by Ele Fountain
“Look at them,” Bini whispers back. “They’re barely alive.”
“Normally we sleep in the daytime.” I tune in to Nebay’s voice and realize that he’s talking to me. “But you’re right, we need you to be ready in case you have a chance to go tonight.”
I try to concentrate on what he’s saying through the veil of heat.
“We’re helping you because you’re going to help us. To do that, you must learn each of our stories.”
“We know them already,” says Bini.
“Can you remember everyone’s names? The names of our wives or parents?” Nebay asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You must learn the villages we came from, and, if there is one, a phone number. Test each other and, later, we will test you too.”
“OK,” says Bini, nodding.
“Also, there is one thing which Yonas didn’t tell you. The guards will interrogate you. It’s standard practice. They will wait a few more days until you’re starting to really miss your family and some decent food, and then they will take you away for questioning. Only it won’t be just questioning. By the time they’ve finished, neither of you will be running anywhere for some time. That is another reason why none of us was in any shape to escape, even when we had only been here a few weeks.”
“But all we did was pack a bag,” I say. “Our mothers had arranged for us to leave the country. All the guards know, though, is that we had packed a bag to go somewhere.”
“They will want to know where to, who with, how. They won’t rest until they have some answers.”
*
We are no more than halfway round the room when there is the now-familiar bang as the bolt slides down. The doors to the container swing open.
“You, eighty-seven, get up.” A guard points to me. “And you, eighty-eight, and you, twenty-four.” The guard points to Bini and the small man who served dinner. “Outside, now.”
I step over to the entrance and turn to look at Nebay, but the guard gives me a hard shove. Nine other men are already waiting outside. I’m not sure whether they are the same men as yesterday. We head back to the metal gate and the guards push us out of the compound.
“You have twenty minutes. Gather as much wood as you can carry.”
Three armed guards follow us out and point towards the scrubby thorn bushes at the base of the small rocky hillock.
I try to catch Bini’s eye, but he is looking down.
We’re not ready. If Bini runs, though, I must go too. I cough to get his attention, but he is walking next to a guard and cannot turn round. I hope he doesn’t think that’s a sign for us to go. The sun is hot and my pulse is racing. Sweat sticks to my T-shirt.
The guards walk a little way ahead.
Bini bends down to pick up some thin sticks. He scratches one of them on the ground and I read the word no.
“What are you doing?” barks one of the guards. It’s the one with the thick eyebrows and small violent eyes. He seems to dislike us more than he dislikes the other prisoners.
Bini doesn’t answer, but bends down to pick up more sticks.
The guard grabs Bini’s collar and lifts his head. “You’re not a smart-a rse student now,” he hisses, scowling up at Bini. “Work faster.” He shoves Bini to the ground.
Bini gathers the sticks he has dropped and carries on searching for more without looking up.
The guards assemble on one side, picking their teeth and talking. Gathering firewood seems like a nuisance for them.
When our arms are filled with thin thorny branches, we head slowly back towards the compound. The other men struggle to walk with their arms full, even though the wood doesn’t weigh very much.
The guard with small eyes walks over beside me and Bini. “Tomorrow we will have a little chat with you, eighty-seven.” He prods his rifle in my side. “You will need to have some answers. The day after, it will be your friend’s turn.” He smiles, but it is a smile to freeze blood, even in the desert.
There is silence as we step inside the container.
Bini and I sit back down with Semere, the man we were speaking to before the guards came. He smiles at us. Perhaps he is glad that we didn’t try to leave. We pick up where we left off—finding out the name of his home village, a phone number for a close relative.
Finally, the only person left to speak to is Yonas again.
“Do you think you’ll be able to remember everything you’ve learnt?” he asks anxiously.
“No problem,” says Bini. “It’s much easier than binomial theorem.”
Yonas looks to me, confused.
“Sure, Bini’s right. It’s pretty easy compared to what we have to remember at school.” I pause. “One of the guards said he wants to have a chat with me tomorrow.”
I can just make out Yonas closing his eyes. “We will carry on as we are,” he says. “The rest is up to fate.”
My head swirls with names, and stories of how the people in the room were first taken by the military. I feel like the skin has been peeled off the country I knew, and now I see the rotten fruit inside.
“Let’s test each other,” says Bini.
We recite names and villages until the gaps between our answers become longer. Bini starts to doze.
I cannot stop myself from thinking about what will happen during my little chat with the guards tomorrow. I might tell them something by mistake which will put my mother in danger. Yonas made it sound like they would hurt me. If I am badly hurt, then I won’t be able to leave here with Bini.
The box finally begins to cool down and the men start shuffling around in their blankets, preparing to rest.
I turn to face Yonas and ask softly, “If we do make it out of the camp, then where do we go? How do we know which direction the border is?”
“For that,” he answers, “you will need to talk to Tesfay.” Yonas points to the bread man. “I know that he has a wife but no children, and he tried to escape from a military camp similar to this one, two years ago. Only, at that military camp he wasn’t a prisoner—he was in charge of logistics.”
