Washerwoman's Dream

by Hilarie Lindsay

  ‘That is your choice,’ he replied.

  ‘How will we live?’

  ‘I will find you another husband.’

  ‘I cannot marry again. I loved my husband.’ She rose and walked into the garden, unable to control the flood of tears. She could not bear the thought that she would never see Ali’s dear face again, never tease him as she ruffled his beard, never lie in his arms again, or feel the warmth of his body against hers in the night. Overcome with grief she flung her arms around a quince tree growing in the garden, sinking to her knees in despair, until the mullah raised her and took her inside.

  The crying eased her pain and later she told the mullah, ‘I must find work … where or how, I don’t know. I understand camels, I can boil a piece of beef, make damper. I will try and look for a situation in a house where I can take my children.’

  The following week she registered with the labour exchange and went to say goodbye to the mullah. ‘Bring the children to play in the garden. Come and talk to me. Allah will guide you. Bismallah,’ and he bowed to her as she led the children out into the street.

  Winifred booked into a hostel and the family stayed there for six weeks until she had only four pounds left. There was no widow’s pension, no supporting mother’s benefit. She had asked the labour exchange to find her a live-in situation doing domestic work. But with three children it had proved impossible. The only work was as a washerwoman where she could earn two shillings and sixpence for half a day’s washing.

  Her day began at seven-thirty and finished at twelve-thirty. Sometimes she worked for a whole day and earned five shillings. If it was wet, she was unable to work, and by the time she had paid her rent and bought food, there was little left for anything else. A neighbour looked after her children and in return Winifred did her washing on Saturday.

  It was a hard life and Winifred was exploited. One employer was always out of soap so that Winifred found herself supplying it. Part of the arrangement was that she be given lunch. Often it was just a meagre slice of bread and jam and a cup of weak tea. She put up with it, needing the work. But when she found she was also expected to chop the wood for the fuel copper she lost her temper and flung the axe across the yard. ‘Damn you! What do you think I am? Keep your wretched washing and get some other fool to do it!’

  It made her realise that she had to find some way to get back to Oodnadatta. The children missed their free and easy life there and though the boys went to a small local school here in Adelaide they were not happy. She knew that Yusef missed his father. They had been very close. But he kept his feelings to himself. She found herself talking to him as if he were an adult.

  ‘You’re the man of the house now,’ she told him. I need you to help me bring up the little ones.’ He looked at her gravely and it was as if Ali was looking at her. Allah may have taken her husband, she thought, but he had given her a strong son to take his place

  * * *

  Winifred was saved when she met Lumut at the mosque. He was about to start a travelling picture show and offered to teach her to drive a car. In addition to the car he needed a utility truck for the equipment, such as the generator to supply power. The idea of a picture show scandalised many of the Moslems at the mosque. With the embargo on reproducing the human form in artwork they felt Lumut was committing blasphemy.

  The mullah was not in favour of Winifred and Lumut travelling together and suggested they get married. Lumut protested that he was married already and managed to convince the mullah that he was a distant relative of Winifred’s husband, so in the end he gave them his blessing.

  They worked the little towns such as Beltana and Marree, with about forty people in the audience and an entrance fee of one shilling for adults and sixpence for children. The hire of the hall was usually one pound and there was the cost of petrol for the vehicles on top of that. Winifred would drive ahead and hire the hall, then put posters up around the town advertising the show and selling tickets. The children enjoyed it. It was the life they knew. And though they missed their father, there were other camel-men around who talked to the boys and took them to the mosque. Pansy was only three and though she sometimes asked for Baba, she was too young to realise that he had gone from her life forever.

  They were travelling for three months. Sometimes the car broke down. Other times it was the truck. It was a good experience for Winifred. She became proficient at driving and Yusef learned how to change a tyre and fill the car with petrol and water. He could make a batch of chapattis and boil the billy. And even the five-year-old Rhamat was able to make himself useful gathering firewood. It was a peaceful interlude that had a healing influence on the family. Lumut was like a kind uncle and the boys prayed with him and treated him with respect.

  Winifred knew it could not last. It was not the real world. Her children needed a settled home. When the travelling show reached Oodnadatta she told Lumut she would not be going on. He took it in good spirits. It had not been a profitable exercise so he sold the vehicles and his equipment and returned to India.

  Winifred moved back into her old home in ghantown and enrolled her sons in the local school. She had no money and their camels seemed to have vanished. At the suggestion of the local storekeeper who was after shirts for his shop, she took up dressmaking. He advanced her the money for the cloth but she had no pattern so that she found it difficult to make the collars sit right. Instead she ordered some cheap shirting in bright colours and made shirts for the natives, without collars. She followed this up with bright red mother-hubbards for the women. To her surprise they didn’t sell. It was the colour. The women said, ‘Too much thunder, missus. All about him jump up.’

  She eventually settled on shalwars for the cameleers. These contained about twelve yards of gathered calico, secured around the waist with a strong cord. She cut them out on the floor of her hut and embroidered coloured flowers on the leg cuffs. She also invested in some goats and sold goat’s milk. It was not enough to live on, so she also took in washing for single men, mostly travellers passing through the town. This meant a frequent stream of men coming and going to and from her hut and the camel-men did not like it.

