Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tekstovi Za Prevod II Godina
Tekstovi Za Prevod II Godina
33
My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel, said a very self-possessed young lady
of fifteen; in the meantime you must try and put up with me.
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter
the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he
doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would
do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
I know how it will be, his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this
rural retreat; you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your
nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all
the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one
of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.
Do you know many of the people round here? asked the niece, when she judged
that they had had sufficient silent communion.
Hardly a soul, said Framton. My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know,
some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
Then you know practically nothing about my aunt? pursued the self-possessed
young lady.
Only her name and address, admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs.
Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room
seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
Her great tragedy happened just three years ago, said the child; that would be
since your sisters time.
Her tragedy? asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies
seemed out of place.
You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,
said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
It is quite warm for the time of the year, said Framton; but has that window got
anything to do with the tragedy?
Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young
brothers went off for their days shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to
their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of
bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other
years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the
dreadful part of it. Here the childs voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly
human. Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown
spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is
why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often
told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and
Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing Bertie, why do you bound? as he always did to tease
her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings
like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window -
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled
into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
I hope Vera has been amusing you? she said.
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She has been very interesting, said Framton.
I hope you dont mind the open window, said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; my husband
and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. Theyve
been out for snipe in the marshes today, so theyll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So
like you menfolk, isnt it?
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the
prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate
but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious
that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly
straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate
coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement,
and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise, announced Framton,
who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance
acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of ones ailments and infirmities, their cause and
cure. On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement, he continued.
No? said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last
moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was
saying.
Here they are at last! she cried. Just in time for tea, and dont they look as if they
were muddy up to the eyes!
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to
convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with
a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat
and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the
window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened
with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.
Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: I
said, Bertie, why do you bound?
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the
front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road
had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
Here we are, my dear, said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through
the window, fairly muddy, but most of its dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came
up?
A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel, said Mrs. Sappleton; could only talk
about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived.
One would think he had seen a ghost.
I expect it was the spaniel, said the niece calmly; he told me he had a horror of
dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack
of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling
and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
Saki (H.H. Munro), The Open Window
35
Japan (Arts and Culture)
Japanese cultural history is marked by periods of extensive borrowing from other
civilizations, followed by assimilation of foreign traditions with native ones, and finally
transformation of these elements into uniquely Japanese art forms. Japan borrowed
primarily from China and Korea in premodern times and from the West in the modern
age.
Cultural imports began to arrive in Japan from continental East Asia around 300
BC, starting with agriculture and the use of metals. These new technologies eventually
helped build a more complex Japanese society, whose most remarkable and enduring
structures were huge, key-shaped tombs. Named for these tombs, the Kofun period
endured from the early 4
th
to the 6
th
century AD.
In the middle of the 6
th
century, Japan embarked on a second phase of extensive
cultural borrowing from the Asian continent largely from China. Among the major
imports from China were Buddhism and Confucianism. Buddhism was particularly
important, not only as a religion but also as a source of art, especially in the form of
temples and statues. Although Buddhism eventually became a major religion of Japan,
some evidence indicates that the Japanese initially were drawn more to its architecture
and art than to its religious doctrines.
In Japans first state, the arts were almost exclusively the preserve of the ruling
elite, a class of courtiers who served as ministers to the emperor. For most of the 8
th
century the court was located at Nara, the first capital of Japan, which gave its name to
the Nara period (710-794). At the end of the 8
th
century the capital moved to Heian-ky
(modern Kyto), and Japan entered its classical age, known as the Heian period (794-
1185). By the beginning of the 11
th
century, the emperors courtiers had developed a
brilliant culture and lifestyle that owed much to China but was still uniquely Japanese.
Poetry flourished especially, but important developments also took place in prose
literature, architecture (especially residential architecture), music, and painting (both
Buddhist and secular).
As the Heian court reached its height of cultural brilliance, however, a class of
warriors (samurai) emerged in the provinces. In the late 12
th
century the first warrior
government (known as a shogunate) was established at Kamakura. Japan entered a feudal
era of frequent wars and samurai dominance that would last for nearly four centuries, first
under the Kamakura and then under the Ashikaga shoguns.
The culture of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) is noteworthy particularly for its
poetry, prose, and painting. Although the Kyto courtiers lost their political power to the
samurai, they continued to produce outstanding poetry. Warrior society contributed to the
national culture as well. Anonymous war tales were among the major achievements in
prose. Painters produced narrative picture scrolls depicting military and religious subjects
such as battles, the lives of Buddhist priests, and histories of Buddhist temples and of
shrines of Japans native religion, Shinto.
The Kamakura shogunate ended with a brief attempt to restore imperial rule. Then
in 1338 the Ashikaga shoguns established their seat near the emperors court in the
Muromachi district of Kyto. During the reign of the Ashikaga (known as the Muromachi
period), which lasted until 1573, Japan again sent missions to China. This time they
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36
brought back the latest teachings of Zen Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, as well as
countless objects of art and craft. Zen Buddhism, which had been introduced to Japan
during the Kamakura period, contributed to the development of Muromachi-period
artistic forms. Chinese monochrome ink painting became the principal painting style.
