IT WAS A long flight to America, all over water. I tried not to think about that. It made me nervous. I read a little, slept a little, and made a few unsuccessful attempts to chat with the men seated on either side of me, neither of whom spoke any English. Time passed very slowly.
I had fallen into a light doze, halfway between waking and sleeping, when at last I heard a stewardess announce over the speaker system that the plane would be landing in forty-five minutes. We were almost there! I checked the time on my watch: 10:15 P.M., German time. My watch. The beautiful watch my father had given me for my fifteenth birthday. ‘Because you’re a beautiful young woman now,’ he had said, ‘and you should have beautiful things.’ I had my beads, too, the last four strands my grandmother had given me. I was also wearing one piece of my wedding jewelry, a butterfly ring, and a necklace and earrings Ayisha had given me. I touched my earlobes, my neck, feeling for the long copper earrings made up of little columns of x’s and o’s, and the thick copper cross on a black cord, gifts from Ayisha for no special occasion but just because she loved me. Ayisha. Please, Allah, let her be safe and well. I’d written to her from Germany, but she hadn’t written back. Had she received my letter? I’d write to her again, first thing, as soon as I got to my uncle’s house. She was probably worrying about me right now, wondering if I was all right.
Ping. I looked up. The Fasten Seat Belts sign had come on. The stewardess came back on the speaker system. ‘We are now beginning our descent to Newark International Airport. Local time is four o’clock.’ This was wonderful! If all went well, I might be with my aunt and uncle in time for dinner.
The plane began dropping, down, down, down. Another drop, a surge, a drop, and then, bumpety-bump, we were down. This was it. I closed my eyes. ‘Allah, You know all things and You determine all things. I trust in You. My fate is in Your hands.’
I followed the other passengers off the plane, through a set of doors into a big, open room with a long row of immigration counters along the far wall. Someone in a uniform who was controlling passenger flow directed me into a line of people headed toward a counter with a woman officer behind it. Allah was with me, I thought. I’d much rather tell my story to a woman than to the man who was at the other booth where noncitizens were being directed. A woman would sympathize. She’d understand.
My turn. I approached the booth, heart pounding, and handed the officer the passport. ‘Hello,’ she greeted me. She was a white woman with short brownish hair, not friendly, not unfriendly.
‘Have you been to this country before?’ she asked.
‘No, please.’ I wanted to be as courteous as possible.
‘You haven’t been here?’
‘No, please.’
‘Well, the person this passport belongs to has been here.’
‘Oh, excuse me, please. That’s not my passport.’
‘It’s not your passport?’
‘No.’
‘Can you explain what you’re doing with this passport?’ the officer asked calmly.
‘Oh, yes, please. I want political asylum.’ That’s what Charlie had said to say, so that’s what I said.
‘You want asylum.’
‘Yes, please.’
She studied me for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to do. Did I tell my story now? Did I wait until she asked me to tell it? Or maybe I wouldn’t have to tell my story. Maybe she’d know just by looking at me that I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t had to come. Maybe she’d say, ‘OK, go ahead, welcome to America,’ and wave me through. She didn’t. She shook her head slightly, pulled out a form and picked up a pen, to take down my story I thought. It was around four-thirty P.M., December 17, 1994. I thought my time of worst trials and suffering was about to end. It had just begun.
‘Do you have a return ticket?’ she asked.
I gave her my ticket receipt.
‘No, a return ticket.’
‘You mean to Germany?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’ Why would I have that?
‘Do you have any money with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you tell me how much?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Could you count it for me, please?’
I took my money out of my purse, counted it, and told her the total: $595.
‘May I have it, please?’ She held out a hand, palm up, as she wrote something on the form.
Oohhh! She was teasing me! Like the customs officer in Germany had before he’d waved me through.
She looked up from her form, her hand still out. ‘May I have it, please?’ She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t teasing. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You’ll get it back. I’ve marked the amount right here.’ I handed her my money. She picked up the form, the passport, and the ticket. ‘Have a seat there,’ she said, pointing to a waiting area with several rows of benches. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
‘Yes, please.’ I sat down. I was the only passenger there. I guessed I’d have to tell my story after all. She probably needed to write it on the form. That made sense. I looked around for a telephone. I didn’t see one. There were a couple of doors along the wall I was facing and a small hallway to the right. I’d ask the lady where the phones were when she got back to me. I didn’t have my uncle’s telephone number. Maybe she’d help me find it and call him.
