Mahtab’s hands were white, fixed into frozen, claw-like shapes. She blew on them, sucked them and rubbed and rubbed them until she could feel again.
Sailors rushed up and down the steps to the lower part of the boat, buckets in hand. Mahtab stretched and stood up as a woman came up from below, wet clothes plastered to her body.
‘We’re sinking,’ she said. ‘Water is coming in.’
The captain passed them, touching each of the men, urging them to come with him. Long into the night the bucket brigade worked. Sailors and passengers alike formed queues that passed the buckets down empty and then took them, slopping water underfoot as they came up full.
Mahtab was still as wet as if she had been dropped in a tub of water. She joined her mother in wringing out whatever clothes could be taken off and searching for their food. They found only sodden breads and a few handfuls of nuts and soggy fruit. Hamida rubbed the limbs of her tiny baby, trying to get her warm. Mahtab watched, her eyes drooping until, still cold and wet, she fell asleep against her mother, under a starless sky.
The next day there was no sun. Everyone watched the sky, waiting, fearful of rain that did not come. The boat rolled and Mahtab felt the contents of her stomach shift and rise. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick and she moved to the edge of the boat. Soraya joined her there. ‘Will Dad meet us?’ she said.
‘Of course.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I told you. He rang.’ Mahtab could not look at her sister. What would she say when she found out the lie? What would Mum say?
‘But will he know me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My hair is longer and now I am six. I was five when he last saw me.’
‘He’ll know you,’ said Mahtab. ‘Your face is so familiar to him from all the years when he played with you in the garden and when he told you stories. He could never, ever forget you.’
‘But I think I am forgetting him,’ said Soraya, and her lips trembled.
Mahtab reached out and pulled her sister to her. ‘That’s because you’re little. Your memory hasn’t had lots of practice. When you see him, you’ll know him. Let’s sit down and see what we remember together.’
Later in the day she was sick. The boat rocked and the smell of diesel brought the contents of her stomach, the small handful of nuts and bread, to her mouth. She made it to the side again and clung to the rail, trembling. Farhad lay listless at their mother’s feet. Ahmad too. The baby in Hamida’s lap whimpered.
‘It is time we named this child,’ she said to Mahtab’s mother. ‘But I haven’t the heart. I cannot think of her name while everything is so unknown.’
‘In Australia, when we land. That will be soon enough.’
Mahtab knew there was little food left. She didn’t care. She couldn’t eat. But she was thirsty. Her skin was burnt, her nose peeling, her lips cracked and dry. She heard loud voices from the front of the boat. A woman was cursing her husband, who had taken the water she was saving for her children. Mahtab watched as the man struck his wife hard across the face. She fell back, nursing her cheek.
Her father would never strike her mother. He would give his last drop of water to his children.
The bucket brigade continued. For a second night, the men pounded the steps, up and back, up and back. Did they sleep? Would they stop? If they did, would the boat sink? Was Mum right? Should they have stayed in Indonesia? Should they have waited for another boat? Would there have been another boat? Mahtab’s legs were stiff and her stomach was a tight, hard knot. Why was it this way? Why?
A loud scream. The loudest, ever. A ship. There was a ship and it was coming towards them. Women cheered. Men clapped and fell to the deck giving thanks. Farhad lifted his head and then pushed himself up.
‘We are saved,’ said their mother. ‘Thanks be to God. It’s a big, big ship.’
‘Has it come from Australia?’ Soraya stood on her toes trying to see beyond the mass of bodies.
‘It must be,’ said Mahtab. ‘Maybe it’s a special ship from Australia and it’s come to welcome us.’
But there was no welcome. As their boat drew closer to the huge steel vessel, a voice came over a loudhailer. It was in a language Mahtab had never heard before. The whole boat grew silent. Then there was a murmur. Someone knew the words, translated them first into Arabic, then Dari. The murmur grew. Louder and louder.
‘They say we are not welcome.’
‘We must go back.’
