We drive until dusk. I hear low voices near the front of the truck. The passenger door slams shut and we move slowly forward, then stop again.
The back of the truck opens, revealing three guards with rifles.
“Out!” shouts the one in the middle.
I jump from the back of the truck. My legs collapse beneath me—they have been bent for so long.
Bini jumps down beside me. “Stand up,” he whispers.
The sun has nearly set, but I can see that we are in some kind of compound. There are a few buildings. There is also some kind of thick fence or boundary that disappears into the dusky light. Beyond the boundary I see nothing but flat desert. I scramble quickly to my feet.
“Stay close,” I whisper. I don’t turn my head and neither does Bini, but I know that he’s heard me.
I try not to shiver at the temperature drop. The buildings look like oblong metal boxes, each the size of a small house. The sides have a pattern of ridges. There are no windows and no obvious door. I wonder what they’re for.
“Move. That way,” the nearest guard says, pointing toward the second metal box.
Bini starts walking toward it and I follow, afraid to be more than a few feet away from my only connection with reality.
The guard bends down and shifts a huge bolt near the ground; the entire front of the metal box opens up as two doors swing back, and a terrible smell of sweat, dirty toilets, and something else wafts out from inside. I clamp my hand over my nose and mouth. Although it’s too dark to see, I can sense there is something living inside the box. The guard pushes us toward the gaping entrance. Bini and I look at each other in horror.
We stumble over a step into the stinking darkness. The doors slam shut behind us, reverberating around the metal walls and ceiling and up through my feet.
I reach out and find Bini’s arm.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. “Wait until your eyes adjust to the darkness.”
I hear breathing. I can hear breathing all around me and the sliding of limbs. I focus on my own breath, in and out, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Who’s there?” Bini asks after a couple of minutes.
“Shut up and sit down,” replies a weak, rasping voice. “Don’t waste energy.” The owner of the voice sounds as if they are well practiced in not wasting energy.
“Stop using up the oxygen,” says another voice, deeper and unfriendly.
There is an electric buzzing noise and a neon strip flickers above, filling the box with a sickly white light. Suddenly the voices have bodies, too. Sitting around the edge are maybe fifteen men, with blankets draped around their shoulders. One corner is empty except for a bucket from which the rotten stench emanates, making my empty stomach roll.
We look around the room, searching for clues to explain where we are. Whatever Mom said about military school being bad, I know this is not military school.
“Where are we?” asks Bini.
“Your new home,” says the man with the deeper voice. He is hunched on the floor but I can see that he is a big man; large hands pin the blanket to his knees. “I hope you like it,” he adds. His eyes swivel up to look at us, and I can see a deep gash under his left eye.
“Stop it, Nebay,” rasps an older man. The one who told us to sit down. His face is thin and grayish. His shoulders and knees seem to poke through his blanket, making him look as if he’s made of wire, not bone. “Sit down,” he repeats.
Bini walks to a small space between the foul- smelling bucket and the old man. I follow him and sit down.
“I’m Bini,” he says quietly, looking at the older man.
“Yonas. And who’s this?” asks the man, looking at me.
“This is my friend Shif.”
Yonas nods slowly, reflecting on our names.
“So what did you and your friend do to end up here?” asks the old man.
“We did nothing,” says Bini automatically.
You don’t share personal information with strangers. Even if you are locked in a box with them.
“Everybody in here has done something,” says Nebay. “Even though ‘something’ is normally nothing.”
Bini looks at me.
I shake my head. I don’t understand what he means, either.
On the opposite side of the room from the bucket, I see a plastic bowl and cup.
“Can we have some water?” I ask, surprised at how small and echoey my voice sounds in the metal box.
“So he can talk after all,” says Nebay.
“Help yourself to water,” says Yonas, “but don’t have much. That has to last us until the morning.”
I fill the cup but cannot stop at one sip. I pour some for Bini, then sit back down. As I look around the room, I see two men who could be eighteen or nineteen. The rest look older, the same age as Mom, apart from Yonas, who seems ancient. They are all staring at Bini and me with slow steady gazes. As if we are a television.
“No one new has joined us for almost a year,” says Nebay, reading my thoughts. “We haven’t had much in the way of entertainment since the radio broke.”
A few of the other men roll their eyes and I understand that he is joking.
Despite the fetid air, the temperature inside the box is starting to drop, too. I want the guards to come back and take us to our real destination. I cannot believe they would leave us in this place for long. Perhaps they are trying to frighten us.
I know the men can hear every word that I say, so I choose them carefully.
“Bini,” I whisper as quietly as I can, “what do you think this place is?”
“I don’t know. But they asked what we’d done so it must be some kind of prison.”
“Are you cold?” I whisper.
“Freezing,” he answers. “We have to eat something.”
My stomach rumbles painfully and I remember that I haven’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours.
