by Rohan Wilson
‘And we have nothing,’ he says. In the sun, his face is full and round. If you shaved off his beard and hair he’d look like a huge cherub. ‘That’s our strength.’
‘You call that strength?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he says and grins. ‘God will protect you.’
Yes, I’ve become the punchline. Yamaan the laadheenee. What angers me is that I’m the only person here who takes the question of Creation seriously, the only person who gives it any thought. I hold my aching ribs and wonder at the stupidity of creating a being smart enough to waste its life wondering why it was created.
One of the overseers comes forward to talk to us. This man is called Brown but he’s one of the whitest men you’ll meet. He’s almost perfectly white, even down to the pinkness of his skin and the baldness of his head. He’s the image of every overweight tourist that slouched their way through the Maldives, the fat men that own the world. He stands for a time meeting our eyes until he’s sure he has our attention. He cups his hands and calls.
‘Day shift has started. Get to your stations.’
No one says anything. It’s been agreed by all that Dr Nazeem will speak for us. I look around the group. We number at least three hundred, a number that grows as word spreads.
‘It’s costing you money, sitting here like this,’ Brown calls. ‘Every minute that passes your fines get bigger and bigger.’
Dr Nazeem steps forward. His beard is uncombed and the hairs of it stick out. He looks like a changed man, chastened, but when he speaks it is the old Nazeem, the Friday Nazeem, that we hear.
‘We know what’s going on.’
‘Back to your stations,’ Brown calls. ‘You don’t have permission to gather here. It’s unionism and we’ll disperse you.’
‘We know the Migrating with Dignity program was suspended.’
Brown’s eyes cut back and forth. Nazeem has made him uncomfortable.
‘We want to know why,’ Nazeem says. ‘We demand an answer.’
‘I can’t talk about that.’
‘You want to keep us here?’ Nazeem says. ‘You want us to work? Well, we refuse to work.’
‘Be careful what you say. Anyone who doesn’t want to work will be sent to the Behavioural Adjustment Unit.’
‘Then we’re being coerced into working,’ Nazeem says.
‘You’re free men,’ Brown calls. ‘You can do what you like. No one is forcing you.’
The numbers behind Nazeem begin to hoot and call obscenities.
‘If we’re free, let us walk through the front gate,’ Nazeem says and spreads his arms.
‘I can’t do that.’
Someone throws a water bottle. Someone throws a sandal. The overseer ducks.
‘You see why we’re angry.’
‘You’re only free while working,’ Brown calls. ‘If you refuse to work, you’ll lose your freedom.’
‘How can we be free if we’re made to work?’
Brown grows irritated. ‘You’ve chosen to come here. You’ve chosen to work. There’s no contradiction.’
Nazeem stands with his arms up high, his face bright. ‘Then we choose to withdraw our labour.’
‘That’s not a choice you can make.’
‘Then how are we free?’
‘You’re free,’ Brown calls. ‘You have a choice. Now, make that choice. Get back to work.’
Dr Nazeem turns to look at us. He gives a waggle of the chin which he intends as an insult to the man’s intelligence. The hundreds sitting below the blue gum cry out in collective agreement. A chant starts between one or two people. At first, I can’t hear what’s said but the chant spreads like a grass fire across the whole group and they begin to stand and I stand as well. Now we’re all chanting. We raise our arms.
‘Visa! Visa! Visa! Visa!’
YAMAAN ALI UMAIR
PART 2 OF RECORDED INTERVIEW
Date: 16 February 2074
Duration: 7 minutes
Location: Liverpool Street, Hobart
Conducted by Inspector Jin Lee and Senior Constable David Martin
INSPECTOR LEE: What started the protest? Can you tell us?
YAU: We learned that the Migrating with Dignity program had been stopped. We would be stuck inside the facility for years with no hope of seeing our relatives and loved ones again.
INSPECTOR LEE: Do you have any relatives, Mr Umair? That survived?
YAU: (inaudible)
INSPECTOR LEE: You’ll need to speak louder.
YAU: Only my cousin.
INSPECTOR LEE: Right. So, because you were forced to stay in the facility, you began to demonstrate? I mean, the Maldivian contingent inside the centre began to demonstrate?
YAU: You must read the news, detective. You must have heard what was going on.
