by A. A. Bell
Near the window, Hawthorn coughed and shifted his feet. Zhou tried to ignore him. ‘Describe the soldiers,’ he persisted. ‘Did you know them? Did you know their names?’
Mira shook her head. ‘They were strong and lean, like the young man who was guarding the door when I came in here.’
‘You saw him?’ Sanchez asked, surprised.
‘Maybe I saw a ghost, like the one of Dr Zhou over there.’
‘Stay with the soldiers,’ Zhou cautioned. ‘Did you recognise anything about them?’
Mira shrugged. ‘I see them drown all the time, always the same men. I don’t think I ever knew them before that, though. I just remember they hadn’t shaved. They had beards and goatees, and they carried guns. Not modern machine guns, or rocket launchers or anything. Really long rifles. Some even had makeshift bows and arrows. That’s odd, though, isn’t it? A rescue team coming to save me with weapons?’
‘Unlikely to be European soldiers if they’re unshaven,’ said Van Danik. ‘Mercenaries maybe?’
‘They were European,’ Mira argued, ‘and they wore uniforms with hats that were hooked up on one side, and a badge like a sun rising.’
‘Australians,’ said Hawthorn from the far side of the room. It was the first time he’d spoken since he’d joined them. ‘She just described the Australian Army uniform, which has each soldier’s surname stitched onto the shoulders and chest pocket. So ask her for names and we’ll be able to track down the men involved to verify her story.’
‘Thanks,’ Van Danik said. ‘I was beginning to wonder if there was any point in you being here.’
‘I was beginning to think the same about you,’ Hawthorn quipped, ‘if all you do is read what the machine tells you.’
‘That’s enough!’ Zhou warned.
‘But there aren’t any names on their pockets,’ Mira argued, undaunted. ‘Just chains and silver tags around their necks.’
‘Dogtags,’ Hawthorn said.
‘I can lip-read some of their nicknames, though … The first three were Trumpet, Dingo and Sticks. Does that help?’
‘Hardly, ma’am, unless you know where it took place? It’s rare for Australian forces to be deployed for anything other than a peacekeeping force, and in such cases they should all bear their surnames somewhere on their gear. On the other hand, uniforms without surnames — and hairy faces — suggest something covert, usually in a war zone.’
‘Sorry. I just know it was a rainforest, like at home, except the gully was much steeper and so muddy that their boots kept slipping as they went down. They’d already rescued someone, or maybe it was one of them who’d been hurt. He was too dirty to tell, really, but he was on a stretcher made of branches, and when they skidded downhill his shirt fell open and … ‘ She paused, squinting briefly as if it helped her endure the pain of remembering. ‘A snake crawled out of the wound in his stomach,’ she sobbed. ‘It crawled out and they shot it.’
‘I know that story,’ Hawthorn said. ‘The snake was only a harmless tree snake, but the fact that it had crawled inside a mortar wound for warmth always grosses me out whenever I think of it.’
‘You’ve seen it too?’ asked Mira, surprised.
‘A true story?’ asked Van Danik.
‘True as I’m standing here. Flash floods, mud slides — just as she described; only it wasn’t anything recent. It was the Aussies versus Japanese forces on the Kokoda Track in the highlands of New Guinea, 1942.’
‘Forty-two?’ Van Danik echoed. ‘Then how could she — or you — have been witnesses to any of it?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? We saw a documentary. Didn’t even need to be the same one — there’ve been so many made about that particular engagement.’
‘I saw a war movie?’
‘Sure seems that way, little lady. A re-enactment.’
‘True,’ Van Danik confirmed from Mira’s EEG response. ‘Good for you, meathead. I take back half of my disparaging thoughts about you.’
‘Great, I’ve been losing sleep over it,’ Hawthorn muttered.
‘It can’t be a movie,’ Mira insisted. ‘My father hated violence. He used to punish me for watching TV, even in my own nightmares. Why would he watch it himself?’
‘Back up!’ Van Danik said, horrified. ‘He punished you for having nightmares? How? By smacking you?’
