by Turner, Ivan
Carlos and Doreen’s escape plans were mucked up in the telling, but the knowledge of the plan had made it through the entire crowd. To hear Jonah tell it, most of the unit had wanted in at first. They had approached Carlos in small groups, professing their expertise at one vital thing or another. He fervently denied that he was even contemplating escape but no one believed him. It got to the point, and again this was all before I even arrived, where he was picking fights with anyone who would even mention it to him. The truth, by my way of thinking, was that Carlos, for all of his bravado, was truly planning an escape that would never happen. I didn’t know why he chose to spend so much time planning something that he would never execute. Certainly he was no coward, but there was never any action taken and no one seemed to bother about it much anymore.
Finally there was Lydia Tiri. I didn’t recognize her right away. The hour I had spent with Warren Li’s group had passed in the company of the Tiris, but the bulk of that time had been passed listening to Daniel Tiri’s stories. I didn’t see Daniel in the unit and Lydia looked very sad so I could only assume the worst. She didn’t recognize me or at least gave no indication that she did so I left it alone. I had enough depression of my own without having to share with others.
Certainly there were more people in the unit and even more housed in the building. Rod and Davis were a homosexual couple and were constant targets of Carlos’ anger. Miriam was a previous business analyst whose hobby was to collect pieces of information on the others and work out the best ways for them to market themselves within the unit. She tried it with me once, but I rebuffed her, probably less politely than I would have liked. Anderson ate a lot. Amber ate very little. The collection of personalities was almost endless among the units. I couldn’t possibly have gotten to know them all and had little ambition to get to know any of them.
Throughout October, Samud and I became friendly. Most of the time, when he rescued me from socialization, he took me to see Dr. Miktoffin. Once in a while, though, we sat and played chess. It had come out during one of our conversations that I could play the game. As an avid player himself, he was delighted to find an opponent. Apparently, his social life was extremely lacking. Living in North America was difficult for the Arab citizens, as it must be for any “colonists”. Work was demanding, almost overwhelming, so any excuse to escape for a short while was something to which even Samud would cling. He won regularly. Of course, he was student of the game. I was a poor player, having been taught by Wyatt when I was six years old. He’d shown me the game as a prank, hoping I would be able to play Jeremy to a standstill and embarrass him. Of course Jeremy had made me look foolish and I wondered whether the joke had been intended to be on Jeremy or me.
During the first week in November, Samud had to travel to what had once been Saudi Arabia and was now the capitol of the United Arab Nation. He would be gone almost two weeks during which I would not be pulled for any sessions with Dr. Miktoffin. Missing the research was no great loss. Though the doctor was always excited to see me, he was able to provide little in the way of results. While he maintained that my condition was a physical manifestation of some innate abnormality, he could neither identify the abnormality nor even discover a roundabout explanation for its existence. I had begun to doubt the doctor’s ability and began to feel much like a maltreated lab rat.
The absence of Samud meant that I would have to spend twelve straight days in socialization. It was a gloomy prospect, but there was nothing for it. I had already begun to grow impatient with my situation, wondering desperately about my family and, moreso, about Jennie.
It was during this period that I met Igor Grundel. Never in my life have I met a person whose name is more fitting to his personality. Igor was a mean potato of a man with scrunched features and a gravelly whisper for a voice. He always smelled like my grandmother’s kitchen even though we all used the same soap and ate the same food. I had noticed him during the previous weeks, but never thought to make note of anything but the man’s odd appearance. For all of his oddities, he seemed popular among the group. But his secrets seemed well hidden. When he approached me, it was with a miserly smile and wringing hands.
“May I call you Mathew?” he asked by way of introduction.
Looking up from the photo of Jennie, I willed him to go away. When the hint did not take root, I folded the paper carefully on the creases and put it back into my pocket.
“I am Igor,” he said as he pulled out the chair next to me and sat his strange body down. “I was noticing that you often spend all of your time here looking at that piece of paper. I would bet that you spend much of your other time staring at it also.”
I did not like him and I did not want to talk to him, but I did not dismiss him nor did I answer him. Perhaps my treatment of Miriam had softened me a bit, returned just a bit of who I’d been before all of this time jumping nonsense.
“If you were to write her a letter, I could have it delivered for you.”
At this I must have had some visible reaction because his entire face lit up with glee. Even his squinty eyes opened wide with the smile. But I had learned to be cautious. I was not blind to the fact that several of the others had broken off their conversations to observe mine.
“How?” I asked. “She’s been cleared back into the States.”
