Orphaned Leaves

by Christopher Holt

  Brandt feels heartened by the change in Alan since their flight from the mission. The two journeys could hardly have been more different. If Brandt does nothing else with his life, he is determined to see that Alan fully recovers from his experience at St Edmund’s. Of course, Magdalena would have helped him; it’s galling for him to think of it, but he knows she would have loved Alan, and, had he given her the barest whisper that they could have made something of their marriage, she might have stayed. Peggy would probably say that he needs Magdalena despite himself.

  But Magdalena would rather be earning big money making atom bombs.

  *

  They drive into Queanbeyan and, because it is a bigger town than both Tumut and Cooma, the library should be open till late; sure enough, the lights are still on.

  “I want to look something up in the reference section, Alan,” he says. “Won’t be long. Come in and browse for a bit.”

  For his own sanity, Brandt is determined to reject any notion of the supernatural; the ghoul in the ghost train could only have been an improvised tailor’s dummy with a puppet string attached to its arm. What he saw from the funicular must have an equally rational explanation. It was not a ghost – there is no such thing – nor a nightmare like the horror on the ship. Today, he was wide awake in the Blue Mountains. So it must be psychological – a hallucination.

  Fortunately, there is a comprehensive manual of psychology in the library with a full chapter on hallucinations, so he begins a process of elimination. He hadn’t been drinking or taking drugs, legal or otherwise. He was not suffering from undue fatigue or malnutrition. He had kept his caffeine intake low. He is not subject to psychopathic lapses or manic depression. One possible cause comes up at the end.

  Hallucinations can occur if a person has recently suffered a bereavement or a sudden trauma, or if someone close to the patient has had their life threatened.

  Yesterday’s harrowing incident in the surf: of course, that was it. Alan’s life was at risk and it nearly cost him his own. Brandt leaves the library quite satisfied; he has found the rational explanation that he was looking for.

  *

  He drives on to the Monaro Highway. Sitting side by side with someone in the front seat of a car is better for conversation than facing that person eye to eye; you can even sing together. By the time Brandt and Alan reach Michelago, they can finally pick up their home wireless station of 2XL and another hit parade. The songs are more than a year out of date, but that means they both know the words. ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window?’ and ‘Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen’, and when the Obenkirchen Children’s Choir start singing ‘The Happy Wanderer’, Brandt switches to the German version until they get to the last verse, which they sing together in English.

  Afterwards, the wireless announcer says that the Oberkirchen singers are orphans, and at this Brandt and Alan are silent, the curtains of their inner selves drawn against the world and the doors locked from within.

  21

  Alan has been back at school for three weeks and the weather is cooling. It’s a good time for Brandt and Milo to get rid of the old stumps left over from felling the dead trees. First, they drill nine-inch holes in the tops of each stump with a gimlet and then pour in a concentrated solution of saltpetre and hot water. In two months’ time, the water will have dried out, leaving the saltpetre deeply embedded in the wood right down to the roots. It is then that they will drop a live cigarette butt into each hole and the stumps will smoulder away until the spring, when, hopefully, all that will be left will be holes in the ground.

  As they move on to the next stump, Brandt is stunned by what he thinks is a rifle shot, but it turns out to be the backfiring of a motor vehicle up at the Cone. They can just make out four police vans drawn up in a row. Brandt is hollow with dread.

  The authorities must have finally caught up with him; within the hour, he will be arrested, and Alan and Milo will know once and for all that he is a murderous fraud. It would have been that old man in Sydney who’d recognised his cologne. How could he have been so stupid? Yes, and now he remembers that police motorcyclist in the Blue Mountains who must have been following him all along. Brandt’s head feels so light he can hardly stand upright, and he feels he should just abandon Milo and make a run for it. No, steady on, he’s not thinking straight, what are the police doing all the way out there at the Cone? Surely, they would have come for him at the house?

  His voice is brittle. “What are they doing, Milo?”

