by Osamah Sami
I like these guys, kind of. It’s hard not to at least see people as human when they’re willing to take off their scarves and show me who they are. I know they want to trade with me. It’s their business, after all. But at what rate will they draw the line? Where does their bluff stop?
‘Don’t be stupid,’ one cautions. ‘We know you need the money or you wouldn’t be here right now.’
‘Well, I’m not stupid enough to go for that shit rate you gave me. I’ll just come back next week,’ I add, and turn to go, praying to God’s prophets my bluff works.
I’m almost at the taxi, striding, not looking back, when one of them yells, ‘Stop!’
I turn around. They’ve followed me out here.
‘Listen, I can tell you’re desperate. But so are we, okay? No one comes here on a Friday wanting to exchange thousands of dollars. And I am merely doing what a good businessman does.’
‘Taking advantage of the needy?’
‘Precisely.’
I think for an impossible minute. I know I have no choice. I’m not just being stubborn here; I need a good exchange. I don’t know if what I’ve got is enough for two tickets as it is.
I look them each in the eye, one to another, and make my final offer.
‘Two thousand nine hundred.’
They glance at each other, then smile.
‘Okay, two thousand nine hundred, you big-mouthed Australian. You’re getting a good deal in this market.’
‘As are you.’
‘Where’s your money?’
‘Just to be clear. How can I be sure you’re giving me real cash?’
‘I will withdraw the cash for you from an ATM. Any bank you nominate. It will all be cash you can physically grab from the machine. I told you, we’re the only legit ones here.’
I take a signature deep breath and accompany the two men to a nearby ATM. The driver collects my money from the boot and hangs back a little bit, to make sure the two men don’t get up to no good; he doesn’t have to do this, but I’m grateful he does.
The men hand me a wad of cash.
‘All legit.’
I read the receipt closely. It’s not adding up.
‘This says it’s only eight million. I should get close to nine million. You’ve even reneged on your original two thousand eight hundred.’
‘Listen up,’ says one of the men. ‘Just be thankful here.’ His friend nods. They both step very close to me.
‘Be thankful you found someone who’s honest enough not to swap your cash for fakes. Be thankful you didn’t find someone who would’ve stabbed you anyway. Be thankful you get to live in a country like Australia while the young men here go rotting. I have a master’s degree. A fucking master’s in Economics and I’m here on a public holiday, risking jail just to exchange some money for pompous pricks like you. Eight million is good for you. I could have ripped you off, you know. But I can see you’re just like me. I can tell you’re struggling. But the comparisons stop there. Your struggle is not our struggle. So shake my hand, take your money, and just. Be. Thankful.’
He extends his hand. I take it. We shake. Then I nod and, without another word, I get back inside the cab.
◆ ◆ ◆
At 7 pm, I wait, stiff and sweating, outside the freight-shipping agency. Forty minutes later, it’s still closed.
To offset my nerves, I call Moe Greene and Ali to make sure everything is good to go back home. I’m hoping they’ll have stuffed it up somehow and I’ll have to argue down the phone, but to my mixed delight and disappointment, they’ve performed perfectly. I thank and congratulate them. Back to my nervous sweats.
At 8 pm, a tall bearded man in a black shirt appears. His face is severe. I immediately connect him to the Basij—Iran’s religious military arm.
‘Are you the one who called me? Why aren’t you wearing black? Didn’t you say your father’s passed away?’
Before I can respond, a mob of black-shirted Basijis pushes past us into the shop. I can’t be seen by these people as ‘morally loose’ at all. They are wearing black to mark the anniversary of Imam Reza’s death—the whole town is wearing black, and they don’t even have dead fathers. By this stage, at least I have some decent facial growth, which might tip the scales back in my favour.
‘I can get him on the plane,’ the man says. ‘It will cost you by the kilo.’
‘He was 103 kilos,’ I say. We’d weighed him at Reza’s Paradise.
‘Tall?’
‘Just over six foot.’
‘So a big box then. That’ll get him close to 120 kilos all up.’
He bangs some numbers on the calculator. ‘It’s two thousand six hundred US.’
I breathe deep. That’s more than a return ticket for a living person, one you have to keep cool with recycled air and serve in-flight drinks and food.
‘Expensive, right?’ he says. ‘Freight always is. Besides, you can’t just show up this late and expect something cheap.’
This piques my interest: so cheap is possible, at certain times, for certain people, certain things.
