Little Paradise

by Gabrielle Wang

  After these visits Mama would come home to Carlton fresh and mended, smelling of salt and ocean breezes.

  But now Mrs Pettigrew had heart problems and could no longer care for people. They had to find somewhere else.

  Forest Glades was a rest home sitting at the foot of the mountains north of Melbourne. Mirabel hadn’t gone with Father to look at it, but she had known from his grim expression that it was nothing like Mrs Pettigrew’s.

  She wished she could ring Mama before she came to visit, but she couldn’t. Because of the war the government was on the constant lookout for spies. English was the only language allowed on the telephone. And Mama could only speak Chinese.

  Forest Glades was a two-hour train journey from the city. When the threat of the Japanese invading had grown stronger, the names of all the stations had been taken down to confuse an attacking army. As if an army would take the train to invade the city, Mirabel thought crossly. She had wanted to write a letter to Eva, but each time they stopped at a station she had to count, making a mark on a piece of paper so she could tell when to get off.

  She gazed out the window as suburbs turned into farmland. Washing flapped on wire strung between two posts. A woman in pants, shirt and stockman’s hat herded a flock of lean-looking sheep while a border collie ran circles around them, keeping them in check. Mirabel wondered how these women were coping now that their men were away at war. They had to do all the farm work themselves.

  Forest Glades Care Accommodation. The sign squeaked on two rusty chains. An arch of tall pine trees marked the entrance to a long sweeping driveway that led to a Tudor-style mansion. The house was massive, built in red brick with tall chimney stacks, slanting roofs and small windows that jutted from the second storey. It looked like a place out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, Mirabel thought as she walked towards it. Poor Mama. She’d been here two weeks.

  Holes filled with muddy water pockmarked the driveway so Mirabel stepped on to the spongy wet grass. She imagined all the life underneath her feet, a whole other world of insects in dark tunnels. Were they happy to exist without seeing, locked away without sunshine?

  Mirabel opened the heavy front door and stepped up to the desk. ‘Good afternoon, I’m here to see my mother, Chen Ai Ling,’ she said.

  The woman opened a black book, then ran a nail-bitten finger down a list. ‘Room D20. Take the back stairs,’ she said in a gruff manner. ‘Visiting hours finish at four p.m.’

  Mirabel walked through the dark maze of passages until she found the door. She took a deep breath and went in.

  The patients were sitting in clusters around the large room. Some were making baskets, or knitting; others were talking to visitors. Mama was standing in the far corner, her back to the door, looking into a mirror. Mirabel recognised the mauve dressing-gown they had given her last Christmas.

  Weaving her way between the couches, she fought back the tears. How small and helpless her mother looked in this monstrous place.

  ‘Mama,’ she said, speaking to the reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Who is that?’ Mama touched the outline of her own reflection.

  ‘It is me, Mama. Lei An. I’ve come to visit you.’

  A sad smile touched the corners of Mama’s mouth as her eyes shifted to Mirabel’s reflection. ‘Lei An? You have come to take me home?’

  ‘No, Mama. Not today. You’re not well enough to go home yet.’ Mirabel took Mama’s hand and led her to a couch by the window. She wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right, even when she knew it probably never would be.

  Shadows from the barred window fell across Mama’s face.

  ‘I am so tired, Lei An. Those ladies in white shake the floor when they walk. Look at these faces. I don’t know any of them. They are strangers.’ She turned to Mirabel, a haunted look in her eyes. ‘Who am I, Lei An?’

  Mirabel was startled by the question. Had she begun to lose herself in this place?

  ‘What … what do you mean, Mama?’

  ‘What is my name? Tell me.’

  ‘You are Chen Ai Ling. Mama.’ Mirabel squeezed her mother’s hand tighter.

  ‘No.’ Mama turned to stare out of the window. ‘I am not.’

  Mirabel felt a chill. ‘What are you talking about? Of course you are.’

  Mama closed her eyes and her body tensed as if she were trying to force thoughts away.

  Then she said, ‘I am not the person you think I am.’

  Lily Feet

  ‘Heya, babe. Wanna dance?’

  An American soldier made a big sweeping bow in front of Rose.

