by Joy Dettman
Then the grey men came and the odour altered, and our garments altered.
Lenny was pleased with his city overalls, though Pa did not change his style of dress, not then, not for some time. Lenny learned to use the city tools, and to cleanse himself in the chem-tub. He has the mind to learn, and he has the hands to seek new knowledge.
He has made Jonjan’s vehicle drive across the frosty earth – though I did not much like to see this.
‘Docile as a cow,’ he said to Pa. ‘Reckon I might fix it to pull the water barrel.’ He spoke long of the machine to Pa, who showed little interest, though I agreed with Lenny that the three wheels of the vehicle would save Pa a heap of walking.
I watch Lenny now from the window. He is always at work – if not at hammering or gluing of the old house, then he is cutting pumpkin for the stock, or carrying water or wood. I think he has a goodness in him, and certainly he has a gentleness, and such a desire for the infant.
So, it is best that I forget Jonjan and what has passed, and think now of what will come, for I think that the infant will soon come. I am as fat as the sow before she had her piglets – ten of them.
Always I feel that the movement within me is a single foetus though last evening it seemed that there were many, all fighting for space to sleep. Now it sleeps and its weight is heavy. Perhaps I should wake it, take it for a long, long walk while the clouds keep the searchers from the sky; still, in truth we have not been bothered much with them since that one fell from the sky to Morgan Road.
I look again to the shrouded hills as I take up Pa’s pills. He has not risen yet; I will make him chem-tea and take the pills to him. As each day passes and my own agility grows less, I sympathise more with his aches.
The water in the kettle is hot. I pour it over the dark powder, add six drops of sugar-sweet, then take it to his door, but he sleeps and snores so peacefully beneath the huddle of his bedding that I can not disturb him.
His room is a large one, with doors that once opened to the rear verandah. The glass from one door has been replaced by old timber, though the other is near intact. I stand before it sipping the chem-tea as I place his pill container in my half-dress pocket. He will wake soon enough to his aches.
Lenny moved early from my bed. He thinks to pen and slaughter the yearling bullock today. I watch him from Pa’s room, watch his dogs work with him, but I believe the bullock does not wish to cooperate in becoming food. He evades all three and runs for life and freedom with Lenny and the dogs in pursuit. I smile. ‘Run free,’ I whisper to the bullock. ‘Run free.’
Lord, how I wish I could run free, how I wish this one out of my belly and on my back.
In the kitchen I take up a small garment I have made and laugh at it. Cut from the unworn parts of Lenny’s green overall, it has been stitched into a miniature garment with the black reel thread, of which we still have much. One overall leg fastener, grey but still strong, I have stitched into the small garment, from neck to leg. I do not like the look of this creation, and laughter shakes me as I visualise the small Lenny of my dreams, wearing it.
‘Soon,’ I say, my hand touching the heavy melon fruit of my belly. ‘Soon you will come to meet me. I hope you are a male child, and I will call you Aaron, and when you are grown, you may give me a name, and we will have names together. You may call me Emma, eh? Or Logan?’
I look to the white-shrouded hills. What a strange, still morning it is, as if the world, like Pa, is old and aching and not wishing to leave its blanket.
It is time, girl. Granny is with me.
I stiffen, still my hands and my thoughts while I search for her. She is not beside me, or behind me, but I feel her. And where has she come from, and why has she come? I have not thought of her today, or yesterday or for many days.
‘Are you here, Granny?’
I know she is here, though she does not reply.
Rock still I wait, then swing around quickly, certain that I will see her ghost for my scalp crawls with her presence. There is no ghost, only her voice in my head.
I told you everything I could, girl. Now it had better be enough.
The small garment tossed down, my eyes search the walls, behind the doors, the halls for her, though I know that her voice comes only from the moaning of the old house, the creaking of doors. It is my restlessness that has raised these sounds into voice. Again I sit and take up my needle.
Listen to the signs, girl.
‘There are no ghosts, Granny. You invented them to keep me close to your side. I no longer fear them, or you. Your words are only memory.’
Then listen to memory. Listen to the animal within. Feel the hairs on the back of your neck begin to crawl. Feel the chill in your spine. It is time, girl. Put your head down. Run. Run!
The hairs on the back of my neck are certainly crawling, but it is she who has made them crawl. I leave the stove and walk to my room. She follows me, and it is too cold up there. I walk to her room. She follows me, so I stand by her bed looking at her stained pillow.
‘So your student is here. You may give her another lecture on rabbits, Granny.’
She does not lecture, but the eyes of the brown rabbit watch me. They draw me closer to the tapestry, to the hounds, so real I feel their hunger.
This is a city thing, each stitch placed in it by the many hands of the females. It is beautiful, yes, but only a series of small stitches and colours. Yet when I move to leave the room, a draught stirs, lifts the corner of the tapestry.
There is no wind inside or out. There is no breeze.
She is here! She is lifting the tapestry.
I walk to it, lift it, and the weight is heavy. I look at the wall behind it, then up to the rod that holds it, and to each of the great hooks secured deep within the wall. I look at the rear of the fabric, where the picture is confused by many tails of thread.
