by Linda Jaivin
‘Go sit on a branch, tree-hugger,’ Clarence advised the boy.
An Iranian man what been in Detention for four years and what had lost it like Bilal began screaming, ‘You shit fuck officer! Shit fuck rules! Shit fuck place!’ Clarence let go a the boy and moved in on the Iranian. That’s when I noticed Noor pushed up against the inner fence with a little blonde Aussie girl what was visiting her. They both had them shoulders hunched up like they could hide them heads that way. ‘Mummy!’ screamed the little blonde girl. Her mum ran over and snatched her away. Azad ran over to scoop up Noor and then ran with her towards the gate to the compound.
As a whole flank a blues moved through the Yard, herding the visitors towards the gate, the coppers argued with some other officers over whether or not to cut the fence where April’s daughter had handcuffed herself. The blues told the coppers to work on Marley’s handcuffs and leave the fence alone. Apparently when they was on Commonwealth land—what Villawood was—the coppers hadda listen to the blues, unless they was feds, what they wasn’t.
After Azad handed Noor to Anna, he came running back again, even though Anna was shouting at him to go inside, that it was a lockdown. He’d just hooked his hands on the inside fence opposite Marley, what was still cuffed to the outside one, when Clarence came up and clapped him on the back of his head.
‘That’s enough, Romeo. Juliet’s got a date with the police. Get inside. Now.’
Azad gave him a look what said he got a lot more passion than what he usually show. That was the last thing I knew, cuz Farshid kicked the soccer ball at Clarence, the muvvafucker ducked and I was sconed. Out like a light.
‘C’mon Togan. Lockdown. That means you. Quit mucking around. Togan. Togan.’
Anna’s voice was the first thing I heard. It came fluttering in on baby angel wings through a thick, dark mist. There was something big and hard and dirty and wet on me face. It was the ground. I picked me aching head up, opened me eyes and spat out some mud. I had an urge to laugh. Then I saw Thomas stumbling by, led by the nurse, his head in his hands, and outside the fence was all them cops.
‘I didn’t do nuffin, mate,’ I said. At least I didn’t think I did. I was trying to remember. ‘What’s going on?’ I had a wicked headache. I scrabbled round in the mud for me sunnies.
‘You really don’t know?’ Anna crossed her arms over her chest.
‘Don’t do that,’ I said. ‘You’re blocking the view, mate. Lemme look at me two best friends.’
‘I was gonna ask if you’re all right,’ she goes, trying to oppress a smile, ‘but that comment tells me that nothing’s wrong with you.’
‘In factuality,’ I said, thinking about it, ‘me head hurts.’ I tried to stand up but I was Dizzy Gillespie. I fell back down on me knees.
‘What’s going on, Togan? And don’t tell me you’re proposing.’
Clarence suddenly poked his ugly mug into the frame. ‘Moron got beaned by a soccer ball just as all the fun began.’
Fun? One fun thing happens in three months a detention and I missed it?
Four
Later that evening, I got Anna to nuke some macaroni and cheese in the office microwave for me. I stood in the doorway while she filled me in on what I missed while I was eating dirt.
She told me they was keeping Thomas under observation in Medical. Abeer had stopped talking. And in all the confusion, Noor went missing. No one had noticed with all them other things going on. Then one of the Chinamen found her cuddled up in the dryer what is lucky, cuz he was about to chuck his sheets in. Whacking Co didn’t want that getting out to the media. Some a them advocates—what is people what do things for the asylums and what the government calls do-gooders, even though they don’t think they be doing good—was already making a big fuss about Noor being a small girl what was alone in Detention. In factuality, Nadia been saying that all along too, but now they was thinking a listening to her and moving Noor’s mum to Villawood quicker. I said this was good news cuz Noor was getting old eyes like she wasn’t a kid no more.
‘Where’s Farshid and Reza?’ I asked, cuz I heard they was in the Management Unit for to punish them. She told me they’d been released but Clarence was giving them the what-for. He said they was troublemakers. He said they was wrong to encourage the protesters. They told him they done nuffin wrong, that Australia was a democracy, so they didn’t see why they couldn’t speak up for them rights. ‘They said they weren’t criminals,’ Anna goes.
