Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  To tell the truth I’m not that interested in birds, though later with Tommy I will become so, but at that stage in my life a bird is a bird, a thing that flies and goes chirp-chirp except if it’s an emu or something like that. But she doesn’t wait for my answer and goes into the hut. Sarah and me are unsure whether to follow her or stand outside. So we stay put.

  Then after a moment or so the old lady sticks her head out of the door again, ‘Always waiting and waiting, come along, come along, children.’

  We go inside and it’s neat as a pin. The first thing we notice is this big soft carpet that nearly covers the whole area of the hut. It’s got millions of colours in it with a sort of mixed-up design which Sarah will tell me later is a mosaic. There is an army cot against the far wall with a shiny peacock-blue bed cover and along the wall directly facing the door is a bench built in with silk cushions in lots of bright colours arranged on it. There’s also a small table with a single chair drawn up to it and a beautiful white-linen broderie anglaise tablecloth covering it. On the wall opposite the bed is a counter with a mortar and pestle and a wooden cutting block and spoons and a small scale and some glass bowls. Also on the counter is, like, this little enamel dish of lots of colours like the carpet. Sticking out of it is a thin rod that looks like a little black stick, but dead straight and about six inches long. A tiny wisp of smoke is coming from it. There’s also this strange smell about the place. I mean it’s not a truly bad smell, like poo, just different, like it’s foreign and you wouldn’t choose to have it around the place. I’ve never smelled anything like it before and I can only think it must be coming from the stick. There’s enough smells around in the bush and not all of them the best, so why would you go and make one yourself that was a bit on the nose?

  Under the counter made from cut-out four-gallon kerosene cans joined together on their sides are storage drawers and the woman’s painted each of the drawers a different colour, pink and blue and violet and yellow and white and red.

  All the furniture has been built with bush carpentry but it’s very tidy. Above the counter are shelves to the ceiling with mostly Fowler’s Vacola preserving jars and a few old books on them. There’s stuff in the jars but it isn’t preserves; sticks and dried leaves and bits of bark and seeds and a few things floating. Not snakes, lizards or toads, just sort of vegetable and root things in green-looking liquid that could be dirty water. We can see all this because behind the long bench is a window that is open and throws light into the whole place which isn’t a bit spooky. On the wall next to the window is a large oval framed photograph of Queen Elizabeth. If you didn’t know it was a bark hut, you’d think you were in a beautiful room, which you were I suppose.

  ‘This is lovely broderie anglaise,’ Sarah says, going over to the table and touching the freshly starched tablecloth.

  ‘Goodness gracious me, you knowing broderie anglaise?’ the old lady says in a surprised voice.

  ‘Oh, I do it all the time, did you do this yourself?’ The old girl shrugs, ‘I am having something to do with my time, my dear. Titch, it is nothing.’

  ‘It’s beautiful work,’ Sarah says, and you can hear from her voice that she means it.

  ‘My mother taught me in Calcutta when I was a little girl. She was British, my father was a Bengali, but also a gentleman. Later when my mother died and we are going to live in Fiji, they are thinking him a very pukka sahib, everyone who is knowing him is saying so. Now, sit down and we are talking the gossip.’

  She points to the long bench. Sarah and me sit down and she sits on the chair at the table. She smiles at us and her teeth are a yellow colour like Crocodile Brown’s except that almost every one has a gold filling or the whole tooth is gold. I think it’s a good thing Adolf Hitler didn’t get hold of her because she’d be a goner for sure. She also has what looks like a diamond through one side of her nose. He’d have took that quick smart as well.

  ‘First we are introducing each other and then I am making and we are drinking some Darjeeling and then we are talking the polite gossip small talk, after this you will tell me how long you have been pregnant, my dear.’

  Both of us gulp. She’s picked it right off without being told. I wonder what this Darjeeling is we have to drink, but if it’s going to help Sarah I decide I’ll drink anything except tea with no milk like Morrie and Sophie drank before they became Australian. Maybe it’s one of her secret concoctions like Bozo’s mate said she mixed, but of course not the one that got rid of it for his sister, I mean, it stands to reason she wouldn’t give that to a boy. Christ, I hope not.

