‘Thank you, ma’am.’ I smile back at her and she pats me on my shoulder and walks away. Her kind touch restores my faith in Australians and gives me confidence. I won’t give up!
When my twelve-month internship finishes, the Australian Medical Council tells me I have to work for ten years in rural Australia before I’m able to practise in the city. This is a new rule specifically for OTDs. How can I take my children to a remote town where they won’t know anyone? They’ve only just found friends and a social life in Sydney, and Azita has started to feel comfortable here and is even planning to open her own hairdressing salon. My only alternative is to work as a locum in hospitals around Sydney and the surrounding towns. I hate doing this but I have no choice, so I begin work as an Emergency locum. One day I’m at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, the next at Blacktown Hospital, the day after that at Lithgow Hospital, and so on. Some places are an hour’s drive away, some three hours’. At least the pay is good.
I’m at Manly Hospital at one in the morning when an ambulance brings in a good-looking young man on a stretcher. He seems quite distressed and is perspiring profusely. When I ask him what’s wrong he talks quickly in a strong Australian accent, using slang terms I don’t understand. All I can get from him is: ‘I was at home playing with kids . . . toy car . . . went to my . . . very painful . . .’ I’m trying hard to comprehend what he’s saying but without success.
Dr Barlow, the head of the department, sees my confusion and comes over to help. I explain that I don’t know what’s happened to this patient. ‘Okay, let me have a chat with him,’ he offers.
A few minutes later he comes back to me, smiling. ‘I can explain the problem,’ he says. ‘He was having sex with another man and they used a sex toy, which is like a probe, and it went in too far and has actually ruptured his rectum. He has an ischiorectal abscess which, as you know, is very serious so I’m sending him straight to theatre.’
I’m so embarrassed for not understanding the patient straight away. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘No, no! It’s just a language barrier – it has nothing to do with your medical knowledge. I know you’re a competent doctor.’
After that I make sure I listen very carefully to my patients. If I don’t understand something I ask again, often several times. But I don’t mistake a sex toy for a car anymore.
One night in late summer I’m at home when I get a phone call from Iran. It’s Parvin, Dad’s second wife, who burned me when I was a child. Later on she told me that Abraham, my mother’s uncle, paid her to do this. He didn’t want to have a half-Muslim relative.
‘I’m sick of your father,’ Parvin tells me. ‘He’s seventy-eight years old and can’t work anymore, and I’m not going to look after him at my house. If one of his kids doesn’t help me I’ll throw him out onto the street to die.’ When my father retired as a bus driver at age seventy he became a taxi driver in Tehran. Three years ago he stopped doing that and took a job as a receptionist in a driving agency, until they finally sacked him because he was too frail.
There are no nursing homes for poor people in Iran. If Parvin carries out her threat, my father will only last a few days. Inexplicably, she was always his favourite wife out of the three – he bought her a house and supported her all her life. I can’t let her abandon him in his old age; after all, I still love my father.
Parvin says Koorosh can’t afford to help and my stepbrothers from my father’s first wife – one lives in Germany and the other in Tehran – have refused to assist because he neglected them.
‘Parvin, don’t worry, just tell me how much you need.’
‘Two hundred and fifty dollars a month.’
‘Okay, I’ll send that amount every month, I promise.’
‘Thank you, Kooshyar, thank you so much. I always knew the youngest would be the best son. I wish you were still in Iran.’ She suddenly sounds so kind, polite and happy.
I explain the situation to Azita and she’s outraged. ‘But this is the vicious woman who tried to kill you! She’ll probably just spend the money on herself and her daughter. Besides, that man never cared for you. Remember how when we got married, and then when we had Newsha, he didn’t even bother to call? Does he even know where you live?’ In the end she grudgingly accepts me just sending money for three months, but I continue doing it for some years. I believe it’s my responsibility as a son to protect my father, even if he doesn’t know where I live.
Because I’m working long hours as a locum every day, my income increases significantly. I purchase a nicer car and we finally get a proper bed, decent furniture, and new kitchen appliances and clothes.