  She was at the washtub one day when a deputation led by Goolam called on her. ‘Sister, we have been thinking that it is not good that your butcha have no father. We have thought long on this matter and now say that from any one of us you must pick a man for their father.’

  Winifred was incensed. She knew that many of them had left wives behind in India. ‘I do not wish to marry again,’ she said.

  Goolam regarded her gravely, then said, ‘It is not right this thing you do … the mother of Moslem children washing dirty clothes for Christians. In the name of Allah we forbid you to do this kind of work.’

  She put down her scrubbing board and faced the men. ‘Muster all my husband’s camels and I will send them out as we did before. I can get good boys I can trust. Then there will be no need for me to take in washing.’ She had been told by her Aboriginal workers that the other Indian men had taken her camels into their own strings. They had denied it, and told her to go and pick out her camels. But she had no way of identifying them.

  In the end she capitulated and on 26 June 1925 married Karum Bux in a Moslem ceremony in ghantown.

  PART FOUR

  20

  THE ROAD TO MECCA

  THE MARRIAGE SUITED BOTH WINIFRED and Karum Bux. Winifred had security for herself and her children. Karum Bux acquired not only a wife but someone to run his shop in ghantown. He had witnessed her competence with figures as she worked out the consignment notes and bills of lading for the camel-men, and he knew she was honest. It meant that he was free to travel and pursue his other business interests in the Moslem community. She was also a very handsome woman.

  There were other aspects to the marriage. Under Islam it was considered an act of mercy for a man to marry a widow and raise her children as his own, an act that gave him spiritual credit in the next world. As for Winifred, though she knew in
her heart that no one could take the place of Ali, she made up her mind to try to be a good wife. In return her children would have a father, particularly her sons, who were at an age when they needed guidance.

  Unlike her marriage to Ali, which they had celebrated privately, there was a wedding feast, with the men spending days preparing the food. Goolam was kept busy killing extra goats which they cooked in the open in huge boilers. The smell of cooking meat simmering for hours with carrots and onions, together with the pungent odour of cloves, cinnamon, turmeric and ginger, filled the air. There was a mountain of chapattis, and to follow the main course dried fruits, oranges and nuts.

  Karum Bux had given Winifred a length of grey silk and she made herself a two-piece suit with short sleeves because of the heat. She waited with the women, while Karum Bux went to the mosque with the men to make his vows before Goolam, until she was sent for, a length of white silk covering her hair. She was surprised to find that she had no part in the service, except to receive the wedding gift of a string of gold coins which Karum Bux fastened around her neck.

  Later, after the feast, there was dancing, and one of the camel-men played the accordion. Her mind went back to the dances she had gone to on the Darling Downs and to her husband, Charles. She wondered if she had done wrong in concealing the fact that she already had a husband. Then she thought that a Moslem man could have four wives, so why shouldn’t a woman do the same? But she didn’t think Karum Bux had another wife, like some of the camel-men. She had asked and was told that his wife had died not long after he arrived in Australia.

  She put aside thoughts of her first marriage and concentrated on the dancing, watching the men, the fringes of their turbans flying out behind them and their shalwars flapping as they twirled around, while every now and then a shower of sparks shot into the sky as a knot of wood exploded in the fire. The sight stirred her and she could feel the music coursing through her body. She yearned to get up and dance, but she knew that Moslem women did not dance with men. They had their own celebrations. But that was in India. Here many of the women were Aborigines or half-castes and had not grown up in the Moslem tradition. They were just as alien to it as she was.

  As she sat watching she wondered how much longer the celebration would go on for and whether she would be missed if she left. Pansy and Rhamat had fallen asleep and Yusef’s head was nodding. She rose and, carrying Pansy, walked the boys back to the hut where she put them to bed. Then she put on her nightgown and made herself a cup of tea and waited, not sure what was expected of her. She was half asleep when she heard men’s voices outside and the sound of laughter. Then the door opened and her husband was standing in the doorway. She raised her face, trying to read his expression. He had taken off his turban and his long white hair seemed to blend in with his beard. Only his eyes were visible.

  Winifred rose and felt him gazing at her. She had made a new nightgown for her wedding, with drawn threadwork over the bodice and lace trimming at the throat. Her arms were bare and she had taken down her hair which hung loosely around her face.

  ‘You have waited up like a good wife. Go to bed. It is late. I will sleep in the shop tonight and come to you when you are rested.’

  When they finally came together it was all over quickly, almost as if Karum Bux was consummating their marriage from a sense of duty rather than from desire. But she had no way of knowing. He was an old man and she was unable to respond. Without Ali her body felt cold and lifeless.

  * * *

  Karum Bux did not spend much time in Oodnadatta. Winifred ran the shop for him, finding it easy after the hard work of washing and ironing. The boys helped, enjoying the novelty of weighing up dates, sugar, flour, lentils and dried peas. They were allowed to eat the broken biscuits in the bottom of the tin.

