Forgotten Country
“SMELL THAT?” MY HUSBAND GAVE ME A LOOK AS WE waited by Sydney Airport’s luggage carousel. It was smoke, not unpleasant, like a distant neighbor’s wood fire, but persistent and odd in a place that’s usually redolent of coffee, duty-free perfume and burning jet fuel. He had insisted we stock up on face masks before we left the U.S., over my objections that he was overreacting, and now raised his eyebrows knowingly.
Having grown up pretty much next to the Australian bush, I had watched the news of infernos in my homeland with skepticism. Bushfires were to my childhood like blizzards were to my adult life in America’s Northeast: an inevitable
