Every Secret Thing

by Marie Munkara

  *pit toilets

  But all the bush mob knew how to use a tap. Once they were turned on they stayed on, day and night. And if you left the plug in the sink you could have your own little creek flowing through the house and down the front steps and you could go to sleep at night listening to the musical sounds of running water, like in the old days when everyone lived in the bush.

  And it was while doing an inspection of the new houses one day that Brother John and Brother Paul noticed that the houses were in fact disappearing. Where were the doors? Why was there a gaping hole instead of the window? Why had Jeremiah lit a fire on his lounge room floor and burnt a big hole in it? But the new house mob just couldn’t understand why Brother John and Brother Paul were going all red in the face and waving their arms around and yelling at them. What did they want doors or windows for? They wanted the breeze to blow through to keep them cool, because it got really hot under the corrugated iron roof and walls of their houses. And where else could Jeremiah have a fire? He was told he couldn’t have one in the yard because he wasn’t living in the bush now and it was an eyesore, so what else was he supposed to do? This mission mob was getting harder and harder to understand.

  But it didn’t stop there oh no. You’d think the mission mob would realise that even though you can dress a monkey in a suit, you can’t teach it quantum physics. But it was their expectation that the bush mob would go straight from the bush shedding their nargas and spears to arrive at their new houses dressed as muruntanis and with their heads full of muruntani knowledge. So they built more houses until they could proudly tell the Bishop and anyone else that would listen that none of their bush mob lived in the bush anymore. Of course they omitted to mention the chronic overcrowding in the little corrugated iron shit boxes because they were too busy focusing on the fact that they’d turned these savages into sophisticated house dwellers. Yes, this mission mob was getting harder and harder to understand alright.

  Taking Leave

  As the months passed Augustine and Fatima began to feel a really special love for their grand-daughter, little Tapalinga. The fact that she was not a product of their son’s loins made no difference whatsoever. Blessed with a sunny disposition the journey from her place of birth with her mother to the mission had not caused her any great distress, nor had the subsequent immersion into her new life and the new faces around her. The child would sit for hours, quietly contemplating life or watching the caterpillar that was crawling across her little brown leg, or intently observing the activities of the other people around her. Soon a really deep bond began to develop between Augustine and Tapalinga until it would be most unusual to see him without the little one on his shoulders or toddling beside him. He would share his food with her and sing her songs from the old days until she drifted off to sleep in his arms and then he’d hand her over to Judy who would put her to bed.

  But, apart from her parents, her doting grandparents weren’t the only ones who were interested in Tapalinga. Since her mother’s marriage to Caleb at the mission chapel a few months previously the mission had been quietly but intently observing this new little coloured one and planning their moves. And as with all the coloured kids before her, they left her alone just long enough for everyone to get really attached to her and marvel at her new words and her cheeky smile and all the precious little things she did before she too was spirited away to the Garden of Eden.

  Those who were left behind dealt with the pain of their loss in whatever ways they could until time took the edge off their suffering. But the shadow of the little girl would always be there and she would visit them in their dreams to let them know she hadn’t forgotten them. As for Tapalinga, like all the rest of the kids in the Garden of Eden, her wounds slowly healed until they became aching scars. In time she’d become accustomed to her new name and stopped screaming every time she saw a white face because she was quite young, and the mission mob felt that there was hope for this one who hadn’t yet been tainted with the bad habits and disposition of her mother’s black race.

  And after she left the mission she journeyed from one family to the next, unable to fulfil their expectations because her seven-year-old arms mopped the floor too slowly or her nine-year-old hands didn’t wash the clothes properly or she took her floggings with a defiance that spelt trouble in her owners’ eyes, and Tapalinga began to wonder about her place in the world. Was it really true that her mother was a woman of the streets as his Most Unkind the bishop would nonchalantly bring up in conversation when her families would visit him so he could see what a wonderful job they were doing with their little charge? Should she really be grateful for her life of servitude, as the baker would declare to all and sundry while he passed the bag with the loaf and half dozen bread rolls into her waiting hands? Was the boss really telling the truth when he said she was very lucky to have him fuck her because she was a diseased piece of rubbish that no-one else would want? Yes, there were a lot of things that the child mulled over as she went about her daily chores.

  And then one day when Marigold had been in domestic service for about nine years (the last three with the Joneses) the neighbours came over to visit Marigold’s ‘family’ with their new ‘nigger’ Perpetua. A buxom young girl in her late teens, she wouldn’t have been much older than Marigold. And, wouldn’t you know it, she came from the Garden of Eden too. While their owners were lamenting the fact that trustworthy, hard-working hired help were hard to get nowadays so thank God for the free – albeit unruly – supply from the mission, Perpetua was able to tell the child all sorts of interesting things. They called each other sister where they came from, she said, and her mother’s name was Kwarikwaringa and her father was one of the brothers from the mission. The child had a mother too. She was called Judy and she worked in the mission laundry. Tapalinga was really interested to hear that Perpetua had already had four previous bosses and they’d all fucked her so it must be something that bosses did. The trick was, she now learnt, to use salt and plenty of it if you didn’t want to end up pregnant and tossed out on your ear. And Perpetua said that one day she was going to get a job and save her money so she could go to his Most Obstructive the bishop and ask permission to have Tapalinga live with her.

