Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

Hamoud would never be able to say how long the torture lasted. He only knew that, when it was over, his throat and lungs throbbed with pain, that he was dizzy and nauseous and disoriented, that the wound on his eye had been numbed into insensitivity. In the brief intervals when they had removed the cloth, he had rasped information at his torturers. Any information. Names, made up. Places, invented. Plots, fabricated. All now forgotten, by him at least.

He had shivered in the corner of the room as they silently removed their equipment. When they’d left, he had noticed through his good eye that the bowl of dirty water had been upturned and was spreading across the floor of his cell, and a fly was circling the rim of the toilet bowl . . .

Hamoud had dreamed vividly about that torture last night. For a moment, in the twilight between sleeping and waking, he thought his salty sweat was the salt water from the five-gallon containers, and that it was all happening again. Even as he woke more fully, clutching his right eye, he thought he was lying in his cell. It was only the calming voice of Rabia, and the touch of her cool hand on his brow, that told him he was safely at home. The memory of Guantanamo Bay was just that: a memory.

It was dark in their tiny bedroom. They couldn’t afford curtains, let alone blackout curtains, so he knew it was before dawn. He crept out of bed and pulled on his plain white robe. He had to wear loose clothing because anything too tight hurt the scars on his abdomen. But even the robe clung to his sweaty skin and he winced with discomfort. He tiptoed sideways round the bed because there was so little space, and walked lightly so he didn’t disturb the two children who shared a thin mattress on the floor in the next room. Rabia kept the bathroom scrupulously clean even though the constant condensation made the walls sweat even more than Hamoud. Here, he splashed water on his face and looked in the mirror. There was enough moonlight for him to see his reflection. Hamoud was only thirty-two but he looked at least ten years older. His skin was dark but the rings around his eyes were darker. His beard was flecked with grey. It was long and soft. The children liked to put their hands through it. Hamoud would have preferred to shave it off because he knew that it made him look more Muslim, and that could be difficult. But Rabia persuaded him to keep it. She liked it, she said, and he should not be ashamed of who he was, any more than he should be ashamed by the scar on his eye. He looked at it now. It was white and embossed. It stretched in a straight vertical line from his right eyebrow, over his eyelids and down his cheek. It made him look like a criminal. People stared at it, at him, and he knew what they were thinking: that his appearance indicated a hatred of America.

The dream had stayed with him as he sat at the table in their living space. He could almost taste the brine in the back of his throat. He scratched his palms. It was a habit of his from his time in Guantanamo. They were red and inflamed. The more he scratched them, the sorer they became, but he couldn’t stop doing it. He poured himself a glass of water and drank deeply. To Hamoud, who had spent so many days in prison starved of water, this was a real luxury. He felt much better when he’d finished it. Calmer.

Hamoud owned a box. It wasn’t a special or expensive box. Just a plywood thing that he’d bought in a thrift store. He kept it on the top shelf of the bookcase, out of the children’s reach. Rabia had wanted Hamoud to dispose of the contents, but they were important to him. He fetched the box now, placed it on the table and opened it up. It was brimful of newspaper clippings, neatly trimmed and folded. He removed the top clipping. A face stared out at him. A man with brown skin, like Hamoud. He looked sinister. Scary, almost. The caption under the photograph read: ‘Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Ahmed Kenan’. Hamoud had never met Ahmed Kenan. They had segregated him from all other prisoners during his time in the camp. He had never met any of them. He didn’t know whether Ahmed Kenan was falsely accused, like him, or a violent terrorist. He would never know. They would never meet. But he felt a connection with the man who stared out of the newspaper clipping. He felt a connection with all the former inmates whose details he had meticulously collected and stored in this cheap box. He selected another picture, a more friendly looking fellow with an unnaturally long face and a beard that seemed to elongate it even further. Hamoud liked looking at this man. There was something appealing about him. He thought in a different life they could have been friends.

It grew light outside. He could hear Rabia moving around. He folded up the clippings and returned the box to its place on the bookcase. He knew she would tell him off for looking through it. Why are you looking at those pictures? she would say. How many of those men are criminals? It’s almost like you want to be back in that cursed place! There was nothing Hamoud wanted less and he couldn’t explain why he found the pictures such a comfort. Perhaps it was just the thought that there were other people who knew – who truly knew – what he had been through. He worried that she would one day throw them out, but for now she at least seemed to accept that they were important to him, even if she didn’t like it.

He heard her enter the bathroom. Soon she would leave for work, cleaning houses, and she would not be back until it was dark. Hamoud would take the children to school and return to the apartment, where he would remain until it was time to pick them up. There was no question of him getting a job. His nerves were not up to it and his wife would never allow it. Not until he was ‘better’, whatever that meant. And anyway, at some point he would have to let an employer know where he had spent two years of his life, and who in their right minds would give a job to a former Guantanamo inmate? It would make no difference to them that he had been released without charge. It would make no difference that he was a US citizen. Nobody wanted Hamoud to help make America great again.

So, he would spend today, as every day, alone in this tiny apartment with its musty carpets and patches of damp, provided by the American government as a meagre acknowledgement that they had inflicted two years of horror on an innocent man. And when his family returned from their full days, he would be diminished. Less of a man than he had been when he’d said goodbye to them. Each day chipped away at him. Soon, he thought to himself, there would be nothing left.

As these thoughts raced through his mind, he heard something. Footsteps in the corridor outside. The walls of this apartment block were thin. Sound travelled. No doubt his neighbours heard his regular night-time screams. It was unusual, however, to hear footsteps at this time in the morning. He checked his watch. Two minutes to six. Normally he didn’t hear anybody until six thirty. The footsteps stopped outside the door to the apartment. An envelope appeared under the door. Hamoud, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare sofa they had salvaged from a street corner, watched it with quiet astonishment.

He stood up, hurried to the door and opened it, peering outside to see who the delivery person was. The corridor was empty. The door at the end which led to the stairwell slammed shut.

Silence.

Hamoud picked up the envelope. It was addressed to him, and there was a stamp and postmark. It felt heavy. Distracted, he closed the apartment door with his foot and walked back to the sofa where he opened the envelope and emptied out its contents.

There was a letter inside, and a brochure for Walt Disney World in Florida. His eyes lingered on the brochure first. There was a boy and a girl on the front cover. Each had pale skin, blue eyes and blonde, tousled hair. They were hugging Mickey Mouse and they looked so happy that Hamoud smiled. Then he felt sad. He wished his children might one day look as happy as that. It seemed unlikely. They were only eight and ten, and already they had the tired expressions of the world-weary.