Heritage (4 page)

‘You Italian?' he'd queried, looking Pietro up and down, and Pietro had finally raised his eyes and nodded.

‘I'll put you on Lucky's team – Lucky speaks every lingo under the sun. Come on, I'll show you blokes your accommodation.'

From that day on, Pietro's life had changed. He loved Spring Hill. He'd expected tents. The interpreter in Sydney had explained to him that he was going to a ‘work camp', and a work camp meant tents. But Spring Hill was a town of eight hundred people. There in the wilderness, among the red gums, the blackbutts and the silver birch, with the mountains forming a backdrop and the river flowing nearby, were streets and rows of neat, prefabricated staff cottages with front verandahs and gardens. And the adjacent camp, although less sophisticated, was equally impeccable, with lines of barracks and single cabins, ablution blocks, a huge mess hall, and a wet canteen where the men gathered over their beers at night.

Pietro had been allotted the end room in a line of barracks, and he kept it in pristine condition. Of a similar size to the one-man cabins, the rooms in the barracks were small, each housing no more than an iron-framed bed and a tallboy and lowboy made of plywood, but Pietro was inordinately proud of his new home. He'd acquired blue curtains for his window, an orange bedspread for his pallet, and a small blue mat with orange trim for the floor so that everything matched. They looked quite new, although they weren't.

‘They is old, Pietro, I am soon throw them out, please you take them,' Vesna had insisted in her colourfully broken English.

It was Lucky who had introduced him to Vesna and her husband, Miroslav, who lived in one of the staff cottages. They were Yugoslavs, and Miroslav was an engineer. Pietro had been surprised and a little overawed when Lucky had taken him to their home, but then Lucky had done so much for him. It seemed sometimes that Lucky had adopted him and, although there was only sixteen years difference in their ages, Pietro had quickly seized upon Lucky as the father he couldn't remember.

‘Tell me about yourself,' Lucky had said over their beers in the wet canteen on Pietro's third night.

Pietro had worked hard for the past three days. He'd wanted to. Language barriers appeared to present little problem to the others, the men communicating with gestures or yelling for others to interpret if necessary, but although there were a number of Italians among the forty-man team, Pietro had found it difficult to join in the general camaraderie. His natural reserve had made him reclusive. So he'd decided to prove his worth another way. He would show them that, despite his slight build, he was strong. Strong and not afraid of hard work. And the work had been very hard.

There were many work sites around Spring Hill. The first of the Scheme's major projects, the Guthega dam, power station, three-mile tunnel and interconnecting steel pipeline, was due for completion the following year, and the race was on.

Assigned to Lucky's team, Pietro's job had been in the smaller of the tunnels, loading the skips after firing. The aqueduct system, designed to pick up the maximum run-off from tributaries feeding into the Snowy River, required many miles of tunnels, far smaller than the massive ones through which the river itself would be channelled. The run-off water would eventually be piped through these tunnels into the nearby dam already nearing completion.

The face was drilled with jackhammers, the holes loaded with gelignite, then fired. An hour later, after the ventilating system had cleared away the fumes, the workers re-entered the claustrophobic tunnel, barely two yards high, and with hands and shovels they collected the debris, using spalling hammers to break up the rocks too big to lift. Then they pushed the skips along rail tracks to the spoil dump outside.

‘Come on, Pietro, tell me about yourself,' Lucky had again prompted in Italian when the boy had remained silent. ‘You're a hard worker, I can see that much,' he'd added encouragingly. ‘What's your background?'

Pietro had looked self-consciously around the wet canteen, the air thick with cigarette smoke and the unintelligible conversation of men. A card game was going on in one corner and, in another, men were laying bets on an unknown wager; no-one was paying them any attention.

‘I worked for a year on a construction site in Milano,' he'd said, then returned his attention to his beer, hoping the simplicity of such a reply would suffice.

But it hadn't. ‘So you're from Milano?' Lucky appeared most interested.

Pietro had been impressed by the man from the moment he'd met him, as most people were. Lucky was far more than a foreman: he was everybody's friend. A German, he also spoke English and Italian fluently and seemed to have a passable knowledge of any number of other languages, which made him a bit of a mystery. But he shrugged off enquiry, simply saying, ‘I have an ear and an interest.'

