The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  "How old is the mission, Mr. Robertson?" Joanna asked, looking straight ahead, anxious for a glimpse of Karra Karra.

  "Very old. It was one of the first missions in the colonies."

  Joanna's excitement grew. "Why is it being closed down?"

  Robertson's face darkened. "The Aborigines were granted this land years ago, because the government didn't consider it to be of any value. But since then, white settlements have gotten closer, and timber has become more in demand. Especially now, with the building boom."

  Joanna and Sarah had seen evidence of that building boom: As their train had passed through Melbourne, they had glimpsed the tracts of new housing springing up in the suburbs, going up as fast as possible to meet the needs of a burgeoning population. And then later, as the train headed north toward New South Wales, they had noticed miles and miles of cleared forests, where all that remained were tree stumps as far as one could see.

  "This is rich timberland, Mrs. Westbrook," Robertson said. "A lot of men want to get their hands on it, and so they're putting pressure on the board to move the natives."

  "What board is that?"

  "It's called the Aborigines' Rights Protection Board. But I'll tell you, they do anything but protect them."

  "How can the government make your people move? Have they the legal right?"

  "They can if they make it look like they've got the Aborigines' best interests in mind. They're using our high rate of tuberculosis as an excuse. They're saying that it's the cold and damp here that's causing the illness. So they want to move the Aborigines to a warmer and drier climate—for their health, so the board says! But these people belong here. Their ancestors lived here."

  "But Mr. Robertson, science has recently proven that tuberculosis is caused by a germ, not by cold and damp. Surely the board is aware of this?"

  "They're aware of it all right, because I told them so. But they're clinging to the old thinking. They've even got some respected physicians in Melbourne who'll attest to it."

  And then, suddenly, there it was.

  As Robertson guided the wagon off the road, Joanna stared at the archway over the entrance. Carved into the rough timber were the words karra karra aboriginal mission. She filled her eyes with the sight of the trees, the gray sky, the stone buildings, the pigs and chickens in the yard. She tried to imagine how it had looked to her grandmother so many years ago, when there had been nothing here, except possibly for the crude dwellings of the Aborigines. She tried to feel, in the bracing air, the zeal and faith that John Makepeace had brought to this forest in his search for the Second Eden. And she thought about the young black woman Lady Emily had believed she remembered—Reenadeena—and wondered if by any chance she or her descendants were still alive.

  "We'll have a cup of tea first," Robertson said. "And then I'll show you around."

  The superintendent's residence was a small stone cottage consisting of two rooms and a veranda. A half-caste Aboriginal woman named Nellie served tea to the guests in Robertson's small parlor, giving Sarah a curious look every now and then.

  "Now then, Mrs. Westbrook," Robertson said, "what is your interest in Karra Karra?"

  Joanna told him about John and Naomi Makepeace, her mother's unexplained departure from Australia, and her own subsequent search. But when she was finished, Robertson said, "Oh dear, I'm afraid this couldn't possibly be the same place!"

  "Why not?"

  "For one thing, this mission wasn't founded until 1860."

  She and Sarah exchanged a look. "But you said it was very old!"

  "Yes, relatively speaking. In colonies that are themselves less than a century old, twenty years seems a long time. But for another thing, Mrs. Westbrook, Karra Karra was not our original name. Until I came to work here a year ago, it was called St. Joseph's Asylum for Natives."

  "I see," Joanna said. "That explains why I was unable to find it on the map."

  "I didn't think the former name was appropriate for a home for Aborigines. So I asked them to choose a name of their own. They got together and decided upon karra karra, which is the name of a flower that grows in great profusion here. You've seen it—the trumpet-shaped one with white and lavender petals."

  Joanna's disappointment was acute. She didn't know what to say.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Westbrook," Robertson said. "I truly wish this was the place you had been looking for."

  "Would you happen to know," she said at last, "if the word karra karra means the same thing among all Aborigines?"

  "It is believed that there are over two hundred separate and distinct languages among the Aborigines spread out over this continent, Mrs. Westbrook. A word in one dialect might mean something else in another."

