The Art of Taxidermy
Page 7
Yes, he worked too.
Wie Sklaven—Like slaves.
No, not like slaves, said Father.
We did not have to work.
He liked to be in the garden.
It helped with the boredom—
the long, long days
away from you.
It eased us into sleep
on those freezing nights.
Ach! The freezing.
Oma shook her head.
He should not have been here.
It broke his heart.
This is how he die.
You should not have been here.
We are good Germans.
We are good people.
Father slipped one hand
in his pocket
and the other around
Oma’s shoulder
and stared ahead at
the empty land.
INCINERATE
We arrived home beneath
a sickle moon
and faint suburban stars.
Aunt Hilda opened the door,
greeted us with crossed arms,
a frown, a grimace, slitted eyes.
Father raised his eyebrows
in question. Oma clucked but
without concern.
Annie and I got a slow nod
and we knew it was about us.
We yawned, headed to bed.
We lay on the bedspread
in the heated room and listened
to Aunt Hilda’s unhappy grumbling.
The words were mumbled, jumbled sounds
but I caught my name
and other words: She, You, Must.
I placed an ear against the wall,
listened to the muffled voices and the bang
and boom of my own heartbeat.
Look! Tell me this is normal.
Here…here…she is a ghoul,
Frankenstein. It is wrong.
The curtains rose and fell
like lungs as the window breathed
hot air around the room.
Father’s low voice rumbled:
You found it in the incinerator?
Yes! She is killing and skinning.
MIRROR DREAM
Birds fly over the dam.
Their image reflected in the water—
black on gold
tinged rose by the setting sun.
Black and yellow cockatoos, Annie says.
Funeral birds, says Oma.
Ghouls, corrects Aunt Hilda.
Ghoulish girls.
The birds fly circles,
form a spiral pattern
like dark sky dancers.
Bad omen. Good omen.
Suddenly they change shape.
Their slow wing-beat quickens.
Their soft song hardens—
Ark-ark, ark-ark.
Crows, Annie says. Floating on her back,
her hair stained blood-red
by the sinking sun.
A murder, she says. It’s a murder.
THE BURNING I
I was jolted awake
by the smell of smoke.
Disoriented—
I thought I was back
with the bushfire.
But we were home and
the curtain was billowing
warm smoky air.
I rubbed my eyes,
opened the curtains wide,
and there was Aunt Hilda
at the back of the garden
beside the incinerator.
Dark clotted clouds
drifted upwards
and the smell of hair
drifted inside.
I leapt out of bed.
Got down on hands and knees.
Felt for the box
but it was gone!
I raced outside, screamed.
No, no, no. Where is it?
What have you done!
It is gone, burnt, Charlotte,
Aunt Hilda shouted
over the crackle.
I snatched the stick from her hand.
Leaned into the fire,
stabbed at the flames.
She tried to wrestle it back,
tried to pull me away.
But I would not give up.
I could see the hare
looking back at me
through the smoke.
The lizard curled
and shrivelled next to it.
I poked at the flames,
breathed bitter smoke,
coughed and coughed,
felt pain in my hands.
My hair crackled and sizzled
in the radiant heat
but I hooked my precious creature,
and tossed the blackened fur
out of the flames
onto the faded, dry grass.
THE BURNING II
What is going on?
Father strode out of the house.
Aunt Hilda stood with her
hands on her hips.
It is for her own good.
It is not healthy to kill and skin.
Oma appeared beside Father,
a hand to her mouth, her brow crinkled.
Fire? she said. Ach, the smoke.
Why is the rabbit burning? Put it out.
Smoke drifted in long tendrils
from the hare.
I’d rescued it from the hawk
and then from the bushfire.
I’d rescued it from its own
disintegration.
And here it was, its pelt ruined,
blackened, half-charred.
There was nothing I could do
to resurrect it now.
Its soft tawny fur,
its elegant long ears,
its sweet nose and cotton tail—
singed, blackened, burnt beyond repair.
Aunt Hilda lifted it by an ear,
tossed it back into the flames.
It is gone, finished, final.
