Reckoning: Chapter 6: Medicine Men Summary & Analysis

By 1966, the Szubanskis were adapted to life in Australia; However, their customs, knowledge, and references remained British; they knew nothing of Australia’s climate, where a dropped cigarette could start a brushfire and where deadly snakes lurked everywhere. Trying to vacation as though they were still in England, they once drove eight hours Mildura to ride a paddleboat—and then drove back the same day. They drove through the Dandenong Range, stopping for Magda’s carsick friend Izabella to vomit. On another drive, they picked up a hitchhiker and made Magda sit in front between the bucket seats. Despite these less-than-ideal trips, the family always sang together in the car; to this day, they still do.

Although Peter’s work gave the family a house, Peter bought land in Croydon, next to Harry Vincent and his wife Maureen, and built a veneer brick house. In 1840, settlers took Croydon from the Wurundjeri people and cleared it of bush. Indigenous people were now so absent from Croydon that Magda did not see an indigenous person until she was nine. At school, the curriculum covered nothing of Aboriginal history. As an exile, Peter empathized with the Aboriginals. Many houses in Croydon were original weatherboard, but the Szubanskis’ was new, and furnished with man-made materials from Peter’s textile lab.

The land around the Szubanskis’ house was rocky, with dry grass and sagging gum trees. In the distance was one green field. Once, Magda and some friends packed bags to walk to the field; they trekked for hours through rough terrain until they arrived at the field. It was not as green as it had looked from afar, and they could see other greener fields in the distance.

Although not a skilled handyman, Peter avidly mowed the large backyard. At the back, a wall of shrub marked where the wild bushland began. In summer, hot desert winds blew, and deadly snakes lay coiled in the grass. Despite this, Magda loved the spaciousness of the land; she pretended to be Daniel Boone, and the full moon seemed close enough to touch.

In 1966, Margaret and Peter got serious about giving Magda an education. Robbed of everything during the war, even his belief in God, Peter had always believed solely in intellect. In an effort to exterminate the Polish intellectual class, the Nazis had closed all but trade schools and had killed thousands of academics. Peter and Danuta would sneak into professors’ homes to study, but this inadequate education left Peter competitive with others and himself. Whatever hobby his kids took up, Peter set about to do it better. Once, when Magda was playing with Playdough, Peter took the blob and sculpted the head of an Aboriginal man. Magda and her siblings started to choose activities that they knew Peter couldn’t be good at.

Peter was particularly hard on Chris; Chris fought back by taking to disassembling cars and dreaming of being a racecar driver. When Barb went through an awkward puberty, Peter stopped talking to her and projected his crushed intellectual dreams on Magda: she was to be an intellectual and go to college.

There was a beautiful schoolhouse in Croydon, and Magda couldn’t wait to go; she was convinced she would become a doctor. However, school disappointed her: the lessons were boring, and a mean teacher hit the kids with rulers for trivial misdeeds. However, another teacher, Mr. Peterson inspired passion for knowledge. Then, during a spelling bee, Magda misspelled “eight,” and she started to question if she was as smart as she was supposed to be.

Soon after the move to North Croydon, Peter discovered that the lump on his thigh (which he had been ignoring) was cancer. Chemotherapy was in its infancy, so surgery was the only option. Peter decided to see the only surgeon who didn’t think his leg needed to be amputated. The day of the surgery, while playing outside, Magda cut herself and got blood on her dress. When Margaret scolded her, Magda felt unloved. After Peter’s tumor was removed, the family waited to hear if the cancer was gone for good. Margaret—living in a strange country with two children—could hardly bear the fear that her husband might die. As a child, Magda worried that the bad things happening were her fault.

After surgery, Peter befriended an old prisoner of war, Gerald, whose mother had taught him a natural approach to health. Once, Gerald told Magda that ice cream contains the same anti-freeze one puts in one’s car. Gerald prescribed Peter a daily concoction of yeast, wheatgerm, and molasses; Margaret started using these ingredients in her cooking. While it tasted gross, Magda knows the food demonstrated her mother’s love. From that point on, Peter’s illness lurked behind everything.