by Zane Lovitt
‘Ummm…so the other day, my dad went out to buy a new washing machine…’ He shifts in his seat. ‘This is Monday. He never came home. And we want someone to look for him.’
Either she doesn’t know much English or she doesn’t consider it her place to speak: the mother does nothing more than gaze longingly at the boy and me.
I nod, respectfully. ‘You think he’s run off?’
‘He wouldn’t do that. I mean…but if he did do it, we have a right to know, right?’
His demeanour is self-assured, but his appearance tells a different story. As well as the hair and the pressed shirt, he’s cleaned his shoes and left scuffs of polish on his white socks. One ear is pierced, but he’s taken the stud out. He’s red beneath his chin because he doesn’t shave often, but he shaved today.
He’s a punk who’s dolled himself up for me.
I ask, ‘Did he pack a suitcase?’
‘Nuh. Nothing like that.’
‘Any money missing?’
‘We don’t know. None of us…He’s the only one who can use the bank account.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Us and my two sisters.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Nazeem.’
‘Nazeem, did you ring around the hospitals? Go to the police?’
‘Yeah, but Mum reckons the police don’t care about us cos we’re Turks.’
She shifts in her chair, unhappy with how her son has dobbed her in for being ethnic and paranoid. So she understands English.
‘You think he’s left you, right?’ I say this to her. ‘So what this is really about is getting access to the money. Am I right?’
She shakes her head, still doesn’t want to speak to me. The boy makes another face.
‘Not really. Mum doesn’t reckon there is any money. We just want to know, like, where is he?’
‘I’m four hundred dollars a day. Can you afford me?’
Pain flashes on his face, as if he’s the one whose head beats a lonely, monumental throb. Pieces of last night come back to me like shards of a mirror: me slumped on a bar stool…me ordering doubles, storing it up for winter…me getting stroppy with a bartender…so stroppy I break a cocktail glass. Me being asked to leave.
I came here to sleep because it was closer.
He says, ‘Ummm…well, not straight off. But it would only be for a couple of months. I’ve got a job, at a halal butcher in Coburg. I’m going to get some extra shifts because it’s coming up to summer and everyone goes on holiday.’
I pinch my eyeballs with my fingers. ‘What can you pay me up-front?’
Nazeem’s mother’s eyes aren’t pleading anymore. With all this talk of money, they’re worried.
He says, ‘No…I mean, nothing. But it would just be until my extra shifts start. I thought, if you want, we could have a payment plan.’
‘That’s what you thought?’
Nazeem scowls slightly, interprets my tone as a failure to understand. He tries to explain:
‘It was in the paper…what you did. It was all about that crazy Greek bloke whose trial was yesterday.’
‘Yesterday wasn’t his trial. It was his sentencing.’
‘Yeah, well…You know what the newspaper said? They called you Kahraman. That’s a Turkish word. It means—’
‘I know what it means,’ I say. Loud enough to make him stop talking. ‘It’s a word that…’
My hands press against my head, try to control everything inside there. When I glance up, I can’t bear to look at that Turkish face anymore. I flick my fingers at him.
‘Get out of my office.’
His brown eyes start. ‘But…But we read about you—’
‘You read about me and thought, here’s a soft touch. You thought you could come in here and point out to me how Turkish you are and then I’d solve all your problems for you. Well, I can guess what the papers said and I do not give a shit.’
The shock is there in his teeth, in the way he stares at me. For a moment, he’s dumbfounded. Mum looks desperately from Nazeem to me, then she speaks. Her voice is a whispery buzz.
‘Please, sir. We have not money. For me it is very important if my husband left me. It is very important. Also, it is important that he pay money for his children.’
I give her my sour face.
She says, ‘And we pay you. Nazeem pay you because he works. December, January, he works. He pay you December, January. But now must look for Khalid—’
I can’t listen to this. I shake my head.
‘It’s a little rude, don’t you think? Asking me for a favour? I don’t know you. I don’t owe you anything.’
‘Please—’
‘And what if your old man’s gone back to Ankara? You think I’m going to pay for a flight over there so I can bring him back? Get the fuck out.’
I wave at the door again. Nazeem is still confused.
‘But…It would only be for a month or—’
‘Get the fuck out of here!’
The sound of my voice hurts my ears, head. It’s enough to blow them out of their chairs. She doesn’t hesitate, bustles straight out the door and she’s gone. Nazeem walks slower, maybe searching for something to get me to change my mind or just to listen. He must realise his options are nil because suddenly the punk in him is back and he says, ‘Hey, fuck you, man…’
He leaves, doesn’t shut the door.
And I’m still hunched over the desk. I’ve barely moved since they walked in. It occurs to me that I might vomit again and I decide that if I do, I’m not going to run to the toilet. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen right here where I’m sitting. That, I think, would be appropriate.
A TV cameraman sets up a tripod near us. Then a skinny reporter in a blue suit and red tie, holding a microphone with a network logo on it, positions himself with his back to the courthouse and says, ‘Face check.’
The cameraman twists the lens, his eye flat to the viewfinder. ‘You’re fine.’
‘Tell me when you’re ready.’
