FIFTEEN

University life had been a learning experience for the naive, young Jarra. As well as the day to day strangeness of living alone in the largest city in Australia - as cosmopolitan and diverse as New York - attending the University of Sydney brought him into contact with the world of intellectuals. He had made several friends there with whom he was still in regular contact, but there were some he now received mail from that he simply could not remember. After his recent prominence in the media he received more letters and faxes from people claiming to have known him than he ever thought he had met in his lifetime. He was surprised and a little confused at how people were attracted so readily by his newfound celebrity status.

From the day he arrived at Sydney University he was a rarity - he knew that. Of course there were black students and lecturers at the university - the majority were from overseas - but he was one of the eleven Aboriginals enrolled that year and he was the only indigenous person studying law. It was different now, several years after he had graduated. There were fifty-three Aboriginal students and five were taking law.

His first year was the most difficult, he knew no one so it was an effort to seek out friends. It was not so unusual that he should gravitate attracted to the many Indians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis on campus. He recognised it was because of their skin colour, they were the same colour as himself: dark brown. He soon learned that that was where the similarities ended. They wore different clothing - although it looked western in appearance it was not Australian store-bought clothing. They smelled differently too; they didn't use the same body cosmetics, soaps, lotions, oils - their accoutrements were at once fascinating and exotic. He was puzzled and intrigued, and it was Nilani who patiently made sure he understood her perfectly, and discovered what there was to find out about her eastern mystique.

Nilani was Sri Lankan, both her parents were doctors, they shared a practice in Point Piper, a wealthy harbour suburb of Sydney. Her family moved about as she was growing up: she had been to school in Colombo, Jakarta, Singapore and Sydney.

Even though they were strongly attracted to one another it took four months before she and Jarra made love. It happened on a Saturday afternoon after the rugby, after the celebrations - they had won - after walking the two miles to the house he shared with four other students. While walking to the large house Jarra became self conscious, he apologised for it being so far from the university playing fields, for his not having a car, for the streets being gritty and dirty. And in sight of the house he warned her of its appearance: it needed a coat of paint, one of the upstairs windows was broken and was crudely patched with ply, and the original sandstone steps out front were worn to a concave shape from a hundred years of use. As he opened the heavy front door, he knew they would be confronted with the smell of years of cooked vegetables - cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions (student fare) and cheap wine - trapped in the bare wooden floors, so he warned her about that too before he permitted her to enter.

Jarra's male housemates were in the kitchen, noisily preparing their evening meal. He casually introduced Nilani, took his flagon of Chablis from the fridge, then politely excused them both from joining the all-male circle. He spirited her away ceremoniously from their brazen stares to the relative quiet and privacy of his room, one flight up.

They could still hear the noise emanating from the kitchen as they nervously, breathlessly, excitedly began their tender love-making .

Jarra enjoyed playing rugby for his university. He remembered clearly when his team made the semi-finals after a torrid season of personal physical trials in which he had had two fingers in his right hand broken. To say the injury interfered with his writing would be a classic understatement: his studies were so badly affected he thought of packing his bags and returning home to try again next year. But he didn't - he muddled through. With the help of Nilani and his housemates - and a scarred tape recorder from a nearby Newtown pawn shop - he was able to keep pace with the others who were also suffering the heavy work load of first year law.

The rugby semi-final was played before a modest crowd but it was televised nationwide which was the reason the Prime Minister agreed to attend. Both teams ran onto the ground and began stretching and jogging before settling into a single line to meet the politician. A huge contingent surrounded the charismatic prime minister as he came onto the ground. Once Robin McKeon felt the grass beneath his feet he began running, then he faked a sidestep and pushed an arm out in the act of fending off an imaginary tackler. The crowd reacted to their leader and former rugby great as he made his play - he was not known for his agility in his playing days so it was amusing for most keen rugby watchers.

The captain of each team escorted McKeon to introduce him to the players by name. As McKeon came to Jarra he stopped - Jarra knew it was because of his colour.

'And this is Jarra Mariba,' the university team captain said.

'Good luck Jarra,' McKeon said as he shook Jarra's hand. 'You might not know, I used to play with Mark Ella.'

'Oh really,' Jarra replied, not knowing what to say.

'Great player.... you know, I always admired that man's talent. He's a credit to your people,' McKeon said.

Jarra saw his eyes glaze over then pull back in focus again.

'I would love to have been born Mark Ella.' McKeon would not let go of Jarra's hand.

'I wonder if you'd also love to spend a lifetime wearing his black skin.'

