Mum cried, ‘My boy is speechless with joy!’ I could almost hear the international
calls she was rehearsing in her head, and sure enough, tonight she’d be all over
the phone.
My doctor son is getting married!
‘You liked her?’ Dad double-checked.
‘Um, I didn’t see her,’ I said.
‘You saw the photo,’ Dad said.
‘It was a pretty grainy photo.’
‘It was a bad angle,’ said Mum. ‘But she’s beautiful. Also, I thought you’d be single
forever.’
They kept pressing me to tell them I was happy, poking and feeling around for an
answer I just couldn’t give them. Eighteen didn’t seem very young to them; Mum had
married Dad when she was sixteen.
While they talked over me, happy and bubbly—and maybe, under the surface, a little
worried—I lost myself in my own thoughts, swimming around for something to say. Most
of all, I wanted to get home and talk this all over with Sisi. She would probably
see the funny side of it. She might even be able to help me.
‘My degree,’ I blurted.
They stopped talking. ‘What?’ Mum said.
‘It’s…my degree. How can I be a proper husband while I’m studying?’
Mum squinted. ‘Osamah, your dad fought in a war, studied for two decades and fathered
five children all at once.’
‘How can you father five children all at once? That would be very impressive. But
Mum, I’m not as good as Dad. I really need to focus.’
‘You are right,’ said Dad.
Mum and I both looked at him with the same surprised expression.
‘This is Australia. No one does more than one thing at a time. There will be too
many distractions.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Perhaps I could convince Haj and the
witnesses to hold off on the announcement. Till the end of your first year?’
‘Hmm. And I’d still be engaged?’ I asked in a hopeful voice.
‘Of course. Congratulations!’
‘Look at my boy,’ said my mother. ‘So eager to tell everyone he’s getting married.’
Mum and Dad locked eyes over my head, and beamed at each other.
I wasn’t going to feel about the girl in the photo the way Mum and Dad felt about
each other. But still, the kinds of looks they
gave each other were hardly mysterious
to me. They were the kinds of looks I shared with Sisi every time we hung out.
A week after my engagement, we sat on a bench at the Royal Botanic Gardens. My impending
marriage should’ve been pulsing in the back of my brain, but it wasn’t. Instead,
I was thinking about Sisi—I couldn’t help it. Was it time to kiss her yet?
We’d been making small talk for the last three hours. I didn’t know what was a signal
and what wasn’t; when I was with her, everything felt electric. Eventually, I just
leaned in naturally. She leaned in too, and then we were kissing. It sounds undramatic,
but that’s because it felt right. This was how life was meant to be lived. It was
love. I knew it.
As for everything going on back in the life I was stuck with? I’d bought myself a
year to sort it out so, for now, I thought: fuck it.
On the sixth anniversary of my family’s arrival in Australia, I went shopping for
an engagement ring. What a way to celebrate! Yippee, yahoo, hooray.
For a month now, I’d used every excuse I could think of to avoid meeting Yomna. I
didn’t care if she turned out to be Miss Universe: I just plain didn’t want her.
It wasn’t her fault, and there was nothing she could do about it, either. But today,
there was no real getting around it.
I recognised her brother from the mosque when he pulled up in his Ford Falcon. He
nodded hello, hands not moving from the steering wheel.
The passenger door opened, and out came an incredibly beautiful woman. She smiled
at me, shy, then greeted me in Arabic, barely audible. ‘
Salam Alaikum
.’
‘G’day,’ I mumbled in English. ‘And
Alaikum Salam,
of course.’
‘Nice to meet you, my husband,’ she continued in English.
‘You too,’ I wheezed out.
And with that, I turned from her and walked stiffly into the jewellery store. Maybe
I could treat this as a chance to turn her off.
I pointed at the cheapest rings and enthused about them, hoping she’d go home and
tell her family she didn’t want this cheap bastard. Sadly, she praised me for being
focused on the future and cleverly saving for our long life ahead.
The shop owner, a mosque member, was extremely unhelpful. ‘The son of the cleric!’
he said. ‘You’re in for a massive discount, my friend.’
Good news, I didn’t even have to pay upfront. I felt sick.
Yomna took a respectful time choosing the right ring for herself. I grabbed one at
random and got out of there quick as I could.
The thirteenth of October was Sisi’s birthday, but we both got a present. We got
each other a temporary marriage.
Sisi had been increasingly beset by a simmering sense of sin ever since our kiss
in the Botanical Gardens, and she’d told me our improper coupling couldn’t keep going
like this. Luckily, I’d listened to those imams back in Iran, at least where girl-centric
loopholes were concerned. The temporary marriage wasn’t practised much down under,
but Abu Ghazi, the octogenarian Casanova, was a notable fan. ‘It’s just like a taxi,’
he’d been known to sigh happily. A time-locked marriage: you kept the meter running.
