‘I wonder if Aunty Rahama was scared when she crossed the ocean too,’ she whispers to you.
‘She probably was,’ you acknowledge. ‘But being brave doesn’t mean you never get scared. Brave is when you know you’re afraid but you do it anyway.’ You draw Jamilah close. ‘She’ll be so proud of us when we finally see her again,’ you say.
Jamilah falls asleep, but you stay awake so you can keep holding her safely, the thought of Rahama burning in your mind like a candle of hope through the night.
DAWN ARRIVES, AND the waves die down. The sea looks almost beautiful, pink and golden, but you know it’s still as hostile as a desert. The boat’s little engine chugs on.
The passengers begin to organise themselves. The people smugglers have packed cakes of dry noodles and plastic drums full of water to last you the journey, and the boat has a small camping stove that the fishermen usually cook their dinner on. An agreement is reached that one of the men, a muscly young guy from Afghanistan called Ali, will cook all of today’s noodles in one big batch and share them out.
Ali crams the noodles into a large pot, reaches for the plastic water drum and sloshes a large amount of water over the noodles.
A sharp, toxic smell fills the air. Some other passengers shout, ‘Whoa whoa whoa!’ and jump to stop him. But it’s too late – Ali has just tipped petrol, not water, all over the noodles.
A wild shouting-match starts up. Ali waves his arm at the drums, defending himself, and you can see that the water drums and petrol drums do look just the same.
An older Afghani man slaps Ali’s face, and his wife grabs his arm to calm him down, but many of the other passengers just stare out to sea, eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun and water.
The problem is now not only hunger, because you have petrol in your noodles, but also fuel, because you have noodles in your petrol.
Some of the passengers begin diligently draining as much of the petrol back into the drum as they can, carefully using a rag to filter out the swimming noodle strands. The fishermen mutter angrily and exchange worried calculations, clearly considering whether you’ll still have enough petrol for the journey. But if they do reach a conclusion, they don’t share it with you.
The sun is relentless. People take turns drinking from the black plastic cap from the water drum, careful not to spill a drop. The fishermen produce a single blue tarpaulin and string it up between the wheel-house roof and one of the sides, to act as a shade-cloth. People take turns to cram under the shade-cloth and into the stifling but shaded hole below deck. Children and the elderly are given special consideration.
The day slowly passes, the gnawing hole of hunger in your stomach dulling off to a background moan, as you’ve found hunger does if you ignore it long enough. The waves slap the hull and the engine putters on.
Night falls, and you endure another long night by dreaming of life in Australia. Another scorching day, another night, and then a third day go by, yet there’s still no sign of land.
There was enough water in the large plastic drums on board for all the passengers to share sips for three days, but now the last drum is getting low and light. You wonder if this means not enough water was packed, or that you have become lost.
People have fallen, for the most part, into an anxious, haggard silence. There is nothing left to do but wait, and pray.
Darkness falls once again, the wind picks up, and you manage to sleep for a while under the tarp with Jamilah.
When you wake up, the boat is … you search your mind for the English word you heard on the plane to Malaysia … experiencing turbulence. The waves are so steep that your bum rises right off the deck and seems to hang in mid-air before plummeting downwards again.
Jamilah is so weak that you have to hold her as the boat smacks the surface, to cushion her from flopping forwards and smacking her face on the deck. People are starting to moan; many are vomiting again. Spray hits your face. The fishermen are looking tense, both gripping the steering wheel.
People start pouring out from below deck – water has started forcing its way through the cracks in the hull. A human chain is formed to bail the water out with a bucket. The wind rises to a howl. The human chain can hardly keep up, using only their single bucket.
You hear a groaning, wrenching sound, which can only be the boat’s timbers starting to tear apart and nails squealing away from wood in pointed rows. You clamber to your feet. The deck’s surface is slick with brine. Nausea builds in your throat from terror and seasickness.
