The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

  ‘They’re a dying breed,’ said Murphy. ‘But we’re not going to cut them off at the knees—we’ll phase them out. Knights and dames will have a natural death. But I need this one alive.’

  He explained that Clarrie Harders was vital to the efficient functioning of the A-G’s department—he’d keep the public servants in line and prevent foot-dragging.

  Nonetheless, Negus had still been aggrieved by a conversation Harders had initiated with him ahead of Murphy’s swearing in as attorney-general.

  ‘So, let’s talk about policy,’ the old mandarin had said, coming swiftly to the point after the usual formalities. ‘I know the attorney wants to make a lot of changes: no fault divorce, the trade practices act, freedom of information laws and broad law reform. This will be like working in an experimental wind tunnel. We really need to get a sense of what can sensibly be achieved, George. When are we going to sit down and talk about what he’s planning?’

  Negus had opened his top drawer, pulled out a document and dropped it in front of Harders.

  ‘It’s all here in the party manifesto,’ he’d said. ‘Senator Murphy wrote it. Why don’t you just run off copies and give them out to everyone in the department? Just tell them, “Read this and get on with it.”’

  Negus jogged up the Parliament House stairs, hair bouncing on his shoulders, moustache bristling. At this time of the morning there were few people in the cavernous King’s Hall. As his shoes slipped pleasingly on the highly polished parquet floor, he managed to resist the schoolboy urge to try a running slide.

  Ahead of him the tall bronze statue of George V was lit on all sides by the lines of translucent windows high up near the ceiling. As always, the simple inscription on the marble plinth—Rex Imperator—infuriated Negus. King and Emperor, for fuck’s sake! The bloke must have had huge tickets on himself.

  He glanced above the King’s head to the clock on the wall. Ten to eight. He just had time to get to his office and listen to AM. Murphy wouldn’t be in yet, so he bypassed the A-G’s office and went straight to his own. The in-house monitor was set to ABC Radio. He flicked it on and plugged in the electric jug to make a cuppa.

  The morning’s newspapers were waiting on his desk and he sat to skim through them. The main headlines were all about Whitlam’s letter of protest to President Nixon over his decision to resume the bombing of North Vietnam after the collapse of the Paris peace talks. Negus saw that no one had the prime minister’s actual missive, but a ‘senior source’ in the PM’s office—he translated that to mean Whitlam advisor Jim Spigelman—was quoted as saying that the letter expressed ‘strong opposition to the US action’.

  After the pips on the hour, AM’s strident theme cut in and the prime minister’s ‘up yours’ letter to Nixon was their lead story, too. Negus opened his notepad when the coverage began with a live interview with a new cabinet minister. He soon heard the familiar, hectoring voice of Dr Jim Cairns, distorted on a crackly phone line: ‘I say to the Nixon administration, stop your attacks on the Vietnamese people. Leave them alone. Take your armed forces home.’

  Three years ago Cairns had led one hundred thousand people in the Melbourne Moratorium March and become the key figurehead of the anti-war movement. He wasn’t the type to back off just because he’d been elevated to the cabinet, but this was his first public outing as a minister and every word was steeped in his trademark moral outrage.

  ‘The bombing of North Vietnam is totally and completely unjustified,’ Cairns pronounced. ‘It will not bring the end of the war any nearer. It is simply resulting in the purposeless killing of more and more people.’

  A woman’s voice interrupted Negus’s note-taking: ‘This is really going to piss off the White House.’

  He looked up and was surprised to see the journalist Anna Rosen standing in the doorway.

  ‘As if Whitlam’s letter wasn’t enough to get them going,’ she added as Cairns banged on in the same vein.

  ‘Jim’s off on a frolic of his own,’ said Negus. ‘That said, the septics are just going to have to get used to the fact that we’re not their little lapdogs anymore.’

  Anna put the rhyming slang together: yanks = septic tanks = septics. She laughed. ‘That may be, George,’ she said. ‘But I think that little lapdog just pissed on the Oval Office carpet.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Negus, pointing across the desk. ‘Pull up a chair, I’ve got to listen to this.’

