by Samira Ahmed
I want to sit here and not say anything. All night. Me. David, with the floral notes of his clean clothes and the minty smell of his soap and the intimate, familiar ways our bodies fold into each other. It’s what all humans want, isn’t it? To be known? And David knows me. But we don’t have world enough, or time. We have minutes. Seconds. Soon, we’ll return to reality—barbed wire and electric fence.
“Layla, listen, they’re not closing this place down. Another camp is opening in a few weeks. They’ve expanded the Muslim ban. Total immigration lockdown, and for tourists, too. Even if you’re not Muslim but are from a Muslim-majority country. But I have an idea.”
The news guts me. “An idea? For what?”
“Look, I don’t know if this would work, but remember how I told you my dad said something about people making themselves useful?”
I nod, not sure where David is going. Not sure I want to know.
“It got me thinking. What if, like—” He pauses, takes a deep breath. He’s never uncomfortable around me. But now I sense his muscles tense. His words are all stuck in him, and he’s trying to force them out.
“David, you’re making me nervous. What is it?”
“Do you think you could convince your parents to help the government with—”
My mouth drops open and I turn to David, grabbing the flashlight and directing its glare at his face. He puts up his hand to shield his eyes, so I lower the beam. “What? You want my parents to help the assholes who put us in here? What the fuck, David? Did your dad put you up to this?”
“No. He has no idea. I thought that maybe if I could go to him and tell him your parents would, like, cooperate somehow, then he’d try to help get you guys out of here. I wasn’t thinking that they’d be holding guns to people’s heads; they’d have to, I don’t know, translate stuff, maybe? Keep the Authority informed.”
Tears flow down my face. David has punched a hole through my center. I open my mouth. Stutter. I have so many words I want to scream right now, but they’re all frozen inside me. And I can’t scream. Not here. Not anywhere in this camp. “David, have you lost your mind? You’re the one person I have. The one person I trust on the outside, and now you want to make my parents—what—collaborators? You want us to inform on other Muslims to save ourselves? They would never do that, and neither would I.” I scoot away from him, then stand.
David reaches out to touch me. I pull away. He stands up and cups my cheek with his hand. For an instant, I relax into it, the warmth, the familiar curve of his palm touching my skin. I sigh. Then I step back, the rage building inside me. I turn my back to him, trying to figure out what to say. He comes around and draws me into his arms, but I shove him back. He bends down and whispers into my ear, “Layla. Listen to me. Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you or hurt you. But what if this is the only way to get you out? To keep you safe?”
“Who are you right now? Your mom is brown. Her last name is Shabazi, and without your dad’s protection, some ignorant fascists might’ve mistakenly forced her into this camp, too. And you want us to cooperate with them? Do you actually believe your dad would even go for your stupid idea? Did you even think this through?”
“I was thinking I love you. That’s all. I’m terrified—scared that you’ll get hurt, or worse. I want you out of here because I know what happens to people who get sent to camps. My whole family knows. Don’t you understand? I’m going crazy every second you’re away from me.” His voice breaks. “I don’t know how else to help you.”
I clench my jaw, but David’s words also pierce my heart. “If you even knew me at all, you would’ve realized how stupid it was to even ask.” I look up at David, fury in my eyes. But there’s also doubt in my heart. What I wouldn’t give to be out of here. To be free. To know my parents are safe. To do regular, everyday things. To take a walk. To breathe. To sleep. But even if I begged my parents to do this, I can’t imagine them giving in. If they wouldn’t lie on the census—a small lie to hide us—they certainly aren’t going to become traitors or spies. Even if they never saw who they were hurting, they would know that they were condemning people to internment—or worse. And living an ethical life, a moral life, is important to them. I can hear my dad’s voice now, and I repeat the words that come to mind: “In the quiet of night, the heart knows the lies you told to survive.”
“Who said that?” David asks.
“My dad,” I whisper.
“Okay, then. Exactly. Sometimes you have to do what you need to do to survive. Live to fight another day.”
