The Infernal Optimist

by Linda Jaivin

  ‘What’re youse looking at?’ A man couldn’t even break his own toe in peace round there, I swear. The Innonesians at the table by the Coke machine what saw me kick it looked away again. Hauling meself up off the ground, all I could think was that I wanted to get away from all these stooges as fast as I could. That turned out not to be very fast on a count a me toe, what was throbbing. Worse, I had nowhere to go.

  Deport me? To the Old Country?

  Couldn’t pitcher it at all. I didn’t know no one over there except me rellies. A few years back, they got this idea that I should marry me first cousin what lives there. At the time, Marlena had dumped me on a count a me flandering, what is what she called it and what I not be proud of. Me dad musta told the rellies I was a free man. They sent over a photo a me cousin. She was fifteen years old, and in black from head to toe with only her eyes showing, like a fucken ninja—pardon me Japanese. Me dad thought it was a great idea. I’m like, whoa, cousin, hello—Dad, you want your grandkids to look like the British royal family? No way José. She Who Forgived Me in the End came back after three months, what is the longest we ever been apart since we was in Year Ten, except for the times when I was in the nick, and then we was only apart in a technological sense.

  No—I wasn’t going to the Old Country, no way, no how. If Gubba wouldn’t do it, maybe one a them free lawyers what helped the asylums could help me. I reckoned I was a Prisoner a Conscious, cuz I wished I wasn’t. If I ever needed a smoke that was the time.

  I was pacing the Yard without even realising it. ‘Zeki.’ I looked over. It was Hamid. He was sitting with Angel and Sue and this other chick, a Burmese girl what didn’t speak much English. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, bro. No worries. I just lost me case.’ As I said this I made one a them hip-hop moves where you throw your hands in front a your face to point with the second and last fingers at an imaginary place in the middle. It wasn’t the right move for what I be saying. Me brain and me fingers wasn’t real connected at that moment.

  Hamid frowned, like he was trying to work out whether to believe me hands or me words. ‘You lost?’

  I nodded.

  He frowned deeper. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll work something out.’ I sounded more confidential than I felt.

  ‘Enjoy us.’ This from the Burmese chick, what meaned ‘join us’.

  ‘Maybe later.’ I felt like a fucken blob on the landscape. ‘For now, I think I’ll just go inside and hang meself.’ Sue looked fully alarmed. I spose I shouldn’t a said that. Everyone knew about Reza. He had about a million visitors that day what was trying to cheer him up. ‘Nah. Don’t worry.’

  At the gate I pawed me plastic ID down from the board. ‘What’s wrong, Togan?’ Anna asked.

  ‘What’s right?’ I answered.

  ‘Why are you limping?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Jeez. Just asking. No need to snap at me.’

  Across the Yard, I saw April waiting to be let in through the visitors’ gate, but I looked away like I didn’t see her. I didn’t wanna talk to no one, not Anna, not even April what I like to talk to. While I waited for Anna to find the right key, I stared at the ground and shoved me hands in the pocket a me trackies. I could feel something in there, a square a plastic wrapped around…Yes. I thought, that’s me girl! She musta dropped it in when she hugged me goodbye.

  If She Who Always Obeys the Rules could do that, I felt anything was possible. Me mood lifted. Something would work out. I was, after all, the Infernal Optimist.

  Two

  The smoke made me feel heaps better. Looking in the mirror, I saw me eyes were as red as dogs’ balls. I put on me sunnies.

  Back in the Yard, I thought, whoa, that’s powerful shit. All the kids in the Yard looked like they’d grown moustaches and beards. Abeer had one what was just like her dad Mohammed’s. In factuality, she looked exactly like him, but with pigtails on. That was freaking me out cuz I was thinking maybe he got shrunk and put into a frock. I seen something like that once in a horror film. Noor had a moustache just like Saddam. Tip was saluting Bashir, Abeer’s brother, what had a goatee, and calling him ‘sir’. Even that muvvafucker Clarence was joking around with the kids. This was hurting me head.

