In return for agreeing to all of these conditions, Runche explains that Jessica will undertake not to attempt to make any claim in a court of law concerning the parenthood of ‘the child in question’. She will effectively not be able to see the child and will allow Meg the undisputed claim to be the natural mother of Joseph ‘Joey’ Thomas, born on Christmas Day in the year of Our Lord, 1914.
It is the best deal Richard Runche believes he can make under the circumstances. He comes away from Riverview Station not knowing if he can persuade Jessica that she has almost no hope of ever regaining her child. If she refuses to sign the agreement, the alternative is the likelihood that she will spend the remainder of her life incarcerated behind the high stone walls of a lunatic asylum.
On the train to Narrandera, Jessica sleeps fitfully, more wakeful ,than asleep. She has sold out her child for her own freedom and she must now convince herself that it is in Joey’s best interests. Her child, living as her sister Meg’s, will enjoy every advantage, and Meg will love and cherish him the way Jessica herself would have done. For nearly two weeks she wrestled with the decision, resisting the barrister’s arguments. She couldn’t deny that they were sensible but the prospect of losing her child forever nearly destroyed her and several times she made the decision to remain where she was rather than betray Joey in her heart. Jessica cries herself to sleep every night for the month it takes Richard Runche KC to put her case for release to the authorities.
It is Solly Goldberg who comes to her rescue. He visits the asylum for their monthly picnic and finds Jessica in a terribly distressed state. When he asks her what is wrong, Jessica finds herself, for the first time, unable to confide in her friend.
Solly Goldberg remains silent for a long time, then he sighs and begins to talk softly. ‘Sometimes, Miss Bergman, we cry. That is good, to cry is good. Sometimes we laugh, and that is better, to laugh is wonderful. Sometimes also we are silent, to be silent is necessary, my dear. But mostly we talk. To talk is to be a human. To be a proper person. To share our tsuris, our troubles, all what is our pain. If we don’t talk, if we keep the pain inside, we die a little — every day we die a little, until one day the pain is gone. You know why goes the pain, Miss Bergman? I tell you. With the pain goes also the tears and the laughter. When we have no pain we lose everything, only the silence remains. When there is only silence, then you are finish, kaput. That is what it means to be mad.’ He reaches out and puts his hand on Jessica’s shoulder. ‘We Jews, we have a saying, “To live and talk is the best revenge.’”
Jessica starts to cry and Solly Goldberg moves over and takes her in his arms, rocking her. ‘Talk, my dear, tell your Uncle Solly.’ So Jessica tells him how she has been forced to give up her child in return for her own freedom.
Richard Runche KC has spent the whole month securing Jessica’s release. It’s a process that would normally have taken a great deal longer if it were not for the fact that Jessica had never received her second examination by the Medical Supervisor and, furthermore, that the war is all but over and there are a great many disturbed soldier-patients on their way home, needing hospitalisation. The barrister successfully argues that Jessica did not undergo the correct admission procedure, which means that she does not require the individual examinations by three physicians to secure her release. Only the completion of the original and neglected examination by the Medical Supervisor is needed.
At the conclusion of Jessica’s examination the Medical Supervisor remarks, ‘I only wish that my own daughter was as level-headed, sensible and sane as you are, Miss Bergman. I wish you well.’ Then, in what can only be construed as an understatement of astronomical proportions, he adds, ‘I apologise for any inconvenience to you.’ As Jessica has no history of delusions, hallucinations, delirium, stupor,. violence, hysterics, depression, suicidal tendencies or any other mental symptoms, and no record of anything but the most minor punishments while at Callan Park, her release becomes a mere formality, held up only by the usual government red tape. Jessica finally signs the agreement with Meg, though she’s refused to accept any money from her sister. ‘They can’t buy me off! No flamin’ way! The horse and chooks and the tools and things, that’s fair enough, Joe would’ve left those for me. But I’m not takin’ their thirty pieces of silver! I can make me own way — I don’t need their money.’
