Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  Clancy beamed. ‘Thanks, Mater . . . that’d be nice. But they went straight back yesterday. What about next train-day? By the way . . . could you let me have some empty pickle-bottles . . .’

  His mother murmured. ‘Pickle-bottles . . . whatever for?’

  He flushed. ‘Any sort of jar. I want ’em for Miss Rifkah. She’s bottling mangoes . . . jam, chutney. She’s mad on that sort of thing. All Jewish women are mad on cooking, I understand.’

  ‘Reahlly!’ murmured Her Ladyship. Then she added: ‘See them in the kitchen and the store. There ought to be plenty.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Mater.’ He kissed her cheek as he rose. As he went, Lady Rhoda exchanged a glance with Vivienne, Martin’s wife.

  That night over dinner, Clancy asked his mother, ‘How about having Miss Rifkah up to Town for Christmas?’

  Lady Rhoda blinked on it for a moment. ‘We’ve got quite a lot of people this year . . . General Esk and his aides . . .’

  ‘We always have a mob, and fit ’em in, either in the Town house or the beach house. She hasn’t even been to Town yet.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind, dear. How did you get on about pickle-bottles?’

  ‘They’ve been giving them to Ali Barba. I got a few, but there’re a lot of ’em out at Catfish, I remember. I’ll get them, and run ’em across to the Lagoons tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Aren’t you in a hurry?’

  ‘Well . . . the mangoes are on, and the flying foxes at ’em . . . and you need fruit just ripening and unbruised for preserving, don’t you?’

  Her Ladyship shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know, dear boy.’

  II

  Around about midday Friday, the watchers at Lily Lagoons had the unusual undertaking to investigate and report intrusion from northward, and not by air, as had become common lately. A minute or two of fluttering and scurrying, of listening to a waxing drone discernible at length as that of a motor, and of sharp-eyed peering; then once again the cry went up: Mitcher Clancy!

  One judges one’s welcome at a bush homestead by the number of people standing out at least to stare at one upon arrival. To find no one is surely portentous, although not necessarily a hint to get to hell out of it; for people who live in comparative isolation often have to go through a process of adjustment to the breaking of it, and even while quietly cursing an intruder to begin with, for the most part eventually come out smiling genuinely. Bush etiquette demands that, in the event of apparent unwelcome, one simply stands off at a little distance and waits. To shout, or toot your horn, is something only a Townie would do. Any noise you make, you make well back, to give warning of your approach.

  Clancy did all the right things. He pulled up in the space between Big House and annexe, or rather on the edge of it, leaned on the steering wheel, glancing from one place to the other, as if indifferently, to show that he accepted privy scrutiny in the proper manner. However, as the seconds ticking from the expensive watch on one of the wheel-draping wrists grew into a minute or more, his glance sharpened, and in its flitting to and fro, came frequently to include the watch. Coming up a minute and a half. Now he was sitting stiffly, hands gripping the wheel. He moved impatiently in his seat. But whether he was about to stand on his dignity and depart, or to get out and humbly beg acceptance, he was given no chance of proving; for just then the screen of the back door of the kitchen opened, and there appeared a female figure in a moment revealed in the blaze of the sunlight as Rifkah. At the flash of copper his face lit. He jerked open the door and leapt out, to go loping to meet her, babbling about his alleged reason for coming. She received him smiling. No doubt about his infatuation. He almost dropped one of the boxes of jars as he bumbled into the kitchen with it, he who normally would have left carrying anything to such as the black girls who came to do it. Jeremy and Prindy were watching from the laboratory over in the annexe, both stony-faced.

  It was something like half an hour later that Clancy turned up at the annexe, to pay his respects, as he said. Jeremy received him coolly. Prindy, at work on an electrical gadget, appeared not to notice him. Clancy said that he had been kindly asked by the ladies to have lunch. Jeremy nodded shortly, saying that he wouldn’t be lunching himself, since it wasn’t his habit. He added to Prindy: ‘Take your uncle over, will you sonny?’ There was significant stress on the title, but without apparent effect on Clancy, who would be getting used to it through talking to Rifkah, no doubt.

  Prindy said, ‘I don’t want lunch. Too busy.’

  There was a moment’s silence, broken by Jeremy, observing quietly, ‘Nevertheless, take him over, eh?’

