Sanctuary

by Judy Nunn

  The reaction from all three was instantaneous.

  ‘Did you hear what my brother said!’ from Hekki.

  ‘We’re not bloody boys!’ from Jukka.

  ‘Get that fucking thing out of my face!’ from Nat Franelli.

  Poor little Buzz, who was only eighteen, wavered around the periphery with his microphone, but Danny wasn’t giving an inch and nor was Jarrod.

  ‘Oh they’re hard boys, these fishermen of Gevaar Island,’ Jarrod went on – a little aggression was not a bad thing, livelier than all the picturesque stuff he’d been sending back anyway. ‘They breed them tough over here in the West.’

  At that, all three went berserk.

  ‘Right, that’s it! Fuck you!’ Nat Franelli roared.

  He charged the cameraman and would have hurled both him and his equipment off the jetty if Danny hadn’t dropped his precious camera, which crashed to the jetty with the most ominous sound, Danny crashing beside it.

  Perhaps inspired by Nat’s example, or perhaps driven purely by their own joint fury, the Laaksonen brothers charged the journalist.

  Jarrod Keeling wasn’t as fortunate as his cameraman. He ended up spluttering about in the ocean, while Danny, ruthless opportunist that he was, picked up his camera and despite its damage successfully filmed his star journo as a conclusion to the interview. Great footage when all was said and done. Jarrod would have to agree with that.

  ‘Can he swim?’ Jukka muttered to the others.

  ‘Do you fucking care?’ Nat replied, and he meant it: he’d have been happy to let the bloke drown.

  ‘Yep,’ Hekki said, ‘he can. More or less,’ he added as they watched Jarrod clumsily swim for the shore.

  The Laaksonen brothers and Nat were arrested by two of the police officers from Geraldton. Since the refugees’ discovery there had been coppers on regular roster to Shoalhaven.

  The three were taken to Geraldton, where they were charged with common assault and damage to property, after which they were released on bail.

  Back in Shoalhaven early that evening, over a beer at the pub, they were in time to see themselves on television. Just a brief cutaway following a segment about the refugees, but the national news no less. The network had considered it worth sacrificing the dignity of its morning chat-show star for a glimpse of something just a little bit different.

  The three of them fell about laughing.

  ‘Do you reckon that’ll win us any women?’ Jukka asked, and they cracked up once again.

  The refugee situation in Western Australia was by now receiving quite a degree of global interest, and after several more days with still no fresh footage to present, the media focused instead upon the reaction of the general public. On-the-spot interviews were conducted with people in the streets of Australia’s major cities. How did they feel about these Middle Eastern refugees who’d been camping out illegally and for so long on Australian soil? Should these people be granted asylum or should they be sent packing? There were clashes between far-left and far-right wing demonstrators and these too were filmed, some pushing for the rights of refugees, others firmly against the immigration of any Muslims.

  The government’s fears had been realised. The group on Gevaar Island had become a symbol of Australia’s deep-seated unrest, and this was now being called to the attention of the world.

  As for the people of Shoalhaven, they’d had quite enough. Even the mispronunciation of Gevaar Island by the entire population of their country had ceased to amuse and was by now a source of irritation. In every one-on-one interview conducted, on every radio program, in every television news report and panel discussion, Gevaar had always been ‘jeevar’, never ‘hoofire’. Not one Shoalhaven local had bothered to correct the journalists, surprisingly enough not even Ian Tuckey who, like everyone else, had found it amusing. There must surely be some Dutch people out there who were having a huge chuckle over this, they’d all thought. They were no longer thinking that. They just wanted everyone to go home.

  The people of Shoalhaven had been too suddenly and too brutally hauled from their tiny protected enclave into the broader world.

  This fact did have the inevitable effect, however, of prompting further conversation. Many were forming opinions on subjects they’d never before thought of, raising questions that had never before occurred. Many had known very little about Middle Eastern countries. Until now.