I tried to convince Sisi of the concept’s validity. She’d never even heard of it,
and balked at the notion that marriages could be both proper and short-lived.
‘We’re in Australia,’ I said. ‘Most marriages here are temporary.’
Eventually, I’d showed her enough scriptural evidence that she seemed at least provisionally
convinced.
So on her birthday, as we stood at Brunswick Station, Platform 2, I finally popped
the question. ‘Do you feel like marrying me for a bit?’
My ears were ketchup-red. She nodded.
‘Um, I need you to say it out loud,’ I said. ‘It’s part of the vows.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said awkwardly.
I handed her the real present. I couldn’t afford more than her favourite perfume,
but I’d embellished the gift with a book of ten handwritten poems.
‘And will you accept these as your dowry?’
‘Okay.’
‘Um, I think you have to say yes again.’
‘Okay. I mean, yes. I do.’
We smiled at each other. We must’ve looked like a couple of dorks.
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘How long do you feel like marrying me for?’
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, actually. How long were you thinking?’
‘A hundred years.’
‘Let’s try a hundred days and take it from there.’
A hundred days! ‘Really?’ I said.
‘Really.’
We kissed a little bit more often after that, proper and honest.
Honest in the eyes of God, at least. My other wife-to-be was another story.
Later that same week, I was sitting next to Yomna at my house, the first time we’d
been allowed to be alone together. It was supposed to be an exciting day.
Here was this perfectly nice, perfectly beautiful woman, behaving her best, and not
a thing she could do would’ve made me want her. And then there was me, sweaty and
bothered, and behaving like a tool—yet it seemed like nothing I could do would make
her back out of the engagement. I was depressed for both of us.
‘Listen, Yomna,’ I said. ‘I want you to know that I just don’t like children. Also,
I want to be an actor, which means we’ll be broke for the rest of our lives. And
if I ever get cast as a fat character, I’m going full-on, full-on fat. I’ll eat
unhealthily on purpose and die of heart disease in my youth.’
She poured me tea with three sugars, stirred them in and smiled. ‘And when I put
this much sugar in your tea, I’m trying to give you diabetes,’ she said. ‘So basically,
it sounds like we’re both great people.’
I had to chuckle; I couldn’t help it, despite my mood. Trouble is, I’d already found
a girl with a sense of humour.
I arrived back from the beach on a glorious November day. I’d studied in the library
all morning, but I’d made enough headway, and some guys from the cafeteria were
going so I tagged along. Dad was on the couch reading when I walked through the door.
‘How was uni?’
‘Good! Good,’ I said. It was true, almost: the textbooks were getting easier by the
day, and I felt like I was actually learning something.
Dad raised his eyebrows.
‘But could be better,’ I added, for a little bit of realism. What kind of student
admits that they like uni?
‘You were just at uni then?’
My flesh blanched, as pale as cauliflower. How did Dad know?
Relax
, I thought.
Dad doesn’t know.
‘Yeah,’ I said casually.
‘Huh. A concerned community member rang me up and said he was in his taxi when he
witnessed you at a place not consistent with your religion. He was also of the firm
belief that you were actually not enrolled. Is this person lying?’
I knew who ‘this person’ might be. And even though he was right, it galled me that
my dad could possibly believe him.
‘I don’t know if this person’s lying, but he’s certainly wrong,’ I said.
‘So you wouldn’t mind if I came to speak to your dean today.’
My turn to cock an eyebrow.
‘It’s still, what, 2 pm? We can make it with plenty of time. I’ll even shout you
dinner on Sydney Road afterwards.’
‘Mmm,’ I muttered. This was the most enthusiastic consent that I could muster.
In the car, Dad enthused about my impending marriage, because fate was determined
today to turn him into an all-purpose instrument of torture. I squirmed in the passenger
seat as he chatted away about how happy he was that I was getting married in the
mosque. Between the two families, they’d invited about a thousand people. He wanted
me to write a speech for all my fellow youngsters to show how great it felt to be
engaged.
Sure, Dad!
I wanted to say.
Can I borrow a pen?
I would then use this pen to stab
myself.
At 3.40 pm, I was walking him through the campus. We passed a librarian; we passed
a guard. Both of them smiled at me and said hello.
Seeing me so comfortable in the space, familiar with these people, I could sense
Dad’s suspicions draining away.
Unfortunately, I was not besties with the dean of the Medical School, yet we were
death-marching towards this person’s office right now.