Dramatists created classical n theater, which performed for the upper classes of society.
And beginning in the 15
th
century, the tea ceremony, a gathering of people to drink tea
according to prescribed etiquette, evolved. The poetic form of renga, or linked verse, also
developed at this time. The linked verse style, in which several poets take turns
composing alternate verses of a single long poem, became popular among all classes of
society.
In 1603 a third warrior government, the Tokugawa shogunate, established itself in
Edo (present-day Tokyo), and Japan entered a long period of peace that historians
consider the beginning of the countrys modern age. During this era, known as the
Tokugawa period (1603-1867), Japan adopted a policy of national seclusion, closing its
borders to almost all foreigners. Domestic commerce thrived, and cities grew larger than
they had ever been. In great cities such as Edo, saka, and Kyto, performers and
courtesans mingled with rich merchants and idle samurai in the restaurants, wrestling
booths, and brothels of the areas known as the pleasure quarters. These so-called chnin,
or townsmen, the urban class dominated by merchants, produced a new, bourgeois
culture that included 17-syllable haiku poetry, prose literature of the pleasure quarters,
the puppet and kabuki theaters, and the art of the wood-block print.
Japans seclusion policy ended when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United
States sailed into Edo Bay in 1853 and established a treaty with Japan the following year.
The Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, and Japan
entered the modern world. During the early years of the new order, known as the Meiji
period (1868-1912), Western culture largely overwhelmed Japans native heritage.
Ignoring many of their traditional arts, the Japanese set about adopting Western artistic
styles, literary forms, and music. By the end of the Meiji period, however, the Japanese
not only had resuscitated many traditional art forms but also were making impressive
advances in modern styles of architecture, painting, and the novel.
Since the beginning of the 20
th
century, Japan has moved steadily into the stream
of international culture. Japans influence on that culture has been especially pronounced
since the end of World War II (1939-1945). Japanese movies, for example, have received
international recognition and acclaim, and Japanese novels have been translated into
English and other languages. Meanwhile, traditional Japanese culture has flowed around
the world, influencing styles in design, architecture, and various crafts, such as ceramics
and textiles.
From Encarta
37
The area of modern Morocco has been inhabited since Neolithic times, at least
8000 BC, as attested by signs of the Capsian culture, in a time when the Maghreb was
less arid than it is today. Modern genetic analyses have confirmed that various
populations have contributed to the present-day population, including (in addition to the
main Berber and Arab groups) Jews and sub-Saharan Africans. In the classical period,
Morocco was known as Mauretania, although this should not be confused with the
modern country of Mauritania.
North Africa and Morocco were slowly drawn into the wider emerging
Mediterranean world by Phoenician trading colonies and settlements in the late classical
period. The arrival of Phoenicians heralded a long engagement with the wider
Mediterranean, as this strategic region formed part of the Roman Empire. In the 5
th
century, as the Roman Empire declined, the region fell to the Vandals, Visigoths, and
then Byzantine Greeks in rapid succession. During this time, however, the high
mountains of most of modern Morocco remained unsubdued, and stayed in the hands of
their Berber inhabitants.
By the 7
th
century, Islamic expansion was at its greatest. In 670 AD, the first
Islamic conquest of the North African coastal plain took place under Uqba ibn Nafi. His
delegates went to what is now Morocco in 683. The delegates supported the assimilation
process that took about a century.
What became modern Morocco in the 7
th
century was an area of Berbers
influenced by the Arabs, who brought their customs, culture, and Islam, to which most of
the Berbers converted, forming states and kingdoms sometimes after long-running series
of civil wars. Under Idris ibn Abdallah who founded the Idrisid Dynasty, the country
soon cut ties and broke away from the control of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad and the
Umayyad rule in Spain. The Idrisids established Fez as their capital and Morocco became
a centre of learning and a major regional power.
After the reign of the Idrisids, Arab settlers lost political control in the region of
Morocco. After adopting Islam, Berber dynasties formed governments and reigned over
the country. Morocco would reach its height under these Berber dynasties that replaced
the Arab Idrisids after the 11
th
century.
Successful Portuguese efforts to invade and control the Atlantic coast in the 15
th
century did not profoundly affect the Mediterranean heart of Morocco. After the
Napoleonic Wars, Egypt and the North African Maghreb became increasingly
ungovernable from Istanbul, and as Europe industrialized, an increasingly prized
potential for colonization. For the first time, Morocco became a state of some interest in
itself to the European Powers. France showed a strong interest in Morocco as early as
1830. Recognition by the United Kingdom in 1904 of Frances sphere of influence in
Morocco provoked a German reaction; the crisis of June 1905 was resolved at the
Algeciras Conference, Spain in 1906, which formalized Frances special position and
entrusted policing of Morocco to France and Spain jointly. A second Moroccan crisis
provoked by Berlin, increased tensions between European powers. The Treaty of Fez
made Morocco a protectorate of France. By the same treaty, Spain assumed the role of
protecting power over the northern and southern Saharan zones on November 27, 1912.
