by Sue Orr
It is at church, there, in His arms, that I am loved, excused of my failings, spiritually protected. Every Sunday we bow our heads and thank Him for the good things in our lives, and we ask Him for protection against the bad things that may be visited upon us. We thank Him for showing us the way, for helping us understand that miracles do not have to be witnessed in order to be true.
We pray that more people may see His light; that they might come through the doors and fill the empty pews. It is during this period of reflection and devotion that I also quietly ask Him to forgive me for the lies I tell. .
I sit at my desk at the museum and attend to business. It is mid-summer and the air inside the foyer is thick and slow.
To the left of the entrance door is a black wrought iron coat stand. It has a capacity of eight coats and there is room, in the little basket around the bottom of it, for several umbrellas. It has a single coat on it, my grey windcheater. The only other thing in the foyer is the postcard stand. The stand, also constructed of some type of black steel, is a two-sided affair, each side holding sixteen stacks of postcards in two columns of eight. It swivels on its solid black base, so that one may see the full range of postcards without taking a step.
There is no reason to have a swivel base postcard stand. All the postcards are the same. They feature a black and white photo of the museum’s exterior. The photo has been taken from a strange angle — almost an aerial shot, ten metres above the ground — and there is no sign in the photo of the building next door or the activity that takes place there. Some of the postcards at the front of the stacks are becoming yellow and curled around the edges; I am obliged, as guardian, to periodically take the front ones out and put them at the back of the postcard stacks.
There is incoming and outgoing correspondence. I have received a letter from the postcard company, asking whether I might consider having a new photograph of the museum taken and the postcard updated.
I draft a reply to this offer, explaining that we are still well-stocked with the previous postcard. I assure the supplier that as soon as I sell the final twenty, I will be in touch to reorder, or maybe discuss the idea of a new image.
As I write, there is a rattle at the door. Someone outside is trying to enter the museum.
A visitor.
I know that the door is locked, so I continue drafting my letter. But this person is persistent. I see the door handle moving up, down, up, down, jerking. The door’s hinges, from this side, slide a little further with each tug of the handle.
This is a maintenance issue. Not my responsibility.
I walk to the door, unlocking it with one of two keys attached to a silver chain around my neck. I open the door to find a man standing on the step. It is difficult to focus in the bright daylight; I must be squinting at him because he asks me:
‘Did I wake you?’
‘No,’ I reply.
‘Is this the museum?’ he asks.
I am seeing clearly now. I appraise his appearance. He is an older man, perhaps seventy. His clothing is typical of his generation: grey flannel trousers, sharply pressed; a white shirt under a dark green pullover with a v-neck. He wears black leather shoes polished to a shine.
‘Yes it is,’ I say.
‘I would like to visit. May I visit?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry. The museum is closed at the moment. For inventory purposes. You will have to come back another time.’
The old man nods and begins to turn away.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say, remembering the letter I was writing. ‘Would you like to buy a postcard instead?’
His face lights up, I can see he is pleased the visit has not been wasted.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes I would, that would be lovely.’
I go inside and take one of the better postcards off the rack. I use my handkerchief to wipe the dust off, and take it to the man at the door.
‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ he says. ‘How much is it?’
‘Twenty-five cents,’ I reply. This has always been the price.
He shuffles along the path towards the road, head down, looking at his postcard.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again to his back, and I watch to make sure that he gets past the drug addicts safely. Then I return to my correspondence. .
My first memory of church is clear. It was winter, and the church was still surrounded by countryside. The city had not yet crawled out to surround and suffocate it. Mother and I left home early on that Sunday morning, before light. She lifted me into the back of the old car, wrapped a prickly blanket around me to keep me warm until the heater functioned properly. Underneath, I wore my very best clothes — my ironed shirt stiff with starch, my pullover freshly washed, my black shorts and my long white socks with little garters made out of hat elastic. Nothing but the best for Him, Mother said. I drifted in and out of sleep as Mother drove into the breaking day, singing hymns to warm her vocal chords.
We had to leave early otherwise we would miss out on a good seat.
There were prayers and blessings, and then it started. One by one, hurt people made their way to the front of the church. There were walking sticks, crutches, even wheelchairs, pushed by people with tears in their eyes. I sat very still. Though Mother told me not to, I couldn’t help but stare at the poor people dragging their sick bodies forward.
I tried to spot the exact injury or deformity of each person. One old man dragged himself along using a single crutch. He had one leg that had given up on him; muscle and bone wasted away and what was left trailing behind in his brown trousers like an empty, floppy sack. I stared especially hard at the sick children, because it was less impolite than staring hard at the adults. I stared at the problems they had, and then at their faces. I wanted to know what they thought about me and my fast-running legs and my strong, perfect arms.
When the last of the cripples reached the front of the church, there was a moment of silence. Then the singing began. Louder and louder, the voices of the believers rose into the roof of the church until it seemed to me that the windows might shatter with the strain of it all.
The pastor was singing too — his face purple with effort, eyes squeezed shut tight to close out all the evil of the world. His head rolled backwards and his arms stretched towards the roof. I took a quick look at Mother to check that she, too, was enraptured with Him, then I clambered up onto my seat for a better view.
