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OUR NEIGHBOUR (Mūsu kaimiņš). Stories and depictions. Author’s linocuts and cover drawing. Book 1 of the series of Australian Latvian authors’ works. Publication of the Australian group of the Latvian Press Society. Supported by the Cultural Foundation of Latvian Associations in Australia. Sala Publishing 1962. Sydney, Australia. 1-700.

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[Translations by Dzidra Mitchell]

OUR NEIGHBOUR

Joe is our nearest neighbour. He has a well-kept farm, two rather feeble children, and a wife whom he worships. He is polite, helpful, hard-working and – unremarkable. He is an excellent grower of beans, but his older brother, who has the father and younger brother living with him, is nevertheless more renowned for bean growing, for they can manage to sew larger fields than Joe, who works alone in his fields from morning till night. Only occasionally does he have help from day-workers.
We often mention Joe’s name with affection, sometimes perhaps too, with a little hint of mockery, for   the tendency is to regard the goodhearted as somewhat simple-minded. 
     However, there is one thing about Joe – his whistling.
    The first time I heard it, the way it filled the whole valley, I could not believe that a human could whistle like that, that it was not coming from a film, or concert hall, nor even a recording. I heard Joe’s whistling before I had even seen the man himself. I was struck by sudden qualms, how would we be able to carry on our little, lowly life, near such an extraordinary, grand and glorious human being. I felt ashamed of our poverty, next to such splendour. 
     When I saw Joe, his whistling didn’t even come to mind.
     We came to accept Joe’s whistling just as we did the sounds of birds. Now and then, one or other of us would comment with a smile, – “Joe is whistling again…”
    He whistled mostly in the mornings, but also in the late evening, less often in the middle of the day. His whistling would accompany his other work noises: the machinery motors, sounds of the hoe, or just the silence. It was a melody without end. It would rise dazzlingly, sharply, strident and then slip away never repeating itself. Endlessly changing variations, all Joe’s own creation, only now and then with some passage from a film or heard on the radio, woven in.
    For three whole years, Joe and his whistling were for me, two separate things… Now I know that they are inseparable. If the weatherman can read the weather from the varying cloud formations, Joe can be read from his whistling. I have known that ever since Joe and I had to pick three fields of beans together.
     Joe’s beans have done well this year, but ours, in our fields higher up the hill, haven’t come up. One day, Joe comes up to ask whether I would be able to go and help him pick, as he knows that I’ve nothing to do in our own fields.
     I go down to help him.
     I go down into the valley to Joe’s bean fields for twenty-five mornings.
     Upon starting to pick, I ask how he wants them picked? Exactly how young and how old?
     “I’m not so spoilt,” Joe says. “Pick them the way you do in your own fields. To fret about each bean pod would cost me too dear,” he adds with a smile.
     I pick and it goes easily. It is easier to work here than in my own fields, where I get hassled about every smaller or forgotten pod. Little things lighten the passing hours, just as little things – make them heavier.
     Next morning, on seeing me coming to pick, Joe starts whistling. I know that my work is needed and wanted. Every time Joe has filled his can to the brim with an extra pile, mine is also nearly full, and when he has finished picking his row, mine has only a small tail end left. This remaining end, he helps me pick, working towards me till we meet. Joe does that with all his helpers. I know that, and yet I feel it as a personal attention. Helping has its own hidden power.
     Joe is a deft picker. I watch how his hands move to grasp the pods, and Iearn how to do it too. He is economical with each movement. He doesn’t grab at a single pod haphazardly, instead, moves deliberately and surely, and empties his handfuls only when they are completely full. Picking beans is just like cutting hay, or other farm tasks. They flow well only for those who have practised long, and intentionally. My unpicked row ends get shorter every day. 
     “You will learn to pick too fast,” Joe grins, “and then up in your own paddocks, it won’t go well for you…”
      I see that he knows something of my husband’s nature.
      “Yes,” I concur, “there I dare not overlook anything”.
      “I’ve noticed”, Joe adds, “and that’s why you pick faster, because you’re not over fussy. My father used to be fussy. I know what it’s like then.
     I do not know exactly what it is, but Joe’s words make me feel freer, somehow. I want to find out more about his father, and Joe reveals a thing or two.
    “…One year we picked an enormous lot of beans,” Joe begins. “We boys ran to the field before dawn, and tore into into it, all that our hands could manage. Father arrives, and yells – “Boys, which bits have been picked, which bits haven’t been?” But we show him the bags, full and piled high… A farmer cannot afford to be nit-picky. That holds him back. My father never got anywhere…”
     Joe straightens his back and looks up at our hill. And suddenly I know, that he sees not only the hill, but also the way our lives play out up there. 
     “That peach orchard should have been ploughed earlier,” he says, “three months earlier”.
     “My husband isn’t lazy,” I comment, “but he can’t be hurried. He’s unable to pass over anything. Small details eat him up. And – new ideas…”
      Joe laughs. I had said that to try to gauge his thoughts about the farming activity up on the hill… Now I could guess them from his laugh. 
      In our three years of farming, my husband has done all kinds of stupid things. He is stubborn and always wants to gain a lot out of nothing. But the land will not be fooled. So, it seems, neither will people. Nothing has gone unnoticed by the neighbour.
      During the first week of picking, the neighbour’s wife, Joyce comes to help us for an hour or so. At the weekends, two young lads join us. Joe and I are the main workers. His wife is frail. She can not help him much. She is young and pretty, but she has been troubled by all sorts of ailments right from childhood. Every time, when she brings us tea, picks for an hour and then leaves, Joe’s look follows her for a long while. He watches her all the way back to the house. Joyce walks determinedly, with a slightly forced gracefulness, and never looks back. 
     In the beginning, I can not tell what Joe’s look expresses. Later, when we have talked more, I know. It is the same look I have when I observe my husband when he is going off somewhere. But I can no longer allow myself to watch all the way. Joe still can. 
     When I first start picking and Joe and I have not yet talked about his wife, Joe is light hearted, at ease with himself, and I watch him longer than I ought. I’m surprised, how serene and peaceful is his profile when he is absorbed in his picking, compared with the face I see when I see him elsewhere, even say in our yard. Then his demeanour is one of shyness, with a strained, tense expression. Here it is self confident. So too are his his whole body movements, confident, fluid, with hardly a hint of anxiety. He tosses the full bags onto his shoulders and straight-backed, carries them, out to the end of the row. He is very deliberate with his picking, and yet is totally aware of everything happening around him. He hears the birds, notices the clouds gathering or dispersing, notices the wind. He seems to be aware, every moment, of the life going on in the valley.
     Joe goes out to work very early. Once, when I too have arrived early, I wonder out loud at how splendid the valley looks in the morning’s freshness. Everything is full of dew, and before the sun’s rays start getting warm, they touch each plant with the purest light.
     Joe’s eyes sparkle and a look of pleasure floods his face. 
     “Doesn’t it?” he says, “and people sleep through the best bit. The best part of the day”.
     “Do you always get up early?” I ask.
     “Yes”, Joe muses. “Already from when, as a boy I did a milk run in the mornings. I used to whistle like mad…”
     After this morning, it no longer seems odd to me when Joe admits that he can not even remember when he last read a book. It is in the discussion about whether Joyce might be able to be cheered up by reading. Joe says that she does do some reading, for example her women’s magazines. I realise that there are no books in his house that he could read. I ask whether he reads newspapers.
     “No! That rubbish…” he scoffs.
     I start to marvel at him. He notices me looking, and in return, regards me carefully. He seems surprised. It makes me wonder, have I been being too bold somehow? Had my look betrayed lust?
     I behave as ordinarily as I can. 
     When pouring the beans we have picked into the bags, our hands sometimes accidentally touch. I start being careful for that not to happen any more, and it does not. But once Joe yanks the bag up so vigorously that I fall up to my elbows into his arms. At that moment, he is looking away, chatting to his brother-in-law, who has come to help pick. Only later, I remember some quick look Joe gave me, making me think that the ‘accident’ was deliberate.
     It does not happen again. Our hands do not touch again. He is as careful as I am.
     But on his part, he starts observing me longer than is necessary. Gradually, between his moments of whistling, he starts opening up about his cares, things he has on his mind. Gradually we start talking about Joyce, usually about Joyce, because she is the one on his mind.
     Joyce takes a lot of sleeping tablets, and that has Joe worried. But Joyce doesn’t listen to anyone, not her father, nor mother, nor him, and in the end, not even the doctor. Joe is at a loss, and is always wondering what to do.
     “Take her to the seaside,” I say. “Here, it is so close. The salt air, the sun, the water will do her good, and she’ll be able to sleep.”
     “The sea depresses her…”
     “Take her somewhere else, somewhere new, with or without the kids”.
     “I took her to relatives, for her to stay there for a month or so, completely free. The very next day she wanted to come back…”
     “You could try Sunday walks. The hills around here are beautiful, plenty of roads.”
     “Walk? No, Joyce never walks anywhere. Of course we don’t have to, as we have a car. But she doesn’t have the energy. She doesn’t enjoy anything. She has no energy. Doesn’t have the energy to overcome anything, even little things. She whinges about everything. The smallest everyday thing that doesn’t go well destroys her whole day. And – everyone else’s.
     “Perhaps she feels rather lonely here?”
     “But she doesn’t want to see people. None of our neighbours come here. She likes you. But she’s never invited you in…”  
     We don’t talk for long, and do our bean picking in silence, or occasionally Joe whistles, if his mood lifts. One day, Joe is quiet all morning. The dew has disappeared. The birds have fallen silent. The midday heat is approaching. I wish that Joe would whistle, so that the work would not feel so difficult. 
     “Has the price of beans gone down?” I can’t resist asking.
     Joe looks surprised.   
      “You’re not whistling”, I say. “My husband says – that you only stop whistling when the beans have dropped in price.”
      Joe laughs. “If something doesn’t go right on the farm, I don’t stay silent for long, and soon enough I can whistle. But if something isn’t right with Joyce, I can’t.”
     Joe can not whistle the whole day. Joyce has drunk rather too many sleeping tablets. So many that she was not able to get up, but fell back into bed. 
     When she brings us tea, she really does look like death, that has jokingly dressed up in a fluffy summer dress. But Joyce is a beautiful, young woman. She has strikingly blue eyes, a startling contrast to her black hair. She is graceful, and slim. But she is rather frail, her limbs are almost translucent, pale and listless. The small breasts pulled tightly up, do not look enticing, but are strangely touching, as though they were out of place. They almost invoke a kind of sympathy, when she arches up as if in irritation, or readying for battle. 
     Joe watches her go. He does not get up to start picking.
     “Leave it for a moment,” he says. He looks up at his neat, bright house with big windows, chews on a grass stem.
     “When we started living here, the house had not been painted. She always said – a dark hole. Once, when she was away visiting relatives for a few days, I painted the house. For four days, I worked like crazy. I left other jobs undone. I didn’t have time to wash, even to sleep. A neighbour’s son helped me and we got the house ready in time. She came back – and didn’t even notice. Or pretended not to notice. I, myself, had to point out that the house had been painted. What an awful colour – she said. That was it. It was the same with the car. The old one was very run down. Every week we used to go to the pictures, and she always complained about the car. I put away as much as I could so that we could afford a new one. “What – a bomb!” she said about the new one. I’ve given up. I can’t do any more. I’ve given up…”
     But he has not given up. He will not have given up for a long time yet, perhaps not ever. And that will be his undoing. Maybe it already is. He is beginning to withdraw. He waves to the neighbour’s wife, who sometimes works in her fields, off in the distance. He says that she is his wife’s only acquaintance, and they meet up occasionally. In the few, favourable words Joe says about that can be felt a deep yearning for something.
    He is withdrawing. And yet he will not have given up on Joyce before she lets him go. But that she will never do.  
    One day, when it is searingly hot and already by tea break we are drenched in sweat and out of breath, we wait for the tea without starting on new rows, but instead turn to chatting to drive away the oppressive fatigue and feeling of apathy. When Joyce arrives and sets down the tea and biscuits, she makes to leave. Joe holds her back:
     “Oh, stay a while, talk to us,” he says, lovingly.
     “ What will we talk about?” Joyce smiles, without guile. 
    “About beans. About tomatoes. About the day…” Joe ventures, and looks at her invitingly. But she shrugs.
     “Not much there to talk about,” she says. Then goes away.
     Perhaps she is right.
     But perhaps not.
    “It’s always like that.” Joe’s expression is dark and bitter as her watches her go. “Nothing interests her, she takes no joy in anything. She has never looked at the bean field here, nor anything else here, or talked about it. But once, recently, she started to come and pick every day. I was amazed. Her picking isn’t really as important as her participation. I really started to believe that she was coming back to life. Only later did I realise. I couldn’t believe it. My mother was here at the time. And as soon as she left, the interest vanished. But while my mother was here, and when my sister and her husband came to pick her up, she went on about the beans and the farm, and everyone was delighted – how well it was going for us, and how much Joyce helps me, and knows all about the price of beans, about the farm work… I still can’t understand it. But that’s how it was. All for show…” Joe hesitates, for he has talked too much, and he searches for some good words to say to excuse it all.
     “…It’s her illness. It makes her like that. She wants to be useful. She can’t stand that other wives can do much more. You remember that day when she came here to pick and was sulky?…”
     I remembered. That time Joe and I had been talking about our cow, which Joe wants to buy. I said that she is a sensible cow, you could even call her intelligent, and polite. Joe laughed out loud, for he had also observed our cow.
     But Joyce, when she came up to us, was not polite.
     “You’re feeling very jolly today,” she said. I did not see how she looked at him, but her look must have matched her voice, and its aim was to bite. I saw how, on Joe’s face, his smile wavered for a moment, froze, then disappeared. Not wanting to show that I had witnessed his humiliation, I finished what I had been saying about the cow, as thought I had not heard Joyce’s sharp tone. After that, Joe continued picking in his row one pace behind Joyce. I could not do anything else, and I picked fast, as usual. I could see that Joe wanted to smooth over his wife’s petulance by letting her pick in front of him.
     Later, she had said not to call me back to do picking, that I had enough to do at my own place…
     “…She finds it hard to bear that other wives can do more than she can. She compares herself to you and Elvira, and feels bad. But I don’t need her to help me with work.”
     The day after seeing Joe laughing while we chatted, Joyce had wanted me not to be asked to come and pick any more, and it made me think.
     Joyce forbids him any bit of pleasure that does not come from her. And she does not try to make him happy herself. Does not try. Because she thinks she does not have to do that. I actually do not know what she thinks. But Joe has already given up dancing, playing tennis, and maybe a lot of other things. He mentions those things with bitterness. “I understand – those have to be given up,” he says, “but then why is there still no peace? Week after week  I take her to her relatives even though often I’ve got so little time. Every week we go to the movies. She doesn’t even seem to like going. I have to get the kids washed, set the table, make sure everything is ready in time. It’s as though she doesn’t need any of it. But if just once we don’t  go, all week I have to listen to her go on about how unbearable and lonely life is here. I would do anything to have her be satisfied, to have life be better, but I don’t know what else to do…”
   Joe talks more and more, incessantly seeking, listening out for anything, for some sort of advice. I have no advice to give, but I am often able to work out Joyce’s behaviour. Not the cause, but the likely future outcome. I understand Joyce, because I know my own husband. They are very alike. As we talk, this similarity becomes more and more evident, sometimes in one aspect, sometimes in another. Joe and I are somewhat surprised and initially, rather hesitant, but gradually, more openly, we start sharing about our everyday lives, and delve more and more into comparing the two. What are we looking for? I do not know what Joe is looking for. It appears to be – some way, to improve his home life. I am not looking for that. I am done with that.
     After such revealing talks, we pull back sharply and fall silent.
     But we have started also to share our silences. We share many things: the morning’s softness, the midday’s oppressiveness, rain and sun, cold and heat – the awful sweltering, pains in the back, knees and arms, the exhaustion which overtakes body and soul when it is time to finish up. We share the lushness of the crop – the soft, green velvet pods, which fold into our palms and – the decay, the rust, from the old leaves, sticking to our sweaty arms.  
     In unison, we look up to see our children going off to school at the start of the day, and together, we look up when at last we hear Joyce’s voice calling us to stop work at lunch time, and we have been waiting for that. We share the hours of our lives, which for twenty-five days are spent in the bean fields.

