Heritage

by Judy Nunn

  ‘No, no,’ Sharon interrupted, ‘I mean that we knew you were dead, there was no question about it. We knew you’d been taken away, Mannie too; Naomi saw it all through the front window …’

  ‘Naomi’s not with you?’ This time it was Ruth who interrupted, and Sharon immediately read the concern in her query.

  ‘Naomi is safe,’ she reassured her. ‘She came to Israel over a year ago, she’s working on a kibbutz. She says she likes farming.’

  Ruth wondered whether it was Kibbutz Tsafona, and whether indeed young Naomi Meisell was a farmer or a fighter. Somehow she suspected the latter. Naomi had always been a rebellious girl; she recalled how she’d admired her passion.

  ‘Escape is not enough,’ Naomi had said, ‘we need to fight back.’

  As Sharon continued, Ruth’s mind remained on Naomi and she wasn’t paying full attention.

  ‘… And we knew you’d been taken to Auschwitz, the spies at the railway station told Samuel, and then all those years later, after the war …’

  Samuel? The name broke into her thoughts. Which Samuel? Samuel who? She was bewildered as she looked back to Sharon.

  ‘… when he was trying to find news of you and he discovered the witnessed report of Mannie’s death, he naturally believed, as we all did …’

  ‘Who was trying to find me?’

  ‘Samuel.’

  Ruth looked at her blankly. Samuel who? her mind once again asked.

  ‘She doesn’t know, Sharon.’ Efraim, who had been silent as the women talked, realised that of course Ruth didn’t know. How could she? She was as ignorant of her husband’s existence as he was of hers. ‘Ruth doesn’t know that he’s alive.’

  ‘Who’s alive?’ she asked. Not her Samuel – they were wrong, she’d seen him. She could still see him, lying on the wooden floorboards, the pool of his blood creeping around the leg of the dining room table.

  ‘Samuel is alive, Ruth,’ Efraim said. ‘The last letter I had from him was in 1949. I still have it. He’s living in Australia. In the Snowy Mountains.’

  ‘We’re going now, Ruth.’ There was a note of censure in Sarah’s voice as she appeared by Ruth’s side; she very much disapproved of the social chit-chat taking place. She left the rebuke hanging in the air and glided past, followed by her son and daughter, Moshe lingering, waiting to accompany Ruth.

  ‘The Snowy Mountains?’ It was not real, Ruth thought, she was in a dream. Samuel was alive? ‘I didn’t know they had mountains in Australia,’ she said vaguely, ‘or snow.’

  Moshe wasn’t sure if he’d heard her correctly, it was such an odd thing to say.

  ‘Time to go, Ruth.’ He took her arm, she seemed distracted. ‘Please excuse us,’ he added politely to the couple.

  ‘Of course,’ Sharon replied. ‘Are you all right, Ruth?’

  ‘The Snowy Mountains, you say?’

  ‘We really must go,’ Moshe said firmly. She appeared reluctant to leave, and he could see Sarah waiting beside the shining black limousine, glaring in their direction. He applied a little pressure to Ruth’s arm.

  ‘Yes,’ Efraim said. ‘A work camp called Spring Hill near a town called Cooma.’

  A work camp, Ruth thought, neglecting to say goodbye to the Meisells as she allowed herself to be led away. A work camp, how strange.

  ‘Ruth, what’s wrong?’ Moshe muttered. She was behaving most oddly.

  But she didn’t hear him. A work camp called Spring Hill near a town called Cooma, she thought. But the war was over. What was Samuel doing in a work camp?

  ‘It all sounds a bit dodgy to me,’ Maureen said, ‘and I’m sure it will to him. I think it might be time to tell him the truth, dear.’

  Violet shook her head adamantly.

  ‘You’re going to have to some day, Violet. It can’t stay a secret forever.’

  ‘Not just yet,’ Violet waved a hand airily, not wanting to think about it, ‘in the New Year.’

  It was Cam they were discussing, and the problem of Christmas. Violet’s mother and father expected her to spend the festive season at the property, the Campbell Christmas was always a family affair. But Violet had other plans: she and Pietro were going to Sydney.