  "I see," she said.

  "Would you like to take a look around the mission now?"

  Joanna and Sarah were taken first to the chapel where, with Mr. Robertson, they said a prayer. Then they were shown around the main compound, which consisted of private houses, communal buildings and pens for the farm animals. Joanna was shown how the women made baskets, using the same methods their ancestors had used. The women traveled a great distance to collect the right variety of rush, Robertson explained. The rushes were then split, the strands tied together, soaked in water for some hours and then hung up to dry until they were ready to use. The baskets, Joanna was told, were in high demand in the nearby towns.

  She and Sarah watched men cure and tan possum hides, which they made into rugs and sold. She saw the vegetable gardens being tended and harvested; cows being milked; and children singing their lessons in a rudimentary schoolhouse. Everywhere she and Sarah went, they were met with smiles and politeness. But Joanna saw a difference between these people and those of the Western District Mission, where Sarah had lived as a child. The Karra Karra people seemed to stand taller, and to carry themselves with a kind of pride that was not apparent in some of the others. Simms's Aborigines were servile; Robertson's people had dignity.

  "We have reached the point, Mrs. Westbrook," Robertson said, "where we are completely self-sufficient. The mission no longer receives government aid. We grow our own wheat, hops and vegetables. We make baskets and possum-skin rugs, for which there is a steady market. We have seventy head of cattle, fifteen milking cows, and enough pigs to keep us in bacon for years. You see, unlike other mission superintendents, who feel that the natives should be treated like children—guided, so to speak—I believe the Aborigines do better when left to govern themselves. By being denied their own initiative, they lose their feeling of self-worth."

  Joanna recalled the times she had visited the Western District Mission, of which Reverend Simms was still the superintendent. The Aborigines there were generally unhappy, often unruly. Simms's answer was to tighten discipline, which seemed to Joanna only to make matters worse.

  "Are your people happy here?" she asked.

  "They are quite content, Mrs. Westbrook. Of course, the majority of them are half-caste, and they feel more secure in a place such as this than out on their own in society, where they are accepted by neither the blacks nor the whites." He cast a quick glance at Sarah, in her smart velvet traveling suit and feathered hat, with a gold crucifix at her throat. "We have very few full-bloods, and they are very old."

  Joanna thought about the Aborigines she had seen at the Western District Mission, when she had last made a tour of it with Reverend Simms. They had been well dressed and well fed; they had smiled and proudly showed off their baskets and rugs. But underneath, Joanna had sensed a kind of perplexity. She had looked into their tidy little huts and had been introduced to Mary and Joseph and Agatha. She had been greeted by smiling mothers who wore European dresses, and proud old gentlemen in frock coats and trousers. But she had been troubled by the feeling that something was wrong. In the midst of contentment and obvious prosperity, Joanna had felt a sense of loss. It seemed to her that, rather than growing, the Reverend Simms's people were just biding their time until they died.

  As they walked p
ast a long clapboard building, Joanna said, "Do I hear singing, Mr. Robertson?"

  "Indeed you do," he said. "That is our infirmary. There is a woman in there who is very sick, and her relatives are trying to cure her. The women are chanting a healing-song."

  "What's wrong with her?"

  "She has severe pains in her abdomen—they came on quite suddenly last night. The women have been singing over her for quite a while now."

  "Is that all they will do for her?"

  "They have rubbed her body with emu fat and ash, and tied a hairstring belt around her waist. But the singing is the main part of their cure."

  "Shouldn't she be seen by a doctor?"

  "It wouldn't do any good, Mrs. Westbrook. The district doctor did come by to have a look at her, and he said there's nothing he can do for her. She isn't sick from any real physical cause. From the way I understand it, she ran off with another woman's husband. They got as far as the nearest town, where he abandoned her. When she came back, the other woman 'sang' her—by which I mean, cast some sort of spell on her."

  Joanna stared at him. "You mean, like a poison-song?"