  Anna sat down and held her tongue as Jim Cairns told the interviewer that President Nixon had never really been serious about the Paris peace talks. They were just part of a charade he’d created to pacify his critics during his election campaign and, now that Nixon had won his second term, all bets were off. He could bomb and kill to his heart’s content. Anna didn’t disagree with Cairns’s argument, but she sensed that his recklessness would not go unpunished.

  Negus continued to jot down points, glancing up at Anna from time to time. She was smart, intense and interesting. He’d always fancied her, but he was in a serious relationship right now—more’s the pity.

  When the Cairns interview ended, AM moved on to the election of the new leader of the Liberal Party. It had taken the Libs an age to finally get around to dumping the defeated prime minister, Billy McMahon. Perversely, they’d plugged for another Billy: Billy Snedden this time—a sly Melburnian, almost as silly a Billy as his predecessor. Anyway, Snedden was already in strife with his Country Party partners over power-sharing. No need to worry about this, Negus thought. He stopped writing, lowered the volume and turned to Rosen.

  ‘So, what are you doing in Parliament House, Anna?’

  ‘I’ve just made the move down here to the press gallery,’ she replied. ‘I’m starting today with the Herald, national security round.’

  ‘What?’ He was surprised. ‘You left the ABC? I thought you were number one with a bullet after breaking those yarns on the Croats.’

  ‘I had a few unresolved issues at the ABC and they weren’t going away any time soon,’ she explained. ‘The approach from the Herald came at the right time, an early Christmas present, really. So here I am.’

  ‘Unresolved issues?’

  ‘It’s personal, George. Let’s leave it at that.’

  Negus nodded, imagining various scenarios. ‘So here you are,’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, what do you want—a medal?’

  ‘No, a chat with Lionel Murphy will do.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘On your first day? That’s pressing your luck, isn’t it?’

  ‘Will you just ask him for me?’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ he agreed. ‘No promises. He’s pretty fucken busy.’

  ‘And you’re the gatekeeper, George, I get that. But those pesky Croats haven’t gone away and I think he’s going to want to talk to me.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Negus remembered that he’d just boiled water and stood up. ‘I’m making a cuppa—you want one?’

  ‘Sure, thanks. Black, no sugar.’

  Negus quickly re-boiled the water and poured it over tea bags in two mugs. His he sugared and doused with milk. He plonked the black one in front of Anna with a teaspoon to fish out the tea bag.

  ‘Anything else on your mind?’ he asked as she debated what to do with the sodden thing on the teaspoon. In the end she placed it on the banner of The Australian, rather than risk staining the wooden desk.

  ‘As a matter of fact, George, there is. I understand the attorney met with the director-general of ASIO last week.’

  ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear from gossipy journos.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I just can’t imagine the spooks leaking to you of all people.’

  ‘My sources are good. I’m told Murphy got stuck into Peter Barbour over the Croats and that he wants to ban ASIO’s bugging operations, and that’s just for starters. That is of tremendous public interest, don’t you think?’
>
  Anna paused to blow on her tea and take a sip.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Negus. ‘Even if you’re right—and I’m not saying you are—it would be of tremendous private interest. We’re not going to go around putting out press releases about our first conversation with the boss of ASIO.’

  Anna frowned. ‘So much for open government,’ she said.

  ‘We can’t all shoot from the hip like Jim Cairns,’ said Negus irritably.

  ‘Shame. Anyway, I’ve got enough to run the story without the attorney, but he might want to get on the front foot and talk to me.’

  ‘Look, Anna, I’ve got a lot to do.’

  She stood up. ‘Okay, thanks for the tea,’ she said. ‘Just let the boss know this will be on the front page tomorrow.’

  Negus stared up at her. Rosen had him over a barrel. He decided to offer a deal.