     When we go into the third bean field for the third time, then there’s not much left to do. Work enough for just three, maybe four days.
     That day, Joe’s whistling is somewhat subdued.
      I think about the fact that in a couple of days, I will no longer be able to leave my house and run down to Joe’s bean fields. I can feel that I do not want to leave these fields. I have come to need them. I have felt good there. Little things have lessened the heaviness of the work. One could say – have taken that away, made one forget it. 
     On the coldest and rainiest day, when water runs along coat seams, finds its way down the neck, down into rubber boots, drenching and freezing, fingers turning blue and stiff from the cold and wet, Joe comes up to me a good half hour before finishing time:
     “I’m cold. Perhaps you are too. Let us finish early. You can pick a bit extra when there the weather is better,” he says.
      On another day when it is swelteringly hot, it feels like fire lashing the shoulders, a dull throbbing starting in the head, and the sweat, black and sticky, mixed with rust and dust, running down to the elbows. Joe jumps over the fence and picks a couple of the neighbour’s oranges and tosses them to me.
     At the tea break, he throws down a folded bag for me to sit on if the ground is wet or hot.
     If Joe has to go off somewhere in the middle of things, he generally comes up to me and tells me how long he will be away, and asks me to pick by myself for a while. In the beginning, I am surprised. My husband never tells me. If I ask, he gets annoyed, if not outright furious. He regards such questioning as prying, meddling in his business – or plotting something…
     Now here, I just have to look up and see Joe’s car slide away. And – look up, to see that he’s back already.  
     Once, the gate was left open, and his horse had wandered out onto the road which goes up the hill. I only noticed it when I heard Joe honking the car horn. The horse was frolicking up the hill, with Joe after it, in the car. Eventually he overtook it, and they both came back – the big, massive, heavy horse trotting in front of the little car, and Joe, still honking the horn. It looked very funny. Joe turned off towards the house, and the horse, obediently, trotted down to his pasture, just giving a few extra flounces.
     And one morning, at the gate, right in front of me, a magpie jumped out, one that hadn’t yet learned to fly, and set up the greatest squawking racket as it stared at me.
     “I can’t do anything for it” Joe called out, looking up from picking. “Twice already, I sat it up on the fence post, but the old ones can’t carry it up to the nest.”
    A different time, right there hanging on the fence was a big, black snake that Joe had shot at the end of the row. 
     The valley is full of all kinds of little events. I look across Joe’s bean fields, which have now been picked, and I want to say something nice to him. To thank him somehow.
     Though I want to do it, it’s not so easy to do. It feels almost impossible. I think about it in vain, and am sad, thinking I will not end up saying anything. Joe is also thinking about something, for he has stopped whistling. He does not whistle when he has to think, because the big noise interrupts his own thoughts, so he says.
     Joe stretches up from his picking, and stands straight.
     “You will be happy that this field is finished at last,” he says, rather loudly, and to me it sounds like a question. 
     “No!…I’ve grown accustomed to… your whistling…” I say, without hesitation. 
     “That can give you a headache,” Joe, with a catch in his breath, gives a little laugh. 
     “No… just the opposite… Just the opposite.” I do not know what else to say, and suddenly I let my eyes drop. Joe must still be looking at me, for he is still standing there. 
     Then quickly, softly he says “I’m glad to hear it,” and he bends down to resume picking.
     For quite a while we pick in total silence. Then we are picking our rows right next to each other. Joe has waited for me. We chat on about I know not what. Even just moments later, I can not remember what we were talking about. After we finish these rows side by side, and the bags are ready to be carried up the hill, Joe brings the tea. 
     When we sit to drink our tea, I feel that no really untoward revelations have passed between us. But when I look at Joe, I see that there have been.
     Joe is sitting on the spread out bean bag, just like I am, because the ground is still wet from the recent rain. He takes off his hat, which he has never done before, and pulls off his boots, because the morning was full of dew. His movements are slow, a little bashful, and yet they seem to express a kind of pleasure. When he wipes his hand over his dishevelled, sweaty hair and looks up at me, I feel, that he is opening himself up to me. And to the sun.
     It moves me. I quickly look away, and just as quickly, return my gaze to Joe. In his forehead, there are two, deep, creases, and his hair, which appears darker than usual, has some streaks of grey. That forehead and hair have been etched by his cares, his loneliness, for which there will be no end.
     I look at his hair for a long time and see, that without his hat, his face looks ten years older. Perhaps he misreads my look, because later, every now and again, he takes off his hat when I look at him.  Maybe he is right after all. In that moment, he touched my heart. 
     That night, I wake up and remember him like that, with his bare head, and tears come into my eyes. I am utterly surprised by that. I can cry real tears? For him, who is condemned to dark pain and loneliness, driven deeper there, year after year, by Joyce. I find myself saying a sort of prayer for him. Please take pity on him. And my plea, with few words, just wishfulness, drifts into a vision. I see Joe’s face, burning in the flames of his suffering. It grows more and more beautiful, but in such a way, with such light, as would be seen and understood only by the powers that be, that sent him here, and that will await him in the end… In a blaze of glory.
     And Joyce? What about Joyce? She is there with him. She is the chisel that carves Joe’s face for the glory of those powers that be.
     When the sun has dried our footwear and our sweat, we get up and start picking our rows, closely side by side. In jumbled haste, we talk it all out, everything that has been oppressing us in our everyday lives. We stop, bemused, shrug, and chuckle. In unison, we straighten and bend with the work.
     “…Sometimes, in the evenings, I want to listen to some dance music. For just fifteen minutes. But she switches that off. It will wake the kids. If only that would happen! But it’s not that. The children sleep through the radio all the time. But as soon as I want something – it will wake the kids. And then she gets upset and locks herself in the other room.
     “ At times like that, I go outside. Chop wood. I can’t sit and do nothing. But does it really have to be a fight – over some music…?”
     Sometimes I too go out in the dark, to the gate. Stand out on the road. The cat and the dog come up to me – and then I can go back inside again.
     At such times, Joe chops wood. So – somewhere, we meet thus. Maybe it is easier, knowing that in the dark, others too are standing under the stars, gathering the strength to be able to go back into their houses.
      I tell Joe that my husband just forbade me to play finger exercises on the piano. Who needs them? Just like Joyce, forbidding dance music. Joe and I sit down opposite each other in our rows and forget to pick. 
     Joe can not understand it. I can not understand it either. But I am thinking:  Joe loves dancing. If Joyce now can not, or does not want to dance with him – then he is not allowed to listen to dance music. If I die, you must die too.
     If I play some trifling tunes, my husband even likes whistling along too. But if I play the scales – I am moving somewhere further, becoming perhaps something greater. But – you have to stay small… You have to stay comfortable. Like a pair of old slippers. 
     They must love us very much, I say, and we both start laughing like crazy. 
     “Permit me to bow to you, your highness! That will be our lot!” Joe exclaims, pulling off his hat and bowing down low. It looks very funny, but I do not laugh for long. For Joe, that time is still ahead, for me it has already arrived.
     “I hardly drink, but I’m already being punished for it. Recently, I took my sister’s husband to the station. Elvira came with us. On the way back, we had a couple  beers. It was a very hot evening. Only a couple of beers, but Joyce was already upset. At two o’clock in the night time, she switched on the light and started flicking through books. I complained that it was bothering me. Drink tablets, like I do! she snapped. Only a couple of beers.”
     “ Perhaps she was jealous?”
     “Of Elvira?” Joe sounds surprised.
     I briefly quiz Joe, like a doctor his patient.
    “Is she ever jealous?”
     Joe thinks for a moment, and then growls:  “She’s jealous of everything. Even of my mother.”
     Of course, of the mother, friends, work, pleasure.
     “Do you like getting out of the house?”
     “Lately I’ve started feeling better – when I am – elsewhere.”
     “You’d like a holiday?”
     “Oh! I would sleep for a week!”
     “But you get enough sleep?”
     “Yes. But… And then I would listen to music.”
     Would sleep. After nightmares, one longs for peaceful sleep. Restful sleep. Then music – something beautiful, which clears the mind. Then – freedom. Life. 
     At last we pick on in silence. Joe carries the bags out of the rows. I watch him as he returns. I do not look directly at his face. It has in it such a warmth, something that is so painfully shy. Nevertheless I do watch him returning. For that moment, I am a different woman. Woman or girl. One, to whom for that moment Joe belongs, and who belongs to Joe. In that moment, I know how simple, and yet how – like the sun – is human joy. All is warmth, boundless aliveness. Human life is long, but joy is brief. As brief as the time Joe takes to return to the corner of the field. And I am eternally grateful to him for even that.

