The Blue Cat
Page 9
I stood still for a moment at the entrance to Wallaringa. Then I pushed open the heavy door and walked slowly in, past the dark tiles and the wooden letterboxes and the bevelled glass. I mounted the stairs and went up, all the way to the top, and pressed the round brass doorbell. But the flat was empty. There was no answer. Not then, not ever.
‘My mother says he must have been taken to Holsworthy,’ said Hilda. ‘With his dad.’
‘What’s Holsworthy?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure exactly,’ said Hilda, frowning. ‘But my mum says that’s where people like them have to go while the war’s on. Anyway, what else could have happened to him?’
What else?
‘My mother says you just have to live it and lump it,’ said Hilda.
‘I won’t lump it,’ I said.
‘You have to,’ said Hilda. ‘That’s all there is. Nothing’s the same since the war. Nothing’s the same any more.’
Except the sky, I thought. It was the same sky.
One day, at the very end of May, a letter arrived at my house.
‘The postman brought you something, Columba,’ said my mother. ‘It’s on the kitchen table.’
She pointed to a square envelope made of brown paper, fastened with string. It had my name and address printed on it in black ink.
‘Are you going to open it?’
I sat down at the table. My mother took a pair of scissors from her apron pocket and snipped the string. It flicked back with a ping. A page of curled handwriting floated down from inside the envelope like a moth and landed quietly on the floor at my feet. I bent down to pick it up.
‘Is that—’ said my mother.
‘Yes,’ I said.
I left the kitchen and went to my room on the verandah. I lay on the stretcher on my back, holding the letter to my chest, letting my heart beat through it.
Outside, in the world, I could hear the birds calling each other and the lion roaring on the hill. The waves rumbled back and forth like cannons. I heard a ticking, but it wasn’t time. There is no time, I thought. Not really.
Something was moving, very lightly, on the tin roof above me. A shadow passed. Raising my head, I could see through the open window into the house next door. On the mantelpiece between the wooden head from the Solomon Islands and the photograph of Thelma Todd, the big green emu egg trembled.
And there, perched on a ledge, high above everything, was the blue cat. Leaning forward, eyes wide, body curved, ready to pounce.
Dear Mother,
Thank you for your letter. Do not worry about me. I am far away but I am good and safe. So is Father.
I am lucky. I have a real friend. Her name is Columba.
When I see you, I will give you a big kiss.
From your loving son, Elias
Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen
Bald werden sie wieder nach Hause gelangen
Der Tag ist schön! O sei nicht bang
Sie machen nur einen weiten Gang
Jawohl, sie sind nur ausgegangen
Und werden jetzt nach Hause gelangen
O, sei nicht bang, der Tag is schön
Sie machen nur den Gang zu jenen Höh’n
Sie sind uns nur vorausgegangen
Und werden nicht wieder nach Hause gelangen
Wir holen sie ein auf jenen Höh’n
Im Sonnenschein
Friedrich Rückert, 1834
I often think they have only just gone out
And soon they will come home.
It’s a beautiful day! don’t be afraid.
They have gone for a long, long walk.
Yes, they have only just stepped out
And soon they will come home.
Don’t be afraid, the day is fine.
They have gone for a walk, up the high hill.
They are just a little ahead of us
And are not coming home yet.
We will find them there, on that high hill
In the sunshine.
PICTURE SOURCES
When I was studying compulsory Australian history back in high school, my dad passed on to me the famous historian Manning Clark’s Select Documents in Australian History. This is a two-volume collection of what are known as ‘primary’ sources, things that were written and published at the time of the actual historical events, rather than what historians thought and wrote about those events afterwards. Or, for that matter, decided not to write about. I seem to remember seeing all sorts of fascinating documents – newspaper reports, letters, cartoons, speeches, advertisements, photographs – and they were full of details I never could have imagined.
