The stew had little bones in it, but it was good. Faris ate two servings. It’s new, he told himself. There were new things to discover on the beach, if not in his house. Perhaps he could visit the memories and dreams of all his friends. They would be new too.
Billy sopped chunks of soft white bread in the stew. He ate with both hands; he slurped and gnawed the bones. Mudurra sipped from his bowl, wrinkled his nose, then wandered back along the beach. Juhi ate hers quickly, smiled an apology and followed him.
Susannah picked up a bone in her fingers and began to chew the meat more neatly than Billy. Faris thought of going down into that small cottage, with its smell of cows. He’d never seen a land so green. What would it be like to go through that cottage door? His friends could visit him and Jadda too …
No! He didn’t want anyone to come to his world now. It would remind him that it was a dream. Dreams are private things, he thought. That’s why we meet here on the beach, share our food and laughter but nothing else. David’s dreams were different — he needed an audience, a real one, not just the one that he imagined.
He looked at the others, still silently eating. Somehow he knew that even if they had seen each other’s worlds, they didn’t do it often. It was hard enough keeping their own Australias real without adding guests. He shook his head. He felt confused, bruised by too much to understand.
The game began again. The waves sang. Small waves. Safe waves. A wind eddied along the beach. Susannah walked up and sat on the sand hill.
Faris tried to focus on the ball. Billy is right, he thought. It hurt to ask questions, here on the glowing beach. It hurt if you thought too much. He should just enjoy it, the happiness, the safety.
But his brain kept working, as if it was a computer, as if it had been programmed to keep thinking.
He didn’t want to play today, he realised. He’d go back to his house, to Jadda. This time he would turn on the computer. If a buffet breakfast could feel real, then so would the computer. He might never have used that model before, but he had read about it, could imagine it.
He stepped away, then began a slow walk up the damp sand, packed hard by the waves, then onto the hot dry sand. He had never left the beach so early before.
‘Far Eyes!’
He turned. It was Mudurra, striding up the beach towards him. A giant fish hung across his shoulders, its mouth gaping, its eyes staring.
Mudurra grinned. ‘You want a fish?’ He thrust the fish at him.
Faris took it automatically. It felt cool and surprisingly heavy. ‘Thank you.’
Was the gift a way of making Faris welcome on the beach, keeping him happy so he wouldn’t go through the door? Faris imagined Jadda’s expression when he arrived with a giant fish in his arms. ‘King Faris of the computers has decided to be a cook, has he? Or do the marketing?’ He shook his head. Jadda felt real. Was real, even if she was made of memory. Memory was real too. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he added to Mudurra.
Mudurra raised one shoulder in what might be a kind of shrug. ‘There are fish. I catch them.’
Day after day, thought Faris. Century after century, if Susannah was right. ‘My name is Faris. Not Far Eyes.’
‘Faris.’ Mudurra tried out the word.
Faris nodded. ‘You speak good English.’
‘English?’
‘English. The language.’
Mudurra gave another of his almost-shrugs. ‘I speak what I speak.’
Faris had thought everyone spoke English on the beach. English was the language of Australia. But Mudurra had come here before English even existed. Ah Goon could not have known English either. Somehow he didn’t see Billy giving everyone lessons. Another of the beach’s mysteries, he thought. Whatever language we speak here is the same for all of us. ‘Does Mudurra mean anything?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Mudurra.’
Mudurra grinned at Faris’s reaction. He pantomimed a bird, a giant one, balanced on the wind.
‘You are named after a bird?’
‘A bird that flies a long way. Like me.’
Faris let himself feel curious. Who was this young man who had had the strength to live with only himself for so long? Though he must have had Juhi for company too.
‘Is Juhi your sister?’
Mudurra looked startled. ‘Juhi came here just before you.’
Faris stared at him. ‘She’s from modern times? But she doesn’t wear proper clothes.’
‘Her fur is good fur. Soft, well cured.’ Mudurra sounded amused, as though clothes were not important. Faris supposed they weren’t, for a young man who wore only string and a knife. ‘But she is not from the same place or time as me.’
Faris wondered where modern girls still wore scraps of fur. ‘Where do you come from then?’
