The Walls of Jericho
Arthur S. Firkins (Alice Springs 2010)
The walls surrounded the town of the red dust, like a fortress. To the East lay the vast plains of the Simpson Desert, to the West the Macdonald Ranges and to the South, Adelaide, from where the explorer Stuart had stumbled his way up north- trampling across the sacred land as did the nomads that followed him, the desert dwellers, who laid claim to the richness of the soil, as if God had led them there out of the bondage of Europe to this, their promised land. It was from Adelaide, that imperial city, that she came by Ghan and he was to meet her at the station in Alice that afternoon.
He stood on the platform clutching a rolled magazine in his left hand, sipping a coke, beads of sweet on his forehead, if not from the heat then from his nervousness, pondering the small pebbles that littered the platform, wiping the dust off his boots onto his trousers, cursing the lateness of the train, wondering how he should act when she finally arrived. Nerves that were once as tough as a stockman’s whip, now crumbling with stress and anticipation like the bits of white peeling paint on the wall of the station’s waiting room. He glaced at the clock, not a digital one, and contemplated what he should say, it had been so long. He was distracted by the looks of similarly concerned gentlemen hovering on the platform, children yelling, throwing balls, barking dogs, the scurry of families milling around looking for items that they may have forgotten, too distracted to notice that the train had been delayed by thirty minutes. He looked at the station spectacle, an old Aboriginal woman struggling with her luggage, a businessman in a tailored suit bound for Adelaide and young lads from the outlying cattle stations in stockman’s attire on their way to see their sweethearts, he thought about her, what she might be wearing, how she might smell, her hair, what she might say.
They were acquainted not by space but by time, and magnitudes of it had passed since they were children together at school in Surry Hills, an eternity of waiting. The passing of this time toned in his ears like the sound of the galahs and currawong and parrots that were flying in the afternoon sky against the crisp light. He could see the purple of the MacDonald Ranges slowly changing colour from raw red to a gentle pink back to purple. The walls contained the town and now bore marks of the life that had past and that had withstood centuries of assault only to sub come to the white man’s law. The ghosts, blackened by time stood in silent witness in the dry river beds to the battle.
Joshua was now a mining engineer, blasting the hills and the walls of coal and iron from the Isa, to Broken Hill, from Tenant to Whyalla, the pit, the open cut, he could bring it all down. He had left Sydney at fifteen, gone to make his fortune cutting cane in the fields of far North Queensland, the yelling of his mother and the stern warnings of his principal aside, he managed to make a bob or two and also trawling for prawns near Cairns, he netted a bit, not to mention a few nights behind a bar and in front of a bar. But his mother’s hard words drove him back to University, where he put the money to good use, drank hard, read Auden and studied engineering and met his first wife.
Those years seemed as distant to him as that blasted train, was now. He was alone his own daughter at university and his wife blown away by the cyclone of cancer. Complacency and loneliness hovered around the people of the city as the red dust but such inertia, never sat well with him. They had spent a weekend together in Melbourne, a coincidental meeting by the Yarra, a chanced recognition that brushed through her mind as she walked past him, that prompted her to blurt out “oh-my god, Joshua”, and they sat by that river, cold night aside, walked through the square opposite Flinders St Station. They strolled to the nearby small grungy cafes, a beer or two, a look in the window of a gallery, forage in a two dollar shop, and the climbing of stairs to a small wine bar. He fancied himself an artist of sorts, not a good one, but enough to keep his interest and snare hers. She had studied art in Surry Hills and this had taken her to Prague, Paris and to Jerusalem, to the king’s valley, Damascus, Bagdad, and to Jericho, the desert seemed to be in her blood and the finest of the sand, the stillness, the redness of the dunes spread across her canvasses that now hung in New York, London and Singapore.
So much of her family’s youth had been gassed in Alchwich, that her parents came to Sydney and she had enjoyed a good life in the Eastern Suburbs, yet she yearned to travel and was compelled back to the desert of her people, drew inspiration from it, a songline back thousands of years to a time of dreaming, a time where Moses had led her people across the desert, the wind, the thirst and the redness and the stillness of the wine in her glass, she glanced at it swirled it a little and they clinked the glasses together, “too you Joshua” she said, a little smirk then a kiss.
