by Alex Miller
And burnished timber,
Smelling of Erinmore pipe tobacco,
Or perhaps it was Digger Shag.
It was my father who smoked Digger Shag.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
The window at which I sat,
Facing the direction of travel,
The best seat in the carriage,
Trembled, the tremor inside the boy inside me
When I closed my eyes
And touched the tips of my fingers to the glass.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I was content;
With my achievements in life
You could say.
It was there,
The sense of my accomplishments,
Knowing myself
To be among the privileged.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
The train stopped at the station
And I got off.
It was the frontier.
I lined up and waited with the others.
I had no fear, knowing my good visa
Would admit me to any country on
This Earth.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
And did I tell you
I was wearing my new jacket?
The black tweed; the weaver declaring himself
On the silk label in the lining: ‘I have woven this tweed by hand
In Donegal Ireland
Exclusively for Kevin & Howlin
Of Nassau Street, Dublin.’
And signed it, he had: J.J. Campbell, Weaver.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I was proud to be wearing it.
Proud of myself, of who
I was with my good visa,
Safe in the inside pocket, right-hand,
Earned by the sweat and struggle
Of my own hard weaving days.
My wife bought a cap there
And looked great in it,
Smiling the way she did.
God bless her memory.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
The frontier guards wore green,
Smart and efficient, they were,
Uniform, you could see that.
And not smiling.
The family of four ahead of me
Were quietly asked to stand to one side.
There was no banter in the exchange,
But a gesture of the gloved hand,
Directing them; the words murmured,
There! Stand over there, please.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I was asked for my visa.
Beyond the barrier other guards stood
Watching, hands clasped behind their backs.
The one on the left smoked
A thin black cigar. Which made me smile.
Senior officers, I supposed, keeping an eye
On the juniors.
I resisted a desire to flourish my
Good visa, and instead laid it modestly
In the open glove of the guard.
There, that is who I am.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
He stamped my visa and,
Saluting me gravely,
Handed it back.
And that is how I crossed the frontier
Into the new country.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
As I passed the family of four,
The mother holding the smallest child
In her arms, the other child holding
Its father’s hand,
Their eyes begged me to intervene
And help them. Their despair
Struck a blow to my chest.
But what was I to do?
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
Beyond the town the road
Led the eye into the interior of the desert.
The prospect reminding me
Of the road from Tunis to El Djem,
Which I had travelled with my beloved wife,
And our companion, the archaeologist, Nejib,
From the Institut National d’Archeologie et d’Art,
Tunis. A man of learning,
He asked me not to speak so freely of
Politics to our driver, a man with
A large moustache who, at lunch, refused
My offer of wine with a disdainful,
‘Alcohol has never passed my lips.’
‘He reports you to Ben Ali’s men,’
The archaeologist said. ‘They wonder why
You are really here.’
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
As a young boy I wrote in my black book:
I wonder why I am really here?
For in that year I was suddenly unable
To believe in God.
And something needed to be done.
Something that now, in middle age,
I have yet to do.
How to put a name to it?
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
In the beginning …
In the end …
The new country to which my
Good visa had gained me admittance
Was a desert.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
Ahead of me, barring the road,
Which was dusty and unmade,
Was a crude barrier, as if it marked
Another makeshift frontier,
An unofficial outpost.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I reached into the right-hand pocket
Of my tweed jacket, woven by J.J. exclusively
For Kevin & Howlin of Nassau Street, Dublin,
In the free Republic of Ireland,
The ancestral home of my mother,
The forlorn village of Ballyragget,
In the county of Kilkenny,
Where my old people lie
By the ruined stone church
Among the black yew trees.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
And my fingers found
My good visa safely there.
A visa with which I might surmount
All barriers, with which I might
Go any road I chose.
So why was I afraid now?
The soldiers watched me approach.
They sat and leaned and smoked,
A slovenly bunch, they seemed to me.
Not like the others.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
There was nothing to stop me
From going around their barrier,
The desert lying empty on either side.
But in my pride I wished to let them know
Who I was;
To see them straighten up
For a man with a good visa.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
They observed me coming on along the road,
Their mocking laughter on the desert air now;
Those blood scavengers we have seen
At the remains of slaughtered beasts.
