by Zoe Daniel
He’s in floods of tears. ‘Where are you, Mummy? Why didn’t you say goodbye to me? Where are you going? When are you coming back? I want you, Mummy. I need you.’
Fighting tears myself and an almost irresistible urge to flee home, I reassure my son. ‘I’ll be home soon, darling, don’t worry. I love you.’
Then I switch the phone off and get on the plane.
When we land, the fixer isn’t there. I call and he says he’s unavailable. I’m not sure if he’s had a better offer or he just can’t face the day ahead. Either way, it poses a problem because we’re on a tight deadline and now we’re at the airport with a mountain of gear and no transport or translator.
David and I look at each other, united in exasperation. It’s going to be one of those days.
Somehow we cram the gear into a bashed-up old taxi. The driver speaks barely any English but it’s pretty obvious that we’re a TV crew. He takes us straight to one of the hospitals receiving those injured and killed in the stampede.
We can hardly find space to pull up when we get there. The front gate of the hospital is clogged with people looking for missing loved ones. The cab stops in the middle of the road and we squeeze out with just the camera and a microphone and make our way through the throng. Many people, some weeping in fear and horror, are crowded around a large board that has been pinned with photographs of the dead. Rows and rows of snapshots show faces purple and swollen from suffocation. As we expected from what we’ve been told, most are youngish women who were heading out for a night of fun when the disaster struck.
A woman in her late forties, carrying a toddler about Pearl’s age, makes her way to the front of the crowd. There’s silence as she scans the pictures, the girl on her hip also transfixed. Then the woman screams a high-pitched wail, and wails and wails again. The toddler joins her in despair. This heart-wrenching keening keeps the rest of the group mute. Painfully we watch as the pair mourn together, two generations now missing the link in the middle, the toddler’s mother, purple and swollen in a makeshift morgue.
I wonder about our nanny, Sokha, and our housekeeper from our time here. I worry about where they were last night. Any of these women could be them. Everyone goes to the festival.
I withdraw to compose myself, feeling hollow and bleak, as David films the scene with his usual subtle grace. White tents make up the morgue and there are rows of bodies lined up on the ground inside. People are numbly picking their way between them. The wailing grandmother and granddaughter pass by me as they move inside to conduct the next step of their awful search.
I watch them go and then I refocus. We need to keep moving or we’ll miss our deadline. We locate our taxi driver, who has been dutifully waiting with the car and minding the rest of our gear amid the chaos outside the hospital.
‘The bridge,’ I say, ‘do you know it?’
He nods.
Cambodia has so many ghosts, so many lost souls who were murdered by the Khmer Rouge or starved under its reign. It seems especially cruel for a tragedy to strike the young and vibrant here, where a sense of strength and optimism remains in spite of history. I fear that the bridge will be seen as a cursed place, its ghosts not respected because of the fear of contagious bad luck among the superstitious population. But strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen will later weep openly at the site of the disaster, which will be described as the worst tragedy to strike the country since the 1970s.
The bridge is in a developing part of Phnom Penh, not far from the new Australian embassy. A footbridge about three metres wide crosses to a spit where live music was playing and street stalls were operating. By the time we arrive, the area has been quarantined. A few onlookers stand behind police tape, watching officers collect evidence on the bridge. The area is quiet. It’s a hot, sunny day and a gusty wind pushes litter around, detritus from the party. Colourful plastic bags catch and hang like flags near the entry to the walkway.
We’re allowed a little closer than the crowd and my emotions buckle at the sight of hundreds of shoes. They’re all different colours, shapes and sizes, and they’re scattered along and across the bridge, from one side to the other – some upside down, some broken, some piled up. It occurs to me that they will never be walked in again. The many daughters, sisters and mothers and the few sons, brothers and dads who left their shoes here are now lying in those tents outside hospitals around the city, waiting for their families to find them.
We do a piece to camera and then move on. The authorities are busy here. Our presence is not appreciated.
