The sky was pink as I started walking home. Wagtails flitted across the sky. Mid-journey, I turned into Carnarvon Street. In my merry state I had a sudden thirst for one of Ellies’ special lemon drinks, which Harada had introduced me to soon after I’d arrived. In large glasses about the length of my head, snowy mounds of shaved ice were topped with a lemon concoction, just sweet enough to temper the citrus tang and the frosty hit of ice. Slurped through long straws, it provided a delicious respite from Broome’s heat.
I wandered along Carnarvon Street, my focus on the uneven, pebbly surface. The streetlight flickered on, and I was suddenly conscious of all the young people around the entrance to Sun Pictures, talking and laughing as they strolled in couples and groups. I headed towards the open door and yellow lights of Ellies’. William Ellies himself was behind the counter, green eyes twinkling as he smiled at me. Ellies, as he was always called, was much loved in Broome for his cheerful nature as well as for his refreshing drinks. He knew nearly everyone in town by name, and hearing him say, ‘Good evening, Dr Ibaraki. Something to quench your thirst?’ in his melodic Ceylonese accent was enough to banish any feelings of isolation. His long brown fingers circled the rim of a glass as he dried it with a cloth. I stared dumbly at the menu on the wall behind his head for a few moments, my mind blank. Then I realised someone was calling me.
‘Doctor? Doctor?’ Sister Bernice stood a few feet away from me, her face aglow in the soft light. She looked like an angel.
‘Sister! You’re here.’
I instantly regretted saying such a silly thing, but she laughed, her eyes crinkling. ‘Yes, I’m here. I came with Sister Agnes to get a lemon drink. Are you doing the same?’
Ah, the lemon drink—that’s what I wanted. ‘Yes. I was just on my way home from the Kanemoris’ . . . Sister Agnes—where is she?’ I swung around, trying to catch sight of the sister’s stiff white habit among the thin cotton shirts and floral dresses inside the cafe.
‘She just left. She’s on night duty at Dr Wallace’s. I was about to leave too, until I saw you. How was the holiday today?’
‘Tenchosetsu? Oh, it was wonderful. I did not realise what a big event it is here. At least fifty people came to the ceremony, and President Kanemori and Mr Male spoke. After that, I went to a party at Kanemori’s house. There was so much food. I met Mr Kato’s wife. Do you know him? The young man who works at Tonan Shokai . . . What is it? Is something wrong?’
Sister Bernice was smiling strangely. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve never seen you so excited before.’
Blood rushed to my face as I realised I’d been babbling—the alcohol had loosened my tongue.
Perhaps sensing my mortification, she hurried to put me at ease. ‘No, it’s fine, really. I’m glad to hear you had such a good time today. You should take time off more often—you obviously needed a break.’
I nodded and said she was probably right.
‘Anyway, I should be going,’ she said. ‘Sister Cecilia will be wondering where I am.’
‘Wait, I’ll walk with you.’
‘But aren’t you going to order something?’
I’d completely forgotten about that. I glanced at Ellies, who lifted his eyebrows and smiled—an expression so serene it revealed nothing.
‘Actually, I am not very thirsty. I only came here to stretch my legs. It’s such a nice night.’
‘Well, in that case . . .’ She inclined her head and moved towards the door.
Outside, stars were beginning to emerge. The sky was bruised, a purple blush that leaked into the horizon. Bats crowded the expanse on their nightly migration from the mangroves of Roebuck Bay in search of food. They flew so low I could hear the flap of their wings, could smell their pungent odour.
Sister Bernice and I strolled down Carnarvon Street, away from the crowds outside Sun Pictures. Although we had spent many hours alone together at the hospital, we had rarely interacted socially before. I was relieved when she spoke first.
‘When you were growing up in Japan, did you ever think you’d end up in a place like this?’
I laughed. ‘Never. I did not even know about Australia until middle school. Even Osaka, where my aunt lived, seemed like a long way then. To think—a Japanese hospital in Australia?’ I shook my head.