INSPECTOR LEE: I want you to tell me.
YAU: We were deceived. Cabey-Yasuda deceived us. The Department of National Integrity deceived us. It was a conspiracy at the highest level with one outcome in mind. To enlarge the profit of CYC.
INSPECTOR LEE: So, you attacked them?
YAU: No. We protested. It was peaceful. We’re not savages, Inspector. We’re democrats.
INSPECTOR LEE: I’m not following you completely. You’re saying that—
YAU: I’m saying that if you put someone in a prison and keep him there for no reason, then you’ll face protests. It’s the truth. It seems to have been forgotten.
INSPECTOR LEE: Out of frustration, you attacked members of the Centre Emergency Response Team?
YAU: No. I did not.
SENIOR CONSTABLE MARTIN: You lying dog.
INSPECTOR LEE: Thanks, Davey. Sit down, mate. Sit down.
YAU: You won’t scare me, Constable. I have nothing—
SENIOR CONSTABLE MARTIN: I don’t want to scare you. I want the truth out of your fucking mouth.
INSPECTOR LEE: Davey. Mate. Have a seat.
YAU: (inaudible)
INSPECTOR LEE: Then who did it? Who attacked the CERTs?
YAU: The Tasmanian. Daniel Howland.
Rin
Let me tell you, I was a bad kid. I remember a woman carrying me down a hallway over her shoulder while I screamed ‘Iyada iyada iyada!’ And I mean screamed. I wanted to hurt that woman. Wonder who she was? Akashi Gakuen children’s home was a bad place. All my memories are miserable. We had a futon on the floor that we had to fold away every morning and put in a cupboard. I used to wet that bed all the time. They’d make me wear diapers at night-time and, oh man, did I hate it. The problem was, it was so cold. Always cold. The room had vinyl floors like a hospital. I hated getting out of bed to go to the toilet.
‘Iyada iyada iyada!’
Stop it stop it stop it.
You know what the bitch did next? Locked me inside the futon cupboard. There was this thick, hot darkness in there. Suffocating darkness. I screamed and screamed and banged on the door. There was no air. I called for my mother. I was always calling for my mother. When the woman finally let me out I stumbled forward and fell over. Screaming and screaming. But my mother never came, no matter how much I called. She never came and it never got easier.
Other times I remember screaming for my mother: they gave me a rice ball filled with sour pickled plum, which I hated; we sang ‘Ito Makimaki’ and ‘Atama kata hiza, pon!’ and made the actions, but I didn’t know the actions; we practised writing our names on a screen in katakana, and the screen wouldn’t recognise my finger. Like I said, a bad kid. Well, I don’t know, maybe not completely bad. Maybe just half bad—the half that wanted to go home, the half that hated being alone.
Then came the visitor. A strange-looking woman. A gaijin, a foreigner. Her hair was pinned up and looked as hard and brown as polished wood. She smelled of perfume. She would bring presents for me. A silk kimono. A little doll that talked to you and danced around. The doll broke when it was shared with the other children, and I was never allowed to wear the kimono because of house rules, or some bullshit. One day I was made to
stand before this woman and bow and say konichiwa. The woman bowed in return. Then she knelt down in front of me and smiled. She had makeup on. Her lips were bright red. She took hold of my hand and said in perfect Japanese, ‘Ja, kareu ne itekimasu.’
I looked at her. Home? This woman wanted to take me home? All at once I felt overwhelmingly happy. This woman was going to take me home. I was going to see my mother. I grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the genkan where we sat to tie our laces. Except the woman’s shoes had no laces. They had tall spikes on the heels. They looked like weapons. I looked up at the woman and she smiled. She seemed friendly. That was good enough for me.
The staff and children of the home had gathered around to wave goodbye to us. Some were crying. I didn’t see why they should be upset. I was going to see my mother. I’d been asking to see my mother, begging to see her, for so long and now it was happening. There was nothing to be upset about. I grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her towards the door. Outside, a man in a suit, another foreigner, stood holding a small wheeled suitcase. We walked past him and he followed.
