The Bride of Almond Tree

by Robert Hillman

  As the monks ate, they chattered loudly. Patty said to the master that she understood that Zen monks ate in silence.

  ‘Not here. To talk while you are eating is good for the digestion. I have been chastised for allowing my monks to talk while eating. My answer is simply, “What is so good about silence?” My own master would sit in silence for ten hours at a time. Then one day, he said, “Enough.” He had come to see that Zen is speech, not silence. And so it is. One person speaking to another, that is human. I want my monks to be human. They were born human, they should remain human.’

  When they had finished eating—the salad was a wonderful creation—the master said: ‘Now that your in-laws have died, you are thinking that you might go back to paradise. No. I have seen many, many of your patients who have come here to bless you for saving their children. You cannot stop. You are here forever. While a child can breathe, there is life. What you are doing is Zen. Giving breath. Zen is breath. You cannot leave. I am sorry, but you must stay.’

  And that was it. She must stay. Patty had known what the master would say. There were now fifty hospitals in the Hiroshima region, and they would cope without her, if they had to. But she had become the guru of radiation sickness, she headed three committees, even the surgeons deferred to her opinions. She must stay. Except not all year. She wanted her two children to grow up in a Quaker community. It was important to her for Francis and Esther to be in touch with God, and the Quaker God was her preference. She had arranged to spend two months in every three back in Almond Tree, living with her parents, she and the children. The third month she would return to Hiroshima, without the children, and administer her hospital and oversee the administration of a number of others.

  She explained this to the master, who nodded in agreement. The Japanese Government had agreed to fly her to Japan and back to Australia every third month, such was her value. The master said: ‘Take me with you. I need a holiday.’

  ‘Master, I doubt the government would fly you to Australia and back just because you need a holiday.’

  ‘No? Then what is the use of a government? When you return each three months, come and see me. If I am in the ground next to Hero, say a Quaker prayer for both of us.’

  ‘I will. But stay above the ground, please.’

  Chapter 33

  EVERY WORKER in the state of Victoria has the right to join a union. It is illegal for an employer to prevent workers from joining a union, or to punish workers in any way because they have joined a union. If you are a union member, your rate of pay is guarded by the union, and your safety is also guarded. I am here to offer you membership of the Australian Forestry Union. If you join up, the union will make sure you are paid a fair rate for the work you do. At the moment, you are being paid twenty per cent less than the union rate, and there are no safety regulations to protect you. The two workers who were killed on this site four months ago died because of safety regulations being ignored. I urge you to recognise that many workers in the past, going back more than a hundred years, fought hard for the right of workers to form unions—not only fought, but died, many of them, some of them murdered. Membership of the union will only cost you three shillings a month for the first six months, and the union will not be asking for a joining fee. I will be handing out application forms for union membership, and I encourage you to give serious thought to joining.

  Professor Tomas Kruipers of Melbourne University, well known to Beth, agreed to write translations of what she’d written on a Gestetner blank in Italian and Greek (he spoke sixteen languages) and sent it back to her in a large envelope, which she provided, stamped. His accompanying note read: This will get you into strife, Beth my dear. She persuaded Mary Anne at the library to run off two hundred copies on the Gestetner machine for two pounds. She already had two hundred union application forms from Audrey. She kept the application forms and the printed version of her address to the workers in separate small cartons and the two cartons sat on the back seat of the Ford when Wes drove her up to the timber camp on the concession at five in the afternoon.

  The road was wet and full of potholes, slippery from recent rain. Wes expected they’d be met by a couple of ratbags with guns at the gate, and they were. Different ratbags than on his first visit, but they put down their guns just as meekly when he told them to. It was now five-thirty and the men had all returned to camp and were sitting around smoking and drinking tea, campfires burning. Wes called out: ‘I need you all to gather around Beth here, who is a union organiser. She has something to tell you.’