  ‘Paul’s wife, Jalila, she’d have to be a Muslim, wouldn’t she?’ Manny asked. He was having a beer at the pub with the three regular die-hards, Archie, Mac and Ian. ‘I mean, she’s from Iraq, so that’d make her a Muslim, wouldn’t it?’ he went on. ‘But she seems a normal sort of bird.’ He gave a bit of a snort. ‘Well, apart from being drop-dead gorgeous,’ he added. ‘I mean, she doesn’t seem to be a terrorist or anything like that.’ Everyone was talking about Muslims and terrorism these days, so Manny had been giving the matter some thought.

  ‘Being a Muslim doesn’t make her a terrorist, Manny,’ Ian said with infinite patience. He didn’t bother wasting his energies on Manny, scorn and derision were reserved for those with a brain.

  ‘She’s not a Muslim actually,’ Mac directed his response to Ian. ‘I asked Lou that same question a while back, presuming she was Muslim, but secular because she doesn’t wear a hijab or anything, and he said, no, she’s a Yazidi. That’s why her family came out here as refugees – the Yazidis have been persecuted for a heck of a long time, apparently.’

  ‘Ah. Yazidi? Really?’ Ian’s ears pricked up at the introduction of a fresh conversational topic. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Who are the Yazidis?’ Archie Lang asked.

  ‘Well, basically they’re Christians,’ Mac said, though he really wasn’t sure. ‘I take it they’d have to be anyway, that’s why they’ve been persecuted.’

  ‘They’re Kurds from the north,’ Ian said, having read a little about the Yazidis. ‘It’s a very old religion they follow, a sort of mix of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, or so I believe. ISIS has been trying to wipe them out for years …’

  Ian Tuckey was off again.

  Lou had worried about the extra attention being paid to Jalila since the discovery of the refugees and the endless discourse inspired by the media. The girl had been warmly embraced as Paul’s wife and had become part of the community, but Mac’s was not the only query he’d fielded lately. The other queries had been along the same lines as the Scotsman’s, simply questions of interest, like where she was from or what religion she might be, nothing particularly threatening, nothing that seemed to indicate suspicion. But Lou worried that at any moment people might link her with the refugees on the island. Was the fact that she’d been in Shoalhaven two months prior to their discovery enough to avert suspicion, or would people wonder whether she might have been brought ashore? Everyone knew the refugees had been out there for some months before their detection by the Fisheries Department.

  Lou held himself solely responsible for this fact. Why, oh why, he agonised, hadn’t he lied to Gary Walton when he’d blurted out the truth that morning? Why hadn’t he said he’d discovered the group living there just the previous week? He’d actually told the man they’d been there close to four months – he could hear himself saying the words. Why?

  He knew exactly why of course. He’d been so desperate to convince Gary that he had come to know these people, that he’d learnt so much from them, that they were good people, gentle people. He’d been so keen for Gary to discover their presence on the island, rather than the fishers or Border Control, that he just hadn’t been thinking straight. Of course he should have lied. Too late now.

  David Miller worried also. David hadn’t stopped worrying since the meeting in the church hall when Nina Adrejic had referred to Jalila and he’d watched from the stage as all heads had turned to the girl. Now, with this intense media attention and the whole town talking, was it only a matter of time before people put two and two together?

  The one person who,
strangely enough, was not worried was Paul. Paul’s attitude was fatalistic. What will be will be, he thought. Resigning himself completely to whatever the outcome, he was sure of only one thing. Come what may, he and Jalila would never be parted.

  Besides, he had something else on his mind. Something that had consumed him for the past two days, ever since he’d discovered Jalila on her knees in the bathroom, head in her hands and apparently in anguish.

  ‘What is it?’ He’d dropped to the floor beside her, terrified. ‘Oh hell, Jalila, what is it, are you all right? Are you hurt?’

  She’d lifted her head, allowing him to take her hands in his, and he’d seen the tears flooding down her cheeks and that same haunted look in her eyes. It was the look he’d seen on the day he’d proposed to her. She was being revisited by the same ghosts of the past that had tormented her that day.

