Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

‘May I ask my learned colleague whether a child is removed from its mother’s care by the Aborigines’ Protection Board or Welfare when it is born into a full-blood Aboriginal family?’

  ‘Your Worship, the Board is not concerned with the removal of full-blood children from their families and will only do so if it can be satisfactorily proved that the child is abused or neglected,’ McDonald states.

  ‘Thank you. So I take it that what my learned colleague is saying is that, under normal circumstances, the full-blood Aboriginal mother is thought to be quite capable of rearing her young, provided always that the child is also a full-blood and that the mother’s habits are sober and her mind is clear?’

  ‘Is that what you mean, Mr McDonald?’ Sneddon asks.

  ‘Near enough, Your Worship,’ the big lawyer replies in a relaxed voice.

  ‘So then it must be your opinion that the moment the infant is born a half-caste, quadroon or octoroon, this same mother loses her capacity for motherhood and becomes neglectful of her duties to the immediate detriment of her child?’

  McDonald has been caught napping and he looks up, a little startled, then immediately assumes his ‘bull in a china shop’ expression. ‘Your Worship, that is not what I said. I object strongly to this line of questIoning.’ ‘Ah, it is a paraphrase, Mr McDonald, and a very good one I might add,’ the magistrate replies. ‘Your objection is overruled.’ He turns to Moishe. ‘You may continue your line of questioning, Mr Goldberg.’

  Richard Runche smiles to himself. He was right, Moishe has made a breakthrough with the beak.

  ‘Thank you, Your Worship. If, then, we are to follow this line of thinking, and if a full-blood woman has intercourse with a white man or half-caste, quadroon or octoroon and, as a result, gives birth to a mixed-blood child, she must, by virtue of my learned colleague’s previous statements, be pronounced an unfit mother by the Aborigines’ Protection Board.’

  ‘Do you follow this argument, Mr McDonald?’ John Sneddon now asks.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the lawyer says impatiently. ‘It is not yet beyond my humble grasp, Your Worship.’

  ‘Well then, let me recapitulate,’ Moishe says evenly.

  ‘If a good mother is turned into a bad one by having a mixed-blood child, then it can only mean one thing: the mother has become genetically corrupted by the white genes which have been introduced to create the child. It is the white blood now flowing in her child’s veins that mysteriously makes her an unsuitable parent. I ask, does this genetic misadventure change her during her pregnancy into an uncaring and unloving mother? Has the half-caste child she now carries somehow poisoned her heart and mind? Let us now suppose her mixed blood child is a girl, will she, too, carry this infection causing disaffection for her children? Will it make her into an uncaring mother as well? Are we saying all white mothers are, by the physiological nature of their blood, negligent and uncaring?’

  The magistrate brings down his gavel hard. ‘Mr Goldberg, now you have gone too far!’

  Moishe is surprisingly unfazed and speaks quietly. ‘I entirely agree with you, Your Worship. My argument is, of course, a nonsense. But no more so than the supposition that the mothers of half-castes, quadroons and octoroons must lose their children on the entirely unproven assumption that their offspring are placed in moral danger by remaining with them. The real truth I suggest is that my learned colleague is saying that all Aboriginal mothers with mixed-blood children are by definition negligent and uncaring. That is as much a nonsense as saying that all white mothers are by definition negligent and uncaring. The idea that the Aborigines’ Protection Board and the Child Welfare Department can take such an arbitrary course without having to supply the slightest evidence to substantiate their decision is an indictment against them and the higher institution which has allowed such a state of affairs to come about.’

  The magistrate’s head jerks up suddenly and his pince-nez falls onto the surface of the bench. ‘Are you impugning the parliament of this State, Mr Goldberg?’

  He shakes his fingers at Moishe. ‘Because if you are, this court takes immediate exception to your remarks and you will be placed in contempt!’ John Sneddon picks up his pince-nez and clips the spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Counsel for the supplicant will withdraw that last remark,’ he says, bristling with formality.

