Fireshadow

by Anthony Eaton

  Adam laughed again. He had straggly blonde hair, thick with salt and sand which shook out a fine cloud as his head moved.

  ‘Got him well trained, eh? Cool. Come and siddown.’

  They followed the older boy across to where a group of teenagers, all around his sister’s age, lounged listlessly on towels. There were a few greetings for Kat and a few curious stares at him but, apart from those, none of the others even acknowledged Vinnie’s presence. He settled himself a little apart, spreading his towel carefully so as not to get it sandy. Then there was nothing to do but listen to the others talk.

  ‘How’d you go in your exams?’

  ‘Crap. Bloody Johnson gave me a “D” for phys-ed.’

  ‘Serious? That must be the first D you’ve ever got in your life.’

  ‘It is. My dad went apeshit.’

  The sun was hot and the water was glistening, the deep blue of the Indian Ocean. On the horizon the holiday island of Rottnest crouched shimmering. Ignoring the sniggers directed his way from the older kids, Vinnie smeared greasy sunscreen across his arms and back.

  ‘I’m goin’ for a swim, Kat.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She barely looked at him. ‘Just be careful, all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Glad to be away from his sister’s friends, Vinnie hopped across the sand until he reached the cool slush at the tideline. From up on the beach the water looked calm, but now Vinnie realised how big the surf really was. Waves curved around the end of the groin, building in the shallow water until their crests broke about twenty-five metres out then rolled all the way in to the beach, their faces torn by a legion of kids on boogie boards who skidded them all the way into the shallows.

  ‘Cool.’

  Vinnie wasn’t worried. He was a strong swimmer, already big for his age.

  A concrete pylon about three metres high jutted from the water thirty or forty metres out. Vinnie’s father had told him once that it was the remains of a shark net, or something like that. Someone had tied an old piece of rope around it and a group of boys about his own age were clambering up and leaping from the top, timing their jumps into the crests of the passing waves. He glanced back to where Kat and her friends were paying him no attention whatsoever and with a quick, deep breath he waded a few steps and dived into the foaming face of the next big wave.

  After the baking heat of the sun the water stung his body, raising instant gooseflesh, and he felt himself lift out the back of the wave, gasping a quick, salty breath before ducking under the next one. Then up again, a couple of steps, another wave and the sandy bottom disappeared from under him. Two or three strong kicks under water and Vinnie was through the break, striking out for his target in measured, even strokes.

  Once atop the pylon he stopped for a couple of minutes to catch his breath. From out here the beach appeared further away than the pylon had looked from the beach. The waves drove around the old concrete with a thundering hiss that surged up and down the rounded sides, making the entire structure tremble slightly. He could see Katia and her group, a dark cluster of tiny figures against the gleaming white expanse of sand. He waved, but no one waved back.

  ‘Come on, mate, hurry up, eh?’

  The speaker was another kid clinging to the rope at his feet, impatient to climb up and leap off himself.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Vinnie watched the next wave thunder towards him and, trying not to notice the dark shadows on the bottom of the bay, dived out into the blue.

  Leaping from the pylon filled the hot summer afternoon. Sometimes other kids would chat, comment and joke about each other’s form, sometimes one would swim out, rest for a few moments, jump off once and swim straight in again without comment to anyone. As the afternoon wound past, though, more and more of the kids headed in, until finally Vinnie found himself alone on the crumbling structure.

  ‘Cool.’ There was just enough room to sit, so he settled for a few minutes, studying the beach again, looking at the families herding their children up the sand to the cold freshwater showers beside the surf club. The lifeguards were knocking off, rolling up the red and yellow flags at either end of the patrol area and loading them onto a mini four-wheel drive. A figure on the beach caught his attention. It was Katia, waving furiously.

  ‘Shit!’ The time. He’d forgotten all about it. Kat would kill him if they missed the last bus.

  He waved back and launched himself off the pylon, noticing as he did so that in the time he’d been out there the wind had come up and the waves seemed a little larger than they had on the swim out.

  He swam hard, feeling the water curl around and suck at him but preoccupied with what Kat was going to say. Two big waves lifted him and slipped beneath, sliding powerfully in to the sand. Ten more strokes and then another wave. But this one kept lifting him higher and higher and by the time Vinnie realised something was wrong he found himself right at the lip of the wave as it curled to smash in upon itself.

  Vinnie gasped, a quick, choking, cut-off breath, as the monstrous green behemoth hurled him down and then slammed him with enough force to knock the wind from him. He tumbled over and over in a world of salty, airless white and then felt a sharp blow in the small of his back as he hit the sandy bottom. He was sucked up again, rolling once more through the water column until finally he surfaced in the deep channel that ran parallel to the beach, the channel through which the water flinging itself onto the sand was escaping before flowing out to sea.