     We start on new rows, still like that, together. Joe still needs to talk about his biggest problem: Joyce wants him to sell the farm. To become – a salesman.
     “But I can’t do it” he says.
     “But if she helps you?”
     “She doesn’t intend to help me. She just wants me to be a salesman. I could, perhaps, buy and work with a transport vehicle. I like driving. But…Joyce endlessly picks on my driving.”
     “Is she a good driver?”
     Joe gives a laugh at my innocence.
     “She doesn’t drive at all. But she indicates how badly I drive by never sitting in the front seat when we go anywhere. In the end, it actually makes me nervous. And it can only get worse, so I best not start a job driving. All that’s left is – a factory worker. But I couldn’t do that either. I’d go mad…” 
     I am reminded of how when I first started picking in that field, the soft, pale green velvety pods would flow so effortlessly into Joe’s hands, when the the bean field was still full of blossoms, and the fresh, young pods, so fine, so fragile, translucent, would snap like glass almost as soon as fingers touched them. But Joe’s fingers do not shatter them. He sows beans briskly, at a walking pace across the field, but they have been sown well. In the mornings, the new shoots shine in green ribbons across the field, and then he unremittingly works them over with the hoe. And the whip-bird at the edge of the field drags out its long note like a violin, the loud crescendo suddenly snapping off right at the loudest point, like the snap of a whip, and the bird’s mate answers with a pizzicato – chiu chiu. Then Joe’s whistling fills the whole valley… Joe can not be a salesman and can not be a factory worker. Not before he is broken.
      “One of us is mad. One of us is mad. One – or the other?” Joe says, seemingly to himself. They are the very words that I, up on my hill, sometimes say to myself. 
    “There must be a way out” I say emphatically, “and you’ll find it, somehow…“
     Joe’s face lights up for a moment: “That’s what I think!” he responds brightly. Then, thoughtfully adds: “No-one has ever said that to me before…
     “But to trample over others,” he begins again, “that would not work. I would want to find a way where I don’t tread on any one… To do as little damage as possible…”
    At last we stand up from our picking, and become conscious of where we are and what we have been doing. The valley is very quiet and hot. It is way past lunchtime.
    “You have to go home,” says Joe. “It’s very late. She must have gone to sleep.” Joe is referring to Joyce, who hasn’t called us to finish work and come for lunch.
     “We both look up at the mute, glistening windows up on the hillside, and then look at each other. Something occurs to us, but neither of us says anything.
     “Hurry home” Joe says again, and I hurry up my hill.
     Next day, Joe has started work very early. When I arrive, he has already done a whole row and started coming back on the next one. If I do not pick towards him in his row, then all morning we will be picking past each other in opposite directions. I have to decide… I pick towards him in his row. 
     Sometimes, in the last few days, when Joe is picking towards me in my unfinished row ends, I am a bit afraid of his coming near. Because…we might not stop in this move towards each other. 
    Now we have stopped. We have unconsciously been standing, one opposite the other, with heads bowed, like statues – till, as though with a shudder, our souls seem to come back into our bodies, and with a dazed intake of breath, we walk out of the row. 
     Automatically, we start new rows. I catch at the beans more slowly, to stay a step behind him. So that we do not have to talk, or perhaps say things just to be polite. But I also do not stay any further away from him. We pick in complete silence. Just now, nothing could be more perfect.
     We do not hear, that just a few steps behind us, Joyce has come up with the tea. And she too, has been unable to break the silence. Nevertheless, I do hear something, and straighten up. Joyce has hastily dumped the tea things onto the grass. She is unable to smile, or say hello, her face oddly contorted. She lets out a strained noise, drops her head and charges off. Joe straightens up straight after I do. Alarmed, he looks at Joyce.
    “What is it?” he cries, “What is it?” and yet again, “What is it, Joyce!…”
     But Joyce does not stop.
     “I’ve got…work to do…” she mumbles, and almost at a run hurries away, with lowered head, her hair streaming, gleaming black.
     It seems Joe is going to take off after her, as he already makes a quick move, but then controls himself and remains standing. At the farthest end of the field Joyce stops and yells something at Joe. He can not hear what she said. Three times he yells, asking what she said. Three times she repeats it. Then I also hear what she says. She is telling Joe to make sure that I am comfortable…
     Joe freezes, with lips parted, then glances at me with frightened eyes. But I pretend I have not heard.
     I know, that at that moment, I depart from Joe. I abandon him, alone. I am not able to share this, his real life. At that moment, I feel very useless there. But I have to be there. After a good while, Joe realises that he has been sitting, empty tea cup in his hand. He apologises and pours me some tea. We drink in silence, and the silence is heavy. 
     Then we go back to work, and do not say a single word, just occasionally exchange a resigned look, a pale smile.
     Today also no-one calls us to lunch, and Joe, guided by the sun’s lengthening shadows, stops work.
     “Tomorrow I’ll pick by myself” he says, “because it’s your day off. Then, the day after tomorrow, when you come back, we should be able to finish the lot”.

