Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘I is called a “high yella”,’ Jimmy said.

  Stone smiled. ‘Of even more importance is the fact that the immigration official’s report states you are an orphan. You see, the law states that if there is no past history available then the subject can, at the discretion of an immigration officer, undergo a physical examination. “Give him a physical examination,” the caller from the Immigration Department said to me. “I’m not a physician,” I told him. “You don’t need to be,” was the reply. “Wasn’t that done in Hobart?” I asked. He’d sounded impatient. “Yellow, that’s what the report says. It could be a suntan – so why don’t you look where the sun don’t shine, colonel.”’

  Jimmy and I both laughed. ‘Is this for real?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely! Now, would you mind dropping your trousers and pulling down your underpants, Private Oldcorn.’

  Despite the indignity and even the humiliation this may have caused Jimmy, I had to laugh. Fortunately, so did he.

  The human buttocks are evidently the area of skin least exposed to the sun, the colonel said, as Jimmy dropped his daks and pulled down his underpants. Under the bluish fluorescent light the skin on his bum looked pale enough to me. ‘I’d say that’s pretty white, wouldn’t you, Mr McKenzie?’

  I heard Jimmy take an inward breath and suddenly it was no longer funny. ‘Fuck, I’m sorry, mate,’ I said to Jimmy.

  ‘Yes, so am I,’ said the colonel. ‘Please get dressed, Private Oldcorn.’

  Jimmy pulled up his underpants and britches. ‘It been done before, Brother Fish,’ Jimmy said quietly. ‘In Elmira Reformatory, dey done do dis to classify yoh. Nigger, chink or white – dat da only three class-si-fi-cation dey got. Sometimes two brothers dey der, one he clas-si-fied white, da udder he a nigger.’

  ‘I don’t think I heard that!’ the colonel remarked.

  ‘Now what happens?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I put in my report and make a recommendation.’ Colonel Stone shrugged. ‘After that, I’m afraid it’s out of my hands.’ He extended his hand to Jimmy. ‘Private Oldcorn, good luck. You’re the kind of man any soldier would admire and be glad to have at his side in a weapon pit.’

  ‘Why, I thank yoh, colonel. It been nice ta know yoh,’ Jimmy said. I knew him well enough to know that when he was upset, he was at his calmest (‘Yoh don’t show dem muth’fuckers nothin’, Brother Fish. Make sure iffen dey look in yo’ eye, dey see da sea o’ tranquillity’). I felt sure the epithet didn’t include Colonel Stone, but the humiliation Jimmy had experienced, starting right from the beginning with Mr Cuffe and the impossible dictation test, must be having a cumulative effect. Baring his arse in the men’s toilet was just about the last straw.

  Turning to me, the colonel shook my hand. ‘Mr McKenzie, you’re fortunate to have such a friend.’

  ‘He has his moments,’ I replied, grinning.

  We walked back to the interview lounge and Colonel Stone said goodbye to us all. We were starting to walk towards the exit door when he said, ‘Oh, by the way, Private Oldcorn, I understand you are due to be demobbed in a few days. May I suggest you leave it for perhaps another fortnight?’

  As soon as we were outside in the sunshine, anticipating what the girls were thinking, I quickly volunteered, ‘Jimmy passed his physical with flying colours.’ Later I told them separately what had occurred. When I told Wendy, she promptly burst into tears. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, who was older and made of sterner stuff, remained silent, then said softly, ‘Sometimes, when we reach the depths of despair, we also reach a crisis point in our lives where the weak perish and the strong survive. James is a very strong man, Jack.’

  That final sentence about Jimmy not going into the American Consulate in Melbourne to take his discharge from the army for two weeks was perhaps the most encouraging of all the things the colonel said to us. We now had a deadline to look forward to – just fourteen days and we’d know what was going to happen. I guess the Australian Government felt it couldn’t hold out much longer and had to locate Jimmy before it appeared totally incompetent in the eyes of the Americans.

  Within a week, he received a letter from the Immigration Department in Hobart.

  Commonwealth Department of Immigration

  Mr Richard Oldcorn

  Poste Restante

  Livingston

  Queen Island

  10th April, 1954

  Dear Mr Oldcorn, On behalf of the Commonwealth Department of Immigration I am instructed to request that you appear at this office on April 16th 1954 at the time of eleven a.m.