  Rose turned away, smiling, while Mirabel blushed a violent pink. They had been on their way to visit Great Auntie May after school when Rose suggested they stop for a coffee at Gibbys.

  ‘Weeell, just holla if ya’ll change ya mind,’ the soldier drawled, then sat down with his mates in the booth behind them.

  Mirabel couldn’t get over it. Even though it was mid-afternoon, the place was buzzing. Music from the latest dance craze, the jitterbug, blared through speakers mounted on the walls and some couples were even up dancing. Mirabel was glad the American soldiers had brought this music over with them. She remembered how, not long ago, Melbourne had been so stuffy, so boring. The Australian boys had gone to war, leaving only women, children and old people. But since the American soldiers had arrived the city was swinging.

  Mirabel jammed her head down when she caught one of the soldiers grinning over his shoulder at her. She was not used to this much attention. Since she’d met Rose a couple of months ago, they had been to the city several times during the day, and each time Mirabel had felt charged with excitement. Rose seemed to attract boys like an exotic flower. Out of school uniform, she could easily pass for eighteen.

  Mirabel’s life before Rose had been a hermit-like existence, spent between home and school. Her one social outing was church on Sundays, where she played the organ. The nights on which she played piano for her father’s Kuomintang Party meetings did not really count.

  The music changed to a Viennese waltz. A soldier came over and asked Rose for a slow dance but she shook her head and waved him away with an impish smile.

  She leaned forward and said to Mirabel, ‘You see those cakes?’ She pointed at the cakes in a glass cabinet along the counter. ‘I remember the cafes in Vienna my mother used to take me to when I was a little girl.’ A wistful look appeared on her face. ‘We’d share a piece of chocolate torte and watch the old ladies. You know what my mother called them? Cake tigers! Because they pounced upon their little cakes with their forks, like a tiger attacking its prey.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were from Vienna. I thought you were born here,’ Mirabel said with surprise. Rose had no hint of an accent.

  ‘We left when I was six. It was starting to get hard for Jews, so my parents decided …’ Rose’s voice faltered.

  ‘Didn’t you want to leave?’ Mirabel asked tentatively.

  ‘I didn’t mind. I was a little girl. But I was just thinking about my aunt and uncle and their two small children – they’re still in Vienna. At least, we think they are. We haven’t had a letter from them in over three years. Not since Hitler’s armies invaded Austria …’ She looked down into her milkshake. ‘The hardest part is not knowing.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Mirabel touched Rose’s hand. Every week she saw pictures in the Chinese newspapers of the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China, but she didn’t know much about the war in Europe or Hitler. Here, at home in Melbourne, life had changed, sure. There were ration coupons for food and clothing, trenches dug for protection in parks and on school grounds. And nobody could block out the practice air-raid sirens that blared across the city every day. But you got used to it. Even though Japanese planes had last bombed Darwin just two months before, it seemed such a long way from Melbourne.

  There was silence.

  ‘You know, Belle, if I ever go back to Vienna, I’d love you to come with me,’ Rose said with forced li
veliness. ‘We could open a clothing shop together.’

  ‘You told me months ago you wanted to be a lawyer.’

  ‘I’d do both.’

  Mirabel grinned. Anything and everything was possible in Rose’s world. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to go back to China one day.’

  ‘Go back? But you told me you’ve never been.’

  ‘I’ve heard so much about the place that it’s become almost real in my mind. Sometimes I think I belong there more than I do here. At least I’d look like everyone else and not be called a foreigner.’ She stirred her milkshake with her straw, watching the bubbles froth and pop. ‘I heard that artists are well respected in China. When they become famous they’re called shi fu or master because everyone knows how hard they have to work to be good.’

  ‘It sounds like the perfect place for you then, Belle. Say!’ Rose sat back, tilting her head to one side. ‘What colour do you think suits me best?’

  ‘Peacock blue … definitely. Why?’

  ‘Well, Dave’s invited me to the school formal and I must have a new dress. Will you design one for me?’

  ‘Ooh, how exciting! Of course I will.’

