Gifts of the Peramangk

by Dean Mayes

  “Yes,” she said defiantly. “I do. I mean…I can.”

  The professor’s eyebrows arched and he leaned back in his chair, measuring up the child sitting before him.

  He held the violin out toward her, nodding his head and making his intention clear.

  Ruby took the violin from Khalili and cradled it awkwardly in her lap.

  Her eyes darted between the professor and the audience behind him, some of whom were now looking in their direction, their curiosity piqued at the interaction between the professor and the child. A lump formed in Ruby’s throat. Her tongue dried up and beads of sweat formed on her brow.

  Overcoming inertia, Ruby stood and held both violin and bow in her left hand while she reflexively pumped her right hand open and closed, limbering up her fingers. She fought to quell her nervousness.

  She had never played like this before—on a real stage, in front of a real audience.

  Remembering her grandmother’s instruction, Ruby began her breathing exercise, closing her eyes and drawing herself inward to her centre. Then, she drew the violin up, testing its position under her neck.

  Khalili watched her with a curious expression. The way she held her violin, the way she positioned her head and neck to become one with instrument. There was something immediately familiar about it that captured the professor’s attention. His eyes narrowed unconsciously.

  Ruby hurriedly searched through her catalogue of music. Once she decided upon a piece, Ruby nodded to herself.

  Khalili noticed that the expression on her face had subtly switched over from an intense focus to an almost reverent calm. He sat forward slightly, expectantly.

  The bow came down and Ruby launched into the plucky beginnings of a famed composition by Max Bruch known as his Violin Concerto No. 1 – a romantic piece of music that she knew by heart.

  She began deftly, negotiating the dance of the violin solo and infusing her performance with a passion and a power that defied her youth. Opening her eyes fleetingly, she noticed that everyone in the auditorium was caught completely by surprise. A tangible electricity passed through her.

  The cellist, sitting in conversation with one of the violinists from the quartet turned her head swiftly and her jaw fell open. The cellist’s bow slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. The reaction to the tiny performer was replicated right throughout the hall as every head turned toward Ruby.

  Ruby closed her eyes again as the fluid and captivating melody flowed from her mind into her fingers and her brow furrowed in concentration. She rode on the back of the music perfectly balanced, meeting each chord progression with her agile fingers and confident sweeps of the bow.

  Professor Khalili sat, his expression giving nothing away. But as Ruby progressed, a curious smile passed across his lips. Almost unconsciously, he began tapping the fingers of his left hand on his knee, matching Ruby’s fingers on the fret board whilst mimicking the subtle nods of her head with his own.

  Rising up on the balls of her feet, Ruby approached the finale and gripped her violin tighter, anticipating the challenge of that final flourish that had tripped her so many times before. She entered it, held her poise, imagined time slowing down and met each final stroke. She faltered yet again but it was too subtle to derail all that had come before.

  And then it was over.

  Her head remained tucked close to her violin. Her eyes stayed closed as she was greeted by silence and, for a moment, she felt panicked. Then, a single pair of hands began to clap. Slowly, another pair joined in—then another and another until the entire auditorium erupted into a round of applause. Ruby opened her eyes and looked out across the stage and blushed. A smile creased her lips as the quartet clapped enthusiastically.

  Khalili simply nodded but his curious smile remained.

  Chapter 13

  1952

  Mrs. Penschey began to teach Virginia the violin.

  Once a week on a Tuesday, the Pastoralist would leave the station for several hours to attend to business in town and it was rare for him to be home before dusk. Agreeing to a rather clandestine domestic ritual, Virginia worked furiously in the morning, making sure that all her chores in the homestead were completed well in advance of him leaving the homestead. She scrubbed and dusted to her usual high standard, working herself into a sweat in order to get the work done in time.

  Mrs. Penschey would enter the homestead just before two pm. She would collect a cup of tea from Mrs. Finchner in the same fine bone china cup and saucer. She would then proceed to the front door of the house and stand sipping her tea quietly, watching through the window until her husband’s truck drove into view and rolled through the front gate. Waiting until it was just a speck on the horizon, she would hurriedly signal to Virginia, who made sure she was dusting in the dining room at just the right time, and together they would disappear into the parlour.

