The last immigrant, p.5
The Last Immigrant, page 5
“…to encourage ovulation. Now that’s something evolution should have given to humans.”
Ismael wished Nat would laugh but she kept quiet.
“Do you know what I would like?” he said as he drank some water from a glass. “I would like to find a fish with a box-like head. I saw this fish absolutely years ago in an aquarium and I drew it for a teacher at school. She failed me. She said, ‘Fish don’t have boxes for heads. This is how you draw a fish,’ and she drew a triangle with one eye, two curves for the body and another triangle for its tail.”
His wife tasted her bademjan, a lamb stew she had made with eggplant and tomatoes, then stirred her spoon in her bowl. “Not sour enough. I should have added more lemon.”
Ismael preferred his soup to be less tart but knew she prepared Iranian food to please him so did not reply; he realised he did not have his wife’s attention regarding his fish dream.
His wife had not been pleased by the cat’s preference for him. She fed the cat, stroked it and lavished it with care but Imelda, as perverse as any cat, snubbed her.
Ismael spent an entire weekend in front of the computer playing the Age of Empires series with Imelda in his lap or next to his feet. They were his favourite computer games (his first game had come free with a pack of Kellogg’s cornflakes) and a growing passion on weekends.
When he was no longer good for anything, he would spend his remaining hours, apart from feeding and taking care of his fish, playing the game day and night until he died. It would be a worthy way to go. He marvelled at the game’s creators who so knew how to tap into the human instinct and ingenuity for survival and conquest.
“Don’t you think we should remove that plant?” he said to his wife, weeks later. He was staring at the philodendron in distaste.
“Why?” Nat retorted. “It’s not proven to be poisonous, you know. Cats don’t die from eating its leaves.”
He wondered when their roles had switched that he should fight on behalf of that animal he had not wanted. Imelda’s strange eyes held him. He could not get over the shock her sparkling deep blue eyes gave him whenever he turned to see her watching him. It was definitely a form of hypnosis and it had started to work.
Chapter 5
Ismael returned to work and found his colleagues in a state of excitement. It was not an unusual condition for them. Some of them liked to create high drama to entertain themselves and others. It kept them from experiencing the ennui in their souls.
“They’ve caught a group of illegals,” Maurice said as Ismael sat down at the desk next to him.
“More?”
He did not think it likely he would see them but he had to go to the Compliance section to check some legislation that afternoon, and he happened to look into a meeting room: a young man was sitting there with eyes wide open and weirdly vacant. The backs of Ismael’s hands prickled when he noticed how the man’s skin had a slight greenish tinge.
“Who’s that?” Ismael asked a colleague who was passing.
“One of the illegals. Some of the last lot…you know, the ones on the boat must have come in somehow and escaped notice. Can you speak Arabic?”
“Yes, why?”
“We’ve been trying to talk to him. I don’t think he understands.”
Ismael took another look. The young man’s features were indistinct. “He doesn’t look Arabic.”
“We have to try.”
“Okay,” Ismael shrugged.
They went into the room.
“No use trying to play helpless,” his colleague said to the young man. Ismael realised with a sense of shock that the vacant look could only be due to blindness.
“Is he blind?”
“Partially. He can see alright. Ask him where’s he from.”
Ismael sat opposite the stranger and began to question him.
As they began to drag him off to the tower, he shouted and fought. Meanwhile the pain in his leg caused tears to flow down from his eyes, one sightless and one seeing.
“No use crying,” Ismael was aware of his colleague snapping. Tears had begun to flow down the young man’s face. “And don’t think it’ll help you to make a scene in front of him. He’s one of us.”
*
He could hear the flap of wings coming nearer. He craned his neck to see. A man dangled from a harness of wings. A magnificent bird. The birdman moved his arms with almost desperate energy. Now his face was hidden. The wind buoyed him up, pushing him farther, surely surely…he faltered and his contraption headed towards earth. “Lift it up,” he whispered. “Up,” he cried. But faster now he came. Now his face could be clearly seen. Their eyes met. Someone was shrieking. He was giving up any attempt to save himself. He plummeted into the ground with a huge thud and the snapping of wood and bone.
*
“Oh, I give up,” Ismael’s colleague was saying. The young man stared into space as his tears streamed down soundlessly.
Ismael stared blankly at him. They said the last immigrant was someone who desired to slam the door behind him, once he was within, once he was safe. Ismael knew, though, that even as his colleague had suddenly shifted him into the group (“one of us”), he could just as easily become a “foreigner” (“one of them”) once they were no longer confronted by someone more alien.
“Let’s go,” Ismael’s colleague spat out impatiently. “We’ll lock him up until he tells us who he is and then deport him.”
As they went out of the room, he added, “We have to get the numbers up. The boss is demanding quicker turnover of these cases. These people drag them out, you know, by playing games.”
