The Laughing Monsters

by Denis Johnson

  This isn’t a prison. My tentmate and I are the only ones in red pajamas. The setup for the fifty or so African detainees (they wear white) seems makeshift and temporary—they’re rounded up and soon released.

  Our pajamas say “Nair” and “Roux”—handwritten with textile markers—but none of the personnel wear name tags on their utilities or have names stenciled on their T-shirts.

  Even during meals, Roux removes his glasses frequently and spends a lot of time breathing on the lenses and polishing them with his shirttail. He speaks to me only in French but rolls his r’s like a Spaniard. I gather he returned from business in Marseilles to find that his wife, a Congolese, had gone missing, and while running around looking for her he did something, he can’t guess what, to bring himself in conflict with the American dream.

  Nobody stops me from having a walk around, but whenever I do, one or more large enlisted men go walking around the same places.

  Davidia must still be here. I have no reason to believe they’ve taken her elsewhere.

  Michael Adriko is elsewhere. He never got here. He’s gone. He got away.

  * * *

  After two days’ grilling, I got a break.

  Off-line, I finished transcribing the handwritten letter to Tina. The notebook pages ended with this quick entry:

  I’ve slept two hours with my face on the table and just woke up to find everything changed. The general returned my pack and clothes and even several hundred of my 4K dollars—all the twenties.

  Michael’s sitting in the back of the general’s pickup—hands unbound. I saw Davidia getting in the front. The day has turned. Whether it turns upside down I

  Much activity—time to go—

  … All right, Tina, there you have it. My rise from terrified prisoner to confused detainee.

  Michael or Davidia must have told the Congolese Army about her connection with the 10th Special Forces. And only about Davidia’s connection, surely, because when Michael disappeared, nobody cared.

  Last time I saw Michael I was getting in the truck, up front, with the Congolese so-called general and Davidia. Michael leaned over the rail, nearly into my window, and handed me a pellet of chewing gum. “Here. Keep yourself busy.”

  When we made our rendezvous that night, it was like a magic trick. During a rain, the men in the back of the general’s pickup had covered themselves with a dark plastic tarp. They whipped the tarp off. Michael had vanished.

  Our escort were three US infantry Nissan pickups, just like our general’s, only olive rather than white.

  As Davidia and I boarded, one of the youngsters who’d guarded us said to me, “Newada Mountain.”

  “Yes?”

  “I am from there. I am Kakwa.”

  “Yes?”

  “Your friend is there.”

  “Michael? My African friend?”

  “Yes. He left to Newada Mountain.”

  “Oh!” I said—getting it for the first time—“New Water Mountain.”

  As for lately, Tina: no activity to report. I’ve spent the day in idleness, in limbo, in hope. I’ve made a proposal, and wheels may be turning. We just might forge an arrangement. In any case, they haven’t said no, and they’ve given me a day off. I can use one—my head still spins, and I slept very little last night, and before that I had no appetite for dinner, as my lunch was interrupted when this American, wow, a genuine asshole—attached to NIIA I suppose, but he withheld identification—dropped out of the sky.

  I was sitting at a table with Patrick Roux, my tentmate and alleged fellow detainee, when we heard what must have been this new man’s chopper landing but thought nothing of it, choppers come and go. Ten minutes later he entered and bumped across the cafeteria like a blimpy cartoon animal, I mean in a state of personal awkwardness, as if balancing a stack of plates, but he carried only his hands before him, at chest level. A blue checked shirt, khaki pants, brown loafers. “Come and talk to me.”—And I said, “No.” He had a fringe of brown hair with a big bald spot. He had fat cheeks and soulful, angry eyes. Reasonably young, mid-thirties.

  He stood by my place leaning on the table and looking down at me until a sergeant and a private came and lifted me by either arm from behind. As they quick-marched me out, he went over to the serving line, apparently for some lunch.

  Online, just before I pressed SEND, I added:

  The soldiers took me to a tent, and the sergeant left, and the private stood at ease by the tent fly, and I sat on one half of the furniture, that is, on one of two folding chairs.

  The sergeant returned with a chair of his own, unfolded it, and sat down and stared at me. Together we waited thirty minutes for my first interrogator.

  I said nothing, and the sergeant said nothing.

  He was present every minute of every session, and he always said nothing, and he never stopped staring.

  * * *

  My answers had to come fast. He who hesitates is lying.

  “We’ve been getting a lot of NTRs from you.”

  “We?”

  “Your reports have been forwarded to us. They were all NTRs.”

  “If there’s nothing to report, that’s what I report. Would you rather I make things up?”

  “Why would you transmit two identical NTRs with a thirty-second interval between them?”

  My stomach sank down to my groin. It irritated me that I couldn’t control my breath.

  “On October second you sent two NTRs in a row from the Freetown facility, thirty seconds apart. Why is that?”

  “It was my initial utilization of the equipment. I chose to double up.”

  “But on October eleventh you sent an NTR from the Arua station. Weren’t you utilizing that equipment for the first time?”

  “It didn’t seem necessary to be redundant. I had confidence in the equipment because the setup there seemed more robust—was obviously more robust.”