‘Smacking me? No. I told you, he didn’t like violence. His worst punishment was an hour’s weeding the orchard — and most times he helped me.’
‘Nobody deserves punishment for nightmares,’ Sanchez said, ‘no matter how mild it may be. Nightmares are usually just growing pains in your sleep.’
Mira shook her head. ‘My nightmares were evil; really horrible. Night after night, I’d hear my mother screaming. I’d go outside and look down to see my father laying her body on the chopping block, like he did with our chickens. Then he’d mince her into a barrel of home-made fertiliser and use scraps of her to feed the vegetables. But he cured me, thank goodness, by punishing me immediately each time I had the nightmare. Don’t ask me how often that was, though. I lost count of how many nights I spent scratching out thorns and prickles while holding a pen-light in my mouth to pull out weeds.’
Van Danik looked at her, all colour draining rapidly from his face.
All true? Zhou mouthed silently.
Van Danik nodded.
‘Oh, Mira!’ Ben said as he stroked her shoulder.
‘Greek Gods,’ Sanchez cursed. ‘It’s a sad statistic that handicapped children suffer greater chances of child abuse if their parents are also handicapped, but I’d say it’s a miracle you survived at all, honey, if he could be so vicious to your mother.’
‘No! No! Weren’t you listening? He didn’t kill her! He couldn’t even chop the heads off our chickens unless my mum had broken their necks first. She screamed all the time in her sleep too — just night terrors. Please try to understand: if you’re blind and become numb as well for any reason — something as simple as a dream or pins and needles — it’s too easy to feel like you’re dissolving. But my father would cuddle and sing to us both, especially to Mama. He’d promise her always that he’d take care of us — cross his heart and hope to die. Except that he was busy comforting me for the same thing the night when she …’
Guilt slugged Mira in the stomach like a fist. She heard an echo of her mother climbing higher into the branches of her tallest poet tree, and the hopeful humming of ‘Ode to Joy’ as she jumped to her death.
TWENTY-TWO
Tears bled from her eyes as a golden light filled the room, but she turned away from it.
‘That was the day your mother flew away?’ Ben asked.
Mira nodded, clenching her eyes shut against the torrent of details.
‘Take your time,’ Zhou said.
‘That’s a repressed memory,’ Sanchez said sympathetically. ‘Let it out, Mira.’
‘I don’t want to let it out! I want to curl up in a dark place and forget it!’
‘It’s already forced you into a black corner,’ Ben said. ‘And you know how much you hate being forced to do anything. Why not let it out and let it go, so it can’t hurt you anymore?’
‘Hurts if I do and hurts if I don’t,’ she argued.
Her temples throbbed with worry and she rubbed them, wishing the pain away. Then she realised how much better her life had been since she’d listened to Ben’s advice. She huffed in resignation and searched the darkness behind her eyelids.
‘Eyes open, if you can, please?’ Zhou reminded her.
She opened them and the memories hailed down in chilling fragments.
‘Papa sent me for a shower … to freshen up after my nightmare, he said, but now I suppose it was to stop me from seeing Mama’s body … My pyjamas fell on the wet floor, though, so I went to fetch dry clothes from my room. My vision was patchy back then, still coming and going … and as I hurried around the verandas, I passed him in the lounge … I heard him crying … It was late, so when I looked in, I could
n’t help but see the TV over his shoulder. It was the only light in the room. He turned and saw me then … Blood on his shirt. But he wasn’t angry.’
She read his lips again: She flew away!
‘He ran to cuddle me — trembling — terrified that I’d fly away too. Or worse, that others would find out what she’d done and come to take us both away …’
Mira saw her father again on his knees, his blue-moon eyes filled with tears, and his dwarfish gnarled fingers clutching her so desperately.
‘He’d been watching the war movie for courage, I think, so he could do the awful thing that might save us both … if the guilt hadn’t killed him eventually.’
‘How?’ Ben asked. ‘You told me he drowned.’
‘Yes. He did!’ She saw him again, hanging upside down from the mango tree with his head submerged in a drum. ‘He bound his legs with leather strips and hung himself upside down in a barrel of his homemade liquid fertiliser — the same drum he’d used to dispose of my poor mama’s body.’
