“If he was the first, they probably didn’t have any rules about what to do. Maybe that’s why no one can find his grave. He might be the only Japanese serviceman not buried in Cowra,” says Lucy. “Where was the plane wreckage found?”
Kenichi and I share the same stupid open-mouthed expression.
“We never thought of that,” Kenichi says.
When did Lucy start making sense of things that stumped me? Maybe I should have told her everything, right from the start.
“Do you want to come with us to see Nana Ruth, Luce?” I ask.
“I can’t. Big sister duty again. I’m minding George, but next time, I’m in.”
“For sure.” I’m never excluding Lucy again. And I’m determined to visit Nana Ruth as often as I want so there should be lots of other opportunities.
The door opens and I don’t need a photograph or even a memory to recognise my grandmother. It’s like one of those carnival mirrors that show you skinnier or older. The woman in front of me is both but with my eyes, my cheekbones and my chin. Around her a silver speckled mist circles. I want to hug her and wrap myself inside it. I love Mum, but there’s something different happening here. Time is like a river of sound and smell connecting me to her. It was right to come here.
She’s wearing a tangle of beaded jewellery, a sky-blue kimono patterned with a riot of autumn leaves and two chopsticks threaded through her piled-up grey hair.
I wish I could see the look on Kenichi’s face, but he’s standing politely behind me.
“Charlotte.” She’s flustered and unsure what to do. “What a lovely surprise. Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Ummm.” I look down at the steps where the concrete is fraying into gravel.
“She doesn’t know?”
“I did ask. She said no, but I came anyway. You’re my nana and I want to see you.”
“Oh, Charlotte.” Her words are a half-strangled moan as she wraps me in her arms and I breathe in the smell of cinnamon and earth. “Who’s your friend?” She doesn’t let go as she peers past me to have a closer look.
“This is Kenichi. He’s on a student visit from Japan.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.” Kenichi bows. “Please call me Ken.”
Nana Ruth releases me and bows in return. “Come in, Ken. Come in, Charlotte. I was just about to make tea.” She pauses in the hall. “Do teenagers drink tea or is it coffee nowadays?”
“I’ll just have a glass of water, thank you.” Kenichi chooses a healthy alternative, but I’m about to mess that up. I saw him scoff the last biscuit at Aunt Mandy’s.
“Me too, and we’ll both have a Nana-biscuit if you’ve got one.” Nana Ruth’s biscuits are one of my best-smelling childhood memories. Her biscuits are even better than Mum’s Anzacs.
Inside the house is like a gallery exhibition. Brightly coloured artwork hangs on walls and perches on bookcases and cupboards. Rows and rows of framed photographs stand in lines of family history. I don’t remember any of this, but the symmetry is warm and welcoming. I belong here.
In one of the family photos is a man I don’t recognise. But behind the beard and the long hair, his face reminds me of Eli. It must be my dad. I’ve never seen a picture of Dad before, and I’ve never wanted to, but I know it’s him because he’s holding Mum as if he’d take on the world to protect her. More proof that a photo isn’t always what it seems.
There are lots of pictures of me. With Mum and with Eli. Kenichi studies the photos. He’s smart. I know he’ll connect the dots any moment.
“Have a seat.” Nana Ruth pats a mandala-motif cushion. “I’ve got things to show you. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t want to see me.”
“Silly girl. You are the brightest colour in my paint palette, although disobeying your mum isn’t something I want to encourage so we need to talk about that. But first, we’ll have afternoon tea and show and tell. I have lots of photos. I hope it’s not too boring for you, Ken.”
He grins. “I’m very interested to see photos of baby Shallot.”
“And I’m very interested to hear about Japan. It’s the one place I’ve always wanted to visit,” Nana Ruth says.
Now I know where Mum and Aunt Mandy’s fascination came from.
“Everyone in Shallot’s family says that. Except Shallot.”
Nana Ruth waves a wrist festooned in at least five beaded bangles. “Give her time, Ken. It’s a family tradition. It started with my mother. I’m sure Charlotte has told you her story.”