‘We have to buy a house, Kooshyar. We can’t rent forever and our new furniture looks horrible in this awful place,’ Azita says.
So I work even harder – night and day, seven days a week. By the time I get home it’s usually three-thirty in the morning and everyone’s asleep. In February 2004 I manage to buy an old four-bedroom brick house in Baulkham Hills, north-west of Sydney, from a retired Iranian man who used to be a doctor. He failed the AMC exams twelve times so, after several years of driving a taxi, he instead opened a flower shop with his wife. The following month we move into the first house we own in Sydney. It’s delightful seeing my family so full of hope and happiness. But sadly this joy doesn’t last.
Azita wants to have her own hairdressing salon, so I borrow from the bank to set her up in the western suburb of Quakers Hill. The business does well and a few years later she owns another two salons. I’m working in more and more remote towns and am hardly at home. I miss my daughters, the little girls we brought to Australia after so much suffering and struggle. Newsha’s now fourteen and Niloofar’s eight. Though Azita finally has the material success she’s always wanted, I don’t find this satisfying. While I’m sleeping on spring beds in Emergency rooms, Azita’s driving her new Mercedes to nightclubs and restaurants with her good-looking friends. I’m a senior medical officer now and have saved many lives, but I’m lonelier than ever. I can feel things are slowly but undeniably slipping away from me.
SEVENTEEN
It’s 2009 and Azita’s salons are not doing well. Over the last nine months we’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to attract customers and improve the businesses. Then early one morning I come home to find Newsha crying in her room. When I ask her what’s wrong, she shares her true feelings with me for the first time in ages. It tears at my heart when she says she’s hardly seen me or her mother over the last three years. She tells me that Niloofar suffers from nightmares and almost every night gets up and goes to Newsha’s room for comfort.
I’m speechless. Newsha’s words put everything I’ve done under a gigantic question mark. What have I really achieved in Australia? A luxury car and a house, credit card debts and business loans, and a dysfunctional family? Am I saving lives in Emergency rooms while my own children are fading away? I feel as if I’m sitting in a broken boat, watching them drowning silently.
I virtually beg Azita to drop two of the salons and just keep one of them. At first she refuses, arguing that they’re new businesses and need time, but eventually she agrees and we close them down.
It’s five years since I began working as a locum in hospitals across New South Wales: Dubbo, Parkes, Forbes, Lithgow, Mudgee, Maitland, Wellington and Cowra, as well as all over Sydney. I know how to resuscitate a cardiac patient and often have to work as a cardiologist, surgeon, obstetrician or orthopaedic registrar, as there’s usually no specialist support in rural towns. I’ve been offered permanent jobs in many of these places but I need to stay in the city for my family. The question is: Do I still have a family?
When I return home after three months of working day and night in Parkes, Azita tells me she wants to speak with me.
‘Kooshyar, I don’t think I can live with you anymore. You and I have been through a great deal together but I don’t love you, and I know you feel the same way. I want to find love before it’s too late.’
>
What can I say? My wife has already taken off her wedding ring. It’s too late for anything. Thursday 22 April 2010 becomes one of the saddest nights of my life.
I pick up my jacket and walk out of the house. I end up giving Azita almost everything I’ve bought during our ten years in Australia – the cars, the salon, the house, the furniture – except for my piano. The girls are devastated and I feel extremely guilty. I’ve always promised to care for and protect them, and now I feel like I’m deserting them. My heart bleeds for my daughters every minute of every day. Though our marriage had its problems I never wanted to divorce Azita, mostly because of my parents’ situation and the damage caused by my father’s absences. I curse my destiny for letting my family fall apart after everything we’ve sacrificed, everything we’ve endured. The pain is worse than that inflicted by my MOIS torturers. They only managed to break my skull, this has broken my back.
