What is your name, God?
I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything. Huxley
Emma- a princess or a saint
Emma is leafing through an old album with a few images of her childhood. She never considered herself beautiful; she was actually never happy with who she was and how she looked. Maybe all young people find faults with the way they look especially at the time when they look their best. Surely her well proportioned, slender figure, her huge blue eyes and blond curls did not only appear beautiful in these old photographs. Her blond hair actually caused her much sadness. Kids called her whitey after the war. Whitey was a derogatory name; in some way it was the same as being called a traitor or worthless or an enemy of the nation. Home guards were whitey; they were on the wrong side of the war and Emma's brother was a whitey. Whiteys were anticommunists and therefore traitors. Shame on them! Emma wasn't quite sure at the time what connection her hair had with being a traitor but she hated it. She wished to have straight brown hair like most children. She wonders now how could she be so ungrateful; she only learned to appreciate her healthy functioning body now that it became creased and slowly sagging.
Where did Emma's negative interpretation of self originate? Did she mirror the perception her peers had of her? Did her peers mirror the society's perception? During her childhood church going peasants were on the bottom rung of the society; only anticommunists were lower. Her family was all of that. They lived on the edge.
Emma's whole childhood seems so much prettier from the pictures of the past. Her husband, Paul, looks invincible with a protective arm around her shoulders. This handsome, tall, broad shouldered man has always been by Emma's side and on her side. People believe that Paul and Emma are a perfect match. They know nothing about the demons that are hiding behind their smiles.
Most people have no time to discover each other's little imperfections and pains. Maybe all living things hide their vulnerable underbelly with everything they are. Most people are tormented by past embarrassments, failures and sins. They regret and relive their pain in the privacy of their aloneness while they present themselves as strong and happy to the outside world. In Australia people ask 'how are you' as a greeting on the road but nobody has time to stop and listen and tell. They politely answer: very well thank you and walk on; they fold up their pain into the hiding places so nobody will be bothered by it. People talk about weather and television news in order to blend and belong. Only Aborigines still hang around in groups giggling on the street corners. Hundreds of the natives come to the funerals of their extended family members just to be together. Most migrants scattered in the Australian outback have solitary lives and funerals.
People celebrate with a drink to relax and to dare be who they are inside themselves. After a few drinks some become argumentative others love everybody, some sing, others cry.
As a young girl Emma made decisions without considering the consequences but consequences follow you like your own shadow down your life's path. She would like to repair her past so her sins will not be revisited upon her children. Although no longer religious she still hears the words from the Bible about sins of the fathers being revisited on the next
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generations. Everybody is apparently paying for the original sin Eve committed by picking that apple in the paradise. Perhaps one can never escape from the teachings of one's childhood.
Emma has to help her son, Simon, who was an unwilling, vulnerable participant in the choices she made. Is Simon paying the price because Emma made wrong turns when she did not know better? She knows that ignorance is no defence; to atone she must face the retribution and repair the damage. Emma has no right to demand answers from Simon now; she never took time to listen when he had things to tell. She was busy keeping Paul happy; when Paul was not happy he made sure nobody else was. Paul had to come first. Simon was never first to anyone. He begged her to tell him bedtime stories but Paul demanded her presence and attention.
Are men jealous of their sons?
Right and wrong was never clear to Emma as she followed the fashions of the day. What was right in one place was very wrong in another. Right and wrong constantly changed as those in charge changed places.
Emma knows that she has never been in charge and was destined to follow the teachings of the leaders even when the leaders change their teachings. Only the rich and the strong have a measure of freedom to choose and determine what is good and bad. They create laws that give them the freedom to be who they choose to be. The rest just toe the line to survive. Emma perched herself on the fence between right and wrong; she leans now one way and then another in order not to fall on the wrong side. She tries to go with the flow but her swimming seems all against the stream. Paul is a strong swimmer. Emma feels safe beside him but sometimes she wants to swim on her
own, unassisted. Maybe it is too late to learn how to be a separate person. She is never sure if Paul would approve. Paul was always an all knowing adult while she remained an obedient child who followed the path he determined for her. Most people probably follow someone; they are coerced, forced, convinced, indoctrinated, or enticed to follow.
Emma often daydreams about Janez because she seemed just right in his eyes. He said that he wished she would never change. For a brief moment they were totally in love. Both saved the memory of that love in the safe place of their hearts. This first love was like the precious flower that just opened its petals to let the sun in. Both liked who they were at that moment.
Could they have perpetuated that happiness? Can one achieve an ultimate happiness and safeguard it for eternity?
Does happiness evaporate or die or turn mouldy? Can one become happier when one is already happy? Would greater wealth or love or loveliness provide greater happiness? Is love of the beautiful providing greater happiness than the love of the ugly? Can poor have as much happiness as the rich? Can common be as happy as precious? There is always the price. Precious things are expensive and fragile. Emma remembers the verse: there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Maybe one is entitled to only one blossoming followed by mating and nurturing and dying. Janez made it possible for Emma to be in love forever. It is easier to be in love with the person with whom you do not have to share daily chores and confrontations. Emma chose to marry Paul because he is strong and can face and remove obstacles. Is safety and security the same as happiness?
The images appear to Emma unannounced to interrupt the time present with smells, sounds, and colours of time past. So many memories; Emma thinks of them as stories stored in an antique chest full of compartments; each one with hundreds of folders ready to pop out at the slightest opening. The memory does not care about chronology; the memory is a circle repeating itself. Dance, monkey, dance! Particles of atoms dance; the stars and the planets dance perpetually; the universe is in motion. There must be a reason and a purpose for it all. Emma is constantly rotating in her own orbit, judging the outside by the hot core of her being. The lava is looking for cracks in the surface to erupt and destroy her tranquillity but Emma holds its fires carefully so not to disturb what she cultivated on the surface. She smiles a lot. People like her sunny disposition so she maintains her fragile serenity. It is exciting to skate on the thin ice but she has to step lightly.
Emma always did as she was told. Was obedience Emma's duty or she obeyed in order to avoid confrontations and survive? Was her obedience a virtue or a sign of weakness? She listened to the authorities, she obeyed her elders; who is she to question the right and the wrong of the rulers?
Most crimes are committed by those who obey orders, said her father after the war. Dictators dictate to the obedient to do their dirty deeds. Give to Cesar... Emma's father stopped there; Emma knew that he was sad and angry but she was too young to understand the meaning of his words.
Emma recently heard a joke about American recruit being tested for special military services. To pass the obedience test he was told to shoot his wife. The commander closed the room behind them and for a while there was much commotion in the room. Finally the soldier came out and said: You bastards put blanks in my gun so I had to strangle her.
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Such is the total obedience.
As long as there is poverty there will be gods Durant
Cinderella in the valley of tears
And they lived happily ever after, said Emma's father most nights before Emma's soul transcended into the playground of a Happyeverafter. His fairy tales left a blueprint on the pages of Emma's first awareness; the prince kissed a sleeping beauty and she blossomed and married him to live with him happily ever after. The big bad wolf and the monster were destroyed; the wicked witch lost her wand power and all the good people lived happily ever after. Emma was usually half asleep curled in her father's arms when the last words were spoken.
Mum counterbalanced dad's fairytales with a strong doze of Jesus and the saints who all waded through the valley of tears before they settled in the paradise forever. The lives of saints were mum's recipe for desirable behaviour that led to Happyeverafter in heaven. The saints were heroic beautiful people who accepted their cross and carried it courageously; they never questioned the reasons for suffering; they trusted that God in his wisdom will eventually pay everybody according to their deeds. Mum reminded Emma that there are visible and invisible crosses for everyone to carry on the way to sainthood. God apparently never gives you a cross you cannot carry. The biggest crosses we carry are seven deadly sins: jealousy, gluttony, lust, greed, envy, pride, wrath and sloth. These sins can stop us being a good person, said mum.
Emma combed her mum's long hair while they sang hymns to the glory of God. Mum promised that God will never stop loving Emma as long as she confessed her sins and promised not to sin again. Faith, hope and love were the most important ingredients for good life. Emma decided to become a saint to please God and her mother. She believed that being good meant being obedient. Diligent and generous were extra attributes but obedience was the key. Obedient girl was always called a good girl. Children have to obey the grownups that provide for them and protect them against all evil. The evil was a part of every story Emma's parents told her, but the evil never won in the end.
Mum repeated the stories about Fatima and Lourdes until Emma felt that she personally knew those innocent children who saw the Virgin beyond the hills. Joan of Arc became Emma's heroine. Mum explained how a boy Augustine once tried to unravel the mystery of Holy Trinity; he sat on the beach when he heard God's voice: You will sooner empty the ocean into your bucket drop by drop than understand the mystery of Holy Trinity. Augustine accepted God's words and was rewarded by becoming a saint. Perhaps it is best not to question what one cannot understand.
I wish I could hear God speaking to me, said Emma.
Keep listening and one day you will hear him, said Emma's mum.
Emma loved the purity, courage generosity and great sacrifices of the saints. She thanked God every day for giving her a chance to serve him in preparation for the everlasting life in a paradise. When grazing the cows she imagined Virgin Mary appearing to her like she did to those other shepherds in Fatima. She looked into the morning mist with the longing for
the Virgin to bring her an important prophetic message. She daydreamed about the glory she would bring to her family if the Virgin chose her as a messenger. In her innocence she could almost glimpse the Promised Land.
In her solitude Emma listened for the voice of God that would speak to her like he spoke to Biblical people and saints of long ago. People gradually lost the ability to hear God; distracted by constant human activities they are dangling in space disconnected from this permanent energy source. And all the time they know that their actions reverberate through the universe.
Adam and Eve were as familiar to Emma as the Little Red Riding hood or Cinderella. God told Eve not to touch the fruit of the tree of knowledge but the snake tempted her to disobey God; she is the reason all humanity has to wade through the valley of tears before they could return to paradise. Emma wondered if the tree of knowledge with its shiny forbidden fruit is still in the paradise or has it been removed since it served its purpose. Is the invisible snake always present?
Is curiosity a sin or a punishment? Is knowledge bad? Does God want people to guess what he is going to do next or how he creates or why? Or what his name is? Or what pleases him? Is God just letting people discover how ignorant they were and are? Is he showing off how almighty he is? Or she? Under the smallest he hides a smaller still and beyond the biggest the bigger still. There is no end to the mystery. Is God playing hide and seek with people? He creates mysteries and then tempts people to delve into the unknown. Does it really worry God if people call him Jehovah or Jesus or Allah or Budda or Father or Brother? Or sister? What are God's rules? Does God really enjoy worship and adoration? Will God punish Emma for asking too many questions? Does God want people to live
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like other species who sustain life without questioning? Does anyone really know what God would have people do? Is God like governments who like people to obey without questioning? Is god like Tito? Nobody dared to question Tito. The more you praised him the better he liked you. People who questioned Stalin often ended in a mental hospital or dead. Nobody questioned Hitler.
Are scientists happier than tribal people of the jungle? Happier than bees collecting honey or birds making nests or microbes buried within our bodies? How can one measure happiness?
Mum told Emma a story about the girl who insisted that she would never succumb to the temptation. The girl's mother said that she will test her. She covered a dish with a cloth and told the girl that she must not look inside. The girl said that this was easy. When her mother left the girl wanted to have just a tiny peek to see what was under the cover. As she moved the cloth a mouse jumped out.
Emma likes to examine Simon's perspective on life; her son does not mind discussing general topics but he stops short of revealing anything personal. Emma is only allowed to look into his soul through the comments he makes about life in general. He has an alternative view to everything Emma says.
Every child believes in magic, she says as they watch a children's program on television. People need mysteries; they need to believe in something. Faith is a gift, she smiles.
Maybe faith is a gift parents bestow to their children. An atheist said: There is no such thing as a Christian child; only a child of Christian parents. There is no Muslim child but a child of Muslim parents, says Simon. There will always be
preachers who will try to persuade you to think and believe as they do but no two persons ever believe the same.
I wonder what the atheist's parents believe. Did his mother perhaps read tea leaves or coffee stains or horoscopes or tarot cards? Maybe she consulted numerologist or clairvoyant or mediums? smiles Emma.
People dabble with astrology, prophesies, drugs and dreams to escape the reality, says Simon.
They sit in silence for a moment.
We are all bundles of cosmic energy constantly renewing, transforming and reprogramming ourselves. This bundle of connections, vibrations and rotations perceived as a body is just a shell for ever changing emotions, feelings, desires and thoughts. In the end a corpse reprograms itself back into bits of cosmos to become something new, says Simon.
Dying to make life possible. Is that resurrection or reincarnation? Seeds carrying within the plan of life. Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, said the lord, Emma quotes the Bible.
People over multiplied. Species that over-multiply become pests, says Simon.
What do you mean?
Someone wrote that intelligence is perpetually retarded by uncontrollable fertility of the simple. In a natural world the stronger male fertilises the female to make the species stronger but stronger and more intelligent human males became lazy and hedonistic. They want to enjoy life rather than multiply and nurture their offspring. It is now up to the weakest to keep
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the populations going. More people, more pollution, more climate change, says Simon.
Yet the quality of life is improving, says Emma.
Life is not improving for millions of nomads who are dying on the way to the feeding centres we supply with food, says Simon.
People always denigrate those lower down on the scale of evolution, says Emma.
We denigrate people who aspire to be our equals. Hitler denigrated Jews to justify their extermination. Humans subdue animals without justification but they feel the need to explain the subjugation of other humans. That reminds me of a story you once read to me about the mouse plague. The king got cats to eat the mice and when cats over multiplied he got dogs to kill the cats and so on until he got the elephants to kill the lions. But the elephants were defeated by mice nibbling their feet.
Amazing how old stories carry the lessons of life, says Emma.
There is no lower or higher in the natural world, says Simon. Intelligent people are constantly and unsuccessfully fighting viruses and bacteria that we consider to be at the bottom of the evolution.
I wish that things would stay the same for a while, says Emma.
Revolution is permanent. We revolve and evolve constantly. There is a discovery revolution going on. For the first time psychiatrists really look at the brain functions, doctors analyse genome mapping, astronomers are discovering new sky bodies, says Simon.
Too much information, says Emma.
Science makes you think; it takes you out of the comfort zone that simple faith used to provide, says Simon. We are designed to see things at our eye level but science makes it possible for us to see further and deeper than our naked eyes. There are millions of little invisible grains of pollen carrying genetic material for fertilisation right in front of our eyes. He and she of the plant world are gravitating towards each other just like people do.
Science makes me feel small and ignorant. It is more pleasant to relax and leave the universe to God, says Emma.
Science will take us a long way towards understanding space and time but science will take more time and space than we have to find ultimate answers; it is not going to be in our time, says Simon.
Are you searching for answers, asks Emma.
I have no time to search for answers I know I will never find. Since the world began pooling mental and physical resources evolution is moving faster, says Simon.
People think too much. We forget to celebrate life. I wish everybody would take a long holiday, says Emma.
Life gets boring without mysteries and celebrations. Simon cheers up.
When I was at school we used to celebrate Tito's birthday and the victories of his regime.
We need something more permanent and traditional, smiles Simon.
Have you ever read the Bible, asks Emma.
Everybody should read the Bible. It is the foundation of our morals, laws and traditions. Not knowing the Bible is like not knowing history.
Do you believe in the Bible teaching?
Nothing in the Bible was written by a committee; many simple people simply said something about Jesus or God. Bible emerged from individual human mind experiences. In the Bible like in any other constitution you can find a chapter that will contradict every other chapter but if you study history you realise why certain stories became a part of the book Bible; this is a collection of wisdom as existed two thousand years ago. It was a guide for people of that time on how to co-exist. Knowing the Bible has little to do with religion and a lot to do with understanding how our spirituality and societies evolved. Cannon is only a list of writings that makes some sense even today.
What do you believe; Emma tries to get close and personal to her son.
I believe that everybody should be entitled to believe or disbelieve according to his or her knowledge of science or according to his or her understanding of Holy books, says Simon.
People need to believe in something, says Emma.
You cannot believe in science since beliefs are not based on evidence and science is. Greek philosophers knew that an invisible energy makes every particle of the universe rotate but we still don't know where that original energy comes from and why.
Blessed are those who did not see, but believe, smiles Emma. It is so much easier to ascribe the unknown to God.
You can be certain that science will never be definitely certain about anything. The new generation will always dispute the previous one, says Simon. There will always be discoveries.
To think that everything we discover was there just waiting to be unveiled, says Emma.
Nothing we do really matters, says Simon.
Rational explanations take away the magic, the poetry, the sense of possibility and the joy of imagination, says Emma. Faced with endless time and universe scientists will forever search for answers. They now concede that Big Bang is not the beginning but just a stage in the everlasting transformation of cosmos. Since Higgs discovered Boson they are excited about the Little Bang. Some even call boson god, says Simon.
The ultimate question remains how to define nothing and how things became out of nothing.
It's amazing that in your lifetime scientists discovered atoms and now little atoms within the atoms, says Simon.
We are still left with the question of how space and time began. Some believe that even climate change is just a part of planet's natural activity, agrees Emma.
Emma is trying hard to reconcile her faith with new discoveries. Since nobody will ever uncover all the secrets of the universe people need god of whatever description to hold him accountable for the creation and its management.
Nothing ever stays the same, says Simon.
Emma was six when she looked at the grain of wheat and she convinced herself that it had a face of Jesus; she later saw a shape of Jesus in the host of her first Holy Communion. God was also looking down through the new growth of the tree branches covering the road. The spring sun created a golden crown on God's head and the birds sang his glory as they busily procreated. Emma felt tears of gladness as she peered through the spring growth into heaven. She was overwhelmed by the greatness of creation. Life was unfolding itself wondrous and fresh. It is sad that one grows out of childhood innocence. She is sad for Simon who was never as close to god as she was because her faith was never as strong as her mother's.
Ever since her first communion Emma became acutely aware of her every sin. She regularly confessed and repented to cleanse herself for Jesus who suffered because of her misbehaviour. Emma unburdened herself in that dark confessional so she could receive Jesus in the communion. She revealed to the priest her every evil thought; she knew that God already knew them all. The everlasting fires of hell scared her less than the pain she caused Jesus.
Emma made novenas for the happy last hour on earth which meant that she had a guarantee of receiving a holy communion before she died. Emma smiles now remembering how firmly she believed that her entry into heaven was secured no matter what. Going to heaven meant everything in those days. Faith is precious. It's a shame really that one grows out of childhood innocence; never again to be certain about what to believe. Maybe the greatness of the universe can only be touched with a magic wand or faith or childhood innocence.
Life was a preparation for the birth of Jesus who was later killed to take away her sins. The festivities through the year
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were celebrations of Jesus' life. Whoever ever celebrated the birth of Jesus forever owes allegiance to that baby in some secret corner of their awareness. They can never completely abandon the idea of God watching in order to reward the worthy and punish the sinners.
Even people declaring themselves atheists sometimes sigh: Oh, my God, in the life or death moments. Some who claim that God does not exist still blame him for disasters. Shame on God bringing pain upon the innocent children. Oh, my God how could he? People curse God in all languages. There are believers who pray for rain or to stop the rain; some pray to win the lottery others to pass the test; some pray for good night's sleep others for food to eat. Emma also saw non believers pray over their sick child. When being rational does not help, people surrender and hope that there is someone with ultimate power, compassion and fairness. Emma's mother used to say: He who does not know how to pray should sail the sea. ( Kdor moliti ne zna naj se na morje poda.)
Emma says occasional 'thank you god' for good things in her life but she does not feel entitled to special favours or for God to change the laws of nature because of her prayers. During her childhood the idea of eternal happiness was so wholesomely awesome that she never touched it with a conscious thought. It was simply heaven to believe in perfect justice and eternal life in a paradise.
Everybody's reality is different, says Simon. Our bodies are operating on the auto pilot breathing, digesting, renewing, purifying and maintaining balances and temperatures but we really are who we are in the invisible domain of thoughts, feelings, desires, and beliefs.
Can any reality be perceived equally by all living things? says Emma. She would like to know Simon's reality.
Living things perceive physical reality by their unique but unreliable senses, says Simon. I saw a poster saying: Millions of flies can't be wrong. It had a pile of shit covered with flies. The shit must be the sweetest smell to fly's senses.
Why are people so keen to make others believe as they do?
Leaders need to convince their armies that they are creating a better world, laughs Simon. Look at how many millions died believing in Hitler and Stalin and Caligula and Tito. We all need people like us.
Atheists push their beliefs as aggressively as political and religious leaders, says Emma. My parents were labelled superstitious and stupid when people turned to Stalin and Tito for guidance.
Nobody has proof either way so people will believe what they feel comfortable with. Or what seems more propitious.
People need to believe that there is something bigger than sustenance, says Emma; she finds it easier to talk to Simon about the universe than about his family.
Everybody lives in their own world, smiles Simon.
If there is no common reality there cannot be common scientific evidence, says Emma after the silence. People try to merge the idea of God within the idea of intelligent design; they long for God even when they believe in the evolution, the Big Bang and the Black Hole. Who activated the Big Bang? they ask. Is there intelligence outside time and space? Is there time before the beginning of time; is there time after the end of
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times? What can one see from the edge? What is beyond the black hole? Who created God? Who made the evolution possible? How can God run himself for eternity? How long is eternity? How far is the end of things? What is behind the last star? Does a bird have a different view of the world? What is the truth? Is every part of the universe acting independently and singularly or do we act as one: solar systems down to DNA particles and atoms rotating, vibrating, and renewing.
Your questions will keep scientists in their jobs forever, smiles Simon.
How can believers and non believers who look so much the same on the outside be in their essence so different, says Emma as she shows Simon the story Stane, a pious Slovenian sent to her. It is a story about a priest who was taken by an angel on an excursion to see heaven and hell. The story was meant as a warning for Emma to repent and pray. And not to question God's will.
A priest reported: After an accident an angel told me: "I am going to take you to Heaven; the Lord wants to meet you and talk with you; he also wants to show you hell and purgatory.
First, the angel escorted me to hell. It was an awful sight! I saw Satan and the devils, an unquenchable fire of about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, worms crawling, people screaming and fighting, people being tortured by demons. The angel told me that all these sufferings were due to unrepented mortal sins. Then the angel explained that there are seven degrees of suffering according to the number and kinds of mortal sins committed in people's earthly lives. The souls looked very ugly, cruel and horrific. It was a fearful experience. I saw people whom I knew, but I am not allowed to reveal their identities. The worst sins that convicted them were abortion,
homosexuality, euthanasia, hatefulness, unforgiving and sacrilege. The angel told me that if they had repented before they died, they would have avoided hell and gone instead to purgatory. I also understood that some people who repent these sins might be purified on earth through their sufferings. This way they can avoid purgatory and go straight to heaven. I never expected to see in hell priests and Bishops but many of them were there because they had misled the people with false teaching and bad example.
After the visit to hell, this Angel escorted me to purgatory. Here too, there are seven degrees of suffering and unquenchable fire. But it is far less intense than hell and there was neither quarrelling nor fighting. The main suffering of these souls is their separation from God. Some of those who are in purgatory committed numerous mortal sins, but they were reconciled with God before their death. Even though these souls are suffering, they enjoy peace and the knowledge that one day they will see God face to face. I had a chance to communicate with the souls in purgatory. They asked me to pray for them and to tell the people to pray for them as well, so they can go to heaven quickly. When we pray for these souls, we will receive their gratitude through their prayers; once they enter heaven their prayers become even more meritorious. It is difficult for me to describe how beautiful my Guardian Angel is. He is radiant and bright. He is my constant companion and helps me in all my ministries, especially in my healing ministry. I experience his presence everywhere I go and I am grateful for his protection in my daily life. Next, my angel escorted me to heaven passing through a big dazzling white tunnel. I never experienced this much peace and joy in my life. Then immediately heaven opened up and I heard the most delightful music. The angels were singing and praising God. I saw all the saints, especially the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, and many dedicated holy Bishops and
priests who were shining like stars.
When I appeared before Jesus, he told me: "I want you to go back to the world; you will be an instrument of peace and healing to My people.
Maybe Stane really wants to help me reach heaven, says Emma to Simon. Anton, another Born Again Christian friend also gave me a book about people who claim that Jesus led them on a tour of hell and heaven. They describe the burning and the smell of sulphur, the melting rotting flesh, the worms and the serpents and tortured never-ending screams. Around their necks the hell dwellers wear a sign describing the sin they committed. The worst sinners are homosexuals then come abortionists and people who did not pay tithes to the church. Some of these burning people cheated and gave to the church less than they were supposed to. They all scream for mercy but it is all too late. Nothing can be done to help these people, says the book.
It scares me that American president himself apparently belongs to Born Again Christians. Does he also believe in everlasting torture? Says Simon
Jesus loves you and God is the most loving father, Emma remembers her mum's teaching. I cannot believe that our Jesus would allow such suffering. I am happy that our Catholic faith became mild and meek. Hell is rarely even mentioned in Catholic Church. Purgatory became redundant since people stopped buying off days in purgatory for their loved ones with money and prayer. Our father is a loving and forgiving father, Catholics insist.
One wonders if people are describing the same Jesus, laughs Simon.
Our Catholic priest even said in his sermon that the seed put in the ground either produces new life or it dies. There is nothing in between, says Emma.
People believe some weird staff, says Simon. I just heard a story about a publican who wanted to build a hotel next the local Baptist Church. Parishioners unsuccessfully tried everything to stop the construction. In the end they turned to community prayers. About a week before the hotel's opening, a bolt of lightning struck the hotel and it burned to the ground! The church folks were bragging about "the power of prayer". The angry bar owner eventually sued the church on grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building. The church denied all responsibility. The judge read carefully through the plaintiff's complaint and the defendant's reply. He then opened the hearing by saying: I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that what we have here is a bar owner who now believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.
Emma is the fruit of her parent's parenting so to speak; her mission was to make them proud so she aimed to become at least a saint if not a princess. She actually felt destined to become a saint. Female saints were virgins or nuns or martyrs. No happy go lucky girl ever became a saint.
Emma was baptised as Ema but on coming to Australia someone somewhere inserted another m into her name. Many names have been changed like that, some by mistake others by someone's intention.
Saint Emma was a countess who chose poverty for the love of Jesus. She was born rich but gave her possessions to the poor.
Emma was nothing like her patron saint of course; she was born poor and was always too scared of poverty to give away things. It must be wonderful to give and make others adore you for being so generous; only one must first have things before one can give them away. Poverty by itself does not bring popularity or sainthood. If Emma had more than she needed she would give some to the poor. Things are so much easier if one starts rich and a bit famous in some way. Most people never become rich or famous. They do their good deeds unnoticed. Maybe even God does not notice the goodness of ordinary people. One has to be rich to be truly generous.
Emma remembers her father once discussing with the neighbour the Bible story about the vineyard.
The farmer hired the workers; they were happy with the job and the promised wages but when they saw that the farmer paid the same to those who came late, they complained.
I don't understand why they were unhappy, said the neighbour.
Privileges are only appreciated as long as they make people feel privileged. As soon as everybody gets the same trophy, the trophy loses its meaning and value. It is always that little bit extra that makes one special, said Emma's father. People are less worried about poverty than they are about self-importance.
I like the story about the rich Pharisee who gave part of his money to the church, said the neighbour. There was this woman who only had a coin and gave it as well. Jesus apparently appreciated that woman's gift more because she gave all she had.
Unfortunately a person with nothing more to give can no longer be generous, said Emma's father.
I wonder why are some people generous and others mean, said the neighbour.
People give and expect something in return. I scratch your back you scratch mine. If your back is never getting scratched you stop scratching. If you live with people who never do anything for you, you become mean, said Emma's father.
You turn the other cheek as they say. I never understood how turning another cheek would help me though, said a neighbour.
If you refuse to fight back you take the wind out of the attacker; you destroy his sting when you refuse to be outraged by his attack; it is no joy attacking a defenceless person. You only have to look at Jews. When Hitler tried to exterminate them, they gained sympathy and a nation state. They realised their dream; they returned to Jerusalem, said Emma's father.
Most explanations in Emma's home were somehow connected to the Bible. When children displayed jealousy towards each other mum would warn to remember what happened when Cain was jealous of Abel. Nothing is new under the sun, Emma's father often said. He read books; he was also the only peasant in the village who regularly bought newspapers.
Emma remembers very few tangible events from her childhood and they probably were of no great historical value; like that time during the war when someone gave each one in her family a lolly. Mum only pretended to suck on hers. Days later she produced her almost un-sucked lolly and cut it into little crumbs for her children. Emma remembers the flowery
smell of that boiled lolly. That was how mum was. That's how acts of random generosity stay in the memory. While travelling the world she sometimes met strangers and their generosity remained in her memory like that.
Once when mum was chopping the ingredients for the stew dad leaned over her and said: Life is like a pot of stew. We drop in everything we have then we stir it to extract the juices and blend the flavours.
Mum gave dad the wooden spoon to taste this life-stew and dad said that it was good. Emma rejoiced when her family was like that.
Dad made toys and whistles from young spring saplings for Emma; he taught her to play tunes and imitate birds. He sometimes made up stories in the dark of long winter evenings and Emma listened, mesmerised by his words.
When you close your eyes you can be whoever you want to be, he said. Walk lightly into the world, because the world is constantly changing. The events will eventuate because of you and despite of you. Let them pass and change. Don't be afraid when things seem wrong because bad experiences make us enjoy the good ones. Things changed in my lifetime beyond recognition, said dad and his voice seemed far away. They will change in yours even more. There is a reason for everything that happens; accept the reason and what happens. Change as the world changes, but hold onto the magic land within where your favourite blossoms are kept. Nobody can ever take your magic land away from you. There will always be people above you and below you but most important people are those that walk by your side.
Emma can still hear her father's voice as he lulled her away into the magic land of dreams. Her parents were good people. She loved and trusted them and wanted to be like them.
Emma wonders if dad's words follow anybody else as they follow her. Maybe he spoke them for Emma alone. Maybe he had nothing else to give her so he offered her the legacy of a magic land. She wonders what memories her children carry from their growing up. Who knows what Emma's children will remember in the changed future. One only knows one's own memory; one small chapter in the history of life.
Emma knows nothing about things Mum and dad dreamed about; she was too busy with her own dreaming. She was that young sapling storing up the melodies of life. People impressed their knowledge and wisdom on her and she soaked new experiences like a sponge. The more she became like them the more people liked her. In the end she became a tangled web of everybody's ideas. She closes her eyes to recreate the images of people who loved her. She revisits what might have been before she falls asleep most nights. As Emma wakes up she tries to make sense of what is real and what just the mixture of other realities. She tries to remember where she had been in her dreams before they fade away. Sometimes she tries like that to reignite the memories of her dementia patients in the hospital but they cannot hold onto the memory of life they lived.
Is Emma's life an illusion? Is she alive while she keeps sustaining her body or when her body retires and her soul wanders where it pleases? Is the person sleeping next to her more important than the one her soul plays with while her body sleeps? Is her life only a story others tell? Is she a picture others painted? Does she only live her real life in her magic land? Is there a divine element directing her life? Are people
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around her causing her sleepless nights or are they also sleepless as a response to the same changes in the cosmos? Is everybody forever asking the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of it all?
Only people you love can cause you anger and sadness and happiness, said dad. But they will only make you feel a certain way if you allow them to, he added.
If at first you don't succeed try, try again, mum advised. Emma let the ugly sisters try to seduce her prince because she knows that in the end he will find her and know with unmistaken certainty that Emma is the one he has been waiting for. Mum told Emma about the guardian angel; dad told her about the fairy Godmother; one of them is bound to rescue her and rejoice seeing her and her prince riding towards Everafter. In her enchanted kingdom Emma closes her eyes to see more vividly the vision of Jesus or of a prince or of her guardian angel. Or Janez. She is still waiting for her prince to kiss her into being who she was meant to be. She is on a perpetual quest of the high of her first love .
In the meantime Emma does what she has to do to keep peace in her family. It is easier to dream about the prince that way. Wrong princes stop with her while she waits for the real prince. It does not really matter who is there waiting with her.
Janez is the prince of Emma's blossoming; he lives on the other side of the mountain, in the valley of tears on his own way to a paradise; he is passing through time until they will meet again. He is perpetually dreaming of their reunion. He is just a thought away ready to resume the only real loving they both ever knew. Emma rewrites the scenarios for their reunion. Whenever she wants him he is ready to follow her with all of the romance they experienced when they were both eighteen.
They would stare into each other's eyes and time would stand still. They would look at the sky and see God light up the stars for them.
Emma doesn't want Janez to come just yet; she first has to deal with the people who are waiting with her. She cannot afford to be rescued yet; she has to get rid of all the dirt and build a white road towards their Eldorado.
Janez and Emma parted prematurely; their romance is in suspense. Janez has no power to interfere with her waiting. Emma never has to wipe the dust from their shiny togetherness. They remained two children in a fairytale; their love can overcome obstacles of life and death. There is no urgency or fear; they are free of anger and jealousy; they live in love.
The splendour of Emma's blossoming reappears with the few people who touched her on her way. She is tired of running; she is no longer sure where she is running and what she wants to be; or if she wants to be anything at all. She remembers the words of St Thomas Aquinas: People are longing for something precious all their lives and when they get it they live in fear of losing it. One is always afraid of losing whatever makes life worth living.
Does God want Emma to just repeat the yesterdays and yesteryears until her energy runs out? Is her goal to reach an incredibly high old age; does Emma really want everyone to become tired of her extended dying? Would anyone know if Emma missed out a day, a year or a lifetime? Is anything Emma does worth doing? Is anything worth thinking about?
Millions of people dance every day on crowded streets without seeing each other. Nobody will notice when Emma dances her
last. The eternity will chug along without noticing that the torch changed hands. Nobody really comes first or last; the circle closes to make sense of the bubble that was life. It makes no difference if one is the beginning or the end. Time is the healer and death conquers all. RIP is an order nobody can ignore. Rest in peace, enjoy the freedom, the run is over, the trophy is waiting. Mistakes will be forgotten; sins will be rubbed out.
There is no significant example in history before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
Durant
Invisible
Paul and Emma often sit under the shade of a huge Moreton Bay fig tree admiring their garden; wind is moving the branches and its dark foliage throws long shadows; the strength of the trunk defies the storms; the gloss on the leaves protects them against drought. There is a perpetual war in the tree branches; flocks of small birds hunt away bigger birds with sharp screeching; there are also gentle love calls and happy whistling and preening and nesting. Spiders are spreading webs to catch flies. Ants are programmed to march in line following the leader who discovered a new source of sustenance. The nearby flowering bush is alive with bees visiting bloom after bloom in their busy workday. So many lives in a little garden and Emma is herself immersed in contentment and oneness with the nature. All is well with the world.
The wind is bringing dust from opal fields, observes Emma.
Look at the new seedlings under the tree. We could transplant them. Or sell them, says Paul
Dead leaves became food for them; one part of a tree dying and the other being born at the same time, says Emma.
Interesting how birds know their place in their aerodynamic flights, says Paul watching the flock of pigeons rising.
They know everything they need to know, says Emma.
Our house is the best in town, says Paul taking Emma's hand, obviously satisfied with his achievements.
We have everything we ever wanted, agrees Emma. It is not worth the effort of not agreeing. It really is much easier to surrender and just get along in the first place.
Emma is often reflecting on their relationship. Paul and Emma had many unnecessary battles in the past before they came to an understanding that Paul is the leader and Emma the follower. Although sexually faithful to each other both feared infidelity. There are so many ways one can be unfaithful without ever having sex with somebody else. Both demand full devotion from each other but neither trusts the other completely. They want each other to succeed and shine but remain afraid that the other will grow too important and successful and will stop being devoted.
Societies and families have much in common. There is a constant struggle for power; the moment one surrenders the other becomes victorious. The conquerors write the rules; they educate a new generation that it is desirable, moral, and honourable to obey and worship them, the heroes, who won against the enemy.
The defeated are often remembered as weak, immoral, ugly or shameful; vulnerable they move into dark corners to plan a revolution. People avoid losers. Losing is a contagious disease.
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Defeat is an admission of unworthiness; it is a destruction of everything once held precious and sacred by the defeated; surrender is rendering one's efforts futile.
It is a duty of the defeated to applaud the actions of the winners. It is never easy to clap for those who take your place in front yet the losers are compelled to clap and smile. People insist that human societies are no longer a subject of the jungle law but everybody still knows where they stand in the scheme of things. The struggle goes on in the cities and in the jungle.
Winners spawn historians to write about their heroism and victories against the evil, backward, stupid and vulnerable. Germans were more despised for being losers than for being cruel. As soon as they became prosperous, they became the leaders of Europe again. Strength is admired. People worship the hero.
People learn historical facts as gospel truth because history books are decorated with undisputable facts and dates and names. The historians have to please the government of the day so they choose the names, the events and the dates from the vast archives of information to make their opinions seem true; they simply ignore the dates and names and events that would contradict the rulers. Who would dare write against the winners? Read the history.
To win one has to fight. Emma is not a fighter; just as well Paul is. Her family is safe with Paul.
Lock the doors, love, calls Emma's neighbour over the fence. I just heard that a group of young burglars are working this area.
Nobody is safe these days, Emma agrees.
People forgot God so God forgot them, says the woman piously.
Children are free to do as they like, says Emma.
Nobody is teaching them right from wrong anymore, says the neighbour. Emma wonders what would happen if parents, police and God were asleep or go on a long holiday. Is there something good in people that one could rely on? Where does that good come from?
Do you believe in ghosts, asks the neighbour's six years old grandson.
I have never seen one; Emma tries to squiz out of the difficult answer.
They are invisible, the boy explains. The boy can barely say invisible.
Most things are invisible, Emma smiles. How could she explain to the boy that embarrassment and ignorance are real although invisible? Manifestations are deceiving. Smiles carry false messages. Tears flow with an invisible purpose. Love is an emotion everybody tries to explain and nobody ever could. Hate kills in infinity of ways. Love and hate, the two sisters forever dancing together. Now you see one now the other in the same fancy dress disguised as something else. Cain and Abel, black witch and white, black sin and lily white innocence are manifestations of the same invisible force to frighten and comfort forever.
Mum saw a ghost in her dream, says the boy.
Sometimes we see people in our dreams, Emma ventures.
Are dreams real? The boy grapples with what scientists cannot fathom.
Dreams are part of our invisible lives, Emma explains. She has no idea where the boy's thoughts are travelling. He does not understand; Emma does not use the right words. Words are deceiving.
But does it really happen what we dream about?
It happens to the dreamer in a dream.
Is that neutral enough? Is life real? Or death? Birth leading to death; day turning into night; thoughts changing into dreams, seasons following each other in their eternal dance. Are thoughts any more real than dreams? Is voluntary more real than spontaneous? People use words to capture the invisible; they paint their perception of God, they write about love and hate; they explain their fear and smallness; they make their misery and joy into universal joy and misery so they can measure themselves by their own perception of their experiences.
Nanna said that she has an angel helping her, explains the boy.
That is good; Emma pronounces her approval. My mum also had a guardian angel, she adds.
Does everybody have a guardian angel?
I think we all have an angel; Emma tries to get out of a dilemma with a mysterious smile.
Do you know your angel; the boy drills into the invisible. Children like magic more than tangibles.
I think you get to know your angel when you really need one, Emma says trying not to offend the boy or his nanna or her mother, or God or her personal angel. Is anybody brave enough to say that the invisible does not exist? Wouldn't one have to be blind and numb and dumb not to perceive the invisible hand in the logic, beauty and enormity of the universe? On what evidence could Emma deny anything unknown to her? She would like to believe in the guardian angel but where was he when bad people made her do bad things? She cannot even trust that God himself will see her side of things. If he is at all interested in her. Should God take sides? If he exists.
I don't understand, says the boy.
Only God understands everything, says Emma in order to repair her own relationship with god.
Did you ever need an angel; the boy refuses to give up.
Everybody needs an angel sometimes.
Is God real, asks the boy.
He is real as long as you believe in him, Emma squeezes out of her own dilemma. Everything makes sense once you are prepared to believe.
Where elephants fight, it is the grass that is trampled. African saying
The shadows of the past
Emma is travelling back on the road strewn with abandoned blossoms of her lost dreams, beliefs and hopes. She picks the dead blooms and tries to breathe life into them. There were things she believed in; they did not exist anymore than they exist now; young people only believe them into existence. Old people wish to be young again because now they know better than to believe. Old people are longing for the time of childhood innocence when love was everywhere and it was real and nobody waited for anybody to go to the nursing home or die. In that first love nobody willed anyone dead because one was not yet what one has. There was love, there were soul mates. Far back at the beginning on the crossroad stand a boy and a girl waiting for the fairy tale union believing in everlasting love. Old people are scared of their unbelief.
Ivan and Emma were six when Ivan turned his eyes to Emma and said: I love you. They were holding hands as they strew petals in the procession of Corpus Christie. The fields were covered in spring, the sun shone on people's faces, hymns were sung; God was holding them in the palm of his hand. Emma wanted to embrace the universe.
I love everybody, added Ivan. Emma also loved everybody during that Corpus Christie procession. Everything seemed right with the world, birds were nesting, bees were buzzing, flowers were blooming and children loved. That is all there is,
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the blossoming, the courting and the nurturing. Emma wonders if Ivan still loves everybody. Maybe he doesn't love at all. Maybe he was too generous with love. Maybe love like flowers dies a natural death. There are no boys like Ivan now. The tiny snippets of love stayed with Emma; in her secret places she hides the words that told her who she is; the words of love she listens to again and again and the words of hate visit her in her nightmares. Most words were spoken carelessly but they attached themselves to her and she cannot rub them out or paint them over. Emma is afraid that one day someone will discover her secret hiding places and think less of her.
Of course there was greed even then and hunger and the choices were not all love; there was also the fear of poverty and the need to push ahead.
Emma was too young to know why kids called her family chickens but she knew that 'chickens' was a call to war for her adored brother Jakob, who was old enough to fight for their family's honour. Jakob began a feud with the children of a nearby village and when they came to fight him he ran home. The nickname chickens stuck to their family like dog-shit to a shoe. Emma was marked for life by the name some little boy gave her brother.
Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you, mum tried to reason. That was the biggest lie. Forget sticks and stones, it is words that will sing into your nightmares. The mud will stick. Poor and weak carry the words of shame like a bag of manure around their necks throughout their lives. Some laugh them off with a hollow bravado while their hearts bleed. Shame can never be deleted. It can only be scattered around like manure. Or be buried under. Don't lie about sticks and stones. Emma has no scars on her skin; they are all well hidden in her secret places. She is
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examining the fragments of life that left indelible mark on her soul. The emotional impact of words remains long after the events are forgotten. The mind remembers the words while the heart feels the meaning behind them and they become the nourishment for the soul. Or the poison. Physical deprivations are quickly forgotten but wounded soul never fully recovers. One can boast about overcoming physical hardships and deprivations but nobody boasts about the pain of shame and not belonging.
Mum's brother, uncle Miha, was an embarrassment to Emma's family. Everybody laughed at Uncle Miha because he said that God and angels appeared to him. He made up songs and stories and that was not appropriate for a grown up peasant. This was unforgivable. How could the stupid man shame them so? He used to sing at night with Emil the wayward boy next door. Their voices full of longing floated over the valley under the starry sky. In her heart Emma was singing with them. Far away world was awesome and the future was promising. Emma hated uncle Miha but she listened to his singing because there was magic in his words and in his voice in the silence of the night.
If Uncle Miha was rich he might have been called an eccentric or maybe even a clairvoyant but village people considered him mad. Not dangerously mad, of course, but just someone to laugh at. Emma hated being related to the man who had a knack for interpreting dreams but wasn't able to provide a decent living for his family. Mum's family was never good at making money.
Miha was to become a priest but he failed exams; Emma asked him why he did not try again but he said that life is too short to repeat things. Emma never really knew her relations or why they did what they did. Emma loved uncle Miha best in some
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part of her but in the main part she was ashamed of him because he made her ashamed of herself.
Emma's brother David and their neighbour Milan were best friends. At the age of five Emma was in awe of these two smart, handsome, seventeen years old men. In 1944 Milan joined partisans and Home guards took David. One became communist and the other anticommunist. Milan became red and David became white. Emma became whitey.
Emma doubts now that the boys had any idea really what they became apart from becoming instant enemies. How could two village teenagers who never read a newspaper or listened to the radio know about Hitler or Stalin? Even Hitler's close associates claimed after the war that they had no idea about the plans of their leader. Many war criminals were absolved of their crimes because they claimed that they just followed orders. Slovenian boys had no right to this excuse.
Stalin's agents promised to take from the rich and give to the poor. They promised equality to the oppressed to justify the taking from the rich. Most people feel oppressed and exploited by those in power most of the time. One can always count on human nature. The oppressed covet the power and the riches of their masters and the oppressors hold onto their power and riches until those under find an opportunity to topple them. Revolution is an everlasting dogfight. Emma heard someone say: While you are oppressed you feel alive because you struggle but when you have it all you become depressed because there is nothing more to hope and wish for. Oppressed have no time to be depressed.
The words: equality, freedom, liberty and brotherhood began to appear and hope seeped into the hearts of the oppressed.
Hitler claimed that Jews killed Jesus and created godless Bolsheviks. Hitler also needed to justify the killing of the Jews and the taking of their property. Dirty money grabbing Jew is manipulating people and creating wars, Hitler claimed.
Both Hitler and Stalin wanted to get rid of Slovenian clergy and intellectuals first. Without spiritual and civic leadership it is easier to establish new order and make people believe in it. Most people are like ants; they follow the leader.
Existing Slovenian leaders knew that Germans were losing the war and would eventually leave while Soviet communism
threatened to stay and change their life permanently. Home-guards were engaged to defend the existing order.
Divide and conquer. Most small European nations were split into Hitler or Stalin supporters but in their desperation they were killing their own people and so made it easier for invaders to impose their rule. Hitler and Stalin, the two murderous egomaniacal dictators, these two self appointed gods, split Slovenians in half. Although both sides were made to believe that they fought for the liberation of Slovenia the Liberation meant a different outcome for their leaders. Stalin was on the winning side in the end so Slovenians who were against him had to be punished.
Emma remembers her mother squeezing her hand tight as they watched the soldiers poke the haystacks with pitchforks. Emma's brother David came out bleeding and walked away with the men never to be seen again.
Just before the end of the war Milan came asking for David. He seemed so much bigger in his partisan uniform with a bayonet down his leg and the gun on his shoulder. Emma's dad ignored him and headed for the stable to feed the cows.
Milan hit him on the head with the butt of the gun. Blood sprinkled the snow. Emma's mum tried to help dad as he fell on the icy ground but Milan pushed her down with his boot and spat into her face. He yelled that he would shoot all of them if they didn't tell where David was. Emma was kneeling in the snow next to her parents.
There, Emma chirped pointing at the road up the hill. That was Emma's first real lie. Something in her changed. Milan tortured and humiliated her parents and they could do nothing. They represented all the power in the world to her yet they were obviously powerless. Emma felt fear running in her veins. Her father was a well respected man; Emma could not understand him being powerless.
One night Jesus was taken down from the cross that was in front of Emma's home. Her parents stared at the empty cross with horror and disbelief but they did not dare accuse anyone of stealing Jesus. Later Emma heard them whispering that Jesus was taken down from all the crosses in the valley. Emma used to pick first spring flowers and put them at the feet of Jesus. She wanted to please him and his mother. Emma's mum regularly beseeched Virgin Mary and her son to save them from sickness, war and starvation. Resi nas kuge lakote in vojske, she prayed. A man from the village disappeared and people whispered about his disappearance. Emma heard that he asked his captain: Why are we fighting home-guards and not Germans?
Children were swimming in the river while their cattle grazed nearby. Emma saw bodies floating towards her. She quickly moved out of the water to let the bodies pass. Where did these bodies come from; where did they go? Did they float from
Krka into Sava and Danube? Other people must have seen them eagle spread floating towards Black sea. Nobody bothered to pick them up and bury them. Whose bodies were they? Emma was relieved when they disappeared down the stream. She found a body of a young man with his face blown off in the forest when she looked for mushrooms. She has no idea why she did not tell someone. War was the only normality she knew.
After the war Milan became a president of the local branch of the Communist party. The Shire sent him to a communist management school. When he returned he became a director of a nearby bike factory. He had the power to hire and fire. Everybody did favours for him. People were grateful for his friendship.
Power-mad dogs, hissed Emma's father.
After the war the West repatriated Home-Guards-Slovenian anticommunist fighters who escaped to Austria. The West had to be practical about solving the refugee problem; the communist Yugoslav regime demanded the return of their nationals; they promised to deal with them justly. The communists declared that returned refugees were Hitler supporters so they promptly murdered them. Twelve thousand anticommunist God-fearing young Slovenian boys were buried in mass graves among countless thousands of other repatriated anticommunists. The government had to do that to put the fear into the rest of the population. Death to traitors! Why bother with long trials like those in Nirenberg?
This quick and easy final solution broke the back of the nation. People no longer resisted the new communist government.
There was an air of excitement, anticipation and cautious hope. The smell of victory permeated the air. Everything old had to be swept away to make room for the rosy future. The children of the war knew nothing else.
Towards the end of 1945 a nineteen year old partisan invited villagers to a pre-election meeting. They were to elect their own representative for the shire. Emma begged her father to take her with him. She sat on his knees as the peasants seriously evaluated each other for the nomination. The nominees seemed shy and a bit scared to accept the nomination. Emma's father said that the tyre of his bike exploded and he could not walk 12 km for the monthly meetings. One man lost his son in the war and was busy working on the land; one war hero lost his leg. As the excuses kept coming the young partisan said: You don't have to worry about travelling to any meetings because they already have a representative. We only have to put down a name of your choice.
Villagers looked at each other and laughed. The noise they made was not a happy haha laugh but an hm hm sighing.
If you are going to laugh at me I am not going to tell you anything else, the young partisan concluded the meeting. The villagers whispered to each other. They were afraid of a boy who just won the revolution.
Emma's parents seemed all knowing, ordinary and necessary to Emma; they were like the air she breathed; it seemed natural that she obeyed and relied on them; she had nothing to compare them with until she started school in 1946 and her self-awareness began to widen.
I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be; I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.
Joseph de Maistre
Out with the old - in with the new
As she began school Emma learned that her family was far from perfect; other children knew that; teachers and other parents knew it as well. Emma's parents who made her feel precious were far from precious themselves. Suddenly Emma felt less good. The feeling that she wasn't good enough, stayed with her. After the liberation Emma felt less good, less beautiful, less rich, less deserving than children around her. She began to feel ashamed of her family, their beliefs and their teaching.
Santa Claus was replaced with the New year's Granddad Frost-dedek mraz, the nativity scene gave way to New year fern tree; belief in Jesus was replaced by the belief in the Communist leaders. Emma found herself standing alone without the hope that Mother Mary will help or her guardian angel lead her safely over the troubled waters. She trembled like a fragile vine trying to grab a hold of something stable and real. Cinderella and her prince, Jesus and Mary became the same part of her superstitious backward parents; she became ashamed of all her parents represented.
The school lessons began with chanting: For homeland with Tito we go. Death to fascists- freedom to the nation. Za domovino s Titom naprej. Smrt fasizmu svobodo narodu. All
lessons were intertwined with the glorious stories of the heroes who defeated Germans, Italians and home-grown traitors. Everybody knew who amongst them belonged to traitors. Songs, poems and stories were all about the heroism of Tito, their ideal teacher and leader.
Emma sang the songs of revolution and chanted loudly but on the way from school she still prayed for her guardian angel to return.
Emma was a promising student; the teachers told her that she could make something out of her life but Emma could not share this joy with her parents. She loved the red scarf her teacher wore around her neck and hated the black scarf her mother wore; she loved the songs of revolution and became ashamed of the hymns mum used to sing with her. Emma tried to emulate the strong and victorious; she knew that she was less good than she should be and that she had to be grateful for being tolerated. She envied the children of national heroes who were proud of their families. She had to be especially vigilant and sing louder and better. Emma embraced the new ideology like women embrace stilettos. What is a little pain compared to how tall and desirable you become? It was like teenagers embracing sex as a sign of liberation and adulthood. What is the absence of dreams and romance compared with the instant gratification sex offers?
It became right and moral and fashionable to forget everything parents said; especially when the parents were traitors who refused to see that the communist party leaders will lead people into just and fair future. Brotherhood, unity and equality. One for all and all for one. United we stand. We are one. We are who we are. Nobody is any closer to the Promised Land. Nobody is richer, better or more loved.
What could possibly be wrong with brotherhood of equal people? What is wrong with taking from the rich and giving to the poor? Didn't Jesus teach to love thy neighbour as yourself? Did everybody learn from Jesus? Are all gods teaching the same?
The subsistent peasants-land owners instantly became second class citizens. They were barely allowed to keep enough of their produce to survive; the rest was taken for the common good. They soon calculated that is wasn't worth producing more than they needed to survive. In the past they cultivated every piece but now they left the land to rest. The young left the village and searched for the factory jobs in the cities.
Yesterday ways became ridiculously stupid, shameful and irrelevant in the rosy future where their leaders were their equals, friends, protectors and teachers. Gradually most young people learned to worship and fear their new leaders who made so many sacrifices for their happiness. Old God-fearing people did not dare voice their disapproval; they knew that they were powerless.
It was everybody's duty to denounce anyone who did not agree with their leaders. If people are not with us they are against us and have to be silenced. Emma wondered if her parents ever realised how wrong they were.
The authorities urged everybody to be vigilant because dark forces were trying to destroy the communist paradise. The foreign superpowers were jealous of communist success; there were also people inside bent on destroying what the revolutionary heroes fought for and won for them with their blood. The enemy was everywhere trying to sully the names of the righteous, compassionate communist leaders; the enemy lured people into a trap; they tempted them to escape to the
West where people perish exploited and forgotten. The West was the worst enemy. The West was a snake in the paradise. Children learned at school that the West sucks the blood of the poor workers. They learned to fiercely hate capitalists that squeezed the employees dry and dumped them once they were no longer useful. During the festivities in honour of the communist leaders students chanted that they would rather die for their leaders than let outsiders meddle in their lives; they became patriotic and shunned all that was foreign. Emma embraced the splendour of this new fashion. She genuinely felt sorry for all those mistreated workers of the West; if only they could escape into the communist paradise.
Still some people were tricked into escaping to the West; some even returned with a car; some brought home money to build a house; some never returned. The West was the forbidden fruit, shiny and dangerous. People whispered about the west. The government had to be especially vigilant with those who tasted the forbidden fruit of the west and then spread western propaganda at home among the lucky people of equality and brotherhood. More of the peasant boys escaped every day.
Emma accepted the new world and willingly left behind the burden of the old. Nobody disagreed with the regime; nobody would dream of criticising the leaders. It would be immoral, disrespectful, ungrateful and maybe even blasphemous to criticise national heroes. Everybody knew that the government would have to punish dissent. It is also shameful to wear last year's fashion.
Emma's childhood ended at the age of seven. Dad stopped telling stories and mum did not sing anymore. Emma never again knew her parents. The death of her traitor brother David changed her whole family; her mother cried; her father became
silent; nobody wanted to hear the good news Emma brought from school where her beautiful young teacher loved her.
On All Saints day 1945 Emma's mum looked through the window as people walked past their house towards the cemetery to put flowers on the graves of their dead. She called dad for lunch but he ignored her. She cried as she lit the candle next to the statue of Virgin Mary in the corner of the house. Dad later told Emma that they heard about David being among the returned refuges and killed at that time. He was eighteen. They had no grave to put the flowers on.
The memory of David had to be secretly destroyed and his name was never to be mentioned again out loud. Emma's parents never spoke of their grief; their silent powerless acceptance, their moaning spread over their home like a fog. Emma understands now that they did not dare get angry or complain or demand justice. Or ask where David's grave was. They still had children who depended on the goodwill of the new regime. They never cursed openly to vent their anger; they only whispered, whimpered and muttered like frightened beaten animals. The worst of all was the silence and the denial of grief. Their heavy muted rage reached Emma's bones. Mum once touched dad's hair lovingly but he just brushed her away. Emma still remembers the pain of knowing that love has gone from their home. Her father whispered once that she will see the day when all these will be... He spat on the ground but he never finished the sentence. In the most hidden corners of her soul Emma felt sorry for her parents; she also felt guilty because she became a part of the new system. She hated belonging to the traitors' family.
Emma accepted the fact that victorious had the right to impose any law that would secure their position; they won that right in
a fair fight. Emma was aware that she belonged to the vanquished so she tried hard to emulate the victorious.
Students were busy performing rituals in honour of their leaders; the writers wrote odes in honour of Tito, the painters painted his portraits, journalists wrote how great and honourable and wise he was; philosophers praised his ideas. Tito's portrait had a place of honour in every office and classroom, in every place of employment and in many homes. Nobody would dream of opposing or saying anything disrespectful of their leader. Except Emma's parents, of course. The walls of her home were covered with religious pictures.
This will pass, whispered Emma's mother.
No victory is permanent but the children of the victorious will be lawmakers of the future and they will make laws that will benefit them, said Emma's father.
Emma's parents didn't really count; thank God, that Emma was the only one who heard their whispers. She tried to avoid listening to them but inside her she longed for the times when she sang hymns in mum's lap and listened to stories dad told her as she snuggled into his embrace in cold winter evenings.
Emma finally became an intricate part of blue, white, and red parade on the stadium spelling the word TITO. They all played an equal part for Tito's birthday; they became an equal part of the flag of the future, the colour of the word, the flavour of the day. Emma rejoiced being one in the huge brotherhood marching in the spring green grass of the stadium. For a moment Emma managed to rub out the fact that she came from a family of traitors. She joined the victorious.
Emma learned to love the communist leaders and hate those that opposed them. She learned to love God and hate the devil with much the same intensity before she started school. The students paraded and sang for the glory of the revolution like they used to sing for the glory of God during the Corpus Christie procession; they recited revolutionary poetry with stars in their eyes. Only the young believe so wholeheartedly. They exuberantly walked behind the flag in step with their teachers towards an ideal society and future. They learned to believe that they were free and equal; that every kind of labour was honourable. In communism everybody has the freedom of speech, her teacher told them.
We only have the freedom to think, whispered Emma's dad. We must think. These wolves have the same hunger as the ones from before.
Emma's parents seemed confused, weak, and vulnerable; they were irrelevant and wrong according to the authorities that knew these things. They were a part of the old, no longer valid world of superstition. Emma wanted to protect them from the new world they knew nothing about. They became smaller and smaller in her eyes. Emma felt like a parent to her parents; she wished she could enlighten them. So much shame! So much fear that something dreadful was going to happen because her parents did not love Tito.
Who in their right mind would reject brotherhood and equality? The West did. They did not care about justice. Everyone looked after number one in the West. The West exploits workers. How could Emma know anything but what her teachers told her? She was not aware yet of the everlasting war between the wealthy and the poor; about the historic processes of distributing the wealth of a nation. Communist
revolutionaries replaced the church; they promised justice, fairness, hope and comfort to the poor.
Emma simply believed in the ideal world won in the revolution. They won against Germans and against the property owners of the old order; it was their duty to take from the rich and distribute it to the poor. What poor person would argue against that? Many young people firmly believed in this ideal in the same way their parents believed that Saviour will come and then the lion and the lamb will lay together and the snake will no longer scare or tempt people.
Faith in the better future inspired people; with hope burning in their hearts they believed they could move mountains and overcome obstacles. They worked hard to reach the ever higher factory norms.
Inside of her Emma was hiding in her confusion. At school she celebrated the victory and at home they mourned the defeat. She proudly brought home her first school reader but when she went to bed she saw her dad tear out the first page where the picture of Tito was. Emma felt that there was something very wrong with her father. Next day her lovely teacher asked about the missing page. She took Emma to see the principal. Emma said that her little sister scribbled on it so Emma tore it out. They will not punish her baby sister, figured Emma. The teacher and the principal whispered and looked at Emma.
In her childish innocence Emma loved her father; she sensed that he would be in great trouble if the teacher knew so she had to protect him. She felt slightly guilty because she knew that it was her moral duty to denounce her father and her family. She learned that anyone suspected of subversion
deserved punishment. She really had no idea what subversion was but then new words got a meaning with the threat they represented.
Emma was nine when the name Stalin disappeared from the walls of public buildings; there were whispers that Tito quarrelled with Stalin. Most slogans were gradually rubbed out, changed or repainted. Nobody explained why they suddenly stopped chanting Tito-Stalin. Stalin was silently removed from textbooks and conversations. Even the memories of lessons about the world without property or money gradually faded. Comsomol was gone. Somewhere in the background of people's consciousness were slotted the pictures of big Russian style collective farms where people work and sing and eat from the same pot while their children are brought up by the government.
Emma remembers a man in a black suit who came at that time with an order for Emma's parents to surrender their piglets to the co-op. Mum protested that she needed to sell the piglets so she could buy shoes for the children. The man in a suit gave a signal for the two men in working clothes to load the piglets. Mum stood between the men and the piglets like a mountain. The man in a suit told her to move out of the way or he will arrest her for sympathising with Russians.
I did not sympathise with Russians when you sympathised with Russians, back-chatted mum and Emma grabbed her skirt in fear.
Watch your tongue, said the man and his voice reached Emma's bones. The men loaded the piglets.
Food and shoes were the main concern for her parents after the war. Anything could be used to clothe the children. Emma's
neighbours were lucky to catch a parachute and make silken clothes for the family but Emma's mother only found a huge canvas lost by a retreating German truck. She made all their clothes of this harsh brown material; she used the off cuts as nappies for the babies. The children went barefooted for the months without R in their names but from September until the end of April shoes were a constant worry. Children's shoes invariably leaked and their feet were never warm enough. Socks were nonexistent so the boys wrapped the canvas pieces around their toes. Girls' stockings were held in place with the piece of string knotted above the knees. The icy wind blew under girls' skirts because long pants for girls were not invented yet. Emma could never forget the medical examiner coming to school; he lifted her skirt in front of the class to check her over but discovered that Emma had no underpants. He quickly covered her up but not before her whole world discovered her shame. Poverty was the biggest source of shame.
After the mass people lined up at the local co-op for any item on sale and Emma's mum lined up not knowing what was on offer. Emma remembers mum's glee when she succeeded in getting enough black cloth to make aprons and scarfs for the girls in her family. Black was the colour of the day.
At the age of eleven Emma left home to study in the city. She knew that city kids felt superior to the village kids. City people aspired to reach heights while a peasant only aimed to feed his family. Tito did not like stupid superstitious peasants who were clinging to the land ownership and to God. Tito, their supreme teacher, told students in no uncertain terms through their teachers not to listen to their superstitious parents. Any enlightened person knew that to believe in God was a sign of madness. Going to church was a no-no in the city. God was
ever present inside Emma, of course, but in the city she had to hide him where her fear and her shame were hiding. Dogs smell fear. Kids are much like dogs.
Private property was a smelly sin hanging onto Emma's new socialist skirt. Unbeknown to her peers Emma's skirt actually came from American relations after the war. Having someone in America meant that one was contaminated by the west and so a threat to the brotherhood and equality. She could never tell her city schoolmates how she dreamed of being in America. America was a magic land in Emma's understanding since the parcels of food and clothing began to delight those who had someone in this rich land of milk and honey. Emma's mum carefully unstitched the American clothes; she washed and ironed the material before she made Emma's city school clothes. Only Emma knew that she did not wear a socialist skirt.
In Emma's class was a boy Andrej who played a violin; she looked at him with awe. Someone said that Andrej was belted by his father if he didn't practice enough on his violin. Emma wished to become a musician; she would practice however long it took. She imagined herself playing next to Andrej as her parents watched with shining faces proud of their daughter. Making her parents proud was her ultimate goal. Andrej liked Emma but she did not feel good enough to be his friend so she kept the distance. Susan, Emma's classmate, was as popular as Andrej. One day the two of them came to school red faced and changed. Everybody knew that they kissed. They became a couple. Emma had a proof that she was not good enough. She would definitely die if anyone guessed that she was dreaming of playing a violin next to Andrej. Just imagine his city family with a long history of musicians and her coming from a cow paddock. She was ashamed of her dreams and of her family
but she was also ashamed of her shame; she felt tainted with an indelible mark of inferiority. She believed herself to be the centre of the universe with people watching and judging her every move. She told herself that her destiny was to restore her family's pride; she had to succeed and become someone important.
Village boys used to run after Emma; they called her names and pulled her plats on the way to a primary school but these same village boys became shy and friendly when Emma returned for holidays from the city; they brought flowers on her window at night. Some sang for her and whispered her name under the window. Everybody forgot about chickens but by now Emma no longer belonged to the village and the city has not quite accepted her yet. She so much wanted to belong somewhere. She would so much like to feel cosy and contented with people like herself. To merge and become one with those around her.
When Emma feels small and alone she pretends that she is a minute part of something unimaginably awesomely timeless and endless. She is playing her tiny part in the enormous drama that keeps repeating itself. She looks at the night sky and pretends that she is one of the infinite numbers of stars floating in the unknown. It does not matter what one is as long as one is. I am, she whispers to the stars. I am a significant particle of the Alpha and Omega. Thank god nobody can see inside her while she is carefully arranging her appropriate exterior.
Strangers applied their favourite colours on Emma's canvas. The painting is almost complete; huge strokes cover the details best forgotten; one cannot take away a single layer without destroying what became her landscape.
Emma keeps repairing her tangled web. Worry, worry, mother spider! Weave, spider, weave.
The next greatest misfortune to losing a battle is to gain such victory as this.
Wells
Jakob
Bombing during the day and raids during the night, soldiers and guns, this was a normal state of being for children who never yet experienced peacetime. Children were afraid of all soldiers. Partisans came during the night to take their food and their boys. Germans came during the day to transport people into labour camps and starve them to death.
On 8.8.1944 Emma's brother Jakob had an argument with his father and he ran away. Emma ran after him and mum ran after her. On the riverbank Jakob met his friend and together they swam across and joined the red army. Emma can still hear her mother calling after them. She begged Jakob to return but he was gone and they did not know about him for the next three years.
When Tito broke up with Stalin in 1948, Jakob returned. The government provided a scholarship for him. He finished university and became one of the communist leaders. Emma felt honoured and redeemed by his success. His name was like a badge of righteousness.
Jakob stopped corresponding with Emma after she escaped; in his position it would be unthinkable to associate with a traitor. Emma's every letter was opened and Jakob was questioned by
authorities. Comin from a traitor's family he was always under suspicion.
Emma, who was given every opportunity by communists, jeopardised her brother's position by escaping to the rotten West. She betrayed the ideals of brotherhood, equality and unity.
Emma and Jakob resumed their correspondence after communism collapsed in 1989 and Slovenia became independent. Before he died Jakob wrote:
Jews have a day of atonement; a day when the door opens and through this door should only go the one who truly confesses his sins and repents. I will try to pass through that door.
My parents and teachers made me keenly aware of the life choices: our destination was heaven, purgatory or hell. We feared hell and strove for heaven. For a catholic child this used to be simple. You sin, confess, repent and sin again. As long as you confess before you die you have nothing to fear. I worried about dying without confession. It did not seem fair though that the eternity depended on this one last act. Why didn't God keep some kind of ledger to balance your good and bad deeds?
I often wonder how my subsistent farmer parents clothe and fed our large family. Two cows and two hectares of land was all they had but I don't remember ever being hungry. If they were lucky they sold a nest of piglets and maybe one calf a year.
This idyllic lifestyle ended when the war began.
Our village came under Italian occupation/administration until in 1943 Italy capitulated. I was a restless teenager ready for excitement and rebellion. I suppose I was adventurous and
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often disobedient so I had to be punished by my father. In 1942 at the age of 12 I ran away and joined Italians. They wanted to take me to Italy but mum begged our priest to intervene so they let me come home. I recently read what the priest wrote in his diary: I said to Jakob's mother that Jakob looks like ten years old Jesus lost in the temple. She commented: of course he does being the son of Jozef and Marija.
I vividly remember when Germans transported nearby villagers into German labour camps. I was 13; I saw people crying and packing their meagre belongings in bundles as they were forced to leave their homes. Brave, foolish and idealistic I wanted to fight the Germans. At school I sat next to a boy whose parents were known communist activists. We were friends and on my 14th birthday on 8 August 1944 we ran away from home and joined partisans.
There was no forced ideology at that time and I even remember our unit going to Christmas midnight mass in 1944. In January 1945 they offered to send me with another 62 Slovenian boys to the Soviet military academy. We arrived to Kiev where we celebrated allied victory on 9 May 45.
In Russia I learned in Russian what Russian authorities wanted me to know. Mainly I learned political science, ballistics, armoury, topography and war strategies. I remember the hunger, the loneliness and the homesickness. This was a sad part of my life. I was forever hungry and cold. At night I searched the fields for any turnips and carrots missed by the peasants. I liked swimming in Dnieper, horse riding in the open countryside and dancing at the weekend. Russian girls provided some intimacy and emotional experience for us young boys so far away from home.
I returned from Russia in October 1947 for a holiday. Soon after Tito and Stalin broke up; I was allowed to stay home.
At the age of 17 I felt like a stranger in my family. The door between my father and me remained closed forever. Each of us lived out our own bitterness. I needed the love and understanding of my family but my family mourned my dead brother. They never spoke about it but the silence was painful. My mother eventually showed some love and understanding towards me but my father remained bitter to the end. In that atmosphere I left home. I tried to make something out of my life. I always wanted something better. I always tried to make the best of what life offered.
I began working and studying at the same time. I became an engineer and later became a director of the large building company. I succeeded in my efforts but I found happiness in my family.
There is a reason for everything one does. In life one easily finds a crutch for himself when the going gets tough but one rarely extends this crutch to a fellow traveller. People like to rejoice with others but in one's pain one is often alone, an island for himself.
As I look at the world events now I see that we did not win or learn anything. Young boys still claim that God is on their side as they kill for the beliefs their leaders instil in them. As some poet said: Theirs is not to reason why-theirs is but to do and die. Only young can be made to follow orders and do and die without thinking. More they believe more ready they are to kill and die. Soldiers are trained never to question orders. Madrasa Muslim religious schools prepare students to do and die for Allah, their leaders and their nation. As a reward soldiers are promised virgins in a paradise.
Albert Einstein once said: One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity and of life.
I am still in awe of the enormity of universe although my faith in people changed. I believed in making a better world but I am disappointed. The survival of the fittest still prevails in our jungle however much we try to disguise it.
Recently I listened to Neil Armstrong telling about his trip to the moon.
He said: I found my God and peace in space. Science and technology still have no answers for the big questions. There is too much logic and beauty in the universe to have it all happen by accident. The creator is above all religions because space and time are beyond human understanding.
Facing eternity is scary, wrote Jakob. What is there in eternity? I do not believe in never ending happiness or everlasting torment but I believe that the creator of the universe has a more imaginative plan.
So Emma's communist brother never completely dismissed the higher power. The remnants of the almighty are still imbedded in the man who learned to renounce religion as the opium of the masses. Did the teachings of his parents prevail or was this his independent conclusion at the end of his life? Jakob needed to forgive and be forgiven.
If God is a delusion then maybe most people need a delusion when reality is neither attractive nor comforting. What is love if not delusion? Being in love cannot possibly last yet the euphoria it creates is real. It makes everything worth it.
People produce literature and art to recreate the feeling of being in love.
Emma sometimes watches the crowds of people mesmerised by the words of evangelists. Their faces shine and their whole beings exude goodness. The masses are in love with God. Praying inspires hope and creates a sense of euphoria. Religion is the opium of the masses, said communists. Praying is better than opium. It is legal, less harmful and always available. The praying masses reach ultimate high simultaneously. Most governments like to keep people happy. It does not matter really what is true; the important thing is what makes one happier, better and more complete. It is only a matter of trust that makes one fulfilled. There are no answers for the ultimate questions.
Emma thanks the Almighty for her life; she now talks to the Almighty of no particular name or fixed address because she is afraid to thank the wrong God. Or to give the right God the wrong name.
No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation. Wilson Woodrow
Brotherhood
Tito decided to build one nation of many Yugoslav nationalities. As part Slovenian and part Croatian residing in Serbia, Tito was the creator and the creation of this new Yugoslav nation. He demanded that people forget their old nationality and their God and become brothers Yugoslavs united under his wing and flag.
It is easier for him to dictate a united tribe of people, whispered Emma's dad. Someone also whispered the story that as a youngster Tito was caught stealing Slovenian chickens and taking them home to Croatia. Emma doesn't remember where this story came from; the traitors must have whispered it to her in her sleep.
Everybody seemed half asleep while they listened to the new policies about good and bad. Somewhere in their sleep also lived the prejudices and the anger and the guilt. There was a lot of whispering but nothing was ever said out loud against Tito or his government.
People acquire prejudices with their mother's milk; they learn who to please and who to fear and who to despise.
Emma was much too young and afraid to acknowledge her prejudices but they became a part of who she was becoming.
Black and white merging; good and evil intertwined and all constantly changing.
Slovenian children of Emma's generation grew up in fear of Turks and gypsies. Emma's house was close to the woods so her parents were careful in dealing with gypsies. It was a well known fact that gypsies stole children. Looking at this memory now, Emma wonders why would gypsies want to steal children. They had too many of their own barefooted hungry brats. Just shows you how baseless prejudices are. Slovenian children sang the song: 'Bezimo tecimo cigani gredo v rjavih basagah otroke neso' which means: Run, run, try to escape for Gypsies are coming carrying children in their brown sacks. Emma remembers mobs of gypsies coming during frosty winters. Gypsy children followed close behind their parents, all barefooted and scantily dressed. Emma felt a bit of pity and a lot of fear. Her mother gave gypsies bits of food and any bits of clothing she could spare. Nobody ever questioned the duplicity of her behaviour. Was she afraid of what gypsies could do if she refused to share with them?
Maybe parents just used the fear of Gypsies to keep their children obedient. Like Aborigines who invented Yurri woman; they say that Yurri woman coasts children away from home and drowns them. It helped keep children close to their parents.
During the winter gypsies went from house to house asking if any animals perished. Emma's parents would never eat anything that wasn't perfectly healthy; they even refused to eat a rabbit caught in a snare. Once a pig died of red fever and Emma's dad buried it in the woods so the sickness would not spread. Gypsies dug it out and ate it; they said that the soil took out the sickness.
In spring an old gypsy woman came with a sign on her chest saying: totally blind. She begged Emma to pick some of those nice beans growing in their garden.
Never believe a gypsy, said Emma's mum.
Gypsies also became brothers with other nations in the new Yugoslavia; people had to accept and tolerate them; they had to provide for their development but nobody liked them; they considered them lazy and dirty.
Slovenians also harboured an unspoken prejudice against Southern Yugoslavs; this prejudice must have become a part of their national psyche. Turks ruled South Slavs for centuries. Slovenia was in fear of Turkish attacks. Children learned how Turks invaded and pillaged Europe; they stole young Slovenian boys and trained them to become Muslim soldiers; Turks sent these converted Christian boys back to attack their own villages and kill their own people. These stolen Slovenians -Janicarji-soldiers became the subject of national folklore; Emma read numerous stories and poems about them. Even after Ottoman's empire disintegrated and Turks no longer ruled Southern Europe, some Christians who were coerced to convert to Muslim religion remained Muslims and the fear of Turks lived on. Southern Yugoslavia was known as being full of Muslims; Emma often heard that Turks left the seed of evil in the countries they invaded.
Slovenians were a part of Germanic political structures for centuries and reluctantly assimilated into the same organised, tidy and industrious lifestyle; they considered themselves a notch better and more advanced than southerners who lived under Turkish rule. Tito declared that it was up to Slovenians to help southerners become equal. Privately Slovenians resented the order to contribute financially towards the
development and advancement of Southern brothers. Many even refused to believe in brotherhood even though it was only fair and sensible that a land of brotherhood and equality shared their fortunes.
Emma's father read in the paper that Southerners refused to be told what to do with the money Slovenia sent them. Slovenians grumbled when southerners used their money for stadiums and playgrounds. But it would be much too dangerous to say something out loud.
