Mahtab's Story

by Mahtab's Story (retail) (epub)

  ‘Can you point to where we are?’

  Catherine held out a pen. ‘I brought you this as well.’ She took the book and marked a spot almost in the middle of the map.

  ‘So far from anywhere,’ whispered Mahtab.

  When Catherine had gone, she turned to the clean first page.

  Day One

  Dad, you told me long ago that I should write a diary, that I should write down everything that happens and then I could tell my grandchildren. I’m not sure about the grandchildren but this is really for you. I am not really sure about you either. Sometimes when it’s dark at night and the others are sleeping I am all alone and I fear that you are dead, but I pray to Allah that you are alive and we will be together again. When it is so, I will read you bits of what I write down here, the way you read to us before.

  You will not recognise me. I am almost as tall as Mum but I am skinny too, as I was not well for a while and I didn’t eat. My trousers are creeping up almost halfway to my knee. I need Grandma to show me how to make some new ones – except I have no material.

  It’s too late to write things that have happened although I will tell you about them. At the moment I am not thinking of them, they are too full of thoughts I never want again. I am going to number the days till we meet.

  It’s hot here, always hot. We’ve had months of heat although the nights are growing colder now. Farhad and Soraya are playing cards. I have given Mum some pages from my book and she has drawn pictures for them and they are playing that game where you put the cards down and when yours is the same as the other ones you can claim the whole pile. I think Soraya is winning. She is taller too. They both are. We wonder if you still have a beard.

  The next morning, after breakfast, Hamida came into their room.

  ‘Can you take Arezo for a while and watch Ahmad? I have been summoned to a meeting.’

  Mum sat the baby on her hip. ‘Do you think it’s the visa? Will it have come?’

  The other woman shrugged. ‘Pray for me.’ She straightened her scarf, tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears and headed for the administration building.

  Mahtab and Soraya took the baby from Mum and put her on the bed. They tickled her till she chortled gleefully then squealed and clapped her tiny hands. Then Mahtab held her on her knee while Soraya danced. Soraya held her arms up and clicked her fingers and swayed and twirled around and the baby reached out for her, laughing again. They all laughed too.

  They were still playing when Hamida came running back across the yard.

  ‘I have it! I have it!’ she cried as she came into the room. ‘I wanted to dance and scream my way here but I couldn’t in front of everyone else who is waiting.’ Her smile fell away. ‘I should not be so happy in front of you who don’t yet know.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Mum put her arms around Hamida and kissed her. ‘Be happy. It is a wonderful day. Our day will come.’

  Word passed quickly through the centre. People knocked on the door and came in to congratulate Hamida, to help her pack her bags, to give her the names of their friends or relations in cities away in the south. She was hugged and kissed and Arezo was passed from hand to hand and more kisses were planted on the top of her head.

  ‘Are we leaving?’ asked Ahmad.

  ‘We are going to meet your father.’ Hamida knelt down and took his hands in hers.

  ‘Can Farhad come with us?’ Ahmad pushed her away and put his arm around Farhad.

  His mother shook her head. ‘Farhad must stay with his mum and sisters, just as you must come with us.’

  ‘But if Farhad can’t come, I don’t want to go.’ Tears filled Ahmad’s eyes.

  ‘He will follow soon. We can go first and find a place where they can come and join us.’

  The boys ran back down the steps and into the yard.

  ‘May it be so,’ said Mahtab’s mother. ‘May it be so.’

  Hamida spoke then of how the lawyers had found her husband. He was in Sydney and he’d been looking for her ever since he’d heard that she had left Afghanistan to follow him. In three days time she would join him. She could not believe her good fortune. He would meet his daughter for the first time. Arezo slept on her mother’s chest, her thumb firmly in her mouth.

  Within the hour, they were gone.

  Mahtab took her diary and went out onto the step, under the light.

