by Mark Dapin
Jimmy furrowed his brow. It looked like a rusty tin roof.
‘I thought you’d be happy,’ he said, ‘what with your rollerboard . . .’
‘Skateboard,’ I said.
‘. . . VDs . . .’
‘CDs,’ I said.
‘. . . and Ita Buttrose Walker.’
‘Walkman,’ I said.
Jimmy massaged his chin.
‘We used to make cricket bats out of fence posts,’ he said.
‘I know it was worse then,’ I said, ‘but that doesn’t make it any better now. At least your mum and dad stayed together.’
‘Everyone did,’ said Jimmy. ‘It was like pass the parcel in those days. The bloke who pulled the wrapping off the sheila got to keep her. But it didn’t mean they were happy. Just trapped.’
I frowned in sympathy with old people, then two of them drove down my grandmother’s street in their Volvo.
‘It’s Maurice and Sylvia,’ said Jimmy. ‘Quick! Commit harakiri!’
They parked at the kerb.
‘We were just in the area,’ said Sylvia.
‘Surfing, were you?’ asked Jimmy.
‘And we thought we’d drop by,’ said Maurice.
Jimmy invited them into the yard, but not the house.
‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ said Maurice. ‘We’ve found a unit and we’d like you to come and see it.’
‘Why?’ asked Jimmy. ‘Are you moving?’
‘It’d be perfect for you and Frida,’ said Maurice.
‘This is perfect for me and Frida,’ said Jimmy.
‘It’s a serviced apartment,’ said Maurice, ‘independent living with care on call.’
‘We already live independently,’ said Jimmy.
‘We should speak to Frida,’ said Sylvia.
‘She’s out,’ said Jimmy.
‘On a Sunday?’ asked Maurice.
‘Why not?’ said Jimmy. ‘She can do what she likes. She’s not in a home.’
Maurice waved a flyer around.
‘This isn’t a home,’ said Maurice.
‘No,’ said Jimmy, pointing to my grandmother’s house. ‘This is.’
Maurice made him look at the leaflet. It showed a smart, suntanned old man sitting across a candlelit table from his smiling, elegant wife, sharing a bottle of red wine over dinner.
‘Well, that’s me and Frida, isn’t it?’ said Jimmy.
‘It could be,’ said Maurice.
‘Look,’ said Sylvia. ‘She’s happy he’s drinking.’
‘It can’t be Frida, then,’ said Jimmy.
‘Won’t you even come and look at it?’ asked Sylvia. ‘It’s not as if you do anything else.’
‘I’m working now,’ said Jimmy.
‘Of course you are,’ said Sylvia.
Jimmy agreed that when Frida came back they would call Maurice and Sylvia and drive out to view the unit. Sylvia reminded him they would be closer to her and Maurice.
‘Family’s very important to Frida,’ said Sylvia. ‘I know she wants to be near her brother.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Jimmy.
‘Who is, dear?’ asked Sylvia.
‘Her brother,’ said Jimmy. ‘Mick.’
I could see he was lost.
‘Who do you think that is in front of you?’ asked Sylvia.
He raised his thick grey eyebrows. ‘That’s Maurice, you yachna,’ he said, recovering quickly. ‘Don’t you recognise your own husband?’
As their Volvo drove onto Bondi Road, Jimmy turned to me and said, ‘They come here to tell me what to, as if I’m bloody seven years old, never mind seventy. I remember Maurice when he was in nappies. Oh, he’s a big man now. He’s a pharmacist. Well, he should write himself a prescription for waddling.’
‘He should write Auntie Sylvia a prescription for ugliness,’ I said.
‘He should write Mrs Ethelberger a prescription for meddling,’ said Jimmy.
‘He should write Solomon a prescription for fat,’ I said.
‘Anyway,’ said Jimmy, ‘pharmacists don’t write prescriptions. They just fill them.’
‘He should stick to that,’ I said.
