On Cringila Hill

by Noel Beddoe

  Luz snorts. ‘Safe! He weren’t safe. My brothers foun’ him.’

  David turns slowly and looks at her. He and Gordon then stay as still as they can, as though they’re shooters who’ve come upon ducks on water and don’t want to startle the birds before firing. Slowly Gordon reaches out a notebook, uncaps a pen. He asks, ‘Your brothers found Abdul?’

  Luz is staring at Gordon having regained her composure.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How many brothers have you got, Luz?’

  ‘Two.’

  Gordon nods towards the young man at the gate.

  ‘This is one of your brothers?’

  ‘Yeah. Samuel.’

  ‘Your other brother. Is he the same size as Samuel?’

  ‘Nah. That’s Joseph. He’s older. Bigger.’

  ‘I see. And they found Abdul in Sydney?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How did they do that?’

  ‘There was people knew what Abdul had done, other Islander people who live in Sydney. They saw Abdul and tol’ my brothers.’

  ‘So, what did your brothers do?’

  Luz smiles. ‘Drove up there. Drove around, let Abdul see them. What they did was play with him a little bit, made sure he knew they could find him. Then after that he came back here.’

  ‘Yes. Have you ever told anyone else this, any other policeman?’

  ‘Nah. No one asked me. Next we know Abdul was dead, give praise, because that meant that my brothers couldn’ do nothin’ bad to him.’

  ‘You were glad they did nothing bad to Abdul.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘The boys been in trouble,’ Luz’s sister interupts. ‘People started talkin’ ’bout taking their visas, after that was over. If they hadda done to Abdul what we was frightened of, it would have been a bad thing for them, which we didn’ want. Doin’ that to Abdul wouldn’a help Luz any. What’s been done to her is done.’ Luz’s sister dabs dribble off the baby’s chin. She says, ‘It was good news for us, what happened to Abdul. Was good news for this family.’

  ‘The boys have been in trouble?’

  ‘You think it’s easy? You think it’s easy, for people like my brothers?’ Luz says. ‘Before we come here we were on Tonga. We saw Aussies at Tonga, old people, you know, nice old people, visitin’. They was slow and easy, like Tongan people. We see missionaries on Tonga. They was slow and nice. So we come here.’ Her nose wrinkles and she bobs her head at Cringila Hill. ‘And it’s not slow here,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you it’s not so nice sometimes. My brothers see pictures of women, you know, in magazines, see videos, and I say, “That’s not the right way,” and they say, “Is the way here.” If they talk to women in a bad way, they get in trouble. Someone say silly things to them, from a car, my brothers drag those people out from the car and deal with them, they in trouble. On Tonga, you not want that done to you, you don’t say stupid things.’ She sits awhile, staring up at the street. ‘You think it’s easy for my brothers. But it ain’t.’

  ‘Yes. And how it all started, what Abdul did to you. Can you talk about that?’

  Luz looks directly at the detective. ‘I can talk,’ she says. ‘I can talk. Tell you why. I didn’ do nothin’ wrong. Somethin’ was done to me. I’m not ashamed of anythin’ I done.’

  ‘That’s for you to decide, Luz. I think it might be a good thing for you, that attitude.’

  ‘So. I went to the house of a friend, and three of us danced together.’

  ‘Danced together.’

  ‘Yeah, like a show, you know? We put on good music, worked out a routine, danced together.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Sometimes the school runs a concert, and we go in, we work out moves, work out steps, like the girls on television.’

  ‘And you enjoy that.’

  ‘Sure. Makes me feel good. There’s three of us.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘One of my friends is a Philippine girl. One of my friends is a Thailand girl. They’re good dancers. That night my brother Samuel said not to go because he had to work, and couldn’t take me. My friend lived down the other side of the hill, near the lake, but my brother had to work. But I went anyway.’

  Gordon watches Luz as she sits awhile, thinking.

