The Year It All Ended

by Kirsty Murray

  Tiney made a fresh pot of tea and poured a cup for her sister. ‘Will you really call him Floyd?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought I would, but he doesn’t look like a Floyd, does he?’ said Nette.

  ‘Will you call him Louis, after all?’

  ‘No,’ said Nette. ‘I want to call him Ray. Like his dad. Little Ray. Our ray of sunshine.’ And she kissed the top of his downy head and closed her eyes.

  Dream’s end

  The fever came first. Tiney had just finished scrubbing the kitchen floor at Larksrest when it hit her. As she stood up, she thought she might swoon. Surely it was just the rush of blood to her head. But her throat had been throbbing all morning. She touched her neck and swallowed hard. The throbbing pain wouldn’t go away. It couldn’t be influenza, she thought, prayed. The epidemic had passed. She had been spared.

  When Mama came back from her shopping, she took one look at Tiney and made her sit down. ‘You look ghastly,’ she said, placing her hand on Tiney’s forehead. ‘Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.’

  Having inspected Tiney’s tongue, Mama frowned. ‘Your throat has a whitish coating and your tonsils are swollen.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tiney miserably. ‘My glands are up too. I feel all hot and cold.’

  ‘I’ll fix you some soup.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat it,’ said Tiney, laying her head on the cool of the scrubbed timber tabletop.

  Mama sat down beside her and stroked her hair. ‘I know it’s been hard for you. The last bird in our family nest.’ Then she put her hand against Tiney’s forehead. ‘You’re burning up,’ she said.

  Mama guided Tiney into her bedroom and helped her to undress. When Tiney looked down, she saw the rash, almost like sunburn, spreading from her chest to her neck, down her torso and around to her back. There were red streaks in her armpits and elbows. When Mama touched the burning skin, her fingertips left white circles.

  The doctor came and left again but Tiney had only the vaguest impression of him, of his cold hands against her brow. She saw her mother and father loom above the bed. She called out for Nette, for Minna, for Thea and then for Louis. At one stage, she felt as if she could see them all, gathered around her bed, the living and the dead. She clutched the edge of her eiderdown and tried to speak but her lips were burning, her throat parched. Then, like a dream or a miracle, Thea was there, gently tipping water between her lips.

  ‘Thea?’ she whispered, half expecting the vision of her sister to disappear.

  ‘Mama sent me a telegram. I took the night train from Melbourne,’ Thea said. But Tiney didn’t know if it was now night or day or even how many days had passed since the fever had struck.

  Mama and Thea took Tiney from her bed, their hands like vices around her arms, and put her in a cold bath. Her head rolled back against her will and she gasped. Then they carried her back to bed, with her matted wet hair thick around her head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Martina.’ She heard her mother’s voice and the sound of shears, close to her head, snipping, as her long tresses were cut away. She could see them lying on a sheet of newspaper on the floor before Mama quickly folded the bundle of thick blond hair upon itself.

  When Tiney awoke from the fever, properly woke, she felt as light as a feather. The bones of her face felt brittle, like china. The window was open and sunshine filtered into the room. Tiney raised her hand to her neck and felt its nakedness, the absence of her hair. Cautiously, she climbed out of bed. Her legs were like jelly but she felt clear in her purpose. She crossed the room, the linoleum floor cold beneath her feet, and stood before the cheval mirror. Her nightgown hung around her frame like a tent. There was so much less of her. She looked like a strange sprite. Her hair was short, and matted on the side she’d been sleeping on. She touched her ears, like two shells stuck to the side of her head. It had been so many years since she’d seen them. She had worn her hair long from when she was nine years old, and now it was gone.

  Thea came into the room, carrying a tea tray. ‘Tiney,’ she said.

  Tiney spun around, unbalanced, and made her way back to her bed where she sat down, folding her hands in her lap. ‘My hair. It’s gone.’

  Thea put the tray down and hurried over to sit beside her, putting an arm around Tiney’s shoulders and holding her close. ‘I’m so sorry, Tiney. We couldn’t manage it. You were sick for two weeks and it grew into an awful bird’s nest, all matted and sweaty.’

