True Country Page 3

  ‘No problem, Fatima.’

  ‘Oh, I’m stupid. I know all about that. I know that.’ She shook the spoon and clumps of wet sugar fell onto the tabletop.

  ‘Is a nice house, eh?’ She looked around the beige room, appraising it.

  ‘Yes it is a nice house. Yeah I think so.’ I thought of how it must seem compared to her own home. ‘It was only built a little while ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Last year. They should make one like this for me. But with no step,’ she added. I joined her laughter as she said this, perhaps because I was relieved she was not bitter about the difference in our housing.

  She became serious. ‘What we, what is it you want me to tell you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure. Just things. Like what you know, what you remember about Karnama.’

  I pushed a button and we stared at the red light on the tape recorder. Fatima took a big breath, and began.

  ‘My name is Fatima Nangimara. I am the first one born in the mission ... ‘I grow up in the mission. I grow up by the Spanish monks, you know, the Fathers.

  ‘When I was bigger they sent me to school because there’s no school in here. No sisters or no anybody to teach anybody.

  ‘Myself and Mary we went to Beagle Bay school by Kuringa, by big ship.

  ‘They didn’t tell us nothing, they hide the clothing. They pack it up, gave it to one of the Fathers, and tell us that we were just going to see the people on that boat, Kuringa.

  ‘But it wasn’t true. They play tricks on us. We might cry, or my mother might take me to the bush and hide me, see. So they didn’t tell anybody.

  ‘So. We went on the boat, we met the crew. They were unloading and Father told us to go up so we went up. We were in that ship and the lady brought us cake. That’s Mrs Johnson and Mrs Thompson, they look after us.

  ‘We thought that boat was moving, maybe. But we thought, they said, we were stopping in there, in that Pako Bay. But it wasn’t Pako Mission, we were in Wyndham already, you see. Or same as.

  ‘We were thinking of Mummy and Daddy and sad because I didn’t say ’bye to Daddy because Daddy was fishing. And Mummy was at home. So.

  ‘We were in that boat with no good air. Then, when it sun setting time, we came out of the place to see outside, you know, and they told us, “This is Wyndham.” Those two British nurses, they look after us. They did not let us off the ship. We stayed inside long time. They thought we might jump out of the boat I suppose.

  ‘We were scared of it.

  ‘Out on the water we used to dance corroboree for them. We were happy to do that. I used to sing, Mary dance. She used to sing for me, and I used to dance. Well we were children. We didn’t feel shame or anything like that you know.

  ‘I think the lady told us. You know the nurse, from us? She told us to dance, so we dance corroboree for them.

  ‘They used to be happy with us you know, make us not to think for our parents, you know? And they used to be with us, clapping their hands when we danced.

  ‘There were many ladies in the ship. This was big ship. They used to come and make our beds, clean nice undywear, shower. They used to be good for us. Nice food they used to give us, nice bed. They were nice people.

  ‘And from there we went to Darwin. We were only crying for Mummy and Daddy, still crying. We were in Darwin in the morning time. We saw one Aborigine woman, and man. They talk in pidgin you see, they told us, “Where you come from?” And we told them we come from Dresfield. “We know that place. Where are you going?” We told them we didn’t know where we were going.

  ‘See, we didn’t know where we were going.

  ‘On the ship they thought we might jump out I suppose. But they were nice people. Gave us nice food, nice bed.

  ‘But this Darwin. That Aborigine man was talking with us. He said, “I am from that side too, from this part of the country.” But we don’t know, see? We were not big people to know everything.’

  Again again again. Out on the blue sea, them ladies in their many dresses, their pink skins scrubbed, they clap chapped hands at the two dark girls dancing dancing dancing like shadows in the hard sun. The sun and sea hurt eyes, the sea slaps at the hull. The ropes and timbers creak.

  Splinter of wood, scrap of sail, tiny zig-zags across all that blue. We can hear the singing, little bit. Just faint, you know.

