Kurt laughed. But Rifkah had that haggard old look again. She said, ‘I zink he truly loff Kurt for savingk life of his daughter Bridie and her baby.’ She said it as they were running past the site of the Lily Lagoons camp beside the river, at which she cast a glance as if at some sweetness sadly lost. Jeremy, about to say something else in cynical vein to Kurt by the look of him, glanced at her as he leaned across, and plainly desisted, sat back, as they crossed the causeway, seeing a small cloud of cockatoos rise from a big plum tree up on the other bank, remarked, ‘Plums must be early this year. We’ll have to look for some along the way. There’s a nice patch of them not far from the Rainbow Pool. Remember I told you you can make a lovely jam out of ’em?’
She smiled as if gratefully. He then talked of food, asking if she thought she could help Nan out in providing for the biggish party they were expecting for four or five days at least. He said he’d received a letter from General Esk saying that they intended setting up camp as soon as they arrived, so as not to inconvenience the household, but that he himself would rather have them in the house until they got used to roughing it, since none of them really had so far. Rifkah cheered up at that. Asked about fish for a big fry for Shabbos, she said there was enough in the refrigerator to provide for Friday evening, but that was all. ‘We must do it properly,’ he said. ‘Must have enough for Saturday, too. I’ll get them to go out for more first thing tomorrow.’
Coming at length to the vicinity of the Pool, they turned left, away from it, following a scarcely discernible track, to take a look at the grove of plums. No cockies, hence no ripe fruit. However, according to the knowledgeable ones at the back who ate a few green, among them Prindy, they should be ripe in about a week. Prindy suggested that he and Rifkah come there riding, and at the same time take a dip in the Pool.
Black at Lily Lagoons was that sanctuary for the little girl who had been snatched from her bubbeh’s arms while playing at housekeeping, in the like of it, the kitchen, and those gentle substitutes for bubbeh’s arms, Nanago’s, into both of which Rifkah flung herself. Nevertheless, she was still subdued when she and Jeremy set out on the ritual walk.
Gently as they went, Jeremy got onto the subject of last night, confessing that he was puzzled by her being so upset when she must have known pretty well from his own talk what the law was regarding Aborigines and the attitude of whites generally towards them, Pat Hannaford himself being no lover of them, for all his defiance of authority on their behalf in flagrant cases of ill-treatment of them. She answered slowly, ‘Ze vay zose pipple look, I am remind of German pipple ven zey see Jew marching wit’ SS or SA. It is ze vorst zing zat look, I zink.’
‘Yes?’
She drooped her dark-seeming head, so that the copper glinted in the starlight. ‘Ze bullying of SA you expect . . . or some pipple spit at you. Zere vas alvays anti-Jew business. I know as little girl and my bubbeh and zaydeh tell me of bad times. But ven I am taken by Gestapo, and zey drag me avay and I am very frightened . . . I look at zose ordinary German pipple lookingk, and I see zey don’t care . . . I am Jew. Zat is vorst zing, I say.’ She looked up at him, the starlight now glinting in her great eyes.
‘Go on.’
‘Zen my heart . . . like stop. I tell you . . . I don’t mind polizei so mooch . . . zat is job for zem . . . but zose pipple. Vy don’t zey ’elp me? Vot is wrong? Vot haf I done? Only I am Jew. Vot is zat? Zey don’t hate me. I do not see hate in eye. Vot I see is . . . is . . . zey don’t care about me . . . because I am Jew. Don’t matter I am young girl, or pretty girl, or . . . or . . . vell, zey don’t care. I am some different.’
She sighed, drooped again for a while, went on, clinging close to him: ‘I see after plenty time. Ve haf to vear ze Badge of Shame . . . ze Germans call . . . ze Yellow Star. Ve march t’rough street with SA guard. Pipple stare. Vot is in zere eye? Nozzing. You are Jew. Zen your heart . . . vell, like lead, so heavy. You have ozzer Jew. But you know zey feel same . . . lonely and lost. Ve are different kind. Ze vorld don’t care about us . . . no matter ve are clean, goot, quiet pipple . . . ve are Jew.’ She sighed again. ‘Zat is vot I see in eye of zose pipple last night . . . not lookingk at me, because zey not like zat to Jew zis country . . . but at my leetle boy, my kleine menscheleh. He is most beautiful boy. He is most beautiful person in ze room, ze most gebentchter . . . most talent in country. But zey look at him like . . . like . . .’ Her voice grew husky, faltered, ‘. . . like in Germany.’ She ended in a sob, drooped again on his arm. He reached and touched the dark glinting curls.
