by Anna Perera
What are they going to do with him now? Why can’t they wait until morning? is all Khalid thinks as they shackle his wrists. Forcing him to bend double as they walk him out of the barn and across the concourse—not towards a plane, but towards a concrete building where he’s been several times before for questioning.
An unimaginably bright spotlight blinds Khalid for a few seconds before he’s led inside. This time he’s taken to a steel room with a wavy crack running across the concrete floor.
It’s a room Khalid gets to know well, because every single half-hour over the next three days the soldiers barge in to wake him. He fades in and out of the most disturbed sleep ever conceived as his mind wanders to thoughts and images he had no idea were even stored there.
13
LIGHTS
The lights are on . . .
. . . Apart from a blue mat, there’s nothing else in the cell, which is the size of the bathroom back in Rochdale.
Nothing,
except a steel toilet in one corner.
No window.
Only gray walls and the smell of burning, dust and sweat . . .
. . . They drag him out—they throw him back.
Now he’s staring at the air conditioner again.
Breathing in the smell of his own flesh.
On his own.
For
how
long
this
time . . . ?
. . . If
he can close
his brain down for a bit,
then maybe he can forget?
Perhaps if the guards stay away, he
can fall into a long, timeless sleep instead
of the half-hour here and there before another bitter
wake-up . . .
. . . Khalid turns over
on the mat
to lie on his back,
listening
to his
beating heart.
Vaguely wondering
if he’s got
the energy
to pull himself up
and take a leak.
Can he be bothered?
Not
really
Now, this is the third day in a row they’ve disturbed him. Aware he might never sleep again, Khalid decides not to try again. Especially as he’s done everything to numb the light. Pulling the mat over his head. Burying his face in his arms—in the wall. Nothing works. Even trying to sleep with his hands on his face only makes his eyes itch more . . .
This is the third day in a row they’ve disturbed him.
He’ll never sleep again, why try? Especially as he’s
done everything to numb the light. Pulling the mat over his head. Burying his face in his arms. Nothing works. Even trying to sleep with his hands on his eyes only makes his eyelids HURT . . . Pulling the mat over his head again and again.
Once more burying his face in the wall.
iiiiiiiiI
IN
T
H E
Seeing only his own hands over his own eyes.
Red fingers on fingers.
Smelling of sweat.
Footsteps down the corridor sound inside a mind of shadows so dark, he can hardly remember what day it is anymore . . .
14
WATER TRICKS
Finally they unlock the adjoining room next door, taking him into a smaller room with a black table and large spotlight. Three chairs.
The same two interrogators from before march in to question him. The same dull angry faces bear down on him. One flashes up photo after photo of the victims of 9/11. A blazing spotlight on Khalid’s weak, defeated face.
“You see this woman? Her four children are now orphans. See this man jumping from the flames? His mother died the day before and now his daughter is suffering from cancer. See this girl—she was the cleaner. Only her second day there. See this guy? See him . . .?”
The blazing light is left on here too and Khalid is completely delirious. His mind wanders back through his life. His memories change shape the more he looks at the photos. Expanding, shrinking, merging into story forms, adding scenes from films and episodes from football games. Until every detail of the life he once knew becomes too painful to relive.
Khalid’s heart slowly gives up on him at the sight of so much pain. So much heartache. These ordinary people. Dead. Their lives cruelly cut short. By the time Khalid’s dragged back to the cell next door, all he can think about are the things he’s done wrong in his life. The pain he’s caused. Like the time he stole those black jeans from that little Polish guy down the market. Galloping off like a maniac, jeans under his arm. Nico running behind, roaring with laughter. They thought they were so clever. So cool.
He remembers all the people he’s hurt and betrayed. Like when he collected money in the street for Bosnia and, instead of handing it in, emptied the tin with a knife, putting the pound coins in his pocket and leaving only the small change behind. Thinking back to the day he and Tony Banda bunked off school to go to Renzo’s house to smoke cigarettes and swig his dad’s gin. Telling his teacher his mum would write a letter to explain his absence, then writing it himself. That time in the high street he ran away when he saw Dad walking towards him, ashamed of the sight of him in his old-fashioned clothes. And Mum, he’d snapped at her so many times just because she wouldn’t let him go on the computer until he’d done his homework.
The list goes on and on as they drag him back to his cell, adding to the awful pictures flashing through his mind. That poor woman. Her poor kids. Now they’ve got no one.
The next day, hell starts with the dull thudding of footsteps down the corridor. On the mat, Khalid turns from the wall to lie on his back, staring at the green light of the air-conditioning unit until it starts blinking on and off again. An uncomfortable smell of feet hovers over him all of a sudden, while he clocks the same twisting ache of disappointment and loneliness that he felt yesterday, the day before and the day before that.
After yet another endless night without sleep, he can’t even be bothered to wonder what questions they’re going to ask him today. The lack of sleep tears his dreams to shreds. The piercing shouts of the guards waking him up time and time again during the night scramble his brain. Barging in to steal sleep from him every time he grows close to losing himself, sharply pulling him back to these four walls. By the time they come for him, Khalid’s barely conscious.
