by Judy Nunn
He’d hugged her then. Hugged her like the mother figure she’d become to him, as she had to them all. Hala’s strength had perhaps been of even greater value to the group than Rassen’s leadership, for at all times she’d continued to give them hope.
Hala had known that her words had made an impact, but now, as Rassen embarked upon his speech to the crowd, she could see Massoud was simply wishing it was all over. She tried to catch his eye and signal a message to him, but he was gazing vacantly into nowhere. Ah well, she thought, there’s little more I can do.
Rassen’s introductions of the group had had a strange effect upon Massoud. They’d seemed somehow to epitomise the despair he felt. Everyone had been introduced as couples, and now they stood together as couples, life partners sharing the good and the bad that was handed them. That was all Massoud wanted, a partner, someone to love and be loved by. It was what he’d sought in coming to Australia, a land of freedom where homosexuality was not a death sentence.
Hardly likely to find my true love at a refugee camp, am I? he thought cynically, and if they send me back to Iran I’m dead. Not a great deal to feel hopeful about. God I wish this exhibition for the locals was over and they’d just put us on the bus.
Rassen’s speech was brief.
‘When we came ashore to your island,’ he said, and he extended his arms wide to include the others, conveying to the crowd that he was speaking on behalf of those whom he had just introduced, ‘we were more dead than alive. We would most certainly have perished had it not been for the shelter and the food and the water we found there. We owe our existence to those of you whose houses gave us refuge and whose possessions and supplies we took advantage of. We thank you with all our heart for saving our lives.’
As he said this, he placed his hand on his heart, a signal to the others, who did the same, although Hala noticed Massoud did not. His mind was very clearly elsewhere.
‘And we apologise, also with all our heart, for invading your homes as we did,’ Rassen continued. ‘We regret any offence we may have caused in doing so. We meant no harm. We simply wanted to survive.’
He looked around at the others who, again with the exception of Massoud, nodded, the non-English speakers knowing exactly what had been conveyed on their behalf even though they did not understand every word.
‘That is all I have to say,’ Rassen concluded, ‘thank you for listening to me.’
He turned to Gary. They were ready to go now.
But someone stepped from out of the crowd. It was Aappo.
‘I have something to say,’ he announced, ignoring the crowd and addressing the refugees directly, Rassen in particular as the group’s spokesperson.
‘My name is Aappo Laaksonen,’ he said. ‘This is my wife, these are my sons and this is my daughter.’ He gestured about at his family; they were all there the whole lot of them, white hair standing out like beacons, his wife and his daughter also being startlingly fair. ‘We are Gevaar Island fishers and we are happy you use our home. You are welcome.’
He glanced briefly about at the other island fishers. He couldn’t speak on their behalf of course, but his ice-blue eyes dared them to voice any disagreement out loud.
Then, turning back to the refugees, ‘We have gifts for you.’ He gave a brisk nod to his sons, and Jukka and Hekki walked forwards and bent to place the bundles they held in their arms on the jetty at the refugees’ feet.
‘Blankets,’ Aappo went on, as his sons came back to stand by his side. ‘These are good blankets. They are new. I bought them for the season soon to begin. We wish for you to have them.’ His smile, as always, was irresistible. ‘Everyone need a good blanket, I think.’
‘How very kind,’ Rassen said. ‘Our sincerest thanks to you and your family. We are most grateful.’
He picked up the bundles of blankets, there were six in all, and distributed them, explaining in Arabic the exchange that had just taken place.
‘How fine it is that they bear us no ill will, Sanaa,’ Hany said to his wife. The sight of her holding the blanket to her cheek, feeling the softness of its texture against her skin, pleased him immeasurably. She no longer appeared frightened.
‘They are good, these people,’ she replied. It was true: her fear had, for the moment anyway, receded. Sanaa felt welcomed to this country.
Massoud was at long last paying attention. Aappo’s speech had taken him completely by surprise.
He accepted his blanket from Rassen. ‘Thank you,’ he said, directing his thanks out to the crowd, to the fisher and his family. Massoud had not expected this sort of reception. But he couldn’t help himself nonetheless. Upon hearing the exchange between Hany and Sanaa, his cynicism returned. The gift of a blanket does not spell freedom, Sanaa, he thought.
