The Art of Taxidermy
Page 10
beauty and power, but—
there on my bed
was a cardboard box
that made a sound—a scratch,
a muffled squeak.
I peered inside
and in a nest of fine straw
was a black furry ball
with piercing yellow eyes.
AUNT HILDA’S REMEDY
The door creaked behind me
as I picked up
this living, breathing creature.
Lottie, do you like her?
Yes! Yes, I do!
I cupped the tiny
almost-weightless body
in my hands.
Held her to my cheek,
felt her soft fur,
her purr, her warmth.
Then Aunt Hilda gathered me
into her fleshy arms
and held me tight.
This is what you need,
my dear Lottie.
Life, not death. Life.
She will be a good friend.
You will see.
CLEOPATRA
I called my kitten Cleo,
short for Cleopatra,
after the Egyptian queen.
I adored the mummified cats
I had seen in books,
dressed in straitjacket bandages,
wrapped up, swaddled tightly
like newborn babies.
I once saw a picture
of a mummified cat, unwrapped.
Its face was set
in an infinite scream.
The Egyptians idolised
domestic cats, though
Bastet the cat goddess
was a warrior lioness.
My mini lioness, Cleo,
was a furry enchantress.
When I played with her
everything else
melted away.
BLACK
She was a piece of midnight,
as dark as the unlit corners
of a shadowy room.
Her paws were pins,
her teeth, needles,
her ears, radars,
her eyes, golden stones.
At night she came alive,
her pupils opened wide
into black moons.
She was a curl of cat
sleeping in the shape of
a comma—
a pause of pleasure.
She slept on my lap
or at the end of my bed
or by my pillowed head.
And if I could not find her
I’d need only look
for Aunt Hilda, who
gave her milky treats,
whispered into her furry ears
and smiled and purred
as if she were the cat
being loved.
COUNSELLING
During dinner Father opened his letters,
eyebrows raised in interest.
Lottie, this is from your school.
You will have a career counsellor
attending soon.
You need to think about your future,
about what you’d like to do.
Perhaps you would like to go
to teachers’ college or university.
Yes! A teacher, Aunt Hilda agreed.
Or you might like to be a nurse.
No! I know exactly what I want to do.
I want to work at the museum.
I want to study taxidermy.
Aunt Hilda stopped eating,
her loaded fork paused mid-air.
Oh, Charlotte! No, not that, please.
Her voice was tinged with despair.
Nursing is respectable, fitting.
Nursing would be perfect.
Look how kind and caring you are
with your little kitten.
LAYING OUT THE BONES
That night I sat in my room
with Aunt Hilda’s words
running through my skull.
I did not want to teach.
I did not want to nurse.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I could hear the rumblings
of debate rolling down the hall.
To distract myself I lay out the bones
of my feline find, while Cleo watched,
guarding, her golden eyes intense,
her tail twitching, her body sprung.
Finding the shape of the cat
was like drawing with bones.
I puzzled over my skeletal jigsaw
as if reconstructing a dinosaur.
The joy of re-creating
tingled through my body—
reconfirmed
what I already knew.
EMPTY TOMBS
I had not visited Mother’s room
for a long time,
not since Father spoke of her,
not since we talked about her rings.
The room—cold, as chilly as a morgue—
was clean and clinical,
the surfaces bare
of Mother and her possessions.
I sat on her bed, alone,
feeling hollow,
thinking of all her beautiful things
out in the shed.
It was time to fill the emptiness
to warm the heart
of this grief-stricken place.
Time to put things right.
RESURRECTING MOTHER
I brought her back
from the dead,
from the dark
of the shed.
Brought her back
to life, to live
inside.
I filled her drawers
and wardrobe
with her clothes.
Her trinkets
and perfume,
her brush and comb.
Little by little, I restored,
replaced, resurrected and
reinstated her
where she belonged.
THE DEAD OF NIGHT
A shaft of light woke me
in the dead of night.
When I crept to my door,
peered into the hall,
I saw Father in the gloom,
hands in pockets,
at the doorway
of Mother’s room.
His sad face
stared
at the restoration,
the revival of her tomb.
From the way he stood, staring,
I knew he approved.
FATHER’S REMEDY II
Father carried a package
under his arm.
He had a solemn look
on his face.
I unwrapped the brown paper
and found a book.
Inside the book
there were photographs
of animals
in various stages of repair.
All of them dead.
All of them
exquisitely remade.
THE FINAL WORD
Later that evening
I heard her shrill voice:
This is wrong, Wolfgang!
I cannot stand by and watch.
Charlotte is a girl! A girl!
If she were a boy it might not be
so strange, but
who will marry a girl, a woman
who stuffs the hides of animals?
Father replied in his no-nonsense tone:
This is the way it will be.
Her interest is unusual
but not unhealthy—
not for a scientist.
I know you love Lottie.
You have cared for her
just like a mother,
but she must be
who she needs to be.
It might be just curiosity.
It might be just a phase,
but if it is not
then we will channel it properly.
And she is not cruel or unkind.
Hilda, you saw it your
self,
how much she dotes
on her little kitten.
THE SMELL OF DEATH
The next day we visited
the museum.
Father had arranged a time
to see the taxidermist.
My stomach was queasy
when we arrived—
I was so nervous,
excited.
The smell of death
hung in the air
as we entered
the studio.
The taxidermist
showed me freezers full
of animals
waiting to be
re-created.
THE TAXIDERMIST I
The taxidermist asked about my interests
as he set up his tools
on a glinting stainless-steel bench.
He told me that he had
three dogs two cats,
four children and a wife.
He said he had a normal life.