He nods and Nana Ruth leaves the room, muttering about the photo albums.
“You said Coralie gave us permission to visit,” Kenichi whispers, after Nana Ruth has left.
“I said I was going to ask and I said that we were going there after school. I just left out what Mum said so you didn’t have to worry about doing the right thing.”
He doesn’t look like he appreciates my thoughtfulness.
Nana Ruth returns with an armload of photo albums. The next trip she brings two glasses of water and a plate with a big stack of biscuits.
“I’ll make tea later. I’m too excited to wait for the kettle to boil.” She chooses an album from the pile. On the front, a tri-coloured collage made from bits of feathers and lace spells out my name. Nana Ruth flips the page.
“Can I touch the cover?” I ask.
I run my fingers over its geography, feeling the textures as sound. I turn the page, listening to the soft, soothing music it plays. Everything makes sense. The paintings, the cushions and especially the colours. It’s a wonderful open-the-windows-wide and let-the-sunshine-in feeling. I’m not the only one in my world. There’s someone else I know who sees it like me.
“You’ve got synaesthesia. That’s how you knew to get me tested.”
“Yes, it’s often genetic.”
“Mum definitely hasn’t got it.”
“It’s rare in close generations so I was surprised to find it in you.” Nana Ruth sighs. “Your mum sees everything in black and white.”
The first four pages are hospital baby photos. Me wrapped in a checked blanket, me curled on Mum’s stomach and me cradled in Nana Ruth’s arms. All around the pictures, colour ripples and flows through strips of ribbon, buttons and sequins.
“You look funny with no hair. I was expecting rainbow fluff,” Kenichi says.
He dodges as I reach out to let him know what I think about that comment.
I’m growing up as the pages are turned. Eli is too, looking so much like me it’s obvious who he is. Nana Ruth has lettered his name in apple-skin green. He’s blue in my world but green in hers. His name is decorated with sparkles and glitter. That part’s the same. When I see his name, it always shines.
“What happened to Eli?” asks Kenichi.
Straight to the point, as usual. I’m glad, because he’s opened the door for me to ask what I desperately want to know. When the door was shut, I couldn’t shove hard enough to open it on my own. Now it’s ajar and all I’ll have to do is nudge it a little more.
“He died when he was eight,” Nana Ruth says. “He had whooping cough.”
“You were with him, weren’t you?” My breath clutches at the side of my lungs.
The door is wide open now.
“Eli was in hospital for two weeks. I held him as his life slipped away.”
Nana Ruth swallows, as if doing that will keep the tears deep in her throat, away from her eyes. It doesn’t.
I reach out and enclose her hand in mine. “It’s good he had you with him.”
Kenichi says nothing. There’s nothing for him to say, caught in this moment where he doesn’t belong.
“Your mum didn’t agree.” Nana Ruth hesitates and sniffs. “Coralie was so tired. Worn out from sleeping on the chair beside Eli’s bed. She missed you terribly. So I sent her home, just for one night’s sleep. She didn’t want to go but I convinced her. The doctors said Eli was stable and I promised I wou
ld keep him safe until she came back in the morning. But I didn’t keep him safe. She wasn’t there when he died and she’s never forgiven me for sending her away.”
I understand now why it’s so hard for Mum but it’s not fair to blame Nana Ruth or to refuse to let me see her. If Mum wanted to stay with Eli, she could have.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I squeeze Nana Ruth’s hand. “It’s not your fault.”
Sadness never feels the same. This time it stretches back through time until I feel it tighten and break with a heartrending sound like a violin bow scraped too hard across the strings. The silence that follows is even sadder. “I’ll make that cup of tea,” says Kenichi and I’m vaguely aware of him slipping out of the room.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Nana Ruth whispers. “I made a promise and I didn’t keep it. I should have let her make her own choice.”
Promises cause too much trouble. Elsie’s promise to Daichi. Kenichi’s promise to his family and now this one. I’m not promising anyone anything. I squeeze Nana Ruth’s hand again and she squeezes gently back.
