Paris Savages

Hilda lay on the grave, the sand damp against her back. She was alone in the clearing, flanked by two spiralling piccabeen palms that drew her gaze up to a section of sky that dared to be blue. A sea eagle soared, surveying the length of island that her mother had so dearly wanted to again become an Aboriginal reserve, for it had been one once. That was two decades ago before the logging operations began, and it had only lasted a couple of years.

Christel once wrote an impassioned letter to the Maryborough Chronicle espousing the merits of Mr Sheridan’s idea of a new safe haven for the region’s ‘friendly blacks’, whose declining numbers she documented. A reply was published the following week: ‘Foreigners who were not planning to settle should not be advising on policies concerning SAVAGES.’ Hilda remembered her mother pasting a copy of her letter into her journal alongside the published reply, a look of determination on her face.

‘I won’t give up,’ Hilda promised aloud, patting the grave. At least Christel’s remains were safe. In the Aboriginal cemetery, there had been raids by bone collectors. There were other forms of hurt, too. She had heard of men who had bought Aboriginal girls for blankets and tobacco, but she doubted those stories, knew that what they’d taken they’d stolen. Don’t believe everything you hear, her mother had told her more than once.

Clouds raced across the blue sky framed by the graveyard palms. More clouds came, thick, weighty presences that felt fitting on such a day. Yes, she was excited, but there were other feelings also. It could not be helped. Emotions, her mother had told her, were not simple things. Christel lost her parents to a house fire the week after she married and once confided that if she had still been living in the family home, she may have noticed the flames in time. ‘They had not supported the marriage, or our travel plans,’ she said. ‘But I loved them.’ She paused. ‘Love is very complicated in some ways, yet, in others, it is the most simple of things.’

A wallaby bounded, and Hilda startled and sat up swiftly, meeting the creature’s brown eyes. Beyond the animal, through a break in the banksias and tea-trees, she could see the three-masted barque and, closer in, the longboat returning to the beach. She turned her attention to her mother’s headstone for a final time. Her father had made the inscription himself with a hammer and chisel.

Hilda took her penknife from her wallaby-skin satchel and cut away the plants that were invading the unfenced plot. Every few months, her father lit a small fire in the undergrowth and let it burn back away from the grave. The Badtjala carried out burnings also, taming the land, opening it up in patches and corridors, but not here in the cemetery. Hilda feared that soon the forest would close in, engulfing the grave as though Christel Müller had never existed.

She looked again at the knife in her hand and wiped it clean before lowering the bodice of her dress to expose the pale skin of her right breast. She closed her eyes and, with a shaking hand, cut a shallow horizontal line half an inch long. Under it, she cut a second line, parallel with the first, her eyes open again. She took her handkerchief from her pocket and held it there, pressing hard to stem the bleeding. She did the same to the left breast, two horizontal lines, one directly above the other. It would do. Bonny had three rows of such scars on the left side of his chest and one row on the right. In all, forty-two individual marks, which Hilda had discreetly counted when Bonny was sitting near her one day, absorbed in his task of carving a bar’gan. She wasn’t sure what each cut meant, and wondered what they would feel like to the touch. Soft, like blisters, or hard and knotted? Hilda wiped her finger against a piece of burnt wood, a remnant from her father’s fires, and smeared the charcoal into her wounds so they would scar in memory of her mother and the time they had spent here.

Finally, Hilda stood and walked to the nearby stream, deciding to follow it in the direction of the beach. She picked her way through a grove of lush ferns growing in the shade cast by the thickly vegetated bank opposite. If she followed the stream in the other direction, inland, she would eventually reach forests still replete with kauri, hoop and cyprus pines despite the timber-getting. In the island’s interior she had walked with her mother through the tallest forests imaginable, where giant satinays, looped with thick vines, grew straight up in search of light. Here, surrounded by ferns, she raised her skirts and squatted, the sound of her own water just audible over the flow of the creek. As Hilda stood and walked again, her white dress caught on a cycad frond and tore.

Soon, the island relinquished its hold and Hilda stepped into the glare and a strong onshore wind. Her boots sunk beneath mud at the edge of the mangrove-lined creek and she made for drier sand as quickly as she was able. She returned her hat to her head and held her hand over her eyes to try to block the sudden assault of sand, but the fine grains blinded her as they had done many times. In that moment, the wind seized the gift from Mr Sheridan, and the straw hat cartwheeled away, its blue ribbon flying from its new roost in a scribbly gum.

‘Hilda, hurry!’ her father called from beside the longboat that was to ferry them to the ship. ‘The wind.’

