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Memories of Gregory Tongkul
Husband of Susanna Golingai
The Japanese came in the night. They took everything, even our pillows. We fled from our now Japanese-occupied house into the dark of night.
The river where we bathed and did the washing stunk of oil from their motor boats.
Once a Japanese soldier called me over. I was twelve years old. He told me to go on an errand for him and he would give me some “cake.” I did as I was told. I waited with anticipation for the “cake.” The Japanese soldier went to one of their rice pots and dug out the hardened crust of rice at the bottom. He sprinkled sugar on it and handed the “cake” to me.
Towards the end of the war, the Japanese started talking about “washing clean the plates.” This terrified us, especially as they were digging a huge pit.
Postscript
Gregory and Susanna lost a sixteen-year-old grandson, Kennedy, to a rare blood dysfunction. Their daughter, Emily, and her husband, Koloming Chung, had brought Kennedy to see the psychic, Mama Julia. And then in what proved to be the final bid to save his life, he was brought to Australia where he passed away. He is buried near the house they had moved to from Gregory and Susanna’s village.
One of their granddaughters, a sister of Kennedy, now lives in Australia with her husband and child, Gregory and Susanna’s Australian great-grandchild.
Another of their granddaughters, daughter of their child, Celestine and her husband, Harris Matthews, married an Englishman. They live in England. Gregory and Susanna have two great-grandchildren of English paternal descent.
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