He nodded. “Of course she has. But you certainly don’t believe that our government is the one blocking all of the communication and holding up the clearing of manifests, do you? Has your friend Samud convinced you that the benevolent United Arab Nation is working their hardest to see us home to our loved ones while the United States prevents it?”
Mentioning Samud was a ploy and I knew it, but its effect was no less severe. I suddenly saw myself in the eyes of my peers. I was the teacher’s pet, the lackey to the administration. This impression of myself, no matter how distasteful, made me even more suspicious.
“You still haven’t told me how you deliver the letters.”
He shrugged. “Channels.”
“No thank you,” I said.
He seemed taken aback, so sure was he that I would do anything to contact Jennie. “You don’t think I can do it?”
“How would I know that the letter had arrived?”
“I have sent many letters on their way and given many people hope. It lifts a large burden when one knows that his family and friends know that he is alive and safe.”
I peered around the room and looked at the people looking at me. Their expressions betrayed none of their feelings.
Again, he had not answered my question. Nor would he.
It occurred to me that I had nothing to lose. My fears were grounded in bad memories of high school mischief. Pass a private letter to one student so that she can pass it to another and another and the letter is read over and over until your most private feelings are public knowledge. Maximum humiliation for minimum effort. I would keep the letter simple.
“I just give you a letter?” I asked.
He brightened, feeling that he had closed the deal, but wagged a finger at me just the same. “You will do something for me first.”
My suspicions arose once again, but I listened.
“There is a manifest that will clear in six days. It will thin out a work unit in the Bronx. Transfers usually come from other thinned units, so ours is not a candidate. You will see that I am transferred to the Bronx.”
“What?” I was appalled. “How am I supposed to do that?”
He smiled knowingly. “You will ask your friend.”
“He won’t be back for another week.”
He nodded in response. “I am aware. There will be enough time.”
“I’ll think about it.”
But there was nothing to think about, really. Even the smallest hope of getting word to Jennie lifted my spirits. I couldn’t not try. And, from what I could understand, several people had already paid Igor to send out letters to loved ones. He had been providing that service for the better part of eleve
n months. No one questioned his methods or doubted his effectiveness. All were certain their letters reached their intended recipients. The recommendation was unanimous.
Of course, no one had had to arrange a transfer for him and, as word got out that it was I who was to guarantee that the mailman would be on his way to a different unit, some bad blood began to stir up throughout the group. Before, most people had thought of me very little, if at all. Now they just thought very little of me.
Samud came to see me on his first night back. He had not even been to his home yet. Instead of going to Dr. Miktoffin’s laboratory or staying in my apartment, we went to his office where I had first met him. He was very excited about something, but refused to tell me what it was until we got there.
“Sit down,” he said, pulling a bottle and two plastic cups from the bottom drawer of his desk. “It’s not champagne, but it will do for our celebration.”
“What are we celebrating?” I asked.
“My promotion. And the fact that I am going to be moving back home.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a strange sense of disappointment. “When?”
He must have sensed my feelings because his mood lessened. “Two months,” he said. “The first of the year.”
“Will that mean an end to Dr. Miktoffin’s research?”
He smiled again. “I’m afraid so.”
This did not disappoint me. In the time that Samud was away I had begun to realize just how much I disliked and didn’t respect the doctor. In spite of things, however, I had genuinely come to like Samud. He had proven a good companion.
Pushing my untouched drink forward, he continued, “I have been given a large amount of responsibility and with it, a large amount of power. I would like it very much if you would accompany back to my country.”
To this I had no response. All the time that we had been together, it had been in the back of mind to ask about Igor’s request. During the previous week, all of my thoughts had been focused on two things. The first was the letter to Jennie, which was composed, penned, and sitting between my mattress and my box spring. The second was the way I would approach Samud about getting Igor transferred to the Bronx. Never had I expected him to throw his own promotion at me, let alone the offer of citizenship within the United Arab Nation. Of course, there was no way I could even consider accepting his offer. For the first time in weeks, I thought seriously about my next leap. It had been a long time since my arrival and I had no way of knowing when I would depart. What would it be like if it were to happen to me in a foreign country, surrounded by people who did not speak English and who would not regard me as anything but an alien enemy? The notion was foolhardy and I think he knew it.
“I have to…” I began.
“Forget it.” He waved a dismissive hand at me. “It could never work.”
“I have to ask a favor,” I said.
Sitting down, his elation deflated, he looked at me, waiting.
“There was a manifest that cleared yesterday…a few people from the Bronx were on it, is that right?”
Taken aback, he asked, “How did you know about it?”
Just that it was true encouraged me. If Igor could know about a manifest and from where its members came, he might just be able to get a letter delivered to Jennie in the United States proper.