He raised his eyes to the hurtling clouds and momentarily lost his balance in the buffeting sea. He gripped the side of the longboat as it lurched shoreward. Several crew, also thigh deep in water, were alongside her father and opposite, attempting to stabilise the wooden vessel.

As Hilda approached, Louis’s eyes went to the blood on her bodice, and to her dress’s frayed hemline and muddy boots. He reached out for her, close now on the wet sand.

‘Are you hurt?’ His broad features, more visible since he had shaved off his beard, were suddenly pinched.

She shook her head. ‘I fell.’ She touched her chest. ‘A vine. Near Mama’s grave.’

Hilda looked over her shoulder. The beach was empty. ‘Did the others board safely?’

She looked again in the direction of the camp. What had she expected? Tears? Singing?

He pointed at the ship lumbering in deeper water off the beach. Hilda studied the vessel – the sails folded along the yardarms, the German flag streaming towards her from the top of the stern mast.

‘We must go,’ he insisted, his hand on her shoulder now. ‘The winds are growing dangerous. Here, put your arms around my neck.’

‘Step into the centre,’ her father instructed, as a wave struck him in the stomach.

A crewman with kind blue eyes addressed Hilda as ‘Fräulein’. She saw him also register the blood on her dress. He leapt into the boat ahead of her to offer his hand, which she took hold of firmly, nodding her thanks before raising her shoulder to her cheek to soak up the line of seawater that had landed there. She took a deep breath and held the heels of her hands to her eyes before looking once more up towards the camp.

Several of the elders and the two girls who the night before had been playing with her hair appeared on the crest of the beach. Hilda attempted to stand but the boat bucked and dropped her back onto the seat. The girls darted down the slope to the water’s edge, hands above their heads, and Hilda raised her own arm in reply, calling out to them in Badtjala as the waves grabbed at their jumping feet.

‘We will be back soon!’ she cried, aware of the sailors’ eyes on her. She could not blame the young Germans for being intrigued, and even took some pleasure in being the object of their fascination, particularly the sailor with the smiling blue eyes. It was a good distraction to think of the men, and what they must make of her, instead of what she was leaving behind.

She called out again to the girls on the beach, ‘Be good while we are gone!’

She gave emphasis to the unusual sounds of the Badtjala language, those she had found difficult at first but had, according to Bonny, somewhat mastered. The blue-eyed sailor was still watching her. Hilda looked up at the low sandy ridgeline again to see if any others were coming. Old Mary or Jack.

‘Little Bonny was unwell overnight,’ her father said plainly. ‘The others will be occupied with him.’

Louis had made it into the boat in a single jump and sat behind her now, also facing the bow.

‘Oh.’ She remembered the small boy’s forehead, hot against her lips the night before. She had thought it was from the campfire. Why had no one thought to tell her he had grown sick? Was she still, to them, just another visitor to the island? If Christel were still alive, she would have been called to the boy’s aid, but Hilda knew that she herself would have been of little use. Nevertheless, she loved the boy. Had held him many nights by the fire. Did that not count for something?

The sailors who had been holding the longboat steady counted to three loudly in unison and pushed the boat out, leaping aboard. They rowed hard to get through the chop, and another line of cold salt water lashed Hilda’s cheek.

Her father had also turned now to face the people gathered on the rim of the beach. He removed his hat, which he passed above him in a half circle, arm outstretched. He glanced her way, grinning widely, but it seemed forced. Did he not also have mixed feelings? Weaknesses? When would he drop the façade with her, as he had done with his wife, and reveal what he truly felt? It would be a comfort, Hilda thought, to know she was not alone. She noted the uneven hairline at the base of her father’s skull. He had declined her help yesterday, insisting that he could manage his own haircut with just a razor blade and a small handheld mirror. The razor had slipped, and he now had a small cut on the back of his neck that he had reluctantly allowed her to wash and tend.

Or was it not a façade? Was her father indeed as different from when they’d first arrived as he seemed? Stronger. Less dependent on the approval of others. As far as she knew, he had not been in contact with his family since leaving Germany. He flashed her another quick smile, and she tried to mirror his unflinching optimism, even as she began to shiver, although her clothes were largely dry. Why did her body always give her away? She wrapped her arms about herself.

‘Take this,’ her father said, leaning forwards and draping his coat around her shoulders.

