“It’s true. I knew about the relationship.” Both her parents looked at her in disbelief.
“Really, you knew? And you didn’t tell us?” their mother asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “He wanted to tell you himself when he got back.”
It didn’t matter, their father said.
“Now’s not the time to go down that road. We can talk about everything later. We have to go get him.”
And that’s what they tried to do.
Maya didn’t discourage them from flying to Gambia. She knew better than to try and reason with parental love. It was only natural for them to want to be as close to Andrew as possible and see for themselves that he was okay, even if they weren’t thinking through the situation enough to realize there was little, if anything, they could accomplish by being there. She did warn them, however, there was a chance they would be denied entry into the country.
“The government approaches anti-homosexuality laws seriously. I wouldn’t put it past them to refuse entry to individuals they know are coming to somehow play a role contesting those laws.”
She was right. When the three of them anxiously stepped off the plane in Banjul and went up to the immigration desk, trying to keep their anger in check, they were told they were not welcome in the country. The government, it appeared, had blacklisted their names. They were given no official explanation and were dealt with harshly by the staff at the airport before being put back on their plane, which was returning to Dakar. They stayed there in a hotel for five days, even trying to unsuccessfully cross into Gambia by land where they thought they’d have better luck. When they finally accepted being in Senegal wasn’t ameliorating Andrew’s situation, they flew home, followed Maya’s suggestion, and began meeting with members of the government and media, whoever would see them. His parents, his same parents who had worked so hard their whole adult lives to cultivate a life and image for themselves different from what Andrew wanted for himself, were now on television screens and newspapers, and in offices and on the phone with anyone who would listen to them, demanding that their gay son arrested for being in a relationship with an African man be freed.
Knowing that the trial, its onset or conclusion, presented a slim chance of Andrew’s release, they both flew back to Senegal the weekend before it was slated to begin. Senegal was the first stop back to the U.S. for most travelers leaving Gambia. If Andrew was let go, it was surely where he’d be sent. They wanted to be there if that happened.
“And did you finally reach my family?” Thomas asked Abdou. His voice was tentative, afraid of the answer.
“Not really.”
“You weren’t able to speak to anyone?”
Abdou looked hesitant. “I spoke to your brother, Sheriff,” he said. “He wanted me to tell you it would be difficult for him and your parents to attend the trial. Work for everyone is very busy now.”
“Is that what he told you? Exactly?” he asked, knowing Abdou was lying to him.
“Yes, that is what he told me,” Abdou answered, not breaking his eyes from Thomas’s. “He said they are monitoring events closely.”
This much, Thomas assumed was true.
In actuality, Abdou had been much more persistent with Thomas’s family than he let on. He tried calling John, Grace, and Sheriff. Upon introducing himself to John and Sheriff, they immediately made it known they wanted nothing to do with him or Thomas, and hung up. His father threatened Abdou if he called again.
Refusing to give up so easily, Abdou tracked down Sheriff, going to the area of town he worked in to seek him out. It was a narrow street, with wires crisscrossing overhead, siphoning power from paying buildings to the body shops, each demarcated with a hand-painted sign. The noises of buzzing tools filled the air; the street was strewn with rubbish. Walking past the rows of cluttered and greasy auto repair stalls, workers poorly protected – if at all – from the sparks their tools sent flying, he found a man sitting behind a desk with a stack of papers who bore a faint resemblance to Thomas. Abdou exchanged a warm greeting with this man, even calling him brother.
“Yes, how can I help you,” Sheriff responded, looking up at the smartly dressed man before him.
When Abdou didn’t immediately respond, Sheriff’s brow furrowed, making Abdou nervous.
“Mister Sheriff,” he said, “we spoke briefly on the phone. I am Abdou, Thomas’s lawyer.”
Sheriff rose from behind the desk. He was much taller and bigger than Abdou and extended out his broad shoulders, reinforcing his size. He checked and saw there was no one else near them.
“I said already I do not want to talk to you, and I have nothing to say to that man.” Sheriff’s tone was sarcastic when he called his brother a man. He chastised Abdou for defending him saying people like that man don’t deserve any protection. Leaning over, placing his hands on the end of the desk, Sheriff brought his angry face closer to Abdou and stared at him sternly. Again he glanced from side to side. Leaning even closer to Abdou, he whispered fiercely. You tell that sick man he’s finished to us.
Abdou swallowed deeply, nodded his head, said nothing, and backed away. He hurried down the narrow street, seeking to be out in the open, where the hostility was less suffocating. When the sunshine finally hit his face, he stopped and took it in for a second. He thought of his brother, and of his two children. Siblings.
“What about my mother?” Thomas asked Abdou. “Did you speak to my mother, Abdou? She also said she is not coming? Or has no message?”
Thomas’s expression was pained. He knew his mother’s predicament. First off, like his father and brother, Thomas had no illusions about what his mother’s thoughts on homosexuality were. He also knew she would be powerless to try and influence John and Sheriff’s disgust and disapproval, which he correctly predicted would lead to disownership. Still, if anyone was going to react differently, less harshly, it would be her. She had spent his whole childhood trying to protect him from life’s harshness. Surely that maternal instinct, the shared bond of the strongest kind between mother and son, could not instantly and completely evaporate. A part of him refused to believe his mother could so easily shut her eyes and her mind to the fact that he was, after everything, still her son.
