Innocence Revisited

by Cathy Kezelman

  ‘Who Daddy?’

  ‘Shh, silly girl, they’ll hear us!’ My father slaps his hand over my mouth.

  ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’

  ‘Yes Daddy, of course, but who?’ Daddy’s breathing twenty to the dozen.

  ‘Shh! You’re the only one that I can trust and you, you have to help me. They’re after me.’

  Daddy informs me that my mother has joined the enemy which is plotting against him. He says that she’s shown the enemy his master plans and that now that those plans have been revealed, he is in great danger. He insists that I have to stand guard over my mother, to spy on her every move and report back to him.

  ‘But Daddy!’

  ‘Shh! They’re coming. Quick! An answer!’

  ‘But Daddy, Mummy would never hurt you.’ Daddy’s eyes flash then turn to ice. ‘Are you turning, spinning, rotating away from me, me, me? Not you too. Two. I couldn’t bear it!’

  And against my better judgment I agree to spy on my mother.

  ‘Psst. Psst.’ Daddy springs out from behind the lounge room curtains.

  ‘Shh, they’re watching us. Be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick. Princess, I need your help. They’re getting closer and I’m, you’re, we’re in great danger.’ My Daddy looks back over his shoulder; he’s speaking so fast that I can only catch every second word.

  ‘Daddy, please. You’re talking too fast. Daddy please, please tell me again!’

  ‘Just do what I say, say, say!’

  ‘Of course, Daddy! Anything.’

  ‘They’re coming. Quick, off you go. Quick before they see usssss.’

  I glance back over my shoulder to the area Daddy had been watching, but can’t detect anything untoward. The enemy always disappears before I can see them.

  My days are an eerie mixture of hiding with my father, and spying on my mother and my nights are filled with the nocturnal demands of a father wanting to do things to me, that no child should ever be made to do. I do the yucky things he asks of me because doing them helps keep him alive. I’m convinced of it.

  Although Daddy usually wants me to help him fight the enemy, sometimes he gets confused, and imagines that I’ve turned against him. It’s terrifying when that happens because when he’s in that state, I can’t get through to him. I tell him that I’m his princess and that I love him, but he doesn’t seem to register. Sometimes when he’s enraged, he holds me down and that’s even more terrifying. He’s not my real Daddy then at all.

  The other Daddy has a knife and he’s sticking the point of the knife into the gulping bit of my throat. The gulping bit of my throat is gulping lots more than it usually gulps. As it gulps, the rest of my body breaks up inside my mind. Parts of my body float away and they float as far away as they need to go to make themselves safe. All of the parts of my body float away, except for my head and neck, which are trapped by the point of the knife. My head and neck are terrified and my mouth, which is part of the trapped head, begs the Daddy to listen. At first the Daddy doesn’t listen but the mouth keeps on begging and then the Daddy does listen and when he does listen, he moves the point of the knife away. I breathe again and check that I’m okay, and I am, and because I’m okay, I can call to my body to come back, but my body is scared and my body doesn’t know where my arms and legs have gone. Without legs a body can’t run away and this body wants to run away. My body wants to run away from a Daddy who doesn’t recognise his princess and it wants to run away from an enemy that it can’t see.

  ‘Quick, get up, they’re coming!’ Daddy shouts but my legs don’t recognise themselves.

  ‘What are you doing? Stupid, stupid girl!’

  ‘Come on legs. Help us please!’ A little girl’s mouth begs a little girl’s legs to return so she can run away when her Daddy tells her to.

  The little girl’s legs are very brave legs and they do come back despite being terrified. And they’re strong enough to lift the little girl up and run her to safety.

  One afternoon I’m playing with Cherry in the back yard, tossing sticks for her to retrieve. I toss one over to the far corner of the yard, but instead of chasing it Cherry heels in front of a thick bottlebrush, barking furiously. The bushes part.

  ‘Lassie, I’m in trouble. They’re getting closer. I need you to go back inside and see what you, what you can, cancan find out. Report, port back, back at 1500 hours. She’s poisoning me!’

  ‘Who is Daddy?’

  ‘Mummy, of course. Stupid girl!’