We’ve managed to locate a last-minute fixer: a young, clever woman who can help us with translation. She takes us to another hospital where we speak with survivors who describe agonising pressure followed by numbness as they were squashed by the crowd. Their rescuers hosed them down with water and unpacked them one by one like sacks of rice. One young man is comatose, his wife beside him hollow-eyed. He’s unlikely to recover, the doctor tells me; he was under the crowd and lack of oxygen has left him with serious brain damage. His wife will have to cope with their children alone from now on, and look after him as well.
It’s hard to know what caused the stampede. There’s speculation that people panicked when an electrical fault threw sparks, or that people pushing from each end of the overcrowded bridge caused those in the centre to fall over. A local newspaper claims that police were forcibly clearing the bridge when the disaster happened.
The toll will eventually be around 347 dead plus more than 750 injured.
David and I retreat to our hotel to file. Now the pressure is really on to get our material to Sydney in time for broadcast. We upload our video and audio files to the ABC server, a slow process in Phnom Penh. For a moment it looks like the story will have to be voiced by a reporter in Sydney, making our whole day’s work redundant, but we get everything done just in time.
Then I receive a call asking if I can repackage the story for Lateline. The reporter, a former correspondent who should know better, remarks cuttingly that my 7 p.m. story was badly put together. I haven’t seen it yet, as it was edited in Sydney, but the comments sting after such a difficult day.
I slam the phone down and burst into tears.
I then get myself back together, rewrite the story for Lateline and file for the next morning’s radio programs.
David and I have had enough. We’re shattered.
I call Sokha from the car on the way to the airport. ‘I’m fine, Madame,’ she says, ‘and your old housekeeper is also safe. Are you okay? And how are my Arkie and Pearl?’
I stagger in the door at 1 a.m., twenty-four hours almost to the minute since the phone woke me. It feels like days ago.
Arkie’s sleeping peacefully under his mozzie net and he rolls over and snuggles up to me when I go in to check on him. Pearl’s in the big bed with Rowan. It’s as if none of them have moved since I put her there when I left for the airport, blissfully unaware of every horror I’ve reported on since.
I burrow in, hoping the phone doesn’t ring again tonight.
‘Mumma,’ Pearl mumbles in her sleep.
Soon I fall into troubled dreams of the woman and the baby, and their agony of grief, and the mountains of shoes that have left permanent footprints on my heart.
SIX
It’s finally December.
I start to give myself license to wind down, just a little.
A colleague calls and gives me a friendly order to have some counselling after the stampede, so I give in and phone the 24-hour line that’s made available to correspondents who need to debrief.
A bored-sounding operator takes my call. ‘Where are you based?’
‘Bangkok.’
‘Sorry, where?’
‘Bangkok.’
‘That’s not on my system.’
‘In Thailand,’ I stammer.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Is that in New South Wales?’
I resist the urge to burst out laughing. ‘Er, no.’
Finally a counsellor
calls me back and I give her a quick account of my year.
‘Oh my God,’ she says. ‘Oh how terrible. Oh I can’t imagine. How on earth do you cope? And with children as well? Oh my …’
By the end of it I wonder whether she will need counselling from counselling me. ‘I’m okay, really. Don’t worry.’ I hang up the phone, laughing ruefully.
The humidity is tapering off and Bangkok’s steamy grey skies are suddenly clear and duck-egg blue. It’s the cool season, and the fresh evenings remind me of Christmas holidays at home in southern Australia. Rowan and I barbecue in the garden, drinking wine, while the kids play. We listen to music from home, mostly Paul Kelly, as well as carols sung by African artists that take us back to Joburg.
Arkie and Pearl are beside themselves with excitement at the imminent arrival of Santa from the North Pole and family from Australia. We drag our Kmart Christmas tree from under the stairs and I pull out a box of decorations, with some quirky Santas and reindeers but also a few handmade Cambodian ornaments. Rowan hangs a lantern from the ceiling, a red paper star from Darwin’s Mindil Beach Markets. We decorate the outdoor terrace with lights and pretty coloured balls that we’ve found on our travels. Arkie makes ‘Merry Christmas’ signs for the front door and we sticky-tape up the decorations he’s made at school.
