Refuge

by Jackie French

  Waves tore at the golden beach. For a terrified moment he thought they had already washed away the driftwood doorway. Then he saw that it was still there. The rocks had protected it as the waves sucked and tore at the shore. But even as he looked, the doorway shuddered in the water.

  Had they loosened the doorway when they took it apart? Had Mudurra dreamed the doorway? Dreamed the beach? Was the storm here because Mudurra had left? Was Mudurra’s dream fading as his real world took over?

  The reason didn’t matter now. If the door was swept away by the storm, they would be trapped here, every one of them.

  And what if others came, others who had sought refuge, and become lost on their way to Australia? They too would be trapped if the doorway was gone, with no way to fight their way back to what was real.

  ‘No!’ Nafeesa let go of his hand. She ran, holding up her skirt, ignoring the rain, the wind, the frothy waves that crashed around her ankles. He waited for her to go through the doorway. Instead she grasped one of the driftwood posts.

  Desperate, grieving, she was trying to protect the doorway — to give them all a chance to leave too. Even as he looked, the door lurched again, as though letting the sea claim it.

  Could he and Nafeesa hold the doorway in place until the storm died down, till daylight came, and the others arrived at the beach?

  He didn’t know.

  He turned and looked back to his street. The clean houses, the rose gardens had disappeared. There was only darkness, only the storm.

  ‘Billy!’ he yelled, throwing his voice out into the darkness. ‘Susannah! Jamila! David! Help us! Please, please help us! The doorway is washing out to sea! Please, help us now!’

  The wind ate his words. He had only one choice left now.

  He turned again and ran down to the beach, waded through the rising tide and grabbed the other side of the doorway.

  CHAPTER 22

  The waves rose around his knees, sucking and sobbing. Or was that him crying into the night? The water smelled of sea monsters, of every fear he’d ever had.

  He looked across at Nafeesa and saw tears on her face too. But he also saw determination. A wave splashed high, the foam hitting his face. The rough timber between his hands shifted, just a little. He wedged his feet between the rocks.

  Another wave. Another. They rose no higher now, but they were stronger.

  The timber moved again, twisting in his fingers. Each wave inched the doorway just slightly towards the sea.

  ‘Nafeesa?’ His voice was a gasp in the wind. ‘What was in the note you left me?’ He would never read it now.

  She said nothing. He thought she hadn’t heard him, or perhaps had no strength to spare to answer. Then she said, ‘It was easier to say on paper. I am embarrassed.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I said thank you.’ Her voice was almost lost in the mutter of the sea. ‘The captain took us on the ship for money. My uncle sent the money because it is his duty. You are the only person who helped me because I am me.’

  ‘Now you helped us.’ Nafeesa could have gone straight through the doorway. But she stood here, fighting the waves with him. A wave splashed hard against him, scattering salt foam on his face. It sucked back, dragging the doorframe with it. He pushed as hard as he could, digging his feet into the sand, feeling the water erode it from underneath him.

  They couldn’t do it. A boy and a girl could never hold the doorframe against the storm. He glanced at Nafeesa. She gripped the post in both thin hands. He opened his mouth to tell her to go through the doorway now, while she could, to find her sisters, to leave him here to explain what had happened to his friends.

  A voice yelled behind him. Suddenly Susannah was flying down the sand hill, her shawl flapping in the wind.

  ‘The doorway is going!’ he screamed.

  Once again the wind whipped away his words. But somehow Susannah heard them, just as she must have heard his terrified scream from up on the hill. She splashed through the water. Her small hands grasped the doorframe next to his as other figures tumbled through the darkness: David in striped pyjamas, holding Nikko by the hand; Jamila in a long blue dress and scarf, dashing through the storm as though she gloried in the battle.

  They clustered about the doorframe, holding it, heaving at it with their bones.

  The timbers inched again, another fraction towards the sea.

  ‘Just let it go!’

  Billy waded towards them, his face white. Faris realised that the clouds had gone. Above them an avenue of stars led to the sea, the trail in the sky that Mudurra had spoken of.

