The Infernal Optimist (8 page)

April came to visit again the next day, what was Boxing Day. Everyone was impressed with that. Almost everyone. ‘Where’s Thomas?’ she asked. It was clear she hadn’t seen him stomping off when she appeared at the vault door.

‘He here one minute ago,’ Angel told her. ‘Join us. He be back soon.’

‘Gee, this place is awful, isn’t it?’ April said, settling into one a the plastic seats. ‘All this razor wire! And the prison guards. And Sue told me that when they give you jobs, like cleaning, they pay you a dollar an hour, and in phone cards? I can’t believe it, the whole thing is so depressing.’ She went on like that until everyone was staring at them feet. Talking about how terrible Detention was wasn’t a great conversational gamble. The odds a getting a favourable response wasn’t too good. Lotsa new visitors did it. Maybe they needed to. But we didn’t need to hear it. We was living it. April made a face. ‘But I guess you know all that, don’t you?’

‘Mm,’ Hamid agreed.

April looked around. ‘Oh, there he is.’ Thomas was talking to some visitors on the other side of the yard. She looked over at him nervously. ‘See, what I haven’t been able to say…to tell him…is that Josh, my husband, left me?’ Everyone looked up again with horrorfied expressions on them faces. ‘It happened after September Eleven. He said that seeing so many people die so suddenly made him think he should die without regrets? The thing he was going to regret the most, apparently’—April rolled her eyes—‘was not getting it on with his nurse. That really hurt me. Last week…well, he started calling again. The nurse dumped him and he wants me to take him back. I thought he had some nerve, and told him so.’

‘You should forgive him,’ Azad said.

‘Do you think?’ April looked at Azad and bit her lip. ‘I told him no way.’

‘That is not good,’ Azad said, like he be an authority.

‘Huh,’ she said. ‘I’d already smudged the bedroom with sage and mugwort to get rid of all the negative energy? And I was beginning to feel okay about it. Then, after visiting here yesterday, I lay awake all night thinking. I decided…well, I decided that I’d talk to Josh—for Thomas’s sake. I think that was part of Sue’s plan from the start. But I need to find out more about Thomas’s case first.’ She looked over at Thomas again and made a brave face. ‘I’d better go talk to him. Would you excuse me? I’ll be back.’ She strode off in Thomas’s direction.

Hamid shook his head. ‘What she do to the bedroom?’

They all looked at me. I shrugged. I never heard a no one smearing them bedrooms before. ‘Fucked if I know.’

We all sank into our own thoughts like we was Sanna the bikini girl and our thoughts was the quicksand in that old movie
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
. It’s one a me favourites on a count a having both dinosaurs and bikinis in, what doesn’t happen enough in movies. Hamid rubbed the palm a one hand up his other arm to the elbow a few times. Then he switched hands and did it to the other arm. Azad took out his lighter and flicked it on and off. Angel twirled a strand a hair round her finger. I was jiggling me feet, just like Farshid and Reza were doing over at the next table. I reckon if anyone worked out a way to harness the nervous energy in that place, it coulda powered all a Sydney.

Finally Thomas and April came walking back together. As they sat down, April reached into one a her bags. ‘I almost forgot!’ she said. She pulled out pressies for all of us—an art book for Thomas, a medical dictionary for Hamid and a manbracelet for Azad what was silver. I got a posh journal what was all blank pages for me to write me book in. She said the art book and the medical dictionary was from her own bookshelves at home and the bracelet and journal from her shop. She apologised that she couldn’t do proper shopping cuz a the holidays but we was all amazed by the gifts, what be fully thoughtful. She still seemed kinda nervous, like she was stepping on poached eggs, but the conversation went easier after Thomas came back.

Some musos came into the Yard with their instruments and set up under the shelter. They had a darabuka what is
one a them Arabic drums, a Yamaha keyboard what they plugged into the socket for the Coke machine, a guitar and a violin. Nuffin like this never happened before. We went over to listen along with most everyone else in the Yard.

We made a big circle round the musos. First they sang some folk songs and Irish ballads. Then they invited us to sing and play too, but at first no one did on a count a shyness. Then one a the Iraqis stood up to sing an Egyptian love song and a Palestinian took over on the darabuka and Reza, what got a nice voice even though it cracks sometimes on a count a his reaching pubalescence, sang a Persian love song. Azad sang a Kurdish one. Bhajan sang us one a him poems. Then this Albanian chick what was getting out soon with her family sang ‘Bombastic Love’ and ‘I am a Slave 4 U’, what was awesome. After that the musos played some dancing music and Farshid asked the Albanian chick to dance. They was just getting into it when one a the Iraqis cut his grass. Farshid didn’t look too happy, but then a uni chick what was visiting got him to dance with her, what cheered him up. I asked April to dance and was showing her some flash moves when she got shy and wanted to sit down again. Some a the kids danced too. Abeer tied a scarf round her little hips and did the belly dancing, while the ladies what cover with the veil sat to one side watching and clapping and doing that Uluru thing with them voices.

