The Prisoner

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 453, 27 February 1948, Page 14

The Prisoner

Written for "The Listener" ||

by

M. W.

PEACOCK

HE military truck was bumping along the rutty road that led to Cody’s farm. Jim Cody, coming out of the stable, spotted it in the distance, and called out to his wife, who was bent almost double over two iron tubs set on a bench outside the back door. "’Ere comes our prisoner o’ war, Mum!" Mrs. Cody straightened up, wiped her steaming hands on her bag apron, and walked slowly across the drying yard to where her husband stood. She was a tall, shapeless woman, untidily dressed. Dark hair streaked with grey was twisted into a knob resting on the nape of her neck. The skin of her face, arms and neck was reddened and coarse; the expression of her- mild, toffee-brown eyes dull and apathetic, though tinged now with a shade of

apprehension. She looked exactly what she was, a hardworking farmer’s wife and mother of seven children. The two eldest boys were serving their country in New Guinea, Cathie was married and living in Melbourne, where she and her husband earned good money in a munition plant. Johnny, who would have been fourteen now, had been drowned in a waterhole when he was a toddler. She had had a few years’ rest from childbearing after that tragedy. Then Mavis, Joan and Bobby had come in quick succession. The young ones were at school now, riding off on their ponies in the early morning, and feturning in the late afternoon. So there was only herself and Jim at home all day, and they both worked like niggers. Ordinary farm labour was unobtainable. Mrs. Cody pleaded with Jim to apply for the services of a Land Army Girl. "She’d be company for me, rand help both of us." But Jim had scouted the idea. "Land Girl!" he snorted. "All uniform and. lipstick! Fat

, in lot o’ good she’d be: helpin’ me with the ploughin’ and the pigs." "They say they’re very capable, just as good as boys," Mrs. Cody defended her sex. "Well, I ain’t ’aving them on my farm," Jim declared, screwing up his ugly weather-stained face obstinately. "You've got the kids to ’elp you in the ’ouse. It’s me yer gotter consider." And he made application for a prisoner of war to be allotted to him. Now, after much filling in of forms and the usual governmental delays, the "Wog" was arriving. Mrs. Cody twisted her bag apron nervously in her hands. "If it’s a Jap, I

won’t stay in the house with him," she said belligerently. "And if it’s a great hulking Hun, he'll probably be ‘Heil-Hitler’-ing all over the place, and murder us in our beds. If we’d had a Land Army Girl..." Jim spat a jet of tobacco juice. "Ah, you make me sick!" he said; but his own hands were trembling nervously as the truck drew near. A Jap or a Hun? He hadn’t thought of that! The prisoner proved to be an Italian named Giovanni Amafieri. His papers gave his age as thirty-five, but he looked younger. He was a native of Sicily. His eyes were live black coals, his manner one of deference and servitude mixed with suffering pride. He spoke English very well, having at one time been a waiter in London. After the truck departed, Giovanni stood perfectly still, eyeing his employers warily. His possessions in a canvas bag lay at his feet. Jim flushed with embarrassment, and waved a hand towards his wife. "This

