Hitler's Daughter

chapter eleven

Saturday, Sunday, Monday Morning

The flood smelt like wet socks.

Even the kitchen was full of the smell and it was stronger than the smell of last night’s pizza.

Mark shut the kitchen door—Dad must have left it open when he went out to check the pump was still out of reach of the flood—then sat down at the kitchen table. Behind him the radio sang out the tune that announced the news. Dad had listened to the weather report earlier and left the radio on:

‘…the genocide still continues. Eyewitnesses now say that the death toll may number several thousands, with the numbers still rising as government troops…’

Mark blinked. For a moment he had thought he was back in the 1930s, the radio talking about all the people that Hitler was killing.

But this was NOW. People were being killed NOW. He’d heard these reports before of course, but it had never seemed real… he’d never actually thought about it before.

The radio announcer was talking about something different. Something about land rights and…

‘Well, who’s ready for breakfast?’ demanded Dad happily, tramping into the kitchen in his socks and turning the radio off automatically. ‘I’m starved!’

Dad always cooked eggs and bacon on Saturday mornings. Saturday was the only day he cooked breakfast, and the only day they had eggs and bacon, too, with a sausage each and baked beans sometimes as well. Fried cholesterol, Mum called it, but she liked Saturday breakfasts too.

Dad dumped the plates down on the table and sat down.

‘Anyone want anything up in town?’ he asked, as he squirted chili sauce on his bacon. ‘I have to go up and get some more diesel.’

Mum shook her head. ‘I shopped last Thursday… well, maybe fresh bread. And milk. And shampoo, we’ve nearly run out. I’ll make a list.’

‘Dad…’ asked Mark suddenly.

‘Mmm,’ said Dad resignedly, sprinkling pepper over his egg.

‘Are people being exterminated today?’

Dad swallowed his food the wrong way. ‘Are they what!’ he choked.

‘Being exterminated. You know—like Hitler and the Jews.’

Dad took a gulp of coffee. ‘Of course not,’ he said.

‘But on the news it just said about people being killed in that place with the funny name.’

Dad shrugged. ‘Oh. That stuff. Can’t say I’ve been following it.’

Mark chewed for a minute. ‘Dad…’ he asked.

‘Now what?’

‘How did great-great-Grandpa get our farm?’

‘What? He bought it.’ Dad reached for the mustard and squirted some on his sausage.

‘He didn’t steal it from the Aborigines?’

‘No, of course not.’ Dad gave him a sharp look. ‘It wasn’t like that in those days, anyway. No one thought of it as stealing.’

‘Mark, your egg’s getting cold,’ said Mum.

Mark took a bite of egg. ‘But what if he did take it from the Aboriginal people…just suppose. It wouldn’t be our fault, would it?’

‘Who’s been feeding you all that stuff?’ demanded Dad, his face closed off in a way that Mark had never seen before.

‘I was just listening to the news, and someone said—’

‘The things they teach kids nowadays,’ said Dad, attacking his sausage savagely. ‘It’d make more sense if they taught everyone to mind their own business. Do-gooders poking their nose in where it doesn’t concern them.’

‘But Dad—’

‘Mark, give it a rest would you.’

‘But remember you told me that if we disagreed about anything we should talk about it. You said—’

‘Mark, that’s enough,’ said his Mum hurriedly. ‘Okay?’

Mark ate his egg in silence.

The rain stopped on Saturday night. The clouds that had stretched tight and grey across the sky shrank into mushrooms that puffed and waddled through the blue. The trees shone tiny diamonds across their leaves and the creek shrank slightly under its edge of foam.

Sunday night the rain began again.

At least we had Sunday free, thought Mark gloomily, as he listened to the rain on the roof; the thud, thud, thud and the droop, droop, droop where it dripped from the eaves. Finally, he dozed.

He dreamt of the creek, and the flood smashing its way across the rocks. He dreamt that Hitler was across the creek, but this Hitler wore jeans and his haircut was modern in spite of the moustache under his nose that looked as if it was sticky-taped on.

Hitler was making a speech. And suddenly there were people all around on Mark’s side of the creek, listening, cheering.

‘Go away,’ Mark yelled to them. ‘It’s a silly speech! Can’t you hear it’s silly.’

But his voice made no sound.

There was Ben on his motorbike with a swastika on his arm, and Bonzo in a uniform, and even Little Tracey was saluting Hitler too. Bonzo just wanted excitement and Ben didn’t think about things at all and Little Tracey would do what her friends…‘But he’s wrong!’ cried Mark. ‘Can’t you see he’s wrong!’

But they were laughing and cheering and excited, and no one was listening to Mark. They were wading into the creek, into the flood. They’d be washed away, thought Mark, and anyway, they shouldn’t be there at all. It wasn’t their farm and Dad would be angry with all the strangers on it, and the radio was talking about people being killed in that place in Africa, in Europe, in Indonesia, and Hitler was laughing, laughing, laughing…

‘You are all my children,’ screamed Hitler. ‘None of you really care. None of you question. You are all Hitler’s children!’

‘Go away,’ cried Mark again. ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?’

And suddenly he must have woken, or half woken anyway, because he was in bed and the people were gone. He rolled over, and pulled the doona up to his head, and this time he slept deeply.

The dream had almost vanished at breakfast. Only the flavour of it lingered inside his head.

‘Mum?’

‘Mmm? Do you want muesli or porridge this morning?’

‘Porridge,’ said Mark. ‘Mum, if Hitler came back now…’

‘You’re not still on about Hitler are you?’ asked Mum, measuring the rolled oats into the bowl. She slipped it into the microwave and pressed the button. ‘You’ve got Hitler on the brain lately.’

Mark watched the bowl spin round and round inside the microwave. ‘Well, not Hitler then. But someone really bad, like Hitler.’

‘Oh Mark, not more questions. It’s too early!’ protested Mum.

‘But Mum, what if everyone thought the really bad person was right! Like all the German people thought Hitler was right?’

Mum took the bowl from the microwave and stirred it, then put it back again. ‘I don’t think all the German people thought Hitler was right,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget it was a totalitarian country.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It means Hitler controlled the radio and the newspapers, so no one was allowed to say anything he didn’t agree with. And if you tried to speak out you were sent to a concentration camp.’

‘Did people protest?’ asked Mark.

‘No idea,’ said Mum. ‘I suppose so. Here you are.’ She passed him the milk and brown sugar.