Good Muslim Boy (3 page)

So I start. I haven’t written anything formal in Persian in a long time, but the
events are so fresh in my mind that they come without a hurdle. The officer keeps
chewing and keeps talking as I write.

‘Don’t worry about your father’s death. We’ll all die,’ he says. ‘Life is a shithole
anyway. It’s sewage. Believe me, I wish I was dead. How old was your father?’

I’m trying to focus. ‘Fifty, I think.’

‘Wow! Eight years younger than me. I’m going to die one day, too. This life just
isn’t worth it. I swear, I envy your father. Take this afternoon, for instance. I’m
lining up to get a burger. I tell the clerk I want mayonnaise, and what sauce does
he put? Aioli! I’m telling you, life’s shit. Worthless. Can you believe it? No mayonnaise.
It’s wonderful, your father doesn’t have to see all this suffering anymore.’

I sit, completely stunned. I want to stand up and choke him. On the other hand, I
pity him. I want him to see a therapist—and I want to pay for it too.

But the other thing is, what he said was stupid, but it was quite funny too. I want
to laugh. But I don’t.

◆ ◆ ◆

Two hours later, the detective arrives. Aioli Cop lets him in.

He’s a young man, bearded, with a strong regional accent. He goes through the condolences
in such a way that it’s clear it’s just routine.

He asks me to recount the story—how I found Dad, what happened earlier. I tell him
I’ve already written the story and given it to his colleague.

He shrugs. ‘That wasn’t necessary. I have to write it down.’

For fifty minutes, I go over it again. I sign a paper, stating that he’s ruled me
out as a suspect. I ask how long the procedure will take.

‘I hear you want to take the body back to Australia,’ he says. ‘Why not bury him
here? Religious place. Next to the imam.’

‘We have no family here.’

‘So? He died here. It has a meaning. Put him in holy grounds.’

I wonder if he’s saying this to give himself an easier job, or if the sentiment is
genuine. I don’t know.

The detective tells me he doesn’t know either—what exactly the procedures are. He
suggests I play it by ear from department to department. He assures me the job will
take no more than a couple of days. I breathe a little easier; the last thing I want
is to serve a prison sentence while Dad lies in an Iranian morgue. The detective
stamps the paper. He seals it in an envelope. He hands it to me. He tells me to take
it to Kalantari 27, a police division. Aioli Cop looks surprised. A police car should
take me, he says. Or the detective should take the form there himself. It’s his job.

The detective contests this. It’s past midnight, and the police cars are all out
of action at this time. He asks if I’ll have a problem finding my own way to the
Kalantari 27. He tries to ease the burden: it’s only a half-hour drive.

I’m so bewildered I can’t reply. It’s late at night, or actually early the next day,
in a city of millions. I couldn’t even find my own hotel.

‘You’re a big boy,’ he says. ‘Your Farsi is better than mine.’

I finally speak up. ‘Sir, it’s not just getting the address and a taxi. I don’t even
know the name of this hospital. And what if nobody’s there to take the envelope?
How do I contact you? I haven’t been in Iran for close to thirteen years.’

‘Thirteen years. Is that how long you’ve been in Australia?’

‘No, we left in 1995.’

The detective gets excited. ‘Wow. What is Australia like?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Is it like they say?’

‘I don’t know. Yeah, it’s good. But, the envelope—’

‘Are there a lot of kangaroos and girls in bikinis?’ he says, wide-eyed.

‘Sort of. Sir—’

‘Oh, yes. So, get a taxi.’ He writes down the address. ‘And tell him you want Kalantari
27. He will know.’

‘Sir, I can’t.’ My hands are shaking. ‘I can’t even hold this envelope.’

‘You are being a difficult young man,’ says the detective. ‘Maybe it’s all the privileges
in Australia? Anyway, as they say, don’t give the tailor’s work to the baker. He’ll
burn the clothes and say, “Look, I coloured it for you.”’

He gets on his two-way radio and tries to get us a ride. No luck. He was dropped
off by a patrol car, and this is the end of his shift. He hints that I should probably
chip in for his taxi—after all, if it wasn’t for me, he’d be walking home from his
own division.

I just collapse, put my head in my hands. I don’t know what’s happening here. I have
a police officer worried about aioli sauce and a detective concerned about cab fare.

◆ ◆ ◆

An hour later, the police radio crackles. There are no vehicles available. The detective
needs to take the ‘suspect’ to Kalantari 27 in a cab.

He holds his breath for a long second. He blurts into the radio: ‘I am out of my
depth here.’ He doesn’t do death cases—worse, a foreign national. ‘I’m in burglary.
This is too much. I don’t even know what questions to ask him. The kid’s a mess.
So am I.’

I can’t make out what they tell him. He switches off the radio and gestures for me
to follow.