Physically strong, Lucky would have been handsome, had it not been for the puckered scar on his temple that made his left eye droop like a bloodhound's. Lucky had natural authority and an intense charm, qualities which had served him well when he'd arrived with the first batch of Snowy workers in '49.

Looking up from his beer, Pietro had felt himself succumb to the keenness of the enquiry and the eager intelligence in Lucky's gaze, which even the disfigured eye could not disguise. Perhaps he was merely flattered that a man such as Lucky would find him of interest, but Pietro had a sudden desire to admit to the mystery of his life. He had told others his story before. In Milano he'd made no secret of his memory loss, although he had not relished the discussion it occasionally invited. But during his job interviews, both in Italy and Australia, he had been careful to admit to none of his past, fearful that it would affect his employment prospects.

‘In a way I am from Milano, yes,' he answered carefully. ‘I lived there for many years, but it was never my home. I come from the mountains.'

His considered response had clearly intrigued Lucky, who forgot that he'd finished his beer and had been about to get another. ‘Where in the mountains?'

‘I do not know. I can remember only the snow, and the mountain peaks so high they block out the sun. And in the spring, the rocks and the grasses and the flowers, and the pine forests in the valley below. And I can remember the goats.'

He didn't want to dwell upon the goats. During the occasions when jagged fragments of memory returned, the goats were the clearest image of all. Pietro liked the goats, but he didn't welcome them when they became too vivid – when he could see their teats and feel the rubbery warmth in his hands as he milked them – for such clarity invariably preceded a seizure. He could never remember what images followed the goats, but when the fit had passed, he was always left with a sense of horror.

Through his shirt, Pietro fingered the sturdy piece of leather strap which rested against his chest, an automatic gesture. He always wore it on a thin length of twine around his neck. When he felt a fit coming on, he would place it between his teeth so that he would not bite through his tongue.

‘I cannot remember my home, or my family.' His tone became matter-of-fact. It was never wise to become emotional, and he did not intend to tell Lucky about the fits. ‘I can remember nothing but the Convent of the Sacred Heart where they took me when I was eleven years old. I was told that I had been wandering the streets of Milano living on scraps from rubbish bins in the alleys behind restaurants and cafes. I don't know how I got there, and they told me that I could say nothing but my name, Pietro, over and over. It was many months before I spoke any more, they said.'

Pietro was gratified by Lucky's avid attention – he had wanted to impress his new friend – but he didn't wish to sound sorry for himself, so he smiled. ‘There were many war orphans at the convent, and they played us music on the gramophone, so I called myself Toscanini.'

‘You must forgive me, Pietro. I am too nosy, I always have been, it is a flaw in my nature.' Lucky had seen the flicker in the boy's eyes as he'd embarked upon his story, and he chastised himself. There were many on the Snowy who had pasts they did not wish to revisit. The boy had been traumatised and he should not have pushed him. ‘I am sorry.'

‘But there is no need to be,' Pietro insisted, surprised by Lucky's obvious remorse. ‘I wished to tell you my story.'

‘One day I will tell you mine, my young friend.' Lucky grinned as he rose, tapping a finger to his bloodhound eye. ‘How I came by this, eh? But for now, I will get you another beer.'

Ever since that night, Lucky had taken Pietro under his wing. He had encouraged him to attend the English classes held in the mess hall two nights a week, and Pietro had applied himself diligently. And when Lucky had invited Pietro to the home of his friends, Miroslav and Vesna, he had encouraged the boy to practise his new language. Pietro had been shy at first, but it had been Vesna who had put him at his ease.

‘My English is too bad,' she had said, and when her husband had laughed, she had demanded, ‘Why is wrong?'

‘My English, too, is bad,' Miroslav had corrected her.

‘Yes, most bad,' she had agreed. ‘So we is practise together, Pietro.'

It had been easy after that, and Pietro had become good friends with Vesna as they clumsily helped each other master the language.

