Washerwoman's Dream Read online

  ‘I’m too tired to go for a walk.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. Come with me and be my wife.’

  ‘But I can’t. I can’t just walk out like that. Who will do the work?’

  ‘They’ll find someone else. I have watched. You have worked too hard. You must come to me. I have waited a long time.’ He folded her in his arms and she began to weep. ‘Come,’ he said, and led her out the door. ‘I will fetch your things tomorrow.’

  Winifred hesitated, glancing back at the flowers that glowed on the table beside the lamp, hardly knowing what was happening. In her heart she knew that she wanted to be with him. He saw her gazing at the flowers and took her hand and put it to his lips. ‘There will be other flowers.’

  Later, she was to remember the night breeze, cool on her skin, and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the hard-baked road. The moon had not yet risen. She had nodded off and woke with a start when he stopped the horse outside his shop. He got out and lifted Winifred down, holding her close for a few seconds. She could feel her heart beating faster as he released her. He spread a blanket in front of his door and said, ‘Wait here, beloved, while I tend to my horse.’ Then he unhooked the hurricane lamp from the side of the cart and hung it on a nail outside the shop.

  She watched as he unsaddled the horse and led it into a shed, then returned holding a tin trunk which he opened, spreading the contents on the blanket. There was a pair of baggy white silk pants and a black waistcoat embroidered with red and yellow flowers. ‘My wedding garments,’ he said. And then he handed her a dress of soft white silk. ‘First we must bathe and then ask Allah to bless our union.’

  Winifred went into the kitchen and in the darkness sponged her body with cool water; then she pulled the dress over her head, marvelling at the softness of the silk against her naked body. There was the aroma of sandalwood and the air smelt fresh and clean. For a while she stood there, listening to the noises of the night — a frog croaked in the creek, a cricket chirped and a bird called as it flew overhead. The enormity of what she had done overcame her. She had run away with a man she hardly knew, a man who might be unkind to her, a man who might not really love her.

  She went to the door of the shop. Ali was standing there beside the lamp looking into a mirror as he wound a length of white silk around his head to form a turban. He had changed into his wedding garments and she thought how handsome he looked. He moved towards her, holding out a string of gold coins which he fastened around her neck. Then he took a length of shimmering cloth embroidered with gold thread and draped it over her head and shoulders, covering her face. ‘My little bride,’ he whispered. ‘You are more beautiful than life itself.’ He took her by the right hand and led her to the blanket which he had decorated with yellow and white paperdaisies. Around it he had placed lighted sticks of incense, one at each corner, and wisps of smoke curled lazily upward. The breeze had dropped and the air was still and warm, fragrant with sandalwood.

  Ali spread the prayer rug beside the blanket. The lamp hanging on the wall cast a circle of light and beyond it stretched the bush, dark and mysterious. Winifred had the feeling that they were the only two people in the whole world. He stood beside her and with his arms raised above his head called, ‘Allah akbar.’ Then he gently pulled her down until she knelt beside him. She watched as he prostrated himself, calling aloud in words she did not understand. When he had finished he turned and took her by the hand. ‘Allah, I thank thee for giving me this woman. I will care for her and guide her in the true faith so that she becomes a true daughter of Islam.’

  He rose and extinguished the lamp. In the darkness she sensed him moving towards her. ‘Salaam alaikum,’ he whispered and lifted her veil.

  She was to remember that night with wonder. She had given birth to four children and been married for eight years, yet had never experienced such tenderness. For the first time in her life she felt herself truly loved.

  The moon rose sometime in the night and she woke and raised herself on her elbow to gaze at Ali, her husband. He lay beside her, sleeping gently, moonlight shining on his face. She bent and kissed him softly on the forehead and he stirred in his sleep but did not wake. Suddenly she was afraid. She knew that if she ever lost him it would be more than she could bear. ‘Allah,’ she whispered. ‘Keep my Ali safe.’

