Every Secret Thing

by Marie Munkara

  ‘And did you see his face when it started raining! Doesn’t the fuck-head know it’s the wet season?’ chortled Pwomiga.

  And so it came to pass that his brother Kumwarrni, who by now was well and truly Pwomiga’s co-conspirator, had a plan for the unsuspecting Wurruwataka. Pwomiga, already clued up, continued to talk about the various clan groups while Kumwarrni approached at the designated time and sat nearby with his eyes averted in servile humility. It was all he could do to stop himself laughing as he listened to the drivel issuing from Pwomiga’s mouth and saw the look of intense concentration on Wurruwataka’s face as he madly scribbled away. A good ten minutes or so later Wurruwataka imperiously lifted his hand to Pwomiga to halt the proceedings and turned to Kumwarrni. He had been told by his peers that it was essential to show dominance over these simple and childlike people or else they would think you weak and try to kill you. It was their instinct to eliminate the feeblest in the herd so in these situations he had to behave as if he were the leader. He turned to Kumwarrni in a manner befitting his superior race and enquired as to the man’s health and his business there. Pwomiga’s struggle to keep the sniggers from erupting was met with a fit of coughing at which Wurruwataka immediately clapped his handkerchief over his nose. Lord knows what undiscovered diseases they carried. You couldn’t be too careful with this lot.

  But what was this? Kumwarrni was inviting Wurruwataka to go fishing with him the next day. The hanky slipped unnoticed to the ground as Wurruwataka grasped Kumwarrni’s hand and shook it warmly. He’d been hinting and then openly asking Pwomiga for months for something like this, but all requests had fallen on deaf ears. And now Kumwarrni had arrived and insisted that he join them. It was marvellous.

  Wurruwataka emptied his heaving guts over the side of the canoe while Kumwarrni, Mununga and Tarnakini rowed peacefully upriver on the incoming tide. (Pwomiga had opted to stay home; the less he had to do with Wurruwataka the better.) They were heading for a place where the narrow waters deepened and widened into a large lagoon and where there was an abundance of fish. There was also an abundance of crocodiles but they weren’t telling Wurruwataka that.

  They chose a nice shady spot in the lee of a high bank and cast their lines. The fishing lines had been cleverly crafted from the bark of the eucalyptus tetradonta, a job best left to the women whose deft fingers would roll the fine strips of bark on their thighs and ply them together into substantial lengths of twine, before attaching the carved bone hooks which were nothing short of exquisite works of art.

  This was all duly noted by the sorry-looking Wurruwataka who at last was beginning to recover from his seasickness now they’d finally stopped. But hang on, why was that suspicious-looking log heading for the canoe, and why hadn’t any of the bush mob noticed it? Were they blind or something? Wurruwataka felt an instinctual fear grip the pit of his stomach. He tapped Tarnakini on the shoulder, pointing at what he now knew for certain was a crocodile that had pulled up a few canoe lengths away and was lazily eyeing them off.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Kumwarrni, ‘that one not cheeky one, only that big one with missing tooth.’

  He turned back to his line.

  Missing tooth! Like he wanted to get close enough to find out! Didn’t these idiots know that crocodiles were dangerous animals and could kill?

  ‘I want to go back,’ he said, struggling to stop his voice from wavering.

  But Kumwarrni and Mununga and Tarnakini just laughed and went on fishing.

  ‘I order you to go back now,’ Wurruwataka yelled, his voice cracking from fear.

  But he might as well have saved his breath. No-one was listening except the crocodile who had never heard such curious sounds before echoing around the lagoon.

  And even though the three blokes could easily have lifted the canoe onto the bank above and walked back to the mission to shut Wurruwataka’s infernal whining up nobody had any intention of doing so. They just went happily on with their fishing business because as far as they were concerned the silly bastard could wait. They had the upper hand now and there was stuff all Wurruwataka could do about it.