  He raised her to her feet and held her fast, feeling the convulsions, expecting this silent expression of pain to break into the same fearful, racking sobs that had overtaken her then. But the sobs didn’t come.

  Within a very short time, her body had ceased to shudder and her breathing had returned to normal.

  She eased herself away from him and crossed to the washbasin, pulling several tissues from the box that sat on the vanity, blowing her nose, wiping her eyes.

  ‘I am sorry, Paul,’ she said, looking at him in the mirror. ‘I am most sorry, I am not wish for cause you worry.’

  ‘I know that, Jalila, I know.’

  He crossed to stand behind her, circling his arms around her waist, nestling her to him, and she tucked her own arms comfortably about his.

  They stood entwined, gazing at each other in the mirror.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked. ‘Would it help to talk? Would you like to tell me?’

  She nodded. ‘I tell you one day,’ she said. ‘Not now. But I tell you one day. One day soon. I promise.’

  He’d had to settle for that. Nothing was to be gained by pushing her further. But he couldn’t help wondering how soon ‘one day soon’ would be. And he couldn’t help wondering what it was she would tell him. And he couldn’t help wondering if in the telling she would finally be exorcised of the demons that haunted her. All of these thoughts consumed Paul.

  Jalila hadn’t been certain until that morning. She’d missed two of her menstrual cycles, but that had meant nothing, her cycles were rarely regular – she’d missed many throughout her life. During the latter days of her captivity, she’d not menstruated at all. But that morning she’d been ill, and she knew this particular sort of illness. She’d had it before.

  The child, which Jalila had conceived at the age of sixteen, had saved her life. During the early days of her capture, given the opportunity, she would have suicided, but now with the baby growing inside her, she could not bring herself to take two lives. And as the months had passed the child had given her a reason to live.

  She’d said nothing to the soldier who owned her and at first she’d said nothing to the malik yamiin with whom she was housed, those other young women and girls who served as sex slaves. But as her belly had started to swell, she had taken one of them into her confidence, an older woman of around thirty, who was kind to the young ones. The woman did not speak Kurmanji and Jalila spoke no Arabic, but language was no barrier, their communication was perfectly clear. The woman had given Jalila a kaftan that disguised her growing belly and, through mime, she’d advised the girl to offer her backside for sex and to take the man in her mouth. There were many ways to service the soldiers.

  Jalila’s pregnancy had remained undetected until she was nearly full term, but when the soldier who owned her had finally discovered her condition he’d been angry. He’d beaten her. And he’d beaten the baby too, punching her in the belly. But Jalila was strong, and so was her baby; both had survived.

  The soldier had left her alone, choosing one of the other girls to service him, and two weeks later, assisted by the woman who had befriended her, Jalila had given birth to a baby girl on the dirt floor in the corner of the crumbling stone building that housed the malik yamiin.

  But the soldier had wanted her back. He’d paid good money for her; she was his property, and the most beautiful of the malik yamiin.

  A week after the birth, one sultry late afternoon, he’d come into the women’s compound seeking her out. She’d been nestled on her matting in the corner that had become her own special world, leaning against the stone wall, the little mouth sucking greedily at her breast.

  He’d snarled, clearly irritated by the sight of her suckling her child, and the other women present had shrunk away, frightened.

  She’d stood, accepting the fact that she must return to her sexual duties, and disengaging the baby from her breast, she’d been about to place it on the matting. But the infant, abruptly deprived of its food source, had started to cry, which further annoyed the soldier.

  The woman who had befriended Jalila was brave. She had stepped forwards, her arms outstretched – she would mind the child while Jalila went with the soldier.

  But the soldier had drawn his weapon and shot her dead. Then he’d ripped the baby from Jalila’s arms and, holding it by its feet he’d swung his arm in a wide arc before slamming it head-first into the stone wall, the baby’s unformed skull exploding upon impact.