*
The wooden fishing vessel measured around 20 metres and was pieced together by the local boat builders from cheap and shorter timbers, replacing the more expensive teak traditionally used. The young man doubted it would carry them all the way to Australia. His heart sank like the boat possibly would into the depths but he paid his money, money from his savings, money from his family’s savings for they hoped he would bring them to safety once he himself was safe, to the man who would take him to his destination.
The man told him he had had his fishing boat burnt after being caught fishing within the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone of Australian waters, within the Arafura Sea. Now he was making his living catching men, not fish. He started to laugh but the young man could not.
*
When Ismael returned in the evening, he could smell the food cooking as he stepped in. But Nat was not in the kitchen. She was seated on an armchair in the living room, crying.
“What’s wrong?” he cried and hurried to her. He held her thinking that she was like a bird fluttering in the grasp of his arms.
“The doctor says…there’s a lump on my breast…they think it’s cancerous.”
“What?” Ismael was shocked. Nat had not told him about a lump or that she was going to see a doctor.
“I didn’t want to alarm you. I could feel a lump so I checked it out. I told him I wanted to know as soon as possible. The diagnosis came in today and the doctor called to ask me to come in.”
Ismael did not know what to do. He disengaged himself from her and sat down on the sofa.
“We’ll get through this,” he said.
“I’m not doing chemo,” Nat said, lifting her head and wiping her eyes. “I’m not putting you and Sara through this.”
“Why don’t we discuss it with the doctor?” Ismael said at last and they left it at that. “Want a hand?”
He helped her get the dinner onto the table. Not wanting to think about her illness, he told her about the strange arrivals.
“I talked to one,” he said. “He didn’t understand. Don’t think he did.”
“What was he like?”
“Not like anything. Like nothing, really. Like he wasn’t there.”
“I wonder what he wants,” she said.
He thought that was obvious.
“To stay here?”
“Can’t be. I mean, he’s green. He must know he’s different.”
Ismael was more gentle than usual to Nat and after she had eaten, told her to go to bed; he would wash the dishes and take out the garbage. A heavy sensation was pressing down on his head.
He should not have gone into the forest. All the time he was in there, he had the feeling something was wrong.
He washed the dishes without seeing what his hands were doing. Then he went to bed.
In the middle of the night, Nat’s eyes opened. They looked at him. “Welsh rarebit,” she said. She spoke quite clearly, without preamble.
He was startled. He thought that she had been aware of his sleepless state and was making conversation. He pictured a rabbit running over green hills.
“What about the rabbit?” he asked.
“In the oven,” she said.
Somewhere in her mind, struggling to wake up, she was aware that she had spoken but the words seemed to be coming out of her mouth without her volition. She wondered how the conversation had started. She herself had no recollection of starting it.
Ismael started to laugh. He said ironically, “No wonder you are so thin. Thinking about food even in your sleep.”
“Go to sleep,” he said and reached for her warm body.
They fell asleep with arms and legs entangled.
*
Ismael felt more hopeful on the weekend. He was sure Nat would get better. She had gone out with her friends. He spent several hours doing housework and as the day withdrew, he headed to the kitchen. He glanced at the kitchen clock. It read 6pm. Sara was at the library studying with her friends.
He sucked his fingers after sampling the kebabs he had just grilled. The stirring of shadow on the wall made his heart leap. It was just the curtain. He turned and saw Nat standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing? You should be in bed.”
He hurried to her side.
“I’m tired of being in bed.”
“Do you want to sit here?”
He helped her to a chair.
She sat quietly, “I spoke to a naturopath. One of my friends recommended her. Seems almond kernels may be the answer in defeating cancer. She told me about her patient who’s taking them. He’s lived with his cancer for four years.”
“I think you should talk to the doctor.” Ismael had a growing sense of unease.
Nat made a hasty movement. “You know people die after chemotherapy because their bodies are weakened.”
“Some survive. A lot survive,” he said, trying to reassure her.
She breathed in and out loudly. “I talked to God about it,” she said. “I told Him I didn’t want to undergo chemo and I asked Him to give me my heart’s desire. He’s given it to me by sending me to this naturopath.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” he began but Nat burst out, “I need your support now!”
Ismael hesitated. “I’ll look it up on the Internet.”
“My friends say she’s really good,” Nat added.
He had to be supportive. “I’m sure she is,” he said aloud.
Chapter 6
Being close to nature was far from Ismael’s mind when he was a boy sent to live in a kampong. He had thought green a soothing colour, like looking at the placid grass and the big trees in the schoolyard, back in the city. However, this green was different; the colour was so close to the surface of the skin, it ran like a dirty stream sodden with fungi and weeds, crawling like tepid veins to the outer reaches of the boy’s face.
Jumping slightly, he realised the boy was staring right into his eyes. The expression in them was difficult to decipher. He was looking and yet Ismael could not be sure whether he actually saw him. Confused, he jerked his head to face a different direction.
The strange boy’s eyes were so dark and opaque, and yet so penetrating, he had almost felt something come right out of them into his own and he almost but not quite sensed a person, a caved-in life inside those black holes.