  And so the men continued to fish and the crocodile continued to keep an eye on them, swimming here or resurfacing there as the mood took her while Wurruwataka continued to shake in fear and vow to himself that as much as the bush mob would probably like the world to know them as the kindly race, decent people who had welcomed him warmly into their midst, his professional ethics would compel him to portray them in a more realistic light. Spiteful and cunning were two words that sprang to mind. Conniving was another.

  As the sun moved slowly across the sky, he waited for them to haul in their lines so they could depart. His skin sizzled and blistered in the heat, and the mozzies and sandflies feasted on any bits of skin that were exposed. It was only when they felt the reverse pull of the tide on the river that the three men neatly wound in their lines and looked at the lovely pile of fish that would be taken home and shared among them.

  And as the notebooks filled and Wurruwataka’s peers became more jealous of his amazing insights into the bush mob, Father Macredie became more excited at the prospect of translating the mass and hymns into lingo. He didn’t have to sell his idea too hard to Pwomiga the trickster who, having waved goodbye to Wurruwataka and his magnum opus, leapt at the opportunity to have a bit more fun at the murruntani’s expense.

  And so it was that Father Macredie stood before his flock a few months later, smiling sheepishly as he stumbled over the unfamiliar words while Pwomiga smiled encouragingly from the front row. It was with an enormous amount of difficulty that the congregation held in the laughter and the cheers that threatened to spill forth in this solemn place of worship. Because unbeknownst to the unsuspecting Father, what had once been sleep-inducing churchy gibberish was now action-packed stories about naughty spirits and their exploits with the bush mob and vicious crocodiles and giant snakes. Stuffy old hymns were now songs of battle and love, or of good fishing trips or raids down the coast to steal women. The Pater Noster became a tribute to Jerrekepai, the man who feared nothing, while the Hail Mary became a saucy ode to Pwomiga’s old and long since departed mum.

  If Father had the slightest inkling of what he was saying in lingo to his happy congregation he would have washed his own mouth out with soap, he would have whipped himself and prostrated himself on a bed of nails, he would have eaten dried bread and given up his valium cold turkey to punish his hopeless self. But the poor bastard, who joyfully revelled in the mistaken belief that he was bringing the bush mob closer to God, didn’t know at all and maybe for his sake that was a good thing.

  But despite Pwomiga’s shenanigans, he just wasn’t strong enough to dam the rivers of change that were slowly and insidiously cutting their way through the land. Little did he or any of the others know that the lives of their descendants would fill the notebooks and filing cabinets and computer hard drives of people who made a living trying to figure out what made the bush mob tick. None of the poor buggers knew they had the right to tell the intruders to just fuck off and leave them alone because the mission mob acted like they were the ones in control now and let those others come. And after all, it was difficult sometimes to tell the difference between the missionaries and the madmen and the mercenaries because their eyes all looked the same and their tongues all spoke the same language of greed. If it wasn’t your soul they wanted, it was something else. Until it became an automatic response whenever a strange muruntani appeared to put out your hand for the specimen bottle to piss into or extend your arm for a blood sample to be taken or for the ungracious thought to pass through their mind that here was yet another who had come to take but as always gave nothing in return.

  The Garden of Eden

  It had been a few years since the cyclone and the mission was now rebuilt on higher and more sheltered land. The old buildings that had been painstakingly hewn from the local hardwood h
ad been replaced with bricks and mortar and windows that opened and shut and toilets that flushed instead of the old thunder boxes full of spiders down the back. But it was only when the snow foils* were being unpacked from their crates that Father Macredie began to seriously wonder about the credentials of the architect who just so happened to be an old school chum of his Most Connected. By then it was too late to do anything so they quietly went about their business, sweltering in rooms designed for sub-zero temperatures with the lino lifting in the most annoying places and the rain pissing in and the sun glaring under eaves that had been designed to allow full access by the elements. Luckily for the Catholic Church, Occupational Health and Safety hadn’t been invented yet, so when it was deemed too much of an expense to widen the eaves and verandahs and replace the lifting lino with something sturdier, no-one complained because they had no choice anyway. Which meant everyone kept tripping and slipping up in the wet patches until they eventually remembered the places where they had to lift their foot a little bit higher or where they had to take a longer step to avoid any mishaps.

