Good Muslim Boy (19 page)

◆ ◆ ◆

I was thereby deemed unfit to enter the United States, and was removed, effective
immediately. It turned out we also had the wrong visas, so it wasn’t all Starsky
and Hutch’s fault. The problem was, we’d been expelled for a period of seven years,
so even if we were to leave and gain proper documents, they’d never have let us back
in.

It was possible, I realised, that our theatre troupe had been dealt a bum hand from
the start. Nobody had ever mentioned
anything about our visas before—if someone had
happened to not want to deal with us, they sure would’ve made a convenient loophole.

The rest of the troupe, I could already tell, were all having the same thought. We
just
knew
what had happened, without saying a word. That’s how close you get in the
theatre.

They clapped us in cuffs and dragged us aboard a flight home before the first-class
passengers could board. I looked at them, waiting in the terminal: each and every
one of them frightened. All they saw was a line of dishevelled Muslim men being tugged
around by Homeland Security officers. I wondered if any of them would flip out and
try to get on another flight.

‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ the air marshals suggested, and took off our handcuffs
once we were safely tucked at the rear of the plane, away from the white people.
We chattered in Arabic all through the long flight, in our best attempt to piss them
off, but they were actually pretty nice guys.

The truth is, I was wrecked by the ordeal, and all the nice guys in the world couldn’t
have helped that. Iran and Iraq were in the business of stealing your dreams; now
the US was as well? I knew we’d get new dreams, new ideas, new musicals—our theatre
troupe would rise again. But I also got the feeling our options were narrowing, in
this big, little world we called home.

Mashhad, Iran, 2013: zero days until visa expires

I spend the night walking around the sleepless city, amid the pilgrims—surging millions,
all here to pay tribute to someone they, too, lost long ago.

It is a sea of people, and none of them are mine. I wish my darling soulmate were
here. I wish my daughter was, too. Soft snow falls on my grey jacket and slides right
off again.

Dawn breaks, and there’s nothing for it but to cab it to Reza’s Paradise.

I arrange with the main office to release Dad and have him taken to the airport.
The ambulance driver is the same one who brought Dad’s body here, days prior. He
does not remember me, but I remember him very well.

When he learns I want the airport, he gets it. ‘Wow, are you
still
in Iran?’

◆ ◆ ◆

I arrive at two-thirty—way early, but I need everything to go smoothly from this
point on.

Dad’s body is placed on a gharry. The ambulance goes.

I clutch my ticket and my exit papers, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

◆ ◆ ◆

I walk into the small office in the middle of freightland. Outside the office, there
are forklifts and aircrafts and their commotions, their personnel. Inside the office
is a tranquil, quiet zone.

‘
Salam
,’ I greet the clerk. He, of course, sips tea.

‘What carrier are you after?’

‘Qatar.’

‘Aircraft’s not even here. You’re too early. Sit, sit down. Do you want some tea?’

‘No, thank you. But if you could just take care of this?’ The main airport terminal—where
I have to check in our other cargo, namely me—is six kilometres from here. About
an hour’s walk. And even without my father, I am going to have a lot of luggage to
drag over.

‘Sit down. Relax. You look stressed,’ he advises. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m really, really sure.’

He grins. ‘You are not doing
taarof
?’

‘When is the Keyhan guy coming? He said he’d meet me here.’

‘He won’t be coming today, but don’t worry. We’ll see you load the box in safely.
May I see your exit papers? And are you sure you don’t want tea?’

I hand him all my paperwork. He calls Qatar Air. He murmurs for ten minutes. I wait
impatiently, eyes closed.

He hangs up and snaps me out of it. ‘No,’ he says simply. ‘Qatar says they don’t
have clearance.’

‘
Clearance?
’ I say. My life flashes before my eyes—or at least what my life’s become:
this one job, these million jobs, every paper under the sun, every department.

‘They don’t have Australian clearance. Melbourne Airport doesn’t have the paperwork.’

‘That’s impossible,’ I whisper.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Tea?’

When I spoke with my brothers, they said they’d organised it days ago.

‘Your sorry doesn’t do,’ I say, tight and firm. ‘This is impossible.’ He calls the
airline again. My watch reads two-fifty. I watch him while he’s speaking. His air
of regret doesn’t change.

He hangs up. ‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘They have no record of such a shipment, and
apparently your country has tough laws on human remains. That was the Qatar Airways
head office in Tehran I just spoke with. They cannot authorise this boarding until
Australia gives the green light.’

‘Australia will accept his body.’

His eyebrows lift beatifically: maybe they will, maybe they won’t.

A horrid thought occurs to me.

‘What will happen to my dad?’

‘You’ll have to take him back to the morgue,’ he says. ‘You can’t leave him out there,
of course.’