  That was the day Jalila had died.

  The soldier had soon tired of her. He’d sold her to another soldier, who had also tired of being serviced by a dead woman, so he’d sold her in the marketplace, knowing her beauty would fetch a good price.

  Jalila would happily have welcomed her physical death should it present itself, but the thought of suicide had not occurred, perhaps because one could not kill something that was already dead.

  She had, however, preserved her sanity. Over time, she had learnt to blot out memory. The soldiers had been easy – in fact, the soldiers no longer existed, relegated to a past that had never happened. But the sight and the sound of her baby’s death was more difficult, the moment always there on the peripheries of her mind, threatening to return. And she needed to practise great care: the slightest thing could call it back. Like the day Paul had asked her to marry him. She’d been totally unprepared.

  ‘Become my wife, Jalila, please,’ he’d said, ‘become the mother of my children.’ That’s all it had taken.

  And now, discovering she was pregnant, a fact that should have filled her with the greatest joy and which deep in her heart did, still she had been forced to relive that terrible moment.

  She must regain control, and she would. She was a past master at mind control. Furthermore, she would tell Paul her story. She would tell him everything, as she had promised she would. But not until she felt secure in her pregnancy. She didn’t dare.

  She would tell him when her pregnancy started to show, she decided. Then they could both rejoice in the news, and perhaps the awful image, which she knew could never be forgotten, could at least be relegated to a place that no longer threatened. She would tell him when she knew that the child inside her was safe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  At long last the refugees were to be brought ashore.

  Inspector Terence Henley, in a rare gesture of courtesy, informed the town’s citizens, via Gordon Shadforth and David Miller, before announcing the news to the media.

  Gordon and David didn’t arrange an extraordinary meeting of the Shoalhaven Residents’ Group, choosing instead to spread the news via email, phone, text and the ever-reliable personal grapevine, while Terence Henley made his official announcement to the media at a mid-morning press conference he’d called for that very purpose in the dining room of the Shoalhaven Hotel.

  The refugees would be brought ashore the following afternoon, he told the gathering, although as a federal police officer and representing the Australian government, he knew to avoid the term ‘refugees’. These people may be seeking refugee status, but they’d entered the country without authority so the term did not app
ly.

  ‘The unauthorised arrivals on Gevaar Island –’ not unsurprisingly still ‘Jeevar’ ‘– are to be transported by sea directly to the port of Geraldton tomorrow afternoon,’ he announced. ‘There they will be assembled for transport to the airport and immediate flight to a transit camp in Darwin.’

  He looked gravely around at the gathering. ‘It would be very much appreciated if this exercise could be conducted smoothly and with minimal interference from the press and the media in general. I recognise the interest this situation has aroused, which is understandable, but I would ask all those present to keep a respectful distance and let the authorities get on with their job. Thank you.’

  He had not invited questions, but a barrage hit him nonetheless.

  ‘How long will they be in Darwin?’

  ‘Where will they be taken after that?’

  ‘Will they go to Nauru?’

  Terence Henley held up his hand, not even attempting to talk over the babble, and eventually it died down. ‘I can answer none of your questions,’ he said calmly. ‘This is not my area.’

  And he walked away.

  It had been, without doubt, the shortest press conference any of those present had ever attended, but its effect was instantaneous.

  Within less than an hour Shoalhaven had returned to normal, the journalists, the crews, the reporters and photographers having disappeared in a general exodus south.

  Even the chartered cruiser that had been berthed at the marina had headed south. The journalist aboard had considered staying in order to accompany the boat that would transport the refugees to Geraldton the following day, but both the skipper and his own cameraman had convinced him otherwise.

  ‘I won’t be allowed anywhere near the vessel,’ the skipper had said.

  ‘The other blokes’ll be all lined up on the dock in choice positions to film the boat’s arrival and the refugees disembarking,’ the cameraman had said, ‘and we’ll be stuck out on the water. Bloody stupid idea.’