  ‘Thank you, Your Worship, I most humbly withdraw my remark.’ Moishe now pauses and looks around him at the few people sitting in the court. ‘The government of a democratic nation rules with the permission of a majority of its people. Therefore we must conclude that the state of affairs which I have just outlined must meet with the approval of that majority. May I suggest, Your Worship, that when a society punishes its mothers and children in this way it cannot be regarded as a just and fair one. Nor can it, with honesty, be regarded as a Christian society based on the principles of decency, and morality ... or was it charity?’

  Oh, what a marvellous barrister he will one day make, Richard Runche KC thinks to himself.

  Moishe now continues, ‘The courts of this land are here to seek justice for the individual and, as well, to punish those who offend against the people. The Aboriginal Australian is one group within this democratic nation, the very first group to settle on this land we have so recently called Australia. I submit that we are offending them greatly, and that they are entitled, like any other group, to justice from the courts of their own country. Your Worship, I most humbly beseech this court to allow my client, Mrs Mary Simpson, to be permitted to know where her children have been taken and, furthermore, that she be allowed to visit them. Her children have committed no crime and nor has she. To deny her the right to see them amounts to the most callous disregard for a mother’s love for her children. I know that it is not within the jurisdiction of this court to return the four little girls to their mother at this time, or I would ask for this to take place as well. Thank you for your patience, Your Worship.’

  Moishe sits down abruptly and Richard Runche reaches over Jessica’s lap and clasps Mary’s hand, squeezing it briefly, then he looks at Jessica and smiles. ‘Bravo! We have our lawyer,’ he whispers.

  ‘Have we won?’ Jessica whispers back anxiously, holding tightly onto Mary’s hand.

  ‘Mr McDonald, have you anything you wish to say before I give my verdict?’ John Sneddon asks.

  Bruce McDonald wipes his brow with a bright green handkerchief and rises slowly to his feet. ‘Yes, Your Worship, I do, I do indeed.’ He pauses and looks around the court, taking his time. Then he begins. ‘We have heard a great deal of verbal tap-dancing from my learned colleague, most of it a heap of cow cake ... or, if you like, the masculine aphorism for the same substance.’ He rocks a few moments on his feet, seemingly enjoying his own wit and looking about him for approbation. ‘Perhaps this has something to do with my learned colleague’s origins?’ He pauses, then adds quickly, ‘I mean, of course, that he comes from the city and has no contact with the blacks. On the other hand, well, I’m a country boy, born and bred in the Riverina. We like to keep things simple out here in the bush. Is it against the law or lawful? Simple stuff. Country bumpkin honesty. No fancy footwork, no shadow-boxing. No smoke and mirrors, only the truth plain as daylight.’ He pauses again before continuing. ‘Well now, put into bush terms, simple terms, the actions taken by my clients are within their absolute right under the law.’ His voice rises suddenly and he bangs his fist into the flat of his hand. ‘My clients are acting with the express permission of the law of the land!’ He lowers his voice an octave. ‘We are not compelled by law to tell Aboriginal parents the whereabouts of their children. I think I have demonstrated that there are good and sufficient reasons for not doing so. In this case, and in every other case concerning Aboriginal children taken from their parents, the law has been overwhelmingly on our side. We have its permission to act as we see fit, pure and simple.’ He turns and glares at Moishe Goldberg. ‘And I submit tha
t, despite the sentimental hogwash from my city colleague, the law remains the law and my clients intend to keep it shining, untarnished by the sentimental ranting of city folks who know nothing about the black people. I ask that you find for my clients, Your Worship.’ Whereupon he sits down, perspiring copiously and wiping his tomato complexion with the already damp handkerchief.

  The police magistrate brings his gavel down, indicating that he wishes to address the two lawyers and that they should be upstanding. It is obvious to both of them that he has allowed the open discussion in his court to go too far. They both know that if Moishe Goldberg is to continue it must end with a public indictment of government policy. The young Sydney lawyer’s arguments must inevitably go to prove that the Aborigines’ Protection Amendment Act of 1915 is a policy predicated on overt racism and that it has been expressly designed as the major element in the wiping out of the Aboriginal people.

