22–23 DECEMBER 2005
RACHEL ROSEN’S detective work in her mother’s study had produced mixed results, but when she made her first breakthrough she found herself wondering if she’d actually absorbed some skills by osmosis from the obsessive journalist who brought her up. She had found in Anna’s files a home number for Al Sharp, the former Commonwealth policeman her mother had been in contact with in 1973.
Sharp’s wife, Muriel, answered the phone and gave her the bad news that poor old Al had died five years ago.
‘It was the smokes that did him in,’ said Muriel. ‘If I told him once, I told him a thousand times.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Rachel. ‘My mum knew Al back in 1973, when he was working on a big case.’
‘Oh,’ said Muriel, instantly suspicious. ‘Do tell.’
‘She was a journalist.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Muriel,’ said Rachel sharply. ‘There was no hanky-panky going on. Someone was trying to assassinate the prime minister—’
‘Not poor old Gough?’
‘No, the prime minister of Yugoslavia. Do you remember Al talking about that?’
‘It sort of rings a bell,’ said Muriel, curious now. ‘Tell me more.’
‘There was another fellow working on this—Moriarty, Tom Moriarty. Do you remember that name?’
‘Oh, I remember Tom all right,’ said Muriel. ‘He was a terrible scoundrel. He got drunk over here one night and tried to cop a feel. Al had to throw him out on his backside.’
‘Do you know what happened to him? If he’s still alive?’
‘No, dear,’ said Muriel. ‘But there’s probably a number for him in Al’s old Rolodex. Do you want me to look for you?’
‘That would be very kind.’
It took some time before Muriel came back on the line. ‘The things you keep,’ she said. ‘I just remembered that Moriarty was with ASIO. Al never trusted that mob. He worked for them, you know, when he left the army. Hated it so much he transferred to the police.’
‘Funny he kept in touch with Moriarty.’
‘He did too,’ said Muriel. ‘There’re a few numbers here. An office number. A home number and one for his son, young Don.’
Rachel took them all down and thanked Muriel, hung up and immediately started on the new contacts for Moriarty. The office number proved to be disconnected; the home number in Canberra didn’t answer, but, third time lucky, she got through to ‘young’ Don, who sounded like a man in his sixties. She told him that she was researching her mother’s life and had come across a number of references to Tom Moriarty and so was trying to contact him.
‘Dad’s in a nursing home in Canberra,’ he said. ‘The old house is closed up. He thinks he’ll get back to it, but I can’t see that happening. So how is it you know him again? Who’s your mum?’
‘She’s a writer and a journalist, Anna Rosen.’
‘Oh,’ said Don. ‘Of course I know her work. I read her excellent book on Ivo Katich. Dad had something to do with him, didn’t he? From his time in the Organisation.’
‘I believe so,’ said Rachel. ‘I’d love to have a chat with him about all of that. Do you think he’d be up for a visitor?’
‘He has good days and bad,’ said Don. ‘His liver’s pretty much given up the ghost, but he’s got a mind like a steel trap. He does come alive when he’s talking about the old days. I’m living on the south coast and I only get up there every few weeks, so I reckon he might be happy for a visitor. I’ll give you the address, but I have to be honest: he’s an irascible bugger. You might get there and find he’s not interested in talking to you.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
•
By the time Leah came home that night, Rachel had resolved to tell her everything. She had realised during her day of rummaging through the secrets of her mother’s life that she was in danger of repeating Anna’s mistakes. She greeted Leah at the door with a loving kiss and a long hug.
‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
Leah was immediately agitated. ‘What is it?’ she demanded to know. ‘What’s happened?’
Rachel embraced her again.
‘It’s nothing to do with my love for you,’ she said, gently leading Leah into the living room, where the coffee table was laid with an open bottle of wine, glasses, crackers and hummus. Rachel poured them each a glass of wine and sat down opposite Leah.
‘Did something happen at the office party?’ asked Leah, ignoring the wine.
‘No, I didn’t even go,’ said Rachel. ‘Listen to me. It all started with the news on the radio this morning about this man in The Hague war crimes prison they’ve identified as Marin Katich.’
‘I’ve been hearing about it all day,’ said Leah. ‘No one’s mentioned your mother, but she’s obviously involved.’
‘She is,’ said Rachel. ‘Look, I didn’t tell you this this morning and I should have. Something about that story really disturbed me, so I rang in sick to the office and went to mum’s apartment. I spent most of the day there going through her files, looking for evidence or clues.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘I think this man, Marin Katich, is my father,’ said Rachel.
