Strange Events Down Under

Scene 3: Searching for Lena

As soon as the kids and Irina had left with the Mercedes, Sandrine came up with an observation which she shared later with the police also:

“When I was looking for the rescue phone, I noticed that all pick-up trucks of the aborigines had left the parking lot. Can this happen just by chance?”

The police had sent two white and three black police officers who, in a bureaucratic fashion, at first took all personal data down into their books. Given the size of the Horner group, this took some time. Then they wanted to know what they had done in the morning, and then the two white sheriffs closed their notice books:

“We cannot do more at this point. We have quite a number of people dying here but abductions have not happened yet. We will use our connections and will see you tonight in the Yulara village to discuss the next steps.”

Bob was speechless and almost lost his self-control. Noticing this, Sandrine, politely thanked all police and even shook the hand with each of them. On the way back, she ordered Bob in French to shut up totally. She knew his strange tick to provoke people in uniforms. This was not the right moment!

At the Yulara resort, the police escorted the three Horners to their lodge, when Sandrine had to go back to the police car because she had forgotten her water can. A black police woman came with her. She had certainly four times the weight of the tiny French teacher and at least thirty centimeters more in height.

“Don’t turn around, skinny woman, and listen well. Perhaps you can get some news from our shaman. She is very old, has grey hair and is like you“, Sandrine heard a dark, almost masculine voice. “I didn’t tell you anything, you understand!”

Surprised, Sandrine agreed and conveyed the incident to the adults when they were in their rooms. So, finally, they had a clue to work on. Bob came back to life and wanted to run to the reception desk at once.

Sandrine had received another unspoken message: “We have experienced already that there is a different feeling of time here in the desert. The word ‘quick’ doesn’t exist here! Somehow I am sure that we need to be cool and ask the women to do the talking.”

In fact, the police were already interviewing the people at the reception as they learned from JP who was sent to spy.

During their lunch, Sandrine talked to one of the white staff members using the sweetest French accent Bob enjoyed so much when she spoke:

“Dites Monsieur, do you happen to know a medicine woman or a sorceress of the Aborigines here in the National Park? She is old and has grey hair?”

The young man stared at her and especially at her little breasts under the t-shirt, but didn’t have the slightest idea. “Typical Aussie”, the cute little beauty was thinking, “You are standing next to a Kangaroo and ask them where you can find one and the only reaction you get is a recommendation to buy a GPS!”

To keep the children occupied during the heat break after lunch until four, Bob asked the two big boys to put a little story on the two mountains together including their importance for the local people, and to present their findings to the family. No need to tell them to use the internet! Hearing this, Jaim and his friend Jörg, started to work on their PCs also. But they had a different motivation.

After four o’clock, the general assembly of the clan took place in the living room and Ahmed and Kevin introduced a lot of facts regarding the twin-mountains to their family. The little ones started to get noisy; their interest in the 450 million years that the rocks existed was not over-whelming. So Bob thanked the two and more rhetorical he asked whether someone else had found out something interesting. To everybody’s surprise, little Jaim signaled that he did. Quite excited, he reported about the religious importance of the rocks for the Anangus who would never climb on the mountains:

“For them it is as if you are trampling on the graves of their families. Thousands of years ago, Langkata, the thief, was punished when he tried to hide on the Uluru. He fell the 300 meters to his death. Since 1958 almost forty white people followed him. Although it is not forbidden, almost no-one insults the Anangu people anymore nowadays.” Even the little ones understood this much better and they clapped their hands. This encouraged Jörg to give the first presentation of his life:

“The Anangu people call the time before everything started, “the Dream-Time“, and what happened then, “the Creation“. The two mountains here are part of it. Two giant Anangu children formed them out of wet red sand. For them they are the proof of the creation by mythical beings. This makes the rocks almost living beings.”

Now all of them, including the grown-ups, were impressed. Bob thanked all four boys and Irena embraced all of them which seemed to be more important to them. Already at their age, they were impacted by her pure white beauty. JP asked whether Lena was also mystical now. Obviously, even the little ones could not easily be distracted from the real priorities. Sandrine explained what ‘mystic’ really means and sent everyone to the pool.

At sun set, the police came back to the lodge. They questioned all adults and JP again. Then they set together with the three adults. Sandrine organized some cake and some wine and all options were discussed. The black officers hardly participated in the exchange. They were even harder to understand than their white colleagues with their heavy accents. The only positive message was that the road towards Alice Springs was controlled by state troopers since lunchtime. That meant that Lena was still in the park and there were no more than thousand people here in the village. When Bob asked how many Aborigines were living in the park, he received some dark regards from the three black members of the police task force. “Roughly three hundred“, was the answer.

