Daughter of Australia (34 page)

The man brought the basin and Leonora submerged the baby into the water up to his neck. He was too weak to complain beyond a dry wail that was getting quieter by the minute. Leonora met the man's eyes and she opened her mouth to speak, but her confidence gave in and she looked at the floor.

“He's dying, isn't he?”

She nodded. His voice cracked. “Is there nothing to do?”

“I can give him something so he'll rest.” A tear escaped and fell down her cheek. “He'll go peacefully. I promise.” The man nodded and left the house; the wife held the dark corner tight within her focus and did not blink.

Hours passed. Daylight evaporated. Leonora moved from one tent to another, from one bedside to the next. Men and women of various appearances and accents blurred into a nightmarish web of indistinction. Temperaments that raged with anger and helplessness to untethered grief to silent despair called her forth and left her haggard. So many of them—all weak, all thin—some capering with hallucinations, others in obvious pain. But it was the children who made her mind scream, the little lives that had barely begun, who made her want to pull her hair out, even as she worked calmly by their sides, shedding no more tears, offering no signs of the horror that nearly broke her in two. And with each human cry, she shoved her own emotions, her own grief, farther and farther into her stomach.

Leonora brought nothing to this camp. She could offer no more comfort than a fresh, unsickened face who cared enough to be there. She offered clean water and cloths to feverish bodies and opiates to the dying but could not cure any of them. Only God would choose who would live and who would not, who would be the orphans and who would be the widows.

She did not know what time it was when her medicine vials lay empty and her hands were wrinkled and white, poached from the constant dunking in water. All she knew was the camp was deadly quiet and the moon was tall in the sky. No one walked her to the car when she finally left. She couldn't remember a face or a name of anyone she had met.

Her muscles ached as she sat onto the cool leather of the car, but she was wide awake with adrenaline. Leonora gripped the steering wheel but did not put the key in the ignition. For several minutes, she sat there, quietly numb, staring into the silent night. Her hands vibrated on the wheel and the shaking climbed through her arms and down her torso as she broke into violent sobs. All the grief and helplessness she had buried while at the bedsides erupted now. She laid her head on the wheel and pounded the frame with her fists, moaning, until the pain spent itself and made room for what lay immediately below the surface. As the last of the tears dried on her face, the new emotion surged. Anger. Raw and hateful. And a name—Alex. Leonora turned the key in the ignition and the engine, now cool, took with the first try.

With her body weak from fatigue and hunger and helplessness, Leonora sped the car past the sleeping tents to the steel factory and the open pit ringed with lights in the distance, glowing like a chasm to Hell. She parked in front of the neatly bricked manager's wing, barely waiting until the engine idled before storming up the steps and into the empty secretary's office. From outside Alex's door came the smell of cigar smoke and the muffled sounds of men talking, an occasional laugh varying the pitch. It didn't matter Alex wasn't alone—shame on them all.

Without hesitation, Leonora pushed the door open. Fat brown cigars simmered in mid-puff. Tumblers of alcohol raised to lips froze. Alex sat behind his desk, his legs crossed languidly at the ankles. Two men sat in front of him, reclining easily on thick leather wing chairs. And they all stared at her with open mouths and eyes. Had Leonora been an apparition, their faces could not have been more stunned.

Alex recovered first, dropping his legs to the floor and standing like a rod. “What are you doing here?” he spluttered.

She ignored the question, ignored the eyes of the men staring. The anger throbbed her temples, burned her throat. “Why aren't you helping the people in the camp?”

Confusion angled his face toward the floor. “Camp? What camp?” He shook his head. His lower lip hung forward with growing frustration. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The camp, Alex!” Her voice shattered the quiet. The two men stiffened in their chairs. “The one not five miles from here! The one that houses your precious miners. The one that has typhoid running all through it!”

