by Arnold Zable
‘Amjed and Ahmed were upset. They said, “Mum, you told us you are going to save us.” I phoned my husband and I told him we are going to follow him. He said, “Don’t come, it is dangerous in the boat.” He told me, “I am scared. Maybe you will die in the ocean.” He told me, “Wait. One day I will be a citizen, and then you can come to Australia.”
‘I told him I can’t wait. I told him, “I must come even if it is dangerous.” I told him, “Waiting and waiting is like death. We are slowly dying.” He sent me some money and he said, “Use this money to eat, use the money to buy clothes and, if you like, you can rent a nice home and stay there, but don’t come. It is very dangerous.”
‘I didn’t buy clothes with this money. I kept the money, and I bought passports. I wanted to buy tickets, but they were very expensive. I did not have enough for three tickets. I did not know what to do. I am a mother. I could not decide which son to take. My older son Ahmed said to me, “Mum, don’t feel upset, please go with Amjed, but don’t forget me. One day I will follow you.”
‘I promised Ahmed I am going to save him, but I was very upset. When I had my two sons, and when we went out together, they would walk with me one on each side, and they would hold my hands. They were my wings. How could I fly with only one wing?
‘It is very hard for me to remember how I looked at Ahmed’s face and said goodbye to him. He said, “Mum don’t forget me.” He said, “Mum, take care of yourself, and take care of my brother. Mum, I am going to miss you.” When the aeroplane went up, my heart was with my Ahmed. And my younger son Amjed felt sick because he had taken the place of his brother.
‘When we left I had just one bag with some tins of tuna and vegetables, and Amjed laughed. He said, “The bag is empty, we have nothing.” At eleven o’clock in the night we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, and there were many smugglers waiting for us at the airport. The smugglers were fighting over us. They said, “Come with me. Come with me.” We chose one and he took us to the hotel. He told us there was only one way to go to Australia. First we must go by boat to Indonesia.
‘We stayed in the hotel for three days, then the smuggler said, “Tomorrow you must take the boat to Sumatra.” He said, “Take your bag and come with me.” We went by taxi and we arrived in a jungle. There was nobody there. There was no food, and nowhere to sleep, no cover. There was only one dirty toilet.
‘The next day a boat came. We travelled in the night. There were many women and children. The boat was no good. It was small and it was crowded, and they put some wood over us to hide us, and we could not move, we could not breathe. We stayed one day in that boat. It was very dangerous. The boat stopped in Sumatra and we still had to find our way to Jakarta. A smuggler told us it is a long way to Jakarta. He said it is better to go by aeroplane, and it is cheap, only eighty dollars.
‘We bought a ticket and flew to Jakarta, where we stayed in a hotel called the Villa Amelia. We were waiting for a boat to Australia. We talked to a smuggler, Abu Quassey. He was from Egypt. He said he had a strong boat. He said it had everything, and we trusted him. He gave us a big hope, a big dream. We gave him money for the boat. We trusted him because his face was nice. He was like a brother.
‘We lived with many Iraqi people, many women and children who had fathers and husbands in Australia. They all had a dream of Australia. The children talked to Abu Quassey and they were very happy. He told them, “In Australia they are going to say welcome to you.” He said, “They are going to help you.” He said, “You are going to have a good home.” He said many beautiful things.
‘The children played in a tiny garden, and my room looked over this garden. They woke up very early and they started to run and shout. I got out of bed and left my room, and I said, “Why did you wake me up early? Please, I want to sleep, I feel tired.”
‘They said, “Please auntie, come and tell us a story.” They started to ask me about Australia. They asked, “Have you visited Australia before?” And I told them no. And they asked, “What do you think Australia looks like,” and I told them, “It looks like paradise.”
‘One boy, his name is Sajjad, asked me, “Do you think when I arrive in Australia I will have a PlayStation?” I told him, “Yes, you are going to have a PlayStation.” He asked me, “Do you think I am going to be happy?” I told him there is no Saddam in Australia. I told him, “You are going to be safe there. You are going to be happy.”
