Whipbird

by Robert Drewe

  When he totted up his successes and failures as a chaplain for Combined Team Uruzgan at Tarin Kowt, his Resurrection breakfast was a success. In contrast to the Good Friday ecumenical stations of the cross anyway, a washout that puzzled the boys as it made its way around the base. And the Easter vigil on Saturday night was another flop, when all they wanted to do was sleep. Or play cards. Or lift weights – they were all gym junkies. Or watch porn. Porn at Easter? They saw no blasphemy. They could be dead by Easter Monday.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he’d say, as he walked in on some steamy video or other. Interracial seemed very popular in Afghanistan, and reckless brunettes wearing glasses. Librarian porn?

  ‘Not at all, padre.’ But the cheery obscenities and banter would cease, and after a minute or two of schoolboy blushes and embarrassed throat-clearing (not instantly or they’d look like wusses) one of them would saunter over, self-consciously yawning, ‘Jeez, is that the time?’ and turn it off.

  Put on a tasty breakfast, however, and young men would attend, even if bacon was off the menu when you were embedded with the Afghan National Army. Cultural awareness. But they’d just as happily arrive for steak and eggs.

  The sharp bacon smell still lingered now as he stepped onto Hugh’s dais by the wine cellar, the damp repairs to his breakfast spillage offset, he hoped, by the jacket and dog-collar he’d put on at the last minute.

  He thought to begin with the family blessing, but he was having a little semantic difficulty with the word ‘blessed’. On his way to Whipbird yesterday, stopping for petrol and the Saturday paper, the word ‘blessed’ had beamed out from the Shell fuel-stop’s magazine rack.

  There it was on another cover, and another. Three or four blessed events in one week. What glory was occurring, what benedictions were being heaped on these celebrities so famous they needed only a Christian name?

  The magazine jackets stopped him in his tracks. ‘Blessed’ was clearly a celebrity buzzword. ‘Nicole’ felt ‘permanently blessed’ a decade after her husband’s successful rehab, though this seemed at odds with another cover emblazoned Nicole: ‘My Marriage Is Over!’ Meanwhile, ‘Kim’ was ‘totally blessed’ with her latest ‘booty pics’, her black ‘Baby Daddy’ and a new cosmetic range. And ‘Poor Jen’ was finally ‘blessed’ with a faithful beau. At Last! No More Love Rats for Jen!, the cover cheered.

  How could these glossy women claim special protection by God? Who were they to allege they’d been granted His divine approval and peace? To maintain He had turned His face towards them and shone His heavenly compassion on their cleavages and buttocks and plumped lips and diet tips? Though blessed far beyond those boastful cover girls, the young Sophia, gorgeous staunch Catholic, would never have made such an arrogant assertion.

  Anyway, here he was, spruiking God into the dust and gravel once more. In that way Whipbird was like Tarin Kowt. In that way alone. Looking down on the placid, easygoing crowd he recalled the unshaven stressed faces of the young soldiers who’d sought his spiritual help in Afghanistan, with their fear of unknown explosive havoc there mirroring their fear of unknown domestic turmoil at home, their bewildered eyes indicating the padre was, what? A time-filler or their last resort?

  He didn’t know for sure. But one thing was evident: the closer you got to the danger, the greater the numbers at worship, the more soldiers who sought out the chaplain. Quite simple really. They seriously didn’t want to be blown up. They didn’t want their mates to have to pick up their widely scattered bits and pieces.

  But had he done any good as the professionally sympathetic padre, the man they turned to – so the sentimental Army PR guff went – ‘for broken parts and broken hearts’? He had his doubts.

  Compared to a humanist chaplain, for example? The Belgian troops in the Multinational Force had employed a humanist padre, more psychologist than bible basher, who was supposed to work far greater wonders with troop morale. Or so the annoying Kapitein Matthias Aarse had boasted when they drank a few beers together.

  Kapitein Aarse bragged about the wonderful Belgian beer, too, the 1150 original varieties and the 180 marvellous breweries and the deliciousness of the icy ‘Duvel’ blond ale they were drinking, which amused the Belgian humanist to serve to a Catholic chaplain because ‘Duvel’ meant ‘devil’, he revealed three or four glasses into the evening, stroking his moustache like a sniggering old-time villain.

