by Mark Dapin
‘It’s not for fucking pixies,’ said Jimmy.
‘I knew it!’ said Solomon. ‘It’s just for fairies! He’s a faygeleh!’
‘Nisht! ’ said Myer. ‘Jimmy’s building a spirit house so that they’ll come back.’
‘Who will?’ asked Solomon, looking around in case they had already arrived.
‘All the dead ones,’ said Myer.
Solomon turned his head and nodded slowly, as if he were counting idiots with his forehead.
‘It’d want to be a big place,’ he said.
Jimmy taunted a fishcake with his fork.
‘I’m building it to make them leave me in peace,’ said Jimmy. ‘It’s for Moishe and Billy and Bluey and Townsville Jack.’ Solomon stared at him.
‘Has anyone here got any marbles?’ he asked.
The men pretended to search their pockets. Jimmy shook his head.
‘Don’t you ever think about Moishe?’ he asked Solomon.
‘Moishe?’ said Solomon. ‘I don’t even think about Myer.’
Myer looked pained.
‘Would it kill you to be serious for once?’ Jimmy asked Solomon.
Solomon relaxed into his chair, as if he were about to light a cigar. He made a steeple of his fingers and peered through the gap at Jimmy.
‘Jimmy Rubens,’ said Solomon, ‘is a serious man. He is a serious drinker, and he is seriously ill. He hasn’t spoken about the war for forty-five fucking years and he wants to raise it now, at the dinner table, on our sacred Tuesday night – and, as far as I can tell, he’s not even fucking pissed. This raises the sixty-four-dollar fucking question, “What exactly does Jimmy Rubens have to say that is suddenly so fucking urgent?”’
Solomon smiled thinly, his eyes angry, and bowed towards Jimmy.
‘I’ve been having dreams,’ said Jimmy.
‘You’ve come off your meds?’ asked Solomon.
‘What if I have?’ asked Jimmy.
‘You should go back on them.’
Jimmy ground his dentures.
‘Because you don’t think I can face the world without pills?’ he said.
‘Because I don’t know why you’d want to,’ said Solomon. Jimmy coughed.
‘Gey gezunt,’ said Solomon.
‘What about you?’ asked Jimmy. ‘Do you take them?’
‘I don’t need to,’ said Solomon.
‘Why? Because you’re a fat cunt?’
Solomon patted his belly with satisfaction.
‘Because I haven’t see the things you’ve seen, Jimmy.’
‘You saw enough,’ said Jimmy.
‘But I don’t see it any more,’ said Solomon.
Jimmy took off his glasses and focused on nothing.
‘What can you see, Jimmy?’ asked Katz.
‘I see their shadows,’ said Jimmy, ‘and hear their footsteps.’
Dee laid the main dishes on the table, spicy and steaming. I smelled chilli, ginger and basil, and imagined Jimmy’s first days in Singapore.
‘They’re here because they want something from me,’ said Jimmy.
‘They want you to go back on your meds,’ said Solomon.
Katz pushed a bottle of beer towards Jimmy.
‘Drink them home,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t work any more,’ said Jimmy.
Jimmy rose and drifted across the restaurant to the spirit house. He seemed light and vague, like steam on the wind. For a moment I could hardly make out his outline, then he came back into focus, kneeling at the altar in a jasmine cloud. He coughed hard. His shoulders trembled. He wheezed and he blew, pulled a grey rag from his pants and wiped it across his lips.
I watched him poke his finger into the spirit house and lift out the figures of an elephant and a horse. He carried them carefully to the table.
‘Remember these, Pincus?’ he said to Myer.
‘Yes,’ said Myer. Jimmy smiled.
‘You do remember,’ he said.
‘They were here last week,’ said Myer.
Jimmy slammed the animals onto the table.
‘You can’t just deny it,’ said Jimmy. ‘You can’t pretend it didn’t happen.’
‘He can do whatever he likes,’ said Katz.
Katz balanced the elephant on the rim of his plate.
‘There were elephants in Thailand,’ said Jimmy.
‘You see elephants everywhere,’ said Myer. ‘You’ve got elephantitis.’
‘There’s no such thing as elephantitis,’ said Katz. ‘It’s elephantiasis.’
