‘The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.’
Virginia Woolf
It was hard to fathom why our keepers would suddenly care about raising our spirits, but several months after locking us away they allowed us to sign up for the occasional excursion outside the wire. A mental-health break to provide relief, I suppose, from the emotional and psychological crisis that our ongoing incarceration had inflicted on us.
My first outing was to a mosque on the other side of the coast, under heavy guard of course. The bus trip across the lush green spine of the island was worth the price of admission, which included a strip search and a full scan with a metal detector.
Until that day I had never thought that looking into the distance was a privilege or something to value. In detention your vision is as circumscribed as your movements. In every direction there is a wall, a fence, a door or a guard standing between you and the wider world. Out of the bus window, however, my eyes thirstily took in the view.
The atmosphere was rich with unfamiliar scents and sounds. In the detention centre, there was a high pitch of sadness, anger and frustration that was as clear to the senses as it was to the mind, vibrating at a painful frequency. Fear hung in the air. But outside the barbed wire, the first gust of wind was a promise and a reminder of another life lying tantalisingly out of reach.
Other totems of civilised society drifted past our tightly guarded transport: a bus stop where a man sat beside a young girl; a group of people holding towels, and one with a surfboard, heading to the beach. These sights fired a pang of desire for an ordinary existence. I’d have given anything to be sitting at that bus stop on my way to work or walking to the beach at the end of a long day.
At the mosque, the guards stayed outside, keeping watch over the exits. An odd sensation occurred when I stepped onto carpet. My body – even the soles of my feet – had grown so accustomed to the hard slap of steel and cement that the touch of the worn rug felt like a caress.
The imam gave each of us a hug by way of a greeting. While it may have been a standard practice for him, for me it was the kindest benediction. The simple embrace from another human being caused every tense fibre in my body to release. It was a moment of letting go of something terrible that had been growing inside me, and of yielding to the comfort of our shared humanity. I could have melted onto the floor and stayed there forever.
As part of the welcome ritual, we were dabbed with the oil of agarwood from a tiny vial, cleansing us of the industrial smell of the hard white soap from the Serco storeroom. We joined together in prayer, and then stayed to chat with the imam and some regular members of his congregation, most of whom were originally from Malaysia.
Our conversation spilled onto the deck outside the mosque, where there was a table of dates and other snacks. A glance at the Serco guards, posted sentry on the yard just steps away, made clear we were not to touch the food.
Further in the distance was a beach where a group of locals wandered by. They, too, gazed at us, more in wonder than consternation. They must have known we were visiting from the detention centre.
‘They are unhappy with the people from detention going out in general public,’ a worshipper told me. ‘They feel like the government of Australia is treating Christmas Island as a dumping ground for its problems. The only time this place gets any coverage on the news is in the context of detention, and the locals resent the association.’
That observation stayed with me during the drive back to the prison, and lingered through the strip search and my reluctant return to my holding cell. We were unwelcome guests. The locals wanted us here as much as we wanted to be here: that is, not at all.
The next and final excursion was to the Christmas Island National Park. We took a roundabout route to get there, since our visit coincided with the annual red crab migration, when more than 100 million crustaceans emerge from the forest and march en masse to the ocean to lay their eggs. The main road had been shut down to make way for crab traffic.
A park ranger, tasked with leading our unusual tour group of detainees, explained that Christmas Island was also home to the enormous coconut crab, the world’s largest land crustacean. I always had a deep-seated fear of any living thing with multiple legs, but these particular critters, which resemble tarantulas but are larger than many dogs, are considered a delicacy in parts of the Pacific. They are protected on Christmas Island, where killing one carries a $5000 fine. It seemed both sad and strange that the same islanders who passed laws to protect these crawling eyesores recoiled at the presence of human migrants.
‘They were the island’s first inhabitants,’ the guide suggested. Maybe that explained it. If you took the long view, the newcomers included the entire human race.
The road back took us past huge conveyor belts carrying phosphate from the island’s mines to the port, to be loaded onto ships. Back in my cell that night I allowed myself to dream about living out my days as a free man on Christmas Island.
I’d been raised with the idea that if you worked hard for a good life, that was what you could hopefully expect. Now my dreams had been downsized. If I had a job in the phosphate mine or as a park ranger, I’d quite happily forget about going to the Australian mainland, forget about further education, forget about science and all the promise that a young life had to offer. I’d trade it all to live a peaceful existence among the crabs.
It was now December. In my five months of detention I’d been moved to just about every subsection of the prison (and still had not been given a pillow). The stress of being continually relocated intensified as more and more people were hauled from their cells, only to disappear for good. We heard rumours that they’d ended up on Manus Island.
The timing of the transfers was designed to terrorise. A guard would appear at four or five in the morning with a list of numbers. Sometimes it was one detainee, other times the whole cell was emptied, the detainees ordered to collect their things within fifteen minutes and get out. No-one could tell if the bang on the door or a flashlight in the face meant you were going to another cell or to leave for good.
After two of my cellmates vanished, I came to think of each of the guards as personifications of the angel of death. In Islam, an angel named Azrael is responsible for collecting the souls of the departed, and taking them to the other side. Night after night, I would lie awake in a cold sweat, dreading that this spectre would come for me next.
