Aslan tried to kill himself again last night. He was under constant watch at the time, so he covered himself with a bed sheet, as if sleeping. He tied a loose knot with another sheet, put it around his neck and pulled tight.
He failed. This morning Aslan is in one of the admin dongas, isolated from the compounds. I’m sent to sit on his door and watch him. I ask him how he’s feeling. He says: “I want to die.”
Not the usual nicety one expects, even from a suicidal man. If I didn’t want the truth, though, I shouldn’t have asked.
“It’ll get better,” I say.
He looks me in the eyes and says, “I want to die.”
“Why? You’ve come so far. You are almost there. It’ll only get better if you can just wait.”
“Visa, negative. Review, negative. No more energy. No more energy. I kill myself.”
“Well, we won’t let you kill yourself,” I say.
“You think officer stop me? I want to die. Officer don’t stop me. I kill myself, officer or no officer.”
“But if you kill yourself, then the Iranian government is winning. Don’t let them win. Don’t let them beat you.”
Somehow I’ve become a suicide counsellor. I am not qualified for this job. I do not want this job. I do not like this job. More to the point, I suspect that I am not much good at this job. Aslan looks at me and shakes his head.
“You’re suffering,” I say, “I get that, you’re tired of all this, but you don’t want to die. You want the pain to end. And it will, once you are gone from here.”
“Yes, I go from here,” says Aslan.
“No, that’s not what I mean. Listen, this is a tiny part of your life. You’ll get your visa, nearly all Iranian refugees eventually get a visa, you know that, and then Australia will be good to you once you are in the community. How long have you been here?”
“Eleven months. Eleven months I see friends come and go, but Aslan still here. I see officer come and go, but Aslan still here. I am tired now. No more energy. I kill myself.”
“No. Think about it. If you’ve been here eleven months, a year, and you’ll have forty, maybe fifty more years in Australia after this, that’s one of fifty. That’s what this is, one of fifty. Like, two percent! I know it’s bad in here, but you’ve got to think about after. You can’t just let the one determine your life, when it’s the other forty-nine that is your future. That’s your life.”
“You officer. Not understand.”
“I don’t. I know I don’t. But do you see that what I’m saying might be true? You don’t want to live. You want to die. I believe you, but it’s possible that how you feel right now will change. Once you have a visa you may want to live again. How you feel will change once you get away from here.”
“Maybe. I don’t care. No more energy. Too much …” says Aslan, tapping his temple.