In the kitchen, Kenichi is opening doors and making lots of noise to let us know he can’t hear what we are saying. In the lounge room, there’s nothing to listen to anymore. Just a huge silence, waiting for me to fill it.
“You did everything you could.” The room is full of hurt, pressing hard against my chest.
Nana Ruth pulls a tissue from her bag and blows loudly. “I’m so glad you came to visit me.”
Perfectly timed, Kenichi places a tray on the coffee table. He’s added a stack more biscuits.
“Thank you,” Nana Ruth takes a sip. “This is an excellent cup of tea. Are you enjoying your visit to Cowra?”
“I like it here. There are many interesting things to see.”
“I don’t think I’m one of them.” Nana Ruth turns to me. “Only something important would make you deceive your mum. I knew you would come one day, but I thought that was years in the future. I suspect this visit has something to do with Ken.” She folds her hands into her lap, waiting.
“It does but I don’t feel bad about that. It gave me the courage to do what I’ve wanted to do all my life. I’m glad I’m here.”
“I am too. I didn’t want to wait,” Nana Ruth says.
Unlike Mum, she understands the world is not black and white.
“I wanted to find out more about the photo of Himura Shin,” Kenichi says.
Nana Ruth hunches forward, drawing us in like co-conspirators. “It’s such a sad photo. It doesn’t belong in the Visitor Centre. I wish I never gave it to Coralie, but Elsie’s will said it was to be passed down through the eldest daughter and I thought it was in safe hands. If I’d known she was going to give it away, I would have kept it for you, Charlotte.”
“We discovered that the man who gave the photo to Great-nan Elsie wasn’t Shin,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
“Shin is buried in the cemetery,” explains Kenichi. “It’s him in the photo, but the man who gave it to Elsie is called Okano Daichi. Miss Beadle helped us research the Historical Society records.”
Nana Ruth’s fingers tighten around her teacup.
“That’s because she wants to poke her nose into every little bit of history she can sniff out. Grace Beadle isn’t one of my favourite people. Years ago, I tried to get the photo back. I explained it didn’t belong to Coralie, but Grace stuck to it like glue. She waved a document in my face saying the photo was the legal property of the Historical Society and dared me to take her to court.”
“I knew she couldn’t be trusted.” I give Kenichi my best I-told-you-so glare.
“At least I’ve still got my mother’s diary. Grace doesn’t even know it exists. I’m guessing you’d both like to see it?”
“Yes, please,” we say.
This is better than anything I was expecting. I’m feeling so hopeful.
I help Kenichi gather up the glasses and plates while Nana Ruth gets the diary.
She places it in my lap. “I don’t think it will add anything to what you already know.”
The diary is battered and worn with a thick cardboard cover fraying at the corners. The sort of thing you find in those shops that say antiques but are just full of old junk. I inhale deep. It smells like history and hay.
When I touch the cover, the tip of my thumb tingles.
Each page is dated with bold, carefully inked lettering. The letters slope slightly in different directions, not quite straight lines, as if they are teasing me with their erratic independence. I turn the pages, until I find the day of the breakout.
August 5, 1944
Father is agitated and unpleasant. A soldier came to the house this morning, too early for a Saturday, even on a farm. It was pitch dark when I woke to the sound of their hushed voices. I heard the soldier say hundreds of prisoners escaped from the Camp not long after midnight. He told Father they might come here, looking for food and shelter. We have to lock the doors at night. Now Father does not want me going past the house yard, not even during daylight hours. I don’t know how he thinks the milk cows will be fed if I don’t do it.
Kenichi says something, but his words are blurred. This time I welcome the drum-filled blackness and its secrets.
A man’s voice blusters and bullies. “I told them, Agnes. I told them that building the Camp there was a stupid, dangerous idea. Too close to us, for one thing. Did anyone listen to me?”
“No, dear. They would have been wise to do so.”
The voices are clear and close. Great-nan Elsie is sitting at the kitchen table with my great-great grandparents.
