Red Can Origami

by Madelaine Dickie

  Then Madge says the board would like to present Gerro Blue with a gift. She holds up two sandals, woven from desert grass.

  —This one’s for you, she says.

  With a deep and graceful bow of respect, Watanabe accepts a single sandal.

  Madge continues,

  —The other sandal will stay here, on Burrika country. One sandal for Burrika, one sandal for Gerro Blue. They represent us, Japan and Australia, walking together, walking side by side into the future.

  Watanabe hands a small parcel to Madge in return. As Madge unwraps it, a bemused expression on her face, you wonder about other gifts from kartiya—about trinkets, tobacco and typhoid. Madge pockets the wrapping paper and weighs the GoPro in her hands.

  —Well, thank you, Mr Watanabe, she says.

  But she’s insulted, and as everyone begins to leave, back to the buses and the cars, dodging the journos, you see her toss the cardboard cube to a couple of kids.

  Noah finds you in the crowd.

  —Better a sixpack of rangers, he says. Better something to help us look after country. A GoPro? Our country, exchanged for a mine and a GoPro. What a fucken joke.

  The gift was Mandy’s idea.

  Just before you leave, a warning wind cartwheels the empty chairs. There are whispers. The old people tell the children that country’s not happy, that the Widawurls aren’t happy, that country knows something’s wrong. Something’s coming, say the old people, sombrely, mournfully, something’s coming.

  When you worked on the paper in Tokyo there was always a tangible result. The stories, both in their brevity and content, were impersonal. You were in control. Knew the parameters. Knew your job and, to an extent, how to avoid any cultural mishaps. You’re not in control here. You barely understand the culture and feel powerless, in a way, like the decisions are above you, beyond you. Gerro Blue’s plans, Green Gubinge’s protests, Burrika’s painful compromise—they’ll all happen regardless of whether or not you’re part of it, witness to it.

  Noah’s getting a lift with you back to the Gerro Blue office on the pretext of finalising some paperwork. Katherine’s in one of the portaloos when you take off and you’re glad to avoid a confrontation.

  —What else could I have done? Noah asks, once you’re well and truly on the road.

  There’s a sharp triangle of sun on his cheek, the shine of tears.

  —We don’t even use nuclear energy in WA. The only people this uranium will benefit are Japanese people. Nuclear energy for a few Japanese cities. That’s not a fair trade for country.

  You’re driving slowly, carefully. A truck overtakes, spitting hot rocks and rattling an earthmover.

  Noah wipes his face and falls silent.

  And you consider the fact that, while he might know Burrika country intimately, might be able to outwit the droughts and the pastoralists and the midgies and the mining companies, the country of his inner self seems much more treacherous. You worry he’ll get lost there. And you don’t know what to say.

  All that week, you wait for the call, wait to hear that Noah’s going to jail, wait for Jeff’s headline: Aboriginal terrorist in our midst! But nothing happens. There’s nothing in the news about it, no word from Lucia, and at last, you start to relax.

  It’s five-thirty in the afternoon and still thirty-six degrees. You’ve been doing the housework in your bra and undies, mopping up sweat as you go, waiting for Noah to come on the radio. Putrefying squid wafts through the open windows. The bait’s been boiling up in your wheelie bin for nearly a week. You didn’t realise you should’ve frozen it until bin day.

  Martin Richardson, the afternoon presenter for a statewide show, is interviewing a woman from Maningrida in the Northern Territory. She’s a painter, discussing the work she does on bark. Evidently, the closer you get to Maningrida, the narrower the trunks of the trees. Martin’s interview style is relaxed, sympathetic, and he coaxes stories from the woman with gentle flattery.

  —There’s a beautiful geometry to your paintings, he says. A beautiful balance.

  You’d sent your mum a piece of art for her sixtieth, guilty that you couldn’t go home. It wasn’t a local piece; it was from Alice. You ordered it from a mob online. Her response had been enthusiastic.

  —Don’t you just love the simplicity of their art? The bright colours! All those lovely shapes!

