Hill of Grace

by Stephen Orr

  Walking out back he found William in Arthur’s stock paddock, the pair of them chasing a ewe with a stuck lamb. Seymour walked up to them as Arthur held the ewe and William rolled up the sleeves on his best white shirt, handing Seymour his jacket and undoing his tie. ‘Here, I’ll only be a minute.’

  The lamb was already dead. They left it for the foxes in the tall grass as the mother licked the placenta and eventually drifted away. William walked with Seymour to his wash-house, cleaning up and saying, ‘It’s a miracle Arthur still has a farm,’ by which he really meant the weedy oats, vinegar wine, undrenched and unvaccinated stock, and flowers. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone making a living from flowers,’ he continued. ‘Flowers you can grow in your own garden. Who needs to buy Arthur’s?’

  Sleeves were adjusted, ties tied and jackets straightened as they set off towards town. Seymour carried a pile of spare leaflets and William his Bible. Seymour said, ‘Fella on the radio reckons all this is atoms.’

  William laughed. ‘He would. Apart from the Methos, radio’s full of funny men and frog dissectors. Pity they see it that way, there’s a whole world of lost people.’

  Which was the purpose of today’s mission – to walk up garden paths and knock on front doors, and explain this fella Jesus to people. How he was portrayed in the Bible and what he did, his smell, the tone of his voice, the way he laid his hands on lepers and allowed himself to be crucified. To save the home-owner in question, whether he or she knew or admitted it. And how He was about to return, as the Bible had promised.

  ‘This fella reckons,’ Seymour continued, ‘that the whole universe was as big as a pin-head and one day it just went bang.’ Describing the expanding universe with his hands. ‘And it’s still moving away from the centre.’

  William knew that the radio pushed God to the edge of the universe. ‘You should get rid of that thing, Seymour,’ he said. ‘It’s like an open sewer running through your living room.’

  ‘I would, only Mary loves the music.’

  They passed the Tanunda Hotel and Juergie’s Restaurant, full of lost townies feeding their gullets with whiting. This, to William, was proof of his scenario – stillborn accountants and plumbers left for the foxes in Christ’s east paddock, warned, but choosing to believe in a universe of atoms. Eventually they stood in front of the gate of number one Edward Street. ‘Feel like the Watkins and Rawleigh man,’ Seymour smiled.

  A young man in a singlet opened the door and said, ‘What you fellas sellin’?’

  But even William wasn’t corny enough to say, Have we got a bargain for you, eternal salvation, absolutely free. Seymour showed him the leaflet and asked, ‘Did you get one of these?’

  The man smiled. ‘You the fellas sayin’ the world’s gonna end?’

  William cleared his throat. ‘That’s a common misunderstanding. Jesus will come and live amongst us. You can still grow your tomatoes and peas.’

  ‘Thanks. Bit strange if you ask me. I always thought God was on about lovin’ your neighbours.’

  ‘He was, is. He predicted epochs, times when everything would be brought to a close. Times when people would be judged.’

  ‘Like a spring cleaning?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘And what about me, am I out in the rubbish?’

  Seymour realised that the worst thing they could do was to preach, to appear to be passing judgement. ‘It’s not our job to say,’ he began. ‘People have their own ways. We just want people to know His message.’

  The young man smiled again. ‘So we can’t say we weren’t warned.’

  Seymour shrugged. ‘You’re looking at it in the wrong way.’

  ‘No, no, you said: People will be judged.’

  ‘Yes – ’ ‘And if they’re not hollerin’ hymns they’re going to …?’

  William couldn’t see the problem. ‘Hell.’

  ‘So you fellas have got the nerve to come onto my land and tell me if I don’t agree with your ways, then I’m gonna be boiled in oil for eternity?’

  The missionaries were silent. Again William shrugged. ‘We don’t know, but it may be something like that.’

  ‘You people think the valley’s yours, but this is Australia, mate.’

  William pointed out that Kavel had settled the valley first, starting with the township of Langmeil. The young man replied, ‘We found the bloody place, built the roads. We been quite happy. Don’t see us startin’ no world fuckin’ wars.’