‘When I was a child in Perth, my mother used to take me to Kings Park,’ she said. ‘I loved watching the boats on the Swan River, and I always imagined they were sailing to Africa, because of a silly book I’d once read. I thought: that’s where I’ll go, one day.’
I was touched that she would share memories of her mother.
We approached the Roebuck Bay Hotel. Chatter and the bitter scent of cigarettes filled the air. I recognised some of the pearling lugger crewmen leaning against the verandah. Lugger crews were paid their annual wages at the beginning of the year and, according to Kanemori, many drank and gambled away everything in the first few months of the season, which was why Japtown boomed at this time of year. It was always the young ones, especially the Japanese and Malay divers, who fell into that trap. They’d return to their homes in December without a cent in their pockets.
Sister Bernice continued speaking of her childhood in Perth, where she’d roamed the bushland at the back of her family’s house and spent summers at the beach. Not wanting to interrupt her, I touched her upper arm and guided her across the road, steering her away from the hotel patrons spilling onto the street. She stopped talking. When I looked to see why, her face was closed. Her right hand covered the place on her arm that I had touched. We walked in silence for a few moments.
‘Look,’ Sister Bernice said suddenly and walked ahead. She stopped in front of a large boab tree and placed her hand on its bloated trunk, as if feeling for its pulse. She peered up through its sparse canopy of glossy green leaves. ‘It still has some fruit.’
I joined her beneath the tree and followed the direction of her gaze. Several brown nuts the size of my fist dangled from the uppermost branches.
‘Did you see it flower during the wet?’ Sister Bernice asked. ‘You must have.’
My first thought was that I’d missed it—I recalled a lush green canopy but little else. But then I remembered something. ‘Actually, yes, I think I did. Walking home from the Japanese Association one evening I saw white among the leaves. I thought it was birds.’
Bernice nodded. ‘That was the flowers. They open for the first time at night, as if they have a secret. And they don’t last long—only one or two days. But they’re beautiful and have the most wonderful perfume. I always look out for them. When I first arrived in Broome I wasn’t sure if I would stay. The sisters were kind, but everything else about the place—the heat, the humidity, the remoteness—I couldn’t stand. But then I was out walking one night and I saw flowers bloom on this tree. I was reminded that God watched over me, even in places as distant as Broome. So I decided to stay.’
I smiled. I looked up through the gnarled branches to an inky patch of sky. For the first time since I’d arrived in Broome, I felt as if a weight had been lifted, releasing me from the past.
Loveday
1942
At the infirmary, I stood in the orderlies’ room compiling an inventory of the supply cabinet. I wanted to be sure we had the basics in case a second emergency occurred when Dr Ashton was unavailable.
I glanced up. A tall figure filled the doorway.
‘Officer McCubbin,’ I said. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘I think you better come outside.’ He stepped back from the door and gestured down the hallway.
My blood ran cold. ‘Stan. Is it Stan Suzuki? Did something go wrong?’ Perhaps he’d developed an infection after the operation at Barmera hospital and died. Such occurrences were not uncommon. My actions would be called into question over his death. After all, I had seen him just before he cut himself, and it was my decision to send him to Barmera.
McCubbin shook his head. ‘No, Suzuki’s fine. It has nothing to d
o with him. Come outside, and I’ll tell you.’
I followed him along the dark corridor. I had the feeling I was in a dream, being led towards something I didn’t want to see yet unable to stop it. Outside, the landscape was gilded by the afternoon light. The buildings were the same colour as the houses in Broome just after a storm. The sky yawned. Its emptiness was overpowering. McCubbin squinted against the slanting light. He took off his khaki cap and held it to his chest. His face was tight.
‘A telegram arrived for you the other day. The censors . . . they thought you should know. Major Locke approved. He asked me to tell you. Anyway, you can read it for yourself.’ He reached into his breast pocket and removed a yellow slip of paper. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I took the piece of paper and unfolded it. In blue ink, the typed message read, ‘Brother Nobuhiro killed in action in Philippines. Funeral Thursday. Letter follows. Mother.’