‘A man with elephantitis can grow beytsim as big as his head,’ said Solomon.
‘That’s rice balls,’ I said.
‘What on earth have you been telling him?’ asked Katz, walking the horse around the table.
‘Everything,’ said Jimmy. ‘The whole kit and caboodle – whatever the hell a caboodle is.’
Katz made the horse drink from a saucer of chilli sauce.
‘You think that’s good for the boy?’ he asked.
‘It’s good for me,’ said Jimmy, coughing.
‘You’re obviously the picture of health,’ said Solomon.
‘It’s made me realise there’s some things I’ve got to do,’ said Jimmy.
‘Like build a house on sticks?’ asked Solomon.
‘Yes, like build a fucking house on sticks,’ said Jimmy. ‘Don’t you see? Their bodies are still in Thailand, or . . . somewhere else.’
‘A digger is buried where he falls,’ said Solomon.
‘They hate it there,’ said Jimmy. ‘They want to be here.’
‘My experience of dead people,’ said Solomon, ‘is they don’t care whether they’re in Kanchanaburi or Kangaroo fucking Island. The living, on the other hand, just cannot leave the fucking dead alone. It’s you who wants them back, Jimmy. You’re stirring their bones. You’re not letting them rest.’
Jimmy set his jaw.
‘I’m doing this for them,’ he said.
‘You’re doing this for you,’ said Solomon. ‘And you’re not even thinking about what it’s doing to Frida. Or Myer. Or the boy.’
‘What about me?’ asked Katz.
‘Nobody gives a fuck about you,’ said Solomon, which meant he loved him more than anyone else in the world.
Jimmy snatched the horse and elephant from Katz.
‘We just sit here,’ said Jimmy, ‘or in the Club, or wherever, talking like we worked the machines together at Willie Frankel’s schmatta factory then retired with a gold watch. We never talk about the ones who aren’t here, or why.’
‘It’s you who won’t march on Anzac Day,’ said Solomon.
‘Anzac Day’s what brings them back, you fucking idiot,’ said Jimmy. ‘They want to be remembered as people, not as soldiers. The army was just a moment in their lives, and the worst bloody moment at that. They want to be remembered for how they lived, not the way they died. So yeah, I’ve built them a house. What the fuck have you ever done for them?’
‘I sat shiva,’ said Solomon.
‘You sat on your arse for what you believed in,’ said Jimmy, ‘Katz marched on his legs, and I’m making a house with my hands.’
Jimmy stood and turned to go.
‘And you’re paying the bill with your money,’ said Myer.
Jimmy threw twenty dollars over his shoulder. It floated to the table and landed in the sauce.
‘Look after the living,’ Solomon shouted after him, ‘and the dead’ll take care of themselves.’
*
‘After Townsville Jack thrashed the Vigilance Committee,’ said Jimmy, weaving across the pavement on Gray Street, ‘Duffy turned up at our hut.
‘Katz was sitting on his palliasse, writing his diary in tiny little letters on cigarette papers that could’ve been put to better use making a smoke, when Duffy surprised him with a “Good evening”. It’d been a while since Katz’d heard anyone say that.
‘“I hear we have another artist in the camp,” said Duffy.
‘“Do I
know him?” asked Katz.
‘“I myself dabble in watercolours,” said Duffy, “but I make no great claims for my talent, and I have certainly never won the Archibald prize for portraiture.”
‘“Portraiture isn’t the measure of a painter,” said Katz.
‘“I’d like to offer you a commission,” said Duffy.
‘Katz thought he wanted him to make a pin-up.
‘“I’d like you to paint me,” said Duffy.
‘“Paint you what?” asked Katz.
‘“Paint my portrait,” said Duffy, “at this moment in my career, in command of this camp.”
‘“I’m sorry,” said Katz, “I’m here to record the war for the Australian War Memorial.”
‘“I’ll give you one duck egg for each sitting,” said Duffy.
‘“It’s a done deal,” said Katz, folding away his diary.
