Chapter 42

“I’m not happy,” Jos remarked to Sam. “We’re too big. I never wanted this to become a population center.”

“Three hundred is hardly a population center.”

“We’re bigger than Timber Creek!”

“Yet under half the size of Wyndham. We’re still at a size where pretty much everyone knows everyone. Or, at least recognizes them.”

“True. But I worry that Perth will notice us. They’ve ignored us for more than a year, ever since your father frightened that drongo.”

“Yes, and then the twins hadn’t been born yet.”

“And now they’re nearly two, Lily is getting ready hatch and there are half-a-dozen other infants.”

“Many not mine. The Tiwi seem to be both active and fertile.”

Jos laughed. “The group from Hall’s Creek certainly assimilated rapidly, too.”

“I think we should ‘explore’ the land to the south and east. But not the far side of Stockade Creek. I don’t know exactly where the Rosewood boundary line is.”

“I don’t either. But the Strubers have been running the Rosewood Station for over 20 years.”

“Oh? Yes. But it’s clear that many more people will tax the aquifer. A dowser might help.”

“Isn’t that nonsense?”

“I don’t know. I certainly find divining for water strange. But there was one study that showed that the dowsers’ predictions concerning depth and volume of water were accurate to within 10% to 20%. No one knows why dowsing works – or if, indeed, it does work. But it’s worth trying.”

“Sam, Tessa says you come.” It was one of the Tiwi women.

“Right. Sorry, Jos.” Sam jogged home.

“It’s Lily’s time. We need to get her to Elly’s.”

“Can she walk?”

“Yes. One of us on each side. I have her bag.” And they helped Lily to the infirmary. Farzana was there and there was a hand-cranked siren by the entrance. Farzana turned it twice. Elly would hear it.

A few hours later, Lily and Sam had a daughter.

“She is as beautiful as her mother,” Sam said. “Have you thought of names?”

“Can I call her ‘Susannah’?”

“The Hebrew for ‘Lily’? Why not?”

“If she is my lovely venomous snake, I name her for me as you and I give her life.”

“That may be a bit too dramatic. Rest now. Sleep. Elly and Farzana will be here.”

Sam and Tessa walked home. Tessa could see he was disturbed, but said nothing. Just as the got home, Sam’s phone rang.

“Sam.”

“Henry. Listen. Urup, Iturup. Kunashir, and Shikotan are gone!”

“What? Back up. I don’t know those places.”

“They’re the northernmost islands of Japan. Well, maybe Russia. The Russians took them after 1945.”

“Right. I think I can visualize them.”

“OK. There seems to have been a quake, perhaps a large plate slip. Anyway, the four islands and some isolated rocks are just gone.”

“Populated?”

“Not very. Under 10K all together. Mostly Russians now. Or then, I guess.”

“Sounds awful. Anyway, Lily just had a little girl. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Sam reflected. Was he growing coarse? Was he too wrapped up in ‘here’ to the detriment of ‘elsewhere’?

“Dad?”

“Yes, Rob?”

“You sad.”

“Not really. Thoughtful. That’s different. We should be happy. Lily had a girl. So you and Marge have a new sister.”

“Marge my sister.”

“Yes. And now you will have another. Her name is Susannah.”

“Too big. I call new sister Su. I tell Marge.” Rob toddled into the other room. Sam wondered. Was that a real conversation with his son? Magic. Word magic. And ambulatory children. Amazing.

Sam thought through Henry’s call. It was hard to worry about the people in those islands between Japan and Russia. The earth had been convulsing, shaping and reshaping for billions of years. Since long before there were hominids in Africa. And while people had destroyed more than other animals had, they also were aware of what was happening.

People had laughed at Wegener’s talk of plates for decades. But just in Sam’s life the Arctic ice was nearly gone. As was Greenland’s ice. And lots of the Antarctic. Cold places getting warmer. Hot, dry places getting hotter and drier. Windstorms were worse. There were water shortages all over. Islands vanished and volcanoes erupted. And the viruses. Not quite frogs, locusts, or the other biblical plagues. But bad enough.

He wondered which of the Powers was to blame. All? None? Rob had been Weena’s father. Weena was Patrick’s mother. Patrick was his father. Was Rob responsible for little Rob? What had Cain asked? “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Donne had the answer to that, over 400 years ago:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were. as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

But what can anyone do? Canute couldn’t stay the tide. It’s decades since Rachel Carson warned about pesticides. A decade later, Lovelock wrote about Gaia. That is most likely untrue, they taught at UNE. But climate change is here. Earth is suffering and we’re doing it. While in Sydney he’d read that rising sea levels could cause Canada’s beaches to retreat inland, in extreme cases by as much as half a kilometer. What to do? Perhaps the best option may be to stand back and let it happen. That’s what Candide is all about. At the end, Pangloss says: “There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”

“What are you doing?” Tessa interrupted his train of thought.

“Day-dreaming.”