He almost expected Mudurra to say that he had always been there. Instead Mudurra said, ‘I come from two arms from where the sun rises in the sea.’
Faris tried to work it out. ‘North?’
‘Ah Goon called it the north.’ Mudurra shrugged. ‘North is a word. The sun and moon and stars are there in the sky.’
‘When did you come?’
Mudurra seemed to find that funny too. ‘In the season of flowering, two flowerings after the year the great whale beached beyond the headland. Ah Goon measured the seasons one way, Susannah and Jamila in another.’ Mudurra gestured at the arched blue sky, the flat blue sea. ‘What does it matter? The days pass here. The seasons. As many seasons as there are stars in the sky.’
Faris hesitated. ‘How did you get here?’
He knew the question would hurt. Or would it, after so long? Did pain slowly vanish, here in their refuge?
Mudurra stared out at the sea. He was silent so long that Faris thought he wasn’t going to answer. At last he said, ‘The mountain shivered near our camp. The sky burned. Rocks fell and then the ash. We ran for the canoes …’
A volcano! For a moment Faris felt superior. He knew what a volcano was and what made it erupt, while this young man did not. But Mudurra had known a real volcano, in all its savagery and terror. His pride vanished. ‘And then?’
Mudurra laughed again. It was a laugh that said, ‘Laughter is better than crying with fear.’
‘We paddled through the ash, as the sea turned to blood like the sky. We paddled towards the great track of stars that arrow through the sky, but we could not see them, because of the ash. Great-Uncle said, “Dream of the land across the sea, the land where the white smoke rises in the season of no rain.” The ash fell and the sea sizzled. I dreamed that a beach of sand waited for us. Clean sand, with no falling ash, with a sky that was blue, not red.’ He shrugged. ‘Then I was here.’
‘Alone?’
The young man nodded. ‘I was alone for a long time. I walked the beach, me and the waves and the sand. I speared fish, big ones, small ones. I ate them. I slept on the warm sand. There is fresh water if you dig for it, under the sand hill. I watched the great white sweep of stars. Sometimes I thought I dreamed this place, just like Great-Uncle said to do. I dreamed of going back. When I woke the door was there, propped in the sand. I knew if I stepped through it, I would be back with the boiling sea. How could I go back to that? I dreamed of friends. Then Ah Goon came, and then the others. It was better then.’
Faris stared at him. How long had Mudurra been alone here? Hundreds of years? Or thousands? Maybe, he thought, time doesn’t work the same here.
He looked at the darkness of Mudurra’s eyes. Even if time was not quite the same, this was the face of someone who had known a world with only one pair of footprints on the sand.
No wonder Mudurra doesn’t always play the game with us, he thought. We must be like ants to him, scurrying in tiny sand lives, instead of the long hard rock of his.
Had Mudurra’s canoe been the first to head to Australia?
Had Mudurra really dreamed up this beach? Had he dreamed up the doorway too, so that each could leave, so that no one would be stranded here forever?
‘Did you ever try to leave? Not through the door,’ Faris added hurriedly, trying not to look at the two big hunks of driftwood with the tattered skin hanging between them. ‘Didn’t you try to find other people?’
‘Yes. I thought at first I had been washed onto a safe beach, on a new land. I walked across the sand hill.’
Mudurra was silent suddenly.
‘What did you see?’ asked Faris cautiously.
The dark eyes gazed out to sea. ‘Another sand hill. I walked up it — and there was this beach below.’ He looked Faris in the eyes. Mudurra rarely looked directly at anyone, but when he did you felt his gaze. ‘Ah Goon tried to walk beyond the world he’d dreamed. He came back to where he’d left, no matter which way he went.’ Mudurra’s voice was grim. ‘You’ve remembered how you came here, haven’t you?’
Faris nodded.
‘Do not try to leave by walking.’
Faris thought of the time he’d spent wandering the streets of houses, green lawns and grazing kangaroos. He shivered. ‘I won’t.’
‘I thought that maybe the others had been washed onto a beach nearby and I could find them.’ Mudurra gestured at the cliffs on either side of them. ‘You cannot climb the cliffs. Even with ropes. Time after time I tried. I tried to swim around them too, but the waves pushed me back.
