The Ink Bridge (11 page)

The man with the rice nodded at Omed and then down to them. Omed shook his head, imagining their nails clawing at the underside of the deck as the boat filled with water. He backed away, covered himself with his coat and blocked out the world.

The darkness of the coat was like his memory of the movie theatre in Bamiyan – little more than a TV in a darkened
chaikhana
. The screen flickered and came to life. Omed's mother was spooning softened rice into Liaquat's mouth. Liaquat with eyes soft from tears, wearing the embroidered Mazari cap Omed had bought from the gypsy traders. Leyli was singing in the courtyard. He could hear the soft touch of her broom on the dust and the fragile quiver in her voice. Wasim was looking from the window to the Buddha, Salsal, across the fields and bridges, past the ripening wheat and clover. His face was golden, the soft hair on his neck picked out by the afternoon sun.

Try as he might, Omed could not wish himself into the scene. Just as he could never wish his father back.

He tore the coat from his head and breathed desperately, as if he had almost drowned. The boat's nose leapt and plunged. Omed's life was as unstable as this boat. If he stepped to the left or the right, he would leave the world without a trace. But he must keep going. Australia was a light on an island across a black sea. He was moving slowly towards it.

IN JAKARTA, A STREET CALLED Jalan Jaksa wound like a serpent through cheap hotels and restaurants. It was a crossroads, a place of waiting. In Jalan Jaksa everyone was waiting for something. From the tourists who had not yet found the escape route to Sumatra or the temples of Yogyakarta, to the refugees like Omed, who hoped for news of a boat to take them to Australia. Everyone was dying a small death; each hour they stayed, the foul air and hopelessness tore their simple wishes from them. They sat and drank tea and beer in the heat and dust, and swallowed with them the fumes from cars and motorbikes. There were prostitutes – men and women – waiting too, and hoping, like the refugees, for better luck, for a clearer sky, for a chance.

The hotels in Jalan Jaksa all bent their shattered necks towards the street, their curtains hung like folds of skin from the windows. Dogs shat and died and raised puppies among the sheets of cardboard and plastic bottles. The drains ran with green water. Smoke clung to the hot, heavy air.

There was nothing to do but eat and drink and wait, and repeat this day after day. They had been in Jakarta for two weeks and nothing had happened. The Snake had lost his foul temper and the shakes that racked his body at night. Each day he faded into the smog, returning before lunch, smiling and fluid, with his good pupil a tiny full stop in his rheumy eye. Omed could not smell opium smoke on him, but he knew that vacant, sleepy look.

The Snake said Omed's money was not enough. He said it would be at least five thousand dollars for a safe boat for one person. Omed counted the presidents and found there to be little more than that amount. This meant one of them would be left, marooned in this half-place, this waiting land. The Snake said he had contacts in Australia that would find him work and then he could send for Omed. It would be quicker for him, he knew the system. But Omed knew his tricks.

So, he tried to find a boat by himself. He did not know the right people, the right palms to grease. Every door was barred. And each day the refugees who had found agents disappeared and left him there, waiting.

Each day cost money. And every day Omed's coat got lighter. The faces of stern American presidents slipped from his hands to money-changers and then to the deep pockets of the hotel manager, shopkeepers and restaurant owners. Every day his chances got smaller and smaller, and he knew he could not make it on his own; he was tied to the Snake with a wire that caused him much pain. The contacts the Snake eternally promised, never appeared.

Some days they saw the unlucky ones. They, in turn, saw only their feet as they tramped the dirty road. Motorbikes swerved to miss them, honking horns, but they never flinched. They were ghosts, not people, who had boarded boats with the last of their money spent and never made it to Australia. Some returned only with stories that they told as they begged for change or food.

Omed was sitting alone having tea one afternoon when he saw Yusuf. It had been two years since they were children in Bamiyan. They had not been friends, not in the strictest sense. But Yusuf was someone from home.

He looked far older than his years. His clothes were frayed and his eyes were like puddles. But it was definitely Yusuf.

Omed jumped up from his table and, rushing to the street, caught Yusuf's arm. He cowered as if Omed was going to strike him. Omed pointed at himself and smiled; surely he remembered.

