No Friend but the Mountains

Writing from Manus Prison

Behrouz Boochani, Omid Tofighian

• Publisher: Anansi International
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781487006846
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Biographies de sciences sociales

Winner of Australia's richest literary award, No Friend but the Mountains is Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani's account of his detainment on Australia's notorious Manus Island prison. Composed entirely by text message, this work represents the harrowing experience of stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world.

In 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island, a refugee detention centre off the coast of Australia. He has been there ever since. This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi.

It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait of five years of incarceration and exile. Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, No Friend but the Mountains is an extraordinary account — one that is disturbingly representative of the experience of the many stateless and imprisoned refugees and migrants around the world.

"Our government jailed his body, but his soul remained that of a free man." — From the Foreword by Man Booker Prize–winning author Richard Flanagan

1
—
Under Moonlight / The Colour of Anxiety

Under moonlight /

An unknown route /

A sky the colour of intense anxiety.

Two trucks carry scared and restless passengers down a winding, rocky labyrinth. They speed along a road surrounded by jungle, the exhausts emitting frightening roars. Black cloth is wrapped around the vehicles, so we can only see the stars above. Women and men sit beside each other, their children on their laps . . . we look up at a sky the colour of intense anxiety. Every so often someone slightly adjusts their position on the truck’s wooden floor to allow the blood to circulate through tired muscles. Worn out from sitting, we still need to conserve our strength to cope with the rest of the journey.

For six hours I have sat without moving, leaning my back against the wooden wall of the truck, and listening to an old fool complain at the smugglers, profanities streaming from his toothless mouth. Three months of wandering hungry in Indonesia have driven us to this misery, but at least we are leaving on this road through the jungle, a road that will reach the ocean.

In a corner of the truck, close to the door, a makeshift wall has been constructed of cloth; a screen from the others, where the children can piss in empty water bottles. No-one pays any attention when a few arrogant men go behind the screen and throw away the urine-filled bottles. None of the women moves from where they sit. They must need to go, but maybe the thought of emptying their bladders behind the screen doesn’t appeal.

Many women hold their children in their arms as they contemplate the dangerous trip by sea. The children bounce up and down, startling as we jolt over dips and peaks in the road. Even the very young sense the danger. You can tell by the tone of their yelps.

The roar of the truck /

The dictates of the exhaust /

Fear and anxiety /

The driver orders us to remain seated.

A thin man with a dark weather-beaten appearance stands near the door, regularly gesturing for silence. But in the vehicle the air is full of the cries of children, the sound of mothers trying to hush them, and the frightening roar of the truck’s screaming exhaust.

The looming shadow of fear sharpens our instincts. The branches of trees above us sometimes cover the sky, sometimes reveal it, as we speed past. I am not sure exactly which route we are taking but I guess that the boat we are supposed to board for Australia is on a distant shore in southern Indonesia, somewhere near Jakarta.

---

In the three months I was in Jakarta’s Kalibata City and on Kendari Island, I would regularly hear news of boats that had sunk. But one always thinks that such fatal incidents only befall others — it’s hard to believe you may face death.

One imagines one’s own death differently to the death of others. I can’t imagine it. Could it be that these trucks travelling in convoy, rushing towards the ocean, are couriers of death?

No /

Surely not while they carry children /

How is it possible? /

How could we drown in the ocean? /

I am convinced that my own death will be different /

It will take place in a more tranquil setting.

I think about other boats that have recently descended into the depths of the sea.

My anxiety increases /

Didn’t those boats also carry little kids? /

Weren’t the people who drowned just like me?

Moments like these awaken a kind of metaphysical power within and the realities of mortality disappear from one’s thoughts. No, it can’t be that I should submit to death so easily. I’m destined to die in the distant future and not by drowning or any similar fate. I’m destined to die in a particular way, when I choose. I decide that my own death must involve an act of the will — I resolve it within me, in my very soul.

Death must be a matter of choice.