  ‘I shall spend Christmas with my husband,’ she’d grandly announced. Violet loved saying the word ‘husband’, and as Maureen was the only person to whom she could say it, she used the term whenever possible.

  ‘He’s taking me to Sydney, Auntie Maureen.’ She’d dropped the grand manner in her childlike excitement. ‘And he’s promised we’ll stay at the Australia Hotel, and we’ll catch a Manly ferry and go to the zoo and do all the things we did last time. It’ll be like our honeymoon all over again! And I’ll be able to wear my wedding ring.’ It irked Violet that she had to keep her wedding ring hidden away in the drawer of her bedside table. ‘And everyone will know I’m married to the handsomest man in the world.’

  ‘And what will you tell your mum and dad?’ Maureen had expected her question to bring Violet crashing back to earth, but it hadn’t.

  ‘I’ll tell them that Trish from the store won a magazine competition and the prize was a trip for two to Sydney.’

  ‘What if they check with Trish?’

  ‘They can’t. She’s got three whole weeks off – her grandma’s dying in Adelaide.’ There had been a triumphant ring to Violet’s voice. ‘She left yesterday and she won’t be back until the New Year.’

  ‘A magazine competition?’ Maureen had been highly dubious, and that was when she’d said it all sounded a bit dodgy.

  Violet, however, remained unfazed. ‘They have them, you know, competitions like that, in magazines, I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get your facts right, is all I can say.’

  Apparently Violet did. She went home for her brother’s birthday the following Sunday, told her parents of her plans, and upon her return, announced to her aunt that it was all sorted out.

  ‘And he fell for it, your dad?’ Maureen asked in amazement.

  ‘Not at first. He wanted to know all about the competition, who was running it, what magazine and all that.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ She couldn’t help it, she was fascinated.

  ‘I showed him that.’ Violet dumped a copy of The Women’s Weekly on the kitchen table. ‘Short Story Competition’ it said on the cover. ‘Win a trip for two to Sydney’. ‘That’s what gave me the idea in the first place,’ she admitted.

  ‘Good heavens above.’

  ‘Dad got really snaky,’ Violet continued. ‘He said I was letting down the family and I was too young to go to Sydney, and then Mum jumped in. She said the family could live without me for Christmas and I was nearly nineteen years old and it was the chance of a lifetime. All downhill after that.’ She laughed, obviously suffering no pangs of conscience.

  ‘What a clever little liar you’ve become,’ Maureen remarked, a mixture of admiration and censure.

  ‘I know,’ Violet said with great pride. ‘I should have been an actress.’

  Pietro hadn’t been able to get a suite at the Australia Hotel. He’d tried to book the same one as last time, he told her, but there were no suites left. Christmas was a very busy time, they’d said when he’d telephoned, and he was lucky to get the last room available. It was a pleasant room, they’d told him, on the third floor, and it looked out over Martin Place.

  ‘I am sorry, Violetta,’ he said as she peered from the window enthralled.

  ‘I don’t mind, it’s cosier. Crikey, Pietro, just look at all the people!’

  As he’d promised, they caught a Manly ferry and visited the zoo and The Rocks, where this time he bought her a pretty silk scarf. They did everything they’d done on their previous visit – Violet was obviously a creature of habit when it came to Sydney – and her energy was boundless.

  Upon their return to the hotel, Pietro felt unnaturally tired and his head was aching, but he said nothing to Violet, not wanting to spoil things for her.

  ‘We shall ha
ve room service?’ he suggested hopefully; he didn’t relish the thought of dining in the restaurant.

  ‘Of course.’ To Violet it was a foregone conclusion: ‘Toasted sandwiches, lots and lots of them, and chocolate milkshakes.’

  They showered together and she wriggled sensually as he soaped her body, giggling at the effect she knew she was having on him. They towelled each other dry, and by the time they reached the bed Pietro’s lethargy was forgotten.

  After they’d made love, she dozed off in his arms, and Pietro, whose head was once again throbbing, felt himself drift thankfully into a deep slumber.

