Another night, but things are looking up. When I get my allocation I’m surprised to hear that I’ve been designated rover, meaning I’ll be roaming the compounds, general dogsbody. Moments later that idea is deflated as I’m told that I won’t actually be roving. They need me to spend the night with a detainee named Matthew. He’s just been placed on constant watch, which means he’s considered at imminent risk of either self-harming, harming others or causing a disturbance. He must be within arm’s-length (which is bullshit) and line of sight at all times. It’s something different, at least.
I find Matthew in the Green Compound mess hall. To begin with, I just stand awkwardly close to Matthew while he eats his dinner. He talks to his friends, I talk to my colleagues. Being watched makes all detainees uneasy, so after a few minutes Matthew departs. At that stage I properly introduce myself and accompany Matthew back to his room.
Rather than have me stand at the door watching him as he goes about his evening, Matthew invites me in. His English is surprisingly good — exceptional, in fact — and Matthew proves friendly, courteous and very open. Once I realise he is not your run-of-the-mill detainee, I ask him questions about how he came to be where he is today. He tells me everything.
In 2001, Matthew was sixteen, and he went by his birth name of Majeed. He was one of tens of thousands of Afghanis fleeing across the borders after the American invasion and the civil war that followed.
There were established corridors through which the refugees moved, but it was still a dangerous journey. The first border was with Iran, an old enemy, where the police shoot to kill. Matthew tells me it was fine, no one shot at him. He travelled overland to the Turkish border, where it was mountainous, rocky and very cold. They travelled at night and slept in caves, making their way by foot. Other smugglers helped them through to the Mediterranean coast. Before that Matthew had never seen the ocean. Without any trace of shame, Matthew tells me that when he looked out upon the Aegean Sea, dark blue without an end, he was scared. So much water, and such a little boat.
The boat that the Turkish people smugglers put Matthew and over a hundred others onto had no working engine. In the dark of night they set out, towed in the wake of a tug, past the Greek islands, bound for Italy. By the time they reached deep water it was apparent that their motor-less vessel was leaking at a rapid rate. Two diesel generators were set up to pump water. They ploughed on. Hours later, the first generator died. Not long after, the second generator died. The boat was sitting lower and lower in the sea, while more and more water appeared in the hull.
It was daylight when the tug dropped the towline and they realised they had been abandoned in a sinking ship without enough lifejackets to go around. Matthew describes mass panic and despair. Most people on board could not swim. He could not swim.
Before the boat sank, another arrived, sent by the people smugglers. The refugees were loaded on board, then safely ferried to the Italian mainland. I don’t mention to Matthew how lucky he was. How many stories I have read in the news of people smugglers cutting their losses and abandoning sinking vessels, only for the human detritus to wash up on a Turkish beach or Greek island a day or a week later, like so much more flotsam.
From Italy, Matthew travelled by train to France, and from France to England. When he arrived he had no visa, so could not avail himself of any of the rights of citizenry or residency, but he had the help of Afghani friends and a community of expats who’d made the trip before him. He found an off-the-books job. Because he was young, he rapidly acquired the language. He started dating an English-speaking girl. And then an Afghani friend who had converted to Christianity showed Matthew some verses from that strange book the English called the Bible.
“When I looked at the Koran, I saw just another piece of cardboard,” he tells me. “But when I read the Bible, it was straight away, I knew.”
I guess that’s what is meant by revelation. Matthew felt he belonged with the Christian God, simple as that. So he read the Bible and was eventually baptised a Christian. To make the break final and complete, he forsook the name of Majeed and became Matthew. “Like the apostle,” he tells me.
Matthew lived in England for years. Eventually, he applied for a refugee visa in the hope of formalising his residency. He was surprised when his application was rejected. The English had sent troops to fight in Afghanistan; they knew it was a country at war with the world, and at war with itself. He applied a second time, was rejected a second time. After that, there was nothing more to be done. Matthew was deported to Afghanistan after spending six years on English soil.
He returned an apostate. When I mention I’m an atheist, Matthew tells me that an Afghani man would be killed for such a thing — as would a Muslim who had abandoned his faith. Matthew had no option but to keep his conversion a closely guarded secret while he set about constructing a new life.
Things happened quickly. He became a husband and, soon after, a father. That’s what convinced Matthew to try again. His son inherited his Hazara ethnicity. Even if the war ended, the tribal conflicts would never disappear. The boy could expect a difficult life, or perhaps no life at all.
Once he had enough money to pay his way, Matthew crossed to Pakistan, then flew to Indonesia. After a wait of months in a concrete shoebox, constantly fearing that the Indonesian police were coming to extort his remaining money or simply arrest him, Matthew was taken to an old, decrepit boat.
Déjà vu — except this boat had an engine. A single outboard. It didn’t have enough drinking water, and the captain didn’t have navigational equipment beyond a compass. It was grossly overcrowded, with barely room to sit, let alone stretch out.
After two days chugging south, the engine quit. The boat drifted. Days passed. The asylum seekers were distraught. They knew others had perished this way. Matthew didn’t know which was worse — to die of thirst, or to drown. “Perhaps to drown while thirsty,” I say, and Matthew laughs.
On the sixth day of drifting in the sea, the men and women spotted a plane, then it disappeared from view. Four hours later, an Australian naval vessel sailed over the horizon. They were saved.
When he was finally deposited on Australian soil, Matthew understood that he would first be sent to a camp. But he did not understand when the Australian Government rejected his claim for refugee status. He is a Hazara man. An apostate. A man with a wife and son from a land that has gone crazy killing itself. If not all that, how much danger would be enough? Nor did he understand why Australia chose to lock him in a prison, when he’d been in the same situation in England, living free.
Isolated from his family, unable to support his two-year-old boy, not knowing if any of them have a future, Matthew told an officer conducting a personal officer scheme interview that he was depressed. He told the officer that he had thought about self-harming.
Almost immediately, he regretted saying it. He took it back as silly talk that didn’t mean anything. A joke, a sick joke. It didn’t matter; the bureaucracy was already in motion. The officer was obliged to report his comments up the line, automatically triggering a constant watch, and that’s how I got here.
Matthew tells me all of this, then quite unexpectedly says, “I am going to sleep now.” He immediately lies down and closes his eyes and becomes very still.