The Sparrow Garden

by Peter Skrzynecki

  Suddenly — suddenly there was a sharp snapping sound. Adam called out, Who’s there? Hey, come out!

  What happened? Did I tread on a twig? I turned around and started to run. What would he do if he caught me? He’d told me to stay away and I had disobeyed him. I kept seeing the dogs lying in a heap. How could he have done that to the dogs? He must have seen me because he called me by my name. Hey, come out … Don’t be scared … I won’t hurt you! But I was scared. Hurt me or not, I wasn’t going back!

  I turned around and started to run as fast as I could down the track. I heard birds singing, fluttering and flapping, their songs mixing with their wing beats. They were driving me on, pushing me away from the clearing, the presence of dead dogs, from the scent and sight of blood that I saw every time a bullet broke a dog’s skull. In my panic I remembered a story the teacher had read at school about a flying horse called Pegasus. A magic horse. That’s what I wished myself to be! Not even Superman could fly faster than Pegasus and I wasn’t going to be caught! I pretended I had wings and they were now lifting me above the track. My eyes were blurred with tears and I was sobbing but that didn’t stop me from running down the track, on to the main road and back to the camp. Before I reached the main road I heard another shot.

  By the time I reached the boom gate I was sobbing and mumbling incoherently, panting like Pegasus would after a long flight over mountains and oceans. People took me to the camp’s infirmary where Sister Fewtrell gave me a glass of warm milk and something to stop me from shaking and crying. She wrapped me in a blanket even though I wasn’t cold. She sat by my side and held my hand, talked to me and stroked my forehead until my mother arrived. The police also arrived and talked to my mother, along with the Director of the camp. What was said I don’t know, but for several days my mother didn’t go to work and I was allowed to stay home and miss school. Whenever I asked questions about Adam or the dogs she’d just say, Shhh, shhh, go to sleep. Or, Don’t worry, he’s alright. But he wasn’t at the camp anymore and when I persisted with my questions she told me that he’d been transferred to a different camp. Just like that, without a chance to say goodbye, I’d lost contact with my friend.

  Years later, when we moved to Sydney, I overheard my parents and others speaking about the “terrible tragedy” of what happened to the man I called Superman, how he’d broken down under the strain of having lost his wife and two little girls in the war. All along he’d been telling people that he wasn’t going to live “like a dog” anymore.

  The Sewage Works

  Friday, 16 March 1984

  Parkes

  The stagnant water is green, murky, its surface host to floating insects, mosquito larvae, bird droppings, leaves; it hardly seems to be water at all but rather a primeval sludge that has seeped from the earth into this rectangular concrete pit — two pits, in fact, separated by two walls, a narrow space between them also filled with the green water.

  Crested pigeons make a wooden clapping sound with their wings and leap into a sky of molten blue glass. Galahs wheel in a circle from the red-dust road, protesting at my presence. The air is so hot it scratches the back of my throat. It hurts to breathe. Butterflies flutter in all directions. Grasshoppers leap ahead of me, through weeds and thistles, making sharp clicking noises. Flies whizz around maddeningly, sticking to arms and face. I should have brought a switch; instead I take out my handkerchief and wave it around, trying to keep them out of my eyes and mouth. Finally, after days of searching I’ve found what I was hoping to find, yet, for some reason, dreading the discovery: the site of the migrant hostel where I lived with my parents from 1949 to 1951.

  I am thirty-nine years old and it’s been thirty-three years since I was here last. For nearly four decades I’ve lived with memories and shards of memories that always return to one of three unforgettable incidents: my witnessing of the shooting of a pack of strays; an accident because of which a farmer will later have a leg amputated; and the death, by drowning, of a six-and-a-half-year-old playmate, Aleksander Hrubski, in one of the concrete pits.

  This is my third and last visit to the former hostel site. Tomorrow I’m returning to Sydney. Each time I’ve come out from the motel where I’m staying I’ve failed to notice these sewage works. On the last visit, I notice a small speck on the horizon, at the western end, and I make my way towards it. What I find takes away my breath.

  On one piece of machinery the letters WSL & D are moulded, and the date, 1939. Pipes run to and from it. A number of other above-ground structures, including a huge concrete pond-type construction with a central steel shaft, stands above them all. This is what I saw from a distance. As I drew closer, I saw it resembled a carousel. Another rectangular concrete tank has a ladder leading up to it. From the tank, a huge pipe runs out with a valve and tap at the base. Between these two constructions are the two “pits” full of the green sludge.

  On 2 April 1950 a group of three children was playing near the pits, and one of them, Aleksander Hrubski, disappeared. According to newspaper reports in the Champion Post, the pit was eighteen feet deep and the accident occurred at 3 p.m. Police and migrant assistants failed to find the body by probing with long poles, so the Parkes Fire Brigade was called in to pump out the pit. In the early hours of the next morning the body of Aleksander was recovered.