  ‘We don’t need no door!’ Billy shouted above the crash of waves.

  ‘Billy, please.’ Susannah stretched out one of her hands, the other clutching the doorframe. ‘We can’t hold the door without you. Please, Billy!’

  ‘You’re a fool!’

  ‘A fool I may be! But without this doorway, we’ll all be in prison, just like you have been. Can you do that to us, Billy Higgs?’

  Another wave swept in, higher than the rest. Faris felt the water at his shoulder. The doorframe moved again.

  ‘Billy!’ There was a note in Susannah’s voice he had never heard before. She loves him, he thought. Susannah loves Billy. And then he recognised the tone more clearly.

  It was Jadda’s tone when she spoke to him. It was a mother’s love, and a grandmother’s, even though it was spoken by a child.

  And suddenly Billy was beside them, his strength with theirs. They stood there, all of them together, holding the doorframe, letting the waves batter them.

  Holding fast.

  CHAPTER 23

  Dawn came like a grey kitten, peering up above the sea. The grey grew stronger, became light. The last wisps of cloud faded to blue.

  The beach was clean and gold again.

  Faris felt relief creep through his mind. Mudurra might be gone, but the beach was back again. Although it still seemed empty, not as bright as before. But at least it still existed.

  They sprawled exhausted on the sand. Susannah held Nikko on her lap. At last Nafeesa sat up and brushed the sand from her thin face and hands. She stared at them, tumbled and wave torn. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am going now. I … I think you should go too,’ she added. ‘Every one of you.’

  ‘She’s right.’ To Faris’s surprise it was Billy’s voice. ‘I reckon that door’s a goner. It’ll be washed away in tonight’s tide, or the next one. We can’t hold it in place forever. If any of you wants to go, it’d better be now.’

  ‘Go back to what?’ David’s voice was bitter.

  ‘I want to grow tall.’ Faris looked at Nikko in surprise. He hadn’t thought the little boy understood what was happening. Now Nikko looked at them all, small and solemn. He knows, thought Faris.

  ‘My nonna said I would grow tall in Australia,’ said Nikko. ‘So tall I would have to bend my head to come through the door, just like my uncles. My mother measures me every night against the wall. But I don’t grow at all.’ Nikko looked wistfully at Susannah. ‘If I go through there, will I grow tall?’

  ‘Yes.’ Susannah stroked his face softly.

  Jamila clenched her fists. ‘I want to taste ice-cream. My grandmother read me a book that talked about ice-cream. I want … I want the bad things too! How will things like that change if people don’t fight them?’ She held her chin high. ‘I will be a fighter, but not with guns or knives. If I stay here, the Taliban man on my boat will get to Australia. There will be no one to say, “This man’s papers are false. Don’t trust him.” We thought that we needed Australia. But maybe Australia needs us too. My grandmother stood up for what she believed in. They killed her. I will not let them kill me. I won’t hide forever in a dream.’

  ‘And you’ll get better from your fever,’ Faris said to Susannah.

  She smiled at him. ‘You don’t have to convince me, boyo. Once I’ve got all you through the door, I’ll be off to my real family like Murphy’s goat after the cabbages. I’ll dance my w
ay to Australia. David?’

  David looked at his hands, his long perfect fingers that had been scarred and deformed in his other life. ‘There is no life beyond the door for me,’ he said flatly. ‘No family. No music. What have I got to look forward to?’

  ‘Families can be made. And music too.’ Jamila took David’s hands in hers. ‘What kept you alive in the concentration camp, David? Even when your hands were scarred? What seed of hope was deep inside you?’

  He looked at her in shock. ‘I heard a bird,’ he whispered. ‘A nightingale. I thought, even here, there is music in the world.’

  ‘Go and find the music of new birds singing, of the wind in the trees,’ said Jamila softly. ‘Music you’ve never dreamed of, not made by man at all. Write music, if you can’t play it. Listen to the wonder of it all. Find your aunt in Australia, and a new family. One day find a woman who loves you too.’

  ‘How could a woman love a man with hands that are scarred and twisted?’