Gasps echoed in the room.
‘Why?’ she said, fighting back her tears again. ‘I loved him and he loved me! Why did he leave me too?’
‘We can never know what went wrong in his head,’ Sanchez said sympathetically. ‘Mental ill-health seems to have run a marathon in your family. Unfortunately, our records are only sketchy because you’re the first to receive ongoing treatment. Take comfort in that,’ she said, patting Mira’s shoulder in time with Ben. ‘Because we’re doing everything we can to help you deal with this.’
‘But he bound the leather strips so tight … I couldn’t get them off and I …’ She smelled leather and tensed. ‘No! Get him away from me!’
Knuckles rapped on the inside of the ghostly door — already open, Mira guessed.
‘Bad timing, Neville,’ Matron said. ‘Just leave the papers there on the end of the desk for me.’
‘What’s up with her?’ he asked. ‘Who’s she accusing of abusing her this time?’
‘Go away!’ Mira screamed.
‘Nobody,’ Ben replied. ‘We’re still working through something and Mira needs a little privacy …’
‘With three strangers in the room? How does that work?’
‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ Sanchez reassured him.
‘I couldn’t get them off,’ Mira said. ‘I feel so ashamed! But I shouldn’t, should I? How was it my fault?’
‘Here, what’s this?’ Neville said. ‘Don’t listen to all that ranting without hearing my side!’
‘She’s not talking about you,’ Sanchez explained.
‘Back up,’ Ben interrupted. ‘What do you mean, your side?’
Mira’s head jerked up as her mind filled with blurry images of a man peeling off her bedsheets and reaching for her feet — a man who wasn’t her sweet father.
‘It was him!’ She lashed out with her fists, but Ben caught her and hugged her closer to him.
‘Make him confess!’ she pleaded. ‘He’s been binding my legs up with leather at night. Go on, hook him up to this thing and ask him what he’s been up to. I dare you!’
‘Now hang on,’ Van Danik said. ‘We don’t have time to digress into something as messy as all that!’
‘I don’t need no machine test,’ Neville said. ‘I expected this, so I brought some proof with me. It’s all out in the hall. I’ll fetch it in now, damn her!’
‘Fetch what?’ Sanchez asked as he scurried out. ‘Neville, what’s —?’
‘I made these,’ he said, returning just as swiftly. ‘And these.’
Mira smelled freshly oiled leather and heard two sets of thump-thumps on the desk in front of her.
‘She didn’t have none when she came here, did she? And she took an instant disliking to me. So I figured I’d make ‘em for her as a kind of peace offering — have ‘em ready for her as soon as she gets all her privileges back. Which is today, anyway, so there you go, lass. Now go ahead if you want and throw them back at me.’
‘Oh, Neville,’ Sanchez said. ‘They’re beautiful! What a sweet and thoughtful thing to do. Mira, you have to feel these for yourself. Give me your hands, honey.’
‘No!’ Mira clamped her hands out of sight under her armpits. ‘He’ll sting me.’
‘I ain’t gunna sting you. What kind of nonsense is this?’
‘Well, she has just released the big bad wolf that’s been eating her,’ Ben defended.
‘He hasn’t got a stinger glove,’ Sanchez promised. ‘I told you, they’re banned now.’
‘You really do need to feel these,’ Ben said, nudging them closer to her. ‘Try to let go of some of the pain you’re feeling and allow a little slice of beauty to replace it. They’re just the treat you need right now, trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?’
Mira pouted but slowly and cautiously uncurled her hands to let Ben lay the items into her open palms.
‘Watch the buckles,’ Neville warned. ‘I ain’t had time to buff off all the sharp edges yet.’
Mira turned them over a few times in her hands, exploring the soft leather, laces and heels. ‘They’re shoes,’ she said flatly.
Her fingers explored the intricate leather pattern of ivy and roses on the side and the raised Braille letters for left and right on the toe of each shoe, just like the Braille-embossed shoes that Neville often wore himself. Then she found a row of metal studs arranged as the Braille letters of her name.
