The Art of Taxidermy
Page 5
We avoided Aunt Hilda,
dropped our bags
at the back door and
headed for the shed.
We fumbled through
metal drawers,
sifted through items
in boxes and trays.
We found a coil of wire,
pliers, sharp tweezers,
some fine sawdust,
but no little beads for the eyes.
We stowed them all
in my schoolbag,
opened the back door,
entered the laundry.
There in the sink
waiting to be washed
was our surgical sheet, stained
with the bird’s blood.
BLOOD III
We tiptoed through the house
to my room.
We passed the kitchen
like silent kittens.
We headed to my bedroom
to dump my bag,
to check under the bed
for the box and the bird.
Lottie? Is that you?
The kitchen door swung open.
Light flooded the hall.
My heartbeat exploded in my head.
Lottie. I turned and faced
Aunt Hilda’s looming shape.
Lottie. Come. Come.
I followed her into the kitchen.
Sit. Sit, she said and I scanned
the room for my boxed bird.
I sat. I swallowed. I waited.
I found the sheet, she said.
She rose up, engulfed me,
crushed me in a long moist hug.
You are now a young lady.
A woman. We must talk.
BLOOD IV
I placed the sanitary napkins,
the pads, on my bed,
bent down, dragged out
the cardboard box.
The bird was safe,
but smelled not-quite fresh.
We must excavate the head
before the ants come.
Aunt Hilda’s talk about menses,
of wombs and babies and monthly blood
churned my stomach and filled me
with a dark-shadowed dread.
I picked up a thick napkin,
felt its softness between my fingers,
flicked open Father’s pocketknife and sliced
into the pad’s soft white flesh.
DINNER
Outside the storm had arrived,
thunder grumbled.
Rain drummed on the roof,
trees thrashed the windows.
But inside, there was a stillness,
a calmness. At the dining table
there was the gentle laying down
of china and cutlery.
I was not called to help.
I was called to eat.
Father smiled as he chewed,
called me Young lady.
Aunt Hilda hummed and nodded at me
as I ate hungrily.
She excused me from the dishes,
told me to rest on my bed,
whispered to Father that now
All will be well. Change is here.
MIDNIGHT II
We set up our surgical tools,
placed the bird on a fresh sheet
and began our work—
unpicking stitches,
pulling out the clump of fabric,
turning the feathery carcass
inside out to expose
the base of the skull,
scooping out the brain,
the cerebral matter,
little by little
till the eggshell skull
was empty.
The grey pink tongue,
strangely shaped
with barbs,
was stubborn,
but we tweezed it, tugged it out.
We had no beads to replace
the small red eyes
so we left them.
The body we filled with
wads of white downy cotton
from Aunt Hilda’s
menstrual pads.
ALIVE
At 2.00 a.m.
the lorikeet was almost
alive.
Its wings were wired
for flight.
Its head was erect.
We lay it down and
climbed between the sheets
to go to sleep.
In the morning Aunt Hilda allowed
a day off school
to rest.
MOTHER MEMORY III
Her hair flows down her back
shining blue-black in the light
from the morning sun.
Oma is at the sink, washing
carrots and cabbage
pulled from the garden.
I gaze up at Mother.
The window squares
sit brightly in her eyes.
There’s no room on her lap
so I lean against
her full-moon belly and feel
the soft drum of her voice
and her heart through her chest
where my ear rests.
Her ghost-white arm is wrapped
around me. The other hand strokes
my unborn sister.
She looks into my eyes
and her red lipstick lips
turn into a smile.
SUMMER AT OMA’S
Annie and I stared out
at the blaze of sea,
the blue bowl of sky,
the dark shadows falling down
yellow-grassed slopes, and
at magpies panting in trees.
The leaves of the gums mimicked
the sound of the beach.
Outside, the hot dry northerly
whipped up our hair.
Annie’s glittered like tinsel.
Our thongs flip-flopped across
dry, dusty paddocks.
The sun stung our skin and
squinted our eyes.
We carried a silver bucket
to the orchard to pick apricots
from the netted trees.
