Rachel Edwards
They asked if I wanted to have the pat down out in the open or in one of the interview rooms. It was the last thing, they reminded me, before they could let me go. She was holding my passport, in her hands. I said that it was fine to do it out in the open. They called over another guard and gestured me into a spreadeagle. Then began a malevolent massage.
THE woman working at the passport check paused as she looked at my details on her computer screen. She perused the head height screen, clicked to another page and perused some more. The official scrawled some letters on my customs card, smiled, said thank you and handed my passport back.
I followed the dribbles of people heading to collect their luggage. Luggage collection inside the customs area in the Sydney airport is a large grey holding space, lit with fluorescents. A hangar, a gymnasium with no natural light.
I picked up my pack and my $9 North Face gym bag which had already split on both sides. There was a customs official on my right as I walked through the gate to the red zone, the area where you declare things. It seemed she was waiting for me and she fell into step beside me as I moved past the temporary metal fence.
It had taken at least an hour to pack properly — my pack was encrusted in orange mud from the fantastic debacle that was a trip through the Shan hills in a pick-up with thirty people and an irreparable flat tyre. My bags were packed crammingly, so tightly that there were small items of clothing pushed into sneaker toes.
Two women introduced themselves and asked me to unpack my bags. The search began as one of them flicked through every single page of every single book, holding them upside down and shaking them — my diary included — and continued with swab tests of my wallet, holding on to my passport, ex-raying my puppets and weighing up the opium weights in their hands. They paid particular attention to shoes and largish, solid objects.
They asked questions as if they were making small talk.
“So, how much did you pay for a guest house in Bangkok?
“Who did you meet when you were away?
“Did you meet them again?
“So, was the breakfast on the plane like Asian or Australian?”
“Where did you go?”
“What are the best things to do in that place?”
About my drug habits and those of my friends.
“We don’t mind if you use them overseas we just don’t want you bringing them here,” one of the customs women said, setting the tone.
I hadn’t used drugs when I was away, apart from the occasional beer, the rest of the sleeping tablets my doctor prescribed for the plane trip and some Marlboro lights, Vegas Lights and London cigarettes.
Nor was I carrying any prohibited substances — as far as I knew.
They unraveled and unwrapped everything. The fellow being searched next to me was carrying wrapped gifts tied with ribbons. He was made to open the presents, much to his obvious chagrin. Apparently that used to be a classic drug smuggling device, bringing them in wrapped in a present, before customs became more thorough and aware.
It turned out that I was in possession of something that could get me in trouble with customs.
The item was revealed when the customs woman opened some small tissue paper boxes, stuck together with glue, featuring vivid Chinese propaganda on the front. I had bought two boxes in a market in Southern Thailand, intrigued by what might be inside. I thought they would be a curious unknown quantity, for my friend, Nic. Unfortunately, inside were a prohibited substance; firecrackers.
Customs then had to call the Federal Police. The fed took half an hour to arrive. He said he’d let me off and upon discovering that I was on my was to Tasmania, told me his parents used to live at the end of Clarke Avenue in Battery Point and his father was the police commissioner before McCreadie and his parents had owned small dogs, possibly corgis; I forget, that yapped all the time.
I asked to go to the loo and was told that it didn’t flush. That was fine with me; it wasn’t a squat toilet over a Burmese lake. I was shown through a sparse interview room into the bathroom and was followed in by two customs guards. I was to be observed, they said, as I shat. I told them that I would wait. Following a discussion outside, they decided to let me shit unobserved. I asked what would happen to the unflushable shit in the toilet. After a bit of prompting they replied. “It would be examined,” they said. The shit examination shift is not on a roster it is done by whoever does the search, they said.
After the federal policeman had gone and Quarantine had questioned some spider webs on a puppet and I had finished repacking my bags, they told me there was “one last thing before I could go.” It was a pat down. They got me to read what seemed to be a disclaimer. I skimmed it and handed it back. I was disheartened following two and a half hours of their scrutiny, and weary. She handed it back and insisted that I read it properly, I did. Blah blah blah.
They asked if I wanted to have the pat down out in the open or in one of the interview rooms. It was the last thing, they reminded me, before they could let me go. She was holding my passport, in her hands. I said that it was fine to do it out in the open. They called over another guard and gestured me into a spreadeagle. Then began a malevolent massage.
She clawed her way down one arm, fingernails probing into every nerve ending. A roomful of jetlagged people, winding their way through customs were staring. I was standing there in a starfish formation, arms parallel to the ground while three uniformed and crossed arm customs officials stood around as another of them pinched along my arms.
I asked if the pat down could be finished in an interview room.
Scratch down, more like — my back, my front, my legs. They asked me to take my shoes off, I was wearing long socks. They even questioned that.
Then they let me go.
I can’t help but think that the three or so hours I spent with customs a myriad of people carrying a lot more than Chinese firecrackers would have walked through.
What’s that statistic? Five per cent?
Earlier by Rachel Edwards: Here