But I could no longer retrace my steps;
Return to the town, and to lost opportunities there.
As I drew close to the soldiers
Fear was in me.
An
d I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
They leaned against
Piles of truck tyres and forty-four-gallon drums,
Their attentions sinister, smoking
Cigarettes and spitting on the ground.
Unshaved, their sweat-stained tunics open,
Guns held loosely across their bellies.
I saw in them men who had been given pointless work,
Men demoralised by inaction,
Disheartened, bored and cruel
In the face of their meaningless lives.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
An older one among them stepped towards me.
‘Visa!’ he said, thrusting out his hand.
And did not meet my eyes.
I laid my good visa in his naked palm.
He took it without a word,
Without a sign, without looking at it,
Failing to note its special features!
Then turned and went inside the guard post,
Built like an Australian country dunny,
It was, make-do of tin and wood,
Rattling in the desert wind.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I stood in the road and waited,
The heat like a glove over my mouth,
My heart struggling,
The soldiers watching me.
The desert sun on my back through J.J.’s
Black weave.
Their gaze was pitiless,
They were expectant of an entertainment,
Contempt for the solitary traveller.
Insolence and derision in their eyes.
The thought came to me; it
Is important to be philosophical about
One’s death. But fear trumped philosophy.
For fear holds the ace of hearts.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
The older guard at last came out
And with a nasty smirk said,
‘Here’s your visa.’ And he smiled at
His comrades, who laughed
And spat and jigged about
Like children at a Christmas party
When Santa’s arrival is announced.
I looked at the thing in my hand:
It was a filthy scrap of linen,
Torn from a woman’s dress,
Or from a man’s shirt.
The sweetish smell of rotting flesh
Rising to my mouth.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
And I recalled the first time
I had encountered the smell of death:
I was a boy of eight or nine and walking with
My father in the Kentish woods,
Elms and oaks and a scuff of leaves
Under our boots. Then came the smell
That made me cover my mouth.
My wounded father held my hand;
‘Something is dead nearby,’
he said to me. ‘This smell was with us
Every day over there towards the end.’
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
Smeared in blood across the shred of cloth
In my hand, the letters V-I-S-A.
The soldiers rocked and slapped at each other
To witness my dismay.
And fear gripped my beating heart
Like the hand of a giant.
I was a crippled bird
At their mercy, and was never
Again to rise from this ground.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I looked up into the eyes
Of the old soldier;
‘This is not the visa I gave you,’
I said. But my voice was small,
Dry in the hot desert wind.
‘If you don’t give me back my
Good visa, I shall report you
And you will be in big trouble.’
Words simple enough for
The very simplest of men.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
The old soldier addressed his companions.
‘He doesn’t want his visa,’ he said.
Sensing the trap, I clutched the bloody rag
And muttered my thanks.
They did not lift the barrier for me
But watched me duck
Under it, their laughter following me
As I went on; expecting a kick
Or a bullet from behind.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
I was an old man,
Alone in the desert of time,
My good visa a delusion,
My past accomplishments
But scraps blown about.
And when I turned and looked back
The soldiers and their false
Border were gone.
And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough.
Once I had thought it possible
For one world to end
And another to begin.
But it was only a dream.
The road I had come by
Was the road I was going.
2014
Note: The lines, ‘And I always thought: the very simplest words/ Must be enough’ are from Michael Hamburger’s translation of the Bertolt Brecht poem Und ich dachte immer (‘And I always thought’).
Publication Details
‘In the Blood’, The Age, 9 August 2008.
‘Ross and the Green Elfin’, Summer Read Blog, State Library of Victoria, 2008.
‘In My Mother’s Kitchen’, The Age, 12 May 2012.
‘My First Love’, in Reilly, G. (ed.), My First Love and Turning Points, Albert Park, Vic: Julie Morgan Marketing, 1995, 3.
‘Travels with My Green Man’, Weekend Australian, 31 May 2003, 4–5.
‘Once Upon a Life’, The Observer Magazine, 26 September 2010, 12–13.
