Then one day he was savagely prodded to his feet. A length of rotan was extended towards him at the end of which hung the key for his chains. These he clumsily unshackled, dropping the key into the slime around his feet several times before mastering its use. Even his jailers moved away from their prisoner to avoid the stench. The soldiers forced him to sit in the prison courtyard where he was roughly hosed down to remove the accumulated filth from his incarceration.
He remained silent during this cleansing, his eyes shut tight against the brilliance of the sunlight. He had, Albert later discovered, not been held more than three weeks but he felt as if he had become an old man. Recovery was slow and extremely painful. His spirit was all but broken. His friends had all gone. Only his stepmother cared for him, the others too frightened to admit to his relationship with their family. He spent weeks, sitting quietly alone, living with the fear that the soldiers might return to take him back for further interrogation.
And then, one day, a visitor came. At first he did not know Father Douglas, the blue-eyed priest who had taught him English, but when recognition came, Albert broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. The priest, at his mother’s desperate behest, had come to help him escape. Father Douglas had pleaded the young man’s case with the local authorities and agreed to arrange to have Albert sent overseas with the Church, should the Commandant arrange his release. Being a man of God did not deter the Father from encouraging the officer to accept a small token of the church’s appreciation, without which, Albert’s release would have been impossible.
After a tearful good bye to his family, Albert and the priest took the road to the coast and boarded a fishing boat. It was not until they arrived in Darwin five days later that Albert could really believe that he had escaped and that he was to spend the rest of his life in another country.
Albert was permitted a visa for entry into Australia and commenced studies in Melbourne. Within a year he met a young female staff member in the immigration hostel and fell in love. Two years from the anniversary of his release from prison, Albert Seda married. Immigration officials who investigated his case were satisfied that the union was genuine and subsequently permitted him to stay as a migrant. Initially he obtained casual employment at the hostel, acting as an in-house interpreter.
Three years after his brief detention in the Kupang barracks, Albert was earning a substantial salary teaching Indonesian to Australian diplomats prior to their taking up posts in Jakarta. Father Douglas had been careful to communicate Albert’s deep-rooted anti-Soekarno feelings to a friend in government. This made Albert’s credentials acceptable and the father’s friend then arranged for Albert’s security clearance to teach. Suddenly, life was extremely pleasant for the good looking young Timorese.
Albert took advantage of all the opportunities available to him. He eagerly commenced evening classes undertaking a rigorous study schedule. He laboured late into the evenings. He worked through the weekends while others relaxed or played. He was highly motivated.
The young Timorese never forgot the cruel beatings. He stayed away from any involvement with political movements which he associated with too many memories of pain and humiliation. Now he had responsibilities. He was married. He now lived far away from the terror of his childhood and had been given a second chance by God. He would work hard!
Albert’s wife, Mary, maintained her position at the hostel, working as an administrative assistant. She was so proud of her handsome husband. She knew Albert worked and studied diligently to ensure their future together although she often wished he would take more time for them to be together.
Mary’s father, an Irish immigrant who worked occasionally between dole cheques, despised his dark son-in-law. Like the majority of blue-collar workers in the postwar years, Patrick O’Malley, with a dozen or so beers under his belt, would make the most of any opportunity to parade his prejudices, to sneer at anyone who was not white, Anglo-Saxon and Catholic.
Xenophobia was rife in Australia. Australians feared that waves of yellow-skinned narrow-eyed races would descend upon their Lucky Country and take it all away. The immigration authorities even prevented Asian applicants from gaining entry by introducing a system of discriminatory procedures which presented them with the most appalling obstacles.
Paddy, even when reasonably sober, could not differentiate between the various ethnic groups originating from Asia. Like many other Aussies, he believed that if you looked Asian, you were either a ‘bloody Jap’ or a ‘bloody Chink’. He neither knew nor cared that such derogatory outbursts branded Australians as insecure white racists.
“Bloody yellow Chinese bastards!” Paddy would yell down the saloon bar at this favourite local on Friday nights. ”Come down here and seduce our lovely ladies they do, and before you know it the whole bloody country will be overrun by the bastards!”
During the small wedding breakfast organised at the hostel, Paddy, a reluctant guest of honour, drank himself into his usual ugly, inebriated state. Hopelessly confused and adrift from reality, O’Malley, enraged at Albert’s impudence in kissing Mary, ordered his new son-in-law outside for a thrashing. Mrs O’Malley, ashamed and embarrassed, attempted to save the party. As she dragged her husband home, he continued yelling and screaming drunken abuse, threatening to feed Albert’s testicles to the local shearer’s dogs.
Yet Mary loved her father Paddy. She could not understand why he could not appreciate her handsome husband who would one day produce Paddy’s first grandchild. Mary’s eyes glazed over as she slipped away into one of her frequent daydreams, imagining herself pregnant, and then holding her own baby, nestled calmly between her breasts. Had she realised her father’s revulsion at the mere idea of his daughter bearing a half-Asian child, of sullying his family’s pure Irish lineage, then Mary might have been a little more circumspect during her father’s birthday dinner.
Paddy had invited the local drinking team to help celebrate his fiftieth birthday. If the truth be known, Paddy invited his mates simply because it was traditional for guests to bring more alcohol than they could reasonably expect to consume. O’Malley estimated that the surplus would stock his larder for at least two weeks. The lads were more than aware of Paddy’s sensitivities; however they could not resist the temptation nor the opportunity to stir the little Irishman along, to see his nostrils flare with rage.
“Well then, Paddy,” Pete Davies commenced, winking in the direction of his drinking associates, “when will we hear the patter of little feet around here?”
“When hell freezes over!” Paddy responded, eyes narrowing a little as the blood pressure rose and his muscles tightened. He did not appreciate this type of talk. Having his daughter married to the Timorese was bad enough; having her procreate with the man would be socially unforgivable!
Mary, unfortunately for all present, happened to overhear the rejoinder and slipped up behind her father, placing her arms around most of his enlarged stomach. “Looks like next year will be a very cold year then dad.” Mary insinuated, not realising that she had struck her father straight through the heart in front of all of his drinking mates.
“I will make you a grandfather, yet,” Albert added.
There was a hush. The men knew Paddy only too well. He was going to blow, and they did not wish to be on the receiving end of his temper, drunk or sober. His face turned scarlet as his chronically abused heart forced itself into overdrive in line with the adrenalin surge.
O’Malley bellowed with rage. Just once. Then he collapsed. Guests and family alike stood rooted as Paddy’s body fell limp to the floor. It was all over in just a few seconds. He had roared once, then died. The ambulance arrived within the half hour and Albert, sensing the mood, left his wife alone with her grief and her emotional family friends.
Mary