prose

Women in Dark Town

Story 1

Strawberry May dreamt the future. She could see things in someone’s aura, could pinpoint disaster, even know a baby’s name before its christening. Often on her séance or Taro nights, acquaintances gulped, hand over mouth, dumbstruck by her revelations. Her daughter Tarwater could not understand either of these things, or why her mother made sudden jumps against a door in fright. Tarwater hadn’t spoken a word since birth. The old woman believed in the spirits, but the mysteries of the body had stumped her. The intellect was something she could lock into, and certain kinds of intelligentsia like authors and their books were especially attractive. Often Dickens, Woolfe and Eliot would fall out of her bookcase, telling her something. She tuned in to Hemingway and Faulkner and with female authors who wrote about the daily struggles with a disabled daughter. It was Flannery O’Connor’s The Life You Save Might Be Your Own that proved real to her. She was that old woman, with no husband, trying to raise a weakling of a daughter, and like Lucynell would not give her up for any casket of jewels. No matter how many times she had called on the spirits for help, or how hard she rubbed potions on Tarwater’s arms, or mouthed words into her daughter’s thirty-year-old face, nothing came. And like the old lady in O’Connor’s story, Strawberry worried about who would take care of Tarwater after she was dry bones in a leafless ground.

In the darkness of their hotel room, with Tarwater sound asleep, Strawberry thought about her asbestos cottage back home, her aviary and nextdoor collecting her mail. She thought about her last working night, that poor woman's grieving whimper. Tun and Costos, her Timorese neighbours had shuffled their friend in that night asking for a special séance for poor sweet Maria Reinado. Maria had sat twisting her scarf, this way and that, waiting to hear Alfredo’s voice, but nothing came.

Story 2 - A Resourceful Woman

Now on their two week holiday in Dili, Strawberry never made the connection. She didn't read newspapers, nor did she own a television believing that its hollow efforts interfered with the spirits. By all accounts she was ignorant of world news. On the plane, however, the passengers had been warned of the recent uprising; rebels shooting Dr Jose Ramos-Horta. Three bullets, they reported, had stamped their mark, one lodging deep into his lung. The old woman had often helped young men recover from gunshot wounds. Unlawful though her operations were, they were usually victims of some criminal activity. They were tense times, hand wringing days of watching someone in pain. Her sympathetic bones feeling her own pain from a recent hip operation. The age thing terrifed her. She held a view that she was still young, at least in her head; still wearing seventies' spurs and jangles, her hair long slung back to her waist. She wore flowers under large shell clips, played music from an era she never wanted to leave.

'Tarwarter,' she said, knowing she'd get that sloping smile, 'we have a job to do, and you're going to help me.'

A sly look came over Tarwater's face. Brilliant! She knows the routine now, thought Strawberry. They would dismiss them at first, especially burning matches towards someone’s skin. But she had the usual plan, producing testimonials of praise from successful patients. Convincing the Australian army medics that she could extract the bullet swiftly from the President was going to be harder, but time was brimming like a full bucket. Better to patch up this Nobel Prize winner quickly than to lose him for all time.

Before putting her plans into place, Strawberry made one more call to her brother. She almost wished she could forget him, and in spite of previous ugly calls this time she told him she didn't want that long climb into the hills on some zany rescue mission. She was busy, in town of course, and certainly there was no automobile heading towards his village.

'I'll pay for a car,' he said. 'And bring me two cartons of cigarettes, groceries and some blankets. There's nothing up here, the rebels have taken the lot.'

'I've been told to wait three days, Craten. What about your vegetable garden?'

'I can't live on turnips. I need meat, chicken. I'm not much good at walking anymore. I've...I've put on weight.'

It had shocked Strawberry the last time she waved goodbye to him at the airport. A drifting soul, he'd grown large with his voracious appetite. In the airport lounge he drank a litre of Coke, smoked cigarettes, and scoffed a box of doughnuts. Strawberry scolded him for being such a sloth. One of the seven deadly sins, recently added to the Catholic list by the Pope. ‘What would the Pontiff think?’ she said, and now discussing his problem over the telephone, she added. ‘Man, I don’t know what I can do. Perhaps what you really need is a beating on that big fat rump of yours.’

It was a tricky time, especially since Strawberry felt the tension between Saturn and Uranus just after the eclipse. Here she was in a different hemisphere, with new tensions resisting her harmonious way of helping others. And with the tight security in Dili, and daily curfew from 8pm til 6am, she was already feeling restless being told to stay put. She needed a car arranged, not animals. ‘Don’t even take donkeys,' the authorities told the women. 'They will snatch them out from underneath you. Remain in the hotel.’

It was time for more wringing of her bony hands. Craten's last words of 'cigarettes' and 'chocolate' flinging themselves around in her head.

So, a little time to kill, a little bullet to lift. Strawberry patted the head of the sweetest girl in the world. That evening she rang the Colonel. Instead of talking about Craten's predicament, she indicated that she was a friend of Dr. Ramos-Horta in Australia and wanted to see him. 'Mother is going to help a panther, before a feral, pudgy cat,' she said, creasing her face into a wink.

She rooted in her suitcase for the box. Ah, that beautiful teal box, coated in sequins, dried crab shells from the Adriatic. It was full of homemade potions, tin-foils, dried chicken legs, soft clay marbles, and four blue & white evil eyes. Strawberry liked working with her evil eyes, focusing the first one straight into the mirrored image of her patient. The marijuana, grown in her home garden, was used for medical purposes she told the families. Of course, it was disguised in such a dry paste it was like chewing gum, but without the minty taste, more like aniseed. She'd slipped that in.