  Seymour took William’s hand and led him back down the path, saying, ‘Thanks for your time,’ as the door was slammed and a female voice inside broke up with laughter. William had to gather his thoughts and calm himself before the next house.

  ‘Is this the best way after all?’ Seymour asked.

  ‘It’ll be fine. The thing is, I suppose, people have already made up their minds.’

  ‘So there’s no point getting your blood pressure up.’

  Seymour shouted William lunch at the Zinfandel tea rooms, introducing him to Cornish pasties with chick peas and ‘vegetables that were still growing this morning’. Talking with his mouth full, as usual, he said, ‘This fella reckons we just broke off the sun, and spun around till we made a ball.’

  ‘They’ve got answers for everything. But where did the elephants and wombats and whales come from?’

  ‘Ah, then they get onto that Darwin fella.’

  ‘I know.’

  Seymour was more of a thinker than William, often wishing the Bible could have explained things in greater detail. ‘How did he do it? Was it like magic? In the end they worked out Houdini’s tricks. So it must’ve been more like a big chemistry experiment, God mixing everything together and then, bang! Maybe that’s what the fellas on the radio meant … no …’

  Stopping, remembering that whenever he followed this logic he ended up confused. Did God have any help; what were the mechanisms, electrical, chemical, mechanical? Were there great storms in the universe that He charged with electricity, producing elements that produced matter? And who was God, and how did he get there? If cause and effect was true, if everything had to start from something, then who made the big fella? An even bigger fella? Who? Where did he come from, and where was he now? William, it seemed, had none of the answers; at least the fella on the radio was trying. And, it seemed to Seymour, if you couldn’t reconcile science with what’s come before then you’re certain to end up with trouble.

  The afternoon passed with general civility, ‘Yes, I did receive your brochure, thank you, haven’t quite had a chance to read it,’ people uncomfortable with religion on their doorstep instead of locked away behind ironstone arches. ‘I’m not willing to have it out here,’ one woman said, closing the door on them, as William replied, ‘Jesus walks Calleske Court.’

  ‘Leave your literature under the mat.’

  Why next year, many people asked, and William replied it had to be some time. Like elections, the mood had to be right. They were the democrats of Paradise, sent forth to persuade the swinging voters.

  There was coffee at the Rechner’s and more English tea at the Doms’. Obvious homes were passed over: Rohwer and Fritschle, Streim and Pastor Hoffmann. Gardening advice was given in Aughey Street and a chook held down for Ma Traeger and her blunt tomahawk, William having to finish the job properly.

  Next door a middle-aged man, whose people neither Seymour or William knew, greeted them in nothing but underwear.

  ‘Would you like a minute to get dressed?’ William asked.

  ‘Do I offend you?’

  Passing on to a discussion of prophecy. ‘The Bible foretold of Israel. But it also predicts that Russia will invade and take over,’ said Seymour.

  ‘Because the Reds are atheists?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You lot are paranoid. Russia spent the war shooting Yids. It hardly wants their country.’ The man scratched his pubic region; Seymour tried to ignore it as he continued.

  ‘There are other signs.’

  The man f
olded his arms, emphasising a pot-belly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Take, for instance, the seven plagues of Revelation.’

  ‘Such as?’

  William, sensing Seymour’s hesitance, took over. ‘Typhus, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio …’

  ‘That’s five.’

  ‘The cancer.’

  ‘None of which existed more than … twenty years ago?’

  William felt his heart racing again. In desperation he opened his Bible and turned to Revelations.

  ‘I don’t want to hear that,’ the man said, hitching his underpants. ‘That says the world’s six thousand years old. At that rate the Grand Canyon would still be a creek. And what about the dinosaurs? You’d have to be a bit simple.’

  ‘It’s a matter of faith.’

  ‘Faith? What about the limestone under the Simpson Desert? How’d all of them shells get there? Six thousand years? That musta been underwater about the same time my old man bought his first Vauxhall. You’d have to be simple.’

  William shook his head. ‘What’s so hard to believe?’

  ‘I feel sorry for you. You’re lost.’

