Strawberry Fields

by Hilary Plum

  [ ]

  What happened was, in the words of the inquiry, grave and shameful. The army has apologized unreservedly to the families and the surviving victims of this shocking episode. And I would like to take the opportunity to repeat that apology today.

  What were the instructions to the guards? That is what the investigation that I have indicated has been undertaken is determining.

  To the president, Congress, and the American people, I wish I had been able to convey to them the gravity of this before we saw it in the media.

  It means having your hands tied behind your back and then simultaneously having them tied to your legs and your ankles and shackled from behind, left on a floor with a bag over my head, and kicked and punched and left there for several hours, only to be interrogated again. The detainees were hit and kicked, causing them to emit groans and other noises. They were played like musical instruments, a practice known as “the choir.” If your head wasn’t touching the floor or you let it rise up a little they put their boots on the back of your neck and forced it down. Some soldiers have been suspended from operational duty and military service. Certainly since this firestorm has been raging, it’s a question that I’ve given a lot of thought to. There are many who did their duty professionally and we should mention that as well.

  The Geneva Conventions apply to all of the individuals there in one way or another. If you allow them to believe at any point they are more than a dog you’ve lost control of them. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I feel terrible about what happened to these detainees. They are human beings. I deeply regret the damage that has been done. First, to the reputation of the honorable men and women of the armed forces, who are courageously and responsibly and professionally defending our freedoms across the globe. They are truly wonderful human beings. And their families and their loved ones can be enormously proud of them.

  Their instructions are to, in the case of Iraq, adhere to the Geneva Convention. Let me tell you the measures we’re taking. A special forces guy sat there holding a gun to my temple, a 9mm pistol. He said if I made any movement he’d blow my head off. I heard a scuffle, and then some dull thuds behind cell three. Harshing, or conditioning. ERFing. Told to bend over and then felt something shoved up my anus. I don’t know what it was but it was very painful. Shown photographs of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Rugrats, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Osama bin Laden and famous people from different countries.

  When they took him out they hosed the cell down and the water ran red with blood. I was left in a room and strobe lighting was put on and very loud music. It was a dance version of Eminem played repeatedly.

  A new category of “manipulative self-injurious behavior” was created.

  We need to review our habits and procedures. One of the things we’ve tried to do since September 11 is to try to get our department to adjust our procedures and processes. I’m seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those detainees. There is nothing we can do to automatically restore the trust which was the second casualty. There was malicious damage to US government property. We value human life. We know what the terrorists will do; we know they will try to exploit all that is bad, and try to obscure all that is good. You killed my family in the towers, and now it’s time to get you back. We lived because someone made holes with a machine gun, though they were shooting low and still more died from the bullets. We say to the world, we will strive to do our best, as imperfect as it may be.

  I felt that my stomach was being ripped out from my body.

  The facts are somewhat different than that.

  I lost feeling in my hands for the next six months.

  There is a timeline up here.

  After which they threatened to have me sent to Egypt, to be tortured, to face electric shocks, to have my fingers broken, to be sexually abused, and the like.

  I felt that everything I held sacred was being violated, and they must have felt the same.

  This culminated, in my opinion, with the deaths of two fellow detainees, at the hands of US military personnel, to which I myself was partially witness.

  A barrage of kicks to my head and back followed.

  People are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise. You can be absolutely certain that these investigations will discover things, as investigations do.

  Every time, the overkill amazed me. I was going out of my mind and didn’t know what was going on. I was desperate for it to end.

  According to the report the soldier believed the journalist had something clenched in one of his fists and was reaching for something on his person with the other hand. Based on the events of the preceding minutes the soldier assessed the actions as those of a suicide bomber who was taking steps to detonate an IED that posed a lethal threat to numerous soldiers in the immediate area. He shot the individual with his M-4, killing him. It was determined that the soldier complied with the laws of armed conflict and rules of engagement and acted reasonably under the circumstances. The journalist was unarmed and spoke English. His brother received two text messages: I am hiding. Death has come and Pray for me if I die.

  Alice

  What to do, where to go. Someone had been texting me: coordinates, longitude and latitude. It had taken me a few hours to figure out what the numbers were—real locations—and I couldn’t decide if that was embarrassing or impressive. Every few days a text came, and each corresponded to a location where Xenith was operating. At least this was what I first believed: a few had described places where I knew Xenith to be and others were sites where other PMCs operated, I’d discovered after some digging, except that they weren’t other, but shell companies whose origins and funding traced back to LeRoy. Then there were sites Xenith seemed to have nothing to do with, though there might be an insurgency Xenith would have been glad to fight. It seemed all I could do—I turned up rumors of a CIA-run prison here, new drone base there, or nothing, nothing—was wait. All roads to Rome? I didn’t know the number from which the texts were sent, and the sender responded to queries only with another set of coordinates.

