Kal (13 page)

He did not like Fremantle, he decided, as he opened the door of the boarding house and walked down the passage and up the stairs to his room on the first floor. He would go south and cut timber until Rico joined him.

He turned on the light and looked in the small mirror above the washbasin in the corner. It was a bad cut. Deep, from the top of his cheekbone to his jawline. It could have been worse, though. Half an inch higher and he would have lost his eye.

He must stop the bleeding. He took off his bloodied shirt, ran cold water and sponged his face clean with a towel. For half an hour he sat with his head to the side, stemming the blood flow with the cold wet towel.

There were other scars on Giovanni's body—he had been in fights before. The mountain boy had grown up quickly on the docks of Genoa. There was still a boyishness in his looks but now, when the hazel eyes flashed brown in anger, it was a man's anger. The Genoese dockside workers had developed a healthy respect for Giovanni Gianni.

Giovanni did not like fighting, and avoided it when possible. But he did not like bullies. The tyranny of the
De Cretico brothers remained fresh in his mind. It had happened nearly five years ago, but it could have been yesterday. The fire in him burned when he thought of his crippled brother. Never again would he stand by and allow others to threaten him or his own. If they did, he would fight, and if they harmed one of his kin, he would seek vengeance.

The bleeding had stopped. The wound needed stitching. He took several swigs from the bottle of rough whisky on the shelf above his bed, then poured some of the liquor into the wound, grimacing as it burned the raw flesh. He must find a needle and thread.

He tore one of his work shirts, making sure it was a seam which could be easily mended—no sense in wasting good clothing. Then he donned his jacket and walked down the stairs and along the passage to the room at the front, carrying the torn shirt and holding a clean cloth against his cheek. He knocked on the landlady's door.

When Pat Forman, fat and forty and very lonely, saw the handsome young Italian standing there, shirtless, bare-chested beneath his jacket, her heart quickened slightly. She'd made it evident from the moment he'd applied for the room two weeks previously that she'd be happy to halve the rent for a little companionship.

‘A widow's life is a lonely lot,' she'd said. She thought that sounded very tasteful. ‘And you must be lonely too. A foreigner. Perhaps you'd like me to cook you a meal every now and then.' As a rule she didn't make ‘arrangements' with foreigners. Particularly not Italians. Dark, swarthy lot they were—always looked as if they needed a good wash. But this one didn't look Italian at all. With his fine-boned face and his soft brown curls, there was something quite boyish about him. He needed a mother she'd thought as she patted his arm.

Giovanni had recoiled. He did not understand what
she was saying—‘No
capisco
, no
capisco
, excuse,
scusi
' he'd said, backing away—but he knew very well what she was offering.

Pat had been disappointed, but it had happened to her before. And now here he was on a Sunday night, shirtless, at her door.

Before she could say anything Giovanni thrust the torn shirt at her. ‘
L'ago e filo
,' he said. ‘
L'ago e filo
. Per
favore
.'

‘What's the matter with your face?' she asked, pointing at the cloth he was holding to his cheek.

Giovanni draped the torn shirt over his shoulder, opened his mouth slightly, ignoring the flash of pain as he did, and tapped a finger against a tooth. ‘
Mi fa male il dente
.'

‘Ah, poor boy, come in, I'll give you some cloves to ease the pain.' She stood aside.

‘No, no,' Giovanni said and he smiled, hoping that the bleeding would not start again. ‘Is okay.
Lago e filo
.' He pointed to the shirt and mimed a sewing action. ‘
E forbeci
.' He mimed scissors. ‘
Per favore
.'

‘Oh you silly boy, give it to me and I'll mend it for you.' She leaned forward to take the shirt but Giovanni backed away.

‘No no!' he insisted forcefully. ‘
Lago e filo e forbeci. Per favore
.'

‘All right. All right.' Pat was offended. She was only trying to be helpful. She disappeared for a moment and returned with a needle and cotton.

