For a few moments, you just breathe, your cheek still against the rubber floor.
We made it. We made it.
Relief unspools through your veins and you want to sob, but no tears come.
You look up, and see Jamilah being wrapped in a blanket by the concerned navy officer. Instinctively, you touch your pocket, and feel the hard shape of the pen beneath your fingertips. The tears begin to flow then: salt mingling with salt.
YOU DISEMBARK THE navy boat at dawn the next morning. You have been taken to Christmas Island – an Australian island about halfway between the Australian mainland and Indonesia. This was where your ruined fishing boat was aiming for, too.
You were warned back in Indonesia that it’s still a long way from the Australian mainland – and that you might be held there for months, even more than a year, while you wait for your visa. But it is Australia. You will be safe.
Now you see that there’s a centre on the island surrounded by high-security fences, with guards everywhere. Your stomach curdles – this place looks like a jail.
Inside the centre, though, there are dormitories full of bunk beds, and a canteen for meals. The staff seem friendly – at least in the family section where you are sent. To your great relief, there’s also a doctor, who immediately prescribes Jamilah the right antibiotics to treat her tuberculosis.
After you’ve been there only a few days, you’re called in – without Jamilah – for an interview with immigration. An older boy in detention with you, Omar from Sudan, has warned you that this interview could make or break your chances of getting an Australian visa. Omar’s already been here a year and a half. Your palms are damp with sweat as you walk into the beige, boxy room.
The woman sitting on the other side of the desk wears a white shirt and has a government ID card on a green cord around her neck.
‘I’m Hilary,’ she says, shaking your hand. She has a blonde ponytail and a sharp, straight nose.
Hilary fires questions at you, and begins taking notes. Even though you speak English well enough not to need an interpreter, soon your head is swimming as she asks you to recall precise dates and locations of your birth, your parents’ death, the flight number on which you left Nairobi …
In parts where your recollections are hazy, she grills you like you’re a witness in a courtroom. You can feel your heart beginning to pound, and your confidence wilting.
‘Wait!’ you say, and you hold up your hand. ‘I want to show you … this.’
You bring out Rahama’s pen. Now she’ll understand my journey, you think.
The ruby on its tip glows softly, seeming to murmur to you: Have courage. We’re almost there.
You begin to explain what this pen is for, and how you came to have it. Hilary’s eyebrows knit together. She drums her fingers on the table, looking at you askance.
‘Right,’ she says eventually, cutting you off. She sounds confused and impatient. ‘Look, I’m not sure how you managed to bring this into detention, but technically it’s a forbidden item, so …’ She reaches out to take it from you.
‘No!’ you shout, rising from your chair and slamming your hand on the table. The force of your shout has taken both you and Hilary by surprise. Part of you feels worried that you might have just damaged your chances for a visa, but you can’t stop.
‘Do you have any idea what I went through for this pen? Where it’s been?’ you cry. ‘I carried it out of Somalia buried under rolls of carpet. I put my friend’s life at risk when I opened it on his computer in Kenya. I kept it in Dadaab even when we had nothing else left in the world, and when people tried to kill me for it there, I carried it across the desert and out of Africa, only to take it on two boat journeys that nearly killed my sister and me!’ You pause to draw breath. Hilary looks astonished.
‘I don’t know if you have someone special in your life,’ you continue, in a quieter voice now but one heavy with tears. ‘Your parents, a husband, someone you would do anything for … My Aunty Rahama was that person for Jamilah and me. She had to fake her own death to get out of Somalia, thanks to what’s on a memory stick inside this pen. We still don’t know where she is. But there’s information on this pen that could lead to the arrest of some of the most evil terrorists in the world, and help to free hundreds of child soldiers. If there’s someone in your life whom you love as much as I love Rahama, you’ll understand why I did what I did.’
Hilary nods slowly. She reaches over to the pen. You flinch.
‘It’s all right, I’m not going to take it from you,’ she says.
You sit down again. She unscrews the pen, gives a little gasp when she sees the memory stick there as you described, and plugs it into her computer.
There is a long moment of silence as she scans the screen. Eventually, she pushes a button on her desktop phone and says: ‘Push all my other appointments for this afternoon over to tomorrow, please.’ Then she turns to you and says: ‘Tell me everything.’
THE DAY AFTER your interview, an officer from the Australian Federal Police flies into Christmas Island. He assures you that they’re going to cooperate with police forces overseas to investigate the information on the pen. He counsels you not to talk to anyone from the media or to tell your story online until they’ve made the bust.
After he leaves, the months drag by. You go to English classes, eat bland food three times a day at the canteen, and go for walks around the perimeter fence with Jamilah to try to
