After Darkness

by Christine Piper

  Gazing at the mallee trees as we walked to the river, I once more admired their inconspicuous quality, the grey-green leaves that stirred so gently in the breeze. Taking a wider perspective, I realised that every element of the landscape—from the grass and trees to the pebbly earth—seemed at pains not to outdo the others, and it struck me as a very noble quality indeed.

  We turned a corner and something sparkled in the distance. The track opened up to a grassy clearing where straw-coloured spinifex murmured. Beyond it, the river glittered in the sun, so wide and still it resembled a lake. The hollow trunks of dead trees haunted its edges like lost people. At one point where the grassy clearing met the water, the lip of the riverbank had crumbled and ochre earth spilled over the edge. Beneath the deep blue sky, the river formed a grand setting.

  ‘Look at the water here—it’s so blue!’ someone said. ‘Is that a rowboat on the other side?’

  I looked to where the man was pointing and realised he was right: at the far side of the river, some two hundred yards away, was a small rowboat containing three people. The two figures at one end of the boat appeared to be women, the neat shapes of their bodies crowned by the pale blur of sunhats. The larger person at the oars must have been a man, and from the frantic reach and pull of his arms I saw he was hastily rowing away from us. We must have been a frightening sight: hundreds of men in red, fanned out along the riverbank. Seeing such a large group of local men would have been daunting enough, let alone several hundred internees.

  The officers on horseback had assumed positions at two points about a hundred yards apart, marking the boundaries of where we were allowed to roam. The officers gazed at us, their faces blank like the glassy surface of the water, rifles taut across their backs.

  As the others from my tent began spreading blankets on the ground and unpacking sandwiches they had brought from the mess hall, I wandered to the water’s edge. The river moved lazily before me, but further downstream the surface was ruffled where it narrowed into a bend. If I closed my eyes I was transported to Broome, where I used to stand on the rocky headland of Town Beach. I had often wondered what it was like for the divers, who had to work alone for hours on end in their subterranean world. Was the silence a comfort or a terror to them?

  Immediately after my arrest in Broome the previous year, I had been interned in the town gaol with a group of four divers. Although I had seen these men dozens of times, and had treated one or two at the hospital, I rarely socialised with them, so gaol presented the first opportunity for a conversation. We were some of the last to be arrested, so on 31 December we were still waiting to be transferred to a camp. The officers had been kind enough to share their beer for the New Year’s Eve celebration, and the five of us sat in a circle on the cell floor, talking by candlelight.

  Our talk turned to the jobs that had lured us from Japan to such a remote location. The other four men all came from small fishing villages on the Wakayama coast.

  ‘And what about sensei?’ one of them asked. ‘What happened in Japan to make you give up such a prestigious job and take up a position in Broome?’

  I was filled with unease, even though there was no way he could have known the reason for my departure. ‘It was hardly a prestigious job—I was only a junior doctor,’ I said. ‘And the offer in Broome came at a time when I had a strong desire to see the world, and I thought the experience of running my own hospital would serve me well. And it has, of course—I’m now an expert in caisson disease . . . and in stitching up drunk divers.’

  ‘And getting into fights, too!’ someone said, referring to the bruise on my face. I brought a hand to my cheek and winced, thinking of the blow that had knocked me unconscious.

  The men around me laughed, except one, a boy of only eighteen, who asked, ‘What’s caisson disease?’

  ‘It’s a condition that afflicts divers when they come up to the surface too quickly, causing joint pain, headaches and dizziness,’ I said. ‘It is extremely painful, as I’m sure Asano can confirm.’

  Asano nodded. Although he was only in his forties, he had stopped diving a few years earlier due to complications arising from decompression sickness. He now only occasionally worked as a tender, monitoring the air supply and safety of the divers who were his friends. He had come to me at the hospital several times about his chronic joint pain.