  ‘Good.’ Rose glanced around, then dropped her elbows onto the table. ‘I found out more about Mr Cochran. I couldn’t get it out of my mind how sad you said he looked when he talked about the cello. I had to sweet-talk Mrs Preston for the longest time before she would open up about him. But once she started … It’s quite a story.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, it turns out that he used to play cello in a classical string quartet with three friends. One of them was actually his fiancée.’ Rose stopped to sip from her milkshake. She looked up at Mirabel, eyes glinting. ‘This was during the Blitz in London, Nazi bombers everywhere, every night. Anyway, they were at the BBC playing a radio concert for the soldiers when a five-hundred-pound bomb fell right on the building. Right on top of them. Everyone was killed, except Mr Cochran. It was December 1940, four days after Christmas. He and his fiancée were to be married in January.’ Rose stopped, looking into her empty glass. ‘He totally broke down after that, left everything behind and came to Australia.’

  Mirabel was silent, horrified. ‘I never thought I’d feel sorry for the man,’ she said finally. She stared out at the street thinking how terrible it would be to lose someone you loved. The local newspapers carried photographs of men who were either missing in action or had been killed. She suddenly realised all these men would have girlfriends, wives, mothers, families. The thought chilled her.

  Mirabel unlocked the door of Great Auntie May’s room and beckoned Rose in. The bedsit was part of a rambling old mansion in Parkville that had been subdivided into fifteen bedrooms. The plumbing was noisy, and each room had cracks through which the wind could whistle up a fine tune in a storm, but to Great Auntie May and the twenty other residents it was home. Father had offered to find her a new place with her own toilet and bathroom, but she refused to budge. She said that Green Mansions reminded her of a Chinese village. Everyone helping one another, sharing in each other’s loves and losses.

  As soon as Great Auntie May saw Mirabel, her face lit up like a bright shiny moon. Her hair was tied back into a neat bun. Sticking out the side of the bun was a jade pin, with a pearl dangling on a fine gold chain. She looked like a Chinese empress in the deep-red dress that Mirabel had designed for her eightieth birthday. Mirabel could tell Rose was impressed.

  ‘Hello, Auntie May. I want you to meet Rose,’ Mirabel said.

  ‘Wah … Mei gui. Rose so boo-ful,’ Great Auntie May beamed from her armchair. ‘Come o’er to light.’

  Mirabel led Rose to the window. She picked up two chairs, set them down beside Great Auntie May and went into the small kitchenette to make afternoon tea.

  ‘You school wit Lei An?’ Great Auntie May asked Rose.

  Rose looked puzzled for a moment.

  ‘Lei An is my Chinese name,’ Mirabel called out. ‘All my family use it.’

  ‘I didn’t know … that name suits you, Belle.’ Rose smiled and turned back to the old lady. ‘We are classmates and have become very good friends, Auntie May.’

  ‘How are your feet today?’ Mirabel asked, setting cups and saucers on a tray.

  ‘Is painful. Last week more better.’ She sighed. ‘You Auntie May get old. No more can dance. No more can tango.’ She flung her arms in the air like a flamenco dancer and laughed. ‘How you mama, is all right in dat place?’

  ‘Mama is well,’ Mirabel said, then quickly changed the subject. ‘I bought some cakes for us.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Great Auntie May arched her perfectly pencilled eyebrows. ‘Lei An, you goo girl.’

  ‘What do you want me to read today?’ Mirabel poured the tea and set it beside Great Auntie May. She picked up the Chinese newspaper.

  Great Auntie May had never been to school or learned to read or write, so once a week Mirabel would visit and read reports on the gossip of the world and the latest events of the war. Mirabel didn’t understand every word, her Chinese reading wasn’t that great, but she could make out the main story. On the front page of the newspaper was a photograph of a tangle of dead bodies, barely recognisable as people. The caption said that they were all women and children who had been raped then bayoneted by Japanese soldiers. Ever since the Japanese had invaded China six years before, Mirabel had seen these ghastly pictures. At first she was too young to understand, later she became angry. Now she felt numb.

  ‘Auntie,’ Mirabel said, folding the paper as if to lock away the horror inside, ‘can I tell Rose your story?’

  ‘What story dat?’

