by Ele Fountain
I feel the start of a smile—and realize that my face isn’t used to smiling any more. It feels stiff and strange.
He is silent for a while, picking at the bobbles on our blanket.
“Do you think my father really left home to find a better job? Why has he never contacted us? He could have been in touch just to let my mum know that he was OK.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to until he could send you something.”
“Maybe he didn’t move to the other side of the city at all. Maybe he left the country.”
I think about my mum hiding the truth to keep me safe. Hiding it so well that the lies became facts to me.
The guards bring us brown watery soup, just like yesterday. Just like every day from now on. I have already started to look forward to it.
“It makes a change from bread,” says Bini. “Even if it does taste like watery dust.”
Yonas seems better, and manages to sit and eat like the rest of us.
After lunch, Yonas looks over to Nebay. Some silent communication seems to occur between them. Nebay nods; so does Yonas. I wonder what they are agreeing. I wonder if Bini and I should be worried.
“Will we go outside again today?” Bini asks Yonas.
“That’s it,” he says. “They let us walk around the compound for a short while every day, like this morning, but otherwise we stay in here.”
“The lucky ones also get to empty the slop bucket,” says Nebay, “but the main event is collecting firewood. The guards are lazy and we’re too weak to gather much wood. They’ll choose you—that is, until you’re in the same state as the rest of us. Every day you will get weaker.”
It’s true. Already I feel weaker than the day we arrived. Bini’s face looks thinner, but I can’t tell if that’s just because he’s tired.
“What about the men in the other containers? Are the containers all like this one?” I ask.
“You’ve seen that there are four like this, and there are some underground prisons too, for punishment.” Yonas pauses for a second. “The containers are all pretty much like this one. Metal boxes full of starving men.”
“Why don’t they let us all walk around the compound together?” asks Bini.
“There aren’t many soldiers here. It saves money to keep numbers to a minimum. But that means they can’t let all four containers out to walk at once—you can see how we might overpower them.” Yonas snorts.
We are plunged into silence again as the heat saps the energy from our limbs and brains. Gradually, as the sun moves to the west, the heat becomes focused on the other side of the container. We crawl away from the sunny side.
I doze, and wake with a start when the container shudders with another loud bang. The doors swing open and three guards stand at the entrance.
“Eighty-seven, eighty-eight and forty-two, out here now,” shouts the guard nearest the door.
Bini and I get to our feet; so does one of the younger men. When he moves, he reminds me of my grandfather. Waiting outside are nine other men who must be from the other containers. They look curiously alike, as if staying too long in a box leeches away your distinctiveness. There is no one else as young as Bini and me. I feel disappointed. I know it’s stupid—we would never have a chance to talk to them anyway.
We shuffle behind the three guards, who lead the way to a metal gate buried within the thorn boundary. They unlock the padlock, and we file slowly past. It feels dangerous to be outside. I know I must keep my head down and gather wood, but the urge to run away across the desert is very strong. Perhaps they are testing us.
The guards lead us to a low rocky hill, where there are some thorn bushes. We gather thin spiky sticks until the guards shout that it’s time to return. We leave the wood in a small pile outside one of the whitewashed huts. Two prisoners stay behind, straightening the jumbled thorns into even smaller piles.
Bini and I return to our container as dusk bathes the desert in orange light. I want to stay outside and watch. Instead, we climb back into the dark to wait for our bread rolls and another restless night in the icy box.
Hell 4
The next morning begins like the one before. I wake early to the golden discs of light, only this time everyone else in the room is awake too. I feel that something is happening and am instantly fearful.
I nudge Bini to wake up. He rubs his eyes, then looks around the room, sensing what I do. There are fifteen sets of eyes all focused on us.
“Did you get some good rest?” rasps Yonas.
“Not bad,” replies Bini.
“Good,” he says. “You will need clear heads today, and we don’t have much time.”
For the first time this week, I feel the urge to laugh, but manage to stifle it into a snort. Locked in a metal box in the desert miles from anywhere, it feels like we might have all the time in the world, but nothing to fill it with.
Although talking for long is hard for Yonas, he coughs, a signal that he may begin again. He takes a small piece of bread from his pocket and chews it slowly. My stomach twists painfully. I wish I had saved some bread last night. Yonas reaches into his pocket again and takes out a second cube of bread. This one he passes to me.
“Eat,” he says. “It takes no time at all to end up looking like the rest of us. Come and sit here in front of me—it’s easier to talk.”
Bini and I shuffle round.
“How lucky we all felt when you two walked into our box.” He smiles at me and Bini. A genuine smile of gratitude.
I feel the eyes of the other men on us.
“Our lives were over, but now we have a little sliver of hope,” continues Yonas.
“I’m sorry,” says Bini. “I don’t understand.”
