Late Saturday afternoon brought with it a forlorn silence, searing heat rising from red hillocks that stretched out beneath the shell of sky. After spending a few quiet hours lounging in the Lemon and Claret Room, Alter Mayseh sat on the stoop of the veranda, a slim volume of poetry resting on his lap, its scrolled lettering defiantly exposing him as other. The company of these Australian men demanded compliance; he felt their stares. A twist of smoke rose in the distance. Shards of broken glass that had been trodden into the dirt in front of the hotel glistened in the light. He scraped his boot in the dust, carving out a crude smile. All around, the scrub whispered secrets, foliage drooping with exhaustion after months of relentless sun.
Alter’s eyes were gradually adjusting to what had seemed, at first encounter, a monotonous landscape. Soon, tones began to reveal themselves. Muted drabness transformed into an ever-changing canvas of colour, daubed by the masterful brush of the sun. As it sank from this part of the world, it left behind its flaming outrage tattooed across the sky. Twilight faded and surrendered to gentle moonlight that dragged eerie shadows out from the tops of trees and rocks, drawing breath from the wind, unloosing songs from furtive insects that trilled in evening’s cloak of darkness.
The distances some of the men had travelled just to find work were unimaginable. Days were long and sweltering and each of them seemed to live for that moment they staggered, exhausted, into the Birdum Hotel, polite as pie. The chatter rose, growing louder with each round. Anna was amazed a mere handful of men could create such a ruckus. A game of two-up got going on the veranda. By closing time the place looked like a crime scene, heated arguments often settled by a pair of fists. The previous night Anna had taped together a cracked lens on old Fergus McTavish’s spectacles after he got into an argument with Pat Dougan, who had a reputation as a man who would pick a fight in an empty room.
‘Your turn,’ Fergus had said, egging Pat on to buy a round of drinks.
‘You must have fallen out of an Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down,’ Pat teased. ‘You got a face like the north end of a south-bound camel.’
‘Well, you’re no oil painting yerself, mate,’ Fergus replied. ‘And yer so tight I reckon you wouldn’t shout a round of drinks if a shark bit ya,’ which landed Fergus a swift punch on the nose, breaking his glasses.
The damage Pat inflicted was of concern to everyone in Birdum. A blacksmith by trade, Fergus doubled up as the Overland Telegraph operator, as well as the official Puller of Aching Teeth. A loss of the man’s eyesight would end up affecting them all.
A couple of drovers had been in town for a few days, on their way through to Newcastle Waters. Carrying its precious load of benzine, their huge truck was beached over at the motor garage. A knobbly bloke who had flown in from Daly Waters in his tottering plane sat alone on an armchair in the Lemon and Claret Room inside. His attention was focused on demolishing a plate of golden fritters, an ersatz comfort after his rough landing on the newly built airstrip. He had unstrapped his wooden leg, which lay abandoned on the rug.
Anna prepared for the six o’clock swill, an hour-long intense drinking session fuelled by the looming closing time.
‘Last call!’ she shouted, refilling the men’s empty glasses as they rushed to knock back as many beers as they could in the time left.
Tom had warned her from the very start she would be ‘busier than a butcher’s blowfly’ for that hour. But even though she had been the only applicant for the job, and was young and inexperienced, she turned out to be the hardest worker he had ever employed. As soon as the clock struck six, Anna ushered the men out of the pub. They shuffled along sadly, like mourners at a funeral. Lounging around on the veranda, they played another round of two-up before each of them headed off in the direction of their own rusty shack.
Anna locked the door and made her way through to the kitchen. A kookaburra, perched in a nearby acacia, watched her as she tossed some raw chicken guts into the backyard. The twittering chorus had turned to silence earlier, and tiny bats darted around feeding on insects. It didn’t seem to bother the lone bird, which had made up its mind to stay awake long past its bedtime waiting for potential scraps. Its feathers flashed bright blue during the day, but night had stitched a shawl of darkness over it. The bird cocked its head as if to ask the same question every evening: Can I trust this creature who would feed a bird with a bird? As the first stars appeared it leapt down to unravel the sticky morsels. It pierced the meat with its razor-sharp beak and, holding tight to the prize, flew back up to the safety of the tree to devour its dinner.
That evening, after everyone had crawled home, Anna and Alter sat together on the veranda, watched by an audience of stars.
‘Do you think it’s as beautiful here as Europe?’ he asked her.
‘It has taken me time to warm to it.’
Memories and dreams floated beyond this absurdly wide horizon, rising again to haunt her. The glint of a glass, variegated patterns in a stone; the mundane and familiar evoked what was now so far away. A pot of daisies. A pink rose. Yellow daffodils awakening to spring. She often dreamt of home, the calls of the cuckoo and the starling. The land here seemed almost cruel by comparison, but it gave up its secret bounty for those who learned how to look.
She had been in Birdum for close to five years now. Within a day of her arrival she had already met all the people living in the small town, although hiding seemed a more accurate description for what most of them were doing there. They formed an unspoken pact, and this had become Anna’s hiding place too. When anyone new passed through and asked about her accent, she mumbled that she was from Europe, busying herself with sweeping, or rushing away to wash the endless supply of empty beer glasses. She didn’t lie. Not saying anything was the best way to avoid revealing the truth.
They were, overall, simple folk. The men could knock back beers without stopping, in a lingering version of suicide. When evenings started growing humid, the air inside the pub became oppressive and they took to sitting on the veranda, flicking their cigarette butts into the old horse trough. Their raucous laughter spilled out into the darkening sky. But at night, as she lay alone in her bed, Anna sometimes heard them wandering around outside, sobbing like children. There was a temptation for people out here to become greedy, lusting for what was not their own – the land’s riches, another man’s woman. But Anna knew from experience that it was those in the big cities, hiding behind elegant mahogany desks and their notion of ‘civilisation’, who made the most momentous decisions to embrace evil.
