‘Poor bugger,’ Johnny said. Then he stepped into the space and moved to the far side of the bed, positioning himself between Stan and the wall. He leaned down. ‘Stan, old boy. It’s me, Johnny. How’ve you been? Doing okay?’
Johnny bent down even further, staring into Stan’s face. I held my breath.
‘Johnny,’ Stan murmured. ‘I’ve been worse.’
Johnny broke into a smile. ‘Good, mate. I knew you were all right. Charlie, Ernie, Martin—all the boys have been thinking of you.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Mate, I know it’s tough being in here, all this shit we have to put up with, but we’ll get through it. Before you know it, we’ll be home.’
Johnny continued speaking, describing the competition he’d had with the others to determine who could clean the latrines the fastest, and the corners of Stan’s mouth twitched into a smile. As I listened, a feeling of shame came over me. My past failings as a doctor became clear—not just with Stan, but also in Broome and in my previous experience in Japan. I had been wrong to leave the kindness of the human touch to Sister Bernice and others. In keeping my silence, I hadn’t exercised the very quality that makes us human: our capacity to understand each other.
That afternoon, the sky darkened and the wind picked up, lifting dirt and other particles into the air. Sunlight peeped through the clouds and mingled with the agitated dust, making the world outside opaque. I closed all the windows in my ward. The wind grew stronger until I could hear it howling around the infirmary. Stones struck the galvanised-iron walls and clinked against the windows. I checked each of the patients in the TB ward, as their symptoms could flare up on a windy day. Fortunately, they seemed unaffected by the squall outside.
I went to the orderlies’ room to fetch my coat, as the temperature had dipped. Something caught my eye when I glanced through the window. A figure stood in the infirmary grounds near the perimeter fence, about a dozen yards away. I realised it was Stan. Clutching a cloth over his mouth and nose, he gazed through the fence at the sky. Dust whirled around him and the wind teased the edge of his jacket and sifted his hair.
I heard footsteps behind me.
‘Is that . . . ?’ Hayashi exhaled. ‘What’s he doing out there?’
‘I’ll go get him.’
Hayashi gripped my arm. ‘No, just leave him. It’s the first time he’s left his bed. It’s what he wants. Just let him be.’
‘But he could get sick out there.’
‘Not any sicker than he is now.’
And so Hayashi and I watched for the next few minutes as Stan stood alone, staring at the sky. He adjusted his grip on the cloth at his face, switching it to the other hand. The wind tore his jacket open and he hugged it to himself. Other than that, he was motionless, his face lifted towards the heavens. The light grew weaker as the sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds. The sky turned a murky brown. Finally, he turned around and shuffled back inside.
The internees in our compound began moving into completed huts in late May, just as the nights turned bitter. Icy winds cut through our clothing and knifed our skin. When we ate dinner inside the mess hall, our breath unfurled in translucent puffs. In the mornings, icicles clung to the sides of the trough outside the kitchen, and the water that issued from the taps stung our hands and turned them red.
Elderly internees were shifted into the huts first. The order for the remaining spaces was determined by a lottery. Our row of tents was unlucky: we would be one of the last to move. A few people grumbled, but nothing could be done. We huddled close inside the tent and bundled up in extra blankets. Many nights I woke shivering, dreaming of the balmy evenings in Broome.
Although the nights were frigid, the days were sunny and crisp. It was perfect weather for the baseball competition, which was now underway. Our team was knocked out in the first round, losing to the rubber-industry workers from Surabaya. Ebina was disappointed, having cultivated ambitions of making it to the finals, but I was relieved. Although I’d had fun during practice, I didn’t enjoy the pressure of competition or being the focus of attention.
I had a shift at the infirmary the day Johnny’s team was scheduled to play its first game, but I returned to camp in time to catch the final inning. The match had attracted an enthusiastic crowd. People lined the fence, huddling together so tightly they looked like plates of armour. Every so often there would be a cheer, and a chink in the armour would appear, offering a fleeting glimpse of the pitch.