  I texted Thanks or !, replies that could be read as earnest or ironic, I thought, or thought this was my intention.

  At night I would hold a map in my head, across the screen of my eyelids project the flattened globe (which projection, which of the possible distortions? It’s fair to ask) and pin a radiant dot, like the faltering of nerves that scintillates the vision, at each site. These days I was more anxious than I’d been in years. One night Modigliani called, first I’d heard from him in months. Most years of my life have passed without either his presence or any thought of it. I didn’t pick up. In my half-sleep I saw the phone glow twice. Hours later I awoke from a dream I couldn’t remember but was relieved to be free of, and had to pee, the short walk to the bathroom was long. Naked I sat on the toilet, phone to my ear, and listened to the message from Modigliani.

  Alice, he said. Alice. I’ve just had a dream about you. I was in Abu Dhabi and saw LeRoy in the airport, walking around with a sheet on his head, can you believe it, thugs in wrap-around sunglasses circling him. Still the big boss, on his phone, looking at no one. He’s there now, you know, he’s got a huge new contract with their government, to help deal with potential protestors, potential pro-democracy movements. So as he’s walking through the terminal a cat crosses his path, not a black cat, just a tabby, tail up, on the hunt. He pauses and one of his men trips over it, they all laugh, just a little stumble, but the cat’s back is broken, she pulls herself away using only her front paws. LeRoy doesn’t laugh and he quiets his men. Outside a plane lands and its wings are shimmering with a sort of flame, blue and faintly orange. We all act as if this was normal.

  I walk out toward the plane and a boy is getting off it, you’re right behind him. Y
ou look tired and the boy is very thin. The plane is small and you are crossing the tarmac to the gate in the wind. Then from around us everywhere there’s gunfire. It’s not LeRoy’s men, I can see this, they’re still at the window, behind glass. The gunfire ceases and we’re surrounded by the wounded and the dying. I’m lying on the ground and next to me a suitcase has come open, near my face is the tag, written on it the letter S. I’ve been shot, I realize, and I pull myself toward you using my arms, the pavement wet beneath me. You’re crouching low by the boy, who is nearly dead. His stomach is a bloody ruin, intestines thick in it and his hands grasping at them. Clothing has flown everywhere and you’re clearing the mess, lifting a pair of women’s panties, bright green, off his shoulder. You’re singing a little, I don’t know the song. I’m sorry, I say, meaning the boy. You look at me and say, I was hired to write his obituary. You look past me. With great effort I turn myself over, to face the sky and what had been behind me. Men in camouflage stand in a semicircle. OK, buddy, I say to the one with the youngest face, but I’m interrupted by streams of piss hitting my leg. They think I’m dead. The sun is too bright. The song you were singing is still in my head, but it’s annoying, just the same thing over and over. When I wake up I’m covered in sweat, but in my dream the dampness was their piss and my blood.

  I’m sorry, Alice, he says, and the final sibilance is swallowed. I can’t tell if he’s apologizing for this intimacy, or the silence preceding it, or something greater. I’m so frustrated not to know that I hit delete.

  It’s quiet again, and warm in the bathroom, where the air conditioning doesn’t quite penetrate. I get up. I look at myself in the mirror.

  I recall that earlier that night I had poured Modigliani a drink. It was a ceremony only the drunk comprehend. Modigliani, this one’s for the killers. Let’s say, I said to no one, you are American. Or not. Let’s say the flight was long and unregistered, flight attendants masked. The plane landed in a country that meant nothing to anyone on it. Shall we call it Poland, or Estonia. The prisons there have long histories, but all in other languages. You never sleep and often are naked. Water fills your eyes, nose, mouth, and, you fear, your lungs. You have spoken to the same men forever and yet you are no closer to a future anyone could name. They are no closer to what we might call an epiphany. A victory, a redemption. They are always on the phone. Now they may throw you into a wall or confine you in a cabinet without calling first for permission. One by one the possibilities increase.

  If only I knew what to call you. If only I could have called you brother.

  If only we could share something that those who watch could not perceive. The glass is dark.

  I look at myself in the mirror. In my twenties a doctor told me I had a slight palsy of the eye muscles, which is why my head tilts to the right: at this angle I see more clearly. I’d never noticed this, though upon examination every photograph of me confirmed it. And my whole life, people have said I’m such a good listener—but it’s misdirection, that posture, head cocked as though interested. Why won’t you hire Muslims? I’d ask LeRoy, catching him as he slipped from his dark-windowed SUV to the gates of his compound. Muslims can’t be trusted to kill Muslims, he’d say. Of course he’d already said this, to some other reporter and years ago, but I liked to imagine it was to me.

