Jim Shepard - Lights Out in the Reptile House

But first they’d eat. Kehr took him to the dining room, set up cafeteria-style, and they sat under an overhead fan and ate Skewered Variety Meats, mostly lamb hearts and kidneys. A few officers waved hello or exchanged a little banter. No one seemed surprised at Karel’s presence.

They’d be talking today with a young man who’d been caught painting slogans over Party posters. He was probably no partisan but his activities were worth looking into. People like him thought, Kehr said, that the partisans and all opponents of the current government were like a runaway horse, leading its rider back home. His only question to such people, he said, was, where is home? Who in this country wanted a return to the old days of the Republic?

Balls clacked in the next room, and Karel could see a billiard table. A woman passed it hooded and wearing shackles on her wrists and ankles. Two men were leading her. They were wearing shorts and bright yellow shirts.

“Lot of people being talked to today,” Kehr said. He quartered a piece of kidney on his plate. “Very busy.”

He asked if Karel wanted the dessert, a rice pudding with currants. Karel didn’t and Kehr said that that was on the whole a good move. They bused their trays and went down a corridor that turned every so often at right angles until Karel understood they were circling the first courtyard. They stopped at a staircase, and Kehr opened the door with a small key and headed down. The stairs were lit by a yellow light high on the wall, and they had to step over a coiled fire hose on the landing.

Kehr asked him to wait opposite a holding cell and with another key went into the next room over. A small square peephole on the center of the door had been covered with black masking tape. Under the peephole there was a pale green poster entitled. “Regulations: Group Holding Cells, Prisoner Assessment Centers.” Karel read around in it waiting for Kehr to reappear.

1: Individuals who discuss politics for the purposes of inciting rebellion, or make inflammatory speeches, or meet with others for that purpose, or form cliques, or loiter about, or collect true and untrue anecdotes for the purposes of spreading propaganda, or receive such anecdotes in writing, secrete them, pass them onto others, or attempt to smuggle them out of the cell and so the Prisoner Assessment Center, etc., by any means, or draft secret documents, will be considered to have committed an act of violence against the state and will be dealt with according to that consideration.

2: Individuals who attack or insult a guard, who refuse to obey or incite others to do the same, who hoot, shout, taunt, spit, or make speeches, will be considered to have committed an act of violence against the state and will be dealt with according to that consideration.

The door of the next room opened and Kehr signaled him in.

A young man maybe ten years older than Karel was sitting at a bare metal table. His arms were tied tightly behind his back, and one side of his jaw was swollen as if he’d filled his cheek with nuts. He was blindfolded, and he turned his head slightly at Karel’s entrance.

Kehr put his finger to his lips. “This is a colleague,” he said to the young man. “He’ll be sitting in.”

The young man’s expression didn’t change.

Kehr motioned for Karel to sit in the available chair. There was nothing on the walls, and the floor was smooth concrete. There was no other furniture.

“Where’s my sister?” the young man asked. He had dark hair and a dark complexion.

Kehr seemed to enjoy shifting slightly in his seat so that the young man’s blindfolded head would tip and turn experimentally to try to keep a fix on him. He told the young man his sister was being assessed in another part of the center and was doing quite well so far. The young man struggled and rocked in place and quieted down.

Kehr asked a series of questions, sometimes repeating himself. He asked the young man where he’d gotten the paint, where he’d heard the slogans, who had originally given him the idea. The young man didn’t know, didn’t remember, had nothing to do with those things, and finally stopped talking altogether.

Kehr after a moment said they could go on to the next step, if that was what the young man preferred. The young man didn’t answer. Kehr leaned forward and slapped him hard on his swollen side. Karel recoiled. “Would you like to go on to the next step?” Kehr said. “Would you like to go on to the next step?” He slapped the young man again, back and forth, twice. Saliva sprayed out the second time. “Would you like to go on to the next step?” he said. “Would you like to go on to the next step?” He held his hand close to the young man’s cheek, so that the fingertips were just touching it. The young man shied away, turned his head violently.

Kehr looked over at Karel, who was frozen in his chair. He expelled a breath through his nose and stood up. The young man’s face hung forward, ready for more blows.

“Tomorrow we’ll go on to the next step,” Kehr said. “That may jog loose the occasional forgotten detail.”

The young man swallowed, his face red, his expression intent and blank at the same time. Karel imagined him as Leda’s dark boy. Kehr indicated the door, as if being silent out of deference to the young man’s feelings, and followed Karel out.

On the ride home Kehr explained to him the best methods of interrogation, which he said were no secret. The interrogator should repeat the same question many times, at unpredictable moments, and always as though it had never been asked before. Then it was just a matter of carefully clarifying the variations in the replies, and pointing out to the subject the apparent contradictions. Until the right reply, or the one suspected to exist, surfaced, he said. Everything else, including the use of force, was at least partially theater. The collared lizard lifting itself onto its hind legs, the horned lizard squirting blood from the corner of its eye, the basilisk spreading its hood. Did Karel follow what he meant?

Karel rode home through the creosote feeling hot and cold together at the slapping, and his reaction to it, and said he did.

Kehr brought an envelope upstairs to his room after dinner and flipped it to him on the bed. “Mail call,” he said.

The envelope had Karel’s name and address on it, in Leda’s handwriting. There were no postmarks or stamps.

“Hand-delivered,” Kehr said. “Some of our men shuttle between here and the capital and one of them was kind enough to do me a favor.” He smiled helpfully and nodded at the letter, as though Karel probably wanted to get at it. He left the room and shut the door behind him.

The letter was in her handwriting as well.

Dear Karel,

How are you? How is the Reptile House? Have you heard anything from your father?

I’m writing to thank you for your help in getting my family here: your house guest told me about your persistence with Albert concerning the travel passes. I didn’t believe him at first but he showed me the passes. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you act so strange?

It dawned on me (well, my mother helped it dawn on me) how mean I’d been to you that night, considering. What kind of impression could I have left you with? I can be so nasty and sure of myself sometimes. I hereby apologize. Do you accept a long-distance kiss and hug?

We’re staying here with my aunt. We’ve got the whole third floor of her apartment and we need it! — Nicholas and David are in one room, Mother and I in another, and we have a little sitting room piled with boxes to go get away from people in. She’s happy enough to see us though Mother’s concerned about becoming independent as soon as possible and so am I. She’s hoping for a position as a housekeeper and is wearing out all my aunt’s friends looking for useful connections to wealthy families. I meanwhile was immediately signed up in the youth work study program in a nursery care center for mothers working in vital industries, which doesn’t pay much but allows discounts on food. I’m hopeful, but I don’t know what to expect from our boss, who has the brain of a chicken and considers herself a beauty. I start Monday.