  If he is to avert a legal disaster in his court, Mr John Sneddon, the police magistrate, must now swiftly bring the proceedings to a close.

  Moishe Goldberg has plainly got the better of his opponent, and it remains only to be seen whether the police magistrate will slip through the hole in the legal fence McDonald has made for him in his final speech, or have the courage to make a decision of conscience in Mary’s favour.

  ‘I have heard both your arguments and I have studied the Amendment Act of 1915 and nowhere does it say that the law expressly forbids the parents of a mixed-blood child to visit it in an institution. I submit to you, Mr McDonald, that this is simply the declared policy of the two government departments you represent.’ The police magistrate looks over his pince-nez at Bruce McDonald. ‘I have therefore decided to make my decision in favour of the applicant. I find for Mrs Mary Simpson. Furthermore, -I direct that the Child Welfare Department as well as the Aborigines’ Protection Board immediately inform her of the whereabouts of her four children and that they grant her, together with any other members of her family, permission to visit the Simpson children once a month for a period of one hour.

  ‘Finally, I would like to add a personal observation off the record. It is that, if we can make this same accommodation for felons in His Majesty’s prisons, then we ought to be able to allow an innocent child to see its natural mother for a similar period of time without fear that the child’s mind will thereby become corrupted.’ With this, Magistrate Sneddon brings down his gavel. ‘This court is adjourned.’

  Jessica hugs Mary and then Richard Runche KC.

  ‘We’ve won, we’ve won!’ she cries, clasping a sobbing Mary to her breast. ‘We’re gunna get your kids back, Mary, you’ll see!’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It’s almost a year since Mary was granted permission to see her children, Sarah and Polly, who have been placed into the Cootamundra Girls’ Home. During this time Moishe Goldberg has been harassing the Child Welfare Department to reveal the whereabouts of her three-year-old, Dulcie, and the baby, Katie, both of whom are light-skinned and were put into foster homes almost immediately after they arrived at the institution. The Child Welfare Department, however, refuses to reveal the names or whereabouts of the foster families, saying only that as the children are so young the families who have taken them think of themselves more as adoptive than foster parents.

  Mary was inconsolable when she arrived with Jessica at the notorious Girls’ Home to find that two of her children were missing.

  ‘Where’s the baby and little Dulcie?’ she asked Polly moments after she’d tearfully embraced her two children. ‘Mama, they took them,’ Polly said, distressed. ‘They said they couldn’t stay with us ‘cause they almost white, they said plenty white families wanted kids like them two.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find them,’ Jessica comforted her friend. ‘Moishe says they can’t be adopted, only fostered.’ But after a year even Moishe has become despondent about ever finding Mary’s two little ones and, in preparing the case for the restoration, he has been forced to eliminate the names of the two youngest, fearing it will complicate the case to the point where it stands very little chance of reaching a decision.

  In the ensuing period it has become essential to prove that Mary is of good character and a Christian woman with some education, for it is obvious that the Aborigines’ Protection Board will try to discredit her in court, in an attempt to prove that she is an unfit mother.

  Moishe writes to Jessica suggesting that she test Mary’s ability to read and write. If she can read a simple document and understand it, this will be sufficient for our needs, he writes. I have come to understand that literacy is relatively unusual in an Aboriginal woman of her age. Perhaps you can give Mary a test using the newspaper.

  Jessica knows Mary can write her signature in a nice sloping hand and she’s confident that her friend will easily pass such a test until she actually tackles her with the task.

  Mary shakes her head. ‘Jessie, I were taught on the Lutheran Mission to sign me name, that’s all. That was the first thing we done, even before the alphabet. They said, “Your name is a picture and you must draw it over and over until you can do it by heart. If you can’t draw the picture, you can’t be a person. If you don’t learn it good, your family can’t get no gubberment rations. It’s your fault if they don’t get no tucker.” So we learned that one thing real good, to draw the exact picture of our names. I can do it in me sleep, nice and smooth like people who can write proper.’