  —Mum, they’re not ‘shapes’, they’re waterholes, claypans …

  She asked when you were coming back to reality.

  You squeeze the last suds from the mop and fix yourself a drink using the SodaStream. Bubbles carbonate the water in a squealing fart. Through the window, beneath the cyclone shutters, there’s a final orange blaze on the bellies of the leaves.

  The presenter puts a song on and then Noah’s up. And the tone of the show changes. Right from the start it’s clear that Martin’s out to roast him. He asks, in quick succession,

  —So, how much money is this deal worth to Burrika? Uranium mining is something that will affect the whole community … don’t you think it’s unfair Traditional Owners are the only ones who’ll get a say, a cut? Are there any parallels here with Ranger? It’s my understanding the Traditional Owners in Kakadu actually put up a fight.

  Noah answers the questions gravely, intelligently, seriously. He doesn’t rise to the bait. He explains that it’s not a ‘deal’; it’s a native title agreement. He says native title groups have no veto over development. And then, frustrated with the presenter’s ignorance or bias, he cracks,

  —Martin, have you ever been to Gubinge, or to Burrika country?

  There’s an awkward silence.

  —No, Martin replies.

  —It’s beautiful country. Plenty of fish, plenty of turkey, even plenty of camels, out in the desert. And there’s plenty of problems. Try watching two of your aunts, drunk on the kerb, punching each other’s teeth out over something one of them wrote on Facebook. Or bailing your cousin out of jail and trying to explain to the police that he’s been disabled since birth because his mum’s an alcoholic. Or being one of the only people in a big family who’s holding down a job. Martin, I don’t think you can imagine what it’s like to live up here. No-one wants to see a uranium mine on their country. Not the mob at Jabiluka, not the mob in South Australia, and not the people in Gubinge. But when you’re under duress, when you are given a choice between something and nothing, you choose something.

  Martin clears his throat to speak, but Noah’s not finished yet; he raises his voice, with final, stinging intensity.

  —I chose something, because I believe in hope over nothing.

  —I appreciate you coming on the show, Noah. I’d like to talk more but unfortunately we’ve run out of time.

  [ the Widawurls ]

  You’re invited to sit in on a Burrika language session at Gubinge District High. It’s the first week of term one and the session’s being funded through the community benefits package. The language teacher is fishing-club-Keith’s wife Kylie, an intimidating, bearded old girl, with a deep wrinkle line between her eyes. She stands in front of a class of teenagers. She explains that in Burrika, there are six words to describe anger, four words to describe jealousing and that there’s even a word for someone who’s a serial liar. Here, she looks pointedly at a young woman wearing heavy eyeliner. Then she says some people think the Burrika language is only used to describe things like berries and barramundi. Here, she looks pointedly at you.

  Language comes from country, she tells the kids. Language comes from the rocks, the desert waterholes, from the creeks that twist through the mangroves. Language comes from the sky. When you don’t know your language, you can’t tell country you are coming, and you can’t look after your country.

  —What happens if everyone forgets the language for country? Is it lost forever? asks a young man.

  —No, she says firmly. The right language for country never changes.

  But country changes, especially with something as drastic as an open-cut urani
um mine. You haven’t been back to the mine site since the heritage survey last year—since your imagination hacked down a few trees and dumped a wickedly winking tailings dam—and when you do, the sheer scale of the mine is almost beyond imagination. The Burrika apprentices toiling back and forth are miniature beside the machinery. And country has changed in another way, too. It’s been a long and rainless wet season. The trees have buckled to charcoal, the rivers have broken into low, stagnant pools, even the grass is dead. The only things that remain unchanged are the termite mounds.

  Since the protest concert, dozens of dreadlocked dreamers have drifted into town and hitched north to a camp at the start of the mine’s access road. A blockade’s planned for the first of March to disrupt a visit by the Premier. Watanabe wants you on the ground to scope the number of protesters and their messaging, says this will help shape the company’s community engagement strategy moving forward.

  It’s not as easy as it sounds.

