by Turner, Ivan
“I’m not sorry,” she said.
“I didn’t ask you to be,” I replied.
Then she collapsed into my arms, buried her face into my chest, and sobbed out all of her grief.
That night she came to me, not as a child, but as a woman. We had decided to sleep where we slept the night before, but chosen not to sit on the stone shelf that was the eighteenth floor. At first, I thought she was simply curling up next to me the way she had in the past. We always slept close, maybe for protection, maybe for comfort. But as she slowly began to kiss my face and rub the back of my head, I understood the difference.
I was graceless as I panicked and pulled away. I offended her.
“What?” she shouted, much like the child she was. “Why not?”
I made a face. But the why not was not as simple as it seemed.
Throwing her arms into the air, she stood and stalked away. Then she calmed, the maturity she had displayed those past weeks returning. “Things ain’t the same,” she said. “I’m not a kid.”
She was right of course. She had seen too much and had to survive on her own for too long to be a child any longer. And I didn’t think of her as a child. She was too much my companion, wholly my equal if not my better. Yet something stopped me. I’m not sure what it was because I think I loved her, even then, even with the distance in our age and our lives. I think I realized it when I had awakened that morning and felt that she was gone. The feeling that had replaced her had been one akin to the feeling of losing Livvie after abandoning her at the train station. Akin, but not the same. This had been stronger, more painful.
But I remained steadfast, unwilling to fight the growing fear that a physical relationship would damage something that had become so vital to me. My heart beat in my chest as adrenaline pumped into my veins. The terror was so real that I couldn’t even hope to fight it. I could not explain this to her. It would have sounded empty and false. No matter what I said, she would have believed that I looked at her only as a child. For the second night in a row, she slept away from me.
And the next morning I was gone.
I awakened in the same building, with Jennie sleeping a few feet away. I looked at her with what must have been longing, wondering if my decision of the previous evening had been the right one. Stretching, I moved out of sight so that I could relieve myself. Suddenly I was surrounded by the sounds of heavy machinery and loud voices and saw that I was urinating on a half-finished wooden floor. I remember thinking that I would never go to the bathroom again, because I was dreadfully embarrassed and then frightened as rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me backwards. It was all I could do to zip up my pants.
The men who grabbed me were clearly of Middle Eastern descent. They wore yellow construction helmets and angry scowls. They began shouting at me in a language I didn’t understand and several signaled to others a short distance away. It was difficult for me to get my bearings. They were shoving me and turning me around. Hands groped at my clothing and I felt my wallet, phone, and journal stripped away. I was pushed up against a wall and, though the smell of paint and dust was strong, I couldn’t focus on any of the visual details except the men shouting, now at each other, and gesturing toward me.
Finally, one man spoke to me. He was a heavy man, bearded, with dark skin. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he raised two leathery hands and made himself clear with a gesture. I was to stay put. So I did.
I was still on the fifteenth floor of the same building in which Jennie and I had spent two nights. It was daylight now, instead of dawn. The hot air of late June had been replaced by cooler air. The sun shone high above and the weather was nice, but it felt like fall. For an instant, hope blossomed. If I had only skipped a month or two, then perhaps finding Jennie was not an insurmountable task. Of course, if I had only skipped a month or two then I doubt the progress that had been made would have been made. Though the building was under heavy construction, the rooms empty, some of the walls exposed while wiring was being repaired, it did not compare to the rest of Manhattan. Stealing a glance out the large windows I could see that almost every building in view was swarming with workers. There were black drapes over some buildings, but most were in current progress. Some were even complete. Through their windows, I could see people going about office business. The streets below were clean and repaired. Though traffic was light, there was traffic.
Three men in uniform appeared and came forward, pushing their way through the throng of workers that had gathered to watch me. I did not recognize the uniform. One of them, clearly the leader, also began speaking to me in that incomprehensible language.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Ah,” he replied. “English. You are American. I could not tell under all of that filth.”
It was a great joke. A couple of the men laughed, betraying their understanding of English. I said nothing.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, completely ignoring the chuckles behind him.
“I don’t know,” I replied simply, it being both the truth and a lie at the same time.
“Do you understand that you are on United Arab soil and, therefore, suspect of espionage?”
“What day is it?” I asked quietly.
This seemed to take him by surprise but his recovery was quick. “You will be taken to a police house.”
He said nothing else. A single gesture had the other two men grabbing me by the arms and hauling me forward. As I passed through the work areas, I could see that really only a few of them were Arab. Most of the workers were American. They looked healthy, but sad, these men and women. My appearance was like a wave as I was taken through the rooms. People stopped work as soon as I came through and turned to see me.
“He looks like a refugee,” one woman whispered. The man next to her responded with a sound of disbelief.
We stopped in front of a bank of elevators and waited for one to arrive. The men in uniform were armed and they kept their hands very close to their guns. I couldn’t decide whether it was I who caused them concern or they just kept a natural state of readiness. We moved into an elevator that smelled of wood polish and rode down to the street without incident. I was then ushered through a grand lobby and into the street, where a police van was waiting for me. They shoved me into the dark rear and locked the door behind me. It occurred to me that I had not been handcuffed.
