El Patio Spanish

When I came up with the idea of writing about the history of Little Lonsdale Street, I didn’t know that this street had been the centre of the underworld (a poor area) in Melbourne at the end of the nineteenth century. The Melbourne Museum holds a large collection of archaeological pieces found in the excavations carried out on this street, as well as several reproductions of nineteenth century houses (I use some of these objects in the story and also the photos of these houses). I hope that this tale serves to awaken curiosity about the history of Melbourne and, in particular, of this curious street.

Melbourne, June 18, 2017

Dear Julia,

For a while now I’ve been thinking of writing to you to tell you about my last trip that, for once, I haven’t had the courage to tell anyone about. We all know that in life there are experiences that scandalize, move, impress, bore, motivate, amuse ... and also that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction. The fiction I present you with here will surprise you, and I don’t expect you to believe me, as it isn’t believable. All I ask is for you to listen to me, well, read what I have to say, without judging me.

As you know, I've been studying Spanish for 3 years at El Patio Spanish Language School on Little Lonsdale Street in Melbourne CBD, very close to Chinatown. My class is on Wednesdays at 10am and I finish class at 11:30am. Normally, after class I usually have a coffee at QV Melbourne. Once I’m down on the street, I turn right onto Russell Street. That's my routine and that's what I was preparing to do on Wednesday, April 11. However, something extraordinary happened to me that day.

The day had started out sunny, it was hot for this time of year, and you could sense that the people in town were in a good mood. The class had gone as normal, perhaps with a little more excitement than usual because the teacher had announced that we were going to study the subjunctive for the first time. At the end of class, I went downstairs. On the landing at the entrance I dropped my mobile and it fell down another set of stairs leading to an exit door to one side of the building. Taken by curiosity, it occurred to me to open it to see what was on the other side. I stepped forward and suddenly, as if [1]Houdini the magician had made me vanish, I found myself in a street that had little or nothing to do with the laneway, Davisons Place, of today. Shocked with horror and curiosity, I went cautiously inside where a ragged, barefoot, dirty girl, with a face full of soot took one look at me and screamed. I hid as I best could behind what looked like an old warehouse. From there, I had a more comfortable position and I could observe without being seen.

Although terror had taken me by the throat and fear was telling me to retrace my steps and go back through the door I had come in by, or at least to try to do so, I knew immediately that something inexplicable was happening to me and, now that I was in the thick of it, I wanted to discover what it was. I was struggling with this dilemma when I heard the noise of more children playing in the street, all dressed in the same way as the girl who had gotten a fright to see me just a few minutes before. I was struck by the diversity of the children, for there were among them dark-skinned Mediterranean children, Asian children, probably from China, redheads and kids with blond hair. At least in this way things resembled the city of today. What was truly strange was the lack of traffic noise, the smell of sewage that permeated the air, the filth of the streets and the dilapidated appearance of the houses. Also strange was the size of the houses. It was as if reality had turned into a black and white film, as if the soot on the children's faces painted a landscape before me, as if the street of Little Lon had been disguised, made up as an old sepia-coloured photograph.

I knew that if I wanted to explore the terrain, I had to find a way to go unnoticed. I took a quick look down the laneway and saw what looked like the back of a row of small houses. The back door of one of them was open and, with total indiscretion and at risk of being discovered, I went in. From the clothesline hung various kinds of rags, amongst which I could make out a ragged-looking dress, tattered at the seams and with frayed edges at the sleeves. Without a second thought, I squeezed myself into it as best I could – at least it was long enough to cover my jeans. I can’t say for sure what it looked like because there weren’t any mirrors to see it in, but I think the dress must have belonged to a woman who was more-or-less my size. Beside the door was a toilet made of a board in the shape of a cross, fitted wall-to-wall with a hole in the middle and underneath it, a metal bucket with two handles. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the house. I looked through one of the windows, and all I could make out – due to the dirtiness of the windows and the darkness inside –  was that it seemed that both the furniture and the decor were in a similar state of poverty to London in the time of Dickens. I mustered my courage and went into the house with great care so as not to bump into any of the furniture, as there was barely space to move. I remembered that I had my phone. I took it out and I took a few photos that I include here, so you can see that my experience was just as real as what I am telling you.