  And bless Perpetua and her kindly heart because this gave the child, who until then had never experienced hope, something to believe in. But alas, the best-laid plans of the bush mob are always guaranteed to stuff right up as Perpetua found out when her belly began to swell – not enough salt perchance – and the neighbours began to talk. And then poor Perpetua was given the expected flick before she became too much of an embarrassment to the neighbour and his family. They certainly couldn’t keep her on after this. Despite being locked in her room each night after she’d finished her work, the little harlot must have found a way to sneak out looking for men to seduce. There could be no other explanation for her pregnancy. The neighbours couldn’t say they hadn’t been warned about this tendency towards licentiousness in coloured girls; it’d happened too many times to other families they knew that had taken a coloured one in for domestic service.

  But Perpetua, what a girl! It was off to live in the long grass and the parks with the other itinerants for her where she could scrounge through bins under the cover of darkness for scraps of food to sustain her and the growing child in her belly. Luckily, after her baby was born one night under the fragrant embrace of a pink frangipani, there were plenty of white men around to keep this enterprising young girl busy. They’d pay for her services with grog or bits of food. You never gave these girls money in case they went into a shop to spend it and offended the white patrons with their smells and unkempt hair and appearance.

  Perpetua had found her place in the world. But sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for the seeds of insurgence to find a nurturing little nook where they can grow and be fertilised with a steady dose of anger. And so it was that the seeds that Perpetua had scattered onto the fertile field of Tapalinga’s m
ind started to grow until they wove themselves together into a daring plan. One day she would escape from servitude and find her mother. By now she understood that what had happened to her and Perpetua just wasn’t right and she was going to do something about it. She had worked out all by herself that no-one has the right to humiliate another, to impede and to wound, to steal a person’s right to happiness.

  The hope that Perpetua had given her sustained her through the bad days and the beatings and the bosses who liked to dip their wicks into places that they had no right to. It sustained her through the dark nights when she lay on her thin little blanket on the laundry floor wondering what tomorrow would bring her. And it sustained her when, on the way to the butcher’s one day, she unexpectedly came across a sickly and blood-coughing Perpetua and saw the grief in the young woman’s eyes as she asked Tapalinga to let her mother Kwarikwaringa know – when she escaped one day – that her daughter was doing really well and she loved her and that one day they’d be together again.

  If only Tapalinga had known through all her suffering in those days that it wasn’t only her and Perpetua against the world, that there were many others who were neither black nor white who shared the very same plight and had the very same plans to escape, then the years might have passed by a little more easily for her. But she didn’t know that. And when she heard some time later that no perpetual light was going to be shining for Perpetua and the struggle was finally over for her, she cried because she knew that her friend would have been frightened and alone when she left this world with nothing to show that she’d been here at all except for the memories that lived in Tapalinga’s heart and the bones of a tiny malnourished baby buried under a glorious pink frangipani.

  Noah’s Revenge

  You could tell there wasn’t much going on in the space between his ears but Jock, a paternal second cousin of Father Macredie, had been appointed the head gardener of the mission. Having worked as a taxidermist’s assistant in Melbourne for most of his adult life, Jock had led a rather banal existence which comprised of going to confession on Saturday, mass on Sunday and the local brothel on Friday after work. The routine never differed. And being a chronic hypochondriac, Jock’s move to the tropics only served to fuel his already active imagination as he spent his first week huddled in bed under a mosquito net, fretting about the multitude of diseases that lay in wait outside his bedroom door.

  When he finally got out of bed he found the tropical weather to be even more taxing than his fear of premature death, and even though the mission mob were heard to frequently bemoan the lazy blackfellows who sat around on their arses doing nothing all day, it was a well-observed fact that Jock outdid them all. His capacity for indolence hadn’t been lost on his wife of forty-two years either. The poor bugger had cooked and fetched and carried for him all her married life until – out of spite, Jock would say – she finally dropped dead, leaving him to fend for himself. The thought of not having a mother or wife to tend to his needs was more than he could bear so a quick phone call to Father Macredie soon fixed that and Jock was once again able to concentrate on his ailing health while his day-to-day needs were placed in the caring hands of others.

  Even though his wife had done all the gardening as well, Jock felt he’d learnt enough sitting on the sidelines all those years to do what was now expected of him as head gardener. And as far as Father Macredie was concerned, being born white was all the credentials he needed to give the man the job because it would have to be more than poor old black Noah the mission gardener could offer. Being mindful of his delicate constitution and to be on the safe side and ensure his gall bladder didn’t flare up again, Jock let Noah know in no uncertain terms that he would be supervising him from a shady spot where he could sit down and not over-exert himself. But Noah didn’t take too kindly to his new working arrangements. It wasn’t so much Jock’s incessant whining about his pancreas or the headache that was probably a tumour on the brain or his arthritis that irked the poor old Noah, but the shame of being demoted to nothing more than a gardening shit-kicker and not even being given the courtesy of an excuse. Despite Noah’s years of loyal service, many of the mission mob found Father Macredie’s arrogance to be quite justified. After all, it was a bit presumptuous of Noah to think that after seventeen years the position was permanently his, especially if there was a white man to do it.