“No, David. That’s not what the poem means. It means that you can never escape your lies, even if you think you have. Even if it was to survive. The lies—your deception—are always with you.”
David sinks into himself like he’s been punched. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his face look so pale. Only now do I notice the bruise-like circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.
Tears well in his eyes. He clears his throat. His voice is barely a whisper. “I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid of what they could do to you. If something happens to you…”
“Don’t you think I’m scared, too?” I take a few steps to the door.
“Layla, I’m sorry. Please. I’m staying in town. I’m not going home. I’ll figure out another way. I’m not leaving here without you.”
The door opens. Jake is standing there. I can’t imagine what the two of us look like. What I look like. Face wet with tears, eyes swollen.
“David, stay here, like I instructed you. I’ll drive you out under the tarp, same as the way we came in. Don’t make a sound.”
David nods at Jake’s instructions, then looks at me and says, “I love you. I’m sorry.” He steps back into the darkness, and Jake closes the door.
Jake and I hurry across the Midway. I let him guide me, pulling me away from the light beams and into the shadows. Tears run down my face, too fast for me to wipe them away. I thought David would be able to help me somehow, and instead he wants us to become informers? I swipe my sleeve across my nose. My entire world is upside down.
Jake produces a tissue from his pocket and hands it to me. “I don’t think…” He pauses and rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “He’s trying to help your family.”
I ball my hands into fists. Anger wells inside me. “Don’t you think I know that? And were you listening in on us?”
“I heard most of it. It was hard not to. It’s a flimsy toolshed; it’s not soundproof. He’s desperate, that’s all.”
“I’m desperate, too. But what he’s suggesting—that’s not an option. We can’t do that. If we do, we’ll be as bad as—” I look up at Jake and then stop myself and turn away.
“Go ahead. Finish your sentence. You’ll be as bad as me?” He winces as he says this.
My mouth goes dry. What I said might’ve been terribly stupid or dangerous. I can’t speak.
Jake’s eyes scan the area with each step. He’s cautious, always observing and adjusting his behavior to the situation. He never speaks if anyone could possibly overhear. “Layla, listen to me. I told you before. It’s not cut and dried. On the outside or in here. Things are happening. People are organizing. They’re making their way down here. That little town, Independence? It’s filling up with media and protestors—Occupy Mobius, they’re calling themselves. The secretary of war got doxed by Anonymous—you know, the hactivist group?”
I stop and look at Jake, my eyes wide, and nod. My stomach churns. We were getting dribs and drabs of news from the outside, but nothing like this. Inside here we’re frozen in time. Stuck. But outside, the world is still moving. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because what I think David wanted to tell you—what he might’ve told you if he weren’t so terrified of losing you—is don’t give up.”
We arrive back at my trailer door. “So maybe there’s still hope?” I whisper.
Jake takes a half step toward me. “Insha’Allah,” he whispers.
Insha’Allah.
Jake’s voice rings in my ears. I’m not sure what it means that he said that. God willing. Everything and nothing? Like so much of life inside here, where you have to read into the tiniest gestures—whether they are dangerous, whether a wave means to hide or to say hello.
I slide my hand under my pillow and pull out the note Jake passed to me this morning when I was getting some of our food rations—a note from David, which I guess he scribbled and gave to Jake after he’d driven him out of here. The note is an apology. It’s a promise to help me in whatever way I think is best. Before seeing David, I thought our getting out was the most important thing, but when David came up with this ridiculous collaborator scheme, I realized I couldn’t leave everyone behind. There are too many people who could get hurt. Perhaps I’m stupid and too short-sighted to see what the real fallout could be. Maybe this pain in my stomach is remorse; maybe it’s fear because I’m starting to understand what I have to do.
“You should consider it,” Ayesha says when I tell her about David’s proposition. We’re at the rock garden. She doesn’t say it, but she keeps glancing across the Midway, looking for Soheil, I’m assuming.