I saw the lady officer talking to another officer, a man, who came over to me afterward. ‘Would you follow me please? We need to take your picture and your fingerprints,’ he said. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’ He stood me in front of a wall, held up a camera and took my picture. Then he led me to a table and held my hand, guiding my thumbs from inkpad to paper. ‘OK, that’s it,’ he said. He gave me a tissue to wipe off the ink. ‘You can sit down now.’ Wow! I was impressed. They were making me a passport right there! I’d never heard of using fingerprints on a passport, but what else could the picture be for? This was so wonderful! I’d tell the lady my story, they’d give me the passport, she’d help me call my uncle, he’d come get me, and I’d be on my way. What a great country America was!
About an hour later the lady had finished with the line of people who had been behind me. She opened one of the doors along the wall I sat facing and showed me into a tiny room with a table and two chairs. As we sat down across from one another, she took out a pen and some sheets of paper.
‘OK, now, let’s talk,’ she said. ‘I want you to tell me why you came here and what you want from the United States. I want you to tell me everything and I want you to tell me the truth, OK?’
‘Yes, please.’ Gladly.
We began with my name: Fauziya Kassindja.
‘Fauziya. Could you spell that?’
I spelled it.
She didn’t ask me to spell my last name. Although I saw her write ‘Kasinga,’ I wasn’t sure if it was proper to correct her, so I didn’t. She asked me my birth date. I told her. She asked where I was born. I told her. She wrote ‘Kpalome’ instead of ‘Kpalimé.’ I didn’t correct that either. She asked my citizenship. I told her. She asked why I’d come to America.
I told her my father had died on January 16, 1993. I told her that after my father had died, my aunt had evicted my mother, pulled me out of school, and forced me to marry a man old enough to be my father who already had three wives. I told her my oldest sister had helped me escape to Germany, where I’d met Charlie and bought the passport from him for $600. I told her I wanted to be allowed to live in a country where I had family and spoke the language. I wanted to live with my uncle and go back to school. I wanted to build some kind of new life for myself now that the life I’d known and loved had been taken from me. I wanted political asylum.
I didn’t tell her about kakia. She was a woman, but she was a white woman and she was American. How could I explain kakia to someone who’d probably never heard of it? She might think I was lying, making it up. And it was such a horrible, personal, intimate thing. I couldn’t bring myself to speak of it. It was too shameful. I’d told her enough, I thought. More than enough. Any person with a caring heart would sympathize with my situation. She’d welcome me to her country, and I’d be free to go.
‘That’s it?’ she asked when I’d finished telling my story. ‘That’s everything?’
‘Yes.’
She gave me the sheet of paper to read and sign. She hadn’t written much: name, date and place of birth, citizenship, that I’d bought the passport from Charlie, and that I’d come to the United States because ‘my aunt wants me to marry someone I don’t like.’ It wasn’t the whole story, but it was true as far as it went. Maybe that was all she needed for her records. I signed the paper and handed it back. At this point she opened the door and called in another officer, who seemed to be a supervisor of some kind. He looked over the paper I’d just signed and then turned to me with a frown.
‘This is no reason to grant you asylum,’ he said to me.
‘Excuse me?’ I’d misheard him. I must have misheard him.
‘Do you want to go back to Germany?’
‘No, I don’t want to go back to Germany. I want political asylum.’
‘Do you want to go to Britain?’
‘No. I don’t know anyone there.’
‘Do you want to go back to Togo?’
‘Togo! No! I can’t go back to Togo! I want to stay here! I want political asylum!’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but there’s no reason here for us to give you asylum. I suggest you go back to Germany. If you stay here, you’ll go to prison. Do you want that?’
Prison! What was he talking about? He couldn’t mean that. He was trying to scare me. Why was he trying to scare me? I didn’t understand. My head spun. I was starting to lose my bearings.
Now there was another woman in the room, a woman dressed in a dark suit. Had someone left the room to call her? I don’t remember. She was just suddenly there with my suitcase. The woman in the suit was holding what looked like a little black radio in her hand. I think the supervisor said she was the captain of the plane I’d flown in on, but I could be wrong. I was so frightened, I couldn’t think straight by then. ‘She’ll take you back on the plane to Germany,’ he said. ‘The plane leaves in a few hours.’
The lady in the suit smiled. ‘Why don’t you come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll see that you get back safely.’
‘But I don’t want to go back to Germany! I want political asylum!’ I couldn’t go back to Germany. They’d stop me at the airport. They’d send me back to Togo.
‘You can’t stay here,’ the male supervisor said. ‘If you stay here, we’ll have to send you to prison. Is that what you want?’