Water broke over the longboat’s gunnels, and Hilda gripped the edge of the bench seat. She tried to calm herself by bringing her focus to the world contained within the boat: the men rowing, their sodden trousers and waterlogged boots; her own narrow leather shoes, planted on the wooden ribs that held together the longboat’s planks. Seawater sloshed at the bottom of the boat like the sea in K’gari’s rockpools. Small pieces of red and brown seaweed from the island’s shores danced. Hilda picked at the black dirt under her fingernails.

‘Where are your gloves?’ her father asked. Was he trying to distract her so she would be less afraid, or did he care about such a small thing?

Whichever, Hilda seized the diversion. She remembered putting the gloves at the gravesite when she did the weeding and made the cuts. She looked in the direction of the shore and immediately wished she hadn’t. They were already so far out. Dorondera’s young cousins were calling to her still, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying.

‘I see,’ her father said. ‘Never mind.’ He laid a hand on her back. ‘You have a second pair.’

Hilda thought of her gloves lying on an upholstered mossy root, holding each other. Such stupid, impractical things.

The crew rowed on, talking amongst themselves in Low German, a dialect she had learned by osmosis from several poorly dressed children who had attended her school in Bremen. Even now, if she listened carefully, she found she understood much of what was being said.

A large, muscular man the others were calling Fritz sat opposite her, a woollen cap pulled low over his forehead. Each time a spray of water came over the sides of the boat, he dipped his head so that the cap’s narrow brim shielded his grey slit-eyes. Beside him was a gaunt man with stringy black hair that reached to his shoulders. The thin man noticed Hilda’s torn dress and the wallaby-skin satchel, and joked under his breath that she would create a stir on the streets of Berlin. Hilda drew her father’s coat tight, wishing to no longer be the focus of attention.

‘Men back home will run the other way,’ the thin sailor whispered as he sucked on a sinew of greasy hair.

‘I wouldn’t,’ the larger man said. He took his hand from the oar to doff his cap, revealing a bald head.

‘Enough, Fritz,’ said the sailor who had helped Hilda aboard. He flicked his eyes in Hilda’s father’s direction, but Louis was otherwise occupied. He was negotiating his way unsteadily further towards the stern to allow the bow a freer run.

‘Relax, Johann. It’s just some fun,’ the bald man said, his hoarse voice further muddying his dialect so that Hilda had to concentrate hard for it to be intelligible. ‘Do you understand our sailor talk, Mädchen?’

She averted her gaze, having learned the value of not revealing too soon her facility with language.

‘Heave,’ cried the man in charge, and the crew pulled in unison on the oars. They cleared a wave and several bucketloads of water crashed into the craft.

Hilda could still feel the unwelcome attention of the man Fritz and glanced away.

‘It’s been a month since I kissed a woman,’ the bald man hissed. ‘But she was not so fair.’ He grunted as the boat cleared another wave.

‘You know what the English call it?’ Fritz asked. ‘“Black velvet.” Don’t mind it myself.’

He pulled on the oar, showing yellow peg teeth as his knee touched Hilda’s, his stale smell a stain in the air. Hilda moved her legs aside, bunching her skirts to lift them out of the water in the bottom of the boat and away from the bald man whose eyes went to the mud on her dress.

‘Although this one looks to have turned native like the others,’ he said. ‘Seems she’s been lying on her back a while.’

‘Enough!’ Johann yelled. He took his hand off the oar for long enough to strike the back of Fritz’s head.

Hilda let go of her father’s jacket to better grip the seat, and the greasy-haired crewman gawped at her stained bodice.

‘Kein Problem, Papa.’ She pressed her feet firmly against the planks at the base of the longboat to still the shaking in her legs and focused instead on the iron hull of the massive barque looming ahead of them.

Fritz reached out for the rope stepladder, which had been thrashing against the ship’s side, and passed it to Hilda. He offered her his free hand.

Hilda set her right foot on a wooden strut and gripped the ladder’s rope sides as she transferred her left foot also.

She started the difficult climb, stopping each time the boat jerked against the anchor chain. When her foot slipped on a strut, she caught herself and pictured the ease with which Bonny had scaled trees twice this height to pluck a possum from its hollow. She imagined he was beside her, his voice calm and encouraging. Dorondera had climbed the ladder, she told herself.

At the ship’s railing, an older crewman with a short dark beard took a firm hold of her hand and hauled her aboard.

‘We have not had the pleasure of a lady’s company for a very long time,’ he said.

Hilda gleaned that he was genuine; his smile was kind, not leering like Fritz’s. She turned to see her father ascending and was terrified at the idea of suddenly losing him now. When he was safely on deck, he extended an arm and she swiftly drew herself into his damp chest, noting his sour breath as he kissed her forehead.