Now I lay me down to sleep- I pray to Lord my soul to keep
Preparation for womanhood
After the war Emma's sister Milena became a domestic servant in the house of rich people in the city. She was the first girl to leave the village. Her rich mistress gave Milena the clothes she got tired of so Milena could go out with other domestic servants on Thursday afternoon which was their time off. The former village girls looked forward to these social occasions where they shared experiences, compared their new homes and talked about the people they served. They also met boys, went to the pictures and shopping.
After six months in the service Hanna returned home for her first free weekend. The villagers glared at her. Boys laughed awkwardly. She had expensive looking clothes, her hair was permed, her hands were smooth and white, and her face was pale. She spoke with a city voice.
Milena was changed. She suddenly looked precious.
Other village girls followed Milena into the city to become domestics. The lucky ones married someone who had accommodation so they could find a factory job and remain in the city. Village boys followed village girls but it was even harder for them. Many travelled long distances; some slept on the park benches in summer. Accommodation was scarce.
Many young Slovenian boys escaped to the West after the war and their places at home were quickly filled by Southerners. Bosnian Muslims first came to Slovenia as seasonal workers.
Tito's government also created in Slovenia key positions of power for many Southern Yugoslavs. Most of these new officials- male guest workers-were housed first and paid best. They became a convenient husband material for Slovenian girls who wanted to move out of their domestic live-in situations. They wanted to start a family and work in a factory but they could not find accommodation in the city.
There was a shortage of eligible Slovenian boys. Thousands were killed by communists after the war, thousands escaped to the West and thousands were without accommodation.
Milena met Zigi, a handsome officer of the Yugoslav army. His real name was Zuhdija but everybody called him Zigi. He spoke Serbo-Croatian and most people accepted this mixture of languages as the official Yugoslav language. Zigi told Milena that he will begin his new job as a custom officer and with his job he will also get accommodation in Ljubljana. Zigi was handsome in his shiny uniform and Milena was in love.
Emma remembers that nobody really talked of being in love in those days. Or about being beautiful. Marriages were between the people who knew each other's families for generations. When children came of age it was natural that they marry and start a family. Match making was the favourite pastime for the villagers. There were no surprises; rich were looking for rich partners and poor took whatever was left over. People behaved with propriety because they knew that they will live next to their neighbours forever. For better and for worse. No-one ever married a foreigner in this cluster of small villages.
Emma was eight when Milena first brought Zigi home. This polite, handsome man became instantly popular with children; he played with them and gave them lollies. In the afternoon he offered to teach Emma to swim in the nearby river. He was
holding her carefully, one hand under her belly and the other on her thigh. Emma felt uncomfortable when his hand got caught in her flimsy pants and he rummaged inside for a second. Emma did not want to learn to swim any more. One day Zigi took her to show him the places where mushrooms grew in the forest. He was playing catches with her; once he tripped and fell on her and they both laughed. In an instant Emma stopped laughing; she sensed something unknown and unpleasant; she got up and stopped playing. Zigi's hands were trembling and his face changed.
Emma was nine when Milena married Zigi in a registry office. Her parents did not attend the wedding; Milena's marriage to a Bosnian Muslim and a communist, was a great blow to them. There was an unspoken understanding that no self respecting Slovenian Christian girl would marry a Bosnian Muslim but Milena married him because he had accommodation and a position of power that demanded respect. Nobody ever openly said that they were ashamed of Milena's choice; they would not dare because Tito ordered them to be brothers and equals and to respect each other. Love thy neighbour. They had to prove that they were good hosts to their guest workers.
Zigi and Milena took Emma to live with them in the city; they had to rescue her from poverty and ignorance of her backward superstitious parents. Out of goodness of their hearts they wanted to give her a chance to go to school and make something out of her life. Everybody told her to be grateful, especially to Zigi, because he did not have to make this great sacrifice for her sake. Emma was grateful and obedient.
She has it all now, the little princess, said Emma's aunt as Emma sat in Zigi's car before they drove off. Few villagers ever saw a car before.
Keep your legs together and cover your knees, instructed mum and wiped her tears as the car door closed. Emma was on the way to the better future. She became acutely aware of her legs and her knees; she never asked why her legs had to be together and her knees covered but she sensed that this was the preparation for a sacred womanhood.
Milena and Zigi loved Emma so much that they let her sleep in their bed. One night Emma felt a hand between her legs; she taught that Milena who slept between Zigi and her let her hand wander. Emma kept her legs together but the hand tried to pry them apart. Emma turned over carefully not to wake Milena; she realised that the hand belonged to Zigi. Emma crossed her legs and moved to the edge of the bed. The next morning Emma asked Milena to let her sleep on the coach.
During the following night Emma woke up and saw Zigi on the floor next to the couch. His hand slid under her blanket. Emma turned around and pulled the blanket under her. After awhile Zigi on all fours slithered into his bed and Emma went to sleep. He came night after night and his hand tried to come between her legs but Emma was ready for it; she turned away and pulled the blanket under her. Emma followed her mother's teaching.
During the day Zigi behaved like all other respectable citizens. He was an older man; he was almost thirty while Emma was a fast growing eleven years old child. Maybe what happened during the night was a bad dream. How could Emma say in the daylight that Zigi crawled out of his bed and lay in wait next to his bed to see that Milena did not stir before he crawled on all fours towards her? She peeked from under the blankets and prayed to Virgin Mary to stop him coming. Why didn't she make a sound so Milena could save her? How was Emma to know that Milena did not know? Who was Emma to say that it
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was wrong? It was her duty to keep her legs together and her knees covered. Every time Emma moved, Zigi lowered himself to the floor like a guilty dog. This cat and mouse game was replayed most nights. Emma knew that it was up to her to keep her legs together no matter what.
One of Zigi's friends once put his hand under Emma's skirt and pinched her bottom.
Careful she is a Catholic girl and might tell the priest, warned the man's friend and everybody laughed. Emma's superstitious beliefs were often a subject of their jokes.
Zigi himself stroked Emma's budding breasts in front of everybody, indicating to his friends that Emma was quickly becoming a woman. Milena laughed with the men. Emma's breasts soon became a source of great embarrassment to her. After sport they had to shower at school and other little girls compared their first brassieres. They had neat little breasts that did not need support while Emma's huge lumps were already weighing her down.
Emma felt stupid and small. The only sexual education she ever received was from the older women's whispered gossip about the sluts who got themselves in trouble. She sensed that it is a woman's duty to guard her virginity because virginity was her only asset. A woman should keep her legs together and cover her knees.
Only Emma wasn't yet a woman when Zigi tried to pry her legs apart. She wondered what the priest would do or say if she told him about Zigi's nocturnal visits. She needed to tell someone. Tell who? Tell what? They were just teasing. How was Emma to know that it wasn't well known among grownups that men like getting little girls' legs apart? Maybe
they would laugh at her and make her feel more ashamed. Maybe it was her fault and they would punish her. Maybe they would make it impossible for her to stay at school; maybe they would tell her parents and make them angry or ashamed or sad. Maybe mum already knew so she told her to keep her legs together.
After all Zigi was like all other men; he worked, read the paper and ate respectfully at the table. He said please and thank you and wiped his mouth with a napkin after eating. He taught his children good manners. There was never a hint of impropriety. Emma had no way of saying what other men did during the night.
How come Milena did not notice? Why didn't Emma say something to her? What? Emma had to finish high school and make her parents proud. It was her mission to restore her family's honour. Emma's parents did not protest when Milena and Zigi offered her this chance in life. They let them take her away. Her mother must have known that men like to pry little girls' legs apart so she warned her to keep her legs together. Emma did as she was told; she had no idea what else she could do; she had to put up with little unpleasantness to become somebody.
What could her parents do anyway? What did they do when they learned that communists murdered their son after the war? They did not even dare ask in which mass grave he was buried. They were too scared to mention the name of their first born. Her parents did nothing. Dad stopped speaking and mum put a black scarf on, that was all. Her parents became mourners. There was a procession of powerless black scarfs going to church every Sunday. Their home became gloomy and silent. Emma wanted mum to wear flowery scarfs and sing the songs of victory with her. She wanted dad to hold her hand
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and tell her stories; most of all she wanted to make her parents proud and happy; she had no right to add to their misery. Emma felt that as long as she kept her legs together she was winning. Virgin Mary, Jesus and the saints helped her a lot during that time. They were on her side against the Muslims and the communists. On the way to school Emma sneaked into the empty church and silently prayed for forgiveness of sins. Mother Mary looked down on her and she had tears in her blue eyes as she watched Emma cry. Maybe they were Emma's tears. Emma knew that religion was the superstition of the old and ignorant but Mother Mary looked very kindly at her as Emma told her about her shame. Sitting there by her feet on the pedestal Emma felt safe.
When Emma finished high school she wrote a letter to Milena telling her that Zigi tried to get between her legs. Milena told her that she was an ungrateful slut; they have done so much for her, the ungrateful whore.
Emma wished she did not tell her; she was glad she did not tell her parents. Everybody would blame her. Maybe spit at her. She was asking for it; the home wrecker slut. She destroyed a perfectly happy family.
Emma never saw her sister's family again. Years later she heard that Zigi chased all the little girls. So she wasn't the only bad girl. Emma wanted to tell Zigi's daughter that she is not the only bad girl.
To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility. Cobbett
The wrong turn
Emma's parents made Emma believe that she was destined to become someone special. She had visions of being a centre-stage draped in flowing velvety robes of goodness and wisdom. People would look up to her and her parents would beam with pride. She enrolled to study medicine at university.
Paul is a twenty eight years old businessman in Emma's neighbourhood. He employs tradesmen in his building construction company. Emma occasionally does errands for him to earn some pocket money; she is reliable and diligent. She tells him that she had an argument with her sister so Paul finds a room for her; she is to do some office work for him in return for his kindness.
Paul becomes her boss, her protector, friend and father. She obediently files his documents, posts his letters and writes what he tells her to write. Emma has no romantic notions about her boss but she is delighted when Paul praises her work and brings her presents. He started with sweets and progressed to jewellery and flowers and meals and clothes. Emma is childishly pleased with attention and trinkets. She needs new clothes and paints and perfumes to cover up the flaws and the shame of her past. For the first time Emma is able to pay for ice creams and coffees and cakes as she wanders around with her student friends. Everybody suddenly wants to be her friend. Emma enjoys her new status. Nobody told her yet that
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there is no such thing as a free lunch and that one day she will have to pay.
Even now Emma often dreams about buying exquisite presents for all her friends who would then praise her generosity and love her; their faces would light up in gratitude.
What does it really mean being rich? People eat the same food, love the same friends, work at achieving the same goals. Money only gives one the opportunity to give to less fortunate. Does everybody want to grow in the eyes of people around them? Does everybody dream about being rich, successful, beautiful and unique so people will love them? What else is there to wish for? Do gamblers wait like that for their numbers to come up? Is money the root of all evil? Is the snake still luring people to eat the forbidden fruit? Is everybody selling their souls to the devil? Do they all dream of climbing to the top of the ladder to see the other side. Are all those at the top forever scared to fall?
Paul is a respected employer while Emma is still a little obedient girl. She feels safe working for him but when he takes her for meals in the restaurants she feels out of place. She tells her friends that this old man is her uncle and that she does his office work for him.
After a few months Paul invites Emma to Venice for the weekend. On the proverbial love boat-gondola- he tells her how much he loves her and that he cannot live without her. He would do anything Emma wants him to do and he would look after her for the rest of his life. You will be my princess; you will never have to work or worry about money, says Paul.
Does Paul know that Emma is destined to be a princess? Does Paul hold the key to her Happyeverafter? Is life without work
and worry what the paradise is like? Are all the poor and overworked hoping for a place where they will sit idle and well fed? Emma is grateful; it isn't Paul's fault that she is not in love with him. She feels at home with Paul but her dreams are not about Paul.
That night Emma pays for Paul's promises with her virginity. Paul gently caresses her body and tells her that nobody loves a woman like the man who takes her virginity. In some part of herself Emma believes that she is lucky to have given her virginity to the man who knows how to appreciate it. She feels an enormous emptiness inside but Paul promises that with time she will learn to enjoy lovemaking.
The next day Paul takes Emma to a wishing well and she drops a coin in it to make a wish. She wishes to die. She knows with certainty in that instant that she took the wrong turn. She promises herself that it is just a matter of time before she will start her real life. Emma is looking forward to the time when she will leave Paul behind. What is done is done for now but one day she will get her second chance. The road ahead becomes blurred.
Paul takes Emma to a jeweller to get her an engagement ring; he takes her to a hair dresser and a dressmaker. She has to have the best of everything. She feels important and precious but also strangely scared and ashamed because she knows that she is not in love with Paul. He tells her that he has enough love for the two of them. She does not dream about Paul's love because his love is overwhelming and always present. Perhaps one does not dream of chocolates in a chocolate factory. Precious is always out of reach and hard to get. Paul is not precious. He is there waiting to serve her. Paul took her virginity and therefore it is possible for him to love her completely and unconditionally. He owes her and he owns her.
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All Emma knows about love and sex is what Paul tells her. She is sure that as an older man he knows what is what and what is right and wrong. Emma is grateful that Paul made it possible for her to escape from Zigi and to continue her studies.
Paul tells Emma that he is going through the divorce. He caught his wife Jana kissing Steven, his best friend. Paul shows Emma a picture of his wife and their two little girls. Emma has no intention of marrying Paul so it does not really matter to her that he is married. Paul tells her that Jana wasn't a virgin when he met her; maybe Paul hates her because of it. He says that he could never love a woman who slept with another man.
Everybody loves Emma until they find out that her 'uncle'is really a married man she sleeps with. The news brake out like a wild fire.
Paul tells Emma that they are going to marry as soon as he is free. His words are meant as a promise but Emma feels threatened by them.
Paul and Emma meet an old woman. This is my little girl, mum, Paul introduces Emma. His mother says: you have two little girls waiting at home. She keeps on walking.
Emma runs away from Paul but he follows her and professes his undying love. He buys more gifts; Emma feels safe and happy in some part of herself; she likes being looked after but the more Paul adores her, more she feels that he is a second hand man.
Whenever Paul and Emma are with his relations and friends they invariably ask him about his children and his wife. They
remember events and celebrations they shared. They tell him that his girls look like him and that they miss him. Once he brings the girls along on an excursion. Everybody admires little girls frolicking among the wild flowers. Nobody looks at Emma; she can hear the silent message that she is in the wrong place; that she does not belong with the people who share history and affection. Emma feels like an unwanted child.
Jana was the prettiest girl in town, Emma once overheard Paul telling his friend. The words remained with her for the rest of her life.
Paul and Frank are in the workshop while Emma is in the little office at the back; the door is ajar and she can hear most of what is said. Frank is an older man with the voice of authority. He has a car so he must be doing well. Emma later learns that he is Jana's uncle.
Cut this bullshit, Frank yells. He is here to persuade Paul to return to his family. Emma cannot hear what Paul answers. Frank does not know that she is in the office.
She does not love you. You better remember that before it is too late. You have a family to look after, says Frank. He is almost pleading now with Paul.
Tell that to Jana and Steve, Paul says barely above a whisper.
They are just old friends, Frank dismisses the sugestion that Jana was unfaithful to Paul.
I have no problem with you wanting to fuck this new skirt but don't get all melodramatic about it, says Frank quietly after the silence.
Emma is not like that, says Paul. You don't know her.
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Does she come from another planet? They are all like that; one day she will see a way out and you won't be able to hold her.
People die for love, says Paul.
Of course they do, Frank bursts into a coarse laugh. They also do a lot of other stupid things.
I love her and I will marry her, says Paul matter of fact.
Don't kid yourself that you love someone for no reason. You do things by instinkt like the rest of the animals. We are programmed to look after number one. It is only natural. The instinct to protect your young is the only love because loving your offspring is actually loving yourself.
Life is meaningless without love, says Paul. He sounds like a little boy asking his father for a sweet.
People are brainwashed. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Who does that? People calculate: what is in it for me? Churches and governments make loving your neighbour compulsory becuse that makes it easier for them to manipulate you. They brainwash us to think of others but all anybody ever thinks of is himself. They know it; everybody knows it. You are showing off this new skirt now but you will pay for it one day.
You are jealous, Paul hisses.
Wake up to yourself before she realises that she can do better. Look at the bigger picture; look beyond this little affair.
It's not an affair, Paul whispers. He knows that Emma may hear.
She will walk as soon as she gets a better offer. Mark my word.
Not Emma, Paul's voice is not confident. If she wanted someone else she would have before but she never...
Uni student. Going with an aging tradesman who has children to support. She must be desparate.
I will never let her go, says Paul.
The words become Emma's writing on the wall- the prophecy of her future. Deep within, she felt right from the start that she will join her life with Paul because neither can afford to fail and both are strenghtened by their bond.
Emma does not tell Paul that she heard but Frank's words stay with her.
Is love like Father Christmas? Or a tooth fairy? Wishful thinking? Emma felt that same hollow emptiness when she realised that St Nickolas was really her father.
Towards the end of school year Jana brings Paul's two daughters to the office of the university dean. She tells him that her children are hungry because Paul spends his money on Emma. They have to expel Emma to save Paul's marriage.
We feel that we are greater than we know Wordsworth
Janez
Emma is on the run again; she is determined to make it on her own. She finds another university and a place in the campus; she applies for help from the government.
The brotherhood road is being built to connect Slovenia to the South of Yugoslavia. Students of the five Yugoslav nations spend school holidays working together for the common good. Emma has to convince the officials that she genuinely wants to build the socialist brotherhood state of Yugoslavia so she joins the brigade. The sunburnt students show off their strength, dedication and enthusiasm. They camp in the forest along the road; at evening assemblies the leaders call out the best workers for commendation. Emma is called out most evenings. After the evening assembly they dance Serbian kolo. This dancing circle unites them; the energy of warm hands and joyous voices, the music, the stars and the glow of the campfire inspire them to sing and write poems in honour of their country and of glorious future they are building. They believe themselves to be the chosen heroes building a perfect new world. They chant Tito- partija; they sing Serbo-Croatian songs. They feel alive and in love with life. They are united; one for all, all for one. They are One. Maybe everybody longs to be recognised and accepted by their peer group; belonging to a group makes one stronger.
Love is everywhere; love is everything to eighteen years old. Emma can still hear the echo of a Russian kolo song: Oja ja Dunja ja komsomolicka moja. This Russian song remained a part of their psyche long after the name Stalin was rubbed from people's conscience and city walls. Emma's belonging to a Catholic peasant anticommunist family made her feel less good, less wanted, less loved and respected in the new brotherhood so she tried to replace the old unwanted belonging with the fresh stronger one. Emma needs to belong to be strong. It doesn't really matter if one belongs to a nation or religion or race or football team or a family. One fights for the group one belongs to. Fighting invigorates the group and the individual. Emma welcomes her belonging to the brotherhood of the future.
Historical hatreds, nationality and religion are no obstacle to true love. Was the brotherhood road designed to help these young people from different republics unite, marry and have children who will be true Yugoslavs- South Slavs?
Were they intended to strengthen their belonging? Emma works hard and sings loud and salutes firmly. She feels that she finally belongs in the ring of firm friends who are equal brothers and sisters. She becomes a part of the circle of Tito's youth.
Leave your family and follow me, said Jesus. All the leaders must have learned from Jesus; they all want people to unite and follow. Hold hands in the procession of Corpus Christie.
Emma needs the scholarship so she can continue her study and redeem her parents. The government offers her just enough money to survive. Her past is deleted.
Janez, a fellow student, hands Emma a piece of paper; he says that he wrote a poem for his girlfriend and wants Emma to read it and tell him what she thinks. She reads the words:
I will not lay my heart into your lap
because without my heart
I would be just a scarecrow
and you could not love a scarecrow.
Emma does not know that Janez wrote the poem for her. She does not know yet that Janez adores her. The words of his poem change her life.
Back at the campus Emma and Janez look at a little souvenir in Emma's hands. Janez says that it is kitsch. Emma says that it isn't. Tugging at this kitsch figurine their heads come together and they kiss. The kiss leaves them both breathless. Emma doesn't remember if they said anything at all. When Janez returns that evening Emma is still in a trance. He knocks on her door and they kiss in the doorway. Janez tells her that he told all the stars that they love each other.
Emma is in love with Janez; she must have been born to be in love with him because she never knew such undiluted wholesome wellbeing. Janez restored her belief that she is a perfectly good person; that everything is possible. She wants to put a smile on everybody's face. She wants nothing more; she has what she was born for. She feels special; she feels like a princess. Janez makes her feel precious. He looks up to her. They both write poems so they start a literary magazine. Emma still carries with her those first expressions of love. They walk hand in hand through the forest in its autumn glory and recite poetry. They are each other's first love.
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For New Year Eve's dance Janez says that he has nothing to wear. He finds an old mouldy suit his uncle in America sent to him. Emma washes it; it feels good to be able to do that for Janez. It somehow makes them more of a couple. They are both equally dirt poor but feel equally enormously rich.
Emma relived this richness for the rest of her life. No possession could ever compare with the richness of wellbeing resulting from loving and being loved; no poverty could be as devastating as the poverty of lovelessness.
Janez and Emma dance cheek to cheek oblivious of the rest of the world. They walk home in the crystal clear night holding hands on the narrow path cut into the snow. Janez points to the three stars in the sky and says that Orion will be forever their constellation.
Did Janez know that Emma will be looking for Orion from foreign skies for the rest of her life? The memory of that crystal clear winter still carries the smell of coming spring.
Janez and Emma sleep together the rest of the night fully dressed. They do not make love although they are completely enveloped in love. Emma is scared that Janez would stop loving her if he found out that she is no longer a virgin. Paul made it clear that men only love virgins. Janez is happy to just hold her.
Next day they go home for holidays. Janez writes Emma a love letter. That is the first and only love letter which Emma shows to her mother. Mum is pleased that Emma found a boy to love. You know how I feel, Janez writes. There is no doubt about it. They both know. Emma feels just right; she feels good, proud, and honourable; her life is joyous and uncomplicated. She is free and strong. She escaped from Paul;
she moved on; she began her real life; she is in charge of her destiny. Janez made it possible for her to like herself. He gave her the best gift one can give to another. Janez loves Emma as she is.
In February 1959 Emma returns for the new semester; the dean calls her in his office and tells her that she must find another place; she is not to return to where she experienced the happiest moments of her life. She does not dare ask why. Nobody knows why Emma suddenly disappeared.
Thirty-eight years later, Emma learns that Janez's mother ordered the authorities to expel her; the woman was protecting her son who spent too much time with Emma and neglected his studies. The shire was paying for Janez's schooling because his father was a national hero who died in the communist revolution. They had to look after their own. Emma's family are traitors.
Emma wonders if the authorities know that she was previously expelled from another college, because she seduced Paul, a married man, who left his two children and his poor wife penniless.
Emma is on the street again. Paul arrives and tells her that he is divorced and ready to marry her. Emma tells him that she does not love him and will not marry him. He says that she has no right to leave him now that he left his family to be with her. She reminds Paul that she did not want him to leave his family. In the end Paul demands that Emma returns all the gifts he ever gave her. He would burn them so nothing will remind her of him. Emma returns Paul's ring and he drops it at the deep end of the river to show her that he meant what he said. Emma needs the things Paul bought for her; she feels that she paid for them with her virginity and her shame and her
guilt. Aren't gifts meant to be one's property? It is so easy to get used to little luxuries in life; Emma would feel diminished without them. Losing everything is hard regardless of how little and worthless this everything is. She needs Paul and his rags and his trinkets; she also needs his protection; she promises herself that she will leave him as soon as she graduates. The fear of the unknown makes it easier to take the easy road with Paul. But only for the moment.
Paul says that nobody will ever have her if he does not have her. He would rather kill both of them. Paul carries the gun. Emma cries in Paul's arms because death seems so tragically romantic. Like Romeo and Juliet.
Emma packs her meagre possessions and Paul carries them into his car.
Emma is afraid that Janez does not love her enough. He did not ask her to run away with him or to marry him. Paul did. Janez will probably write a sad poem to recover from his despair. She will never read what he will write. Janez is watching them drive away; his hand is suspended in an attempt to wave goodbye to their love.
On the way Paul stops at the big shopping centre. Emma is measured for new clothes, she chooses new shoes. They pick the new engagement ring and the earrings to match. Paul suggests that they should also have the wedding rings made. The excitement makes both forget for the moment that they are making decisions for life. Dealing with immediate issues helps them forget what is underneath it all. Emma feels like a little girl jumping over puddles careful not to muddy her dress. She knows that only her graduation can provide her with freedom to make decisions about her life.
Events that follow each other in a panic stricken rush seem only a distraction. Oblivious of how her actions will affect other people she resigns herself into the pattern Paul designed for them. Emma is surprised how easy it is to be submissive, timid and acquiescent. When you lay yourself down you are no longer in danger of falling; of being put down, belittled and criticised. It is safe to be down where nobody will push you away or try to take your place. Emma is free to remove herself into the dreams of what might have been.
Janez never offered to remove the obstacles on her way the way Paul did. Paul was her strength.
Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing; age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.
Shaw
Excommunication
Paul promises to wait for Emma to finish university before they marry. For the time being Emma decides to let him lead and make decisions. He insists on being with her all the time. She stops seeing her friends; she stops going home at weekends. She stops being a separate person.
The less sure Emma becomes of herself, the more she needs love. So many things called love, so many lovers, so few loved enough; she is not sure of anything anymore. She wonders if the ideal true love exists. Is falling in love an involuntary instinct hormonal reaction to another or is it a mental and emotional expectation that a certain person will fulfil the needs as yet unidentified? Is falling in love like spring blossoming before mating and nurturing takes place; before ordinary life begins?
Emma knew right from the beginning that her place is beside Paul. He made her feel loved, protected, appreciated and suffocated. She needs Paul. Is need the same as love? Is need at least a legitimate component of love? When either of them feels vulnerable they revisit the hurts they caused each other; they re-remember the pain and then they need to heal in each other's arms to repair and strengthen their togetherness. Their union grows with constant nurturing and healing until Emma
forgets how to function on her own; she cannot sleep without Paul's arms enveloping her. Nesting in his embrace she feels safe. Is that love or need? Are both things the same? Is love needing something the other can provide to fulfil both?
Paul loves Emma; he also needs Emma's youth and innocence to restore his self-esteem after his past failures; he needs to grow in the eyes of his peers. He needs to be successful and admired. He needs a fresh start. He needs to make Jana realise what she lost. Is that a legitimate component of love? Paul and Emma are struggling to be good enough. Does it matter who is more attracted to the other since attraction is not an everlasting thing? Can lust alone sustain the relationship? Do lust and love ever come together and last forever? Only the love for one's child is bigger than personal need. A mother would sacrifice her happiness for the love of a child.
Emma is pregnant. She feels trapped. She tries hard to imagine herself in love with Paul. Not being in love seems worse that not being loved. Is falling in love necessary for marriage? What if one falls out of love? Emma needs Paul's love and protection and he needs to be the protector; he needs to be bigger and more important. Both would like to be generous good people.
Emma remembers the verse of St Francis of Assisi her mother used to recite:
It is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Emma was always afraid of poverty; she wanted to be rich so she could give to others who would then like her better. When
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she did not feel good enough she bought a gift for someone. Her gifts to others were really gifts to herself. Her giving made her feel more precious.
Falling in love with Janez caused Emma to feel euphoric, optimistic, reckless and invincible; she felt heroic and courageous in face of obstacles. Marrying Paul makes her feel cautious, unsure and dependent on Paul. It is convenient and practical to marry Paul at least for the time being; one day she will finish her studies and leave. She is planning a divorce instead of a wedding. Divorce in the new communist Yugoslavia is no longer a big deal; especially divorce after the civil ceremony.
Emma is like an insomniac trying to reason herself to sleep; the more she tries to tell herself that everything is fine, less sure she is.
You should find yourself a young boy; Paul is too old and divorced and trade, an old man said to Emma. He was supposed to be Paul's friend. Was he jealous? Did he want to hurt Emma or Paul?
In the country where slogans proclaim that every kind of work is honourable, everybody also knows that a tie and clean hands is the sign of success. Emma knows that office people look down on manual labour. Office girls aspire to accompany their bosses on their business trips. To sleep with a government official seems to be a sign of success while planning a future with a tradesman means downgrading. There is a stigma attached to private sector as well. They are almost as bad as the West that sucks the workers dry.
Emma is sad that her marriage will never be blessed in the church. It will not be blessed by her parents either. No-one of
her family would dream of being present at her wedding. Emma used to dream about her father handing her over to her husband and then rejoice with the villagers; uplifted by the righteous path his daughter has chosen. She did not give her parents what she owed them. She will be forever shunned by the people she loves. Instead of honour she brought them shame. Emma has nobody to invite to her big day. She is excommunicated. What a terrible punishment excommunication is. One minute you are holding hands in a circle and then you are squeezed out never to belong again. Paul is the only person that loves her constantly and wants her without reservations. She needs his affection. The tiny whispering voice inside her is telling her to run but it is not strong enough amidst all the distractions.
Emma's mother is weeping and praying for her daughter who will burn in hell for all eternity. Emma's father tells her never to return if she goes with that man. No-one in her family mentions Paul's name; he remains that man who destroyed Emma.
Emma is much too busy to think about other people's pain. The events follow each other so fast that her mind does not stretch to consider Paul's family; she does not even care how Paul feels about making this second uncertain step towards the future. Her ego is so wounded that she can only focus on her own pain.
Looking back Emma realises how frightened her parents must have been.
The valley brought up its children with the same code of behaviour so everybody knows what to expect and who is likely to misbehave. Like father-like son, like mother-like daughter. The whole family is diminished if one of the family
lets them down. The whole clan is made less in the eyes of the only people that matter, people of the valley that carry each other's memories for generations.
Emma's family was the first to break the centuries old mould and enter the uncharted waters outside the village. Emma left the valley's ways. In all her wedding finery she cries as Paul's friend drives her to the registry office in a hired limousine. She has a premonition of doom; something terrible is going to happen. Paul's business associates witness her vows to be faithful to Paul and to bring up her children according to the socialist ideals.
If only Paul's family would vanish. They are a blotch on Emma's landscape. She would then confess and re-start the good life; she would get a white dress and get married in the church with her parents happy and their pride restored.
Emma wonders if it would be less painful for her parents if she had Paul's child on her own. Would an unmarried mother be a lesser disgrace than being a wife of a second hand husband? Emma wants to be courageous and heroic in the face of poverty but the fear makes her give up her dreams. Maybe all young people crave independence to test their strength and courage. She no longer feels strong and in charge of her destiny. The events beyond her control made her relinquish her plans but she promised herself the magic land of her dreams. Emma is scared of poverty; poverty brings shame. Money buys respectability.
Emma knows that she took the wrong turn but right now it is not a good time to turn back. Paul is all she has. Both promise to forget their families and friends.
To minimise her guilt, Emma, on her wedding day promises herself that she will pretend to love Paul to please him. Life is much easier when Paul is pleased. She will honour her marriage contract with obedience, loyalty and fidelity. What is this fidelity people promise each other? She will be true to Paul in all her actions but in her dreams she has to be true to herself. To yourself be true and then you cannot be false to any other, Emma read somewhere. Is fidelity a commitment to a person as one would like that person to be? Emma is committing to submit to Paul to gain his love, safety and protection? He is expecting gratitude and submission. Neither of them wholeheartedly commits to the other because both want to retain the autonomy of their inner selves. They only commit to the person they want each other to be.
Emma will pay the price but only until the time will make it possible for her to leave, repent and rejoice. She will begin the life she is meant to live. She cannot surrender her dreams. Paul knows that Emma is holding back a part of herself; he tries passionately and patiently to make her surrender but she knows that surrender will make her vulnerable. As long as her surfaces shine and the wheels are turning without squeaking she is free to remove herself into her magic land where the prince is waiting for her. In this magic playground her parents are proud of her, she wins the lottery, she is popular and she cries at Paul's funeral. She dances with Janez who never forgot her because they were each other's first love; the first sexless barely kissed belief in eternity untouched by real life. In the years to come Emma creates scenarios for their meeting. She imagines him dreaming about her. Do men dream? Poets do, Janez was a poet. Emma wonders if he forgets hire purchases and mortgages and his children's snotty noses and his wife's nagging when he closes his eyes in the evening to dream of what might have been if Paul did not terminate their
loving and Janez' mother did not put a stop to their relationship. Do flowers pine for their blooms cut in the bud? Is Janez still searching for their Orion when he lays to rest?
Emma saves the memory of their love to help her survive the life sentence with Paul. Paul has a memory of his first family so she has to have something of her own. She needs Janez. Janez and Emma never promised anything to each other; they didn't even wait for the promise of spring; their love remains forever untouched like a rosebud that never opened; it is a beautiful child who never aged and become wise. Or afraid.
In the end of her dreaming Emma dutifully returns to Paul and her reality. They are not each other's first choice but she is gradually becoming used to their comfortable existence. Paul was kissed and cursed before they met. He would not remember the fragility of their first kiss.
Emma wonders where Paul's thoughts go when he closes his eyes. Without fail she imagines them travelling to his daughters who are crying for daddy. Dreams are the forbidden fruit one should never touch. Maybe men don't dream. Maybe Paul dreams about catching a fish or shooting a kangaroo. Dreams are personal like death. Nobody can take them away. They are everybody's magic land.
There is no virtue like necessity. Shakespeare
Paul
Paul often tells his children snippets of his life; he hopes that stories of his hardships would warn them to be hardworking and careful and grateful for a good home he provides.
Before the war we had enough to eat, during the war we managed but after the war we starved. Everybody was hungry after the war, he adds. We were rattling our spoons long before the corn meal was ready. Paul wants to remind his family how lucky they are because he provides plenty of food for them.
Simon is mesmerised by his father's story telling mood.
Dad was a coal miner in Germany before the war but when he married he found odd jobs at home; he cut hay, prepared wood and looked after farmers' vineyards. At weekends he dug water wells. He kept records of every well he dug so he was in a good position to give a quote and negotiate the price.
There is no chronology in Paul's story; he tells bits about himself when he feels like it.
At home we prayed rosary every evening. At the end mum always added: Save us from starvation, o Lord. Dad refused to pray; he swore that with his hard work he should be able to save the family from starvation if the rich people paid him
decent wages. Dad often boasted that he was one of the first members of the communist party in the old Yugoslavia, says Paul. He said that he was in goal because he was fighting for workers' rights. He firmly believed that communist revolution will bring justice to all.
Mum insisted that we to go to mass every Sunday. A miracle happened early one morning on my way to mass, says Paul, especially delighted in telling this story.
On my way to the church I found a 100 Dinar note on the blanket of the first frost. I ran home and gave it to Mum. She took it to the parish priest so he could make an announcement from the pulpit, and return the money to the rightful owner. He was a good priest and he liked Mum. He told her that nobody needed the money more than she did to feed her family. He added that he would not make an announcement, but if someone told him within the week that they had lost the money, he would give it back.
We waited a week and nobody came forward so Mum used the money to buy 100 kg of corn. I was a hero because I had helped my family survive that winter. The menu was sauerkraut and cornmeal. As the snow began to melt, Mum began to sow the vegetables in our large garden and that was the main source of our food.
For Sunday lunch mum bought 250 grams of meat, some bones and a piece of liver. That was for seven of us. We each got carefully measured portions of meat and liver. There was also fresh salad, roast potatoes, and applesauce. We looked forward to these special Sunday dinners.
During spring we picked young dandelions on the roadsides. People used these first greens for salad. We picked lots, and
my sister went from house to house to sell it. Once she was so excited when she sold the last of it that she ran home to tell Mum but she forgot her bag and money somewhere. We always teased her about it.
We had a nanny goat, a very precious source of milk for the family. At sunrise I took her to graze until I had to go to school. I would take her again after school until dusk. She was a wicked and stubborn animal! If I took my eyes off her for one minute, she escaped into someone's field and ate their cabbages and other vegetables. I was forever in trouble because of her!
In the spring, our goat had a kid that we sold to buy necessary provisions, like cheaper beef, oil, salt and clothing. Goat kid's meat was considered a delicacy. The owners of the nearby factory had a permanent order for one. Our goat produced up to seven litres of milk a day after the kid was gone; we exchanged this milk for double the amount of cow's milk. People believed that goat's milk was a remedy for those suffering from tuberculosis.
Each spring, we bought a piglet so Mum could fatten it. We killed it before Christmas. Every piece of meat was carefully preserved. The fat was reduced into lard. We smoked the meat and made excellent bloodwurst, kranskies and salamis. Even the head was cut into pieces and later cooked with barley.
We had Scripture twice a week. One chaplain was a sadist. He never hit the rich farmers' kids, but some poorer ones were up for punishment at every lesson. All of us were scared of him. He really enjoyed torturing us! He would call a whole line of students to him - many boys wet their pants in fear! He would clamp the head of a student between his knees, lean back on the chair, and hit him on the backside with a stick. If he broke
the stick on you, you had to bring him a new one at the next Scripture lesson.
Once, someone told him that I murdered birds even though it wasn't true. The sadist priest grabbed the short hair on the side of my head. He shook my head so fast from one side to the other that I could only see lines in front of me. Chunks of my hair dropped on the floor. He kept grabbing new bits until I admitted that I had killed the birds. I hated him!
I didn't dare tell my parents, but my father noticed a bald patch on my head and wanted to know what had happened. Father went to the priest and told him if he ever touched me again, he would smash his face and his house. I didn't get hit much after that.
One Sunday afternoon, my father was drunk when he passed the sports ground where an organisation called Sokol was having a big festival. Dad called out "Heil Communism!"
Everything went dead quiet. As he continued walking home, a few boys caught up with him and wanted to fight. He turned and put his hand into his back pocket. "Come boys, come here!" He beckoned them with the other hand.
Careful! He has a pistol someone said. Everyone moved back quickly.
I don't know if dad was only boasting or if it was true, but a couple of weeks later, the police arrested him. He told them that he had made a mistake. Instead of saying "Heil Sokol!" he had said "Heil Communism!"
Dad inherited some money from his relations in America so he began building our home. We had just settled into it in 1941 when the Germans invaded Slovenia. They first transported
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priests, teachers and Communists. They inspected every student - they measured our faces and wrote down the colour of our eyes. We were told that fair-haired, blue-eyed people were allowed to stay. It also helped if your name sounded German.
My father was taken first. After a few weeks, the rest of the family were told to pack what we could carry and we joined Father in Ljubljana. We travelled to Serbia where villagers were very kind to us. They gave us an old mud house with one big room and a little kitchen. We put straw on the floor and slept one next to the other, five children and our parents. The shopkeepers and other rich people paid for our keep.
In Serbia, Mum and some other women cooked in the school building for the settlers. We brought tin cans to fill with food to carry home. We called this food 'chorba', a kind of soup made from potatoes, cabbage, onions, and tomato thickened with flour.
During the German occupation, partisans in Serbia carried out isolated attacks on Germans; they also blasted bridges and the railway to sabotage transport. The Germans retaliated - if partisans killed one German soldier, Germans killed 100 Serb civilians. For one German officer, they killed 1000 Serb civilians.
Germans ordered town's people to guard the railway against partisans' sabotage. There were about 20 guards at Palanka every night and each adult male had to serve at some time. The town's rich people paid my dad and other Slovenians to serve their time guarding. There was no other income so they accepted.
The job was very dangerous. If the partisans destroyed the rail, all guards on duty that night would be shot! I remember my father telling me how he thought he saw the shadow of someone hammering something on the railway. He pleaded with what he thought was the shadow of a partisan, not to blast the railway. As he got closer, it was only a dog eating a bone!
We believed that we were transported because dad shouted "Heil Communism", says Paul explaining his father's predicament. Later in Serbia he could actually be called a German collaborator because he guarded the railways in Serbia for the Germans. He said that he was saving Serbian lives.
About 1200 Germans were housed in the Army barracks. When Italy capitulated in 1943, 200 Italians were brought over from Albania to look after horses for Germans. They were allowed to come to town in the afternoon, and many of them came to our place.
My father read German newspapers and was well informed about politics and the War. He sold wine to about 20 regulars, who came to hear the news and to drink. They toasted each other quite openly with the slogan: 'Slavs will win against Berlin!' Slovanski sin bo premagal Berlin.
Once an Italian soldier offered Dad some bridles, reins and chains in exchange for wine. These were valuable commodities during the War and the Germans had lots of that stuff in the barracks. The Italians helped themselves to anything they could sell for drinking money.
Peasants brought wood, vegetables, meat and wine to sell at the market once a week. Dad offered farmers the horse gear that the Italians had sold to him, and they paid for it with wine.
When Italian soldiers came again, Dad served them the wine and asked for more belts, chains, reins and bridles.
At first farmers brought bottles of wine, then small barrels, and then bigger barrels. Once they brought a barrel that wouldn't go through the front door so they had to cut a bigger opening into our mud house! Hundreds of litres of wine - ruzica being the favourite - were sold each week.
By now, Dad had quite a business buying and selling alcohol. He tested the wine for strength by putting a strip of newspaper half in the glass half hanging out. The wine would soak into the paper and the water ran out over the glass through the strip of paper. He told the wine producers that they were putting too much water in their wine so he could pay them less. I don't know if it really showed that water was being added but the farmers believed him. I think it was only a trick Dad used to get wine cheaper!
About fifty regulars came to drink outside our house most evenings. They sang, told jokes and laughed while they drank. About twenty Italians, many more Slovenians, and sometimes, even a few Germans came to our house. When Russians began coming, they wanted vodka, and they drank it in big wine glasses!
Someone must have told the Germans about Dad trading in horse gear so they came to search the house. A Serb interpreter came with them, and he saw the chains through the straw on the floor but quickly covered them up. Dad always liked Serbs.
Italian POWs also traded things like old uniforms and other sorts of clothing for wine. Once, Dad bought a jumper and later sold it to a villager; the wife of the Orthodox priest recognised it as one she knitted for their son. When she
approached the man wearing it, he told her that he had bought it from my father.
I saw Germans arrest all local men and made them parade in the yard, says Paul. The men had to look up at a window where Germans and their Serb collaborators watched. These Serbs helped Germans choose 18 men. Germans took them into the field and ordered them to dig their own graves before they shot them. Italians had to bury the bodies and before they did, they took their clothes. This woman's son wasn't even dead yet! He pleaded for mercy but was hit on the head with a spade.
The woman asked Dad where he got the jumper but he only told her part of the story: he said that the Germans had killed her son and that the Italians had taken his clothes but he couldn't tell her that her own Serb neighbours pointed out her son for Germans or that he had been hit with a spade so he would fall into his grave.
In Serbia people raced pigeons. At an arranged time on Sunday mornings, owners released groups of up to five birds from their homes. One sort raced in circles and the others flew high and did up to ten summersaults coming down. Some stayed in the air for up to 8 hours. The owners and the players placed bets on whose pigeons would stay the longest in the air and do more summersaults. Some pigeons were killed by peregrine falcons.
I would let my pigeons circle up, and when they came back close to the ground, I whistled them up again. One of my pigeons always came to sit on my head. At night, the Russians liked to give him vodka to drink until he got drunk!
Dad used to send me to buy him big packets of tobacco from the farmers. When I sold some pigeons, I also bought a bag of tobacco then made smaller packets to sell to those who came to drink at our place. I made quite a bit of money but then my father took it to buy wine. Once I made a good deal when I traded a pair of young pigeons for two piglets but usually I just traded them for corn and wheat.
A pigeon's courtship is much like ours. The males are very protective of their females. Before they mate, they wipe their beaks and then they kiss. After mating, both pigeons fly a couple of circles. Both parents look after the young -one sits on the eggs and the other brings food.
I bought a pigeon pair of a really good breed. They mated and had young every month. When the chicks were still in the nest, there were already new eggs. I had about a dozen pairs of pigeons when someone stole them. Eventually, I found out who it was and I told Dad. He came with me and told the thief that he would report him to the German police if he did not return them and pay for my losses.
The man had re-established my pigeons at his place by not letting them out until they had young. He knew that they would return to look after the babies. The thief was afraid of my father and brought back the pigeons and the money they earned him.
Before I left Serbia, I sold most of my pigeons. I took three pairs home with me but in Slovenia peregrine falcons got them. It was 1945 and I was sixteen. I looked for an apprenticeship but there was nothing available.
I found a job in the textile factory tying the ropes that ran around pullies to turn the spindles under the machines. There
were about 600 spindles and I had to check them regularly during my eight-hour day. I had to be on my knees most of the time and my hands were blistered from pulling the ropes. It was a very dirty, hard job.
After about a year I got a position as an apprentice carpenter. When I completed the apprenticeship I worked for a private firm for two years before I applied to go to a business college that would qualify me to become an independent building contractor. I went to school mornings and worked afternoons.
I finished college and started full-time work until they called me into the Army. Slovenian boys had to go to the southern Yugoslav republics and soldiers from the southern republics served in Slovenia because the Communists wanted to assimilate the five Balkan nationalities and change them into one Yugoslav nation. We were all supposed to speak Serbo-Croatian to build the brotherhood and unity. The children of mixed marriages would have no choice but to call themselves Yugoslavs. If Communism lasted another generation people might have forgotten their nationality.
When I returned from the Army, I worked for about three years as the manager of a government building company before I opened a private company.
Paul adds new details and emphasis to his stories with every telling. Emma realises that Paul learned his survival skills from his father.
Dad was sorely disappointed because communist revolution did not improve our situation, says Paul. He was still a poor peasant only now he had to sell to the government the wine he grew in our vineyard. He refused to sell it for a pittance the coop paid so he began drinking it with his friends. Before the
war he managed vineyards for bigger growers to supplement his income. After the war other winegrowers stopped hiring workers because farm produce was no longer profitable. Nobody was allowed to make a profit.
Before the war mum stayed home with us children and grew vegetables and fruit in our garden but after the war she often worked on the fields for bigger landowners and when she returned, tired in the evening, the kids jumped to untie her apron where she carried bread and leftovers from the farmer's table. We thought only of our hunger and blamed mum if she didn't bring enough or if she came late.
Dad still worked in the vineyard sometimes and often came home drunk, singing through the forest, tells Paul. He chased mum through the house and sometimes he caught her and danced with her. Mum usually ran out of the house to feed pigs and chooks, so dad chased us kids. He hugged the children and we were delighted. That was the only nice thing that happened to us then. He sang silly songs and the tears rolled down his face and we asked for more.
Paul's voice grows sad as he continues his story.
Mum nagged us to help her but dad told her that kids should have fun. On the way to school I heard a farmer talking to a friend and pointing at me and calling me a little bastard belonging to that drunken loser. I soon realised that everybody felt sorry for my mother; she inherited a vineyard and a paddock from her parents but dad came with nothing. I became ashamed of dad and hated mum for marrying him, Paul reminisces. People said that mum deserved better.
Dad's sister used to send us parcels from America but dad never brought them home; he sold them to buy drinks for
himself and any friends drinking with him in the pub (gostilna). He spent all his money on cigarettes and drinks, Paul tells Emma. When he had no cigarettes he hit mum and us kids. Sometimes I had to walk to the shop barefooted in the snow to get his smokes.
Smoking is a no-no to Paul. He abstains from smoking and drinking. He can say no to anything. Emma has never been strong like that.
I heard whispers that my father was drinking with a woman in the vineyard's storage room. Kids teased me about that but I was strong and I hit them to shut them up, tells Paul. One day I went to the vineyard to get some grapes for mum. I heard the laughter from the storage room above the vineyard. At the door I noticed a fancy basket full of grapes and red peaches covered with silky flowery scarf. I realised that the basket belonged to a woman who laughed with dad inside. I grabbed the basket and ran home to tell mum. She ran to the vineyard and abused the woman who was drinking with dad. The other woman was younger, she had a flowery dress and she laughed at mum. Mum yelled at dad and the other winegrowers came out to listen. I was hiding behind the bushes and felt ashamed.
Mum kept the woman's basket and the scarf; whenever I saw either of them I was sorry for bringing them home. People said that the woman was a gypsy.
Paul started to stand up for his mummy who was terrified that his drunken daddy would hurt her children. Paul also kept his younger siblings under control. They resented him but did Paul's bidding and he grew strong. He made sure that everybody behaved.
Paul told Emma about his father's death one night as they were alone in bed. Paul was sixteen when he found his father hanging from the rafters in the cellar. His mother collapsed and his young siblings did not understand what was happening. Paul had to take charge of the family; he had to provide for them and keep them under control. He was already an apprentice to a local carpenter builder who took pity on the family by providing Paul with lots of overtime.
Paul does not want to remember how he cut the rope and the dead weight of his father fell on him. His tongue was blue and protruding, his eyes were opened wide. Paul never forgave his daddy for the shame he caused the family. The memory of Paul's father hanging in the cellar serves as a silent reminder to Emma of what can happen if she offends Paul. Emma cannot risk inflicting such a memory on her children. They do not know about their grandfather. Nobody knows. The pain is always camouflaged by a smile.
Emma wonders why Paul's dad smoked and drank. Who did he rebel against? What did he want to forget and couldn't? Before the war he complained that he was overworked and underappreciated but after the war he wasn't even allowed to complain; he became powerless. Paul says that his mother was a real saint. Emma hates the woman whose son made her lose any chance of becoming a saint herself. No money can ever pay for the loss of sainthood. It's all Paul's fault. It is easier to blame Paul. Maybe it is easier for Paul to blame Emma.
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. Washington
New beginning
Towards the end of her pregnancy Emma drops out of university. Paul lets her administer his business and his finances; she pays his employees and suppliers. She banks the money coming in and she can buy anything she wants. They eat in restaurants because nobody cooks in the villa they share with Paul's land lady. Paul is planning to build a villa of their own in the near future.
Emma crosses the road to have coffee in her favourite cafe. A boy in a police uniform demands to see Emma's ID booklet.
It's in my bag in the office just across the road. Would you like me to get it, she asks smiling at the boy.
Come with me to the station, he orders.
Emma is not sure if the boy is flirting with her or threatening her.
Can I come later with the ID, she asks. No.
Sit here, says the boy policeman as they come to the empty waiting room at the police station. The boy disappears and she waits ever more apprehensive. The grey walls are barren and she cannot hear a sound. It feels like a tomb. After a couple of
hours an older man calls her into his office. He does not look at her as he fires the questions. Name, address, date of birth, names of parents, address of parents.
The man does not look at Emma when he leaves the room. Another policeman, younger and friendlier comes in and asks Emma how she is, what was she doing on the street, where she left her ID, how much money she has on her. He looks at her intensely and asks what size shoes she is wearing. Where did she buy them and how much they cost? Emma is confused. She bought this ordinary pair of shoes at the corner shop opposite the police station. Where did you get your skirt; the policeman seems to be undressing Emma with his eyes. This tall jovial man looks at her chest and asks what size bra she is wearing. She feels vulnerable but she tells him. He says thank you, stands up, runs his fingers through his hair, pats the creases in his trousers, tells her to wait a moment and leaves the room.
After about twenty minutes a fat, slow man rumbles in and slumps into a chair. He looks at her for a long minute and then asks her about her friends. Would one of them be able to bring her ID to the station? Is she married? The name of her husband, the date of his birth, the date of their marriage, witnesses to their marriage. What does your husband do, where is he now, could he bring your ID? Emma tells him that Paul is in another town supervising a job.
The fat man yawns and stretches back in the chair.
I might let you go this time and you can bring the ID later, he smiles a friendly smile like a benevolent uncle.
Emma wonders what all this is about. It all sounds remotely funny and ominous. She says thank you and is grateful to be out of there.
Emma knows that her friends despise her for marrying Paul. Marrying money is the lowest thing one could do, especially money from the private sector, money with the rotten west capitalist exploitation flavour; money on the border between good and bad.
Paul opened his building construction company at the age of twenty six. He employed tradesmen and apprentices. He worked sixteen hour days. He slept on the bench of his tiny workshop. He rented a room and bought a car just before he married Emma. Driving a car is a red flag for the shire officials who ride bikes. The government has to stop Paul from prospering because in the country of equality and brotherhood nobody is allowed to step out of line, overtake and walk faster.
They want everyone to be equal to the slowest, dumbest and laziest, mutters Paul's friend who also wants to get ahead.
Equality is the only thing Christians and communists have in common. Both want to have people lined up so they can lord over them.
They want them living from pay to pay so they are forever dependent on the mercy of the government. The country goes down when you are forced to run as slow as the slowest in the pack, says Paul with unbroken confidence.
When people stop trying to break their chains the country gets broke, says his friend.
America quickly recovered from the Second World War and American relations began to send a dollar or two in their letters to their poor Slovenian relations. Foreign currency could only be bought on black market and the punishment for doing so was severe. Paul was buying dollars at every opportunity. Many people were arrested for this immoral and illegal activity but that did not stop the entrepreneurs who wanted to buy western goods.
I need a new car, Paul tells Emma. His friend bought a car in Germany; he came home where people admired him and girls hoped that he would take them for a ride. He took many nice girls for a ride. During the fifties and early sixties a new car was a sure sign of power and prosperity and potency and desirability.
Paul gives the dollars to an Italian acquaintance to buy a car in Trieste. Emma is to tell custom officials that her aunt sent the money from America to her relation in Italy for the car. Emma became an accomplished liar. She learned what lies one has to tell to get through the system.
Paul became a dashing cavalier; he is as desirable as his friend who took girls for a ride. Emma hears about Paul dining with elegant young women but Paul tells her that women are the clients and business associates.
Paul buys a television set even before Slovenia begins to broadcast. Emma really has nothing to complain about. She is the best dressed and housed woman she knows. Right there on the border between virtue and sin.
Paul says that in his position he has to dress well. He spends a lot of time dressing in front of the mirror; he buys new scents and ties and suits in Italy. Emma finds expensive perfumes and
nylon stockings in the car. He tells her that he bought them in Italy for the wives of his business acquaintances.
Synthetic fabrics and parkas became popular and Paul carries samples in the car as well. Emma is happy because Paul is happy. For the first time both live a life of luxury.
Rich people always sing better. One plays the fiddle, the other dances. It does not really matter who does what, jokes Paul. He is always in a good mood. Emma is expecting their first baby and in the warm glow of motherhood she almost loves Paul. He ignores her mistakes and her faults do not bother him. His demands for sex and attention became less. He lets her go shopping and visiting on her own.
Paul in his euphoria forgets that Emma is his wife; he treats her with the same charisma he uses for customers and business associates.
One late evening, only days before Emma is to have a baby, she sees Paul arguing with a girl in front of their house. They are leaning on his car and do not see Emma behind the curtain. She does not want to be seen. She convinces herself that they are arguing about some business transaction.
Don't even think about it, Paul raises his voice and there is a sharp threat in it.
If you don't make a decision, I will, the girl slams the car door. Paul flinches and looks up but Emma stands wrapped in the darkness, protected in her secrecy. In her mind she never stopped being the obedient child employee of her husband.
I will go to the police, yells the girl as she walks away. Emma's eyes follow her enormously high heels. Her legs almost reach up to her long blond hair falling straight and
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bouncing on her back as she walks. Emma almost feels sorry for the girl and for Paul because they both seem unhappy. She is also proud that other women find her husband attractive. He looks so much better when he is admired by other young girls. It does not even enter her mind that he might want to be with somebody else. Wasn't it just months ago that he threatened to kill himself if she would not marry him? He would die rather than lose her.
Paul is in a foul mood when he gets in. Emma kisses him.
He brushes her aside and then changes his mind and becomes attentive. He pats Emma's stomach and puts his head on it to say hello to the baby; Emma is grateful for his love. The baby needs them. Paul gently initiates sex but for the first time his body does not respond. He kisses Emma all over and whispers to the baby in her stomach.
We have to be careful not to hurt you, he says to the baby and Emma is grateful for his consideration. It does not occur to her that he cannot make love. Emma does not even consider that he might have had sex elsewhere.
The next day police arrest Paul. Emma forgets about the girl with long legs. She has to think about the business, about Paul and about the baby. Paul is everything she and her baby have.
The man who smuggled Paul's money to Italy confessed and police closes Paul's business and private accounts. Currency smuggling is highly immoral and illegal. It comes next to treason. They are traitors.
Paul is free again a day before Simon is born. He paid to have the charges against him dropped but he becomes weary.
You can only bail yourself out so many times, he says.
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Paul is again attentive to Emma and the baby. For awhile they have sex for breakfast, lunch and tea. Emma is really sick of it. She almost wishes that he would have sex with somebody else.
Paul keeps on working and saving. He buys a block of land to build a home. Soon after two policeman arrest Paul in his workshop. They handcuff him in front of his employees. The government taxation office had to calculate his income; they have to find the proof that he could not buy the land by legitimate earnings. They have to teach him a lesson. Paul has to understand that private sector is a rotten branch on a healthy socialist tree. He has to be cut down; he is a bad example to people who believe in equality. One rotten apple can spoil the rest. Tito spoke about auditing private sector at the time and officials imprisoned most private sector tradesmen for interrogation.
The government officials question Paul's employees and clients. They check people who provided jobs for Paul. They are government people on the take. Everybody knows that.
Please understand that I have an order to find something, pleads the interrogator/investigator who escorts Paul from one job provider to the next. The old investigator is almost apologetic; he seems scared himself. On the verge of his retirement he dos not want to blot his credentials. He is checking the bills Emma issued to customers. Paul, of course, told her what materials and labour to charge for.
The interrogator and Paul both know that everybody knows someone who would do favours for the price. Bribes are a part of business life in the socialist system. Maybe bribes are part of every economy. Or relationship. Paul is a naughty boy who tried to be a capitalist in a communist system. He wanted to stand out and be rich and respected. People cannot resist
money and gifts and favours. Emma knows how hard it is to ignore gifts and favours; she became desirable and envied because Paul showered her with gifts. How could a poor seventeen years old refuse the gifts of love?
After Paul's arrest his job providers become weary of Paul and scared of police.
Emma stands outside the jail and sees Paul waving to her through the little hole window of a prison, He points at her and him and then with both hands makes a gesture of them running away. They both understand that they have to go. After two months they let Paul out on bail. The investigation can last a year or more. Paul puts a car as a surety and they prepare for escape. Paul knows a man who knows a guide that will take them over the border. Just as well they can pay. Everybody knows someone who escaped; everybody knows someone who would show the way for the price; everybody know someone who would be paid.
Simon is eighteen months old when Paul pays a guide to help them escape over the mountains. It is too dangerous to take Simon with them so they have to find a place for him until they can claim him through the Red Cross from Austria. Emma figures that her sister Maria would look after Simon because she needs the money. It is too dangerous to tell her that they are escaping. Too dangerous for everybody.
It is only for a month at most, says Paul. Both are excited about getting away. As far as possible and as fast as can be.
Life becomes unpredictable. On the run things happen to distract you from pain. Austrian police catches them trying to escape to Germany. They are taken to the refugee camp in
Vienna to be interrogated. Austrian authorities tell them that they can go either to Canada or Australia.
But first they have to get their son.
Emma doesn't even remember saying goodbye to Simon; she doesn't remember if she cried; if he cried; if she missed him or worried about him. She had simply thrown her baby to the wolves without considering if he was fed, changed, loved? Was he smacked when crying? Was he abused? Emma paid her sister Maria to look after Simon and felt sure that he will be fine; she never even heard about people who abuse children. Everybody loves her adorable son.
Emma wanted to be the best super modern mother to Simon. Without parental guidance or experience she applied the mothering trends and fashions of the day. The parenting experts advocated a strict regime for babies. Baby must not be handled between meals or be comforted if it cries; the baby must get used to proper routines. As long as the baby is dry and fed it is best to be left in the cot on his own. Cuddling a baby was wrong at the time.
When Maria finds out that Emma escaped she becomes scared. Her husband is just promoted into communist leadership after he finished his political course. He has connections to help Maria get a clerical certificate as well. She never finished school because of the war and the certificate means everything to her. More than Emma's little Simon. Maria cannot afford to be in any way connected to people who betrayed their country by escaping. She takes Simon to Emma's frail parents who themselves need looking after.
Paul asks his younger brother, Peter, to contact the guide who would smuggle Simon over the border for a price. Peter wants
the money himself so he decides to cross the border with Simon; he is caught with Simon in his arms. He is imprisoned for two years and the police family keeps Simon for a month before Emma's mother can claim him again. Police tell Emma's parents that they will confiscate their property and put them in prison if they let Simon go with anybody.
Looking back Emma regrets causing her parents to be scared and ashamed; she hoped to redeem them and make them proud.
Emma writes to mum that they were returned from Austria to Ljubljana and Paul will come to get Simon. Paul finds a travelling salesman who posts her letter in Ljubljana. A couple of days later in the middle of the night this salesman collects Simon; he gives him a sleeping pill and makes him a bed under the back seat of a car.
How did Simon cope? Was he bruised and abused? Did he store everybody's rejection into his subconscious? Did he know that he was abandoned again and again? One is what one grows up to be. Can the scars of childhood ever heal? Is that why Simon never talks to Emma about his pain? Maybe he does not know where his pain started. Maybe he does not know where it hurts. She wasn't there when he needed her. She was always there for Paul but Simon had no one. She remained Paul's little girl when she should have been a mother to Simon. Is Simon's bravado and arrogance his way of coping? Is that why he smokes and drinks? And boasts about his importance?
Did Simon become a paedophile? Did Emma make him forever afraid of grownups when she abandoned him? Is he fond of children because he lost his childhood? Emma hopes that Kim only invented the story of abuse to punish Simon.
The dirt of Kim's accusation can never be completely washed away. Simon denies it; Paul does not believe it for a moment. Only Emma cannot stop worrying about it.
On arrival to Australia Emma pays a German woman to look after Simon when she starts to work in the mental hospital. Mental hospital patients are mad so they do not care about Emma's poor English but Emma has to write a report at the end of the shift. She does not know the proper words to report how one old demented man pooped into the flower pot. Emma decides to learn English fast; she does not want Simon to grow ashamed of his ignorant mother.
He pooped his pants, the woman complains at the end of the day. I am not having him; I thought he was toilet trained.
Simon is two and he was toilet trained before he was one year old but he does not know the words to ask for help with the buttons of his jumpsuit so he could go to the toilet. The woman left him in soiled pants the whole day and his legs and bottom are angry red. Emma arranges to work nights in the club so Paul can look after Simon.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed
Johnson, Samuel
Itinerant jobs
Paul hears that one could earn good money cutting sugar cane in Queensland. They travel to Queensland of sandy beaches and everlasting sunshine. The smell of frangipani blossoms, the sight of the blue surf, and the clean freshness of the vast fields inspire Emma to daydream about their better future.
The Spanish sugarcane cutters are willing to take Paul into their gang if Emma could cook Spanish food for them.
Can you cook Spanish food, asks the foreman of the gang.
Of course, says Emma. Food is food and it has to be cooked. It is natural that a woman would know how to cook. It comes with the gender like cutting sugar cane comes natural to Paul. Nobody needs to know that Emma never cooked a meal before. If Paul can accept the bottom rung of the ladder and become a labourer, Emma can too. In return for her cooking they will eat for free.
The sugar cane farmer provides living quarters for his cane cutters. Emma knows a few English words and so do the farmer and the cutters. They tell her where food is and where she can buy it. As the men leave for work in the morning
Emma inspects the cupboard for provisions. Everything is covered in black. Emma shudders and slams the door shut. As she recovers she stills herself for longer inspection. The cockroaches scuttled into the corners as the sun hit them. The butter underneath is nibbled by them and the jar of sugar still holds a few big brave ones that do not feel intimidated by her presence. In the crevices of the bread moves the long tentacles and munch away. Emma closes the door, takes a broom and bangs it on the door to scare the living daylights out of them. When Emma opens the door again the clusters of moving black wings and tentacles hangs onto the corners but the food is free. Emma takes the food out of the cupboard and let the sun shine on the monstrosity of black clusters of cockies hanging in the corner of the cupboard from the ceiling to the floor. Like Emma, they are probably considering a new strategy of attack. They know that they were enemies, deadly enemies.
Emma takes the hose and sprays hard into every crevice in the cupboard. Cockroaches run in their hundreds and Emma sweeps them out and brushes them into the bin where they are supposed to suffocate. Luckily Emma has a hose and enough water to drown the buggers. There seems no end of them. They keep coming huge and ugly from tiny cracks in the walls. Emma keeps drowning them all day and by the time men return her kitchen is clean. It is no use telling men about her predicament. Living with cockroaches is obviously no problem for them. Emma has to be sensible and find a way to fit into cohabitation with the rest. It is her problem if she can't stand the long, fast moving black monsters. Men just brush them aside casually like one brushes off a fly. They are all a fact of life. You can never get rid of cockroaches; they have been there before humans and will probably remain after humans become extinct.
The climate suits them and there is plenty of food, is all Paul says.
No use crying or waiting for help.
Emma cannot sleep. As soon as she closes her eyes she imagines millions of black enemies dancing in front of her eyes. She sits in the car all night. The car is the only sanctuary not yet infested by her mortal enemy.
In the morning she returns to her clean kitchen to prepare breakfast for her men who have a hard day's work in front of them. Emma opens the cupboard and her heart sinks. She feels tears running down her cheeks. She lost her battle. Either the cockroaches she drowned rose from the dead or their relations replaced them and settled on the clean shelves over the sugar and butter and bread. Emma closes the cupboard door and bangs on it with the wooden spoon to frighten them away. Cockies understand and move into the corners so Emma can reach the food.
When alone, Emma begins to consider her future. She could leave and let cockroaches defeat her or find new strategies to defeat them.
Nobody ever took any notice of Emma's fear of cockroaches. One has to live with pests one could not destroy. Emma remembers her early childhood. Sometimes cockroaches could be heard chirping behind the bench around the stove during the day but in the evening some ventured onto the ceiling. As the light was turned on they scuttled to the corners and sat quietly. Mum crept close to them and in a quick strike killed them with the broom. But others came the next night. Mum insisted that cockroaches came from the neighbours since she regularly killed the ones in their house.
When the floorboards of their kitchen were replaced in 1945 they discovered that cockroaches had a cosy home right under the old floorboards. Mum still insisted that they all came from their neighbours but the horrible masses of black beetles felt quite at home until their dwelling was so rudely disturbed. They began to run in all directions looking for safety and the new hiding places. People armed themselves with spades and brooms and killed them like fire-fighters kill the fire that is trying to destroy the house. For many months since this assault Emma had nightmares about cockroaches crawling over her body. Nobody took any notice of her crying at night as Emma silently watched and listened for the left over cockies. Phobias were not heard of and being scared of the small creatures was considered plain silly.
At school children put their lunches in the drawer under their desks. When Emma opened the drawer she found a cockroach eating her lump of bread contentedly. Other sensible kids just brushed the unwelcome guests away. Emma could not eat the cockies' leftovers. She watched the floorboards while she listened to the teacher explaining that they had to be grateful to the communist revolutionaries who liberated them from their enemies and brought them freedom and prosperity. Emma was convinced that under the floorboards rested millions of her enemies contentedly waiting to eat her lunch. Emma stopped bringing lunch to school and hoped that cockroaches would die from starvation.
Emma's family became finally liberated in 1947; potato crops were attacked by the beetle brought from Colorado. People tried to kill this Colorado potato beetle manually at first. School children were sent on the fields to check for and squash the unwelcome tourist. The village co-op provided a prize for every creature they brought to them, dead or alive. Any prize
was welcome in those poor, after the war times, so the children swarmed over the potato fields like locust.
Eventually America provided DDT powder that would kill any pest. They dusted the fields but Mum also sprinkled DDT powder in every hidden corner of their house. Mum was sensible. From then on they had no more cockroaches. Emma was so proud of her home and her mum. They looked down on neighbours who did not liberate their homes. Emma felt superior belonging to the family that lived in the liberated house. They were clean. Only her fear of cockroaches remained.
One day their kind neighbour brought them a jar of cream because their own cow was having a calf and did not produce milk. Emma gratefully dipped a piece of bread into the thick cream. When she pulled it out there were huge tentacles of the cockroach attached to her bread. Emma screamed and threw the bread away, the jar tipped over and mum told her not to be silly. Nobody considered her aversion to cockies an issue. It would surely develop into phobia if anyone allowed for it. Or knew about it.
Emma's Mum told the neighbour then about the magic of DDT powder in the hope that their whole neighbourhood would become liberated from the pests. Having pests in the house was shameful to mum rather than terrifying.
Mum considered their family cleaner and better than people around them. Especially since she cleaned their house of cockroaches.
Emma goes to the local grocery shop to ask for some kind of pest killer.
Not that it helps much, says the shopkeeper. I spray every evening and I sweep them out in the morning but new ones will come in a few days. They multiply.
Australians are sensible about pests. They continually try to get rid of them but they don't lose sleep over the problem. Cockies became immune to the poisons, they grew stronger than poison. Emma believes cockroaches figured out how to win against Queenslanders.
Her mother spread the white DDT powder thickly under their floorboards. She made sure that she killed every one of them. Emma's Queensland home became her killing field. If she is to survive Emma has to be smarter than her enemies. What fails to kill me makes me stronger, Emma remembers Frederick Nietzsche's words. She must not let them grow stronger. They would multiply and punish her for trying to eradicate their species. Every living thing knows there is strength in numbers. Emma has to find a better stronger poison.
What about DDT, Emma asks the grocer.
Not allowed to use it near food. Too dangerous.
I want to poison ants outside, Emma lies. So she gets the magic powder and sprinkles it outside and inside the house. She fills in every crevice on the wall and on the floor. They are not going to grow stronger. Every morning since then Emma sweeps the dead creatures away. After a few days only an occasional cocky comes to die in her kitchen. Emma does not tell anyone about DDT but she is watching her men for signs of poisoning. The cane cutters survived.
Emma remains on the lookout for cockies wherever she goes. Especially in the sunny Queensland where the food is plentiful and the days are sunny.
The grocer tells Emma to call him George. He is an older Greek man well over thirty. He wears a green apron. He seems used to dealing with people who know even less English than he does. They both smile in places where they cannot find a word; they use their hands a lot. Emma is as foreign to George as he is to her but they are probably closer to each other than they are to those around them. Emma does not understand a word of Greek and he does not go to Catholic Church. Actually neither of them goes to any church because they do not know of any churches on sugarcane fields. Emma sees George every day as she buys all the food from him and put it on the account for cane cutters to fix. She keeps chatting with George to practice her English. She doesn't know why he keeps on chatting.
A man comes in the shop one day with a crate of lemons to sell to George. He gives Emma a few lemons and says: When life offers you lemons make lemonade.
He is a kindly Italian man over forty years old and must have sensed that life had many lemons in store for Emma. He leaves a part of himself with Emma in his little offering of wisdom. Emma is never short of lemonade.
How is your husband coping, asks George. Cane cutting is considered the hardest job.
Emma realises that she never even asked Paul how he is coping. She is too busy coping. Paul never complains. His hands are blistered but he says that he has to get used to the machete. When the blisters harden they won't bleed any more.
Emma is so preoccupied with killing cockroaches that she even forgot her little Simon. The farmer's wife, a dark haired Spanish little lady, takes him almost every day to play with her little boys. Simon begins to speak but the words he says Emma never heard before. He points to the water but he says aqua. He points to the farmer's house and says cassia. Emma realises that Simon's first language is Spanish.
In the morning Emma fries eggs and bacon and makes toast. She puts a coffeepot and a jug of juice on the table. As Emma cleans after the breakfast, she smells the fires. The cutters burn the cane fields so that the fire strips the leaves away. The blackened stocks are then cut with machetes, chopped into pieces and loaded on train carriages to be taken to the mill.
At lunchtime five blackened men descend into the kitchen and Emma serves lunch which they wash down with beer. Almost every day they eat soup and steak and vegetables. Every day they have custard with fruit. Emma soaks dry fruit for a few hours and places it on top of the custard. The farmer's wife showed her what to cook the first day and Emma cooks it with small variations every day; nobody complains. Cooking is not nearly as complicated as one would imagine. One cooks the same meat and the same vegetables in different ways that's all.
Each of the men takes a water bag and off they go again. In the evening they return and wash themselves under the tap of the water tank. They eat more slowly. For dinner Emma roasts the meat and bakes the vegetables. The farmer's wife provides the greens for the salad. Sometimes the men go to the pub for a few beers afterwards but most of the time they just drop onto their beds.
The farmer gave Emma a chook to kill and cook for the cutters. It had to be done.
Emma remembers watching mum kill chooks most Sundays. If you want to eat the Sunday roast you better kill the chook. If mum could do it so could Emma.
She holds the chook between her legs, its head in one hand and the knife in the other. Mum said that the chook dies quickest if you turn the knife into its eye. Emma pokes the little sharp knife into the chook's eye, closes her eyes and turns the knife to squash the chook's brain.
There is an awful pain in Emma's stomach as she sticks the knife into the eye of the chook but she has to pull herself together.
When the blood stops dripping in the pot and the chook stops struggling Emma drops it on the ground but the chook begins to run away with its head hanging to the ground. Emma panics and grabs it to have another go at killing. As she shoves it between her legs again, it slowly goes limp and Emma knows that it isn't only pretending to be dead.
Mum used to drop the chook into the boiling water for a minute if she wanted to make the plucking easier but most of the time they had to pluck it dry and save the feathers. During long winter months they picked the feathers for doonas and pillows.
After six months the cane season finishes so they move south to look for a suitable place to settle down. For their first Christmas in Australia they sleep in a car.
Paul heard from other cutters that one could earn good money in Snowy Mountains. This great engineering project fascinated men. Anything with the name snowy is welcome after the heat of Queensland summer.
Paul begins to work in the Island bend-Jindabyne tunnel. They move into the five-bedroom old farmhouse in the old Jindabyne. The fibro walls have holes in them but they feel lucky that they have a roof over their heads. They find old pots and crockery and cutlery abandoned in the shed. They also find an old mattress and some clothes the owners left behind.
The owners of the houses from old Jindabyne moved up on the hill where they build a new Jindabyne. The old homes are made available to workers on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. They will flood the old town and cover up all the dirt with beautiful blue water when the project will be finished.
Emma was never able to quite separate the memory of the beautiful Jindabyne from the rats and mice she had to live with. And the terrible aloneness.
Emma is expecting their second baby.
There is no water supply. Australia has no water springs like Europe. You can't even dig a well. Paul patched and cleaned the old empty rainwater tank, took out dead birds and cats and smaller unidentifiable animals. He didn't even let her see all the rubbish he took out. Emma brings buckets of water from the Snowy River to wash the tank and then they are waiting for the rain to fill it with fresh, clean rainwater.
A man passes by as Paul cleans the water tank.
Any rats, he asks.
No, says Paul.
Emma never saw a rat in her life so she takes no notice. They come inside during winter for warmth, says the man.
Simon is four and he follows Emma to the nearby Snowy River to get a bucket of water every morning and every afternoon. Emma also washes their clothes in the river. In the morning she soaps the nappies and spreads them on the bushes to sun bleach them during the day. In the afternoon she rinsed them out and hangs them on the branches to dry.
On Sunday they all go to church and pray for rain.
We should take a bucket with us to church so God could give us water, suggests Simon. He learned about God providing water at kindergarten scripture lessons.
Emma finds a box of comics and short stories abandoned in the shed. The little Mills and Boon romances are easy to read and bit by bit Emma learns the words and their meaning. The books are half eaten by rats and mice, they were covered in dust and cobwebs but Emma cleans them. These romances save her sanity. Luckily she brought the dictionary with her.
Paul is working a night shift. He comes in the morning and sleeps most of the day. He tells Emma how lucky she is to be staying home but she is jealous because he can go to work and meet people while she is alone. Simon is the only person Emma can talk to.
Amy is born beautiful and healthy while Paul has to work a double shift. They wanted him to do the third shift because the man did not turn for work but Paul says that he has to go to the hospital so the supervisor takes his place.
Paul is dirty and wet as he slumps onto the hospital bed. He doesn't ask about their new baby. He is shaking.
