How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling (18 page)

After the bank visit, we got our satellite dish and I set up email accounts for everyone so we were in touch with the outside world again. Palmenter had not allowed any personal mail through but I believe you must treat people with respect and trust them, so I allowed them to come into the office for their emails once a week.

That was how I found out that my father had kidney failure. I invited my parents to visit and they kept stalling. It was a big deal for us because of course we couldn't have them arrive right when the imports were coming through. By then we had camps away from the homestead and up on the coast, but even so it would require some coordination to show them around and not let them see anything.

I could tell something was wrong and eventually Mum admitted why they couldn't visit. Dad had to be within a day's travel of the dialysis unit and on call in case a donor kidney came up. It was a waiting game. For now he was okay but sooner or later he would need a transplant. Mum told me all of that on the phone one night, but it was Simon who emailed me and told me how sick Dad really was.

It was unlikely that he would ever get a kidney. The transplant waiting lists are years long as there are not enough people who die with good kidneys. Dad could not be moved up the list because of his age and other things – of course older people have more health issues! I wanted to fly down to Melbourne to argue with the doctors who made these choices but then I heard through someone that in Mumbai a transplant could be arranged almost immediately.
My second overseas trip was to India. On the way I arranged to meet Newman who was living in Indonesia and running that end of the operation. I thought he could put me in touch with some people up the line who might help. You get a bit of an idea about what is going on and then you ask a few more questions and piece the whole thing together. People who need the money were selling all kinds of things.

I emailed Newman and asked if we could meet in Bali. Of course I couldn't say why. Even in an email you have to be careful what you say.

Newman named a bar on the beach at Sanur. I arrived early and took an outside table where I had a view of the beach. From where I sat, near me at tables and in the clothing stalls opposite, far off in the surf or lying on the beach, everywhere I could see fat white westerners holidaying without a care in the world. Newman must have arrived and seen me because he came to the table with two beers.

‘Been to Indo before?'

‘No. Never.'

He didn't comment. He didn't seem in too much of a hurry to ask what this was about and I was happy to sit and watch. A group of women were negotiating the price of a massage with a man and a woman. Honeymooners by the look of them. As we watched I wondered if the ability to idly watch the world go on around was a skill learned from our time on Palmenter Station where every afternoon there was a beer with the same four blokes.

Eventually, though, I had to say something.

‘My father is sick and needs a kidney transplant. I am on my way to Mumbai to see about getting it done there.'

‘Is it safe there? Indian doctors, I mean?'

‘I was hoping you could tell me. You ever been to Mumbai? A lot of our people come via Mumbai, don't they.'

‘I'd say nearly all of them. Across the Arabian Sea or down via Pakistan. Mumbai's the main clearing house. But we don't get involved that early, they gotta get to Indo themselves. Jeez, if we opened up in Mumbai, the gates would really open.'

I smiled at that. Two western businessmen discussing their business. A man came by and offered us some watches from a wooden box he carried slung around his neck. Genuine, he said.
Newman said something to him in Indonesian and he left.

‘Some of this gear is genuine. Probably comes from our people, they can wear it on the way here and then sell it to pay for the trip. Lot of good stuff ends up being sold on the beaches here. People don't know the difference, think it is all fake.'

Newman didn't seem to see where I was heading. Perhaps he thought I really wanted to meet to discuss our supply chain, see the ins and outs of how things went.

‘I was wondering, y'know, about getting a kidney there for my dad. I've heard through the grapevine that it can be done. That's why I'm off to Mumbai.'

‘You want to close down for a while? We've got them lined up all the way back,' he said. ‘You can't stop now. Charles and Simms take care of your end?'

‘No, that's okay. Whole thing runs itself now. You keep taking them in to Spanner, he'll coordinate the rest. I hear that you can buy body parts there. My dad needs a kidney,' I repeated.

‘Mumbai?'

‘Yeah, know anyone?'

