Foreign Soil

by Maxine Beneba Clarke

  “Fucking. That sounds more like it.” He reaches a hand over her waist, slides it under her polka-dot nightshirt and up the skin of her stomach, trails his fingers up to her breast, circles around her nipple.

  Loretta sighs, collapses back into him. They’ve always been like this, she and Sam. Their bodies just somehow fit together. She’s listened to her friends over the years, even the ones happy in their marriages, and knows it’s rare, what she and her husband still have. Still, great sex is not enough to hang a lifetime on.

  Sam’s breath is heavy on her neck. He nudges her legs open. His hand moves from her nipple, down her stomach, down between her legs. God. It’s not enough to hang a marriage on. He eases a hand beneath her, lifts her up slightly from the bed. It’s 7:17 now, on the alarm clock. Her cheek presses into the pillow. Fuck. Sam groans into her ear. Loretta reaches a hand behind her, pulls him closer in. God. It’s not enough. Then there’s the thing with her job, the fact that he’s stopped talking about children. God. It’s not enough to make her happy. Shit. Sam’s mouth is opening and closing, right next to her ear. He thrashes and gulps and writhes, like a landed fish.

  His body relaxes and he spoons against Loretta’s back once more, wraps his hand around her waist. The alarm clock’s beeping again. Seven thirty on the dot.

  “Come on, it’s Saturday morning. Just stay in bed. Give it a miss for one weekend.” Sam sits up and grabs Loretta’s elbow as she moves to get out of bed, curly red hair wild around her face.

  “Viv can’t go today. I promised I would.”

  “Shit. You’re really going all the way out there again?” Sam flops back onto the pillow, exasperated.

  Loretta turns her back to him, steps out of her nightshirt and into the en suite bathroom. She hates this bathroom—the shiny black surfaces that gather dust overnight, the plain white tiles. Sam had insisted on buying off the plan and, against her better judgement, they’d succumbed to the developer’s interior stylist. That’s what they call themselves these days, interior stylists. She and Sam had laughed about it for weeks. Buttering their morning sourdough had become toast styling. Changing the screen saver for their mobile phones, phone styling. They’d found such things amusing, back then.

  “Black and white,” the stylist had said, “never goes out of fashion. You just dress it up with whatever color you want to suit the season. Yellow cushions and wall art in summer, purple throw rugs and candles in winter.”

  Loretta had wanted everything neutral, to suit the old brown leather couches and assorted coffee tables they already had, but Sam thought she was crazy, since new furniture was already paid for in the package they’d chosen.

  The hot spray of the shower hits Loretta’s face. She tilts her head up, letting the water run into her mouth. She’d been undecided, actually, when she first woke up, about going out to Villawood. Then Sam had started with his usual shit.

  Loretta misses her old job at the Asylum Seekers Center. Saturday volunteering’s been her only chance to reconnect with that work. She reaches for the shampoo. Oxfam coconut, still going from the gift basket the girls gave her on her last day at the center. It was Sam who persuaded her to ditch the job.

  “We’re not getting any younger,” he’d said. “It’s not just the pay. You couldn’t work around this job with kids. They’re always calling you off-hours. If you find a steady firm somewhere, you could work the new job for a few years, then take maternity leave.”

  A warm feeling had flooded Loretta’s stomach when he said that. She’d seen this house, this soulless, monochrome Escher-print display home, completely worn in—knee-height Vegemite fingerprints smeared on the double doors of the giant chrome fridge, the varnish on the stairway banister worn dull from kids’ bottoms sliding down it, the spare room ankle deep in toys, green playdough squished into the carpet. She’d seen their children: a pair of rowdy flame-haired daughters with his olive skin. They were ballsy and loud, with her big heart and Sam’s fiery temperament.

  Before then, Sam had always closed down the conversation when she mentioned children; killing conversation was a skill he’d excelled in when they first met at law school, and one that’s been fine-tuned by eight years of business law at Smith, Thomas & Everington. But it’s been seven months now since she left the center, and there has been no more talk about children. Maybe her mother’s right: her job had just become an embarrassment to him.

