Paris Savages

It was the beginning of August, and Dresden paraded itself along the river Elbe with a grandness that took Hilda’s breath away. From the train window she saw wooden steamboats and turreted cathedrals reminiscent of fairytale castles.

They changed trains and headed south, beyond the Altstadt and away from the river to the gardens where Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera were due to perform.

‘A zoo?’ Hilda asked her father as they pulled to a stop at the Dresden Zoologischer Garten.

‘It has the space we require. And the audiences. Bonny does not like being in the centre of a city, as you know.’

The garden’s director met Hilda, her father, Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera at the gates and showed them inside to the flat, grassy area that had been assigned to the Aboriginal performers. The ground was strewn with animal bones, some with the meat still attached.

‘It’s for effect, Hilda,’ her father said when he saw her staring at the props. The director’s attention had strayed for a moment. A mongoose was streaking across the lawn, pursued by a gamekeeper with a net and a string of apologies to the director, who had himself taken several paces in the direction of the skirmish.

‘To make it look like a camp site, Hilda,’ her father murmured in reply. ‘The bones suggest there has been a successful hunt, only that.’

The director was calling after the gamekeeper now, asking if he could still see the mongoose or if it had escaped the zoo’s bounds.

‘Papa, please don’t defend such a thing. Why can’t you admit that this is not turning out as you hoped? You’re allowing them to be used like puppets.’ She looked at the bones on the ground. ‘Permitting whatever it takes to draw crowds.’

The director had walked some distance away and was lifting up the foliage of nearby bushes, calling still.

Hilda continued, raising her voice above the hubbub, ‘It’s playing into the hands of all the people who want audiences to think they are less than them. That they are primitives and that it’s inevitable they will die out!’

Her father appeared shocked by the outburst, although no one else seemed to have heard. ‘Hilda …’

But she was no longer listening. Instead, she was watching Bonny, Dorondera and Jurano, who had walked ahead to look at the wide assortment of animals in cages. There was a large python, housed behind glass, and Hilda wondered if Bonny thought it was Yindingie paying them a visit. It was some minutes before the director returned, shaking his head that the mongoose had got away.

He told Louis that Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera were welcome to use as their accommodation the empty monkey enclosure.

‘Performers often like to stay on site, in the fresh air,’ the director said. ‘And there are financial …’

But Louis declined, telling the director that he’d booked a hotel for his guests. He would bring them to the gardens each day, before the crowds came, and deliver them back to the hotel again in the evenings. He pointed in Jurano’s direction.

‘The older male, Jurano, is unwell,’ Louis explained. ‘They need to be properly housed. Professor Virchow himself emphasises the importance of good living conditions to avoid disease.’ He looked to Hilda for approval, and she wondered whether her mother had felt the same burden to provide it.

Back at the hotel, Bonny and Jurano shared Louis’s room, and Dorondera and Hilda occupied the neighbouring one. There was a small shared sitting room and adjoining kitchen. All retired early after the long journey, and when Hilda woke, the sun was already well into the sky. She leaned out of the bedroom window, taking in the view across the red tile rooftops and up to a copper-green dome where pairs of pigeons danced and cooed. ‘Please may this go well,’ she said aloud to the sky. She wondered if her mother could hear her.

The day unfolded with a similar shape to the days spent in Hamburg at the thierpark, although, here, the grounds were larger, and Bonny and Jurano performed in not just their cut-off shorts but shirts, loosely tied at the neck with ribbons. The garden’s director had requested the costume change following the earlier reports of indecency. There were several performances and large crowds, which Bonny said always looked the same to him. In the afternoon, Bonny suggested to Louis a variation in the show to include a display of hunting with a nulla-nulla and the climbing of a very tall tree in search of a possum, ideas which Louis welcomed. A reporter from the local newspaper visited to take photographs and conduct interviews.