  Gabriela

  We’d been praying for a lawyer but she’s who showed up.

  Alice, she said, and extended a hand through the bars.

  Alice, I said. So, if you cry enough we’ll shrink down and just swim ourselves out of prison?

  She blinked at me. Incomprehension or the smell.

  I was surprised she recognized me from my photo. It had been months since a mirror but I surmised my roots had come in.

  No visiting room? she said. I shook my head and pointed, pushed toward the corner. The old bag in the corner looked at me and got up. Behind us that little thing was moaning again, trickle starting again down her leg.

  Alice had a high ponytail and three bottles of water, which didn’t fit through the bars. Mouths came forward and she tipped the bottles, placed one hand as needed under upturned chins. Was she a saint or some great white plastic-teated cow?

  Hand cupped at her hip she showed me a disposable cell phone, just for me. I slipped it into my bra, which had been growing looser, handy for contraband. Through the bars we were close and she tapped the record icon on her phone. Her perfume was too faint to bring a new smell to this place. Beneath each eye was a dark stain of mascara.

  You were among the forty-six reporters who wrote a letter to the traffickers, she said, her accent a postcard from a maple syrup farm. She said: The letter protested the recent murders of journalists and requested—requested guidelines so that you could know what might be safely published.

  A smell arose, with it the sound of shit on shit in the bucket.

  I said: I said to the criminals, tell me how to live!

  Did you receive any kind of reply?

  My wrists threaded through the bars, I showed her my palms: you’re looking at it.

  She waited.

  We expected none, I said in her language. The letter was meant for you, the foreign press, to tell you what it’s like now. The gangs send us letters all the time. You know they pin notes up now next to each cache of bodies they dump.

  Alice nodded. The light was dim, her eyes blue.

  One of us, I said, has already left for the north, where he is now a ghost, no longer a writer. One is dead, a car accident, who knows. One was strangled. One dismembered. I am in jail, out of the frying pan, so I hear.

  I said: There was always a man on the corner. I was dyeing my hair a new color each week. When I saw them on the street my blood moved through me. And I have learned to write fiction.

  I said: It is not enough.

  There is a screen, I said, and if you write it right anyone reading will think, ah, a screen, and know the truth is behind it.

  I could have left, I said. I could have crossed the border. I could have lived like the fumes of a lawnmower.

  Tell me something, I said. Tell me where you’re from.

  She looked off as though into the distance, but there was only the cell, whores, thieves, political prisoners, lookouts, a window through which light pulsed the hours.

  I’m from all over, she said. But she was a liar.

  If I die, I said, you must tell my brother.

  I wasn’t serious, but I knew she would like to feel important.

  She took my hand.

  It’s Halloween, she said, the day before the day of the dead.

  I shrugged.

  I bought a ski mask, she said, so I could go as the police.

  Behind us I swear that girl was dying.

  What I wanted to write about, I said, were the dead girls on the border. But I couldn’t find an angle. I have files, I said, I have dozens of files on dozens of girls, all dead.

  I know, she said. She said: I’ve been to your apartment. I’m sorry.

  Did you water the plants?

  There were no plants, she said. But I read all the mail.

  I was tired of her, she moved her fingers in mine, her skin pale and the swell of her hips like a dream in this light.

  Bury me, I said, with my face to the south.

  I’m sorry, she said.

  Are you? I said. In the end the best thing is to die in your own country.

  Would you like to give me any notes? she said. I could deliver them.

  My notes are my own.

  I would like to join those women, I said. There should be an afterlife where we’re all in the same room. Kind of like this—I pointed my thumb over my shoulder.

  There will be a trial, she said, you have nothing to worry about. You’ll get out of here.

  That’s what I mean, I said.

  Will you write about me? I
asked her.

  If I can find an angle, she said, lifting my putrid fingers to her soft lips.

  For the record, I said, I am a natural brunette.

  In the end, she said, the best thing is to go on living where you’re not wanted.

  Her hair was down now and she looked younger and younger.

  We’ll remember you, she said.

  I told her the truth. I said: That’s no consolation.

  Her tears didn’t even make it to the floor.

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following journals, in which excerpts of this novel, in earlier versions, appeared: the Collagist, Consequence, Diagram, Fact-Simile, Fence, LIT, LVNG, the Massachusetts Review, Modern Language Studies, Pleiades, Requited, Route 9, the Sierra Nevada Review, the Spectacle, Western Humanities Review, and Whiskey Island.

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