The Infernal Optimist

by Linda Jaivin

  ‘And if I win?’

  ‘We don’t.’ Thomas shrugged.

  Reza won. ‘Okay, ve talk about something else now.’

  ‘What about Moulin Rouge?’ Azad suggested. April had brung Moulin Rouge in on video and we’d all watched it together in the rec room. ‘I like Nicole Kidman very much. She is beautiful.’

  ‘Of course, mate,’ I said. ‘She’s Aussie.’

  ‘No way.’ Thomas laughed like he didn’t believe it.

  ‘She’s a Sydney girl,’ I insured him. ‘In factuality, I used to date her, but then I met Marlena and Nicole met Tom so we split.’

  Angel giggled. ‘Bad luck for Nicole,’ she said.

  ‘You sure about that, Zek?’ Hamid asked.

  ‘I don’t talk about it much. But she always calls when she’s in town. What, don’tcha believe me, mate?’

  ‘I think Zeki smoke too much happy weed,’ Angel said.

  ‘Wha?’ I go, opening me palms and raising them to the sky like God be me witness, what I knew he wasn’t really. ‘Wha? Why don’t you believe me?’

  ‘No way is Nicole Kidman from here,’ Thomas goes like he knew it for a factual. He shook his head from side to side real slow. ‘Australian girls are not that good-looking.’

  ‘Maaan, how would you know? You ever been to Australia?’

  Thomas gave me the finger.

  ‘They made the film here too, y’know,’ I said.

  Farshid leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘So maybe ve agree Nicole Kidman is Australian. But no vay is Moulin Rouge Australian movie.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Reza, his voice going up and down like an out-a-control lift. ‘Australian movies suck. Visitors bring them all the time but they’re boring. There’s never any good action and everything’s like real life, except stupider.’

  ‘No, mate,’ I protested. I was being fully patriotic about it, even though I didn’t see a lotta Aussie movies meself for the same reason. I told them the director, Bazza McKenzie, was definitely Australian and the movie was made in Foxtel Studios. They was still not buying it. So I got them all to bet phone cards.

  Twenty-Two

  ‘We’ve got karaoke for you tonight, bro.’ Tip, the Maori guard what was me mate, told me. ‘The songs are in all dufferent languages. And we’ve got crusps and soda.’

  ‘Great,’ I go. Big fucken whoopee—pardon me French. The good mood a the day before had faded like the curtains in Mum’s lounge room when I forgot to look after them that summer I was minding the house. It was New Year’s Eve, and all I had to look forward to was getting hammered on fizzy drinks and eating ‘crusps’ what was probably the cheap ones and not even chicken-flavoured, while a bunch a depressed, locked-up people sang dumb love songs in Hindu and Parsnip.

  Being the Infernal Optimist what I is, about a month earlier I’d told She Who to get a special frock for the big night. I called up a mate and got him to get us two tickets to this big party at the Leagues Club sponsored by that radio station what plays all the good stuff, and what was gonna go off. There was gonna be live music, deejays, the works. The tickets wasn’t cheap neither, even if me mate worked in security at the radio station and knew where they was stashed. I mean, I had to give him something for his trouble. And I swore to meself it was gonna be the last time I did anything with even a whiff of illegality about it. Going straight for real was me number-one New Year’s reservation. I just had to get outta Detention first.

  Under the circumstances, I sure wasn’t gonna make it to the party. A few days earlier, I told Marlena she’d better ask a friend. She asked My Le, that beauty therapist what likes poofters and what she been mates with since Year Nine. My Le was a smart chick. She worked a good job in a day spa at one a the big hotels. She was a babe, too. I had me own New Year’s reservations about My Le, though. Like Marlena’s folks, My Le always reckoned She Who could do better than me. Who knew who those two beautiful ladies might meet at a party like that? Any kind a Don Juan could be there, even Peter Pink-nuts. All I knew was that if that Don Juan was me I’d be making moves on Marlena for sure. The whole business was doing me head in.

  I needed to get completely blotto, tanked, non-compost, off me fucken face—pardon me French—if I was gonna get through the night without thinking about shit like that. But me chances a that was looking like Zero, what was not a famous swordsman.