Morocco is a country of multi-ethnic groups with a rich culture and civilization.
Through Moroccan history, Morocco hosted many people coming from both East
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Morocco
38
(Phoenicians, Jews and Arabs), South (Moors and Sub-Saharan Africans) and North
(Romans and Vandals), all of which have had an impact on the social structure of
Morocco.
Each region possesses its own specificities, contributing to the national culture.
Morocco has set among its top priorities the protection of its diversity and the
preservation of its cultural heritage.
Dar, the name given to one of the most common types of domestic structures in
Morocco, is a home found in a medina, or walled urban area of a city. Most Moroccan
homes traditionally adhere to the Dar al-Islam, a series of tenets on Islamic domestic life.
Dar exteriors are typically devoid of ornamentation and windows, except occasional
small openings in secondary quarters, such as stairways and service areas. Dars are
typically composed of thick, high walls that protect inhabitants from thievery, animals,
and other such hazards; however, they have a much more symbolic value from an Arabic
perspective. In this culture the exterior represents a place of work, while the interior
represents a place of refuge. Thus, Moroccan interiors are often very lavish in decoration
and craft.
Consistent with most Islamic architecture, dars are based around small open-air
patios, surrounded by very tall thick walls, to block direct light and minimize heat.
Intermediary triple-arched porticos lead to usually two to four symmetrically located
rooms. These rooms have to be long and narrow, creating very vertical spaces, because
the regional resources and construction technology typically only allow for joists that are
usually less than thirteen feet.
Upon entering a dar, guests move through a zigzagging passageway that hides the
central courtyard. The passageway opens to a staircase leading to an upstairs reception
area called a dormiria, which often is the most lavish room in the home adorned with
decorative tilework, painted furniture, and piles of embroidered pillows and rugs. More
affluent families also have greenhouses and a second dormiria, accessible from a street-
level staircase. Service quarters and stairways were always at the corners of the
structures.
The traditional dress for men is called djellaba; a long, loose, hooded garment
with full sleeves. For special occasions, men also wear a red cap called tarbouche and
mostly referred to as fez. Nearly all men wear babouches those soft leather slippers with
no heel, often in yellow. Many women do as well but others wear high-heeled sandals,
often in silver or gold tinsel.
The womens djellabas are mostly of bright colors with ornate patterns, stitching,
or beading, while men wear djellabas in plainer, neutral colors. Women are strongly
attached to their Moroccan wardrobe, despite the financial costs involved. The
production of such garments is relatively expensive, as most of the work is done by hand.
Despite the costs involved most women purchase a minimum of one djellaba every year,
normally for a special, social event, such as a religious festival or a wedding. Nowadays,
it is an unwritten rule that Moroccan dress is worn at such events.
Uqba ibn Nafi Okba ibn Nafi
Umayyad (dinastija) Umajada; postoje i drugi oblici u transkripciji
Algeciras - Alhesiras
39
I sometimes feel betrayed by this combination of rigid opinion and Protean
changeability, for it makes my peers elusive; in the nebulae of proclamations and
argument, its difficult for me to disentangle fashionable views from true belief,
passionate conviction from defensive dogma. What do they think, feel, hold dear? Its
harder for an outsider to make these distinctions anyway, and particularly important to
make them for its only when you can identify where a person stands that you can
establish genuine trust. But insofar as Im an outsider wishing to be taken in, Ive come at
the wrong moment, for in the midst of all this swirling and fragmenting movement, the
very notion of outside and inside is as quaint as the Neoplatonic model of the universe. I
do not experience the pain of earlier immigrants, who were kept out of exclusive clubs or
decent neighborhoods. Within the limits of my abilities and ambitions, I can go anywhere
at all, and be accepted there. The only joke is that theres no there there.
In a splintered society, what does one assimilate to? Perhaps the very splintering
itself. Once I enter college, the rivulet of my story does join up with the stream of my
generations larger saga, and the events of my life begin to resemble those of my peers.
Marriage, divorce, career indecisions, moving from city to city, ambivalences about love
and work and every fundamental fact of human activity. I share with my American
generation an acute sense of dislocation and the equally acute challenge of having to
invent a place and an identity for myself without the traditional supports. It could be said
that the generation I belong to has been characterized by its prolonged refusal to
assimilate and it is in my very uprootedness that Im its member. It could indeed be said
that exile is the archetypal condition of contemporary lives.
Ironically enough, one of the ways in which I continue to know that Im not
completely assimilated is through my residual nostalgia which many of my friends find
a bit unseemly, as if I were admitting to a shameful weakness for the more stable, less
strenuous conditions of anchoring, of home.
