Journey of a Thousand Storms Read online

  ‘I owe you, Barish.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Then he hands me an envelope. ‘This is for you. Open it once you’ve left Turkey.’ Surprised, I take it from him and put it in my pocket.

  ‘Look after yourself, Barish,’ I say sincerely. I turn away, knowing this is the last time I’ll see this kind man.

  By eight-thirty we’re at the bus terminal, waiting to go to Istanbul. I’m carrying a big box and when Azita asks what it is I smile and whisper, ‘It’s a secret.’

  Asef and his family are there with us, as is Dariush. ‘What a beautiful surprise, Dariush jan,’ I say when he appears. I haven’t seen him for a while – I’ve been so worried about him.

  ‘All the best, brother,’ he says, patting me on the shoulder. He’s holding his daughter with his other arm and she’s smiling at me.

  ‘What’s her name?’ I ask him.

  ‘Marjan.’ My heart sinks. I can’t think of anything to say. ‘Yes, she died last week.’

  My joy at leaving Turkey evaporates. I look at the beautiful child in Dariush’s arms, and I want to take her and her father with me to a better world, but I know there’s nothing I can do to help them.

  ‘Dariush jan, I’m so sorry . . .’ There’s a big lump in my throat. ‘Please don’t stay on your own – visit Asef, you need to communicate with other Iranians, you —’

  ‘That’s all right, Kooshyar jan. Enjoy your journey with your family. I just wanted to say goodbye.’ He walks away and, over his shoulder, little Marjan waves to me.

  Azita and Soosan are embracing and sobbing. Asef comes up to me and I snap out of my sad reverie. I promise to never forget him and to help him leave Turkey. Navid and Neema kiss Niloofar and hug Newsha. They’ve become close friends and this farewell is difficult even for them. I’ve wanted to be free for so long, but now I feel like I’m abandoning my best friend to this cruel town.

  Navid says, ‘Newsha, don’t forget to send us letters from Australia.’

  ‘I don’t know how to write yet,’ she says, ‘but I’ll learn soon.’

  The bus arrives and passengers are told to board. I can sense a lot of Turkish people are watching us.

  ‘The clock and the blankets and the heater are all yours, and so are the table and chairs,’ I say to Asef.

  ‘Thank you, Kooshyar jan . . . How about the fan?’

  ‘Sorry, I had to give that to somebody else.’

  He looks thoroughly dejected.

  ‘I’m kidding. It’s all yours – enjoy it.’ And I hand him the big box. I’ve even improved the fan since he last saw it: I put a panel of hay at the front so that if you splash water on it, the air goes through the wet hay and makes it colder. It’s surprisingly effective.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Kooshyar. I can’t believe it. An air conditioner, in the ugliest form imaginable.’ And we both laugh.

  ‘Don’t forget to take the carpet, too,’ I say. We hug for the last time.

  I pick up our luggage, which contains my books, the kids’ clothes, and the jar of colourful rocks. Just before we get on the bus, a red Fiat rushes into the terminal and pulls over next to us. A young couple get out: Bulent and Funda. Bulent runs over to me and grabs my arms.

  ‘You did it, Kooshyar. You did it!’

  ‘You’re crazy. Did you drive a hundred and fifty kilometres to come here?’ I ask him.

  ‘I had to say goodbye,’ he says, his large eyes shining.

  I just manage to murmur, ‘I’ll never forget you.’

  We climb on board and while the bus slowly moves out of the terminal, we look through the window at Çankiri’s grey sky and the poignant farewells of our friends. I look at Asef and Bulent one more time and wave my hand. Tears course down my cheeks. The last voice I hear is Bulent’s: ‘I’ll miss you, Pislik Yahudi!’

  After a fourteen-hour trip, we arrive at Istanbul International Airport. It’s colossal, with hundreds of shops packed with famous brands and high fashion. We do a lot of window-shopping, but with the knowledge we can’t afford anything: we only have thirty dollars left, which we’ll need in Australia. There are European tourists everywhere. For them Turkey is an easily affordable holiday destination, with beautiful beaches and mind-blowing ancient monuments. I appreciate that the country has much to offer, but not for us. The last four hundred and fifty days here as an asylum seeker, the thousands of hours waiting in agony for a visa to go somewhere safe, have felt like I’ve been held under the water, desperately hoping I’ll be released and breathe again.