  For two clear hours on that and each subsequent Tuesday afternoon, under the pretense that Virginia was finishing her house work in that very room, Mrs. Penschey began teaching Virginia the very same method that she herself had been taught as a young girl in a far away place called Vienna.

  Their initial encounters were hesitant. Virginia was overcome by nerves and they often threatened to overwhelm her. Thus, she remained painfully reserved in Mrs. Penschey’s presence. Virginia was unsure of this woman’s motivation for taking such an interest in her. Virginia regarded all the adults she had encountered on the station with distrust and suspicion and, despite her curiosity in this stately woman who played the alien instrument, Virginia couldn’t help but feel skittish.

  She never dared to ask why Mrs. Penschey was giving her this unexpected respite from her bleak existence in this place. Though Virginia outwardly feigned ambivalence, she secretly began looking forward to the lessons.

  They were arduous in the beginning. Having never encountered a musical instrument like this in her life, Virginia firstly had to understand the very basics of how to hold the violin in her embrace and how to place her fingers on the strings. Neither were easy propositions given that the violin itself was clearly designed for somebody much bigger than Virginia. She spent the majority of those early lessons focusing just on how to hold it, struggling to come to grips with the unwieldy bulk. She felt clumsy and accident prone and several times she almost dropped the violin—much to her panic. Mrs. Penschey however, never scolded Virginia or lost her patience – although she did often steal worried glances at the door, fearing that the housekeeper and kitchen hands would hear those strangled first attempts at producing sound and come running to see what all the commotion was about.

  Slowly, Mrs. Penschey introduced Virginia to a set of basic scales that would exercise her fingers and foster a familiarity with correct positioning in order to produce a set of notes. To this exercise, Mrs. Penschey taught Virginia how to shift her fingers across the fingerboard whilst drawing the bow across the bridge of the violin. How the heaviness or lightness of her draw affected the sound she produced. She began to make sounds with the violin but her first efforts were hesitant and choking. She raked the bow across the bridge far too heavily or she dropped the bow entirely or created noise that was akin to somebody running their fingernails down a blackboard.

  Virginia felt frustrated and discouraged and feared that the Pastoralist’s wife had set her a goal that she was manifestly unable to achieve. But Mrs. Penschey remained quietly determined, never indicating that she was losing faith. The lessons soon became the one thing—the only thing—that Virginia looked forward to and from somewhere deep inside her burned her own determined flame, telling her to press on.

  It was during a particularly drab day whilst working away in the vegetable garden at the rear of the homestead that Virginia struck upon a novel idea. She found an old fence paling that had fallen to the ground beside the tomatoes along with a thin, wooden stake that was used to support the tomato vines. Spiriting the contraband into her out house, Virginia marked the position of the strings on th
e paling with a pencil she’d procured from inside the homestead. She then whittled some small gouges into the wood, representing the finger positions that Mrs. Penschey had taught her.

  Each night, after the older girls were sound asleep, Virginia lit a candle and huddled up on her bed with Simon the dog nestled next to her. Using the makeshift simulacrum, Virginia practised those fingerings she’d learned, imagining the notes in her head and playing them in silence, while Simon watched her with wide-eyed curiosity. She spent hours repeating the exercises over and over, much to the silent chagrin of the dog who often fell asleep in her lap while Virginia continued long into the night. She imagined the pieces of music she’d heard in her mind, playing her violin part as though she herself were a part of the orchestra. Virginia lost herself in the music.

  And, slowly but surely, Virginia’s unwieldy fingers began to stretch and strengthen. They became nimble and confident and they began to skip effortlessly across both the imaginary strings of her makeshift instrument and the real strings of Mrs. Penschey’s violin. They found their mark effortlessly and, not only did Virginia begin to play competently, she unlocked a graceful and precise technique that was as individual as Virginia herself.