I was absolutely riveted by these books – and have probably never recovered from the experience of reading them! It was like slipping immediately, strangely, into the mind of another, past world in a way my textbooks never seemed to manage. I think this is why in this book I found myself wanting to include the sorts of things that Columba, Hilda and Ellery might have seen and read themselves as they roamed the streets of Neutral Bay in in 1942…
page vii Blue cat, Our Cats and All About Them, Harrison Weir, 1892
page 4 Commonwealth of Australia National Security Act No. 15 of 1939
page 6 Spanish prayer card ‘Una est columba mea’ (‘One is my dove’), Song of Solomon 6:8, undated
page 8 Noah and Dove from The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation Told in Simple Language, Charles Foster, 1897
page 11 Nock & Kirby’s print advertisement, NSW State Archives, circa 1939
page 16 Hitler at the Eiffel Tower, photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann, 23 June 1940
page 19 Commonwealth of Australia National Security (Aliens Control) Regulations, 1939
page 25 Montreaux wind-up wristwatch, circa 1940
page 36 Thelma Todd, circa 1933
page 37 Title page, Our Cats and All About Them, Harrison Weir, 1892
page 44 Die Schatzinsel (Treasure Island), Robert Louis Stevenson, German edition Ensslin & Laiblin Verlag, circa 1940
page 47 Australian Jewish Welfare Society print advertisement, 17 February 1942
page 51 Moses in the bulrushes from The Story of the Bible, Charles Foster, 1897
page 54 Sydney Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board print advertisement, 1 January 1942
page 59 Romans in togas from Costumes of All Nations by Albert Kretschmer and Dr Carl Rohrbach, 1892
page 64 Editorial by Peter Coleman, age 11, sixth class, The Schoolboys’ Chronicle summer issue, Neutral Bay Public School, 1940
page 65 King George VI of the United Kingdom and the Dominions, circa 1940
page 67 ‘The Flight from Troy’ from Aeneid of Virgil, Book II, edited by T E Page, 1903
page 70 Letter from André Brenac, the representative of the Free French Forces in Australia, in The School Magazine, Part II Class IV, NSW Department of Education, 2 February 1942
page 74 Moses and the Ten Commandments from Die Bibel in Bildern (The Bible in Pictures), Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860
page 87 ‘Wallaringa’, Neutral Bay, courtesy North Sydney Heritage Centre Collection, Stanton Library
page 93 HT Queen Mary & HT Queen Elizabeth off Sydney Heads, 1941, Government Printing Office d1_48367, State Library of New South Wales
page 95 Air Raid Precautions for Australians: Civilians’ Guide to Protection Against Bombs, Alan Brooksbank, 1941
page 107 Joseph’s Dream illustration from the Holman Bible, 1890
page 110 ‘Darwin Heavily Bombed in Two Raids’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February 1942
page 114 McCallum Pool, Cremorne, 1929, courtesy North Sydney Heritage Centre Collection, Stanton Library
page 129 HT Queen Mary in Sydney Harbour with ferry Lady Scott circa 1940, courtesy the Sydney Heritage Fleet archives
page 134 Strawberry guava, Nouveau Dictionnaire Encyclopedique Universel Illustre, 1885–91
page 137 Luna Park, Sydney, circa 1935, courtesy the Friends of Luna Park and North
Sydney Heritage Centre Collection, Stanton Library
page 139 Luna Park, Milson’s Point North Sydney, photograph by Sam Hood, 1938
page 146 Illustration by Frans Muller-Munster in Die Schatzinsel (Treasure Island)
page 150 Aeneas carrying Anchises from Troy, engraving by Ludloph Businck from Georges Lallemant, circa 1630
page 159 Strawberry guava, Nouveau Dictionnaire Encyclopedique Universel Illustre, 1885–91
WITH SPECIAL THANKS…
To sisters Molly and Kathleen Brown, for an endearing afternoon remembering their Cremorne childhood; to Lee Shrubb, for her beautiful memoir of growing up in Vienna and Sydney, ‘Happy Lee Ever After’; to Rina and Kate, for their generous time and care; and to my father Peter and mother Verna, for both the past and the future. Thank you all.
The Blue Cat was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council with a residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris.
It was also developed as part of a Creative Time Residential Fellowship in Canberra provided by the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ursula Dubosarsky wanted to be a writer from the age of six. She has worked as a Latin and French teacher, an avocado-picker on a kibbutz, and a court reporter. She has a PhD in English literature from Macquarie University, and likes walking and looking in toyshop windows.
Ursula has now published over fifty books, winning the acclaim of both readers and critics as well as multiple awards, including the NSW, Victorian, Queensland and South Australian state literary prizes and the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year award. Her previous novels with Allen & Unwin are The Red Shoe, described by the Horn Book as ‘a memorable, luminous work’ and The Golden Day, praised by the Wall Street Journal as a ‘chilling, elegant, atmospheric novel’. She and her husband Avi have three children (no cats) and live in Sydney.