•
Leah first reaction was shocked disbelief. She didn’t show much of what was going through her mind but simply went quiet, quiet and detached. Leah’s silence only became more ominous as Rachel carefully took her through what she had found, showed her the photos from 1970 and prints of the recent pictures of Marin Katich. Leah broke her silence only to ask questions. Gradually, as each piece of the puzzle was laid out for her, Leah’s questions became fewer and the stretches of silence longer. Eventually, she picked up the photographs and Rachel watched Leah staring at the man’s eyes, as she had done herself, until she lapsed into a kind of depressive trance.
Rachel was worried when she saw this happening, but she had committed to complete honesty and she had to explain her next course of action, which was now clear to her. She would have to fly to The Hague and meet the man directly, face to face.
‘I want you to come with me, Leah,’ she said. ‘We can do this together, or we can let it hurt us.’
Leah didn’t answer, but instead stood up. There was a tremor in her hands and she grasped them together, pressing them into her chest.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no, NO!’
She ran into their bedroom, threw open the cupboards and began shoving clothes into her suitcase. When Rachel reached her and tried to calm her, Leah stepped back. There were tears streaming down her face as she pushed Rachel away.
‘This can’t be,’ she said. ‘This can’t be.’
‘This has nothing to do with us,’ said Rachel. ‘Our love, I mean. You know who I am.’
‘I don’t,’ said Leah. ‘Not anymore. I have to go away to think. I have to go home.’
Rachel took Leah in her arms and found her stiff, resistant and changed, as if the essence of the woman she loved had suddenly drained away.
‘Leah. Don’t do this,’ she whispered. ‘We can get through this together. It’s the only way.’
Leah pulled out of the embrace and took a step away from Rachel. ‘This is not some movie, Rachel,’ she cried. ‘I’m not going to hold your hand as we drive over the cliff together.’
•
Leah slammed her suitcase shut and hauled it from the room, showing surprising strength as she carried it over the thick carpet before wheeling it down the corridor to the front door. She left it there and grabbed her shoulder bag from the living room.
Rachel stood in front of her, tears in her own eyes now. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’
Leah seemed to have drawn strength from the physical exertion with the suitcase. She stopped and drew on some hidden reserve of composure.
‘Eli came to see me today,’ she said. ‘I had lunch with him. He came to invite us to Shabbat tomorrow. Us! Do you know what that meant to me after all this time? My parents! They found some forgiveness in their hearts. I fell in love with a woman, yes; but, she’s a Jewish woman, so … Tell me, Rachel, what do you think will happen when they find out you’re the daughter of a Nazi war criminal?’
When Rachel found no words to respond, Leah filled the silence with something like a final curse.
‘Your mother is a dybbuk,’ she cried. ‘She’s stolen your soul.’
Rachel watched Leah go. She stood speechless as the curse settled on her head. Whatever Anna’s faults, she was not a demon. She had lied to Rachel and misled her about her origins, but she had certainly done so in a misguided attempt to protect her daughter from the truth. Nor was Rachel possessed by her mother’s spirit. That was a stupid, primitive, kabbalistic insult. She had her own mind, her own motives. When she was sure that Leah was not coming back, she walked over to the pathetic little Christmas tree that Eli had so despised and kicked it over.
•
Before dawn the next morning, Rachel was behind the wheel of the Audi driving fast—not recklessly, but in a controlled fury—through the empty streets of the city. She hoped momentum would keep her thoughts from the terrible sadness and disappointment about Leah, and the persistent thought that her lover would be drawn back into the family cult. Her suitcase, packed with winter clothes, was in the boot. She had a lot of driving to do. She had booked herself onto the evening flight to London, with a connection to Amsterdam. Before that, she would drive to Canberra to talk to the geriatric spy, Tom Moriarty, then back to Sydney—a six-hour round trip.
Rachel followed the signs into the sickly, green-tinged underworld of the tunnel system and then up into the halogen-bright above-ground freeway, passing huge trucks one after the other. Hers was one of the few cars on the road and she worked to get ahead of as many trucks as possible. Her mother had always told her that sleep-deprived truckies, breakfasting on coffee and speed, were the most dangerous creatures in Australia—more fatal, even, than snakes or sharks.
Rachel smiled at that memory since she knew that the younger Anna was no stranger to driving under the influence. But the smile faded as quickly as it had formed when she thought of the coming confrontation with her mother. Rachel had decided not to warn Anna that she was on her way to The Hague. She knew what she had to do and didn’t want Anna to intervene. This was her thing now and, after a lifetime of secrecy, it was for her alone to decide what to do.