“How can you even suggest that?”
“It might be your only way out. We keep talking about escaping, but how? Even if we got ourselves and our families out, where would we go? Try to get to Mexico? With all the border security? If we didn’t die trying to get through the fence or smuggling ourselves out in a supply truck, we’d get shot trying to climb the border wall, even though we were going into Mexico.”
I grab Ayesha’s hand. “I’m not leaving you behind. I didn’t even tell my parents about it. I don’t want them to be tempted. They might do it for me, but I can’t imagine them being able to live with themselves if they made that choice.”
“They’re scared. Parents will do anything to protect their kids. If I had that offer, I don’t know if I could say no.” Ayesha’s voice cracks.
“Remember what your dad said to you about fear when you were in the spelling bee? Soheil, too? About how we should be scared, about how we can use that?” Ayesha looks up at me, and it doesn’t escape my notice that her eyes brighten every time Soheil’s name comes up. Small blessings—I’m increasingly aware of and thankful for them. “We can’t fight back in here—not by ourselves. Jake told me there’s stuff happening on the outside. We need to make those people see what is happening on the inside.”
“Jake?”
“The guard who helped me make the call to David.”
“You’re on a first-name basis with that guard? He can hurt us, for no reason. He has a gun to shoot us. Do you even know what you’re doing right now?”
Shit. “I don’t think it’s like that with him.” I explain what Jake said to me, but Ayesha isn’t convinced.
“Anyone can say ‘insha’Allah.’ It doesn’t make them Muslim, or even if they are, it doesn’t mean they’re on our side. He could be saying that to win your trust.”
I get what Ayesha’s saying. I spent half the night lying awake wondering about it. Some Muslims I know, like this one uncle, says it all the time, like it means “hopefully.” One of the girls at the masjid complained that her mom basically used it as a nice way of saying no—“Mom, can I go to the movies tomorrow?” “Insha’Allah, beta.” I know non-Muslims who say insha’Allah, God willing. But Jake’s saying it doesn’t feel flippant or like a trick. “I know how it seems. How it is. But I think he wants to help us. He used the word as a sign, or a—”
“A shibboleth. He used it as a shibboleth,” she says.
I shrug.
“It’s a word you can use to distinguish who’s on your side and who isn’t. I can’t remember all the details, but it comes from a story in the Hebrew Bible. One group was able to detect their enemies by their inability to pronounce the word ‘shibboleth’ with the sh sound.”
“So the word ‘shibboleth’ is a shibboleth.”
“Yup, basically.”
I look into Ayesha’s eyes. “I know you’re scared. But in my gut I know that Jake’s not the enemy.” I hope my gut isn’t wrong, because it’s not just my life I’m risking; it’s her life, too.
Ayesha shakes her head. “I don’t know, Layla. It’s a leap, and a dangerous one.”
“I won’t take any unnecessary risks,” I promise, but even as I say the words, I know they are a lie.
Ayesha gives me a small nod in response, which I take as agreement.
“Have you read any Nietzsche?” I ask.
Ayesha furrows her eyebrows at me and shakes her head. “That’s not how I usually spend summer vacation.”
“He said something like, all I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with and I can turn the world upside down.”
“So you’re planning on busting us all out of here with your cruel, cutting words? What is brewing in your brain?”
“Have you ever heard of the White Rose?”
She doesn’t answer me. She’s looking at Soheil as he approaches the garden. A smile spreads across her face.
“Hey,” he says as he draws closer.
“Hey,” Ayesha replies.
“Hey,” he says again.
Then there’s silence. Ayesha looks at her shoes and kicks at the dirt a bit. Soheil stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Um, was I also supposed to say ‘hey’? Is that the reason for the awkward silence?” I ask.
Ayesha turns to me and widens her eyes in a way that shows she’s embarrassed, and also telling me to shut up. I ignore her and move to another rock so Soheil can take a seat on the boulder next to her.
