Page 80 of Just Say (Hell) No
“She’s Aborigine,” Nyree said.
“Noongar. Western Australia. Well, half. White dad, I guess. She doesn’t know much about her parents, or about any of the rest of her family, either. Taken from her mum when she was little.”
“One of the Stolen Generations,” Nyree said, with a contraction of her heart that was nearly painful. The generations of Aborigine children, especially the half-white ones, who’d been stolen from their mothers and placed in orphanages and missions. They’d been sent away again after that, once they’d reached their early teenage years. The girls to work as domestic servants, the boys as stockmen and laborers. Earning not much but room and board, but then, they’d already lost everything anyway. Lost their language, their people, their place, all the things that mattered most. And, for the mums especially, knowing that their own children could be taken in the same way. Especially if their fathers were white.
Despair.
Marko said, “She remembers when they took her away. Riding in the back of the truck with the rest of them, and with the mums running along behind, calling out, crying, their arms stretched out for their kids. She watched her mum running until the dust swallowed her up. She was four. Five. Somewhere in there. Afterwards, they told them their mums didn’t want them. But she remembered her mum running.”
Nyree had a fist pressed to her heart. “How did your granddad meet her?”
“He was working as a shearer at a sheep station, earning some money in Aussie, saving to buy his own land. Older brothers getting the farm, eh. She was working there. Maybe fifteen, maybe a year older. Or younger. She isn’t sure.”
He didn’t say anything else, but after a moment, she asked, “How much did you have to fight, growing up?”
He looked at her, and she smiled a little painfully, because the memorieswerepainful, and said, “Marko. I was Maori in Dunedin, in a Pakeha family, and without my whanau. I’d never felt different before. And I know you’d have fought when the other boys said things about her.”
“Not as much as my dad had to. Which wasn’t as much ashisdad did.”
“Protective. All of you.”
“Probably. Change can come too slow, especially here.”
Tonight, in the light of the lamps and the warmth of the big room with its comfortable, shabby couches, the curtains drawn against the cold night, she wondered why Marko hadn’t told her before. She might not have brown skin, but surely he knew she was brown enough inside.
Habit, maybe. Or a test.
The song ended, and Marko’s dad Ander said, “Time for bed, Mum?”
“Maybe so,” Mary said.
Marko stood up, set his guitar on the couch, and said, “I’ll do it, Dad. Don’t get enough chance, do I.” He picked his grandmother gently up out of the chair, lifted her in his arms, and said, “I reckon Nyree will bring up your cane and your tea.”
“Of course,” Nyree said. She set Cat on the couch, causing her to utter a vocal protest at the cruel loss of a warm lap, and went to gather Mary’s things.
Up the creaking wooden stairs, covered with a faded maroon carpet that looked fifty years old, to the second floor. Down the hall all the way to the end, Marko making carrying his grandmother look no more difficult than carrying a rugby ball.
It was a spare room, nearly Spartan in its lack of furnishings, Nyree saw as she set the tea on the bedside table and handed Mary her cane. The most striking feature was a dot painting above the bed. Nothing but those white dots, a few curving lines, and different shades of blue, but a clear representation of a lake, the land around it, and the islands in it, like an aerial photo. All sinuous curves and serenity, but there was power there, too. She said, “That’s a beautiful painting. Striking. Stunning.”
“Marko brought it back from Perth a couple years ago,” his grandmother said. “Says it’s meant to be the Wagyl, the water snake. Noongar have Water Snake Dreaming.”
“It’s beautiful,” Nyree said again. “Strong.”
Marko said, “Nyree’s an artist, Amona. She sees people in color. Did you ever hear of that?”
His grandmother peered at Nyree more closely. “You do, eh. No, I never heard of that thing. What color is my Marko?”
“Red,” Nyree said. “Strong. Passionate. Physical.”
Mary nodded slowly and said, “That’s all right, then.”
Marko said, “What color is Amona, Nyree? I’ve wanted to know.”
Nyree said, “It’s not a… real thing. Not an official thing. It’s only how I see it.”
“It’s always only how you see it,” the old lady said. “And what’s ‘official’? Whitefella’s idea. Tell me.” She smiled, and her solemn face lit up. “Nothing you can say now that hurts. All the things have already been said.”
“You’re purple, then, to me,” Nyree said. “Deep.”