     Next day, however, Joe’s bean field is empty, with no-one picking. Joe has gone out somewhere with his family.
     But in the evening, when I am bringing the cow home, Joe is again standing, not far away, at the edge of his field. He waves and asks whether I will be able to come early tomorrow to pick. I wave back, that I will.
     Next morning, when I am already picking, Joe comes up and tells me to pick the rest of the field as best I can, for that’s the last time it will get picked.
     “You’re not going to pick?” I burst out, in surprise, because there is much more there to pick than I would be able to manage on my own.
     Joe does not reply straight away, and he gazes at the rows. His look is so smouldering that it seems that any moment he might crouch down and start snatching up handfuls of his beans. But he turns away. 
     “No. I have to hurry to plough along the tomatoes.” Only then do I notice that he already has the horse reins in his hands.
     I pick alone, and Joe, right there in the next field, works with his horse. He gives it a rest at the end of each row, and often sits down himself. I notice that he stops in those places which can not be seen from the windows of the white house. Has Joe become lazy? Or does he just have a lot on his mind. He also does not whistle.
     At tea time we sit together as we usually do, on the clover strip between the two fields. We talk about the horse, which Joe is allowing to eat the beans. It seems as though Joe wants to talk about something else, but he stifles it and with a wan smile, as though hiding something, he turns to the horse and talks about that.
     It has rained in the night, and there are leeches about. One has attached to Joe hand. He calmly pulls it off and tosses it away, gently, thoughtfully, almost apologetically.  Again and again, he glances up at the house with a bitter look. It is the same, stiff, long look he has when he watches Joyce go. It contains some sort of question, to which he receives no answer.
     Nearing lunch break, Joe lets the horse go into the bean field and comes up to me.
    “Time to finish,” he says.
    I want to still pick till the bag is full.
    “I’ll help you,” and as though suddenly unbound, he lunges into one of the rows. A look of warmth, such I’ve not seen ever, floods his face. Almost playfully, he fills his can. Then he looks out across the field and says: 
    “We won’t pick any more.”
     In the evening, when my husband comes in from work and I put the evening meal on the table, he smirkingly says:
     “Well finally, Joe has been beaten…”
     I do not ask anything. If I did, quite possibly he would not say anything else, but I want him to. And he does  talk on:
      “Yesterday they went to see Joyce’s parents, and Joe finally gave in. They are going to sell the house and the oldies will help them start something new.”
     I remember Joe’s hands, how he freed himself of the leech. I understand what kind of day it must have been for him.
     But that is only the first one.

     I am chiseled into my hill, like the Greek friezes, on their cliffs. I am so set in stone, that it seems like I can not even stretch out my limbs. Bit by bit, they are dying. Only my eyes still roam about, across the valley, finding a little happiness coming to rest in the fields there. The valley’s rounded slopes are starting to turn yellow in the summer sun. The spring crop has been harvested. The fields are resting before the autumn crop. Only the summer’s tomato fields are still green, and Joe quickly ploughs in all the fields to look more appealing to the buyer’s eye. The fields in the valley are my only haven. I love their ever-changing beauty, even though that has little to do with their real purpose. But they give succour even so. And I know that, at least in one other person, there lives a different kind of joy about them, not just their conversion into bushels and dollars and cents… I know it profoundly, and that lightens my days just a little. I know that the one who knows a different kind of joy from these fields is suffering, for he is bound to this valley by the effort and love he has devoted to it, and he is being wrenched away from it all. 
     Because of that one person, I do not curse this valley.
     I see how he, step by step, day after day, goes over his fields with the plough, with the hoe, with seed, with manure, with water hoses, working it all with his own hands. He goes early and late, calmly, relentlessly. And the field surrenders to him, gives the richness of its harvest. 
     In the evenings, this person chops wood near his house, below the trees, and occasionally whistles. His whistling is extraordinary. It shoots up like reverberating rays, high and piercing, like from a lost ship.
It lives in that valley, rises and falls away in darkness.
    Suddenly hearing his whistling, I run out and grasp hold of the gate post. I wait and think about the time that I will let go the post and run down to where the sound of the chopping echoes. But perhaps that will never happen. I hold on tight to the gate post.