Of course, we didn’t go home. We went to an airport. I sat in a chair in a hall full of rows and rows of chairs. I swung my legs. I’d never been to an airport before and I imagine that probably stopped me from asking too many questions, at least for a while. On top of that, the foreign woman kept buying me things. Chocolate. Juice. Rice balls. I asked her when my mother was coming, but the woman only smiled and said my mother was already here. I stood on my chair to better see around the room. Was she really here somewhere? I couldn’t spot her. When I jumped off the chair to go and look for her, the woman grabbed me by the hand. She made me sit in the chair.
My reaction? You can guess. After that, the man with the suitcases—who I realise now was a bodyguard—had to drag me onto the plane screaming and fighting. I was hysterical. He pushed me into a seat and tried to bribe me with toys or fruit or whatever he had. It was a first-class suite. Alessandra only flies first class. It had separate beds and two chairs. I climbed on the bed and tried to open the window. I was not staying on that damn plane. Somehow, before take-off, they got me to drink some mugicha. Alessandra has told me since, now that we can laugh about it, that she put a sleeping tablet in there. That was the only way they could calm me down. Jesus. I really was an asshole.
I know from Alessandra that our first year together was hard, full of conflict and bitterness. I’d withdrawn. I wouldn’t eat or sleep. Even as a six-year-old, I remember wearing a diaper to school because I’d wet my pants like an infant. There were psychiatrists, a lot of them. Alessandra thought I was damaged by my time in the home. Always though, and in secret, I believed I just missed my mother. I learned not to say that outright, but I believed it all the same.
‘Rin, you have a call.’
I open my eyes to a dark room.
‘What time is it?’
‘Six a.m.’
I sit up. ‘Christ.’
‘It’s your mother.’
I push back the duvet. ‘All right. Yeah. Put her on.’
A few moments of quiet pass where I grind the heel of my palm around my eyes. I realise I’m still wearing makeup. And clothes. Worse than that, I realise I’ve wet the bed and it stinks. There aren’t many things worse in life that waking up and realising you’ve pissed yourself. I shuck off my damp jeans. There’s a moment of disorientation as I try to situate myself in space and time.
‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here. Open the curtains, would you.’
‘What?’
‘Not you. Sorry. I’m not talking to you.’
The curtains inch back. Outside, the harbour lays like fresh poured cement. The sky a gauzy sort of grey. I squint in the light. Yokohama? Tower lights strobe on the bay bridge. Shipping turns long white furrows in the field of grey water. Yeah. My apartment by the bay. This is where I live when I’m in the country. I often have this feeling when I wake up in a different place to what I expect. My brain can’t keep up with the moving around I do.
‘Have you seen it?’ Alessandra says.
‘I’ve seen it.’
‘It’s a shit-show.’
‘It’s not pretty.’
‘I don’t know if we were hacked. I don’t know how it got out there.’
She’s talking about the emails. A trove of a few hundred internal communications found their way to the media. I fell asleep last night watching the story unfold on my social feed.
‘If it’s a leak,’ she says, ‘I’m going to tear somebody in half.’
I can hear the squeak of the shears as she prunes her bonsai tree.
I’m passing through a hot sweat. Corporate espionage carries a twenty-year mandatory minimum. I clear my throat. ‘Dieter will fix it up. I’ve seen her do it before.’
‘It’s the uncertainty that worries me,’ she says. ‘Who knows what other information they have? They could have anything.’
‘Look, let’s sort out Eaglehawk first. We can worry about the leaks later.’
‘Eaglehawk is a mess.’
‘We know how to deal with strikes.’
‘That’s a nice word for it. Strike. I’d call it terrorism.’
‘Even better,’ I say. ‘Maybe the minister will send in the police.’
‘Or we send in our boys to beat a work ethic into those lazy bastards. At this point, I don’t care how much it costs.’
Here we enter a hot zone. I need to be careful what I say. Sure, I want to extract Yamaan out of there somehow, even if it means a bit of ratfucking, but straight up brutality will only put Yamaan’s life at risk. I need to keep her calm. For once, I’m the one making plays.
‘You’ll care how much it costs,’ I say, ‘when the lawsuits start rolling in.’
‘What do you have on today?’ she says.
‘I’m at the prefectural office from ten. We’re settling the last of the nutritional minimums.’
‘Cancel it. You’re on the next flight to New York. I want you here.’
This is not what I’d planned.
