I wandered down to Bondi Beach, having no particular plan. Arrived in Sydney for a quite different purpose, long-planned – to celebrate a birthday – I felt myself drawn now to the fatal site. Once there, I found flowers in heaps, tributes and cards. There were candles in clusters. A Hannukah candelabrum stood before the Pavilion. Families were there, some clearly Jewish, many more of them miscellaneously human. 

 

I fell into step with a Jewish youth wearing Chabad costume. His congregation lost a rabbi last Sunday, a young father. I asked the youth, Whattefillah* do we say?

Say what your heart prompts you to say.

We exchanged names: Levi

Zvi Yehonasan.

 

I wandered on. Here were two young women wearing tunics emblazoned, MENTAL HEALTH. I paused by the tributes, bowing to read, The World Rests on Three Things, on Truth, on Justice and on Peace. This was pencilled and illustrated in a child’s hand. I wept, sobbed actually, rocking as I cried, undone by innocence. I felt the close presence of someone. It was Mental Health in the person of a young Chinese woman, proffering a Kleenex. I said, Weneed to believe people are good. She said, We do. At our side a colourful sign read, Celebrate Waverley.

 

 

I wandered on. Here was the footbridge.Over the past four decades I’ve jogged across this little bridge many times as I completed a run. Last Sunday evening two figures in black used the bridge. This morning I looked at that familiar little landmark with new eyes. I bethought myself of the Arch of Titus in Rome. Graved into the stones of that arch are images of Judaean slaves, taken captive in the sack of Jerusalem in the year 70CE. They carry holy objects, trophies of destruction. Among them is the great candelabrum of the Temple in Jerusalem. An arch of triumph for ancient Romans, it has ever stung Jewish eyes. Traditionally Jewish people make a point of not walking beneath Titus’ Arch. Today I detoured around the Bondi footbridge and took a long cut. 

 

Police were everywhere to be seen this morning. Police cars were positioned to limit vehicular access to the site. Insteadpeople walked freely, streaming from all sides, down towards the memorials. Young people walked, drained of gaiety. Children too, somehow solemn in the general pall.

 

Down by the candelabrum, a trio of women in uniform garb. I think they were nuns in summer garb. Here, a younger man, tall and well made, formally dressed in a grey suit in the bright sunlight, stooped to listen gravely to someone explaining, pointing, what happened just here, what just there. The man bowed and took his leave. I guess he was a politician.

 

Here was an aged lady, lipsticked, dressed colourfully, her face deeply wrinkled. She seemed old enough to recall the War. She was deep in conversation with a younger person. She looked through her companion, her gaze fixed on some other place, some other time. I fancied she might be a survivor of similar attacks. She appeared oblivious of the person filming her.

 

Photographers and news crew everywhere, today uncharacteristically decorous. Trying to orient myself, I approached a young police officer. Diffident, reluctant to distract him, I asked which directions were the shooters aiming. He listened, conferred with a fellow officer and gave me answer with a most tender seriousness, as if I myself were among the wounded and must be gentled. I thanked the officer, turning away with my tears. Undone again, by kindness. 

 

I took my meandering leave. I was struck suddenly by what was not at the site. Hundreds and hundreds were there, in all ages and conditions. But missing was haste. Absent from here was noise. Hedonist Bondi, transformed into a secular place of sanctity.

 

I left the place and wandered on, up the hill. The sun bathed the scene. Sydney balmed, just as it was around 6.30 pm last Sunday. I walked on, asking myself whether people were in fact good. Down the hill, in an endless stream, came people bearing flowers. This family carried two large bunches, florist-wrapped. This teenage girl carried but three large roses, home-picked. 

 

At the top of a long hill I rested in the shade. A man approached with a dog, which he secured by a lead to a post. A dog of middle size, his coat a golden bronze, he turned and watched his master enter the adjacent fruit shop. Wondering whether a dog experiences wistfulness, I made way for a boy just a little larger than the dog, walking with Grandma. The boy sighted the dog, left Grandma’s side, and trotted over to the dog. The child rubbed the creature’s neck and fondled his ears. He bent far forward until his brow rested on the dog’s. For a short interval, the two were a single organism.

Then the boy trotted on and caught up with Grannie.

 

 

 

*tefillah is Hebrew for prayer.