‘So you never saw her? At all?’
‘I didn’t say that. I saw her almost every day. She’d tell her father she was going to university, and she would come and see me. I don’t know how she managed to pass all her exams, I really don’t. She never went to university. Your mother is very clever.’
‘So her father and grandfather were basically keeping her captive.’
‘No! Her grandfather was a lovely man, really kind. He was hardly ever in that house. He would travel a lot. It was his son who was awful. When your mother was twenty-one, her father tried to claim the house as his own. He outright said it was his. He was trying to steal from his own father. He took his own father to court. If that wasn’t bad enough, he asked your mother to testify. To lie to the judge and say the house belonged to him when it didn’t. She knew it didn’t. Can you imagine, telling your daughter to do that?’
There is nothing worse than puncturing your father’s pride, no matter how wrong he is. My mother had the option to say nothing. She had the option to let it go. But she chose to do something, and it seems that decision has haunted her for thirty years. What she chose to do was write a letter and have it submitted to the court. A testimony. In that letter, she wrote that she lived in the unit with her father. That she spent every day in that house with her father. But the house did not belong to her father. That roof, and everything under it, belonged to her grandfather.
When her father read the letter, he gave up his ownership claim. His father kept the house and my mother was disowned. She moved in with Nana and never saw her father again.
There is an Egyptian saying: You can pluck a chicken, feather by feather, and it will shriek in pain. But as long as you give it crumbs, it will follow you forever. My mother thinks she knows her father so well; she is resolute in the fact he is hiding something. She is convinced there is more to find on these hard drives, that all he wants her to do is look a little harder. It’s a game he’s set up for her. She says she knows how his mind worked. This is what he would have wanted her to do. This is how he thought. She just has to follow the trail.
I imagine his ghost peering through the window at one am as she sits at her glowing laptop, glee in his eyes. If this reward exists, it is buried as deep as her father’s bones.
RULE #21
NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS
There was as knock on the flyscreen and a call. ‘Hello?’
Mama and Nana were watching TV, and they didn’t hear it. I looked down the dark hall to a large silhouette outside. I couldn’t see who it was. It was about seven pm and we were not expecting anyone. Mohamed wasn’t home, and the voice didn’t sound like his.
‘Hello?’ I said back, loud enough for Mama to hear. ‘Who’s there?’
The man shuffled back and forth. ‘I’m in a spot of bother,’ the deep voice echoed down our hallway. I didn’t know what to expect, so I grabbed a knife from the woodblock in the kitchen. I held it behind my back and approached the door. I didn’t know if I had the guts to use it. Mama came into the hallway and looked at me like I was insane. But the man’s silhouette was huge, and he was being cryptic. The flyscreen was closed but unlocked.
‘Can I come in?’ he said. He had the voice of a man but spoke the words of a child.
‘No,’ said Mama. She reached the door, flicked the lock and switched on the light. It showed a balding man wearing a striped khaki shirt. His thongs slapped the cement as he shifted back and forth. He looked in his late thirties.
‘What do you need?’ she said.
He repeated, ‘I am in a spot of bother.’
His name was Justin, he said, and he was lost. Mama asked if there was someone who could come and pick him up.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My dad. I live with my dad. I tried to call him, but he’s not answering his phone.’ He pulled a phone out of his pocket. It was not a mobile. It was a wireless landline, taken off the hook and out of the house. It was then that I understood Justin was different from us.
‘Do you know your dad’s number?’ said Mama.
‘Yes,’ he said, and he recited it. She called it and there was no answer. She called it again and left a voicemail. Justin was pacing, scratching at his skin incessantly. The mosquitoes.
‘Go get some spray,’ Mama told me. I felt a little worried about leaving my mother alone with a stranger, but I trusted her judgement enough. I went to the kitchen. I kept the knife with me and picked up a can of Aerogard.
When I returned, Mama was outside with Justin. She was waiting on the phone again, and she had brought a garden chair over for him to sit on. I went to hand him the Aerogard.
‘Thank you,’ he said. He didn’t take the bottle. Instead, he stuck out his arms in front of me. He wanted me to spray them. I did, and his legs too.