I wish I could breathe a Nabokovian air. I wish I could have the Olympian
freedom of sensibility that disdains, in his autobiography, to give the Russian Revolution
more than a passing mention, as if such common events did not have the power to wreak
fundamental changes in his own life, or as if it were vulgar, tactless, to dwell on
something so brutishly, so crudely collective. I wish I could define myself as Nabokov
defines both himself and his characters by the telling detail, a preference for mints over
lozenges, an awkwardness at cricket, a tendency to lose gloves or umbrellas. I wish I
could live in a world of prismatic refractions, carefully distinguished colors of sunsets
and English scarves, synesthetic repetitions and reiterative surprises a world in which
even a reddened nostril can be rendered as a delicious hue rather than a symptom of a
discomfiting common cold. I wish I could attain such a world because in part that is our
most real, and most loved world the world of utterly individual sensibility, untrampled
by history, or horrid intrusions of social circumstance. Oh yes, I think the Nabokovian
world is lighted, lightened, and enlightened by the most precise affection. Such affection
is unsentimental because it is free and because it attaches to free objects. It can notice
what is adorable (or odious, for that matter), rather than what is formed and deformed by
larger forces. Characters, in Nabokovs fiction, being perfectly themselves, attain the
graced amorality of aesthetic objects.
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40
How trite and tedious, in contrast, to see oneself as a creature formed by historic
events and defined by sociological categories. I am Jewish, an immigrant, half-Polish,
half-American... I suffer from certain syndromes because I was fed on stories of the
war... At a party given by some old-moneyed Bostonians, I feel that their gracious smiles
mask a perfect condescension... I havent escaped my past or my circumstances; they
constrain me like a corset, making me stiffer, smaller. I havent bloomed to that fullness
of human condition in which only my particular traits the good mold of my neck, say,
or the crispness of my ironies matter. Nabokov repaid Americas generosity with Pnin
and Lolita, with amusement never soured by anger. Of all the responses to the condition
of exile, his is surely the most triumphant, the least marred by rage, or inferiority, or
aspiration. His observations are those of an entirely free man; but perhaps such
aristocratic freedom to rise above confining categories and merely material conditions
can spring only from a specific circumstance, the circumstance of aristocratic privilege.
Perhaps its not possible to transcend our circumstances entirely after all.
Were driving, my Texan and I, in his clunky old Chevrolet, from Houston to
Austin, where well visit some friends. The highway is nearly empty and very hot. By the
roadside, there are clumps of tall, pale green weeds, with occasional patches of sagebrush
and lavender. Otherwise, there is nothing but us and the speed of the car and the endlessly
receding horizon. Freedom. We talk little, breathing in the utter comfort of our solitude.
Occasionally, like a blessing, a bonus from God, a hill. No matter what happens to me, I
think, there will always be this. There will always be landscapes, and Ill always have the
liberty to breathe them in, the wherewithal to contemplate them. Ill always have the
freedom of my insignificance. Even this empty road throbs with silence of my own
experience. I need not be so afraid.
Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation
Eva Wydra Hoffman
41
The Trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
On August 17, 1980, at a campsite near Australias famous Ayers Rock, a
mothers cry came out of the dark: My God, the dingos got my baby! Soon the people
of an entire continent would be choosing sides in a debate over whether the cry heard that
night marked an astonishing and rare human fatality caused by wild dogs or was, rather,
in the words of the man who would eventually prosecute her for murder, a calculated,
fanciful lie. A jury of nine men and three women came to believe the latter story and
convicted Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her ten-week-old daughter, Azaria.
Three years later, while Lindy dealt with daily life in a Darwin prison, police
investigating the death of a fallen climber discovered Azarias matinee jacket near a
dingo den, and the Australian public confronted the reality that its justice system had
failed. A Cry in the Dark, a movie starring Meryl Streep, carried the story of Lindys
wrongful conviction across oceans. What went wrong? Convictions of the innocent
usually result from inaccurate eyewitness testimony, but Lindy Chamberlain was
convicted by flawed forensic evidence and by investigators and prosecutors unwilling to
reconsider their assumptions in the face of contradictory evidence. The trial of Lindy
Chamberlain, and her husband Michael, is a cautionary tale that everyone who practices
forensic science should carefully consider.
Despite the lack of a body, the lack of a motive, and the lack of any eye-
witnesses, the Northern Territory opened its prosecution of Lindy and Michael
Chamberlain on September 13, 1982. Justice James Muirhead, in crimson robes and a
gray wig, sat on the bench in the crowded courtroom as attorneys for both sides worked
to select twelve jurors from a panel of 123 all-white Territorians. When the selection
process was completed, nine men and three women took their seats in the jury box.
Ian Barker opened the case for the prosecution, telling jurors Azaria died very
quickly. The Crown does not venture to suggest any reason or motive for the killing. It is
not part of our case that Mrs. Chamberlain had previously shown any ill will toward the
child.
Witness Amy Whittaker provided jurors with evidence of the seemingly odd
behavior that had turned public opinion against the Chamberlains earlier in the
investigation. Whittaker testified that minutes after the alleged dingo attack, Michael
Chamberlain had appeared at the doorway of her camper and announced, A dingo has
taken our baby, and she is probably dead by now. Whittaker also reported Lindy saying,
Whatever happens, it is Gods will. She also described Lindy and Michael walking
alone together into the the bush for fifteen to twenty minutes a time during which the
prosecution later argued the Chamberlains might have buried their baby.
