The sun had turned red and was on the point of setting when the Land Rover left the airport. It took the road towards Khubar, which they reached after less than a quarter of an hour. The car raced along al-Baladiyya Street, then headed straight for the shore, where it pulled up finally at a four-storey building surrounded by soldiers. The roof was a forest of aerials.
Hisham walked with his companions along a narrow corridor inside the building. He caught a strong smell of the sea. At the end of the corridor they came to a metal desk, behind which sat a well-built officer wearing three stripes and holding an enormous ledger. The two men saluted the officer and handed him a piece of paper, together with Hisham’s papers.
‘We caught him trying to escape,’ said one. The officer took the passport and flicked through it.
‘Hisham Ibrahim Muhammad,’ he said, as if talking to himself. Then he looked at the two men who had brought Hisham and said, ‘Okay, your job is done, you can go.’ He gave them back their now-signed piece of paper, and they saluted him again and left.
‘Corporal Musad!’ shouted the officer. He opened the ledger in front of him, scribbled something in it, then closed it and threw Hisham’s papers in one of his drawers, while another soldier, wearing two stripes, arrived, stamped his feet on the ground and saluted. The officer behind the desk studied the corporal.
‘Take the prisoner to the third floor,’ he said. The corporal stamped his foot on the floor once more, then dragged Hisham hard by the wrist.
‘Move it, prisoner!’ he said. The word ‘prisoner’ grated on Hisham’s ears. He was used to hearing it and reading it, but he never imagined it would ever be applied to him. Although he knew that not every prisoner is guilty, using the term made him feel that he was, and this caused him considerable distress. He had become guilty.
Hisham and Corporal Musad made their way along a corridor that branched off from the first corridor, until they reached a crumbling staircase. On the third floor, Corporal Musad put him into a room with a wide door entirely made of bars. A young soldier stood beside it. Once the door was closed, the corporal said to him, ‘If you need anything, just call the guard.’ Then he left, giving him a look that seemed to Hisham sad. If he had been in a different situation, the corporal and the soldier on guard duty would perhaps have made him laugh. They were feebly built – short and extremely thin – and wore baggy military uniforms that gave them the air of smugglers.
The room was very large and painted white – or what had once been white. Humidity had leached away the colour, leaving great chunks of the wall just bare cement. One tiny barred window looked out over the sea, and there were three straw beds. The floor was bare but for a scattering of broken tiles. Cockroaches poked their heads out of the cracks. It was clear that the whole building had been designed as residential flats, but was now converted into a prison. Hisham stepped towards the window. He gazed out at the still waters of the Gulf, watching the last remains of the reddish twilight struggle against the darkness. He was no longer quite as terrified as he had been, though he was certainly still apprehensive – his greatest fears had now been realised.
Nausea overcame him, and with it a biting cold that numbed his spirit and his body. He closed his eyes and tried deeply inhaling the humid atmosphere of the sea, but the air of the Gulf does not invigorate … it just made him more nauseous, and now he wanted to vomit. There was no toilet or basin in the room and he could not bring himself to ask. He thrust his face against the bars on the window, giving his stomach and his soul the freedom to vomit, but he could only bring up a little yellow, bitter-tasting liquid, despite the fact that he retched so hard he almost heaved his stomach from his belly. He put his finger into his throat, but nothing came out. He carried on trying until his stomach almost came up in his hand. It was then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten anything since morning. He hadn’t had any appetite, and he had no desire for food now, although he felt as if the walls of his stomach had met and threatened to consume each other.
Hisham left the window and crossed the room to call the guard. He asked for the bathroom. The guard opened the door, led him to the bathroom, then stood at the door, waiting. A foul stench filled the air; a stench of rotting fish, humidity and excrement. Hisham stopped his nose and breathed through his mouth, putting his head under the tap and letting the water run for a long time. Then he filled his stomach with water and went back. The nausea had eased a little, so he lit a cigarette, which he inhaled deeply. He felt a slight headache, which soon cleared. He looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock in the evening. He smiled … About this time, Noura would bring them their milk, and at about this time he would sit with his parents in front of the television drinking tea. His throat hurt, so he stamped the cigarette out on the floor, lay down on one of the beds and read the faint graffiti on the walls: Isam … 10/3/1970 … Say, nothing will befall us unless it be the will of God … Our steps are preordained, and if steps are fated for a man, he must walk them … A man’s heartbeat tells him that life is but minutes and seconds … If a people wants life one day, fate must respond … Alas, the darkness of prison has set in … Every night has its dawn … Stand firm by your view in life and struggle. Life is faith and struggle … He looked around at the walls until he dozed off for a bit, but he soon woke again, aching all over, with a pain in his stomach. Sweat ran from every pore in his skin, his body shook violently and he was as cold as ice despite a temperature of almost forty degrees. He got up and went over to the window again. Darkness covered everything, except for a few lights glistening in the distance. Perhaps they were the lights of Bahrain! He sighed deeply, feeling nothing but sorrow and regret. He could hear the voices of children playing on the beach below him, and a child nearby singing in a gentle voice: O dove that sings so sweetly, what’s wrong with you that you cry for my eye … my family blames me and does not know that the fire is burning the foot that steps on it. He wanted to vomit again, but nothing came up except water and yellow fluid. He went back to bed, still shaking, and tried to sleep, but his eyes burned him like pieces of hot charcoal while the cold was almost killing him. He got up and called the guard, who came grumbling.
‘Yes … What is it this time?’ he asked. Hisham explained that he was bitterly cold and asked for a glass of water, two aspirin and a blanket. The guard laughed.
‘What is this?!’ he asked sarcastically. ‘You think you’re in your mother’s arms?’ Hisham felt bitterly insulted, but he implored the guard. The guard snorted.
‘All you bring us is your heartache,’ he said. Then he looked at the floor and shouted:
‘Private Mahbub!’
‘What is it, Private Ali?’ came a voice.
‘A glass of water, some aspirin and a blanket for his mother’s darling here …’ Hisham swallowed the insult despite himself. He went back to bed and dozed a little more, until he heard the voice of the guard:
‘Hey, prisoner! … Hey, rubbish!’ Hisham opened his eyes, dragged himself over to the door and took the water and aspirin, while the guard chucked the blanket on the floor. He swallowed the aspirin, drank the water and picked up the blanket, suddenly feeling as if he wanted to break down and weep, but he pulled himself together and went back to bed. The blanket was old and tattered, and stank of stale urine, but he wrapped himself in it anyway and after a few minutes got used to the smell. He felt a little warmer, and closed his eyes. But he soon started up again when the guard rapped on the iron bars of the door and shouted:
‘Supper … supper, prisoner!’
‘I don’t want it … I don’t want it,’ he replied shakily, hardly conscious of his surroundings. He covered his head with the blanket and dozed off again, to sink into a fitful sleep of phantoms and hallucinations.