I begin to think constantly of suicide. Every time I build up my life from scratch, something always shatters it to pieces. But I’m not allowed to die; I can’t end my misery. How can I leave my innocent, traumatised daughters without a father to listen to them when they’re crying with loneliness and despair? And what about my promise to my mother when I was dying from typhoid? Or my vow to my Adonai?
One morning I get up, take a deep breath, clutch my Star of David and start picking up the pieces. I move to Tea Gardens, a small coastal town near Newcastle, and work six days a week as a GP specialising in skin cancer. I go to Sydney every weekend to see my children and support them and their mother. Still, the girls are slipping towards major depression.
I love the work I’m doing and soon I love the community, which is full of exceptionally kind people, many of whom form a special bond with me. I also keep myself busy writing, finishing the eleventh draft of my life story. I sent the book I translated about ancient Aryan calendars to a publisher in Tehran a year after I arrived in Australia, but it was confiscated by the intelligence service. During my first three years here I wrote another book in Farsi about the aphorisms of Khalil Gibran, and then sent it to a different publisher in Tehran. They decided to publish it, but later told me the book had been banned by the government. I accepted that if I wanted people to read my work, I’d have to write in English.
My other hobby is inventing things. In 2001, after the anthrax attacks in New York, I invented a gloved bag that could hold any envelope and stop the spores from spreading. I contacted a marketing company in Melbourne, who volunteered to find a manufacturer for it. But two months later they discovered an invention identical to mine being produced by a French factory. I also developed an electric kettle that boils water in thirty seconds, three times faster than conventional ones, as well as a device designed to prevent drowning, a major cause of accidental death in Australia. Drown Alert is patented with IP Australia.
But my greatest efforts have gone into creating a generator that produces clean electricity. In early 2016 I finally succeed in building a prototype and sign a contract with a major manufacturer in Australia. I’m excited about what I believe is a breakthrough in energy technology and the possibility that it will replace fossil fuels as our major source of power. Creating the generator has taken up most of my free time, and my home in Tea Gardens has turned into a laboratory.
The ancient fig at the front of the house reminds me of the fig tree in front of our shanty house when I was a child. I used to sit under its kind shade and slowly eat a wafer I’d bought with money given to me by my father. Ah, my beautiful fig tree, forgive me for not having a chance to say goodbye to you. When I stand on my large balcony overlooking the Myall River, and observe the water glistening in the moonlight, I remember the river in Çankiri. But this time I’m not a homeless asylum seeker, starving and scared, struggling with poverty and pain; I’m not an evsiz. I have crossed the river. I am a free man now.
In late 2011, twelve years after I last saw my mother, she rings me with some exceptionally good news. She sounds joyful, a tone I haven’t heard from her since I left Iran.
‘Guess what, Kooshyar jan? I’ve got my passport back! The intelligence service contacted me last week and said I could have it. Now I can come and see you and Newsha and Niloofar!’ She bursts into tears. Most Iranians own passports, even if they don’t plan to leave the country in the near future, but MOIS confiscated my mother’s when they arrested her just after I escaped and never returned it. What she has told me doesn’t make sense, though. It seems unlikely that MOIS would allow my mother to join me in Australia, as they may want to use her again as a hostage to silence me. But I put aside my suspicions – there’s nothing I can do about them anyway – and focus on the fact that I’ll see my mother again.
‘They contacted me last week and said I can have my passport back. Now I can come and see you and Newsha and Niloofar!’ She bursts into tears.
The next morning I apply for a visitor visa for my mother. It’s a complicated process, with a significant amount of paperwork, and will take a few months to complete. My mother now calls me every week to see whether there’s been any progress. She’s waited twelve years and feels she can’t wait any longer.
The following week, when I’m walking home from work, my mobile rings. It’s Mrs Azad from Caravan Publications in Tehran. I’m very surprised to hear from her – the last time was more than seven years ago. She tells me they’ve been given permission to publish my book about Khalil Gibran, and it will be in bookshops in less than three months. The approval was sudden, she says, and she doesn’t know why it was granted.
