Prohibited Zone (30 page)

‘Saira, I'd like to talk now about what has happened to you since you arrived in Australia. You boat was intercepted by the Australian Navy.'

‘Yes. They treated us very well. First they wanted us to turn back but we could not. We had no food, no water and our boat was almost sinking. So they took us onboard the navy ship and gave us food and medicine. We thought we were lucky, we were in Australia now.'

‘You were taken first to Darwin, then to the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney.'

‘Yes. We went by bus, all the way from Darwin to Sydney.'

‘How long were you there?'

‘I stayed in Villawood for about six months.'

‘And then another bus trip, to Woomera.'

‘Yes.'

‘How did you feel about being transferred to Woomera?'

‘Villawood had a huge fence with razor wire at the top, a huge gate, many guards. Many people thought, We are not criminals, why are we here? I thought, Eventually they will set us free. We told many people, many officials, what happened to us in Afghanistan. Each time they went away I thought, Okay, now they will grant us asylum. One day they said, We're sending you to another place, a place called Woomera. I thought, Maybe that is a better place, maybe it is the next stage of setting us free. We went on a bus. We drove for a long time, a very long time. Two days we were on the bus. I started to think that maybe they were driving us back to Darwin. When we eventually arrived in Woomera, we could not see anyone. We were in the desert. The town was empty, there seemed to be no one living there. I started to think, They have taken us to a place where no one can see us. And I started to worry about what would happen to us.'

‘Describe the conditions in the Woomera Detention Centre.'

‘The conditions were very poor. When we arrived, many people were already there. They had been there a long time. A few weeks before they had rioted. Many people had been hurt, many buildings had been damaged. The guards and the refugees hated each other. Both sides were very angry. The conditions were very hostile when we arrived.'

‘It was crowded?'

‘Yes, very crowded. More than fifteen hundred people were there, I think. Many people sharing a very small space. Everyone was bored, angry. Everyone was worried about getting a visa. When will it come? Who decides? Will this nightmare ever end? Many questions like that, and no answers. We could not get reliable information, but there were many rumours, none of them good.'

‘How were you treated?'

‘Some things were okay. The food was strange to us. Many people didn't like it, but we had to eat it. It was okay. Many people got sick. The doctors would help them, give them medicine. Many people were depressed, many people went crazy. A doctor or a nurse can't do much for a crazy man. Everybody wanted a visa, but few ever got one. Some guards treated us very well, some guards were kind. They tried to help but they couldn't give us a visa, which was all we really wanted. Some guards did not try to help, were not kind. Some guards were very cruel.'

‘Tell me how you met Kara Peake-Jones, the woman who later helped you to escape.'

‘Kara first came to see me when I was at Villawood. She started to visit me regularly and we would talk. She helped me improve my English. She explained to me why I wasn't getting a visa. She was very kind to me. I think she stopped me from going mad. Then I moved to Woomera and one day she came to Woomera. I was very happy that day because I knew I had not been forgotten.'

‘In Woomera she asked you to start documenting some of the things that go on there.'

‘Yes. She smuggled in a camera, one that takes photographs and video. It was very small, so I could hide it in my chador.'

‘So you started secretly videotaping and photographing the conditions at the centre.'

‘Yes.'

‘How long did you do this for?'

‘Quite a long time, maybe two months.'

‘Later, I am going to show you some of the photographs and video footage that you took and I would like you to tell me about them.'

‘Yes.'

‘But before we do that, I want to talk about something that happened to you at the detention centre.'

‘Yes.'

‘You know what I'm talking about?'

‘Yes.'

‘Tell me about it.'

‘I was raped.'

‘You were raped while you were living in the Woomera Detention Centre?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who raped you?'

‘A guard.'

‘One of the guards at the centre?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you know his identity?'

‘Yes. But I have never said. I never reported it.'

‘You didn't report the rape?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘By then I had no faith in the system. I did not trust what would happen. I thought that maybe it would just make more trouble for me.'

‘You didn't trust the authorities at the detention centre to respond in an appropriate way?'

‘No.'

‘Did you tell anyone?'

‘Yes. I told Doctor Khoury.'

‘He was one of the doctors who worked at the detention centre?'

‘Yes. I trust him.'

‘Did he examine you after the rape?'

‘Yes.'

‘You felt it was permissible to be examined by a man?'

‘Yes. As I say, I trusted Doctor Khoury. And I believe that Allah understands such things.'

‘How did the rape happen?'

‘One day I argued with the nurse because she didn't want to treat my friend who was sick. We argued for a long time and the nurse got very angry, very rude. She told me that if I didn't shut up she would put me in isolation. I told her she could not do that, but she did it anyway. She wrote a report, full of lies. Why would she do that? She said I became violent towards her. It is a complete lie. But I had no power to denounce her. A guard took me to the isolation compound. I stayed there one night. It was very bad. There was no window, only a bed and a bare wall. A nurse was supposed to come every two hours to check, but no nurse ever came to me, not until later. I was asleep when the guard came. It was very dark, very quiet. He was a very evil man. I could smell him, he smelt bad. He reminded me of Mullah Abdul. Before I could do anything he had put tape on my mouth and tied my hands. And . . . he was very, very bad.'

‘To be completely clear, he raped you?'

‘Yes. He raped me.'

‘Then he left the room?'

‘Yes. He took the tape off my mouth and untied my hands, and he went away.'

‘What did you do?'