The sudden ache of being tightly chained and dragged from the room makes him scream like a tiny baby.
Not to worry, the thought flashes through him. They interrogated me yesterday and then left me on the floor to freeze, but I slept for three hours straight.
When they push him into a dark room, so cold that even the man in the black suit in the corner is hugging himself for warmth, Khalid knows something’s up. The room’s so dark and gloomy, he can barely locate the slanting plank behind him, an old cloth slung on top, let alone the tap on the wall.
The suited man glances at Khalid as if he’s scum. Khalid raises his head to stare back but his eyes soon close, his mouth runs dry and he can’t stop shivering. Then a burning sensation starts up in his stomach. What the hell are they going to try now?
The sound of gurgling water from the tap echoes round the room. On the floor, a dirty glass jug stands beside a stinking drain. They’ve run out of toilet buckets, Khalid guesses.
Get on with it, he thinks, as they rip off the shackles and tear off his crumpled T-shirt and navy trousers, stripping him naked. The full force of the freezing temperature throws him into such a shivering fit, he can hardly cover himself with his hands.
Suddenly wide awake, Khalid’s shocked by the steely gaze of the suited man, who clearly means business of some awful kind.
“You spoke in a secret code when online?” he says.
“No, it was normal computer chat,” Khalid says. “We were playing a stupid game.”
“Ah, so you did communicate by code?”
His mind is so scrambled his words come out slowly and exaggerated. “We all talked in text lingo. Don’t, please stop. I can’t take it.” Khalid shudders, remembering so many past conversations just like this. “Please.” He stares up at the man, his eyes red raw from lack of sleep.
“Who’s ‘we all’?” the man says, ignoring his pleas.
“Us gamers,” Khalid stutters. “Let. Me. Go. Please. Please.”
“You insist on dragging this out,” the man says, casting a shadow over his ugly face with a fat hand. “Unless you start talking now, we have no choice but to take stricter measures to loosen your tongue!”
“Help me,” Khalid whimpers.
Three guards shuffle closer to Khalid. In this state he can barely stand up, but he knows the guards are baiting him in the hope he’ll lash out and they can have some fun “restraining” him. The sudden whiff of body odor makes Khalid want to heave, while something worse than fear lodges in his chest. Quickening his heart. Crushing him. Emptying his mind, while his teeth chatter noisily on and on.
“Don’t. Don’t.”
All it takes is a nod and the guards reach for him. Their sudden warm breath prickles the hairs on Khalid’s neck as they shove him towards the plank, which they straighten with a kick. Then remove the cloth. Taking either end of him, they lift him up and hold him down until his feet, neck and hands are straight.
Gasping, Khalid cries out, “What are you doing? Don’t hurt me. Don’t . . .” A smiling guard slaps his face with the back of his hand.
They don’t need to use the ropes to keep him on the plank thanks to the built-in straps underneath. They unfasten them like leather belts before throwing them over his body to bind his forehead, chest and feet with clamp-like force.
When they tip the plank back, Khalid’s thrown upside down with a sickening thump. Blood rushes to his head, cold feet in the air.
“This is your last chance,” the man says, standing over him, holding his ankles. “Tell us what you know and we’ll let you go home.”
“Please. There’s nothing . . . Don’t.”
Eyes closed, their hands pressing down on his shoulders, Khalid hears the jug being filled with water at high velocity. A cloth lands on his face. More hands hold it down, so that he breathes in the smell of gauze bandages, and at the same time a trickle of cold water pours through the cloth and down his nose and mouth.
At first, Khalid coughs and splutters, gags, sucks the cloth into his nose and mouth, which suffocates him. Struggling, his hands jerk and tremble to get away from the straps and he tries to vomit. Groaning. But the rough hands clamp him down more. A split-second memory of Dad’s ghostly face passes through his dying mind as water floods his face.
Dad, help me, help me. Don’t let them kill me.
A flicker of breath sits there—just that bit out of reach. His mouth opens to grab it, battle for it. Spitting. Gurgling the pouring water, but his neck goes rigid with the effort to breathe—with the effort to cough. A slush of water hits his ears.
“Tell us what you know!” the mad man shouts.
Dad, they’re killing me. Help me. And still the water comes. Drowning him in slow motion. Choking him. Suffocating him. His swelling, bursting lungs force his neck muscles to go limp and he swallows and swallows.
“Are you ready to admit your involvement with al-Qaeda? That you and others planned to bomb London?” The man’s voice sounds a million miles away.
With a clack, the plank straightens. The water stops and Khalid spews violently, coughing up his guts, spluttering for breath, opening his sore, bleary eyes. Through the gauze, he sees the suited man standing over him.
He leans down right into his face, his stinking warm breath washing all over Khalid. “Admit your part in the plot and we’ll let you go.”
Khalid yelps, choking violently. Mumbling a watery something even he can’t understand, because he’s soon tipped back, gagging for breath under the cloth again, and even though Dad’s face is there in his mind he can’t reach him.
