Refuge

by Richard Rossiter

  At first I didn’t realise my body was sending me messages. I’ve rarely paid it any attention, and my periods were unpredictable. But after a time I couldn’t ignore the obvious. I needed to talk to Markus about this child, this German child conceived through a love of Australian literature. How intellectual I was, even about my own body! I walked from the station to his address. I remember it was a cold day, but not raining. I know at first I felt quite calm, which seems odd, now. I thought we would talk in a civilised manner. I was not a child. But when I arrived at his house, a handsome three storeys, I began to feel anxious and my heart was beating too fast. I stood outside the building for a long time, not knowing what to do. Then I saw a woman emerge pushing a child in a pram. It could be anyone, I thought, a friend, or a sister. He was not married—I knew that. But then I turned and walked away.

  When I called him my news was greeted, at first, with silence. And then he said something like, ‘What I said was true. I was not truly married. Our relationship was over. But we kept living in the same house. There is our child to think about.’

  This was the beginning of the unravelling of Markus, and, I think, myself. When I contacted the university in Sydney and spoke to the professor about my own plans to come and study for a year, she told me she had no knowledge of Markus Wolf—certainly not as a friend, and she doubted he had been there as a student, describing herself as a ‘permanent fixture’ in the department. She said the classes were small and she would remember a student visiting from Germany. Although she did recall someone of that name teaching in Australian studies somewhere in Germany.

  My feelings were all over the place. I was certainly angry and distressed and embarrassed. But most of all I felt terribly let down, deflated somehow. And guilty. I’ll never forget his response when I accused him of being a fraud. I said to him, ‘You’ve never been to Sydney University. You’ve probably never been to Australia.’

  He just looked at me and smiled. ‘You haven’t learned anything from White, from Voss and Laura and the power of the imagination, have you? You don’t have to physically travel to a place to go there. Or to be with someone. The mind has powers few of us realise.’ So condescending, and, of course, smug.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What a perversion of all that we’d been studying and talking about. I remember I accused him of being a very practised liar. But in a way, that wasn’t the point.

  The following month was agony. I felt embarrassed at my foolishness, but that was nothing compared to the fact of the child within me, unwanted, fraudulently bestowed, in my eyes. A constant reminder of the man, of dishonesty, my gullibility. My shallow stupidity. Late and trembling, I decided on an abortion. Then I would go to the country of Australia, to the actual university, and I would study for a year. I was determined I would translate an imagined world into a material one where you could live with some hope of authenticity. I would not remain in the country of the mind. I would go into the desert. I might even reach Western Australia.

  Now, this all sounds very abstract and intellectual but in some confused way I wanted to stay inspired by what I’d been studying—the magical world of symbol and imagination and spirituality. It needed to be honoured, to use an old-fashioned word, by living it at some level, not merely being an onlooker in a classroom, with clever discussion. I wanted to make it real, for me, by doing the very things Markus Wolf had lied about and turned into something grubby and utterly dishonourable.

  But first there was the abortion, which I went through like an automaton. I didn’t think, I tried not to feel, I was a non-person. Or someone else.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. It was some years later that I saw an ultrasound of a ten-week-old, the fingers and toes, the floating, the outline of eyes and nose and ears, the lips, the head too large. A Martian child, but not really. It all came back to me, what I should have felt at the time. I began to believe I was a murderer and knew that I could never, ever, do this again. And it all began because I had decided that this Scharlatan, Professor Wolf, was someone I wanted, desperately, to be with. It has taken me a long time not to feel guilty around men. And even now.

  You’re probably thinking about things I’ve said to you in the past, my attempts at being fiercely moral, and thinking, ‘What a hypocrite!’ I believe I need to ask your forgiveness for at least some of what I said. I knew, even at the time, I was wrestling with my own demons rather than addressing yours—or at least managing to confuse the two.

  Well, now I’ve written it down, like a confession. And you will read it, and then what? Probably not a lot will change for either of us, although I feel the unpeeling of layers helps me to see the past more clearly and a future in sharper outline. Maybe the least useful memories can be sidelined, if not discarded. Meanwhile, I will continue in my ambitious attempts to put flesh on matters of the spirit, and try to take the long view in my future activities. I can hear you say, ‘About time’—or, as they would express it in this part of the world, ‘About bloody time.’

  My love to you and Maren—and Reinhard.

  Greta

  Greta knew she had begun to change when she’d travelled to Hamburg and looked with fresh eyes at the world around her. She remembered Eve had said, ‘You can’t run away, even in Australia.’ She knew that was true, then and now: to run was her instinctive response to difficulties, especially the complex ones, for which there were no obvious answers, or no simple ones. And she knew that her pattern of leaving solved little.