‘The children had special dreams. One girl, Alia, told me that when she was a little girl, she played with candles on her birthday and her legs were burnt. She told me that in Australia she is going to have plastic surgery and have beautiful legs, and buy beautiful clothes, and she is going to tell her friends, “Look at me, I have a nice body.”
‘The children drew many pictures of the ocean. They drew pictures of boats, they drew fish and dolphins, and they drew flowers. They told me, “I want to go to school. I want to meet my father, because I have not seen him for three years.” They thought the boat would bring them happiness.
‘When we made a deal with Abu Quassey, he said he would be ready after one week, maybe one month, but we waited for a long time. We waited and waited. One day I was watching TV and I saw many buildings burning in New York, and I asked my friends, “What happened? What’s wrong?” And they told me al-Qaeda did this. I was very upset about what happened to the people on September 11, and I was frightened because maybe they would say it was our fault.
‘We ate, we breathed, we were alive, but we were not happy. The people’s money was gone, and they borrowed money from the mosque, and Abu Quassey was not happy because we did not have enough money. He cared only for the money.’
‘On October 16, the smugglers took us by bus from Jakarta to Sumatra Island. We went in five buses. No one could see us. There were black curtains on the windows. They took us to a port and at night they put the buses on a ferry. The ferry took us from Java to Sumatra, and the buses took us to some place like a motel. The smugglers told us we are going to go on the boat tomorrow. They told us we had a big boat and it had everything: a radio, a satellite, life jackets, food and water, and bathrooms. They told us we were very lucky.
‘On the last day I did not have any food. Many people tried to make some food. They made bread and soup and they gave me some bread. When I ate this bread I remembered the Iraqi people. In 1991 there was no food in Baghdad. I remembered my mother. When she became sick, there was no medicine for her. She died when I was in Iran. And when she died, she had nothing.
‘That night I had a dream. I saw my mother. She told me, “Come, I want to show you something.” She touched my hand and she took me to a room. The whole room was my brother’s coffin, my brother Sa’ad who was killed by Saddam. The room was filled with ice and water. I asked my mother, “Why is there so much ice, so much water?”
‘She did not answer. I asked her, “Please tell me what happened.” I felt sick. She touched my hand and took me to a bed. I lay down on this bed and I asked her, “Mother, what do you want to tell me?” It was dark and she was holding someone’s hand, my son Amjed’s hand, and she pushed him to me. Amjed hugged me, and he fell asleep beside me.
‘Then the smugglers were shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! We are going now. Hurry! We are leaving!” They woke me from the dream. I did not know then what my dream meant. I did not know that my mother’s soul had come to tell me I will be saved, and that my son will be saved. She told me everything. She told me this coffin was not for us. This coffin was for the people travelling with us, and the ice was covering their bodies. I did not understand. I did not know that my mother’s soul had come to tell me we are going to have an accident.
‘The smugglers took us to a beach. It was one o’clock in the morning. When we saw the boat on the water, I couldn’t believe it. None of the people could believe it. The boat was not big enough for us. It was maybe twenty metres long. There were four hundred and twenty people for this boat. My brother, you can’t imagine.
‘Abu Quass
ey said, “First I will take just the women and children.” They took us in a small boat from the beach, twenty-five people at a time. Maybe they were afraid the men would not get onto the boat when they saw it. What could the women say? It was night, it was dark, and nobody could say anything.
‘Believe me, when we reached the boat, I knew it would not arrive safely. When I stepped on board, I told myself, “This boat will not arrive anywhere.” Somebody said, “Maybe there is another boat waiting for us?” When the men arrived they were angry and shouting, but the smugglers said, “Quickly! Quickly! Maybe the police will come and catch you. We must leave quickly.”
‘When the boat was moving we were very hungry, but we couldn’t eat because we were sick and frightened. The smugglers told many lies. They told us the boat had a radio, but it did not work. They told us we are going to have so much food, but we didn’t find anything, just bread and water.