Behind him, the crowd isn’t big, but it’s enough to block foot traffic along William Street and piss off everyone who’s due in court today. Barristers and their clients push through the gathering of mostly Turkish church-goers who weren’t there for any portion of the trial; they’ve come out today because their priest asked them to. Already, some of them are going home, stiffly climbing onto the bus that stops directly beneath Lady Justice, with her scales and her blindfold and her toga. Dennis and I are loitering, away from the crowd, hands in pockets, quiet. I don’t know what we’re still doing here except maybe bearing witness.
The cameraman silently points his finger. The skinny reporter drops into his TV voice.
‘Spiros Angelis was visibly shaken today as Justice Linehan sentenced him to a non-parole period of eleven years in prison.’
Dennis rotates slowly to look at me. When I look back, he flicks his chin at something in the crowd. It’s the Director of Public Prosecutions, wearing his massive Soviet-style greatcoat, shaking hands with a circle of middle-aged admirers, all of them Turkish. The old DPP just won herself a seat in State Parliament and already this new guy’s glad-handing like he’s running for office too.
The reporter says, ‘In May, a jury found Angelis guilty of the murder of nineteen-year-old Osman Yusedich, a student and beloved member of the Turkish community. Osman was stabbed to death in a Carrum Downs carpark in the early hours of November fourth last year.’
Dennis lights another cigarette, offers me one. I tell him I don’t smoke. When he pockets them, I see the flash of a revolver inside his jacket.
‘What did you bring that for?’
‘It’s the one they gave me at the academy.’
‘You bring it to court? Who are you going to shoot, the tipstaff?’
Dennis looks at me with intense boredom. ‘If this gets any worse, I’m going to shoot us both right here in front of the press. Don’t take your shitty mood out on me.’
The cameraman looks over here. The smoke from Dennis’s cigarette is wafting past the reporter and maybe we’re talking too loud. But he takes a good look at us and, no, he’s not going to tell us off.
The reporter says, ‘During the trial, Spiros Angelis claimed to have encountered Osman Yusedich whilst coming home from a Dandenong nightclub. He gave evidence that Yusedich provoked the confrontation which culminated in the teenager’s death.’
None of Spiros’s family is here and there isn’t another Greek within eight city blocks. It’s a black day for them and they want nothing to do with it. Zeus himself could appear and tell them, ‘Go to the Supreme Court’, and still they wouldn’t be here. What’s funny is, even if they all knew what I know, what Dennis knows, they’d still be ashamed. No matter how you look at it, a Greek killed a Turk for no good reason.
The reporter continues: ‘Justice Linehan said that despite Angelis’s intellectual disability and pronounced psychological immaturity, the nature of the crime demanded the harshest of penalties. Angelis appeared shocked by the decision, hanging his head and wiping away tears. But outside the court there was jubilation amongst members of the Turkish church groups who’d fought for justice, even after police had given up any hope of solving the case.’
Father Orhan Safak doesn’t look jubilant, but his moustache has grown so big now that it’s possible he is and I can’t tell because of all the hair. As I watch, he moves across the crowd of Catholics to the DPP. He shakes his hand, talking earnestly. They hug.
I say to Dennis, ‘How does it get worse than this?’
The reporter: ‘The victim’s mother, Miresha Yusedich, was also in tears as the sentence was read out. She told reporters that her prayers have been answered, and that justice has finally been done for her cherished son.’
Miresha is hunched just this side of the steps leading up to the court, looking stoic, partly because of what happened today, partly because she’s deaf and she can’t hear what people are saying. She’s dressed all in black again and I’m wondering what colour she used to wear before her son was murdered. Holding her hand is Anna, talking to a court reporter, animated, like she’s about to snatch away the notebook and write tomorrow’s page-six copy herself.
I look at Dennis. He’s watching Miresha too. He shrugs.
‘At least there’s that.’
Anna looks over at me and points. Miresha nods earnestly at the journalist, gestures towards me.
I duck my head, scratch at my brow.
The reporter next to us lowers the microphone, drops his reporter’s face and raises his eyebrows at the cameraman. ‘How was that?’
The cameraman nods and shrugs. ‘That’s a print.’
The two of them drift away and I can see the other court reporter, the one who was talking to Miresha. She’s wading through the crowd, headed over here. Her eyes are locked on to me and she’s smiling, trying to freeze me in her headlights.
I say to Dennis, ‘Let’s go. Come on. Let’s go right now.’
Dennis drops his cigarette on the footpath, grinds it under his shoe.
‘Yeah. Let’s get fucking drunk.’
‘I don’t want to drink.’
‘Where you want to go? Church? You and I aren’t welcome there today. A bar is the next best thing.’
‘I don’t really drink.’
‘Fuck that. You just need to learn how.’
What Spiros does when he’s scared is he smirks. It’s the same thinning of the lips he’d do if he was blowing on a hot cup of coffee, only with a twinkle in his eye that seems arrogant but is really him floundering, shielding himself with a face that says this is all so funny.
The prosecutor asks, ‘Mister Angelis, were you under the influence of drugs on the night in question?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Not marijuana, speed, ecstasy?’
