Multiculturalism just works - Eureka Street

Multiculturalism just works - Eureka Street

Razzia means: they are coming to get my dad.

Razzia means: they’re coming to get my dad

            A giant tree it was, a Dutch elm. Its rusty trunk stood like a sentry, its crown dwarfing the house we lived in.  Its thickest branch reached out to the little dormer window on the roof.   It was my window.  My escape route when I wanted to crawl out of the bedroom on a late summer evening.  Of course, I was supposed to be asleep with my two brothers, but they slept with the two of them  in one bed, whilst I, being eight and the oldest, always slept on my own.

            That summer evening I had climbed through the open window into the branches of the elm, the leaves hiding me but also scratching my bare arms, their strong fragrance tickling my nose.  During the day I had dragged some weathered planks from the tiny wood stack in the backyard to my tree. Only three planks, as the war was on and any plank had to be kept for fuel for our potbelly stove. But it was sufficient for my own cubby house in the tree, sufficient for my dreams to build a castle.  Now, I could stand up and imagine myself a powerful lord surveying the sea and the ships and the airplanes, even though the houses on the opposite side of the street blocked most of my view.

            I saw a dark figure coming from around the corner of our narrow street.  The sound of heavy footsteps echoed back from the brick wall on the other end of the street. When the figure came closer I saw the moon reflecting on his green helmet, which seemed to wobble on his head.  A German soldier, drunk, like the ones I had seen outside the café’s.  I felt the tree jerk when he banged his head against it.   I heard the soft sound of peeing and I had to pinch my nose closed against the rising smell of piss.  Why did he have to use our tree?  But as sudden as he had come, he went back, the clanking of his boots fading away.  The street was quiet and mine.  If I waited long enough I should be able to hear the far-away drone of the bomber-planes from England flying over, long enough before I would hear my mother yell for us kids to come downstairs and seek safety in the small pantry under the staircase.  We were always there when we heard the engine noise from planes above and the shooting from anti-aircraft guns below.  We would pray those endless prayers hoping that we might be saved from exploding bombs.

            I sat still and listened for a while, but I became bored and climbed down a branch to look downstairs into the lounge room of our house. My father sat in the corner reading a book, the one with the curled edges he had read many times before.  When he had turned the page, he closed his eyes. I could hear him snore.

            Don’t fall asleep, man. It’s too early. It was my mother’s voice. She sat across from him, knitting a jumper from leftover wool.  It would be another disaster for me to wear to school.  The other kids would show off their perfectly knitted, brown jumpers their mums had bought in the shops of the German sympathizers.  But my dad and my friend’s dad next door and the other men down the street wouldn’t allow the women to visit those shops.

            The rippled edges of the bark started to cut into my bare feet and I tightened my hands around the branch above to alleviate the pain.  How I wished to be one of the other kids, to wear their white runners with rubber soles, and their straight, brown jumpers.  My dad and my friend’s dad were the stupid ones, always missing out, forever losers.  We were probably the ones to be hit by a stray bomb from the planes from England, right down through the middle of the house, right into the little space under the staircase.

           

I am not sleeping, mensch. I am reading. I could see him jerking his back straight, his hand turning another page.  He couldn’t have read the previous page yet.   He was a sucker, my dad.  Always listening to my mum. Never telling her to shut up and to mind her own business. With us it was different.  He told us off in no uncertain terms.  I remember him swearing at us when my mate Nathan and me wanted to join the Hitler-Jugend.  We had seen the other kids marching and running and wearing those white runners and singing German songs and afterwards drinking large bottles of cool lemonade, causing us to piss behind the hedge where we were hiding.  My father’s Come home, you fucking kids came with that harsh, guttural sound we tried to imitate in neighbourhood fights.

There is a razzia tomorrow, he said all of a sudden without looking up from his book.

I saw my mother dropping her knitting onto her lap.  I could hear the tingle from the needles.  She looked at my father, watching his face, waiting for more.