  Then I saw the woman what was giving out the moustaches. She was a nice lady what brung her own kids into Detention every week to play with the ones what was Inside. She was also giving out scoops what you wave round to make bubbles and the air was filled with bubbles what reflected the sun. I caught some in me mouth what made the kids laugh. Me mouth was full a soap by the time I found me way across the Yard to where April was sitting with Thomas and Azad. April’s hair and clothes were wet and steamy from the rain and she was a bit draggled but I like that look, like she just rolled outta bed and into a hot tub with Swedish babes in. ‘Hey, April.’ I glided over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Look,’ she goes, pointing at the sky. ‘A rainbow! Isn’t that lovely?’ Still savourising the feel of her cheek on me lips, I nodded in the general direction a the rainbow, what was a big one.

  ‘Nothing’s lovely in here.’ Thomas the grump. I didn’t know that April had just told him her husband had looked at his paperwork. He’d asked how she knew it was genuine, and other questions what got her angry. They had a fight what ended up being about the nurse. He slammed the door when he walked out. She told Thomas all these details what she probably shouldn’t a done. She coulda probably got away with saying something like, ‘He’s thinking on it’.

  ‘Nothing behind the razor wire is lovely,’ he said again, like she hadn’t heard it the first time.

  ‘Except present ladylike company,’ I go. ‘You yourself are looking particulately lovely today, April.’ Her lips moved briefly in the direction of up.

  ‘You’ve got a way with words, Zek,’ she goes.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  ‘Didn’t you tell me that first day we met that you wanted to be a writer, that you wanted to write a book?’

  ‘Yeah, mate.’ I couldn’t remember saying that in factuality. But it seemed like a good idea. ‘I will, mate. When I get outta here I’m gonna be a writer.’

  ‘Then you can steal people’s words instead of their things,’ Azad said. ‘You get into less trouble that way.’

  ‘So true,’ April laughed, looking at Azad like he be the wittiest person in the whole world. She turned back to me. ‘Have you been writing in the journal I gave you?’

  ‘Every day,’ I lied. I was thinking that if I was a writer, then April, what knew heaps about books, could be me editor. We could get jiggy at one a them posh places what writers go to for working on books with them editors, what had a pool and swaying palm trees and them coloured cocktails with umbrellas in. I had to sit with me elbows on me knees to keep me boy from flagging his enthusiasm for the concept through me trackies.

  When I tuned back in, Thomas was crapping on about how ugly Australia was compared to his country. I love Australia and it made me upset to hear him talking about it like that. He didn’t know it at all. He didn’t know how beautiful it be. He’d never been to the Gold Coast or the footie, or even a single Westfield mall. He’d never been outside the razor wire even once.

  Thomas listed everything he hated about Australia. They were all things what he experienced in Detention, like bad food and no freedom and stupid officials and donkey doctors and racist guards. Every one a him complaints seemed like they was aimed at April. With each one, she dropped a little lower into her chair, like she was a nail being hammered into a piece a wood. When he finished, she whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’ She always be apologising for things what wasn’t her fault, what makes her like Azad when I comes to think on it. ‘I wish this weren’t all you knew of this country.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Do you hate Australia too?’ April asked Azad like she was scared he was gonna say yes.

  Azad pulled his lighter
out of his pocket but then put it back again cuz it was out of fluid. ‘I don’t know what Australia is,’ he said.

  ‘This is Australia,’ Thomas goes, stamping his feet in the mud, what splattered up onto me trackies. He smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘Sorry, Zek.’

  ‘S’all right, mate.’ I shrugged. I was fully mellow from the dope. ‘Gotta wash ’em sometime.’

  ‘Actually,’ Thomas goes like he was reconsiderating, ‘this is not Australia. I wanted to take a university course by correspondence while I waited for my decision. They wouldn’t let me, even though some visitors said they would pay the full fees for me. The government said you have to be in Australia to study and that from a legal standpoint, I am not here at all.’ He pointed to a Malaysian woman pushing a pram on the other side of the Yard. ‘See Lili?’ he asked. April nodded. ‘Her baby was born here in Detention. But the government says her baby wasn’t born in Australia. The detention centre doesn’t count. Malaysia won’t let the baby in because she’s stateless. Lili won’t go home without her baby and can’t get out of Detention because Australia won’t give her or the baby a visa either.’