  I’m about to check us in when my prepaid mobile rings for the last time. ‘Kooshyar jan, are you okay?’

  ‘Maman jan, what a lovely surprise!’

  ‘I don’t have much time, I just wanted to make sure you’re fine.’ I can hear she’s in a hurry, and she also sounds worried.

  ‘Yes, Maman jan. In fact, I’m happy. We’re about to get on a plane and go to Australia.’ Since we’re so close to leaving, I figure it’s now okay to tell her where we’re going.

  There’s silence on the other end of the line. Then I hear my mother sigh, and I know she’s also thinking of my brother, who moved to America while we were in Turkey. ‘So far away,’ she murmurs.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll contact you regularly, Maman jan. I promise.’ And she’s gone.

  When we board the plane I’m struck by how gigantic it is. I carefully put my hand luggage in the overhead compartment. Our seats are all together in one row, and each has a small TV screen showing a map of our route from Turkey to Australia. Newsha is thrilled.

  ‘Baba jan, look! A map! Is that where we are?’ she asks, pointing to the figure of the plane on the TV.

  ‘Yes, Newsha. Soon we’ll fly over a big ocean and in twenty-four hours, when you wake up, we’ll be in Australia,’ I tell her.

  As we take off, my sense of relief is overwhelming. Azita looks at me, smiling broadly. ‘Can you believe it, Kooshyar? We’re actually going!’

  I tell her I can’t, and this is true. Until the last moment, even when we were inside the plane, I felt something dreadful would happen and we’d be forced to go back to Çankiri. I gaze through the small oval window at the clouds. This time, nothing has gone wrong. We’ve left Turkey.

  Half an hour later the flight attendants start to serve refreshments. Newsha has an orange juice, and she’s so excited. She hasn’t had juice for more than a year. I watch her joyfully sipping it. Though she’s no longer an asylum seeker, I know I have a big task in front of me. I’ll have to guide her, protect her and provide for her in a new, unfamiliar country. I’ll have to start over and build a new life for my family.

  Suddenly I remember the envelope Barish gave me. I take it out of my pocket and open it carefully. It’s a two-page letter, written in Turkish.

  Dear Kooshyar,

  I decided to write to you after your wife came to my shop to ring Colonel Shams. There is something I want you to know.

  There are seven brothers and sisters in my family. The youngest sister is nineteen and the oldest brother thirty-one. Eight years ago my father passed away from tuberculosis. My older brother and I then started working as labourers so we could save enough money to open this grocery shop and provide for the rest of the family. Everything was fine until three years ago when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. We knew she’d need to have an operation and chemotherapy, and it’d be expensive. My older brother Tarkan decided to go to Europe to work so he could earn enough to pay for her treatment. He went to Germany through people smugglers and since then he’s been living there as an asylum seeker, just like you. His wife and son are still in Turkey, staying with us. Tarkan has been working hard on a construction site and sending money to us. My mother had the operation and the treatment, and she was fine. We’ve never let her know how difficult life is for Tarkan. He rings once a month and tells me how hard he has to work and how much humiliation he has to put up with. My mother just thinks Tarkan lives happily in Germany and one day his wife and son will join him there
.

  Kooshyar, whenever you came to my shop and bought bread and potatoes to feed your children, you reminded me of Tarkan.

  Seven months ago I woke up to a noise in my shop. I saw a shadow going through the fruit boxes. I picked up my machete and watched. The man put a few mandarins and apples in a sack. I noticed he didn’t go to my till – he didn’t try to take any cash. When he was about to leave I saw his face in the moonlight. It was you. I decided not to do anything because I don’t want any German to hit or jail my brother if he has to steal to stop himself from starving. I just went back to sleep. After that night I knew every single time you came to my shop. I even knew which night you’d come: Thursdays!

  Two months ago a police officer, Ibtehal, came to my shop and said some houses had been broken into, and he asked me if I had been robbed. I said no. He even asked about you specifically, and said he had a suspicion you were stealing from me. I told him you’re a decent man and you’ve never tried to steal anything from me. He insisted he could jail you if I signed a report against you but I refused. I think he is cruel. Men like him should not be in charge of the Turkish police.