‘
E forbeci
,' Giovanni insisted. Again he mimed a cutting action and again he smiled. ‘
Per favore
.'

Pat hurrumphed, but disappeared and returned with scissors.

‘
Grazie. Molto grazie
. Thank you.' Giovanni nodded and smiled and backed off rapidly, feeling his cheek start to bleed again.

Safely in his room, he once more stemmed the bleeding and then started methodically stitching up the wound.

As he dug the needle into his flesh, he thought about the girl. It was not the first time he had imagined seeing her. On several occasions, in the streets of Genoa, he could have sworn he had seen her. In the distance. He had run towards her only to discover that it was not the girl at all.

Giovanni pulled the cotton through his flesh. Keep thinking, keep thinking, he told himself. Take your mind off the pain. He dug the needle into the other side of the gash. The pain was intense. Keep thinking, keep thinking. And now here he was at the bottom of the world and he could have sworn, yet again, that he had seen the girl. It couldn't possibly have been her, of course. She had become a figment of his imagination, a foolish fixation, and he must put her out of his mind.

He unthreaded the needle, knotted the cotton and, in the mirror watched the edges of the gash in his cheek come together as he slowly tightened the knot. He dabbed the freshly oozing blood from his face with the damp towel and snipped the thread with the scissors. One stitch done. He must be careful to keep them even.

He gritted his teeth, dabbed again at the blood, and started on the second stitch. Twenty minutes later he tied the knot of the ninth and final stitch, images of the girl floating through his pain-filled daze. The girl from the mountain had followed him over the years. He'd seen her image in the streets of Milan and again in the dockside lanes of Genoa. Or he'd thought he had. And now she'd appeared to him again, the image of an angel amongst the snarling faces which had surrounded him in the tangled streets of Fremantle at the bottom of the world. Why did she haunt him?

Giovanni cut the cotton and lay down on the bed,
holding the towel against his face. He felt weak now, tired with the pain. He picked up his concertina and played gently to distract himself. The instrument was a little battered now but the sound it made was as sweet as ever. He felt himself start to relax.

He would not go back to the wharves tomorrow, he decided. He would rest for several days and then he would find a timbercutting job down south. He would leave Fremantle and wait for Rico to send him word as to when he would arrive with his family.

Giovanni smiled through his weariness. How glad he'd been when news had reached him of his brother's marriage, and how he'd laughed, when, six months later, Teresa had given birth to a son.

Soon after he had arrived in Genoa, Giovanni had found out that one of his workmates could read and write, a rarity amongst the dockworkers. For payment of a bottle of wine, this man would write letters for Giovanni and send them to the Santa Lena medico, who would then read them to the Gianni family. Then would come the reply, written by the medico, of course, and Giovanni would sit eagerly by as his workmate read him news of home. He marvelled now that all he had to do was send word to the medico from any telegraph office and his family would know where to reach him.

Giovanni remembered that final letter his friend had written for him. ‘Rico,' he had said, ‘have the medico send word to me at the telegraph office in Fremantle, Western Australia. I will be there in six months and I will wait for you to join me.' He would go to Australia, Giovanni decided, just as they had planned. And just as they had planned, he and Rico would dig for gold at the bottom of the world and they would become rich.

‘Giovanni!'

Above the hubbub of voices and the clatter of passengers disembarking Giovanni heard his name but, try as he might, he could not see his brother. Rico, Teresa, their two children, where were they? He stood on the wharf and looked up at the people leaning over the railings of the S.S.
Liguria
. His eyes scanned the faces of those jostling to find a place in the queue to the gangplank.

It was three years since Giovanni had left Italy. Three years before Rico had been able to join him. Teresa was once more with child, the medico's letter informed him. The clerk in the Donnybrook telegraph office read the letter out loud in the doctor's halting English.

Since he had left Fremantle, Giovanni had settled in the southern town of Donnybrook where the timbercutting contracts were plentiful. He had taught himself to speak adequate English and he had a convenient arrangement with the clerk, regularly paying the young man to correspond for him.