  ‘We left Darwin, we went back, and we started to go to Broome. And there we get out.

  ‘The lady told us, “You are going out now, with this man here.” We said “No!” many times. We didn’t know he was Bishop, Bishop Somebody. He told us, “I’ll take you.” We used to say “No!” We used to say no.

  ‘After all he took us for a train, from the jetty you know. We went on the train, we get out, and one of the nuns was working in the garden just watering the place. Stop us. Then she take us to the girls. We take two, three days in Broome. Then after Brother took us to Beagle Bay Mission.

  ‘There were three boys there waiting for us that was from Pako Mission. They went in front of us, before us, you know. One of the luggers took them there. They didn’t know.

  ‘Like we didn’t know. We didn’t think. I didn’t know anything. Nothing!

  ‘We met one boy, one Aborigine boy, in the road. Give him a letter. It was a letter to that Bishop and when the boy said, “Yes Father,” we just looked at each other, Mary and me. We said, “This is Father who we say no no no?” We said to one another, you know, “This is Father?” Oh no, we made a mistake, he’s a Father and we just say no no no for him.

  ‘We went to Beagle Bay. We stayed there. We used to be sorry, but too many girls there so that make us happy.’

  ‘We came back here, we were grown-up girls, like the big girls you teach. We got out of the lugger and Mother, Father, uncles and anybody, they were waiting for us. They were waiting for us. Some people in the camp, they said, “The two girls are coming back.” They just knew.

  ‘So they were ready for us and they cried for us. We didn’t know how to speak the language. We forgot about our language. We talk in English. I couldn’t understand my mummy. I forgot all about our language. We forget about it.

  ‘Back then, you would be able to talk their language in no time. They would get sugarbag, bush honey, and sing it and give it to you to eat. When you had eaten that honey you would be able to talk their language just the same as they do. But with us we did just forget, so after a time we getting it little by little so we can talk now.

  ‘My mummy said that she cannot understand, to other people. Telling them that we cannot understand them and that they cannot talk, when they were talking to us in language. Mummy told them, “They don’t talk, they forgot about their language.”

  ‘Mummy took me to the dormitory where we have to live. I was already a big girl, see, because I couldn’t stay with them. In the law of the Aborigine, from the bush, you know, their fathers don’t like big girls to live in their mummy’s place.

  ‘They don’t like me to stay with them. Not like here now they live with their parents.’

  I have a photograph of Fatima which I took at about this time. It is in black and white and I processed it myself in the crudest of circumstances. The photograph was taken on the front verandah of our house. Fatima has taken her spectacles off and concealed them in her hands, which are clasped in her lap. She is smiling and looks confident, leaning back in the spindly chair. Looking at it I am struck by her capable feet and hands. Her ankles are crossed, her knees apart, and behind her the sun makes small diamonds in the timber lattice work, and softly spotlights her grey hair. The young girl, Beatrice, is standing beside her. I don’t remember her being there. She stands, one hand on Fatima’s shoulder, balancing on the ball of one foot. The other foot is held just above the ground. She seems to be almost floating, perfectly poised upon a so-thin leg, her head tilted and her thin cotton shift falling from her shoulder.

  It’s a messy verandah. At their feet are coils upon coils of what must be rope, or
perhaps a water hose. It looks almost, in such a bad photograph, like a large but slender snake spiralling around their feet with its head disappearing out of the frame at the bottom of the print, heading for the photographer.

  I asked Fatima about Walanguh, her husband, who I knew stayed over behind the clinic, with a couple of the other oldest people in the community. I knew he was very frail, and not well. Fatima told me that they had never had what she called a proper marriage, but she helped look after him now. They were married soon after she arrived back from her schooling.

  ‘I didn’t know what was going. Sister put the veils on us and we went in there to get married, but I was pretty scared. True, I was worried. What is going to happen to me?

  ‘So, we married. They took me, with him, to a little house. You know my house now? Same one but smaller. They took me and him to there and we went in. He was older than me, see. I was frightened. What was going to happen? I was frightened, see.

