From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel

by Alex Gilvarry

  “Keep things honky dory,” he said.

  I said nothing.

  “Terror’s bad for business, don’t you think?”

  “Can I call you back?”

  “You do what you have to do. While you’re doing it, think of a number between one and two hundred thousand. And I’ll call you back.”

  “Two hundred thousand! Are you crazy?”

  “Certifiably,” he said, and hung up. Two hundred thousand dollars. This was the going price for Hajji’s silence. Not knowing what to do next, I called Ben.

  “Great news,” I said. “I’m being blackmailed by an Indian gangster.”

  “Who? Don Curryone? Take an antacid, that’s what I’d do. Ha!”

  “That’s not even funny. Racist, actually.”

  “Hey, no one’s experienced the blunt end of the bigot’s stick like the Irish. Tack my last name on the end of it, and you’ll have a portrait of a man who knows something about racial prejudice.”

  “Seriously. I just got off the phone with one of Ahmed’s associates. A man named Hajji. He’s this little fucker who followed me the other night. Says he wants two hundred thousand dollars or else he’ll go to the press and link me to Ahmed. What the hell am I suppose to do?”

  “Let’s go to the police.”

  “And tell them what?”

  “It’s extortion.”

  “What a mess. We go to the police, and then I have to tell them about this, that, and the other.”

  “This Hajji threatened you explicitly, right?”

  “Well, not explicitly. It was implied.”

  “Let me have his number. I know just what to say to people looking for handouts.”

  “He’s a pretty nasty guy. Bad dye job, long fingernails, the whole bit. He followed me to Philip’s party the other night. He must know where I live.”

  “What’s his number?”

  I gave it to him.

  “Listen, go take a nap, and I’ll call you when it’s finished. I’m going to make it clear to this asshole that he’s messing with the wrong fashion designer. Ciao.”

  “If you say it just like that, I’m a dead man.”

  Midafternoon, Ben called me back. I hadn’t left the apartment all day. I was crippled with worry, and so I’d locked myself in.

  “The good news is I talked him down to 175, but you have to tailor him two suits now. The bad news is I got him very angry, and I think we should definitely go to the authorities.”

  “What happened?”

  “Things were said. Threats were made—”

  I had another call from another unidentifiable number. 555.

  “Great, I think he’s phoning me now,” I said.

  “Yeah, don’t pick up. Let him leave a message. Maybe he’ll say something stupid that we can hand over to the police.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “Wait. Let me think.”

  “What’s to think about?”

  “I’m not up to this. Not today. I’m exhausted.”

  “Boy, this guy seems pretty dangerous. You said yourself.”

  “Yes, but I think we should do the right thing here.”

  “Which is?”

  “I think you should call your friend George and make the whole thing public. There’s no point in hiding. If we say that Ahmed was involved with the label, then Hajji has nothing, and I don’t have to be bothered with the police. It’s bound to come out sooner or later. Better it comes from us.”

  “Good point. Qureshi’s an alleged arms dealer, remember. You’ll be connected to a suspect now rather than a convicted terrorist later.… If, god forbid, this thing is true. It’s the lesser of two evils. And the quicker it’ll blow over.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “I’ll handle it,” said Ben. “And I’ll prepare a statement. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and end up having a laugh over the whole fucking mess.”

  Truly, we intended to come forth with the truth. Ben was to handle everything. Perhaps it was foolish to think that I could skirt around talking to the authorities by going directly to the press. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. I was already out of time.

  1. Vice President Dick Cheney

  2. “I thought the vice president handled the issue just fine, and I thought his explanation yesterday was a powerful explanation.… I’m satisfied.” —President George W. Bush, February 16, 2006.

  The Overwhelming Event

  It is raining today in No Man’s Land. The pelt against my windowpane is a phenomenon I associate with living in the city. Whenever it rained there I became hyperaware of sound. Cars splashing through puddles, the screech of the Second Avenue bus in the wet. The change of the traffic signals. The clicking inside the tin boxes that made the traffic signals switch. Everything operated with such efficiency, such timing, even in the rain. You knew what to expect at every crossing. When the red hand on the walk sign blinked, you sensed how much time you had by the other pedestrians. If there weren’t any, then by the eagerness of the cars inching into the crosswalk. One learned to read the signs.

  Here in No Man’s Land nothing is certain.

  When will I meet my personal representative?

  When will I meet with my lawyer?

  When will I be released?

  You see, uncertainty is their greatest weapon. Not the chains. Not the cuffs. Not the SMERF squad. Uncertainty.

  It begins with the knock on the door in the middle of the night.

  You may be fixing yourself something to eat, a midnight snack perhaps, or dawdling however one chooses to dawdle. As it was in my case, you may be entertaining a former lover, answering the proverbial booty call that had been placed just a few hours prior. Michelle had sent me a text asking me if I was home, and I had answered it with a text of my own: WOOD LUV TO HAVE U CUM OVER XOXO. I used these fairly obvious sexual innuendos to make sure we were on the same page. We were, for she responded: B OVER IN 20 –XXX. I found my skinny jeans to be too constricting for my state, so I changed into some lavender silk scrubs kept in reserve for such an occasion. Then I put some clean linens on the bed and sprayed the pillows lightly with cologne. It was Michelle’s habit to reach for a tube of lubricating jelly during the act, and so I got that ready too, strategically placing it in the top drawer of the nightstand.