  Loretta towels off, wraps the white bath sheet around her hair, tucks the black one around her body, opens the bathroom door. Sam’s fallen back asleep, flat on his back, mouth wide open, snoring loudly, arms spreadeagled. Sprawled against the light gray sheets, he reminds Loretta of the giant silver Jesus hanging on the cross above the mantelpiece at his parents’ house.

  Loretta moves over to the walk-in, steps into her underwear, picks out blue jeans and a light cotton T-shirt. At the top of her T-shirt drawer is the tiny white baby nightgown Sam’s mother gave her on the sly last Easter. Theresa had slid the tissue paper–wrapped parcel over to her with a wink as they sat at the kitchen table salting the eggplant for moussaka.

  “I’m not . . . I mean, we’re not—” Loretta had flushed beetroot, sat there stammering.

  “Pah. The men, they are never ready,” Theresa replied as she ground cracked peppercorns with the pestle. “Us women, we just need to give them a little bit of a nudge, yes? Once the baby is growing in your tummy, he will have to be ready.”

  Loretta had stared at her mother-in-law, mouth open. Was she—Sam’s own mother—suggesting she trick him into it?

  She sits on the edge of the bed, slides on a pair of red sandals, grabs a handful of bobby pins from her bedside table and tiptoes out of the room.

  * * *

  The digital watch the Brotherhood of St Laurence lady left when she visited a few months back is staring down at Asanka. Its bright blue plastic arms are tucked into the springs of the top bunk, ten springs down and eleven across from the headboard. Three down and five across is a rusty, corroded spring. Twenty down and two across is a light green wad of gum. The length of the bunk beds is exactly eight of Asanka’s foot lengths, toe to toe, in bare feet. The length of the room is eighteen and a half of these foot lengths. The width is sixteen foot lengths and one thumb tip.

  The watch reads 07:44:25. In thirty-five seconds the security seal on the heavy door leading to Asanka’s unit will be broken by the beep of an access card. The door will creak, because the top hinge needs oiling. Then, depending on who is rostered for morning checkup, it will either slam loudly or be eased softly shut. One time, Asanka didn’t hear the door close. It must have been stuck open, but the room checker hadn’t stopped. Asanka had thought of running, of sneaking past the heavy metal door and trying to escape, but he did not know what the Australians would do. The Tigers came back for him after half a day in the potato chest, but these people have locked him up for a year and a half.

  Asanka waits. 07:45:00. Beep, creak, pause, slam. Thunkerr, thunkerr, thunk. Asanka can tell from the slam and the footsteps that it’s the short man with the big belly hanging over his pants. Some of the workers give their names, stop to chat. But not this man. He will move slowly, taking approximately seven and a half shuffle steps between each bedroom door. This man walks unevenly. Thunkerr, thunkerr, thunk, as if his toes hit the ground before his heels. Each room will take Big Belly an average of forty-five seconds to check. Asanka starts counting. 07:45:45. Thunkerr thunk. Room three: pause, check. 07:46:32. Thunkerr, thunkerr, thunk. Room four: pause, check.

  Asanka knows every sound in this section of the center. Every creak, footstep, drawer slide, cupboard slam, groan, furniture scrape, and murmur. Every door clang. Every sigh. Thunkerr, thunk, pause, check.

  “All right, mate, out of bed. C’mon.” Big Belly pauses at the door, then passes on to the next room when he sees Asanka moving under his blankets.

  Asanka eases his legs off the sagging bottom bunk. Sits there for a moment. He stares across at the small chest of d
rawers containing his two changes of clothes. He scratches his head for a few minutes: 07:49:55. Yawns: 07:52:02. Stretches out his legs: 07:52:41. He unthreads the watch from above him, stands up: 07:52:59. He walks slowly across the room: 07:53:25. He stands by the chest of drawers: 07:54:12. Asanka’s pajamas are falling apart—threadbare at the seat, two buttons missing—but they are a donation he’s grateful to have. The room is quiet. Nobody’s been put in to share with him since Chaminda was found dead. They have asked him if he would like to change rooms. As if that would somehow make things better. He opens his drawer: 07:54:28. Gets out his jeans and T-shirt: 07:55:00.

  When he stops counting, he will be locked in the chest. They will shove him inside the fish hold. They will shut the lid and leave him there, with the blood and the stink and the smell of fear. Dinesh will be there, next to him, letting go of his bowels and wheezing. Dinesh will be dead, and his face will already be decaying. 07:58:10. Mustache and Ponytail are going to come for him. They will hit him in the face with the handles of their fish knives. They will turn the boat around and throw him to the Tigers.