‘You want to bring in a kidney?' He looked at me inquisitively. I got the impression that it could be done.

‘How would you do that? Could you buy a kidney?'

‘You can buy anything, and I mean anything, in Mumbai. You gotta be just a little bit careful, pay the right people, you can't just barge in there and order a kidney. But wouldn't you have to keep it chilled? Have to fly it all the way, surely?'

I considered that. My idea was to fly my dad into a hospital in India and have the whole operation done there. For a start I didn't know how I would go about explaining the sudden acquisition of a kidney to the surgeon in Melbourne. Also, wasn't there some sort of compatibility thing with organs? But it was an attractive alternative. I didn't want to trust a surgeon in a third world country if I didn't have to.

‘How much would a kidney be? Who sells them?'

He watched me for a moment without answering.

‘Is that how they afford our trips?' I asked.

‘Don't think so. Not usually.' I could tell it was only half the answer and waited for the other half. ‘You do hear of some people
selling one of their own kidneys. But most of it is they sell the whole lot. Two kidneys, liver, lungs and heart, eyes. Whatever they can that is still healthy.'

‘But that would kill them!'

‘You asked. Look, they take the old and sick to the hospital. They're gunna die anyway. Sometimes they let them live in a room at the hospital until they die, then they have the organs. Hospital feeds them, keeps them comfortable, gets them healthy. In return, their organs are used when they die. They don't need them anymore.'

‘But they don't kill them? They wait for them to die?' Even that was a horrible thought.

He shrugged. ‘Some children are sold as slaves into the Middle East. That's one way out. Die in the slums or a life working for some rich oil sheik. Others, if they are lucky enough, pretty ones are prostitutes, or the strong ones maybe work. While their bodies hold up.' He looked at me and followed my gaze around the holidaymakers. ‘I don't think they kill anybody. That's the stuff of movies. The old people are happy to be given a home and to be well fed for a change, and the family get enough to come to a better life in a new country. It's a fucked-up world, but nothing you gunna do gunna change it. Take your dad there. I'll give you a few names, some contacts, some of my people who you can trust.'

In Mumbai I was met by a small Indian man who spoke with the same singsong accent that Charles did, and if it hadn't been for years of listening to and trying to understand Charles I doubt I would have understood anything he said. His name was Siddiqi and Newman must have told him what I was after.

‘Everybody call me Sid,' he sang. ‘First, I am taking you to the number one market. Here, I am thinking you will find what you want.'

He bundled me into a waiting taxi and talked quickly and at length with the driver who regarded me curiously in the rear-view mirror. The drive took over an hour, through crowded chaotic streets full of blaring horns and yelling, trucks and cattle and carts and people and bikes and scooters and of course thousands of
taxis, but for all the noise and swearing not once did we actually stop. Always we edged ever forward, slowly, then accelerating through some gap in the traffic that would magically appear just as we got to it. How would you explain to this taxi driver that we drove on roads in Australia that for a whole day you might not see another car? If you told that to him would he be excited to go there, or terrified at the isolation and boredom? I wondered this as Sid chatted away like a canary, not seeming to need me to answer more than occasionally. I wondered what our imports were told to expect when they got to Australia. Or what was it that made them choose Australia in the first place. There had to be some attractive promise made by someone. I did not believe if you had grown up with the noise and bustle and chaos of Mumbai or Karachi or any of the cities or even the towns of these crowded places, that you would ever find satisfaction in the barren landscape of Australia. Not even in our cities where the homes were big and spread out and hidden from one another by high walls so that the suburbs were forever asleep. I could never have lived in Mumbai and I doubted that anybody at home in Mumbai could live happily in Australia.