  ‘You never talk about the Lutheran Mission, Mary. Why is that?’

  ‘Yeah, well, not much to say about that place, Jessie.’

  ‘But there was a school there, wasn’t there?’

  Mary is silent for a moment. ‘I was born in that stinking, rotten gubberment Mission. It was called the Lachlan River Mission, I dunno why they called it a Mission, God didn’t live in that place. I was one of thirteen children and me father worked for rations, for no pay. There was no work, so they divided the work up, me father worked one day a week and for that he gets gubberment rations. He took me along so I could sign for him, Chicka Simpson. That was the second picture I learned, to sign his name. You got rations of a Friday. It would be an all-in go, thirteen kids and everyone else who wants a feed — you know that’s the Aboriginal way, to share. By Sunday there would be no tucker, so you’d starve till Wednesday.’ Mary looks up at Jessica. ‘And I mean starve. I don’t mean miss a meal, I mean miss three days’ meals. Your guts’d be growling for want of food. Then Wednesdays I got to walk through the bush three miles to work at a slaughter yard, scrubbing the mess from the floors. They didn’t give me no pay neither. My reward was I was allowed to take all the guts home in a fifty-pound flour bag. It wasn’t for me, it was for everyone at the Mission, us kids and everyone. It was a matter of survival. That was before that big drought and when I was married to a Wongaibon man. We was starvin’ and went walkabout with that mob. We come down this way to your place and your old man give us tucker and says we can camp here.’ Mary smiles at her friend. ‘Jessie, that were the best day of me life, the day I met you.’

  Jessica takes Mary’s hand and holds it against her cheek. ‘We’re best friends, Mary, ain’t we? I’ll teach yiz to read and write, if you like. I wasn’t too good me self until Moishe took me in hand when I was in the loony-bin.’

  Mary laughs. ‘I reckon it might be too late, me brain’s fair gone, what with all me worries and havin’ them kids lost to me. I didn’t have much schoolin’ then. They advertised for a manager for the Mission and the shitcarter in Hillston applied for the job. The gubberment give it to him, and his wife become the schoolteacher ‘cause there was more pay in it for them. She couldn’t read nor write, and always had a headache. There was no schoolin’, just a schoolteacher who didn’t know how to write her name on the blackboard of that little tin schoolroom. It was a big laugh, because I taught her how to draw her name, same as the missionary taught us. Make it a picture and learn the picture. She
was that proud when she could do it. That was our fat teacher, Mrs Lily Murphy, our fat slug teacher, drawin’ pay and eatin’ good food.’

  Despite Mary’s earlier protests Jessica, and sometimes Richard Runche, teach her how to read and write. She proves to be a good pupil and over the period of a year has mastered enough reading and writing techniques to pass Moishe’s test easy as pie.

  Soon after the magistrate’s hearing at Narrandera, Moishe issued a writ against the Aborigines’ Protection Board, accusing them of conspiring to remove Mary’s four children and demanding that they be returned to her. In the ensuing year the Aborigines’ Protection Board tried every tactic in the book to frustrate Moishe’s attempts to bring the case to court. But Moishe Goldberg, Mr Detail himself, has met their every challenge and in the process learned a great deal about the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls and the plight of the half-caste children within it.

  A few months after Jessica and Mary visit the two girls in the home, Moishe discovers that the education they receive is of a most desultory nature. Education at the institution is not considered important beyond religious instruction. The girls are destined to become domestic servants and their schooling consists of work that will lead to them taking up a situation in a white home where reading and writing have no possible benefit and are genuinely thought to have no relevance to their lives.

  Moishe also learns that Aboriginal children from government institutions are entitled to attend the local school and so he requests that Polly and Sarah Simpson be allowed to go to the government primary school in the town. He wants them to have an education, and his thinking is also that it might give the children an opportunity to be away from the influence of the home for a while each weekday.

  However, he receives a letter from the Aborigines’ Protection Board stating that while this is indeed official policy it is subject to the approval of the parents of white pupils and that this approval has recently been withdrawn from the appropriate school in Cootamundra.