  ‘So then I was walkin’ home and I walked through the grounds of the high school.’

  ‘I see. You would have been used to feeling safe, protected by your brothers.’

  ‘Is true. And Abdul was there. He caught me up from behind, stood in front of me.’

  ‘Did he frighten you?’

  ‘Nah. Not at first. I knew Abdul. He was a fren of mine. He was a good fren of a boy called Jimmy, a boy I used to … know well.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gordon looks into his notebook. ‘Jimmy Valeski,’ he says.

  Luz has tears in her eyes again. She nods.

  ‘Then I changed the way I was walkin’ so as not to be near Abdul.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘He was lookin’ at me – a bad way. I thought, Abdul wants to do somethin’ bad.’ She pauses.

  ‘You okay?’ Gordon asks.

  ‘Yeah. I started, I’m gonna tell ya. An’ he run up to me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  She balances the baby on her lap, opens her hands, presses the palm of one behind the back of the other and thrusts the hands out in front of herself. ‘I hit him,’ she says, ‘in the middle of his face, like my fren showed me.’

  ‘You hit him?’

  ‘Yeah. You open up your hands like this, then you push one behind the other, then, if he runs at you, you get your hands down low, lean forward, hit up under the nose when he comes, weight forward, stiffen your arms last little bit. Smashes the nose bone back into the head.’

  ‘And you did this to Abdul.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I’m amazed after that he could do what he did,’ David says.

  ‘Well, he couldn’ do nothin’ much, I’m tellin’ you.’

  Gordon turns to watch a deep blush feed up into David’s face from his throat.

  ‘Ah,’ Gordon says aloud. ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Knock him down, break his nose I think, blood everywhere. But then there was others behind me, come runnin’ up. I scratch ’em and claw at ’em and they punch my face.’

  Gordon watches as, thoughtfully, she traces a finger first over the line of her nose then her damaged jaw. It’s clear that, standing by the gate, the large young man is close enough to hear what she’s said. He straightens away from the gate. His bunched fists fall by his sides.

  ‘And they sayin’, “Shut up bitch, shut up bitch,” cos I screamin’, you know, and they wrestle me down, and they sayin’ to Abdul, “Here she is, here she is, do what you said!”’

  ‘Do what you said?’

  ‘That was it. “Do what you said.” And they dragged my clothes, you know? And he come and done what he done.’

  ‘Luz, I’m sorry …’

  ‘No, said I was gonna tell ya. Tellin’ ya. Then he’s sayin’, “I done it, I done it,” and there’s lights goin’ on in the houses beside the school, and people yellin’, and men climbin’ over the fences.’

  ‘And the boys ran away.’

  ‘They did. And this … they stunk, you know – stunk of whisky.’

  ‘Ah. Abdul too?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  Gordon recalls what Edna’s told him, what, in the end, the nature of the act turned out to be, but he can see that, of itself, is not relevant now. He watches for a while, decides to go a little further.

  ‘Afterwards?’

  ‘I went to the hospital, and when I could talk I talked to a policewoman, then a detective.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Laecey.’

  ‘Yeah. He was n
ice, you know? It made me feel good, talkin’ to him. He was kind, like a father.’

  ‘He is a kind man.’ Gordon sits awhile, thinking. He asks, ‘Did your brothers shoot Abdul?’

  The women laugh together.

  ‘Ah,’ Luz says. ‘Don’t be so silly.’

  ‘What about Jimmy Valeski?’

  Later Gordon thinks about his question and realises that he had not known that he was going to ask it, let alone why he asked it.

  ‘Jimmy? Not talkin’ about Jimmy. But, no, Jimmy wouldn’t shoot no one, have any gun, nothin’ like that. Stupid thing to ask.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Just came into my head.’