“That's what this is about?” He put his fists on the edge of the desk and made a short laugh before looking at her with eyes stretched in amazement. His voice started calmly but rose with each word. “You drove all the way out here to tell me about the
fucking camp?
”

Leonora took a step forward, her eyes stinging from lack of sleep. “I just spent the whole day there. People are dying, Alex! There are children too weak to stand, for God's sake. Children who won't make it to the morning!” She glared at the men in the room, her eyes boring into them until they shifted. “Why hasn't a doctor been sent to help them?”

The first man on the right cleared his throat. “I'm Dr. Middleton.” His face scrunched with concern, but his voice was smug. “It's unfortunate. We have cases of typhoid here in management as well. Have to keep the miners quarantined.” He held out his hands innocently. “I wish there were more I could do, but”—he clicked his teeth—“my hands are full with the men here.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she said with pointed focus at his drink.

Dr. Middleton straightened in his seat, the smile erased. He addressed Alex: “It's getting late. I should turn in.” He nodded stiffly at Leonora but did not meet the eyes that burned into him. “Perhaps we can meet again under more pleasurable circumstances, Mrs. Harrington.” The other man rose quickly, followed the doctor out with his tail tucked between his legs.

The door closed. The silence swung like a pounding hammer. Alex did not waver from his place at the desk. His head was low; his fingers tapped the polished wood with a dull beat. Leonora watched the top of his dark hair and hated every strand. “You need to bring a doctor—”

“Not another word,” Alex seethed between his teeth. He pulled his head up and stabbed at her with cold, hard eyes. “
Not another word!
”

For once, she was not afraid and her throat was not closed under his stomping tone. Her body flushed with rage as every nerve readied for battle. “You bring in a doctor to care for those people or I will!”

Alex slammed his palm against the desk, clinking the empty tumblers at its edge. “My concern is the mine, Leonora, not a bunch of filthy foreigners who don't have the sense not to shit where they eat! I need every man that is healthy underground and that's where Dr. Middleton's attention needs to be and will stay! In case you haven't noticed, there's a war on. The army needs every ounce of ore we can send out.”

A quick, bitter laugh left her lips. “Oh, so you're suddenly a patriot now?” She scoffed, “Says the man who fled the draft!”

Alex rushed at her, grabbed her by the wrists, his lips curled above his teeth. “How dare you, you spoiled little wench!” His hand rose to strike her.

“That's it, Alex! Hit me. That's what cowards do!” she goaded. “How the men will admire you then! Alexander Harrington, who beats women and lets children die like pigs!”

Slowly, with teeth gritted between clenched jaws, Alex lowered his arm and pushed away her wrists. She stood before him unyielding, her voice steady. “You bring in a doctor to work the camp or I'll wire my uncle about what's happening. He would never put a piece of iron, or a pound of gold for that matter, above a human life.”

Alex slumped behind his desk, the fight drained. “I'll talk to Dr. Middleton.”

“He needs to start tomorrow.”

“That's impossible.”

“Then I'll stay at the camp until he comes.”

Alex studied her as if she had a row of playing cards fanned before her face. He would not call her bluff. “All right. I'll bring a doctor in from Kalgoorlie. Dr. Middleton will work the camp till he comes. But only until the fever is contained.”

Leonora breathed for the first time since she left the camp. Her hunched shoulders lowered from her ears. As she did, her feet felt stuck in cement and a wave of light-headedness reminded her that she had not eaten or drunk anything since the morning.

Alex watched her, the coldness strangely gone from his face. “What's happened to you, Leonora?” For a rare instant, his face was open, no arrogance dictating its expression. “What's happened to the shy, quiet woman I used to kiss under the oak trees?” But just as quickly as sincerity had entered, it was gone, the ever-present criticism forcing through any goodness, accusing. “You've changed.”

But she hadn't changed, only emerged from hibernation. Australia was her spring and she would never retreat again.

Alex picked up a ledger and opened it, leafed absently through its pages. “You're filthy. There's a bath in the quarters.” He picked up a pen and started writing. “I can't talk to you anymore tonight. Get out of my face.”

