Kimberley Sun

by Di Morrissey

  Dave roused them all at sunrise with a loud banging of a frying pan, and by eight o’clock they were under way again. Palmer surprised everyone by asking to dive with Tim, producing a diving certificate from his bag. ‘I had to investigate some undersea rock markings in a cave once. I don’t get much opportunity these days, so I couldn’t pass this up.’

  ‘What about you, Ross? You want to dive?’ asked Lily.

  Ross shook his head. ‘I prefer to bring the fish into my world, rather than the other way around, thanks.’

  Although nothing was happening on the boat, and the weather was perfect, Dave kept an alert watch, regularly scanning the sea around them while the two men were in the water.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Lily.

  ‘Not sure until I see it,’ he replied. ‘The ocean can throw up some surprises, so it pays to keep a good watch. Old habits can be good habits.’

  ‘I’ll remember that. Can I use the binoculars?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Soon, Lily sighted some fins.

  ‘Dolphins. I spotted them some time ago,’ said Dave before checking again with the glasses.

  Eventually the two divers broke the surface. Tim gave the thumbs up. ‘I reckon this could be good,’ he called out. ‘Bit of a muddy bottom, no wild shell to speak of but the seabed is great for the anchors of the longlines. They’ll bury into the mud and the lines can’t drift, even in cyclones.’ He climbed back into the boat. ‘The downside is the muddy bottom – if we lose a panel of shells from the longlines they’ll be buried in the mud.’

  ‘No hassle. So long as we attach the downlines correctly there shouldn’t be a problem,’ explained Dave.

  Palmer was treading water. ‘The optimum is almost always a compromise, in pearl farming as well as in most other endeavours.’

  ‘Maybe,’ retorted Lily. ‘But when it comes to doing things properly, I won’t compromise.’

  C h a p t e r S i x t e e n

  WAKING AT PICCANINNY DAYLIGHT IN THE REMOTE Dari outstation was one of the delights of being in a place so removed from what Sami found herself calling ‘the other world’. She was sleeping in a small room in one of the prefabricated houses. She’d spread her swag on a narrow bed with a thin and grubby mattress. Three children had taken to sleeping on a mattress on the floor beside her, curled together in a tangled nest of blankets.

  They didn’t stir when she got up early and went outside, a light rug draped around her shoulders. The air was clear, breath catching. The stars were fading. She loved the dawn. Since being on the fringe of the desert she had become more intensely aware of her surroundings. With Palmer at the rock art sites of the east Kimberley plateau the environment was comparatively lush, fecund, overwhelming her with its mysterious gorges, caves and waterways. Here the stark simplicity and openness offered nowhere to hide – metaphorically or physically.

  Sami had spent the past couple of days watching the women weave and paint. She noticed how they learned from Leila, then adapted their new skills to expressing their ancient culture. She also sat with Leila under a slim bloodwood tree some distance from the settlement, trading stories about their families, their lives and their cultures. Leila had been intrigued when Sami revealed the family connection with Broome and the Aboriginal bloodline.

  Hearing a rattle of metal in the main house Sami figured someone was making tea and wandered over. She found Farouz in the kitchen with Gussie fussing over toast, tea bags and rolled oats.

  ‘I’m making porridge, you want some?’ she asked.

  ‘Thanks, Gussie, that would be great. Fabulous morning, isn’t it?’

  Farouz was already dressed for the day, his scarf and his jacket on to counter the morning chill. ‘Gussie’s husband and a couple of mates are taking a truck back past Webster’s place this morning. They can drop me off. I reckon Bobby will be there by now,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh! I’m not ready to go,’ she exclaimed. It was a complete surprise to Sami. Farouz hadn’t said a word about the trip the night before. ‘Come on, Farouz, surely you can put it off for a day or two. Time doesn’t matter that much out here, does it?’

  Farouz avoided looking at her. ‘You don’t have to come with me. Stay. It is important you talk with Leila. It’s not too hard for you to follow the track back to Broome, is it?’

  ‘I guess I can drive back all right,’ said Sami, once again caught by surprise and not entirely comfortable with the idea of doing the trip alone.

