How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling

by Martin Chambers

  The main man was Jimmy and he spoke in this growly slurred way that made the words difficult to understand but, you know, the funny thing was that unlike Charles, who at first I found difficult to understand, with Jimmy you didn’t understand the words he used but you knew exactly what he meant.

  ‘You come walk with us. We show you special place like walkabout tour. Like him you said.’

  Jimmy led the way down the scree and over loose boulders. At the bottom of the slope there were caves of a sort, more half-caves, overhangs with smooth rock behind and shaded by large but spindly white-trunked trees. A group of women were sitting in the shade of one of these trees mixing some mud of different colours on some flat rocks.

  ‘Touchup ’em drawings.’

  Jimmy pointed to the smooth rocks behind and I saw that it was completely covered in pictures, stylised stick figures of lizards and kangaroos and people between handprints and random lines and dots. It was amazing. Pictures overlapped and the more I looked the more I saw I was seeing back in time, back over generations to a time long ago when the first of these might have been made.

  ‘How old are these?’ I asked Jimmy.

  He laughed.

  ‘Oh, ’em plenty old. Older than going back ’em old people and they old people and more old people after that. Plenty old. But we fixim for the tour. Make ’em plenty good.’

  I remembered reading about the age of some of the Aboriginal art, up to thirty thousand years old, and how the people had been keeping the galleries continuously over generations of habitation. I was wondering what they thought of all these refugees, people who fled the place of their birth and abandoned their ancestors. Looking at the art and listening to Jimmy explain it to me I got the sense that they had been watching strangers come and go for all of those thirty thousand years, and that they accepted this in the same way they accepted the inevitability and passing of seasons.

  ‘We bring people here, Jimmy?’

  This was going to be brilliant for our tours, but I’d have to shift my secret stash to a safer place.

  ‘Oh yes, I think plenty good for tour. You got good camp for ’em up there, we bring walk down here, walk around, sit down for story. This good place. Waterhole ’long there, plenty bird and tucker, bush tucker always plenty. Them tours always popular. Maybe sometime we catch bungarra, take uptop to cook him on fire.’

  He took me for a walk along the creek, along a path to a beach and reed-lined pool. On the far side was a steep slope of rocks covered in a tangle of vegetation so the path was the only way in. It was a hidden oasis. Obviously they had known about it forever, but it was new to me. I wondered how many more secret places like this there were. We could open up a whole new part of the station and run a lot more tourists than we were currently. Both types of tourist.

  But that was after. Before I talked to the muster crew, I talked to everyone together in the canteen. I had got them all in from the outcamps and the coast and wherever else they had been and in the afternoon we watched a movie in the canteen. I had brought a player and a projector up from Melbourne, and a whole bunch of DVDs, and the one I made them watch was Blood Diamond. That’s where a group of South African mercenaries are looking for some smuggled diamonds, but it has a great scene in it where the Sierra Leone rebels are chopping off people’s arms. ‘Short sleeve or long sleeve?’ they asked. Later, Simms killed a bullock and we had a big party. Then the next day I told them how things were.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you all know, to some extent, that Palmenter Station has been doing some stuff, bringing in people from overseas, asylum seekers and such. I am not sure exactly how much each of you knows or is aware of, but I want to be clear about where we all stand.’

  Except for Spanner, all of them thought Palmenter was an absentee owner and I was doing his bidding. I wasn’t going to change that belief, but I did want them to know I was calling the shots and that things were going to change. I went on.

  ‘Palmenter is not here now. He’s left me in charge and I want to make it a better place. Not just to work, but it includes that. I think we have to start with each and every one of us acknowledging what it is we do, and why we do it, and if you don’t agree you should leave. You are free to go. I’ll make sure you get all your pay and entitlements and Spanner will set you up a van and off you go. No problems. You won’t hear from us again and we don’t want to know about you and I know you will not say anything to anybody, ever, because, let’s face it, we are all implicated in what we have been doing up to now.’

  We were sitting in the canteen. It was morning, a time I figured they would have sobered up from the night before but not yet started for today. This bunch has probably never been in a meeting anything like this ever before and they sat looking at me, not talking, taking in everything I said. I wondered what they thought of me. Palmenter would speak to you alone, in twos or threes. I hoped I was coming across as powerful, competent. We had done some of this sort of motivational stuff in the business unit I was studying. Inside I was shaking. If this didn’t work I would have to be the first to leave, faster and further than any of them. But it wasn’t over yet. I hadn’t finished with them.

  ‘So that is the first thing. You are free to go, to find something else.’

  I looked slowly around the room, at each and every one of them. I could see they were fidgety. I let them stew for a while. Next, I would offer them the freedom to come and go as they pleased and a share of the money if they stayed to help. They would be on easy street, they could never find anything half as good, but I wanted to make them think whether they wanted to be a part of this. For commitment, sometimes you have to push people a little harder than they are prepared to go, and I had deliberately chosen to pressure them while hungover from such a great party the night before.

  When the tension in the room was almost unbearable I continued.