  ‘I was unlucky—I had it in my very first month of diving,’ Asano said. ‘I started on a second-rate boat, apprenticed to an arrogant first diver who didn’t want to teach me. He never explained what would happen if I didn’t spend enough time decompressing on my way up. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way. After a long day of diving, I was too tired and hungry to come up in stages, and rushed up to the surface. I got onto the deck okay, but as soon as I removed my helmet, my head felt like it was about to split apart, my vision blurred and I passed out. When I came to I was thirty feet under and it was pitch dark. I didn’t realise I’d been down there for hours and it was already night—that they’d put me down there to help me decompress.’

  Asano rubbed his arm and stared at a point somewhere behind us. When he spoke again it was as if he were seeing not the scene before him but the distant shapes of his past. ‘Waking up down there was the most frightened I’ve ever been. I didn’t know where I was at first—whether I was underwater, on the boat or on land. I wondered if I was dead. But the air tube was there, I could hear the hiss of it being filtered in. And I began to smell it, too. They were cooking dinner up on the deck, and the scent of fried fish and onions came to me through the tube. When I smelled that, I knew I was alive.’

  Now, from my own position at the edge of the river, I thought of Asano waking up in the darkness of the ocean. I considered the slender divide between our perceptions of life and death. And how one life could be valued over another.

  Behind me, I heard laughter. I turned to see Hayashi and Yamada doubled over, giggling like prepubescent boys. The contents of Hayashi’s sandwich had spilled onto his lap. I narrowed my eyes. Perhaps because I was upset on the day of my brother’s funeral, something hardened within me to see them so carefree.

  Tuesday was my day off from the infirmary, a chance to relax and catch up on my chores. I wanted to write a letter to my mother regarding Nobuhiro’s death, plus I had offered to help Secretary Hoshi with a translation. It was also the day Stan was due to return to camp. I’d found out from Lieutenant Powell that he would be transferred to the infirmary in the morning. ‘In a few more weeks, his wrist will be fully healed, but his mental recovery will take longer,’ he’d said. ‘Just between you and me, he’s pretty heartbroken about having to return to camp. I was afraid he’d cut his other wrist, he was that upset. HQ are allowing him a few concessions—privacy, a few books, that sort of thing.’ As I sat on my bed with a half-written letter and the documents to translate spread out before me, I couldn’t stop thinking about Stan. When the hands on my watch reached eleven-thirty, I pushed aside the papers and headed to the infirmary.

  Hayashi sat at the front of the ward. His arms were on the table before him, elbows butterflying open a book. Behind him, beds stretched back in two long rows. Patients lay or sat on their beds, in various states of fitful rest. One man swaddled in blankets lay on his side at the edge of his bed, staring at the floor. Another patient sat upright, turning over his hands while inspecting them as if searching for clues. Although the air was crisp, his shirt was wide open. No one spoke and hardly anyone moved. The scene was like a photograph, preserving the strangeness of the moment.

  Hayashi looked up. ‘Sensei—I didn’t think you were working today.’

  ‘I’m not. I heard Suzuki was back. I wanted to see him.’

  ‘Suzuki? You mean the boy?’ Hayashi frowned. He inclined his head towards the back of the room. In one corner, two sheets had been hung from the ceiling to create an enclosure. Through a gap between the edges of the sheets I could see a bed, and the shadows of a rumpled sheet traced the contours of a body. ‘I didn’t kn
ow you were friends with him.’

  ‘He came to the infirmary to see me a few weeks ago. I’d like to check on him, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, the officers who brought him back said he needed rest and shouldn’t be disturbed. That’s why they put up those sheets. For some reason, Suzuki gets special treatment. But I don’t mind, as long as you make it quick.’

  I nodded. ‘I won’t be long.’

  I made my way to the back of the room, trying not to make eye contact with the patients who watched me pass. A light breeze entered the room, stirring the suspended sheets so that they gently swung back and forth, slightly off-kilter in their timing. As they moved, the triangle of empty space between them widened and narrowed, altering my view of the bed. It was as if I were looking through a kaleidoscope—one moment I could see a sheet that covered a leg, the next an arm and then a fleeting glimpse of a chin.