Surely there is someone who can make it all okay—who can press the okay button. Who
can green-light this event.

Someone who is human, and who understands everything.

In lieu of such a person, I could at least call my bro.

‘May I use your phone?’ I ask.

The man sips his tea. ‘Don’t you have a phone?’

‘Mine only works with wi-fi.’

He looks at me sadly. ‘There’s wi-fi in the main terminal,’ he says.

◆ ◆ ◆

I leave my luggage and take the six kilometres at the fiercest run.

I draw energy from the universe, import it from the past: every jog I’ve ever taken,
every lap round every pool. I will my body to keep going. It just can’t stop now.

I throw myself through the doors with one hand and with the other, switch the wi-fi
on.

Voila.

I open Viber and get Moe Greene on the phone.

‘But I did it,’ he says, baffled. ‘They never sent a confirmation email.
Oh
.’

I can hear Mum and my younger siblings sobbing in the room. He must have me on speakerphone.
I try to calm them down. ‘It’ll be okay,’ I say. ‘If God exists, He is watching.’

I ask Moe to get in touch with the Aussies and let them know to expect a call from
Qatar Airways Iran. ‘When?’ he asks.

I feel ill. ‘Just as soon as I can sprint back to the freight terminal, bro.’

And so I bolt back. Twenty minutes later, I am there, in the tranquil office in the
middle of freightland. I fall through the door, ready to pass out.

‘Wow, that was quick,’ the man says, impressed.

‘I called my brother,’ I pant, ‘and we have 100 per cent confirmation.
One hundred
per cent
. You can call Australia and find out for yourself.’

He sighs. ‘Believe me, son, I want to put your father on the plane. I really do.
But I don’t want to lose my job. Put yourself in my shoes.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘I forgive you. Can you please call Qatar?’ It’s already 4 pm. I
still have to check in myself.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Would you like some tea?’

I wonder if he is messing with me. I don’t think so.

‘No, no tea for me. Just boarding the plane, please.’

He speaks to Qatar headquarters in Tehran again, sipping on tea with one hand, sugar
cubes in the other, the phone wedged precariously between his chin and shoulder.

They place him on hold while they contact Australia. I sit there silently. Three
minutes tick by on the wall clock. Each tick jolts my heart.

Finally, he hangs up. ‘No,’ he whispers. ‘Qatar’s been calling Australia, but no
one is picking up. It’s 11 pm on a Saturday there. Apparently that’s the worst time.’

‘Who are they calling?’

‘They tried the manager of Qatar in Melbourne. All the offices are shut.’

‘Please, get them to try the airport. The freight terminal. Anyone.’

He nods. He’s a sweet man.

Twelve minutes pass, fast and slow.

I can tell from this sweet man’s face that nothing’s going to change.

He hangs up the phone. ‘The men in the warehouse say their supervisor needs to give
the okay. They have no knowledge of the shipment themselves.’

‘So let them call the supervisor.’

‘They refused. They said it’s too late to wake up the boss.’

‘It’s Saturday night. He’ll be out. That’s what they do in Australia. Tell them to
call him, please. He will have a mobile phone.’

But the sweet man’s hands are going nowhere near the phone.

‘I think you should get your father’s remains back in the fridge,’ he says. ‘And
leave Iran tonight for Qatar with your ticket. From Qatar, you get a ticket back
to Tehran and on re-entry, explain your circumstances to the officials. They’ll issue
a temporary visa. We can sort this out next week.’

I consider this. It sounds reasonable. But it also sounds so wrong.

‘I’m not putting him back in a fridge,’ I say. ‘He’s been in a fridge all week. We
want to bury him. My family. The community. Everyone wants him back. And I just can’t
keep doing this. Surely someone can say yes.’

‘Unless there’s written proof, we cannot authorise this boarding.’

‘I will get you that proof,’ I growl.

◆ ◆ ◆

By 4.37 pm, I am back in the main terminal. I’ve got the wi-fi switched on, and I’m
gasping down the phone to Moe.

‘I don’t
have
the confirmation email,’ he says. ‘That’s the whole problem.’

‘Do you have any correspondence?’

‘Let me see…okay, yes. There was an initial email. But that’s not the same thing,
Osamah.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

And that’s when I tell Moe that I am going to write the confirmation email myself.
All I need is an email address, letterhead and signature; I’ll fill in the body myself,
and send it to Qatar.

Unfortunately, the initial email is just an automated response, no letterhead or
signature—a few lines of text is all. ‘It does have the right email address,’ Moe
says.

‘That’s all I need, bro!’ I shout.