  In the accounts of those who witnessed the recovery, he lay at the bottom on his side, as if he were asleep, his hair washed back, looking like an angel. I will discover these details later, in 1999, when I return to Parkes to research another memory that has haunted me since 1951. But why does the description of that scene imprint itself on my mind with such horror? Is it because I used to play with him? Why did the authorities leave the sewage works open to trespass by children? As I stand in the sun and stare at the stagnant water’s harsh green glare, I no longer bother to brush away flies. I’ve become accustomed to them, the dry heat, the thistles and dust.

  My mind is elsewhere, in a landscape of snow, in Germany.

  Night has fallen.

  The room I’m floating in is small, lit up by a single light. My brown balaclava is on the floor; it is dirty and smells of excrement. All my clothes are dirty and have the same smell. I’ve been laid out, face down, on a table and several people are crowding around me. A man is frantically pressing down on me, pleading with me in Polish to breathe. A woman is crying.

  I am dying.

  But where is my mother?

  I am dying and I want to see my mother.

  Where is my mother?

  I am becoming an angel, a spirit, floating into a light that is not coming from the globe but is everywhere; it is very strong. I am happy. I want to go into the light, but first I want to say goodbye to my mother. Where is she?

  The door of the room bursts open and she tears in, screaming for me, pushing people aside, sobbing and crying all at once; it is heartbreaking.

  How can I go into the light and leave her like this?

  She turns me over and puts her fingers into my mouth, clearing out the muck that is in my throat. The man in the room is saying, He’s still breathing. The balaclava saved his life. It stopped his mouth filling up. My mother’s shawl has fallen off. There is snow on her face and hair. She went out gathering firewood and left me in the care of the other woman.

  The light starts to fade, to release me from its power. I start to come down, to enter my body again. It was wonderful to be floating above those people, above the rectangular table that had been scrubbed and is now covered with waste from the cesspool that I fell in when I wandered out into the winter dark, looking for my mother. A stranger, a woman, alerted the woman who was minding me, telling her how she saw a small hand disappearing into the cesspool. My mother will recount this story over the years to me and swear that she never discovered the name of the stranger; it was like the lady had vanished into the snow.

  When I begin to splutter and cough, to spit out the dirty water, it is certain that I will live. The woman minding me apologise
s profusely. The man is now comforting her. Other people have entered the room.

  My mother wraps me in her shawl and carries me back to our quarters. She is sobbing, crushing me against her. I feel exhausted, very sleepy, but I would like to tell her about floating in the room and the bright light. Later she will return to reclaim the balaclava.

  All this happened in Lebenstedt when I was two years old. Feliks Skrzynecki had not entered our lives yet. From that night on, my mother never let me out of her sight. Wherever she went, I was brought along. Even when she worked in Parkes, and I was allowed to go with her, she would say, Play where I can see you. Then she added, If you disobey me, you’ll get smacked. She trained me like a puppy.

  There are photographs to be taken, to visually record the site.

  I quickly snap eight shots of the sewage works, from different angles, knowing there will never be a better time to do this. In 1988, when I return with my mother for a reunion as part of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations, there will be hundreds of people here — former inmates of the camp, locals, councillors, politicians, visitors from all parts of Australia. People will crowd around the camp site, everyone with a different story to tell.

  There is a fence around the sewage works, and a little way off, to the west, a farmhouse; its roof shines silver in the sun. Should I go over, ask questions? See what else I can discover? Without looking back, I return to the car.

  But it is impossible not to see the site from a distance, even as I start the ignition and prepare to turn the car around, back to the main road. Impossible not to see Aleksander playing by the edge of the sewage works, standing up and looking towards me, shielding his eyes, waving goodbye, then returning to play as if I never existed. Impossible not to see the broken concrete slabs, the steps and foundations shimmering in the heat, through the tall weeds, behind the red dust that skirts the road. Crows are flapping overhead, very low. The site resembles an old cemetery.

  I return to my motel feeling physically exhausted and mentally emptied. That night, unable to sleep, I drive around Parkes — several times up and down Clarinda Street, past Fosseys and the Paragon Milk Bar, up to the post office, the court house and hospital, to the houses in Gapp Street and Hedgerow Avenue, both of which I’d visited earlier and where my mother had once worked.

  On top of the War Memorial a blue light burns in memory of all those from Parkes who had died in various wars. From this lookout, I get a view of Parkes that, at night, could have been any country town. Lights also burn in outlying areas and along the highway. The stars are so numerous, so bright and clear. The scene below me, lights and houses, shops, stars and streetlights, farmhouses in the distance, the countryside, seems to have a quieting effect on me and I return to the motel.

  I sleep soundly and find myself in the hut of the Parkes camp where I lived with my mother; it is late and she has returned from her English class.

  I learnt more language exercises, she says proudly.

  She is making herself a cup of tea and heating water over a kerosene primus she keeps on a shelf.

  I don’t care. Why must you go?

  I want to learn the language quickly. I can learn it at the places where I work — but this way I can have extra practice in the evening. How does this sound?

  I don’t want to listen.

  When I say O my mouth goes so … O … O … O …

  That’s silly.

  Or, one man went to mow, went to mow a meadow. Two men went to mow, went to mow a meadow …

  By now she has adopted a sing-song voice and is half saying the words, half singing them.