He asked me if we’d had tea. I knew he meant dinner. I said yes, and he looked disappointed.
‘Have you?’ I said.
‘No.’
After trying to get through to his dad for half an hour, Mama admitted that maybe the best option was to call the police. They could pick him up and take him home.
‘No,’ said Justin, getting up out of his seat. ‘No. Please don’t.’ Mama and I instinctively took a step back. ‘Can’t you just take me home? To my dad’s house. I know the address.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Mama.
Justin looked like he was about to cry. ‘Am I in trouble?’ he asked. This made me think he had been in trouble before.
‘No. Of course not,’ she said.
✾
When the police officer answered the call, my mother explained the situation.
‘Ah, yes.’ I could hear the officer’s voice, even with the phone pressed to my mother’s ear. ‘This isn’t the first time Justin has been lost. I’ll try and get in touch with his father. Can I call you back on this number?’
‘Yes,’ said Mama, and she hung up.
I was proud of my mother. She was kinder than she needed to be to people. I could see she felt for Justin. Meanwhile, I still had a knife in my pocket.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again.
‘It’s your father,’ Mama said to Justin. She hadn’t said that word in a while. Faaatha.
Justin lurched forward. ‘Can I speak to him? Please. Please.’
Mama handed him her mobile. ‘Hi, Dad,’ he said. ‘Are you coming to get me?’ Justin listened for a while. I couldn’t hear what his father was saying, but he spoke for a long time. ‘Are you still going to visit me tomorrow?’ he said. The word ‘visit’ made me realise he was lying when he said he lived with this father. He handed the phone back to Mama.
Justin’s father explained to Mama that Toby would come and get Justin. Toby was his son’s carer. Mama hung up. ‘Why didn’t you tell us about Toby?’ she said. Justin shrugged.
The phone rang again.
‘Yeah.’ I could hear Toby’s voice. ‘Where is he?’ Mama gave him the address, and Toby huffed. ‘I’m making dinner right now, you know. I have other clients, you know.’ He hung up.
We waited, mosquitoes buzzing around the light. ‘Is Toby a good cook?’ said Mama.
‘No,’ said Justin.
Hours later, once Toby had left and we were back inside watching TV, Mohamed got home. He was not gentle with the flyscreen. It clanged as he swung it open with too much force. Mama said he didn’t know his strength.
‘Where have you been?’ I said. ‘We almost had a home invasion.’
‘No, we didn’t,’ said Mama. ‘We were perfectly fine on our own.’
RULE #22
TAKEOUT LIFE INSURANCE
I think about my parents dying, probably more often than I should. I don’t want them gone. But I have moments of remembering that they are human, and so am I, and one day this will all fade to black. My father doesn’t believe that. Neither does my mother. To them, there’s got to be something else out there, a hereafter.
My mother has life insurance. I know because
I heard my parents argue about it when they were together. My father is against the idea completely. He says he will never get it, despite being sick. He says it’s haram to bet on your own death. He has given me an envelope with money to cover the cost of his funeral. He will leave his inheritance, of course. That gets split between the three of us, Mohamed getting half and Aisha and I a quarter each. That’s Sharia. The brother is meant to take care of his sisters.
My father has been talking about his death for twenty years. He has been dying for twenty years.
If there’s one thing my father wants to see before he dies, it’s his daughters married. For them to be off his hands. For a husband to come and take the lead. Of course, it can’t be any man. There are requirements. He has to have money, enough to take care of us. He has to have a house. He has to be smart, but not too clever. He has to be firm, but not too hard. He has to be squeaky clean, but not afraid to roll up his sleeves. He has to, he has to, he has to. But, if he doesn’t have all that, at the very least he has to be Muslim.
He invites men to the house. Old friends, from years ago, from Cairns and elsewhere. Friends who helped him out when he was alone. I tell Aisha that this is his way of introducing me to Muslim men, because I refuse to go to mosque with him anymore. This is his way of managing my future. Aisha doesn’t believe me. She thinks I think too highly of myself.