  Daddy describes, in pressured staccato, how my mother has been poisoning him systematically for weeks, by putting stuff in his food. He’s suspected it for ages, but now he has proof he tells me.

  ‘No Daddy! Mummy would never do that. She loves you and she would never hurt you.’ I plead with him as Daddy grabs me around the throat.

  ‘So, you’re turning against me too! Go, just go, go to her you little bitch!’

  ‘No Daddy. It’s not true. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. I didn’t mean it. I’ll do anything for you, anything at all.’

  A kookaburra cackles from on top of the Hills hoist. Cherry tears around the clothesline; yapping furiously. I give her a smack. The kookaburra flies off. Daddy lets go of me.

  ‘I’m sorry princess. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know where else to turn, to turn to.’

  My father hugs me, and runs off. They’re watching.

  I spend every afternoon with my mother in the kitchen, watching.

  ‘Muuuum, do you need any help?’

  ‘What’s going on, Baba?’

  ‘Nothing Mummy, I want to help.’

  I’m useless in the kitchen, messy and inept and it’s not long before my mother’s limited patience runs out.

  ‘Baba, go on, off you go! Go and find something useful to do!’

  Daddy isn’t well; he gets sick lots, especially at dinnertime. From my seat opposite him, I observe the nightly ritual in horror. He chews laboriously one minute and then without warning stops at mid-mouthful and gags. He jumps up and rushes out of the room, choking and spluttering as he disappears. I’m left listening helplessly, as he throws up in the backyard, ridding himself of the poison my mother has put in his food.

  *

  One day Daddy bustles into my bedroom brandishing a bottle labelled, ‘The Mixture’.

  ‘Do you believe me now? She’s trying to kill me!’

  Daddy is screaming blue murder and I don’t know what to do.

  ‘You’ll believe me when I’m finished with you, you stupid bitch!’

  Daddy lunges forward, and throws me to the floor, forces my mouth open and pours some of ‘The Mixture’ down my throat.

  ‘Now you’ll believe me!’ I gag and a little of ‘The Mixture’ dribbles out of the corner of my mouth. I try really hard not to swallow; I don’t want to be sick like Daddy.

  Daddy startles, looks back over his shoulder, grabs ‘The Mixture’

  and hurries off.

  I stick my fingers down my throat and dash into the bathroom. I throw up in the bathroom, just like Daddy does during dinner, but the good news is that I don’t get sick. I manage not to swallow any of ‘The Mixture’; I’m luckier than Daddy.

  Over the months that follow, Daddy spends less time sitting and more, bustling around the house attending to his papers. Daddy’s notes are strewn all over the place and Daddy dashes from room to room, flustering through them, sorting and re-sorting. Sometimes Daddy plonks himself in one room, pulls a pile of papers off the nearest shelf, rummages through them, selects one or two of interest and carries them off to another room only to continue the process. Daddy is always looking back over his shoulder for the enemy, regardless of what he’s doing. And each time he spots them he grabs hold of whatever’s closest and runs off to hide. Sometimes Daddy and I set a time and place to meet, but he changes it because they’re watching.

  ‘Princess, it’s no good. I can’t… on like… We’re going to have to get rid of her.’

  Daddy is
speaking fast in a mumbling jumble. I ask him to slow down but I don’t think he can.

  ‘Sorry, Daddy, what did you say?’ Daddy drags me to the corner of the garden and looks around.

  ‘Sh… they’re listening.’ We move.

  From another corner, he looks furtively around and mutters something incomprehensible. We move again.

  ‘Princess, we have to kill her. Are you going to help me?’

  I check over my shoulder. ‘No, Daddy. Please don’t hurt her. Please Daddy. I’ll watch her all the time, I promise.’

  Similar conversations rage for days until at last I get Daddy to acquiesce.

  ‘But you must watch her all the time, princess. All the time!’

  I cop lots of flack from my mother for ‘hanging around’, as she calls it. My mother hates people hanging around and she tells me so frequently in no uncertain terms. I struggle to manage. I’m on high alert and in a permanent no-win situation, dividing myself between the conflicting expectations of my parents. The demands wear me out and cause me a lot of angst, angst that I keep close to my chest. I’m not used to sharing my problems and there’s no one to share them with anyway. I’ve learnt to internalise my worries and do it well. I’m going to school every day, keeping up in class and playing tennis as usual.

