Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  As the Jaguar heads towards the railway bridge, Alan sees embers starting to rain down on the Baptist church on the opposite corner. They can all hear the sirens now and see fire trucks pulling into the main street of the village.

  There is chaos in the village as fire sweeps in from all directions. The Alexandra Hotel, right by the railway line opposite Leura station, is spared while the Baptist Church of Christ on the corner is burned down. The hairdressing salon, the electrician’s shop, the ladies’ hat shop succumb to a fire that sneaks up from the gully behind the Mall. Without warning, tongues of flame shoot out of the shopfronts, shattering the glass and driving the firemen back into the street. Flames have also caught inside the toyshop and the Presbyterian church on the next corner.

  Out of the dirty, boiling cloud of smoke that overshadows the whole town, ash and cinders come raining down, a blizzard of grey snow and flaming sleet. It falls on people’s hair and clothes, it gathers in the trees, starting more fires. Laura looks out the car window at the staring, stricken people, the rain of ash and cinders, the flames licking at the shopfronts. She thinks of Dresden.

  In their smart woollen jackets with double pairs of brass buttons and their stiff-peaked caps, the men of the town fire brigade battle smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion. In its wisdom, the government had disbanded the local volunteer rural fire brigades two years earlier, dispensing with years of experience fighting bushfires. Instead, the defence of these villages is left in the hands of the town brigades who have never before faced a fire of this magnitude or ferocity.

  Other men arrive, stripped down to their singlets with wet handkerchiefs tied across their mouths. They wrestle with long canvas hoses and strap on Indian-tank backpacks, harnessed across their shoulders, as they furiously hand-pump jets of water at the flames. Men in khaki slouch hats and open jackets thrash at burning grass, shrubs and fences with wet flour sacks and gum branches to extinguish smaller outbreaks. All around her, Laura sees people acting with tremendous courage. She thinks how sad it is that all this effort has an air of futility and manic desperation, as if swatting at some enormous fire-breathing monster.

  When Alan, Laura and Lottie reach the family house in Jersey Avenue, the gum trees in the garden are already alight from embers. Laura races inside, scoops up an armful of photo albums and heads back to the car in the driveway. She makes several more of these trips. Alan has stripped off his jacket and tie and is hosing down the roof of the house and attempting to put out the fires in the gums. Embers are raining down all around him.

  ‘What do you want me to take?’ shouts Lottie, her mind buzzing with panic. She runs into her childhood bedroom and starts throwing things into a cardboard grocery carton: sports medals, a ‘treasure box’ she and Monika had once buried in the back garden with one of her mother’s pearl earrings, a fairy costume Laura made for a school play. She suddenly remembers something and runs into the room next door, pulling objects off shelves. ‘Where are they, where are they?’ At last she finds what she is looking for: Monika’s diaries hidden behind the bookcase. Her sister will be grateful one day that Lottie used to spy on her at night. She scoops up some more mementoes, including Mr Allsorts, Monz’s favourite golliwog and her old Mary Jane with the broken buckle.

  The town is so deeply enshrouded in smoke it is hard to see more than one or two blocks away. In houses up and down Jersey Avenue, women and men are ferrying armfuls of clothing, paintings, clocks, rugs, chairs, side tables, vases, whatever they deem precious, to the open boots of their cars or leaving them in disordered piles on the pavement like a series of impromptu garage sales.

  Then the first explosion occurs two blocks away. A fireball lobs into the back garden of the Frenches’ house on the corner.

  Laura and Alan hear the screams of terror. Within minutes another fireball leaps over three houses and picks out another property, the Williamsons’. The blizzard of embers grows thicker and faster. The front fence of the Fox house is now on fire.

  ‘We have to go!’ Alan shouts at his mother and sister. It appears that the town’s water supply has run dry as the water from his garden hose slows to a trickle and stops. He watches a fireball consume another house only a block away, sending out another shockwave of heat that is now past endurance.

  The roar of the next fireball is deafening, as loud as the locomotives of the coal trains that rumble past the village day and night. Laura feels terror grip her whole body, crushing her chest and filling up her head with static. She screams.