  Day Two

  Hamida has left for Sydney. She was smiling in a way we have never seen before. We are all so happy for her, it is wonderful news, but there is also a heavy stone in my heart that only our own visa can lift. How wonderful it would have been to go with them. Soon. Please soon.

  ‘Do you think one day it will be us?’ Soraya came and sat with Mahtab on the step.

  ‘It will.’

  ‘And will we learn the English that Catherine speaks with you?’

  Mahtab nodded. ‘You know lots of words already. When you get to school, it will come quickly. Catherine says that when you are very young, you learn best. You will learn more quickly than me or Farhad or Mum.’

  ‘Maybe our dad speaks English now and he will have forgotten our language. Maybe he will have shaved off his beard and he will wear the shorts like these guards and he will be like an Australian man. He will be so different.’

  ‘He will still be our dad,’ said Mahtab. How similar Soraya’s thoughts were to her own. Her worst fears: He is dead and he will never come. Fears that he was alive but somehow he had changed or they had changed and everything she wanted, had wanted now for so long, would not happen or would happen in a way that was not how she imagined it at all. Then there were times when she tried to remember, tried to imagine Afghanistan. It seemed to her that it was in a strange cloud, the buildings would not take a proper shape, her own house seemed like a toy house, floating in her mind, the people shrouded in veils of fine gauze such that they did not truly exist. No past. No future. Just this present. This unbearable now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day Three

  Dad, Soraya wants to know if you still have a beard. Do you still look like our father?

  It’s hot, Dad, really hot. Did you know I was really, really sick? Silly to ask you that, of course you cannot know. Mum thought I was going to die, although she says she knew I wouldn’t. I’m a lot better now. Mum is hoping for another interview soon. She’s heard there are some new lawyers coming.

  When Hamida left yesterday, she was with her lawyer in a big car. We all stood and waved until all we were waving at was the red dust. We are missing her and Ahmad and the baby. Farhad especially. He and Ahmad are like brothers. Arezo, that’s the baby (she was born in Indonesia, just before we got on the boat), was sitting up and making noises as if she was trying to talk. At least that is what Hamida said, but we couldn’t understand what she was saying. She was always ready to be played with when everything else was so boring.

  Hamida’s husband is in Sydney. That’s where Mum hopes you are. Maybe Hamida’s husband will be able to find you.

  Mahtab put her pen down. A coach was coming through the gate. It pulled up in the centre of the yard and the ritual of assigning rooms began. There were no women and children this time, only men. They looked like Iraqis and Afghanis, some like her father. There was something strange about them: no appearance of fear, confusion or apprehension. They were not taken to the closed camp but came straight away to the main yard. They slung their bags over their shoulders and looked around. It was as if they had been through the whole process before.

  The next morning, when Mahtab called to Farhad and Soraya that their mother wanted them in their room, one of the new arrivals looked up from the group where he was sitting. His eyes followed the children as they crossed the yard. Mahtab frowned.

  ‘He’s a strange one, Mum,’ she whispered when she pointed him out in the dining room. ‘He looks at us in a funny way. And he’s coming over here.’

  The tall stranger bowed to Mahtab’s mother.

  ‘I don’t mean to
alarm you, but are you the wife and daughter of Hussein Ahmady?’

  ‘Hussein Ahmady? Ye-es.’

  Her father. He knew their father. She grabbed her mother’s arm.

  ‘You know him? Where is he? Where? Is he all right?’ Her mother was on her feet, seizing the stranger’s hand, looking up at him, wide-eyed, waiting.

  ‘He is in Sydney.’

  ‘In Sydney.’ One hand covered her mouth. Tears filled her eyes.

  ‘He is my friend. We were together in another camp.’

  ‘How is he? Is he well?’ Her voice was strangely soft.

  ‘He has his visa. He has moved a number of times. He will be so pleased to know you are safe. He was so worried last time I spoke to him.’

  ‘You spoke to him?’ The tears now ran down her cheeks.

