Touch the Sun

by Emily Conolan

  There is a stunned silence at the end of the phone.

  You go on: ‘I know she wouldn’t leave us without letting us know. If Jamilah’s right – if she’s alive – there has to be more about this on the password-protected “My Story” file on the pen. But I couldn’t guess the password. Can you think of anything?’

  There’s more stunned silence. Just as you’re about to ask if he’s still there, Aadan’s voice croaks: ‘Freedom. The ruby in the pen, it’s one of the seven Freedom Gems. That might be the password.’

  In your hurry to end the call and try this as the password, you almost forget to thank him. It’s only after you’ve hung up that you wonder what he meant by one of the seven Freedom Gems. It’s yet another question for you to find an answer to when you reach Australia.

  You pay to use a computer and unscrew the pen. Thank goodness the desert sand, bilge water in the boat hull, and everything else it’s been through haven’t damaged the little memory stick at all – it hums and opens.

  Your breath quickens as you click on ‘My Story’.

  ‘This file is password protected. Please enter your password.’

  The last time you saw these words was with Sampson, just before you hacked al-Shabaab’s bank account. So many things have happened since then. Your hands shake as you type in the seven letters: f … r … e … e … d … o … m …

  There’s a moment’s pause as the computer thinks, then … it opens like a flower.

  My darlings,

  This is the hardest letter I’ve ever written. I have started it in fifty different ways, and deleted them all. But it all comes down to this…

  Al-Shabaab are coming for me. They know about the interview with Zayd, and the investigation into Bright Dream. This afternoon, they plan to detonate a bomb at the broadcasting building.

  I want al-Shabaab to believe that this bomb kills me. I want the world to think I’m dead – yes, even you, my darlings. I’m going to try to save all our lives, by pretending to lose my own.

  I know their plans, because Zayd wasn’t killed by al-Shabaab: he escaped from them when the car they were in crashed. Worrying that he’d put our lives at risk by telling us about Bright Dream, he contacted someone who owed him a favour who was still inside al-Shabaab. He confirmed that a spy in the broadcasting company had warned them about me.

  It’s over for me here now. For so long as al-Shabaab believes I’m alive, they’ll come after me. And if they find out about you two children they will use you as bait – kidnap you, torture you, threaten to kill you – because they would see you are my weak point. The only way I can protect you is by making them think I am gone, once and for all, so they will give up.

  So, I’ve made a plan. I will go to work at the scheduled time for the broadcast this afternoon. I will place my red hijab by a window, where everyone can see it to believe I’m in the building, so al-Shabaab will feel sure they’ve killed me. None of my colleagues will be there; I’ve sent them all a fake invitation to a meeting across town.

  I will sneak out the back door, and make my way to the Ethiopian border, where Zayd will be waiting for me. Whatever it takes, we’ll find our way to safety. Aadan and I have promised each other that we’ll make a home together with you two kids, a wonderful new home in Australia. It’s a promise I plan to keep.

  I know it will probably take you a while after I give you the pen to find my note, contact Aadan, work out the password and open this file. I know that keeping the full story from you for this long is going to cause you pain, and I’m sorry. It’s the only way I can ensure I have time to get well out of Somalia without you trying to follow me, risking al-Shabaab learning of and following you.

  It’s okay if you’re angry, confused or upset with me when you read this. One day, we’ll be together again, and I can answer your questions, and maybe you’ll forgive me for leaving you this way. I don’t know how far away that day will be – I only pray that it comes soon. I love you more than words can say.

  Now, I must go and find you, and give you this pen. The biggest journey of my life begins then. Whatever comes next is Allah’s will.

  Never stop fighting for freedom.

  I love you so much.

  Aunty Rahama

  You sit, staring at the computer. You want to whoop with joy that Rahama didn’t die in the bomb blast, but you are paralysed with confusion. You read the letter for a second, and then a third time, struggling to make sense of the storm of questions whirling in your brain.

