The Last Double Sunrise

by Peter Yeldham

  “Like a billboard, Sir?” asked Carlo, hopeful where this might be heading.

  “Exactly. There’s a shed that could be cleared out and used as a studio. You might even find time for your own painting there. Does that appeal?”

  “Yes, Sir. Yes, it does.” He stared at the Major, his thoughts racing with sudden excitement.

  “Janet said you gave her some useful advice and she felt there might be others who’d like to learn from you. I believe your mother teaches art in Rome.”

  “She does, Sir, but I’m no teacher like her. Still, I could help if anyone should be interested.” He could hardly believe this was happening.

  “She was sure you’d attract clients here. Bright woman, Janet.”

  Wonderful woman! He tried to think of a word more wonderful than wonderful. Magical woman for what she’d done was absolute magic.

  “She reminded me we have a workshop where our carpenters not only make good furniture but carve fine articles in wood. We’ve got sculptors working with clay so why not painters. What do you think, Carlo?”

  “Why not, Sir?!” Janet Sherman should be crowned woman of the year.

  “In fact,” Morton said, “we’re quite progressive. There’s an Italian Band, a choral group much admired in the district, and we have movies in one of the mess huts. What we’ve overlooked, according to Janet, is an artist who can paint like this portrait. It’s just what we need.”

  “I’d be very pleased to take it on, Sir,” Carlo said, trying not to sound too eager, but wanting to leap in the air and shout with joy, “if you mean that.”

  “I certainly do mean it. Good for moral. We’re asked to come up with ideas to keep the POWs occupied. We might even get the press involved when this is up and running.”

  “I could start straight away, Sir.” He knew there was no longer any need for caution, thanks to Janet Sherman. Everything was thanks to Janet.

  “That’s the sort of energy I like to see. Good man. Let’s get moving on it. You’ll need supplies—canvas, paint, all that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll make a list, Major.”

  “Splendid. Walt Disney will give any help you need.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” After a moment he asked, “Did you say Walt Disney?”

  Morton chuckled. “Sergeant Jeff Disney from my staff. At school he was apparently either Walt or Disney, so you have a choice of nicknames. He answers to both.”

  Carlo grinned. “I’ll sort it out with the Sergeant.”

  “And I’ll tell Major and Mrs Sherman we’re obliged to them.”

  “We are, sir. Would you include me, or perhaps I could write to them?”

  “Do that. They’d be pleased to hear from you.”

  Carlo stood up feeling he should salute or do something vaguely military. But it was the Major who initiated this, briskly rising from his chair to reach across the desk and shake hands.

  Within a week what had been an old shed was converted into a studio. Fortunately it was large enough for Carlo to store sets he wanted to paint for the play currently in rehearsal and others that were scheduled. The actors were enthused to hear they’d no longer be performing against a linen sheet as a backdrop on a bare stage. He set up notice boards in the recreation hut and one was soon filled with names of prospective students. Another informed the audiences about forthcoming plays. A letter of thanks went to James and Janet Sherman, in which he told Janet about a painting of the fireworks he hoped to begin, once there was more time in his new life. She wrote back saying the painting sounded exciting and that she and Jamie looked forward to a visit when it was finished. They missed him and this would be a good reason to see him again.

  The following week he started a class, aided by Sergeant Disney from the major’s staff, who proved to be so keen that he asked for a transfer to full-time with The Studio. It suited Carlo; they were the same age at twenty-four, and worked well together. With the antipodean fixation for short names as well as nicknames, they decided he be called Walt.

  Ever since the New Year fireworks, Carlo had been making notes and sketches about the kind of painting he hoped to attempt, and now it became the first one he began. In this and everything else, Walt became his enthusiastic supporter. Those who knew them well said that without Walt’s assistance, Carlo might never have found time to paint the huge canvas inspired by the fireworks display. It was to be this painting that would have a substantial impact on his life, bringing some moments of unwelcome controversy and others of quite unexpected fame.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It became a source of amusement at Cowra that although they might be close friends, Carlo Minnelli and Gianni Devito spent much of their time in argument. When Gianni returned from working and living on the dairy farm where he was treated like one of the family, he was startled to find that Carlo’s new venture was already established. Confronted with the news Major Morton had endorsed the studio and his sergeant known as Walt was allocated to work there, Gianni sought out Carlo to express his opinion of this change of circumstance.

