Snake Circle

  It transpired that Deloise was not actually a Harvard student. She was enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was not far down the street, and she had cross-registered to do some classes at Harvard. Somehow, she had managed to get one of the scarce dormitory rooms, and became a room-mate of mine in Child Hall. At other times she lived in New York.

  Deloise had been a nun for many years, before losing her religious calling and then having a child. She commuted constantly between New York, where her child lived, and Boston in order to attend school. I went with her once to New York and stayed with her in her tiny apartment, which she kept darkened with thick shades. This was to keep external noises and the like from distressing her infant child who was suffering from some severe handicap, the name of which was never made clear to me. I thought perhaps it was Down’s Syndrome. Certainly, the child kept up a level of moaning throughout all its waking hours, and was severely mentally handicapped. Deloise had a woman living in who cared for the child all the time, so that she could study and could go about her business.

  The building she lived in was in bad repair, and had, I understand, been boarded up by the authorities. However, Deloise had led a tenants’ revolt. The result was that the people who originally squatted in this derelict building took over its administration, became responsible for its repairs, and to all intents and purposes, according to Deloise, they ‘owned’ it.

  We had, against my better judgment, caught a late train from Boston to New York, arriving around two o’clock in the morning. When I suggested we should catch a cab to Harlem, Deloise wouldn’t hear of it. ‘You got money for a cab?’ she asked me brusquely. I nodded, wide-eyed with fear from the thought of riding the New York subway at that hour and willing to sacrifice whatever it took to avoid it. Deloise whooped, ‘Right—so we eat tomorrow’, and dragged me down to the underground platform.

  On the cold and dark streets deep in Harlem, I was sure we would be hit for the overnight bags we were carrying, if for no other reason. I positively tiptoed, anxious to make no sound to draw attention to ourselves, two women walking alone on the footpath, or sidewalk as they call it there. Deloise not only stamped her feet loudly, but she stirred every sleeping body in each doorway as we passed.

  ‘Hi, there, Freddy You still got that cold you had last week? Izzat you, Charley? Well, you go on back to sleep. It’s just Deloise, passing in the night, okay?’

  I could barely believe our good fortune when we arrived at her apartment building intact and still carrying our overnight bags. Deloise, however, was completely unfazed—it was something she did all the time, and usually completely alone.

  Next day Deloise took me, again on foot, around the neighbourhood, introducing me to alcoholics, drug addicts and pimps. She also brought me into a convent so that I could meet nuns with whom she used to work.

  When it was time to return to Boston, we were again walking to the subway with our bags when Deloise spotted a tough-looking youth with a huge ghetto-blaster on his shoulder, coming towards us. We had heard him coming long before he swung into view. I had been told a great deal about these anti-social brothers, gathering in doorways, playing loud music, blocking the streets, and attracting a lot of negative public and police attention.

  ‘Hey, yes, you there,’ screamed Deloise, gesturing wildly. He seemed to point towards one of the knobs of the ghettoblaster with one long thin finger, and the noise level dropped several decibels. Then he pointed the same finger at his own chest.

  ‘Me, you want me?’

  Deloise nodded vigorously. He sauntered towards us.

  ‘Carry mah bag,’ said Deloise. ‘I’m a grown woman and you is a youth. So you be polite now, you hear?’

  The youth took her bag immediately and began walking beside us. I could see ahead of us people moving out of our way as we approached them, he looked so tough and his music was still loud. Then he looked me up and down and made me an offer. ‘I’ll carry your bag, too, if you’ll take this?’ he jiggled the ghettoblaster. ‘It’s very light, sister,’ he added when I seemed reluctant to trade.

  It was light, much lighter than my suitcase, and his face broke out in a grin as we made the exchange. Suddenly I noticed that everyone was jumping out of my way and turning to glare at me as we approached the subway entrance. So, I thought, whoever is carrying the boombox is the baddie, eh?

  When I next visited Beverly, I was delighted to learn that she had taken her tests and was pregnant. Robert grinned like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, but Beverly was very apprehensive. She had been this far before, several times, and each time had been devastated by miscarriage. That explained the roomful of toys and games she had set up in her house and had shared with Naomi.

  While I’d been home in Australia, I had asked Russel to be my representative at the launch of MumShirl’s book, and to prepare a short speech to deliver on the night. Perhaps he would even pick his sister up from Pat Laird’s house, I asked, and take her so she wouldn’t miss out.

  I was unprepared for his brief phone call a few weeks before the book launch. ‘Mum?’ he said when I picked up the receiver, and then, ‘Nobody can look after her better than I can.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Russel?’ I asked, thoroughly perplexed by his defensive tone and words.

  ‘I’ve brought Naomi home. I’m looking after her now. She’ll be alright with me. I’ll make sure she eats properly and comes straight home from school. I won’t let her out of my sight.’

  From twelve thousand miles away, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I assumed there had been some clash of authority with Pat over something to do with Naomi, which had occasionally occurred even between Russel and me. Given the circumstances now, whatever they were, Russel had sorted it out the best way he knew how.