One night, we cook prawns on the barbecue and we set the table inside. There are two men invited to dinner – Baba must be hedging his bets. I set five plates, but Baba says to set six. Mohamed is coming, he thinks. The brother is meant to be here for these sorts of things. I tell him that Mohamed is not coming. He is busy, at the gym or with Emma. Or he has forgotten. Baba tells me to set six anyway, just in case his son happens to come through.
I sit and I watch these two men eat. One is tall, with a head of curly hair and a scruffy beard. His name is Mohamed. He is wearing a white singlet because of the heat. Baba turns the air-conditioning on, and I know the smell of prawns will be in it for days. The other man is shorter, but still taller than me. He has a lisp and blue eyes. He is also Mohamed.
A month goes by before I hear about the men again. Baba calls to tell me there’s a boy who wants to be my friend. I know he is not a boy, he is a man. Both Mohameds were at least ten years older than me. Just friends, Baba says. What’s wrong with friends?
‘I really don’t like this,’ I say. I can feel myself crying. Not because I am sad, but because I am scared of disappointing him. I try to always do as he asks. I know I need to gain credits with him. But I can’t do this. ‘I really hate it when you do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘You want me to be friends with people.’
‘Why are you crying?’ he says.
‘Because. I can’t just flick a switch. No boys, then all of a sudden married.’
‘Who said married? I said just friends.’
‘I know what you’re asking me, Baba.’
‘I’m just asking you to be friends. That’s all.’
‘I’m not going to marry these people. I don’t want to get to know them. People marry people they already know. That’s how it works here.’
‘Well, we are not from here.’
‘Well, I am here. And you are here. And most of my friends are here.’
‘How will you get married if you never give it a chance?’
‘I want to marry someone I like. Someone I can be real friends with first. I don’t want to give chances to people I don’t know.’
‘I’m not forcing you to do anything. I never forced you.’
‘I know you’re not forcing me. But I think we’re going to have to accept that I’m not going to marry a random brown person. You have all these rules for me. All these standards. But the only rule that matters when it comes to my husband is that he is Muslim. The standard is so low. That’s not fair.’
‘He’s not random. I know —’
‘You don’t know if he’ll be nice to me. You don’t know if we care about the same things. And that’s the basics. That’s the minimum. I don’t want someone just because they are there. I want someone I will care about.’ I can’t bring myself to say someone I am in love with. ‘Just because someone is a Muslim doesn’t mean they are a good person. He is a stranger.’ I take a breath and it hurts. ‘Chances are, and the chances are very big chances, I am going to marry someone who is white.’
He is silent for a moment. ‘You know the rules,’ he says finally.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You need someone who knows the culture.’
‘I know.’
‘Someone who accepts the culture.’ I know he means a convert.
‘But you’re going to have to accept that they’re not going to be Egyptian. Or Arab. Or anything like that.’
‘It sounds like you have someone in mind.’
I don’t say anything. My father wants me off his hands, but he doesn’t want to lose me. ‘You don’t have to cry, habib.’
BABA
It’s funny how we centre ourselves in our memories. We are the heroes and the victims, even when the story isn’t about us. My memories of my father’s illness are focused on that hospital in the Gold Coast, the two of us together travelling to and from it for his treatment. I was there for it all, in my memories. Not my sister, who worked weekends. Not my brother, who rarely picked up his phone. I was the one who helped my father through the toughest time in his life. That’s the story in my head. But there was a period that ran its course without me there: my father’s time in Katherine. I don’t think about it because I can’t imagine it. I don’t ask because I don’t want to complicate my own narrative, my memories of me being a good daughter when my father was at his weakest. But the truth is, in the hardest parts, he was alone. He has to fill these blanks in for me.
He tells me, ‘When I was in Katherine, I was trying to lose weight. And I did. I dropped from 144 to 109 in about two months. I remember thinking how good I was, to do that. The lady at the gym reception said she didn’t recognise me. And I tried to take this as a good thing. But her face said different. Her face said something is wrong. She saw something in me, and it wasn’t healthy.