  I’ve never seen an Indian before, the only black person I’ve ever seen face to face is the boxer who gave Bozo a thumping at the Royal Melbourne Show. Anyway, this lady isn’t like, you know, really black; it’s like she has a lot of sunburn and you wouldn’t think twice if you passed her in the street. Well, maybe twice, but it wouldn’t be a big deal.

  ‘I am Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri,’she laughs. ‘You are not pronouncing it, so you will call me “Mrs Rika Ray”, last and first syllables of my first and surname.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri,’ Sarah says, getting it right straight off, ‘Karpurika is a lovely-sounding name. I am Sarah Maloney and this is my brother, Mole Maloney.’ Sarah is sounding a lot more confident than I think she is inside.

  ‘Mole? That is a strange name for a boy. Mole, like the little rodent animal with the long snout that lives under the ground or the one that grows on the skin?’

  ‘The one that burrows, it’s like a nickname,’ Sarah offers. ‘He’s had it since a baby because he’d burrow under his blankets.’

  I don’t say anything but I think Karpurika Raychaudhuri is a pretty bloody strange name if you ask me. I’ve been called Mole so long I’ve forgotten it’s my nickname, even the teachers at school have taken over calling me Mole. How’d you go at school being called Karpurika Raychaudhuri?

  ‘Time for Darjeeling,’ Mrs Rika Ray announces. She goes out of the hut and comes back with the old black kettle I’d seen hanging on the tripod over the fire. She reaches for a teapot and, from one of the kero drawers under the counter, she takes three little china cups and saucers. Then she puts four teaspoons of some stuff that looks just like tea-leaves to me into the teapot and pours hot water over them. She lets it draw a bit and finally swirls the teapot slowly several times to strengthen the brew, just like you always do with tea. She lets it rest a few moments and then pours this Darjeeling out. First she hands me this delicate little cup, then Sarah, and finally herself. ‘Well, my dears, it is a happy conclusion we are looking for. Bottoms up!’

  I look at Sarah and see that she’s brought the cup up to her lips and has taken a tiny sip. Her expression doesn’t change and she doesn’t drop dead on the spot. So I take a sip, because the old lady has also done so. I can’t believe it. It’s tea without milk. Shit! Just plain ordinary tea without milk. Yuk! I’m traperated again. (Maloney word.)

  ‘Ah, nothing like a good cuppa,’ the old lady says, she’s got her eyes closed like she’s in heaven. (Boy, some people have a lot to learn.) ‘The English have never learned the secret of tea. They take this pure ambrosia, this nectar from the Gods grown on a gentle hillside estate so the bushes will be nourished by the early-morning mist, and then they are pouring fat and sugar into it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were savages. Though, I do believe the Queen is also drinking her tea Darjeeling-style and without the fat and sugar. A very, very beautiful lady.’

  There’s no place to put the tea and maybe when she’s not looking I can throw it out the window, but she’s sitting right opposite us and if I take a chance and she sees me throwing away this stuff from the Gods that’s not proper tea, maybe she won’t help Sarah. When we get out, I’m going to tell Sarah she owes me a roast dinner.

  The old lady glances over to Sarah, ‘Now, my dear, it is not usual to be discussing these womanly matter
s with a young boy present.’

  Sarah blushes, she goes red all over and she can’t hide it, I can see she’s nervous. ‘Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri, Mole knows all about everything. We discuss everything together in my family.’ She hesitates, like she’s looking for the right words. ‘Ah ...er...it’s just I’d feel better if he was here.’

  Mrs Rika Ray smiles, ‘It’s all right, my dear. I’m not a witch, you know. I’m a healer, an Ayurvedic doctor. Ours is a very, very old medical tradition that is going back for many, many thousands of years. It is all right for your brother to stay if you say so. Now I must ask you some questions. You have to be telling me the absolute truth, you understand?’ Sarah nods. ‘When did you fall pregnant?’