I was able to look out the back of the van as they drove me downtown. It was certainly Manhattan, but not the Manhattan I remembered. Most of the structures that had survived the invasion had been repaired, but there were many others that had been replaced. All of the new ones displayed signs of Middle Eastern architecture. The lettering on most of the shops and signs was Arabic. There was some English, but most of it took the form of rules and warnings. To be American in New York was to be clearly second class. Once again, I wondered how much of my world was gone. Did the United States even exist anymore? Previously, as I had wandered the city with Jennie, I had learned very little.
I was taken to what I would describe as a precinct house. I had never been inside of a police station before so I don’t know how this one compared with others. It certainly looked different than the ones I had always seen on television. The flooring in the lobby was white marble and there seemed to be a man constantly cleaning it, an American man. There were several large desks which allowed their occupants to tower over anyone who approached. High above, great chandeliers added to the sunlight that beamed in through the windows. We ignored and were ignored by the workers in the building, my guards escorting me straight to the rear and into a long corridor. Using stairs this time, I was ushered downstairs where I was stripped of my clothing and showered. They then shaved my beard and buzzed my head. Despite the fact that none of it was voluntary, it felt good to be clean and groomed. I was handed a pair of loose grey pants and a blue T-shirt.
“Are you hungry?” the lead man asked before locking me into a cell.
I nodded.
Several minutes later, I was brought a tray of beef and vegetables with a short loaf of hard bread and a pitcher of water. The food was good, the meat and vegetables of much higher quality than I would have expected. Of course, I hadn’t eaten anything like it in several weeks so it was possible that my perception was skewed.
It was several hours before someone came for me. The man who took me from the cell was different from the man who had brought me there. He didn’t speak at all and I wasn’t sure that he understood English. I was led back up the stairs and onto the main level. We only passed the grand lobby, but I could see that the sun had set and the true effect of the lighting of the chandeliers. If it wasn’t a police station, it would have been beautiful. I saw no other prisoners. In fact, it seemed that I was the spectacle of the hour as all eyes turned to look at me. Once again in an elevator, I was taken to the seventh floor where I was marched through a group of cubicles, once again to be ogled by Arab office workers, and deposited into an office.
The office was small, but had a nice view of the street. The street lights were lit and there was moderate foot traffic. But I couldn’t really look at it for very long without being overcome by this terrible sense of loneliness. I felt so far away from home, years and years from everything I had known. The clock on the desk read 7:22.
The door behind me opened and a man entered the room. He was a young man, probably five or six years younger than I was, and he wore an expensive black suit with tiny little pinstripes. He was carrying my wallet, my phone, and my notebook. His name was Samud.
“You have not kept up your journal,” he said to me.
“I lost bits of time,” I explained while explaining nothing.
He nodded skeptically. “Five years is a large bit to lose.”
I didn’t react. It was not surprising. Five years. Jennie was five years gone.
“Please sit.” Samud offered me the chair opposite the window and took his own behind the desk. I took the seat, my heart growing cold.
“I apologize for taking so long to see you, but it was very difficult tracing you. Your identity matches the identity of a man who was reported missing more than six years ago. You were last seen at your place of employment…”
“K-mart,” I said sadly.
“Yes,” he said both surprised and delighted at my knowing that. “This matches an entry in your journal. I am also familiar with the man Warren Li that you mention in later entries. Quite a hero among your people. He brought over one thousand refugees out of Arab occupied territory and into what remains of the United States before he was killed.”
And just like that I started to cry. My head dropped into my hands and the tears came. I don’t suppose I cared so much about Li, but hearing that he had died was too much for me. The faces of all of the people I had seen in that short time flashed before my eyes. The Tiris, the wispy man, the gang man who Jennie had…
Jennie.
Jennie.
Jennie.
Samud’s hand fell on my shoulder and he shoved a soft tissue into my hands. “Please, my friend. No one here will harm you.”
I looked up at him, struggling to regain my composure. It seemed a very long time since I had been afraid for myself.
“It’s 2014?” I asked.
He nodded. “I would normally disbelieve the assertions made in your journal. This time skipping power…”
“It’s not a power,” I corrected. “It’s something that happens to me, not something that I do.”
“Of course,” he acquiesced. “However, the circumstantial evidence would seem to support you.”
I sensed a trap. “What evidence?”
“The annexation of North America’s north east has been complete for almost four years. All of what was once New England as well as New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and parts of Maryland have become territories of the United Arab Nation. For many months, our soldiers rounded up American refugees, but there has not been one seen since the very end of 2012. In addition, the dates of your journal entries and the major events listed in those entries seem to correspond with your time lapses.”
“Then you believe me?”
He shrugged and took himself back behind his desk. “I do not disbelieve you.” He passed over a piece of paper. I took it and looked at it. It was a print out of an old news article from England. The pilot of a British jet insisted that his co-pilot had disappeared for just a second, and then reappeared. The description of the incident reminded me very much of my first experience, with the spilled coffee. I handed the paper back to Samud.