The taxi navigates us through the dark night. ‘They will tell you everything in Kalantari,’
he says. ‘But look, see how easy it all would’ve been if you had just got that cab.’

He tells the driver to hang tight until we finish our business at the cop shop. Inside
Kalantari 27, the detective flashes his badge. We take the stairs to the third floor,
where the detective briefs a sergeant. The sergeant appraises me with an air of displeasure.

‘Why not bury him here?’ he says.

I grit my teeth. ‘I want to take him home.’

‘You call
Australia
home?’

I can’t help it: my brain calls up the song ‘I Still Call Australia Home’. I feel
like breaking into it, shouting out the words. It feels so ridiculous, I want to
laugh again.

The sergeant says only the chief can authorise the release of the body, and even
then it’s only the release from the coroner’s to the morgue. In my mind, an avalanche
falls, heavy and suffocating.

‘Come back in the morning,’ the sergeant says. ‘The chief comes in at six o’clock.’

The detective hops in my taxi, catching a ride home.

‘I thought you lived in walking distance,’ I enquire.

‘From my own division,’ he says. ‘This is homicide.’

The detective and the taxi driver talk about politics. They get into a heated debate
about the sanctions on Iran. The driver can’t get spare parts for the taxi anymore;
they’re from Germany. Every driver he knows has been hit hard. Black-market parts
cost too much. Fuel prices have risen threefold to compensate for the lack of exports.

The detective takes the government’s side, but shares the driver’s pain. He had three
children in private school; he had to take them out. Just getting food on the table
is luxury enough. I zone out and look outside. I can’t see much of the darkened
town.
The stars are blocked by clouds. It’s freezing, not that I feel much of it. I look
at the time.

The detective gets out near a block of old apartments. He tells the driver I’ll take
care of the fare. He looks at me to confirm. I’m over it, too tired. I nod, and thank
him for all his overtime.

The driver pulls out. He tries to talk about Australia. I want to humour him, but
I don’t have the energy. He doesn’t know what’s happened. He pulls out his phone
and tries to show me a video clip of a monkey taking a peeled banana then squirting
its contents back in the person’s face. I’m not really in the mood for this, but
I try to be polite.

At the hotel, the driver goes on his
taarof
rant—in Persian culture, it’s customary
to decline any offer up to three times before accepting it—‘No, I don’t want the
money! You’re a guest.’ I can’t be bothered with this either, so I pay him too much
and leave.

The concierge offers me a fresh room. I accept it. But first of all, I have to take
care of Dad’s things. I see his turban—still ready to wear from our outing yesterday
morning. I don’t want it to crumble and lose its shape, so I place it carefully on
top of everything else in my backpack and avoid zipping the top.

I call my wife from my new room. I tell her Dad’s died, over and over again, insisting
that it’s true. I try to calm her, but I really can’t. She’s crying; I am too. But
my mind is busy about the task ahead, so I contain my tears. I hate myself for doing
this. I’ve become a Westerner. If anyone from the Middle East saw my gentle tears,
they’d think I was happy my father was dead.

We talk until my credit runs out. I stare at the dead phone. I shower in the foetal
position and stay there a long time.

Abadan City, Iran, 1988

It was the height of winter and Moe Greene and I were slowly going out of our minds,
waiting for the next air-raid siren to sound. My tough-as-nails Uncle Adnan—that
lover of illegal television—devised a game to keep us occupied. He called the game
Drunk Russian because one needed to be drunk to enjoy it. We were sober.

One needed to be drunk because participants were required to stand in the snow, barefoot,
stripping one layer each minute. We were allowed to begin with a maximum of ten layers
of clothing, so by the time we were down to underwear, we’d endured a good ten minutes
in temperatures of six below zero. My toddler brother, who was too young for such
tortures, watched from the apartment, clapping and cheering.

I did not know what the word ‘drunk’ meant, but I did know drink was prohibited and
punishment ranged from lashings to imprisonment. The promise of punishment made the
game all
the more appealing. What was this magical potion, and what might cause Iran
to ban it? Why did adults only discuss it in a hushed, delicious manner?

I had more pressing problems. I was down to my singlet.

Moe Greene was down to his underwear, and declared himself the winner. He started
jumping up and down while doing a shimmy.

‘I’m the winner, I’m a sinner! You’re a snoozer, you’re a loser!’ Whenever Moe said
he was a sinner, I got nervous—it meant he was about to do something naughty. And
there it was: he took off his underwear, revealing his bare butt.

He started shaking himself back and forth in a victorious slashing motion, a very
unpious manoeuvre that swung his genitals like a pendulum.

‘Check out my cherries dangling!’ he yelled. ‘Have you seen cherries grow in snow?
In your face, jerkface! I’m the Russian drunk! Woot woot!’

