by Judy Nunn
She decided upon the latter option, hoping the man’s knowledge of English was as comprehensive as it appeared to be, and that he’d not just developed a talent for foul and abusive assaults on women.
‘I do not choose who lives or dies,’ she said firmly, ‘only God has that power –’ She was about to go on, but the man interrupted.
‘You dare mention God!’ She appeared to have angered him further. ‘Infidel!’ His eyes contemptuously roamed her uncovered head and her fair hair blowing wildly in the wind. ‘You do not follow the true God! You believe you are God!’ He spat the words at her.
‘I believe nothing of the sort.’ She ignored the interruption and continued from exactly the point where she’d left off, her manner cool, concise. ‘I am a nurse and my husband is a doctor. We have limited medications to hand, which I administer to those whom we consider have a chance of survival. Sadly there have been some showing particularly strong symptoms, whom we have considered beyond help. And of course there are many amongst us displaying no symptoms at all. In my opinion you are one of these,’ she said in conclusion. ‘I am willing to examine you if you wish, but from my observation you appear symptom-free and therefore are in no need of the valuable medication, which we have in scant supply.’
He continued to glare at her, but made no further interruption. Has he understood? she wondered. Then, in her peripheral vision, she noticed that behind him Rassen was returning. She averted her gaze.
‘Ah, here comes my husband,’ she said pleasantly as if theirs had been an amiable conversation. ‘I am sure he will be quite happy to assure you, as I have just done, that you are not at risk.’
She met his eyes once again, only briefly, before the man turned from her to rejoin his beautiful young companion, who had remained staring out to sea. But in that brief moment of contact Hala knew he had understood every word she’d said. Vile though he was, the man’s knowledge of English was most certainly comprehensive.
Thinking now about Jalila, and wondering whether the man might possibly have taught her English, Hala couldn’t help but reflect upon the unpleasant episode and all its implications.
The man had been right really, hadn’t he? She hadn’t given the matter a great deal of consideration at the time: there’d been too much to do in the fight to save lives. She hadn’t even told Rassen of the confrontation, simply dismissing the man as the loathsome creature he was. But now, here on this island, with little to do but think, Hala’s mind roamed freely.
She had been playing God, of course she had. She’d been playing God from the very start.
She remembered noticing, for the first time, the young woman and baby at the safe house in Sendang Biru. She hadn’t seen the woman aboard the truck that had transported them from Jakarta to Bogor, nor had she seen her at the safe house in Bogor itself, but of course there would have been more than one safe house and more than one transport truck. It was only when they’d reached the small fishing village of Sendang Biru, where they’d awaited the vessel that would take them to Australia, that she’d noticed the woman and child. How could she fail to do otherwise? Much as the woman tried to disguise her weakened and feverish condition, to Hala the symptoms were highly suspicious. To Rassen too. They had discussed the case; even without being able to examine the woman for the giveaway signs – the abdominal skin rash, the bronchial condition and other indications – they suspected it was possible she might be suffering from typhoid fever. They had mentioned the matter in private to the organiser of the exodus, the man called Benny Hitono, who had said he would ‘look into it’. But the following day the glib reply had come back …
‘Oh no,’ he had assured them, ‘all fine. I ask her. She say she has had bad cold. She is getting better, no need for worry.’
Hala and Rassen had by now gathered that Benny Hitono was a charlatan, in fact an out-and-out rogue, but this too had been discussed and they were in complete agreement. They had come so far and been through so much, they must resign themselves to whatever fate had in store. There could be no turning back.
The questions the woman’s condition raised were numerous. If she was in the grip of typhoid fever, how long had she been suffering the disease? With how many of their fellow passengers had she come in close contact? For how long had she been confined with others at safe houses? And given these factors, how many amongst them might already be suffering the disease, and at what stage was their infection?