  “It’s your property, Otto. You should be raging like a bull. If they did that to me, I’d be ropeable. Come on. Let’s mount up and investigate.”

  Resigned to what may come, Brandt kicks Phantom on and they trot down into the gully and up the other side into the alpine zone. But, as it turns out and much to his relief, this visit has nothing to do with Brandt or his cologne. When they reach the Cone, they find about twenty furious Aboriginal adults being held back by a cordon of armed police while a nurse in a blue uniform is examining five very young children of lighter complexion than the others. Another two are being roughly dragged by a second nurse to one of the vans. Women are screaming, men are shouting and waving curved flat sticks, and all the children are crying.

  As they dismount, his relief turns to fury, for here, on his own land, these unassuming people are being intimidated by armed and uniformed police comfortable in their power; a power he knows only too well. Graphic recollections of people being rounded up by police throughout Hitler’s Europe flash through his mind, and his face burns with rage but also with shame.

  However, it is Milo who speaks, and his voice has the restraint of authority. “Who is in charge here?”

  An older sergeant steps up. “I am, sir. This is a Federal Police operation.”

  “You don’t say,” says Milo. “Well, sergeant, as the regional magistrate in this district, I need to see your Commonwealth Warrant for trespassing on Mr Brandt’s land and disturbing his guests.”

  “That’s never been required before, sir,” says the sergeant.

  “This is my land you’re on and I want to know what you are doing with these children,” says Brandt trying to adopt Milo’s self-control, while subduing a knee-jerk relapse into the authoritarian one drilled into him by the SS.

  “I think I should be asking you the same question, sir.” says the sergeant. “What are you, yourself, doing for these ‘guests’ of yours? Anything at all? I’ll bet not one of these people can even read or write…”

  “I can,” calls a quavering voice from the crowd. The speaker comes forwards; he is a tall, very old man wearing an ancient threadbare suit, and a mantle of wallaby skins and possum furs. The furs remind Brant of the fox woman, but he keeps his full attention on the ancient Aboriginal. “You have no right to our children,” he says. “This fellah here,” he points to Brandt, “he will let them stay.” The old man calls to the children in their own language, and they break free of the nurses and run to their parents.

  “He is right,” says Brandt, finding his voice once more. “These children belong to Garigo Homestead; this is home and they can stay forever, as far as I’m concerned. Every one of them is welcome here.”

  “We’ll see,” says the sergeant. “Mr Brandt, if you’re so keen to interfere with government procedures, I’ll make you personally responsible for the compulsory education of all the half-castes, but, frankly, I don’t think you’ll last a month. It means you’ll be putting up a regulation school house and getting someone to come out here to teach them.”

  “Why can’t they go to a state school?”

  “There you go, problems already,” says the smirking sergeant. “It’s because it wouldn’t be fair on them, that’s why. They’ve never seen a town before, let alone a big school full of white kids. They can’t even read and write, so what class would you put them in? It wouldn’t work; they’d just leave and go walkabout. No, Mr Bra
ndt, you’ll still need to put up a school for the half-castes; think you can manage that?”

  “Of course,” says Brandt with a confidence he certainly doesn’t feel, “and these other children can go there as well if they have the permission of their parents.”

  “We’re not worried about the full-bloods – schooling’s not compulsory for them – it’s the half-castes we’re interested in, and we’ll be back, you can depend upon it.”

  *

  “The copper’s right about one thing,” says Milo when they get back to drilling the stumps.

  “That I won’t last a week?”

  “No, only that it won’t be easy, but you’re doing something my family should have done generations ago.”

  “I don’t expect you to be dragged into all of this, Milo.”

  “It’s a matter of some old-fashioned recompense and more than half a century too late. I know you agreed to a school, but I want to be involved in it too – as you said, a school for all the children. I can even get you a teacher – and she’ll be delighted to do it and she’ll be good. I’m thinking of Aubergine Coetzee.”