Mum would have to chase after him with a broom. It was procedure. He didn’t care.
He loved the attention—especially from all our girl cousins, who watched his antics,
looked away, then watched some more, in increasing horror.

We loved Drunk Russian simply because we wanted to replicate Uncle Adnan’s valour
and temerity, which were legendary in his ancient home city of Bakhtaran. He’d shot
himself in the foot—literally—to get leave as a wounded soldier so he could reunite
with the village girl he’d fallen in love with. He lost his toe, but felt the wound
was a minor trade-off.

He had many stories. But my favourite one was this:

It was operation night, and Adnan was squeezed inside the hole he’d dug into the
side of a hill. His eyes fixed on a star that had been winking at him all evening
through the cloudless sky. He winked back at it, wondering if the hole was about
to be his grave—this tiny space, a world away from the world he understood.

He was in the Tank-Diffusion Unit, the TDU, a commando corps of nut jobs who got
off on the thought of suicide.

Their mission was simple: curtail trample damage from Iraqi tank fire before they
penetrated Iran’s front line. When the hordes of Iraqi tanks had overcome the landmines,
that was when the TDU clocked on for work.

They planted live bombs, by hand, under moving enemy tanks—which they secured in
one slippery socket underneath the tank. Lose concentration for a hair’s-breadth
of a second and you were simply dead: the bomb would go off too late, alerting your
enemies to your presence. They worked in groups of five or six, so that if one commando
screwed up, only a small number of men would go down with him. If someone fumbled,
his best bet was to grab on to the tank and let it drag him so the explosion would
go off as far away as possible, and not give away the positions of the rabbit holes.

Now, Adnan heard the enemy tanks beginning to rumble through the desert. The winking
star winked out for good, vanishing in the dust cloud stirred up by the approaching
tanks, but Adnan thought the star was frightened, that it had no wish to witness
what was about to come.

He closed his eyes, trying to focus. But all that he could picture was the face of
the Iranian girl he’d met in the village a few weeks ago. His Iraqi origins made
him a priceless asset to the Iranians; he could speak the language, knew how the
Iraqis designed their attacks and, more importantly, he knew how they thought, how
their brains worked. But even though he’d fought endlessly for the Iranians, he would
always be seen as an Iraqi. How would he convince her father to let her marry him,
an Arab?

The earth began to vibrate—a tank was barrelling up the hill. He pushed the girl
from his mind, and spoke his oath out loud: ‘Martyrdom first, all else last. Martyrdom
first, all else last.’

In seconds, the tank was on him. He reached up with the mine, trying to find the
socket. His hands shook. His fingers were cold. The mine wouldn’t go in.

It would self-activate in seconds. He had little choice. He lifted his body and grabbed
the rails for one final joyride. He spoke his last prayers silently. Out loud, he
just said, ‘Shit.’

His teeth chattered as the tank dragged him. He clutched the bomb in one hand. The
tank neared the top of the hill. Still, the bomb didn’t explode. Once the tank passed
the hill, it would hurtle down at a thousand miles an hour. There was no way he could
keep hanging on at that speed.

Still gripping the rail with one hand, he shoved the bomb under his helmet and hauled
himself to the ladder that ran down the side of the tank. He dragged himself up the
rungs and sat astride the vehicle, took three deep breaths and grabbed a grenade
from his utility bag. He lifted the latch, yanked it open.

He jumped inside the tank.

It was dark inside, but he’d been in the dark night a long time. It smelled of metal,
sweat and gunpowder. Four soldiers, all caught off guard.

He waved the grenade at the soldiers and started shouting in Arabic. ‘I have a grenade
and we’re all going to hell!’

One of the Iraqis put his hands over his head, dropping a flask of alcohol, which
spilled across the floor. The driver was too shocked to stop. The third soldier pointed
his rifle directly at Uncle Adnan. Uncle Adnan prepared himself to pull the pin on
the grenade. He caught the eyes of the fourth soldier—the commander, he could tell.

‘Halt!’ yelled the commander.

Adnan was not about to move.

The men turned to the commander, not knowing what to do. Slowly now, the third soldier
lowered his rifle. The drunk soldier dropped his arm. The driver stopped the tank,
and the commander stepped forward. He threw his arms around Adnan, in a suffocating
bear hug. Adnan started laughing with the excitement of a man who has stared at certain
death and won the staring contest. He was embracing one of Iraq’s most wanted generals,
Colonel Majid Ghaith, who also happened to be his former high-school biology teacher.

‘It’s been ten years,’ said the colonel.

‘You’re looking fantastic, Mr Ghaith! What a surprise.’

‘It’s Colonel Ghaith now, actually, but—thank you—I don’t look good at all. I’ve
lost weight, and lung cancer might kill me before the war does.’