After the birth of her baby girl Teresa refused to travel until the child was two years of age, sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of a long sea voyage.

But, in early January of 1900, the letter Giovanni had been waiting for finally arrived. The handwriting was the
doctor's but this time the words were Rico's. Giovanni thrilled to the sound of his brother talking to him as the clerk read out the letter in his thin, monotonous voice.

‘The
new year
, Gio. The first year of a new century,' his brother said to him. ‘What a time to start a new life, yes? And in a new world. Everything we planned, you and I, everything we dreamed of, it will all come true.'

Giovanni returned to Fremantle, rented a room in his old boarding house, and waited impatiently for Rico's arrival. He looked at the telegraph daily, repeating the words he'd memorised and, each time, his brother's voice spoke to him more clearly. This was the brother of his boyhood speaking to him, the same vital, adventurous, irrepressible Rico.

‘Gio! Giovanni!'

He turned. Rico had been amongst the first half-dozen passengers down the gangplank, a five-year-old boy perched on his shoulders. Giovanni grinned. Of course, he should have known. Rico would never stand back and wait his turn.

‘Rico! Teresa!' He waved and stood back from the crowd, watching as his brother stepped off the gangplank onto the wharf. Behind Rico was Teresa, even taller and more handsome than Giovanni remembered. She had a little girl draped over one hip.

He tried not to look at his brother's legs as Rico walked towards him in an awkward, lurching gait, each stiffened leg kicked out to the side. It was a comical walk, the walk of a clown, the broad shoulders and massive barrel of his chest accentuating the deformity. Giovanni concentrated on Rico's face and kept his smile intact to hide his shock as he embraced his brother. But Rico knew.

‘I walk funny,
si
? Now I am a fool. Now they laugh at me.' He kissed his brother on both cheeks, the knees of the child on his shoulders digging into Giovanni's
chest. ‘But only once they laugh, Gio. Only once if they know what is good for them.'

Rico laughed himself. In his customary loud, bold fashion. But there was no humour in the laugh and there was a glassy warning in his eyes. Giovanni realised in that instant that he had been wrong. His brother had changed.

‘Teresa!' Giovanni embraced his sister-in-law. Her black hair had escaped her scarf and she smelled warm and feminine, reminding him that it had been a long time since he had been with a woman.

‘Giovanni,' she kissed him affectionately on both cheeks. ‘This is my daughter Carmelina. She is beautiful,
si
?' She lifted the two-year-old from her hip and thrust her at Giovanni who had no option but to take the child.

Giovanni was not accustomed to children and he held the infant at arm's length, but the little girl did not seem to mind at all. She clapped her hands at him and smiled fearlessly. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hold her to him as her tiny arms encirled his neck and her legs fought for a purchase.

Teresa refused to come to his rescue. ‘She is a good baby. You see? She loves you.' And she stood back proudly as the child settled itself upon Giovanni's hip.

Rico was obviously irritated by the sequence of introductions. ‘Your daughter, eh? What about my son. Hey, Giovanni, say hello to your nephew. This is little Enrico.' He leant over and the face of the five-year-old atop his shoulders was only inches from Giovanni's. ‘Enrico, this is your uncle Giovanni.'

Giovanni dutifully kissed the boy. ‘Come,' he said, ‘the sooner we collect your things the sooner we get through the customs.' He had checked the correct precedure before the vessel had docked and he hurried them through the throng of people. ‘I've booked you a room at my boarding house.'

 

T
HEY ATE EARLY
that night at a cheap restaurant not far from the boarding house. Little Carmelina dozed in the portable cot which Rico himself had made, and Enrico, exhausted, fell asleep over his food. Giovanni, Rico and Teresa ate with gusto despite the unimaginative meal.

‘Australians have no love of food,' Giovanni explained. ‘There is an Italian who has a shop near the town hall. I've bought some cheese and bread and salami for our supper. We will meet in my room and sing, eh?'