For your own good.
And the others, she said,
the parrot, that lorikeet, and the lizard.
My heart skipped a beat;
the world blurred.
The pain in my hands
moved to my chest.
My beautiful rainbow lorikeet—
my jewel, my treasure.
All that work, all that beauty
gone, burnt to cinders.
BANDAGES
Oma iced my hands,
clucked and tutted.
Stroked my hair,
tucked a strand
behind my ear.
Wiped my tears.
I did not care
about the burns.
I did not care
about the pain.
I cared only for
my lost creatures.
MURDER II
A murder, Annie said.
It was murder.
She killed our creatures.
Our beautiful creatures.
And she put Mother
and her belongings here in the shed.
I dug to the bottom
of the cardboard box,
pulled the stole, the fox,
from its hidey-hole.
Slipped it on, around my neck
and wept and sobbed
and wept.
MEAT
At the dinner table
Aunt Hilda hovered
quietly,
uncertainly,
as Oma and Father
fussed over me.
It was hard to eat
with bandages
thick and tightly wound.
My mummified hands
were stiff with pain.
The food on my plate
cut into bite-size pieces.
I could only eat
a few slices of carrot.
The meat, the chicken
reminded me
of charred hare
and lorikeet.
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It brought fresh tears
that would not cease,
and I knew I would never
again eat meat.
I fled the dining table,
fled the worried looks
and pleas.
MOTHER MEMORY V
She is sitting
at the kitchen table,
a dark silhouette
against the bright day
streaming in
through the window.
Her body is bent,
her arms thin.
Like a cubist rendition
of herself,
all squares, rectangles, triangles.
There is never a smile.
When I climb into her lap
I feel her hip bones,
her jutting ribs,
her pointed elbows.
Everything is sharp,
everything protrudes,
as if she is made
out of knives.
SILENCE I
There is power in silence—
in grief, in pain.
When you stop talking
people feel as if you cannot understand.
They talk about you
as if you are not there.
I wondered if this is what happened
to Mother.
Aunt Hilda spoke to Father:
She is hardly eating.
She will not eat her meat.
She will not look at me.
I am worried, Wolfgang.
What shall we do? What can I do?
Let’s leave her be, Father said gently.
Perhaps time will heal.
I did not respond, did not talk,
did not want to talk.
There was nothing to say.
There was nothing to do;
nothing could undo.
Oma took me back to the farm
while she settled in,
but we did not speak.
She seemed to understand
my pain, my loss,
my lack of connection.
She treated me like a little dog—
stroked my hair,
fed me regularly
and talked to me.
Did not expect answers.
FIRE GROUND
The land was regenerating,
repairing itself.
Bright green shoots
sprouted from the black gums.
It had rained while we were away.
The dam had deepened,
the rainwater tank half-filled,
tufts of spiky grass could be seen
and the birds were singing
from the trees again.
The trilling of the blackbirds,
the warbling of the magpies,
the yarking of the crows—
the songs of Oma’s birds
were the only sounds
I wanted to hear.
A FEBRUARY EVENING
The air was fresh, crisp.
The sun sleeping
under a soft tawny blanket
of cloud the colour
of a skinned hare.
I stroked the fur stole
warming my neck.
Mother was never far.
She was close
in those short soft strands.
I sat in the dirt and watched
Oma cluck and fuss
over her new chickens.
They scratched in the dust
while Father rebuilt the coop.
Oma placed one in my lap.
Liebkosen? Cuddle, she said.
The chicken pecked
at my sleeping fox,
then settled neatly into my lap.
Father nodded at Oma
and smiled as I stroked the bird.
Then he strode away, hands in pockets,
grim-faced to watch the day
sink sadly into the dam.
ARS MORIENDI—
THE ART OF DYING I
Annie and I wandered
around the farm,
left Father and Oma
to their quiet breakfast,
walked the blackened landscape,
kept going to the road,
down the hill—down, down
towards the glittering sea.
The day was blustery
but not cold.
The stole warmed me.
The touch of Mother felt safe.