‘My oath,’ said Jimmy, and patted me on the back. ‘Maurice wasn’t in the war. Too young. Too waddley.’ He licked a Tally-Ho. ‘Myer used to waddle too,’ he said, ‘the bow-legged bloody galah. He was always trying to find something to keep hold of, and I could see he wanted to latch on to the Japs. He was full of talk of the Emperor for a while. He tried to learn Japanese, but he didn’t have the brains. And the guards he was listening to were usually speaking Korean. I don’t know why Myer joined the army or how they let him in. He wasn’t a pharmacist in those days. He was a tobacconist, with fingers as brown as a boong. But he was the only one out of all of us who didn’t smoke.
‘Once he’d got over Japanese, Myer started to speak Hebrew, or something like it. One morning before tenko – which was so early there was never anything before it – Myer tore his jap-happy Tarzan nappy in two, clipped a square piece to his head and draped a strip of cloth around his shoulders like a tallith, and wanted to go out to work like that.
‘“But you’re bollock naked,” said Townsville Jack.
‘“The Torah says you should cover your kop,” said Myer, “not your shlong. If I’d lived a religious life then God wouldn’t be angry with me and I wouldn’t be here.”
‘Myer didn’t know – none of us knew – what was happening to the frummers in Europe.
‘Townsville Jack made Myer rip a strip off his tallith and wrap it around his shmekele like a bandage, and Myer went outside to pray. The Japs didn’t seem to mind. They never paid much attention to Myer. He had a habit of making himself so small, he almost disappeared. Even when he was walking around like he was dressed up in dishcloths, the guards more or less left him alone.
‘It was something new for the other blokes, and the few that cared asked Myer questions about his religion. Even though he knew next to bugger all, he’d talk to them about his tallith which, he said, had knotted fringes, even though it didn’t.
‘A couple of blokes made talliths themselves, just to take the piss, and walked around behind Myer spouting gobbledegook, which was pretty much what Myer was doing too.
‘Eventually, Woolly, one of the younger blokes – he didn’t look young any more, but I could remember when he did – came to our hut and asked if he could convert.
‘“You want to join the Japs?” asked Townsville Jack.
‘“The Deuce,” said Woolly. “The Jewboys, the Jewbags.”
‘Townsville Jack pointed him to Myer, and Woolly kneeled in front of him. Woolly had seen God in a burning campfire, and God had told him that Judaism was the true religion and Woolly ought to leave the camp quick smart and go and live in Jerusalem with Jesus.
‘But Woolly didn’t know how to be a Jew. Katz, who’d been sketching Woolly’s wide eyes and open mouth, offered to help him convert.
‘“First you don’t eat pork,’ said Katz, “which should be easy enough here. Then you don’t mix milk and meat – ditto. Then all you have to do is cut off your foreskin and you’re in.”
‘Woolly went off to think about it, and we didn’t reckon we’d see him again, then the silly bastard came back a couple of hours later with blood running down his legs and a slit pink hood in his hand. He’d circumcised himself with a stone, like an Abo. The wound got infected and he died, but Myer buried him under a wooden Star of David.
‘The next bloke who came to see Myer was a rat-faced Kiwi medical officer called Sprout, who told us the English were the lost tribe of Israel and the Jews were imposters. He’d got the good oil between the wars from the New Zealand prime minister. The Kiwi was a very boring cunt. Myer listened to him for about an hour. When he’d finished, Myer took off his tallith and gave it to him.
‘“All right,” he said, “you can be the Jews.”
‘And that was the end of Myer’s religious period.
‘Katz stil
l painted secretly, but he’d started drawing openly. He had permission from the Jap commandant to illustrate the surgeon’s medical notes and, between Katz and the doctor, they put together a sort of manual of jungle medicine.
‘His sketches showed arms and legs, faces and thighs, with huge red tears, like windows blown out by bombs. But he was good at drawing bodies, Katz. He had a feeling for flesh.
‘Dopey the dwarf had to check all his drawings to make sure they weren’t escape maps.
‘One day he brought Katz a clean piece of paper and said, “Make sexo.” Katz thought he wanted to root him for a sheet of foolscap.
‘Katz shook his head because, even though he was an artist, he wasn’t like that.
‘“I have wife,” said Katz, although he didn’t.
‘“Yes,” said Dopey. “Draw your wife.”