  ‘Get in the car!’ shouts Alan. He is pushing her and Lottie towards the Jag. ‘There’s nothing we can do now!’

  Alan starts the engine and backs out of the driveway. Laura looks behind her. She steels herself for what she is about to see. But nothing can prepare her for the sight of her home’s destruction. The fire has punched out the windows of the old sandstone two-storey mansion and found its way inside. It flows triumphantly from room to room, pillaging with abandon, putting out its bright pennants of flame through every shattered window frame. The new writing desk in her study burns. The lawn burns, the hedge burns. The veranda where her children played hide-and-seek is submerged in fire. The pavilion by the tennis court, the scene of so many summer parties, burns. Her married life with Adam, her children, their friends, it all burns and is carried away in flame and smoke and ash.

  Laura cannot speak for others who have lost their homes and businesses this day: one hundred and thirty properties destroyed in Leura in less than two hours and another forty buildings in the neighbouring village of Wentworth Falls, the worst fires in those towns’ history. That night, as she stands in a hospital ward and watches her husband losing his struggle to live, Laura knows she will not rebuild her house. She will leave the mountains forever. Her life here is over. She says nothing to Adam about the fire or their home. She must bear that grief alone now, readying herself for a future without him. For the great, never-ending loneliness.

  Adam stirs in the bed, his breathing laboured and his face drained of all colour. He tries to speak. She leans in close.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For giving me a second chance.’

  He drifts away and seems to sleep. He wakes again and looks at her. He speaks to Laura for the last time.

  ‘You look supremely lovely tonight, my dear.’

  Laura touches his face. ‘You look pretty presentable yourself,’ she says.

  CHAPTER 32

  * * *

  Lisa

  Katoomba, June 2013

  Katoomba’s main street swarmed with dragons, vampires, witches and wizards in record numbers. Winter Magic, the annual winter solstice festival, was in full swing.

  Lisa met Ulli at the station and escorted him up the grand driveway to the Carrington. He checked in, dropped his luggage in his room and met Lisa back downstairs in the bar.

  ‘Are you too tired for a walk around?’ she asked, mindful that he was not long off a flight from Germany.

  ‘It’s just what I need after all that time sitting on a plane!’ Ulli smiled.

  Lisa wondered what her friends and acquaintances in the mountains would make of Ulli. Lisa had done a double take as he came off the train, humping his backpack and wearing a beanie. Six foot three inches tall with the wiry physique of a mountaineer, he had golden-blond hair, high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. A Nordic god. Even so, he didn’t look as much like Brün as she had anticipated from her mother’s description. He had, instead, the large eyes and aristocratic face of her grandmother, Laura.

  Lisa and Ulli made their way through the packed crowd. Looking down the long dip of Katoomba Street, they beheld a river of brightly coloured humanity swirling noisily past rows of white-tented market stalls. The crowd was an all-day, non-stop, free-form street theatre, perfect for people-watching.

  Re-enactment buffs from every era of history mingled freely with characters from every well-known sci-fi and fantasy franchise. The street buzzed w
ith buskers, drag queens, druids, steampunk Victorians, demons, goddesses, Star Wars princesses and stormtroopers, Buddhist nuns, fire-eaters and flame-twirlers, monocyclists, medieval maidens, magicians, Dr Whos, ninjas, knights, mermaids, and beasts, insects and birds with painted faces, wired wings and padded tails. Everywhere one looked, people showed off the brilliance and humour of their costumes, their make-up and masks, their hats, helmets and other exotic headgear. They paraded their alternate creative selves, exhibited their inner superhero or villain. It was a carnival of the id, a communal remembering of a pagan past.

  Ulli laughed. ‘This is wonderful! Who would have thought such a thing possible in a small town in Australia?’

  Lisa decided not to be insulted by this arguably patronising observation as there was not the slightest hint of a sneer in

  Ulli’s tone. He was just being honest. Who knew what view he had of Australia all the way from Stuttgart?

  ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it,’ she said.

  A man with a white goatee, dressed in a pith helmet, gold-braided jacket and jodhpurs, came prancing by and stopped in front of Ulli.

  ‘Now that, dear fellow, is a fashion crime!’ he declared, waving his swagger-stick reproachfully at Ulli.

  ‘I am sorry. I have done something wrong?’ Ulli seemed a little alarmed.

  ‘Brown jacket, faded blue jeans, Nike trainers. At Winter Magic?! I’m going to have to write you a ticket for your fashion infringement and tag you as a sartorial offender,’ insisted the mock military man.

  ‘I think it’s a joke,’ whispered Lisa, trying to put Ulli at his ease.

  ‘It most certainly is not!’ piped the pith-helmeted fashion policeman. Several of his colleagues, also in carnivalesque Edwardian costume, were handing out infringement notices to members of the crowd. Realising it was in jest, Ulli relaxed, even proffering a wrist for the red-and-yellow-striped ‘convict’ tag to be tied on.

  ‘I’m told they call themselves the Katoomba Amusements Company,’ Lisa explained as they walked on. ‘Named after a madcap bunch who set up an entertainment club here decades ago. Movie theatre, roller-skating rink, all-female orchestra, roof garden. The latest in fun in 1911. Just over there.’

  She pointed to the corner of Katoomba and Main streets, where a real-estate agency now stood, a few doors down from the old Savoy cinema building.

  ‘You seem to know a lot of local history.’

  ‘I’ve started to take an interest, thanks to my friend Luke.’

  Just before seven o’clock they met up with Luke for a drink at the Carrington’s Art Nouveau cocktail bar. The historian seemed eager to meet the mysterious Ulli, but Lisa soon noticed that he was acting quite defensively. Thankfully, Ulli was either oblivious or extremely polite. Luke ordered another drink and knocked it back before they headed out to the front lawn to watch the fireworks. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky leaving a crust of ice on the street.

  ‘Well, this is most unexpected!’ Ulli caught a snowflake on his tongue. ‘I thought I was coming to the tropics!’

  A large crowd had gathered outside for music and dance performances on the Edwardian hotel’s main balcony followed by the fireworks display from the rooftop.

  ‘Katoomba’s always had a history of merry-making,’ said Luke, having to raise his voice over the hubbub of the crowd. ‘Back in the 1930s, New Year’s Eve was a really big deal up here. Thousands of people came and the guesthouses would compete with costumes and floats in a street parade. At midnight the trains in the station would all sound their horns and the crowd would sing “Auld Lang Syne”.’

  ‘It sounds extremely jolly,’ said Ulli, nodding politely.

  Lisa couldn’t help smiling. Luke was being competitive with their German visitor and defensive of his own turf. She knew exactly why: he was jealous. It was silly, of course, as Ulli was probably related to her, but the sweeter and more civil this young German became, the more restless and threatened Luke appeared. Lisa wished she knew an easy way to put him out of his misery. Maybe it had been a mistake inviting him.

  Above them on the hotel’s balcony, members of the local Gundungarra and Darug communities performed a welcome-to-country ceremony followed by traditional dances. Bare-chested except for white handprints on their backs and shoulders, a group of eight men stamped their feet in unison and transformed their bodies and hands into fluid mimicry of birds and animals, accompanied by the deep drone of a didgeridoo and percussive beats of clap sticks. The crowd cheered and applauded. Lisa explained how welcome-to-country was standard practice for public events as a way of acknowledging an ongoing Aboriginal presence and connection.

  ‘Every country has its difficult past to deal with, yes? So this is very impressive,’ said Ulli.

  Their conversation was cut short by loud cheers as the first rockets screeched from the hotel roof and exploded in crimson and silver bursts. Lisa looked around her. She was surrounded by faces of all colours, people of many cultures and faiths. Lesbians and gay men hugged and danced, fathers and mothers, dark-skinned and fair, held their children aloft on their shoulders or let them run through the forest of legs.