All men over forty, he said, have to stand outside… two o’clock… work camps in Germany so they say.

Over forty, over forty, I gasped. That old. I looked around me into the street, but there was no one who could have heard me.

It had to happen, my mother sighed. I’ll have some food and clothes ready. Tomorrow is Saturday.  Only half a day’s work.  When you come home from work, I’ll have it ready.

And that on Saturday, she repeated.  I saw her hand rubbing her face. Closing my eyes I could smell their stale onion-odor.

My father kept looking in his book.  He never looked at her when he couldn’t stop the hurt.  I remember that from the bike-shed when I helped him killing our cat and the manner that he looked away from my mother when he told her that he had caught a rabbit.  I had wanted to tell her that we had meat again, but his big hand hit me over the ear.  Why hadn’t he just told her?  We didn’t need the bloody cat anymore. He wasn’t a coward, my dad, just someone I couldn’t brag about to my mates.

I pulled one leg up onto the branch above me and adjusted the grip of my hands. I put my stomach against the bark and slowly lifted my body. Then edging forward, feeling the green moss filling my navel, I climbed back into the little window opening.  I stood still for a moment and then, hoping that nobody would have heard me, crawled back into my bed.

That night I didn’t hear the drone of the far-away bombers, because I dreamt to be the pilot. I flew the big plane over the beach. My mates building their sandcastles were pointing at my plane. I waved, but they didn’t see me. Slowly, pulling back the steering wheel, I lowered the plane to just above the water. The heads of the swimmers were corks bobbing on the waves. There, just before the water break, my father swam.  He didn’t look at my plane.  I pulled and pushed the instruments, wanted to stop the plane, jump out to be in the water.  The parachute, tight around my neck, wouldn’t open. I wanted to dive into the water, close to where my father was, but I kept on floating in the air.  I never came down.

No school on Saturday.  For us kids Saturday was a feast!  But there was no feast in our street.  Nathan, Sam and all my other mates were indoors.  It was dead calm, the leaves of the elm quivering in the hot summer wind. My father had left for work at six o’clock, and would be home at twelve for his lunch and his nap.  I don’t remember his usual early morning shouting that the fucking stove was buggered again. I don’t remember seeing my mother running around, trying the knobs of the gas stove, blowing into the small rubber hose to dislodge an air bubble.  I do remember being in the street, trying to whistle with my thumb and finger in my mouth, but I hadn’t mastered it yet.  When Nathan finally appeared from the lane beside his house, I had to tell him immediately.

There is a razzia today.  My dad has to go.

I know.  My dad is home.  Getting ready.

Did you know they are old?  Over forty!

It’s not fair.

           

My father was sitting in his corner of the kitchen, just opposite the passageway that led directly to the front door. Head was resting against the mantelpiece, his curly-edged book on his knee.  From above my plate with red cabbage I looked at him carefully.  He picked his nose and then rubbed the stubble of his unshaven face.  He never shaved on Saturday.  It was his day of feasting too.  My mother was running in and out to the clothesline outside, carrying hankies and large flannelette singlets.  I saw her pushing them into a jute sack.  When she looked up I quickly stuck my head down into the plate of red cabbage.  Nobody talked, but then my father, at this time on Saturday was always asleep.  The slightest noise would result in a scornful reproach: Get outside, quick. Your father is asleep.  I didn’t want to go outside. Not now.  Soon the German soldiers would be coming.  Through the open window I could see my brothers playing in the backyard.  Dumb kids.  I wasn’t going to tell them my secret. 

            My mouth was full and I was scraping my plate empty, when I heard the yelling and swearing outside in the street.  I was up from my chair and helping mum pushing the clothes down the jute sack before I realized it.  She told me to take the sack to the front door. As I dragged it along the passage I saw my father open his eyes, just for a second, but he didn’t move, didn’t say anything.  I opened the front door, trying to lift the sack over the doorstep, but dropped it.  There were soldiers everywhere.  Nathan’s father was out in the front of his house with a similar grey sack as I was trying to lift.  Two soldiers stood in front him studying some papers.  Slowly Nathan’s father shuffled towards the middle of the street, joining a small group of men.  Women scurried in and out their front door, coming out with cheese sandwiches, half wrapped in paper. Kids were running everywhere, all the time being pushed aside.  The soldiers had their rifles hanging from their shoulders like toys.  They yelled constantly: Schnell, schnell.  But the men moved slowly, as if tired.  Too tired to embrace the women, too tired to kiss the children.  They just took their spot in the queue.