“I’m going to leave a shotgun by the door while I’m in the top paddocks,” her father says. “Two women on their own are an easy target for desperate men. John Ferguson laughed when I taught my womenfolk to handle a gun. Now I bet he’s wishing he did the same.”
“Yes, dear.” Her mother’s voice is soft and compliant, but there’s a hidden strength in her body language.
“I want you and Elsie to stay here while I’m gone. It’s a black day when a man’s family isn’t safe on his own farm.” He thumps the table.
Great-nan Elsie says nothing. Her father is in a bad mood and she doesn’t want to make it worse. She waits until he leaves the room before she speaks.
“They wouldn’t hurt us, would they, Mother?”
“To be honest, my darling, I don’t know. We need to be careful. War changes all men, no matter what country they come from.”
“Harry wrote that he’d seen terrible things he could never tell me and he made me promise never to ask him about the war. He said sometimes it was impossible to know who was a friend and who was an enemy. They had played a football game with the boys on the other side before it was time to start shooting at each other again.”
“War is a truly terrible business. Harry will be home soon enough and you best just get on with things until he does.”
“What about the cows? They’ll be hungry if I don’t go to feed them,” Great-nan Elsie says.
“I don’t see why you can’t go out to the hay barn. It’s in full view of the kitchen. Father can bring the cows into the house paddock this afternoon. I’ll tell him when he comes in for afternoon tea.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Great-nan Elsie sneaks a slice of bread into her overalls pocket.
“Are you all right?” Nana Ruth asks. “Your eyes glazed over. I thought you were going to faint.”
“I almost did.” I’m disappointed that I didn’t. I might have found out more that way. The more intense reactions enhance my synaesthesia.
“What did you see?” Kenichi asks.
“I saw my great-great-grandparents and Great-nan Elsie.”
Nana Ruth’s face is full of question marks.
“It’s been happening ever since Kenichi came to stay. At first it caused me pain and I did black out,” I explain. “I even heard voices. Now I can see the Camp the way it was in 1944 and Great-nan Elsie too
. I can hear what she’s thinking.”
“We believe Shallot’s synaesthesia is making her super-sensitive. Sometimes I can feel or hear a little of what she does,” says Kenichi. “That’s why we’re investigating the photo. Everything that Shallot experiences in those moments leads back to it.”
“In the cemetery we heard a voice asking us to help someone,” I add.
“But who?” Nana Ruth takes a sip of tea, rolling it around her mouth as if that might help her think. “It could be Shin or Daichi.”
“Maybe Elsie’s diary will help,” says Kenichi.
I turn the page. Nothing except an egg count and how cold the wind was. The page after that is blank. The dates I’m most interested in are not even there.
“She didn’t write anything about either of them.”
“Mum would never risk anyone finding out about Shin – I mean Daichi – until she was sure it wouldn’t cause any trouble. I was the first person she told and that was decades after it happened, after her parents and Dad had passed away. They wouldn’t have understood. To them, Japan was the enemy. The women in my family are good at keeping secrets.”
My mum certainly is. And Lucy showed me I’ve been doing it too. What about Nana Ruth? She’s smiling at me, waiting for my question.
I smile back. “Do you have a secret?”
“I do, and now I’m ready to share it. I’ve been waiting a long time for the right person.”
Kenichi stands up. “Should I leave the room?”
“Definitely not. You’re the reason that it’s the right time to tell Charlotte. My mother’s diary isn’t the only thing I have that Grace Beadle doesn’t know about. There’s also a note.”
“I saw Daichi give Great-nan Elsie a note. It was when he was hiding in the barn and she took him food. What does it say?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s written in Japanese.”
Nana Ruth bends the diary’s back cover, just a little, and I can see where it has been slit to create a concealed space. She slides out a folded piece of rice paper. “Mum never told me about this. I found it by accident and decided if she didn’t tell me, then I wouldn’t tell anyone either until I knew what it said. That meant finding someone I could trust to translate it.”
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