It came out before Jarra could stop himself. McKeon looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face and moved down the line. Before he left the field he turned to Jarra, aimed his index finger at him and pulled an imaginary trigger then he smiled. Jarra guessed he either took his point and had signalled touché, or he was pissed off at him and was figuratively executing him in jest for his quick-witted, political assault.

It took Jarra the best part of a day to find Mutta. He had driven over soft dirt tracks for hundreds of kilometres before he saw Akuna on her knees, tending a fire - Mutta would be close by. The early evening sky was blood red in the west and hundreds of birds screeched insanely from the darkened canopies of the river gums. From a distance, the three black people acknowledged each other using sign language. When Jarra was closer Mutta beckoned for him to join them on the ground.

'Jarra, sit down, you look like a real worried city fella,' he joked. 'Just like one of them fellas that go walkin' up and down the street in Darwin.'

'I am worried uncle,' Jarra was quick to tell him.

They both spoke in their own language.

'Yeah, you walk just like those fellas in Darwin too... all crouched over... like you been speared or something.' He examined him up and down and asked jokingly: 'You been speared?'

'No uncle, only inside my head. They speared me in the head.'

'That's the worst kind of spearing,' he responded seriously.

'It's the mining people uncle, they want to dig up our land.'

'Which land?'

'The land way over from here, the Burarra, the Gunbulan and the Gunwinggu people's country.'

'That's good country, over there.'

'I know.'

'Everything still grows over there... and the hunting is good too.'

'Yeah... I know, uncle.'

'All good.' He muttered as he scratched at the ground. 'What part do they want to dig up?'

'Namarrkon's place.'

Mutta looked at Jarra and exhaled heavily as if he had been struck by a blow to the stomach. Akuna joined in and was outraged: 'They's crazy, them white fellas! Don't they know about Namarrkon. He'll kill us... he'll kill everyone, tch,' she spoke with disgust in her voice and shook her head.  Mutta reinforced what Akuna had said. 'He will... he'll kill everyone.'

'What can I do to stop this?' Jarra asked the old man. 'How much time do I have before Namarrkon gets angry?... and what will he do?'

'Nobody must touch anything at that place. I warned that other white fella... he took some stones and he was struck and burned real bad but he lived... he won't be lucky anymore. That's it for him.'

'No one's allowed to even walk in that land. Has anyone told them? Not even the animals, they'll all be killed and us with them,' Akuna spoke as she moved her food about angrily in the coals.

'When will Namarrkon rouse?' Jarra asked.

'He wakes in the middle of the hottest time. He'll make the biggest, blackest clouds, the fastest, strongest winds and twist everybody all about before he lights them up... burns them up... cooks them up! Everyone will know... you will hear his voice, the loud thunder, from way over here.'

Akuna cut and ripped some goanna meat from the charred carcass and held it out for Jarra, her guest, and he politely passed it to his male elder. As they ate and spoke, darkness was falling. Most of the fauna retreated to the safety of the night having survived another day in the dry, sparse wilderness.

Mutta related several traditional laws that Jarra might use to convince the Aboriginal people to negotiate in this situation. By eight o'clock Mutta was tired and reclined beside the embers of the fire; within minutes he had found sleep.

Akuna stood and began clearing debris away from the camp site, she moved about nervously.

'Aunty, have you anything to tell me? Anything else that might help me?' Jarra asked the old woman knowing she rarely spoke unless asked a question.

'You can't do nothing there... just nothing. Namarrkon will kill everyone. Don't go near that place!' she spoke loudly. The words gushed from her having been dammed up all night. 'And don't go asking Mutta to go there either.'

Jarra looked at her face in the dark, softly lit by the fire. It was a comely face, her huge brown eyes had seen a harsh, unwanted transformation of her people. She knew more than she would ever reveal, he thought.

'You make me a promise Jarra... don't make him go there?'

Jarra paused, thinking. 'I promise I won't make him go there aunt, don't worry.'

––––––––

The Ansett early morning 'red-eye' flight to Canberra from Darwin was completely full. Jarra smiled to himself as he watched his black contingent grouping around windows watching the desert rush by below. The Prime Minister's office had sent out a media release the previous day about his meeting with Aboriginal leaders - to dispel any doubts about the legality of government mining leases, once and for all, it said. Jarra learned of it on a late news broadcast on television.

Jarra had slept only three hours the previous night. Before dawn, he went to the office to send faxes to all media telling them he would let them know the results of his meeting with the Prime Minister immediately afterward, on the steps in front of Parliament House.

