So I could watch Fortuna arrive, I went up the steps to Studio 17 in Main Street at 3.50 p.m.
School had been yuk today. In Mr Grant’s class they were still writing up interviews with ‘oldest family members’. Unless I asked Mum, how could I do mine? But I did ask the science teacher about DNA. Turns out you need a body. Or at least body samples.
‘What sort of samples?’ I’d asked Mr Noel.
‘Medical biopsies taken for hospital tests last up to fifteen years.’
‘Do they take samples in Intensive Care?’
Mr Noel looked at me a bit strangely. ‘Possibly. They’d be called path. samples. Biopsies. Luke is doing frogs for his assignment. Are you thinking of studying DNA as your science topic for this assignment, Zoe?’
‘Er…Yes.’ I’d forgotten about that science assignment. Too busy with family history.
In the past, Gran always helped me with school work. But when I started asking questions for my history assignment about when and why she came to Australia in 1956, she kept changing the subject to my hockey training, or ‘Let’s open some Tim Tams.’
Mr Grant had said to copy documents like birth and marriage certificates or passports, so I asked Gran for hers. She didn’t want to let me photocopy them. I thought it was because she didn’t want to let them out of her sight. But it was more than that. I knew a bit about passports because Mum got a new one when she went to Antarctica, even though she was working in an Australian territory and didn’t need a passport for there.
‘In a polar emergency, I might be taken out to South America or even the Falklands, and then I’d need a passport to move in and out of countries,’ Mum explained. ‘And my old passport had a very unflattering photo.’
That bit was true. Mum’s nose stuck out in the old photo. Just like Gran’s and mine, although Gran didn’t worry how she looked. She just worried about her history.
I remember the thoughtful way Gran looked when she poured the mousse mixture into bowls and said,‘ Everyone has secrets in their past. If we tell them, they are no longer secrets. And maybe others will be hurt. Have a taste of this.’ She gave me the spoon to lick.
‘What sort of secrets?’ I licked the spoon and the mousse tasted wonderful. ‘Secret recipes? Cooking secrets?’
Gran shook her head with a smile. ’Nothing as simple as that. I have a political secret. Something, which you would find hard to understand in today’s Australia. Fear can make you do unusual things.’
Gran put the mousse bowls into the refrigerator.
‘What sort of fear?’ I was beginning to sound like one of those pushy TV interviewers that shove a mike up your nose for the thirty-second grab on the 6 p.m. news.
Gran ignored my question. ‘Switch on the music. Try this on.’ That’s when she let me try on her new dancing outfit: the red veil, baggy pants and even the gold coin belt which fits on the hips and clanks when you walk. That’s when the vivid colours and sounds started to interest me as ‘dress-ups’. I loved the feel of the silky material as I moved.
‘Play with colour and music. Be someone else for a few minutes.’
I remember saying, ‘When you get as old as you Gran, do you still like dressing up?’
‘Of course. Inside, I feel only your age.’
Maybe, but outside, she looked old, with lots of wrinkles around her neck. At least the veil covered her wrinkly tummy. Playing the music at full volume, we had fun that afternoon. And we ate all the Tim Tams.
Only after, I realised I didn’t see the certificates or the passport. Gran was excellent at changing the subject. This time she had distracted me with food and dancing. In class, Mr Grant said towns had been destroyed or over-run during wartime and records lost, especially if the town hall had been bombed. Missing documents made it hard to prove who you were. Maybe it worked both ways? You could claim to be someone like Magda from a town where no records were left.
So here I was now, meeting the mysterious Fortuna at Studio 17, the fancy name for the belly-dancing place. I felt in my backpack for Gran’s red dancing outfit, which was a link to my fun past, when Gran and I mucked around instead of doing homework. I also had my hockey gear for later.
Ground level, the shop looked seedy. A worn red carpet covered the stairs to the first-floor dance room. A crystal ball hung from the ceiling, its movements reflecting lights and creating another world. Music wailed. Mirror walls reflected the dancers, suggesting more than the real number that were there.