In the crowd I spotted Nagano, the eldest in my tent. Although in his mid-seventies, Nagano was sprightly and often volunteered to do chores older internees were exempt from. He stood on tiptoe, trying to peer over the heads in front of him.
‘Who’s winning?’ I asked.
‘They are,’ he said, pointing a gnarled finger at Johnny’s team, ‘but not for long, I hope.’
The Australian team were standing near the perimeter fence, waiting to bat. Johnny stood with one leg bent up against the fence, smoking a cigarette. Martin and Ernie were stretching. A murmur coursed through the crowd as the next batter approached the plate. I recognised Dale, the new internee Johnny had pointed out to me. His high-bridged nose and wide-set eyes bore little trace of Japanese physiognomy, making him the subject of gossip at camp. ‘He isn’t even Japanese,’ Yamada had declared one night over a cup of sake. ‘He’s part-Indian but has some distant relatives who are Japanese.’
Dale’s limbs were long and ungainly, but when he stepped up to the plate, his legs, torso and arms fell into perfect alignment. The bat seemed light in the unbroken grace of his arms.
The first ball was low as it hurtled towards him. He flinched but didn’t take his gaze from the pitcher. The second ball came so fast I didn’t see it. Dale swung and I heard a loud crack. Johnny’s team exploded, clapping and cheering so loudly it masked the hum of discontent from the crowd.
‘The kid’s a genius! A genius!’ Charlie yelled, his words cutting across the empty space of the pitch.
Nagano tutted. ‘What a shame—to lose to these fools.’
Dale jogged lightly onto home base. His teammates flocked to him, ruffling his hair and slapping him on the back. Johnny took his hand and raised it high. He scanned the crowd, grinning. We made eye contact. He waved to me across the field and yelled, ‘Did you see?’ Although I was mindful of Nagano and the other men watching me, I couldn’t help but smile back.
Broome
1940
In the final months of the year, the atmosphere thickened, becoming so warm and heavy that droplets seemed to hang in mid-air. Grey clouds blanketed the sky, and the sea turned the colour of steel, waves breaking the surface in foam-crested peaks.
Broome’s inhabitants always abandoned the town in those last, dying weeks. Kanemori returned to Japan with his family, as he did every year. Only Harada stayed to attempt to protect the Japanese Association building from dampness and tame the dark tangle of vegetation that sprouted during the wet. I’d heard he had a wife and grown children in Japan, although he never spoke of them. He hadn’t been back to Japan in more than twenty years. I only found out the reason after I’d known him for almost a year: he had a woman in Broome—an Aboriginal woman, Minnie, whom he’d been with for years. Most of the time, she stayed with him in his house on the edge of Japtown, but some months she went north to be with her people. I met her once, when I was invited for dinner at their home. She was a small woman, about Harada’s age, with a heavy brow but a fine nose. She moved sylph-like in the kitchen, barefoot and dark-limbed.
The master pearlers’ families headed south to cooler climes, and most of the pearling crew left, returning home by ship or journeying to Singapore in the hope of finding temporary work until the season began again. Only the long-term residents and those lucky enough to find employment maintaining the master pearlers’ gardens remained. Fewer birds and insects seemed to crowd the air—they, too, had the good sense to go elsewhere.
In my first year, I had mistakenly decided to stay in town d
uring the wet. Out of some sort of misplaced nostalgia for my boyhood summers in Japan, I ached for the familiar feeling of dampness on my skin. But after experiencing the endless hot, sticky days and sudden downpours, with barely a soul around to share them with, I vowed not to do the same again. At the end of my second year, I took a ship to Perth to escape Broome during the hottest weeks. I stayed at a boarding house on St George’s Terrace and spent my days wandering the city’s streets. I relished the arrival each day of the ‘Fremantle Doctor’—the locals’ name for the cool breeze that swept in during the afternoon. From the green heights of Kings Park I watched the Swan River below me, and thought of Sister Bernice looking out at the same view, dreaming of Africa.