  And incidentally did the Jesuit Father know the names of the other three beers he’d just sunk (Kapitein Aarse pointed this out even more gleefully) were Dutch for Satan, Lucifer and Judas?

  ‘Really?’ He was both pissed and pissed off by then. ‘At least I’m not a smart-arse.’

  At the Whipbird dais a sudden pointless irritation swept over him, a dissatisfaction encompassing both the smug Belgian humanist and those rich, ‘blessed’ cover girls, and he wanted to squash their ignorant overconfidence and extravagant claims.

  Settle down. Banish crazy irrational thoughts. Show some situational awareness, like in Afghanistan. Adapt and empathise. You’re there for all the denominations and for the nonbelievers, too.

  Funny thing, over there it was the teasing, bantering atheists who seemed to most enjoy his company. Those Australian boys were mostly new to any sort of religion, or any idea of religion. Religion, what was that? Recreation was their religion, everything recreational – alcohol, sex, sport, drugs. Let’s face it, as religion’s rep in this war, he was a churchy curiosity.

  On his arrival at Tarin Kowt it was suggested – and he quickly understood that a suggestion was an order more politely put – that he should visit the town mosque. Good image stuff for the Multinational Force that was mentoring the locals.

  An icy morning on his third day in Afghanistan. Frost on the dust, a sky bare of trees and birds, the sun a milky haze, the multimillion-dollar Dutch-built road into town punctuated by speed bumps every 200 metres. He expected every lurch to be the initial click of an IED, the Taliban’s favourite weapon, the improvised explosive device.

  Newspaper sweet-cones blew along the street, children’s dark eyes peered at him from concrete balconies and through window slits. Silence. No birds. No dogs. No music. No voices. A sound of far-off thunder. Or explosives. His brain kept repeating IED. And he’d heard of wired-up kids strolling up to soldiers – and bam!

  He felt eyes from everywhere upon him, and the blanketed Pashtuns who instantly encircled him were tubbily layered in enough covering to hide several suicide bombs. On the other hand, what a prize hostage he’d make! For a second a pale and terrified version of himself peered from the world’s TV screens, voicing an under-threat-of-a-beheading double renunciation: of Christianity and the West.

  Despite the cold, he’d never sweated so much in his life. The precautionary Xanax he’d taken wasn’t working. Ten mils was having no effect – if anything he was even speedier. He suddenly doubted he was up to this job. He felt strangely neutered and passively fatalistic. The two soldiers accompanying him, the driver and the gunner sergeant, were nowhere to be seen. Their jeep had disappeared. He was surrounded. Surely a Taliban execution loomed.

  The Christian God had never seemed less present. Surely He wasn’t in this place. How could He be in Afghanistan? He’d be over the horizon somewhere, tending to the Catholics in Ireland or Italy, maybe in Brazil or Argentina, nurturing greener, more temperate pastures. And the village leaders each politely shook his hand and gave him a minty, watery yoghurt to drink. It settled the butterflies in his stomach. Doogh, it was called. Then a saucer of pomegranate seeds to nibble, sweet on the tongue, with that slight bitter aftertaste.

  Situational awareness.

  ‘Morning, everyone,’ he addressed the paddock of relatives staring politely up at him. A line of latecomers’ cars returning to the vineyard from the motels in town was stirring up the dust and several people began coughing. He caught a glimpse, a purple flash, of a pirate’s bandana.

  ‘Or should I say, “Yo-ho-ho”?’ he said, half-heartedly.


  That encouraged three or four pirates to growl ‘Aaarrgh’, the stupid Long John Silver noise that was boring everyone witless, and there were several groans. Someone answered the pirate growl with the Tooowhit, choo-wi, wi-wi whipbird call and several people laughed. A dog yapped and was silenced. Ryan’s audience looked patiently resigned but clearly they were on the edge of restlessness. He should loosen things up. Unbidden, a joke the boys at Tarin Kowt had seemed to enjoy suddenly forced its way out.

  ‘I thought I’d start with a priest joke.’

