by Ele Fountain
Hell 2
I must have dozed off eventually, because I wake as small circles of sunlight shine through the wall where it meets the ceiling, scattering discs of gold across the floor. It takes a minute to remember where I am. Then, with a wave of nausea, the previous day floods through my mind. I stare up at the circles again. Something so beautiful seems lost here. Then, slowly, I realize that the sunlight holes are bullet holes. Someone must have fired at the box to make air holes so that we don’t all suffocate.
My shoulder is numb from the hard floor, and my nose and feet and fingers are numb from cold. I push myself up to sitting.
The two younger men are already awake, hunched against the wall. They nod at me.
Bini stirs, and a ripple of sniffing and coughing spreads through the box as men slowly emerge from their blanket cocoons like dirty moths. They look over towards me and Bini. Almost like they are checking we weren’t just part of their dream—or nightmare.
The last to wake is Yonas. He coughs violently for about five minutes.
Bini fetches him a cup of water.
“Did you sleep?” Yonas asks both of us eventually, but he’s looking at Bini.
Bini nods.
The men seem able to talk to each other without us hearing what they say. All the same, Nebay shuffles over to Yonas so they can talk even more quietly. They mumble for a few minutes, which is all Yonas can manage without coughing. Even though I can’t make out any words, I’m sure they’re discussing me and Bini.
I try to talk like them—low, and directly into Bini’s ear. “Do you think they’ll come and let us out this morning? I’m not sure these guys like us very much.”
“I think we’re probably stuck here,” whispers Bini. “Why would they spend a whole day driving us somewhere if they weren’t planning on leaving us there for a while?”
I try to let his words sink in, but I don’t believe them. “Do you think they’ve made a mistake? Maybe they confused us with some other prisoners and took them to military school instead of us.”
“I don’t know,” says Bini. “Maybe they have made a massive mistake. Or maybe this is what happens when you try to leave the country.”
“But we hadn’t even gone anywhere.” I realize that my voice has been getting steadily louder, and everyone’s eyes are fixed on us.
“How long do you think they’ll keep us here?” I whisper again.
“Looking at these guys, I don’t think anyone gets to leave anytime soon.”
A feeling washes over me. A feeling I don’t recognize, caused by the thought that I have no control over what is happening to me. It makes my whole body seem heavy, like I suddenly don’t even have the energy to get up. My thoughts flick back to home, the smell of cooking, Lemlem giggling. I never sat still there, doing nothing. There was always school, homework, hanging out with Bini. An endless sequence of activity.
I feel a rush of panic as I think about the day stretching ahead of us. I cannot leave this room. There is barely space to walk from one side to the other. Bini is looking around restlessly. I don’t know how much time has passed since we woke up. Maybe one hour, maybe two. I try to focus on something else.
“Where do you think we are?” I ask. “Which part of the country?”
“In the north somewhere,” says Bini. “I guess we always wanted to see places outside the city. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, though.”
He sounds just like he would do if we were talking in my house—relaxed, making jokes. It confuses me. I want to ask him if he is scared like I am. If he wonders whether there is something worse just around the corner.
All that comes out, though, is: “Do you think we’re going to be OK?”
“I think we’re going to be OK.”
I feel a little bit calmer just hearing those words.
The other prisoners murmur rhythmically. A short conversation and then silence. Then more talking.
No one speaks to me and Bini, but I feel them watching us.
The box heats up as the sun rises. After several more hours, all Bini and I can do is lie dozing or staring at the ceiling, like everyone else.
There is a sudden bang on the door, which makes me jump.
“Time to let the animals out,” says Nebay.
“Keep your head down and do exactly what they say,” whispers Yonas. “You don’t want to be sent to the punishment cell.”
I cannot imagine anything worse than the cell we are in. But it seems someone has imagined it, and built it. I will do exactly as I’m told.
The massive metal doors swing open with a deep creaking sound. I blink, shielding my eyes as bright morning light washes in.
Three guards in blue camouflage uniforms mark the doorway.
“Out!” shouts the nearest guard.
Bini and I are the first to step outside.
As the others clamber painfully to their feet, I see that they all have limps, or strangely twisted limbs. Limbs which look like they have been broken and not healed properly. I feel sick as I picture my leg or arm being broken and then left to heal without any medicine or doctors to take away the pain. The sick feeling quickly begins to turn into panic as I realize that the guards surrounding us may be the same men who did these things to the others. I try to breathe more slowly.
Outside I see the camp properly for the first time too. As well as the four metal boxes there are two small whitewashed buildings with tin roofs. Encircling the whole camp is a thick ring of thorn bush. The sort used to contain cattle.
One guard pushes me in the back with the butt of his rifle and points ahead. He pushes me again, harder.
“Walk,” Bini whispers and starts to walk slowly in the direction the guard pointed.
“No talking!” shouts the guard. Even though I am right next to him.
We creep our way slowly round the perimeter. Beyond is flat rocky desert.