---

PETER

He had fallen out of the nest and had come down like a stone. Possibly, it had not been quite from the nest, but from his flying manoeuvres. It was likely that those had already begun. Squeaking and squawking and a deal of commotion up in the trees had been going on for several days, maybe more, because of course, no-one took any notice. But then at that moment, there was such a noise, such screeching that everyone, even the cats and dogs, ran to look. It was all confusion, only a whirling knot of feathers suddenly untangled in the branches, and catching sight of the humans, a pair of magpies, still screeching, flew off. At that moment they had let him go, and he had fallen straight down. He disappeared into the tall grass near the first gumtree.
      Inga, neck outstretched, on tip toe crept towards him, carefully parting the long blades of grass.
      “Awwh…” she said, in such a voice, that the mother looked away, not really wanting to see blood.
      “What is it?”  she asked, seeing Inga hesitating, “What’s happened to him?”
      Inga did not hear her. Only after the question was repeated, she said: “Nothing. Only…he is so…small…”
    “Take it quickly, so it doesn’t start running off and the dogs get to it,” urged the mother.
      It was a little magpie, grey and disheveled.
      Inga sat back in the grass with the bird in her lap. She was holding it tenderly in both hands. She gave a little choking whisper:
      “How beautiful!…”
      The mother, surprised, looked at Inga’s face, and then quietly hid a smile.
      “Beautiful?…” she said, bemused. The bird looked like a little demon – the agitated beak, the big gaping mouth, and next to that, the small, terrified eyes. Inga also had a better look at the bird, and then cradled it even more gently in her hands.
      “See? Isn’t it beautiful?” she said, reproachfully.
      “It is, it is,” the mother conceded. “How it stinks!” she exclaimed, having bent closer. Inga lifted the bird up nearer her nose, and turned away laughing: “Yuk! It really stinks. I wonder why?…”
      “They mustn’t have been able to keep the nest very clean. You’ll be able to make him a better one in some box,” the mother said, and went back inside. Having hidden the bird under a basket, Inga went and chose the best of the boxes meant for sending fruit to market. She put it on its side, and put in some fine straw, white feathers and down. She started making a little roost for it.
      “Your Dad will never let you keep that box for a bird,” said the mother. Inga stopped what she was doing on preparing the box. 
      “I guess he won’t,” she said with a sigh. “But if maybe…? Just maybe?…” she said, hopefully.
      “Well, maybe…” agreed the mother.
      The father did not allow that box to be taken. Hurrying off towards the tractor with a can of petrol, he called out:
      “You can’t take that box”.
    Tears sprang into Inga’s eyes. She sat there with the unfinished bird house and pondered. Then she got up resolutely:
      “I know where there is another box. I’ll take that and no-one will be able to say anything.”
      “That’s not logical..” the mother thought doubtfully.
      “I know where there’s another box,” Inga repeated, even more determinedly, “which nobody has ever wanted.’’
      Inga made the nest in this box and was allowed to keep it. The father put in a little perch out of a sturdier piece of wood than Inga had been using. Inga was a bit worried about whether it would fit the bird’s feet, but it was fine. Its feet and claws were like those of an eagle, making one have to bite one’s tongue to stop oneself from crying out loud when it clamped itself onto one’s finger or arm. Then you could not get it off, as the bird hung on for dear life. The mother had to help unclamp the claws so that it did not tear Inga’s hands quite to shreds. The bird hung on so fiercely, thinking it might fall just like from the tree. And now it had the most beautiful nest, lined with white downy feathers. Only – it would not sit in this nest. It scrambled up onto the perch, and there it stayed. Like the big birds. It was time to get food for it.
      The mother helped Inga dig in the strawberry patch. At first it was the strawberry patch where one could best find earthworms. Then it was in the cabbage patch, then among the carrots, then the flower beds, and within a week she had gone over all of it twice with the hoe. 
      “Strange,” thought the mother, “Before, I could never find time to do the hoeing. It looked like this year it would all be taken over by weeds.” But now there seemed to be time. Time for all sorts of things. Much more got done when there was “someone” to do it for. It seemed incomprehensible, but somehow, for the sake of a silly bird, more could get done than for one’s own wellbeing.
      When the first worms were dug up, the bird would not eat them, would not open its beak. It was clamped shut. Inga held the bird in her lap, coaxing it and sweet talking it, dragging the worm across the big beak. The bird did not wink an eye.
     Inga, tired but determined, said to the mother, “You go away.” The mother understood, and left them alone. That is how it has to be at times. Sometimes, all the doctors, helpers, scientists have to be told: “Go away,” so that then, without them, the best solution might appear, as was needed now – to make it open its beak…
     Some how, Inga had managed to get a couple of worms into it. Not really satisfied, she put it into the box. She went off to get it some water, wondering how she would be able to pour that into it. The mother, busy with her tasks, having forgotten about the bird, was hurrying in past the box when the bird called. It was not a frightened call.
      “Inga, Peter is calling you!”
      Inga had named the bird Peter. Yes, it was calling. And now, it was eating. With a squawk, it would open its beak wide, and then one just had to drop a worm into it. When it was full, it did not open its beak any more and grew calm and sleepy. But it was not long before it again was calling out, and would eat some more.
      “You better watch out now whether you’ll be able to keep finding enough worms,” the others laughed at Inga.”You’ll have to get up early in the mornings and run around, just like the old magpies, looking for worms…”
       Peter’s cage was out in the garden, below the May bush, between two pine trees and the Jacaranda tree. As she went off to school, Inga begged her mother not to forget the bird, and to give it food and drink.
      It was not possible to forget Peter. As soon as he caught sight of a human, he would start calling. It wasn’t just a call of hunger after food, it was talking. Peter would also call when he did not want to eat. When he wanted food, he would call loudly, quickly, impatiently or wistfully, depending on the state of his stomach. The real talking happened when he was coaxing the human just for some friendliness. Then his voice was soft, calm, sensible, inviting. When someone was lost in their own busy-ness – “Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh?” Peter would call, and patiently talk, warbling gently till the human heard him and answered him, and then he would talk on even more happily, answering each word as though he was waiting for it. One felt compelled to go closer to him, to listen to his talking, which was made of different sounds, but similar in intent to human conversation.
     At the front of the open side of the box, Inga made a veranda out of chicken wire, with various little perches where the bird could sit. The mother put a few leafy branches across the top to give it shade in the heat of the day. There was something inexplicably beguiling about the bird, an incredible softness. It seemed as though very soon it would actually start speaking just like a human, and even in a more cultured way, better, more exquisitely than humans. And what he would talk about would be more erudite, more intelligent.
      The mother, who by day was mired in countless tedious tasks, alone without conversation, without other people, snared with just her own thoughts in the trap of the everyday, felt this the most. Besides, he did so very much remind one of a child, a human child.
      If one wanted to stroke him, he would evade, dodge, and move further away. “Neh, neh,” he would say, “neh, neh, neh”. He would walk around a bit, and then come back with his “Eh, eh, eh?” He would lift leaves and peer under them, follow a beetle,  pick it up in his beak and then drop it back down again, follow it some more, pick it up again and put it back down again… He grabbed hold of a rose bud and was carrying it off. The rose bush branch gave way a little, but then the bud slipped from his beak and the branch, still swaying, lifted itself back up into the air. The bird stared at it, fascinated, and reached for it again, and again tried to carry it off. He came up to humans saying “Eh, eh?” The woman, as if bewitched, was drawn to him. He seemed to possess something mysterious, something wondrous. Something unknowable, beautiful, like birdsong, bird flight. Which he would surely soon bring, drop into the human’s lap…
     Peter was placid. He sat for hours, quietly in his verandah and only when he caught sight of a human, would call in a soft voice. 
     But one night, he woke up the whole household with an awful racket. The father ran out with his torch, ready to save him from some dreadful fate. The squawking did not lessen. It occurred to the mother how grimly Peter was prone to grab onto someone’s arm, and that the father tended to have little patience. She also hurried out into the garden. But there was nothing, just the bird, going berserk in the wire cage. He was virtually smashing himself to bits against the wire. The mother tried to talk soothingly, to calm him down, to no avail. At last, having paused a little, he seemed to see his little perch in the light of the torch, stared at it, finally recognising it, came to his senses as it were, and as though still dazed, went on to it, with one damaged wing, dragging it like some warrior knight after battle dragging his sword behind him. 
      He made no more noise. Inga, going off to sleep, said:
      “Perhaps he had a bad dream?…”
      More likely, an owl might have been trying to grab him through the wire, or a snake. But perhaps it was a bad dream. He was alone there in his box. Maybe he fell asleep in his verandah. He would have been better off high up in the branches, together with other birds.
      One day, the neighbour said: “If you want to keep him as a pet, then clip his wings. Then he won’t be able to fly away. Only then you will have to protect him from other magpies. If they discover that he can’t fly, they will kill him. They killed our Meg. They think that those who can’t fly are weaklings and no good.”
      It seemed that dire Spartan rules held sway over this sweet bird family.
      Inga started to watch out for the old magpie pair. A few times, when people went into the garden, the pair would fly off from Peter’s enclosure, and Peter was with feathers a bit torn and bloodied where he had been thrashing against the sides of the box. They had been calling to him to follow them, off and away, and of course he had not been able to get out.
      No, no-one wanted to cut Peter’s wings…the poor little bird. It would be better, then, to organise for him to be able to learn to fly, and become a real, strong bird, who could stand up for himself.
      On the first Saturday after the neighbour’s visit, Inga started teaching Peter to fly. For a while, it went quite well. Peter would follow Inga, and when she bent down, he would flutter up onto her shoulder. Inga could then carry him about. And once he got used to heights, he managed somehow to get up onto a branch of the jacaranda tree. Inga thought he looked perfect there, and she left him there to enjoy himself.
      Very soon, the old magpie arrived. She even landed next to him and seemed to feed him something. Inga could not get close enough to really see what was happening, but they certainly were friendly. That was obvious because soon Peter got a second mouthful. The old magpie was coaxing Peter to follow her. She flew up to a higher branch and waited for him to follow. She only needed to repeat that process of moving up to the next branch a few times, when Peter obeyed her. Clumsily, and slowly, he followed her from branch to branch. Then the older magpie flew up into the next tree. But that was too far for Peter. He just sat there, looking this way and that. He used to do that in his enclosure, sitting in the open, wired part, in the early days, following with his eyes, the flights of the swallows. When Peter did not follow the magpie into the next tree, she patiently came back, and again started coaxing him from branch to branch. At that moment, the cat, being chased by the dog, went tearing up the jacaranda tree. With a screech, the old magpie flew up into the air. Peter, too.
      At first he faltered, but then with a great burst of strength charged upwards. In the next moment, Peter was clinging for dear life onto one of the high branches of a tall gum tree. He was swaying about up there, squawking away. Below, wailing away was Inga.
      Peter did not know how to move. Clearly, he was terrified. But one thing he knew how to do – not to let go of the branch. There he flapped about, all afternoon. And, as they say, troubles do not come in singles. The first summer storm was approaching. There had not been any rain for a long time, and it now came with hail and a nasty wind, which did not abate all night. At least so it felt to Inga. Late into the night, the smallest member of the house still kept opening the door and staring up at the gum tree. Was Peter still there? He was still there. Only the old magpie did not return that evening. Peter battled alone on the tree branch, through the rain, through the night, like some solitary sailor at sea. Would he survive?