  Michelle rang from downstairs and I buzzed her up.

  (I almost forgot. The knock that you will receive is more of a pounding, not any ordinary knock. Such is the rapping of the authorities.)

  I opened the door and waited. I listened to the echo of her footsteps as she clicked her way up the stairs from the main foyer, then along the concrete hallway. She was wearing heels. Her shoes made movie sounds. She must have come from a date that had gone badly.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” she said. She was fragrant, a blouse and a summer skirt. She took off her shoes at the door and slid into a pair of Havaianas. It was something familiar and automatic. We were the same size.

  “Of course I’d see you. I want to see you.”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t know what’s come over me. I just couldn’t stay at Nana’s place tonight.”

  It was after midnight. I realized how late it was by the glaze in Michelle’s eyes.

  “What about your other friend?”

  “Who?”

  “The one I saw you with at DuMont.”

  “Really, Boy. I told you then that he was no one. That he was a friend. We hardly speak. He has a girlfriend. He lives in Queens. Should I keep going?”

  “I guess I don’t care.”

  “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “There’s a pinot in the fridge.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of wine. It pleased me to know that she didn’t have to ask where things were.

  “The place looks nice. You cleaned.”

  “I have a woman come by.”

  “You’ve hired your own Filipina. L
ook at you.”

  “She’s Polish from Greenpoint,” I said.

  “Even better. Anyway, it’s clean. Give her a raise. Show me what you’re working on.”

  We walked over to my worktable. Michelle had a very good eye for what she would wear and what she wouldn’t. I still trusted her opinion and was flattered when she began flipping through some of my new drawings. “I like these,” she said. “These I’m not so sure. I would rethink what you’re doing. What are you doing?”

  “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing when I sketch. I just keep going until I have a pile. Then I go through the pile and gravitate toward what I feel is right. Then I have the beginnings of a collection without a name.”

  “Strange way to operate. You can’t write a play like that. You can’t just write and write and then choose scenes. Everything stands on what came before it. Things need to be obviously connected. So does a collection, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “It will be, but not at the beginning. At the beginning I just need to feel out what I’m doing. I need freedom. There’s nothing being wasted when it’s just pencil and paper. Only time.”

  “Not everyone has time.”

  “Everyone has time. What didn’t you like about these?”

  “They don’t seem wearable yet. These do. These don’t. But I only glanced at them. Show them to your friends. Take a poll.”

  “Wearable. I almost don’t know what that means anymore.”

  “I don’t mean in a Target way. This is New York. This isn’t Paris or London. Wearable, you know.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “These aren’t wearable.” I took the pile of sketches and pushed them aside. I showed her patterns I was considering for the looks she had admired.

  “I like these,” she said. “Rudi Gernreich?”

  “Rudi Gernreich for Target.”

  “That’s funny.” She laughed.

  I kissed her. She wasn’t expecting it and resisted with her mouth at first, hardening her lips, but soon she relaxed into it. She had already been drinking. I tasted gin on her lips.

  Suddenly, she pushed me off.

  “Where are your cigarettes?” she asked.

  “They’re in the kitchen. Right-hand drawer.”

  She went and got them. I followed. She turned the stove on to high. It was an electric with those hypnotic burners. “You want one?” she said. She took two out of the pack anyway.

  “Yes,” I said.

  When the burner turned red she bent over and lit each cigarette individually. She handed me mine only half lit, and it gave off a chemical smell. There was still tobacco stuck to the burner, smoking. I turned off the stove for her.

  “I have to use the loo,” she said, and disappeared again.

  I moved both our wineglasses over by the bed next to the ashtray I kept on the nightstand. The prop was cinematic. Not the ashtray alone but the whole act of smoking in bed, before or after, it didn’t matter. It never bothered Michelle to have one lit in the ashtray during, burning itself out. She once said it reminded her of Anne Bancroft in the movie The Graduate.

  I sat down next to the bed on my Wassily chair, close enough to the ashtray to rest my cigarette, and waited.

  Though I didn’t know it, this would be my last moment of freedom.

  What did I think of ? Since each second of freedom we have is so crucial, so fleeting, I would like to remember exactly what was in my thoughts. I could certainly make something up, something as dramatic as the way the smoke lingered in the air, trailing away from my cigarette in the ashtray. And you would certainly believe me. But I honestly don’t recall. Matter of fact, I don’t believe I thought about anything of significance. Isn’t that a shame? The last moment I had to myself and I had wasted it like spilled wine. I sat and waited. I waited for Michelle to return from the bathroom. I waited for them to come knocking on my door.