[1] Harry Houdini – illusionist and Austrohungarian escape artist (1874-1926).

la sala con la chimenea

uno de los dos dormitorios

Photos taken in the Melbourne Museum, where there is a section dedicated to Little Lon.

After making exploring the house, luckily without having been discovered, I left once again via the small backyard and, so, with an appearance of general dishevelment, I made my way to Little Lon.

It was the noise of the wheels of the horse-drawn carriage on the cobblestones that saved me from being run over. The coachman got my attention: [1]“Captain Cook at the frog ‘n’ toad, woman!” (look at the road, woman!). After crossing the street I recognised the back part of [2]Wesley Gothic church, but that’s all I could recognise, since nothing around at all resembled that stretch of the street as it is today. At that moment, leaving one of the bluestone houses, to the left of the church, was a woman with a kind of scarf on her head. I noticed that her dress looked like mine.

As soon as she saw the children in the street, she ran after one of them and, once she’d caught up with him, she threw him across her lap as if he were a sack of potatoes. The boy kicked and shouted. As the woman stood to rearrange him, I took the opportunity to approach her and ask her if she knew what the street was called, using the excuse that I was lost. She looked at me suspiciously, not entirely believing that the person in front of her was a real woman and not an alien, due to my clean, untied hair, as well as my backpack and my sneakers that also gave me away. Reluctantly and with a barely intelligible accent, she told me “Little Lon”, and asked me [3]“Arya from Steak ‘n’ Kidney?” (are you from Sydney?). I thanked her and went through the back of the church towards the front door on Lonsdale Street. Next to the church was a large pot with a sort of dirty broth being served to a gathering of folk who looked like beggars. Everything about this crowd exuded hunger, rot and pestilence. I stopped just in time to go unnoticed – something that was becoming increasingly difficult for me. I squatted on the landing to one side and on the floor I saw, hidden in the filth, a newspaper I couldn’t recognise. At a glance, I could see that it was [4]The Australasian, dated Saturday, April 8, 1893. On page 20 I was struck by the following news story: "The suspension of payments by the Commercial Bank is an event that must cause profound Regret and anxiety both in this colony and in other parts of Australia."

[1] “Captain Cook at the frog ‘n’ toad, woman”!. Captain Cook=look, Frog and toad= road.

[2]  wesleychurchmelbourne.org.au

[3] She asked me: “Arya from Steak ‘n’ Kidney?”= Sydney

[4] trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/138

“The 1893 banking crisis occurred in Australia when several of the commercial banks of the colonies within Australia collapsed”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_banking_crisis_of_1893

I no longer had any doubt that, as if by magic, I had travelled more than a century into the past – 124 years into the past to be precise. The sensation I had at that moment was of vertigo, as if I had been spun in a galactic spiral, sucked up by a black hole, and spat out on the other side of Alice's mirror. And also, as if by magic [1](por arte del birlibirloque), my backpack with my house keys, purse and Spanish books had just disappeared. Luckily, I kept my mobile in the back pocket of my jeans. I slipped my hand under the skirt I was wearing and took it out; there was no coverage, but at least it gave me a sense of normality in this nonsensical and inexplicable journey into the past. Now, I thought, without a backpack, barefoot and dishevelled, I had the opportunity to go unnoticed. I hid my sneakers in the pages of the newspaper, ruffled my hair and set out to find out more about this world. Maybe parallel universes did exist after all. I once again retraced my steps to Little Lon, this time heading towards Exhibition Street. I could hardly recognize the street that I had walked along so many times before – very few buildings are still standing from that time. Most were houses made of bluestone, wood, a few here and there of brick, there were a few factories or workshops, quite a few bars and other buildings of dubious reputation. I recognized what was in its day one of the oldest [2]synagogues in Melbourne, but on its door hung a sign for the "Salvation Army". Around it, just like at the door of the church, were women with children in their laps, poorly dressed men with even poorer looking faces and [3]larrakins who looked like pimps, with odd white pipes at the corners of their mouths and, on their heads, caps pulled down to the ears.