“What were you saying about the White Rose?” Ayesha asks me.
“The White Rose?” Soheil jumps in. “The brother and sister from World War Two who wrote all those pamphlets urging other German college students to resist the Nazis?”
“Yeah,” I respond. “I don’t remember every detail of their story, but I know they used their words to try to resist the Nazis.”
“I’m familiar with their story,” Soheil responds. “And it doesn’t have a happy ending. They were a group of students, and two of the leaders were Hans and Sophie Scholl. They handed out leaflets denouncing Hitler, totally risking their lives. They even advocated sabotaging the war efforts.”
“They sound pretty badass,” Ayesha says.
Soheil continues. “Totally brave. But then a janitor at their university turned them in, and they were both executed. Some of the others were, too. By guillotine.”
Ayesha raises a hand to her mouth. “That’s horrible,” she whispers.
“Why were you talking about them anyway?” Soheil asks. “Are you two figuring you’re going to agitate? Resist?”
As Soheil talks, I feel bile rising in my throat, but I also begin to remember more of the White Rose story from history class. They were killed because they refused to lie down and do nothing. They didn’t stay silent. “During the trial I think Sophie said, ‘Somebody, after all, had to make a start.’ Didn’t she? I think I remember seeing that in my textbook. And she was right. Somebody has to make a start. And it might as well be us.”
Ayesha gulps. “But do you want to do leaflets in here?”
“No. I want to write stories that will rile people up on the outside. And I’m going to ask David to get them out there. I know he’s afraid. But at some point we have to stop talking and start reminding people of who we are. Americans. Human beings.”
“So say we all.” Ayesha puts her hand on my forearm. “But I’d like to avoid the capture-and-guillotine part.”
“They don’t use the guillotine anymore,” Soheil says.
Ayesha elbows him. “Not helping. I’m serious.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he responds. “Total crap thing to say or be flip about.”
“Guys, look. This whole situation is bullshit. But I know we have to be careful. We can’t play ar
ound with some half-assed romantic idea that we’ll be the next Resistance. We have to think about it, be smart, know who we can trust. But it’s like Sophie said: Somebody has to make a start. And it might as well be us.” When I say this, I can hear the resolve in my voice, but inside I’m shaking. The confidence is a mask, like some of the lies we tell to make it through the day. “Fake it till you make it” is one of the most American attitudes I can think of.
“Okay, so say, like, you write these stories. How are you going to get them to David—your boyfriend, right? He’s on the outside?” Soheil asks. David’s name has come up before, but Soheil doesn’t know the whole story about how Jake is helping me. When I share it with him, his mouth drops open, and for once he’s too stunned to speak.
“So, I’m going to see if maybe I can convince Jake to help me see David again.”
“Wait. Wait. I’m sorry. I’m still stuck on the part about David getting snuck in by a guard. An Exclusion Guard. One that you’re on first-name basis with.” Soheil narrows his eyes at me.
“He’s not just a guard. I mean he is, but there’s more to it—to him.”
“Then he should stand up and say something, shouldn’t he? Fight back?” Soheil says.
“Maybe he wants to do something but doesn’t know where to begin. Or maybe he is helping us, in some way, and we don’t know how yet. I trust Layla’s gut on this. And it’s not like she’s telling him all our plans.” Ayesha comes to my defense, but I hear her voice falter a little. She wants to believe in me. And I want to be worthy of her trust.
“There is no plan,” Soheil says. He’s terse, and I can see Ayesha tense up. But she doesn’t back down.
“That’s the point of this conversation, to make a plan. And anyway, Layla said she was going to write, like, an article and get it to David. That’s the seed.” Ayesha squares her shoulders to Soheil. “No one is forcing you to be here. But if you’re going to be, at least be helpful.”
Soheil takes a breath and nods. “I’m here. I’m in. I’m with you. Of course I am.” His voice softens as he speaks. “I’m playing devil’s advocate, is all. I don’t want you to get hurt. Or anyone else, either.”