‘When I started to feel pain in my back, behind my kidneys, I went to my GP and he said it could just be normal muscular things. Everybody gets them. So I left it. I left it until it got really bad. Too bad.
‘I decide to see another doctor, who is very nice to me. She is Egyptian too. It is funny that I am on the other side of the world, in a place so far away like Katherine, and I find another Egyptian. It is nice. She really seems like she cares about me. She says, “We better put you in for CT scans.” I went for a CT scan in Darwin, because they don’t have the machines in Katherine. When I got back to Katherine, I got a phone call from the GP. The results were back, and she mentioned a term I didn’t understand. She was talking about enlarged lymph nodes. And I said, “What does it mean?” She said, “It’s something we need to investigate.” And I said, “But I don’t understand: what is enlarged lymph nodes?” And she said, “It means cancer.”
‘“It’s a blood cancer. Not an organ. Not something you can cut out. It’s all over. In your blood.”
‘I go to the oncologist to see what we’re going to do. We do a biopsy. I was working full-time in Katherine. Back and forth, back and forth between Katherine and Darwin, 350 kilometres during the wet season, because in Katherine, they didn’t have a facility for cancer treatment or anything. They have a general emergency hospital, and anyone who needs further treatment, they have to fly him or drive him up to Darwin. I spent eighteen days continuously in Darwin, between hospitals, and surgery and biopsy. During those eighteen days, I had a lot of different things happen to me. One of them, they call it nuclear scan. That nuclear scan was horrible. They made it especially for my heart, to see if my heart would survive with the type of chemo chemicals or not. They put me on my side in a cylinder that swung me like a baby, while they hit me wi
th all types of rays and atomic things. I was in there for an hour and a half, in this little bowl, swinging until I felt sick.
‘I couldn’t eat after this scan. After this nuclear bomb. I couldn’t sleep, and I felt my heart jumping out of my chest all night. And I thought, I will not last to the morning. My heart is jump-jumping out of my chest. I cannot. I will not survive to the morning. I know that I’m dying tonight, and I don’t want to die in the bed. So, I sleep on a couch on my side, and I kept doing the prayers until I went to sleep. I opened my eyes in the morning and the pain was gone. Another chance for my life from Allah.
‘ The nuclear bomb results say it’s confirmed. There are lots of swollen nodes in my body, but there are three main ones. The biggest one is in my guts. That is 58 millimetres. This is a big one. The second one is right next to my spine. This is 22 millimetres. And then the last one. Behind my heart. This is the one I feel I have known about. Ever since we were in Egypt, getting ready to come to Australia. That shadow behind my heart. She is 27 millimetres.
‘ There’s two ways to treat a cancer like mine. You can wait and monitor to see if it will affect you. If it does, then you might do surgery to cut it out to try and get rid of it. The other is to hit it straightaway, with chemicals, burn it out. So you can go back to life.
‘I had to have six cycles of chemotherapy in Darwin. Every three weeks I would have a cycle. Physically, the cycle would hit the body and destroy all the blood cells. All of them, good and bad. Then my body would start rebuilding a little bit. After three weeks, we hit it again. So, they hit me six times in Darwin. From eight o’clock in the morning to five o’clock in the afternoon I would sit in the chair, and they would pump this chemical into me.
‘But it is not all bad, and it is not all pain. In Darwin, I would stay in a place called Barbara James House. I owe this house the most – after Allah, of course. For people with cancer who live far away from hospitals, things are expensive. Sometimes it’s impossible to afford travel and accommodation to get better. But I was lucky. This was a good place. Good, clean rooms and nice hall for all your meals. While you are in the hall you see different people in different stages in their treatment, and you talk to them. They tell you about their cancer, and you tell them about yours, and you don’t feel so bad. Part of my job in Katherine was to travel to remote communities to talk to people about how they feel about the construction happening around Katherine. About developments and infrastructure and facilities. When I went to Barbara James House, I saw people who looked familiar. I realised they were from the remote places I had been. People I had talked to, who I had no idea were sick too. And we were there together, sharing our stories. All in Darwin, because we had no other option.
Muddy People Page 18