One Place

by Cara Shaw

  He looked into the distance. Coralie’s eyes had glazed over a little, even though she had heard this story hundreds of times, it still caused her pain.

  “No, no you are wrong,” countered Nico. “This is kidnapping – it is against the law. You must mean something else?” He glanced around at the silent serious faces around him.

  “You cannot be… you mean this is true?” he said in horror. Sara put her hand on Nico’s arm, “Yes love, it’s true,” she said kindly.

  He put his hand on hers, “They took them, these small children?” He was sickened.

  “Well love, yes… most of those kids never saw their parents again.”

  Nico felt disoriented. “I am sorry, I have to go outside,” and he left the small house to stand in the garden taking in deep breaths.

  Coralie followed him. “I’m sorry Nico. I know it’s very hard to hear the first time,” she looked at him sadly.

  “Coralie, that could have happened to my father, my grandfather! If they had been born here, that would have been their life.” It was difficult for him to take in.

  “Maybe they were lucky.” said Coralie, “My guess is that even if Robbie knew Maria was pregnant, he would have been reluctant to bring them out here anyway. He couldn’t have gone to meet her in Italy either.”

  “Why? I feel that if he had known he would have gone!” An angry flush passed over him.

  Coralie was silent for a moment. “Nico, Aboriginal people weren’t allowed passports, they were not legal citizens. The reason he went to war in the first place was because all soldiers at the time served the Empire under Queen Victoria. Only Robbie Dalton will ever know how he ended up in the Australian Army, and he’s long gone.” She reached over to hug him tightly, “I’m sorry Nico.”

  Nico hugged her back and then pulled away to scan the stretch of paddocks that surrounded the Murruma houses. It had been a long day and he was tired. A gamut of harsh realities had been laid before him from the moment he’d entered the Duradjuri Corporation Office. Was he himself Duradjuri? He felt completely Italian and he had no real reason whatsoever to claim a heritage as diluted as the one he had been presented with. To most it would have been no more than an anomaly in the bloodline that could easily have been put aside. Nico hadn’t done this. He had been dogged by dreams and a restless spirit that had brought him halfway around the world to discover a people, who although were determined and proud, had once been subjected to the worst kind of repression and discrimination. It gave him an unfathomable sense of pride. He felt Coralie’s arm around his shoulders.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing here mate,” she said kindly, as though she had been following his thoughts. “But I think it’s time you sat down and had a talk with Mickey Pace.”

  Coralie lead him back to the house where Mickey and Sara were finishing their tea.

  “Alright if Nico stays with you tomorrow tonight?” she said.

  “Yeah, no worries,” said Mickey, scrounging around in his backpack for his keys.

  Coralie gave him a meaningful look, “Maybe, you could take him for a walk. Camp out.”

  “If that’s what Nico wants,” he countered placidly.

  After arranging for Mickey to pick him up the next day, Coralie dropped Nico back to his accommodation. They sat in the car a moment.

  “A day of surprises,” she commented.

  Nico looked at her, “Yes,” he kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” she said softly.

  He watched as she drove away, and then wearily went to his room to consider the events of the day.

  Mickey barrelled up the next morning and sat outside the holiday letting honking the car horn.

  “Come on mate,” he yelled out.

  Nico hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and got in, making sure to put on his seatbelt after noting from the previous day that Mickey was quite an erratic driver, generally speeding up and slowing down according to his mood or conversation. As they left Billington they got to talking about the overt racism that had been prevalent in the town when Mickey was growing up.

  “We weren’t allowed to go in the public pool for instance, we were banned because we’re black.” Micky was matter-of-fact.

  Nico felt overcome with a sense of shame – for both sides; the discrimination against the Aboriginal people he was now growing to understand, and the ignorance of the dominant European culture.

  “When was this?” he managed to ask.

  “Up until 1967. So, I’m fifty-five now, yeah, I was eight. I remember it.”

  In 1967 Nico’s grandfather was the darling of the club-set in Rome and the most popular man in the city. Had he been born in Australia rather than Italy, a public career of that nature would not have been possible for him.

  “And who made the change?” Nico asked.

  “It was Rob Dalton who campaigned for years against it, then the deal was sealed when Charlie Perkins came in with the Freedom Riders. Charlie was born in Alice Springs, he was an activist. Him and a bunch of university students came into Billington on a bus from Sydney. He just walked in to the pool, paid the money and went for a swim. He wasn’t actually breaking any laws, so no one could stop him.”

  “So why didn’t people try before?” Nico already knew the answer, he had seen the evidence at the exhibition in the museum. He wanted to hear it out loud so that the fact would stay embedded inside him forever.

  Mickey looked resigned. “Because we weren’t welcome mate.

  That’s the basis of all discrimination – when no one wants you. It’s a very powerful idea, and I cannot emphasise enough – it is just an idea. Young people in particular feel it and wear it hard, I know I did. Even now some kids don’t cope, depends on how you’re built on the inside.”

  “It’s sounds so futile, like there’s no way out,” Nico gazed sadly out of the car window, fingers tapping restlessly against his knee.