‘It seems to me this is a place where one can have a new beginning,’ Alter said, turning to look at Anna. ‘Is that why you came all the way here?’
The cries of wild dogs hung in the night air; their calls had become a strange source of comfort for Anna in the depths of her loneliness. She prodded the wooden floorboards with a stick.
Alter persisted. ‘Is all your family back in Germany?’
Screeching cicadas filled the silence.
She took time to answer. ‘I belong to no-one.’
‘So, what is it you are searching for here?’
‘Only to live simply on this earth.’
‘Well, at least you have that luxury.’ He laughed.
‘Do I? What makes you so sure of that?’
‘Well, for starters you’re not Jewish.’
She wanted to say there were other reasons to leave Europe, but shifted the conversation back to him. ‘What exactly is it you are hoping to find here?’
‘Me? I am just a Yiddish poet chasing a dream, looking for somewhere safe to rest his bones. How many more deserts and seas will my people need to cross before we can stop running? I could easily make this country my home – if only the people here would have me. The world is so vast. There’s enough room for millions more people, but the doors of most countries are closed – especially to us Jews. We are living in a century that has its eyes shut tight. So many hands, young and capable, are reaching out to seek work and a new life, but nobody wants us. Sometimes I have a chilling vision of what the future might hold. In it, I imagine the whole of Europe rid of its Jews. A thousand years of settlement vanished in a thin wisp of smoke. My very own language is filled with the hopeless, downtrodden optimism that arises from generations of persecution.’
He took a tattered newspaper article out from between the pages of his notebook and read aloud:
The Jews in every European nation are aghast at the horrors perpetrated by the Hitlerites in Germany but are unable to interfere. The great scientist Einstein, who arrived from America on his way to Belgium, said he could not return home as conditions were too terrible. The outrages reported included that of Prof. Zondak, world-famous surgeon at Berlin Hospital, and his family having been beaten with sticks. At Frankfurt seven Jews were dragged to Nazi headquarters and there compelled at revolver point to flog one another until some were unconscious.
‘I found this in a pile of old newspapers on the shelf in the Lemon and Claret Room. It’s an article from back in 1933, published in the Northern Standard. Do you know that in that same year, over seventeen million of your countrymen voted for the National Socialist Party? I wrote to Einstein about it. We are both ardent fans of Spinoza. Even back then I told him the Jews needed to leave Europe and find somewhere else to go. And then, I had a strange dream about Australia. It’s a land with so much room for people in need of shelter – and so far from the hatred growing in Europe.’ He smiled as he unfolded another note hidden in his journal. ‘See this? Einstein answered me himself, and even wrote me a letter of recommendation.’
Unlike Alter, never in her wildest imaginings had Anna planned to come to Australia – least of all this lonely, far-flung town with its corrugated-iron shacks and constant chorus of whirring insects. But the isolation here at the end of the line suited her.
She wanted to tell Alter this was also a continent of blood. If you dared to look, you would see it – an entire culture existing here long before Europeans, threatened too, their languages dying. She would watch the Yangman folk as they hid in the shadows on the edge of town, beautiful children staring out from behind their mothers’ skirts.
‘We live here without knowing the beginnings of this place,’ she said. Without caring about its history, its past. So many of those who used to belong to this land are no longer, and we tell ourselves that what we bring is better. No need to look back or search for what was. And yet, at night, I hear echoes of their songs, their voices reaching out across time.’
‘I have just travelled through the middle of this country for weeks. Do you think I haven’t seen how badly they are treated, Anna, the pain in their eyes, their languages muted? It’s all too familiar, I’m afraid. I was told there is no hatred in Australia, but I recognise persecution when I see it.’
The bush was quiet, the wild dogs no longer howling. Even Gubbins barely moved, waking occasionally to snap at flies, stand, do a half-turn and flop down again on the veranda. They heard boots tramping in the dirt as someone approached. A round face came into focus, blazing in the light of the lamp, a slovenly creature with a menacing stare. It was Max Schmidt. He muttered something under his breath, opening his mouth as if gasping for air. Alter stood to help him, but the man pushed him away, almost toppling over with the force of his anger.
The little man was all aflame with accusations, shouting in whispers, so no-one else would hear him. ‘What are you doing, a woman of fine German blood, flapping around him like some silly bird?’ He stabbed the air repeatedly, pointing to Alter.
Holding back for a moment, she surveyed the sturdy man. ‘Do you have nothing better to do than make up ugly stories in your head?’
She immediately regretted the outburst. Even though there had been no more than a little flirtation between her and Alter, surely she could choose to spend her time with anyone she wanted. Schmidt embodied the very men she had travelled all this way to escape, yet here he was right in front of her, waving his Jew-hatred under her nose. And what made someone so obnoxious just because of their race, anyway? Did Schmidt think some bewitching entanglement had drawn her towards Alter, who was a flesh-and-blood human being like any other? The horrid man was calling her to account for something that, even if it were true, she would never be ashamed of. Schmidt stood before her demanding an answer, but the words she wished to form became choked with rage.
‘Filthy swine,’ Schmidt yelled. ‘Jude!’ He spat at Alter, and hobbled away, vanishing into the darkness.
That night, neither moon nor stars appeared. Rain clouds rolled in, cloaking Birdum with the threat of its first downpour.