There was no time for Ahmed to think about what had just happened. All he knew was that he had to be brave, if only for Max. The moment the door closed behind Inspector Fontaine and Max, the guards grabbed his arms again. Reka pleaded with them in Hungarian, but they half walked, half dragged him to the door that led deeper into the detention center.
“Ahmed, I can’t come with you, but we’ll try to help!” Reka shouted after him.
Then he was through the doorway and her voice was muffled as the door slammed shut behind them.
The guards deposited him in a chair.
“Is my father here?” Ahmed asked. “Can I see my father?”
“No English,” the larger of the two guards said.
“Français?” Ahmed asked hopefully, but the men just shook their heads.
They took off his backpack and searched through it, laying everything out on the floor—his clothes, The Calculus Affair, even his half-finished cheese sandwich. Then they patted him down for knives and guns and even made him take off the Seamaster so they could inspect it. One of them took a photo of him and uploaded it to a computer. Another fingerprinted him. Finally a third man, thin and gray-haired, joined them. He sat behind a desk and asked Ahmed questions in English.
“Full name?”
“Ahmed Abdullah Nasser. Can I see my father?”
“We must do your paperwork first.”
“But he is here?”
“Age?”
“Fourteen.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “The dentist will check your teeth.”
They didn’t trust him, and the feeling was mutual.
“Nationality?”
“Syrian.”
“Your passport is a forgery.”
“I am Syrian.”
The questions went on like this for a long time. What was his hometown? His home street? How had he become separated from his father? Why had he gone to Belgium? What had he done there? Ahmed answered them as calmly and truthfully as he could, but after a while his head hurt and his throat felt dry. They hadn’t even offered him a drink of water.
And then, suddenly, it was over.