  How to describe to him a feeling, the way the moist air kicks with currents of heartbreak and hysteria?

  Old Honeybird Grey, in an apparent backflip after voting in favour of the agreement, is in an enraged stand-off with the police.

  —I have spent my whole life defending my church and my country, she’s saying. I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I’m poor because I do this!

  The crowd, in a banana-and-black sea of nuclear hazard symbols, howl their approval. Descendants of Gubinge’s old Japanese families stand alongside Burrika mob, alongside local kartiya. You recognise Harley, the physio, and Olivia, of course. And then you see Ash, wearing an open button-down shirt in a casual attempt to conceal his TAFE uniform. Old Honeybird Grey’s voice has risen to a scream and she’s jabbing in the direction of a police officer’s chest.

  —This is our heritage! This is our heartland!

  She pauses to expel a few emphysema-short breaths and her old skin gleams under the humid midmorning sun.

  —I am a Burrika woman, she says. This is my country. And I never givem youfella permission to be on my country.

  —I’m sorry, the officer says, hands at his side. But you’re committing a crime by blocking this road. I’ll need to ask you all to clear off now, or else you’ll be issued a fine.

  —A crime? Honeybird almost spits in his face. We bin come here to stop a crime! Don’t you talk la me for crime!

  The crowd’s buoyed by her bravado. People raise their fists in hopeless hope. But you don’t feel buoyed. The desperation in her tone makes you wildly sad.

  You don’t wonder so much about the Gubinge locals and their motivations for protest; you can understand why they’re distressed about a uranium mine so close to town. But the protestors who’ve travelled here? Over near one of the teepees you hear a young white woman in a t-shirt printed with the Aboriginal flag telling a police officer,

  —Yeah, but this teepee is my home and I’m pretty sure I didn’t invite you into my home!

  Just after the police have cleared the road, just after the first four-wheel drive in the Premier and Watanabe’s convoy has passed, Olivia seeks you out.

  —You’re morally bankrupt, she tells you. You’re exploiting people and country for your own personal gain.

  She’s got a journo on her tail, he’s closing in, focusing the lens of his camera.

  —Get out of my face!

  The journo smirks and you want to slap him and you want to tell her, it’s not just about personal gain! But you’re exhausted, and it’s the kind of exhaustion that isn’t nudged by ten-hour sleeps. It might be time for a break. You remember Lucia saying, ‘You spend, what? Two, maybe five years, then you fuck off, back down south, back over East … ’

  Perhaps it’s time to fuck off.

  You’re at an after-hours event with the Gubinge Chamber of Commerce. It’s at the Beach Bar. A margarita might take the edge off the fake smiles and sportive anecdotes and the whiteness—there are no Burrika mob here—but you’re afraid what might slip. Mandy catches you lurking near the water dispenser, widens her eyes and purses her lips as if to say, ‘Well? We’re paying you to network tonight!’ And it’s true, Gerro Blue is taking this seriously; they’ve flown Mandy and David up from Perth, and Liam’s here, too. In the face of the protests by Green Gubinge, it’s important for Gerro to woo the one sector of the community that’s unconditionally supportive of the mine.

  You give Mandy a tight smile and head to the bathroom. At the mirror you wipe clear a smudge of eyeliner and pull out a stick of understated lippy.

  —Hi, Ava.

  Your hand freezes mid-application.

  —Got the whole team here tonight, eh?

  Noah’s wife throws a weave of black hair over one shoulder and her mouth makes that mean sickle moon shape. Lucia’s not here to save you tonight. You finish applying your lippy.

  —Hi, Katherine.

  —I know this probably isn’t the place …

  As far as toilets in Australia go, this one’s a pretty good place for an ambush: all discreet wooden shutters and fresh jasmine.

  —But I thought I’d do you a favour before I sent the letter to Mr Watanabe.

  She wants you to ask, ‘What letter?’ You don’t ask. You put your lippy away and run a quick brush through your straightened hair. Realising she’s not going to get a response, she hits you with it.