  Your two previously attending sponsors may accompany you to the interview if you wish.

  I remain,

  Yours faithfully,

  Clarence Cuffe

  Officer for Immigration – Tasmania

  We tried not to get our hopes up – after all, anything could happen. Colonel Stone had said that in the past the army had proved to have very little influence over such matters, so there was no point in getting too excited. It was back to Launceston and then the bus to Hobart. We arrived at the Immigration Office on the dot of eleven, and this time there was no waiting and no apathetic receptionist. The legless gobbling spider actually half-smiled and informed Mr Cuffe via her intercom that we’d arrived, and after a few moments Cuffe’s voice crackled back and we were instructed to enter his office.

  The fat man rose from his seat as we entered, and indicated the three chairs already placed in front of his desk. ‘Good morning. Please sit down,’ he instructed, his voice slightly less formal than on the previous occasion we’d entered his office. Seating himself, he cleared his throat and said, ‘You must understand I have the greatest respect for your war records, but I have a job to do.’

  It was a much better plea for understanding than when, on the previous occasion, he’d claimed he was only following instructions. I guess when you’re in the public service these terms just slip off the tongue automatically. One thing was new, though – he’d not mentioned our war records on the previous visit, which suggested that he’d been given additional information for this interview and, hopefully, instructed to sort something out.

  ‘I want to apologise,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said formally and a little too quickly, as if he’d expected it. What the hell, I wasn’t really sorry I’d physically threatened him, but I wanted to clear the atmosphere before we began the meeting. If something good didn’t come out of all this, I told myself I’d most likely do the same again. Fat pigs with power were not my favourite people. I could see Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had no intention of apologising for drawing parallels between Cuffe’s behaviour and that of the Nazis.

  ‘Look,’ he continued, ‘I’ll be perfectly honest with you.’ He spread his stubby hands. ‘Mr Oldcorn, in my opinion you don’t qualify to migrate to Australia. As a Commonwealth immigration officer I am authorised to make a decision based on your physical appearance, noting your racial characteristics. That is precisely the task I carried out last time you were in this office.’ He picked up a pencil and leaned back in his chair, tapping the pencil point into the blotter on the desk in front of him and making tiny indentations. ‘But now it seems I was mistaken, and I am informed Mr Oldcorn has undergone a more detailed examination. I am here to tell you that the decision reached after that examination is that Mr Oldcorn is a borderline case. In other words, the decision could go either way.’ He threw up his hands suddenly as if anticipating a question. ‘Please, if you think I have the final decision I can assure you that is not the case at all. I am here to ask a few more questions only – the final decision will be made in Canberra.’

  Bloody hell! This thing is up and down like a yoyo! Whenever is it going to end?

  Cuffe continued, glancing down at a file. ‘I see here that you are to return to the United States to receive a military decoration from the president, Mr Oldcorn?’

  ‘So I’ve been told, but not officially,’ Jimmy said in a passable Australian accent, his grammar per
fect.

  ‘My congratulations,’ Cuffe said.

  ‘Thank you,’ the Australian version of Jimmy Oldcorn answered politely.

  Cuffe turned to me. ‘I believe you’re in the fishing game, Mr McKenzie?’

  ‘Well, I’m a fisherman, but we – that is, Jimmy and I – hope to go into the cray business together. Providing he is allowed to stay.’

  ‘I see, well, that’s most encouraging news. You see, there is a regulation that says that coloured aliens, a category not eligible to immigrate, can be issued with a Certificate of Exemption if they conduct an export business from Australia that is of benefit to the Australian economy.’

  There followed a moment of astonished silence between us. Then, quick as a flash, Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan said, ‘How very perspicacious of you, Mr Cuffe. That is exactly what James and Jack have in mind to do.’

  I looked to Jimmy, who had his hands on his lap out of Cuffe’s view. They opened wide at this news, signalling his own surprise, but his expression didn’t change. ‘That’s right. I’m going to see some people when I’m in America. Fish agents – that is, seafood wholesalers.’ I don’t know if Cuffe recognised the change in Jimmy’s grammar from the previous occasion we’d been in his office, but anyway, he looked relieved.