You are holding Jamilah up, both of you trying to stand upright as the boat bucks your bodies around. You are so drenched by the waves that it takes you a while to notice that the deck is now ankle-deep in water. The boat is going down.
The fishermen have given up trying to steer and are now shouting at their passengers in Indonesian, but no one can understand them. Then they use their radio to send an SOS distress call. Some people are praying loudly – you recognise the word ‘Allah’, shouted to the stars. You pray that you’re close enough to Australia that someone might rescue you. Your eyes scan the horizon, and you think you make out a lumpy dark mass that stays still among the lurching waves. Rocks? An island?
Huge bubbles rise out from under the deck as the hull fills with water. People scream as the deck sinks deeper and the water starts creeping up your legs. Some people are scrambling onto the wheel-house roof, which causes the whole boat to tilt, plunging people off the sides into the inky water, which churns with thrashing people scrambling to climb back aboard. The sound of children’s sobs rises above the scene like a terrible song.
Your body is pounding with anticipation – your stomach clenched tight, your hands tingling with adrenaline – but you find that your mind is filled with a floodlit beam of focus.
I’m going to save us.
The water is up to your knees now. From the corner of your eye, you see that one of the big near-empty plastic water drums has started to float away from the boat.
‘Jump!’ you shout to Jamilah, and with all your strength you launch off the side of the boat, away from the splashing crowds and the debris, towards the plastic drum, Jamilah at your side.
The saltwater forces its way up your nose with a burning intensity. You keep a fistful of Jamilah’s clothes in one hand, and thrash frantically towards the drum bobbing just out of reach, your head slipping up and down between air and sea.
You reach the drum, struggling to hold it still as you haul Jamilah up onto it. She hugs the drum with her arms and rests her head against it, while you grip it by a handle from below, up to your neck in the water, panting hard.
The water is cold, and your soaked clothes cling and balloon heavily. The night air is filled with screams and sobs.
You see a mother in the water near you, her head nearly underwater as she struggles to lift her baby higher than herself. You keep a tight hold on the drum and kick desperately towards them, reaching them just as the waves close over the woman’s hijab. You haul her up, and she lies sobbing with her face against the plastic drum, holding her wailing baby close.
You bob in the inky, deep blackness, gasping and looking around wildly. A few men are swimming away from the wreck, heading for the black shape you thought you saw earlier – it is a rocky outcrop in the ocean! If there are rocks jutting out of the water, then surely you’re not too far from the coastline of Australia?
If you could make it to the rocks, pulling Jamilah and the mother and baby along, you’d all be able to climb up out of the water. You might then be able to take the plastic drum back to the wreck to rescue others. But the rocks are a long way away.
Just then, one of the fishermen fires a flare, which rockets into the sky above the boat in a blazing trail of orange smoke. It hovers overhead like a hissing star.
Is there anyone out there to see it? you wonder. Did anyone hear our distress call?
What if you set out for the rocks and a boat comes to the wreck to save everyone? You might not be fo
und. But if nobody comes, then up on the rocks is the best place to be …
You look back at the rocks and see a tiny black figure – one of the swimmers has reached the rocks. He jumps up and down, waving his arms. He made it!
Will you try to make it too?
If you swim for the rocks, go to scene 37
If you stay with the boat, go to scene 36.
Water slaps your face and you cough, trying to heave yourself a little higher onto the drum. It bucks under you, in danger of tipping off Jamilah and the woman with her baby. The rocks are too far away in seas this rough, you decide – it’s best to cling to the drum and stay with the wreck.
The flare still casts an eerie red light over the scene. The rim of the deck is still just above the waterline, and you see the fishermen’ silhouettes hunched over their radio, broadcasting a call for help for as long as they can. The water around them churns with people, many trying to clamber up onto the wreckage, their weight only sending it down faster.