Rachel was well on her way when the sun came up over the gently rising green slopes of the Southern Highlands. She drove as fast as she dared, on past the Goulburn exits with their inevitable danger of speed traps, and then turning onto the Federal Highway and into the Australian Capital Territory. This always felt as though she was crossing the border into another country, one whose key industries were politics, bureaucracy and surveillance.
As she reached the city’s outskirts, Rachel turned up the volume of her GPS navigator and followed its staccato voice. Close to the destination, she stopped at a café and bought two takeaway flat whites, an offering she hoped would be a treat to the old spy.
The sat nav got her to the front door of the nursing home a few minutes later. The place looked like a low-rise motel with scrubby bush plants out the front, rising out of a base of dark woodchips.
The woman at the reception desk summonsed a nurse to see if Tom Moriarty was happy to see her.
‘He doesn’t get too many visitors,’ she said.
‘Tell him I am the daughter of an old acquaintance of his,’ she said. ‘Anna Rosen.’
The word came back that he had agreed, and she was taken to a room with a view over the back gardens. The room had an electric hospital bed; the old man propped up on it by pillows was skeletal except for his swollen belly, which the buttons of his pyjamas strained to contain. He looked, she thought, like a pregnant woman in a famine. When he gazed up at her, she saw dark patches beneath his eyes and the general yellowish tinge to his skin.
‘Come in, darling.’ His voice was incongruously strong, coming from such a frail body. ‘D-Don’t be afraid of the yellow p-peril, it’s not contagious.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The j-j-jaundice,’ he said, waving a yellow hand in front of his yellow eyes. ‘The old liver’s shot, I’m afraid, and I’m p-pretty sure they don’t plan to give me a new one. So, you’re the d-d-daughter. What’s your name?’
‘Rachel,’ she said, holding out the takeaway cup. ‘I brought coffee. Are you allowed to drink it?’
‘I should say so, after the b-bilge water they serve up here.’ He reached out and wrapped his bony fingers around the cup, pulling off the plastic lid. ‘A p-p-peace offering, is it?’
‘Do we need to make peace?’
Moriarty didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into the bedside drawer and produced a slim bottle of scotch, which he opened and shakily poured into the coffee, before holding it out to her.
‘Want some?’
‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘You really want to do that?’
‘Christ, you sound like my wife, God rest her soul. Look, my f-fucking liver’s f-fucked, no matter what I do.’ Moriarty took a swig from the bottle and screwed the lid back on. ‘This is medicine for the sh-shakes. The c-craving gets bad and I can’t think straight. You don’t want that, do you?’
‘No.’
‘So, R-Rachel,’ he said. ‘That’s a good Jewish name.’
‘Yes.’
‘M-Matrilineal, isn’t it? Your mum’s a Jew, ipso facto you’re a Jew, no matter who your father is.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘Well, your father’s a C-Catholic, but they didn’t call you Maria.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? I can’t think of any other reason to have m-morning tea with a d-dying spy.’
‘Yes, but how do you know my father’s a Catholic?’
‘Because I was there, at your c-c-conception.’
‘What?’
‘Not in the r-room! Ha ha ha, that’s funny. Did you think I might be your f-f-father?’
‘Not for a moment!’
‘Oh, that’s c-cruel.’ He looked crestfallen. ‘They f-fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, blah, blah, blah. No, I knew them both. There c-can’t be many people who could say that. Perhaps they should have made me g-godfather.’
‘What do you mean, you were there?’
‘I was a s-spy, darling. I was hunting poor M-Marin. He had a hard life, that boy. I b-blame myself, I do. Bit of a g-guilty conscience. Now look where he’s ended up. Anyway, stick to the t-timeline, Tom! Where were we?’
‘My conception.’
‘Yeah, wow, it was like something out of Doctor Zhivago. Very romantic. Someone should write a b-b-book. Anyway, I thought he might come to see your mother that night and sure enough he d-did. Middle of the night, over the b-balcony into her room, and Tom’s your uncle.’
‘I keep asking,’ Rachel said, ‘how do you know?’
‘Oh right,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Listening device. I was next d-d-door with headphones on. All very exciting. I didn’t have a st-stutter before that.’
‘What!’
‘Just kidding,’ said Moriarty with a lunatic grin. ‘I know no one wants to hear about their p-parents f-fucking; but if someone told me they knew exactly how I came into existence I’d want to know.’
‘Why were you hunting him?’
‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘He was a t-trained assassin and he was planning to k-kill the prime minister of Yugoslavia the next d-d-day. March 1973, the f-first foreign head of government to come visiting since Whitlam came to p-power and your dad was p-planning to knock him off. So, ask the rhetorical question.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I t-trained him … Ooh! Aah!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Here, quick, take the bottle,’ said Moriarty, handing her the whisky. ‘I need you to help me to the bathroom.’
