The Infernal Optimist

by Linda Jaivin

  It was already November. It was getting hotter. Summer was coming. Ramadan too.

  They brung in an asylum from Kashmir, a tall, skinny bloke in his thirties by the name a Bhajan. One day, we was sitting together in Visits, under the shelter. By way a conversationals, I told him that I didn’t know nuffin bout Kashmir except me mum loves the jumpers what they make there.

  He looked at me like he be trying to figure out if I be taking the piss. What I wasn’t, cuz me mum really does love them jumpers. Next to us, a tradesman was doing something to the Coke machine. His stubbies were hanging low and you could see his crack. There was this chick, a visitor, what was getting something from the snack machine next to it. She was wearing them hipsters. She bent down to collect her crisps from the slot and you could see the topper part a her crack as well, what was better to look at and what had a G-string hanging out. Bhajan and me both looked, and then he turned to me. ‘That’s funny, Zeki,’ he said, nodding and shaking his head in that way what Indians and Pakis do too. ‘Because I don’t know anything about Australia except that all Australians like to show off half their buttocks.’ Bhajan had a pretty weird sense a humour.

  A day or two after that, they brung in a whole lot a Thais what was caught working illegal in the restaurants and what needed rooms in Stage Three. So Azad finally got his request, and they took me and Bhajan over to Stage Two as well.

  Bhajan and me got put in a building what was called Shoalhaven, like the river but with no water in, at least on the day we moved in, cuz the pipes was all broke. A young African asylum called Thomas was me neighbour on one side. Me neighbour on the other side was this older bloke from the Philippines, a born-again Christian what stuck his nose in everyone’s business. Bhajan’s room was down the hall.

  They put Azad together with Hamid, what was now trying to get the Red Cross onto finding his rellies. The Red Cross said they’d look, but they had a lotta people they was looking for over there, so it might take a while. Hamid stopped sleeping. They started giving him sleeping pills on top a the Vals, but it didn’t make much difference.

  I asked him why he didn’t just call his rellies himself to see if they were okay. ‘They don’t have phones, Zeki,’ he said, like I shoulda known that.

  Eight

  One evening, Thomas, Azad, Hamid and me was sitting outside playing cards. It was early, cuz the loudspeaker was still calling people to the phone, what it didn’t do after eight. ‘Bangladesh, you have a telephone call. Bangladesh, you have a telephone call.’ They was sposed to call your name and country together. Some a the blues couldn’t pronounce people’s names, so they just called them by country, what got specially confusing when they called China to the phone cuz even in there, there was one billion of them, I swear. Sometimes the blues put on funny voices to pronounce the names, what people didn’t think was that funny. Thomas told us about this teenage boy from Syria what used to be there and what was named Humam. ‘They never got that right,’ Thomas said. ‘They would go, “Human from Syria, you have a telephone call.” He hated it. If they were going to call him Human, he said, they should treat him like one.’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ Azad said, cleaning up the pile a stones what we used for gambling.

  ‘Hamid Jafaar, Afghanistan, you have a phone call. Hamid Jafaar from Afghanistan, you have a phone call.’

  Hamid jumped up and ran to the phone. We all watched him go, hoping it was news from his family what be good. When he returned a few minutes later, he told us it was only Sue. Sue was a retired teacher what visited asylums and helped them with their cases. She was a big lady, what was comforting just to look at, with a sofa bed for a backside and bolster cushions for arms. If her edges was soft, her brain was sharp. She knew how things worked, and she didn’t take no shit from the authorities. The asylums all reckoned that if anyone could fight the government and get them free, Sue could. She’d just wanted to say that she was coming the next day and would call Hamid and Azad and Thomas to Visits. She’d asked if they needed anything.

  ‘What’d you tell her?’ I asked, hoping the answer be KFC or doughnuts.

  ‘Freedom,’ Hamid said.

  ‘Fair enough.’ What it wasn’t, really.

  The loudspeaker crackled. ‘Bhajan from Kashmir, phone call. Bhajan from Kashmir, you have a phone call.’ Bhajan waved to us on his way to the phone. We waved back.

