Johnson Denis - The Laughing Monsters

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.