, linking for miles, to turn the tree-growths into countless islets. Still the birds rose, to scatter like blown paper, with bigger ones amongst them now, pelicans, jabirus, sea-eagles. Still there was swirling in the deeps, not now by mere black logs of things, but of creatures roods in size by the extent of the disturbance.
Then as suddenly as everything had become dark green jade it changed to turquoise. The sea, the sea, the true blue sea. Just a strip of it to begin with, backed by those red-cliffed islands made by the Ol’Goomun for her nesting pigeons. The pigeons were there now, just as their mates were back in the rainforest filling their crops for them and their fledglings, and rising just the same to float in snowy clouds. Beyond the islands — vastness — of turquoise, backed by that mountain-chain of sleeping cloud all but filling the northern sky. ‘The Leopold Group,’ said Fergus, nodding to what lay below. ‘Pretty, isn’t it . . . except for the name. Queen Victoria’ll be for ever looking over Australia’s shoulder. Know what I mean?’ But Prindy was too interested in the scene.
There were a score of islets in the group, only the bigger ones high-cliffed, and thus on the southern side, with white beaches on the northern and western and bits of mangrove swamp, and jungle-grown interiors. On some of the beaches were canoes and black figures running, waving. Fergus dropped down to zig-zag through the jade channels, dipping his wings. Then up again a little when suddenly they were confronted with a small bay packed with anchored pearling luggers, trim black-hulled vessels with shiny varnished masts and crewmen waving. A biggish island backed the bay where the vessels lay. There was a long white beach, canoes and black figures on the beach. A fringe of casuarinas, behind it a double line of whitewashed buildings making a miniature township by flanking a street of scarlet earth. They flew down the street, while what appeared to be penned children galloped about behind fences. They swung away over cultivated ground, a windmill, tanks, bush, to find a red slash in the bush rushing up to meet them as Fergus put his nose down. Trees rushed past them, small red antbeds, bleached grass. Bump-bump! They were down. Bumpity-bump. They were running the length of the gash, slowing down. They stopped, turned in their own dust, headed back a little way, to a track leading to a whitewashed shed, into which they turned.
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