Internment(33)

A million thoughts whir through my brain, but I can’t speak. I only nod. We walk down the Midway. A couple of other stragglers ahead of me jog toward the Mess, but when we turn toward my block, it’s empty. No one wants to be late to anything here. We’re constantly reminded there will be consequences. No specifics. But that word lingers in the air here. Consequences.

When I get into my trailer, I head straight for the bathroom, bent over, arms wrapped around my middle, like Corporal Reynolds instructed me.

David picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“David,” I whisper. “It’s me.”

“Oh my God, Layla.”

“Shh,” I say, not knowing where he is or if anyone might be listening on his end.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing your voice. How are you calling me? Holy shit. Are you okay? What are they doing to you? Are you hurt? Did they say anything about when they might release you? Do you—”

His voice. David’s voice. Home. But this isn’t the time for nostalgia. Or sentimentality. Or even feelings, really.

“David,” I cut him off. “I miss you so much. I love you. But I—”

“I love you, too. I miss you. I can’t believe how fucked up everything is right now.”

“David, I need your help. Can you come here? Can you visit me? I’m at—”

“I know where you are. My dad’s old State Department contacts told him. My father’s a jerk, but I told him if he didn’t find out where you were, I’d never talk to him again. And of course I’ll come there. But do they allow—”

There’s a loud knock at the trailer door. Crap.

“David, I have to go. Please, I’ll figure something out. I need you. Maybe we can come up with a way to sneak you in.”

Another loud knock on the door, and then I hear it open.

“Good-bye, David. I love you.”

“Layla. Wait. Listen, it’s lunch; that’s why I have my phone. But from now on I’ll keep it on me all the time. Let it ring once, hang up and dial again. Then I’ll know it’s you. Also, I love—”

“Layla.” Corporal Reynolds’s voice fills the entire trailer. “We have to go. Now.”

I hang up on David, slip the phone in my pocket, and step out of the bathroom.

Corporal Reynolds practically pulls me out the door. “The next shift of guards is arriving,” he whispers. “Remember, you were sick so I escorted you to your Mercury Home.” He quickly scans the vicinity, then gestures for me to give him the phone. He palms it and kneels in the dirt to adjust his laces, tucking the phone in the gap between his sock and boot.

He takes me by the elbow and walks me past the guards, who are taking their positions at the head of our block. The two salute him. He nods, and we continue to the Mess.

The other guards give him deference. I mean, they’re required to, I guess. But for some of them, the look in their eyes makes it seem like more than a robotic gesture.

I look at Corporal Reynolds as we continue on. Not sure what to make of him, exactly. He’s a guard with a gun. But he’s also taking a risk to help me. Corporal Reynolds is a puzzle with lots of pieces, but half of them are missing. So I can’t really see who he is.

“Why are you doing this? Helping me?”

“It’s only a phone call,” he says. Then adds, “I have my reasons.” His tone is gruff. Like he’s mad, but at himself.

“Thank you, Corporal Reynolds,” I say as we approach the Mess. And I mean it. I don’t exactly trust him; those missing puzzle pieces could be anything. They could be hiding a monster, but my gut tells me that what he’s hiding isn’t so nefarious.

Before we are in earshot of the guards outside the Mess, he bends down and says softly, “Call me Jake. And believe me when I tell you this: Whatever you’re planning, whatever you think you might be able to do, think again. Don’t do anything stupid. You can get yourself hurt or killed in here. More easily than you know.”





There is no news. Not inside the fence. I mean, we hear things. The whisper network is never silent: talk of protests on the outside, marches. The government trying to censor the outcry on social media. Word of a second camp being readied. But it’s whispers mostly, bits of rumor from the staff here who aren’t military, the ones who feel twinges of guilt that make them feign not a friendliness but a base level of civility. Maybe their neighbor is Muslim; maybe they had a Muslim classmate. Maybe they’d never met a Muslim until they came here, looked one of us in the eye, and realized we are human beings who laugh and cry, like they do. Who are flesh and bone. And who bleed. And that scant thread of civility, that nod or half smile, that extra pat of butter on a scoop of mashed potatoes, sometimes comes with tiny tidbits from the world beyond the fence before it makes its way around Mobius. Like the telephone game—when the final sentence is uttered, it doesn’t quite sound like what it started out as. But you can imagine what it was. You can hope.

There’s a knock on my door. My parents. Both of them. Standing there with their tea and an extra cup. Tea is their normal morning ritual, but having it in my bedroom is not. In some way, maintaining some rituals helps them. They pray, and my mom always has her tasbih bracelet with her. I know they also enjoyed the normalcy of the way they structured their lives back home. When Dad was fired, and when Mom’s patients started dropping off, they were sometimes like ghosts of themselves. They never said anything like that to me; they always tried to shield me, to protect me even from the slightest troubles, but I could tell. And here it’s so much worse. I mean, Mom is spending her days at the clinic cracking backs, and Dad is meeting with other teachers and professors to ready a makeshift school, beginning with the younger kids. They’re trying to help other people, in their own way; because, knowing them, I can guess at how helpless they must feel inside. I feel the same way.