When there was a break, I stood up. ‘For those a you what don’t know me, I’s the Zekster, and what I’s gonna perform for youse all is a one-hundred-fiddy per cent original number.’ Some a me mates whistled and hooted. I made these phat
sounds with me mouth like I be scratching vinyl and doing some drum beats and performed me best B-boy moves as I rapped:

It’s another day in Detention

That be life in suspension

For the Zekster

What grow fat like a cat what grow mould what grow old

The Zekster say, yo, look at yourself

You be sitting on the shelf

Gonna get on the pension

Fore you’re outta Detention

Bro it make me hypertense

Yo, just looking at that fence

Being in be too intense

In Detention. In suspension.

Can’t go without a mention

A the refugees

What the government owe apologies

For keeping ’em years in Detention.

Years in suspension.

We all need release from da tension!

Everyone laughed and whistled and applauded. I was one talented homey, if I have to say so meself.

The party was just going off when the loudspeaker crackled. ‘Will visitors please make their way to the gate. Will visitors please make their way to the gate.’ They never put a question mark in them influctuations cuz they don’t mean it
as a question. Visits was over. Clarence and the other blues walked round the Yard clapping them hands, but not like they was applauding.

‘Aw, c’mon, mate, giss a break,’ I go to this Maori bloke, Tip, what was a reasonable bloke for a blue. ‘Let us go to seven-thirty or eight for once. Live on the wild side.’

‘Sorry, bro, wush I could. But rules are rules.’ Tip says ‘wush’ instead a ‘wish’ on a count a being from New Zealand where everyone speaks funny. ‘Besides, our shuft ends at eight and we gotta tidy up the paperwork before we can get off.’

Our
shuft never fucken ended—pardon me French.

After the visitors disappeared through the vault door, we cleaned up the Yard and divvied up the leftovers from the food what they brung. By quarter past, the place was quiet as a mouse, what wasn’t really that quiet on a count a the loudspeaker calling folks to the phone and Medical and some a the detainees arguing outside the laundry over the dryers, what was never enough. The end a Visits, specially on a day like that, was like when you’re coming down after an E, what sometimes makes you feel almost sadder after than you was happy before.

‘Yeah, Zeki. Come in.’ Azad was sitting on his bed.

‘Watcha doin, mate?’ I asked.

‘What’s there to do?’ He looked around his room, what only got some books and clothes and a prayer rug and some stuffed animals on the bed what visitors brung him like he was a little kid. He collected feathers too. They were lined up on the shelf by his books—feathers from cockies and maggies and currawongs and even one or two from a kookaburra. He’d been spending more time by himself since Hamid and Angel got together. There was something in his hand.

‘What’s that?’

‘Seashell.’ He showed me. Someone gave it to him for Christmas.

‘Oh, mate, I miss the beach,’ I go. ‘This country got the best beaches.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he goes.

I held out me pack a smokes. He shook his head and sighed again.

‘Shit. Sorry, mate.’ I stuffed it back in me pocket. ‘Forgot you was giving up.’

‘
Ensh’Allah
.’

There was a knock on the door. I looked at me watch. Eight o’clock. It was Anna. ‘Room service,’ she goes, what is a joke for when they come to your room for Muster instead a making you go to them. We showed her our IDs like she didn’t know who we be, and she ticked our names off the list. ‘Have a good one,’ she said and left.

‘She was giving you lusty eyes, mate, I swear.’

‘What means “lusty eyes”?’

I showed him.

‘Stop it.’

I gave him more lusty eyes. He threw plush toys at me till I stopped.

There was another knock. It was Bilal, an Iraqi dude what lost the plot. Bilal had his coffee mug in his hand. ‘
Salaam aleikum
, Bilal,’ Azad greeted him.

‘
W’aleikum salaam
.’

Azad reached onto the shelf for his jar a Nescafé and spooned out some brown crystals into the mug. Bilal nodded and left. Every night he got coffee from Azad, hot water from Thomas, four spoonfuls a sugar from this Liberian bloke, creamer from a Russian and a spoon to stir it with from an Iranian. Then he went to a Chinaman’s room to drink it. The sugar used to come from this Palestinian dude. When the Palestinian got released on a Temporary Protection Visa, Bilal
went around talking to himself for hours, not wanting to drink his coffee without sugar but not wanting to take it from anyone else, either. The next evening they brung in the Liberian what was an asylum what came by plane. Bilal decided that the Liberian would be his sugar man. But the Liberian didn’t have any sugar. He didn’t have nuffin. He didn’t know what was going on. They’d taken him from the airport straight into Villawood. He was crying and scared cuz he didn’t know Australia locked up refugees and he didn’t have a clue what this Iraqi headcase was doing standing in his doorway with a mug a coffee. That was two months earlier. He just left the sugar on the shelf by the door now.

‘You know Abeer’s dad, Mohammed?’ Azad said a few minutes later. ‘He told me they knew Bilal two years ago, when they were all together in Woomera. He said he was perfectly normal then, like you and me.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s what scares me the most about detention, you know,’ Azad said. ‘Losing my mind.’