She told him her background. She was Serbian, she said, and Miroslav was Croatian, and they came from towns just a mile either side of the border. But they hadn't met in the old country; they had met in Australia eighteen months before.

‘All my life Miroslav live two mile away,' she laughed, ‘and I meet him first week I am in Brisbane.'

Miroslav had been in Brisbane for three years when they'd met and, having served out his two-year Displaced Persons contract, had received his accreditation as an engineer. They had fallen in love the moment they first met, Vesna said, much to the disapproval of their respective families. Miroslav's brother, who had also emigrated, had severed all ties with him.

‘The Serbs and the Croats,' she said, ‘is much hate. But for Miroslav and me, we leave this behind. We is Australia now. Is new life here.'

Pietro vehemently agreed with her. He, too, was embracing his new life, feeling himself grow stronger with each week that passed. Just as the physical labour honed and strengthened his body, so the company of his fellow workers and the gradual ability to communicate strengthened his belief in himself.

But it was Lucky who had made the deepest impression upon him, for it was Lucky who had taught him to love the landscapes of his new country.

On a Sunday, several weeks after Pietro's arrival, the two had travelled the countryside together in one of the Land Rovers to which Lucky appeared to have constant access. He had earned the right. He was Rob Harvey's most valued foreman, not only because of his communication skills and his popularity with the men, but for the fact that he doubled as a motor mechanic. Although not officially qualified, there was very little Lucky didn't know about cars. They were his obsession, and he would happily spend all his recreational time tinkering with engines that needed attention. Rob Harvey quite rightly considered it only fair that Lucky should have a vehicle at his ready disposal.

They had driven into the mountains and pulled up beside the banks of the mighty Snowy, and Lucky had painted the pictures in Italian for Pietro. Normally he insisted upon speaking English to further the boy's education, but he'd wanted to communicate his passion.

‘During the snowmelt, Pietro,' he'd said, ‘she roars down the mountain like herds of wild white horses. She is magnificent.' He'd been silent for a while, before adding with a touch of regret, ‘I sometimes think it is sad that we are harnessing her.' Then he'd started up the Land Rover and they'd driven still higher, to where the track ended and where, far above them, the craggy tips of the Snowies were clothed in white.

‘Your new mountains, Pietro. Perhaps not as high as your alps in Italy, but just as splendid, do you not agree?' Pietro had nodded, and Lucky had said, ‘They are your home now.'

As they'd wound their way back down the track, Lucky had waved through the windows, an all-embracing gesture at the trees passing by. ‘Just look at them,' he'd said admiringly, and Pietro had. They were so varied, he'd thought, different from the alpine forests he could still vaguely recall. Some were black and stunted, while the pure white trunks and graceful limbs of others shimmered in the sun.

‘The trees are like women, Pietro,' Lucky had smiled. ‘See how the blackbutt bends? She looks plain now, but when winter comes she will accept her burden of snow with ease, for she is a contortionist and she knows she is pretty in white. And the snow gum,' he'd added, with a mock frown of disapproval, ‘the snow gum is shameless. She is a hedonist, basking in the sun. She is white and virginal now, but in the early autumn, she will flaunt her summer tan and turn a deep shade of terracotta.' He'd laughed out loud, thoroughly enjoying himself.

‘And now I will show you Monaro country. It is a good time of year for you to see it, before the snow covers the high plains.'

When they were back in the valley, his mood had again become serious. ‘You thought this land was barren when you first arrived, Pietro, but you were wrong. There are whole worlds that live in these hills and plains.'

And he'd driven Pietro through a landscape that made him breathless with its beauty and variety. A landscape of rolling hills and grassy valleys. Of escarpments overlooking vast, treeless plains where the orange heads of the kangaroo fronds mingled with the silver-gold of the native grasses to ripple in the summer breeze like a massive multi-coloured river.

‘It is so alive,' Pietro said as they gazed across the plain. He was reminded of the children's picture book Sister Anna Maria had given him for his thirteenth birthday,
Animals of Africa
it had been called. ‘It looks like a sea of lions' manes,' he said. The countryside was taking on a new life to Pietro as he viewed it through Lucky's eyes.