  ‘All right, maybe I can give you something else if you agree to hold off on the ASIO story for a couple of days and let us manage the issue so’s the attorney doesn’t end up at loggerheads with Peter Barbour.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do we have an agreement?’

  ‘Not until you tell me what you’ve got.’

  ‘You gonna turn this into a pissing contest?’

  Anna Rosen winked at him. ‘I’ve shown you mine. You show me yours.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Negus, giving up. ‘Okay. Lionel’s just hired a former Commonwealth copper to advise him on Croatian extremists. I could arrange for you to meet him for a briefing. Off the record of course.’

  ‘Who is this person?’

  ‘Kerry Milte, his name is. Ever come across him? Big red-headed bloke.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Milte’s a bit of a firebrand. Youngest ever police superintendent. He trained as a lawyer and wanted to shake things up at the Commonwealth Police. He took a bloody hard line on the Croats. Foot on the throat stuff …’

  Negus paused to see if she’d taken the bait; but when she said nothing, he went on.

  ‘Here’s the other thing. He was also running an undercover investigation on police corruption in New South Wales, but he had a serious run-in with the top brass. It got so bad that he quit the force and went back to Melbourne to put up his shingle as a barrister.’

  ‘That is interesting,’ Anna acknowledged. ‘When can I meet him?’

  ‘I’ve got to talk to the attorney and clear it with him. Give me your number at the bureau and I’ll call you once I’ve done that.’

  She wrote it down and then straightened up and looked him in the eye. ‘George, if I’m going to spike the ASIO story, I’ll need this to happen very soon. And I still want to speak to Lionel Murphy.’

  ‘I said I’ll call you, Anna.’

  As Negus watched her go, he caught himself staring at her bum and shook his head. Then he picked up the phone.

  ‘Morning, Daphne. Is Lionel in yet?’

  Anna made her way back up two flights of stairs to the cramped chicken coop that was the Herald’s newsroom. A corridor, lined with the bundled newspaper archives and named pigeonholes, took her past the empty telex room. The telex operators, all men from what she’d seen, would arrive in the afternoon, most from shifts at the Post Office. It seemed they all worked second jobs and earned more than she did.

  A narrow doorway at the end opened into a room barely larger than the corridor itself. Half a dozen desks sat crowded together on a grubby black and white vinyl chequerboard floor. There were desks on either side of the room so that the reporters could sit back-to-back with a tiny space between them. On each desk was a fat Olivetti typewriter, reams of paper and a telephone. Like the telex room, the place was unoccupied at this time of the morning. Locked into late deadlines, her new colleagues were not expected to make an appearance for several hours.

  Anna dropped her leather bag beside the typewriter on her allocated desk, just inside the doorway, and sat. She put both hands flat on the desktop, leaned back and closed her eyes. She got nothing, no redolence, save the stench of stale tobacco.

  Harry Lang, the journalist she was replacing, had gone, like so many others, to join the new government as a press secretary, but he had been kind enough to ring her in Sydney to offer some advice.

  ‘It’s a young bureau, love. Now that I’m gone anyway,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘You may be the only sheila, but you’ll have no problems with the blokes you’ll be working with. They look like they’ve come off the cover of a Led Zeppelin album.’

  Anna opened her eyes. She checked the desk drawers and found them all empty. Then she noticed the typewriter had a single page rolled into it. She unspooled it and saw that Lang had left her a note.

  The scribbler’s fate’s to write and write

  From dawn into the dead of night,

  to light your fags from end to end,

  hear endless crap but not offend

  the silly pricks the voters chose

  who then go on to primp and pose

  and lie and cheat and fulminate.

  It’s time for me to beat this fate.

  It’s time for YOU to write and write

  So stay and fight … but I choose flight!

  Anna shook her head and smiled. She searched around, found some sticky tape, stuck the page above her desk and read it again.

  ‘Thanks, Harry,’ she said aloud. ‘Who says you can’t teach an old doggerel new tricks.’