  ‘Louis loved my hair. He said I mustn’t ever wear it short. Did Ma really have to cut it off?’ asked Tiney.

  Thea looked stricken. ‘She only wanted you to be more comfortable.’

  ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind,’ said Tiney. ‘Really I don’t. I look . . . modern. If you could tidy it up for me, then I might even look stylish.’

  Tiney was so weak that Thea had to help her out into the back garden. She sat on a canvas chair beneath the jacaranda tree. Thea draped a towel around her shoulders and stepped back to study her profile. ‘You look like a porcelain doll or a little bird. You’ve grown so thin, Tiney.’

  Tiney glanced down at her blueish-white hands, lying in her lap.

  ‘You’ve worked too hard,’ said Thea as she snipped and combed Tiney’s hair. ‘While we’ve all been sad, you’ve been taking care of things, too many things. When you were sick, Mama and I realised just how many household tasks you had taken over. Tiney, it was too much for you. You’re barely eighteen!’

  ‘Am I? Did I miss my birthday?’

  ‘Yes, darling. You did. And Armistice Day’s anniversary too. It’s more than a year now since the war ended.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tiney.

  ‘What are you apologising for?’ asked Thea.

  ‘For disappointing you.’

  ‘Stop it. Now you’re being ridiculous. You didn’t disappoint anyone. But you need to take care of yourself and you need a holiday. Paul’s coming on Friday to take you up to Nuriootpa.’

  ‘No!’ said Tiney. ‘I promised Nette I’d go back to Cobdogla and help with baby Ray. I have to, as soon as I’m strong enough. And who’s going to help Mama take care of Papa? I haven’t time for a holiday.’

  Thea laid down her scissors and knelt in front of her little sister. ‘Tiney, we nearly lost you. How could we bear it? You are too precious, to all of us, to risk losing. I’m going to stay home and help Mama. We will be all right. We want you to get better. In the Barossa, you can simply rest. You won’t have to do anything at all and the country air will be good for you. Onkel Ludwig and Tante Bea have offered to have you stay with them for as long as you need.’

  Tiney began to cry, though she quickly realised the tears were a mixture of relief and frustration. A flurry of petals drifted down from the jacaranda tree and landed on her skirt. As she brushed them from her lap, she thought of how a whole year had slipped by since she had stood under the jacaranda tree listening to the church bells of Adelaide ringing in peace. Her dreams felt as broken as the possibility of love.

  Barossa

  Paul held out his hand to help Tiney down from Onkel Ludwig’s car. For a moment, she felt like a girl from a cinema poster, standing on the running board of a Studebaker in her new dress with the tips of her sharply cut blonde bob peeping out from beneath a cloche hat.

  Onkel Ludwig and Tante Bea’s home, Vogelsang, was a house of nooks and crannies, of gabled windows and intricate fretwork. It had five chimneys and a long return verandah that wrapped around the red-brick and sandstone walls. Tante Bea welcomed Tiney, and Paul carried her suitcase into the cool of the bedroom. Exhausted from the journey, she sat in the window seat, overlooking the garden. It was dry and sandy in comparison to Larksrest with low shrubs and a stand of gums near the new paling fence.

  Tiney watched as Paul crossed the driveway and collected his bicycle from the garage. He wheeled it out into the street, swung a leg over the seat and pedalled off to his job at the chemist’s shop. Then Onkel drove off in the Studebaker to visit his vineyards. Tiney
lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. In the distance a magpie sang, but inside Vogelsang all sounds were muffled. She shut her eyes and slept.

  When she woke, she found someone had come into her room and unpacked her things. Her books and letter-writing folio were neatly arranged on the dresser. Tiney flipped open the folio and took out the photograph of Louis to prop beside her bed, alongside the family photo of her parents and sisters. She felt a twinge of guilt as she rearranged the remaining photos and papers. The night before, she had crept into Papa’s study and rifled through his desk drawer to find the photo of the mysterious woman and child. Papa claimed he had read through Louis’ diary and carefully reviewed all his letters but could find no mention of anyone like them. He disdained putting the photograph in his precious scrapbook of Louis’ life. What if the woman in the photo was really a person of no consequence, someone who had no true connection to Louis? Was there ever any way of knowing what she had meant to him? Tiney put the photo in an envelope and tucked it into the back of her writing folio.