  Sensing her trepidation Farouz added, ‘Stay at Webster’s one night. Get him on the radio and let him know when you’re coming.’ His tone indicated that the matter was closed, and she accepted the situation.

  Gussie plonked a bowl of porridge in front of her. ‘Good to see you not rushin’ off, runnin’ on town time. You startin’ to learn about still time.’

  ‘Sitting still, you mean?’ said Sami, pouring the powdered milk mix over her oatmeal. ‘I’m not good at inactivity. Sitting and talking is okay.’

  ‘Your head needs rest too, you know,’ said Gussie. ‘Otherwise it get sore. Too much working.’

  ‘Headache,’ said Farouz, tapping his head with a spoon.

  Sami swallowed and decided not to admit she’d had a headache when she went to bed last night feeling utterly exhausted, just like the evening before that. ‘Okay. I’ll sit still with Leila today. She wants to tell me her carpet story.’

  ‘Leila and Majnun. It’s a very good one, very sad,’ said Farouz, then he raised the issue Sami had been expecting. ‘What will happen about our Leila?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it. I’m going to ask Harlan to help, take her case on. She’s been through so much. And she has so much to offer. But it is going to be difficult, you know. Illegals, particularly with her racial background, aren’t the flavour of the month, are they?’

  ‘Not that different from this mob, eh?’ said Farouz, and their eyes met briefly as he walked to the sink with his bowl. When he came back to the table, she gave him a smile and nodded. There was no need for words.

  Farouz walked onto the verandah and looked at the sky. ‘Yeah, it’s goin’ to be another good day for all of us,’ he called over his shoulder. He was satisfied that bringing Sami here had proved worthwhile.

  Sami watched Leila say goodbye to Farouz with tears in her eyes. She unwound the woven belt from her waist and held it out to him, palms up in a gesture of offering. ‘The strands in this come from your land here, from your favourite old camel, and my own hair. See, I have embroidered the sun onto the tassel band. She embraced him three times. ‘We are all one under the sun.’

  ‘Tashakor.’

  ‘Bemone khoda.’

  Farouz turned to Sami. ‘You too travel safely. See you back in Broome.’ He gave her a quick hug.

  ‘Say hello to Bobby for me.’ Sami took Leila’s hand as Farouz got into the truck with Gussie’s husband and two other men climbed into the back. A plume of dust swirled behind the truck as it headed across the red sandy plain.

  ‘Farouz is as close to family as I’ll ever have here,’ said Leila quietly.

  ‘No. We can be sisters,’ said Sami, giving Leila’s hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘We really can. And the women here, they think of you as one of them. A skin relation, Gussie said.’ But Sami knew her words were not enough. Even in the dry desert heat Leila looked pale and frail as if the sun was slowly bleaching the vibrancy from her.

  In the late afternoon as it became cooler, Gussie and two of the painters took Leila and Sami on a short walk. ‘Mebbe we find tucker, mebbe we find something to use for the painting.’ Sami had talked to them about the work Serena was doing at her mother’s pearl farm; making collage landscape pictures with natural materials.

  Leila understood, pointing out the different coloured sand, pebbles, grasses, seeds, flowers, tubers and insects that since coming here she had learned could be used for dye-making. She talked of traditional Afghan formulas using plants that had been soaked, squeezed, pounded, dried or b
oiled to make the subtle, long lasting colours for the carpets. The master dye-maker of a tribe was a minor king in nomadic societies. The Aboriginal women were particularly interested when Leila talked of the mystique of potions and dyes, and the ancient belief that spells could be invoked. When it came to talking about the power of the spirit world, these women were on common ground. And then, to Sami’s delight, they had a great session, punctuated by giggles, as they talked of luring men and sexual practices to bewitch and keep the men, or dispose of a rival.

