It was a small town, if you could call it that, tucked away like a hidden blemish on the underside of the world. Anna walked along the veranda of the hotel, its white, wrought-iron frame shimmering against the red earth. Even though the sun had set, the heat still felt stifling. Keys jangling in her hand, she fiddled with the rusty lock until she heard a familiar click. Strange really, this ritual of safekeeping – as if any thief around here could make a quick getaway. The wooden door creaked as it opened, the handle glaring at her with forlorn brass screw eyes. The last of the stragglers had wandered off to bed. Time to tidy up. She stepped into the dimness of the bar, setting a beer bottle rolling across the room. It rammed up against a large cabinet, rattling a collection of world globes.
Tell-tale fingerprints on the cabinet glass showed that Anna was a frequent visitor to this ersatz museum. She slid open the panel and sent one of the globes spinning. The world became a blur, borders losing their definition. Countries chased each other clockwise around the tilted axis of a globe. With one finger she stopped them abruptly, then on a whim sent them hurtling off in the other direction. Instead of Australia following the rest of the world, she changed the rules and sent Paris, Rome and Berlin off in search of Birdum.
When she first arrived at the hotel, she was puzzled by these orbs. Why would anyone who chose to live in a place so remote hoard so many worlds? She soon learned this very town was the reason the collection took pride of place in Tom O’Hara’s pub. If you looked very closely, right there in the centre of the large continent, you could make out the fine, black letters: B-I-R-D-U-M. Latitude 16 degrees 13' 55" S, Longitude 133 degrees 12' 04" E. Several years earlier the town had started to appear on world globes, reaching diminutive international fame thanks to its position as the final terminus for the North Australia Railway. Situated at the end of the line, Birdum prodded its way like some blind feeler groping into the heart of the land.
Heralded by a pair of wooden beams, Birdum station was hardly the Munich Hauptbahnhof. The weekly steam train, known affectionately as Leaping Lena, shunted travellers to and from the city of Darwin – a gruelling 320 miles to the north. After it traversed the 100-yard bridge at Birdum Creek, Leaping Lena announced its arrival with a clamorous shriek that drowned out its rhythmic groaning.
The locals would come out to peer at the train’s dark shape approaching along the rusty narrow-gauge tracks. Finally emerging from the surrounding scrub, the locomotive, followed by two obedient carriages on enormous wheels, rattled along the rails, coming to rest on a turning triangle beside a dusty platform. It billowed black smoke into the air before winding down with a loud wheeze. Limping dogs that lounged under the shade of a veranda, occasionally snapping at flies, were always the first to hear the train approaching in the distance. Everyone stopped what they were doing, or rather, took a break from doing not very much, and made their way over to the wooden platform where Leaping Lena prepared to disgorge her passengers. A lonely timetable was tacked to the side of a rickety railway hut:
Depart Darwin 8 a.m. on Wednesdays
Arrive at Pine Creek 4.46 p.m.
Depart Pine Creek 8 a.m. on Thursdays
Arrive at Katherine 11 a.m. on Fridays
Depart Katherine noon Fridays
Arrive at Birdum 5.51 p.m. Fridays
Earlier that evening Anna had sauntered across to join Leaping Lena’s welcoming committee. The dogs whipped into a frenzy, except for Gubbins, who grimaced like a cranky old man. From the moment Anna had arrived in Birdum Gubbins started following her around, grateful for the scraps of bread and greasy victuals she threw his way. He would drag himself out from under the table, his unclipped claws scraping across the wooden floor, and hold out his paw like a tired beggar. His ribs were fine and delicate beneath mottled patches of fur. Staring at her, he would cock his head expectantly until she threw him a bone. There must be no better way to see the hidden secrets of a town in the outback, she thought, than through the eyes of a dog.
People usually spilled out from Leaping Lena and stood there speechless, surrounded by a few stunted trees drowning in a sea of tall grass, beneath the dome of twilight sky. Sticky from oppressive heat and humidity, the dishevelled passengers slumped their suitcases on the platform. The train was soon unloaded by workers who stacked up its cargo on the rickety platform. It didn’t take long for the railwaymen, driver and passengers to walk past the row of huts scattered along either side of a lonely dirt road. They all ended up in one place – the Birdum Hotel, which stayed open late on train days.
The hotel was the most imposing building in town. Beyond its broad veranda it was a typical pub, with a few tables and chairs scattered around the entrance and rusty barstools hugging the counter. Several snake skins decorated the door frame. An old upright piano was huddled in a dark corner, its broken keys yellowed like an old man’s teeth. A dried-out stuffed crocodile was splayed out along one wall, with its open jaws poised above a dusty patron who was focused on his tenth beer for the day.