  One night Daddy bundles into my bedroom. ‘Quick, get up, up, up!’ I throw on some clothes, still half asleep, but an expert at rude awakenings. I follow the beam from Daddy’s torch downstairs and into the garage. The beam settles on a pile of sheets which are heaped behind the workbench. Daddy folds the sheets back, removes the cardboard lying under them and the stack of planks below that. The light from the torch is dim and projecting concentric rings on the web-infested concrete wall behind it, but only a little light onto the subject at hand. I rub my eyes hard, taunting the poorly-lit image to morph and disappear but it doesn’t. I can’t believe that the stack of knives, axes and saws in front of me is real.

  ‘But Daddy, wha…’

  ‘Shhh, do you want everyone to hear?’

  ‘Who Daddy?’

  He grabs me around the throat. ‘You stupid?!’

  ‘Ssss…orrry’, I squeak.

  ‘Sh! We’re going to fight. To fight the night light.’

  A shudder runs down my spine.

  I feel as though I’ve been sucked inside my television. I’d understand if I was a cowboy ridding the West of Indians, or an ally fighting against the Germans in WWII. But this is a different sort of battle; this is my Daddy’s war, a war against an enemy that I’ve never seen. But not seeing this enemy is not going to stop me having to fight, because together Daddy and I are going to fight the night light. There’s nothing I can do or say to stop it happening. Daddy needs me and that is that.

  chapter 23

  On another night, Daddy barges into my room, rattles me awake and hurries me downstairs to the garage. He strips the covers off his weapons, shifts a few to the side, then drives his hand to the bottom of the cache and pulls out a rifle.

  ‘What’s that for, Daddy?’ I ask in the calmest tone I can muster, a feeling of rampant panic rising within me as I speak. I’m not even fully awake; only minutes earlier I’d been snugly curled up in bed.

  Daddy strides out of the garage and into the night, puffs his cheeks out, points the rifle towards the sky and pulls the trigger. I cover my ears.

  ‘What a stupid hussy, you are! The rifle’s not loaded NOW!’

  Daddy chuckles. ‘Not NOW!’ he scoffs as he heads back inside. He reaches his hand back under his prized pile, feels around, struggles a bit and then with one almighty tug produces a metal box. He opens the box and shows me the ammunition inside. ‘But Daddy, you don’t know anything about guns!’

  ‘Oh, really now? I don’t know anything about guns? Well we’ll see about that!’

  Before I can apologise, Daddy loads the gun with ammunition.

  ‘And where would my sweet little princess like to be shot? Daddy pokes the loaded barrel at my tummy. ‘How about here?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Or maybe here?’ Daddy aims at my chest.

  I shake my head again. I’m crying, but Daddy doesn’t seem to either notice or care.

  ‘Or here?’ Daddy holds the gun against my head and pushes it into my temple. My legs buckle beneath me.

  ‘Well which which is it?’ As Daddy’s voice shouts, my mind steps in to save me. My psyche breaks me into pieces and as different parts of me vanish into separate spaces in the ether, the quivering shadow of a former self is left facing a loaded gun. The parts peer out from their hiding spots at the shadow of a little girl that’s left behind. They want to help but they can’t; it’s too dangerous to even try. Just suppose the shadow’s Daddy pulls the trigger and shoots the shadow, what then?

  ‘Well WHICH?’ Daddy’s voice reverberates through the still of the night. His voice is getting louder; he’s becoming enraged.

  I try to answer, but I can’t speak out loud; I’m paralysed with fear.

  I call out to my parts with my silent voice and beg them to say something before Daddy pulls the trigger. ‘Someone please, someone, anyone please,’ I say to myself.

  ‘But Daaddy, I don’t want to be shot anywhere.’ A tiny voice whispers from within.

  The Daddy laughs when he hears the shadow’s voice.

  ‘Plea…’ The whispering voice loses its ability to speak and no more sound comes out.

