Vanishing Point

He turned off the vehicle side-lights and shut the doors. The sudden loss of light made the night seem darker. Katherine could hear the rustle of clothes and saw from the faint starlight that he removed his boots, socks, trousers and shirt. These he rolled neatly to use as a pillow. Wearing only a singlet and underpants he slid into his bag, leaving Katherine uncertain as to how to organise her own sleeping arrangements in the dark.

More by feel than sight Katherine slipped, fully dressed, into the swag hoping it was as clean as Benjamin indicated. She put Carolyn gently down next to her. Her nappy was still dry so she made no attempt to change it. Once in the swag she found it uncomfortably warm so opened one side to let the cool night air through. She lay quietly, thinking about the day’s events and wondering if tomorrow would see some sort of return to normality.

Within minutes she heard the rhythm of Benjamin’s breathing change and increase in volume. She listened for a while, looking up at the clear sky and bright stars. The moon was the merest sliver of crescent and the stars seemed brighter than she had seen them before. Even as she stared at the night sky her eyes grew heavy, languidly closed and she fell asleep.

* * *

It was still dark when the cracking of twigs woke her. She sat up suddenly, uncertain where she was. Benjamin was snapping small twigs and dead branches from the abundant accumulation on the ground to feed a fire, next to which was the billy. Katherine looked at Carolyn, still asleep but twitching. A hint of the day to come made the stars more difficult to see against a lightening sky spread with thin clouds.

‘Mornin’,’ said Benjamin.

‘G’morning,’ came her sleepy response, half swallowed with a yawn as Katherine covered her mouth. She felt like a wreck, her eyes still gummed with sleep and her hair all tousled from a restless night. While camping with Alec had not been five star, at least she had slept on a mattress. The swag was separated from the hard ground by very little material. ‘What’s the time?’

‘Dunno. Early.’

Katherine got up and walked carefully into the bushes, looking for a private place for a morning pee. She returned, combing her hair with her fingers, to find Carolyn fully awake and on the verge of crying. She picked her daughter up and climbed into the parked Land Rover to feed her. Benjamin stayed beside the fire and by the time Carolyn was fed and changed he had made tea. He came across to the vehicle and passed her a steaming mug. ‘Got sugar, but no milk.’

‘No problem, I can drink it black.’

‘Good, ‘cause milk ain’t easy ta come by out bush. Sometimes I use powdered but t’aint the same.’

‘Black’s fine, thanks.’

‘How’d ya go with bubs if ya lived out here with no milk?’

‘I guess I’d use powdered. Lots of beef or sheep stations don’t have access to dairy products. They survive, so do their babies.’

Silently they packed up the sleeping gear and were back in the Land Rover just as th

e dawn light warned of the rising sun, still hidden below the horizon.

The same routine continued as the previous night, driving without speaking, the vehicle bouncing along the track.

Suddenly Benjamin asked, ‘How old are ya?’

‘Just over twenty one. I was born the day Japan surrendered, fourteenth of August,’ Katherine replied without thinking, a little surprised by the abruptness of the question.

‘I’m gunna tell ya a story from the Bible.’ Benjamin looked sideways at Katherine for a brief moment before turning to look into the road. Any interest in her or her age seemed to have passed. ‘There were a Levite livin’ in remote mountains an’ he took himself a concubine.’ He looked at Katherine. ‘That’s a word what in the Bible also describes a wife. But she up an’ left him an’ went back to her father’s house in town.’

As he spoke, Benjamin changed, not only in the manner of his speech but also his body language. Katherine thought that he sounded as if he were preaching. He knew the story off by heart. His voice became louder and more precise. It was almost the voice of another, perhaps a preacher who might have taught him.

Benjamin looked directly ahead as if concentrating on the road. ‘This Levite followed her and stayed with her father for a time. Each time he tried to leave he were persuaded to stay longer. Eventually when he did get away it was late in the evening. He went with his woman an’ his servant but didn’t get very far before night. They stopped at a town called Gibeah. At that time this place belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. They decided to make camp in the open, in the town square ‘cause there were no other place. But an old man in the town offered to take them into his own home.’

Katherine was fascinated. The story itself was interesting but more curious was the fact that Benjamin was reciting it to her in this unusual tone of voice.

‘There were there some larrikins in the town and they attacked the house and demanded the old man give them the Levite so they could bugger him. Ya know what that means?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Katherine blushed. ‘This isn’t a very nice story, is it?’

‘No, but it’s God’s message. The Bible’s his true word so’s it tells us how to live. Anyways, the old man was angry an’ shocked that these larrikins wanted to do this to a traveller and instead offered his own daughter and the concubine for the men to do what they wanted. His daughter was a virgin. They took em an’ raped the concubine all night. In the morning she was left on the doorstep of the house, an’ she died there.’

‘That’s terrible. It’s a terrible story,’ said Katherine. ‘I didn’t know that story. Probably not one of the Bible stories they talk about in Sunday School or even in church. I guess it just shows what little regard they had for women in those days. I mean —’

‘That ain’t the end of the story,’ interrupted Benjamin sharply. ‘Don’t ya want to know what happened?’

‘Oh! Sorry, yes. What happened?’

‘The Levite cut up his wife, or concubine — whatever ya wanna call her — into twelve bits. He sent one piece of her to all the tribes of Israel so that the evil behaviour of the men of Gibeah would be known. This led to one helluva war and the tribes formed an army to attack and punish the people of Gibeah, who were the Benjamites. First they asked that the crims be handed over so they’d be punished but they refused an’ instead went out with an army. The Israelites lost more than twenty-two thousand men. Then there were a second battle an’ they lost another eighteen thousand.’