Reporters saw the tide beginning to move a bit in the Prosecutors direction when
a parade of forensic experts took the stand. Dr. Andrew Scott, a biologist from Adelaide,
testified that his study suggested that the blood on Azarias singlet flowed downward,
from what appeared to be from the cutting by a sharp instrument. Barry Cocks testified
that the jumpsuit seemed cut, not torn by a dingo.
James Cameron was the final witness for the prosecution. Cameron, a professor of
forensic medicine, testified that Azaria was killed by a cutting instrument held by a
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42
human. Cross-examination focused attention on previous cases in which Camerons pro-
prosecution testimony had helped incriminate what turned out to be innocent suspects.
Tears slid down Lindys face as she described the clothing her daughter was
wearing the last night she laid her down. Much of Ian Barkers cross-examination of
Lindy was devoted to poking holes in her story about seeing a dingo in the vicinity of the
family tent. Near the end of his long cross-examination Barker began asking questions
that were really just statements for the jury. Mrs. Chamberlain, may I respectfully
suggest to you that the whole dingo story is mere fantasy?
Several witnesses testified as to the Chamberlains fine character and their grief
over the loss of their daughter. Other witnesses told either of their own frightening
encounters with dingoes, or testified in general about the aggressiveness of the regions
wild dogs. In addition, eight forensic experts attacked the dubious tests or conclusions of
the prosecutions experts.
The last defense witness was Michael Chamberlain. Ian Barker, in his cross-
examination of Michael, focused heavily on his actions in the first hours after Azarias
disappearance. Barker suggested that Michaels failure to ask Lindy certain questions, or
to go running off into the brush in search of his daughter, was because he already knew
Lindy had killed his daughter: Could it be because you knew that the dingo did not take
her, and that she was dead at the hands of your wife? Michael answered, in a low voice,
No. Barker pushed hard: The whole story is nonsense, and you know it. No, Mr.
Barker, Michael insisted again. Courtroom observers concluded that Chamberlains
testimony lacked spirit; it seemed both weary and inappropriately nonchalant. When his
long hours on the stand finally ended, he took a seat in the courtroom next to his wife,
and held her hands.
Phillips stressed that the prosecution failed to provide even a remotely plausible
explanation as to why Lindy Chamberlain would want to kill her own child. The
prosecution has had two years and three months to think of a reason, he said, and they
cant.
Barker admitted that no motive had been proved, but insisted that was neither the
prosecutions intent or its job. All the Crown says is that you should find the murder
happened, Barker told the jury. He turned the tables by asking the jury to consider the
lack of evidence that might suggest the dingo was guilty. How could you possibly
convict the dingo on this evidence? he asked, noting the lack of dingo hairs or drag
marks by the tent, the fact that no one saw it carrying a baby, and the relatively
undamaged condition of Azarias jumpsuit. The case against the dingo would be
laughed out of court, Barker concluded.
On October 29, at 8:37 pm, the foreman of the jury announced its verdict. The
jury found Lindy guilty of murder, and Michael guilty of being an accessory after the
fact. Across Australia, the jurys verdict was greeted mostly with approval. Reports later
indicated that the jury was initially considerably more divided that its verdict indicated,
having first split four for conviction, four for acquittal, and four undecided.
Justice Muirhead sentenced Lindy to life in prison, but suspended Michaels
sentence. I consider it not only appropriate, but in the interests of justice to do so, he
explained.
Douglas OLinder
43
John Burnside, Kates Garden (1)
The day Tom Williams came back I was still working at home. The good thing
about freelancing was that I got to be alone all day, in an empty suburb, just me and the
cats and the blackbirds, and an occasional heron, standing motionless in the reeds, down
by the river. I liked that feeling; I never got tired of raising my head, halfway through a
piece of work, and noticing the light at the window, the still gardens, the empty gravel
path and lawns. It was a world where nothing had ever happened. Time had passed I
would know by glancing over at the clock on the mantelpiece but the movement had
been so fine it was imperceptible. On those warm spring mornings, I kept having
privileged glimpses into limbo: a state, not of suspension, but of infinite potential.
My study was upstairs at the back of the house. Id placed the table so I could see
the Williamss garden, rather than my own: ever since Tom had left, eighteen months
before, Kate had worked out there every weekend, digging, planting, weeding, pruning,
sowing. She was a fine gardener, with an excellent eye for colour and texture, and what
had been an attractive plot before Tom disappeared was now a work of art. Kate was a
slight woman, pretty and nervy, with tiny birdlike hands, but she extended the patio
herself, and she carried large, soggy bags of mulch or compost from the front yard, where
the delivery men left them, and dug them in herself, working through every Saturday
afternoon and all day Sunday, intent on what she was doing, single-minded, utterly
absorbed. I think, for the first time in her life, she was truly happy. Making that garden
may have been her therapy, but it was also her joy.
