Christmas Story by Ted Riethmuller

The journey itself was the hardest part.   It is a long way to Bethlehem by foot.  Damn the Occupation Force.  We were nearly there when the contractions began to be more intense and closer together.  I found it difficult to keep up and I had to stop all the time to get on top of the pain. Youssef said, “Mariam, take my place on the donkey.”  I didn’t want to do that but he insisted. 

“What about your dignity?”  I asked.  I had learned to love him.  He was like a father to me and I wanted to protect and care for him.

            “Damn dignity,” he said.  What he didn’t say is that he lost all rights to dignity when he married me, a pregnant fifteen year-old.  I believe he did so because he was kindly and wanted to protect me from the bad things that would happen to me. I don’t think he believed my story of how I conceived.  One night (this is hard to believe I know) I was taken possession of by a shining light.  And there was a chorus of exultant voices and the sound of trumpets.  It weirded me out but I can’t say it wasn’t enjoyable.  Youssef obviously didn’t like me talking about it.  At least he didn’t beat me for my wickedness like my parents did.  He said that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle and these things happen all the time.  But I very much doubt that.

            When we got to the outskirts we stopped at an inn.  They said we could crash in the cow shed if we wanted.  I didn’t argue.  I was too busy trying to deal with what was happening to my body.  I started to cry out.  I could not escape the intensity of the contractions.  A couple of shepherds who were tending their flock in a nearby field heard the racket I was making and came to have a look.  Fortunately they were experienced in assisting their ewes to give birth and they took control.  The calmed me down.  Their hands had been made strong by handling sheep and their touch had been softened with lanolin.  They said I was a good girl and a brave one and everything would be fine.  And it was.  I soon was holding my beautiful baby on my breast.  I heard one shepherd say to the other, “She was still intact and the birth went so good and perfect. It was a miracle.”

            “And I thought I heard a choir.” said the other one.

I was ecstatic.  It must have been the hormones.  We all just looked at the babe in wonder and amazement. Even the cows and other farm animals took an interest.

            Our peaceful adoration was soon interrupted though, by the sound of vehicles approaching. A couple of big black Mercedes, together with an escort of SUVs, drew up outside.  In came a motley crew of bigwigs and their bodyguards all talking into mobile phones.  They were mumbling prayers and talking about some Christ Child or other.  They elbowed everyone out of the way and they examined my newborn baby.  They seemed to be disappointed — which annoyed me — and then they left as quickly as they had come.  Youssef sneered something about the Wise Men of the East.  The shepherds had to go back to their sheep leaving Youssef and me together with our first-born. We were all bathed in a gentle golden glow.  Where it came from we did not know or care.  Youssef held my hand.  “We must think of a name,” he said.

“I have already chosen a name,” I said.  “It is Jesus.”

“Jesus?” Youssef cried. “Jesus! That’s no name for a girl.”

He would have chosen Josephine, but that would not be quite right.

END

After a family get together.

.
Tables deserted
the musician keeps playing
audience of one
........................................

From Photo Essay: Memories of Wyreema

******

** The Sheds

This is how it looked sixty years ago: except for the poly pipe and the brace between the stump steps and the post. And the stump was younger, sturdier, less eroded, with a life time of service still ahead. In that shed there had been a dinghy – out of its element in this place of earth and sky. It was made of corrugated iron, flat bottomed with fore and aft curved upwards to a blunt stem and stern; a tinny before the word was coined. I marvelled at it for its simple matter of fact construction; it demonstrated that the Riethmullers could make anything. I imagined going fishing in it for yellow-belly in the Condamine like my uncles used to do.

There were other galvanised iron sheds on the farm. One held stacked bags of grain. To climb those stacks; the smell of grain, of fertiliser, of mice, in my nostrils. The bags, tightly filled to near bursting, their hessian skin rubbed companionably on mine as I scaled those fragrant battlements.