  ‘The first day I went out. I just run away. I run away, to the dormitory again, mind you.

  ‘So I went again and they bring me back again. They say, “He’s frightened.” So my sister-in-law, that’s Moses’ mother, got the key and locked the door, to make me stay with my husband. And you know what I did? I just climbed the window, jump over, and run away and stay with my mother. Not stay, but spend the night, you know?

  ‘My mother and father used to growl me. You know. “Why you don’t stay one place? Why you come here, not small girl, or not a baby,” Mummy said to me.

  ‘But the other one, Mary, she got married same time, she not frightened. She’s all right, but me? No.

  ‘In proper old days, well, they didn’t do like that. See? I don’t want to, you know, embarrass you. Old men would teach young girls, and other way; old women show young men. Yes?

  ‘But for us, even then when I was young, it was already different. Lucky Walanguh was a special man. He tell me he not angry with me, but with missionaries. He spoke soft to me. Tell me stories and sing to me all night long, until when the light come and I was happy and ready for him. But we never had no children...

  ‘In the proper old days people did all that and like a game.

  ‘But today they marry anykind. Mothers, daughter, take them anyway. People are going a bit like dogs now.’

  Preparations

  Fatima made regular afternoon visits, and we talked into my tape recorder. She liked the attention, I think.

  She welcomed the anthropologists who came to see her, and was happy to advise tour guides researching the area. She received mail from the Institute of Aboriginal Affairs. I read it to her.

  I ordered a book which had been written up from the mission journals and read to her the sentence which described her birth in the mission courtyard:

  The missionaries had the opportunity to observe the performance of three ‘doctors’, two men and a woman, who used the best of their craft on the poor sufferer. The baby survived her own and her mother’s troubles and the monks observed the mother applying a few drops of her own milk to the afflicted eyes of the new-born child.

  Fatima wept. Two sentences. She’d not heard them before.

  We looked through the book and she named the people in the old photographs and identified locations. I read the captions to her. She was pleased by examples which confirmed her memory, gratified by those which corroborated it, annoyed with those which differed. The captions rarely named the Aborigines.

  The next day she brought another book with her. It was also written up from mission journals. We looked through it as we had with the one the day before.

  ‘Fatima, why not tell me the history of Karnama? Sort of like what these books do, but more what you remember, or what you know.’ The tape recorder was on.

  She took a deep breath, and exhaled noisily through her nose. You can hear it on the tape. It was a preparation, I suppose. It occurred to me later that it was almost as if she was taking on a burden, or a duty. I don’t know if it was an affectation, or to what degree. A film came over her eyes and she looked into an imaginary distance. She began speaking, slowly and hesitantly.

  ‘The monks, they landed in Loual Bay, that’s the anchorage, and they went up the river to Dresfield River. You see, they follow the river right up to Brockman Plain and they saw this Nangimara, that woman. First thing, they gave him ... they gave her something to wear.’

  I remembered that I’d read this in the book I’d borrowed. ‘A dress I think it was, yeah.’ I began skimming through the book trying to find it, flying over fluttering pages.

  ‘They gave her a red material.’

  ‘That’s right, yeah, that’s what it says in here somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, red material,’ repeated Fatima, ‘and the other ones, they run away, see?’

  A year or so later, when I finally got around to listening to this tape, I was surprised to hear how obsessed I seemed to be to find that passage in the book. I merely grunted a reply to Fatima’s query. On the tape you can hear me turning the pages.

  Fatima asked me, ‘Did they talk about that?’ There was an edge to her voice. Not that I noticed it at the time. Perhaps she thought I was checking the accuracy of what she said. She may have thought I didn’t really believe her. She may have even been a little impressed that I had access to something to which she believed herself the custodian. She wanted to know the author’s interpretation.

  Again, on the tape, my voice is little more than a mumble. ‘Yeah, I think so, and this girl tricked them.’ It’s a bad recording. They all were. There’s a loud rumbling in the background on all of them.