‘No! I want political asylum!’ I kept repeating it over and over. Maybe they were just testing me. Maybe if I kept repeating it long enough, they’d finally say ‘OK’ and let me go. And then a horrifying thought suddenly flashed through my mind. Oh God. That’s what I’d thought about my aunt – if I just kept repeating over and over that I didn’t want to get married, I wanted to go to school, she’d finally relent. But she hadn’t. That’s why I was here. I had to think of something else to say. My uncle! Maybe I hadn’t made it clear that I had relatives here. ‘I have an uncle in New Jersey,’ I told the male supervisor. ‘Can I call him? He’ll come get me.’
‘No, you can’t call him. You’re not allowed to call anyone.’
What was he saying? Was this some kind of joke?
‘You can still change your mind and go back to Germany. Otherwise you go to prison,’ he said.
‘No! No! I don’t want to go back to Germany! I want political asylum!’ I started to cry.
The lady in the suit shrugged and left. The lady officer gave the male supervisor a reproving glance and spoke to me calmly. ‘Look, we can’t grant you asylum,’ she said. ‘Only a judge can do that. We’re not judges. You have to go before a judge.’
‘Then I want to see a judge! Can I see him now?’
‘No, you can’t. You have to wait.’
‘How long?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘You’ll have to go to prison first,’ the male supervisor said.
‘But I don’t want to go to prison! I’ve never been in a prison in my life!’ I started crying again.
The lady officer gave the supervisor another look. He shook his head and left. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to me. ‘It’s not a bad prison. You’ll meet other Africans there.’
What was she talking about? I asked myself. Just because a person was African didn’t mean I’d want to be their friend. Did she think all Africans were alike? I felt insulted, but I said nothing.
‘And you won’t be there for long,’ she continued. ‘Just till Monday. You’ll see a counselor from your country, and then you can call your relatives and go home to your family.’
‘Why can’t I call my uncle now?’
‘Because you can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s not allowed.’
Another male officer came into the room. He seemed to be a supervisor too.
‘She says she’s from Togo?’ he asked the lady officer, jerking his head in my direction. She nodded. He turned to me. ‘You’re from Togo?’ His tone was rude.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Parlez-vous français?’
I knew enough to know what he was asking me, but not much more. I told him no, I didn’t speak French.
‘And you say you’re from Togo?’
‘Yes.’ But I’d gone to school in Ghana. I’d told that to the lady officer. I was scared, confused. It didn’t occur to me to explain it again.
He put a piece of paper in front of me and handed me a pen. ‘Can you draw the flag for me?’ he said. I took the pen. My hand was shaking. I drew the flag: five horizontal stripes with a star in a box in the upper right corner. No, the left corner. I was always confusing that. I knew my flag, but I knew Ghana’s flag better.
‘That’s not Togo’s flag,’ he pronounced accusingly.
‘I made a mistake. The star goes in the other corner.’
‘You don’t know your own flag?’
‘Yes, I know my flag!’
‘Tell me the colors.’
‘The stripes are green and yellow. The star is white and the box is red.’
‘Those aren’t the colors.’
‘Yes they are! Those are the colors!’ I may have put the star on the wrong side, but I did know the colors of my own flag!
‘You don’t speak French, you don’t know your own flag.’ He snorted. ‘She’s not from Togo,’ he said to the lady officer. ‘She’s lying. She’s probably from Nigeria.’
I exploded in rage. ‘I am not lying!’ I yelled. ‘I know what country I’m from! I’m from Togo!’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Take a seat outside.’ I stood up, walked out into the waiting room, and sat down. I was numb. This wasn’t happening. It was too crazy. They weren’t really going to send me to prison. They couldn’t! I hadn’t done anything wrong!
As I sat there the two officers wrote their report on me. I wouldn’t see that piece of paper for a long, long time. This is some of what they wrote:
Subject claims to be born in Togo. Subject has no knowledge of Togo (geography, language). Subject does not speak French. Subject wants asylum so that she can stay here and study. Subject does not know what the flag of Togo looks like or what the national colors are. She has elected to go before the Immigration Judge rather than return to Frankfurt. Appears excludable . . .
I sat alone in the waiting room for about another half hour. Waiting for what? I didn’t know. What were they going to do with me? They couldn’t possibly be serious about sending me to prison. Why would anybody want to send me to prison?
Other immigration officers walked in and out of the room, and looked at me. One even asked me where I was from. When I told her, she sucked her teeth. ‘I don’t know why these people can’t stay in their own countries.’ I couldn’t believe she said that to me. A chill went through my body. Things weren’t supposed to be like this.
After a while a short, heavy black woman dressed in a light blue shirt and black pants entered the waiting room and walked toward me. The immigration officers all wore white shirts, I’d noticed. So she wasn’t an immigration officer. She was something else.