‘How to Kill Wild Horses’, Quadrant XX, no. 2, February 1976, 58–62.
‘Destiny’s Child’, The Age, 5 August 2002, 6.
‘Living at Araluen’, www.alexmiller.com.au/writing, 2009.
‘In the End it was Teaching Writing’, Australian Literary Review, 5 March 2008, 17.
‘The Last Sister of Charity’, The Age, 18 November 2000; in Corris, Peter and Wilding, Michael (eds), Heart Matters: Personal stories about that Heart-Stopping Moment, Camberwell, Vic.: Viking, 2010.
‘On Writing Landscape of Farewell’, www.alexmiller.com.au/writing, 2009.
‘Australia Today’, published as ‘What Happened to Our Open, Welcoming Land?’, The Age, 26 January 2014.
‘The Writer’s Secret’, The Age, 30 October 1999.
‘Speaking Terms’, Australian Literary Review 3, no. 11, December 2008, 19.
‘Impressions of China’, paper delivered at the World Chinese Writers’ Association Congress, Singapore, December 1995; in ‘Impressions of China’, Meridian 15, no. 1, May 1996, 85–9.
‘Chasing My Tale, Kunapipi XV, no. 3, 1993, 1–6.
‘The Wine Merchant of Aarhus’, Kunapipi XV, no. 3, 1993, 7–45.
‘The Mask of Fiction’, in Dixon, Robert (ed.), The Novels of Alex Miller: An Introduction, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012, 29–41.
‘The Inspiration Behind Lovesong’, www.alexmiller.com.au/writing, 2009.
‘How I Came to Write Autumn Laing’ in Autumn Laing, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2011, 446–52.
‘Comrade Pawel’, Meanjin Quarterly 34, no. 1, 1975, 74–85.
‘The Story’s Not Over Yet’, Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Public Lecture, Docklands Library, Melbourne, 23 August 2014. Unpublished
.
‘Prophets of the Imagination’, Australia: Making Space Meaningful, 9th Biennial Conference of the Association for Australian Studies, Hamburg, 3–10 October 2004; The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2004; in Burke, John Muk Muk and Langford, Martin (eds), Ngara: Living in this Place Now, Wollongong, NSW: Five Islands Press, 2004, 76–82.
‘Sweet Water: The Proposed Damming of the Urannah Valley’, The Bulletin, 16 December 2004, 100–104.
‘The Black Mirror’, Art & Australia 43, no. 3, Autumn 2006, 446.
‘A Circle of Kindred Spirits’, the Hazel Rowley Memorial Lecture, Adelaide Festival, 6 March 2013; Southerly 73, no. 3, 2013, 13–23.
‘Sophie’s Choice’, in Taylor, Craig with Graefe, Melinda (eds), A Sense for Humanity: The Ethical Thought of Raimond Gaita, Clayton, Vic.: Monash University Publishing, 2014, 28–36.
‘Teetering’, Kenyon Review XXXV, no. 4, Fall 2013, 58–61; published as ‘Gorlitzer Strasse’, The Monthly, December 2012–January 2013;
‘Song of the Good Visa’, The Australian, 25 January 2014.
Novels
Coal Creek, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Autumn Laing, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2011.
Lovesong, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2009.
Landscape of Farewell, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2007.
Prochownik’s Dream, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005.
Journey to the Stone Country, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2002.
Conditions of Faith, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000.
The Sitters, Ringwood, Vic.: Viking, 1995; Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2003.
The Ancestor Game, Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1992; Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000.
The Tivington Nott, London: Robert Hale, 1989; Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1993; Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005.
Watching the Climbers on the Mountain, Sydney: Pan, 1988; Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012.
Further Reading
Robert Dixon, Alex Miller: The Ruin of Time, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2014.
Robert Dixon (ed.), The Novels of Alex Miller: An Introduction, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012.
Images
All images are from the private collection of Alex and Stephanie Miller.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank my editor and publisher, Annette Barlow, and my wife, Stephanie Miller, for selecting and arranging this collection over the past two years. I also wish to thank Siobhan Cantrill and the team at Allen & Unwin.