  The men, whether Greek or Italian, all wore the same dubious expression, as if they were about to be conned into buying a lame horse. But they were courteous to Wes, whom most had seen before and knew his reputation. It was Wes who handed out the sheets of paper on which Beth’s message was written in three languages. Beth found a tree stump she could stand on while she waited for Wes.

  She wore her union uniform of daggy skirt and frumpy cardigan, but she wore lippy, pink, unusual for her, as if she wanted to concede something to the men’s expectation of a woman. She had seen men, not so different from the men before her, treat women brutally, horribly, but she wasn’t afraid of the men here. She was in a position of authority. It made all the difference. In Moscow, she had no power at all, nothing. Here, her authority, as she knew, came from Wes, the men respected him. But when she spoke to them, they would respect her, too.

  When Wes had done, he climbed up onto the stump with his wife and told the men to listen. ‘This woman has been through hell in a Moscow prison for the sake of justice. She lived through that to offer justice to you. You listen to her. Understand. Put your hand up if you understand.’

  Hands went up, all of them finally. Most of the men had a grasp on English, up to a point.

  Wes jumped down as Beth read her message from the stump. She had a carrying voice with a low timbre and the men could follow her easily with the help of the handouts.

  ‘Any questions?’

  Hands went up.

  ‘He sack us. How I eat?’

  Beth said: ‘He can’t sack you for joining the union. It’s against the law.’

  ‘But he will.’

  ‘We will take him to court. It will cost him thousands of pounds.’

  ‘Three shillings, I can’t pay.’

  ‘Is justice worth three shillings?’

  After the questions, some of them difficult, and maybe a certain amount of disingenuousness here and there in Beth’s replies, Wes handed out the union applications. Beth had also thought to bring biros, and she left a dozen of them on the stump.

  Beth said: ‘I will come back tomorrow, same time.’

  ∼

  For the visit the next day, Beth changed five pounds into shillings and florins. Wes took his chainsaw, and he needed it because a tree had been felled across the track to prevent him driving any further. He cut the tree into lengths and hauled the lengths aside. Then drove on. Waiting for them at the gate this time were six men with rifles. Billy Hunter from Almond Tree was foremost. Wes hopped out of the Ford and strolled up to him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Billy. Give me the gun.’

  Billy, after a few moments of embarrassment, handed the gun over.

  Wes said, ‘Now the rest of you, open the breech of your rifles and eject the shell.’

  The men did as they were told. By this time, Beth had joined her husband. ‘This is Crown land,’ she said. ‘Anyone can enter it. If you shoot us, it’s murder. The sentence for murder in this state is hanging. I have seen men hanged and it’s not a pretty sight. So if you want to hang at Pentridge, go ahead and shoot us.’

  Then she opened the gate and entered the camp, where the workers were waiting, and climbed up onto the stump. Wes stood to one side.

  ‘I should have asked you yesterday if any of you wanted to speak. Take the chance now.’

  For a couple of minutes, nothing. Then a worker stood and came forward.

  He said to Beth, ‘I speak in
Italian, okay?’

  He spoke for five minutes. Many of the workers, evidently Italians, applauded him, not loudly. Then he said to Beth: ‘I tell to them, join the union. I come from Napoli. Many of us coming from Napoli. In Napoli, the unions are belong to Camorra, what you call mafia here in Australia. No justice in Napoli. If your union is honest, we want it. Okay?’

  ‘We are honest, we work only for our members.’

  ‘Good. We all join, all the Napolitani.’

  Then another man came forward. He said to Beth, ‘I Greek. I speak to us in Greek language.’

  He also spoke for five minutes, to applause.

  He said to Beth, ‘We go to your union.’

  Beth and Wes read and corrected the application forms of seventy-three of the men. Each paid three shillings. It was dark when they finished.

  Beth said, ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  Wes told Billy Hunter to show some courage and stand up for workers.

  ‘I oughta, oughtn’t I?’