‘OK, let’s go,’ she said.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the holding room.’
‘The what?’
‘Come on, come on, let’s go.’
‘Do I take my suitcase?’
‘No.’ I left the suitcase, with the strap of my purse wrapped around the handle, and followed her down a short hallway into another room. It was larger than the interview room, but it didn’t have any table or chairs in it – just a metal bench along one wall. There was a bathroom at the back of the room. It was so foul, it made the whole room smell like a toilet. The guard followed me into the room, closed the door behind her, and told me to put my jacket down on the bench. I did.
‘Are you wearing a belt?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ What a strange question.
‘Take it off, please.’
‘Take off my belt?’
She gave me a cold look. ‘Don’t make me repeat myself,’ she said.
I took off my belt.
‘On top of your jacket.’
I put it on top of my jacket.
‘Shoes.’
‘Shoes! Why—’
‘I said shoes!’
I took off my boots.
‘Jewelry.’
I took off my earrings, necklace, watch, and ring.
‘Now your jeans.’
My jeans! I began to panic. Was this the prison? In Togo, I had heard they made men strip to their underwear when they put them in prison. Was this where they were going to keep me? In this stinky room?
‘I said jeans!’
I took off my jeans.
‘Socks.’
I took off my socks.
‘Sweater.’
I took off my sweater.
‘Undershirt.’
I took off my undershirt.
‘Bra.’
‘My bra! No! Please!’
‘Take it off!’
I took it off and instinctively crossed my arms over my chest to cover myself.
‘Hands at your sides.’
I dropped my hands and hung my head, my face burning with shame.
‘Underpants.’
‘No! No! Please! Not my underpants! Please! I’m menstruating! I’m using a pad!’
‘Off!’
‘I can’t. Please. Don’t make me.’
‘I said off!’
I took off my underpants and stood in front of her completely naked, soiled pad exposed, shamed beyond words.
‘OK, now, squat and cough.’
I had no idea what was going on, why she was making me do this. I dropped down quickly, coughed, bounced up.
‘Not like that. Do it slowly. Squat, stay down, cough three times, then stand up.’ I did as told. ‘Now turn around. Do it again, backside to me.’ I turned around and did it again. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t happening to me. I wasn’t there anymore. I had gone someplace far away.
‘OK, get dressed. Everything but your belt, shoes and jacket.’
I got dressed. She took my belt, boots, and jacket, walked out of the room, and closed and locked the door behind her. I sat down on the metal bench.
Cold set in. I hugged myself and rubbed my feet together, trying to keep warm. I was freezing. I was hungry. I had to use the bathroom, but I couldn’t stand the thought of going near that putrid-smelling toilet. When was the guard coming back? They wouldn’t just leave me here like this all night. What if they did? What if they kept me here like this until Monday? What if they kept me here forever? They could. Nobody knew where I was. Nobody would ever find me. No! I couldn’t think like that. They wouldn’t do that. But what if they did? Oh God, I was losing my mind.
I sat there alone like that for about four hours, unable to think straight. It was after ten P.M., when the same guard who’d made me strip walked in carrying my boots, belt, and jacket. She put them on the bench.
‘Put these on.’ She didn’t have to tell me twice. I was freezing. ‘OK, let’s go,’ she said, holding the door open. ‘Out.’ As I left the room I saw another guard outside, a tall, fat black man who had my suitcase at his side, the purse strap still tied around its handle.
The female guard reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. She took hold of my right wrist. ‘Please!’ I began crying hysterically. ‘No! Don’t put those on me! Please! Don’t take me to prison! I don’t want to go to prison!’
She snapped the handcuffs around my right wrist and took hold of my left wrist.
‘Please! Please don’t!’ I sobbed.
‘I’m just doing my job.’ She snapped the handcuffs around my other wrist and squeezed them tight.
‘They hurt! They’re too tight!’
She loosened them. ‘That better?’
I nodded, sobbing, tears streaming down my face. As the male guard continued to stand by silently, looking at the floor, the female guard put a heavy metal chain around my waist. Next she put two more chains on me, one around my right ankle, one around my left, and attached them to the chain around my waist. Finally she put a chain between my ankles. I was completely trussed in chains. Like a criminal. Like a murderer.
‘Pick up your suitcase,’ she said.
