Brahma
04-02-2011, 11:15 PM
Author's prefatory note:
This story was originally written for a local Western Australian audience. However, if the place names are taken at face value, or even simply ignored, I think the story may still have some merit.
A Million Miles from Anywhere
AS IT turned out he was a nice old man. But when we came across him first, Margaret was paranoid about picking him up. Perhaps, if the truth were known, I was a little wary myself. I guess that’s the way it is these days.
We were more than half-way between Nullabor and Yalata, and after that still a couple of hundred kilometres from Ceduna, with nothing but shimmering heat and desert between us and the horizon in every direction.
I glanced at Margaret now and then and wished to God she’d go to sleep. But she just sat there sulking, beside and yet remote from me, tense and angry and unforgiving.
Well, she wasn’t alone in that. I was unforgiving too. We’d said some dreadful, unforgivable things to each other, dredging up the past on both sides.
Our trip to Perth for the wedding of our only daughter had been a disaster: fisticuffs among the guests, a lawsuit looming over damage to the venue, our daughter hysterical and abusive, Margaret and I embroiled in a bitter argument over our return travel arrangements.
And there he was, suddenly, this solitary figure standing by the roadside in the middle of nowhere, a million miles from anywhere. What at a distance had looked like a small suitcase at his feet turned out to be a weathered Gladstone bag.
“What are you doing?” Margaret said in alarm as the Ford started to slow. They were the first words she’d spoken since we left Eucla. I heard the panic in her voice.
“We can’t just leave him there,” I said. “Look at him. He’s just an old man.”
“No!” Margaret snapped. “We agreed. You promised.”
“For God’s sake,” I said. “What’s he going to do to you?
He’s just an old man.”
A tall, stoop-shouldered old man, with deep-set eyes of palest blue, almost grey, and the hint of a smile in them. Short grey hair with just a glimpse of scalp showing through. Neat moustache above a firm mouth. Strong hands, well cared for, delicately blue-veined.
He was smartly dressed for an old man hitching a ride in the desert. His dark suit was of a style not much seen these days: hand-stitched lapels on the double-breasted jacket, turnups on the trousers. A plum-coloured pocket handkerchief matched his tie. He could have been an elderly company director on his way to a board meeting.
“Ceduna?” I asked him as he settled in behind us. Margaret moved nervously beside me.
“Very kind of you,” he said. Then, by way of introduction, “Charles Mortimer. Most appreciative. Quite warm out there.” He had a clipped English accent straight out of one of those old Ealing movies.
“Been waiting long?” I asked, as I pulled the Ford back onto the highway. I was not being facetious.
“Not too long.”
“Do you mind if I ask you,” I said as the Ford picked up speed, “what you were doing out here, just standing by the roadside in the middle of nowhere?”
“Not at all,” he said.
Then he laughed, a musical sound of pure enjoyment.
“Oh, I see. Yes, very odd. Actually, I’d not long been put down where you found me by some natives. Headed off across the desert after they’d dropped me.”
“Aborigines,” I said. “You’re English, aren’t you?”
He coughed slightly and I sensed that he was smiling.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “very much so. Born and bred.”
“Yalata up ahead,” Margaret said. “We need to stop.”
But the Yalata Roadhouse, haven for weary travellers passing both eastward and westward, was closed for repairs. Re-opening in about 12 months, a notice informed us.
Margaret’s frustration was palpable.
“Nundroo’s only fifty kilometres away,” I said helpfully. “We’ll be there in half an hour.” The Ford, I knew, would eat up the distance, and once again I was thankful for its eight cylinders.
I glanced at Charles Mortimer’s reflection in the rear vision mirror.
“Been out here long?” I asked.
“Just a brief visit. Back to Europe, shortly.”
“My brother’s in Germany,” I said. “ Bensheim. He’s a teacher in a girl’s school.”
“Ah, Germany.”
“You know it?” I asked.
“Very well,” Charles Mortimer said. “Resident there before the war. Young doctor, in those days …”
“A doctor?” Margaret broke in, her voice sharp with disbelief.
“Oh, yes. Small practice in Berlin. Took German in London, got my degree from Heidelberg. Married a German girl."