We plucked soft warm globes
in the sweet-scented air
till the bucket was heavy
and our stomachs were full.
On the way back to the cottage,
beneath the gnarly almond tree,
Annie spied the hollowed-out hull
of a stumpy-tail lizard—
no eyes, no tongue, no innards.
Its carcass like cardboard,
its mouth ajar, its tail curled
as if fighting to the death.
PRESERVATION III
The kitchen was a bubble
of boiling pots and kettles.
In the syrupy air
we washed and stoned the fruit,
our faces slick with sweat.
When the jars were full,
lined up neatly in the pantry,
when dinner had been eaten
and dishes washed, we went out
into the cooling afternoon.
The sea was a silver strip.
A bright round moon was rising
above the wheaty paddock.
Pink-tinged clouds followed us
as we searched for bodies.
Three eastern greys
grazing in the paddock,
one with a joey,
looked up and bounded away.
Fence wire twanged in their wake.
A murder of crows
caw-cawed up high.
Their black bodies
swirled like soot against
a backdrop of cloudy sky.
To the west, a wedge-tailed eagle
hovered and circled,
hovered and circled,
riding the remains
of the day’s thermals.
Annie snatched my hand.
Let’s see, she said, and we ran
beneath the circling bird,
and there on the ground
was a brown hare.
Its body still soft.
It was wildly beautiful, with
its black-tipped ears
as long as a kangaroo’s
and its dead eyes open.
It was clear of marks,
there was no blood.
We dusted off ants,
shooed flies, carried
it carefully
back to the cottage, where
to preserve it
we lovingly wrapped it
in plastic and
put it in the freezer.
FIRE I
The northerly was back by morning.
The air was heated like a furnace;
the saplings were bending,
their branches stretching like children
reaching for mothers.
The long grass on the hillside
rippled like a yellow sea.
It was too hot to stay outside,
so I played solitaire with Annie
in the cool dark house.
At noon we ventured out
into the white-hot light.
Dark clouds billowed
on the hill. Annie sniffed.
A storm is coming. A fire storm.
Lottie! Oma shrieked
Warum ist das Kaninchen hier.
Annie and I rushed inside.
Smoke, Oma! On the hill.
Why is this rabbit here?
The hare’s frozen face stared
behind the plastic.
Oma, there’s a fire!
There is smoke. Big smoke!
Her eyes widened. Where?
She lifted her long black skirt
and we hurried out behind her.
FIRE II
The smell of smoke
was stronger,
the cloud closer
and blacker.
The heat intensified.
The wind
blustered hotly.
We followed Oma
up the hill
behind the house.
And there it was—
red flame, black smoke—
coming our way.
The sky rained
black ash;
red embers whirled and swirled.
Some faded, some landed
leaving dark marks
in the yellow grass.
Wasser! Oma yelled
over the roar and crackle.
Water! Wasser! Water!
We galloped
down the slope
back to the house
to find buckets and the hose.
FIRE III
Black smoke billowed,
the day darkened,
the dam greyed,
trees ignited.
We threw water,
doused spots of fire,
ran from one to the other,
choking on the acrid air,
until Oma’s blackened hands
yanked us back into the house.
We cowered in a dark corner.
Oma’s prayers swirled
around us
like flaming embers, until
the wail of sirens,
the flash of fire-truck lights.
Firefighters lifted, lugged,
hauled, tugged
the reeled-up hose,
sprayed jets of water
at the house,
at the garden,
at the flaming
overhanging gums.
MO(U)RNING
The hill was dark stubble,
the air, acrid.
Trees smouldered;
streams of smoke drifted
and curled
like smoke signals,
silently echoing
Oma’s despair.
The gums,
empty of birdsong,
were jagged sticks
of charcoal.
Oma muttered
German prayers
and curses,
as we crunched over
the scorched
vegetable patch and
the fruitless orchard.
She wept at the sight
of the toppled henhouse
and the scatter
of burnt feathers.
FROM THE ASHES
Father’s blue Valiant
emerged through a haze
of low-slung smoke.