“You see,” he said. “There are many of these articles, describing people disappearing and other such incidents which allude to your condition in others.”
“Can you help me?” I asked, showing perhaps a bit too much desperation.
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, it would be impossible for me to bring this to my government for research. I would be laughed out of my position. However, I have some friends who may be interested in doing some research while we put up the appearance of integrating you in as a regular refugee.”
“How do we do that?”
“Under the treaty signed by our two governments, no United States citizen is to be held in United Arab territory for any length of time in excess of the time it takes for his government to receive him.”
Shaking my head, I began to laugh a little. “What does that mean?”
He smiled at me. “It means that you will be added to a manifest immediately. Your government receives manifests at irregular intervals, depending on how long it takes to process the previous manifest.”
“How long is that?”
“It varies, depending on the people. First, your government has to do an identity check for every name on the list; they don’t want to admit spies or terrorists. Once they’ve cleared all the names, the manifest is placed into a queue for delivery. Upon delivery, the United States does whatever it does with the manifest and the people on it. It can take years to clear a new manifest. As you may have noticed, there are still thousands of United States Citizens in United Arab territory. Since there has not been a new refugee for some time, I have added your name to the last manifest, which is almost twenty months old. It will not clear for some time.”
“And what do I do until then?”
“We will have to conduct our research in secret. You will have to appear as a transfer from one unit to another. As soon as we can insert you into a new unit, you will work just like everyone else.”
Chapter III
In 2009, when I had been roaming the city of New York with Jennie, the United States was trying desperately to hold its borders in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Virginia, and even further down south. There were Arab troops moving into Florida. Resources were so low that police and private security firms were enlisted to aid in the fight. Meanwhile, the bulk of the army was trapped overseas fighting in Iraq, Iran, and Israel (the three Is). United States forces held out just long enough for the recalled troops to make their way home and save the deep South. The United Arab Nation was contained and held to the northeast. Peace talks began.
While all of this was going on, Arab troops were also rounding up American citizens caught in the invaded territories and placing them into internment camps. There were some twelve million of these refugees when all was said and done. As treaties began to get written, the Arab Nation collected information on the refugees and released that information to the United States officials. Thus began the counting and collating of the captured and dead. Sadly, instead of demanding the immediate release of its citizens, the U.S. chose instead to carefully analyze the data, leaving parts of families stuck over the border with no information and no hope. What made matters worse was that the outraged families were no match for the throng of frightened citizens who wanted everyone admitted back into the country medically and psychologically screened. Those wily terrorists would stop at nothing to get their spies into the country, even if they had to br
ainwash its citizens. As a result, the treaty was amended to include the concept of the Refugee Manifest.
A Refugee Manifest could hold as many as fifty names or as few as twenty. Basically, the United Arab Nation was to submit individual manifests to the U.S. for processing and clearance. One the U.S. government had exhaustively checked every name on the list and made preparations for return, the manifest would be cleared and the people whose names were on it could be transferred over the border. This process happened within a few weeks at the beginning, but the United States became quickly overwhelmed with the enormity of the task and it lost priority to other issues. In the meantime, the Arab Nation had to feed and shelter these people, so they demanded financial remuneration. The U.S., petrified of receiving spies and terrorists, quickly acquiesced. Funds were allocated and refugees were soon living on the dime of the American taxpayer.
After several months, the U.A.N. decided to rebuild and settle those areas that had been devastated by the invasion. Though many workers came from their home countries in the Middle East, the refugees were broken up into work units consisting of forty people per unit. It wasn’t bad work, really. The people were given decent housing, clothing, and food in exchange for the work. They were also trained to do things that most of them had never done. People with medical experience were held aside to work with Arab doctors and the refugees were integrated into society, albeit at a low social level.
Samud wanted to keep me close by so that I could meet regularly with a Doctor Abdel Miktoffin. Miktoffin was one of the friends of which he had spoken. Apparently, this man had been tracking people with my syndrome for several years and had collected an embarrassing and paltry amount of information. He was hoping a “live subject” would open some doors for him. I smelled personal ambition and resolved to be on my guard for the duration of our relationship. Guile was something foreign to me, but I was adapting quickly to a growing need for it.
So my work unit was downtown. We were placed in apartment buildings that were converted office buildings. They were close to what had been the South Street Seaport. I could smell the sea air when I was dropped off. There was some commotion as I arrived. Apparently, the building housed six work units, and the Arab government had chosen midnight as a good time to pull people from a cleared manifest. The lobby of the building was crowded with people, both Arab and American. Several official looking people were attempting to organize a short group of Americans into a line and check off their identities on a clipboard. We were forced to wait outside for an hour while it all took place. Finally they began moving the procession out the doors to the waiting bus, a converted school bus. I was exhausted by then and eager to accept whatever bed they might offer me. But I could not help but stare at the faces of the people getting onto the bus. Despite the fact that they were obviously being released back into the United States, I saw nothing but despondent stares. I felt sorry for them, wondering what their journey would be like.