  Brandt, who is already anxious about his decision, feels relieved, but years of racial indoctrination die hard. “Do you think Aubergine would be able to do it? I mean she’s not yet qualified.”

  “No, but she’s only got a month or so to go before she gets her Emergency Teacher’s Certificate, then the government will take her like a shot. She’ll be entitled to a First Year Teacher’s salary. If we do this properly, the state government should help us out with a prefab classroom. In the meantime, we’ll get that old bloke at the Cone to explain to his people what’s happening. They’ll go for it, all right; have no fear about that. No parents want their children stolen away.”

  Brandt wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew. He knows nothing of schools and he dreads dealing with government agencies. In his experience, they are all linked. Approach just one of them and a file is opened with your name on it. This is then made available to all the rest, including the Immigration Department and the secret police force. He has been told that Australia doesn’t have secret police. Nonsense, of course Australia must have secret police. He remembers the man in a plain suit talking to the policeman in Cooma hospital. How can you run a country without the secret police?

  *

  Thanks to Milo’s lobbying, the pre-fabricated schoolroom arrives within five weeks; a fortnight after Aubergine is awarded her provisional Teacher’s Certificate in Canberra. Brandt also manages to borrow a bulldozer, road grader and two trucks with tractor-treads from the Snowy Authority, on the understanding, of course, that they do some publicity for the Snowy Scheme.

  The school is sighted in the rock flats, downstream from a temporary retainer dam that Brandt had built so that he can keep back the water while he fossicks in the dry bed of the creek for alluvial gold. Brandt has also designed and installed an ingenious triple sluice, which can be opened with a single lever. When he’s extracted the gold, all he has to do is to flip the lever to let the creek run free again. He imagines the excitement of the children at their new school downstream as the escaping water surges down the dry creek bed. Afterwards, they’ll be able to swim in the rock pools. If any can’t swim, he’ll offer to teach them himself. The key person in all this is Aubergine.

  “How will you manage without Aubergine working at the homestead, Milo?”

  “Badly. I’m beginning to realise just how much she does around the place. I suppose I’ll need two people to replace her and I’ll probably end up advertising for a married couple, but, for now, I’ll just make do. I’ll ask Gunna – I mean Tom – if I can put an advertisement the window of his store. Aubergine deserves her chance; God knows it’s been long time coming.”

  *

  Brandt has asked Peggy if she’ll come with him to the parent-teacher night at Tumut High School. They leave Alan alone to do his homework while they stroll the half mile to the school together.

  Alan’s form teacher is Miss Bartlett. With her bubble-cut hairdo and swing-style skirt, Brandt thinks she looks young enough to be in class herself.

  “Alan is a credit to our school, Mr Brandt,” she says. “You can see from his report that he excels in most subjects; he is a natural scholar and I think he should do well. Perhaps, though, he needs to build up a little more self-confidence. I know he had some bad experiences, and, to his credit, I think he’s getting over his nervous tic and his fear of authority, but he still seems too much of a bookworm. He doesn’t enjoy physical training and games as much as the other children. Do you encourage him in outdoor activities?”

  “How do you mean?” asks Peggy. “As you would know, I look after Alan during the week and I try to give him a balanced home life. He enjoys Scouts and the canoeing club. Is there anything else I should be doing?”

  “Yes, he has mentioned the canoeing club,” says Miss Bartlett, “and, of course, that is excellent, but I still wonder if he couldn’t do more.” Her eyes switch back to Brandt. “Alan tells me about your farm, Mr Brandt. Have you taught him to ride yet and drive a vehicle? Most of our boys and girls can at his age. Oh, and shooting too; he can earn good pocket money from the bounty on foxes. Some of our children have been bounty hunters since they were ten.”

  Dear God, shooting and foxes, the edgy Brandt can hardly frame a valid response. “Worth thinking about. Alan has only been with me for less than a year, so I welcome your advice.”

  She gives him a smile. “Thank you, Mr Brandt, but I’m sure you’ll soon find your own ways to teach him some bushie skills.”

