Apeirogon

by Colum McCann

  149

  It was the fourth day of his hunger strike. It wasn’t just the pain in his lower stomach—sharp jabs that shot across his kidneys—but the noise outside too. He could hear the shouts from further along the wing, the slamming of doors, the slap of a billy club against a metal staircase, a jackhammer outside, an irregular siren somewhere in the distance. It felt as if a tiny speaker had been installed in his cranium.

  They had given him, without warning, two extra months on his sentence. He went immediately on strike.

  Food wasn’t a problem. He didn’t crave it yet. He rose from his bed. He walked back to the toilet area. He had heard that it was a good idea to keep moving. Not to overdo it, but to be fluid, to keep the body agile. He had the words lined up from the Qur’an. And surely they will test you with something of fear and hunger. He lay down again. Covered his ears with the pillow. A guard came in and ripped the pillow off his face. He stared up at the camera. Who was watching? What were they recording? He had heard that it was a good idea to read, it would pass the time. He opened his Qur’an again. Give good news to the patient ones. He couldn’t focus, his eyes seemed to fall away from the page. The sounds echoed and reechoed.

  He went to the prison canteen three days in a row. Each time he took a cup of water and an empty tray, sat in the corner. He slipped half a salt pill into his mouth.

  On the fifth day they removed him from his cell. He was installed in no-man’s-land: not solitary, not a medical unit, just an isolated cell. He could no longer visit the canteen. He would have an hour’s exercise each day, alone in the yard.

  The cell was larger than the one he had spent years in. Two cameras hovered in the ceiling. He tried to figure out their angles, where their blind spot might be. There was no television to watch. No way to listen to music. He rose and paced.

  They had added the two months for security reasons they said. Bassam knew he could take the chore of extra time. He had already spent seven years, a third of his life, inside. Sixty days hardly mattered. But this was a matter of principle. He knew the hunger strike routine. Other prisoners had gone through it. The body would start to break down after three weeks. After five it would become critical. After six the damage would be irreversible. He had to focus. Concentrate. Burn.

  They started heaping his plates with larger portions. Bread, rice, maftoul. They left the food in his cell for hours on end. He draped it with a towel and put it under his bed so he could not see it. The food was ever more fragrant: they had, he was sure, added spices.

  He squatted over the toilet. His body purged itself. Seven days now. He kneeled to pray.

  More food arrived. The guards were quiet, courteous. They set the plate on the table, turned around, left. He filled his water glass and swallowed half a salt tablet, sat on the bed, made maps out of the brickwork patterns on the wall.

  He became meticulous with cigarettes. He inserted a filter, rolled the tobacco with great care. He wondered if putting his tongue to the glue of the rolling papers might constitute breaking the strike. He folded the paper over, sealed it carefully. The smoke filled him, made a small grey universe in his lungs. It expanded inside him. He breathed out. It staved off the pains. He glanced at the clock. Even when he was a child, time had never gone so slowly. He recited songs in his head, over and over. Certainly we’ll be back no matter how long the journey. Give my greetings to the olive and the family that brought me up. He took another sip of water. He could feel the iron in it, the earth. A clarity of taste. He was back at the well as a boy. He turned the wheel to tighten the rope. The bucket rose. He carried it upward to the cave. His mother took hold of the bucket handle. The ladle dipped. The water fell.

  On the ninth day the sounds outside subsided and the hunger began in earnest. It was what he had expected. Rhythmic, rolling pains: a sea of them moving through him. He thought of Akka along the water. He would go there when he got out. Walk along the pier. Watch the waves roll in, white horses on the olive press of the sea.

  The hunger tired him out. He didn’t pace the cell as much anymore. He tried not to think. The mind, he had heard, could use as much energy as the body. Pour over my head the penalty of boiling water.

  He found himself sleeping more. The guards came in and shook him awake. A lamb stew. An orange soda, bubbles rising in the see-through plastic cup. A slice of baklava drizzled with honey.

  Bassam threw the towel over the tray. One of the guards remained at the door of the cell, looking in on him.

  He called for an extra blanket: he had begun to shiver furiously.

  A doctor arrived, took his pulse, his blood pressure, his oxygen level. He shone a flashlight into Bassam’s eyes and mouth. Look right, look left, look upwards. Bassam rolled up his sleeve, looked away as the doctor took a vial of blood. On the way out the doctor said in Hebrew: Mazal tov. He wondered what the doctor had meant. Mazal tov, your health is good. Or Mazal tov, continue your strike. Or Mazal tov, you are a terrorist and you’re dying and it is your destiny that it is so.

  He noticed the pungent odor that the doctor’s aftershave left behind.

  On the twelfth day he went to the bathroom again. He could not believe it. He did not think he could have anything more inside him. It rushed from him in a foul torrent.

  The odor was sickening. He stood up quickly. He was light-headed. He braced his hand against the wall to steady himself. A dribble of watery shit ran along his legs, staining his uniform.

  148

  It was always, in later years, Salwa, not him, who got upset when their kids did not finish the food on their plates.