‘No, I don’t do drugs.’
‘Had you been drinking?’
‘No.’
The jury watches him, focused but detached, the way scientists watch monkeys. They’re not sneaking any Sudoku today. When the trial started, the judge flat-out told them that it would turn on what Spiros had to say. That their one job was to judge if Spiros killed Osman because his own life was threatened, or just because.
So here they are, with their listening faces on. And there’s Spiros, smirking.
The prosecutor says, ‘You’d patronised the Vitamins nightclub for four or five hours, but in that time you took no drugs and drank no alcohol?’
‘I don’t do drugs.’
‘Do you drink?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Had you had anything to drink that night?’
‘Maybe I had a beer.’
‘Maybe you had a beer.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe you had more than one?’
‘Maybe.’
‘How many beers would you say you had?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘More than five?’
‘Nuh. No. Not that much.’
‘Okay. But you probably had a couple of beers.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Even though you said a moment ago that you hadn’t been drinking.’
Something else about Spiros is he had ADHD as a kid and went to a special clinic in Ringwood. Earlier this week, a psychiatrist was sitting where Spiros is sitting now. He said Spiros had a mild intellectual disability and sub-average cognitive functioning, which means there was never going to be much that that clinic could do for him. While the psychiatrist gave evidence, Spiros sat in the dock, squeezing his lips together with both hands, and the jury must have been thinking what I thought the day I met him: you don’t need a shrink to know there’s something wrong with the boy.
‘Um…I don’t know.’
His eyes look across the courtroom, pleading for help. At first I think he’s looking at me, but it’s his brother, George Angelis, seated behind me near the entrance to the gallery, that he’s appealing to. George is only five feet tall, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in width. He’s a bodybuilder, and even now, with him wearing a suit for maybe the first time in his life, it’s obvious.
With Spiros’s eyes on him, George makes no gesture or movement.
‘What don’t you know, Mister Angelis?’
‘It was last year,’ Spiros blurts, shaking more visibly now, his eyes urging the prosecutor to understand. And the prosecutor raises his hand, palm out, as if to say, ‘Relax.’ But what he’s really saying is, ‘Look how psycho this psycho is.’ He speaks softly, as if to a newborn.
‘That’s okay. That’s okay. Let’s change the subject. How would you describe Osman Yusedich?’
Spiros blinks.
‘I don’t know. What do you mean?’
‘How would you describe his body size?’
‘He was fat.’
‘He was fat.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Would you describe yourself as fat?’
‘I don’t reckon.’
‘Do you exercise or partake in regular physical activity?’
‘I do kickboxing.’
‘You’re a kickboxer?’
‘Yep.’
‘How often?’
‘I spar four times a week and do cardio every day.’
‘Right. You’re physically very fit, aren’t you?’
Spiros blushes, shrugs like it’s no big deal.
‘I’m all right.’
One of the prosecutor’s favourite tools has been silence. He uses it now, pausing to let the jury take in Spiros’s coy pride.
‘Have you looked at your statement recently, Mister Angelis?’
‘Ummm…’
‘The statement you made to police. They provided you with a copy?’
‘Yeah. I think…’
‘In your statement, you said you left the nightclub at around two a.m. You got into your car and you started for home. You stopped at a traffic light, but when the lights turned g
reen, your way was blocked by a man crossing the road. So you beeped your horn. That’s correct?’
‘Yes. Yes, sir.’
‘Why did you get out of the car?’
‘Um. He said…’ Spiros stops himself, looks around the room. ‘He swore at me.’
‘He swore at you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
Spiros bites his lip. This is a recollection he does find funny. Or at least, funny to recollect out loud in a courtroom.
‘He said “get fucked” to me.’
‘That’s all he said?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you got out of the car?’
‘Yeah. I got out. And then he called me a wog.’
‘He called you a wog?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Even though he himself was Turkish.’
Spiros doesn’t get it. ‘Yeah, I mean…’
‘My point is, he would have been called a wog, I’m sure, dozens of times in his life. It seems unlikely that he would use such a disparaging term towards someone else.’
‘He called me other things too. He called me a faggot.’
The prosecutor was about to continue, but pauses again. The silence is perfect. Then he goes on: ‘When you got out of the car, what was your intention? What did you intend to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was your intention to fight him?’
‘I didn’t want…I don’t know.’
‘You must have had a reason to get out of the car.’
‘Just…So he’d piss off, you know? Like, to get rid of him.’
‘You wanted to intimidate him?’
‘No…Yes.’
‘So you got out of the car. Are you in the carpark by this time?’
‘What?’
‘May it please the court, I would like to show the witness Exhibit Thirty-Seven, the diagram of the carpark.’
The judge grunts. Everyone, the judge, the barristers, they all have the identical book of photographs, the front of which is blue with the Victoria Police insignia. Those of us in the gallery don’t have these books, but it’s not like we need them. A diagram of the carpark would be just a big square drawn on a white piece of paper. In real life, it’s an expanse of bitumen running the full length of the block it shares with the supermarket. Carrum Downs doesn’t have personality, but it does have space; this particular carpark is like an airport runway when it’s empty.