They walked in silence for a while, till he said gently, ‘I’m going to ask you something personal. You know I’m not anti-Jewish . . . in fact I like you for being Jewish. But are you ashamed to be Jewish?’
Her head came up swiftly. ‘Oh, no!’
‘You are proud to be Jewish . . . you are happy to be Jewish, in spite of all you’ve had to suffer through being so?’
‘If I do not vont to be Jewish, I change, yes?’
‘You would never change?’
‘Vy do I vont to change? I am happy to be vot I am. Vy do you ask me zat? I am not trouble now for Jews. Ze great Jewish capitalists of ze vorld and ze Communists vill save zem from Hitler. I vos trouble about Prindy.’
‘You don’t have to worry about him. He’s not ashamed of being Aboriginal, I assure you . . . that’s the remarkable thing about him, seeing he’s only quarter, and that mother of his.’
‘I vos trouble for Aboriginal pipple . . . zinkingk zey moost feel like Jews . . . vot you call it . . . nobody vont, nobody care?’
‘Outcast. But Prindy’s no outcast. He knows he belongs to the blacks. That’s always been my theory . . . they grow up happily . . . the crossbreeds . . . if they’re brought up close to the Old People.’
‘But all ze time zey moost live close to vite pipple, and more and more need vite pipple, as you haf tell me . . . and zese vite pipple do not care, so Aboriginal pipple moost feel lost and lonely . . . outcast.’
He was silent for a while, staring intently ahead, while she, pacing with him, watched his dim profile. When he spoke it was with a strangely eager tone, for him, who usually spoke slowly, laconically, even warily: ‘Do you know, what you’ve been saying makes me see the Aborigines rather differently from what I did. I’ve been thinking of them as clinging to their old ways as more satisfying, because there’s nothing we have to offer them to replace these . . . nothing but work, semi-slavery, even on the level with the whiteman. But what you’ve told me makes me think of something else, something stronger even than tradition in man . . . dignity. You know that word?’
‘Yes.’
‘What you’ve said about the Jews . . . not only just now, but before . . . and what Kurt has told me, and what I’ve been reading lately . . . it seems to me that it is pride in themselves, in their individuality, in their dignity as what they are, that’s kept the Jews going as Jews, through all the centuries of even frightful discouragement. The satisfaction of your ritual comes out of the satisfaction of your pride. Do I make that clear?’
‘Yes . . . I zing it is right. Jews who change to Christianity are not happy pipple . . . no matter how rich and big zey come . . . not like poor leetle pipple of ze ghetto.’
‘Yet there’s that loneliness you spoke of . . . being slighted, despised . . . no, that’s not the word you used . . . you said what hurt worst was the world not caring for you in your suffering. How does this fit in with pride?’
She was still staring at him. ‘I do not know.’
‘I think I see the reason for the German people’s not caring. That fits the not caring of Australians for the Aborigines. You have slighted them by refusing to be like them. Through the centuries you’ve made them look fools by being nice to them, giving them the best of everything you’ve got . . . but never imitating them. You suffer because you are Jews. You choose to be Jews. Therefore to hell with you in your suffering. Is that right?’
‘I zink so.’
; ‘The same thing with the Australian Nation. It can say to the Aborigines: “You have your chance. Become like us. Otherwise to hell with you.” There’s a saying amongst people who have a lot to do with Aborigines. “A blackfellow understands only two kinds of whiteman . . . the Cheeky Bugger and the Bloody Fool.” You understand the Aboriginal usage of the word Cheeky, don’t you . . . like Cheeky Yam, Cheeky Sugar-bag, Cheeky Snake . . . meaning something you’ve got to be careful of . . . full of bite, sting . . . in the case of a whiteman, a bully, and exploiter. Old Coon-Coon is Number-One Cheeky Bugger Dookyangana. The expression used to annoy me. I see now that there’s real truth in it. The blackfellow doesn’t hate the whiteman. He’d even likes to help him, to co-operate with him. The explorers found that, even when intruding on wild tribes’ hunting grounds. But like the Jews, he wants to be what he is, what he’s proud of being . . . yes, even in the seemingly utterly degraded ones you find hanging about the fringes of towns . . . complete beggars, outcasts, social lepers . . . but still Aborigines, even the crossbreeds that have grown up with them. And that’s why the whiteman . . . the Nation at large, when you get down to tin-tacks . . . can ignore what seems to be their frightful conditions. The black bastards only have themselves to blame, as they say. You’ll find every squatter . . . pretty well everybody who has anything to do with them, even the police . . . will tell you what they’ve tried to do for them . . . only to be let down. God forgive me, I’ve done it myself . . . have been doing it in a way all along, I’m afraid. Even though I’ve bucked the stupid official policy of so-called Integration, I’ve still practised it in a way . . . teaching them to be white blackfellows . . . as against the official policy of making them black whitefellows.’