On weekdays, I got to admire her handiwork. The other gardens could look odd,
sometimes, for being deserted all day: I had a sense, occasionally, of something missing
there, but Kates garden was all the more beautiful when she wasnt in it. It was as she
intended, I think: a home for the plants shed chosen and nurtured; a refuge for birds and
hedgehogs; a breeding pool for frogs; a lure, in the early morning, for hungry deer. The
only sign that the garden was meant for human use was an old wooden bench that she
scrubbed and oiled every spring, and put away in the shed in October. There was no
lawn, no barbecue. Instead, she filled the space with lilies, junipers, irises. She had rare
alpines and a rose-covered trellis to hide the shed. At the centre of one flowerbed, she had
placed a large, amphora-shaped pot. I waited weeks to see what she would plant in it,
thinking it was rather beautiful as it was, standing empty, filling with light and rain. It
was some time before I understood that that was exactly what she intended.
Its no exaggeration to say that Tom disappeared. In some ways, it was no
surprise, either. Tom was a strange man. I remember, when we first moved in, Kate came
round to introduce herself and invited us to dinner. All through the meal, Tom barely
uttered a word, keeping himself busy with passing plates and serving bowls, clearing up
between courses, or opening bottles of wine. Kate ignored this pantomime. The
conversation rolled along naturally without Toms participation, ranging from where to
buy furniture through gardening tips to what I was working on at that moment. Then,
halfway through the sweet course, the talk came round to an article about twins that
Janice had read in a magazine, about how twin births occur more than is generally
known, only one of the twins is absorbed by the other, or dies, in the womb. Tom listened
intently.
I should have been a twin, he said, when Janice had finished.
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My wife had turned and gave him her best interested look. Really?
Yes, Tom said, softly. I dont have evidence, nobody ever told me, but I know
its true. I had a twin once; maybe he died, maybe hes hidden inside me I dont know
what happened to him, but I know he existed.
I glanced at Kate. She was staring out of the window at the darkening garden.
But how do you know?, asked Janice.
Tom shook his head softly and gazed at her. For a moment I thought he was going
to cry.
Because I miss him, he said. He smiled immediately, sensing he had taken the
conversation too far.
Anyway, he continued, Ive always thought there ought to be someone else
like me in the world. Someone who sees things from my point of view. He smiled again,
to let us know he was only joking, and offered Janice more cream; then, after an awkward
silence, Kate asked Janice something about her work, and the conversation continued as
before.
Tom barely spoke another word for the rest of the evening.
For a time, we had the usual neighbours arrangement with the Williamses. We
took turns issuing invitations for dinner, about once a month, always leaving a loophole
for excuses. Then, one late summer afternoon, Tom went out in his shirtsleeves and never
came home. Kate called the police, then the hospital; she wrote to Toms sister in Jersey.
There was no sign of him. It was as if he had vanished off the face of the earth.
I dont know what I would have done next, but it seemed to me that Kate gave up
too easily. I could imagine searching for Janice forever if the same thing had happened to
us. But Kate seemed almost relieved. She kept going to work she only had one day off
in those first few weeks of Toms absence and she spent the weekends in her garden;
whenever I saw her, she greeted me as if she hadnt a care in the world. She seemed so
contented, I was too embarrassed to ask if there was any news of Tom.
I could never imagine being with anyone but Janice; I could never imagine
wanting anyone else as I have sometimes wanted her, with the sheer vivid physicality of
desire that grips me unexpectedly, even now, when I watch her applying her lipstick or
fixing her hair in the mirror, or when she comes in from the bathroom, wrapped in a clean
towel, with drops of water still glistening on her shoulders. I could never imagine feeling
for anyone else what I feel for my wife, yet I think I fell in love with Kate Williams a
little, during that first year when she was living alone. It was something about the clothes
she wore: the green duffle-coat, the red and cream tartan scarf, the black woollen hat that
she kept pulling down so it almost covered her eyes. I would catch myself wandering out
into the garden for no reason on a Sunday afternoon, just so I could talk to her. I cant
explain the sensation I had when she put aside the rake and stood chatting to me, her
hands moving all the while. I was fascinated by her hands. She never wore gloves, so her
fingers would usually be crusted with soil or scratched in places where she had caught
herself on a thorn. It wasnt desire I felt, but it wasnt only compassion; it was a pure,
dizzying love. Sometimes when I went back inside, after talking for a while, Janice
would look at me strangely.
45
John Burnside, Kates Garden (2)
What is it? shed ask, as if shed read some unexpected tenderness, some
unwarranted concern in my face even though I knew my expression was quite non-
committal.
Nothing, I would answer casually.
Were you talking to Kate?
Yes.
Ah. She would pause a moment. How is she?
Fine, I think.
Any news of Tom?
I didnt ask.
There would be another short silence then, so it would seem she was thinking of
what she was about to say next for the first time.
We ought to invite her over, she would say, and I would agree immediately. We
would tell ourselves it was the least we could do, we would look at our diaries later and
set a date and have her round, for dinner, or a drink. Then we would forget all about it.
