American War(89)

The confusion on Sarat’s face must have been evident, because the woman quickly put the photos away.

“Of course I know you didn’t do this, Sara, but this is what my bosses see,” she said. “But I told them, Just give me a chance; I can talk to her. I read your file, Sara. I know you’ve been through some terrible tragedy. And I know you wouldn’t want innocent people—in the South or the North—to go through the same thing.”

The woman looked over her shoulder, as though to check that no one was within earshot. “You know my grandparents come from Alabama,” she said. “I guess you can say I’ve got the South in my blood. I know these values mean something to you, Sara—protecting the weak, telling the truth, doing what’s right. What’s right. I want to go back to my bosses in Columbus, Sara, and I want to be able to tell them what I know to be true: that you’re not a bad person, that you don’t have the blood of innocent people on your hands. And if I tell them that, they’ll listen to me, and they’ll send you home, and you can be with Dana and with Simon again in Lincolnton. I can help you, Sara, but I need you to help me.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sarat.

Some of the softness dissipated from the woman’s face. Her voice, once soothing, hardened.

“You know some of the people you’re protecting, we already caught them,” she said. “They’re right here, in this place, and they’ve already told us about you. They’ve already turned on you to save themselves. Do you really want to see them go free while you spend the rest of your life in a cell?”

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sarat.

“Albert Gaines told us about you,” the woman said. The mention of the name caused an involuntary twitch in Sarat, but she said nothing.

“That’s right,” the woman continued. “Albert Gaines gave you up. He told us you’re an insurrectionist. Do you want us to believe him, Sara? Do you want us to treat you the way we treat insurrectionists?”

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sarat.

The woman shook her head once more and rose from her seat. “This can be easy, Sara, or this can be hard. The choice is yours.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sarat.

The woman left the room. Soon a masked guard appeared. Even before he removed his mask, Sarat recognized him by his frame and by the thickness of his neck. Some of the guards were always careful never to show their faces to the detainees, but this one did not seem to care. He drew close and looked at her with hollow, contemptuous eyes.

Before she could turn her head, he slapped her across the face. Her head snapped but the rest of the body, chained in place, did not move.

“You dumb Red dyke,” said Bud. “We’re going to make you sing.”

The soldier called a pack of four others into the room. They wore blue gloves and had covered faces and were made larger by the shells of their armor.

“Take her to the Light Room,” said Bud.

She was transferred to a room in the basement of another building. The room was made of concrete and was empty save for two anchors bolted to the ground. A set of large white floodlights covered the entirety of the wall opposite the anchors.

The guards chained Sarat’s ankles to her wrists, and both to the anchors in the floor, such that she was forced into a deep and immobilizing squat. The guards left the room, and for a moment nothing happened. Then the floodlights came alive with a loud electric pop, and the room was drowned in eviscerating whiteness.

Sarat closed her eyes. The white light now turned a hot red against her eyelids. She lowered her head and for a while the onslaught was bearable. But soon the room began to grow warmer. Sweat dripped from her skin, her knees burned with the weight of her body.

On the third day, the door opened. A masked guard stepped forward and dropped a bowl of food and another of water on the ground where Sarat was shackled. The bowls were made of a soft rubber and half their contents spilled on the floor where they landed. The guard left and the door swung closed.

One bowl contained a thin brown gruel speckled with white flakes. Unable to move her arms, Sarat struggled to get at the food. She grasped at it with her fingers and leaned as far forward as she was able. Feebly, she tossed it toward her mouth. The gruel tasted sulfuric, rotten. But she wolfed it down, deranged with hunger. Soon her jumpsuit and the ground surrounding her were splattered with remnants of the meal. Under the heat of the floodlights, the gruel began to decompose. Every other day, the guard returned and dropped two bowls on the ground.

By the tenth day, the throbbing in her head and her knees consumed her. The room filled with her shrieking, and the small red darkness she lived in while her eyes were closed now seemed to exist even when her eyes were open. On the twentieth day, the guards removed her.

In the Visitation room, the woman in the neatly pressed suit asked Sarat if she’d had a change of heart.

“I didn’t do nothing,” said Sarat, slumped in her shackling chair.

The woman stood and left the room. Soon Bud returned. In the fog of her damaged vision he seemed to move in place, blurry as a half-remembered dream. He grabbed her by the fuzz of hair that had grown back on her skull during her time in captivity.

“How do you think this is going to end?” asked the guard, his breath hot on the side of her face. “Do you think this ends with you winning? With us giving up? You’re going to sing, I promise you.”