This year I planned to go further afield, to the eastern states. I had arranged to stay with some family friends in Melbourne for a few weeks. Time and money permitting, I hoped to make my way to Sydney, too, to see the harbour I had heard so much about. Perhaps the following year I would have the courage to return to Japan.
In my absence, the hospital would be shut for eight weeks, and so Sister Bernice and I began to put everything away. We stripped the beds, stacked the furniture and placed the equipment in the cabinets to gather dust.
One evening as I stood at the cabinet updating the equipment inventory, I reflected on all I had achieved since first arriving in Broome. I had moved to another country, trained an assistant, and more or less gained the trust of the community. Most people—even the master pearlers—knew me by name. Thinking back to the state I had been in when I’d left Japan, I realised how far I’d come.
At eight-thirty, the door creaked behind me. I heard the tread of Sister Bernice’s feet.
‘Good morning, Doctor,’ she said, her voice unusually vibrant.
‘Good morning, Sister.’
Sister Bernice always spent Christmas with her relatives in Geraldton, two days south by ship. She was due to depart the following Saturday. Her cousin had joined the army and was about to go to war in Europe, so it would be an extra-special gathering this year. I heard rustling as she rummaged through her bag. Moments later, she was beside me. She placed something on top of the cabinet in front of me: a small package, wrapped in white and tied with a piece of string.
‘Merry Christmas,’ she said.
My heart sank. ‘A present? Oh, you shouldn’t have. I wish I’d known . . .’
‘Before you go on, I didn’t actually buy you anything. It’s just something of mine I thought you might like. And Christmas is an Australian tradition, not a Japanese one, so you need never buy me anything. In fact, I’d be appalled if you started buying Christmas gifts because of me. This is just a present I thought of at the last minute.’
‘It’s very kind of you, Sister. Thank you so much.’
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
I remembered the difference in our traditions: westerners liked to open gifts in the presence of the giver. I untied the string and turned the present over in my hands. The wrapping fell away to reveal a book with a faded blue cover.
‘Ah, Middlemarch,’ I said.
‘Have you read it?’
‘No, I haven’t. But I have heard it is very good.’
‘It’s one of my favourites, although I haven’t read it in a few years now. There’s a young doctor in the book who arrives in a country town, and it made me think of you. Not that you’re anything like Dr Lydgate,’ she added quickly. ‘I just thought you might like to read it while you’re away.’
‘Thank you, Sister. I look forward to reading this on the ship. My first Christmas present. I shall always remember it.’
She smiled. I decided I would get her something in the eastern states as an omiyage from my travels—that was a Japanese tradition, at least.
‘I almost forgot. I meant to return this to you a while ago.’ She placed another book on the cabinet. It was my old copy of Robinson Crusoe, with its cracked cover featuring a shabby, bearded man and its pages that had turned the colour of cognac over time. ‘I took it home with me and forgot to bring it back. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. Did you enjoy it?’
‘Yes, I did. Actually . . .’ She smoothed the back of her habit with her hand. ‘I couldn’t help but notice the piece of wood inside the front cover. Is that something from Japan?’
I frowned and picked up the book. Inside the cover, slotted against the spine, was a tag—a wafer-thin piece of wood about the length of my thumb. Inscribed on it was the character ko, meaning ‘child’, along with the numerals 1718. It still had its loop of yellowed string. The knot at the end had left an impression on the page behind it: a small indentation, like a scar.
I snapped the book shut. ‘Where did you find this?’
‘Inside the front cover, as I said.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have put it there. It was a mistake. You never should have found it.’ I walked into the anteroom.
Sister Bernice came in just as I was putting the book and the wooden tag in my desk drawer.
‘Yes?’ I snapped, irritated she’d seen where I’d put it.
She flinched. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you . . . Are you all right?’
‘I just . . . I don’t like you intruding into my life. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m very busy right now.’
She blinked several times. I thought I saw her lower lip tremble, but I couldn’t be sure. She nodded slowly, then, without another comment, left the room.