‘Mate, I know what you mean,’ I go. ‘Of course, me mum says that if I lost my mind, no one would notice it be missing.’

‘Your mum says that?’ That made him smile for a second. ‘Ha.’ The smile faded. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I lost my mind a long time ago, when my family was killed. It’s like I don’t feel much anymore, like I am cold inside. Maybe I’m crazy as Bilal but can’t see it. I think I’m okay. But how do I know?
W’Allah
, how do I know?’

I shrugged. If he didn’t know, I sure as hell didn’t.

‘You know the Chinese guy, Fang, the one in Falun Gong?’ Azad asked.

‘The one what looks like he’s trying to push things what are made of air along shelves what are also made of air?’

‘That’s him,’ Azad said. ‘Fang told me an old Chinese story. This old man dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke up he wasn’t sure if he was an old man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was an old man dreaming he was a butterfly.’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘That’s fully spinning me out.’ I thought about it. ‘Was he a butterfly then?’

Azad laughed. ‘Maybe.’

‘I reckon April’s got a bit a butterfly in her.’

‘April? In a way. Like she is flying around looking for a flower to land on.’

That’s one a the things I liked about Azad. He could always take the conversationals to a deeper level, like one a them diving bells on the television what goes looking for ocean fish with lights on. Me, I was just talking crap about how pretty she was.

‘Fang told me another story,’ Azad said. ‘When Mao was the ruler of China, he decided to kill all the birds that were eating the farmers’ grain. So he got everyone in China to stand outside their houses and on their roofs and to bang their pots and pans together at the same time. All over China, birds were too scared to land. They flew and flew until they got so tired of flying they just dropped out of the sky and hit the ground dead. You know, that’s what it feels like sometimes, being a refugee, being without a home, a safe place to land. Like one of those birds.’

‘Mate, you should write a poem about it.’

‘I started to.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been able to write lately. Writing poetry is like stretching your wings and—what is the word?—
soaring
. You can’t do that in a cage. I don’t read as much as I used to, either. I keep telling myself I’ll write and read again when I’m free…I don’t like to let the other asylum seekers see it, Zeki, but I’m tired. I’m so tired.’

‘You wanna go to sleep?’ I asked. ‘I’ll leave if you do.’

‘No, don’t. It’s not that kind of tired.’

‘How’s your case going?’ I asked.

‘Do you really want to hear?’

I told him I was all ears, what is true cuz they’re so big I used to get called Dumbo when I was young. It is also true cuz I be a good listener. She Who says this is one a me best treats.

Oh maaan. I was thinking how I was gonna give her one a me best treats soon enough. I was gonna give it to her all night long. I was thinking about this and in my imagining Marlena turned into April and then they was both in there and I was in the middle like
köfte
in yoghurt. Cuz a this I missed some a Azad’s explanation, what had too many legal details in and was flying over me head anyways, making me feel like one a them suburbs in the flight path what hears the roar a the planes but can’t see what the people are doing inside them.

‘I don’t know.’ Azad said them three words like they was real heavy, like they was barbells what he was dropping on the floor,
thump, thump, thump
.

I musta missed something.

‘What was the most time you ever spent in prison, Zeki?’

‘Thirteen months.’

‘For what?’

‘Break-and-enter, and violating the conditions a me parole.’

‘Think about this. I committed no crime. But I’ve been in twenty-seven months so far. I could be in another twenty-seven. Sometimes I think I will never get my freedom, and I swear, Zeki, the second I
know
that, really know it to be true…’ He made like he was cutting his wrists. ‘I did it before, in Port Hedland, after my RRT. If I do it again, I won’t fail.’

I didn’t know what to say when the asylums started talking like that. It made me real uncomfortable. I reckoned a change a subject was in order.

Like I just thought a something, I said, ‘Seen that new English chick, mate? Overstayed her visa by five years, apparently, working illegal and everything before they caught her.’

‘You don’t have to worry about her. She’ll get out. She has the right skin colour for this country.’

‘That’s not me point, mate.’ I was trying to cheer him up. ‘They say she’s a model. Not just any old model.
Long-jer-ay!
’ I made bowls with me hands and held them in front a me chest. Last backpacker they picked up, nympho Canadian babe, did half the single male population a Villawood before they deported her a few days later. If she’d a been Inside just one more day I’m sure I’d a had a chance too. Azad didn’t say nuffin, like he didn’t care one way or another. I tried again.
‘She’s one hot mama.’ Still no reaction. I made two fists, pumped me elbows backwards and me hips forward. Then I repeated the gesture for emphasis.

He shook his head. ‘Not interested, Zeki.’

‘Mate, if you’re not interested in this one, I’m gonna have to take your pulse. You might be dead.’

‘Don’t bother,’ he goes. ‘I checked already. I’ve been dead a long time now.’

Me phone vibrated in me pocket. It was She Who. ‘Cuddlywuddly-poo?’ she goes. ‘Big Bear?’ I told Azad I had a call, told Marlena to hang on, stuck the phone back in me pocket, and went back to me room to take the call.