A week or so before Christmas I’m in the office at my computer, finishing off a couple of scripts for stories that can be used over the holidays, when Twitter goes mad. I’ve been a fan of Twitter since the redshirt protests; it was a good source of information about what was going on in Bangkok. Now it’s a multimedia wire service reporting on a boat crash that’s killed dozens of asylum seekers who were trying to reach Christmas Island.
Although it’s officially Australian territory, Christmas Island is more than fifteen hundred kilometres off the Western Australian coast in the Indian Ocean, much closer to Asia than mainland Australia and therefore temptingly close for those prepared to seek asylum by boat. In this case a group of people, mostly from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, have risked travelling in the cyclone season when enormous swells push across the Indian Ocean and smash the sea into any land that’s in the way. The boat, overloaded and woefully equipped, has hit the rocky shore of Christmas Island and disintegrated. Men, women and children have been flung into the water and drowned.
Like everyone else, I watch with horror as the extent of the disaster unfolds in graphic detail on the internet. Locals were almost helpless to save people due to the ferocity of the sea and the sharpness of the cliffs. They post videos of the boat breaking into pieces on the rocks and throwing its occupants into the vicious waves. Small children cling to splintered boards, and men and women cry out for help as locals throw lifejackets. Photographs show Australian Navy boats within metres of the desperate, drowning people, sailors trying to grasp a hand or an arm before its owner is sucked into the boiling sea.
Christmas Island is way out of my patch – it’s covered by the ABC’s team in Perth. But I check flights anyway, just in case we’re needed. I notice that there’s only one direct flight out of Asia per week, and it’s on a Friday from Kuala Lumpur. That’s a couple of days away. Friday will be too late. I dismiss it as an option.
I keep watching the coverage, thinking of all the dysfunctional countries and refugee camps that I’ve visited and what drives people to take such a terrible risk, and with their children no less. A big part of me is very glad that there’s no direct flight out of Bangkok. I’ve seen enough trauma lately. Also, I don’t want to risk missing Christmas. The last flight back to KL before Christmas is full. If we did go, we’d be spending Christmas on the island.
I’m on my way out to grab lunch when I get a call from the assignments editor, Bronwen Kiely. ‘How are you?’ she asks tentatively, aware that I’ve almost hit the wall after a tough year. She explains that the Perth office is having trouble getting a TV crew to Christmas Island. A senior reporter, Andrew O’Connor, has the last seat on the only available flight, so he’s without a cameraman and can only do radio. The commercial networks are chartering planes, which is beyond us.
I explain about the KL flight. ‘Ah well,’ Bronwen says. ‘That’s that, then, and it would be better if you didn’t have to go. Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out at this end.’
I breathe a sigh of relief.
The next morning Bronwen calls me again. ‘We’re still stuck. There’s a chance a crew from Perth might be able to get on an Australian Federal Police charter flight today, but you and David need to be on standby.’
‘That’s fine, but how would we get back?’ I ask. I can’t miss Christmas: Arkie and Pearl would be devastated.
‘We’d find a way.’
For the second time this year, my mum has come to see us and it looks like I’m leaving just a few hours after her arrival. I pack and wait for the call. When it comes, I’m not all that surprised.
Christmas Island takes its name from the day it was discovered, and Arkie and Pearl are convinced I’m going there to pass on their lists to Santa.
David and I fly to KL and stay overnight at the airport. The flight to the island is meant to depart early the next morning, but it’s delayed and we sit around in the airport all day. As far as I’m concerned, the trip is getting less and less appealing. We’ll be landing a full two days after the crash.
Finally the plane appears: a full-sized Malaysia Airlines jet for just us and an Al Jazeera crew. After about an hour and a half, we circle to land on Christmas Island. It’s a harsh and isolated but beautiful speck in the ocean, with stark white foam forming a frothy border between the sapphire-blue sea and the emerald shore. It was sparsely populated for the sake of a phosphate mine before Australia started using it to detain what bureaucrats call ‘irregular maritime arrivals’.