‘New York?’ I say, trying to sound relaxed about it. ‘You’d be better off sending me to Eaglehawk.’
‘Eaglehawk is covered,’ she says. ‘You’re more useful to me here.’ ‘But the warden,’ I say and I don’t sound relaxed at all. ‘That Charlie Chadwick woman? She’s so raw. You can’t trust her with something this important.’
‘She’s raw but you’re emotional. That’s an easy pick.’
‘Emotional? You mean honest.’
‘This is like Houston.’
‘How is this like Houston?’
‘You screwed up in Houston because you got emotional. Indulge your emotions when you’re in charge of a facility like Eaglehawk, and you’re going to cost us a whack.’
‘That asshole deserved what he got.’
‘Rin, you’re asking me to trip on the same stone twice. You want me to pretend you didn’t come to my office last week crying about Yamaan?’
‘Crying. Okay. And if you’d listened to me about the Maldivians we’d all be better off right now.’
She’s quiet for a few seconds. When she’s quiet this way, I know I’ve made her think. ‘I spent months training for exactly this sort of scenario,’ I say. ‘All that time in Houston. What was it for if it wasn’t for this?’
‘This is not neutral territory for you,’ she says at length. ‘It’s a battlefield.’
‘That’s exactly why I’m the right person to send. I won’t sleep or eat until it’s fixed. If Yamaan has to stay in that place, at least I can make it safe for him.’
Another long silence. ‘You really are in love with this kid,’ she says.
I don’t answer. She doesn’t deserve it.
‘I thought it was love with Nikolai you know. And Arturo. Love passes.’
‘Do you still love me?’ I say, and I hear my voice quiver.
‘That’s different,’ she says.
‘I don’t see how.�
�
She breathes out slowly. ‘It’s bigger,’ she says. ‘Men are jealous of what we have. They try to come between us. Men always try to come between us because what we have is bigger than love.’
‘It’s not men that come between us. It’s Cabey-Yasuda.’
That must have hurt because I hear her snort and then her pruning sounds heavier. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ she says. ‘You go to Tasmania. You clean up the mess at Eaglehawk and send everybody back to work. If you can do that, we’ll talk about how to help Yamaan.’
There’s a click and I’m alone again in the room.
With my glasses on, I pick through my media feed, looking for details about Eaglehawk. Prime Minister Tanaka negotiating maturity extensions and an interest rate reduction on sovereign debt. A draft law extending the use of robotics deployments in aged care homes. North Nigerian militias involved in more killing along the border with the South. Nothing about the protest at all. I switch to the internal corporate feed and call up the Eaglehawk imagery. It’s early morning there too. A group of upwards of five hundred men sit in the recreation area between housing pods. They have banners. Visa. Freedom. We Are Human.
‘I don’t want your fucking deal,’ I say to the emptiness.
The men on screen sit around like they’re waiting for a band to start.
I say, ‘Send a message to Yamaan.’
‘What do you want to tell him?’
‘That I’m coming. That I’m bringing him home.’
I don’t have good memories of airports. Besides, when you’ve been through as many as I have, you learn to hate them. I trundle my suitcase past the Chinese tourists and slovenly dressed Australians filling the gate lounge at Hobart and I count seven. That’s just in the last two weeks. Seven airports. I no longer even unpack, just leave my suitcase by the door of wherever the hell I’m staying. My stuff is arranged with the sort of precision that a CIA assassin might use to pack his rifle. I know when something’s missing because it leaves a hole. I carry only what I need for my stay and I get in and get the fuck out.
Because of this, Hobart airport barely registers in my thoughts. Perhaps the only thing that does register are the advertising screens running ten second slots for different regional wines. What I would give for a glass of cold cuvée right now. Exiting the auto doors, I’m belted in the face by the brutal summer heat. I slide on my glasses. Blood pressure: elevated. Heart rate: 120 bpm. Messages from Clover, Derrix in HR, Tallullah in Fort Worth. I peel off my jacket and do my best to ignore the messages as I look around for the company car that should be waiting for me. I spot it idling in the taxi zone. It’s an older model of Honda—not one I’d seen in a while. It doesn’t make me feel well. Some of the older models can be temperamental in situations like this. It might misunderstand an instruction. I climb in the back seat.