Behind a sign on a card table, marked: Clara the clairvoyant — fortunes told, sat a woman wearing rainbow scarves. Because I’d been thinking about the name Fortuna, I paused.
‘What’s the time?’ Clara asked. I glanced at my watch.
‘Three minutes to four,’ I said. Surely a clairvoyant should have known that! If they can tell the future, they should at least know the time.
The drum beat got faster. A belly dancer was performing under the crystal light. Necklaces and bracelets clinked as she moved gracefully in her pink, see-through harem pants. Arms moved like snakes.
Clapping and swaying to the beat, a woman about Gran’s age, in t-shirt, trackie pants, and bare feet looked as out of place as I was in my Hedge High school uniform. (Mum always bought me the full uniform so I wouldn’t feel out of place in a new school. Some chance.) Didn’t look like Fortuna was here yet, but maybe I could find out stuff.
‘Excuse me. My gran took belly-dancing classes here,’ I said. ‘Her name was Magda. Did you know her?’
Behind, the mirror-wall reflections multiplied the dancers as the old woman looked at me intently through her see-over glasses.
‘Does she have a different dancing name? Most do, you know. Was she a gypsy? A traveller? Gypsies tell fortunes, or they used to, before all these new taxes. Part of the cash economy they used to be. Now we all have to fill in forms.’
‘Zaria was her dancing name, I think. There was a message to be here at 4 p.m. to meet Fortuna.’ This was really stupid. I should never have come.
‘Here, I’m Fortuna. Why isn’t Zaria here tonight?’
There was no simple way to say it. I started. ‘She’s, er …dead. It was her funeral yesterday.’
Fortuna staggered and I grabbed her arm. She looked really old, all of a sudden. ‘If she’s not coming, I’d better go,’ said Fortuna hurriedly.
I held her arm. ‘Wait. I need to know things…about my gran. About Madga… And if Fortuna’s really your name, I’ve got something for you, from her.’
‘What?’ Fortuna said suspiciously. Above us, the swaying crystal ball picked up the lights. This was seriously unreal stuff. Like being inside a cyber-game. This would freak Luke more than the funeral chapel music.
‘Postcards with your name on the outside.’ I dragged them out of my backpack.
Fortuna ran her fingers around the card edges gently. ‘She kept them! I remember sending these. Your grandmother and I grew up together in the same village. We went to university together. But I lost touch with her once she left for Australia.’
‘Was she called Magda when you were girls?’ Fortuna knew answers I needed.
Fortuna shook her head. ‘Dagmar Kiss was her name. But many things change, including names.’
Looking across at the fortune-telling stall, I asked, ‘Did you use the name Fortuna here because it was something to do with telling fortunes?’ A guess, and this time I was right.
Fortuna laughed. ‘Good fortune. I saw the signs the first time I came here. As village girls, we loved to dance. And this was the next-best thing. I met your grandmother here, by accident, a couple of years ago. Her face went white when I cried out, ‘Dagmar!’ She had a different life now, so we agreed to use just our dancing names here. I was Fortuna and she was Zaria. We ‘played’ and relaxed here, dancing for ourselves, not others. Belly-dancing is the new yoga. Probably the two oldest belly-dancers they’ve ever had. I’m sorry that your grandmother has died. She was a very unusual and brave woman.’
‘What did she do that was brave? I need to know for my family history assignment.’ How much of Gran was in me? Would I ever do anything considered brave?
‘She acted on her political beliefs.’ Fortuna’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Even when it was hard for her because those close to her disagreed.’
‘Why did you call on her answer-phone?’ I asked.
From her neat bag, Fortuna pulled an envelope. ‘This letter arrived. I promised to keep quiet about her past while she was alive. But now Sandor Kovacs has been tracking his parents. He wrote to everyone from the village where I grew up. I never knew him. But I knew his mother when she was a girl.’
‘The real Magda?’ I asked. ‘Not the fake?’
Fortuna nodded.