––––––––

The Aboriginal group was met at the Canberra airport by two white officials from the Department of Ethnic Affairs who escorted them to a dilapidated grey bus two hundred metres away, at the end of a parking lot. Jarra understood the psychology behind this ploy.

'Did the Prime Minister send this bus?' he asked.

'Yep, that's right. It's all yours!' the man said smiling.

'No, it ain't. Come on fellas, leave your bags here,' he called to the black men who stood behind him. 'You can take our bags to the hotel in that thing,' he told the men from the D.E.A. 'We'll find our own way to the Prime Minister's office thank you.'

The group joined the taxi queue and were soon spirited away to their eight o'clock meeting at Parliament House.

The media, about fifteen journalists, cameramen, soundmen and women, were waiting on the steps of the nation's parliament building. They ran to the taxis as they saw them arriving. A flurry of questions met the group as they made their way up the stairs to the entrance of the building.

'Mr Mariba, do you really expect you can stop the mining giant TransGlobal from operating in the Northern Territory?'

'That is not our aim,' Jarra answered.

'What is your aim then sir?'

'The Prime Minister has asked us here to talk with him, that's all I know at present.'

'But you have something in mind haven't you Mr Mariba? You have taken writs out against TransGlobal and the government?'

'Yes, that's true,' Jarra said. ' But we have only done that in response to their actions.'

'You won't admit that you simply don't want mining in the Territory.'

'Yes, I won't admit to that because it's not true.'

'So, you do support mining?'

'I didn't say that,' Jarra was careful with his words.

When he had reached the top step Jarra turned and spoke to everyone.

'We'll be meeting with the Prime Minister in a few minutes, we'll talk with you immediately afterwards. Then hopefully, we can answer your questions with some sort of intelligence.'

Smiling he beckoned his group to follow him inside and waved to the press. 'Thank you, we'll see you a little later.'

––––––––

Mutta and Akuna sat in the shade of a large berry tree waiting for the midday heat to pass. They knew this tree well and used it as their halfway resting place between their two families which lived twenty miles apart. The nearby creek hadn't had any water in it for weeks but the snakes and lizards congregated there anyway and waited. Already this day Mutta had seen several snakes, all of them poisonous, man-killers. The lizards didn't kill anything, except desert rats and mice for food. When he was a kid he liked to watch lizards; they were fascinating. He would track them all day: they travelled a long way too, in one day. Some days they would lead him on a three mile walk but they always came back to their starting point. They were territorial just like people, except lizards didn't kill each other over money.

The sun poured down as sure as if it were liquid, creating a golden flood on the plain in front of him. With his eyes wide open, Mutta could see only a pale version of what he had seen as a younger man; but he could remember, his brain was sharp. Everything he looked at now was soft-edged, out of focus. Oh, he knew his eyesight was going years ago: cataracts. He would be blind in two years, a doctor had told him. His vision was no good. But looking down the hill he could easily make out the hurrying form of Jarra climbing from his four-wheel truck, half running to where he was seated with his wife.

'Did you see us?' he called up to the old couple.

'No, where? We didn't see you anywhere.' The old man replied, his wife giggled and smiled at his side.

'He means on television dad.'

'Oh no, we don't watch no bloody television boy... not out here. You know that.'

'Yeah, I know. But I thought you might have been to town or somewhere.'

'No, what were we supposed to have seen anyway?'

'Me, us... we won!'

'What did we win?'

Akuna fed on the exuberance of the young man, it brought back memories of her early years with Mutta.

'The government settled with us... on our terms. As well, the mining company publicly apologised and agreed to change the name of the mining company and they backed our financial terms put forward by the government and it has all been written into a new lease.'

Mutta's eyes widened. Akuna rocked back on her buttocks.

'Do you trust these people?' Mutta asked after some thought.

'Yes, I do.' Jarra sounded sure.

'Be on your guard when you are most confident with the enemy.'

'They are not my enemy uncle.'

'Yes they are boy. Remember that... never forget it... remember that one. Or everything will go backwards fast.'

Jarra could not find the logic in what the old man said but he knew Mutta took his wisdom from the collective unconscious stream, so his reading of any situation beat logic every time.

The two old people asked Jarra to drive them to their family community. They spoke little on the way, dealing with the noise of the truck and the dust of the road was enough to occupy anyone. It was clear that Mutta was worried by Jarra's excited talk. He thought the whole thing had been achieved too easily, it didn't ring true, but he reserved his concerns for another day. He would take his questions to the spirits that night and see Jarra in the morning.