There was an accident just as I was leaving, Paul tells her after awhile. Explosion. One man is dead. A man lost his legs.
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Another man had his chest crushed by a rock. If I stayed a few more minutes I would be dead.
What happened, Emma asks
The detonator didn't explode, says Paul.
What do you mean?
You know nothing about the things I have to do, says Paul.
Emma only knows that Paul works on the face of the tunnel preparing the platform for miners before they blast another metre of the mountain to make the tunnel.
I want to know. Emma holds Paul's hand. He came to see their baby, he is supposed to comfort her but Emma knows that he needs comforting. He saw it all happen. The nurse brings their baby and while Amy suckles at her breast, Paul tells her about his work.
There is a two-story platform at the face of the tunnel. The big jumbo drilling rig with about a dozen air drills comes and the miners set the drills to drill about four metres into the rock. There is a big hole in the middle and about sixty or more smaller holes on the face of the tunnel around the big hole. The miners place gelignite and a detonator into each hole. The air pressure pushes it to the end of the hole. Then they fill the hole with the nitrogen powder mixed with diesel. Next they place another gelignite and detonator at the end of the hole.
All detonators are connected to the wires and to the firing switch. The switch is under the lock so nobody can turn it on accidentally.
When all holes are ready, the jumbo drill and the wagon with the gelignite and the miners are taken back about half a kilometre where the firing switch is. The supervisor checks that everything is in order before he turns the switch.
Each hole has a number. The holes around the big hole in the middle explode first, then those next to it and so on. The whole lot crushes and caves towards the middle where a big hole was drilled.
After the explosion the face electrician and the platform man are the first to go towards the face of the tunnel to install the lights and check for safety. They can't see in front of them. Rocks are hanging loosely from the ceiling and can kill you. After the electrician installs the lights and the platform is secured, the man called chip monkey, dislocates and removes the loose rocks from the ceiling. The loader comes to load the rocks on the carriages and clear the ground for the next drilling.
What went wrong, Emma asks. It is hard for her to comprehend and visualise every detail of the operation.
There is a strict rule that miners should never drill into the existing holes because the first detonator and the gelignite in the hole may still be alive. It rarely happens but it did. One of the miners drilled into the old hole and it exploded into his face. The rocks were flying all over the face of the tunnel.
How could he?
We were all tired. After the miner prepares his set of holes he can take a nap. One miner took a short cut. He was sleepy, I suppose. Drilling into the old hole saved time.
Do you know which miner?
It isn't important; we all learned a lesson. I was on the way out when they called me back to help.
How long ago was it?
Less than an hour.
Go home and have a rest, says Emma. Paul never asked how long the labour took and how heavy the baby was. Those are the luxuries they will talk about later.
Emma hated it when Paul was on a night shift. She was scared to sleep in the isolated house. During the day Paul slept and Emma had to keep the children quiet so he got his rest. If Emma was lucky they all went to sleep together for a few minutes.
When the first frost comes Paul cuts a pile of wood to keep them warm through the winter. While Paul is on a night shift Emma put the baby in the basket near the fireplace. Simon is asleep so Emma takes a book and reads near the fire.
She hears a sound and looks up quickly. There are two pairs of beady eyes looking back at her. They don't blink and neither does Emma. She sits frozen to the chair for a moment. A tail hanging out of the hole in the fibro wall suddenly moves, the heads of the creatures nod to each other and move towards the basket with her baby. Emma grabs the baby and runs out into the freezing night. She stops up on the hill, leans on the tree and cries. She can hear the ice forming on the branches as she shivers. The wind touches her bones.
Suddenly Emma remembers Simon asleep alone amongst the rats. She picks a stick and returns to the house. She rattles all the walls to frighten the rats away before she sits in the middle of her bed with her babies on each side.
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Emma reads out loud to learn English and to frighten the ghosts and the rats away. She reads and re-reads the books until she knows them almost by heart.
Emma tells Paul but he isn't worried about the rats. He buys rat poison and spreads it into every hole.
Old Albert is the only visitor that sometimes at weekends comes to see Paul. He is at least ten years older than Paul but they share a beer occasionally. Other men on the Snowy Mountains Project go to Cooma or Sydney to find girls and drink and some entertainment on their days off. Paul tells Emma that boys make fun of Albert. He works a lot of overtime and puts every dollar in the bank. The boys told Albert that he can say goodbye to his money because he will never be able to get it out of the bank. One day Albert brings his hat full of five pound notes.
I took all my money out of the bank to count it. Every single pound was there; tomorrow I am putting it all back, says Albert well satisfied. Paul laughed later as he told Emma about it.
In the middle of the night Emma hears the footsteps under the window. She looks out and sees a man's face pressed on the windowpane. Emma grabs the gun, turns the light off and waits. The man goes to the back of the house. There is a little slope and the ice formed on it. The man slips and comes crashing on the back door. Emma has no strength to hold the gun straight, let alone shoot. When she hears the man's footsteps running away she crumples to the floor. She never again closes her eyes until Paul returns from the night shift.
Emma tells Paul about the man. That scares him.
I am going to resign, says Paul. We saved enough to put a deposit on a place in Canberra.
Emma sits in her kitchen and watches mice play on her wood stove. There would be half a dozen of them jumping from one pot onto another looking for morsels of leftover food. They take tiny crumbs into their dainty hands and nibble like little children. They become her pets.
We are going away, Emma tells the mice. She is overjoyed. Spring comes, wild flowers bloom, the rats have moved out. Maybe Paul poisoned them and they lay somewhere behind the fibro walls rotting away. Emma wants to believe that they moved out.
The trip to Canberra is a catalyst in their lives. Paul and Emma fall in love with Australian Capital Territory. To them it is definitely a promised land. The cool orderly modern design and the clean, symmetric beauty of Australian Capital overwhelms Emma; she believes that Canberra is the most beautiful city in the world.
I want to live here, Emma says to Paul right then and there.
Land is cheap. They buy the dearest block of land on auction. The rest of their savings starts Paul as a builder.
At the weekend Paul drives into the nearby mountain to shoot rabbits. Emma stays with the children near the car. Amy is asleep and Simon is playing with sticks and stones in the shallow creek. Looking at the waist high grass swaying in the wind as far as she could see, Emma suddenly feels an overwhelming but welcome aloneness; she merges with the ridges and the trees and becomes a part of the land. In the silence she feels the spirit of the land entering her soul. Wide
sunny skies, groups of kangaroos hopping around and huge loud birds frolicking from one ancient tree to another; she embraces the silence and the virginal landscape. For the first time in Australia she cries tears of joy. She whispers prayers of thanks to God for being where she is. Australia is a home.
Suddenly Emma becomes apprehensive. The sun is setting and Paul does not return. She beeps the horn hard. It is getting dark so in a panic she keeps on beeping. Paul returns exhausted and angry.
Didn't you realise that we are a hundred kilometres from anywhere ? If you have emptied the car battery we could die here of thirst before anybody would find us. I got lost but I climbed the tree to find the orientation.
I was scared and I wanted to help you find the way back, says Emma.
If I didn't find the way back you could still get help if you had a car, says Paul.
Emma realises how different this new homeland is. She has much to learn.
She takes an evening job in a nearby club. As a barmaid Emma meets Australians for the first time. The men leaning on the bar are eager to talk to her. They introduce themselves as Jack and Sam and Tom and Dave. Jack asks her name and Emma says: my name is Mrs. Gorsek. He bursts out laughing.
I know you are Mrs. Something or other but what is your name?
Emma, says Emma and feels like a woman who has committed adultery for the first time. She feels naked because she revealed her first name to an almost complete stranger.
Men are friendly; everybody is friendly with a young barmaid while they have a glass of beer in their hand. They say that a barmaid looks prettier with every beer men drink. They come at exactly the same time each day and leave at the same time to go home for dinner and to kiss their kids good night. Paul kisses their kids goodnight while Emma works.
Most men spend about an hour after work in the club and would have two to three beers. Anything over that may lead into the change of home-going time and trouble at home. They are older men all of them. Any man over thirty is an older man to Emma. Some of these older men hold high positions in the government but to her they are known only by their first names and by the size of the beer they drink. They appreciate her eagerness and quick service. Emma sees them at the door and by the time they came to the bar their drink is waiting for them. Emma likes to talk with the men to learn English. She is studing for qualifications as a nurse. Broken English is not a deterrent for a young barmaid as much as it is for men. Paul complains about Australians who mumble their sentences so fast that he can hardly catch their meaning.
Kathy, a young mother, who works with Emma, invites Emma to her home. It is the first Australian home Emma visits.
Coffee, offers Kathy as they sit down.
Oh, you don't have to, says Emma, convinced that Kathy will ask again and at least once more urge her to partake of the coffee with her.
You don't mind if I have one, says Kathy unaware of Emma's expectations. She makes herself a cup of coffee and accepts Emma's refusal without a sign of discomfort.
Emma never again refused a drink of any kind from Australian hosts when she wanted one. You don't get the second chance. Emma learns fast.
On a big dance night in the club a man asks for many fancy drinks and Emma feels good that she knows how to make all of them. Before he leaves the bar the man asks for the screwdriver. Emma is glad that she became familiar with this tool. Having a carpenter husband Emma has to know tools. She brings a half metre long screwdriver that she previously saw sitting at the back on the beer keg. She places it in front of her customer but he opens his jaws and looks around to his friends. They burst out laughing. The music stops and everybody looks at Emma. She is the only dummy who doesn't know that vodka with orange juice is also called a screwdriver.
Emma is embarrassed but realises that people like the opportunity to laugh. They remember| and retell the story. People are actually grateful to a person who makes a fool of herself. It gives them an opportunity to laugh. Gradually Emma begins to laugh with them and at herself and at her mistakes. There are millions of opportunities to make a fool of yourself when you are transplanted into another continent and society.
Half to forget the wonderings and pain, Half to remember the days that have gone by, And dream and dream that I am home again. Flecker
Migrants
British imperialists established English language and Christian religion in all their colonies. These basic tenets of culture prevail in most of their colonies even after these colonies became independent nations. Emma's Aboriginal friend Roy once said: Brits gave us the language and the Bible in exchange for our land.
After the WWII Australian leaders realised that they had to populate or perish. Since they could not recruit enough British migrants to defend and develop Australia, they extended their welcome to any young, white and able preferably skilled persons.
For many decades Brits dreamed of a white Australia like their mother England used to be. For decades no coloured person was admitted to Australia. After the Vietnam War the first few Asians arrived. In the twenty-first century many Middle Eastern and even African refugees found sanctuary in Australia. In this melting pot of 199 nations everybody gradually found their place.
English speaking Australians greeted every new wave of migrants with resentment and mistrust. They feared the
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unknown. Even non English speaking migrants, who assimilated and became proficient in English, resent newcomers whose language and heritage is unfamiliar. European migrants were happy until they saw someone they considered less deserving and less desirable get a bigger piece of cake. In the twenty first century everybody resents new refugees because they believe that the government offers them too many privileges.
Most of European migrants came to Australia in the fifties and sixties. They escaped from a war torn country or war thorn family. European political borders changed, religious and political leaders changed, so customs, beliefs and traditions had to change. Migrants often argue about the history and politics because each of them views the world from the political, religious and national perspective they grew up with.
Stalin and Hitler uprooted, expelled, dispersed and deported some 30 million people. After the war starvation and diseases killed many millions. For many the victory became worse than the war. When the rebuilding started in the West, the killing continued in the East as communists tried to establish a new social order. Young ambitious men and some women escaped from Europe and tried to re-establish themselves fast.
Blond and blue eyed Balts as the first non English speaking Europeans in Australia paved the way for darker Greeks, Italians and Yugoslavs who followed in big numbers bringing with them their cuisine and traditions.
Soon the smell of European delicacies brought Australians closer to migrants' kitchens; they started buying pasta and kranski and pizza. Even Asian cuisine contributed to the melting pot of cooking.
Migrants understand that everywhere there are those who consider themselves socially above and those below. Everybody also understands that it is up to them to rise above their initial status. Migrants are busy with upward mobility and survival; they ignore petty prejudices and discrimination. They work and save to build comfortable homes and national clubs; the only status that really matters to them is measured by people of the same nationality attending the same functions in their national clubs. They are who they are in the eyes of their group. All their emotions are concentrated within their national identity. Everybody knows where one belongs in the small hierarchy of their nation. All rejoice in showing off their newly acquired possessions. Europeans are as happy to have come to the land of opportunity as the first English settlers, who left England with chains on their feet.
As they exchange their life histories they soon learn about intelligence, abilities, skills, and the depth of religious beliefs, political affiliation and family history of each other. Little groups of religious people become close friends, those with hatred of communism congregate together; academia keeps a distance from the common folk. There is also a group which wants to remain in good books with their homeland.
Migrants were never rich on self esteem. They had to reestablish and remake themselves too many times. They had their confidence crushed, because on arrival to Australia, regardless of their home status, they became instantly illiterate and distinguishable only by the manual task they were assigned to do. They realised that they had to use their own brawn and brain to overcome obstacles.
At home migrants learned the alphabet and joined the letters to read and write in the first year of school. Spelling was not even a subject. In Australia this was not all right. ALL RIGHT
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has five sounds and eight letters. You have to write mysterious letters you don't even hear.
Double o in blood does not sound the same as in floor or the moon or the book. Oo in mood sounds as ou in could and in wood would too. H is silent in honest but not in horrible. The new rules defy logic but rules are rules. Migrants sometimes wonder if Australians invented these rules to confuse or punish them.
During the seventies and eighties Australian policy of assimilation dictated that New Australians had to be civilised and become similar to English. It was up to the teachers to advise migrant parents to forget their language and customs for the sake of their children. Most migrants are fiercely ambitious for their children; they send them to best schools. Children soon became their interpreters and advisors; they quickly learn to deal with Australian institutions, write letters and fill in forms. Many become slightly embarrassed by their illiterate and therefore dumb parents.
Migrant children cannot count on their relations smoothing their path in life. Most never met a single relation until they went overseas. They have to become self-reliant. Some become teachers, a few become politicians; some even become rich and powerful. Most of them, however, are just ordinary public servants and tradespeople.
Eventually Australians extended their dictionary and their lives to include pasta and pizza and Kranski and Vienna schnitzel, franks and hamburgers, spices and scents, Chinese meals, Vietnamese restaurants, and Lebanese bread. Garlic eater was one of the most derogatory insults but gradually all the best kitchens began to serve meals with garlic. The fact that migrants speak many languages is no longer a sign of
shame or weakness. It no longer matters if people like continental cuisine or Chinese meals.
New Australians often go OVERSEAS and return undamaged. Even a few Australians ventured into OVERSEAS. They realised that OVERSEAS wasn't just a figment of migrants' imagination. Foreigners sound less foreign OVERSEAS. By the end of the second millennium most migrants of the fifties, sixties and seventies became ordinary Australians. Europe recovered and prospered but the only home their children know is Australia.
Assimilation policy expired during the seventies and everybody began celebrating multiculturism. The government provided means to promote all and any traditions and beliefs in order to enrich Australian culture.
At the beginning of the third millennium there is a great influx of Muslim refugees. Australians again feel too fragmented by religious and political affiliations, so many demand that everybody becomes a part of the mainstream again. The majority are sick of the government pandering to all the fringe groups. The fringe groups seem to rule Australia.
Paul says that the story about the ant and the grasshopper sums up and illustrates the reasons why he left Slovenia and came to Australia. He pinned the story on the bathroom door.
Morals:OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house, and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool; it laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the
cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. Channel 7,9, & 10 News, and A Current Affair show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The country is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? The Labour Prime Minister appears on A Current Affair with the grasshopper and everybody cries. The Green Party stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing: We shall overcome.
Green Party Leader condemns the ant and blames The Liberals, Capitalism and Global warming for the grasshopper's plight. The treasurer exclaims in an interview with TV News that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally to gain votes to win an election, the Government drafts the Economic Equity & Anti- Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to consider how his hard work and preparation has affected the Grasshoppers Mana and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated under the Government Land Repossession Act and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading
friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government confiscated house grasshopper is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared to Vanuatu, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a Drugs related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of Skinhead spiders who terrorise the once prosperous and peaceful, neighbourhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote ! Grasshoppers took over Australia and we will have to escape again, says Paul.
Marx predicted that communism will first succeed in the west, agrees Paul's friend.
The only right everybody should have is to work and look after his family, says Paul who is a firm believer in the Liberal party and free enterprise.
The rich always exploit the poor, says Emma.
People are for sale; if I don't buy them somebody else will, says Paul.
There should be a law against exploitation; people are greedy says Emma remembering the lessons of her teachers.
Everybody IS greedy. Nobody is poor by choice. The poor just cannot figure out how to get rich; they are either stupid or lazy, or both. If Labour party removes the incentive for capable people to create wealth we will all end up poor, says Paul.
New Australians struggled to quickly validate their skills and abilities. Most started as manual labourers but soon their
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diligence and tenacity brought them to the notice of laid back older Australians who are constantly amazed that migrants prosper despite their apparent ignorance.
Most migrants became wealthy through hard work, ingenuity and frugal lifestyle but older Australians are not at all pleased with that. They expected migrants to remain servants to the upper English class. Who do they think they are? How dare they build better houses and drive bigger cars.
O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
Sir Walter Scott
Canberra
Australia during the sixties is full of foreigners; even Slovenians in Canberra seem foreign to each other; they came from different regions; their behaviours and traditions are unfamiliar; they think differently.
Australians identify people from Yugoslavia as Yugoslavs. Emma is used to being a Yugoslav but most Slovenian migrants insist that there is no such thing as a Yugoslav nation. There never was one. There never will be.
No more brotherhood and unity. No equality. Emma is bewildered at first. Everything seems upside down. She just accepted Tito as the best teacher and father of the nation and everything in her life was done according to the gospel of Tito.
Tito was God of Yugoslavs.
Stane, the leader of Canberra Slovenians placed a page long letter in the national newspaper telling the readers about the atrocities of Tito's henchmen. Tito is an evil murderer, declared Stane. Tito had twelve thousand innocent young Slovenians murdered after the war, because they did not believe in communism. He tried to destroy Catholic Church which is the foundation of Slovenian culture.
Stane is a butcher who opened a little corner delicatessen selling his kranski sausages and things he imports from Slovenia. He begins to gather Canberra Slovenians around him. They hire halls to celebrate life's milestones together. With voluntary labour they build a club which becomes known as a home. They soon establish relationships; they become friends and enemies. Leaders and their opposition are needed for the community to grow and prosper. Strong opposition makes good government, said an Australian politician.
Helena, a friendly Slovenian teacher, is teaching in a catholic school where Emma enrolled their son Simon. They meet in Slovenian club and exchange their life stories.
Helena came to Australia three years before Emma; she worked in a grocery shop for the first two years until she became fluent in English and could pass the exams to be employed as a teacher. They only gave me a spelling test and asked a few questions about Australia, says Helena. They need teachers; actually they need qualified people of any sort. Most of our men became builders because Australia needs builders to build Australian cities. The men who built their own home as owner builder can then apply for a builder's licence.
How could they be builders when most don't even speak English, says Emma.
English architects draw the plans, English inspectors inspect every stage of the building process and our men are good tradesman and hard workers. What did you do back home, asks Helena.
I was a medical student but then I got married and dropped out.
Maybe you could produce some evidence of your studies and they might give you a certificate if not a doctorate, says Helena.
Tell me about the beginning of your teaching career, says Emma.
It was chaotic and still is but I make small steps every day, says Helena. I told the principal that I was terrified because I did not know the professional vocabulary for programming but this old nun gave me good advice. You'll be fine, she said. Just follow the curriculum, check the aims and goal, study the school policy and ethos and prepare lessons. I was even more perplexed but then she added. Seriously, do not worry about the big picture. You know how to teach so make sure that you are at least one page ahead of the kids. Study from children's textbooks the night before what you will teach the next day. The rest will become clear and familiar as you go. I still love that nun for her advice. I had no idea what curriculum was or school ethos but I could read a page ahead in children's text books. I was determined to do my best. My teaching was fine but I had no confidence to impose discipline. The louder I spoke the noisier the class was until this nun called me into her office and said: Look after yourself and save your voice. Children get used to your loud voice so they only get noisier. If you want a quiet class you speak quietly.
I felt insecure because of my accent and my lack of sophisticated, intelligent words. I felt ignorant so I was grateful to nuns for guiding me by quite bluntly pointing out my mistakes. They needed teachers so they groomed me well.
How did the parents react to you accent?
Half of the parents are migrants themselves. I am lucky really that my school is in the embassy district with students also from African, Asian and European embassies.
What gave you the idea that you could just walk into a teaching job on this new continent?
It was actually Stane; he told me that they need a teacher at his son's school. As a good catholic he knew the nuns and he recommended me.
I think you were very brave, says Emma.
Look who is talking, you just stepped from the plane and into a medical profession, laughs Helena.
I make no decisions in the hospital; I just do as I am told, smiles Emma.
One day you will I am sure, says Helena. Show initiative and enthusiasm plus the evidence of your studies and they will lead you towards recognisable qualifications because they need nurses.
Helena tells Emma that Stane's father and brother were killed in Kocevski Rog after the war. His older brother escaped to Argentina. Stane and his friends don't trust people who were indoctrinated by communists, warns Helena. They especially mistrust us Primorci, she laughs. We are rejected as traitors, communists, and two faced con artists. Living on the border we had to be two faced to please the west and the east. To trade with Italians we had to pretend to like them and we had to be communists and Yugoslavs in order to survive in Yugoslavia. We are practical people.
I come from the other end of Slovenia on the border to Croatia; we traded with Zagreb and Croatians, tells Emma.
We, Primorci, always traded with Italy, says Helena. We took farm produce to Italian markets and for the Italian currency bought goods we could not buy in Slovenia. We used to smuggle food and drinks to Trieste to sell them for Liras. Children learned to become two faced smugglers in their mothers' arms. I was about ten when Mum wrapped five kilos of lard in a linen cloth and tied it around my waist to go on the bus to Trieste with my grandmother. I must have looked a bit too fat to the border inspectors so they made us wait for inspection. They put me next to the heater and the lard I was smuggling soon started dripping down my body and legs. I was crying so they took the precious parcel off me and my grandmother and I were sent back and were not allowed to cross the border for awhile.
Historically our territory has always been disputed by Austrians, Italians, Slovenians and general Yugoslavs. No wonder we often had to change our attitudes and behaviour to suit those in charge. We needed many faces to survive.
I remember how during the WWII a leader of the occupying German division always carried me on his shoulders as he walked through the village. I believed that he liked me and that he was a nice man but village women later told me that they were petrified as they watched. They knew that I was a human shield for the German so the partisans who were on the hills all around the village would not shoot him. The German carried me for his protection.
Stane invites Paul and Emma to a Sunday Slovenian mass. Most Slovenians come; they want to see each other; even those that dislike each other and those that do not believe in God
come to mass. They all long to see other Slovenian faces and speak about home. They quickly accept each other for who they say they are.
Gathered here we are no longer strangers in a strange land, says the Slovenian priest. We have to sustain our community by celebrating life together. We are no longer birds without the nest since you built the home for Slovenian communities in most of Australian cities.
Singing hymns offers the faithful emotional healing after the loss of their real home and family. Emma feels that she can trust the people who believe as her parents did. Her image of God has a face her mother painted with faith, hope and love. Perhaps other worshipers carry a different image of the almighty; some fear God, others talk about God's unconditional love but they pray and sing the same.
People would kill each other if they were not afraid of God, said Stane. Emma is inspired by this young man kneeling in the church; his eyes closed; his head bowed; his hands raised in prayer. She follows him to the altar to receive Holy Communion; she feels redeemed with all the holiness around her. If only her mother could see her now.
Emma soon learns that there are two groups of Slovenians: those loyal to the regime at home and those loyal to the Catholic Church. She only has a black and white picture of politics; nobody ever even suggested that there might be something grey, something in between wanting to shine. You are with us or you are against us; this message is engraved deep in her knowing. Nobody ever conceded that the other side might also want to do some good. Who could argue against brotherhood and unity; who could say that there is something wrong with loving your neighbour as yourself?
Aren't these ideals the same? Was Jesus a communist? Didn't he look out for the poor and the sinners? Why is one black and the other white?
All cats are grey in the dark, said Emma's father once. What do you mean, asked Emma.
You have to be careful who you trust, he said enigmatically.
Slovenians loyal to Yugoslav Embassy oppose those connected to the church, explains Helena. The tension between the two groups keeps them alive. Fierce lobbying from both extremes brakes many friendships but it also invigorates us and keeps us focused and excited.
The conflict generates competition and a sense of purpose, says Emma.
We are busy building Slovenian club while the other side boasts about the embassy party they attended and the gifts the ambassador gave them, says Helena. She helps Stane by teaching Slovenian children to recite, sing and dance for the opening of the newly built club. We prepare programs for mothers' and fathers' days and for every other celebration, says Helena.
How do you know about people going to Embassy parties, asks Emma.
Easy, says Helena. They are so honoured by Serb ambassador's invitation that they can't stop crowing about it. They bring a few books and some tapes for the club and pretend that to be our culture; as if they had any idea of what culture is. Talking about thirty pieces of silver. They go to tell
the ambassador about those of us that wouldn't be seen in ambassador's company. They are spies and traitors.
Just as Emma became comfortable living outside the church she is introduced to this group of pious believers who are against everything communism represents. She is grateful to Stane and his friends for making them an instant family. Emma was equally grateful to communists for accepting her and she gradually forgot all about the church and the teaching of her superstitious parents. Paul is not a church goer either. He does not like authority.
Could people be very good and very bad at the same time? Can a person present himself as a moral, kind and generous and be cruel and nasty as well? Can one hide behind the apparent kindness while plotting deviant or malicious acts? Is it possible for anyone to be totally righteous without expecting a reward? Here or in afterlife? What about all who stumble on their way towards goodness? Some get up and dust themselves up, confess and try again to reach the finishing line; others never recover; they perish without the blessing of the church.
Emma wanted to shine like a beacon of virtue. Maybe she only wanted to shine. Perhaps everybody has a need to be good.
Emma's mother was a true believer; she was good for the glory of God. Did she believe in a payback in an afterlife when everybody will be rewarded according to his or hers good deeds? Mum silently accepted her powerlessness in good faith that God in his wisdom and justice will punish the guilty and reward the righteous. This faith was mum's reward. Faith is a gift. Religion is the opium of the masses, Emma learned somewhere in her ambiguous education. Is opium bad even when it helps one to survive? People become addicted to
opium. Opium takes away the pain. Opium adds a little happiness when life seems hopeless.
This is a new beginning Paul and Emma dreamed about. Paul soon finds agreeable friends; capable, ambitious and anticommunist. Emma feels reborn and redeemed with these respectable people who welcome them into their club and their homes and their hearts. Everybody becomes an instant friend; they exchange stories of their escape and of their first experiences in Australia.
In Slovenian club Emma and Paul meet Tomaz and his wife Mari. Tomaz shortened his name to Tom to make it easier to pronounce. Paul and Tom soon find out that they have everything in common; they also both admire Emma.
Emma hears Vince and Janez outside the church sneering as they look at Tom.
He thinks that he is god's gift to women, says Janez.
He knows everything about everybody, says Vince.
Nobody knows if he is spying for Yugoslav Embassy or for the church. Or both.
It does not matter really. Religion is just old fashioned politics anyway. Bless the poor and obedient, says Janez.
We are all going to hell since you cannot believe in all the gods. One of them will get you eventually, laughs Vince.
He may have everything but his God did not bless him with children, says Janez looking in Tom's direction.
They are jealous, concludes Emma. Spiteful. Men are like crabs in a bucket. They pull each other down to stop each other from rising up. Tall poppies are first cut down. A prophet is not appreciated by his own. Men probably hate Tom because he is more handsome, successful and popular.
He goes to church every day; he must be a serious sinner, says Vince.
Tom is a good looking man; tall and slim he towers above others; he is the owner of the large car dealership. People feel honoured to be in his company. He even employs a few Slovenians.
Tom soon becomes Emma's imaginary prince. He is safely married, of course, but he holds a promise that if only...If his wife somehow vanished they could share the most holy matrimony and Emma could give him all the children he surely wants. She naturally assumes that it is Mari who cannot have children.
Emma knows Tom desires her and she desires his desires. Men with desires act like princes. Maybe all men eventually disintegrate into ordinariness; they become mean and tired, bored, boring, demanding and demeaning. Emma has no use for their ordinariness. She dreams of being desired and adored.
Tom probably prays for the temptation to go away but his desires are stronger than he is; he would sacrifice his beliefs in a heroic attempt to be with Emma forever. Maybe Tom hates Emma, the source of his temptation. Emma imagines him praying on his knees asking God not to lead him into sin. Maybe Emma should not want him wanting her. She knows that she will never be unfaithful to Paul; she just needs a prince that will see and appreciate her inner beauty; the man
that will love her, unattainable as she is, in her invisible world. She wants Tom to love her soul.
At the end of all Emma's daydreams is Paul, of course; he is always at her side protecting her from wrongdoing. Emma needs the stability of Paul's love and fidelity so she can search for a prince who will discover the precious uniqueness of HER.
Tom and Paul become best friends; both are hardworking and ambitious.
Tom and Mari often invite Paul and Emma out for dinner. Tom arranges the seating so he can touch Emma's foot under the table. Sometimes he touches her thigh by accident. He listens to every word Emma says; he asks what food and wine Emma likes. He finds an opportunity to touch her as if by accident but they both know that this is not an accident. Emma is convinced that Tom is desperately in love with her.
Paul and Emma become regular visitors to Tom's home. Tom shows Emma his immaculate orchard; he tells his wife Mari which peach to pick for her. Emma eats the peach and asks Tom where to put the stone. Tom does not answer immediately but Mari makes a 'flick over the fence' gesture without saying a word. Emma flicks the stone down the retaining wall where it lands under the fallen leaves. Tom eventually asks for the stone so he can dispose of it properly. Emma looks at Mari who nervously looks behind the retaining wall. How could you, says Tom to Mari. The stone will rot and the rot will spread over the entire garden. Sorry, says Mari going down the steps to get over the retaining wall and under the tree where she rummages for the peach stone among the fallen leaves. Never do that again, says Tom with a finger almost touching Mari's nose. Mari does not seem to notice the
harshness of Tom's voice; she smiles sweetly; she is meek and obedient. Emma likes Mari; this vibrant easygoing and beautiful lady becomes Emma's best friend; they go together on shopping sprees and often stop at the cafe to chat and curse their men.
Emma remembers an old man saying that there is only one sin and it is stealing. It does not matter whether you steal love or honour or possessions; stealing is a sin. Usually it is your best friend who steals your love, he said.
Paul and Tom are discussing pruning techniques as they turn in from the garden. Tom guides Emma with his hand gently under her arm towards the steps and into the lounge room. Emma attempts to take her shoes off so not to stain the plush almost white carpet, but Tom would not hear of it. Emma admires immaculately decorated lounge room full of carefully arranged souvenirs, pictures and books. She picks a book at random and looks at the title. It is something about cars so Emma places it where it was. Tom picks it up again to adjust its position. Mari rushes to the kitchen and brings a tray with the cake and the coffee. Tom shows Paul the new DVD he bought and explains how it works. Emma looks around; there is not a trace of dust anywhere. Nothing is out of place. Is heaven like that? Immaculate. There is another world within this one, Emma read on a poster somewhere. Could heaven be right here?
They sit in a semicircle on the pale levender lounge to watch the film Tom made on his last trip around the world. Emma notices Tom's forefinger lightly tapping the coffee table. Every so often he shakes the finger carefully over his plate. Emma realises that he is picking almost invisible crumbs off the shiny table surface. She becomes conscious of holding the
cake over the plate to save Tom picking up the crumbs but his finger is still tapping like it is automatically searching for the invisible particles resembling dirt.
Tom invites Paul and Emma to a Wednesday prayer group gathering. They meet Rozi.
Holy Virgin urges us to give up sinful ways and begin the life of prayer and good deeds, says Rozi as she distributes books of messages our Holy Mother gives to her seers.
Is that some new religion? We wouldn't want to stray from the ways of our parents, says Paul in mock seriousness. Emma is afraid that they will see how irreverent Paul is. All good Catholics are constantly watching, afraid that one of their flock would embrace some more popular evangelic group.
I will always be a Catholic, Rozi reassures them. Our Holy Father allows the publications that deal with private apparitions and revelations as long as these revelations contain nothing contrary to our Holy Father, our Holy Church, morality, and our Holy Faith. Anybody is allowed to tell their story about meeting with Our Mother Mary and her Son Jesus, Rozi explains the booklets she distributes.
There is a pilgrimage to Berrima next Sunday, says Rozi. Berrima is in Penrose Park between Canberra and Sydney. Polish Fathers and Brothers of the Order of St. Paul, the first Hermit, built a Shrine to the Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Jasna Gora. People express devotion to Our Lady there, according to the Church's teaching, explains Rozi.
Come along, invites Tom.
Paul and Emma look over the Penrose Park valley where thousands of people confide in the Virgin Mary. Most have
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nobody else to confide in. Migrants uprooted from the network of extended family embrace the church as a family substitute.
Only one thousand can fit in the church so monthly devotions are held in the open, explains Rozi.
People walk from shrine to shrine and kneel down piously as they cross themselves. The candles are burning, the flowers are fresh. Every group of migrants gathers around their own shrine in the forest; they march in the procession under the banner of their homeland united in their faith.
Thousands of old migrants on their knees begging the Holy Mother to intercede for them with her Son and let them find peace and be holy and loved, whispers Helena to Emma. The forest is full of little shrines. Helena came with her husband Jaka who is a great supporter of Stane. Emma knows that Helena could hardly be called a devout Catholic; she is making fun of Rozi's piety. She is much like Emma, sitting on the fence; two faced; many faced; living in a no-man's land. Follow the leader. They both want to look like Rozi who KNOWS everything for certain. They also both like Stane and his wife who pray with total sincerity. Emma also wants to get Tom's approval so she kneels and crosses herself like he does; she feels that she again belongs like she belonged in the circle dancing Serbian kolo in that other life. Helena kneels and prays beside her.
We built a shrine to our own Madonna so we can kneel as a nation on our own ground, explains Rozi reverently the meaning of this holy place.
One in ten Australians is a migrant who never fully learned to speak English to feel at home with the rest of Australians, says Helena more seriously. They listen to the nervous, young
Polish Prior proclaim the virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a broken stuttering English.
Helena and Emma made learning English their first priority.
These people cannot return to the country of their birth because their children are born in Australia. They can only return to their Holy Mother and God of their parents to make sense of their lives, says Emma.
Brave Slovenians walk up to the pulpit to say prayers to the Virgin in Slovenian like Italians do in Italian and Portuguese and Filipinos do in their own tradition. They are among their own stuttering broken English speaking people who fight foreign demons. They are still strangers in a strange land with no hope left that they will ever feel at home anywhere.
Mary's humility, her chastity, her generosity and willingness to surrender to God's will should inspire us all, concludes the prior.
The valley reverberates with holiness as they contemplate holy mysteries and express their needs.
The Virgin Mother was never tempted because she was without the original sin, she was the Immaculate Conception, explains Rozi.
It must have been harder for Jozef with original sin and all hanging over him. He must have also died a virgin since according to Rozi, he never consummated his relationship with the Virgin Mary, Helena whispers to Emma. I wonder why they claim that Jesus comes from the house of David through Joseph's line since Joseph is only his foster father.
Emma knows that Helena does not think much of a virgin birth or Immaculate Conception. Like Emma, she was indoctrinated by communists. She is teasing Rozi. There are endless opportunities to make fun of any myth religious or political.
The Virgin and her son never succumbed to the temptation, explains Rozi.
Nobody would dare to openly dispute the truth of Rozi's words; not in the valley so holy and not in front of people so reverent. Faith is a gift, remembers Emma. Faith is followed by hope and love. That is all anyone needs in life. With one of them missing the other two vanish.
Helena and Emma are drinking coffee in a little refreshment room.
Paternity used to be a big issue in the days when they had no sure way of determining who the biological father was. The woman's virginity was the only guarantee that the family's property fell to the rightful heir.
But our faith is based on the virgin birth and Jesus being god's son, Emma argues.
There were virgin births all over the world in those days. Most were attributed to gods and angels casting a shadow over some pretty maiden. We must remember that the rulers in those days were often worshipped as gods. If one of them cast a shadow over a virgin she was likely to become pregnant.
Did people really believe that their rulers were gods?
Dictators never abandoned the ambition to be adored and glorified as gods. Most become slaves to the greed for power and glory. They barricade themselves with trappings of riches
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they stole from those they ruled and then live in fear of losing their power and position so they need ever more guards to protect them. Caligula and Hitler and Stalin and Tito considered themselves gods.
And they all promise equality and fairness, remembers Emma.
Some want to improve the human condition; many actually did improve society but most are soon forgotten while Jesus is remembered, says Helena.
Do you believe that Jesus is the son of god? Asks Emma a little scared of the answer.
We will never know who his biological father was and it is of little importance at least for me, says Helena. The rulers in ancient times were called saviours. When John the Baptist said that this little Palestinian peasant from Galilie was the saviour, the ruling elite first laughed at him and then they got mad when people actually followed Jesus. Who did he think he was; what did he own; where was his army? Where was his castle? He did not even have a home. No wonder they crucified him.
And yet these mighty rulers died and are forgotten while Jesus lives, says Emma.
There were other people like Jesus in history. Their teachings were adopted, adapted, used and abused but in their purity they are much the same. I do believe that their messages are inspired by god. I believe that we are all inspired by god; who else is there to inspire us?
Isn't this a blasphemy, smiles Emma half in relief and half in fear.
Bible scholars these days no longer pay as much attention to virginity of Christ's mother as they do to his teaching and the divinity of Christ himself, explains Helena.
Why then do we still glorify the blessed virginity, says Emma a little sad because her own virginity may no longer be such a valuable asset. She had no other assets.
Sexual taboos are no longer an issue in the civilised world. In the olden days they had little idea how the pregnancy itself happened. They assumed that the woman was a wet cold field into which a hot dry male planted the seed. If there was no child it was the fault of the field-the woman- and not of the seed. That's why some childless women were called barren. Barren ground. The Bible writers were dealing with the knowledge of the time and explained it with the language people understood. Marriage was a property contract. Women had no property so their virginity had to be proven as a security that the man's property remained in the family hands. These days we can tell for certain who the father is but virginity still remains a social and moral control agent to keep women oppressed, says Helena.
In the Muslim world there are still honour killings when the woman flaunts the virginity tradition, says Emma.
Emma is talking about sex and virginity for the first time. She only knew what Paul told her and he said that only virginity makes it possible for a man to truly love a woman. He could never love a woman who had sex with other men.
Unfortunately this hasn't changed for most women even today, smiles Helena.
Do you believe in God? Asks Emma a bit scared of Helena's explanation.
My God is much bigger than the myths of the ancient stories, says Helena.
But you are Catholic, aren't you?
I believe that God is bigger that religions. He is everywhere, smiles Helena.
Do you believe in Jesus, asks Emma.
Jesus' teachings show the way towards society as we would all like to imagine it. He knows that we are fallible by nature, smiles Helena.
If Jesus is not god then Roman Catholic Church is wrong, says Emma.
The church is not God and church laws are not always made from love either. I don't worry much about the religious leaders in Rome or elsewhere because they manipulate Jesus' simple teaching of love so they can manipulate the masses.
I am sure Stane and Tom would not agree; in fact they might excommunicate you, smiles Emma.
We each have our own image of God, says Helena. We carry within us the morality and religion from our parents who carried traditional beliefs of their villages through centuries; these primordial beliefs became embellished and decorated by our more or less personal experiences. Stepping out of that mould does not take or add anything to the teaching of Jesus. He understood sinners. We struggle to be good but we fail often and are forgiven. He had forgiven a woman who had
many sins. The one who is forgiven much, loves much, he said to men who would condemn the woman. Catholic first pope Peter betrayed Jesus and was forgiven.
Where do you get all these ideas, says Emma afraid that she may be contaminated by Helena's opinions.
I work with Josephite nuns. Their founder Mary Mac Killop was herself excommunicated because she was more concerned about helping the needy than she was about the catholic hierarchy. It is rather significant that they listed her for sainthood now. She will be the first Australian saint. Time will tell who and what is from god and what is just the human greed for power. Take the celibacy laws for instance; they clearly go against the nature.
For the first time Emma begins to hope that she may not be excommunicated forever. She rejoined this church community much like she once joined others dancing Serbian Kolo; she needed to hold hands and be accepted. Ever since her family was disempowered she tried to regain the feeling of being one with her group.
Emma and Paul travel home with Tom and Mari. It is obvious to everybody that Tom and Emma like each other. Tom makes her feel special; better than other women; better than his wife. Emma is proud that this handsome, successful pious man thinks so highly of her.
Emma is regularly posting the money for Paul's daughters. The posting is a constant reminder that Paul's other family is alive. Emma promises herself that one day she will return Paul to them. For the time being she has no proper reason to do so; Paul loves her; he is the father of her children; he is a good looking man; he works hard; he is faithful: he makes their
family legitimate, respectable, popular, comfortable and protected. Nobody needs to know that he has been married before.
What would these pious new friends think if they knew? Would they excommunicate her like her family and friends did back home? She does not even dare tell Helena about her past. Now Emma and Paul have a chance to delete everything they were before they came to Australia. They decide that for the time being they will not say anything about Paul being married before. A good impression on their new church-going friends is important.
During one of their dinners Tom asks Paul if he was married before and Paul says: no. The instant denial forever seals their fate. One cannot delete a part of his life because in secrecy that part will grow ominous and bitter; it will destroy his life. The secret will dominate the relationship.
Emma knows how difficult it must have been for Paul to lie. She knows that he lied to please her. She is afraid that he will hate her for it. She senses that the denial will also be forever wedged between Tom and Paul. Emma knows that Paul compromised his integrity to protect her. Both are ashamed of not being strong enough to say: we don't care about your opinion, Tom; we are proud of who we are. How can Paul ever overcome the denial of a major part of his life? Paul's past life is none of Tom's business. He did not deny his family because he was ashamed of it but because he resented Tom for putting him in a position where he had to either deny part of his life or explain what should be none of Tom's business. It was demeaning for Paul to say that he is not who he is. He could say: yes I was married before and have two daughters in Slovenia which I love and am proud of; or he could say: my past is none of your business, Tom. Paul chose a middle way
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to please Emma. There is no way back. Emma believes that Paul began to hate Tom then. The new tension is the beginning of the end of their friendship. They all know that Tom knows the truth.
Emma believes that Tom made inquiries about their past. He probably got information through the church or through the government. Who knows what else he found out? He really must be a spy. No wonder men hate him.
Neither Paul nor Emma ever mention the denial again; it remains suspended between them like forbidden fruit. Do not touch. It became one more unexamined thing that could resurface at any moment. There is nothing to be said. No words could improve the situation so they put it away for the time being. Paul and Emma begin to hate Tom because he forced them to live a lie. The episode put an end to a possibility for Paul and Emma to ever openly talk about Paul's ex-wife and children.
Nothing changed on the outside only friendliness became false. The smiles and the laughter acquired a strange new flavour. It left an unpleasant taste like eating unripe fruit.
Emma knows that their denial will grow heavier and more sinister with time. The guillotine of their own making is hanging above their heads. The children are not old enough to understand; they will never understand; it will be more complicated and difficult to explain and understand the longer they wait. Emma is convinced that Paul's first family is now always on Paul's mind. Like it is on hers. ALWAYS. The thorn in the foot festering. Emma deserves better. She ran away but they followed. They are hidden but they threaten to emerge at any moment.
Emma is used to lying but Paul is not. Emma has always been a liar. She started lying at the age of five when Milan made her parents powerless. Lies help her survive. She lives a pretend life in order to be adored by people and tolerated by Paul. She reasons that Paul must have told lies in his business sometimes; everybody tells lies. Only this lie was different. It exposed his weakness.
Emma writes letters to her school friends at home telling them about freedom and democracy they enjoy. Her friends marched with her when they formed the word Tito during his birthday parade but they don't want to know her now. She betrayed their ideals.
What exactly is democracy? Rich people fool the poor into believing that they are equal, writes Emma's friend Marta.
How can Emma describe something she only vaguely understands that the West holds as precious?
We are encouraged to say what we think. We choose our leaders. We have freedom. America and Australia are the most successful countries in the world. Everybody wants to come here, argues Emma.
Freedom kills. People need strong leadership. Without government control the whole society falls apart. Look at fat Americans gorging themselves while watching poor people starve. They are out of control, writes Marta.
Emma is not sure; she has never been convinced for long by any beliefs. Would people get bored without rules and borders and fences? Would people become afraid of the sameness; of endless perfection? After winter's gloom everybody rejoices in fresh spring warmth. Politicians promise change. Maybe
change is what people need. Politicians boast about reforms they managed to get through; people elected them to change things. Maybe change is a necessary part of a cycle of life.
When the hem of a skirt reaches the ground, fashion turns in the opposite direction, said Paul as Emma dabbled with fashion. She wonders if too much of the good thing makes people lazy. Experimentation keeps societies on their toes. Politicians have to keep everybody busy coping with change. Boredom is dangerous. New dress brightens the day. New fashion is exciting. We need distractions. It's time for a change.
Liberty for the wolves means death for the sheep, Marta quotes the words of a politician who argued that government regulations and leadership are necessary for the survival of society. Everybody is searching for an acceptable level of control.
Is democracy an ideal system? Is it fair and just because people choose their leaders? Do they really choose the leaders or they vote for one group of self appointed leaders against the other. Emma read somewhere that you must not enthrone the ignorance just because there is so much of it. Maybe the leaders know better than the masses.
Paul is busy with a client in the club so he asks Tom to pick Emma from work late one evening. Tom drives into a quiet street and stops the car. I am mad about you, Tom professes his love as he gropes Emma's knees. Emma is happy that Tom so urgently loves her; she let him kiss and embrace her but moves away when his hand reaches into her pants. She tells him to stop. This is not how Emma wants Tom to desire her.
I know you want it, he breathes heavily into her face. Nobody will ever know.
Emma has no intention to have sex with Tom; least of all not in a car in the middle of the city in the middle of the night; in the middle of her life. She doesn't want another shameful thing to hide either. It takes all her strength to push Tom away. They struggle but suddenly Tom stops; his body relaxes and he starts the car. They do not say a word.
As they enter the club people stare at them. Is it written on their faces that something happened? Tom's fly is slightly undone. The knowledge travels from one man to another without a word.
Paul is cursing all the way home. Emma begs him to let her explain. Until now her immaculate virginity and subservient fidelity gave Emma permission to blame Paul for being soiled by one failed marriage that brought disrepute into their life.
If only Paul would let Emma explain that she wasn't unfaithful; she hasn't done anything; she did not let Tom do anything. What she did in her mind and heart does not count. She only led Tom into temptation. Like Eve in the paradise, she will be condemned forever. Jezebel. Another sin on Emma's plate.
Emma knows that her whole family will be marked by the ominous silence that descends on their home. Her children have no idea why Paul does not speak to them. Broken bits of her life are being swept in the bin. The stabbing pain comes and goes. The raw ugliness of it all makes her nauseous; Emma can't wash away her dirt.
She seduced Paul's best friend. She betrayed her best friend.
The respect for Paul and for Tom's family stops people from openly lynching Emma but she knows that everybody is talking about them.
Emma has to re-evaluate her situation. What can Paul really do? Kill himself? Everybody would blame Emma. Men blame women and women agree with their men. Men are women's children. Paul threatens to tell everybody about her past. But would he tell anyone about her infidelity? Who could he tell that his devoted wife had an affair with his best friend? He needs the envy and admiration of those around him more than her fidelity. He cannot admit that he is a loser. Paul's fragile new friendships in Australia are not strong enough for confidentialities like that; new loyalties haven't jelled yet. Paul has no one to confide in. He needs to pretend that he has a perfect family. Family is all one really has.
When Emma returns from work she finds Paul red eyed. She snuggles into his arms searching for spots that respond to her touch. He tells her that he knows that she never loved him. In those moments Emma almost does. She offers him her body.
Paul eventually forgives Emma but he never allows her to explain. He will not leave her but he will hold another ace up his sleeve to make her do anything he wants. He will never again let her leave his side; he simply can no longer trust her so he will watch her every move. There is always a chance that Paul will punish their children. They will mope like frost bitten tomatoes when he will excommunicate Emma for whatever transgression, real or imagined. He knows that Emma will beg like a dog for the bone, any bone he will want to throw her way. He will forgive her so he can keep her and torment her whenever he wants to. Paul loves Emma too much to let her go.
Emma needs a smoke. Paul can't understand why Emma has to hide behind the shed puffing away whenever he raises his voice to correct her or the children. Smoking reminds him of his violent father. This evil smelling deathly drug is to Paul like a red rag to the bull. He can smell tobacco a mile away. Emma smokes to rebel against him but smoking also makes her sufficiently guilty to return into his arms as a repentant, loving, obedient wife. She brushes and brushes her teeth and sucks lollies but Paul always knows. Emma's defiance makes him mad and he has to punish her. He stops eating and speaking. Emma tells him to go to his first perfect family. Paul slams the door and Emma begs forgiveness. She keeps on kissing and caressing him until he can no longer resist. The cycle of sin and forgiveness always ends with lovemaking. Paul makes her beg ever more frequently. He likes Emma begging for his love.
People tell Paul how good he is for letting Emma smoke. He likes that. She earns her own money and can do as she likes, he boasts. Emma finally won the battle; if only she won something that wouldn't kill her in the end. Emma cannot sleep from coughing. The fear of rejection is greater than the fear of cancer. Emma was never brave enough to express her sadness or anger; she smokes instead hidden in some remote corner. Do all addicts self harm to take their attention away from their real pain?
Behind every cigarette is an unhappy person, Emma remembers her friend's words.
Paul is especially provocative one night as they play cards at Tom's place. He is losing so he desperately tries to invent new rules and disputes.
I am not playing by your stupid rules, Emma says without thinking.
Other card players are stunned for a moment but then they almost burst out laughing at her sudden attack of stupidity. Men are happy that for the first time Emma dares to defy Paul. Women rejoice witnessing the paradise turn into hell. Paul turns grey and becomes speechless for a moment. It is obvious to everyone that there will be a storm; Emma always plays exactly as Paul wants her to.
It's getting late, is all Paul says as he takes car keys and goes towards the door. Emma follows; she always follows.
On the way home his voice is like a blade. He will make her remember the day she embarrassed him in front of his friends. Everybody complained that Paul invented rules but Emma always supported him. Until now. She totally betrayed him; she made him look stupid. No other wife would do that to her husband. She sided with the enemy. She made them laugh at him.
Paul always knew when people tried to belittle him. Maybe everybody remembers moments when they are made to feel less. Being put down leaves an indelible mark. Insults intended or not, are written in the memory. Paul also knows exactly when someone needs to be put in his place. Emma cannot exit a merry go round of sins and forgiveness. She cannot go away; there is no such place. All she can offer Paul is her body. Her slightly abused body.
Nobody ever mentions the card incident. Only Paul and Emma know that friendships died. They distance themselves from each other and from other Slovenians until months later just
before the New Year Paul and Emma meet Tom in the mall with a pretty young woman. Tom awkwardly introduces Mimi.
Mimi's husband Frank works for me, explains Tom. Actually Mimi does too. We were getting supplies.
Emma is looking at Mimi. She knows that adoring, dreamy look; that gentle expression of preciousness.
Tom seems nervous and keeps talking and explaining what items they were looking at. Mimi smiles.
Let's have some coffee, Tom offers.
Emma waits until Paul sits down. The men talk business; they both try to repair something dead.
Mimi tells that she came from the village close to Emma's; the closeness of their villages makes them feel instantly close. The intimacy of being born in the same valley makes them sisters. They part with the promise to meet again soon. They know that they are both in need of a friend. Mimi had been in Australia less than a year and feels very alone and homesick.
Tom sleeps with all his friends' wives, Emma once overheard the man saying in the club.
Emma wonders how could Tom do that to the men he calls friends. Wouldn't he feel guilty? Would he tell the priest in confession that he succumbed to the temptation of lustfulness? Does he repent and promise God never to do it again? Does Mari know? Emma never felt guilty about flirting with Tom although she likes Mari. She did not let Tom have sex but she stole Tom's affections from Mari. Is she as guilty as Tom?
Mimi knocks on Emma's door a few months later. She begs Emma to let her stay for a few days. She has nobody else. Mimi sobs as she tells her story. Tom told her that they could live happily Everafter if only she wasn't married. Mimi left her husband and her son. They were going to get a divorce even before they arrived to Australia but have instead escaped to try and save the marriage for their son's sake. When she called Tom to tell him the good news, Tom reminded her that he promised God to stay with his wife until death will part them.
Everybody is talking about Mimi; everybody is busy condemning the stupid bitch who left her own son and a good husband to have a fling with Tom.
There but for the grace of God, remembers Emma. Nobody is blaming Tom; people are busy condemning poor Mimi who destroyed her family. Emma feels lucky that Paul still loves her.
My heart leaps up when I behold the rainbow in the sky Wordsworth
Opal fields
Emma has just become a registered nurse in Canberra hospital; she is finally where she feels comfortable. She produced some evidence of her studies and they put her on probation training for a year before they granted her a registration. Simon started school and his teacher, Helena, became Emma's first real friend in Australia. They are the same age, they studied in the same places and socialised in the same circles. They share memories.
We are going to Lightning Ridge, Paul announces out of the blue. A friend of mine said that one can get rich overnight there. You just register a claim and start mining. Black opal is the most magnificent gem and it can only be found in Lightning Ridge. We will let our house out and the rent will repay the loan.
Emma does not argue because she suspects that Paul is running away from Tom and people talking about them. Are they both running towards a better future or away from past mistakes?
They pack their personal belongings and bring them into a tin and hessian camp on the opal fields. The shack belongs to Paul's friend Ludvik, another Slovenian who made a fortune in the dust of the hot outback. Opal miners quickly simplified
Ludvik's name into Less. Less is a known identity; whatever dirt he touches turns into opal, people say.
Paul promises that living in a place with no electricity or running water is just temporary until he builds a house in town. Camping in the bush is a welcome adventure for the children and Paul finds the company of other miners a good source of local knowledge. They all gather around the fire in the evenings, barbeque their meat, drink beer and tell yarns.
The promise to become rich overnight is shining in front of the miners during the hungry years of their search. They came from every corner of the world and speak little English but they soon become fluent in opal mining jargon of the field: gouging, fossicking, trace, shin-cracker, pocket, patch, noodling, carats, potch, rolling pattern, harlequin pattern, dry run, wet puddling, and dry rumbling.
Locals soon introduce Emma to Lightning Ridge history.
Just over a hundred years ago the first white settler pastoralists arrived in these vast outback tablelands where the only high ground is a ridge a couple of hundred meters above sea level. There are no rivers or springs so no human life could exist until these new settlers dug dams and made rain water tanks. The surface is covered by reddish ironstone. The story goes that the ironstone attracts lightning and the lightning struck the shepherd his sheep and the dog. The place got a name Lightning Ridge which became officially recognised as such in 1963.
What a short history, says Emma.
The first dam was sunk in 1885. The first parcel of opal was sold by Nettleton in 1903. Aborigines first started coming to
the Ridge in 1930s after white settlers drilled for artesian water and made dams to water their animals.
Everybody in Lightning Ridge knows everything there is to know about opal; they mine it, polish and sell it for cash. Nobody needs to know how much they found, nobody knows that they are alive. Like Paul's family, most live in camps without running water and electricity but the promise of instant riches keeps them happy. One may be broke today but the next day everybody may talk about his wealth and success. One can always count on respect envy brings.
Graham, an old miner, says: Rich people like to go camping once a year but opal miners choose to camp all year around. We are where we want to be; we are doing what we like doing; we do it when we feel like doing it.
Emma soon finds a job as a bush nurse; she works on her own and as the only permanent medical worker in town she soon becomes an essential part of the community. She realises that most miners are migrants who did not manage to assimilate and integrate into the regular Australian workforce. They were different and they wanted to get more, faster. They tell Emma about their sicknesses and their personal problems; they have no one else to listen to them so she takes time to hear their confessions and pleas for help, medical and social.
Emma joins arts and craft society and discovers people of many different backgrounds who brought talents and skills to energise this outback town. She soon learns that about seventy percent of miners never become rich; they just get used to their camp dwelling and hoping. Another twenty percent make a fair living and they build houses in town. About ten percent become properly rich. A fair lottery, they laugh. The only ticket you need are muscles and perseverance.
Paul is determined to find opal, he never allowed for failure in any of his endeavours. He digs a shaft on an unexplored part of the field and bottoms on opal worth about one year's wage. Other miners peg their claims around him. Paul becomes an instant identity. Stories spread like a wild fire about a man who has never been underground before and then after a couple of days he became a millionaire. Opal fever is based on stories like that. Miners seek Paul's company and advice. In a couple of months Paul buys the best house in town. Nobody would believe that he re-mortgaged the house in Canberra. He never denies it when people call him a millionaire.
He actually likes that. Emma is embarrassed.
Czechoslovakian opal buyer Joe Belicka comes to introduce himself to Paul. As they chat about their lives Emma asks Joe what was the hardest thing for him when he first came to Australia.
There were no girls, says Joe without hesitation. No girls, no dances, no singing, no romancing, no social life, no cultural activities. We lost the best years of our lives without the pleasure of female company. We lived in cultural vacuum.
Emma believes that it takes a real strength for a man to admit that he wasn't worthy or able to find a partner in the first years of his manhood.
But you have a beautiful wife, she smiles at Joe.
I was lucky to bring Eva from home, Joe explains. Most non English speaking boys came alone. Some of them accepted the rejects of other nationalities and races. It was better to have anybody than to live on their own though many got used to being on their own, explains Joe.
Maybe a lovely wife gave Joe the confidence to admit his initial vulnerability.
It gets easier when you learn English, says Emma.
It gets easier especially for women, says Joe. I speak better English that most Australian yobbos here but I still have an accent and it really goes on my nerves when people ask me where do you come from and I say Sydney and they say no no I mean where do you really come from. You have an accent. Let me guess they propose and they list the names of the nations they know nothing about. Oh I once met a Czech fellow on the bus, nice man, yes Czechs are nice, they are a bit like this and that, people begin weaving a story about people like you. They keep explaining to me what Czechs are like because they once had an acquaintance who happened to be Czech. I once met a man who once met a Czech man; this person feels obliged to tell me all about my nationality. I felt like saying shut up, you ignorant prat. They hang on you their whole preconceived ideas of what a Czech person is like. Migrants hate being asked where do you come from. I am proud of being Czech but when they ask me where I came from they are telling me that I don't belong here and that I am not an ordinary Australian. And never will be. People like to poke in migrants' private selves so they can adjust their prejudices. They never ask you where you came from because they admire your mind or your face or your history; they just want to single you out to put you down so you would not pretend to be an ordinary Australian. Ordinary Australians come from England. Some boys even changed their names and became Johnsons and Smiths but as soon as they open their mouths they expose themselves as liars; they look foolish and weak camouflaged by a foreign name.
Just as well our children have no accent, smiles Emma.
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People still ask them where does that name come from, where are your parents from? In some ways it is harder on our children because they never knew anything about any other country. All they are and know is Australian.
Sometimes changing a name seems sensible. Like in the case of my Polish patient Peter Jedrzejczak. He got sick of spelling his name again and again so he took the pronounciation of the bits of his name and named himself Chuck Peters. Simple for everybody. Then there is Ivanna Didenskov Nickiphorowitch; she is so proud of her name that she would not dream of shortening it, smiles Emma.
Australia really is a melting pot of nations, says Joe.
Australians consider European men domineering and not willing to melt, smiles Emma.
Migrant men often cover up their vulnerability with aggression and arrogance, admits Joe; they work harder because they need to build and establish their base in Australia, they need to build their status. I often feel sorry for migrant women because their husbands feel that they have to dominate and control them. Men are simply scared to lose them.
I never looked at it in that way, admits Emma. She begins to understand Paul's need for control; it would mean a failure for him to lose respect and love of his family. He simply cannot deal with failure.
For us, the post war men, it was a shock to find ourselves in the situation where we could not find a suitable wife. We were made to feel undesirable in Australia. In Europe there was a shortage of men after the war. Millions were killed in the war and in communist countries more millions of men were killed
after the war. Many soldiers returned from the war disabled and disillusioned. There was a great shortage of marriageable men so women felt lucky to find and marry any man because women found it hard to feed the orphaned children and old people on their own. Men were appreciated. Europe was starving after the war; actually the world was starving, says Joe.
I read that in the past Muslim men were compeled to marry many women because there was a shortage of men since many men were killed during the wars. The women had to be taken care of, smiles Emma..
We have the opposite in Australia. There are about ten non English speaking migrant men to one migrant woman. Good Australian girls would not be seen with a boy who cannot speak English unless that boy becomes rich. That gives migrants an incentive to get rich quick, says Joe.
Money means everything in Lightning Ridge, agrees Emma.
Most non English speaking migrants suffered some condescension at least at the beginning; they were 'New Australians'; outsiders to the land, people, politics and culture. They needed to establish themselves fast.
Lightning Ridge really is a men's town, says Emma
Most women work in service industry to provide money for mining and essentials. European women were the first working women in Australia, says Joe.
A few migrant boys live with Aboriginal girls in the camps scattered over the fields. Emma meets the first Aboriginal couple June and Roy. June tells her that both her grandfathers came from Scotland on the same boat. They were pastoralists
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who had children with Aboriginal women. They also had their white families in the city.
My Scottish ancestors were never a part of our lives, says June. They didn't want to know about me and I don't worry about them. They made Aboriginal girls drunk to have sex with them but they did not want to know them in the daylight. Aborigines accepted all of us half castes and they still do. Everything changed though when non English speaking Europeans came, says June. Europeans took Aboriginal women for their wives and made families with them. They improved the life for Aborigines. We like Balts, says June. Emma realises that for many Australians Baltic states sound the same as Balkan states. European geography is as far away for them as Australian used to be for Emma.
Miners meet in the pub and tell stories about the opal they found and about the plans they have for the future. Some dream of going home to bring with them the girl that is waiting for them in their village. They only need one good load, just one patch of red on black.
On Sunday Emma takes her children to church. No religion can adequately explain to her the enormity of life and universe but she goes to church out of loyalty to her parents and because she needs to be a good person. The silence of the church brings her closer to the core of herself which she calls soul. Believers are lucky people because their beliefs make them feel secure and at peace. Belief opens your soul to the divine the way sex opens your body into the intimacy with the loved person. Emma needs to be close to somebody.
There are about twenty farmers and shop keepers but no opal miners in a small wooden church. Cut off from their familiar grounds, miners got used to living in sin. Hotel is their place of
worship. There the priest, the policeman, the doctor, the teacher, the drover, the artists and poets, the academics and the illiterate talk about opal and mining. Emma figures that the secret of Lightning Ridge harmony lies in the fact that nobody is quite certain which nationality, race, culture or religion is dominant, or who holds the majority, or power or popularity. The only colour miners are interested in is the colour of opal; the only race they are interested in is the race to find the illusive rainbow colour on black silica. Everybody has an equal chance to get rich. Everybody especially has an equal chance to become equal. Most Europeans arrived to Lightning Ridge in the sixties and seventies. They came to be free to do what they like when they like, without the boss making them feel less because their English is not good. With hard work and a bit of luck they hope to become who they intended to be. When a new field is discovered the message spreads and opal fever rises. People from any remote corner of the world may know about the new rich area before the miner's neighbour.
Miners are ingenious inventors of machinery and dwellings and community. They are mixing bits of themselves with bits of others; they mix bits they brought from their country with bits that were here before.
Jane, a Polish lady of Jewish descent visits her friend Slavka who is a Slovenian Catholic. Jane brings a Serbian paper for Slavka to translate her horoscope into English because Jane wants to know what her former Italian boyfriend is doing with his new Filipino wife. Neither Jane nor Slavka speak much English but they find a way to share this vital information.
After White Australia policy was removed many aged Europeans go to Fillipines to pick a young girl for a wife. These girls provide an opportunity for the old men to have a
family. The girls are Catholic and well educated so they quickly assimilate.
Miners learned the rules of conduct in the place of their birth but they also saw successful and powerful of the world break all the rules and still remain popular.
Greed will win hands down every time, says wise old Bill who was Vili until he assimilated. In mining you can't trust your friend or your brother. When two men are after the same thing both will want a bigger piece. Maybe kill for it.
Most migrants carry a hope to recreate in Australia a country much like a homeland they blossomed in.
I brought a model of a mosque with me to remind me why I am here, says Sheref.
Others brought national robes and grape cuttings and seeds and recipes and memories of rituals and celebrations that make life meaningful.
Home is where the heart is, says Amigo. There are no borders for the melody played on the invisible heartstrings.
For the beginning of the third millennium we dig into the history and culture of our ancestors to offer Australia all we are, says Ursula at the Harmony day gathering. We always knew that the suitcase or the rucksack we brought was light compared to the wealth within us. Places we came from, things we have seen, and people we have met uniquely shaped us. Together we celebrate multicultural Australia and the centenary of Australian federation Ursula concluded.
I came in the early sixties when the town had two teachers, one policeman, a visiting priest and a bush nurse, tells Charlie
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who used to be Drago back in Croatia. One policeman administered mining, traffic and law and order. If he said to a miner I don't want to see you here tomorrow the miner had to pack up and go. We had no ratters no thieving and no disorder. We had no social security or unemployment benefit. You couldn't say that you were looking for employment if you chose to live in Lightning Ridge. There was only opal.
Now we have more people in the offices than down the shaft mining. Bureaucracy is producing corruption; those in the know have the power to use the poor miner any way they like, says Bill. The pen pushers became the lucky people on the opal fields. They are the first to know where opal was found and they exploit this knowledge. Mining became too expensive for an ordinary bloke so majority of Lightning Ridge people are on some kind of social security. Office workers are out looking for the needs in the community. The more people look for needs more needs appear. The more social security offers the more scared and insecure we feel. Our names became a part of the invisible computer statistics. We are fish in the net.
You wouldn't want to live without all this services, says Emma.
Now we have all these government agencies taking care of people, says Bill, but people stopped caring. In the olden days we knew that we had to rely on each other so we were good to each other. Now miners don't even care to get to know each other.
I came to Lightning Ridge in 1963 as a child with my parents, tells Barbara. Mum suffered from rheumatism and she heard about the therapeutic artesian hot springs that just opened. Most Europeans swear by the healing power of the local bore
bath. I remember a man sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet dangling in the water. The tourists asked him about mining and where he came from and if he found opal. The man smiled and pointed at himself saying: Bonegilla. I don't know if Bonegilla was his name or nationality or a place he came from.
I remember Bonegilla. It is a migrant camp near Albury, says Sally. Most of us migrants in the fifties and sixties came to Bonegilla to be sorted out and sent where work and accommodation was arranged for us. We were all reborn in Bonegilla. We carry the name Bonegilla written on our hearts and that was probably the only identification with Australia the man had. The man probably heard of opal on his arrival to Australia.
Bonegilla is the place where we slept that first night in Australia, where we first smelled the dripping and crunched the corn flakes, adds Slavka. Bonegilla was our introduction to mutton and gravy and boiled veggies and flies and foreigners and heat. I will never forget the flies. Nobody in Bonegilla spoke English except officials who decided where we will live and work. Over 300 000 migrants passed through Bonegilla between 1947 and 1971.
I remember the tiny corrugated tin rooms and the noises wind made. I loved Bonegilla. I experienced an enormous surge of optimism and hope. We left behind the terror and the anxiety, the relations and the regimes, we were free, says Sally. While I rejoiced and dreamed of our beautiful future my husband moaned about soggy vegetable floating in lukewarm water, greasy mutton, grey gravy, strange smelling custard, spongy bread, overcooked eggs, burnt toast, and lumpy porridge.
I can still see the poor Bonegilla man sitting on the edge of the bore bath there, remembers Barbara.
Now thousands come for a swim in the hot bore bath during glorious sunny winters and you can hear them chatting in many languages, says Emma.
The holly passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Mark Twain
Friends
Lighting Ridge is famous for being friendly, says a tourist at the bore bath.
Everybody knows everybody and everything is everybody's business, laughs a local miner.
A bunch of complete strangers and all of them intimate friends on first name terms, says a woman.
People don't even worry about first names let alone the surname or marital status, says the miner. They call you by a nickname or the version of your name that they can pronounce.
The town is warm and homely, says Emma.
Friendship is like wetting your pants. Everybody knows about it but only you can feel the warmth of it, says a tourist.
Emma enjoys the easy going friendliness. People know her as a happily married mother of two bright obedient polite children. She is a respected and well loved health worker at the local clinic. Emma's husband Paul is a successful businessman devoted to his family. They go everywhere together and there has never been a hint of discord in the family.
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It is hard to change an identity after years of deceit. Is it really a deceit, wonders Emma. Sometimes she longs for someone with whom she could laugh away all the imperfections and weaknesses of her life.
Listening as her new friends tell Emma about the traumas of their lives makes the events of her life seem less important and her pain less painful. A woman came to see Emma with some skin problems. She said that she is the happiest person on the planet. Why, asked Emma. I was in Sydney and my doctor told me that I am a compatible donor for my son. This woman has an only child whose kidneys failed and she can save his life by donating her kidney to him. She is overflowing with joy. Her husband is bedridden and she has many health problems herself but she is the happiest person in the world. Emma would not dare to compare herself with this woman's courage.
She remembers her mother's telling about the proportionate crosses people carry. Paul might sometimes be difficult to please but Emma's cross is nothing compared to the crosses other people carry. She tries to make other people's burdens lighter and doing that makes her feel good. A gift to another is really a gift to yourself, her mother used to say.
These people are giving Emma a chance to like herself better. She cannot change her past but can build on it. Would telling people about her past make any difference? Maybe they, her new friends, are not telling real stories either; maybe they also adopted and adapted their roles to suit the company they are with. Would anyone really dare reveal their innermost soul? The memory itself is selective.
Emma once listened to her son Simon talking on the phone to his friend about the party they both attended. He did not know that she was listening and she never told him that she did. The
new ways of partying scared her. The language with which they described their teenage attempts at courting; their pretend sophistication, their lack of finesse; the hedonistic pleasures of flesh and drugs without gentleness or concern for others. They bragged about the number of shots of alcohol they drank before they had enough courage to let go of their inhibitions. Maybe it was just boys' bravado talking. Maybe they were afraid to show the real tender human emotions. Maybe they were afraid to sound vulnerable so they puffed themselves up as invincible. Does everybody live a pretend life to safeguard himself? Maybe they are scared to tell it as is it; maybe they are afraid that nobody would listen.
There are as many stories as there are people in Lightning Ridge. Survival, family and homeland are equally important and dear to all, realises Emma.
Paul's friends soon become Emma's friends; all of them work with opals so they have a lot in common. Emma sometimes asks them about the life they had before they came to Lightning Ridge and most are only too eager to reminisce about olden times. When men talk with each other they joke and boast about their successes or failures but it seems to Emma that they also need someone to listen to them talk about things other than mining. Emma is amazed by their varied reasons to be in Lightning Ridge. Listening to them she feels so much better; so much better off as well. Her cross is growing smaller compared to the crosses of her new friends.
Emma is fascinated by the ease with which people tell about their misfortunes and their love tragedies. In a town of strangers they have no reason to hide who they are. They also have no reason not to trust their only health worker with all they are.
Norwegian migrant Terje is Emma's first patient. A handsome man tripped and fell into the shallow shaft; Emma mends his cuts and bruises while he tells her a bit about himself.
We had to travel twenty hours on the boat to the nearest small town Kjollefjord on the island if we wanted to see a doctor, says Terje. Mum collected herbs as medicine which she used as teas or poultices for wounds and sprains.
What is it like in Norway, Emma encourages Terje to tell his story as she bandages his wounds.
I was born in the most Northern part of Norway facing the Norwegian Sea. There are mountains and rivers all around. The nearest house was seven kilometres away. We had a good life. We had 13 sheep, a cow and a horse so we had enough meat. We stored hay for winter fodder. We produced wool from our sheep and our woollen clothes were weaved and knitted at home.
People in our parts had herds of reindeer or sheep. The whole family moved around from winter to summer pastures with dogs rounding the stock. Reindeers provide meat but they also do work and people tame them so they can ride them. Wolverine, an ugly, bloodthirsty animal sometimes killed the reindeer and sheep. Brown bear is also a meat eater and attacks animals and people. Men used to carry a spear to defend themselves; they placed it in front of them for the bear to fall on if he attacked. Bears also eat small animals like foxes and hares.
Children picked cloudberries, sweet, juicy yellow berries growing wild everywhere; we ate them and made jam. We also had blackberries and blueberries.
From the age of seven until thirteen they took us from remote places twice a year for six weeks into a boarding school. The church of Norway was next to the school and we had to attend mass on Sundays. My parents were too far away from the church to attend but later they sometimes listened to the mass on the radio. On feast days like Christmas we had big celebrations with lots of cake and homemade butter; we usually ate margarine made from whale oil. Parents bought bags of wheat which we had to carry 18km home. Out of wheat bags mum made our shirts. For meat we had sheep and fish. In the morning mum would prepare a pan and call out to me to get a salmon out of the river nearby so we had it for breakfast. There was never any alcohol in the house and there were no hotels or restaurants.
At the age of thirteen I got a job trawling with a neighbour to catch salt water cod. Our family only had a rowing river boat. We lived next to the river that had lots of salmon. We dry salted it first and then washed and dried it and smoked it with juniper leaves. Some we just dried free style during the winter. There are no flies but mosquitoes are bad when it gets warmer because we have much water everywhere.
During spring we prepared birch tree wood to dry over summer for winter cooking and warmth. We had a piece of wood like yoke over the shoulders to hang a drum on each side for carrying water from the river.
Children had to learn how to survive as soon as they learned to walk. When caught in the snowstorm we had to dig a trench and lay in it so the storm would blow over it. Every child had to know how to build an igloo and find a shelter in the rocks. Once skiing 15 km towards home from school I lay down and fell asleep in the middle of the way. My sister found me half
frozen and I was very angry because she woke me up when I felt so warm. Being warm was a sign that I was close to death.
On one occasion two friends were covered by an avalanche. The next day we went looking for them. One was still alive and I rubbed him with the woollen cloth for hours but he remained paralysed. The other man was frozen dead.
Winters are long, cold and dark in Norway. We have no sunlight from October until February. There is only a bright moonlight and sometime we see Northern lights which are very colourful. There is also some light from the reflection of the snow. We used kerosene lamps for light. We had lots of winter fun like skiing and skating.
I married in Norway and have a daughter Britt who is a teacher.
Terje shows Emma the photos he took while on holidays in Norway. He probably has nobody else that would want to look at his beautiful smiling blond grandchildren. Emma believes that he is grateful to her for listening and looking.
My marriage did not work out, he continues. My brothers and I moved around a lot looking for work. I mostly worked on the ships. I was a deckhand on a Swedish cargo ship that came to Australia in 1964. I liked the warm climate here so I signed at the immigration office and stayed in Australia. I met a Swedish bloke in Sydney and he brought me to Lightning Ridge.
Emma is amazed at diversity of her patients' experiences.
Coffee time, calls Dragica over the fence. Emma likes her friendly neighbours Drago and Dragica despite of them being
Serbs. While Yugoslavia is disintegrating everybody is readjusting their loyalties and identities.
Emma tells them about Terje. We look much the same but what we remember is quite different, she says.
We would all be friends if American Jews would let us, says Drago pouring little glasses of slivovic while Dragica prepares aromatic Turkish coffee in dainty cups.
What is new, smiles Dragica. She would like to forget the war and would enjoy some local gossip.
Jews want to destroy Christianity, says Drago. Clinton and the Jews, he corrects himself.