  * * *

  For Winifred life with Ali was a tranquil existence. For the first time she was living with someone who loved her and whom she loved in return. Ali was always up before dawn to recite his prayers as the sun rose, spreading his prayer rug on the damp grass and turning to face Mecca, while she lay in bed half asleep, dozing until she noticed that he was not beside her. When she heard the sound of splashing she knew that he was washing himself before he began to pray, and she thrilled to the sound of his soft lilting voice as he prayed aloud, thinking that it sounded like music with the birds singing in the background. The only word she understood was Allah. But she was learning to say the prayers, disconcerted when Ali told her that men and women did not pray together.

  ‘If we lived in my country you would stay behind the curtain with the other women. Only the women of the household and your husband would see your face. If you went to the market you would wear a yashmak and someone would go with you.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t like that,’ she frowned.

  ‘It is a matter of honour.’ Seeing that she was disturbed, he took her hand in his and held it to his lips. ‘Once you become a Moslem you will understand.’

  She was in love and submitted to his will, writing in her diary:

  Ali says that if we lead a good life we will find paradise. But if we are bad we go to hell. He doesn’t like the way Australian men behave — drinking and swearing. He says that it offends Allah. He told me of Mohommed’s vision of the angel Gabriel with feet astride the horizon who said he was the apostle of God. And how Mohommed’s wife told him he had been visited by an angel and that Islam owes a lot to women.

  Now I have learned to recite the First Pillar of Islam in Arabic and one night we knelt together facing Mecca while I said the words he taught me. ‘I testify La Ilaha illa Allah. Mohammed rasul Allah.’ Which means there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. I found it easy to become a Moslem, though if I had not married Ali I would be as I had been before: with no religion except my own instincts which tell me that there is an eternal being who cares for us and who has created a beautiful world for us to live in. There is ugliness too and this is something I have never learned to understand. All I learned was acceptance. Life is to be lived and there’s no use complaining. But with the help of Ali I have learned to put a face, a name, to a God I can believe in.

  Ali was very moved the night I became a Moslem. He prayed for a long time, sometimes in a loud voice, calling on Allah, and at other times silently. When my knees began to ache, and my back, from prostrating myself, I stood and very quietly went back into the bedroom and prepared myself for bed. I woke to find myself in his arms and when I put my hand to his face I found it wet with tears.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ I asked.

  ‘Because now we are truly blessed. You have become a daughter of Islam and my heart is overflowing with joy.’

  I think it was that night our son was conceived.

  Ali was gentle and kind, showering her with gifts — silk undergarments and elaborate embroidered scarves to cover her hair. ‘In my country a married woman does not allow another man to gaze on her hair. It is for her husband’s eyes alone,’ and he would gather a long strand of her hair and wind it around his wrist, trying to pull her towards him.

  She would laugh and free herself, tossing the scarf from her head. ‘It’s too hot … and in any case my hair is my own affair.’

  He would hold her close, twisting her hair around his neck and kiss her on the lips. ‘When I take you to India, then we shall see.’

  ‘India? When are we going to India?’

  ‘One day,’ he would say as he resumed his
work, loading his cart while she stood looking at his strong hands, hands that could be so tender, thinking how much she loved him and wondering what it would be like to live the shut-in life of an Indian wife. And whether she could bear it, knowing in her heart that wherever he led she would follow.

  Each day he would go on his rounds, leaving her to look after the shop, to ladle out sultanas and currants from the two large sacks that stood at the front door, or a few spoonfuls of spices — turmeric, cinnamon and cardamom. She would lift down tins of condensed milk from the shelf, measure up lengths of ribbon and count out buttons, and help select cottons to match dress lengths of printed Indian cotton or brightly coloured silk. When there were no customers she would sweep out the shop and tidy the shelves or spend time making flowers out of coloured tissue paper which Ali sold door to door. There were no fresh flowers except the yellow and white paperdaisies which sprang up after rain and the acacia blossom in spring.

