'As to men of the sea in their supplication the god sends
a fair wind, when they are breaking their strength at the smoothed oar-sweeps,
driving over the sea, and their arms are weak with weariness.' –Homer, The Iliad
Mohan and Meena came to Australia over the sea from Sri Lanka, fleeing the force of violence. Tamil refugees and now graduates of Christmas Island, they live in Werribee with their two young children. It's a long way out of town, but Meena doesn't care; the bus comes every hour near their house, and she says that's a good thing.
A friend took me to visit them; we drove over the West Gate Bridge with the windows down and music playing, arriving on their doorstep in the late afternoon. Before going into their house, we stopped and took our shoes off; for Mohan and Meena the house, a small cream brick place, is sacred, a shrine, 'a temple', where the family lives and cares for each other. It is kept meticulously clean.
Ushered warmly in we sat down to tea and talked with Mohan about his profession as a goldsmith; after a while I left the conversation and walked out into the garden.
Out the back, Jimmy, also a Tamil and a friend of the family, was hanging out with some friends. I was introduced, and between bouts of throwing the frisbee Jimmy and I swapped stories. Flicking the frisbee my way with a well practised arm, Jimmy began to tell me about his life; he had worked on a container ship but, fearing violence in Sri Lanka, became a refugee in Australia: 'Bro, I jumped ship in Newcastle, me and my two friends, and then we headed to Sydney where people we knew helped us out.'
He spoke of a cold night, of making his way through Newcastle in the dark, the streets gloomy and strange. I asked Jimmy about his former home in Sri Lanka and he went on: 'Man, you realise people are actually dying back there!? People are suffering and dying. Last time I was there, I was carrying bodies to their graves in my arms, even the bodies of friends.'
At this moment his voice broke, and we could both, he more vividly than I, picture him carrying the dead. He could still feel the weight of the bodies in his hands and feel their wounds; they were so present