“I was wondering if it were possible to get someone transferred to the Bronx since they’ll be shorthanded.”
Now his mood was completely gone. I had turned his celebration into mourning. “You wish to leave? How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Not me,” I said. “Someone else.”
For the first time since I had presented my list of people for him to look up, Samud stared at me with an appraising glare. Unlike me, he was aware of the goings on of people in a captive situation. There were always favors exchanged for favors.
“Who is this friend?” he asked. “What is he giving to you?”
“Is that important?”
“It is. This is no small favor. For him to ask it and you to bring it forward, the return must be great.”
I said nothing for a moment, gauging how best to answer his suspicions. I would have to tell him something and there were no lies at my disposal. But I was spared having to tell one because the truth came to him before I could speak.
“It is your friend Jennie, yes?”
I nodded dumbly.
He nodded back. “Then Igor Grundel has taken advantage of my absence to rope you into one of his schemes.”
I cannot describe the terrible feeling that overcame me at that moment. Without any explanation from me, Samud had been able to figure out exactly what was going on.
“His price is usually not so high,” Samud continued, drumming his fingers on the desk. “I suppose he saw an opportunity in our friendship.”
“I didn’t know,” I stammered. “The others…”
“They don’t know either. Come with me.”
He stood from his desk and waited for me to follow suit. We left the office and took the stairs down one floor. There was a ten foot by ten foot storage closet here, with shelves lining the walls and boxes filling the shelves. Samud opened the door with a key and, after a moment’s looking, pulled down a medium sized brown box with a lid. The box was light when he handed it to me and I set it down on the floor to inspect its contents. I was unsurprised but no less devastated to discover it was filled with the letters of my peers. They had been turning their letters in to Igor for months and paying him whatever he asked for that false hope. In turn, he had been turning the letters over to Samud, who had stored them in a box.
“Did you read these?” Every single envelope had been carefully opened with a letter opener.
He nodded.
I think there may have been tears in my eyes. There were too many rusted sides to this coin. There was the lie and the treachery from Igor and the invasion of privacy by Samud.
“Whatever you think this is, Mathew,” Samud told me. “It is still a place where the prisoners are the prisoners and the guards are the guards. Igor Grundel is nothing more than a profiteering mole.”
“Is he even a prisoner?” I asked.
Samud nodded. “He came to me within his first few days and offered his services. I am curious now as to why he seeks transfer and why he would need to get it through you when he and I have regular contact.”
I shook my head. I had none of that information. Samud put the lid back on the box and tried to lift it, but I held it down.
“I’d like to return these letters to the people who wrote them,” I said.
He smiled. “I’m sure that you would, but I can’t allow it.”
“Why? Igor’s done working for you. He wants out so you can’t trust him and, even if you did trust him, I’m not going to keep this secret for you.” I paused, waiting for a response, but he gave me none. His expression remained the same. “You must have known that when you showed this to me.”
“I was hoping that our friendship…”
“Friendship? What kind of friendship do we have? Remember, Samud, that this is still a place where the prisoners are the prisoners and the guards are the guards.”
His posture became sad and he released the box. “So it is.”
When I was back in my room, I was sorry that I had ruined his day. Perhaps I had done him a favor by removing the conflict. Now he could be completely overjoyed about his promotion and his impending return to his homeland. I placed the box of letters on my empty bookshelf and then took out the letter I had written to Jennie. My rage and despair were so great that I couldn’t do anything but stare blankly at the words for hours to come. In the morning, I went to work without having slept.
The next work day seemed very long. When it finally ended and we were bussed back to the apartment building, I was exhausted. My anger had dissipated, replaced only by utter despondency. I had no energy, no rush as I planned to reveal Igor’s treachery to the group.
As the
dinner plates were emptied and the tables cleared, he came to see me. Obviously, he knew that Samud had returned and he also knew that I had been to see him. The miserly grin was back on his face so he clearly didn’t know what I had in store for him.
“Did you speak with your friend?” he asked me.
I nodded back at him, unable to look him in the eye. We were standing up now, moving into the common rooms.
“And?”
“I’ll get you my letter,” I said and detached myself from him.
We were allowed, before socialization, to go to our rooms briefly in case there was something we wanted to get, such as a book or a deck of cards. We were carefully monitored as we went upstairs and carefully monitored as we came back down. When I emerged from my room with the box of letters, the guard on duty looked at me queerly. Because he did not speak English, he did not give me any instructions before taking it from me and inspecting its contents. Though he looked confused by what he found, he could see no reason to deny it to me and so handed it back.