Internment

by Samira Ahmed

  Jake walks to the back of the kitchen and gestures for me to follow. I do, tentatively, but keep some distance. I’m hyperaware of how far the exits are, and I calculate how fast I’d have to run to get clear of here if I needed to. The kitchen is dark, and Jake opens a closet door.

  “Jake. Corporal Reynolds. I don’t understand what—” I stumble back a little.

  “Layla.” David steps out of the darkness.

  My mouth drops open. David is wearing a khaki jumpsuit with the Exclusion Authority patch on his short sleeve.

  “What the hell?” I look from David to Jake, utterly bewildered.

  “I’ll leave you two alone. But you don’t have a lot of time. The sanitation trucks leave in fifteen minutes. You have five in here.” Jake walks into the dining area.

  My heart stops for a second. My mind races. “David, what’s going on?” I whisper.

  David sees me staring at his uniform. “Oh, this? Corporal Reynolds got me this uniform and arranged for me to sneak in here with the garbage-removal service.”

  “What? How? When did you see him?” My mind floods with questions, and my body pulls me toward David, but I hesitate. Hold back for a second.

  “On the outside, by the motel I’m staying in. Listen, I don’t have time to explain everything; we only have a couple of minutes. I’m sorry about the other day. About everything. I am so scared for you. I didn’t think it through. I never considered what I was actually asking—the compromises I suggested you make. I dunno, I guess I was hoping that I could make some kind of proposal to my dad—your freedom in exchange for you and your parents cooperating with the Exclusion Authority. Like I even have any leverage to do that. My dad would never take me seriously. Or help me. Help us. I’m sorry. But I meant what I said. If you need me, I’m here for you. Tell me what to do.”

  For a moment, I’m stunned. At his words. At this impossible situation. And then I’m in David’s arms, and I see myself like I’m outside my body. Drawing closer to him, closing my eyes, raising my lips to his, letting this place melt away. Kissing him feels like the one thing keeping me really and truly alive in this place. It’s a reminder of everything that has been taken from us, but it also gives me hope. That feeling lasts only a fleeting second, though, because in the next, I wonder if David can hear my stomach churn. I’m ridiculously overjoyed to see him, but also terrified for both of us. If he gets caught in here, like this, I don’t know how much his father can protect him. And my thoughts wander to Jake. I was right: He won’t give us up. And that makes me scared for him, too.

  When we pull away from kissing, I reach into my back pocket and hand over the post I wrote. Tell him my idea. Tell him about the White Rose. About Sophie Scholl. About what I need him to do. What I know he will do.

  Jake clears his throat, loudly. Time. The minutes are long in Mobius, but also there is never enough time.

  “He told you, right? There are people talking and protesting, and the Occupy people are here—the rooms in town are all sold out. They’re sleeping in cars and tents. They brought the press. There’s this reporter at the motel. I talked to her this morning at breakfast. She’s super sympathetic. She has Muslim family. She’ll get your article out there. I’m sure of it. People will hear your words.” Between sentences, David peppers my face with kisses.

  “Please be careful. My name isn’t on that, but if your name is revealed, they’ll come after you. And your parents—”

  “My parents would go apeshit. But I don’t care. I know they want to protect me, but they need to remember the prejudice they’ve faced and fought. They need to wake up. I’ll be okay.” David kisses my forehead. “Trust me.” Then he puts a finger to his lips and slips me a small flip phone. He puts his lips to my ear. “It’s a burner. Don’t tell him. Call or text me when you can.”

  I nod and slip the phone into my front pocket, happy that this old X-Files T-shirt is loose and pulled out of shape so that it stretches down well past my hips and hides the outline of the phone. Then I respond normally. “I do trust you. It’s everyone else in this stupid world I don’t trust. And things are happening here, too. I mean, they will. We’re talking about things happening.”

  “Layla, please don’t give them an excuse to hurt you. This camp is operating outside the law. The attorney general can’t even control it.”

  “I know. I’m on the inside, remember? But I can’t sit by and do nothing.” Sophie Scholl’s words come to mind. “Someone has to make a start.”