            I bent over to lift the sack again and swore at the rotten doorstep.  That is when I saw the black boots of two soldiers only inches away from my eyes.  Blood rushed to my face.  I looked back at my father for support, but he didn’t move.  My mother was trying to wake him up.

Come, man, come.  They’re here…The rest of her words got smothered in her hands rubbing her face.

Schnell, schnell.  The yelling of the soldiers went high above my head into the passage.  I looked again at my father.  He picked his nose, but didn’t move.  Only when I felt the cramp in my stomach starting to hurt, did he open his eyes.

I stay put, he said without moving his head.  I am sick of you bastards… Got kids to feed.  He just turned a page of his worn-out book.

I felt the beginning of an explosion in my throat.  All I saw was the rifles.  I craned my neck to see the faces underneath the helmets, but stopped in the middle of my action, as the faces had stopped yelling. They talked to each other in German which I didn’t understand.  Maybe it was their feast of Saturday as well, because they looked at the walls of the passage, the wooden clothes hangers, the broken mirror, the frayed bit of tapestry, but they didn’t look at my mother.  Their last look was at my father.  Then they turned around and walked back around the great elm into the street, suddenly yelling again at the small group of men in the middle, pushing them along towards the corner.

            That evening I climbed again into the elm.  Piece by piece I took the planks away, slid them through the little window and hid them under my bed.  The next day I chopped them up, my blunt axe, for an instance, causing a shower of sparks when it hit the concrete.  I have never climbed that Dutch elm since.

                                           END            

Hi there,

My new blog is a contniuation of my older blog 'Johns justice' and some of the aricles I will transfer to this blog. In the meantime I will add some short stories I wrote recently.

My favoured aunt, my beautiful lesbian

I was about twenty then, skinny, tall, and never really fitting the army uniform whilst doing my National Service. At the Court-Martial the military judge said my hitting of an officer was an unprovoked attack. In a brief appearance before the judge, my group-captain who also acted as my lawyer, advised me not to dispute the charge in any way. Only because of my otherwise unblemished record would he get me off with either fourteen days confinement to the barracks or four days solitary. The latter, he told me with a serious look on his face, would forever stay as a blot on my record, affecting employment, carrying out civil duties.

Since the fourteen days of confinement to the barracks would include two weekends  - days when we were normally allowed to go home -  and hence missing out on at least four days of freedom, I chose the solitary. The captain intimated that he knew the military system and would push having the Court-Martial held on a Monday, thereby avoiding any possible weekend detention.  The judge seemed to agree and uttered words to the effect that solitary confinement would help me ponder the seriousness of my offence not only military but also civil.

Before I entered my cell, the sergeant- in- charge took my tie, braces, belt and shoe laces. I felt being undressed in public.  Even a small attempt, he mentioned holding up his hand, to commit suicide by hanging was an additional military offence. However, he gave me soap, a towel, paper and pencil, apparently all standard military issue for convicted soldiers.  Think hard before you write your parents some soap story about your circumstances, he said straight-faced, I check every word and blot out anything I don’t like.

But my story started way before the days of writing in a bare, concrete soldier’s cell, way back to the time when I was eight years old.

This is what I wrote.

It was Christmas eve. Since we had family staying over at our place, I was allowed to stay with my grandma in her small cottage beside the railway track. I liked staying at her place, as my favoured aunties, Dorrit and Jane, lived there too. I always called them my aunts, although only  Dorrit with her straight black hair and dressed in tight skirts was a sister of my father. But I called  Jane with the big breasts and long, flowing, blond hair also my aunt.