I read it again. The typed English letters were so unlike my mother’s writing that I initially thought it was a hoax. Someone was playing a trick on me. One of the officers, perhaps McCubbin himself? Someone had underlined the words ‘Brother Nobuhiro’ and ‘Funeral Thursday’ in red pencil, and written beneath the message, ‘Inform recipient due to proximity of date?’ As I stared at the words and the date stamp of 15 May 1942, I realised it must be true. No one would play a trick so cruel.
I jerked my head up. McCubbin was saying something.
‘I’m so sorry. I know how you feel. I lost a lot of good mates in Egypt. Not my brother, but still . . . Will you . . . will you be all right?’ His eyes searched my face.
‘The funeral. It says it’s on Thursday. Is that tomorrow?’ I was aware of the flatness of my voice.
‘Yeah, tomorrow. The telegram came Friday. You can send a reply telegram if you want. The Red Cross covers you for two a year.’ I must have given him a strange look, for when he next spoke, his voice was softer. ‘Or maybe you need some time alone?’
‘Yes. I think I’d like to be alone.’
He nodded. ‘Good idea. Take it easy. I’ll tell the boys in the infirmary you’re not feeling well . . .’
I started walking away before he had finished speaking. I can’t remember how I got to the gate to my compound. One moment I was walking westwards with the sun in my eyes, and the next I was standing behind the guard. I heard the clack of the metal as he unlatched the gate.
I followed the path, instinctively heading towards my tent and the main buildings of camp. I heard a loud crack and the cry of voices, and realised a baseball team was practising in the quadrangle. If it was the Australian team, they would surely call out to me when I passed them. I veered off my route and turned towards the perimeter fence. Here, the path was shallow and indistinct. Pebbles and dry leaves that had blown into camp mixed with the loose earth.
My feet knew their destination before my mind was conscious of it. After I had walked a short distance, I realised I was moving towards the Buddhist altar located at the rear of the camp, away from the kitchen and mess hall. Of course. The altar and the garden were the perfect places to find solitude.
When I was almost at the garden, I saw a familiar figure on the path ahead. I stiffened. Ever since the executive meeting, something had changed between Yamada and me. We no longer sat next to each other at mealtimes, or played games inside the tent before we went to bed. I had no proof that he had hurt Stan, but I was wary of him, and I think he sensed that.
‘Doctor. I thought you were working at the infirmary today.’ Yamada glanced at his watch.
‘I was. I finished early. I was just about to visit the altar.’
‘The altar?’ He looked at the telegram I was still holding in my hand. Without thinking, I held it out to him. As I watched the change come over his face while he read the message, I regretted having given it to him. Nobuhiro’s death, so soon after it had happened, should have been something I kept close.
Yamada returned the piece of paper to me. His expression was grave. ‘Your brother’s death must be hard to bear. But you should be proud. He died fighting for the Emperor. He sacrificed himself to save thousands of others. Because of him, we will continue to grow and prosper as a nation. Try not to think of his death as a loss but as a gift. His spirit will be honoured for his bravery.’
I nodded and thanked him for his words, but after I moved away from him and continued towards the altar, my chest felt hollow. Yamada’s platitudes about Nobuhiro’s bravery did nothing to quell my distress. My only brother was dead. It would never be anything other than a loss to me.
Someone was working in the garden, his back bent over the bed of flowers planted next to the bamboo thicket. I walked past him and stopped in front of the altar where he couldn’t see me. I kneeled and prayed. Images of my youth came to mind—the times I had carried Nobu on my back when he was a boy. I had last seen him six years earlier, when he was about to leave home to begin his military training. He had looked taller and stronger in his uniform, the khaki jacket stretched across his chest. ‘Look at you, all grown up,’ I had said. I hadn’t sent him a single letter while he was posted overseas. Now he was dead. As I kneeled before the altar, praying for his soul, something bothered me. A phrase Yamada had uttered kept repeating in my head. It nagged at me, like a pattern tapped upon my soul. He sacrificed himself to save thousands of others.