  I remember noticing that she smiled at the thought of the trick, and then suddenly frowned. It was probably out of sympathy for the obsessiveness with which I was trying to locate that passage in the book.

  You can hear the pages turning as I say, ‘Um, can’t find it now, but this girl, they call her Mary, tricked them. She pretended she was friends. And then the others, it says in here, the other men could sneak up toward them, and they threw spears. Something like that. I can’t find it now. But they found her dress many years afterwards where she’d left it somewhere.’

  I must have glanced up from the pages. Fatima was leaning forward on the stainless steel and vinyl chair which seemed very small beneath her bulk. Her eyes were intent, her heavy arms hung between her knees and her hands were clasped loosely together. She began to say something, I looked up and saw her mouth open. She closed it, set her lips, and said, ‘They say that Nangimara—Mary they say—he died here, in Karnama.’

  I grunted a reply. Fatima corrected herself again, and continued. ‘She died here. But her sister, she run away and they want to frighten her. You know? But they got ’im and shot ’im!’ Her voice had changed, was impassioned. I suppose she sat upright. As the tape reveals to me, I didn’t notice.

  ‘Ah, yeah.’ Still searching through a book, not listening properly, still removed and hovering over the text.

  Fatima repeated herself, spat out the words, ‘Shot her!’ I didn’t notice the change in her manner, and spoke as if to the book. ‘Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, something like that. I’ve only read this book once, so lots of things I forget, from it.’

  ‘I never read it,’ said Fatima. ‘I can’t read, so good.’

  Her voice sounds dispirited. She would have looked around the room, and through the window to the mango trees in the front yard as I continued, still, skimming across the pages. I said, ‘Yeah, when I read it I didn’t know any of the names, so I don’t remember it very well.’

  Fatima grunted, ‘No?’ and yawned. She said, ‘It’s not in this book but, the shooting, not in this mission book.’

  I found the passage I’d been searching for. And never followed up the story of that particular shooting. My voice is soft. ‘They gave her a scarf, not a dress. Yeah.’

  Fatima gave a little sigh. ‘Yeah.’ She shifted herself on the chair, lifted her breasts with her hands, and then let them fall as she sighed
again.

  I realised she had been telling me all along that it was not a dress. I had ceased skimming the pages, and had settled. I said, ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

  She nodded shortly, once, and her chin remained on her throat. ‘Red one, yeah.’ And then, surprising me, she rippled her fingers in a wave, and said, ‘Read.’

  I paraphrased from the book. ‘There were three Aborigines. There was the Father with some boys. This is a long time ago.’

  Fatima agreed. ‘Yeah. Yeah. This is really old. I don’t remember, my mummy told me.’

  I continued. ‘And they saw three Aborigines on the other side of the river. The Abbot ordered two of the boys to go and bring them across to him. They only got one, who came with them, not scared or anything. The Abbot gave her the scarf and she put it around her shoulders.’

  Fatima grunted in confirmation of the story so far. I continued to paraphrase.

  ‘She followed them to where they stopped to have something to eat and drink. They gave her some meat and bread which she took but wouldn’t eat.’ I stopped and said to Fatima, ‘That’s like what you told me the other day, people didn’t know what bread was, they took it to be polite.’

  Fatima laughed, ‘Yeah, and we thought rice was maggots. People thought these white ones was ghosts, we thought them monks in their habits was like djimi from the caves; white skin, you know, and black clothes floating around them.’

  On the tape you can hear my voice becoming more animated. Each time I paused Fatima murmured for me to continue.

  ‘After the meal, she just kept watching them. She just kept watching them like this.’ I remember this well. I stared at Fatima, then turned my face slowly, keeping my gaze upon her the whole time. It is not like me to do such a thing, and I was surprised at how positively Fatima reacted to it. I continued to mime as I read. ‘Her eyes without resting on any one of us in particular kept moving one to another.’