What do you mean, Emma plays ignorance. Nobody can really ignore the war raging in former Yugoslavia since all the newspapers and television is about it; everybody blames Serbs for the atrocities and praises Clinton for helping poor Bosnians and Croatians. Emma remembers how frightened, sad and appalled Slovenians were when they had to fight for independence. Slovenian war was short but it invigorated Slovenian patriotism and it united Slovenians. United against the common enemy-Serbs. There was jubilation and heroism but there was no real hatred. Southern republics are different; they have old scores to settle. Unforgivable past surfaced.
Everybody is against Serbia, accuses Drago.
We used to be friends but now even at the Bore Bath nobody talks to each other anymore, says Dragica.
The families split. Croatians married to Serbs are splitting up, agrees Drago.
The horror of Serb genocide in Srebernica seeped into people's consciousness. Everybody is appalled by Serb treatment of Kosovars and Bosnian Muslims. It does not seem the right time for Emma to mention the fact that a few recent Serb arrivals to Lightning Ridge became known ratters. They steal from other miner's claims at night. They changed the fundamental moral values of Lightning Ridge. Perhaps the loss of reputation and respect made it easier for some Serbs to steal from strangers who hated and despised them anyway. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Without family and friends they feel at liberty to act selfishly and criminally while wearing a mask of anonymity. Emma knows that now is not the time to mention that Lightning Ridge was an honest if not God fearing place until Serb ratters arrived.
I don't think that people hate Serbs, says Emma. Some may not agree with Serb politicians.
Serbs have to defend themselves against Muslim terrorists, says Drago.
People are gradually realising that, concedes Emma. She noticed that Muslims are fast becoming a common enemy. Kosovo refugees who came to Australia are condemned by Australians for behaving badly in their host country. They were accused of being dirty, lazy and aggressive; they destroyed the homes Australian government provided and they refused to return when Kosovo war ended.
Maybe Serbs aren't all bad. They even offered all Yugoslavs to become Serbs with one god, one nationhood, one curriculum and Serb leadership. It seems natural that Serbs united in defence of their nation and against the world that hates them.
Serbs dream about Greater Serbia, accused a Croatian at the bore bath.
Who could condemn anybody for wanting to have a greater homeland? Serbs only emulate Great Britain in wanting to rule the world. Maybe they also emulate Hitler and Stalin. Didn't Napoleon and Ottoman want to unite Europe under their rule? Wasn't Alexander called The Great because he conquered the Mediterranean? Leaders want more followers. Slovenians never had such ambitions, of course; they were always busy defending their borders. Slovenia is too small to inspire hate or fear but all bigger neighbours find Slovenia desirable and would like to have it; at any opportunity they chip away at its borders.
Yugoslavs forget that they are really Serbs speaking a regional dialect. There are only two nationalities in Yugoslavia: Serbia and Slovenia, says Drago.
Drago, in Emma's presence at least, and without any outsiders present, accords Emma an equal status and right to be a different nation since he understands all the rest and they have always been proper Serbs anyway, but he still struggles to understand Slovenians when they insist on speaking their dialect which is very rarely. Emma knows that Serbs hardly ever have the opportunity to hear Slovenian language because Slovenians speak Serbo-Croatian as soon as one South Slav comes in the mix. On their arrival to Australia they were all known as Yugoslavs and most were happy to speak common Serbo-Croatian language; now some use English to communicate with each other but it still feels friendlier and easier to speak the official Yugoslav language they were compelled to learn at home. It brings them closer. It has a flavour of home. It is warm like friendship. A nostalgic reminder of brotherhood.
I wonder why Tito created a Muslim nation in Yugoslavia, Emma brings this morsel of dispute into dialogue. She wants to test Drago's prejudices.
Which Tito? Jews killed Tito and replaced him with the Jew Tito from England.
I heard that Russians replaced the real Tito with their Tito, adds Emma. She heard many varieties of Tito's origins.
Russian Jews trained a man in England to become Tito and towards the end of the war they installed him to keep Yugoslavs under control, explains Drago.
But why would this Jewish Tito give Bosnian Muslims a separate nationhood?
Jews want to manipulate the Balkan. They are not real Jews but Asian Ashkenazi from Khazaria who have been converted to Judaism during 8th century, says Drago. Like some Serbs were later converted by force into Islam during Turkish rule.
Turks ruled Serbia for centuries, admits Emma.
Muslims have always been the enemy of Serbs, says Drago.
But why make a religion the basis for nationhood. Especially in a communist Yugoslavia? If there is a Muslim nation it follows that there should be Catholic and Orthodox nations.
Multinationals need a war in the Balkan again so they created it, insists Drago.
Perhaps they need to sell arms somewhere, agrees Emma. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, she smiles to herself.
Serbs are the only real friends Slovenians have, declares Drago. Serbs liberated Slovenians from Austrians.
Not all Slovenians wanted to be liberated, Emma cannot resist reminding Drago. Many Slovenians got used to Germans; the devil you know and all that. All our neighbours are always keen to liberate Slovenia and take it under their wing.
Germans germanised Slovenians like Turks Islamised some Serbs, says Drago a little annoyed with this part of history.
Stop talking politics, Dragica turns to her husband.
What else is there, says Drago.
Talk about nice things, Dragica pleads.
You mean we should talk about clothes and make-up and diets.
Better then arguing about things you cannot change.
We all know who our enemy is, says Drago. It is an old enemy and it is threatening to invade not only Europe but the world. People will soon understand why Serbs want to get rid of Muslims. Everybody is scared of Muslim plague.
We should go on crusades to kill the infidels and witches and fornicators, Emma tries to bring a bit of humour into the conversation.
You can laugh about it now but it won't be long before you will have to cover with a black burqa and submit to sharia law. We have to be vigilant like our European ancestors who carried the cross against the Muslim plague a thousand years ago. We simply stopped being vigilant. You stop spraying the
pests and they come from the woodwork and multiply, says Drago.
Some say that only rats and cockroaches will survive a holocaust but maybe a common enemy will as well, agrees Emma.
We can't close our eyes to the obvious, says Drago. No wonder Hitler...We need another Hitler ... Drago stops himself there.
They sip slivovic and Dragica is ready to read their future in their coffee cups
Jews have their grubby finger in all the pies. They are directors of everything. Look at how Jews treat poor Palestinians in their own country. Everybody hates Jews, says Drago.
Emma wonders if the mention of Hitler gave Drago ideas. This is not the time to mention that Arabs ordered Palestinians to leave Palestine and save themselves while Arabs planned to annihilate Israel. It is not the right time to mention Srebrenica while Emma is drinking Serbian slivovic and Turkish coffee.
Middle East and Balkan will always be trouble spots, concludes Drago after a meditating silence. As long as there is Bosnia there will be war.
Bosnia is a mini Yugoslavia, says Pero. Nobody noticed Pero coming and listening leaning on the door. Bosnia is a powder keg with the same mixture of nations and religions. Pa mirna Bosna, he laughs. Peaceful Bosnia-what a joke. Bosnia will never be peaceful.
Why? Asks Emma and Pero is only too willing to do the promotional speech on Serbian history of Bosnia.
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Serbs are the original inhabitants of Europe; they are identified in Krishna's writings as Sorbi, which means countrymen. Many historians say that we are the descendants of Wends.
I believe that some Slovenians claim the same for Slovenians, remembers Emma. They call Slovenian ancestors Veneti.
Of course they do; we used to be one nation, Pero agrees enthusiastically. We were the original inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula before Huns, Romans, Iliri, Slavs and others came from Carpati mountains. We lived together peacefully.
Until Germans and Rome took over, helps Drago.
And Turks, adds Emma.
Serbs still belong to original Serb orthodox religion and we keep our Julian calendar which brings Christmas thirteen days later than your Gregorian or Catholic calendar, explains Pero.
That's what I was saying, helps Drago. Balkan Slavs intermarried and lived in harmony until the Second World War created conflicts and hatred.
Pavelic organised the Croatian Nazi party Ustasha which made a pact with Hitler. Germans granted Croatia independence and in return Ustashi killed Serbs and Jews for Germans. Croatians were also given Serbian land as a reward for their cooperation with Hitler, explains Pero
Mihajlovic organised Cetnics, the only legitimate Yugoslav army to fight Hitler, adds Drago.
The communist star first appeared in 1942 and that is when Serbs had to choose to go either with communists under Tito or with Cetnics. The families were split and forced to fight on
the opposite sides. People did not know who to trust. They were terrified. Partisans provoked Germans by sabotage and by killing a few Germans. Germans retaliated and killed thousands of Serb civilians. Communists did not care about Serb nation; they only wanted people to join the red army and secure their power after the war, says Pero.
Serbs were split into many groups but they mostly killed each other, says Drago.
Much like Slovenians, says Emma.
Partisans took my grandfather's oxen, continues Pero. They promised that they would return them if his son, my father, joined partisans. That's why my father became a partisan for a year. When he saw that partisans killed Cetniks, their own people, he joined Mihajlovic. My father refused to kill other Serbs.
Allies helped Tito in the end, explains Drago.
From my early childhood I remember the fear and the whispering of older people, Pero continues his story. They did not even notice me but I remember their words. They wondered who was behind their troubles; who caused their poverty and suffering. I would hide behind doors and listen to every word they said. I tried to find the meaning for the words I never heard before. I sensed that what people were saying secretly to their relations and friends was more important than what was spoken about openly. Our elders talked about the world powers manipulating the Balkan nations to hate each other.
I began looking for answers. Who is hiding behind the events that make people kill each other? Why are some people rich
beyond imagination while others suffer in poverty? Why some people have all the power and others are powerless. Why does the west consider our people less intelligent and important? Why do they insist on making decisions on our behalf? I became interested in politics and philosophy and sociology. I wanted to help make a better society.
We were taught to obey orders without questioning, says Drago.
We were known as a Cetnik family so we were to be especially careful in Tito's Yugoslavia, says Pero. I wanted to find out who Tito was and who made him Tito. My grandfather listened to Tito's speech on the radio and concluded that Tito was a Polish Jew. He doesn't speak Serb or Croatian language, said my grandfather.
I was about eight when I ran home to tell mum that I was chosen to participate in a nationwide relay stafeta for Tito's birthday. I was so proud to be one of the five children chosen from our school. Mum didn't share my enthusiasm. So they got you, she muttered. Is that what I deserve, said my uncle. Gradually I came to the conclusion that there must be an international interest in keeping the Balkan nations fighting.
When Tito died he left a legacy that for the next thirty years Yugoslav nations have to rotate the presidency so every three years a different nation led Yugoslavia. Tito did not want his personality cult to be diminished by another permanent leader, adds Drago.
Emma realises that Pero and Drago must have exchanged their views so many times that they spoke the same story.
When Serb leader Milosevic emerged, he wanted to keep Yugoslavia together. He retaliated against Muslim Kosovo separatists. He wanted to protect Serbs living and working in Kosovo. Milosevic was a Serb patriot who did not follow the directions of the New World Order so America bombed Serbia. Milosevic was defending Serbs from Muslim terrorists.
Why would America defend Muslims? Asks Emma.
Americans will get their lesson. They have yet to learn who Muslims are, Drago stops there.
Sex starved young Muslims believe that there are seventy two virgins waiting for them in the paradise if they martyr themselves by suicide killing infidels, says Pero.
I don't think that a grown up educated Muslim really believes that, says Emma.
Did you ever hear of an older or educated Muslim leader suiciding? Says Drago.
They indoctrinate young boys to do it, says Pero. Blacksmith using pliers for hot irons.
But Qur'an is about peace, says Emma. We all believe in one god.
Listen to this story about infidels, says Pero taking a piece of crumpled paper out of his pocket.
Imam gave a presentation of the basics of Islam. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers. A Christian asked: Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and,
that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims)
they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you
give me the definition of an infidel?'
There was no disagreement with my statements and, without
hesitation, Imam replied, 'Non-believers!'
The Christian responded, 'So, let me make sure I have this
straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill
everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in
heaven. Is that correct?'
The expression on Imam's face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.' He sheepishly replied, 'Yes.' The Christian then stated, 'Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine The Pope commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith in order to guarantee them a place in heaven! I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me! Let me ask you a question: Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?'
This story could, of course, be changed to fit any belief, laughs Emma.
Muslims are winning because they are made to believe, says Drago.
The world is manipulated by an invisible group of people, says Pero.
Balkan and Middle East can always be counted on to fall for their manipulations, says Drago.
Who is behind the American politicians? Who is in charge of the New World Order? I think we became too lazy and don't ask questions. We just follow. The world financiers called Illuminati dictate the world politicians. I believe that Illuminati promoted and led all the world wars, says Pero.
If they need a war they create it, agrees Drago. CIA is behind every government, says Drago.
I think that most leaders want to create a better world, says Emma.
CIA is led by Zionists. The global economy is in Jewish hands; they have control of the media and of the industry. They plan to destroy all existing political and religious authorities so they will rule supreme from Jerusalem, says Pero.
They promise to replace old values, attitudes and institutions with new ones based on honesty and effort; they promise to make all people prosperous and happy, Drago adds.
That sounds sensible to me, says Emma. I would like to be led by someone smart.
They want to destroy the society as we know it, says Pero.
They want to create a better society. Isn't that what all leaders promise? Says Emma.
Illuminati want people to become confused and scared of confusion so they will look to them for guidelines. They discredited politicians, religious leaders, teachers and other respected leaders of the society, says Drago. They have to discredit them before they destroy them.
If one priest misbehaves the whole religion becomes condemned: for one bad teacher the whole teaching profession is made responsible. This is how Illuminati plan to destroy the existing authority? Every day they make new laws and rules. People no longer decide for themselves, Pero becomes agitated. Drago and Pero seem to end each other's thoughts.
The international convention on the rights of children says that children should not be indoctrinated by their parents. I cannot understand why we let international elite dictate how we bring up our young, says Drago.
Who are these faceless men to dictate the parents what to teach their children? I provide food for my children, I love my children and I will decide what I will teach them, Says Pero.
Illuminati want to rule the world, says Drago.
I never heard of Illuminati, says Emma.
Illuminati are the descendants of Pharisees who were trading in the temple. They are law-makers and money-makers from the times before Christianity. They want to destroy Christianity. They are in charge of world finances and in the New World Order money is God, says Drago.
Illuminati are Jews, explains Pero.
I can't understand why some people hate Jews, says Emma.
Everybody hates Jews, says Drago.
I don't, says Emma. I have no idea why I should. Actually I noticed that Australians have no issues with Jews either. They rather admire them. Could it be that we are jealous of their success?
Australians don't know the history; they are ignorant, says Pero.
Maybe it is good that we are a young country without historic arguments. I actually hope that there are some independent enlightened people who take care of world's events. I admire Jews for their intelligence, says Emma.
Jews stick together and promote each other. They are in charge of everything. Media and banks and politics are in the hands of the Jews, Drago explains.
Wouldn't you like Serbs to stick together, help each other and be in charge of everything? Emma becomes animated.
They claim to be a chosen race, laughs Drago.
Don't we all, smiles Emma.
Drago and Pero look at Emma astonished. Is she or isn't she herself a Jew. Who is really hiding behind her benign smile?
Wouldn't you like Serbs to promote each other and help each other? I certainly would like Slovenians to be a bit more like Jews, says Emma.
Serbs never agree on anything, says Dragica. They kill each other.
Same goes for Slovenians, smiles Emma.
Freemasons provoke and promote wars between nations and religions; they promote hatred and division within nations; they create problems so they can solve them according to their world plan, argues Pero.
They want the whole world under one umbrella, says Drago.
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All politicians always wanted to rule the world, smiles Emma. I hope they have a good plan. We need someone in charge.
She enjoys these new political ideas. She believes that men like the opportunity to educate her. Does an absolute truth exist? She remembers a story about six blind men describing the elephant. Elephant is like a tree, explained the first man who held elephant's leg. Each blind man described the elephant by the part of the elephant that he touched. People simply see things from their own experience. They live by different set of rules; they believe differently.
Emma was nursing Ivy an old Aboriginal granny who told her: I just point a bone at people who offend me. They die, they die every time, she said with conviction.
I came here to visit my Australian relations, says Pero. I like Australia. Life is much easier here than in Serbia especially at present. But my soul is not in Australia; my friends are not here; social events do not exist for me here; there are no traditions, no festivities that would warm my heart. Economically we are well off but spiritually I feel dead. At home people sing and dance, they walk on the street to meet with friends and relations. They make each other feel alive. In Australian cities migrants look for people from the same country but in small towns a migrant stands on the edge of life. Lightning Ridge was attractive to me specially because there are so many migrants. Over one hundred Serb men and about twenty Serb women live in Lightning Ridge. I like the Bore Bath. Most Serbs like to soak in the hot water. Someone once wrote on the nearby telephone pole: Tito's Yugoslavs. The sign was supposed to denigrate all Yugoslavs. The person who wrote that didn't realise that we escaped from Tito's Yugoslavia and because of Tito. Western nations always think of Serbs as communists. Our people were afraid to say how
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they hated communism. And Tito. I enjoy being with my country people but because of it I never learned English.
Emma is fascinated with the views of her friends.
Bosnian couple Mira and Ante often invite Paul and Emma to their little celebrations. Mira can make a strudel-pita out of almost anything. Emma loves her meat strudel called burek; she appreciates their hospitability and their storytelling but Paul becomes impatient with their myths and tales of wars and witchcraft.
Mira and Ante fiercely hate Serbs.
You have to be careful with Serbs; they carry knives, says Mira. In Bosnia we lived among Serbs and Muslims and you had to be careful all the time. Cetniks killed my father for a few dinars as he carried a bag of wheat to the mill. I was five but I remember how they knifed him.
Cetniks killed anyone they suspected of being Croat nationalist, says Ante. Life was always dangerous in Bosnia. Muslims killed with witchcraft and Cetniks with knives, explains Mira.
I like your embroidery, says Emma looking at the table cloth.
Reminds me of what happened after the war in my little village near Jajce, Ante begins the story with utmost reverence. Emma noticed long ago that most of their amazing stories began in their village. Ante and Mira tell and corroborate the accuracy of their tales of events from their village. Both knew a dead man buried for a week who returned playing accordion on the way home; both knew a woman who killed nine husbands before they found out that she hammered a nail in their heads. The judge ordered that she could never
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marry again. There were stories about the ware-wolfs and the shepherd who slept with a bear and had children half bears half humans. There were apparitions of Holy Virgin and Devil etc.
It happened after the war. Three women went to church and they saw a lovely tablecloth covering the altar, begins Ante. There was nowhere they could buy themselves scarfs so the women decided to steal this cloth and make three scarfs from it. They trimmed away identifiable embroidery and chucked it in the toilet. Two of the women died soon after. God punished one of the dead women by sending her into the burning fire of hell but there was no room yet for the second woman so God sent her back to warn people by telling them what happens to people who commit sacrilege by throwing bits of blessed cloth in the toilet. She said that she had to go back to hell now but there is no room in hell at the moment for the third woman so she will be taken alive by the devil.
We all knew this third woman Janja, adds Mira.
She took a box of matches and said to her husband: You through the door and I through the window and she disappeared, continues Ante. She wondered into the bush and caused lots of trouble to the whole valley. She lit many fires and caused storms and hail. She only had to touch a cow's udder and that cow never produced milk again. If she cast a spell on your child it would die or become a cripple; if she walked through your field the produce would wither away.
I saw police hunting Janja; they shot at her but she just disappeared and appeared in some other place, tells Mira.
There are lots of people in my village who have a devil in them, says Ante. On the hill near us is a pilgrimage church of
St John the Baptiser. On 24th of June every year the priest holds a mass there for the healing of the sick and for those possessed by the devil. Hundreds of people come. The tall cross on the highest hill prevents the devil from interfering in the healing.
The priest has to prepare for the healing by eating only bread dipped in ashes for 40 days; he then concentrates in deep prayer to reach god, explains Mira. Two or three people hold the person with the devil in them because the devil is thrashing and kicking and resisting; he tries to keep away from the cross. The priest tells people to make sure that the possessed does not touch and contaminate anything in the church. The possessed often spits, barks, bites and scratches. As they hold him down the priest speaks to the devil. He holds the cross in front of him and calls out. Get out devil. The devil in the possessed person answers. Where do you want me to go? Will I go into the baker who baked bread on Sunday? No, says the priest. Go straight to hell. The devil then begs: Can I go into the sinners who do not believe in God? No, go straight to hell, yells the priest. After pleading and begging the priest tells the devil to give a sign where he will exit.
We all clearly saw Satan in the eyes of the possessed. I, myself, saw the window brake and the smoke exit when the person collapsed on the floor in sweat unconscious, says Ante.
His friends looked after him until he recovered. He does not remember anything when he wakes up, says Mira who witnessed this with her own two eyes.
There are witches casting a devil on you or on your clothing. Sometimes it is enough to cast an evil eye on a person. Catholics do not cast the devil into you but Muslims have
many ways to make you sick or to die. They can turn into an animal or a plant and trick you, says Mira.
Virgin appeared to me a few times and warned me against the witches, says Ante. When I was seventeen I fell off the bike face first into the mud. As I raised my head I saw the Lady in white who told me: look at those girls coming down the road. That girl in blue dress is going to be your wife. I was seventeen and Mira was fifteen, A year later we were married. I always believed in God and Our Lady.
There was a holy man Jakane in my village, continues Mira. When he died people from all over came to take a bit of the soil from his grave. It healed every sickness.
If they dropped a bit of that soil on their fields all the harmful insects died and the crops were plenty, adds Ante. They had to bring new soil on his grave for years because people kept coming to take some.
Once I had a toothache and nothing helped. I dropped on my knees and prayed to Jakane to help me. Moments later the pain has gone. Yesterday at the bore bath I told a man who had a toothache to try that and he told me today that it worked, says Ante.
It only works when you believe, says Mira.
Lots of healers work on that same principle, says Emma. Everything works if you believe. Faith is a gift.
Necessity is a mother of invention.
Ludvik
Everybody knows Ludvik as Less. Most miners in Lighting Ridge seem to be known by a nickname someone pinned on them. Paul and Ludvik met while they both worked for the Snowy Mountains Electricity Scheme. Most migrants of the sixties and seventies seem to have started on the Snowy project.
Less is a regular visitor and he begins telling Emma his story as a sort of introduction. Placing the events of your life bit by bit into the hands of another person seems like painting a picture layer by layer adding details. Less is the reason Paul chose to live in Lightning Ridge.
I came from Slovenia as a teenager in 1956, begins Less. My father had a workshop making furniture. He employed 38 men. During the WWII he joined partisans. After the war communists nationalised his workshop so he turned against communism. Mum was always religious but dad turned to Catholic Church only because he was disappointed with communism.
I left school to become dad's carpenter apprentice. Dad was very strict. When I was seventeen I made a mistake and cut a door a bit short. Dad hit me with a plank. I told him that he hit me for the last time. My cousin worked in Austria. I went with her to her home near the Slovenian-Austrian border. From there we could see the border guards playing soccer so we crossed to Austria unnoticed. We went to my uncle in Graz.
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He told me to go back home but my cousin and I hitch hiked to Salzburg. She went to work there and I reported myself to the authorities. They interrogated me and then put me into the refugee camp. Austrian farmers and builders came to the camp to look for workers and I went to work in the quarry. The owner of the quarry did not have any children and he wanted to adopt me. I decided to stay in Salzburg. At the time I met a friend who wanted me to go with him to Canada. I registered to go to Canada but I needed a guarantee of a job there. It was easier to get to Australia or Africa. We had to sign up for two years work in Australia because they sponsored us and paid our trip. We boarded the ship Toscana just before Christmas 56. It was full of European migrants. Many Hungarians fled the revolution; there were also Italians and Greeks and Yugoslavs. We came to Melbourne and from there to Bonegilla migrant camp. Most Europeans did not like Australian food in the camp but I was not worried about the food because I found a girlfriend there.
After a fortnight I was sent to Melbourne Broadmeadow camp and worked there for 7 months. That was very unhappy time for me. The pay wasn't good and the camp life was lonely. I wanted to go back home. I cried for home. I was desperately homesick. My friend and I worked together and shared a room. We went to the authorities and told them that we wanted to return home. They told us that we must first repay the money for our trip to Australia. We had no money so we had to stay. They gave us a job in a factory making plywood. We worked a lot of overtime and earned much more money.
I met Toni who told us that one can earn better money in Sydney where they were building Waramanga dam. We worked there for 16 months. We cleared trees and burned
them; these were beautiful thick perfect old trees but we just blasted and burned them.
There was a group of Slovenian political migrants who were in a position to find good employment for people. They recruited boys for work on Snowy Mountains Scheme. I went to work on Tumut 2 tunnel close to Cabramurra for 16 months.
As I returned to Sydney I met many Slovenians. Catholic Slovenian priests had a 40 room hostel next to the church. They offered free accommodation to Slovenian migrants who had nowhere else to live. There was a wonderful Slovenian kitchen underneath and a billiard room where we often met. We also had dances on special occasions.
I met Maria who came with her boyfriend. When her boyfriend went to work in Adelaide Maria and I fell in love and moved in together.
I met Steve whom I also knew from Snowy Mountains Scheme. He went to Andamooka and brought some colourful rocks and said that they were worth thousands of pounds. That's how I was introduced to opal. My German friend Ray told me that I don't need to go to Andamooka because there was better opal in Lightning Ridge. We had no transport so we put together 56 pounds and bought an old car. Ray drove but he took the wrong turn and we ended in Nyngan. It was raining, the road was muddy and he hit a tree. I had bad cuts to my face and I lost 3 teeth. A farmer came along and took us to Coonamble. The car was not worth repairing so we left it there and took a taxi to Lightning Ridge.
We believed that Lightning Ridge was a town but there was nothing. The only shop/hotel was shut because it was Sunday and we could not buy anything to eat. Harold Hodges took us
in to camp at his tram motel. Ray found his friend and stayed with him but I stayed with Harold. Fred Reece, an old Aborigine, used to come to do jobs for Herald and he said that he will show me where to find opal. I started mining in New town biscuit bend about four feet deep. I found some small stones and showed them around in the pub. Harold offered me eighty quit for them. That was my first big money.
I returned to Sydney where I met Joe, Ricky and John whom I also knew from working on the Snowy Mountains scheme. Joe had a car so we all went to Lightning Ridge. In the pub there Herby Brown told us about Coocrain opal field where he found good traces. Ivan who was with me on a ship coming to Australia came in with Jim the opal buyer. Joe, Ricky, John and I registered a claim each and began working as a sort of partnership. Joe knew that we depended on him for transport because he had a car so he felt that he could boss us around. He did not want to pull the dirt out. We worked like that for 14 days. John and I pulled the dirt out for each other on the hand windlass. There was a shallow level and we moved fast to make a connection between shafts and get some air. In the meantime Joe and Ricky moved with Mick Bower who found good opal.
I left the nobbies we found on the side of the row for a week.
Emma soon learned that nobby is a piece of silikat; usually roundish piece of glassy stone; preferably black and hopefully it carries a bar of colour.
One day Lester brought us some tobacco and as I rolled a cigarette he hit one large nobby on the shelf I made into the wall. It showed beautiful red on black; over 100 carats of red in rough. We had that nobby in the bucket for a week but we didn't bother to snip it. The nobbies were scattered all around
us. I showed a snipped piece of that nobby to the buyer and he gave me 250 pounds for it. We then collected a bucket of nobbies and left it with the cutter. After he cut the stones he told me that in the future I should always stay with the cutter while he is cutting my stones. He priced the red stone at 3000 pounds but said that I should ask for 5000. Three buyers came from Sydney especially for that 83 carat stone and we sold it for 3800 pounds. The buyer said that we either take a house in Sydney or the money.
I went to Sydney and took two teenage sisters with me because they wanted to visit relations in Sydney. My girlfriend Maria heard about the girls so she left me. She was pregnant with my baby but then she had an abortion and returned to her boyfriend in Adelaide. They got married but she could have no more children. Eventually she divorced her husband. They spent all their savings on divorce. I haven't seen Maria since then. She rang me years ago that she would like to come back to me. I have also been divorced from my wife by that time. Since then Maria and I talk regularly on the phone but I don't want her back. I want to remember her as she was when we were so young and so in love.
While in Sydney I bought a Buick convertible and enjoyed myself with my friends. Andrew and Joe, my friends from Sydney, came to Lightning Ridge for Christmas 67 when the sugar cane cutting season finished. At the time Ivan came from Andamooka and said: What are you doing here? I get 1000 pounds per day in Andamooka.
John and I went to Andamooka and stayed there for 9 months. I spent the money I made in Lightning Ridge and made nothing in Andamooka. We went to Coober Pedy. The roof of the mine collapsed on me there and I was unconscious for three days. They sent me into a home for disabled in Wullara
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for nine months because I was paralysed. Very gradually some feelings returned to my legs and hands and I came back to Lightning Ridge on crutches. Lester took me to his home and his mother looked after me. One day I went on my crutches to three mile field; I left the crutches on top and went down the shaft on a rope with a screwdriver and a candle. I came up with 1500 pounds of opal.
Lester and I worked together. When Lester got married his father in law joined us but he was thieving all the time. If he couldn't steal the stone he would smash it. I told him that Lester will kill him.
A lot of people cheated me but I still always came up on top. As I came back to Lightning Ridge I met Suzy, a very beautiful Aboriginal girl. After our son was born we got married. Suzy's grandfather was one of the first English settlers in Walgett area. He came from Scotland with his brother and they bought the land near Walgett. He had a large Aboriginal family and provided for them well. They are a well respected family.
Suzy's mother never liked white people. Once I brought my children to her to look after and while outside I heard her say: the little white dog is outside. I took the children home and looked after them myself. Suzy's family is a bit like that, bossy and up themselves. They are lighter in colour than most Aborigines and have blue eyes, courtesy of their grandfather, so they feel a bit superior to other Aborigines. I was helping all of them all my life but nobody ever said thank you. I gave them money but they put it through poker machines and came for more. They never learned to say thank you or sorry. They don't like white people but they all take and steal from them. Suzy's father once buried the money I gave him but his son dug it out and put it through the poker machines. Suzy's
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mother was jealous if I made money and did not share with them.
I always looked after Suzy's relations; they still want me to share with them everything I have but they don't know how to manage money. They say that in their culture they share but they really only want to share what I made and not what they have. They stick together like Muslims against outsiders. They are still looking to me for help.
Suzy left me but I still like to help her. She would like to come back but there is no way back for me. I still love her because she gave me three lovely children and we had a good marriage but I don't want her back. I lived with Aborigines all my life. I like them but I never became one of them. They made me feel like an outsider. I am happy that I have three lovely children and eight wonderful grandchildren to leave them everything I own. Despite her family Suzy and I had good times together. We went dancing and socialising. Suzy sometimes came with me to check the tailings but she never came down the shaft to mine with me. She took care of all the bills and administration. Our son Steve took over from her when she left. We are divorced now and she lives in Queensland. Maybe I should have gone with her but I like Lightning Ridge. I still have mining claims and friends here.
Our marriage has really fallen apart when Suzy's sister Barbara took Suzy to Sydney and introduced her to the cult Spiritual Australia. Suzy was going to this 'church' for two years before I found out that this church had nothing to do with God or religion but it had to do only with money and sex. There are no prayers or religious ceremony.
A friend once said to me: If you don't want to pay taxes just get a few people together and organise a religion and you
collect tax-free money from them. The groups of this cult meet all over Gold Coast. I told the police about their trickery but the police said that they know all about them but can't do anything because they are not breaking any laws. People join of their free will. I attended one of their sessions late one night and there were about fifty people. I told them that I am from Lightning Ridge and they told me that they have another very rich lady from the Ridge in the group. That was my Suzy. They turned off all lights and made two circles. The outside circle pushed the inside circle towards the middle in the dark. The candle was lit and we were told to bring the money on the plate.
Suzy told me about her experiences through their group meditation. She said: I flew out of my body and into the beautiful paradise. I can still see it and smell the flowers. I have to put the deposit on that paradise or somebody else will take it.
I also attended one of these meditation meetings. They hypnotised me in the dark room. A man was holding my hand and the woman was massaging my head. I woke up tired and wet from sweat. I was confused, dizzy and changed. For a long time after I had weird dreams about this same naked woman standing over me. After this meditation we were to choose our partners. A woman came to me. I told her that I am married but she told me that it does not matter and I can go with her. They try to destroy marriages like that.
The cult leaders knew that Suzy had a few million dollars after we divorced so they brainwashed her to give the money to them. I told my children what their mother was doing and they said that I was crazy. We went together to visit Suzy. After dinner she told us that she is going to church. I told the children to go with her but they did not want to go. I wanted
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them to see for themselves what it is all about. They asked Suzy but she laughed saying: Less has weird dreams.
Suzy is drinking heavily since we parted. The flagons make her go off. Our son said that mum is going mental. One day she trashed the house and had a fight with a neighbour over a high security fence. Police took her to the mental hospital. She told the psychiatrist that her house was bugged and that people were spying on her. The doctor told her that she has nothing to hide and that nobody wanted to know anything about her. I told Suzy to tell the doctor about the cult and about those criminals that brainwashed her through hypnosis. People became depressed and suicidal after the meditation hypnosis. I found out by myself how they make you crazy. I signed the hospital form saying that Suzy's family will be responsible for her wellbeing and they let her go. Suzy found out that I went to the police and she blamed me for putting her into the mental hospital so I could sign her out and take her home. She came with us and stayed with our daughter for awhile but the pull of the cult was stronger than her family. She left suddenly and joined them again. Our children told their mother that she has to choose between them and the cult so she left the cult but our children were not strong enough to stand up to the cult and up to their mum. Our daughter Melanie was very upset but she could not stop her mum. Suzy told her: Poor Less is dreaming.
I just spoke to Suzy's younger brother Jeff; I was paying for years for his schooling; he is about fifty and with all his education he does not seem to be getting anywhere. He is bludging for money all the time. He puts it through the poker machines. I can't understand how young people who are so smart and educated can't make a go of things. We miners invented all the machinery we needed. We built camps out of nothing. We had no one to turn to, no relations, no
connections, no education, no school friends no social security. We had to survive on our own and that made us strong.
My sons came with me to sell opal in America but they were reluctant to approach buyers. I think the new generation will never do as well as we migrants did. Necessity really is a mother of invention. Young ones don't look for opportunities; they just don't have a go. I don't know if they are plain lazy or just have no ambition. I keep on looking and asking. People can only say no or go away or leave me alone but there is always a chance that once in a while one will say yes and there comes your chance. The young ones just don't use common sense; they have no ideas or initiative. They don't think about the rainy day or old age. They live carelessly and comfortably because they know that the government will provide or that they will inherit from their parents. Maybe we robbed them of the incentive and ambition; we took away the challenge. I lived on challenge. My life improved every day. I was on a perpetual high from the day I was born. How can my children compete with that? I became addicted to success. Now it is hard to slow down and see it all wasted by our children and grandchildren. We conquered all the mountains. We dreamed of the time when we will sit on top, enjoy the view, smell the roses and drink champagne. We sit on top of the mountain now and wonder if it was all worth it. We are also afraid of falling down from the mountain.
Maybe we should have left some hills for our grandchildren. Climbing the mountain was more exciting than comfort and luxury. We were scratching for survival. I am still scratching. We, migrants, had to be twice as good as those born here because we had an accent. We had to pay for acceptance. I suppose we got hooked on getting rich. And on being better.
With nobody to rely on and nobody to interfere we became self reliant. My friend's son said that failing university turned to be his best experience. He had to find a job and a place to live. He was thrown in at the deep end as they say here. Everything you do becomes everything you are. He eventually finished university while he worked. Maybe we should not blame the kids for being relaxed. We made it possible for them to be relaxed. Still I wish they had more of a go. You never know how strong you are until you test your strength. Every time you fail at something you learn something. You also learn to cope. We ran an obstacle race but we jumped higher every time. You learn what you need to know. You learn that it is easier to swim downstream, go with the wind, take risks and learn by mistakes. We are the war babies who really had to use our wits.
My father used to say: Everybody is your competitor.
I was just a boy then and did not understand what that meant. I remember other lessons life taught me. The world is not against you; everybody runs for himself. Look for the shortcuts. Plan strategies. Build reputation, bank on it. Don't lose your cool. Seek free advice; acknowledge other people's input, use expert information; weigh pros and cons, make notes, place yourself in diverse scenarios. Don't cross bridges before you see them. Don't burn your bridges. Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for making mistakes. These lessons helped me when I had nobody else to guide me.
I asked my friend the other day: How are you?
Like a dog without a chain, he said. Lucky you, I said.
Not really, he said.
How is that?
A dog on the chain is fed and loved. But you are free. I can't eat freedom, he said.
My friend never married, says Less, he has no responsibilities but he is not happy. As they say: You can't have your cake and eat it. I know that springs are prettier in Slovenia but winters are much colder.
Emma wonders why Less with all his millions lives alone. She heard of women who want to marry him but he is probably scared that they only want to marry his millions.
I am a man more sinned against than sinning. Sheakspeare
Stanko
There are about ten Slovenian opal miners in Lightning Ridge at any time but there is little love lost between them. They escaped from poverty and unhappy family situations: most have been betrayed somewhere on the way; most believe that they deserve more out of life than they received. All of them hold firmly onto their properties; they believe that what they have is what they made, is what they are. To do is to be; to be is to have; that is their motto. Their property offers them identity.
Emma remembers her father's words: You can only give what was first given to you. To which her mother added: Much is expected from those that were given much.
Not much was offered to these men; what they have is what they worked hard for.
Less and Stanko are two Slovenians of the same stature and age, they travelled the same road but they are as different as chalk and cheese. Less is amazed at all the opportunities he had, he finds something positive in every situation; his face is ready to crack into laughter at any moment. He kisses most women as a greeting in the supermarket in a flirtatious, welcoming, friendly, cuddly way. Less pats everybody's dog. He became a part of a large Aboriginal community. Stanko on the other hand never smiles, he does not recognise a joke and
does not trust anyone. He dies his hair, has a gym installed in his bedroom, orders coffee from an Austrian delicatessen in Sydney, and wears shades of brown and grey. He vaguely associates with Germans since his two wives were German. He is a sad and serious man keeping a distance. He believes that people have dishonest motives for associating with him. His favourite saying is: I am here to suffer. I hate rich people. I always hated rich people. The only thing Less and Stanko have in common is a fierce pride in their possessions. Both are known as shrewd.
Less and Paul met Stanko while working on the Snowy mountains hydroelectric scheme.
Stanko is known as an expert and honest opal cutter; he polished Paul's opals and the two men became as close friends as two men can probably ever be on opal fields. Both are serious, a bit pedantic and disciplined and cautious and suspicious but they came to trust each other.
Everybody is a user, says Stanko. People only talk to you to get something from you.
Emma can hear in his words the longing for genuine friendship. For love without reason. Can anyone love anybody for no reason at all? Attraction happens without reason but love and genuine friendship seem to grow reluctantly and slowly like fragile fragrant flowers that only grow with a lot of care. Stanko says that he has no friends. Maybe he never gave anyone permission to come close enough. Maybe he expects too much of a friend. Maybe he expects more than he is willing to give.
You can take the boys out of Slovenia but you can't take Slovenia out of the boys, says Paul.
That could be said for any nationality, says Emma. We all carry our tribal history.
It doesn't bother Slovenian men when strangers have more luck than they have but it is unforgivable for one of their own to step up and be better off. They are fiercely jealous of each other's success in mining and life in general. They measure themselves against each other.
Stanko told Paul that he cut at least three million dollars worth of opal for Less.
The bastard said that he will pay me commission when he sells the stones. He is not selling because he does not need money, but I do. He found at least five hundred million worth of opal but he is so mean that he owes money to everybody. I have never met anybody as greedy as Less, says Stanko.
Stanko would never do a favour for anybody, says Less. He wants to be paid to say hello to you. I asked for his opinion about cutting a certain stone and Stanko said that I should ask the person who WILL cut it. I am not a teacher to give free lessons and advice, said Stanko. He is so mean that he doesn't even spend money for his own holiday. If he goes overseas he goes on business. He never visits his own family in Slovenia.
Emma wonders how can these men still pretend to be friends? Are they visiting each other because they expect something from each other or because as Slovenians they feel that they owe something to each other? Do they hold some kind of ownership of each other? Is this a sibling rivalry since they have no siblings to compete against?
Have you ever been back home on holidays, Emma asks Stanko.
I have no home. I know that I was born in Slovenia but I have no idea where, says Stanko to Emma.
Have you some family in Slovenia, asks Emma.
This is all I have to remind me of home, Stanko holds up three small black and white photos as they drink coffee.
My mother Elizabeth worked as a domestic servant somewhere and could not take me with her from the hospital where I was born so she put me in an orphanage, tells Stanko. I never knew who my father was. I guess I was too embarrassed to ever ask my mum because she was really a stranger to me as well. I was about twenty when I learned that I had an older brother who was also put in an orphanage before me.
I am often looking at these photos, says Stanko offering Emma the only image he has of his mother. Emma looks at a beautiful tall and slender girl with long curly blond hair.
She looks beautiful, says Emma.
Sometimes I wonder what sort of life she had; she must have been unhappy to give away her babies; why didn't she marry and have a family?
It was a common practice in Australia as well that authorities took the babies of unmarried girls and offered them for adoption. The authorities convinced young mothers that they must sign their babies for adoption; if they loved them, the authorities said, they would want them to have a good home. Most of the time the girls were not even allowed to see or hold their babies. Most suffered all their lives thinking about their children.
I wonder how she died. Was she thinking about us, her children? Did my father know about me at all? I guess I will never find the answers.
In those days young unmarried mothers had no choice, says Emma. There was no government help and illegitimate children were ostracised. Your mother must have hoped that some family will offer you a good life.
These are my friends; Stanko puts snapshots of faded boys into Emma's hands. I really treasure these photos because they are the reminders of me being young. They are my only souvenirs. Mum must have given this one to me. I am among other children but there is a cross on top of my head indicating which one am I.
An older peasant took me out of the orphanage when I was old enough to be useful. I grew up with his family until I was fifteen. I called him dad and his wife mum but I was never really a son to them; I wasn't a part of the family; I knew that I was a servant. I worked on the fields and with pigs and cattle. They loaded big loads on my young back to carry home from the fields.
Other children knew that I was a servant boy so they called me names and tormented me. They teased me and pushed me around because I was poor and had nobody to protect me. I slept in a stable with the animals. My bed was over the sewage pit. Sometimes I slept in the corner of the room where the farmer slept with his wife. He was spitting on the floor all night and in the morning I had to clean that. Towards the end of my stay on the farm I shared a room with the farmer's grandson. They even let me eat at the table.
My whole childhood was miserable. I often wonder how I survived as a barefooted hungry boy during the cold winters. My feet were black from dirt. Everybody slapped me if I did something wrong or if I didn't do enough. Everybody was ordering me around and nobody had a kind word for me. There were no games, no rest, and no friends.
While working on the fields we often had to run into hiding when German planes were bombing us. Partisans sabotaged the train and Germans retaliated against our village. They burned all the houses and we escaped into the forest. We made a shelter from tree branches and stayed in it for the best part of a year until the nearby bishop offered us accommodation in his stable where we spent the rest of the war time with bishop's cattle.
During the war I attended school irregularly. School was far away and I had to feed the pigs and cows and work on the fields. We had to learn Italian while under Italian occupation.
My new parents had two grown up sons and a daughter of their own. One son was with partisans and the other was killed as a Home guard. It must have been terrible seeing their sons fighting on the opposite sides. They were themselves just poor peasants trying to survive. They had a woman servant who was the most vicious person I ever met. She hated kids and I was terrified of her. I buried myself in the straw to hide from her but she came after me with the pitchfork and started poking until I came out. She was a mean woman who never married or had children of her own. They sent me to church and I didn't mind that because the old priest was good to us during the war. When I was 15, however, the new young Chaplain replaced our priest. I saw women taking best foods to him and he threw much of it in the rubbish rather than offer it to us hungry children. He asked me at the confession if I had a
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girlfriend and what we were doing. I had no idea about girls; I was very embarrassed and started to hate the church. Later I met church people who helped refugees in Austria. Girls told me that they had to do favours for these men so they would speed their emigration.
After the war in 1946 the farmer received a letter saying that mum wanted me back; she found me through the Red Cross. When she came to take me I ran away in the forest to hide. They had police searching for me. I did not want to go with a stranger and leave the only family I ever knew. Mum found a place for me in Tito's institution near Tuzla where I became apprenticed as a fitter/turner. Mum's brother Rudi opened a bakery in Tuzla and mum also worked in Tuzla as a domestic for an important politician. Rudi was a nice enough, kind man; he had his own family and I only saw him a few times. I was never a part of his family. I have no contact with him or his family now.
I returned to Slovenia in 1949 and found a job in a car, truck and bus factory. I lived in a factory barracks and ate in the factory kitchen. I was hungry most of the time; there was food shortage. My boss was a communist who had less training than I but I had to obey him. They asked me to join the party but I declined. I never wanted to be a member of any organisation. I like to be on my own.
Years later I visited the farm where I grew up; I just wanted to show them that I was fine. I had new shoes and fine clothes. I wanted them to know that I succeeded on my own. The farmer's family were themselves poor and didn't show any excitement or happiness seeing me or my new clothes.
In 1951 I was called into the army.
Before I went to the army I visited mum; she had a room next door to the minister she worked for so I had to go through the security procedure but once I was in the building I was allowed to stay with mum for a couple of days. I could not bring myself to call this woman mum because she was never a real mum to me. I felt embarrassed and frightened of her. I heard that her boyfriend was the security guard to a politician; that's probably how she came to be shot with the pistol owned by the security officer.
After two months in the army I got a letter that my mother died; she was 47. I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral because I wasn't sworn in yet. The swearing in comes after three months of military training. I never found out why and how mum died. I do not know where her grave is.
The military training was terrible; we had to slide and walk and crawl in the dust and mud and rain. I was wet, dirty and tired in the evening but I was expected to be clean and ready the next morning. Once I lost my uniform buttons while sliding in the mud. I asked the officer where I could get new buttons and he told me to figure it out for myself. The only way I could get them was by stealing from another soldier. I had to do extra duties like cleaning toilets because I lost my buttons. We were ordered to go to sleep for a short time after lunch but as soon as I would fall asleep there was a call to assembly.
Later they sent us to work on the railways, bridges and tunnels. Every Sunday afternoon we had a couple of hours free to go to town.
Uncle Rudi told me that I have a brother Tone so I went to see him when I came out of the army. Tone never came looking for me although he was five years older than I. Mum never
knew where Tone lived; only Rudi knew. He lived with a kind family who had no children of their own. When I last saw him he was married with five children and a house of his own.
I found a job as a turner fitter at Ljubljana railway station. I have pleasant memories from the time I spent in Ljubljana. I often went swimming in Sava River with my new work friends. We also went socialising, drinking and dancing. We joined a folklore dancing group and travelled all over Slovenia performing national dances. That was the best time in my life; that's how I met my first love Ivanka, who was also a dancer. Being with Ivanka made me happy for the first time. Unfortunately Ivanka found somebody else to love. He was a student and had a car so she left me.
The railway station was my real education. I watched people kissing and hugging and saying hello and goodbye. I dreamed of one day saying goodbye to everything I knew until then; I wanted to start a new life. When Ivanka left me I decided to escape.
A friend told me that he knew the way over the Austrian border because he was a border guard while in the army. We tried to escape over the mountains but we got lost and became separated. It was a foggy, snowy night and I fell down a slope; luckily a tree stopped me from falling deep into the crevasse; I almost froze to death hanging onto that tree. I tried to make a fire to warm myself but everything was wet. I had a can of sardines and the oil from the can helped me make a small fire so I survived. In the morning I decided to return home. As I bordered a train a policeman tapped me on the shoulder. We know everything about you, he said. I believed that they caught my friend and he told them but that was just their way of interrogating me. The judge asked if I will ever try again and I said yes I will try until I succeed. He told me that he will
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give me only one month jail because I had no criminal record but if I ever came before him again I will get five years jail.
Ivanka came to see me in jail and she laughed at me for trying to escape. Her boyfriend left her so we started going together again. We had a son Bojan. I would not marry Ivanka because she betrayed me once and I could not trust her again. I also knew that one day soon I would escape. Ivanka later married an Italian widower who had three children and they lived like a big family. I met her every time I returned home and I spent time with Bojan. He is married now and he named his son Stanko after me. My son Ashley recently went to meet Bojan but they could not communicate much because Bojan does not speak English. Ashley does not speak Slovenian or Italian.
When I came out of jail I got back my job and my room so I stayed there for seven months. A friend then offered to help me escape by train. I had to give him all my belongings as a payment for his help. He knew the train driver's wagon had a hole under the table just big enough for me to squeeze trough into the underbelly of the train which was full of sooth, oil and dust. I waited for the train driver to go with his books to the office and while he was there I squeezed in. I laid there for 16 hours until the train came to Munich. When everybody left the train I came out and tried to clean myself in the toilet. A civilian policeman tapped me on the shoulder and asked for papers. I did not understand German then but I understood when he said: Straight back to Tito. I was terrified.
I was sent back to Salzburg jail in Austria for a couple of weeks. Austrians were sending back many Slovenians especially if they found out that they had a criminal record, sickness or dependent children at home.
From the jail they put me in a refugee camp and I was allowed to go out to look for work. I registered to immigrate either to Canada or Germany. After five months in 1957 I was allowed to go to Germany. I had to sign a contract to work for eighteen months in the Essen coal mine. During that time my half brother wrote to me; he asked me to send him a motorbike. He probably thought that once you are in Germany you can pick money off the street. I did not write back and we lost contact since then.
In Germany I met my best friend Franc. While others spent their time and money drinking we stayed in the barracks and played chess.
After my contract expired I could go where I pleased. I wanted to go as far from Europe as possible so Franc and I decided to register for Australia.
On 6May1959 we arrived on a ship to Fremantle and then by train to Bonegilla. On the ship I met Vinko who knew Slovenian boss Paul on the Snowy Mountains project. He arranged for us to do shift work in the Tatangara tunnel. I lived with other Snowy workers in the barracks. It was a boring, miserable existence. Occasionally we went to the pictures in Cooma or to the pub in Adaminaby. I brought a camera and projector with me from Germany and started making photographs; this hobby made life a bit more bearable. I worked and saved hard. I had to be strong and resist bad company if I wanted to save and become independent. Many boys went to Cooma or Sydney on pay days to spend their money on drinks and girls but I wanted to save my money.
Vinko went to visit relations in Mildura. They told him about opal mining in Andamooka. Franc bought a car and four of us, Vinko, Franc, Frank and I decided to try our luck on opal.
Anything seemed better than labouring in the dangerous tunnel. Little did I know that opal would become my life. The wages on the Snowy were good and we saved enough money for this new venture. We went to Adelaide to buy picks and shovels, ropes and candles and off we went. We stopped at Andamooka Station and started to make a tent thinking that we reached our destination but it was just a farm 27 miles before Andamooka. A farmer came with a dog and a gun to ask what we were doing. After a lot of explaining he let us sleep there for the night.
Andamooka was a barren, isolated little settlement of about thirty miners. There were Aborigines specking for opal in the dugout dirt, there were about ten Czech miners and some Germans. The four of us were the first Slovenians.
It was hot; there was no shade and no water. Eventually we got a cistern coming so we could buy water to fill our tanks.
We started digging shafts by hand. It was a backbreaking job and soon we became disillusioned, exhausted and rather sad. I was thinking of what to do when I got an idea: Boys we saved money on Snowy why don't we buy a compressor and jack picks.
We towed the compressor on a dusty dirt road from Adelaide and on the way a wheel flashed past us and flew into the scrub. We realised it was a wheel from our new compressor. The studs were not tightened properly.
Ours was the first compressor on the opal field. We registered a claim each in German Gully and began sinking. Frank and I worked together and Vinko and Franc worked nearby. We had no idea really what we were looking for. A Czech fellow came every day to check what we were doing. He was an old miner
so he told us what to look for and what to do. One day he saw that we reached the opal level and told us to stop. In the dirt he picked opal chips. I yelled to Frank to stop the compressor but he did not hear me so I switched it off. He came up, Vinko and Frank joined us and we were very excited looking at opal for the first time. We made it; we were enormously excited. The news of our find spread like a wild fire.
An older Czech miner introduced himself as Petnushak; he said that we uncovered a very rich vein of opal. He warned us that the buyers would cheat us because we knew nothing about opal. He also offered to clean and class our opal before selling. I wasn't too keen but others liked this friendly kind Petnushak and so Petnushak became our partner. This was our biggest mistake. We let him work my claim where we bottomed on opal; we started sinking new shafts. We found a slip going through most of our claims carrying pockets of opal. Petnushak cleaned the opal on a hand grinder. We sold the first lot to opal buyer Jim Collins for 6400 pounds. We split the money and felt very rich. You could buy a beautiful house for that money in those days. We competed who will dig more opals but once found, opals seemed to vanish. We realised that we had valuable stones so I became suspicious. Where are other bags of rough opal? We have been warned by other miners not to trust Petnushak but he seemed so kind and honest; he bought drinks for us in the pub. Soon we found out the reason why he kept us drinking. His friend Skrusny was ratting in our diggings while Petnushak kept us in the pub.
Petnushak began complaining about his health and he made several trips to Adelaide 'to see a doctor'. Petnushak paid sixty pounds to a man to take him to Adelaide. The man warned us that Petnushak was stealing our opal and selling it in Adelaide. Petnushak even pulled a gun on him threatening to shoot him
if he told us. This man also told us about Petnushak's friend who had a nightclub in Adelaide. Petnushak opened the suitcase full of opal and said: I don't ever have to work again. I have my boys working for me and they are getting opal every day. When the night club owner saw the opal he arranged for some girls to entertain Petnushak; in the meantime he stole most of the opal. The driver had an argument with Petnushak and returned to Andamooka alone. We rushed to Adelaide and learned that Petnushak put the rest of the opal in a bank vault. Being young and inexperienced we had no idea of how to get our opal back. We took him to court and that cost us 1700 pounds but before the case came up Petnushak sold most of the opal. After all the trouble we only got 2000 pounds from him. We were disillusioned and our partnership ended. We sold the claims and divided the money equally.
In 1961 Vinko went to Europe for a holiday. Franc and I went to Sydney and rented a flat in Woollahra near Slovenian religious centre where young Slovenian migrants met. The church had a good kitchen; we also had music and dances. We played games like Italian bocce.
I started working in Sydney and I put a deposit on an old house in Homebush. After a few months I leased the house to Dobrsek and left with Vinko, Franc and Martin for Lightning Ridge opal fields.
Lightning Ridge in 1961 could hardly be called a town because it had no proper buildings and no facilities. You couldn't get in and out of town when it rained because the dirt roads were slippery and boggy; the place was a dump; there was a shack in the middle where you could buy or order a few supplies. Later they built a Diggers rest hotel where this only shack store was. There was no bore bath or town water but one could buy water from a cistern in town.
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We took two 44 gallon drums of water twice a week and we pitched our tents in Coocrain. There were other Slovenians: Less, Slavko and Rajko mining at Coocrain at the time. We cooked on open fire under the tree. We started digging but found mainly green and blue opal. Everybody wanted red on black then. We dumped buckets of inferior green and blue opal which could bring us a fortune today. Later other miners found lots of red on black on a level lower in the same claims we mined.
Opal dealer Harold Hodges had two trams which were converted into the only motel accommodation in town. Whenever someone found opal in those days they would invite the whole town for a BBQ and although we did not know anybody we joined them.
When I returned to Sydney Dobrsek told me that his German wife had a sister Elizabeth in Germany. Elizabeth came to Sydney and we married in a civil ceremony. I became a conventional husband going to work and tending the garden and doing everything other husbands do in the city. And all the time I wanted to be back in the wilderness of the opal fields. I longed for the open spaces, for the talks and laughter of friends around evening fires, for the peace of colourful sunsets. I missed the open spaces and friendly camaraderie of opal fields. I was lost in the city; I became a nobody among strangers. I missed the desert and my friends with whom I used to share my life. I knew everybody in Andamooka and I missed the place itself. As time passed I overcame the disappointment of being cheated; nice memories of Andamooka surfaced more and more often. I asked Elizabeth to come with me to Andamooka but she did not like to leave behind the comforts of city life. I sold the house in 1963 and then Elizabeth came with me to Andamooka. I felt free again
and among friends. I started buying, cutting and selling opal. I bought a drill with my friends Gabrsek and Franc. I found in Andamooka what I was looking for but Elizabeth was less happy every day. For her there was nowhere to go and nothing to see. One day she said: I am not going to waste my life in this desert. I am going back to Germany. If you are not coming with me I will go alone. I paid her a ticket and took her to the boat and I never saw her again. The next day I applied for the divorce.
A few years later I met a drunk slumped over the bar. It was my worst enemy Petnushak. I wanted to smash a bottle on his head but my friends stopped me. He wasn't worth it. He was just a drunken rag. He called to me: You don't talk to me anymore, you silly so and so. Let's forget what happened so long ago. Come and buy me a drink. I bought him a whisky because I wanted to hear what really happened so long ago. How much did you really get from our partnership, I asked. I didn't keep the books but I reckon I got from 60 to 70 thousand pounds. And how much did your mate get mining in our claim at night. About 30 000, said Petnushak slurring his words. He later returned to Czechoslovakia and I believe died there.
I tried mining in many places but I only found bits of opal. To survive I began cutting opal half a day and mining the other half. Eventually I began buying small parcels to make doublets and triplets. As my business grew I had to go to Coober Pedy to buy opal so I could fill my orders.
As a turner fitter I was used to working with machines and metals but I learned to cut opal by experimenting. Opal industry was new and there was no one to teach me. Opal was cut solid if it was thick enough; when the colour was thin I made doublets, i.e. I glued a thin layer of colour on the dark base-potch which is natural opal silica without colour. Opal is
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fragile and can be damaged by heat or impact. In 1963 I heard that some gem stones like sapphires had a top protection made of crystal quarts which is a harder material. I bought some quarts and shaped a cover for opal doublet. That's how I made the first triplet which is opal made of three layers. I went to Percy Marks, a buyer in Sydney, and sold him some solids, some doublets and some of my first triplets. He asked me for my business card but I had none so I gave him my address. A few months later I got a letter from a solicitor because Percy sued me. I had no idea that he previously patented the triplet making. I had to pay a fine of 700 pounds. I had no idea about the law and my English was poor but an opal dealer Bruno Mauser helped me.
Eventually everybody in Andamooka started making triplets and they became very popular all over the world. Solid milky red opal was cheap at the time so it was more profitable to make triplets. From a two inch milky red opal you could slice 120 slides to make triplets. Every solid opal is unique so it is hard to find a match for pairs and sets of jewellery but when you slice it the layers are the same or very similar; they are suitable for matching sets ofjewellery like bracelets, earrings etc. The colour of triplets is much brighter and more beautiful than solid milky opal because the cabochon top makes the colour reflect from different angles. The quarts also protected the opal. At the beginning I shaped every cabochon quarts dome for every triplet but soon Japan produced calibrated readymade quarts tops. By 1965 opal triplets could be found in most jewellery shops all over the world. The tops were no longer made from quarts but from ordinary glass. I bought my first glass tops in Germany. Glass is not as strong as quartz. I bought white glass from the company that makes eye lenses. I used it for those triplets that were individual free form but good quality.
Percy did not renew his triplet making patent because he could not stop everybody.
A Hungarian, Joe Bilke and his brothers invented the first opal slicing machine. Actually Bilke took a marble slicing machine and adapted it for opal. The cutting process was slow but there was a minimal loss of opal through cutting. Bilke offered to sell me a couple of his machines at 3500 pounds each but he said that I cannot see the machine until I paid for it. I insisted on seeing it first but he said that everybody could copy it if they saw it. A German friend eventually helped me make a machine but I was already too late to make big money because the world was flooded with triplets.
Bilke had a lapidary shop and workshop. They sliced opal and made triplets secretly day and night. They made three to four thousand triplets a week.
There is not much opal left suitable for triplets. There is also less demand for triplets. Since making triplets is more labour intensive than doublets and solids it is also less profitable. I do not make triplets any more. I rather create jewellery from cheaper pieces of opal.
In 1963 a Slovenian priest Dr Mikula used to come to visit us every year in Andamooka. He said that he is visiting every Slovenian wherever they live in Australia. He collected donations for a Slovenian religious monthly magazine Misli. He said that if I had no money I could pay with opal. He returned every year.
In 1972 I moved my business to Adelaide and bought a house there. I was a regular customer at the nearby chemist shop owned by Leo, a Serb friend. Ute worked there as a pharmacy apprentice. Ute and I married in 1972. Our son Julian was born
in 1973 and Ashley in 1975. Ute came with her parents from Germany when she was four years old but we spoke German in our home all the time. I did not teach my sons Slovenian because I was away a lot and they stayed with Ute.
I planned to buy a plane because I travelled to other opal and gold fields. I began travelling to Asia and Europe to sell opal and jewellery. I travelled to Andamooka and Queensland opal fields to buy rough opal. I had flying lessons but I had a few bad experiences flying with others because of dust storms. I decided that a four-wheel drive is more reliable.
Ute was complaining that I spent too much time with opals and that I did not take the family out and spend time with them. She wanted me to sell the opal and invest in real estate but I couldn't part with my colourful gems. They became my life. Every stone is unique; every gem has the power to enchant someone. Japanese like them green, Europeans prefer them red; the brightest and colourful are rarer and more precious; some are known by name. No two opals are the same and one is more beautiful than the other.
Ute became interested in alternative medicine and she studied at university. Later she opened her own clinic with homeopathic and herbal healing; she is also a pharmacist.
In 1985 Ute left Ashley a note that she will be away for some time. She went to Sri Lanka on business but she never returned. She found somebody else. She left the boys with me. After three months I received a letter from a lawyer saying that she wanted a divorce. By 1986 we sold the house by auction and settled outside the court. I paid for boys' schooling but they lived with their mother.
After the divorce Hans, a German opal dealer offered for me to stay in his house because he was going to move to Gold Coast. Before he left he met a woman and both stayed with me in his home. Hans knew all my opals well. He and I travelled together doing business around the world. I had a parcel of about 500 carats of top quality opal which wasn't for sale.
I travelled to Lightning Ridge frequently and eventually in 1990 I bought a block of land here. I became a wheeler dealer in opal.
Before I left Hans's place to go to Lightning Ridge, I put the parcels of good opal into a safe deposit box in the bank. On each bag I wrote the colour of the opal and its weight. I did not check the bags closely at the time I deposited them in the bank or when I took them out. A friend told me later that Hans told him that he has a good buyer for top quality opal. He asked me if I still have my good stones. I became suspicious and went to check my parcels. I discovered that the opal in my plastic bags was not my opal. It was of much poorer quality. It was of the same weight and similar colour but much inferior to the opal I deposited. I was in shock. Only Hans was capable and had opportunity to swap it while I lived in his house and travelled on business. I confronted Hans but he acted offended and denied it. I could do nothing. I was so angry that I wanted to kill him.
Ute and I sometimes visited a Dutch clairvoyant who was very talented. She was helping police in criminal investigations. She told us that one of our sons was exceptionally talented. That is Ashley who is a concert pianist and travels around the world performing.
She charged 80 pounds a visit and I saw her about once a year. I did not tell her anything; I just listened to her information.
After Hans stole my opals I went to her; I did not tell her about my problem but as soon as I sat down she asked me: how much do you think he stole from you? I said one hundred fifty thousand pounds. She said: It was much more. But don't worry; what goes around comes around. During the next year Hans's wife divorced him and took most of his money. She threatened to tell the taxation office about his dealings if he did not pay up.
I used to socialise while I had a family. I was the foundation member of the Slovenian club in Adelaide and we socialised there every weekend. I know most Slovenians in Adelaide but I lost contact. Their club has good programs for their children; they have schools and games and concerts and family celebrations.
We were competing with friends who will have a better house; we went for picnics and dinners but since my divorce I live alone. I don't care anymore.
Lightning Ridge is opal business; there is no social life, no closeness, no connection; people come and go and you never hear from them again. Everybody is here to make a quick buck and people are cheating each other all the time. I would like to go somewhere else but I can't decide where. I would go away but then I would have to start from scratch again. Anyway I would be alone and a stranger wherever I went. I am lonely here and I will be lonely elsewhere. I could buy a beautiful home but I don't need it.
I get tired of life. Life does not interest me anymore. Everything seems futile. Sometimes I feel like: Why do I have to keep going?
I do not like going to people's houses because they might not like it. Some people like to meet new people but it is hard for me to begin liking and trusting new people. They are likely to ask for favours and money if they get too close.
I don't go out much. I have nothing in common with the drunks in the club. Most proved to be dishonest users and I don't need them. I know the history of many people; I know how their friendships and relationships were broken because of opal. I live in my workshop; I cook for myself; nobody complains about my cooking or about my lifestyle.
My boys tell me to enjoy myself and spend my money but I find more joy in work than in spending money. I grew up to work and save so spending is new to me. I created what I have from nothing and I believe that everybody should do the same. If you really want to do something you will find a way of doing it. Maybe I wouldn't achieve everything I achieved if I could rely on the family to do things for me. I would not be as strong as I am. Life means developing skills and trying your best.
Once a week I like to go pistol shooting. 35 years ago I got robbed in Adelaide a few times so I applied for a gun licence. I was told that I had to join the shooter's club and since then I really enjoy this sport.
I watch the news and read the paper but films and stories don't interest me. I am happiest when I am making jewellery and cut gem stones.
I am never homesick because I never had a home; I am not even homesick for Slovenia because I lived in misery there. Most people were miserable during and after the war but most
of them had families to share their misery with. I was on my own.
Times have changed and Slovenia prospered; now illegitimate children are as welcome as those who have two parents. Slovenians at home also have everything they want and need but they live their lives and I am not a part of that.
People often ask me to teach them about opal business but I don't want to. Let them learn the hard way like I had to. Once I showed a lady what I do and on the way out she just said: Now I know everything. She never said: thank you. On the street she said to me: I know why you don't want to share your business secrets. You are scared that I would take over your business. People are nasty like that. I don't trust anyone. I stay on my own, I prefer being on my own. I don't want to bother anyone and I don't like anyone to bother me.
If I had another life I would spend it dealing with Queensland opal. It is more stable and easier to shape and mould. I could have bought a trailer load of Queensland boulder when people did not know much about it but now it is almost as expensive as black opal.
I always wanted to create something special. I did not have much formal education but I became expert in things I like to do. Opal industry is only a small part of a huge jewellery industry. As a fitter turner I was used to working with metals so I started working with gold and silver. I created my own ways of doing things. I read magazines to enrich my own ideas as I create master pieces from gold and silver. It takes me a long time to fashion a piece of jewellery and then I have casts made to fit the stones in.
Many people all over the world steal other people's ideas. When I sell a piece of jewellery I made someone can easily take out the stone and have more casts made of the piece. That happens in every other area of trade, of course, and nothing much can be done about it. I make individual setting for special free form stones.
There are always dangers of being cheated or robbed in opal business. If partners don't cheat you, opal cutters and dealers will. You are also always in danger carrying money and gemstones when you are doing business. I travelled all over the world but I could never relax and have fun because at the back of my mind were always opals I carried with me. Sometimes I left them with friends, sometimes I put them in the lockers or safe deposit boxes but I was never completely sure that they were safe. I was often in Frankfurt and there are crooks at the airport and at the railway stations waiting for the next victim. I understand many languages and I heard them talking about their plans. They had no idea that I could understand them.
I'd like to go for a real holiday and enjoy myself but there is always something holding me back. If I could only get rid of all my property and pack my bag. Belongings I love became a great burden; I want to unload and be free.
In 2006 I went to Andamooka and stayed there in a motel with people I knew for many years. Heather and her boyfriend are running the motel and the post office. I hid two bags of opal behind a shower curtain before I went for dinner in a restaurant next door. There are cameras on the entrance and inside the motel so it seemed pretty safe because I was right there next to my room. I did not even check my bags of opal while I was there but when I returned home I had a shock. One bag had a lock on it and it wasn't touched but there was opal
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missing from the other bag. They stole over thirty thousand dollars worth of opal. What could I do? I had no way of proving what they did. There were cameras but they must have used them to monitor my movements so they could steal while I was in the restaurant. I was so upset that I could not sleep for weeks. I tried to think of how I could get my opal back but there is no way. I tried to ring Andamooka police but I could not even get anyone to answer. I was going mad about it.
I heard later that Heather and her boyfriend stole other people's money and opal. They knew what I was carrying; they knew all the people that stayed with them.
It is hard for me to trust anyone. Perhaps it is best if you own nothing; at least you can sleep in peace.
I only work now because I enjoy creating special pieces; I do not need to make money anymore so I can afford to be creative and spend time on things I like. I am carving opal. Creating these pieces helps me pass the time and keeps me sane.
I wanted to teach my sons to take over my business but they are not interested.
About twenty years ago a Swiss man and a Frenchman discovered the formula for chemically growing opal. They made perfect stones a little harder than opal. It is hard to tell them apart from the natural opal. They sold their secret to Japan under the name Gilson. Now many people tried to grow their opal but nobody else has been really successful. Lately they are selling a plastic version of synthetic opal which can be used for triplets or inlays. Gilson opal is sold from one to two thousand dollars per gram but this plastic version goes from two to twelve dollars a gram I used some of their materials and it is magnificent. Most people could be fooled
into believing that they have real opal while they only have plastic. When you are a reputable businessman you have to tell the buyer exactly what you are selling. There are fines of ten thousand if you sell something else for opal. Nobody can fool me though about any kind of opal. I have seen it all and experimented with everything.
There used to be quite a lot of matrix material in Andamooka; it can be very beautiful and often much nicer than real opal at the same price. I bought a lot of that material and treated it. Black matrix is the most expensive and does not need treatment but other varieties do. There is a soft porous matrix that can be treated in a few hours and there is a hard variety that takes weeks. It seems that every matrix dealer has a different recipe for treating matrix. Generally it is cooked in sulphur acid and sugar so the material becomes black and the colour stands out. Some people even treated it in used gear box oil.
Ashley is also a composer and music teacher.
Julian is a public servant interested in computers. He got a Slovenian passport and is thinking of working in Europe.
I was never interested in politics and religion. I am not saying that I don't believe in God but there are too many religions and people fighting each other for their God. I read the Bible but it makes me sick to read about people asking God to help them kill their neighbours. It has always been like that, people saying that they are fighting for their God when they were really fighting for themselves.
My friend once said: Man likes to look for eternity in moments: into the deepest corner of his soul he encloses a precious memory and into velvet padded little boxes he closes
a ruby, a sapphire, or an opal - something rare, unique, and precious. It is easier to fight the desert of everyday life if in the moments of hardest distress, poverty, and loneliness something permanently beautiful shines through the darkness.
Emma remembers Stanko's words because they are also the words of her father. Close your eyes and see your magic land, he said when she still believed in the fairy land.
Emma's father also said: The value of an individual or of the nation is measured with wealth. Wisdom and virtues and art have value only if the rich are willing to pay for it.
Opal has no value unless the rich are prepared to pay for it. But it has a beauty.
Now gods, stand up for bastards. Sheakspeare
Martin
Martin is over eighty and lives on his own so he likes to visit Paul and Emma. You remind me of the beautiful place I left behind, he says to Emma. The beautiful St Martin's mountain above my home is a pilgrimage and tourist destination and yet I chose to live in this godforsaken bush. Mum named me after St Martin because we lived under his mountain.
We have all chosen to be here, smiles Emma.
Slovenia is the most beautiful country in the world and my birthplace is the jewel in its crown. Why did I ever leave all that behind? Martin sighs with a faraway look.
Why did you?
It is a long story, he says very quietly.
It isn't easy to like Martin but Paul feels sorry for the old Slovenian.
He is a mean bastard, said Paul's friend. He doesn't trust women so he blows himself a plastic lady to keep him company at night.
You don't know that, laughed Paul. He does not like derogatory remarks about his countryman.
He has no friends because he is too tight to share anything with another person.
Maybe he was cheated too many times, says Paul.
Why don't you return home now? Asks Emma.
The last time I was in Slovenia I walked with my father up St Martin Mountain. He showed me a place where in 1919 he picked blueberries with my mother in the forest. They were young lovers. My father was nineteen and mum was eighteen. They loved each other but dad's family did not want him to marry mum because his family was rich and mum came from a very poor family. Mum's mother bought a little wooden cottage and a little paddock on which mum produced most of our food. She also built a smoke-room in which she smoked meat for the restaurants.
When I was about four, mum married a handsome man but he was poor and he came to live in mum's house. I was a love child but neither my father nor my stepfather loved me. The court ordered my father to pay child support for me and he hated me because of it. He turned away when I met him on the road.
I remember mum sending me to dad's butcher shop to buy meat. She hoped that he would give me some extra but he never did. He turned away when I entered the butchery. When I was about eight years old Dad married a rich girl and they had twin daughters. Dad then asked my mother to let me live with him but she did not let me.
My father was a butcher and his two daughters, my stepsisters, have a butcher shop each in Ljubljana. Mum and my stepfather had eight more children and they worked hard to survive. My stepfather became a Shire treasurer. He was considered a good, hard working and well-respected man. I felt that he disliked me because he hit me all the time. He never let me go anywhere or do the things I wanted. When he hit me at the age of fifteen, I grabbed him and pinned him to the ground. I did not hit him but I told him that this was the last time he would hit me. I was a tall strong boy by then. From then on he never touched me but he tormented me verbally. Mum tried to protect me and that annoyed him.
I finished primary school and three years of secondary school before I began my apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker.
I always wanted to become an artist. I painted church domes with the artist Zeleznik. I wanted to study with him but unfortunately Mum could not pay for me. When I finished my apprenticeship I worked for two years until the war changed everything.
Slovenians became split in three groups.
The old Slovenian leaders, the prosperous business people, the rich farmers and those influenced by the church were afraid of Russian communists who wanted to change the society. They hoped to survive the war and continue as they were. Most later supported Domobranci, home guards who guarded their homes and their way of life.
Most poor factory and farm labourers welcomed the change. They had nothing to lose so they joined OF Liberation front, organised by Russian revolutionists, which promised to take from the rich and give to the poor.
We were a Catholic family and like many others interested in survival rather than politics.
Italians occupied Ljubljana but northern outskirts where I lived came under Germany. My two sisters just finished primary school when Germans took them to Klagenfurt to become Hitler's Jugend. They worked in the kitchen of the army barracks.
I was very sick with pleurisy and a chest infection at the beginning of the war so I did not have to join the army. When I went back to work in 1943 partisans took me during the night. In the morning mum reported to the German police that partisans took me during a curfew. Germans caught the partisans. As a revenge two partisans came next morning and shot my mother in the kitchen in front of six of her children. My youngest sister was two years old.
The younger of the two partisans who shot my mother was my school friend and a boyfriend of my sister. Later he realised what he had done and he hung himself.
Germans sent me to Klagenfurt where my sisters worked in Hitler Jugend camp. I got a job as a cabinet-maker in the same barracks as my two sisters. At the end of 1943 they sent me to the Russian Front. Grenades were falling all around me but young person gets used to everything. I was lucky. Once I picked a grenade that fell next to me but did not explode. I chucked it away. They were going to give me a bravery award for it. In May 1945 I got civilian clothes from a farmer and tried to return to Austria. Russians captured me and put me into a solitary prison. After a week they let me out to work for them. I escaped to Austria and found work in Klagenfurt where I worked before.
I met Justine who escaped from Slovenia with her Home-guard boyfriend who was returned home where communists killed him.
May 1945 was a miserable wet month. We were supposed to celebrate the end of the war but we were displaced and unwanted and starved. Millions of East Europeans begged to be sent anywhere but home. During the next couple of years Soviet Union more or less forcefully repatriated five million of their citizens; some were shot on arrival, some were sent to Gulag or exiled into Siberia. Some were used for forced labour. Just because they tasted the West they became contaminated. Immediately after the communist victory people realised that Stalin was a bigger evil than Hitler. Eastern refugees were ready to go anywhere rather than home. The displaced persons camps were maintained by UNRRA-United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and many people just had no will to leave them.