  ‘Jesus, Billy, you’re a working man. What did John Li tell you? That we would run away?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  On the way home, Beth sang ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’ at the top of her voice. Wes had never seen her so happy, except in bed. ‘You have seventy-three, my darling. But that still leaves seventy-seven.’

  ‘We’ll get them. Oh Wes, isn’t this a good thing, isn’t this a good, good thing?’

  ‘Better than cooking, is it?’

  ‘Sure is!’

  ‘But Beth, John’s going to retaliate. You realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘Let him.’

  After dinner that night—an omelette with cheese and bacon, prepared by Wes—Beth told him she wanted to go to the site by herself tomorrow. Wes settled back in his armchair and exhaled deeply.

  ‘Beth, are you insane? There’re all those men up there. You’re probably the only woman they’ve seen in six months. No, no, no. I have to be there.’

  ‘Wes, I want to go by myself. The men won’t touch me. I’m the union official, not you. It’s my job and I want to do it myself.’

  ‘They won’t touch you if I’m there. But if I’m not, Beth, think about it.’

  Beth reached forward and patted her husband on his knee. ‘It’s my job, Wes. I took it on. You have to let me do what I want.’

  ‘I’ll drive you and stay in the Ford. In any case, you can’t get along that track. It’s a truck track. You couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Yes I can. I’m a good driver, Wes.’

  Wes raised one objection after another. What if she broke an axle? What if the men ignored her?

  ‘Wes, trust me. I believe in this. I have to win back my life. Do you see?’

  ‘What time do you want to leave?’

  ‘Say, ten. I’ll be doing a safety inspection. I’m also the safety official.’

  ‘Come back to Chinese Town. If you’re not back by two, I’ll come after you.’

  No men with guns at the gates of the site the next day, but John Li was. He was puzzled not to see Wes.

  ‘Where is Wesley?’

  ‘He’s building your stupid town, or your town with a stupid name, at least.’

  John Li folded his arms and planted his feet wide. ‘You can’t come in.’

  There was a pedestrian pass beside the gate, and it was this pass that John was blocking.

  ‘Yes I can,’ said Beth, and pushed past him with her tin box of coins and her application forms.

  ‘I will call the police!’ John shouted after her.

  ‘Yes, why don’t you do that, John? I can tell them that you attempted to keep a union official from a worksite.’

  Only one man in the camp at 11.20 in the morning; a short, stocky man with a bandaged hand.

  ‘What is your name, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘My name? Lorenzo. Italy.’

  ‘How did you hurt your hand, Lorenzo?’ She pointed to his bandaged hand.

  ‘My finger broken.’

  ‘Have you been to the doctor?’

  ‘Doctor? No.’

  Beth took out her notebook and wrote in it.

  John came up beside her. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘This man was injured on the worksite but has not seen a doctor. I’m conducting a safety inspection.’

  ‘His finger is broken. It is nothing. Next you’ll be wanting a man to see a doctor if he gets bitten by an ant.’

  ‘And where are the toilet facilities?’

  ‘Toilets? This is the bush! You take a spade and dig a hole.’

  ‘So no toilet facilities.’ Beth made a note. ‘And where do the men bathe?’

  ‘Bathe? In the creek.’

  ‘So no hygiene facilities?’

  ‘The creek!’

  ‘I assume that’s where the fresh water comes from, too? The creek?’

  ‘Of course. What a stupid question.’

  She asked Lorenzo: ‘How many days do you work, Lorenzo?’

  ‘How many days?’ He reflected. ‘Six days and one half.’

  ‘And do you get paid while you are injured?’

  Lorenzo held up his bandaged hand. ‘This? Pay? No.’

  ‘It’s what they agreed to!’ said John.

  Beth said she wanted to see the felling site. John, in a rage, said she wanted to ruin him.

  ‘No, I don’t want to ruin you. I want to see that your workers are treated fairly. Is that too much to ask?’