  Violet, her energy finally depleted, slept more soundly than she’d expected, and it was pitch dark when she awoke. She sat up startled, wondering what it was that had awoken her so abruptly and, for a moment, wondering where she was. Then she heard it again and realised it was his call that had awakened her.

  ‘Pietro …’ And a second or so later, ‘Pietro …’

  She was in the hotel room and, in the bed beside her, Pietro was calling out his own name. But it didn’t sound like him.

  ‘Pietro …’ He called out again. ‘Pietro …’

  It was as if someone was calling to him, she thought. Someone else. From far away. The sound was rhythmic, repetitive, the way a person might call for a lost dog.

  She leaned over to look at him – he’d rolled away from her in sleep. Was he having a nightmare?

  Violet didn’t know what to do. He’d never talked in his sleep before. But then this was only the third weekend they’d spent together in the few months of their marriage; perhaps he often talked in his sleep. Should she wake him or not?

  ‘Pietro …’ The call again, not loud, but unsettling. ‘Pietro …’

  Well, she certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep with that going on all night, she thought. Besides, it was time to order the toasted sandwiches.

  She jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

  ‘Pietro, wake up,’ she said, shaking him by the shoulder, not too roughly, but firmly enough. Then she jumped back, startled, as he sat bolt upright, staring ahead, apparently not seeing her.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie,’ she said soothingly. He was alarmed and she regretted having woken him so brutally. ‘You were having a nightmare.’

  It was Violetta, he realised. He’d wondered what had happened and where he was. He looked blinkingly around the room, the light seemed dazzling.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Yes. You were talking in your sleep, yelling out your name.’

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Well, not yelling really. Calling. You were calling out “Pietro”, over and over.’

  He could hear it now, the voice that used to come to him sometimes after a seizure. ‘Pietro! Pietro!’ But it hadn’t been him. Someone else had been calling his name. Then he saw the shiny shoes standing on the wooden steps. Nothing else. Just the shoes and the steps, and he heard a man’s voice calling his name. But it wasn’t a nightmare, he thought. It was a memory.

  His headache was still with him, and he put his fingers to his temples trying to ease it away.

  ‘Violetta,’ he said excitedly, ‘there is something I remember.’

  True to her promise, Violet had tried to help him recall the past. She’d talked of her childhood, encouraging him to think of his, hoping it might trigger some memory. Once when she’d talked about her first pony and her love of riding, he’d thought that he could remember a wooden horse. ‘No, no, a wooden donkey,’ he’d corrected himself.

  Violet had considered it a breakthrough. ‘Like a rocking horse,’ she’d said. ‘And a rocking horse would be inside a house, Pietro. Try to think of the house.’

  But it hadn’t worked. If anything her encouragement had had an adverse effect. The memory of the wooden donkey had disappeared, and only the goats remained.

  Violet was now once again on a mission.

  ‘What do you remember, Pietro? Tell me everything, quickly, before it goes away.’

  He told her about the shoes and the wooden steps. A man’s shoes, he said, standing on the steps, and a man’s voice calling his name.

  ‘Wooden steps,’ she said. ‘That’s a house – try to remember the house.’ If he could remember the house, Violet thought, then he might remember his parents, or his brothers and sisters, and everything else that went on inside a house. A house was a home – it meant family.

  ‘Wooden steps leading where?’ she asked. ‘A front door? A back door?’

  He kept rubbing his temples, trying to ease away the pain; if the ache in his head went, then perhaps he would remember. But all he could see was the light through the steps and the man’s shoes as they stood there.

  ‘I am beneath the house,’ he said. ‘I cannot see the door.’

  ‘It’s a cubby,’ Violet said excitedly. As a child he’d had a cubby under the house, just like she had, she thought. ‘Come out of the cubby and walk up the steps,’ she urged, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

  ‘I see floorboards above me,’ he said, ‘and light.’ He concentrated hard on the gaps in the floorboards and, through them, he thought that he could see feet. He was about to tell Violetta, but he stopped, horrified as his body started to tremble and he felt the familiar flicker of his left eye.

  ‘Go on,’ Violet urged.