‘The people started to shout, “We don’t want to go in this boat. We want to go back to Jakarta.” After some hours we saw some islands, and a small boat came close to us and some people jumped on the boat. I told my son, “I want to go with these people. I don’t want to stay in this boat.” My son went to look for our bag, and when he came back it was too late to catch the small boat.
‘We were very upset and one man told me, “Don’t think about this. You don’t have any money. If you go back to Jakarta, maybe immigration is going to put you in jail and you are going to lose all hope.” I told myself, “This man tells the truth.” And I said to myself, “I must pray, I must ask God, please help us. Please help us.”’
Umm Khultum’s CD is playing as I drive about the city. Her voice is rising. It is a supplication, an entreaty. It evokes Amal, her urgent walk as she rushed about on errands. Amal as she stood on the Melbourne Town Hall stage, dwarfed by the ornate walls, the tiered balconies and the massive organ, which all vanished and gave way to the ocean, as Amal commenced yet another telling. And it evokes encounters I had all but forgotten, yielding unexpected details.
On the morning of the fourth anniversary of the sinking, I met Amal at Melbourne airport to catch a flight to Canberra for a memorial service. The service was to be attended by survivors. ‘My brother, I am tired. I could not sleep all night. I could not stop thinking, where were we four years ago, at this time? Where were we in the middle of the night, fifteen hours before the sinking?
‘I got out of bed, made a cup of tea, closed my eyes, and I remembered. It was raining, and the ocean was angry. Our boat went up and down, up and down into the water. Everyone was screaming, everyone was shouting, “My God, please help us!” We were sick. We couldn’t eat. We couldn’t drink water.
‘After midnight, the wind became more angry. The boat went up and down, and when it came down I thought we were going to go under. It was cold and everyone was wet, and the children were crying. Everyone was frightened, and they were all praying, “God help us. The ocean is angry. God save us.” But the boat was climbing higher and higher, and falling down, down, down into the ocean, and the people were shouting, “We are going to die! We are going to die!”
‘I saw five people, a man and four women. They were standing together and writing something on a piece of paper. The boat was climbing up and falling down, and I went over to them. I was holding onto people and stumbling, but I wanted to know what they were doing, and when I reached them they told me, “We are writing a letter to the angel of the ocean,” and they showed me what they were writing: “Angel of the ocean, please help us. Angel of the ocean, please look after our children. Angel of the ocean, do not be angry. Angel of the ocean, do not leave us. Angel of the ocean, please save us.” And they folded up the paper and threw it into the water.
‘In the morning it was quiet and the captain came down to tell us we have been at sea for thirty hours, and in six hours we are going to be on Christmas Island. The ocean was resting and everyone was happy. The children started to shout, “Look at the dolphins.” The dolphins were jumping around us, and the children were jumping with them, but something in my soul told me we are not going to arrive on Christmas Island.
‘After four hours, the engine broke down and the crewmen tried to fix it. One man told me they tried to close a hole with a pair of jeans, with clothing. Suddenly a woman shouted, “The water is coming. We are going to sink, we are going to die!” I couldn’t believe it. I looked down and saw the water coming into the boat, coming over our feet, touching our legs, coming quickly.
‘I wanted to say goodbye to my son. I wanted to hug him, but the boat went down quickly, as if someone had taken me and pulled me into the ocean. I went down into the water. And when I came up, the gates of hell opened.’
Umm Khultum holds me spellbound. She retains one note and extends it to the very limits. The audience is exalted, their response visceral. In her voice I hear Amal’s insistence, and in the song’s repetitions, the phrases that Amal would return to in each telling: ‘My brother, you can’t imagine. When the boat went down I was like a camera. I saw everything. It was ten past three in the afternoon. I know because the watches stopped at that time. My son said, “Forgive me, mother. Maybe I will see you in paradise.” The children. They looked fresh. They looked like birds. They looked like they are going to fly in the water. My brother, you can’t imagine.’