Along with forty others, they’d embarked upon the vessel, a fifteen-metre wooden fishing boat that had seen better days – further confirming their opinion of Benny Hitono – and as they’d set off all these questions had continued to play on their minds.
When, in only a matter of days, the woman’s condition had worsened and a physical examination had confirmed their suspicions, Rassen had wanted to treat her with a course of the Ciprofloxacin tablets he carried in his medical kit. Hala had said no, however. Hala was always the tough one.
‘I believe she is too far gone, Rassen,’ she had said. ‘There is bound to be an outbreak. Leave our supplies for those in the earlier stages, those whom we know we can save.’
The woman’s baby had been the first to go. A girl, barely one year old.
Hala could still see the little shrouded body spiralling to the ocean’s depths, the weight they’d added carrying it to its watery grave. And she could still hear the mother, moaning, delirious, somehow vaguely aware, attempting to resist as the dead child was wrested from her arms.
The mother herself had followed not long after. They’d had no spare material from which to make a shroud and no sufficient weight to add to the body. They’d been at sea for well over a week by then, and were quite possibly off their intended course, although no one knew for sure, as the skipper and two-man crew spoke only Indonesian and were giving away nothing. The vessel was supposed to have reached its destination in a week and people were becoming frightened. The young mother’s death only added to the burgeoning sense of panic.
Hala remembered watching the woman’s body, bobbing like a rag doll on the ocean’s surface as the boat continued to chug its way to God only knew where, and she remembered thinking as she watched, How many more will there be?
There had been a number, she’d forgotten exactly how many, she’d been too busy playing God, but she recalled only too well those rag dolls bobbing. Perhaps she could have saved one or two, who knows? She’d certainly been ruthless in her choices. But the supply of medication they carried had been limited, and of course there was the dehydration factor. Those in the advanced stages of the disease were desperately in need of water, and the water supply was by now so low they could not afford extra rations for some who might already be on death’s list. Which meant there was little point in wasting precious tablets when dehydration would claim them anyway, she’d decided with cold brutality.
It was the water factor, Hala now recalled, that had been the catalyst, firing the man’s rage and bringing about his grisly end. Aggressive by nature, his anger had already been at fever pitch. As had the anger of so many, she remembered, particularly so many of the younger ones. Even before the storm hit, the vessel had become a tinderbox of human emotion, fear and anger rising in equal proportion. With food virtually non-existent and water rationing at its peak, people were preparing themselves for the end, some with resignation, others with resentment. The older passengers were reciting the Shahada.
‘There is no god but Allah.
Muhammad is the messenger of God.’
Their chanting, quiet and personal at first, had grown in unison, over and over, all about the vessel, voices joining in a mutual declaration of faith.
But other voices rose above them, the youthful voices of those who had risked their lives and witnessed the deaths of friends and family in their battle for liberation. Even traditional passive prayer angered the young activists who had fought so hard for freedom.
‘Ignore God! God will not save you!’ they taunted their devout Muslim
elders, for whom they would normally have shown respect. ‘Where is God? God is not here!’
In their home countries, the cry of ‘Freedom’ amongst the activists had meant more than freedom from the oppression of a regime that tortured and enslaved and murdered. It had meant freedom from the Mullahs, freedom from the restrictions of radical Islam, freedom from religion itself.
‘God will not save you! God is not here,’ they cried out in their own mutual show of rebellion.
In the chaos, the youngest of the crew members had considered it safe to take a swig from his flask, which during the night had been illicitly filled from the precious water supply doled out with great care to the passengers twice a day. The captain and his two-man crew had been stealing water on a regular basis, considering it their right – they were after all responsible for the safety of the vessel and passengers, and it was therefore essential they remain strong. The young crewman, a lad of no more than nineteen, presumed his action would go unnoticed. He was mistaken.
With a howl of anger, the man flung himself at the Indonesian, ripping the flask from his hand, screaming obscenities, his rage uncontrollable. He grasped the boy around the throat: he would have killed him if he could. But the captain was too quick. In a matter of seconds, the fishing knife he carried at all times on his belt was released from its sheath and plunged into the man’s stomach.