  "Why, yes. You've heard of such things, then?"

  "Can nothing be done to help her?"

  "Her relatives are trying to drive out the poison by singing their own healing force into her. White man's medicines won't help, perhaps theirs will. It's all a matter of belief."

  "Would they mind if I saw her? I have some skill in healing."

  "They wouldn't mind at all, Mrs. Westbrook. They would appreciate your trying to help. You go on in, I'll wait out here. I'm forbidden to enter when the women are performing one of their rituals."

  Joanna and Sarah stepped through the doorway and found themselves in a long room furnished with eight beds and a few chairs and tables. Seven of the beds were neatly made and unoccupied, but in the eighth a woman lay with her eyes closed. She was clearly ill; her head rolled from side to side, and she was groaning. As Joanna and Sarah watched, a group of women moved in a dance around the bed; they held their hands in a cupped fashion, facing away from their bodies, and as they danced they pushed their hands outward and over the supine woman.

  Suddenly, one of them noticed Sarah and Joanna. When she stopped singing, the others also stopped and stared at the newcomers.

  "Hello," Joanna said. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but may I take a look at her? I might be able to help."

  She had expected to meet resistance, or perhaps resentment, but instead they smiled shyly and gestured for her to come to the bed. Joanna sat at the bedside and examined the patient, checking for certain signs and symptoms. Although the specific nature of the ailment eluded her, she saw the look of fatalism and acceptance in the woman's eyes. Then she noticed, on the table beside the bed, small packets of powder labeled ginger and yarrow, a bottle of willow extract and a mustard poultice, all of which she herself would have prescribed, and which had no doubt been left here by the district doctor. Clearly, they had not helped.

  When Joanna rose from the bed, the women looked at her hopefully, but all she could do was say, "I'm sorry."

  They resumed chanting, and the curious dance around the bed, and Sarah and Joanna retreated to the door. "I wonder if they will help her," Joanna said.

  "I don't know this ritual," Sarah said. "I don't know how to help someone who has been sung."

  "Perhaps it can be any kind of ritual," Joanna said thoughtfully, "perhaps all that is necessary is that the victim believes that the singing and the words will help. I wish I could believe in their power as these women do. I wish I could make up my own song and believe that I could sing the poison away. Perhaps it would in fact go away. Perhaps I would never have another nightmare, and I wouldn't have this terrible feeling of dread whenever I look at Beth."

  They joined Robertson outside, and when Joanna commented that such rituals were forbidden at some of the other missions, he said, "I'm rather sad to see these people losing their culture. The Aborigines have been dispossessed of so many of their magic places. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of sacred waterholes and caves are lost to them forever. And the loss, I might add, is more than just a spiritual one. Bear in mind that the Aborigines never wrote down their history. The record of previous generations abides in the sacred landmarks that lie along the songlines. The Aborigines would follow the ancient tracks and repeat the old stories as they went. But cut off from their songlines, they soon lost the record of their ancestors. I have often complained that depriving Aborigines of their sacred sites was the same as burning down a library!"

  "Your people seem to be very happy here," Joanna said as they neared Robertson's cottage.

  "Unfortunately, Mrs. Westbrook, there are still a few who run away."

  "Where do they go?"

  "To the towns and settlements, mostly. They've become attracted, even addicted, to alcohol and tobacco, so they go where they can get it. But a few run into the interior, where they hope to find the old way of life, a place where there are no white people."

  "Are there many in the interior who are like that?"

  "No one knows. There are still parts of Australia that are unexplored."

  Unexplored, she thought, by white men. But no doubt they have been heavily explored and were well known to the Aborigines who lived there.

  Joanna found herself thinking of the driver of the overland coach, and of his passengers, who hadn't protested his anti-Aborigine policy. And she thought of the natives she had seen in Melbourne, drunk, begging, prostituting themselves. She thought of Sarah, who seemed to know less and less about her people's culture. And Reverend Simms, who had once said to Joanna, "We encourage the Aborigines to marry outside their own race, for then the better qualities of the civilized whites overcome and dispel the black traits."