She never married, but had many men and a son, older now who was drawn by the lights of the big city, away from her now. On that train she deliberated about her life in the Adelaide Hills, her studio and how she needed to pack things up, lawn sales, garage sales, and people sorting through her life. She thought about and how to rid herself of that rusting demon in the garage that was now costing her so much money. She was on the train now and it now sped along the rout of the explorers, cutting through time, through the centre of this ancient land. Small towns, gums, tiny pattern of sand, rivers that ornate the land that flowed through the dryness.
This was not her land, although she was born in it, and her family, poor from the destruction of the temple and the chaos of Europe had acquired much of it. Yet in this part it seemed that the land was absorbing all that was left of Europe, that the desert would flow across the top of it, absorb it beneath and preserve it for the next band of archaeologists.
Joshua waited at the station and kicked some stones with his boots. It seemed to him that the town was holding back the encroaching dessert. It seemed to him that the town never really had a grip on the land, everything he looked at from the station platform to the buildings on the other side of the road seemed so temporary, the ant trail on the ground, the insects the flies. Whitlam was giving it back piece by piece to the people of the land, yet Joshua could see that nature was already taking it back.
The town was small and the walls that surrounded it were like waves, frozen in a moment, as if that moment passed, the town would be washed away. He had driven up to ANZAC Hill, that morning coffee in hand and the vastness of the land around him, interrupted by the walls that surrounded him, vast ranges thousands of years old, made him think about how temporary the town seemed. The explorers had searched for an inland sea and they had stood on it, two had died so close to the water, water that had once flowed above like the waters of the Todd that flowed occasionally was underneath. This land was abundant, without end, timeless not meant to change, never to change like the old Arrenate women who sat under the same tree every morning, long into the afternoon, yarning, painting, dreaming.
Joshua contemplated how many explosives he would need to bring down the walls and to free the town, what wealth might lay underneath them, but momentarily lost in his need to flick another piece of peeling paint from the waiting room wall. This was his land, but he never felt part of it. He like much was taken out of it, extracted as a baby and grew up on the streets of Surry Hills, a young boy, dark haired and dark eyed and eager for tales of the old country, yet these were not his stories, not the stories of his country but he would lose himself in the stories of ancient lands, tales of Crazy Horse, and the battles of crusaders travelling through the dust of the holy land.
Joshua and Jessica became friends, she rescued him from the teasing of the primary yard and they both walked home together and played and loved to read fantastic tales of the world, that one day would draw them both, but in different directions. She loved him and he adored the beauty of her soul but her parents warned her about boys like him and they were lost in the chaos of adolescence. She left with her family to Jerusalem. Now she was on the train named for the rough camel traders, the Bedouin of the dessert that passed through crossing after crossing of the rusting expanse, town after town. She had just finished her cup of tea, lipstick on, covered her lips blending with the desert and the last few miles marked by the coolabahs and now the fences, the small houses and the purple walls, the gap was in sight.
Joshua had toppled the walls with a trumpet, but nothing less than 200 tons, to blast the open cut and take out the ore . They were after the iron, but it was if the dogs, the people, the town itself were coated in iron and rusting before his eyes. He had the weekend off and had come to town, but as the train approached he thought about the small mining town he had just driven all night through the heat to escape.
He had completed a job that morning and was pleased, the walls of rock had fallen so easily; well, easier than the last. The dust was part of him and it followed him everywhere, the stench of diesel, the noise of the tippers and tractors lurked about him. He had washed himself clean before leaving the mine but even still he looked down and the dust still faded his boots. He wiped them clean on his trouser legs. The bell started to ring, the red lights flashed and he could see the road barriers that blocked Alice Drive slowly drop, the traffic stopped as the Ghan rolled through. He peered through each window as the carriages passed slowly by, capturing the little gems of light, shards of colour, silhouettes, and at last stopping. He looked, it was her, Jessica. He smiled a little, they kissed, held hands and he put her bags in the back of his ute. The walls appeared purple in the gentle light as they drove down Larripinta Drive, together at last.
*The Ghan is the train which runs Adelaide to Darwin named for the Afghan Camel Traders C19th Central Australia.
* John McDouall Stuart C19th Scottish Explorer of Northern Australia
* Burke & Wills, Explorers who set out to explore the Simpson dessert and died 500 metres from water.
* Ute is the Australian name given to a pick-up truck.
* Larripinta Drive is the main Street of Alice Springs
* Gough Whitlam : Australian Prime Minister who returned the land to the traditional owners.
* The Todd River cuts through Alice Springs and has no water.
* Surry Hills : Eastern Suburb of Sydney
