Chapter 16

“No?”

“No.” I repeated. “Family secrets.”

“I understand,” said Abby.

The professor was interested and with a few nudges and gestures, talked Abby into revealing her ancestry.

“This is mostly innuendo and surmise. Very little was provable until DNA testing,” she said.

“My great great grand mother was born on Bali. In an area where dark skin prevailed, light skin was treasured. She was very light. A favorite of visitors to the temple, photographs abound and many bare breasted postcards of her were sold worldwide. An accomplished temple dancer she was 12 when the Japanese invaded.

“The Japanese were dreaded because they had the reputation of murdering the women they raped in China. Forced to perform for the conquerors, the dancers were regarded as spoils of war by the high-ranking officers. Great Great Grandmother was a considerable beauty. The inevitable happened and she was pregnant.

“Later, the Australians were conducting a reconnaissance in force and captured the village where she and her two year old half Japanese daughter were living in exile. The Japanese put up considerable resistance and my ancestor was killed ... a victim of the war like so many others.

“One of the officers heard crying and her two year old daughter was found hiding in the debris. The villagers wanted nothing to do with the slant eyed halfbreed so she was taken by the Australians back home to Australia.

“The Aussie officer placed her in a home, promising to return and adopt my ancestor. As happens in war ... he was killed on the very next raid. The foster home turned the girl out ... no money was forthcoming for her support. The Church, as so often happened, placed her in an orphanage.

“The priest was taken by her beauty; wrote of her in his journals. In later years, when she was 12, she was found to be pregnant. She wouldn’t name her assailant.

“An aborigine boy was accused of rape and cast out. Sometime later the boy was discovered dead. The child was born with red hair and kept in the orphanage. The mother died of one of the many diseases that struck down orphans ... or so the Church claimed.

“That child was pregnant, someone on walkabout said the Irish priest. The issue, again a girl with light skin, auburn hair and green eyes, lived in the orphanage ... placed by the English courts, ward of the state.

“Again; history repeats. The twelve year old beauty was again found with child. The rape was blamed on a never caught serial rapist. “You’re saying that you are the product of the Church?” a girl asked. “As investigation has proven ... the Church had many crimes to atone for ... but I know my dad ... I have the DNA Tests to prove it. My ancestry, by DNA, on my mothers side is Balinese, Japanese, Irish and daddy ... American. Which is to say Finnish, English, Irish, Scots, French.”