It happened. The pastor shook and shuddered, as though he was a puppet connected with invisible strings to a big strong hand hiding in the roof above him.
‘Come to us LORD,’ he screamed it into the air. The words seem to shoot up above him like firework sky rockets; they hung invisible in the air for just a second or two, then boom! They bounced around the walls and ceiling of the church like the thunder that comes out of black balloon clouds before the rain.
‘COME TO US LORD. HEAL THESE BODIES AS YOU HEAL OUR SOULS.’
The sick people threw away their walking sticks and their crutches — clatter clatter to the sides — and one by one they stepped towards the pastor, crying and laughing and shouting thank you. The man with the dead leg threw down his crutch and pulled the bad leg forward, balancing on it. Even the people in wheelchairs lifted themselves forward, slowly, then stood up on shaky nervous legs and took a step.
Just what took place next I could not quite see. There was still a lot of activity at the front of the church, but at that moment Mother finished her dialogue with Him and told me to get down off the seat immediately. It didn’t matter. The best part was over.
We left the church, walking behind the people who had been cured by Him. It was acceptable to stare — everyone looked and hugged each other and all around, saying ‘It’s a miracle’.
I remember very clearly, that first time, looking back towards the pulpit. I wanted to see what the pastor was doing; I imagined he might be having a rest on account of being exhausted from curing people. I don’t recall where the pastor was, but I saw an o
ld lady appear from the back of the church. She collected all the walking sticks and the crutches and the wheelchairs and took them away. .
I finish my letter to the postcard supplier. The foyer is stifling now, too hot to work in. I am obliged, however, to stay until five o’clock. This is stipulated in the contract between museum and guardian.
I find an envelope and fold my letter into three even parts. I address the letter and find a stamp in the sixteenth little compartment of my desk. Then I sit for a time and think.
For the second time this afternoon, my thoughts are disturbed by noise. The drug addicts are outside, at the museum door. I recognise them by their limited vocabulary. Expletives and blasphemy, mostly in imperative form. The door handle moves up and down again.
Maybe they saw the visitor arrive empty-handed, and leave in a state of satisfaction. Possibly they have discussed this, fantasised what opportunities for pleasure might be available here. This concerns me. This is a museum, not a drop-in centre for drug addicts.
They are walking around the building, talking. Someone is running a heavy object along the corrugated iron. The sound muffles, softens as it disappears to the far corner of the building, then builds to a crescendo as it travels back up the other side. They are circling the building. Looking for a way in.
They are back outside the door. I hear voices, His name being taken in vain. I hear references to myself, to what I might be offering people who come to the museum on a quiet afternoon. I am saddened and sickened by the suggestions.
I watch the door handle. It is moving sideways. The extent to which it moves frightens me severely. It is clear that the door will soon be open, that the maintenance issue is now one of urgency.
I again take the silver chain around my neck and unclip it. My hands are shaking. The second key slips off the end of the chain into the palm of my hand. I finger its sharp edges, remembering the day Mother died, the moment when she asked me to lift her head from the pillow so I could undo the clasp at the back of her neck. I remember how she smiled as I put the chain and its precious trinket around my own neck and fastened it.
The key slips easily into the lock of the internal door that divides the foyer and the museum proper. I turn it to the right. My skin is anticipating the cool darkness of the undisturbed air on the other side. It prickles with a cold sweat that begins at the back of my neck and ends on the tops of my hands.
It has been a long time — years — since I have entered the museum. On the last occasion, I moved through the space carefully, quietly, feeling my way in the dark. Stopping to pick up the beloved objects, run my hands along their smooth cool surfaces, feel the indentations made by their former owners.
Now I step forward into the black space, and lock the door behind me. My arms are stretched out in front of me; I am blind in the darkness. I am feeling for the edge of the first table; my memory says it should be three steps away. My fingers touch rough timber; I feel the corner of the bench. My hands move slowly, carefully, along the flat surface. Very soon, I should be touching the first item in the collection.
JUDITH
Judith was a looker, there was no denying that. Dark chocolate hair with honey streaks that played the light. Doe eyes that said come hither, if you dare. A beard the colour of full cream milk beneath her dainty jaw, as splendid as a linen napkin.
But it was her necklace that made her special.
It was thick and white and sat snug around her elegant neck, as though handcrafted exclusively for her. In the middle was a tiny black square and, to one side, a smart silver buckle — a feature that contrasted nicely with her brown coat, she believed.
Judith drove the billy goats crazy; they had never before encountered such élan. She could take her pick from the mob simply by flicking that pretty head, with its stunning necklace, towards a nearby manuka bush.
‘Come on,’ she would say to young Jimmy, or Granger if she was in the mood for more mature companionship. ‘Let’s dine alone.’ And with a kick of a petite hind hoof, she’d sashay into the bush, billy strutting behind.
But there was more to Judith’s allure than good looks and ostentatious jewellery.