  As yet there had been no reply from Eve. What she had written stayed with her and she began to think, again, of Laura and Voss, of connections that defied logic, and whether the limits on how she lived—and imagined herself living—were self-imposed.

  Change was necessary, but it didn’t mean the destruction of everything that had gone before; she would try to straddle two worlds.

  Sixty-seven

  It was a warm summer afternoon when the bus pulled slowly out of the depot into the southbound traffic. Rock found himself a seat near the back; the bus was about half-full. He felt he was moving to the rhythm of the day, which was beyond his control, but not unpleasant. He wondered whether the other passengers felt the same way.

  In the last few months he had changed his mind and settled on Prue as his mother’s name. Peaches was for Tinny. He had learned most of what she knew about her early life, which, from her point of view, was patchy: the numerous gaps could only be filled in by surmise and guesswork. Prue said that at first she found this uncertainty both frustrating and troubling, but now she’d accepted that it was unlikely to change. She would never know whether her mother had died accidentally or not; or why, precisely, her father had left. Or whether or not Aunt Jean was to be trusted. Through discussions with Alex and her counsellor—and, occasionally, Rock—she had decided that no matter what the answers were to her questions, she was stuck with the person she now was, and it would be wise to regard that person with some satisfaction.

  Rock would talk to Skel about what he knew of their mother and how he felt about living with her in the city. He was unsure whether this was a conversation he wanted with Tinny.

  Halfway through the trip, the clouds came over and it started to rain. By the time it was dark, the rain had set in.

  Tinny and Skel sat in the car; the windows had misted up and everything outside looked blurry. It was cold and wet. They were waiting for the bus—waiting for Rock to arrive. The streets were nearly empty.

  Skel shivered. He felt lonely, sitting there. ‘It shouldn’t be this wet,’ he said.

  ‘Summer rain,’ said Tinny. ‘The best.’

  Skel didn’t know what to expect from Rock. He thought he might’ve changed and would not be interested in doing the things they used to do, talking in the way they used to talk. He couldn’t think of examples; it was just a feeling he had.

  ‘Do you think Rock will be different?’ he said.

  ‘How long is it?’ asked Tinny.

  ‘Six months. T
wo lots of holidays because there were excursions. And on the weekends he’s had sport. That’s what he said.’

  Tinny drummed with his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so. But probably not in ways that are important to you or me. They will be important for him.’

  ‘So, will he still like doing stuff down here, like we used to?’

  Tinny gave him a hug. ‘Yes, Skel, I reckon. Probably even more than before; things that he can’t do in the city and so he misses them. Builds them up in his mind. They’re not his whole life anymore, but they’re still important, still part of who he is. He told me he’s really looking forward to Christmas in the bush.’

  ‘With his family?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tinny. ‘With his family.’

  Then the bus pulled into the bay with a splashy whoosh of the wheels. Rock was the first in the small queue to emerge. For a moment he stood there, looking about, and then Tinny and Skel were in front of him, smiling in the drizzle.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, and raised the palm of his hand in question to the rain.

  Sixty-eight

  Every night Greta was glued to the news. Or stuck in it, she thought, like a cow in a quagmire. First one, then the other. National, international. Patrons had been shot in a cafe in Sydney; there were riots of refugees on Nauru; child abuse was endemic, human rights transgressed with a self-satisfied smirk. Boatloads of terrified asylum seekers were overwhelming the Greek islands, where inhabitants were already desperate. Men and women carrying their children, pushing through razor wire, anything to get away. There were bodies floating in the water, people, whole families suffocating in the backs of trucks. What identity papers do you need, then, to prove you are suffering, that you are human and deserve something better? Elsewhere, usually Africa, there were pictures of people in camps, thousands of them, women with empty breasts trying to suckle their listless, wide-eyed children just hanging on to life. Why, she thought, why would they want to live?

  Greta felt sad and powerless; she watched with tears running down her face and felt angry and superficial. There were supermarkets glutted with so much food that the excess was turned into landfill. And millions, literally, were starving and dying of thirst. There were constant reports of record highs and lows of hot and cold, tides and storms, islands under threat. She felt besieged. There were further reports of matters closer to home, but not, she supposed, in her own backyard. Not quite. Marvyn’s brother, the prescient Corey, had been right to be fearful, or excited.

  Authorities are worried about a series of raids that occurred throughout the country targeting remote police stations. It is believed that in each case weapons were seized. A police spokesman said the raids were carefully planned and well organised, occurring at approximately the same time in every state of Australia. The stations were easy targets because they were understaffed—in many cases there was no one on duty at the time. An Aboriginal-run website, Now or Never, has posted an entry claiming responsibility and announcing that the war has just begun …

  Greta turned the television off. She picked up her bowl of rice and vegetables, placed two fillets of fish from the pan on top and went outside. The days were getting longer, although the nights—especially—were still cool. She could see a glow in the east where the moon was about to rise, monstrous behind the trees. She sat down at her bench, then went back inside for a glass of wine.