During the dinner, Irina noticed that like the evening before a group of Anangus was eating at a table the furthest away from the whites. She had also observed that many of the people with the extremely black skin stared at her shining white complexion.

Bravely, she went over to the six Aborigines. As expected, it took a long time, before they got out of their shock. Irina bridged the painful situation as if she would not notice anything, introduced herself and explained where she was coming from. Finally, one of the women asked whether she could touch Irina’s hand.

Irina moved up the sleeve of her shirt to show the part of her skin which was not burned yet from the sun and held the shining white arm in front of that woman. The heavy woman was so excited that she stood up and ran around the table. Irina noticed that her skin was a little brighter than the one of the others.

Irena applied all methods of a smart child doctor to charm the group. She began to ask simple questions about their every-daylife and their contacts to other groups. She found out that they all met several times a month at the coolest moments during the nights to talk about the Dream-Time and to sing. Irina got a bottle of wine and distributed the content in the glasses of the Anangus.

Seeing that Sandrine and Bob wanted to go back to the lodge, Irina gave them a sign to go ahead. Both understood and made the children go to bed. After quite some time, Irina followed them. She gave the impression of being slightly disturbed:

“We had a good talk and even joked about the skinny women of the white people.” Not very concentrated Irina continued: “Their women told me that I had to gain a lot of weight to get pregnant; as if I wanted that. When I finally asked for the grey-haired woman, the talks came to an end. I had to pull myself together to shake hands with all of them when I left. The woman who had touched my arm gave me a piece of paper without the others seeing it.”

She handed Bob the piece of paper. On it was nothing more than ‘tomorrow eight o’clock Walpa Gorge‘. She could not give further explanations on this message,

But Irina insisted to talk more about what the discussion had done to her. The adults sat in the bed and listen to her. At first it got slowly out of her, then always faster:

“Listening to the Anangus, I got the strong feeling that communication with us is a burden to them. They live their life behind some form of barrier in which only few holes allow them to perceive what is happing here. The important life is on their side and we are nothing but a pain in the neck for them, a temporary story without much meaning. Sensitive people in our time zone fear that we are taking their identity but they would only laugh at this if it was meaningful for them.”

She was almost breathless and only in small pieces the rest blurred out of her: “Lena must have done something which had an impact on the barrier. We are getting closer together through her. Or perhaps she is the symbol of something of huge importance for them, oh I don’t really know...”

At first, Bob only wanted to take the adults and JP to the Gorge but when he got JP at six o’clock, Jaim insisted so strongly to go with them that Bob decided to take the whole clan along. At least he had all the children under their control during the hunt for the witch.

Twenty minutes early on the parking lot, they had to wait in the heat. The thermometer in the car already showed 34 degrees. Parking space was getting rare already because the real pro hikers were already on their way since sunrise. Some of the cars looked like the one used by the locals. But nobody was to be seen. They let the engine of the car turn for the air conditioning and Bob didn’t let anybody out.

For half an hour nothing happened. Most of the kids fell asleep. Then the first hikers came back to the parking. Because of the beekeeper hats, their faces could not be identified. But most likely these people were not locals. They were not as heavy, and those would only wear the hats to hide their identity. However, that didn’t seem to be their style.

But all of a sudden, Irina got nervous and pointed at one of the arriving persons: “This is the woman who touched me last night! I will ask her.” Before Bob could react, she was outside the car and started to talk to the woman under the roof close to the water faucet. Several times it seemed as if he heavy-weight lady would go away from Irina but was stopped by her. Then several locals gathered around the two. Was Irina in danger?

Quickly, Sandrine left the bus to be ahead of Bob. She forced herself to walk towards the group in a calm way showing no excitement. But Bob was now ready to leave the bus, too. He orders Ahmed to close the bus from the inside as soon as he had left. If he would not be back soon, he should call the police from the emergency phone. He counted to hundred, opened the door of the bus just to see his two women calmly coming back towards them. He felt strange and went towards them as if everything was quite normal. Then he almost exploded: “What the f… is happening here?” The super controlled international consultant was losing his nerves.

It felt as if the imperturbable calm of the blacks had had its effect on the two women on the other side of the time barrier. “Let’s drive back”, said Irina and Sandrine started the engine. All eyes were on Irina. Little JP was totally excited: “Parle, Irina, je t’en prie (Speak up, I beg you)”, but Irina had to sort out the different elements of her discussion first:

“Only one thing is clear to me: They got Lena and she means a lot to them. There is no need to be afraid for her! They are radiating such a non-violent atmosphere and are actually quite likeable. If we don’t give them away to the police, we will be allowed to get Lena tonight. They talked about ‘ransom’ but I got no idea what that means in this context. It also seems as if they got another child but this not clear in my mind.”