  ‘But, surely, they’ll have to…’

  ‘They won’t,’ Thomas said. ‘They could be here for the rest of their lives.’

  We went to New Zealand for a few minutes.

  ‘I…I did a meditation the other day and asked the universe to look after all of you?’ April said. ‘I want to help, I really do.’ Thomas folded his arms across his chest. April opened her mouth like she was gonna say something else, then closed it again. A tear dribbled down her cheek but since everyone else was looking at the ground, I was the only one what noticed.

  ‘I have this dream many nights,’ Azad said in a soft voice. ‘I’m standing outside a house where there is a party. I hear music and people laughing and talking. I smell food cooking. I walk towards the house and look in the window. There are visitors, and officers, and faces I know from television and movies, and fellow detainees too. You’re there, Zeki,’ he goes, looking up at me.

  I felt proud when he said this, like I done something good for exchange.

  ‘I remember I am supposed to be inside the house too. They are expecting me. So I start to run but my feet stick to the ground, and then I feel someone holding me by the hands and I’m a little kid again and it’s my mother and father, and…’ Azad stared down at his feet like they was a book he be reading. He didn’t usually say that much about his personal. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’ When he looked up again, it was like his blinds was closed.

  April reached out and put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, pulling his arm away.

  She dropped her hand back into her lap. Then she touched her eyes with both hands.

  In me head, it was me what was having me arm touched up. In me head—what was still full a nice mellow feelings on a count a the dope—we was back at that hotel what had the pool and cocktails. I was thinking how I could explain my being with April at the hotel to She Who Always Knows When I Be Telling a Porkie. I’d tell her the truth, what was that I was writing a book and April was me editor and all. Then it hit me. I wasn’t getting out. I wasn’t going to no posh hotel with April or nowhere else anytime soon. I slapped me hand against me forehead, forgetting I was wearing me chunky ring, and almost knocked meself out. ‘Ow!’

  ‘You okay?’ goes April. Her voice was squeaky and choked like she was trying not to laugh, but she didn’t succeed and then everyone laughed, even Thomas.

  Farshid ran by with a soccer ball. All the kids, including visitors, was dividing up into teams according to whether they be moustaches or beards. Some a the older detainees joined in as well, like Bhajan. The visitors was trying to get Reza to play too, but he wasn’t in the mood. They asked if we wanted to play. Thomas didn’t play nuffin cuz a him gammy leg. April said she wasn’t no good at sports. But Azad was keen. When I jumped up to follow him, I stumbled on a count a me toe, what I forgot was broke, and smacked straight into Abeer what was running for the ball. We both fell down on the ground. When I looked over I saw her little face with its big moustache. I started to laugh and laugh and laugh even though me toe was hurting something fierce by now.

  Abeer picked herself up, brushed the mud off her frock, straightened her moustache and, pulling her tiny foot back, kicked me as hard as she could. I was being assaulted by a small girl with a moustache. I started laughing again.

  ‘Go, Abeer!’ Thomas cheered.

  April shook her head. ‘You know, if this weren’t a detention centre, Zeki, I’d swear you were stoned.’

  I really lost it then. I rolled from side to side and hooted and gasped for breath and cried on a count a the pain, all at the same time. It took me a while to realise that there was a lotta noise what wasn’t just me or even the kids what be playing soccer. I looked around and through me tears a laughter I saw a whole lot a people outside the fence what wasn’t there before. They was waving signs and banners, and banging on drums and shouting, ‘Free the refugees! Free the refugees! Lock up the Minister and free the refugees!’

  Three

  Farshid ran to the fence. Reza jumped up from where he was sitting and raced over as well. ‘We want freedom! We want freedom!’ they shouted, pumping them fists in the air. All the kids started chanting and lotsa the other detainees joined in, even the ones what wasn’t asylums. Azad stood like he was frozen.

