Hi there,

My new blog is a contniuation of my older blog 'Johns justice' and some of the aricles I will transfer to this blog. In the meantime I will add some short stories I wrote recently.

My favoured aunt, my beautiful lesbian

I was about twenty then, skinny, tall, and never really fitting the army uniform whilst doing my National Service. At the Court-Martial the military judge said my hitting of an officer was an unprovoked attack. In a brief appearance before the judge, my group-captain who also acted as my lawyer, advised me not to dispute the charge in any way. Only because of my otherwise unblemished record would he get me off with either fourteen days confinement to the barracks or four days solitary. The latter, he told me with a serious look on his face, would forever stay as a blot on my record, affecting employment, carrying out civil duties.

Since the fourteen days of confinement to the barracks would include two weekends  - days when we were normally allowed to go home -  and hence missing out on at least four days of freedom, I chose the solitary. The captain intimated that he knew the military system and would push having the Court-Martial held on a Monday, thereby avoiding any possible weekend detention.  The judge seemed to agree and uttered words to the effect that solitary confinement would help me ponder the seriousness of my offence not only military but also civil.

Before I entered my cell, the sergeant- in- charge took my tie, braces, belt and shoe laces. I felt being undressed in public.  Even a small attempt, he mentioned holding up his hand, to commit suicide by hanging was an additional military offence. However, he gave me soap, a towel, paper and pencil, apparently all standard military issue for convicted soldiers.  Think hard before you write your parents some soap story about your circumstances, he said straight-faced, I check every word and blot out anything I don’t like.

But my story started way before the days of writing in a bare, concrete soldier’s cell, way back to the time when I was eight years old.

This is what I wrote.

It was Christmas eve. Since we had family staying over at our place, I was allowed to stay with my grandma in her small cottage beside the railway track. I liked staying at her place, as my favoured aunties, Dorrit and Jane, lived there too. I always called them my aunts, although only  Dorrit with her straight black hair and dressed in tight skirts was a sister of my father. But I called  Jane with the big breasts and long, flowing, blond hair also my aunt.

 Sitting in the small lounge room across from my grandma who didn’t talk all that much, I always studied the many large pictures on the wall behind her. The largest painting was of two girls in white dresses walking, or rather dancing behind each other in a park  towards a gazebo set amongst  giant trees. A picture of a time past, because I had never seen girls dressed like that and trees that big. I tried to understand what the writing  at the bottom of the painting meant.  “Revenu, ma fille cherie, Je t’aime.”, We had learned a few French words in the school yard, but none of them matched these. I couldn’t translate them, as even my English wasn’t all that good yet.  I asked my aunties what the French words meant, They just smiled and said that they didn’t know French either. They got me a glass of lemonade and some biscuits, took out a pack of cards from a drawer underneath the table  and we played canasta.  

But It was early to bed for me, as, in keeping with tradition, the Christmas High Mass would be held very early in the morning.  I was to sing in the  church choir and  my aunts, with a slightly overwhelming, motherly busyness, told me that a good night’s rest was essential. Furthermore I could stay with them the next day and enjoy all the Christmas goodies. I said goodnight to my grandma who sat in a corner reading and went upstairs. ‘Upstairs’ was a loft reaching from the front of the house to the back, over the lounge room, the kitchen and my grandma’s bedroom. An open, pine- timbered area with a double bed in the front part and a single bed for me towards the back. The chimney from below in the middle of the room kept the loft at a comfortable, warm temperature. I was asleep in no time.

Their heavy feet coming up the bare, wooden stairs woke me. Their muffled laughing sounded explosive in the silence. I became aware of the rustling of clothes being dropped, as if casually, on some chairs.

Not now, Dorrit, I heard Jane saying. He may wake up. He needs his rest. He has to sing tomorrow morning. 
Not now…not now…what did they mean?  But I was again asleep before I could think of a possible answer.

Thinking back, my aunties couldn’t have been older than thirty. They were my favoured aunts. They both worked in the local presbytery, looking after eight or nine Dominican monks who ran the parish with old-fashioned fervour, but always preached about forbidden and incomprehensible things. I often saw my aunts cleaning the carpet runners and wiping the windows outside in the small frontyard when I passed the presbytery on my way to school. And if I just sauntered a bit near the kitchen door, aunt Jane would come outside with a piece of cake or some biscuits, and, alas, always a kiss. On Sunday mornings after Mass they would be at our house for coffee. The latest rumours and gossip went from nodding head to nodding head. I often felt my ears turning red  just at the time when my dad would calm the discussion down. They also talked about what they had found when cleaning  the church pews and how they had to hand it back to the monks. The coins,  the bits of jewellery, the scarves, and the hatpins. I wondered why they couldn’t keep them. What would monks do with jewellery?  The house on these occasions was full of laughter, and no one minded when Jane put her arms around Dorrit in a way I had never seen my mum and dad embracing.