We stood on the shore
and listened to the sound of the ocean,
our shoes in our hands,
our jeans rolled to our knees.
We watched the waves roll in and out,
watched the foaming sea
make lacy patterns
across the sand.
The icy water rushed
over our feet,
dragged the sand beneath our toes
back out to sea.
We could go in, Annie said.
We could go for a swim.
We could fill our pockets
with stones and drown.
We stared across the ocean
to the horizon
where a small ship sat.
We could, but we won’t.
ARS MORIENDI—
THE ART OF DYING II
We walked the windy shoreline
till the heaviness left our bones,
then turned towards the farm,
strolled up the hill.
Beneath a row of giant pine trees,
we came across the corpse
of a brushtail possum
stretched out on its side.
Eyes open so wide, it looked alive.
And then it moved—
its front paw and nose twitched
and it blinked, slowly.
I could see no wounds, no blood.
Perhaps it fell from the tree
or was hit by a car.
We sat beside it, wondering what to do.
And then it stretched its paw
as if it wanted us to hold its hand.
We watched and waited, did not touch.
Annie spoke gentle words—
Sweet possum, beautiful creature,
you are a gift, a treasure—
until the light left its eyes
and it passed quietly away.
THICKENING
The possum thickened
my sadness.
Its quiet death added
weight to my legs,
already heavy
with grief.
I cried all the way
back to Oma’s.
The fox stole was moist
with tears
when we finally arrived.
Death is sad.
The dead are gone
but not forgotten,
said Annie.
We could go back,
collect the creature.
It was beautiful
and in good condition.
We could take it home,
remove the skin
remodel, stitch, resurrect—
bring it back from the dead.
I shook my head.
There was no point;
it would be futile,
with Aunt Hilda,
so we left it for nature
to slowly digest.
THE BONE YARD
At the gate of the farm
we detoured,
went to the cemetery instead.
Annie skipped her way there,
her legs weightless—
the possum forgotten.
She carried everything lightly,
as only the dead
and the innocent can.
It is not a sad place.
There are bones buried, yes,
but there are birds
and cows and lizards
and crickets.
Annie was right. Life was all around:
cows grazed on yellow fields,
> blue wrens squilled and flitted and hopped,
pigeons and magpies perched
on fence wire and tombstones,
and galahs creaked and squabbled
in the treetops.
The marble slabs
with their small square stones
propped up like pillows
resembled long lines of beds,
as if people had just come
to sleep or rest.
LINING UP THE DEAD
Opa’s gravestone was gunmetal marble
like the grey of his portraits,
the stone as cool to touch
as his Luger pistol.
Uncle Bernard was standing by,
as silent in death as in life.
He never said much more than
hello and goodbye to me.
Now it was only goodbye.
Mother’s stone was a pink coral colour.
A tall monument,
as elegant and beautiful
and lonely in death
as she seemed in life.
The sadness swirled around her
and around us
in eddies of white sandy dust.
She’s talking, Annie said,
and I wanted to believe her,
but the dust settled
and there were no answers at my feet
or in my head
about why she died, why she left.
Next to Mother, the small grave,
the tiny rectangle
with the little angel on
the polished white stone
brought fresh tears,
fresh grief.
Annie poked me. Don’t be sad…
She skipped around the tombstones.
It is only death. It is not the end!
We all die. We all die.
It’s a part of life.
But I could not share
Annie’s rosy thoughts.
I wanted to resurrect them all.
I wanted them back
breathing real air.
I wanted flesh and blood,
not ghosts.
OMA’S BOX OF MEMORIES
Take this box, these pictures, Oma said.
If there is another fire they burn.
What then? What have I got?
No more Fotos.
No more memories. All die.
Oma sat the box on my lap,
waved goodbye, and we drove up
the blackened track,
back to the city, back to Aunt Hilda
and the end of the holidays.
I looked through the photos,
one grim face after another
of Mother and Father, Oma and Opa.
Why are they all so sad?
Father smiled, pleased that I had spoken.
We did not want to leave
Germany, our Germany,
but we did not like the government,