  “I can’t bloody believe it,” Gianni shook his head. “First you get away with shagging Tiffany. No matter what you say, you’ll never convince me otherwise. You’re AWOL for a couple of months, then the Griffith commander invites you to stay. You get taken to the movies, arouse warm motherly feelings in his wife and now this! How the hell did you organise it?”

  “I didn’t organise anything, Gianni. It just happened.”

  “But how do things just happen to you? They don’t just happen to anyone else. They don’t just happen to ME.”

  “Calm down, Gianni. You’ll give yourself an ulcer if you keep shouting.”

  “You can’t get ulcers from shouting.”

  “Then you’ll give me an ear-ache. Look, it just happened by chance. There was no train for two days and that’s how I came to meet Janet.”

  “She’s your mother substitute. You can sure pick them!”

  “I don’t want any crappy remarks about her,” said Carlo abruptly and suddenly angry. “If you can’t listen to what a friend of mine has done, if you can’t respect her enough to listen, then piss off and shut up!”

  Gianni took a pace back and had a long careful look at Carlo. He’d never heard him respond like this before. “Just who is she?”

  “I’ve told you. Janet Sherman, the wife of the Major at Griffith.”

  “I know that! I mean how has she got all this influence?”

  “Maybe because people like her. I can’t imagine anyone not liking her. Janet paints, it’s a bond we have, but apart from that she was kind enough to have me stay and treated me like a friend. She wrote to Major Morton to suggest this whole studio idea, then phoned him to make sure he didn’t put it in a pigeon-hole and forget. So I’d say only my own mother has done more for me than Janet. I’m truly fond of her, and anyone who can’t seem to understand that had better bugger off.”

  “Okay,” Gianni said. “Now I see how much she means to you. Sincere apologies. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the difference between feeling useless, depressed and angry being cheated of the scholarship, or able to do the one thing in my life that matters.”

  “Did you hear me say I’m sorry, Carlo?”

  “I heard you. Did you really mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it. I behaved like a pork chop.”

  “So have I at times. Do you want to have a look at the studio?”

  “Thought you’d never ask. Where is it?”

  Carlo pointed towards what looked like an old shed with the word STUDIO etched on the door. Inside it was busy with some students sketching. There were small paintings by Carlo on the far wall and in the foreground stood an easel with a poster for a play to be staged in a Garrison recreation hall, listing the actors and performance dates.

  Gianni was startled. “It’s a bit like an academy. Or else a workshop.”

  “It’s a bit of both, a bit of everything. A studio where I can work, while making sets a
nd posters for the theatre.”

  Gianni studied a poster and its title— “The Man Who Came To Dinner.”

  It showed a man in bed with his broken leg in a hospital hoist and the frustrated faces of a man and a woman on either side looking down at him with fists clenched. The woman was holding a hammer in one hand.

  “Did you do that poster?” Gianna asked, and Carlo nodded. “Not bad,” Gianni admitted. “What’s the play about?”

  “A food critic notorious for harsh reviews comes to dinner with friends and whinges about the meal. At last the evening is over, but on leaving he falls and breaks a leg. They put him to bed and look after him while he criticises them relentlessly. Finally he’s well. They gladly see him to the door where he trips and breaks the other leg. They’re stuck with him as the curtain falls.”

  “Sounds like a few laughs,” Gianni said. “I might bring a friend to see it. What’s the ruling on civilians?”

  “I just design sets. You’ll have to ask someone important.” He beckoned Walt in his sergeant’s uniform to join them, and Carlo made the introductions.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Gianni said as they shook hands. “The bloke who gave up his army career to mix paint for this slave-driver.”

