Part 16 (1/2)
”Medic! Medic!” a guard yelled. The water was cut off. My sight began to return to normal. I had to squint in order to see that it was indeed blood at my feet. I stood back against the shower gate. I crept onto the b.a.l.l.s of my feet, but there was no escaping it. The blood had seeped underneath and filled my stall entirely. Khush must have hit an artery, because once all the water had drained, the blood just kept coming.
”Let me out,” I said, but no one did.
I asked Spyro about the incident during our reservation this morning. We've been meeting more and more frequently now that he's read my confession.
”It was a suicide,” I said.
”I haven't heard about it. Let's get back to Ahmed and your relations.h.i.+p with Hajji.”
”That can wait,” I said. ”A man cut himself while we were in the shower. I want to know if he is alive or dead.”
”It's that important to you? You want me to stop. You want me to stop our progress so we can find out what happened to this guy. You barely knew him. Why the sudden interest? Why are you stalling?”
”His blood was on me. I would like to know if he's alive.”
”So you got a little blood on you. So what?”
My interrogator took out a pen from his inner breast pocket.
”Do you have a name?” he said.
”Khush,” I said. ”I don't know his last name.”
He wrote it down. ”Do you know his number?”
”I only know my number,” I said.
I could hear him breathing through his nostrils. He was like a bull at times, my interrogator. He stood up, took the sc.r.a.p of paper, turned to me once more in frustration, then left the room.
I don't know why I wanted to know whether Khush was still alive. I'd never said a word to him. With the amount of blood I'd watched him lose it would be a miracle if he was still breathing. But what did I know? I needed closure on the matter of this grooming incision, this suicide, you see. Otherwise, it would remain uncertain, just like everything else in No Man's Land.
My special agent returned and sat down at our table.
”Your friend...Khush. You'll be happy to know he's alive. He hurt himself. Badly. That's all. He's in the infirmary in critical condition. They say he wasn't right upstairs. He was depressed. On all sorts of medication. But he's alive. According to the CO it wasn't too serious. Happy now?”
”Am I happy? A man tried to kill himself next to me. He should be dead! But only he'd be too lucky!”
”All right, will you calm down? It was self-harm. A cry for help.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t.”
”What is?”
”Everything. This place. This room. This is all bulls.h.i.+t. I've had enough.”
”Now just calm down. You haven't had enough of anything. We're just getting started, you and me. Now, focus. I told you what you wanted to know. Now I want to know what I want to know.”
”Which is what? The same thing over and over.”
”I want you to stop delaying and tell me the truth.”
”Delaying?”
”Yes, delaying. Delaying.”
”A man tried to take his own life!”
”But he didn't, did he? He's alive!”
Perhaps I'd hoped my disposition would return to the way it had been before the incident, so long as I knew Khush was alive. But nothing changed. I felt no relief. It was the act alone that haunted me, not the condition he was in now. Spyro was right: It didn't matter one way or the other.
”I'm going insane in this place,” I said, placing my head in my hands. I couldn't continue with our reservation. I wanted to go back to my cell and curl up under my blanket.
”This is a natural reaction to violence, Boy. You saw something that's hard to understand. You're traumatized. I know how you feel. Don't act like I don't. I've seen it happen too. I've seen people get killed. I've seen innocent people get killed.”
”He wasn't innocent? Who's to say?”
”He was in here, wasn't he? There was a reason he was in here. Just like there's a reason you're in here.”
”I'm in here because a mistake has been made. A grave mistake.”
”You're in here because you a.s.sociate with terrorist sc.u.mbags. And I want to know who and when.”
I stood up.
”Sit down. We're moving on.”
”But we go nowhere. We're not moving. It's the same thing over and over with you.”
”Sit down, I said.”
I did as I was told.
”I'll recommend that you see the psych tech. ASAP. Happy?”
ASAP. Everything here is promised to you ASAP.
”When will I get out of here?” I said.
”When you tell me everything I need to know.”
I continued on. I continue on because the man in the cell next to mine, a Yemeni, is so old that I can smell his dying. Because dying has a particular smell. Because I know that if I do not continue on with my confession, I could end up just like him. He doesn't speak a lick of English, this Yemeni. I think he's too old. At some point the brain is too stubborn to learn anything new. Not to mention, he looks as if he couldn't hijack a bicycle. But whether he is an enemy or not doesn't concern me. I've thought a lot about what my special agent said to me regarding each prisoner, how each of us has a valid reason to be here, though some of us don't deserve to know why. I hardly care anymore. I've been asking the wrong question all along. Why is of no use to me. I am here. There is no why. There is only this. Therefore, I shall focus the rest of my energy on getting out.
The old man will soon die. I don't feel the least bit bad about saying so. He's letting it happen to himself. He's given up. Maybe he's reasoned that in here he can get an operation from the Americans, where in his homeland he'd already have expired. Maybe he's thinking, ”What would I do out there but die anyway?” Who knows. As I said, he doesn't speak English. He's lost his will to live, that much is clear to me.
I must soldier on and finish my confession. Onward, I say, I am ready. I will not fall through the cracks of history a war criminal, when really, as I've been saying over and over, I'm just a designer of women's clothes. I am innocent! That is the only constant that keeps pus.h.i.+ng its way forth into my impossible equation. An innocent man should have nothing to fear. If it is the truth that my special agent wants, then it is the truth that will free me from this cell.
It is true that I heard about Ahmed's arrest the day after it happened. May 26. Ben told me over a Mexican lunch at El Bano. We took the secret entrance through the back alley, because many of the restaurants in the city at this time built secret entrances for the in-the-know regulars. You had to walk through the bathroom in order to get to the main seating area. It was a coed bathroom. We were expecting a good table, but what we got was so close to the actual bathroom that anyone taking a whiz could hear our conversation.
”This restaurant has lost its je ne sais quoi.”