This is not new territory. Moe and I have spent our whole lives coming up against
the authorities and finding creative workarounds. All week, I’ve felt so helpless—so
many procedures and forms. But a bit of deviant behaviour in the hope of doing some
good? This is my forte.

I find an internet kiosk tucked away behind a hamburger joint. A young man is on
it. I approach, keeping my cool. With the adrenaline pumping through me, it’s hard
not to jump him.

‘Excuse me, how long do you think you’re going to be?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know. Twenty minutes?’ he replies, not looking up at me.

I clear my throat. ‘I will give you ten thousand tomans if you get off right now.’

Now he looks up at me.

‘But it’s just three thousand
an hour
to use.’

‘Come on! I need it urgently.’ I wave the large note—my last dime—at him.

And he takes it, still processing what it means. The time on the monitor reads 4.45
pm. I have work to do.

◆ ◆ ◆

At 5.18 pm I burst back into the tiny office in freightland.

‘I have forwarded,’ I pant, ‘the email, from Australia, to your office.’

‘Sit down, sit down,’ the man urges. ‘Would you like some water?’

This completely throws me. ‘No tea?’ I want to ask. Instead, I say, ‘Yes, but not
now. Just check the email first please.’

My forgery is simple, though it has an elaborate trail. I think it looks pretty clean,
considering the speed.

And all it needs to do is look clean, if I’m lucky. It does say
we accept the body
—but
in English, which the man can’t read. So he simply drinks more tea. He nods at me,
approvingly. He calls up Tehran again.

He stays on the line, downing mug after mug of tea, for an alarming thirty minutes.
Not once today have I seen this man get up to pee. More alarming still: Qatar Airways
is verifying the email. Because the Australian warehouse knows nothing of the body,
they need to make an ‘executive decision’.

He hangs up. He sets down his tea. ‘I’m afraid the email won’t do,’ he whispers.

‘You said if I
gave
you the confirmation…’

‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘But I am just an employee. This goes back to the airline. They
said the email needed to have been sent to
them
, is the thing. Why was it sent to
your brother and not the Qatar office, they asked.’

So here we are. It was a good forgery. It was not enough.

It is 5.47 pm on the wall, I idly notice. The flight is all but closed. And the answer
is no.

I remember everyone I have encountered, right from Aioli Cop to the countless tea-sippers
to the knife-wielders on the bus to the man punching me outside the airline agency
to the homeless woman to the drivers to the father-to-be soldier and the deputy to
the black-market exchange boys. It all seems years ago.

Something tells me that I need to capture this moment. It is the moment when all
my efforts have finally come to naught.

So I hold up my phone, find some good light, and take a selfie. I frame Dad’s coffin
behind my shoulders and face. He lies in a box, on a trolley. The shutter clicks.

I look scarier than the coffin. I have deteriorated by the day.

◆ ◆ ◆

At 6.03 pm, the phone rings in the tea-sipping man’s office. Three minutes into the
call, I notice that he’s begun to speak with more energy. I can’t help but sit up
and lean closer to the desk. His mug of tea is empty by the time he’s put on hold,
but instead of filling it, he chooses to update me.

‘A manager up the food chain heard your story from a colleague,’ he says. ‘And now
he’s personally trying to get this whole thing sorted. He’s been on the phone with
Qatar headquarters, in Qatar. He’s the only man in Tehran who has the power to call
them. You’re a lucky man, Osamah. Inshallah you’re sorted… oh, hang on.’

They’ve taken him off hold.

He listens without responding. I read his face for clues, but it’s blank. I pray
with every fibre, to everyone I can.
Please, Imam Reza. Please, God. Please, Universe.
Please. Please. Please.

The man hangs up the phone.

‘You can go. They said yes. You can go.’

My body floods with chilly goosebumps.

‘Huh?’ I say.

‘Qatar in Qatar have said yes. They’ve said yes. You can go.’

‘I can go?’ I ask him.

‘Your father must have been a special man. This is just plain miraculous.’

As for me, I just plain can’t take it anymore. The whole week catches up with me
in one explosive surge. I collapse on the office floor, and that’s when I realise:
my dad is dead, and I will never see him again in my life. I’ll never see his smile
again, we’ll never talk about anything, we’ll never eat felafels again, I’ll never
hold his hands like a kid. And so I bawl my eyes out, for the first time since he
died. I half get up, crouching—almost supplicating. I weep and howl and claw the
carpet.

And then I hear the sweet man, shouting over my sobbing.

‘Are you going to cry or catch your plane? Check-in closes in twenty minutes. Forget
about your luggage. I’ll send it on a forklift.’

My mouth doesn’t know what to do: keep crying. Smile. Fall apart. ‘Thank you, sir,’
I finally stutter.

‘Don’t thank me. Just run.’