  Grey eyes met grey eyes. Prindy nodded. Clancy, in obvious relief, smiled at Prindy, and went to see and ask what he was doing. Prindy, putting tools away, answered shortly, ‘For fly’n’ fox.’ When Clancy pressed for details, Prindy threw a bored look at his grandfather.

  Jeremy said, ‘He’s making a gadget to keep flying foxes away from the mangoes . . . rather hopefully. But explain it, sonny.’

  Another quick exchange of glances. Prindy obeyed, speaking in the correct and stilted style he assumed at times. The device was an induction coil for producing high voltage to run through wires strung about the mango grove. The idea was based on the flying fox’s weakness for taking a spell from eternal flying or jostling with his quarrelsome kind for precarious perches in trees, by grabbing anything that gave an easy grip and a clear view; hence the way the species fell victim to electrocution by the score every night on the power lines up in Town. ‘This won’t kill him,’ said Prindy, ‘only give him big shock, knock him down silly for minute. I reckon that better way. That lot get killed up Town, they can’t tell mates. This way they going to tell all-about . . . and they keep away . . . I reckon.’

  Clancy laughed. ‘Shrewd idea. You work it out all by yourself?’

  ‘I see those fly’n’ fox in Town.’

  Jeremy cut in dryly: ‘He used to eat ’em!’

  ‘Yes?’ asked Clancy innocently.

  ‘When he was in the Compound. An addition to the starvation rations. The black relations of the crossbred kids used to get the foxes for ’em.’

  Clancy blinked, avoiding both pairs of grey eyes now, obviously aware that he was being got at. The triangle ringing over at the house saved him. Then Jeremy helped a bit by saying, ‘You’d better not keep ’em waiting. You’d better have some lunch, too, sonny. You might be made up of electrons, according to that book of yours . . . but you can’t live on ’em. You can keep on the job by telling your uncle about the electron theory. He probably thinks an electron’s only a good name for a horse.’ Clancy laughed, but looked bewildered. Jeremy grinned wryly at the pair as he watched them cross the yard. Prindy was giving a dissertation by the look of it.

  In an hour or so the pair were back again at the annexe, not for Clancy to take leave of his father this time, as Jeremy appeared to think (judging by his easier manner at first then abrupt return to the former stiffness), but to say that he was going to help Prindy with the rigging of the contraption. Jeremy remarked dryly, ‘He’s got plenty of helpers. Blackboys’ve been cutting him poles for a week.’

  Clancy, happy as a boy with a mad idea himself, was undeterred. ‘We’re going to patent it if it works. Form a company . . . Delacy Deleters of Mango Eaters. How’s that? Aaaaaaaaah!’

  Prindy laughed, too, happy enough to be with his uncle at the moment. Jeremy grinned wryly, while quizzing the pair, perhaps wondering if it might not have been the subtle workings of a certain female who had brought them suddenly so close together. They went off to the grove with wire, insulators, tools. Jeremy returned to what he had been doing over the mere bowl of soup he’d had for lunch, namely the writing of yet another article for Australia Free, this in refutation of that on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, based on information given him by Kurt, who declared that Anti-Semites would never publish it, while he himself argued that it would serve as conclusive proof of the paper’s worth.

  Prindy re
turned alone after about an hour, to say that he’d left Uncle Clancy superintending the erection of poles and stringing of wire, while he himself finished the shocking apparatus so as to try it out tonight. Jeremy asked him, ‘Does that mean he’s staying the night again?’

  ‘I don’t know, Grandfather.’

  ‘I understood he came here just to deliver some jars. Did Nan say anything about him staying?’

  ‘I never hear. I only know Rifkah hunt him away ’cause she want to fry fish.’

  ‘What, was he hanging round the kitchen?’

  ‘No-more. He say he hear how good her fry-fish, and want to try. She say he can try today!’

  Jeremy sighed: ‘Well, that’s done it. I can’t see the bugger going home with a bit wrapped up in paper. Blast him . . . coming here on Shabbos!’

  Prindy, going off to his job, remarked, ‘Shabbos eve, you got to let anybody come to supper . . . Might be Messiah.’

  Jeremy, catching the grey eye, asked quickly, ‘Messiah, eh? You know that Christians call Jesus that, too?’