The publican from the town of Katherine, Tom O’Hara, a tallish man with a tense face, had built the hotel in 1929 soon after construction of the North Australia Railway staggered to an unceremonious halt in the middle of the continent. The pub opened its doors during the dry of the following year. Birdum soon became a hub where people came from hundreds of miles around to get supplies. The O’Hara house stood apart from all the others in Birdum. Growing up, Tom O’Hara had been the most eligible bachelor back in Katherine, with a string of women across the Northern Territory left broken-hearted. During a drunken Saturday-night poker game, Tom won the land on which he would go on to build the Birdum pub. Not long after, he met Mary, the daughter of a textile merchant from Sydney. Four years and three daughters later, his wife and children – along with trunks full of matching handbags and shoes, department-store clothes and fancy toys – took up residence in the town, in a timber house newly built for their needs.
Anna had seen Tom O’Hara’s advertisement in the newspaper soon after arriving in Australia, towards the end of 1933. The job included helping around the house, getting the girls dressed and fed in the mornings and then working in the pub each afternoon until close. He replied to her letter immediately, wiring money to travel to Birdum as soon as possible.
Three years after Anna’s arrival, Mary became ill and took to her bed. Rumours spread that the family was cursed, and none of the locals dared to come near. The doctor had been sent for but it would take at least a week for him to arrive. Piled up on a table beside the sofa where Mary lay was an array of bottles, poultices and wads of gauze. A commode stood sentinel in the corner of the living room. Her dying was happening centre stage, surrounded by the audience of her young daughters. The oldest girl, Lisa, was only seven at the time. The child’s eyes showed she was struggling to make sense of all that was happening around her – a mother who was meant to be immortal, now fading away.
Anna filled a heavy iron kettle and placed it on the stove. She cut the stale crusts off a ham sandwich, waiting for the water to boil. Arranging a cup and saucer and the sandwich on a tray, she carried it over to the sofa, being careful not to spill the hot tea. Mary had been so kind to her, teaching her how to run a household, and introducing her to life in the outback. She showed respect for the local Yangman women, encouraging Anna to learn as much as she could about their customs and traditions, which was far more than most were willing to do in these parts. Helping Mary sit up, she propped a cushion behind her back. The woman took a small bite of her lunch, gripping a scrunched-up handkerchief in the palm of her hand, her knuckles shining white. Her jaw sagged open, the soggy bread falling out over her bottom lip and onto the blanket. She threw her head back and stared up at the ceiling. A soft, long moan filled the room, a tear trickling down her cheek from the corner of one eye. Anna steadied the tray.
‘Oh, dear God,’ Mary whispered, the half-macerated chunks of food falling onto the floor. ‘What will become of my daughters?’
Anna knelt and held her hand. The girls were spread out on the rug in the middle of the room, Lisa hosting a tea party for her dolls.
‘How am I to leave my children behind in a motherless world?’
Her tears turned to violent sobs, hands trembling as her breathing became staggered. The springs of the couch groaned with her restless agony. The teacup rattled in its saucer as Anna whisked the tray away. She turned to Lisa.
‘Quick! Run and fetch your father.’
The young girl stared back, her childhood instantly stolen from her eyes. Grabbing her doll, she bolted out the door.
Anna felt the moment suddenly peel away; she was back in a darkened bedroom, lying beside her own mother, playing with the tassels of a shawl that covered the dying woman’s shoulders. She nestled up close to her like a fledgling too young to fly. What lurked inside her mother’s body, devouring all her beauty and sparkle? Skin, once so soft and smooth, now clung to bone.
She remembered birds chirping outside the window, greeting the new day. The sun filtered its way into the room, reaching out across the rug. Tulips wilted in the vase on the nightstand. Anna lifted Lalka from under the covers and placed her doll’s lips against the back of her mother’s hand. On the Friday before, they had visited the Tietz Department Store together in Bahnhofvorplatz, where Anna had interviewed every doll in the toy section before finally choosing her favourite.
‘What shall we call her?’ Anna asked.
‘How about Lalka?’ her mother whispered. ‘That can be our special name for her.’
‘You mean like a secret name?’
‘Exactly, our secret. And you can choose a different name for her that everyone else will know her by.’
Anna thought for a moment, patting the doll’s head. ‘Her nickname will be Lali, but to us she will always be Lalka.’
When they got home, Mutti collapsed in the kitchen. Papa called for the doctor to come urgently.
