Stream System

by Gerald Murnane

  From the time when my son was first able to walk around the backyard of our house, I encouraged him to be interested in birds and insects and spiders and plants. I did this partly to safeguard myself from the possible accusation that I was forcing too many books on him, but I genuinely wanted him to take an interest in the natural world. I wanted him to turn to the outdoors whenever he had grown tired for the time being of books. On many fine days when my son was old enough to walk and talk but not yet old enough to read, I would lead him around our backyard, looking for some bird or spider or insect that we could watch.

  Whenever I try to remember the days mentioned in the previous sentence, I remember first the image that I have seen often in my mind since I bought for my son the book mentioned earlier in this section of this story. I see in my mind the image of the man sitting with his chin in his hands in the fields of grass. While I watch the man in my mind, he lifts his chin from his hands and picks up from beside him in the grass a pencil and a notebook. In one or another article or essay that I read in one or another publication many years ago, the words at the head of this section of this story were applied to the famous naturalist, who was the author of many books reporting what he saw during his long lifetime in the fields surrounding his home. I watch the man in my mind writing with his pencil in his notebook while he sits in the fields of grass.

  Pink Lining

  The image that caused me to begin writing this story is an image of a single cloud in a sky filled with heaps or layers of clouds. The single cloud and all the other clouds in the sky are coloured grey, but the single cloud is surrounded by an aureole or nimbus of pink. All the clouds are being driven by wind across the sky, but the single cloud with the aureole or nimbus of pink is moving less swiftly than the other clouds. If the clouds were a group of children being driven past me, then the cloud surrounded by the pinkness would be the one child who is reluctant to be hurried past me: the one child looking back over her shoulder towards me and wanting to tell me something.

  All the clouds mentioned in the previous paragraph are details in a picture on the obverse of a card of about the size of the palm of the hand of the man who is holding the card in his hand and looking at the heaps or layers of clouds in the picture that contains the image that caused me to begin writing this story. The card is one of a collection of similar cards that the man keeps in an envelope in a hanging file in a filing cabinet. When the man was a boy he called these cards and other similar cards holy cards, but for as long as the cards have been kept in the man’s filing cabinet, they have been kept in one of many files labelled Memorabilia.

  Every card in the collection mentioned in the previous paragraph has on its obverse a picture of Jesus or of his mother or of a male or a female saint and beneath the picture the text of a short prayer of the sort that the man called as a boy a pious ejaculation. During the years while the man has kept his cards in the file labelled Memorabilia, he has sometimes amused some of his friends by telling them that he was encouraged as a boy by his favourite aunt to ejaculate frequently and piously. The man has always been pleased to amuse some of his friends in this way, but he knows that his friends are amused only because they are somewhat ignorant of the meanings of English words and because they are wholly ignorant of the meanings of words in the Latin language.

  Below each of the texts mentioned in the previous paragraph is a statement of the number of days of indulgence that each pious ejaculation earns for the person who utters it. The man who owns the cards has never tried to explain to any of his friends that he not only ejaculated frequently and piously as a boy but that each of his ejaculations earned him an average of three hundred days’ measure of the spiritual commodity known as indulgence. The man has never tried to explain this to his friends because he doubts whether even those few of his friends who were eager as children to earn quantities of indulgence understood as children or understand now as adults the doctrine of indulgences.

  The man looking at the card in his hand was taught as a boy by his favourite aunt that an indulgence of three hundred days was far from being what non-Catholics of ill will supposed it to be, namely a licence to sin for three hundred days without fear of punishment on earth or elsewhere. The boy was taught also by his favourite aunt that an indulgence of three hundred days was not what many of the Catholic persons who strove to earn indulgences believed it to be, namely an assurance that a person would spend three hundred days fewer than the person would otherwise have been obliged to spend after death in the place of punishment known as purgatory. The man was taught by his favourite aunt that an indulgence of three hundred days was an assurance that a person had earned in the sight of God as much spiritual merit as the person would have earned in the early days of the Church by doing for three hundred days the usual penance of those early days, which was to fast and pray and to wear sackcloth and ashes in public.

  After the man looking at the card in his hand had learned as a boy from his favourite aunt what is mentioned in the previous paragraph, he asked his aunt whether she said aloud or read from holy cards prayers that earned her quantities of indulgence. The boy’s aunt then told him that she was in the habit of saying each day certain prayers that earned her indulgences to the value of ten thousand days.

  * * *

  The boy mentioned in the previous paragraph often sat near his favourite aunt while she talked to him about the history and the teachings of the Catholic Church. While the boy listened to his favourite aunt, he would sometimes hold the small stack of his holy cards in the palm of his hand, looking at one after another of the cards before moving the card to the bottom of the stack. While the boy looked at one after another of his cards, he looked only briefly at the figure of Jesus or of the holy personage in the foreground of the picture on the obverse of the card before he looked for certain details in the background of the picture. Certain details such as a part of a stone wall or a part of a garden or part of a view of countryside enabled the boy to imagine details of a certain place in his mind.