  From then on Virginia learned quickly. She felt the real instrument become a natural extension of her arms and hands. Her confidence grew, her technique flourished. Together, Mrs. Penschey and Virginia drew from within her a purity of sound that felt complex yet light. It was fully formed and confident.

  Mrs. Penschey’s lessons evolved from routine instruction and became conversations about the instrument itself, its distant origins; its most famed practitioners and the body of compositions that had been solely devoted to it.

  Every Tuesday, teacher and student listened to the gramophone in the parlour, exploring the sizable collection of recordings Mrs. Penschey had amassed over a number of years. Virginia chose pieces that she found appealing and with Mrs. Penschey’s guidance she mastered them with intense concentration and determination.

  Eventually, the ever curious pup, Simon, managed to sneak inside the house and join Virginia and Mrs. Penschey in the parlour. Simon had already begun to stick close to Virginia whilst she was cleaning the bathroom and laundry but during her lessons he would curl up underneath the chaise lounge while Virginia played. Both Deliah and Marjorie too, made sure they were in the vicinity of the parlour so that they could listen to the weekly performances by Virginia.

  During the times when Virginia sat on the window sill listening to the gramophone, Simon found his way into her lap and stayed there while she gazed out across the fields beyond, absorbing the music of the moment. Mrs. Penschey often chose recordings that suited the mood of what Virginia saw through the window – be it rain or wind, dust or sunshine. Virginia curiously found herself drawn to the music that best suited the rain, though she wasn’t sure why. Mrs. Penschey encouraged Virginia to revel in the emotion and the imagery the music evoked in her. Through it, Virginia unlocked a door to a world that, even before she came here, she never knew existed.

  From those tenuous and hesitant beginnings, a bond was fostered between Virginia and Mrs. Penschey and with time, it became a friendship. They began to converse more and more, not only about music but also about life both on the farm and beyond its confines. Mrs. Penschey talked about travelling through her native Europe and she showed Virginia albums of photographs that she had put together herself, having taken many of the images therein.

  They read books together and Virginia surprised the Pastoralist’s wife with her ability to read and write. At Mrs. Penschey’s suggestion, they spent time nurturing Virginia’s reading and writing skills so that she would not lose them to the drudgery and the unforgiving domestic work that was Virginia’s first priority.

  All of these activities blunted the sense of isolation Virginia felt being in this place. But it was the music that lifted Virginia up and carried her, giving her a sense of freedom. It nurtured her soul more than anything else could and she threw herself into the violin with more vigour and dedication than anything else.

  She progressed from learning the compositions Mrs. Penschey had introduced her to purely by ear from listening to the gramophone to reading sheet music that Mrs. Penschey provided. At first it was a challenge, coordinating her playing whilst constantly training her eyes across the notes and bars on the page. But, as with her first tentative steps with the violin itself, Virginia displayed a remarkable ability to adapt quickly and, not only that, she developed an uncanny ability to recall whatever music she was introduced to once she committed it to memory.

  Agatha Penschey knew that Virginia’s talent was prodigious—unprecedented. And yet she was unable to reveal Virginia’s gift to anyone beyond the confines of the house.

  Agatha began to wonder at the origins of her young protégé and whether this gift was a characteristic trait common to Virginia’s native people. She knew of accounts of Aboriginal tribes which had existed in large numbers in the South Australian bush and coastal hinterlands and knew that many of these tribes had a strong musical culture amongst them.

  Her curiosity grew and grew until one day, Agatha could ignore it no longer. During a break in one of their sessions, while she poured both herself and Virginia a cup of tea, Agatha finally braved the question.

  “Where is your country, child? Where does your heart belong?”

  Virginia blinked, as though unable to comprehend the question.

  “The Aboriginal people believe that we all belong to a place—a country that is a part of our soul—it is a part of who we are,” Mrs Penschey explained, tilting her head slightly. Her gaze drifted away from Virginia.

  “I don’t know,” Virginia replied sadly. “I-I can’t remember any more. It was a hilly place…green and there were lots of farms.”