“Were you there during the war?” Margaret asked, still skeptical.
“Oh, no. Got out in thirty-eight. Couldn’t stay.”
“You could see war was coming?” I suggested.
“That, too. But … my wife died."
“Oh,” Margaret said.
“They murdered her.”
“What …?” Margaret said. “Who did? My God!”
“I was in another town overnight. Got back about midday and found her on the pavement outside the surgery. Someone had hung a sign round her neck. No-one would touch her body after that … “ He paused briefly.
“They took our son, too. Picked him up from a friend’s house the same day. Never saw him again.”
“Oh, my God!” Margaret said.
“There was no redress, no justice,” Charles Mortimer continued, as if in answer to our unspoken questions. “There was no use complaining. They were all complicit, you see, in what was going on. Right up to the top.”
“Your wife …’ I started to say.
“She was Jewish,” Charles Mortimer said simply. “Marriage to me saved her for a bit, but they warned her to stay away from the surgery. She kept coming …” He broke off.
“Lovely, gentle girl,” he said softly. “Kindness itself. Everyone loved her. Still miss her terribly.”
“How you must hate them!” Margaret said.
“Oh … I did, yes, for a time. Years, actually. Couldn’t keep it up, though. Like poison. Forgave them, finally.”
“How could you forgive them that?” Margaret said.
I had a sudden mental vision of that gentle, kindly woman leaving the surgery one night after working late. Of the jackbooted thugs who materialized from the darkness and confronted her, subjecting her then to the most hateful verbal abuse as they manhandled her, pushing and shoving her from one to the other before beating her to death.
“Bastards!” I said.
And that sentiment was still reverberating in my mind as I turned the Ford off the highway and into a parking bay fronting the late afternoon-shadowed, brown brick buildings of the Nundroo Motel.
“We’ll stay overnight,” I said as we went inside.
Later that evening, in our room, I was thankful for the twin beds. I lay on my back and tried to relax. Then, about to switch off the bedside light, I glanced across at Margaret who was turned away from me.
“That poor man,” she said suddenly.
“What …?”
“He forgave them … after what they did.”
“It was a long time ago,” was all I could say.
Margaret turned to face me, and I saw that she had been crying, her cheeks still tear-stained. She looked lost, somehow. Insignificant, under the covers. I felt an urge to reach out to her, to comfort her. But something, some shadowy residue of the recent past, held me back.
Then Margaret reached across the narrow space between the beds and placed her hand on my arm. Her grasp tightened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I felt the sudden sting of my own tears, and blinked my eyes defensively. But the moment was beyond my control and the tears came anyway.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said.
The words, like my tears, came of their own volition. And with them came a sweeping sense of relief, as though a great weight had been lifted from me.
I slept soundly that night, for the first time in a long time.
Then, as the noises of the motel coming to life penetrated the last vestiges of sleep, I woke and saw that Margaret was already up. I dressed quickly and went in search of her.
I found her in conversation with the motel manager. She was holding Charles Mortimer’s Gladstone bag.
“ … and he went off earlier with that young couple,” the manager was saying. “The woman had apparently offered him a lift but the man was against it, and your friend just stood there waiting for them to sort it out.” He smiled. “They were at it, hammer and tongs, but she must have won the argument, because they took him with them in the end.”
He was staring at the Gladstone bag.
“Funny thing, that,” he said, frowning. “I thought for a moment your friend had a bag just like that. Probably not. Haven’t seen one of those for fifty years. My dad had one. Amazing coincidence if I got to see two of them on the same day.”
Later, settled in the Ford and about to depart, I noticed that Margaret was nursing the bag on her lap.
“Hadn’t we better check the contents?” I suggested.
“I already did,” Margaret said. “It’s empty. But there’s an identification tag inside with a name and address on it.”
“Really? What does it say?“
Margaret opened the bag and read from the tag.
“Dr. Charles Mortimer, Klassenstrasse 48, Berlin.”
“Should we try to return it?” I asked.
Margaret looked at me quizzically, as though perplexed by my question.
Then she smiled, for the first time in a long time.
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. I think he meant us to hang on to it. As a memento.”