I cannot fathom how Amal resurfaced, and how for years she had willed herself with each telling to return through the gates of hell, back to those children sleeping on the water. And as I drive, I reflect upon the rest of the story, the events that ensued after the three boats abandoned her, on the night of October 19, until her rescue, and her arrival in Australia. And the final irony: Amal’s death from cancer four and a half years after she was hauled from the ocean.
When the sun rose on the morning of October 20 2001, Amal still clung to the body of the dead woman. ‘I was going up and down, up and down, and I was fighting with the water. I was tired. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I thought, maybe my son died. I thought no one is going to save me. All the people had disappeared and there was no one. Just sky and water, birds and dolphins, and I said, “Forgive me, but I want to die.”
‘I wanted to go quickly. I tried to swallow water, but I couldn’t. My brother, believe me, I wanted to go quickly, and I tried to swallow water. I tried to kill myself, but I couldn’t. I looked up and saw birds, and it seemed like they were talking to me. I asked myself, “Why are these birds shouting? What do these birds want to tell me?”
‘Then I heard the noise of a motor, and I heard voices. I could not believe what I was hearing. I thought, maybe I am dreaming. I turned around, and I saw a boat, and I thought maybe I am going crazy. Then I thought, maybe this is what the birds were shouting. Maybe this is what the birds were telling me. Maybe they showed the Indonesian fishermen my body. Maybe the birds saved me.
‘A man came down into the water to help me, and I said, “Please, please, can you take the woman I am holding?” And he said, “No, we did not come to save dead bodies.” I let go of the woman and I said to her, “My sister, thank you, you saved my life. You stayed with me all night.” I said, “My sister, please forgive me. Maybe I will see you in paradise.”
‘When they lifted me into the boat I saw many people; but I did not see my son, and I started shouting, “My poor son, I have lost you.” Someone told me, “I saw your son in the water. He was holding a piece of wood with other people.” I ran to the captain and I begged him, “Please look for my son.” He said, “I have too many people.” He said, “There are no more people in the water. I must go back to Jakarta.”
‘I shouted, “You must look for my son.” I shouted, “Please. I am a mother, you must help me.” I shouted, “Please, you must save my son.” I shouted and shouted because I am a mother. I shouted until the captain said, “Okay. Okay! We are going back. We are going to search! For just one hour.”
‘Soon after, I saw my son on a big wave. I could not believe it. He was holding onto a piece of
wood. It looked like he came back to me from the sky. His body had blood all over it because the wood had nails, but the wood saved him. I hugged him, and I said, “Oh my son, welcome back to life again. My son, I love you so much.”
‘He slept in my arms like a small bird, and I fell asleep and dreamed of a shark swimming next to me, and when I woke up, I saw it was not a shark, but my son lying against me. I looked around the boat, at the people. They were staring at the sky, or at the ocean. Some were asleep, many were weeping. And I asked, “What happened to them? What happened to us?”
‘I fell asleep again and in my dream I saw the children. They were pulling my hair, and they were asking me, “What happened to us? What happened to us? Tell the truth. Tell the truth. What happened to us?” And they began flying.
‘I woke up from my dream and I saw a girl sitting near me. Her name was Zainab, she was twelve years old, and she was shaking and crying, and I asked her, “Why are you crying?” and she said, “I lost all my family. We were six brothers and sisters, a father and mother. I lost all my family.” And I told her, “I am your mother now. I am your family. You are going to stay with me. I will look after you.”
‘After two days we arrived in Jakarta, and Indonesian immigration officials came and took us to prison, but when we told them our story, they called the United Nations and UN people came and took care of us. Then the Iraqi ambassador came and said, “Salaam, how are you,” and he told us that Saddam said we must go back to our country. He said, “There is an aeroplane waiting for you.”
‘We were very scared. We were praying and crying. A man from the Pakistan embassy was very angry, and he said to the Iraqi ambassador, “Why do you treat people like this? Leave them alone. They have lost their families. They are in shock. They don’t want to go back with you.”
‘We were taken to a hotel, and people came from all over the world to hear our story. One woman told them that dolphins saved her. The dolphins touched her, and pushed her to the boat. She said it was a miracle.
