Free Emails from the Edge by Ken Haley Page B
Authors: Ken Haley
looking after me.
Sometime just before dawn, the sense of my own miserable state reduced me to lying down on the piss-soaked mattress. My nervous exhaustion induced a state of slumber (I hesitate to call it sleep) that was somehow hyper-aware of my physical surroundings; and the fire in my brain crackled on.
With morning came a change of shift. Gabbled Arabic, excited talk between arriving and departing cops. The officersâ talk woke me up. A Westerner must have novelty value here , I told myself. Two of the policemen came to the iron door. One joggled a key in the lock while the other kept his eyes fixed on me. I remember thinking, Donât worry, Iâm not going to make a false move. I made all those last night .
They motioned me further along the corridor, away from âpublicâ view, towards the cell where Iâd heard screaming in the small hours. One of the jailers pointed to an overhead shower rose, and blinked an order, as if to say, âYou know how to use it. Do it.â
Privacy wasnât an issue, and in my weakened state shame wasnât either. I undressed, piled my clothes out of sprayâs way, and turned on the tap. The rusty waterworks shuddered and snorted, a sand-coloured squirt of liquid shot me in the head, and I applied the wafer of soap Iâd been given to the steadier flow that followed. It was cold, but coming after my night in the furnace that was a relief.
Upon dressing I was led back down the corridor, past âmy cellâ, to the duty desk where an officer I didnât recogniseâbut at least one who spoke English, unlike his colleagues of the nightâbarked instructions at his juniors before training his gaze on me and saying in the neutral manner of a cyborg, âWe will take you soon.â
I still had no handle on reality. Had the Iraqis arrived during the night? Was this new officer one of the occupiers? Where were they going to take me? Questions dripped like beads of sweat through what was left of my mind. The future would reveal itself in due course, I could make no sense of the present, and instinct was the only survival tool left to me. It told me that to ask where I was going would be construed as a sign of weakness. The future is coming , I told myself. Patience .
The morning shift must have been told all about the gibbering idiot brought in overnight, but now a self-absorbed silence was all I could manage. Vacantly I stared at the floor, looking up only once to the rulersâ portraits above the duty officer. Yesterdayâs tyrants had vanished; occupying pride of place were the Bahraini ruling family, but instead of the accustomed regal pose their eyes exuded fear. Nothing makes sense any more , I told myself but, in the view of those ever-attentive officers, not a word passed my lips.
I canât recall exactly when the new transportation arrived, perhaps between 9 and 10 am, but this was no police van. The tones had changed too. Last night the voice of officialdom rasped; this morning it cooed. Like a child at the dentistâs, I was assured that everything would be all right (and, like a child at the dentistâs, I knew they were lying). Hemmed in either side by officers, I clambered into the back of the van, and sat myself down in the middle of a bench. A lozenge-shaped pane of glass afforded a view, but my vision was still unsteady so the townscape held no charms for me.
By this time, not only were purposes hidden but our whereabouts and direction were utter mysteries as well. The driver seemed to be swerving all over the placeâmosques, schools, shops swam across my field of vision, my hands clutched the bench to keep balanceâas if he were in a movie trying to shake off a pursuer.
Eventually, my sole surviving rational brain cell concluded that we were somewhere not far from the Old Town but in a suburb seldom if ever visited by me before. Like a slingshot in slow motion, we came off a roundabout that looked familiar
Sometime just before dawn, the sense of my own miserable state reduced me to lying down on the piss-soaked mattress. My nervous exhaustion induced a state of slumber (I hesitate to call it sleep) that was somehow hyper-aware of my physical surroundings; and the fire in my brain crackled on.
With morning came a change of shift. Gabbled Arabic, excited talk between arriving and departing cops. The officersâ talk woke me up. A Westerner must have novelty value here , I told myself. Two of the policemen came to the iron door. One joggled a key in the lock while the other kept his eyes fixed on me. I remember thinking, Donât worry, Iâm not going to make a false move. I made all those last night .
They motioned me further along the corridor, away from âpublicâ view, towards the cell where Iâd heard screaming in the small hours. One of the jailers pointed to an overhead shower rose, and blinked an order, as if to say, âYou know how to use it. Do it.â
Privacy wasnât an issue, and in my weakened state shame wasnât either. I undressed, piled my clothes out of sprayâs way, and turned on the tap. The rusty waterworks shuddered and snorted, a sand-coloured squirt of liquid shot me in the head, and I applied the wafer of soap Iâd been given to the steadier flow that followed. It was cold, but coming after my night in the furnace that was a relief.
Upon dressing I was led back down the corridor, past âmy cellâ, to the duty desk where an officer I didnât recogniseâbut at least one who spoke English, unlike his colleagues of the nightâbarked instructions at his juniors before training his gaze on me and saying in the neutral manner of a cyborg, âWe will take you soon.â
I still had no handle on reality. Had the Iraqis arrived during the night? Was this new officer one of the occupiers? Where were they going to take me? Questions dripped like beads of sweat through what was left of my mind. The future would reveal itself in due course, I could make no sense of the present, and instinct was the only survival tool left to me. It told me that to ask where I was going would be construed as a sign of weakness. The future is coming , I told myself. Patience .
The morning shift must have been told all about the gibbering idiot brought in overnight, but now a self-absorbed silence was all I could manage. Vacantly I stared at the floor, looking up only once to the rulersâ portraits above the duty officer. Yesterdayâs tyrants had vanished; occupying pride of place were the Bahraini ruling family, but instead of the accustomed regal pose their eyes exuded fear. Nothing makes sense any more , I told myself but, in the view of those ever-attentive officers, not a word passed my lips.
I canât recall exactly when the new transportation arrived, perhaps between 9 and 10 am, but this was no police van. The tones had changed too. Last night the voice of officialdom rasped; this morning it cooed. Like a child at the dentistâs, I was assured that everything would be all right (and, like a child at the dentistâs, I knew they were lying). Hemmed in either side by officers, I clambered into the back of the van, and sat myself down in the middle of a bench. A lozenge-shaped pane of glass afforded a view, but my vision was still unsteady so the townscape held no charms for me.
By this time, not only were purposes hidden but our whereabouts and direction were utter mysteries as well. The driver seemed to be swerving all over the placeâmosques, schools, shops swam across my field of vision, my hands clutched the bench to keep balanceâas if he were in a movie trying to shake off a pursuer.
Eventually, my sole surviving rational brain cell concluded that we were somewhere not far from the Old Town but in a suburb seldom if ever visited by me before. Like a slingshot in slow motion, we came off a roundabout that looked familiar