She had turned up in the steep hills behind Coromandel township sometime in March. The scrawny, wretched goat renegades had evaded the third and final Department of Conservation kill for the season. Summer is stubborn in those parts — there was still heat in the day. They were sheltering from the sun in a thick pocket of native bush when she appeared.
She refused to share her life story and, as for questions about the necklace, she would drop her long-lashed eyelids to half mast, lift her chin to let that lovely beard catch the breeze, and walk away. There were rumours circulating that she was not wild South Pacific goat at all, but farmed Angora. That would certainly account for the regal air. But who really knew? She was, quite simply, an enigma.
The billy goats found all this intriguing, even without taking into account the necklace. But the nannies saw things differently. Respect turned to envy as Judith bewitched the billys, one after another.
Queen of the mob Nadine was herself a natural blonde, but being with Judith made her feel like a washed-out showgirl. For the first time ever, she noticed her own beard was thinning and, quite frankly, a disgrace. Someone had suggested plaiting it, but this had made it worse.
So she had it out with Judith, face to face.
‘Ok. What’s the story?’ It was a warm afternoon and they were fossicking among the ferns, picking out the tasty new ponga and pikopiko shoots, ringbarking a rimu or two, just for fun. They knew they would get away with it, now that the hunters had given up the chase.
‘What,’ said Judith. It was neither a question nor an answer. It was a what. She was like that.
‘The necklace. Where’d you get it?’ Nadine took a few steps closer and lowered her head to one side, the better to look at Judith’s neck.
‘It was a gift from a friend,’ said Judith, munching on. You wouldn’t have called her unfriendly, as such. Just mysterious.
‘A human friend,’ she added. That was as much as she was prepared to say.
The goats moved slowly through the bush, up and down steep hills and cliffs, feeding at leisure. Now and then, they would come across a treat — clothing, a box of rubbish — left behind by the hunters. Whoever spotted it first would race over and tuck in. Finder’s keeper was the general rule, but there was nothing to stop one goat starting on the sleeve of an old shirt while another came at it from the collar. They would meet, generally, at the shirt tail and finish it with a round of hearty belches.
Life was good. Until the day the hunters returned.
The mob was resting on a rocky outcrop when the two men burst through the bush. Each had a rifle to his eye and a finger resting on a trigger.
The men fired quickly, leaving no time for the goats to scatter. Nadine was first to take a bullet — she cried out ‘run’ as she tumbled first forward, then sideways. But it was as though her collapse had immobilised the others. One after another they fell. There was a feeble round of farewells. Then, silence. Not one had escaped.
Except Judith.
She stood still among the dying goats, blinking slowly at the carnage. One of the men moved towards her and she shivered. She closed her eyes, waiting for the bullet, but it did not come. Instead, he gathered her up in his arms, stroked her head, and whispered. ‘Good girl. Well done.’ .
The mind can block out bad memories after a nasty shock, they say. Possibly this is what happened to Judith, because the next thing she knew, she was sitting in the front of a Toyota Hilux between the two hunters.
They bounced along a rough metal road in the bush. She leaned into their shoulders as the truck swung round tight corners.
‘Shit mate, that was a good score. Got the lot.’ The driver had a cigarette hanging out his mouth and a hand as big as a ham on the steering wheel. And, Judith thought, eyebrows that could do with a good pruning. She resisted the urge to lean over and ni
bble.
‘Yeah. Did ya’ see the bloody damage they’re doing in there. Mongrel bastards …’
‘Oath mate. You did well, taking out the big nanny first. Stunned the lotta’ them.’
The man in the passenger seat had his arm around Judith now, and was gently scratching her ears. Cheeky, she thought. Though it did feel good.
‘She’s a little beauty isn’t she? A bloody darlin’. Ya’ know, I was never sure she’d find them. But she didn’t muck around, did she. Feed her up, and send her back in, eh?’
The truck left the bush and travelled along a single lane road, past paddocks of grazing sheep. It turned into a driveway, clattering across the cattle-stop. The driveway led to a corrugated iron building that had lost most of its brown paint.
Now you wouldn’t describe Judith as a thinker, not in the usual sense of the word. But she knew an opportunity when she saw it. As the truck doors opened, she leapt across the knees of the man in the passenger seat and scrambled out the door. Her back hooves slipped as the man threw himself on top of her, grabbing her around the neck. ‘Oh no you don’t. You ain’t goin’ anywhere. Not with that around your neck.’
He led her to a metal post sticking out of the ground and clipped a long metal chain to the buckle on her necklace. Then he stooped to run a fat, filthy finger over the little black square in the middle of it.
‘Technology eh? Bloody magic,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ she replied. She watched the men get back in the truck and drive away.
Judith made a second bid for freedom; it lasted as long as the chain. Then the necklace cut into her throat and she landed on her back. Her hooves kicked skyward in an unbecoming manner. She stood up and quickly looked around, then stretched that long lovely neck and wondered why the tastiest plants and flowers were always just beyond her reach.
She chewed the foliage to the roots before moving on, slowly, one step at a time. After a while, she found herself tight against the post, with only a couple of centimetres of chain left.