I bent down, took the handle in both hands and lifted, holding the suitcase flat against my legs. It was the only way I could carry it. She and the male guard took up positions on either side of and slightly behind me and began leading me down a long hallway, each one holding the back of an arm. With my ankles trussed closely together in heavy, clanking chains, I couldn’t walk very well. The suitcase was heavy and bounced against my knees with each step I took. It kept sliding off to my left or right side. I had to stop every few steps and haul it back in front of me. Neither guard offered to carry it for me. They let me struggle with it myself. We finally emerged into a dark night where a waiting van was parked at the curb. The woman guard slid the side passenger door open. ‘Get in,’ she said. I tried to lift my suitcase into the van. I couldn’t do it. I was exhausted. It was eleven P.M. local time, five A.M. German time. I’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. I tried again, lost my balance, and almost fell. Finally the male guard caught my arm to steady me, took the suitcase from me and lifted it easily into the van, then half lifted me in beside it and shut the door. In another minute we were on our way, the male guard at the wheel, the female guard seated next to him in front. I couldn’t see much through the tinted windows, the dark shapes of cars going by, some lights. We seemed to be on a highway. I didn’t know where they were taking me. They didn’t tell me. I was going to prison. That’s all I knew.
After a short ride, ten or fifteen minutes at most, the driver left the highway, made a number of turns, drove on a few minutes more, and then stopped in front of a huge metal gate. He talked into a black hand-held radio: ‘Open G-Five.’ The gate rattled up. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie, telling someone in a control booth to push a button and open the gate. I know that now. I didn’t then. I’d never seen a walkie-talkie. I couldn’t believe what I thought I was seeing: a gate that understood human commands! He drove the van into a dark, enclosed space and down an incline. The gate rattled shut behind us, sealing us inside.
The female guard climbed out of the van and opened my door. ‘OK, come on, let’s go.’ I wasn’t sure I could manage to climb down without falling, trussed up like that in all my chains. As I hesitated, the male guard came around and helped me down and took my suitcase. We were in some kind of garage area where a number of other vans had also been parked. The female guard took hold of the back of my right arm and led me up some steps to a metal door. The male guard followed, carrying my suitcase. The female guard pulled out her own walkie-talkie and spoke into it. ‘Open Seventeen.’ With a loud metal clang the door slid open to admit us, then clanged shut behind us. Another door was in front of us. ‘Open Eighteen.’ Clang. ‘Open Nineteen.’ Clang. Clang, clang, clang, clang, door after door, hallway after hallway we walked, through a brightly lit, white, silent, deserted space. There were cameras mounted everywhere on the walls. No people. No sounds other than the rattle of my chains as we walked. It was eerie, like something out of a nightmare. Then I realized that it was a nightmare— mine.
‘OK, stop here,’ the female guard said. The next thing I knew, the male guard had left and the female guard was removing my chains and handcuffs and ushering me through yet another big metal door. Now I was in another cold, stinking, barren room, this one much bigger than the one at the airport, with a metal bench running along three walls, a metal toilet-and-sink unit sitting out in the open on the far side of the room, and one narrow vertical window cut into the upper portion of the door.
‘Take off your jacket.’
Oh God, no! Please not again!
‘I said take off your jacket! Come on, hurry up. It’s late. I’m tired. I want to go home.’
I took off my jacket.
‘And your boots.’
I took off my boots.
‘And your socks.’
I took off my socks. I took off my jeans, my sweater, my undershirt, my bra, my watch, necklace, and earrings until I was naked again except for my underpants and beads.
‘Please! Not my underpants! Please! I’m menstruating! I need the pad!’
‘Off! Don’t make me angry. Don’t make me tell you again.’
I stepped out of my underpants.
‘On the bench.’
I put them on the bench with my other clothing, trying unsuccessfully to hide the soiled napkin without soiling something else. I felt utterly shamed, humiliated, degraded. I put my hands to my face and began to cry.
‘Move away from the bench.’
As I stood naked and barefoot in the middle of the cold concrete floor, she walked to the bench, gathered up my belongings, and left the room, letting the door slam behind her with a wall-shakingly loud bang! Again I was alone. And freezing. And faint with exhaustion. I had to sit down. But there was no toilet paper, or anything else I could use as a pad, and I didn’t want to soil the bench with my menstrual blood. So I’d have to sit on the toilet. Lowering myself to the cold metal seat of the dirty toilet, I crossed my arms over my chest and bent my chest to my knees, to try to cover myself, to keep warm. As I sat rocking back and forth, shivering, my mind began slipping, sliding, flying away, until I was no longer there.
A rap on the door. I looked up. A man’s face was at the narrow window, looking in on me as I sat naked on a toilet seat. Oh, God. This wasn’t happening. I lowered my head and covered my face with my hands. My body was no longer my own. Anyone could look at it. I had been stripped naked and put on display like an animal in a zoo. I covered my face. It was the only thing I could hide.