  ‘But at least you have the freedom to do that, to be born into the lucky country and can live pretty well, do pretty much what you want. These people,’ and I indicated with a raised arm the faraway coast and the boats coming in, ‘these people have none of that and that is why we do this. To give them a chance at a better life. If you don’t agree with that, if you think they are just fodder to fund our money-hungry materialistic lives and it is fair to rip them off and take everything we can from them and then set them free with even less than the nothing they had back home, if you think that, you ought to leave.’ I was getting worked up. After the movie yesterday my words were producing the effect I wanted. It was even working on me. I was on a roll.

  ‘If you think that, I don’t want you here,’ I said, ‘and we are just going to trust you not to tell anyone, and off you go to live your quiet meaningful life in some place else.’ I paused again, not as long, but long enough.

  ‘If you don’t leave, let’s be really clear. You will be a part of it and I want you to stay because you think that what we are doing is good and worthwhile and a better thing to do with your life. It is the moral thing to do.’

  I told them they were good at what they did and that my preference was they stayed, and I told them about some of the stories. From Lucy, from her family, and those that I had heard from those four in the van on the drive south. These stories were the reason we had to do this, I told them. I said it would not always be easy and that life on the station would not always be paradise, but if we were all in it together it would be as close to that as it could be. A life of outdoor freedom with trips to the coast as often as you wanted, even trips up to Sumba for surfing, mini-van collection trips to the cities every month if you wanted them, and a place at the homestead that they could always call home.

  My guess was that if one left they all would. But they all stayed. Say any old shit often enough and you start to believe it. I was even getting teary myself. I was now the Mr Big of People Smuggling.

  I say now, but of course that was back when, and now it is all gone. Closed down. Nothing there except them excavating the pit and
uncovering bodies and I’m doing twenty years. But it’s better than Spanner got. I don’t regret any of what I’ve done, although I do sometimes think I should’ve acted sooner. Sometimes I think I’m a little too cautious and in the time it takes to decide things it becomes too late.

  19

  After the bank visit, we got our satellite dish and I set up email accounts for everyone so we were in touch with the outside world again. Palmenter had not allowed any personal mail through but I believe you must treat people with respect and trust them, so I allowed them to come into the office for their emails once a week.

  That was how I found out that my father had kidney failure. I invited my parents to visit and they kept stalling. It was a big deal for us because of course we couldn’t have them arrive right when the imports were coming through. By then we had camps away from the homestead and up on the coast, but even so it would require some coordination to show them around and not let them see anything.

  I could tell something was wrong and eventually Mum admitted why they couldn’t visit. Dad had to be within a day’s travel of the dialysis unit and on call in case a donor kidney came up. It was a waiting game. For now he was okay but sooner or later he would need a transplant. Mum told me all of that on the phone one night, but it was Simon who emailed me and told me how sick Dad really was.

  It was unlikely that he would ever get a kidney. The transplant waiting lists are years long as there are not enough people who die with good kidneys. Dad could not be moved up the list because of his age and other things – of course older people have more health issues! I wanted to fly down to Melbourne to argue with the doctors who made these choices but then I heard through someone that in Mumbai a transplant could be arranged almost immediately. My second overseas trip was to India. On the way I arranged to meet Newman who was living in Indonesia and running that end of the operation. I thought he could put me in touch with some people up the line who might help. You get a bit of an idea about what is going on and then you ask a few more questions and piece the whole thing together. People who need the money were selling all kinds of things.

  I emailed Newman and asked if we could meet in Bali. Of course I couldn’t say why. Even in an email you have to be careful what you say.

  Newman named a bar on the beach at Sanur. I arrived early and took an outside table where I had a view of the beach. From where I sat, near me at tables and in the clothing stalls opposite, far off in the surf or lying on the beach, everywhere I could see fat white westerners holidaying without a care in the world. Newman must have arrived and seen me because he came to the table with two beers.

  ‘Been to Indo before?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  He didn’t comment. He didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to ask what this was about and I was happy to sit and watch. A group of women were negotiating the price of a massage with a man and a woman. Honeymooners by the look of them. As we watched I wondered if the ability to idly watch the world go on around was a skill learned from our time on Palmenter Station where every afternoon there was a beer with the same four blokes.

  Eventually, though, I had to say something.

  ‘My father is sick and needs a kidney transplant. I am on my way to Mumbai to see about getting it done there.’

  ‘Is it safe there? Indian doctors, I mean?’

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me. You ever been to Mumbai? A lot of our people come via Mumbai, don’t they.’

  ‘I’d say nearly all of them. Across the Arabian Sea or down via Pakistan. Mumbai’s the main clearing house. But we don’t get involved that early, they gotta get to Indo themselves. Jeez, if we opened up in Mumbai, the gates would really open.’

  I smiled at that. Two western businessmen discussing their business. A man came by and offered us some watches from a wooden box he carried slung around his neck. Genuine, he said. Newman said something to him in Indonesian and he left.

  ‘Some of this gear is genuine. Probably comes from our people, they can wear it on the way here and then sell it to pay for the trip. Lot of good stuff ends up being sold on the beaches here. People don’t know the difference, think it is all fake.’

  Newman didn’t seem to see where I was heading. Perhaps he thought I really wanted to meet to discuss our supply chain, see the ins and outs of how things went.