  147

  Early in a hunger strike, the human body—like that of a bird in flight—begins to use muscle protein in order to create glucose. Potassium levels fall. The body sheds fat and muscle mass. The heart rate lowers. Blood pressure fluctuates. Disorientation sets in. A loss of coordination, a sluggishness, a feeling of drift. After two weeks of hunger strike, low levels of thiamine and other vitamins become a risk to the prisoner, resulting sometimes in severe neurological problems: cognitive dissonance, loss of vision and a reduction in motor skills.

  146

  While in prison, Vanunu, the whistleblower, spent thirty-three days on hunger strike.

  145

  A guard arrived early the next morning. Get dressed, he said to Bassam. He was already wearing the only clothes he had. Another guard stood at the door with a folded wheelchair. Bassam waved the chair away. He was fine, he said, he would walk, he could run if they wanted him to, in fact he would run right out the gate, would they mind opening it for him?

  He paused at the cell door, chuckled, turned around and picked up his Qur’an. They would use the time away to search his cell, he knew. He did not want them to touch the holy book.

  He could hear cheering and banging from the side corridors. His name sounded through the din. He pushed on. His eyes felt heavy. He paused a moment to regain his balance. He made no gestures, no sounds. The metal stairs swam before him.

  He wondered if he could ever get down, but he was guided towards the guards’ elevator instead. The lights on the buttons pulsed. He was led into a waiting room. A woman brought him a glass of water. She was dressed in civilian clothes. When she turned away her hair swished. A scent of almonds hung in the air.

  He kept his Qur’an in his lap.

  Bassam tried to stop himself from dozing off, but a large hand shook him awake. He was not sure how long he had been waiting. He was ushered into an office. The chair was deeply cushioned. He could feel how much weight he had lost.

  There were books on the shelves, maps on the walls, photographs arranged on the desk. A cup with a small Israeli flag propped inside. A bowl of wrapped candies sat at the side of the desk. Red and white. Wrapped in clear plastic.

  He knew the warden, Dobnik. They had sparred many times. Dobnik was thin, g
rey-haired, blue-eyed. Bassam knew full well how the conversation would go. Dobnik would say that he hoped Bassam was being treated well. Bassam would reply that he only wished to be treated fairly, that was all. Dobnik would tell him that nothing could be done until he came off hunger strike. Bassam would say that he could not come off hunger strike until something was done. Dobnik would tell him to consult his lawyer. Bassam would half-laugh and tell them that access to his lawyer had been blocked. Dobnik would say that they would gladly investigate it. Bassam would reply that he would be glad for it to be investigated. Then Dobnik would say, once more, that nothing could be done until he came off hunger strike. And Bassam would repeat that he would not come off hunger strike until something was done. Dobnik would sigh and say that something surely could be done if Bassam was willing to help them out a little, the world was full of give and take. Bassam would reply that he had been giving and taking for seven years and two more months wasn’t going to break him.

  After fifteen minutes Dobnik leaned forward in his chair and plucked one of the wrapped candies out of the bowl. He pushed the full bowl toward Bassam. One of the wrapped candies tumbled onto the desk.

  Dobnik leaned back in his seat and slowly unwrapped the plastic from his red and white sweet. He made a show of untwisting the plastic and rolled the candy noisily around in his mouth. He pushed his chair even further back and seemed to contemplate one of the maps on the wall. He tapped the sweet against his teeth and sat conspicuously sucking it for a moment, then rose and left the room.

  Bassam laid his Qur’an on the table. He wanted to turn around and wave to the cameras in the upper corners of the room, but he sat still, staring straight ahead.

  Dobnik returned five minutes later, perched behind his desk and said curtly: We’ll inform you of our decision in a couple of days.

  Bassam nodded, reached forward and picked his Qur’an off the table. He paused a moment, bent his head. The map on the wall was from 1930. British Mandate Palestine. He had no idea why Dobnik might have put it there. Some things in the world, he thought, just could not be accounted for.

  144

  Abir’s last words.

  143

  On his way back to the cell, he felt for the tiny wrapped candy in his pocket. The plastic was twisted at both ends. He had scooped it into his fingers as he stood up. Dobnik had not seen him take it.

  He hadn’t even contemplated taking it at first. It was just there on the desk. Nothing but boiled sugar after all. There was no forethought to lifting it. If he ate it, he would be breaking the strike. Then again, they would not know that he was breaking the strike. And if they did not know, perhaps he was strengthening his strike? Still, he would be destroying his own effort. He would have to live with it. It was thirteen days now.

  He stopped at the door of his cell. His evening food was already there, waiting. A chicken dish with a cream sauce. They had put Coca-Cola in a clear plastic cup.

  He threw the towel over the tray. When he lay down on the bed, he tucked the candy underneath the mattress. They would find it, he thought, if they did another late-night search. They would use it to discredit him. He knelt to pray. He slipped the candy into his pocket once more. Perhaps he could use it as some sort of talisman? Or perhaps he should just throw it away, smash it up and flush it down the toilet?