  Miss Bartlett stands up and takes Brandt’s hand. “Well, it’s so nice meeting Alan’s dad at last. He is always talking about you, you know. I hope we shall be seeing you again before too long.”

  “I wonder about Miss Bartlett,” says Peggy on the way back to her bungalow.

  “I don’t blame you; she virtually ignored you altogether.”

  “Mmm, but I noticed she hung onto every word you said. I think she’s taken a shine to you, Otto, so you’d better watch out. I think she does have a point about country kids, though. It might be a good thing if you did teach Alan to ride one of the horses and drive the Land Rover too. She mentioned shooting – nearly all the farm kids around here can handle a point two-two rifle.”

  Brandt’s jaw tightens, “I will never teach him to shoot. Never.”

  “Yes, of course, that’s understandable; the war. I’m sorry, I should have thought before I spoke, but don’t forget that I’ve had my war experiences too.”

  “Of course, you have, I’m sorry I—”

  She interrupts him. “Listen to me, Otto, Alan is growing up as a colonial; nearly all the other pupils in his class will know how to use a rifle. Some have been shooting since the age of ten. Whether you like it or not, he’ll want to learn, so, surely, it’s best you teach him yourself. Milo hates guns too, but he has to keep them to kill snakes and put down sick animals. If you have a farm out here, firearms are a necessary evil.”

  Brandt thinks of the Lüger. He’s taken it out of the Land Rover and now he keeps it in the drawer next to his bed in case of burglars, but, like the shotgun, its close proximity is just too tempting, especially in the middle of the night when the old horrors come back to settle on his mind, like mist on a cold lake.

  But, of course, Peggy is being perfectly logical, and he relents. “You’re right, Peggy, I’ll buy Alan a twenty-two and show him how to use it. Guns are only tools, anyway; there’s nothing really special about guns.”

  Can the former SS Brigadeführer Ernst Frick clinging to his immaculate Lüger pistol, really believe this? Perhaps he does, or – more likely, as usual – he is lying through his teeth.

  Sidearms and rifles tumble into Brandt’s consciousness, along with thoughts of Ilse Huber shooting the Jewish gardeners from her balcony, interspersed with im
ages of the fox woman he shot in the sawpit – and the reason for the damned hallucinations – if that’s what they were.

  “There’s something else, Otto.” Peggy’s voice is more hesitant. “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this – I hate small talk, I think it’s a betrayal of the short lives we are given.”

  “What is it, Peggy?”

  “Well, it’s something I’ve noticed about you ever since you came back from Sydney. You seem very tense and I think Alan is picking up on it too.”

  “What can I…” He stops as they reach Peggy’s front door. It isn’t locked, and she quietly opens it.

  “Let’s keep our voices down. You go into the front room, and I’ll go and put the kettle on.”

  When she returns with a tray, she pours them tea and offers Brandt a chocolate biscuit. “I’m not a fool,” she says. “I know you’re not yourself. You’re tense. It’s as though you’re always looking over your shoulder. I think even Chaucer senses something.”

  This is true, Chaucer has been giving him a wide berth lately and yet the big dog’s kindly brown eyes never leave him, and, yes, Brandt does feel tense. Despite his earlier reassurance after reading about hallucinations in the Queanbeyan library, his old superstitions are returning to plague him again and he is living on his nerves.

  “Chaucer is my sanity barometer, Otto. You should get a dog for yourself. Why not make it two dogs, one called Rommel and the other Montgomery – or Monty.”

  “I’ve already told Alan we’re going to get a dog; he loves the idea.”

  She sounds more serious again. “I’m probably speaking out of turn here and if I am, forgive me, but Alan says you took the long detour around Canberra. Milo told me all about Magdalena; was it because Canberra reminds you of her?”

  Brandt is relieved that Peggy has latched on to a plausible theory of what is wrong with him. “It’s true,” he says, “and you’re not speaking out of turn at all; I just can’t face driving through Canberra.”