  I stopped just before reaching the suspended sheets. They continued to flutter before me like noren on a summer’s day. The subtle movement seemed grand in that otherwise still space. There was something very soothing in their motion—ebbing upwards and outwards, never still—yet it also seemed false, a kind of trick, and I felt that if I allowed the sheets to touch me something would change, I would be drawn into that enclosure with its own rules of movement, breath and time.

  The breeze died down, and in the lull that followed I was able to see Stan clearly for the first time. He was lying on his back with his head tilted away from me, angled in a manner that accentuated the sharp line of his jaw. In the absence of movement in the air, the kaleidoscopic illusion also disappeared. Framed within the now-still sheets, he appeared inanimate. A rectangle of light from a window fell diagonally across him, illuminating part of his torso and jaw as if he were a statue hewn from two different stones.

  A patient coughed behind me, a rasping sound.

  I continued to watch, but Stan was so still I could not even detect a rise and fall in his chest. My unease grew. It wasn’t unusual for a seemingly stable patient to die suddenly. And he certainly wouldn’t be the first to pass away at camp—there had been at least six deaths since I’d arrived, mostly elderly internees. As I recalled those patients and the wretched circumstances of their deaths, I began to tremble with regret. Stan had opened up to me, and I hadn’t listened. I was horrified to think my insensitivity could have led to his death.

  I lifted my hand to pull aside the sheet and step inside when the slightest of movements stopped me: Stan’s lids flickered a fraction. He was watching me from the corner of his eye—and not in a sleep-like reverie, but in a fully lucid state. And although I could barely see the wet glint of his eye, his gaze seemed absent of reproach—and that realisation almost made me weep.

  I heard the whack whack whack of the hammers long before the builders came into view. As I walked down Broadway, I passed the intersection at the middle of camp. Beyond the fence to my left, I glimpsed the wooden frame of a sleeping hut, its crossbeams hanging like the ribs of a great whale. Builders clung to its roof and sides, hammering, sanding and measuring. Behind them stood a nearly completed hut, its roof and four sides clad with galvanised iron. Only the windows were missing, leaving dark holes like the eyes of an empty soul.

  A baseball team was practising in the area near the gate. As I drew closer, I recognised Johnny and the other members of the Australian gang: Charlie, Ernie, Ken, teenage Australian-born half-caste Martin Nishimura, and Australian-born full-blood Andy Makino. Three other men I didn’t recognise were scattered around the diamond. Johnny was at the pitcher’s plate. He lifted his head when I entered the compound, and signalled to the others for time out. We hadn’t seen each other since he’d approached me about the baseball competition, and we’d argued about Yamada attacking Stan. I now felt ashamed I had so strenuously defended Yamada, and was apprehensive about confronting Johnny again, but he was smiling as he walked towards me. A lock of black hair stuck to his shining forehead.

  ‘Hey, Doc. You got a sec?’ He wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘I just wanted to thank you for organising the baseball comp. It was you, wasn’t it?’ Johnny cocked his head to the side. The action reminded me of the young man who used to wait outside the hotels in Japtown, full of energy as he peddled his taxi service to the pearling crews.

  ‘It was your idea. All I did was suggest it at the meeting. I realised it would benefit everybody.’ I inclined my head towards the other players. ‘So you’ve already formed a team?’

  ‘Sure have. All the boys are keen for it, plus we found a few Formosan fellows who said they’d have a go. And there’s a new Aussie kid who just arrived from Hay camp who’s really good. The skinny one over there, Dale.’ A tall dark-skinned figure kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe, sending up a small cloud of dust. ‘All the camp rejects, I guess.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, I’m glad you found some fellow “rejects”, as you say.’

  Johnny pushed his hair off his face, leaving a smear of orange dust on his forehead. ‘I also wanted to say I’m sorry to hear about your brother. McCubbin told me. That’s really tough. I lost one of my sisters a few years ago, so I know how you feel.’

  I nodded. Although I was upset McCubbin had told him, I appreciated Johnny’s kind words—especially after Yamada’s insensitivity.

  We were silent for a few moments, then Johnny’s face brightened. ‘Did you hear? I might be leaving.’

