Manuelzinho
(Elizabeth
Bishop 1911 - 1979)
Half squatter, half
tenant (no rent) –
a sort of
inheritance; white,
in your thirties now,
and supposed
to supply me with
vegetables,
but you don’t; or you
won’t; or you can’t
get the idea through
your brain –
the world’s worst
gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your
gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver
cabbages
with red carnations,
and lettuces
mix with
alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or it rains for a
solid week
and the whole thing’s
ruined again
and I buy you more
pounds of seeds,
imported, guaranteed,
and eventually you
bring me
a mystic three-legged
carrot,
or a pumpkin “bigger
than the baby.”
I watch you through
the rain,
trotting, light, on
bare feet,
up the steep paths
you have made –
or your father and
grandfather made –
all over my property,
with your head and back
inside
a sodden burlap bag,
and feel I can’t
endure it
another minute; then,
indoors, beside the
stove,
keep on reading a
book.
You steal my
telephone wires,
or someone does. You starve
your horse and
yourself
and your dogs and
family
among endless variety
you eat boiled
cabbage stalks.
And once I yelled at
you
so loud to hurry up
and fetch me those
potatoes
your holey hat flew
off,
you jumped out of
your clogs,
leaving three objects
arranged
in a triangle at my
feet
as if you’d been a
gardener
in a fairy tale all
this time
and at the word
“potatoes”
had vanished to take
up your work
of fairy prince
somewhere.
The strangest things
happen to you.
Your cow eats a
“poison grass”
and drops dead on the
spot.
Nobody else’s does.
And then your father
dies,
a superior old man
with a black plush
hat, and a moustache
like a spread-eagled
sea gull.
The family gathers,
but you,
no, you “don’t think
he’s dead.”
I give you money for
the funeral
and you go and hire a
bus
for the delighted
mourners,
so I have to hand over
some more
and then have to hear
you tell me
you pray for me every
night!
And then you come
again,
sniffing and
shivering,
hat in hand, with
that wistful
face, like a child’s
fistful
of bluets or white
violets,
improvident as the
dawn,
and once more I provide
for a shot of
penicillin
down at the pharmacy,
or
one more bottle of
Electrical Baby
Syrup.
Or, briskly, you come
to settle
what we call our
“accounts,”
with two old
copybooks,
one with flowers on
the cover,
the other with a
camel,
immediate confusion.
You’ve left out
decimal points.
Your columns stagger,
honeycombed with
zeros.
You whisper
conspiratorially;
the numbers mount to
millions.
Account books? They
are Dream Books.
In the kitchen we
dream together
how the meek shall
inherit the earth –
or several acres of
mine.
With blue sugar bags
on their heads,
carrying your lunch,
your children scuttle
by me
like little moles
aboveground,
or even crouch behind
bushes
as if I were out to
shoot them!
- Impossible to make
friends,
though each will grab
at once
for an orange or a
piece of candy.
Twined in wisps of
fog,
I see you all up
there
along with Formoso,
the donkey,
who brays like a pump
gone dry,
then suddenly stops.
- All just standing,
staring
off into fog and
space.
Or coming down at
night,
in silence, except
for hoofs,
in dim moonlight, the
horse
or Formosa
Between us float a
few
big, soft, pale-blue,
sluggish fireflies,
the jellyfish of the
air ….
Patch upon patch upon
patch,
Your wife keeps all
of you covered.
(forearmed is forewarned)
your pair of
bright-blue pants
with white thread,
and these days
your limbs are draped
in blueprints.
You paint – heaven
knows why –
the outside of the
crown
and brim of your
straw hat.
Perhaps to reflect
the sun?
Or perhaps when you
were small,
your mother said,
“Manuelzhino,
one thing; be sure
you always
paint your straw
hat.”
One was gold for a
while,
but the gold wore
off, like plate.
One was bright
green. Unkindly,
I called you
Klorophyll kid.
My visitors thought
it was funny.
I apologize here and
now.
You helpless, foolish
man,
I love you all I can,
I think. Or I do?
I take off my hat,
unpainted
and figurative, to
you.
Again I promise to
try.
Phil’s Story
Probably
the name wasn’t always Chorusch,
Probably
once was Choruschnenko, or
Choruschnekov
or something …. avsky.
Phil’s
father was Russian before the war,
Then
could never be Russian again, a prisoner
When he
should have heroically killed himself,
So he
becomes a refugee and ends up in Australia
That’s
how I know Phil.
We’re
practically the same age.
He was
born in 1955.
Time
enough for his father to do work for the Americans,
Driving
a Colonel’s wife all over Europe on a
sight-seeing tour,
Fall in
love with a Hungarian girl, and
Escape
the mess that Europe was,
Escape
to the other side of the world.
Whatever
Phil’s father thought then of Hungarian women,
I’m
sure he was to revise it.
They
met in Germany
She
must have already had children,
A
daughter at least,
Because
when they came to Australia
In
those days, who knows what you might do to have yourself survive.
Phil’s
mother was a survivor,
She
didn’t talk about the war,
Neither
did his father
Except
for a large scar on his thigh,
Where
Phil reckons a bullet must have hit him from behind, and
Exploded right out the front of
his leg.
He
remembers the scar,
And he
remembers how the prisoners would have to run,
From
one wire surrounded compound,
Through
a narrow wire race to another wire compound,
And as
they ran through the race,
Food
was thrown down at them,
Bread
and meat and vegetables, and
They
had to grab at it on the run,
And if
somebody bent down to pick up off the ground,
Or
stumbled, then they would be trampled to death.
That’s
how it was then,
It’s
just how it was.
He put
it behind him.