  So Jamilah was right, she did see Aunty Rahama being rescued in Italy… but why are she and Zayd there, and not in Australia? And why has no one heard from them since?

  Your thoughts are interrupted by a commotion taking place outside. Rising from the computer, you go to the door and see Maryam coming down the hill, struggling to run, holding her belly, looking around wildly. People are staring. She sees you and shouts, and the panic in her voice makes your insides freeze for one terrible moment. Then you run to her.

  ‘Your sister!’ she pants when you reach her. ‘She, she …’ Maryam is gasping for breath and can’t find the right English word. ‘Not dead. But not wake up! Please come now!’

  You sprint up the hill, leaving the woman behind, your limbs on fire. Jamilah!

  You gasp a prayer in time with your pumping limbs: Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

  When you reach her, Jamilah is conscious again. One of the Iranian men is helping her to sit up on the bed and sip some water. Her face is dangerously ashen and there are red flecks around her lips where she has been coughing more blood. She looks at you and manages a trembly smile.

  ‘She’s very sick,’ says the Iranian man, who you guess is Maryam’s husband, Majid. ‘Like my nephew, who had tuberculosis. Does she have it?’

  At that moment, Maryam enters, breathing hard. Majid rises quickly to shepherd her out of the room.

  ‘My wife shouldn’t be near you – it is too dangerous,’ he calls back over his shoulder. ‘But I will return to help.’

  Is it tuberculosis? you wonder, gripped with anxiety. People can die of that.

  You kneel in front of Jamilah, a lump in your throat.

  ‘You have to survive this, chickpea,’ you tell her, using Aunty Rahama’s old nickname for her. ‘Because you were right – you did see Aunty Rahama. I just read a letter she wrote on the day the bomb went off, and she knew it was coming! She made it, she’s alive… so you’ve got to make it too, okay?’ Hot tears begin to spill down your cheeks.

  Jamilah gazes at you in astonishment and delight. Then she begins to sob too. You hold her, and you cry together – not from happiness alone, or just plain sadness; you cry with a broken heart that’s filled with sun.

  Jamilah lifts her hot, wet face away from your neck, and manages to say: ‘Budi came. The boat’s going tonight.’

  It’s only then that you register the buzz of activity you ran through when you came back into the house – people stuffing food and their meagre belongings into bags, clasping photos of their loved ones, fear and hope on their faces …

  The only people who weren’t focussed on preparing to go were Maryam and Majid, who’ve been here two years already. You guess that they won’t be going anywhere.

  ‘I don’t think we should go tonight,’ you say to Jamilah. ‘You’re too sick for a risky boat journey. We could rest here, and go next time.’

  ‘No!’ cries Jamilah. ‘Budi said he doesn’t know when there’ll be another boat.’

  Jamilah breaks off to cough. She struggles to catch her breath, and you feel your stomach churn with apprehension.

  ‘We have to go tonight!’ she bursts out. ‘There might not be the right medicine for me here, anyway. If our money runs out, we’ll be stuck here like Maryam and Majid.’

  Your stomach clenches into a fist as you imagine a black, restless ocean and your sister burning with fever, struggling to breathe as the boat is tossed about. It’s the most dangerous thing you could do right now – bu
t it’s also the fastest route to safety. Will you take it?

  If you stay in Indonesia to give Jamilah time to rest, go to scene 34.

  If you make the boat journey tonight, go to scene 35.

  You shake your head firmly. ‘We have enough money to survive here for a while, and Aadan will send us more if we need him to.’

  Jamilah opens her mouth to protest. ‘Stop,’ you tell her. ‘Save your breath for getting better.’

  You find Maryam and Majid in the kitchen. ‘Do you think it’s possible to buy the medicine we need here?’ you ask.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ says Majid. ‘In Iran, I was a pharmacist. We will help you.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ you say to the kind-hearted couple. ‘Then we’re staying here too.’

  Majid goes out to buy antibiotics that can help with diseases like tuberculosis, and you feel an immense sense of relief to have somebody who knows what he’s doing help you with this.