‘Duffy must’ve sat for Katz half-a-dozen times,’ said Jimmy, ‘and he talked while Katz painted, to give Katz a better idea of the man he was, so that his true personality would shine through in the portrait, like the Mona Lisa. He told Katz he knew he wasn’t loved. He wasn’t there to be loved. He wasn’t our mother, he was our commander, and it was his duty to command. Some men were followers, others leaders. He had always been a leader, in the Great War and in business and in the Old Guard. He had volunteered to take command of the force because the man before him wasn’t a leader. He was a whinger. He complained to the general staff that the strategy in Singapore was suicidal and he was leading his men to their deaths, so the staff pulled him out, shipped him home and put in Duffy instead, because Duffy did what he was told, and if he was told to defend Singapore then he would defend Singapore.
‘Orders were decisions. They might be right, they might be wrong, but once they were made, they had to be carried out. Duffy took orders from the top and gave them to the bottom. If his predecessor had done the same, the troops would be better trained, and better behaved in captivity. “They couldn’t even drill properly, when I got them,” said Duffy.
‘“What’s the use of drill here?” asked Katz.
‘“You have the artistic temperament,” said Duffy. “You wouldn’t understand.”
‘The officer Duffy had replaced had treated the other ranks like mates. “He was as bad as a socialist,” said Duffy. Duffy had learned you didn’t get results from being liked, you got them from being respected. Good men gave respect where it was due, but the worst types – the thugs and thieves who wouldn’t listen to appeals for honesty and order – would only honour a man they feared. And if they didn’t fear Duffy’s justice, they’d better damn well fear the Japs’, because that’s what they were going to get if that’s what it took to save the rest of them.’
*
The lights were on in my grandmother’s house when we came home. The warm air smelled of lamb casserole and brewed tea. Grandma was sitting on the lounge, watching TV. She nodded to Jimmy and opened her arms to me.
‘You look so skinny,’ she said.
Jimmy sat next to her.
‘How was Mrs Ethelberger?’ he asked.
‘Crazy about cats,’ said Grandma.
‘Is that why you came back?’ asked Jimmy.
‘No,’ said Grandma. ‘I was worried you’d starve the boy.’
Grandma took Jimmy’s hand. He closed his eyes.
BONDI
WEDNESDAY 2 MAY 1990
While Jimmy smoked his first roll-up of the morning, Grandma came to inspect the spirit house. She walked around it bent over with her hands behind her back and looked inside.
‘What is the mishegas?’ she finally asked.
‘It’s a house for the spirits of the dead,’ said Jimmy.
He looked at his work boots.
‘I know that sounds odd,’ he said.
Grandma nodded and stroked her chin.
‘These spirits,’ she said, ‘are they Australian?’
‘You know who they are,’ said Jimmy.
‘Moishe?’ she asked.
Jimmy coughed hard.
Grandma squinted to see the spirit house more clearly.
‘It looks like a Turkish brothel,’ she said. ‘Why would my brother want to live here?’
Jimmy bent his elbows and balled his fists.
‘It’s the way they look in Thailand,’ he said.
‘You think they’d want death to be like Thailand?’ she asked.
Jimmy snorted and coughed.
‘So what kind of spirit house do you think Moishe ava ashalom would’ve wanted?’ he asked.
‘A house like this one,’ said Grandma, waving towards their cottage. ‘He’d like to live with us.’
Barry Dick came out of the frummers’ place, smoking a cigarette, with his shirt tails outside his trousers.
He wished Grandma shalom and asked, ‘How do you like your extension, Mrs R?’
‘You’re an idiot,’ said Grandma.
‘She means “an Hassidic”,’ said Jimmy.
‘Your father was a fool too,’ said Grandma, ‘but at least he didn’t dress like one. What’s the matter with you?’
Barry Dick nodded and smiled, because God had told him to be patient with old people. He patted the spirit house.
‘I’ve been to Thailand,’ said Barry Dick to Jimmy. ‘I know what this is. Let me ask you something: if I were a Buddhist priest –’
‘You were once, weren’t you?’ asked Jimmy.
‘I was briefly a novice monk,’ admitted Barry Dick. ‘But if I were a Buddhist priest, and you were a Buddhist, what do you think I would say to you if I saw a Sukkot hut in your yard?’
‘You’d probably ask me for a bowl of rice,’ said Jimmy.