‘Tsk. Criminals got rights, too,’ I said. I stirred me pasta and took a mouthful. Suddenly I remembered what I’d learned that day about me court decision and me shithead lawyer. It hit me like a punch in the guts. I put me spoon down. ‘I got a month to appeal or they’ll start deportation proceedings.’
‘You’d better get onto it then.’
‘Spose.’
I forced the rest a the pasta down and patted me belly. ‘It’s good trackydaks have them expansible waists, eh?’
‘Eh,’ said Anna.
‘I was planning on getting fit again when I got released, go to the gym, pump up,’ I informed her.
‘That’d be good,’ she goes. ‘But you can exercise in here, you know.’
‘Here? In the doorway a the office?’
She laughed. ‘No, Dumbo,’ she goes, like she knew that be me nickname when I was little on a count a me ears. ‘In the compound.’
‘Nah, mate. No point.’
She shook her head, like she didn’t get it. But ask any detainee and they’ll tell you the same thing. Azad and Hamid played soccer, and Thomas and me, we had a game a billiards from time to time, and sometimes everyone kicked a ball around, but that was about it. They had volleyball and badminton what no one used, and ping pong what the Chinese was always monopolating. But it was like the razor wire sucked the energy right outta you. It made your arms and legs heavy like they was cased in concrete.
Sometimes I thought the younger guys had it worst cuz it was sposed to be the best time a their lives. But the older men what had families Inside had it tough too. Abeer’s dad, Mohammed, was so depressed on a count a not being able to look after his family or do nuffin to help them situation that he spent most a the time lying on his bed. The mums like Najah and Nassrin, they got depressed cuz they couldn’t even cook for them kids, what was always upset. At least Najah and Nassrin got a sewing machine in the Women’s Centre what they could sew clothes on with cloth what the visitors brung them.
‘See,’ I explained, ‘all the plans we make, to get fit, study, whatever—they’re for Out.’
Anna shrugged. ‘No time like the present. You know,’ she told me, ‘my mum was a refugee. From Czechoslovakia.’
‘No sh—kidding,’ I go. ‘You looks Australian to me, mate.’
‘Why wouldn’t I? I was born here, and my dad’s a fifthgeneration Australian. Was. He died last year.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. He wasn’t that old either. He worked pretty hard his whole life.’
I thought about how even the blues got them problems and them lives, what we normally only thought about insofar as they was a part of our own.
‘Sometimes,’ Anna went on, ‘I look at some of the regular visitors and, quite frankly, I hate them.’
‘No way.’
‘Maybe that’s too strong. It’s more like I resent them. They’ve got enough money and time to swan around here like they own the place, making snide remarks about officers like we’re too stupid to know what they’re saying, and making things difficult for us. They’re always telling us how to do our job—like they know better. And they yell at us about the kids not going to school and about asylum seekers being locked up for years and other things that aren’t our fault. It’s Immigration that makes those decisions. You know, I wanted to study and travel and have a good life too, but when Dad got sick I had to get a job so I could look after him and Mum. Someone told me there were lots of jobs in security, so I got my certificate and, well, here I am. But they’
re not better than me.’ Her mouth went all tight and unhappy-looking.
‘No one’s better than you, Anna,’ I said, winking. ‘You’re the best.’
‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘That’s what they all say.’
She shook her head and gave me a half-smile. She looked cheered up some. I have that effect on the ladies. I spooned up the last a the cheese sauce and put me bowl down by me feet. I lit up a ciggie. ‘So your mum was an asylum? Like Azad and them?’
‘No, no, no,’ she said like I’d seriously dissed her mum. ‘She came here legally, as a refugee, after the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968.’
‘They put her in Detention?’
‘That’s the funny thing. She’d always told me she’d been taken to a place called the Westbridge Migrant Centre but I hadn’t put two and two together, you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That be an expression what mean four.’
Anna looked at me. ‘What I didn’t realise is that Villawood’s just the new name for Westbridge. You know the old Nissen huts between here and Stage One—you can just see them through the fence of the Visiting Yard. They haven’t been used for years. That’s where my own mum lived for a month or so.’