The next morning, over an early breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Hilda read the newspaper piece aloud, translating the article into Badtjala as needed:

The Australneger from Queensland were guests for a short time at the Völkerwiese of the zoological gardens of Dresden, where they attracted many spectators. In the recent past Eskimos, Sudanese, Hindus and representatives of other foreign tribes were also shown to the public …

She read to herself that ‘the face with its protruding cheekbones is deformed by an ugly nose that, due to the narrow nose bone, appears as being pressed flat and features extra large holes so that one automatically thinks of a gorilla when seeing them’. She shook her head and tried to disguise her fury and disappointment before continuing in an optimistic voice:

Their strength and dexterity is surprising. The audience was particularly interested in the throwing of a boomerang which had not been seen in Dresden before. It is a flat piece of wood in the shape of a half moon and approximately two inches wide. The Australneger take it at the outmost corner and throw it with such impact into the air that it sometimes takes more than thirty seconds until it returns. The boomerang rotates many hundreds of times around its own axis so that it looks like a floating ring. The Australneger use the boomerang, that in Australia is heavier and made of oak wood –

Hilda raised her eyebrows questioningly at that, then continued:

both for hunting and as a weapon against their enemies. Furthermore, they threw sharp lances artfully into a filled linen bag attached to a tree, and that from quite a big distance.

Also, they handled a kind of little war club that they use for hunting animals and climbed onto a tree on the meadow in the way …

She left out another comparison with primates and read:

arms and legs stretched out horizontally. At the end, the good-tempered Bonangera usually begins a song that resembles the monotone Negro melodies of America and Jurano dances to it.

Hilda smiled at Bonny. ‘They used your full name as you asked,’ she said. She then read quietly to herself that, ‘The young girl is timid and appears uncurious about civilised ways.’ How wrong the reporter was, Hilda thought, vowing to find him again and let him know that Dorondera was the most curious young woman she knew, the fastest learner.

‘You look ugly, Uncle,’ Dorondera said, laughing as she leaned closer to Hilda to better see the accompanying cartoon. She lifted herself slightly from her seat and rearranged the small bustle of her blue dress for the third time since starting breakfast. Uncurious indeed, Hilda thought, admiring the way Dorondera’s thick hair nestled at the back of her head. It had required only one chignon pin to secure it. Her own thick red curls were much less willing to be subdued.

Jurano reached for the newspaper, and Hilda noticed that he had attached a shiny decorative pin to his blazer. How would the three adjust to being back on the island again one day, she wondered. Would the settlers pay them greater courtesy? And how would they be received amongst their own people? She must not get ahead of herself.

‘I was trying to look fierce. Angry. We were told to fight!’ Jurano said, tearing the image in two and throwing both halves on the floor. Bonny reached for the half that bore his own image, which was more flattering, and buttoned it into his jacket pocket.

Hilda answered a knock at the apartment door to find Haeckel standing before her, tipping his hat. He is like a bloodhound, she thought.

‘Ah, Dr Haeckel,’ her father said from behind her, inviting him inside. ‘We cannot seem to escape you.’ Why did her father not close the door in the man’s face?

‘Hilda, would you make us some tea?’ Louis asked.

She left the room for the small adjoining kitchen, set a pot of water on the stove, then pressed her ear to the wooden wall so she could still hear.

‘I wanted to ask you, Herr Müller,’ Haeckel said. ‘Have you given any more thought to my request to make closer anatomical examinations of the female? There are still important questions.’

Hilda looked through the crack between the door and its frame and saw her father shaking his head.

‘It’s just that …’ Haeckel reached into his pocket and pulled out a fold of money, which he began to open and flick through. ‘I understand that your funds are low.’

Louis looked at the bribe on offer and held up his hand.

‘Please, no.’ Hilda’s father said, his eyes still on the money in the German doctor’s hand. ‘If you wish to make a donation to the performers’ wellbeing, that would be gratefully accepted, but I cannot, indeed I will not, grant your other request.’

‘Then I will bid you good day here,’ Haeckel said briskly. He made a flourish of returning the money to his pocket and pulling the door shut behind him.

‘Hilda?’ her father called, his voice low enough to indicate that he knew she was listening.

She re-entered the room as the water began to hiss and spit on the stove.

‘Did I pass the test?’ her father asked.

There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and he laughed at her seriousness.

‘Papa, if you had agreed, I would no longer call myself your daughter.’ She drew in a shuddery breath. ‘When will we go to England?’ she asked.

‘As soon as we have earned enough for the passage, Hilda. Not a day later.’ There was no trace of his earlier smile.