By the time I get to the centre, I’m calm and level and back to human. I know I’m not like that — like him. It’s being in this dust-filled shithole and this climate and doing this job with its long days and longer nights. It’ll do your head in if you let it. I think I just need more sleep. That, or a decent coffee.
I get my allocation. I’m shitkicker number five in Brown Compound. I’m in the mess hall for dinner, standing sentry on the exit. The detainees seem in good cheer tonight. I’m pretty sure it’s because there is pita bread out instead of the usual shitty loaves. I struggle to understand why the caterers normally serve white bread when you’ve got Sri Lankans, Afghanis, Iranians, Iraqis and Palestinians making up most of the population in here, and all of them prefer pita to those godawful loaves of foamy horse semen. It’s a little thing, but I know it matters to the detainees.
I figure there will be some smuggling tonight. Though I have vowed not to stop any detainee taking whatever food they like from the mess hall, I like to know what’s going on, so I watch closely. These guys don’t know I’m going to let them get by, so hopefully they will be at their sneakiest, which means I need to be extra watchful to catch them. It’s a game — a way to pass the time.
The first to make the dash is an old Afghani man. The pita bread is tucked beneath his shirt and pants; he holds his plate and bowl against his stomach to stop the pita falling out. Head down, he makes for the door at a furious shuffle, crinkling the entire way because the pita bread packet is made of cellophane. He wears the most conspicuous look of guilt I’ve ever seen. An unsubtle mob are keenly watching to see how the old-timer fares; they burst into laughter as he crinkles past.
Spurred on, the Sri Lankans are next. Just a few metres from where I’m standing, a portly man is stuffing a pita packet into his pants. I quickly look away, but the Sri Lankans know I know, and I know they know I know. The portly Sri Lankan proceeds to take the packet of pita out of his pants, remove the plastic, wrap the pita bread in paper towels and stuff it back in his pants. Very subtle. He waits till I’m talking to someone at the door, then shuffles out, exchanging conspiratorial glances with me, though I am studiously absorbed in conversation.
As for the man with whom I’m conversing, that’s Tarik, an Iranian chap. Scars everywhere — face, arms, body, I presume from cutting himself. Yet he seems a fairly chipper sort. Tarik especially likes talking about women.
“You have girlfriend?” he asks.
“No. I don’t.”
“In Iran I have twenty girlfriend.”
“Twenty?”
“Twenty. One not enough. Two not enough. Twenty — one after other, jiggy jiggy. She come in, jiggy jiggy, out she go, next come in, jiggy jiggy …”
I shake my head.
“You, no? Have problem with …” says Tarik. The gesture of a fisted-arm raising like a drawbridge adequately conveys his meaning.
“No problem. My problem is no woman.”
“No have girl?”
“None. Zero.”
“Oh, what about officer girl? Officer Karen.”
Tarik glances at the officer seated at a desk on the other side of the room. Karen, like many of our peers, is obese.
“You and officer Karen, jiggy jiggy?”
I laugh. “No. Karen eat me.”
“Oh, you don’t like big woman.”
“You like big woman?” I reply.
“I like woman,” says Tarik, sharing a knowing nod. He grasps me by the upper arm in affection and leaves, a packet of pita dangling from his hand.