“Will there be food?” Bini asks Nebay.
“There will be two bread rolls each. It’s the same every evening. That will be your food until tomorrow lunchtime, when it’s soup. The guards will come soon. After that they will turn out the lights in here. Then it will be so dark you cannot even see your hand in front of your face, so have another look around and make sure you know where the bucket is. Whatever you do, don’t piss on anyone in the night. You can share this blanket for now,” he says, nodding to one of the younger men on the other side of the room, who peels the thin green blanket from around his shoulders and throws it halfheartedly toward Bini and me, then pulls a corner of the blanket on the man next to him over his knees.
“Thank you,” says Bini. “We have nothing but the clothes we’re wearing.”
“We all keep our suitcases in the room next door,” says Nebay sarcastically.
Yonas sighs, a loud raspy sigh.
Talking seems to exhaust them. Both Yonas and Nebay rest their heads on their knees.
“Is this a prison?” Bini asks.
“You should follow your friend’s example and talk less,” says Nebay.
After a minute or so, Yonas answers, “You’re in a detention center for dangerous criminals.”
“But we’re not dangerous or criminals,” says Bini.
“Do you think we’re dangerous?” asks the old man, gesturing to the rest of the men in the box.
Bini and I look at the figures lining the walls.
They stare back at us.
Yonas turns to speak again, but before he can begin, there is a huge bang, followed by a creaking sound and the rush of cold air.
Three soldiers stand by the entrance. Behind them the sky is dark blue—it is almost night.
One soldier holds a basket of bread rolls, which he places on the floor near the door.
A second soldier tosses a blanket toward us, just missing the bucket. He peers inside.
“You.” He points to me. “You are detainee eighty-seven. You are eighty-eight.” He points to Bini. “Remember your numbers.”
Then he steps back and, with the help of the other two guards, swings the doors shut again, sliding the bolt down with a clang.
After a few minutes, we hear another loud bang as the doors of the adjacent box are opened.
Bini throws the blanket straight over to the man who had lent us his. We still have to share, though.
A small man in the opposite corner gets slowly to his feet. He moves, it seems, as quickly as he can toward the basket, which isn’t very fast. He limps around our cell, waiting in front of each prisoner as they take two rolls. His clothes hang as if empty, and his wrists and arms are as narrow as Lemlem’s, just like the arms of every prisoner reaching up to take the bread. As Nebay takes his, I see that, despite his size, he is just as starved as the rest of them.
“Bini,” I say in my lowest whisper, “will we look like this in a couple of weeks?”
“No,” says Bini.
“Why not?” I whisper.
“There’s plenty more of you left,” he says.
I take my two pieces of bread. They are rock hard, which is good because it makes me eat them more slowly.
“Save some, if you can,” says the old man.
Bini snaps off a chunk from one of the rolls and stuffs it carefully into his pocket, but I eat both of mine. The first one I barely chew before swallowing. The second I try to make last a little longer; my stomach can’t believe it isn’t the start of a bigger meal. My hunger feels worse, not better, but I start to warm up. I see most of the other men put a little piece of bread in a pocket or inside their shirt.
Then, as if someone has sent a silent message, they all begin rearranging blankets and making themselves as comfortable as possible on the metal floor. Seconds later, the light goes out and we are plunged into absolute darkness.
At first I panic and feel my heart begin to race. I cannot tell if someone is coming toward me in the darkness, or whether the rustling noises are those of the men still trying to get comfortable.
I feel a cold hand on my shoulder.
“I’m still here,” whispers Bini. “Let’s wrap this blanket properly.”
We move away from the wall and try to cover as much of ourselves as possible with the thin material.
“Remember when we used to get power cuts every evening at home? We could find the stack of candles without being able to see,” says Bini. “That’s the good thing about when it’s really, really dark. You can pretend you’re anywhere at all, so I’m going to pretend I’m at home in my house during a power cut. At least until morning.”
“You think you can sleep?” I ask.
“We have to. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. We need to stay strong.”
“Your friend talks sense,” Yonas rasps. “Try to rest. It will be freezing in here by the middle of the night,” he adds. “Don’t fall asleep against the wall or you might not wake up. Once the sun comes up, though, it will be a different story. The walls get so hot you could cook an egg on them, if you had one.”
I stare into the darkness, listening to the men breathing and snoring. Every ten minutes or so someone starts coughing. I guess living in a box isn’t very good for you.
Bini is completely silent. I desperately want to talk to him, but I know he’s right—I should try to sleep.
I lie still, wondering if Mom can sleep tonight, and what she has told Lemlem. I wish I could talk to her, too. I think of the cozy room we slept in together, with its smells of cooking and soap. My bed with its comfortable dip, the same shape as my body. I never imagined that the first night I would spend away from home would be in prison.