  *Big louvres that are installed over windows to stop the build-up of snow on them

  The new barge company which had brought in the building materials and the migrant workers was also contracted to bring in supplies once a fortnight for the mission. Brother Stephen who had sailed the old lugger into the Big Joint for provisions for the last thirteen years come rain hail or shine certainly wasn’t complaining about the new arrangement. Nor was poor Shem, Brother Stephen’s helper, who despite being the son of Noah had never managed to overcome his terrible seasickness. Many a tortured hour had been spent chundering over the side while Brother Stephen busily trimmed the sails and performed other such nautical tasks.

  But the buildings weren’t the only thing that had expanded over the last twelve months. Many a trim black waistline had also grown as a consequence of the passionate indulgences of the migrants who had been shipped in for the rebuilding and, much to Father Macredie’s unease, black births were becoming more the exception than the rule as coloured births steadily grew at an alarming rate. Two Spaniards by the names of Mingo and Gringo were, in Father’s eyes, the worst offenders. They openly caroused with the young women, lavishing them with inexpensive gifts that they had shipped over in bulk on the barge with the building supplies. It was obvious by the big aquiline nose that was appearing on the little newborn faces with alarming regularity that a good proportion of the coloured babies were the offspring of these busy and very productive brothers.

  Father Macredie had already found out the hard way that threatening Mingo and Gringo with dismissal was an exercise in futility. Both brothers, the only registered plumber and electrician on the building site, had happily downed tools when confronted by the irate cleric and headed off in search of more pleasurable pursuits with the local girls. Further threats to put them on the next plane under an armed escort had only incensed Mingo and Gringo to the point where the former pulled the fuses and left the mission in darkness for two days and the latter sabotaged the plumbing. Finally, when the brothers’ Spanish blood had cooled down enough for them to approach Father Macredie demanding more money, Father knew he was beaten. There was absolutely nothing he could do to quell the Spaniards’ quest to populate the world with their offspring.

  And so it came to pass that his Most Concerned the Bishop arrived at the mission one fine day to try to rectify the embarrassing situation that the church had found itself in. It was a very subdued Father Macredie who sat with his Most Downcast and the handsome Brother John pondering their fate, each with a glass of whisky in their sweaty hands. Brother John, who had already noted that Kwarikwaringa’s three-month-old coloured baby girl looked nothing like the two brothers and a lot like him, was the first to offer a suggestion.

  ‘Why don’t we spend some of the money we saved by employing migrants on alcohol for them? That way they’ll be too pissed to go chasing the women.’

  They pondered on this for a few minutes in silence while they sipped their whisky from Father’s Waterford crystal tumblers.

  ‘Yes,’ replied his Most Contemplative, ‘it’s not a bad idea. But productivity will suffer and we want them all out of here by Christmas at the latest or we’ll have to give them the day off and Christmas dinner as well and you know how those dagos can eat.’

  They murmured assent and sipped some more. Two hours and another bottle of whisky later they were no nearer a solution, and it was only while his Most Restless was tossing in his bed later that night that he finally came up with the answer. They would build another mission for the half-caste kids. It was so simple.

  The next morning at breakfast his idea was met with some scepticism.

  ‘But why can’t we keep them here?’ asked the ever-practical Brother Stephen as he stepped over Brother Michael’s outstretched feet and attempted to manoeuvre his arse onto a seat without dropping his toast.

  ‘Dumping them somewhere else might make it look like the half-caste kids are an embarrassment to us,’ said Father Macredie, not looking at anyone in particular.

  Unlike various of the present company who were now squirming guiltily in their seats and looking very interested in their breakfast, he was the only one among them who had resisted satisfying his carnal urges with the local women. But his Most Enthused had made up his mind. Another mission it was going to be whether they liked it or not.