      Next morning he was still there. The old magpie brought him a mouthful for breakfast. Inga and her sister tried all morning to coax him down. Inga’s sister grumbled that she did not really have time for the bird, as she had to study for her end of year exams, that she really could not spare a minute, and it was true, and yet now she had to fuss with ropes and ladders and stones to somehow help Inga to get Peter to budge from his lofty heights. Because he could freeze there. He could not survive from the tiny morsel that the old magpie had given him, and what about drink? Peter had become used to eating and drinking very well, sometimes from Inga’s eye-dropper.
       It was a funny battle the girls waged, with the mother cheering them on, below the tree in which Peter sat and looked down on them in a dull trance. He answered their calls, but that was all he did do.
       The girls tied a stone to the end of a long rope and tried to toss it around the branch that Peter was sitting on, but that was not easy.
       “What’s the use of all your discus throwing…?” complained Inga to her sister. The ladder was too short, the tree branches too few to try to climb up. “They ought to teach tree climbing in sport lessons instead of banning it and as punishment making us write “ ‘i’ is for ink”. You can’t get anything down from a tree with “ ‘i’ is for ink”.
      “Nothing needs to be gotten down from the tree”. Inga’s sister had had enough. She could not risk failing Latin for the sake of a silly bird. She abandoned the rescue attempt, and Peter stayed where he was, on his branch.
      But in the afternoon, no-one knew how or when, he had managed to get down onto a much lower branch. After a while, he and a lap-full of gum leaves landed on the ground. He was back in his enclosure, eating and drinking, for two days.
      But near evening, when he had been spoiled and was quite rested, Peter now did not want to stay in his cage. At all. When the children walked away, suddenly he would start thrashing about like crazy, squawking and making a racket, pushing his head through the wire netting, bashing against the sides of the box. He had to be let out. In just one, difficult night, he had tasted the joys of freedom.
      Having been let out onto the grass, he soon started to avoid the children’s attempts to pat him. “Neh, neh,” he gurgled proudly. He wanted to fly. He flew up onto Inga’s shoulder, then onto the May bush, the jacaranda tree, and up onto the roof. There he paused.
      As soon as Peter spread his wings, they would carry him upwards,  always upwards, up, off into the big gum tree, even higher than the previous day. It seemed as though only then did he realise what had happened. Clamped onto the branch, again he called out in a pitiful voice and stared down below. But for the time being, his flying skills only took him upwards. 
       “Well you can pine away there again then, you pig-headed thing,” said the humans.
       And there he pined away. Evening came, and the old magpies had long flown into the woods. No-one could help Peter. But why should anyone help him? He himself had to learn how to be a bird. Just like the other young magpie fledglings day in, day out, who were heard squeaking and squawking up in the branches. There they had to struggle, learning the difficult skill of flying, and other bird behaviour, as soon as they left the nest. Clearly, it was not easy. Especially for Peter, who had spent three weeks sitting inside his cage.
      On the second day, as soon as the house door opened, Peter started calling from the high branch up to which he had careered the previous evening. So soft was his little peep that one’s heart went out to him. 
      “Peter! Peter!”
      “Here! ‘Here!” he answered every time.
      No matter where someone went, whether across the yard, or into the garden, Peter called out:
      “Here! Here!…Here! Here!”
       “Come down, Peter! Peter!”
       “Here! Here!”
      “You hear that? He’s calling out “here-here”. He’s trying to say Peter! Silly bird, fly down! Fly down!”
       The mother was planting flowers, when something tumbled down past her head. Peter was down! Again the children fed him, gave him water, put him in the cage. Again, after a rest, he wanted out. But this time he was more cautious. He flew up only onto the lowest branch of the jacaranda tree. There he seemed satisfied, sat there looking at his cage, chatted back to the children, and knew how to fly back down. Though flights took him somewhat off track from where he had intended, still he did get down, and that was a big achievement. 
       It got darker softly and gradually as evening arrived. And the people, who were sitting having their evening meal, felt the evening’s softness, because they were thinking about the bird. Peter was sitting in the jacaranda tree, feeling fine. The old rosebush, with pinkish, yellowish blooms was below him, as was the jasmine bush which had not yet started to bloom. The fox would not be able to get to him, and the cats were too lazy to negotiate their way through the thorny rose bush without a dog having chased them, and besides, they were not so heroic as to take on a bird as big as was Peter. Still, he was not without danger. In the evenings, owls would fly about. The jacaranda branches were almost bare, as the last leaves had turned yellow and disintegrated, leaving just the long little centre stalks, and now they too were lying on the ground, looking a bit like fallen, russet pine needles. The owls were brazen. When the house lights would go out, they would not hesitate to fly right into the garden. The clouds were thin, and there was even a moon starting to appear. Peter was as visible as a stump.
      But there was nothing that could be done. He had survived two rainy and stormy nights. This night held different hazards. It was quite something, that such a small bird survived up on the branch, all alone, night after night. Alone, with his fate.
      Everyone in the house was thinking about him, even the father, who, putting down his paper, said:
       “Then where did Peter go to sleep tonight?”
       “In the jacaranda tree. Just here, outside the window,” the children answered proudly.
       The bird’s sitting outside the window was felt to be a victory, and the garden had acquired a new, unfathomable  enchantment. Inga lay in bed for a long time with eyes open. The mother played her piano, and her playing had more meaning. She was not playing for the bird outside the window, not really. But it is hard to play to emptiness. She remembered a night when she was coming home from the station, after missing her bus, and in one house, someone was playing a piano. The Chopin fantasia’s andante cantabile, playing so badly that it was nearly unrecognisable. And still – it was Chopin, changed, mangled. The piano was old, much thrashed, with a doleful sound. The tortured notes lurching though the dark palms and blackberry bushes sounded wretched, pitiful. And yet, and yet…
       The mother played for the bird outside the window. Women are only entirely sane when they have love in their hearts, or a babe at the breast, she thought to herself.
       “You – love him!…” Inga had once exclaimed, laughing out loud. 
       “You love him too,” said the mother, defensively.
       “Yes. But you do more seriously…”
       Perhaps. There is a surprising tenderness in animals, if one can gain their trust. And Peter was quite special. He talked. Added to that, he came from a species where there were Spartan rules and such a highly evolved family life – the parent birds recognised and came looking for their lost offspring even after a long while, took them back home, fed them and fussed over them. Once when Peter, having muddied himself in the run-off from one of the roofs, and was sitting back on a branch, one of the parent birds flew down, and finding him wet, proceeded to clean and tidy him up. It was worth seeing. Though they had left their nests already months ago, all the young birds were still being looked after by the parent birds, being taught, and protected. 
        In the mornings, it was touching to see how the magpie families breakfasted, how the parent birds ran about, shoving morsels down the ever-ready throats of the young ones, who squawked and pleaded and carried on, making themselves even smaller and more helpless whenever the parent birds were near. The young ones were quite capable of picking up something for themselves, but when the adult bird was there, they became so winsome, so needing rescuing, that the adults ran themselves ragged, feeding and feeding. Peter was marginally more independent than his brother. At the dish of water set out for him, he had a great time. After each mouthful, he exalted in full voice, with his “Eh, eh, eh!” After drinking, he flung water over his own shoulders and shook himself with all his might. Was not that just like the boys coming in from the hay fields, gulping water from the bucket, and then pouring the water over their own head and shoulders… And the birds’ outfits must have been the inspiration for human fashions, grey trousers, black dinner jackets, all it needed were the two buttons on the back where the tails began. The shining white collars, chest fronts, with pocket handkerchiefs were all there. Each individual bird a little different, but only a little. One thing was different with these birds – the females were dressed similarly to the males. In other bird species, the two were usually quite different, like the blue wren, the male in blue and black, but the female jenny wren a greyish brown.
       For about a week, Peter and the occupants of the house shared a very pleasant life together. Peter slept on the jacaranda tree branches, and during the day wandered about the garden, went out through the gate and met up with his brother and parents, practised his flying skills, and enjoyed the sunshine. However, against all these fine activities, the parents began to agitate. In all, they started to use the most stringent bird-rearing methods. But the people noticed this too late.
       Peter was theirs, so they thought. So much had been done to make him comfortable. Inga’s mother cleared a new little path in the garden and laid it with smooth stones. Where this path led, under the wisteria vine, there had to come a bench. That was for the humans, so that when sitting there, they could spend time with Peter, be near him. As well, Inga and her mother fashioned a big bird bath for him, and planted flowers around it…
       The house and the garden took on a new look, and in general, things started to look up. There were always new things to do, new good ideas to try out. Even others, coming into the house, noticed. An occasional guest, having noticed the changes, rolling back on his heels, in the end could not resist: “So, you’ve decided to sell the house after all?” he said, a question and a statement all in one. The people were surprised – was there such a rumour going around? No, no, the guest had to quickly back track, saying that he had just supposed it because everything was so spruced up. As though for sale.
       Yes, it did look like that. Old anecdotes told of a gypsy who might trim the mane and tail of a horse he wants to sell, and lacquer its hoofs and hammer a nail into the hoof opposite the lame leg.. Here, houses were spruced up, tidied up when people wanted to sell them. Whereas the otherwise the owner just lived there any old how… But this  time, in this house, for the sake of the bird, the people had started to straighten up things the way they should have been in the first place. Yes, the humans had a longing for beauty, for good loving. It just needed to be awakened. It needed but the call of a bird…
       No, they were not planning to sell the house. 
       They were sprucing up, as though readying for a life which would contain some sort of miracle, that was to be revealed by the bird. But meanwhile, the bird had been claimed by the forest, and a bird’s ordinary destiny. He no longer so boldly came close, not even to Inge or the mother. He was listening to the old magpie’s warning calls, which had become harsh and commanding. 
       “Oh, you nasty old magpie,” said Inga’s mother, looking thoughtfully at the wise older bird. “You don’t want to give him to us…” And she could not be angry at Peter, he had the right. He was right. He could not live two lives. No-one can.
      One evening, the mother went to say goodnight to Peter. She loudly called his name, so that he would not hear the older bird’s indignant voice. Peter came. Flapping his wings and squawking, and very hungry. He allowed Inga’s mother to feed morsels right into his open beak. He gobbled them up. The morsels were very tasty – soft little strips of raw meat. He swallowed them one after another. Then he scurried away. Did not fly, but snuck away along the ground. Like someone who had been up to mischief.
        Inga’s mother watched him go. She was satisfied. Now he could go into the forest, to his real, bird’s life.
       Humans like to be able to touch the object of their love. To touch, hug, caress. But how can you really caress a little bird. How can you grasp the lightness of the sky. His every movement is like a puff of air, at any moment, ready to lift off into the heavens. It is wonderful to go into the forest, where some bird, from an unseen branch, greets you, calls with a friendly voice. No further possession is needed. It already is – special, to have a bird call, especially to you. Peter was always calling out, from hidden branches.
       In the little house, the people talked about Peter. Only Inga did not join in. Gazing far into the distance, she thought to herself: “He’s not MY little bird any more.”
        No, he no longer was her little bird. He belonged to the old magpie. But not entirely. He was a bird of the forest, and also, not entirely. He was his own bird. Perhaps.  