He knocked again and called through the door. ‘Excuse me, ma’am! Have you had anything to eat?’
I kept my head down, my face covered. ‘No!’
‘Are you hungry? Would you like some food?’
Food. I’d forgotten all about food until the man mentioned it. Terror had chased out hunger. Now it returned. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast with Rudina in Germany that morning. That morning. Had it been only that morning? It seemed such a distant memory now. I’d been too excited to eat during the flight. Excited. Had that been me? That innocent, modest, naive young girl? Or was this me? This shivering, tired, frightened, soiled, hungry, naked creature crouching on a toilet seat in a prison cell.
‘Yes!’ I forced myself to reply.
The man returned about ten minutes later. He knocked again. ‘Here you go, ma’am.’ He opened the door a crack, reached an arm in and deposited a small brown paper bag on the floor. Then he closed the door and left. He didn’t look in through the window at me this time. Maybe he hadn’t known the first time he looked that I’d been left sitting naked. Maybe he did. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing was real.
The bag contained a sandwich wrapped in plastic and two small cartons of milk. I unwrapped the sandwich: two pieces of thin, spongy white bread, a slice of some kind of cheese and a slice of some kind of strong-smelling red meat. Pork? I couldn’t tell. I don’t eat pork. I couldn’t eat this strange meat anyway. I put the sandwich aside, opened the milk and drank it. The taste of it shocked me. This was milk? We drank condensed, sweetened canned milk at home. This milk was thin and watery. But I’d had nothing to drink for more than seven hours, so I drank it anyway, gulping it down to get past the taste. That was a mistake. As soon as it hit my stomach it churned back up. I ran to the toilet, knelt naked on the floor, and vomited into the pee-encrusted bowl. I vomited again and again. Everything came out. I kept retching, my body seized in spasms, my face drenched in sweat, until there was nothing left inside me, nothing but terror trying to throw itself up. The spasms subsided. I spat into the bowl, over and over, trying to clear the taste from my mouth. There was no water in the sink unit, no towel, nothing with which to clean myself. I wiped my mouth with my hand, lifted myself off the floor, and sat back down, limp, weak, and shivering, on the toilet seat. Sharp pains shot through my stomach. I wrapped my arms around myself and prayed. ‘Give me strength. Oh, Allah, let me survive this. Let this be over soon.’
Another rap on the door. It opened and a female guard stepped into the room. A different one, not the one who’d left me here. A walkie-talkie and a big bunch of keys hung from her belt. She stood for a moment with a hand on one big hip, just looking at me. Her expression was hard, mean.
‘Stand up.’
I stood up, stooped and shivering, arms crossed over my breasts. She looked me up and down coldly. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Fauziya.’ It came out a tiny, quivering whisper.
‘What!’ she boomed. ‘Speak up!’
I started crying. ‘Fauziya. My name is Fauziya.’
She handed me a bag containing the clothes I’d been wearing and told me to get dressed. Next she walked over to the door, keys jangling, her huge buttocks shifting from side to side, and waved me through disgustedly. ‘Let’s go. Into the shower. Move,’ she said, pointing across the hall. We entered a large beige-tiled room with a line of shower stalls along one wall. When I had undressed again, I asked the guard if there was a waste can where I could put my soiled sanitary napkin. She ignored me.
‘Please,’ I asked again, my voice shaking. ‘Can you tell me where I could put my pad?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you eat it?’
No. She couldn’t have said that. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I said you can eat it!’
I reeled. How could anyone talk like that? How could a woman say such a disgusting thing to another woman?
‘In the shower! Let’s go!’
Ice-cold water shot out of the shower head when I turned it on. I screamed and ran out.
‘Back in the shower!’
Reluctantly, I walked back to the stall and eased my way, body part by body part, under the ice-cold spray, trying as much as possible to keep my back to the guard. She never stopped staring at me the whole time. When I was finished she handed me a worn, stained white towel. I took the towel and sniffed it. It smelled used. ‘Come on, come on, I don’t have all night.’ I stepped out of the wet stall, turned my back to her, and began drying myself, when suddenly I felt a slight tug on my beads. I looked down. She was fingering one of the strands. I wanted to slap her hand away, to jerk myself away from her reach. But I couldn’t. If I did, the strand would break and my precious beads, the last strands my beloved grandmother had given me, would go scattering all over the floor. I willed myself to remain still.
‘What the hell are these?’ she asked.
‘They’re my beads,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s my custom.’
She let them go. ‘Whatever.’
She let me keep them. I would learn later that this was unusual. She could have taken them away from me, but she didn’t. Later, much later, I would remember that as a kindness. Her only real kindness.