Adnan shrugged. ‘Losing weight is actually a massive thing in America. I have seen
it on our dish. Every day a new diet.’

‘Fucking Americans,’ said the colonel. ‘Started this whole mess.’

They caught up on Mrs Ghaith. She was doing well; the colonel dreamed about her delicious
lamb kebab on a bed of rice every night. Adnan dreamed of finding a proper toilet
and taking a proper shit. ‘Excuse my language, sir, but the lack of plumbing in the
desert is worse than the bombs.’

‘That’s exactly why I eat once a day only,’ the colonel said. ‘Taking your pants
off behind a sack of rice is never pleasant.’

The other soldiers were completely stunned. One of them picked up the flask; they
all took massive swigs, which can be the only way to process a scenario like this.

But then the colonel’s face turned. He squinted at Adnan, studying him. There was
only so much luck in the world. Adnan paled.

The colonel took a step towards him, moustache nearly touching his nose. ‘Tell me,’
he said icily. ‘Who would you support in the World Cup qualifiers? Iraq or Iran?’

Adnan didn’t hesitate. ‘Iraq, of course.’

The colonel continued studying him. Then slapped him lightly on the face. ‘That’s
my boy. I’m glad to hear you haven’t completely defected.’

Adnan rolled his eyes. ‘Of course not! Our soccer team comes before our mothers.
We didn’t make the ’86 Mexico finals but, God willing, Italy 1990, if this war stops.’

‘God willing, my son. God willing.’

Before Adnan left the tank, he told the colonel his situation—back home in the village,
the lovely Iranian girl.

‘Don’t marry her!’ said the colonel. ‘Not if she’s a good cook. I’ve missed my wife’s
cooking for forty-seven months now. I’ve missed her, but not as much as that lamb
kebab on rice.’

Colonel Majid Ghaith then ordered his navigating officer to drive the tank miles
away—giving Uncle Adnan the best chance he could to get back to his unit. The pair
embraced one last time, wishing each other well.

Later that chilly winter, the Iranian army celebrated the capture and execution of
Colonel Majid Ghaith.

I was down to my singlet in a game of Drunk Russian with Moe Greene when the scream
of the air-raid siren shot through the streets of Abadan.

My toddler brother was standing at our bedroom window, clapping as he watched us
play.

I looked at Moe Greene, who was down to his underpants. ‘Should we go to the rooftop?’
I said.

We did this constantly, whenever we heard the sirens—despite
our mother’s just as
constant, very insistent rebuke. The fighter planes were mythic birds, hypnotic,
powerful, beautiful. I loved to stand on the roof and watch buildings go up in flames;
the aquamarine sky frolicked pink. It was a merciless magic. It was free, front-row
tickets to fireworks that burned all night.

We made our way up there.

Mum was onto us. ‘Osamah! Mohammad! Get down before I come and kill you myself!’
she screamed. I loved her abuses; I loved the insults she yelled. She was the most
loving person in my entire world. I wondered what would happen if a bomb was dropped
on me. Would I see my guts gush out my body? Would I be cool to look at then? Would
the girl across the street find my charred remains and say, ‘That’s the Arab boy
who never said hi to me’?

‘Keep going,’ whispered Moe. ‘Mum will hit us. But she won’t, you know,
kill
-kill
us.’

But her voice was getting closer and I convinced him to listen. We ran downstairs
to join our mother and our aunties, who were shepherding dozens of people into the
bunkers.

We huddled in. Moe was gloating about winning Drunk Russian, but people weren’t paying
enough attention. To correct this, he started slowly pulling down his undies to reveal
his bum crack. I remember the disgusted looks on the girls all around.

Then a series of bombs rocked the bunker for the longest time. All banter and laughter
and chatter stopped. Debris fell through the air holes. The girls and boys cried;
the women too. Our home was finally nothing but a smouldering carcass.

And then it hit me, the worst thing, the irreparable thing. My youngest brother was
still up there, transfixed by the noisy, colourful sky. Mum’s headcount had come
two minutes too late.

Mum never spoke about that day ever again, though her moist eyes painted melancholic
pictures of lament at random.

Dad was still not home, but the promise was he would be home soon. On this last day
of the war, the oil rigs were burning, making a hot day hotter. They would burn for
a long time.

And there was a cow—one cow, indifferently grazing.

And then a long train of Iraqi POWs, all with their hands on their heads, walking
in single file.

All life had drained from their bodies, these weary hordes. The Iranian company leading
them looked equally worn. The only difference was the Iraqis all had bushy moustaches;
the Iranians had beards. Beards versus moustaches. That’s all.

The Iranians pointed their guns at the Iraqis and told them to keep walking, in way-past-reluctant
tones.

Where they had come from, where they were going—all of this a mystery.

I just saw soldiers leading soldiers while the cow chewed on the shrubs.