  How wooden this sounded, how unfunny, and he immediately regretted saying it, and deeply regretted the joke on the way as well, a padre-to-servicemen joke, a just-one-of-the-boys war-zone joke, but it was too late to turn back now.

  ‘A woman goes to her priest one day and says, “Father, I’ve a problem. My old uncle gave me two female parrots. They can talk, they never stop, but they only know how to say one very embarrassing thing.”

  ‘“What do they say?” asks the bemused priest.

  ‘“They say, ‘Hi there, we’re hookers! Do you want to have some fun?’”’

  In the paddock before him, a young male voice chortled. A skinny boy in black. ‘Woo!’ the boy said. Someone near him cleared their throat disapprovingly. Did Ryan also hear a mass intake of breath or was it his imagination? Unhappily, he surged onward.

  ‘“That’s shameful!” says the priest. “But I have a solution to your problem. I’ve got two male parrots that I’ve taught to pray and read the Bible. Bring your parrots to my house, and we’ll put them in the cage with Paddy and Paul. My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship.”

  ‘Next day, when he ushers in the woman and her two female parrots, she sees that the male parrots are holding rosary beads and praying.

  ‘Impressed, she walks over and places her parrots in their cage with them. Instantly, the females squawk in unison: “Hi, we’re hookers! Do you want to have some fun?”

  ‘There’s a stunned silence. Then, one male parrot nudges the other male parrot and says, “Put the beads away, Paddy, our prayers have been answered!”’

  There were several male guffaws. But of the older Kennedy ladies and some plump Casey great-aunts and Fagan grandmothers in the foreground – the more religious, front-row relatives – Ryan saw only embarrassed, blank or severe expressions. He heard their disapproving tongue clicks and then a silence fell over the paddocks, the vineyard, the state of Victoria, the whole country. All was dust.

  Situational awareness! To tell the truth, the soldiers hadn’t laughed much either – the joke was too clean for them.

  He feigned heartiness but his face was hot and his palms were sweating. ‘I’m glad Hugh mentioned our mutual Jesuit education yesterday. By the way, did you hear about the Jesuit and the Franciscan who were travelling to Rome on a train with no dining car?’

  He paused and surveyed the crowd with a mock-serious frown. Why am I trying to be a stand-up comic? It surprised him how hot his face felt. His palms were damp, his head still throbbed and the whole congregation seemed to be enveloped in mist. A horse whinnied somewhere. Otherwise, the paddocks were strangely silent. Unhappily, he ploughed on.

  ‘The Jesuit produces a delicious-looking apple pie and cuts it in two – one slice much larger than the other. He takes the bigger piece and offers the smaller slice to the Franciscan.

  ‘“You’ve taken the big piece,” the Franciscan protests.

  ‘“Which piece would you have taken?” the Jesuit asks.

  ‘“I would’ve taken the smaller one,” says the Franciscan, sanctimoniously.

  ‘The Jesuit takes a big bite of pie. “Well, you’ve got it.”’

  Several people laughed now, and even the older women were smiling. He gulped a breath. At least that one went across pretty well. Jokes over, he was on his way now. He tapped the microphone, then cleared his throat.

  ‘Did you know that unless people belong to God, they can’t be totally blessed no matter how many times you tell them to be blessed, or how many times they claim they are?’ He paused for effect, ran his gaze over the crowd. ‘Yes, this applies to us all, even to glossy celebrities on magazine covers.’

  Huh? A layer of low morning cloud still hung over the creek. Crows, stealthily silent now, hopped around the paddocks and flopped onto the garbage bins. Befuddled relatives peered up at him, and at each other.

  That was a mistake. What on earth made me say that? Who cares about stupid cover girls? Nearby, the Posh Nosh girl walked along the line of barbecues, throwing water on one hotplate after another. Clouds of steam fizzed around her body. She emerged finally, like a figure from a dream or a mirage.

  Just do it. He concentrated on assuming a serious religious face now, and raised his eyes to the wide streaked sky. The vast country sky of Australian history and myth. ‘Blessed are You, loving Father, for giving us this family of Conor Cleary in all its generations. To be with us in times of joy and sorrow, to help us in days of need, and to rejoice with us in this moment of celebration.’

  ‘Hal-le-lujah!’ intoned the boy in black.

