by Ben Peek
Ten years ago, he could run all day, and rise in the morning, ready to run again. Tracks were sharp, and bright to his eyes. The night wind was soothing, and he would lie naked beneath it, gazing up into the sky until he fell asleep. But not now. Now he took breaks during his running, and after a whole day, he would awake with aches, and the awareness that he slept longer. He needed a blanket at night, and the tracks he had followed so easily were no longer clear, and the horizon, when he gazed out, was now a shifting, blurring thing.
Worse, age arrived with another barb that Pemulwy had not expected: the animosity of the young.
They argued against everything he did. They brought back the trinkets of the English, and when he ordered them put aside, they told him that he did not understand. That he was old, that he no longer understood, that he was trapped in a time no longer important. To make matters worse, he could not pick up his spear and issue a challenge to respond to them directly. To attack the youth was to attack the future of the Eora.
Other problems had also arisen (and which, with the weave of his thoughts flowing from the fire he stared into, joined the procession like smoke) and that was the bushrangers. The escaped convicts, or white men who had taken to the bush, that, despite Pemulwy’s instructions, had been shown the land by the young. These men—and they were always men—did not fall into conflict with the Eora warrior, but they showed to him the flaw in his early logic. The mistakes his hate had created, for the free men and women in the towns favoured the white bushrangers. They looked to them for protection and, in some cases, a future. From the towns, he had seen mugs, plates, and pipes work their way through the tribes, designed in the faces of the favoured bushrangers [5]. No such thing existed for him, nor for any other Eora or tribesman warriors that fought the English. But was it possible, that if he had aligned himself with the free men and women, instead of attacking them, he might have fought a more successful war against the English?
So closely did his thoughts mirror the argument taking place around him that Pemulwy did not notice it until his name was shouted through the night. That, and only that, drew his attention to the group before him.
They were Eora men and women, but they were not dressed like him. Instead, they wore the clothes of the English: buttoned shirts, pants, boots, dresses, with their beards and hair turned smooth and decorated with reds and blues. At their feet were bundles of their belongings, bulging in various shape and form, leading the aging Eora warrior to surmise that what was contained within would not be welcomed by him.
“He gives us his attention!” cried one of the Eora in English. He did not have a beard, but a moustache, and through his ears were silver rings. “The Great Pemulwy finally looks upon us, his subjects.”
The words were not the same, but he knew them. You’re old, you’re a relic, you don’t understand, spoken in the English language he despised. Unfolding his body from its position, the Eora, weaponless, lean, a map of scars from English bullets that refused to kill him, stalked over to the younger man, who, to his credit, did not sink into the company of his friends.
Quietly, he said, Miago, yes?
“I am called James now,” he spat in reply, angrily returning Pemulwy’s gaze.
Shaking his head, he said, It is a great shame—
“Spare me,” James retorted hotly. “Spare all of us your words. We have been perfectly content away from here.”
Then leave, Pemulwy replied, his voice cool, controlled, his gaze running over the eight Eora behind James—it was such a fitting, ugly name for him—where he found them unable to meet his gaze.
“We cannot!” James said harshly. “Thanks to you and your ways!”
Pemulwy’s eyes flashed with a touch of anger, and the younger Eora faltered for a moment, almost stepping back as he spoke: I have not done anything to you. I have not seen you since after I escaped the hospital, and your father helped me with my injuries.
“You should have died!” James cried, and the Eora who understood his words gasped. “That’s what the Elders said!”
Rather than being angered, Pemulwy felt a thread of defeat work through him. Ten years ago, he would have struck James, killed him for the words, no matter his age. But now? Had he seen too much death? Was it possible that he was not only losing the war, but the will to wage it? You would do well to watch your words, Pemulwy said quietly. Show respect, for you are the one who came here, not I.
“King [6] has driven us out,” James spat venomously in reply. “Because of you! You and only you are to blame for this!”
King? Pemulwy repeated, annoyed, a spark of anger finally igniting in him. King doesn’t run those towns, boy! The soldiers with rum do! He cannot do anything without their approval.
“Not true!” James turned to the Eora behind him. “Tell him.”
“It,” said one, a young woman, “it is true. King has driven us out.”
“He has done it because of you!” James shouted angrily. “Because of your attacks, your raids, because of everything you have done. King has driven us out!”
And what would you have me do about it? Pemulwy returned hotly. I’ll not bow to the English wilfully!
“We cannot go back until one of you are dead!”
Then so be it.
Angrily, Pemulwy spun away from the young Eora and stalked over to the fire, grabbing his spear. The sudden movement caused a snap of pain to run along his chest, but it only angered him further. This was his land! Eora land! It was their past and their future and no one, much less King, would dictate how an Eora would walk across it.
Gripping the spear tightly, Pemulwy stalked up to James, who, shrinking back, knew that he had pushed the warrior too far. The warrior who, for all his age, for all his failures, had still been struck down in Burramatta by seven bullets, and when he refused to die, chained to a bed in a hospital, had escaped with the Spirits aid. The warrior who had fought the English from the day they landed, the warrior whose very name caused fear in the settlements.
That warrior, Pemulwy, said to James harshly, Do you wish to fight me?