  Gasping a mouthful of salt water, Vinnie attempted to strike out again for the beach before the next wave caught him, but the longshore rip had him now and was pulling him sideways. He tried to spin into the force, to lever himself against it, but his arms were burning, an incredible pain building in his shoulders. The more he struggled into the current, the worse it got. Briefly, in the trough between two waves, his toes brushed the sandy bottom and he scrabbled for purchase, but quickly and mercilessly he was lifted back away and along the channel.

  Then he was under, struggling. The water closed over his head, almost without him being aware of actually sinking. Kicking hard, he burst to the surface, gasped a quick breath and was about to go under again when someone grabbed the back of his boardies.

  Everything went grey for a few seconds and then he was out of the current, in shallow water, struggling his feet into the soft bottom and stumbling through the shallows beside his sister until both of them collapsed on the damp sand.

  ‘Shit, Vinnie. You all right?’

  Through the massive, sobbing breaths wracking his body, Vinnie managed a nod.

  ‘You scared the hell out of me, Vin.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Look at me.’ She grabbed his chin and turned his head to face hers.

  ‘Please don’t ever scare me like that again, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  The two of them sat panting for what seemed ages, until Katia eventually climbed to her feet again.

  ‘You up to walking?’ She offered a hand and pulled Vinnie up.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good then. We’ve missed the bus.’

  ‘How’ll we get home?’

  ‘Walk until we find a phone. Then I’ll call Dad.’

  ‘Kat?’

  ‘Yeah, Vin?’

  ‘Thanks. I was stuffed there.’

  ‘Whatever. You’d do the same for me.’

  They collected their towels and trudged through the thick sand towards the car park. There was a public phone about four hundred metres away, so they called home and settled down to wait for their father.

  August 1947

  ‘Erich?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why do you not talk with me about what happened in Australia?’

  Erich stopped and looked at his sister. The summer air was warm and bird calls echoed about the garden.

 
‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Whatever it is that you are not telling me. I am your sister, after all. You should talk to me.’

  He started walking again. With every passing week her weight on his arm was becoming appreciably heavier. She was also able to walk further each time, with less and less assistance.

  ‘There are things I do not want to bother you with.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Mathilde laughed. ‘You were always far too serious about yourself. What happened?’

  He didn’t answer and for several seconds the only sound was their footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway. A couple of hundred yards behind them, anyone watching from the verandah of the hospital would have been forgiven for thinking them to be a couple of young lovers, out for a summer stroll.

  ‘Was it a girl?’ Mathilde nudged him, her tone gently teasing, but his sudden, sharp intake of breath gave him away.

  ‘It was, wasn’t it? What was her name?’

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Erich steered his sister towards a nearby bench.

  ‘Is it that serious?’ Mathilde kept the light-hearted tone, but something about her brother’s manner was starting to alarm her. ‘Are you going to run back to your Australian girlfriend and leave me stranded here?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  They settled side by side, Mathilde’s arm still linked through his own.

  ‘Her name was Alice.’

  Mathilde stayed quiet, not interrupting, and for over an hour Erich talked. He told her everything about his time in Marrinup. About Stutt and Günter, the doctor, Guard Thomas and, of course, Alice. How they met. How they said farewell. About the baby. Only when he got to telling her about Doctor Alexander’s final letter did he stop, his voice cracking.

  ‘Why are you so upset? I will come to Australia with you. You know I will.’

  ‘No.’

  Mathilde dropped her arm from his and stared closely at him.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Erich. She is your lover and the mother of your child. You must go to her.’

  Wordlessly, Erich reached into an inside pocket and brought out a piece of much folded, once-white paper, which he handed to her.

  As she read the letter, her face crumpled.

  ‘Oh, Erich. My poor, poor brother. You loved her?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  She said nothing more for some time, until finally, ‘This changes nothing, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Of course, you must still return to Australia. It says here that you will still be most welcome. We both will.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Erich shook his head, doubt belying his words.

  ‘But perhaps not.’

  ‘You are being stupid.’

  ‘No. You will not be able to leave here for some time and that means that I will stay too.’

  ‘I can manage without you.’

  ‘Be that as it may, you are my only family left. I won’t leave you again.’

  ‘Erich!’ For the first time in as long as he could remember, his sister was genuinely angry. ‘How can you dare to tell me all of these things, and then ignore my advice, as though I have lost the capacity for intelligence? You are as arrogant as father sometimes.’

  ‘Not at all. I just know where my duty lies.’

  ‘Like you did when you went off to the war?’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘No. No it wasn’t, brother. When you went off to fight, everyone knew it was to impress father, to make him proud of you for following in the family tradition and being honourable. Except it wasn’t like that, was it? We both know that. But that is what you’re doing again right now, Erich. Pretending that there’s some higher cause driving you, because you’re too scared or uninformed to face up to the reality of your life.’

  ‘At the moment you are the reality of my life, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘And that baby? In Australia? The one you fathered? Are you telling me she isn’t part of your responsibility? Of your family?’

  ‘Of course, but she is fine, being loved and looked after, and you have no one left except me, so that is where my priorities must be for the moment. Later, who knows, but for now . . .’