I’ve spoken to Andrew O’Connor on the phone and he’s explained some logistical difficulties. Accommodation is scant and both of the island’s private taxis have been commandeered by a commercial TV crew. Andrew appears at the airport driving a rusty old Toyota 4WD. He’s explained our plight to one of the locals who has generously donated her late husband’s beloved vehicle in return for a donation to the local asylum-seekers charity. The car hasn’t been driven for a number of years, some of the doors don’t open and the whole thing is riddled with rust and salt, but it’s perfect for such an assignment.
David, Andrew and I are staying at what was once a casino for wealthy Asian tourists, especially those from Indonesia, where gambling is banned. During the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, the casino was placed in receivership and sold, becoming a hotel. Now it’s in a serious state of disrepair, its pool cracked and empty, some rooms with their sliding doors open to the elements, and mattresses and old TVs and couches left in mouldy piles outside. We pay an extortionate amount to stay in musty, damp, mosquito-ridden rooms.
We’re a fair way from town so we drive everywhere in the old Toyota. It’s been years since I’ve driven a column-shift manual vehicle and I feel like I’m back in my rural reporting days – although I must say, I encourage Andrew to drive as much as possible. To him it’s similar to driving around the vastness of rural Western Australia, and he even manages some running repairs when required.
Our journeys are made all the more interesting by the giant red crabs. A protected species, they migrate annually from their inland burrows to lay eggs in the sea. There are about forty million of them on the island and drivers are requested not to run them over, an incredibly difficult task when millions of crabs cover the roads at dusk. They also cover the walkways at the hotel and we’re told to keep the doors closed as they’re known to be scavengers.
One night I leave a tampon on the bathroom counter. When I wake up around 2 a.m. and look for it, it’s gone. I search high and low and am totally mystified until I notice a crab-sized gash in the floor. ‘You are kidding me.’ What next?
The immediate aftermath of the crash has passed. The survivors who aren’t in the hospital
are in detention, where media are not allowed. They stage protests from inside, joined by other detainees, but we’ve also missed most of that. Meanwhile, navy divers continue to search for bodies. The conditions are still rough and it’s treacherous for the divers near the jagged overhanging rocks. We watch in sad silence as they look for the dozens of victims who remain unaccounted for.
We spend the weekend filing on the search and putting together a feature piece about the response of Christmas Islanders. Soon the commercial TV crews are starting to pack up and go home. The search has been called off. Andrew, David and I are still filing but it’s clear that only one reporter is needed to do the job.
Andrew is happy to stay, confident he can catch a domestic flight back to Perth before Christmas. David also volunteers to stay on, and I’m given the go-ahead to leave on the first available flight. Bronwen hits the phones to Customs, Immigration and the Federal Police. No one will take me. We’re told they don’t want journalists on the same flights as asylum seekers. I talk to all my contacts on the island, with no success. The one flight back to KL is still fully booked with locals heading out for the festive season. I’m stuck.
I sit in the hotel room with my head in my hands and seriously wonder whether I can continue to do the job if it means sacrificing things like Christmas when the kids are so young.
Eventually I shake it off. I’ve settled back into my script for 7.30 when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Amelia Adams, a friendly reporter from Channel Nine who is departing the next day on a charter plane. She offers me a seat.
The luxurious jet was last used by pop star Beyoncé, or so we’re told. A flight attendant serves us prawns and beers as we fly from Christmas Island to Port Hedland in northern Western Australia to refuel, and then all the way across the continent to Sydney.
My plush surroundings feel completely at odds with the story we’ve just covered, about people who risked everything on a leaky boat to escape war and poverty for the chance of a life in Australia. Forty-two were rescued but fifty drowned. Their case is one of many and it will further fuel a long-running and highly political debate about our country’s treatment of refugees.