  ‘That’s good news.’

  ‘We’ll need a year to set things up, maybe a little longer,’ I suggested, not wanting to be locked in to promising something rash.

  ‘That will be fine. If Mr Oldcorn is granted a certificate, he will have five years to prove he is a bona fide exporter. If he can’t show any proof after that time, his Certificate of Exemption will not be renewed. I must emphasise again, the decision to issue you with a certificate would normally fall to me, but that is not the case this time.’

  ‘But you can make a recommendation – is that right, Mr Cuffe?’ Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan asked.

  ‘I am only following instructions,’ Cuffe said, pointedly looking directly at her. Oh dear, it was obvious he hadn’t forgotten her Nazi crack. Moreover, he was leaving the door open for her to apologise. I knew there was no chance of that happening. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had been feeling for Jimmy every step of the way, sharing his humiliation and despair. There was absolutely no way she was going to give Cuffe a mealy-mouthed apology. The stars could jump out of orbit and spin new patterns in the firmament before she’d retract what she’d said about him. She was under no illusions that if Cuffe had had his way, Jimmy, the ‘coloured alien’, would have been consigned to oblivion by now. I hated the term ‘coloured alien’ – it sounded like little green men landing in a spaceship.

  After the interview, we had a cup of tea at a nearby cafe – Jimmy as usual ordering coffee, which, invariably, after a single sip he refused to drink.

  ‘How dey make dis sheet, Brother Fish?’ It had almost become a game.

  ‘Acorns, mate – roasted and ground. You’re supposed to add a lot of sugar.’

  ‘Well! What did we think of all that?’ Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan asked, keen to get back to the subject at hand.

  ‘I think it lunchtime soon and it gonna be mah spe-ci-al treat,’ Jimmy said. ‘We ain’t gonna talk ’bout dis no more today – ain’t no use saying nothin’ ’til da man in Can-berra decide.’ Jimmy was telling us that we’d spent too much time working on his behalf. He was embarrassed, and had had enough for one day.

  ‘Well, there is something rather important we need to talk about,’ Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan said, looking at each of us in turn. ‘But if you’d rather not talk about it over lunch, then I quite understand.’

  Of course we were both immediately curious, but neither of us took the bait. After we’d had our tea, and Jimmy’s coffee had grown a dirty grey skin on the top, we asked the waitress, who was young enough to still wear her hair in twin plaits and who’d served us very politely, if there was a nice place nearby to eat. ‘Yiz’ll be best off at the hotel next door. They do a nice steak di-anne and there’s chicken catch-a-tory and Vienna snoot-zil.’ We thanked her and left a sixpence in the plate and went next door, where the head waiter, in tails and a starched shirt front, rubbed his hands together as we entered the dining room, welcoming us effusively to the establishment.

  ‘Looks expensive,’ I said through the side of my mouth.

  ‘Dat okay. So long da chow good,’ Jimmy replied.

  Jimmy and I both ordered a steak, and Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan the chicken cacciatore. We tried to find other topics to talk about, but you know how it is. When your head is full of one subject it overwhelms every other thought, and our subsequent conversation limped along, coming to frequent halts. We were dead curious about whatever it was Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had put on hold at Jimmy’s hasty request, and so the tension at the table was palpable. Finally, and even before our meal came to an end, Jimmy said, ‘’Bout what yoh said when I said we ain’t gonna talk ’bout what happen and we gonna have lunch den yoh said dat okay, well, can we talk ’bout dat now please, Nicole ma’am?’

  ‘James, that’s just about the most discombobulated sentence I think I’ve ever heard come from you! No! You’ll just have to wait now,’ she replied, putting in the boot.

  The steak was pretty good, but there you go – it’s pretty hard to get a bad steak if you’re going to pay seven and sixpence for it. Like I said, when your mind’s full of the kind of stuff we’d been going through, the conversation was finally forced to a complete stop. ‘How was your chicken?’ I asked Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan after our silence caused the clatter of knives and forks to seem positively deafening.

  She put down her fork and sighed heavily. ‘Very well, I agree to talk.’ Jimmy and I both looked relieved. ‘I thought we might talk about exporting crayfish to America,’ she said calmly.