  ‘You can be so pig-headed, do you know that?’

  ‘I take after my sister.’

  The two were silent, neither making eye contact. Finally it was Mathilde who broke the quiet.

  ‘So then, if you are not going, what will you do with yourself?’

  Erich shrugged. ‘I do not know. Wait for you to get healthy again, I guess.’

  ‘No. Not enough. That isn’t a suitable job for anyone. Waiting.’

  ‘Well, what do you want, then? Answer me?’

  Mathilde rested her hand lightly on his forearm. ‘Erich, you know I love you more than anything else. And you know that I wouldn’t have survived that camp if I hadn’t known, deep inside myself, that you would come and find me. But I won’t have you rescue me at the expense of your own life. I couldn’t live with that.’

  Erich said nothing. He held his back straight and his gaze imperious as she continued.

  ‘If you are not going to go back to Australia for this child, then that is your decision. Only you can make it and if it is what you think best, then I will support you. But Erich, I won’t have you sitting around all day waiting on me. And I don’t want you to be clearing rubble from building sites for the rest of your life. That’s no life for anyone, especially not a strong young man with so much to offer. So you must find something, a path to follow, because it is the only way you will find happiness. That is all I am saying.’

  Her grip tightened on his arm, and, turning, Erich noticed pale beads of moisture on her brow and upper lip.

  ‘You are all right?’

  ‘I am very tired, that is all. I am not used to all this talking.’

  ‘We should head back up to the house.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was slow to her feet and once back in the dim coolness of the ward she eased onto the bed, clearly exhausted, and appeared to fall asleep almost at once. Erich crept from the room, but when he reached the door her voice stopped him.

  ‘Erich?’

  He met her gaze steadily.

  ‘Please think about what I have said. You don’t know how much it hurts me to say these things to you, but there is no one else to tell you.’

  ‘Sleep now. I will be back this evening.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He closed the door as quietly as possible.

  Twenty-seven

  Vinnie

  Vinnie lurched back into awareness with a start. The sun was higher now but a coolness in the air suggested it was still early. His skin prickled, chilled from the concrete, and the dream of that day at the beach, momentarily vivid, started fading into memory again.

  The last of the grazing animals had retired into the forest; the only signs of life were a few drifting insects and a bobtail lizard, all stumps and scales, picking slowly between the hospital and mess hall foundations. Vinnie watched its sluggish progress with a kind of detachment.

  Unconsciously, his right hand lifted to brush along the scar line on his face and neck. Thoughts of Katia gave way to thoughts of Helen and her grandfather and with slow realisation Vinnie knew exactly what task Doctor Pieters had for him. There was no moment of blinding clarity, no flash of inspiration, just the drifting recollection of words from an old letter, and a sudden understanding that up until this week the old man had never returned to Marrinup.

  The gift I spoke of in my last letter to you will remain in place at Marrinup . . . From the remains of the old detention cells it was a simple matter to look at the sun, compare its position with the hands on his watch and work out what direction was roughly south. Fifty-three paces of youthful gai
t. There Vinnie should find buried the doctor’s final gift to the young Erich. Almost like a pirate treasure, Vinnie thought, as he counted his measured paces through the old guard’s hut lines, past the camp administration building, and finally through a small clump of native shrubbery, to stop in a shaded clearing, right in the centre of the heart-shaped relief he’d noticed during his first exploration of the site.

  A smile crept into his expression as Vinnie studied the shape at his feet. At its widest the heart was probably three metres across, and easily that much lengthways. It was a lot of ground to cover without any digging implements. As well, there were signs dotted around warning that this was an historic site and shouldn’t be interfered with in any way. A sudden uncertainty seized him.

  A rustle in the overhead trees made Vinnie look up, and he was not overly surprised to see another of the black cockatoos watching him. The creature met his eye and let out a grating screech that seemed to travel right through him.

  As the bird’s cry echoed away, the whole bush seemed to pause, standing silent for a time, before a heavy whipping of the air heralded the arrival of another of the giant birds. It slid out of the sky to perch in the same tree as the first. Then a third, and a fourth, and in seconds the air above the clearing was alive with the black phantoms of the forest, seemingly pouring from between trees and sky and perching in unnerving silence. After two minutes the trees were dripping with black shapes that watched silently with grave interest.

  ‘Great.’

  It was like being in front of an audience and having no idea of what you were required to perform. Vinnie turned his attention back to the stone-bordered heart. Dropping to hands and knees, he edged his way around the shape, examining the mossy ground closely for even the slightest sign – some clue to an old disturbance that might indicate where to dig.

  He reached the point of the heart where the two sides met in symmetrical collision, and Vinnie understood.

  Using his bare hands to scrape away the surface layer of moss, he got to work with a stick, chipping the solid earth, removing at first tiny, then larger and larger, clumps of dry, reddish-brown soil, placing them carefully to one side.