I finished drying and reached for my clothes to begin dressing. ‘No, not those,’ she said. ‘These.’ One by one she began handing me items from a pile of clothing I hadn’t noticed, holding each article between the tips of two fingers, as if she didn’t want to touch them. I could see why. The underpants she held out to me were dark green with a yellow-stained crotch. I couldn’t bear the thought of them touching my body.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Can I wear my own underwear?’
‘No you cannot wear your own underwear,’ she said in a mocking, whining, singsong voice. ‘Put those on.’
‘But they’re too big. Can I have a smaller pair?’
‘Put ’em on!’
I hesitated. ‘Please, I need a pad. I’m menstruating.’
‘I don’t handle that. The officer you see in the morning will give you a pad.’ There was nothing in the shower room I could use to line the underpants, no toilet paper or paper towels. I put on the underpants. They were so huge I had to roll the waistband around my beads to keep them from falling off.
She handed me a worn-out, yellowing bra, also way too big. The back hook was broken off.
‘It’s broken,’ I said. ‘I can’t wear it.’
‘Don’t. I don’t give a damn.’
I put it on the bench.
Next came a light blue V-necked polyester shirt, short-sleeved, also far too large. I slipped it on with no comment. The matching pants with an elastic waistband were too small and, when I pulled them on, uncomfortably tight from waist to knees. The worn white socks were also too small, and there was a big hole in the toe of the right sock through which my big toe protruded. Worst of all were the brown plastic sandals she gave me, both for the right foot, both too big, and both impossible to keep on my feet because their buckles as well as the straps across the insteps were broken. As I put them on, a sweet memory flashed, of my tiny little-girl feet in my father’s huge sandals when I’d modeled his new clothes for him as a child. What do you think, Yaya? How do I look? Do you like me in these clothes? Look at your little girl now.
‘OK, let’s go. I gotta book you in.’ I shuffled down the hallway in front of her, until at last we reached a counter. There was an upright scale, which she motioned me onto. I took a step and almost fell over. My feet came right out of the shoes. I stepped back into them and shuffled toward her. ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ I stepped out of the shoes and onto the scale. She measured my height and weight and wrote it on the clipboard: 5'6", 163 pounds.
She walked to the other side of the counter we’d come to and pulled my jacket and boots from a bag.
‘These yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘That your suitcase?’
I peered around the counter. ‘Yes.’
She wrote out a tag and attached it to the suitcase. Then she wrote out another tag and attached it to a net bag into which she dumped the contents of my bag of clothing, which also included my watch and other jewelry.
Next she wrote my name and the number 100761 on a strip of plastic, which she wrapped around my left wrist and attempted to fasten with a pair of metal pliers. But the pliers missed the plastic and grabbed my skin instead. I screamed and yanked my arm away.
No reaction, no apology, nothing – she just grabbed for my arm and held it flat on the counter. A huge blister was forming where she’d caught my flesh. ‘Let’s try that again. Hold still.’ I did. She fastened the bracelet very tightly and released my arm. Now she began stacking on the counter the items I would be using for daily life – blanket, sheet, pillowcase, towel, all of them worn, frayed, discolored – plus a plastic cup, spoon, and fork. ‘Take your stuff. Let’s go.’ She gave me a shove in the back, pushing me before her down more silent hallways, through more metal doors that clicked open at the commands she issued from her walkie-talkie, until finally she waved me through one more door – ‘Open Kilo’ – into a darkened room. She followed me in and let the door slam behind her. Bang!
I heard soft groans and saw movement to my right. It was coming from a row of beds lined up against the wall. The noise of the door slamming must have awakened some of the sleepers in those beds. ‘Bed two!’ she boomed, pointing to the second bed against the wall. I looked where she’d pointed. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I saw that the bed was empty. Stripped and empty. ‘That’s your new home since you guys can’t stay in your own country,’ she boomed. She spoke loudly into her walkie-talkie. ‘Control. Open Kilo.’ The door clicked unlocked. She opened it, walked out, and let the door slam again. Bang!
More soft groans. Bodies shifted in beds. I stood frozen in terror, holding my pile of things. I was locked in a dark room with . . . Who? Men? Women? Murderers? Prostitutes? Who were these people? I was near collapse, faint from hunger and exhaustion. I had to sit down before I fell down. I shuffled over to the bed as quietly as possible. The mattress was thin and hard, with a plastic cover that crackled when I sat down, and a small, thin pillow also covered in plastic. I didn’t make my bed. I didn’t lie down. I did the only thing I could manage. I slipped out of my shoes, slid back against the wall, pulled my knees up to my chest, bent my head, covered my face with my hands to muffle my sobbing.