They sang and drank red wine well into the night, Teresa popping next door to regularly check on the sleeping children.

‘Ma n'atu sole

Cchiù bello, oi ne' …'

The brothers stood together in the centre of the room, Giovanni with his concertina in his hands, Rico with an arm around his shoulder, their voices raised in harmony. Teresa, sitting on the bed, laughed and clapped. ‘Bravo,' she cried and spilt her wine.

Around midnight the landlady started knocking on the door but Giovanni took no notice. He would worry about Pat Forman in the morning. Tonight was a night of joy. The Gianni brothers were reunited and they were singing as one, Teresa joining in the choruses.

‘O sole mio

Sta nfronte a te!'

It was strange how much shorter Rico seemed. Giovanni stood a good three inches taller. At first he presumed that he himself must have grown during their years apart. He knew his body had filled out but then he noticed that Teresa, too, was an inch taller than her husband. He noticed also that Rico's shoulders and chest, well-muscled as they had always been, were now massive, bull-like. Not merely because they were out of proportion to his wasted legs—his brother's whole body had changed since … A warning sounded in Giovanni's
head and he closed his mind to the De Cretico brothers. If he didn't, the hatred would consume him.

‘It's two o'clock in the morning,' Pat Forman yelled, knocking on the door for the fourth time.

‘O sole, 'o sole mio,

Sta nfronte a te,

Sta nfronte a te!'

They completed a final, rousing chorus and Giovanni at last opened the door to the frustrated landlady. ‘We finish now, Mrs Forman,' he said. ‘We finish, I promise.'

‘I want you to leave first thing,' she answered angrily. ‘First thing in the morning, you and your family, all of you. Out!'

Giovanni smiled as charmingly as he could. What was wrong with these Australians, he wondered, where was the song in them? ‘It is the first time I see my brother for seven years,' he said. ‘The first time I meet his children.'

‘I don't care. I want you out of here. All of you. Out.' Pat hadn't liked Rico and his family the moment she'd laid eyes on them late that afternoon. They looked too Italian, dark, swarthy. Nothing at all like Giovanni. She'd been so pleased when Giovanni had come back to the boarding house. He spoke English quite well now and was always polite to her when they met in the hall. And at night, when she'd hear him quietly singing along to his concertina, she enjoyed it. She sometimes fantasised that he was serenading her.

Giovanni shrugged and smiled again. ‘I am sorry. I am sorry that we keep you awake.' He would speak to her in the morning, when she was not so angry. He knew she had romantic inclinations towards him and he was quite sure he could persuade her to let them stay. If not, who cared. He would find another boarding house. But there would be no more evening singalongs until they
had a place of their own, he knew that much—the Australians had no music in their soul The sooner they went to the goldfields the better it would be for them all.

Teresa retired for the night and the brothers settled down to talk. Giovanni opened the bottle of whisky he had bought specially, poured some into a glass and offered it to Rico, who took a healthy swig. Giovanni waited for the gasp or the cough he presumed would follow, as he was sure Rico would not have drunk whisky before.

But his brother merely cleared his throat and gave a healthy growl of satisfaction. ‘Good.' He looked admiringly at the liquid in the glass. ‘That's good. Better than grappa and schnapps.'

Another change, Giovanni thought. Rico never drank hard liquor. Wine. Only ever wine. But of course that was years ago. When they were boys. Now they were men. He poured himself a hefty drink and raised his glass. ‘
Salute
,' he said and downed the whisky in one gulp.

They sat side by side on the narrow bed passing the whisky bottle between them and talking of their family.

‘Filomena to be married! She is a baby.'

‘She is nearly twenty,' Rico laughed. ‘She is a woman, and I tell you, Gio, she looks it.' He weighed his hand in the air. ‘Breasts like melons. For three years suitors have been sniffing around her like dogs. I told her if I ever caught her with one, I'd kill the both of them.'

‘And Mamma?'

‘Mamma is the same. Her hair is white now, but she is the same.'

