A Voice in the Belly - extract from the novel by Terri-ann White

Literary Review, Fall, 2001 by Terri-Ann White

People knew him but what could they do? Nobody wanted to get involved, get their hands dirty. The language that came from his mouth was foul. Not all of it English, but you could tell it was obscene. People said he had many fluent languages in his head: German, Polish, Yiddish, even Hebrew. And then English, where the foul words came from. Doesn't the facility for more than one language mean the subject is clever? No one treated this man as clever or even as human anymore. He was viewed with caution, like the big packhorses he ran in teams down the Williams Road with provisions and goods required for agriculture. This the business that he once ran; his wife and eldest son now managing matters carefully, cooperating with their customers and always delivering on time.

The police arrive to take him to the limestone palace on the hill that he helped to build. There will be a cell waiting for him in that most popular establishment of a lawless place. Godforsaken Fremantle.

1874.

* Court of Quarter Sessions

Terri-ann White works at The University of Western Australia. She has also taught in other university writing programs, and presents writing workshops in the community regularly. Her stories and other writing have been published widely; a collection entitled Night and Day was released by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1994. Over the past decade she has been a passionate collaborator with other artists: dancers, visual artists, musicians. For twelve years she was an independent bookseller, as owner and manager of the Arcane Bookshop in Perth. Her second book, Finding Theodore and Brina, a family saga set in the most isolated city in the world, was released by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in August 2001. "A Voice in the Belly" is an excerpt from this novel.