  He paced the room. Stood in the blind spot where the cameras could not see him. Put his hand to his nose. His hand to his brow. His hand to his lips. He ran his fingers through his long beard. He unwrapped one end of the plastic, twisted it shut again.

  He paced some more.

  He slipped the candy in his mouth.

  The taste was alarmingly minty.

  142

  After four days Bassam was told that the order had been reversed. He would not be required to spend an extra two months in prison. The condition was that he had to announce that he had given up the hunger strike first and that he would have to spend another full week in recuperation—when he had done that, the prison authorities would release a statement. He replied that he would only do so if they could release simultaneous statements and he added that he would not spend another week in recuperation, the absolute maximum he would do was three days. They said they were willing to grant him a four-day provision, but they were categorically unable to release simultaneous statements. He said that perhaps if the prisoners were told late at night, then he would allow for their statement to be issued first thing in the morning, and he would issue his own official statement, for prison outsiders, at noon, but if and only if his fellow prisoners were told first. They said they were perhaps amenable to that and, in addition, they would make the concession of a three-and-a-half-day recuperation provision. He said that he needed written commitment. They said they could not provide that, but they could provide their word that the statement would be released expeditiously. He said their word was not worth the air on which it was written. They said that at least they had allowed him to breathe. He said it would be three days’ recuperation or nothing. They said okay, fine, it’s a deal. He said, I will tell the prisoners tonight.

  141

  To reach a deal between Israelis and Palestinians, said Senator George Mitchell, proposals for the future, intended to help solve the problems of the present, could not be fairly evaluated without some intricate knowledge of the past. And yet he knew that the past could always be construed in several different ways. Therefore the present too. But, said Mitchell, that did not necessarily mean that the future was automatically tainted. A peace would come, he said. Of that he had no doubt. It was important first that everyone, on all sides, desire it. While that was an obvious stipulation, it wasn’t always a given. So much of it came down to the historical narrative, but what worried him, always, was the duration of the present, combined with the echo of the past, while trying to negotiate a clearer pathway to the future.

  140

  Bassam never told the story of the candy to anyone, not even his sons. He had been seventeen full days on hunger strike.

  139

  On the morning of his scheduled release he was escorted to the lowest floor of the prison. The fluorescent lights hummed. The guards removed the handcuffs and shackles. He was given his old clothes. The jeans were too short and the shirt too big. His feet had grown: he had to stuff his feet into the shoes he had been arrested in.

  He felt as if he had stepped back reluctantly into his seventeen-year-old self. He tightened his belt four notches.

  He was handed an envelope with three hundred shekels. He tucked the bills in his pocket. His only possessions were a mother-of-pearl key ring, a pair of broken sunglasses and a half-packet of Marlboro cigarettes.

  Nobody was waiting outside to meet him. The sky was grey. The trees looked lifeless. A few women in headscarves patrolled the edge of the prison wall.

  The cigarettes were so stale that they were brittle to the touch. He bought a fresh packet at a kiosk just outside the prison. He closed his eyes and inhaled, then walked briskly towards the market. He bought a pair of sneakers, white with green swooshes, and haggled for a tracksuit, black with red stripes on the sleeves. A plain white T-shirt. Socks. Underwear.

  He stepped into a café to change.

  At a phone booth in the bus station he dialed his cousin Ibrahim. The phone rang and rang.

  138

  Bassam was a little surprised, when he shaved his beard, that his face was not more hollowed out.

  137

  He left his old clothes hanging on a hook in the bathroom of the café. He laced his spare shoes and threw them in the air where they caught on the telephone wire and dangled.

  Bassam looked back towards the prison and saw several cardboard blowguns sticking out from the upper floors. A few notes, like bits of spittle flying, sailed out from the windows to the waiting women below.

  136

  Rami was at
tracted to patterns. He sketched them endlessly. His small red notebooks were filled with intersecting lines. It was not a matter of simple crosshatching. It was, he supposed, his form of meditation, a way to think. Bring the pen to the edge of the page. Let it drop.

  The sketches seemed to vault off and extend themselves outwards into the void. He seldom used any of them in his advertisements. When it came to corporate ads, he was called upon for bolder images. But there were times he would look back through the sketchbooks, searching for ideas, and be taken by the patterns themselves, their ragged sense of purpose, their forms growing out of necessity.

  135

  Among scholars of Islam, mathematical numbers are considered to be not just quantities, but qualities too.

  134

  One of the most beautiful works of Islamic art ever produced was the towering wooden staircase and pulpit that sat for eight hundred years in the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

  The pulpit, known as the minbar of Saladin, was built originally in Aleppo in the twelfth century in celebration of the defeat of the Crusaders. It was transported under guard to the mosque in the Holy City, where it was installed and became one of the most revered pieces in the Muslim world.

  The minbar was considered a masterpiece of sacred geometry, wood carving, marquetry and calligraphy. Nineteen feet high and thirteen feet deep, the pulpit was fashioned by hundreds of guilded craftsmen who were considered the geniuses of their time.