Jamilah’s wide eyes are shining in the dim moonlight as she takes in the scene around you. Even through this chaos, you can hear a faint rasping noise as she struggles to force each breath in and out. You pray that she doesn’t faint again.
You touch her hand and her eyes snap onto yours. ‘We’ll be okay,’ you whisper. ‘We’ll be okay.’
She nods. Inside, you hate yourself for choosing this night, this boat, this journey, when you knew she was so sick.
Then your ears pick out a new sound: a bassline that thrums under the wailing of wind and voice, a steady chug-chug-chug that seems to be getting louder.
A spotlight drenches the scene, making the boat behind it into a huge black silhouette. Is it a container ship? Another fishing boat?
‘Angkatan laut Australia kedatangan!’ whoops one of the fishermen, waving his arms about wildly, and the water erupts into sobs of joy and desperate squeals as the black ship surges towards you.
You keep pedalling your legs through the water. Hurry, hurry, please hurry.
A few minutes later, a rubber dinghy buzzes closer, with a woman in uniform at the bow. She takes the baby, then hauls up the mother, then Jamilah.
You grab the edge of the boat with both arms. It’s slippery, and heaving up and down with the waves. With a final, awkward move, the navy officer yanks you up by the seat of your pants, and you lurch over the edge of the boat into a sprawling, wet heap.
For a few moments, you just breathe, your cheek still against the rubber floor.
We made it. We made it.
Relief unspools through your veins and you want to sob, but no tears come.
You look up, and see Jamilah being wrapped in a blanket by the concerned navy officer. Instinctively, you touch your pocket, and feel the hard shape of the pen beneath your fingertips. The tears begin to flow then: salt mingling with salt.
YOU DISEMBARK THE navy boat at dawn the next morning. You have been taken to Christmas Island – an Australian island about halfway between the Australian mainland and Indonesia. This was where your ruined fishing boat was aiming for, too.
You were warned back in Indonesia that it’s still a long way from the Australian mainland – and that you might be held there for months, even more than a year, while you wait for your visa. But it is Australia. You will be safe.
Now you see that there’s a centre on the island surrounded by high-security fences, with guards everywhere. Your stomach curdles – this place looks like a jail.
Inside the centre, though, there are dormitories full of bunk beds, and a canteen for meals. The staff seem friendly – at least in the family section where you are sent. To your great relief, there’s also a doctor, who immediately prescribes Jamilah the right antibiotics to treat her tuberculosis.
After you’ve been there only a few days, you’re called in – without Jamilah – for an interview with immigration. An older boy in detention with you, Omar from Sudan, has warned you that this interview could make or break your chances of getting an Australian visa. Omar’s already been here a year and a half. Your palms are damp with sweat as you walk into the beige, boxy room.
The woman sitting on the other side of the desk wears a white shirt and has a government ID card on a green cord around her neck.
‘I’m Hilary,’ she says, shaking your hand. She has a blonde ponytail and a sharp, straight nose.
Hilary fires questions at you, and begins taking notes. Even though you speak English well enough not to need an interpreter, soon your head is swimming as she asks you to recall precise dates and locations of your birth, your parents’ death, the flight number on which you left Nairobi …
In parts where your recollections are hazy, she grills you like you’re a witness in a courtroom. You can feel your heart beginning to pound, and your confidence wilting.
‘Wait!’ you say, and you hold up your hand. ‘I want to show you … this.’
You bring out Rahama’s pen. Now she’ll understand my journey, you think.
The ruby on its tip glows softly, seeming to murmur to you: Have courage. We’re almost there.
You begin to explain what this pen is for, and how you came to have it. Hilary’s eyebrows knit together. She drums her fingers on the table, looking at you askance.
‘Right,’ she says eventually, cutting you off. She sounds confused and impatient. ‘Look, I’m not sure how you managed to bring this into detention, but technically it’s a forbidden item, so …’ She reaches out to take it from you.