  David pulls me into his arms and his hug feels like I’m enveloped in my beloved kantha quilt. “You’re amazing.”

  We stand there for a second. Quiet. And it reminds me of a line from a Walt Whitman poem my dad sometimes whispers to my mom: There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

  “I love you,” David whispers, and runs his index finger across the necklace he gave me.

  When Jake walks back into the kitchen, David kisses me one more time. His kiss is feather-light, and there is a kind of beautiful and bittersweet magic in it. He picks up two bulging black garbage bags and heads out a side entrance. Watching him walk out of the room crushes me.

  Jake pauses, waiting for David to leave before he takes my elbow and directs me back through the main dining hall and outdoors. He’s the one I’m most flummoxed by in all of this.

  He walks unusually slowly, dragging his feet back to my trailer. He scans the space around us and the sky above us and then comes to an abrupt halt and faces me. “Wait. Please.” He pauses. “Writing that story and giving it to David. Jesus. I shouldn’t have snuck him in here. I can only protect you so much. I have orders. If you’re planning on doing something inside here—some kind of civil disobedience or insubordination—you’re going to get caught. There will be consequences, and I don’t know how much I can shield you.”

  Jake’s face contorts with worry. Normally he’s so composed, barely betraying any emotion. He’s taking a risk, too. But that’s his choice. I’m making choices for myself.

  I narrow my eyes at him and shove my hands into my pockets. “I gave him a note, that’s all.”

  Jake rolls his eyes and tips head to the sky. He takes a deep breath. “The Director is not an idiot. You see the cameras. I told you—there’s only so much I can take care of right now. He will see you. And if he catches on to what you two are doing or whatever you’re planning to do on the inside, the consequence is going to be far worse than what you’ve seen. I heard you talking about the White Rose. Those kids were executed. This has to stop now. I’m not going to be a party to this anymore. I’m a fool for letting it go this far. The risks—you have no idea.”

  My heart stops. So far, the only way I’ve been able to see David is with Jake’s assistance. But maybe I’ve been stupid to rely on him.

  “If we get caught—”

  “When you get caught.” Jake puts his hand on my arm. “Remember that. Not if. When.”

  “I don’t get it. Are you threatening us? If you’re going to narc on us, go ahead and tell the Director. It’s not like I can do anything to stop you.”

  “I’m not turning you in. Don’t you see that by now? You need protection. Things are escalating in here. It’s not only me; I have—” Jake stops. Looks down and shakes his head.

  “You have what?”

  “Nothing. There are others trying to help, within certain parameters, but we won’t be able to save you if the Director orders an extrajudicial transfer and directs his private security detail to seize you in the middle of the night. You don’t know what he is capable of. I do. Trust me on this.”

  “I think we saw a pretty good demonstration of his capabilities.”

  “People getting tased? Butted with a gun? Dragged away? Punched? That’s nothing. That could’ve happened at a police station. Here, in this camp, once they take you into custody—this land is a designated war zone. Rules don’t apply.”

  “I get it. Our civil liberties have been shredded.�
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  “It’s not about violating your constitutional rights. If you’re caught and taken to a black-ops site for interrogation, they will do things to you. Things you can’t imagine. That woman taken at the orientation? She wasn’t sent to black ops. That was getting roughed up a bit. I’m talking torture. You know those guys who go missing? Why do you think they never come back?”

  His words slam into my chest. So far, David, Ayesha, Soheil, and I, we’ve mostly talked and planned and played at being the Mobius Resistance. Now I realize how totally amateur we’ve been. The stakes are high. The highest. And I’m not sure if any of us are ready to take on the Director and his real-world consequences.

  I take a deep breath. “I have to do something. If what you’re saying is true, we have to tell people. I don’t think people on the outside will tolerate this if they know.”

  “That’s why the Director wants this place airtight. Information does not get out. This camp is the first, another is about to open, and the High Command within the Authority won’t stop at two. They want internment to go wide scale.”

  “High Command?”