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BLACKBERRIES

They are called black berries. Back home in Latvia I took no notice of them. Went past them, did not lift up the thorny branches which occasionally lay along the path at the edge of the forest. I did not get to know what they tasted like, nor how sharp their thorns were. I do not believe that there they were like they are here, as ferocious. There they were not a third as big.
        Here, they are savage. When drunk with the pleasures of being out in the bush, on the hunt for berries, I first started battling with them. They seemed to be alive. They attacked me, now brazenly, now cunningly.
       A slender branch, arching overhead, unnoticed, just lightly touches the shoulder, yet as soon as I go to step away, it suddenly reaches out, lashes the back like a whip, and pierces through clothing, sending thorns into the flesh. They are not straight, like rose thorns, but curved, like sharks teeth
      When the branch thus sticks to the back, it is a hit and a cry all in one – demanding “Stick’em up!”
      What happens if I do not freeze instantly, is almost unimaginable. Skin will be torn, flesh will be gouged, thorns embedded, and still I will not be able to get away.
       I have to stand still. Have to slowly back back, closer to the branch, and move carefully, teeth clenched, and try to unhook myself. Meanwhile, a second, and third branch tries to catch me, from one side, and the other, around the arms, waist, knees…
My perspiring body starts sweating even more, but any rash or quick move only gets me more entrapped. I have to loosen myself slowly, pull off the thorns as much as possible, step high with my gumboots, twist and turn, retreat.
       When the clusters of berries, huge, like black fists, are enticingly glinting, a serpent’s glint, the bush must be approached more carefully. I have to reach into the gaps between the branches, and as soon as I touch one, have to abandon the move, and start again. If the hand manages to reach the cluster, the berries must be gathered carefully with the fingertips, collecting them into the palm, with the slightest movement of the wrist. No indulging greed allowed, and sometimes perfectly beautiful berries must be left behind, and submissively, the hand withdrawn. To manage getting through it with just a few small thorns in the fingers counts as success. If one of the bigger thorns sticks in, it is tough luck. As long as the whole bush does not grab hold. While that is going on, one of the previous year’s old, dried branches will probably have become embedded in the chest. They do snap more readily and the thorns do not grab so sharply as the young branches, but then they do more quickly break off into the flesh, which is particularly nasty. Care must be taken, to not let these dry branches stick into the face, the eyes. Somewhat battered, and with their pale grey colouring, they are harder to notice in the bright sun, and they often jut out like stealthy daggers. Battle goes on not only with the live branches, but, spookily, their assistants, the dead ones.
       In the heat of that battle, one must not forget, and the glint of the berries serves to remind one, that the real danger lies below. The black snake. She is definitely there. Not in every bush, but one never knows in which one.
      She flees, if one leaves her alone. But she can be sleeping soundly, and if one comes across her too abruptly, on waking, she can take that to be an attack.
        If she just stayed flat along the ground. then with gumboots one probably would not have to worry too much. But she leaps. More than half a metre high, that I know. Perhaps even higher. Let alone the brown snake, which can thrash about like a whip. Like lightning. 
        But blackberries more often shelter black snakes. However, that does not take away the supreme pleasure of blackberrying. I have been wary of snakes right from childhood. And I have come across them quite often. I am not overly frightened of them, but I do know that they are not a joking matter.
        Danger steels one, changes one, brings one closer to the primitive.
        And when I truly think about why I run to the bush, then I know it is exactly to get closer to – that. So that I meet that, in myself, myself in that. So that all my senses might be renewed. So that I drown in some sort of world, where I can shed this present-day, fragile self and regain my lost, primeval power. I go, in order to do battle, to kick branches, step on them, crawl through them, with sweat filled eyes, to spot the fruit, all of it giving me a hundred times more joy than the fruit is actually worth.
        To smell the mosses, the old logs, the fungi that disintegrate underfoot, the hundred different grasses. For that moment, to feel this forest intensely, even though I will subsequently forget it. With fingers full of thorns, to gently grasp the hard, smooth fern leaf, holding on by it, because it is my ally, to feel the glorious sun on my back, to get tired, get stuck, battle with midges, leeches, with green smelly bugs and, conquering all, to sink further and further into an oblivious, primitive human satedness and pleasure.
        Returning from all that with a full container always feels like a gleeful bit of grand theft, the body burning and aglow. From the sun, from the blood racing through the overheated heart, the thorns in one’s flesh, from sweat, from debris in the hair, down the neck, everywhere – also in the rubber boots all the way to the toes. One has to take pity on them, pull them out of the horribly hot boots, clean away the thorns. Then somehow one has to get home, with one’s exhaustion, which suddenly feels so total.
       The return to a civilised state is sweet. Not waiting for a second, it starts, with running a brush through one’s hair, throwing off the bush trek clothes, and sliding into water. A wonderful peace comes over one, and the heat, with which the body continues to glow, is sanctified, something like a that of a freshly baked loaf, straight from the oven. Medication and ointments onto shredded palms. If possible, the broken off ends of thorns extracted. They have suddenly become quite painful. The civilised human feels those acutely. It is impossible with such fingertips to touch the piano keys, to turn pages of a book.
        It is easier to start working with jam bottling jars. And that must be done. Even though it really should be the time for books, piano keys, or something else that has no connection with one’s physical existence. For the expedition into the bush to bestow its real blessing, one must go to those urbane things, feeling the blood, still pulsing from the sun and the battle in the forest, gradually subside, leaving visions of blackberry branches still waving before one’s eyes, and the memory of the black snake…
      The last black snake that I saw when I was blackberrying was big, five or six feet long. Arching, she was standing on the animal track where I would cross from one blackberry bush to the next. She noticed me first, as expected, and stayed still. I too, stopped. If I had not noticed her and stopped, if I had been looking more up in the air, in a step or two I would have been right on top of her. Or, she could have slipped away into the bush without my having noticed her at all. But one cannot know, perhaps she had been asleep in the sun. How do they do that, if they can not close their eyes?
       Her neck was not puffed out ready for battle, or only a little. She was flashing her tongue and watching me. She had the typical, frightening appearance that snakes have. At that moment, I could not remember what she reminded me of. Then at last I knew – it was of a dragon, in Japanese drawings.  
       I knew I was not going to start a battle with her. Still, I quickly glanced around, taking in the field where we were, and unconsciously looking to see – whether there was something I could use to hit with. A weapon. A human without a weapon feels so powerless.
        The instant I looked away, the snake turned and quickly disappeared into the blackberry bush. The red marks on her belly glowed like fading embers on a black log.
        I was sad that she was gone already. This time, even though the snake was big, I felt peaceful, and she was not right underfoot, and did not spoil my joy in being out in the bush. Quite the opposite – she evoked in me a desire to get to know her.
        Thinking about it, I fantasize that that would be possible. It would be very hard. But in the end it is only a question of time. I would have to meet her many times. Many, many times. Would have to be with her for a long time. Then perhaps I would be able to get down in front of her on all fours. But perhaps not. I would work that out when I met her. Certainly, standing up I would be too far away from her.
        To learn a different language takes a long time. I mean – a foreign, human language. To learn the snake’s language would take  immeasurably longer. Maybe not be possible within one human lifetime. Maybe it would need generations. But it is possible. It is the secret of snake charmers. Very simple. To get to know animals, it is necessary to get close to them. They are more forthcoming than is generally believed. I was closer to that snake than some woman from the city would have been. She would have screamed and fled. I wanted to talk to the creature.
        The second time I went there, I did not come across her. I had no time to go looking for her. But that she could reveal much to me, that I know.
        When I had to watch our dog’s slow death from a tick, that revealed a lot to me. At one moment it even seemed to me that I could understand the whole world and God’s very existence. But in the end, my understanding proved too weak. The light that lit up there momentarily was soon extinguished with human thinking.
        Only one thing stayed with me – it is inappropriate to try to demean a human by calling him a dog. To do that, you have to find a different word.
        I also understood that some nations are able to hold animals as sacred. A dog is sacred, not alienated from his creator.
He lives and dies, faithful till the end. He bears it without complaint. He goes – “back to God.” Is a dog different to other animals? Perhaps not. But he has much awareness, which does distinguish him.  And this awareness shows up so clearly, so humbly, so purely in his last hours. Suddenly one feels moved to put one’s hands together with a humble plea – teach me how not to lose my way!