  ‘You know what gets to me?’ Hamid said, shuffling the deck and dealing out another round. ‘If they really believe I am from Pakistan, why do they always say “Afghanistan” after my name?’

  ‘You know what gets to me?’ Thomas asked. ‘That you are still looking for answers to questions like that.’ He tapped his cards. Thomas had long fingers the colour a me favourite type a chocolate, what be dark. Azad once said Thomas’s hands were artistic, what I don’t know about, except Thomas drew excellent pitchers and used his hands to draw them, so I spose they were. ‘Hit me.’

  I hit him then, for a joke. Just lightly of course. But as soon as me hand touched his upper arm, I felt something what made me hairs stand on end, what is a lotta hairs. It was like the bones wasn’t exactly where bones oughtta be. ‘What’s with your shoulder, mate? Fucken scared the shit outta me.’

  ‘Don’t hit me then.’ No one said nuffin for a minute. Hamid dealt him another card. ‘Again,’ Thomas said. Then, ‘Twenty-one.’

  Later that night, Thomas and me, we was sitting outside Shoalhaven having a smoke. There was some people talking softly on the phones, and every so often you could hear some shouting in Chinese what be from a video they was playing in the rec room. A Burmese guy was sitting in the playground strumming a guitar, and one a the kids was crying, but otherwise, it was pretty quiet. The lights of the compound at night were kinda soft and yellow, what made it seem less ugly but more like hell. Thomas touched his shoulder and made a face, like it hurt.

  I gave him a question mark with me eyes.

  He blew some smoke into the air. ‘You want to know, don’t you?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Nothing better to do, anyway,’ he said.

  I almost wished he hadn’t told me. See, Thomas came from one a them countries where they got all them tribes what was always killing each other. You know, like the Tutus and Whatsits. He was from a middle-class family what had a trading business. They all spoke English and French and a bunch a them African languages too. When he was eighteen, he and his sister, what was tall and a babe and seventeen, was sposed to go to Paris, France, where they got an uncle. Thomas was gonna study art at the Sore Bone, what not be a medical school even though it sounds like one, and his sister was gonna be a supermodel on them Paris birdwalks. They had their tickets and everything. Then the massacre happened. When he came to he was lying under the bodies of his sister and parents and covered in blood what was his too. The Red Cross took him to a hospital cuz he was pretty messed up, even if he wasn’t exactly dead. Later they took him to a refugee camp on the border what was a lotta tents and not a lotta food. He registered with the UN, what said he was a refugee and put him in the queue for resettlement, what was long. Three years later he was still there. He was only twenty-one and getting migraines from the stress and the sadness and the machete chop to his head. He couldn’t walk good on a count a the way they broke his leg, and his shoulder healed kinda weird. He was in pain all the time. He lost all hope and tried to hang himself.

  ‘Full on,’ I said. His story was fully stressing me out. ‘So how’d you get here?’

  He took a long drag on his ciggie, and stubbed it out on the ground. ‘The aid worker who cut me down from the noose helped me find my uncle in Paris. My uncle sent me some money and I paid a people smuggler to get me to France. The smuggler took me to the airport and gave me a false passport and ticket. He wished me good luck. Then he disappeared. When I looked at the papers, I almost had a heart attack. The ticket was for Sydney.

  ‘You know, Zek, I didn’t want to come to Australia. I didn’t even know where it was. I w
asn’t sure if the smuggler cheated me or just made a mistake. When I tried the mobile number he gave me, a recording said it wasn’t in service. By the time I arrived at Sydney airport I had a migraine. I told them I was a refugee. They took me into a room to ask me questions but because of my migraine I could barely talk. Next thing I knew I was here, in Villawood, being called a “queue jumper”. And this is where I’ve been ever since. Two years later. Damn this place. Damn it to hell.’

  He looked around.

  ‘I wonder. Can you damn hell to hell?’