  “Why don’t you go Danish if you’re working Danish?”

  “Pardon?”

  “If you’re working as a Dane, why don’t you travel as a Dane?”

  “I thought I was working for NATO.”

  “You’re an army captain.”

  “Yes.”

  “In whose army?”

  “Denmark.”

  “Flashing a US passport.”

  “A Danish passport is something of a risk, because I hardly speak Danish at all. It makes me look bogus.”

  “Two NTRs thirty seconds apart—isn’t that a pretty crude and obvious signal?”

  He was right. I kept quiet.

  “Who intercepted that crude and obvious signal? Who was it actually meant for?”

  “This is boring. Can’t we just talk?”

  “I see you’re in red.”

  “You’re noticing only now?”

  “White is for the grown-ups. Red is for the noncompliant. Gitmo protocol.”

  “Guantánamo Bay?”

  “Yes.”

  “All those nifty short forms—I hate them.”

  “Give us a location on Michael Adriko.”

  Here I counted to five before admitting, “I’ve lost him.”

  “General location. Uganda? Congo?”

  “Congo.”

  “East? West?”

  “East.”

  “Close to here?”

  “I could only guess.”

  “Then do so.”

  “I believe he has reason to be in the area.”

  “You had him, you lost him, he’s reachable. We should know that. Isn’t that something to report?”

  “From what facility? We’ve been in the bush.”

  “I’d call it something to report.”

  I raised a middle finger. “Report this.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  “Good.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Do you smoke?”

  “No.”

  “Smoke pot? Opium?”

  “Never.”

  “Which one?”
>
  “Cut it out.”

  “What about alcohol?”

  “Yes.”

  “Correct. You were reported drunk in the restaurant of the Papa Leone there in Freetown on…” He consulted his notepad.

  Fucking Horst. Old Bruno. “The evening of the sixth,” I said.

  “So you agree.”

  “I agree on the date. Not on my condition. I didn’t take a Breathalyzer.”

  “What about when you sent the meltdown message, rockets up your ass and ‘go fuck yourselves’ and all that, were you drunk?”

  “I’m sober now. Go fuck yourself.”

  He said, “Captain Nair, in March of 2033 they’ll give me a gold watch, and I can retire. Till then I’ve got nothing to do but this.”

  “I’m through answering questions.”

  “As you wish. But you and I will stay right here.”

  “When can I see an attorney?”

  “As your legal status evolves, you’ll be afforded that opportunity.”

  “And my legal status is—what?”

  “Evolving. In accordance with the progress of this interview.”

  “Well, the progress has stopped. When can I leave?”

  “Right now you’re being detained without recourse to counsel under US antiterrorism laws.”

  “Which law in particular?”

  “You can expect to be informed of that as your status evolves.”

  “Okay. Suppose this interview sails smoothly along. What can you offer me?”

  “A good listener.”

  “Then I’ll be the one to make the offer,” I said. “I’m going to tell you everything, and then I expect you to bring in somebody higher up. Somebody who can deal.”

  “I’m not considering any offers.”

  “Then I assume you’re not authorized.”

  “I don’t recommend you make assumptions.”

  “But surely you can send me up the chain.”

  “Also an assumption.”

  “Fine. Offer withdrawn. Let the silence begin.”

  Our bodyguard, the sergeant, was one to emulate. On taking his seat he’d rested his hands on his knees, and he hadn’t disturbed them since.

  Within half a minute I had to wipe sweat from my upper lip. Why had I begun this contest? And did it matter what I told them? They’re only digging for lies, and when they turn up the truth they brush it aside and go on digging, stupid as dogs.

  The interrogator had the sense not to let it go on. He looked at his wristwatch, which might have been platinum. “Here’s an idea, Captain Nair. Why don’t you repeat your offer, and why don’t I accept it?”

  * * *

  Our tent had a good rubber roof without leaks. A strip of mosquito gauze running under the eaves let in the searing light all night, the disorienting yellow-ochre sunshine without shadows. Except for the microwave and satellite towers the base resembled an expanse of sacred aboriginal rubble, sandbag bunkers, Quonset huts emerging from mounds of earth bulldozed against them, and in the midst of it all two monumental generators that never stopped. No fuel or water reservoirs in evidence—they must have been buried. An acre of trucks and fighting vehicles, a hangar like a small mountain, a helicopter bull’s-eye. Mornings and evenings a live bugler, not a recording, blew reveille and taps.

  Our sandbag perimeter could have accommodated three more tents, but ours stood alone. My tentmate liked to sit on the wall and stare across the way at the chain-link enclosure full of Africans, nearly fifty of them, Lord’s Resistance, I should think, or collaborators, women on the north side, men on the south. No children. The men spent their time right against the divider, fingers curled on the wire, laughing and talking, while the women formed a single clump on the other side, never looking at the men. Once in a while a downpour drove them all under blue plastic canopies strung up in the corners. Quarrels erupted often among the women. I never heard any voice that sounded like Davidia’s.

  Patrick thought he might spot his wife among them, so he said. Still paying out this line. I didn’t buy it.