The next day, I rose before the others in my tent had stirred. I decided to roam the perimeter of the camp, as I had the first morning after my arrival. Although the sun was yet to emerge above the horizon, the sky was turning paler in the growing light. It promised to be a fine late autumn day. Our compound was scheduled to go on an excursion to the river that afternoon—the first outing we’d ever had. Major Locke had announced it at headcount the previous week. ‘As a reward for 14C’s consistent good behaviour, the commander has granted you a trip to the river,’ he’d said. There were murmurs of excitement. ‘But before you get ahead of yourselves, there are a few things you should know. The river is a two-and-a-half-mile walk from here. Older or weak internees may not be able to walk this far. We want to avoid any risks, so if there’s any doubt, stay behind at camp. Second, we expect all internees to be on their best behaviour. As this is one of the few occasions you’ll be allowed out in public, it is imperative you present a good front.’ Locke scanned our faces. ‘I have spoken favourably of the behaviour of the Japanese at Camp 14C to many members of the community, so it would do me personally a great disservice if any of you disappoint me. Is that clear?’
Last night, I had vowed not to go. I was still reeling from the shock of Nobuhiro’s death and didn’t want my emotions paraded in front of everyone. But as I circled the camp in the gathering light, my feelings changed. If I was left alone at camp without any distractions, I feared my thoughts would turn dark on the day of my brother’s funeral. In any case, only Yamada and a few others in my tent knew about my loss, and I hoped they would have the good sense not to question me about it.
At the appointed hour that afternoon, I joined my fellow internees assembling at the gate. It was a sight to behold: hundreds of men formed a sea of red, as we were all dressed in the maroon uniforms we were required to wear outside camp. Although I had seen my colleagues in it dozens of times when they went outside to work in the fields, standing among so many similarly dressed men gave me the queer feeling of being a carbon copy of an internee. My unease was evidently not shared by those around me; the red uniforms seemed to be a source of amusement to many, as the bigger internees struggled to fit into the standard small sizes we had all been issued. Men laughed and gleefully prodded the exposed ankles and bellies of their larger friends.
I heard a voice behind me. ‘Dr Ibaraki, there you are! We’re over this way.’ Hayashi beckoned to me. I followed him along the line of men and found the rest of my group gathered in two neat lines. ‘We wondered whether you would come today.’
I pursed my lips. I was sure Hayashi knew about Nobu’s death; he and Yamada were good fr
iends, plus he had been working at the infirmary when I’d received the news. Still, Hayashi was not one to gossip. I felt I could trust him. ‘I decided there was no use sitting around. And you managed to get a day off from the infirmary?’
Hayashi nodded. The orderlies had recently stopped working at night, as the twelve-hour shifts had proved too much along with our other duties at camp. The army had agreed to roster on one medical assistant at night.
I joined the throng filing out of the camp. As we passed through the birdcage gate and exited on the other side, two soldiers marked off our names on a list. We started walking towards the river in a long line, two abreast, guided by a dozen officers on horseback. We had never left the camp before in such large numbers, and the strangeness of the situation was not lost on the men around me. They chattered like schoolchildren on an excursion. Soon, though, the tread of our many hundred feet stirred up a cloud of red dust that made talking difficult; the conversation ceased as we were forced to cover our mouths and noses with our hands.
The route we took to the river was one I had never followed before. We walked through coarse sun-bleached grass, green low-lying scrub and past the distinctly feminine silhouettes of the genus of eucalyptus tree that was native to the area. ‘It’s called a mallee tree,’ an officer had told me one day when I was working in the vegetable garden. I had wandered a dozen yards from the garden to inspect a tree, trying to pinpoint how it differed from the eucalypts I was used to seeing in Broome. ‘See the bulbous root at the base that all the branches are growing from? That’s what makes it a mallee. Some of them start off as single-trunk trees, like this one,’ the officer gestured to a similar tree that stood tall among its peers, ‘but if it’s hit by bushfire it grows back from the root with lots of branches, like all the others here. It’s a tough tree. Drought, bushfire . . . it’ll survive almost anything.’ And as I’d listened to the officer’s explanation I was struck by the ingenuity of the tree in its ability to regenerate and create a new shape better suited to its environment.
After Darkness Page 12