Then there was the big machinery shed where the combine-harvester sat silent and brooding, no doubt impatient for the coming harvest, in moody half darkness. Daylight leaking through cracks between wall and roof. Potpourri: mice, chaff, grain, but with grease added to the mix. Uncomplaining, it allowed me to clamber all over it. I took my position on the operator’s seat, my legs stretched, yet too short to reach the pedals. The mysterious levers unyielding to my efforts.

Flesh and blood entranced,
the mystique of the machine
held me in its thrall.

***

I Catch my Breath

On the train I smell glue
Tarzan’s Grip
A friendly smell
Of making models as a kid
On rainy days when just to be inside is good.

But on the train?
Has there been repair by railway staff?
A tear in the upholstery maybe?
Or perhaps a notice had become unstuck
A friendly smell of creativity or reparation.

I look around
My eyes are following my nose
Slumped in a corner
Head bent to a plastic bag half hidden in her shirt
A young girl deeply breathes.

***

Photo Essay: Memories of Wyreema

******

The Bookcase and the Wireless

Underneath the window there was a settee that I would lie on and read books from the bookcase that one can see mounted on the wall. One was an old copy of Robbery Under Arms. My grandfather had written his name inside: Daniel Riethmüller – complete with umlaut. On Sundays I would read The Truth and be puzzled by references to divorce cases. It didn’t make sense. We never had The Truth back home in Kingaroy. One day Grand-ma asked me, “Would your mother approve of you reading that?” I replied that I didn’t know but the truth is I knew somehow that Mum would not like it. Grand-ma smiled but I could not interpret the meaning of that smile although I had a sense that it was related to unspoken antagonisms between woman and mother-in-law.

Stories in the paper

can sometimes be puzzling.

Like a woman's smile

There was a radio on the shelf and after lunch my grandparents would listen to “Blue Hills” “When a Girl Marries” or “Dad and Dave”. Grand-dad would be in his big rocking-chair with the seat made from thick hide which was highly polished from use. My grandmother, in her chair, would be sewing, knitting, making paper flowers or even shelling peas for the evening meal. Her hands were always occupied. If she had no task for them they would lie restless on her knees.

Fingers like soldiers.

Two squads of five marking time.

Waiting for orders.

*****

Photo Essay: Memories of Wyreema

***

Paddock and Sky

Rich black soil of the Eastern Darling Downs. Uncle Percy said that you should stick to the black soil because it would stick to you. Dad said that when it was wet it would stick like shit to a blanket. As a small child one morning I opened the back gate and set off for the dairy on my tricycle. I only went half a yard and I was hopelessly bogged. No worries I thought and decided to walk but when I took a couple of steps my shoes were captured and I was left bare foot in the mud. I cried. Sooky little townie kid.

You can see the power poles on the horizon. That’s where the road is. To the left is Wyreema and the other way takes you to Southbrook. The road is bitumen now but in the old days it was just the black soil packed flat and smooth. The car’s tyres sang their pleasure and up ahead the mirage made water on the road – but always up ahead never to be reached. When it rained these black soil roads were all but impassable. Only the cream carrier’s truck could plough its way ahead. He collected the cream and delivered mail; huge tank loaves of bread; and massive parcels of meat, wrapped up in many layers of newspaper and tied up securely with binder twine. If the cream carrier couldn’t get through no one could. I saw him as a demigod, master of country roads.

The sky: because all the horizons were wide and flat, it was more massive than what I knew back home. It was hard to ignore. The grown-ups were always looking up into it: to tell the time Dad told me and I suppose to guess what the weather was going to do. On the farm the weather mattered.

Look to the heavens

if you must but don't forget

the black earth below

***

..
"Staying in my aunt's house in Ascot I heard what I thought were elephants trumpeting but it was only, my aunt told me later in rather disdainful surprise, the foghorns of boats down at Hamilton Wharf. I was willing to believe anything about Brisbane." -- a friend's reminiscence.


Haiku

Visiting niece hears
elephants down near the wharves.
Foghorns trumpeting.
..