‘For me?’ she asked, astounded. ‘You made these for me?’
‘Yeah, and these sandals for the festival. You’ll be in the audience, so I figured sandals and a bed sheet for a toga would make you feel like one of the crowd. Those leather straps that go up your legs come off easy, see? So you can use ‘em through the day as normal sandals too.’
‘Every day?’ Mira asked. ‘You’ll let me wear shoes or sandals every day now?’
‘Now that you’ve got your privileges back,’ Matron Sanchez agreed.
Neville grunted. ‘You gotta promise not to whack me in the head with ‘em, though, when I turn me back. Nor hit me anywhere else, especially me sausage and two veg. Is that a deal?’
‘Well, I don’t know …’ Mira sniffled and wiped her nose, her frown still set like stone. ‘Is this what you’ve been doing with my feet at night? Just fitting me for shoes?’
Neville laughed as if relieved. ‘What else would I be doin’ at my age?’
‘You had me worried there for a minute,’ Sanchez confessed. ‘In a young woman’s room at night by yourself? You know that’s strictly forbidden.’
‘Weren’t no other time I could get close to her without getting me head kicked! And I only did it twice: once for the measurements and then again to make sure they fit.’
‘You scared me!’
‘We’ll talk later, Neville,’ the matron warned.
‘Mira,’ Ben said gently, ‘do you think it’s fair that you took an instant disliking to Neville just because he smells like leather, which linked him to a buried trauma involving your father?’
‘That’s not the only reason I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.’
‘Even so,’ Ben persisted. ‘Rules have been changing a lot at Serenity. Neville’s been working here longer than any of us, but he’s still making an effort to change and be friends with you. He’s done something wrong and he’ll have to answer for it. But assuming that’s been settled already, what do you think the mature thing would be for you to do? Or at least try to do?’
Mira sulked for a long moment, then raised one of the soft leather sandals up to her face and rubbed it gently across her cheek. A pattern of dots had been stamped along the length of each strap.
‘They’re nice, I guess,’ she conceded.
‘What’s the Braille say?’ asked the matron.
‘It’s a poem,’ Mira muttered. ‘"Taketh this rose, wherever thou goes, and thinketh of me not as the font of your woes".’
‘I wrote another verse to go with it,’ Neville explained, ‘but that
’s all I could fit.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Van Danik said. ‘Is it famous?’
‘Not yet, but one day maybe, long after I’m dead.’
‘How soon will that be?’
‘Mira!’ Ben scolded.
‘Well, he should have told me. He’s been creeping into my room and nobody would ever believe me!’
‘Communication is a two-way street,’ Ben reminded her. ‘How many chances did you give him?’
‘None, I guess. But he’s so … he’s so … oooh!’ she fumed. ‘He’s so cranky!’
‘He’s not the only one,’ Sanchez observed. ‘So let’s go back to Ben’s question. What should you say to Neville now, Mira?’
‘I’m not a child! I know I should say thank you. So thank you! There! Satisfied?’
Ben massaged her shoulders and Mira’s tone softened. ‘Oh, okay. Sorry. All right, I know,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘The shoes are lovely, Neville. Thank you. I’ll try not to be so scared of you in future.’
‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s great-uncle,’ Neville chirped. ‘That was worth it.’ He headed back to the hall with the unfinished shoes. ‘I’ll finish these off this evening and drop them into your room tomorrow. You can keep the sandals for now and wear them back to your ward — assuming you don’t need me as backup for escort?’
‘Ben can take her back himself,’ Sanchez said. ‘When I said I’d return full privileges to her, I meant it. Mira can come and go freely from her room after that. We’ll see how she handles it.’
‘That should be interesting,’ Neville muttered as he left.
‘I heard that!’ Mira shouted.
‘He really does need to work on his people skills,’ Ben said.
‘You mean it?’ Mira asked, turning her head towards the matron’s voice. ‘I can come and go from my room whenever I want to?’
‘Through the day, yes. So long as you keep a full schedule of activities, never miss a meal and never wander outside your ward without voice-recording your destination to the whereabouts board. We must always be able to find you in an emergency.’