The engine rumbled eerily
up the birdless track.
The wrench of handbrake
and thud of car door
echoing around the valley
intensified the bleak
black moonscape.
He walked the grounds,
hands in pockets,
mouth tight,
boots turning over
charred remains
of trees and other debris.
Occasionally he squatted
and stared at something,
with hands knotted together.
At last, he came into the house,
placed an arm around
Oma’s shoulders, and
squeezed briefly,
releasing from her
a deep-throated sob.
SEASCAPE
There was no electricity,
no water in the tank,
no chickens to feed.
The house reeked of smoke.
Oma salvaged
the food in the fridge.
Packed a big black bag
and a box.
Annie and I collected our
smoke-scented clothes,
the thawed-out hare
and the hollowed-out lizard.
We sat in the Valiant
and leaned our heads against
the sun-heated window
after our sleepless night.
We watched the sea glitter,
and the waves roll and roll,
as the car wound its way
along the south coast.
Oma’s box sat between us,
gently tipping with each turn.
The photos inside slid
this way and that.
Annie and I shuffled through
black-and-white snaps
of Opa and Father and Uncle Bernard
in their German uniforms
and image after image
of Father with Mother,
their faces as grim
as the charred hillside.
GRAINY MEMORIES
There are photos of all of us
at different ages and stages.
Many I have seen,
like the one in Father’s study
of Father, Uncle Bernard and Opa
with those Japanese men
holding up leafy vegetables—
beetroot, maybe.
We study it,
Annie and I,
taking in the dark tones—
the smiling men
looking pleased
with their produce.
Sifting through again,
we find Aunt Hilda
when she was young,
holding a small child.
That is you! Annie says.
There with your dark hair,
your chubby finger in your mouth,
and your head resting
on Aunt Hilda’s shoulder.
See how she holds you.
See how she smiles.
Suddenly I was filled with warmth
for my aunt
who was always there trying
to fill the space
that Mother left behind.
OMA
When we arrived home
the sun was sinking
and the sky bled
yesterday’s smoke.
Aunt Hilda hugged Oma,
gathered her bent bird-frame
into her own generous bulk
Dinner was sombre.
Father frowned at his plate,
chewed methodically, robotically.
I ate quickly to escape
Aunt Hilda’s fussing
and the awkward, anxious presence
of Oma, whose hair and cheeks
were smudged with ash.
Later, Aunt Hilda made room for Oma,
emptied Mother’s drawers and wardrobe.
Carried bundle after bundle of clothes
and shoes out to the shed.
Oma followed her this way and that.
The scent of wood smoke drifted behind her.
She sighed and clucked, and rolled out
the long sounds of Mother’s name.
I have told him. Aunt Hilda shook her head.
Wolfgang, let her go. But he will not.
It is hard. Too hard, I know.
But we will help. It is a step.
SCENT
Annie and I rummaged through
Mother’s displaced bundles
and breathed in the scent
of long ago.
She was still there.
Her particles embedded
in the weave of cloth.
The indentation of her body
pressed into her clothes
and shoes and belts.
We tried to read those hollows
and grooves, the depressions,
the scuff marks,
the wear and tear,
but they were as indecipherable
as those ancient hieroglyphs.
As impenetrable
as an Egyptian tomb.
I pulled on layer after layer of her:
underwear, stockings,
shirts and skirts,
coat and shoes.
I wrapped myself in her,
folded myself up
until it felt
like a warm hug.
In the pocket of her coat
I found an envelope
folded into a small fat square
with ‘Wolf ’ printed
in a back-slanted hand.
We unfolded once, twice, three times
until Father’s full name appeared.
We opened the flap,
exposed the yellowed seal,
the stain of red lipstick
and the jingle jangle
of a diamond ring and
a wedding band.
THE LIVING DEAD
Annie jangled the rings
danced around the room, sang:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water.
Jill fell down and broke her crown
and Jack came tumbling after.
We are living a nursery rhyme.
When Mother died
poor Father survived, but
his heart breaks, smashes, shatters