  "Can the rulings of the Aborigines' Rights Protection Board be influenced, Mr. Robertson?" she asked when they were back in his cottage. "Can the board be persuaded to take more of an interest in protecting these people?"

  "I have been trying, Mrs. Westbrook, but I am one voice against six. That was why I made up those handouts for the exhibition—I was hoping to catch the attention of others like myself who might offer some help."

  "I would like to help, Mr. Robertson. Tell me what I can do."

  He went to his desk and said, "I'll give you the names of the board members. You can write to them, protesting their decision to move my people."

  While Robertson wrote the list of names, Joanna contemplated a photograph that hung over the fireplace. The caption described it as a portrait of Old Wonga, the last chief of this area. He was naked except for a possum-fur cloak, and he looked stately with his spear. What had he been thinking, Joanna wondered, when he had looked into the camera's lens? Had he heard, in the click of the shutter, the death knell of his people?

  "Here you are," Robertson said, handing her the list. "I would be most appreciative of anything you could do. Now then, would you care to stay the night? We do have accommodations for visitors."

  Before Joanna could reply, something else on the wall caught her eye. It was a document, very old and yellowed, framed behind glass. Joanna stepped closer. She stared at the familiar dots and swirls and lines, the cryptic symbols she had come to know so well, but which still remained elusive after so many years. "Mr. Robertson," she said, suddenly excited, "what is this?"

  "That, Mrs. Westbrook, is my pride and joy. It's a page from Julius Caesar's The Gallic War, It's not the real thing, of course, but a rather clever facsimile sent to me by a friend in England. I'm something of a classicist."

  "But what is it? The writing, Mr. Robertson, what is it?"

  "It's a form of shorthand invented by a Roman who lived in the first century B.C., named Marcus Tullius Tiro. He was Cicero's private secretary. Many famous men, including Julius Caesar, used Tironian shorthand. It was in use for about a thousand years, but it disappeared, during the Middle Ages, when shorthand became associated with witchcraft and magic."

 
"I would like to show you something," Joanna said, and she went to her traveling bag and took out the leather satchel. She handed the papers to Robertson.

  "Good heavens!" he said. "This is the very same shorthand! Whoever wrote these must have been a classicist like myself."

  "Can you read it?"

  "Well, let's see, shall we?" He removed a pair of spectacles from his pocket and seated them on his nose. Bushy red eyebrows came together as he concentrated on the writing. Finally he said, "I'm afraid it's no good, Mrs. Westbrook. My document is in Latin, these papers of yours seem to have been written in English."

  "But can't you translate them?"

  "I'm not an expert on Tironian shorthand. There are hundreds of symbols, you understand."

  "Is there no way the code can be broken?"

  "The friend who sent me this facsimile is quite knowledgeable on the subject; in fact it was he who drew this excellent facsimile for me. I shall write to him in England, and send him your grandfather's papers, explaining the problem. Giles owes me a favor anyway."

  Joanna hesitated. "I would rather not allow these papers out of my possession, Mr. Robertson. They are very valuable to me."

  "Yes, of course. I understand. Well then, I'll ask Giles to send me the Tironian code, with instructions on how to use it. That way, Mrs. Westbrook, you can translate your grandfather's papers yourself. How would that be?"

  TWENTY-ONE

  W

  OULD YOU BE WILLING TO SELL THIS PICTURE BACK TO ME?" he asked. "I'll give you twice what you paid me. And at that I will still make a profit."

  Ivy laughed. "Of course you may have it back!"

  He gave her another long, considering look, then said, "My dear Mrs.—?"

  "Dearborn," she said. "Miss Ivy Dearborn."

  "My dear Miss Dearborn. Would you pay me the honor of joining me for a cup of tea in my studio? I have a business arrangement I should very much like to discuss with you."

  And Ivy, suddenly seeing in the grinning Al Gernsheim her destiny and salvation, slipped her hand through his arm and said, "I should be most happy to, Mr. Gernsheim."