Sweet Bitter Cane

by G S Johnston

  From Loveday Italo sent a letter. All was well, and the family weren’t to worry. She doubted he could say anything else. But she accepted those words, whomever had written them, whomever had read them; other Italian women told similar stories of this Loveday.

  She dropped the cane to the earth. In November, when the harvest was complete, she’d travel to see him. It would take her many, many days and cost money she could ill afford, but as the war showed no signs of remitting – in fact, it was worsening, lurching closer and closer to Australia – she could see no other choice. She had to see him.

  One must push forward. She returned to her office.

  With Flavio’s help, they planned the harvest with an attention to detail she’d never deemed necessary. Flavio said, time and time again, ‘Nothing can go wrong.’ And indeed, her lists and sub-lists were excessive: the number of men, the field they would cut first, the food stores, the contractors for perishables and non-perishables. Fear drove her. If they didn’t earn a decent amount, she’d have nothing more to do than sell the new land. Whilst Cristiano had paid the mortgage, she had this on the ledger as debt. At some point, it had to be paid. And she was sure that now it would be clear to all she was desperate, any price offered for the land would be subpar. And she didn’t want Fergus Kelly to make good his threat. That would rub salt into the wound. The crop had to be good.

  A vehicle approached from the main road. The sound was light, so she presumed it was a car and not a truck. She blotted the ledger’s red ink and rose from the desk. By instinct, she closed the door behind her, more to keep Ilaria’s busy fingers from the room than anything. She walked one flight from her tower to the upstairs verandah as the car circled in the front yard, coming to rest with the passenger’s door facing the house. A man stepped from the rear, dressed in a military uniform. On the far side, a policeman alighted. She knew him – Sergeant Boyle, from the Babinda police station.

  ‘What do they want?’ Lucia said, behind her.

  Amelia prickled. She’d had no warning of this visit, but it wasn’t social. Her pulse quickened. She had seen this before. Something had happened to Italo. For what reason would they send two such men?

  ‘Will you go and prepare tea?’ she said, pressing herself to sound calm. But Lucia remained. ‘Quickly.’

  Both the military man and the policeman looked to the verandah, raised their hands to their hats’ brims and nodded. She made no sign and withdrew into the house. The morning was already warm, but the shadows of the house were cooler. She walked to the lower level and opened the front door. Both men stood facing her, their faces set grim.

  ‘Mrs Amedeo,’ Sergeant Boyle said. He carried a square portmanteau case.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘This is Captain McLennan.’

  She regarded him. He was middle-aged and, although military, from the size of his midriff, clearly not engaged in active service. She put out her hand and thought he mightn’t accept it. His grip was not unduly firm.

  ‘I’d like to have a word with you,’ Captain McLennan said.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘If I may.’

  She checked his eyes. No trace of sorrow, but apprehension. The policemen had been distressed by Marta’s death, but she could find no such emotion in his eyes. But something concerned him. She moved from the door, across the entrance hall to the dining room without turning to check their progress, though she could hear their steps.

  ‘Would you like tea?’ she said.

  ‘We’ve not the time,’ Sergeant Boyle said.

  This abruptness gave her heart. Surely the bearers of bad news wouldn’t speak so. They were here on business and nothing would change this. She motioned to Captain McLennan to sit and walked around the table to face him. Sergeant Boyle sat next to him. From his briefcase, Captain McLennan took a folder. He laid it on the table, set his locked hands on top of it. He looked deep into her eyes. She had to meet this self-possessed glance or she would be lost to whatever he was to say. Without shifting, he opened the folder. She wouldn’t look away.

  ‘Something has come to our attention,’ he said.

  She remained impassive. He was the one to look away, at the folder of papers. He singled one item, lifted it from the folder, made to read it. It was an envelope, the type she used. Involuntarily, she gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth. She could see the front and recognised her own hand, familiar and yet foreign. He wrote something, noting her concern. How dare he? With some considered manner, he placed the envelope on the table, tapped it with his fingers and slid it to her.

  She recognised it, a letter to her parents she’d sent less than a month ago. What had she written? Surely, it was inconsequential. Maybe some ranting about the injustice of Italo’s arrest, but she’d voiced this in many forums. And even this hard McLennan would have to admit the arrests had brought great hardship to many families.

  The sound of running feet trammelled the stair. Ilaria rushed into the room. Amelia turned and spoke to her in Italian, told her to go to the kitchen and play with her dolls. Captain McLennan smiled at Ilaria.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Captain McLennan said to her.

  Ilaria looked at him and said nothing.

  ‘She doesn’t speak English,’ Amelia said. Again she told Ilaria to go to Lucia in the kitchen.

  Captain McLennan twisted his head towards her. ‘Why not?’

  Lucia came to the room. Amelia spoke to her in Italian, asked her to remove the child. Lucia hesitated until she assured her there was no concern. She faced Captain McLennan.

  ‘We are Italian,’ Amelia said.

  She felt damp. Damn her arrogance. She shouldn’t have said this, a grave error. But this fool and his dallying maddened her. Lucia gathered Ilaria into the folds of her dress and walked her from the room. She breathed deeply.