All children jumped on her at the same time so that Bob had to calm them down: “Let Irina finish her story; then it will be easier to ask good questions.” Like drugged, Irina said: “The woman who gave me the note asked me something important. We should bring back to them what Lena had taken at the Uluru. Does anybody know about this?” But all the kids shook their heads.

Scene 4: Just a Piece of Rock

While Bob was trying to get order into his thinking, Sandrine took the command. She formed search squats: Irina and JP had to go through the room they had together with Lena and the other boys had to go through one room after another. Even the bathrooms were foreseen to be searched. But this didn’t even happen. With a triumphant yell JP came running into the saloon. He had something brownish in his hand and put it on the table. It was an unimpressive flat red sand stone of roughly ten centimeters length and width.

Bob was moving the rock around but could not discover anything special. JP took it out of his hands, squeezed it between Bob’s camera and three books so that the rock stood vertically on one side. All of them yelled: “The Uluru!” and JP proudly said: “She was hiding it in her rucksack!”

Not only the adults understood: The Anangus wanted their symbol back! Irina smiled:

“Now I understand what they wanted from me. I, and only I should bring the Key to the Dream Time to the Mala Gorge and that at sun set. I am sure that they will give Lena back to us”, and she carefully took the rock and wrapped it in a towel.

The children wanted to celebrate the resurrection of Lena right away: The adults however calmed them down: “We don’t have her back, yet.” At lunch, they discussed who should to what and all wished to go to the gorge. This forced Sandrine to cut through the disorder of all the proposals: “Bob will drive Irina to the Olgas and we stay here and think as strongly of our beloved Lena as we can.” Obviously, she wished to reduce the risk of exposing more children.

The kids didn’t calm down during the heat break, so that Sandrine allowed them to go to the pool. Once again, they talked with JP but the little boy really had no additional inputs for them. Then they discussed the pros and cons of involving the police none-theless. Finally, they decided against this option. Also they did come to any conclusion regarding a second child. The police had not said a word about this. Instead they went to the shopping center at the hotel with the big white sails and bought local phones with prepaid chips so they could at least communicate with each other and, if needed with the police. Also they bought powerful flashlights for the adults and the big boys.

As the sun went down towards seven p.m., totally alone brave Irina walked from the Mala parking towards the mountain. Some two hundred meters in front of her, there was this huge wall threatening everyone approaching. She had Lena’s Uluru rock model in a bag around her neck. When approaching, she noticed a shadow on the wall which turned out to be an enormous cave. She called Bob to tell him that she would enter in it. “It is not far away from the parking lot. Probably only half a kilometer but you can see it only when you are close.”

Bob wanted to make her wait for him but she simply cut the connection. Bob loved her twice as much as usual and sat down next to his bus. He asked himself how they would get out of the park which was closed from sun set on. There were no barriers on at the gate so most likely they could go through without any trouble.

Around eleven p.m. the phone woke him up: “Hallo, Irena”, he yelled but it was Sandrine who was full of anxiety. The only thing he could do was to tell her about the cave and that he would stay on the parking lot – if needed - until sun rise. Then he would call again. His tiny darling was full of worries but was hiding it quite well.

In the middle of the night, the light went on in Sandrine’s bedroom. She heard Bob laugh because it looked like a bivouac of gypsies: All kids were with her with their cushions and blankets and it didn’t smell very fresh. They all stared at the clan chief waiting for an explanation, but Lena could not hold herself back any longer and came running in. Her face had black stripes on the cheeks and the forehead and it chocked the whole group quite a bit.

Seeing this, the kids’ shouts of joy calmed down abruptly and Sandrine disappeared with Lena in the bathroom to get her back into the Now Time. Bob took Irina on his arms and put her in his bed. He sent all the children into their rooms. Only Jaim came back to ask him: “But she is ok, isn’t she?” Bob assured him several times before he went to bed also.

In the morning, they all slept in. Then the two big boys tried to sneak out for a swim. But this woke up the rest of the family and - not surprisingly - all the other kids went to Lena’s room. The hero of last night told her brothers and friends about the dancing and singing in the cave and that it was very funny to get paint on the face and to dance with the “fat black guys”. She made it sound like a nice relaxed party.