  ‘But why?’ Noah had asked, his voice quavering as he bailed Father up against the convent rainwater tanks with his pitchfork.

  But Father was not to be moved by Noah’s little display of emotion and brushing him aside walked on. He knew how the bush mob thought, and how with their limited intelligence they didn’t cope too well with responsibility, so really he was doing Noah a favour. If you gave a black person a bit of power and control, trouble is what you’d get. They’d start getting cocky and next thing they’re telling you how it’s done not how you want it to be done, like when Noah had insisted that the tulip bulbs Father’s older sister had sent him wouldn’t grow in the tropics or else they’d already be growing there. What the hell would an uneducated primitive like Noah know about tulips? It was obvious they didn’t grow because nasty Noah must have sabotaged them to make his point. Yes, he knew that he had to exercise strong control over this bush mob who, unchecked would pose a threat to very existence of God. Because if people stopped believing in Him then He wouldn’t exist anymore, would He, and heaven and hell wouldn’t exist either and people like the Pope and the mission mob would be out of a job, and that would never do.

  And so it came to be that the once beautiful beds of flowers and exotics around the mission fell into a slow and unsightly decline. It wasn’t too noticeable at first, just the odd rose bush here, a stand of heliconias there, an aralia somewhere else, and as each little bit died away, so too did pieces of Noah’s spirit wither and crumble to dust.

  And it was only a matter of time before Noah found himself being hauled over the coals by Father Macredie. Jock the wily Scotsman had already escaped culpability by laying the blame squarely at the door of Noah’s insubordination and insolence. And as nepotism speaks louder than words, Noah copped the barrage while Jock stood by, relieved that he’d been spared the wrath of Father Macredie.

  ‘It’s a total disgrace,’ said Father. ‘Everywhere I look there’s nothing but weeds and more weeds. God is very disappointed in you, Noah, and so am I.’

  Noah looked at his feet and said nothing. What was there to say? He was quite aware of the weeds and of the fact that Jock had shafted him to save his own useless arse, so why bring the Almighty into it.

  ‘Look at me. Say something!’ Father screeched.

  But Noah continued to look at his feet and say nothing. He couldn’t look at a man who chastised him as if he were a naughty little schoolboy.

  And as the gardens fell into even more disarray there was nothing anyone could do except watch with growing dismay and wonder why Noah, who had Jock to supervise him now, should be acting like this. Talk about ungrateful. As for poor old Noah, it was bad enough listening to Jock who had enough ailments to kill a herd of horses and was getting quite paranoid by now at how people would scurry off whenever he hove into sight.

  And it was while they were having their smoko one morning and Jock was tearfully explaining his heart condition for the third time since breakfast, the perspicacious Noah had his brilliant idea. Like his bush namesake Tuwiika, ‘the whirlwind’, who helped disperse seeds so his country would grow and flourish, so he too would disperse and sow the seeds of destruction. Inspired not only by revenge but also a sense of his own greatness, Noah took back control of the garden. He set about collecting the seeds of weeds and native grasses and prickles in little squares of paper and tying them up in his hanky and then sowing them in great numbers in the most annoying places. Trousers and habits were laced with irritating grass seeds while socks and woollen stockings had to be dispensed with altogether. Three-corner jacks found t
heir way into bed linen and empty shoes that waited for unsuspecting feet, while exclamations of shock and pain were a daily event on the verandahs when mission mob arses were lowered onto rattan armchairs baited with prickles.

  All the while Father continued to tutt and shake his head in despair as he pulled yet another grass seed from the crotch of his Y-fronts while the prickles and weeds proliferated and the wiliness of dear old Noah grew. To the end of his days Noah always felt a certain affinity with the weeds and the prickles that nobody loved or wanted and that people tried so hard to tame, because they reminded him so much of the bush mob and the way the mission mob were trying so hard to tame them too. And years later, long after the old man had passed on, the stories of Noah the Wise who had taken on the might of the mission and won even though they didn’t know it, would still bring howls of laughter from the bush mob because no matter how well a garden is tended the weeds always win in the end.

  The Missionaries

  They were a strange-looking pair, he with his buck teeth and she with her wall eye and flaming red hair. But having already served ten years at a mission in Papua New Guinea and having come highly recommended by the Bishop of Port Moresby, their credentials were too good to ignore. Young Andrew Mackenzie and his wife Mabel were lay missionaries who attacked everything they did in life with an enthusiasm and zeal that was quite astounding – but tiresome too for those who were carried, too weak to protest, along in their wake.