  Something startles Daddy; his eyes dart anxiously about as he lifts the gun off the shadow’s temple and rushes off. The shadow’s body feels numb, except for the circular indentation left by the barrel of the rifle. Her head goes woozy; she drops to the ground and passes out.

  *

  The first thing I notice when I come around is the indentation in my temple. Most of my parts have gone AWOL and I don’t have any idea where to look for them. At first, even when I beg them to come back, they don’t appear, but gradually, as they overcome their terror they return; one part at a time.

  When the parts come back they don’t know how to fit together. It takes a while before they can work together again and be a team. When I first try to stand, I can’t take my weight. I’m still numb from being fragmented into parts. As I psychically connect those parts, the numbness gradually fades and some of my usual strength returns. I slink back to my bedroom in the hope that I’ll be able to rest and recuperate.

  No such luck; Daddy’s waiting behind the door. He’s holding the rifle in his hand. Daddy pushes the barrel of the rifle into the indentation etched into my temple, and the pressure makes the existing ring deeper still. As the ring from the barrel cuts deeper, my body floats away and soon all that’s left is an awareness of the ring of flesh where the gun is pushing in. My body floats up to the ceiling and curls into a ball on high, leaving only my eyes exposed, to keep watch over a Daddy holding a rifle to a young girl’s head. The Daddy forces the girl onto the ground and he does that thing to the girl that he does to me in bed, except that this time he does it while holding a gun to her head. And a Daddy is being rough as he pounds the girl into the floor. I want to help her but I can’t; I can’t afford to get hurt. Someone needs to be kept safe. But even though I have floated up to the ceiling I can feel the agony of her parts down below and I can feel the pressure of the ring on her head.

  ‘Just remember. I have a gun!’

  From the ceiling my mouth replies, ‘Of course, Daddy whatever you say.’

  And the Daddy takes his rifle away from the young girl’s head and leaves the room, leaving the shadow of the girl on the floor and me, on the ceiling. The young girl is crying, poor thing; she’s crying because she’s sore and she’s scared. And her bits are throbbing, and they’re the exact same bits which are throbbing in me.

  The Daddy has gone and the girl is distressed. The parts look around and decide to go down from the ceiling. Not that it feels entirely safe; the Daddy might come back at any time, but then again the girl needs her parts back and it’s safe
enough for now. My parts come down from the ceiling one by one and rejoin the girl until she is able to put her arms around herself. She’s upset and needs a cuddle; I’m all she has.

  The girl can’t remember what Daddy just did to her; she’s forgotten. I describe what I saw from the ceiling but when I do, the girl gets upset. She doesn’t want to believe what I’m telling her about her Daddy and I understand that because most of the time, I don’t want to believe those things either. She calls me a liar and that’s okay; her mind needs to forget. I don’t say anything else to her; I just hold her and try to make her feel better.

  It’s another night-time and Daddy directs me into the garage. He motions for me to sit down as he uncovers his hide. He lifts his weapons out one by one, brushes them down and lays them on the bench in front of me. Stands back to admire them, points out the advantages of each weapon before asking me to choose one, excluding the rifle of course; the rifle is his.

  ‘You’re a lucky duck!’ He announces. ‘Combat training!’

  I can’t choose between the weapons; I don’t like any weapons. Daddy’s getting agitated so I choose one of the axes. ‘This one, D…’

  ‘Not now. Ssh!’ Daddy takes the axe back out of my hand, replaces all of the weapons and hides them carefully before hurrying me back to my room.

  Daddy doesn’t come back for several nights, but his absence does nothing to settle my nerves. On the contrary I’m on tenterhooks, anticipating his next move and barely sleeping as a result. The night he does return, I’m enjoying a long-awaited rest.

  ‘Quick, get up! Brazen brazen hussy!’ The voice shouting in my ear causes me to stir momentarily, but fails to mobilise me. The father behind the voice shoots out of the room and returns with a bowl of water. He pours the water over me and it shocks me awake. I sit up in bed and shake myself off, like Cherry after a bath.

  ‘Now move!’ With no time to dry myself, I slip into the clothes that I’d discarded onto the floor before bed. I shiver as Daddy and I march off together into the night. The training can’t wait.