  ‘You are more than your hands,’ said Jamila. ‘I will still be a child when you are an old, old man. You cannot wait your life for me. But I will tell you this, David Weisengarten. If you were a man and I a woman, we would have children and I would make you glad.’

  Suddenly David laughed. It was a strange laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. ‘You’re going through the doorway now?’

  Jamila held her head high. ‘Yes. I am a daughter of brave mothers and brave fathers too. I will not die. It is time to find my courage. And when I come to Australia, I’ll expect to see you there, an old man who will take me to concerts and explain the music, who will ask me to dinner with his grandchildren, who will tell me of the good life carved by a boy who had nothing but courage and love.’

  David took her hand and kissed it. ‘The brave daughter of brave mothers may need help in a new land. If — when — I am an old man in Australia, I will find you and help you. I promise.’

  ‘We have done the impossible,’ Susannah said quietly. ‘All of us here. We found a refuge in our dreams. Now it is time to make our dreams real.’

  Nikko looked uncertain suddenly. ‘I … I don’t want to go alone,’ he said in a small voice. He turned to Susannah. ‘I can come with you, can’t I?’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Susannah took his hand.

  Faris stared at her. ‘You can’t take Nikko to your time!’

  ‘Why not? Juhi went with Mudurra.’

  ‘But Nikko can’t just appear on your ship …’

  ‘My mother has sixteen children,’ said Susannah calmly, ‘and only fourteen of them hers. There’s always room for another.’

  One who speaks Greek? thought Faris. But perhaps Susannah was right. Nikko was in danger of drowning if he went back to his own time. Better to appear speaking a strange language than be alone in the sea.

  Suddenly Faris realised that he would miss his friends more than the beach, more than his bright bedroom, more than his dreams.

  And yet it was time to go.

  CHAPTER 24

  They formed a line. There was no need, but for some reason the ceremony seemed right. Susannah smiled at Faris from her spot next to Billy at the end of the line. Of all of them, hers was the only face that smiled, that shone with faith and confidence.

  Nafeesa was first. She looked back at Faris over the heads of Jamila and David. ‘I’ll look for you,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you too. I’ll say thank you properly.’

  Faris nodded, unable to speak. Billy was from nearly two hundred years before his time. How far in his future was Nafeesa’s life? Would he be an old man too when she found him?

  Was it even possible to find each other once they’d passed through the door?

  ‘Goodbye. And thank you. Thank you all.’ Nafeesa gave Faris one last long look, then turned and pushed aside the tattered skin. It was sodden and heavy, water splattered.

  Would the doorway still work? Perhaps the sea had tried to take it because it had already lost its power. Would Nafeesa step only to the other side of this strange, shabby version of a doorframe?

  Then for an instant he saw bodies, darkness; smelled fear and fish.

  The skin fell back. Nafeesa was gone.

  Jamila shivered, the horror of what she had seen etched on her face. Then she forced herself to give them all a final smile. ‘May Allah bless you all with all His unseen blessings,’ she whispered. ‘May He bless all the children of mankind.’

  She stepped over to the doorway and pushed at the skin. The world beyond was dark, with the steady swish of waves — and pierced by a woman’s scream. For an instant they heard Jamila yell. But the yell was of determination, not of terror.

  David followed her quickly, so quickly Faris wondered if perhaps he was trying to share Jamila’s world, as Juhi had with Mudurra. But if so, he was too late. For David stepped into a world of thin white faces, bare benches that served as beds, a pile of what might be bodies.

  Then that too vanished as the skin fell down.

  Faris was glad Nafeesa had gone first. Each scene was like a blow.

  Four of them left.

  ‘Now you,’ Susannah said to Billy.

  ‘Ladies go first,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve learned that at least,’ said Susannah. ‘Good manners for a convict lad. Now through the door with you.’

  Billy smiled. ‘You know that I’m not going.’

  Faris stared at him. ‘You can’t stay here by yourself!’

  ‘Why not? Mudurra did.’

  Faris shook his head. How long had Mudurra really been alone? If time had no meaning here, if it shifted and washed about like the waves, perhaps Mudurra had dreamed away the time.