‘I made a raft from driftwood on the beach. A raft to take me to another beach, and people.’
Mudurra looked out at the sea. It was impossible to read his face now. ‘The water looks gentle. But it’s not. When you are as far out as a man can throw a spear, a current grabs you. It is like teeth that won’t let go.’
Mudurra gestured to the line of giant rocks across the mouth of the bay. ‘The current tried to dash my raft against the cliffs. I dived off. The current took me. It tried to smash me against the rocks. At last I got free and swam back to the beach. I lay on the sand with no strength all through the night and day, too weak even to get water.’ He looked straight at Faris. ‘I have tried to leave five times. The sixth time the current will kill me. I will not try to leave that way again.’
Faris tried not to imagine Mudurra’s body, helpless, lying exhausted on the empty beach. He stared out at the tall black rocks across the bay. They looked like prison bars now. ‘The only way to leave is through the door,’ said Mudurra. ‘The only place to go to is the one that you have left.’
You could escape into memory and imagination, thought Faris. But neither led you anywhere, except in the real world. In the real world imagination and hard work might lead you to become a software engineer, a physicist, an astronomer.
But there was no way into the real world unless you stepped back, into the danger that lay through the doorway. The beach was their prison, as well as their refuge. The only way out was back to what you had left.
Mudurra was still gazing at the black rocks across the bay. Faris said quickly, to change the subject, ‘I think Juhi likes you.’
Mudurra glanced back at Juhi as she danced forwards two steps to throw the ball to Jamila. His face softened for a moment, then became carefully blank once more. He gave a laugh, a bark of bitterness, not humour. ‘I cannot have a wife till I am a man. I have told Juhi, but she will not hear.’ He looked down at the young woman again. ‘I will never be a man here.’
‘You mean because you can’t grow older?’
Mudurra looked back at Faris. ‘Why would I want to grow older, for my bones to ache, to no longer be able to cast a spear so far? I am happy to be as I am. But you must be a warrior to take a wife, and you must learn things to be a warrior. There is no other man here, no warriors, to make me a warrior too. A stranger would not understand.’
‘I think I do. A bit. I … I’m scared to go through the doorway too.’
‘A warrior is never scared,’ said Mudurra flatly.
But you’re not a warrior. You are a young man, playing on the beach and spearing fish. Faris would not say the words, but they hung in the salt air around them nonetheless.
‘You think I am a coward? You think I should go back to the world where air is ash and sky is blood? I dreamed of a new land, as Great-Uncle said. A good land. You think I should leave it now?’
‘I don’t think you are a coward.’
‘Then you are a fool. I am a coward. I should step through the door for a chance to become a warrior so I can say to a girl like Juhi, “Come with me and be my wife.” I should go back and face the falling rocks, the burning sky. But the days pass. Night after night I watch the great path of stars travel across the sky. Day after day I watch a beautiful girl upon the beach. And I am a coward still.’
And suddenly Mudurra was gone, jogging down the sand hill onto the beach. He waded out into the water, then dived down.
For a moment Faris wondered if he was going to try to swim beyond the bay again, prove he wasn’t a coward. He held his breath.
But Mudurra waited for a wave, then let it bring him back to shore. A gentle wave, thought Faris. This world was gentle, safe, as Susannah had said. As long as you obeyed its rules. As long as you wanted nothing more than it could give.
‘What did Mudurra say to you?’ Faris hadn’t noticed Juhi come up beside him.
‘How he came here.’
Juhi nodded, her gaze on the young man in the waves. Suddenly Faris realised her face was trickled with tears. ‘He talks to you. He won’t talk to me.’
‘But you’re with him all the time!’
‘He talks about nothing things. Fish. If the fire needs more wood.’ She tore her gaze away from Mudurra. ‘I’m going home.’ Juhi’s voice was bitter. ‘Every evening he insists I walk up the sand hill, down into my world.’ She shrugged. ‘I could refuse. But he doesn’t want me to stay on the beach with him at night.’
‘He’s taking care of your reputation.’
‘What does it matter? We are the only ones really here! Does it matter to you, or to Susannah?’ She hesitated. ‘I … I’m scared of the beach at night. I’ve never slept outside. I’m scared of the dark too. No streetlights. Not even a torch. But I wouldn’t be scared if I was with Mudurra.’