That evening, Strawberry May and Tarwater entered the compound with the secret code given to her by the Colonel.

Soldiers engulfed every passageway and foyer. Strawberry jingled her bracelets, waving at them. 'Get out of the way. You're like a group of vultures, hanging around. Move, move, the poor Doctor has no room to breathe.'

After ten minutes of laying out her karmic lines, potions from the box, and brushing Ramos-Horta's forehead with a chicken leg, the door opened stiffly. Colonel Natches stepped in, blustering at the top of his voice, threatening the old woman with resounding accusations of hocus-pocus.

'You are devil woman. Jose never been to Perth, only living in Sydney. What kind of trickery are you causing us, devil woman?'

In the mist of false tears, the old woman lifted her suitcase, grabbing hold of her disabled daughter. 'Fifty seven years,' she said, 'and I get accused of coming from the devil. I am a healer Colonel, Sir, whatever your name is. You have no right to accuse me of anything untoward. What a faithless creature.'

Two men in green overalls and peaked caps marched in and descended on the two ladies, picking them up by their collars, and shuffling them through the doorway.

'I want my potions, and chicken leg back or you'll rue the day you messed with Strawberry May Alcock,' she yelled, wriggling her right shoulder back and forth, trying to escape the man's clutch.

They were driven back to the hotel, and put under guard. The hotel Manager was instructed to keep track of their movements, to call the police if he suspected the women were heading back to the compound.

Strawberry, now with the colour extracted from her face, billowed her skirts around the room like a flapping tent on a windy night. 'The nerve. What a bleeding nerve,' she said, bending over Tarwater, soaping herself in the bath. 'I've never been so insulted in all my days. What a monstrous way to treat a lady, about to do some good. He'll die by the time they get him to Darwin. Oh, I hate to think what his family is going through.'

Strawberry muttered the words 'black, black days' as she paced around the bathroom, picking up discarded clothes. She noticed Tarwater was blowing bubbles in the air, not taking any notice of her anxiety.

'You don't know, do you?' she said, 'You poor, sweet child.'

There was a knock on the door, which made Strawberry nearly trip on the mat. 'Did you hear that, Tarwater? Oh, perhaps they've come to arrest us.'

'Madam!' came a raised voice. 'I have a nice bottle of wine for you.'

Strawberry opened the door at the sound of the Manager telling her it was a South Australian wine, very good. 'Help you sleep a lot,' he smiled, handing her the bottle in an ice bucket. And behind him, he turned, wheeling in a trolley of wine glasses, biscuits and cheese.

'Oh, you are a lovely man,' she said. 'Thank you. Thank you, Mr Tibos. You know, I only wanted to save your President's life.'

'Yes, yes, but you better start thinking of your brother now. He's in dangerous territory. Goodnight Mrs.'

Strawberry and Tarwater arrived in the mountain village after a tedius and bumpy journey. They sat fanning themselves in Craten's front room that overlooked the valley. Tarwater had slumped down in a large cane chair, while Strawberry remained stiff in an old wooden upright. 'I've got a massive backache, Craten. They shoved us in the back of that old truck. No seats, no cushions. Just your box of groceries to sit on.'

'I was dying for a fag, thanks,' he said, the red ember of his cigarette glowing in the dark room.

'Well it's a long way to come, but I suppose I have to help my youngest brother. You know you could do with eating less. Whacha go and put on those extra kilos for. Now you can't walk outa here.'

'I don't want to leave. I like it here, except for the rebels causing trouble, scaring all the villagers off. They took one look at me, laughed, then left. Or, maybe it's because I pointed old Bertha at them.'

'They could have shot you. Story goes they shot poor Dr. Ramos-Horta.'

'I know, it's all over the hills, and Reinado dying. Fool! Who did he thing he was, the Terminator,' chuckled Craten.

'Well, before I tell you something about his wife, first things first. Have you got any?'

'Some. It's just starting to bud. We could try it later if you like.'

'Good, good. I'm not coming all this way for nothing. Oh, look Tarwater's asleep, God love her.'

Craten picked up Tarwater and placed her on a tattered sofa. There you go girl, nice and soft, and you all tired out from the ride. She said anything more than grunts lately?' Craten looked down at her serene face, as white as an angel.

'Na, nothing. But she's no trouble. She's learnt a few things though. Oh, haven't we all.'

'What's the story about Reinado's wife?'

'She's only living nextdoor, with Tun and Costas Alves. They're her aunt and uncle.'

'Small world. Talk around here is, that woman had a competitor. Alfredo liked the women.'

'You know Maria was strange when they brought her over to meet me. I wasn't gonna baulk, especially being paid $200, but she was nervous the whole time. At first I put it down to being scared she wouldn't be able to contact her husband. But she left in an awful hurry, saying it wouldn't work. I'm just starting to put two and two together. Anyway, how do you know all this stuff? You getting carrier pidgeons up this way?'

'No. Here, look at this.' Craten led Strawberry into his bedroom and pointing to the wall showed her his shelved radio, tv & video player. 'All mod cons,' he said. 'It's no longer the backwaters. I keep in touch with whatever's happening in Dili, the world, even Perth.'

'So what am I doing here, Craten. You don't seem to have any problems.'

'I have. One. I bought this place from a man called Salos, just a cash transaction. He was taking his family to Baucau to look for work. Something went wrong, now he's living with the refugees further down the hill. Of course, he wants his house back.'