  ‘You know, the one from when you were young.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to hear it,’ said Rose, leaning forward.

  Great Auntie May turned her eyes to the photograph hanging on the wall.

  She sat back. A man dressed in a long Chinese gown with one hand holding a book, the other resting on the back of an intricately carved seat, stood staring solemnly out of the picture. The photo studio had dressed him up to look like a scholar, but Great Auntie May had told Mirabel that really her husband had been the son of a peasant farmer and couldn’t read or write.

  ‘Great Auntie May was born in Wahgunyah. Have you heard of it? It’s a small town on the Murray in northern Victoria, a gold rush town,’ Mirabel began.

  Rose looked surprised. ‘Born in Australia! Really?’

  ‘When the gold ran out, she was six, and her parents took her to China, back to the ancestral village. That’s when her mother began to bind her feet.’

  Rose glanced down at Great Auntie May’s feet but they were hidden beneath the folds of her dress. ‘I’ve heard of the custom of foot binding. How’s it done?’

  ‘First, all the toes are bent under the foot, except the big toe. Every day the bandages are wound tighter and tighter. It was so painful Auntie May had to crawl around on her hands and knees. Her mum used to tell her that nobody would marry a girl with “big duck feet”. She had to have lily feet. So she put up with it. It was two years before she was able to walk upright again. Her mum taught her how to embroider and she became the best embroiderer in the village. Didn’t you, Auntie May?’

  Great Auntie May smiled proudly and stuck her two thumbs in the air. ‘I number one in village.’

  ‘When Auntie May was eighteen her feet were only five inches long …’ Mirabel used her hands to show the measurement in the air.

  Rose arched her eyebrows.

  ‘Now it was time to find a husband. A young man came to the village with his parents and a matchmaker. He was very handsome. All the girls lined up wearing their best clothes and most beautifully embroidered slippers. The young man walked up and down the line. He didn’t look at the girls’ faces, but at the size of their lily feet and the skill of their embroidery. Then he stopped in front of Auntie May. Didn’t he, Auntie May?’

  Great Auntie May nodded.

  ‘He had chosen her to be his bride. And that’s
Uncle Neng Bo up there.’

  They turned to admire the photo.

  ‘That’s such an incredible story,’ said Rose, smiling at Great Auntie May. But then Great Auntie May lifted the skirt of her dress so that Rose could see her feet. She was wearing shoes made out of black cloth that were wide at the heel, narrowing down to a pointed toe.

  Rose’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth with one hand. Mirabel was used to it but to Rose it must have looked grotesque. Tiny baby feet on the end of a grown woman’s legs. Hearing the story was one thing, but seeing proof was something else.

  Great Auntie May saw Rose’s reaction but didn’t blink; she had seen it often. ‘No goo bind feet. Girls pwetty wit big feet. But when I small, evewyone think vewy boo-ful. Because I bind, I have good life.’

  ‘Auntie May has thirty pairs of shoes,’ said Mirabel. ‘And they’re all different. Can I show Rose?’

  Great Auntie May loved to show off her embroidery. She giggled and waved a hand towards the wardrobe.

  Mirabel opened the door. Below Great Auntie May’s clothes were two shelves, and sitting on the shelves were tiny cloth shoes all brightly coloured and intricately stitched.

  ‘Oh!’ Rose exclaimed, kneeling down on the floor. ‘They belong in a museum; they are beautiful.’

  ‘Young girls wear red shoes like these,’ said Mirabel, holding up a pair with a phoenix on each toe. ‘And old women wear blue or black shoes like Auntie May is wearing now. For funerals you would wear this white pair, and this …’ Mirabel carefully lifted out an exquisitely embroidered kingfisher-blue pair that looked almost brand new ‘… was the pair Auntie wore when Uncle Neng Bo chose her to be his bride.’

  ‘Wow, the stitching is minute!’

  Great Auntie May looked pleased.

  Mirabel stood up and closed the wardrobe door gently.

  ‘I’m afraid we have to go,’ she said, packing up the dishes and taking them to the sink.

  ‘Wait, I take photo,’ Great Auntie said. ‘Lei An, where my camewa?’