  At some time during every day, the boy-owner of the holy cards mentioned previously imagined details of scenes from the life that he might live in the future. During the years while he learned from his favourite aunt about the history and the teachings of the Catholic Church, the boy wished to remain in the future what he and his aunt would have called a good Catholic, but he often suspected that he would commit many sins in the future, even as a boy in the future. He would commit many sins in the future, the boy suspected, because he would be eager, even as a boy in the future, to imagine details of scenes in remote countryside in the state of Victoria in which he was a man and about to look at or to touch the naked body of a young woman. Even when he was sitting near his favourite aunt and while she was talking to him about the history and the teachings of the Catholic Church, the boy-owner of the cards would sometimes imagine one or another detail of a scene in remote countryside such as he suspected he would imagine in the future, even while he was still a boy. Whenever the boy-owner of the cards had imagined such a detail while he was sitting near his favourite aunt with his cards in his hand, he would look into the backgrounds of the pictures on his cards for the details mentioned in the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

  When the boy-owner of the holy cards looked for details of the place mentioned in the last sentence of the paragraph before the previous paragraph, he supposed that the place was beside a side street of a town of a few thousand people on the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range in either the state of New South Wales or the state of Queensland. During the years when the boy supposed this, he had lived since the first year that he could remember in a suburb of Melbourne and had travelled no further from Melbourne than to the district in the south-west of Victoria where his favourite aunt lived.

  The place mentioned in the previous paragraph was a house of many rooms surrounded first by a veranda and then by a formal garden and then by a high stone wall. Whenever the boy-owner of the holy cards looked f
or details of this place, he was hoping that the details would enable him to imagine himself as sitting or standing or walking up and down in one or another of the many rooms of the house or on the veranda or in the formal garden. The boy was hoping also that the details would enable him to imagine that he had lived already for many years as a man in the house of many rooms and had sat or had stood or had walked up and down in one or another of the many rooms of the house or on the veranda or in the formal garden during every day of those years and had never travelled outside the high stone wall and that he would live in that place for the rest of his life.

  Sometimes the boy-owner of the holy cards supposed that the place mentioned in the previous paragraph was the house where he would live in the future as a bachelor with a library in one of the rooms, a collection of orchids in another room, many tanks stocked with tropical fish in another room, and an elaborate model railway layout in another room. At other times the boy supposed that the place was a monastery for priests or monks.

  Whenever the boy-owner of the holy cards supposed that the place mentioned in the previous paragraph was a monastery, he supposed also that he would learn as an older boy from his favourite aunt the whereabouts of every monastery that stood behind a high stone wall in a side street of a town of a few thousand people on the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales or Queensland; that he would learn also from his favourite aunt the colours and designs of the habits worn by the monks or priests in each of the monasteries as well as the rules followed by the monks or priests and the whereabouts of the sister-houses of the monasteries of the same order of monks or priests in countries other than Australia; and that he would then decide to join an order of monks or priests whose habits were of striking colours, whose rules prevented the monks or priests from travelling outside the high stone wall surrounding their monastery, and whose sister-houses in countries other than Australia were surrounded by remote countryside.

  * * *

  If the boy-owner of the holy cards mentioned previously was looking at one or another card but was not able to see in the picture on the card any detail of a wall or of a garden or of part of a view of countryside, he would look at the sky behind the head of Jesus or Mary or the holy personage in the picture.

  If the boy saw that the sky mentioned in the previous paragraph was blue and without clouds, he would not go on looking at the sky but would place the card with the picture that included the blue sky without clouds at the bottom of his stack of cards. If the boy saw in the sky in the picture on a holy card heaps or layers of grey clouds, he would go on looking at that sky.

  On a day when the view from the window of the room where the man who was first mentioned in the second paragraph of this story had kept for more than twenty years in a filing cabinet the cards that he had called as a boy holy cards was of a blue sky without clouds, the man was asked by the woman who had been his wife for more than twenty years why he preferred not to look at a blue sky without clouds. On the day mentioned in the previous sentence, the man answered that the blue of a sky without clouds at noon in the only districts where he had lived was also the most noticeable of the colours in each of the two tassels that had sometimes brushed the skin of his arm or his face when his mother had passed close to him each morning in the first year that he could remember, which was a year when she had often worn a dressing-gown of blue and of several other colours that she fastened around her waist with a cord that had at each end a tassel of the same colours.

  Whenever the boy-owner of the holy cards mentioned previously looked at heaps or layers of grey clouds in a picture on one or another of his cards, he looked for what he looked for whenever he was walking or was travelling in a motor car or a railway train through the district in the south-west of Victoria where his favourite aunt lived with her parents and her sisters and whenever he noticed that the sky above the mostly level countryside of that district was filled with heaps or layers of grey clouds, which was a single cloud with a ray or rays of light appearing from behind it in such a way that the cloud seemed partly or wholly surrounded by an aureole or nimbus of silver.