  “That’s me,” said Walt. “Chucked in my chance to be an officer, so I might one day get to paint a girl who looks like Tiffany.”

  Carlo gave a brief throat-clearance warning, and Walt seemed to realise he’d strayed into sensitive territory.

  “No chance of that sport,” replied Gianni, “bloody Rembrandt here gets all the nubile pickings.”

  “Oh, right.” The young sergeant searched for an exit line. “I’ll get back to the new students. You want to join the class, Gianni?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a sexy sheila doing the teaching.”

  “Sorry, your friend Rembrandt is on the podium.”

  “In that case thanks, but no thanks.” Gianni watched him join the group of students. “I should’ve asked him about civilian visitors.”

  “Why don’t you? Walt could take it up with Major Morton.”

  Gianni hesitated. “I’ll think about it. He seems like a reasonable bloke.”

  “I’ve found all Aussies reasonable,” Carlo said, “with one exception.”

  “That exception will no doubt spend his seven years trying to run the prison. Must be sheer hell in gaol with him.”

  “Just be glad we’re out of his reach, old mate. We are still mates, aren’t we Gianni?”

  “Of course. Mate is a very handy Aussie word. It means you can have a blazing row one minute, and be best friends the next.”

  “Thanks for the clarification.”

  “It also means you’ve had all the luck, but mine’s on the rise. That’s why I’ve been spending so much time out on this farm.”

  “Have they increased the pay?”

  “I’d work there for no pay. They have this lovely daughter. But I don’t think I’ll risk trying to bring her to see the play. Even if it was allowed, I don’t want a mob of sex-starved blokes perving on her.”

  “A daughter?”

  “Aged eighteen.”

  “For Christ’s sake, be careful.”

  “Listen to who’s bloody talking!”

  “You’re living with the family, and…”

  “And nothing, Carlo. I’m in need of some lust. I dream at night of being in the hay with her. I’ve got a room, but I don’t dare. The family treat me well, and I’m trying not to blot my copybook.”

  “You know the rules. Morton’s not like Tommo, but there are rules.”

  “Fuck the rules. The trouble is, she wants it as much as I do.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “It is hell.”

  “Try to be careful, Gianni.”

  “I am trying. We don’t all have luck. Even yours will run out one day.”

  “Mate, my luck ran out when they shanghaied me,” Carlo reminded him. “Any luck since then is compensation for three years I missed at the Medici. Three mostly wasted years.”

  “Except for the time with Tiffany,” insisted Gianni.

  “Alright,” Carlo gave in and admitted, “except for two months with her.”

  ‘And the time now, thanks to Janet,’ he thought, watching Gianni leave. He went to join Walt who was busy compiling a list of new students.

  “So that’s Gianni. Did I put my foot in it about the lady in the portrait?”

  “No problem, Walt. I just hope he keeps away from any haystacks.”

  Walt was becoming expert at the daily running of the studio, so Carlo was able to start working on the painting that had been occupying his mind since the fireworks night. He visualised it as a large picture, a rectangle shape of two metres wide and one and a half high. He had no easel that would accommodate this, so he went to the workshop and talked to them about creating a timber frame that could fit the canvas. They cut wooden lengths to these sizes and brought them to the studio where they bolted them into a rectangle, then attached it to the wall. He’d made notes since New Year about the colours of some fireworks and the looks of the spectators as they watched them. He wanted to capture the surprise and delight that he’d seen on their faces. Then, in the distance behind the wire that divided the compounds, he imagined the dark windows and a few Japanese faces behind them, curious, but with no sign of any pleasure.

  To avoid distracting comments from visitors while he worked, he and Walt suspended sheets on a wire to block off a section of the studio, after which Walt erected KEEP OUT notices, and volunteered to guard against intruders.

  After the first week of feeling it might be too much and overly ambitious, he found he was adding to the image each succeeding day. Then came the phase when it began to excite him. While some in the camp gathered to discuss rumours of what was happening in Europe and others went about their jobs at farms, the painting grew. Walt ran the studio when Carlo had to take a class, or create a new stage set, or just collapse on his bunk from sheer fatigue.