  But Billy, alone here? Billy, with no game on the sand, no gang to boss? Could Billy’s fine dreamed-of farm, his servants and Mrs Bonnet be enough to keep him from loneliness, once all of them had gone? Could he dream hard enough to keep the beach real, without Mudurra?

  ‘You’ve got lives ahead of you. I’m convict scum,’ said Billy.

  ‘No,’ said Faris. ‘You’re the best of us!’

  The big boy stared.

  ‘You saved Nafeesa and Mudurra. You held the doorway. You’ve looked after us all, you and Susannah.’

  ‘She’s the brave one.’

  ‘You both are.’

  ‘You are the best and bravest I have ever known, Billy Higgs.’ Susannah’s voice was firm. ‘So you go through there. You give that blaggard with his sharpened spoon a punch on the snout, then another one from me as well. You serve your seven years. What’s seven years after the time you’ve spent here? Because I’m thinking that in two times seven, or three maybe, you’ll be the finest gentleman in the land, with the biggest farm in all of New South Wales.’

  ‘Not me.’ But Billy’s eyes had hope. ‘You ain’t leaving unless I go, are you?’ he added.

  Susannah shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here till the sea washes every grain of sand away. I’m not going till you step through that door too.’

  ‘Well then, I better go. For you.’

  Faris gazed at them. He knew that Susannah loved Billy, loved them all. But he hadn’t known till that moment how much Billy loved Susannah.

  Billy would go through the doorway for her. Perhaps it would be for her sake, not just his own, that he would survive, make good, so the long years Susannah had spent watching on the sand hill would have been worth it.

  Billy bent and kissed Susannah’s cheek. He patted Nikko on the head, then clapped Faris on the back. ‘Live good, the three of youse,’ he said. He stepped through the door.

  Darkness filled the doorway, darker than Faris had ever known, and the stench of human filth. What have we sent Billy to? thought Faris. And then, What am I going to now?

  ‘Come on.’ Susannah smiled down at Nikko. ‘Remember what I said? Through there I’ll be sick in my bunk, but you’re not to be scared. You’re to tell the lady that she’s your mam now, and wait for me to get better. You understand?’

  ‘I say, “You ar
e my mam.”’

  ‘That’s it.’ Susannah tightened her grip on Nikko’s small hand.

  ‘You trust me to go through? Not to try to stay here?’ asked Faris.

  ‘Oh, yes. I trust you,’ said Susannah. ‘Didn’t we all trust each other with our futures, here last night? God be with you,’ she whispered quickly and stepped forwards. The skin swept up and back, leaving a whisper of what might have been prayers.

  He was alone.

  CHAPTER 25

  He could sit here on the beach, Faris realised. Just sit. Listen to the waves and feel the peace.

  Wait a breath and then another before he faced the wave. Sit here forever, as the sun slid across the sky. Somehow he knew he’d never starve, not here, even if he never made another visit to the house beyond the sand hill. The food he had eaten here had tasted good. It hadn’t fed him. You can’t starve when you live among your dreams.

  One more look at the bright blue sky, the clear line of the horizon, the golden sand, the tumbling froth of waves, innocent and obedient as though they had never torn at the doorframe and its protectors last night.

  Would he remember how they had faced the waves, and won, once he went through the door? Would he remember Susannah’s wisdom, Jamila’s strength, Billy’s protectiveness, Nikko’s laugh? The glory of David’s music, Juhi’s passion for a land that was free of hate, Mudurra’s courage?

  Yes, he thought. I will remember.

  It was time to go.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said to the beach and to the memory of his friends.

  I won’t forget, he thought. And I will live!

  He stepped through the doorway.

  CHAPTER 26

  For a moment there was nothing, no space, no time. Only hope and the lingering warmth of the sand on his feet.

  Then that too was gone.

  Suddenly water filled his mouth: bitter, salty. His body hurt, as if a giant hand had swatted him. He choked, sinking, his hands flailing despite the pain. He could see bubbles above him, the dark green of water below.