The Yield: A Novel

August attends the funeral for Poppy. After Elsie throws Poppy’s ashes on the bonfire, the world seems to stop. A brolga, one of the birds Poppy has talked about in his dictionary, appears. August feels that she recognizes Jedda in the bird. She sees their old beds and their recorded messages for Princess Diana. August wonders why she is seeing this, thinking that she went to England and stopped eating for Jedda’s memory, trying to fulfill their childhood dreams and stay a little girl forever. She remembers that though she tries to return to childhood, childhood did not protect them, and she thinks about the sexual abuse she and Jedda suffered at the hands of their Uncle Jimmy Corvette. August remembers him babysitting and showing her and Jedda porn and Jedda protecting her from him. The brolga and its companions, who have arrived in the interval, fly away. August breaks down in tears.

Greenleaf writes of life at the mission continuing peacefully. He also tells of Indigenous men being tricked into signing work contracts and then being arrested when they ran away. In the seventh year of the mission, men from the town broke down the fences and set fire to the mission men’s quarters. They knocked Greenleaf unconscious and kidnapped two women, shooting and whipping a man who tried to stop them. Upon waking, Greenleaf found that it was his friend, Wowhely, who was shot and dying. They buried him the next day.

Poppy talks about camping with the girls and about one of his ancestors teaching him how to light a fire in a hollow tree to catch a possum. He says he planned to murder a man once, after Jedda’s disappearance. He tells a story of driving sheep as a young man and coming across a beautiful pack of wild horses.

August weeps in the attic until night falls. She and Eddie get drunk, and the funeral continues. August stays in the attic for the next few days. Looking through the attic for the dictionary, August finds her and Jedda’s old toys instead. She remembers her childhood through the toys, finding a gift from her mother, dolls she and Jedda won as a prize, and their tape for Princess Diana. August goes downstairs and finds Elsie is out. She takes a bicycle to go into town, coming upon Eddie. He tells her the mining company is getting ready to strip everything off the land.

At the library, the librarian greets her happily, asking if she’s related to Albert Gondiwindi and if she can tell him to return his books by the end of the week. August can’t bring herself to tell her he is dead. August looks at Poppy’s overdue booklist, finding over 40 books on Australia. She cycles home to look through them. August sorts the books into piles, realizing that Poppy was trying to save the farm. She tells Eddie this when he comes by. Elsie returns, saying she was looking at homes. August asks about her childhood tape recorder, which she has been seeing everywhere since the funeral, and Elsie says Poppy was using it to record his book. The brolga returns.

Greenleaf continues his letter. In the wake of the attack, he was further disgusted by white men’s actions toward the Indigenous people of Australia. He recounts various stories of the horrific treatment of Indigenous people at the hands of white men he has seen and how the government never did anything. The mission received a visit from the Aborigines Protection Board in 1892, and they offered Greenleaf and the mission a permanent income in exchange for providing the Chicago World’s Fair with display pieces, which they accepted. Greenleaf, after presenting at the fair, felt hopeful for the future. However, in 1909, a declaration was sent from the government that the mission had to hand over all residents who were not “full-blooded” to be put to work, to Greenleaf’s anger.

Poppy begins this dictionary entry by talking about his ancestors showing him the houses they used to have and discussing the land, who controls it, and its produce. He talks about how he doesn’t think jail is a solution that makes sense and says how his biggest regret is having failed his granddaughter. Poppy talks about the water of the river, how to fish, and how to make flour. He says that his ancestors told him knowledge that couldn’t be shared with the wrong person.

As August helps to pack up the house, she searches for Poppy’s manuscript, with no luck. She goes over to visit with Eddie, and they talk about their childhoods. They talk about Eddie’s dad leaving and August’s mom being in jail. They begin to kiss and start to have sex. Before they can progress very far, August stops them, wanting to get drunk before they continue. She begins to remember fighting with Jedda and tells Eddie to stop. He asks her what she wants, and she says she doesn’t want to leave Prosperous and that she is worried Jedda will come home and not find anyone there. Eddie is upset, but August says that she is nothing without Prosperous and she needs to know that she can come back. Eddie gets angry, yelling that the mission was a slave yard and that the only reason August’s family could stay was because his family let them. He shows her receipts from his father selling Indigenous cultural artifacts to a museum, and August runs out.

Poppy discusses time and the last weeks of his life spent at Prosperous. He writes that after Jedda’s disappearance, he took the spear he made and drove to the place Jimmy lived. He forced him out of the house at spearpoint and had him drive out into the night. When he asked him where Jedda was, Jimmy denied doing anything but hid his face, and Poppy knew he was guilty. Jimmy ran off into the night, and Poppy hit him with his spear. Jimmy continued to run and got away.

Greenleaf writes of how he was recently brought into the police station for questioning on his family background and of the rise of Australian nationalism in recent years. Greenleaf tells of the recent kidnapping of Indigenous children from the mission by the Australian government and says that taking the children from their families and putting them into homes to be trained as servants is a form of slavery. He recounts his trip to the police station and how the people of the town told him that they finally had an excuse to get rid of him. He was told that unless he surrendered the children, he would be placed in an internment camp. He agreed. Greenleaf writes that he has made himself an enemy to two sets of people, as the Indigenous members of the mission turned away from him.

Poppy writes of how the Gondiwindi make grave sites and care for their dead. He writes about how one Christmas, he found Jimmy Corvette trying to sneak into the girls’ room and kicked him out. He says that Jimmy turned up at the hospital with the spear in his leg but that he never said who did it. His leg became infected, and he began to die, but he still wouldn’t tell Poppy what had happened to Jedda. All he would say was that she was in the water. Poppy spat into his wound and said that if he didn’t tell him where Jedda was, he would torture him once he was out of the hospital. Jimmy died that night. Poppy regrets never finding Jedda and says he just wants to make sure she’s warm.