  They walked slowly, stopping to look at an ant nest, admire the blossom on a kapok bush, watch a flock of hundreds of budgerigars swooping in an emerald cloud, turning as one, flashing red as they changed direction. From the smallest sharp blades of spinifex to a distant rock formation shaped like a lizard basking in the sun, every object, every natural eruption, seemed unique, unearthly, significant. As Sami absorbed these images, the women told her the Dreaming stories that related to all they were looking at. Sami felt for a moment as if she were hallucinating, everything was magnified to intense and brilliant detail.

  She blinked and brought herself back to the moment as Leila stopped by a small tree. It was leafless, covered instead with scarlet tube-shaped flowers that looked like stars. Leila turned to Gussie. ‘What is this flower? I know it. We have the same one – the desert rose.’

  ‘That’s the Kimberley rose,’ declared Gussie.

  Leila stroked the flower with great tenderness. ‘The rose is part of the story . . . of Leila and Majnun. It’s on my carpet, the gul, the rose.’

  Sami was trying to decipher the loving expression and emotion the little desert flower had precipitated in Leila – part relief, incredulity and sadness. ‘Let’s sit in the shade over by those rocks and you can tell us the story. It seems to mean so much to you.’

  Gussie joined them as they settled in the sand beside big yellow and red boulders that some two million years ago were under the vast sea that once covered this great desert. The other Aboriginal women went off collecting more material for their art. Leila began . . .

  Your stories begin ‘Once upon a time’. And so it was that Leila and Majnun met in their class at school. And they fell instantly in love. Majnun rushed to school early to see her. Leila repeatedly wrote his name all over her slate. The teachers were worried that they were neglecting their studies so spoke to their parents. Leila was taken away and finally Majnun’s parents also had to take him away from the school because he was so distraught. His parents called physicians, soothsayers, healers, magicians, and poured money at their feet, asking them for some remedy to take the thought of Leila from Majnun’s heart. But how could it be done? There is no cure for the lovesick.

  They took Majnun on the pilgrimage to Ka’bat-ullah. When they drew near to the Ka’ba a crowd gathered to see them as they had heard about the great love of Majnun for Leila. His parents prayed that the heart of their only son be released from the pain of this love and he could concentrate on his studies. In the end they sent a message to Leila’s parents, who were of another faith, saying, ‘We have done all we can to take away from Majnun the yearning for Leila, but without success, so we ask your consent to their marriage.’

  They answered, ‘Even if it exposes us to the scorn of our people, because Leila never forgets Majnun for one single moment, we will give her in marriage to Majnun, once we are convinced he is a good and sensible man.’

  Now, Majnun was a poet with great gifts but no one knew or understood this. His passion for Leila was so strong that people thought he was mad. So Leila’s parents changed their minds and took Leila away again. Majnun was desperate, wandering through the town asking everyone where he might find her.

  No one would tell him until one day he met a man with a camel who told him he was carrying a message to Leila’s parents. Majnun asked him to take a message to Leila. He walked beside the man and talked of how much he loved Leila. So long a time did he take that they had walked a hundred miles and had reached the place where Leila was living. The camel man told Majnun to hide in a ruined mosque outside the town and he would tell Leila where he was.

  Although her parents kept Leila inside the house, the man was able to whisper to her that Majnun was nearby and he was weak with love for her. So she gave her maid food to take to him. When the maid got to the mosque a fat man approached her. ‘I have this food for Majnun.’

  ‘That is me,’ replied the fat man, and he took the food.

  Every day Leila sent food to Majnun, who grew weaker as the other man grew fatter. At last Leila asked, ‘Why does Majnun not send me a message?’

  The maid replied, ‘He is too fat.’

  Leila asked if there was more than one man at the mosque and the maid said, ‘Yes. There is a pale poet and the fat man who takes the food.’

  ‘That is the wrong man. Tomorrow take just a knife and ask Majnun to give drops of his blood for Leila as she is ill.’

  So the next day the maid did this but the fat man refused and said, ‘That poor boy there is Majnun.’ On hearing of Leila’s request, Majnun slashed at his arms so the blood flowed. It poured down his arms, splashing on the white flowers growing outside the mosque, turning them red.

  Leila sent one last message – for Majnun to meet her in the desert. He went there and waited . . . like a statue, his eyes fixed on the horizon. At last she came before him and said, ‘Majnun, I am here.’