‘I am fine,’ Louis said, chuckling reassuringly and leading her in the direction of the sloop deck. ‘Come, I will introduce you to the captain.’

‘Herr Müller,’ the captain began, walking towards them and away from the first mate, who was at the helm. The captain stopped at the rail, his shirt buttoned so high under his long black jacket that his neck and face were flushed red and he appeared to have to raise his chin to breathe.

‘Bitte, Kapitän,’ Louis began, still smiling. ‘As I indicated earlier, you can address me by my Christian name. Louis.’

‘Herr Müller,’ the captain corrected, inserting a finger between his shirt neck and skin, dragging the cloth forwards. ‘I will be brief. You may have paid for your passage, but it is my right to refuse it if you jeopardise this vessel by delaying our departure again. There is a great deal of shallow ground. Sandbanks. In this wind …’ He pointed to the wreck washed up on a beach to the north. ‘I am gaining no special advantage for transporting your unusual cargo.’

The captain shook his head and, seeing that the longboat was now on deck, gave the order to raise the anchor, several jibs and the mizzen.

‘In these winds it will not be easy to turn the ship in such a narrow channel,’ he told Hilda’s father. The captain appeared nervous but allowed himself a moment’s distraction as several crew drew in the anchor chain. ‘You have been living here, you say? With your daughter?’

Louis nodded.

‘Among the savages?’

‘With the native people, yes. It has been an education.’

The captain turned his attention to Hilda, her lack of hat and gloves; her untidy hair, escaped now from her braids and still knotted in places after the attention of Dorondera’s cousins. The corners of his thin mouth turned down.

‘An education?’ He held out a hand to her as if providing evidence in a court of law. He removed his felt hat and smoothed his black hair away from the unnaturally white side part, then pressed down his flayed moustache, shaking his head as he walked back towards the helm. Hilda looked at his ridiculous whiskers and thought of the Badtjala story about a stupid and overly proud boy being turned into a catfish.

‘Kapitän,’ she started, but the wind had her words.

It was her father’s turn to shake his head and turn away.

‘Leave it,’ he said.

Hilda raised the collar of her father’s jacket and tucked her hands under her armpits. It was not the first time her father’s decision to live amongst the blacks had been so quickly judged. There were occasions in the early weeks of living on K’gari that she had judged it unfavourably herself. The first time she tasted goanna, for one. She dropped her arms again by her side and stroked the wallaby-skin satchel that Dorondera had made for her in an afternoon.

‘It is very fine,’ the blue-eyed sailor told her as he passed. ‘Your case.’

‘Danke.’ She smiled.

In truth, she cared little what the captain, or the brute Fritz, thought and reminded herself of her mother’s advice: We have raised you to think for yourself, Hilda. Let the thoughts of others reside with them.

The crew finished winching up the ship’s vast anchor, uprooting tangled rafts of red and brown seaweed that hung from the metal weight at the prow like bloodied hair. Hilda felt the wetness of her bodice against her skin.

‘Quickly with the jibs or we’ll end up on the beach,’ the captain said.

As fore and aft sails were sheeted on, Hilda noted the bow starting to turn in a more northerly direction and she allowed herself to breathe out. She scanned the entire deck from bow to stern.

‘Where are they?’ she asked her father, raising her voice above the roar of the weather.

‘Below decks. Perfectly safe.’ He tapped the floorboards with his boot.

‘Locked in?’

‘No, but I told them to stay below. The wallabies are there also. We have constructed a small enclosure.’

A forceful crack overhead caused Hilda and her father to look up. The power of the wind in the sails was like the wind in K’gari’s towering forests in a burung’ganj, a thunderstorm. The Badtjala word had come to her first. There was a buffeting in Hilda’s chest as the gale blew from across the passage.

‘They’ll hate being down there,’ she yelled, holding the rail as another gust battered the ship.

‘Once we are underway …’

A crewman gave a warning shout, and a metal bolt from high in the rigging crashed onto the deck, a body length from Hilda. She instinctively held her arms over her head in case something else should fall and felt her father pulling her towards him once more.

‘Johann!’ the captain shouted, pointing up the nearest mast to its dizzying summit.

The blue-eyed sailor caught the brass fixture before it was swept off the deck and fed it into a leather pouch on his belt. He began to climb, well for a white man, Hilda observed. She noticed the strength of his body beneath his white shirt.

‘Please, Papa, can’t we get them now?’

Her father looked back at the island.

‘Bitte,’ she said. The German nicety hung in the air.

He nodded and again kissed her forehead.