‘I didn’t have my exit papers till yesterday. I didn’t time his death, you know.’
‘That’s the price.’
‘You said bring Iranian currency.’
‘No problems. We buy one US dollar for three thousand three hundred, so…8.5 million.’
I remember the dodgy black marketeer: eight million. Just. Be. Thankful.
‘Brother,’ I breathe. ‘I already had a number done on me at the exchange today, three thousand Aussie dollars for eight million Iranian.’
‘Yeah, it gets rough,’ he nods sympathetically. ‘So what do you want to do?’
I am not aware that I have many options left.
‘Even if my family wires me money, it’ll take a day or two at best.’
He thinks. ‘Didn’t you say your visa was expiring tomorrow?’
‘Yes, that’s the issue,’ I say, a little testily. But I’m grateful to have found the one bureaucrat in Iran who doesn’t apparently suffer from short-term memory problems. I’d explained about my visa this afternoon, and over the phone no less; I’d got used to my story vanishing, forever out of mind, the minute I left a person’s eyeline.
‘But then you must have had an exit ticket. A return flight.’
‘It’s to France.’
‘Who was your carrier?’
‘Emirates.’
‘Hmm. And who did you fly in with?’
‘Qatar.’
‘Hmmmm. And your dad?’
‘Yes, he was to go back on Qatar Airways to Australia.’
‘Excellent!’ he says. ‘It’s an easy solve, we have a good relationship with Qatar Air. I’ll do this for you, I’ll change your father’s return leg into your name, so you can fly in his seat instead. We still have to send him as a shipment, of course…’
Against the odds, this man is so helpful, and so innovative too. The problem is, he’s still a businessman, and I’m sti
ll half a million short. I have just enough scrap money for food and taxis to get me through tomorrow, but nowhere near enough to cover the shortfall—$150.
‘I still have my Emirates ticket to France. What about that? It’s worth five hundred dollars, and it’s a flexi-flight. So they can refund me the money if I cancel it. I could just nominate your bank account. You’d have it in no time.’
‘Hmm. What currency?’
We both know it’s Australian. ‘You’ll have the money in your account,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that what matters?’
‘Are you some kind of wiseguy? I’d need to convert it to US. And I don’t care how strong your dollar is, we always lose against that. Then, there’s the interest on these fourteen days I’d have to put the money up, and—’
‘Have it all!’ I cry. ‘Fuck it, just have it all! I’ll give you my eight million now, then that whole five hundred dollars. That’s three hundred dollars, a million, more than your asking price. Just get me out of here, and get my father home.’
He thinks about it for a moment. ‘Okay, that works,’ he shrugs.
I make the call to Emirates; they’re accommodating as all get-out. As I do, the man places each and every bill under the scanner and subjects them to the blue-light test. Thumbs-up. The notes are good. They’re all good.
They are all good.
They are all good.
I stand there, in a dream. Could it be that I will be out of here with Dad tomorrow?
I made it.
The man hands me my tickets. Or, my ticket. Dad’s ticket in my name, and then a separate itinerary for my cargo.
‘I will meet you in the airport tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Your flight is at 8.30 pm. Check-in closes at six-thirty. Don’t be late.’
‘I’ll be there in the morning.’
‘No, don’t do that,’ he says. ‘The cemetery will transport the coffin directly to the freight terminal and, believe me, you don’t want your dad out of cold storage for long.’
As I grab the tickets, it occurs to me that paper has a smell. Freedom is what it smells like. It looks like paper, but smells like freedom.
It is an algedonic moment. Bittersweet with a capital B. I spring up and out the door. I could fly, I am so light. Actually, screw the ‘could’. I will fly. Tomorrow, I will.
STOLEN DREAMS
Melbourne, Australia, 2003
Dad’s stroke of genius
When the planes hit the towers on 11 September 2001, things changed for our community. I must admit, with a name like Osamah, it would have been folly to think I’d get away without being searched ‘extra randomly’ at airports. However, I didn’t bank on those extra checks seeping out into everyday life. At train stations. Shops. Even the local baker. These ‘checks’ weren’t necessarily physical, but more psychological taunts and words similar to the ones I had heard as a young Arab boy in Iran. It was funny (in a totally not funny way) that here I was in Australia, where people were so advanced, yet ‘go back, you desert monkey’ and ‘blow yourself up at home and leave me the virgins’ were as common as the common Aussie fly. It seemed that no matter where you went on this planet, any global event could turn otherwise decent humans into creative phrase-makers slash mouth-frothing taunters.
