Chapter 8 A soundless collapse in so deep a void

A cool drizzle blows across my face. I am standing at the edge of the water, looking at the silos along the waterfront, their reflections in the water like a fairy palace. Amorphous green and white pieces of light floating in the grainy texture of the water ruffled by the breeze. The lights on the bridge still glowing as the sky grows paler. A white-faced heron is walking along the stone edge of the shore and in the water, a black cormorant. The orange lights burning from over the hill onto the viaduct.

Billie is sitting at Rini's computer. She picks up Rini's phone and dials Tan's number. No answer. Her dog, Tui, is lying on some of Rini's papers on the floor. His fur still slightly wet. Through the window there is the beach and a high surf pounding the sand. Billie is writing an e-mail to Rini who is in England for a conference.

There's a feeling of incipient panic in the air here. Disaster seems to loom close then recede. We're washed over by the media's orchestrated narrative of archetypal confrontation - The Boys thrash it out. But this time, an alternative story insists itself. The MUA leadership has come off better than the Liberal Party. Peter Reith looks more and more like the petulant private school boy he really is. The journalists often refer to Peter Costello's smile as a smirk. Like American politicians, they're all smiling while they speak (smiling as they retrench another few thousand workers).

The morale at the picket lines was high and lots of people went along to show support. And the waterfront workers are right to say that their case stands as a warning to all of us. There's a move in the Senate to stop organisations like Patrick's from restructuring their companies in order to rob people of their entitlements. But there's so much going on. More union confrontations are planned and the Coalition is totally gung ho.

The One Nation Party seems to be multiplying but it's just that the nature of its real network is now public knowledge. All those Larouche followers from the Citizens Electoral Council along with the Gun Lobby. It looks like they could get the balance of power in Queensland.

The conservative attack seems overwhelming when you consider the country as a whole. Everyone's worried that our own efforts won't be strong enough to counter theirs. They have such immense resources at their disposal. And Reith will have all the legal costs in his conspiracy trial paid for by the taxpayer.

•••••••••••••••••••

A piece from Tan:

The Europeans here are sitting on an island in a sea of coloured people. Maybe the old British dream of breeding out the Aboriginals was really born out of a projection of their own fears of dissolution.

Rini's partner, George, opened the door with two cups of coffee.

"Rini's worried that you're going to get into trouble over those stolen files," he said.

"They weren't stolen. I photocopied the stuff which was on paper and I copied the other files onto a disk. So the originals are not missing. I couldn't get them through freedom of information, so I copied them. That's all," replied Billie.

"So why did your boss interview you about stolen files?" asked George.

"Some files have gone missing from the same department but they're not the ones I copied," said Billie. "I was working on that floor of the building around the time they were stolen. They're clutching at straws. They know nothing about me."

Billie glanced at Rini's previous e-mail which was propped on the copyholder to refer to while she wrote. It started:

My head is full of other people's writing. Other people's phrases occur to me when I'm lying in bed or walking around the city. Like a giant collage of the reading I've done with all my own comments added in. Here, they have the same concerns as us: how can we privilege racism and multiculturalism as issues when the country's burning? They are saying it is justified for the reason that racism is on the increase as conditions worsen. And the Australian conservatives are displacing the blame for the consequences of their allies' economic (mis)management onto immigration and the unions. There is a relationship there. The economic policies of fascism can't be separated from its racist social policies.

Billie picked up the two mugs and walked with them to the kitchen followed by George and Tui.

"Maybe Rini's in danger as well," she said. "If she feels that some of the papers she has given have received negative reactions, maybe those reactions are directed specifically against her and what she's saying, not against her sources."

"You think that someone's after her?" asked George. "But it's you who've received all the threatening signs. Your black dog that was killed, the dog skin turning up, the hate letters, that hostile interview at work."

He opened the fridge door to put the milk away and shut it again quickly before Tui could get closer.

"It's not just me and Rini," said Billie, "what about all the other things that have happened to the members of our group in the last year? Ruby lost her job for no good reason. Danielle's car was vandalised - all the seats were ripped out. Someone got into Bibi's flat and went through all her papers without stealing anything. The Immigration Department has been hassling Karla. And everyone except Rini has received hate letters. It's got to be more than coincidence."

Billie pulled out two pieces of A3 paper from her shoulder bag. They were taped together and folded into A5. She walked into the lounge room where she spread them out on the coffee table.