  ‘Of course. Many times. On the phone.’

  ‘In Sydney.’ Mahtab’s mother slumped back in her chair. ‘Thank God. Thank God.’

  The man nodded and pulled up a chair beside her. ‘I am so glad to bring you this news.’

  She put her hand out to him. ‘I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Moustafa.’

  ‘Moustafa, you bring hope to me and my children. This is the best thing I have heard in more than a year. Do you know how to get in touch with him? Do you have his address? Can we write to him?’

  Moustafa pulled a torn scrap of paper from his pocket and passed it across the table.

  ‘Better than that, why don’t you telephone him.’

  Tears and smiles, laughing and crying. One after the other and at the same time.

  Mahtab’s mother’s hand was shaking so much that Moustafa had to dial the number and when the phone was answered he passed it to her without speaking.

  Mahtab could hardly wait her turn. Surely now interviews would come. Visas would come. She took the receiver.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Mahtab. How are you?’

  She couldn’t answer. Tears streamed down her face. She gulped, swallowed salt. ‘I’m…I’m all right. I’m well. I’m so happy we have found you.‘

  ‘Me too, my Mahtab. Me too.’

  Farhad and Soraya each spoke and laughed and had long, empty silences and then the phone went back to her mother and calmer, practical talk began. Visas. Interviews. Lawyers. Mahtab, Soraya and Farhad drifted from the room. They sat on the step of their building. Words poured from them like water from a jar.

  ‘He says he is the happiest man in the world to hear me speak.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘He says he has his beard still.’

  ‘He says he is going to a class to learn English.’

  ‘He says he has many Afghani friends.’

  ‘He says I can have a kite, he will have one for me when we meet.’

  ‘He wants to come and get us but it is not possible.’

  ‘He says he is in a city as far away from us as from Herat to Kabul twenty times.’

  ‘He says he is sure that we will be with him soon.’

  We will be with him soon.

  Day Five

  Dad, that phone call was so good. We are all so happy now and we cannot wait to speak to you again. Next week I think. I want to ask you if there is a school near where you live and will I go there and are there neighbours with a girl my age. I cannot believe that our time here may be over. I thought I would be here for ever. Mum says that she will apply for another meeting in the morning and that we must not get too excited because it may be some time before they will speak with her. I cannot believe they will keep us here when they know that you, our father, are waiting. I am happy, happy, happy.

  When their mother went for her next meeting, Mahtab, Farhad and Soraya sat on the bed and waited. ‘We should do some English,’ Mahtab said, but her mind was with her mother and Catherine’s book stayed unopened. Could they say no? Could they find a reason to reject them?

  ‘When are we going to Dad?’ said Soraya.

  ‘I don’t know. Soon I hope.’

  ‘How long is soon?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Weeks passed.

  ‘They need more proof of who we are,’ said their mother when she returned. ‘They need to check that we have been truthful, that I am your mother, that I am your father’s wife, that we did leave our country for the reasons we have said. We have lawyers who will speak for us.’

  ‘But we have told the truth. We are who we say we are.’

  ‘I know. You know. The lawyers know. It is not enough. We must wait longer. It will not be for ever.’

  These days now were the hardest of all.

  Sometimes Mahtab lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, in a strange, still, non-existence. Sometimes she sat on the step watching the ants that crossed the yard in long, narrow lines, or her eye was taken by a skinny lizard, sunning itself on a rock. She stared across at the wire and the red dust beyond. Had she been a different person then? In the afternoons she took up the books Catherine had given her and studied, committing words and phrases to memory as if her life depended on it.

  How are you? I am very well, thank you. And you? I am Mahtab from Afghanistan. I am twelve years old and I have a younger brother and a younger sister. I like reading and writing and I am very happy to be here. I like tea but I do not like to drink coffee.

  And then there were times when she wrote in her diary.