  Harry could not possibly have guessed how much she was regretting the scribbler’s fate. She tried to write and write but she had hit the wall with her book. It had happened after the confrontation with Ivo Katich on the bridge, which had shaken her to the core. She had seen the old fascist through the eyes of his victims, and it had made her think of her mother’s escape from the demons in Europe.

  That was how she’d always thought of them—demons who rendered people into smoke—but she had learned that they were not. Yes, they were monsters, but they were not inhuman. Ivo Katich was living proof of that. They were flesh-and-blood men like him. At least that was all he was in the cold light of day: just a man. It was in her nightmares that his eyes flickered with the flames of the ovens.

  Since that afternoon Anna had begun to worry if she could write objectively about such a man, if she was capable of explaining his existence with mere words.

  She had gone to see her father, to ask for his advice. Frank Rosen had listened to her silently, then he’d excused himself and gone into his study. When he returned, he handed her a piece of paper with one name and a phone number in Vienna.

  ‘This is the man you must speak to,’ said Frank. ‘He’ll give you better advice than I could hope to. Make sure to give him my best wishes.’

  The name on the note was Simon Wiesenthal. The Nazi hunter. Anna couldn’t believe it.

  ‘You know him, Dad? How come you never told me?’

  ‘I’m telling you now.’

  ‘I’ve been working on this for a long time.’

  ‘Anna, it’s all tied up with what happened to your mother’s family. She didn’t want you to bear her burden. She wanted your life to be untainted by this horror. That’s what she said, and I respected it. But I think now you need his advice.’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘I met Wiesenthal in Vienna many years ago. I was there on Party business. He wasn’t famous back then. He ran a place called the Jewish Documentation Centre with a handful of volunteers. I’d read that he’d survived Mauthausen Concentration Camp. That’s where they murdered your Uncle Samuel, so I went to see him to find out if he could tell me what had happened to him. It turned out that in the last days the Nazis destroyed most of the records at Mauthausen, but Wiesenthal went through the transcribed testimony of other inmates, many of whom he’d interviewed himself. He discovered that Samuel had died in the stone quarry. He was half-starved, but they used to make the prisoners carry huge blocks of stone up incredibly steep stairs and whip them if they faltered. It was like some
ghastly perversion of Sisyphus. Samuel was made to do it over and over until it killed him.’

  ‘Does Mum know all of this?’

  ‘Yes, and she asked me not to tell you or the boys. As for me, I was so very grateful to finally hear the truth it made me cry. That hasn’t happened often in my life, Anna. Simon Wiesenthal is a good man; he took pity on me when he saw this and agreed to help me find out what happened to the rest of your mother’s family.’

  ‘I’ve always thought that Mum just didn’t know any of the details. That it was lost in the chaos and confusion or something.’

  ‘That was true for her. You know the story without the details. Your mother and her two sisters were taken to Ravensbrück. Your grandmother was sent there with them, but she was too old and frail, so she was no use in the slave factories and she was soon taken from them.’

  ‘The only thing I know is that Grandma died in Auschwitz.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what we found out from Simon Wiesenthal. Your grandmother was marked for transportation to the gas chambers. Your mother and her sisters stayed together in Ravensbrück, but eventually Hanna and Julie became very sick—we think it was probably typhus—and they were moved to the sub-camp called Uckermark. Your mother was told they were going to a hospital, but she never saw them again. Simon discovered their names on the Mittverda list and he told me that this word Mittverda was a code for the gas chamber.’

  Anna felt a physical shock at the revelation. She bent forward, brought her hands up to her face. Eventually she wiped the tears away and stared at her father, shaking her head. ‘Oh Dad! Dad,’ she stammered. ‘We should have been told about this. Why weren’t we? This is our history.’

  Frank was silent for a time.

  ‘I understand why you feel that,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t be upset with your mother. She was there; she lived through this horror. Eva is alive and they are not. She didn’t want her children to live under this dark cloud.’

  ‘It found me, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, it did, and now you must speak to Simon Wiesenthal. Few men have his wisdom.’