There are green threads, and browns. There is no form to them until I look at the front, find the form; the green make the leaves of the shrubs that shelter the brown rabbit. Again I look at the rear, searching for the eyes of the rabbit. I can not find them. It is like a riddle, until I look at the face of it, then suddenly it becomes clear.
‘What do you want me to see, Granny? What is here that I do not see?’
Stitches, girl, placed there by the sisterhood. You see a rabbit and the pursuing hounds. The rabbit is a survivor, girl, not of this land, but he made it his own. When the kangaroo died, the rabbit lived on. Bring logic to it, girl.
‘He crawled into a hole. I remember him well, and I have searched for that hole, Granny, and also for the trapdoor spider’s hole. I have read Aaron’s words and know where you found your idea for the hole in the ground. And I have searched the cellar. Each wall, and also the floor. I have found no hole. Can you not say more to me than “remember the rabbit”?’
The rabbit is brown.
‘And I am not. The rabbit’s hole is small and I am large. Shall I find a bottle with drink me on the label, Granny, and chase a rabbit with white gloves down a rabbit hole?’
The rabbit is brown!
‘And your room is cold!’ I turn on my heel, walk to her door.
Find him, girl! Her voice is loud. Harsh. For this I taught you. Study his hole in the earth and crawl into it. It is time.
I am no longer a child to be berated, and not by a ghost. ‘It is time to remember the rabbit and to crawl into his hole. Yes. You have told me this before, and many times. Thank you for this lesson but I do not like your riddles. I never liked your riddles, Granny. Why do you speak to me in riddles?’ I have backed away to the door, and from a distance I study the tapestry again. From here the stitches lose their definition, and the fabric becomes as my paintings, as when I step away from them and cannot see each brush stroke.
Again it moves.
So there is a crack in the wall beneath it. So there is a wind outside that I do not hear.
Quickly then I return to the kitchen, but she has come with me!
All
morning as I go about my work she will not leave my side. When I eat a slice of cornbread, she speaks to me. When I cook the meat Lenny has brought up from the freezer, she speaks to me. When I boil the carrots. When I drop the potatoes fast into boiling water.
The city bastard played God with nature. He tried to turn the female into a potato. Will you wait here and become as a screaming potato, girl?
‘I am surely the shape of a potato.’ My voice is loud too as I place the lid on fast to kill the squeaking.
Then wait here for their lid to seal in your screams.
I run from her then, run from the kitchen, and finally she is silent.
The land looks a little brighter and I believe the white blanket mist is lifting; the sun will fight its way free today and there will be green on the hill, and perhaps a flower. I want to see a colourful flower. I crave to see other than grey.
Our battery supply too low, we save them for the long dark nights, and for the freezers. The fence is not singing, so today I may walk via the water barrel’s direct path to the hills, an easier walk than via the animal track. Lenny will not be home soon. If he catches his bullock there will be much bloody work for him to do with the skinning of it, and Pa, he will enjoy the scraping of its hide, and he will smell of it when he is done.
So I will walk to the cave, and bathe there. The warmth of the spring may wash this restlessness from me, and, if I am late in returning, then the meal is ready; the men have only to heat it. Still, I think I will not be very late for if the sun should rise from its sick bed, it will be weak and surely wish to return to it early.
My overall is warm, where it covers me, and it has long since failed to cover my breasts and belly. The half-dress, poor faded thing, has no warmth in it at all, but I place cornbread and fruitjell in its pocket, I don my woven cape and fasten the discs, one by one, and wonder again why Granny never wore it. Perhaps it was too long, as it is too long for me. I take it off, seek the reel thread and a sharp needle, and quickly loop up the length of it and wonder why Granny did not do as I am doing, still, during her final years her poor burned hands had not worked well with these small needles. She liked better the large hide needle and the punch that made the holes.
My cloak again fastened, my ankles now free of it, I take up a worn blanket to wrap me warmer, then walk outside.
The sun peeps out to shine upon my face as I leave the house, and a light wind stirs the limbs of my freedom tree. How this land is fighting to live. And the air. Such a pure thing it is today, untainted by the odour of dust and of the pigs; it teases my nostrils with memory.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
In the year 97 of the New Beginning, a searcher returned with news of such a settlement that had not been found before. It was of many dwellings a great distance from the city, and hidden in the shade of the mountains where storms came out of the mountains fast and with great ferocity.
And many searchers were sent to that place. And it was discovered that a large group had survived there from the time of the Great Ending, that they lived not the life of the feral wanderer, but followed the old ways and buried their dead in a graveyard, each grave marked with cross and stone.
It was found that fresh water ran in a stream from the mountain, crossing the land as a twisting silver serpent. And it served the land well, for crops of the old strains could be seen thriving beside it.
It was also learned that herd stock had survived in this place. And one searcher counted the herd stock at thirty plus. Upon the earth there were countless birds which did not fly, and in the hills were many of the ancient wool-bearing sheep. And in pens there were swine of the small ancient breed.
It was also learned that the males and females of this settlement clothed themselves in gowns and other apparel and they wore foot coverings.
And in the fields many worked at the cultivation, and in a grove of trees both youth and infants were sighted eating fruit of the old strains.