  THE WEEKS PASS. Jamilah’s antibiotics slowly take effect, and by the third week she is walking about a little and eating more. You are both overjoyed, but Majid warns that tuberculosis can easily reoccur if a patient is not healthy and strong enough to fight off another attack.

  You bide your time, and the weeks turn into months. You continue to stay in the big white house on the hill, where a train of other asylum seekers come and go but you, Jamilah, Majid and Maryam stay on, the everlasting veterans. You spend most of your days playing cards and practising English.

  Occasionally you go to the shops to receive money transfers from Aadan, and you call him regularly. You always pray that he’ll have found some clues to Aunty Rahama’s whereabouts, but he never has.

  ‘I have to warn you about something,’ he says uneasily one day.

  ‘What?’ you ask, worried he’s heard some bad news about Aunty Rahama.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing too bad, but … there are lots of arguments about boat people in the Australian news at the moment.’

  ‘What the heck are boat people?’ you ask, imagining people who look like boats, or who live on boats.

  Aadan laughs. ‘People like you – who come to Australia by boat, or who want to. There’s a big stink in the media about it. Stop the boats, stop the boats, stop the bloody boats.’

  ‘Would they mind if we arrived by helicopter?’ you joke.

  ‘That’s the thing, they probably wouldn’t,’ he replies. ‘Most asylum seekers here come by plane on a student or tourist visa. I just wanted to warn you the government’s trying to look tough at the moment. Soon you might never be able to settle here if you come by boat. And you know people drown on that trip. Boats sink all the time.’ He heaves a huge sigh. ‘I still can’t find Rahama. I can’t lose you too. Please, stay there and wait for the UNHCR. As kids alone, you’ll have a better chance at a visa than most.’

  When you tell Majid about your conversation with Aadan, he rolls his eyes. ‘The UNHCR does nothing here,’ he tells you heavily. ‘It’s impossible to get a visa with them. One tiny office, a couple of staff, and thousands of people on the waiting list to even apply in the first place.’

  ‘We’re on the waiting list too,’ you tell him. Aadan advised you and Jamilah to visit Jakarta to register with the UNHCR and put your name down for an appointment, which you did – months ago.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ jokes Majid darkly. ‘Most people I know waited nearly a year to get their first appointment – I’m not exaggerating.’

  He sighs deeply and looks around the room to make sure Maryam’s in a different part of the house.

  ‘I hate myself for bringing her here,’ he confesses in a whisper. ‘The Iranian government jailed me and tortured me for participating in pro-democracy protests. When they let me out, I was so starved and beaten up, my own mother hardly recognised me. If I ever go back, I’ll be killed. Now my child will be born here, with no opportunity to go to school or get a job. I’ve told Maryam to just divorce me and go home, but she won’t.’

  Majid grips your hand, and his dark eyes have a burning intensity.

  ‘You kids have the best years of your life ahead of you. Don’t waste them here,’ he urges. ‘If you can get to Australia, just go. Tell Budi you’ll get on the next boat – I would. Jamilah’s well enough now.’

  You don’t know what to think. Aadan has warned you that the situation in Australia is getting more hostile – but Majid seems to think there’s not much hope here, either. Once again, you face a choice between bad and worse – but which option is worse?

  To wait for the UNHCR and hope for a visa, go to scene 38.

  To go by boat to Australia as soon as possible, go to scene 39.

  To read a fact file on life in limbo click here, then return to this page to make your choice.

  You look into Jamilah’s eyes. ‘Are you sure you want to go tonight? This boat trip will be even rougher and longer than the last one.’

  She nods resolutely.

  ‘Okay then, let’s do it,’ you say, although fear grips your stomach.

  As darkness falls over the white house on the hill that night, two mini-vans pull up outside, mosquitoes swarming to their headlights.

  You and Jamilah crowd into one of the vans along with about fifteen other people from the house. The only things you have on you are a bottle of water, which Majid and Maryam pushed into your hands as you left, the pen, the money inside your shoe, and your phone. Budi instructed you all not to bring anything more.