  ‘Yet you live in Australia,’ he said.

  ‘It is possible to be Australian and speak Italian.’ She sighed. ‘Since my husband’s arrest I’ve been very busy. Do you imagine it’s easy for a woman to run a farm?’

  She waited, left him a space to deny the ramification of Italo’s sentence, but he elected to remain mute. She took his silence as a point won.

  ‘She spends most of her time with Lucia, who speaks little English,’ she said. ‘With all these horrors, I’ve not had time to teach her. It’s simply easier for me to speak Italian.’

  ‘And yet your English is remarkable. Quite faultless.’

  No matter what she did, she was set apart. ‘Do you speak another language?’

  Captain McLennan raised his lips to a smile and a small laugh. ‘I speak English, the language of Australia.’

  ‘If you spoke another language, you’d know it comes at great cost, especially when I’m tired.’

  He paused. ‘You’d do well to teach your daughter. Others may misconstrue your … motivation.’ He wrote something and returned his attention to the envelope. ‘Did you write this letter and sign it?’

  She looked at him. He wasn’t smart, dullness in his eye, his voice thick and slow. She opened the envelope, addressed to her cousin in Switzerland. Inside was a second envelope, addressed to her parents in Italy, which had also been opened. With some caution, she removed the letter from the second envelope. It was her letter, her handwriting. She turned the pages, just to be sure even this was as it had left her. It was her letter. How did they come to have this? Her anger boiled. Was there no end to this harassment? She couldn’t deny her handwriting, her words, her signature on the last page.

  ‘I wrote the letter to my parents. I signed the letter.’

  Sergeant Boyle wrote something.

  She looked at McLennan, his hands clasped together, his thumbs pressed to his lips. He released them.

  ‘Did you place this letter in the envelope addressed to Italy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you place this in the envelope addressed to Switzerland?’

  ‘Yes.’

&nb
sp; ‘Why did you do this?’

  She paused. She wouldn’t allow his momentum to bamboozle her.

  ‘Before we left Italy, my brother’s wife suggested if there was a need we could communicate in this way, via a cousin in Switzerland.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We are at war …’

  ‘Aren’t there other ways of communicating with Italy?’

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘And yet, in your letter you mention …’ From his folder he took a typed page, which she presumed to be an English translation of her letter. ‘… the Vatican and the Red Cross as possible methods of communication.’

  She looked at her letter. Her face flushed. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘You see, what you’ve done could be … misconstrued.’

  She breathed deeply. ‘I’ve not read this letter as recently as you. I don’t recall its exact contents. But my memory is that it was inconsequential.’

  ‘Yes … inconsequential. But what did opening this line of communication prefigure?’

  Perhaps she’d misjudged this man, and he was brighter than she suspected. ‘I had no intention of committing a war offence.’ She did her best to smile. ‘I hope I’ll not get into trouble over this.’

  ‘I’ll need you to sign a statutory declaration, stating these facts we’ve discussed.’

  She nodded. He conversed with Sergeant Boyle, who took a portable Corona typewriter from the case and began to type.

  ‘If you can be quick,’ she said, above the battering keys. ‘I have a harvest to oversee.’

  Sergeant Boyle typed the declaration. Whilst it contained no direct accusation, she feared the language was hostile. What would they do if she refused to sign? What would Italo say? A letter, a bland letter at that, addressed to her parents … Was this so condemning? She had no choice. She signed the declaration.

  Once the men had left, she did her best not to be prey to thoughts of the possible ramifications. Surely, the visit meant nothing beyond intimidation, which women were prone to. But there was a war on. Weren’t there more serious matters to attend to? Evidently not.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Over the next few days, the harvest began and proceeded. The British-Australian cutters were pleasant and worked hard enough but wouldn’t extend themselves beyond anything their union representative prescribed. But they appreciated her food, even the minestrone for which she’d been so derided in public for so long with her nickname, Mrs Minestrone. They all asked for second helpings.

  What a sense of achievement they felt as the cane was transported to the mill. Flavio said again and again, ‘It’s a good crop.’ Despite all the interdictions, they’d succeeded. And the yield was very good. And despite the increased costs, the profit was fair, the mill’s cheque, written in Flavio’s name, banked into his account. With tight economy and no more problems, they could survive another year. She wrote to Clara, saying she’d resume the mortgage payments. In a few months, when her financial position was clearer, she’d start to repay the debt.

  She’d heard reports of women on other farms, plenty far worse off, some women left with daughters, others with husbands in concentration camps and sons away at war. Flavio and Mauro helped these families, as much as time allowed. Where women had been unable to harvest a crop, British-Australian men had come onto the land and taken the cane to the mill and been paid for it. Some had sold land. Some had simply left. Thank God that wasn’t her fate. She had two sons who knew their business.

  At Flavio’s insistence, without rest, they planted the next year’s crop. With a good growing season, they may be able to harvest within the year, which would only help their cash flow. And they planted the new land, a victory, nothing less, a testimony to their organisation. Amelia could see it in no other terms. She wondered what Fergus would make of it, this fallow land he coveted put back to use. But she was too tired and preoccupied to waste time thinking about it and had no control over Fergus.