For different reasons, neither of us wanted her in our house. She made us feel awkward
for being together, even though she seemed happy by herself. It was an assumption we
made, based on our own lives, that any woman whose husband had left her must be
lonely under the brave faade she maintained for the rest of the world. Or maybe it was
an assumption Janice made, an assumption I was obliged to share. I wasnt altogether
sure what Kate felt, but though she had never once talked about it, and even though she
hadnt much liked him, Janice was certain, deep down, that Kate was waiting for Tom to
come home.
I had been working all morning. The book I had just begun translating was well
written and engaging, a literary biography of the poet, George Seferis. It was the
culmination of a lifetimes study, a labour of love, and I felt privileged to be working on
it. I had been utterly engrossed for some time: I might never have noticed Tom if I hadnt
heard a flutter of wings and looked up. A bird had almost flown in through the open
window, then veered away at the last moment. I barely saw it but, looking down into the
sunlit rectangle of Kates garden, I saw Tom quite clearly, sitting upright, with his arms
folded, on the dark wooden bench.
He looked much as he had the day he left: his hair was a little longer, but he was
wearing what looked like the same white shirt, the same light-green trousers, the same
boots. It had been almost two years; now, here he was, sitting quietly in the garden, as if
hed just stepped out to take the sun. I could scarcely believe it. He looked too substantial
to be a ghost or an apparition yet, at the same time, there was something unreal about his
being there, in the ordinary daylight. It took a few moments for me to work out what it
was about him that looked out of place, but when I did I understood how much he had
changed.
The kind of people I know usually dismiss any talk of auras as mystical mumbo-
jumbo, but I dont think theres anything supernatural in it. Every human body gives off a
light of some kind. There are days when Janice is perfectly golden; shes someone who
attracts light and adds to it a touch of her own buttermilk-yellow warmth. Other people
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are subtler, or more subdued: they reflect greens or blues or crimsons, depending on their
mood, on how happy or tired they are. That morning, when I saw Tom sitting in his
wifes garden, he was wrapped in blackness only it was more than that, there was a
kind of luminescence to his body, what I can only describe now, remembering it, as a
black light. I had never seen it in him until that moment; yet, at that moment, I knew I
had always suspected it was there. Ive never seen it in anyone else. It was the only time I
have ever encountered a tragic figure, and I knew, without hearing the story, that tragedy
had somehow overtaken him, either on the day he disappeared, or something later, when
he was lost and trying to find his way home.
I couldnt be completely sure, but I guessed he hadnt seen me. He seemed not to
see anything; he simply sat stock still, with his arms folded over his chest, gazing straight
ahead. I could have left him there; I could have gone back to work and pretended I hadnt
noticed him. It was none of my business, after all. It wasnt as if Id ever liked him much.
As far as I was concerned, he was a bit of an oddball, a man who had casually walked out
on his wife, without a word of explanation, without even a postcard to let her know if he
was alive or dead.
I could have left him out there, but I didnt. I assumed hed gone away without a
key to the house, and he was waiting now for Kate to come home and let him in. He must
have known hed have a long wait. It was a warm morning, but I wasnt sure it was warm
enough for him to sit out there all day in his shirt-sleeves. Im not sure if any of this is
what I was thinking at the time, though. In the end, it was probably curiosity that made
me ask him in. Or perhaps it was something more. Perhaps I was already harbouring the
suspicion that what had happened to Tom and Kate could happen to anyone: that any love
affair, any marriage, however passionate, however satisfying, was an invention of sorts,
part good luck, part imagination. I knew, at the back of my mind, that there were times
when I had to work to keep my idea of Janice intact. If that was the case, there would be
times when she had to work just as hard. At one level, it was really nothing more than a
conjuring trick and I was already wondering what it would take to break the spell.
Perhaps that was what passed through my mind, as I walked downstairs and opened the
back door, to ask Tom inside.
He didnt respond at first. He looked up and stared at me for a long, unsettling
moment; Im pretty certain he didnt recognise me: hed forgotten who I was and, from
the look on his face, I could tell I wasnt all he had forgotten.
Would you like a cup of coffee? I called over, in as matter-of-fact a voice as I
could manage.
He stared at me in silence for a few moments longer, then shook his head.
Its no trouble, I said. Kate wont be home till later. You might as well come
in for a while.
All of a sudden, without my knowing why, I felt it was important that he come in.
It had never occurred to me before, but at that moment I was aware of a kinship between
us, a likeness. Perhaps he was aware of it too; or perhaps he only responded out of
politeness, or sheer passivity, but he stood up then and walked over to the fence that
divided the two gardens. He looked puzzled, as if he hadnt expected to find a barrier,
though the fence had always been there.
Come around the front, I said. Ill put the kettle on.
47
John Burnside, Kates Garden (3)
When I remember that day, I think of Tom as a ghost, a phantom who sat silently
at my kitchen table, and drank three cups of coffee, one after another, like a man dying of
thirst. I made small talk for a while, and he listened, with his eyes averted, nodding or
shaking his head from time to time, or making small, unintelligible sounds. I talked about
myself, about Janice, about people in the village, but for some time I didnt mention
Kate, and I didnt ask the one question he must have known I wanted to ask more than
anything. It was odd. I had to know why he left it wasnt my business, and it didnt
really matter, one way or another. He could answer, or he could simply refuse to speak. I
had nothing to lose by speaking out. Finally, I gave in to the impulse to the real need to
understand what had driven him away.
