The girls at the Emirates first class
check-in had been on duty since midnight. It was 6am and they were just
starting to check passengers for EK 005 departing at 07:30.
They reapplied layers of pink lipstick
within the sharp confines of brown lipliner. They gossiped in Arabic about a
colleague suspected of moonlighting as a prostitute. They readjusted their
shaylas, wrapping the veils loosely around rich black hair. And they dismissed
a leering Bahraini wanting to check in—his ticket was for Manama and it was
economy. All in all, it was just another autumn morning in Dubai. Each time the
automatic doors opened they ushered in more of the same: expats with wrists
full of gold, locals with scent so thick it followed them, and the gentle 23
degree air. Beyond the doors, the sky was wearing its perennial shade of smoky blue
and the palm trees lining the forecourt were heavy with bunches of ripening
caramel coloured dates.
They stopped talking and stared as two
police women escorted a blonde girl in handcuffs through the doors and towards
their counter.
“Please, take off now?” I nodded
towards the bracelets that had accessorized every trip outside the jail walls
for years.
“La. Lazum keep Habibti.”
It was no surprise. You get so used to
hearing ‘La’ –no, that after a while you come to expect it. It didn’t stop the
heat from rising inside me though.
We approached the check in counter and there
was mum. She embraced me, but I couldn’t hug her back, not with the handcuffs.
“We were starting to wonder whether
they’d changed their minds,” she said. The nervousness poured out of her. We
both knew how unfunny it was, and how entirely possible it could be.
“Mum, they forgot my passport! We had
to turn around half way up the Iranian Hospital Road and go back – to the men’s
jail - and get it!. Of course they wouldn’t let me call you. I was about to
pass out oh my god it never ends … Where’s dad?”
The police women were still standing
either side but now yapping a million miles an hour with the check in girls,
who were very obviously interested in exactly why I was standing in front of
the first class counter in handcuffs. The words flying around in Arabic
included “afraj” and “muhadarrat”, but Sheikh
Mohammed was name-checked too.
“Your father just went to call the jail
again. He’s in a bit of a panic. But he shouldn’t be far away.”
So all we had to do was wait. We’d become good at that. Now freedom was
right in front of us in the form of a final stamp on my passport and a short
walk up the aerobridge, but the scene had none of the euphoria it delivered in
my dreams. We were all exhausted – my mum, dad and I. This wasn’t a tearful
homecoming celebration, it was the last step in a painfully slow dance.
I moved closer to mum and leaned into
her, bending a bit to rest my head in the crook of her shoulder. It was a
comfort I snatched whenever we got a contact visit. I inhaled her Bvlgari perfume
and it reminded me of home. Aromatic and secure. I had been picturing my
parents going through the motions of getting ready for today. They would have
been up before the sun rose. My mum wouldn’t have slept at all. They wouldn’t
have spoken much, beyond Dad’s departure checklist. The airman in him was procedural,
and for once mum would have welcomed the distraction because The ‘what ifs’
were almost too much to bear. What’s going to happen to her? What if Derek goes
to Australia? What next?
I had wondered all the same things, yet
they remained explicitly unspoken.
As we were standing there, the petite
brunette and the frail blonde joined together like Siamese twins, I felt a hand
cup my shoulder. It was firm and wide and by the lingering pressure I knew it
was my dad. I spun to him for a kiss and he put his hands around my head,
scrunching my hair as he hugged me tight. The tears were springing into my eyes
now and I had to force them back. We
were so clearly father and daughter. Our Dutch bone structure, broad noses, and
strong jaws were identical. His hair was more of a golden syrup colour, while mine
was long strands of honey and hay. We had the same large eyes with long brown
lashes, but while his were a clear blue sky, mine were stormy like the sea.
He looked at the policewomen and nodded
a ‘Marhaba’. ‘Hello’. He had always had some kind of effect on the big local
shotias and he was going to try his luck with these two.
“You can take these handcuffs off now?
Now she is free.”
“La. No. Must keep until go through. No
free yet,” the policewoman said in her best English.
I just looked at him and murmured “Because
I’m really going to run now.”
The police had handed over my ticket
and passport. Mum did the same then started filling in a couple of departure
cards. Dad requested we be checked right through to Sydney, and yes, I would
like the window seat. The boarding passes were spat out of the machine and handed
to dad. We were seated in 1A and 1B. You couldn’t get any further up the front
of the plane without sitting in the cockpit.
Up to this point I had been oblivious
to the stares. I’m sure my parents were well aware—even looking out in case
they saw someone they knew—but they were accustomed to ignoring the whispers and
stuffing their shame into little packages that they could unwrap in private.
For me, after 751 days of being inside the system, I was now acutely aware of
my presence in the outside world. We tried small talk but it was just white
noise.
Mum and dad moved around me
protectively as I turned my back to the desk and shuffled a few feet from the
red carpet, trying to keep the handcuffs out of view. But with a police escort
and the escalated voices of the check in girls, we were already a spectacle for
the other passengers lining up to get on our flight.
“You lucky girl huh? Afraj. First
class. Your papa look after you.” The Shotia was smiling, trying to make light.
I just looked at her and the handcuffs and had to stop myself slipping my
wrists out and launching the metal at her. Stay calm Heidi. We’re almost there.
We started the slow march to the
customs desk, the Shotias hanging back a little. It was a gesture that didn’t
go unnoticed. My dad’s hand gently steered me from the small of my back. We
stopped about four metres from the desk and then it was real. We all started
talking at once. This little family, just the three of us, suddenly
overwhelmed. My body started heaving with sobs as both their arms went around me.
Dad rubbed my back. The customs guy looked worried.
“It’s over Hyde. Come on, you’ll be
fine my girl. You’ll get on that plane with your mum, sit back, have a glass of
champagne and it will be a new beginning.” He eyes were full of tears. Mum was already
crying. And then dad looked at the Shotia with fire in his eyes and said
“Enough. Take these things off her now.”
And for the first time ever, they
actually did.