[1] El birlibirloque: the art of stealing, making off with or swindling suddently, by surprise or with great skill.

[2] Today there is a well known bar / restaurant with a tree in its garden that dates back 150 years. vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/747

[3] In the Australian sense of “larrikin”

Although my appearance had deteriorated markedly to the point that I could now pass for a poor woman of the late nineteenth century, I still received an odd look here and there. When I reached the corner of Little Lon and Exhibition, I saw what looked like a policeman, and went back down the road again to avoid what like might be an inopportune encounter. Now I took a closer look at what was on the other side of the road in front of the synagogue and the church. Looking at the two hotels, I recognised them at once, since both buildings still exist in the year I came from: one, the early Victorian style [1]"Exploration Hotel", at 116-118 Little Lon; the other, the "Leitrim Hotel", dated from 1888, according to the façade. Both were open and in and out through the doors passed a horde of individuals, most of them in a serious state of intoxication.

I concealed myself as much as I could, hiding behind one of the few lampposts in sight; I was keenly aware of the danger I was in if I caught the attention of one of those brutes and was mistaken for one of the women who openly engaged in prostitution at this time of day. Suddenly I saw a poster glued to the streetlight that hid me. It announced the treatment of opium and alcohol addiction, making it clear that I was in a somewhat peculiar street.

[1] Today, if you go down the side of this building, you can observe the daily life of the family that lives there. This is possible thanks to the large display window they have as the outside façade, without any kind of curtain or blind.

I was paralysed by doubt as to whether to continue with my adventure, since if I lingered around the area I ran the risk of someone discovering me, and I didn’t dare imagine the consequences of what that might lead to. The most logical thing was to try to find the door to the future and find out if I could still go home. But seeing as I had travelled in time, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to experience life in late nineteenth century Melbourne, or at least the life of this very special street.

At a brisk pace, I made my way back down to Exhibition Street, crossing it, dodging the few carriages that were there – most of them horse-drawn – and continuing along Little Lon to Casselden Square. Out of Number 4 came some women – it was more like they were daubed in paint [1](pintarrajeadas) than wearing makeup. Without a second thought, I entered the building. Immediately, I realized that I was in a brothel. One of the women who swarmed around, who perhaps looked older than the others, looked at me and asked: [2]"Ar’ya lookin’ for a job, miss?” I said that I was, to avoid raising suspicion. At once she asked me to accompany her and she put me in a tiny room. There was a kind of straw bale there and, on top of a washing rack made of wood and metal, a washing basin with a jug for water. The walls, made out of old wood just like the floor and the ceiling, had large gaps between each board, through which you could glimpse enormous cobwebs. On a small bedside table was a gas lamp and a candle affixed directly to the wood. She told me that this would be my room but that the work was done in the street, and that she was in charge of this brothel, the cheapest of those that [3]Madame Brussels ran, but with my appearance this would suit me well.

[1] Pintarrajear: to excessively paint or make up someone

[2] Ar’ya lookin’ for a job, miss?

[3] madamebrusselslane.com.au/home/story/

Hoy en día Melbourne tiene un callejón dedicado a la dueña del mayor negocio de prostíbulos de finales del siglo XIX, todos ellos se encontraban entre las calles de Little Lonsdale, Spring Street y Lonsdale.

Today Melbourne has a laneway dedicated to the owner of the largest business of brothels of the end of the 19th century, all of which were found in between Little Lonsdale, Spring Street and Lonsdale street.