  —I’m writing a formal letter of complaint about your conduct.

  You turn away from the mirror, face her.

  —You’re unfit to be an Aboriginal liaison officer. There’s that story you wrote about my niece when you worked for the paper. You and a Jeff someone. My family told you the right way to report that. What got printed was completely culturally inappropriate! There was that so-called information session, where you spoke to us like children. And then there was that shit you said to my friends, at the fishing club, about Burrika needing to ‘sort out our governance’. I think you’re a racist, and you shouldn’t be working for my people.

  You feel tired and sober and reckless.

  —Do you know what I think, Katherine? I think you’re jealous I fucked your husband.

  She swings. Her ring-bedecked knuckles sail toward you in slow-mo. There’s a crack. A scarlet pain in your cheek. Then she’s hightailing it out of there and you’re trying to get your smoking face under the tap, watching a slurry of blood spin the drain, hoping nothing’s broken.

  Nothing’s broken, but the colours are exquisite, pretty enough to rival a wet season sunset.

  —You should press charges, Lucia says.

  —But that’d be no good for the kids, or for Noah. Especially Noah. The last six months have been hell.

  —True, Lucia agrees.

  You’re down on the jetty. The afternoon’s unusually cool. Long fingers of cloud stretch across the sky from the west. There’s a cyclone dawdling out to sea. Cyclone Kerry, they’ve called her, and there’s talk she’ll intensify and swing toward Gubinge later in the week.

  One of Lucia’s kids starts crying, a toddler in a nappy, with long, silken eyelashes.

  —Come here, bub.

  The older girls have taken off, left the jetty to ransack the rock platform below. The little fella’s distraught and Lucia soothes him on her lap.

  —Is their dad in Gubinge?

  —Nah, he’s from Hedland. We don’t see him much. He’s a really smart guy, but he’s gone and got himself messed up on ice, so I don’t want him anywhere near the kids. He still holds a job; he works for the Port Authority down there, but yeah …

  The line jerks in your hand, the rat-a-tat-tat of baitfish. You’ve got a piece of cooked chicken schnitty on the end from Chicken Fright. Lucia reckons jewies go mad for a bite of the dirty bird.

  —And what about your new bloke?

  Lucia gives you a sly grin.

  —Now he’s smart, and not messed up. Treat ’em mean …

  Suddenly there’s a real pull at the line and it nearly hauls you over the edge. You scramble to your feet, all
elbows and panic. Lucia’s little boy quits howling to watch. Halfway up, the fish unhooks itself and the line goes slack.

  —Bugger.

  —Don’t worry, Lucia says. It’ll be fish for dinner tonight with Kerry coming. I’m surprised we haven’t had more action.

  —Do you reckon it’s anything to be concerned about?

  —Cyclones are never as bad as they say. Everyone gets all hyped up and we just end up with a bit of rain. God knows country needs it.

  She pulls in her line to check the bait. Still there. She recasts, changes the subject, asks,

  —So, what are you going to do about the letter?

  The letter, when it arrives, is actually an email. It’s humiliating, but, given your waning loyalty to Watanabe and the company, it doesn’t sting as much as it might have a year ago. And you can see it clearly for what it is. Katherine’s unhappy and jealous, and perhaps rightly so.

  Different possibilities fan out: they all involve quitting. But there’s something you need to find out before you go.

  Watanabe won’t answer your calls and so you leave a message with his executive assistant to call you back.

  While you wait, you go to Bunnings for boxes and Woolies for sugar soap. Bond cleans. They’re always worse than you imagine and back home, the filth’s dizzying. There are furry caterpillars of muck along the fans and cyclone shutters, foxings of mould on the shower door. But at least there’s a breeze, and with the cyclone inching closer, it’s humid but cool. You put on the Warumpi Band’s Big Name, No Blankets and start scrubbing.

  Watanabe calls at dusk.

  —I know about the report, you tell him. I know about the structural deficiencies of the tailings dam.

  —And?

  —And I want to know if they were fixed.

  —I’d say that doesn’t really concern you.