Richard Runche KC tries to argue with her, but he is becoming accustomed to the Bergman stubbornness. Finally he is forced to capitulate. ‘Very well, my dear. Pity though, it would buy an awful lot of claret,’ he jokes, then adds, ‘I assure you I shall have no such crisis of conscience with my fee to your sister, my dear.’
Jessica embraces him. He smells a bit like overripe cheese, stale tobacco and spilt wine all mixed together, though she’s smelled worse in the shearing shed. ‘I can’t never repay you, Mr Runche. I owe you me freedom, me life!’
‘You have shown yourself to be a very courageous young woman, Jessica. That is sufficient payment. Besides, I haven’t found the necessity to be properly drunk for nearly six weeks.’
‘You done it all,’ Jessica persists. ‘Without you I’d never have got out. You knew I couldn’t pay — you done it out of the goodness of your heart.’
Richard Runche KC throws back his head and laughs heartily. ‘Steady on, old girl. In the interests of the truth, I must remind you that it has been several years since I have been as well paid in return for my humble services.’
Now in the pale dawn light on the train, Jessica watches Richard Runche KC as he sleeps. She ponders how it is that the only people who have helped her in the nearly five years since she’d taken Billy Simple into captivity have been loners, outcasts like herself. A skinny-legged Aboriginal lady, her dear, sweet, loving Mary Simpson; a kosher butcher, his Communist son and his generous-hearted, invisible wife. And a drunken English lawyer, the black sheep of his family sent out to the colonies to get him out of the way.
Jessica reaches over and touches the sleeping barrister lightly. ‘Thanks, mate,’ she whispers. Then she thinks how he could use a damn good scrub in the tub next to the windlass. Jessica tries to imagine the barrister with his clothes off, the way she’d once seen Billy Simple standing in the tub, and she is forced to giggle even before her imagination has his trousers below his knees. Jessica waits until it’s light enough to read and she takes out Jack’s last letter and opens it carefully, determined that she won’t cry.
Sgt Jack Thomas
New South Wales Light Horse
El Arish
Northern Sinai Desert
Egypt
22 December 1916
My darling Jessica,
I get your letters every month and I don’t know what I should do without them. They are of the greatest comfort to me and are always cheerful. But, as I have said before, you never mention whether you’ve received mine.
I cannot help feeling that you have been terribly wronged. Something dreadful has happened to put you in that place, why will you not tell me?
I dare not mention my concern for you to your sister Meg. She sends me letters every month about the antics of young Joey, who seems to be growing into a fine young lad. But she never writes of you, despite the fact that in every letter to her I beg her to send you my best wishes and I ask after your welfare.
I find it difficult to think that I have a son to Meg, when it is you I love. Oh, Jessie, I worry so much that it may have been what happened with me and Meg that has put you into that dreadful place. If so, I shall never forgive myself, and when I return I will use every influence I can to get you out.
I think of you every day my dear, sweet Tea Leaf. In the morning first thing and last thing at night. And, if I have a few moments to myself during the day, thoughts of you occupy them as well. I know I have said all this before in my other letters and I shouldn’t go on like this. It is coming up to Christmas and we’ll have 24 hours’ leave if the bloody Turks don’t decide to send us their Christmas greetings via mortar shell.
El Arish is no place to spend Christmas Day. The town seems to have a mangy, starving dog for everyone of its inhabitants, who also seem to closely resemble their dogs in appearance and in nature. The Gyppos are a poor lot — both physical and otherwise — and natural thieves and cowards, quite different to the Turks.
I am writing this by lantern light in my tent and the moon outside is the tiniest crescent, merely a silver sliver in a star-pricked sky (that’s me going all poetical). It’s surprising how dark it can get in the desert and yet, with a full moon, how light. So light that if it were a full moon tonight I would be sitting writing this letter outside, enjoying the breeze that comes up around eight o
’clock. Can you remember? The moon is sometimes bright like it is on a summer night at home. ‘You can read a newspaper by its light,’ folk would always say, though I never saw anyone who did.