As if the guards have been listening to every word, there is a clank and the doors swing open to reveal a figure with a rifle slung over his shoulder, holding a basket of stale bread. Bread must come first.
As Tesfay gets up to pass it around, Yonas takes off his shoe and removes what looks like a sock from his foot. I look more closely and see that it is a small cloth bag made from the same material as the blankets.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for a chance to use this. You can carry a small amount of bread in here,” he says. “Saves time if you need to leave in a hurry, which you will.”
On the far side of the container, Idris takes something plastic from under his blanket and holds it up. Bini steps over to take it, but Idris snatches it back.
“If they find this on you, then you’ll go straight to the punishment cells and you might not come back.” His voice is so much younger than his face.
I can just make out that he’s holding a small water bottle squashed flat, with some sort of cord attached to the top.
“You tie it round your waist and then tuck it into your trousers. The guards can’t see it, and you’ll be able to run with your hands free.” Idris conceals it back beneath his blanket.
Before we can eat our rolls, Nebay beckons Bini over. He passes him a piece of bread two centimetres by two centimetres.
“For your bag,” he says.
Bini looks at the bread, then at Nebay, and smiles. Before he can sit down, others in the room beckon him over and also give a small piece of bread, until Bini’s hands are both full. Yonas passes me the bag from underneath his blanket and we carefully place each square of bread inside, murmuring our thanks to everyone in turn.
I’m not used to making new friends. Maybe they aren’t friends, but I know more about the people in this container than any of my old neighbours.
As we are plunged into darkness once more, I am amazed at how qui
ckly I have absorbed the shape of the box and where people sit. I understand why they always pick the same spot, and why, although it stinks, Yonas has to sit so close to the toilet.
Bini grabs hold of my shoulder and we step carefully between the legs and blankets to reach Tesfay.
“Don’t sit on top of me,” he says. “Stop there—you’re close enough.”
He sits very still, but I can hear his breath wheezing in and out. I know that soon Bini and I will sound the same as him.
“You want to know how to escape,” Tesfay whispers, “and whether you might live.” It’s not a question. He wheezes for a couple of breaths. “With one of those I can help you,” he says. “Assuming you make it away from the camp alive, you’ll need to head due west. In the afternoon, your shadow should fall to your left, moving round behind you. At dusk, one of the first and brightest stars to rise will be in the south-east; leave it behind you to your left. After sunset, the moon will rise in the east; head away from it.
“If you run in the daytime you’ll probably die from heat exhaustion; if you don’t, they’ll catch up and shoot you. Late afternoon or dusk is best, but you won’t have a choice. The border is approximately ten kilometres from here. If you walk without stopping it’ll take you two hours to reach it. You have to get to the border before they send out extra troops to catch you. They won’t expect you to know how to get there, which is in your favour. There aren’t any roads in the desert, which is good. But they have trucks and they have guns. If you can run far enough to get out of their line of sight, then find some soft sand and bury yourself in it. They’ll be looking for upright figures on the horizon. The border has a fence and checkpoints. The guards aren’t always watching, and sometimes the towers are too far apart for them to see very clearly, but they also have guns.” Tesfay continues in his special quiet voice, until he seems satisfied that we know everything he has to share.
“And what are the chances of us actually making it away from the camp alive, really?” Bini asks.
Tesfay says nothing for a moment. “The chances of them ever setting you free from this camp are zero. Your chances of making it away from the camp are slightly higher than that.”
Before Tesfay can say any more, there is a loud bang. I jump. Perhaps they have come for me a day early. Seconds later, I realize the guards are lifting the bolt on one of the containers next to us. There is a brief sound of shouting, then someone sobbing. Then the container door slams shut and there is a hissing noise on the gravel. Someone’s feet trailing in the stony sand as they are dragged away from the container.
We crawl back to our corner. I fall asleep with numbers, names and villages running through my head, trying to block out the cries of the man who is being beaten in one of the whitewashed buildings.
Fear
I wake as light shines through the bullet holes above me. A hundred small suns.
Then I become aware of the eyes upon Bini and me again. The other men are awake. Now, though, I see that they look at us with hope, not menace as I’d thought before.
“Time for me to test you,” says Nebay.
We move closer to him, and he starts by pointing from prisoner to prisoner, choosing either me or Bini to tell him their name, what happened to them and any details of their family we might know. Although we speak in no more than a whisper, I know that the men are listening to every word.
We get it all right.
“I thought everyone living in this box was going to die in this box. But now you’ve arrived, that’s not true any more. Even if we don’t get out of here, our stories might.” Nebay says nothing more.
I never noticed it before, but my life used to move at a steady pace. For the last week, time has taken on a new dimension. I understand that it can accelerate in a heartbeat, then slow almost to a stop. I must learn to cope with a different rhythm.
The container gradually heats up with the morning sun.
“Want to play chess?” asks Bini.
I stare at him blankly.
“I’ll go first. I move my king’s pawn two spaces to e4.”