‘I might say,’ said Barry Dick, ‘that I didn’t feel it was appropriate for a Buddhist family to build a Jewish structure, especially in a Buddhist area so close to the Buddhist school and the Buddhist temple.’
‘What Buddhist temple?’ asked Jimmy.
‘The one I would attend if I were a Buddhist.’
‘If you were still a Buddhist,’ said Jimmy.
‘This is an analogy, Mr Rubens,’ said Barry Dick.
‘If you were still a Buddhist,’ sighed Jimmy, ‘and I was a Buddhist, and you found me building a Sukkot hut, you’d probably have the sense to keep schtum about it, because you’d know I’d remember you when you were Jewish, and when you were a Hare Krishna, and when you used to stand on Town Hall steps selling Green Left Review. All right?’
Barry Dick smiled, like the ‘Smile’ stickers he used to hand out when he danced with his tambourine outside Woolworths, and Jimmy convinced him it would be mitzvath to drive me to school.
When I came home Jimmy had taken down the spirit house and stacked up the parts in the shed.
‘I had everything wrong,’ he said. ‘Frida’s right. We have to start again.’
*
We began to build another spirit house, this time from fibro and tin. The outside walls were cream, like my grandmother’s house, but the inside was still papered with the flock wallpaper. Jimmy covered the floors with squares of material left over from when he’d carpeted his living room in 1971.
As Jimmy fell into the rhythm of his work, he started to remember again.
‘Diamond Tom was a pathological thief,’ he said. ‘He stole Evans’s bloody belt and sold it to one of the mental cases, who wore it across his shoulders like a bandolier. Two hours later, the Vigilance Committee rushed into our hut, waving their clubs around and shouting.
‘“Innocent men, move to the side!” said Evans.
‘Townsville Jack didn’t move.
‘“Private Fry,” said Evans, “stand down before I knock you down.”
‘Townsville Jack gave him a friendly smile, then smashed him in the face with the right cross that had floored the angel Seraphiel’s representative on earth – the same right cross he had never used in the boxing ring in case it spoiled his unbroken record of losses. Evans tottered, tripped, and f
ell over his own feet.
‘Two others ran at Townsville Jack, and he knocked them both down, the first with a left hook, the second with a kick they don’t teach in any boxing gym.
‘Diamond Tom grabbed Evans’s stick, and I took another from one of the fallen men. We tested their drive in the air, like cricketers at a crease.
‘“I don’t care what you do in the rest of the camp,” Townsville Jack told the Vigilance Committee, “but stay out of my fucking hut.”
‘The Vigilance Committee backed out the doorway.
‘“Thanks, Pete,” said Diamond Tom, and Townsville Jack knocked him out as well.
‘The next day Townsville Jack went to Duffy and asked if we could be moved to another hut. Duffy said there were no free bunks but, if we wanted, we could build a place for ourselves. He might’ve been joking but Townsville Jack took him at his word and staked out a bit of flat ground between the cookhouse and the creek.
‘We all went out to fetch timber from the hills. Townsville Jack was excited about digging the foundations.
‘“You don’t need to dig foundations for an attap hut,” I told him.
‘But Townsville Jack had an idea for a new design of hut. He had Katz draw up the plans while I cut the timber. It had four bunks, separated by partitions, and the highest roof in the camp. There were two shuttered windows and a front deck, and a barbecue pit around the back. It looked like a boong’s dream of a Swiss chalet, and the Japs took a bung to look the other way.
‘“I always wanted a place like this,” said Townsville Jack, and he hung a sign over the door that read SCKAJ.
‘We lived in SCKAJ like a little family. Those were the best days in prison. The railway was finished and Camp Duffy was flooded with sick men from up the line. Any intelligent person could see that you can’t starve men into skeletons and expect them to build a railway. Stupid people couldn’t see that, so the railway got built. Most of the new blokes died, but we were more or less immune to death by then. Unless it was a close mate, it didn’t really bother us. I suppose we’d started to think of life as something that ended at twenty-four years of age.
‘Snowy White came down from upcountry. He liked Camp Duffy, thought it was an insult the way the Japs made our officers work on the line, said it showed they didn’t take us seriously and told us some more about the Geneva Convention, which I was starting to think he must’ve had a hand in drawing up himself.