First, there was the receptionist to deal with. I wondered if I could possibly use
this to my advantage—could I whisper to this stranger, wink, get her to play along?
It was too risky. Dad was standing right beside me.
I stood before the desk and asked to see the dean. ‘Could you tell him one of his
students is here please.’
She looked at me blankly. ‘You mean tell
her
?’
I cleared my throat and nodded my head like a baboon. ‘Yes, obviously that is what
I mean. Good day to you.’
Dad and I sat down in the reception hall and waited. He started chatting about totally
trivial matters: whether cricket season had started, how many batsmen I’d bowled
out to date, why a batsman could be stumped by a wide delivery but not a no ball,
since they were both sundries. To my own horror, I mentally begged him to start
talking about the wedding—that way, I could’ve distracted myself with a different
breed of dread.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the receptionist. ‘The dean’s gone home for the day. Can you come
back tomorrow?’
I allowed my heart to flutter.
‘I think we’re good here. Thanks!’ Dad said.
As we walked back to the car, he said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with Sayyed Ghaffar;
he’s a very strange guy.’
And then he bought me dinner, which I pretended to enjoy while my stomach filled
with a bottomless shame.
Mashhad, Iran, 2013: one day until visa expires
I arrive at 3.30 pm.
The cargo office is closed.
I spot a mobile number in the window. I dial.
‘Yes?’ The man is gruff-voiced.
‘Is this Keyhan Cargo? I have an emergency. I need a ticket to Australia.’
‘How much luggage do you have to send?’
‘It’s not exactly luggage.’
‘We only do freight.’
‘It’s my father. He’s passed away. I need to get him out.’
‘Why Australia? Rest his soul, by the way, and condolences, but why Australia?’
‘I am an Australian citizen, so…’
‘Okay. We won’t open till later tonight, so come back at seven, eight.’
‘But my visa expires tomorrow. I don’t have that much time.’
‘I said come
tonight
, at seven, eight. What does tomorrow have to do with anything?
Your father will be out of here by then.’
‘Really? You can get him out?’
‘For the right fee, we can move ghosts. Just come back tonight.’
‘Wait, wait. I’ve run out of Iranian money.’
‘We accept dollars.’
‘Australian?’
‘American only.’
I think quick. ‘It’s trading stronger than American.’
No reply.
‘The banks are closed today
and
tomorrow.’
No reply. Last bets, now.
‘Maybe you know where I could find a black-market exchange?’
‘Don’t even think about it, kid. We have a machine in the office and we run every
note under blue light.’
‘The Aussie dollar is good,’ I blurt. ‘It’s really, really good money.’
‘Not in the world we live in. Good luck.’
He hangs up.
◆ ◆ ◆
At 4.15 pm, a cabbie finds me a bureau that opens for a half-day, usually till one
or two, he says. When we get there, the exchange is open. Thank Noah. I walk in.
‘Good afternoon,’ I smile.
‘Not trading today.’
‘Why? You’re open.’
‘We’re counting money.’
‘What?’
‘Excuse me, sir, just leave the premises.’
‘No, you’re open. I need money exchanged. I have a lot of it, please.’
‘Just get out.’
‘Where can I exchange money today?’
‘I don’t know. Leave, thank you.’
The man has so much money in front of him; I can see it on the desk. ‘Please,’ I
say. ‘It’s not hard. Australian for Iranian. It’s so easy. So, so easy. So easy to
do.’ I wave my Australian bills at him, demonstrating how such an exchange might
take place.
‘I’ll call security if you don’t leave at once.’
I close my eyes, and take a deep breath, and prepare my story. I wonder if this is
how my father used to feel before a story: he’d come up against an obstacle, and
use a parable to beat it down. He’s become my parable so many times since he died;
I wonder if he’d have been proud of this. It feels exploitative.
‘My father has passed away,’ I begin.
The teller cuts me off. ‘Sorry for your father’s loss but we are not trading today.’
I climb into the cab and ask if there’s
anything
else open. He shakes his head, and
I get to thinking for a long, long minute. Long enough for the driver to smoke two
cigarettes and grind them out.
◆ ◆ ◆
It’s a funny world: any city as strictly regulated as Mashhad is the kind of place
that’s always going to have its black markets. Being the kind of place that’s always
going to have its black markets, the authorities will always act strictly to shut
those markets down. And since that makes a place like Mashhad a city that’s strictly
regulated…now isn’t the time for thinking in this circular logic.
What it means, in practice, is that if the cops catch me, they will confiscate my
money and I’ll be left flat broke. I’ve seen cops raid a street like this and take
everybody’s money—everyone’s, including the poor foreigners, who then must undertake
a legal process as labyrinthine as this one.