  The months passed without Italo and took their new rhythm. Her economy held, frugal and vice-like, and the war far worsened. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the USA entered the war in Europe and the Pacific. She bade goodbye to the prospect of an easy end to the conflict. Italo wouldn’t be home soon. The farm passed through the gaunt Christmas of ‘41 into the brand-new year of ‘42.

  There were good days and bad. Good was when she missed Italo, often for something so inconsequential, like the way he would turn down only his side of the bed or the way he would announce in the late evening that he would check the horses he loved like it was the first time he’d ever done it. The memories of what had annoyed her now brought her pleasure.

  A very bad day was the February morning when Maria arrived at the house. Amelia saw her from the second-floor verandah as she rushed through the garden and banged hard on the front door. Something was surely amiss, and Amelia ran downstairs to be met by Flavio coming from the kitchen. Maria stood on the doorstep, her face reddened and feared.

  ‘The Japanese have attacked Darwin,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s Singapore they’ve taken.’

  ‘That was four days ago. This only just happened.’

  Amelia stepped back, inviting Maria in. She closed the door and looked at Maria. Surely, she could trust Maria.

  ‘Follow me,’ Amelia said.

  Together the three climbed the stair to her office. She knelt into the alcove behind her desk. From behind the drawers, she hauled out the wireless she’d hidden from the police. Flavio picked it up, placed it on the desk.

  ‘Good for you,’ Maria said. ‘I was too honest, and all ours were taken.’

  No-one said a word while the machine warmed to reports of waves of planes having strafed the most north-eastern city of Australia, destroying a swathe of the town, the port and the airfields.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Maria said.

  Amelia shook her head. ‘Dante and Italo won’t return home soon.’

  In the coming days, newspapers and people on the street spoke again of the yellow peril, the olive peril now safely tucked away in concentration camps and seemingly forgotten. In the coming weeks, people renewed their war efforts, braced for more attacks, night and day scanning the skies and seas for any sign of the Japanese. Australian soil was sacred. The battle for Australia had begun.

  Lucia was away to visit her son in Brisbane, and Amelia took over the cooking for the month. She didn’t mind. The farm was quiet, in the growing phase. The boys busied themselves with other chores – the vegetable patch, the citrus orchard and pineapple and pawpaw trees, some overdue maintenance to the barracks – and helped the men-less Italian women of the area.

  This part of the day had become her favourite, when the day’s work was done, when the evening first settled; they’d survived another day. The boys loved her pizzoccheri, even though the recipe came from Valtellina and a much colder clime. Perhaps for these memories, she liked to cook it. She liked the feel of the buckwheat, soft but gritty, as she kneaded an egg and warm water and milk to a pasta. Once this was done, she left it to rest and simmered cabbage and potato in seasoned water. She rolled the pasta to a sheet, cut it to long ribbons and added these to the cabbage and potato. In three separate pans, she fried in butter onion, garlic and sage. It was a hearty dish and would keep the boys hunger-free for at least a few hours. Although the evening was warm, they still loved the dish, which she’d let cool a little before she served.

  She took the pot of vegetables and pasta from the Aga. With this simple movement, she was taken over, taken back to the first house, taken back to the open fire on which she’d cooked for so many years, in an instant taken back twenty years. How had they survived in such a place? But despite all the inconveniences, the draught cracks in the floors, the thin walls of the kitchen, she’d always loved the front verandah, with its long view out over the fields (and the tap! The letters she’d written to Italy about the wondrous tap). They’d survived the house.
They’d survived its destruction by a cyclone. They’d survive Italo’s absence.

  She drained the vegetables and pasta and placed them in a large dish. This was the metamorphosis of the recipe, where things were brought together and something else developed. She poured the three pans of frying butter into one, mixed all together. She substituted a local cheddar for the dish’s usual Valtellina Casera, the mountains’ pasture milk whose delicate flavour she could still remember. The cheddar bit at her tongue – too strong, no sweetness at all – but there was nothing she could do. Then in another dish she layered this mix, sprinkling the cheese and then layering and sprinkling till all was used. She cut thick slices of bread baked earlier in the day and took the board and the bread to the dining room, sung up the stair to the boys that dinner was ready.

  But there was a knock at the front door. A young man, British Australian, stood with a box of vegetables in his arms, overflowing with light and dark greens and whites and orange and even darker greens.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  He stepped back. ‘I’m James Harrison. Jim. We live out Happy Valley way.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I brung ya these.’ He looked at the contents, the beans, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots and spinach. ‘Thought they might come in ‘andy.’

  Amelia rose – what was this charity? ‘We’ve more than enough—’

  ‘Ya mightn’t remember us. Years ago, ya brung over a stew. Bloody good it was too. When me mum was crook.’

  Amelia remembered Anne Harrison. She’d died a horrible death in the early 1930s – breast cancer, they said. She had the softest smile in the valley. Amelia could see a trace of it now, in this young man before her, Anne’s son. His awkward manner, his clipped speech, amused her. His honest desire to help comforted her and she let a trace of a smile grace her face, the first in so many weeks.