  Micky switched into four-wheel drive, pulled off the road and stopped near a clearing.

  “The answer for us is knowing who you are mate. It’s about being Duradjuri,” and he got out of the car. Nico followed.

  The terrain was completely unfamiliar to him, and overwhelmingly unlike the lush Italian hills of his home country. The land was made up of paddocks and scrub, and the sky stretched on until it hit a dirty horizon. Sharp thistles waited malignantly to dispense splinters into anything that brushed by. He hesitated as an unknown chasm of loss hurled through him but he followed Mickey anyway as he waded through the long tough grass towards a stand of silvery gums.

  “This is our country. Duradjuri,” he heard Micky call out. Nico looked around, he wasn’t impressed. The vista appeared dry and somewhat broken to him. Bits of rusting farm debris and abandoned cars had been dumped awkwardly on the ground, and knotted ropes of barbed wire cast tangled shadows on the arid ground. He stopped to scoop up some soil and let it run through his fingers, and saw that it had an aerated, dry quality about it.

  Micky glanced back and watched him. “Grazed out. The land didn’t look like this when our people looked after it,” and he said something derogatory under his breath.

  Nico followed him until they came to an area that was bare of foliage and lay in the centre of the gums. Everything was still, and he watched as Mickey peeled a branch from one of the lower growing bushes and began to walk around, sweeping the branch over the dirt, singing into the afternoon. Nico heard a sharp retort from a crow and when he looked up it shot swiftly away.

  “That’s spirit,” he heard Mickey say. “That one don’t need to be here,” and he went on. He returned to Nico with a grin. “All done, we’re going to stay here for the night. This is a bora circle, only Duradjuri men can come here.”

  He patted Nico on the back and all at once he felt a sense of inclusion and ceremony. They spent the next couple of hour
s collecting kindling for their night fire, and Mickey chatted to him as they did so. He told Nico the history of the circle, and the importance of initiation to the young men of the ancient tribe.

  “I don’t want to be initiated,” said Nico genuinely alarmed – he had been baptised a Catholic.

  Micky laughed, “Don’t worry, that’s not even possible. Spirit’s brought you to this place for a reason, so we might as well find out what it is,” and he began to assemble their camp. They returned to the vehicle and brought back two swags and a cooler bag filled with sandwiches and drinks. Mickey noted Nico’s look of surprise.

  “Us mob like to do our hunting and gathering at the supermarket these days,” he joked.

  By nightfall he had the campfire crackling away and the two sat quietly eating and drinking tea, watching as sparks flew away into the night, and then when they had finished Mickey took two boomerangs from his backpack and tapped them together. He sang for a long time, a tuneless chant that maintained the same tempo throughout. After a while Nico was aware that Mickey was using Duradjuri language. He halted abruptly and laid down the ancient weapons.

  “That song’s been passed down to Duradjuri men for generations. Time to paint you up.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a small plastic tub and clicked off the lid. “See Nico, if I do this, the spirits will know where you are, and bring the Duradjuri part of you back into the Dreamtime where it belongs. Are you ready?”

  Nico nodded. Mickey leaned over and drew two long marks across Nico’s nose and forehead and then diagonally down each cheek, speaking to him in Duradjuri which held a steady, comforting rhythm.

  When he finished said, “That’s the end of the story – go to sleep now,” and he tucked the container away.

  Nico lay back on his swag and stared at the evening sky, confounded by the difference in the stellar configurations that existed in the southern end of the world. The sky was vast and domed, and tiny pinpricks of crystalline lights beamed over the solid land. The scent of the campfire surrounded him and mingled with the citrus odour of the insect repellent Mickey had made him put on earlier. He wondered why it was that he had come to be here, and he deeply felt the distance from his homeland. Only eighteen months earlier he had been living a quiet life in Rome, busy with his work and spending most of his time alone. Now he was lying in a swag next to an Aboriginal man in the Australian bush, and for a moment he was astounded. He thought of his grandfather Roberto and his great-grandfather, Robert. Aboriginal men; Duradjuri warriors. His mind began to wander and he looked intently at the cobalt expanse above him, swathed in a falling wash of shining points. Was he imagining things, or could he see pictures beginning to form in the starlit blackness? Men chasing kangaroos with spears, children playing with emu chicks – he was drowsy. He let himself roam further into the other world. He imagined Robbie Dalton and Roberto, father and son, bare-skinned and painted up, dancing, and someone who looked like Mickey Pace, sitting on the ground with clapping sticks while the pair leapt and whirled, stamping the ground, and Nico was lost in a dream.

  The older man led the dance in a magical hunt and the younger man followed everything he did with meticulous care. They jumped high and landed perfectly, feet in the same position, spears held aloft. They’re dancing observed Nico sleepily. The older man stepped aside and watched while his son continued on with the rhythmic movements. Roberto completed the hunting dance by spearing a mystical kangaroo and then held his position for a moment, and then the two relaxed and walked away. Nico wanted to join them but he couldn’t rise from his swag. The older man left the bora circle and his grandfather Roberto turned to look at Nico with dark liquid eyes and a large smile, and then he was gone.