"I've written everything down and I'm trying to find connections," she said to George.

George looked down at the diagram on the paper with its neat sections of handwriting, boxes, circles and arrows.

"The question is," said Billie, "if there is a systematic campaign against us, is it a government thing or a private initiative?"

The street was dark and wet outside Felix's warehouse. Wet brown leaves from the plane trees were stuck on the road and the footpath. Only a slight blur of light was visible through the pane of frosted glass in the door. Billie hesitated, then pressed the security buzzer. Felix spoke to her over the intercom but it was Alex who came to open the door.

Billie sat in a chair close to Felix in his private space, inspecting his injuries as he lay on his couch under a blanket. The three brothers, Alex, Leon and Peter were sitting opposite her on another lounge, all smoking and ashing into a large marble ashtray on Alex's knees. They looked awkward in Felix's plush environment with its hand-made fabrics, antique screens and soft lights embedded in the white terrazzo floor.

Felix had bruises on his face and the cast on his broken ankle was sticking out beyond the blanket.

"The burglars were inside the office when I came home," he said. "They tried to get into the strong room but they couldn't. I think they only hit me because they were worried that they wouldn't be able to get out. They stormed the door as I unlocked it."

"So everything's still in the safe?" asked Billie. "The antique rug? My artworks?"

"We thought the rug would be safe here," said Alex.

"There is a possibility that they weren't thieves," said Felix. "I've also been responsible for bringing a lot of migrants here. Sponsoring, arranging visas, work permits..."

"Bribing officials?" asked Billie.

"It's as difficult for a Filipino to come here today as it was twenty years ago," said Felix.

Then he looked down at Billie's thin wooden case beside her chair.

"Let's see the piece," he said.

"A gun?" asked Peter, looking terrified.

Billie fetched a small table and placed on it a number of objects made of wax. Ku Klux Klan figures as small as tin soldiers, a burning cross and a small person.

"They're ready for casting," said Billie. "They could be cast out of lead and painted like the original toy soldiers. Or they could be cast life-size, they could be made from bronze, plaster, fibreglass, glass even."

"What's the ordinary person for?" asked Leon.

"That person will be made from a different material from the rest of it. Imagine there is a city burning in the background, like the scene of Sodom and Gomorrah on your antique rug. And the person is a figure like Lot's wife. The Klan figures are burning a cross in a clearing and in the foreground, one figure turns away to look back at the peace and quiet of the virgin bush, at the quiet lagoon stretching far back into the forest. Intense quietness, intense stillness. And over the sand bar, the sand of the beach drops away sharply, hammered down by heavy surf. The figure looks back again and is silhouetted black in front of the light from the burning cross in the background. That's the installation version which would involve video projection as well."

"I'm going to call it One Klan."

While the others picked up and fingered the tiny cone-shaped Klan figures, Billie went to the phone to ring Tan again. Still no answer.

•••••••••••••••

An old woman was approaching along the darkening road. On one side of the road were poplars which had shed most of their golden and orange leaves. The mark of the European. On the other side of the road was a dense tangle of bush which included wattle trees already in flower. The woman took Billie's hand and led her into a casuarina forest and further on to the edge of a lagoon. They turned and continued walking along the shore of the lagoon and came to a shallow ravine. The clay was yellow underfoot and their boots picked up a thick yellow crust. The old woman pointed at the clay sides of the ravine, at an area which had eroded and collapsed in the recent rains. There, at a point where the yellow clay changed to white, were parts of skeletons and skulls, many small like the bones of children.

"The Klan has been here for two hundred years already," she said.

"A mass grave!" whispered Billie, waking from her dream and turning to reach across for Tan in her empty bed.

It was almost sunrise. The sky was full of fluffy pink clouds over the city. Billie put Tui in the back of the car and drove to Tan's house. The sky changed to grey and it started to rain heavily. Tan's car was not parked outside the residential where he lived but the front door of the old house stood open as usual. The back door could be seen at the end of the dark hallway. One of the shift-workers in the place was on their way out as Billie walked in. She went to Tan's door and let herself in with her own key. The room was empty except for the plastic light fitting, the blinds which were closed and the single mirror tile stuck on the wall above the corner sink. The room looked shabby but big without Tan's gear. Billie walked to the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Just above the mirror tile was the bumper sticker she had given Tan: Cleaners support the MUA.

 

 

 

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