“I never spoke to her,” Abdou said, his eyes projecting sympathy.
It was somewhat true. When Abdou called the shop where Grace worked as a seamstress, he expected her to hang up as soon as she learned who he was. Instead, Grace went silent, but she didn’t hang up the phone. So Abdou spoke, assuming she was listening.
“I am your son Thomas’s lawyer,” he told her. “His situation is quite serious, as I’m sure you are aware. I have little hope this matter will resolve itself or disappear without going to trial, something you probably wish would not happen. For this I am sorry; I am sorry about what this has meant for your family. If I am being honest with you, it has also been difficult for me too, and also my family.” He paused, waiting to see if she would say anything.
Silence.
“But, Mrs. Sow, it has not deterred me from doing my job, from providing Thomas with the defense he is entitled to under our laws. Even though now you might be confused, or angry with him for behaving how they say he has, let me assure you that just as any other Gambian, he deserves to have his case defended, and this is what I am doing.
“I know he is feeling quite alone. You don’t have to now, but maybe, perchance, if you ever wanted to visit with him, or pass along a message or a package of sorts for him, I would facilitate this. It would make him feel less alone to know he is being thought of.”
Abdou generally avoided getting overly personal with clients and their families. Worried he might be straying too far, and not wanting to take advantage of Grace’s attention, he concluded his monologue.
“I do not know your son that well, Mrs. Sow. But I have come to know him a little bit.” Abdou hesitated slightly. “Despite what he is accused of, he is still a good man, a decent person.” He exhaled as if to sig
nal he was finished. He heard a crackle on the other end of the phone before the line went dead.
Abdou looked across the table at Thomas. He moved his eyes and furrowed his brow. He looked like he was thinking of what to say.
“I did call your mother. She was silent. It was difficult for her to speak. I told her you are safe and that you are strong. That we are defending the charges vigorously. I believe this would have brought her some relief.”
Thomas sighed. “Good.”
Before getting up to leave his clients, Abdou reminded Thomas and Andrew about how the trial would unfold. It would last for five days. “Maybe six if there are delays, but they’ll prefer to finish in one week.” The state’s case will take the first three days, the first morning for opening statements and then the witnesses for two days beginning the same afternoon. Abdou would start calling their witnesses on the afternoon of the third day. He would first begin with a short opening statement responding to the government’s case.
“On the fifth day we will have closing submissions before the judge retires to deliberate.” Deliberation, he said, was unpredictable. “Sometimes only a few hours, other times several days.” He told them he expected the courtroom would be packed. There would be many journalists from all across Africa, and even a few from the West and observers from NGOs. “We can thank our American friend for this,” he said turning to Andrew.
As much as Thomas took comments like that as stinging reminders of his failure to protect Andrew, they were also welcome reminders that if it weren’t for him, the trial risked being far more slanted. With all the attention it attracted, it had to conform to the country’s highest legal protections for accused persons. “They don’t want to be accused of any irregularities,” Abdou told them.
By now the afternoon had dragged on. As most of the conversation was repetitious, Thomas started to fade. His mind lost focus as he withdrew from the conversation. It was all getting to be too much for him. He didn’t want to return to his cell. He wished they could sit there, in silence, undisturbed. Maybe even, for a brief moment, he could close his eyes and pretend to be somewhere else.
When Thomas sensed Abdou was winding up, he exhaled to signal his relief that the conversation was ending. Abdou responded by closing his notebook and standing up, before reaching over the table and placing one hand on each of their shoulders. He squeezed each tightly.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve already endured up until now. But you must be brave,” he said to them. “It will be a long and difficult week. Are you ready for it?” he asked them.
Andrew nodded but looked terrified.
The look on his face shook Thomas. He knew how terrifying this must be for Andrew and worried desperately he might not have the mental fortitude to endure. It’s why despite having lost almost all hope, he did his best to project strength and confidence.
“Yes,” Thomas said definitively. He looked over at Andrew, reached out to touch his hand before looking back up Abdou. “We can survive what comes next. We have already survived.”
22
As Andrew stood up, Thomas put his index finger over his mouth, signaling to be silent. The gate to the compound was locked from the inside. They could hear movement on the other side, but no voices. All the cars had shut off their engines. Thomas took Andrew’s hand and they started walking backward, slowly, away from the gate towards the wall that separated Andrew’s compound from Isatou’s, all the while keeping their eyes fixed straight ahead. When the footsteps passed behind Isatou’s wall, Andrew knew they were not going to get away from whoever was there.
Four uniformed police officers hopped the walls of the compound, two in the front and two in the back. They all pointed their guns at Thomas and Andrew. “Get to the ground!” they yelled.
