The Bogans

Chapter Three

The Bogans were not the first White people to have lived in that part of the lane but they were certainly the first ones to live there for quite a while. When Kumar moved in with his family about five years previously, there were two White families living there. The Purics, a Bosnian family, and the Robinsons, an Australian family. The Purics lived in the two-story house next to Vivienne’s to the right of her house. They were a young couple with no children and only a dog and they moved out again as soon as young Mrs. Puric got pregnant.  After that a Lebanese family moved in to that house; Ahmed, his wife Amina, son Mahmoud and daughter Hala. Mahmoud was Rohan’s age and went to the same school as Rohan while Hala was only eight years old and went to a small primary school in the neighbourhood. Ahmed ran a cleaning business, driving a big van with the words ‘Hamra Cleaners’ painted in big bold letters on both sides.  Ahmed and Amina did the cleaning, sometimes helped by Mahmoud on the weekends.

Ahmed was a good man. Friendly and talkative. The Purics were good people too, but the Purics only talked to Kumar and Indu from across the road. Ahmed often crossed the road and came to their side of the lane to talk to them, and sometimes he even came into the house. And he also invited Kumar and Indu to their house often and occasionally Kumar and Indu accepted the invitation and went in to be treated to tea and sweets. Ahmed was funny too. He was born in Hamra in Beirut where he had worked as a civil engineer, and in Melbourne he was still working with buildings, even though he was cleaning them rather than designing them. He had lived in Sydney for years before he moved to Melbourne. Too many fucking Lebbos in Sydney, he said when asked why he decided to move. Too many Lebbos, including family. One day he showed Kumar and Indu some photo albums in which they were able to see some of those relatives he was trying to escape from, and funnily enough, Ahmed seemed very happy in those photos which made Indu think that there must have been some other reason for him to move. Interestingly, there were also pictures of the family back in Lebanon and Amina was seen wearing Islamic dress in those pictures. Here, in Melbourne she rarely wore anything Islamic, other than an occasional headscarf. Sometimes she was even seen wearing tight jeans when she went out.

Seeing Kumar looking at the pictures of Amina in hijab and a robe Ahmed chuckled. “That is before marry,” he said. Then he pointed to a picture of Amina with him wearing jeans and t-shirt without hijab. “This, after marry.” “That is very interesting,” Kumar said without explaining why. Ahmed laughed. “Very hard to clean with Islamic dress,” he said; and added with a twinkle in his eye, “jeans also more sexy.”

A few months after Ahmed moved in, the Robinsons moved out. The four of them,   Ray and Barb Robinson and their two daughters, Sarah and Rachel, lived in the first house at the top of that part of the lane, on its right flank to the left of Kumar’s house. They had been  a quiet family who kept themselves to themselves.  They had been there when Kumar moved in next door but Kumar and Indu rarely saw them except then they went out to work and returned, saying little more than ‘Hello’ and ‘Bye’ whenever they happened to see them during those fleeting moments.  When they left, a young Timorese couple, Mark and Angela, moved in and maintained the house tradition of keeping themselves to themselves.

With the departure of the Robinsons, Mr. Andrews made a vain attempt to pose as the only White person in the lane. It was a vain attempt indeed as Andrews was only a couple of shades lighter than Kumar who was fairly dark. He was firmly put in his place by Mr. Chelliah who lived next door to him, to the right of Andrews’ house and to the left of Kumar’s. Chelliah, originally from Chennai, was a septuagenarian widower,   who, though slight of frame and arthritic, also had a caustic wit which he did not mind using on his neighbours, especially Andrews. He sneered at Andrew’s pretensions and said that he was neither Anglo nor Indian, only Anglo-Indian. “Even that was in doubt,” he added, “as nowadays even those who have been buggered by Europeans were calling themselves Anglo-Indian.”  Stung, Andrews did well to hide his annoyance behind a stoic grin.

They may not have had a White family for a while but they certainly had a Black family. They moved into the house to the right of Ahmed’s, a large brick house with a spacious deck which gave it the appearance of standing over the rest of the lane.   A Chinese family, the Wangs, use to live there and they moved out when the man, Liu, bought a bigger house in Templestowe, putting the house they were vacating up for rent. The Wangs were a lovely family with three beautiful children, even though Liu and Mei Wang hardly spoke a word of English. That was because they have spent all their lives in Australia learning to make money and not wasting time learning English, Edis Puric used to say. Nobody bothered to ask what Edis had done with his time as he didn’t seem as rich as the Wangs and his English wasn’t all that good either. Edis being a rather humourless man irony was likely to have been lost on him anyway.