I’ve therefore left my money in the boot of the cab, buried as deep in my luggage
as possible. I’ve also written down the number plate of the cab, which hardly makes
it less risky—but it’s still less risky than trying my luck with the police.
I pass shady guys who all murmur ‘exchange’ in hushed tones.
‘What’s the exchange rate?’ I ask one.
‘For American, two thousand six hundred.’
‘I have Australian.’
‘Same.’
‘Australian is stronger.’
‘Same.’
Another dealer approaches me. ‘Australian, you say?’
He grinds his teeth, all greedy: ‘Two thousand five hundred.’
‘I’ve been exchanging at three thousand three hundred all month.’
‘Okay, I can do that for you,’ he agrees, fluidly.
‘Uh…actually, no thanks.’
‘But my money is legit!’ he calls after me. ‘I’ll go higher if you like!’
I might have foreign ways now, but I still grew up here.
Two dodgy youngsters conceal their mouths and noses with scarves. I have no choice
but to keep trying my luck with people like this.
‘What do you have?’ one enquires.
‘I have a face and you can see it. Show me yours or I’ll walk.’
‘Maybe I have a deformed face.’
‘Better than a deformed soul. It won’t bother me,’ I respond, standing tall.
Maybe my body language does it; they both remove their scarves. They are two clean-shaven
men, around my age.
‘So, what have you got?’ one says.
‘Australian.’
‘I can give you two thousand eight hundred. That’s the best anyone can offer you,
I guarantee that.’
‘Three thousand, at least! I’ve been exchanging at three thousand three hundred.’
‘You’re pushing your luck on a public holiday.’
‘But I have a lot to exchange, so maybe we can agree on three thousand?’
‘We’re not the banks, we don’t do big sums, so our profits are lower.’
‘I don’t need an economic breakdown of your small business, thank you. You’re here
ripping people off and you know your sob story is too much. Let’s make this fair.’
They look at each other. ‘How much have you got?’
‘Three thousand dollars.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Oh, yeah! How is it in Australia?’
‘It’s shit. So? Can you do three thousand? That’s still heaps profitable for you.’
‘Two thousand eight hundred,’ he says firmly.
‘That’s a rip-off.’
‘I’m the only one in this
whole street
that can guarantee you genuine bills.’
I like these guys, kind of. It’s hard not to at least see people as human when they’re
willing to take off their scarves and show me who they are. I know they want to trade
with me. It’s their
business, after all. But at what rate will they draw the line?
Where does their bluff stop?
‘Don’t be stupid,’ one cautions. ‘We know you need the money or you wouldn’t be here
right now.’
‘Well, I’m not stupid enough to go for that shit rate you gave me. I’ll just come
back next week,’ I add, and turn to go, praying to God’s prophets my bluff works.
I’m almost at the taxi, striding, not looking back, when one of them yells, ‘Stop!’
I turn around. They’ve followed me out here.
‘Listen, I can tell you’re desperate. But so are we, okay? No one comes here on a
Friday wanting to exchange thousands of dollars. And I am merely doing what a good
businessman does.’
‘Taking advantage of the needy?’
‘Precisely.’
I think for an impossible minute. I know I have no choice. I’m not just being stubborn
here; I need a good exchange. I don’t know if what I’ve got is enough for two tickets
as it is.
I look them each in the eye, one to another, and make my final offer.
‘Two thousand nine hundred.’
They glance at each other, then smile.
‘Okay, two thousand nine hundred, you big-mouthed Australian. You’re getting a good
deal in this market.’
‘As are you.’
‘Where’s your money?’
‘Just to be clear. How can I be sure you’re giving me real cash?’
‘I will withdraw the cash for you from an ATM. Any bank
you
nominate. It will all
be cash you can physically grab from the machine. I told you, we’re the only legit
ones here.’
I take a signature deep breath and accompany the two men to a nearby ATM. The driver
collects my money from the boot and
hangs back a little bit, to make sure the two
men don’t get up to no good; he doesn’t have to do this, but I’m grateful he does.
The men hand me a wad of cash.
‘All legit.’
I read the receipt closely. It’s not adding up.
‘This says it’s only eight million. I should get close to nine million. You’ve even
reneged on your original two thousand eight hundred.’
‘Listen up,’ says one of the men. ‘Just be thankful here.’ His friend nods. They
both step very close to me.
‘Be thankful you found someone who’s honest enough not to swap your cash for fakes.
Be thankful you didn’t find someone who would’ve stabbed you anyway. Be thankful
you get to live in a country like Australia while the young men here go rotting.