I feel a smile creep across my face. I need to think for a minute. “OK, I move my king’s pawn to e4 too.”
“You mean e5,” says Bini.
“Ah, so you keep counting from your side. In that case, e5.” I find it much harder moving the pieces in my head.
After eight moves, it’s checkmate. Bini beats me.
“Bad luck.” He smiles.
“I hope not,” I reply.
With every bang of a container bolt, I wonder if the guards are coming to take me away for questioning. But today follows the same pattern as the previous days, the container becomes hotter and hotter, until all thoughts are pushed from our minds and we begin to doze again.
I wake and notice that the temperature has dropped very slightly.
No one has come to get us. In fact, the camp is very quiet.
“Do they come at the same time every day?” I ask Yonas.
“Not every day, but if they do come, it’s always before dusk.”
The bullet-hole discs of light start to creep slowly across the floor towards the container wall as the sun sinks from its zenith.
A few minutes later, there is the crunch of feet in the dust and a bang as the bolt of the next-door container slides open. They must be going to collect firewood.
Idris plunges the flattened bottle into the water jug, holding it under for a few seconds, then screws on the lid, dries it on his blanket and throws it to Bini.
Yonas passes the bag of bread to me. I stuff it under my waistband, then pour a cup of water and gulp down half, then give the other half to Bini.
Bini is just rebuttoning his trousers when the bolt slides on our container.
The guard peers in. “You, eighty-seven, and you, twenty-four, out now,” he shouts, pointing to me and Tesfay. He stares through the darkness. “And you, eighty-eight.” He points to Bini.
We get quickly to our feet and walk to the entrance without turning round.
My heart starts thumping like someone is banging the side of the container and I’m sure the guards can hear it.
“Act tired,” whispers Bini.
As soon as we step down onto the sandy path, they slam and bolt the doors, then push us in the back with the butts of their rifles, towards the men from the other containers, and then to the metal gate.
Once they have unhooked the padlock and we step outside the compound, I feel a thrill of excitement followed by a wave of fear. It is hard to tell them apart.
Bini and I shuffle like the others, perhaps even more slowly. I rub my eyes and stare at the ground just ahead of my feet, but my senses are drifting up towards the vast expanse of desert which surrounds us.
There is a patch of scrub where two of the prisoners start gathering small sticks. One guard stays with them, while we walk closer to the foot of a low hill, where we were before. Thorny bushes and stumpy trees spread out in a semicircle around the base. I try to keep in step with Bini, but the guard pushes me along. We shuffle slowly towards one of the largest thorn bushes and bend to start collecting some decent-sized pieces of wood. I think one guard is still with the first two prisoners. The other two guards are with us. One of them hovers next to Bini. I carry on gathering sticks, my hands sweaty.
We must have been here for ten minutes or more. Soon they will round us up to head back to camp. I swivel my eyes up without lifting my head. One of the guards near us is picking his teeth with a stick. He raps Bini on the leg with the butt of his rifle.
“You should have twice as much. Faster,” he growls.
He wanders over to the other guard—I guess to tell him it’s time to head back. Without turning around, he unzips his trousers to have a wee.
Bini pinches my arm and I hear him muttering under his breath, “Three, two, one.”
He sprints away from the bush towards the open desert. I throw my sticks to the ground and follow, zigzagging from side t
o side.
Seconds later, I hear a bullet ricochet from the tree trunk and another whizzes past my head like a bee. Puffs of dirt jump in the air as more bullets hit the earth around us. We follow the curve of the hill until we are almost out of the line of sight. My thighs are burning and my mouth is dry. I hear shouting behind me but don’t turn round. Bini is just in front of me, his arms pumping air and his feet kicking up dust with each pounding step.
The only word in my head is run. Run.
I try to imagine the border is just ahead and I’m running to cross it. I reach the point where my legs are about to collapse and my chest is on fire. Bini must feel it too because he starts to slow. We skid to a halt and look over our shoulders. We can see nothing but the small hill separating us from the camp beyond. I hear the deep sound of a diesel engine revving. Maybe two trucks.
We look around wildly for a soft patch of ground, running slowly with our eyes down. Bini points to a long crack in the earth. It’s not very deep, but it’s our only hope. We get down on our hands and knees to feel the earth either side. It’s not rock solid but isn’t soft either.
The engine is no longer revving but growling like a truck on the move. The noise grows louder and it can only be a matter of minutes before we will be in the line of sight.
Bini starts scrabbling at the earth with his hands, like a dog, flinging dirt behind him. I do the same. My fingertips are numb and bloody after a few seconds. We don’t dig down, but across, making the crack a little wider.
“Lie down,” Bini gasps. “Put your head by my feet and throw some earth over your body.”
We lie in a line along the crack, faces down, pushing our bodies as far into the earth as they will go. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath. Sand and soil coat my tongue as I breathe with my mouth open, cheeks in the warm earth.
The rumble of the truck gets quickly louder. I feel my breathing stop as my body tenses. I pray that we look like nothing more than two rocky bumps in the uneven desert landscape.