One of the officers unlocked the gate and four more officers entered the compound. An officer barked at Andrew to stand up, which he did. He was instructed to accompany an officer inside the house to retrieve his passport. Standing, in the moment before he took his first step, Andrew turned his eyes to the faces of the men sent to arrest him. What stuck out most about them was how indistinguishable they were from any other Gambian. They didn’t look evil or villainous. They were intimidating, but that was because they were sweating and holding guns. They appeared no different than those who he played soccer with on Sundays, shared classrooms with at school, or encountered in shops and restaurants.
A torrent of thoughts flooded Andrew’s mind as he walked past Thomas to fetch his passport. Thomas was trapped. Andrew was an American citizen and the authorities knew it. Why would they be asking for his passport if it wasn’t important? He thought they would deport him. The unfairness of his presumed privilege brought more pain than relief. At the prospect of being sent away, Andrew was overridden by guilt.
He came out from his house and hesitantly glanced down at Thomas, lying flat on the ground with four armed officers standing over him muttering in Wolof. One of the other officers who wasn’t holding a gun reached out and took the passport. As soon as Andrew handed it over he felt that he abandoned Thomas and grew angry at himself. When the other officers lifted Thomas to his feet they stared at each other. Andrew’s dejected expression was his way of saying I’m sorry. Thomas seemed to understand, and in return, Andrew read his expression as saying don’t be.
“You are both to come with us,” said the officer who acted like he was in charge. He spoke without emotion. He stopped briefly to look at the other officers before uttering a hurried let’s go. The officers forcefully whisked them out of the compound, placing them into separate cars. As they looked helplessly and hopelessly at one another through the windows it occurred to Andrew the officer never in fact said they were arrested. Maybe this will all be over soon, he thought to himself. Maybe he was being deported. But then what about Thomas?
No one spoke to Andrew during the drive. They drove into the heart of Banjul to a midsized building he had never seen before. A sign hung over the entrance that said Gambia Police Headquarters. They pulled into the back parking lot while the vehicle carrying Thomas kept driving. Andrew tried to follow it with his eyes but it quickly disappeared. As it did, he began to panic, scanning his surroundings and feeling suddenly alone.
They led him through an entrance in the back with a small sign on the door announcing it was for the Serious Crimes Unit. Andrew had never heard of it before but knew enough to know it didn’t sound good. An older looking officer appeared to be waiting for him. He wore a crisp navy blue uniform. One of the officers who accompanied Andrew handed over his passport, which the older officer leafed through before taking it behind a desk to a computer.
What Andrew noticed most about those first few minutes was the silence. No one had spoken to him. The room itself was nearly silent. Only a few officers and staff were present, shuffling behind desks with small stacks of paper. Light bulbs overhead hung loosely from fixtures. The walls were the pale tan color ubiquitous among the country’s poorly maintained, aged buildings. It wasn’t dilapidated per se, but close.
“Andrew Turner,” said the older officer as he walked back towards Andrew. He held open Andrew’s passport as if reading out his name from the page. He dragged out the last part of his surname, saying it more like Turneerrrr to add effect. Stopping right in front of him, he closed the passport and held it out to his side as one of the other officers grabbed it instantly. “The American homosexual.”
Suddenly Andrew lost his bearings. The walls, the lights, the people behind the desk, they were all blocked by the stern-looking face of the older police officer staring right at him, holding him with his gaze. He tried to calm his breathing to appear less nervous.
“Come with me.”
As Andrew was led down the corridor, the vehicle carrying Thomas pulled up to the headquarters of Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency. He prayed as Andrew’s car backed up first that they would drive off in different directions, that Andrew’s car would make for the airport. It didn’t. T
hey drove off together, in the opposite direction from the airport. Despondent, Thomas sunk further into the seat. When he saw that his car didn’t follow Andrew into the police headquarters, he presumed he was being taken to the NIA and was relieved Andrew wasn’t going with him. The NIA was notorious for mistreating persons it detained, many of whom were held for long periods of time without ever being charged.
Nearing the building, Thomas’s car slowed before the parking lot and turned on an adjoining street. As far as Thomas could see, it was completely deserted, frozen by the fluorescent streetlight. But when the car pulled to a stop he noticed several figures standing in a doorway of the building to his right. Their faces were covered in balaclavas and they wore all black. The only thing he could make out, thanks to the reflection from the streetlight, was a machete, tucked into the belt of one of them.
His car sat idle for a second. He inhaled a deep breath to try and keep his nerves at bay for what he presumed was to come. From ahead he saw headlights approaching. Just as he was able to see it was a jeep, a man opened his car door and dragged Thomas out, throwing him face down onto the street. The men, he couldn’t see or tell how many of them there were, pounced on him and held his limbs down as someone tied a bag over his head.
Thomas was surprised by how little he resisted. As someone lifted him to his feet he could feel what he thought was the butt of a rifle being jabbed into his lower back, shocking him and sending him back down to the ground as those holding him by the arms let go. Falling blindly towards the pavement, he barely had time to place his hands out to stop his face from absorbing the fall. He was kicked several times in the gut and on his sides as he winced to himself and did all he could not to cry out. They lifted him once more after tying his hands together behind his back and threw him into a vehicle, which he presumed was the jeep because it felt higher up than the car, before driving off.
The Order of Nature Page 21