Perhaps I was seeing things as I wanted to. I was in the people-moving business and I had to believe that those I was moving wanted to go where I was taking them, that anybody with the desire could have bought a ticket and that the reason they didn't was that we are all more comfortable with the familiar. Home is what you are born into. But as we drove past crowded slums of cardboard and plastic or the beggars in doorways I knew that these were the ones that could not afford to move, that their whole life was this, and I thought about what Newman had said. If you were ill, you knew you were going to die, wouldn't you too be grateful for a place to live out your days in comfort and with a full belly? Isn't that what we all do? We spend the intervening years between birth and death trying to make ourselves more comfortable. Buying a kidney off a dying man so my father could live comfortably for a few more years was a thing where everybody could end up happy. Win-win, as they say. But I was not prepared for where Sid took me.

The taxi stopped in an area where there were no other cars. The street had become a narrow lane between two foul-smelling gutters. Most of the traffic now was on foot and we joined them, Sid leading me down a side lane where high walls kept out the relentless sun. I would have preferred the sun. He pointed to the ground and instructed me to walk quickly but look where I was placing my feet, for one side of the lane was a sewer, and spilling from it, or flowing to it, filth waited to trap me. I hurried to keep up with Sid who walked placing his feet casually on rare dry ground, until I realised he was moving at whatever pace I was and if I slowed down so would he. He led me into an even darker and narrower lane and to a door where a giant stood guard, a man so fierce that he would have made Palmenter's cowboys look like puppies.

Inside was a paved courtyard. Around the perimeter were boys, teenagers or perhaps older, seated silently on stone blocks as if they were waiting for something and had been waiting for some time. They eyed me suspiciously, heads down except for furtive glances. I was reminded of the outback lizards that remain in the open but absolutely motionless in the hope you don't see them. None of the boys spoke. After the crowd and noise, the constant yelling and laughter outside in the street, this shrinking to be invisible was disturbing. I knew why, without being told.

While Sid talked to two men who sat by the other entrance, I looked at the boys. Many had missing arms or crippled legs. Several were blind. I could choose my own kidney in the way I might choose a live crayfish from a tank at a restaurant. It was abhorrent but even so I found myself assessing each for vigour or signs of disease.

Sid came to me with one of the men who offered me some tea.

‘No, this is not what I want.'

‘You prefer coffee?' Before I could answer he signalled another man who scurried off to collect coffee.

‘No, I mean the boys.'

‘They are good boys, healthy. This is the finest.'

‘Finest?'

‘Yes. Other market, I think not so good. Here, all healthy.' He motioned to one of the closest boys who limped across as if terrified. The man placed his hand across the boy's forehead and
opened an eye wide with his thumb. ‘See.'

‘But...' I didn't know what to say. ‘Who are they? They are just boys.'

‘Oh yes, and very healthy too. Maybe they are too old, are not getting so much at the begging. So...' Sid shrugged. ‘They only need one kidney.'

It was true. I should have realised that selling one of your kidneys was commonplace, but the reality was shocking nonetheless. These boys were maimed, had been beggars. I remembered a scene in
Slumdog Millionaire
where they blinded boys so they can beg.

‘I guess when you have only one arm, or are blind, there is not much else you can do but beg.' I said it sort of to myself, sort of to say something, and sort of to test Sid, to test the horror theory forming in my head.

‘Oh, yes, this is surely true, but when they are growing older the begging is not so good.'

‘So they were unlucky enough to be born like this?'

‘Oh, I think unlucky to be born, but their bosses do this for them. Unlucky for them, but lucky for your father. Come, drink coffee, then we make talk, discuss payment.'

The coffee was sweet but tasted bitter in my mouth. These teenagers were slaves who had been bought as children and maimed to increase their begging potential. When they got older, when they stopped bringing in money off the streets, this is what happened to them. A kidney. Not only a kidney. Everything. Of course they would tell me it was just one kidney but what was the value of a cripple who had no other body parts to sell? I knew how these people were thinking, because I was one of them. Sure, Palmenter had started everything but now it was me. I ran the business and I knew how these people thought. Boys and girls were sold by their desperate parents into slavery in the thin hope that they might live, and in many cases the money would be used to pay me to take the luckier members of the family to Australia.