  “It’s all under the auspices of the secretary of war, but it’s made up of Homeland Security guys. CIA and FBI, too. You need to understand that the president operates like the Constitution is a blank slate. His party holds the Senate and the House. No one is challenging him. People won’t even call him out on his blatant lies.”

  My shoulders fall. I feel like my entire body is going to melt into the floor. I look into his eyes and whisper, “Help us, Jake.”

  He takes a tissue out of his pocket and hands it to me. “Let’s keep moving. This looks suspicious. I’ve got to get you back.”

  As we turn to continue our walk back to Block 2, the Director’s very large presence steps in front of us, blotting out the sun. One of the drones follows behind him.

  “Director—” Jake struggles to gather himself, then clicks his heels into attention. “Sir.”

  This is as near as I’ve ever been to the Director. This close, I see that his jaw juts out, making his swollen purple lips even more prominent.

  I turn my head to look at Jake, but his eyes are trained on an object in the distance. I wish I could do that—focus but not focus. But when my adrenaline spikes, like it is now, when my body feels fight and flight in the same instant, everything falls into sharp focus. Almost too sharp. And I hear the grind of a truck’s engine starting up, desert floor crunching under heavy wheels. I wonder if that’s the truck David’s on. I pray it is. I imagine the gate opening and closing and him being safe on the outside.

  The Director uses silence. Like after that woman was tased and when he waited for Noor’s and Asmaa’s and Bilqis’s screams to fall away, making sure we all heard. Silence might be a tool, but it doesn’t look like one he wields comfortably. He pulls at his collar with his index finger. The sun beats down on us. I watch as sweat beads up on his forehead; he dabs at it with a white handkerchief.

  “I see you’ve ventured on a little field trip, Miss Amin. Not hanging out with your friend on the block? What… watching the soccer players?”

  He knows my name. He knows all of us. I’ve been trying not to draw attention to myself. Maybe I’ve been careless. The Director might be uncomfortable, but he’s not unaware. Every muscle in his body seems ready to pounce like a dog that has been trained to fight.

  My chest tightens. Too tight. I pray that this stupid baggy T-shirt conceals the phone in my pocket. The blood rushes to my head, and the world feels like it’s tilting. I focus my eyes on a single point in the distance to keep my balance.

  I straighten my shoulders and remind myself to breathe. “Uh, yes. Director. Sir. It’s just that I—” My mind goes blank. I have no words.

  “She lost her necklace in the Mess, sir, and I escorted her there so she could find it.” Jake steps in, using the same lie I gave him; he speaks faster than usual, his consonants not as crisp.

  The Director moves in closer. Every cell in my body screams at me to run, but my feet are glued in place. He runs his thick index finger over my infinity necklace. It’s the same gesture David made. But vile. My stomach lurches. I turn my face away and close my eyes.

  “That looks like a very special necklace,” the Director says.

  I taste the bile in my throat. “Yes, it is. My boyfriend gave it to me.”

  The Director smiles. It’s revolting. And I realize immediately I’ve said something I shouldn’t have. I made myself less anonymous. I gave him an opening. And I have no doubt he’ll use it as ammunition if he needs to.

  “A boyfriend? How nice. He’s not in here with you? So I don’t suppose he’s a Muslim, now, is he?”

  Shit. Why did I open my mouth? And why did the truth have to come out of it?

  “No, sir,” I whisper.

  “And you are aware that the Exclusion Authority frowns on this type of interreligious mingling?”

  I cringe at his words but say nothing. I cross my arms over my stomach and look down at the ground. My breaths feel shallow, feathery. I hear Jake’s boot heel grinding into the dirt.

  The Director continues, clearly not noticing or not caring how uncomfortable his words make me. No. He wants this—my discomfort, my pain. “So what is your boyfriend’s religion?”

