Jamilah gazes at you in astonishment and delight. Then she begins to sob too. You hold her, and you cry together – not from happiness alone, or just plain sadness; you cry with a broken heart that’s filled with sun.
Jamilah lifts her hot, wet face away from your neck, and manages to say: ‘Budi came. The boat’s going tonight.’
It’s only then that you register the buzz of activity you ran through when you came back into the house – people stuffing food and their meagre belongings into bags, clasping photos of their loved ones, fear and hope on their faces …
The only people who weren’t focussed on preparing to go were Maryam and Majid, who’ve been here two years already. You guess that they won’t be going anywhere.
‘I don’t think we should go tonight,’ you say to Jamilah. ‘You’re too sick for a risky boat journey. We could rest here, and go next time.’
‘No!’ cries Jamilah. ‘Budi said he doesn’t know when there’ll be another boat.’
Jamilah breaks off to cough. She struggles to catch her breath, and you feel your stomach churn with apprehension.
‘We have to go tonight!’ she bursts out. ‘There might not be the right medicine for me here, anyway. If our money runs out, we’ll be stuck here like Maryam and Majid.’
Your stomach clenches into a fist as you imagine a black, restless ocean and your sister burning with fever, struggling to breathe as the boat is tossed about. It’s the most dangerous thing you could do right now – but it’s also the fastest route to safety. Will you take it?
If you stay in Indonesia to give Jamilah time to rest, go to scene 34.
If you make the boat journey tonight, go to scene 35.
You shake your head firmly. ‘We have enough money to survive here for a while, and Aadan will send us more if we need him to.’
Jamilah opens her mouth to protest. ‘Stop,’ you tell her. ‘Save your breath for getting better.’
You find Maryam and Majid in the kitchen. ‘Do you think it’s possible to buy the medicine we need here?’ you ask.
‘Yes, I think so,’ says Majid. ‘In Iran, I was a pharmacist. We will help you.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ you say to the kind-hearted couple. ‘Then we’re staying here too.’
Majid goes out to buy antibiotics that can help with diseases like tuberculosis, and you feel an immense sense of relief to have somebody who knows what he’s doing help you with this.
THE WEEKS PASS. Jamilah’s antibiotics slowly take effect, and by the third week she is walking about a little and eating more. You are both overjoyed, but Majid warns that tuberculosis can easily reoccur if a patient is not healthy and strong enough to fight off another attack.
You bide your time, and the weeks turn into months. You continue to stay in the big white house on the hill, where a train of other asylum seekers come and go but you, Jamilah, Majid and Maryam stay on, the everlasting veterans. You spend most of your days playing cards and practising English.
Occasionally you go to the shops to receive money transfers from Aadan, and you call him regularly. You always pray that he’ll have found some clues to Aunty Rahama’s whereabouts, but he never has.
‘I have to warn you about something,’ he says uneasily one day.
‘What?’ you ask, worried he’s heard some bad news about Aunty Rahama.
‘Oh, it’s nothing too bad, but … there are lots of arguments about boat people in the Australian news at the moment.’
‘What the heck are boat people?’ you ask, imagining people who look like boats, or who live on boats.
Aadan laughs. ‘People like you – who come to Australia by boat, or who want to. There’s a big stink in the media about it. Stop the boats, stop the boats, stop the bloody boats.’
‘Would they mind if we arrived by helicopter?’ you joke.
‘That’s the thing, they probably wouldn’t,’ he replies. ‘Most asylum seekers here come by plane on a student or tourist visa. I just wanted to warn you the government’s trying to look tough at the moment. Soon you might never be able to settle here if you come by boat. And you know people drown on that trip. Boats sink all the time.’ He heaves a huge sigh. ‘I still can’t find Rahama. I can’t lose you too. Please, stay there and wait for the UNHCR. As kids alone, you’ll have a better chance at a visa than most.’
When you tell Majid about your conversation with Aadan, he rolls his eyes. ‘The UNHCR does nothing here,’ he tells you heavily. ‘It’s impossible to get a visa with them. One tiny office, a couple of staff, and thousands of people on the waiting list to even apply in the first place.’
‘We’re on the waiting list too,’ you tell him. Aadan advised you and Jamilah to visit Jakarta to register with the UNHCR and put your name down for an appointment, which you did – months ago.
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ jokes Majid darkly. ‘Most people I know waited nearly a year to get their first appointment – I’m not exaggerating.’
He sighs deeply and looks around the room to make sure Maryam’s in a different part of the house.
‘I hate myself for bringing her here,’ he confesses in a whisper. ‘The Iranian government jailed me and tortured me for participating in pro-democracy protests. When they let me out, I was so starved and beaten up, my own mother hardly recognised me. If I ever go back, I’ll be killed. Now my child will be born here, with no opportunity to go to school or get a job. I’ve told Maryam to just divorce me and go home, but she won’t.’
Majid grips your hand, and his dark eyes have a burning intensity.
‘You kids have the best years of your life ahead of you. Don’t waste them here,’ he urges. ‘If you can get