He could not get over the colour of the boy’s skin. Green.
He stared steadily ahead at the swarm of schoolmates carrying satchels. That rush of dark blue uniforms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the boy standing by himself, stick-insect-thin like most of them. His hair was standing up like dried sticks of noodles and his frame was so skeletal, the school uniform hung off him as would a shop’s display on a hanger.
Ismael kicked a pebble that was lying forlornly on hardened earth. Why did he have to be here? Amongst these strange people. The boy was a manifestation of all his misfortunes. He did not want to know him. He did not want disturbance in his world.
When the bell rang, he had started towards his classroom but his eyes wandered around searching. There were many strange faces staring back. He noticed the boy in a corner seat. He wondered what he was thinking. What kind of person was he with skin of that greenish tinge?
“Salim?” The teacher was doing a roll call and the boy jerked his head up and replied, “Here. Present”, with that funny accent that made each vowel a sensual taste in the mouth: lingering.
“Oi,” cried Hussein. He was impatient. He jerked Ismael’s arm.
“Dreamer. Class over.”
Ismael stirred. He gazed unseeingly at Hussein, whom he had met when he had gone out to explore the kampong and found a group of barefooted boys of varying ages playing soccer. Hussein had invited Ismael to join in.
Hussein turned his head. He said, “Who you staring at?”
“That boy. Did you see him?”
“Oh, that’s Salim. He’s sort of weird. Better not look. Maybe he’ll think you in love with him,” Hussein chortled.
Ismael blinked. He felt like he had committed a faux pas but he kept going, “I don’t mean in that way. I mean look at his face. It’s green.”
“Yah,” shrugged Hussein. “Guess must be some kind of fungi? His grandma can burn it off. I had it once after swimming. Turned my face white. They called me a ghost boy. I jumped out at some small kids and they ran off screaming. So why you interested?”
Ismael was embarrassed. He tried to stop looking at the boy, who had picked up his bag and walked off slowly.
Hussein nudged Ismael and went on in a confidential tone, “They say his grandma knows a bit about black magic. He was sent to live in our kampong. From the city. His mother was Iban. Worked in a hotel. Don’t know about the father. Why you interested in him?”
“What? I don’t really care,” Ismael tried to say. “He looks weird, that’s all.”
“Oh, you get used to him,” said Hussein, losing interest. “Come on.”
Ismael followed Hussein out of class.
His grandmother wanted to know how his first day had gone.
“There’s this weird boy,” he told her. “His skin’s green.”
It was a bit of an exaggeration but his grandmother knew straightaway whom he was referring to. “Some children come by boat from the islands. So the boat rock them and make them sick.”
“So Salim’s skin is like a memory?”
A memory of a journey. Was that possible?
“Can also,” said his grandmother. “Maybe not only in mind, also on skin.”
Whatever the reason, he was able to pick the difference in the boy and it was not only the skin, it was the manner; the way Salim stood, moved or spoke.
*
Some of the schoolchildren came from neighbouring villages. They were of all ages. As time passed, he began to know their names and to be a part of them. Still the river attracted him.
“Let’s take a boat down,” Ismael urged his companions. “Let’s see what lies on other end.”
His playmates were not very interested. They had been warned of dangers.
“What danger?” Ismael persisted.
“Water goes fast,” said Hussein, who was their unofficial leader. He was part Dayak, short and muscular, the best swimmer, the best soccer player among the boys.
Ismael kicked the dust with his bare feet. “Think what an adventure we’ll have,” he said. “I can go alone if you don’t want to come.”
Hussein hesitated but he had a soft spot for Ismael. He also did not want to appear less adventurous in front of the other boys.
“I will go with you,” he decided and with that decision, the other boys also insisted on coming.
Years later, Ismael could still hear the lyrical voice of his grandmother long gone, “If you have luck of coconut fibre, you float.”
A much older Ismael drifted down the river in his sleep. He did not wake until late the next morning, and by then, Nat had gone out.
Chapter 7
Almond kernels took a long time to grind. Ismael, finishing his evening prayers, found Nat seated at the kitchen table, frantically grinding. A large bag of almonds sat on the floor. The ground kernels lay like snow.
Ismael, not knowing what to do or believe, wished he could go across the street to talk to Cephas. It was hard realising he was dead.
The house, where Cephas had lived, was standing empty with a For Sale sign dominating the garden. Ismael had wandered over from habit and then halted when he recalled what had transpired there lately.
Ismael had not known his friend was depressed. He seldom complained. Cephas spoke little of his ex-wife or the son who never came to see him, and he was always ready for a chat or a visit, and would inevitably bring out The Biscuit.
*
Cephas’s favourite biscuit was home-baked. He knew how to make one kind of biscuit—a flat roundish brown affair packed with sultanas and chocolate chips—from a recipe picked up online. He baked whole jarfuls. Whenever the supply ran low, he did another round of baking. Ismael was a great fan of The Biscuit and ate more than a few on each visit.