“No, you’ve only been here for two days,” Yonas says. “You couldn’t understand.” He coughs, then starts again. “No one knows we’re here. No one even knows we’re alive. We may still have our minds, but our bodies are wasting away. Even if one of us made it out of the camp, we wouldn’t be able to walk more than a few hundred metres. We will die here, and no one will ever know the truth about what happened to us. No one except the guards, and we don’t really count them as people.” He looks straight at me. “Our families need to know what has happened to us. You understand why they need to know. We have a lot of time on our hands.” Yonas gestures around the room. “A lot of time to plan, to think. But for almost a year now, we’ve understood that our only chance to take a little piece of ourselves to freedom would be if a new prisoner was assigned to our container.”
I sense Bini sitting more upright.
“But that prisoner would need to be brave, and would need to trust us with their lives.”
Bini and I look at each other.
“Yesterday morning you helped me even though we were surrounded by guards. You showed us that you can be brave, but do you trust us?”
After a short pause, and before I can start to think of an answer, Bini says, “Not yet.”
Yonas smiles. “I was right. You are brave.”
“They don’t trust us,” says Nebay. “So what’s the point? What if they share everything with the guards and we all end up in the punishment cell, one after the other?”
Somehow, Bini and I have become the untrustworthy ones. And we don’t even know what they’re talking about.
Yonas looks at us both. “Go around this room. Talk to everyone. Find out why we’re all here. Then, when you’ve finished, you can decide whether we’re worth trusting or not.”
Bini says nothing more, but lies back, his hands under his head, deep in thought.
It’s my turn to pick at the fabric of the blanket, as I try to ignore the tension in the box.
After what feels like a long time, but probably isn’t, Bini slowly stands up and walks over to the man on the far side of the container who hands out the bread.
Relieved, I follow. We squeeze into a space on the floor in front of him.
“What’s your name?” asks Bini.
O
ne by one, we learn the names and stories of the men who share our prison. Some talk as if they are discussing another person’s life, showing no emotion. Others have tears in their eyes when they describe leaving family behind.
We have nearly made our way round the whole container when we reach the two younger-looking prisoners.
“What is your name?” Bini asks the one who gave us his blanket on the first night.
He looks up but doesn’t smile. Every movement seems to be an effort for him.
“My name is Hayat.”
“How long have you been in prison?”
He looks as if he is about to answer, but instead closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“I’m Idris,” says the man sitting next to him. “Hayat has only spoken to me about what happened to him. He won’t talk to anyone else.”
Idris looks at Hayat, and although I see no signal, it seems Hayat has consented to Idris sharing his story.
“Hayat was fourteen when the military took him from his home during a giffa. He went to military school, where they beat him. After two years he tried to escape, but they caught him and brought him here. He hasn’t seen his family since the evening when the soldiers came. He has a little brother and sister. They’ll be twelve and fourteen now. He’s worried about his sister, the older one. Worried that they’ll take her too.”
I look over to Hayat, who is staring ahead. In the light from the bullet holes above, I see a tear snake silently down his cheek.
It seems that everyone in the container was captured trying to escape from military service, or trying to escape from the country.
Yonas is now the only one we haven’t talked to.
We step over legs and blankets to where he is sitting, propped against the container wall. His head rests between two ridges, tilted up to the ceiling. His eyes are closed, his face peaceful. He could be relaxing in a café, or his home. Only the paper-thin skin which clings to the bones of his face suggests that the image is incomplete. His eyes open and he looks across at us.
“You know my story.” He smiles.
I feel disappointed. I want to know more about the man who has been a prisoner for fifteen years. How he has survived.
Yonas pauses, then adds, “But there is something more I can share.” He turns to Bini and says, “I would like to speak to Shif alone.”
Bini looks at me and I nod. He moves a metre away to sit in our usual place, but he is watching us.
Yonas takes a deep slow breath in, then begins to speak in his special quiet voice, which, this time, is just for me to hear.
“The military came for me early in the morning. They took me away in a car, but we didn’t leave the city. They drove me to a place near the president’s palace where there were other journalists and people who had spoken out against the government. That’s where this happened.” He taps his twisted leg. “Afterwards they took me to a different prison, with brick cells. The prison was large, but the cells were small and I was chained to the wall. I don’t remember how I got there, but I know they kept me there for seven years. Next, I was moved to a detention centre, where they used these instead of small cells.” He points to the roof of the shipping container. “You roast and freeze, but at least there is company. Many people came and went while I was there. I remember most of them. There was nothing to do but talk and listen and sleep. After maybe three years, a young man came. I don’t recall his name, but he had been a teacher.”
I feel my chest tighten. I realize I have been holding my breath.
“Perhaps it wasn’t your father. But there was something about him which reminds me of you. A calmness. He missed his family, a son and a baby daughter. His wife sewed for a living and he didn’t know how she would make enough money to feed them. He struggled. But I could see that inside he was strong. He only stayed with us one month before they took him somewhere else. I don’t know where. Our prison was packed to bursting, so chances are they took him somewhere bigger rather than to one of the punishment centres.”
I blink away tears. I didn’t tell Yonas what Mum does for a living, or that I have a sister. Lemlem would have been a baby when my father was taken. I calm my breath so that I can speak.