 Sitting in the small lounge room across from my grandma who didn’t talk all that much, I always studied the many large pictures on the wall behind her. The largest painting was of two girls in white dresses walking, or rather dancing behind each other in a park  towards a gazebo set amongst  giant trees. A picture of a time past, because I had never seen girls dressed like that and trees that big. I tried to understand what the writing  at the bottom of the painting meant.  “Revenu, ma fille cherie, Je t’aime.”, We had learned a few French words in the school yard, but none of them matched these. I couldn’t translate them, as even my English wasn’t all that good yet.  I asked my aunties what the French words meant, They just smiled and said that they didn’t know French either. They got me a glass of lemonade and some biscuits, took out a pack of cards from a drawer underneath the table  and we played canasta.  

But It was early to bed for me, as, in keeping with tradition, the Christmas High Mass would be held very early in the morning.  I was to sing in the  church choir and  my aunts, with a slightly overwhelming, motherly busyness, told me that a good night’s rest was essential. Furthermore I could stay with them the next day and enjoy all the Christmas goodies. I said goodnight to my grandma who sat in a corner reading and went upstairs. ‘Upstairs’ was a loft reaching from the front of the house to the back, over the lounge room, the kitchen and my grandma’s bedroom. An open, pine- timbered area with a double bed in the front part and a single bed for me towards the back. The chimney from below in the middle of the room kept the loft at a comfortable, warm temperature. I was asleep in no time.

Their heavy feet coming up the bare, wooden stairs woke me. Their muffled laughing sounded explosive in the silence. I became aware of the rustling of clothes being dropped, as if casually, on some chairs.

Not now, Dorrit, I heard Jane saying. He may wake up. He needs his rest. He has to sing tomorrow morning. 
Not now…not now…what did they mean?  But I was again asleep before I could think of a possible answer.

Thinking back, my aunties couldn’t have been older than thirty. They were my favoured aunts. They both worked in the local presbytery, looking after eight or nine Dominican monks who ran the parish with old-fashioned fervour, but always preached about forbidden and incomprehensible things. I often saw my aunts cleaning the carpet runners and wiping the windows outside in the small frontyard when I passed the presbytery on my way to school. And if I just sauntered a bit near the kitchen door, aunt Jane would come outside with a piece of cake or some biscuits, and, alas, always a kiss. On Sunday mornings after Mass they would be at our house for coffee. The latest rumours and gossip went from nodding head to nodding head. I often felt my ears turning red  just at the time when my dad would calm the discussion down. They also talked about what they had found when cleaning  the church pews and how they had to hand it back to the monks. The coins,  the bits of jewellery, the scarves, and the hatpins. I wondered why they couldn’t keep them. What would monks do with jewellery?  The house on these occasions was full of laughter, and no one minded when Jane put her arms around Dorrit in a way I had never seen my mum and dad embracing.

One day, on my way from school, aunt Jane, the tall blond one, was waiting for me and called me in the presbytery’s kitchen.   She had something, she said, I might like. From behind the table she grasped what looked like a miniature harp. It was a German zither, she told me. It was a strange looking, shiny black, triangular instrument with steel wires for the notes and thick steel springs for the chords.  It has to be tuned, she said, looking at me with an expectant smile. Would you like to have it? Yes, please, I stuttered.

For the next two weeks I taught myself to play the zither and sing my songs. I then took it with me to school as I wanted to join the band of one guitar and one drum. 

Your singing is okay, my mates said, but that zither is not on. Why don’t you learn to play the guitar. That is what we want.

But… but this is all I have got, I said.

It fell on deaf ears. I could sing with them, but not with the zither. 

I kept playing at home, but finally hid the zither in the attic between the Christmas decorations.  Now most likely lost between useless things.  A reminder of something beautiful, tentative but uncanny and to be avoided..

The sergeant opened the door and stepped inside.

We didn't hear any movement. I thought I better look.