And when the Wangs moved out the Roberts moved in. When Rohan first told Kumar that an African family had moved in to the house in which the Wangs had lived he first thought the boy was mistaken. Are they real Africans? He asked and Rohan nodded very confidently and said yes, real Africans. Black ones. Are you sure? He asked and the boy nodded again. He was sure. Maybe they are not Africans, Indu said. Just really dark Indians or Sri Lankans. Kumar could see she was a bit worried. No, said Rohan. They are Africans. “I know my Africans,” he declared like an expert.

I hope they are not Sudanese, Indu had said, a worried look on her face. Now that is not nice, Kumar had said to Indu, but he too was a bit concerned. You heard lots of things about Sudanese people and almost all of it bad. He knew one shouldn’t believe everything one read in the papers or saw on television, and he had often pointed this out to people who were saying nasty things about the Sudanese. But that was when no Sudanese were living in their neighbourhood. But now when it seemed there was the possibility of one actually living there he also was worried. What if the newspaper reports were true? But Rohan shook his head again. Nah, he said. They were not Sudanese. He knew his Sudanese too. Then who? Rohan shrugged his shoulders and said, dunno. Just African. Non-Sudanese African.

There was only one way to find out and they went there to see them.

They were met at the front door by a large Black woman with greying hair who looked at them suspiciously at first and then smiled sunnily when they introduced themselves. She ushered the visitors into the living room where they were met by an even larger Black man with even greyer hair and an equally warm smile. Both of them appeared to be in their late fifties. They introduced themselves as the Robertses and Mrs. Roberts immediately began making tea.

While sipping tea and eating biscuits they made small talk. The Robertses told Kumar and Indu a bit about themselves. They were both retired and their two adult daughters were both married and living interstate, one in Adelaide and the other in Sydney. They were also heavily involved with their church affairs, something which Kumar had also gathered from all the framed biblical quotes on the living room walls. Mr. Roberts also played golf and Mrs. Roberts played the piano. All this was fine but the Robertses consistently denied them the most crucial piece of information they were seeking. Frustrated, Kumar looked around to see if there was any evidence of where the new neighbours came from. But there was nothing to indicate that in the expensive furniture and what looked like some original artwork competing for the wall space with the biblical quotations. But one thing was certain. The newcomers were not Sudanese. Who had ever heard of the Sudanese playing golf?

Finally after a few more minutes of chit-chat, Kumar broached the subject out of sheer impatience.

“We are originally from Sri Lanka,” Kumar told his hosts. “And you?”

Mr. Roberts seemed to be on the verge of revelation it when he changed his mind. He flashed his toothy smile again.  “Guess,” he said, cheekily. The twinkle in his eyes said that he believed they could never guess the answer to Kumar’s question, and that he was going to enjoy their vain efforts.

Kumar hoped Indu would not mention Sudanese but Rohan, who had accompanied his parents on their visit, beat her to it. “You are definitely not Sudanese,” he said and Mr. Roberts laughed out loud and said no, no, not at all. He turned to Kumar and said your boy is very cute. Kumar was sure Rohan would have had a go at guessing further had he known something about the geography of Africa but his son’s knowledge of African geography was as bad as Indu’s and his own. He himself could think of only Nigeria and Mr. Roberts waved it away with a pained expression and said, no, no not that! Congo? Indu asked, surprising Kumar and Rohan with her discovery of the Congo, but it only deepened the pained expression of Mr. Roberts.  Why don’t you give us a clue? Rohan asked impatiently, getting into the swing of the guessing game, and Mr. Roberts thought for a second or two and said that it was a country with a past of racial discrimination. Zimbabwe! Rohan said and Kumar knew straightaway that he had picked it up from the Television. It was only last week that there was a program on all the horrible things Robert Mugabe had done to White people in Zimbabwe and Kumar  was disappointed that Rohan said it before he did. But Mr. Roberts looked at Rohan as if he had just sworn loudly and that his initial evaluation of him being cute had been a big mistake. “No man,” he said, in a voice strained with disappointment and frustration. “We are from South Africa.”

Ahhhh! They all said. South Africa! But it was the last place they would have thought of. Kumar and Indu never thought of South Africa as a country of Black people. Apart from Mandela the only other South Africans they knew of were White. But it also made them feel relieved. The Robertses were definitely not Sudanese.

And then, the Bogans moved in.