  Sarah looks confused, ‘You mean, when did he, the boy, do it to me?’ ‘That will do nicely.’

  ‘We’ve been going out a year almost. I started going out with him after the school social last September and we’ve been seeing each other ever since. Then the fifteenth of August it was my boyfriend’s birthday and, well, I just couldn’t say no again.’

  ‘I see, it only happened once after all that time, you are a good girl, Sarah. It is not easy when the male person is always jolly well going on and on about it, wanting, wanting, all the time wanting. Tell me now, when was your period due and how soon after?’

  ‘Yes, ah . . . my period? It was due a week later.’ Sarah’s voice is very small and she starts to blush again.

  ‘That is very unfortunate. Why didn’t you come to me before this? Over three months is very difficult.’

  ‘We only heard about you yesterday. Please, Mrs Raychaudhuri, can you help me?’

  ‘My dear, I can see you are a very nice young lady and also very unlucky. But I must tell you the honest truth, I don’t know if I can help.’

  ‘But what about Angela Morrison, you helped her?’

  ‘We don’t use names here. After you have left, I will not recall your name, it is better like that. But the girl you mention has missed her periods two weeks only, that is very, very different matter.’

  ‘Angela wouldn’t tell me how much it will cost,’ Sarah says, coming close to tears.

  ‘Cost? No, my dear, I am not an abortionist. I am a natural healer. For gallstones, kidney infection, lung congestion, urinary-tract blockage, haemorrhoids, blood cleansing, rheumatics and a hundred other afflictions there is a definite charge. For this, I do not take money.’ She looks at Sarah, she has these dark eyes with dark rings around them, her eyes are like shining pieces of coal and they have grown soft and polished. ‘Why always the woman must do the suffering? You have come very late, herbs work best in the first month, you are already four months.’ ‘Oh, please, please can’t we just try,’ Sarah begs.

  ‘Yes, Sarah, we can try, that is all I can promise. It will not be very nice and I don’t think it will work.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you!’ Sarah cries, ‘I don’t care how awful it is.’

  The old lady gets up and walks over and selects five of the jars from the shelf and puts them down next to the black kettle.

  ‘Can you build up the fire, Master Mole?’she asks me. I nod and she points to the black kettle, then takes a tin mug from a hook under one of the shelves and puts it beside the kettle. ‘Fill it from the creek, the water is sweet, then boil me the kettle and bring it in.’

  I go over to get the kettle and the mug. The jars are right next to it, I’m quite good at remembering names of things and I see the labels on three of the jars, the other two are turned the wrong way around, but it’s no good because the names are written in some strange language with lots of curves and squiggles and dots. It must be Indian, I suppose.

  ‘When you are bringing back the kettle boiling, then also bring me the second smallest pot that’s hanging there by the fire,’ the old lady instructs.

  I take the big old kettle out and fill it from the creek using the tin mug. It isn’t too difficult getting the fire going and I soon have a good flame licking up. I sit on an old log which you can see is used as a seat because the bark is stripped and the wood is polished from the old lady’s bum.

  There’s lots of things going through my head and I’m feeling very confused. Nobody’s told me anything about babies and I can’t even imagine what’s inside Sarah’s tummy. I think maybe it’s like the kewpie doll Bozo won at the Melbourne Show, only smaller. So how’s it going to come out of Sarah just because she drinks something? What’s a period? Why must it be due? The old lady has also said we’ve waited too long and maybe it won’t work. What will happen then? If it is a small kewpie doll, is it alive? The more I think about it the more I worry because there’s nobody to ask. I could ask Morrie Suckfizzle but we’ve been banned. He’d know because he’s a doctor. I’m only twelve years old but I sense that everything is changing for us, that things will never be the same again and that Sarah may be in some sort of danger and there’s nothing I can do to protect her.