I remember UNRRA parcels of tins and cheeses and powdered eggs, says Emma. We always celebrated UNRRA parcels.
Europeans expelled their German minorities and western compatriots mostly returned to their home willingly or emigrated overseas. A few German war criminals were judged and punished by a proper court proceedings but most of them were soon rehabilitated in their former political and economic positions. They were the ones who knew their jobs.
It was much worse for Eeastern Block refugees. It was the time to settle the scores; to celebrate the winners and punish the losers.
Twelve thousands Slovenians poured on the fields of Austria and surrendered to the Field Marshal Alexander along with
thousands other refugees. The world was tired of the war; they had to solve refugee problems quickly. Tito demanded the return of Yugoslav citizens. Sending refugees home was practical and sensible as far as British were concerned but sending them to Tito was a death sentence for these anticommunist refugees. They were tortured, killed
And buried in mass graves.
In 1947 Justine and I got married and applied to immigrate to Australia. We learned English for 31 days on a ship. We signed the contract to work for two years wherever they sent us. I asked to work as a cabinet-maker and they sent me to Sydney.
I worked in the Burwood hostel where we lived. Justine worked in a hospital as a cleaner. In two years we saved enough to buy an old house and we were very happy. I learned enough English to open a workshop with a wonderful friend from Africa. We worked together until he died five years later. After his death I expanded my factory and eventually employed eleven people making occasional furniture. I worked very hard as a manager-owner of the factory. I delivered furniture to the shops like David Jones and Mayer's. The lifting of the furniture was hard and I damaged my back.
I had to sell the factory and I opened the furniture shop in the hope that the work will not be as hard. I had to deliver things but I could not do the heavy lifting. I sold my second-hand shop in 1975 but Justine ran a furniture shop with other employees.
In my spare time I did inlay pictures in wood. I still have some beautiful works.
At that time I visited a Slovenian man Joe in hospital. He damaged his back while opal mining and could not walk. When he was released from the hospital I drove him to Lightning Ridge. He was married to an Aboriginal girl and sort of became part of the Aboriginal community. I lost touch with him later.
Bore bath helped my back. I went twice a day to soak in the hot water. For a few years I travelled to Sydney for therapy and back again into the bore bath.
Lightning Ridge became more and more attractive. Looking for precious gems seemed exciting. I also liked the company of the easygoing, friendly, honest miners. I returned to Sydney but the dream of the colourful gem and colourful life did not go away. I built a portable camp in Sydney and brought it to the Ridge. It was an escape from the pressures of my business and from hard work that aggravated my pain.
I finally sold my furniture shop and the land in the Blue Mountains during the nineties. I was happy to get rid of the worry and the problems. I built a house in Lightning Ridge and my wife moved up to be with me.
My health was not good. Justine also became ill and she died in 1998. I only own the house I live in now but even that is too much to take care of most of the time.
Soon after we came to Sydney I met other Slovenians and we talked about building a Slovenian club where we could meet and celebrate and have a Slovenian school. While I was off work with my bad back I searched around for a suitable land and found it. We collected donations from Slovenians and bought the land.
We built our Triglav club with voluntary labour at weekends. We elected the committee and the president. There were twelve of us permanent trusties, foundation members, to see that everything was running well. We opened the charitable organisation Triglav Community Centre so we did not have to pay tax if there were any profits from the club activities.
Soon after Slovenian priests Bazilij and Valerian began to organise the building of the religious centre in Maryland and later Slovenian clubs grew in every larger city of Australia.
Some Slovenians co-operated with the Yugoslav embassy while others congregated around the church.
Those that resisted the embassy were interrogated when they came begging for visas to go home.
As the foundation member of Triglav and its trusty I continued to work for Triglav but I watched out for any impropriety from the embassy. They offered the club many things in order to keep us friendly. They brought artists and books and music from Slovenia but in exchange they demanded to be our guests so they could keep an eye on us.
In 1980 I returned to Slovenia with Justine for the first time since 1943.
Dad's daughter invited us to stay with her and my father was there. At the age of sixty I spoke to my father for the first time. I saw Slovenia and my many relations for the first time after thirty-seven years. Since then I keep in touch with my relations.
Dad told me that he loved mum and that he was sorry that he did not marry her. He was also sorry that he ignored me when I was a boy.
Dad was born in 1900 and died in 1983. He was always a serious, businessman. People respected him and his family. His daughters helped him in the shop and later each of them opened their own shops.
There was poverty and misery when I left Slovenia but now Slovenians live comfortably. I could have had my own business and prosper there with them in Slovenia.
I am much like my father. I had little time for socialising. My business success gave me much satisfaction.
Mum was a happy, outgoing person. She was an honest, hardworking woman and people respected and liked her. Mum was not interested in making money.
Australia offered opportunity to migrants to make something out of their lives. The bank offered me as much money as I needed to open my business and I never had money problems.
Australia became my home. I like the warm climate and friendly people.
I became especially attracted to Lightning Ridge. The bore bath was good for my back, bush life offered freedom from pressures of the city life, people are friendly, and looking for opal gave me hope. Unfortunately my wife did not find happiness in Lightning Ridge. She missed her Sydney friends and city life. There are about a dozen Slovenians in the Ridge but they come from different backgrounds and don't mix well.
I am not a regular churchgoer but I have been doing the BBQ for all church functions during the last twenty years. The nuns and the priests have been good to me.
I haven't been well since my wife died but there are many people who look out for me.
I am happy that Slovenia became independent. I am grateful to Slovenians who stayed home and made the independence and democracy possible. I believe that Slovenians are more united and kind to each other now than ever before.
Slovenians resisted German rule for centuries. Now they are eager to be with Germans in the European Union. I suppose it is good for Slovenia to be in the company of the European nations but it makes one wonder. Why did Slovenians fight for independence for centuries? All our poets and writers and artist and politicians dreamed about the happy future when we will be our own masters. The wars and poverty and struggle seemed meaningful as long as there was hope and faith that one day Slovenians will rule Slovenia. It seems like we are throwing away what our ancestors died for. It seems that Germans will finally take over Europe. They did not succeed to do that with the wars but they seem successful with economy. I am really afraid that rich foreigners will buy Slovenia and keep Slovenians as slaves.
Things changed beyond recognition, says Emma.
The rulers re-educate the masses to believe what they want them to believe. There is a saying: Go for his balls and his heart and mind will eventually follow, says Martin but Emma had no idea what he meant.
Martin died soon after and left his assets in equal parts to different local organisations. The funeral service and the Catholic Church received their share. His many relations missed out. He wanted to change his will in favour of his family but his time ran out. Furious arguments followed.
Where there is a will there will be relatives, says Paul.
There is much speculation as to what happened to the opal and cash Martin had hidden in the house. The funeral director bought Martin's house in the hope that he will discover Martin's hiding place and his treasures. He took most of Martin's furniture and personal belongings to the rubbish dump before he moved into the house.
Soon after Martin's death a young single mother, Jane, found some money on a rubbish tip. She brought it to the bank. Tim the bank teller apparently told someone about it and the story is doing the rounds of the town.
Where did you get this money, asks Tim twisting his nose.
Kids dropped it into a pot of stew by accident, apologises Jane. She is shifting her weight from left to right foot; her eyes are darting in all directions hoping that nobody she knows would be coming through the door. She simply did not prepare for interrogation.
It stinks, says Tim. He does not know what to do. Should he call the manager or the police?
You should have at least washed it.
I tried, stammers Jane. She regrets that she did not keep on washing the notes better but she was afraid to damage them.
Tim places the money into a plastic bag and hands Jane a receipt. Twelve thousand in green one hundred dollar notes turned sickly reddish from tomato sauce. Jane shines a grateful smile at Tim. Her mind is full of plans and dreams; this is her lucky break; this is what she was born for. Is there really such a thing as divine intervention? She needs a
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lucky break since the bastard left her with two kids and no money. Thank God for Neighbourhood Centre that gave her food vouchers. The story spreads like stories do in a small town. People embellish it with every telling to make it more interesting.
Jane is scavenging at the rubbish dump for clothes when she sees a perfectly good pair of shoes a bit further away. She stretches over an old freezer and steps into an ice cream container. The contents spill over her feet. The smell of the reddish mess is revolting. She tries to wipe her feet with the newspaper when she notices a plastic bag full of hundred dollar notes. Real money. She looks around anxiously. The freezer must have been full of money hidden in ice-cream containers under the foul smelling sauces spiced heavily with herbs and garlic. The mess is dripping over her legs as she tries to reach a pile further away but the bulldozer is pushing the rubbish over it all. She wants to scream but that would alert the driver and the tip keeper and she cannot trust them with her secret. She makes a note in her head where the rest of the containers are so she will return when the bulldozer stops.
The tip keeper threatens to call the police; health regulations prohibit scavenging or something. He stands over the mountain of rubbish like an almighty and Jane moves away before he could confiscate her stash. She will try again as soon as the tip keeper goes away. She remembers where there is another pile of ice-cream containers taped over the top with the labels of foods. She is watching from the bushes as the tip keeper turns into his little shed to make a cup of tea and have a smoke. Jane hides her bag under the bushes and climbs towards her treasure from the opposite side over the old fridges and mattresses; she keeps her head low and her eyes on the man. I should have put the shoes on instead of thongs, she
realises when she cuts her foot on a broken glass. She wraps a hanky over the bleeding wound and crawls ever closer to her treasure. Tripe 7.2.07, says on one ice-cream label. The other one says: goulash 7.2.07. So the food is a month old, calculates Jane. Who would throw out a freezer full of prepared meals? Divorce? Death? Who died?
I'll think about it later, decides Jane as she reaches for another container covered by a mountain of rubbish. A sealed plastic bag under the food has hundred dollar bills at the bottom. She stashes the money into her bra. Feverishly she opens another container and finds another money bag which she stashes into her pants. The tip keeper is yelling; the bulldozer is again pushing an avalanche of rubbish towards her. Jane runs downhill, falls over and rolls into the bushes. She has no idea how long she has been lying there. There is blood on her hands; she must have hit her head as she rolled down the hill. The loud bird calls break the silence. Jane realises that it is time to pick her children from school but she needs a wash before anyone would see her. She walks slowly to her camp. She cannot risk to be seen by anybody so she waits for the darkness.
Eli and Danny are already home playing in the old wreck of their car. Jane crouches next to the water tank to wash herself and check the damage. The bleeding stopped on her foot; there is an ugly scratch on her face; her knee is grazed.
Sally must have told her good luck story to someone who could not keep the secret. In a small town any story is retold until it becomes too big to be believed. Some are saying that Martin kept the money in his freezer for safety. If he put it in the bank apparently he would not qualify for a pension. Nobody ever found out for sure. People say the new owner of Martin's house threw out the old freezer full of food before he
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moved in so most people believe what they are inclined to believe.
If you don't believe it, you won't understand it.
St Augustine
Sheref
Sheref is Paul's mechanic. His white beard reaches to the middle of his chest and his dreadlocks reach his waist. He richly oils and perfumes his hair; he bows low and extends both hands in greeting; he lightly kisses Emma's hand saying: my lady. Big silver rings decorate most of his fingers. Despite his ornamentations he does not present any danger to Lightning Ridge men. What woman in her right mind would ever dream of going to bed with this old Muslim? Everybody talks about Muslims being a danger to the world peace but Emma likes to listen to Sherefs understanding of the world and life in general.
I was born in a small Eastern Turkish town seventy years ago, tells Sheref. Allah keeps me young and strong. I have never been sick. People often ask me what is the secret of my fine health and I tell them: believe, believe, and believe. Believe in justice and righteousness. Follow Allah. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if what you are doing is right. My job is to serve Allah. I pray to Allah regularly and ask for his help to be righteous. I am rich because I have a peace of mind, health and belief in God.
Australians don't believe any more. In the olden days Christians closed their shops and hotels for Christmas and
Easter to worship God with their families in their churches. Now the trade is best on feast days and weekends so the trade became more important than worship. They spend these feast days in the clubs and hotels. I came to Lightning Ridge to bring Allah here. I have a model of a mosque on my table and I pray to the merciful Allah to make Lightning Ridge into second Mecca. I believe that in not too distant future there will be a real mosque in Lightning Ridge. I am from a leading Turkish family of shahs. My eleven brothers and sisters live all over the world. The World book of Sancars shows where the members of my great family live. There are 13 members of my family in Australia. Most Sancars migrated to Germany but they can be found all over the world. My father was a railway stationmaster. My two grandfathers were shahs of their villages with their own systems of government. They were upstanding men and also the religious leaders of the village. My family moved to the East of Turkey where traditions are still observed.
I learned from my grandfather never to be afraid because Allah is looking after us. Once during an earthquake people ran away but my grandfather told me to prostrate myself on the ground and pray to Allah. We were saved. People came from far around to seek the wisdom from my grandfather.
Many people in modern Turkey are not true Turks. True Turks came from Turkistan, which is a vast area now divided among many Asian nations.
I used to march on ANZAC day with the Turkish flag but some people did not like that. I wanted to show people that Turks also fought for peace. Young Australian boys came to Turkey to fight for England. Turkish boys were forced to fight for Germany who wanted to rule over Turkey. Now we both celebrate the memory and the peace. I left Turkey in 1963 and
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went to Germany and opened a mechanical workshop in Shlesgitter. Australia was recruiting migrants at the time and in 1972 I migrated to Australia. In 1973 I met a Frenchman who invited me to go with him to Coober Pedy. I was to look after his machinery and have ten percent of opal he found in the open cut. He had a huge open cut and he found much opal. Once he found a huge opalised fossil fish. When he came on big money he kicked me out so he did not have to share it with me. I returned to Sydney where I had a car repair business in Parramatta. I met Roman and he brought me to Lightning Ridge. I opened the workshop and named my business the Wrestler because I used to be a wrestler. In 1991 Roman's sons drilled on the opal mining exploration lease in Coocoran field. This area was leased out five times before but nobody found opal. I prayed to Allah that they find opal. I pegged a claim on the lease and went to register the field as Allah's Rush but authorities insisted on naming the field Kelly three. Their representative came to inspect the field and rolled the car. Allah was not pleased. The mining department then agreed to register the field as Allah's rush. My friend drilled a hole and placed a sign Allah Rush on it. I put a plaque at the base of the sign to thank Allah for his goodness and generosity. People celebrated because Allah the merciful helped to find the richest opal field in Coocoran. There were buckets of opal in my claim but Peter and Marko jumped my claim, put the blower on it and sucked the opal out. The big court case followed and we agreed to split the claim in half. They gave me a bucket of opal to sell. I sold it to Linda for 2700. I gave them 2500 and for 200 I bought T-shirts with the sign Allah's rush printed on them to give to my friends. I had a hole drilled into the solid ground but when it bottomed I found a ballroom underneath. A neighbour came from underneath and took all the opal out. I complained to the Mineral Resources office but my neighbour was a friend of the
inspector and I could do nothing. The men in the office always come first. They cash on their knowledge. I found a partner, Tom, and we used a tunnelling machine to dig. You cannot check the dirt when you are tunnelling and the person who washed the dirt stole whatever opal was there. Many got rich on Allah's rush but I didn't. The miners, who cheated me, were punished. Marko and Peter died while I am still here soldering for Allah. The wealth did not bring them happiness but my faith brought it to me. I sponsored the Goodooga all girl touch football team called Allah's rush and they were the clear winners too.
Allah says that everybody has to do whatever little one can to destroy corruption and bring justice to the world.
Be careful whose hand you shake because there are few honest friends around. Your first friend is bread, the second friend is health, and the third is Allah.
Mohamed was a smart man. He was a fighter, a businessman and a teacher. He said: If you want to survive on Earth one hundred years as an animal you must try to live at least one day as a human being.
The world is corrupted and Lightning Ridge is no exception. You feel sorry for a hungry little dog and feed him but when it grows it bites you. We elect people to represent us but once elected they only represent themselves and look after their pockets and their greed. They search for you when they need your vote but forget you as soon as they are elected.
There are over 200 000 Turks in Australia. They meet in their clubs, restaurants, nightclubs and mosques. Turks are not Islam but Islam grew with Turks. Turks spread Muslim faith. Mohamed himself said: I am Arab but Arabs are not for me.
Laurence of Arabia said: I can deal with Arabs but I cannot bargain with a Turkish soldier. It means that Arabs are treacherous and would deal with anybody, sell and buy without principles. One can trust a Turk but never an Arab.
Muslims produce hashish but they do not use it, Afghanis produce heroin but not use it. It is the dealers who are getting rich from it not the poor growers of cannabis or poppy seeds.
Criminals know how to use poor people. They elect their representatives and through them rule the world.
I was married six times. I married the first wife at the age of fifteen and had a child at sixteen. In Turkey a boy meets a girl and then his parents go to the girl's parents to ask for the girl to be their son's wife. The boy and the girl cannot meet on their own before they are married. The boy's parents have to give money or some other valuable thing like a sheep to the girl's parents so the girl's parents can buy a dowry for their daughter.
I don't tell the secrets about my marriages. As long as I keep the secret I control the secret but as soon as I tell it, my secrets control me. I only tell my secrets to people I trust. If I fail to tell the secret to the woman who becomes my wife, she will find out and my face will be darkness before her. The Imam comes to your home and registers your marriage by the Koran but you can also register your marriage in a registry office. If you divorce your wife by Koran you just tell her that you are divorcing her. Muslim way is not to hit a woman but you divorce her if she does not obey or does not show respect. A woman must never cross the path of the man. If she sees the man coming she must stop and let him pass. A woman is also free to divorce her husband. If a woman is unfaithful to her husband he must kill her and her lover. Most widows rarely
remarry. The government looks them after. If the couple has no children it is up to a man to establish whose fault it is. The wife must allow her husband to prove himself with another woman. If the second woman does not have children he can try it with two more women before it is established that the fault is with him. A man can have more than one wife if he can afford it but these days few men can afford it.
In the days before Islam women were sold on the bazaar but Islam teaches that women have to be protected and respected. Man can marry many women to take care of them.
In Turkey most girls go to girl's school. A Turkish woman is the boss in the house and she can do as she likes as long as she shows proper respect for her husband.
The modern Turkey outlawed the fez, the head covering of a man and a pecha, the covering of a woman. Modern Westernised Turkish woman does not have to be covered but in my part of Turkey East of Ankara women still wear Pecha and thatch. Pecha is the covering of the mouth and thatch is the decorated covering of the top of the head. The eyes and the nose are always uncovered. Women wear a long modest dress.
Turkey has no pension or social security for unemployed. The family has to provide for their children, their old people and for those that have no work.
My two sons live in Sydney with their families. They are non-believers.
I have more children in Europe but I never look back. You cannot go ahead if you look behind. People spend too much time thinking about things that had gone by. I believe in Allah and go forth. Allah gives me power to go straight. I pray five
times a day in my special room. I pray for justice. Allah created the world for everybody and told men to rule the world; he said that it is better to work than to pray.
A couple of Pakistani shop owners and I are the only people in Lightning Ridge who pray regularly and follow Muslim faith. I observe religious laws, eat no pork, observe Ramadan and abstain from alcohol.
Muslims in Turkey celebrate Curbum Bajram, which is the remembrance of Abram's sacrifice on the mountain. God told Abraham to spare his only son Isaac and instead sacrifice the lamb. Muslims kill the lamb in remembrance of that day; they share the meat with their neighbours and friends. In Australia meat does not mean much because we can have it every day so we make other sacrifices. I make donations to the mosque in Sydney.
Every year Muslims observe a month of Ramadan. I don't eat or drink or smoke or make love during the daylight hours of Ramadan. At the end of Ramadan I feel rejuvenated, purified and happier. To me belief is a very personal relationship to Allah. Muslims don't confess to a man we confess to Allah. Every Muslim, who can afford it, should make Hajj, a religious journey to a holy place once in a lifetime but Hajj is no good if you cheat someone or don't help someone near you first. Hajj 2001 was a pilgrimage to the mount Arafat from which Mohamed gave his last sermon before he died.
Muslims don't force their religion on others; we respect other beliefs. Christians, Jews and Muslims have one God, the God of Abraham. We believe in Ten Commandments and the life of Jesus. Muslims believe that Mohamed was a messenger from God.
Some religions say if you don't do something God will not love you. This is wrong because God loves you always. Some leaders of religions want to own God and use him to promote their power over people.
There is much trouble at present in the world. The international bankers manipulate the world affairs. They helped install Saddam Hussein in Iraq and then they killed him. They installed Bin Laden in Afghanistan and now they killed him. They created Israel and now there is war in the Middle East. They supported Mubarak and now they are telling him to go. They forgave Gaddafi now they killed him. It is all CIA's work; they are all agents of CIA.
Palestinians and Jews are children of Abraham and should live in peace together. Hebrew religious Jews want to live in peace with Palestinians. They want to please God. The non-believing Jews and black money makers manipulate the innocent people. Arab oil magnates and American bankers are in charge of the world order and whatever they do, they do it to suit their purpose. Suicide bombers cannot fight with inferior technology so they forsake their lives.
People did not have war for a long time so they became careless and they forgot that they need God.
I believe that Australia should not get mixed up in other country's problems.
When I was young my sister came to complain about her husband beating her. My father told me to fix him. I hit him hard. My sister went back to him and both of them hated me forever because I got mixed up in their business.
The outsiders should teach and negotiate but stay out of what is none of their business. The big powers pretend to be doing something so they can spend billions for security. They know very well if anyone wants to destroy the world they can do so despite their security.
I once gave a child a dollar to ask his teacher this question: Which runes faster: a horse or a donkey? Everybody says a horse but I tell you the one that is pushed the hardest runs fastest. The one that is hurting the most will keep on going.
Someone once asked a little bird: why do you fly up and down and this way and that.
There is a lot of shit falling all around and I try to avoid it, said the bird.
Mohamed once said: whoever conquers Constantinople will be a great leader. When Ottoman's army advanced, the Sultan promised not to destroy Christianity but make it one with Muslims.
A wise Sultan was only eighteen but he was very popular and people brought him flowers. He pointed to an old man and said: Give flowers to my teacher.
Mohamed taught us that we must give credit to our teachers.
It is rather unfortunate that people become wise and old at the same time. When they know what should be done they can no longer do anything, says Emma.
That's why God ordered children to listen to their elders, says Sheref.
Emma decides that listening to people makes strangers a lot less strange and dangerous.
We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde
Alex
My story is written in cement, says a shabby looking toothless middle aged man pushing his old bike up the hill. Emma brings her friends to see this unique bush astronomer who likes to tell about his life and work.
I built the Bush Universe observatory from 1983 until 1998. On the steps of the Observatory I wrote in cement my story and the story of astronomers who were persecuted and wrongfully punished like myself.
I was born in Jablonka, Poland in 1933. I migrated to Australia in 1970.
In 1978 I was robbed and bashed. The police found me and the dead woman in my flat. I had no money, did not speak English and had no one who could speak for me. I was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, which I began to serve in Bogga Road prison in Queensland.
After a couple of years a journalist became interested in my case. After four years and six months he proved my innocence and I was released.
Did you get compensation for wrongful imprisonment, asks Emma. These days you get compensation for everything.
In those days nobody asked for compensation, says Alex. I came to Lightning Ridge to get away from people. I grow my fruit and vegetables and build the monument to those who, like myself, have been wrongfully prosecuted. I was always interested in astronomy but had no opportunity to study at home. I have lots of books about astronomers who were persecuted and prosecuted for their beliefs and for daring to tell the truth. I am no longer alone because I know that they also suffered. They never got compensation either. I wrote in cement what I know about the sky and universe and about the people who also loved to study the Universe.
I created my own oasis in the desert because I needed a place where nothing would disturb me.
Gas fridge exploded in Alex's caravan and he died in the fire but his simple sentences in broken English on the steps of his astronomy towers tell tourists more that any eloquent eulogy would.
And though I have all faith co that I could remove mountains
™ ™
and have not charity, I am nothing The Bible
Pieter
Emma met Pieter at the church gathering. Everybody knows him as Peter The old Dutchman who rides his bike. He is the oldest man in town but he still works at St Vincent's second hand shop and helps the poor and old.
I was born on 26.12.1917. As a child I lived in Madijun in the middle of Java and in Surabaja and later in Jakarta the capital of Indonesia, Peter begins his story.
Indonesia consists of over 120 000 islands of which less than one thousand are inhabited. Australia's landmass is four times that of Indonesia but Indonesia has ten times as many people. Indonesia is a hot humid country because it is close to the equator and is surrounded by water.
My father arrived from Holland to Indonesia which was Dutch colony in 1913. Later he married my mother by proxy and she joined him in Indonesia. He worked for the Dutch government as a railway builder. I went to Dutch school in Indonesia. Children of mixed Dutch-Indonesian races and Dutch children would go to school together but I don't remember that there were any Indonesian schools for Indonesians. The official language in Indonesia was Dutch. I don't know if a written Indonesian language even existed at the time and I never saw any Indonesian literature.
Even when Indonesia became independent the university in Bandung taught in Dutch. Lecturers from Holland went to teach there. At the time Indonesia had no terminology for the technical language. At present Dutch is no longer used in Indonesia.
My father was strict about my studies. After primary school I attended high school in Holland and did a mechanical engineering course. At high school we learned the modern languages like English, French and German.
Dutch, as the rulers of the Indonesia had a very privileged life; life was very carefree for us children. We played and participated in sporting activities. During the long school holidays my parents hired a house in a small village in the mountains where we went for bushwalks and horse-rides. On our walks we noticed the difference between the city people and those in the country.
Sometimes I saw village people coming towards us. When they saw us coming from some distance they sat on the side of the road and bowed to us reverently when we passed and then they went on their way. It showed that they respected us. We were thought of as above the indigenous people but we felt that they also appreciated us. We saw that more in the county than in the city. Indonesians were labourers and Dutch were overseers.
We had servants who looked after the household chores. We had native cooks, washerwoman, gardener and the baboe, which means Indonesian woman who looked after the children. We talked Indonesian with baboe. They were affectionate towards us. With natives I spoke Malay and Indonesian but I forgot most of it now.
I played mostly with Dutch children but there was no conflict between the races. Everything was very organised and we had a good security system. If there was any trouble they sorted it out quickly. They destroyed in the bud any revolt or attempted uprisings. Indonesians tried to gain ground to establish their independence. They knew that they could not achieve much but sometimes they wanted to show their dissatisfaction with the government. There were killings. Some Dutch people slept with the revolver under the pillow but we were never threatened.
We went to Holland for one year when I was 8 in 1925. I went to school in Holland. We travelled by ship and I saw how other people lived as we stopped at many places on the way.
In 1932 it was the end of our Indonesian experience. Dad was recalled to Holland and pensioned off. He was just over fifty.
Holland was a big change for me and I did not like it. The climate in Indonesia is much more pleasant than in cold Netherlands. I attended a technical mechanical engineering school when the war broke out. I got a study leave and did not have to go into the army.
Germans invaded Holland on 10.5.1940. They were bombing our cities and Rotterdam was flattened to the ground. Hitler wanted to rule the world. Holland resisted the invasion but we only had an unorganised small army and were taken over in five days.
My family and most Dutch people were against Germans but there was a small Nazi party in Holland who collaborated with Germans. Most Dutch people despised them.
I was late for work on 6.6.44. I walked to Amsterdam and saw a news item on the board announcing that the allies are coming. Great multitudes of allied soldiers crossed the channel through the night. Germans were confident that they could resist them but allies managed to hold their ground. That was the dawn of our liberation. Allies could not get over the Rhine during the cold months of winter but in May 45 they liberated everybody.
Japan occupied Indonesia but Indonesian forces organised the independence movement and later Sukarno became Indonesia's first president. Sukarno was Dutch educated.
After the war I joined the Dutch army and was sent to Indonesia to fight against the independence movement but Indonesia became independent in 1949. Dutch still kept an army there to help Indonesians establish their own army and government. Dutch government wanted to remain on friendly terms with Sukarno's government specially since there were still Dutch companies in Indonesia and Dutch government had to protect them.
Indonesians also needed our help in establishing their economy. Some of us were asked to stay longer to help them with setting up the army and the government. I left Indonesia in 1950 and returned to Holland.
At the time there was a lot of publicity for emigration. Like most of Europe, Holland had to recover from the war and could not provide for its people. The government promoted emigration to South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. I decided to come to Australia. I read about this wonderful warm continent. Canada and New Zealand were too cold. Africa had apartheid and Catholics were not desirable because we consider all human beings equal.
I landed in Sydney in January 1951. I did not know anyone. The Australian government gave me some money to start me off and keep me going until I got a job. It was very easy to get a job anywhere. Australia was badly in need of workers. I learned English at school and refreshed it through the books. It takes years before you learn the language well but compared to others I was at an advantage. I also knew some French and German. I went to the technical college to learn welding. I worked in the truck assembly as a welder, and on the construction works.
In the Catholic weekly I found an advertisement for Thomas Aquinas academy in Sydney. Anyone who wanted to gain deeper understanding of Christian faith could attend. I attended courses on theology, philosophy and Scripture. Doctor Woodbury was the greatest teacher I ever met. He was well educated and a good presenter of knowledge; he spoke with authority and I felt that he spoke the truth.
I met my wife at the college and we got married in 1960. We have six children. I hoped that my family would be my greatest achievement but unfortunately my marriage did not work out. My oldest daughter was unruly and unmanageable; she ruined her life with drugs and lives in an institution. She can't work and is under medication. Other five children are leading good lives; they are hard workers, healthy and honest. They do not practice Catholic religion but they have their children baptised and may one day return to the faith.
My wife and I split up and I came to Lightning Ridge in 1983 when I retired from work. We did not want to sell our house so the family has a home to go to. I read an advertisement in the paper that a house was selling for nine thousand dollars in Lightning Ridge. I could afford that so I came to Lightning Ridge and bought it for 8000.
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The first week I realised that the camp I bought was riddled with termites so I had to rebuild it completely with termite resisting timber. It was a big job for one man. Lightning Ridge was quite different then. There were no houses just camps on the opal fields. I never associated much with Dutch people because I was born in Indonesia and don't really consider Holland my home.
In Indonesia we had a Catholic church. In the congregation were also those natives that understood Dutch. Franciscan order of priests learned Indonesian and they held Indonesian service for those that did not understand Dutch. There was also a Protestant church but they were not as prominent as in Holland. There was no animosity between churches since we all lived in a foreign country.
I never returned to either Indonesia or Holland. I lost touch with friends in Holland many years ago.
I meet people through St Vincent's shop or the Catholic Church. My family were always practising Catholics. Being a Catholic means everything to me. Christ himself established Catholic Church. There were some undesirable leaders in Catholic Church in the past but so were in other churches. Other Christian churches are changing the rituals and the dogmas. Ecumenical movement is a good idea but we can't have a middle church, we can't compromise on dogmas. Catholic Church does not condone divorce and abortion. It demands the celibacy of the priests. There are many off-shoots of Catholic faith because people sometimes want particular liberties and they rebel against the rulings of the Catholic Church. They want to live the life that is not acceptable to the Catholic doctrine.
I believe in the trinity and incarnation and the resurrection. I believe in sacraments. The Eucharist changes us into holy people. Catholic Mass is the re-enactment of Last Supper. Protestants believe that the Christ is present during the ritual of remembrance of Last Supper but we believe that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus.
If we start compromising on doctrines what will be left of the religion?
I studied Mariology and accept the Marian dogmas. Protestants believe that Mary was just an ordinary sinful person.
St Vincent's was established during the eighties. St. Vincent de Paul conference is a group of people that has committed themselves to help the poor. There are 250 branches in NSW. Lightning Ridge group is called Our Lady of Fatima conference. There are about a dozen members and we meet every fortnight. We visit the lonely, the old, and the sick. We look after the needy; we provide the money for their fares, food, electricity etc.
Some people get into a habit of asking for help so we advise them not to spend on gambling, smokes or alcohol. Most poverty is a result of people spending money the wrong way. Their greatest disadvantage is ignorance and the lack of training.
Sometimes people cannot pay for their prescription or buy new glasses. When someone needs to borrow money we ask the president to authorise any bigger payments. At least two people would have to agree and sign the cheque. The money from the St Vincent's shop goes to the diocesan office and is used as funds for St Vincent's conference works. People who
die sometimes bequeath the moneys to St Vincent's and that is a source of our funds. All the work is voluntary.
About twenty years ago St. Vincent's conference decided to twin with another St. Vincent's conference in the third world and so help the poor and less privileged. Our twin conference is in Rimu in Sumatra. Indonesia is poor and conferences could not exist without our help.
Indonesia is predominantly Muslim country with only three percent of the population being Catholic. They have no social security and those that have no work are left at the mercy of the family and the charities like St. Vincent's.
I like history books specially the history of the Catholic Church and hagiography-the stories of the lives of the saints.
We have much in common, says Emma. I was brought up on the lives of saints.
Every man has three characters; that which he exhibits, that which he has and that which he thinks he has.
K Alphonse
Amigo
Amigo lives at the end of Emma's street bordering on the opal field on the fringe of the town. His castle can be seen from Emma's home. He sometimes comes to talk to Paul or to borrow some of his equipment. When Paul is late from work Emma makes a cup of coffee and they sit on the veranda waiting for Paul.
Lightning Ridge is fast becoming a retirement village, says Amigo.
To think that only a few years ago we all came young and full of plans for the future, sighs Emma.
You have to grow old to realise how short life really is, says Amigo.
Only a moment of eternity, says Emma.
Amigo's real name is Vittorio. In 1984 a historian and poet Bruce Smith wrote a poem about Amigo and his castle.
He has no plans,
His tools are few,
He just builds,
Toiling in the winter warmth,
Shaping the elements of Australian wilderness
Into mixed reminders of another world
Deep within himself.
Like a bizarre dream it relates
Absurdly to everything
Save the one whose dream it is.
But herein lies the sense
for from his dreaming
In this outback world
Others still unborn will come and dream.
The newspaper also reported:
For the past fifteen years, Italian-Australian, Amigo, has been illegally building the fifteen metres tall Amigo's Castle in Lightning Ridge, a giant Romanesque construction made from more than twenty thousand ironstone boulders-each carried out from the bush in a rucksack. He intends it to be a home for a princess he has yet to meet. In the meantime he lives in a caravan at the back.
Another newspaper reported:
Amigo is a crown witness in a murder trial.
A former British commando Alan Robinson has been jailed for life for the double murder but the bodies of Caroline Horton 75 and her son Frank, 35, have never been found. Alan Robinson sold to Hortons an opal claim. When Hortons found opal Allan shot them, dumped them down the mine, and then blew up the entrance with explosives.
The police theory is that Frank Horton started getting opals from the claim and Robinson got upset and decided to kill them and reclaim the mine.
Robinson had been charged with soliciting a fellow jail inmate to murder Vittorio, a crown witness. Robinson had a further six years added to his two life sentences. A jury was told that Robinson approached a fellow inmate at long Bay jail and offered him $25.000 to kill Amigo. It was further alleged Robinson was to pay $6000 to the inmate's nephew who after Amigo's death would falsely claim that Amigo has confessed to the murders which would force the case to be re examined.
Amigo is one of the famous Lightning Ridge characters. A huge Gothic style castle he built is reported to have underground passages and secret chambers.
As a crown witness Amigo told police that during a friendly conversation about Horton's disappearance Robinson boasted that he murdered them.
Amigo allegedly said to Robinson: It looks like a perfect crime.
Robinson responded: When I do a job, I don't do a halfjob.
Robinson was seen driving Horton's car, and selling Mrs. Horton's personal belongings. He also made a bonfire of
personal papers and other belongings. He said to a friend: Frank won't need these any more.
Amigo mined hard for eight years but the only thing the unforgiving earth surrendered to him were rocks, rocks and more rocks. So this nuggetty man decided to do the best he could with what he had. He built a rock castle.
Amigo said: My hands have touched every stone so the castle became a part of me. When I started building I used rocks because they were free. I only wanted a small house to live in, but once I started, I really liked the way the rocks looked, all fitting together, so I kept going.
Amigo has no building qualifications and didn't follow any plan. Instinct was his only guide, design being created just one rock at the time.
Amigo had tunnelled about six metres below his castle, creating a labyrinth of cellars which provides cool solace from the scorching sun.
I have to use my energy on something, Amigo tells Emma. When I went back to Italy my parents were disappointed that their son who set off to make his fortune found no opals and no wife. I think that is the real reason I am building a castle. I thought I'd better have something to show for my time here. If I had found my fortune I wouldn't be building a castle but now I'd rather have the castle than a million dollars.
I talked to many people about my castle and how I built it. I tried to make it interesting for them so I told different details to different people but the story is always the same castle. People write about the castle and they add their own bits about
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me but they never really say what I would like to say, Amigo tells Emma. Both feel that they know what each wants to say to another.
The castle is my public face, solid and strong because it is a rock. People come because the rocks represent stability, permanence, and strength.
There is also a private person behind the rock and that is much more difficult to talk about, says Amigo. Nobody wants to know my thoughts and feelings because thoughts and feelings change constantly. They are like the seasons and the weather trying to wear down the rock. Only the rock is strong and can withstand the changes.
Men do not talk about feelings and thoughts, says Emma.
I cannot even ever honestly say what I think and feel about the people I like and about those that come to see me. I have to maintain propriety so I can continue living with these people. I need these people because we share bits of our private selves with each other. Being discrete and tactful stops me from being completely honest.
Nobody dares to be completely honest. These days we also have to be politically correct, smiles Emma.
Hypocrites, says Amigo. We say what is expected and acceptable. We are afraid to tell the truth. It does not matter if someone writes the truth about you after you are dead. You can no longer hurt anyone and you no longer need anyone.
It feels good to share your thoughts with a friend, says Emma.
The Bible tells us to be kind to strangers so it follows that foreigners must have always been hated, says Amigo with a dash of bitterness.
Knowing someone makes it easier to like that person, agrees Emma.
It is even harder to talk about my own private intimate thoughts and feelings although these thoughts and feelings make me who I am. My thoughts and my feelings are the most precious part of me so I am careful whom I share that with. Perhaps the private me is not as solid as a rock, smiles Amigo.
It never is, agrees Emma.
Today I swept my castle and I found a honeybee in the corner. It looked dead. I took it in the sun and it flew away. A thought came to me that I am much like that bee.
Like a honeybee
Caught in the winter wind
With a frozen wing
Where is your sting?
Where is my sting? Says Amigo looking into the horizon.
We hide our sting to get along, adds Emma.
I had enthusiasm, plans, energy and dreams but at the moment I feel no urgency to create. I lost my sting. My castle is waiting unfinished. I see no purpose.
Perhaps your feelings will change.
I was always anxious not to upset my mother with anything I did or said. It is a burden to feel responsible for someone's feelings. Now that she passed away I feel free to be myself. I don't owe anyone to be anything in particular. I don't have to please anyone.
There is always a fear of rejection, failure and old age but there is also the fear of being a stranger to people around you. A person needs to be understood and to understand, to be accepted and to accept. It is difficult for a migrant to ever fully achieve this because the part of a migrant always lives where he grew up and with the people he shared his childhood with. That part of him remains a stranger in a strange land.
Most people in Lightning Ridge are migrants and feel much the same; we miss the intimacy and we are afraid of it, agrees Emma.
Migration is a traumatic experience. Most migrants escaped from poverty and war and their guiding light was a better future for their children. They worked harder than Australians, because they wanted to grow roots into the new country. Australians resented their success.
When I was younger I wanted to make a fortune, get married and have a family.
Perhaps I am lucky that I never found a fortune. I never married and have no one to worry about. I believe that men are less concerned with the family than women. For women family and home and children mean everything.
Family is a source of pleasure and pain, admits Emma.
Men like to avoid that pain.
Where do you come from, asks Emma.
I was born in Italy close to Slovenian border.
We were and are neighbours, smiles Emma.
Italy is a favourite tourist destination because of its ancient history, culture, natural beauty, mild climate and well-known cuisine. But despite its ancient history and culture, Italy is one of the youngest European countries. It achieved independence and unification in 1861. Until the Second World War there was a huge gap in Italy between the poor and the rich and little prospect for the peasants to prosper. During the last two hundred years twenty six million Italians left Italy in search of fortune.
Italian Missionaries were among the first white people in Australia. Like other great powers Italians struggled for expansion into the new lands. The white man in the eighteenth century maintained that it was their duty to bring civilization, culture and religion to the rest of the world. Catholic Church was eager to have a part in bringing all that to Australian natives. Australia also promised riches to poor Europeans. Gold rushes brought many fortune hunters to Australia. By the beginning of the twentieth century there were eight thousand Italians in Australia and by the end of the century there were eight hundred thousand.
You find Italians in every town all over the world, says Emma.
In Lightning Ridge there are about ten of us. At the beginning of the third millennium the first generation migrants are old and dying out. The second generation call themselves Australians. They think and work and feel like any other Australians. Italian names blended into every walk of life.
When Mussolini came to power he dreamed of creating the Second Roman Empire in which poor Italians would develop their colonies Libya, Eritrea and Somalia rather than immigrate to foreign countries. These countries in northern Africa had an important strategic position.
Mussolini also wanted to separate the church from the state because he believed that the church had too much influence on government decisions. Whatever government came to power little changed for peasants. Peasant remains a peasant.
The Second World War was especially devastating for Italians because they fought against each other siding with the foreigners on opposite ideological ground. Most Italians never wanted this war; they obeyed their leaders like people everywhere do.
After Italy surrendered in 1943 half of Italians sided with allies and the other half with fascists. They were mainly killing each other.
Much like Slovenians, says Emma.
The West protected Italy from communism after the war, the Marshal Plan helped to rebuild Italy and the social reform also helped poor people to gradually prosper. Before the war my father's family lived on a big property and worked for the landowner, continues Amigo. There were over fifty people working for this landowner. They were allowed to keep fifty percent of what they produced. After the war the government took the land from the big landowners and distributed it to those who worked on it.
Partisans would have preferred Italy to side with Russians but Christian democrats won the election and they turned to the
West. Italy would never prosper with Russians like it did with the West. If you were known as a communist after the war it was harder for you to find a good job and be promoted. There was bitterness; people had to make a readjustment.
Many poor Italians escaped but there have never been any political divisions among Italian migrants like there are among those groups that came from communist countries.
Europe was devastated after the Second World War and many people wanted to escape as far as possible from pain and poverty.
The living conditions in Europe improved since then and the need for mass migration ended in the eighties. At present Australia became a refuge for people from Asia and Middle East war torn countries. They became new Australians and they carry the brunt of prejudices because they are visibly different and they celebrate life differently.
Italians persevered to keep the best of their heritage and blend it with the best of what they found in Australia. They assimilated less than other groups of people. Other nations may have lost their essence in the melting pot of Australian assimilation but Italians added their own to the melting pot and so influenced and changed what Australian culture was. They recreated and enriched Australian cuisine, fashion, art, building industry and they made their mark in politics. Italians made pasta and pizza a major part of Australian diet.
I am not a member of any migrant organisation but I know that I can call on Italians anywhere in the world. We have a strong sense of community.
It became fashionable these days for old Australians to boast about their European ancestors. They tell me about their Italian friends, in laws, ancestors and co-workers. Being continental became a mark of prestige rather than inferiority. It was fairly easy for us white Christians to assimilate with other white Christians. I am a part of what Australia is. The government established all sorts of multicultural offices and I suppose they have to make them serve some purpose but I have no need for them.
Most ethnic clubs became Australian clubs; the new generation does not know the difference. Migrants needed these clubs after they arrived to Australia, they had to have a place where they could gather as a community to celebrate and feel at home.
Migrants became a unique blend of Australiana as well as of everything they brought within themselves from their country.
For my 50th birthday I received a card saying: 47 was the best year because that was the year you were born. I don't know that the world changed because of me but 1947 was the time of huge changes. In 1946 Italy became a republic and in the 1947 Treaty it lost its colonies and considerable territories.
In 1947 Australia also opened its door to European migrants.
I was born near Treviso in northern Italy where dad's family comes from. I only remember dad as a young man, because he grew old when I was in Australia. Dad was an adventurer. As a twenty years old man he was conscripted to work in Somalia from 1932 until 1934. When he got married he worked in Switzerland as a building labourer. He came home during winter when the building industry stopped. When the factory opened in our town he got a job there. Even when dad was
around he remained an observer; he kept his distance. He wasn't to be disturbed.
I am a bit like that myself. I like to observe and try to determine the meaning of things around me.
Dad adjusted to changes around him. He claimed that it is best to go with the regime. If you go with the government you get the benefits. He quoted another Italian who said: It does not matter which side you are on, when the regime changes they will say that you were on the other side.
Dad's favourite saying was: Everything is temporary. Every year we rearrange our winter stores of produce in a different way.
I believe that he was saying that it's no use making permanent plans because circumstances change and one has to adjust to fit into the new system.
Dad was always self sufficient, he never asked for help from anyone.
On Sundays my two brothers and I played soccer. We were the best in our team and our team usually won the game. Dad came to watch and after the game he went to the pub with other men and they talked about the game and the players. When dad returned home for dinner he said that I was the best player. He was proud of us boys and I was happy that I made him proud. He wasn't bragging about us but we knew that he was proud.
I also played a trumpet in a brass band and sang in a choir.
My mother was born in Sicily but during the war her family were evacuated to just north of Venice.
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Mum was the heart of the home and family; she was a hub of the wheel. My sister, my two brothers and I were the spokes in that hub. Perhaps dad was the rim of the wheel to hold us in place for mum. We went to church every Sunday we served as altar boys and went through sacraments. We did not pray at home. Perhaps my parents only followed what was required of us all.
I used to write to my mother but since mum passed away the family fell apart and grew in different directions.
My brother is an important man at home and he writes sometimes. I write straight back and hope that he will not write again for a long time. What could I write to him if the weather hasn't changed since the last letter? He does not know the life I have and I don't know his life. Things that belong together stick together without glue but some things never can, they fall apart and stay apart.
I was always looking for adventure. As a child I liked to explore the ruins of the old Roman fortification in Italy where I grew up. The secret passages and the mystery of it all fascinated me. At the age of twenty-two I read in the Reader's Digest about Lightning Ridge opal. I suppose that article changed my life. I came to Australia in 1970.
In Tennant creek where I played soccer, people did not know my name so they called out Go Amigo. The name stuck and everybody knows me now as Amigo, which in Spanish means a friend. In Italian a friend is Amico.
In Tennant creek I met Klaus, A German opal miner, who showed me the first opal chip bottle. He was going to Lightning Ridge so I packed my camping gear into my land rover and went with him.
I worked on opal now for 29 years. I still like to do at least a few hours of mining each day. When you get tired you sleep better and you are happier. The work takes the toxins out of your system.
When I first came to Lightning Ridge I made a camp at Three mile. Klaus and I became partners and worked together until Klaus left. I started with the Czech Julius at Billy goat Hill on Meehi towards Angledool. We found a bit of opal. We were one of the first miners there but Billy Goat Hill soon became a great rush. The other two miners took a day off from digging to go goat shooting. They saw the white Billy goat disappearing over the hill. They chased it and lost it, but on the way back they stumbled on the abandoned diggings and found bits of colour.
They drilled a shaft. It is a dream of every opal miner to sink a shaft and bottom on precious opal. They drilled on opal. The next thing we knew the whole hill was pegged out. A local farmer let the news out to the newspaper. But the miners weren't worried. They had their claims, which should keep them rich and happy. Nobody tells you how much they found, some found millions but most found nothing. At the time miners laughed at the suggestion that there might be a danger from claim jumpers and ratters. Miners were all honest, genuine men then. They trusted each other. Not like now.
In 1980 I went back home to Italy. I haven't made a fortune and I had no wife so I felt that I failed. When I returned to Lightning Ridge I made a camp under the tree and started to build the castle next to it. I needed to do something, I suppose I wanted to make people pay attention. I had to do something spectacular to show the world that I am not a failure.
I've never done any building in my life but when I saw big conglomerate iron boulders beside the road I began picking them up and taking them home. Conglomerate stones have pretty white pebbles in the ironstone.
At the beginning I had no plan; I just wanted to build a nice place to live in. Soon it became a creative hobby that gave me much satisfaction. After I finished the large room in which I now live, I kept on building. I was only interested in how the structure looked; I wanted to create a work of art. I sat back and imagined what it should look like as I placed each boulder in its place. I was really building to satisfy my own creativity.
People asked me what will happen to the castle when I die. Some say that the government will take it if I don't make a will. Will the Prime Minister come to live in it, I wonder? It does not matter who lives in it and who looks at it, or owns it; the castle will remain a part of Lightning Ridge. You simply can't take it away.
I will never go away from Lightning Ridge.
Sometimes I get annoyed with people. I like the visitors coming to look at my castle but I don't like to answer endless trivial questions about how many bags of cement I used and how many boulders are there. It is like asking an artist where he bought his brushes and how much he paid for them. I want people to look and enjoy and think whatever the castle inspires them to think and enjoy. A picture means different things to different people and so does my castle. If it makes people think and dream, I am happy.
I don't seek attention personally. I like to keep my life private while the castle is there for everyone to see. I wanted to build something spectacular for people to take notice but I don't
want them to take notice of me. It is distracting to work under constant scrutiny; I lost interest and creativity. I like visitors passing through the castle but I wish to remain in the background. I feel that the art should make an impression by itself without my explanations. Things have their own meaning, it isn't important what the castle means to me; it is more important what it means to each visitor.
I like to imagine and think and make sense of my surroundings. I get many visitors. Jehovah Witnesses come, Seven days Adventists come. I go to any church. I am a good Christian. Like most Italians I was brought up as a Catholic but I really don't believe that anybody should have a monopoly of God because if there is a creator he created the world for all.
Perhaps it is good to remove yourself from the world and pray in the privacy of the church but one most often prays when real life problems have to be overcome or are overcome.
People of other traditions claim that God is everywhere, but do you really talk to God when you talk to a bird or a flower? Perhaps we created God in our own image.
Religion reminds me of a story about a father who loved his three sons equally. He had one diamond ring. He promised each son at different times to leave him the ring after he dies. The ring would mean that the son was the leader of his people.
Before he died the father decided to have two fakes made to keep all three sons happy. Nobody could tell which was the real diamond.
After their father died the boys argued endlessly about who is the one with the real diamond, and who is the real leader.
The other story I like is about the real love.
Once a girl asked her fiancé to prove to her that he truly loved her. How can I prove it, asked the boy? Kill your mother and bring me her heart on the plate still warm and pulsating, said the girl. The boy killed his mother, placed her pulsating heart on the plate and ran with it towards his girl. He stumbled and fell tipping the heart on the rocky road. As he tried to pick up the heart, he heard the tiny, worried voice coming from the heart: did you hurt yourself, son.
Anyway, we all claim to know Jesus better than anybody ever knew him. Everybody is trying to interpret his words as he understands them but people of his time were the only people who could really relate to him because he was telling them about things they lived with.
I like the story Jesus apparently told about the pool where an angel came to stir the water to give it a healing power. People rushed into the pool with their little ailments but there was a really sick man lying right beside the pool for years.
I often wonder about the meaning of the story. How come someone did not push the sick man into the water? Then again being right next to the pool couldn't he ask someone to help him into the pool? Perhaps he could have even pushed himself with some effort. Why was he there, sick beside the water that could make him well?
If you believe that something will make you well, it will.
Sometimes only one more step is needed. Sometimes behind the next inch of dirt hides the fortune. Many miners have given up the mine and others later found the opal in the next truck of dirt from the same mine.
I like the adventure and the mystery. But most of all I like a challenge.
I enjoy dancing. Three times a week I go to the club. We do line dancing and Latin American dancing. Line dancing is more challenging. We travel and meet other dancing groups. We have competitions and go to festivals.
Someone asked me if I would do things differently if I had another chance, if I was twenty again. I don't think I would want to be twenty again. I am fifty-four now and I travelled the hard long road to be where I am and to be who I am. I wouldn't want to travel that road again. There are new experiences in front of me.
If I found a million dollars tomorrow I would like to see the world but I would return to my castle. People I know come and visit; they like the stability of my place. The rocks give you strength. Rocks are forever.
I wonder sometimes what it is like to be rich. I remember a story about the tramp that lived under the bridge with his mates. One day he bought a lottery ticket and won a million. He bought the bridge and told his mates to clear off from under his bridge. Money changes people; it takes you away from the comfort zone of your mates.
It's much the same on the opal fields. You find a fortune and lose your comfort zone.
If you sit under the tree and see the butterfly, you follow its movements; you admire its colours and wonder about the meaning of it all. If a swarm of butterflies comes along you shoo them away because they become a nuisance.
It's much like that with people.
305
I lived on my own in the Ridge for 28 years. I have little in common with people in my home-town; I have little in common even with Italian community in Australia because there are few Italians in the Ridge. I am closer to Australians than to Italians who never left Italy.
We changed, says Emma.
Now I have a friend from home that has travelled a similar road I travelled. We can go right there to our beginning and share the memories of our growing up as well as the reality of our becoming Australians.
Familiar things make you feel at home with another person. I like to travel with a friend so I can share what I see and experience. Another person adds strength and gives everything an added meaning. When you bring pictures of the places you've seen for people to see, they soon become bored but when you experience those places with someone the memories of those places bring you closer.
What's the point of going around the world if you have nobody to share the experience with?
When I went home for the first time in 1975 I travelled with backpackers through Europe, Middle East and Asia. I suppose the experience of other cultures prepared me for the multicultural Australia.
My African friend tells me that the ancient statues in the Middle East originally represented Africans with flat noses but when white Christians took over they smashed the noses so the statues looked more like them.
I don't know if the story is true or not but I know that we like the familiar faces. Jesus in the most Christian countries is a blue-eyed blond handsome man with wavy hair.
I suppose it would be hard to adore someone who is not like us or who is not perfect by our standards. God created us in his image and we create God in ours.
It is hard for everybody to adjust to the changing society. America had time to blend their many national and racial groups but Australia is young and has been rushed into change. You can't ignore ethnic differences but the differences of a small group should not change the fabric of the society.
A friend of mine says that Muslims have sown the seeds for the take-over. The gang rapes of white Australian girls by Muslim Youth in Sydney have stirred a lot of unrest. The ever-increasing number of boat people, refugees from Islam countries, is coming illegally to our shores. Australian humanitarians want to open the country to them but there is a real fear in the society that the change will be too painful. People become dangerously reckless when they have nothing to do and nothing to lose.
These days the media is not allowed to report the racial or ethnic identity of a criminal. When Italians came to Australia after the war they felt responsible for each other. If Italians achieved something in Australia they were called Australians but if they had done something bad they were called Italians. If one Italian committed a crime the whole Italian community felt condemned and responsible. This made the community look after their own law and order.
Italian migrants always protected their small businesses. They paid insurance; insurance protects you and every insurance costs you. Mafia is an Italian tradition of protection.
Mafia protected Italian migrants who tried to compete when people made it difficult for Italians to succeed.
Later Mafia became glorified in films and books but it really grew from poverty and prejudice.
Mafia looks after you when you are good and they look after you if you are bad. They help you if you pay their share and they get rid of you if you don't. Most insurances do the same.
Mafia is not only an Italian way of protection.
Chinese protection racket is a copy of Italian Mafia. Mafia is everywhere because everybody needs protection and someone to do the dirty work for them. In Australia we hear of drug dealers being protected by police. A lot of money is paid to corrupt policeman who keeps drug dealers in business. Since the collapse of communism Russia has become flooded by Mafia.
Most governments and big business have people who get rid of their opponents. Sometimes they only need to destroy the person's credibility to remove him. Destroying someone's credibility is the easiest way to destroy a person or a group of people.
Australians want migrants to become naturalised but maybe it would be better if they did not. If a migrant commits a crime during a certain number of years, Australians should be able to extradite him. This would save us all a lot of trouble.
Fisherman 1: I marvel how fishes live in the sea.
Fisherman 2: Why, as the man do on land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
Shakespeare Jack
Jack arrived to Lightning Ridge with the proposition to sell Paul's opal in America; he presents himself as a millionaire playboy gemstones buyer; he wants to get gems on consignment to sell overseas. He is happily married to a pretty English born woman and has three children.
Jack wants to be one of the boys so he buys a designer thorn jeans and a T shirt to fit in with the miners. Paul knows that Jack has a big house in the prestige part of Canberra so he gives him opal on consignment. Jack does not sell any of the stones so Paul does not give him anymore.
Jack becomes a regular visitor; he seems interested in all the happenings in town. Emma knows that Jack is trying to impress people with his wealth and knowledge. At forty-five he is like a little boy trying to be more grown up than he is. Emma welcomes Jack's simple friendliness; they often drink coffee and exchange local gossip. There is an obvious vulnerability about Jack. He tells Emma about his family and his childhood.
Something in Jack's manner annoys Paul and he is losing patience with pretentious young man. He makes Jack
obviously unwelcome but Jack refuses to notice. Paul becomes embarrassingly denigrating towards Jack but Jack laughs off the insults. This further infuriates Paul so he goes out when Jack arrives. Jack does not take a hint and keeps talking to Emma. Jack makes Paul feel old and irrelevant as he laughs off his insults.
My father was the meanest man on earth, says Jack. My brother and I once begged dad to let us go to the cinema and he finally conceded that we can go after we split two cubic metres of firewood. We worked hard all afternoon; he came to inspect the stack and said that we can go. I put a hand out for the money but he said: I never said that I will give you money I just said that you can go. My brother and I cried. We were about twelve and thirteen at the time.
Emma retells this story to Paul.
Jack is worse than his father. He is a user and a fake, says Paul. His father at least worked for his money. Jack sold the business his father bought for him. The government paid millions for it because they needed the location. He did not earn his money.
Paul respects hard work. If Paul ever feels insulted or inferior he fights back. He defends his opinions and rights fiercely and unapologetically. He is proud of his hard work and achievements and hates it when someone tries to undermine his authority. Emma remembers how he drove his family through Canberra and showed them the houses he built. Paul was always a careful spender but when in company of friends he paid willingly and presented himself like he had unlimited resources. Perhaps everybody has a need to impress others.
I was eight when we arrived to Australia in 1958, Jack tells his story. My father found a job in booming building industry in Canberra. Most Slovenian migrants worked in the building industry.
Many of them first met in the Snowy mountains project and from there they started to build homes in the cities, says Emma.
Jack does not identify with migrants really; he went to school in Canberra but his family is fiercely Slovenian.
In those days Canberra had a population of around 30,000, continues Jack. After completing my secondary education I began a 5 year apprenticeship in automotive industry and had automotive businesses until mid 80's. In 1985 I decided to change direction in my life and do something different and challenging. I studied Gemmology and became involved with gem stones.
Paul comes from work dirty, tired and edgy minutes after Jack left. Emma serves dinner.
You expect me to eat raw potatoes, yells Paul.
I am sorry. I was late from work myself, says Emma tasting the potato on his plate. It should have another minute.
You serve this to your Jack, you slut, yells Paul splattering the plate and the food all over the kitchen.
Emma wipes the food off the floor and picks the bits of a broken plate before anyone could see it. Before the children could be unhappy.
Jack came looking for you, Emma cries.
He knows when I am not home. You tell him, he is your friend.
Shut up, we both know what you are, says Paul and slams the door of the bedroom behind him.
The next day Paul tells Simon to feed the chooks. Simon scatters some wheat outside the pen. Paul tells him to pick every grain. Simon misses five grains lodged in the crevice between the cement and chicken wire. Paul takes the belt slowly from his trousers and orders Simon to kneel next to his bed for the punishment; he has to learn to be more careful in the future. Simon does not resist anymore; he does not even beg for mercy as Paul's belt falls on his bottom five times. One for each grain he missed. Simon does not struggle or move or cry.
Emma runs into the shed to have a smoke.
You pumped yourself with smoke, you bitch, says Paul and slams the bedroom door.
For the next few days Paul does not talk to anyone. They all try to cheer him up. Simon keeps asking him if he can help him work, Emma cooks his favourite meals, Amy shows him the stars she got for her work at school. Paul refuses to eat or to talk to anyone.
To lessen Paul's anger and to restore the harmony, Emma makes the children apologise; she also eagerly initiates the lovemaking. She learned the moves that make Paul forget their children's misbehaviour for awhile. As they emerge from the bedroom Paul pats Simon's head indicating that everybody is forgiven. The calming effect of lovemaking never lasts long.
Weave, spider, weave.
Amy is thirteen and she finally has dad's permission to go to a school disco. She has to be home by nine. She comes to the gate at nine but she chats to a girlfriend there for half an hour. As she steps in Paul shows her the watch and asks her what the time is. Sorry, says Amy. This is to teach you the time, you whore, says Paul as he slaps Amy's face and she falls to the ground. She picks herself up and runs away. Paul goes to sleep and when he begins to snore Emma goes into the garden to smoke. She waits for Amy. She knows that her children have nowhere to run. They will always come home and apologise.
Amy creeps toward the house before the sunrise. Emma embraces her daughter. Amy smells of tobacco. They cry in each other's arms. Simon smokes all the time, tells Amy.
To her children Emma is only an extension of Paul's wishes; she makes Paul's orders a little less harsh and the children's responses a little more complying. She sees to it that everybody gets along; she is a peacekeeper. Her mandate does not allow her to apply force, prescribe direction or originate ideas. Emma let Paul lead so she can blame him for disasters that are sure to eventuate.
Paul insists that he and Emma must be united against their children; he predicts that without discipline their children are destined to end in jail. He reminds them that they will never be as strong and capable and smart as he is; they have no chance without him showing them the way. Paul also insists that the children must not see Emma cry when he punishes them. Offering them comfort takes away from the effect of the punishment and then they would have to be punished again and they might get hooked on the comfort Emma offers and do it again and be punished again. Emma swallows silent tears as
Paul's belt and his harsh words break their children's spirit and rebellion. She is afraid of the crimes they might commit and without Paul to punish them they really might end up in jail. Emma would blame herself.
It is easier to blame Paul.
Run rabbit, run. Hunters are coming.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely if ever do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
Impi
Emma becomes weary of men's company so she avoids Paul's friends. It is easier to stay in the background with women friends. Paul does not mind the women coming but he denigrates them as Emma's stupid timewasters.
By listening to the life stories of her women-friends Emma realises how fortunate she really is. Her self-pity evaporates like the morning fog. Compassion for less fortunate make her stronger; the shadows of her past become less sinister.
/mpi comes to mass every Sunday. The church organised a few people to visit those that are old and lonely so Emma visits Impi occasionally. Like most people Impi likes to talk about her life and olden days.
I was born in 1913 in America as the oldest child to the Finnish migrant parents. My mother's older sister came to America first. She was a cook to goldminers in Alaska. Later she married a farmer near Seattle. When she returned to Finland she told everybody about the wonderful America. She took my mother, and her brother with her. Others followed.
Mum was a short stout woman. She must have looked exotic among blond Finns with her white complexion and dark hair. She was afraid that I will inherit her short legs but I have long
legs after my father; I needed them to walk long distances to school.
Mum met dad in Seattle. They got married when I was on my way. Dad wasn't impressed by America and couldn't wait for me to be born so we could board the boat and go to Fiji. As a girl I was a disappointment and a useless encumbrance to my parents.
My father was a romantic adventurer and a great talker. I must have inherited this trait from him. I never had time for hobbies but I looked forward to the train journey from work so I could talk to my fellow travellers.
Dad got a job in Fiji. When the ship arrived to Fiji mum was scared of the natives so they sailed ahead to Australia and my father fell in love with Australia. The fertile land and warm climate attracted both my parents. Australia accepted northern European migrants after the WWI so as a child I was surrounded by migrants. Germans congregated around each other and so did Ukrainians and Finns. There were also thousands of British migrants.
My home was always Finnish although I have never been to Finland and at 89 I think I will never go.
Finnish was my first language because my mother never learned to speak much English. Finish is easy because it is a phonic language. English is difficult as a second language because you say one thing and write another. I learned English naturally as a child and have become an interpreter for mum and other Finns.
I inherited some property in Finland and I wish that I could go and see the country of my parents. I heard so much about
Finland that I feel like I know every inch of it. I wasn't interested in Finland while I was young but with age I suppose there comes a need to belong and to be able to say who you are. One needs to find a place in the life's chain of the clan. My son Paul showed some interest in his heritage while girls were never interested in anything but themselves. Maybe girls are less interested in the past than boys. Maybe it is a boy's thing to search for roots and meaning and belonging. Death often makes you think of the clan that lives on when one dies.
My father insisted that we become Australians as quickly as possible. It has always been implied that those poor migrants were an unhappy lot but we weren't really. Most quickly acquired a laid back lazy Australian lifestyle; love of the sunshine, wilderness, and the untouched beauty of nature.
We did not celebrate much because dad became an atheist. He refused to wait for God to fix things. He planned and did things for himself. He wasn't particularly energetic or capable or industrious but he was a thinker and a dreamer.
I think one must be mad to leave one's home and go to live in another country. If God is kind to you and keeps you healthy and strong you may survive. My father didn't. He and his friend Budsy bought a hundred acres of land on the outskirts of Sydney. Budsy earned some money by cutting railway sleepers while dad cleared the land. Dad sifted the good black soil through his fingers and declared to his family: You will never starve on this land. This land will feed you. And it did. We had no government help and nobody else to turn to so we had to look after ourselves. People mistook Dad for a German because he spoke German so it was hard for him to find employment while England was at war with Germany during the WWI.
Mum produced another baby girl to dad's utter disgust.
After the First World War Australia was swamped by pommy whingers. The ones not killed in the war must have been shafted to Australia. I believe that they starved in England and became incapacitated. They were not physically strong and bone-lazy as well but would pinch anything they could reach over the fence. They were hopeless. We wondered how they managed to survive. I learned later on that most had no working class background. English society probably wanted to get rid of them so they paid their passage to Australia. The poor English migrants came from slums in England and have never seen a seed put into the ground and reap the reward for it. They were disadvantaged in that way.
It was fun for us to grow our food. We always bought land but these other people may never have felt the satisfaction of having land and growing what they needed. Eventually they learned to work.
People these days are becoming lazy, spoilt and weak. They are waiting for handouts so they don't have to dirty their hands with work. I remember a lady in Sydney who had a thin strip of land in front of her house and she grew all their vegies on it.
Everything changed when European migrants began coming to Australia because they wanted to come and because they saw great opportunities in Australia. They saw that the land is fantastic and they could grow things and they were willing and able to work. First Europeans had to pay their own way. Usually the whole family saved to get one of theirs in to the New World. That person was responsible for repayment of that debt in some way.
We always regarded Germans as more advanced in culture and technology but people never really liked them. My father spoke glowingly about Germans. Nearby was a settlement of soldiers that returned from the WWI. They resented dad standing up for Germans. Dad was a union man, a good speaker but not really practical or political. He was not dedicated to any particular cause he was just a gregarious type who liked to impress.
There were also Italians. In my father's opinion Italians were wonderful because they managed to grow wonderful food. They prospered with hard work not like people do these days by cheating each other. Mum just scoffed at dad and whispered that Italians are Catholics. She told me to keep away from them and not to chase Italian boys. All the offshoots of Catholic Church hate Catholics because of their power. Italians were very industrious; they grew everything, managed well and had large families.
Mum was prejudiced against blacks, Jews and Catholics.
When dad died we had no one to help us so mum helped in the house of these Italian families and they kept us supplied with best of food.
There were few Eastern and Southern Europeans at that time in Australia.
My father was enchanted by Australia. Next to our lot of land was a big paddock of wattle trees. Dad was mesmerised by the blaze of its golden beauty reflected in the sun. God's own given country, he romanticised while mum sweated and moaned over the washing and the hard work on the land. I don't think we would ever have survived without my father's
dreaming. What a wonderful land, a fairyland, dad went on while mum toiled in the paddock.
I am always intrigued with the way things grow and how every seed knows what to become. To me and my family land meant survival and a source of food. I always lived on the land that fed us so we never felt poor. The family next to us in Sydney had the same land we had but they never cleared it. They always reached over the fence to get our fruit and vegetables while my dad admired the glory of their golden wattle trees.
Dad built our first home with a proper underground sauna like they have in Finland. The heat was contained underground, it was like an oven. Cleanliness was very important in our home. Mum scrubbed the wooden floor every week until it was white. When I started working I bought some varnish and painted the floorboards so we didn't have to scrub anymore. Dad cleared our land of every tree so we could grow vegetables and make money. He gave things away. He grew enough food to feed an army so he gave it away to neighbours in basket-fulls.
No one in our family ever made money. We never had money but we never went hungry either. Dad couldn't believe how cheap sugar was in Australia. He bought a whole bag of it and we ate it. I believe that we damaged our teeth with sugar in those days.
Dad travelled a lot and has seen different fruits growing so he said when he gets some land he would plant every kind of fruit tree. We had 37 fruit trees and the Poms next to us always came to us to get some fruit. Dad gave them seeds and seedlings and cuttings but they never planted anything. From the trees dad cut down he made fire wood and stacked it near the house. We came from Finland where everything is used
and nothing is wasted. Worn out clothes become dusters. These days people waste so much and then they whinge that they are poor. It's the little things that make a difference. You have to save every day to become more comfortable. People become jealous if you have more than they have. That's why they hate Jews. Jews are careful with little things, their children are tidy and they learn to be careful with their belongings. Jews help each other; they stick together and get rich. People come to them to borrow money and then they curse them for wanting their money repaid. Other nations want to be like Jews but they are careless and lazy and they argue with each other instead of going ahead and sticking together. People hate Jews because they cannot live up to their standards.
People these days take their good fortunes for granted. They spend their money freely and never mind tomorrow. We saved for a rainy day because it was surely going to pour. Mum left lots ofjunk when she died but most of it stayed in the house and is still there. The land must be worth a lot now.
We had no close neighbours; there were always acres of land between us. There was a railway station nearby where we lived and that was handy for going to the markets and to town. A Syrian family lived nearby and mum asked me to go with the lady to the city and interpret for her. The city lady had let us into their beautiful home. I didn't understand either of their languages but both spoke a bit of English and I tried to make them understand each other. The lady of the house wanted my Syrian neighbour to do some embroidery but she refused to pay the price. I never before saw anything as beautiful as that house. They were very rich and our neighbour was starving. I realised then how rich people exploit the poor.
My father fancied himself to be more educated than he was. Education was a big thing in my family. Both mum and dad pushed me to become educated and I soon knew more than dad. The idea of me going to a little country school was exciting to my parents. What a wonderful country this is where my daughter can get free education, raved dad.
I became opinionated and arrogant with all this new primary school knowledge.
Mum comes from a pious Lutheran family and to her religion was culture. It was hard to find a Luthern church or any church on the outskirts of Sydney where we lived so mum found a Church of England as the next best thing. Later mum found a Catholic school and entrusted her daughters into the care of the nuns. I became Catholic from then on but my sister married a Jew and she took Jewish religion. Mum did not like public school education because the children there were rowdy and disorderly. If there was any money in the house the books and education came first. I never had any toys or dolls.
Dad was about to begin a real job installing the electricity in the huge Anthony Hordens building next to People's Palace. We were all very excited about the prospect of our father being in charge of putting electricity into that beautiful place. I remember us going to buy all sorts of appropriate clothes for his work one day but the next day dad dropped dead. I never knew how or why he died. I did not understand death. I knew cats and goats and pigs die but not people. I was eight and since then I grew under mum's influence and I suppose I became much like mum in my long dresses to protect my modesty.
Mum never went to school; many people in those days were illiterate. I just remember her being ordinary in her working
clothes but she must have been beautiful to catch dad who was quite smart and handsome. After dad died mum was down mentally, physically and financially. She was alone with two daughters to feed and look after. She sold our land. I heard that mum often came back to look at the land she sold. She stood there crying and the lady who bought it saw her and felt guilty. The new owners never made anything out of the land. I sometimes wonder what became of it now that it is part of the city. I heard later that the lady bought the land because she felt sorry for mum and that they intended to give it later to me.
We rented a place and Mum began to work at RRR Railway Refreshment room and loved it there. Dad's friend Budsy married mum and they had another daughter. I was eleven when Budsy died and mum was left on her own with three daughters.
Mum knew an elegant Finish lady who lived next to where they built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. With her English Gentleman husband Mr Top they ran a kind of a hostel first for Finnish migrants and later for migrants in general.
Mum let me go by bus and train to Sydney sometimes to take some produce to this lady and the lady let me stay with them for a few days. They were thrilled by fresh eggs and cream and cakes I brought and I was thrilled to be able to taste their lifestyle.
These trips to the city were the highlights of my life. As soon as I would come to the house I would go and wash my hands. They commended me how clean I was but I only washed my hands because I liked their scented soap. Being with elegant people in the rich home I got ideas that I would also like to have all the good things.
Mr Top went to the barber's every morning to have his face and his hair arranged.
I don't think I was a very good daughter when I was young. I didn't understand the attitudes nations have towards each other. Finns like most people consider themselves a bit better than the rest, cleaner, hard working, honest. On one hand I was a Finn migrant on the other I was Australian. Everything I absorbed during those growing up years became part of who I imagined myself to be.
At fourteen I had to become a maid to earn some money. There I was, blond with huge new bosom sticking out, a lovely bait for men to chase. I became a live in maid for ten shillings a week. The disgusting old man of the house was after me. I had no lock on my bedroom door so I stacked the furniture on the door at night.
I soon packed my bag and went home. I never told mum why I left. In those days you did not talk about sex or sexual abuse. We never talked about pregnancy or poo or anything like that. Sometimes I think that kids these days know too much about sex but then I wonder if anyone can ever know too much of anything.
My next employer was a lovely, kind, gentle Belgian family. The lady taught me a lot; I became quite uppity and she made me believe that I was as good as she was. She taught me a lot about the fine living and she smelled so nice not at all like us farm people who had to work with animals. We were clean family but not at all elegant. They had important guests and I served them. The lady lent me her black dress but it was very tight over my big boobs. With my bushy blond hair and rosy cheeks I looked a picture. Men followed me with their eyes and I enjoyed being admired. Her husband was a wool buyer
and when they returned to Belgium they wanted to take me with them but mum would not let me go. She did not speak English and without a man in the family I was the next best thing to take the responsibility.
I became confident enough to enrol into a secretarial course at the Business College. With all my new expertise I went to work for Farmers department store in Pitt Street where I met people who were quite different. Everything that happened later in my life was based on the pictures I formed about the world before I knew that there were other, quite different people in the world.
I worked for a firm of accountants. My boss had trouble with staff, people couldn't stand working for him but I loved it there. He paid well but he wanted the job done tiptop.
When Mount Isa mining opened I went to work in the office there. Men from all over the world came to work in the mine. About three hundred Finns came and most of them were young men. They wrote home how good it was in Australia and new eager migrants joined them.
It was an exciting time for a young girl like myself, admired and courted by all these young lonely men. Girls were scarce; especially Finn girls and I had a whale of a time attracting all the admiration.
I picked Aimo, handsome young Finn who came from a farming background in Finland. It must have been hard for him to adjust to the new country. Aimo was never interested in farming and I did not want to marry a farmer either. Mum wasn't too happy when I brought him home. She said that I would throw my life away. I suppose she would have picked a Finn man for me before she would have me marry any other.
Australians we knew were a rough, common lot so at 28 I married this Finn Aimo and became pregnant with Gail. We got fed up with Mount Isa so we sold our home, packed up and returned to Sydney.
Coming to Australia was a first taste of freedom for Aimo and he liked it. He liked having a wife simply because having a wife was a sign of success but a wife also tied him down. Especially the wife that was constantly pregnant.
Money was always a problem with us; we never had any. Not having money was a lifelong theme in my life. I believe that neither Aimo nor I had been good managers. It never entered Aimo's psyche to build a home or buy the land so we could settle down.
Aimo became restless. We moved to Brisbane where Aimo did some labouring and I took some office work when I could get it. I wasn't very popular as an employee with three small children who could get sick at any time. We had two daughters and a son and we could not go anywhere.