  The building they rented had thirteen rooms but they used only four. Winifred found it unbearably hot because of the tin roof. She and Ali would sit outside in the cool of evening and listen to the crickets chirping in the long grass and the wild ducks squabbling in the reeds that lined the banks of Hamburg Creek, which ran past their shop.

  As her pregnancy advanced, she found herself constantly tired, spending most of the day lying down until she heard the sound of Ali’s horse, when she would rise and prepare a simple meal of curried vegetables with dhal or rice and a dish of sliced cucumbers if they were in season, excusing herself from praying by his side because of her difficulty in kneeling.

  He returned home one afternoon just before dusk to find her lying outside under a belah tree because it was too hot inside the shop. She had had niggling pains all day and knew that the birth was close. Winifred tried to reassure her husband but he became alarmed. He got her to her feet and tried to bundle her into the cart so that he could take her to the hospital. The harder he tried the more she laughed, until she leaned against the side of the cart with water trickling down her legs, not sure whether her waters had broken or she had wet herself. When he finally got her into the cart he whipped up the horse which began to gallop wildly, the cart rattling along behind it, bouncing over ruts, sparks flying as the horse’s hooves struck ironstone, until they pulled up at Ridge View, Milton, the horse’s nostrils flaring, its flanks quivering.

  Winifred often thought of that wild ride, imagining that the jolting did her good because her baby was born a few hours later. This time she had a doctor and nurse in attendance. They had told Ali to go home and come back the next day, but he shook his head. He was still there in the morning. Winifred looked out the window at dawn and saw him prostrating himself on his prayer mat. He had unsaddled the horse and thrown its reins over the fence, where it was happily demolishing the hedge. The sight of it made her laugh, and she wondered what the hospital staff would say when they noticed.

  She was holding her newborn baby to her breast when Ali came into the room. He bent and kissed her. ‘Allah be praised,’ he said, and Winifred saw that his eyes were full of tears. Then the nurse came bustling in. ‘You must go now and let your wife rest. You can come back later.’

  Winifred watched from the window as he harnessed up the horse and went trotting out the gate. Each evening after his rounds were finished he called to see her, bringing figs, dates and almonds, until, three weeks after the birth, he was allowed to take her home.

  For Winifred it had been a blissful three weeks in which she had had nothing to do but feed her baby and rest. She could not help thinking back to her other pregnancies and how Charles had expected her to get up and milk the goat almost as soon as the birth was over, as if nothing had happened. Lying with her child in her arms she tried to recall how her other babies had looked, but she found herself lost in her new son, who was to be called Yusef Deen. It was the likeness to Ali that amazed her — the thick dark hair, the eyes and the tiny brown hands that curled around her fingers. He was so different from her other blue-eyed, fair-skinned children with their mixture of German and English blood. Now she had given birth to a dark-skinned child and she wondered whether life would be hard for him. She knew that people did not like Indians. And even though they were British subjects, the government tried to make them return to India every three years, and there apply to return to Australia. The idea filled her with panic because if Ali went he might not be allowed to return, and then what would happen to her and her son?

  Later, when she went to Roma to register the birth, she left out details of the father’s name and registered the child under the name of Joseph Deen Steger. She was still legally married to Charles and could always claim he was the father if the government tried to send her son back to India. It was all right to be German, even though they were the enemy and fighting the British. The Indians, who were fighting on the British side, were aliens. She found it hard to understand.

  At the beginning of 1917, Goolamon Nuby, Ali’s younger brother, arrived to take over the store. The family came from a small village near Lahore in north-west India, where periodic droughts caused by the failure of the monsoon meant famine. Thousands died of starvation, others from the resultant cholera. Llaneal Nuby, who had managed the store for almost eighteen years, had returned home fifteen years before, after the death of their father. Ali had taken his place, sending money to India to help support his mother and two unmarried sisters who needed a dowry before they could find a husband. Now, with a wife and child to keep, Ali had decided it was time to go further afield to where the real money lay — in running camel teams — and he had written for his younger brother to come and take his place.