Got a
job at the BHP,
Got a
loan for a house in Cardiff
Grew
beautiful vegetables in the back yard, and
Fathered six children in as many
years.
Phil
counts them on his fingers, one for every year
Himself
in 1955, ‘56, Stephenie in ‘57, 1958, ‘59, and
Then
there was his youngest brother Alan.
Looking
at it, Phil figures his father had sex only six times.
You
couldn’t say his mother wasn’t fertile
But
fertility can be to do with motherhood, and
Then it
can be to do with promiscuity and the grog, and
The
temptation of having fun.
It
seems that’s how it might have been with Phil’s mum.
They
lived next door to a woman whose husband was in the merchant marine,
BHP
ships, Iron Duke or Iron Monarch, Iron Chief, something like that.
The
husband was away at sea for months at a time,
And his wife entertained dozens
of blokes,
Introduced
to the kids as ‘uncle’,
Got
mixed up with it all and got bored with her own life,
And her
own dull husband,
Trudging
in to the steelworks each day.
Who
knows when she decided to do something about it, or
How
long she took to set it all up.
Phil
reckons she must have had people helping her.
He was
nine years old, 1964
Alan
would have been only three or four.
This
woman picks a day when her husband leaves for work,
Then
she packs everything up in the house,
Sells
off furniture, has people come around to pick stuff up,
Stores
stuff in her neighbour’s garage,
Strips
the house completely bare,
Leaves
an empty peanut butter jar on the kitchen sink,
With a
note, THIS IS SO YOU DON’T DIE OF THIRST.
Phil
says months later,
He saw
the huge Hornby train set that he got for Christmas,
In the
window of a Newcastle
This
woman then takes her six children,
And
drops them off,
At a
Church of England home for abandoned children,
In
Mayfield.
Six
kids aged nine to three,
Taken
from their family home,
With no
explanation, no possessions, no favorite toy,
Standing
on disinfected tiles in the hallway,
Of a
big old institutional mansion,
While
matronly women fuss,
Soothe and speak softly to
mummy,
As they
stand between,
And
usher her quickly down the stone steps.
Then
the old women trying to make it exciting and fun,
As they
entice the little clutch,
To come
and see where they will be staying and sleeping,
And
there’s a drink for everyone,
And
something to eat,
Though
it isn’t morning tea or even lunch time,
Pacifiers,
just like in the POW camps.
Phil
doesn’t know what his father thought when he got home,
The
cleaned out furnishings and possessions fairly obvious,
But
what about the children, where were they?
Where
had she taken them?
I
wonder at Phil, why his father can’t go to the police and report them as
missing,
And be
told where his children are,
Phil
reminds me that it’s not how they did things in those days,
If a
woman reported domestic violence to the police,
Then
that was it,
The
Police would protect the woman,
Tell
the man to piss off,
Leave her alone, or else.
Apparently,
Phil’s mother had reported abuse in the past,
This is
where the lines can get blurry.
Was
there violence?
Phil
can remember his father losing it a couple of times,
Yelling,
arguing, if that’s what violence is.
Phil
says his mother reported being hit on the head with an axe,
She was
helping in the garden,
Kneeling
down holding a garden stake,
While her husband hammered it in
with the axe.
That’s
when, Phil says in his father’s defence,
The axe
head came loose off the handle and fell on the woman’s head,
An
accident,
Be that
as it may, if you’re kneeling with your back turned toward somebody,
And
they’re swinging an axe,
And
then the axe strikes you on the head,
Then
maybe it does make you think.
Of
course Phil’s father doesn’t know if it’s because of the axe incident,
That
the authorities won’t tell him what’s became of his children,
That
they’re split up and scattered in C of E children’s homes,
The
younger ones having been taken to a home in Taree by this stage,
Leaving
Phil and his brother in the home in Mayfield.
Phil’s
father simply walks away,
Falters
on the loan on the house, loses it
And
ends up having to live in a cheap rented room of a friend.
He goes
to work each day at the steelworks in Mayfield,
And
each day Phil and his brother walk the same few blocks,
From
the children’s home to attend Mayfield primary school,
And
back home again.
Phil
says he can’t complain,
They
were treated well in the home,
Not
like you hear what happened in some of the Catholic homes.
There
were twenty-four boys in Mayfield,
All
around the same age,
Always
plenty to eat,
And
Phil figures they must have got colour television before anybody else ever did
Still,
it wasn’t family.
Then
one day out of nowhere but hope,
Phil
and his father come face to face.
It happens in Crebert Street
On an
ordinary day,
Phil is
dragging his schoolbag to school,
His
father is driving to work,
Phil
recognizes the family car,
The
father recognizes his son,
I try
to imagine what that chance meeting must have been like,
The
joy, the feeling of rescue,
But
Phil doesn’t remember it like that,
He says
you have to understand,
He had
been in the home for quite awhile now,
Had gotten used to it,
And he
didn’t know the circumstances of how he had got there,
What
part his father had played in the conspiracy,
Whether
his father knew they were there at all.
You can
only cry when you know somebody loved you,
And is
lost desperate in their search to find you,
But
Phil doesn’t know anything.
So he’s
standing on the sidewalk in Crebert
Street
Watching
his dad climb out of a car, walk towards him,
And
neither of them cry,
My mind
races, thinking of final rescue,
Phil
gets bundled into the car and whisked away, surely,
Why
couldn’t it be like that?
Phil
said it couldn’t because his dad had nowhere to take him,
And
anyway, he just couldn’t take him like that, kidnap him.
He had
to be careful, the authorities, you know,
It
wasn’t like it is today,
that’s
just how it was,
says Phil.
J. O. White
J. O. White
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