  He muttered under his breath, ‘Communist.’

  ‘Maybe. But I have suffered at the hands of the Soviets more than you can possibly imagine. So don’t say that, John. Open the gate so that I can go to the felling site.’

  ‘I have to come.’

  ‘If you like.’

  There was only one track to follow. As Beth drove, John kept up a constant muttering in Chinese. She parked two hundred yards from the felling site, and even from the Ford she could pick out a dozen or more problems with the safety regulations. She stepped out of the car and approached closer.

  Men were everywhere among the mountain ash, felling with chainsaws; often no more than ten yards from each other. When they noticed her, they waved and smiled. Trees came crashing down, one after another, the men striding nimbly to get themselves out of the way. They called warnings to each other in Greek and Italian. When the logs were trimmed, they were loaded on the truck with mechanical devices attached to the tray while two men stood on the load of logs and handled them into position. One slip and the men risked having their feet and legs crushed.

  ‘Don’t you see how dangerous that is?’ said Beth, shouting above the racket of the machinery.

  John shrugged. ‘They have experience.’

  She made one note after another before driving John back to the camp. She had collected nine more union applications from the men.

  ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow at your office.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Ten.’

  That night, she went through the list in her notebook with Wes.

  ‘Isn’t it appalling? He’s exactly the sort of bastard who would have sent children down coalmines in the nineteenth century.’

  ‘He’ll ignore what you’ve written, Beth.’

  ‘Then we’ll strike. We have eighty-two in the union now.’

  Beth typed out the entire list of objections and their various remedies on Wes’s old Smith Corona. It took three hours. Wes came up behind her each half-hour and rubbed her shoulders, and also fed her mouthfuls of steak and veg.

  She said: ‘Wes, you do realise I’m still a communist?’

  ‘I do. Of course.’

  ‘But the Soviet Union—that’s what communism looks like when it’s corrupted. But don’t think I’ve given up on communism, will you?’

  ‘No I won’t think that. Something good will come of it one fine day.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Beth, I do.’

  John Li kept an office at
the back of Robert Harding Real Estate in Almond Tree. There was no such person as Robert Harding. John Li had inherited the agency from his father, Hoong Li, who had believed that an Anglo name would attract more clients than a Chinese name. The walls were ornamented with framed colour photographs of John Li’s favoured football team, Footscray, red, white and blue, and a large picture of the team’s great champion, Teddy Whitten, signed.

  When Beth called in, she was greeted cheerfully by Marge Miller, John’s receptionist.

  ‘Poor baby, what you copped from those reds, but it’s all good now, I hope.’

  ‘I’m fine, Marge.’

  John was at his desk, waiting for her, and he was not smiling.

  ‘Let me go through the list of safety violations, John.’

  John didn’t reply.

  Nor did he reply to any of the items on Beth’s list.

  She then went on to the matter of wages. He would have to raise the wages of his workers by twenty per cent, effective immediately.

  ‘You want to make me a pauper?’ he said. ‘You want me to give all my money to communists?’

  ‘They are not communists, John. They are ordinary working men. They deserve a fair wage for their hard work.’

  John sat back in his chair and raised his chin. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No to twenty per cent. No to safety. This is theft.’

  Beth nodded. ‘John, your concession expires in two months. Do you know who the Forestry Minister is? Lindsay Thompson. He will not grant you extra time because he didn’t want that old-growth forest cut down to begin with. He was under pressure from other interests. If you do not address all the items on my list—all of them—we will go on strike and you will never exhaust your concession with less than half your workforce in two months.’

  ‘I will hire more men.’

  ‘Scabs? Not in time, you won’t. Think about it. I’m going up to the site in two days.’

  And so she did. Waiting at the gate were twelve or so men with rifles in a long line. One raised his rifle and pointed it at her. He was a boy of about sixteen, seventeen. Beth walked up to him and allowed his rifle barrel to press against her chest.