‘And then Katz understood. Dopey wanted a picture of a white girl. The funny thing was, Katz had done this before. He knew exactly what Dopey was after, and the way things were bound to turn out, but he also knew that men need three things to keep them alive – food, water and the memory of women. Katz had something he could trade with the Japs.
‘“One white woman, one egg,” said Katz, and Dopey agreed.
‘It only took Katz about ten minutes to draw a woman. I watched him, and it was amazing. His pen never left the paper. I don’t know who he based his picture on, but I wished I’d met her. She had breasts like bloody hot-air balloons, and big black winking eyes. Anyway, she was a modest girl, with her legs crossed to cover herself, and she was wearing boots because Katz didn’t like to draw feet. Dopey came back after an hour, and Katz pretended to still be working on the sketch. Two hours later, Katz brought him the drawing.
‘“Sexo!” said Dopey. “Number one!” and gave him a duck egg. We split it three ways.
‘The next day Dopey came up to Katz carrying the drawing and pointed his finger between her legs. “No hole,” he said. “Number ten!”
‘“One hole,” said Katz, “two eggs.”
‘He managed to convince the guard that a dirtier picture should cost him more. I’d never seen anything like it – the bargain or the girl. This time Katz made the guard wait all evening before he handed it over.
‘“Your wife?” asked Dopey.
‘Katz said it was. Dopey looked happy but he didn’t come back for a week, and when he did, he whacked Katz across the face with the butt of his rifle.
‘“Number ten!” he shouted. “Number ten!”
‘With sign language, bashings and a bit of help from Sprout, who spoke cathouse Japanese, Dopey thought Katz had cheated him. He’d got the griff that a white woman’s hairy hole was actually around the back. Katz tried the “back hole, three eggs” trick, but Dopey demanded two free pictures and said he wanted a blonde this time. So Katz did these strange drawings of fair-haired girls glancing over their shoulders, looking a bit surprised, as you bloody would. Dopey was well satisfied with these, and even fed Katz a biscuit to make up for the bruise on his cheek.
‘Eventually, it wasn’t enough for Dopey to have pictures of women on their own. He wanted to see them with white men with giant shlongs. This was a problem for Katz, as he wasn’t sure whether Dopey thought white blokes were built backwards as well. The first of the new-style drawings was a big, imaginative picture, and it was anatomically impossible, but it earned us two eggs.
‘It was a while before Dopey realised he’d been doing himself out of a root. He’d had enough of pictures of fair-dinkum Aussies ravishing Katz’s inside-out wife. He wanted to see IJA soldiers having a go at her and her blonde friend, who Katz christened “Bucket” after his next-door neighbour’s dog. One thing I noticed was that all Katz’s blokes, Aussies or Japs, seemed to be Jewish, if you know what I mean.
‘I reckon Dopey fell in love with the girl Katz drew. He kept asking Katz to show him a photograph, but Katz told him his only picture of her had been confiscated at Changi. Katz would draw other women for him – my wife, Townsville Jack’s sister, Myer’s niece – but none of them had the same effect on Dopey. I suppose it was because he always remembered the first time.
‘Dopey brought Katz new pens and paper. He even found some paints – God knows where – for him to make coloured pictures. But he changed from wanting one new one a week to one a day, then more than one. Katz didn’t have the energy to draw them, so Dopey got him excused from the hammer and tap and had him working full-time on the pin-ups. But no matter how many women he drew, Katz never got more than two eggs a day.’
Jimmy rolled the memory of a duck egg between his thumb and forefinger.
‘Katz was keeping us all alive,’ he said, ‘but his mind started to go. He began to look at living men and see corpses. He used to be able to show a man’s character by the line of his lips and the sparkle in his eyes, but suddenly all the eyes he drew were empty. One man working on the line asked Katz to make a portrait of him. All Katz gave him was a picture of a patch of freshly turned mud in the jungle, and the next day the poor fella – Tom Walsh was his name – fell over and died. A couple of the worst types reckoned Katz had done it deliberately, just to see if he could – which showed what kind of thoughts were going on in their brains – or that it was some sort of Jew magic.
‘It looked like Katz was going to end up under the mud himself, but Townsville Jack managed to straighten it out by explaining that although the Jews certainly killed our Lord and Saviour, it was the Japs who were responsible for the death of Tom Walsh. That and a kick up the arse sent them on their way.