  Whenever the boy mentioned in the previous paragraph saw the single cloud mentioned in that paragraph, he was reminded of the saying that he sometimes heard from his mother: the saying that every cloud has a silver lining. Whenever the boy saw the single cloud, he was reminded also of the districts surrounding the district where he was then walking or otherwise travelling. He was reminded that the sun might have been shining at that moment over the district of Geelong or the district of the Great Dividing Range or the district on the far side of the South Australian border or the blue district of the Southern Ocean. Whenever the boy saw the single cloud, he was reminded also of the district that surrounded all other districts: namely, the district of heaven.

  Whenever the boy mentioned in the previous paragraph was travelling in the district south-west of Melbourne where his favourite aunt lived with her parents and her sisters, he understood that the district came to an end in one direction at the suburbs of a city and in another direction at a range of mountains and in another direction at a vertical line on a map and in another direction at the shore of an ocean, but whenever the boy was reminded of the district of heaven, he understood that the district had no end in any direction. Whenever the boy was reminded of the district of heaven, he understood that each of the houses of heaven was of many rooms and was surrounded by a veranda and then by a formal garden and then by mostly level countryside that had no end in any direction. Whenever the boy understood these things, he understood also that no male person who sat with a female person in one or another of the many rooms of the houses of heaven or who stood or walked with a female person on the veranda or in the formal garden surrounding any of those houses would be eager at any time in the future to imagine any detail of any scene in any remote landscape in which he was an older male person and about to look at or to touch the body of a naked female person.

  * * *

  Whenever the man who was first mentioned in the second paragraph of this story remembered his favourite aunt during the years while she was still alive, he remembered her as resting the weight of her body above the waist on her right elbow while she lay in the bed where she lay by day and by night in her room in a house that was of many rooms and was surrounded first by a veranda and then by a formal garden and then by the mostly level countryside of a district in the south-west of Victoria. Whenever the man remembered his favourite aunt during the years just mentioned, he remembered also other details including some of the following details.

  The man’s favourite aunt was the eldest sister of the man’s father. The man’s favourite aunt had three sisters and two brothers. The two brothers each married when he was about thirty-five years of age and later became the father of children. The man’s favourite aunt and her three sisters were all unmarried throughout their lives. The four sisters just mentioned lived with their parents until their father had died and then went on living with their mother in the house of many rooms mentioned in the previous paragraph until all four sisters and their mother had died.

  The house mentioned in the previous paragraph was of cream-coloured stone that had been dug from a paddock nearby. Most of the work of building the house just mentioned had been done by the father of the father of the man who is looking at a picture on a card in the image that caused me to begin writing this story. During the years when the man just mentioned was a boy who was learning from his favourite aunt, the grandfather of the boy would have been called by his neighbours comfortably off. The grandfather’s house was furnished with pieces of the sort that are sold for many hundreds of dollars each in antique shops in suburbs of Melbourne nowadays. In the main room of the house was a tall set of bookshelves with glass panels in their doors and several hundred books inside. One of the four sisters who lived in the house had a mechanical gramophone and a collection of a hundred or more records. Another of the sisters owned a piano and listened
to music programs from the ABC by means of a battery-powered radio. One of the sisters ordered from time to time items of jewellery or bric-a-brac advertised in mail-order catalogues issued by stores in Melbourne. The sister who was the favourite aunt of one of her nephews subscribed to every periodical issued by every Catholic institution and religious order in every state of Australia.

  On a certain morning in his tenth year, the boy-owner of the holy cards mentioned previously got up from the chair where he had been sitting at the bedside of his favourite aunt and left his aunt’s room as he was accustomed to leave her room whenever the time was approaching for his aunt’s mother to bring into the room the white enamel dish of hot water and the towels and the face-washer and the soap that she brought in each morning.

  On the morning mentioned in the previous paragraph, the boy mentioned in that paragraph was spending part of his summer holidays as he was accustomed to spending part of those holidays each year in the house of many rooms where the parents and sisters of his father lived. On every other morning of the many mornings that the boy spent in that house, he would spend the hour while he was out of the room of his favourite aunt reading from the books in the main room of the house or walking in the formal garden surrounding the house.

  During the years while the man who was first mentioned in the second paragraph of this story has kept a collection of cards in a file labelled Memorabilia, the man has had no occasion to remember any detail from any of the mornings when, as a boy, he left the room of his favourite aunt and did the things mentioned in the previous paragraph. However, the man has sometimes remembered a certain morning in his tenth year when he left the room of his favourite aunt and then walked through the house of many rooms and then across the veranda surrounding the house and then through the formal garden surrounding the house and the veranda and then out into the mostly level countryside surrounding the house and the veranda and the garden. The man has sometimes remembered that the sky on that morning was filled with heaps or layers of grey clouds. The man has sometimes remembered that the boy looked on that morning sometimes in the direction of each of the four districts surrounding the district where he was walking and sometimes in the direction of a certain cloud, which he believed to be the direction of the district that surrounded all other districts.