  Gordon caps his pen, starts to put his notebook back into his coat pocket. Then he says, ‘Please tell me the name of a friend. A special friend of yours I could talk to, who’d know you really well. I’d like to talk to someone who could tell me a little about you, who you were before this, how you’re doing now. One of your dancing friends? Someone who’s helping you with your maths?’

  ‘Maybe Yasemin,’ she says, taking her time over the first name, giving it its three syllables. ‘Maybe Yasemin Hindouie.’

  Gordon uncaps the pen, writes the name into his notebook, spelling it phonetically.

  ‘Luz,’ he says, ‘you’ve been very helpful. I don’t think I’ll ever need come back. I hope I won’t.’

  He draws a card from his wallet and gives it to her.

  ‘This is how to reach me,’ he says. ‘If people from television intrude on you let me know and something will be done.’

  He nods to her, nods to her watchful sister, rises with some difficulty.

  At the gate he says, ‘Thank you, Samuel,’ and for reply receives an aggressive, sullen stare. He manages the steps to the street.

  In the car, he turns to David Lawrence. ‘Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman than Luz Solomona?’

  ‘No,’ David Lawrence says. ‘No, I don’t think I ever have.’

  Chapter Six

  Yasemin Hindouie is alone in her bedroom. She rises from the mat upon which she’s knelt while praying. She carefully rolls the mat, places it on the second-highest shelf in the bedroom wall. She lifts her leatherbound Qur’an and places it on the highest shelf, above the mat. She sits at her desk, writes down the questions that, later, she’ll discuss with her mother and her father as she reviews her religious study of the day. She picks up a folder marked ‘Legal Studies’, eyes it for a moment but decides to drink a glass of cold water before starting her homework.

  When she opens her bedroom door she is surprised to see that her father is waiting outside in the hallway, seated on a chair from the kitchen.

  ‘Dadda,’ she says.

  Mr Hindouie is a big man with dark facial skin, eyes nearly black, oily dark hair swept back across his skull.

  ‘I was waiting,’ he says. ‘I thought you might be at prayer.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘There are two policemen come. They hope to speak with you, about Abdul. They say that this is not to be forced on you but hope that you will agree. I said you’ll decide, you’ve spoken to many police over the last two years and have found it to be distressing and exhausting. They say that they understand, but are hoping that they might see what has happened to Abdul in a new way. My view, they seem quite reasonable people.’

  Yasemin shrugs. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘okay, I suppose.’

  A kitchen table has been placed against a wall in the lounge room. At it Yasemin’s brother works, papers strewn before him. Several booklets are marked, among other things, the University of Wollongong. He winks at his sister as she passes.

  Yasemin opens a screen door and she and her father go out onto the verandah. She sees a man of middle height, only slightly taller than Yasemin herself. He’s wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a tie with a tartan pattern. His face is broad, slightly freckled, his thinning hair is coloured between blond and light brown. He supports himself with one pudgy hand grasping the verandah rail. The other holds, partway up its shaft, a walking cane with a metal handle in the shape of the head of a wild animal. The other, younger man is dressed in a similar manner and stands with one foot on the verandah, one on the topmost step.

  ‘Yasemin,’ the older policeman says, ‘I’m Detective Winter. This is Detective Lawrence. If we may we’d like to have a brief chat.’

  Mr Hindouie gestures towards some benches. Gordon lowers himself onto one. David Lawrence remains in his former position. Father and daughter sit side by side on another bench.

  ‘You’ve hurt yourself,’ Mr Hindouie observes.

  ‘My back gives me a little pain. Thank you for your concern.’

  Gordon studies the neat dress of the Hindouies – Yasemin is in jeans and a checked shirt, her fine hair caught in a ribbon behind her neck; her father is in grey slacks and a long-sleeved business shirt. Gordon notices the layout of the verandah furniture, the precise mowing and edging of the front lawn.

  ‘Ms Hindouie,’ he says, ‘thank you for receiving us. I know that there are demands on your time and that you’ve been close to some profoundly disturbing events. I wonder, might you be kind enough to say a few things to me?’