  The road to the coast is littered with potholes, and the driver looks grim as he swerves to avoid them. You think that his ears, like yours, must be pricked for the sound of sirens coming to bust you.

  You arrive at the coast and the van parks. You can hear the sound of waves crashing. The dread in your stomach rises, until it seems to be sloshing back and forth like the waves. This is it. Your only chance.

  The mini-van doors roar as the driver drags them open. You climb out in the company of the crowd. Four other mini-vans are already parked in the moonlight, each disgorging a crowd of about twenty stooped passengers, who clutch each other and look about like rabbits.

  You hear the scrunching of footsteps on sand and the thump and hiss of waves. The drivers of the vans, and a few more Indonesian men who were waiting here for you, mutter orders as they herd you down to the beach. You squeeze Jamilah’s hand. It is slick with sweat.

  People crane their necks, trying to see over each other’s heads to get a look at the boat. You and Jamilah wriggle through to the front.

  There is a small boat flailing in the shallows – like the ones that used to go out at Lido Beach, with a crew of around twelve fishermen. In silhouette, you see a long, narrow deck, and a boxy wheelhouse where the driver stands. That must be the boat they’ll use to take us out, a dozen at a time, to a larger one, you think. We’ll have to wade out to this one first: I hope it’s not too deep.

  It won’t be your first time in the ocean, but because the fighting in Mogadishu has been so bad in recent years, it hasn’t been safe enough to spend a lot of time at the beach. Neither you or Jamilah are confident swimmers.

  The people smugglers don’t give you time to ask questions or react – they just begin herding people into the water, roughly, barking: ‘Go! Go!’

  Two wiry Indonesian fishermen on the boat start reaching overboard and hauling people up onto the deck – their new heavy, sodden catch.

  As people around you stagger in, children are crying and parents are hoisting them up higher to keep them dry. You can see the question in their eyes: Are you sure we can do this? and the reply: We are doing this. Come.

  You’re standing at the edge of the water, feeling it splash over your feet, when one of the drivers pushes you in the back, and you stumble forward, into water up to your knees, Jamilah’s arm wrapped tightly around your waist. A wave reaches up and slaps you in the stomach, and she squeals because she’s only short and it’s closer to her face.

  You reach the splintery side of the boat a
nd a pair of strong brown hands lift Jamilah, then you, out of the water. You see a trapdoor in the deck leading to storage space below, but you don’t want to climb in there, so you shuffle to the edge of the deck on the other side of the boat, where at least you can hold on to a rail.

  The crowd shifts and tightens as more and more people are crammed on board. No one is shoving, though, because everyone is thinking: We only have to stay on this boat for a little while, until we get to the larger one.

  THERE IS NO larger boat. You only realise this once the journey is so far underway that there’s no way you can rebel – when the black waves are heaving under the thin hull, the distant lights of the shore have faded, and the sound of seasick passengers retching and children sobbing fill the night air.

  You are going to Australia on this: the boat of two impoverished fishermen who have been talked into a lucrative and dangerous job; a boat that looks as if it’s never left Indonesian waters; a boat made to hold a dozen fishermen and their nets.

  Some people are crammed into the hull, a space below deck that’s at least free from the saltwater spray. When you and Jamilah peek inside, you see that the parents have taken their young children down here, seeking shelter.

  ‘When will we be in Australia?’ ask the children in their languages. You don’t speak Farsi, Tamil or Hazaragi, but you know what they’re asking.

  Their parents stroke their brows and reply, ‘Soon, my darling, soon.’

  You don’t try to squeeze into the hull – you’d rather you and Jamilah have the air and a little more space. You position yourself near the front of the boat, where you can see the waves coming and anticipate the rise and crashing drop of the boat.

  The engine revs, working hard, giving the occasional cough. Jamilah’s body leans up against yours; she is conscious, but so weak and feverish now that you hold her tightly to stop her slipping into the ocean.