‘Turn around.’
‘Return.’
‘We can’t.’
‘Cannot.’
‘We will die.’
‘Die.’
‘No.’
‘No!’
‘NO!’
Such sound coming from Mahtab’s mother. She stood on the deck, her burqa fallen to her shoulders, her loose hair streaming behind her. Her hands were raised and her mouth opened wide, teeth bared. Cries of deep pain came from within her.
Wailing. Stamping. Crying. Hands pressed to faces. Men knelt on the deck, tore open their shirts, beat their chests, crying out that they would kill themselves there rather than be forced to return.
Mahtab didn’t know where to look, couldn’t believe what she heard. How could this be? Didn’t they know what had happened? Didn’t they know about the whips, the dogs, the beatings, shootings, stonings? The trip through the mountains? The hiding in the truck? The months, the months with no father? The tears? The tears?
Her mother dropped, curled on the deck, her head on her knees, her arms wrapping her robe tightly around them. She rocked and rocked, a thin, plaintive howl coming from somewhere deep inside her. Soraya and Farhad knelt, stroking her, patting her. Hamida sat there too, staring, her baby screaming in her lap.
The boat turned around, westward. The captain put a sailor at the wheel and went to talk with the Iraqi men. Then the word came down, from one person to another, one language to another. We are not going back. We will not return. When it’s dark we try again. They waited, the engine barely ticking over. The huge steel ship seemed to stay still, watching them, and then it turned to the south and slowly, slowly moved away.
Mahtab stared after it until it disappeared. Ahead of them, the sun was low. She gazed at it, silent. She saw the lower edge of it touch the place where sky and water met. Slowly but definitely the whole ball of it dipped. Half was in view, then a quarter, then a fine sliver and it was gone. The sky glowed red and gold. That too gradually faded. Mahtab felt the engine beneath her kick and charge and then the small boat gradually turned to the north. It was moving faster than at any time in the voyage. It turned again. The place where the sun had gone was now behind them. There was a hush. The normally noisy children sat quiet now as their parents scanned the horizon. Some looked back, daring that huge ship to return, while others looked forward, willing land to come into view.
All night they sailed. Some slept fitfully. Others sat, all night, staring out ahead. The family barely spoke. They were so near. So near. As dawn broke, a cry rang out. Ships. Boats. They did not leap to their feet and rush to the side this time. Nervous, bitten, they waited. A smaller steel boat this time came closer and closer. Again the loud voices were hurled across the water. This time the captain stayed at the wheel. The murmur started, rose to shouting.
‘We are going to Darwin.’
‘We are to go ahead.’
‘They are following us in.’
‘We are safe.’
‘Safe.’
Young men danced on the foredeck. Prayers were said. Tears, this time of joy, flowed. Mahtab hugged her mother. Soraya and Farhad, seasickness and sunburn forgotten, flung their arms around each other and danced. Hamida smiled for the first time and embraced everyone, passing the baby from one to the other. The little one gripped Mahtab’s finger and Mahtab bent forward and kissed her face, fiercely.
They saw land. Ships’ masts, tall buildings, headlands, trees. Gradually Australia became real. Like she
ep before the herdsman’s dog, they went before the ship into the harbour of Darwin.
Sea birds soared above them, squawking, wheeling and diving. Everyone rushed to the front of the boat. Mahtab tried to see between the bodies, tried to stand on tiptoe, on boxes to see over them. She could not believe this feeling. Her tired eyes, tired body, tired mind drank in everything before her. Sheds and cranes and boxes as big as houses. Trees of all sizes. Green. Green. Green. People everywhere, their arms showing, their faces naked. No beards. Would her father too have no beard?
She wanted to leap from her place. She knew he could not be there but she wanted to hurl herself down the gangplank and land on the shore, searching the faces of men for him. This was as he had promised. She was a bird, ready to soar and swoop: free. Free. FREE.
Chapter Nine
NO DAD.