  This space of time that followed was like the moment before a crash, or so I can only imagine. Caught in that fraction of a second, you’re not anything. You are afloat. Time, space, perception are askew. Your life is secondary to the imminent event. The event is overwhelming. Even fear, which seems so crucial to the event, is somehow put on hold. I have read accounts of people getting mugged at gunpoint, how they are able to think with incredible clarity, how they are able to follow directions with composure. They do as they are told in the face of a loaded gun. I must have reacted similarly. Fear was not a concept to me in this space of time. I was nothing, as I said.

  There was the knock at the door. A pounding. Three times, maybe, though the number is irrelevant. Because it was not a knock to be answered. The door came down before I could uncross my legs. I froze mid-uncross. The men were relevant, bursting through the light of the hallway into the dark of my apartment, and once they were in the dark it was hard to decipher how many there were. (One must remember too that the order of action has been transformed by the nightmares I’ve had since. However, this is as close to the actual event as I can recall.)

  There was shouting: Get your hands up, get on your knees, get down on the ground, etc. Levels of sound were altered. When one thinks of traumatic experiences, one immediately assumes sound is drowned out, muffled, like under water. But that is not so. Levels are altered, but there is an acute awareness. I understood clearly what the men were demanding of me. I had already been reduced to a well-trained dog, and on command, I did exactly as I was told.

  The number of men was more threatening than the guns being pointed at me, even though the gun‑to‑man ratio was equal.

  They had me down on the floor when they shackled me. Both my hands and my feet. This was very painful. “Stay down.” From the ground I could hear the search underway. I was becoming more lucid, perceptive of multiple things happening simultaneously. Michelle was crying. Though her crying was growing more prominent with each passing moment, she wasn’t actually getting louder. Her screams and pants were simply coming into existence for me. Voices were taking their respective places in the room. A man’s boot heel was on my neck, but I managed to turn my head to the side in order to get a better look at the surroundings. Once he understood I was able to move, he applied pressure. “Don’t move.” My atelier was being ransacked. But my concern was for Michelle, not for any of my things. I could see the men. SMERFs. Not the same SMERFs we have here in No Man’s Land, but similar. Padding, vested, heavily armed. They continued to turn everything inside out. What were they looking for? I don’t even think they knew. Racks of my dresses were tipped over. My worktable was turned on its side, my sketches scattered to the floor along with pens, needles, spools of thread. My sewing machine was picked up off the floor and taken away. Bolts of fabric were unrolled quickly in the air, like someone airing out a sheet in the yard. I heard tearing, and I knew my dresses were being ripped apart, most likely the unfinished ones that were still on the forms. I couldn’t locate Michelle. I couldn’t turn my head. I strained my eyes trying desperately to look beyond their capacity. By her far-off cries I assumed they had her confined to the bathroom. Because of what they were saying to get Michelle to calm down, I now understood that the men had not come to rob and kill. But I still did not understand that they were agents of the government who had come to take me away. I would not understand this for some time. The man with his boot on my neck applied more pressure. I wanted to say something along the lines of a question but I couldn’t begin to formulate language.

  Someone else asked a question. One SMERF inquired of another, “Any weapons?” For a designer of women’s wear, you can only imagine my shock over the implication. That I would have weapons in my home like some common criminal. Surely, I thought, a mistake has been made.

  I was hooded.

  The hood had been doused with something chemical. No kidnapping is complete without the drugging of the victim.

  When I woke up I was somewhere else.

  War Crimes

  I shall do nothing more today than transcribe my most recent reserv
ation.

  “You comfortable here?” asked Spyro.

  “I’ve gotten used to it,” I said. “But these are horrible conditions.” I told him my theory about how one can adjust to anything. It amazes me still how quickly human beings can adapt to their circumstances.

  Spyro acted uninterested.

  “You know,” he said. “You’ve been receiving preferential treatment. Not that I need to tell you. You’re not stupid.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You’re permitted to write in your cell. Sketch. No one else is allowed pen and paper. You get fresh soap, extra towels, blankets, that kind of shit.”

  “I get a pen and paper because you’ve ordered me to write my confession.”

  “I had it authorized. Everything you have is because of me. The magazines, newspaper clippings, the news about your play. Even time. You have time because I’ve bargained for it.”

  “Are you fishing for gratitude?”

  “Am I fishing for gratitude? No. No, I’m not fishing for gratitude. Let me ask you something. Do you think you’ll be able to ask that of a military interrogator?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The others. The other detainees. When they’re interrogated it is by the military, not by us. You must have noticed.”

  “They keep me in the dark mostly.”

  “Well, take my word for it. The others answer to the military. They are interrogated at all hours of the night. The others aren’t allowed to sleep for very long. They’re not treated like you. And this is all because of me.”

  “Thank you kindly,” I said.

  He gazed at me, calculating something. “My point is: It won’t always be like this for you. Our time is coming to an end. I’ll have to hand you over to the military interrogators. They will ask you questions pertaining to your arrest.”

  “Is that what has happened to me? I’ve been arrested?”

  “You see, smart-ass things like that will get you in trouble. These guys don’t fuck around. They’ll ask you questions, the same questions I’ve asked you, only they won’t be too friendly about it. You’ll stand instead of sit. You’ll meet at night instead of day. You’ll be left alone for hours upon hours, and then you’ll be forced to talk for twelve straight.”