Rachel steeled herself. Wrapping her arms around the corrupted old bag of bones, she helped him stagger to the bathroom.
‘Give me the b-bottle,’ he demanded and he put it on the floor beside the toilet, flipped up the seat, got onto his knees and emitted a tremendous retching sound before he threw up into the bowl, time and again until he was empty. Then he pulled the chain, straightened his back and called to her: ‘Help me up!’
When Rachel got him to his feet, Moriarty flipped the toilet lid down again and sat there. Reaching for the whisky at his feet, he took a mouthful, rinsed his mouth and swallowed it. He turned his drained, yellowish face up to her.
‘You’d make a shit nurse,’ he said.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s not on my career plan.’
‘So,’ said Moriarty, pausing to take another swig. ‘Now we know each other a little b-better. Pull up a seat.’ He pointed to the plastic chair sitting in the shower. Rachel carried it out from under the dripping rose, wiped it with a hand towel and sat down.
‘So,’ said Moriarty. ‘What is it you do, darling?’
‘I work for a hedge fund.’
Moriarty laughed, like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ‘Anna R-Rosen’s girl in a hedge fund,’ he said. ‘That’s made my day.’
Rachel took from her pocket the ASIO surveillance photo of Anna in the arms of young Marin Katich. She passed it to Moriarty, who bent forwards from his precarious perch on the toilet seat to take it into his hands.
‘It was taken in September 1970,’ she said.
‘Now,’ he said, staring at it, ‘this is what I’m saying about g-guilty consciences. I made him do this, you see. Break up with your m-mother.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s c-complicated.’
‘I need to know, Tom.’
‘Even your m-mother doesn’t know.’
‘Please tell me.’
‘Official s-s-secrets, bullshit, bullshit,’ said Moriarty, hitting the bottle again.
‘You’re dying, Tom.’
‘Oh,’ he cried. ‘Flattery’ll get you nowhere.’
‘I mean …’
‘I know what d-dying means, darling. Not much t-time to make amends, right?’
‘If you like.’
Moriarty ran his hands over his face, then looked up. Rachel saw the whisky was taking a toll. He pointed a long bony finger at her.
‘Those green eyes,’ he said, the words slurring a little now. ‘My Lord, I could have gone for them back in the day. Anyway, 1970. Your old man M-Marin, he was a tough kid. It’s the M-Moratorium march in September and he comes across two cops in an alley, b-beating on your mother, she’s his girlfriend by now, right. I guess he was looking out for her.
‘It was an ugly, sexual thing with these cops, so Marin loses his b-bottle. Beats the shit out of the cops. Puts them in hospital. I know M-Marin’s dad, Ivo—your grandfather, right? He c-called me up. Marin’s in jail, looking at attempted m-m-murder.
‘Back then I had a bit of sway in the Organisation. I p-pulled some strings. M-Marin is mine n-now. Quid pro quo, you break it off with Ana Rosen, right? It’s that or life in j-jail. He had no choice. None. That photo, that’s where he told her. So we take him away and put him through b-basic training—the army, Kapooka camp, then specialist t-training. We t-t-turned him into a sniper. Then it’s off to Vietnam to work with the c-cousins. Operation Phoenix, you heard of it?’
‘No.’
‘The younger generation, eh? Bunch of know-nothings. Operation Phoenix. We go bush for weeks on end, t-track and kill the leadership of the V-Viet Cong. The f-fucking cadres. The worst m-murdering bastards in the country. They were the ones who liked to c-call all the f-fucking peasants into the v-village square to make ’em watch as they lopped off the arms of the local school teachers and let ’em bleed to death. We k-killed men like that and I’ve never lost a m-moment’s sleep over it. Marin, though …’
Moriarty shook his head sadly. Rachel wondered if this was a parody of an old man who, looking back on his life, had genuine regrets.
‘It f-fucked him up, right royally. He’s the one p-pulling the trigger. We g-got him out when he started hearing voices. The ones he’d killed, you see, t-talking to him at night. That’s down to me, isn’t it? Tell your m-mum I’m sorry, will you? Will you d-do that?’
Rachel stared at him, said nothing.
‘You b-better go now,’ said Moriarty. There were tears forming in his sick eyes. ‘I’m not f-feeling so good. Can you call a nurse? That red b-button in the shower. Can you hit it for me?’
Rachel got up and left him there. She didn’t look back. Outside, she looked at her watch. Three hours back to the airport—she had plenty of time to think.