  He held her hands and pressed them to his breast and said, ‘Leila, you will not leave me again?’

  ‘Majnun, I have been able to come for one moment. If I stay any longer my people will seek me and your life will not be safe.’

  ‘I do not care for life,’ he cried. ‘You are my life, oh stay, do not leave me any more.’

  ‘I will come back and be with you, I promise,’ said Leila. But Leila’s maid told her parents she had seen Majnun and so they took her away. Leila did not return.

  Majnun, who had so long lived on his own flesh and blood, could no longer stand up. He fell backward against the trunk of a tree, and he remained there, living only on hope. Years passed and Majnun’s body was exposed to the cold, heat and rain. His hands that were holding the branches became branches themselves, his body became a part of the tree.

  One day Leila was able to travel alone to find her Majnun, living only in one hope that she might fulfil her promise to return. As she was looking for the place where she had left him she met a woodcutter, who said to her, ‘Don’t go that way. There is some ghost there.’

  Leila asked, ‘What kind of ghost?’

  ‘It is a tree and at the same time a man. As I struck a branch of this tree with my hatchet I heard him say in a deep sigh, “Oh, Leila”.’

  Hearing this moved Leila beyond description. Drawing near she saw Majnun turned into the tree. She called out, ‘Majnun!’

  ‘Leila!’

  ‘I am here as I promised, dearest Majnun.’

  He answered, ‘I am Leila.’

  ‘No, I am Leila. Look at me.’

  Majnun said, ‘Is it really you? Then if I am not Leila, I am dead.’

  Leila, seeing this perfection in love, could not live a single moment more. At the same time she cried the name of Majnun and fell down and died at the foot of the tree. And every year the red desert rose bursts into bloom – so the love of Leila and Majnun is never forgotten.

  ‘Oh, how sad, what a beautiful story,’ sighed Sami.

  ‘That picture of the tree and that story be on your carpet bag,’ said Gussie, a tear rolling down her cheek.

  Leila crushed the pink flower in her hands. ‘Like Majnun, I have lost my loves.’

  Sami felt her heart go out to Leila, and she instinctively put her arm around her shoulder and leant her head against Leila’s. They stayed close for a few moments, Leila allowing herself to be comforted. Sami felt unsure of what to say in the face of this awful truth.

  ‘Stories be ways of telling true,’ said Gussie, breaking the silence. ‘See over there, by that
little sand hill, that bigfella rock, that be a Dreamtime story. How it come here. We tell the story ’bout dem and they stay alive, ya know?’

  Gussie set out to join the other women, while Sami and Leila walked back to the settlement in silence. Suddenly a striped spinifex pigeon darted in front of them, its head bobbing synchronised with its comical waddling gait, before it gave a startled coo and took off. Sami smiled. It was like so many other sights and sounds of nature that she had become acutely aware of over the past week. It was, she thought, like finding something spiritual, which completely reshaped her perspective of the world around her, and perhaps even perceptions of her own being. The Dreaming stories that went with so much she had experienced provided a meaningful heritage which belonged to her as well. Just as the story behind the Afghan desert rose was part of Leila’s heritage.

  Bobby rang Lily as soon as he was back in Broome. He relayed a message from Farouz that Sami was enjoying being with the artists. Lily was grateful, as she had been unable to make telephone contact with Sami since she headed into the desert.

  ‘Any idea when she’ll be coming back?’

  ‘Farouz reckoned she needed a few more days out there. We got back late yesterday.’

  ‘She’s coming back through that country on her own?’ Lily was both surprised and impressed.

  ‘Yeah. Farouz wasn’t worried about that. He said Sami could handle the drive without any trouble. It’s not exactly a freeway, but she’s been over it once.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll call me when she gets a bit closer to civilisation. So what’s next, Bobby?’

  ‘I was thinking of heading up your way, after seeing my uncle at the community.’

  ‘That’s great. Drop in. Stay a while if you like. Hey, how about bringing Mika up too? She said she wanted to see the place.’