Thus it came to pass that the searchers made a viewing tape of this settlement, and in the city, the Chosen viewed, but believed not what they saw. For on the viewing tape there was the killing of a beast, and the butchering of it. There was the taking of milk from many beasts.
And these things had not been seen before.
THE SPRING CAVE
When last I walked this pathway with Lenny, old Pa supported between us, my legs were strong. Not so today. It is the weight of my belly that I can not easily push uphill. Surely it would have created a better balance in the latter months if the foetus were implanted on the back of the female instead of in the belly. I am forced to lean a while to catch my breath and allow my resolve to again grow strong – and allow my eyes to sweep the ravine and the rocks where I had cared for Jonjan. In the last week I have chosen to make him distant in my mind, and to accept the reality of my situation. In this place he will not remain distant. In this place sorrow always sweeps over me.
Lord. How different my climb today than on the day I took the animal track, running barefoot back to him, so certain he was waiting for me to come.
Only his bones wait for me now. Somewhere.
Lenny lives. He cares for me and the foetus and I have come to care for him and Pa. I must not waste my tears on the dead.
So my walk continues but I glance no more towards the ravine.
The land grows steep and the rocks larger, narrowing the pathway, then I am at the place where Lenny ties the bullock when he comes for water. It can not safely climb further or, more importantly, climb down safely, the heavy barrel behind it.
There is much green up here. I knew there would be. It grows tall, clinging to sheltered corners. I find no flowers, but they will return – one day. As will the kangaroo.
Granny once said that many kangaroos lived in the hills when the grass was long, that she had eaten their meat as a child, and when the men could find no more, they ate rabbits and wild pigs, cats, and then the rats. Still, they did not eat all of the rats, cats and rabbits, and I know in my heart that they did not eat the last kangaroo. He has only gone to ground until it is safe to again look out at the land where it has hopped since that time too ancient to recall.
This hill was a sacred place to those ancients who roamed this land in the time long before the three thousand came to dig for gold. Those wandering ones left their handprints on the cave walls, and in the smaller cave behind the place of the spring they have left a fine painting.
The wide cave mouth is protected by the weeping trees, which are not weeping today. Their leaves have long been lost to the wind, but they will grow more when the chill leaves the earth, for water seeps down from the pool to keep them green in all of the hot season. I love their green, and I love the cave they shelter, as I loved it on the day Granny brought me here and showed me its wonders.
She had handed me a stone axe, left for many hundreds of years on a natural shelf beneath the sketch of the kangaroo which forms a part of the art gallery of the ancients. It is only a narrow cavern, but one wall is flat and tall and has made a fine paint board for the ancients.
I recall walking close behind Granny that day as she told me tales of the cave. Though she had not visited it in almost forty years, she had known it well, walking with old knowledge to each wall, to each ledge, to each crevice.
‘Nothing has changed,’ she said. ‘Only I have changed, girl.’
Little light enters here today; I visit first the art gallery, and the stone axe. It is where we left it. I stand fondling it, passing it from palm to palm as I search for the fading outlines of the kangaroo and wonder why I did not think to bring a battery light.
‘Next time.’
Carefully then I place the tool back on the shelf and return to the larger area, averting my eyes from the basket left here months before, though the white-painted handprints attempt to guide my eye to it.
I will bathe. Yes. I will be as the dinosaur of the books and allow the water to support my great weight a while; my legs do not w
ish to do it. Lord, the walk was far today. How Granny had climbed here I do not know, but there was a strength in her, a determination, and a will that would not be denied. She had spoken at me long that day as we bathed in the pool. I had shown more interest in the scars of her breast and back and buttock than I had her words.
‘Not a pretty picture, girl?’ she had said to me. ‘So close your eyes. Listen. Listen and learn.’
The main cave is as large as two rooms, and near separated into two by a half rock wall. There is always a natural warmth in here, for the water bubbles up hot from beneath this mountain and always the pool is warm. I spread my blanket beside it, open my overall, take the boots from my feet, and how pleased are my toes to be free of them.
Outside the sun is fighting darker clouds, but I like the unusual light. It holds an eerie quality. The deep purple-grey sky would make a fine backdrop for a painting. One day I will come with a paint board and paint the house from this place, paint it as it was when it was new and Aaron Morgan lived.
I allow my eyes a brief glance at the basket. I have brought only a can of fruitjell and a slice of cornbread in my pocket, but I will not starve if night comes too soon and the white blanket clouds again fall low over the land. There is food in that basket. One can of cornbeans I think, sweetened milk – if there were crispbites, they were not well sealed and will have been eaten by rats. I do not remember clearly what was left in it on the day I found Jonjan gone, and I have no wish to look, for it sits up on its ledge like a serpent, hissing at me, stirring a place within my mind.
I turn my back on it and, wearied by my climb, lie on my blanket to rest a moment.
And I sleep.
New night is creeping across the land when I am awoken by a great pain in my back. Near dark it is in the cave now, and half-awake and half-sleeping, I spring to a crouch, my eyes searching for my assailant. I think of the sowman. I think of the searcher as I back to the rock wall. But I am alone. No panting breath beside me, no night thing moves behind me.