‘We tried to talk to Katz, but he said he was a war artist and his job was to paint what he saw and all he could see was death, death, death, and if he didn’t record that basic truth then he was failing in his duty. Then he stopped painting people at all – or jungle or earth or rails – only skies. And his skies were clouded with the spirits of dead soldiers, all holding their heads and screaming.
‘So I took his brushes off him, and his pencils and his paper, and I buried them under a tree, and I carried him to the hospital. Dopey couldn’t understand the problem and thought he might be able to solve it by kicking Katz to death, so I ran off to get Sprout to interpret. In the end, Dopey managed to rustle up a pen and a few scraps of notebook, stuck them under Katz’s nose and said, “Sexo! Sexo!”
‘Katz coughed a bit of blood from the kicking, but smiled and started to draw, because drawing always made him smile and because he was out of his tiny mind. Katz scribbled away happily until Dopey came back with an egg, and Katz showed him the picture of a girl who was fatter than an elephant with her legs open wide, and between her thighs she had fangs. Her nipples were spiked like spears, and her tongue was a razor blade, and she split the Japs open and left them bleeding like women.
‘Dopey dragged him to his feet and slapped him around the face, but Katz kept on grinning, and as he got slapped his cheeks turned redder and redder, and he looked happier and happier. Doc shouted to Dopey to stop, because he’d never get another sexo picture if Katz was two feet under.
‘The Japs left Katz alone after that, until he recovered from whatever had been eating his brain, although one of the guards kept pestering him to draw another sexo with teeth. You can never tell what might be some bloke’s fantasy, especially if he’s a bloody Nipponese.
‘One morning we marched off to the line in the pounding bloody rain piping “Whistle While You Work” to the dwarfs. It was the heaviest fall of the season. It dropped curtains of rain over our eyes so we could hardly see where we were going. We had to keep one hand on the shoulder of the man in front, and our feet sank into the mud every time we took a step. It was like walking in weighted boots, the kind they use to teach horses to jump.
‘At the worksite we slipped and slid and bathed in bloody mud. By the end of the day we were all caked in it, then the sun came out and baked it on. We looked like statues made of clay, golems come to life. When we smiled it cracked our faces, and we couldn’t stop laughing, be
cause man comes from dirt and to dirt he will return, and death couldn’t be any worse than this.
‘But when we came back for dinner, the camp had gone – the cookhouse, the hospital, the storehouse, everything. Even the guards’ barracks had been washed away. Everything we had left had disappeared. The earth had moved from under it. Eight men in hospital had died.
‘We searched the soil for dixies, for anything. All I came up with was a cap badge. A bloody cap badge. Townsville Jack dug up his tote bag, which he buried two feet under each time we moved. We’d saved our stake money, but we’d lost our last certainty: that the place we left in the morning would still be there in the afternoon. We had to march five miles to the next camp, which was already overcrowded. Most of the blokes there had dysentery and, within a week, there was an outbreak of cholera.
‘One evening I saw Townsville Jack sitting outside our hut, with his head between his knees and his arms hugging his legs, rocking from side to side.
‘“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
‘“I don’t know,” said Townsville Jack. “I’m so hungry I can’t think straight. I don’t want to be in the army any more. I don’t want to be in prison any more. I want steak and onions.”
‘“Coming up!” I said, and handed him a pint of rice.
‘He sniffed the dixie, which smelled of bugger all.
‘“Mmmm,” he said. “Lovely. How’s she cooked?”
‘“Well done,” I said.
‘“Mmmm,” he said. “Just how I like it.”
‘He took a spoonful of rice and smacked his lips.
‘“Bloody good beef, this,” he said. “You can taste the paddock.”
‘“I got it sent up from Rockhampton specially,” I said, “because I knew it was your birthday.”
‘And Townsville Jack burst into tears.’
*
‘There was sometimes a break in the work when the guards had exhausted themselves beating us and shouting. I remember they called one yasumi when the rains were light, and I collapsed where I stood, but Townsville Jack climbed a cliff to take a look at the country. When he reached the top, he found another fella already there, crouched in an overhang, wearing grass on his head.