Noting the pleasure with which his gifts had been received, Aappo felt proud. Once again he looked about at his fellow island fishers, and his expression was victorious. None of you thought to bring a present, did you?
But as it turned out, someone had.
Whether it was the doctor’s speech, which had affected her, or whether it was Aappo’s annoying look of one-upmanship, Kath Buckley was prompted to nudge her grandson.
‘Go on, Benjy,’ she muttered. The boy had wanted to bring along a present for the refugee kid, but she hadn’t been at all sure herself. Shit, how would you know? she’d thought. This mob might be a right pack of bastards.
‘We’ll wait and see, love,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe, if the time’s right.’
Well the time’s right, she thought. ‘Go on, love, don’t be shy.’ She gave him another nudge.
Seven-year-old Benjamin was anything but shy. He was a Buckley after all.
He strode up to the refugees, planted himself in front of the little boy and held out the soccer ball with both hands.
‘That’s for you,’ he said very loudly; he had the Buckley voice to boot. ‘It’s a present from me.’
Hamid released the hold on his mother’s hand and took the ball from the older boy. He was genuinely thrilled. He’d been ordered to leave his toys behind in the green hut, the one that belonged to Paul. They’d taken everything they’d been given by Lou and Paul to the green hut before the authorities had arrived. They’d left everything behind. The clothes, the playing cards, the chess set, the draughts, and of course, the soccer ball and the tennis ball.
‘Thank you,’ he said, his face alight with pleasure.
‘It’s not a new ball,’ Benjy admitted in all honesty, ‘but it’s a beauty.’
‘Thank you,’ Hamid said once again, giving full voice and in his very best English. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘That’s orright.’
Benjy turned and marched back to his grandmother.
Kath was so proud.
Jalila’s view of the proceedings had been severely thwarted. Paul had kept her towards the very back of the crowd, tucked close in beside him where she’d caught barely a glimpse of her friends, and certainly no view of little Hamid at all.
Now, at the sound of his voice, she longed for the sight of him, if only for a brief second or so.
She wriggled away from Paul and, before he could stop her, she’d circled behind the crowd to stand at one side where she had a clear vision of those on the jetty. But of course those on the jetty now had a clear eyeline to her.
Horrified, Paul quickly joined her. If there was going to be any risk of exposure then they would face it together.
He made no attempt to pull her back into the crowd, which would only draw the attention of the townspeople, a situation that in his opinion was equally dangerous.
This particular fear, however, appeared groundless. The crowd’s attention was focused solely upon the refugees. No one took any notice of Jalila.
Little Hamid was the first to see her, which was not surprising – his eyes had been searching the crowd for her right from the start.
‘Will I see Jalila?’ he’d asked his mother when they knew they were to be taken
ashore.
‘I do not think so,’ she’d replied, ‘but if you do see her, you must not know her, Hamid. You understand this, don’t you? You must not know Jalila or Paul or Lou. They are all strangers to you.’
‘Yes, I understand this.’
He did. And now as he saw her, he displayed not a hint of recognition. He was simply a little boy looking at a crowd of strangers. But as their eyes met, his left hand, the hand that had been holding his mother’s, crept up to the breast pocket of his shirt, where through the fabric he could feel the shape of the stone that rested against his heart.
The message was all Jalila needed. She could have melted back into the crowd and no one would have known, but her eyes looked up from the boy’s and directly met those of his mother, the woman with whom she had bonded so closely.
Azra had sensed from her child’s very stillness that he was no longer searching the crowd – that he had found what he was looking for: Jalila.
The language of hands continued, a silent line of communication that no one else could read.
Azra gently rested her fingers on Hamid’s shoulder, indicating she also had seen Jalila and that she was congratulating him on his self-control.
Jalila in turn raised a hand to her stomach in a clear message that Azra immediately understood.
Azra touched her husband’s arm, a simple gesture of affection.