“Right,” I said, and headed the Ford out onto the highway toward Ceduna.
This story was originally written for a local Western Australian audience. However, if the place names are taken at face value, or even simply ignored, I think the story may still have some merit.
A Million Miles from Anywhere
AS IT turned out he was a nice old man. But when we came across him first, Margaret was paranoid about picking him up. Perhaps, if the truth were known, I was a little wary myself. I guess that’s the way it is these days.
We were more than half-way between Nullabor and Yalata, and after that still a couple of hundred kilometres from Ceduna, with nothing but shimmering heat and desert between us and the horizon in every direction.
I glanced at Margaret now and then and wished to God she’d go to sleep. But she just sat there sulking, beside and yet remote from me, tense and angry and unforgiving.
Well, she wasn’t alone in that. I was unforgiving too. We’d said some dreadful, unforgivable things to each other, dredging up the past on both sides.
Our trip to Perth for the wedding of our only daughter had been a disaster: fisticuffs among the guests, a lawsuit looming over damage to the venue, our daughter hysterical and abusive, Margaret and I embroiled in a bitter argument over our return travel arrangements.
And there he was, suddenly, this solitary figure standing by the roadside in the middle of nowhere, a million miles from anywhere. What at a distance had looked like a small suitcase at his feet turned out to be a weathered Gladstone bag.
“What are you doing?” Margaret said in alarm as the Ford started to slow. They were the first words she’d spoken since we left Eucla. I heard the panic in her voice.
“We can’t just leave him there,” I said. “Look at him. He’s just an old man.”
“No!” Margaret snapped. “We agreed. You promised.”
“For God’s sake,” I said. “What’s he going to do to you?
He’s just an old man.”
A tall, stoop-shouldered old man, with deep-set eyes of palest blue, almost grey, and the hint of a smile in them. Short grey hair with just a glimpse of scalp showing through. Neat moustache above a firm mouth. Strong hands, well cared for, delicately blue-veined.
He was smartly dressed for an old man hitching a ride in the desert. His dark suit was of a style not much seen these days: hand-stitched lapels on the double-breasted jacket, turnups on the trousers. A plum-coloured pocket handkerchief matched his tie. He could have been an elderly company director on his way to a board meeting.
“Ceduna?” I asked him as he settled in behind us. Margaret moved nervously beside me.
“Very kind of you,” he said. Then, by way of introduction, “Charles Mortimer. Most appreciative. Quite warm out there.” He had a clipped English accent straight out of one of those old Ealing movies.
“Been waiting long?” I asked, as I pulled the Ford back onto the highway. I was not being facetious.
“Not too long.”
“Do you mind if I ask you,” I said as the Ford picked up speed, “what you were doing out here, just standing by the roadside in the middle of nowhere?”
“Not at all,” he said.
Then he laughed, a musical sound of pure enjoyment.
“Oh, I see. Yes, very odd. Actually, I’d not long been put down where you found me by some natives. Headed off across the desert after they’d dropped me.”
“Aborigines,” I said. “You’re English, aren’t you?”
He coughed slightly and I sensed that he was smiling.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “very much so. Born and bred.”
“Yalata up ahead,” Margaret said. “We need to stop.”
But the Yalata Roadhouse, haven for weary travellers passing both eastward and westward, was closed for repairs. Re-opening in about 12 months, a notice informed us.
Margaret’s frustration was palpable.
“Nundroo’s only fifty kilometres away,” I said helpfully. “We’ll be there in half an hour.” The Ford, I knew, would eat up the distance, and once again I was thankful for its eight cylinders.
I glanced at Charles Mortimer’s reflection in the rear vision mirror.
“Been out here long?” I asked.
“Just a brief visit. Back to Europe, shortly.”
“My brother’s in Germany,” I said. “ Bensheim. He’s a teacher in a girl’s school.”
“Ah, Germany.”
“You know it?” I asked.
“Very well,” Charles Mortimer said. “Resident there before the war. Young doctor, in those days …”
“A doctor?” Margaret broke in, her voice sharp with disbelief.
“Oh, yes. Small practice in Berlin. Took German in London, got my degree from Heidelberg. Married a German girl."
“Were you there during the war?” Margaret asked, still skeptical.