The acceleration of the transfers to Manus was matched by the accumulation of dispatches coming from the government, as broadcast on the mess-room TV. Operation Sovereign Borders was in full swing, with Royal Australian Navy commandos turning boats like Emelle back to Indonesia. The immigration minister refused to answer questions about those events as they were ‘operational’ or ‘on-water’ matters.
He did, however, have a clear message for all refugees who arrived by boat, including those detained on Christmas Island, Manus and Nauru. ‘You will never set foot in Australia.’
The atmosphere on Christmas Island had gone from despairing to almost panic-stricken. Every scary rumour about PNG that had ever done the rounds was resuscitated and amplified. ‘There is cannibalism.’ ‘There is disease.’ ‘There are wild animals in the jungle.’ ‘The mosquitos and spiders are enormous.’ ‘We’ll be there forever.’
The end of the year approached, and the shadow of Azrael drew closer. When you live in fear of something bad happening, and know it’s coming your way, the wait is worse than the dreaded event itself. You start to hope for the end to come quickly.
On 18 December, the angel of death came for me in the guise of a Serco guard named Michael.
‘EML 019. Wake up and pack all your stuff,’ he said.
I was already awake and praying. ‘Where am I going?’ I asked.
‘Just pack your stuff and follow me.’
Michael took me to a part of the prison I’d never been before. The new section was like a warehouse building, a giant steel shed plastered with threatening, security-related signs: ‘Danger! Do Not Enter! Authorised Personnel Only!’
Things were not looking good.
I joined a crowd of other men who had just been plucked in terror from their own cells in the pre-dawn abduction. The guards ignored our pleas to know what was happening and silently took our numbered ID cards. Next we were strip searched and even had gloved fingers pushed into our private parts before being given a light blue disposable hospital gown to wear.
The meagre possessions I’d brought with me from my cell were confiscated. The grand sum of my belongings at that point included a towel I was rolling up to use as a pillow, a toothbrush, a few toiletries, medication I was taking for the ever-increasing pain in my braces, and the book I was given by the Kiwi guard, where I’d been jotting down my thoughts. I couldn’t take the pen with me as it might set off alarm bells if discovered.
A team of medical staff swarmed around us and carried out a battery of procedures and vital-organ checks. A few hours later a guard approached me. ‘The doctors have determined you are safe to fly,’ he said.
‘Am I getting on a plane?’ I asked weakly, rattled by the revelation. ‘Where are we going?’
He didn’t answer.
Perhaps in a bid to cushion themselves from reality, many refugees on Christmas Island had allowed themselves to swallow a rumour that not all of us were necessarily being sent to Manus Island. There was a view that some were actually being settled in Australia, while others were detained in PNG, more than anything to show the world how tough the country was on refugees. According to our theory, the Manus relocations were an unevenly applied propaganda exercise, shared by the media, to maintain the government’s posturing. Standing in the midst of that crowd of anxious, semi-naked prisoners, I reached for that feeble hope too.
After the medical probe we were handed a document to complete, including a page of ridiculous questions like: ‘Are you carrying more than $10,000 in currency?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You just stripped me naked and stuck your finger in my ass,’ I wanted to reply. ‘Where do you suppose I’m hiding $10,000?’
With the paperwork completed, we were allowed to get dressed again in our flip-flops, t-shirts and shorts. We were given malaria tablets, another indication that we were unlikely to be travelling to Perth, Brisbane or Melbourne. Each of these procedures dragged out over several hours. We had arrived at 4.30 am and it wasn’t until the afternoon that a phalanx of Australian immigration officers and interpreters entered the building to deliver an address. A line of muscled and tattooed Serco guards stood between us and the officers like a human shield. Deep down I knew what was coming.
‘You are being taken to Manus Island and your claim for asylum will be processed there,’ an official announced. ‘If you are found to be a genuine refugee you will be resettled in Papua New Guinea. You will never set foot in Australia.’
In that split second the nightmare started in full Panavision horror. Although it had been a long time coming, the devastating reality caused my legs to weaken, and I struggled to remain upright.
‘There are diseases on Manus Island, including malaria,’ the official continued. ‘There are mosquitos everywhere, which is why you have been given anti-malaria tablets. You are to take one every week if you wish to remain immune.’
A few men broke into tears but nobody struggled or protested. We were all so weak and mentally broken. They’d made us stand around all day without food or rest, so no-one had any inclination or energy to push against the strong arm of authority.
About 11 pm we were led outside, each accompanied by two guards who gripped our arms and marched us toward a waiting bus. At that point one detainee tried to resist, but was quickly overcome and handcuffed.
The guards assigned to me were brutes. My feet barely touched the ground as they loaded me onto a bus. Inside, the guards sat on either side of me as if we were starring in a classic prisoner transfer scene from a Hollywood movie.
After traversing Christmas Island one last time, two police cars, one at the front and one behind, led the bus onto the tarmac of the local airport, where a military jet was parked with its engines idling. We rolled to a stop in front of the aircraft and were escorted onboard. Inside we were each put in a window seat, our access to the aisle blocked by our two minders. We took off the moment the cabin door closed.
After a few hours, the jet made a refuelling stop in Darwin. When we took off again I craned my neck to catch a glimpse through the window of the fabled island continent I had risked my life to reach.
There was nothing to see. Australia was cloaked in darkness.