‘You come from a modern city then?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why don’t you wear clothes?’
Juhi rubbed her hand across her tears and tried to smile. ‘I do.’
‘Proper clothes.’
‘You mean my school uniform?’
‘You went to school?’ How could a girl who wore bits of fur have gone to school?
‘You think I’m a savage because I have black skin and wear fur?’
It sounded insulting when she said it like that. But it was what he’d been thinking. Faris nodded.
‘I think my time is pretty close to yours,’ said Juhi slowly. ‘I come from Sudan. Khartoum.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I went to the best school in Khartoum. I was the best student at my school. That was in 2003,’ she added.
It was as though he had never seen her before. And I haven’t, he thought. I never really looked at Juhi, and not because I was embarrassed by her bare skin. I have been too closed up inside myself to see anyone.
‘You came here in 2003?’ Suddenly he needed to know who she was, why a modern girl wore furs.
‘No. Later. But I lost track of time when we had to leave. Lost everything.’ He could hear the effort it took to keep her voice steady now.
‘How are you here?’ And going almost naked, he thought.
‘My family is from south Sudan, but we lived in the north. My father was an engineer. But he spoke too loudly about how the people of the south were being killed, how we should fight back. We had to leave fast, into Ethiopia, to a refugee camp there. My father said that we would not have to stay in the camp long. They need engineers in Australia. He would apply to go there. Soon we would all be in Australia and safe. But the refugee camp was bad. It was run by the People’s Liberation Army. They took my brother for the army. My father too.’ Her voice was flat now, like Mudurra’s had been, a
s though she was reciting a poem she had no interest in.
‘What happened to you?’
‘The soldiers came one night for the women. My mother heard the screaming. Where can you hide in a camp? My mother pulled our tent down, like it had collapsed. We hid under it. They saw my mother first. They pulled her out. She screamed and screamed.’
‘Juhi … Juhi, I am sorry.’
She gave a small shrug. ‘I thought, I have to help her. Then I thought, I can’t fight soldiers. If I move, they will find my sister too.
‘I held my sister still. A hand reached in. They grabbed her leg. They pulled her out. She called, “Juhi! Juhi!” as they dragged her away. But I stayed hidden.
‘I crept out when the screaming was silent, with no voices of the men. I looked for my mother, my sister. The soldiers had taken them.’ Her voice was strangled as she added, ‘Or they were dead. I tiptoed from tent to tent, then out into the desert in the darkness. I stumbled on till it was day. I saw women carrying water. “Help me,” I said. “Please help me.” But they wouldn’t look at me. They pretended I wasn’t there.’ Tears wound down Juhi’s cheeks again. How could Susannah make her remember this? thought Faris. How can I?
‘Why wouldn’t they help you?’
‘Because I was a stranger. Those women thought, a girl who is running has enemies. We cannot save her. We will only put our families in danger.’ She gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘Why should they help me? I didn’t help my mother, or my sister. I lay there and saved myself.’
‘But you couldn’t have saved them!’
‘I know. That does not make it hurt less.
‘I followed the women to their village, trailing behind. I went from hut to hut, begging for food, for water. A boy threw a stone at me. Other boys joined in. I ran into the desert, as the boys laughed and threw stones. No one would help! Do you understand? Not the girls I thought had been my schoolfriends, not our neighbours, not the people in the camp, or these villagers. I ran again. I found another village. This one was empty.’
‘What … what had happened to the people?’
‘They were there. They were dead.’
Her voice was emotionless now. ‘Animals came that night, to eat the bodies. I hid in a hut. I pushed a bed against the door and one against the window. I heard them tear at bones and flesh. The morning came. I thought, I am safe now. The animals have fed. But then I heard the Jeep.’ She looked at her hands. ‘The army had come back. I heard them go from hut to hut, looking for weapons, for food, for women. They would see me if I ran. I pulled the bed onto its side, to hide behind it. I shut my eyes. I tried to send myself back in time, beyond the war, beyond the hatred. Then I heard footsteps in my hut. A hand grabbed my hair.’
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