‘No!’ you shout, rising from your chair and slamming your hand on the table. The force of your shout has taken both you and Hilary by surprise. Part of you feels worried that you might have just damaged your chances for a visa, but you can’t stop.
‘Do you have any idea what I went through for this pen? Where it’s been?’ you cry. ‘I carried it out of Somalia buried under rolls of carpet. I put my friend’s life at risk when I opened it on his computer in Kenya. I kept it in Dadaab even when we had nothing else left in the world, and when people tried to kill me for it there, I carried it across the desert and out of Africa, only to take it on two boat journeys that nearly killed my sister and me!’ You pause to draw breath. Hilary looks astonished.
‘I don’t know if you have someone special in your life,’ you continue, in a quieter voice now but one heavy with tears. ‘Your parents, a husband, someone you would do anything for … My Aunty Rahama was that person for Jamilah and me. She had to fake her own death to get out of Somalia, thanks to what’s on a memory stick inside this pen. We still don’t know where she is. But there’s information on this pen that could lead to the arrest of some of the most evil terrorists in the world, and help to free hundreds of child soldiers. If there’s someone in your life whom you love as much as I love Rahama, you’ll understand why I did what I did.’
Hilary nods slowly. She reaches over to the pen. You flinch.
‘It’s all right, I’m not going to take it from you,’ she says.
You sit down again. She unscrews the pen, gives a little gasp when she sees the memory stick there as you described, and plugs it into her computer.
There is a long moment of silence as she scans the screen. Eventually, she pushes a button on her desktop phone and says: ‘Push all my other appointments for this afternoon over to tomorrow, please.’ Then she turns to you and says: ‘Tell me everything.’
THE DAY AFTER your interview, an officer from the Australian Federal Police flies into Christmas Island. He assures you that they’re going to cooperate with police forces overseas to investigate the information on the pen. He counsels you not to talk to anyone from the media or to tell your story online until they’ve made the bust.
After he leaves, the months drag by. You go to English classes, eat bland food three times a day at the canteen, and go for walks around the perimeter fence with Jamilah to try to slowly build her strength and her lung capacity back up. There is silence from the police. There is no news from Rahama, and Aadan has no more clues
.
‘I don’t want to think this,’ he confesses on the phone, ‘but we have to face the possibility that maybe she didn’t make it. We don’t know how strong she was when they dragged her out of the ocean. Jamilah’s still the only one who’s even seen her.’
More months drag by. After so long of surviving on your wits alone, here you’re not even trusted to cook yourself a meal. The boredom and frustration at being so helpless begins to grind you down.
One night, nearly four months into your stay, the news on the TV in the rec room announces that, from now on, asylum seekers who arrive by boat can be taken to remote foreign islands called Nauru and Manus instead of Christmas Island, and never be allowed to enter Australia. You’re horrified – if you’d left it a few months later to come to Australia, that could have been you.
Even so, there’s still no news about your visa. You feel like the world has forgotten you, left you stranded on this tiny island. The pressure in your chest mounts until you feel like screaming.
You have regular nightmares where Qasim backs you into a corner of a cage, points his finger at you, and sand comes streaming from his fingertip, flowing into your nose and mouth, burying you, until you wake gasping for breath.
Jamilah tells you that she has nightmares too, only hers are about the skeleton of the dead woman in the desert coming to life and nailing her inside a coffin.
Your counsellor, Christine, is a kind woman with bright jewellery. One day, about five months into your stay, she reads you some poems by a woman called Maya Angelou.
‘She’s also someone who overcame a lot of struggles,’ says Christine. The poems are sad, powerful and beautiful. They ease a knot in your soul.
‘In English, there’s a proverb,’ says Christine. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ As you understand its meaning, a smile spreads over your face.
That night, you have the nightmare again: Qasim’s gaunt face; his yellow eyes; the space slipping away from around you as you stumble backwards. He raises his finger, and the storm of sand begins to fly at you.
Touch the Sun Page 16