  In the morning the sky was hazy with smoke. She could smell it. Somewhere they were burning off while it was still safe—the bush dry enough but not too dry—to reduce the fuel load, so if a fire came in the midst of summer the world would not explode and people in their homes would feel protected, secure in the knowledge that all that could be done by the authorities had been. They could go to bed at night and sleep easily, so long as the nor’-easter wasn’t too strong, so long as the day wasn’t too hot, so long as the air wasn’t too dry. So long as there was no firebug on the loose. Otherwise, they would do as they had been told: activate their fire emergency plan, leave early or stay and fight, ensure their safe haven of a patch of grass at a nearby oval was open. So long as their water supply didn’t fail. So long as they had enough warning. So long as there were no trees fallen across the road. So long as the wind and the fire came from the right direction.

  Greta walked over to her rainwater tank and tapped with her knuckles the rings of corrugation; all the way to the top there was a solid clunk. One tank to be drained by the force of gravity when the power failed.

  The wind from the east was strengthening and the smoky line in the sky was spreading towards her. An hour later it blotted out the sun and the temperature dropped. The wind had picked up and there was no sign it would swing around to the south-west and blow back on itself. But today there was nothing to worry about. She had checked online and the authorities had spoken. It was, after all, a controlled burn.

  Later the wind dropped, but in the stillness Greta felt on edge. She prepared something to eat but felt removed from the person who was carrying out such a familiar routine. She was waiting for the phone to ring.

  When it did, later than she expected, it sounded very loud, intrusive, threatening. It was Tinny. He said Fire and Emergency had put out a warning for the district. Strong easterly winds were expected again early in the morning. Affected residents should consider leaving immediately unless they had secure fire plans. They could not guarantee the fire would be controlled, even though they’d put in breaks.

  ‘That means us,’ he said. ‘If the fire gets out of control on this coast, we’re done for. We need to pack up what we can tonight and leave. Skel and I will come by and see if we can give you a hand; we’ll also bring the tractor with the trailer, so there’ll be some spare room.’ He sounded calm, matter-of-fact.

  Trance-like, she stared around this tin shed, which now looked more like the interior of a modern apartment, with her modem and computer and large television screen, her desk and her ergonomic chair. The new matching settees that she’d purchased. Where would she start? What did she need to take with her if all this went up in smoke? Did any of it make any difference to who she was?

  For a moment she was tempted to make no decisions, to grab some clothes and to hop into her car and drive away empty-handed. But then she thought, ‘You have to take something with you. You can’t just walk out. You will feel naked.’ Then she realised she’d spoken these words aloud.

  She would find some empty boxes and work out what to put in them.

  An hour later, with the car packed and just enough space for the driver, she was ready to leave. This time she hoped it was temporary. This time there would be no turning back, into the flames.

  She stood there staring at the dulled stars in the smoky sky. She thought she could feel a slight movement in the air from the east. She closed the door of her shed and eased her way into the driver’s seat. She started the car and then sat there, unable to move, as if paralysed. That other moment of leaving was upon her. ‘You are not my child,’ she’d said, and in the morning Marvyn was not there. In the night he’d left, silently, on foot. He took nothing with him. A week went by before his eyes had glazed and his body slumped. And was torn apart. Another tree, another car, a body, heat and flies and stickiness. He began to stink before they found him. She could see now that she’d said more than she knew, far more than she’d intended. In the midst of his neediness, she had rejected him—in the very words she had not voiced in that desperate clinic.

  Back then, when she knew Marvyn was not coming back to the camp, she had packed up the car, but for two whole days was unable to leave.

  This time she could not delay; there was no other choice.

  She headed slowly along the track towards Tinny’s— feeling bigger and safer than she might have expected. She would surprise him. The smell of the smoke was intense, and in the headlights of the car, the branches of overhanging trees formed a tunnel. She no longer recognised her surroundings; just beyond the limits of her vision there was
a mysteriousness that led her onwards. With her window down she could feel a strengthening in the wind; it felt like a caress, not cold. She stopped her car, opened the door and stood there in the silence of the night, while ash floated gently to the ground. She heard a rustling in the leaves—maybe an inquisitive possum. To the east she could see the glow of a late moon. In the distance there was the call of an owl, and even further away she could hear a faint reply. She shivered, but not from the cold.

  She would get back into her car and drive to Tinny’s shed. With Skel they would move to a safe place for the night, and in the morning the sun would rise—and in that moment, at least, they would smile and greet each other with relief at their survival. She could feel her heart beating steadily, and drove off into the darkness.

  Acknowledgements