  Goolam looked after her sons’ religious instruction and Winifred was pleased to see they were growing up to be good Moslems, as Ali would have wished. The children seemed happy and Karum Bux was kind to them, but her life had settled into a humdrum pattern. She still met the train and did the bills of lading and calculated the freight for the camel-men. She checked the goods coming into the shop, weighed out the food supplies for the camel-men and measured dress lengths, counted buttons and matched thread for their wives. But she had nothing in common with them. The women seemed content with their lives, while she was filled with a gnawing hunger for something different. What it was she did not know — an indefinable longing for change, which she put down to the fact that Ali was dead. Without him her life was empty. Even though she had her children it was not the same. However, she was careful to keep her feelings from Karum Bux. She married him because she needed the security of a home while her children were growing up. Living with him was easier than doing washing and ironing.

  The couple had been married a little over five months when he told her he was going to undertake the hadj. ‘Soon the railway will go to Alice Springs. And then what will happen to us? There will be nothing to carry. Our camels will be worthless. We must return to live in India. But before we do I will make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and follow in the footsteps of Mohammed. See the holy places that I have only heard about.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘It has long been my dream.’

  Winifred knew that once in a lifetime every Moslem who could make the trip was obliged to go on the pilgrimage to the city where the Prophet had his first revelation, and her heart quickened. If he was going then she could go with him.

  They were in the shop, with Karum Bux standing on a box, counting the stock on a high shelf, while Winifred prepared the order ready for him to sign.

  She looked up at him and said, ‘Mecca? You’re going to Mecca?’ The thought of getting away from Oodnadatta and travelling overseas, seeing the things she had heard so much about from returning pilgrims, sent a shiver through her and she could feel her pulse racing. ‘Can I go too?’ She found it hard to control her voice.

  Karum Bux moved the tins of vegetables to a higher shelf. ‘We’ll need another two cases of vegetables.’

  Winifred put her pen down. ‘I said, will you take me with you?’

  Her husband turned and stared at her. ‘It is not possible. I need you to look after the shop. In any case non-believers are not admitted.’

  ‘Do women go to Mecca?’ She felt she had to know. If the answer was yes then she would go with him whether he liked it or not. It was not just to see the holy places but for the chance to escape, if only for a few months.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But they are born to the faith.’

  She digested his words while they went on with their work, only asking in a small voice, ‘How soon are you going?’

  ‘It will take about five months to get the necessary papers and arrange things here.’

  She kept silent, sensing that this was not the right time to tackle him head-on. She had to think about it and work out some way to make him change his mind, knowing how hard it would be. She had not been able to persuade Ali to take her to India and he had loved her. It would be harder with Karum Bux because their relationship was different. But she was a good wife to him, and she thought that if she could prove she was a good Moslem he could not deny her the trip.

  A few days later she saw Goolam striding along the road, his beard flying, his knife belt bobbing up and down on his thigh, and she ran to the front of the shop. ‘Can you spare a moment?’ she asked him.

  He stopped. ‘What is it, sister? I have to get to the abattoir before dusk to kill the goats and say the prayers over their departing souls. Otherwise there will be no meat tomorrow.’

  She poured him a mug of water from the canvas bag hanging in the doorway of the shop and handed it to him. He stood there drinking and looking down at her with his piercing black eyes.

  ‘I need some information,’ she said and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘How many women go to Mecca?’

  ‘Many thousands.’

  ‘My husband is going to Mecca.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I envy
him.’

  ‘He refuses to take me with him.’

  ‘He has his reasons.’

  ‘What reasons? You say women go to Mecca. Then I should be able to go as his wife.’

  ‘Women must also obey their husbands.’

  ‘You promised me that if I married again I would be given three hundred pounds a year and my sons would be educated in India. I have not received the money that was promised me.’

  ‘Be patient, sister.’

  ‘I’m tired of being patient. If my husband goes to Mecca I want to go too. I let one husband go to India without me. He never returned.’

  ‘It was the will of Allah.’

  ‘And what if I say that it is the will of Allah that I go to Mecca? Does He not speak to women also?’ She wondered at her own temerity and whether she would be punished by some unseen force. But then she thought she had already been punished, through no fault of her own, because Ali had been taken from her.

  ‘But are you a true believer?’

  ‘I became a Moslem when I married my first husband. I have kept the faith and raised my sons to be good Moslems. I can recite the Five Pillars of Islam.’ She stood very straight and looked him in the eye. ‘The First Pillar is the profession of faith. The other four are the prayers, which may be taken privately or publicly and must be preceded by ablutions; the need to fast during the month of Ramadan; the official giving of alms, which my husband does on my behalf when he goes to the mosque; and the pilgrimage to Mecca. I have lived my life accordingly. I know that once in every lifetime a Moslem must make the pilgrimage to Mecca. If my husband does not take me, then how am I to get there?’ The words had come tumbling out and she was conscious that Goolam was staring at her with a puzzled frown.

  She refilled his tin mug and handed it to him, then poured herself a drink of water. Her cheeks were flushed and she wondered if she had been too outspoken. She softened her voice. ‘I have no money. My husband does not pay me for the work I do in his shop. And I work for the camel-men for nothing, checking the bills of lading and the freight charges. Do I not deserve some reward?’