  Unfortunately my mother passed away three months ago. Tarkan doesn’t know. If I tell him he will lose heart and I want him to stay hopeful and survive, just like you. I want Tarkan to bring his wife and his little son over to Germany one day. His dream is to open a grocery shop somewhere in Cologne. I pray for him every night.

  I wish you and your family the best, Kooshyar. I hope you have a great life in Australia.

  Your Turkish brother,

  Barish

  I cannot stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. I fold Barish’s letter and put it back in my pocket.

  So many people have helped us over the last thirteen months: the man who gave me a bowl of rice at the beggars’ house every day; the man who gave a peach to Newsha; Bulent and his mother; Habib, who let us live in his unit for free; the man who gave me his mobile phone to ring my mother; Colonel Shams; and Barish. Turkey truly has some angels. Isn’t the Middle East the cradle of civilisation, the place where society began? If there were more people in the world like Barish and Bulent, there would be no starving children, no asylum seekers, no people smugglers. No need for the UNHCR.

  ‘Baba jan, look.’ Newsha pulls my sleeve and points at the TV screen. ‘Iran!’

  The map shows our plane flying over Iran, and all of a sudden my mind is bombarded with memories of my homeland: having pet pigeons when I was ten; the moment my friend Vahid died in front of me in the middle of the street; witnessing a dissident being hanged publicly; the day my father left us forever; going to my friend Mohsen’s funeral and seeing his jacket covered with bullet holes after he was executed for joining an opposition group; the day I saw the body of another friend, Hadi, with one bullet in his chest after he was killed during his military service; my meetings with brave royalists; the agonising pain of my chest being burned with cigarettes and of my feet and back being whipped. And I remember the scent of rosewater in my mother’s rice, the smell of hot, fresh bread and cardamom tea on a chilly autumn morning, and the sight of millions of red poppies after the first rain in spring. I see my brother’s smiling face in front of me, congratulating me for getting excellent marks in my final school exams. ‘You’re going to be Dr Karimi soon!’ Ah Koorosh, I think, how I wish we could’ve had one more meal with Maman jan in her house before we both left Iran.

  And as I watch the plane crossing the Persian Gulf I murmur, ‘Goodbye, my beautiful Iran.’

  FIFTEEN

  After a two-hour stop in Qatar and another eighteen hours of flying, we finally arrive in Sydney. When the plane lands we’re all emotionally and physically exhausted. It is 20 August 2000, a few weeks before the start of the Olympic Games. I’m carrying Niloofar and dragging our luggage behind me when an airport worker approaches us. ‘Let me carry that, sir.’

  She’s pointing at the luggage. I stare at her – it’s unimaginable to me that a woman would carry something so heavy. In the Middle East men always do this for women. ‘No, thank you,’ I say as politely as possible.

  ‘Okay, sir, let me get the baby, then,’ she says, smiling. I’ve never been called ‘sir’ before. I gratefully hand Niloofar to her. ‘She’s lovely,’ says the woman. Australians are friendlier than I could have hoped for.

  When we emerge from Customs into the main airport we see a man carrying a sign with the UNHCR logo on it. He takes us to his car and tells us he’ll drive us to the short-term unit we’ve been allocated in the western suburb of Auburn. On the way he mentions a few things about Australia. ‘If you want to cross the road, press a button at the traffic light and wait for the green light.’

  ‘And all the cars will then stop for us?’ I ask, amazed. No one in Iran would stop for anyone crossing the road. (In 2006, 21 000 people were killed in road accidents there.) To me it’s another indication of how safe, well-organised and liberated this country is.

  We arrive at our two-bedroom unit in a large red brick building near the train station. It’s fully furnished and when Azita opens the fridge, she exclaims with joy. There it is, just as she was told: a jug full of orange juice.

  Later in the afternoon we go out to explore. However, the longer we walk around, the less impressed we are. The first thing I notice when we leave the unit is the huge mosque in Sunni-style architecture near the train station. Most women we see in the street are wearing burqas, which are rare in Iran. Hardly anyone seems to speak English – they all talk in Arabic – and every second shop is a Turkish kebab takeaway. None of this is what we expected to find in Australia.