  Exhausted as he was, he loved every minute, realising he was achieving more than he’d be allowed to attempt as a student. He began to warm to the country; the light and weather had always been an asset here, and this was enhanced by the friendly guards and Major Morton, who allowed him to go on walks in the countryside or the streets of Cowra itself. He liked the modest town, with its milk bars and fruit shops, some of them run by Italians who’d avoided internment. Carlo often stopped to talk to them, wanting to know more about their lives in this country. He was absorbing a lot of knowledge without being aware of it.

  If asked, he would have said the past weeks were some of the happiest of his life—until the letter from his mother arrived with the news of her meeting with Silvana, who was to be married on New Year’s Eve. Which meant, Carlo realised, she was well and truly married by the time he read this news in February. In fact, it was on the same date he’d seen the fireworks. With the time difference it might literally have been at the same hour, which made the oddity harder to bear. He’d always accepted it had been too much to believe she’d wait for him all this time, but the realisation of it happening on the same day seemed a cruel twist of fate. It made him determined to finish the painting and move on to something with less nostalgic irony.

  Beatrice came home from work to find there was a letter from Australia, but the writing on the envelope was a neat and careful copperplate, and clearly Carlo was not the sender. She opened it and stared in amazement at the newspaper cutting contained within pages of a letter in the same neat handwriting:

  POW ARTIST’S PORTRAIT OF TIFFANY WATSON

  Carlo Minnelli, formerly of the Italian army and now a Prisoner of War in Australia, has painted a fine portrait of the lovely Tiffany Watson.

  She read the letter from Janet Sherman telling her of Carlo’s stay with them, giving details of the court case in which he’d been a witness, and of his transfer to the Cowra camp. Beatrice was thrilled by the friendly informative details; Janet�
�s tidy handwriting was a summary of so much she wanted to know, complete with a picture of this town where she and her husband were stationed. Beatrice rapidly telephoned her parents and daughter Gina with the news, asking Sofia to bring any books from her shop relating to southern or western New South Wales. When Luigi came home that afternoon she had a bottle of champagne on ice, and had already written a grateful reply to Janet and a letter to Carlo at Cowra.

  The family came to lunch at the weekend, keen to see the portrait and all speculating on what might have happened since Janet’s letter reached Rome. It was hard to cope with this time gap. They were grateful to learn so much about him before his move to the new camp, but frustrated at being left in the dark about what had happened since then. Until the war ended they realised they’d always be forced to suffer this tyranny of time and distance.

  It was the beginning of March before he was finally satisfied with the painting. He made a last small change to one of the detonating rockets then, much to Walt’s relief, cleaned the brushes and declared himself finished.

  “Bravo and thank God,” said Walt, “I’m not sure if you’ll ever be really satisfied, but it’s a bloody beaut piece of work so please don’t make any more amendments.” The fact Carlo could accept this with a grin revealed the closeness of their working friendship.

  The painting had a luminous quality; its upper half was a sky enlivened with streaks of colour from the fireworks and in the foreground a line of Italian POWs watching from outside their barracks. In the background were the darkened windows and part hidden faces of two Japanese, tangentially caught by beams from the lights along Broadway. Entitled New Year’s Eve in Cowra it was much admired when first exhibited in the camp. Long lines queued outside the studio for a look and the following week the Mayor invited Carlo to exhibit it in the town hall. Photographs were printed in the local paper.

  Janet Sherman came to admire it and was astonished at the progress her suggestion to Major Morton had generated; how Carlo, with Walt’s help, had so rapidly established the old shed into an artistic centre. It was Janet who told Morton of a new art competition that had just been announced. The Francis Greenway Prize was named for the convict architect who had designed so many of Sydney’s finest structures. The Major sent for entry forms, filled them in and took them to the studio for Carlo to sign. To Morton’s surprise his artist was indecisive about the entry.