What happened to you, Tom? I asked him. I was aware of how quiet my voice
was, of how gentle I had managed to sound. He looked up at me; he seemed quite
mystified, as if he hadnt understood the question. Then, after a long pause, he sighed and
shook his head.
Nothing happened, he answered, just as quietly. Well, nothing I could tell you
about. I just went for a walk that day, and realised I couldnt go home. It wasnt right any
more. It wasnt fair on Kate.
It wasnt very fair to go off without even letting her know where you were, I
replied, a little more sharply than I had intended.
He gazed at me. He seemed stunned, and I realised, even before he spoke, that
Kate had lied to us by omission, no doubt, but intentionally, nevertheless.
Did Kate tell you that? Tom asked.
Well, I said, in as conciliatory a tone as I could manage, not in so many words.
I suppose we just assumed.
He nodded. Of course.
He spoke as quietly as ever, but there was bitterness in his voice. I telephoned
her, he said. And I wrote, four times. I couldnt tell her where I was, but I wanted her to
know I was all right.
He set his cup aside and stood up. Ill be going now, he said. Thanks for the
coffee.
I stood up too.
Kate wont be back for hours, I said. You can stay here if you like. Ill just be
upstairs. Make some coffee. Keep warm.
He smiled slightly. Thats kind of you, he said, but Im not waiting for Kate.
He moved towards the door.
Then why did you come? I asked.
I was happy here, he replied. That was a long time ago, but I still think about
it.
I didnt speak. I couldnt think of anything to say and, for a moment, I thought he
was on the point of telling me his story after all. Then the moment passed and I knew he
would never tell anyone why he had left, not even his wife. He couldnt.
The garden looks nice, dont you think? he said.
I nodded. Its beautiful.
He looked down at his feet and I thought he was about to cry. I just wanted to
see, he said at last.
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He smiled again and made his way through the hall to the front door and stood
waiting for me to open it, to let him go back into the nothing from which he had come.
Where will you go? I asked.
He shook his head slightly. I dont know, he said. Anyway. Thanks.
He made a slight gesture that made me think he wanted to shake hands, but before
I could respond, he turned and walked away, a man in his shirt-sleeves, out for a walk in
the empty suburbs.
A few nights later, I couldnt sleep. I decided to get up and work for a while: its
something I do from time to time, to get me through the insomniac hours. I work well at
night, and I enjoy being alone, listening to the owls as they flit back and forth along the
river bank.
I had gone through to the study, as usual, to avoid disturbing Janice but, before I
could switch on the lamp, I caught a glimpse of white, moving in the dark, beneath our
apple tree. It was only a ghost of a movement and, when I looked again, there was
nothing; yet I was sure, without knowing why, that Tom was there. It was an absurd idea:
even Tom couldnt disappear like that, in a single movement, melting into the darkness,
crossing back into the limbo to which he now belonged. Yet I was convinced that he had
returned, as a ghost returns, for one more look at the garden his wife had made.
I didnt tell Janice that Tom had been in our kitchen and, of course, I didnt
mention his late-night visit. I didnt say anything to Kate, either. There was no point.
Tom had come home for his own reasons, and now he was gone. Kate continued in her
garden and I still admired her handiwork, but only from a distance. I no longer invented
excuses to go out and speak to her; I think she must have noticed the change, but she
didnt seem bothered by it. She was happy that Tom had gone. There was something
offensive about that happiness, but I didnt want to spoil it by telling her what I knew.
Yet perhaps there was another reason why I didnt want to talk about Toms
visits. Im still not quite sure what I felt then, or how I feel now, but to speak at all would
have been something like an admission of guilt, of thinking the wrong thing and so
putting my faith in danger. It would have meant admitting to my suspicion that love is an
act of faith. It may come by chance, it may begin as something else, but it continues only
by a deliberate and sustained effort; it doesnt endure of itself, it has to be maintained, by
strength of will and the force of imagination. I wasnt sure what Janice believed, but I had
no intention of tempting providence by discussing Tom, or Kate, or how fragile I knew
our lives were. We could grow apart, or we could take one another for granted; we might
meet other people and drift into something easy and fleeting; I could look up from a
newspaper some spring morning and find myself gazing at a stranger. If we had ever
stopped to think, we might have seen all the possibilities. Part of the game we were
playing, part of the act we had to sustain, was pretending the danger wasnt there. As far
as we were concerned, we believed we would exist forever in that house; we would never
die, or if we did, we would vanish together, without a sound, leaving no trace behind.
That was the superstition by which we lived: what we didnt recognise wouldnt find us.
We assumed the bad things would happen to other people and went on living, with our
eyes averted, moving from one day to the next, with no obvious purpose; but all that
time, in complete secrecy, we were working to maintain the fiction we had to believe, in
order to carry on.