  The kettle boils and I take it and the pot back into the hut and the old lady starts to work. She puts two tablespoons of something from one of the jars into the pot and pours about a quart of water from the kettle onto it. ‘Here, take,’ she says, handing me the pot, ‘put it again on the fire and bring it to a boil for a few minutes, Master Mole.’

  I do as she says, the liquid in the pot is a sort of bluish colour but also brownish and I wait for it to boil for about three minutes before I take it back. She’s put the herbs in the other four jars into an empty Vacola jar. She takes the pot from me, pours the stuff I’ve boiled over the other herbs then seals the jar with the rubber ring and clip and lets it stand for a while. During the time we’re waiting, she tells us how part of her family came to Fiji to work in the sugar plantations as indentured labour and eventually prospered and became merchants and, two generations later, her part of the family, herself and her father, followed to help with a shipping business the family had become interested in. She told us how she’d married an Australian sea captain who turned out to be ‘an all-round rotten rascal’. He brought her back to Australia, where he used to get drunk and beat her so she left him and went back to her own name again ‘because blood’s thicker than water’. Her husband’s name was Porter and you’d think she’d have stuck with it because Australians can remember a name like Porter but they’ll never remember Karpurika Raychaudhuri.

  After the stuff in the jar has stood a while, she strains it through this sieve back into the pot and reheats it. This time she goes to the fire herself because she says she doesn’t want it to boil. Then she pours this dark liquid it’s become into the Vacola jar again, seals it and turns to Sarah.

  ‘Every four hours you must be taking a steaming cupful during the day for five days, but also you must add one tablespoon brewer’s yeast I am giving you. Now, my dear, I am warning you, there is blue cohosh root and it is toxic so we must be careful. If you are getting headaches or want ing to do the vomit, you are calling the doctor or you are sending Master Mole to get me, no ifs or buts, we must be very, very careful.’

  She turns to me, ‘Master Mole, you must come here every day for five days to get another jar. I am making fresh every day for Sarah.’ Now she puts her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, ‘Don’t be hoping for too much, my dear. It is very late that you are coming and I cannot promise the making of miracles.’

  Sarah thanks Mrs Raychaudhuri and then bursts into tears.

  ‘Now, now, my dear, we can only be hoping for the best,’ the old lady says.

  On the way back with me carrying the jar in a brown paper bag and her carrying the yeast, I ask her about the little burning stick.

  ‘I think it’s called incense,’ Sarah says, ‘I read about it once.’

  ‘Why would you smell up the place like that when you didn’t have to?’ I ask.

  ‘It must be an Indian thing, different people like different smells and dislike others we might like quite a lo
t.’

  ‘Morrie and Sophie don’t have different smells,’ I point out.

  ‘Yes they do. Sophie can’t stand the smell of boiled mutton. That’s what they got every day in Bonegilla and people from Europe don’t know about mutton, but we like the smell of roast lamb, don’t we?’

  ‘Everyone knows about mutton!’ I exclaim, ‘There’s more sheep in New Zealand than people.’

  ‘New Zealand’s not in Europe!’ Sarah says.

  ‘I know that! I just told you a fact I knew,’ I say defensively.

  I think Sarah’s heard enough about mutton because she stops and puts her hand on my shoulder, ‘Mole, you’re not to tell anyone about our visit to the old lady today.’

  ‘Not even Mike and Bozo?’ I don’t like that, we share everything and now Sarah wants me to keep a secret on my own.

  ‘They’ll only worry. Mike will be silent and Bozo will be walking around the place with a big frown and a long face so Nancy will cotton on there’s something wrong. Best keep it to ourselves, eh, Mole.’ I don’t like it, though I reluctantly agree because she’s right, that’s exactly what will happen.

  ‘What if something happens to you?’ I say, though I’m not sure what that something might be.

  ‘We better hope it does, then Nancy will think it’s a miscarriage,’ Sarah says and I can see she’s very upset and there’s tears running down. ‘Mole, let’s not talk about it any more.’ She starts to cry as we walk along and I don’t know what to do to comfort her. At least I know what a miscarriage is.