  Russel was an excellent cook, very particular about eating only healthy food, and a fitness enthusiast. He had been almost a guardian angel to Naomi ever since she was born. After I became used to the idea of him taking care of her, I realised that if I had asked him to look after her, he would probably have felt it to be just another imposition I was laying on him. But this way, looking after his sister had been his own decision, and he was anxious to prove to me how responsible he really was. As well, recalling how lonely he had been in the house all by himself, I knew they would be company for each other.

  Another phone call a few weeks later, and both the children’s excited voices came clearly over the line. They had just come from MumShirl’s book launch and wanted to share their high with me. Brian’s stage management had gone wonderfully. He had organised the Wiradjeri matriarchs of MumShirl’s age group to take centre stage, to participate in the speeches, and be presented each with a bouquet of fresh flowers, Brian’s own personal extravagance.

  Brian told me that the participation of the matriarchs had played a big part in the launch’s success. MumShirl’s story was, in so many ways, also the story of their generation. That’s why he had felt they should have their share of the limelight. Not only had they embraced the book, but they’d brought with them all available members of their own large extended families, hence the big crowd. The only down side, he thought, was that the publishers had brought so few books to sell, just a couple of dozen, which had caused great disappointment to many.

  Russel’s speech had been brief, made to a packed room. He complained too that, although he’d arrived very early, every available copy of the book, MumShirl, had already been sold.

  I later learned that a thousand people attended the launch. The event, planned to be held from five-thirty to seven-thirty, had rocked on until dawn, with the local Black singers and musicians taking advantage of the assembled masses to whip up a party and turn on a good night. At the height of the evening, police had even had to ban vehicular traffic from the street to ensure everyone’s safety, because not everyone was able to crowd into the Murawina building and instead milled in the street trying to hear the speeches going on inside.

  My joy at
the news I had received while at home in Sydney, that Blacks could now become permanent in the Public Service, was short-lived. I received a letter from the Health Commission—part of my obligation as a permanent public servant was that I should contribute to the superannuation plan. Would I please therefore sign the enclosed documents and forward my cheque for more than a thousand dollars to fulfil their requirements to effect my change of status. After that I would be required to make regular payments as my share of the contributions to this plan.

  A thousand dollars? Where would I get an extra thousand dollars or so to send them? This was my second year without an income, and I was looking towards several more. I was living on the smell of an oily rag anyway, with the little money I had earned through my holiday work being eaten up by council rates, taxes and small domestic repairs. I had thought that permanency would somehow benefit me. Now I felt that it was more likely to force me to abandon my study plans and go back to work in order to make these payments. Sick at heart, I wrote back that it was absolutely impossible for me to pay at this time, would they please advise me what that would mean for me?

  During each of my study years, I suffered intermittently from bouts of depression. I struggled against the often suicidal thoughts which had lain just under the surface of my normality ever since the trauma that had occurred in my youth. I had taken courses in psychology and counselling, partly in an effort to find a key to dealing with these dark moods which so frequently descended upon me. But everything I had learned had convinced me that only expressing and ventilating my feelings and talking about the event and its consequences, could heal me. However, this was a therapy which, largely for my son’s sake, I felt I could ill afford. I did not trust therapists to honour their obligation to keep such personal revelations confidential. Besides, my silence was such an ingrained habit by this time that I thought I would never be able to break it.

  My psychological problems seemed to manifest themselves physically. Since the birth of my son, I had, several times, experienced pain in my lower back, especially when I was emotionally stressed. This weakness in my spine had been exacerbated, although they denied liability, when a Health Commission car issued to me had a roof so low I had to slump in the seat to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling.

  At Harvard, this back problem recurred. At the clinic, I was referred to a physiotherapist, who told me I would need to change the way I walked to try to relieve the tension that built up at the base of my spine.

  ”Wiggle when you walk. Really move those hips, up and down, and from left to right, as you walk,’ she told me, swaying across the surgery to demonstrate.

  ‘Hey, no way!’ I replied. ‘If I were to walk on the street like that, I’d have every potential sex maniac within coo-ee using “provocation” on my part as an alibi. Marilyn Monroe might have got away with it, but film stars have a battalion of bodyguards. And look where walking like that got her—dead!’

  The physiotherapist was insistent. ‘You walk like you’re trying to disappear, with your tail tucked in, your shoulders hunched in, there’s nothing out there of yours at all.’

  ‘Oh, excuse me. I thought you were just going to give me heat therapy or something like that.’

  ‘I am, my dear, I am.’

  My way of trying to deal with the depressions which triggered these episodes was to force myself to keep busy and focused on events that lay ahead. My son’s pending arrival during his Christmas vacation was one such major event. My heart pounded with eager anticipation whenever I thought about it.

