Dial 0011, then the nation code…

Not one, but two phone booths. Two phone booths that would allow you to make international calls, at the price of a local call.

Both on the corner of Balaclava and Stewart. So, you ask? This is a rather strange bit of news don’t you think?

An old man I know mentioned this to me in passing a few months ago -he worked in the area during the early Eighties. He said the broken phone booths were a Godsend. I took no notice of him until one evening, when I saw the light. The light was accompanied by beer and vokda, and was warm and fuzzy. I was drunk, and there I was, on the corner of Balaclava Road and Steward street, in front of an old petrol station. There were two square pieces of concrete just in front of me. Why would there be two 70 cm by 70 cm concrete rectangles in front of a petrol station?

But then the old man’s story came back to me. And I started to snoop around.

The following morning, I began knocking on doors. I was looking for some older residents, people that would have been around in the early Eighties and may have remembered such an oddity. I got a lot of strange looks. People were annoyed that I was selling something on a Sunday morning. When I mentioned I was a writer, I received even stranger looks.

One dear old lady ushered her daughter to the door. Mira was ‘about 27’. She had a gorgeous Eastern European face that she tried to hide behind her long, light brown fringe. Mira listened while I surmised what little I had to go on.

‘That does sound familiar,’ she nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I think my mum mentioned it to me, years ago though. Do you want to come in, for a coffee?’ I followed her in and had the most delicious coffee of my life.

The three of us sat down, and Mira jogged her mum’s memory. Her mother arrived in Australia as a refugee in 1982, from the former Czechoslovakia. Her father shared the same passage, and it was not long before one thing led to another… The young, pregnant couple somehow settled in Balaclava, and began building a home in a rather run down old house. Mira’s mother recalled the first time she heard of the phone, and decided see if the rumours were true.

‘Mamma woke up really early one morning. She had a beanie on and wrapped a blanket around her…’ Mira was translating to me. ‘She said it was cold, but nothing like Czechoslovakia. She put the money in, and dialled her mamma.’ Mira’s mother’s voice softened at this point, and tears rolled down her eyes.

Mira looked at me. ‘It was the first time in years that she had heard her mother’s voice. I never knew that story.’ Mira embraced her mother.

I left soon after this, but obtained Mira’s details should I have any further questions related to her mother’s story. I also gave her my details should she need to call me if her mother remembered anything about the phone booths.

‘Anything at all,’ I said, ‘Call me.’ I touched her hand gently and left.

I googled. Oh how I googled. The address, “phone booths”, “free calls”. Nothing. I was about to give up when Mira called me. She called me! Her mother had given her the names of old neighbours that may remember more about the phone booths. Mira agreed to come with me. She was excited by all of this. I felt like Amelie searching for the owner of the little child’s box. But, you know, not a girl.

Stenio Adelaide immigrated to our fair country in 1978. He moved around for years – living in hostels, relatives homes and shared accommodation. It was while living with one Indian man, a Chinese boy and a “crazy guy form Malta,” that he first used the phone.

‘I would call home. Like everyone else see? Whiskey mon noir?’ I nodded politely, remember the Mauritian tradition. He offered some to Mira who also accepted. ‘Do you and your girlfriend want to make call as well?’ He laughed at his own joke, and stroked his moustache. Neither of us corrected him, but I looked at Mira. The kind of look that suggest dinner and wine and then back to my house. I wasn’t feeling hungry though, I have never really liked wine.

‘I remember,’ he said, after another sip of whiskey, ‘That when I told my mum I was marrying. That where I heard my cousin’s marriages and their kids. For two years I used that phone. It was almost free. I used to call my best friend, Gaetan, le gogot, whenever I was drunk. It was always late in the night here, and a good time back home. He was the one who told me about my mum dying. Run over in Curepipe by some drunken idiot. I stopped drinking for years after that.’

‘What happened after this? Did Telstra ever catch on?’

Stenio laughed at this. ‘It was Telecom back then mon noir. And sure, they knew, but they couldn’t fix. You would see a repair van, you know, time to time, and the phones wouldn’t work for a week or two, but then the you would see people lining, lots and lots, and you knew that the across the calls home were free again. We thought it was magic to be honest. It was too good to be true. And every time the bastards try to fix, it work again after.’

We left Stenio Adelaide and walked towards Carlisle Street. I wanted to suggest dinner and wine, and then to suggest skipping it for me place.

Mira lit a cigarette. She looked pensive. ‘I guess if you knew nothing else, and had nothing else, it would have seemed like magic.’

I agreed. ‘A magic way to find out your mum is dead.’ Bad joke. Bad timing. Really bad timing.

Mira stopped and glared at me. ‘You can’t understand what it must have been like for them. My mum never, I mean never talks about her life before she came to Australia. The memories are too painful I think. Ever. I didn’t know I had a grandmother until we visited the Czech Republic in 1997. A whole family over there. I knew nothing. I saw pictures of my mother as a child, he dead brother…’ Mira started walking again.

‘Mira, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I won’t lie though, I don’t get it. Everything and everyone near and dear to me is here and in Japan. I don’t get it…’

‘It’s difficult to appreciate, even for me,’ she said, brushing s wayward strand behind her ear. ‘I remember wondering why my mum would be so sad on her birthday. Every year, we would try so hard to cheer her up; me, Milan, Dad. Every year, the same thing. She would sit quietly in her room. And it wasn’t until that trip that I realise why. We never understand why she was so sad.’

‘They were twins weren’t they?’ Mira began to tear up.

‘We have it pretty good here. No need to run away on a boat. No need to leave almost everything for the idea of a better life.’ I put my arms around her and she hugged me back. The cigarette had been flicked away.

I think I’ll go get that bottle of wine.