Eventually Aimo decided to go to New Guinea to earn more money. I was to follow as soon as he settled down and got the place for us. He provided poorly for the children. Aimo must have caught something because in 1956 he died before I could join him. He was a poor useless bastard who left me to look after our children on my own.
I returned to Sydney because mum was very sick and she soon died. I applied for the deserted wife's pension. I was trying to feed my three children. My oldest daughter Gail looked after the younger two children when I had to go to work to supplement my pension.
Much later I married my neighbour Harold who was a widower living in his house next door. He was a bright and breezy man and a good company. He had no children but when he died his family home went to his sister who had three children. I did not contest the will and I had to find a place for myself. I considered going back to Mount Isa to work there but I was too old so I applied for widow's pension and started life on my own. I could afford to buy a small place in the country but it had to be an interesting place. I would die of boredom in an ordinary country town.
I came with my friends to Lightning Ridge which was an attractive, exciting place at the time. I always lived with people that came from different countries so coming to Lightning Ridge was like coming home. I have a strong personality and have always been considered wilful.
In Lightning Ridge you can be anybody and people still accept you. Of course there is prejudice but people in Lightning Ridge have no power to discriminate against others because they are not in a position to give them a job or a home or do any favours.
People who do not get ahead in life often like to bitch against those that can. Lazy people bitch about those that work hard and keep themselves proud and tidy.
I like Lightning Ridge. I don't even need people as much as I need the cheerful warm town itself.
Sydney is a cold place with cold people. It is fine for young people to sharpen their wits there because if you manage to survive in Sydney you will survive anywhere.
People everywhere are many sided. I like to converse with people who are mentally happy and active, people who have enough intelligence to talk about events as they are without feeling criticised or judged, people who can laugh at themselves and the life generally. I don't like people who have no ambition or energy to improve themselves. It does not mean that you have to be financially better off but to become more alert and wise and knowledgeable.
I am not wealthy but I feel rich.
Australia is so very easy for everyone. If people feel poor that is their state of mind rather than lack of things. I still cannot see neither poverty nor misery in Australia. People will always be poor unless they learn to grow things and help themselves.
I praise God for the wonderful world he created but I don't worry about little details of religions. Christians all believe in Jesus and fight each other in his name so I don't want to be bothered with little differences they have. I sometimes wonder if the Christian training I had is the way to the truth or is it just a story of people who helped and guided their fellow men. Animals always have a leader but I don't know if the same applies to humans. Are our leaders specially gifted? Maybe the masses just push forward certain individuals who are willing to fight for their benefits.
The leader has to have courage. He has to be prepared to stand out in front and take the flack. Most people rather duck instead. Politicians sometimes have convictions but commitment is even more important. They must believe in themselves. Leaders love to be loved and they get egotistical satisfaction from being the centre of attention. Occasionally there is someone who stands out but often this someone shuns
the limelight or does not have the courage and commitment to stand in front and represent and fight for others.
Politics is all about money. Australians are jealous of those that get money from the government. They resent Aborigines getting special benefits.
I remember the poor wretched Aborigines who lived along the George River during the floods in 1916. An Aboriginal family came to our back fence. They were thin, cold and hungry. Mum was terrified of blacks but she packed lots of food and I took it down to them. I told them to leave the dishes at the fence when they finished. The next day I found the dishes washed and empty. We were amazed that they washed and returned the dishes.
The biggest sin in my childhood was stealing. The fact that they did not steal our dishes made me believe that they were not bad. We never saw them again. They lived somewhere on the riverbank. They had nothing to live in yet they didn't even try to build anything. It was hard for us to understand that they did not try to improve their situation. Their whole psyche was different. They asked for this and that but they did not change the situation for themselves. We learned that we must help ourselves but they did not.
Aborigines never learned to grow things and to this day they are not growing food. It was hard for us seeing Aborigines living in total poverty and it was clear to me that we were very different.
I don't tolerate ignorance well. People who have no ambition to improve themselves are rather boring. I don't mean that one should be rich but one should grow in knowledge, wisdom and understanding. I think factory work destroys people mentally.
To do the same monotonous work all your life must do some damage but I suppose we have to have workers.
In 1975 I bought a block of land in Lightning Ridge and had a small cottage built for me. I don't consider myself especially maternal or a model parent. I haven't seen my daughter Leone and her two children or my son Paul and his four children for years.
Gail is my oldest and she looks after me now. I came to the stage where I don't want to own anything I don't use and need. I don't want to live in fear of thieves and of jealous people.
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions; even if their judgement tells them it is unwise, and their conscience that it is wrong.
Bagehot
Ursula
Ursula stumbled on the field and sprained her ankle. Emma dressed her bruises and is visiting her at home to check on her progress. They sip bitter herbal tea as Ursula tells Emma her story. Ursula wouldn't dream of drinking ordinary tea or coffee. She does not keep sugar in the house because apparently sugar causes cancer. She is a wiry disciplined middle-aged woman living on her own.
I was born during the WWII in Austria, tells Ursula. My father studied medicine but he discontinued during his clinical years to volunteer himself to work for Hitler as a manager of the workers. He actually wanted to be a vet but his father didn't think that being a vet was good enough.
When the war started my father joined the Wafen SS and went on the Norwegian and Russian fronts. After the war he was caught by Russians and was to be deported by train to Siberia. He jumped from the train and travelled on his knees by night until he reached the river Elbe. He almost died swimming across the river but his love for his family made him go on. English soldiers caught him there and imprisoned him in Austria. He didn't mind that because he was home in Austria.
After the war we were considered less desirable because my father and grandfather were involved in the Hitler's war.
When I became a thinking person I resented the fact that my father supported Hitler. I was born on the same day and the same minute as my father so I was always afraid that I would become like him.
I had psychological problems reconciling myself with my father's choices but I don't know what my choices would be in his situation. I wondered what I would have done when public opinion was all for Hitler. Many Austrians supported Hitler but after the war most denied it. It was impossible for me to discuss these issues with my father. He is an authoritarian figure and I felt that he would not allow me to discuss his beliefs and his choices.
My father has never given his heart to God. I have to honour him as he is but I am praying for him to accept Jesus in his heart.
I was about five when my father told us that he killed about six men in combat during the war. He said that he was never involved in the executions because there were always volunteers who wanted to do that. In combat it was either him or the other man who would pull the trigger first.
When my father came out of the prison my parents worked on the farm. I remember living on a farm in the mountains on the border of Slovenia. This was the most joyful time of my life. I still remember the smells of the mountain flowers and herbs and the beautiful sights. It was a lovely time for us children who were not aware of all the problems our parents had. We loved the animals and the trees and picking blueberries. We helped bringing the hay in, and with making apple cider in the
autumn. We went into the forest to pick strawberries and saw deer and other animals. When it rained the fire salamander came out and the rainbow made the sky magically beautiful. We used to pick all sort of herbs and mushroom and fruit in the forest. There was more bush food than Aborigines had here.
When we lived on the farm I had to look after the cows. We lead them through the forest to the beautiful grazing areas. Sometimes the children played and the cows disappeared. They came back on their own but we were in trouble if we didn't bring all the cows home. My father would hit us with a stick. The cows were a great responsibility because they did not belong to us but to the landowner we worked for.
Easter was always a big thing in Austria. We had processions and the church bells were heard echoing in the mountains. There were three bells before the mass, the lunchtime bell and the evening angelus bell told people to stop working and to pray.
When I was ten we moved to Vienna. I finished secondary school and a three-year Chemistry course. I had lots of problems at school at that time. The events of the war always bothered me. I was rather self centred, self-conscious and extremely shy and worried about what people thought of me. I never had a high self-esteem or confidence to present myself.
I believe that much of my background is racist and especially anti-Semitic. I believe that people who lived through the terrible times of racism and war carry a tremendous pain inside and they wish to heal the pain. On one occasion a Jewish boy in Vienna and I met and hugged. We could not express the pain we felt in words but the tears washed some of the pain away. We just knew that the other person was dealing with
similar issues. This was a big moral dilemma for me. I felt suicidal during my adolescence and I prayed to God to let me die.
My father loves us very much but he left our upbringing to my mother. Cuddling children was something women did. My mother was gentle and catered for our individual needs as much as she had time for.
Mum called on dad only when children had to be more severely punished. His ways were more regimental, rigorous and strict. He didn't want children to be confused by two different styles of upbringing. My father taught me to be honest, he was honest himself and he was very upset with me when I would make up stories as children do. Maybe my real life was boring so I invented exciting events.
I look more like mum but I have my father's strong convictions about how things should be and how people should behave but I do not agree with my father's ideas and he does not agree with mine.
While father was in prison after the war my mother's mother came to help us. My mother worked in the hospital as a nursing sister. Grandparents were a blessing for us children but parents and grandparents often disagreed on how to bring up the children.
I worked for the forestry commission in Vienna located in a lovely castle of Schoenbrunn, which means beautiful fountain. It really was a fairy tale place. My friend, Elizabeth, attended acting classes and took me along. I completed the acting course and would have liked to act but was too shy. I trained in women's artistic gymnastics from the age of twelve until eighteen.
I interrupted my acting studies and went to France to work as a nanny for a year. While in Paris I also worked in the little self-serve restaurant. An older man came to eat there. He must have been over thirty while I was only in my early twenties. We went to the movies and I fell in love. I felt at home with him spiritually. Both of us were at ease with each other. I had to return to Vienna and we parted without properly saying goodbye. This was my first and very innocent romantic love. The pleasant memory of that love stayed with me forever.
During my acting studies I also met William who eventually became my husband. I should never have told my husband about the man I fell in love with while in France. William felt that I never loved him like I loved this first man in my life. I should never have bothered my husband with my feelings for another man. I loved William in a different way.
There are different ways of loving, agrees Emma.
William went to Australia. I stayed with his mother until my papers were ready in November 1969 and I joined William in Sydney. We got married and had a daughter Ursula in 1973 and Barbara in 1980.
I spoke a bit of English when I arrived in Australia and I did some English courses to adjust to Australian English.
I first came to Lightning Ridge when my husband played puppets at schools in this area. I was also performing. My husband wrote puppet scripts. We enjoyed making puppets and performing.
I came in contact with Aborigines as I worked in Balmain hospital. I loved the caring way in which they related to each other. William wrote migrant success stories for the
government at the time. In 1970 there was a bicentenary celebration of Captain Cook's first arrival to Australia. William's friend came with us to La Peruse celebration. I saw Aborigines put a wreath into the water as a sign of mourning because for them it was two hundred years since they began losing their country and the way of life. For them it was a Day of mourning. Aboriginal poet Kath Walker spoke beautifully about the loss her people suffered. Her talk inspired me because she spoke strong words of truth but she spoke with love rather than with criticism and with a sense of encouragement for her people to survive.
Since then I became interested in Aboriginal spirituality and culture. I became involved in Aboriginal women's sacred secret teachings. I fell in love with Aboriginal people. My husband left me because he felt that I distanced myself from him.
If I were a full Christian I would have never caused the separation from my husband because he is a friendly, gentle fun person and we had some good times together. We remained friends to this day. Our children never had a relationship with their father interrupted.
After my marriage ended I had two more children, Benjamin and Ereehna.
My first contact with Seven-day Adventists happened when the Aboriginal man Burnam Burnam brought two seven-day Adventist Aboriginal sisters to my house. They were sisters of the pastor George Quinleen. I loved them for their friendliness and they inspired me with their gentle kindness. I will always remember them.
Clarie Grogan was a friend of Burnam Burnam who became Benjamin's father. Clarie was an Aboriginal boxer who later travelled with Aboriginal representatives as their supporter and bodyguard. When I arrived to Lightning Ridge I realised that I was pregnant with Clarie's child. Our daughter is named Ereehna which is an Aboriginal name meaning under the tree. Ereehna saw her father only once. Clarie died soon after.
I chose to settle in Lightning Ridge because Aboriginal women I associated with came from this area and I wanted to get more deeply involved in their way of life.
My children and I booked into a tram motel. I remember it being springtime. We listened to the butcherbirds sing every morning. The thought came to me that if Mozart came here he would be inspired to write a beautiful symphony. I really fell in love with the place then.
I bought a little house next to Seven days Adventist church. I had only little money and it was the only cheap place I could find. When the Seven-Day Adventist pastor asked me if I would join them in the church service I was favourably inclined to do so because I had pleasant experience of my two friends who belonged to the same church.
I didn't want to become a member of any church for a long time because of the negative church histories of the main religions. I brought my children to Sabbath school and learned along with them. Seven days Adventists like people to really study and believe before they are baptised but you can come to church and join the congregation. I started to go to the church in 85 and was baptised in 93. I was immersed in the tub of water in Moree. After baptism I signed the contract that I will pay the tithe and live by the bible principles. Seven days Adventists do not drink alcohol; they do not smoke or take
drugs. We pay ten percent of our income and these tithes go into the pool to pay for the pastors.
The Malachi speaks of the importance of observing the giving of tithes to keep the teachings of God alive.
We worship on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, represents the day of rest after the creation.
The word Adventists means forward looking to the Second Coming of Christ. We know the signs that tell us that the Second Coming is near but Jesus said that only his father knows when the end will come.
Our church has no holy pictures or statues; it is very sparsely furnished. During a reverent church service we invite the Holy Spirit to be with us and the presence of the Holy Spirit makes our worship very special.
Lightning Ridge has a congregation of about twenty people. We have a prayer meeting on Tuesday night and the bible study before the divine service on Saturday.
Adventists believe that communion is a symbol in remembrance of the Last Supper rather than actually changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. When we have Holy Communion we also wash the feet of each other in remembrance of Christ doing so. It means that we show our humility and unity like Jesus did.
The faith and the church helped me a lot in bringing up my children because they learned to live by the bible principles. Glory be to God for the family I raised. The bible studies helped them develop the conscience by which they live.
Barbara was the first to be baptised. Benjamin was next and then Ereehna. Ursula, Benjamin and Barbara live in Brisbane. None of them are smoking or drinking. They work and live righteous lives.
Adventists have a nine-million-strong worldwide family which promotes a holistic lifestyle of healthy eating and physical wellbeing for the body, a close knit family of friends to nurture each other, and teaches salvation through Jesus Christ, who offers peace of mind in this busy world.
Seven day Adventists welcome Christians of every persuasion and do not consider themselves to be the only true followers of Christ.
I had many health problems and was always very conscious of a healthy diet and lifestyle even before I became a seven-day Adventist. As lacto-ova-vegetarians Adventists have a fine health record.
When I visited Austria the second time in 1992 my father did not want to see me because I had an Aboriginal child. He never met my children Barbara, Benjamin and Ereehna. He said that he did not approve of me having an Aboriginal child because he believes that children of mixed races are unhappy.
We wanted to see him because my mother was sick but my family told me that my father does not want to see us. My mother said that he loves us but that was his way of showing disapproval. I was sad for him and for us because he would surely enjoy the meeting with the children. I spoke to him on the phone after my mother died but he sent the message through my sister never to call him again. He is a healthy 90 years old. He lives in the same flat where we all grew up in and I consider this place my home.
When I was about ten we had a Lutheran pastor who loved God very much. All of us children wanted to be baptised because he was an example of what we wanted to be like.
When I grew up and began to investigate the church's involvement in the Hitler's war I became upset and left the church.
I was always an introverted person and daydreamed a lot when I was young.
One day I had a vision in my daydreams. I saw precious stones on the banks of a small riverbed. I felt that I had to build a bridge with these stones. I laid the stones together, they weren't held together by mortar but they remained in place. A low arch of the bridge reached into the moor. There were sad looking horses stuck in the moor. When the bridge was built the horses pranced happily on the bridge and galloped into freedom. I never forgot this daydream.
Later when I began reading the bible, I realised we are all the body of Christ and each of us has a value and the beauty of its own. I realised that the precious stones I have seen are God's saints.
I believe that we have to confess to God everything we are. We have to acknowledge ourselves and not run away from who we are but make amends to those we might have hurt.
We can't find piece until we repair the wrongs, agrees Emma.
Since I have given my heart to God, I desire to be completely honest with everyone but I cannot speak about things that involve other people because I do not know another person's heart and thoughts. I can only tell my side of the story because
the other person may see things differently and speak of them differently.
I prayed most of the time but I never read the bible until one day I was at my mother in law's place. There was a bible and I opened it to Matthew 5 and the passage before me said: You have heard that it was said: You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemies, bless those who curse you; do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you; that you may be sons of your father in heaven for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same, and if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others do? Therefore you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is
perfect.......When you pray, go into your room and when you
have shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place, and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
If we only followed this teaching we would not have wars and hatred. My beliefs made it easier for me to love my father despite his rejection.
When I get up in the morning I talk to God and thank him for the sleep and the new day. I pray that my children would appreciate the goodness of God and be happy with what God has given them. I was stubborn most of my life and I am myself late in appreciating his loving ways.
You are lucky to have this faith, says Emma.
I am two fools, I know, for loving and for saying so. J. Donne
Rosemarie
I never imagined that Australia would one day become my home, says Rosemarie. She is a bubbly fashionable lady who regularly visits age care residents. She bakes little delicacies to cheer them up.
You are very kind, says Emma.
They teach me English and I tell them about Germany, says Rosemary who came only recently to Lightning Ridge.
I was born in East Prussia. We had a happy comfortable life. My parents had a butcher shop and my father also sold horses. I never thought of us being rich but we had cars and houses and land. My father came from that part of Prussia that is now Poland. Mum's parents came from Germany.
In 1944 my family escaped from advancing Russian army to what became East Germany. I was eight years old. It was already very cold, on some days we had minus 25 C and snow covered the icy road full of other freezing people escaping in their cars and horse wagons. When Communism collapsed my husband and I planned to visit my birthplace but my husband died before we could do that.
I remember our dangerous escape. We travelled to Germany on our horseracing truck loaded with food like salami, honey,
cheese and syrup. We took wool blankets, fur coats and doonas for warmth. We even took our chickens, ducks and geese with us. Very often we had to leave the truck in a hurry to hide and escape the bombs and gunfire from the aeroplanes.
In 1945 Americans arrived and the black soldier gave me my first chewing gum. We liked the Americans but they left in 1946 and the Russians came in. Our life became tough. Curfew was on after 8 PM. Children were not allowed to play on the street, my father's business became strictly regulated and he could not travel freely any longer. We were all afraid of Russians. They looked very serious and mean; not like Americans who laughed and talked to us.
My father was a sanitary medical aid worker in the German army. My older brother was taken into the Hitler Jugend at sixteen to fight against Russians. He was captured by British army in Netherlands and was in the North Germany prison camp until 1946. My family did not know if he was dead or alive until one day in 1946 he came to see us in East Germany. He was 18. After my grandmother died in 1951 we also moved to Hannover in West Germany. We were lucky to go just before they built the Berlin wall. Even then we had to tell the authorities why we wanted to go and how long we will stay. My parents said that we wanted to visit relatives in East Berlin. From there we escaped by railway to West Berlin and from there to Hannover by aeroplane.
As I stepped off the plane in Hannover I tripped and landed on my face so I kissed the German soul like the pope does when he visits the country.
In Germany I met my cousin, Ingo. He was twenty and I was fourteen. I was very impressed with this handsome young man but most of all I was impressed by his 350 cc Horex motor
bike. It was an English machine with a thundering sound much like Harley Davison. To this day I love motor bikes and sometimes my son still takes me for a ride on his Harley Davison.
Ingo was my first love. I remember us sitting under the apple tree just holding hands. We felt enormously happy just being together. It was the most romantic time of my life with dreams and longing. We believed that our love would last forever.
Life in Germany after the war was depressing for everybody. Ingo went to Canada and promised to get me as soon as he settled down. I promised to wait but it took him too long. He never asked me to join him.
In the meantime I continued with my schooling and helped with cooking and housekeeping. My parents again opened a butcher shop and employed three people. I wanted to become a midwife but I met Bruno and got married when I was eighteen. Our marriage was very successful. We had a happy life with our two sons and three daughters.
Ingo was not so happy and successful in Canada. It was too cold for him in Vancouver and he returned to Germany in 1957. He was not happy about my marriage and my happy life. He went to Australia in 1958. This was the end of our story. All that was left were the memories of our first love. We never wrote to each other or kept in touch since then.
My life with Bruno was good and we raised our children well. Bruno and I owned a shoe shop. In 1986 I opened a handcraft shop next to the shoe shop. I loved that shop.
One day in 1989 my sister rang that Ingo was on a round the world trip and was visiting his family in Germany. We invited
him to our home. When he came I looked at him and said to myself: Oh, my God, he is old. He had lovely hair before and now he was bold. I looked in the mirror and saw an elderly woman. I wasn't the young Rosel any more either. I couldn't believe that the years have gone.
Bruno and Ingo liked each other and we often went fishing, bowling and caravanning together.
Ingo told us about Australia and especially about Lightning Ridge opal mining. Bruno and I decided to visit Ingo and travel around Australia. We promised Ingo to come in July or August 1990 and do some mining with him. We read everything we could find about Australia. I even went to evening school to improve my English. We planned to travel on 28. June 1990 but on 6th of June my Bruno passed away in my arms. He had a heart attack. I fell into a black hole of grief and despair. I did not recognise or understand the world any more. My children helped me through the days and weeks of my deepest sadness.
What was I to do with the tickets to Australia? I did not feel like going but my children urged me to go. They went with me to Frankfurt and wished me well.
Ingo was waiting for us at the Sydney airport. He had no phone at the time so I could not let him know about Bruno. When I told him that Bruno died Ingo was sad because he had lost a friend.
We stayed in Sydney for a few days but then we went by plane to Lightning Ridge.
The strange world opened to me. I had to go thirty years back in time. The dirt track to Ingo's camp brought me to the life
without electricity and running water. There was only a water tank and a generator. There was one TV station. I had 35 in Germany. The shock of this New World helped me overcome my grief and despair.
Looking back now I realise that I made the right decision. Six weeks in the bush with Ingo helped us become close friends again. Ingo never married so there were no problems for me to stay permanently. But I wasn't sure if I could or if I wanted to live with him. We parted as friends. Before I left Ingo gave me an opal mine as a present. It was to say to me: please come back.
When I returned to Germany I experienced the same black hole of despair again. I thought long and hard, I talked to my children and thought again. In the end I sold the shops and came to Lightning Ridge in 1991 to stay for six months.
Now I live between two continents. For three months each year I am with my family in Germany and the rest of the year I am with Ingo in the bush. Ingo and I have much in common. We both like to read, we enjoy nature, and we love our garden. We planted vegetables and flowers.
I am glad that you introduced me to the Day care, says Rosemarie to Emma. Helping old and handicapped helped me because I learned a lot from them. When I go home to Mains every year I tell stories about Lightning Ridge and my life in the Australian outback.
I did not escape from Germany; I came to Australia because I wanted to share my life with Ingo. Now I have the best of both worlds. I love the time with my family in Germany and I enjoy the tranquillity of my bush life with Ingo on the opal fields of Lightning Ridge.
Emma is fascinated with Rosemary's story. It seems that everybody remembers the first love and hopes to reignite it.
Talent grows in peace, character in the current of affairs.
Goethe
Helene
Helene comes to visit Lisa, her Filipino neighbour, in hospital. Neither of them has children and both lost their husbands so they mean everything to each other. Helen is also a psychiatric nurse in the hospital.
I am very contented now, says Helene. Beautiful paintings, pottery and ornaments surround me. My pets adore me. Internet connects me to my friends on other continents. My work is interesting and my colleagues are friendly and kind. I feel fully alive; I only have one life so I want to live it to the fullest. My late husband Bill said that we should not only exist and consume but extend ourselves towards others.
I reconciled with my past and draw my strength from it. I am so much better off than many that did not have to overcome adversity. I no longer dwell on my misfortunes; I became a stronger, more understanding person because of them. The events stored in my memory may not be significant but these events made me who I am.
I believe that things happen for a reason. Perhaps I had to experience everything I experienced so I can help people who now rely on my understanding. Sometimes the past is a heavy burden. You can run to the end of the world but this burden comes with you unless you face it and resolve it and use it. I share my story so I no longer have to carry it within.
I wish I could do the same, smiles Emma.
People who are fortunate enough to grow up safe, secure and loved, these people will never be able to truthfully say: I know your pain; I have been there myself; You are not alone.
One becomes scared and ashamed of the pain one cannot speak about, agrees Emma.
I can see my life more clearly from the distance, Helen begins her story. I was born as an unwanted illegitimate child in a Switzerland village in the middle of the Second World War. My mother was an eighteen years old farm girl who wasn't allowed to bring the baby home from hospital. By becoming pregnant she brought shame on her family and on the family of her boyfriend. She had to apply for food rations because of me and that too brought shame on her proud family.
I never met my father. His family was disgraced by my birth. My mother and my father each had to pay half for my keep to the home that took care of me. I only vaguely knew my mother. We never had any kind of relationship to this day. The idea of Mother is a kind of vacuum for me; I never called her mum. I missed having a mother, I wished I had one but I never did.
As a child I was selfish; children see only their needs and wants, they do not know that other people also have needs.
Cally once said that Helene was the most selfish person she knew, Emma remembers.
I was a rebellious, withdrawn, shy child. I had no reason to like or trust people. I never learned how to show affection and I did not do well at school.
I have very rarely received affection as a child; nobody paid any attention to my needs or enjoyed my achievements. What was the point of pushing ahead?
I suppose I could have achieved much more with a bit of encouragement and support, with a bit of love, acceptance and understanding.
For a long time I was rather afraid to get close to people and trust them. I laughed a lot to cover up. I learned to see a funny side to most things. Maybe I was born with a sense of humour or maybe I developed it for my protection, to cover up my real feelings. There are as many things one can laugh about, as there are things one could cry with. I chose to laugh; I feel fortunate that I can see a funny side. Someone once said: if you had nothing else to laugh about you can always laugh about yourself. I laughed about myself a lot and the older I get the more important it seems to me not to take myself too seriously. I have nothing to be ashamed of and no reason to be afraid. There is something good and kind in everybody. I am looking for that good.
Perhaps it was easier for me to leave home because I never felt a part of any family. I think being illegitimate also coloured my attitude towards boys. I was horrified that I would get pregnant and end up like my mother. At times I regretted not having children, but I didn't want to do to my child what has been done to me. Lately I wonder what pain this young farm girl, my mother, must have suffered when she had to leave her first baby in the orphanage under the Shire guardianship in the care of the nuns. I clearly remember the elaborate head covering of the nun as she leaned over me when I cried at night. It was so scary that I remained as still as I could. When I turned five my mother's sister and her husband, who were
my Godparents took me to live with their family. They had three children roughly my age.
When I was seven my mother became pregnant again. She married and had four sons but her new mother in law never wanted me near the place. I haven't spoken to my mother for over thirty years now. I went home last year but we did not meet. Her husband had died. My half brothers are aware of my existence but I never met any of them. Nobody in their family is allowed to mention me. I am a shameful secret that has to be kept hidden.
My first pleasant memory is of my grandmother's visit. She brought me a banana and took me on her lap and I lapped up the affection. I adored my grandmother. She must have liked me because I felt safe and protected with her.
I spent some time with my grandmother on the farm after my grandfather died. My cousins became jealous of my grandmother's affection so their mother, my Godmother, took me to live with them again. I began to call my Godmother mum but her daughter told me that I had no right to call her mother mum. I never called her mum again.
My Godmother's husband was a very cruel man. He bashed me for no reason; he enjoyed seeing me suffer. As I left Switzerland at the age of thirty-eight, he said: good riddance. Nobody ever liked you anyway.
When he died in 1988 I was glad that I would not have to see him if I decided to go home for a visit.
Yes, I still call Switzerland home and I am proud to be Swiss!
I began school but I failed in the first class. My grandmother decided to take me home to her parents up in the country to
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start a new school year there at the age of eight. Just before she was to pick me up she died of a heart attack. My world came to a halt. I missed her so much. I was back with my Godmother who was pregnant again.
I vividly remember the whole Godmother's family going for a meal in a restaurant. My Godmother had a new baby in a pram. As they entered the restaurant she told me to stay outside to look after the pram. The dog also stayed with me. After half an hour she brought a kind of cake and broke it in half, half for me and half for the dog.
The guardianship board decided to send me one hundred kilometres away to a home for slow learners. In that home I was at first ridiculed for my country dialect but after the initial shock I began to like it there. The schoolwork was not challenging but I enjoyed reading and daydreaming. I stayed there for seven years. For the first time I felt equal to all others around me; I felt that they treated me fairly. They did not favour one child more than the others. I was punished when I did something wrong but not just because I existed. The home-mother showed me the first bit of affection and I was grateful for it.
I remember our home-mother telling me that my mother came while I was asleep and that she cried as she watched me sleep. I was almost always asleep when my mother came. Maybe she really came and cried or maybe our home-mother just wanted to make me feel good.
My Godmother told me that my mother always wanted another girl but only had boys. People said that I look like my mother. I never had the opportunity to ask my mother how she felt about me and she never told me. One of my Godmother's children commented recently: it is amazing what became of
Helene despite her bad start in life. This comment was probably meant as a compliment but there was a reminder in it that once upon a time I was their servant and an unwanted child. I felt the sting of a putdown although I am happy now.
I made my first friends in that children's home and I still keep in touch with some of the former children.
Monika is one of my friends from that home. When she came for a holiday to Switzerland she told me about Australia. Perhaps she is the reason I am here in Lightning Ridge.
We had a very religious Protestant upbringing in that home. After the confirmation they sent the girls out as domestics. Unfortunately for me, my Godmother said that she would accommodate me and look after my welfare.
The guardianship board decided that I had to do an apprenticeship. I wanted to become a cook but I was not tall, strong and 'smart' enough and so wasn't considered suitable. The teachers noticed that I had artistic talents so they recommended that I learn dressmaking.
So at the age of fourteen I started my adult life. I worked at the dressmakers and in my spare time I worked on the farm. What I earned I had to pay for the school fees and the train fare to attend the one day compulsory school and one voluntary evening design class per week. I loved designing and art.
My design teacher insisted that I attend the art school and I mentioned this to my Godmother. She said that I was mad. Who did I think I was? Where would I ever get four thousand franks to pay for the art school? End of discussion.
I kept on sewing and working on the farm for the next two and a half years. Occasionally my Godmother would give me some
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pocket money for my labour but as soon as I saved a bit she would find a way of retrieving my savings. She would sell me something she did not want and I did not need. I never had enough money to buy material to make a dress for myself. You never make money with dressmaking or art. These are hungry professions.
The highlight of my life as an apprentice was when I broke my arm in a water driven spin drier. I was happy because I had a rest from the farm work and dressmaking for eight weeks. The nurses in the hospital were all so nice to me. They often asked me to sit with someone and read to them.
To the surprise of everybody I finished my dressmaking apprenticeship with top marks in the School of Zurich. I bought my first sewing machine when I was thirty-two. If I had a sewing machine any earlier I would have to sew for everybody. I never really liked sewing.
At seventeen I became a live-in housemaid to a Protestant pastor. I earned more than I would with dressmaking and I had a free board. I worked from morning till night. The pastor was an autocratic father to three boys and two girls.
At my cousin's wedding I met a brother of the groom. He was adorable. We just looked at each other very much struck by our first love. It was the first time I danced. My Godmother commented that I couldn't dance and that remark made me self-conscious about dancing for the rest of my life. Maybe I would be a good dancer if I could only forget that first dance. It was the same with music. I loved music and I carried my flute everywhere. This was the only instrument I could afford to play but the teacher kept telling me to stop blowing into it because I disturbed people. All the things I really liked were always out of reach for me.
At eighteen I began working in a French Swiss hospital near Geneva Lake in a geriatric ward for women. As a nurse's aide I looked after a very colourful ninety-seven years old woman that cursed a lot so my first French words were swear words. I loved that old woman and when she died in my arms I was too upset to come to work for several days.
I began to work for aged men during a flu epidemic. Ten out of fifteen men died in one week. I became hysterical with grief and shock. Death was all around me. I promised myself never to work with aged people again.
At twenty I applied to do a nursing course in Zurich but I did not have enough education and had to return to old age care nursing. I did a two-year geriatric nursing course. I was always lumped with difficult patients.
I started china painting when I was twenty-three and that was a source of much satisfaction.
After two and a half years in a geriatric ward I needed a change. I went into the hospital that cared for chronically mentally ill patients. What an experience that was! I knew about the old people but I didn't have a clue about mentally ill. My Godmother said: What a stupid idea. You will go mad. What about dressmaking?
After twelve months I started on a medical ward in a private hospital in Berne. I met a neurosurgeon who insisted to take me to Zurich to work in his clinic. I did not feel confident enough to take that challenge but instead I enrolled in the training course with the university clinic for psychiatry in Bern. I was happy and well paid for doing the course. I finished with a Diploma for psychiatric nursing and began working as an occupational therapist. After a couple of years
they offered me a position with even more responsibility. I accepted on the condition that I would get three months holiday before commencing it.
I always wanted to travel, so in 1980 I went with my friend, Elizabeth, to Australia and New Zealand. Elizabeth was a cook in the home where I lived and Monika was also one of us girls so we had a kind of reunion. I suppose we were a kind of family to each other.
Monika wrote to us that we didn't need to know English because all Australians were migrants. Elizabeth and I were to stay with Monika for three weeks but we soon became bored and Monika suggested that we go to Lightning Ridge. I always liked to collect rocks so Lightning Ridge sounded wonderful. The railway stationmaster warned us that in Lightning Ridge we would find only a bunch of criminals. I didn't understand what a bunch was. I insisted on going.
Instead of eight hours as predicted by Monika the trip took more like twenty hours with all sorts of delays. After sightseeing we were enormously hot and exhausted. We slept until late and in the evening we decided to explore the nightlife in the bowling club. We sat there talking loudly in German to attract some German-speaking patrons but nobody came. We ordered beer because we didn't know the names of other drinks.
There were two characters eyeing us. The men were Keith and Ruben. We later learned that they made a bet with each other that they would have a drink with us. Keith was a charming, interesting and good-looking man. He promised to pick us up next morning and take us with him mining. We worked all day and then he took us home and cooked for us. He was a good cook and I thought that he was the most wonderful person in
the world. The next day we went washing the opal dirt and specking for opals. I loved looking for interesting stones and stayed all day in the hot sun. Keith was most considerate and a real gentleman who did not push himself on me.
After Lightning Ridge we went on an unforgettable bus camping tour to Darwin. On our return to Sydney Monika noticed a utility car standing in her driveway. What the hell does that man want, she said. It was Keith and he persuaded me to go with him to Lightning Ridge for a week before we departed for New Zealand.
For the next eighteen months Keith and I corresponded and he phoned me often. Keith came to Switzerland and wanted to travel all over Europe. He only had five hundred dollars but he brought some opals from other people to sell on consignment. I helped him sell. I was spending a lot of money on Keith. He never hesitated to use my money. I was anxious about spending my savings. I should have seen that Keith was using me but I still wore my rose coloured glasses. I already decided to go with Keith to Australia. I resigned from my job and vacated my flat. I really liked Australian climate and had fond memories of friendly Australians.
Keith wasn't keen on my going to Australia. I applied for a working visa and told Keith that I could work wherever I liked. I always had to stand on my own feet and I did not want to change this.
We went to Australian Embassy in Berne. A lady there warned me to be careful. Apparently Keith had four children. Keith and I had our first serious argument because he lied to me that he only had one daughter. I should have turned back then, but I still did not see the warning signs clearly.
On our arrival to Australia we spent one month in Sydney with his old mates in a filthy flat. Keith found me work so I could earn my keep.
Before we returned to Lightning Ridge we went shopping. Keith chose many nice things for me but I had to pay for them. He chose a washing machine and other household items and we loaded his utility. We drove all night and arrived exhausted to a hot filthy caravan on the opal field. Despite the poverty in my youth in Switzerland I never lived in conditions as appalling as that. I washed and bleached and sewed and cleaned before I could settle in my new home. The washing machine never even got installed.
I was still very much in love.
Keith was a compulsive liar. The truth would choke him. He was after vulnerable women; he wanted my money and someone to look after him. He did not want me to learn English and become independent. He was afraid that I would leave him if I found out what he is really like. He found me a cattle puppy dog Dinga for company and Dinga stayed my devoted friend for the next eleven years.
I learned later that apart from being married three times and not divorced from the last wife, who had three children with him, Keith also had a current girlfriend, a nurse. I met this nurse and she said: Keith lied to me that he had to go to a Swiss sanatorium for his health. She also told me how she left her job in Sydney to come to Lightning Ridge to live with Keith. He changed both our lives.
Keith was on an invalid pension but I had no income so I quickly began looking for work.
After two years I broke up with Keith.
Some of the opals Keith brought to Switzerland belonged to his friend Bill. I met Bill the first week I had been in Lightning Ridge. Bill was a gentleman and when things went from bad to worse with Keith, Bill became more and more my friend.
Keith's former girlfriend also became a great support for me.
The job in Switzerland was kept open for me for two years and I considered returning but when I was really down and decided to return, the job was no longer available, so I stayed. I applied for a job at Walgett hospital as a psychiatric nurse. They told me that I had to become registered first.
Keith's ex-girlfriend helped me write the application for registration as a nurse. Bill organised a friend to buy a small car for me so I could travel independently.
I went to Orange hospital for five months and got my registration.
I worked in Orange for two to three weeks at the time without a break and then returned to stay with Bill in Lightning Ridge for a few days off. He also provided a home for my dog Dinga. Bill supported me when I was down and unhappy. My days with Bill were the happiest for me but I had become the subject of the town gossip and I was very unhappy about it. When I complained that people talked about us Bill said: As long as they have us to talk about they will leave some other poor person alone. Bill also said: When you face the problem straight on it loses the power to upset you.
When I became registered as a psychiatric nurse, Walgett hospital no longer employed psychiatric nurses, so I took a job as a nursing aide. I hated it. Walgett is close to Lightning
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Ridge but people there are very prejudiced against Aborigines and non-English speaking migrants. They did not accept my nursing registration. They made me do whatever they didn't like doing. One day I was a cleaner and the next I was in charge of the ward if there was no other nurse on duty. I was always paid the least. I felt overworked, underpaid, underappreciated and completely frustrated.
Bill and I married in 1986. He was a wonderful man and we had much in common. He was a businessman in Newcastle before he moved to Lightning Ridge with his wife. When his wife died he stayed here. We loved to travel and collect rocks. He was a very stable person and a great friend. He was of Scottish background and the first of five children to be born in Australia. I was happy with Bill, there has never been anyone like him. Bill enjoyed doing the same things as I; he supported me in things I wanted to do. All my friends and family adored Bill.
In 1989 we travelled to Switzerland. He developed a blood-cloth and had to be hospitalised there for three weeks. He came out of the hospital weak and his doctor said that he was running on one cylinder instead of four. Bill just wanted to return to Australia. In Sydney he was put into intensive care. After six months we returned to Lightning Ridge. Bill was still very ill but also very happy to be home. Sadly he only lasted two months.
When Bill died his son in law wanted to take everything Bill and I had. He even stole the rocks Bill and I collected. After Bill's death I couldn't do anything for months, I was not able to leave the house. I knew I had to start to do something because I had no income. My friend, Sue, prepared an art exhibition of cats. I sewed cushions with cats on them, painted
cats and made cat pet rocks. One picture of a cat sold for $350 and I felt really good about that.
I became a tourist tour guide and a manageress of the Wallangulla motel for five months. I made curtains and leadlight windows for the bowling club. I painted rocks and taught China painting. People gave me their opals to take to buyers and they paid me a percentage. For nearly three years I did all sorts of jobs. In 1991 I started again with home-care. When the Day Care Centre coordinator position became vacant I got the job as a coordinator. I enjoyed my eight years looking after senior citizens.
I would rather starve than ever return to Walgett hospital.
In October 2000 I went to a meeting at Lightning Ridge Health Centre where I was introduced to the boss of the Mental Health Team as a Swiss trained psychiatric nurse. He offered me a job as a psychiatric nurse. By this time I cared for an old client for eight years and I felt reluctant to leave her. Just before I told her that I was leaving she died and I was very happy to accept the offer. I was put on probation for three months. After nearly twenty years I finally became permanently employed in a job I trained for. I became a member of the Mental Health Team and I am happy in my job. I look after people of all ages. The visiting psychiatrist comes once a month but we have videoconferences if and when a problem needs to be attended quickly. I am learning new methods and techniques; the work is exiting and I enjoy doing it.
There was no school for migrants when I arrived to Lightning Ridge. I learned the first words of English with old timers on the opal fields and on the street. I remember the word bloody being added to everything. I considered the bloody to be an
enhancement that made the events and people more exciting and better. It was a bloody lovely dog and the beer was bloody good, it was a bloody nice day. Until one day I heard on television about the bloody accident. Two busses crashed and there was a lot of blood. I was surprised that the word bloody was used in such a serious case but Bill explained that this was how the word was meant to be used.
Not being able to write English was my greatest handicap.
In 1995 TAFE started English classes and I enrolled. In 1999 I enrolled in my first computer course. I enjoyed studying and my life became very interesting with all the new people I have met. Since I am on Internet I enjoy being in touch with my Swiss friends and cousins.
I learned to accept myself as I am and the people around me with all their imperfections. You can travel the world but you have to take yourself wherever you go and until you solve the problems within yourselves you are never free.
Lightning Ridge is a colourful place with people from all over the world. Here I don't feel different because we are all different. Lightning Ridge is much like a psychiatric hospital only the people here go home and cook for themselves.
Opal unites the people of Lightning Ridge but they remain strangers at some level; they feel vulnerable and lonely especially when they are sick or old. Friends come and go and are soon forgotten in this itinerant mining town. There is no permanency in relationships. Being a migrant and a stranger myself I can relate to how these people feel. It is hard to create intimacy and it is hard to love a stranger. The diversity is interesting but the sameness strengthens ties. We need
someone to share the childhood memories and culture and background.
The hometown does not exist in Australia. There is no village life where everybody is part of the community. People in Australia often don't even know their neighbours.
The Australian country towns are service towns for farmers who live their isolated lives. The service providers may come from Greece or China and the service receivers might come from anywhere in the world.
During my first years in Lightning Ridge I joined the Bowling club. Someone once said that my bowling trophies only collect dust but I love to dust them because they remind me of the good times and people I met. I like to socialise with other bowlers because they have nothing to do with mental health and the work I am doing. They make me feel that we live ordinary lives in a normal world although I am aware that we all put out our brave public faces and hide the real stories of our lives. I get involved in the sport of bowling rather than dwell on all that goes on inside people. Bowling used to be a pensioner's game but more and more young people get involved in it now.
There are many lonely old men who would love to have someone to take care of their needs but they forgot how to care for a woman. I had some male friends but there was nobody I would want to trade my freedom and independence for. I don't really want to become a wife and serve any particular man. Men my age are set in their ways and want someone to follow them but I would also like someone to go where I want to be. I think it would be impossible for any man to replace Bill.
Australians offer refreshments and readily chat about the weather and about the place you came from but they quickly tire of people. Now I realise that this instant friendship is not a lasting friendship.
In Switzerland it takes long before you can enter someone's home and be offered refreshments but when you have a friend you know that it is for keeps.
I did not leave Switzerland because I was unhappy there but I was adventurous and in love. Now this sunburnt country became my home. I love Australia and even the flies don't bother me anymore.
No woman can be a beauty without a fortune. G. Farquhar
Lisa
Lisa is recuperating from an operation. Emma likes to listen to her sing-along voice. Lisa is a petite lady with huge personality; one could almost see sparks flying as she speaks. Her soft melodious voice animates her whole body .
I was born in 1955 on Panay Island in Philippines as the fifth of seven children, tells Lisa.
My grandmother is half-Spanish, she is fair and tall and we called her mestiza, which means half-Spanish half Filipino. My one brother is very tall after our grandmother but I am only four foot eleven inches and weigh a hundred pounds, which is forty five kilograms. I am used to empirical measures because Philippines were under Americans for a long time.
The rest of my ancestors are Filipinos. My grandfather was a typical Filipino, short and dark brown. I grew up believing that I am ugly but I have a fine light brown skin after my grandmother. They teased me that I was picked from the river and look different than the rest of my family.
Most Filipinos are Catholic but not many go to church. My family was very religious and we all went to church every Sunday. Before bed we had to wash and then my father told us Bible stories and the stories about saints. The whole family had to kneel down and pray rosary every night. My eldest
brother came home drunk one night but he still had to kneel down and say the rosary. Our life revolved around religion. The happiest month for me was December because of Christmas festivities, presents and holidays in the city at my auntie's place.
We seem to have had the same childhood, says Emma.
My parents were well educated and one of the biggest farmers in our region. Mum was a high school mathematics teacher before she married. She worked as a private teacher to Russian and American children in Negroes Occidental where the sugar milling company is. The owner of the mill was American so mum spoke English with them.
When I was about five my father sold our land and we moved on Mindanao Island, which is a Muslim territory. The land there was much cheaper. He bought a large homestead and a rice field. All of us children went to school so we lived in a small house in town. My mother was a hard working woman. My father became sick with malaria and had complications. He said that he wished to live at least five more years to see us all settled. I was twelve when my father died. Our dreams were crushed.
My mother's sister adopted our family. She bought a hacienda next to the hacienda of Don Lopes who was the relative of the Philippines vice president. We had a beautiful big house and our property measured about two square kilometres of cleared land. The highlands are used for sugarcane and the lower regions are for the rice fields and the beachside is used for the fishpond industry. Our uncultivated land was given to the poor during the Marcos reign.
My auntie only had one son and he was always away. My older brothers and sister got married young and moved away and the younger brothers were still little children. I felt lonely on our hacienda because there were no girls my age around.
I continued my studies and finished high school. My auntie asked me if I wanted to go to university or at least do a course for my own pleasure. She wanted me to learn dressmaking and I enrolled but didn't like it. I enrolled in a beauty course. The teacher asked me why I wanted to do the course. Other girls had ambitions to earn money and open the shop but I said that I just wanted to make myself beautiful.
My auntie thought I was training to become a dressmaker. When she found out she was quite pleased that at least I would know something. When I returned home they all wanted to have a beauty treatment so I had a lot of practice. For two years after that I stayed home and became bored. I was getting older and wanted to break away from my family.
We had five servant girls, a houseboy and a driver to do all the jobs in and around the house. I wasn't allowed to talk to the servants because my auntie said that they would lose respect if I had fun with them. My auntie told me that I do not have to do any work but I must watch and learn how they cooked and washed and cleaned to prepare myself for marriage. She said that I wasn't a pretty girl who will get a rich husband so I will have to make my husband happy by cooking and keeping the house well. I am a good cook and I have a nice home now. My husband says that I am very pretty as well.
I did not go out with boys much. When a boy tried to get close to me I moved away. I was very choosy. People called me a snob but if I don't like someone I just don't talk to them. I had ambitions to go to other countries. I wanted to go to America
or West Germany. I did a chambermaid course and I learned to speak German. My mother and auntie told me that if I wanted to be a chambermaid I could be a chambermaid at home.
My auntie told me that I have everything I need on the hacienda. She was a lovely woman who loved us but would not let me go out. I had everything at home but I missed the freedom to do what I wanted to do. Mainly I wanted to get married and have my own family. She did not approve of any of my suitors. She wanted me to stay with her.
For holidays we went to the city and I liked the freedom of the city. I decided to go to work in a beauty shop in Manila. My auntie asked me what would it take for me to stay with her. She promised me half of her property if I stayed with her and never got married. She said that marriage will bring me much trouble and that I was too spoiled to survive in a marriage. Especially if I married a foreigner who did not understand our ways.
My auntie and I sat on top of the hill one-day and she said: look as far as your eye can see; all this is our property and this is your home.
But the place was too lonely for me and I wanted to go.
I found a friend who told me that she would help me make a good future in Manila. This lady said that I was the best beautician. She introduced me to her friend who had a Copacabana nightclub. I got a job as a private beautician for 250 girls working in the nightclub. The girls were entertaining foreigners in Angelus City Pangpanga which is a province of Manila. I had to fix their makeup, do their hair and select their clothes. I enjoyed working there and I earned lots of money. After about six months the mamasan, the owner of the
nightclub, told me to show my face to the foreigners so I can marry one of them. He knew that it was my ambition to go overseas. The trouble was that I was too scared to look at the foreigners. I am so very tiny and they were so very big.
Mamasan gave me a job as a geisha in a restaurant connected to the club. I was really scared and was ready to go home. Men approached me and asked me to sit down and talk to them.
The owner-boss warned me not to marry a foreigner specially an Australian but he himself introduced me to his best friend who was a rich businessman from Mackay. I did not like this old man with a large belly. I wanted a good-looking man not too much older than myself. My boss then introduced me to a widower who was a supervisor in a mine in Mackay. I promised to come with him but I changed my mind. Bar girls laughed at me saying that I had a strong gut but weak knees.
I met Shorty in the restaurant. He was with an old foreigner who knew me well. The old man asked me to join them and have a drink. I ordered a glass of milk. I liked Shorty and agreed to meet him the next day. Shorty is very fit and strong. He is an ex boxer. He asked me if I would marry him and go to Australia with him. I agreed.
Shorty is only five foot three inches tall that's why someone gave him a nickname Shorty. My friends in Philippines couldn't believe that I found a good-looking man like him.
I went home to ask my mother for permission to marry. Mum and aunty said that Australians were ex convicts and would mistreat me or even kill me. If I was to marry a foreigner I should marry an American.
If I were you I would not marry at all, said my auntie.
I said that I liked Shorty very much and wanted to live with him. This was also the only way I could go overseas. They said that if I marry him I should never return home. My aunty later realised that my prayers were answered and I found a good man. She wrote to us that we should visit when we return to Philippines.
On my first day in Australia I looked around and believed that everybody in Australia was very rich because everybody ate steak, wore nice clothes and lived in nice houses. I asked Shorty if everybody in Australia was rich.
Shorty said that one day I would find out for myself. Shorty went to work fishing on his boat and I enjoyed my time at home. Many Filipino ladies came and I gave them fish Shorty caught. Every week we had a party and I was very happy.
Three years later Shorty's fishing business collapsed. He borrowed twenty thousand to fix the boat but he got sick and could not run it any more. We were in big trouble. I looked for a job to help out. I found a job in the printing press printing magazines and ads; I worked eight hours a week at five dollars an hour. I couldn't find a permanent job.
We decided to sell the house before we went bankrupt so that we had at least some money left. We moved to live in the boat for two weeks and I cried every night because I felt sorry for myself. I felt disappointed; I wasn't used to poverty. We bought a caravan and stayed in a caravan park for six months. I tried to get a good job or open a business so we could get back on our feet.
I began to cook spring rolls for the local bowling club. Everybody loved my cooking but the trouble was I had no licence. The chief cook picked spring rolls in the middle of the
night to be safe. I had too many orders and could not cope. I realised that I will not get rich cooking so I decided to join retired Australian women living in the same Caravan Park. I watched what they were doing every day while Shorty was in the pub. I wanted to learn from the old people so I made friends with them. On Wednesdays and Saturdays they left in the bus to do art and craft activities. They learned pottery and lapidary. I was interested in cutting stones. I hoped to earn money by cutting diamonds. I had no driving licence yet so I joined the old people on the bus and we went to the lapidary club. I enrolled because I wanted to do something for myself. I would have a go at anything to help out. I asked my husband to join us instead of sitting in the pub every day. He agreed but Shorty had no patience. I made a collection of all different stones shaped into different styles.
My mother in law came for a holiday with her boyfriend and I very proudly showed her my collection. She knew about stones so I asked her to price them. She said that the most expensive stone was only three dollars. I realised that I am not rich yet and that I wasted my time. After my mother in law left I searched through the books to find where they mined diamonds in Australia. I wanted to cut diamonds. I found the book with opals. I loved the beautiful colours of Lightning Ridge opal and was impressed with how expensive opals are.
I forgot about diamonds. When Shorty got home I asked him if he knew where Lightning Ridge is. He said that his friend told him that it was very hot in Lighting Ridge and that we had to wait until winter. We bought a tent and loaded everything we needed into our station wagon. We planned to stay for winter and return later to Coffs Harbour.
We stayed in the Caravan Park in a tent and it was very cold. They told us that we have to register a claim. We got a
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generator and bought a camp on the claim in Pumpkin flat for four thousand dollars. We started mining with a hand windlass. I pulled out the dirt and I also went down twenty-five foot to work with pick and shovel in the shaft. Shorty and I did not even find a trace of opal the whole winter. We sold the claim and the camp and bought another claim with the camp on it at Bold Hill field.
The hole was ready for mining. We didn't find anything for six months. Shorty found me crying in the shaft one day. He asked what was wrong and I said: tell me who I am where I am and what am I doing. I cried feeling sorry for myself. Shorty told me to go home to rest. He said that every time he looked at me digging hard his heart was crying.
After a month he found a pocket worth about five thousand dollars. It was exciting but it could not repay what we spent.
I stopped mining and began looking for work using my qualifications as a masseur. Shorty did not like me working on men but allowed me to massage women. Shorty's friend asked him to massage his sons who were football players. Women asked me to massage their husband so I asked Shorty for his support because we needed money. He asked what kind of support I needed and I said just your trust so he said OK. I massaged full time and made money.
Lightning Ridge community was very supportive. I was amazed how many customers I had. I never advertised it was just the word of mouth publicity. One customer gave me lots of towels and made a beautiful massage table for me. One lady also gave me a towel so I had enough. The men on my massage table were well behaved and very nice. I was so happy. I can't express enough gratitude for the big support of Lightning Ridge community. I will never forget that. I bought
potch and colour to cut and sell stones. I learned to cut opal. I knew that I wouldn't be able to massage all my life because my hands get sore so I started to buy and sell opal. I go to America every year and I made contacts there that buy from me. It's not a big business but it helps us to get through.
Shorty and I tried to have a baby. I went to see a doctor but he could find nothing wrong with me. The doctor called my husband and he said to Shorty that if he wants babies he had to stop smoking and drinking. Shorty couldn't. He is still drinking and smoking regularly like most Australians.
In Philippines not many people can afford to drink and smoke. They drink coconut wine but beer is a luxury. Only very rich can import wine but others drink rum made from sugar cane. We have tobacco plantations in the part of Luzon and most of people in the country grow their own.
I never smoked or drank alcohol.
I am grateful to my husband because he trusts me and lets me be independent. I am very honest and faithful to him. I meet lots of respectable, nice men on my travels but I am always honest and true to Shorty because my marriage is very important to me.
There are about thirty Filipinos in Lightning Ridge. They are all my friends and sometimes we meet. We are happy in Australia. Most of the girls are young and have old husbands but our culture prepares us to marry older men to have a stable relationship and a family.
I am the breadwinner in my family now and I try again and again to earn my living. If I fail I try again and never give up. I experienced being rich and being homeless. I always wanted to
have a home of my own and now I am happy in my camp. I miss my family that lives in Philippines. I am trying to bring my nephew and his wife as skilled immigrants. I support my grand niece who is nine with school things and whatever else she needs. I would like to adopt her.
Many people in Philippines are unemployed so they look for casual work cleaning or farming. Many try to become domestic helpers overseas to Saudi Arabia or Hong Kong, Japan or Singapore to feed themselves. There are many squatters who ask if they can build their stick house on your property. In return they do some work for the landowner.
Every Philippine province has a different dialect but we all have a national language Tagalong so we can understand each other. We learn Tagalong at school. Most people learn English as a second language. When we go to Manila we speak Tagalong or English. My parents cannot speak Tagalong but they spoke English fluently because in their time they learned Spanish and English and did not learn Tagalong.
The life and nature are abundant where I came from in Philippines. People eat good fresh fruits and vegetables and lots of fish. We grow tropical fruit like mango, banana, jackfruits and many other fruits. We import potatoes but grow all green leafy vegetables.
Those who could afford it, have American, Spanish and Chinese foods. The poor people eat cheaper food like vegetables and dried fish, rice and sweet potato, cassava and boiled green banana.
The really poor would only have boiled rice and maybe fish sometimes.
Common breakfast for the rich in Philippines is garlic rice, eggs, fried fish and adobo. Adobo is meat cooked with spices specially garlic and vinegar. You boil the meat in water; add vinegar, spices, soy souse and seasoning; when the water reduces it becomes a sauce to go with the meat.
Very few people in Philippines are fat because their food is always fresh and people are always active. Most Filipinos live with one hand scratching and with the other feeding, a kind of hand to mouth existence. They work in the morning to eat lunch and work in the afternoon to eat dinner.
Filipinos are very hospitable, the house is always open and everybody shares food. Everybody in Philippines would feed you if you are hungry. Family kinships are very strong and family is always there for every member. Parents are strict with their children. Our lives were very restricted.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
James William
Lucy
I was born as an illegitimate child just before WWII in Hungary, says Emma's friend Lucy. She calls Emma most days for an early morning walk over the opal fields. Some people are disciplined like that. Emma enjoys these walks but she would never get up so early without Lucy's call. It seems obvious that being illegitimate and born just before the war is central to Lucy's life. My father, Robert Schwartz, applied many times for permission to marry mum but every time it was refused. People said to mum: Why would a nice Catholic girl want to marry an ugly Jew. Finally my parents got the licence and they married on Friday the 13th. They called two strangers from the street as witnesses. They were in a hurry because they were afraid that officials would change their minds. Dad adopted me and I became Lucy Schwartz. Dad was an intelligent Jewish man who wanted to become a doctor. His father said that any idiot could be a doctor and that instead his son should become an engineer. Dad was 204 cm tall and had to bend his head to get through the door.
Mum's grandparents came from Romania. My grandmother must have been good looking because she married a handsome army officer. She had a strict religious upbringing and believed that sex was only meant for procreation. As soon as she got pregnant, she said to her husband, my grandfather: go away from me Satan.
My grandfather left her and went to Hungary. Mum blamed her mother for not having a father. When she was seventeen, she followed her father to Hungary where he was a publican. He was still legally married to my grandmother but he lived with three other women at the same time. The women knew about each other. He had three children with one and two by another.
Grandfather has never seen his daughter, my mum, as a child. When she arrived he saw a young woman in her rather than a daughter. Mum moved in with her friend who had tuberculosis. She started to work in a buffet and there she met my father. He realised that mum also caught tuberculosis. He knew that his father could help her. His father had a law degree and a doctorate but no money. He married my grandmother whose parents were rich farmers. With his knowledge and his wife's dowry my grandfather became established as a leading solicitor for the government railways. He had eighty solicitors working under him. During the communist revolution he lost most of his wealth. They were going to hang him but luckily the revolution was defeated. After escaping with his life he gave all his wealth to Jewish organisations. He built several hospitals. By the time his son met my mother he only had a Sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Budapest.
Dad persuaded my mother to go to the Sanatorium where she was cured for free. She had sex with my father out of gratitude. She became pregnant. My father was in love with her and wanted to marry her. She told him that she didn't love him but he said that she would learn to love him later. Mum had no choice. Alone with a baby, without a job, she married him but she never learned to love him.
Mum was brought up to hate Jews. She taught us, her children, to hate Jews. When Hitler came mum hated having a yellow star on our house. She had to fight to prove that we were not Jewish so Hungarian Nazis would not kill us.
Later when we escaped to Austria I heard my 14 years old brother Rob talking to the neighbour's boy Lali. Nazis killed both their fathers because they were Jews. Rob made derogatory remarks about Jews but Lali got angry and said: How dare you dirty your father's memory like this. Whether you like it or not you are one of us. That made us think for the first time about being Jewish. Even my mother realised that she made a mistake in making us hate Jews. For the first time we became aware that we have Jewish blood in us.
I have vague memory of dad sitting near the window and speaking loudly. I do not recall what he said but I remember seeing his gold teeth at the back of his mouth. Most of my memories about my father come from my mother. She told me that dad had a huge appetite. When he was 13 years old Jews had their forty day fast. At the end of the fast his mother baked a goose for a feast. Dad secretly ate almost the whole goose. He became so sick that he could never eat meat again. Soon after my brother was born in 1942 Germans took dad to a forced labour camp. They starved him so much that when they gave him a piece of pork speck and he ate it despite his dislike of meat and despite his Jewish beliefs.
Dad came from work and told us that they are taking him away the next day. We had a boarder Bela at the time and dad asked him to look after us. Bela was a handsome man but I never liked him. Dad never returned. After the war a man told us what happened to dad. All the men marched for hours. Dad's varicose veins burst and began bleeding. At the railway station they told them that train would take the sick to the hospital so
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dad intended to go on the train. His friend was already on the train. In the meantime someone warned dad that people who go on a train would be killed. Dad went on the train to warn his friend but when they wanted to come down the train closed and they were taken a few kilometres away where they had to dig their own graves before they were shot dead.
Our lodger, Bela, became my stepfather. He was a postal technician from an alcoholic dysfunctional family. I couldn't stand him. I think his whole family was a bit mad. He was an unhappy man who argued until he was blue in the face. Mum and Bela were fighting like cats and dogs all the time. Mostly they fought over us children. Bela used to say that he never saw worse children than we were.
Mum and Bela had another child, my stepbrother. Once mum told Bela to leave us and he did. After six months mum heard that he was marrying a nineteen years old girl. She went to see him and eventually Bela returned home with her. He probably just tested mum because he wanted to come home. I suppose mum and Bela loved each other despite the arguments. Mum worked at the restaurant late every night and Bela also worked. My dad's parents did not want me to live in that situation with no-one looking after me so they took me to their home. I was upset because my brothers were allowed to stay with mum and I could not. I believed that mum and Bela did not like me. I got in trouble all the time. I ran away. My grandmother could not cope so they took me to a convent to be looked after by nuns. My grandparents had to pay a lot for my keep. Some of the nuns were really nice but I hated the priest. He turned forty and they made a big party for him. He told us that Virgin Mary appeared to him when he was nine and told him to become a priest. Everybody thought that he was a saint but I didn't. There were about seven older orphaned girls in the convent. I
saw this priest put his hand up girls' dresses and he stroked their bottoms. I don't know why but I felt that it was wrong. Maybe he didn't do anything else but I felt bad when he was around.
In the evening before my birthday we had beans for tea and I did not want to eat them. The nun said that I would have them for breakfast. At six in the morning on my birthday she pushed the beans into my mouth spoon after spoon with her hand scooping the beans.
We were starving after the war. Bela tried to swap some clothes for food with the farmers in the nearby villages. They caught him and threatened to send him to Siberia. The Russians wanted to get every available man to work in Siberia. Mum begged the officer to let him go. She was an attractive
young woman and she played up to the officer until he let Bela g°.
Mum decided to go herself to the rich farmers near the border to swap some things for food. She was heavily pregnant as she went to the railway station. The train was full of people. They did not dare go off the train for fear that someone would take their luggage or their spot. Nobody knew when the train would move. People held each other as they went to the toilet on the side of the train. When the train moved, it was supposed to stop before the border but it just slowed down a little and everybody jumped from the train. Mum was afraid that she would lose the baby but she didn't. She was away for weeks. She swapped things for potatoes and flour and butter and she dragged all that home.
In the meantime at home Bela cooked beans. We had nothing else. While he had some fat we did not mind beans but in the end it was just beans and I got sick of them.
Before I turned thirteen communists closed the convent so I had to go home.
I started fighting with Bela again so they sent me to a boarding school.
As a teenager I began to write a diary. I wrote about boys. The headmistress found my diary and sent me home. I told her that I did not do anything wrong and that it was all just a fantasy.
I told my story to the newspaper reporter and they published it.
They sent me to another boarding school. For an unexplained reason the head mistress did not like me. I was always in trouble.
A few months after I went home, the headmistress rang my mother to ask her if I could recite a poem for a show. I was very good at reciting poetry.
Mum was upset with the headmistress and asked: Why do you want Lucy now? She was never good enough for you when she was there. You never liked her.
The headmistress explained that my best friend told her lies about me and that I got into trouble because of that. Now she found out that it was all a lie so she wanted to apologise.
This friend was a village girl we took in to have a holiday with us in Budapest. I really liked her and never thought that she would do me any harm.
When I was in high school Stalin was God. Whenever his name was mentioned we had to clap and his name was mentioned over and over many times every day.
I was fifteen and in a boarding school when Stalin died in 1953.
Everything changed.
I heard an 18 years old boy, Vili, say that it was about time Stalin died. His friend reported him to the authorities; they arrested him and bashed him. Vili later escaped and we met in Australia and he became my first husband.
The new official political line developed between 1953 and 56. It began with people saying that Stalin was a murderer who killed Lenin and that he was a robber.
Our teachers were confused; nobody knew the correct, official policy.
I was eighteen in 1956. On my way from school I saw a placard on which university students demanded freedom of speech and press. They also wanted to get rid of Russian dominance. The trams stopped running and there were lots of people walking. I joined the crowd and we walked to the national museum. On the platform was a man who asked us to go to the radio station and broadcast the students' demands. We moved towards the radio station and selected six students to go in. Thousands of us waited outside the Iron Gate for hours. We started calling for the students to come out. They did not come so the crowd rushed forward. Men broke the telephone pole and they began hitting the Iron Gate with it. The army came and dispersed us with tear gas. The police started shooting. A group of people went to the army barracks. The soldiers distributed guns and ammunition because they were also against the Soviet Union.
As I walked home I saw cars burning and trams overturned.
My neighbour was shot in front of the radio station and was taken to hospital. Two weeks later his girlfriend asked me to go with her to the hospital. We met a group of people who were collecting the injured from the streets. They also delivered parcels and messages from one revolutionary group to the other.
We joined the group. There was a curfew at the time but the leader of the revolutionary group later gave us a piece of paper that allowed us to travel anywhere anytime. Sometimes we transported ammunition. After a few weeks the revolution was defeated.
When I came home I found out that mum and Bela were looking for me in the hospital. There were trucks loaded with people and soldiers were holding guns on them. Mum asked about me. A soldier said that my name was on the list and evidently I would be on the truck. A secret police officer came looking for me. Mum told him that I wasn't home. She didn't know that he was my friend. He came to warn me to leave the country. Two of the people from the neighbourhood escaped to Austria to see if it is possible to get through. They came back to pick up their families. When my mother heard about them she decided to join them with our family. She knew that I was going anyway and my brother also wanted to go.
Budapest used to be two cities, which are joined now. We lived in the outskirts of Pest. In the morning of 20.11.56 my brother and I got dressed in several layers of clothes and started walking towards the railway station. My brother was fourteen and I was eighteen. Just before we reached the river that separates Budda from Pest, the curfew began. There was a two-story house where we used to take food for the children during the revolution. The caretaker took us in risking his life. It was still curfew in the morning when we decided to go
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across the bridge. We learned reasonable Russian at school and when the soldiers stopped us we told them we are going to work in Budda. At the railway station we bought tickets for the whole family. We sat on the train quietly, terrified of other passengers. Anyone could report us but as we got closer to the border it became apparent that everybody was going to escape. That night twenty squadrons of Russian Mongolians came to Hungary. When we got closer to the border town's people who were waiting for the train told us not to go off the train because Russians are already there. When we got to one of the last stations they told us that Russians haven't arrived yet. Everybody got off the train. We walked about twenty kilometres to the border and got there in the dark. People told us to go through the forest until we reached the bridge over the river. We couldn't find the bridge so we all waded into the river. Bela, my brother and I made many trips helping others get across. I became so exhausted that I went under. I had a sheepskin jacket and Bela grabbed for it and pulled me out. The river was shallow but freezing cold. I got soaked and we walked in wet clothes. We had no idea if we were in Austria or in Hungary as we came to a lake. There was an abandoned boat and we rowed it over to the other side. Border patrol was shooting at us but we came to the other side safely. We walked for a long time. My grandmother couldn't walk so we pulled her along. The trucks came towards us; we had no way of knowing if they were Hungarian or Austrian but we didn't care, we just wanted a ride. These Austrian farmers told us that we would all die of pneumonia. They lit the haystack and we sat around to dry ourselves. They gave us some schnapps to drink. The younger ones went to report to the police. The trucks came and took us into the village. Different farmer's families took us in and we stayed there for a few days. I had to wash all our clothes. They gave us beds with thick eiderdowns and food. We gave them gifts that we brought with us. We
decided to go to Vienna Rothschild spital, a hospital converted into a refugee centre, where they organised the distribution of refugees. Twenty of us went to one room because we wanted to be together. Some of the people were given money from different organisations. Bela got 500 shillings from Austrian PMG because he was working for PMG in Hungary. We were fed but the food was terrible. We supplemented the rations with the money Bela got.
Bela's sister lived in Australia so Bela talked my mother into going to Australia. I didn't want to go with them because I hated Bela. In Hungary we lived in our house but in Australia we would have to live with his sister. Mum talked me into going with them. We made the application, went through interviews and medical checkups and finally got the papers. They told us that we would go to Australia with the first ship. Every day for weeks we were going to the office to look for the tickets but they did not arrive. The ship Aurelia left a day before our tickets finally arrived. There were about ten of us that got the tickets too late. We were upset so we decided to go to Salzburg where the refugee headquarters were. We came to Salzburg just before Christmas 1956. They told us that Qantas offered a free passage to Australia to Catholics as a Christmas gift. The plane was scheduled to stop at Abidjan in Arabia. At the time Arabs and Israelis were fighting and the Arabs said that if there was anyone Jewish on that plane they would kill everyone. Mum assured the authorities that we were all Catholics. Everybody was saying how come we were Catholics with a Jewish name Schwartz.
We arrived to Australia on 27.12.1956. Catholic and Jewish representatives waited to help us. The Jews asked us if we were Jewish because of our name but my mother insisted that we are not. The Catholic priest then came to us and said that if
anyone is in any way related to Jews to go with them because they could help more than Catholics can. We still didn't go with the rabbi but half of the passengers from the plane did. Most of them were Jews.
We were taken to a refuge outside Sydney and stayed there until Bela's sister Agnes sent us money to travel to Adelaide where she lived.
We were the first refugee family from Hungarian revolution that came to Adelaide. The newspaper reporters came to the railway and our story was published so everybody knew about us. People offered to help us but Agnes and her husband said that they would look after us.
Agnes gave us an apartment in her huge house. After a few days Bela got a job as a telephone technician and paid rent to his sister. The apartment was furnished with bits and pieces picked from the rubbish tip.
Soon we went to buy our own second hand furniture. We found a nice leather lounge and they wanted seven pounds for it. We told them that we were refugees and they said that they would give it to us for five. We said we would go home to get the money. We went back in the afternoon but the lounge was sold. Agnes bought it and hid it in the shed.
Everybody in Bela's family was a bit funny like that.
Agnes had a huge yard with 180 fruit trees but we were not allowed in the orchard. I think that Agnes was afraid that we would pick the fruit or do some damage. When they were in a charitable mood they gave us fruit but we were never allowed to pick it ourselves.
Agnes also locked the pantry where she stored her preserves. She accused us of stealing jam.
Sometimes they would be very generous and at other times they would be unreasonably tight. Agnes was very generous to us years later. She bought us a car and an air-conditioner. She had no children and she was probably just scared of what children would do. My two brothers were lively 14 and 11 years old boys. They kicked the ball on the bitumen road one-day and Agnes complained that they lifted too much dust and made the roof dirty.
The incident developed into a nasty row, which was the last straw after all other accusations. The whole family was arguing and in the end we packed up and walked out. We walked outside all night.
The next day we looked for our own place. We had no car and knew very little English. We weren't very smart at all. We rented a house from an agent for seven pounds a week. The house was supposed to be furnished but it had no beds or wardrobes. We bought everything on hire purchase and we could not make repayments. Bela earned fifteen pounds. He needed money for travelling to work and for his smokes. It practically left us nothing to live on.
Mum took in five lodgers to help with money. I was 18 and too old for the junior wage so it took me over a month to get a job in Alaska ice-cream factory. After six weeks ice-cream season was over and they told me to come back in four months. Agnes found me a job in the Catholic presbytery. One older priest was teaching me all sorts of things and one day he started touching me. I pushed him away and ran home. He wrote me a letter saying that priests are only humans. He gave me an English Hungarian dictionary as a parting gift but I
never went back. An older Hungarian man's wife worked at Phillip's. She told me how to get a job there. I learned quickly and worked hard but the management continuously increased the norm. I pushed myself to the limit because I didn't want to lose my job. I could not speak English so I could not complain. I skipped lunch and tea; I did not even go to the toilet so I could do the norm. One day four men in white coats came and watched me work. I was afraid that I would be sacked if I didn't do enough so I persevered. At the end of half an hour I made more than a norm. After the men left, the co-workers attacked me physically and verbally but I could not understand what it was all about. They got a Hungarian interpreter from a different section and she explained to me that workers complained to the bosses that it was impossible to do the norm but I just proved it to them that it can be done.
My legs were swollen from pushing the welding pedal in the factory so I asked for a day off to see the doctor. I heard that they were looking for nursing aides in the hospital so I asked for a job. My co-workers at Phillip's realised that I did not understand what was happening so they apologised for attacking me. They gave me many presents when I left.
In the hospital it was awful because every time a patient got sick I got sick. I took everything too much to heart and became emotional about their suffering. I thought that the nurses were cold hearted but they were just being professional. I stayed for about a year. There was a Standard English test at the university which everybody from non English background had to do to enter university in Australia. From five hundred entrants seven of us passed the test. They were amazed that after two years I learned so much English. The university dean asked me about my college studies in Hungary. I told him that I studied geology at the technical college and he gave me a
certificate equivalent to Australian high school plus geology component. I got a job in the research laboratory of the Mines department. I worked on the spectrograph. They crush stones to determine the mineral content of the material. I learned quickly and enjoyed my work. The engineers were teaching me all the time patiently and I was very grateful. I had to get naturalised to keep the job. I enrolled at university. I got time off work for study. I was getting full wages but I only worked seventeen hours a week. My future looked very bright and promising. It was the best time of my life.
The only problem was my fiancé Vili and my family. I lived at home at the time and we were arguing constantly. I hated it but it was my duty to help support the family. I came home late one day from Villi's place and mum called me a whore. We had a horrible argument and I left with Vili.
On the first day there was a reception and a ball at university. I told Vili that I would come out after the dean finished his speech. That was ten in the evening. I was the only girl enrolled in geology. Vili got jealous because the boys wanted me to stay and dance with them. Vili was a semitrailer driver and he wanted me to go with him trucking. We argued about it all the time. I had to give up my job. I repaid the money the mines department invested into my study and I dropped out of university to go with Vili on the semitrailer. I was pregnant and I did not want Vili to say that he had to marry me so I decided to have an abortion. Villi's cousin took me to a Hungarian dentist who was doing abortions. He gave me an iodine injection and told me that I will be in pain. As I took the taxi home I screamed and the driver had to stop because I was vomiting. Luckily he thought that I was drunk. Abortions were illegal and I was terrified that someone would report me to the police. A few days later the dentist gave me another injection.
I had no money for a taxi so I went home by train. From the railway station I crawled home in agony. I believed that I was going to die. I was almost unconscious as I crawled into bed. I was haemorrhaging heavily and I noticed a lump of flesh that was a baby.
Two weeks later Vili and I got married in the presence of two witnesses in the Catholic Church. I expected some kind of celebration but when we got home Vili changed into his overalls and went to work. I hoped that my wedding day would be somehow special. Vili came home late from work. I suppose he was tired because he just turned over in bed and went to sleep.
Vili and I now wanted to have a baby. I became pregnant but lost the baby every time during the early pregnancy. We went back to that dentist to ask why I couldn't have a baby. He said that there was something wrong and I would have lost the first baby anyway. Apparently I am lacking the hormones that make the placenta and the baby grow. Since then I had infections of my uterus, tubes cleaning and complete removal of left tube and ovary before I finally had a hysterectomy at the age of 41.I was married for fifteen years. There were times when Vili and I were happy and I enjoyed travelling with him. I helped with loading and driving the truck. We hardly ever slept because we were always on the road. Other truck drivers told us about tablets that would keep us awake. We took them by the hand-fulls. We bought them from the chemist. At first we didn't need a script but later we did and then we bought them on the black-market. We were young and healthy and we never thought of the consequences. While on these tablets I suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised for two weeks. I came out and was back on the truck and back on the pills.