Of course he wasn’t there.
No leaping from the deck onto the land. No running down the gangway, smiling, welcomed. Official men in short trousers, their legs hairy for all to see, came on board and strode up and down, searching for someone who could understand their language. Mahtab turned her back on them and gathered up the family’s bags. The officials spoke to the captain in rough voices and then they took him away and the other Indonesian men too.
‘We are to line up,’ came the murmur, ‘with our papers.’
But their papers were gone.
‘We are no longer Turkish holiday-makers,’ Mahtab’s mother had said when first they came on board the boat. She had torn the documents to shreds and held them out, letting the wind snatch them and blow them high into the air.
They were not alone. Family after family shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads when asked for passports, identity cards, anything that could tell the authorities who they truly were.
The men in uniform, now joined by women with hard faces, gathered in small groups and hissed. Their tight shoulders told their anger. They turned back and spoke roughly and pushed the men into lines.
Everyone straggled down onto the wharf. No one met them. More herding, this time to a huge galvanised-iron shed. A wall of heat. They dropped their luggage and slumped to the floor as the men were taken to the far end of the building. More men in uniforms sat at wide tables.
‘What’s happening?’ said Soraya. ‘Where’s Dad? I want my dad. You said he told us to come. You said he would be here.’
‘He doesn’t know that we were on that boat,’ said Mahtab. ‘He is here. He is in this country but maybe he thought we would come to land in a different place.’ The words tumbled out freely. Did she believe it herself? Would she keep saying these things to Soraya for ever? How easy it was to lie.
‘I’m thirsty,’ said Farhad.
‘Sshh. We’re all thirsty,’ said Mahtab.
‘And I’m hot.’ Soraya lay, limp against her sister’s leg.
Mahtab didn’t have the energy to add that they were all hot. She fanned her face with the end of her veil and watched as the uniformed women came then and gestured for the mothers to go with them for questioning. Soraya, Farhad and Ahmad clung to Mahtab as their mothers moved down the long building.
‘They won’t be long,’ Mahtab heard herself whispering and didn’t know why.
After a long time water was brought to them, and soft bread with slices of cold meat and pale yellow cheese. Farhad wrinkled his nose, but they all ate and then the men and women came back. No one knew exactly what was to happen.
The sky grew dark. A rumble of thunder shook the shed. Lightning crackled and then rain came. Loud, driving rain pelting the tin roof like gunfire. Through the opening they saw people running the length of the wharf, newspapers or jackets over their heads.
And then it stopped. A bus drew up at the entrance to the shed. It was so like the coach they had ridden to the boat five days before that Mahtab thought it would take them back to the harbour. Were they being sent back to Indonesia?
‘I don’t want to go,’ she said. ‘They can’t send us back.’
‘We are not going back.’ Her mother handed her a bag to carry. ‘There are laws to protect us in this country. We are safe here. We are probably going to a hotel.’
They drove through the city streets. Like Indonesia, this place was green. Huge houses, large enough for families of many children, were set back in gardens, planted with the same intense flowers as their hotel in Jakarta. The roofs were like triangles, like pictures Mahtab had seen in storybooks. No one could sleep on them when the night was hot.
Then they went past shops. Bread and pastries, cakes with icing of different bright colours, meat hanging in the windows, sausages, chickens and whole sides of beef. It was like a market turned outwards. Then clothing, long elegant dresses that Mahtab had only seen in pictures, trousers and shirts, splashes of colour, glimpsed then gone. Cars everywhere. People hurried along the brick-paved footpath or leant against posts and the walls of buildings. Many had skin that was black or darker brown than Mahtab had ever seen. Some were almost naked. Arms and legs uncovered. No burqas, no veils, not even a scarf. There were men with no shirt on and she turned away from the sight of the hair on their backs, their arms and their chests. The coach stopped at a traffic light. Three girls about Mahtab’s size were standing by a yellow post. They wore tiny tops, held up by thin straps over their pink shoulders. Their light brown hair hung loose. One sucked on a green icecream. She saw Mahtab staring at her and she took the icecream away from her face and poked her tongue out. It was green too. She pointed, laughing, until Mahtab looked away.