‘Towards the end of the Revolution, your grandmother decided to leave for Australia. But she couldn’t use her own name to cross the border. Her real name might have been on a wanted list. So she ‘borrowed’ the name of a girl from our village, Magda Konya, who had married and separated from the athlete Janos Kovacs. He stayed in Melbourne, after the Olympic Games.’
‘What happened to the real Magda?’ I asked fearfully. The Olympics clue sounded right, especially after Pa’s sporting stories.
‘Vanished later.’ Fortuna looked closely into my eyes. ‘Are you afraid of learning too much about your grandmother?’
I nodded nervously. This was out of my control and I was freaking out but trying not to show it. Was I going to discover that my gran had done something really bad? ‘Did my gran have anything to do with the disappearance of Magda Number One?’
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I was asking a woman I’d just met if my grandmother had killed or ‘got rid of’ someone. Did Fortuna realise what I was doing? Why should she tell me the truth?
Fortuna shrugged. ‘Who knows? Probably not. She just used her name and papers because Magda Number One didn’t want to leave the country and Dagmar did. During the Revolution, people changed sides. It was a different world from here. Things, which matter here, now, did not matter then. Your grandmother was working with Tibor, until they were arrested, and she escaped, but had to leave the country. In wartime, you make fast decisions. You go or stay. One way you die, the other you live. Life is very precious. Magda Number One had a son and was separated from her husband.’ Fortuna shrugged. ‘Maybe they agreed. Or perhaps Dagmar just took the documents. Once she was here, Janos and the new Magda stayed together. Everything official was in that name. Last night’s TV news mentioned Hungarian political files being opened. Some informers’ names have been released. Your grandmother’s name as editor could be among them.’
‘Which name?’ I was getting so confused. Was my gran an informer? That sounded really bad. Much worse than just telling on someone, or white lies or even cheating.
But maybe it also meant speaking out when others kept quiet. I hoped so.
‘In Hungary, at that time, your gran was known as Dagmar Kiss. Here, she was known as Magda Kovacs, or as Zaria when she danced.’
‘So as Dagmar there, no one would link her with the Madga here?’ That was a relief. If she had done something really bad, it was another life away from here. And people could change. Couldn’t they?
I wished Luke were here. He’d say what he really thought. But I couldn’t imagine him amongst the veils and jewellery which he’d think was ‘girly stuff’.
Behind us the dancer was still moving to the music and the light was revolving overhead.
As a distraction, I fingered the bracelets on the stall. Like toys. Bells jingled. Red and yellow jewels decorated the dangling neckpieces and bracelets. I held the snake bracelet against my bitten nails. It twined around the cuff of my uniform.
‘Push your sleeve up. Try it against your bare skin,’ suggested Fortuna. ‘Your grandmother loved this kind of jewellery. It was a kind of play, like dancing with the veil or moving to the drums.’
Hesitantly, I pushed back my school uniform sleeve. The bracelet looked great. I loved the feel of it, smooth and cool.
‘Pa loved Gran, and she loved him. That was real.’ That was true. Then I remembered what Mrs Donna had said about Pa’s will. Why then had Gran decided to have those family photos mocked up? It was like having an alternative version. A choose-your-own-ending. The back-up family album. Who had she been going to give them to? Sandor for his past, or me for my assignment and my future?
‘Gran started to explain things to me, but then it stopped.’ I told about Gran’s finalthoughts.com message being lost in cyber-space.
‘Computers! Ah. Even the Internet. So! Magda would always try new things, even when we were young girls together.’ Fortuna smiled and her eyes sparkled. ‘Swimming in the river with no clothes, dressing up, climbing out at night, and then we would follow. And she would ask questions. Even awkward questions that others would not ask. That’s what got her into trouble later when she was a student journalist. And she was brave.’ Fortuna nodded. ‘When things went wrong, she just kept trying. It was not her fault that the war interrupted her life.’
If some people thought Gran was brave and others thought she wasn’t, who did I believe? Was all family history just stories you were told? Luke’s mum and dad had their stories too.
