Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  On the train to Narrandera, Jessica sleeps fitfully, more wakeful ,than asleep. She has sold out her child for her own freedom and she must now convince herself that it is in Joey’s best interests. Her child, living as her sister Meg’s, will enjoy every advantage, and Meg will love and cherish him the way Jessica herself would have done. For nearly two weeks she wrestled with the decision, resisting the barrister’s arguments. She couldn’t deny that they were sensible but the prospect of losing her child forever nearly destroyed her and several times she made the decision to remain where she was rather than betray Joey in her heart. Jessica cries herself to sleep every night for the month it takes Richard Runche KC to put her case for release to the authorities.

  It is Solly Goldberg who comes to her rescue. He visits the asylum for their monthly picnic and finds Jessica in a terribly distressed state. When he asks her what is wrong, Jessica finds herself, for the first time, unable to confide in her friend.

  Solly Goldberg remains silent for a long time, then he sighs and begins to talk softly. ‘Sometimes, Miss Bergman, we cry. That is good, to cry is good. Sometimes we laugh, and that is better, to laugh is wonderful. Sometimes also we are silent, to be silent is necessary, my dear. But mostly we talk. To talk is to be a human. To be a proper person. To share our tsuris, our troubles, all what is our pain. If we don’t talk, if we keep the pain inside, we die a little — every day we die a little, until one day the pain is gone. You know why goes the pain, Miss Bergman? I tell you. With the pain goes also the tears and the laughter. When we have no pain we lose everything, only the silence remains. When there is only silence, then you are finish, kaput. That is what it means to be mad.’ He reaches out and puts his hand on Jessica’s shoulder. ‘We Jews, we have a saying, “To live and talk is the best revenge.’”

  Jessica starts to cry and Solly Goldberg moves over and takes her in his arms, rocking her. ‘Talk, my dear, tell your Uncle Solly.’ So Jessica tells him how she has been forced to give up her child in return for her own freedom.

  Richard Runche KC has spent the whole month securing Jessica’s release. It’s a process that would normally have taken a great deal longer if it were not for the fact that Jessica had never received her second examination by the Medical Supervisor and, furthermore, that the war is all but over and there are a great many disturbed soldier-patients on their way home, needing hospitalisation. The barrister successfully argues that Jessica did not undergo the correct admission procedure, which means that she does not require the individual examinations by three physicians to secure her release. Only the completion of the original and neglected examination by the Medical Supervisor is needed.

  At the conclusion of Jessica’s examination the Medical Supervisor remarks, ‘I only wish that my own daughter was as level-headed, sensible and sane as you are, Miss Bergman. I wish you well.’ Then, in what can only be construed as an understatement of astronomical proportions, he adds, ‘I apologise for any inconvenience to you.’ As Jessica has no history of delusions, hallucinations, delirium, stupor,. violence, hysterics, depression, suicidal tendencies or any other mental symptoms, and no record of anything but the most minor punishments while at Callan Park, her release becomes a mere formality, held up only by the usual government red tape. Jessica finally signs the agreement with Meg, though she’s refused to accept any money from her sister. ‘They can’t buy me off! No flamin’ way! The horse and chooks and the tools and things, that’s fair enough, Joe would’ve left those for me. But I’m not takin’ their thirty pieces of silver! I can make me own way — I don’t need their money.’

  Richard Runche KC tries to argue with her, but he is becoming accustomed to the Bergman stubbornness. Finally he is forced to capitulate. ‘Very well, my dear. Pity though, it would buy an awful lot of claret,’ he jokes, then adds, ‘I assure you I shall have no such crisis of conscience with my fee to your sister, my dear.’

  Jessica embraces him. He smells a bit like overripe cheese, stale tobacco and spilt wine all mixed together, though she’s smelled worse in the shearing shed. ‘I can’t never repay you, Mr Runche. I owe you me freedom, me life!’

  ‘You have shown yourself to be a very courageous young woman, Jessica. That is sufficient payment. Besides, I haven’t found the necessity to be properly drunk for nearly six weeks.’