  Hamid jumped up but Angel clamped her little hand round his wrist and it was like he be chained to the spot. Sue placed one hand on Angel’s shoulder and another on the arm a the Burmese chick.

  It took less than a second for the blues to sprint into the may-lee, what be Chinese for Big Fucken Mess, pardon me French. They was shouting ‘Cert One! Cert One!’, their code for emergencies. They was coming at the detainees from this side a the fence and at the protestors from the other. Them white trucks what they patrol the perimeter in sped over too. And then sirens told us New South Wales’s finest was on their way. Thomas wrapped his hands round his head in that way what told us he was getting one a him migraines.

  April stood up, looking dead nervous cuz she didn’t know the life like we do, what is to say she’d never been in trouble or the nick or nuffin. Her hand hovered over Thomas’s shoulder like a helicopter what didn’t know if it could land, and her eyes darted from him to Azad, what still hadn’t moved. It was like she didn’t know who to worry about more. Me, I was worrying about meself. If I didn’t get meself up off the ground I’d be trampolined by all the people what was rushing around like chooks what have them heads off.

  The officer in charge a Shit House intelligence, what it didn’t have much of in factuality, ran around recording everything with a video camera. Clarence was charging past April over to where Farshid and Reza was still shouting when April grabbed his sleeve. He turned around like he was gonna deck her. ‘Back off, basket weaver!’ he barked like the dog he be.

  She looked real shocked then. ‘Thomas needs a doctor,’ she goes, her voice shaking.

  ‘So do I,’ answered the muvvafucker. ‘Must be sick in the head to wanna work here. Find one, let me know. Now let go of me sleeve before I make ya.’ Then the bastard ran over to muscle Farshid and Reza away from the fence.

  The Centre Manager came on the PA announcing that Visits was exterminated. He ordered visitors to make their way to the gate and all detainees back into the compound.

  Someone shouted for people to set fire to the bins. They said if you burn plastic or rubber, the smoke protects you from tear gas, what they used on asylums in Woomera a few months earlier. I’d wondered why them demonstrators on the TV news was always burning tyres and shit. So that was it. I was getting an education in international affairs and politics what I never had. In the end, no one lit any fires, and there wasn’t no tear gas, just shitloads a guards and a handful a coppers what didn’t even have riot gear on.

  The kids was crying. Abeer’s mum, Najah, came running to get Abeer
and her brother Bashir, but Abeer stuck her heels into the mud and pushed out her bottom lip and her mum had to drag her away. ‘Noor!’ She was yelling for her friend the whole time. ‘Noor!’ She ripped off her moustache and threw it on the ground.

  Nassrin was inside the compound but the blues wasn’t letting anyone into the Yard what wasn’t in it already. So Nassrin just kept screaming for her boys from behind the fence, what got everyone even more worked up.

  Then this long-haired hippy chick what was in the protest stepped forward. As she handcuffed herself to the outside fence, she called out, ‘We love you!’

  At this point, two things happened. Azad looked at her like he be completely memorised, like the sun just came up and she be it, and cried, ‘We love you too!’. And April, what was looking all pale and not just cuz she be standing next to Thomas, shouted, ‘Marley! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came down for the protest. What are you doing here?’ goes the hippy chick. ‘I didn’t think this would be your sort of scene, Mum.’

  ‘Mum’? Man, if it weren’t against me religion, that be one mother-daughter team I’d like to have a match with.

  ‘Besides,’ said Marley, ‘don’t you vote Liberal?’

  April turned all the colours a the Mardi Gras. ‘Marley!’

  Some a the other visitors stared at April like she’d just laid a cable.

  A student with dreadlocks what visited Farshid and Reza saw Clarence coming. He yelled ‘Pigs!’, and went to push him, what wasn’t a good idea cuz it only took a second before Clarence got a fist around them hair-sticks. He gave them a yank what made the boy yelp, what is a yell with a P what makes it shorter.