Sister Bernice didn’t come to work the next morning. Her absence angered me at first. To fail to show up because of a minor confrontation—she obviously had less mettle than I’d first thought. But as the hours passed and she still did not arrive, I began to see that the blame lay at my feet. I had overreacted when she innocently asked about the tag. She couldn’t have known its significance to me.
Throughout the humid morning, patients came and went. One old tender who visited the hospital regularly due to chronic joint pain asked after Sister Bernice. ‘She’s not feeling well,’ I mumbled. He was so concerned he said he’d return with a present for her later.
As the day wore on, I began to believe my own lie and grew worried about her wellbeing. Perhaps she was ill—perhaps my outburst had triggered something.
That afternoon, I closed the hospital early and walked to the convent. I stepped onto the latticed verandah and rang the brass bell at the front door. When the Mother Superior appeared, I asked to speak to Sister Bernice.
‘Sister Bernice isn’t here. She left for Geraldton this morning.’
‘Geraldton? Already? I didn’t think she was leaving for another few days.’ My outburst must have affected her deeply. ‘When will she be back?’
‘She didn’t say—she said it was an emergency. I’m sorry, Doctor, I thought she told you.’ Mistaking my dismay for alarm at losing an assistant, she continued, ‘I could send someone else to help you. Sister Antonia may be available.’
‘No, that’s not necessary. I didn’t think . . . Anyway, if Sister Bernice contacts you, please give her my regards.’
I became depressed at the thought that my careless behaviour had driven Sister Bernice away. As I stared at the ocean from the ship’s deck during the long journey to Melbourne, she consumed my thoughts. What if she never came back? I brooded over that for a long time. Even after my arrival in Melbourne, as I took a tram along Flinders Street and strolled the boardwalk at St Kilda Beach, her abrupt departure continued to play on my mind.
‘Tomokazu, is something wrong? You’ve been quiet all week.’ Mr Amano, my uncle’s friend, cupped a hand at his brow to shield his eyes from the glare. The sea sparkled behind him. He and his wife had generously opened their home to me and guided me around Melbourne. I had enjoyed my time with them, so I was dismayed to realise that my preoccupation had been so evident.
‘I was just thinking about the hospital. I hope no one needs me while I’m away.’ I vowed to put the incident with Sister Be
rnice behind me so I could make the most of the rest of my stay.
But as much as I tried, I couldn’t forget. Instead of visiting Sydney, I decided to return to Broome two weeks early. As the ship swung into the bay, my heart swelled at the sight of the milky blue water and the distant pink-red sand. For the first time, I realised that Broome was my home.
The hospital was just as I’d left it, save for the spots of mould inside some of the cupboards and on the walls. I stood in the centre of the ward and looked around me. The bare metal beds with their spring-coil ribs underscored the emptiness of the room. As soon as the weather stabilised, I would dry the mattresses in the sun.
I was relieved to hear from a shopkeeper in Japtown that Sister Bernice had returned from Geraldton. ‘She was walking past here the other day,’ he said.
The next day, I went to the convent, carrying a present I had purchased on my travels: a teacup and saucer painted with a spray of yellow wattle. My shirt was clinging to my chest by the time I crunched along the convent’s gravel path. I rang the bell, and Sister Bernice herself came to the door, surprise etched on her face.
‘Doctor! I thought you weren’t returning for at least another week. I would have come to the hospital had I known you were back.’ She reached up to tuck a lock of hair beneath her veil. It was a joy to see her again.
‘I came back early—I was worried about closing the hospital for so long. But that is not why I am here. I wanted to give you this.’ I held out the boxed present, wrapped in brown paper. ‘Something from my trip to Melbourne. It is omiyage, as we say in Japanese.’
She gingerly took the package, staring at it as if it were something strange. ‘Oh, a present. Thank you.’
She held it close to herself without opening it. Her eyes darted away from mine; she seemed unable to hold my gaze.
After Darkness Page 14