Fortuna fingered the tag. ‘Forty dollars…’ she paused. ‘Here, let me buy it for Zaria’s granddaughter.’
‘No, thanks. But I’ve got Gran’s outfit in here.’ I opened the backpack.
‘Then I’ll buy it for myself. And lend it to you to wear with your grandmother’s costume. She loved the rich colours. There’s a changing room in here.’
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t come here to dance.’ How could I dress up in a place like this?
Fortuna, in her trackie pants, wasn’t dressed up.
‘Be brave, Zoe. Try new challenges. Live in the now.’ Fortuna’s eyes looked straight at me, so I took the challenge.
In the changing rooms, I took off my school uniform. I undid my school shoes. I pulled on the red harem-pants. Imagine an old lady of seventy wearing these! Then I wound the red scarf-thing around my shoulders. The gold coins clinked on the belt which slipped to my hips as Fortuna clipped it around my waist. Gold coins clinked on the bra, too.
I felt like someone else. Clink. Hard to walk in bare feet without the coins making a noise. It was no secret when a dancer was around.
‘ “Zoe” means life, you know,’ said Fortuna thoughtfully. ‘The dance of life is what belly dancing is about, anyway. The female dances for herself, it is not for a male audience. In other dances you kick out, but in this dance you fold into yourself and it is a nurturing dance. Like a figure eight. In circles. You look after yourself and renew your body.’ All this was said in Fortuna’s slightly accented voice which I felt was vaguely comforting. Gran had sounded a little like this. Same village. Same accent. That kind of voice made sense when you thought about their backgrounds. I wondered in how many languages Gran’s accent had been heard.
Weird. I watched my dressed-up self in the wall mirror, like someone else play acting in a colourful costume. The music continued to wail, with a strong beat from the drums. Gran’s veil was wafting around my head.
‘Come, dance,’ Fortuna put out her hand to me. ‘In your grandmother’s costume, in memory of her life. Celebrate life.’
I shook my head. No way was I going to dance, in this weird place with this old lady watching.
‘Be brave, Zoe.’
But I wasn’t. I started to undress.
Looking at my watch for an excuse, I said, ‘I have to go now, to play in a hockey match.’ That was true. ‘The team will be waiting for me. I must go. Goodbye.’
As I hurried towards the astro turf, I felt as though I was running away.
* * * * * * * * *
That evening, we had a late hockey match against Street High B who were a pretty strong team. Ours is a mixed team, so Luke and I sometimes play together, like now. Jessica used to play mid-field, but now she’s got an afternoon shift at Macca’s. Luke plays centre-half and I am usually mid-field in Jessica’s old spot, which means we both have to run a lot. Somehow I feel that I have to make sure I do as well if not better than Jessica. I didn’t see her play, so I’m not sure how I measure up.
It was still light when we started, but as dusk came, they switched on the overheads. Shadows stretched across the pitch. Astro turf is OK for running on, and I can move fast if I have to. I’ve never been captain, or even vice captain, because Mum moves around so much and it takes a while for the others in the team to get to know you. Even when I played for a whole season, once before, and the coach asked if I’d like to captain, Mum told me we were moving again and that was the end of that. If I ever have kids, I’ll stay in the one house for at least two hockey seasons.
Luke’s dad used to coach him and even now he checks his gear. How lucky was that. His mum is the fan club whenever Just Couriers is in the area, or she’s dropping us off for training. This team has a few players coming and going as they try out. Others can only play at certain times, because of their part-time jobs, so we don’t always have a balanced team. But we play hard and I like that. Often there are substitutions to let others have a turn, so we don’t always get a full run, but I think subbing is fairer. Otherwise I wouldn’t have got into the team at all, because I only moved to this school after the season started last year.
‘Give Zoe a run now,’ the coach instructed. ‘Ready, Zoe?’
‘Yes.’ I grabbed my stick and checked my shin pads. My mouth guard tasted awful, but Luke’s mum insisted on it. Then I ran onto the field feeling that familiar fizz of excitement.