  We took our meals with everyone else. Officers and enlisted men ate together in a large Quonset along with civilian guests and Special Ops helicopter crews and detainees from NATO countries, of which Patrick and I were the only ones, the only people modeling red pajamas.

  The Special Activities Division sees some sort of advantage, I think, in starting the questions when your fork is halfway to your mouth. Just grab you up, goodbye hamburger sandwich, and it’s off to the interrogator.

  This one was new. And that was good.

  * * *

  We met in a Quonset hut, in an office with a desk, two aluminum dining chairs, and some empty cardboard boxes and a cardboard barrel of MREs I could have stood in up to my neck. “Meal Rammed in an Envelope,” he said. “Care to suck one down?” I declined. He served me black coffee. I could have chosen tea and milk.

  I said, “Where’s Sergeant Stone today?”

  “Sergeant Stone?”

  “I don’t know if his name was Stone, but he certainly seemed to be made of it.”

  “No sergeants here.”

  “He never introduced himself. Neither did the civilian.”

  “Under current regulations, that’s not a requirement.”

  “But under the circumstances, it might be courteous.”

  “Sure. Agreed.”

  “So—who are you?”

  “Let’s skip over the courtesies for now. Can I suggest we do that, without irritating the shit out of you?”

  I was too irritated to answer.

  He used a lot of motions getting a bag of tea into a cup. He seemed older than the first one, but in a way he looked younger, looked barbered and tailored, in dark trousers, a nice white shirt—I wouldn’t know silk, but it might have been—and cuff links. He looked the way I try to look.

  He sat down facing me with our knees nearly touching. We observed each other’s manner of drinking from a cup.

  “Captain Nair, I’d like your opinion.”

  “I’m full of opinions.”

  “Good. Well. In the fullness of your opinion—does all this you’ve been telling us the last couple of days sound like a desperate, unbelievable lie?”

  I counted to three. “Yes.” Counted again. “Now can I ask you a question?” Silence. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Why not?”

  He sipped his tea.

  “In case I’m telling the truth.”

  He drained his cup. “Or in case you stop lying. More coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He stood and set our cups aside and pulled his chair behind his desk and sat down. “I’ve reviewed all your written material,” he said, opening a drawer and taking out a manila file folder.

  “Yes.”

  He laid it apart before him. Printed e-mails, and my long note to Tina. “The Congolese Army threw you quite a party.”

  “Yes.”

  “Stressful.”

  “Yes.”

  He spent a few minutes perusing the pages of the letter, pages crusty from sweat and tears. “Sometimes I wish I had the balls to say this stuff. I don’t even have the balls to think it.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Another way of putting it is that we’re seeing a lot of anger, and that’s not characteristic of our expectations. No matter what the level of stress.”

  “I don’t deny it—lately I’ve been out of sorts.”

  “Sure, that’s another way to put it. If you think all this is funny.”

  “Well, I was dispatched to this region on an assignment, and now two weeks later I’m being dealt with as some kind of terrorist.”

  “I think you’re regarded as absent from your assignment.”

  “But I’m not absent, I’m present. Here I am, waiting to get back to work.”

  “A Special Forces attaché goes AWOL, starts making alarming noises about enriched uranium. You’re sent to make co
ntact, deliver one report that you’ve done so, and you immediately go silent.” He raised a printed e-mail by two corners and faced it toward me. “Until this maniac salvo.”

  “I’ve been pursuing my assignment according to my best judgment.”

  “And this meltdown message? ‘Cunts’ and such?”

  “Everybody likes to quote that one.”

  “I know. It’s very compelling. But why did you send it?”

  “Theater,” I said.

  “Really.”

  “I’m dealing with some rogue Mossad agents. I had to make it look good.”

  “A rogue Mossad agent, you’re saying, was sitting beside you while you transmitted insults to your NATO colleagues.”

  “Didn’t the last guy tape our interviews? Yes? Have you heard them?”

  “I’ve read highlights of the transcript.”

  “Then if you want the details, you can read the whole thing. Don’t ask me to rehash.”

  “And all of this, the crazy transmission, tossing your commo equipment, getting rounded up by the Congolese Army, all of this was in fulfillment of your superiors’ request that you keep a close eye on this fellow. And you say your mission’s momentum has declined sharply. And you propose a strategy to reboot.”

  “Yes.”

  He sat back with an empty-handed shrug. Shaking his head. Smiling. “Hard to know what to make of all this.”

  “I want to ask about Davidia St. Claire.”

  “On that subject I’ve got nothing to share with you. I mean really—I just don’t know. But she’s not in any trouble. I’d be more concerned about the one you sent the notes to. Tina? Is that her name?”

  “You can read the name right there. I can read it, upside down.”

  “This would be Tina Huntington. Works for us in Amsterdam.”

  “Who’s you?”

  “Who—me?”

  “You say us. Who’s us?”

  We both laughed.

  “We the Americans, from the USA,” he said.

  “Right. She works for you. You’re NATO?”

  “Nope. I’m a US naval attaché.”

  “Rank?”

  “I’m attached. Not in. Just attached.”

  “So you don’t need an ocean.”