  The days fell into an easy rhythm. Tiney spent much of them sleeping. It was as if all the restless nights of the past year had caught up with her, for within an hour of breakfast she had so little energy that simply getting dressed and eating left her exhausted. All she could do was creep back to her room and lie down again until the bell rang for lunch.

  Tante Bea wanted no help from Tiney, despite her frequent complaints about needing a daughter. Two girls came every morning to sweep and dust and to boil the big copper kettle in the back laundry. They helped Tante Bea in her endless rounds of pickling and preserving. They brought in the spring harvest from the kitchen garden and the orchard, and peeled and chopped, salted vegetables and stewed fruit to fill shining glass jars while Tiney sat reading on the return verandah, saving her energy for the evenings.

  Dinners at Vogelsang were much more formal than at Larksrest. Tiney missed the chatter of her sisters and the easy tenderness between her parents, though she took pleasure in the easy way everyone spoke German here, without Nette to scold. Though her uncle and aunt sometimes smiled at her mistakes, she was grateful for their patience and unstinting kindness. Tiney felt as if the most important way she could repay her uncle and aunt was to make them laugh. She had the feeling that no one had laughed at Vogelsang for a very long time.

  When the table was cleared, Tiney and Paul sat at the piano together and played duets. It was soothing to have music to cover the terrible silences between Paul and his parents. Paul was a much more accomplished musician than Tiney, and she loved sitting beside him watching his hands racing up and down the ivory keys. He also had a beautiful baritone voice and when he sang Schumann’s Dichterliebe song cycle, Onkel Ludwig would grow teary. Tante Bea would hand him her handkerchief, which always made Tiney smile.

  But by far the best part of the day, as far as Tiney was concerned, was when Paul came cycling up the driveway in the late afternoon. Tiney would try to make sure she was in the garden when he arrived so they could talk without Tante Bea listening to every word. In the presence of his parents, Paul’s face closed over like a darkening sky, but when it was just the two of them, he would tell her stories and jokes to make her laugh, and tease her affectionately. It made him seem more like his brother Will. It made her want to trust him.

  It was while they were sitting beneath a plum tree in the orchard on a December evening, eating the first blood-red fruit of the season, that Tiney showed him the photo. Paul wiped his hands on the yellow grass and took it from her carefully.

  ‘It was in Louis’ things that were sent from the Front. Mama and Papa won’t let us talk about it but I can’t help wondering if this could be Louis’ child,’ said Tiney, leaning forward and pointing to the baby.

  ‘It could be anyone’s son,’ he said dismissively, handing the picture back to Tiney.

  ‘Do you think it’s a boy? I really couldn’t tell. But why would he keep the photo? It must be someone he knew well. And the woman is very pretty, don’t you think?’

  ‘For a Jewess, I suppose she is,’ said Paul. He stretched out in the long grass and stared up at the summer sky.

  ‘Now you’re teasing me. You can’t know she’s a Jew,’ said Tiney. ‘You’re simply guessing. We can’t know anything about them and we probably never will. She belongs to a different world.’

  ‘Yes, the real world,’ said Paul, bitterly.

  ‘It’s no more real than here,’ said Tiney.

  A murder of black crows flew over the orchard and wheeled towards the river. The silence between Paul and Tiney stretched out like a chill wind.

  ‘Do you feel strong enough for a stroll?’ asked Paul suddenly. ‘Or we could take the car and go for a drive, if you don’t feel like walking.’

  ‘Why don’t we do both?’ said Tiney. ‘Let’s drive and then walk. You keep telling me you’re going to show me all the magical places in the Barossa. It’s about time I got the Paul Kreiger tour.’

  Paul smiled. ‘So you’re feeling brave, little cousin?’

  ‘I always feel brave,’ replied Tiney.

  They drove through Nuriootpa, past an old cemetery and along a dusty track. The sky was splashed with coppery clouds but the evening was warm and there were still many hours before darkness. After driving through valleys green with grapevines and over dusky golden hills, they parked beside a towering, white-barked gum tree.