He told me his father
was also a taxidermist,
that he never wanted
to do anything else.
If you are keen, I will help you
skin and mount a hopping mouse.
Perhaps, one day you will join me
at the museum.
THE TAXIDERMIST II
The taxidermist was interested
to hear of my past efforts,
and saddened but not
surprised to hear of Aunt Hilda.
She means well, I’m sure.
It is hard for people to grasp
this love.
Most people come to the museum
and look in awe
at the taxidermy animals.
They do not think about the process,
about the smell or the mess,
or the care taken,
or about the determination,
the anatomical knowledge
and the love in the work.
They will not even register
the death. But we do.
We see it, and we feel it,
and this is how we honour it.
THE TAXIDERMIST III
Father approved
of my first taxidermy piece.
He held it up, studied it
for a very long time.
It’s a fawn hopping mouse, I said.
Notomys cervinus, from
the Lake Eyre Basin.
A gregarious mouse that feeds
at night on seeds and insects
and does not need to drink water.
It is perfect, Father said.
You are a true scientist
and a talented artist.
Father’s words lifted me,
filled me to the brim.
This is what I want to be.
Father, I am certain
I want to work at the museum.
I want to be a taxidermist.
I feel it in my heart.
I will study very hard.
I will do everything I can
to make this transcendent art.
FUNERAL BIRDS II
We drove to Oma’s
on the weekend
for Opa’s birthday,
as we do every year.
When we stood at the foot
of Opa’s grave, Annie’s words
skipped through my head.
We all die, we all die.
And for a moment I felt
her presence
and optimism lift me,
as if she were really there.
And then as if to give me a sign
there in the distant sky
like slender darts
were two black cockatoos.
The Funeral Birds—Wylah,
Wy-lah, Wy-lah.
They floated over us
crying their mournful cry.
Oma wept and nodded her head,
muttering German words
and prayers,
as if agreeing with the birds.
Soon, I realised, she and Opa
would both be buried here.
She would join him
in this graveyard.
GROUNDED
Father put his arm around
Oma’s thin shoulders, briefly,
while I drifted over
to Mother and Annie.
I stared
at their headstones
with a deep ache
in my chest,
wishing I could
resurrect them.
Aunt Hilda joined me,
planted her solid feet next to mine.
We stood in silence
side-by-side.
I noticed how grounded
her feet appeared—
how firm,
how resolute,
as I stared at her brown shoes
and listened to her soft wheezy breath.
She slid an arm around my shoulder,
squeezed and said:
I miss them too, dear Lottie.
I miss them every day.
My eyes burned with tears,
my focus blurred,
her shoes became fuzzy,
dissolved into the earth.
Aunt Hilda pulled me closer
and I wept on her shoulder.
ENDINGS
Endings can be a form
of death.
Jeffrey was leaving
with his foster family,
moving to another suburb
in another town.
Jeffrey, my only friend,
the love of my short life,
would soon be gone
and the ache
was softened only
by the promise of letters,
the promise
that we’d always be friends.
Jeffrey did not approve
of taxidermy
but I gave him
the little hopping mouse.
He studied it quietly
and smiled when I said:
It was made with love
and carries
a small piece of my heart.
THE ART OF TAXIDERMY
I practised my art,
brought home the dead,
worked meticulously
and methodically.
I skinned and stuffed and mounted
mice and rats and birds and
lizards—any critters
I could find.
I remade them, modelled them,
wired and posed them until
they appeared alive,
about to leap or hop or fly.
In my makeshift laboratory
when focused on my work,
I felt close to Mother and
dear, dear Annie.
It dulled the bone-heavy
ache of grief—
the revitalisation of life,
the bringing back
from the edge
of decay.
The revival and
re-creation of something
that has expired
is an honour
and a gift.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, thanks to everyone at Text Publishing for being so supportive and enthusiastic. Special thanks to my wonderful editor, Jane Pearson, for her insightful feedback and suggestions.
This novel may never have been written if it were not for the generous funding of an Arts SA project grant to complete the first draft. Huge thanks to Jude Aquilina and Louise Nicholas for taking the time to write letters of support for the project.
In addition, I’d like to thank all the writers in my life—it’s great to be a part of such a vibrant, passionate community of creative people. Special thanks to Gay Lynch, Danielle Clode and Doug Stevenson, who read early drafts of the manuscript and provided valuable feedback; to my dear friend, Helen Lindstrom, for her unflinching support; to Ray Clift for his friendship; and to the late Ken
Vincent, who would have loved this project.
Thank you Tony and Wendy Fawcus for the month-long stay at Brooklands Heritage B&B in Port Elliot, where I wrote and revised many scenes. To Rosemary Gower of the Loveday Internment Camp Museum for information about the camp, the internees, and the Barmera Cemetery. To Marianna Datsenko for reading the manuscript and assisting with the German phrases and pronunciations. And finally, thank you always to my wonderful family—Mum and Dad, and Matt and Jess for their unconditional support, patience, love and encouragement; to my brothers, David, for writerly conversations, and Rob, for bushwalks and bird watching; and to Gary for his ongoing presence, enthusiasm and belief in this project and all the others.
Sharon Kernot’s first novel, Underground Road, was published in 2013; she has also published poetry and short stories. Her second novel, The Art of Taxidermy, was shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize. Sharon lives in Mount Barker in South Australia with her family.
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Copyright © Sharon Kernot 2018.
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First published in Australia by The Text Publishing Company, 2018.
Book design by Imogen Stubbs.
Cover and internal illustrations by Edith Rewa.
Typeset by Text.
ISBN: 9781925603743 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626728 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.