  They teach us things like that. It makes us get used to English sounds. They show us a picture of a big ship like the one that brought us to Australia and say, This is not a sheep, it is a ship … You try it.

  Don’t want to! I say emphatically.

  Have some hot tea; it’s nice and sweet. I’ve put in lots of sugar.

  All right.

  Soon I am cuddled against her, warm in bed, sipping tea from a big white enamel mug.

  She asks, What did you learn at school? This is a reference to the preschool centre I attend in the camp.

  Another nursery rhyme.

  What’s it called?

  It’s called “Humpty Dumpty” and it’s about a giant egg that falls off a wall.

  How do you know it’s an egg?

  Because the teacher said so.

  So I proceed to teach my mother what I’d learnt that day, with appropriate hand actions, even plopping my head forward, rolling it from side to side, demonstrating that Humpty Dumpty was really dead. We both laugh, but by now I am yawning, unable to keep my eyes open.

  Sleep, little man, sleep. My mother begins to sing a lullaby in Ukrainian, rocking me gently from side to side, breathing over me, giving me a goodnight kiss.

  As I fall asleep, it isn’t the words of “Humpty Dumpty” that repeat in my head; it is the sound of my mother’s voice from a few minutes ago, One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow. Two men went to mow, went to mow a …

  I wake up startled, as if from a bad dream, and make my way in the darkness to the window.

  This is my last night at the Bushman’s Motor Inn, and here I am, again, unable to sleep.

  There is nothing to see of the road or trees, only the night sky, bright with stars and oblivious to my restlessness.

  What would my parents say if they saw me here in the dark, trying to make sense of a past they’d wished to forget. My father would shrug his shoulders, as if it didn’t matter that I’d come here. When referring to matters of the heart, my mother often quoted the first line of a Tab Hunter song from the fifties, There’s no fool like a young fool … And this, I think, would be her judgment on the present situation, even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the heart or love matters. Nor was I “young” any more. But I knew she wouldn’t condemn me, either. I have to do what I have to do, whether it makes sense or not.

  Migrant Hostel

  Parkes, 1949-51

  No one kept count

  of all the comings and goings —

  arrivals of newcomers

  in busloads from the station,

  sudden departures from adjoining blocks

  that left us wondering

  who would be coming next.

  Nationalities sought

  each other out instinctively

  like a homing pigeon

  circling to get its bearings;

  years and place-names

  recognised by accents,

  partitioned off at night

  by memories of hunger and hate.

  For over two years

  we lived like birds of passage —

  always sensing a change

  in the weather:

  unaware of the season

  whose track we would follow.

  A barrier at the main gate

  sealed off the highway

  from our doorstep —

  as it rose and fell like a finger

  pointed in reprimand or shame;

  and daily we passed

  underneath or alongside it —

  needing its sanction

  to pass in and out of lives

  that had only begun

  or were dying.

  The Circular Saw Accident

  Sunday, 21 February 1999

  Parkes

  Again, fifteen years later, I’ve booked into the Bushman’s Motor Inn. Although it’s late summer, the weather is still hot and dry. The drive from Sydney, including a lunch stop in Lithgow, took four hours.

  The 1984 trip was made in response to a persistence of memory, an attempt to come to terms with certain incidents that had affected my life, but there was something else, something that burned at the back of my mind and had never really stopped troubling me, something that happened and, except for general statements from my mother, of which I was never told the details. Because Parkes figured so strongly in those early years of my
life, and because I regard it as my first home in Australia, it seemed imperative that certain traumas that I had experienced should be resolved.

  One of the highlights of that first trip was re-establishing contact with the farming family, the Toms of Bartley’s Creek, for whom my mother had worked. While I’d spent a pleasant day with the three brothers on one of the properties that Bartley’s Creek had been subdivided into, there was something that still nagged me, something that I felt needed confronting. It had to do with painful memories, but it also had to do with the heroism of three men, the farmers who, fifty years ago, were young men and now, through a set of completely different circumstances, had come into my life again.

  Having made the appropriate telephone calls from Sydney, having told the three brothers the reason for my intended trip, and receiving permission from them to visit, I arrived in Parkes.

  Now, as I dived into the motel’s pool in order to cool down, I felt as if I were plunging into the deep end of something distant. In the hot air of the central west the water felt very cold.

  Monday, 22 February 1999

  “Araluen”

  I’m in the kitchen of Dorothea and Andrew Tom, the middle brother of the family. Their son Gavin is also at home and we meet when he comes in for morning tea. Outside, cockatoos are screeching. As Andrew speaks, I picture the red-dust road that runs off a bitumen road on to the property and the clouds of dust that my car has turned up rising into the blue sky. It’s a long road, beginning at a cattle grid under an old gum tree, just as it was when I came out here as a little boy. Today, Bartley’s Creek has been subdivided into three properties and this one, “Araluen”, belongs to Andrew.

  He begins by telling me that the incident whose facts I’ve returned to discover occurred when the brothers came home from boarding school in Sydney. They were working with their father, clearing land, using a newly bought mobile circular saw. He stresses how dangerous the machines were and that no instructions came with them. He explains minutely the mechanical principles on which they worked.