  But that’s the thing about being an Infernal Optimist. Even when I feel like I’m going under, I keep one eye on the horizon in the hope I might see me luck come sailing in.

  That afternoon, Mum came to visit. Now, Mum’s pretty strict with the law and religion. She wouldn’t touch alcohol, much less smuggle it in. She got a policy a zero tolerance. When I wanted to have a beer around her I always poured it into a lemonade bottle first. When Marlena first saw that, she couldn’t believe it. ‘It doesn’t even look like lemonade,’ she said, amazed I got away with it.

  I shrugged. ‘Me mum just figures it’s a kinda lemonade she never seen before.’

  ‘Won’t she smell it on your breath?’ Marlena asked then.

  I told her that even if Mum did, she wouldn’t recognise it as alcohol. That’s the great thing about Mum being so strict. Can’t do that sort a shit round me dad though. He’s strict and he’s been round the world and back.

  Anyway, that day Mum came with some boerek pastries what she makes with honey and walnuts, and the prayer schedule what is printed by our local halal butcher and what gave the exact prayer times for the month a January. She brung me a prayer schedule like that every month I was Inside. Maaan. It always made me feel so accused.

  Mum couldn’t stay long cuz she had to get back to work at the Community Centre. After she left, I gave the rest a the pastries to Noor, Abeer, Bashir and the other kids, and the prayer schedule to some Algerians what was gonna use it. Prayer is one a the Five Pillars of Islam and one day, I swear, I’m gonna get onto it. But Charity is a Pillar too. I was doing the best I could.

  I didn’t feel like going back inside. Azad and them were in the Yard, but they had visitors what be proper people, what I could tell only liked to visit with the asylums. You know how in real life some people is held in higher steam and some in lower? It was the same in Visits. To respectable visitors, asylums was the kings, overstayers was the common people and five-oh-ones, we was the bottoms in the heap. Chicks like Angel figured somewhere between the people and the kings, though in them own heads they felt more like us, cuz most a them never been treated good in them whole lives, and when they was treated good, it was usually in exchange for something else.

  Looking round for some company I spotted Ivan, this Russian guy what overstayed his visa and what I was mates with. He was leading some visitors to a table. He beaconed me over and introduced his visitors. They was Russians too. While they chatted in their language, I was studying them and thinking they had the weirdest bodies I ever seen. Even the skinny ones had these funny-shaped guts on them. Then, when none a the blues was looking, all them funny guts—what turned out, in factuality, to be plastic bladders full a vodka—came sliding outta their shirts. It was like me whole fleet had steamed into port. I reckon Tip, what was on duty at the gate when Ivan and me was smuggling the bladders a vodka back into the compound, knew something was going on but wasn’t gonna say nuffin. Back in the room that night, Ivan and me proceeded to get inked. Azad and Hamid didn’t drink so they was at the karaoke with Thomas.

  ‘Budem zdorovie.’

  ‘Up yer bum.’

  We knocked back another and another and another.

  Ivan told me that ‘zek’ is old Russian slang for a prisoner in the Gulag, what apparently be lotsa islands with prisons on.

  ‘That’d be right, mate,’ I said. ‘It’s me fate. She Who says I be like flowers what are always reaching to the sun except I’m always stretching to get meself behind bars. She reckons that when I was born they took away the unbiblical cord so I wouldn’t have nuffin to hang meself with in the maternity ward.’r />
  He shook his head and refilled our glasses. ‘Chirs, big irs,’ he said in his Russian accent.

  ‘Boodem anchovy,’ I said in me Aussie one.

  Maaan, that vodka was good. It’d been a long time between drinks. Before I knew it, I was legless as a Paralympian. I went to pour some more vodka but I missed the glass. Ivan looked horrorfied. ‘No wuckers,’ I said and licked it off the table. I don’t remember too much after that except waking up on Ivan’s floor around two pee-em on the first day a the new year, two thousand and two, with one a them dolls what is in other dolls what is in other dolls in pieces round me head, and the loudspeaker calling me to Visits. Ivan was snoring into his pillow, cuddling an empty glass like it be a teddy bear. I hauled meself up to the windowsill and whistled to Abeer’s little brother, Bashir, to fetch me sunnies so I could walk back to me room first and freshen up.