  It was true Australia was still dealing with its difficult past. In the last two months, Lisa had learned about shocking episodes in her own family history. Stories of government-legislated and socially sanctioned cruelty that she could barely believe were true or possible. Upheavals and separations that caused needless suffering. But in this place, surrounded by these people, she felt hopeful Australians could be absolved from those past sins if they were willing. Already great changes had been achieved from one generation to the next. Perhaps, with generosity and courage, more could be done.

  The jubilant mood was infectious. As the snowfall thickened and the fireworks display approached its climax, Lisa, Luke and Ulli cheered and clapped.

  ‘It’s good you came!’ Lisa shouted at Ulli.

  ‘What?’ Ulli was laughing, unable to hear her over the crowd.

  ‘I said we’re glad you came!’ she repeated. Even Luke nodded, a little more relaxed now as Lisa’s kisses and hugs had made it perfectly clear to the good-looking German that Luke was much more than just a ‘friend’.

  He nodded and grinned. ‘Me too! I’m glad I came.’

  This strange triangle was complete. It was a scene Lisa could not even have imagined was possible weeks ago. Her life had changed, was changing. It would never be the same again.

  What would happen now?

  ‘Okay, let me show you what I’ve found,’ said Ulli, opening his laptop. ‘I know I could have just emailed you these documents. But I felt it was important we discover this link between our families face to face. If you know what I mean.’

  After the fireworks, Ulli, Lisa and Luke had picked up some Thai takeaway and a couple of bottles of wine. Over dinner at the bungalow they talked about Luke’s history of the Palace, which was only weeks away from a final draft. They looked at Lisa’s recent photographs of the hotel as it assumed its new, young face again with the reconstruction. They looked at Ulli’s rock-climbing and travel photos from his trips around the world.

  As Lisa served coffee, the time came to talk about the past.

  Ulli turned around his laptop so they could see the screen. It displayed a scanned handwritten letter in German.

  ‘I never met my mother properly,’ Ulli began. ‘She and my father broke up soon after I was born. My father remarried and I grew up with a new mother whom I loved very much.

  ‘But I was curious. I wanted to know about my birth mother. Who was she? I overheard conversations I was not meant to hear. I learned that even though she was called Saskia, that was not her birth name. I heard that she had been adopted into a new family. That her own birth mother came from Australia.’

  Lisa’s grip on Luke’s hand tightened. All of this was consistent with the possibility that Ulli’s mother was Monika’s child, Peggy. But there were so many questions. How had she ended up in Germany? Did her new family m
ove there? Why did she change her name?

  ‘When my father was diagnosed this year with terminal cancer, I realised this could be my last chance. I asked him to tell me about Saskia. He did not want to tell me anything at first. He had loved Saskia very much and it wounded him to drag up the past. But I persuaded him it was time for me to know the truth.’

  Lisa nodded. How true that was. Luke tightened his hold on her hand. He looked as nervous as she did.

  Ulli continued. ‘He told me that Saskia suffered for many years from disturbing memories. Nightmares. She was haunted by terrible things that happened in her childhood. She tried to come to terms with her suffering. But she could not. One day, when I was still a baby, she walked out the front door and vanished. She disappeared from our lives forever. All efforts to find her failed.’

  Lisa was shocked. ‘That’s awful, Ulli. I’m so sorry.’

  Ulli sighed. ‘It was very hard. As a child I thought she must have left because I was bad. But at last I have stopped blaming myself, thanks to what my father told me. And then he gave me these letters which Saskia had left behind with all her other things. They are letters from Saskia’s mother.’

  ‘Saskia’s mother?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Who was born in Australia.’

  Lisa drew in her breath. This was the moment of truth. Were those letters from Monika? Had Peggy, who became Saskia, sought out her mother in Australia? Was this the story that Monika had withheld for so long?

  When she had shown her mother the photo of Brün two days before, Monika had touched it like some precious long-lost treasure.

  ‘What else do you know, Lisa?’ her mother had asked.

  ‘Bits and pieces. So little. I want to know more,’ Lisa replied, still anxious about revealing too much.