The wound itself might not have been enough to have killed the man, but the impetus of the captain’s charge was. Staggering backwards under the attack, the man was suddenly over the side of the vessel and floundering in the sea, blood gushing from his belly, an open invitation. The shark was upon him in an instant.
Everything had happened so quickly, Hala remembered. The bloodied water, the shark’s frenzy, the man’s brief screams and then it was over. She recalled how, automatically, her eyes had darted to his companion, and how she’d found the girl’s reaction so enigmatic. Nothing was there. The beautiful face had remained impassive, devoid even of shock. The man’s death had appeared to have for her no significance at all.
Hala wondered now about the relationship between Jalila and her unpleasant companion. Had the man been her husband? Had he treated her cruelly? Was he responsible for her present condition? And if, as Hala strongly suspected, Jalila spoke English, or at least had an understanding of the language, was it the man who had taught her?
As agreed, she kept her suspicions to herself. She did not query Jalila, nor did she attempt to put her ability to the test. But in the company of Rassen and Massoud, if the girl was present, Hala chose always to speak English, hoping that one day Jalila might reveal herself. It could perhaps be the first step towards healing whatever terrible damage the girl had suffered.
With everyone assigned their special duties – Hany and Karim fishing, the women tending gardens and household chores, and the indefatigable Sanaa preparing endless meals – Rassen and Massoud had taken it upon themselves to explore the island and painstakingly measure out its dimensions. They had walked the length and breadth counting every step, and had eventually concluded the island was approximately three kilometres long from north to south and two kilometres wide from east to west. A small isthmus of fifty metres or so projected from the western shoreline to a sizeable rocky outcrop, but they did not include this in their calculations for at high tide the sand bar was well under water with a fierce current running.
‘Best we don’t explore there,’ Rassen had suggested as they’d gazed across the narrow divide. ‘We’d either get stranded or swept away by the tide.’
Massoud agreed. Neither of them were strong swimmers, nor were any of the others. ‘We’re not exactly the right types to be stranded on a remote island in the middle of nowhere, are we?’ he remarked with a touch of whimsy.
The prevailing winds being south to southwesterly, the settlement of huts and jetties had been built on the eastern lee side. The mangroves, which grew in a small cluster a little further to the north, were the only trees on the island; the rest of the vegetation was a variety of low-lying shrubs and bushes.
‘Not much to tell us where we are,’ Rassen had said finally – he’d been hoping their several days of exploration might have revealed some hints.
‘And nobody around to tell us,’ Massoud replied looking out to sea. ‘Not a ship in sight, and after a full two weeks no sign whatsoever of our “friends”. I’m very much hoping now, be it for better or worse, that they do turn up.’
Rassen made no reply apart from a nod of affirmation. If he had been a man who believed in the miracle of prayer, he would pray, he thought. But he no longer believed. He decided that, like Massoud, he would hope.
The power of hope appeared to be enough, however, when two days later a boat was sighted.
Karim was the first to see it. He and Hany had just returned from their morning’s fishing expedition. They had scaled and gutted their catch at the shore, using the flat rock they’d selected to serve this specific purpose, and Hany had taken the bucket of fish to Sanaa, leaving Karim to clean up. This was their daily routine.
Karim went about his duties methodically, filling a second bucket with sea water and washing the rock down, cleaning away the fish scales with a scrubbing brush. After inspecting the dinghy to make sure all was in order for the following morning, he checked the anchor’s security and was about to join the others in the blue hut where lunch would soon be served. He was hungry.
But as he looked up, his eyes automatically swept the horizon and that was when he saw it. A vessel, far in the distance. He couldn’t tell how far, nor could he tell the size of the vessel, but it was there. He could see it. A boat.
He ran towards the blue hut where he presumed the others were already gathering for the meal.