  ‘You done it all,’ Jessica persists. ‘Without you I’d never have got out. You knew I couldn’t pay — you done it out of the goodness of your heart.’

  Richard Runche KC throws back his head and laughs heartily. ‘Steady on, old girl. In the interests of the truth, I must remind you that it has been several years since I have been as well paid in return for my humble services.’

  Now in the pale dawn light on the train, Jessica watches Richard Runche KC as he sleeps. She ponders how it is that the only people who have helped her in the nearly five years since she’d taken Billy Simple into captivity have been loners, outcasts like herself. A skinny-legged Aboriginal lady, her dear, sweet, loving Mary Simpson; a kosher butcher, his Communist son and his generous-hearted, invisible wife. And a drunken English lawyer, the black sheep of his family sent out to the colonies to get him out of the way.

  Jessica reaches over and touches the sleeping barrister lightly. ‘Thanks, mate,’ she whispers. Then she thinks how he could use a damn good scrub in the tub next to the windlass. Jessica tries to imagine the barrister with his clothes off, the way she’d once seen Billy Simple standing in the tub, and she is forced to giggle even before her imagination has his trousers below his knees. Jessica waits until it’s light enough to read and she takes out Jack’s last letter and opens it carefully, determined that she won’t cry.

  Sgt Jack Thomas

  New South Wales Light Horse

  El Arish

  Northern Sinai Desert

  Egypt

  22 December 1916

  My darling Jessica,

  I get your letters every month and I don’t know what I should do without them. They are of the greatest comfort to me and are always cheerful. But, as I have said before, you never mention whether you’ve received mine.

  I cannot help feeling that you have been terribly wronged. Something dreadful has happened to put you in that place, why will you not tell me?

  I dare not mention my concern for you to your sister Meg. She sends me letters every month about the antics of young Joey, who seems to be growing into a fine young lad. But she never writes of you, despite the fact that in every letter to her I beg her to send you my best wishes and I ask after your welfare.

  I find it difficult to think that I have a son to Meg, when it is you I love. Oh, Jessie, I worry so much that it may have been what happened with me and Meg that has put you into that dreadful place. If so, I shall never forgive myself, and when I return I will use every influence I can to get you out.

  I think of you every day my dear, sweet Tea Leaf. In the morning first thing and last thing at night. And, if I have a few moments to myself during the day, thoughts of you occupy them as well. I know I have said all this before in my other letters and I shouldn’t go on like this. It is coming up to Christmas and we’ll have 24 hours’ leave if the bloody Turks don’t decide to send us their Christmas greetings via mortar shell.

  El Arish is no place to spend Christmas Day. The town seems to have a mangy, starving dog for everyone of its inhabitants, who also seem to closely resemble their dogs in appearance and in nature. The Gyppos are a poor lot — both physical and otherwise — and natural thieves and cowards, quite different to the Turks.

  I am writing this by lantern light in my tent and the moon outside is the tiniest crescent, merely a silver sliver in a star-pricked sky (that’s me going all poetical). It’s surprising how dark it can get in the desert and yet, with a full moon, how light. So light that if it were a full moon tonight I would be sitting writing this letter outside, enjoying the breeze that comes up around eight o
’clock. Can you remember? The moon is sometimes bright like it is on a summer night at home. ‘You can read a newspaper by its light,’ folk would always say, though I never saw anyone who did.

  The dark nights here are the worst because they are used by the Turk to move up into position for an attack, or we do the same to them. We’re moving out tonight, just before midnight (2300 hrs), to take up positions outside a heavily fortified Arab village called Magdhaba. We are going in under cover of darkness, to give them hell at first light. We are the Aussies who form the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade led by Major-General Harry Chauvel, a good enough bloke and trusted by the men.

  So don’t worry, I shall probably come to no harm as usual. Desert warfare is a lot to do about nothing much. We ride for long stretches and it’s terribly hot and we seldom get a potshot at the enemy, nor him at us, thank God!