  William turned, storming off and setting course for home. Catching up, Seymour asked, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. We can’t help these people.’

  ‘We can help some.’

  ‘Not enough.’ Thinking how when Jesus preached he didn’t have radio telescopes and astrophysics to contend with, or the devils Darwin and Marx. There’d been a Judas-Rohwer and a Pilate-Hoffmann but that was to be expected.

  Arriving home Bluma fixed them black coffee and strudel and they retired to a seat on the back porch. Seymour asked if they should pray for the souls they couldn’t touch but William just said, ‘Maybe later.’

  Saturday was recycled as the new Sabbath. Between them, the Millerites agreed to meet at William’s each week for a service and late lunch, a ceremony they would institutionalise as their own special time. This was William’s idea, an attempt to develop a small ritual, the smell of pig-on-a-spit and Bluma’s fresh bread spreading out over Tanunda, its radios droning football and the Gardening Hour. He was also being diplomatic. William didn’t want to insist the others stop attending church; if it came down to that, Mary would just get in Seymour’s ear and that would be the end of it. Joshua, too, he suspected of having a bet each way. But among the whole town Arthur, Seymour and Joshua were the only ones who had stood up to be counted. If they had their weaknesses he would have to forgive them; this was the lesson of Christ and the twelve, arguing amongst themselves, full of conceit, daily disappointing him.

  And this is how it would continue up to the End, when they’d be interrupted from their pumpkin soup by sparks in the sky, a valley full of bells going crazy and an unbearably intense light. Dropping to their knees a great wind would blow up and overturn Arthur’s newly made outdoor table-chair combo: a pair of old pews, mounted face-to-face on a frame, a table of his best Tassie oak in between – a movable ark for both praying and eating.

  William sat opposite Joshua, who smiled at him. ‘You’ll never send it in, William.’

  And as if to spite him, William started writing. Previous name: ‘Miller, William’. New name: ‘Muller, Wilhelm’. He signed the bottom, folded it and slipped it into an envelope. ‘Do we have any stamps, Bluma?’

  She looked at Joshua. ‘Of course he’ll never send it. William, it’s been twelve years. Who’s going to go back to calling you Wilhelm? It sounds like the Kaiser.’

  Joshua laughed. ‘You’re an Austrayleeurn now, William. You have to try fit in.’

  ‘I’ve been Australian for a hundred years. Doesn’t mean I’ve ever stopped being German. Bluma, stamps?’

  ‘No.’

  He placed the letter in his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll fix it up on Monday.’

  Bluma laughed, basting the side of pork the men had hung over an open fire. ‘You’ll need a sign around your neck: “Wilhelm, not William”.’

  ‘Finished,’ Mary Hicks said, tying off the last row and holding up a crocheted jumper. An angular, blue Australia floated in a sea of variously coloured leftover wools and on the back, an even more angular kangaroo sat in a field of green two-ply. ‘Arthur.’

  Arthur dropped his paint-brush and walked over. She sized it against him and he tried it on, smiling, shaking it onto his body like the skin it’d soon become. ‘Many thanks,’ he said, but Mary replied it was little compared to what he did for them, for all of them, running her hands across the finely sanded oak of the table.

  She ordered him not to wear it for painting, although he didn’t see the problem. His bedroom was full of piles of paint and grease splattered clothes sitting unwashed on the floor.

  Removing the jumper, Arthur returned to the banner (one of Bluma’s donated sheets) on which he and Nathan were helping the other kids paint PLAY FOR THE APOCALYPSE: the title of the play William was writing, coming to life in thick, black letters. Between pencil lines Nathan had scored with his new drafting set, the six Heinz children, led by the eldest, Sarah, helped Victoria, David and Chas do their best to stay within the lines. Nathan refilled paint jars as Arthur attached bamboo poles to either end of the sheet. When it was finished it would form the backdrop to a stage-on-wheels which Arthur planned to build – like his cross, a movable show which could be taken any place, any time, in search of an audience.