  ‘I was wondering, y’know, about getting a kidney there for my dad. I’ve heard through the grapevine that it can be done. That’s why I’m off to Mumbai.’

  ‘You want to close down for a while? We’ve got them lined up all the way back,’ he said. ‘You can’t stop now. Charles and Simms take care of your end?’

  ‘No, that’s okay. Whole thing runs itself now. You keep taking them in to Spanner, he’ll coordinate the rest. I hear that you can buy body parts there. My dad needs a kidney,’ I repeated.

  ‘Mumbai?’

  ‘Yeah, know anyone?’

  ‘You want to bring in a kidney?’ He looked at me inquisitively. I got the impression that it could be done.

  ‘How would you do that? Could you buy a kidney?’

  ‘You can buy anything, and I mean anything, in Mumbai. You gotta be just a little bit careful, pay the right people, you can’t just barge in there and order a kidney. But wouldn’t you have to keep it chilled? Have to fly it all the way, surely?’

  I considered that. My idea was to fly my dad into a hospital in India and have the whole operation done there. For a start I didn’t know how I would go about explaining the sudden acquisition of a kidney to the surgeon in Melbourne. Also, wasn’t there some sort of compatibility thing with organs? But it was an attractive alternative. I didn’t want to trust a surgeon in a third world country if I didn’t have to.

  ‘How much would a kidney be? Who sells them?’

  He watched me for a moment without answering.

  ‘Is that how they afford our trips?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t think so. Not usually.’ I could tell it was only half the answer and waited for the other half. ‘You do hear of some people selling one of their own kidneys. But most of it is they sell the whole lot. Two kidneys, liver, lungs and heart, eyes. Whatever they can that is still healthy.’

  ‘But that would kill them!’

  ‘You asked. Look, they take the old and sick to the hospital. They’re gunna die anyway. Sometimes they let them live in a room at the hospital until they die, then they have the organs. Hospital feeds them, keeps them comfortable, gets them healthy. In return, their organs are used when they die. They don’t need them anymore.’

  ‘But they don’t kill them? They wait for them to die?’ Even that was a horrible thought.

  He shrugged. ‘Some children are sold as slaves into the Middle East. That’s one way out. Die in the slums or a life working for some rich oil sheik. Others, if they are lucky enough, pretty ones are prostitutes, or the strong ones maybe work. While their bodies hold up.’ He looked at me and followed my gaze around the holidaymakers. ‘I don’t think they kill anybody. That’s the stuff of movies. The old people are happy to be given a home and to be well fed for a change, and the family get enough to come to a better life in a new country. It’s a fucked-up world, but nothing you gunna do gunna change it. Take your dad there. I’ll give you a few names, some contacts, some of my people who you can trust.’

  In Mumbai I was met by a small Indian man who spoke with the same singsong accent that Charles did, and if it hadn’t been for years of listening to and trying to understand Charles I doubt I would have understood anything he said. His name was Siddiqi and Newman must have told him what I was after.

  ‘Everybody call me Sid,’ he sang. ‘First, I am taking you to the number one market. Here, I am thinking you will find what you want.’

  He bundled me into a waiting taxi and talked quickly and at length with the driver who regarded me curiously in the rear-view mirror. The drive took over an hour, through crowded chaotic streets full of blaring horns and yelling, trucks and cattle and carts and
people and bikes and scooters and of course thousands of taxis, but for all the noise and swearing not once did we actually stop. Always we edged ever forward, slowly, then accelerating through some gap in the traffic that would magically appear just as we got to it. How would you explain to this taxi driver that we drove on roads in Australia that for a whole day you might not see another car? If you told that to him would he be excited to go there, or terrified at the isolation and boredom? I wondered this as Sid chatted away like a canary, not seeming to need me to answer more than occasionally. I wondered what our imports were told to expect when they got to Australia. Or what was it that made them choose Australia in the first place. There had to be some attractive promise made by someone. I did not believe if you had grown up with the noise and bustle and chaos of Mumbai or Karachi or any of the cities or even the towns of these crowded places, that you would ever find satisfaction in the barren landscape of Australia. Not even in our cities where the homes were big and spread out and hidden from one another by high walls so that the suburbs were forever asleep. I could never have lived in Mumbai and I doubted that anybody at home in Mumbai could live happily in Australia.

  Perhaps I was seeing things as I wanted to. I was in the people-moving business and I had to believe that those I was moving wanted to go where I was taking them, that anybody with the desire could have bought a ticket and that the reason they didn’t was that we are all more comfortable with the familiar. Home is what you are born into. But as we drove past crowded slums of cardboard and plastic or the beggars in doorways I knew that these were the ones that could not afford to move, that their whole life was this, and I thought about what Newman had said. If you were ill, you knew you were going to die, wouldn’t you too be grateful for a place to live out your days in comfort and with a full belly? Isn’t that what we all do? We spend the intervening years between birth and death trying to make ourselves more comfortable. Buying a kidney off a dying man so my father could live comfortably for a few more years was a thing where everybody could end up happy. Win-win, as they say. But I was not prepared for where Sid took me.