He sighed gustily. ‘It’s this strange fellow-feeling of yours for them that’s shown me the truth. I’ve raged against their ill-treatment . . . plenty of people have . . . but I’ve never wept over the rejection of them for what they are . . . that subtle thing, practised by everyone in the land, even the missionaries trying to save them from exploitation, even myself . . . nor have I seen anyone else weep like that . . . nor had I realised that in their hearts there must be a great sadness on account of their rejection for what they are . . . the sadness like that in which they cry Poor Fellow My Country. I’ve pitied them only. So does every feeling person. But pity’s the wrong feeling. They don’t want it . . . only exploit it when it’s given. They don’t need it. They are proud people. Yes . . . these humblest of all the races of men, I see now, are amongst the proudest . . . thanks to you, and your own eternal pride of being . . . Bless you, dear girl . . . dear Jewish girl . . . dear Jewess!’ He stopped suddenly, flung his arms about her, and for the first time in all intimate association, of his own volition, kissed her, fair on the lips, and with such purpose that when they drew apart they were breathless. That it wasn’t mere sexual passion was evident from the way they both laughed, while still clinging, and her sudden little act of returning the kiss with the swift movement usual to her.
He looked around. ‘Lord . . . how far we’ve come! We’d better go back . . . or they’ll think we’ve eloped.’ As they turned they both laughed again, relinking arms.
As they went homeward he talked even more eagerly, saying how glad he was that this little miracle of revelation had happened before the coming of that Professor St Clair, surely the man who would become the Director of the mooted new Aborigines’ Welfare concern and hence the one with more say in the matter of dealing with the people than any other in the Nation, since he now had a truly positive policy to put before him. This policy was primarily the protection of this people’s pride, pride in their uniqueness, in themselves as themselves . . . which meant that the existing Aboriginal Reserves, so far maintained only by local ordinance that could be revoked by any petty official to meet the demands of commercial power, be written into the Constitution as inviolate, that the already dispossessed be prepared not for taking the lowest class place in the lowest class of a low-class white society, namely the Australian Nation, but for eventual inclusion in the still-proud tribes of the Reserves, that such assistance as these people would require would be in the way of scientific improvement of the productivity of their hunting grounds without intrusion on their own magical means of doing so . . . say getting pigs and buffaloes and other destructive alien creatures off them and replacing them with depleted native fauna and flora that would only be destroyed elsewhere. Ah, yes, a thousand wonderful positive things to do that would wipe out the original sin of the ruthless dispossession, and allow the Nation to become a thing of pride itself, instead of the thing of shame it was and always must be until such as this was done. There would also be the patronage of General Esk to count on. Then the Jewish Settlement, that could be on the fringe of the first Reserve, that of the Sandstone Country to the North here and the empty coastlands beyond, as a buffer of intelligence between the old ruthless gang of land-grabbers and despoilers, Vaisey and the rest of them. ‘Ah, yes . . . ah, yes . . . thank you, dear girl, a million times, for your coming here, for your being what you are . . . for your doing what you did only twenty-four hours ago, scarcely thirty-six hours before these important people will be here. I feel you have saved my life. I’ll confess I was just about beaten. The experience with Prindy was beating me. For all he’s been showing in the way of being civilised, I’ve known he’s only been waiting for Bobwirridirridi . . . and I must let him go . . . to what? To become simply an outlaw?’