  Twenty-Three

  Me melon was still in a shocking state when I got to Visits. The Yard was swarming with visitors. Hamid and Angel was sitting at a table with Sue. Since they been together and eating regular, they got some a them skinny angles off, what looked specially good round them cheeks. I went to shake hands with Sue. ‘Happy New Year.’

  ‘Happy New Year, Zeki.’

  ‘Sue is going to get me Bridging Visa,’ Angel told me.

  ‘I’m going to try to get you a Bridging Visa,’ Sue said kinda gently.

  ‘Respect,’ I said, what I really meant. I went the knuckles with Sue what knew how to do them back. She was pretty cool for an old lady what be fifty.

  Sue laughed. ‘Zeki, you are so Ali G.’ She was talking about this black dude what had a TV show. Apparently he wasn’t black in factuality, but he did the bruvvas’ handshake and the respect knuckles while interviewing people what didn’t know he wasn’t a black dude in factuality.

  ‘I takes that as a complimentary,’ I go, cuz Ali G got all the moves and was a master a style.

  Sue smiled. She turned back to Angel. ‘Now I absolutely insist that you live with me when you get out,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t like be trouble to anyone,’ Angel said.

  ‘You won’t be any trouble at all,’ Sue said. ‘I have an extra room and I’ll be glad for the company.’ She patted Angel on the wrist with her big hand.

  ‘Thank you so much, Sue,’ Hamid said. ‘I feel better to know she will be safe. Then when I get out we will make our own home. We will get married. I will work and go to medical school.’ Since getting with Angel, Hamid been full a confidence what he never had before too.

  ‘April’s here too, Zeki,’ Sue told me, pointing her out.

  I got the hint and got up to join April. She was sitting at another table what was piled with food including a roast chicken, what I craved cuz a the grease, what be one a the basic food groups when you be hungover. Some a me mates what is not Muslim swear that bacon’s the best but I never touch it on a count a me religion. I know I’m no mullah, but I do got me limits. As I got near the table I raised me sunnies for a sec to check something out. ‘Hot chips!’ I exclaimed. ‘Oh, mate. You’re a legend, April.’ She gave me a peck on the cheek, what was almost as good as chips.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ she said.

  ‘You too, mate.’

  She laughed and watched as I tucked in. ‘If I didn’t know there was no alcohol allowed in here I’d swear you were hungover.’

  ‘Funny that, eh?’ I nodded from behind me sunnies and picked up another drumstick.

  ‘Uh, Zeki, could you…I don’t want to sound, uh…if you don’t mind, I’d like to save some for Azad and the others.’

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ I go. ‘I be forgetting meself.’ I took two more chips and settled back in me seat, patting me belly, what was stretched out and content.

  ‘So what did you get up to for New Year’s?’ I asked her. Me heart gave a sudden jolt. New Year’s. She Who Could Be Anywhere, With Anyone, still hadn’t called me.

  ‘Not much. I went to my sister’s place. It was pretty quiet. I didn’t feel like…partying.’

  ‘Maaan. If I was Out I’d a been partying.’

  ‘I just kept thinking, I can party but they can’t. It’s not just partying. I think, I can walk down the street but they can’t. I can go out for a coffee but they can’t. I can go to the movies but they can’t. I can’t stop thinking about it. Everything feels so wrong now. I know this is only my third visit, but I feel completely…destabilised by this place. Like there are two parallel universes and I am living with a foot in each one. If that makes sense.’

  ‘Better than having both feet in the wrong one,’ I go. ‘What is what it feels like from the Inside.’

  ‘How true that must be.’ April looked at me like she was seeing something what she hadn’t seen before, what made me nervous that I hadn’t washed me face properly and something was stuck to it, like a piece a drumstick or that Russian doll. I ran me hand over me peach. Nuffin seemed outta place. ‘I’m discovering you’re actually a very wise person, Zeki. An old soul. I think you’ve done the loop a few times already.’

  ‘That’s for sure,’ I said. ‘Me head’s still spinning.’

  ‘Ha. And you’ve got a great sense of humour.’

  Maaan. I wished She Who Is Always Saying ‘Grow Up’ and Asking ‘Is This a Joke?’ could be hearing all this. Maybe She Who met someone at the party. Maybe she was getting it on with him right now.

