From a train window, coming out west from the city, the stark gravestones of Rookwood Cemetery interject unexpectedly into a landscape sliding from bland to banal. Sliding along train tracks which seem to promise only the relentless momentum of the future, the cemetery was a reminder of things at rest, grounded in an immovable past. Sometimes, after a long day, when emotions she was too tired to decipher curdled in her stomach, Zahara would step off the train one stop earlier at Lidcombe and walk in the opposite direction, away from her house, towards the cemetery.
They'd buried Nani here, in a small rectangular plot with dark green marble borders. Whenever she came to visit she'd imagine Nani lying in the ground amongst strangers in a crumbly soil that didn't make sense to her. Even though they'd buried her in the Muslim section of the cemetery, Nani would've been bewildered by it all.
Where are the Dawoodi Bohras? Zahara could hear her ask. Who are these people lying beside me?
Zahara didn't know how to answer. They'd left India and no distinction was made between the Sulamaini or the Alavi or the Dawoodi Bohras here. There was barely a distinction made between the Sunni or the Shia. In this red earth they were all Muslims together, the differences between them blurred as much by the relentless sun as the silence of death.
But Nani had been silenced long before her death. She'd been silenced the minute she stepped off the aeroplane, into the aseptic streets with their clear pavements and wide traffic lanes. Silenced by a language that followed its cities by spreading out, broad and drawling, the meaning of its words too far away for her to understand.
Back in India there was a connection to be found in the sensuous rhythms of their different tongues. Hindu, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Urdu. The chatter fit together, it made sense even if she didn't understand it. Here, everybody spoke the same language but sense couldn't be made from what they were saying. Here people held onto their words, let them run one to the other, refused to let go lest they be lost to a yawning silence as wide as the desert that filled the heart of this country.
Within a year Nani was dead, withered by the unforgiving sun and the silence of an underworld that couldn't be kept at bay with the television.
At the funeral, Zahara was embarrassed because she couldn't cry. All around her the women were weeping, even a couple of the men had sparkling eyes, but she stood there with her sleeves over her face, unable to summon the tears.
Inside, everything had gone quiet. She could feel her heart beating calmly in her chest. She could hear her breath passing through the slightly blocked sinus passages of her nose. But the sadness she'd woken up with, the turmoil of grief and disbelief that pounded through her head, was gone. She wondered if this was what Nani had felt when she curled her fingers tightly together one last time and breathed out.
Beside her, Reshma also went quiet. She fell to the ground in a dead faint.
That night, Reshma crawled into bed with her and they huddled together under the blankets, just as they had when they were little girls scared of monsters in the dark. Zahara held Reshma close to her and wondered how those two little girls who did everything together, were so much the same, could have grown so far apart in many ways. Her sister's grief came in a violent, gushing flow. It spilled out of her in tears and prayers, and came to a stop against the high wall that Zahara had built to dam up her own emotion.
- I can't stop crying. I know she's in Paradise now, but I can't stop crying.
- Hush, hush, I know.
But Zahara didn't know. She remembered the quiet she had found in the graveyard, deep inside her. Not a hollow spot, but a peaceful place where nothing had to exist. She didn't have Reshma's faith in Parade, she couldn't see Nani there. Instead, she saw Nani lying down in an underground city, happy at last inside the silence, and she felt calm.
The Rookwood Necropolis was the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, but knowing that did nothing to prepare you for the immensity and size of it. It truly was a city of the dead, designed to be navigated from the safety of your car, not on foot.
Zahara always walked there from Lidcombe Station. It was a five-minute walk to the edge of The Necropolis, but from there at least another hour to reach the Muslim section. She didn't like walking by herself deep into the heart of the cemetery though. It was easy to get disorientated amongst the gravestones. Instead, Zahara usually made do by sitting in the Catholic section, where you could still see the road.
Even taking this precaution, she would sometimes find herself momentarily lost and panic. Here where stones marked only where the living had once been, it felt as though death would steel upon you, creep up your legs through the very soil and claim you for dust. She'd hold her breath, waiting to feel a cold hand from the earth clutch around her ankle and drag her under.
But then the thought of dying amongst the gravestones would make her laugh aloud, and her own laughter would break the spell of fear. If you were going to have to die, then The Necropolis seemed the best place to do it. Why not pick out your final resting place and admire the view?