“Eyes down,” the guard shouts and pushes me so hard that I fall to my knees on the stony ground.
I stumble quickly back onto my feet and we keep walking, the sun hot on our backs.
Barely ten minutes after stepping outside, the guard shouts, “Back to your cell.”
We shuffle away from the perimeter towards the second metal box in a row of four. Keeping my head down, I glance at the other boxes from the corner of my eye. They are so solid and so silent it’s hard to believe there are people inside them. I want to see who lives in the other cells. Maybe there are some other schoolkids like us.
The entrance to our cell gapes like the mouth of some silent monster. I step into the gloom and walk mechanically over to our blanket.
The other prisoners cough and wheeze, shuffling around to get comfortable on the hard floor. The short walk seems to have exhausted them all.
The box feels even more unbearable now that I have seen the sky and breathed fresh air again. I cannot relax. I am waiting for something else bad to happen but don’t want to start thinking about what it might be. I am also starting to feel angry. Angry that we have been put in here with no explanation and that someone else has decided all this without even talking to us.
I watch the sunlight discs move slowly across the ceiling.
Bini kicks my foot.
“Do you have any bread?” he asks.
I realize how empty my stomach feels. “No, I finished mine last night.”
He puts his hand in his pocket and takes out two small chunks of bread, giving one to me. I put it in my mouth. This time I don’t swallow it straight away, but give my stomach time to think it’s getting more than one tiny piece.
I don’t know how many hours have gone by, but I am starting to think I might pass out from the heat and lack of air, when there is another bang on the side of the box.
The bolt lifts and the doors swing open once more. A guard leaves a large pan of brown liquid and a stack of bowls on the floor. The smell of food and the rush of oxygen wake everyone.
As the doors slam shut, the small man who passe
d around the rolls gets to his feet and begins dipping bowls in the liquid and handing them out. It smells sour. There are lentils floating on top; otherwise it looks like muddy water. I have learnt my lesson and sip at it slowly, even though I am desperate to pour it into my mouth in one go. It tastes like muddy water too. There is almost no flavour, except a strange, sour, earthy taste. Bini and I watch the other men slowly sip the soup, making every mouthful last as long as possible.
The soup wakes everybody up. There is more conversation, but still no one talks to me and Bini.
Our bodies are exhausted from the journey and the lack of food the day before. At some point that afternoon I fall asleep, waking only to eat my stale bread.
Hell 3
The next morning, I stir as the rising sun glows through the bullet holes. I feel better, my body more rested.
Bini is already awake.
“That’s the longest sleep I’ve ever had,” he says.
“I guess it isn’t every day you get sent to prison,” I answer.
He smiles. “We made it through our first day of hell, and we are OK.”
The others are stirring, rubbing their frozen hands and feet to get some blood to circulate.
Yonas coughs and looks over at us. There is something different about him today, a new kind of energy. “So, I’ll ask again. What did you two do to end up here?”
Bini and I look at Yonas without answering.
“Leave them,” says Nebay, his morning voice even deeper. “I don’t think they have an ounce of courage between them.”
Yonas is quiet for a while, then says, “You don’t want to talk, of course. Soon you will realize that things in here are different to on the outside. Anything you were afraid of has already happened.” He stops as more coughing takes over, making his body shake. Once it passes, he looks up again. “Do you know what this is?” He gestures to the four walls.
We shake our heads.
“What you are inside is, in fact, a shipping container. Some people may think of that as irony. Or perhaps bad luck,” says Yonas. “These containers weren’t built for humans—they were designed for anything that can be stacked up and sent somewhere on a ship. But then someone had a great idea. If they’re so good at storing things, perhaps we can use them for prisoners. And instead of shipping them across the sea, let’s ship them to the desert, where they can’t do any harm. You can talk. Or you can keep quiet. But I believe it will be in both your interests to trust us. You don’t have anyone else, for a start, and the days don’t get any shorter.”
Bini pushes himself up onto his elbows. “How do we know that you’re not working for the military too, and that you’ll get special treatment the more we confess to you?”
“Bini, stop,” I whisper. He is staring at Yonas through the gloom. “Maybe we can say what happened without telling them anything the soldiers don’t already know.”
After a few moments, Bini breaks the awkward silence. “There was a giffa in our part of the city. Soldiers were taking kids from the next street along. So our mothers arranged for us to leave. We had packed some things and were ready to go when the soldiers came to our houses. They found our bags. It was during the school week, and there were spare clothes and supplies in them, so I guess it must have seemed pretty obvious we were going somewhere to avoid the giffa.”
It feels like Bini has told them just enough, without saying that we were planning on leaving the country.
The old man clears his throat and begins to speak in a lower voice. “Before this,” he says, pointing to the four walls, “I was a journalist. Do you know what that is?”
“Of course,” says Bini. “You worked for Haddas?”
Yonas laughs, a short laugh which almost sounds like a cough. “When I was a journalist you didn’t have to write for Haddas—there were lots of newspapers; you could write what you wanted. That’s what I did.”