They discussed their brothers and their friends and the village but, most of all, they discussed their father.

‘He is looking old.' Rico shook his head. ‘No, that is wrong. Not old. He is as strong as he ever was. He is
looking tired. Sad. It is the work, Gio. There is hardly any work. Your money has kept the family fine, you send more than enough, but you know Papa … He is a proud man. For his youngest son to support him …' Rico shrugged. ‘He looks sad.'

Rico stood and stretched. His spine was stiff, it was not comfortable for him to sit without support for his back. ‘Things are not good at home. It is the same all over Italy, they say. They told us in Genoa while we were waiting for the boat, that many Italians are leaving the country.'

He pulled the one and only straight-backed chair over to the bed and sat facing Giovanni. ‘Enough talk of sadness. We will get rich. So rich that we can bring Mamma and Papa and the whole family to Australia, eh? Mamma can live in a mansion and Papa can dig for gold with us.' He grinned infectiously, his black eyes sparkling, and Giovanni grinned back. They both knew Salvatore Gianni would die before he would leave his beloved homeland and the thought of their Mamma living in a mansion was ludicrous.

‘I have already saved enough to take us to the goldfields, Rico. All of us. You, me, Teresa, the children.' Giovanni sprang from the bed and started ferreting under the mattress. ‘We'll go to Kalgoorlie—where the big gold is. Look. Look at this.' He produced a bulky brown paper bag and proceeded to pull fists full of notes from it. ‘There is enough money here to get us started,' he continued excitedly. ‘I've been working two jobs down south ever since you told me you were coming. Look how much I have saved!'

Rico was impressed. ‘Good. That is good.'

‘Two more weeks in Fremantle, then we leave.'

‘And I'll work hard these two weeks and we'll make even more money,' Rico agreed as Giovanni stuffed the paper bag back under the mattress.

‘Our own house,' Giovanni said, settling himself back on the bed. ‘We'll rent our own house. No landlady. Our own house where we can sing together as loudly as we like.'

Rico nodded then, after a moment's silence, he leaned forward in his chair. ‘Now you tell me …' he stretched out his hand and, with one finger, gently traced the scar on Giovanni's cheek, ‘you tell me how you got this.' A mischievous smile played on his lips. ‘You've learnt how to fight at last, eh? The other man—did you kill him?' Giovanni shook his head. Rico's eyes widened in mock alarm. ‘Surely he didn't win?'

‘He ran away.'

Rico sat back in his chair, eased his stiffened legs out before him and laughed uproariously. When he'd calmed down he grabbed the whisky bottle, took several swigs and passed it to Giovanni. ‘So, gentle Gio has become a big tough man, eh? That is good.'

Giovanni felt obliged to take his turn with the bottle although he knew he'd had more than enough. Then, both feeling the effects of the alcohol, they sat in silence.

To Giovanni, the air seemed heavy with things unsaid. He sensed that Rico did not want to talk about the accident. That was the term he had used when they had discussed their plans for the fortnight when Giovanni would serve his notice at the dockyards. ‘I still work well,' Rico had said. ‘Since the accident I am very strong.' He patted his shoulders and chest. There had been a defiant bravado in his voice and Giovanni had merely nodded and agreed to speak to his foreman in the morning.

Giovanni picked up his concertina and started very gently to play the lullaby their mother used to sing to their baby sisters.

Rico smiled. ‘The concertina is looking old. You should buy a new one.'

‘The song it plays is still sweet.' Giovanni shrugged. ‘Besides, I'm going to buy a piano accordion one day.' Many a time he had saved enough to buy one but his guilt always prevented him. The music would be sour, he told himself, and sent the money to Rico and his family instead.

Rico quietly hummed along to the concertina as he studied his brother. He knew only too well that Giovanni could have bought a dozen piano accordions over the years, just as he could have lived in a fine house as opposed to this hole, had he not stinted himself for the sake of his family. But Rico said nothing. Giovanni had done the right thing—the family must come first, always.