is the Missus," he said loudly, and amended, "Mrs. Cody." The Italian bowed. "Good morning, Madame." Mrs. Cody smiled, thinking how thin and sad the poor fellow looked-not a bit dangerous. "Dad’ll show you where you are to sleep," she said kindly. "Take your things in, and I’ll make you a cup of tea. I guess you're reedy for it after your journey." He bowed again. "You are verra kind." "Don’t take too long over it," shouted Cody. "There’s plenty o’ work waitin’." "Si-boss." "Gee-o," as the family called him, fitted swiftly and easily into life on the Cody farm. He was clean, willing and energetic. In addition to the work he was told to do, he took over little tasks on his own initiative. Mrs. Cody’s wood-box was never empty. There was always a pile of dry kindling ready for the morning fire. On washing days, the tubs stood filled with water. He brought up a barrow-load of gravelly soil from the creek bed and filled in a muddy hole just outside the back door. If he saw Mrs. Cody carrying anything heavy, he would rush up to relieve her with a "Plis to allow me!" He never sat while she remained standing. He placed her chair at meal times, fetched and carried for her in many unobtrusive ways. Mrs. Cody liked it. She felt that her status had been raised. She was no longer Mum, drudge and slave of the family; but queen of the household. "Isn’t Gio polite, Mum?" Joan remarked once. "Foreigners always are," said Mavis with superior knowledge, adding as an after-thought, "except Hitler." There came a day when, to her husband’s astonishment, Mrs. Cody decided to take the long train journey to Melbourne. "I want to buy a new dress," she explained. "T’aint necessary to travel a coupler ‘undred miles fer a dress, is it? Why don’t ye get it at Carter’s Stores, same as ye always done?" "Carter’s Stores! Lot of old-fashioned tubbish! Anyway it’s time I had a bit of a holiday." She returned a week later, wearing a gay flowered dress and blue coat. Her hair had been shorn and waved, and a smart hat was perched rakishly over one eye. What else she had done, only Mrs. Cody knew. Facial treatments, jars of cosmetics, lipstick-how Jim Cody scoffed!-new undies and corsets, shoes, gay "peasant" aprons. For her husband, a new pipe. Toys for the kids. And for: Giovanni-a mandoline! "Just an old second-hand one," she explained carelessly to Jim. "I saw it in a shop and thought he’d’ like it.*He told me he used to play one." "Wasting money on a Wog!" growled Cody. "It was my money," replied his wife tartly, patting the undulations in her hair, "and don’t call him a Wog. You copied that from that ignorant Tom Jackson. Gio’s a decent young fellow, and a good worker. Poor chap, it wasn’t his fault that Mussolini led the Italian people into war. They didn’t want it. He told me. He says the Italians love England and France, and hated fighting us!" "Fight us? I like that! All they did Was run away."

"Of course. Their heart wasn’t in it. They’re musicians and poets, not soldiers." * Ba * FTER teéa, as soon as the radio news session was finished, Jim Cody would yawn mightily, and go off to bed. The children finished their home lessons, and they too would retire. Then, as Mrs. Cody sat at the fire with her neverending pile of mending, Gio would read to her-from the newspapers, or the woman’s journal that came to her every week. Grim war news, recipes, short stories, advice to the love-lorn-all were read with the same quaint air of concentration and surprising accents that delighted his listener. Sometimes Jim Cody, waking from a _ work-haunted dream, would hear through the wooden partition that separated bedroom and living room the twang of the mandoline, and Gio’s voice crooning a Sicilian lovesong. Jim would draw the blankets over his head, and mutter, "Blast that Dago! Don’t know how Annie can stand it! Wish he’d go to bed." At ten o'clock, Mrs. Cody would put the iron kettle over the flames, and go to the pantry to rummage in her cake tin for some of Giovanni’s favourite fruit cake. He always made and poured the tea, and waited on her. "Plis to allow me-more tea for you?" Mrs. Cody would smile up at him happily. "You spoil me, Gio!" "But no-how could I spoil?" He told her of Taormina, his lovely home on the Sicilian coast. "Pretty place, is it?" "Most beautiful in the whole world. After the war, when I am free again, I shall return, I cannot tell you how gladly!" "Australia is beautiful, too," she said dismally. "Not this part, of course." | "You must excuse-I have seen so little of Australia. I am told there is great variety in scenery. But I will return to my home." "Have you got a wife, Gio?" "My wife died at the birth of her baby. There are my parents, my little daughter, and my sister-if they survived the war in Sicily. Where my brother is, I do not know." "I wish I could have travelled and seen a bit of the world. But I’ve seen nothing and done nothing, and never likely to. I was a farmer’s daughter and then a farmer’s wife. Twenty-three years I’ve been married. Twenty-three years’ hard labour!" "But not unhappy years-no? At first, maybe, romance. And then your children, nice children?" "Yes, they’re good kids, all of them. Jim was in the last war." Gio nodded. He had listened so often to Jim’s tedious war stories, his narrow and prejudiced views. "He got this farm under the Soldier Settlement scheme," she went on. "We had high hopes of making a lot of money, We haven’t done bad, considering; but ‘we've worked like slaves. I’m glad Cathie got out of it. I wonder will the boys want to carry on when they come back? There'll always have to be farmers, and farmers’ wives, of course. But-oh, I don’t know- it’s a hard life!" * * * IO had a birthday, and a Florentine friend whom he had known in Tatura camp sent him a book of Carducci’s poems in an English translation. The woman’s journal was neglected now, and (continued on next page) j

