Free Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms by Anita Heiss Page A

child’s temperature and says very little before mumbling to a nurse by his side.
    Joan feels like she is invisible, and asks, ‘Will she be all right?’
    â€˜Temperature’s down, and she hasn’t vomited for –’ he looks at the chart, ‘– two hours, so yes, I think the worst has passed.’ The doctor turns to the nurse and offers instructions. ‘She will bring something for the child, and you can stay here till the morning, just in case.’
    Just in case what? Joan worries to herself but says nothing. All she needs to know is that the worst has passed.

    Hiroshi starts to panic when Mary misses an evening visit. Is it all over? Have they changed their minds about protecting him? Are they planning to hand him over? Should he try to escape and, if so, where would he go now? He is still no better off than he was when he first left the POW camp. He has torturous hunger pangs and he spends hours pacing the small space. He loses count of how many sit-ups he does just to keep moving. He tries to do push-ups but his arms are weak fromlack of nutrition and only eggs for protein. He stretches out his entire body, sore from no real exercise since the night he ran here.
    When he hears the sheet of iron above move, his feelings are a mix of relief and fear. As Mary’s legs appear on the ladder, his heart lifts, glad that she has returned.
    â€˜I’m so sorry,’ she says, handing him some damper and a jar of water. ‘Jessie was very sick at the hospital and I had to stay with the other goothas.’
    Hiroshi frowns.
    â€˜Oh, children, goothas means children. I had to stay with them and couldn’t come down last night. You must be starving.’
    Hiroshi unwraps the damper and eats it instantly. The water disappears quickly too.
    â€˜I’m sorry Jessie was sick. What was wrong?’
    â€˜She had poisoning. She ate some nuts off a pine tree and you’re not supposed to eat them. She had to stay in the hospital, which is never a good experience for Aboriginal people. Mum said they made her wait in the cupboard with all the linen – the sheets and blankets.’
    â€˜That doesn’t sound right.’
    â€˜It gets worse,’ Mary says. ‘At the Cowra hospital there’s a ward out the back for the Black people, that’s where they put the Aboriginal women if they come in to have babies. My Aunt said that when she was there it had the word “ABO” written in capital letters on the sheets and the towels. It’s so they don’t accidentally give them to white people to use.’
    â€˜No!’ Hiroshi exclaims in disbelief. ‘This is how Australians treat other Australians?’
    Mary gets the newspaper out of her waistband. ‘I nearly forgot, here’s the paper.’
    Hiroshi takes it, eyes wide, always grateful. He flicks through it quickly while Mary is still there and stops.
    â€˜What is this?’ Hiroshi asks Mary, pointing to the headline C OWRA V. C ANOWINDRA .
    â€˜Oh, that’s a story about football,’ she says. ‘It talks about my dad’s cousin Doug Williams.’
    Hiroshi starts reading, ‘“He chased down an opposition player, bringing him down in a flying tackle.”’
    â€˜Yes, that means he ran after the man with the ball and grabbed him, pushing him to the ground. That’s a tackle.’ Mary moves like she is going to tackle an invisible footballer. Hiroshi chuckles at the dramatics.
    â€˜The Black Diamonds are from here, Erambie,’ she says proudly. ‘They’re legends across the region. Everyone knows about Dicky McGuinness, Viney Murray, Archie Bamblett, Harold Carberry and Doug Williams. They’re our local heroes, and we’re all related in some way, either by blood or by marriage, and always by this land around here.’
    Hiroshi just nods, still trying to understand how everyone can be related. He thinks Mary has a very big