  On my return to Cambridge, I had seen Don, who had kept in touch with letters and postcards during the three months I had spent at home in Australia. Something quite indefinable, however, had triggered my alarm bells, and I always pleaded pressures of study to avoid spending time with him. Once, when he had rung me from Bethesda Hospital to tell me he was driving back to Boston, I had gone to a friend’s house nearby to stay the night. On my return to Child Hall next morning, all the students on my floor complained that my phone had rung non-stop throughout the night, keeping everyone awake. I wished then that I had anticipated this and unplugged it. But it had not occurred to me that Don’s possessiveness would go quite that far. On another occasion, he turned up in the hallway, having convinced someone to open the door of the women’s dormitory to admit him. Then he argued loudly and pointlessly with me for hours into the night, and I became afraid of him. I was concerned that a man in his esteemed position had been prepared to jeopardise his career and appointment at the university by trespassing into the women’s quarters to accost me. What else might he do?

  Fortunately, the answer was not much. Then I began to worry, as I had on a few previous occasions, whether the speed with which fear rose in my heart stemmed more from my earlier experience, when I’d been raped and an attempt had been made to murder me, than from any immediate threat. Still, I reasoned, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. It made more sense to move away from relationships that generated fear than to deal with the question of the source of the fear itself.

  During my ruminations about fear and its effects, I was invited to a social gathering at a friend’s house in Cambridge at which a dozen or so women were present. While we were chatting, two more women arrived, one of them so obese that her friend had to help her to walk. She took up the greater portion of the lounge, and the rest of us rearranged ourselves, and some sat on the floor. I was the only Black, as well as possibly the oldest woman present, and remained seated on a straight-backed chair which I prefer, next to the grossly overweight young woman on the sofa.

  When our host served coffee and cookies, the conversation turned to, of all things, diet. As I had learned from experience that the problems of being too thin don’t rank very highly in such discussions, I didn’t join in. Instead I felt quite uncomfortable that this conversation was allowed to continue in the presence of a woman of such gigantic proportions. It seemed almost an affront.

  After listening to different women speak about how they were carrying on their individual battles with the bulge, I was aghast when the woman beside me spoke up defensively. ‘I am this size on purpose. Of course it’s not nice, and it’s certainly not fashionable, but I was raped when I was younger and looking like this, I’m sure I will never be raped again.’

  ‘You made yourself so fat to avoid being raped?’ One of the younger, brasher, women incredulously voiced the reaction, I suppose, of most of us.

  ‘Yes. And I wear no makeup, and I’ll do anything I have to in order to be as ugly as I can. And if a man was to come at me now, ugly as I am, and still have bad intentions, well, I’d pee in my pants. And that’s only if I couldn’t squeeze out Number Two. I’ve read up everything on how to stop men, and I’m prepared to do whatever I have to.’

  This woman’s response to having been raped repulsed me, and tears sprang into my eyes as I listened to her. Here, I thought, is an extreme response to fear. At the same time, her method of trying to gain some degree of control over her life and feelings of fear had had the reverse effect. In any situation, she was so obese that she would require assistance, even to rise from the lounge, and certainly she would be unable to run if she wanted to escape. By the preventative method she chose to adopt, she had handed over any quality of life she might have hoped to enjoy to whoever was her rapist. I wondered if she realised she had given up her life voluntarily.

  This woman’s words echoed in my mind. Perversely, perhaps, she had established an extreme against which I could measure my own response. I had already worked my way through a range of ‘possible’ responses to immediate danger, taken lessons in karate, weighed up situations before walking anywhere, all those sorts of practical things. From time to time I had been forced also to consider what long-term consequences can arise from having been the victim of men. I decided that a delicate balancing act was required, each situation, every relationship, every social invitation, every step outside my own front door, getting its own tailored evaluation.
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br />   Still, I’d concluded, I was not prepared to hand rapists my life. To meet someone who had, for all intents and purposes, done just that was very disturbing. Although I had never been able to look at the world in the same light again after having been a victim, I did not wish to stay a victim for life.

  I began to accept invitations to social events from a man I met at an Education School cocktail party, Kenton Williams. Kenton was from West Virginia and had a broad southern accent and many rustic expressions, which amused me no end. ‘Hot dog!’ he would exclaim at new or surprising information, drawing out the ‘dog’ so that it sounded like ‘d-a-w-g’, reminding me so much of MumShirl who used also to pronounce ‘dog’ in this way.

  Kenton was then the Regional Director of the Department of Health and Human Services. He already had a doctorate, but was undertaking another Master’s degree at the Kennedy School of Government. Separated from his wife, he lived in the Soldier’s Field Harvard housing complex. He said he was very much looking forward to meeting another ‘Black Orstralyian’, my son.

  Russel and I had made all the necessary arrangements for me to meet him on arrival at Logan airport. At an ungodly hour of the morning, though, his crisis call woke me. Calling from a public phone box, he told me he was in New York. The airline that was supposed to take him had ceased flying to Boston since his ticket had been purchased four months before. This left him no way to get to Boston. Staff at the company’s flight desk had told him to go across town in a bus, which he could catch outside the terminal, and get on the shuttle. Apart from the few coins he was using to ring me, he had no cash and there was nowhere open to change his traveller’s cheques, even if he knew where he had to go.

  ‘Russel,’ I told him, ‘you go back to that desk and tell the person working there that you have just flown halfway across the world, and that they are responsible for you getting to Boston. Be firm. You have a ticket in your hand which clearly states their responsibility’