‘What’s your name?’
I was hallucinating, hearing things, imagining a woman’s soft voice.
‘What’s your name?’
I looked up and saw a face. A woman’s face. A kind face. A black face. African, I guessed. I wiped my eyes and looked again. A sturdily built woman who looked to be somewhere in her twenties stood in front of me, wearing a strange kind of nightgown. She smiled at me.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked again.
‘Fau, Fau, Fauziya.’
‘Fauziya,’ she repeated softly. ‘That’s a beautiful name.’ She sat down beside me. ‘When did you arrive?’
‘Today. This afternoon.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Togo.’
‘Togo! We’re neighbors, then. I’m from Ghana.’
‘You are?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She smiled.
‘I went to school in Ghana,’ I said.
‘Is that where you learned English?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you speak it very well.’
‘Thank you . . .’
‘Mary,’ I repeated.
‘How old are you?’
‘Seventeen. Almost eighteen.’
‘Oh, you poor thing. And they brought you to this place. They should be ashamed. Do you have relatives here?’
‘Yes. An uncle. And a cousin.’
‘Were you able to call them?’
‘No, they wouldn’t let me.’
‘Well, don’t worry. We’ll call them in the morning. I’ll help you.’
‘Is there a phone we can use?’
‘Yes. It’s right over there.’
‘Where?’
‘Shhhhhh. People are sleeping.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK. It’s right over there. See?’ I squinted and saw a phone on the opposite wall. A phone!
‘Can I call now?’
‘No, they shut it off at night. We have to wait until morning. Right now you need to sleep. Come on, get up. I’ll make your bed.’
Who was this kind lady? Her kindness brought me back to myself. My mind cleared a little. ‘Where am I?’ I asked softly as she put the sheet on my mattress.
‘You’re in Esmor. It’s a detention center.’
Esmor. So that’s what that word was. It was written on every article of clothing I was wearing.
‘What’s it like here?’
‘Oh, it’s bad,’ she said as she tucked in my sheet. ‘The food is awful. They keep us locked up in these rooms. You never get to go outside.’ She finished with the sheet and picked up the pillow and pillowcase. ‘They don’t treat us like human beings. They’re just making money off us. They never release anybody. They keep us locked up here until they’re ready to send us home.’ She finished with the pillow and reached for the blanket.
‘What do you mean, they never release anybody?’
‘Well, not never. But hardly ever.’ She finished with the blanket. ‘There. All made.’
‘But the officer at the airport said I’d be out on Monday. She said I’d talk to a counselor and then they’d let me go.’
‘They told you that too?’ She shook her head. ‘They say that to everyone. They told me the same thing and I’ve been here four months.’
I half sat, half collapsed on the bed. ‘Four months!’
‘Four months. And I haven’t even seen a judge yet.’ She sat down next to me again and laughed softly. ‘I got tired of waiting. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Here in Esmor?’
‘No, here in this dorm. This is K. I was in N before with a lot of other women from Ghana. They moved me out as part of my punishment.’
‘Punishment for what?’
She laughed again. ‘I tried to escape.’
‘Escape! Why? How? When?’
‘Shhhhh. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Now I want to go back to sleep. You should sleep too. Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to you.’ She pointed to the bed next to mine nearest the door and big window. ‘I’m in bed one. I’m right next to you, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘The toilet’s back there if you need to use it.’ She pointed to the back of the room. ‘There’s a sink and shower back there, too, behind that half wall.’
‘Are there any sanitary pads back there?’
‘No. Why? Do you need one?’
‘Yeah. I asked the guard for one, but she said I had to wait until morning.’
‘The guard who brought you in here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s Kim. Watch out for her.’ She laughed. ‘She’s bad.’
‘She was real mean to me.’
‘She’s mean to everyone, but they’re not all like her. Some of them are nice. Hold on. I’ll get you a pad.’ She went to her bed, pulled a plastic box out from under it, felt around inside it and came back with a pad. ‘Here you go. We’ll get you another one in the morning. I’m going back to bed now. Try to get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?’
‘OK. Thank you, Mary.’
‘You’re welcome. Try to sleep.’
She went back to bed. After going to the toilet area to put my pad in place, I returned to my bed and lay down in my clothing. The pillow crackled. The mattress crackled. The room was cold. I wrapped myself in the thin woolen blanket to try to get warm. It made my skin itch. I lay there, exhausted, numb, staring at the ceiling, my mind spinning.
Mary was wrong. She had to be wrong. Maybe she didn’t have family here. Maybe that’s why they were keeping her in this place. I’d call my uncle in the morning and they’d let me out. They would. They had to.