  The last UNHCR officer we saw in Turkey, who was in charge of our travel to Australia, gave us some rudimentary advice on how to begin our life here. ‘The first place you should go to is Centrelink. They’ll give you some money until you find a job,’ he told us.

  There’s a Centrelink office just a hundred metres from our unit. It’s huge, with long queues and many employees. After waiting an hour I finally get to see an officer. She’s very nice while she asks me to fill out a lot of forms, including one to get a tax file number. In Iran almost no one pays tax. People just bribe tax officers, as they do with the police.

  Once we’ve finished doing the paperwork the Centrelink officer tells me, ‘We’ll pay you three hundred and fifty-two dollars a week for three months. After that, you’ll have to find a job.’ Then she asks me to go to the bank and open an account. We have very little to put into it: we stopped getting money from the UN as soon as we left Turkey.

  I thank her, impressed by this country’s generosity towards its poor. If you have no job and no money in Iran, the government won’t help you and you die in the streets. However, I remember the woman at the Australian embassy saying it would be a long and difficult process to resume working as a doctor here. When I ask the Centrelink officer about it she tells me I have to contact the Australian Medical Council to start the process. ‘But yes, it’s complicated and can take many years,’ she says sympathetically.

  As I walk out an Iranian-looking man in his late twenties comes up to me. ‘You must be from Iran,’ he says in Farsi. He introduces himself as Hossain, a common Iranian name. ‘I migrated to Australia five years ago. It’s hard at first but once you settle in, your life will be great,’ Hossain says with a smile. Then he asks me about our accommodation and when I say I’ve no idea where to look or how much we should spend, he volunteers to help. He tells me that finding somewhere in Sydney won’t be easy – almost impossible, in fact – because I have no rental history and no job. Then he says, ‘Don’t worry, though. Leave it with me.’

  The next day I meet him at the bank so he can help me open an account for my Centrelink payments. I’m given an EFTPOS card, which I’ve never heard of. ‘People here hardly carry cash – you pay with this card instead,’ Hossain tells me. ‘You enter a PIN number and then money is taken from your account. I’ll explain it properly later on,’ he assures me. Then we go to
a real estate agent together. Hossain encourages me to rent a house instead of a unit because it’s more comfortable, and after seeing a few old houses in Westmead I pick the cheapest one.

  The application form asks for the details of my current landlord and how much rent I’m paying. Hossain puts down his name and address as my landlord and writes on the form that I work as a painter. He gives the name of a friend of his as my employer. I have to admit that without his help we’d be stranded, and I start to feel like I’ve found another Bulent. But instinct tells me there’s something shifty about Hossain.

  Three days later we move into our first home in Sydney. We have no furniture and Hossain tells me I should go to Jewish Care. I’ve told him a little about my Jewish heritage, which I don’t usually disclose to anyone but I know I’m safe in Australia. ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’ Hossain asked in surprise. ‘You have nothing to worry about here. Jews are very powerful and rich in Sydney.’

  The next morning I leave at eight o’clock to go to Jewish Care. I take a bus and a train to get to their large building in Bondi Junction. The receptionist guides me into a room and a woman in her fifties enters shortly afterwards. Her name is Karen and she’s an Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe. She wants to know how many Jews live in Iran, how they live there, why I left, and what would happen if I went back.

  After what reminds me of a MOIS interrogation, Karen leaves the room. I sit on my chair for several minutes, anticipating great news. When she returns, Karen’s smiling and carrying a bottle of red wine. ‘Here, Kooshyar, we have a nice wine from Israel for you and seventy-five dollars in cash. We wish you all the best in Australia.’ And she exits the room again.

  By the time I reach home I’ve spent fifteen dollars on public transport.

  The next day, a truck stops in front of our house. It’s from St Vincent de Paul, a charity run by the Catholic Church. They give us three foam mattresses, four foam pillows and a small table. The truck driver then says, ‘Here’s the number of a lady who has more stuff for you. She’s just bought some new furniture and she wants to give her old things to a poor family. You’d better contact her.’