‘A boat,’ he yelled as he ran. ‘A boat! A boat!’
Rassen and Hala were the first to appear from the yellow hut nearby, as they had not as yet joined the others, but within only moments the whole group had congregated.
They rushed to the shoreline, little Hamid following, wondering what the fuss was about, infected by the excitement. His father picked him up, hoisting him onto his hip and locking him there with one arm.
‘Look, Hamid,’ Karim shouted, pointing out to sea, ‘a boat! A boat, my son, wave to it! Wave!’
Karim was waving wildly himself and beside him Azra was waving, so the little boy waved along with them, enjoying his parents’ game.
‘Ahoy!’ Massoud screamed at the top of his voice, he too waving frantically, ‘ahoy there!’
‘I don’t think they can hear you,’ Rassen remarked drily: an understatement, the far-off vessel was nowhere within earshot.
‘I know.’ Massoud smiled. ‘But it feels like the right thing to do, don’t you think?’
Hala laughed. The young Iranian’s flippancy amused her and his smile, as always, was infectious. Besides, she was in wholehearted agreement. ‘Ahoy there,’ she yelled, jumping up and down and waving madly. ‘Over here! Over here!’
Rassen couldn’t help himself. Abandoning his normally dour demeanour, he joined in, and all eyes fixed on the distant vessel they jumped about screaming and waving like over-exuberant children.
In their excitement, they failed to notice those amongst them whose reaction differed from theirs. Jalila’s disinterest would hardly have come as a surprise, but the lack of enthusiasm displayed by the Egyptian couple would most certainly have mystified them.
Hany’s eyes were not focused upon the vessel at all, but rather upon his wife. He had put a protective arm around Sanaa, drawing her close, shielding her from something. But from what? Sanaa herself was staring out at the vessel, her expression inscrutable, but there might perhaps have been something in her eyes approximating dread.
Despite all their frantic activity, those onboard the vessel appeared not to have seen them, and its image was growing dishearteningly smaller.
‘A fire,’ Rassen said urgently, ‘gather some kindling, we’ll start a fire. Hala, f
etch a box of matches from the hut.’
As Hala sped off, the others set about gathering bracken and twigs, Jalila joining in, obeying instructions as she always did, fulfilling her duties when required. But again no one noticed the reluctance displayed by the Egyptians, who stood to one side watching in silence, Hany’s arm still protectively about his wife.
Hala returned with the matches and Rassen lit the small fire they’d built, Massoud holding out his coat, forming a windshield, then both of them vigorously fanning the flames, the smoke starting to rise.
But they were too late. By now the boat was no more than a speck on the horizon. Then even as they watched, it disappeared altogether and there remained nothing in sight but the endless ocean.
Rassen was not overly dismayed, however. He found the fact they had seen the vessel most promising. Where there is one boat, there will be another, he thought. The next day or the next week, what matter? A boat will pass by at some stage. And when it does, we must simply ensure a way of making our presence known.
‘We must keep a fire burning at all times,’ he announced.
Massoud had been thinking along very much the same lines, although he saw one major flaw in Rassen’s suggestion.
‘There’s not timber enough on the island to maintain a fire constantly; we’d soon run out of fuel,’ he said. ‘I think we should build a fire and have it standing by to be lit only when a vessel comes in sight.’ His look to Rassen was apologetic; he did not intend to take over the doctor’s natural role as leader. ‘I mean it could be some time before another boat turns up.’
But Rassen was in no need of apology. ‘Of course, Massoud, how silly of me. You’re absolutely right, and that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll have kerosene standing by to ignite the fire quickly. We’ll also keep a strict lookout at all times,’ he announced to the group in general. ‘If not for Karim, we might have been happily eating lunch today oblivious to the fact there was a boat in sight. Goodness knows how often this may already have happened. I suggest we assign regular watches throughout the day. It’s foolish to just sit around waiting to be discovered. We must do something.’