  Day Fifteen

  Not all these pages are for other people to read. I do not want anyone to know that I am scared. Scared of who I must be to live in this new country. Scared I have to change the way I look and think and feel. I don’t want to change. At least, I don’t think I want to. I want to wake up in my own bed, in my own old room and find Grandma is making the tea in the morning and there is the smell of bread. And Farhad and Reza are playing the way they did before. And then I think of Grandpa, and I know nothing is the same there and I cannot be there, maybe ever. And then I think it is not right that I should never see that place again. How dare someone stop me from being with that part of my family! Maybe when I am older things will change and we will be able to go back. Till then I am stuck here just thinking and then I think that I think too much and I know how it is that people go crazy.

  Moustafa came every day. He sat in the sun and told them of when he was in the camp with their father. ‘He talked about you all the time. One day you must meet my children, he said. They are the best kids, the smartest kids in the world. Mahtab, Farhad, Soraya – he missed you so much.’ He ruffled Farhad’s hair. ‘I got sick of hearing about you. Especially you.’

  ‘What did he say about me?’ asked Soraya.

  ‘Ahh.’ Moustafa rubbed his chin. ‘He said you were a chatterbox. You loved to sing and to splash around in a wading pool in the back yard.’

  She sat back then, satisfied.

  ‘Have you got any kids?’ asked Mahtab.

  He shook his head. ‘No. I never married – well, not yet, anyway.’

  ‘Then you could be our uncle,’ said Farhad. ‘Our other uncles are too far away now, so we can have you instead.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Moustafa turned his face away as he spoke. ‘Thank you.’

  Other times he spoke of why he was there, with them in this camp. He told how in the other place the men had been in despair. One had climbed onto the roof and thrown himself at the wire. Others had sewn their lips together in silent protest. Still others had lit fires and burned buildings and so they had been separated, placed on coaches and driven to other centres around the country.

  There were more phone calls. Each week they joined the group that gathered on the verandah near the kitchen and waited their turn. Sometimes there were tears. Sometimes joking and laughter. Other times it felt as if their father had gone away for a few days and was simply checking how they were before his return. Their mother went to meetings with the men in the administration building. She was joined there by lawyers, who came in their shiny cars, carrying briefcases and mopping the sweat from their foreh
eads with white handkerchiefs.

  After each meeting she returned to the room, saying only, ‘It won’t be long now.’

  Day Thirty-four

  It is true. We are accepted. We have the visa. We are coming to you, Dad. We are coming.

  Late in the morning an officer strode across the yard and up the steps and banged on the door. He handed over documents. ‘Your visas,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a car in an hour.’

  An hour.

  Frantic packing. Quick showering. Snatched conversations with those who came to congratulate, to hug and wish the very best to them all. Mahtab’s small bag bulged and parts of the stitching gave way to reveal the socks and gloves, unworn since Pakistan. They stood in the doorway, looking back to check that nothing had been left behind.

  ‘The jar. Where is the jar?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum, I put it in my bag.’ Mahtab patted the outside pocket where the tiny jar rested against her shell from Indonesia. There would be an Australian shelf to hold them both.

  Day Thirty-five

  We are in Adelaide. We came in on the coach last night. It was late in the afternoon when we joined the main road and there was a huge tree by itself and the leaves seemed like they were yellow as well as green and as we drove past they all took off into the air. They were birds, Dad, tiny green and yellow birds. So beautiful and Soraya and I laughed and I don’t know when I last felt so happy.

  It is strange how in one way I felt sad when we left the Centre. In another way of course I wanted to shout and cheer and bang drums in celebration. The boy Hussein’s family cried when they waved us goodbye. Two other families from Afghanistan were with us and some men from Africa too. This evening we are taking the train but I think the others will stay here. There are people who will look after them. These people met our coach and brought us food and asked us if we wanted anything. They were so kind but what I really wanted was to say we have need of nothing but our father. In such a few short days we will be with you. After all this time I cannot believe it.