Anna lay in her mother’s bed, burrowing into the warmth of her arms. She breathed in the familiar scent of the cashmere shawl.
‘I’ll tell you a story,’ Anna whispered.
It had always been the other way around, her mother recounting tales of trees the colour of rainbows with leaves of dreams, and deer with golden antlers hiding deep inside the forest. Her stories were peopled by barefoot shoemakers, witches who had lost their wands and bakers’ children who never ate bread. Now it was time for Anna to conjure up some magic. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine something that would make her mother smile.
‘Remember the lullaby you used to sing me when I was little?’
Her mother’s breathing was shallow.
‘About the birds who flew south at the start of winter, leaving their poor tree all alone. A little girl felt sorry for the tree and decided she would become a bird so she could go and keep it company. But as she was flying out the door, her mother told her to wear a scarf because it was so cold outside. Then she put a hat on her daughter’s feathery head and finally threw a coat over her wings. The girl-bird fell to the ground and the mother broke down in tears, asking her never to leave her again.’
Anna held her mother’s cold hand. Mutti spoke softly between quivering breaths. Words escaped from her dry lips; utterings so thin and floaty it was hard to make sense of what she was trying to say.
‘Shall I tell you more?’ Anna whispered.
‘Yes,’ her mother whispered. ‘I am listening.’ Her voice had become raspy.
‘I’m afraid, Mutti.’
‘I know.’ She shifted slowly onto her side to face Anna. ‘You will be fine, my darling. I promise. Papa will look after you. Everyone is waiting for me in Heaven – Oma, Opa, Tante Irma. They are missing me, and I must go to visit them. But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you, my sweet girl. Your beautiful new Lalka will always be there to look out for you.’ She gasped for air. ‘And I will be watching, snuggled into that little space behind her eyes, seeing everything and everyone. If you ever need to talk to me, Lalka will help you reach me.’ She stroked Anna’s cheek. ‘Now let’s both try to rest a little, shall we?’
Anna turned onto her back and fell asleep listening to her mother’s harsh breathing. She woke at noon to find Mutti staring at her, eyes unblinking. Sunlight crept in through the curtains onto her mother’s hair, which shone like flames.
After the funeral Anna looked around the bedroom at her mother’s things, none of which Papa, himself bereft, had touched since her death – the sewing basket, an unfinished patchwork quilt, the gramophone with a record still on it collecting dust. Vergehen, passed away, people said. As if her mother had slipped out quietly and was eternally sitting in her armchair, somewhere in the upper storeys of sky, under the light of a reading lamp, crocheting the edges of a blanket, or mending the lace collar of her nightgown. A ghost who would never grow old. Anna felt her mother’s presence. It had settled over the room, from the blotched ceiling to the bed on which they had spent their last hours together in this world, holding each other close.
In her dying Anna’s mother unravelled like a skein of wool, tangled between day and night, life and death. A black-and-white photo taken three months earlier for Anna’s seventh birthday showed them picking wildflowers together. They posed in the happy past, all colour about to seep out of their lives. Anna looked at the photo on the side table, the red buttons of her brown coat turned grey. Her mother’s blouse embroidered with yellow daisies on a lavender background, now black and white. The camera’s lens caught them smiling that morning, the memory like a rainbow washed away by a billowing grey sky.
In the days following Mary’s death, Anna would hold young Lisa to her, feeling her warmth and quivering fear. They were both the inheritors of motherless futures. The child clutched a tiny doll Anna had made for her. It was fashioned from twigs and a wooden clothes peg, with a piece of hessian cut from a potato sack as a cloak. Although Anna dreamt in another language, there was never a need for fluency when it came to compassion. Terror swallowed words, but she could read this child’s nightmares as if they were her own. She was well-trained in the art of being a lost child, no stranger to the empty foreboding that shattered entire nights. The memory of her mother’s voice was like a soft breeze lingering in the leaves. The girl’s face revealed the naked pain Anna knew only too well.
Mary was to be buried in Sydney, by the sea, far from the wind-beaten, cracked landscape of Birdum. The house juddered with Tom’s grief. It was up to Anna to prepare the girls for the funeral, packing their cases with enough toys and clothing for their stay with their grandparents. Leaping Lena moaned and gasped as she carried them away, smothering the girls’ sobs as they waved goodbye to Anna. Not long after, Tom decided that a widower like him would not make a good father – and that Birdum was no place for motherless children – so he sent them to live with his sister, their aunt Emmaline, in the Blue Mountains. Anna became manager of the pub and never saw the girls again.