However, Irina didn’t say a word, turned to the side and wanted to continue to sleep. Using this signal, Sandrine sent the kids into their bathrooms to get ready for breakfast. Again, Bob carried Irina to her bedroom where she just continued to sleep.

At breakfast, Lena talked more about her adventures and Bob listened carefully, but did as if he was deep in thoughts. Besides the fact that no second child was mentioned by his little darling he didn’t hear anything special. So he asked quite casually:

“And what did Irina do?”

“Och, I only saw her dancing with the fat black guys. Once we two danced together which made the nice blacks almost die of laughter.”

“And did you see an old lady with grey hair?” Bob wanted to know.

Lena was thinking: “Oh, yeah, she was quite nice to us and gave Irina and me something to drink. Once she and I danced around the fire and then she danced alone.”

Ahmed wondered about the small Uluru rock which made Lena furious: “This is my stone. You are mean to take it away from me!” She ran into her room. Bob and Sandrine looked at each other. It was a difficult situation as they had not talked to Irina yet. Lena was hiding in her bed and Bob decided to leave her there. They send the children to the pool and asked them who wanted to participate in the camel riding event in the evening. Naturally, all were interested and went away.

Bob and Sandrine took some coffee and something to eat and went to see Irina. It took a long time, before Bob could wake up the young woman. She gave the impression to be drunk and refused to eat something in the beginning. Little-by-little, she came back to reality and embraced both of them. She whispered:

“Oh, it was horrible! I got the feeling to be hundred years older. I believe that the old witch gave me some drugs because I do not remember a lot, except that everything around me was turning in circles and that I danced with the men and Lena. Oh yes, she also wanted to touch my white skin and called me the white glass woman. – Do you know how the humming of their music feels? It is as if a cold breeze is coming out of space.” She shook her body and Sandrine gave her more coffee to drink and forced her to eat something. She fed her like a baby.

“What happened to the stone?”

Irina fumbled for her shoulder bag which was not there anymore and began to cry. “The old witch put me on a rock and I lost consciousness. I only remember that the big, fat men were dancing around me totally naked. Somehow, I think that they had taken off my t-shirt to better see my skin. Funny thing: I was not scared at all. They were not aggressive, almost worshipping me. All of that would probably not be so horrible if the poor people would not be so profoundly ugly.” Sandrine embraced her and gave her more to drink: “You will stay in bed the whole day. Here‘s your phone. You call us when you need something. Don’t forget, we love you!” Irena smiled at her and Bob: “I love you so profoundly, both of you. You can’t believe it. Don’t worry: Take care of the kids!”

Sandrine and Bob left her, but it was clear to them: Something was on Irina’s mind as she wanted to talk to Lena later. And while they organized the camel ride, Bob was contemplating whether he should inform the police now. They would certainly wake up Irina to question her but he didn’t want that now. He decided to call them in the evening.

As Lena didn’t want to participate in the camel ride, all three adults were sitting with her on the pool side. Irina had got up at around five p.m. and finally ate something small. She had given Bob the permission to call the police which Bob had done right away. At six one of the white policemen and his heavy weight black female colleague showed up. At first, he spoke to Irina and the lady talked to Lena and then they changed their roles. Bob insisted to be present in the exchanges with his daughter. The police didn’t like it but could not refuse.

It turned out that there was nothing new for Bob. Lena didn’t mention the stone and Bob wanted to wait to see whether Irina was going to bring it up. However, this became visible quite soon: The black lady jumped up and yelled at the Horners: “You could have told us much earlier, you, you ….” She lost the thread and her colleague had to calm her down. Looking at the Europeans, he said: “Naturally, this explains the whole story! The Aborigines don’t want anybody to take some of their sacred rocks away.”

With that, the police had what they wanted and left the Horner clan.

With this, the story of Lena’s rock could slowly be disappearing out of the memory of the whole clan, but it didn’t. It was not over yet. The first impact was visible on the female adults: After dinner the two women locked themselves in in the bathroom and stayed there for a long time. Then Sandrine drove to the shopping center and didn’t want to tell Bob what it was all about: “Women’s business”, was all he heard. Then Sandrine told him to get ready for bed where his women would be waiting for him. She would make sure that the kids were in bed, too.

Quickly, it got visible what Irina wanted from him, and the light should stay on, also. She wanted to see who she was making love to. When Sandrine joined the lovers, they were celebrating the erotic atmosphere of Irina’s Uluru trauma. It was not the first time that the three met in this specific constellation, but it was clear to each of them that this night had an extraordinary meaning for them but especially for Irina.