‘Far out. So your mum was behind the razor wire.’
‘No,’ she goes, drawing out the O like I said something insulting about her mum again. Anna looked down at her desk and straightened a stack a Detainee Request Forms. ‘She was actually shocked when I told her what it was like now. She said in her day it was an open hostel. People could come and go. There were classes on Australian history and customs as well as English, and when the refugees got job interviews the government organised a car to pick them up and take them there. They got a dollar a day spending money. She was here in summer and some days they’d get up before dawn and walk or hitch all the way to Bondi, have a swim, buy a Paddle Pop and make their way back by nightfall. That’s how she met my dad, when he gave her a lift. They fell in love at first sight.’
‘That’s romantic.’ I was thinking that She Who Loves a Good Romance would like that story. She was always reading romances. And whenever we went to the video shop, we joked that the day Hollywood makes a romantic comedy with kung fu, war and dinosaurs in, we wouldn’t have to argue no more about what we was gonna see. I decided that the next time we was choosing a video, I’d surprise her and choose a romantic comedy meself—so long as we could also get one with guns in for later. Then it occurred to me I didn’t know when I was ever gonna get to the video shop with She Who again. I put the thought into one of April’s little boxes and pushed it off two cliffs.
Just then me phone vibrated in me pocket. Anna’s cool, but no way could I let her know I got a mobile. She’d have to take it off a me. ‘Anyway, nice talking to you. I better let you get back to it.’ With me hand in me pocket, I clicked the button to answer. I’d be in me room in no time.
Five
On the way back to me room, I ran into Angel and Hamid. They wanted to know how Thomas was, and I told them what I knew, what wasn’t much. They said April had called on the public phone to find out if everyone was okay. She’d spoken to both of them already and Azad was talking to her now.
After I said goodbye to them I saw Farshid and Reza. They was still arguing with Clarence. The prick looked at his watch and goes, ‘In five minutes, I’m leaving here and going to the pub. You losers, on the other hand, are stuck in here.’ I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. I mean, they was only teenagers. They’d already been locked up for years, and Reza still had the marks on his neck from the noose. Then, like it wasn’t already perfectly clear, Clarence added, ‘Youse not going nowhere.’
I stepped up. ‘Shut yer cakehole and fuck off outta their faces,’ I advised him.
‘Whoa. It’s Big Girl. Got a knock on the melon today, did ya? Gotta be careful, there couldn’t be too many brain cells in there to start with.’
I raised me fist, and I swear I’d a gone him, but Farshid grabbed me before I could swing. ‘Forget it, Zeki,’ he goes, ‘He’s not verth it.’ Farshid spat on the ground like it be Clarence’s face.
Clarence looked at his watch again. ‘Have a great night, suckers.’ He turned and left.
Reza mumbled ‘dickhead’ under his breath.
Clarence turned his head. ‘Oh. And thanks for a great day.’
Me and the boys stood there bagging Clarence and this whole fucken place until something nagged me. I knew I had something to do, just couldn’t remember exactly what it was. ‘Catch youse later,’ I said, giving them the bruvvas’ handshake as I went. Reza put two fingers to his lips like he was smoking and made a question mark with his face.
I gave them each a ciggie. ‘No charge tonight,’ I said when Farshid pulled some coins outta his pocket.
‘Thanks, Zek.’ They gave me the thumbs up.
‘No worries, mateys,’ I said, feeling all truistic like I was Mother Teresa her good self.
Just as I got to me block, Ching jumped outta the shadows. ‘Boo!’
‘I’m not in the mood.’ I wasn’t, neither.
‘Guess what? Guess what?’ She was bubbling over like a warm tinnie a VB.
The Christian dude from the Philippines stuck his head out the window.
I wasn’t too happy to see Ching but didn’t wanna be the night’s entertainment either so I pushed open the door and gestated for her to follow what she’d a done anyway.
‘My boyfriend is posting bond. I released on Bridging Visa tomorrow!’
‘Good for Wing Wong. Good for you,’ I said, sitting down. I didn’t feel too bad being rude under the circumstances.