I have a master’s degree. A fucking master’s in Economics and I’m here on a public
holiday, risking jail just to exchange some money for pompous pricks like you. Eight
million is good for you. I could have ripped you off, you know. But I can see you’re
just like me. I can tell you’re struggling. But the comparisons stop there. Your
struggle is not our struggle. So shake my hand, take your money, and just. Be. Thankful.’
He extends his hand. I take it. We shake. Then I nod and, without another word, I
get back inside the cab.
◆ ◆ ◆
At 7 pm, I wait, stiff and sweating, outside the freight-shipping agency. Forty minutes
later, it’s still closed.
To offset my nerves, I call Moe Greene and Ali to make sure everything is good to
go back home. I’m hoping they’ll have stuffed it up somehow and I’ll have to argue
down the phone, but
to my mixed delight and disappointment, they’ve performed perfectly.
I thank and congratulate them. Back to my nervous sweats.
At 8 pm, a tall bearded man in a black shirt appears. His face is severe. I immediately
connect him to the Basij—Iran’s religious military arm.
‘Are you the one who called me? Why aren’t you wearing black? Didn’t you say your
father’s passed away?’
Before I can respond, a mob of black-shirted Basijis pushes past us into the shop.
I can’t be seen by these people as ‘morally loose’ at all. They are wearing black
to mark the anniversary of Imam Reza’s death—the whole town is wearing black, and
they don’t even have dead fathers. By this stage, at least I have some decent facial
growth, which might tip the scales back in my favour.
‘I can get him on the plane,’ the man says. ‘It will cost you by the kilo.’
‘He was 103 kilos,’ I say. We’d weighed him at Reza’s Paradise.
‘Tall?’
‘Just over six foot.’
‘So a big box then. That’ll get him close to 120 kilos all up.’
He bangs some numbers on the calculator. ‘It’s two thousand six hundred US.’
I breathe deep. That’s more than a return ticket for a living person, one you have
to keep cool with recycled air and serve in-flight drinks and food.
‘Expensive, right?’ he says. ‘Freight always is. Besides, you can’t just show up
this late and expect something cheap.’
This piques my interest: so cheap is possible, at certain times, for certain people,
certain things.
‘I didn’t have my exit papers till yesterday. I didn’t time his death, you know.’
‘That’s the price.’
‘You said bring Iranian currency.’
‘No problems. We buy one US dollar for three thousand three hundred, so…8.5 million.’
I remember the dodgy black marketeer: eight million.
Just. Be. Thankful
.
‘Brother,’ I breathe. ‘I already had a number done on me at the exchange today, three
thousand Aussie dollars for eight million Iranian.’
‘Yeah, it gets rough,’ he nods sympathetically. ‘So what do you want to do?’
I am not aware that I have many options left.
‘Even if my family wires me money, it’ll take a day or two at best.’
He thinks. ‘Didn’t you say your visa was expiring tomorrow?’
‘Yes, that’s the issue,’ I say, a little testily. But I’m grateful to have found
the one bureaucrat in Iran who doesn’t apparently suffer from short-term memory problems.
I’d explained about my visa this afternoon, and over the phone no less; I’d got used
to my story vanishing, forever out of mind, the minute I left a person’s eyeline.
‘But then you must have had an exit ticket. A return flight.’
‘It’s to France.’
‘Who was your carrier?’
‘Emirates.’
‘Hmm. And who did you fly in with?’
‘Qatar.’
‘Hmmmm. And your dad?’
‘Yes, he was to go back on Qatar Airways to Australia.’
‘Excellent!’ he says. ‘It’s an easy solve, we have a good relationship with Qatar
Air. I’ll do this for you, I’ll change your father’s return leg into your name, so
you can fly in his seat instead. We still have to send
him
as a shipment, of course…’
Against the odds, this man is so helpful, and so innovative too. The problem is,
he’s still a businessman, and I’m still half a million short. I have just enough
scrap money for food and taxis to get me through tomorrow, but nowhere near enough
to cover the shortfall—$150.
‘I still have my Emirates ticket to France. What about that? It’s worth five hundred
dollars, and it’s a flexi-flight. So they can refund me the money if I cancel it.
I could just nominate your bank account. You’d have it in no time.’
‘Hmm. What currency?’
We both know it’s Australian. ‘You’ll have the money in your account,’ I say. ‘Isn’t
that what matters?’
‘Are you some kind of wiseguy? I’d need to convert it to US. And I don’t care how
strong your dollar is, we
always
lose against that. Then, there’s the interest on
these fourteen days I’d have to put the money up, and—’