‘She is here, Karim,’ she said very softly and in their own language, feeling quite safe as she did so. No one else spoke Hazaragi, not even Rassen. ‘And she is with child.’
But Azra had forgotten the talents possessed by the young man standing right beside her, the linguist who had understood her every word.
Massoud’s eyes sought out Jalila where she stood a little to one side of the crowd, Paul protectively beside her.
You may be lucky after all, Jalila, he thought. You’re safe for now in this close community in this isolated place, and one day when you are discovered, as I have no doubt you will be, your child may save you. A child fathered by an Australian and born on Australian soil. I hope for your sake this proves so.
It was time to leave. Flanked by the accompanying officials and police, the refugees set off along the front towards the marina car park where the coach awaited them.
Massoud drank in one last look at Jalila before he turned to go.
He found the sight of her uplifting. Jalila symbolised more than hope. Jalila was the face of freedom.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, my love and thanks to my husband, Bruce Venables, who remains a constant source of encouragement and inspiration, not to mention the fun and laughter we manage to squeeze out of life.
My thanks also to those invaluable friends who offer both encouragement and assistance of the most practical kind in their various areas of expertise: Michael Roberts, Colin Julin, James Laurie, Sue Greaves, Vanessa Downing and Susan Mackie-Hookway. To family members too for their highly practical help, particularly given the fact they live in Geraldton and have a great knowledge of the area: Rob and Dee Nunn, Cory Kentish and also Dee’s mates, Kel and Matt Pirrottina.
Thanks again to my publisher, Beverley Cousins; my editors, Brandon VanOver and Kate O’Donnell; my publicist, Jessica Malpass, and the entire hard-working team at Penguin Random House Australia.
A very big thank you to my invaluable ‘Geraldton connection’, most particularly to Greg Finlay of the Department of Fisheries and to Susan Smith, Manager of the Geraldton Regional Library. Thanks also to Glenda Blyth at Gero’s Visitor Centre.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my good friend and well-known human rights activist Dr Meredith Burgmann, and also to Phil Glendenning, Chair of the Refugee Council of Australia. Both were tremendously helpful with my research, but above all it was these two who introduced me to Mohammad and Shayesteh Sadeghpour, whose stories, shocking though they were, proved inspirational. Mohammad and Shayesteh, thank you so much for sharing your past with me, for introducing me to your friends and family, and for being the brave souls you are.
Among my research sources I would like to recognise:
Abrolhos Islands – Conversations, Victor France, Larry Mitchell, Alison Wright; Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1998.
The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria, Janine de Giovanni, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.
And in particular, the incredible collection of material lent to me by Mohammad Sadeghpour.
Judy Nunn’s career has been long, illustrious and multi-faceted. After combining her internationally successful acting career with scriptwriting for television and radio, Judy decided in the ’90s to turn her hand to prose.
Her first three novels, The Glitter Game, Centre Stage and Araluen, set respectively in the worlds of television, theatre and film, became instant bestsellers, and the rest is history, quite literally in fact. She has since developed a love of writing Australian historically based fiction and her fame as a novelist has spread rapidly throughout Europe, where she is published in English, German, French, Dutch, Czech and Spanish.
Her subsequent bestsellers, Kal, Beneath the Southern Cross, Territory, Pacific, Heritage, Floodtide, Maralinga, Tiger Men, Elianne and Spirits of the Ghan confirmed Judy’s position as one of Australia’s leading fiction writers.
In 2015 Judy was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her ‘significant service to the performing arts as a scriptwriter and actor of stage and screen, and to literature as an author’.
By the same author
The Glitter Game
Centre Stage
Araluen
Kal
Beneath the Southern Cross
Territory
Pacific
Heritage
Floodtide
Maralinga
Tiger Men
Elianne
Spirits of the Ghan
Children’s fiction
Eye in the Storm
Eye in the City
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Version 1.0
Sanctuary
ePub ISBN – 9780143783879
First published by William Heinemann in 2017
Copyright © Judy Nunn, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A William Heinemann book
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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Cover images: island © Karl Monaghan Photography; birds and jetty © Depositphotos
Cover design: Lisa Brewster/Blacksheep Design
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