  “That sounds very pretty,” Agatha suggested. “I’m…sorry that you have no family any more.”

  “My family is still there,” Virginia said softly. “My parents…my friends.”

  Agatha’s eyes flicked back to Virginia and her expression became one of shock.

  “Your family…?”

  “I have a family,” Virginia said, her voice tinged with annoyance at Agatha’s vacant question.

  She shifted uncomfortably as Agatha sat down opposite her and held her cup.

  “I don’t know where they are,” Virginia continued, turning her face away from Mrs. Penschey. “Dad was away a lot. Mum and I lived in a cottage in the town where she worked. But…”

  Her voice trailed off and she bowed her head down, looking at the sleeping dog whose head lay in her lap.

  “What, Virginia?” Agatha probed gently. “What happened?”

  “No one told me anything, missus.” Virginia looked up, her eyes filled with a withering heartache. “The people who came. They just took me from my mum without even asking. They didn’t explain why—they took me away and that was the end of it.”

  A sickening knot had begun to twist inside Agatha Penschey. She had never questioned her husband about the domestic help that had come to work on the station over the years. Agatha had assumed that they were either orphans without a home or any family whatsoever or they were from poor families who couldn’t afford to care for them and had thus sent them away to work on farms like this in the hope that the child would have a better life.

  “D-did your parents not give the authorities permission? Did they not know that you would be given a better life?”

  Virginia shook her head and, inexplicably, she began to feel a rising anger.

  “A better life?” she echoed defiantly. “I was happy before. I had a home, ice cream on hot days, friends to play with, tea with my mum at night, and I was loved. That was my life. Now…there’s this!”

  Agatha was stunned. She sat across from Virginia in silence, the guilt she felt coursing deep inside of her.

  Without warning, Virginia pushed back on her chair and stood, summoning Simon with a click of her fingers. Her emo
tions were overwhelming her and she suddenly felt claustrophobic in this spacious parlour. She stumbled across the room and opened the door.

  “W-wait,” Agatha Penschey implored after the child. But she stopped once Virginia and the dog had disappeared and she stood in the centre of the parlour, unable to move.

  She remained there for a long time after Virginia left the room.

  Chapter 14

  The sleek blue Mercedes Benz coupe motored slowly along the inner-city arterial. Rain fell steadily all around it and was getting heavier, as evidenced by the thickening haze haloing the car. Thick droplets were reflected in the beams of the headlights that stabbed into the night-time and splashed onto the glistening bitumen. The car seemed oblivious to the traffic passing by it on the busy road. While they were in a hurry to get to their destinations, the Mercedes instead cruised along, as though it were out for a leisurely Sunday drive.

  Ruby sat silently in the passenger seat, gripping the violin case tightly on her lap. She kept her eyes ahead, concentrating on the pattering of the rain on the windshield, the wipers that swayed back and forth across the glass. They almost lulled her into a trance.

  The passenger seat was particularly uncomfortable. The aging leather of the back rest was split in several places, exposing a couple of the inner springs which poked Ruby in the small of her back. The moth eaten bath towel Khalili had placed there to protect her from getting jabbed provided no respite at all, so she had to remember to keep moving away from the niggling foreign object.

  She had barely spoken since they had left the city. Neither of them had for that matter. Khalili seemed content with his own counsel as he concentrated on the road ahead and he barely even looked at Ruby from the time they had set off for the northern suburbs. For her part, Ruby was unsure whether she should be scared of the professor or not. Though she was well aware of the whole stranger danger message that had been constantly drilled into her at school, the police officers who eventually showed up at Elder Hall—despite Khalili’s instructions to the two inept guards not to call them—were happy for him to drive Ruby home. They had initially offered to drive her themselves, but Khalili wouldn’t have it—reasoning that they had more important duties to attend to in the city. Thus, the officers were content in trusting Khalili and had given their blessing. Ruby didn’t protest it at the time. But now, sitting here, she wasn’t so sure.