Pa taught me to use a hockey stick when I was a really little kid. He made me a special cut-down one so it fitted my height when I was about six. He used to throw balls at me in the park. That’s when I learned how to judge the distance. Luke’s dad helped him when he was little, too. Relatives sort of point you in the direction of their hobbies, but I didn’t mind about this one.
Hockey is straightforward. You just go after the ball, tackle if you need to and run. I like the feel of the wind in my hair and the full-on freedom of ‘running flat out. I can stop and swerve and turn and keep going. Not like belly dancing which may or may not be linked with your Gran’s secret life, but I did like the dance music and the drums. They were the best part. And I felt guilty about leaving Fortuna in such a hurry. I know I’m not brave.
‘Is there any music especially for hockey?’ I panted as I ran near Luke.
‘What? Music? You mean the crowd yelling?’ Luke laughed and panted. ‘That’s sports music.’
He lunged for the ball, cracked sticks with the opposition, and we lost it.
‘Lifting,’ called the umpire.
Luke turned, his neck reddening and kept his mouth shut with an effort.
We were both trying out for the team, and being picked up by the umpire wouldn’t help.
Not many clubs play mixed teams, which was why Mum insisted on this one for me.
She was keen on sport for girls and said about ninety-nine times, ‘If you play against guys you improve your skills.’
Mum played most sports because Pa had taught her when she was a kid, too. He loved any games and had a cupboard full of bats, sticks, balls and golf clubs and always gave us sporty things for birthday presents. When Mum told Pa they play golf in the Antarctic, he was thrilled. In Antarctica she’d played golf once, on Australia Day. The ball shot across the ice and they only had one hole. And they played cricket with a wicket stuck in the ice. Pa would have loved to hear about that, but he was gone by then. ‘To play in heaven,’ said Mrs Donna, but Gran didn’t think like that about Pa’s death. Heaven wasn’t part of what she believed.
All those thoughts fast-forwarded through my head as I ran across the hockey field.
What can you say about the dusk match against Street High B? We had most of the possession, we had most of the attack, we had most of the shots, they had all of the goals.
Street High B wiped us four to nil. It’s a good thing they didn’t send their A team. Luke reckons we just need more practice. So does the coach. And Luke’s dad. And his fan club.
‘No goals in the last two games,’ said Luke’s mum. ‘But scoring goals isn’t everything.’
‘Unfortunately it looks like you’ve hit a bit of a lean spot,’ said Luke’s dad.
‘We dominated the play, our build up was good and our short game has progressed beautifully,’ chanted Luke as if he was making a report. In a way, he was, because his dad always asked for that sort of rundown if he couldn’t get to the match because of a late job.
‘So have you found out what the problem is?’ asked Luke’s dad, examining Luke’s stick which needed slight repairs.
‘Yeah,’ said Luke. ‘The opposition is scoring more goals than us.’
‘Maybe the hockey goal fairy will visit next week,’ said his dad with a grin.
‘Yeah,’ said Luke. ‘So long as it’s not with the tooth fairy. I don’t want anyone knocking out my teeth, again.’
‘I agree,’ said his mum. ‘That dentist smiles every time we pay your hockey subs. He can see the tooth business making more money. You’re just a mouth full of money.’
‘Even the mouthguards have gone up,’ Luke’s dad said.
‘They’re still worth it,’ said Luke’s mum. ‘And from what I overheard from the side lines, a few mouths should be a bit more guarded in what they say.’
‘Ha, ha,’ said Luke but he didn’t really mean it. I knew he was a bit fed up after that game, especially as he’d played full on.
‘Last time we played Street High B, Jessica stopped a few goals,’ Luke said as he took his stick back and ran his hand along the wood.’ I reckon I can fix this.’
Maybe if Jessica had been in the team instead of me, they would have done better?
I looked at the three of them. They were a family. I was just an extra. I was part of a fake family and I wasn’t sure about my ID.