She missed her Nani, who'd only lived with them for less than a year but whose thin hands had rubbed her shoulders at night to send her to sleep. Nani had smiled at her with all her teeth missing and Zahara could see her own face looking back at her. Ma thought so too. She told Zahara -- Nani likes you best, because you remind her of when she was a girl. She was a thinker too, like you, but she didn't get to go to school because her parents didn't see the point. Girls in those days had children, that's all they did.
When she told Nani that she wanted to be a doctor, Nani grinned and pinched her cheeks. It was difficult for them to talk to each other, Zahara's Urdu was sketchy and Nani's English was non-existence, but Nani nodded her head and blinked her eyes, and Zahara knew she understood. Nani believed that she would be able to do it, even in this empty land where a single person slept in a room that could have housed a whole family.
But Zahara wasn't thinking about being a doctor this afternoon. She was tired. It had been a long day at work, her legs ached and her throat felt dry from the air-conditioning. But it was Friday and tomorrow she would be free to sleep in, to go somewhere with her new friend.
Narelle was still an exciting mystery for her. She came from up north, but refused to say where exactly. Even after spending two days with them, Narelle was wary about direct questions and Zahara didn't like to push her. Narelle was constantly in motion, always moving her feet, tapping her fingers. Zahara could see how easily those feet would run out of the house and disappear into the warren of city streets.
But Narelle was too polished for the streets. Her eyes looked too open, her face too innocent. Zahara didn't think that Narelle would survive a day out there on her own, and so she watched her words carefully, she tried to be kind and keep Narelle close.
There was a wistfulness about Narelle which made Zahara's whole family feel close to her. She'd helped wash the dishes the night before, and in amongst the jokes and teasing, Zahara had noticed Narelle wiping tears away from her eyes with the dishcloth. They'd ignored it. Reshma had cracked another joke about an old school friend who was getting married soon, but later on, before going to bed, Ma had gathered Narelle up in her arms and given her a big hug.
- You can stay as long as you like here. Our home is yours.
Zahara didn't see Narelle cry but she saw her scratching at her head furiously, as though she could burrow her fingernails into her skull and get to whatever it was that was crushing her with sadness.
- If there is one thing we understand, Ma told Zahara, it is the sadness of not being able to go home.
Settled by a tombstone whose name was half-weathered off, Zahara wondered where Narelle's home might be. She'd told Reshma that she wasn't religious, that she didn't believe in anything. Reshma found that difficult to understand, but that was because Reshma was so confident in her faith. She'd known since she was eight years old that God was there for her. At first, Zahara thought she was saying it to get attention, that Reshma was pious because other kids wouldn't accept her as a fellow Aussie. But she'd come to realise that Reshma just had faith in a way other people didn't.
Paradise for Reshma was a real place. Reshma could see Nani there, happy again with their Nana. She was comforted by that thought. The night after the funeral she cried herself to sleep, and by morning sleep had soothed her pain.
- It's silly to be sad. We just need to wait. One day we'll be there with them, in a Paradise with gardens and streams, and Nani will be able to walk, and we'll finally get to meet Nana.
Zahara was too ashamed to admit that she still felt the cramps of sadness, deep in her stomach, making her sick for a time that had already passed.
Although traditionally Muslims graves weren't supposed to be decorated, in Rookwood many people had planted flowers and shrubs on the small plots. Her family had planted rosemary for Nani, because its blue flowers were pretty and Nani had loved its sharp, slightly acerbic smell. The rosemary bushes reminded Zahara of pinning sprigs on her tunic for Anzac Day.
Burials in Rookwood were forever. She felt sorry for Nani, who would have preferred to be buried back home, close to the people she'd known. Where are the Dawoodi Bohras? Zahara would have liked to go sit beside the grave and say Nani, here I am, don't be scared. We're still here, even though you might not recognise us.
But she wasn't in the Muslim section. She was sprawled out on the patchy dry grass of the Catholic section, watching the changing pattern of the clouds above.
A croaky ah-ah-aah signalled a crow perched on a nearby tree, eyeing her warily. Its beak looked sharp, and she wondered if the crows guarded the Necropolis. They looked strong enough to do damage to someone who dared violate the respectful hush that hovered over the graves.
The older graves were easy to spot. Mottled with brown marks that looked like tearstains, they were often lying about chipped and broken on the grass. They were the graves of people whose families had long ago moved away or died out. It was funny to think of the people who had lain in this ground for over a hundred years. This was the company Nani would keep from now onwards. Zahara wondered if Nani could smell the rosemary above her. She liked to imagine it -- Nani and Nana walking hand-in-hand amongst the bubbling springs of Paradise, and the smell of rosemary in the air.