  ‘Tu. Nan tell me and Rifkah.’

  ‘That means that Messiah’s already come.’

  ‘No-more. Only Goyim reckon.’

  ‘What’s Goyim?’

  ‘Silly bugger Christian.’ Prindy vanished.

  Jeremy sat staring out through the fly-wire of his window at the Big House, where there would be terrific activity going on in the kitchen in conformance with dealings Sarah, wife of Abraham, had allegedly had with angels so long ago. He wouldn’t know what the mob outside were saying, that the Jews had taken over here, that in fact they Had Him By The Balls. Frankly charged with it at that moment, he might have found it hard to deny.

  The rigging of the Delacy Deleter went on all afternoon, with smoke-o on the job, and co-mingled sounds of mirth and perturbation surely telling of the efficacy of it, at least as it affected humans falling foul of it. The Sun was setting when the newly associated partners came to report to Jeremy that all was ready for the trial tonight. Jeremy showed little interest, saying that he was still busy and wouldn’t be going over to the house, asking Prindy to excuse him to the ladies and Kurt.

  Then just before the Two Stars appeared to herald the Sabbath, there was the Mistress of Ceremonies, all dressed up for the occasion, bursting into the den, demanding to know of the titular head of the household why he wasn’t in his proper place at the proper time. When he said he was too busy, she cried, ‘But it is Shabbos!’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear . . . but I want to finish this . . .’

  ‘Nefair haf you miss Oneg Shabbat before. It is because of Clancy!’

  ‘Now listen . . . I’ve always made it a point not to go to meals over there when there’re guests I don’t like.’

  She stared at him great-eyed. ‘You vill do zis to your son?’

  ‘He’s a stranger to me. And he isn’t here to see me . . . but you.’

  ‘Zis is ridiculous!’

  He reached for her hand, drew her close to his chair. ‘Why will you interfere in this? You must know I’ve given a lot of thought to my relations with my sons. They rejected me. The most they can expect from me is politeness. I’ve been polite to this one all day.’

  ‘Be polite tonight, too, please.’ She tried to pull him from the chair.

  Resisting, he said, ‘He’s courting you. What’s ridiculous about it, as you say, is that I’m expected to encourage it. I might as well encourage Knobby Knowles to come here courting you.’

  ‘Jeremy!’

  ‘All right . . . I apologise for the choice of lovers. But can’t you see how silly it is? You say you don’t care for him . . . don’t love him, anyway. I believe you. I don’t see how you could care much for a fat-head like him. But he’s a young man . . . and you’re young . . . and . . . and it’s probably good for you to have young men friends. But let his one do his courting elsewhere . . . in at the railway, where he has been for the past month, or at his mother’s place, or Catfish . . . anywhere but here!’ His face flamed as he said the last.

  The copper head drooped. Tears drowned the great eyes. The trim body shook. ‘Now, now!’ he said gently, and pulled her onto the arm of the chair, put an arm about her. ‘You’ve involved yourself in a horrible business, something I’m prepared to admit I’m largely to blame for. But there it is. If I make this concession in this stronghold I’ve held so long against the gang he stands for, I might as well concede all the way. Don’t you understand that? Now, now, now!’

  She was sobbing against his neck. He took a loosely fallen hand, caressed it, went on: ‘Remember you told me of the Jewish custom, where, when a son marries a shickseh, the father mourns him dead, with sackcloth and ashes and all the rest of it . . . how your own grandfather mourned your own father when he married your Christian mother, and never really took him back as a son, although he took you as a daughter. The way you told it to me, it wasn’t as if you thought your Zaydeh had done a terrible thing. What I took your story to mean was the great strength of Jews is non-compromise with what they believe will destroy the Law that makes them what they are. I’m sure that’s what you meant. Yet you want me to compromise with these people who would destroy my laws, which is my integrity in certain matters . . .’

  ‘I do not . . . I do not . . . oh, ah!’

  ‘Then what is it you want?’

  ‘I only want you to eat my Shabbos essen.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘My fry-fish, my pfannküchen, my lochshen soup . . . oh, oh, oh! My poor lil Shabbos is ruin’ if you do not come.’