  Nine

  That fucken loudspeaker never shut its metal mouth, I swear. It called people to Muster. It called people to the phone. It called people to Medical. It called people to Visits. It called people to the DIMA office. Gubba had told me I’d be hearing about me Bridging Visa any day. So, although I hated the sound a the loudspeaker as much as everyone else, I had me ears out like they was satellite dishes—what they kinda look like, in factuality.

  It finally happened when I was having a yarn with Anna, the blue what was blonde, what Azad and I met the day we got transferred to Stage Three.

  ‘Zeki Togan from Turkey, come to DIMA. Zeki Togan from Turkey, come to DIMA.’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ I punched the air. ‘It’s me lucky day.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Anna said, giving me a friendly shove. She coulda told me then what apparently everyone in the world knew except me—whenever Immigration had good news for you, what wasn’t often, they gave it to you in a letter. They didn’t call you to the office.

  Stupid, happy me, I moon-walked all the way to the office. The door was open.

  Me case officer was Turkish. She waved me in.

  ‘G’day, Mrs Kunt.’ I pronounced her name like ‘koont’, what is the correct way, what most Australians don’t do.

  ‘Hello, Zeki.’ Other detainees what had her for a case officer said she was really nice, but she never so much as cracked a smile around me. I got the feeling she thought I be disgracing the community. I wasn’t gonna let that bother me. Not that day.

  ‘Whatcha got for me today, Mrs Kunt?’ She handed me an envelope.

  I started to rip it open. ‘And the winner is…’ I looked up. Still no smile. I couldn’t help it if she had immunity to me charms. I whistled as I shook out the letter.

  It took a minute for it to sink in. Then it did just that, like a large stone with me heart tied to it and thrown into the middle a Sydney Harbour. The whistling died in me mouth.

  The good news was I could get me a Bridging Visa. The bad news was that they was requiring a bond a twenty-five grand. ‘Twenty-five grand! How am I sposed to raise that?’ I shouted. ‘That Russian dude Boris what got a Bridging Visa two days ago only had to pay three thousand. And the Malaysian girl, Amira, hers was one and a half. This is fucken bullshit! Pardon me French.’

  Mrs Kunt didn’t even blink. She put her elbows on the desk and folded one hand over the other, making a little platform for her head to sit on. She stared at me with her big brown eyes and raised one eyebrow. I could smell her perfume, what had spice in.

  ‘You’re Turkish,’ she said, like she be telling me something new. ‘Maybe it’s just kismet. You know kismet? Destiny?’

  ‘Mate, I come from Kismet Bay. What is a real place.’ I stood up and stormed out.

  Kismet?! Kiss my arse, more like. I was still muttering and kicking the ground when the loudspeaker called me again, this time to the phone.

  I wiped the mouthpiece on me trackydacks. People round there was always so pissed off they be spitting. The phones weren’t too clean. ‘Yo.’

  ‘Zeki?’

  ‘Hey, darl,’ I said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nuffin.’

  ‘Zeki, don’t bullshit me. I can hear it in your voice. Something’s happened.’

  When I told her, She Who Has Every Right busted her dams. I held the receiver away from me ear. Like I told you, tears do me under. They are me underdoing. I was already feeling pissed off and sorry enough for meself as it was. I didn’t need this. I was hanging for a smoke when I saw Thomas come walking down the path. I waved at him and he waved back.

  ‘Ciggie?’ I was doing the word without the sound.

  ‘Zeki? Are you there?’ Marlena’s spooky—I swear she knows what I be doing even when she can’t see me.

  ‘I’m right here, darl.’ I rolled me eyes at Thomas. He smiled without showing teeth and held out a pack a smokes. I took one and lit it. He had one himself, leaning against the wall and crossing them wonky beanpole legs a his while he listened in on the rest a me conversationals. I didn’t blame him. There wasn’t any entertainment in there except other people’s business.

  ‘Zeki, if you’re not out by Christmas, I’m gonna have to tell my parents.’

  Marlena’s parents never approved a me. They think I be bad news. But since I got outta the nick in September, She Who had been telling them all about how I be going straight, working a proper job and all. She still hadn’t mentioned the little problem a me being in Villawood. They’d invited me for Christmas dinner, what be a big thing in her family and what meant they was accepting me at last.