‘For a long time I cried. Then a nurse finally came and gave me a pill to make me sleep. I never said anything to her.'

‘The next day you were taken back to your usual compound?'

‘Yes. The next day I saw Doctor Khoury. I told him what happened.'

‘Did you see the guard again?'

‘Yes, I saw him many times but I never spoke to him.'

‘What did he do when he saw you?'

‘He laughed at me. He would look at me with this horrible – do you say “smirk”? – on his face. Sometimes he would wink at me.'

‘Saira, are you prepared to name this guard?'

‘No, I do not want to say.'

‘Don't you want him brought to justice?'

‘Eventually, there is always justice.'

23

K
AT CALLED ANOTHER BREAK
. Lucy had been watching the interview perched on a stool and she turned to me as soon as the cameras stopped.

‘I want to go home,' she said.

I asked the cameraman to move his van and soon Lucy and I were heading into the city. It was cooler today and the sky was overcast. My mood was overcast, too.

‘How are you feeling?' I asked her.

‘Oh, I feel great.'

I took my eyes off the road to look at her. Her hair was flat and her eyes were devoid of spark, devoid of interest in the outside world. She seemed to have sagged since earlier in the morning.

‘Is there anything I can do?'

‘You're doing it. Taking me home.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Yes. Stop being so goddamned solicitous. It doesn't suit you.'

I turned left onto Main South Road and accelerated gently through the gears up to a hundred. The traffic was dull. The day was dull. I was dull.

‘No, I don't feel great,' said Lucy. I looked at her. Her face was quivering and there were tears on her cheeks. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

‘It could have been worse. He could have raped me, like he did Saira. I just thank God he didn't have time.'

‘Yes.'

We drove in silence for a while. I tried to think of something to say that would comfort her but nothing came to mind. I glanced at her and she was in tears again. I pulled over to the side of the road, unbuckled my seatbelt and took her in my arms, the gear stick and centre console uncomfortably between us. I held her while she cried into my shoulder. After a few minutes she drew herself back into her seat.

‘Thank you. I'm alright.'

‘Lucy, I feel so inadequate.'

She laughed, a bursting kind of laugh that sprayed moisture onto the windscreen and ended in something close to a sob.

‘Of course you're inadequate.'

She wiped her saliva from the glass with a tissue she took from her pocket while I tried to process her remark. I couldn't. I put the car in gear and re-entered the traffic.

‘Will you tell Mike about this?'

‘Probably not. I don't tell him much anyway.'

We turned onto the Southern Expressway. I wondered vaguely if the surveillance cameras would identify the car from last night and summon up some cops. That reminded me about Tarrant's call. I decided to phone him once I'd dropped Lucy home.

‘Answer me one thing,' said Lucy. ‘You like her, don't you?'

‘Who?'

‘Kara.'

‘Yes, she seems fine.'

‘I don't mean like that. Don't act so stupid. You're not stupid, Steve.'

‘No.'

‘Neither am I.'

‘No. Sorry. I just don't know how to answer the question.'

‘Just say what she means to you.'

‘I don't know.'

‘Do you think about her when she's not around?'

‘Yes, a bit.'

‘Do you miss her when she's not around?'

‘Maybe a little.'

‘Have you slept with her?'

I looked at Lucy, smiling despite myself. ‘That's not a fair question.'

‘That's a piss-weak answer, if you don't mind me saying. And a horrible smirk. You know, for such a complicated man, you can be very transparent.'

‘I'm not so complex.'

‘I said complicated, not complex. There's a difference.'

‘Is there?'

The conversation died another death. We took the Marion Road exit off the expressway and beat our way past a current of cars turning into and out of a Westfield shopping centre. Then we took Diagonal Road to Anzac Highway, which led us to the Bay. When we arrived at her place I checked her garage and front garden. There was no sign of malingering evildoers. We walked to the back of the house, where she had a small but pretty garden. She turned the handle of a tap and a sprinkler sprung to life, spraying the green lawn with water. It was one of those oscillating types with a horizontal bar that had a couple of dozen holes along it, through which spurted thin streams of water. The streams formed an arch that changed constantly as the bar rotated through a hundred and fifty degrees or so. We watched it stretch to the right, reach the end of its rotation and reverse back, covering the same ground, pass the ninety-degree mark and stretch to the left. Then it repeated itself, a rhythmic, somehow soothing motion, a slow summer beat. Along the edge of the lawn was an array of flower beds and beyond those were native shrubs and trees. She was a good gardener; it was a colourful and cheerful place alive with native birds.

‘In a twisted sort of way, this thing might have a positive effect,' said Lucy.

‘How?'

‘I'm going to change some things in my life. When I go inside the first thing I'll do is call my lawyer. I'm going to divorce Mike.'

‘Wow.'

‘I should have done it a long time ago but I just didn't have the energy. I was depressed. For a long time. Then I met you. I got a hell of a kick out of cheating on the bastard, but maybe it made me put the divorce off.'

She wandered towards a part of the garden ruled by a large Banksia shrub and inspected its ochre-coloured flowers. I followed a few paces behind.

‘Mike is a lying, cheating, wife-beating arsehole. That pig last night, I hate his guts and I hope he dies.' She looked up. ‘But you, Westie, you're the one who has really fucked me up.'

‘I didn't mean to.'

‘Of course you didn't. You were just clumsy.'

‘I have no idea what I did.'

‘Maybe you
are
stupid. You don't know?'