“It doesn’t sound all that dangerous,” says Bini. “Or, I mean, it doesn’t sound like you were very dangerous.”
“Well, things changed. Suddenly the government didn’t want people writing about protests, or about food shortages—about anything which made them look bad. So, as far as they were concerned, I was about as dangerous as you can get.” Yonas laughs again, and this time it turns into a coughing fit which doesn’t stop for a few minutes. “So they took me away from my three children and my wife and put me in jail. Not here, somewhere different to start with. That was fifteen years ago. I haven’t seen or heard from my family in fifteen years. They haven’t seen or heard from me. They probably think I’m dead.”
As he says those last words, I feel the hairs on my arms stand up. “My father is in prison,” I say, before I can stop myself. “I only found out a couple of days ago. I thought he was dead.”
Bini pinches my arm. “What?” he says. “Your father’s alive?”
“Mum hasn’t heard from him in six years. But he didn’t die in hospital, like she told me. She says he asked for higher wages for teachers and a man took him away and no one ever saw him again.”
There are nods from the men around the room.
“You only just found out about what happened to him?” Nebay asks.
“Yes, two days ago.” The words seem ridiculous. Two days ago may as well have been a different lifetime.
“Were you happy when you found out he was alive?”
His question throws me. “Of course I was happy,” I say. Then, after a moment, I add, “I was angry with my mother, for not telling me the truth.”
Nebay is silent. I have shared more with people I’ve known for two days than I have with my best friend. They might bang on the side of the container and get the guard to come and take me away because my father is a “traitor”. For some reason, though, I don’t think they will do that. Maybe it’s because they seem to understand what is happening to us.
“Don’t worry,” says Bini.
“About what?”
“That you didn’t tell me about your dad.”
“If we hadn’t been taken to prison, I would have told you.”
“I know,” he says.
A short while later, Nebay’s rough voice grates through the silence. “I ran away from the army,” he says. “My two years of military service turned into four, then five. I met people who hadn’t been allowed to go back home or anywhere for twenty years. So I ran away and they caught me.”
It feels like Bini and I are sitting at the entrance to a parallel world, where people are sent to prison for doing nothing wrong. Nebay’s words are beginning to make sense: everybody in here has done something, even though “something” is normally nothing. We are all silent again, but now my mind has plenty of things to keep it busy.
I don’t know long it is since we woke up. Maybe two hours, maybe four. Time feels static. I wonder how these men have lived like this for so long. Several hours feel like an eternity, trapped within four metal walls, which are quickly beginning to heat up as the desert sun rises through the sky.
There is a loud bang as a soldier slides up the bolts on the doors. They swing open, and this time I know what will happen. We shuffle towards the entrance and step, blinking, into the sun.
“No talking,” the guard shouts, even though this time we are all silent.
After a hundred metres or so, Yonas stumbles and falls. He looks too weak to get back up.
Bini rushes to his side and lifts him under his arms. “Lean on me,” he says.
One of the guards pushes Bini away. Yonas wobbles but stays upright.
The guard has small mean eyes and thick eyebrows. He is a few inches shorter than Bini, but pushes his face up as close to Bini’s as possible and shouts, “Any more tricks like that and you will go straight to the punishment cell. What’s your number?”
“Detainee eighty-eight,” says Bini.
“Eighty-eight, do you understand?”
“Yes,” says Bini.
The guard shoves Bini, who stumbles, but manages to k
eep walking.
A warm light wind touches my face. The blue sky wraps around me, clear and cloudless.
Ten minutes later, we are back at the container. As the doors swing shut behind us, I want to run towards the last chink of light. Instead, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom and sit in the corner which now belongs to me and Bini.
Yonas lies on the floor, sweating. I fetch him some water, and help him to sit up and sip a little.
The container gradually becomes unbearably hot. Everyone moves away from the metal walls, and we all sip water to try and cool our burning mouths and bodies. Again, the others seem exhausted from the walk and the heat, and lie in silence. I want to ask them when they let the men out of the other containers, but decide my question can wait. Time is the one thing we seem to have a lot of.
Sweat beads on my forehead, and the darkness and thick air weigh down on me. I want to talk about life before the box. Normal life.
“Do you think our families are safe?” I whisper.
“It’s us they wanted,” Bini answers. “Now they’ve taken us away they’ll leave our families alone. Your mum and my mum will be busy working to save money so that they can join us when we get out of here.”
I want to believe him—after all, I don’t remember any soldiers coming to our house after Dad was taken.
“You missed a couple of good lessons while you were skipping school,” I say.
“Yeah, well, I reckon I can catch up.”
“Do you still want to be a doctor?”
“Sure, why?”
“I’m not sure what I want to do any more.”
“What?!” Bini whispers in mock horror.
“Maybe teaching would be good.”
Bini looks thoughtful. “You’ll have to get better at maths then.”