  Asanka puts out a hand, steadies himself. The man who comes to talk to him, the head doctor they sometimes send in, he says it is not real. Nobody is coming to get him. He is safe now. It is all in his head. But, the doctor, he doesn’t know. He does not know. They are coming for him. 08:00:00. And anyway, the Immigration want to send him back, back inside the potato chest.

  Asanka inches himself sideways, into the gap between the chest of drawers and the wall, stays as still as he can. The footsteps are moving away. The Tigers will never come back for him and Dinesh. They will starve, or suffocate. They will rot. They should never have tried to run away.

  Asanka used to stay in the bunk bed all day sometimes, but since Chaminda died they’ve been made to get up by 07:45:00. Ever since then, Asanka’s been counting. Trying to fill the day with things. Filling a day with things has never been more difficult. In Gonagala, just before he got away, he cut up three people in the time he now has to make stretch till breakfast. He cut them up alive, while they were still screaming.

  08:06:21. Asanka deserves to die. He should have tried harder to escape. He should have taken Dinesh with him, that final time. Asanka has no idea what became of his friend. Dinesh is crouched next to him now. Dinesh is always crouched next to him. But today, his friend’s dead body has no face on it. They should have refused to fight for the Tigers, let the Tigers take all their fingers. One by one. A fist with no fingers cannot fight. 08:06:32. Asanka knows why they are keeping him in here. They have found out that he is a monster. He is a monster. Only monsters do such things as he has.

  Asanka shifts his body around inside the chest, trying to get the leg cramps to stop. Dinesh won’t quit wheezing. Asanka feels like thumping the kid. “Be quiet! I want to hear if there is anyone near.”

  08:08:02. Asanka edges out from beside the chest of drawers and sidles into the small shower room. He balances the watch on the sink so he can see its face. 08:09:23. He undresses, moves into the tiny shower cubicle, turns on the hot water tap, steps under the cold spray. The water warms, scalds, starts burning his skin. 08:10:52. Blood is washing off him, running down his thin brown body and into the silver drain hole. There is red everywhere. He has not killed anybody today, not killed since he got away from the Liberation Tigers. But there is blood all over this shower cubicle, all over him. Somebody will walk past and see him, catch him standing there naked and see the bloody mess he’s made. There are no doors in this place—no doors except the ones to keep people from running away.

  The head doctor said there was no blood, that he would never be locked in a chest or a fish hold again. But then the head doctor had walked out of here, left him behind, in the chest. He can hear the footsteps out there sometimes, can hear the head doctor going about his business. Asanka cranes his head, looks up. The rusty nail ends are poking through the splintering wood. If he could just stretch out his hand, he could try to push them out. Somehow.

  08:10:52. Asanka grabs the bar of soap, rubs it all over his body. The waxy white soap bar turns pink with blood. He raises the soap to his mouth, bites off a chunk. Starts chewing. The soap burns on the way down. 08:11:24. Asanka’s stomach heaves and flinches. He does not want to die. He wants to be washed clean, to be clean inside. Like Chaminda.

  Chaminda’s body lay on the top bunk for a full day before a cleaner found it and shrieked at Chaminda’s stillness, his waxy skin and vomit-soaked shirt. Asanka had discovered his friend earlier in the day, when he’d climbed up to bring him breakfast. He’d gently closed Chaminda’s eyes and covered his slim body with the sheet. After everything he’d been through, the man deserved some peace. Asanka had only met Chaminda at the start of their journey to Australia, but in the end they were all each other had: family.

  Asanka’s been watching the news every evening in Common Room B, at 19:29:58, but Chaminda has never been mentioned. Just the politicians, arguing among themselves about more boats coming in. They’ve taken measures, though, in here. They installed two extra cameras in the common areas last week, and now they padlock the cupboards with cleaning fluids in them.

  Asanka leans over, gags, opens his mouth wide to the bile. He watches the soapy food chunks hit the metal floor of the shower, pool around the plughole. Asanka wants to be clean again.