  Winifred and Ali were sitting outside the store in the cool one evening, with Ali bent over his water pipe which bubbled at his feet.

  ‘Once my brother is settled in we can leave here. Soon the motorcar will replace the horse and cart and people will no longer want what we sell when they can get it from Toowoomba.’

  ‘But where will we go?’

  ‘To Broken Hill. Abdul Wade is managing the Bourke Carrying Company. I’ll see if I can work for him until I can afford to buy my own camels.’

  Often he took Yusef with him, the little boy wearing a jacket of black velvet with mirrors sewn on it and embroidered with red and yellow flowers, a pair of baggy silk pants and a little embroidered cap to match the jacket. Winifred would watch them go off together in the horse and cart, realising that a strong bond had developed between them. Yusef would prattle away in a mixture of English and Hindustani, with a few Arabic words thrown in because his father was teaching him the prayers and already he had his own prayer mat.

  She and Ali had talked about the child’s future and Ali had said, ‘He must be good at English if he is to get on in the world. Even in my country those who can’t speak English are the poor coolies. I want my son to be rich. Not like me, with nothing but one horse. We need to get our own camels. There’s money to be made in cartage. When I own a camel string, Yusef and I will work together.’

  ‘What about me?’ she had asked.

  ‘You’ll live like a queen in a palace.’

  Winifred wasn’t sure whether she’d like this. She wanted to be with Ali, not left behind while her husband and son went off without her, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  * * *

  The family settled in north-eastern New South Wales and there Winifred had two more children, Rhamat Hanaford in 1920 and Pansy two years later, both born in the Boggabri Hospital. They did not stay in the area long because the Bourke Carrying Company was in the process of being wound up in the early 1920s and there was no more work.

  They moved to South Australia, where Ali had heard there was work carrying goods to isolated stations in the north. On the way they stopped over in Adelaide so that Ali could visit the mosque and have his sons blessed by the mullah. The family stayed in one of the adjoining tenements in Gilbert Lane which provided free accommodation for travellers. There was no
furniture and they had to make themselves comfortable on their prayer mats. They stayed for three days, with Ali spending his time at the mosque with the other men while Winifred looked after the children, resentful when she found that she was not admitted into the mosque but had to remain outside in the small yard. When she asked Ali why he said, ‘I told you, women pray at home. The men who come here are camel-men from the north. In fine weather they sleep in the open under the stars and when it rains they sleep inside. If they have a wife she stays at home.’

  Winifred had one meeting with the mullah who prayed over her and the children in words she could not understand and then sent her and Pansy from the room while Ali remained behind with the two boys, whom Ali had dressed in white. Winifred had covered her head to please Ali. ‘It is a matter of honour, beloved,’ he had said. She had acquiesced, realising how much this visit to the mosque meant to him after all these years.

  It was at the mosque that Ali found there was work at Marree and the small family joined the fortnightly train with its terminus at Oodnadatta. It was a long, three-day train trip and they carried their own food — dates, figs, oranges and fresh water, plus a bag of flour to make chapattis, which they cooked in a pan on a small kerosene stove when the train stopped for a change of crew. Sometimes the train came to a halt beside a bubbling hot spring so that the passengers could bathe, and Yusef would run wildly over the plains, kicking the small gibber stones, three-year-old Rhamat trotting along behind him. Or the two boys would wrestle, with Yusef always ending up on top of Rhamat, who would have to be rescued. It broke the monotony of the trip, as did the sight of small groups of Aborigines who stood watching in silence at isolated sidings, scrambling wildly with shrieks of joy when one of the passengers threw out an orange or an apple or a handful of boiled lollies. Then the train whistle would give a blast and the engine would gather speed again as it chugged along the narrow gauge track, travelling further and further north.