The young Eora shook his head.
We cannot fight among ourselves, Pemulwy spat angrily. That is how the English will defeat us. If we separate, if we betray our heritage, then they have already won.
Thrusting the young Eora to the side, his companions parting before him, Pemulwy stalked into the darkness of the bush. It welcomed him and his intent with the comfort and support of a mother.
The Spirit World.
In the middle of the spiral staircase a door appeared. It was a faded red, and had a long, brass handle.
Wooden stairs were behind it, but Twain could not make out a way to reach it, without climbing onto the edge of the stairwell, and risking the grasp of the inky darkness. He considered it, arguing with his fear as he gazed downwards, but the disorientation and nausea was a powerful response, and Twain was left gripping the railing tightly, unable to climb it and step out.
“Mark Twain,” Cadi said after a moment, “we wish to go through the door.”
Biting his lip, he said, “Why wait to tell me that?”
“Sometimes, when a man is different, he will go around it.”
“But not me?” Twain muttered with annoyance, releasing the railing. “I’m just an ordinary man, huh?”
Cadi shrugged. “Does that bother you?”
“I guess not, since I’ve got no desire to go ‘round.” Twain grabbed the door handle, and paused. “Still, there must be something about me. Being a celebrity and all, right?”
“No,” Cadi replied, shaking his head. “A celebrity is just an ordinary man, or woman, given an extraordinary place. I do not understand why, or how, or what even makes other ordinary men and women so fascinated by them. It is beyond me.”
“I think you just lost me,” Twain replied, leaning his back against the door. “I was almost starting to come around, too.”
“The knowledge is here,” the Aborigine said, touching his chest, at the place where his heart beat. “It’s locked away from me.”
Twain shivered, and pushed aside the finger. He was aware, more than ever before, of the stretching emptiness on either side of him, of the frail stairwell he stood upon, and of the fact that there was only one other man in the world with him at that moment. “I think I ought to open this door, don’t you?” he said.
Cadi smiled, but not with amusement.
The door handle turned smoothly under Twain’s grasp, and when he pushed it open, he found that it lead to a set of stairs. But unlike the stairs he left, these were made from dirty grey cement, and lead downwards for five steps, before running into a narrow alley where buildings made from brick and smooth cement loomed over him, and the noises of the world reached into the alley with thin, sticky fingers.
They were familiar noises: the sounds of cars, of people, of music, and the things that mixed between, like dogs, birds, and cooking. But there were other sounds, familiar in the cacophony, but yet, at the same time, alien: beeps, strange, tinny musical tunes, sirens that were not quite right, and more that he could not distinguish fully.
Stepping from the alley, Twain stopped. In front of him was a street, similar to the ones he was familiar with, but at the same time totally different. Moving along it like a school of salmon moving through a stream, were automobiles, the bodies smooth and rounded and so much that they resembled giant bullets. They were an array of colours, from blue, red, green, to grey, and white, and even, in one small automobile that looked like a dented bubble, aqua. Inside the vehicles sat men and women, singular or in groups, just as they walked along the streets, talking into small boxes in their hands, or with wires leading down from their ears and into their strange straight cut jackets or purses or bags. Other men and women did not dress the same, with some wearing simple, dark versions of suits that he was familiar with, and others appearing more casual, in blue and green and orange, among others. Sitting on the sidewalk, however, holding bags to them, were the dirty and poorly dressed homeless men and women that Twain knew anywhere, huddled within doorframes or the edges of alleys, and being stepped around by the walking crowd, who talked and beeped in a susurration of sound.
“You bought me all this way to show me another fantasy?” Twain asked, unimpressed. There were smells in the air, a mix of food and fumes and perfumes, that irritated his nose, and he reached into the pocket of his jacket. “You’ve really outdone yourself on the smells.”
Next to him, Cadi had resumed his bony shape, with the man’s eyes closed, his mouth compressed, and scars mapping his body. Clicking as it moved, the skull said, “This is not a fantasy of mine. None of them have been.”
Twain wiped his nose, and gazed outwards: buildings stretched out like a steel valley, running as far as he could see. It was as he gazed at the building that he experienced a flash of recognition.
“This is Sydney?” he asked.
“In the twenty-first century,” Cadi acknowledged. “We are standing in Kings Cross.”
“I’ve never heard of such a street,” Twain replied, walking down the path and gazing through a glass window. Inside, rows and rows of brightly coloured plastic items sat, but he could not, for the life of him, understand what they were for.
“It is not a street,” Cadi said from behind him. “It is the heart of Sydney. In your time, it is known as Queens Cross, but it will be changed.”
Twain looked into the reflection of the glass, but neither he nor Cadi was there. Accepting it as he did everything, he said, “They don’t say good things about the Cross in Sydney, which I’m sure you’re aware of.”
“And with good reason.” The Aborigine began walking down the path, weaving between the people, leaving him to follow. “The Cross, as it is so known, pumps life into Sydney straight from the English authority that founded it. The name tells anyone walking into Sydney this, yet most of its citizens instead choose to accept it, to treat the Cross as a dark novelty that they can enjoy on a weekend basis. But they shouldn’t. It is not an amusement ride for the masses.”