  * * *

  Asanka wakes on the floor of the boat, shivering, soaked in salt water. His right hand is still knotted to the bench with Chaminda’s shirt. The ocean’s sleeping again, lapping against the side of the boat in even ripples, snoring as if nothing ever happened. The sky is slowly tinging back to blue, thick gray clouds dissolving into nothing. Asanka looks out at the dark green ripples in the distance, squints into the wind for signs of movement. Over near the fish hold, Mustache is talking to a handful of the men. Asanka strains to listen as he works away at the knot.

  “Little man, can you swim?” Chaminda had asked him last night, just before the storm began raging. When Asanka shook his head, Chaminda had taken off his long-sleeved shirt, ripped it into a makeshift rope, and tied Asanka’s wrist to the bench.

  Something moves in front of Asanka, blocking out the light. He pulls his arm free. Chaminda’s standing over him, holding a fish. The fish is half an arm’s length long, translucent silver with strange bluish-gray spots on either side of its spine. Asanka wonders if he’s dead, or if Chaminda is. Then he wonders if the fish is a mackerel. It looks like one—the small, pointy fin on the top, the fan-shaped crest at the front. But the spots; Asanka’s never seen a mackerel with spots like this before.

  Chaminda’s holding the fish out to him, gesturing for him to take it. He raises his free hand to his mouth, makes a drinking motion. Asanka stares at the fish. It’s been slit open, a horizontal gash cut beneath the gills. Asanka takes the fish, raises it to his mouth, places his lips around the hole and sucks the salty blood in through closed teeth, straining out the stray scales and flesh. Three days ago, the last three drinking containers had cracked—they’d been tossed up in the air and flung down against the metal fish hold as the boat slid off the peak of an enormous wave, had cracked at the base, so they couldn’t even collect more.

  After Asanka’s done, Chaminda takes the fish from him. Asanka watches as he raises it to his lips. Orange pulp drips down Chaminda’s bare chest. Without his shirt, the sun will surely burn his friend up. Chaminda’s been watching out for Asanka ever since the fish hold. Asanka’s not used to that—random acts of kindness. Last night he had tried to smile at his friend, pulled his lips back and bared his teeth and gums. “You don’t need to do that,” Chaminda had said. “Just say thank you.” He had sounded so sad that Asanka regretted even trying.

  Along the edge of the boat bench are thirty-five notches. Ponytail has carved one there every day since they left Sri Lanka, every morning when he wakes up. Now, Asanka notices Ponytail standing alone on the roof of the boat. He is scanning the blue around them, turning and
looking, looking and turning. Ponytail is awake, but he has forgotten the notch. Asanka wants to remind him, to climb up and grab his leg, drag him down off the roof and over to the bench, demand that he get out his fish knife.

  The sea has been restless at night, foaming and heaving and bubbling up around them. Under cover of darkness, it becomes a thing possessed—hissing as if hungry for them. Asanka’s convinced they will never find land. The rest of the world has ceased to exist. It’s only them, and the boat, and the flat wide ocean stretching forever. Only them and the terrible secrets churning ten feet below.

  Four notches ago they lost a man. He was there the night before, and in the morning there was no sign of him. The oddest thing was, no one had realized anyone was missing until the morning head count. Nobody could remember the man—what his name was, when they had last seen him, what he looked like or was wearing. It was as if he had never existed, only there was definitely one less person.

  “He . . . he hasn’t done his mark there today.” Asanka points to the bench.

  “No.” Chaminda sits down next to him, the half-deflated fish hanging limp in his hand.

  * * *

  Loretta pushes the button for the garage door and slowly backs the car out. At the top of the driveway she stops, presses the remote again and watches the door slowly roll down. She glances in the rearview mirror at the houses across the road. The street is empty; vehicles locked behind double garage doors, families sleeping behind peach-colored blinds.

  The garbage workers are on a wages strike, but all along the street rubbish and recycling containers have been placed hopefully out, spaced at even distances apart on the verge, a kaleidoscope of dark-green and sunflower-yellow lids. Loretta sighs, resumes reversing. In about an hour, she supposes, the whole street will rise from their beds and face their Saturday morning. The kids will get Nutri-Grain in front of Channel Nine cartoons. The parents will stand at the kitchen counter as they spread strawberry jam on their Tip Top toast.