One day, on my way from school, aunt Jane, the tall blond one, was waiting for me and called me in the presbytery’s kitchen.   She had something, she said, I might like. From behind the table she grasped what looked like a miniature harp. It was a German zither, she told me. It was a strange looking, shiny black, triangular instrument with steel wires for the notes and thick steel springs for the chords.  It has to be tuned, she said, looking at me with an expectant smile. Would you like to have it? Yes, please, I stuttered.

For the next two weeks I taught myself to play the zither and sing my songs. I then took it with me to school as I wanted to join the band of one guitar and one drum. 

Your singing is okay, my mates said, but that zither is not on. Why don’t you learn to play the guitar. That is what we want.

But… but this is all I have got, I said.

It fell on deaf ears. I could sing with them, but not with the zither. 

I kept playing at home, but finally hid the zither in the attic between the Christmas decorations.  Now most likely lost between useless things.  A reminder of something beautiful, tentative but uncanny and to be avoided..

The sergeant opened the door and stepped inside.

We didn't hear any movement. I thought I better look.

I am writing a letter.

Don't make it too long. Just tell them that you hit the officer who actually knew your family and you got rightly punished.

But he deserved it.

Don't go on like that. I'll cut the words out.

He offended my aunts and swore at them.

What! Those two lesbians! You got offended by that. Serves them right. Soldiers shouldn't be mixing with that type of people. Other soldiers may become suspicious of you. No place in the army for lesbies and poofters.

He left suddenly. The banging of his heavy shoes on the concrete floor echoing his disgust.

During my time at High School my visits became less frequent.  My grandma had passed away, freeing me from any familial duty. My aunts kept living in the cottage. They had hardly made any alterations to the décor and still slept upstairs in the loft. It was the time that the first television came on the scene. My aunts had purchased one, proudly displaying it  on the dresser below the many paintings on the wall. Saturday-afternoon football was the time when I looked forward visiting  them, always bringing some biscuits or a jar of coffee with me.

 At the short interval of advertisements I gazed at the painting of the dancing girls. I could translate the caption now: “Come back my beautiful girl, I love you.” 

 Did you know what that meant?  I asked turning my head to Jane and Dorrit.

Yes, we did, they said looking expectantly at me as if unsure whether I had actually  understood  the meaning.

Of course, I said, I have learned French. I am in year nine now. We learn all type of things. But…hesitating as if unsure…searching for the right word,  you are still my favoured aunties.

The smile on their faces stayed through the rest of the football game.

After the prescribed four days the sergeant let me out.

Your time is up, he said. But I didn’t get your letter

I didn’t write one, I lied.  Any mail for me?

No. Get out. You are one of us again.

I didn’t know what he meant. I thought I’d been a soldier all the time. I gathered my things together, got my belt, braces, tie and laces back, stuffed my letter in my pocket and left. I hurried to the train station, catching the train just in time to make it home for my weekend off.

Looking through the window at the passing landscape I wondered whether it had been worth it. Hitting an officer.  I remember the laughing faces of the other soldiers, when the blood ran down from the officer’s nose. They didn’t dare to cheer, but their faces showed approval of my hitting. Nothing else.

Entering the lounge room at home, I noticed my parents looking  worried. They let me relax and get into “civie” gear.

Jane has died, my father said. It was sudden. We couldn’t get through to you. You were in goal. His quiet face showed no reproach of me or the sergeant, mere acceptance of the facts like he always had accepted Dorrit and JaneI. I looked at him and then at my mother. The basterd, I said. I’ll go and see Dorrit.

We sat across the table from each other. Dorrit in grandma’s chair and I where I always sat. No word was spoken.   I didn’t know what to say.

Some minutes later Dorrit said: She died peacefully. She always wanted you to have something as a memory. The zither, she smiled, is too long ago.

I looked at the painting behind her. The dancing girls and the trees appeared  misty. “Come back my beautiful girl, I love you”.  I looked at the other paintings and then at Dorrit.  Somehow the left-overs couldn’t fill the emptiness.

I pop in again next weekend, I said.

By pure coincidence I met the sergeant again years later. He was the owner of  a men’s underwear factory in Lygon street. I was a salesman flogging sewing machine needles. I found his office behind an army of women, all sewing in groups the parts of an undie,  the body, the crotch, the elastic, like separate chapters of a book, never knowing the whole. He received me in his office, but didn’t recognize me from our army days. 

Come in, come in, he said and offered me coffee.

 Let me introduce you to my partner, he said winking at me.

The young partner came in. I am Nigel,  he said,

Hallo Nigel, I said. I tried to leave in a hurry.

Going outside towards my car, parked at the curbside I noticed some factory workers milling around, having their coffee break and a smoke. I said Hi and walked to my car. In my rush to get in I banged my head on the door. Oh bugger!  I yelled. The factory workers laughed: Yeah, yeah that’s right, shouted one of them.

Seated in my car I rubbed my head.  A trickle of blood was running along my nose. I wiped it with the back of my hand and drove off.

                                              END