Later on I receive ten copies of my book Avaye Gibran, the best writing I’ve ever done in Farsi. I’m ecstatic to see a new book with my name on the cover, and I wish I could be in Iran to see it in the shops.
In early 2012 I finish the final draft of my life story and submit it to a publisher in Melbourne. Their response is wonderful: they’re very excited about the book and want to publish it. It’s the best news, but something is niggling at me. All this luck seems too good to be true. I’m scared something horrible will happen. If fate knocks me down again, I don’t think I’ll have the power to stand up.
After months of correspondence and sending fifteen thousand dollars to Canberra as a surety against my mother staying in Australia for longer than three months, I’m told she must go to the Australian embassy in Tehran. After a brief interview she’s finally granted a visa. I send her some money to buy a return ticket. She’ll be here in four weeks. Newsha and Niloofar are thrilled.
A week before she arrives I speak to an Iranian friend, Bijan, who is a mortgage broker. He tells me he has a house for sale in Gordon, on the North Shore in a very nice part of Sydney.
‘But I don’t have any savings,’ I tell him.
‘Leave that to me. You have a great credit rating and a good income.’
The day of my mother’s arrival comes. It’s six-thirty in the morning and I’m at the airport; the plane lands in less than half an hour. My heart is thumping. She’s been ringing me every day for the last three weeks in anticipation. ‘I can’t believe I’ll see you,’ she tells me. ‘My entire life shattered when you left. I’ve been in a very dark place till now.’
Every minute I check the list of arrivals, in case she’s early. Newsha and Niloofar are next to me, Newsha holding a bunch of flowers and Niloofar with a card in her hand. Niloofar has no memory of my mother but Newsha remembers her very well. Azita would never come to see my mother; she hated her from the beginning. I haven’t told my mother we’ve separated as I’m afraid her weak heart wouldn’t take the shock.
‘I’ve never forgotten the tale she told me of the little boy and his pigeons,’ Newsha says excitedly. ‘You know, the one about the lonely boy who works hard and saves money so he can buy a special pigeon, and this pigeon becomes his best friend. He’s so happy until one day he finds that his pigeon has gone . . .’
As she’s talking I realise that it’s my story. My father heartlessly sold my belove
d pigeons for a few coins. I tell Newsha, though, that it’s just a fairytale.
‘Look, Dad, here they come,’ cries Niloofar, pointing. A group of passengers is walking down the ramp and most of them look like Iranians. We search for my mother, checking every woman in the crowd. Minutes slowly pass, and then I see an old lady limping towards us. Another woman walks past her but she’s too young and tall to be my mother. The old lady stops and looks around.
‘Is that Maman?’ asks Newsha.
‘No,’ I say.
The old lady glances in my direction and her face opens into a big smile. She starts walking towards me more quickly. When she gets closer I finally recognise her beautiful eyes – and my heart aches. My mother has aged so much. I race up to her and pull her sleeve. Newsha and Niloofar run after me with the flowers and card. My mother’s trying to say something, and to smile, but tears start running down her cheeks.
‘Maman,’ I whisper and hug her so tightly I almost crack her ribs. I hold her and cry and cry, remembering all those years of poverty, pain, fear, loneliness and sacrifice. During all those hard times she never gave up. My mother is my hero. I have my faith and my sanity, my passion and my courage from her. She gave me my identity.
Newsha touches my shoulder. ‘Dad, people are looking at us,’ she whispers in my ear. I finally let go and look around. She’s right.
‘Salam, Maman jan,’ says Newsha, beaming as she gives her grandmother a hug. She’s now taller than my mother is. I introduce Niloofar.
‘Ah, look at you, gorgeous angel! You’ve grown so much. When I saw you last you were only a month-old baby!’ My mother cries and holds Niloofar against her chest, rocking and whispering prayers in Hebrew.
When we get into the car my mother says worriedly, ‘This must be very expensive.’
‘Yes, Maman jan, but I’m a doctor now. I can afford a decent car,’ I say.
Journey of a Thousand Storms Page 20