  ‘Yes, hallelujah,’ said Father Ryan. (Lachlan, is that you, you little shit?) ‘Because we are a family,’ he went on. ‘Young and old, men and women, boys and girls, we’re here for one another. We are, inevitably, love and trial, strength and trouble. Whether in the same household or far apart, interstate and overseas, in war and peace, we belong to one another, and in our many and various ways we remember and pray for one another.

  ‘Ahhh-men!’ intoned the boy.

  Ryan shot him a glance. ‘We join now to give thanks to God and to ask God’s blessing on this family.’

  Some people murmured after him, ‘God bless this family,’ and simultaneously a clutch of Clearys muttered instead, ‘God bless the Clearys,’ which prompted other groups to say, defiantly, ‘God bless the Caseys.’ And the Fagans/Kennedys/O’Donnells’ et cetera, and amid this continuing low hubbub some made the sign of the cross, rather self-consciously, this venue being a gravelly vineyard and not a church.

  Father Ryan cleared his throat. ‘Yes, the family,’ he said, and smiled and raised his arms in what he hoped was an all-inclusive way, and then, because he thought it might look too pontifical, he dropped them again. ‘Here we all are.’

  The aroma of bacon still hung in the air. Crows gargled nearby. By tugging on a strip of overhanging plastic trash, one crow managed to flip open the lid of a garbage bin, dive in, and start scattering rubbish. People were beginning to be diverted by them. Someone laughed at the bird’s skill and someone else groaned, ‘Oh, no!’ An elderly male L’Estrange or Kennedy coughed and tried to clear his throat and a pirate woman thumped his back.

  Father Ryan continued, ‘As we read in Numbers 6:24-26: May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make his face to smile upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favour and grant you his peace.’

  How could a smell so tasty and tempting before breakfast now make him feel so queasy? His intestines knotted and plunged so loudly he was sure the microphone would pick up the gurgles. He daren’t risk a fart – there lay disaster. The ‘works’ had been a big mistake, especially the jalapeños.

  Everyone still looked up at him expectantly. There were frowns from the aunts and grannies in the front row. They wanted more. OK, let’s give them the old favourite.

  ‘I should mention a miracle I’m sure would be popular here today – the transformation of water into wine.’

  He paused for a reaction and there were a couple of mild supportive guffaws. One of the Fagan men gave him the thumbs-up.

  ‘At the Wedding at Cana occurred the first miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of St John. When the wine runs out, Jesus turns water into wine.’

  Should speed it up a bit. He edited as he read: ‘When the wine ran out, his mother said, “They have no wine.” There were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or t
hirty gallons, and Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.”

  ‘When the master of the feast tasted the water it had miraculously become wine. He called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone usually serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now!”

  ‘Just like Hugh this weekend,’ he joked, and there were a few laughs now because the wine buffs realised they’d been drinking cheaper cleanskins since yesterday afternoon. ‘And I imagine that the party at Cana was every bit as enjoyable as this one.’

  His own headache was split by the retching cry of a crow on the weathervane. The crow continued to caw and gag in a parched-wasteland sort of way, like the compulsory Aaarghs of those bloody pirates.

  The arid, end-of-the-world cries of the crows, the gravel, the dry, trodden-down tussock grass of the paddocks, the rows of dead-looking vines trailing into the distance, how perfect for Simon to appear right on cue now, Ryan thought, staring blankly up at him. Looming at the edge of the crowd, gaunt and expressionless, like death warmed up, but only slightly, while his attendant daughter endeavoured to comb his flyaway hair.

  Yes, enter the family scarecrow, a tattered overcoat on a stick: his loony cousin and his psychiatric condition of imagined death that everyone was gossiping and frowning knowingly about, and shaking their heads and muttering smugly, ‘With that many drugs, what can you expect?’

  Shouldn’t he confront that weird can of worms and help his cousin regain his faith and his will to live? Draw on his recent experiences to bring him comfort? In Tarin Kowt he’d helped unchurched, barely educated wild boys confront the question of their own mortality every day. And plenty of drug problems there, too. He’d helped these denizens of a secular world come to terms with the world’s top moral challenge, no contest. Taking another person’s life.