Stranger in a strange land. This is not my place. These are not my people. She tried to push it from her mind, to concentrate on what was before her: an open space, full of cars, and in the centre of it, a tree. A fat, squat tree, its trunk swollen at the base and for the first few metres of its trunk. It was a round old man, dug in, unmovable, like a picture of the Buddha she had seen once but she couldn’t remember where. A black-and-white dog lay in the thin sliver of shade, its tail lifting lazily and then falling back.
If they were going to a hotel, it was a long way from the centre of town. Mahtab grew more and more sleepy as they passed through street after street of houses. They were smaller than the ones near the harbour and then there were blocks of land with no houses at all, just shimmering stretches of long grass.
The bus was cool and the road was smooth but her body still felt as it had when she was on the sea and it seemed to rock as if the road was the gentlest of waves.
Mahtab woke with the sun burning her face. The green had gone. The land was now so brown that for a moment she was home again in Afghanistan, staring out at the dry earth. But the brown was different, redder, and the trees were wrong too. And there were no mountains. Everywhere, as far as she could see, it was flat. Flat, flat, flat.
Farhad woke too and pressed his nose against the glass. ‘Where are we? Where are we going?’
They drove for hours and hours. Fruit was passed around, and water bottles. The view from the window never changed.
Some of the men grew angry. One strode up and down the aisle of the coach, shouting that they were not being treated well and wanting to know where they were going. He urged the others to join his protest. A uniformed woman met him in the aisle and yelled at him until he sat down, red-faced, his shoulders hunched.
Mahtab supposed they were headed to another town – maybe the hotels in the other place were full – but they passed through towns, two or three of them, and didn’t stop. She drifted in and out of sleep. She felt so glad to be off that boat, to be on land, but why must they keep travelling? Somewhere they must stop. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine her father’s face, nothing but that.
How he would smile and laugh to see them. How he would wrap his arms around them and plant kisses on their faces. He would throw Soraya into the air and find words, names he had used for them when they were babies. But if…?
Across the aisle from her, she saw that her mother slept, and Soraya too.<
br />
Night turned to day, then night again and another day.
At last they turned off the road and drove along a narrower strip of bitumen. This time there were no trees on either side. Mahtab could hear murmurings up the front of the bus, angry voices in a language that was not her own. The voices grew louder and then she too saw what was ahead of them.
Long rows of buildings, four or five of them, and around them a fence, steel mesh with barbed wire on the top and the sun glinting off it enough to make you shield your eyes. The murmuring stopped. And then ‘This is a prison,’ came a voice from the back of the bus.
Another joined in. ‘We have done nothing.’
‘We are refugees, we have escaped Saddam.’
‘We have fled the Taliban.’
‘They said this is a free country.’
‘Why do you do this to us?’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
Mahtab looked across to her mother. Her face was grey and she clutched Soraya’s hand and her lips were pressed tight together. She was wrapped up in sadness and Mahtab knew she had no answers to such questions. There were none to give.
Everyone climbed down, sullen, wary. They stood with their backs to the coach, facing more men and women in uniform – prison guards with two-way radios clipped to their pockets, batons hanging from their belts. Farhad and Soraya hid behind their mother but Mahtab took a deep breath and stepped up beside her, trying to look as tall as she could. She shielded her eyes from the glare. Her heart was fluttering like a caged bird again.
A skinny pink guard with pale ginger hair and a floppy moustache stood in front of them and held out a sheet of paper. He called out names, barely recognisable in his strange voice, and then other words. When Mahtab’s mother stepped forward, the woman guard beside him pointed to a building and said the words again. They didn’t understand but crossed the yard behind her, went through a wire fence and gate and climbed the wooden steps to their new home.
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