  And so the campaign to lump all the coloured kids in one place out of harm’s way began with earnest.

  ‘We’ll teach them to be good hard-working people who can read and write,’ explained Father Macredie. ‘You don’t want them to grow up like you bush mob, do you?’

  The bush mob, who by now had cottoned onto the fact that they weren’t exactly at the top of the social ladder, looked at each other’s black skins with shame. None of them had ever been made to feel this worthless before. And because they were all feeling so terrible no-one thought to stand up and ask the mission mob what the hell they knew about bringing up kids and who were they to question their ability to be parents. And no-one thought to ask those men of the mission who pretended to serve their god but instead were busy helping themselves to the black women what they were going to do about the kids they’d fathered, did they? No, they just hung their heads in despair.

  And so it was with great sadness that the coloured kids were taken from the arms of their families. Some mothers handed them over in the hope that Father Macredie wasn’t bullshitting them and that their kids’ lives would be the better for their sacrifice. Others fought tooth and nail to the bitter end. Let them suffer for their sins, the mission mob thought as a great unhappiness descended over the bush mob. If the silly women couldn’t keep their legs closed then they only had themselves to blame for the situation.

  On a nearby island The Garden of Eden, as the new mission was called, had been placed in the care of a surly old veteran by the name of Father Cain. A regrettable moniker, considering he shared it with the first-born son of the original inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. The faux pas hadn’t gone completely unnoticed by some of the more learned who had read the good book and knew the mark of Cain had been God’s curse of black skin on the disobedient Cain and all his descendants to be. Sadly, it seemed that even the diluted descendants were to bear the curse as well.

  But time has a way of covering all wounds with scar tissue, and the little abductees eventually settled down into their new life away from their homes and their families. And as more time passed new abductees bearing new wounds came from near and far to join the ever-growing family with their abundant scar tissue. Some of the scar tissue was hidden deep inside their hearts where every now and then the pains would be felt quite keenly like a particularly troublesome bout of arthritis and some was in their eyes and it caused them to cry as they waited day after day for the ones they had lost to come and take them home.

  But if the nu
ns at the Garden of Eden knew about the scars they certainly didn’t show it as they worked relentlessly to shape the unruly half-caste rabble into obedient and God-fearing servants of the muruntani. No rod was spared or abductee spoilt in the process as the little coloured kids were repeatedly chastised and flayed until prayers and hymns and excerpts from the Bible were slowly absorbed by rote into every fibre of their being. And when they were eventually knocked into shape they were passed on to caring white families as domestics and the like because, let’s face it, the mission mob knew these useless individuals would never amount to anything else. In order to control them many of the good Christian families duly followed in the incarcerators’ lead by perpetuating the violence, sometimes throwing in a few more tortures for good measure like rape and mental abuse, because this was the only thing this half-caste lot understood. A few even had to be sent back to the mission because they just didn’t seem to respond to the kindly ministrations of their new families and kept trying to run away or told wild stories to people about their treatment.

  It was sad really.

  The Bride-to-be

  Caleb, who had long ago relinquished his cymbals and the burning desire to be in Brother Neil’s brass band, had grown up into a fine hardworking young man. And even though his skills in the carpentry workshop were of an extremely high standard his skills with women were not and it was noted by all that by the age of twenty-seven Caleb was still unmarried. A fact not lost on Father whose ears would burn with shame when Caleb’s weekly confessions of impure and lustful thoughts of the fairer sex were divulged to him in the confessional box. But they say that if you pray hard enough your prayers will be answered and it was with a great sense of relief that Father took Caleb aside one day and spoke to him of a young unmarried mother at the mission down the track who needed a husband. Well what could Caleb possibly have to lose, he wondered as he and Father prepared for the two-day journey. He could risk ending up a lonely old bachelor or take the offer of a wife and child sight unseen and hope that she had more than her fertility going for her.