  Both of us giggled. I don’t mean laugh. I truly mean giggled. Her suggestion was too absurd for words. ‘Nicole ma’am, we don’t even know for sure that Jimmy’s going to be allowed to stay. Anyway, we don’t have a brass razoo between us!’

  ‘Oh, Jimmy will get one of those ghastly Certificates of Exemption,’ she said confidently.

  ‘How yoh know dat, Nicole ma’am?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Women’s intuition,’ she replied. ‘Did you not see the look of relief on the horrible little man’s face when I said he showed great perspicacity?’

  ‘What’s perspicacity mean?’ I asked. The word had been playing on my mind.

  ‘Jack, you have a perfectly good dictionary,’ she replied, not wanting to be sidetracked.

  Jimmy laughed. ‘It mean having mental pen-e-tration, man!’ Jimmy said with a grin.

  ‘You’ll keep, mate,’ I replied. Jimmy had taken to carrying a tiny dictionary around with him, and the bugger had obviously sneaked a look.

  ‘Jack, your problem has always been concentration. Can we keep to the subject, please?’

  ‘Which was about your women’s intuition,’ I reminded her, showing I hadn’t forgotten. ‘But even if you’re right . . .’

  ‘Correct.’

  Bloody hell! Just at the moment I don’t need a lesson in grammar. ‘But even if you’re correct, we don’t own a boat or fishing gear and even if the bank will give us a loan, we’ll need a couple of thousand quid to get off the starting blocks. That’s if we beg, borrow and steal and virtually buy everything second, third, fourth and fifth hand. To equip ourselves properly, that is, to be competitive, we’ll need at least ten thousand quid, which frankly is a bad joke.’ I was getting steamed up. ‘Finally, we know absolutely nothing about exporting.’

  ‘Ah, but I do!’

  ‘Exporting crayfish?’

  ‘Caviar.’

  ‘Caviar?’

  ‘Yes, Jack. The fish market is universal. We worked out of Shanghai, exporting to Europe and America. Caviar is fish – well, fish eggs, to be precise.’

  ‘The virgin sturgeon,’ I said, showing her I knew what caviar was. Christ, what’s going to come out next? Is there anything she hasn’t done?

  I confess I was get
ting a bit worked up. Sometimes the smallest things set you off. Correcting my grammar was no big deal – Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan did it constantly, had done since I was eight years old. But I guess we were all feeling the strain, and her latest correction had been the last straw. I was also feeling decidedly sorry for myself but, of course, I couldn’t allow myself to admit it. Everything was crowding in on me. There was the problem of Jimmy being able to stay in Australia, as well as Wendy’s parents turning nasty and making her sad. And then there was the fact that I was engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world and I couldn’t even afford a bloody ring! Not even a diamond I’d seen in a Launceston pawn shop so small it didn’t seem to refract light. I was earning bugger-all, and now Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan was giving me my hundred-thousandth lesson in English bloody grammar!

  As far as I was concerned we’d basically lied to Cuffe about going into export. I didn’t mind that – I’d tell porkies until the cows came home if it would help ensure Jimmy could stay. If Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had been correct about his getting a Certificate of Exemption Jimmy and I would have five years to get something under way. But in the fishing game five years is bugger-all. Even if we worked our arses off, we might just about make a reasonable living in that time. That is, if our luck held – fishing is as much about luck as it is about good management and the right equipment. How we’d then scrape together the money for a half-decent boat and the gear we’d need to be taken seriously in all-weather fishing on Bass Strait, the Tasman, and the Tasmanian and Victorian coasts was anyone’s guess. We certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near doing so in five years.

  Most fishermen, even those few on the island with a bit of get-up-and-go, have taken half a lifetime to own a boat they can trust in a big sea. Nothing grand – just one that is not only properly equipped for cray fishing but also able to adapt to another kind of catch that will pay for insurance, tucker, fuel bills and the crew’s wages in the off-season. Most fishermen never get close and go broke trying, and it’s not only because they drown in alcohol on the way. It’s the constant struggle – the weather, lack of money, lack of proper equipment, the bloody banks foreclosing, poor seasons, storms, rip-off wholesale fish buyers, Tasmanian Fisheries making new rules faster than you could haul an anchor in a sudden change of wind. It goes on and on until your heart is finally broken.