Paris Savages

In Wellington it was warm and beautiful, the late afternoon sky a quilt of orange, red and pink, and the sea a mesmerising jade green. Hilda, Dorondera, Louis, Herr Ullrich and Hans went ashore while the vessel was reprovisioned with fresh lamb, fruit and vegetables. On their brief sojourn, they dined at a small restaurant run by an Englishman and his New Hebridean wife, who cooked them a meal of grated sweet potato mixed with coconut milk, layered with cooked chicken. Hilda had never tasted anything so delicious. A young boy came and sat on her lap, smiling widely, and she thought of Little Bonny and his fever. She silently prayed for Bonny’s nephew.

‘I think I could live here,’ Hilda said, wishing there had also been space in the longboat for Bonny and Jurano or that her father had been able to convince the captain to send the longboat to shore twice.

The woman laughed. ‘In the New Hebrides there is a saying: a woman is like a stick you throw,’ she said.

‘There is a plant in my country that, if you break off a stick and throw it, will take root and grow. Even on a cliff edge.’ The woman stroked Dorondera’s possum-skin cape over the red embroidered dress. ‘It is beautiful.’

Herr Ullrich, Louis and Hans were conversing with the Englishman at some length, gathering and sharing the stories of men. When they had finished their meals, Herr Ullrich stood and politely thanked the restaurant owner. To Hilda’s surprise he paid the entire sum owing, then left to take a ‘short walk’. Hans retired to the corner of the room and a pile of newspapers delivered by passing ships. He stretched himself along a lounge chair and opened a newspaper across his lap. It was where Hilda wanted to be also, surrounded by news of the world, and the Englishman saw her looking.

‘Please,’ the Englishman told her, pointing to another lounge chair and the papers. ‘You no doubt long for news from home.’

‘Take some with you, Miss Müller,’ the Englishman said, smiling at her brightening expression. ‘I insist. You see I have quite the collection, and more arriving. Actually …’

He went to the papers and rifled through them, disturbing Hans’s peace. The Englishman handed Hilda an American paper.

‘I seem to recall having seen a recent article on Barnum’s circus somewhere in there,’ he said. ‘I think he is also showing some Aborigines if my memory serves me correctly. But he is so often in the papers, one can lose track …’

‘Thank you,’ Louis said, taking the stack being offered to him. ‘We should be returning to the ship.’

Hilda carried the bundle back with her, swaddled in her shawl like an infant. Night had turned the sea squid-ink black. As they neared the ship, she could hear Bonny and Jurano singing once more.

Back on deck, Dorondera sat with her uncle and Bonny, and Hilda announced she was returning to her cabin.

On her bunk, she opened the American newspaper and flicked past advertisements for the latest farming equipment and accounts of disasters at sea. There were stories of politics and theatre shows. She found a piece on the death of the writer Emerson, whom her mother had admired. Hilda studied the photograph of the writer before continuing to scan the overcrowded columns. She turned the page and was confronted with a garish cartoon depicting a frizzy-haired Aboriginal group with bones through their noses. They were brandishing spears, and around them lay large bones, including a human skull. The title read:

P.T. Barnum’s Cannibals to join the Greatest Show on Earth

The cabin closed in around her as she read on:

Also known as Bushmen, Black Trackers, and Boomerang Throwers. These are the only ones of their monstrous, self-disfigured and hopelessly embruited race ever lured from the remote, unexplored and dreadful interior wilds, where they wage an endless war of extermination, that they may gratify their hellish appetite, and GORGE THEMSELVES UPON EACH OTHER’S FLESH.

Hilda gasped in horror and disgust at the lows the American showman had sunk to. Surely no one would believe such lies. He was a fraud, just as the missionary had said on K’gari.

When her father returned to the cabin with Dorondera, Hilda showed him the advertisement, her finger marking the place so as not to alarm her friend. Louis read the piece swiftly, shaking his head. He drew Hilda aside, out into the saloon, speaking quickly and quietly in German.

‘As I told you already, it is different in America. That man is a showman first and a person last. I have heard of this group.’ He stabbed the cartoon with his finger before snapping shut the newspaper. ‘They are also from Queensland but were captured by a Canadian by the name of Cunningham.’ He paused and waited for her to indicate that she understood the difference between the endeavours.

‘Go on.’

‘Two escaped in Sydney from the boat Cunningham was transporting them on, but he had them returned to him and, despite a public outcry, continued overseas.’ Louis handed her back the paper. ‘We will put Barnum to shame,’ he said.

The captain entered and informed them that the meal would soon be served and that it was time for Dorondera to again go downstairs.

‘We have already …’ started Louis. The captain would not react well to news that a meal had been cooked only to be wasted.

‘As I’ve explained, Dorondera prefers to eat on deck with her compatriots and the crew,’ Hilda said. She could hear Bonny and Jurano’s singing seeping its way through the open companionway. It was a calm night.

‘Very well. Just not here, while I eat.’

How Hilda hated the captain, and how she wished that she could join Dorondera on deck. Instead she had to sit again at the saloon table and eat potato, sausage and sauerkraut while she listened to the merriment above. On deck there was laughter and singing, which switched between Badtjala songs and German ditties.

‘Hans is not going to join us?’ she asked the captain.

‘No. It seems he prefers the company of savages. And I believe Herr Ullrich has already retired for the night.’

Hilda was left to imagine Bonny in the moonlight, teaching Hans and the crew Badtjala dances. She could hear the stomping. Fritz, she knew, would not join in, wary as he was of Jurano, who had once brought the nulla-nulla on deck and shouted angrily in the bald man's direction.

Later, when Dorondera returned to their cabin, she was smiling.

‘Hans took off his shirt, and Bonny painted some of his ochre on the white man’s body,’ Dorondera said, mostly in Badtjala. ‘They are still there. They are about to dance again. Come, look.’

Hilda followed Dorondera up the companionway and hid there to watch. Several men were shirtless and dancing, not just Hans, Bonny and Jurano. Johann was amongst them. Her father, too. The men had stripes of white ochre painted across them and shone in the moonlight like skeletons.