She explained that she was also responsible for charging my clients and that, in return, I would be given a part from which my board for the room would be deducted. In that deduction would be included the cost of a pair of laced ankle boots that I was to rent until I could buy some of my own. And so, in a hurry, she told me to go [1]work the street, since there was no time to lose, but not before giving me a sort of [2]ring-shaped device, made of bone, similar to today's diaphragms, for me to insert into my vagina. This too would be deducted from my salary, of course.

I left as soon as I could without the slightest intention of ever putting a foot back in the brothel, leaving the ring-shaped device and the boots behind. I crossed the street. Now I really was determined to get back to the door, which, with a little luck, would take me back to my time. I walked quickly and, at the same time, very cautiously so as not to trip over the blue pavers that jutted irregularly at each step; or worse, so as not to cross paths with one of the many mean-faced punters [3](puteros) who frequented that street. I decided to put my sneakers back on because my feet were beginning to feel the hardness of the cobblestones. I had hardly been able to walk 200 meters when a Chinese man who looked like he was out of the film Fu Manchu blocked my path and told me that if I was looking for a job, he ran a bar and could help me. Again, my curiosity won out over my fear to follow him – in this case, into the mouth of the dragon[4].

In very good English, but with certain vestiges of his mother tongue, he said to me that "I would be very well paid and wouldn’t have to worry about the economic crisis anymore." His business was right there, in one of the alleys that came out of Little Lon. As soon as I entered I knew that I was the victim of sleight of hand, since nothing seemed to be what it was: the store looked like it dealt in provisions, with sacks of rice and pasta and bottles of what looked like a kind of liquor, and I had to pass through the store to go downstairs to an underground cabin. The stairs were dimly lit and narrow. Once downstairs, I could see that the room wasn’t very large but was large enough to house about fifteen people in the hard beds that were laid out on the floor. Between the dense smoke and the darkness – a few red Chinese lanterns lit the place – I could barely discern what was being cooked up there. Once I got used to the gloom, I began to make out the lost gazes of the faces of men, their heavy bodies scattered about on beds, long cylindrical pipes with a little bowl towards the end of them that their pale hands rested on the floor, the bitter smell of sweat and of a forbidden substance.

I was in an opium den of nineteenth century Melbourne, where aside from trafficking drugs, white women were also sold. I started to get worried when the supposed owner of the premises, the Chinese man who had invited me in, told me to wait because he had to let his clients know I was there. He asked me my name and how old I was. I lied to him about everything, of course. Now I had to think, and quickly, about how to get out of all this unharmed. I sat in a corner, on the floor, next to a man who seemed to be in a slumber, and I saw the Chinese man whispering something in the ear of another younger Chinese man. After the owner disappeared, the younger one approached me. In his hand he carried an opium pipe and offered it to me. When I refused it, he held me tightly by the wrist and told me that I had to smoke. I had no choice but to act: while he held my left wrist, I lifted my right arm bending it to direct my elbow downward to his cheekbones, I finished him off on the floor with my foot, disfiguring him in such a way that even his mother wouldn’t be able to recognize him. I had finally put into practice my years of karate training.

I ran to the stairs and climbed them three by three. Fortunately, the entrance door was open and, this time, without any fear, I ran and kept on going until I reached the place where I came out into this other world. There was no recognisable door, but all the same, I acted as if there was, and as I stepped forward I found myself once again in the building that today houses El Patio Spanish Language School. I immediately removed the ridiculous dress I wore, pinched myself to see if it was real or if I was dreaming, and left the building with the feeling that I had been born again. If you’re wondering if I have tried to enter that ever-so-lucky door to the past again, I can say that I haven’t had the courage to find out if it would take me to the nineteenth century again.

I’ll say goodbye and I hope you don’t judge my mental health too severely.

Andrea Rumbold

[1] Carry out prostitution

[2] You can see an example of this device in the part dedicated to Little Lon in the Melbourne Museum.

[3] Putero: one who pays for sex

[4] The expression "get in the mouth of the wolf" means getting into a dangerous situation, risk. In this case wolf has been changed to dragon.