  ‘What, just straight out like that, just say things?’

  Gordon nods.

  ‘Detective Winter, you have come to see me. I was at prayer when you arrived. Now I have some exercises to do for Legal Studies. I can only imagine that you have some things that you wish to discuss. So I can’t see what I am to say to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You’ve said several things to me that have helped me know how to proceed. Ms Hindouie, I have a mentor.’

  ‘Yes. An excellent thing, a mentor.’

  ‘His name is Michael Laecey. I would guess that you might have met him.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She smiles. ‘Detective Sergeant Laecey. He came to us when that first thing happened, that terrible thing to Luz. Yes, I remember him. A tall man with … I’m sorry … a disproportionately large head.’

  David Lawrence chuckles. Gordon fixes him with a look and he wipes the smile from his face. ‘Very perceptive,’ Gordon says. ‘In any case, he’s taught me some things that have stood me in good stead. For a start, he taught me not to just look at the immediate details of a particular situation. Look around it, what surrounds it, as often this will be very helpful.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He also taught me, and these were his words: “It’s sometimes easy to see where a thing started but perhaps not so easy to see where it’s going to finish.” He said things can be like balls on a snooker table. Have you seen a snooker table?’

  ‘On the television.’

  ‘Well, you hit one ball, you know, and then it hits others that also hit others and the first ball may rest against the table’s edge with all sorts of activity still going on, unpredicted.’

  ‘Chaos theory.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Chaos theory. You know, a butterfly flaps its wings beside the Amazon and there’s a landslide in Thredbo.’

  Gordon looks at David Lawrence, who pulls down the corners of his mouth and shakes his head. Gordon nods. ‘Chaos theory. Ah. So I’m trying to think about the things that have happened here and the people involved and set things to a background. Luz Solomona has told me that you have been a good friend of hers.’

  ‘I have. Luz and her family came, I don’t know, I suppose five years ago. She is very intelligent, though she doesn’t think she is. Language has held her back. She’s been a very good friend to me.’

  ‘And even despite what I’ve just said, about chaos theory, you’d have to guess that what’s happened to Abdul has perhaps something to do with that terrible thing that happened to Luz.’

  Yasemin shrugs.

  ‘Back before that,
I’ve heard, Abdul and Luz were friends?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘You too?

  ‘Friends with Abdul? No, not me, not really. I …’ She struggles, thinking.

  Gordon says, ‘Held yourself aloof from Abdul?’

  ‘Yes, that’s how it could be put.’

  ‘So, you see, the start … I’m trying to find where this started. I hope it’s finished, I hope that no more is to come. But I still don’t feel as though I know about the start.’

  Yasemin watches him, interested. ‘I see,’ she says.

  ‘I’m told that Abdul had another good friend, also a friend of Luz.’ He removes his notebook from his coat pocket. ‘Jimmy … Jimmy, what Taleski?’

  ‘Valeski,’ she says. ‘The boy’s name is Jimmy Valeski. He goes to my school. He and Luz were … close, for some time.’

  ‘But then their friendship ended?’

  She nods.

  ‘And Abdul was close to Jimmy too.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘And the friendship between Jimmy and Luz ended.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know why it ended?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Why did it end?’ Gordon asks.

  ‘Luz was told that Jimmy said some things about her. Bad things.’

  ‘And just what was their nature, I wonder?’

  ‘That he did not respect her but saw her for … other reasons. That some very personal things had been said.’

  The father speaks to his daughter and she replies but Gordon cannot understand what they’ve said because he has no Lebanese.

  Gordon asks, ‘May I know what you have just now discussed?’

  Quietly, Yasemin says, ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nods. ‘And Luz heard that Jimmy had said these distressing things?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘How? How did Luz hear?’

  A pause. ‘I told her.’

  ‘Yes. And what, Jimmy had told you these things?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I would never have permitted such talk.’