  Tomorrow, though, it may be different, as we are attacking a well-held Turk position, so I reckon they’ll stand and fight. Johnny Turk is no coward and you have to respect him in a stand-up stoush. Jessie, I’ve never said this before, but I’ve been out here two years and sometimes I get a bit jumpy. If something should happen to me I want you to know that I love you. I want you to have my gold watch and chain. I’ve left instructions with my troop commander to send it to the post office at Narrandera with orders to them to keep the package there until you, and only you, should claim it.

  I don’t want it sent to where you are now, in case you don’t receive my letters. Someone will come and see you in Sydney and tell you about it, just in case you don’t get this letter and are still in that awful place.

  The watch is a family heirloom and all I’ve got that’s personal, a part of me, so I want you to have it, you know, in case something happens. Inside is the date it was made, 1816, exactly one hundred years ago. The gold chain and fob was given to my great-grandfather by the Lord Mayor of Cardiff in 1819 for something or other, I forget what, probably not for bravery!

  I’m sorry about all this morbid stuff-it’s the desert, it gets under your skin after a while. I’ll probably cheer up over Christmas with a few beers under my belt. Though they’ll most likely be warm, only the officers get ice.

  I know this will be much too late for Christmas, but I shall spend the entire day thinking about you. Look after yourself and if you’re still there when the war is over, me and some of my mates will break down the walls and rescue you.

  I love you, Tea Leaf, with all my heart, and will be thinking of you as we go into battle.

  Jack.

  P.S. They’ve gone and made me a sergeant — they must be scraping the barrel! J.

  Jessica, still holding Jack’s last letter to her breast, watches the morning light grow stronger through her tears. The countryside rushing by outside her compartment window is beginning to look familiar. It’s flat now, black soil country, her country, the old man saltbush dark in the still uncertain light. This is the hard land Jack will never return to, the sheep country he so loved.

  She sighs and brushes away her tears, then folds Jack’s letter carefully and slips it into its envelope and then back into the bigger one. In doing so, Jessica sees the edge of the note Solly Goldberg handed to her just as the train was departing from Central. She fishes it out and opens it and sees that it is a consignment note from the New South Wales Railways.

  For delivery to Yanco Siding, Riverina on 7 December 1918.

  One only granite headstone, straw-packed in wooden packing case.

  To await collection by Miss Jessica Bergman.

  Richard Runche KC wants to see Jessica as far as Narrandera but she has insisted he leave her at Wagga Wagga. She has written to Auntie Dolly Heathwood, who replied with a cheerful letter, inviting her to stay as long as she wishes. She informs Jessica that old Henry Heathwood finally fell out of his chair under the grapevine and died of a stroke and says she would very much enjoy Jessica’s company as, for some reason or other, Hester and Meg never call in when they are in town. Dolly also hopes that now that the war is over, she can obtain some bright ribbon and braid to make a few cheerful hats. ‘How tired I am of black straw hats!’ she writes.

  Jessica plans to stay only long enough to buy the horse and saddle promised to her in Meg’s agreement and to order the hens, two cockerels and some farm tools. She will also inquire about the availability of turkeys. With this done, she’s anxious to get out of town. She craves the isolation of the bush and wants only to return to the Bergman homestead, which, Richard Runche informs her, has stood empty ever since Hester and Meg left to take up residence at Riverview.

  Moishe, unbeknownst to Jessica, has also written to the Narrandera Town Library and arranged for books to be sent to Yanco Siding every month for Jessica to collect. He has also sent a postal order to cover the cost of sending them up the line, plus a donation to the library to sweeten the arrangement.

  Under Moishe’s gentle tutelage, books have become an important part of Jessica’s life and reading regularly is the one thing she knows she will greatly miss.

  It is now fully light outside and the other passengers are beginning to stir. The conductor passes shouting, ‘Wakey, wakey! Next stop Wagga Wagga, one hour to go, half an hour stop!’

  Jessica has some trouble waking Richard Runche but after several attempts he groans softly and rubs his eyes. He looks simply awful and Jessica opens the ‘Compliments Mrs Goldberg’ and finds a large bottle of Solly’s ever-present lemonade and, just as thoughtfully, a bottle opener. She uncaps the lemonade and hands the bottle to the dishevelled lawyer. Richard Runche takes the bottle gratefully and swallows a good third of the contents, then he hands it back to her and gets shakily to his feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me, my dear,’ he says and staggers from the compartment — presumably, Jessica thinks, to visit the toilet at the end of the carriage.