  My eyes start to sting. I blink, willing myself not to cry. But I lose this battle with myself, and a tear falls down my cheek. Lying is not going to work now; it’s too easy for him to find out the truth. A quick call to my high school and he’ll know David’s name, too. “He’s Jewish,” I say. Saying it out loud feels like a betrayal. America might only be rounding up Muslims right now, and the Director might only be focused on us, but bigots don’t generally limit their hate. Islamophobes are likely anti-Semites, too. From the scowl on his face, I’m guessing the Director is one of them.

  “Yes, well…” The Director pauses and inches closer to me. I can smell stale coffee on his breath. “Do let me know if you misplace that precious souvenir again. I have eyes everywhere, all the time.” He glances at the nearby drone, then turns his eyes back to me.

  “Sir,” Jake says loudly. Louder than needed for how close we all are.

  The Director takes a step back and looks toward Jake. “Corporal?”

  “Sir, I’ll be taking an additional patrol duty since Johnson was called away. His replacement should be reporting to Mobius within the week, sir.”

  “Good. I’m sure you have it under control.” The Director strokes his chin and nods.

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  The Director steps past me, presumably heading to his office in the admin building. Then he stops and turns back.

  I suck in my breath and bite my lip. I take a wobbly step backward. Jake places his hand behind my back to steady me.

  The drone behind the Director rises up to shoulder level and turns its camera to me. “Remember what I said, Miss Amin. I see everything. I will keep this camp safe. You can rest assured of that,” he says, then walks away, threats lingering in the dust of his wake.

  Ayesha and I hurry toward the Peace Garden. That’s what they’re calling it. The Peace Garden. At least fascism doesn’t kill irony. Soheil is already at the bare plot, raking the earth, spreading out the soil where seeds will grow. And he has the reinforcements he recruited—fifteen others are here with him, digging in the dirt. The librarian gave us a gardening tutorial the other day. The Director stopped by to wish us all well, but mainly, I think, to make his presence known. To remind us that everything in Mobius exists at his pleasure. Or not. There are tools and seeds and plant food and watering cans that can be filled from a trough. At first I was surprised that they’d even let us have access to metal tools, but as I watch Jake join the two other guards, I realize that the Director’s confidence in the Exclusion Authority’s gunpower is absolute. He knows we fear him, or at least his “consequences,” so he can afford to show a sort of twisted benevolence by letting us have certain freedoms in the camp.

/>   I haven’t told Ayesha about what happened with the Director yesterday, not yet. She’s going to freak out. Part of me is still freaking out, too. His not-so-subtle threats and warning about having eyes everywhere is not something I can downplay.

  Ayesha and I grab small trowels to begin digging little holes in the earth where the seeds will go. Soheil approaches and squats next to us, sweat dripping down his neck. “I see you brought your shadow,” he says to me, raising his eyebrow and tilting his head toward Jake.

  I look up at Jake. He still has that uneven tan on the back of his neck. When he escorted me to my trailer after that run-in with the Director, he said he’d try to keep a closer eye on me, too. He means to make me feel protected, but nothing about having people—or drones, for that matter—watching me makes me feel safe.

  I put my trowel down and stick my fingers into the soil. It feels cool and moist against my skin. They brought in soil for this project because the desert dirt wasn’t conducive to growing things. It’s an expense, but maybe they think the price of appearing to be benevolent rulers instead of tyrants has a cost benefit—it’s cheaper than bullets and burying bodies. The worrisome thing is it makes some of the internees feel that way, too. Like maybe this isn’t as bad as it could be. They’re right; it could be much, much worse. And I’m afraid of being the reason it turns ugly. Uglier.

  “Listen, guys,” I whisper to Soheil and Ayesha. “I think we should put off the fast.”

  Both Soheil and Ayesha stop digging and look at me. Ayesha squints against the sun as she looks in my eyes.

  “What?” Soheil asks in a loud voice. When a couple of heads turn to look at us, he immediately lowers his volume and continues. “Why? I’ve been recruiting people, as you can see. They’re ready. We’re ready.” His voice is low, but there’s an edge to it.

  Ayesha rests her hand on his forearm for a second. “Ease up, Soheil. Maybe Layla has a reason.” Then she turns her expectant face toward me.