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HOTEL IN LALAILA STREET

Perhaps it was the street name that appealed to his imagination when he and his friends had by chance stopped for a weekend. Lalaila Street Inn! It was some kind of Swiss inn. The mountains were visible from the windows. Everything was ordinary, old, very clean, very quiet, somewhat lonesome. He wrote to her, suggesting that they should spend part of the holiday there, have a rest. Feel different than in the usual, bland, tasteless places. Of course he did not think she would really take him seriously. They had often talked of meeting up, nothing had ever come of it.
        They had been writing to each other for six years already. Such rather private, significant things were possible in these modern times.
        They were both more or less divorcees. The wife he had not long before married had remained behind in Latvia, and was never heard from again. Her fiancé had disappeared in the war without a trace. Now they lived here, each in their own corner of this vast, useless island. Their correspondence had begun by chance, during dealings with some official papers. They had seen each other only once, at the beginning of their refugee days, and that had also been while dealing with official papers. It was unlikely that if they met again, they would recognise each other. At the beginning of their correspondence, neither had any interest in the other. The only thing they shared was the heavy memory of the day they left their motherland. The letters had started a flood of open hearted sharing, and gradually, a growing attachment. Their letters now, one could say, took the place of family. Life, for each of them, had its problems, and things were easier to bear, and to let go, when there was someone to whom one could openly unload it all .
        Every now and again, their letters would take on a tinge of romance, but somehow, it never happened for both at the same time. If one was feeling a bit carried away and warm towards the other, carrying around the unopened letters they had received, just to prolong the titillating sense of pleasure, then the other, at that moment, was barely noticing their letters, because something nearer at hand had taken their attention. The heart generally hurries to play with something in the immediate vicinity…
        Thus, recently, in his corner of the world, he had become enamoured with red hair, whereas she had taken with her to the Lalaila Street hotel some wine-red balls of wool, since for quite a while now her life had been being brightened by a certain dark haired person, with white shirtsleeves and a wine-red jumper. She did not have the idea of actually knitting something for this dark haired one who had caught her attention – but no other colour seemed as beautiful as the one he wore, and she simply wanted to knit something because she loved knitting.
        So, both of them, Mr. Ozolins (Oaks) and Miss Zile (Acorn) arrived at their arranged meeting feeling free and unfettered. Soon, they sat in the little hotel, in little Lalaila Street, and ate roast lamb with green beans, orange pumpkin, and white mashed potato. The plates were neat and colourful, piled high, on the checkered tablecloth, with rows of colourful tomato and other sauce bottles. 
        The hotel lad, the same one who had opened the door, taken their bags, shown them to their rooms, now, flourishing a white napkin according to custom, inquired: “Tea?…” and was already gliding away to go and get some, when Mr. Oaks called out: “Coffee!”.
        “Yes,” responded the lad. He always said “yes”. One could always say “no” later.
        Of course, one could have coffee. If anyone asked for something unexpectedly, the lad for his own part, kept a record. Whistling, he started to keep an eye on this couple. He was always there, like a shot, as soon as it looked like he might be able to be of use.
        Through the small dining room’s narrow windows, as much as the ruffled curtains would allow, one could see some brown, then green, then bluish distant mountains.
        “Don’t you think it feels like we are in Switzerland?” Mr. Oaks enthused. Miss Acorn agreed, even though she had never been to Switzerland. Her Godfather, in his youth, had been there. He had a big poster, a large photograph of a beautiful Swiss damsel on his wall above the piano, where she, as a small girl, mercilessly had to practise “The Happy Farmer”. She was not at all happy, and resentfully did not look up at the beautiful damsel. She did not want to beget children like that, and she knew from their maid, Amilda, that you get the sort of children that are like the pictures you look at… Now, recalling that, Miss Acorn smiled, nearly could have laughed out loud, but just blushed prettily. She could clearly remember how beautiful the poster was, above the piano.
         No, really, this get together had gone very peacefully and pleasantly, without hitches. Miss Acorn had her wine-red wool. Mr. Oaks had his memory of Switzerland, which in turn had been refreshed recently by some redhead, whom nevertheless he had not invited to the hotel in Lalaila Street. Nothing good would have come of that.
        Mr. Oaks talked about Switzerland, Miss Acorn thought about Portugal – the dark haired one with the wine-red jumper was Portuguese. He was married, unhappily of course, but still – nothing could have come of that either…
        Mr. Oaks and Miss Acorn looked at each other the way sometimes, after years, one looks at one’s own wife or husband, and whom, just like one’s front door handle one has not noticed for quite a while, and then, noticing, is somewhat moved and surprised. He liked her shoulders, in a soft, stylish knitted top, and she liked his hands, resting calmly on the edge of the table, his soft grey suit.
       Having made thorough work of the roast lamb and beans, they set off for a walk of the area. It was October – spring.
The trees and bushes by the road sides were full of all kinds of squawks, twitters, whistles, and chirps. The breeze sometimes wafted the bitter smoke from bushfires. While they recognised this as a sign of the Australian spring, this warm smell make their hearts constrict a little, and their bodies feel a moment’s pause remembering a different forest, the smell of ice starting to move up in the northern climes. The two guests of the little hotel walked on.
        “There is no spring here,” declared Mr. Oaks, glumly, following behind Miss Acorn along the narrow path that had been carved out by water, and looked like a dried out river bed. “Endless summer, hot and dry, or cold and wet… Endlessly green, as depressing as endless death…” He went on, “Here there aren’t any fields of flowers, just pastures – paddocks. Paddocks…”
        Miss Acorn wondered to herself how it was in Portugal…there too probably there were not any real winters, nor real springs. She was still always thinking about her fellow from Portugal… But he probably did not know anything about Portugal. He had been born in Australia, only his black hair and his name were from there… She breathed in a waft of a sweet, heavy scent, wondering where it came from.
        It was coming from above. Hidden from sight, up against the sky, the big gumtree tops were in blossom, white and majestic, out of reach of humans.
        “With the green background, your hair looks red…” said Mr. Oaks, and Miss Acorn could tell from the way he said it, that he liked it. But her hair was not red, only light brown, slightly tinted.
       Having returned to the hotel, each went to their own room to rest for a couple of hours, so that they would be fresh in mind and body when they met for their evening meal. They wanted to do this brief little holiday in style.
       Reaching her room, Miss Acorn immediately called for the hotel lad, gave him a good tip and sent him off to the shops. Later, she tipped the contents of the package he brought back into the bathroom sink and put the rinse through her hair – Titian red.
        She wanted to please Mr. Oaks.
        Mr. Oaks also called for the hotel lad. He wanted a clock to be placed in his room. Preferably one very old, that ticked loudly and rang on the hour. One with a cuckoo. Perhaps in such an old hotel, something like that was available. With a ticking clock, during this rest time, Mr. Oaks wanted to dream about Switzerland, where once he had been happy with a redhead. The one he did not invite to the Lalaila hotel also had flaming red hair, flaming rather too much.
       “A clock, which either rings, or plays music, or has a cuckoo…” he explained to the lad.
       “Yes,” said the lad. He always said yes.
        I have to find something, thought the lad, racing down the stairs. In the clock shop, if no-where else. It was worth keeping on the good side of this pair. They were living in the clouds, tossing money around. One just had to know how to pick it up.
       Before dinner, he brought Mr. Oaks an old alarm clock, square, with a little cabinet. It did not work very well, but if you put it on one side, and gave it a shake now and again, somehow it kept ticking, and managed to play the Blue Danube waltz. Brilliant. He could not get one with a cuckoo, the lad said, but one that rings on the hour he would be able to get tomorrow. Racing down the stairs, in one hand he rubbed the banknotes between his fingers, and with the other hand snapped his fingers above his head. Personally, he preferred an electric clock, like the one in the new bank, where the second hand flowed non-stop. Just a glance at one like that, and you clearly got the picture – life flows! This big life, flows! One day he would work under a clock like that, perhaps in his own hotel at reception, where people would flow in and out, not a sideways glance, their bags rolling along behind them.
        Miss Acorn was quite a vision when she sat down to dinner – a little black dress, with a green parrot brooch with pearls on her breast. She had not been able to find anything else green to set off her hair, but it was enough. 
        “Coffee?” The lad was there on the dot.
        “Wine!” Mr. Oaks ordered.
         “Have you any real Portuguese port?” Miss Acorn added boldly, and turned in her chair so flirtatiously that Mr. Oaks eyes widened, and they were already quite wide having seen her hair colour and the contrasting parrot brooch.
        “Yes,” answered the boy. He always said yes, but now he was rather thoughtful as he went to look through the bottle collection. Then he snapped his fingers and started looking through another shelf. “Portuguese sardines,” he read and quickly grabbed a couple of tins. The large enough and fancy enough label came off readily, and it was not too hard to stick it on a bottle of port, with an added strip of paper stuck down across the word “sardines” leaving, in all its glory, just the word “Portuguese”.
        If the man had asked for the port, the lad would not have been so daring, but it was she who asked for it. It would be all right! He would make sure that he would be the one doing the pouring, and not really let the bottle out of his hand…
        And it was all right. Mr. Oaks looked at the red hair, and they both drank the Portuguese port. You could almost taste the sun in it…
        They had a wonderful week. The hotel was clean, the lad changed the tablecloths every afternoon, from the check to white, so they looked more fancy for the evening,  and he put on music to mask the noises of the nearby construction site. There were few other guests, only some older pairs who came and went, and some faded old dames with silk roses pinned to their fronts.
        The weather grew milder, with only the middle of the day somewhat windy, while the mornings and evenings were calm and lovely. That was when Mr. Oaks and Miss Acorn wandered around the forests and hills, while in the middle of the day they sat on their shared veranda, where Miss Acorn brought out her knitting, which gave it all a nice homely feeling. She had managed to change the wool colour to pea green. Instead of port, they drank vermouth, if they drank at all. They still talked about Switzerland and Portugal. They had picked up a bit of a tan in the sun, and it would have been so nice to actually be in some grander resort in some fancier place in the world. Here, there was nothing like that.
        The last day of their stay, just like all the others, was sunny, though very windy, and on the hillsides along the orchard plantations, where some bush had been being burnt off, the fire had gotten away and started a bigger fire in the forest.
        Mr. Oaks and Miss Acorn had wanted to walk back to the station on foot. The lad could take their luggage in one of the hotel’s old Holden cars. 
        But he wanted to be of service once again: “Do you really not want a lift?” he persisted. “I can take you there along where the hill is burning! It’s really worth seeing! Oh mamma mia! Oh bambino!” he said with great emphasis. He was Italian, but blonde. Usually that worked in his favour, when he brought tea, and hot chips to his guests on cold days. Only now he wished he were dark haired, and would have quick smart passed himself off as Spanish, or even Portuguese, and would have extracted a few shillings more.
        They went with the lad. To the burning hill.
        At the mountain side, they got out, because the police would not let them any closer, and the flames were jumping across the road. 
        They stood among the other spectators, who were standing around with worried faces. They had to step back when yet another tree roared into flame, the fire tearing up to the very top, throwing up clouds of smoke and burning leaves which, gradually becoming black and feather-light, were carried a long way. Next to the police car there was a big van, with women passing out mugs of hot tea. Men’s arms, coal-blackened, with torn sleeves, quickly grabbed them and sweat-covered faces, with singed eyelashes and wisps of hair, eagerly bent down to drink the hot tea, thick and strong like coffee, with milk. That was the go here, and it was good. If one was hot on the outside, one had to take in drinks hot to keep the balance.
        “You had better turn back,” the policeman politely advised the onlookers, “the fire is under control, but the road isn’t safe for driving.”
        Some of the firefighters also departed, leaving just a few people and the police. Mr. Oaks and Miss Acorn turned to go, but then it felt like they should linger a bit longer, maybe to see something more, understand it all a bit more. They let the lad go ahead in the old Holden with their luggage.

       “Let us go with the train after this one,” said Mr. Oaks, and lingeringly, watching the yellow shadows around them, in silence they started on their way back. Mr. Oaks picked a black, burnt leaf from Miss Acorn’s shoulder, which was clad in a soft, new, green shawl, and placed his hand there. What a wonder is woman, he mused. Now her hair was toned down a bit, and her movements were no longer flirtatious, and yet in her stillness there was a hidden restlessness. Suddenly she stopped and turned again to the burnt out forest.
        “Mr. Oaks,” she began, in a decisive voice, “these aren’t any sort of Swiss mountains. And our hotel in Lalaila Street wasn’t any sort of Swiss inn, the way we wanted to imagine. This is Australia. Do we… do you know Australia? These yellow, soft shadows on the road, from smoke… The bitter smoke, with the taste of burnt leaves – that is spring. People with singed eyebrows, the fleeing snakes and lizards – that is Australia. One day, when we go back home, will we…will you…know how to say anything about here, the way you know about Switzerland? This fire, and the sun, which burns everything, and everything grows back, and grows back…” She fell silent, but did not move away from Mr. Oaks. They both looked at the shadows on the ground, at the smoke, at the bits of ash which fell like a slow rain. One could smell the eucalypts through the smoke. Mr. Oaks again put his hand on Miss Acorns shoulder and pulled her close. Her hair was quite brown…He turned her away from the forest, and in step, they started to walk.
        “You took just half your holiday, didn’t you?” he said. “Let us do the second half, go off in a caravan, away, go all over. Right in the middle of the hot season…”
        Miss Acorn hesitated only just enough to somewhat mask the catch in her throat, then laughed: “I don’t know about a caravan, but right in the middle of the hot season, definitely…!”