  The wicker basket is crammed with enough food for at least eight people and Jessica now invites her fellow passengers to tuck in. There is a grocer and his wife named Bert and Maisie Jones from Wagga Wagga, two cheerful young city lads of about sixteen from Sydney who introduce themselves simply as Macka and Spike, both going to Merribee Station to work as rouseabouts, and an itinerant shearer and his Aboriginal wife, Arthur and Grace Wilkins, who are eventually headed up Lachlan River way, but are stopping off at Wagga for a while to see Grace’s auntie who is sick.

  The shearer’s wife has the flattest nose Jessica has ever seen except perhaps for Flats Sullivan, one of the tar boys at the Riverview shearing shed who’d had a go at her hair with the Stockholm tar pot when Billy Simple got himself hurt nearly to death. The day he fought the tar boys and got himself kicked in the head by Jack’s horse. Bert Jones, urged on by Maisie, pays for eight cups of tea from the passing tea trolley and Jessica finds herself the centre of attention as Mrs Goldberg’s basket supplies an excellent early breakfast for them all. Though she finds it difficult to accept the compliments flying around, it’s nice to be someone again. She sets aside a little of everything for the return of Richard Runche, who finally gets back to the compartment looking pale as a ghost and Jessica imagines that whatever was contained in his stomach — mostly claret, she supposes is now staining the gravel between the tracks a mile or two back.

  The barrister nibbles in a dispirited way on a kosher chicken leg and then partakes of a small piece of kugelhopf cake while swallowing a little more lemonade. But he refuses any further attempts by Jessica to feed him. His tea has grown cold and Jessica throws the contents of the cup out of the window, much to the chagrin of Bert Jones, who sees tuppence wasted. ‘Waste not, want not, cold tea’s better than no tea,’ he grumbles to his wife, still begrudging his earlier munificence. Jessica hands over what’s left of the food to the two boys. Since his return to the compartment, Richard Runche has made no attempt to speak, other than to nod at each of his fellow passengers when Jessica shyly introduces them. The train pulls into Wagga Wagga station and
Jessica prepares to bid Richard Runche KC farewell. She has done enough crying since leaving the asylum. Besides, the company at breakfast were the kind of country folk she knows and understands and they have left her feeling ebullient and even optimistic.

  In fact, Jessica finds herself hugely cheered up by what has amounted to her first real contact — of her own bidding — with strangers for four years. She is happy that she has been able to share Mrs Goldberg’s generosity among her fellow passengers and .she begins to feel, for the first time in a long while, that there is a possibility that she may once more qualify as a legitimate member of the human race. Solly was right, she thinks: to live and talk is the best revenge.

  Jessica now follows the barrister along the corridor leading to the platform. Stepping down from the train, she hands him his battered suitcase. It is only then that she realises that Richard Runche has tried to shave when he’d earlier left the compartment. Despite the clumps of white stubble on his chin where the cut-throat razor has missed, and several cuts where his hand had slipped, he has remained an English gentleman to the very last.

  ‘Mr Runche, will you be all right?’ she asks. Jessica senses that he is not too keen to remain with her on the platform now that he’s home, knowing that ‘the hair of the second dog’ is only a couple of minutes away from him, at the nearest pub.

  ‘Splendid, my dear Jessica. Thank you for taking care of me.’

  Jessica laughs. ‘I am free again, thanks to you.’ Runche shrugs. ‘I’m sorry, Jessica, that I couldn’t return your boy to you. That would take more skill than I have at my disposal and more money than I dare say we shall, either of us, ever possess.’ He pauses and looks down at his scuffed boots, his thumb and forefinger pressed to his temple. ‘By the way, my dear, if ever you should want to challenge for the return of your child in a court of law, just remember that the term “the child in question” is not a legal one — it is an abstract term and means nothing. In the hands of a good barrister, your agreement could be put aside. In law, my dear, you cannot agree on something you have not first clearly defined and identified.’