No, I don’t want to die /

I don’t want to give up my life so easily /

Death is inevitable, we know /

Just another part of life /

But I don’t want to succumb to the inevitability of death /

Especially somewhere so far away from my motherland /

I don’t want to die out there surrounded by water /

And more water.

I always felt I would die in the place I was born, where I was raised, where I have spent my whole life till now. It’s impossible to imagine dying a thousand kilometres away from the land of your roots. What a terrible, miserable way to die, a sheer injustice; an injustice that seems to me completely arbitrary. Of course, I don’t expect it will happen to me.

---

A young man and his girlfriend, Azadeh1, are riding in the first truck. They are accompanied by our mutual acquaintance The Blue Eyed Boy. All three of them harbour painful memories of the life they had to leave behind in Iran. When the trucks collected us from the place we were staying the two men tossed their luggage in the back of the truck and climbed aboard like soldiers. For the whole three months that we were in Indonesia they have been a step ahead of us other refugees. Whether finding a hotel room, acquiring food, or travelling to the airport, this efficient trait would, ironically, always result in some kind of disadvantage. On one occasion when we had to fly to Kendari, they travelled ahead of everyone else to the airport. But when they arrived the officers there confiscated their passports and they missed the flight for Kendari; and were left wandering the streets of Jakarta for days, reduced to begging for food in the alleys and backstreets.

Now, they are in front again, driving at lightning speed, travelling at the head of the pack, slicing through the strong winds. The trucks’ exhausts roar as they travel towards the ocean. I know The Blue Eyed Boy carries an old fear in his heart from back in Kurdistan. While in Kalibata City, during the nights confined in the town’s apartment blocks, we would smoke on the tiny balconies and talk about our thoughts regarding the upcoming journey. He confessed his fear of the ocean; his older brother’s life had been taken by the raging river Seymareh in Ilam Province2.

. . . One hot summer’s day in his childhood, The Blue Eyed Boy accompanies his older brother to the fishing nets they had cast the previous night in the deepest part of the river. His brother dives deep into the water; like a heavy stone dropping into the river, his body pierces the water. An unexpected wave comes through and, in its wake, just moments later, only his hand remains visible, reaching to The Blue Eyed Boy for help. Still a small child, The Blue Eyed Boy is incapable of grabbing his brother’s hand. He can only cry and cry; he cries for hours hoping his brother will surface. But he is gone. Two days later they retrieve his body from the river by playing a traditional message-bearing drum, the dhol. The sound of the dhol persuades the river to give back a waterlogged corpse — a musical relationship between death and nature . . .

The Blue Eyed Boy carries this old, morbid memory with him on this trip. He fears the water intensely. Yet tonight he speeds in the direction of the ocean to embark on a journey of enormous magnitude. An ominous journey indeed underpinned by this old and immense terror . . .

The trucks race on through the dense jungle, disrupting the silence of the night. After sitting on the wooden floor of the truck for hours, the weariness is obvious on everyone’s face. One or two people have vomited; throwing up everything they have eaten into plastic containers.

In another corner of the truck is a Sri Lankan couple with an infant child. The passengers are mainly Iranian, Kurdish, Iraqi, and you can see they are fascinated by the presence of a Sri Lankan family among them. The woman is extraordinarily beautiful with dark eyes. She sits holding her baby, which is still breastfeeding, in her arms. Her partner tries to comfort them; he cares for them the best he can. He needs her to know that is there to support them. During the whole trip the man seems to try and reassure her by massaging her shoulders and holding her tight as the truck jolts violently over the bumpy road. But you can see the woman’s only concern is her small child.

The scene in that corner /

Is love /

Glorious and pure.

She is pale however, and throws up at one point into a container her husband brings over. Their past is unknown to me. Maybe their love brought with it the difficulties that drove them to this terrifying night? Clearly, their love has endured it all: it is manifested in the care of this young child. No doubt, their hearts and thoughts are also marked by the experiences that caused them to flee their homeland.

On the trucks are children of all ages. Children on the verge of adulthood. Whole families. A loud, obnoxious and completely inconsiderate Kurdish guy forces ev...