They left Coolgardie at dawn, without breakfast or tea. Leonora waited in the idling car for nearly thirty minutes, the seat vibrating with the restless engine, while Alex left details with the managers. She stared out the front window, still caked on the edges with dirt and smashed flies, and watched the sun rise above the land and pluck away the shadows. And as the sun rose so did the men and they walked with the pull of the rays over the ridge, one by one emerging out of the dusk, miners drawn to the light, following it, before blasting down into darkness.

Alex returned to the car, slammed the door. His shirt had not been changed from last night and opened to the top of his chest, the collar wide and loose. He smoked and his eyes were red; he had not come to bed. Where and if he had slept she couldn't have cared less.

Alex thrust the car forward, pressing hard on the gas, and sped through the lines of walking miners, sending dust into their backward glances. He kept his head leaned back, cocked to the side, the cigarette chewed and dangling from the side of his mouth, and she hated him.

They drove through the morning traffic of Coolgardie, past the railway lines waiting for activity, the empty gondola cars open and hungry for minerals. They drove past the wood lines, past the miner tents and humpies she had visited the night before. But the misery and suffering did not show in the brightened day, the closed flaps masking the nightmare of the fever. Then, soon, the tents disappeared, the land opened and the sun beat upon the airless car.

Leonora leaned her head against the window, the glass cool against her skin while her back stuck to the seat. She watched the dots of trees rush past, watched the flat red land and the bundles of grass—sharp and silvered stubble bristling an ancient land. Her land.

But she was choking quietly, suffocating in her land and her air. She had seen the weight of typhoid and its ravages, saw the hopelessness that it spread, the despair that it fed. And as her forehead rested against the window glass, she felt her own plague, not of the body but of the spirit. The sickness had set in, had been brewing maybe her whole life.

Dimly, she raised her eyes to the landscape and caught her slight reflection—clear skin and pink cheeks, lips that were not cracked with thirst, a face that was not gaunt with hunger. Within, she breathed with lungs that did not wheeze. And yet the malady was there deep and dull, shrinking her and killing her slowly.

Leave him!
The voice rang from her cells. Her eyes widened and she stilled her breath.
Leave him.
The words thumped in her head and in her chest, warmed her stomach with the bouncing words.
I can leave him.
She looked at Alex's profile and her spine grew hard as steel with decision.
I will leave him
.

G
han's body was tired and aged, so when the bone-numbing fatigue had hit it seemed only an extension of a restless night's sleep or days of poor appetite. Upon his pack Ghan lay shivering, reached for clothes and cardboard and food tins, anything to cover his body and bring some warmth. But the articles only felt heavier and colder and his bones were raw with the chill. Ghan wrapped his arms into himself, his head twitching with spasms. His insides ached as if bruised, all the organs cramped and twisted.

In and out of sleep Ghan flitted, through light and dark. When he woke in darkness, he thought he was in the pit and he called out for light, panicked that they had forgotten him down below the earth and closed up the shaft. The terror of the dark bit at him like fire ants and he wanted to run and thrashed within his tent. Then the light came and broiled the outside of his skin while the inside was still ice. Cold sweat leaked from every pore, soaking his blanket, then freezing him, making him thirst so badly until it was the only thought left in his head—water. Ghan's bag had long been sucked dry, more spilling over his chin than landing in his mouth. His mouth felt swollen and seemed filled with dirty, unplucked cotton that tasted of oil. In the dawn hours Ghan would crawl out and lick the tent for moisture. He would have drunk from a mud puddle or a toilet if one had been near.

The unending thirst brought the shadows to life. Black spots on the tent morphed to spiders, sometimes to rotten flowers with petals dropping from the sky. Ghan would bat at them in his delirium as they turned back to spiders right before they landed on his face.

This was how he was to die, he realized through pinholes of lucidity.
Let it come quick,
was all he asked.
Just make the thirst end. Just make the spiders go away.
And he shook and waited for he did not know how long.