(continued from previous page) Gio read aloud from his treasure. Most of it was beyond Mrs. Cody’s understanding. Some of it she privately thought rather shocking. That one "To Satan," for instance; but the poems evidently delighted the pagan soul of Giovanni. His lustrous black eyes were alight as he read. "But of course it is so much better in the original. Poetry should never be translated. Listen to this-in English so. In Italian, liquid and musical: "Lungi, soavi, profundi; Eolia Cetra non rese pui dolei gemiti Mai nei so molli spirti Di Lesbo un di tra i mirti." You see how deeferent it become?" "Yes," conceded Mrs. Cody, snipping off a length of darning wool, "Quite different!" And Gio beamed on her. * * * INE night, Jim Cody was unusually wakeful. As a matter of fact, he had a stomach-ache. (Annie was putting a lot of onions in the cooking these days, because Gio liked them.) And he heard this. conversation: "Do I seem very old to you, Gio? "Old? But of course not," deprecatingly. "[’m eight years older than you. Have some more cake before I put it away." "Not more, I thank you. Already I have eaten a large piece." "I made it specially for you." "You are verra kind to me, Mrs. Cody. You and boss. I did not expect such treatment. You have given me a home. I have heard how bad the treatment of other prisoners, Made to sleep in outhouses like animals, meals apart, and spoken to unkindly. But you are so amiable. I am happy to be here with kind and understanding people." "You deserve it, Gio. You’re such a dear." Cody heard his wife rise. There was a slight scuffling, and Gio spoke agitatedly. "Plis, Mrs. Cody, do not kissa me so. What would boss say? It is dangerous -for you-for me. Boss would say: "You kissa my wife? You make lov’ to her, no? You are a bastard. You shall go away.’ And then I am marked bad man, and kept in concentration camp _always-no more freedom like this. I make no lov’, Mrs. Cody!" His voice was urgent and distressed. Mrs. Cody began to cry. "I’m sorry, Gio. It was just an impulse. You'll think I’m a bad woman; but I’m not. Only so lonely and unhappy, and so tired of my life. No one ever kisses me. Nobody wants me." "It is not so-your hosban’ want you. He lov’ you-often he tell me so. (Jim | wriggled his toes in the bed. Good old Gio-the liar!) "Only Australian hosbans they are-deeferent. They no make lov’." "He made love all right before we were married. I’m still the same woman; but he treats me like a bit of furniture about the house." "I know. But perhaps you too treat him like furniture, is it not? Before, ‘there were welcoming arms and smiles -and now, just Dad-so?" "Oh, I don’t know. I’m sick of everything."

"Plis-don’t cry any more. See, I make more tea." "Don’t bother. I’m going to bed." "Yes. You are verra tired-too much tired. To-morrow you feel better, no?" Jim was snoring loudly when Mrs. Cody crept into bed. Next day he drove into the township, and spent some time in the post-office writing a letter to the Prisoners of War Department. He wrote that he would no longer require the services of Giovanni as he was arranging for other help on the farm. He had no complaint against the Italian, who had worked willingly and well, and proved himself very useful .... The military truck chugged down the rutty road bearing away Giovanni Amafieri, his luggage and his mandoline. Milking cows streaked across the clearing, and Jim went down to the slip rails to let them into the yard. From the fowl run, a hen cackled the announcement of a belated accouchement. But Mrs. Cody, standing in the afternoon sunshine on the verandah of her home, saw and heard none of these things. Her eyes followed the receding dun-coloured truck, her ears heard only the rhythm of its motor growing fainter and fainter. She pressed her hand against her heart -the hand that Gio had kissed in parting. Her eyes were blinded with tears as she turned indoors. Automatically she refuelled the kitchen stove, and reached for the bag apron she had not worn for a long time. With Gio gone, she would have to help outside-feed the poddies, gather ‘the eggs, lock the turkeys up in’ the old stable. She stood for a moment looking about the shabby living room, remembering the sound of a mandoline, a soft voice reading aloud, two dark eyes, many gentle courtesies. Prisoner of War. Someday he would be free. But she-: she was a prisoner for life, a prisoner of fate. a * x G hese was smiling beneath his drooping moustache as he filled the pipe Annie had given him, and waited for the last of the cows to straggle through the opening. Mum would be pleased when she knew he was getting a Land Army Girl. And he’d take Jack Green’s advice and apply for young Roy to be released from the Army. Green rfreckoned he’d got a good chance of success, and as postmaster, he ought to know! His thoughts leapt ahead. Maybe Roy and the Land Girl would fall in love and marry. Then they could carry on the place for a time, while he took Mum away for a long holiday. She deserved it-poor old girl! He gave a hitch to his dungaree pants, and followed the cows to the milking shed.