“Oh, no. Got out in thirty-eight. Couldn’t stay.”
“You could see war was coming?” I suggested.
“That, too. But … my wife died."
“Oh,” Margaret said.
“They murdered her.”
“What …?” Margaret said. “Who did? My God!”
“I was in another town overnight. Got back about midday and found her on the pavement outside the surgery. Someone had hung a sign round her neck. No-one would touch her body after that … “ He paused briefly.
“They took our son, too. Picked him up from a friend’s house the same day. Never saw him again.”
“Oh, my God!” Margaret said.
“There was no redress, no justice,” Charles Mortimer continued, as if in answer to our unspoken questions. “There was no use complaining. They were all complicit, you see, in what was going on. Right up to the top.”
“Your wife …’ I started to say.
“She was Jewish,” Charles Mortimer said simply. “Marriage to me saved her for a bit, but they warned her to stay away from the surgery. She kept coming …” He broke off.
“Lovely, gentle girl,” he said softly. “Kindness itself. Everyone loved her. Still miss her terribly.”
“How you must hate them!” Margaret said.
“Oh … I did, yes, for a time. Years, actually. Couldn’t keep it up, though. Like poison. Forgave them, finally.”
“How could you forgive them that?” Margaret said.
I had a sudden mental vision of that gentle, kindly woman leaving the surgery one night after working late. Of the jackbooted thugs who materialized from the darkness and confronted her, subjecting her then to the most hateful verbal abuse as they manhandled her, pushing and shoving her from one to the other before beating her to death.
“Bastards!” I said.
And that sentiment was still reverberating in my mind as I turned the Ford off the highway and into a parking bay fronting the late afternoon-shadowed, brown brick buildings of the Nundroo Motel.
“We’ll stay overnight,” I said as we went inside.
Later that evening, in our room, I was thankful for the twin beds. I lay on my back and tried to relax. Then, about to switch off the bedside light, I glanced across at Margaret who was turned away from me.
“That poor man,” she said suddenly.
“What …?”
“He forgave them … after what they did.”
“It was a long time ago,” was all I could say.
Margaret turned to face me, and I saw that she had been crying, her cheeks still tear-stained. She looked lost, somehow. Insignificant, under the covers. I felt an urge to reach out to her, to comfort her. But something, some shadowy residue of the recent past, held me back.
Then Margaret reached across the narrow space between the beds and placed her hand on my arm. Her grasp tightened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I felt the sudden sting of my own tears, and blinked my eyes defensively. But the moment was beyond my control and the tears came anyway.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said.
The words, like my tears, came of their own volition. And with them came a sweeping sense of relief, as though a great weight had been lifted from me.
I slept soundly that night, for the first time in a long time.
Then, as the noises of the motel coming to life penetrated the last vestiges of sleep, I woke and saw that Margaret was already up. I dressed quickly and went in search of her.
I found her in conversation with the motel manager. She was holding Charles Mortimer’s Gladstone bag.
“ … and he went off earlier with that young couple,” the manager was saying. “The woman had apparently offered him a lift but the man was against it, and your friend just stood there waiting for them to sort it out.” He smiled. “They were at it, hammer and tongs, but she must have won the argument, because they took him with them in the end.”
He was staring at the Gladstone bag.
“Funny thing, that,” he said, frowning. “I thought for a moment your friend had a bag just like that. Probably not. Haven’t seen one of those for fifty years. My dad had one. Amazing coincidence if I got to see two of them on the same day.”
Later, settled in the Ford and about to depart, I noticed that Margaret was nursing the bag on her lap.
“Hadn’t we better check the contents?” I suggested.
“I already did,” Margaret said. “It’s empty. But there’s an identification tag inside with a name and address on it.”
“Really? What does it say?“
Margaret opened the bag and read from the tag.
“Dr. Charles Mortimer, Klassenstrasse 48, Berlin.”
“Should we try to return it?” I asked.
Margaret looked at me quizzically, as though perplexed by my question.
Then she smiled, for the first time in a long time.
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. I think he meant us to hang on to it. As a memento.”
“Right,” I said, and headed the Ford out onto the highway toward Ceduna.