And then the angel came. She entered the flaps of the tent, her face awash in the halo of glow that covered her bent figure—beautiful, pale. The angel put a cool cloth on his head, wiped his face, her eyes chasing away the spiders, the broken roses. She brought heaven to his lips. Cool, wet heaven that she held to his mouth, the water trickling through his swollen throat. His lips never closed and she never stopped refreshing them, pouring and pouring, cup after cup. She squeezed lemon juice into his mouth.

Ghan watched her appear and reappear as his eyelids, as heavy as bricks, slid shut and opened slower and slower. Through his slits, he saw her lantern, saw for a moment the source of the halo. Perhaps she was only half angel; perhaps he was only half-dead. Regardless, she stayed with him for minutes or for months, so hard to tell.

When the morning sun filtered through the holes of the tent he was too weak to move, but he was not dead. Ghan knew in that moment that he had beat death yet again. He couldn't move, was still very sick, but he would live, and this brought even more weariness.

During the day, the fever broke, melted the chill with fire. His body had faded thin and sallow; his pants slid down his hips. He ate—a slice of lemon left from the angel; a few sardines. His body lurched with the sudden tastes, but once the initial shock passed, his stomach growled for more. It wasn't that the strength returned but rather that the weakness unclenched its fist.

The night brought sleep without blankets. He woke hungry. The sound of pots upon predawn fires entered from outside the tent and carried a great heaviness. For he needed to work. Ghan was not well, but he was not dying, and so the pit waited for him, called to him like the gallows to a sentenced man. It was not his time to rest. And the sadness hung because he knew he lived just to breathe and he worked just to eat and it was a hard, sad and tired way to exist.

Ghan stumbled out of the tent to find Whistler. The earth hung tired as his flesh and nothing entered without effort: smoke rose slow, smells were weak and the tents were dirty and still. He didn't know how long he had been sick. But the world still spun and people still moved and life still went on as if he had slept one night.

In his tent, Whistler lay on his bedroll, still asleep. Ghan limped over to wake him, jostled the man's shoulder. But the flesh did not give under his touch, the body hard as stone. A slow melancholy dripped into Ghan's bones as he gently forced the rigid body onto its back. Whistler's face was pale blue, his eyes open and distant, his mouth open and dry, the stiffness of death days old.

Ghan covered the man's inanimate face with the blanket and stood up, bending his neck against the low ceiling. He scanned the tent. The coroner would have it burned. Ghan inched to the back, dug through the pile of food and underwear until he found the can. He plucked the top and took out the tied sock, looked at it hard, squeezed the coins in the bottom and nodded, shoved it into his pocket. He took one more look at the blanket, the outline of his friend, and he found a sliver of consolation. The man's bones wouldn't hurt him now. He'd be warm in Heaven with his wife; or, if Heaven didn't exist, he'd be in the quiet place of death. Either way, Whistler's bones didn't hurt him anymore. His fingers wouldn't twist over rocks; work and rain wouldn't cripple his balled knuckles. After a long, hard life, Whistler could rest. Ghan looked at the body longingly. Fatigue drained him, made the air gray and his body limp.

“Rest easy, mate.” Ghan delivered his three-word eulogy and left the tent, limped through the aisles of the Italian shacks and humpies. Mrs. Riccioli stood over her fire, a ragged black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She saw Ghan and smiled, her eyes still puffy with sleep. “Good a mornin', Ghan. You wanna some coffee?”

Ghan shook his head and said slowly, “Whistler passed on.”

“The typhoid.” It wasn't a question. The fever was plucking men by the day.

Ghan pulled out the old wool sock and handed it to her. “He wanted this t'go to the widows' fund.”

The woman's face fell and a deep frown tipped her mouth as she took the money. “He was a good man.”

Ghan nodded and turned away, but she grabbed his arm and said softly, “You a gooda man, too.”