  His heart was pounding, he was overcome with dread. That Violetta should see him! Did he have time to get away? Perhaps he could lock himself in the bathroom. He tried to remain calm; the more agitated he became, the quicker the seizure would be upon him. He climbed out of the bed; he was shaking now, and beads of sweat had formed on his brow. He ferreted through the pockets of his jacket slung over a chair and found the piece of leather strap.

  ‘Pietro, what is it? What’s wrong?’ She was alarmed.

  He fell, his body already beyond his control – there was no time to get away.

  She screamed and knelt beside him, then grabbed at her clothes on the chair, prepared to run for help. But he stopped her.

  ‘No, Violetta,’ he said, through teeth already chattering. ‘Stay with me.’ Resigned to the awful fact that she would witness his fit, he was determined that no-one else must see him. ‘Do not be frightened, it will not last long.’ And, as his jaw started to clench, he placed the leather strap between his teeth.

  Pietro was right; the seizure did not last long, but to Violet it went on forever. Naked and helpless, she hugged her knees to her chest, drawing herself into a ball, rocking backwards and forwards and sobbing hysterically as she watched the violent convulsions of her husband’s body, convinced that Pietro was dying.

  When it was over and she realised that he wasn’t dead, she tried to pull herself together. She must do something. She fetched a wet flannel from the bathroom and, cradling him to her, she wiped away the sweat and spittle from his face.

  ‘I’m here, Pietro,’ she whispered, tears coursing down her cheeks, ‘I’m here.’

  Someone soft and gentle was holding him, whispering words of comfort, and for a moment Pietro thought it was Sister Anna Maria. But the words were in English and Sister Anna Maria did not speak English. Then, as the world slowly came back into focus, he realised it was Violetta, and she was crying.

  ‘Sssh.’ He tried to sit up, to wipe away her tears, but his energy was sapped and he lay back exhausted. ‘A moment,’ he said, ‘a moment and I will be all right, you will see.’

  ‘Oh Pietro.’ She was openly sobbing again, overcome with relief. ‘I thought you were dying.’

  ‘Sssh … sssh …’ He held her hand.

  They remained where they were for several minutes, naked, vulnerable, each fighting to regain control. When her sobbing had stopped and when Pietro felt he was strong enough, she helped him to his feet and they sat on the bed, hugging the coverlet about them.

  He told her about his illness, the fits he’d had as a child at the convent and the diagnosis of his epilepsy.

  ‘Is that why you can’t remember?’
she asked.

  ‘Perhaps it is the epilepsy. I do not know.’

  She was riddled with guilt: she had prompted the attack by trying to help him recall his past. But when she said as much, he vehemently protested.

  ‘No, no, Violetta, is good I remember. I wish to remember.’ He did, since he’d met Violetta, he desperately wished to know about his childhood and who he had once been. ‘Is good that you help me.’

  She looked unconvinced – his epilepsy frightened her – but Pietro was insistent. His fits were rare now, he told her, he’d had only one attack since he’d been in Australia, and after the doctor had given him pills, he’d had not even a warning sign.

  ‘And so I stop taking these pills,’ he said. ‘I no longer need …’

  ‘Then that’s why you had the attack,’ she said, a mixture of accusation and relief.

  ‘I do not know,’ he answered.

  ‘Well, of course it is, Pietro. It was bloody stupid to stop taking the pills.’

  She sounded cross. More cross than he had ever heard her sound, and Pietro felt wretched. He was profoundly sorry that he had not spoken of his illness – he should have told her from the very beginning, he admitted.

  ‘But you see, Violetta,’ he protested, anxious for her to believe him, ‘I think that I am better. I have no fit for a long time. It is not like before. I think to myself that it is past. And it will be. I promise. You will see.’

  She looked at him shrewdly. ‘You thought I wouldn’t marry you if I knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, shamefaced.

  ‘Well, I would have. I love you, Pietro. For better or for worse and till death do us part, for ever and ever, I love you.’ It wasn’t a scene from a film and she didn’t think of Bette Davis; Violet was in deadly earnest, and the dialogue was all her own. ‘But you should’ve told me, just the same,’ she added.