  ‘You okay, Zek? You seem to be hyperventilating.’

  ‘Hooooo.’ I blew out some air. ‘I’m all right.’ I tried to push the thought a me girl getting it on with somebody else—a somebody else what looked a lot like Peter Pink-nuts—outta me head. The thought wasn’t letting me push. It was leaning back and wearing rubber soles.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘April, what do you do for self-helping when you got bad thoughts what you don’t wanna be thinking?’

  ‘Well, you could try some of those visualisation techniques I mentioned the other day. Visualise putting those thoughts behind a locked door. If that’s not enough, put them into a wooden box and lock it. You can then put the box behind the locked door, or, if you really want to get rid of it, push it off a steep cliff.’

  I vigilised putting Marlena behind the door, and chucking Pink-nuts off the cliff. I was feeling better already. ‘That just reminded me a something Azad once told me,’ I said. Even just hearing Azad’s name made April perk up, I swear. ‘It was this story what comes from China about this old man and a butterfly what is dreaming, or maybe the old man is dreaming, or maybe the butterfly catches the old man, or something like that. Maybe there wasn’t a butterfly. No, I’m pretty sure there be a butterfly in there somewhere. I don’t think I’m telling it right. Maybe you better get him to tell it.’

  ‘I know it.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a famous Taoist parable.’

  ‘A Taoist…What’s that when it’s at home, mate?’

  She oppressed a giggle.

  What I liked about April was that she just kept hammering away till I got it, and she never showed me no condensation, like she thought I be stupid, neither. She told me about parables, what are stories what are for giving you lessons—what makes all me mum’s stories parables—and about met-oh-fours too. A met-oh-four is something what stands in for something else, making it clearer, what this particulate explanation is probably not doing. But April said I do met-oh-fours all the time, that I’m a natural at it, what is one reason I really could write a book, apparently.

  ‘So Azad knew that story,’ she said, like she be talking to herself. ‘That’s amazing. I already felt this connection…I mean I feel so…close to him. His spirit. I don’t know, it’s silly. Oh here’s Thomas. And Azad.’ April jumped up to kiss them hello.

  Thomas bent down and offered her a cheek. When she went to kiss Azad, he stiffened a bit. For some a them what come from societies where men and women don’t even touch unless they be married, it’s kinda weird getting kissed and hugged all the time by the ladies what visit. Hami
d told me it freaked him out at first. He was still getting used to seeing women’s faces and they was already kissing him. Farshid told me he doesn’t mind getting kissed, except he wished it wasn’t just by old ladies.

  They was all wishing April Happy New Year.

  ‘May it bring you all peace and freedom,’ she goes.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ I said, raising me cup a juice.

  ‘Zeki apparently drank to everything last night,’ Thomas informed April. I reckon he was annoyed cuz we didn’t invite him too. April’s look a surprise made us all laugh.

  ‘But…isn’t alcohol forbidden?’

  ‘Many things that are forbidden go on in the world,’ said Azad. ‘Why should it be different in here? Anyway, Zeki wasn’t hurting anyone but himself. It’s problem between him and God.’

  ‘And me head,’ I said. ‘What is normally attached to me body.’

  ‘That’s so true.’ I don’t think April was talking about me head being normally attached to me body. I don’t think she even heard me, in factuality. When Azad spoke, April’s hands flew into the air like she was gonna pray in the same way we do, and her voice went all breathy as well as furry and deep, like the kitten at the bottom a the ocean be hyperventilating.

  Thomas drummed the table with his fingers. ‘Sorry. April, can we go for a walk?’

  ‘But…’ She looked all worried at Azad, like he was gonna melt if she left him alone in the sun.

  ‘No worries,’ Azad said, Rs rolling like they was on the highway. ‘We aren’t going anywhere.’ We all guessed she’d spoken to her husband and that Thomas needed some private time with her. None a the asylums liked to talk about them cases in front a the other detainees. While everyone hoped everyone else could get free, they hoped it most for themselves. So if they discovered some way out, they wanted to be the first outta that particulate gate, specially cuz gates outta here had a way a swinging shut after they be opened. Another was that people didn’t want all the details out there in case there be spies reporting back to them countries. Visitors was expected to know this and not talk about asylums’ cases to others, even if the others be friends.