  The next morning Nico awoke before Mickey, who was tucked right down in his swag, beanie pulled so low that only his nose and mouth were visible. He had never awoken lying so close to the ground, and it imparted a secure, primal feeling within him. He was extremely warm in his swag and he lay watching as an opaque mist lingered over the long spear grass that was wet with dew. He could hear everything in sharp relief, and saw that birds of all kinds were roosting in the gums around him. The land was rousing, and as it began to warm up Nico felt his body align with the process. Gradually the birds awoke and made their morning noises, heavy branches creaked against their dependable stanchions, and there were rustles in the scrub that he guessed were native animals, moving around to start their day. The mist slowly dissipated and the sun rose promptly and without ceremony, as if the practicality of the Australian bush required its immediate attention. Nico thought about the dream he’d had last night, he felt as if Robbie and Roberto had come to visit him, to tell him that he had indeed fulfilled his duties to them as their descendant. He sensed a steadying in his psyche and a reconciliation of ancient debts. He stirred up the fire and added some kindling to it and then arranged the billy over it, just as he had seen Mickey do the night before. He was humming - an old club classic of his grandfather’s.

  “Guess you’re singing your heritage now, aye.” said Mickey from his swag.

  “You could be right. Here have some coffee,” and Nico handed him a mug of milky instant. The two men shared some apples and then packed up.

  “I’ll take you to a sacred place, then we’ll be done,” said Mickey. Nico felt as if he were in another world; he could almost live like this forever he thought, just wandering about, listening to and telling stories, sitting by a fire at night. He was aware he hadn’t felt this in tune with himself for years – maybe even since before his father had died. He felt comfortable with Mickey, who seemed to simply accept him just as he was. They walked further into the huddle of gums, the scrub becoming thicker and heavier as they went on.

  Mickey stopped. “There you are. Not many people have seen this Nico. I got a strong feelin’ last night that you need to. Look.”

  They stood before an enormous tree, an ancient ghost gum that was particular to central New South Wales. Nico was unable to compare it to any tree he had seen in Europe. There were strips of rugged bark on the trunk, which hung alongside the nude grey surface of the tree where the giant had shed some of its organic scales. He sensed a deep pulse within the great mass of ancient wood. He looked over at Mickey, who stood with a benign expression on his face, eyes half-closed, as if absorbing the ancient energy from the old monolith. Nico placed his palm against the trunk, just as he did with his beloved old buildings at home and felt the rough and the smooth at the same time. This is earth he said to himself. A thought sprang to mind, the water is the blood of the land, and the trees are its flesh. He breathed in very deeply, Mickey heard him.

  “What you need to see is on the other side,” he said.

  They walked around the massive girth of the tree, and Nico saw that on the trunk, deep complicated cuts had been made, some so old that the tree had absorbed the marks into its growth pattern and the shapes had become intrinsic to the whole organic form. A light buzz ran through him; he wondered, wouldn’t anyone have a physical response in the presence of such natural majesty? Or was it his Aboriginality rising to the surface to meet the deep energy of his blood heritage. It was like the dream he thought, the one that persisted after his surgery. Always holding his breath, battling to reach the surface of heavy water that pressed down on him, then shooting through the horizontal wall and shaking his head – free at last, gulping in great breaths of liberating air.

  Mickey pointed. “These cuts are sacred and very old Nico. They were made by men only, and no woman has ever seen these ones – they have their own places. This is the only one of these trees left in the area, it’s a Duradjuri tree. All the others were cut down and taken to museums by white men,” he frowned unhappily.

  “No …” breathed Nico. The idea was ludicrous to him, the action was as unthinkable as burning down a church.

  Mickey handed him a small axe, “Now it’s time for you to make the cuts. Remember, you do
it for your direct male line.”

  Nico understood and proceeded to make the cuts under Mickey’s direction, sacred male symbols that represented him and his patrilineal links all the way back to Robbie Dalton. It was hard work, the tree was as unyielding as granite and its skin unmalleable. When the last stroke was made, Mickey tucked the axe into his belt and they walked back to the bora clearing and sat on the ground. He took a handful of leaves and lit them, and when they were smoking waved them around Nico’s head. He muttered a few words in Duradjuri then sat back on his heels.

  “There,” said Micky, “now the spirits know where all Dalton’s are. Your ancestors have gone back to the Dreamtime.”

  They were quiet during the drive back to town and Nico asked Mickey to drop him off outside the Duradjuri Corporation office. He exited the car, then leaned in to say good-bye before he closed the door.

  “Grazie Mickey.”

  Mickey flashed him a grin, “You’ll be right mate. Everything’s back where it should be now.”

  Nico closed the door and Mickey drove off with a wave. He had the feeling that a cycle had ended and a resettling had occurred; that he and Mickey were the agents of the change. He walked into Coralie’s office, and she looked up happily when she saw it was him.

  “Mickey took you to the tree?” she asked.

  “Yes. It was the right thing to do,” replied Nico, resisting the urge to reach over and give her a hug.