We lived in Adelaide with my parents in law and later we bought a house next to them. I idolised my mother in law at first. She was everything my mother wasn't. I hardly knew my mother. Later I discovered what a conniving woman my mother in law was. She was an extravagant woman and in total control of the whole family. If I wanted to buy something I had to beg her for money. She was squandering money and the three men could not supporter her lifestyle. The service station contracted the transport jobs and the family subcontracted from them. Everything they bought went through the service station. My mother in law did not check the accounts or pay the bills. We owed money and never saw any cash coming in. I suggested to Vili that the two of us go through the TNT service. We worked for two years and paid our debts. The money came into my hands. The old service station then offered us loads for which they paid us cash. We paid cash for filling up.
I left Vili several times but he threatened to kill himself and begged me to stay. We decided to go to Andamooka to mine for opals. We asked Villi's father to look after our business. I was mining for a year with Vili in Andamooka when we got a telegram to get home urgently. Vili and I worked all night to get out what opal we could. Vili went to fill up a generator and he told me to stay where I was but I was scared and I followed him. Next to the generator was a hole and when I stepped next to Vili, I fell in about 2 to 3 metres. Vili pulled me out and we went back mining. Vili was rushing to finish the job so he accidentally hit his knee with a pick. I had to finish the job.
As we returned we discovered that Villi's family did not pay any of our bills. The business owed money. We had to sell the house to begin trucking again. We owed money to my parents and Villi's parents. Villi's parents also lost the house and
moved in with us in a rented house. I walked out after a huge argument.
I agreed to go with Vili to Coober Pedy. In Andamooka we had a bulldozer and an old bus converted into a caravan. It took Vili and his father months to fix the bulldozer before we could go to Coober Pedy. Vili suggested that his mother and sister come to Andamooka as well and I said that if they do I would go.
I met Dodo years ago when Vili and I first mined in Andamooka. I liked Dodo and wanted to go with him even then. I told Vili that I will leave him and go with Dodo. Vili pretended to have a heart attack down the mine and begged me not to leave him. I promised him never to see Dodo again.
We returned to Adelaide and I had not seen Dodo for years. When we returned to Andamooka to pick our bulldozer Dodo arrived. Wherever we went Dodo was always there. At a party Dodo had a few drinks and he asked me to dance. He kept saying that I should come with him. I told him to come with me so we could talk privately. I left the door of the bathroom open so people would not think that something was going on. I begged him not to create a scene. He grabbed me and kissed me just when Vili walked in. I was upset and rushed out. I was going to go to Adelaide. Just as well I got bogged seven kilometres from home, because the petrol I had wouldn't last me to the next petrol station. I returned and found Vili and Dodo talking at the table. Vili said to Dodo that if he ever separated from me I should come back to him. I got angry with Vili because he was giving me away so easily. I had no real intention of going with Dodo because he was a known womaniser but I went and we have a good life together. Dodo is my second husband Erwin.
Dodo and I found a big opal in Andamooka but by the time we sold it we had little profit. It was a 75 kilogram black matrix that had lots of opal going in and around it. We sold it in Western Australia for one hundred seventy five thousand dollars but the Polish Jenny who sold it for us only paid us one hundred thousand. We were sorry we sold it. We went to Europe for holidays and there we met a friend who was mining in Lightning Ridge. We decided to come and have a look. Other opal fields looked like moon craters but Lightning Ridge was a lovely town and Ridge black opal was also the most beautiful. We lived in a tent and later in a caravan until we bought a block of land and built a house.
I am half Jewish by birth but I was brought up in the Catholic religion. I believe that Jews are God's chosen people but they disobeyed Jehovah and were therefore put at the mercy of other nations. If they kept the covenant with Jehovah all would be well with them. I always wanted to become a Missionary because I loved the idea of teaching about God and helping the poor.
After the war communists told us that there is no God. I was angry with God because he allowed the oppression and suffering but when I was in trouble I still prayed. The mysticism of the church ritual still affected me strongly specially since the churchgoers were harassed and persecuted. Mum's mother lived in Romania but she came to live with us a year before we all escaped from Hungary. She was brought up as a Protestant. Later she worked for the Catholic bishop whom she considered a saint. She was so taken with him that she became a Catholic. Since then priests could not do anything wrong in her eyes. In Australia she made us all go to church every Sunday. She criticised our behaviours all the time and we started hating going to church.
As a widow of a Jew killed by Nazis mum got some help for the children from the Jewish organisation in America. If we declared ourselves as Jews we would get more but they knew that we were brought up as Catholics. My youngest brother was Bela's son but because mum did not remarry he was named Swartz sp he also received help. Mum and Bela married as soon as we came to Australia. The Jews I met are more religious that other people. I would be a Jew if I was brought up in a Jewish religion or if both my parents were Jews. Jewish religion was a way of life for my father's parents. Every activity had religious rules and meaning. I.e. A saucepan used for meat could not be used for a milk product. The tea towels used to dry meat containers could not be used for other dishes. Every week my grandmother would bake a platted white bread. After the sunset we sat down around the table. My grandfather lit the candles on the menorah and then he prayed in Hebrew. Jewish women only go to church on special occasions. I only went once. The men put their caps on and wrapped themselves in some kind of cream coloured blankets before they read the scrolls. Everybody touched these scrolls wrapped in the burgundy colour velvet and then they kissed their own hands. This looked ridiculous to me and I laughed so they sent me out.
My grandparents did not eat anything in my mother's house when they visited together but if one of them came they would say don't tell the other that I took a piece of cake or something that was not kosher. Jews bought meat from the kosher butcher, which killed the animal and let the blood drain on the ground. The Bible says that blood contains life and one must not consume it. Even now as a Jehovah witness I believe in this part of the Old Testament. Jehovah witnesses do not take blood transfusion. The law about not taking blood is repeated in the New Testament. Circumcision was an essential part of
Jewish law but Jesus came to fulfil and improve Jewish law. Apostle Paul sought a ruling on the circumcision. The authorities established that Jewish law of circumcision is not binding for Christians. Christians must not commit fornication, not eat anything sacrificed to idols or consume blood. Jews do not eat pork.
Bela's sister Agnes became a Jehovah's Witness during the seventies. Grace who stayed in her caravan instructed her. Grace travelled all over Australia to preach.
My family hated the Witnesses and considered Grace crazy. We thought that Grace converted Agnes to get her money.
Years later I met Grace in Andamooka. I called her in because I wanted to know what she said to convert Agnes. She began talking about the paradise on earth and I was laughing inside. I could not understand how anybody could believe in her fairy stories. Witnesses came to sell magazines and books. I bought them to destroy them. I threw the books in the bin but the more I bought the more they came. I asked them not to come. Finally I had to slam the door in their faces to get rid of them. We came to Lightning Ridge and I met Evelyn whom I also knew in Andamooka. I had no idea that Evelyn was a Jehovah witness. She was not witnessing in Andamooka. You can not be a Witness if you do not live your life according to the Jehovah principles. If you later change your life and want to come back they accept you. Evelyn was reinstated into Jehovah fellowship in Lightning Ridge. I invited her to my place and she brought me a Bible. I started to read the Genesis but it made no sense to me. I returned the Bible saying that reading it would make me lose the little bit of faith I still had. She told me to read the revelation. I couldn't understand the word of it. She began explaining and I learned. I told Evelyn that I am not interested in religion and if she weren't a friend I
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would have kicked her out long ago. She laughed and said: I know I am using our friendship. I told Evelyn that Witnesses changed the Bible to suit their teaching. She brought other Bibles so I convinced myself that all the Bibles were saying the same things. At that point Evelyn asked me if I wanted to study the Bible. I told her that I would listen but would never convert. I had a very low opinion of people who changed their religion. She asked me if I would mind if she brought Grace with her. They began coming together. When Evelyn moved away Grace began teaching me. We argued over everything but I kept learning.
I learned that Catholic religion adopted many pagan celebrations and Greek philosophy. The doctrine of trinity and the celebration of Christmas came with Constantine in the fourth century. At about that time they also chose what writings to include in the New Testament.
Jews gave animal sacrifices for their sins but this ritual was to prepare them for Jesus who would give his lifeblood to vindicate Jehovah sovereignty. Until Jesus gave his lifeblood there was no resurrection. Jesus did what his father sent him to do. The Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles at Pentecost and filled them with the power to speak in the tongue everybody understood so they could preach to all people. Holy Spirit is God's active force. Speaking in tongues is no longer needed because now the Bible is available in all main languages.
At the time Dodo and I had lived together for seventeen years without being married. I could not get baptised as Jehovah Witness without getting married so I asked Dodo to marry me. I could barely wait to be baptised so we went to Adelaide and married in a civil ceremony. My whole family and Dodo's family were against my new religion.
I was baptised on the 20.10. 90 at Sydney Jehovah's convention. I sat in the front row with other candidates. I panicked that I won't be able to do this. I wandered if I was hypnotised or I really believed.
A brother gave a talk before the baptism and when he spoke I felt peace coming over me. I knew I was right.
All of the candidates stepped into the water. The two brothers on each side leaned us back into the water saying: we baptise you in the name of the father and son and the Holy Spirit.
The baptism was only the start of my journey. Grace never told me about the meetings I would have to attend after baptism and about witnessing. I was terrified of going to witness.
Jehovah Witnesses do not believe that we have a separate soul. When God blew into Adam's nostrils Adam became a living soul. God told the first two people if they ate of the forbidden fruit they would die. God clearly told Adam and Eve that they would return to the dust if they sinned. The person who sins dies. There is no hell, just death. The Bible says that there is no knowledge nor devising nor wisdom in the grave where you are going. The sacrifice of Jesus gives us a chance to be resurrected.
The serpent lied to Adam and Eve when he told them that they would not die. Satan lied when he said: only your body dies but your soul lives on. Greek philosophers also held a myth that there is a separate entity, the soul.
I believe that one hundred and forty four thousand Jehovah Witnesses will be resurrected to heaven to become rulers with
Jesus. The rest of the resurrected mankind shall inherit the Earth and shall live in peace forever.
At first Dodo did not mind my association with witnesses because he believed that it was just a phase I was going through. When I asked him to marry me he was very happy. I told him that religion will take me away at times and I will have less time for him. He said that he did not care as long as I did not try to change him. When I went to be baptised he did not say goodbye to me. When I returned he refused to talk to me. Gradually he got sick of being angry and he saw that it did not change anything so we began talking again. He didn't like me going witnessing but he knew that I will do it because it was very important to me. He loved me enough to go along. Of course I tried to invite him into our religion but every time I try he closes down. He makes a joke of it saying: perhaps one day...
I lost my friends when I left Vili. They chose to stay friends with him. They only listened to me so they reported back to Vili. Everybody told me for years to leave Vili but when I did they did not stand by me.
My friends and relatives refused to accept my religion. Although I never had any Jewish upbringing they believed that I betrayed Jewish religion. My mother said that nobody ever hurt her like I did. All her life she was terrified of cancer and when she got cancer I told her that we would be resurrected together and live together again. She said that she would rather go to hell than be with my croonies and me. Mum talked about it at every opportunity.
My brother taught that I was a bit stupid but gradually they all learned to ignore my religion.
Every witness has to do as much witnessing as possible. I was on my own in the Shipyard when I first offered people the Jehovah's magazines. Some people argued that we are wrong, they tried to convince me and I tried to convince them. I dreaded witnessing. I was praying at the door that nobody would be home. Going in pairs helped, you feel stronger. You get used to it. Some people call us nasty names. A farmer once told us that he wanted nothing to do with trash. Normally people tell you if they are interested. Sometimes people who are not interested end up talking for hours.
I have been witnessing now for eleven years.
The knowledge and the faith completely changed my life for the better. My faith answers all the questions I ever had. It is also a guide to my relationship with my husband and everybody else. I am still easily hurt. I used to have a quick temper and retaliated. Now I make an effort to see things from another person's point of view. I consider other people's upbringing and circumstances. They might be hurt themselves.
In the past I threatened to leave when Dodo and I had an argument. Now I don't say anything when he is upset and wait for an opportunity to talk. After the argument is forgotten I might tell him that I was hurt by a particular thing he said or did.
When I was six during the war the acting company was looking for child actors. There were over five hundred children auditioning for the place. They picked an English girl Coco and myself. Mum would have to take me to practice but the war was on and she did not want to risk me being killed.
In high school they were looking for singers for the Budapest choir. I did not even prepare a song but they took me on. The principal did not like me go to practice.
When in Australia there was a television talent quest called Stairways to the stars. I sang in Hungarian and got a huge ovation. They wanted me on the program but my mother in law said that she was not going to have a singer whore in her family. So it came to nothing.
Ever since I remembered I wanted to be an actress. I had a good voice, I read poetry on stage, I had the talent but always something happened or somebody stepped in.
I won a writing contest and began writing romance stories but never finished any. I had an opportunity to go to acting school or singing school but my family stopped me. I enrolled in the university and my boyfriend stopped me. I opened a dress shop in Adelaide but did not do well.
For many years I was sorry that I came to Australia. In Hungary I would probably have gone to university and make something out of my life.
I never felt that I belong. I hardly know my family. Perhaps my father's father and my father's sister Clare had been in some way special. My grandfather loved me the most and he expected much from me and I lived up to that.
My life was never monotonous. I started many things with great enthusiasm but something always stopped me. Perhaps I should have persevered. I was always able to fight for other people but not for myself.
My greatest achievement was when I became baptised as a Jehovah witness. It completely changed my expectations and
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the way I am looking at things. Jehovah made my life complete. Other things became less important and I have no time for them.
There is never enough time for everything we would want to do, agrees Emma.
Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
Tennyson
Michael
Emma finds Michael leaning on her car as she is about to go home from work in the new local hospital.
You better keep the weight off your sprained ankle. Where is your car? Emma put her arm under Michael's to help him to his car.
It's in the garage. I am waiting for a friend but there must be something wrong with his car as well.
I'll give you a lift, Emma offers, professionally concerned about her patient.
Do you mind if I call you Emma?
Everybody calls me Emma, she points to her badge.
Michael tells her that he built himself a hut just out of town. He is going to stay awhile. Emma stops at a small log cabin under the gum trees on the opal fields. She notices large sandstone chiselled into a table at the front of the tiny home. There are four tree stumps around the table.
Please sit down for a minute, says Michael pointing at the stump. He tells Emma how delighted he is that she brought
him home. No, he has nobody here; he is new in town and would appreciate a friend. Hard to find someone to talk to.
Michael came like fortune hunters do when the new opal mining rush is on. He is fifty-two; Emma tries not to look fifty-eight.
Are you working over the weekend, he asks. Just in case my leg gets worse, he adds.
Emma tells Cally about taking Michael home.
Odd socks. Damaged people, weirdoes, geniuses, adventurers, vagabonds, artists; this mining town is full of odd men, laughs Cally; her sense of humour can only be matched with her enormous disdain for men.
A great big pile of odd socks, Emma agrees.
One always hopes that another sock would be a perfect match to the lost one, says Cally, Emma's new assistant. Emma and Cally became as close friends as two people from different continents could ever be.
To make something good and to do a bit extra makes me feel a bit bigger and I like myself better, said Cally when right at the beginning of her employment Emma commended her on looking after a patient well.
I wonder if the matching socks gather in some other mismatched place, says Emma.
We all long for someone undamaged by life. I am damaged myself, of course, laughs Cally. I feel like a worn out shoe that was forced to lean to the side because the person who wore it was a little bent.
Emma wonders what irreparable damage Michael hides underneath his brave exterior.
Most miners are itinerant migrants coming from God knows where and going God knows where. They started coming during sixties and seventies to get rich quick. Most leave unnoticed when they run out of money but some still live in their camps in the bush decades later. They dream of finding opal and of how their lives will blossom once they become rich.
I once heard a migrant miner telling his friend that he will bring a young virgin from his hometown when he finds a fortune, says Cally. Funny how men of all ages and religions created the Virgin goddess mother as a model of perfection.
Virginity is the first prize? Seconds are worthless, cheap and nasty, laughs Emma.
Where do you come from, Emma asks Michael when he comes for a check up.
Southern Highlands.
Any family?
Have a sister there.
What are you reading, Emma asks as she meets Michael at the library.
I study etymology, are you familiar with etymology?
Should Emma know the word? She wanders if it is about plants or insects. She hesitates.
Vaguely.
They allow their eyes to meet for a moment.
Michael meets her again in the hospital driveway; he suggests that they move into the shade; he touches her elbow as he guides her towards the tree on the side of the road. A shiver goes through Emma. Startled she looks at him and certain knowledge passes between them.
Emma begins to look out for Michael. She passes his camp. He is washing under the tree, splashing water from the basin over his naked top and then rubbing it with the towel. He only has army disposal trousers on. Emma returns home breathless, she lies on the bed with a smile on her face like an idiot.
Michael writes her a letter. He thanks her for her professional care and for the lift home. He adds that he is enchanted by her beauty and wisdom and that he would like to know her better. Would she write him a letter?
Of course Emma wouldn't write letters to a stranger. She is a respectably married woman. Maybe not so happily married but nobody needs to know that. The letter feels deliciously funny. Is it a love letter? Maybe just a thank you note. Emma becomes cheerfully juvenile. She meets Michael in town almost every day.
I found a good trace on Green Acres. Want to see?
Emma can't refuse because Michael already has his hand with bits of opal in front of her eyes.
Nice, Emma says breathless.
It's not much but it's a solid claim.
I wish you luck.
Is Michael trying to impress Emma? He probably fantasises about finding opal which will bring him admiration and adoration. Maybe he will not want her admiration if he finds opal. Everybody here adores men who are lucky and find opal. A big discovery of underground treasure makes men instantly desirable. I will be careful, Emma promises herself. Just a chance meeting on the street that is all it will ever be. Michael becomes the name of her new prince. She only wants to play with the idea of a prince; Emma is not going to ride into sunset with him. She has to finish the life she started.
Why do you study etymology? Emma looked the word up in a dictionary.
The powers to be are changing the meaning of the words for their own ends. I'd like to challenge them, says Michael.
How?
For example, in the old English a word MAN stood for men and women. St Paul said: no woe man will teach the man. A woe man was a man who was disobedient to God. St. Paul wanted to say that a teacher must be a good person to be an example to his students. The Greek philosophers insisted that one must become a better person after the time with the teacher. Men stuck a prefix wo onto females and you read it in the Bible now that Apostle Paul said: no woman should teach a man, explains Michael.
It is easy to catch up with Michael because he is still walking. Emma does not ask him in which garage is his car. He looks pathetic with his hessian bag over the shoulder carrying home his groceries. No wonder he adores Emma in her new car and in her clean uniform. Emma also walks with the authority of a job.
Michael and Emma meet on predictable corners at predictable times to have most unpredictable little conversations because they don't know each other well enough to talk about ordinary things.
You said that you studied theology. I am fascinated with God, says Michael. Do you believe in God?
We believe what we were told to believe. Only God knows the truth.
How do you explain life?
God wrote a role for each of us. People change his script sometimes but it's never right at the end, says Michael.
How do I know my script?
Your story is written on your heart, smiles Michael and touches her hand by accident. Their eyes meet for a second. Proverbial windows to the soul melt. The words get stuck in her throat. The word heart made her speechless.
Are you talking about human genome, Emma tries to distance herself from the heart.
Everything you do is everything you are, Michael smiles mysteriously. Every step you take brings you a little closer to where you are heading. Everybody you meet tells you a little about who you are. Thus we are becoming what God would have us be. Michael's face is dangerously close; Emma feels his breath. He smells like brown earth and gum leaves.
One hot afternoon Emma finds a card stuck on her windshield. A picture of a man and a woman dancing; four lines are handwritten inside.
A daydream often steals away
Many moments through the day
And in that dream you hold the sway
My heart as harp you sweetly play.
The card is sighed M
Did you get my Valentine card, asks Michael the next day. I didn't even remember Valentine. I wish you wrote me a letter, says Michael. I wish I could.
They lock eyes for a second. The proverbial arrow is lodged firmly in Emma's chest. The lightning from the blue of his eyes. Emma wakes up from her sleepwalking existence. Is that what they call love. Is that what people who were in coma experience as they wake up and suddenly all their senses burst into awareness? The exquisite pain makes her forget for a moment all that is wrong in her life. Her heart strings love-words together; only her mind tells her that there is no love; there is nothing flawless or splendid. Emma reminds herself that she is not a Snow white and he is nothing but a tramp. A love mirage in the loveless desert. Emma warns herself that Michael could be a murderer, a conman or a thief. She tries to laugh at herself but her laugh sounds weak.
People smile at sixteen years olds in love knowing that they will soon grow up. They would laugh at sensible old Emma in love. Don't be ridiculous. Get real, Emma counsels herself. She enjoys the feeling of euphoria like one enjoys a glass of champagne. It was just a moment of feeling attached and alive; a moment that passed without causing any damage; it was something useless but precious that shone into the dark corner of her soul. Like an opal in the clay. Just as well Paul has no idea that Michael exists.
The hour is come but not the man. Scott
Sally
Emma is reading her Sunday papers while Sally is sorting out her garden. Sally is a simple energetic woman always looking for jobs; her wiry bony body seems made for hard work. She was born in Bosnia and was named Slavica but she changed her name to Sally to make it easier for Australians.
I will take those home if you don't mind, says Sally loading the bag with greenery Emma wanted removed from her overgrown garden. These dark leaves are loaded with nutrients; I can show you in the book how good they are for you, says Sally propagating her new Seven Days Adventist vegetarian beliefs.
I wish I was as slim and strong as you are but I am too fond of fats and sugars, says Emma.
Everybody in our church is slim and strong, maybe you should join us, encourages Sally.
I promised my parents that I will die a Catholic; Emma smiles with her well worn excuse not to join anyone's God army.
I am looking for a man, says Sally abruptly with mud stained hands in the air as she shakes the dirt off the roots.
Aren't we all?
Someone a bit better, a man that has something; someone who made something of his life, Sally clarifies her statement. I am not as young as I was and I have to be careful. Maybe you could help.
What makes you think I can help?
People respect you.
Why didn't you marry Martin?
Sally washes her hands under the garden tap and sits next to Emma.
If I knew that Martin would die so soon, sighs Sally, I would wash his feet every day. I mean it; I would be really good to him. But I didn't know, did I. He could have taken twenty years to die. I haven't got twenty years for anyone. I don't want to be left alone when I am too old to enjoy life. How was I to know that Martin would die so soon? I could have had his house. Now look at me, I lost everything.
He was nearly eighty when you met him, Emma reminds her. He couldn't have lived much longer.
I met stupid Mick at that time. He looked so handsome with a smile like a sunflower. I chose Mick because the bastard was younger and looked better.
Mick is also a Bosnian and his name was Mate before people renamed it in more Australian version.
Can't have your cake and eat it, Emma repeats the old saying which is wasted on Sally.
How was I to know that the smiling bastard would be drunk every day waiting for me to serve him? When we split up he told everybody how stupid I am. I was. He just needed a place to live and a woman to serve him. Never again. I learned my lesson with the bastards. Mick said that he will leave me on a walking stick begging. Just as well I have my hands. I always worked hard, says Sally wiser after every new experience.
At the end there is always the question of money, Emma agrees.
I sold my home so Mick and I bought a bigger house together; when we split up he wanted three quarters of it for himself because he helped renovate it. I worked with him every day and when he stopped working I still served and cleaned but he said that I know nothing about renovating. I did everything he told me to do, because I believed that he loved me. In the end we spent half of the house on solicitors who divided it for us.
Maybe you should have waited a little longer. Mick is in his seventies. He has a house in Melbourne as well.
The bastard told the judge that I was fruit picking for cash twenty years ago while receiving social security. He wanted me to lose my pension. I had to pick fruit to bring my kids up after my husband died. Martin had no children. I should have gone with Martin. He promised to leave everything to me.
Maybe you should have, says Emma.
Martin wanted sex and I couldn't, Sally leans towards Emma in confidentiality. Still if I knew that he will die so soon I would have put up with it. I would have kissed his feet every day.
Sometimes the foot you are kissing kicks you in the teeth, Emma says for no reason at all.
I think Martin was impotent but he wanted to touch me; his grey sagging skin was repulsive. I would be sick if I had to sleep in the same bed.
We all get saggy skin if we live that long, says Emma.
Drinking and smoking will kill him, says Sally after a little calculated silence.
Who?
Mick.
So Sally considered Emma's suggestion to persevere.
Mick said that you put your husband in a nursing home, Emma remembers. Maybe he is scared that he would end in a nursing home.
I lied to him. My husband died at home. It was Tony, my neighbour in Melbourne that I put in a nursing home. Tony promised to leave me a house if I looked after him. I was too young at fifty to be stuck in a house with a cripple. I wanted a bit of life so I put him in a nursing home.
You missed so many chances.
What can I do with a house if I have no life? I want to have some love and some fun, says Sally.
Emma wanders what Sally considered love to be. Or fun.
Money is an old age insurance. If you have money someone is likely to visit you in a nursing home. Parents often hold onto
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their property in the hope that children would want it enough to wait for it with them, says Emma.
My children only come for Christmas to collect their gifts, says Sally genuinely sad.
Sally is not delusional like Emma; she is not pretending that there is some abstract sort of love that binds without reason. Or without expectation. No free lunch. Sally is not ashamed of her vulnerability; she is sensibly practical.
Sally has realistic convictions, hopes and plans. Emma became defined as Paul's wife; people envy her because Paul is strong. She fears that she would be nothing without Paul. I know you; Paul often says when she tries to assert herself.
It is never easy to love someone who has nothing to offer especially when that one is old and the sick, Emma agrees with Sally.
Shouldn't people love you for what you have given and done all your life, says Sally disillusioned.
Life is rarely as it should be, says Emma.
There are many old bludgers in this town but I am looking for someone a bit better, Sally plans the solution to her loveless life.
Emma wonders if a bit better man exists. Maybe attraction makes an ordinary bludger into a better man. Maybe attraction could turn any conman into a perfect lover. Would a bit better man be interested in a scruffy sixty years old woman like Sally who shreds the air to bits with her loud raspy voice? Sally's hands are coarse and her feet large but she is slim and in a tight skirt looks tight herself. Sally looked like a Christmas
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tree decorated with cheap plastic jewellery as she came to the club to play Bingo. Three strands of plastic pearls, enormous earrings and colourful bangles. Her fingernails and toenails were painted the same colour as her cheeks. She can be quite pretty when her dentures shine into a flirtatious smile and when her hair has fresh colour. Maybe men like that kind of simplicity. Sally's home is spotless, her garden is flourishing, and the smell from her kitchen is welcoming. There is an exciting enthusiasm emanating from Sally. Exuberance. Zest for life. Emma lost that.
I need a man who would love me as I am, says Sally.
Wouldn't we all like to be loved for who we are and not for what we have? But who are we; Emma tries to joke about this very serious predicament.
Sally's response is blank. Emma wants to say something to clarify her statement but cannot find the right words.
It is easy for you with your education. I was going to get an education, mutters Sally remembering something.
Why didn't you?
Communists killed my father after the war. By the time I was ten mum married a well respected man. She is a bright young girl, my stepfather said. Nobody else ever told me that I was clever or pretty. He was the only person ever saying that. He wanted to give me a chance in life. He told mum that it was their duty to provide me with education so I would get more out of life; Sally continues her line of remembering.
My step father took me to the city to book me into the boarding school. I was quite pretty then, Sally stops suddenly not knowing what her prettiness had to do with it. I was
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thirteen. These days kids of that age are so smart. I was the dumbest kid in the city. I didn't know that people were males and females. I never had any luck with men.
Sex education wasn't invented yet, Emma agrees.
At thirteen I have never seen a naked person; I did not know where babies come from let alone how they are made, Sally's voice becomes shaky and uncertain.
Sex and pregnancy did not exist as far as children were concerned, Emma agrees and wonders if Sally is telling her story.
It happened when we stopped overnight in a hotel, says Sally in a small voice. The memories are obviously too much for her to go through. Emma pretends to leaf through the magazine to let Sally compose herself.
People say that little girls should have told their mothers. Told what? That her husband had sex with their little daughter, says Sally and there are real tears running down her sunburnt face.
He came to visit me in that boarding school once a month and took me to the motel overnight. I was dreading his visits every moment of every day. I had to give my child for adoption before I knew if it was a boy or a girl, Sally finally breaks down sobbing on Emma's shoulder.
We were only told that the prince and the princess kissed and then got married to live happily ever after, says Emma taking Sally into a vague embrace.
When I was fifteen I told my mother that it was her husband who made me pregnant.
Who knows who the lying bitch slept with, said her husband.
Mum said that I was ungrateful for the good things he has done for us.
I left and became a domestic help to another family. I was forever scared that someone would find out. I felt ashamed; and guilty; and dirty.
Sally's coarse simplicity amuses Emma. More sophisticated women would never admit their base survival instincts as innocently. Emma cannot. Not even to herself. Emma admires Sally's simple honesty and her strength to present herself as she is. She is vulnerable and was abused but she still believes that she is entitled to a bit better man.
Children should be told what men are like but sex and love and kindness and control and jealousy can never be fully explained until they hit you in the face, says Emma as her own memories come flooding back. She feels so much better off; she kept her legs together until the end.
Parents should protect their children, says Sally.
You have to love yourself first and then everybody will love you, says Emma remembering mum's useless words.
You are lucky that mum told you these things, says Sally.
What did your mum tell you?
Basics: obey; think three times before you speak; count to ten before you act; respect your elders, let them go first and say thank you. I was always told to be a good girl, says Sally. Look where that got me.
My dad used to say: When you fall get up quickly and start walking. Don't let anyone see you down. So I get up and brush away the dirt and the hurt so nobody ever knows when I am in pain, says Emma defiantly. Sally has no idea what Emma is talking about.
After I put Tony in a nursing home, I went fruit picking; Sally quickly recovers from her trauma and picks her story where she left it. I was picking fruit for a really nice family. They respected me because I am a good worker; clean and sober. They treated me like family. The farmer had a brother Peter in Canada. A real gentleman. Good looking, fun loving singer. I always dreamed about marrying a musician or a singer. I was dreaming about going dancing and singing with Peter. We started writing to each other, Peter and I; he wrote all the words I wanted to hear. I lived for his letters. No man was ever as romantic and sweet as Peter. I rang him and he told me how much he loved me. I worked seven days a week but I was happier than I have ever been. I lived for Peter's letters. I spent a fortune on phone calls. I wrote to him every night and I waited for his reply. After four years we decided to get married. I bought a dress and prepared everything for our life together. In his last letter he asked me if I could lend him money for the airline ticket from Canada so he could come and marry me. He was going to pay me back after we married. At sixty he did not have a thousand dollars to his name. I told him to stay where he was.
Good decision, smiles Emma.
There are lots of old men in this town but they just want someone to look after them. I want someone to look after me; to take me out dancing and on holidays while I am still young enough to enjoy it.
Emma knows that hundreds of desperate old miners and a handful of old women in this town are changing hands hoping to make a perfect match. Try matching an old shoe with another old shoe. Experienced, disillusioned and betrayed they hope that next pair of hands will be warmer, softer, more generous, and less needy; that the heart of the next person will be more sincere, pure, young and innocent. They meet in the club with the drink in one hand playing poker machine with the other; they are waiting for the jackpot man or woman who will bring them happiness and wealth. Free and on the pension, too young for the nursing home, too old for love market; knowing the market too well to believe in it any more. And all of them want to be loved a bit better by someone a bit better; everyone searching for a person who would discover their inner beauty. They are all waiting for the prince charming. One cannot live on everyday life alone.
They all gamble, says Sally. When they lose their last dollar they go out through the door with their heads down without saying anything.
I have seen them, says Emma remembering the eyes filled with tears as the woman walked into the sunshine and the emptiness of her existence hit her. The euphoria of drink cannot match the despair of the loss.
I will tell you a secret, says Sally. Stanko came to see me. He wanted someone to water his garden while he was away. He told me that he is lonely. Maybe you could say something to him. He is not like others.
Emma is startled. So Sally has designs on Paul's friend Stanko. Sally already found a little bit better man; now she needs Emma to put in a good word for her. Why not? Stanko is a handsome, shy boy in his seventies. He is dying his hair so
he must still think of the romance market. Another hungry migrant boy who did not find a suitable match in the big strange world. Emma remembers the conversation with Stanko. Why don't you go home on holidays, she once asked him? I have no home, said Stanko. I mean where you were born. I only remember being hungry there, Stanko tried to make it sound funny.
So many mismatched people, Emma says half to herself half to Sally. Who knows what they all escaped from before they chose to live here?
Stanko might be scared that I want his money but I just need an honest kind man, says Sally.
Nothing wrong with wanting a bit of love and a bit of fun, Emma agrees. Maybe Stanko is scared to lose what he has. What he has may be all he is. Emma does not tell Sally that Stanko holds onto his possessions with everything he is.
Will you talk to Stanko?
I will try.
Perhaps I should be grateful, more grateful, says Sally.
Maybe we should stop blaming other people for our mistakes, Emma concedes.
We get what we deserve.
It was different when we were young only we didn't know it then, says Sally.
Everybody wants to be loved more than they are and more than they deserve, says Emma. If one could be loved without
money nobody would work and push and cheat to become rich?
You get burnt if you play with fire, mum used to say, Sally responds to her own thoughts.
People shine their own talents they are not here to shine yours, says Emma.
Mum said that we live in the valley of tears, says Sally.
So Emma is not alone initiated for the valley of tears. There is an endless procession of people carrying their own uniquely carved cross, being harnessed by the set of their uniquely acquired rules and holding onto their own torch as they run to catch up with the person that holds their happiness in their hands. Sally is like my twin sister, thinks Emma.
I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, says Sally after consideration.
Don't let anyone see you when you are down, Emma repeats her father's warning.
Stanko is rich but I am not after his money, Sally confirms again. What can I do with the money if I have no life? Life is so unfair. Like Martin, he was too old; Sally goes over the facts of life once more. She would definitely like to have a bit better man and a bit of fun. Together they consider men and women as they would the second hand preloved or pre-hated clothing at the Vinnie's second hand shop.
There is always money, Emma admits. People hold on the money because they have nothing else to hold on. Nothing anyone else would want.
Maybe you could say something to Stanko. He respects you, says Sally hoping that Emma understands her need and her plan.
Leave it with me.
Maybe he got used to living on his own, says Sally a little fearfully.
How long does it take to get used to being alone?
Not much fun if you are not a drinker or a gambler, Sally disrupts her thoughts with her shrill laughter.
Thank God for women friends, thinks Emma.
Sally comes most weekends to help with gardening. Emma used to do it all before but she feels that she deserve a bit of help. Maybe Emma needs Sally to feel less alone. Perhaps she needs to feel better off. Maybe she needs Sally to tell Emma's story.
You are lucky to have a husband who does everything for you, says Sally.
I work. Nursing is work.
But it is clean easy work, says Sally minimizing Emma's job.
That's what Paul says, but changing beds and moving patients is neither clean nor easy. Changing nappies on old people and washing their backsides is not really pleasant either.
How come nobody sees that Emma works? Is it because her working uniform is clean and she has no dirt behind her fingernails?
I always wanted my son to work in a tie job and now he is in computers and he has clean hands, Sally beams with pride.
Paul is so proud of you, Sally travels her own road. She does not know that Paul is never satisfied with Emma's performance. He blames her if his socks are not turned inside out, his shirt is not properly ironed, the hair is on the hair brush, the toilet seat is down, the toilet paper is pulled too far, his shoes are not well polished, the car is messy; salt is not on the table; his fork is turned the wrong way; the children make noise; not enough salt, too much salt, too cooked, uncooked; nothing is ever just right. The more Emma apologises the harder Paul looks for her imperfections. 'If only' seems to be the beginning of Paul's every statement. If only Emma was smarter, prettier, more faithful; if only she loved him more. Why is it that people would love her better if only she changed? She was changing all her life and even she never managed to really like herself.
Janez liked her.
When did you become a nurse, asks Sally.
I wanted to be a doctor but later trained as a nurse at home, of course, but after Amy was born I did some courses to get my Australian certificate. I have been studying ever since. Now I am registered and certified in everything.
You are so lucky, says Sally with admiration. Paul doesn't drink or smoke or swear. He never chased other women. He loves you so much.
I don't chase other men, Emma laughs but Sally pays no attention. In some part of herself Emma feels proud of the respect Paul commands. She almost likes Sally's admiration of
Paul. He convinced everybody that Emma only works for her own pleasure. That he lets her go to work to please her. Emma needs to be proud of Paul; she needs Sally's envy more than her pity. Paul needs to be bigger; when he suspects that Emma doesn't admire him enough he belittles her efforts further. Emma learned not to go where she could be hurt; she skirts on the safe surface.
Paul is a handsome man, says Sally.
Emma wonders why Sally is trying to convince her that she is lucky. She could not explain to Sally the panicky apprehension of doom that she feels in the middle of the night. She cannot tell anyone that she feels disconnected and floating in the emptiness trying to attach herself to something. In those moments she would sit down with the Jehovah witness simply to have someone close to her. Maybe feelings like that are the reason people marry; or organise religions; the need to be connected, to pray together; to be a part of, to be less scared. Reason enough to join born Again Christians; or Seven day Adventists. Or dance in the Serbian kolo.
You can trust Paul, says Sally in her simplicity.
He is predictable; Emma smiles at the duplicity of their understanding.
You can't find a man like that these days, says Sally after a long silence.
I sometimes wonder why I bother with this never ending gardening, Emma says as Sally loads the refuse in a wheelbarrow to take to the compost heap. It's only a distraction.
A man stopped by to look at my garden the other day, remembers Sally. He knows everything about fruit trees and vegetables and flowers. He used to be a farmer. He asked for some chillies. It was hot so I invited him in for a cold drink. He is really interested in cooking. I gave him some recipes.
What's his name?
Michael. He is very nice. He is not like other miners either, says Sally before she leaves.
No, he isn't. Michael seems to have a string of old women who miss him. He is well connected. Maybe they, his women, have more in common than they would like to admit.
Exchanging their stories makes them sisters.
Those dancing days are gone. Yeats
Sonia
Mate cut some of Paul's first opals. His wife Sonia drops in occasionally for a cup of coffee. She is a pretty, petite lady always immaculately groomed. Sonia insists that she never had a friend; she does not trust people but gradually she tells Emma about herself and they begin to enjoy each other's company.
I was born in 1937 in Croatian capital Zagreb, she tells. My father was in a secret service- he was a spy for the government. He provided well for us. We lived in a nice home. I believe that mum and dad loved each other. Dad was rarely home but whenever he came they made another baby. My two younger sisters were born before he disappeared in 1945. Dad joined the Ustashi Croatian army. He was a friend of the Ustashi leader Ante Pavelic. His brother was Pavelic's body guard. During WWII Ustashi cooperated with Germans so Germans grmated Croatia independence. Ustashi were fighting against communists but in the end communists won. Some Ustashi escaped others were killed by communists. We never knew how and where dad died.
I remember that mum was informed on three different occasions that dad was killed and each time she began wearing black to mourn him; but every time he came back. The last time he came home at midnight; he knocked on the door but mum was too scared to open. It was the beginning of 1945 and
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partisans were getting closer. Ustashi were on the run. Dad called and I called out to dad. In the end mum opened. Dad looked drunk. He was in the uniform and had a machine gun and grenades around his waist. Mum asked him why he came and put the family and himself in danger. He put down the gun and grenades and went to bed. Mum put the gun under the bed. There was a big noise outside so dad jumped up, kicked the door open and yelled out: surrender or I'll shoot. The cat miaowed. She fell of the tin roof of the shed. Dad got dressed then. As he was going mum told him never to return. We never heard from him again.
I loved my father and he loved me very much. That's the only love I ever had. He was handsome and he sang on the radio. He used to play cards and drank a fair bit. That's where he met my mother who was a waitress in a restaurant. Mum was quite pretty when she was young. She came to Zagreb as 13 years old to help the cook in the priest's kitchen. Her parents found a job for her so she had to leave school. Once a month her father came to take her pay. The cook scolded her father for not letting his daughter keep the money she earned. Later mum found herself a waitressing job.
After the war the government threw us out of the house because we were Ustashi family. Mum found a little run down flat for us. She had to go to work. I was a baby sitter for my youngest sister since I was four. The middle sister went to mum's parents because there was no room for her in the flat.
I used to go for school holidays to mum's parents but they were busy and paid no attention to me.
I often wonder why my mother never showed any affection towards us children. She never listened to us or talked to us, never told us a story or praised us. I looked after my younger
sisters and helped with housekeeping but she never once said that I was good.
When my sister was a few months old mum tried to smother her with the pillow. She left a pillow on top of her and went out but when she returned she found the pillow on the floor and the cat curled around the baby's head.
Maybe mum suffered from post natal depression and never recovered. Maybe she never learned from her parents to show love. Maybe she was overworked.
My sisters and I never learned to be affectionate towards each other either.
I remember an incident when I was about five. Our neighbour had a pear tree. She told me not to take the two pears left on the tree because they were saving them. One afternoon the neighbour came crying to mum. Why did your daughter take the pears? I told them that I didn't take them but they would not believe me. Mum took a knife and pushed me on the chair saying that she will kill me. She actually slightly stabbed me in a stomach before the neighbour pulled her away. I had a scar for years but the memory of it never faded. I was terrified.
After the war mum found a job in a storeroom of a huge government building. She wasn't educated but she must have been intelligent because she remembered every article in the storeroom. When a storeman died she became a store manager. The government built flats for the employees and she got a new flat.
I went to boarding school when I was eleven because I couldn't stand being at home. I finished four years primary and three years of high school. I started an apprenticeship to
repair nylon stockings. I learned very fast and I earned good money working for a dressmaker who also did stocking repair. I had to save carefully. I still lived in the boarding house paying a nominal fee.
At the age of seventeen I escaped to Turkey without telling anyone. Two other girls and I knew a man who had a brother working on an old Turkish cargo ship. He told his brother when the ship will come to Rjeka port. We paid the duty guard to turn a blind eye. We put men's clothes on and swaggered like drunks. Someone called: stop. Another man said: they are only dirty Turks, let them go.
We boarded the ship during the night and hid on top of the coal underneath the deck. We were trembling as we heard the Yugoslav inspectors above checking the ship before departure.
They found us after few hours and took us in the office for interrogation. An interpreter translated for us. The captain said that we were just half an hour in the international waters and that they will ring Rjeka police to pick us up. They would put us in jail. I told him that I am going to jump in the sea rather than be sent back. I would have done so. My friends cried. The man who helped us was shaking uncontrollably. His brother slapped him really hard because he helped us. Both brothers were locked up on the ship.
The captain telegraphed Turkey and they told him to bring us over. We had a bath before they locked us in the room. The captain told us not to go out because he was responsible for our safety. We were young girls among the Turkish sailors.
On the fourth day the officers came to take us on top of the ship. They showed us a Yugoslav ship in the distance and they told us that they will send us over. We cried. After six days
we arrived to Istanbul and became celebrities. It was the first time that young girls would come there on their own. Hundreds of people came to meet us, they called our names and took our photos.
People looked poor and I wondered where we came. We were taken to the police station where they made beds for us. They asked us what we wanted to eat and soon the man brought whatever we ordered. We did not want to stay in Turkey. My dream was America because as children we received UNDRA parcels from America. A man took us to the shop and American embassy paid for our clothes. They put us in a hotel until they found accommodation for us. We just ordered whatever we wanted to eat. We were there for two weeks and our pictures were in the papers every day. We found accommodation and they gave us government benefit which was more than an average wage. We had a good life in Turkey.
There was no employment. We could find a little work in coffee shops but we were afraid to lose benefits.
I was there a year and a half hoping to go to America but they told me that it will take five years before I will be allowed to. I decided to go to France but Croatians caused some political trouble there at the time so they did not want me. They said you can go to Australia. I didn't want to go but I agreed. They bought me new clothes and sent me to the dentist. A month later on 2.5.1957 I was on the plane for Australia. I arrived to Perth where a Croatian catholic priest and a nun were waiting for me. I stayed with them two weeks until a Croatian farmer came with his wife and they took me with them. I was there a few weeks until I became stronger.
There was no work in Perth so the government found me a job and a room in Paddington near Sydney. I worked in a thong
factory for a month until I found a job in a Croatian coffee lounge making cappuccino. After six months there I met a Croatian man Mate. I was crazy about Mate. I couldn't see my life without him. He came to ask me for a dance in the Croatian club. I was in love. He was handsome and intelligent. I was blind to any faults or differences. He was well dressed and well groomed. He talked well and behaved like a real gentleman.
We got married after living together for six years. We have a daughter Melanie.
Mate was a technician and he opened a camera repair shop in Melbourne. He worked very long hours. I was home alone with Mandy so I tried to make our home perfect for him. After a couple of years Mate became sick with tumour in the head. He wasn't allowed to work for many months but he couldn't live without work. He worried about the business and the employees. We had to pay rent for the shop and make payments on the house.
After three years in Melbourne we sold the house and the business and built the home in Lightning Ridge.
Mate told me to look after our money because doctor told him that his tumour may return. Mate became a very popular opal cutter. I learned from him everything about opal. I began to buy small parcels of opal. Bruce brothers brought five little stones and I offered eight hundred dollars for them. They asked if it was standing offer and I said yes. I hoped they would not return but they did and I paid. Mate comforted me saying that even if we lost we didn't lose everything. I went to Lenny Cram and he said that the sand on the back spoiled one stone. Mate recut all the stones. Chaplain then bought one of
those stones for nine hundred dollars. That gave me courage to start buying.
When Melanie was seven I went to visit mum. I had nothing to go home for really but I always had mum on my mind. Maybe I wanted to make her love me. I cannot say that I ever loved my mum but at the same time I knew that she took care of us. We were never hungry and we had better clothes than other children. When I was little I always dreamed how I will run away and get rich to help my mother.
Melanie and I flew to Rome but I could not force myself to book a plane for Zagreb. I couldn't eat. I couldn't make up my mind to return home so we stayed in Trieste for a week feeding pigeons in the park before I gathered strength to make arrangements to go home. On crossing the border we heard Croatian language and it was lovely but it was very hard to face the people from my past.
Mum and my sisters Violet and Georgia were happy to see me.
One day Violet was sitting in the kitchen smoking while mum talked to Georgia. I overheard Georgia crying and begging mum to tell her why she never loved her.
Mum was very cool and said: there is no room for you in my heart. There never was.
I didn't want to upset mum but I asked Violet what it was all about.
Violet said: You don't know mum, she is much worse than you remember.
We never learned from mum how to show affection for each other.
I sent mum money regularly since I left home. She never asked for money but she always wrote how expensive everything was at home. She also wrote that my sisters were well off and did not need my help. She did not want me to send anything to them. I became popular with mum, I suppose, but I felt that I was buying her love. My sister said that mum loved me most but I think I bought her love.
My relationship with Mate deteriorated when we came to Lightning Ridge. We became reasonably successful and prosperous compared to a lot of poor migrant miners but I began to see a side of Mate I never knew before. He came from a very poor family of nine. When we had nothing we had dreams and we were happy but when we had no more money problems he changed. Even when he had a business in Melbourne he began to pretend that he was better than other people. He especially liked to show off in front of poor people. He loved good food and he boasted about the food he ate and the drinks he bought. I was often embarrassed and sometimes I kicked him under the table but he just asked why I was kicking him. He liked to make himself bigger than people around him. He had a need to impress others. When people came with bits of opal they found to survive he liked to boast about good things he had. In those days most miners lived under the tent without government support.
Little things Mate said and did got on my nerves. When the first astronauts landed on the moon he started to read about it to make himself look smarter than people around him. He told me that I was not educated and that our people-that was other Croatians-were from the dark ages and had no intelligence. He was sweet to their faces but denigrated them behind their backs. He said that we must look for a better class of people and distance ourselves from the poor people. I began to dislike
him. I didn't like the two sided person. His brother Peter has the same tendency to make himself bigger than he is. Maybe this trait runs in the family. They were dreamers who needed to be bigger than people around them.
Mate expected too much from me; I felt overworked and underappreciated.
Mate went to Croatia many times but I bought myself a new car instead. I also had a veranda built and put concrete around the house.
Mate loved our daughter Melanie. He spoiled her and I objected. When I told her to eat, he told her that she does not have to if she does not like it. Melanie looked at him for support whenever I demanded that she does something.
I became frustrated and shouted but he told Melanie that she does not have to listen to me. Mate loved children; he loved to play with them. Melanie's friends loved him. To me he seemed childish but maybe he never had childhood games and wanted to enjoy them with his daughter. He wanted more children but I refused.
Mate and I did well in business together but we began to live separate lives. I got a block of land, had a house built and left Mate. He told me to take everything we had but leave Melanie with him. I told him that Melanie can see him every day but she had to live with me. He wanted me to come back and remain friends. When I left we often met in the pub for lunch. There was Toni who played in the band and he asked me out. Mate became jealous. Toni wanted me to go with him to America. Mate told Toni that I am a lesbian and he told me that Toni is a homosexual.
Mate went to Croatia and brought back a new wife Tania.
I sold the house and went to Cobber Peddy, bought cutting machines and began to buy opal. I leased a shop. I bought cheap stones in rough, then cut and set them for tourists. I was on a good spot and thousands of tourists came to buy cheap souvenirs. They were selling like hot cakes.
I worked seven days a week twelve hours a day. I returned to Lightning Ridge because this is the only place where I was happy for awhile.
I wasn't happy in any of my relationships. I can't think of living with a man again. Emma knew that Sonia flirted with men and made other women jealous but she also knew that Sonia never trusted a man enough to let herself surrender.
God is love, I dare say. But what a mischievous devil love is. Butler
Margaret
John came to see me with his new wife this morning, Margaret smiles sweetly when Emma visits her in hospital. Margaret suffered a heart attack.
That was nice of them, says Emma.
Michael, was with me at the time. You haven't met Michael, have you? He is new in town.
Margaret is radiant.
Born Again Christians come and prayed in tongues for me, says Margaret. Millions of people gather all over the world to pray for healing. The healers cast evil spirits out of people and they feel instantly well.
Emma visualises Michael praying with Margaret who became religious, frail and generous at about the same time. Her eyes glow in glory just remembering her newly found faith. Or is it Michael, her new love? You should come to pray with us sometimes, Margaret smiles serene as an angel.
I should follow in my parent's footsteps, says Emma, knowing how inadequate her beliefs are. There are too many choices and too many different rules on the path to salvation. It was easy when the Catholic Church of her parents had a monopoly on Jesus and the power over heaven and hell. These days
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nobody is even sure if heaven and hell exist. Nobody is quite sure where they are going. It is rather sad to lose direction like that.
I changed so many lives, says Margaret. I am afraid I made a mess of things really. Margaret is trying to make amends. Before it is too late.
How, asks Emma.
I took a bus trip to Lightning Ridge to recover from my divorce from John. That same bus driver became my second husband. I attached myself to him like a vine that just lost its stake. I separated from him six months later. My daughter came to offer support. She fell in love with a local boy and married here. They have four lovely children now. My son came to visit and stayed. John came to see the children and he married a local lady Fiona.
I wish all relationships would have such happy endings.
One gets caught in the chain of events unprepared for the consequences. It seems like I had nothing to do with any of it, says Margaret in her absent minded melodic voice.
Maybe our story really was written and we only follow the script, Emma repeats Michael's words.
I still don't know if I should have left John. I am so glad that Fiona doesn't mind us being friends. She is such a sweet lady, says Margaret.
You are generous.
I believe that John chose a second wife much like me, smiles Margaret. Maybe we all pick a certain kind of a partner who is the image of us in some way.
Why did you leave John?
I caught him with a girl from work. It meant nothing to him, he said; he begged me to forgive him but I couldn't. You don't know what it is like; you are lucky to have a faithful husband, Margaret suddenly turns to Emma.
Paul has no time to be unfaithful; he is too busy watching me, Emma minimises her luck. Most migrant men watch their wives to stop them being tempted by so many single migrant boys.
I suppose I was busy watching my first husband, Margaret becomes thoughtful. I loved him and wanted him to stop wanting more. It seems that the more I loved him more he looked elsewhere. I held onto him and he tried to get free.
What is this thing people call love? We want it all and never have enough of it, smiles Emma.
Someone said that the only perfect people are the ones we don't know well enough. Same goes for the perfect love. I think the ideal love is only an attraction that has never been tested, says Margaret. The perfect love is in the longing not in the fulfilment.
Love is like air we breathe, says Emma after they travel in their thoughts for awhile.
Emma has always been in love. Perhaps being in love is the same as being alive. She is forever searching for a prince; often her prince has no name; sometimes she locks eyes with a
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real flesh and blood man but these men inevitably disintegrate into mere flesh and blood at the first touch. Like Michael. She is careful never to touch her prince because she knows full well that he has none of the attributes she decorates him with. Most of the time men Emma is in love with are blissfully unaware of her existence. How many women are there weaving romances around tramps like Michael? Emma needs a dream to take to bed like some people need sleeping pills to go to sleep. If there is no man suitable to play a leading role in her dream Emma imagines one. She prepares a sad scenario in which she rejects the one true love and returns to the security and safety of Paul's arms. She remains totally unattainable, pure and virginal and respected and very sad. Emma puts this eternal love on the shelf in the morning as she returns to real life. It sits there like a bedside Bible to remind her that real love and life exist. Emma idealised Janez because she needs an ideal love. She remains sadly serious because she is scared to burst the romantic bubble by mixing it with her fragile reality. She knows that it is only a bubble but what is life really but an idea that can be terminated instantly. Pricked like a balloon.
Did Christians idealised Jesus like that because they needed an ideal man to hang on all the virtues they believed to make life harmonious and meaningful. Some men through centuries tried to replace Jesus but they were seduced by lust for power, possessions and sex. Jesus owned nothing, he was nothing apart from his humility and righteousness. Great men of history used his words in their pursuit of happiness and in their defence of life; they used Jesus' teaching that all men are born equal and deserving of dignity, love and respect. Perhaps Jesus was God's ideal son in comparison with all the other more or less good God's children.
Someone once said that people should eat so they can live and not live to eat. One does not live on bread alone, says Emma.
One is life, the other is sustenance, says Margaret.
I suppose we need sustenance to maintain life.
Most men are simply propelled from one woman's body to another without ever knowing the woman; they live no imprints; there is no memory left behind, says Margaret.
Women either watch their husbands flirt or they flirt themselves. People actually flirt endlessly and needlessly, says Emma.
Not just people, animals sing and dance and preen themselves before mating. They all celebrate life, says Margaret.
Even when people stop mating they still flirt, says Emma remembering people in a nursing home. It seems that we are only alive as long as someone knows that we are.
God created two to sustain life; one to watch the offspring while the other gathers food.
Males are fighters and women are nurturers, says Emma.
My second husband's philosophy was: A man must defend his country against its enemies and his wife against his friends. He had to have total control. I couldn't stand it, so I left, says Margaret.
Why is control so important to men?
Women have an advantage: they know that their offspring is truly theirs but men have to fight off other would be fathers. All males fight for the privilege to fertilise a female.
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Another of my husband's sayings about men was: If you can't hurt him at least be careful that you don't help him.
To believe your own thought, to believe what is true to you in your private heart
is true for all men-
that is genius.
E.R.Waldo
Barbara
I just came from Margaret's place, Barbara rushes in. There is an ambulance and a police wagon in her driveway. I went to see what is going on but nobody is allowed near the place.
I can't imagine anyone wanting to harm dear Margaret, says Emma.
It is appalling that one is no longer safe in their own home, says Barbara. Since Barbara became a Jehovah Witness it is her duty to be appalled by the sins of non believers.
Margaret's son rings that mum suffered another heart attack and died at home. No excitement, just the loss.
Margaret's children arrange a Catholic funeral. They need a familiar ritual to let their mother go. The church is filling up but Barbara and Sally are waiting outside; their Jesus does not allow them to sit in the Catholic Church. Cally does not believe in Jesus or heaven. There is no sign of Michael. Emma sits on the middle of three empty seats at the back of the small old church; there are only a few seats left but nobody sits next to her; she concentrates on not looking worried about being
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alone. Why does a woman have to be a part of a couple? Maybe it is only Emma not used to be on her own. She actually likes to be alone but is afraid of being seen alone instead of being a part of a couple whispering to each other.
It is a small funeral, most blow-ins have solitary deaths, says Cally as they stand around the grave.
Aborigines come from near and far in their hundreds for their funerals, agrees Emma. Emma sometimes wanders who will come to her funeral; who did she mean enough to so they would come to celebrate her life. These days people don't come to mourn the dead; they gather to celebrate the life of the departed. Most of Lightning Ridge people are blow-ins-people with no connections; people blown in by the wind from all over the world.
Barbara visits Emma once a week. Maybe she comes like she does to all the people she is trying to convert for Jehowah but both enjoy each other's company.
Where did you find this beauty, Emma touches Barbara's short peach coloured dress with admiration.
You wouldn't believe what I paid for it, beams Barbara as she swirls around, happy with her post-Christmas bargain hunting.
I have been looking for something simple like that but everything these days is plastic and elastic, says Emma.
This is pure silk and linen tailored to my size. Seventy-five percent off the original price. It feels like I have nothing on. You can still find a bargain if you know where to look. As a rule, never look for a bargain in a cheap shop, says Barbara who is naturally elegant.
People spend at Christmas like there is no tomorrow, smiles Emma.
We don't celebrate Christmas; we don't like to trivialise Jesus, says Barbara shining with the wisdom of a newly baptised Jehovah Witness. Barbara says WE like she has a family but her Jehovah witness group is her only family.
I like to have the family together for Christmas properly dressed and on best behaviour, smiles Emma.
People are decorating everything for Christmas but they forget their souls, sighs Barbara.
For most Christmas means just shopping, Emma agrees. She learned long ago that agreeing is much more agreeable than resisting. Barbara tells Emma that people regularly slam doors in her face and abuse her as she goes from house to house to bring them Good News. Some get the dog to shoo her away. She glows in her efforts to bring salvation. The more they persecute her in the name of Jesus more brownie points she earns.
Everybody is rushing to get ahead of people instead of meeting them, says Barbara.
There are no medals at the end of the road, Emma agrees again. People are afraid to be left behind.
Sometimes shops inflate their prices to bluff those that don't know real value, says Barbara. Nobody knows what you are worth until you put a price on yourself, said my father once to my mum before she went for a job interview. If you let them think that you are precious they will consider you precious; if you present yourself as worthless they will kick you around and you will end on the rubbish dump. How do I know what I
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am worth, laughed my mum? You present your assets and hide your shortcomings, said dad.
A wise guy, smiles Emma.
My father called me gullible because I believe in love, says Barbara.
You knew many men, says Emma. She sometimes wonders if knowing more men would make her happier and wiser.
I loved them all, says Barbara. I love the beauty of being in love. When I was fifteen I fell in love with my beautiful teachers, the nuns. They were so elegantly serene and they sang so beautifully. Their longing haunting hymns brought me closer to God. So I entered the convent. The harmony, the silence and the gentle movements of the nuns made the convent an awesomely holy place. I really felt God's presence. When I was eighteen a forty six years old priest became my spiritual mentor. He was wonderful; he guided me on the path to Jesus. I would have become a dancer if I didn't join the convent. I was beautiful then and my figure was perfect. I danced in front of the mirror in the evenings. I wanted to reward my spiritual mentor, so late one evening when he came to see me I emerged from behind the curtain naked and danced for him. He sat down and watched mesmerised. That was beautiful, he said. I loved that priest for about ten years until he was sent to Rome. With him gone I could no longer find God within the convent walls.
These days they would condemn the priest for the abuse of power, says Emma.
We did not harm anybody but I can see now how women who love catholic priests are disadvantaged, says Barbara. I think
the rule of celibacy is inhumane. Most priests have sexual relationships and so they should. There is nothing in the Bible forbidding it. Catholic Church does not allow priests to have families so when they do make children they can never publicly acknowledge them. They can't go to a football match with their son playing. There is also no permanency.
You must have been very sad when he left.
Soon after I left the convent I met Felix. I fell so deeply in love that nothing else mattered. He loved me but he could not marry me because he was still married to his first wife in Germany. I took his surname and we lived like a man and wife. He wanted to go opal mining so we settled down in a camp on the opal fields.
From the convent to the opal field camp is a giant step, says Emma.
I believe that living in poverty enriches your life. Living rough was an exciting experience for me. There is an element of surprise when you learn by your own mistakes, smiles Barbara. I had a very gentle upbringing and my parents were well off. I never wanted for anything.
I suppose change really is as good as a holiday, says Emma.
Felix went to Germany to get a divorce but he returned with a new wife. I was devastated so I moved in with my friend Nigel. Nigel was beautiful but his soul was troubled. He didn't know if he was attracted to men or women. I hoped that Nigel would realise that he is a man and that he loved me. He didn't. He became a drug addict and eventually died of an overdose. I met Virgil then. He is a black African but so deeply spiritual. We talked like I never talked to any person before. Maybe we
would still be together but he was deported to Africa because of some custom transgression. He wasn't naturalised.
I met Charlie when I became a youth worker. He was an African American basketball player who became a youth sports trainer. He was half my age but that did not bother us. Everybody loved Charlie. He lived with a girlfriend but he used to come to see me whenever he could. I thought the sun shone out of him. I loved Charlie with all my heart. I was waiting for him one afternoon but he rang that he had to take a group of girls to Dubbo for a game of netball. A few months later he vanished. In Dubbo he slept with a fifteen years old Samantha. When she told him that she was pregnant he became scared. Nobody knows where he is now.
Would you like to have a permanent partner? Asks Emma.
Every partner offers something unique. I was heartbroken when Charlie left. It was like the sun set for good. I joined a Bible study then with Sally who is a Seven Days Adventist. They were a great support to me but they are very strict.
Emma is amazed at the ease with which Barbara tells her love stories; she feels no shame or guilt or fear. She seems immune from prejudice. Emma could never do that. Barbara only has herself to please; she is not afraid of being judged by others. Having no one means liberation from shame and guilt and fear.
I was never so fulfilled until I finally found the truth with Jehovah's Witnesses. Now I have a personal relationship with God, says Barbara smiling and serene. I wish to get closer to him all the time.
The relationship with the creator of all relationships, smiles Emma.
You should join us, says Barbara.
I owe it to my parents to remain Catholic. To end as I began, laughs Emma.
You can die with the truth even when you lived with a lie, says Barbara.
She died as she lived would be my epitaph, says Emma.
I find that one can tell God what no one else would understand, says Barbara.
I write a diary, lies Emma. Why does she lie? She would not dare put into words her magic land.
Telling Jehovah is better.
I haven't yet given a name to the boss, Emma tries to trivialise God.
Give yourself a chance. Come to our meetings and everything will become clear to you, invites Barbara.
Emma keeps negotiating with the God of her parents but finds no certainty. Can one really be as certain about God's intentions as Barbara seems to be?
Do you believe in God, Barbara looks solemnly at Emma.
I hope that there is someone in charge, Emma squeezes out of her dilemma.
I am the alpha and omega-the beginning and the end, Barbara says with reverence.
To me religions are just stories someone made up to explain the mysteries of universe.
But as a catholic, begins Barbara.
I believe that we are all part of the same creator and creation; all living things under the same management, says Emma.
God gave people the dominion over his creation, says Barbara. He gave us the mind with which we discover and the spirit with which we worship.
The fish is discovering things that are important for the survival of the fish.
Fish did not receive the message from god, says Barbara. Where did it get the plan for living then? Animals have instincts.
Barbara and Emma sit in silence as their minds are creating personal answers to the ultimate questions. Emma notices an actress on television explaining why and how she chose her husband.
These days women choose their husbands, Emma tries to change the subject before Barbara again slips into a preaching mode.
Women always chose.
Why do you think I chose Paul?
Females pick a male that will provide for their young. The strong male inseminates more females; the richest man picks the prettiest girl. It's only natural; the same happens with other species. I did not need a provider so I picked spiritual partners. When you are young you don't rationally think about it but it is in the nature of things. It's the preservation of the species.
No girl wants to admit that she married for money but many do, says Emma.
Everybody sticks to money; men even more than women. You only have to look at television. Everybody is honoured to be in the company of someone rich. The rich and the famous claim to love each other for who they are but when they part, they only remember the money and fight over it. Money truly is the root of all evil. Women may sometimes marry for money but men murder for it all the time.
I only ever had one man, Emma confesses. At seventeen I met Paul; at nineteen I married him; at twenty one I arrived to Australia with a toddler in my arms.
And lived happily ever after, adds Barbara.
Paul was twenty eight and I believed that he knew everything. Now I am twice as old but I still know nothing.
You must have loved Paul very much, says Barbara.
Whatever love may be, smiles Emma. She would like to tell somebody the truth about Paul and herself but she lived with pretence so long that she couldn't cope with a sudden change of identity. Paul and Emma promised to leave the past behind; never to speak about it; never tell anyone about it. They kept their promise but the past twisted itself into their lives like a
worm eating them from inside. They are like overripe apples, beautiful on the outside and rotten inside.
Paul is so good with his hands, Barbara brings Emma back into the present. You never have to worry if something breaks down.
He sulks and shuts himself away if he is not happy.
Sometimes it is easier to escape into silence than address the problems. Silence is a form of excommunication. Leaders of Jehovah Witnesses don't like us to be friends with outsiders so when one is excommunicated one has no friends, nobody to turn to, says Barbara.
But they allow you to be my friend.
We hope that you will join us.
Emma laughs to steer clear of Barbara's recruitment. She remembers the promises of the evangelists on television. Jesus will give you cities and houses and all good things because he wants your enemies to see how prosperous his chosen people are, they promise. You will be the envy of all who despise and hate you. He will take the wealth from your enemies and give it to the righteous who are his sons and daughters. Jesus will destroy the enemy and give you power over them because you are his chosen one. You will sit at the head of the table in the best house in the biggest city admired by the multitudes forever and ever. The preachers know that everybody wants to come first, be recognised and worshiped and loved. Wouldn't those less fortunate hate her for being the chosen one? Greed and guilt, the Siamese twins follow each other.
Religious leaders interpret the Bible to suit their understanding, Emma protests.
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You have to pray for understanding, says Barbara with utmost certainty.
It seems absurd to me to involve the ruler of the universe in my petty misdemeanours, says Emma.
God sent us the Good News so we will understand his plan, explains Barbara.
I let life run like a river; down the stream into the ocean onto the cloud and down the stream again. I let it run within its banks; I stand aside so it does not hit me hard however fast it runs. I do not want to hinder and obstruct life, says Emma and they sit in silence travelling in their thoughts.
Sometimes when the river turns into a waterfall over the cliff Emma stops and wants to rush with it but she stays behind and wonders what the river will see on its way. It will evaporate and return like a river in some other place in some other stream to rush towards the ocean again all new and surprised to see how it feels and what it looks like where it is. Maybe one day the river will rise and flood the days that became covered in dust; maybe it will surprise the life that forgot to live; maybe it will cover its banks with debris and mud. Maybe the river bank and Emma will become again alive and begin to sort things out.
I met this very interesting man, says Barbara suddenly smiling and dismissing Emma's rumblings. He began a bible study with me. Actually he knows the Bible better than I do. We talk for hours.
Barbara is perpetually on the look-out for a potential convert to Jehovah Witnesses. Emma wonders if she is also looking for a man. A spiritual partner. Are all women always looking
for a man? And vice versa. Are we forever preening ourselves to be noticed? Paired. Connected. Alive.
Who is he?
I don't really know much about him but his name is Michael. He is new in town. A handsome man. Intelligent and deeply spiritual.
Where does he live?
He made this cute little log cabin on the field. I see him every Wednesday for a couple of hours. I am really looking forward to talking with him.
Is he with his family?
He has never been married. He has a sister somewhere though.
I wonder how a man lives all his life without a permanent relationship, says Emma; she cannot imagine herself living alone but then she never had a chance to try. Before she was cut away from her family she became Paul's child wife. Maybe one should remain cut off for awhile to learn to exist as one. Or die.
Emma cannot tell Barbara that she knows Michael. She does not really know this handsome man in the prime of his life without a family or a car or a job, living in a shack on the opal fields without a phone or electricity or running water. What does Emma really know about him? What was it that made her turn him into a prince for a moment?
Does Michael belong anywhere? Does anything belong to him? Does anything really belong to anybody? Does anyone
belong to anybody? Is love diminished when one loves more people?
One day as Emma stands in the isle of the local supermarket she hears a familiar voice on the other side of the shelf stacked with tomato souses. Emma moves the jars to see his khaki shirt and his ginger hair. Michael is talking to a woman.
I missed you, she whispers reverently.
Why don't you come to see me?
I might.
Emma goes to the end of the isle for a quick glance in their direction. An old fat pensioner woman leaning on the shelf with her head uplifted to lock eyes with Michael's. His mother, must be his mother. The woman shifts and Emma recognises Edna, a retired hospital cleaner. Emma comforted Edna when her husband died about six months earlier. They had no children. Edna obviously needs to attach herself to someone.
Emma smiles at her brief brush with romance. So many lonely people trying to feel something; to grasp the connection.
Michael seemed to like me better than I like myself, Emma admits to herself. He found something loveable in me. Emma liked that about him. The memory of his eyes and the words he said stayed with her to play with.
The words of a poet echo In Emma's memory: Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
We are such staff as dreams are made on. Shakespeare
Reunion
In 1996 the principal of the local school asks Emma to conduct the hearing assessment at school. Up to seventy percent of Aboriginal children have perforated eardrums. The hearing loss and nasal discharge, Otitis Media, more commonly known as glue ear, are much more common to Aboriginal children and children from non-English background, says the principal. It is causing children not to hear their teachers so they don't pay attention and misbehave instead. There are negative psychological, educational and social consequences of hearing loss due to Otitis Media. Constant ear discharge and nose secretions also make these children subjects of ridicule.
There is going to be a seminar in London next month looking at health problems experienced by the native children from different continents. Would you be able to attend that seminar for a week and then in-service the teachers? Department of Education is paying all expenses, says the principal.
I could extend the trip for a couple of days to visit friends, says Emma.
I see no problem, says the principal.
Emma is free for the first time in her life. In Ljubljana she calls Janez. It is now or never, Emma reasons. Janez suggests that they meet. Emma allocates half an hour for the meeting
she daydreamed about for decades. She wants to see if Janez exists.
Janez is holding a yellow rose as he waits in the hotel lobby. They stare at each other in wonderment. The silence reaches into every part of who they were and are. They have nothing to say. Where they have been, what they had done has nothing to do with what they remember. They don't need to know who they became. How can one introduce years of events into the intimacy of remembering a moment in time when they were quite different people? How many moments does one live on the average? Does everybody carry that one special moment tucked at the bottom of their being?
Those decades were just endless repetitions of cooking, washing, weeding, sleeping, and working. Emma could put it all in one sentence. Paul and Emma brought up a family, they built a home and they bought a car; they have nice clothes and eat whatever they desire, they travel when and where they want to.
Would Janez and Emma ever be able to have an ordinary life like that? Ordinary has never been a part of their togetherness. Janez and Emma were reaching for the stars. Maybe stars should remain where they are. Maybe everything is as it should be. What would Emma do with a star in her lap? Maybe she should not even look to the stars. Wanting to be a star. The biggest and shiniest. Emma always wanted to be somewhere else; with somebody else doing something else. More, more, more applause, another continent, another dollar. Another mountain to climb looking for the prince.
A princess or at least a saint. Great expectations lead to great disappointments. What happens to the wish when it is fulfilled? How can one live without a dream?
Is this your first holiday, asks Janez to drawn the silence. There is an ocean separating them as they shake hands.
Yes, Emma answers from the edge of eternity. It is her first holiday away from Paul.
It is thirty-eight years since you left; Janez calculates the distance of time as they sit at the little hotel room table. They both smoke. Weak people smoke.
Emma wonders if Janez knew at all times exactly how many years passed since they parted.
Australia is far and you know....., Emma tries to explain. She
has no idea how to condense those years and the distance in a proper sentence.
Still it is thirty-eight years; Janez repeats the accusation with the numbers clearly shining in his eyes. Restless eyes and frightened hands move to give words meaning. His and hers. What can one do with hands? They are again two frightened children caught in hope. They need a place to rest their eyes after the surprise. It should not be a surprise really; they decided to meet. They had twenty-four hours to rehearse this dialog. There is too much light; the years and the distance shine in the space between them. Was thirty eight years only an introduction for this meeting? Were all the imagined meetings only a practice run? Were the events of the last thirty eight years a rehearsal for this one event, the only event with the meaning? What meaning?
They steal a look at the container of smuggled hope each brought along. The hope is fragile and may crumble after the years of hiding in dark, damp places. It might turn to ashes like the cigarettes they puff on. There were decades and life and
the world. Emma wants to protect this last vestige of their togetherness so it does not turn to dust from exposure.
You didn't change; Emma tries to catch herself into reality.
Neither did you, Janez sighs gratefully like she'd opened a door for him. It is obvious that they do not see what is in front of them. They look at people they were.
Are you happy? Emma boldly turns their meeting into the jungle where nobody ever walked.
I live, Janez propels her back on the main road. Wide and empty.
The main thing is that you are happy; Emma builds the road into a tropical forest.
I am married for the second time, Janez dives head first.
Married and already second wife. There is no time for Emma to think whether this is good or bad. Do they have the right to talk about the world where other people live? Something seems good but it is wrapped tightly. They both experience the tightness. Just as well they only have half an hour. Whatever will be will be. Thirty eight years of preparation does not help. How many dialogues did they prepare for this meeting? How often did they rehearse?
Are you healthy? Emma asks because she becomes overwhelmed by sudden weakness. Her hotel room feels like a church. The touch of his lips from thirty-eight years ago is an eternity away. The universe of waiting is rising and falling between them like an overexcited ocean. They flutter with their hands like fish out of sea.
Yes, thank you. And you, he offers her the leading role. He always let her lead, Emma remembers. He just opened the doors.
I am fine. What are you doing these days, Emma blurts like an acquaintance in a grocery shop. She blushes into her hands full of this dry question.
This and that, from day to day, offers Janez. He is just as inspired as Emma. His eyes are searching for a proper answer. Obviously he also forgot the script they prepared for thirty eight years. Emma becomes afraid that they will run out of grocery shop talk and touch something real. They search for safe, neutral and painless.
Why did you leave? Janez smiles like her leaving was the joke they shared.
Emma looks at her watch. Another ten minutes. She smiles within.
That is so long ago, she says. He must know that Emma slept with the memory of her leaving for thirty eight years.
There were circumstances, Emma continues her monologue. There was life; Emma cannot describe decades of life in ten minutes. Was that really life? Waiting time?
It is unbelievable how life... Janez stops suddenly. Emma realises that he does not know either what happened to them.
Life goes its own way; Emma blames life because it is bigger than the two of them.
I have a twelve years old daughter with my second wife. I love her. Janez wraps himself in love. Emma doesn't dare ask if he
loves his wife or his daughter. Or both? He smuggled his wife between them; a wife in full bloom of motherhood. Is he afraid that Emma would enter his life and hide under his blanket? He forgot that they only have half an hour. Emma is afraid that he is afraid of their meeting. She wants to reassure him that she will soon leave and let him continue his safe life. She will let his young wife and loving daughter move into their rightful place. Emma wants to tell him that she is glad that he is happy and that he loves his daughter. She wants to say that she loves him and wants their meeting to last forever.
I am glad; Emma condenses her speech of approval.
How long are you staying?
Emma feels that he wants to check his watch. Maybe he saw her cheeking hers. Emma gets up and offers her hand.
It was good meeting you after so many years. I am really glad, that you are alive and healthy and happy. Their hands do not touch yet as they move to the door where a final goodbye has to happen. Emma remembers that old friends sometimes hug or kiss the air around the ear somewhere. Sometimes the breath of a kiss touches the skin and people kiss the other side to neutralise the air and establish a proper balance. Only she and Janez are not old acquaintances.