More than ever, then, our community converged on the mosque—which suited my own conscience. Between Sisi and the Amazing Medical Degree That Never Was, I liked being in a place where I got to be a good Muslim boy again.
Each night, Dad took our neighbours’ social and religious questions after prayer. After September 11, these Q&A sessions could last a good three hours. I was there for all of them, approaching my tasks as the cleric’s son with renewed levels of diligence.
It was past midnight, and we were all in need of some decent shut-eye, when a zealous Sayyed shouted: ‘Your Excellency! Can you write a play about the Prophet’s second war on the infidels? It will be a smash hit!’
Dad always wrote a play meant for performance in the mosque, which doubled as a makeshift theatre while the season ran its course. His scripts were populated mostly by the local husbands, and by yours truly, every year since 1995. What can I say? Bored Muslim mothers got obsessed with Aussie Rules. The dads turned into amateur thespians.
‘Sayyed. I am going to write a different play this season. A musical.’
‘About the Prophet’s war! Please! It will be funny.’
‘No.’ Every year, another period piece; Dad had had enough. ‘I’m going to write a contemporary show.’
A true director, he knew when to pause for effect.
‘I’m going to write Saddam: The Musical.’
Sydney, Australia, November 2004
Playing Saddam
Curtains open.
We see: a lavish hall in Saddam’s palace.
A number of Saddam’s elite bodyguards stand, unlit.
Also present (standing on designer sofas) are Saddam’s henchmen: Chemical Ali, Izzat Ibrahim, Taha Yassin, Muhammad Al-Sahhaf and Saddam’s son, Qusay.
Cue music: ‘Stayin’ Alive’, by the Bee Gees.
Lights on Saddam Hussein, in uniform and beret, sporting his trademark moustache and aviators.
He stands in the middle of the hall, eerily charismatic. A Cuban cigar in hand.
The henchmen start to do their dance, also in full uniform.
Saddam, with stiff movements, belts out the opening number in his scratchy voice:
SADDAM
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I’m the nation’s man, no time to talk.
The bombs are loud and America warm.
I’ve been kicked around since I was born.
And now it’s alright, it’s okay
The UN may look the other way.
We can try to understand
The New York attack’s effect on man.
Whether you’re a brother
Or whether you’re a mother
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Feel Baghdad breakin’
And Iraq shakin’
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
HENCHMEN
Ah, ha, ha, ha —
Stayin’ alive.
Stayin’ alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha —
Stayin’ aliiiiiiiiiive.
SADDAM
Well now, I get low and I get high
And if I can’t get either I really try.
Got a block by the US on our booze
I’m a people’s man and I just can’t lose.
You know it’s alright, it’s okay.
I’ll live to see another day.
We can try to understand
The New York attack’s effect on man.
Whether you’re a brother
Or whether you’re a mother
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
; Feel our city breakin’
And my nation shakin’
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha —
Stayin’ alive.
Stayin’ alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha —
Stayin’ alive.
Life goin’ nowhere.
Somebody help me.
Somebody help me, yeah.
Life goin’ nowhere.
Somebody help me, yeah.
Except Iran
I don’t want their help.
But Iraq’s burning
Somebody help us.
Somebody help us, yeah.
Get rid of the sanctions
Bring back the friendship
C’mon Bush
Do it now!
Stayin’ alive
Stayin’ alive
Stayin’ aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive.
The music stops, but the henchmen keep dancing.
Saddam looks at them with menace; they freeze.
Saddam laughs. They laugh. He laughs louder.
They laugh louder. He stops. One of them continues laughing. He just signed his death contract.
◆ ◆ ◆
Saddam: The Musical was a roaring success.
After a sold-out season in Melbourne, we took it on the road—as far afield as Sydney, Shepparton and Cobram. Not all of this went smoothly. I had a shoe hurled at me in Shepparton. I guess you have to expect a mixed response when you’re playing Saddam Hussein. In that scene, I was dancing over the corpse of a beloved Iraqi Sayyed.
In the end, more than 3000 Arabic speakers came out to see the show.
Dad was chuffed. Who wouldn’t be? Two-time escapee, noted cleric—and now regular off-Broadway wunderkind, discovered late in life. There was an honest-to-God media frenzy in the Arabic papers—the first time in forever I’d had to polish my formal Arabic.