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Authors: Shirley Hazzard
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brought a magnificent hamper to supplement the dreadful meals. Caro showed off to Grace with the Marchmains' pale-pink Rosamund, her fellow exile. They had a picnic on the banks of the Nepean, Mr. Marchmain explaining about nettles and dock leaves. Sausages were cooked on sticks over a fire the Marchmains made. The fat dripped, reeking; sausage meat obtruded from split casing. Fending for yourself on a desert island would not be like this: there would be mangoes, breadfruit, milk from coconuts, and fish from the coral reef.
Dora sat on a corner of the spread rug, longing to be assigned some task so she could resent it. The girls swam in the river, repelled by the saltless water and the ooze. They played Moses in the Bulrushes, with Grace in the title role but Caro as the Princess.
Across the river, the gorges began, melancholy, uninhabited. A friend of the Marchmains had once stayed up at Lapstone—for pleurisy, or so it was given out at the time. You could usually tell the real thing, though, by the hectic flush. Caro was thinking of Umbria, until yesterday a mere colour in the paintbox between Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna; and of flat Parma where the violets came from.
Caro would have liked to reveal the house, but feared Dora's reaction. Dora was not one to lie down under the news that a veranda was called a loggia, or a mural a fresco. Let alone villa for house. Any such divulging would somehow bring word of Caro's secession from Dora's rule. They walked about the corridors and looked in the oval dining-room without perceiving.
"This Montyfiori," said Mr. Marchmain, who was coarse, "appears to be a raving ratbag."
After tea the Marchmains walked down with Rosamund to the paddock, where you took turns for the pony, and Dora went to put the Thermos in the car. Caro and Grace disappeared into the make-shift dormitory, where they sat side by side on a bed. They made little wracked gasps of an adult weeping that must presently be concealed. The huge heavy mechanism of their hearts dragged at their slight bodies.
Grace said, "111 write."
They washed their faces in a bathroom varicose with streaked marble. The basin was shaped like one of those shells. Even the lav had a blue pattern inside, possibly Chinese.
Dora had found the matron and was reading the Riot Act about blankets. Marchmains were coming up the gravel. Now, authorized public tears, let grief be unconfined. Grace climbed in the car, abashed by escaping yet again. At that moment, Japs were the last thing in anyone's mind: the entire exercise appeared pointless except for the emotions to which it was giving luxurious rein.
Caro came home in winter, with the others. The villa dissolved into gum trees even as they twisted to see it for the last time, breath steaming the cold windows of a bus that took them to the Penrith train. No one, even so, would take a chance on waving to their fellow-prisoners.
Soon their flight to the mountains was part of the fabled past, a form of war service. Not before the Doctor had brought suit, however, for irreparable damage to his house. After all that palaver about Danty and the sunset, the old ratbag was asking a thousand quid, Mr. Marchmain reported, to fix up his caricature of a home.
Caro returned, as if from abroad, to a city populated by American soldiers. Dora confirmed that these were boastful, and self-indulgent in ways unspecified. Girls who went with them were common.
Caro and Grace, in school uniform, were photographed by a lanky sergeant while crossing at the Junction; and put up their hands, like the famous, to ward off intrusion. It was a pity one could not have a better class of saviour: Americans could not provide history, of which they were almost as destitute as Australians.
The sisters had never seen black men before, apart from the Lascars at the Quay.
At school, Grace was studying the Stuart kings. From newspapers they learned about Stalingrad and Rostov-on-the-Don. Dora was part of a
Dora sat on a corner of the spread rug, longing to be assigned some task so she could resent it. The girls swam in the river, repelled by the saltless water and the ooze. They played Moses in the Bulrushes, with Grace in the title role but Caro as the Princess.
Across the river, the gorges began, melancholy, uninhabited. A friend of the Marchmains had once stayed up at Lapstone—for pleurisy, or so it was given out at the time. You could usually tell the real thing, though, by the hectic flush. Caro was thinking of Umbria, until yesterday a mere colour in the paintbox between Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna; and of flat Parma where the violets came from.
Caro would have liked to reveal the house, but feared Dora's reaction. Dora was not one to lie down under the news that a veranda was called a loggia, or a mural a fresco. Let alone villa for house. Any such divulging would somehow bring word of Caro's secession from Dora's rule. They walked about the corridors and looked in the oval dining-room without perceiving.
"This Montyfiori," said Mr. Marchmain, who was coarse, "appears to be a raving ratbag."
After tea the Marchmains walked down with Rosamund to the paddock, where you took turns for the pony, and Dora went to put the Thermos in the car. Caro and Grace disappeared into the make-shift dormitory, where they sat side by side on a bed. They made little wracked gasps of an adult weeping that must presently be concealed. The huge heavy mechanism of their hearts dragged at their slight bodies.
Grace said, "111 write."
They washed their faces in a bathroom varicose with streaked marble. The basin was shaped like one of those shells. Even the lav had a blue pattern inside, possibly Chinese.
Dora had found the matron and was reading the Riot Act about blankets. Marchmains were coming up the gravel. Now, authorized public tears, let grief be unconfined. Grace climbed in the car, abashed by escaping yet again. At that moment, Japs were the last thing in anyone's mind: the entire exercise appeared pointless except for the emotions to which it was giving luxurious rein.
Caro came home in winter, with the others. The villa dissolved into gum trees even as they twisted to see it for the last time, breath steaming the cold windows of a bus that took them to the Penrith train. No one, even so, would take a chance on waving to their fellow-prisoners.
Soon their flight to the mountains was part of the fabled past, a form of war service. Not before the Doctor had brought suit, however, for irreparable damage to his house. After all that palaver about Danty and the sunset, the old ratbag was asking a thousand quid, Mr. Marchmain reported, to fix up his caricature of a home.
Caro returned, as if from abroad, to a city populated by American soldiers. Dora confirmed that these were boastful, and self-indulgent in ways unspecified. Girls who went with them were common.
Caro and Grace, in school uniform, were photographed by a lanky sergeant while crossing at the Junction; and put up their hands, like the famous, to ward off intrusion. It was a pity one could not have a better class of saviour: Americans could not provide history, of which they were almost as destitute as Australians.
The sisters had never seen black men before, apart from the Lascars at the Quay.
At school, Grace was studying the Stuart kings. From newspapers they learned about Stalingrad and Rostov-on-the-Don. Dora was part of a
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