  He held her off, stared at her distorted tear-wet face. ‘Is that all that’s troubling you?’

  ‘V-vot else? Haf not I v-vork all day to mek it beautiful?’

  His face quivered. His lips moved. She snuffled, ‘Vot you say?’

  ‘I only said, “for godsake.”’

  ‘Vy do you say?’

  He rose quickly, raising her with him, saying ‘All right . . . I’ll come.’

  A couple of blinks, and the tears were gone, the jewel-eyes shining, despite the redness of the whites. She flung her arms about him, was going to kiss his mouth, when a high childish cry outside, ‘Two star!’

  She drew back, disengaged herself. He said, ‘Wait. Your face needs a wash. Your eyes are red. I’ll give you some drops to clear them . . .’

  But she was already at the door. ‘No . . . I must light ze candle!’ She was gone.

  Jeremy sighed, went into the dispensary to get the eye-drops. He crossed the yard to see young Igulgul winking through the trees, and the first of the flying foxes winging in from the limestone.

  The meal, with its ritual a little too solemnly if just as briefly conducted by Kurt, as now the practice for the benefit of visitors, went perfectly. Clancy did full justice to it, not only gastronomically, but was frankly delighted with the ritualistic trimmings, confessing that lately he had been reading of the food laws in the Bible. Rather did he boast of his recent study, assuming a sort of superiority that even the dry comment of Prindy that they all had been reading the Bible Book could not discourage. But Prindy did at last put him in his place as up-jumped Goyim, when unwittingly he betrayed abysmal ignorance of what he was so rashly trying to identify himself with, through something that on the face of it had nothing to do with religion. They were almost finished the meal, when Clancy asked Rifkah if she would like to spend Christmas with his family and friends in Town. She looked embarrassed. ‘It is ver’ kind. But I am stranger to your family.’

  ‘Not at all. Didn’t I tell you the Mater wants you and Kurt to lunch. Only last night we were talking about having you for Christmas.’ When she shook her head, he asked, ‘Well, what plans have you got for Christmas?’

  She looked more embarrassed, giggled slightly, looked at Prindy, who came up with the answer, almost contemptuously: ‘Christmas not our yomtov.’

  Clancy gaped at him, turned from the bold grey eyes back to Rifkah. She giggled again, ‘Christmas is not Jewish fest
ival.’

  Still Clancy gaped. ‘No?’

  Jeremy couldn’t keep out of that: ‘Thought you’d been reading up on Jews?’

  Clancy reddened. ‘How d’you mean?’

  Jeremy was red now. ‘For godsake, man! Jews don’t believe in Christ, do they . . . so how the hell can they be interested in Christmas?’

  Clancy blinked and swallowed, then looked belligerent, and turned to Kurt. ‘But Christ was a Jew, wasn’t he?’

  Kurt gave his shrug. ‘I am not vot you call Up on religious matter, Clancy.’

  Rifkah, watching Jeremy, turned swiftly to Nanago. ‘Ve vill haf coffee in lounge, Nan yes?’ She rose. They all rose. She went to Jeremy and took his arm, then swung him towards the disconsolate-looking Clancy, and took his arm too. So out to the lounge.

  There was no more time for such involvement, scarcely any time for coffee, in fact, because of the din now coming from the mango grove — the shrieks of flying foxes in distress, the squeals and hoots of delighted black and tan humans. Prindy was off like a shot. The others moved to follow, more circumspectly, except Rifkah. When it was discovered that Rifkah was not with them, Jeremy and Clancy turned back, but Jeremy to go only to the door of the lounge, from which, after receiving a shake of the head from her and perceiving that bubbeh’s look, he turned again, leaving it to Clancy to barge in. When Clancy asked her why she didn’t come, she shivered, saying that she had seen people hanging on electric fences. He apologised so profusely that she caught his arm, and said, ‘Ve vill valk instead, yes? I do not like to hear it. Ze poor fly’n’ fox. It is my fault. I am too greedy for mango, and growl ven I see zem spoil so many. Zen I can’t stop Prindy ven he start zis zing. He hate fly’n’ fox. He say zey mek ze trouble zat kill his first mumma.’

  ‘What’s he mean first mumma?’ asked Clancy.

  She giggled, ‘He haf adopt me as second . . . blackfeller vay.’