Yusuf looked at Omed for a long time as if peering through smoke.

‘Omed?' he said eventually.

Omed nodded.

‘What are you doing here?' he asked.

Omed shrugged.

He swallowed painfully, and said, ‘If you buy me a drink and some food I will tell you my story. I cannot give it to you for free, my friend, even though it shames me. I have not eaten in four days.' Omed took his elbow and drew Yusuf back to the table. He ordered two teas and a plate of flat noodles.

Yusuf ate greedily, sucking the noodles from his fork and slurping his sweet tea. Between mouthfuls, Omed caught fragments of story. ‘I almost made it, Omed.'

He looked up from the rim of his empty cup. ‘May I have coffee?' he asked.

Omed ordered and it arrived with a sludge of condensed milk in the bottom of the glass. Yusuf scooped four spoons of sugar into the coffee, stirred, then added another.

‘The Australians do not like us. We were forced back to Lombok. I would dearly love another plate of noodles, Omed, if it is not too much trouble. I will pay you when I have money, though I do not know when that may be.'

Yusuf started his second bowl of noodles, but he doubled over with cramps. Gradually, as the cramps rolled from him, he continued. ‘Everyone says Australia is the Lucky Country. They say the people are fair.' Yusuf laughed, but his eyes did not laugh with him. He started coughing and held his chest. ‘But it is not true. Maybe if we could reach the Lucky Country then things would be good. But we may as well be landing on the moon.' He took another fork of noodles and a slurp of his coffee.

‘And now I have no more money, Omed. I am kept alive on foreign charity. I will be sent home and I will die at the hands of the Taliban.' He looked at his own hands as if they were foreign to him.

The two boys sat quietly for a while, the humid air still and heavy. Then Yusuf asked, ‘Is that where you are going – Australia?'

Omed nodded.

‘Do you have an agent?'

He shook his head.

‘Then you may as well swim. Even if you know who is running the boats, it is impossible. Those agents are worse than dogs. They care only about your money.' Yusuf dabbed at the corners of his lips with a cloth.

‘Maybe it is better a quick bullet from a Kalashnikov than your body slowly filling with water. Have you seen these boats? They are not fit for animals!'

Omed thought of the Poet of Kandahar for the first time in weeks. He recalled the Poet's dream of standing by the ocean. Then he remembered the boat from Malaysia. Humans crammed like beasts inside the belly of the ship, the waves eating at the fragile wood.

‘You will die. Or be returned here to a living death.'

Omed paid for the food and drinks. He took Yusuf's hand in one of his, clasped his shoulder with the other. Yusuf looked into his eyes and repeated softly, more a plea than a statement, ‘You will die.'

As Omed walked back to his hotel Yusuf shouted after him, ‘Why do you not talk? Omed? Omed!'

When Omed got back to the room, the Snake was lying on the bed. He snorted himself awake and blinked for a moment with his different-sized eyes turning like wheels under his hooded lids.

‘I have some good news, Omed,' he slurred.

Even though Omed had known him since his very last night in Bamiyan, he still did not know
his
name. He would always be the Snake – to be respected, but only from fear, and never to be trusted. The Snake sat up on the bed and rubbed his stubbly face. ‘I have found a boat.'

Omed waited.

He added, ‘For both of us.'

Omed held his breath.

‘For five thousand.'

He threw his arms around the Snake. The man smelled like stale milk, but Omed did not care.

‘I must have the money now so I can pay the agent,' he said.

As Omed took his arms from him, he said, ‘It is best that I go alone.'

Omed shook his head.

The Snake sucked air through his bad teeth and said, ‘As you wish.'

The Snake led Omed down the hotel stairs and back to the noise and heat of Jalan Jaksa. He smacked the roof of an auto-rickshaw and showed the driver an address. They pushed inside and breathed the heavy fumes as the vehicle crept into the traffic.

Jakarta raced through the window at them. Omed's eyes wept, his nose burned and ran rivers which he mopped with his sleeve. The driver's knuckles were blue with tattoos. He had a plastic doll with pink hair hanging from his mirror, a sticker that read
Dagadu
under a big eye on the dashboard. A bead of sweat trickled down the man's neck to the dirty towel draped over his shoulders.