I am writing a letter.

Don't make it too long. Just tell them that you hit the officer who actually knew your family and you got rightly punished.

But he deserved it.

Don't go on like that. I'll cut the words out.

He offended my aunts and swore at them.

What! Those two lesbians! You got offended by that. Serves them right. Soldiers shouldn't be mixing with that type of people. Other soldiers may become suspicious of you. No place in the army for lesbies and poofters.

He left suddenly. The banging of his heavy shoes on the concrete floor echoing his disgust.

During my time at High School my visits became less frequent.  My grandma had passed away, freeing me from any familial duty. My aunts kept living in the cottage. They had hardly made any alterations to the décor and still slept upstairs in the loft. It was the time that the first television came on the scene. My aunts had purchased one, proudly displaying it  on the dresser below the many paintings on the wall. Saturday-afternoon football was the time when I looked forward visiting  them, always bringing some biscuits or a jar of coffee with me.

 At the short interval of advertisements I gazed at the painting of the dancing girls. I could translate the caption now: “Come back my beautiful girl, I love you.” 

 Did you know what that meant?  I asked turning my head to Jane and Dorrit.

Yes, we did, they said looking expectantly at me as if unsure whether I had actually  understood  the meaning.

Of course, I said, I have learned French. I am in year nine now. We learn all type of things. But…hesitating as if unsure…searching for the right word,  you are still my favoured aunties.

The smile on their faces stayed through the rest of the football game.

After the prescribed four days the sergeant let me out.

Your time is up, he said. But I didn’t get your letter

I didn’t write one, I lied.  Any mail for me?

No. Get out. You are one of us again.

I didn’t know what he meant. I thought I’d been a soldier all the time. I gathered my things together, got my belt, braces, tie and laces back, stuffed my letter in my pocket and left. I hurried to the train station, catching the train just in time to make it home for my weekend off.

Looking through the window at the passing landscape I wondered whether it had been worth it. Hitting an officer.  I remember the laughing faces of the other soldiers, when the blood ran down from the officer’s nose. They didn’t dare to cheer, but their faces showed approval of my hitting. Nothing else.

Entering the lounge room at home, I noticed my parents looking  worried. They let me relax and get into “civie” gear.

Jane has died, my father said. It was sudden. We couldn’t get through to you. You were in goal. His quiet face showed no reproach of me or the sergeant, mere acceptance of the facts like he always had accepted Dorrit and JaneI. I looked at him and then at my mother. The basterd, I said. I’ll go and see Dorrit.

We sat across the table from each other. Dorrit in grandma’s chair and I where I always sat. No word was spoken.   I didn’t know what to say.

Some minutes later Dorrit said: She died peacefully. She always wanted you to have something as a memory. The zither, she smiled, is too long ago.

I looked at the painting behind her. The dancing girls and the trees appeared  misty. “Come back my beautiful girl, I love you”.  I looked at the other paintings and then at Dorrit.  Somehow the left-overs couldn’t fill the emptiness.

I pop in again next weekend, I said.

By pure coincidence I met the sergeant again years later. He was the owner of  a men’s underwear factory in Lygon street. I was a salesman flogging sewing machine needles. I found his office behind an army of women, all sewing in groups the parts of an undie,  the body, the crotch, the elastic, like separate chapters of a book, never knowing the whole. He received me in his office, but didn’t recognize me from our army days. 

Come in, come in, he said and offered me coffee.

 Let me introduce you to my partner, he said winking at me.

The young partner came in. I am Nigel,  he said,

Hallo Nigel, I said. I tried to leave in a hurry.

Going outside towards my car, parked at the curbside I noticed some factory workers milling around, having their coffee break and a smoke. I said Hi and walked to my car. In my rush to get in I banged my head on the door. Oh bugger!  I yelled. The factory workers laughed: Yeah, yeah that’s right, shouted one of them.

Seated in my car I rubbed my head.  A trickle of blood was running along my nose. I wiped it with the back of my hand and drove off.

                                              END