Their lips meet by surprise. The time stops, the earth ends, everything outside their universe is silent; everything is as it was meant to be. The thoughts fly away like migrating birds. They are enveloped in soft silky surrender. They are in heaven.
Good bye, Emma whispers because she still believes that they are in church. Words like rosaries fill the presence of divine.
Will we meet again, he asks not expecting an answer. This is tradition.
Maybe, Emma opens the door into the unknown as they stand near the lift. They know that there is much still to be said.
Did you ever think about me, he asks bewildered?
Always, Emma whispers before the reasoning returns. The words were not part of the plan. They plunged out like fish into the water grateful that they could breathe again. They echoed in the depth of the river, sticking to the bottom of thirty-eight years waiting. There they joined the moment when they parted because circumstances and life and regime... Because Paul told them to stop this nonsense. Because Janez's mother did not want a traitor in the family.
In the lift they touch hands for a fleeting moment; they do not seek the road to the future; they do not search into the past; they just hold the moment like holy bread in front of the altar. They know that they will be returning into this moment when life and circumstances will return. There is no sadness and no excitement; they are neither young nor old; this is the harbour to escape to when life and circumstances will be painful. They will be returning into this moment to find the dreams only eighteen years old can dream. They will escape from Paul and from Janez's wife and daughter and Emma's people and life and time.
I hope that you will always be happy; Emma offers him a bridge into real life. Emma is not sure if she really said the words or maybe they are written on her face.
You too, he says appropriately before they step on the bridge. For a moment they admire the surface of the ocean spreading
wider and deeper between them; the light is sparkling playfully on top of the water. They dedicate their eternal, unchanging love to the deep.
Nothing changed, he sighs. His words do not need an answer so Emma keeps looking at the eternity hidden under the restless surface.
Nothing changed, his words slip from her lips unintentionally. Emma wants to say that their meeting confirms them but she does not know what that means.
We will never part, he says reading her thoughts. They smile benignly.
We will always be, Emma agrees.
Is life just a parade of meetings and partings? With a part of them they touched the beginning and the end; only for a moment they forgot the life and circumstances.
Will you write to me, he whispers like he is afraid of the question?
They exchange addresses.
He does not ask if Emma is happy, married or successful. Emma does not tell him that she has people in her life. In some part of life they will remain forever alone together.
Life goes its way, his words echo; soft light caresses Emma's hands and circumstances are returning to its rightful place. Everything is safe and right and as it should be. Her basket of hope is brighter.Nothing changed; just the river of years passed by. At the bottom of the river they are the same part of eternity. They are happy that they are; they still are.
Emma stands looking at the door through which Janez left her life. She intended to visit her sister before flying back to London but there is a knock and Emma opens the door to a stranger.
Remember me? Your sister told me where to find you. I came as soon as I heard that you arrived, says an elegant middle aged woman bursting into an elaborate embrace. I have been searching for you for the last 38 years. We sat next to each other at school, remember?
Did you? Were we? Emma panics. Who are you? You must be mistaken. What's your name? How can Emma activate her memory? Is memory like a slow burning fire that needs to be fed regularly to glow into the night? Does a memory need to be re-remembered daily to stay alive. Does a memory re-remembered keep burning underneath the ashes of all other dead memories?
I am Nada, the woman embraces Emma. We sat together in the second row near the window, remember, you must remember me.
I have only been there for a few months. Emma tries to find an excuse for forgetting Nada's face. And her name.
We were best friends then. I have pictures of us. We went everywhere together. Remember? Nada shows an enlarged photo of them smiling and eighteen years old.
I think so; Emma lies in the face of so much evidence. To be kind to Nada's memory she is searching for one single moment of their being best friends during those few months decades ago.
You were my best friend. I never forgot you, Nada repeats her testimony. She tries to force Emma's mind to remember their connectedness.
How can Emma tell Nada that the only person she remembers is Janez? Being with Janez. Emma never noticed anybody else. Being Janez's girl was the only thing that happened to her there. Them being a couple for a couple of weeks. They kissed for the first time in the middle of December and by January Emma was gone. Emma cannot tell Nada that she spent her life in love with that memory. All her senses blossomed into life then; Emma felt in charge of her destiny; she was the chosen one. She was who she was born to be. Emma remembers that she loved everybody then and everybody loved her. It was the only time when she believed herself to be a good, beautiful person. Maybe Nada also remembers this lovable Emma who was transformed by loving and being loved by Janez.
Emma accepts that Janez was and is only a dream but as a dream he was and is more essential to her happiness than anything happening despite of her. They created a magic land where they live forever. Both were and are in need of protection; neither of them was ever strong enough. Everything about Janez seemed fragile. He tried to kill himself when Emma left, yet she wasn't sure if he would survive the life with her? They were just two children lost in the splendour of the spring that never arrived. She can almost touch the cherry blossoms he promised her when spring will come. Emma wonders if their love was just a welcome illusion for both of them; maybe they needed an illusion to take into the ordinary life. They discovered love and needed to believe in everlasting eternal exhilarating feeling of being in love. They were not ready for everyday repetition of living together. They
took the exuberance and elation and played with it on their way of discovering other ways of loving.
Do you ever think about those days, Nada brings Emma back into the present.
I was very happy then. What do you remember about me, asks Emma.
Everything, this pleasant lady puts her arm around Emma's shoulders. Some people you never forget.
Let's have a cup of coffee so you can tell me all about it, Emma offers.
Let's go to Minion cafe where we used to go for ice-cream long time ago, Nada tries to bring back the familiarity.
They sit near the window of the cafe looking at the busy street.
We often sat here. You must have been homesick, says Nada.
I missed everybody, says Emma.
Everybody talks about homesickness; everybody went home for holidays after communism collapsed only Paul and Emma refused to revisit their past. Emma often daydreamed about finding that spot where she took the wrong turn. She wanted to see if there is a second chance. Are all living things longing to return to the place they were born into? Migrating bird do and so does the fish. Is life simply a circle that has to be joined at the end? Dust to dust. Same dust for eternity returning home. Is homesickness an instinct urging her to be with those that like herself were born on that same patch of soil? Attached to the same time and remembering the same irrelevant events and scenes?
Seems like yesterday, sighs Nada. She could not go where Emma had been; she has no idea about the sentence Emma served. She wonders if Nada admired her clothes and jewellery during those few months when she was sitting next to her. Nada does not know that they were Paul's gifts. Nada only knew Emma that was loved and that loved everybody. How quickly the mind dismisses the chain of meaningless events; the endless repetition of dusting, weeding, cooking, washing, performing, responding to anger and sex and shame and fear. Dreaming of going home was only an escape from that reality. Even her dreams became exhausted from repetition.
If you had another chance, Nada looks into Emma's eyes. Would you stay here?
Who knows; I dreamt of coming back though, says Emma.
Emma was like a bird living in a cage dreaming of freedom and flying and mating but when the cage opened she became afraid of flying out. She knew from the very beginning that she needed the love, safety and security Paul offered. Emma knew that Janez wasn't brave enough to fight for their survival.
Remember how we went to that fortune teller? She looked into my cup and said that I will have two children and one of them will be famous. That's my daughter. An artist, Nada tells. Let me have a look at your cup. Nada folds a napkin and turns Emma's empty coffee cup over it. In some corner of their being it seems like they never lived apart. Two complete strangers and best friends.
You still believe in coffee cups?
Just for fun. One cannot live only by things one believes in; Nada tries to make a joke. One has to have a dream.
Even a dream in a coffee cup is better than nothing, Emma agrees. What do you see?
Much is happening in your life, says Nada enthusiastically with her eyes on the coffee stains; she is turning the cup around towards the light; her eyes narrow and Emma sees the lines on Nada's face that tell the story of Nada's life.
There is a treasure of some sort. Money or maybe a gift of jewellery. I also see a man waiting for you, thinking of you. He is always thinking of you. He is saying goodbye.
That's the story of my life, Emma smiles.
There is a funeral and lots of flowers.
We often meet at funerals these days, Emma confirms the truth of Nada's telling. Is Nada seeing her own dreams in Emma's coffee cup? Is she trying to be kind by giving Emma's cup her own dreams? Do all people dream of a secret lover waiting for them somewhere in a time capsule made for them alone? Do all people dream of a treasure? Of an exquisite gift from a lover. What else is there, really? Love and admiration. And power. Spending an imaginary million with people so they will adore you; have a perfect lover; see the enemy defeated. Dead. Tears at the funeral. There are always people that should be dead. With the competitors dead one might not even need the money. One may not need to try and work so hard.
I see destiny changing your life. Do you believe in fate, asks Nada.
Doesn't everybody, laughs Emma. You have to believe in something. People are constantly searching for a sign of a higher power intervening on their behalf. Is fate more rational than Faith?
Anyway, Nada turns Emma's cup upside down; you will meet someone from your past. This person will make you very happy but I also see an angry man; Nada travels on the edges of Emma's Turkish coffee stains. You will hear some news, adds Nada, some you will like and some you will hate.
That's for sure, smiles Emma.
It was a difficult time when you left. Nada puts the cup down to find an excuse for Emma's escape. They would have us believe that now we have independence and democracy, she sighs.
Revolution is an ongoing thing; Emma absolves Nada of the responsibility for the regime. Those at the bottom never cease to push up. There is a perpetual dance going in going out; everybody is dancing in the same circle.
Emma received a political asylum after she and Paul escaped. What did she know about politics then? What does she know now? What does anyone know? Is politics what you live? Are people happier now? Were people ever happy? Does happiness have anything to do with the regime? Or with possessions?
Most people actually felt safe in communism, says Nada. Everybody had his place and everybody had a job. There was no crime. Now everybody looks out for himself. Cheating and stealing and pushing ahead.
Maybe communist idealists really envisioned the ideal world; they did not consider the world as it is; they were not workers
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or producers; they were administrators who believed that they were messiahs leading the oppressed into justice and fairness. They forgot that people are neither fair nor just by naturesays Emma quietly.
People became greedy, agrees Nada.
People were always greedy; they are forever stretching the boundaries; they are afraid that the boundaries will brake and they will descend into the abyss but they are still pushing; they want that flower growing on the edge of the abyss, says Emma.
Our new leader was a communist but he betrayed his own teaching. He goes with the wind.He only looks out for himself and those that hold him up.
Shakespeare was right when he said: There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Emma doesn't know why she quotes the poet.
He has the church behind him, says Nada. No system is perfect, says Emma.
The church has too much power, says Nada angry because the church is backing capitalists. Neither of them can understand how the church suddenly became relevant again.
Perhaps the church offers hope. That is all one can really offer, says Emma.
You should have seen how sad everybody was when Tito died. People congregated on the streets and cried together. Children in schools cried, sighs Nada.
Of course they cried; they were made to believe in Tito; people cry when someone they believed in dies. We all believed for awhile; they told us who to believe in and what to think and when to cry. People get used to being told. Faced with new problems they even become nostalgic for problems they learned to cope with. Once a friend who had a violent husband said: I know how to handle him. She also cried when he died, says Emma.
We live in selfish materialistic society now, says Nada. Equality, unity, one for all, all for one; they forgot all that over night. Me, me, me, give me. Selfishness. People are scared. They feel insecure and unprotected. We used to really care for each other and for the common good. All that means nothing now.
We think more and believe less; we are no longer idealists; we became realists, says Emma.
Everybody talks about productivity and GDP; they are only concerned about profits and growth. We were happier when we were concerned about each other.
We were happier because we were young, smiles Emma.
In communism everybody had a chance to go to school; everybody had medical care and everybody had a secure job. Everybody is treading on the weak and poor now, says Nada.
The poor will be with us always, smiles Emma quoting the words from the Bible.
We never heard of bribery and corruption before, says Nada.
Nobody was allowed to talk or print about those who were corrupt, reminds Emma. Things became more transparent
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now; everybody is allowed to criticise. People are glimpsing the darker side of the society but it was always there.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of communism, says Nada.
It is a beautiful idea. Jesus promoted this idea. Actually people always fought for equality; some did it for political others for religious reasons but to this day it remains utopia, says Emma.
Most of us accepted equality, says Nada.
Communists promised to lead masses of obedient followers; they were counting on people like me. I am a born follower while Paul is a natural leader. He would never be subordinate to any system. Even the communist intellectuals escaped the totalitarian system they created because they wanted to be free to express themselves. People always tried to create a better world. And a little better for themselves, smiles Emma.
We were certain that nothing will ever change, says Nada.
You can bank on change, says Emma.
We believed in brotherhood of Yugoslav nations, in equality and in freedom. I cannot see anything wrong with that.
I was there; we believed, Emma agrees with Nada. We also believed that all those who did not believe, were traitors.
Now everything changed and people feel shattered, says Nada.
They feel cheated because the rules they lived by became redundant, says Emma. Reminds me of this fellow who lived next to the railway station. One night he woke up at three o clock and could not go back to sleep. He knew that something
was wrong but couldn't figure out what woke him up. The next day he found out that the three o'clock train stopped running. He got so used to its noise that he could not sleep without it.
They say that in democracy everybody has an equal voice, Nada dismisses Emma's silly story. Who are they kidding? Little people sell their little voices for little money to magnify the voices of the money people. It's the same jungle dressed in different greenery. People are left to look after themselves, says Nada.
Maybe every living thing is meant to look after itself, says Emma.
Capitalism poisoned people's hearts, insists Nada.
Who poisoned Tito's heart? He never had enough palaces.
But those palaces were not his own property; when he died they remained public property.
Nobody can take their wealth with them but children of the communists bought it now for almost nothing, Emma smiles.
They are the only ones with money; they became capitalists, admits Nada.
The cream always ends on top. Nothing really changed since Adam and Eve. Greed is a condition no wealth can cure, said my friend. Communists are not different from other mere mortals. Chinese have a saying: white cat-black cat, they all eat mice, says Emma. There is a story about Napoleon. He apparently requested that the palms of his hands be opened in the coffin so people will see that he took nothing with him.
China kept communism; look how prosperous they became, Nada grasps this new idea.
One child per family made a difference but they are paying the price; thousands of Chinese boys will not be able to find a wife because many families choose to keep the boy and abort the girl, warns Emma.
They promise that things will improve, says Nada resigned to Emma's negativity.
Someone once said that what we call Progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance, Emma remembers.
I wish things remained as they were, says Nada.
Leaders win the hearts and minds of those they rule with the promises of change. Slovenians are just people, rich people and those that want to be rich. The poor still believe in the common good but the rich never did. Life is a race; nobody wins every race; some never win, some run out of breath; some run out of breath to win once; some keep on running forever for that one taste of victory. No one ever wins enough; everybody is waiting for one more chance to push that winning button; to open the door to heaven; one more hope; one more drop in the ocean; one more hurdle jumped over; coming ever closer to that green light of the green valley of scented lily white peace to rest forever.
That is a capitalist way of thinking, says Nada. Emma can see that Nada does not relate to her senseless blabbering.
The leaders make people believe in something good to justify the killing of those that oppose them, adds Emma.
I still do not understand why people hate communism, says Nada.
Maybe communists killed too many so that they could stay in power, says Emma.
People kill in the war, says Nada dismissing the death of those that were murdered in order for communism to succeed.
They killed after the war, says Emma.
The waitress takes their cups indicating that their time is up.
I recently heard a Chinese freedom fighter in a political reeducation detention asking his fellow prisoner:
Do you know the difference between an ordinary prison and the communist political re-education detention?
Is there a difference? Asked his friend.
Yes, said the man. In an ordinary prison you know what your crime is and how long your prison sentence is. From political re-education detention you come out only when you are changed or dead.
That soldier came out dead.
Will you ever return for good, says Nada a bit tired of Emma's philosophy. She realises that they are no longer idealistic eighteen years old believers.
I wish it was more simple, says Emma. Aborigines in Australia say that kinship ties are most important to them; kinship to the land and people. They say that the land owns them. They revere and love their old people and their extended families. Maybe everybody is connected to the patch of land they were
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born on. I am sorry that my children grew up without extended family but they grew fragile roots into Australian soil and I would not dare disturb these roots; you can only transplant a specie so many times before they become too weak to survive, says Emma.
We carry memories wherever we go, Nada becomes thoughtful.
Home is where your heart is, agrees Emma. She realises that she is homesick for Australia. There are people waiting for her. Paul and her children will be happy to see her.
There lives more faith in honest doubt Believe me
Than in half the creeds Tennyson
Redemption
Paul finds a letter from Janez. I always knew that you loved me, Janez wrote. I am not boasting; I just feel so loved by you.
Emma admits that she called Janez. I am sorry, she keeps saying. Both are bewildered, sad and exhausted. Where do they go from here? Paul would like to punish someone but he cannot punish Emma because he is scared that she will go to Janez. He does not know that Janez never asked her to stay with him. Paul does not understand that this love letter has nothing to do with Emma's future.
You'll pay for this, he threatens.
You can divorce me if you like, she says relieved that everything is in the open.
Give me his address and phone number. I will destroy him and his family. He destroyed my family. I have nothing to live for. Paul wants to delete Emma's memory of Janez.
He did not do anything to you; I just wanted to see him.
I am going to kill us both if you don't give me his number, says Paul with the gun in his hands.
I forgot the number, says Emma. Even she cannot believe that she really forgot the number. Did God save Janez by rubbing out his phone number from her memory?
I am going to squash him like a cockroach, threatens Paul.
Emma feels a new strength as she faces Paul defiantly. She is no longer sorry.
Some nights Emma hears Paul pacing the room; she pretends that she is asleep but they are both wide awake. Emma composes letters in her mind for Janez again and again; she begs him to write and then she remembers that she promised Paul that she will not answer Janez's letter. She just wanted to see if Janez really existed, if it was true that he always knew that Emma was alive. If he remembered her all the years while she spent her life with Paul; she went back to see if there really was a beginning. Janez and Emma touched it for a moment; they re-lived the moment when they weren't yet damaged by life. If they were right for each other they would be together going through the ordinariness of life. They never knew how to be ordinary together.
In her sadness Emma becomes indifferent. One thing is just the same as the other as she goes through the motions of living. Every time the letter does not come she dies a little. They both had tears in their eyes because they both felt so unconditionally loved.
Did Janez change his mind? But their love has nothing to do with the mind. The reason for gladness died.
Paul and Emma gradually become carefully kind to each other; they politely guard what is left of their togetherness. Emma was waiting all her life for a second chance. Now she knows that her family is all she will ever have.
Paul forgave Jana, his first wife, long ago. Time simply rubs out the hurt. In his mind he still sees his little girls crying for daddy; in his remembering they never grew out of their sad innocence.
Emma never felt compassion or empathy for Paul's first family. Maybe young people are self centred like that. Maybe people who are more secure can afford to be compassionate because their primary needs have already been met. It is hard to think of others when your own survival is in jeopardy.
Neither Paul nor Emma regret leaving Paul's first family behind but they never talked about them. Now they gradually begin to talk about things they never before allowed themselves to talk about. Both know that they are all they have.
Paul and Emma were brought up with Christian moral prescriptions. They know that these prescriptions became irrelevant in the changed world but the teachings of their mothers are engraved on their souls.
Emma realises that her parent's understanding of the world was less than hers but their timeless knowledge of right and wrong became the blueprint of her life. She does not believe the old dogma but she feels compelled to say the prescribed prayers, follow the church rituals, and genuflect in order to gain absolution. The fires of hell gradually cooled but the idea of sin and punishment remained a part of her psyche. Saint
Francis was right when he said: give me the mind of the child till the age of seven and that child will be mine forever.
Emma sometimes wonders if God is amused by her behaviour and by the events on earth generally. He created human desires but people created prohibitions in his name. God provided food but people invented fasting. Is God laughing at people lugging their crosses of guilt and shame like bags of bricks on their backs? Or is he too busy marking down everybody's trespasses in order to prepare judgements and punishments for miserable sinners?
Emma once read a sign saying: 'Being in a church makes you no more a Christian than being in a garage makes you a car'. She feels like an imposter as she kneels in her church reciting Nicene Creed. I believe, she acclaims, but how can I force myself to believe all this, she argues with God. OK, I admire your creation and hope that you exist but that is all I can truthfully say. Would you like me to lie so I can get through your gate? I lied most of my life. I know that everything will go according to your plan. You don't need me to interfere. I have a respectable family; I am a church going Catholic and I am passing down generational preachings to my children; what more do you want? God just keeps shaking his head. Emma wants to be a good person but sometimes it is hard to be forgiving, generous and accepting; she hopes that the company of pious church people will help her reach the divine in her. She always wanted more; physical sustenance and mating was never enough to make her feel fully alive.
Emma does not accept any particular story of God but at the bottom of her heart is a cradle where Jesus was born; maybe this nativity scene is the essence of everyone who ever celebrated Christmas. Communists cancelled Jesus and removed his cross but they could not rub him out from the
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minds and hearts of the people. Muslims now threaten to demolish pyramids because they are the reminder of the pagan past but this past also became a part of human condition and history.
Emma read about Socrates being prosecuted and persecuted for teaching about the good and the evil. Was it Socrates who first wrote Adam and Eve story? Did he symbolise the knowledge of good and evil with the forbidden fruit that tempted people in the paradise? Much of Greek wisdom and the ancient knowledge of the Middle East found its way into the Bible. This inspired symbolism seems timeless.
Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.
Paul and Emma never allowed each other to examine their actions so the pain unexamined festered unexpressed all their lives so their scars never had a chance to heal. Socrates also said that it is better to suffer evil than to cause it. Denying Paul's first family became a burden for both. It would have been so simple to speak openly about it only they weren't prepared to do so when Tom put Paul on the spot.
Emma watched a television program about hundreds of thousands of unmarried mothers whose children were taken from them for adoption during the last fifty years. These women could never speak about their pain as they were waiting for a second chance to see their firstborns. The society absolved them of their sin by taking away their illegitimate newborn babies but nobody took away their shame and their sadness. They could never share their grief with their loved ones.
According to Socrates wrongdoers are miserable and pitiable people. Were young unmarried mothers the wrongdoers? Were Paul and Emma the wrongdoers or were they the wronged?
Tom intentionally exposed Paul to be judged by his pious society. The society has since changed and divorce became as common as marriage but the stigma of lying remained unexamined.
Emma went to a confession long ago and asked the priest if she should leave her husband in order to be acceptable to God. There was silence and then the priest prayed to God to accept her staying with the family. Her own and God's.
After an argument with Paul, Emma asked her children if she should leave their father but they begged her to stay. Maybe they believed that the punishment for leaving would be greater than the punishment for other misdemeanours.
I am sorry you never met your relations, Emma told Simon recently.
You never miss what you never had; said Simon but Emma knows what he missed.
Dad was very tough with you. Maybe I should have left him, said Emma to Amy.
We turned out ok didn't we? Your grandchildren would miss poppy and nanny, said Amy.
You never knew your grandparents, said Emma.
But my children do, said Amy.
Maybe Emma was right to persevere; maybe her grandchildren will have a safe home to come to if ever they need a refuge.
My life is a mistake; I took the wrong turn, Emma once said to Simon in despair.
Am I a mistake then, Simon laughed?
He is no mistake. Maybe they weren't wrong turns either. Emma would never want to go where her children don't exist.
Paul often explains to his friends the secret of bringing up children. He says that parents should enforce the rules and push as far as they can and when it doesn't work they should retreat until the situation is tolerable again before they start pushing again. The strategy of attack and retreat apparently worked well in the war. Don't' talk to them until they apologise. Works every time. Play hard to get. Excommunicate! Sanction and isolate. Paul used the same strategies with Emma and their children; they were his war zone and strategies were essential. He was very generous and affectionate until he made Emma feel loved and safe and then he demanded that she improve in clearly spelled out areas. Just as Emma believed that she was fine and safe he pointed out her shortcomings. She laughed too much; she spent too much time with her friends, her dress was too short or too long; she did not pay enough attention to him; she expressed an opinion that wasn't quite right; she disputed what he said and made him look less. Her misdemeanours were so much worse if others were present. He would withdraw completely until she apologised appropriately and showed publicly how much she admired him. He had to have a better wife than those around him; he had to be bigger and more admired. Was that too much to ask?
Emma heard that men like Paul are called alpha men. Or macho men. Cally says that these men are psychopaths who have to be in control; they have no empathy or feelings of guilt and shame. They are often charming leaders of companies and politics but they are ruthless manipulators.
Emma knows that Paul could never be a psychopath; he is vulnerable; he hides his vulnerability by his aggression and arrogance. He is afraid of failure. He is afraid of losing his family.
Cally is here again to waste your time, says Paul as Emma's friend comes up the driveway. Paul does not discriminate; he denigrates all Emma's friends. They take her away from him. Paul knows that they understand the words Emma says better than he does. They never run tired of talking. Cally and Emma try to outdo each other in kindness and generosity; they are a mirror image to each other and the opposites to their partners; they need and appreciate each other but then both also appreciate the sharp frank alternative view of their partners to bring them down on the solid ground.
I finally learned how to download music from my computer. Just as I understand something, new inventions prove me ignorant, says Cally.
I discovered that frozen chopped onions are just as good as the ones I hate chopping, laughs Emma as she begins to prepare lunch.
If we were born knowing what we know we would not have to live and learn.
The secret of childhood innocence IS not knowing. The older one gets the more one knows and so more of the sweet innocence is destroyed.
Wisdom is never desirable.
Cally and Emma never need to say: if you know what I mean. They know.
We became invisible. Nobody cares what we do or say anymore. Maybe nobody ever did.
Life wasn't meant to be a party.
What was it meant to be?
You hop along like a kangaroo until something hits you and you are no more, says Cally.
There must be more to life.
Like what?
Why does it keep repeating itself?
Life has to do that; that's why it is called life. River without water is no longer a river, says Cally.
Life levels all men: Death reveals the eminent. Shaw
Stane's funeral
Paul and Emma travel to Canberra for Stane's funeral on a cool day in August 2011. They stand outside watching the mourners fill the church. Tom and Mari whisper respectful hello as they join them. They became an ordinary old couple. Friends nod and smile and shake hands and embrace. How nice to see everybody again, they all agree. Old affections and animosities have long become irrelevant. It is like coming home.
It's going to be huge, says Emma.
They are coming from as far as Sydney and Perth and Brisbane, says Tom.
Fashionably dressed women and men in white shirts and dark suits; the flowers and wreaths are mounting up. Stane's wife, Ana, and his daughter, Natasha in their black designer outfits are dabbing at their eyes. Stane's's son, John walks behind his mother and sister. Emma notices that John has no collar or tie, just black skivvy and a heavy gold chain. He also has an earring and a beard like a rabbit tail.
Soft solemn music from the church mingles in the warm breeze.
Stane was a simple peasant boy when he came to Australia almost fifty years ago as a teenager with a cardboard suitcase of old clothes. He got a job with a butcher from Poland. Stane killed a pig and made sausages and hams like he saw his father make at home. His kranskies became instantly famous among Slovenians. Soon Stane opened his own butchery and a little delicatessen on the side of it. Slovenians came from far and wide and asked for parcels to be sent to friends in other cities. Stane's shop became a meeting place for Slovenians. That's where the idea of a Slovenian club was born. When Slovenian clubs opened Stane became their supplier. The rest is history.
It has been thirty years since Stane made his last sausage but kranskies found a place in every delicatessen and many restaurants and clubs in Australia. Stane became an entrepreneur. His smallgoods business employed over one hundred people. The business seemingly ran itself.
In 1970 Stane organised imports of Slovenian smallgoods for his delicatessens. By 1980 he was selling small goods from all European countries. When Asians started to migrate to Australia in the eighties Stane began importing Asian goods. His employees told him what the market wanted and he found it.
You only have to listen to what customers want, said Stane. He carefully chose his employees and paid them well. The difference between ordinary wage and good pay is small compared to the extra work and care I get from the employees, he said. A happy employee wants to make the employer happy. If you give the employee a hundred percent, he is likely to give you a hundred percent. You get what you pay for, said Stane.
Mourners read from the prayer booklets prepared by the family:
This is what Lord asks of you, only this: To act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.
Eulogies are made to turn sinners into saints, whispers Mari.
They will canonise him before he is buried, says Emma as they watch people line up to farewell Stane.
Stane used to speak at funerals. Now his friends are going to say what needs to be said.
Words from the Bible remind them how short and fragile life is.
It is nice that at the end of the road someone remembers who we were, says Emma. Suddenly she becomes aware of aging; her own and of her friends. The best part of their lives has gone.
The ancient prayers echo over the graves: I am the way, the truth, and the life. Whoever believes in me...
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you.
The first will be last; and the last shall be first.
That's what it is all about. The kingdom of heaven is promised to those that missed out on Earth, Emma whispers to Mari.
Stane died at the age of sixty-nine. He watched television when his heart failed.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, and neither do they spin.
In their minds people return to the splendour of their youth.
Janez was one of Stane's earliest and longest serving employees. He is the closest thing Stane had as a friend so he is first in line to speak at the gravesite.
Forty years ago Stane asked me to help build the Slovenian club, says Janez. My wife and I were annoyed. We haven't built our own home yet and I haven't learned to speak English yet and my children were learning to walk and talk.
We must have a place to meet and celebrate, Stane urged us. We have no time to meet and we have nothing to celebrate, I argued. Our children will grow roots in Australia but it's up to us to teach them how to be Slovenian, said Stane. We need a place where they can learn to speak Slovenian without being ridiculed.
Our children are going to be Australians, argued my wife.
I am working six days a week, I protested.
On the seventh day you can bring your family along and we will build our Slovenian home in Australia. Our children will be history makers, begged Stane.
We all came to the piece of land that was to be a Slovenian club. Women planted flowers and served refreshments; men levelled the ground, laid the bricks and cut the wood. Something changed in all of us as we worked into the late
Sunday evening. We realised how much we needed our togetherness. We became a family, concluded Janez.
It seemed easy for Janez to express gratitude, admiration, and appreciation. Stane in his coffin isn't a threat to men any more. He made room for others to be what he was.
Stane was a successful, respected man, Helena begins her eulogy. We wanted him to be more like us but we knew that he had to stand above us in order to look after us. Stane was a solitary tree that gave shade to smaller trees but did not need the protection of other trees. When Slovenian club neared completion Stane came to see me. He knew that I was a teacher in Slovenia. He asked me to prepare a cultural program for the opening.
I have no books or music or costumes, I protested.
You are the best we have so use everything you have. If you need more, tell me and I will find it, said Stane.
Nobody will want to perform on the stage, I tried to get out of it.
Convince them that they are good and that their children need them. They sing and read and speak and some play instruments. Find them and teach them.
We celebrated the opening. Slovenians from other cities came to celebrate with us and they also decided to build their own clubs.
Little did I know that I will spend the next forty years preparing programs for Mothers' days, Fathers' days, Santa Claus and yearly concerts. I had to be prepared for an endless string of celebrations so I organised a Saturday school for
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Slovenian children and gave them whatever knowledge I had. Nobody ever mentioned a payment for it. Money would never give me as much satisfaction as the knowledge that I contributed a little to a new generation of Australian Slovenians.
In the seventies Ethnic Radio began to broadcast programs for all ethnic groups in their own language, continues Helena. Stane said that I have a pleasant voice so would I read Slovenian programs for half an hour a week. Little did I know that I was to become a permanent broadcaster and scriptwriter for the rest of my life. I had many sleepless nights compiling news and thinking of interesting little bits I could share with the rest of Slovenian community, Helena concludes her farewell.
I was twenty-two when Stane persuaded me to cook for the opening of the Slovenian club, begins Mojca. I told him that I was a boarding school girl who never cooked before we came to Australia. He taught me how to make sourcrout and how to boil kranskies. I couldn't get out of it. He always got what he wanted. Since then I cooked for many festivities but I never felt as proud as I did on the night Slovenian club opened.
One day Stane came with the typewriter under his arm, begins Marjan. He heard that I worked at the library. He asked me to type a letter for the fifty Slovenian families. He had the envelopes and the addresses. This letter was the first news bulletin Slovenians in Australia had. I became a publisher and the journalist and the typist since then.
Stane was a grumpy, manipulative, pushy old politician, says Marjan after a pause. I came to the club to argue with him but he always showed me the other side of the coin. Stane said that Australians not born in Australia needed recognition, which
only the people from the same country can offer. He promoted multiculture while the government policy was still assimilation. Our children assimilated but, thanks to Stane, they also know where their parents came from.
I often wonder how did Stane, a twenty something years old peasant boy, away from home, know that our children would need the support of the nation before they began weaving a new identity for themselves, concludes Marjan.
Stane told me that he never ate strudel as good as mine, says Rozi. Her bony, tall body is erect and her features are motionless. I baked more strudels for the club than any family could eat in a lifetime.
Stane asked me to invite my brother's singing group from Slovenia to perform in the club, says Marty.
Who will pay for them? I asked.
We will, said Stane. We will also take them around Australia, feed them and accommodate them.
You don't expect me to drive the group all over Australia, I protested.
We all need a holiday, said Stane.
Meeting Slovenians in other Australian cities was the greatest experience for all of us who went with the group. Of course we protested that we missed a few days work, spent dollars that should have gone towards building our own homes. Now we realise how lucky we were that we found each other, continues Marty. Stane said that you could never run away from who you are. I always remembered his words, says Marty.
When Slovenia demanded independence Stane urged me to join the demonstration in front of the Embassies, says Vince. We petitioned Americans and Australians and British and Germans to help us. There was a Slovenian Ambassador representing Yugoslav regime. He advised us not to demonstrate because we will only make things worse. He refused to join us; he was Yugoslav ambassador and had to prove it to Yugoslav government that he was more Yugoslav and more communist than Slovenian. After we won Slovenian independence this same Yugoslav ambassador became the Slovenian ambassador somewhere else. Opportunists never miss an opportunity.
Stane counted on me to arrange public and private meetings with politicians and explain to Australian public the history and the will of Slovenians.
Paul and Emma do not speak at the graveside but both remember how important were celebrations Stane organised.
The funeral reminds everybody that their numbers are dwindling. Death shakes them to the core; they need to believe that this final curtain is really the beginning of new life.
Eternal rest grant unto him o Lord, and perpetual light shine upon him, says the priest.
Receive his soul and present him to God the most high, they finish the Commendation.
They humbly acknowledge their sins and ask God for forgiveness as they re-establish the ties with people that touched them during the years of their exile. They are all they have.
We live in hope to meet again in the eternal Jerusalem, says the priest.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, they sing.
May the peace of the Lord, which is above all understanding, echoes the voice of the priest.
Lord hear us, pray those who believe and those who don't.
A group of mourners concludes the service with a Slovenian funeral song about the forest that will be green again while the one we mourn will never be with them again. The words of the song Gozdic je ze zelen reverbrate over the graves. The birds will sing again, the spring will come again but you will lie under the black soil, they sing and the voices tremble and brake and people cry openly leaning on each other. They regret their arguments and divisions as they hug and kiss.
We deprived our children of Slovenian heritage but we offer them our graves, says Helena. Chinese carried the bones of their ancestors with them when they moved. Maybe our bones will help our children feel at home in Australia.
We can jump on the plane and have our home and family and memories in Slovenia but our children have nothing in Slovenia. With us gone they will be cut away and cast loose, says Rozi as they all gather in the Slovenian club.
Stane had done what he tried to do all his life. He united us, says Emma.
I believe that he is watching from some corner of heaven very pleased with himself, says Helena.
There are rows of tables laden with delicacies; people are hugging and kissing their partners, children, friends, opponents and even enemies. They remember past celebrations. Stane was part of a fishing family and fishermen remember every fish they ever caught as well as those that got away. They remember the wild pigs they chased, the goats they shot, the lake they almost drowned in, the surf that pulled them into the ocean.
In the end all we have are memories, says Helena as they load the plates with Slovenian delicacies.
We have never really developed the taste for Australian food. It looks nice but it is tasteless, says Rozi.
Flowers without fragrance, food without taste, friendship without warmth, love that does not last, says Helena.
Instant friends who never remember you when they move away, says Rozi.
I believe that Stane suspected us all of being secret communists, smiles Helena. He was a Catholic first and Slovenian second. Most of us were brought up as communists and some still see the Church as the rich enemy, says Helena to Emma.
He escaped because communists oppressed the church so God help you if you were not properly Catholic, smiles Emma. John is a handsome man, she adds.
John is not half the man his father was, says Helena.
John is not a butcher; he is a computer programmer, says Emma.
I suppose our sons will never be what their fathers were, sighs Helena.
The quality of mercy is not strained It dropped as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath It is twice blessed
It blesses him that gives and him that takes. Shakespeare
The catalyst
Emma finds Paul leaning over the vanity basin in the bathroom. There is an empty wine bottle on the kitchen table next to the painkilling tablets. He must have been sick. Or drunk. Paul has never been sick or drunk or out of control. He never allowed himself to be vulnerable. He needed to be bigger than he really was. He sometimes cried in anger to punish Emma but he never wailed and pleaded like she did sometimes in total disappear.
As Emma steps towards him Paul sways and gradually his knees buckle under him. Emma grabs him to help him into a sitting position. Did he take too many tablets? Did he want to commit suicide? Did he want to punish her?
What's wrong? Emma kneels next to Paul and cradles his head.
She calls the ambulance. His speech is slurred. He suffers a stroke. Thank God Emma came.
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It is my fault, I wanted to change him, now he changed, Emma cries as Cally comes to comfort her in the hospital waiting room. Poor man must have been sick all this time.
High blood pressure, says Cally.
Emma can't imagine living without Paul. They sacrificed everything for love. Or was it for survival? Or is it the same thing? Love of life. Emma stays next to Paul's hospital bed until he recovers enough to come home.
You are his guardian angel, says the doctor.
You deserve a medal, says Cally.
Emma realises that she needs Paul more than she knew. She needs the fences he built around their family. There was nobody else ever. Emma threatened to leave Paul; he lived under threat all his life, poor darling. She was imagining love outside while all the time love was waiting for her at home. It took her all this time to realise that she was safely anchored in a rich requited love; she finally appreciates this haven away from all the troubles of the world.
Emma goes to church and prays for Paul's recovery. She needs this place of silence to reach the good in herself; to heal herself; to make herself believe that she is living a good life; that she is a good person. For the first time she feels completely in love with Paul; she finally finds a complete commitment to her marriage.
Emma believes in scientific and technical world but only the silence of the church confronts the questions of things that cannot be measured or observed by science. She would like to believe something with certainty and sincerity but the creator and creation remain as much a mystery to her as they always
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were. Her fascination with life and her awe of the universe grew while the certainty vanished. She promises God that she will take Paul home and let him reconcile with his past. Thank you God, I love you God, I will make everybody happy, Emma promises.
Amy comes when she hears about dad. She looks at him cautiously at first but then he smiles, half his mouth hanging down, his hands limp on his lap. His eyes mist and she comes closer touching his hands. Silently the tears run down his cheeks unchecked. Slowly Amy kneels beside him and puts her head on his lap. He caresses her back with one hand. Amy's three little girls watch a bit shy but soon they join mummy. There they are on their knees with their heads in Paul's lap like a holy family. They come to sit with Paul every weekend. Paul loves his grandchildren. They run to him when they discover something new and when they need someone to kiss the pain away. Poppy becomes the centre of attention and he loves it. Simon and Eve come. Everybody loves Paul now for not being who he was. One cannot hate a sick old man. Paul in a wheelchair is no threat to anyone. It is so much easier to love someone who has no will of his own.
People often resented Paul's strength but now they know that they relied on it always. He made everything work, he removed obstacles; he was the captain; he never gave up. Paul is now showering his family with affection and praise.
Dean comes with his girlfriend and they sit and talk to dear Poppy. They recall their fishing adventures and praise Paul for getting them out of dangerous predicaments.
Remember how we were pushing the cars over the bogs in Snowy Mountains. There were trees over the track and deep
holes but we got there laughing all the way. We pushed and almost carried the cars over, remembers Simon.
Everybody blamed you for taking them on these dangerous journeys but they all looked up to you to get them out again, says Emma.
Other men complained that dad bossed them but they were asking for it, says Simon. Our fishing trips were the highlights of their lives.
We are the only people that will always rejoice looking at the smiling faces of our grandchildren, Emma says to Paul as they look at the albums of their family.
One day they are babies and the next they fly away, says Paul with his mouth slightly twisted sideways.
Life pays no attention to what we are doing or planning, says Emma. Both suddenly realise how precious they are to each other. The weapons of their lifelong war are laid to rest. They have done the best they could. They smile fondly as they pass to each other images of their growing family. The flame of life is in their children's hands. They are their reincarnation. It is so easy to believe in the reincarnation since everything has a way of recreating itself.
Paul tells Emma how grateful he is to her for looking after him. This is definitely not the time to rock the boat. They get along just fine now. Emma's poor darling does not row their boat anymore. The waters are slow and still and Emma rows the best she knows how. The oars are in her hands so she has to be careful.
Paul is still scared that I will throw something away. An empty tin can be reused, a piece of bread can be fed to the birds; he
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became a successful, well respected businessman but inside himself he never grew out of poverty he lived in as a boy, Emma tells Cally.
We are what we started out to be, says Cally. We are war babies.
He was the oldest and had to become a man before he grew up; his brothers and sisters resented his authority so he had to invent strategies to keep his family doing what he decided was the right thing.
Boys learn from their fathers before they realise that fathers can be wrong, says Cally. She is thinking of her own boys drinking with their father.
Paul is using a walking stick now, his leg shuffles a bit to one side as he pulls it along. With physiotherapy he recovered enough to walk with Emma in the garden. His good hand holds onto Emma for support. She is happy that Paul is so easily pleased now. She feels like a bird that grew in a cage and no longer wants to fly out.
What would I do without you, says Paul every day. You are all I have. You are my angel.
Being an angel might be as good as being a saint, Emma smiles to herself. Gradually she realises that she can make decisions; she must decide and take responsibility, she has to arrange events independently. Emma finally has the power to say and do; maybe even do something good. Whatever happens from here on will be her responsibility. Paul became her child; her sick obedient baby. He is a pet Emma never had so she pours all her love into making him comfortable. This is the time to forgive and forget, to repent and make good.
Making decisions makes Emma feel alive. I can do great things, she says to herself feeling rejuvenated. I do not have to look over my shoulder to see if Paul will approve. She feels the inner strength she so long denied herself.
Emma got used to being a little girl who followed Paul; she almost enjoyed her external helplessness and her inner rebellion. Now there is no one to blame or to follow or ask for advice. Paul tells her not to worry when she makes mistakes.
Emma has to repair whatever needs repairing. Like Paul's first family. The people she forced out of her knowing; the people she wished would stop existing. It is her responsibility to reconcile with Paul's family. His children are a foreign body imbedded under her skin. Hidden to all but always present to her. The thud-thud of the constant, dull, lifelong pain. It should have been seen to long ago. She can finally afford to love Paul and accept his family. A smile comes to her face. There is urgency to expose all that was hereto hidden; an urge almost physical like a sore that demands to be open and dressed and then healed. Before it is too late. She will tell Simon and Amy as soon as everything is sorted. She feels at the beginning of a new journey.
Emma regrets that she stopped Paul from communicating with his children; she never actually had the power to forbid it but she knew that he did not communicate with them to please her. Emma is sorry that her parents died without ever seeing her children. They had so much sadness. One daughter marrying a Muslim in a registry office; the other marrying a communist and Emma marrying a second hand man. They lost their face with the people that mattered to them. Their own children diminished them. Only Jakob married in the local church to make up to his father for joining partisans and being a communist. He was seeking forgiveness which his father could
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never extend to him. And yet all of the children wanted to restore respect and family's honour. They all wanted to make their parents strong and proud.
Every man desires to live long but no man would be old Jonathon Swift
Returning Home
In 2012 Lighting Ridge celebrates the centenary of its existence. The settlement got the name about fifty years ago and Emma saw how it grew and changed during that time from a camping mining ground into a tourist destination. A hundred years old Australian opal mining industry is dying. Old adventurer miners that arrived during the fifties, sixties and seventies are dying as well. The young ones moved away into other well paid secure mining jobs. They will have a more secure but much less exciting life than opal miners had.
Lightning Ridge became a retirement village, said an old man at the bore baths.
At the beginning of the third millennium a nursing home opens in Lightning Ridge and Emma is placed in charge. She only works part time now so she can look after Paul. She does not need the money but she needs to get out of the house and be with other people. Paul calls the nursing home a waiting room. Waiting for what, asks Emma. Heaven, smiles Paul. It scares Emma to see her friends entering a place that has no exit. Most residents are at some stage of dementia and have to be kept safe behind locked doors. Suddenly they are cut away from the familiar people, activities and places. The sights and sounds and smells they loved are a thing of the past. They are shocked into a realisation that life is only a fleeting moment; that time
never stops to give one a second chance; that their future has been cancelled. A few residents at first receive an occasional visitor until they too are forgotten and left to rest. They have no one to impress; nobody is interested in what they do or feel or think or remember.
Most residents are administered antipsychotic drug Risperidone which helps them sit still and forget their sadness and anxiety. They are less of a problem for the nursing staff when sedated. With their heads hung low they are like wilted flowers during the drought. As soon as a resident becomes unhappy, or fidgety or starts to pace the corridors the staff demands from the doctor that they be prescribed something to keep them quiet. Emma knows that the drug makes the work easier for the staff but she worries about the harm it does to the residents. Antipsychotic drugs have been condemned and banned in most age care places in America but they are still widely used in Australia because they make the work of caring easier. Emma believes that they also speed up the dying process.
Wasn't it only yesterday that these adventurers told Emma their life stories; they flirted and tried to impress her. Decades ago these exuberant solitary individuals brought their plans and hopes for the future to Lightning Ridge and now they are suddenly alone, lonely and forgotten. Irrelevant and unloved. The young care-workers serve them food and make their beds but they have no idea what dreams these people are dreaming. Some never had a family, some have broken families; some never had children, others have children who are busy in distant cities. Emma seems to be the only person that travelled some way with them.
Migrants broke their kinship ties and in their old age they feel the pain of being disconnected. They came young and
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energetic in the fifties and sixties and now half a century later they are alone waiting for death. Many forgot English and speak in their native languages to themselves since nobody understands or want to understand what they are saying. Their children never learned from their parents to care for the old; they never met their older relations. They never learned to revere the old.
Old Age residents are much like Emma's garden. The flowers hang their blossoms unless she waters them but as soon as she does they lift their heads in a blooming salute. Same with people in a nursing home who gradually forgot who they were. The spirit of life returns to their murky faces as Emma shakes them into remembering by sharing her memories with them. She can feel the vibrations of reawakened information in their bodies; when they make connections their faces blossom. There is a demented old man they call Polish Joe in a nursing home. Nobody visited him for years. Heavily sedated he lives in a twilight zone but as soon as Emma comes, his eyes smile and she takes his hand and looks into his eyes and he whispers that she is kind. Then there are Allen and Peter and Heni and Trudi and Dominic and Stefan and Lisa, Sally and Ursula. They all call to Emma and hope that she will spend a few moments with them. To the young nursing staff they are foreigners who have to be fed and washed but to Emma they are people she knew in their younger days when they were important community members. They told her their stories and they became connected. Their connections are fragile but they are the only ones. They love Emma. They know that she knows that they are real people. For some Emma remains the only witness that once upon the time they were young. People lose the will to live when they become disconnected. They became invisible, irrelevant, forgotten, unloved, unhated even; washed and fed they are waiting for god. Emma wonders if
they are scared of death; if they are more terrified of dying than people who are still performing their duties. One is only truly alive as long as someone wants him to be alive.
Paul and Emma become keenly aware of their own mortality. Their conversations become sprinkled with memories; events from the past are dropped into the present like ingredients into the cake.
They decide to go home and take a share of their money to Paul's girls. Paul and his daughters will give and receive the love that was always there. Emma imagines dialogues with Paul's daughters and his first wife; she is determined to be generous and forgiving and strong. She lets Paul's younger brother Peter know that they are coming.
Peter and his wife Ursula are waiting for them at the airport. Peter helps Paul to the car after everybody is kissed and Emma gets a bunch of flowers. They stop in a nearby restaurant for a drink. Peter finds the table and pulls out chairs for everybody. Peter and Ursula were courting when Emma last saw them; now they are grey haired pensioners.
Are you all right, Peter turns to his wife? He is like an old mother hen lovingly monitoring Ursula's every move. Maybe there comes the time when one stops dreaming of being somebody else doing something else. Maybe fear of death makes people grateful, kind, forgiving and accepting.
I am fine while sitting but I can't stand for long, Ursula explains to Paul and Emma.
Something wrong with her spine, explains Peter.
They will operate, she says shifting on her chair and hunching forward.
She is on the waiting list for laminectomy. They do miracles these days, spinal surgeons do. She is growing spurs in her spine the doctor said, explains Peter.
Osteoporosis, arthritis and sciatica, explains Ursula.
I had my hip replaced and it's like new, tells Peter.
How are you, health wise, asks Ursula.
Not bad, says Paul.
Good, really good, Emma adds.
My shoulder needs replacing now, says Peter.
He can't open a jar of jam any more, smiles Ursula. She is patting Peter's arthritic hand with devotion.
Not as young as we were. Lucky to be alive. Most of our friends are dead, Peter turns to Paul.
Emma believes that they are all scared of running out of words.
Every day is a gift, says Ursula.
You both look really good, says Peter as they settle and look at each other in comfort.
You too, says Emma, you haven't changed. Paul seems stunned by the people that changed so much so Emma must keep the conversation going. She is used to saying appropriate words to old people. She realises that she is only a few years younger than these old people. The thought makes her shudder.
We are really happy that you came, says Ursula to fill in the silence. There is so much to say but nobody knows where to start.
Remember us, says a cheerful white-haired sagely old man coming towards Paul with outstretched arms. Paul is searching his face but the man turns to Emma and explains: I am Steve, Paul's best friend, and this is my wife Jana. The pretty old lady with wisps of thin strawberry hair smiles at Emma.
So pleased to meet you, says Jana. We have been waiting for you. Peter told us that you are coming.
Emma holds Jana's hand and notices the blue veins on her pale transparent skin. Jana's nail polish matches her lipstick and the purple of her blouse.
We really have, Steve repeats after Jana.
Took you a long time, says Peter to Paul.
Better late than never, says Emma still stunned by the surprise.
After kissing and hugging, everybody finds a seat and they look at each other for a long moment unable to find words to say. Steve sits next to Paul and Jana sits between Steve and Emma.
And what's your name dear, Jana turns to Emma. We are so excited, you know, I can't remember everybody. I forget, Jana adds before Emma could answer.
Emma first saw Jana's face on the little photo Paul carried in his wallet. That picture became firmly imbedded into her remembering. She smiles to disguise her thoughts as she stares at the smiling angelic face of Paul's first wife who used to be
just an obstacle Emma couldn't quite jump over. The fear and guilt and regrets died a natural death.
We were so sad when you left. Could never apologise properly, Steve turns to Paul. When we heard that you are coming we just had to see you.
I thought you were dead; Jana's eyes brighten with a glimpse of memory as she turns to Paul. You were always waving that gun.
That was so long ago, Peter tries to banish the memory. Emma never knew that Paul was waving the gun at Jana as well. Did he threaten to kill her or himself or both? Threatening worked for him.
How long are you staying, Ursula wants to change the subject. Emma is conscious of how uncomfortable everybody is so she keeps her smile in place as she turns from one to another.
I am so pleased to finally meet you, Jana turns to Emma. And who is that man with a stick, she asks pointing to Paul.
That's your husband, Steve explains. Your ex-husband I mean.
Is he, so pleased to meet you, and what is your name dear, she turns to Emma again?
Emma, smiles Emma.
She forgets, explains Steve, Jana's smiling husband.
Especially when she gets excited.
We all do, says Emma. She is used to her own lapses of memory. And to signs of dementia she sees every day in her age care residents.
Are the girls coming, asks Paul. He is ready now to pay what he owes and so repair the troubled past. They are all looking for forgiveness so they can like themselves properly.
They want to give you time to settle down from your travels but they promised to come for the weekend, says Steve.
You know how busy women are.
Paul and Emma never thought of Paul's girls as women. They remained forever two innocent little girls they abandoned.
Really nice to see you again, Steve leaves his hand on Paul's shoulder like he was repairing a web of connection with his best friend.
Young ones have better things to do than to hang out with us oldies, helps Peter.
We hardly ever see them, says Steve.
They are busy with their grandchildren, I suppose, says Peter.
Everybody is busy these days and grandmothers come handy, says Ursula.
So Paul's little girls are grandmothers.
Tell us how you are, really, beams Steve. It is obvious that everybody wants to fill in with words the strangeness of their meeting. They all want it to go well. They are spiders repairing their webs; they are connecting the dots that were cut off and left dangling without explanation. The enormity of what they have done was never acknowledged. The holes in their relationships have to be filled.
He is getting better, we are both fine, considering, really, Emma speaks for both.
Paul is stunned seeing that people do not die from broken hearts. They simply begin to love someone else and break some other hearts. Love dies while life continues.
Did you have a good life in Australia, asks Peter.
Looks like you had a good life, says Steve, his grey blue eyes piercing into Pauls.
Emma notices how long Steve's fingers are and that the veins on his hands are as blue as Jana's. Emma rarely notices details about people because she is busy listening to words. Now they are all searching for words so she has time to notice little things.
We have the best, says Paul. Where are you from? Asks Jana.
Australia, they came from Australia, Steve pats his wife's hand.
You are not in pain I hope, says Peter holding his wife's hand. Ursula here is on painkillers, he explains.
How are the girls, asks Paul.
Paul wants to hug his little girls into loving like they used to love him before he left. The tears on their faces never dried in his memory.
I doubt that they will recognise you, says Steve. We told them everything, of course, before they got married. You see, for years they believed that I was their father, says Steve. They
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grew up with our three boys, their brothers. They were always happy, says Steve.
They never wanted for anything, Peter confirms.
Jana and I had a good marriage. Steve is also repeating himself, Emma notices.
Very happy, Jana looks adoringly at Steve's face. We are so excited; she puts one hand in Steve's and the other on top of Emma's.
Who did you say that man is, Jana turns to Emma pointing at Paul.
Your husband, Emma says without thinking.
Oh, nobody introduced me, you know, says Jana.
She forgets, says Steve patting Jana's hand.
He is a nice man, isn't he, says Jana.
Very nice, agrees Emma not knowing if Jana means Steve or Paul or Peter. It does not really matter. One old man is as nice as another. They are all so very nice, she smiles to herself.
Kids grow up and want to do their own thing, continues Steve. Life goes on.
They have families of their own to look after, Ursula reminds them again in order to excuse their absence.
You should see their homes; we never even saw all the things they have, says Peter.
They are doing really well, says Ursula.
Emma seems the only one hearing Paul's silence. Has he lost his voice?
They are coming for the weekend, Steve embraces Jana.
Emma holds Paul's hand to comfort both of them. They need the connection. They need the confirmation that they belong. They are all happy that the meeting did not blow into a war.
Life is like a baby's shirt, always too short and always crappy, Peter tries to crack a joke. Ursula is rearranging her position with obvious discomfort as she turns from one chatting person to another.
You have to live long to realise how short life really is, Ursula tunes in. The well oiled old words of wisdom become useful in awkward moments. Emma realises that this meeting has been carefully orchestrated and rehearsed to prepare everybody before the girls are introduced.
The waiter in black and white hovers around with a wine list.
What are we drinking, asks Steve. I'll get it, says Peter. Ladies first, Steve turns to Emma. She likes her bubbly, he pats Jana's hand. Gin squash, says Ursula. Beer for me, says Paul, I'll have a beer as well, Emma says. Paul ad Emma always acted as one. Emma is rather thirsty.
Australians; they drink beer. What's the weather like in Australia? Hot, I bet, says Steve. We saw the fires on television.
That's why they drink beer, says Peter.
You can stay with us; we have plenty of room, invites Steve. What with kids gone, we only see them a few times a year.
They come in their flying machines to kiss their mother and have a drink with me and then they are gone and who knows when we will hear from them again.
You must stay with us, Jana whispers into Emma's ear, touching her hair with Emma's. Jana's face seems ageless and serene.
My bladder has had it; you never know which part of you will give up first, says Steve heading for the toilet.
Dying in instalments. Maybe it's best if the memory goes first; at least you don't mind watching your friends die, says Emma but fortunately nobody stops to relate to her silliness.
Have you got any children? Jana lights the table with her smile.
They stayed in Australia, says Emma.
Tell us about Australia, says Jana but before Emma begins Jana becomes distracted and she points at Steve coming from the toilet.
That's my husband.
I am really sorry, Steve pats Paul's shoulder before he sits. We both are, aren't we, he gently prods Jana. We always wanted to find you and apologise.
Let bygones be bygones, encourages Peter. We all did silly stuff in that other life.
Life is too short to look back, agrees Ursula.
Jana and I were childhood sweethearts but then I was taken into the army for three years, Steve turns to Emma sensing that
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she needs an explanation. We wanted to get married before I went but Jana's parents wouldn't let her because she wasn't eighteen yet. Jana was devastated and you were there to comfort her, Steve squeezes Paul's hand. You and Jana got married when Jana realised that she was pregnant; Jana and I had no idea that Jana was expecting our first child before I left.
Steve keeps turning from Emma to Paul hoping to be rescued from explaining and apologising. Jana was certain that the baby was yours, Steve pats Paul's hand. She honestly believed that it was your child. When I returned from the army Jana already had a second daughter. She wanted to do the right thing and stay with you. But as the fate would have it, Steve stops for them all to consider fate. I am sure it was fate; we were meant to be together, he concludes. Jana wanted to stay with you for the sake of the children but then you saw us kissing and it just wasn't meant to be. I am sure you understand. I am so glad you found yourself such lovely wife.
We are very happy, says Paul. He is holding Emma's hand tight. She knows that he is shell shocked and hurting and wants to be brave. His body is tense and his face grey. He needs her. It's Emma and Paul against the world; it always was. He could never share with anybody the grieving for his first family. Losing his loved ones has never been brought into the open. He could not allow himself to lose again. He made sure that he would never lose Emma. But now he lost his first child; the daughter he longed to see is not his after all. He cannot express his rage and disappointment. His sadness would make him look vulnerable.
Emma suddenly feels the bitterness of tears in her throat; she tries hard to keep them hidden. She holds on Paul's hand and leans her head on his shoulder. She loves Paul with all her
heart. He needs her love and support. He has nobody else. He never had.
Maybe I should have told the girls sooner, Steve continues his explanation. We weren't sure about the first one being my daughter until much later though. It must have happened just days before I went into the army.
These things are easier with DNA, Ursula steers them into a reality but Emma knows that Paul is not listening. He has to hold his rage inside the way he held his guilt and shame all his life. He has to remain in control to show them that he is happy and that they cannot hurt him.
Anyway both girls were very happy; they love their brothers. Poor Jana felt so guilty. She wanted to stay with you but then you already found Emma. Steve pats Paul's knee. Jana never forgave herself.
Things happen as they are meant to happen, says Peter.
Meeting Emma was the best thing that ever happened to me, says Paul with one hand still under Steve's and the other entwined with Emma's. Her love must have reached his heart as he confesses his love for her in front of everybody.
Enough of that old stuff, Ursula tries to rescue Paul and Steve. Everyone is aware of how awkward it is for everybody else confessing but confession is what they all need. And forgiveness. And time to mourn the lost dreams.
We are really happy to see you, says Steve.
It's good to be back, says Emma; Paul is strong and hiding his true feelings well.
I am so happy you don't hold grudges, Steve's voice trembles a little. It was meant to be, that's all. We never intended to hurt you; you were my dearest friend after all, he almost embraces Paul.
We have something for the girls, says Paul.
You shouldn't have; they are not expecting anything, they married well, pretty little things that they were and now they have everything anyone would want, says Steve. They never expected anything from you.
Steve really looked after them well, confirms Peter.
Jana keeps offering kids money but they don't want it. They tell us that we never learned to spend and enjoy ourselves, says Steve.
Our children are the same, smiles Emma. They have everything they need. They tell us to enjoy ourselves.
We never knew the luxury but they know how to enjoy it. You'll be really proud of their families, says Peter.
So educated and rich and busy, says Ursula.
Life goes on, says Emma.
Best to enjoy each day as it comes, says Ursula trying to find a comfortable position for her back.
Let's drink to that, says Steve.
Steve has been a good father, says Peter a bit uncertain about the general feeling of wellbeing.
There is so much good in every bad person and so much bad in every good person, Emma mutters more to herself than to anybody else.
People make mistakes, that is all, says Steve but nobody takes notice of what the other says. You find what you are looking for in the end, says Ursula.
Everybody gets what they have coming, says Steve.
There is an obvious feeling of acceptance and understanding.
As long as our health holds up we might as well enjoy life, says Ursula.
Let's drink to that, Steve raises a glass and they follow gratefully because everybody is a bit sad and tired from the wisdom of repeated words.
We'll have so much to remember; so much to talk about, Steve cheers at the prospect. I wish you would stay for good, he adds.
Our children's home is in Australia, Emma says suddenly afraid of the thought.
Bring them over. The young ones will be only happy to introduce them to life here. They will have great time together I am sure, says Steve.
You should, really, Ursula becomes excited about the idea.
Why don't you, Peter turns to Paul. They should see where you come from and where their roots are.
They are busy, says Paul.
Nobody should be too busy to return home sometimes, smiles Peter.
Oh, go on, ring them and we will arrange a big family reunion, says Steve.
Oh, do, says Jana animated by the excitement.
Paul and Emma have been dreaming about bringing their children home one day. Maybe it isn't too late. First they have to learn about their father's first family.
Who knows, we might one day soon, Emma says cautiously. Paul is squeezing her hand. They were holding hands all their lives; they both needed the assurance. No wonder people believed that they loved each other. Maybe they did more than they knew. Maybe holding hands and holding the family together is all there is. The feeling of wellbeing springs in her unexpectedly.
I am really happy for you, says Steve. You have such a lovely wife and you obviously love each other very much.
I never looked back, I have the best, says Paul gently pulling Emma closer. He has nothing more to prove to anybody. He succeeded. He proved it to Jana and Steve that he is loveable and well loved.
We are very happy; Emma is leaning on Paul's shoulder and he gratefully kisses her hair.
We all have our ups and downs, says Peter, but we are very lucky really to have each other.
And our health, reminds Ursula.
Emma believes that everybody is grateful that they all accept the past for what it was and then forget it. The smiling faces are hiding whatever each of them feels.
No more work and no more worries, now we can just enjoy ourselves, says Peter.
We have to show the kids that there are no hard feelings, reminds Steve.
Steve's sunny optimism is like a warm blanket covering all of them.
We had good lives, says Peter.
I will organise a big reunion for the weekend, says Steve happy that his plan worked and he made the path straight. He books a restaurant and at the weekend the two middle aged ladies with their husbands, their children and their grandchildren file around the tables specially decorated in Paul and Emma's honour. Paul holds Emma's hand tightly.
What would I do without you, he whispers. I am so lucky to have you. You are my princess.
Did Paul know all the time that Emma aimed to be a princess?
Maybe even sainthood is possible.
The restaurant is full of Paul's family but Paul and Emma finally feel unmistakably together as one, needing each other's support. Paul finally became Emma's child; she returned him where she thought he belongs but now they both know that they belong together. They became one against the world. Smiling faces, wispy kisses, and warm handshakes are all around them. So nice to meet you, they all agree.
Paul does not recognise his daughters but after the introduction they hug and say nice things to each other. How nice to finally meet you. They embrace Emma and present her with flowers.
Nobody even guesses what is behind the smiles. The young ones are just as self absorbed as Emma used to be. They are not interested in dreams and sins of their ancestors; they are dreaming their own story.
The following weekend Emma invites her own family for a reunion. She embraces her sister Milena; they need no words to explain what happened half a century ago. They hold each other with gratitude. Milena was Emma's mother for awhile, maybe she wasn't a perfect mother but she did the best she could. There is no reason why they should bring up painful memories. Milena's husband, Zigi, has been dead for years. Did he ever agonise about his sins? Was he a victim of his urges? He tried to be good in so many other ways. He helped Emma become who she became for better and for worse.
Emma rings Janez before they return to Australia. A woman's voice tells her that Janez died two months ago. Emma visits his grave. She places a bunch of forget me nots in the middle of the grave where she hopes his heart is. Emma wonders what his family will make of them if they will notice them at all.
An elderly woman comes and kneels beside Emma to rearrange the flowers on his grave. Did you know my brother, she asks. Emma tells her that Janez was her friend from school. My name is Sara, Janez's sister extends her hand and invites Emma for coffee and a chat about Janez.
Sara sees Janez through motherly eyes.
Poor Janez could never sort out his life. Women always liked him; I suppose they wanted to mother the romantic, sad country doctor. He had a small practice in a remote little town. After work he helped villagers build the road; he helped them install electricity. Janez was a believer. He believed all right. Mum was a believer too. She was in the war and saw our father killed. Janez was about two and as the oldest I took care of my younger sisters and brothers while mum fought against Germans. Mum really believed in justice for all. Janez felt that he owed it to mum to make her revolution a success.
Someone once said that we can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution, says Emma more to herself than to Sara.
Janez first stayed at an inn and the wife of the innkeeper cooked and cleaned for him. She was twice his age so she spoiled Janez like mothers spoil their favourite child. He was infatuated with her for years. He met Irene, the wife of a high ranking politician, at the party meeting. Irene loved Janez; she wanted to leave her husband but Janez was scared of her husband. Irene left and unbeknown to Janez had his baby on her own. Janez became sick after Irene left. Mum sent Tina, a good village girl, to look after him. Tina became pregnant so Janez married her to please mum. He had a decent little family but he felt obliged to visit the fat innkeeper's wife from time to time. I suppose they never wanted more from each other so they never disappointed each other. Ten years into his marriage Janez was called into the army reserve training in Serbia, continues Sara. A Serb general invited him home. Janez felt honoured by the invitation of his superior; he slept with general's daughter Nada, who became pregnant. Nada's father was posted to Ljubljana where he provided Janez with
an important army doctor position. Janez and Nada shared a beautiful villa with Nada's father. Life was good for the general and his daughter's family until in 1991 Slovenia became independent and the general lost his position. The brotherhood ended and Slovenians began to hate Serb presence in Slovenia. Janez lost his boss and then his job. Believers denounced each other; nobody wanted to know about the revolution. They denounced Tito like they denounced Stalin before him. The brotherhood and unity ended overnight. Capitalism was the way to go. The West was best. Former revolutionaries quickly converted public property into their private property and became the first capitalists in Slovenia. They denounced the ideals of the past. Most denied that there ever was a revolution. Janez was disillusioned; he remained an idealist to the end. He lost the will to live.
Nada worked as a fashion designer for a fashion house before she established her own little business in the new capitalist Slovenia. As a business-woman she provided jobs for her father and her husband but neither Janez nor her father could make a go of it. Janez felt more and more vulnerable. His father in law was a retired general now but he still had power over Janez because Janez lived in his house and worked for his daughter. One day Nada found on the computer that Janez wrote to another woman. She showed the letter to her father so her father threw him out of his home.
Janez smoked and drank more every day. He caught pneumonia and died alone. He might have died of sadness and disappointment, sighs Sara. He really wanted to build a better world. He was looking for something; I wonder if he knew what he was looking for. It was always women, mostly other men's women. I don't know why women had the need to love him but they did. Maybe they rebelled against their husbands
who had affairs with their young secretaries. Women like vulnerable men.
Poor Janez, says Emma. Maybe all those other women said the same. Was Emma's Janez just a figment of her imagination? Did he really believe that if they were together they would be eternally happy? Maybe he needed a dream like Emma did. Maybe they would be happy or maybe they wouldn't.
Soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked, says Sara. Emma has no idea what she means. She thanks her for coffee and company
Janez and Emma wanted to live a good life but somewhere both lost their way and took wrong turns. Were they both searching for the feelings they inspired in each other when they still believed in everlasting love? Maybe everybody longs for that first spring of their life. Janez and Emma needed to be special to someone special. Maybe Emma rebelled against Paul like all those other married women Janez slept with rebelled against their husbands. Emma could never count on Janez to travel with her but Paul always removed obstacles on her path.
Emma realises that Janez was no more perfect than she was. His women provided comfort and sex. Is pure love really just a wishful dream about an untested and unfulfilled attraction? A hunter's dream about the one that got away. Is everybody seeking what they can't have; just because they can't have it?
Emma visits her parent's grave. She tells them that she would like to be closer to them and to their God. She hopes that there is God. She wants life to mean more than it really does.
In the heart of Ljubljana Emma stands at the newspaper kiosk and reads the big black headline in the newspaper Democracy: Communists were terrorists. We demand a decent burial for Home guards.
Emma stands like a pillar of salt; she shudders and looks around. Someone must have put that headline on the stand in front of her to test her. Emma pretends to look across the river in the centre of the capital but nobody takes any notice of her or of the headlines. People walk up and down the street clutching their bags and their pockets. They don't even glance at the headlines. It is there black on white; nobody can claim ignorance. Did people always know? Did they learn to accept that knowledge? Did they know all along that they were lied to? The truth stares them in the face but they don't even blink. No need for defence or denial. Like the river, people go with the flow. In their hearts they play with the pleasures of the next weekend, next holiday, next love. Some pray to secure everlasting pleasure in heaven. Some read papers with their coffee or their beer, to relax. It is easier to get along than to think. In the end it makes no difference. Nobody takes any real notice of what they read. Or think. Not after a hard working day with a beer or coffee or schnapps in your hand. Men flex their muscles as the girls in short skirts pass by. Girls flick their hair as they throw glances at boys.
This is a new generation; they do not even remember Tito or Stalin or brotherhood. They have enough problems holding their jobs, paying their bills and watching out for the sins of the present ruling elite. The notion of crime and punishment for the past sins makes no sense to the young. History is for the books; the young have to keep up with those that would overtake them. People no longer sing Slovenian songs, children no longer recite Slovenian poetry, the struggle for
independence invigorated Slovenia but the victory...Nobody seems happy with the victory.
Now everybody knows that there were thousands of people killed in Slovenia after the war in 1945 yet nobody blinks an eyelid when the newspaper states in big black headlines that communists were terrorists. They whisper to each other about the new mass graves they uncovered but they are grateful that gradually things are improving. Communists are dead and dying; they are best forgotten.
May 1945 was a miserable wet month. Everybody wanted to get rid of refugees camping in the southern fields of Austria. The world was tired of the war; they had to solve problems quickly. Sending refugees home seemed practical and sensible at the time. Let Tito and Stalin deal with them. Emma remembers Martin's words.
For the kingdom the power and the glory is yours now and forever, Emma remembers the prayer Christians the world over say daily. People also fight for the kingdom, the power and the glory. Maybe that is the reason they created heaven where they hope to have an equal share of the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.
Milan's son comes; his father asked to see Emma. He is dying. Emma looks at Milan on his deathbed and for the first time remembers something she locked away since she was nine.
One spring day after the war Emma prayed to Virgin Mary on her way from school. The newly green branches of the forest met on top of the road. Through the greenery seeped the specks of yellow sky and Emma felt very close to god. Milan came behind her with his horse-wagon and asked her to sit next to him. Emma would have taken a ride with any person
from the village but she knew with the knowing of some primordial wisdom that her parents wouldn't be happy if she accepted a ride with Milan. They held him responsible for the murder of her brother.
Milan jumped down from the wagon and tried to scoop her up. Emma said no, no, no but he said don't be silly, I don't bite and they wrestled and then Emma fell into the grass and he fell on her and pulled her pants down and put his hand between her legs and then he smelled his hand. He put one hand on her mouth so Emma could not scream. Then he lifted his hand and with his knees on the ground on each side of her he tried to unbuckle his belt and then with some supernatural terrified strength Emma pushed herself backwards from under his bottom and ran into the forest fast and faster and with her last breath. Emma ran and ran and never looked back until she fell into a hollow on the moss and laid there under the magic of the spring forest and the yellow sky and there in the stillness Emma could hear God speaking the words of comfort. She escaped.
Emma never told anyone about Milan because she was ashamed. Who could she tell anyway? Dad was himself bleeding there in the snow when Milan hit him and he could not even defend himself. Mum just cried for her dead son. Emma never took a short cut from school through the forest again.
Thank you for coming, says Milan as he opens his eyes a little. He is gasping for air. Emma stands over him silent; he has things to say; it is his dying moment. Impotent, pitiful and ugly and yet there is life saying goodbye. A thought comes to her then that she could take down her pants and stuff them into his nostrils; only there is no more anger and even her pain and shame disappeared. Death is death. There is something holy
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about dying. Maybe the good and the evil angels come to fight for the soul. Emma can almost touch the spirits hovering over Milan's body.
I am sorry, he whispers.
It's all right; Emma touches his hand.
Thank you, he wheezes and his chest stops rising. Emma feels the good angel rejoice as he carries Milan's soul and her shame. God is right there in the silence of dying. It is one of the greatest moments of Emma's life. She can finally laugh at her fears, her shame, and her guilt. Milan is grateful to her. Emma is humbled by that. In the end she had the power over him, the power to forgive.
Emma visits uncle Miha just before they return to Australia. She finds him sitting next to the window in a nursing home. He is ninety-six.
He likes this window. They get funny like that with age, explains the young nurse, who holds uncle Miha's hand. She does not know that uncle Miha was funny like that all his life. He was a dreamer and a poet.
The nurse put her arm under Miha's shoulders to lift his head and adjust his pillow.
She is my angel, uncle Miha pats the nurse's bottom as he presses his face into her bosom.
I can see her better near the window, he coughs a little laugh. Emma believes that he opened his eyes a crack.
I'll leave you alone now. Just ring the bell if you need me, smiles the nurse.
Emma tells Uncle Miha how afraid she is of loneliness and old age.
There is a little child in you that needs to be hugged until the day you die, uncle Miha pats her head. We grow old but the child still needs hugging. Don't let the child be afraid. Love is love, it is all there is. Take it as it comes.
Emma visits the river of her childhood. The branches of the weeping willow and her tears touch the water. She cries for the opportunities she and Paul missed; she cries for all the places she escaped from. The river is old now; it does not remember the bodies Emma saw floating on it. Or the cross with Jesus face up floating down the stream. Or her bare, blue, wet, cold feet as she walked in the morning dew. What happened, happened. Not even God can change what once was and is no more. No use going over what might have been.
Wild bushes cover the footprints of her childhood; only the land producing cash-crops is now cultivated.
The words of the song Kje so tiste stezice, comes to her lips. What would this new generation make of her wonderings?
Emma never really escaped. Everything she ever was followed her. Unbeknown to her those she left behind travelled much the same road.
In the village she left, subsistent farmers produced their food, their wine and timber, their tools and utensils, much of their clothes and all of their toys. They washed and swam in the nearby river Krka; children skied on the surrounding hills and skated on the frozen creeks. The cows pulled the wagon with farm produce. They stored fruit in the cellar, smoked meat in the chimney, made lard, ground the grains, shelled the beans,
made doonas and pillows from home grown chook and goose feathers. Dad read the newspaper and told stories for entertainment and enlightenment.
Emma expected to find things as she left them but her sister who stayed in their tiny village also has a computer and a dishwasher, a video and a television, a car and a tractor. Electric fence takes the place of a shepherd. Every child has a mobile phone and electronic games. The tiny village store now sells goods from all over the world much like Australian supermarkets do. Farmers produce cash crops. Even little Slovenia could not resist technology and progress.
Emma is searching for the sights and sounds and smells of long ago; she wants to embrace the exultation and exuberance she felt as she first discovered self and the world. The magic and the dreams, the knowledge and the beliefs, the good people and the bad shaped her into who she became. A sum of all these accidental influences and impressions, Emma rotated in her own orbit long after times and people changed.
This new generation is like another country, says Paul.
There is no escape from home and there is no return either, smiles Emma. She realises that home is not a place on any map of the world; it is only a memory of first blossoms one carries within. They are everybody's magic land. You cannot step into the same water twice, Emma remembers the words of the philosopher.