A few seconds pass before the next wave of water bubbles down Khalid’s nose and rushes down his throat. Blocking air. Mouth closed until he splutters. Choking. Gagging wildly before he loses consciousness with the smell of open drains drifting up from the floor as they kick the plank straight with a thud. The shock of a sharp elbow in his stomach makes him vomit again.
“Are you ready yet?”
The stupid question is worth nothing more in response than a thin, gray, watery stream of sick from Khalid’s mouth and nose and a violent ache in his belly. Gulping for breath, grabbing for air, trying to store oxygen to breathe, he groans and coughs, watching over himself as he chokes to death while time stands still and they tower above him.
The sound of a dog barking outside loops round the dark room as they force Khalid down again. He’s shivering worse than ever as they tip the plank up—feet in the air. Sending the blood to his head in another sickening rush.
“This procedure will continue until you confess your part in the worldwide bombing campaign you planned with known accomplices,” the man says firmly.
The ice-cold water floods Khalid’s face again. The slow-motion drowning starts again. But he’s ready this time and he closes his throat, spits out the bubbling water leaking down his lungs. A bolt of air sticks in his throat—suspending him in a long, still moment between life and death before he gags, struggling for air he doesn’t even want any more. His life flashes past him like a fast-moving film. Sinking. Falling. Dying.
It’s OK, Dad. I don’t care.
They swing him back up the second he goes under, the sudden movement shooting his body back into place with a violent thump to his chest. Blood rushes from his head to his heart. Fists pound his belly to bring the water up again as he vomits the racking pain in his head, wringing himself inside out. A sudden wave of air tears his chest from his body as the plank wobbles.
Gasping for air, on it goes, this hell on earth, only this time, the moment Khalid begins coming round, he gives in and holds up a shaking finger to show he’s had enough.
“I did it,” he whispers, voice red raw from coughing. With a sharp pain at the back of his nose, his naked body falls to the slippery floor the moment the straps are undone. The suited man looms over him with half a grin on his ugly face. A grin that Khalid reaches for with a blue, trembling fist. Waggling his hand with the serious intention of punching his smile out, his teeth too. But then he falls, cracking his forehead on the wet floor.
“Bring him through,” the man says to the guards, barely noticing the twisted body floundering and crying in watery sick next to the drain. Khalid trembles, the blood from his head running down his face as he gasps and gasps for air. The pain is so deep and sharp, all he can do is wipe his weeping eyes with a damp wrist and give up on everything, on life, on the whole of mankind.
The guards do their best to dress Khalid while holding on to his shivering body. One clutches his small waist with an elbow, while the other pulls up the prison overalls.
“You only lasted ten seconds. The last guy did twenty,” one of them sneers.
There’s no towel to dry him, wipe the blood from his head or clear his waterlogged ears. What animal is worth a towel when he’s been deemed a dangerous terrorist?
Once the shackles are safely in place, they drag Khalid next door, throw him into a chair and tie his feet to rings bolted on the floor. Sitting opposite him, on the other side of the black table, his torturer curls his thin lips.
“Let me go now,” Khalid begs, but the man smiles.
He’s smiling, Khalid thinks. How can he smile? Spitting more water from his lungs, breathing rapidly while doing his best not to choke, he tries to swallow normally even though his throat hurts, his nose aches, his eyes feel raw and he wouldn’t mind dying.
“These are the crimes you’ve confessed to in the presence of four witnesses. Read them before signing and make the changes you want.” He pushes the pages towards Khalid, along with a
pen.
Khalid tries to breathe but his throat snaps shut, his mind spins and his eyes feel sprinkled with sand. Then, finding a last tiny drop of dignity and pride, instead of crying he pulls himself up and says in a state of breathless shock, “How come this is already printed?”
Narrowing his eyes, the man pauses before running a chubby thumb over his bottom lip. A steely look begins creeping over his face again and Khalid gets the message.
“Sign these, then you can go home.”
You can go home. Finally, the words he’s waited so long to hear. Quickly, Khalid signs all eight pages, his sore, streaming eyes barely able to focus on the words swimming in front of him.
Back in the cell, it seems that having him sign the confession after drowning him isn’t quite enough for them. The lights are still on, blazing down as always, and it’s colder than ever, the air-conditioning unit on full. The green light’s blinking on and off for no reason, as it always does. Is this what they call home, then? This cell?
Khalid is unable to think of anything but killing that ugly guy. Anger boils inside him, feeding on itself until it overtakes every other desire, even the desire to see his family again. His mind feels sharper than he can ever remember. How many seconds did he last? The guy said ten. Ten short seconds and it was over, but it felt like half an hour. In that time Khalid saw his whole life flash before him. Saw Niamh in the library, saw himself playing football down the park, scoring a goal and discussing a new game plan for the match against Heywood. He saw himself arguing with Mum, walking behind Dad down the road—pretending he wasn’t with him because he felt ashamed. How can you see all that in just ten seconds and decide to die—say goodbye to your life and then let go in that short amount of time? As well as relive everything you’ve ever done wrong. See the faces of everyone you’ve ever hurt. How?