He stopped her to say earnestly, ‘You’ve got to help me, you know, girl. In fact you’ve got to do most of the active work with them. They’ve accepted you. You are the different kind, as they so wisely estimated. I’m still alien to them, the cheeky bugger and the bloody fool combined . . . the Mullaka, the Boss. They don’t want bosses. They want pookarakkas, wise men, and someone they can look on as sort of Mother Goddess . . . a reincarnation of Koonapippi. You are the one . . . direct descendant of those earth mothers of your Bible . . . Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca. You are Rebecca, reincarnated, Mother of Israel, who fathered the Twelve Tribes and saw the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and old Jehovah Tchamala up there on top! You’ve got to do it, Rebecca . . . Rifkah . . . you’ve just got to.’
She clung to him tightly, while looking up to him with the stars in her eyes. ‘I vill, Jeremy, I vill. I know now zat is vy I am here.’
15
I
The party arriving by air at Lily Lagoons as arranged, were treated to something not in the arrangements for their entertainment. This was a poppy show; at least as he who was responsible for it called it, he being the pilot, Fergus Ferris. They were almost at their destination, dropping down the sky, when Fergus spotted something in one of the big holes of Knowles Creek that caused him to open his throttles and climb, then do a steep turn, and with throttles closed, came back like a swooping hawk, invisible in the eye of the mid-morning Sun, and almost as silent. Seeing now in full view what, keen-sighted though he must be to have spotted it at all, could have been only a glimpse of copper and ivory amongst flitting bits of jet and brown, he yelled from his cockpit back at his puzzled passengers, ‘Pin to see a poppy show!’ and put on a bit of bank as he sliced through the lines of trees to give them all a look. It was naked Rifkah, running back to the water. A perfect view — at any rate for the hawk-eyed one, whose split-lipped grinning appreciation must plainly have been seen from the ground by those who could afford to look aloft; for very evidently it was only impending doom that at least a couple of the passengers saw, namely, Dr Fabian Cootes and Lieutenant Dickey, seeing how their complexions changed to match that of the leaves of the branches seeming to reach to rake them down — and the tightness of the faces of the others, Major Maltravers, Professor St Clair, and General Esk, suggesting that it was with fatalism rather than enjoyment that they looked. Then it was blotted out by the force pulling down eyelids along with entrails, as Fergus, his throttles wide again, climbed up out of what could be paradise.
They we
nt in to land, doing a gentle turn about the homestead, came to earth. As the aircraft halted and the move to alight began, General Esk held up his hand, saying, ‘A word, please, gentlemen.’ Fergus coming from the cockpit to open the exit door halted. The General went on: ‘I’d rather not have the incident that’s just taken place remarked on to anyone we’ll be seeing here. Agreed? Good!’ Not that anyone gave him any assurance. But silent consent was surely to be expected from them all — except one, who as he moved again to open the door, Esk addressed directly, ‘Mr Ferris . . . I’ve no doubt about your aeronautical skill . . . otherwise I wouldn’t have engaged you . . . but I’m also aware of your excessive interest in females of our species and your propensity for talking, especially if the subject’s bawdy. I’d like your word in this matter of keeping the little incident to ourselves. Do I have it?’
Fergus coloured, but showed the split lip grinning. ‘What about swearing us all?’
‘I’m sure of the silence of my own men . . . and can’t demand it of our learnt friends here, only expect it. I wouldn’t like to terminate our contract . . . but would feel bound to, without your assurance. I repeat . . . do I have it?’
Fergus, quite red now, drew himself up in the manner of Malters dealing with his master, and in exactly the same tone snapped, ‘Sah!’
Esk smiled slightly. ‘Thank you. By the way, it was certainly a nice bit of flying, especially in view of the . . . er . . .’
Fergus grinned again as he reached for the door. ‘The view, eh?’
Esk chuckled. ‘Exactly.’
Jeremy, greeting the party, asked what caused the diversion in flight. Fergus answered, saying he’d seen what he took to be members of the household and saluted them. Jeremy got the facts from Rifkah herself, when she popped into his den after lunch, having deliberately missed the meal. He turned red for a moment, then smiled and said, ‘It’d be the cheeky young pilot, of course . . . but at least he was gentleman enough not to mention it. You shouldn’t worry, anyway. Aren’t you Queen of the Aborigines? That’s the way I’ve been talking about you. Don’t show any embarrassment at all.’ She kissed him, saying she must hurry and get on with the fish-fry. He told her she would find in the store a case of kosher delicacies, canned stuff, that the General had had sent up from the South; and wonder of wonders, Kurt had offered to give the Blessing tonight. She kissed him again, went racing to the Big House.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 127