  William laid the first draft of the script on the table. It was conceived as a children’s play, with Nathan the returning Christ and the other children the saved and un-saved. Special effects and music would be involved, but it was still in the planning. At one o’clock, Mary and Catherine Heinz helped Bluma lay out the salads they’d all contributed. Arthur’s ark was covered with the traditional and the nouveau (Mary’s Mexican carrot salad), sharing their smells under a big, blue winter sky. William sat at the head of the table – content, sure that God was looking down and blessing them as everyone else in the valley sat indoors beside radios, re-smoking rollies and wandering outside to contemplate sickly agapanthus.

  Like Bruno, standing at the fence watching them. ‘Where was my invite, William?’

  William refused to look over, buttering bread and shaking his head. ‘It’s your choice.’

  Bruno read the words on the banner and thought, maybe not.

  ‘Edna’s frying me up some sausage.’

  William whispered loud enough for the others. ‘Enjoy it, Bruno. Goodbye.’

  The Millerites giggled. They watched Bruno turn to go inside, and heard him mumble, ‘I hope you choke on it.’

  Bluma appeared from the kitchen with the last of the salads. ‘Wash your hands,’ she called, and the children flocked to the wash-house where Nathan was waiting to make sure they used soap.

  Settling in around the table they all joined hands and William began, ‘In the name of the Father …’

  They passed onto a twenty-minute devotion which seemed longer in the presence of food, Bluma swatting flies and chasing a stray from their yard as William returned to Revelations. Explaining how the great wall with its twelve gates, each with an angel, was their way into the Kingdom: a city of pure gold and precious stones, the gates themselves pearly and a great temple in the middle.

  As William prayed, Nathan looked around at the bowed heads and wondered. He caught Sarah Heinz’s eye and mimicked death-by-endless-prayer, but she just bowed her head and closed her eyes. He wondered where Lilli was, and wished he was with her; he knew that of the several lives he led, some were better than others. As Nathan had expected, William dominated proceedings. Seymour was his straight man, the Stiffy of Tanunda feeding lines to a reluctant Mo. ‘Eh, William, what about Fred Murray?’

  Bluma placed the meat on the table and William started carving. ‘We asked Fred if he got our brochure,’ William said. ‘“Yes, sir”, he says. “But it’s like this … I wrote three hundred odd songs for the stage, and any of them what mentioned Jesus flopped.”’

  Seymour star
ted taking plates and laying out pork. ‘Next thing you know, we’re in his music room. Fred sits down at his piano and says, I wrote this one for Alec Hurley:

  I’ve found a lovely little tart,

  And every night and morning I go to court ’er;

  When waltzing around the town, I fairly take ’em down,

  With Mary-Anne the ’addick smoker’s daughter …’

  Without looking up, Nathan said, ‘They used to bring him to school to perform for us.’ Unaware of why their concerts stopped, the piano lid lowered during a rendition of They Went to the Usual Place in front of Mrs Powell’s combined 4-5s.

  Nathan macerated a pile of egg noodles with his fork and wondered what Phil was up to. Probably road-testing a Melchior double-wheel chair for Bob, he thought. Racing up and down the Drummond’s crumbling driveway at dangerous speeds, occasionally losing his balance and ending up in Rose’s petunias, fluffing up the flat ones before she noticed.

  ‘How are your new living arrangements, Nathan?’ Catherine asked, spooning herself some of Mary’s coleslaw.

  ‘The Drummonds are groovy.’

  William looked at him through a forest of food. Groovy. Not the Nathan he knew. He put it down to the son, described by Nathan variously as a young Errol Flynn and a down-market Einstein, stopping Speaker’s Corner with comments the dimwit Lefties and Rationalists couldn’t counter. At other times Nathan had described him as a Mahatma in corduroy, awakening thoughts he’d never had, like how Japan was offered up as a sacrificial lamb, reduced to rubble as a warning to Stalin, and how Hitler could’ve been stopped, but how he was more valuable as a buffer to the East.

  ‘Where does he get this from?’ William had asked Nathan the previous night. ‘At sixteen he understands politics better than anyone?’

  Spooning herself some carrot salad, Mary said, ‘He’s a lively one. Bluma says he keeps a diary of toilet scribblings.’