  ‘Oh?’ I tried to maintain an air of nonchalance, but my mind raced with the possible reasons for Johnny’s departure. Was he being released? Or being transferred to another camp?

  ‘I just found out my appeal has been scheduled in Melbourne. I’m going down there in July. Could be my ticket out of here. My lawyer says I’ve got a good chance because I’m Australian-born. I should never have been put in here in the first place.’

  My heart sank. It seemed that just as Johnny and I had a chance to make peace, circumstances would take him away. But I smiled and wished him luck.

  ‘Did you hear Stan is back from Barmera hospital?’ I said. ‘I saw him in the infirmary today. He is still very weak, but he should make a full recovery.’

  ‘Poor guy. He must’ve been in a state to have done something like that to himself.’ Johnny shook his head. ‘Being locked up in here will do that to you. If I didn’t have my appeal coming up I could wind up that way. I might drop in to see him next week.’

  ‘I’m sure he would like that.’

  ‘Anyway, I should get back to the game. We need all the practice we can get to have any chance of winning against the Batavia team. I heard they’re good. But I just wanted to say thanks. You really helped us out.’ He held out his hand. His palm was rough against mine.

  We parted, but after a few steps I heard him call out to me. ‘By the way, some of the guards are letting us use the tennis courts at the duty guard camp. You should join us one day.’

  The sun shone through the clouds, making me squint. The tap tap tap of the hammers rang out as the builders knocked the structure into place.

  ‘I’d like that,’ I said.

  Morning light streamed through the open windows of the ward, making everything appear pristine. The patients, many still half asleep, lay in their rumpled sheets with skin scrubbed clean by the trick of the light. In the corner, the sheets suspended from the ceiling glowed like a lantern. I approached the enclosure with trepidation, as I had each day since Stan’s arrival. Once again he lay on his back in silent repose, head turned towards the window within his partition. The awning-type shutter swung outwards from a top hinge, revealing a rectangle of sky. I studied Stan for a second or two—just long enough to see the subtle movement of his chest—before creeping back to the entrance of the ward. Hayashi was watching me from the doorway.

  ‘Does he ever get up?’ I asked. Whenever I checked on Stan, his face was turned towards the window, drinking in the light that shone through. Even late in the evening, at the end of my shift, he was always in the same position:
face angled towards the window, like a flower that bloomed at night.

  ‘Sometimes I think I hear him moving behind there, but it’s hard to tell. You should ask Powell. Maybe he gets up at night. Maybe he’s like those animals we saw on the documentary film. What was the word? Nocturnal.’

  I began visiting Stan’s bedside every day to change the dressing on his wrist. A crust had formed over the wound; its edge was still wet when he first arrived, but it dried after a few days. Finally, the skin around the wound contracted, and the dark crust began to flake away. But Stan’s disposition remained the same. He stared at the window all day, displaying little inclination to move or speak or even eat. I made feeble attempts at conversation. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked. Sometimes he nodded, but mostly he said nothing at all. I offered to get him some books, but he said he didn’t feel like reading. I asked him if his family knew of his condition, but he shrugged. If I managed to engage him for a moment, as soon as I finished talking, he always turned back to the window, seeking out the light.

  The following week, Johnny appeared at the entrance of the orderlies’ room while I was eating lunch. For a moment, I thought it was Hayashi or one of the other orderlies calling me to inspect a patient. Then I noticed the broad shoulders, the shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and the dirt caked on his forearms.

  ‘Stan here?’ he asked. ‘McCubbin said I could see him after I finished my shift in the gardens today.’

  ‘He’s in the general ward, in the corner behind the sheets. Here, I’ll show you.’

  I led him down the corridor to the other building. Before we entered the ward, I turned to him. ‘You can go in and see him, but I have to warn you: he is still unwell. He is distracted and he rarely speaks. But a visit from a friend may help.’

  We walked past the beds to the end of the ward, and I pulled back one of the hanging sheets. Stan was on his side, staring at the window. It was sunny outside, and the sheets around the bed reflected the light. Framed like that, Stan’s slight figure took on a childlike purity.