Twain’s gaze ran from man to woman that he passed, each of them unaware of his presence. Listening with half an ear, he said, “We’ve places like this back home, and they never hurt no one.”
Cadi stopped, and gazed intently at him.
Twain shrugged. “It’s true.”
“So naïve, Mark Twain.” Cadi swept his hand along the storefronts beside them, and pointed down the street, where buildings ran in an endless line. “Why is it that nobody asks what fuels the city? Where is its heart, and what marked it? In Sydney, Kings Cross feeds off an act of violence that took place in 1788, shortly after the First Fleet arrived. Six convicts raped five Eora women in the swamp that was once here. It was here that what the English delivered in its fleet sunk into the ground, into the fabric of the land, and connected with the rotten umbilical cord that wormed out from its mother country. It killed the land. I saw this, and I could do nothing in response to it, until I learned to . . .”
He held up his bony hands, and his skull opened in an attempt of an expression, smile or frown he did not know.
Twain said, “It’s not a good thing, and it shouldn’t happen to anyone, but it doesn’t have to be like this.”
“But it is.”
“Are you—”
Without warning, Twain was thrown to the ground, and a boot cracked into his temple, sending him reeling.
Struggling, Twain felt his feet grabbed, and he was dragged to the side of the street. Legs passed him, people walking, uncaring, while the dark, bony legs of Cadi were just at the edge of his consciousness. He struggled, crying out, and in response, he was slung around, his head smacking loudly into the brick wall.
A rough, white, young face shot into his view, and snarled, “Money!”
Twain shook his head. How to explain that this wasn’t real, that he wasn’t here, and that he was Mark Twain!
“Fucker!”
Twain’s head exploded in pain, and he felt a second punch plunge wetly into his face. He sagged, and once again the boot caught him in the temple. He should have lost consciousness, should have faded into nothing, or perhaps another scene, but he didn’t; instead he saw the young man furiously search his pockets, ripping the wallet and money out, and then, glancing down at his boots, tore them off too.
Without a backward glance, the boy turned, and ran down the street, the flow of people continuing past the fallen Twain.
“This is real,” Cadi said from above him. “It is happening right now. It happens every day in Sydney. The dark amusement ride that is the beat of the city spreads itself out in acts like daylight robbery, sold drugs that kill, underage prostitution, and worse. You could not imagine what is worse. And it is kept alive not by the people, but by the scarred heart that beats here, in Kings Cross.”
Cadi’s bony arms reached down, and helped Twain to his feet. Glancing behind him, he saw a young, dark haired Asian man lying on the ground, blood pouring from his face, his skull split open.
“He will die,” Cadi said flatly.
Twain did not respond. He felt sick and wanted to vomit, but knew that he would not, knew that there was more to be shown to him. In response to his silent acceptance of continuing, Cadi led him to a green door in the side of a building.
1802.
Pemulwy had begun, after the battle of Burramatta, to think of the land around the Harbour as Sydney Cove.
It pained him to think of the Eora land in such as manner, but as he made his way through the darkness, he realized that it was not incorrect of him to think that way. The land no longer resembled anything from his youth: the stingrays were dwindling, the bush had been cut away, trees were replaced with crude buildings of wood and other, more sturdy buildings made from yellow sandstone. Nothing about the land he made his way through resembled th
e Eora land, with the exception of the Harbour itself, somehow retaining its purity, its strength that cut a dark mark through the English land.
Pausing at the top of a hill, the Eora warrior dropped into a crouch and gazed at the ragged ugliness of Sydney Cove.
According to the English, it had been named after a man who had never seen it, and who would never do so. One young Eora had told him that Sydney was a genteel man—though he had been unable to explain to him just what made such a man—a friend of the white beeàna, but that he was a man who held the land, and everything upon it, in contempt. It was not an uncommon opinion, and after so many years of fighting the English, Pemulwy had grudgingly accepted that the only native born Englishmen who did not hold the land in contempt were the Rum Corps [7], who he hated with a passion. He had learned, too late it appeared, that there were divisions as wide as the Harbour between the English here and those in England, and despite his animosity towards them, he believed that if he had known this years before, he would have exploited it.
But of course, he had not.
I have lost my taste for the war, Pemulwy whispered, rising from his crouch, his muscles complaining. I don’t want it anymore. I have watched my friends and family die and walk into the towns, yet the English living here no longer appears as the crime I once thought it was.
Time had, he realized, defeated him. And yet, as he gazed down at the town, he realized that he would not be able to turn away from his current actions: he would still kill King. But it was not for hatred that he would do it, or for the Eora way of life, or even the land. In truth, he did not know why he would do it.
He felt no anger or fear as he made his way quietly down the hill. His hard feet left only the barest hint of a track in their wake, and when he skirted around a pair of Redcoats in the street, he did not attack them. They were young men, and ugly like all the English were to him, but that was not why he stayed his hand. Part of him wanted to believe that he did so because he did not want to alert others to his presence, and in a small way that was true; but mainly, his refusal to step into the street with his spear was the physical manifestation of his unwillingness to continue the war.