  ‘Darl, just tell ’em I gotta work.’

  ‘On Christmas Day?’

  ‘That was always a good day for working in me old profession. People being out at their rellies ’n’ all.’

  ‘Zeki!’

  ‘Only kidding, darl. We’ll think a something. We still got a month and a half. I should have me decision by then, what’ll put me back in the Free World. They’ll never even have to know about this little episode. You worry too much. She’ll be right.’

  When I finally got off the phone I wiped me brow, like I been put through the mall, what is the feeling you get when you been forced to shop all day instead of going to the pub.

  I looked at Thomas and shook me head. ‘Women!’

  ‘At least you have one,’ he said, shrugging him weird bony shoulders.

  ‘Fat lotta good that does me, mate,’ I bellyached. ‘I been Inside a whole month now, what is putting a strainer on the relationship. I got a Bridging Visa but can’t afford the bond for it and me AAT hearing isn’t even coming up till just before Christmas. I gotta get out by Christmas or I’m stuffed. Anyway, by then I’ll have been in this hellhole more than two whole months.’

  Thomas’s mouth twisted up. Then he turned around real quick and limped off like he had an appointment he just remembered. It occurred to me that he’d been Inside almost two years. Me and me big one.

  Ten

  Like I told you, I never knew much about asylums before I came here, though I heard about them on the news like everyone else. I didn’t think much about them situation neither. I had enough a me own troubles. Besides, lotsa people what be immigrants—like me own family—they figured the asylums was giving everyone else a bad name what came here legally. Everything you heard about the asylums in the media was bad. When I first got in here, Mum was afraid they’d be even worse than the crims I was mixing with in Silverwater. I had to insure her the ones I was meeting was better than some a the people I knew what was living on the Outside. What is true, specially the people I tended to know, on a count a me old profession.

  What I learned about the asylums was that they was only here cuz they was running from heavy shit, like ethical cleansing and Saddam and torture, what be real torture like with electrical shocks and sensible deprivation and broken bottles up the Khyber, and not torture like what I say She Who be putting me through all the time.

  Take this dude Babak what had a room not far from mine in Shoalhaven. Back in Iran, Babak owned thirty-six thousand chickens and wore silk shirts made in France. Babak got real pissed off each time the government here said the asylums only came for a better life, what was a lotta times. Each time one a them ministers got on the TV and said that, Babak spat on the ground and told us all again about his thirty-six thousand chickens and his silk shirts from France. He’d still be in Iran, what h
e says got better food and better mountains and better everything than Australia, except for his cousin what was a dissonant what criticised the government and then hid on Babak’s farm. The security forces raided the place and shot the cousin and a whole lotta chickens and Babak’s young son too. Babak was lucky he wasn’t home or he’d be dead as well, though he says he’d rather be. His wife, what was pregnant, and his five-year-old daughter was on that boat what sunk on the way here from Innonesia last month and they drowned to death.

  I was learning lots about the world, and what I was learning made me even more fucken determined—pardon me French—to stay in Australia where I belonged. As I said, I immigrated with me family when I was six months old. Only time I ever travelled back to the Old Country in me twenty-nine years was when I was five. The first thing they did over there was cut half me boy off. It wasn’t even that big in the first place. I couldn’t wait to get back home before they took a knife to anything else.

  See? I said ‘back home’. Even then I thought of Australia as home. I reckon spending most a me life in Oz makes me fair dinkum, even if I never got me papers. So what if I got a bit of a past, what was the basis of this five-oh-one problem? We was taught in school how the nation was built by convicts. Well, that’s just another name for crims. I reckon being a crim makes me more Aussie than people what was born here but what never broke the law even once in their life.

  Eleven

  Angel came into our lives in the beginning of December. I don’t got words for how beautiful Angel was, except that it was like light was always coming off her. She came from Cambodia and her skin was kinda gold in colour. Azad said her eyes were ‘like liquid sadness’, what just proves he’s a poet. She was only seventeen, though she told DIMIA she was older cuz she didn’t wanna get into more trouble for being a minor.