‘His name is not Wing Wong.’ She slapped my arm and giggled.
‘Whatever. Ting-a-ling. Bing Bat.’ I admit it. I was pissed off she never told me about him. ‘Won Ton. Long Dong.’
She was shaking her head like she was annoyed but she couldn’t help giggling. ‘You naughty, Zeki.’ She jumped onto me lap.
‘Cut it out,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
She slid up and down me leg and stuck her tongue in me ear. She threw her shirt over her head. She wasn’t wearing no bra and her cute tits with them brown nips was looking straight at me. She grabbed one in each hand and made them talk. ‘C’mon, Zeki,’ said the right. ‘One for road,’ goes the left. Then she slid onto to her cute knees and started pulling down me trackies with her teeth.
Hey, it wasn’t like I had nuffin better to do.
I did get annoyed when she started moaning and shrieking like one of them Chinese opera shows what they broadcast sometimes on Channel 31. She didn’t make no effort to keep the levels down neither. Flora banged on the door. ‘Togan!’ she shouted. ‘How many times have I said, no sex on my shift!’ Great. Now everyone was in on the secret. Oh maaan. Ching did that special trick with her fingernails and the bit behind me goolies and I was off like an exploding Space Shuttle.
I walked her to the door and she bounced off into the mist like Bambi. It had started to rain. Me neighbour poked his head outta the window again and told me the rain was the tears a Jesus. ‘He died for your sins, you know.’ He put the emphasis on your.
‘If I wanna feel guilty, I got me mum and me girlfriend,’ I informed him. ‘I don’t need Jesus in on the act as well.’ I went back inside. Something was nagging me worse than Marlena. Like I was forgetting something important.
Marlena.
I shoved me hand in me pocket and pulled out me mobile, what said me last call be forty-six minutes long what just ended. Oh maaan. Oh fuck. Fuck. I was in big fucken trouble now.
Six
‘Hello ba—’
The dial tone bleated in me ear like a sheep with a stuck horn. I tried again.
‘Babydoll, I—’
She banged the phone down so hard it almost busted me eardrums. I gritted me teeth, wiped the sweat off a me forehead and tried again.
‘Please, darl—’
Azad sat on the
chair in me room, eating pistachios. ‘Maybe she needs some time.’
‘What would you know about it, mate?’ I glared at him.
‘Nothing. Obviously.’ He got up and walked out.
I tore open a pack a biscuits and ate every one. I felt sick. I was sick a Detention. I was sick a the other detainees. Mostly, I was sick a meself.
A few days later, April came to visit. ‘Two hours,’ she complained. ‘It took two hours to get in today.’ She crapped on and on about all the new visitors in the queue, how they didn’t know anything about anything, not even how to fill out them forms, what was apparently one a the reasons it was taking so long for everyone to get in. She didn’t know what most a them was doing there, neither. Some of them was comparing things they’d brought as gifts—CDs, books and magazines, home-baked cakes, curries with rice. ‘It’s not a picnic,’ she said with a little hmph, putting juice and nuts and biscuits on the table. There was a lipstick what Angel asked for too, and a pack a cards. She also had a clipping from the newspaper the day after the protest. It had a photo what had Azad and all the kids with their moustaches and beards, seen through coils a razor wire.
‘It is not easy for anyone to visit,’ Azad said, after he looked at the clipping. ‘This place is far from everywhere, we know that.’
‘It usually takes me an hour? Depends on traffic.’
‘We are very…what is the word? Grateful.’
That cheered her up.
‘To everyone who visits us. You are all good people.’ He was saying it like it was a lesson she needed to learn.
Her face dropped a little. I don’t reckon April liked sharing the glory. But Azad, what normally looked after everyone’s feelings, was doing so less and less. I think it was on a count a the depression, what was growing in him like a mushroom, except not one a them fun ones, and not even one for cooking. A mushroom what got poison in.
‘Some people have been visiting for many months.’ He wasn’t letting it go either.
But Angel got female instincts the way I got criminal ones. She put her hand on April’s. ‘You very good to us, April,’ Angel said. ‘You help us a lot.’