  ‘So, my courageous cousin, are you ready to face the black heart of the Barossa? Do you know that a Zauberer, a sorcerer, fought the devil not very far from here?’

  Tiney laughed.

  ‘No, it’s true. My father used to scare me and Will when we went hiking here as boys. The end of the world was nigh and the Zauberer fought the devil to save us all.’

  ‘On Mount Kitchener?’ asked Tiney.

  ‘You know it’s not Mount Kitchener,’ said Paul, his tone changing. ‘It’s Kaiserstuhl – the Emperor’s seat. Sixty-nine names from the map of South Australia have been changed this year. Sixty-nine! Even poor little Schuber is now Stuart. Ridiculous.’

  Tiney sighed. ‘Let’s not fight, Paul. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Nette insisted on using the British names, you know that.’

  ‘How can you listen to her?’

  ‘Because she’s my big sister and I love her. But I don’t want to argue with you. Tell me about the sorcerer and the end of the world.’

  ‘Have you heard of old Kavel, the Lutheran minister who brought out hundreds of Germans back in 1838? Your mother used to hear him preach when she was growing up in Tanunda. Some say he was the sorcerer in this story. Kavel was always predicting the end of days. Some say he practised grey magic, others say that’s rubbish. Perhaps it was someone else. Who knows? When our people left their old homes, they brought more than themselves to this country.’

  ‘But for us, it’s different, isn’t it?’ asked Tiney. ‘We were born here, you and me. We’re part of the new country, not the old.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Do you want to hear the story or not?’

  Tiney nodded and Paul’s voice dropped into storytelling mode.

  ‘So this old Zauberer, this man of grey magic, he brought his powers with him from Germany. And when he came here, to this place and saw the mountain and the ravine, he knew that when the devil was about to ascend to the world it would be from Kaiserstuhl Mountain. He also knew that when the devil came, he would transform himself into the red-bearded troll, Barbarossa.

  ‘So the Zauberer ordered the blacksmith down in Nuriootpa to make chains so strong they could bind the Devil. Then the citizens shored up the sides of Tanunda jail in preparation for his capture.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For when the Zauberer succeeded, of course, and came down the mountain with the Devil in tow. Eight men dragged chains up steep roads, with the Zauberer leading the way. It was the blackest night of the century. Some say they came back down the next morning shamefaced. But there is another story about what happened on that
dark night.’

  Paul opened the car door and jumped out, striding up the path ahead. Tiney ran after him, catching his arm. ‘You can’t leave off there!’ she said, breathlessly, trying to keep pace with him.

  Paul grinned. ‘Some say that the Zauberer and his apprentices climbed the mountain in a wind so strong they could barely stand. Then blue lightning struck the chains and . . .’ Paul clapped his hands loudly and Tiney jumped. ‘The apprentices were vaporised. But the Zauberer stood his ground. All night, he fought from inside a Hexenkreis that he’d drawn on the ground with the charred leg-bone of an apprentice. And he read from a Zauberbuch, his magical book of sorcery. At dawn, when the Zauberer came back down to Tanunda, he was scorched black.’

  ‘Did he have the Devil with him?’ asked Tiney

  ‘Well, the people of the town asked him whether he had caught the Devil. He told them he had chained the beast and cast it into the devil-pit at the foot of Kaiserstuhl.’

  Tiney glanced around the bush uneasily.

  ‘So the Devil is beneath the ground, right here in the Barossa?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘If you try hard enough, you can imagine it’s true.’

  Tiney tried to picture the sorcerer with his face scorched black. All she could conjure was exactly what she saw – Paul, gazing broodingly over the landscape.

  Paul raised his hand and pointed upwards. ‘That gorge, over there, that’s where the Devil stays chained.’ He grabbed a broken branch and began bashing his way through the long grass and scrub towards the fissure in the rock. Tiney followed. When they reached it, they stood and stared at the deep, black opening in the stone.

  ‘It’s just a story,’ said Paul. ‘There’s nothing there. There’s nothing here at all. They try and mix the old stories with this place and it doesn’t work. You can tell it has its own stories – ones that we don’t know, stories that don’t belong to me just as I don’t belong here.’