“Thank you,” I say. “That helps me to believe my father might be alive.”
Yonas is wheezing and has closed his eyes again.
I stand up and walk over to Bini. I sit down slowly and close my eyes to think. The heat is rising once more.
“What did he say?” Bini asks. “Are you OK?”
After a few seconds, I reply, “Yonas thinks he met my father in prison.”
“You’re kidding? Your dad was here?” says Bini, his mouth open.
“Not here. A different prison, a few years ago. I mean, maybe it wasn’t my dad, but the man he met had been a teacher and had a son and daughter. His wife sewed for a living. He looked a bit like me.”
“Then he must be alive!” says Bini.
“Shhh. If he was somewhere like this, then I guess he might still be alive.”
“I’m sure he is,” says Bini, sounding totally convinced. “Yonas is still around after fifteen years, and your dad has only been away for six years. Plus he’s younger than Yonas.”
I wish I could call Mum. If only there was a way of letting her know that I’m OK, and that it’s possible Dad is alive.
“Do you trust Yonas?” Bini asks.
“I don’t know if I trust him,” I say, “but I think I like him.”
“OK. Then I think we should find out what they want,” says Bini. “Anyhow, we’re pretty low on options right now.”
Through the darkness I can just make out his smile.
I am impatient to hear what Nebay and Yonas want to share with us, but the men are mostly dozing now. I begin to doze too.
Maybe an hour later, I wake, under a blanket of stifling heat.
“So,” says Yonas with some effort. “Have you decided what kind of people are sitting around this room?”
Bini sits up and rubs his eyes. “People like me and Shif,” he says. “Or at least, you were like me and Shif when you first came.”
Yonas looks up to the ceiling and mutters something under his breath. Then he smiles. He coughs a little, then says, “How happy we were when two of you walked in. Twice the chance of success.”
“Success?” Bini asks, looking as confused as I feel. “In what?”
“We need someone to tell our families what has happened to us. After so long, it seems unfair that we now have so little time to prepare you. But you two are our only hope. Certainly my only hope—I don’t expect to survive here for much longer. We’re going to help you to escape.”
I feel a thrill of excitement which quickly begins to fade. My thoughts are mirrored in Bini’s face. I am wondering why no one else has managed to escape. It must be impossible to make it past both the guards and the boundary.
“What’s in it for you?” Bini asks.
“Like I said, we need our families to know the truth. Then we can at least have some peace. But escaping is beyond us.”
“Why didn’t you try when you still could? Is it because you knew you’d just get killed? I guess you’ve got nothing to lose if we go and get killed instead.”
“That’s a fair question,” says Yonas. “Most of us came from other camps—we would have been physically unable to make it even when we first arrived. It didn’t take long for those who were taken here first to end up looking like the rest of us. We didn’t have a plan back then. By the time we did, it was too late for any of us.”
“But they might decide to let you out one day,” says Bini.
“I’ve been in prison for fifteen years, and in all that time I’ve never known them set anyone free. Certainly the only way people leave this compound is with a sheet over their face.”
“There’s nothing they could offer us—that we want—apart from our freedom,” says Nebay. “There aren’t many perks here for good behaviour. But if you prefer to rot wi
th us, then go ahead.”
“Escape and do what? Go back home?” Bini says.
“Keep your voice down,” hisses Nebay.
“No,” says Yonas. “Escape from this country. You will take the information you have learnt about us to somewhere safe, and from there you will let our families know. You would be arrested immediately if you returned home. The military will be monitoring your houses, and those of your relatives.”
“Our families,” I gasp.
Yonas doesn’t answer.
Once more I feel tears rush to my eyes, and suddenly I am very grateful for the gloom.
After a minute, Bini says, “I think I get why you want to help us escape, but we’re stuck in this box, and outside there are guards everywhere. Wouldn’t we be shot immediately?”
“Your opportunity will be when you gather firewood,” says Nebay. “The guards don’t get much more to eat than we do. They’re unfit, and they’re bad shots. You would have a chance.”
“Has anyone tried to escape before?” Bini asks.
“Yes,” says Yonas after a while. “They brought his body back the next day and showed us all what would happen if we tried to do the same.”
I look over at Bini, but for once I cannot tell what he’s thinking.
“What happens if we do make it away from the compound?” he asks. “Where would we go? You said we were in the desert miles from anywhere, so how can we ever leave the country?”
“Quieter,” hisses Nebay.
“You’re asking the right questions,” answers Yonas. “We’re miles from everything—except the border.”
Courage
The container gets hotter. I don’t know if I can take much more.
Bini lies on his back staring at the ceiling, sweat glistening on his face.
I have no idea what time it is, but it feels like a couple of hours since today’s brown soup. That means early afternoon.
No one has spoken for a while. Now that Yonas has mentioned escape, it’s hard to think about anything else.
“Shouldn’t we be making a plan?” I whisper. “Finding out how they think we can escape? Yonas said we don’t have much time.”
